There was widespread anger and dismay today from anti-oil campaigners after it was revealed that four of the Britain’s biggest cultural organisations – the British Museum, the National Portrait Gallery, the Royal Opera House and Tate – were going to renew their sponsorship deals with BP worth ÂŁ10m over five years. All four institutions have … Read More
Protests
“Time to Leave ‘Fossil’ Canada Behind”
As Canada continues to push its pro-tar sands message out across North America, Europe, Asia, it was greeted by protests at the COP17 Climate talks in South Africa. Yesterday members of the Canadian Youth Delegation were ejected from the meeting as Canada’s Environment Minister Peter Kent delivered his opening address. Just as Kent began his … Read More
A Culture Beyond Oil
“There is no money that is completely pure”, so says Nicholas Serota, the Director of the Tate gallery in London that is under fire once again for taking oil money from BP and Shell. Serota is right in many ways, there is no such thing as clean money but some funding is dirtier than others. … Read More
Dead-End Oil
So the Europeans don’t want it. And by delaying the decision on Keystone XL for eighteen months, it looks like Obama and America doesn’t want it either. Despite one of the most aggressive marketing and public relations campaigns ever seen by the oil industry and Canadian government to try and sell the dirty tar sands, … Read More
“Yes we can, stop the pipeline.”
Yesterday, over 12,000 people came from across North America and Canada to the White House to call on President Obama to stop the highly controversial Keystone XL pipeline. The thousands of protesters, some carrying a long black inflatable replica of a pipeline, formed a human chain around the White House. Some chanted “Yes we can, … Read More
The Downsides of “Extreme Energy”
So its official: fracking causes earthquakes. Just minutes ago, a report published by the oil company Cuadrilla as to whether its drilling operations caused two “earthquakes” back in April and May, concluded that fracking was the “highly probable” cause of the small seismic events. Cuadrilla suspended fracking operations in June, over fears of a link … Read More
Oil and Democracy Don’t Mix
I remember years ago going to a lecture by a senior executive from Premier Oil about operating in Burma and he said that oil men liked working in authoritarian regimes as they were much more predictable than democracies. Ironically they were more stable. Over the last year, the Arab spring has challenged this concept to … Read More
November 6th Tar Sands Action at the White House
On Sunday November 6 the Tar Sands Action will return to Washington DC to send an unmistakable message to the President. Exactly one year before the election, we want to encircle the whole White House to ask President Obama to reject Keystone XL and live up to his promise to free us from the tyranny … Read More
Shell Guilty Again?
Just over two years after the Wiwa versus Shell case was settled in a New York Court room, the US Supreme Court has given approval for another ground-breaking legal case against Shell to be heard. The lawsuit will consider whether corporations can be sued in U.S. courts for allegedly aiding human-rights abuses overseas. Amazingly, the … Read More
FT: Tar Sands a “PR Nightmare”
Canada’s dirty tar sands oil reserves have been turned “into a public-relations nightmare” argues the Financial Times today in its eight page pull-out on Canadian energy, forcing the industry to fight back against this “toxic perception”. Part of this nightmare for both the industry and now President Obama is to do with the controversial Keystone … Read More