Note: See our new infographic on Keystone XL here! At Friday’s electric final hearing into the proposed controversial Keystone XL pipeline, one of the recurring themes was that the US State Department has consistently taken sides with TransCanada, the company building the pipeline, even before the consultation has finished. Such was the clamour of accusatory … Read More
Protests
“You have authority over my life, but not my principles”
In the end the sentence was predictably severe. Yesterday Tim DeChristopher, who has become an unlikely here for the climate change movement, was sentenced to 2 years in jail and fined $10,000. His crime had been not to hurt anyone or deface any building but to throw a virtual spanner in the works of the … Read More
Canada’s “Pipeline Through Paradise”
One of the biggest problems for proponents of the tar sands (apart from frying the climate and polluting the local rivers and ripping up ancient boreal forests) is getting the dirty oil to hungry markets. The route south from Alberta to America and the refineries of the Gulf coast hinges on the controversial Keystone XL … Read More
“Cowboy” Cairn Gags Greenpeace
One of the many ways in which powerful polluters try to silence their critics is through legal intimidation. And Cairn Energy, which is involved in controversial drilling in the Arctic, is no exception. For months Cairn has been dogged by Greenpeace, which has been campaigning against its Artic operations off Greenland. On Monday about 60 … Read More
“Shell has cheated us for too long”
For hundreds of communities across the Niger Delta the daily unseen struggle against Shell continues. At the end of last week four Ijaw communities gave the oil giant a 14 day ultimatum, demanding that Shell finally implement an agreement that they reached in 1999, twelve years ago. Fearing the company will not honour the agreement, … Read More
VW’s Dark Side
Europe’s largest car maker, Volkswagen, is harbouring a “dark secret” according to Greenpeace. Despite its populist and consumer-friendly image, VW stands accused of greenwashing its dirty activities, trying to water down action on climate change and refusing to make popular models more fuel efficient. According to Greenpeace, the car maker has repeatedly claimed that it … Read More
Shell’s Pipeline At War With the People
On and off for twenty years I have written about the oil industry. I have worked with communities from Alaska to Africa who have been threatened by Big Oil. So often the stories are the same: an industry that is indifferent to local concerns and needs. It is an industry that bullies and effectively bribes … Read More
Chevron Guilty: Clean Up the Amazon!
Last week it was Shell’s AGM and its turn to face the wrath of shareholders and activists for its appalling environmental record. This week its Chevron’s turn with its AGM tomorrow. Protests kicked off in dramatic style yesterday, when activists from Amazon Watch and Rainforest Action Network rappelled from the Richmond Bridge in the San … Read More
And for Shell We Present an “Erratum”
Sometimes the best protests are the most simple and symbolic. Yesterday, Shell’s shareholders and senior management at the company’s AGM in the Hague were presented with an “erratum” to the company’s recent Annual Report. The spoof report by Friends of the Earth looks like a real Shell report, until you start to read it. For … Read More
France to Say “Non” to Fracking
Just last week, a study by the European Centre for Energy and Resource Security concluded that unconventional gas resources in Europe – such as shale gas – could radically reshape the continent’s oil and gas outlook, and reduce its dependency on Russia and the Middle East. The report said that, in theory “Europe’s unconventional gas … Read More