Kevin Grandia Posts

Worldwide, the coal industry is suffering as the demand for its product weakens in the face of a surge in clean, renewable energy options and a world that can no longer afford to continue to consume this dirty fossil fuel. Here's a series of fact-filled infographics that tell the real story about coal and energy poverty.

Worldwide, the coal industry is suffering as the demand for its product weakens in the face of a surge in clean, renewable energy options and a world that can no longer afford to continue to consume this dirty fossil fuel. Here's a series of fact-filled infographics that tell the real story about coal and energy poverty.

Worldwide, the coal industry is suffering as the demand for its product weakens in the face of a surge in clean, renewable energy options and a world that can no longer afford to continue to consume this dirty fossil fuel. Here's a series of fact-filled infographics that tell the real story about coal and energy poverty.

While every year is crucial when it comes to reducing the amount of heat-trapping greenhouse gases polluting our atmosphere, 2015 is looking to be a super year and a possible turning point where a few big decisions could make all the difference.
Here are five big things to watch in 2015:

1. Paris UN

Two big blows to the natural gas industry have come in less than 24 hours, with both the province of Quebec and New York state effectively banning shale gas extraction over concerns with the process of hydraulic fracturing (a.k.a. “fracking”). 
Fracking

Proud climate change denialist Senator James Inhofe (R-OK) dismissed a report by 11 three and four-star Admirals and Generals warning of the very real instability caused by climate change. The reason? Those esteemed service members were just looking for "publicity."

A new study released this week that examines nearly 500 pieces of legislation in 66 countries finds Canada lags behind many countries, including China, when it comes to advancing a plan to reduce climate change pollution and fossil fuel usage. According to Globe International, the organization behind the study, Canada currently "has no comprehensive federal climate change legislation."

A new study released today at the UN climate conference underway in Warsaw, Poland, finds that new coal plants cannot be built if we are to keep global warming below the 2° Celsius threshold. That is, unless the coal industry can deploy commercial-scale carbon capture and storage. That is, in and of itself, a near impossibility.

With another round of international climate negotiations opening this week in Warsaw, Poland, and a new poll finding Canadians wanting leadership on the issue, Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his Conservative government have an opportunity to turn the tides on a climate change policy that has become an international laughing stock. But as extreme weather becomes more normal, it's no longer funny.

Earlier this month, the Los Angeles Times announced that it would no longer run letters to the editor that deny the scientific conclusion that climate change is real. This follows moves by Popular Science and the Sydney Morning Herald to quell the scientifically unsound opinions, but are these changes the beginning or the end of the media's stance against paid mouthpieces from Exxon, BP, Koch brothers, etc?

A new study concludes that Koch Industries and its subsidiaries stand to make as much as $100 billion in profits if the controversial Keystone XL pipeline is granted a presidential permit from U.S. President Barack Obama.

According to a new white paper by DeSmog Canada, TransCanada Corporation, the company behind the Keystone XL pipeline proposal, has spent more than $4 million lobbying U.S. federal lawmakers and government department staff since 2010.

If you're interested in how misinformation makes its way into the public dialogue on important issues like war in the Middle East or global warming, then you should get to know David Rose, a "special investigations writer" for the UK's ultra-conservative "Mail on Sunday" tabloid. Rose was at the forefront of claims that Iraq had WMDs and has repeated his mistakes with the impending mass destruction of climate change.

New scientific analysis released yesterday on the impacts of the aviation industry on our climate should give pause to government and industry leaders. The report, produced by the Manchester Metropolitan University’s Centre for Air Transport and Environment, finds that a new market-based carbon trading system for the airline industry cannot be delayed any longer. If a system isn't put in place this September, the next opportunity for a decision will not be until 2016.

John Bryant, CEO of snack food giant Kellogg's, found himself in hot water last week on a quarterly earnings call when one investor took the company to task for its part in destroying vital Indonesian peatlands that store vast amounts of climate-polluting carbon, and rainforests home to the last 400 remaining wild Sumatran tigers in the world.

Five people are confirmed dead and 40 people remain missing in the small hamlet of Lac-Megantic, Quebec, where a train with 73 carloads full of Bakken shale oil derailed explosively, incinerating 30 buildings on Saturday.

Google, the search giant with the famous motto: “Don’t be evil,” is boasting about its involvement in a 2012 coal industry lobbying effort to block the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) ability to protect the public from dangerous and potentially lethal coal plant emissions, according to a recently discovered Google case study.

Despite an international agreement to reduce emissions from carbon-intensive sources, oil and coal companies continue to pour hundreds of billions of dollars a year into finding new fossil fuel deposits containing enough carbon to more than double global climate pollution emissions.

It is being reported today that Canada's Minister of the Environment, Peter Kent, would not allow the public posting of a final report by the now-defunct National Roundtable on Energy and Environment (NRTEE),

Greedy Lying Bastards is a new film hitting mainstream theaters nationwide in the U.S. this weekend.
If you like DeSmogBlog, you're going to love this film.
Here's the Rotten Tomatoes review including theater times,