Tag Archives: Fossil fuels

Big Oil Shill Tells Fox Viewers There Is ‘No Health Risk’ From Inhaling Toxic Smoke

Fox News brought on a contributor with a history of downplaying the dangers of secondhand smoke and dismissing climate science to tell viewers that particulate matter is “innocuous.”

By Jake Johnson Published 6-8-2023 by Common Dreams

Steve Milloy, a senior policy fellow at the Energy & Environment Legal Institute, speaks during a Fox News appearance on June 8, 2023. (Photo: Fox News/Screengrab)

As smoke from massive wildfires in Quebec blanketed much of the eastern U.S., forcing millions to stay indoors as state governments issued code-red air quality alerts, a longtime shill for the fossil fuel and tobacco industries falsely told Fox News viewers late Wednesday that there is actually “no health risk” associated with inhaling such polluted air.

“Look, the air is ugly, it’s unpleasant to breathe, and for a lot of people, they get anxiety over it. But the reality is there’s no health risk,” Steve Milloy, a senior policy fellow at the Energy & Environment Legal Institute, told Fox‘s Laura Ingraham. “We have this kind of air in India and China all the time—no public health emergency.”

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‘People Didn’t Listen’: Complete Loss of Arctic Summer Sea Ice Now Inevitable, Warn Scientists

“As scientists, we’ve been warning about the loss of Arctic summer sea ice for decades,” said one researcher.

By Julia Conley. Published 6-6-2023 by Common Dreams

The last bit of rotted sea ice melts on the shore of Cape Krusenstern in early June. Photo: Western Arctic National Parklands/flickr/CC

Scientists on Tuesday warned that the planet is rapidly headed toward the consequences of the climate crisis that they have been warning about for decades as researchers published a new study showing that a complete loss of Arctic sea ice in the summer months is now unavoidable.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report released in 2021 alarmed many with its warnings that if high or even intermediate planet-heating fossil fuel emissions continued, the Arctic would be ice-free by the 2040s—but its authors implored policymakers to focus on their finding that the region would retain its summer ice if decisive action was taken to limit an increase in global temperature rises to 2°C or less.

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‘Utterly Absurd’: Rich Nations Spending Climate Dollars on Coal Projects and Chocolate Shops

“Essentially, whatever they call climate finance is climate finance,” said one developing nation’s lead climate negotiator.

By Brett Wilkins. Published 6-2-2023 by Common Dreams

Activists including members of frontline communities protest Japanese financing of international fossil fuel projects including coal plants in Matarbari, Bangladesh and Indramayu, Indonesia on October 4, 2021 in Tokyo. (Photo: @market_forces/Twitter)

Wealthy nations are spending money under the guise of “climate finance” to fund projects that have little or nothing to do with tackling the climate crisis and—as in the case of three Japanese-backed coal plants—are sometimes fueling the planetary emergency, according to a Reuters investigation published Thursday.

While media outlets including Reuters have recently reported that rich countries are on track—albeit long overdue—to finally meet their 2009 pledge to invest $100 billion annually in climate financing by 2020, the new Reuters investigation shows that governments are funding climate-harming projects and counting the expenditures toward their giving total.

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‘A Death Sentence’: Green Groups Decry G7 Support for More Gas Investments

“Energy security can only be achieved by rapidly and equitably phasing out fossil fuels and transitioning to renewable energy, not locking in deadly fossil fuels and lining the pockets of oil and gas executives,” said one critic.

By Jessica Corbett Published 5-21-2023 by Common Dreams

Activists with masks of Group of Seven leaders protest fossil fuels. (Photo: 350.org Japan/Friends of the Earth Japan/Oil Change International)

Since Group of Seven leaders on Saturday put out a wide-ranging communiqué from a Japan-hosted summit in Hiroshima, climate action advocates from G7 countries and beyond have blasted the statement’s support for future investments in planet-heating gas.

The statement comes after G7 climate, energy, and environment ministers were criticized for their communiqué from a meeting in Sapporo last month as well as protests around the world this week pressuring the summit’s attendees to ditch fossil fuels and “deliver a clear and just renewable energy agenda for a peaceful world.”

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‘Bad News’: Unexpected Melting of Greenland Glacier Could Double Sea-Level Rise Projections

The way that the Petermann Glacier in Northwest Greenland is melting indicates that current models are too conservative.

By Olivia Rosane. Published 5-8-2023 by Common Dreams

In the center of this NASA photograph taken in 2012, Petermann Glacier in northwest Greenland gradually moves toward the ocean, with large segments breaking off and drifting away as icebergs. Researchers at UCI and NASA JPL used satellite data from three European missions to learn how warm ocean water is causing the migration of the glacier’s grounding line, leading to its rapid deterioration. (Photo: NASA)

A glacier in the north of Greenland is melting faster and in a different way than scientists previously thought, and this has troubling implications for the future speed of global sea-level rise.

The new discovery was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Monday. The scientists found that warming ocean water had melted a cavity in the bottom of Petermann Glacier taller than the Washington Monument, as The Associated Press reported. If other glaciers in Greenland and Antarctica behave the same way, it could double predictions for how quickly the burning of fossil fuels will melt ice and raise sea levels.

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Hundreds of Students Launch May of Occupations to End Fossil Fuels

Activists hope the rest of society will join in resisting business-as-usual and the fossil economy’s death drive, the way the people of France joined the students who organized in May 1968.

By Olivia Rosane. Published 5-2-2023 by Common Dreams

Youth climate activists in Uganda call for an end to fossil fuels on April 29, 2023. (Photo: End Fossil: Occupy!)

Hundreds of students occupied their schools and universities on Tuesday as part of a global movement to disrupt educational institutions this May and push for an end to the fossil fuel economy.

The activists—mobilizing under the banner of End Fossil: Occupy!— say they take inspiration from the Parisian students of May 1968, whose protests led to one of the largest general strikes in French history.

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US Supreme Court’s Blow to Big Oil ‘Should Open the Floodgates for More Lawsuits’

“The high court’s decision is a major victory for communities across the country that are fighting to hold Big Oil accountable and make them pay for the climate damages they knowingly caused,” said one advocate.

By Jessica Corbett. Published 4-24-2023 by Common Dreams

Photo: Felton Davis/flickr/CC

Campaigners and frontline communities celebrated Monday after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear five appeals from major fossil fuel companies hoping to shift climate liability cases from state to federal court, where polluters are more likely to prevail.

“Big Oil companies have been desperate to avoid trials in state courts, where they will be forced to defend their climate lies in front of juries, and today the Supreme Court declined to bail them out,” said Center for Climate Integrity president Richard Wiles.

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Memo Exposes Renewable Energy Trade Group’s Close Ties to Fossil Fuel Industry

“Despite its name, American Clean Power is yet another fossil fuel lobbying group trying to trick people into believing its greenwashing,” said one campaigner. “Any political leader who claims to care about the planet’s future should shun this organization.”

By Kenny Stancil. Published 4-20-2023 by Common Dreams

​American Clean Power CEO Jason Grumet and Rep. John Curtis (R-UT) at Clean Power on the Hill on April 18 2023. Photo: ​American Clean Power/Twitter

The American Clean Power Association has been billed as “the nation’s top renewable energy trade group,” but lurking beneath its green luster is a dirty reality.

That’s according to the Revolving Door Project, which published a memo on Thursday to expose what is calls ACP’s “close ties to the fossil fuel industry and an ‘all of the above’ energy agenda that allows for massive new fossil fuel development and environmental damage, as long as clean energy also benefits.”

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‘What the Climate Emergency Looks Like’: Extreme Heat Busts Records Across Asia

Sweltering temperatures have devastated numerous Asian countries this month, eliciting demands for lifesaving climate action.

By Kenny Stancil. Published 4-19-2023 by Common Dreams

The European model shows temperatures across Southeast Asia rising well above normal Monday. Image: WeatherBell.com

Hundreds of millions of people throughout Asia are suffering Wednesday as a deadly heatwave turbocharged by the fossil fuel-driven climate crisis continues to pummel large swaths of the continent, with little relief in sight—reigniting calls for immediate action to slash greenhouse gas pollution.

Record-high temperatures have been observed in several Asian countries this month, including at 109 weather stations across 12 Chinese provinces on Monday. Scorching heat in India, meanwhile, has killed more than a dozen people and forced school closures this week.

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Global Coal Phaseout Must Speed Up to Avert ‘Climate Chaos’: Analysis

“The transition away from existing and new coal isn’t happening fast enough,” said one expert. “The more new coal projects come online, the steeper the cuts and commitments need to be in the future.”

By Kenny Stancil.  Published 4-6-2023 by Common Dreams

Xcel Energy’s Sherburne County (Sherco) Generating Station, a coal-fired power plant, near Becker, Minnesota. Photo: Tony Webster/Wikimedia Commons/CC

 To avert the worst consequences of the climate crisis, the world must stop building new coal plants and shut down existing ones at nearly five times the current rate.

That’s according to an analysis published Wednesday by Global Energy Monitor (GEM) and nearly a dozen other groups, including Reclaim Finance, the Sierra Club, and the Alliance for Climate Justice and Clean Energy.

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