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Fossil Fuels

A History Of Success Drives The Ongoing Struggle To Clean Up Cancer Alley

Two days after the election, I left on a research trip to Mississippi and Louisiana. I joined four others from my church in Yarmouth, Maine. Our purpose was to witness and learn about the struggle for civil and environmental rights in a region known as “Cancer Alley.” This 85-mile stretch of the Mississippi — between Baton Rouge and New Orleans — is home to 150 petrochemical plants, all along the river. It is also home to many working-class people, a majority of them Black. The first thing you notice are the huge refineries. Tall smokestacks spew toxic chemicals and methane flares light up the sky. The scale of industrialization is hard to imagine — there are miles and miles of factories and chemical plants.

University Of Toronto Students Score A Win For The Climate

When the University of Toronto’s School of the Environment announced in October that it will no longer accept donations from the fossil fuel industry, the news sent waves through the growing movement to get coal, oil and gas companies off campuses. Among other things, that means banning fossil fuel corporations from financing academic research. “This victory shows students have the ability to enact institutional change,” said Erin Mackey, a leader of the group Climate Justice UofT, which pushed for the fossil fuel money ban. “That’s especially important when, at many universities, students who want to make change are having the door slammed in their faces.”

Wales Just Hit A Massive Green Energy Milestone

Earlier this week, it was revealed that over 75% of UK universities have now divested from the fossil fuel industry, illustrating how cutting financial ties with the industry is being increasingly recognised as a step that aligns with university goals and values. Laura Clayson, campaign manager at Climate Justice, said: This news is incredibly significant given how fossil  fuels have shaped the nation’s recent history and landscape. It is an act of solidarity with frontline communities globally, as well as those within Wales itself. This includes the community surrounding the controversial Ffos-y-Fran, the UK’s last and largest open cast coal mine, which closed in 2023. The community continues to have to fight for justice, for everything from health impacts to restoration of the area, as the mining company continues to break their promises on each and every front. We hope this news provides some additional strength to their struggle.

Universities Are Ending Recruitment Ties To Fossil Fuel Companies

Aberystwyth University has committed to ending its recruitment ties with fossil fuel and mining companies. In doing so, it becomes the 10th UK university and the 3rd in Wales to exclude the fossil fuel industry from its careers and recruitment activities. In an updated Ethical Careers Policy published on Aberystwyth’s website, the university states that it will “no longer collaborate or hold relationships” with fossil fuel, mining or tobacco companies. The announcement makes Aberystwyth the 10th UK university and the 3rd in Wales to publish such a policy, following similar commitments from the Universities of Swansea in November 2023 and Wrexham in December 2022.

Extinction Rebellion Cause Chaos In City Of London

On Wednesday 4 December, Extinction Rebellion occupied the headquarters of an international law firm that is playing a leading role in oiling the legal wheels of the deadly fossil fuel machine setting our planet on fire. Activists targeted the City of London offices of A&O Shearman – whose lawyers facilitated more than $285 billion in fossil fuel transactions between 2019 and 2023, the second highest amount for any legal firm in the world – demanding they ‘Cut The Ties With Fossil Fuels’. Rebels entered the building and occupied the lobby, while others sprayed the outside of the building with fake oil.

Flash Mob Takes Over Museum To Call Out Planet-Wrecking BP Donation

On Saturday 30 November the Great Court of the British Museum was taken over by the Climate Choir Movement flash mob when around two hundred visitors at the British Museum café stood up and broke into three-part harmony to sing: ‘It’s time to drop BP! Don’t take their dirty money!’ The singers, including members of Bristol Climate Choir, then processed to the entrance of the British Museum Great Court, the largest covered public square in Europe, and performed the classical hit Also Sprach Zarathustra by Richard Strauss, complete with new anti-BP words.

Climate Crisis Activists Trying To Head Off Trump Destruction

This month’s regular FERC (Federal Energy Regulatory Commission) meeting was anything but calm after four climate crisis activists were removed for disrupting the proceedings. That event, along with the regular monthly streetside protest outside the agency’s headquarters that draws attention to the rapidly and ever-growing climate crisis the world is facing, set off a day of climate activism “From FERC to the Senate.” Using Senator Chuck Schumer’s (D-NY) own words proclaiming that he has “A whole lot of clout as Senate Minority Leader,” activists asked that anyone concerned about the climate crisis call his office to

The Case For A ‘Bold Idea’ To End The Era Of Coal, Oil And Gas

Could the world negotiate a wind-down of the fossil fuel industry — just as Cold War adversaries once agreed to limit their stockpiles of nuclear weapons? In an interview for the Climate Consciousness Summit 2024, Tzeporah Berman, founder and chair of the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative said a growing wave of support for the proposal — which has been endorsed by more than 3,000 scientists, 121 cities and sub-national governments, and 14 nations — could ultimately make new fossil fuel projects unacceptable, even in the United States, the world’s biggest producer of oil and gas.

Inspector General Report On Red Hill Fuel Spill Confirms Resident Concerns

The Navy’s and Department of Defense’s initial responses to the IG’s recommendations provide little assurance of meaningful accountability and protections moving forward. Most “resolved” recommendations remain to be implemented over months or years, while numerous other recommendations remain “unresolved.” Particularly troubling is the response to the primary IG recommendations that oversight of fuels facilities operations and maintenance and drinking water compliance be assigned to specific accountable individuals. The Department of Defense’s vague responses—assigning these roles to the Pearl Harbor Commanding Officer—would merely continue the practice of entrusting the operation of extremely complex systems to a revolving door of short-term Navy leaders, for whom environmental and human health and safety have never been a demonstrated priority.

The 2024 Election Was The Final Nail In The US Climate Movement’s Coffin

The newest Global Carbon Budget Report found that carbon emissions were at a record high in 2024, despite the strong evidence that emissions must be cut drastically to mitigate the climate crisis. The United States, the largest producer of fossil fuels and responsible for 13% of global carbon emissions (with only 4% of the world's population), is largely responsible for the crisis. Clearing the FOG speaks with Anthony Rogers-Wright, a national racial and climate justice advocate, about the failures of the US climate movement and its fatal flaw of being loyal to the Democratic Party. That loyalty profoundly undermined the credibility of the big environmental groups in this election cycle. Rogers-Wright discusses the COP29 and where we go from here to build an independent and more strategic climate movement in the United States.

In Baku, At The Climate Conference, Hand-Wringing Abounds

The world desperately needs to pull the plug on fossil fuels. So agree most of the official delegates from nearly 200 nations who have gathered this month by the Caspian Sea for the 29th annual global “Conference of the Parties” on climate change — COP29 for short — in Azerbaijan’s capital city Baku. But not all the estimated 70,000 attendees at this year’s COP are practicing what they should be preaching. Private jet arrivals at Baku’s international airport, news reports note, have just doubled. What makes that such a big deal?

‘Fossil Fuels Are Still Winning’ As Carbon Emissions Reach Record Highs

The most recent Global Carbon Budget report has found that the world’s carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels reached a record high in 2024, pushing the planet further off track from avoiding the most destructive impacts of global heating. The 2024 Global Carbon Budget — produced by the Global Carbon Project team of 120-plus scientists from around the world — projects that emissions from fossil carbon dioxide will reach 37.4 billion tonnes in 2024, an increase of 0.8 percent over the previous year, according to a press release from the Global Carbon Project.

Two Notorious Fossil Fuel-Backing Law Firms Got Called Out

Lawyers and climate crisis campaigners held law firms that represent planet-wrecking companies to account on Wednesday 13 November. They targeted the headquarters of two of the most notorious firms: A&O Shearman and Akin. Lawyers and allies staged a protest outside the London headquarters of legal firms A&O Shearman and Akin, as their staff arrived this morning. Representatives from a coalition of groups including Lawyers are Responsible and Fossil Free London held portraits of people across the world whose homes and lives have been devastated by floods and fires due to climate breakdown.

COP29 Starts As It Will Probably Go On

Campaign group Fossil Free London staged a protest outside BP’s headquarters on the first day of the COP29 in Azerbaijan. It was over not only BP and the host nation’s reliance on fossil fuels, but both of their propping up of Israel’s genocide in Gaza. It also comes as part of a series of actions on the intersections of COP29, the climate crisis and Palestine in London, culminating in the March for Global Climate Justice on Saturday 16 November. Joanna Warrington, a campaigner with Fossil Free London, said: It’s the very same fossil fuel giants that profit from the suffering of billions as our climate tips closer to collapse, which are fuelling and enabling Israel’s horrific colonial genocide. This is all playing out right in front of our world leaders, who sit clapping in the audience instead of standing up to protect human rights and life.

UK COP29 ‘Partners’ Include Firm With Hundreds of Fossil Fuel Clients

The UK’s pavilion at this year’s flagship climate conference is being co-sponsored by an industrial software firm that has worked for some of the world’s biggest polluters, DeSmog can reveal.  This year’s conference will begin next week (11 November) in Baku, Azerbaijan, and the new UK government has vowed to be an international climate leader, with Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Net Zero Secretary Ed Miliband both set to attend the talks.  The government earlier this week announced the sponsors of the UK COP29 pavilion, which will host a number of events featuring politicians, climate experts, and businesses. 

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Due to the attacks on our fiscal sponsor, we were unable to raise funds online for nearly two years.  As the bills pile up, your help is needed now to cover the monthly costs of operating Popular Resistance.

Urgent End Of Year Fundraising Campaign

Online donations are back! 

Keep independent media alive. 

Due to the attacks on our fiscal sponsor, we were unable to raise funds online for nearly two years.  As the bills pile up, your help is needed now to cover the monthly costs of operating Popular Resistance.

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