Science Denial

US Energy Secretary Backs Coal And Attacks ‘Sinister’ Climate Targets

February 18, 2025 Adam Barnett, DeSmog. Educate! climate crisis, Donald Trump, Energy, Politics and Policy, Science Denial, Secretary of Energy

Donald Trump’s new energy secretary has today vowed to “get out of the way” of coal, oil and gas, and called the UK’s 2050 net zero target “a sinister goal” that would “impoverish” people. Chris Wright, an oil and gas industry executive appointed by U.S. President Trump, was speaking via video link at the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (ARC) conference in London, a right-wing forum run by fierce opponents of climate policies. He also downplayed the threat from extreme weather, and suggested that climate action is part of a plot to “grow government power” and “shrink human freedom”.

Mapped: Donald Trump’s Transatlantic Anti-Green Network

January 22, 2025 Adam Barnett, DeSmog. Educate! climate crisis, Donald Trump, Energy, Fossil Fuels, Politics and Policy, Science Denial

As Donald Trump takes his oath of office to become the 47th president of the United States, his second term comes at an ever-more critical time for climate change. Climate scientists have warned that 2024 was the hottest year on record, and without dramatic action to cut greenhouse gas emissions, global pledges to limit warming to 1.5C and curb the worst effects of climate change are doomed. At the start of 2025, Trump’s “government efficiency” chief Elon Musk (who donated $250 million to Trump’s campaign), pushed grooming gangs to the top of the UK political agenda – with the help of Conservative and Reform UK politicians, and their allies in the media.

How Fossil Fuel Sectors Create A Climate Denial Echo Chamber

January 18, 2025 Sharon Kelly, DeSmog. Educate! Big Oil, climate crisis, climate denial, Plastic Industry, Science Denial, Social Media

From 2008 to 2023, nine of the nation’s largest oil, agrichemical, and plastics trade groups and corporations posted thousands of tweets on the social media platform X, and their messaging on environmental issues was strikingly “obstructive” for climate policy and action, a study published today in the journal PLOS Climate concludes. The study found that all of the organizations, including the American Petroleum Institute (API) and the American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF), were mentioned by at least four of the other groups – helping to essentially create an echo chamber for similar messages.

How Exxon And Atlas Network Worked To Block Global Climate Action

December 9, 2024 Anne-Sophie Simpère, DeSmog. Educate! Atlas Network, climate crisis, ExxonMobil, History, Oil and Gas Industry, Science Denial

In March 1999, Alejandro Chafuen, then president of an international free-market coalition called Atlas Network, wrote to an executive at ExxonMobil (XOM) to offer the American oil major a friendly note of appreciation. “On behalf of Atlas and the institutes it supports, we would like to thank you again for the Exxon Corporation’s generous contributions,” Chafuen stated, “and for the confidence you and Exxon have placed in us.” Included in the letter to William E. Hale of ExxonMobil’s public affairs department was a five-page summary of the global reach and diversity of the activities the corporation funded in 1998, “in whole or in part,” through donations to Atlas Network’s “Energy and Environment: Market-based Solutions”.

The First Gas Utility Sued For Climate Deception

October 16, 2024 Emily Sanders, DeSmog. Resist! climate crisis, climate denial, Climate Justice, Energy, Oil and Gas Industry, Oregon, Science Denial

For the first time, a gas utility could be on the hook for its role in deceiving the public about the climate crisis. Multnomah, Oregon, has added NW Natural — Oregon’s oldest and largest supplier of “natural” gas, also known as fossil or methane gas — to the list of defendants in a lawsuit that seeks to make fossil fuel companies pay $52 billion for their role in the deadly 2021 Pacific Northwest heat dome. NW Natural “has routinely misrepresented” the climate harms of gas while undermining the energy transition “in an effort to frighten customers and discourage policy makers from using their authority to protect the public,” according to the county’s amended complaint.

Big Oil And Gas Infiltrate Higher Education To Slow Climate Action

September 6, 2024 Geoff Dembicki, DeSmog. Educate! climate crisis, Corporatism, Higher Education, Oil and Gas Industry, Science Denial

A former Exxon executive sits on a university’s board of trustees. Fossil fuel representatives develop undergraduate courses. Schools lease out their land for fracking. Industry-funded studies end up influencing federal energy policy. These aren’t just isolated examples of oil and gas companies partnering with academic institutions, according to a new study published in the journal WIREs Climate Change by researchers with six universities, but an international effort by the industry spanning decades with the goal of obstructing and slowing down climate action. The authors came to that conclusion by conducting a first-ever review of dozens of existing academic and civil society investigations into fossil fuel infiltration of higher education, looking primarily at institutions in the U.S., UK, Canada, and Australia.

Big Oil Rallies To Obstruct Accountability

July 20, 2024 Emily Sanders, DeSmog. Resist! Big Oil, BP, Chevron, climate crisis, Energy, Environment, ExxonMobil, Fossil Fuels, Oil and Gas, Politics and Policy, Science Denial, shell

In the face of mounting scrutiny from local, state, and federal officials, fossil fuel companies and their allies are deploying a range of tactics to obstruct ongoing lawsuits and investigations concerning evidence that the industry has misled the public about the harms it knew its products would cause to the climate, environment, and human health. Far-right industry allies with ties to Chevron have mounted an “unprecedented” pressure campaign calling on the Supreme Court to stop a potentially historic climate deception lawsuit against oil majors from going to trial. Republican attorneys general are separately urging the Supreme Court to throw out similar climate fraud lawsuits from five states.

Science Denial Group Behind Attacks On Low Traffic Neighbourhoods

May 26, 2024 Adam Barnett and Joey Grostern, DeSmog. Educate! Disinformation, Politics and Policy, Report, Science Denial, Urban Design

More than a quarter of online posts attacking low traffic schemes last year came from a science denial group which campaigns against climate policies. A new report by cross-party think tank Demos found that 27 percent of online posts attacking Low Traffic Neighbourhoods (LTNs) in 2023 were posted by the right-wing Together Declaration. The group, originally set up to oppose COVID-19 policies such as lockdowns and mandatory vaccines, is backed by some of the UK’s most prominent climate science deniers, including blogger Ben Pile, Reform UK candidate Howard Cox, and UKIP leader Lois Perry.

Landmark Study Reveals Gas Stove Emissions Boost Childhood Asthma

May 6, 2024 Diane Bernard, DeSmog. Educate! Child Welfare, Energy, Gas Stoves, Health Care, Nitrogen, Oil and Gas, Politics and Policy, Science Denial, Social Justice

People who use gas or propane stoves in their homes are regularly exposed to harmful levels of nitrogen dioxide (NO2), a new study shows. The household appliances emit pollutants that can be linked to approximately 200,000 current cases of childhood asthma, with 25 percent of those cases tied to nitrogen dioxide alone. The study, published Friday in Science Advances, represents the first time researchers have quantified the link between gas stoves and asthma from NO2 exposures inside homes. “I didn’t expect to see pollutant concentrations breach health benchmarks in bedrooms within an hour of gas stove use, and stay there for hours after the stove is turned off,” Rob Jackson, a professor at Stanford University and the lead scientist on the study, said in a statement.

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