The Sierra Club launched a funny new "Mr. Coal" video campaign this week in its ongoing 'Beyond Coal' effort to shut down coal plants throughout the United States. The campaign will feature a steady stream of satirical TV commercials mocking the coal industry's incessant and incredulous claims about job creation, "clean coal," and many
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DeSmogBlog: Beginning of The End for Big Oil’s Billion Dollar Subsidies?
oil-drum-stuffed-with-money.jpg Democratic Senator Bob Menendez (N.J.) has introduced legislation in the U.S. Senate to kill, once and for all, the billions of dollars worth of subsidies that are flowing from the federal government to the oil industry. Under Menendez’s proposal, the $4 billion annual corporate welfare handed out to oil companies
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: How Do You Build a Scientific Republican?
411px-Jon_Huntsman_by_Gage_Skidmore.jpg It’s widely known that Republicans, far more than Democrats, reject modern climate science. And more and more, it has become apparent that this is at least partly because Republicans have a deep distrust of scientists in general, or at least environmental scientists. But there are many other causes for this
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: Look to Canada for Proof that Neither Presidents Nor Pro-Drilling Policies Control Gas Prices
Gas nozzle-cide.jpg Another Spring, another round of totally uninformed and illogical arguments about gas prices. You could be forgiven if you’re feeling some deja vu. As conservatives and Congressional Republicans scramble to blame the president for rising gas prices, you might have the feeling that we’ve been here before. Oh,
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: Tracking The Origins Of The "Blame Obama For Gas Prices" Talking Point
4+dollar+gas.jpg Since at least last summer, conservatives have been parroting the oil industry talking point that President Obama is somehow the one responsible for the spike in gasoline and oil prices. As we have pointed out, they base this on their assertion that the President has been “hostile” towards the
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: The Science of Truthiness: Why Conservatives Deny Global Warming
Final Cover.png These are notes for remarks that Chris Mooney gave recently at the Tucson Festival of Books, where he was asked to talk about his new book on a panel entitled “Will the Planet Survive the Age of Humans?” Video of the panel is currently available from C-SPAN here. Please note:
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: Documents Reveal USDA Risking Lawsuits by Ignoring Own Staff On Fracking Mortgages Review
usda.png A major storm is brewing over the USDA’s sudden about-face on fracking and environmental laws. On Tuesday, the head of the U.S. Department of Agriculture pulled a 180-degree U-turn and decided to reverse the call made by his staff specialists, who advised that the agency immediately stop giving special exemptions
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: SPINalysis: Heartland’s Echo Chamber Shifts the Target
heartland logo.jpg President Joe Bast Dodges Responsibility – for Now It’s been a month since the Heartland Institute was caught in a St. Valentine’s Day Striptease – inadvertently exposing its entire budget and fundraising plan. Yet an objective analysis of the resulting internet and mainstream media coverage has to credit Heartland’s
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: GWPF & The Hockey Stick Curve
gwpf_0.jpeg The previous post in this series examined the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF) Briefing Paper No3 "The Truth About Greenhouse Gases". Despite its title, Briefing Paper No3 said very little about such gases. Yet one subject (not directly to do with greenhouse gases) was discussed at some length within
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: Obama Sojourns to "Pipeline Crossroads of the World" for Campaign Speech
Cushing .jpg It's the multi-pronged fight that never seems to end. The Alberta Tar Sands have been near the forefront of the North American energy and climate debate, thanks in large part to growing public concern and grassroots efforts like Tar Sands Action, a campaign led by climate activists to block construction of the
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: Got Framing? Why Scientists Must Pay Attention to Communication Science, and Not Just as an Afterthought
dont_tread_on_me.jpg There was the Tweet, from Andy Revkin: “Scientists Call For Stronger Global Governance To Address Climate Change.” Revkin linked to a Forbes story, that, in turn, linked to a new paper in Science by the “Earth System Governance Project,” described as “the largest social science research network in the
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: Ethical Oil: The Puppet Rap
It's time for Friday funnies, and the top hit today is Ethical Oil: the Puppet Rap, which first popped up over at The Tyee. It's a foul-mouthed, satirical music video remix of Kathryn Marshall's ridiculous PR gymnastics to avoid answering a basic question from CBC's Evan Solomon whether Enbridge funds the
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: See No Evil At George Mason University
monkeys.shutterstock_10567591.jpg George Mason University (GMU) has labored for 2 years on simple plagiarism complaints. It has just written self-contradictory findings that avoided seeing plagiarism in the 2006 Wegman Report (WR) while admitting the same text elsewhere was plagiarism. In March 2010, climate scientist Ray Bradley complained to GMU of 2.5 pages
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: U.S. Chamber Front Group Holds “Whine And Blame” Facebook Party – Nobody Shows Up
American_Free_Enterprise_logo1.jpg American Free Enterprise, a front group of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, held a complaint session on Facebook on Tuesday afternoon to let Americans vent about “who is to blame” for rising gas prices. Unfortunately for the group, few people attended their virtual party. The pity party was an attempt
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: Fox News’s Attacks on Climate Science Now Include The Denial of Basic Physics
varneybastardi.jpg There was a time, believe it or not, when Fox New’s Shepard Smith openly mocked global warming deniers—seriously comparing them to a man who got stuck in a portable toilet. (Hat tip to D.R. Tucker for showing me this clip.) But since then, Fox has become a veritable misinformation machine
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: Big Oil Rakes In Billions, Still Complains Taxes Are Too High
20080810-violin.jpg The President rolled out his FY2013 budget recently, which includes eliminating $40 billion in tax breaks from Big Oil companies, such as BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, and Shell. Meanwhile, the American Petroleum Institute's response would have you believe that cutting the subsidies would be the equivalent of moving back
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: Fracking: Ohio Establishes Tough Regulations After Disposal Wells Cause 12 Earthquakes
earthquake.jpg State officials have determined that at least 12 earthquakes that occurred in Ohio last December were caused by the injection of brine into hydraulic fracturing disposal wells. As a result of its findings [pdf], the state has established the nation's "toughest regulations" for the fracking disposal wells. Brine is a
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: Republican Claims About Gas Prices Demonstrate Lack Of Knowledge About “Free Market”
gas prices.jpg As the national average for gas prices pushes closer and closer towards $4 a gallon, Republicans have wasted no time in attempting to convince the public that President Obama and his “hostility” towards the oil industry is the reason we’re feeling the squeeze at the pump. read more
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: Kochtopus Cato Institute Power Grab: A Historical Perspective
Kochtopus-3_0.png A new chapter is being added to the ongoing Kochtopus saga. On March 1 the Washington Post, in a story sure to fill the airwaves for the weeks and months to come, revealed the Kochtopus is suing the Cato Institute for control of the recently deceased and former Cato Chairman William Niskanen's ownership share in the think-tank.
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: Can Geeks Defeat Lies? Thoughts on a Fresh New Approach to Dealing With Online Errors, Misrepresentations, and Quackery
fact check universe.png This afternoon, I’ll be at MIT for this conference, sponsored by the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard and the MIT Center for Civic Media and entitled “Truthiness in Digital Media: A symposium that seeks to address propaganda and misinformation in the new media ecosystem.”
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