school-bus.jpg This is a guest post by Juanita Constible, Science and Solutions Director of The Climate Reality Project, cross-posted with permission. As a scientist, I know how important it is for our kids to get a top-notch science education. So it’s extremely significant that a new set of national science standards
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DeSmogBlog: Is The EPA Covering Up Oil Dispersant Dangers?
dispersant.jpg Less than two years ago, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) told BP that they had to stop using the highly dangerous and potentially toxic oil dispersant Corexit on the oil that was spewing from a blown out wellhead at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico. BP refused, and
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: Koch "Facts" Flummoxed Over Undeniable Tar Sands Business, Keystone XL Interest
Koch Facts.png Authored by Connor Gibson, cross-posted with permission from PolluterWatch.org For those who missed the deep investigative piece published by InsideClimate News last week documenting a half-century of Koch Industries involvement in the destructive tar sands of Alberta, Canada, it has finally closed the coffin on a vicious round
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: FreedomWorks Creates Error-Filled Site To Accuse EPA Of "Killing Jobs"
EPA Kills Jobs Facebook Ad.jpg FreedomWorks, the sister organization to the Koch-funded Americans for Prosperity (AFP), has launched a new website and advertising campaign to convince American voters that the Obama administration and the EPA are out to destroy American jobs. FreedomWorks has been instrumental in creating the Tea Party in
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: The Weekly Standard on “Hillbilly” Climate Denial
WStandard.c1.v17-34.May21.Cover_.jpg In its latest cover story, the conservative Weekly Standard has decided to try to refute, outside of the scientific literature, the large body of research on the psychological underpinnings of political ideology (summarized in my book The Republican Brain). The critique, written by Andrew Ferguson, fails badly, in part
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: Illinois Coal Association Emerges As Heartland Denial-a-Palooza Sponsor
shutterstock_71070031.jpg Following the May 4 shocking Unabomber billboard campaign and subsequent departures of more of Heartland's corporate donors, Heartland was likely heartened to add the Illinois Coal Association as a new Gold Sponsor for its forthcoming ICCC-7 "climate" conference. Although ICA was not on the 05/09/12 sponsor list, it joined the
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: Canadian Environmental Groups Black Out to Speak Out Against Government Threats to Nature & Democracy
Blackoutspeakout.png With full page ads in the Globe and Mail and La Presse national newspapers, a major coalition of Canadian environmental non-profits have come together to launch the Black Out Speak Out campaign (Silence, on parle! pour la Francophonie.) CPAWS, David Suzuki Foundation, Ecojustice, Equiterre, Environmental Defence, Greenpeace, Nature Canada, Pembina
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: Greenpeace Uncovers Shocking Photos Of Gulf Of Mexico Oil Disaster
More than two years after the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded and BP's well spewed millions of gallons of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico, Greenpeace has finally been granted access to pictures that show the real impact of the oil on marine life. The pictures were obtained via
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: Tar Sands Oil Companies 71 Percent Foreign-Owned – Cue Ezra Levant’s Outrage
Foreign Control of Tar Sands.png ForestEthics released a game-changing research brief today documenting the massive foreign control of Alberta's tar sands oil industry. Publicly traded oil companies with active tar sands operations have a very high level of foreign ownership – 71 per cent. Some supposedly "Canadian" oil companies including
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: Corporate Exodus From Heartland Institute Continues As USAA and Insurers Bail
heartland_billboard.jpg In the wake of the outrageous Heartland Institute billboard campaign equating everyone who acknowledges the science of global warming with "murderers, tyrants, and madmen," many of the group's corporate donors are fleeing away, lest their public reputations get sullied by Heartland's recklessness. Today, Forecast The Facts announced that USAA,
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: The Onion Skewers The Boom in Fracking PR Spin
theonion_logo.png In typically grand fashion, satirical news source The Onion has skewered the rise of misleading PR bankrolled by the oil and gas industry to defend the dangerous practice of fracking. Although the piece is not "real" news, anyone could be forgiven for taking it as fact since it isn't
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: Fracking Disclosure Proposals: Way Too Little, Much Too Late
frackingfluids.jpg The federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has finally decided to do something about the lack of oversight regarding fracking fluids. A new proposal by the agency would finally require the fracking industry to disclose the chemical cocktails they are injecting into the ground at fracking well sites. The
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: The Guardian Exposes Fossil Funded Groups Coordinating Renewable Energy Attacks
shutterstock_90778001.jpg Ever wonder why a blooming green energy industry has faced such harsh opposition? Now, as the old adage goes, "the cat's out of the bag." The Guardian today revealed the network of fossil-funded groups coordinating the ongoing onslaught of attacks on renewable energy, particularly wind power. A memorandum passed to The Guardian from
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: A View From Nowhere? The Case Against Knee-Jerk Centrism When It Comes to Politics and Science
n_hayes_gopuniteso_120505.jpg Debate over The Republican Brain is mounting, as emotional (and highly extraverted?) conservatives fling meaningless attacks at the book—attacks so off target it’s doubtful in most cases that the critics read the book—but scientists admit that it represents the research on ideology accurately. That’s what just happened Saturday morning
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: Diageo: Liquor giant backs away from science-dissembling Heartland Institute
Diageo brands.jpg The London-based liquor giant Diageo has joined the companies that are criticizing or cutting off the Heartland Institute in protest over its campaigns to confuse people about climate science and to cast prominent climate activists as "murderers, tyrants and madmen." As Leo Hickman reports in the Guardian, a
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: Microsoft Fail: Computer company criticizes Heartland but won’t withhold future support
Microsoft corp citizenship.png Microsoft is finally taking a clearer position denouncing the Heartland Institute's irresponsible position on climate science, but the computer megacorp still won't shut the door on providing Heartland with free software in the future. In the wake of Heartland's highly offensive advertising campaign, in which Heartland said, flatly,
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: Cue the Defections: Rep. Sensenbrenner First To Pull Out of Heartland Institute’s Denial-a-Palooza Conference
heartland_billboard.jpg Although not likely to be the last, Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-WI) became the first speaker to distance himself from Heartland Institute's outrageous billboard stunt today, telling the Washington Post that he will no longer attend Heartland's forthcoming denier conference in Chicago, a.k.a. Denial-a-Palooza. Washington Post's Greg Sargent reports in his
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: Will Heartland Institute’s Corporate Funders Tacitly Endorse Comparing Climate Realists to bin Laden and the Unabomber?
heartland logo.jpg UPDATE: The Washington Post reports that Joe Bast and the Heartland Institute will discontinue the outrageous billboard campaign in a matter of hours. Bast issued the following statement to the Washington Post: We will stop running [the billboard] at 4:00 p.m. CST today. (It’s a digital billboard, so a
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: Heartland Billboard: "the most prominent advocates of global warming aren’t scientists; they are murderers, tyrants, and madmen"
Heartland Billboard.png The Heartland Institute's current President, Joe Bast, has launched a billboard campaign denouncing science, scientists, conscientious political activists – and by association EVERYONE else who speaks with concern about climate change – as murderous, tyanical or insane. Settling on that third descriptor, it's difficult to imagine what kind of
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: B.C. Protest This Saturday to Stop Warren Buffett’s BNSF Coal Trains
shutterstock_14976709.jpg Warren Buffett, the third wealthiest man on the planet (net worth: $44 billion), often referred to as the "Oracle of Omaha," is the target of a May 5 action called for by Stop Coal B.C. Well, not Buffett directly, but a rail company he owns through his massive holding company, Berkshire
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