brainsWEB.jpg I was on the road last week, so I couldn’t properly respond to this Daily Caller item, which is really sort of marvelous. Basically, it’s an attempt to use a handful of survey data points to turn the whole Republican Brain line of analysis on its head, and argue
Continue readingTag: Desmogblog
DeSmogBlog: ALEC Wasn’t First Industry Trojan Horse Behind Fracking Disclosure Bill – Enter Council of State Governments
shutterstock_95581429.jpg 19th Century German statesman Otto von Bismarck once said, "If you like laws and sausages, you should never watch either one being made." The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), put on the map by the Center for Media and Democracy in its "ALEC Exposed" project, is the archetype of von Bismarck's truism. So too are the fracking chemical
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: EPA Shale Gas Emissions Standards: "Too Little, Too Late"
Picture 4.png The gas industry received a blow yesterday when the nonprofit group Physicians, Scientists & Engineers for Healthy Energy (PSE) released a joint statement by Professors Anthony Ingraffea and Robert Howarth of Cornell University. According to the release the EPA’s new emissions standards for methane and volatile organics from
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: Comparing Territories: Tar Sands Blanket Caribou Habitat
Picture 3.png As the controversy surrounding Canada’s proposed wolf cull in Alberta grows, the provincial government is attempting to limit criticism directed at the country’s polluting Tar Sands – the prime driver behind the region’s rapid decline in caribou populations. Alberta’s Ministry of Sustainable Resource Development (SRD) is the government
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: Let’s Just Say It: When It Comes to Science, The Right is the Problem
polar_House_Means.jpg This weekend in The Washington Post, two deans of the Washington establishment, the Brookings Institution’s Thomas Mann and the American Enterprise Institute’s Norman Ornstein, finally stated what has been increasingly obvious: The problem with U.S. politics is coming from the right, not from “both sides.” In their piece, provocatively
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: Heartland Institute Attacks Forecast the Facts, Denies Its Climate Change Denial
heartland logo.jpg This is a guest post by Daniel Souweine, Campaign Director, Forecast The Facts On April 24, Heartland Institute President Joe Bast issued an angry missive attacking Forecast the Facts, a new campaign that successfully petitioned automobile giant General Motors to end their financial support of Heartland earlier this month.
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: U.S. Republican Koch oil billionaires help fund the Fraser Institute. Why the Fraser Institute?
Vancouver Observer.png Authored by Jenny Uechi, originally published at Vancouver Observer. Re-posted with permisison. U.S. libertarian oil billionaire brothers David and Charles Koch have poured at least half a million dollars into The Fraser Institute over the last few years. In case you haven't been following their trail, here's a bit
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: Chesapeake Energy Well Blowout in Wyoming Causes Evacuation, Methane "Roared" For Days
chesapeake-energy.jpg A potentially dangerous oil well blowout at a Chesapeake Energy site in Wymoing caused at least 60 and perhaps 70 residents to evacuate within 5 miles of the disaster for several days until it was contained earlier today. Chesapeake Energy (NYSE: CHK) was drilling the well in the Niobrara Shale
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: Coal Ash Sites Posing Increasing Dangers To Water Supplies, Public Health
toxins-in-water.jpg The Environmental Integrity Project (EIP) has once again put together a fantastic report regarding water contamination near coal ash disposal sites. Last year, the EIP released several reports showing that drinking water near coal ash disposal sites in states across America contained dangerous levels of heavy metals and other
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: Koch Brothers fund Fraser Institute
Fraser Institute.gif Hats off to Alex Stoymenoff at the Vancouver Observer for turning up evidence that the Koch Brothers have been ladling money into Canada's own climate dissembling Fraser Institute since at least 2008. It helps to answer why a so-called "think" tank – even one so ideologically hidebound as the
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: American Lung Association Releases 2012 State of the Air Report
state of the air 2012.jpg The American Lung Association (ALA) released their annual State of the Air report today, followed by a live discussion on Twitter where the organization answered questions. While the report offers some positive news for American citizens, it also shows us that the Clean Air Act
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: Dirty Energy Industry Front Groups Launch Misleading PR Blitz Against President Obama
gas price screenshot.jpg The American Energy Alliance (AEA) isn’t pulling any punches with their new advertising campaign, spending millions of dollars to air 45 million ad spots on Pandora Radio. They are attempting to hang the high cost of gasoline around the neck of President Obama, using a series of
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: ALEC Launches Assault on Renewable Energy Industry
ALEC Exposed Image.jpg The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), as covered previously by DeSmogBlog, is the "Trojan Horse" behind mandating that climate change denial ("skepticism," or "balance," in its words) be taught in K-12 classrooms. Well, ALEC is at it again, it appears. Facing an IRS complaint filed by Common Cause, one of the
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: Justice Department Files First Criminal Charges In BP Oil Disaster Probe
bp_oil-leak.jpg The U.S. Department of Justice has filed its first criminal charges into their investigation into the cover up of BP’s oil geyser in the Gulf of Mexico. The charges have been filed against Kurt Mix, a former engineer for BP, for allegedly destroying evidence related to the oil flow
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: Rendell and Ridge: From "Militant" Labelers to Terrorist Enablers
Ed Rendell MEK.jpg A new chapter has been added to the shale gas industry's eco-terrorism, counterinsurgency and psychological operations saga. In March, NBC News investigative reporter Michael Isikoff revealed that many prominent U.S. public officials are on the payroll of the People's Mujahedin of Iran (MEK), a group labeled by the U.S. State Department as a
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: Exposing the Gas Industry’s Myth of ‘Recycled Water’
fracking-photo-drink.jpg Reposted with permission from EcoWatch.org (a fantastic site that you should bookmark and visit often) Authored by Mackenzie Schoonmaker and Mike Dulong from Riverkeeper Every time the gas industry fracks, the public loses. We forfeit an enormous amount of fresh water from our rivers, lakes and streams, and we get
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: The State Of The Gulf Two Years After Deepwater Horizon Disaster
bp-logo-oil.jpg Today marks the two-year anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion that killed 11 rig workers and subsequently caused an oil geyser in the Gulf of Mexico that leaked hundreds of millions of gallons of crude oil into the water. The mainstream press will provide coverage over the
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: New Bakken Shale Pipeline to Cushing, OK in the Works
shutterstock_79616923.jpg The controversy over TransCanada's Keystone XL pipeline has raged on for years now, with no end in sight. The Keystone XL pipeline would carry tar sands crude from the tar sands epicenter of the world in Alberta, Canada, take it down to Cushing, OK, and then eventually down to Port Arthur, TX, where
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: Unethicull Oil: What Alberta’s Wolf Cull Plan Tells Us About Canada’s Oil Addiction
Picture 5.png DeSmog recently sent a team to the tar sands region of Alberta to investigate the proposed government plan to systematically kill off the province’s wild wolf population in a supposed effort to recover dwindling caribou herds. The proposed cull has been widely criticized internationally for placing the interests
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: Institute for Energy Research Launches “Save Oil Tax Breaks” Offensive
IER.jpg In late March, Senate Republicans torpedoed an effort by Democrats to repeal the $4 billion a year that is flowing to the oil companies in the form of subsidies. The Obama Administration had proposed ending the subsidies so that this unnecessary money for the oil industry could instead be
Continue reading