Message From the Editor

We are so excited to share with you how DeSmog is evolving and expanding globally to keep up with the evolution of climate science denial. This week we revealed our new global mission and website dedicated to fearless investigations and comprehensive resources to combat the ongoing crisis of climate solutions denial and social injustices — and all on DeSmog’s 15th anniversary! Read all about how we’re encouraging our team to pursue newsgathering and investigations with a global perspective here.

To kick off this amazing next chapter, we are also publishing a slew of stellar stories. This includes an analysis of the directors of the world’s leading banks and their connections to polluting industries. As our team uncovered, 65 percent of directors from 39 banks had 940 past or current connections to industries that could be considered climate-conflicted. Dig into the data here.

We also explore the legacy of a pioneering environmental justice lawyer who first challenged fossil fuel companies over climate change in court. The feature is about how Luke Cole and an Alaskan community spearheaded a landmark climate lawsuit against fossil fuel giants — and helped empower other marginalized communities to stand up for themselves. Rico Moore has the story.

Finally, don’t miss this exclusive: Last year’s Hurricane Zeta nearly caused “another Deepwater Horizon catastrophe” in the Gulf of Mexico. A near-miss offshore oil rig accident raises questions of corporate management in a battered oil industry, how drillers will handle increasingly volatile hurricanes, and federal oversight of the offshore drilling industry nearly 11 years after the Gulf of Mexico was coated in oil. Sharon Kelly has the scoop.

Have a story tip or feedback? Get in touch: editor@desmogblog.com.

Thanks,
Brendan DeMelle
Executive Director

P.S. Readers like you make it possible for DeSmog to hold accountable powerful people in industry and government. Even a $10 or $20 donation helps support DeSmog’s investigative journalism.

A New Chapter and New Look for DeSmog

— By Brendan DeMelle (3 min. read) —

Today, the team at DeSmog is excited to reveal our new global mission and website dedicated to fearless investigations and comprehensive resources to combat the ongoing crisis of climate solutions denial and social injustices.

We’re celebrating DeSmog’s 15th anniversary of clearing the PR pollution that clouds climate science, and expanding our mission to expose the powerful forces behind the disinformation campaigns responsible for delaying climate and energy solutions. These industry-funded propaganda and polarization tactics have had a corrosive impact on democracies worldwide, resulting in a dangerously ineffective response to climate change. And the climate crisis, in turn, disproportionately affects communities of color and those who have been marginalized by some of the same systems of power and industries responsible for climate change.

Revealed: The Climate-Conflicted Directors Leading the World’s Top Banks

— By Phoebe Cooke, Rachel Sherrington and Mat Hope (11 min. read) —

The majority of directors at the world’s biggest banks have affiliations to polluting companies and organisations, a DeSmog investigation shows. The findings raise concerns over a systemic conflict of interest at a time when the international financial sector is under increasing pressure to stop funding fossil fuels.

DeSmog’s analysis found 65 percent of directors from 39 banks had 940 past or current connections to industries that could be considered climate-conflicted.

The Life and Death of a Pioneering Environmental Justice Lawyer

— By Rico Moore (20 min. read) —

Each storm season brings increased stress and fear for the people of Kivalina, a tiny Native village of some 400 Inupiaq people that sits on a small barrier island on the shore of the Chukchi Sea in Alaska. For decades, there was no reliable way of evacuating people in the event of a severe storm; the only way on or off the island was by small plane or boat, neither of which are available or safe during high winds, storm surges, and inundation. A bridge to the mainland was only recently completed. Meanwhile, the island is rapidly eroding out from under the village.

When fierce storms appear on the horizon, the children get especially anxious and the elderly worry, which has impacts on their health. Increasingly hotter global temperatures mean the sea ice, which would have formed a barrier to protect the island from storms, forms much later in the storm season and melts much sooner. Without that protective sea ice, the island’s residents know that the community’s burial site, and the remains of 400 of their ancestors, will one day wash away.

Exclusive: 2020’s Hurricane Zeta Nearly Caused ‘Another Deepwater Horizon Catastrophe’ in Gulf of Mexico

— By Sharon Kelly (12 min. read) —

It was Thursday, October 22, 2020, when the crew aboard the Transocean Deepwater Asgard, an ultra-deepwater rig in the Gulf of Mexico, started monitoring a weather disturbance in the nearby Caribbean Sea that bore the tell-tale signs of a forming hurricane.

But the Asgard, which was drilling an oil well in the waters about 225 miles south of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, had other pressing matters to deal with. That same day, the oil well it was drilling more than a mile below the water’s surface experienced a kick — an eruption of oil, gas, or other fluids from deep underground up the drill pipe. If not properly controlled, this type of incident can sometimes lead to a blowout.

Indigenous Communities March For Justice A Year On From Devastating Amazon Oil Spill

— By Phoebe Cooke (4 min. read) —

Hundreds of Indigenous activists took to the streets in Ecuador this week to demand justice on the one-year anniversary of the country’s worst oil spill in 15 years.

Demonstrators marched through the Amazonian city of Coca to call on authorities to take responsibility for the 16,000 barrels of crude oil that poured into the Coca and Napo rivers when two pipelines ruptured last year.

‘Lukewarmist’ Peer Set for Role Scrutinising Government Climate Policy

— By Rachel Sherrington (2 min. read) —

A Conservative peer who was until last year a trustee of the UK’s most prominent climate science denial group is set to be appointed to a parliamentary committee tasked with overseeing the UK government’s climate policy.

Lord Peter Lilley, who has disputed mainstream climate science and was one of just five MPs to oppose the UK’s climate change act in 2008, is listed alongside 12 other peers proposed as members of the new environment and climate change committee (ECCC), due to be formally appointed next week.

Global Coal Use is Falling But Not Fast Enough to Tackle Climate Change

— By Justin Mikulka (4 min. read) —

Despite drops in energy usage during the pandemic, coal power use only declined by four percent in 2020, according to a new report.

While coal used for power generation dropped 20 percent in both the U.S. and the European Union last year, the same is not happening in China.

How U.S. ‘Risk-Takers’ Took a Gamble on Somalia’s Oil — Then Vanished

— By Phoebe Cooke and Abdalle Ahmed Mumin (14 min. read) —

A few days into the New Year, armed Somali intelligence officials were seen escorting guests into three bullet-proof cars at Mogadishu’s Aden Adde International airport. An unusual quiet stretched through the capital’s normally busy main streets as the convoy snaked through cordoned-off roads towards Somalia’s presidential palace.

Local and international media reported that two foreign companies were arriving in Mogadishu to sign a “secret” historic oil deal with the Federal Government of Somalia (FGS), the first agreement of this kind since civil war erupted in the country in 1991. Opposition politicians wrote a letter to the president that warned against the “dangerous agreement” which they said raised concerns over transparency just a month ahead of the country’s first “one person, one vote” election since 1969.

Indigenous Youth Rally Calls on Biden to Cancel Line 3 and Dakota Access Pipelines

— By Nick Cunningham (7 min. read) —

On March 31, President Joe Biden unveiled the blueprint for a $2.25 trillion infrastructure package, which would include enormous investments in renewable energy, electric vehicles, and public transit, along with roads, bridges, and water infrastructure. The White House is billing it as a “generational investment” that will lead to “transformational progress in our ability to tackle climate change.”

But a day later, Indigenous youth and organizers opposing the Line 3 and Dakota Access pipelines rallied in front of the White House against the two fossil fuel pipelines. They also delivered a petition with 400,000 signatures to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, calling for the cancelation of both projects, and for the Biden administration to “Build Back Fossil Free” while fulfilling promises on climate action, Indigenous rights, and environmental justice.

Fossil Fuel Tax Programs to Cut Emissions Lead to Lots of Industry Profit, Little Climate Action

— By Justin Mikulka (8 min. read) —

The fossil fuel industry and its investors have financially benefited from tax policies and subsidies designed to reduce the emissions from oil, gas, and coal — sometimes without taking the action required to tackle climate change.

Recently, claims have been surfacing of companies taking the taxpayer money offered to incentivize these actions but not following through on reducing their emissions. In March, for example, Reuters reported that Congress has opened an investigation into problems with the government’s “clean coal” tax credit. This is after Reuters revealed that financial institutions, including Goldman Sachs, were making huge profits off the program, despite it not effectively reducing emissions.

From the Climate Disinformation Database: Peter Lilley

Peter Lilley is a former British Conservative Party MP and until April 2020, sat on the Board of Trustees of the UK climate science denying thinktank the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF). He began his political career as Parliamentary Private Secretary to then Chancellor Nigel Lawson, founder of the GWPF. This week DeSmog reported that he is set to be appointed to a parliamentary committee tasked with overseeing the UK government’s climate policy.

Read the full profile and browse other individuals and organizations in our Climate Disinformation Database and Koch Network Database.