Message From the Editor

A review of social media posts and online publications by DeSmog found dozens of prominent climate deniers — both individuals and organizations — posted messages supporting the January 6 insurrectionists, spread debunked claims about election fraud, hinted at civil war, or, in one case, suggested that Twitter’s effort to remove online disinformation about the election should be viewed as “worse than 9-11.” Sharon Kelly has the story.
This week we also report on a fire which erupted earlier this month at a West Virginia facility that processes radioactive oilfield waste generated from nearby fracking operations, injuring two workers. The blast raises concerns about the risk to health and the environment from waste processing facilities like this which continue to pop up around the Marcellus and Utica shale region. Community members, advocacy groups, and some industry workers fear that the government isn’t properly regulating or monitoring the toxic and radioactive waste produced from fracking and being processed at sites like the West Virginia facility. Justin Nobel reports.

Meanwhile, an 18-month inquiry led by the province of Alberta into environmental groups opposed to Canadian tar sands is nearing completion — but a Canadian NGO wants the CA$3.5 million inquiry disbanded, alleging that it was improperly established to intimidate opponents of the fossil fuel industry. Read more here.

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.

Climate Deniers Backed Violence and Spread Pro-Insurrection Messages Before, During, and After January 6

— By Sharon Kelly (12 min. read) —

On the evening of January 6, 2021, the day of the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, former coal mining executive Don Blankenship, who ran against Donald Trump as a third-party candidate in the 2020 election, began an all-caps Twitter thread.

“Why is it that American politicians and the American media support citizen uprisings in China, Poland, South Africa, and throughout the world, but when an American citizen is killed during an uprising against a corrupt American government the citizens are at fault?” @DonBlankenship posted on Twitter.

Fire at Oil and Gas Waste Site Raises Safety Concerns Around Possible Radioactive Accidents

— By Justin Nobel (12 min. read) —

On the evening of February 1, a fire erupted at a West Virginia facility that processes radioactive oilfield waste generated from nearby fracking operations, injuring two workers. A video of the fire captured by local news station WTRF shows a raging nighttime inferno billowing out of the collapsed building.

Initial news reports described the facility — located in Dallas Pike, 50 miles southwest of Pittsburgh — as a truck stop cleaning station. However, the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection (WVDEP) confirmed to DeSmog that the facility, which the agency says is owned and operated by Ohio-based company Petta Enterprises, does a lot more than clean trucks: It processes oil and gas waste. And the agency confirmed that it was the volatile nature of this waste — transported inside trucks arriving at the site — that helped cause the blaze.

Environmental Groups Fight Back Against Alberta’s 'Anti-Energy' Inquiry

— By Nick Cunningham (6 min. read) —

An 18-month inquiry led by the province of Alberta into environmental groups opposed to Canadian tar sands is nearing completion, but a Canadian NGO wants the CA$3.5 million inquiry disbanded, alleging that it was improperly established to intimidate opponents of the fossil fuel industry.

In July 2019, the province of Alberta set up a “public inquiry” to investigate the “anti-Alberta energy campaigns” supposedly backed by “foreign organizations.” It was the fulfillment of a campaign promise by Alberta Premier Jason Kenney, who vowed to fight “foreign meddling” that he says has been injurious to the province’s oil and gas industry, singling out foreign philanthropic organizations such as the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and the William and Flora Hewlett foundation, and foreign funding for Canadian environmental groups such as Environmental Defence and the Pembina Institute.

Analysis: The Natural Gas Industry Is Trying To Deny How Affordable Renewable Energy Is

— By Justin Mikulka (10 min. read) —

Fossil fuel industry supporters and climate deniers are pushing a new climate falsehood when it comes to renewable energy: that natural gas offers a more affordable future. And they’re focusing their misinformation campaign on New Jersey.

Rather than denying the existence of climate change, the industry has switched to trying to delay the energy transition to clean energy — a transition that New Jersey’s energy master plan, introduced in January 2020 by Governor Phil Murphy, hopes to achieve. The Energy Master Plan (EMP) aims to transition the state to 100 percent clean energy by 2050.

Environmental Activists in Louisiana Call on Senator Cassidy to ‘Do No Harm’

— By Julie Dermansky (8 min. read) —

“It took courage for Senator Cassidy to vote against Trump,” Sharon Lavigne, the founder of the faith-based grassroots organization RISE St. James, said about the Louisiana Republican after the impeachment hearing of the former president. “He voted with his conscience, not his party. Now he has to find the courage to honor his oath as a doctor and stop more petrochemical plants from being built in fenceline communities.”

But Senator Bill Cassidy voting with the Democrats to convict Trump doesn’t represent a change in his patrician support of the fossil fuel industry.

From the Climate Disinformation Database: Patrick Moore

Patrick Moore is a Canadian nuclear energy advocate and founder of Greenspirit Enterprises, a PR company he started in 1991 that works “with many leading organizations in forestry, biotechnology, aquaculture and plastics, developing solutions in the areas of natural resources, biodiversity, energy and climate change.” Moore is often incorrectly referred to as a founder of Greenpeace. Following the January 6 insurrection in Washington, D.C., Moore was among those who decried Twitter’s attempt to crackdown on the amount of disinformation and calls to violence made on the social media site. “@Twitter has sent > 5,000 of my Followers to the Gulag in the past 28 days,” Moore tweeted on January 9. “It’s worse than Pearl Harbour or 9-11.”

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