Message From the Editor

The American Petroleum Institute (API), the nation’s largest oil and gas trade association, has a new ad campaign, rolled out on TV, social media, billboards, and airports.

Those ads clearly point to the industry going all in on natural gas, even flipping the usual order and calling itself the “natural gas and oil industry.”

As Justin Mikulka shows in his fact-check of these ads, they promote gas as a climate solution with questionable claims about reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Meanwhile, fracked gas is being transported in “Virtual Pipeline” trucks across the Northeast, and another of these trucks has crashed, killing its driver, and leaking methane into the atmosphere.

And the fracking industry is poised to pass on the costs for cleaning up its many abandoned oil and gas wells to the public.

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

Thanks,
Brendan DeMelle
Executive Director

Fact-checking the American Petroleum Institute's New Ads Selling Natural Gas as a Climate Solution

— By Justin Mikulka (8 min. read) —

In 1998, the U.S.'s largest oil and gas industry lobbying group, the American Petroleum Institute (API), was involved with a communications plan whose goal was promoting “uncertainties in climate science” among the American public. Over 20 years later, their communications plan looks a little different but still needs fact-checking.

In September, API began running TV, billboard, and social media ads promoting natural gas as a climate solution. “Thanks to natural gas, the U.S. is leading the way in reducing emissions,” the ads claim, and “leading the world in cutting greenhouse gas emissions.” But is all of that true?

After Second Deadly Crash, Regulators Say Trucks Leaking Fracked Gas Cargo Are Fine

— By Justin Nobel (6 min. read) —

Last Friday, October 11, a “Virtual Pipeline” truck carrying compressed natural gas crashed on a highway in Orange, Massachusetts, killing the driver, leaking the potent greenhouse gas methane into the atmosphere, and leading local authorities to evacuate nearby residents.

“Let me put this in perspective, if one of these trucks blew up in the right conditions, it could destroy a neighborhood,” said Bill Huston, director of a research and advocacy program called Terra Vigilate, and one of a small group of advocates raising awareness about the extreme risks of fire and explosion of Virtual Pipeline trucks. “We have called every state and federal agency, we have called the news media, and nobody is responding. These trucks are a brand-new technology, and nearly entirely unregulated — it’s very frustrating.”

Will the Public End up Paying to Clean up the Fracking Boom?

— By Justin Mikulka (8 min. read) —

Increasingly, U.S. shale firms appear unable to pay back investors for the money borrowed to fuel the last decade of the fracking boom. In a similar vein, those companies also seem poised to stiff the public on cleanup costs for abandoned oil and gas wells once the producers have moved on.

“It’s starting to become out of control, and we want to rein this in,” Bruce Hicks, Assistant Director of the North Dakota Oil and Gas Division, said in August about companies abandoning oil and gas wells. If North Dakota’s regulators, some of the most industry-friendly in the country, are sounding the alarm, then that doesn’t bode well for the rest of the nation.

Right Wing Attacks on Greta Thunberg: How Low Can They Go? Canada's Extremist Network 'The Rebel' Tries for the Prize

— By Brendan DeMelle (4 min. read) —

The Koch-funded right wing echo chamber seems obsessed with competing to insult and vilify Greta Thunberg in the most vile and disgusting ways imaginable. The sixteen-year-old climate activist has faced a coordinated barrage of bullying and harassment that started long before she set sail for America. “Freak yachting accidents do happen…” was a particularly disturbing attack, coming from British businessman and Trump ally Arron Banks.

But right now, Greta's in Alberta, home to some of the world's dirtiest oil, and also apparently some of the dirtiest mudslinging against the courageous and clear-spoken Swede.

Opinion: We Owe Greta and the Youth More Than a Nobel Prize

— By David Suzuki (4 min. read) —

Many people, including me, expected Greta Thunberg to win this year's Nobel Peace Prize. Instead, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed Ali was deservedly awarded for ending more than 20 years of conflict with neighboring Eritrea.

Greta and the young people worldwide urging adults to care about their future don't need a Nobel. They need grown-ups to take them seriously and heed the scientific evidence about global warming.

Revealed: Anglo American Mine Expansion Could Put Chile's Glaciers and Emissions Goals At Risk

— By Matt Maynard (9 min. read) —

The emissions from a new Anglo American underground mine project in Chile could be catastrophic for the host nation of the next UN climate talks, DeSmog can reveal. The multinational company has so far avoided scrutiny of the project by hollowing out regional environmental organisations and sharing erroneous information with the scientific community.

“This project poses a risk to Santiago’s fresh water supply and wilderness areas,” Ezio Costa, the Executive Director of Chilean environmental justice NGO FIMA, told DeSmog about Los Bronces Underground (LBU) expansion project. If it goes ahead, “they would be failing to consider the impact on the global climate system, and risking Chile's commitments for its protection.”

Bayou Bridge Pipeline Construction Mess Poses Major Risk to Atchafalaya Basin

— By Julie Dermansky (6 min. read) —

“It is a crime against nature,” Jody Meche, president of the Louisiana Crawfish Producers Association-West, said while scanning the Bayou Bridge pipeline right-of-way on the west side of the Atchafalaya Basin, the country’s largest river swamp in a designated National Heritage Area.

His voice trembled with rage as he told me that he was speaking for all the animals living in the basin that can’t speak for themselves.

Massachusetts Lawmakers Step Up Pressure on Enbridge to Scrap Controversial Gas Compressor Station

— By Itai Vardi (4 min. read) —

Lawmakers from Massachusetts urged Canadian energy-giant Enbridge on Wednesday to reconsider the siting of a compressor station in a densely populated area outside of Boston. In a letter to the company’s president and CEO Al Monaco, United States Senator and presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren, together with Senator Ed Markey and Representative Stephen Lynch, asked Enbridge to find an alternative to locating the compressor station in Weymouth.

Compressor stations, which propel natural gas through pipelines, emit a variety of pollutants and are usually built in rural areas.

Climate Change and Other Frights: 13 Environmental Books to Scare You Into Action

— By John R. Platt, The Revelator (5 min. read) —

“Horror,” wrote novelist and critic Douglas E. Winter, “is not a genre. It is an emotion.”

You know what else generates some horrifying emotions? Topics like climate change and pollution.

As we approach the Halloween season, let’s dive into those fears with a batch of new books about those most fright-inducing of environmental topics. I’ve selected the 13 scariest (and most informative) environmental books published so far this year, pulled from the recommendations in my monthly “Revelator Reads” column.

Dominion Buys Pipeline Support at Supreme Court Through GOP Attorneys General

— By Kelly Roache, Energy and Policy Institute (6 min. read) —

With the US Supreme Court poised to decide this month whether it will review a ruling key to the Atlantic Coast Pipeline’s future, majority-owner of the project Dominion Energy has received support in its case from Republican state Attorneys General and the US Department of Justice. Both US Attorney General William Barr and the state Attorneys General have close financial ties to the utility – including through a GOP group that funneled millions to one key proponent.

From the Climate Disinformation Database: Judith Curry

Judith Curry is a geophysical scientist and former professor at the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Curry resigned from her position at Georgia Tech on January 1, 2017, citing the “craziness” of climate science, and plans to focus on her private business, Climate Forecast Applications Network. She questions “the conclusion that humans are the dominant cause of recent climate change.” Writing on her blog in November 2016, Curry said, “in terms of climate hoaxes, perhaps it is NOT Donald Trump’s whose pants are on fire.”

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