Tag Archives: oil

PLEA Network
 2 June 2015, Renew Economy, Big Oil turns on Big Coal, but not to save the planet: In a stunning reversal on years of opposition to a global carbon price, the CEOs of six European oil and gas giants have said they are now ready for a price on carbon. But not so they can save the planet. Big Oil has broken ranks with Big Coal in a bid to save its own business model, hoping that an international carbon price will phase out coal and cause more gas to be consumed.

The CEOs of the European oil giants Shell, BP, Total, Statoil, Eni and BG Group, with a combined revenue of $US1.4 trillion – although notably not the US giants Chevron and Exxon – sent letters last Friday to the head of the UN climate negotiations, Christiana Figueres, and Laurent Fabius, France’s Foreign Affairs and International Development Minister who will also lead the Paris climate talks later this year. Read More here

PLEA Network
27 May 2015, Politico, ExxonMobil CEO mocks renewable energy in shareholder speech: The CEO of one of the world’s largest oil companies downplayed the effects of climate change at his company’s annual meeting Wednesday, telling shareholders his firm hadn’t invested in renewable energy because “We choose not to lose money on purpose.” “Mankind has this enormous capacity to deal with adversity,” ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson told the meeting, pointing to technologies that can combat inclement weather “that may or may not be induced by climate change.” Read more here  
PLEA Network

Why is oil and gas activity causing earthquakes? And can we reduce the risk? If you’ve been following the news lately, chances are you’ve heard about – or even felt – earthquakes in the central United States. During the past five years, there has been an unprecedented increase in earthquakes in the North American mid-continent, a region previously considered one of the most stable on Earth. According to a recent report by the Oklahoma Geological Survey, Oklahoma alone has seen seismicity rates increase 600 times compared to historic levels. The state has gone from experiencing fewer than two magnitude-three earthquakes per year to greater than two per day, the report found. Similarly, my home state of Texas has experienced a near 10-fold increase in magnitude-three earthquakes or greater in the past five years. Read More here

 

 

PLEA Network

27 April 2015, Climate News Network: Well drilling has deep impact on Great Plains’ health. Loss of vegetation on North America’s vast rangelands as a result of a huge increase in oil and gas wells invokes memories of the 1930s Dust Bowl disaster. Oil wells and natural gas may have made individual Americans rich, but they have impoverished the great plains of North America, according to new research. Fossil fuel prospectors have sunk 50,000 new wells a year since 2000 in three Canadian provinces and 11 US states, and have damaged the foundation of all economic growth: net primary production − otherwise known as biomass, or vegetation. Brady Allred, assistant professor of rangeland ecology at the University of Montana’s College of Forestry and Conservation, and colleagues write in the journal Science. Read More here