Abandoned North Sea Wells May be Emitting ‘Significant’ Amounts of Methane, Study Warns

By Kyla Mandel, DeSmog Blog

Abandoned offshore oil and gas wells in the North Sea may be a source of significant methane emissions finds a new study, which claims to be the first to measure the amount of methane leaking from offshore wells. According to the study published recently in the journal Environmental Science and Technology, about one third of the region’s wells could be releasing between 3 and 17 thousand tonnes of methane into the North Sea each year. “

What Lies Beneath? The Scientific Understatement of Climate Risks

By David Spratt, Ian Dunlop, Climate Code Red

A fast, emergency-scale transition to a post-fossil fuel world is absolutely necessary to address climate change. But this is excluded from consideration by policymakers because it is considered to be too disruptive. The orthodoxy is that there is time for an orderly economic transition within the current short-termist political paradigm. Discussion of what would be safe –– less warming that we presently experience –– is non-existent. And so we have a policy failure of epic proportions.

Hurricane Harvey: Connecting the Dots between Climate Change and More Extreme Events

By Staff, Climate Nexus, Climate Code Red

The underlying reason for the uncertainty around talking about climate change is because the fossil fuel industry deliberately obscured this reality from the public for decades, and has a vested interest in limiting knowledge around the damage that their products cause. Muting discussion on climate change as a devastating storm unfolds is a political strategy that serves the interests of those who wish to delay meaningful action on climate change.

How to Get Banks Not to Fund Oil Pipelines? Aim Big and Keep Showing Up

By Shannan Stoll, YES! magazine

On Friday, climate activists led by indigenous leaders and environmental groups gathered outside branches of JP Morgan Chase and Wells Fargo in downtown Seattle to protest their financing of tar sands pipelines. It’s not the first time the banks have been besieged by activists—and probably won’t be the last.

As Houston Plots a Sustainable Path Forward, it’s Leaving this Neighborhood Behind

By Raj Mankad, Grist

Juan Parras gives one hell of a tour of Houston’s east side. He’s charming and funny. Wearing a beret, he strikes an old-world look, like he might lead you to a cafe on a plaza. He doesn’t charge a fee for his services. After all, you’re on a “toxic tour,” and Parras is on a mission.

This Is the Drilling Method for Most US Oil But Regulators Offer Almost No Oversight

By Steve Horn, DeSmog Blog

Hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) and offshore drilling garner a lot of news headlines when it comes to oil and gas issues in America, but they're far from the only game in town, with those two drilling techniques not even constituting the majority of U.S. oil and gas production. For that, look to enhanced oil recovery (EOR), an under-regulated drilling method that has been around for over a century and could be threatening drinking water sources

Does Prime Minister Trudeau Understand the Climate Crisis? An Open Letter from E4A

By E4A Staff, Economics for the Anthropocene

Our approach starts with an unequivocal realization: human activity is systematically degrading our planet’s life-support systems. Yet prevailing norms and institutions continue to rely on systems of thought which are not fit for the situation we are now in. Through a new synthesis of contemporary science, economics and the humanities, we aim to reconcile fragmented disciplines and find a path to a world where our relationship with the community of life on Earth becomes mutually enhancing.

One-Third of BC’s Oil and Gas Wells Leaking Significant Levels of Methane, Study Finds

By Andrew Nikiforuk, The Tyee

About 35 per cent of British Columbia’s 11,000 active oil wells, abandoned wells and water injection wells in the northeastern part of the province are leaking significant amounts of methane, according to a forthcoming new study. The report will be released later in the summer and submitted to the industry-funded BC Oil and Gas Commission.

Stopping Climate Injustice

By Sam Bliss, E4A

Your body makes itself from the matter around you. What you eat, drink, inhale, touch, and experience literally becomes you. You are your environment, and it is you. Releasing toxic substances into the environment means injecting them into bodies, human and non-human. The climate system connects everyone’s environments.

Huge Victory in Seneca Lake: After Years of Protest, Gas Storage Project Abandoned

By Nika Knight, Common Dreams

After a years-long popular resistance against a proposed fracked gas storage project in Seneca Lake, N.Y., the people have emerged victorious. The Arlington Storage Company announced Wednesday that it was finally abandoning a contentious plan to store fracked gas in unlined salt caverns along the pristine lake in New York's Finger Lakes region.

Seven Things that Need to Happen to Keep Global Temperature Rise below 2C

By Jocelyn Timperley, Carbon Brief

In late 2015, the world agreed to limit the global temperature rise to “well below 2C”. Ever since the signing of the Paris Agreement on climate change, scientists, think tanks and policymakers have been scrambling to define exactly what meeting this temperature limit will mean in policy and investment terms.

The Macabre Petroleum Waltz of Trump and Putin

By Andrew Nikiforuk, The Tyee

Oil has fueled a bully bromance between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin.