Message From the Editor

This week, our investigative reporters Sara Sneath and Julie Dermansky covered the Marathon refinery fire and how difficult it is to get information during dangerous fossil fuel events.

Early last Friday, flames rose from two chemical storage tanks at the Marathon Petroleum refinery between Reserve and Garyville, Louisiana. Despite the alarming view, no community-wide alarms had sounded.

While parish officials declared a mandatory evacuation for all residents within two miles of the refinery, our reporter Julie Dermansky got inside the two-mile evacuation zone across the river from the plant without encountering a road block.

“I’m trying to figure out why did we hear nothing. We heard no siren, not even here,” said Geraline Watkins, a resident that lives nearby, recalling how she’s heard other chemical plants in the parish occasionally testing their emergency alarm.

We also published the next piece in the North Sea Investigations, a multi-year international reporting project on the battle for the future of the North Sea. Reporters Birte Schohaus, Margaux Tjoeng and Emily Gertz asked and attempted to answer the question “Who Is Going to Clean Up the Scrap Heap in the North Sea?”

Under a regional environmental treaty, the Netherlands has committed to removing their 150 gas and oil platforms from the Dutch part of the North Sea. Energie Beheer Nederland, the government-owned gas company, has formed an initiative with the Dutch oil and gas industry called Nexstep to manage the process.

Nexstep says it intends to complete the decommissioning of around 75 platforms by 2035, at an estimated cost of 2.4 billion euros. Whether that will work out remains to be seen.

Have a story tip or feedback? Get in touch: [email protected]. Want to know what our UK team is up to? Sign up for our UK newsletter.

Thanks,
Brendan DeMelle
Executive Director

P.S. Investigative journalism like this is made possible by readers like you. Can you donate $10 or $20 right now to support more of this essential work?

Image credit Edward Donnelly

As EU Weans Itself From Russian Energy, U.S. Shale Gas Industry Pushes New LNG Export Plant in Pennsylvania

— By Edward Donnelly (9 min. read) —

When Zulene Mayfield testifies next week against plans to build a $6.8 billion liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal in her Pennsylvania hometown, she will be facing off against some of the most powerful fossil fuel interests in the United States.

As co-founder of the community group Chester Residents Concerned for Quality Living, Mayfield has spent years fighting to protect her majority Black and low-income city from the pollution spewed by the nearby Covanta waste-to-energy facility — the country’s largest waste incinerator.

In Brazil, Right-Wing Think Tanks Align with Agribusiness to Seek a Path Back to Power

— By Lucas Araldi (9 min. read) —

“I even took off my farm boots and wore high heels to come here today,” Camila Telles told the audience of political activists, business executives, and students at April’s Liberty Forum, an annual conservative gathering in Brazil sponsored by the Atlas Network.

Telles is an agribusiness influencer – her clients include the major Brazilian meat producers Seara and Friboi – with more than 300,000 followers on Instagram and a talent for taking her pro-big farmer messages viral. From the dimly-lit stage, she opened the event’s first-ever panel on agribusiness with familiar talking points, mocking leftists for blaming climate change on cows.

Marathon Refinery Fire Illustrates How Industry Goes Quiet During a Crisis

— By Sara Sneath and Julie Dermansky (5 min. read) —

Ask Argentine politician, economist, and presidential candidate Javier Milei what he thinks of climate change, and he might tell you that it’s “another lie of socialism” and “part of the agenda of Cultural Marxism.” 

The right-wing politician is part of coalition Libertad Avanza and this August won the most votes in Argentina’s primary election, enabling him to run for president on October 23. Thick black smoke billowed and flames rose from two chemical storage tanks at the Marathon Petroleum refinery between Reserve and Garyville, Louisiana, on Friday. Geraldine Watkins saw the towers of smoke through the passenger seat window of a car that morning, while she was on her way to a court hearing about whether another tract of land in St. John the Baptist Parish, where Garyville is located, would be zoned for heavy industrial use.

Who Is Going to Clean Up the Scrap Heap in the North Sea?

— By Birte Schohaus, Margaux Tjoeng and Emily Gertz (16 min. read) —

“Now you know why you should keep your helmet on”, says Mark Mieras with a smile. He points upwards to the hungry gull hanging out 35 metres up on a towering scaffolding, dropping the mussels to crack them open on the ground.

Mieras is the manager of Hoondert Services & Decommissioning, a shipyard in the Dutch coastal town of Nieuwdorp, about 100 km (62 miles) southeast of Rotterdam. What looks like scaffolding turns out to be the legs of a discarded North Sea fossil fuel platform.

Montreal Bike Share Pulls Pathways Alliance Ads Amid Greenwashing Controversy

— By Taylor Noakes (6 min. read) —

An oil and gas industry lobby group under investigation for allegations of greenwashing has been marketing its members as leaders on the road to net zero on public transit agencies in Canada. 

Buses, trams, rental bikes, and bus shelters in Vancouver, Toronto, and Montreal have featured ads promoting the Pathways Alliance, a coalition of Canada’s six largest oil sands companies, for several months. On August 15, Montreal’s public bike-rental agency, Bixi, announced that it had asked Outfront, an advertising company, to remove all Pathways advertising from its system.

From the Climate Disinformation Database: Manhattan Institute for Policy Research

The Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, originally known as the International Center for Economic Policy Studies, was founded in 1978 by Antony Fisher and William Casey and in recent years has promoted climate science contrarianism while defending policies supporting the development of fossil fuels. According to the Manhattan Institute’s website, the think tank “produces ideas that are both literally and figuratively outside the Beltway. We have cultivated a staff of senior fellows and writers whose provocative books, essays, reviews, interviews, speeches, and op-ed pieces communicate our message and influence the debate.” The Manhattan Institute has contended that it is “unclear” whether human activity is causing global climate change: “Despite the certitude with which the media and politicians treat the issue, the science remains muddled.”

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