Message From the Editor

Can you be anti-cancer while pro-fossil fuels? That’s at the heart of the issue reporter Nick Cunningham explores in an exclusive DeSmog story on the “shameful” overlap in lobbyists between the American Cancer Society’s advocacy arm and fossil fuel companies, as outlined in a new report.

This network of lobbyists has, on the one hand, promoted anti-tobacco laws to protect public health while, on the other, campaigned for anti-protest laws that target climate advocates opposing fossil fuel expansion, just for starters. Meanwhile, a growing body of research ties fossil fuel production and use (including in gas stoves) to cancer and other health harms. The climate crisis also worsens exposure to cancer risk while making access to care more difficult — after all, it’s tough making that chemotherapy appointment when your city is flooding. 

That all is bad enough. “This conflict of interest extends beyond hypocrisy,” Sandra Steingraber, co-founder of Concerned Health Professionals of New York and longtime cancer patient, told DeSmog.

But the irony goes even further. For decades, the oil and gas industry, of course, has been using the tobacco industry’s tactical playbook to stoke a culture of climate denial, in part by using the very same lobbyists, PR firms, and think tanks. Read all about it in Nick’s story.

That denier culture reached the big screen this week with the premiere of Climate the Movie: The Cold Truth. Writer Adam Lowenstein braved 80 minutes of climate denial tropes dressed up in scientific-sounding, but totally baseless, arguments that not only climate change isn’t happening, but there’s a financially motivated conspiracy propping up climate research. Come for the idolization of CO2, but stay for the vitriol against the left? Eh, I suggest skipping the disinformation (and heartburn) and instead entertaining yourself with Adam’s movie review.

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. Readers like you support the work of DeSmog journalists who bravely stomach climate denial films (and screeds and tweets and…). Can you donate $10 or $20 right now to support more of this essential work?

Image credit: Pavel Trebukov (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 DEED)

A Green New Shine for a Tired Playbook

— By Adam M. Lowenstein (5 min. read) —

When a corner of the internet comes to life, it always looks a bit different than you’d expect. It’s less snarky, less vitriolic, less apocalyptic. It’s decidedly more human. Sometimes, in fact, it’s downright pleasant, particularly when the place you encounter it is a pristine movie theater in the suburbs.

Earlier this week I traveled to the Angelika Film Center in Fairfax, Virginia, for the premiere of Climate the Movie: The Cold Truth, a new documentary film that promises to reveal the real story behind what the film calls “the climate scare” — in other words, the notion that human beings are changing the climate through our use of fossil fuels. Directed by climate denier filmmaker, Martin Durkin, the screening was organized by the CO2 Coalition, a nonprofit that promotes carbon dioxide as playing a “vital role . . . in our environment.” The Heartland Institute and Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT) co-sponsored the event.

New Report Shows Cancer Organization Shares Lobbyists with Fossil Fuel Companies

— By Nick Cunningham (6 min) —

One of the U.S.’s leading anticancer groups has hired a network of lobbyists that also works on behalf of the fossil fuel industry, according to a new report.

The American Cancer Society’s Cancer Action Network (ACS CAN), the advocacy arm of the American Cancer Society, shares lobbyists with 21 fossil fuel companies across 10 states. Those shared relationships are impeding action on climate change and contributing to increased health harms to the public, undercutting the health organization’s own mission, according to the report by F Minus, a nonprofit group that tracks fossil fuel lobbying.

Activists Launch Their Own Investigation of  Mud Spill Near Pennsylvania LNG Pipeline

— By Diane Bernard (4 min. read) —

On February 15, Pennsylvania’s environmental regulator received an anonymous complaint that a mysterious white material was covering the bottom of a creek in Chester County — a tributary of nearby Marsh Creek Lake located about a thousand feet from the underground Mariner East pipeline. 

A day later, an inspector from the state’s Department of Environmental Conservation confirmed that the clay-like material was flowing from a nearby sinkhole into the stream and nearby wetlands.

Climate-Science Deniers, Right-Wing Think Tanks, and Fossil Fuel Shills Are Plotting Against the Clean Energy Transition

— By Rebecca Burns (17 min. read) —

This article by Sierra is published here as part of the global journalism collaboration Covering Climate Now.

LAST JULY, a small group of rabble-rousers boarded a trio of powerboats, banners and bullhorns in hand. They were headed for the massive floating construction site of an offshore wind farm 35 miles from the eastern tip of Long Island, New York. As the boats motored through the swells, the self-styled activists broke into a chorus of pleas for the wind farm construction to cease—chants likely intended less for the still-faraway workers than for the camera there to capture footage. “Hear this message: We’re here to save the whales!” called out a man in a black polo shirt. “If you were a fossil fuel project, you would have been shut down long ago.”

Fossil Fuel Lobby Kicks off Disinformation Campaign Against EPA Auto Emissions Rule

— By Adam M. Lowenstein (4 min. read) —

Fossil fuel interest groups have mobilized quickly to oppose a new rule issued by the Biden administration designed to speed up America’s transition to hybrid and electric vehicles.

The rule, which the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finalized on March 20, limits emissions from tailpipes on new cars, starting in 2027.

From the Climate Disinformation Database: Martin Durkin

Martin Durkin is the director of the climate change denial films The Great Global Warming Swindle (2007) and Climate: The Movie (The Cold Truth) (2024). He also directed the crowdfunded, pro-Brexit film Brexit: The Movie. In December, Durkin posted on X (formerly Twitter): “Behind the arrant nonsense of climate alarmism is a vicious attack on the prosperity & freedom of ordinary people. It is driven by a deranged contempt for material progress, a deep hatred of people, by self-interest, and a dark authoritarian urge to keep people under control."

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