Message From the Editor

“Instead of sleepwalking us toward disaster, the U.S. news media need to remember their Paul Revere responsibilities — to awaken, inform, and rouse the people to action,” on climate change, wrote Mark Hertsgaard and Kyle Pope in announcing a global media collaboration called “Covering Climate Now.”

This week, as DeSmog has joined more than 250 other publications in reporting on the climate crisis, it is clear that the people have been roused. On Friday, millions of children and adults around the world showed their support for acting on climate in strikes from Melbourne, Australia, to Washington, D.C.

But as we know around here, many forces are working against climate action, which we outline in our coverage this week (and every week). In a special jointly published story with La Marea’s Climatica, we chart the rise of populism, and with it, climate science denial, across Europe.

And of course, the Koch network’s influence is easy to see in efforts working against adoption of electric cars, shows Ben Jervey.

Check out all of our Covering Climate Now stories this week, and allow yourself to be awakened, informed, and roused to action against the greatest challenge the modern world has ever faced.

Thanks,
Brendan DeMelle
Executive Director

P.S. Don’t forget to follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube to get the latest updates from DeSmog.

Climate Strikers Demand Climate Justice On 'Historic' Day Of Protest

— By Sophie Yeo (6 min. read) —

Millions of children and adults are expected to strike across the globe today, inspired by Swedish activist Greta Thunberg’s call for climate action. 

The strikes are happening ahead of the UN Climate Summit, which is taking place in New York on 23 September. 

Climate strikers are calling for a “rapid revolution” to prevent global warming, with fossil fuels phased out fairly and swiftly and everyone has access to a safe future. The concept of “climate justice” is at the heart of their demands, so that vulnerable people aren't hurt by the dramatic shifts required to transition to a zero carbon world.

How the Rise of Populism is Fuelling Climate Science Denial Across Europe

— By Mat Hope (9 min. read) —

In December 2015, European Commission President Jean-Claude Junker stood at a podium to hail the world’s first comprehensive agreement to take action on climate change, and told the world, “the Paris Agreement now reflects our ambition worldwide.” While the European Union’s leaders stand by that sentiment, a lot has changed since then.

The Union is facing a credibility crisis, threatened by Brexit and the rise of populism across the continent. Its leadership is facing calls to simultaneously increase its ambition to tackle climate change and cut the very regulations that would deliver reductions in globe-warming pollution.

How the Koch Network's ‘Social Change' Strategy Is Built to Kill the Electric Car

— By Ben Jervey (17 min. read) —

If it feels like the oil industry’s attacks on the burgeoning electric car market are well coordinated, that’s because they are. The industry is following a blueprint laid out decades ago, and refined ever since, by Koch network insiders.

In a revelatory article, published in Philanthropy Magazine in 1996, an executive vice president of Koch Industries named Richard Fink laid out a three-tiered integrated strategy for promoting libertarian ideals and free-market principles, and, in doing so, protecting the Kochs’ sprawling petrochemical refining and shipping businesses. 

Are ISO's Draft Guidelines on Climate Action the First Steps Toward Geoengineering?

— By Justin Mikulka (5 min. read) —

In August, the French news service AFP revealed that the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) has been drafting new climate action guidelines for businesses that raise concerns about promoting geoengineering as a climate solution. 

The ISO is an industry-driven  non-governmental organization that sets international standards for products, services, and systems, giving it a powerful voice in the global business community.

In Another Win for Koch Network, Trump Strips States' Rights to Adopt Clean Car Standards

— By Ben Jervey (5 min. read) —

The Trump administration is expected to formally announce today that it is rescinding California's authority to set greenhouse gas emission standards for automobiles. The long-anticipated move is certain to set off a legal battle, as attorneys general in states impacted by the decision have promised to take legal action against the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to defend their right to regulate emissions from personal vehicles.

Currently, 14 states and the District of Columbia, serving a population of more than 118 million, have adopted these more stringent tailpipe pollution standards in order to protect the public health of their communities. 

Op-ed: Geoengineering Distracts From Real Climate Solutions While Giving Cover to the Fossil Fuel Industry

— By Justin Mikulka (9 min. read) —

In 2019, I think it's safe to say that humans are capable of wreaking great and terrible changes upon Earth's systems. To name a few: acid rain, deforestation, and climate change. Reversing such problems is, on its face, quite simple. Stop releasing smog-forming pollution. Stop cutting down forests. Stop burning fossil fuels.

In some cases, humanity has risen to these challenges, and for example, greatly reduced acid rain in North America since the 1970s, 80s, and 90s. But when it comes to climate change, there's a growing chorus, often bolstered by the fossil fuel industry, who support a controversial set of approaches to mitigating global warming, not by directly addressing the primary source of the problem — continuing to combust great volumes of oil, gas, and coal — but by further inducing massive changes to planetary systems.

Fossil Fuel Ad Campaigns Emphasize 'Positives' After Climate Science Denial PR Lands Industry in Hot Seat

— By Sharon Kelly (7 min. read) —

Public relations experts keep a careful eye on the multitude of ways that PR can go wrong: tracking the year’s biggest “PR blunders,” assessing flopped ads for lessons learned, and noting when to remain silent and when to circulate a particular point of view.

PR blunders have been blamed for causing stock prices to dip, powerful executives to lose jobs, and occasionally even forced public apologies from PR representatives themselves.

Attacks on Greta Thunberg Are About More Than Anti-Environmentalism

— By Mat Hope  (6 min. read) —

“Freak yachting accidents do happen…”

That was how British businessman, Trump ally, and Brexit bankroller Arron Banks responded to the news that Greta Thunberg, the Swedish teen who inspired the school climate strikes movement, was sailing to America to attend the UN Climate Action Summit. His scorn was not unique. 

Many people have already spilled thousands of words of commentary explaining how personal attacks on Greta — often lobbed by old white men, sometimes mocking her Aspergers — are unacceptable. But understanding where those attackers come from, ideologically and professionally, casts an important light on some of their dark statements.

Cheap Renewables Could Make 90% of Proposed Gas Power Plants — and Many Pipelines — Obsolete by 2035

— By Sharon Kelly (12 min. read) —

There’s one big reason that analysts say America’s electrical power should soon run on clean energy sources like wind and solar rather than fossil fuels like coal and natural gas: your power bill.

A lot has changed when it comes to power generation in the past 16 years. In 2003, if you flipped on a light switch most places in the U.S., odds were you were setting into motion the final link in a chain of events that started in a coal mine or a mountain-top removal project. The U.S. got more than half of its electricity from burning coal that year, followed distantly by nuclear and gas. Coal had a long-standing reputation for being a cheap, if dirty, way to get things done.

From the Climate Disinformation Database: The Institute for Humane Studies

The Institute for Humane Studies is a non-profit organization hosted by George Mason University. Charles Koch is the Chairman of the Institute for Humane Studies' board of directors, and according to a Greenpeace analysis, the Institute for Humane Studies has received at least $30,033,549 from Koch foundation grants from 1997-2015. Several prominent climate science deniers, including Fred Singer, hold positions at the institute.

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