Flare system of a sea oil production platform Credit Stock photo
While continuing to fuel the climate emergency over the past decade, oil and gas majors relied on misleading messages rather than actually taking action to transition to clean energy, according to research released Wednesday.
The peer-reviewed study, published in the journal PLOS One, focused on two American companies, Chevron and ExxonMobil, as well as two European ones, BP and Shell—the four majors also at the center of an ongoing investigation by a U.S. House panel.
Three researchers at a pair of Japanese universities reviewed data from 2009 to 2020, examining the firms’ keyword use in annual reports; business strategies; and production, expenditures, and earnings for fossil fuels along with investments in clean energy.
“We found a strong increase in discourse related to ‘climate,’ ‘low-carbon,’ and ‘transition,’ especially by BP and Shell,” the paper states. “Similarly, we observed increasing tendencies toward strategies related to decarbonization and clean energy. But these are dominated by pledges rather than concrete actions.”
“Moreover, the financial analysis reveals a continuing business […]
Stephan: This is further proof of the MAGAt world death cult, and the triumph in that community of weaponized disinformation over facts and science. These people are literally committing medical suicide, and you and I are paying for part of that public seppuku.
Conservative Media bloc on this story
The use of two unproven COVID-19 treatments was higher in counties with a larger share of Republican voters in late 2020, according to a study released Friday, suggesting stark political differences in medical decisionmaking.
Hydroxychloroquine prescribing volume from June through December 2020 was roughly double what it had been the previous year, and prescriptions were 150 percent higher in the most Republican counties than in the least, according to the study published Friday in the JAMA Internal Medicine journal.
Hydroxychloroquine is an antimalarial drug that is also used to treat lupus and rheumatoid arthritis. Early in the pandemic, former President Trump called it a miracle drug for COVID-19, and it has been heavily promoted as a treatment for the virus by Trump allies despite almost no evidence.
The Food and Drug Administration issued an emergency use authorization for the drug in late March 2020, but then revoked it less than three months later. After FDA revoked the authorization, prescribing volume was more than twice as high in counties with the largest share […]
Stephan: This is a very good and detailed assessment of what is going on in the growing, in all senses, organic agriculture trend. Industrial chemical mono-culture agriculture, like carbon energy, must end. It does not recognize or respect the matrix of life. It does not support wellbeing.
Organic gardening
In 2000, Matthew Fitzgerald’s family started growing organic grains on 200 acres in central Minnesota. At the time, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) had just finalized the federal organic standards and many of the surrounding farmers growing conventional commodity crops saw their system as a threat and a denigration of their own practices, he recalls.
Today, their neighbors are much more accepting. Fitzgerald and his parents have spent over 20 years building relationships in their region while a much broader cultural shift has also taken place.
In that time, Fitzgerald Organics has expanded to 2,500 acres and the family has started a consulting business to help other commodity farmers transition to organic. “Our farm has grown as the industry has grown,” Fitzgerald said.
Now, they’re transitioning another 144 acres with the help of the Perennial Fund, which is putting $10 million into expanding organic acreage and has already funded 10 farmers transitioning 5,700 acres. It’s one of a number of new efforts to increase the number of certified organic acres across the U.S. Last […]
Stephan: Here is some good news. The Nordic nations lead the way all nations must follow. They are proactive on the conversion out of the carbon era, and building the necessary infrastructure to make the transition possible. This is why the Biden program to build a national universally available charging set up, just as gas stations proliferated. And it should be set up as a national system, and the necessary gear should be designed to a common standard. That supports wellbeing at every level from the grass to the sky.
And electric transportation, in accordance with the 8 Laws is going to be much cheaper in dozens of ways.
Heavy Duty EV industry trucksCredit: Scania
The EV revolution is rolling forward and it’s not waiting for stragglers. Yesterday, we featured a report from Fraunhofer ISI that explains why those waiting for hydrogen to become a fuel source for cars and trucks are bound to be disappointed. That report did admit there could be some justification for hydrogen in heavy trucks that travel long distances or haul especially heavy loads, but today comes word that battery-electric trucks are beginning to infiltrate those parts of the transportation spectrum as well.
Heavy Duty Electric Trucks From Scania In Sweden
Scania is a manufacturer of heavy duty trucks. It is part of Traton, which in turn is owned by Volkswagen Group. MAN is also part of Traton. According to Electrive, Scania is working on battery-electric trucks that are longer and heavier than EU standards. The custom-made products are being developed together with three customers in Sweden. The first example is already in service with Swedish chemical supplier Wibax. Two more giant electric trucks will be delivered this […]
Brian Kennedy, Alec Tyson and Cary Funk, Senior Research, Associate Director, Director Science and Scoiety Research - Pew Research Center
Stephan: This is a big deal because it gives us actual facts about an important trend going on in the American culture, a growing anti-intellectualism, anti-knowledge bias, particularly on the part of Republican men and women, although also amongst Democrats. Why is this so important? Because the only way we are going to be able to deal with pandemics -- and Covid is not the last one we will experience -- and climate change is by making decisions based on actual facts not nonsense, prejudice, or fantasy.
Americans’ confidence in groups and institutions has turned downward compared with just a year ago. Trust in scientists and medical scientists, once seemingly buoyed by their central role in addressing the coronavirus outbreak, is now below pre-pandemic levels.
Overall, 29% of U.S. adults say they have a great deal of confidence in medical scientists to act in the best interests of the public, down from 40% who said this in November 2020. Similarly, the share with a great deal of confidence in scientists to act in the public’s best interests is down by 10 percentage points (from 39% to 29%), according to a new Pew Research Center survey.
The new findings represent a shift in the recent trajectory of attitudes toward medical scientists and scientists. Public confidence in both groups had increased shortly after the start of the coronavirus outbreak, according to an April 2020 survey. Current ratings of medical scientists and scientists have now fallen below where they were in January 2019, before the emergence of the coronavirus.
Scientists and medical scientists are not the only groups and institutions to see […]
