30,000 confidential documents about Gulf oil spill
Under the Freedom of Information Act Greenpeace has collected some 30,000 confidential documents related to the Gulf oil spill and made them available in the new PolluterWatch Research site. Included in the documents are internal correspondence with BP, flight records, notes about the types of animal carcasses collected and much (much) more. polluterwatch.org
Millions for climate denial
In 2009 Koch family foundations gave $6.4 million to organizations that are part of the climate denial machine, raising the total sum given to these groups since 1997 to $55.2 million. And of that rather impressive sum, $31.6 million of that total has been spent in the last five years for which financial data is available (2005-2009). greenpeace.org.
That “denial machine” is a network of think tanks and front groups, many of which receive funding from other fossil fuel interests as well, that have dedicated themselves in part to convincing the public (and the public officials it elects) that climate change isn’t real. These include libertarian think tanks like the Cato Institute and organizations like the Heritage foundation, which have strong ties to media outlets and, of course, are influential to conservative politicians. And the Koch brothers — each of whom are tied for fifth wealthiest man in America — fund them heavily.
26% of global CO2 emissions come from traded goods and services
Global CO2 emissions from the production of traded goods and services have increased from 4.3 Gt CO2 in 1990 (20% of global anthropogenic emissions) to 7.8 Gt CO2 in 2008 (26%), according to a new open access study by researchers from Germany and the US, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
To quantify the growth in emission transfers via international trade, Peters et al. developed a trade-linked global database for CO2 emissions covering 113 countries and 57 economic sectors from 1990 to 2008. They found that most developed countries have increased their consumption-based emissions faster than their territorial emissions, and non–energy-intensive manufacturing had a key role in the emission transfers. The net emission transfers via international trade from developing to developed countries increased from 0.4 Gt CO2 in 1990 to 1.6 Gt CO2 in 2008, which exceeds the Kyoto Protocol emission reductions.