ein Irrgarten

Den verpassten

Schritt

im eigenen

Dickicht

im Schlamm

und Schnee 

nachzuholen

ein Irrgarten

der Schneespur

nach nirgendwo 

zu verfolgen

DeSmog

 

 

Message From the Editor

2022 was a banner year for DeSmog. We grew our ranks, expanded our global coverage, and added new beats and regular features. 

I’m so proud of all that our small-but-mighty team accomplished, and I’m excited for what the new year holds. We’ll be working harder than ever to shed light on the forces of climate denial and delay, and to share the voices of those on the frontlines of climate change.

We’re going to be taking a break next week so that we can rest up and charge into the new year refreshed. But we won’t be leaving you without reading material over the holidays! 

Between now and early January, we’ve got a stellar lineup of original reporting and analysis queued up for you. We kicked it off this week with a personal photo essay from multimedia journalist Julie Dermansky, who reflects on the past year’s ever-present examples of gaslighting and the climate crisis. 

After Christmas, we’ll have another Julie original — a photo essay recapping the big stories of 2022 that she followed — as well as a review of the year’s climate liability lawsuits from Dana Drugmand. Finally, we’ll kick off the new year with a roundup that will give you a sneak peek at the issues that our editors and contributors will be watching in 2023.

In the meantime, all of us at DeSmog wish you peaceful and happy holidays!

Have a story tip or feedback? Get in touch: editor@desmog.com. Want to know what our UK team is up to? Sign up for our UK newsletter.

Thanks,
Brendan DeMelle
Executive Director

P.S. Our powerful public interest journalism is made possible by our generous donors. Can you donate $10 or $20 right now to support our team?

Image credit: Julie Dermansky

 

 

 

 

 

A Window into Louisiana’s Continued Embrace of the Fossil Fuel Industry

— By Julie Dermansky (8 min. read) —

I live in South Louisiana on the front lines of the climate crisis and cover the fossil fuel industry and impacts related to the warming planet, so facing gaslighting is a regular occurrence for me. 

So it resonated with me that Merriam-Webster dictionary chose “gaslighting” as the word of the year. This year saw a 1,740 percent increase in lookups for gaslighting, according to a post by the dictionary company, which defines gaslighting as “the act or practice of grossly misleading someone especially for one’s own advantage.”

 

READ MORE

 

 

 

 

Sowing Doubt: How Big Ag is Delaying Sustainable Farming in Europe

— By Clare Carlile (13 min. read) —

In the spring of 2020, the European Union announced an ambitious plan to overhaul farming practices in fields and valleys across the continent. Named Farm to Fork, it calls for less fertiliser and pesticide use, and more organic production.

Veteran sustainable food and farming experts welcomed the strategy as one that just might have a genuine shot at transforming the agriculture sector and result in better public health, contribute to ending the vertiginous decline of biodiversity, and lower greenhouse gas pollution.

 

READ MORE

 

 

 

 

Environmental Activists Fight Back as Companies Resort to ‘Lawfare’ to Quash Criticism

— By Isabella Kaminski (8 min. read) —

In 1999, when Shpresa Loshaj was 19, she fled her home town of Deçan, Kosovo, as a refugee and moved to Canada. When she returned in 2018, long after the war had ended, a journalist encouraged her to go into the hills and take a look at some new hydropower plants on the river Lumbardhi i Deçanit. The journalist was investigating claims by local people that the plants run by KelKos, a subsidiary of Austrian energy firm Kelag, were operating without permits and potentially damaging the local ecosystem and water infrastructure.

 

READ MORE

 

 

 

 

Defective Meters and Whistleblower Complaints Raise Questions About Gas Utility’s Profits

— By Chris May (17 min. read) —

A little over a decade ago, Gary Dye, then a gas measurement engineer at NW Natural, Oregon’s largest gas utility, lost faith in his employer to responsibly deal with what he believed to be systematic inaccuracies among the company’s hundreds of thousands of gas meters. 

On a quest to tame these inaccuracies, in late 2011, he proposed a simple technical fix that he claims will “result in more accurate billing, extended meter lives, reduced landfill waste, and a more efficient utilization of [utility] personnel.”

 

READ MORE

 

 

 

 

Phantom Gas and Missing Documents Reveal Gaps in Utility Oversight

— By Chris May (11 min. read) —

When Gary Dye, a former engineer with Oregon’s largest gas utility, began blowing the whistle on alleged unethical behavior by his employer, he never dreamed his nearly two-dozen complaints would amount to nothing.

He filed 21 internal complaints in 2012, then bumped them up to the Oregon Public Utility Commission (OPUC), the group that regulates utilities in the state, later that year. There, he met with OPUC staff in person and exchanged emails with Lori Koho, then OPUC’s senior official overseeing natural gas utilities. He hoped that his list of complaints would show “how the unethical culture [at NW Natural] goes all the way to the top,” as one of his emails to Koho explains.

 

READ MORE

 

 

 

From the Climate Disinformation Database: Ian Clark

 

Ian Clark is a professor in the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Ottawa. He was a Science Advisor to the Natural Resources Stewardship Project (NRSP), and is a “scientist on call” to the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) a group that has also referred to him as an “Arctic specialist.” In a 2004 letter to the editor, Clark wrote “I am compelled to disagree that there is a consensus of scientists who agree that this [climate change] is the consequence of human activities. While the melting of permafrost, retreat of glaciers and waning of the permanent ice pack may be alarming, it is only alarming to those unfamiliar with past changes in climate in the North. Paleoclimatologists recognize such events as part of natural changes wholly unrelated to CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere.”

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

 

alle Jahre

Wenn alle

Jahre bald

den letzten

Tag ankünden

wird es

leer im

Wohnzimmer

dann entfernt

sich der

Partner

er bleibt

klein hinter

dem sauberen

Holztisch

stehen

um sich

danach

dem eigenen

Leben 

zuzuwenden

Am schwarzen Schuh

Die Sohle
durchgetreten
am schwarzen
Schuh

der Schuhmacher
ist in
der Schnelle
mit einem
Bus zu erreichen

In jede Richtung

Am Drehkreuz
mit schwarz
umfassten
Enden

wird die
Wegzeit

in jede
Richtung
gleichermassen

auf Stunden
zum Ziel
des Lebens
hin berechnet

Das erste Mal

Durch die
Scheiben
der Bergsonne
in die Stube
fällt Licht

die Grossmutter
hält
sitzend
ihren Nächsten
ihr Urteil
und Gericht

es ist das
erste Mal

dass sie
nach ihrem Tod

mit ihren
Nachfahren
und Zugewandten
spricht

Zum Seitenportal

Mit der Nacht
in Gedanken
aus Geschichten
von Beziehungen

zum Seitenportal

den Schritt
hinein in
fröhliche
Versammlung

Für Ungläubige

Zur Messe
werden
keine Diener
gebraucht

auch sonst
nur hinter
denen die
ihren Platz
in der Kirche
durch ein Erbe
gesichert

unter dem Schatten
der Empore
im Bank
wird der Platz
für Ungläubige
frei gehalten

 

Ablass

Die Seele gibt mir durch die Erinnerung

quer der Gedankenwelt zu verstehen

das vieles aus der Vergangenheit 

mir dem kein Ablass möglich ist

Ayatollah ali chamenei

Ayatollah ali chamenei / Ebrahim Raisi

Proteste im Iran: Die Aktivistin Narges Mohammadi erläutert den „Missbrauch“ von inhaftierten Frauen 

Der Terror gegen die eigene Bevölkerung ist ein Verbrechen

Wladimir Michailowitsch Gundjajew

Dimitri Anatoljewitsch Medwedew / Wladimir Wladimirowitsch Putin / Dmitri Walerjewitsch Utkin / Wladimir Michailowitsch Gundjajew / 

Deportationen von Menschen aus der Ukraine 

Die Lektionen für den Kreml, der aus den historischen Erfahrung, durch Genozid an der eigenen Bevölkerung, unter Иосиф Виссарионович Сталин nichts gelernt hat. Stalins Genozid in der Ukraine: „Eine Wahrheit, die man jahrzehntelang zu vertuschen versuchte“ Der Genozid und der Terror in der Ukraine geht weiter.

Die neoimperialen Angriffskriege des Kreml sind ein Verbrechen.

im Traum

Der Versuch

im Traum

mit einem

erfundenen 

Namen

im Drama

der Seele

eine eigene

Geschichte 

zu machen

Im herein

Mit fragenden
dunklen
Augen

das unbekannte
Kind

seine
genässte
Windel

im herein
zur Tür

Das Einfache

 Dem Willkommen

in fröhlicher
Gemeinschaft

zur Feier
im Tanzreigen
mit Kindern
in Wiese
und Feld

der Abschied
in ein
Durcheinander
von Gedanken

zurück in
das Einfache
von Welt

Zum Haarschnitt

Die Abmachung
zum Haarschnitt
nicht eingehalten

Ein vergangenes dort

In ein vergangenes
dort gerufen

im Streit
zwischen Frau
und Mann

zu Grundgedanken
der unteilbaren Würde
des Menschen

Die Treppe hinab

Die Vereinigung
der Vielfalt
der Gläubigen
lässt den Suchenden
nicht die Treppe
zu den
Auserwählten
von der Empore
die Treppe hinab

प्रेम एक अवधारणा है

प्रेम एक अवधारणा है

दूसरों के माध्यम से हम में मुख्य संतुलन

बनाने और पूरा करने के लिए

हम सभी अकेले हैं

अपने आप के साथ

मैं अपने अगले जन्म में कभी पूर्णता तक नहीं पहुंच पाऊंगा, भले ही मेरे कर्म अच्छे हों

लिंगविहीन लोग अन्य सभी की तरह अविभाज्य मानवीय गरिमा के होते हैं

अगम्य प्रिय मेरे भीतर की दुनिया में रहता है

बाहरी दुनिया अतीत से मेरी ओर आती है

वो आत्मा

मैं आज्ञा का पालन करता हूं

वो आत्मा

जो मेरे द्वारा बचपन से डाली गई छायाओं को लगातार गिन रहा है

नदी के बहते पानी में मेरे चेहरे की तलाश करना व्यर्थ है

जिस आईने में मैं अपना चेहरा देखता हूं वह है और चुप रहता है

मुझे खुद को खुद में और दुनिया में खोजने की जरूरत नहीं है, मैं दोनों दुनिया में हूं

DeSmog

December 23, 2022 - UK Edition From rogue Tory backbenchers to North Sea profits for Putin, in the past year the DeSmog UK team has kept tabs on the people, money and PR machines that work to slow meaningful action on climate change. In 2022 this has led us to stories that have unmasked all manner of trickery: from the minutiae of misleading stickers marketing “hydrogen-ready” boilers to the sinister presence of sanctioned coal barons at this year’s COP27 climate summit. It was a tough year for the green transition. Climate targets were under threat from all sides with climate science deniers, politicians and media platforms exploiting the war in Ukraine and ensuing energy crisis to demand an increase in fossil fuel extraction. We saw misinformation surge from familiar and new sources, with a disturbing conflation of “QAnon” and anti-vax conspiracy theories with climate opposition. Meanwhile, corporations’ greenwashing tactics morphed, sometimes into forms of dizzying complexity – in the case of voluntary carbon markets. It was also the year that “solutioneering” took hold in agriculture – source of 30 percent of greenhouse gas emissions – as major players announced net zero plans and began to push harder on sometimes fanciful technologies (think: capturing cow burps), at the expense of the deeper transformations needed to safeguard nature and the climate. At the same time, it was a year in which the case for climate action could not have been clearer. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine showed the real dangers of relying on brutal polluting petrostates for energy, and climate impacts became tragically ever more present across the world.  Plenty for DeSmog to get stuck into, in summary. And we were, in essence, all over it. It was a tough call to select the highlights, but here you have my Editor’s pick of our Top 10– in no particular order – chosen for going deep, originality, capturing the political moment, scoring victories for the climate movement or straight-up popularity… From all of us at DeSmog: have a very happy Christmas and New Year. See you on the other side. If you're interested in what DeSmog's getting up to around the world, sign up to our international newsletter. As always, we love feedback on the newsletter. If you have anything to say, please email editor@desmog.uk. Image credit: various Support DeSmog: donate today! DeSmog exists to hold the powerful to account on their climate pledges. If you think that's important too, then please support us. We are determined to keep DeSmog free to access. But we are independent, meaning we don't take advertising money and we don't have corporate donors. So we rely on the support of you, our dear readers, to continue our work. If you can, please donate today! NEW STORIES Editor’s Pick: Top DeSmog UK Stories of 2022 From rogue Tory backbenchers to North Sea profits for Putin, in the past year the DeSmog UK team has kept tabs on the people, money and PR machines that work to slow meaningful action on climate change. In 2022 this has led us to stories that have unmasked all manner of trickery: from the minutiae of misleading stickers marketing “hydrogen-ready” boilers to the sinister presence of sanctioned coal barons at this year’s COP27 climate summit. Read more... Sowing Doubt: How Big Ag is Delaying Sustainable Farming in Europe In the spring of 2020, the European Union announced an ambitious plan to overhaul farming practices in fields and valleys across the continent. Named Farm to Fork, it calls for less fertiliser and pesticide use, and more organic production. Veteran sustainable food and farming experts welcomed the strategy as one that just might have a genuine shot at tackling biodiversity loss and greenhouse gas pollution from the sector. Read more... Environmental Activists Fight Back as Companies Resort to ‘Lawfare’ to Quash Criticism In 1999, when Shpresa Loshaj was 19, she fled her home town of Deçan, Kosovo, as a refugee and moved to Canada. When she returned in 2018, long after the war had ended, a journalist encouraged her to go into the hills and take a look at some new hydropower plants on the river Lumbardhi i Deçanit. The journalist was investigating claims by local people that the plants were operating without permits and potentially damaging the local ecosystem and water infrastructure. Read more... New Study Reveals Billions of Dollars in Political Spending by US Trade Associations, Most of It on PR Industry trade associations in the United States that work on climate and energy issues spent more than $3 billion over 10 years on political activities, according to a new study that sheds light on trade associations’ role in influencing policies and obstructing climate action. The new paper by scholars Robert Brulle of Brown University and Christian Downie of The Australian National University, published Monday in the journal Climatic Change, examined the political spending of nearly 90 U.S. trade associations from 2008 to 2018. Read more... Gazprom ‘Anticipates’ Further North Sea Gas Exploration Amid Bumper Profits Gazprom expects to continue exploring for new reserves in the North Sea, having paid itself a £28 million dividend from drilling operations in the area, its latest accounts show. Subsidiaries of the Russian state-owned gas giant still have stakes in multiple fields more than nine months after the invasion of Ukraine began and despite its chief executive being under UK sanctions. Read more... ENJOYED THE READ? WHY NOT SIGN UP?! Been forwarded this email? Seen it somewhere else? Why not skip the middleman and click here to sign up to get it delivered straight to your inbox every week. And if you want to support DeSmog UK, become a Patron today!