Environmental Destruction Media Articles
We cut through the fearmongering and political correctness of mainstream environmental discussions to expose the corporations and captured government agencies driving environmental destruction. Below are key excerpts of revealing news articles on energy inventions from reliable news media sources. If any link fails to function, a paywall blocks full access, or the article is no longer available, try these digital tools.
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On June 23, 1988, [James E. Hansen], the NASA scientist testified before the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. He expressed to the senators his high degree of confidence in a cause-and-effect relationship between the greenhouse effect and observed warming. Mr. Hansens testimony described three possible scenarios for the future of carbon dioxide emissions. He called Scenario A business as usual, as it maintained the accelerating emissions growth typical of the 1970s and 80s. This scenario predicted the earth would warm 1 degree Celsius by 2018. Scenario B set emissions lower, rising at the same rate today as in 1988. Mr. Hansen called this outcome the most plausible, and predicted it would lead to about 0.7 degree of warming by this year. He added a final projection, Scenario C, which he deemed highly unlikely: constant emissions beginning in 2000. Thirty years of data have been collected since Mr. Hansen outlined his scenarios. And the winner is Scenario C. Global surface temperature has not increased significantly since 2000, discounting the larger-than-usual El Nio of 2015-16. It isnt just Mr. Hansen who got it wrong. Models devised by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have, on average, predicted about twice as much warming as has been observed since global satellite temperature monitoring began 40 years ago.
Note: The full text of this article is available on this webpage.There is virtually no doubt that global warming is real, yet there has been rampant fear mongering and exaggeration around it. For more on this, see this intriguing article. For an alternative view, see this article. For more, see concise summaries of deeply revealing climate change news articles from reliable major media sources.
A widely used pesticide could be placing frog populations in danger by diminishing their ability to reproduce properly. Not only does exposure to the chemical linuron a potato herbicide reduce male frog fertility, it skews the sex ratios of growing tadpoles significantly towards females. The devastation pesticides have caused to insect populations has been well documented, with German scientists warning of an ecological Armageddon when they found numbers had plummeted by 75 per cent in the countrys nature reserves. Knock-on effects further up the food chain are thought to be behind the disappearance of many bird species from the European countryside. But pesticides can have toxic effects on other animals too, and there has been a distinct lack of research into their effects on amphibians. To improve this situation, ecotoxicologist Dr Cecilia Berg of the University of Uppsala and a team of ... researchers set out to investigate the effects of linuron in the West African clawed frog. They found that the tadpoles grew ovaries substantially more than they grew testicles, an effect the team attributed to the endocrine disrupting or hormone disrupting properties of linuron, which could hinder production of testosterone. The male frogs exposed to the chemicals as tadpoles were less fertile and had certain feminine characteristics. While linuron is not licensed for use in the UK ... it is widely used in other parts of the European Union (EU) and North America.
Note: Don't forget that humans drink the water contaminated by these chemicals, too. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on food system corruption and health.
Someone appears to be producing a banned ozone-depleting chemical, interfering with the recovery of Earth's damaged ozone layer, according to a newly published study led by scientists with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The illicit emissions are believed to be coming from somewhere in eastern Asia, but nothing else is known about the offender. It's a scientific whodunit. The scientists say the atmospheric level of trichlorofluoromethane, or CFC-11, is ... not declining as quickly as it should be. "It appears that emissions of CFC-11 have increased in recent years, which is quite a surprise given the fact that production has been phased out," [the study's lead author Stephen] Montzka says. CFCs, or chlorofluorocarbons, "were once widely used in the manufacture of aerosol sprays, as blowing agents for foams and packing materials, as solvents, and as refrigerants." But scientists realized the chemicals were harming the ozone layer. So in the late 1980s, the world agreed to phase out the use of the chemicals. Production was supposed to have stopped as of 2010. The amount of CFC-11 in the atmosphere should be declining more and more each year, allowing the ozone layer to replenish. The scientists ... concluded that CFC-11 emissions started to increase after 2012, two years after production of the chemical was reportedly at zero.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing climate change news articles from reliable major media sources.
For decades, some of the dirtiest, darkest secrets of the chemical industry have been kept in Carol Van Strums barn. The ... structure in rural Oregon housed more than 100,000 pages of documents obtained through legal discovery in lawsuits against Dow, Monsanto, the Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Forest Service, the Air Force, and pulp and paper companies, among others. As of today, those documents and others ... will be publicly available through a project called the Poison Papers. The library contains more than 200,000 pages of information and lays out a 40-year history of deceit and collusion involving the chemical industry and the regulatory agencies that were supposed to be protecting human health and the environment, said Peter von Stackelberg, a journalist who along with the Center for Media and Democracy and the Bioscience Resource Project helped put the collection online. Van Strum didnt set out to be the repository for the peoples pushback against the chemical industry. But [in 1974] she realized the Forest Service was spraying her area with an herbicide called 2,4,5-T. The chemicals hurt people and animals. Residents ... filed a suit that led to a temporary ban on 2,4,5-T in their area in 1977 and, ultimately, to a total stop to the use of the chemical in 1983. For Van Strum, the suit was also the beginning of lifetime of battling the chemical industry. We didnt think of ourselves as environmentalists, that wasnt even a word back then, Van Strum said. We just didnt want to be poisoned.
Note: The herbicide 2,4,5-T is a main ingredient of Agent Orange. As recently as 2012, Monsanto, a manufacturer of Agent Orange, agreed to pay $93 million to settle claims of this poison's pollution of a US town. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on corporate corruption and health.
Last year was the most perilous ever for people defending their communitys land, natural resources or wildlife, with new research showing that environmental defenders are being killed at the rate of almost four a week across the world. Two hundred environmental activists, wildlife rangers and indigenous leaders trying to protect their land were killed in 2016, according to the watchdog group Global Witness more than double the number killed five years ago. And the frequency of killings is only increasing as 2017 ticks by, according to data provided exclusively to the Guardian, with 98 killings identified in the first five months of this year. John Knox, UN special rapporteur on human rights and the environment, said: There is now an overwhelming incentive to wreck the environment for economic reasons. The people most at risk are people who are already marginalised and excluded from politics and judicial redress, and are dependent on the environment." Most environmental defenders die in remote forests or villages affected by mining, dams, illegal logging, and agribusiness. Many of the killers are reportedly hired by corporations or state forces. Very few are ever arrested or identified. This is why the Guardian is today launching a project, in collaboration with Global Witness, to attempt to record the deaths of everyone who dies over the next year in defence of the environment. We will be reporting from the worlds last wildernesses, as well as from the most industrialised countries on the planet.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on corruption in government and in the corporate world.
Wild dolphins are struggling with high levels of mercury and industrial pollution in the oceans off the coasts of Florida and South Carolina. The pollution is putting their immune system on constant alert, which makes it less able to fight off bacteria, fungus, viruses and parasites in the water, according to a study in the journal PLOS ONE. The industrial pollution was strongest in the oceans near Charleston, South Carolina in the US. Organic compounds released into the water accumulate in microorganisms that are eaten by fish, which are in turn eaten by dolphins. The toxins become more concentrated in each step of the food chain. Large amounts of mercury were found in dolphins that live in the Indian River Lagoon. Previous research has shown that the Indian River Lagoon dolphins developed a fungal skin disease because of their suppressed immune systems and new viruses. Some of these are also potentially infectious to humans. By comparison, the dolphins kept in the Georgia Aquarium had fewer diseases and their immune systems were under a lot less stress. This is because the environment at the aquarium is more tightly controlled for water quality. Keeping dolphins in captivity comes with its own impact on the overall health of the mammals. Dolphins are highly intelligent and have complex social structures that can't be maintained in small tanks. As a result, dolphins in captivity live shorter lives than those in the wild.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on dolphins and whales from reliable major media sources.
The oil giant Shell issued a stark warning of the catastrophic risks of climate change more than a quarter of century ago in a prescient 1991 film that has been rediscovered. Shells 28-minute film, called Climate of Concern ... warned of extreme weather, floods, famines and climate refugees as fossil fuel burning warmed the world. A separate 1986 report, marked confidential and also seen by the Guardian, notes: The changes may be the greatest in recorded history. The predictions in the 1991 film for temperature and sea level rises and their impacts were remarkably accurate. Shell was one of the first major oil companies to accept the reality and dangers of climate change. But, despite this early and clear-eyed view of the risks of global warming, Shell invested many billions of dollars in highly polluting tar sand operations and on exploration in the Arctic. It also cited fracking as a future opportunity in 2016, despite its own 1998 data showing exploitation of unconventional oil and gas was incompatible with climate goals. Shell ... is estimated to have spent $22m in 2015 lobbying against climate policies, [and] has also been a member of industry lobby groups that have fought climate action. Another oil giant, Exxon Mobil, is under investigation ... for allegedly misleading investors about the risks climate change posed to its business. In early 2016, a group of congressmen asked the Department of Justice to also investigate whether Shells actions around climate change violated federal law.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on corporate corruption and climate change.
The large-scale, long-term decline in wild bees across England has been linked to the use of neonicotinoid insecticides by a new study. Over 18 years, researchers analysed bees who forage heavily on oilseed rape, a crop widely treated with "neonics". The scientists attribute half of the total decline in wild bees to the use of these chemicals. Several studies, conducted in the lab and in the field, have identified a negative effect on honey bees and bumble bees from the use of neonics. But few researchers have looked at the long term impacts of these substances. This new paper examined the impacts on populations of 62 species of wild bees across England over the period from 1994-2011. The team ... used distribution data on wild bees, excluding honey and bumblebees collected by the bees, ants and wasps recording scheme. They were able to compare the locations of these bees and their changing populations with growing patterns of oilseed rape across England over 18 years. The amount of this crop being sown has increased significantly over the period of the study, from around 500,000 hectares in 1994 to over 700,000 in 2011. A key innovation was the commercial licensing of neonicotinoid insecticides for the crop in the UK in 2002. Seeds are coated with the chemical and every part of the plant becomes toxic. The European Food Safety Authority is currently conducting a review of the scientific evidence about neonicotinoids. An EU-wide moratorium on their use was implemented in 2013 and is still in place.
Note: Bayer, a major manufacturer of this pesticide, attempted to cover up the connection between its products and the massive die off of bees. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing food system corruption news articles from reliable major media sources.
On September 18, 2015, Guatemalan professor Rigoberto Lima Choc awaited a judges decision on an issue he had been the first to uncover: A company was polluting the waters of La Pasin River. Lima Choc had not only documented and reported the problem but had also taken journalists and photographers to witness the fish slaughter. That day, as he walked down the steps of the courthouse, two men on a motorcycle approached and fired at him. He died on the spot. Lima Chocs death is, sadly ... not an exception. Through 2015 a worldwide total of 185 murders of this kind were documented by the nongovernmental organization Global Witness. A detailed report on these deaths ... implies a significant growth from one year to the next. Latin America had the dubious honor of being the region with the highest number of conservationist murders - 122; Brazil took the lions share with 50 killings. Indigenous communities are especially vulnerable, and it is there where most environmental activists are killed. Just a few cases [leave] a documented record. Osvaldo Durn, spokesman of the Costa Ricabased Federation for the Conservation of the Environment ... points out that many times the government does nothing to defend people or groups under attack; and that sometimes it even orchestrates disinformation campaigns. Duran says, The economic model ... requires a fusion of interests between [the] state and corporations. This is when you see the state defending private interests instead of communities.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles about corruption in government and in the corporate world.
The New York attorney general has begun an investigation of Exxon Mobil to determine whether the company lied to the public about the risks of climate change or to investors about how such risks might hurt the oil business. The investigation focuses on whether statements the company made to investors about climate risks as recently as this year were consistent with the companys own long-running scientific research. The people said the inquiry would include a period of at least a decade during which Exxon Mobil funded outside groups that sought to undermine climate science, even as its in-house scientists were outlining the potential consequences and uncertainties to company executives. In a separate inquiry, Peabody Energy, the nations largest coal producer, [has] been under investigation by the attorney general for two years over whether it properly disclosed financial risks related to climate change. Some experts see the potential for a legal assault on fossil fuel companies similar to the lawsuits against tobacco companies [that] were found guilty of a massive 50-year scheme to defraud the public. Inside Climate News and The Los Angeles Times have reported that Exxon Mobil was well aware of the risks of climate change from its own scientific research, and used that research in its long-term planning for activities like drilling in the Arctic, even as it funded groups from the 1990s to the mid-2000s that denied serious climate risks.
Note: For those interested in the global warming debate, read this Forbes article and this one debunking it to see just how polarized and non-scientific both sides of the debate are. This CNN article states that Antarctica has been gaining ice at least since 1992. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing climate change news articles from reliable major media sources.
There is growing evidence of a grave new and persistent global environmental public health threat that has gone unremarked in the scientific literature. Burning coal by electric utilities concentrates the impurities in "fly ash", fine particles that used to go up the smokestack, but now are trapped because of their toxic environmental and public health hazards. In a recent article in International Journal of Environment Research and Public Health, geoscientist, J. Marvin Herndon presents "strong experimental evidence that coal fly ash is the aerosolized particulate sprayed in the troposphere by tanker-jets for geoengineering, weather-modification and climate-modification purposes." While university scientists talk about geoengineering as if it is some possible future activity, the reality is that geoengineering has been practiced throughout the 21st century, with full scale, near-daily operational activity since about 2013. Further, while the academics talk about placing substances in the upper atmosphere (stratosphere), where little mixing occurs, with "no public disclosure, no informed consent, and no public health warnings" the on-going geoengineering activities spray toxic coal fly ash into the lower atmosphere (troposphere) where it mixes with and pollutes the air we all breathe. Herndon discloses "the consequences on public health are profound, including exposure to a variety of toxic heavy metals, radioactive elements, and neurologically-implicated chemically mobile aluminium."
Note: The journal article was retracted immediately following the publication of this Reuters news article. WantToKnow.info was mentioned in in a recent edition of SF Weekly for the resources we provide on the important topic of chemtrails and geoengineering.
A powerful new technique for generating supercharged genetically modified organisms that can spread rapidly in the wild has caused alarm among scientists. The development of so-called gene drive technology promises to revolutionize medicine and agriculture. However, scientists at the forefront of the development believe ... gene-drive technology poses a serious threat to the environment and human health if accidentally or deliberately released from a laboratory without adequate safeguards. Last week the US National Academy of Sciences initiated a wide-ranging review of gene-drive technology in non-human organisms and in this weeks journal Science a group of 27 leading geneticists call on the scientific community to be open and transparent about both the risks and benefits of gene drives. Researchers have likened gene-drive technology to a nuclear chain reaction because it allows GM genes to be amplified within a breeding population of insects or other animals without any further intervention once the trait has been initially introduced. This is the case even if the trait is non-beneficial to the organism. Laboratory experiments on fruit flies have shown that a modified gene introduced into one individual fly can take just a few generations to infect practically every other fly in the breeding population, in defiance of the normal rules of genetics which dictate a far slower spread.
Note: A large segment of the scientific community called for a moratorium on using this technology on humans. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing GMO news articles from reliable major media sources.
Royal Dutch Shell has been accused of pursuing a strategy that would lead to potentially catastrophic climate change after an internal document acknowledged a global temperature rise of 4C, twice the level considered safe for the planet. A paper used for guiding future business planning at the Anglo-Dutch multinational assumes that carbon dioxide emissions will fail to limit temperature increases to 2C, the internationally agreed threshold to prevent widespread flooding, famine and desertification. Instead, the New Lens Scenarios document refers to a forecast by the independent International Energy Agency (IEA) that points to a temperature rise of up to 4C in the short term, rising later to 6C. Louise Rouse, an investor relations specialist and consultant to Greenpeace, said the New Lens document undermined Shells claim that ongoing oil and gas exploration helps raise living standards in the developing world by supplying the energy for rapidly expanding economies. There is an incoherence at best between oil companies on the one hand positioning themselves as being on the side of the worlds developing countries and while on the other actively pursuing strategies which will entail catastrophic climate change which we already know is having a significant impact on the global south, she said. Shells carbon dioxide emissions have risen in 2014 and are set to increase further as it expands the business through a planned 47bn takeover of rival BG.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing stories about global warming and corporate corruption from reliable sources.
Geoengineering is a technological fix that leaves the economic and industrial system causing climate change untouched. The mindset behind geoengineering stands in sharp contrast to an emerging ecological, systems approach taking shape in the form of regenerative agriculture. More than a mere alternative strategy, regenerative agriculture represents a fundamental shift in our culture’s relationship to nature. Regenerative agriculture comprises an array of techniques that rebuild soil and, in the process, sequester carbon. Typically, it uses cover crops and perennials so that bare soil is never exposed, and grazes animals in ways that mimic animals in nature. It also offers ecological benefits far beyond carbon storage: it stops soil erosion, remineralises soil, protects the purity of groundwater and reduces damaging pesticide and fertiliser runoff. Yields from regenerative methods often exceed conventional yields. Likewise, since these methods build soil, crowd out weeds and retain moisture, fertiliser and herbicide inputs can be reduced or eliminated entirely, resulting in higher profits for farmers. No-till methods can sequester as much as a ton of carbon per acre annually. In the US alone, that could amount to nearly a quarter of current emissions. Ultimately, climate change challenges us to rethink our long-standing separation from nature. It is time to fall in love with the land, the soil, and the trees, to halt their destruction and to serve their restoration.
Note: Don't miss Kiss the Ground, a powerful documentary on the growing regenerative agriculture movement and its power to build global community, reverse the many environmental crises we face, and revive our connection to the natural world. Explore more positive stories like this in our comprehensive inspiring news articles archive focused on solutions and bridging divides.
When future generations try to understand how the world got carried away around the end of the 20th century by the panic over global warming, few things will amaze them more than the part played in stoking up the scare by the fiddling of official temperature data. Steven Goddards US blog Real Science [shows] how shamelessly manipulated has been one of the worlds most influential climate records, the graph of US surface temperature records published by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Goddard shows how, in recent years, NOAAs US Historical Climatology Network (USHCN) has been adjusting its record by replacing real temperatures with data fabricated by computer models. The effect of this has been to downgrade earlier temperatures and to exaggerate those from recent decades, to give the impression that the Earth has been warming up much more than is justified by the actual data. In several posts headed Data tampering at USHCN/GISS, Goddard compares the currently published temperature graphs with those based only on temperatures measured at the time. These show that the US has actually been cooling since the Thirties, the hottest decade on record; whereas the latest graph, nearly half of it based on fabricated data, shows it to have been warming at a rate equivalent to more than 3 degrees centigrade per century.
Note: See the graph on the official NASA website in an article written by NASA's famed climate scientist James Hansen et al. in 1999. The article states "during the past century ... in the U.S. the warmest decade was the 1930s and the warmest year was 1934. and "in the U.S. there has been little temperature change in the past 50 years, the time of rapidly increasing greenhouse gases." Then go to this 2018 webpage on the NASA website and click on the link "Annual Mean Temperature Change in the United States." Compare the graph there with the same graph in the 1999 article. The data has been changed to show warming. Lots more in this article and this video.
Hidden behind the save-the-world rhetoric of the global climate change negotiations lies the mucky realpolitik: money and threats buy political support; spying and cyberwarfare are used to seek out leverage. The [WikiLeaks] US diplomatic cables reveal how the US seeks dirt on nations opposed to its approach to tackling global warming; how financial and other aid is used by countries to gain political backing; how distrust, broken promises and creative accounting dog negotiations; and how the US mounted a secret global diplomatic offensive to overwhelm opposition to the controversial "Copenhagen accord", the unofficial document that emerged from the ruins of the Copenhagen climate change summit in 2009. Negotiating a climate treaty is a high-stakes game, not just because of the danger warming poses to civilisation but also because re-engineering the global economy to a low-carbon model will see the flow of billions of dollars redirected. Seeking negotiating chips, the US state department sent a secret cable on 31 July 2009 seeking human intelligence from UN diplomats across a range of issues, including climate change. The request originated with the CIA. As well as countries' negotiating positions for Copenhagen, diplomats were asked to provide evidence of UN environmental "treaty circumvention" and deals between nations.
Military officials and weather modification experts could be on the verge of joining forces to better gauge, react to, and possibly nullify future hostile forces churned out by Mother Nature. While some consider the idea farfetched, some military tacticians have already pondered ways to turn weather into a weapon. What would a military strategist gain in having an "on-switch" to the weather? Clearly, it offers the ability to degrade the effectiveness of enemy forces. In this regard, nanotechnology could be utilized to create clouds of tiny smart particles. Atmospherically buoyant, these ultra-small computer particles could navigate themselves to block optical sensors. Alternatively, they might be used to provide an atmospheric electrical potential difference - a way to precisely aim and time lightning strikes over the enemys head thereby concoct thunderbolts on demand. Perhaps thats too far out for some. But some blue sky thinkers have already looked into these and other scenarios in "Weather as a Force Multiplier: Owning the Weather in 2025" a research paper written by a seven person team of military officers and presented in 1996 as part of a larger study dubbed Air Force 2025. In 2025, the report summarized, U.S. aerospace forces can "own the weather" by capitalizing on emerging technologies and focusing development of those technologies to war-fighting applications. "Such a capability offers the war fighter tools to shape the battlespace in ways never before possible," the report concluded.
Note: Explore an excellent summary of the 1996 USAF report titled "Weather as a Force Multiplier: Owning the Weather in 2025." Links to the original report are available.
Las Vegas residents are increasingly noticing the appearance of chemical trails overhead. Such "chemtrails" are substantially different in appearance to the normal condensation trails left by jet airliners. The difference is that while condensation trails are composed of water vapor that dissipates rapidly, "chemtrails" linger much longer and spread out over time to eventually cover the sky with a thin haze. The U.S. Air Force Website refutes the "Chemtrail Hoax" as having been around since 1996. Before you believe...the government's "denial," do an Internet search for the following terms: "Joint Vision for 2020" and "Weather is a Force Multiplier: Owning the Weather in 2025", a whitepaper by MIT's Bernard Eastlund and H-bomb father Edward Teller. Before he died in 2003, Teller was director emeritus of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, where plans for nuclear, biological and directed energy weapons are crafted. In 1997, Teller publicly outlined his proposal to use aircraft to scatter through the stratosphere millions of tons of electrically-conductive metallic materials, ostensibly to reduce global warming. Two scientists working at Wright Patterson Air Force Base confirmed...that they were involved in aerial spraying experiments. In the U.S. Air Force research study, "Weather as a Force Multiplier" issued in August, 1996, seven U.S. military officers outlined how HAARP and aerial cloud-seeding from tankers could allow U.S. aerospace forces to "own the weather" by the year 2025. Among the desired objectives were "Storm Enhancement," "Storm Modification" and "Drought Inducement."
Note: This is far from a leading newspaper, but as many readers have asked about chem trails, and this is the only significant article on the topic that I've seen in the media, I've included it for those who might be interested. For more from a good alternative website, click here. Interesting also that the writer of this article, Marcus Dalton, was fired not long after this article was published. And if the above link fails, click here.
In 2025, US aerospace forces can own the weather by capitalizing on emerging technologies and focusing development of those technologies to war-fighting applications. Such a capability offers the war fighter tools to shape the battlespace in ways never before possible. Weather-modification is a force multiplier with tremendous power that could be exploited across the full spectrum of war-fighting environments. From enhancing friendly operations or disrupting those of the enemy via small-scale tailoring of natural weather patterns complete dominance of global communications and counter-space control, weather-modification offers war fighter a wide-range of possible options to defeat or coerce an adversary. But, while offensive weather modification efforts would certainly be undertaken by US forces with great caution and trepidation, it is clear that we cannot afford to allow an adversary to obtain an exclusive weather-modification capability.
Note: The above quote is taken from pages 6 and 35, the executive summary and conclusion of the above US Air Force study. For a highly revealing article suggesting elements within government have much more control over the weather than is thought, click here.
Important Note: Explore our full index to key excerpts of revealing major media news articles on several dozen engaging topics. And don't miss amazing excerpts from 20 of the most revealing news articles ever published.



















































































