Environmental Destruction News 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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Plastic producers have known for more than 30 years that recycling is not an economically or technically feasible plastic waste management solution. That has not stopped them from promoting it, according to a new report. “The companies lied,” said Richard Wiles, president of fossil-fuel accountability advocacy group the Center for Climate Integrity (CCI), which published the report. “It’s time to hold them accountable for the damage they’ve caused.” Plastic, which is made from oil and gas, is notoriously difficult to recycle. Doing so requires meticulous sorting, since most of the thousands of chemically distinct varieties of plastic cannot be recycled together. That renders an already pricey process even more expensive. Another challenge: the material degrades each time it is reused, meaning it can generally only be reused once or twice. The industry has known for decades about these existential challenges, but obscured that information in its marketing campaigns. The report does not allege that the companies broke specific laws. But Alyssa Johl, report co-author and attorney, said she suspects they violated public-nuisance, racketeering and consumer-fraud protections. The industry’s misconduct continues today. Over the past several years, industry lobbying groups have promoted so-called chemical recycling, which breaks plastic polymers down into tiny molecules. But the process creates pollution and is even more energy intensive than traditional plastic recycling.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on corporate corruption from reliable major media sources.
Americas agricultural landscape is now 48 times more toxic to honeybees, and likely other insects, than it was 25 years ago, almost entirely due to widespread use of so-called neonicotinoid pesticides, according to a new study published today in the journal PLOS One. This enormous rise in toxicity matches the sharp declines in bees, butterflies, and other pollinators as well as birds, says co-author Kendra Klein. This is the second Silent Spring. Neonics are like a new DDT, except they are a thousand times more toxic to bees than DDT was, Klein says. Using a new tool that measures toxicity to honey bees, the length of time a pesticide remains toxic, and the amount used in a year, Klein and researchers from three other institutions determined that the new generation of pesticides has made agriculture far more toxic to insects. Honey bees are used as a proxy for all insects. The study found that neonics accounted for 92 percent of this increased toxicity. Neonics are not only incredibly toxic to honeybees, they can remain toxic for more than 1,000 days in the environment, said Klein. Some scientists have been warning that there is an insect apocalypse underway. A global analysis of 452 species in 2014 estimated that insect abundance had declined 45 percent over 40 years. Not only do bees, butterflies, and other insects pollinate one-third of all food crops, declining insect numbers can also have catastrophic ecological repercussions.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on food system corruption from reliable major media sources.
The world is spending at least $1.8tn (£1.3tn) every year on subsidies driving the annihilation of wildlife and a rise in global heating, according to a new study, prompting warnings that humanity is financing its own extinction. From tax breaks for beef production in the Amazon to financial support for unsustainable groundwater pumping in the Middle East, billions of pounds of government spending and other subsidies are harming the environment, says the first cross-sector assessment for more than a decade. This government support, equivalent to 2% of global GDP, is directly working against the goals of the Paris agreement and draft targets on reversing biodiversity loss, the research on explicit subsidies found, effectively financing water pollution, land subsidence and deforestation with state money. The fossil fuel industry ($620bn), the agricultural sector ($520bn), water ($320bn) and forestry ($155bn) account for the majority of the $1.8tn, according to the report. No estimate for mining, believed to cause billions of dollars of damage to ecosystems every year, could be derived. Lack of transparency between governments and recipients means the true figure is likely to be much higher, as is the implicit cost of harmful subsidies. Last year, an International Monetary Fund report found the fossil fuel industry benefited from subsidies worth $5.9tn in 2020.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption and climate change 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.
For decades, Khoji Wesselius has noticed the oily scent of pesticides during spraying periods when the wind has blown through his tiny farming village in a rural corner of the Netherlands. Now, after volunteering in an experiment to count how many such substances people are subjected to, Wesselius and his wife are one step closer to understanding the consequences of living among chemical-sprayed fields of seed potato, sugar beet, wheat, rye and onion. “We were shocked,” said Wesselius ... who had exposure to eight different pesticides through his skin, with even more chemicals found through tests of his blood, urine and stool. “I was contaminated by 11 sorts of pesticides. My wife, who is more strict in her organic nourishment, had seven sorts of pesticides.” Regulators closely monitor dietary intake of pesticides when deciding whether they are safe enough for the market, but little attention has been paid to the effects of breathing them in or absorbing them through the skin. According to a new study, even people who live far from farms are exposed to several different types of pesticides from non-dietary sources. The researchers got 641 participants in 10 European countries to wear silicone wristbands continuously for one week to capture external exposure to 193 pesticides. In laboratory tests, they detected 173 of the substances they tested for, with pesticides found in every wristband and an average of 20 substances for every person who took part.
Note: Our latest Substack, "The Pesticide Crisis Reveals The Dark Side of Science. We Have The Solutions to Regenerate," uncovers the scope of Monsanto's media propaganda machine and the widespread conspiracy to poison our food, air, and along with the powerful remedies and solutions to this crisis. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on food system corruption and toxic chemicals.
The Gates Foundation is a major influencer and funder of agricultural development in Africa, yet there are no avenues to hold the foundation accountable to the communities it influences. Gates Foundation is the main funder of the controversial AGRA program. AGRA rebranded after evidence-based critiques showed that its 15-year effort to expand high-input, chemical-dependent monoculture farming in Africa has failed to provide food security, despite billions in funding from private donors and government subsidies. Critics say the “green revolution” approach is exacerbating hunger, worsening inequality and entrenching the power of outside corporate agribusiness interests in the hungriest regions of the world. AGRA works to transition farmers away from traditional seeds and crops to patented seeds, fossil-fuel based fertilizers and other inputs to grow commodity crops for the global market. The strategy is modeled on the Indian “green revolution” that boosted production of staple crops but also left a legacy of structural inequity and escalating debt for farmers. Evidence suggests that the green revolution has failed to improve health or reduce poverty and has created many problems. These include hooking farmers in a debt cycle with expensive inputs, growing pesticide use, environmental degradation, worsening soil quality, reduced diversity of food crops, and increased corporate control over food systems.
Note: 50 food sovereignty organizations wrote an open letter to Bill Gates on how the Green Revolution has failed to reduce hunger or increase food access as promised. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on food system corruption and income inequality from reliable major media sources.
The recently proposed Connect Our Parks Act calls for increased cell service in parks but does not weigh the damaging impacts of wireless radio frequency (RF) radiation — emitted by cellular installations — on all living creatures. Introduced by Sens. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) and Angus King (I-Maine), this new bill does not consider the many ways that cell tower radiating equipment can impair ecologically sensitive areas and every living thing in its wake, ranging from insects to mammals to the plants and trees on which their survival depends. The Parks Act is one of several congressional proposals that unwittingly set the stage for dramatically increasing ambient exposures to wireless radiation, an agent that the government’s own studies have found causes cancer and DNA damage in animals. Unsurprisingly, the natural environment is also vulnerable. Studies have documented adverse impacts on birds, bees and trees, including impairment of massive seasonal migrations and the exquisitely sensitive processes of reproduction on which their continuity rests. A shocking regulatory gap exists. Not one federal agency has a mandate to assess the harmful effects of wireless radiation from cell towers, nor is any monitoring regularly conducted of the levels of wireless radiation in our environment from the several hundred thousand operating towers in the U.S. The public generally assumes cell tower radiation has been thoroughly tested for safety. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Note: California firefighters' unions successfully fought to exempt cell towers from being placed on or adjacent to fire stations after firefighters reported serious neurological health problems following cell tower installations. Read the official position opposing cell towers on fire stations from The International Association of Fire Fighters. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on the risks and dangers of wireless technologies.
Global capitalism is an incredible machine for extracting fossil fuels from our planet, refining them, shipping them to every corner of the Earth and making staggering amounts of money doing so. Unfortunately the machine is also poisoning us all. But one of its exquisitely evolved functions is to make it almost impossible to turn it off. Oil and gas profits in the most recent quarter were astounding. Exxon Mobil made $18bn in profits in the past three months. Shell and Chevron each made nearly $12bn. Those are all record numbers. A recent study showed that for the past 50 years, the oil industry has made profits of more than $1tn a year, close to $3bn a day. These profits are driven [by] cartels, mega-corporations and the regulatory capture of governments, conspiring to create a market free of both competition and of a price that reflects the actual cost to the world of the product that is being sold. These profits are illusory. They are plagued by an externality large enough to outweigh a trillion dollars a year – the costs that the climate crisis will impose on billions of people who are alive now and many generations to come. The fossil fuel industry as a whole is not just another business, providing a service to meet a demand; it is a predatory drug dealer that works every day to keep the world addicted to its poisonous product, knowing full well that it will eventually prove fatal. It fights to keep the population fooled. It is a problem to be solved.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on corporate corruption and climate change from reliable major media sources.
Imet my best friend, Ursula Guidry, in college. Ursula died from cancer when her children were in preschool. We’ll never know if her death was pure “bad luck,” or whether it had something to do with growing up amidst plastics-manufacturing facilities. What we know for certain is that the toxic chemicals emitted by those facilities can ravage the human body. It’s against that backdrop that I watch Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin work feverishly to dismantle the safeguards protecting people from toxic chemical exposures. The U.S. averages one chemical spill, fire, or explosion every three days, but Zeldin’s attacks almost guarantee an increase. Every part of the petrochemical supply chain puts communities at risk, including the nation’s millions of miles of pipelines. In Satartia, Miss., a pipeline carrying carbon dioxide used in oil drilling ruptured from heavy rains and floods, spewing carbon dioxide for hours. The carbon dioxide displaced oxygen in the air, so car engines stopped running and people could not escape. Dozens were hospitalized. Acute CO2 emissions cause heart malfunction and death by asphyxiation. Extreme flooding can also submerge Superfund toxic waste dumps. Nearly 1 in 4 Americans live within three miles of a Superfund site. Zeldin’s plans are a gift to the fossil fuel and petrochemical corporations. For the rest of us, they are an explosive and hostile attack on our children, our families, and our best friends.
Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on health and toxic chemicals.
The Los Angeles County coastline is renowned for its stunning views and famous beaches. But move into deeper waters and another legacy comes into view: industrial waste dumped on a scale we’re just beginning to understand. Using a deep-sea robot, UC Santa Barbara scientists discovered an eerie graveyard of leaking barrels in 2020, spread out on the seafloor near Santa Catalina Island. DDT, a powerful pesticide that was banned 50 years ago, was found in high concentrations near the barrels, leading scientists to suspect they were full of it. (Scientists later discovered that companies didn’t even bother putting DDT in barrels — they dumped it directly into the sea.) The barrels may actually contain low-level radioactive waste. “From the 1940s through the 1960s, it was not uncommon for local hospitals, labs and other industrial operations to dispose barrels of tritium, carbon-14 and other low-level radioactive waste at sea,” [Rosanna Xia] reported. That was a key finding in a new study. Researchers found clues while reviewing hundreds of pages of records, which indicated that a company tasked with pouring the DDT waste off the L.A. coast had also dumped low-level radioactive waste. The radioactive waste sitting down there is unequivocally terrible, but the “concerning concentrations” of DDT in the deep ocean are worse. Researchers have found high levels of DDT across an area of seafloor larger than the entire city of San Francisco.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on toxic chemicals from reliable major media sources.
Tech billionaires are buying up luxurious bunkers and hiring military security to survive a societal collapse they helped create, but like everything they do, it has unintended consequences. Their extreme wealth and privilege ... make them obsessed with insulating themselves from the very real and present danger of climate change, rising sea levels, mass migrations, global pandemics, nativist panic and resource depletion. For them, the future of technology is about only one thing: escape from the rest of us. What, if anything, could we do to resist it? A former president of the American chamber of commerce in Latvia ... JC Cole had witnessed the fall of the Soviet empire, as well as what it took to rebuild a working society almost from scratch. He believed the best way to cope with the impending disaster was to change the way we treat one another, the economy, and the planet right now. JC’s real passion wasn’t just to build a few isolated, militarised retreat facilities for millionaires, but to prototype locally owned sustainable farms that can be modelled by others and ultimately help restore regional food security in America. Investors not only get a maximum security compound in which to ride out the coming plague, solar storm, or electric grid collapse. They also get a stake in a potentially profitable network of local farm franchises that could reduce the probability of a catastrophic event. His business would do its best to ensure there are as few hungry children at the gate as possible when the time comes to lock down.
Note: Read about a Cold War U.S. government missile silo that was transformed into a luxury bunker to prepare for the apocalypse in this previously reported news article. You might also consider exploring revealing news articles on food system corruption impacting our economy and environment.
About 20m acres of cropland in the United States may be contaminated from PFAS-tainted sewage sludge that has been used as fertilizer, a new report estimates. PFAS, or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, are a class of about 9,000 compounds used to make products heat-, water- or stain-resistant. Known as “forever chemicals” because they don’t naturally break down, they have been linked to cancer, thyroid disruption, liver problems, birth defects, immunosuppression and more. Dozens of industries use PFAS in thousands of consumer products, and often discharge the chemicals into the nation’s sewer system. The analysis ... is an attempt to understand the scope of cropland contamination stemming from sewage sludge, or biosolids. Regulators don’t require sludge to be tested for PFAS or closely track where its spread, and public health advocates warn the practice is poisoning the nation’s food supply. Sludge is a byproduct of the wastewater treatment process that’s a mix of human excrement and industrial waste, like PFAS, that’s discharged from industry’s pipes. EPA records show over 19bn pounds of sludge has been used as fertilizer since 2016 in ... 41 states. It’s estimated that 60% of the nation’s sludge is spread on cropland or other fields annually. The consequences are evident in the only two states to consistently check sludge and farms for PFAS contamination. In Maine, PFAS-tainted fields have already forced several farms to shut down.
Note: Read more about the toxic "forever chemicals" accumulating in our environment. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on food system corruption and health from reliable major media sources.
The Environmental Protection Agency has withheld information from the public since January 2019 about the dangers posed by more than 1,200 chemicals. By law, companies must give the EPA any evidence they possess that a chemical presents “a substantial risk of injury to health or the environment.” Until recently, the agency had been making these reports — known as 8(e) reports, for the section of the Toxic Substances Control Act that requires them — available to the public. But since 2019, the EPA has only posted one of the reports to its public website. During this time, chemical companies have continued to submit the critical studies to the agency, according to two EPA staff members with knowledge of the matter. Since January 2019, the EPA has received at least 1,240 reports documenting the risk of chemicals’ serious harms, including eye corrosion, damage to the brain and nervous system, chronic toxicity to honeybees, and cancer in both people and animals. PFAS compounds are among the chemical subjects of these notifications. Not only has the agency kept all but one of these reports from the public, but it has also made them difficult for EPA staff to access, according to the two agency scientists, who are choosing to remain anonymous. The substantial risk reports have not been uploaded to the databases used most often by risk assessors searching for information about chemicals. They have been entered only into an internal database that is difficult to access and search.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption from reliable major media sources.
Mexico is sticking to a plan to stop importing genetically modified corn and a ban on a widely used herbicide, a senior official told Reuters, doubling down on a policy that has pleased green advocates but alarmed industry leaders. The plan announced late last year by executive order aims to replace some 16 million tonnes of yellow corn imported mostly from U.S. farmers and nearly all of it genetically modified, with new, local production by 2024. Victor Suarez, the deputy agriculture minister and a key architect of the order, argued that GMO corn and the herbicide glyphosate are too dangerous and that local output and sustainable "agroecological" practices must be prioritized. He cited studies linking glyphosate to cancer and saying that it harmed pollinators like bees and separately alleged that GMO corn contaminates Mexico's native strains of the grain. "We have to put the right to life, the right to health, the right to a healthy environment ahead of economic and business (interests)," said the former congressman. Mexico is mostly self-sufficient in white corn, used for the country's staple tortillas, but meat producers have for years relied on growing volumes of yellow corn imports to fatten cows, pigs and chickens. Asked if the Dec. 31 decree applied to animal feed as well processed foods that include GMO corn, Suarez said that the law covers all food that "will eventually reach human consumption."
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on GMOs and food system corruption from reliable major media sources.
A 3M environmental specialist, in a scathing resignation letter, accused company officials of being "unethical" and more "concerned with markets, legal defensibility and image over environmental safety" when it came to PFAS, the emerging contaminant causing a potential crisis throughout Michigan and the country. [The] explosive resignation letter is just one of a large cache of internal 3M memos and documents obtained by the Free Press through public records law from the Minnesota Attorney Generals Office. Then-Minnesota Attorney General Lori Swanson obtained the internal documents from the Minnesota-based company after suing 3M in 2010 over its environmental contamination in the state. The company settled the suit last year for $850 million. The nonstick compounds were used for decades ... in aqueous firefighting foam, industrial processes and a host of popular consumer products: Teflon nonstick pots and pans, ScotchGard stain protectants ... Gore-Tex water-resistant shoes and clothing, and more. But the same qualities that made PFAS compounds so useful also makes them almost indestructible in the environment, giving them the ominous nickname "the forever chemicals." PFAS can now be found in the blood of nearly 99% of Americans. It has even been found in polar bears in the Arctic Circle. Some 46 sites in Michigan are known to have groundwater with PFAS levels above the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's lifetime health advisory guideline
Note: Much more is available in this revealing article. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on corporate corruption and health.
News that the Environmental Protection Agency pressured the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry to suppress a study showing PFAS chemicals to be even more dangerous than previously thought drew outrage this spring. The EPA pressure delayed the studys publication for several months. But the dangers presented by these industrial chemicals have been known for decades, not just a few months or years. A lawsuit filed by Minnesota against 3M, the company that first developed and sold PFOS and PFOA, the two best-known PFAS compounds, has revealed that the company knew that these chemicals were accumulating in peoples blood for more than 40 years. 3M researchers documented the chemicals in fish, just as the Michigan scientist did, but they did so back in the 1970s. The suit, which the Minnesota attorney general filed in 2010, charges that 3M polluted groundwater with PFAS compounds and knew or should have known that these chemicals harm human health and the environment, and result in injury, destruction, and loss of natural resources of the State. The complaint argues that 3M acted with a deliberate disregard for the high risk of injury to the citizens and wildlife of Minnesota. 3M settled the suit for $850 million in February, and the Minnesota Attorney Generals Office released a large set of documents including internal studies, memos, emails, and research reports detailing what 3M knew about the chemicals harms.
Note: Much more is available in this revealing article. 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.
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.
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.
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.
Important Note: Explore our full index to revealing excerpts of key 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.

















































































