Scientists are being asked to boycott the next major meeting of the world’s biggest earth sciences organisation after it voted to retain relationships with ExxonMobil.
 
The American Geophysical Union last week rejected calls from members to break ties with ExxonMobil over the oil giant’s history of funding and supporting climate science misinformation.
 
AGU members have been voicing their dismay at the decision, which ignored the concerns of more than 200 scientists, many of them AGU members, calling for the relationship to end.
 
AGU’s board said it would accept sponsorship from ExxonMobil for a breakfast event at its Fall Meeting in December – an event the oil company had previously sponsored.
 
But Professor Charles Greene, of Cornell University, told DeSmog: “This is far from over. There can be little doubt that this will lead to the biggest shake up in AGU’s history. There is a lot more at stake here than $35,000 for a graduate student breakfast.”

 
Greene has called on scientists to boycott the December meeting held by AGU - an influential organisation with about 60,000 members in 139 countries.
 
In a statement Greene said: “At what level does the behavior of a corporate sponsor become sufficiently reprehensible for AGU to refuse its support? I guess that a corporation like ExxonMobil, which has deceived the general public for decades while placing human society at great risk, has not achieved that level.
 
“The only conclusion to be drawn is that AGU will accept money from just about any corporate entity, no matter how unethical its behavior. I certainly will not attend an ExxonMobil-sponsored Fall Meeting, and I hope that everyAGU member who feels the same way about this lapse in judgement will consider sending a similar message.”
 
ExxonMobil is facing investigations from several attorneys general, led by New York, over allegations the company misled shareholders and the public about the risk of climate change caused by fossil fuel burning.
 
The probes were sparked by investigations from Inside Climate News and the Los Angeles Times, which highlighted internal Exxon documents showing in the 1970s the company’s own scientists were aware of the clear risks of burning fossil fuels.
 
Over the years Exxon is known to have spent tens of millions of dollars funding dozens of organisations that have worked to mislead the public about the science linking greenhouse gas emissions to global warming.

read more: http://www.desmogblog.com/2016/04/18/scientists-asked-boycott-major-conference-after-agu-votes-retain-exxonmobil-ties

Christy Clark is our province’s very own natural gas salmon, swimming gamely upstream against the advice of evidence and experts from multiple fields, determined to spawn B.C.’s LNG business in the heart of the province and give it the best start she can — everything else be damned. Or dammed, or whatever.
 
On a visit this week to Fort St. John, which is currently on fire, the premier bragged that producing and burning LNG will help prevent wildfires by causing a net decrease in carbon emissions as it displaces coal in China.
 
“If there’s any argument for exporting LNG and helping fight climate change, surely it is all around us when we see these fires burning out of control,” she told reporters at a press conference.

Not even taking into account the Orwellian logic of using increasing early starts to the destructive wildfire season to sell the public on the province’s biggest fossil fuel ambitions ever, that statement is akin to saying switching to a fast food diet will help you lose weight because at least you’re not eating pure lard: it’s somewhat true, but only if you’re really desperate to justify that Big Mac.
 
Here are the facts: when the full life cycle of natural gas and its non-CO2 greenhouse gas emissions (like methane) are taken into account, LNG does little or nothing to reduce overall emissions, even in places where it displaces coal — and it may even increase emissions according to some estimates. And without strong climate policies that put a price on carbon in the market the gas is destined for, demand will continue rising for all fossil fuels, hampering the upward trajectory of alternative energy sources and efficiency programs.
 
Cheerleaders for LNG like the provincial government like to point out that burning natural gas for electricity is about half as CO2-intensive as coal. Unfortunately, that’s not the whole story.

Natural gas, also known as methane, has about 25 times the climate-altering power of CO2 over a 100-year span. This means anything leaked between the well and the power plant adds significantly to the overall climate-change impact of the fuel, and those leaks are not insignificant: the EPA estimates that in the United States the energy industry is the biggest single source of methane.

http://www.desmog.ca/2016/04/21/amid-unseasonably-early-forest-fires-premier-christy-clark-tells-fort-st-john-lng-good-climate

Now we know why Australia's coal exports to China have tanked... It's due to "producing and burning LNG [which] help prevent wildfires by causing a net decrease in carbon emissions as it displaces coal in China." The bullshit has never been so well polished...

The Australian offers scant coverage about the latest bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef.

But now to the Great Barrier Reef and an important story that some in the media have ignored.

As viewers of Channel Nine’s 60 Minutes discovered last night in a powerful and moving report, the reef is being hit by a dramatic new wave of coral bleaching:

TOM STEINFORT: Charlie has brought me here to Pixie Reef, an ironic name for a place that’s in such a sorry state. All around us is bleached and dying coral, right in the heart of the Great Barrier Reef

— Channel Nine, 60 Minutes, 26 March, 2017

This latest dire threat to the reef has been widely reported in the media since February, when a rash of headlines echoed a grim official warning from the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority:

Great Barrier Reef authority warns of widespread bleaching again this year

— ABC.net.au, 24 February, 2017

Two weeks later, the threat level was raised further, after official surveys revealed much greater damage than feared. 

And once again came a flurry of headlines.

With the British tabloids, 

American broadsheets, 

And Canadian TV now getting in on the act, along with many others. 

Then, just days ago the respected science magazine Nature ran the story on its cover.

Publishing the results of a worldwide study led by scientists from Queensland’s James Cook University, which warned that damage to the Barrier Reef caused by climate change could be fatal.

And for the third time in a month, the media swung into action: 

KATE LEONARD-JONES: Our national wonder in peril. This sobering view confirming what scientists feared, hundreds of square kilometres of coral dead or dying. 

DAVID WACHENFELD: For the second consecutive year we have mass coral bleaching event. 

KATE LEONARD-JONES: An event previously unheard of until 20 years ago.

— Channel Seven News Brisbane, 10 March, 2017

And once again it made waves around the world, 

In the New York Times,

The Chicago Tribune, 

The BBC,

And more, with the message that the reef could only be saved if climate change is halted.

But one place you couldn’t read any of this was The Australian newspaper, which has had no mention at all in its print edition.

And how amazing is that?

Here is arguably the most important environmental story in Australia and a tourism asset that’s worth billions of dollars a year. 

Yet the Oz does not consider it worth reporting, except in a couple of clips online. 

Even more remarkable, The Australian’s environment editor, Graham Lloyd, who describes himself as: 

… a fearless reporter on all sides of the environment debate.

— The Australian

has also had absolutely nothing to say.

Extraordinary isn’t it?

In fact, Lloyd’s been silent on coral bleaching since mid-last year when he reported that scientists had exaggerated the problem. 

That it wasn’t too bad.

And that the scientific world was divided. 

Media Watch ripped into that article at the time because Lloyd relied heavily to make his case on a bird migration specialist from California called Jim Steele.

Who was not an expert on coral reefs,

Or on oceans,

Or on global warming, 

Lloyd hit back in The Australian accusing us of Bleaching the Facts and:

… scientific bullying to squash discussion of genuine concerns about the Great Barrier Reef.

— The Australian, 25 July, 2016

He also said he was not ignoring coral bleaching but that he preferred to rely on:

… the more sober analysis of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority …

— The Australian, 25 July, 2016

Which of course is the authority behind all this year’s warnings. So now Graham Lloyd is ignoring them too. 

As well as an army of experts like Professor Charlie Veron the so-called godfather of coral now sounding the alarm: 

PROF CHARLIE VERON: A lot of people say oh it’s just a normal, natural thing. There’s nothing normal and natural about this. 20 years ago this would have been a fabulous place, it was a fabulous place. It was just teeming with life and now its teeming with death 

— Channel Nine, 60 Minutes, 26 March, 2017

So why are Graham Lloyd and The Australian so busy looking the other way on such a tragic and important story? 

The Australian declined to explain. But our guess is it just doesn’t fit their narrative

read more:

http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/s4643432.htm

Read from top... The biggest newspaper in Queensland is owned by the same person who owns The Australian: Uncle Rupe...