Also by jamess

Who's going to defend the Arctic?

Posted by jamess - 18 January 2011 at 5:43pm - Comments

Oil companies are taking their drills to the Arctic

The masters at Marvel comics would struggle to find bad guys worse than these.

Take two of the world’s biggest environmental villains – Russian Rosneft (special powers: oil leaks. 7,526 in 2009 alone) and British BP (special powers: oil spills. Gulf of Mexico, 2010).

Article tagged as: arctic, beyond oil, BP, climate, climate change, go beyond oil, ice, rosneft

Are oil investors using the wrong indicators of value?

Posted by jamess - 17 January 2011 at 2:06pm - Comments

Chopped down Boreal forest near a tar sands mine in Alberta, Canada

We've released a report today with partners from Platform and Oil Change International about oil investment and increasingly risky sources of oil. Download the report here (pdf).

Lorne Stockman, from Oil Change International, blogs about the issues covered in the report:

Is a key valuation metric used by analysts to assess oil companies pushing big oil towards riskier and riskier projects?

Article tagged as: arctic, BP, canada, go beyond oil, investment, reserve replacement ratio, rrr, tar sands

Why don't you want an oil job?

Posted by jamess - 14 January 2011 at 12:13pm - Comments

The question is: has big oil ever had the brightest minds? (BP boss Hayward in front of world's worst oil spill)

Want to be this man? Apparently not.

Yesterday someone pointed me to an article on the BBC lamenting the drop in young brains chasing jobs in the dirty oil sector. It seems that having lost the battle for our hearts many moons ago, the oil industry has now officially lost the battle for our minds, too.

Article tagged as: beyond oil, BP, climate, go beyond oil, jobs, students

2011: The Arctic vs Big Oil

Posted by jamess - 6 January 2011 at 1:23pm - Comments

Polar bear crossing the melting sea ice

Cairn Energy has fired the starting guns on its 2011 Arctic drilling operation.

Their plan is to lug a couple of massive rigs up to the icy waters around Greenland and drill four exploratory holes in the seabed.

Article tagged as: arctic, BP, cairn, climate change, global warming, go beyond oil, oil, shell

The one bank we really should be saving

Posted by jamess - 17 December 2010 at 11:17am - Comments

Greenpeace activists on the Treasury sending a message to Chancellor George Osborne

HBOS? Bailed. Lloyds TSB? Done. RBS? I'll get my chequebook. Green Investment Bank? Erm, no thanks.

The only bailing being done by today's government is on its green promises, and one stands out bigger than the rest: the commitment to establish a Green Investment Bank.

Article tagged as: chris huhne, climate change, george osborne, green bank, green investment bank

Legal action and Wikileaks trigger beeping Blackberries at BP

Posted by jamess - 16 December 2010 at 12:49pm - Comments

So the US government is suing BP (along with a bunch of other oil spill sidekicks). The announcement this morning sent investors running scared and wiping a cool £2.8 billion off BP's share price. Shame the wildlife don't get lawyers.

Article tagged as: BP, deepwater horizon, go beyond oil, oil, US, wikileaks

Using leaks to prevent spills?

Posted by jamess - 10 December 2010 at 5:44pm - Comments

by. Credit: Greenpeace

Chevron's projection of a possible oil spill at its Lagavulin drill site in the North Sea

From Chevron to Shell, Nigeria to the North Sea, the slippery mask of big oil was briefly removed this week.

On Tuesday we learned from a leaked internal company report that Transocean – the operators of BP’s Deepwater Horizon rig – had a partial “blow-out” on one of its North Sea rigs only months before the Gulf of Mexico catastrophe.

Article tagged as: chevron, climate change, go beyond oil, leaks, north sea, oil spill, wikileaks

We take the government to court over oil drilling

Posted by jamess - 12 November 2010 at 2:07pm - Comments

We've taken the government to the High Court in a bid to stop offshore drilling in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon disaster.

Our lawyers filed a claim at the Royal Courts of Justice this morning seeking to stop the issuing of new licences for deep sea drilling until the causes of the Deepwater Horizon explosion have been properly established.

Article tagged as: BP, chevron, go beyond oil, government, high court, legal challenge, oil spill

Ford. Going in reverse, fast.

Posted by jamess - 8 November 2010 at 7:09pm - Comments

Update: Over 6,000 emails to Ford bosses. Yet to receive a reply.

As the clock ticks down to some pretty important laws that could potentially save us millions of barrels in oil consumption (3.6m in the UK alone), one car manufacturer is doing its best to scupper this important legislation: Ford.

We've just heard from some high-level sources that Ford is pressuring Vince Cable, the Business Secretary, to weaken the UK's position on proposed European emissions targets.

Article tagged as: cars, emissions, EU, europe, ford, go beyond oil, vans

What's the opposite of greenwash?

Posted by jamess - 5 November 2010 at 3:35pm - Comments

Why are car companies hiding their progress? Photo: drinksmachine

It's not often you see car companies trying to hide their green achievements. We're more used to seeing them worn boastfully on the outside. The way Superman wears his underpants.

So why would they hide them now?

The Corporate Social Responsibility guys must be choking on their almond croissants. Today's news is something they want to shout about: fast, tangible progress on vehicle efficiency technology that reduces emissions. Greener cars, greener company. This time they don't have to make it up. But they're being hushed up by the lobbyists in the boardroom, who know that talking about these gains is going to counter their main argument with politicians: that their companies can't comply with proposed CO2 targets in time.

Article tagged as: climate change, emissions, EU, europe, go beyond oil, phillip hammond, vans

Greenpeace UK