All posts by Dan Zegart

Strong Optics at Attorney General’s Climate Conclave but Weak on Details, Litigators

The announcement Tuesday that two more attorneys general are investigating whether ExxonMobil and other fossil fuel companies misled the public about the reality of global warming raised more questions than it answered – particularly as

Southern Company, Climate Change

CIC Sues Department of Energy for Southern Co. Kemper “Clean Coal” Documents

The Climate Investigations Center has sued the U.S. Department of Energy to force the release of records pertaining to Southern Company’s “clean coal” power plant in Kemper County, Mississippi. In a lawsuit filed late last

Peabody Settles with NY Attorney General, Will Disclose More on Climate – But Not Much

Peabody Energy settled a multi-year investigation by the New York state attorney general’s office last night, agreeing to make more truthful disclosures to investors about climate change-related risks to its coal mining operations. However the

Heartland Institute Attacks Pope Francis: Calling climate action “paganism”

  At a press conference in Philadelphia last week, the climate denier group the Heartland Institute denounced Pope Francis’s call for urgent action on global warming, accused the pontiff of “left wing” politics and said

Former Dept. of Justice Official Says Exxon News Worsens Liability Picture

The former Department of Justice lawyer who led the watershed lawsuit against tobacco companies, says that the news out today about oil giant ExxonMobil knowing as early as 1981 about the threat posed by climate

“Are Coal, Oil and Gas the Subprime Assets of the Future?”

That question was actually asked by British Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change Ed Davey last year, and its ramifications are extensively explored in a provocative report released today by the Center for

Peabody’s Five Point Plan for Getting the World to Adapt To Peabody

When a coal company chief executive officer offers a decarbonization plan, it means one of two things. One, he has finally seen the light, and realizes that coal is irremediably dirty. Or two, this is

Alabama Power: No Public Oversight, No Plan, No Relief in Sight

What happens when a politically powerful utility is allowed to spend its customers’ money without any public accountability for over thirty years? In Alabama, billions went to upgrade coal-fired power plants that are approaching –

Energy Poverty and Coal “All Talk No Action” Australia Institute Report

Ahead of the G-20 meeting in Australia later this week, a new report by an Australian think-tank convincingly punctures coal industry claims that coal is an essential part of the solution to lack of access

Flacking Cancer, Flacking Coal – The Public Relations Industry, Tobacco and Climate Change

by Dan Zegart, author of Civil Warriors I remember when it was tobacco that desperately needed an emergency public relations rescue, the way fossil fuels do now. There are certain kinds of companies you don’t