Gas flaring in North Dakota’s Bakken Shale oil field has been creeping back up, blunting the state’s efforts to tame a problem that came to symbolize the excesses of the oil boom.

The volume of gas burned in flares reached 222 million cubic feet a day in June, a 31 percent increase from the same month last year, when the volume was 170 million cubic feet. That’s still far lower than the peak in 2014, but critics said the turnaround shows the limits of North Dakota’s industry-friendly regulations.

Source: https://www.eenews.net/stories/1060058765

==================================

>>> From Scott Tong, The Markerplace, July 31, 2017

Two cases of illegal payments and bribery came to light recently.

One is against the oil services company Halliburton in Angola.

The other involves a mining subsidiary of Glencore doing business in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

With government heavily involved and centralizing many so-called extractive industries, drilling and mining are more prone to corruption than, say, farming.

And the U.S., for one, is not increasing transparency requirements for oil and gas company operations doing business abroad under President Trump.

Click the audio player in the Article to hear the full story.

Source: https://www.marketplace.org/2017/07/31/sustainability/why-oil-industry-may-be-most-corrupt-world

The offender Tad Katz, is asking the court to dismiss the suit because the impersonation was not creditable enough to merit the law suit. Quest Integrity fired him after the law suit was filed and he has the gaul to counter sue for $1,000,000 “for lost earnings.” 10 other “John Does” are also listed in the suit. Katz has a long list of oil companies he has been associated with, including BP Chevron and ExxonMobil, and others.

Article by Emmanuel Jarry, Reuters News Service, Paris, July 4, 2017

A French court on Wednesday convicted respected lung doctor Michel Aubier of perjury for lying under oath at a parlimentary hearing on air pollution about his two decade-long ties with oil multinational Total.

Aubier, who often appeared on televisions talk shows as an expert in his field, was paid 75,000 euros ($85,000) per year by Total, a source familiar with the terms of the relationship said.

Total confirmed that he remains on its payroll.

The court handed Aubier, 69, a six-month suspended jail term and imposed a 50,000 euro fine in a verdict that marked the first time in France an individual has been found guilty of perjury for testimony given to a parliamentary commission.

The ruling went beyond the 30,000 euro penalty demanded by the prosecutor, a decision the judge said was due to the “particular seriousness of this false testimony before the representatives of the nation”.

Aubier told a Senate commission in 2015 that he had no ties with the oil industry or other parties that may be concerned by the commission’s investigations.

“I never minimized the effects of pollution on our health,” Aubier told the court, adding that the links between pollution and cancer were weak.

Nevertheless, he acknowledged committing an error, though he pleaded it was made in good faith and was unintentional.

A Total spokesperson told Reuters Aubier would remain a medical adviser to the oil and gas company until the end of 2017, at which point he would turn 70 and retire.

From Kate Yoder for “save the children”

A Center for Public Integrity investigation found that the industry is using its clout to get petroleum-friendly messages into K-12 education.

For example, the Oklahoma Energy Resources Board — a state agency funded by oil and gas companies — shelled out $40 million over the past 20 years to get pro-fossil fuel materials into the state’s curricula and programs.

Schools and libraries across Oklahoma received more than 9,000 free copies of the children’s book Petro Pete’s Big Bad Dream. The premise: Little Pete wakes up one morning to find his toothbrush and bike tires have disappeared. Then his school bus doesn’t show. When he finally gets to school, his teacher says, “It sounds like you are missing all of your petroleum by-products today!”

Clunky dialogue aside, the book is part of a larger culture war over climate change with American classrooms as the battlefield. To wit, thousands of teachers received the book Why Scientists Disagree About Global Warming in their mailboxes this year courtesy the climate-denying Heartland Institute.

Sinister? Heck yeah. But is it working? According to The New York Times recent story featuring a straight-A, climate-denying Ohio student, the answer appears to be (shudder) yes.

Source: http://grist.org/briefly/listen-to-these-podcasts-if-you-want-to-keep-up-the-fight-against-climate-change/