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If the top 25 oil and gas companies had been held accountable for their role in global warming in recent decades, they would still have made $10 trillion dollars in profit, according to the report published by think tank Climate Analytics.

The estimated damage caused by carbon emissions from the 25 companies cost $20 trillion from 1985 to 2018—but during that time they earned $30 trillion, the report said.

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The COP28 talks will be held during what is widely expected to be the hottest year on record.

"Oil and gas companies are meanwhile unabashedly flaunting their profits, some even walking back on their climate commitments," said report co-author Marina Andrijevic.

The man who pleaded guilty to participating in a massive criminal hacking scheme targeting climate advocates who campaigned against ExxonMobil was sentenced to nearly 7 years in prison yesterday, while the question of who hired him remains unanswered.

During his sentencing hearing in federal court in Manhattan, Israeli private investigator Aviram Azari said through a translator that “there will come a day” when he would be able to tell his victims more. Federal prosecutors say Azari served as the scheme’s middleman, connecting his clients with hackers across the globe who were directed to infiltrate the emails and online accounts of thousands of victims and their close friends, family, and coworkers between 2014 and 2019. In 2019, he was arrested on his way to Disneyland and detained in New York.

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Azari had pleaded guilty to counts of wire fraud, conspiracy to commit hacking, and aggravated identity theft last April. None of Azari’s clients, who prosecutors say paid Azari $4.8 million, have been named.

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“I would’ve thought by now, given the facts and circumstances of this case, that the board [of ExxonMobil] would’ve called for a transparent and independent investigation to make sure that none of their employees or agents were involved in this crime,” Lee Wasserman, director of the Rockefeller Family Fund and a victim of the hacking, told reporters outside the courthouse. “But Exxon’s silence is deafening.”

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Last month, ExxonMobil and Chevron separately announced two of the biggest oil and gas deals of the century, securing their dominance over the U.S. fossil fuel sector. Exxon’s $60 billion acquisition of Pioneer Natural Resources and Chevron’s $53 billion acquisition of Hess are the latest signs that the companies are committed to expanding their fossil fuel businesses, even as climate scientists warn that the continued use of fossil fuels is unleashing irreversible damage on communities and the planet.

In separate letters, 23 U.S. Senators and 22 advocacy groups have urged the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, the federal agency that protects the public from unfair business practices, to investigate whether the deals would violate antitrust law — and stop them if necessary. (Note: ExxonKnews is a project of The Center for Climate Integrity, which signed the advocates’ letter.)

The officials and advocates lay out a number of concerns:

Exxon and Chevron are doubling down on fossil fuels at the expense of the climate.

The mergers could expand oil companies’ lobbying power and undermine democracy.

The deals could threaten workers and consumers.

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The deals follow Big Oil’s years-long, multi-million dollar advertising campaigns to convince the public that they were leading partners in climate solutions — even while they spent almost nothing investing in renewable energy. In 2021, three advocacy groups — EarthWorks, Global Witness, and Greenpeace — filed a complaint with the FTC accusing Chevron of misleading consumers through greenwashing.

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"Breathtakingly broad and unprecedented"

Sixty-one activists appeared before Fulton County Court yesterday on racketeering charges related to their protest of Atlanta’s new “Public Safety Training Center,” commonly known as Cop City. The arraignment comes after the Georgia Attorney General’s Office alleged, in September, that defendants were “conspiring” to violate the state’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act. If convicted, each “Stop Cop City” activist could face up to 20 years in prison — even those who are alleged to have participated in non-violent protests. Experts worry that it’s the latest tactic by Georgia officials to stifle political dissent.

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The 109-page RICO indictment lumps together vague allegations of non-violent conduct with more serious charges of violence. The indictment, for example, cites numerous protesters for "trespassing" and “join[ing] an organized mob of individuals designed to overwhelm the police force in an attempt to occupy the DeKalb forest and cause property damage,” describing it as “an overt act in furtherance of the conspiracy.” Notably, the indictment does not allege these specific individuals caused any property damage or overwhelmed the police. But the indictment claims that was their intention. Trespassing is a crime, but not one that typically comes with a 20-year prison sentence. Other acts "in furtherance of the conspiracy" include being reimbursed for camping supplies, kitchen utensils, and glue.

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"We are extremely concerned by this breathtakingly broad and unprecedented use of state terrorism, anti-racketeering, and money laundering laws against protesters,” Senior Staff Attorney for ACLU’s National Security Project Aamra Ahmad said in the statement. “Georgia law enforcement officials are disproportionately wielding these overbroad laws to stigmatize and target those who disagree with the government.”

Other groups that denounced the indictment include the National Lawyers Guild and the Center for Constitutional Rights, who both argued that the RICO charges were intended to silence protestors. The National Lawyers Guild argued that the indictment is “intended to serve a political end… to silence the protest movement, to prevent it from having access to attorneys, bail support and even legal observation,” stating that the charges were meant “to portray a popular movement as an unlawful conspiracy.” The Center for Constitutional Rights argued that, “[l]ike anti-terrorism statutes, RICO laws, in their vagueness and elasticity, are dangerous weapons in the hands of prosecutors and corporations bent on silencing dissent.”

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Journalists and meteorologists must go further, and call rapid hurricane intensification a symptom of fossil fuels.


A Weather Channel broadcast shows not just the rapid intensification, but “explosive intensification” of Hurricane Otis, which made landfall Wednesday as a Category 5 hurricane with sustained winds of nearly 167 miles per hour and gusts of up to 205 miles per hour. Source: The Weather Channel


A monster Category 5 hurricane pummeled the southern Mexican state of Guerrero on Wednesday, killing at least 27 people, knocking out power, and destroying infrastructure in the famed city of Acapulco.

If you’re surprised to hear about this, that may be because weather forecasters were, too. On Tuesday night, Hurricane Otis “experienced nearly unprecedented explosive development in hours, going from a Category 1 to a catastrophic Category 5 with nearly no warning, stunning residents and meteorologists alike,” Fox Weather reported.

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That’s because greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel burning, deforestation and industrial agriculture are making the ocean much hotter—and hotter oceans make rapid intensification more likely.

But Hurricane Otis’s growth was on whole other level—so rapid and intense that some forecasters gave it another name: “explosive intensification.” In just 24 hours, the storm’s top-end windspeed increased by 115 miles per hour.

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