Today, the team at DeSmog is excited to reveal our new global mission and website dedicated to fearless investigations and comprehensive resources to combat the ongoing crisis of climate solutions denial and social injustices.

We’re celebrating DeSmog’s 15th anniversary of clearing the PR pollution that clouds climate science, and expanding our mission to expose the powerful forces behind the disinformation campaigns responsible for delaying climate and energy solutions. These industry-funded propaganda and polarization tactics have had a corrosive impact on democracies worldwide, resulting in a dangerously ineffective response to climate change. And the climate crisis, in turn, disproportionately affects communities of color and those who have been marginalized by some of the same systems of power and industries responsible for climate change. 

The critically urgent transition to a just and science-based clean energy system continues to suffer at the hands of well-funded operatives and organizations working to undermine progress and prolong global dependency on fossil fuels.

That’s why DeSmog is expanding our reach to feature stories and information from around the world, and encouraging our team and guest contributors to pursue newsgathering and investigations with a global perspective.

Today and in the days ahead, we’re publishing stories analyzing the directors of the world’s leading banks and their connections to polluting industries, and we’re exploring the legacy of a pioneering environmental justice lawyer who first challenged fossil fuel companies over climate change in court. We are also unveiling investigations into a volatile oil deal in Somalia pursued by two U.S. fossil fuel companies, what climate science denial looks like now, and the patchy record of a Texas facility that processes and imports radioactive fracking waste from across the U.S. and the world. 

Recognizing that climate science deniers and lobbyists obstructing climate action operate globally, we strive to serve as the antidote to those efforts, offering DeSmog as a one-stop resource for factual reporting and analysis. 

With our distinctive mix of investigative journalism, research databases, issue expertise on a range of energy and environmental issues, and global reach, DeSmog will continue to provide a unique and valuable service to our readers, who range from government workers and journalists to activists and industry employees. 

DeSmog was launched in January 2006 to call out the public relations industry for working with fossil fuel industry clients to sow doubt and seed misinformation about climate science in order to delay political action to address global warming. In those early years, we focused most of our attention on the “merchants of doubt” who were scuttling action in the United States. As we looked more closely into the individuals and organizations spreading disinformation, we soon discovered that climate science denial was spreading throughout the English-speaking world, and we would have to follow it to Canada, Australia, the UK, and further afield.

DeSmog’s investigative journalism has expanded over the years, as our understanding of the climate and energy challenges facing the world has led us to understand the importance of combating misinformation coming from a well-funded constellation of “free-market” think tanks, anti-government actors, oligarchs, and billionaires. We traced the roots of the think tanks spawned by Antony Fisher, Charles Koch, and other early architects of anti-government advocacy, and have continued tracking these activities as more and more funding flowed into them from increasingly opaque “dark money” sources.

DeSmog’s readers trust our reporting on everything from the rush to build oil and gas pipelines across the globe, to the proliferation of fracking, to the Koch-, Exxon-, Mercer-funded attacks on clean energy and climate solutions, and the leveraging of climate science denial to push for deregulated trade-deals post-Brexit. Nevertheless, we remain committed to exposing the misinformation and disinformation blocking action to address the climate crisis. We are working in the public interest and the interests of the planet.

We’re grateful to the millions of readers that visit DeSmog every year, and we couldn’t do this work without your support. You can help us continue to expose disinformation and denial campaigns by supporting us with a donation. Starting today, we’re offering an easier way to support DeSmog through recurring monthly donations via PayPal’s secure donation platform. 

Today we start an exciting new chapter in DeSmog’s story. We feel honored to have had you reading this far, and are delighted you’re sticking around to see what comes next.

If you have feedback for us on our new global mission or on our new website, as always, please let us know.