DeSmog is excited to announce the promotion of Geoff Dembicki to the position of Global Managing Editor.

Geoff is an award-winning investigative reporter, author, and long-time friend of DeSmog since we first discovered his excellent reporting and shoved a copy of Climate Cover-Up into his hands in 2010.

His 2022 book, The Petroleum Papers, was named a best book of the year by The Washington Post, and was based on documents that DeSmog collected from an Imperial Oil archive of internal memos tracing ExxonMobil’s advanced global understanding of climate science and its subsequent pivot to denial and disinformation. The book is also being adapted into a TV series, it was just announced this week.

Geoff is well-suited to the urgent effort required to expose the fossil fuel industry’s ongoing efforts to block climate action, which remain frustratingly effective as evidenced by the disappointing result of the COP29 climate negotiations in Azerbaijan.

Geoff will play a key role on our leadership team as we navigate a tumultuous 2025, with the return of climate denier Donald Trump to the White House, a Canadian federal election, and the continued stranglehold fossil fuel interests exert on democracies across the planet.

The global growth of the network of extreme free-market think tanks and industry front groups that we call the “architecture of denial” is undermining democracy and gaining power at a time when greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels are reaching dangerously high levels and humanity can least afford to backpedal.

As I wrote in 2021 when we crystalized our global vision:

“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.”

In this new global managing editor position, Geoff will work closely with our team in the UK, helmed by our Editor-in-Chief Hazel Healy, as we continue to connect the dots of trans-Atlantic coordination between denial and disinformation networks. He’ll also coordinate closely with Matthew Green, our Global Investigations Editor, and will help oversee our expanding roster of freelance journalists across North America, Europe, Africa, Latin America, and Asia, ensuring their work reflects our commitment to hard-hitting, fair, and accurate journalism.

Geoff will continue to write articles and books in this role, so stay tuned for more of his investigations into those working to rebrand CO2 pollution as “vital” and other mind-bending throwbacks to the 1990s denial playbook, including publishing partnerships with major outlets such as The Guardian.

“For as long I’ve been doing investigative journalism about climate change, DeSmog has been an invaluable resource — from educating me about the deniers blocking solutions, to making public the confidential oil industry documents that became the backbone of my 2022 book The Petroleum Papers. I’m thrilled to become global managing editor at a time when DeSmog’s brand of fearless adversarial reporting is needed more than ever,” Geoff said.

DeSmog’s unique blend of investigative journalism, research databases, expertise on a range of energy and environmental issues, and global reach have provided a valuable service to readers since our launch in 2006. Geoff will help ensure that DeSmog’s audience continues to grow, both on our site and through the various publishing partnerships we have such as Covering Climate Now, The Guardian, Le Monde, and collaborative investigations with many international partners, including Drilled, Heated, the New Republic and others.

We’re grateful to the millions of readers who 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. We’ve recently upgraded our platform to make it easier than ever to support DeSmog through recurring monthly donations or one-time donations (all tax-deductible for U.S. donors).

Join us in welcoming Geoff into this new role!