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Written anywhere but the Financial Times, an article on the future of the oil industry might just pass you by.

Desperate times mean desperate measures. Something has to give. With no end in sight to the low oil price, Canadian tar sands companies are having to sell what are being described as their “jewels in the crown” in order just to survive.

Later this month, a judge in the UK is set to jail 13 non-violent protesters who occupied one of the runways at London Heathrow in July last year.

Exxon is out with its annual forecast for a world dominated by fossil fuels and thrown into climate chaos. Why are we not surprised?

The oil barons from Exxon will wake up to a double headache this morning. The carnage on the international oil markets is playing havoc with their share price. Yesterday afternoon the company’s stock was down nearly 5 per cent as the oil price continued its free-fall.

Well we will have to wait for another day and another trial for an American jury to rule on the “necessity defence” for direct action to prevent climate change.

Every day, it seems, brings more bad news for the fossil fuel industry. The week started badly with the news that they US coal giant Arch Coal, which owns the world’s biggest coal-mining complex, was filing for bankruptcy.

History will be made later today in an unassuming grey court room in Snohomish county in Washington State, when five activists – known as the Delta 5 - who blocked an explosive crude by rail train last year, will argue that their actions were justified by the threat of climate change.