By Joshua Frank ( Tomdispatch.com) – It’s an ocean of conflict and ecological decline. Despite its vast size — 1.3 million square miles — the South China Sea has become a microcosm of the geopolitical tensions between East and West, where territorial struggles over abundant natural resources may one day lead to environmental collapse. While […]
Archives for September 2023
Why Solar panel technology is set to be Turbo-Charged
By Bruno Vicari Stefani, CSIRO; and Matthew Wright, University of Oxford | – Solar panel technology has made enormous progress in the last two decades. In fact, the most advanced silicon solar cells produced today are about as good as the technology will get. So what’s next? Enter “tandem solar cells”, the new generation in […]
Biden in Hanoi: Climate Change Exceeding 1.5° C. is more of an Existential Threat than even Nuclear War
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – As I pointed out on Sunday, the Big Oil and Big Coal countries in the G20 — Russia, Saudi Arabia, India and China — prevented the New Delhi summit’s joint communique from making any specific commitments to reduce carbon pollution. At his news conference in Hanoi, President Biden was pressed […]
The dangerous Alliance of religious Nationalism in Israel and America to Silence Critics of Apartheid
Morgan Artyukhina ( Waging Nonviolence ) – A new brand of far-right religious nationalism in Israel is seeking to refine the country’s ethnocentric basis, increasing its policing of the boundaries of Israeli Jewish identity in an attempt to shore up support for Israel’s anti-Arab policies. A parallel movement is unfolding in Israel’s chief benefactor, the […]
Marrakech Artisans – who have helped rebuild the Moroccan City before – are among those hit hard in the Earthquake’s Devastation
By Abbey Stockstill, Southern Methodist University | – A powerful earthquake that hit close to the medieval city of Marrakech in Morocco on Sept. 8, 2023, has killed thousands and injured many more. It has also put at risk buildings and monuments of major historic importance, among them the minaret of the Kutubiyya mosque, a […]
How Nevada just became the Saudi Arabia of Lithium, as World’s Largest Deposit is discovered at Thacker Pass
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – In the scientific journal Science Advances, Thomas R. Benton and his colleagues published a paper last month showing that a volcanic crater, the McDermitt Caldera, stretching across the Nevada and Oregon border may have doubled the world’s accessible lithium deposits. There are an estimated 88 million tons of lithium reserves […]
Israel and its Occupation exact a High Price from Palestinians
( Jordan Times ) – Last week, the UN Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People called for Israel’s “immediate and unconditional” pull out from East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza. Its annual report cited Israel’s breaches of key tenets of international law as proof that Israel’s forever occupation […]
Our Global Maui Moment: Climate Crisis and a World Afire
( Tomdispatch.com ) – From the earliest kingdoms to late last night, history has been the story not just of the rise of great powers but of their decline and fall. So, normally, there would be nothing particularly out of the ordinary about the aging America of Joe Biden and Donald Trump, a classic imperial […]
Big Oil and Big Coal countries Block meaningful G20 Climate Pledge, in wake of World’s Hottest Summer on Record
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Shivam Patel at Reuters reports that the G20 summit in New Delhi made no specific, agreed-upon statement on climate and energy goals. The 20 richest countries in the world agreed to triple renewable energy by 2030 and to cut way back on coal, but did not set out specifics. They […]
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