Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Harald Ringbauer et al. writing in Nature report on a genetic study of the ancient Phoenicians that is really going to anger Lebanese Christian nationalists. In fact, it contains a profound lesson for nationalists and nationalism in general, which is that the whole thing is a scam thought up in […]
The 136 Largest Coastal Cities, including Egypt’s Alexandria, face $1 Trillion Losses per Year from Sea Level Rise by 2050
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – In a new paper, Chris R. Stokes et al. write in Communications Earth and Environment that even if we manage only to heat up the earth 1.5º C. (2.7º F.) above pre-industrial norms, that might be enough to provoke massive melting of the world’s principal ice sheets — those in […]
Is Trump’s Axis of the Plutocrats Marginalizing Israel?
( Tomdispatch.com ) – Colorful career criminal Willie Sutton once may (or may not) have been asked why he robbed banks. “Because that is where the money is,” he supposedly replied. A similar principle may explain the first foreign trip of President Donald J. Trump’s second term, which was not to a traditional U.S. ally […]
Turkiye gets 11% of its Electricity from Wind, plans $1.5 Bn. Investment this year
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Turkiye’s wind power sector continues to grow, albeit at a somewhat slower pace than at the beginning of this decade. The country gets 11% of its electricity from wind. Turkiye is third in Europe for onshore wind power growth, It installed 1.5 gigawatts of new wind in 2024, more than […]
German Chancellor Merz in Historic Rebuke of Israel: Attacks on Civilians not Justified by Hamas Terror
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Because of the Nazi Holocaust in which six million European Jews were murdered, German governments have felt a need to provide Israel with unqualified support. Without German persecution of Jews in the 1930s and then the genocide of the 1940s, arguably Israel would never have come into existence. There were […]
Morocco Plans Floating Solar PV over Reservoirs to Stop Evaporation
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Morocco is on a green energy roll, as the government’s far-sighted plan to move the North African country to renewables makes it a leader in the region. The installed renewables capacity increased 5% from 2021 to 2025, to 12 gigawatts, according to an announcement in mid-May of the Minister of […]
Gaza “a Gaping Wound on Humanity:” Spain Convenes Int’l Conference to call for Arms Embargo on Israel
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Spanish wire service EFE reports that delegations from 20 countries met Sunday in Madrid in a push to pressure Israel to halt its total war on Gaza and to establish a Palestinian state. Convened by Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares, the conference sought to move to concrete actions. Israel […]
Genetic Study finds Echoes of the Early Modern Ethnic Cleansing of Spain’s Muslims
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – A genetic history study of Spain by Gonzalo Oteo-Garcia et al. in Genome Biology eloquently confirms the story of the great seventeenth-century ethnic cleansing of the remaining crypto-Muslims of Spain. As Mar Jonsson writes in his 2007 “The expulsion of the Moriscos from Spain in 1609–1614: the destruction of an […]
EVs will Make Up 25% of New Car Sales Globally in 2025, up from 20% last Year
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Electric vehicles are expected to make up some 25% of cars sold globally in 2025, according to the International Energy Agency. Given where we were only a decade ago, this is a world-historical statistic. In 2016, EVs made up a little less than one percent of light vehicle sales. The […]
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