Economy

America’s clean energy economy created nearly 80,000 green jobs in 2013, benefitting virtually every state across the country even as looming market and policy uncertainty threaten to shrink green growth. Solar, energy efficiency, and public transportation…

Economy

Libya’s Parliament dumps PM Zeidan, Elects al-Thinni, over Oil Tanker Crisis

Juan Cole

(By Juan Cole) In a series of dramatic political moves, the Libyan General National Congress on Tuesday carried out a vote of no confidence in Prime Minister Ali Zeidan. Zeidan, identified as a liberal nationalist, has been targeted since his election in 2012 by the Muslim Brotherhood bloc in the elected Libyan parliament, but they […]

Climate Change

In Illinois, 91 Communities are now Powered 100% By Green Electricity

Juan Cole

91 Illinois Communities Powered 100% By Green Electricity (via Clean Technica) Article by the WWF. WASHINGTON, DC, March 7, 2014 – Illinois has embraced renewable electricity on a massive scale not seen anywhere else in the nation, says a new report, Leading from the Middle: How Illinois Communities Unleashed Renewable Energy… —– Related video: AP from a […]

Economy

The Tea Party Just Turned Five — Is it Winning its War on Workers and Minorities?

Juan Cole

Some date the advent of the tea party to 2007, when then-presidential candidate Ron Paul held a “tax day tea party” fundraiser to fill his campaign coffers. But the broader movement began five years ago last week — shortly after Barack Obama was…

Climate Change

Ukraine Crisis Shows Urgency of Green Energy: Russian Nat’l Gas Blackmail

Juan Cole

(By Juan Cole) Hawks are complaining that Europe has been insufficiently belligerent in its response to Russian moves in the Crimea, blaming the declining military budgets in most European countries. But this focus on military hardware is misleading, since there was never any prospect of a conventional military confrontation with the Russian Federation, given that […]

Climate Change

India’s New Large-Scale Solar Projects will add 2 Gigawatts to its Grid

contributors

Two gigawatts (GW) worth of new large-scale solar energy projects will soon be constructed in the nation of India, according to the country’s finance minister Shri Chidambaram. During his interim budget speech earlier this week, Chidambaram stated…

Africa

A World built on Slavery

contributors

(By Greg Grandin) Many in the United States were outraged by the remarks of conservative evangelical preacher Pat Robertson, who blamed Haiti’s catastrophic 2010 earthquake on Haitians for selling their souls to Satan. Bodies were still being pulled from the rubble — as many as 300,000 died — when Robertson went on TV and gave […]

Economy

The Promise and Existential Risks of Nanotechnology

Juan Cole

Video by Dr. Kim Solez on Existential Risks [of Nanotechnology] prepared for the Lifeboat Foundation The Bill Joy video excerpt from the year 2000 in “The Future Doesn’t Need Us” segment at 7:05 no longer exists separately on the net so this is one of the few places where one can still see it. See […]

Arab Spring

Racializing Politics: We don’t say “Slav” Democracy troubled in Ukraine, why Talk about “Arab” Failures?

Juan Cole

The troubles that Ukraine is having (and that Russia and the former Yugoslavia also had) in its post-Soviet politics, with a struggle between authoritarianism and democracy and between a Moscow orientation versus a Brussels one, are very similar to the difficulties that have beset many countries of the Arab world in the past few years. […]