Fossil Fuels

IEA: Peak Fossil Fuels will come in 2025, as Renewables are Turbo-Charged by Russia-Ukraine War and Energy Crisis

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Fatih Birol, among the world’s foremost energy economists, has a new report at the International Energy Agency, which he directs. In it, he argues that recent developments such as the Ukraine War energy crisis are good news for low-carbon energy such as wind and solar and bad news for fossil […]

Climate Crisis

The Fossil Free Research Movement is taking Universities by Storm

Waging Nonviolence

By Nick Engelfried | – ( Waging Nonviolence ) – When over 40 Cambridge students and academics occupied the elite U.K. university’s BP Institute earlier this year, they were escalating one of the newest, fastest-growing campaigns focused on dissociating higher education institutions from fossil fuels. For just over an hour, activists from the grassroots initiative […]

Climate Crisis

The Second Great Dying: The Earth has lost 4/5s of Fresh Water and 7/10s of Wildlife Species’ Populations in 50 Years

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The 2022 Living Planet report is out and it does not bring good news. Since 1970, the scientists find that the population of fresh water species has plunged by 83%, and the population of wildlife species over all has fallen 69%. The researchers found a virtual extinction-level loss in Latin […]

Climate Crisis

Dear Gov. DeSantis: Ian isn’t a once-in-500-years Flooding event, it is the New Normal, and Your Policies are helping Cause it

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has abruptly been handed an honest-to-God crisis that may distract him from his usual antics of trolling Venezuelan asylum-seekers, firing elected prosecutors who disagree with him on coerced childbirth, and firing scientists who wouldn’t manipulate state COVID statistics for him. DeSantis called Hurricane Ian a once-in-a-500-year […]

Climate Crisis

As Last Coal Plant closes, Cheap Solar Power Rescues Hawaii, which has reached ~40% Renewables

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Veteran green energy journalist Julian Spector at Canary Media tells the story of how the last-minute opening this July of the 39-megawatt (MW) Mililani 1 solar farm out near Pearl Harbor — which is hooked up to a 156 MW battery — saved Hawaii from brownouts when its last coal […]

Carbon Footprint

Business can no Longer Ignore Extreme Heat, Climate Emergency as they Threaten Bottom Line

The Conversation

By David Lont, University of Otago; Martien Lubberink, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington; and Paul Griffin, University of California, Davis | – When record-breaking heatwaves cause train tracks to bend, airport runways to buckle, and roads to melt, as happened in the United Kingdom last month, it is likely that business performance […]

Climate Crisis

Top 3 Reasons Coal Power is Doomed to a quick Disappearance, and the Supreme Court Can’t Save It

The Conversation

By Rebecca J. Davis, Stephen F. Austin State University | – The U.S. coal industry chalked up a rare win this summer when the Supreme Court issued a ruling limiting the government’s ability to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from power plants. But that doesn’t mean coal-fired power plants will make a comeback. As an economist, […]

Climate Crisis

Why Britain’s 104°F (40°C) Heatwave was made many Times more Likely by Humans burning Fossil Fuels

The Conversation

By Ben Clark, University of Oxford; Friederike Otto, Imperial College London; and Luke Harrington, University of Waikato | – (The Conversation) – Every heatwave occurring today is made more likely and intense by human-caused climate change. Early estimates by the UK Met Office suggest that days over 40°C [104°F] have become ten times more likely […]

Climate Crisis

Are New Mexico’s Megafires so extreme they Mark a New era? Welcome to the Pyrocene

William deBuys

By William deBuys | – ( Tomdispatch.org) – Firefighters don’t normally allude to early English epics, but in a briefing on the massive Hermits Peak/Calf Canyon Fire in northern New Mexico, a top field chief said, “It’s like Beowulf: it’s not the thing you fear, it is the mother of the thing you fear.” He […]