Extreme Weather

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Trump’s petulant tweet storm on Saturday accused Puerto Ricans of wanting everything done for them. He expressed these sentiments as his secretary of Health and Human Services, Tom Price, was forced to resign for flying around on expensive government airplanes or charters, costing tax payers over […]

Extreme Weather

If Trump were really President, he’d Forgive Puerto Rico’s Debts and Rescue it

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (informed Comment) | – – I’m not sure what Donald Trump thinks the job of president consists of. One task is to swing into action when 3.4 million Americans are living without electricity, 40% of them without potable water, and hundreds of thousands without shelter. When some 80% of its agricultural […]

Climate Change

How Colonialism, Inequality turbocharge Caribbean Hurricanes

contributors

By Levi Gahman and Gabrielle Thongs | (The Conversation) | – – Hurricane Maria, the 15th tropical depression this season, is now battering the Caribbean, just two weeks after Hurricane Irma wreaked havoc in the region. The devastation in Dominica is “mind-boggling,” wrote the country’s prime minister, Roosevelt Skerrit, on Facebook just after midnight on […]

Caribbean

Much of U.S.’s Puerto Rico “Destroyed” by 138 mi/hr Storm, Pleads with Trump for Aid

contributors

By TeleSUR | – – Puerto Rico Governor Ricardo Rossello has asked U.S. President Donald Trump to declare the island a “disaster” area. Hurricane Maria tore across Puerto Rico as the strongest storm to hit the U.S. territory in almost 90 years, leaving at least nine people dead and causing widespread flooding. The Puerto Rican […]

Denialism

Those 90 Companies that Caused Climate Crisis? They Should Pay for It

Juan Cole

By Sarah van Gelder | Yes! Magazine | – – The companies responsible for the climate crisis should cover the costs of fighting wildfires and recovering from hurricanes. Pacific Northwest forests are on fire. Several blazes are out of control, threatening rural towns, jumping rivers and highways, and covering Portland, Oregon, Seattle, and other cities […]

Climate Change

The Pentagon’s Next War: Extreme Hurricanes & other Climate attacks on US Borders

contributors

By Michael T. Klare | ( Tomdispatch.com) | – – Deployed to the Houston area to assist in Hurricane Harvey relief efforts, U.S. military forces hadn’t even completed their assignments when they were hurriedly dispatched to Florida, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands to face Irma, the fiercest hurricane ever recorded in the Atlantic […]

Climate Change

AT&T and Verizon Need to Hang Up On Fossil Fuels

contributors

By Todd Larsen | Otherwords.org | – – One text at a time, America’s largest telecommunications companies are fueling climate change. Smartphones are a huge part of our lives. We use them constantly for texts, social media, calls, directions, and finding information online. Even when we’re sleeping, they’re still active, receiving data all night. But […]

Climate Change

Antarctica Ice Melt will trigger Abrupt Global Heating

contributors

By Chris Turney, Jonathan Palmer, Peter Kershaw, Steven Phipps, and Zoë Thomas | (The Conversation) | – – Melting of Antarctica’s ice can trigger rapid warming on the other side of the planet, according to our new research which details how just such an abrupt climate event happened 30,000 years ago, in which the North […]

Climate Change

Our CO2 intensified Harvey & Irma; Worse is yet to Come

contributors

By Andrew King | (The Conversation) | – – There has been no let up since Hurricane Harvey dumped record-breaking rains on the Houston area of Texas. Hurricane Irma lashed parts of the Caribbean and Cuba and is now heading onto the US mainland, having devastated the Florida Keys and the state’s west coast. We […]