Green New Deal

In Bipartisan Infrastructure Package, opportunity to alter fundamental climate and economic priorities is being squandered

Southwest Harbor, Maine (Special to Informed Comment) – How to assess the infrastructure package? Lots of big numbers, but budgetary appropriations are moral statements, and this package disappoints. An opportunity to alter fundamental climate and economic priorities is being squandered. Perhaps no aspect of the American political economy is more iconic that the auto. Not […]

Climate Crisis

Nuclear energy isn’t a safe bet in a warming world – here’s why

The Conversation

By Paul Dorfman | – ( The Conversation) – The overwhelming majority of nuclear power stations active today entered service long before the science of climate change was well-established. Two in five nuclear plants operate on the coast and at least 100 have been built just a few metres above sea level. Nuclear energy is, […]

Climate Change

Right now it Doesn’t Look like we can Keep Global Heating to an Extra 2.7° F.; But we Can Change That

The Conversation

By Christopher Hedemann, Eduardo Gresse, and Jan Petzold | – ( The Conversation ) – If you read the scientific literature, there seem to be countless pathways and scenarios that might lead us to global deep decarbonisation by 2050, allowing us to meet the 1.5°C target. “It’s still possible,” is the message, “if only we […]

Germany

Greentech is 15% of German Economy, and its Market Volume will Double in 10 Years to $1 Trillion

Clean Energy Wire

By Kerstine Appunn | – ( Clean Energy Wire ) – Experts from Germany’s environment ministry expect the global market for environmental technologies to grow by more than seven percent annually in the next ten years. The German sector is developing even more dynamically with average annual growth of more than eight percent, the environment […]

Climate Crisis

A big Effing Deal: On Eve of Climate Summit, news that Biden will cut US C02 Emissions 50% by 2030

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – ( Matthew Daly at the Associated Press reports that President Biden will announce at Thursday’s virtual international Climate Summit that the US will commit to reducing its annual carbon dioxide emissions by half of the 2005 peak by 2030. Joe Biden famously used an expletive to describe the passage of […]

China

Despite Hawks Seeking new Cold War, the US and China can only Confront Climate Emergency by Cooperating

Juan Cole

( China Dialogue ) – They say don’t mess with Texas, but Mother Nature didn’t get the memo. A surprise winter storm killed at least 111 people in March, when rolling blackouts left several million Texans without power for several freezing days. Their misery came just a few years after Hurricane Harvey put a US$125 […]

Climate Crisis

Why Activists have Launched a Fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty

China Dialogue

By Isabella Kaminski | – ( China Dialogue ) A fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty (FFNPT) initiative was formally launched last September by a coalition of academics, lawyers and activists. It’s modelled on the landmark UN Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons agreed in the 1960s, and is built around the same three pillars: non-proliferation, […]

Education

A Green New Deal: Arkansas School District goes Solar, Gives Teachers $1000s in Bonuses with Savings

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Climate Wire reported last fall on a remarkable story about the way renewable energy not only saves the earth from the destructive climate emergency but can at the same time improve our lives and those of our children. Our hero is Michael Hester, who some years ago became the superintendent […]

Green Energy

Defeating Climate Denialism by showing People how they will Win by Greening Society

The Conversation

By Sarah Sharma and Matthew Hoffmann | – Canada and the United States are suddenly steeped in policy proposals to aggressively cut carbon emissions. In the face of a climate emergency and on the heels of numerous climate disasters, this is welcome news indeed. In the U.S., the newly minted Biden administration has unleashed a […]