Climate Crisis

Benjamin Wehrmann | – ( Clean Energy Wire ) – One year after taking over Germany’s government, chancellor Olaf Scholz’s “traffic light” coalition [so called because his Social Democratic Party (SPD) is symbolized by red, the center-right Free Democrats (FDP) are yellow, and the Green Party is, well, green], the looks back at some turbulent […]

Climate Crisis

Given their Enormous Windfall Profits, Oil Companies are not paying Enough for their Environmental Damage

The Conversation

By Robert (Bob) L. Ascah, University of Alberta | – At the end of the third quarter reporting season in October, the Big Four oilsands producers continued to report record profit levels. Collectively, Cenovus, CNRL, Imperial Oil and Suncor earned $5.8 billion in the third quarter and $23.1 billion in the first nine months of […]

Climate Crisis

We Have not Yet been Defeated: Who will Pay for an Overheating Earth?

Tomdispatch

By Priti Gulati Cox and Stan Cox | – ( Tomdispatch.com ) – On October 29th, 75-year-old Saifullah Paracha, Guantánamo Bay’s oldest detainee, was finally released by U.S. authorities and flown home to his family in Karachi, Pakistan. He had been incarcerated for nearly two decades without either charges or a trial. His plane touched […]

Climate Crisis

Climate Change is increasing the Intensity of Tropical Storms, and even Weak ones are now Fiercer

The Conversation

Wei Mei, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Shang-Ping Xie, University of California, San Diego Tropical cyclones have been growing stronger worldwide over the past 30 years, and not just the big ones that you hear about. Our new research finds that weak tropical cyclones have gotten at least 15% more intense in […]

Climate Crisis

The Pakistani Mega-Flood and our Climate Emergency

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Here is a talk I recently gave about the mega-flood this fall in Pakistan, which affected 33 million people, inundated a third of the country at one point, and caused between $15 billion and $30 billion in damages, including to crops and food supplies at a time when the Ukraine […]

Africa

What Climate Debt Does the North Owe the South?

John Feffer

( Foreign Policy in Focus ) – Richer countries haven’t met their $100 billion promise to help poorer countries move beyond fossil fuels. Where’s the money going to come from? By John Feffer | November 30, 2022 To keep the planet from overheating, there’s just so much more carbon that humans can pump into the […]

Climate Crisis

To fight the Climate Crisis, We need to stop expanding Offshore Drilling for Oil and Gas

The Conversation

By Daniel Skerritt, University of British Columbia and Claire Huang, Duke University | – Environmental disaster struck the shores of Peru on Jan. 15, 2022, when Spanish energy company Repsol spilled 12,000 barrels of crude oil into the Bay of Lima after its tanker ruptured. The spill endangered 180,000 birds and destroyed the livelihoods of […]

Australia

First-Nations-Led Youth Win Climate/ Human Rights Case against Mammoth Coal Mine in Australia

Juan Cole

By Justine Bell-James, The University of Queensland | – In a historic ruling today, a Queensland court has said the massive Clive Palmer-owned Galilee Basin coal project should not go ahead because of its contribution to climate change, its environmental impacts, and because it would erode human rights. The case was mounted in 2020 by […]

China

What If the U.S. and China Really Cooperated on Climate Change? Imagining a Necessary Future

Michael T. Klare

( Tomdispatch.com) – As President Biden and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping arrived on the resort island of Bali, Indonesia, for their November 14th “summit,” relations between their two countries were on a hair-raising downward spiral, with tensions over Taiwan nearing the boiling point. Diplomats hoped, at best, for a modest reduction in tensions, which, […]