Environment

By Soumya Sarkar | – ( TheThirdPole.net) – Unless the world curbs greenhouse gas emissions significantly, extreme heat could become a major global killer by the end of this century, equalling death rates for all infectious diseases combined, including tuberculosis, HIV and malaria. In the largest international study till now on health and financial impacts […]

Climate Crisis

“Unsurvivable Storm Surge”: Hurricane Laura Most Powerful to Hit Louisiana in Recorded History, driven by CO2 Emissions

The Watchers

[Hurricane “Laura” became nearly a category 5 with winds at 150 mph or more on Wednesday evening before landfall. A category 5 has winds of 157 mph. Hurricanes are more frequent and more powerful because of the climate emergency driven by humans burning fossil fuels and putting heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere. – ed.] By […]

Desertification

Pandemic Karma: Destroying Forests to Raise certain Foods Put us Closer to Viruses

The Conversation

By Terry Sunderland | – As the global population has doubled to 7.8 billion in about 50 years, industrial agriculture has increased the output from fields and farms to feed humanity. One of the negative outcomes of this transformation has been the extreme simplification of ecological systems, with complex multi-functional landscapes converted to vast swaths […]

Climate Crisis

As Party of Climate Denial Meets, Wildfires Rage and Hurricanes Target Gulf Coast

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – One of the speakers at the Republican National Convention on Monday evening was Nikki Haley, formerly Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations, who helped usher the U.S. out of the Paris climate accords and who slammed Bernie Sanders’ Green New Deal. Haley when pressed will admit that the climate is […]

Climate Crisis

Greta Thunberg and Youth to Angela Merkel: ‘Abandon Fossil Fuel Industry’

Benjamin Wehrmann

By Benjamin Wehrmann ( Clean Energy Wire) – Greta Thunberg and fellow activists have met German Chancellor Angela Merkel to exchange views on the fight against climate change. The campaigners said the 90 minute meeting’s atmosphere was friendly, but also added that “we look at the situation from different perspectives.” Merkel’s spokesman said the EU’s […]

Green Energy

Electric car sales are on the rise – is coronavirus a turning point for the market?

The Conversation

By James Carroll | – Lockdowns across Europe to curb the coronavirus pandemic drastically changed how we move around the world. Work-from-home restrictions, furlough schemes and job losses left millions of cars gathering dust in driveways. It is not surprising that the demand for new cars plummeted. In Germany – Europe’s largest car market – […]

Climate Crisis

After a big win against coal, NY climate activists are closer than ever to ending all fossil fuel investments

Waging Nonviolence

By Nick Engelfried | – ( Waging Nonviolence ) – When New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli announced last month that the state would divest its over $200 billion Common Retirement Fund from more than 20 coal companies, it marked an important milestone for a grassroots campaign that has seen a recent burst of new […]

Climate Crisis

On Day Scientists Announce Melting of Greenland Ice Sheet ‘Irreversible,’ Trump to permit Arctic oil, gas Drilling

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Trump administration on Monday finalized its plans to permit oil and gas drilling in the arctic wildlife reserve. This drilling will further imperil endangered species just by the setting up of the rigs, and it will desecrate land holy to the indigenous Gwich’in people, who call it “the sacred […]

Desertification

Experts: Trump Border wall construction may imperil sacred stream, biodiversity in Desert

Cronkite News Arizona PBS

By Alisa Reznick/Arizona Public Media ( Cronkite News) – Wedged between a sprawl of saguaros and a busy highway in Mexico, Quitobaquito is a tiny oasis. Wildlife and Indigenous communities have long relied on this rare spring system for fresh water in the middle of the Sonoran Desert. The spring flows into a pond just […]