Environment

By Arn Menconi | – (Special to Consortium News) – Today there’s no climate bill to vote on, there’s no bill in the pipeline and it is unlikely that there will be one soon, warns Arn Menconi. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (center) speaking on the Green New Deal with Sen. Ed Markey (right) in February 2019. […]

Climate Crisis

Danger of Climate Feedback Loops: Lakes now Emit 1/4 of Global Carbon, but heating Could Double It

The Conversation

Andrew J Tanentzap | – Lakes and ponds are the final resting place for many of the Earth’s plants. Rivers collect much of the planet’s dead organic matter, transporting it to rest in calmer waters. But on a microscopic scale, lakes are anything but calm. An invisible metropolis of microbes feeds on these logs and […]

Climate Crisis

Germany’s Merkel: World is Heading toward Disastrous Heating unless Rich Countries Drastically Cut CO2

Clean Energy Wire

By Benjamin Wehrmann | – The earth’s surface temperature will rise by three degrees Celsius [5.4° F.] under current climate targets, meaning CO2 emissions targets especially of industrialised countries have to be adjusted, Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel said at an event hosted by the country’s development cooperation ministry (BMZ) in Berlin. “Our targets are not […]

Environmentalism

Climate Crisis will Beggar Us: Big Oil needs to Pay for the Damage it Caused

Yes! Magazine

By Tamara Toles O’Laughlin and Bill McKibben | – (Yes! Magazine) – Climate change disproportionately affects poor people and people of color. They should be compensated for their suffering. This month in a Manhattan courthouse, New York State’s attorney general Letitia James argued that ExxonMobil should be held accountable for layers of lies about climate […]

Mass Extinction

Is our Civilization Causing the Sixth Great Mass Extinction in Earth’s History?

The Conversation

By Frédérik Saltré and Corey J. A. Bradshaw | – For more than 3.5 billion years, living organisms have thrived, multiplied and diversified to occupy every ecosystem on Earth. The flip side to this explosion of new species is that species extinctions have also always been part of the evolutionary life cycle. Humans are probably […]

Climate Crisis

All Hell Breaking Loose: The Pentagon’s Perspective on Climate Change

Michael T. Klare

(Tomdispatch.com) – The Situation Room, October 2039: the president and vice president, senior generals and admirals, key cabinet members, and other top national security officers huddle around computer screens as aides speak tokey officials across the country. Some screens are focused on Hurricane Monica, continuing its catastrophic path through the Carolinas and Virginia; others are […]

Germany

Brexit decides Tesla to Open Gigafactory in Germany in Win for E-Mobility

Clean Energy Wire

By Sören Amelang | – Tesla’s announcement to build a “gigafactory” for e-car production in Germany is likely to speed up the slow shift to electric mobility in the country, politicians and mobility experts have said. Media called the announcement a “head-on attack” on the country’s mighty carmakers BMW, Daimler and VW that will force […]

Archaeology

Did Ancient Iraq’s Huge Assyrian Empire Rise and Fall on Climate Change?

The Conversation

By Ashish Sinha and Gayatri Kathayat | – Ancient Mesopotamia, the fabled land between the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers, was the command and control center of the Neo-Assyrian Empire. This ancient superpower was the largest empire of its time, lasting from 912 BC to 609 BC in what is now modern Iraq and Syria. […]

Climate Crisis

Since Trump Dumped the Paris Climate Agreement, is it Game Over?

The Conversation

By Henrik Selin | – Editor’s note: On Nov. 4, the Trump administration formally notified the United Nations that it planned to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris Agreement on climate change, which 196 countries adopted in 2015. The pact is designed to keep global temperatures from rising more than 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial […]