Environment

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – As The Independent put it in its headline, for the first six months of this year, Scotland generated enough electricity with wind turbines to power two Scotlands (with regard to household energy requirements). Of course, households are not the only consumers of electricity– industry and retail are big in that […]

Climate Change

40 Years ago Climate Scientists achieved their own Moonshot, Accurately Predicting Global Heating

The Conversation

By Neville Nicholls | – This month the world has been celebrating the 50th anniversary of Neil Armstrong setting foot on the Moon. But this week sees another scientific anniversary, perhaps just as important for the future of civilisation. Forty years ago, a group of climate scientists sat down at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in […]

Climate Change

From Concentration Camps to Environmental Collapse: How America became a Dystopian Nightmare

Andrew J. Bacevich

( Tomdispatch.com ) – [Editorial note: This remnant of a manuscript, discovered in a vault near the coastal town of Walpole, Massachusetts, appears to have been part of a larger project, probablyenvisioned as an interpretive history of the United States since the year 2000. Only a single chapter, probably written near the midpoint of the […]

Environmentalism

A Total Disgrace’: Outrage as Trump EPA Says It Won’t Ban Pesticide Linked to Brain Damage in Children

Common Dreams

By Jake Johnson, staff writer In a move environmentalists denounced as yet another case of the Trump administration putting industry profits over public health, the Environmental Protection Agency announced on Thursday that it will not ban chlorpyrifos, a pesticide linked to brain damage in children. “The EPA’s refusal to ban chlorpyrifos ignores decades of science […]

Climate Change

Changing the Climate Conversation: School Strikes are a Start, but we Need Bank Boycotts and other New Tactics

Open Democracy

By Tim Root | – The global movement fighting climate breakdown has made some promising advances recently, chiefly thanks to Greta Thunberg and the other admirable school climate strikers. The British, Irish, French and Canadian parliaments have declared a climate emergency. In the European Parliament elections, Green parties and other allies got about 14% of […]

Climate Change

In Just the Past Year, German CO2 Emissions fell by 33%, as Gas Replaced Coal

Clean Energy Wire

By Freja Eriksen | – A fuel switch from coal to gas cut emissions from German fossil fuel power plants by a third in June 2019 as compared to the same month the year before. Lower gas prices and higher costs for CO2 allowances are part of the explanation. [UPDATE adds comments by Karsten Capion, […]

Brazil

We all Depend on the Amazon: Can the UN Stop Brazil’s Far-Right Bolsonaro from Completely Destroying It?

The Conversation

By Ash Murphy | – Deforestation of the Amazon rainforest in Brazil is at its highest rate in a decade, according to new satellite data. This comes after president Jair Bolsonaro has loosened environmental regulations, cut enforcement budgets, and supported further development in the region. Tarcisio Schnaider / shutterstock Trees absorb carbon dioxide naturally, and […]

Climate Change

From New Orleans to Bihar: Why the Climate Emergency is a Poor People’s Issue, Too

OtherWords

By Mallika Khanna | – Poor and working communities stand to gain the most from protections against corporations that expose them to pollution. If you’ve read anything about climate change over the past year, you’ve probably heard about the IPCC report that gives a 12-year deadline for limiting climate change catastrophe. But for many parts […]

Climate Change

If Antarctica Melts, Seas will Rise a Gigantic 190 Feet; It has Started Losing Ice Rapidly

The Conversation

By Nerilie Abram, Matthew England, and Matt King | – A record start to summer ice melt in Greenland this year has drawn attention to the northern ice sheet. We will have to wait to see if 2019 continues to break ice-melt records, but in the rapidly warming Arctic the long-term trends of ice loss […]