Environment

By Christine Corlet Walker | – You may have missed it, but a recent report declared that the main strategy of world leaders for tackling climate change won’t work. It’s called green growth, and it’s favoured by some of the largest and most influential organisations in the world, including the United Nations and the World […]

Climate Change

Be Afraid, Very Afraid: Greenland Ice Sheets Cascading into Ocean 50 Years Ahead of Schedule

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Amid the European heat wave, Ruth Mottram of the Danish Meteorological Institute set off a panic this week when she observed that Greenland lost 11 billion tons of ice on August 1, the most in recorded history, and half the ice sheet was experiencing some level of melting. She added […]

Climate Change

Combatting the Climate Emergency: The Chinese Path or the Green New Deal?

John Feffer

(Tomdispatch.com ) – At its best, the earth was once likened to a spaceship that sails through the heavens with a crew working together for the common good. Thanks to climate change, this metaphor no longer works. Our planet is now more like a lifeboat that’s sprung a major leak. People onboard are beginning to […]

Climate Change

The Climate Emergency comes for the Democrats

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Despite the reluctance of corporate America, its cable news channels and its favorite candidates to tackle the looming menace of our climate crisis, it came for the Democrats big time in the second CNN debate. Credit where credit is due; the governor of Washington state, Jay Inslee, was the primary […]

Climate Change

Climate denial: Donald Trump mimics criminal behaviour when justifying his stance

The Conversation

By Ruth McKie | – While much of the world now recognises the need for immediate action, there are still those who question the scientific consensus on climate change and deter efforts to tackle it. As might be expected, they have the attention of US President Donald Trump and his Republican administration. The Heartland Institute’s […]

Climate Change

Europe, are you Crazy? As a Continent Melts, New Coal Plants Planned and Permitting Blocks Wind Farms

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The heat wave that has swept Europe and given Paris the weather of Madras is certainly embroiled in human-caused climate change. The severity and frequency of such extreme weather is exacerbated by the 2.4 trillion metric tons of carbon dioxide human beings have spewed into the atmosphere since about 1750, […]

Climate Change

Scotland Renewables making enough Electricity to power Two Scotlands and other Wind Power Successes

Juan Cole

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 […]