Environment

By Ligin Joseph, University of Southampton (The Conversation) – The final week of November was devastating for several South Asian countries. Communities in Sri Lanka, Indonesia and Thailand were inundated as Cyclones Ditwah and Senyar unleashed days of relentless rain. Millions were affected, more than 1,500 people lost their lives, hundreds are still missing, and […]

Biodiversity

“I don’t see Palestine as an isolated story”

Global Voices

An Interview with Vivien Sansour, Founder of the Palestine Heirloom Seed Library By Thin Ink This is an excerpt of a longer interview on Thin Ink, a weekly publication on food, climate, and where they meet. Read the full interview here. ( Global Voices ) – Vivien Sansour is the founder of the Palestine Heirloom […]

Batteries

California: Fossil Gas use Declining, replaced by Solar Plus Megabatteries

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The US Energy Information Agency reports that California’s fossil gas use is steadily declining. In the first half of 2025, fossil gas use was down a whopping 18% compared with the same period in 2020, to 45.5 billion kilowatt hours (BKWh). Even just in 2025, California reduced fossil gas usage […]

Antarctica

“We cannot Negotiate with the Melting Point of Ice:” World’s Ice Sheets shed 640 bn. Tons in 12 Months

The Conversation

Chris Stokes, Durham University; Florence Colleoni, National Institute of Oceanography and Applied Geophysics (OGS), and James Kirkham, British Antarctic Survey “We cannot negotiate with the melting point of ice.” That’s the message from more than 50 leading scientists who study the Earth’s frozen regions, published in the latest annual State of the Cryosphere report. In […]

Antarctica

Three Things that might Trigger massive Ice Sheet Collapse

The Conversation

By Inès Otosaka, Northumbria University, Newcastle (The Conversation) – The Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets are highly vulnerable to global warming and scientists are being increasingly worried about the possibility of large parts of the ice sheets collapsing, if global temperatures keep on rising. Scientists have identified three elements that could be triggered, putting the […]

Climate Crisis

Climate Breakdown: Each Child Today is being Born into a Slow-Motion Hiroshima

Tom Engelhardt

( Tomdispatch.com ) – What self-destructive creatures we turn out to be! Can you even believe it? Only recently, the United Nations Climate Change Conference, or COP30, met in Brazil for two weeks. While 194 countries were represented there, the historically greatest fossil-fuelizer on the planet, Donald Trump’s United States, was, of course, missing in […]

Climate Change

Was Volcano-Driven Climate Change partially Behind the Black Death?

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – How plague came to Europe around 1347 has long been debated by historians. Scientists have located the origin of the primary reservoir of the disease in today’s Kyrgyzstan, and it has long been thought somehow to have come west with the Mongol invasions of the fourteenth century. One colorful tale […]

Climate Crisis

Rate of Global Heating in the Arab World is Twice the Global Average

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The World Meteorological Organization has issued its annual report on the 22 countries of the Arab world, covering last year, and presents alarming conclusions about human-driven climate change in that region. 2024 was the hottest year on record in the Middle East, around 1º Celsius (1.8º F.) hotter than the […]

Climate Crisis

A Path Away from Fossil Fuels already Exists, COP30 or No

Foreign Policy in Focus

Existing plans to triple renewable energy, double efficiency, and slash methane — coupled with real regulations like the EU’s — offer a way forward. By Daphne Wysham, Trina Chiemi | November 28, 2025 ( Foreign Policy in Focus ) – It appeared to be a grim déjà vu when the final gavel dropped in Belem, […]