Environment

By Myles David Sergeant, McMaster University | – (The Conversation) – Extreme heat is a silent killer. From time to time, we hear about shocking cases of football players and other athletes who die suddenly while exerting themselves on hot days. Those deaths are certainly tragic, but statistically they are very rare. Most deaths from […]

CO2

How Exporting Fossil Fuels undermines Climate Targets

The Conversation

By Bill Hare, Murdoch University | – (The Conversation) – Australia is one of the world’s largest exporters of fossil fuels. While this coal and gas is burned beyond our borders, the climate-warming carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions affect us all. My colleagues and I at global research and policy institute Climate Analytics were commissioned to […]

Climate Crisis

The Rate of Global Heating varies, but Temperatures will rise over Time until we Halt CO2 Emissions

The Conversation

By Christopher Merchant, University of Reading | – A 13-month streak of record-breaking global warmth has ended. From June 2023 until June 2024, air and ocean surface water temperatures averaged a quarter of a degree Celsius higher than records set only a few years previously. Air temperatures in July 2024 were slightly cooler than the […]

China

Over half of new Car sales in China in July were EVs, as America faces threat of Falling Behind

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – In July, China reached an unprecedented inflection point for an industrialized society, with more electric cars purchased than internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles. William Gavin at Quartz points out that 3 years ago, only 7% of cars sold in China were EVs. Just this year, EV sales are up 37%. […]

Climate Crisis

On the Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples, Carbon Colonialism yet Reigns

Aviva Chomsky

By Aviva Chomsky ( Tomdispatch.com ) – On August 9, 2001, in Colombia, riot police and private security forces from the Cerrejón coal mine — one of the largest open-pit coal mines in the world — surrounded the remote community of Tabaco. They then dragged residents out of their homes and bulldozed what remained of […]

plastic

The only Way to address the Threat of Microplastics in the Great Lakes is to Cut Plastic Production and Consumption

The Conversation

By Lewis Alcott, University of Bristol; Fereidoun Rezanezhad, University of Waterloo; Nancy Goucher, University of Waterloo; Philippe Van Cappellen, University of Waterloo; and Stephanie SlowinskiUniversity of Waterloo | – You would be hard-pressed to find a corner of the world free from microplastics, plastic particles measuring less than five millimetres. They contaminate our drinking water, […]

Climate Crisis

Over half of Turkey’s Electricity now comes from Renewables as it seeks to Escape Energy Dependence on Russia

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Turkiye is finally making strides toward a renewable grid. In the first half of 2024, according to the energy think tank Ember, over half (53%) of Turkiye’s electricity was generated by renewables. In the first two quarters of the previous year, 2023, that figure was only 44%. Moreover, the percentage […]

Artificial Intelligence

A.I. may kill us All, but not the Way you Think

John Feffer

( Foreign Policy in Focus ) – The conventional Artificial Intelligence doomsday scenario runs like this. A robot acquires sentience and decides for some reason that it wants to rule the world. It hacks into computer systems to shut down everything from banking and hospitals to nuclear power. Or it takes over a factory to […]

Featured

China and the Slowing Petroleum Market: EVs displaced 1.5 mn. Barrels per Day in 2024

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The International Energy Agency signaled last week that the rate of increase in world petroleum demand fell in the second quarter of 2024 to an 18-month low. The increased demand was only 710,000 barrels a day. The world used 102.04 million barrels per day of petroleum as of May. That […]