Environment

Although the Gulf makes its way in life by selling petroleum, countries like Qatar and the United Arab Emirates don’t engage in that sordid game of the American rich, of climate-change denial. The emirs are in no doubt about its dangers to their region and the need to use their current wealth to move to […]

Environment

Can we Get the Media to Report Climate Change? (Bill Moyers Video)

Juan Cole

Bill Moyers interviews a prominent scientist on what can be done to bring climate change back into the media discussion: The blurb: “Encore: Ending the Silence on Climate Change March 15, 2013 Remember climate change? The issue barely comes up with any substance in our current political dialogue. But bringing climate change back into our […]

Energy

Japan on the Anniversary of Fukushima: Anger, Protests and Hope

Juan Cole

On the two-year anniversary of the Fukushima disaster, 40,000 people rallied in downtown Tokyo against the current conservative government’s plans to start back up Japan’s nuclear reactors. Asahi Shimbun reports that it may take 40 years to decommission the four reactors there. Some 60 percent of Fukushima residents have no hope of returning home for […]

Environment

Why there will be Masses in the Streets Protesting Climate Change (Engelhardt)

Juan Cole

Tom Engelhardt writes at Tomdispatch.com: Two Sundays ago, I traveled to the nation’s capital to attend what was billed as “the largest climate rally in history” and I haven’t been able to get the experience — or a question that haunted me — out of my mind. Where was everybody? First, though, the obvious weather […]

Energy

First, Shut down all the Coal Plants: AEP forced to Shutter Engines of Climate Change, Mercury Poisoning (Chamberlain)

Juan Cole

Jacob Chamberlain writes at Common Dreams In a victory for advocates of clean air and water, energy giant American Electric Power will now be shutting down three coal-fired power plants and significantly reducing air pollution at 13 others across the Midwest and Southern United States. American Electric Power’s generating station in Rockport, Indiana (Reuters) The […]

Environment

Can Solar Energy save India’s Taj Mahal?

Juan Cole

The Indian state of Uttar Pradesh says that it wants to develop Agra as a solar city in part so as to save the Taj Mahal. The Taj Mahal, a Moghul monument built to commemorate the Indian queen Mumtaz Mahall by her grief-stricken widower, Emperor Shahjahan, was completed in the middle of the 1600s and […]

Environment

Greening of Saudi Arabia: NASA Photos Show Kingdom Tapping non-renewable Aquifers for Farming

Juan Cole

The US National Aeronautics and Space Administration last year published a series of photos over past decades showing expansion of farming in Saudi Arabia’s Syrian Desert, using underground aquifers as a water source. This fossil water is a non-renewable resource and will be gone, at this rate in 50 years. NASA writes: “In this series […]

Energy

Holding Obama’s Feet to the Fire: Protest against Climate Change Draws Thousands to Washington

Juan Cole

The ‘Forward on Climate’ protest drew some 40,000 demonstrators to Washington, DC, on Sunday. Although the press tended to cast it as mainly a rally against the Keystone XL pipeline project, which would allow export of Canadian oil produced from tar sands via the Gulf of Mexico, the rally was against policies that accelerate climate […]

Energy

Will Obama Stand up to the Keystone XL Pipeline & Climate-Destroying Tar Sands? (Klare)

Juan Cole

Michael T. Klare writes at Tomdispatch.com: Presidential decisions often turn out to be far less significant than imagined, but every now and then what a president decides actually determines how the world turns. Such is the case with the Keystone XL pipeline, which, if built, is slated to bring some of the “dirtiest,” carbon-rich oil […]