Environment

By Amelia Leavesley, The University of Melbourne (The Conversation) – Earlier this week, the mining magnate Andrew Forrest made headlines calling for a global “polymer premium” – or plastic tax – to be placed on every tonne of newly manufactured plastics. A tax like this could form part of the Global Plastic Treaty being hammered […]

Climate Crisis

In Sunny Spain, cheap Solar Power set to overtake Wind Generation, backed by Socialist Government and Co-ops

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Spain’s photovoltaic electricity production is set to surpass its wind power, according to China’s Xinhua news agency. Spain is Europe’s champion at producing solar power, because some of its regions are especially sunny — think Seville. The Global Energy Monitor puts it this way: “The country has more utility-scale solar […]

Climate Crisis

Meltwater from Greenland and the Arctic is weakening Ocean Circulation, speeding up Warming down South

The Conversation

By Laurie Menviel, UNSW Sydney and Gabriel Pontes, UNSW Sydney (The Conversation) – A vast network of ocean currents nicknamed the “great global ocean conveyor belt” is slowing down. That’s a problem because this vital system redistributes heat around the world, influencing both temperatures and rainfall. The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation funnels heat northwards through […]

Climate Crisis

China opens World’s Largest offshore Solar Power Facility, as U.S. Falls Farther Behind

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Solar panels are great sources of energy. We have them on our roof and they have saved us a lot of money, especially in spring-summer-fall. Some observers complain about their bulk compared to the energy they put out, though. I’ve had engineers argue to me that there just isn’t space […]

Climate Crisis

“Orbital,” by Samantha Harvey – A Short but Powerful Story urging us to Save the Planet – Wins 2024 Book Prize

The Conversation

By Debra Benita Shaw, University of East London | – (The Conversation) – Samantha Harvey’s Orbital has won the 2024 Booker prize. What it so skilfully and ambitiously exposes is the human cost of space flight set against the urgency of the climate crisis. While a typhoon of life-threatening proportions gathers across south-east Asia, six […]

Climate Crisis

Creating a Genuine Hell on Earth

Tom Engelhardt

( Tomdispatch.com ) – Honestly, what would George Orwell have written about this planet of ours, four decades after that ominous year 1984 passed from his fiction into history? And yes, in case you think that, as in his novel 1984, published in 1949, a year before his death and just as the Cold War […]

Climate Crisis

As COP 29 convenes, Human-Caused Climate Change Menaces the Middle East Across Borders

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The European Centre for Development Policy Management has issued a new report on the threats of human-caused climate change to the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, concentrating on cross-border dangers that affect more than one country. Heat and drought would rank high on this list. The Middle East […]

Climate Crisis

Warped Government Priorities make Climate Disasters Worse

Basav Sen

When we fund wars and fossil fuel subsidies instead of green jobs and disaster recovery, we punish those who can least afford it. ( Otherwords.org ) – This year’s hurricane season has been devastating. Hurricane Helene left a trail of wreckage across the Southeast and Appalachia, where over 230 people have died so far. Barely […]

Climate Crisis

Extreme Weather has already cost Vulnerable Island Nations $141 Billion

The Conversation

Emily Wilkinson, ODI Global; Ilan Noy, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington; Matt Bishop, University of Sheffield, and Vikrant Panwar, ODI Global (The Conversation) – Two years ago, when the curtain fell on the COP27 summit in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt, developing nations on the frontline of climate change had something meaningful to […]