Environment

By Andrew Weaver, University of Victoria | – Those following the latest developments in climate science would have been stunned by the jaw-dropping headlines last week proclaiming the “Gulf Stream could collapse as early as 2025, study suggests” — which responded to a recent publication in Nature Communications. “Be very worried: Gulf Stream collapse could […]

Climate Crisis

A Quarter of New Car Sales in California is now Electric: Take that, Russia, Iran and Saudi Arabia!

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The California Energy Commission reports that in the second quarter of this year, 25% of new vehicle registrations in that state were zero emissions electric cars. Moving rapidly to electric vehicles makes the US more secure geopolitically, since oil states such as Saudi Arabia and Russia can no longer use […]

Climate Crisis

That time Ron DeSantis Rejected Federal Funds for Clean Energy and Cost Florida $350,000,000

Florida Phoenix

By: Mitch Perry – ( Florida Phoenix ) – Tampa Bay area Democratic Congresswoman Kathy Castor remains livid that Gov. Ron DeSantis turned down $354 million for energy-efficient measures provided through federal legislation signed into law by President Joe Biden. Among the $511 million in projects that DeSantis vetoed at the end of June […]

Climate Crisis

Oceans Hit Hottest Average Temperature ever Recorded, endangering Ecosystems on which We Depend

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The world’s oceans hit an average temperature of 20.96°C (69.728°F ) this week, according to the Copernicus Climate Change Service. It is the highest average ocean temperature ever recorded, beating a previous record from 2016. So reports Rosie Frost at Euronews. Climate scientists at the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change […]

China

Green Jobs take off in China after Beijing’s Carbon Neutrality Pledge

China Dialogue

Jiang Mengnan ( China Dialogue ) – Around the world, tech and finance companies have been laying staff off. In 2022, tech firms’ payrolls fell by 164,000 employees, with a further 166,000 jobs cut in the first quarter of 2023, according to tracking platform Layoffs.fyi. In China, youth unemployment is also rising, hitting 20% this […]

Climate Crisis

The New Abnormal: Living on an ever More Extreme Planet

Tom Engelhardt

( Tomdispatch.com ) – Hey, who knows? It could be the Gulf Stream collapsing or the planet eternally breaking heat records. But whatever the specifics, we’re living it right now, not in the next century, the next decade, or even next year. You couldn’t miss it — at least so you might think — if […]

Climate Crisis

Climate Change is the New Mideast Extremism — Iraq Hottest Place on Earth, as Iran goes into Lockdown

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The deadly effects of ideological extremism in the Middle East for the past few decades have caused governments and journalists to focus on it. The Arabic word is al-taṭarruf. I was interested, however, to see the word put to a different purpose in a Sky News Arabia article , where […]

Climate Crisis

Science shows the severe Climate Consequences of new Oil, Gas and Coal Production

The Conversation

By Ed Hawkins, University of Reading | – The world has just suffered through its warmest month ever recorded. Heatwaves have swept across southern Europe, the US and China, breaking many temperature records in the process. Climate scientists have been sounding the alarm for decades that this type of event will become more frequent as […]

Climate Change

The Other Threat of Massive Climate Change: Nuclear War

The Conversation

By Mark Maslin, UCL | – Christopher Nolan’s biopic of J. Robert Oppenheimer has revived morbid curiosity in the destructive power of nuclear weapons. There are now an estimated 12,512 nuclear warheads. A war in which even a fraction of these bombs were detonated would create blast waves and fires capable of killing millions of […]