Pollution

By Carolina Kyllmann | – ( Clean Energy Wire ) – Leaking methane from the damaged Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines is likely to lead to “significant climate damage”, Germany’s Federal Environment Agency (UBA) has said. According to calculations by the agency, the leaks in the pipelines connecting Russia with Germany that were found […]

Climate Crisis

Desalinating Seawater sounds Easy, but there are cheaper and more sustainable Ways to meet people’s Water Needs

The Conversation

By Gregory Pierce, University of California, Los Angeles | – (The Conversation) – Coastal urban centers around the world are urgently looking for new, sustainable water sources as their local supplies become less reliable. In the U.S., the issue is especially pressing in California, which is coping with a record-setting, multidecadal drought. California Gov. Gavin […]

Climate Crisis

Egypt, among Countries most Threatened by Climate Emergency, Cripples Environmental Groups

Human Rights Watch

Human Rights Watch – (Beirut) – The Egyptian government has severely curtailed environmental groups’ ability to carry out independent policy, advocacy, and field work essential to protecting the country’s natural environment, Human Rights Watch said today. These restrictions violate the rights to freedom of assembly and association and threaten Egypt’s ability to uphold its environmental […]

Pollution

9/11 Survivors’ exposure to Toxic Dust and the chronic Health Conditions that followed offer Lessons that are still too often Unheeded

The Conversation

By Roberto Lucchini, Florida International University | – (The Conversation) – The 9/11 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in New York resulted in the loss of 2,753 people in the Twin Towers and surrounding area. After the attack, more than 100,000 responders and recovery workers from every U.S. state – along with some […]

Corporations

The plastic Crisis has deep corporate Roots: to protect our Planet, they need to be exposed

The Conversation

By Alice Mah, University of Warwick | – This spring, I taught a new undergraduate course in environmental sociology. Most of my students took the course because they were curious to see what their desire to live more sustainably had to do with sociology. By the third week – after a deep dive into the […]

Climate Crisis

Climate: Scientists Stunned to Find Atlantic Plankton 90% Gone; Marine Life, our Oxygen Imperiled

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – (Note: After publication, Jonathan Gitlin at Ars Technica took issue with the below on the grounds that it is based on a preprint and not a peer-reviewed academic journal article. He implies that Dryden’s study did not have enough data points to support his conclusions. I’ll let readers judge how […]

Climate Crisis

How Climate Solutions promoted by Western Governments avoid what needs to be Done

Waging Nonviolence

By Jenni Laiti and Florian Carl | – ( Waging Nonviolence) – “What local people?” This was the highly controversial question posed in 2014 by the former head of the British mining company Beowulf — to dismiss concerns over the impacts of a proposed iron-ore mine on the Indigenous Sámi people. The project is set […]

Climate Crisis

The Double Whammy of Industrial Waste and the Climate Crisis

Gregory A. Cade

Birmingham, Ala. (Special to Informed Comment) – According to the Government Accountability Office (GAO) of the United States Congress, about one-third of chemical facilities in the United States that contain hazardous compounds are threatened by global warming and the climate changes that result from it. Flooding, storm surges, wildfires, and rising sea levels are just […]

Climate Crisis

Is it possible to heal the damage we have already done to the Earth?

The Conversation

Scott Denning | – Sometimes it may seem that humans have altered the Earth beyond repair. But our planet is an incredible system in which energy, water, carbon and so much else flows and nurtures life. It is about 4.5 billion years old and has been through enormous changes. Is it possible to heal the […]