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 […]
- Africa (176)
- Animals (1)
- Asia (1,083)
- Australasia (5)
- Australia (20)
- Authoritarianism (252)
- Canada (2)
- Cats (1)
- Celtic Religion (1)
- Culture (466)
- Dehydration (1)
- Democracy (285)
- Dissent (312)
- Economy (891)
- Banking (63)
- Carbon Footprint (5)
- Corporations (12)
- Debt (17)
- Democratic Socialism (20)
- Demographic Decline (1)
- Development (24)
- Employment (110)
- Food Insecurity (12)
- Homelessness (9)
- Inequality (369)
- infrastructure (3)
- Investment (84)
- Market Crash (8)
- Middle Class (59)
- Neoliberalism (159)
- Plutocracy (541)
- Poverty (168)
- Taxes (25)
- Trade (106)
- Weapons sales (4)
- Education (87)
- Elderly (3)
- Electricity Cost (1)
- Energy (1,418)
- Batteries (21)
- Coal (114)
- Fossil Fuels (265)
- Fracking (48)
- Geothermal (5)
- Green ammonia (5)
- Green Energy (344)
- Green Hydrogen (6)
- Hydroelectric (3)
- Natural Gas (79)
- Nuclear Energy (140)
- Petroleum (248)
- Power Grid (10)
- Pumped Hydro (2)
- Solar Energy (288)
- Tar Sands (13)
- Wave Energy (7)
- wind energy (235)
- Environment (2,047)
- Climate Change (1,245)
- Acidification of Oceans (52)
- Agriculture (13)
- CO2 (40)
- Dehydration (5)
- Denialism (120)
- Desertification (140)
- Dust Storms (2)
- Extreme Weather (237)
- Flooding (67)
- Forests (5)
- Green New Deal (38)
- Mass Extinction (45)
- Methane (20)
- Net Carbon Zerio (8)
- Nitrous Oxide (1)
- Rainforests (13)
- Sea Level (267)
- Soil Carbon Release (13)
- Super Storms (142)
- wildfires (127)
- Climate Crisis (733)
- Drought (166)
- Environmentalism (336)
- Green Transportation (206)
- Ice Melt (92)
- Invasive Species (1)
- Oceans (67)
- Oil Spills (6)
- Pollution (200)
- Water (69)
- wildlife (9)
- Climate Change (1,245)
- Europe (1,097)
- Featured (3,253)
- fiction (5)
- Food (11)
- G20 (1)
- Guns (9)
- Health (588)
- History (297)
- Human Rights (1,136)
- Immigration (17)
- International (686)
- Islamophobia (342)
- Juan Cole (270)
- Latin America (80)
- Latinos (4)
- leisure (21)
- media (421)
- Middle East (8,102)
- Arab World (4,878)
- Iran (1,047)
- Israel (776)
- Israel/ Palestine (2,376)
- Israel/Palestine (8)
- Kurds (275)
- Turkey (493)
- Turkiye (20)
- military (108)
- Modernism (2)
- nationalism (107)
- NATO (23)
- Natural Disasters (11)
- nuclear weapons (75)
- Patriarchy (6)
- Peace (109)
- Persian mythology (1)
- Pete Buttigieg (1)
- Planetary Exploration (1)
- Popular Culture (24)
- Poverty (11)
- privacy (21)
- racism (411)
- Rape (7)
- religion (1,324)
- Rights (135)
- robots (3)
- Romance (1)
- science (130)
- Secular (West) (8)
- Secularism (27)
- Sexual Assault (2)
- South Pacific (2)
- Spirituality (21)
- Statelessness (15)
- Stranded Assets (1)
- Surveillance (272)
- Terrorism (1,072)
- Tolerance (6)
- Uncategorized (8,060)
- United Nations (101)
- Urbanization (3)
- US Foreign Policy (977)
- US politics (4,735)
- Anti-War Movement (10)
- Campaign Finance (29)
- Censors (21)
- Central Intelligence Agency (60)
- Civil Rights (92)
- Congress (61)
- Conspiracy Theories (16)
- Constitution (356)
- crime (8)
- Democratic Party (831)
- Democratic Socialists of America (20)
- Domestic Terrorism (18)
- Drone Warfare (26)
- Espionage (119)
- Ethnicities (343)
- Far Right (316)
- FBI (46)
- Foreign Policy (203)
- Gay Rights (16)
- Guns (90)
- Immigration (223)
- Israel Lobbies (99)
- Marijuana (2)
- Militarization (260)
- National Security State (436)
- Native Americans (34)
- Nuclear arsenal (7)
- penitentiaries (6)
- Pentagon (480)
- Police (37)
- prison reform (7)
- Private Prisons (2)
- Progressive Politics (5)
- Puerto Rico (26)
- Religious Right (8)
- Reproductive Choice (42)
- Republican Party (2,732)
- Supreme Court (101)
- Voter suppression (31)
- Whistleblowers (4)
- Xenophobia (9)
- Veterans (30)
- Voting Rights (12)
- War (377)
- White Supremacists (167)
- wikileaks (8)
- women (388)
- workers (171)
- Writing (5)
- Youth (142)
Pollution
Climate: Scientists Stunned to Find Atlantic Plankton 90% Gone; Marine Life, our Oxygen Imperiled
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 […]
How Climate Solutions promoted by Western Governments avoid what needs to be Done
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 […]
The Double Whammy of Industrial Waste and the Climate Crisis
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 […]
Is it possible to heal the damage we have already done to the Earth?
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 […]
In Victory against Coal, South African Court rules that clean Air is a Constitutional Right
By Rebecca Garland, University of Pretoria | – A court in South Africa has confirmed the constitutional right of the country’s citizens to an environment that isn’t harmful to their health. This includes the right to clean air, as exposure to air pollution affects human health. Air pollution also affects land and water systems, and […]
Microplastics can enter our bloodstream, scientists find
By Daniel T Cross” ( Sustainability Times) – Microplastics have permeated the environment from mountain tops to the seafloor and are posing a threat to human health as well because we unwittingly ingest considerable quantities of it. It turns out that microplastics, which are minute particles often invisible to the naked eye, can even get […]
Harvard study links fracking to early death risk for seniors
By Laureen Fagan: ( Sustainability Times) – Most people know it as fracking, a process of drilling for gas and oil using methods like hydraulic fracturing to inject water or chemicals into rock layers so that the fossil fuels can be extracted. It’s long been opposed by climate activists, but now a new study suggests […]
IPCC report: Half the world is facing water scarcity, floods and dirty water — large investments are needed for effective solutions
By Balsher Singh Sidhu, University of British Columbia | – More than half the world’s population faces water scarcity for at least one month every year. Meanwhile, some people have to deal with too much water, while others have access to only poor water quality. That’s billions of people living with drought in Africa and […]