Featured

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – AP reports that early today, Wednesday, the US military launched air strikes against Iran-backed Shiite militias in Deir al-Zor Province, eastern Syria. The bombings came in response to drone attacks on the US base at Tanf, Syria, allegedly by these militias, on August 15. Those drone actions did not result […]

Climate Crisis

Our Carbon Dioxide Emissions could wipe out 87% of Marine Life if we don’t Quickly get to Zero

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Some 87% of marine species are at risk of being wiped out or devastated by 2100 if the world goes on dumping 35 billion tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every year, write Daniel G. Boyce et al at Nature Climate Change. Sea life is facing two major challenges […]

Climate Crisis

With Biden’s IRA, Why Homeowners are Costing themselves Money if they don’t Install Solar Panels

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) has established a 10-year 30% tax credit for installing solar panels on your roof.It is a worthwhile thing to do if someone is planning on being in their house for the long term. And it isn’t only the panels themselves that the IRA subsidizes through […]

Featured

Why the Iran Nuclear Deal would benefit America, regardless of whether Tehran is in other ways a Bad Actor

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – There appears to be some movement in the indirect negotiations between Iran and the United States over the reentry of the United States into the 2015 Iran nuclear deal and a return to full compliance with it by Iran. The European countries directly talking to Iran presented what they called […]

Climate Crisis

19 Years ago America Really Wanted Iraq’s Basra for its Oil, which is now Making it Uninhabitable

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Poet Robert Frost asked if the world would end by fire or ice. It turns out that it is both, the fire of global heating and the melting of earth’s surface ice and resultant biblical floods. Nowhere is this more clear than in Iraq. Not everyone will suffer equally from […]

Featured

UN, Britain Denounce Israeli Jackboot Assaults on Offices of Palestinian Human Rights Organizations

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Israeli newspaper Arab 48 reports that on Thursday, Israeli Occupation troops made a dawn raid on the offices of several human rights and civil society organizations in the towns of Ramallah and al-Bireh in the Palestinian West Bank, which they then closed and locked up. The Israeli forces assaulted […]

Featured

No, Israel hasn’t Committed 50 Holocausts against Palestinians or Even One; but it has Committed Apartheid

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The head of the rump Palestine Authority that has a presence in 40% of the West Bank, Mahmoud Abbas, created a scandal when he said on Tuesday at a news conference in Berlin with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, “From 1947 to the present day, Israel has committed 50 massacres in […]

Climate Crisis

You know you want an Electric Car. What does the IRA mean for Consumers this Year?

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Thinking of buying an electric car? With the signing by President Biden yesterday of the Inflation Reduction Act, it is a great time to make the move from expensive and destructive gasoline to a much cleaner electric vehicle. But the rules on the $7,500 federal tax break for buying a […]

Climate Crisis

As Last Coal Plant closes, Cheap Solar Power Rescues Hawaii, which has reached ~40% Renewables

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Veteran green energy journalist Julian Spector at Canary Media tells the story of how the last-minute opening this July of the 39-megawatt (MW) Mililani 1 solar farm out near Pearl Harbor — which is hooked up to a 156 MW battery — saved Hawaii from brownouts when its last coal […]