Here is my essay for this week’s Tomdispatch.com. Don’t miss Tom Engelhardt’s canny introduction, in which he points to Donald Trump’s climate denialism as a context for that of his “billionaire buddies.” And by the way, it has now been shown that Hurricane Melissa clocked a wind gust of a mind-boggling 252 mph shortly before […]
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Archives for 2025
“Your Reward is Neither Here nor There!” FitzGerald’s The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám 1:24
Stanza no. 24 in the first edition of Edward FitzGerald’s translation of The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám makes fun, as A. J. Arberry pointed out, of theologians and philosophers who spoke of metaphysical certainties. Personally, I think there is something almost Buddhist about it (see below). XXIV. Alike for those who for to-day prepare, And […]
Is Venezuela the New Iraq?
By Richard W. Coughlin | November 18, 2025 ( Foreign Policy in Focus ) – Iraq and Venezuela share an obvious trait: they are oil-rich states whose resource nationalism puts them at odds with U.S. geopolitical ambitions. For George W. Bush, Iraqi oil was framed within the “peak oil” panic and U.S. dependence on foreign […]
COP30: 5 Reasons the UN Climate Conference wasn’t the Promised “People’s Summit”
By Simon Chin-Yee, UCL; Mark Maslin, UCL, and Priti Parikh, UCL (The Conversation) – As the sun set on the Amazon, the promise of a “people’s Cop” faded with it. The latest UN climate summit – known as Cop30, hosted in the Brazilian city of Belém – came with the usual geopolitics and the added […]
The COP30 Climate Meet had One Job, and Totally Crashed and Burned
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – COP30 in Belém, Brazil, has ended without an agreement by member states to reaffirm the phasing out of fossil fuels, which is the only way to avert rolling climate catastrophes. COP28 at Dubai had included such language. The vague advice to countries to cut down on their carbon dioxide emissions […]
West Bank: Israel Emptying Refugee Camps a Crime Against Humanity
( Human Rights Watch ) – Nadim M., a pseudonym for a 60-year-old father of four, was forced to flee Tulkarem refugee camp in the West Bank of the Occupied Palestinian Territory in January 2025 when Israeli military forces raided the camp and stormed his home. He told Human Rights Watch that Israeli soldiers restrained […]
Why Israeli Soldiers and their Leaders are increasingly at Risk of Arrest Overseas
By Shannon Bosch, Edith Cowan University (The Conversation) – In late December 2008, then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert authorised Operation Cast Lead in response to rocket attacks from Hamas-controlled territory in Gaza. The three-week military assault killed around 1,400 Palestinians, including more than 300 children. Thousands of homes were destroyed, and hospitals, UN shelters, power […]
India Plans 2.45 Gig Solar Park + 5 GWh Battery in Rajasthan, so why drag its Feet at COP30?
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The paradox of India’s unhelpful stance at COP30, which has gone into extra innings over the obstacles the “like-minded developing countries” have placed in the way of a renewed pledge to transition away from fossil fuels, lies in New Delhi’s impressive investments in renewables. That is, even the right wing […]
Environment and health: a connection that remains unseen in the Climate Change Conferences
By Sandra de Souza Hacon, Fundação Oswaldo Cruz (Fiocruz) (The Conversation) – In a conversation with Luciana Julião, environment editor at The Conversation Brasil, during COP30 in Belém, Fiocruz researcher and environmental health specialist Sandra Hacon explained why the integration of climate, environment and health has guided her research for two decades. Hacon has a […]
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