Coal

US Supreme Court Deals Blow to Climate Action: Ruling Limits Administration’s Ability to Restrict Carbon Emissions from Power Plants

By Krista Shennum | – Fellow, Environment and Human Rights | – ( Human Rights Watch) – In a significant setback for climate action, the United States Supreme Court ruled yesterday to limit the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) ability to restrict greenhouse gas emissions from power plants. The ruling prevents the EPA from using its […]

Climate Change

Lessons in Activism: How Australia’s expanding environmental Movement is breaking the Climate Action Deadlock in Politics

The Conversation

By Robyn Gulliver, The University of Queensland | – The federal election saw voters’ growing concern about Australia’s laggardly response to climate change finally addressed, with teal independents garnering seats in Liberal heartland and record votes for Greens candidates. But what caused this seismic shift in Australia’s political landscape? And why now? We believe the […]

Batteries

It is now Cheaper to Switch from Coal directly to Wind and Solar than to Natural Gas

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Matthew Gray at Transition Zero writes that it is now cheaper in North America and Europe to switch from coal plants directly to wind, solar, battery renewable energy sources than it is to switch to methane (“natural”) gas. TZ figures transition costs in expenditure of carbon dioxide, and finds that […]

Coal

In Victory against Coal, South African Court rules that clean Air is a Constitutional Right

The Conversation

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 […]

Climate Crisis

Industrialized Nations must stop Producing Fossil Fuels by 2034 to keep Climate from Going Tropical and Chaotic

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Scientists Dan Calverley and Kevin Anderson at Manchester University have brought out a new report looking hard at what would have to be done for us to have a 50/50 chance of keeping the increase in the average temperature of the earth’s surface to 2.7 degrees F. (1.5C) over preindustrial […]

China

China is Rising as a Superpower by vastly Expanding Planet-Wrecking Fossil Fuels

Alfred W. McCoy

( Tomdispatch.com ) – Consider us at the edge of the sort of epochal change not seen for centuries, even millennia. By the middle of this century, we will be living under such radically altered circumstances that the present decade, the 2020s, will undoubtedly seem like another era entirely, akin perhaps to the Middle Ages. […]

Australia

Replaced by Mega-battery: Massive 3 GW Coal Plant in Australia forced to Close by Cheaper Wind and Solar

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Australian firm Orion Energy in New South Wales is closing its massive, nearly 3 gigawatt Eraring coal plant eight years early. The largest coal plant in the country will be gone by 2025 instead of 2032. This development is good news for the earth, since coal is the single […]

Coal

How poisonous mercury gets from coal-fired power plants into the fish you eat

The Conversation

By Gabriel Filippelli | – People fishing along the banks of the White River as it winds through Indianapolis sometimes pass by ominous signs warning about eating the fish they catch. One of the risks they have faced is mercury poisoning. Mercury is a neurotoxic metal that can cause irreparable harm to human health – […]

Coal

Bet on institution building, not Manchin

Waging Nonviolence

By Katey Lauer | – This story was first published by The Forge. (Waging Nonviolence ) – Last year, I wrote an article in The Forge making the case for leaving Joe Manchin be. The argument went like this: Joe Manchin got elected by amassing a war chest of corporate money and influence. Because of […]