Natural Gas

By Volker Roeben | – Established in the wake of the 1973 oil crisis, the International Energy Agency (IEA) was created to maintain the stability of the international oil supply. As an independent adviser to many governments on energy policy, the IEA has the authority to make member states release reserve oil stocks to stabilise […]

Climate Crisis

Germany’s Green Party is in the Lead, and sees Biden as climate ally on Blocking Russian Gas Pipeline

Clean Energy Wire

By Charlotte Nijhuis The co-leader of the German Greens, Annalena Baerbock, emphasised possibilities for closer cooperation between Germany and the U.S. on issues including climate action at a virtual event of the Atlantic Council. “We as Europeans and we as German Greens are not very far apart from the current U.S. administration,” Baerbock said. The […]

Climate Crisis

Methane Menace and Global Heating: Why President Biden is wrong and Fracking must be Banned

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – When running for office, Joe Biden pledged that the federal government would not ban hydraulic fracturing or fracking. This environmentally disastrous method of extracting petroleum and natural gas from shale rock beneath the earth involves pumping water down there under enormous pressure to break up the rocks and release the […]

Climate Crisis

German Greens come out against Russian Gas Pipeline: “It ought not to Exist”

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Germany’s Green Party has come out strongly against the Nord Stream II Baltic natural gas pipeline from Russia to Germany. The pipeline’s construction is already advanced. Der Tagesspiegel reports, “Green Party leader Annalena Baerbock warned that the pipeline would undermine European sovereignty and pose an obstacle to a common European […]

Coal

As Solar, Wind costs Plummet, Coal, Gas vastly Over-priced in Bubble that could Burst worse than 2008

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – A new report by RethinkX, a think tank using the ideas of Tony Seba, who teaches Business at Stanford University, demonstrates that the value of fossil fuels and of the electric plants they fuel is vastly overstated by government agencies and financial analysts. Seba and his colleagues point out that […]

Climate Crisis

A clear Choice on Climate: Trump wants to Wreck the Planet; Biden has taken strides toward a Green Vision

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Trump doesn’t get climate change or the ways to combat it. He is a greedy, venal person, and I presume he is encouraged in his obscurantism by some sort of business interest in the oil and gas industry, or backing by them with campaign dollars. Or perhaps he just, by […]

Climate Crisis

Kamala Harris’s best Zingers and Pence’s worst Lies

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Pence-Harris debate was what disagreements among normal people might look like, as opposed to the weird behavior of Trump in the first presidential debate. While pundits are saying that it lacked fireworks, that is not true if you define fireworks as policy disagreement as opposed to mud wrestling. The […]

Featured

Russia defies US Sanctions, presses Syria on Long Term Trade, Investment deal for Energy

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Russia and Syria are preparing to enter into a wide-ranging trade and investment deal, according to RT Arabic. Sunday night, Deputy Prime Minister Yury Borisov arrived in Damascus to meet with high Syrian officials. On Monday, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov arrived, meeting with Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad and his […]

Featured

With US AWOL, NATO Allies rattle sabers: Turkish Ruling Party says Greece is now a Rogue State

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Greece and Turkey have been having loud shouting matches this summer, with some pretty ominous language at times. The two are supposed to be NATO allies, but you couldn’t tell it from their bellicose rhetoric. A nationalist Turkish politician, Devlet Bahceli, is quoted as having said of said this past […]