Energy

by Juan Cole The US media coverage of the Scottish referendum is oddly lacking in any reference to actual politics. As usual, the corporate media concentrates on issues in ethnicity to cover up issues in social class and social policy. The “Washington consensus” of Neoliberalism, substituting blind so-called “market forces” for good governance, has been […]

Climate Change

Will Independence Harm Scotland’s Green Advantage?

contributors

(Bloomberg) –- Renewable energy is found in abundance in Scotland; nearly half of the country’s electricity comes from green sources. But will an independent Scotland struggle to land orders as it faces changes to regulation? We look at one of the world’s leading test sites for marine energy. Bloomberg News: “Will Independence Harm Scotland’s Green […]

Climate Change

HIstoric Mass March against Global Warming: Saving the Planet Next Sunday in NYC

contributors

By Eddie Bautista, La Tonya Crisp-Sauray, and Bill McKibben On Sunday, September 21st, a huge crowd will march through the middle of Manhattan. It will almost certainly be the largest rally about climate change in human history, and one of the largest political protests in many years in New York. More than 1,000 groups are […]

Economy

Climate Change: Neoliberal Capitalism is Fundamentally at War with Life on Earth (Naomi Klein)

contributors

The National: “Naomi Klein discusses her new book This Changes Everything, in which she says it’s time to stop counting on the politicians to save the planet.” The National: “Naomi Klein: This Changes Everything author talks about climate change”

Climate Change

The Plutocracy Strikes Back: The Pathologies of Rule by a Handful of Billionaires

contributors

By Steve Fraser via Tomdispatch.com George Baer was a railroad and coal mining magnate at the turn of the twentieth century. Amid a violent and protracted strike that shut down much of the country’s anthracite coal industry, Baer defied President Teddy Roosevelt’s appeal to arbitrate the issues at stake, saying, “The rights and interests of […]

Climate Change

Will the People’s Climate March be this generation’s March on Washington?

contributors

By Nick Engelfried On August 28, 1963, 200,000 people swarmed into the nation’s capital for one of the most iconic moments in the civil rights movement: the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. More often remembered today simply as the March on Washington, it was seen by many as a turning point for the […]

Climate Change

Elon Musk’s Nevada Gigafactory may Save the World

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole KRQE: “Official: Tesla picks Nevada for Gigafactory” Clean Technica points out that the battery-making factory is on track to reduce battery prices by 30% by 2017, making EVs indisputably cheaper than fossil fuel-driven internal combustion, at less than $100 per kilowatt hour. (Of course, if externalities are taken into account, like the […]

Climate Change

America is a Gas Hog and we’re not going on a Diet even if Global Warming Kills Us

contributors

By Michael T. Klare Considering all the talk about global warming, peak oil, carbon divestment, and renewable energy, you’d think that oil consumption in the United States would be on a downward path. By now, we should certainly be witnessing real progress toward a post-petroleum economy. As it happens, the opposite is occurring. U.S. oil […]

Eastern Europe

Natural Gas Battle: Ukraine vs Russia – An Animated History

contributors

AJ+ “While the West threatens further crippling sanctions on Moscow for invading and supporting Ukrainian rebels, Russia controls the nozzle that supplies Europe and Ukraine with natural gas. And they’ve already cut off Ukraine as winter looms. Russia also depends on gas sales for its governments revenue, so sanctions could cut both ways. AJ+ animates […]