Energy

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 […]

Climate Change

Leonardo DiCaprio Ice Bucket Challenge: Calls out Canadian PM Harper, Shell CEO on Tar Sands

contributors

Via The Tree Actor Leonardo DiCaprio accepted the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge this week and used the opportunity to not just raise awareness for ALS, but to also highlight the dangers of developing the Canadian tar sands in northern Alberta. Standing with Chief Adam of the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation, Chief Courtoreille of the Mikisew […]

Climate Change

Solar could make your Electricity Bill Zero: But Pols, Utilities are Conspiring Against You

contributors

TheLipTV: “Solar panels are being denied to certain states as utilities companies and politicians are looking out for their own interests in an effort to eliminate the competition. We look why homes are being prevented from supplying stored energy, in this Lip News clip with Lissette Padilla and Mark Sovel.” TheLipTV: “Solar Panels Denied to […]

Climate Change

US Public Worried about ISIL, Putin– But Climate Change is Real Challenge

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole In a new Pew/ USA Today poll, the American public shows itself alarmed by the rise of the so-called Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant in northern Iraq and Syria as a threat to US security, finding it more threatening even than Russia’s Vladimir Putin, who has risen on the villain […]

Energy

Iraq: If Terrorists hit Southern Iraq oil fields, $5-$7 a gallon Gas?

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole Iraq’s former oil minister, Ibrahim Bahr al-Ulum, warned on Thursday that the so-called “Islamic State” terrorist organization could hit the Iraqi oil fields in the south around Basra. Basra is deep in the Shiite south, so IS could not take the city of 2 million as it did largely Sunni Mosul. But […]

Energy

The Politics of Energy and the Destabilization of Palestine

contributors

By Tareq Ramadan The latest Israeli military campaign directed towards the 139-square mile, densely-populated Palestinian Gaza Strip has already led to the deaths of more than 1,900 Palestinians[i] (more than 80% are civilians including at least 440 children), the wounding of more than 9,500 which includes 2,800 children[ii], the homes of some 65,000 people destroyed[iii], […]

Climate Change

Climate Change, Dirty Natural Gas, and the Gaza War

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole Calls by Israeli politicians in mainstream positions for the Palestinians to be ethnically cleansed from Gaza in part reflect frustration over the security issue many Israelis maintain the people of Gaza pose to Israel. (If the concern were justified, you’d think the death toll for the Israeli side would be much greater […]

Climate Change

Natural Gas isn’t the Global Warming Solution: It Endangers the Earth

contributors

By Naomi Oreskes via Tomdispatch.com Albert Einstein is rumored to have said that one cannot solve a problem with the same thinking that led to it. Yet this is precisely what we are now trying to do with climate change policy. The Obama administration, the Environmental Protection Agency, many environmental groups, and the oil and […]