Energy

(By Juan Cole) Dear President Obama: You have said repeatedly that if negotiations with Iran do not limit its nuclear enrichment activities solely to peaceful uses, i.e. production of fuel for energy plants, that you would be willing to go to war with that country to ensure that it does not develop an atomic bomb. […]

Climate Change

How the Media Missed the Story of the Millennium: One Climate Blockbuster after Another

contributors

(By Tom Englehardt) Here’s the scoop: When it comes to climate change, there is no “story,” not in the normal news sense anyway. The fact that 97% of scientists who have weighed in on the issue believe that climate change is a human-caused phenomenon is not a story. That only one of 9,137 peer-reviewed papers […]

Climate Change

Dirty Fuel Corporations to American Public: Frack You!

contributors

(By Ellen Cantarow) For the past several years, I’ve been writing about what happens when big oil and gas corporations drill where people live. “Fracking” — high-volume hydraulic fracturing, which extracts oil and methane from deep shale — has become my beat. My interviewees live in Pennsylvania’s shale-gas fields; among Wisconsin’s hills, where corporations have […]

Climate Change

Solving the Mideast Water and Energy Crises: Large-Scale Solar Desalinization in UAE

Juan Cole

(Via CleanTechnica) 120 MW Solar Power Plant In The Works In The UAE (via Clean Technica) Utico Middle East, a solar developer currently working to develop a 40 MW solar power plant in the United Arab Emirates, recently made the surprise announcement that the project will/could be tripled in size if the plant can be […]

Climate Change

Obama as Unreliable Narrator on Climate Action: from SOTU to NSA spying at Copenhagen

Juan Cole

(By Juan Cole) When President Obama looked us in the eye and said that the US is not engaged in electronic surveillance for economic reasons, but only for the sake of security and anti-terrorism, he was lying through his teeth. He should be careful. His approval ratings have tanked in some large part because he […]

China

China Installed More Solar Power in 2013 than the US has in its Whole History

contributors

(By Joshua S. Hill) China’s Solar Market Beat All Expectations For 2013 (via Clean Technica) Despite predictions all through 2013 suggesting that Japan would walk away the dominant solar PV market, Bloomberg New Energy Finance has revealed that China “outstripped even the most optimistic forecasts” to install a record 12 GW of photovoltaic… ——- […]

Climate Change

Pension Managers should divest from Fossil Fuels: UN Official

Juan Cole

(By Juan Cole) Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, told investors at a conference on Wednesday that they should move pension funds out of fossil fuels. After all, she pointed out, pension funds are for retirement, and future retirees won’t get to enjoy their golden years if the average […]

Climate Change

Giant Rhubarb Battery may save the World (Really!)

contributors

(By Tina Casey) Hook Up Your Solar Panels To A Giant Rhubarb Battery (via Clean Technica) Yes, all you rhubarb fans take note. A new energy storage breakthrough is under way at Harvard University, and it is based on a common little molecule that is almost exactly the same as one found in rhubarb. The […]

Climate Change

Fossil Fuels causing Antarctic Glacier to Melt Irreversibly, raise Sea Levels

contributors

(By AFP) Giant Antarctic glacier beyond point of no return (via AFP) Antarctica’s Pine Island Glacier, one of the biggest single contributors to world sea-level rise, is melting irreversibly and could add as much as a centimetre (0.4 inches) to ocean levels in 20 years, a study said Sunday. The glacier “has started a… […]