Extreme Heat

By David Lont, University of Otago; Martien Lubberink, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington; and Paul Griffin, University of California, Davis | – When record-breaking heatwaves cause train tracks to bend, airport runways to buckle, and roads to melt, as happened in the United Kingdom last month, it is likely that business performance […]

Climate Crisis

Top 3 Reasons Climate Change is creating Record-Breaking Deluges and Flash Floods

The Conversation

By Frances Davenport, Colorado State University | – A powerful storm system triggered flooding in the Appalachians in late July, inundating and sweeping away homes in the night and killing at least 16 people, Kentucky’s governor announced. The destruction followed flooding a few weeks earlier in the mountains of Virginia and Tennessee. In June, flooding […]

Climate Crisis

Surprise Dem Senate Bill makes US Global Climate Leader, Sees 40% Carbon Reduction by 2030

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – In a huge surprise on Wednesday, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and the Chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, Joe Manchin, announced an agreement on a package of legislation that includes an unprecedented $369 billion to encourage green energy and cut carbon dioxide emissions, on a […]

Climate Crisis

Why Britain’s 104°F (40°C) Heatwave was made many Times more Likely by Humans burning Fossil Fuels

The Conversation

By Ben Clark, University of Oxford; Friederike Otto, Imperial College London; and Luke Harrington, University of Waikato | – (The Conversation) – Every heatwave occurring today is made more likely and intense by human-caused climate change. Early estimates by the UK Met Office suggest that days over 40°C [104°F] have become ten times more likely […]

Climate Crisis

The Enduring Tyranny of Oil: War, Inflation, and Soaring World Temperatures

Michael T. Klare

( Tomdispatch.com ) – It may seem hard to believe, but only 15 years ago many of us were talking confidently about “peak oil” — the moment of maximum global oil output after which, with world reserves dwindling, its use would begin an irreversible decline. Then along came hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, and the very […]

Arctic

The Arctic is warming Four Times faster than the Global Average

Daniel T. Cross

By Daniel T Cross | – ( Sustainability Times ) – Climate change is upon us, but not all regions of the world are experiencing it at the same rate. Polar regions have especially been affected by warming temperatures and a new analysis of temperature rises in the Arctic shows just how much. An international […]

Arctic

Greenland loses 6 Billion Tons of Ice in Three Days, harbinger of Unprecedented Coastal Flooding

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – CNN and The Independent reported this week on a massive ice melt in Greenland, with on the order of 6 billion tons of ice lost in three days. The melting was because of a heat wave at the top of the world, caused by our burning coal, gasoline and methane […]

Climate Crisis

Are New Mexico’s Megafires so extreme they Mark a New era? Welcome to the Pyrocene

William deBuys

By William deBuys | – ( Tomdispatch.org) – Firefighters don’t normally allude to early English epics, but in a briefing on the massive Hermits Peak/Calf Canyon Fire in northern New Mexico, a top field chief said, “It’s like Beowulf: it’s not the thing you fear, it is the mother of the thing you fear.” He […]

Climate Crisis

Biden, Speaking of “Climate Emergency” and National Security, Pledges Executive Orders to Combat Global Heating

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – President Joe Biden announced on Wednesday that he would use executive orders and appeal to emergency measures in addressing what he caled the “climate crisis,” deploying among other tools the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). He announced, “And in the coming weeks, I’m going to use the power I have […]