Climate Change

(By Jon Queally) Almost half (47%) of all U.S. wells are being developed in regions with high to extremely high water stress. This means that more than 80 percent of the annual available water is already allocated to municipal, industrial and agricultural users in these regions. The irony of fracking: It destroys the natural resource […]

Climate Change

McKibben: Crunch Time for Obama on Keystone XL

Juan Cole

Bill Moyers interviews environmental activist Bill McKibben on the choice facing President Obama on the Keystone XL pipeline: McKibben argues that stopping the pipeline is a necessary first step to stopping the dirty tar sands industry and saving the climate. McKibben’s web site is 350.org

Climate Change

Iceland: Major Green Energy Breakthrough using Magma for Geothermal

Juan Cole

(Via CleanTechnica) First Magma-Enhanced Geothermal System In The World Developed In Iceland (via Clean Technica) The first “magma-enhanced” geothermal system in the world — the IDDP-1 well at Krafla — has proven to be a great success, based on the first scientific reports on the project, which are now starting to be released. The well, […]

Barack Obama

Dear President Obama: Tar Sands & Keystone XL are more Dangerous than an Iranian Atomic Bomb

Juan Cole

(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

Rep. Cathy Rodgers Exemplifies GOP: Benefit from Gov’t yourself, Deny Benefits to Others

Juan Cole

(By Juan Cole) Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers in giving her response to President Obama’s State of the Union message exemplified everything wrong with today’s Republican Party. Ms. Rodgers spoke of being the first in her family to go to college. She also said she came to Washington “To grow the working middle class, not the […]

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 […]