Climate Change

( Tomdispatch.com ) – Oddly enough, I’ve read obituaries with fascination from the time I was quite young. And yet, in all these years, I’ve never really reflected on that fact. I don’t know whether it was out of some indirect fascination with death and the end of it all or curiosity about the wholeness […]

Brazil

Lula’s Triumph in Brazil is a Victory for the Amazon and for the Planet

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva was elected on Sunday to his second (non-consecutive) term as president, in a victory for planet earth as well as for Brazil. He first served 2003-2010. Since 2019, Brazil’s president has been the far right demagogue Jair Bolsonaro, who just lost to the leftist da […]

Arctic

3-Alarm Fire on Planet Earth: Current Climate Policies will Heat it by extra 5.4° F. (3C) by 2100, for 1st time in Millions of Years

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – William J. Ripple et al. writing in BioScience warn that we are deep into a climate emergency, which they call “code red on planet earth.” They point to the increased frequency and severity of weather-related disasters, producing “untold human suffering.” Human-driven global heating, especially in the Arctic, which is warming […]

Climate Crisis

The Fossil Free Research Movement is taking Universities by Storm

Waging Nonviolence

By Nick Engelfried | – ( Waging Nonviolence ) – When over 40 Cambridge students and academics occupied the elite U.K. university’s BP Institute earlier this year, they were escalating one of the newest, fastest-growing campaigns focused on dissociating higher education institutions from fossil fuels. For just over an hour, activists from the grassroots initiative […]

Climate Crisis

The Second Great Dying: The Earth has lost 4/5s of Fresh Water and 7/10s of Wildlife Species’ Populations in 50 Years

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The 2022 Living Planet report is out and it does not bring good news. Since 1970, the scientists find that the population of fresh water species has plunged by 83%, and the population of wildlife species over all has fallen 69%. The researchers found a virtual extinction-level loss in Latin […]

Antarctica

Climate Tipping Points could lock in unstoppable Changes to the Planet – how Close are They?

The Conversation

By David Armstrong McKay, Stockholm University | – Continued greenhouse gas emissions risk triggering climate tipping points. These are self-sustaining shifts in the climate system that would lock-in devastating changes, like sea-level rise, even if all emissions ended. The first major assessment in 2008 identified nine parts of the climate system that are sensitive to […]

Climate Crisis

Ray of Hope: Florida’s Solar-Powered Babcock Ranch Handily survived Hurricane Ian

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Babcock Ranch, Florida, in the southwest of the state, was planned in 2005 as a 17,000 acre community. It had as goals conservation and sustainability. The town was built to withstand the hurricanes that sweep over Florida with ever more frequency and fierceness. And, lo and behold, it was able […]

Climate Crisis

Hurricane Ian capped 2 Weeks of extreme Storms around the Globe: How Climate Change fuels Tropical Cyclones

The Conversation

By Mathew Barlow, UMass Lowel and Suzana J. Camargo, Columbia University | When Hurricane Ian hit Florida, it was one of the United States’ most powerful hurricanes on record, and it followed a two-week string of massive, devastating storms around the world. A few days earlier in the Philippines, Typhoon Noru gave new meaning to […]

Climate Crisis

Climate Damage: Nord Stream Pipeline Leaks “a super-emitter event of unimaginable proportions”

Clean Energy Wire

By Carolina Kyllmann | – ( Clean Energy Wire ) – Leaking methane from the damaged Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines is likely to lead to “significant climate damage”, Germany’s Federal Environment Agency (UBA) has said. According to calculations by the agency, the leaks in the pipelines connecting Russia with Germany that were found […]