Climate Change

After Ida, Joe Biden calls Code Red on Climate Emergency, Ridicules ‘Free Enterprise’ argument for Living under Flood Waters

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – President Joe Biden is a late and incomplete convert to the immediate and extreme dangers of the climate emergency. Originally a fan of Big Oil who rejected a federal ban on high-carbon hydraulic fracturing, Biden more recently backed the demand by the Democratic Party’s left wing for really big federal […]

Climate Crisis

Top 5 Health Dangers of Climate Emergency that are far more Pressing than Covid Pandemic (- 230 Top Medical Journals)

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Some 230 medical journals carried an editorial on Sunday, “Call for Emergency Action to Limit Global Temperature Increases, Restore Biodiversity, and Protect Health.” In my view, the editorial buried the lead by putting this sentence two-thirds of the way down and by not giving it its own paragraph: “Rises above […]

Climate Change

Hurricane Ida shows the increasing impact of climate crisis since Katrina

The Conversation

By Jack L. Rozdilsky | – Sixteen years to the day that Hurricane Katrina made landfall, Hurricane Ida struck at Port Fourchon, La., on Aug. 29, as a Category 4 hurricane with 240 kilometres per hour winds. Given the date and location of the area affected, Katrina and Ida comparisons are being made. While no […]

Climate Crisis

UN: Climate-Driven Extreme Weather Disasters since 1970 increased 5-Fold, costing Trillions

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction have issued a report finding that in the past 50 years, 11,000 droughts, storms, extreme temperature and other extreme weather events have accounted for 50 percent of all disasters and three-fourths of known economic losses, totaling $3.64 […]

Climate Crisis

Why Ida Dumped Unprecedented Floodwaters on NYC, Northeast: It was Global Heating from Burning Fossil Fuels

The Conversation

By Russ Schumacher | – Record downpours from Hurricane Ida overwhelmed cities across the Northeast on Sept. 1, 2021, hitting some with more than 3 inches of rain an hour. Water poured into subway stations in New York and Boston. Streets flooded up to the rooftops of cars in Philadelphia. The storm had already wreaked […]

Climate Crisis

Why We Need Electric Cars: Climate-driven Hurricane Ida Knocked out Gulf Oil Production, 1/5 of US Refinery Capacity

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Louisiana’s petroleum refineries are out of action in the wake of Hurricane Ida. Refineries run on electricity, and electricity has been knocked out in New Orleans and environs, perhaps for another couple of weeks. Here’s the kicker: Louisiana refineries account for nearly 1/5 of America’s refining capacity. Raw crude oil […]

Afghanistan

Ida: The Climate Emergency and Fossil Fuels, not Afghan terrorists, just Knocked out Power to America’s 4th-Largest Port

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The two big stories on Sunday, of the continued evacuation effort at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, and the landfall of Hurricane Ida on the coast of Louisiana have something in common. Both are about potential threats to the United States. America’s national security elites and arms manufacturers […]

Afghanistan

Climate Emergency v. Afghanistan: Why do TV Cable News, Pols ignore the greatest Terror Threat to the US in History?

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – American cable TV news has been on an Afghanistan jag since the Taliban rapidly advanced in the country, with wall to wall coverage and expressions of dismay and umbrage directed at President Biden not just on Fox but also CNN and even MSNBC. Afghanistan is an important story, to be […]

Climate Crisis

German Public Believes Scientists’ Climate Warnings, 74% Prepared to Change Lifestyle to Forestall Global Heating

Clean Energy Wire

By Kerstine Appunn | – ( Clean Energy Wire) – The majority of Germans (74%) are prepared to make changes to their lifestyle to prevent global warming, a survey among 1,000 consumers commissioned by heating technology company Stiebel Eltron shows. Seventy-nine percent of participants said the climate change warnings by scientists are correct, and 83 […]