Climate Change

( Tomdispatch.com) – Imagine this: humanity in its time on Earth has already come up with two distinct ways of destroying this planet and everything on it. The first is, of course, nuclear weapons, which once again surfaced in the ongoing nightmare in the Middle East. (An Israeli minister recently threatened to nuke Gaza.) The […]

Climate Crisis

Human-Caused Climate Change cost US $67 bn., Produced Hottest 12 Months for 125,000 years

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The non-profit collective of high-powered scientists, Climate Central, has released a new report demonstrating that the past 12 months have been the hottest on record, and inferring that they are the hottest in 125,000 years. They find that during the past year, 73% of the world’s population suffered through at […]

Antarctica

Winter Sea Ice in Antarctica’s Southern Ocean is in Disturbing Decline: 200 Scientists Sound Alarm

The Conversation

By Andrew J Constable, University of Tasmania and Jess Melbourne-Thomas, CSIRO | – (The Conversation) – While the Southern Ocean around Antarctica has been warming for decades, the annual extent of winter sea ice seemed relatively stable – compared to the Arctic. In some areas Antarctic sea ice was even increasing. That was until 2016, […]

Climate Crisis

How Global Warming shakes the Earth: Data show Storms and Waves gaining Strength as the Planet warms

The Conversation

By Richard Aster, Colorado State University | – As oceans waves rise and fall, they apply forces to the sea floor below and generate seismic waves. These seismic waves are so powerful and widespread that they show up as a steady thrum on seismographs, the same instruments used to monitor and study earthquakes. That wave […]

Climate Crisis

Goodbye Acapulco: 205 mph Winds destroy 80% of Infrastructure, do $18 bn of Damage in Climate Change Warning

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Gaza City is not the only place that has been reduced to rubble in the past week. Dan Stillman at WaPo points out that Hurricane Otis hit Acapulco on October 25 with 205 mph winds, “among the strongest ever measured.” Iván Cabrera at N+ reports that the megastorm destroyed 80% […]

Climate Crisis

How our Petty Wars are Distracting us from the Existential Challenge of Climate Change

Tom Engelhardt

( Tomdispatch.com) – Let’s admit it: We are indeed mad creatures. This should truly have been the time of our discontent. The northern hemisphere just experienced the hottest summer in recorded history, including month by month the warmest June, July, August, and (by a country mile) September ever. Staggering heat records were set in place […]

Climate Crisis

We can still avoid “Catastrophic Inundation” if we Slash Carbon Pollution – Michael E. Mann’s “Our Fragile Moment”

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Informed Comment is pleased to present below an interview with climate scientist Michael E. Mann, Presidential Distinguished Professor of Earth & Environmental Science at the University of Pennsylvania. He is one of my heroes. As a young scholar, he co-authored a key paper in which he and his colleagues presented […]

Climate Crisis

“We all just evaporate:” Extreme Heat Overwhelms Phoenix’s Unhoused Community

Cronkite News Arizona PBS

Deanna Pistono/Cronkite News ( Cronkite News ) – PHOENIX – Near the intersection of S. 11th Avenue and W. Jefferson Street in Phoenix, the heat is intense. For those who live along the street in tents and makeshift shelters, this heat can become fatal. “My friend … in the street over here, from heat exhaustion.… […]

Climate Crisis

Getting Mad and Getting Even: Is California’s Climate Lawsuit against Big Oil a Gamechanger?

Juan Cole

Reprinted from Tomdispatch.com : See the original site for Tom Engelhardt’s crucial introduction. ( Tomdispatch.com ) – The depths of depravity into which unvarnished capitalism can plunge mortal souls is incalculable. It should come as no surprise then that oil company executives and the officials of petrostates like Saudi Arabia have so assiduously lied to […]