Climate Change

Hurricane Dorian has gathered strength from the freakishly warm waters of the Caribbean to become a category 4. It is already raging with 130 mph winds, but is expected now to become even stronger. It is menacing the Bahamas, from which tourists can afford to flee; but what about the people who live there? It […]

Climate Change

Horrific Amazon Wildfires: How do they Threaten Us, and how can we stop them?

Juan Cole

By Jos Barlow and Alexander C. Lees | – Imagine a rainforest at dawn – the tall canopy laden with dripping ferns and orchids, tree trunks covered in spongy mosses and lichens, and the morning mist only slowly burning away as the sun rises. While there is fuel everywhere, it seems unimaginable that such humid […]

Climate Change

Plants Provide our Food, Medicine & Oxygen: We’re Driving them Extinct 350x Faster than Normal

The Conversation

Plants are going extinct up to 350 times faster than the historical norm By Jaco Le Roux, Florencia Yanelli, Heidi Hirsch, José María Iriondo Alegria, Marcel Rejmánek, and Maria Loreto Castillo | – Earth is seeing an unprecedented loss of species, which some ecologists are calling a sixth mass extinction. In May, a United Nations […]

Climate Change

Bernie Sanders’ Manhattan Project: The Game-Changing Green New Deal

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Sen. Bernie Sanders’ breathtaking Green New Deal, with an advertised price tag of $16.3 trillion, is aimed at nothing less than saving the planet from the worst consequences of global heating. The plan aims to create 20 million new, well-paying jobs. It should be noted that one possible outcome of […]

Climate Change

Raging wildfires threaten to turn Northern Hemisphere’s forests from vital carbon stores into climate heaters

The Conversation

By Stefan H Doerr, Chuanyu Gao, and Cristina Santin | – In 2014, we travelled to the northern boreal forests of Canada to set experimental fires that would help us understand the effect of wildfires on the global carbon cycle. Sadly, we never got the chance to set those fires, because the firefighters enlisted to […]

Brazil

Climate Crisis: Panic as 74,000 Amazon Wildfires Plunge Sao Paulo into Darkness, Can be Seen from Space

Juan Cole

Rain forests aren’t supposed to be on fire

Climate Change

New research shows that Antarctica’s largest floating ice shelf is highly sensitive to warming of the ocean

The Conversation

By Dan Lowry | – Scientists have long been concerned about the potential collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet and its contribution to global sea level rise. Much of West Antarctica’s ice lies below sea level, and warming ocean temperatures may lead to runaway ice sheet retreat. Since the last ice age, the ice […]

Desertification

Rivers of Dust: The Future of Water and the Middle East

Conn M. Hallinan

Without international diplomacy, the Middle East is going to run out of water — and it won’t be alone.

Climate Change

To Avoid Boiling the Earth, we Need a New Agriculture: Farming emits 1/3 of Greenhouse Gases

The Conversation

By Mark Howden | – We can’t achieve the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement without managing emissions from land use, according to a special report released today by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Emissions from land use, largely agriculture, forestry and land clearing, make up some 22% of the world’s greenhouse gas […]