Super Storms

Kalamazoo, MI (Special to Informed Comment) – Many are rightly celebrating a resurgence of liberalism as the Free World rallies against Putin’s war of choice. We honor brave Ukrainians fighting for freedom. Pride surges for democratic governments incurring great costs, with skillful and cooperative leadership countering immense and unjustified harm to innocents and arrogant violation […]

Climate Crisis

White House OMB: Climate Crisis to cost US $2 trillion Each and Every Year in 8 Decades

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Timothy Gardner at Reuters has gotten an advance look at a White House Office of Management and Budget document that concludes that by the end of this century, when Olivia Rodrigo would be 100 if she has the long life we wish for her, the annual cost of the climate […]

Arab World

Climate Crisis: Middle East is Heating up Twice as Fast as Global Average

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Christoph Duenwald et al. at the International Monetary Fund have a new report out that finds that temperatures in the Middle East and Central Asia have already risen by 2.7 degrees F. (1.5C) over the past century, at a rate twice as fast as that of the rest of the […]

Climate Crisis

Combined, Green Sources generated 38% of global Electricity in 2021, for 1st Time Exceeding Coal

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Ember energy analysis shop, which prioritizes ending the use of coal to combat the climate emergency, has issued a new report on where we stand with green energy. Among their important findings is that all low-carbon sources of energy were responsible for 38% of the world’s electricity last year, […]

Climate Crisis

The Costs of (Another) War: When We Could Be Fighting Climate Change

Tomdispatch

By Andrea Mazzarino | – ( Tomdispatch.com ) – What do a six-year-old in the United States and an 85-year-old in Russia have in common besides being on opposite sides of a war? They’re both feeling the strain of a warming planet. “Is the earth going to get so hot that we can’t survive?” my […]

Bangladesh

Will the Climate Crisis Cause the Next Great Global Conflict?

Jason Miklian

Oslo (Special to Informed Comment) – In November 1970 the Great Bhola Cyclone smashed into the southern coast of what is now Bangladesh, killing 500,000 people. It wasn’t just the deadliest storm in human history — it knocked over the first domino in a political chain reaction that brought the world to the brink of […]

Climate Crisis

There’s No Better Time to Buy an Electric Car and Kick Our Oil Addiction

Sonali Kolhatkar

( Otherwords.org ) – Long used to cheap gas at the pump, Americans are experiencing serious sticker shock these days. News headlines link this sharp increase to Russia’s war on Ukraine. But that assumes oil companies have no control over the price of oil — that high prices stem “naturally” from things like the war […]

Climate Crisis

Largest American Wind Farm ever Built all-at-Once Opens in Oklahoma, Saves Customers $1 Billion over Fossil fuels

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – This week, American Electric Power (AEP), which operates in several states, inaugurated what it called the largest wind farm in the US ever built all at once. That is, there are larger wind facilities, but they were actually a congeries of several projects built over many years. The nearly 1 […]

Climate Crisis

American Exceptionalism is the Wrong Lens for our Massive Carbon Dioxide Emissions

Tomdispatch

By Aviva Chomsky | – Three years after the end of World War II, diplomat George Kennan outlined the challenges the country faced this way: “We have about 50% of the world’s wealth, but only 6.3% of its population. In this situation, we cannot fail to be the object of envy and resentment. Our real […]