wildfires

By Halvard Buhaug, Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) | – The world is falling miserably short of reducing carbon emissions in line with the Paris Agreement, a 2015 treaty to keep global warming well below 2℃. The results of this failure are a greater increase in the prevalence and severity of extreme weather events, more […]

Climate Crisis

UN: Past 8 Years have been 8 hottest on Record, in Harbinger of Heating World

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The past eight years have been the eight hottest on record, in further evidence that human-caused global heating is accelerating rapidly and dangerously. So reports the World Meteorological Organization in tandem with the COP27 Climate Summit in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt. The report argues that we can see rapid heating […]

Climate Crisis

The Day After: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow on a Broiling Planet

Frida Berrigan

( Tomdispatch.com ) – When I was growing up, there was a parody of an old-fashioned public announcement tacked to the wall of our kitchen that I vividly remember. It had step-by-step instructions for what to do “in case of a nuclear bomb attack.” Step 6 was “bend over and place your head firmly between […]

Climate Crisis

The Planet Earth We Grew up With, R.I.P.

Tom Engelhardt

( 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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

Climate Crisis

‘It’s getting close’: As the megadrought grinds on, Southwest Water in Doubt

Cronkite News Arizona PBS

By Sydnee Wilson | – ( Cronkite News) – PHOENIX – NASA satellite photos show how drastically the water levels in Lake Powell and Lake Mead have receded in just the past few years. They demonstrate the severity of long-term drought and the challenges Arizona will face to conserve and enhance its precious water supply. […]

Climate Crisis

2022’s supercharged Summer of Climate Extremes from Pakistan to USA: How global warming and La Niña fueled Unprecedented Disasters

The Conversation

By Kevin Trenberth, University of Auckland | – There’s an old joke about the fellow who has his left foot in a bucket of ice water and the right in a bucket of hot water, so that his overall temperature is average. That seemed to apply to the climate during 2022’s northern summer of extremes. […]