wildfires

( Tomdispatch.com) – In San Francisco, we’re finally starting to put away our masks. With 74% of the city’s residents over 12 fully vaccinated, for the first time in more than a year we’re enjoying walking, shopping, and eating out, our faces naked. So I was startled when my partner reminded me that we need […]

Climate Crisis

Gasoline and Coal’s Climate Freak Show: Fire-nado, 1 Billion Dead Marine Animals, and Earth’s All-Time Record Heat

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Gasoline demand in the U.S. rebounded vigorously in the week leading up to the 4th of July, to an average of 9.6 million barrels a day, the highest rate seen since September, 2019, well before the pandemic. This is bad. During the 2020 pandemic year, global carbon dioxide emissions plummeted […]

Climate Change

Kuwait is the Hottest Place on Earth; Lytton, Canada was Right Behind it, and then it Burned Down; This is not Normal

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Mohammed Haddad at Al Jazeera English reports that in June, at least 23 countries experienced at least 122° F. (50° C.). Haddad’s article kindly provides several graphics under a Creative Commons licence, reproduced below. The earth is heating up because we burn gasoline in our cars and burn coal for […]

Climate Crisis

By phasing out coal-fired plants — Now! — we can save millions of lives

Sustainability Times

( Sustainability Times ) – Emissions from the burning of fossil fuels are driving climate change, which imperils the health of life on the planet and so harms us all. Yet the burning of fossil fuels also harms us directly by contributing to a variety of diseases, many of them life-threatening. “Long-term exposure to ambient […]

Climate Crisis

As we continue to burn Gasoline, Coal, Rocky Mountain forests burning more now than any time in the past 2,000 years

The Conversation

By Philip Higuera, Bryan Shuman and Kyra Wolf | – The exceptional drought in the U.S. West has people across the region on edge after the record-setting fires of 2020. Last year, Colorado alone saw its three largest fires in recorded state history, one burning late in October and crossing the barren Continental Divide well […]

Climate Crisis

Our Climate Future is on a Spectrum, Depending on What we Do Now; How Bad could it Get?

The Conversation

By Mark Maslin | – The climate crisis is no longer a looming threat – people are now living with the consequences of centuries of greenhouse gas emissions. But there is still everything to fight for. How the world chooses to respond in the coming years will have massive repercussions for generations yet to be […]

Australasia

Seriously ugly: here’s how Australia will look if the world heats by 3°C [5.4°F] this century

The Conversation

By Ove Hoegh-Guldberg and Lesley Hughes | – Imagine, for a moment, a different kind of Australia. One where bushfires on the catastrophic scale of Black Summer happen almost every year. One where 50℃ days in Sydney and Melbourne are common. Where storms and flooding have violently reshaped our coastlines, and unique ecosystems have been […]

Climate Crisis

Time to Roll up our Sleeves and Fix this: Trump left us with Heightened Climate, Nuclear Danger

Rebecca Gordon

( Tomdispatch.com) – If you live in California, you’re likely to be consumed on occasion by thoughts of fire. That’s not surprising, given that, in last year alone, actual fires consumed over four and a quarter million acres of the state, taking with them 10,488 structures, 33 human lives, and who knows how many animals. […]

Climate Crisis

Climate Crisis: what would 7.1° F. ( 4°C) of global warming feel like?

The Conversation

By Robert Wilby | – Another year, another climate record broken. Globally, 2020 tied with 2016 as the warmest year ever recorded. This was all the more remarkable given that cool conditions in the Pacific Ocean – known as La Niña – began to emerge in the second half of the year. The Earth’s mean […]