wildfires

“Never before in the History of Civilization have we had such Warming:” 2020 saw $210 billion in Natural Disasters

By Charlotte Nijhuis | – ( Clean Energy Wire ) – Latest data released by the Copernicus Climate Change Service show that globally 2020 was on par with the warmest year ever recorded (2016), marking the end of the warmest decade on record. Meanwhile, Europe saw its warmest year on record, 0.4°C [0.72° F.] warmer […]

Climate Crisis

So long, Sucker! Top 6 Reasons we Won’t miss you, 2020, or Trump, either

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – My late friend Fernando Coronil once observed that in order to understand the people of the past we must also understand their own visions of the future. In the 2014 science fiction film Edge of Tomorrow, based on a Japanese young adult novel All You Need Is Kill by Hiroshi […]

Climate Crisis

While COVID Distracted us, the global Climate Crisis went Extreme in 2020

The Conversation

By Chloe Brimicombe, Elliott Sainsbury, Gabrielle Powell and Wilson Chan | – The year 2020 will no doubt go down in history for other reasons, but it is also on target to be one of the warmest on record. And as the climate warms, natural hazards will happen more frequently – and be ever more […]

Desertification

Demand for meat is driving deforestation in Brazil – changing the soy industry could stop it

The Conversation

By Angela Guerrero and Malika Virah-Sawmy | – Soy may have a pretty innocuous reputation thanks to its association with vegan food and meat alternatives. But don’t be fooled – crops of this pale legume are behind much of Brazil’s epidemic of deforestation. Since 2000, Brazil has doubled its total area of soy plantation to […]

Climate Crisis

The Lancet: Climate Crisis Menaces every Country with spike in Heat Strokes, Flood, Drought, and more Pandemics

The Conversation

By Celia McMichael, Ilan Kelman and Shouro Dasgupta, and Sonja Ayeb-Karlsson | – Climate change is resulting in profound, immediate and worsening health impacts, and no country is immune, a major new report from more than 120 researchers has declared. This year’s annual report of The Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change, released today, […]

Climate Crisis

One last Time, Trump lies to the International Community about the Climate Emergency and Green Energy

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – DW gives a clip of Trump’s unhinged video rant to the G20 summit against the Paris Climate Accord on Sunday, which is being held virtually this year. Trump said, according to Kevin Liptak at CNN, “The Paris accord was not designed to save the environment, it was designed to kill […]

Acidification of Oceans

The Black Hole of Depressions: Doing nothing about Climate Emergency could cost more than all the Wealth in the World

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – A study in Nature Communications has found that if you add in variability to calculations of the impact of climate change, the upper range of the damage it could do to property is $563 trillion.* That is in the worst case scenario where the world does virtually nothing to stop […]

Climate Crisis

With UN’s Climate summit postponed until 2021, Grassroots Activists Step in to Maintain Momentum in cutting CO2

Waging Nonviolence

By Andrea(s) Speck | – ( Waging Nonviolence) – Not just another civil society statement on climate change, the Glasgow Agreement is a ‘people’s climate commitment’ to take decisive action on greenhouse gas emissions. After more than 40 years since the first UN conference on climate change in 1979 — and after more than 25 […]

Climate Change

Amy Coney Barrett: You can’t actually be pro-life if you deny burning Fossil Fuels causes the Climate Emergency; Denialism is Mass Murder

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Amy Coney Barrett is a denialist when it comes to the human-caused climate emergency. Rachel Koning Beals at Marketwatch notes that when Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) asked her about this issue, she replied, “I’ve read about climate change. I’m certainly not a scientist. I would not say that I have […]