Climate Crisis

Southwest Harbor, Maine (Special to Informed Comment) – New York’s new governor, Kathy Hochul – forced to deal with every political leader’s nightmare, a weather disaster, after just one week in office – called the rain “far more than anyone expected.” In fact, despite many residents getting caught unaware, the potential for high-end flooding was […]

Climate Crisis

“That night, I became a climate Refugee:” The Dixie Fire and our Hot Future

Tomdispatch

ByJane Braxton Little | – ( Tomdispatch.com) – GREENVILLE, CA — At 10 a.m. on July 22nd, I interviewed a New York University professor about using autonomous robots, drones, and other unmanned devices to suppress structural and wildland fires. I sent the interview to an online transcription service, walked down the steps of my second-floor […]

Climate Crisis

After Ida, Joe Biden calls Code Red on Climate Emergency, Ridicules ‘Free Enterprise’ argument for Living under Flood Waters

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – President Joe Biden is a late and incomplete convert to the immediate and extreme dangers of the climate emergency. Originally a fan of Big Oil who rejected a federal ban on high-carbon hydraulic fracturing, Biden more recently backed the demand by the Democratic Party’s left wing for really big federal […]

Climate Crisis

Nature-based solutions: the ‘no-regret’ routes to carbon neutrality

China Dialogue

By Zeng Nan, Jin Tong, and Zhang Xiaoquan | – ( China Dialogue) – The concept of nature-based solutions took root in China in 2019. Now it has been included in official documents from the Ministry of Ecology and Environment (MEE) and the Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR), bringing the idea greater visibility in policy. […]

Climate Crisis

Top 5 Health Dangers of Climate Emergency that are far more Pressing than Covid Pandemic (- 230 Top Medical Journals)

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Some 230 medical journals carried an editorial on Sunday, “Call for Emergency Action to Limit Global Temperature Increases, Restore Biodiversity, and Protect Health.” In my view, the editorial buried the lead by putting this sentence two-thirds of the way down and by not giving it its own paragraph: “Rises above […]

Climate Change

Hurricane Ida shows the increasing impact of climate crisis since Katrina

The Conversation

By Jack L. Rozdilsky | – Sixteen years to the day that Hurricane Katrina made landfall, Hurricane Ida struck at Port Fourchon, La., on Aug. 29, as a Category 4 hurricane with 240 kilometres per hour winds. Given the date and location of the area affected, Katrina and Ida comparisons are being made. While no […]

Climate Crisis

Germans are most worried about Climate Emergency among 28 Countries Surveyed

Clean Energy Wire

By Julian Wettengel | – ( Clean Energy Wire ) – Germany is currently the country most concerned about climate change out of the 28 surveyed for the August update of the “What worries the world” study by market research and consulting firm Ipsos. Climate change is one of Germans’ top three concerns, with 36 […]

Climate Crisis

UN: Climate-Driven Extreme Weather Disasters since 1970 increased 5-Fold, costing Trillions

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction have issued a report finding that in the past 50 years, 11,000 droughts, storms, extreme temperature and other extreme weather events have accounted for 50 percent of all disasters and three-fourths of known economic losses, totaling $3.64 […]

Climate Crisis

Why Ida Dumped Unprecedented Floodwaters on NYC, Northeast: It was Global Heating from Burning Fossil Fuels

The Conversation

By Russ Schumacher | – Record downpours from Hurricane Ida overwhelmed cities across the Northeast on Sept. 1, 2021, hitting some with more than 3 inches of rain an hour. Water poured into subway stations in New York and Boston. Streets flooded up to the rooftops of cars in Philadelphia. The storm had already wreaked […]