Climate Crisis

Burning Oil Strengthens Hurricanes like Laura, which sow Environmental Catastrophe when they Strike Petroleum Facilities like Lousiana’s

By John Pardue | – Hurricane Laura plowed through the heart of Louisiana’s oil and chemical industries as a powerful Category 4 storm, leaving a chlorine plant on fire and the potential for more hazardous damage in its wake. The burning BioLab facility sent dark smoke and chlorine gas into the air over the small […]

Climate Crisis

COVID death Tolls are Horrific, but those of Global Heating are much Worse

The Third Pole

By Soumya Sarkar | – ( TheThirdPole.net) – Unless the world curbs greenhouse gas emissions significantly, extreme heat could become a major global killer by the end of this century, equalling death rates for all infectious diseases combined, including tuberculosis, HIV and malaria. In the largest international study till now on health and financial impacts […]

Climate Crisis

“Unsurvivable Storm Surge”: Hurricane Laura Most Powerful to Hit Louisiana in Recorded History, driven by CO2 Emissions

The Watchers

[Hurricane “Laura” became nearly a category 5 with winds at 150 mph or more on Wednesday evening before landfall. A category 5 has winds of 157 mph. Hurricanes are more frequent and more powerful because of the climate emergency driven by humans burning fossil fuels and putting heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere. – ed.] By […]

Climate Crisis

As Party of Climate Denial Meets, Wildfires Rage and Hurricanes Target Gulf Coast

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – One of the speakers at the Republican National Convention on Monday evening was Nikki Haley, formerly Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations, who helped usher the U.S. out of the Paris climate accords and who slammed Bernie Sanders’ Green New Deal. Haley when pressed will admit that the climate is […]

Climate Crisis

Greta Thunberg and Youth to Angela Merkel: ‘Abandon Fossil Fuel Industry’

Benjamin Wehrmann

By Benjamin Wehrmann ( Clean Energy Wire) – Greta Thunberg and fellow activists have met German Chancellor Angela Merkel to exchange views on the fight against climate change. The campaigners said the 90 minute meeting’s atmosphere was friendly, but also added that “we look at the situation from different perspectives.” Merkel’s spokesman said the EU’s […]

Climate Crisis

After a big win against coal, NY climate activists are closer than ever to ending all fossil fuel investments

Waging Nonviolence

By Nick Engelfried | – ( Waging Nonviolence ) – When New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli announced last month that the state would divest its over $200 billion Common Retirement Fund from more than 20 coal companies, it marked an important milestone for a grassroots campaign that has seen a recent burst of new […]

Climate Crisis

On Day Scientists Announce Melting of Greenland Ice Sheet ‘Irreversible,’ Trump to permit Arctic oil, gas Drilling

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Trump administration on Monday finalized its plans to permit oil and gas drilling in the arctic wildlife reserve. This drilling will further imperil endangered species just by the setting up of the rigs, and it will desecrate land holy to the indigenous Gwich’in people, who call it “the sacred […]

Climate Crisis

OK, Boomers: Will the America we die in be unprecedentedly Hot, Racist, Unequal, Sickly and Authoritarian?

Tom Engelhardt

( Tomdispatch.com ) – Let me be blunt. This wasn’t the world I imagined for my denouement. Not faintly. Of course, I can’t claim I ever really imagined such a place. Who, in their youth, considers their death and the world that might accompany it, the one you might leave behind for younger generations? I’m […]

Climate Crisis

Coal Plummets 30% in Germany as Renewables Gain during Covid-19 Slowdown

Benjamin Wehrmann

( Clean Energy Wire) – An abrupt halt to economic activity and greatly reduced mobility in reaction to the coronavirus outbreak have let Germany’s energy consumption plummet in the first half of 2020. While all fossil fuels and especially coal experienced a sharp drop in demand, energy produced with renewables increased its share and absolute […]