Climate Crisis

Dear Gov. DeSantis: Ian isn’t a once-in-500-years Flooding event, it is the New Normal, and Your Policies are helping Cause it

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has abruptly been handed an honest-to-God crisis that may distract him from his usual antics of trolling Venezuelan asylum-seekers, firing elected prosecutors who disagree with him on coerced childbirth, and firing scientists who wouldn’t manipulate state COVID statistics for him. DeSantis called Hurricane Ian a once-in-a-500-year […]

Agriculture

Biden’s USDA more than Triples Funding for ‘Climate Smart’ Agriculture to $3 Billion

Minnesota Reformer

By Jared Strong | – ( Minnesota Reformer) – The Biden administration plans to distribute more than $3 billion to fund projects that will reduce greenhouse gas emissions and sequester carbon in agriculture and forestry — a tripling of its initial commitment in February. U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack was set to publicly announce […]

Antarctica

Our Atmospheric CO2 is now past the point that in the Deep Past has Meant the Melting of the Antarctic Ice Sheets

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – So as a historian, I am particularly interested in what the past tells us about the present. I’ve taught courses on climate change in history. But of course my kind of history doesn’t go back very far from the point of view of physical scientists. The academic discipline of “history” […]

Climate Crisis

Solar Power Record Year for Germany: Unprecedented 51 Terawatt Hours already Reached in September, ’22

Julian Wettengel

By Julian Wettengel | – ( Clean Energy Wire ) – 2022 will become a record year for solar power generation in Germany, data by research institute Fraunhofer ISE’s Energy Charts suggests. “By mid-September, solar plants in Germany had already generated more electricity in 2022 than in the whole of 2021 or 2020,”Bruno Burger of […]

Climate Crisis

The Nightmare of Military Spending on an Overheating Planet: A Big Carbon Bootprint and a Giant Sucking Sound in the National Budget

Tomdispatch

By Stan Cox | – ( Tomdispatch.com) – On October 1st, the U.S. military will start spending the more than $800 billion Congress is going to provide it with in fiscal year 2023. And that whopping sum will just be the beginning. According to the calculations of Pentagon expert William Hartung, funding for various intelligence […]

Climate Crisis

Top Six Astounding Signs of Solar Progress in US, as this Source accounts for 45% of New Power Installations in 2021

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Berkeley Labs has brought out its report on utility-scale solar power in the United States during 2021. Here are some headlines from the report: 1. Utility-scale solar and distributed solar came to 45% of all new electricity-production capacity added to the US grid in 2021. In contrast, wind was 32% […]

Climate Crisis

Desalinating Seawater sounds Easy, but there are cheaper and more sustainable Ways to meet people’s Water Needs

The Conversation

By Gregory Pierce, University of California, Los Angeles | – (The Conversation) – Coastal urban centers around the world are urgently looking for new, sustainable water sources as their local supplies become less reliable. In the U.S., the issue is especially pressing in California, which is coping with a record-setting, multidecadal drought. California Gov. Gavin […]

Climate Crisis

Scientists Conclude Climate Change Contributed to 1/3 of Pakistan being Under Water; Calls for Debt Relief

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The massive monsoon floods that affected 33 million people in Pakistan, destroyed 1.3 million homes, turned the southern province of Sindh temporarily into a new inland sea nearly 70 miles across, and killed off 80% of the country’s livestock was in part fueled by the human-caused climate emergency. So argues […]

Climate Crisis

Climate Emergency: Typhoon Merbok, fueled by unusually warm Pacific Ocean, pounded Alaska’s vulnerable coastal Communities at a critical Time

The Conversation

By Rick Thoman, University of Alaska Fairbanks | – The powerful remnants of Typhoon Merbok pounded Alaska’s western coast on Sept. 17, 2022, pushing homes off their foundations and tearing apart protective berms as water flooded communities. Storms aren’t unusual here, but Merbok built up over unusually warm water. Its waves reached 50 feet over […]