Climate Crisis

What’s worse than a Slow-Moving Doomsday Glacier like Thwaites? A Raptor Glacier Sprinting for the Ocean!

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – As regular readers know, I’m fascinated by glaciers. Growing up in France, I had the opportunity at one point to learn to ski in the Swiss Alps. The US army does not consistently supply a jet set lifestyle to dependents of non-commissioned officers, to say the least, but sometimes you […]

Agriculture

As Colorado River Dries Up, the U.S. Teeters on the Brink of Larger Water Crisis

ProPublica

By Abrahm Lustgarten | – ( ProPublica) – The western United States is, famously, in the grips of its worst megadrought in a millennium. The Colorado River, which supplies water to more than 40 million Americans and supports food production for the rest of the country, is in imminent peril. The levels in the nation’s […]

Climate Crisis

Why Desalination is Key to averting global Water Shortage, but Will Take a Lot of Work

The Conversation

Kiran Tota-Maharaj, Aston University | – Clean freshwater is critical for sustaining human life. However, 1.1 billion people lack access to it worldwide. Desalination represents an increasingly popular way of addressing this. Desalination is the process of extracting salt from saline water to make it drinkable. There are two main types of desalination. In the […]

Climate Crisis

Why defusing ‘Carbon Bombs’ offers a promising new Agenda for tackling Climate Change

The Conversation

By Kjell Kühne, University of Leeds | – A carbon bomb is a fossil fuel extraction project, such as a coal mine, that can cause over a gigatonne of CO₂ emissions during its lifetime. That’s a billion tonnes – more than twice the UK’s annual emissions from a single project. In our latest research, my […]

Climate Crisis

How Timber Cities could provide Climate Saving Solution for growing urban Populations

Clean Energy Wire

By Edgar Meza | – ( Clean Energy Wire ) – A large-scale transition to using wood for building construction in “timber cities” could avoid more than 100 billion tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions by the end of the century, about 10 percent of the remaining carbon budget for the 2°C climate target, according to […]

Climate Crisis

CO2 highest in a Million Years, Seas Rising, and a new “Ocean” arises in Flood-Hit Pakistan

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – CNN reports that satellite photos show that the overflowing Indus has created a new body of water in southern Pakistan some 62 miles (100km) wide. It will take days or weeks for the water to recede, and in the meantime millions are left homeless and over all, 33 million people […]

Arctic

What’s going on with the Greenland ice sheet? It’s losing ice faster than forecast and now irreversibly committed to at least 10 inches of sea level rise

The Conversation

By Alun Hubbard, University of Tromsø | – I’m standing at the edge of the Greenland ice sheet, mesmerized by a mind-blowing scene of natural destruction. A milewide section of glacier front has fractured and is collapsing into the ocean, calving an immense iceberg. Seracs, giant columns of ice the height of three-story houses, are […]

Climate Crisis

Netherlands innovates with Floating Solar Panels in Sea, Locally-owned Wind Farm Cooperative

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Netherlands was long a laggard regarding the green energy revolution and combating the climate emergency, perhaps in part because it is a fossil gas-producing country. Even so, the Netherlands is now making strides toward an energy switch with some innovative approaches. It is still a little behind the European […]

Climate Crisis

The White House Meets the Creature from the Black Lagoon: How Trump turned the American Dream into the American Scream

Tom Engelhardt

( Tomdispatch.com) – Honestly, if you had described this America to me more than half a century ago, I would have laughed in your face. Donald Trump becoming president? You must be kidding! If you want a bizarre image, just imagine him in the company of Abraham Lincoln. I mean, really, what’s happened to us? […]