Climate Crisis

By Mark J. Lara, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | – Across the Arctic, strange things are happening to the landscape. Massive lakes, several square miles in size, have disappeared in the span of a few days. Hillsides slump. Ice-rich ground collapses, leaving the landscape wavy where it once was flat, and in some locations […]

Agriculture

More Heat, Less Water: Climate Emergency Pushes Iraq’s Farmers off Land as Drought cripples Crops

Middle East Monitor

( Middle East Monitor ) – Until a few years ago, farming in southern Iraq was “as lucrative as oil”, Qasim Abdul Wahad remembers, and his one-hectare farm plot in the Governorate of Basra produced enough to feed his family of eight. Now dust kicks up under his feet as he walks through his land, […]

Climate Crisis

Germany boosts renewables with “biggest energy policy reform in decades”

Julian Wettengel

By Kerstine Appunn and Julian Wettengel | – ( Clean Energy Wire ) – Germany wants to fight the climate crisis and its heavy dependence on fossil fuel imports by speeding up the rollout of renewables with a massive overhaul of key energy legislation. In the “biggest energy policy reform in decades,” the coalition of […]

Agriculture

IPCC report: We can’t Meet Climate Goals, without Deeply Slashing our CO2 Emissions

The Conversation

Jack Marley | – The world has the means to avert the greatest ravages of global heating – but we must deploy them immediately, while eliminating the fuels and activities that threaten to warm Earth beyond safe levels. This is the conclusion of a new report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a […]

Climate Crisis

Responsibility for the Invasion of Ukraine and for Climate Change

Paul Clements

Kalamazoo, MI (Special to Informed Comment) – Many are rightly celebrating a resurgence of liberalism as the Free World rallies against Putin’s war of choice. We honor brave Ukrainians fighting for freedom. Pride surges for democratic governments incurring great costs, with skillful and cooperative leadership countering immense and unjustified harm to innocents and arrogant violation […]

Climate Crisis

White House OMB: Climate Crisis to cost US $2 trillion Each and Every Year in 8 Decades

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Timothy Gardner at Reuters has gotten an advance look at a White House Office of Management and Budget document that concludes that by the end of this century, when Olivia Rodrigo would be 100 if she has the long life we wish for her, the annual cost of the climate […]

Batteries

Developing Morocco, which already gets twice as much of its Electricity from Renewables as US, plans new 800 MW Hybrid Solar Facility

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Morocco hosted a big energy conference with 19,000 attendees recently, at which it celebrated its partnership with Masdar, the green energy company based in the UAE, which is committed to a new solar farm that will generate 800 megawatts of electricity. Attendee Sultan bin Ahmed Al Jaber, the UAE minister […]

Climate Crisis

Electric Cars let German Consumers Save Huge on Gasoline, Cut Russian Oil – Greenpeace

Clean Energy Wire

By Edgar Meza | – ( Clean Energy Wire) – Electric vehicles can save up to 300 euros [$331] a month compared to cars with diesel and petrol engines, according to a cost analysis report by Greenpeace. Despite temporary tax cuts on fuel prices, new combustion engines are cost traps when considering high long-term fuel […]

Climate Crisis

Even Oil-Rich UAE admits its Green Energy saved it nearly $200 billion, as it builds World’s Largest Solar Farm

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Even the energy minister of the United Arab Emirates, the world’s eighth largest oil producer, has admitted that the steps so far taken in the small Gulf country toward green energy have saved it $191 billion. The UAE gets about 7% of its electricity from solar panels, saving on the […]