Green Transportation

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) — A Japanese team has confirmed that 2014 was the hottest year on record. Moreover, ten of the warmest years have occurred since 1998. What the scientists are measuring is that average temperature of the earth’s surface, including the oceans, throughout the world. Thus, the cold winter in North […]

Energy

New “Sustainable City” in Dubai aims to be Net Carbon Zero

contributors

Dubai City | — “The goal of sustainability is to enhance quality of life, without compromising the needs of future generations. Sustainability is achieved by balancing the social economic and environmental needs of humans with the environment. We shall adopt sustainability in our day to day lives, in our thinking, and in all aspects of […]

Climate Change

6 Reasons Lower Oil Prices won’t Stop Solar, Wind and Electric Cars

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | — Some observers have alleged that lower oil prices will slow down the green energy revolution. This allegation is unlikely to be true even in the short term, and it is laughable in the medium to long term. 1. Solar and wind power are for electricity generation. For the most part, […]

Climate Change

Climate Change is Costing Lives: Coal Plants Killed 1.2 mn. in China: World Bank’s Jim Yong Kim

contributors

Sept. 22 (Bloomberg) — World Bank President Jim Yong Kim discusses the growing threat from climate change with Trish Regan on “Street Smart.” Bloomberg News: Climate Change Is Costing Lives: World Bank’s Jim Yong Kim

Climate Change

Largest Climate Rally ever in New York City, other World Capitals

contributors

By Deirdre Fulton, Commondreams.org Global mobilization is exceeding expectations on Sunday, with hundreds of thousands of people taking to the streets demanding action on climate change on the eve of the UN Climate Summit. In addition to the massive action in New York City, People’s Climate demonstrations took place in cities and towns across continents, […]

Climate Change

HIstoric Mass March against Global Warming: Saving the Planet Next Sunday in NYC

contributors

By Eddie Bautista, La Tonya Crisp-Sauray, and Bill McKibben On Sunday, September 21st, a huge crowd will march through the middle of Manhattan. It will almost certainly be the largest rally about climate change in human history, and one of the largest political protests in many years in New York. More than 1,000 groups are […]

Climate Change

Elon Musk’s Nevada Gigafactory may Save the World

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole KRQE: “Official: Tesla picks Nevada for Gigafactory” Clean Technica points out that the battery-making factory is on track to reduce battery prices by 30% by 2017, making EVs indisputably cheaper than fossil fuel-driven internal combustion, at less than $100 per kilowatt hour. (Of course, if externalities are taken into account, like the […]

Climate Change

America is a Gas Hog and we’re not going on a Diet even if Global Warming Kills Us

contributors

By Michael T. Klare Considering all the talk about global warming, peak oil, carbon divestment, and renewable energy, you’d think that oil consumption in the United States would be on a downward path. By now, we should certainly be witnessing real progress toward a post-petroleum economy. As it happens, the opposite is occurring. U.S. oil […]

Climate Change

US Public Worried about ISIL, Putin– But Climate Change is Real Challenge

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole In a new Pew/ USA Today poll, the American public shows itself alarmed by the rise of the so-called Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant in northern Iraq and Syria as a threat to US security, finding it more threatening even than Russia’s Vladimir Putin, who has risen on the villain […]