Environment

By Elif Selin Calik | – ( Middle East Monitor ) – One of the enduring images of 2020, the year of the pandemic, has been the sight of people connected to ventilators in hospitals. It is an image that helped us realise the importance of being able to breathe. Many have died because they […]

Climate Crisis

German Researchers develop battery pack for electric cars that is 40% Lighter

Clean Energy Wire

By Julian Wettengel | – ( Clean Energy Wire) – Scientists at the Fraunhofer Institute for Structural Durability and System Reliability (LBF) have developed a lightweight battery pack to reduce the overall weight of e-car batteries. The new pack holding the battery cells is made of fibre-plastic composites, reducing the weight by 40 percent compared […]

Climate Crisis

5 years after the Paris Accord: How countries’ climate policies match up to their promises, and who’s aiming for net zero emissions

The Conversation

By Morgan Bazilian and Dolf Gielen | – December marked the fifth anniversary of the Paris climate agreement – the commitment by almost every country to try to keep global warming well below 2 degrees Celsius. It’s an ambitious goal, and the clock is ticking. The planet has already warmed by about 1 C [1.8 […]

Climate Crisis

So long, Sucker! Top 6 Reasons we Won’t miss you, 2020, or Trump, either

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – My late friend Fernando Coronil once observed that in order to understand the people of the past we must also understand their own visions of the future. In the 2014 science fiction film Edge of Tomorrow, based on a Japanese young adult novel All You Need Is Kill by Hiroshi […]

Climate Crisis

While COVID Distracted us, the global Climate Crisis went Extreme in 2020

The Conversation

By Chloe Brimicombe, Elliott Sainsbury, Gabrielle Powell and Wilson Chan | – The year 2020 will no doubt go down in history for other reasons, but it is also on target to be one of the warmest on record. And as the climate warms, natural hazards will happen more frequently – and be ever more […]

Climate Crisis

The Southwest once had 4000-year-long Droughts; Could Human-Caused Climate Emergency bring them Back?

Cronkite News Arizona PBS

By Judy Fahys ( InsideClimate News/ Cronkite News Creative Commons. —— Bonus Video added by Informed Comment: The Enigmatic Montezuma Castle and Well in Arizona, USA | Ancient Architects

China

With US AWOL on Climate Leadership, are EU Members like Holland Turning to China?

China Dialogue

By Charlotte Nijhuis | – ( China Dialogue ) – Both countries have their work cut out to reach emissions-reduction goals, but China is already learning from Dutch expertise in offshore wind. With half of its territory below sea level, the Netherlands is particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change. The country is a […]

Climate Crisis

Whodunnit?: Hundreds of Thousands of Birds fell out of the Sky in Southwest and now we Know Why

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – In Alfred Hitchcock’s classic 1963 horror film, The Birds, our avian cousins abruptly and for no apparent reason turned hostile and began attacking humans. It is based on a story by Daphne du Maurier. I fear that in 2020, humans turned the tables on a vast scale. In August, masses […]

Climate Crisis

Deficit Hawks: Reducing environmental damage of greenhouse gases, pollutants saves billions

Clean Energy Wire

By Charlotte Nijhuis | – ( Clean Energy Wire ) – Reducing the environmental damages caused by greenhouse gases, nitrogen emissions, other pollutants and human activities can save Germany billions of euros, the German Federal Environment Agency (UBA) writes. The agency has updated the cost rates of environmental impact to include those for nitrogen and […]