Environment

Frankenfuel: The Market is done with Big Oil and Coal, but will they Lumber on with Gov’t Subsidies?

Southwest Harbor, Maine (Special to Informed Comment) – Are the big oil stocks headed for collapse? Citizens as diverse as climate activist and 350.org founder Bill McKibben and CNBC finance guru Jim Cramer seem to think so. Here is Cramer as reported by Axios in early February even before the historic plunge in crude prices.\ […]

Climate Crisis

Coronavirus Effect: In One Year, Share of Coal in German Public Power Supply Cratered to 16% from 30%

Clean Energy Wire

By Freja Eriksen | — ( Clean Energy Wire) – Coal’s share in Germany’s net public power production fell to around 16 percent in April 2020, shows data by Fraunhofer ISE’s Energy Charts. The institute’s Energy Charts project does not include data on the amount of power the generating facilities consume themselves to operate, or […]

Climate Crisis

Climate Social Distancing: As sea levels rise, are we ready to live behind giant walls?

The Conversation

By Hannah Cloke | – Climate change, it’s fair to say, is complicated. And it’s big. One of the main challenges of responding effectively is simply getting your head around the scale of the problem. This is not unique in the study of the physical world, of course. Scientists and economists spend a lot of […]

Epidemics

Believe it or Not: Fighting the Coronavirus depends on Keeping our Oceans Healthy

China Dialogue

By Torsten Thiele, Marie-Christine Imbert and Timothy Bouley |- ( China Dialogue ) – We must think about how we emerge in a new and more sustainable post-crisis world that places living resources at its heart. When thinking about life on Earth, there is no better place to start than the ocean. Life was born […]

Climate Crisis

Why it doesn’t make Economic Sense to Ignore Climate Change in our Recovery from the Epidemic

The Conversation

By Anna Skarbek| – It will be tempting for some to overlook the climate change challenge in the rush to restart the economy after the pandemic . . . In the United States, the Trump administration is reportedly contemplating a coronavirus rescue package tailored specifically to oil and natural gas producers, while the Chinese government […]

Climate Crisis

Anti-Immigrant Trump promotes Burning Fossil Fuels that will displace Millions toward US

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – A new article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences presents findings that shocked the authors themselves. If the world (by which I mean you and me, dear reader) does not swing into prompt action to deal with the climate emergency, some 3.5 billion people are going to […]

Climate Crisis

Oil’s Götterdämmerung: Why Covid-19 could Hasten the end of Fossil Fuels

Sustainability Times

( Sustainability Times) – Last week the oil market took another plunge that saw the price of one barrel of West Texas Intermediate (WTI) fall 8 percent to $10.45 on Tuesday.. Last Monday, WTI crashed by 25 percent and rocked the market, yet the decline was relatively minor compared to what happened two weeks ago […]

Environment

Threat to Sea Life: Scientists find 1.9 mn. pieces of Microplastic from our Clothing on 3 Sq. ft. of Deep Ocean Floor

The Conversation

By Ian Kane and Michael Clare | – What if the “great ocean garbage patches” were just the tip of the iceberg? While more than ten million tonnes of plastic waste enters the sea each year, we actually see just 1% of it – the portion that floats on the ocean surface. What happens to […]

Climate Crisis

Lowest Solar bid in World History for new Abu Dhabi Facility, as expensive Coal, backed by Trump, declines further

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Abu Dhabi has accepted a historically low bid of 1.35 cents a kilowatt hour for a new giant 1.5 gigawatt solar farm, to be built at al-Dhafra by the largely government-owned French consortium Électricité de France (EDF) and China’s Jinko. The price is 44% less than was paid for the […]