Environment

(Otherwords.org) – Every year around Earth Day, I’m reminded of papers I graded in an environmental sociology class. The assignment was to assess your values, explain how you thought you would live as an adult (about 20 years in the future), and then complete an online calculator to find out: If everyone in the world […]

Climate Change

Pacific Islands Menaced by Climate Crisis Focus on Most Vulnerable Towns and Cities

The Conversation

By Alexei Trundle | – The impacts of climate change are already being felt across the Pacific, considered to be one of the world’s most-at-risk regions. Small island developing states are mandated extra support under the Paris Agreement. Many are classified as least developed countries, allowing them special access to development funding and loans. Looking […]

Climate Change

Feeding us in a Climate Friendly Way requires Reducing Livestock

Clean Energy Wire

( Clean Energy Wire) – Greenhouse gas reduction targets for 2030 in the agriculture sector cannot be reached without implementing measures to reduce the livestock, according to a report by the Institute for Applied Ecology (Öko-Institut), commissioned by environmental umbrella organisation Climate-Alliance. Gases that trap heat in the Earth’s atmosphere are called greenhouse gases (GHGs). […]

Featured

In Norway Electric Vehicles outsold Gasoline Cars for first Time in History and other EV Success Stories

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Electric cars are coming on like gangbusters, as ranges increase and prices fall dramatically. Here are 6 headlines pointing to the green car future: 1. In Norway, electric vehicles in March, 2019, outsold gasoline-driven cars for the first time. 2. Indeed, electric vehicles in Norway were responsible for 58% of […]

Climate Change

Our Oil, Gas and Chemicals are Threatening a Catastrophic Failure of Earth’s Global Systems: That is What Killed off the Dinosaurs

The Conversation

By Simon Beard, Lauren Holt and Paul Upchurch | – “Why did the dinosaurs die out?” The consensus, among palaeontologists and dinosaur crazy seven-year-olds alike, seems to be that about 66m years ago a 10km diameter asteroid crashed into what is now Central America. It raised up a cloud of dust and ash that spread […]

Climate Change

We Don’t have a Global Emissions Problem, we Have a Rich Peoples’ CO2 Problem

The Conversation

By Nicholas Beuret | – American congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez recently shook up environmental politics by releasing a broad outline of a Green New Deal – a plan to make the US a carbon-neutral economy in the next ten years, while reducing both poverty and inequality. Lauded by many as a radical and necessary step, president […]

Climate Change

Global Heating Helped Cause the Massive Midwest Floods but TV Didn’t Tell you That

The Conversation

By Shuang-Ye Wu | – Flooding in the Midwest, triggered by an intense “bomb cyclone,” has devastated parts of the region, which has been plagued by flood events in recent decades. Floods are triggered by extreme rainfall events, often combined with ground conditions, such as saturated or frozen ground, that make it harder for water […]

Climate Change

Ocean Heat hits Record High, in Bad News for Planet

AFP

Geneva (AFP) – Ocean heat hit a record high in 2018, the United Nations said Thursday, raising urgent new concerns about the threat global warming is posing to marine life. In its latest State of the Climate overview, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) reaffirmed that the last four years had been the hottest on record […]

Climate Change

Back to the Sweltering Pliocene: World’s Production of CO2 Spiked again in 2018

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The world– you and I included– actually greatly increased the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, by 2.87 parts per million, raising the total to just about 410 ppm. So reports the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. This was a significant increase, the fourth largest during the past 60 […]