Environment

Informed Comment (Ann Arbor) – In what is likely to be the first of many such rulings, an Australian court has ruled against a coal mine in part on grounds of the environmental damage that burning coal does by contributing to the climate emergency. Burning coal releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, a powerful greenhouse […]

Climate Change

Last 5 Years Hottest on Record: NASA, NOAA; & World Hotter than any time in 120,000 years

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The National Space and Aeronautics Agency (NASA) and its sister agency NOAA report that the past 5 years are the hottest on record. World-wide temperature records began being kept from about 1880. Global heating proceeds differently in each area of the globe. The real heat wave in comparative terms was […]

Climate Crisis

2/3s of Himalayan Glaciers to Melt by 2100, Threatening Water for 2 Billion People

AFP

By Paavan MATHEMA | – Kathmandu (AFP) – Two-thirds of Himalayan glaciers, the world’s “Third Pole”, could melt by 2100 if global emissions are not sharply reduced, scientists warned in a major new study issued Monday. Even if the most ambitious Paris Agreement goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) […]

Climate Change

Global Warming caused Enormous city-sized Hole discovered in Antarctic Glacier

Juan Cole

In an academic paper in the journal Science Advances nestles a short sentence that at first glance is hard to detach from the specialist prose and mathematical formulas that dot it. On profile T3-T4, we confirm the formation of a cavity 4 km [roughly 2 and a half miles] wide by 350 m [0.2 miles] […]

Climate Change

European colonisation of the Americas killed 10% of world population and caused global cooling

The Conversation

By Alexander Koch, Chris Brierley, Mark Maslin and Simon Lewis | – While Europe was in the early days of the Renaissance, there were empires in the Americas sustaining more than 60m people. But the first European contact in 1492 brought diseases to the Americas which devastated the native population and the resultant collapse of […]

Donald Trump

Bolton & Trump’s Gerontocrats may drag us into Venezuela over Oil when they could just buy an EV

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – There are many things wrong with National Security Adviser John Bolton, but the worst is his fixation on petroleum politics. His response to the complex crisis of Venezuela is to hope that US energy corporations can produce some of that country’s oil (“It will make a big difference to the […]

Climate Change

The Main Drag on Saving Planet from Boiling? The Super-Rich

Sam Pizzigati

(Otherwords.org) – Millions of years ago, life on Earth survived an existential climate crisis. But that Earth had a distinct advantage: no rich people. We either keep fossil fuels in the ground, or we fry. That’s the conclusion of another new blockbuster study on climate change, this one from the National Academy of Sciences. Our […]

Climate Change

Climate Stress drove Wave of Arab Spring Refugees

Middle East Monitor

Severe droughts made more likely by global warming worsened conflict in Arab Spring countries early this decade, forcing people to flee, researchers said on Wednesday, publishing evidence they said proved the connection for the first time, reports Reuters. The study used data from asylum applications in 157 countries from 2006-2015, together with an index that […]

Climate Change

With World on Precipice of Climate Catastrophe, US CO2 Emissions Skyrocketed in 2018

ProPublica

By Abrahm Lustgarten | – ( ProPublica) – A report by a private research company found that U.S. emissions, which amount to one-sixth of the planet’s, didn’t fall in 2018 but instead skyrocketed. The 3.4 percent jump for 2018, projected by the firm, would be second-largest surge in greenhouse gas emissions from the U.S. since […]