Environment

Commondreams.org writes The number of people missing or "unaccounted for" amid what experts are calling a thousand-year flood event in Colorado, is now more than 1200, according to state newspapers and officials. The number of officials deaths related to the flooding is now at six people. Coming on the heals of forest fires and drought […]

Energy

Neil Young: Alberta Tar Sands fields ‘Look like Hiroshima’ (Chamberlain)

Juan Cole

Jacob Chamberlain writes at Commondreams.org Fresh off a trip to Canada's tar sands oil fields in Alberta, famed singer Neil Young spoke out at a conference in Washington, DC on Monday against the controversial oil extraction and its export through the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, calling Fort McMurray, the town nearest Alberta's vast tar sands, […]

Climate Change

A New Red-Green Alliance: Why Workers should Join the Climate Fight (Klein)

Juan Cole

The following remarks were delivered by Naomi Klein on September 1, 2013 at the founding convention of UNIFOR, a new mega union created by the Canadian Autoworkers and the Canadian Energy and Paper Workers Union, and provided to Common Dreams by the author for publication. I’m so very happy and honoured to be able to […]

Environment

Oceans Turning Acid with CO2 at Rate Unseen in 250 million Years, Threatening Further Warming (Queally)

Juan Cole

Jon Queally writes at Commondreams.org In both a new study published Monday and in a newspaper interview over the weekend, German marine biologist Hans Poertner warns the world that the crisis of ocean acidification—an intricately woven aspect of global warming and climate change—is now happening at a rate unparalleled in the life of the oceans […]

Energy

Not Markets but the People are making the Green Energy Revolution

Juan Cole

The propaganda against the green energy revolution contains all the same predictable elements as the propaganda against anti-slavery movements or later against anti-tobacco findings. We are told that everything is determined by markets, which are the most efficient way to make decisions. So when the markets want green energy we’ll have it. But markets are […]

Energy

Climate Change Activism as a Nonviolent Movement without Leaders (McKibben)

Juan Cole

Bill McKibben writes at Tomdispatch.com The history we grow up with shapes our sense of reality — it’s hard to shake. If you were young during the fight against Nazism, war seems a different, more virtuous animal than if you came of age during Vietnam. I was born in 1960, and so the first great […]

Energy

New Hot Zones now cover 5% of Earth; Only Fix is Halting CO2 (Lazare)

Juan Cole

Sarah Lazare writes at Commondreams.org A new study dishes out some very bad news about the global warming crisis. It is too late to stop a “several folds” increase of deadly heat waves caused by greenhouse gases—and the floods, fires, and storms they bring. The report comes as a record heat wave hits North Asia, […]

Climate Change

Yep, We’re Screwed: Top Ten Recent Climate Change Findings that should Scare You

Juan Cole

1. A warmer planet will spur aggression and violence, according to UC Berkeley scientists. 2. Climate change is causing animals to migrate into new areas, spreading diseases across species: “Earth’s changing climate and the global spread of infectious diseases are threatening human health, agriculture and wildlife,” say the National Science Foundation’s Sam Scheinter of a […]

Energy

India’s Energy could be 15% from Renewables by 2020: Greentech CEOs

Juan Cole

When you actually put renewable energy CEOs on television, they can explain that coal and other hyrdrocarbons receive government subsidies, making them look much cheaper than they actually are, whereas wind is now competitive with coal. When’s the last time you say a conversation like this on American television? You have to wonder if Time […]