Environment

Tom Engelhardt writes at Tomdispatch.com: We have a word for the conscious slaughter of a racial or ethnic group: genocide. And one for the conscious destruction of aspects of the environment: ecocide. But we don’t have a word for the conscious act of destroying the planet we live on, the world as humanity had known […]

Energy

The Incredible Shrinking Cost of Solar Energy Drives Mega-Projects around the World

Juan Cole

Rob Wile uses a graph to point out the obvious, the dramatic fall in the cost of solar power generation. In many countries– Italy, Spain, Germany, Portugal — and in parts of the US such as the Southwest, solar is at grid parity. That means it is as inexpensive to build a solar plant as […]

Environment

How You became a Guinea Pig for the Chemical Corporations (Rosner and Markowitz)

Juan Cole

David Rosner and Gerald Markowitz write at Tomdispatch.com A hidden epidemic is poisoning America. The toxins are in the air we breathe and the water we drink, in the walls of our homes and the furniture within them. We can’t escape it in our cars. It’s in cities and suburbs. It afflicts rich and poor, […]

Energy

If you Love the Earth on Earth Day, Close a Coal Plant

Juan Cole

Dirty coal is killing us and killing the earth. Here is a short documentary. Coal plants produce a lion’s share of carbon dioxide poisoning of the atmosphere, causing rapid global warming. In the case of the US, they are responsible for fully 40% of our CO2 emissions. The single most important thing you can do […]

Environment

Small Government: Texas Fertilizer Plant that blew up not inspected for years

Juan Cole

The Texas fertilizer plant that suffered a massive explosion had not been subject to an OSHA inspection for many years. The current American obsession with deregulation and ending inspections has claimed yet more victims, as The Nation shows. And Texas has also cut funding for first responders like firemen. Democracy Now! reports :

Environment

Arctic Summer Ice Cap will be gone in 20 Years: NOAA (Time-Lapse Video)

Juan Cole

Scientists with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration now predict that the arctic will be iceless during summers in as little as ten to twenty years, as a result of global warming caused by humans dumping billions of metric tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere each year. Here is NASA’s time-lapse video of the […]

Energy

Amazing Green Energy News: World’s Largest Wind Farm opens in UK, as Libya prepares to go Solar

Juan Cole

1. World’s Largest Wind Farm The London Array offshore wind farm has just gone live, generating 630 MW of electricity in the first phase. An expansion will allow it, two years hence to add another 200 megawatts. Here is a video report. 2. Libya Solar Libya has announced that it plans to get a fifth […]

Energy

Donald Trump versus the Aberdeen Wind Farm: Fiddling while Rome Burns

Juan Cole

Scotland has approved 11 wind turbines in Aberdeen, which will supply have the town’s electricity. They are being touted as job-creators and engines of economic growth, and are locally popular. (Green energy has already created 11,000 jobs in Scotland and the country is rapidly increasing the amount of electricity it generates from renewables). But Donald […]

Energy

How Climate Change Disrupts Industry: Michael E. Mann Video Interview

Juan Cole

Michael E. Mann on the impact of climate change on industry: