Environment

The ‘Forward on Climate’ protest drew some 40,000 demonstrators to Washington, DC, on Sunday. Although the press tended to cast it as mainly a rally against the Keystone XL pipeline project, which would allow export of Canadian oil produced from tar sands via the Gulf of Mexico, the rally was against policies that accelerate climate […]

Energy

Will Obama Stand up to the Keystone XL Pipeline & Climate-Destroying Tar Sands? (Klare)

Juan Cole

Michael T. Klare writes at Tomdispatch.com: Presidential decisions often turn out to be far less significant than imagined, but every now and then what a president decides actually determines how the world turns. Such is the case with the Keystone XL pipeline, which, if built, is slated to bring some of the “dirtiest,” carbon-rich oil […]

Energy

Stop the Great Coal Export Conspiracy! (Greenpeace)

Juan Cole

Greenpeace USA explains: Big Coal plans to get around Environmental Protection Agency restrictions on toxic emissions by just shipping the coal abroad to countries that don’t care about the environment. And, they’re planning to use taxpayer money to do it. For the Greenpeace anti-coal campaign click on this site

Energy

Anti-Mercury UN Minimata Convention Approved in Geneva: Impact on Coal?

Juan Cole

140 nations meeting in Geneva have concluded an accord to limit mercury emissions, which must now be ratified by individual nations. It has implications for coal-fired power plants, among the most serious contributors to mercury pollution, as well as cement factories The treaty also seeks an end to mercury use in thermometers and batteries, and […]

Energy

13 gigawatts of New Wind power in US in 2012, Renewables Half of all New Energy

Juan Cole

The US put in 13 gigawatts of new wind energy capacity in 2012, 5 of it in December alone, according to a Bloomberg study. The Office of Energy Projects report was a bit more conservative, but confirmed the general trend. h/t Grist Wind alone now accounts for 6% of US electricity generation! Even the government […]

Energy

How Lance Armstrong’s Lies & Doping are Just like Climate Change Denial & CO2

Juan Cole

Understanding how performance-enhancing drugs raise the odds of success in sports helps us understand how dumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere raises the chances of heat waves: It is the same form of reasoning in both cases. This analogy also helps us understand how the lies of Big Oil-backed outfits like the Heartland Institute about […]

Africa

Ansar Dine and How Climate Change Contributed to the Algeria-Mali Crisis

Juan Cole

The destabilization of Mali and southern Algeria is a complex political and social process that does not have only one cause. But a changing ecology forced by climate change is a major contributor to the region’s problems. This region is part of a Saharan and sub-Saharan band across Africa called the Sahel. I have traveled […]

Environment

Mercury from Coal Plants, Goldmining, a Global Health Crisis: UN Environmental Program

Juan Cole

A new study has found that 84% of all fish have unhealthy levels of mercury! Richard Gelfond, CEO of IMAX, the film company, has had his health permanently damaged simply from eating a lot of fish. The message to take away is not never to eat fish. It is that there is too much mercury […]

Energy

Frankenyear 2012: Hottest on Record, as US emits 5 bn tons of CO2 Annually

Juan Cole

Can we sue the Koch brothers and all the other dirty-energy, climate change-denying moguls yet for the billions they are costing us in climate disasters every year because of their poisonous carbon emissions? The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reports that: “2012 marked the warmest year on record for the contiguous United States with the […]