Environment

California to Power 1.5 Million Homes with Offshore Floating Wind Turbines in March toward Zero Carbon

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Department of the Interior announced this week that on December 6, auctions will be held for offshore wind farms off the coast of California in the Pacific Ocean. There are two kinds of offshore wind turbines. If the coastal shelf is shallow, they can be anchored on the ocean […]

Climate Crisis

Turbocharging Green Energy would Allow Ukraine, Europe better to defy Putin’s War

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Dan Sabbagh (in Kyiv) and Patrick Wintour report in The Guardian that recent Russian drone, rocket and missile attacks on Ukraine’s infrastructure have knocked out nearly a third of Ukraine’s power stations. Facing severe battlefield losses and the potential isolation of Crimea with a bombing of the bridge connecting it […]

Climate Crisis

Solar Farms foster Wildlife and Biodiversity. Not a Blight on the Landscape

The Conversation

By Angie Turner, Keele University; Eleanor Harrison, Staffordshire University; and Zoe Robinson, Keele University | – Liz Truss, the new UK prime minister, isn’t a fan of solar farms. In 2014, when she was environment secretary, she described rows of panels arranged in a field to capture energy from the sun as a “blight on […]

Climate Crisis

In Berlin, German Post Office to use Solar-Powered Riverboats on the Spree to deliver Mail

Clean Energy Wire

By Julian Wettengel | – ( Clean Energy Wire ) – German postal service Deutsche Post DHL is testing emission-free delivery on Berlin’s Spree river with a solar-powered ship. The pilot project in the capital is an addition to the company’s existing CO2-neutral delivery fleet consisting of electric trucks and bicycles, and “shows we are […]

Climate Crisis

The Second Great Dying: The Earth has lost 4/5s of Fresh Water and 7/10s of Wildlife Species’ Populations in 50 Years

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The 2022 Living Planet report is out and it does not bring good news. Since 1970, the scientists find that the population of fresh water species has plunged by 83%, and the population of wildlife species over all has fallen 69%. The researchers found a virtual extinction-level loss in Latin […]

Climate Crisis

The climate Movement was built for a World before Climate Change — it’s Time for a new Approach

Waging Nonviolence

By Cam Fenton | – ( Waging Nonviolence) – We are past the point where “stopping” climate change is really possible. With global temperature rise already above 1 degree Celsius and the window on keeping warming below 1.5 degrees rapidly closing, the consequences of decades of political inaction and corporate malfeasance are already making themselves […]

Antarctica

Climate Tipping Points could lock in unstoppable Changes to the Planet – how Close are They?

The Conversation

By David Armstrong McKay, Stockholm University | – Continued greenhouse gas emissions risk triggering climate tipping points. These are self-sustaining shifts in the climate system that would lock-in devastating changes, like sea-level rise, even if all emissions ended. The first major assessment in 2008 identified nine parts of the climate system that are sensitive to […]

Featured

As Saudis stab Biden in the Back with OPEC+ Oil Cut, Only Electric Vehicles can Make US Independent

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – In a major blow to President Joe Biden, on Wednesday, OPEC+ took steps toward cutting the oil production of the members by 2 million barrels a day. Jackie Northam at NPR reports the views of analysts who believe that Saudi Arabia and Russia drove the decision in order to get […]

censorship

The Climate Crisis is a Human Rights crisis Worldwide

Middle East Monitor

By Amelia Smith | – ( Middle East Monitor ) – In November, heads of state, ministers, journalists and activists will gather in Egypt’s Red Sea Resort town of Sharm El-Sheikh for the UN climate change summit, COP27. There has been widespread concern about the role civil society will play. “When it’s hosted in a […]