Environment

Excerpted from an article by Kerstine Appunn | – ( Clean Energy Wire ) – Germany’s energy transition is not only its main means for decarbonising the economy and creating an industrialised nation fed by renewable electricity to reach a 2045 climate neutrality target. The country’s famous Energiewende has also always been marked as an […]

Employment

Top 3 Pieces of Good News in 2021 – Because Optimists are the Problem Solvers

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – News corporations think good news does not sell, which is why you see so little of it on television or on the front page of news web sites. Executives at for-profit news believe their corporations benefit, just as do social media platforms, from provoking your fight or flight reflexes– making […]

Afghanistan

From Palestine to Afghanistan, Top 6 Ways our World Changed in 2021

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – It is time to look back at 2021 and consider the most consequential developments, as covered here at Informed Comment. 1. The most important change was that the Republican Party has abandoned democracy, as witnessed by its reaction to the attempted Trump coup of January 6, 2021. The GOP has […]

Climate Crisis

Good News in 2022: Top 5 Reasons to be Happy about Electric Vehicles in US in Coming Year

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Biden administration’s Infrastructure and Jobs Act, passed in October, and the new fuel standards set by the EPA will have a positive impact on electric vehicles in the United States in the coming year. Let’s review this good news. 1. Consumers will see a doubling of electric offerings, from […]

Climate Crisis

Keep it in the Ground: We can’t limit Global Heating to Safe Levels unless We Ban all new Oil and Gas Fields

The Conversation

By David Waltham | – As a professor of geophysics, I have spent 36 years training young geologists destined to work in the fossil fuel industry how to look for oil and gas. But now I believe it’s time to stop fossil-fuel exploration and halt the development of all new oil and gas fields. We […]

Climate Crisis

Antarctica’s ‘doomsday’ Glacier: how its Collapse could trigger global Floods and swallow Islands

The Conversation

By Ella Gilbert | – The massive Thwaites glacier in West Antarctica contains enough ice to raise global sea levels by 65cm if it were to completely collapse. And, worryingly, recent research suggests that its long-term stability is doubtful as the glacier haemorrhages more and more ice. Adding 65cm to global sea levels would be […]

Climate Crisis

90% of California’s Precious Joshua Trees are in Danger from the Climate Emergency

Cronkite News Arizona PBS

By Jude Binkley | – ( Cronkite News) – JOSHUA TREE, Calif. – More than a decade ago, Brendan Cummings was living in this desert town and working to gain federal protections for Arctic polar bears, which can’t survive without the sea ice that’s disappearing because of climate change. A world away from the icy […]

Climate Crisis

2021’s US Climate Disasters revealed an East-West Divide, with one side of the Country too Wet, the other dangerously Dry

The Conversation

By Shuang-Ye Wu | – Alongside a lingering global pandemic, the year 2021 was filled with climate disasters, some so intense they surprised even the scientists who study them. Extreme rainstorms turned to raging flash floods that swept through mountain towns in Europe, killing over 200 people. Across Asia, excessive rainfall inundated wide areas and […]

Climate Crisis

New Biden EPA Auto Emissions Rules mandate 10-fold Increase in annual Electric Vehicle sales by 2026

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – In good news for electric vehicles and the greening of US transportation, the Biden administration on Monday substantially toughened automobile and light truck emissions standards, mandating that they get an average of 40 miles per gallon by 2026. The incremental toughening begins next fall with the 2023 models. The Biden […]