Featured

Greenfield, MA (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – I am heartened each time I come across a study affirming that waging war is not an innate part of human nature, that we humans are just as likely to be peaceful as we are to be violent. To quote the revered anthropologist Margaret Mead, “warfare is only […]

Climate Crisis

Biden in Hanoi: Climate Change Exceeding 1.5° C. is more of an Existential Threat than even Nuclear War

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – As I pointed out on Sunday, the Big Oil and Big Coal countries in the G20 — Russia, Saudi Arabia, India and China — prevented the New Delhi summit’s joint communique from making any specific commitments to reduce carbon pollution. At his news conference in Hanoi, President Biden was pressed […]

Batteries

How Nevada just became the Saudi Arabia of Lithium, as World’s Largest Deposit is discovered at Thacker Pass

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – In the scientific journal Science Advances, Thomas R. Benton and his colleagues published a paper last month showing that a volcanic crater, the McDermitt Caldera, stretching across the Nevada and Oregon border may have doubled the world’s accessible lithium deposits. There are an estimated 88 million tons of lithium reserves […]

Climate Crisis

Big Oil and Big Coal countries Block meaningful G20 Climate Pledge, in wake of World’s Hottest Summer on Record

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Shivam Patel at Reuters reports that the G20 summit in New Delhi made no specific, agreed-upon statement on climate and energy goals. The 20 richest countries in the world agreed to triple renewable energy by 2030 and to cut way back on coal, but did not set out specifics. They […]

Climate Crisis

Latino Futurism and Puerto Rico’s Solar Insurrection: Panels, Batteries and going Off-Grid after Hurricane Maria

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis thinks that the future of Puerto Rico is solar panels plus battery storage. It points out, moreover, that $12 billion in federal funding has been set aside for the promotion of renewables in the islands, most of it yet to be used. […]

Climate Crisis

Past three Months Hottest on Record, as UN SecGen Warns “Climate Breakdown has begun.”

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The World Meteorological Organization reports the results of a study by the European Union-funded Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), which found that the past three months were the hottest 90-day period in recorded history. UN Secretary-General António Guterres responded to the report by saying, “Our planet has just endured a […]

Featured

Former Head of Israeli Mossad: Israel is an Apartheid State with the ‘KKK’ in Government and “Antisemitic” Policies toward Palestinians

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Tia Goldenberg at AP got the scoop. She landed an interview with the former head of Israeli intelligence, the Mossad, in which he unloaded on the Israeli system of Apartheid. She quotes him as saying, “There is an apartheid state here. In a territory where two people are judged under […]

China

China’s Coup: Saudi and Iranian Ambassadors arrive at Reopened Embassies, Stress Bilateral Relations, Regional Development

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Aljazeera reports that on Tuesday, the Saudi ambassador to Iran and the Iranian ambassador to Saudi Arabia both took up their duties at the two countries’ embassies. The restoration of full diplomatic relations, which had been disrupted in 2016, was brokered earlier this year by Chinese President Xi Jinping. Saudi […]

Climate Crisis

New Mexico Wind Farms: Largest Renewable Energy Infrastructure Project in US History, as High Density Line is Approved

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – About a year and a half ago, I wrote a piece on how New Mexico is set to become the Saudi Arabia of wind, which went viral. It described how four wind farms will have a capacity to generate 3.5 gigawatts of power, as much as four nuclear power plants. […]