Carbon Emissions Rise to Highest Level in at Least...

It is a record we do not want. It is a record of political failure. It is a record based on the politics of climate denial. We have crossed another climate threshold that, yet again, signals we are in deep trouble. We are now experiencing levels of carbon dioxide, the primary greenhouse gas, that the earth has not experienced for three to five million years. We are walking – more like stumbling with stupidity – into the...

Corporate Leaders to Trump: Withdrawing From the P...

President Trump says fulfilling the country’s commitment to the Paris climate agreement would be bad news for the U.S. economy, but the growing tally of business leaders pledging to take action anyway suggests otherwise. These businesspeople understand that while climate action costs money, climate change costs far more. More than 2,200 businesses and investors have signed on to the “We Are Still In” pledge...

OK Doomer

William Rees has challenged us to accept his “realistic facts” that renewable energy can’t end the climate crisis, and green energy is no substitute for fossil fuels. The only solution he sees is a deliberate contraction, but since “That’s not going to happen!” we face the possibility of global societal collapse. He argues in The Tyee that hundreds of millions of people must be persuaded “to risk wrecking their comfortable...

UN report: Pollution from planned fossil fuel prod...

To protect the climate, most coal, oil, and natural gas must be left in the ground, a recent study reported.   In the 2015 international Paris Climate Agreement, nearly every country [see editor’s note] agreed to try and limit global warming to no more than 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) and preferably closer to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial temperatures. Achieving these...

Stop the Ethanol Madness

The mainstay of the Renewable Fuel Standard is an unmistakable social and environmental failure. Why does it persist? The idea of requiring the nation’s gasoline supply to contain a certain amount of renewable biofuel was born in a short-lived doomsday fad of the 1970s. With experts warning that the world was quickly running out of oil, the shocks of ’73 and ’79 led President Jimmy Carter to call for wartime-style rationing...

‘Sheer Madness’: Coal Surges in China,...

While most of the world is reducing its dependence on coal-fired power because of the enormous amount of greenhouse gases associated with it, China raised its coal fired capacity over 2018 and half of 2019, according to a new study. Over the 18-month period that ended in June, China bucked the international trend and raised its coal-fired power capacity 42.9 gigawatts (GW), or about 4.5 percent, while connecting new coal...

Terra Firma #1: The Best Story Ever

Ed. note: This piece is taken from Courtney’s new weekly newsletter. If you would like to subscribe, please go here. Welcome to Terra Firma by Courtney White. I’ve spent my life prospecting for innovative, practical, and collaborative answers to pressing problems involving land and people, sharing them with others. I’d like to share them with you! I’ve been involved with save-the-world work for over thirty years (yikes!) and...

‘How is climate change affecting autumn?R...

As temperatures warm, the fall season has been delayed. Dear Sara, I would like to read your prediction of the effects of climate change on the traditional four weather seasons. From a lifestyle preference, it has been nice for me to know that in the summer, there will be the warmth of the ocean. In the fall, we see the shedding of the leaves and the beauty of the trees when they’re bare. In the winter, there may be snow or...

Money changes everything

Climate activists briefly shut down Chase branch over tar sands support. Local activists working to head off catastrophic climate change are trying a new tactic: following the money. On Nov. 9, members from 350 Madison Climate Action Team marched into the Sauk Creek Chase Bank branch on Madison’s west side, sat down on the floor of the lobby and began calling out for divestment of fossil fuel infrastructure. The group...

World’s Largest Public Bank Ditches Oil and ...

Climate activists celebrated Thursday the decision of the European Investment Bank to stop funding most oil and coal projects by 2021, part of a bid to be the world’s first “climate bank.” The bank’s board made the decision at a meeting on Thursday, CNBC reported. “Truly amazing win,” tweeted environmentalist Bill McKibben. In a statement following the news, Friends of the Earth Europe...

Unfamiliar Ground: Bracing for Climate Impacts in ...

Reporters from across the Midwest explore the climate risks and the strategies communities are using to adapt. Think of a Minnesota with almost no ice fishing. A Missouri that is as hot and dry as Texas. River and lake communities where catastrophic flooding happens almost every year, rather than every few generations. This, scientists warn, is the future of the Midwest if emissions continue at a high rate, threatening the...

How Scientists Got Climate Change So Wrong

Ed note:  go to link to see illustrations and figures:  https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/08/opinion/sunday/science-climate-change.html?auth=login-email&fbclid=IwAR12CQLLF8964V10317laAcqPHHMcFtvmepXHpWgFA8cbyQgVZSekxp5IIY&login=email&smid=nytcore-ios-share Few thought it would arrive so quickly. Now we’re facing consequences once viewed as fringe scenarios. Transit workers pumped water out of the South Ferry subway...

Enough is Plenty

Welcome to the first in a series of six blog posts from me, Anne Ryan, under the general theme Enough is Plenty, hosted by Feasta. This blog is for readers who are becoming increasingly concerned about climate breakdown, ecological destruction, injustice, and animal and human suffering. There is a huge range of awareness in society about these issues. Many people have been aware and active for two or three decades and are...

Techno-Fix Futures will only Accelerate Climate Ch...

Thanks to the efforts of climate activists, the climate and ecological emergency has never been more prominent. But acknowledging the problem is just a starting point. Now this momentum must be harnessed to dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions and reverse habitat destruction. To accelerate this transition, we need a vision of the future – and there are many out there. The problem is that some of these visions...

Six groups that will help you get active on climat...

Wondering what you can do? Here are some places to start.   The summer’s worldwide climate strikes, led by children and teenagers, have proven to be both galvanizing and important. But as 16-year-old Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg keeps emphasizing, dealing with climate change shouldn’t be the job of children. For one thing, we can’t wait for these alarmed young people to grow old enough to take leadership...