The Peak Numbers Canada’s Oil-Friendly Newspapers Keep Ignoring
If our country is to meet the mounting challenges faced by an uncertain future, we need to focus on credible fact-based information – not industry sponsored hype.
Energy featured
IEA: Renewables will be world’s top power source ‘by 2026’
Renewable energy will overtake coal to become the world’s top source of electricity “by 2026 at the latest”, according to new forecasts from the International Energy Agency (IEA).
How resilient is our energy system? Reflections on the findings of a report by the National Preparedness Commission
To make the energy system resilient requires identifying all potential risks and their impacts, maintaining flexibility and redundancy in the system, and ensuring a wide range of stakeholders are involved in decision making.
Transformer bottleneck: Can the U.S. maintain and expand its electric grid?
Electrical transformers are becoming a key chokepoint for maintenance and expansion of the electrical grid in the U.S. and worldwide.
Weak UK lobbying laws let fossil fuel giants influence climate policies
Climate-focused think tank InfluenceMap has uncovered that industry influence appears to have led to the delay and dilution of UK policies on the roll-out of heat pumps, the development of ‘sustainable’ aviation fuel and the granting of new oil and gas licenses.
Green Colonialism and African Futures: Interrogating the Just Transition from Below
Across the continent, from the DRC to South Africa, large-scale energy and infrastructure projects are being pushed in the name of climate goals. Yet, as multiple speakers highlighted, these projects often bypass the very communities they claim to serve. People are not at the centre of these plans; they are at best an afterthought, at worst a disposable obstacle.
Go solar, go vegan and still collapse: beyond the global environmental problems framework
There is no “if we all just did x” solution, shorn of local context, to the unravelling of the high-energy global economy. This kind of contextless thinking exemplifies what I call in my forthcoming book the ‘world environmental problems’ framework. It signally fails to provide plausible solutions.
The Green No Deal – a review of ‘The War Below: Lithium, Copper, and the Global Battle to Power Our Lives’ and ‘The Price Is Wrong: Why Capitalism Won’t Save the Planet’
Is land – which to some cultures is the original mother, to be revered and cared for – just another commodity which can and should be exploited in the interests of human ‘progress’? Is energy another such commodity as well?
‘Pylon wars’ show why big energy plans need locals on board
Top down decisions about “national infrastructure” may save time on paper but are not a good way to make progress. It appears autocratic and shifts objectors onto the streets or into the courts. Real consultation takes time and effort. But it builds trust and leads to better outcomes.
This Small Texas Town Is Fighting Back Against Big Ammonia
Climate harms from projects like YaREN’s proposed plant pose an immediate threat to Ingleside’s community. Texas is one of America’s most climate-vulnerable states – facing among the highest risks for drought, flooding and temperature-related deaths.
Care Home Farm: Energy
An exploration of what independence from purchasing fossil fuels or electricity on the market would achieve, and how we could achieve it.
State Power, Corporate Power – or ‘Little Powers’? A century of energy exploitation in Aotearoa New Zealand
How long will this race run, who will win out, and what will the vast majority of New Zealanders pay in money, pollution, extreme weather events, sea level rise, land degradation and loss of fellow life forms to subsidize the continuing exploitation of Papatuanuku (Mother Earth)?
