Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
But nothing other than dramatic societal transformation will be sufficient to avoid catastrophic climate change for the vast majority of the world’s population – and eventually, everyone. It may sound daunting, but rejecting the ecologically harmful assumptions on which our culture is currently built offers us a unique chance to build a healthier and fairer world.
Ultimately, a greater reliance on local power would eliminate one of the most destructive side-effects of the grid: the implicit notion that energy is limitless. The expectation is that our homes and workplaces should have as much power as we’re willing to pay for, 24/7, year in and year out.
Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee pledge to release comprehensive climate legislation by the end of the year that would transition the United States to net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.
Democratic Sens. Tom Udall of New Mexico and Michael Bennet of Colorado have introduced a resolution calling for a national conservation goal of protecting at least 30% of the country’s lands and waters by 2030.
Renewable sources of electricity are set for rapid growth over the next five years, which could see them match the output of the world’s coal-fired power stations for the first time ever.
Real conservatives know that energy corridors don’t make jobs or support freedom.
When China built a pipeline to access natural gas in western Burma, there were reports of forced labour, relocated villages and corruption.
Those kinds of things are inherent in energy corridors, which enrich the powerful at the expense of the weak.
From Brazil to India to the United States, extractive industries have aligned themselves with authoritarian governments waging war on minority populations.
In the midst of it all, Senate Democrats forced a vote on their resolution to deny the administration its Affordable Clean Energy rule (ACE). The resolution called for striking down ACE and reinstating Obama’s Clean Power Plan (CPP).
When DeSmog first began reporting on the failed finances of the fracking industry, publications like the Wall Street Journal were writing about the optimistic financial future for shale companies. A year and a half later, that optimism has died. But all of these dynamics played out before the industry ran up against “core operational issues.”
On the day Greta Thunberg gave her emotion-filled speech at the United Nation’s (UN) Climate Summit, another historic event involving the Swedish activist and 15 other youthful climate hawks—representing 12 countries–took place. The filing of the first-ever legal complaint about climate change to the UN’s Committee on the Rights of the Child. The communication is titled Sacchi et al. vs. Argentina, et al.
The world cannot live without Saudi oil. While media focus is on oil prices and how quickly full production can be brought back Saudi Arabia’s underlying peak oil problem has not been discovered yet. Together with the permanent threat of further attacks there is a double vulnerability now.
That begs the question: why aren’t developed nations, such as European nations, rapidly replacing their fossil fuel uses with renewable energy and why do they still have high per capita CO2 emission rates, typically much higher than developing nations?
