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Category: Climate Change

The war in Ukraine could eventually help save the planet

The war in Ukraine could eventually help save the planet

Tom Friedman writes: [I]f we have a year or two of astronomical gasoline and heating oil prices because of the Ukraine war, “you are going to see a massive shift in investment by mutual funds and industry into electric vehicles, grid enhancements, transmission lines and long-duration storage that could tip the whole market away from reliance on fossil fuels toward renewables,” said Tom Burke, director of E3G, Third Generation Environmentalism, the climate research group. “The Ukraine war is already forcing…

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Climate change threatens not only our future but also our past

Climate change threatens not only our future but also our past

Melissa Gronlund writes: At Bagerhat in southern Bangladesh, a city of 360 mosques from the 15th century, salt water from the encroaching Indian Ocean is damaging the foundations. In Yemen, torrential rains are decimating the improbable mud-brick high-rises of Shibam’s 16th-century architecture, newly exposed owing to strikes from the conflict there. In Iraq, the country’s southern marshes are drying up, causing the Indigenous Bedouins to flee for cities, leading to drastic loss of intangible heritage. The effects of climate change…

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Climate groups join for first-of-its-kind, $100 million push to mobilize midterm voters

Climate groups join for first-of-its-kind, $100 million push to mobilize midterm voters

CNN reports: In an attempt to mobilize voters around the climate crisis, six climate advocacy groups are readying for the midterms with an arsenal of $100 million — the first coordinated spending of its kind. In a difficult political year for Democrats, the climate groups are forming the new Climate Votes Project, shared first with CNN and to be announced Monday. The $100 million will pay for multiple ad campaigns, as well as an in-person field organizing to contact hard-to-reach…

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Carbon dioxide levels have reached the highest in human history

Carbon dioxide levels have reached the highest in human history

The New York Times reports: The amount of planet-warming carbon dioxide in the atmosphere broke a record in May, continuing its relentless climb, scientists said Friday. It is now 50 percent higher than the preindustrial average, before humans began the widespread burning of oil, gas and coal in the late 19th century. There is more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere now than at any time in at least 4 million years, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration officials said. The concentration…

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The U.S.’s new record in renewables, explained in three charts

The U.S.’s new record in renewables, explained in three charts

Inside Climate News reports: To make a swift transition to a cleaner grid, the United States needs to set records for renewable electricity generation pretty much every single quarter. So far in 2022, the numbers are encouraging. From January to March, renewable energy power plants generated 242,956 gigawatt-hours, which was 23.5 percent of U.S. electricity generation, both records—an increase from 19.5 percent in the first quarter of 2021, and 20.8 percent in the full year. The growth was thanks in…

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Fossil fuels are a threat to national security

Fossil fuels are a threat to national security

Jerome Foster, Julia Jackson and Alexandria Villaseñor write: How much more unpredictability must the American people endure as a result of our reliance on fossil fuels before we finally cut ties with Big Oil and build a stable, affordable clean-energy economy? It seems like President Biden is out of options, given the intransigence of the fossil fuel–friendly Congress. But he has one: use his authority as president to invoke the Defense Production Act to dramatically scale up production of clean…

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How do we solve the paradox of protection in Antarctica?

How do we solve the paradox of protection in Antarctica?

Alejandra Mancilla and Peder Roberts write: For more than 2,000 years, Antarctica existed only as a landscape of the imagination. If there was an Arctic continent, Aristotle reasoned in his treatise Meteorology, there ought to be an antipode, an ‘ant-Arctic’. For centuries, scientists, explorers and cartographers speculated about this antipodean Terra nondum cognita, a southern land not-yet known. But it wasn’t until 1820 that the continent was supposedly ‘found’ by three separate groups: a Russian expedition led by Fabian Gottlieb…

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The Supreme Court just okayed Biden’s ‘social cost of carbon’ — but it’s still way too low

The Supreme Court just okayed Biden’s ‘social cost of carbon’ — but it’s still way too low

Vox reports: The Supreme Court decided on May 26 to allow President Joe Biden’s administration to continue using a key metric in the fight against climate change. The court’s order, in refusing to put back an order from a federal judge in Louisiana that had blocked the administration, is just one line long. But it represents a big setback for the Republican-led states that have been suing the president over the metric, known as the social cost of carbon: a…

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Department of Commerce decision puts fate of U.S. solar industry in jeopardy

Department of Commerce decision puts fate of U.S. solar industry in jeopardy

George Strobel writes: On March 28, in a decision that would put the U.S. solar industry on hold, the U.S. Department of Commerce initiated an anti-dumping investigation into imports of solar cells and modules from Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam in response to a petition from a small California solar panel manufacturer, Auxin Solar. The investigation could result in tariffs of up to 250% on imports from these four countries, which account for more than 80% of all U.S. solar…

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How an organized Republican effort punishes companies for climate action

How an organized Republican effort punishes companies for climate action

The New York Times reports: In West Virginia, the state treasurer has pulled money from BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, because the Wall Street firm has flagged climate change as an economic risk. In Texas, a new law bars the state’s retirement and investment funds from doing business with companies that the state comptroller says are boycotting fossil fuels. Conservative lawmakers in 15 other states are promoting similar legislation. And officials in Utah and Idaho have assailed a major…

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Will Australia become a renewable energy superpower?

Will Australia become a renewable energy superpower?

Al Jazeera reports: Australia’s election has brought in a wave of Greens and independents pushing for aggressive targets to cut carbon emissions. The election result, with the pivotal role climate change played, represents a remarkable shift for Australia, one of the world’s biggest per-capita carbon emitters and top coal and gas exporters. It was shunned at last year’s Glasgow climate summit for failing to match other rich nations’ ambitious targets. “Together we can end the climate wars,” incoming Prime Minister…

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Australian voters deliver strong message by placing climate crisis first

Australian voters deliver strong message by placing climate crisis first

CNN reports: Australian voters have delivered a sharp rebuke to the center-right government, ending nine years of conservative rule, in favor of the center-left opposition that promised stronger action on climate change. Australian Labor Party leader Anthony Albanese claimed victory Saturday, though it was unclear as counting continued if his party would have the 76 seats required to form a majority. Early counting showed a strong swing towards Greens candidates and Independents who demanded emissions cuts far above the commitments…

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Could Google’s carbon emissions have effectively doubled overnight?

Could Google’s carbon emissions have effectively doubled overnight?

Bill McKibben writes: The temperature in parts of the Antarctic was seventy degrees Fahrenheit above normal in mid-March. Pakistan and India saw their hottest March and April in more than half a century, and the temperature in areas of the subcontinent is above a hundred and twenty degrees this week. Temperatures in Chicago last week topped those in Death Valley. But, on Tuesday, three nonprofit environmental groups jointly released a report containing a different set of numbers that appear to…

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Most conflict-affected countries are also highly vulnerable to climate change

Most conflict-affected countries are also highly vulnerable to climate change

Catherine Wong writes: The Paris Agreement was nothing less than a landmark agreement. Legally binding, adopted by 196 parties to the convention, it has inspired hope and ambition to get to net-zero emissions and limit global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. The Paris Agreement does not, however, mention conflict or fragility, neither peace nor security, even once – neither did the Kyoto Protocol before it, nor does the Sendai Framework directly address any of these issues either. What is…

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EU plans ‘massive’ increase in green energy to help end reliance on Russia

EU plans ‘massive’ increase in green energy to help end reliance on Russia

The Guardian reports: The EU plans a “massive” increase in solar and wind power, and a short-term boost for coal, to end its reliance on Russian oil and gas as fast as possible. In a plan outlined on Wednesday, the European Commission said the EU needed to find an extra €210bn (£178bn) over the next five years to pay for phasing out Russian fossil fuels and speeding up the switch to green energy. Senior officials conceded that in the short…

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Climate chaos certain if oil and gas mega-projects go ahead, warns IEA chief

Climate chaos certain if oil and gas mega-projects go ahead, warns IEA chief

The Guardian reports: The world’s leading energy economist has warned against investing in large new oil and gas developments, which would have little impact on the current energy crisis and soaring fuel prices but spell devastation to the planet. Fatih Birol, the executive director of the International Energy Agency (IEA), was responding to an investigation in the Guardian that revealed fossil fuel companies were planning huge “carbon bomb” projects that would drive climate catastrophe. He said countries must seek to…

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