To its credit, the White House has so far resisted this kind of escalation. It has, however, said it will refreeze $6 billion in Iranian oil revenue it had agreed to release as part of a prisoner swap last month, following pressure from right-wingers who falsely argued that Iran funneled that money to Hamas to […]
Read MoreTag: Apocalypse Soon
Big Oil Is Only Getting Bigger—and Meaner
Legality of corporate consolidations aside, the buyout is a troubling indication that the industry sees little reason to change course. Despite the rapid growth of solar power, especially, global fossil fuel usage hasn’t really budged. Even as renewables expanded by 13 percent last year, emissions from the power sector continued to rise. Fossil fuels still […]
Read MoreEndless War on a Dying Planet
I spent the past week glued to my phone, as I’m sure many of you did, scrolling through endless news and horrible videos of the violence in the Middle East. Sometimes, when global disasters or conflicts happen, people will whip up an infographic pointing out the (occasionally tenuous) connections to climate change; I generally roll […]
Read MoreEndless War on a Dying Planet
I spent the past week glued to my phone, as I’m sure many of you did, scrolling through endless news and horrible videos of the violence in the Middle East. Sometimes, when global disasters or conflicts happen, people will whip up an infographic pointing out the (occasionally tenuous) connections to climate change; I generally roll […]
Read MoreRepublicans Pretend Biden Is Soft on Foreign Policy
“The first crucial factor” explaining the shift in the administration’s stance on Saudi Arabia “is the price of oil and the price of gasoline,” said Gregory Brew, an analyst with Eurasia Group’s Energy, Climate & Resources team. “The Biden Administration woke up to this issue last year during the energy crisis, and that was a […]
Read MoreRepublicans Pretend Biden Is Soft on Foreign Policy
“The first crucial factor” explaining the shift in the administration’s stance on Saudi Arabia “is the price of oil and the price of gasoline,” said Gregory Brew, an analyst with Eurasia Group’s Energy, Climate & Resources team. “The Biden Administration woke up to this issue last year during the energy crisis, and that was a […]
Read MoreFossil Fuel Companies Are Taking Private Land—and Landowners Are Fighting Back
The majority of legal challenges to the Mountain Valley Pipeline have been concerned with environmental impact, and brought by organizations that include the Sierra Club, Appalachian Mountain Advocates, and the Wilderness Society. In July, legislation passed by Congress to suspend the debt ceiling included stipulations driven by West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin that effectively mandated […]
Read MoreEcological Despair Is the Tie That Binds
Unfortunately, the app’s search function is garbage. Much like Instagram, Threads only lets you browse for accounts, not keywords. And because the community is built entirely on the back of a visual app—one that is not particularly useful for rapid, text-based updates—it tends to be popular with cultural and visual creators. Thus, finding any information […]
Read MoreA Glimpse of Our Grief-Addled Future
Unfortunately, the app’s search function is garbage. Much like Instagram, Threads only lets you browse for accounts, not keywords. And because the community is built entirely on the back of a visual app—one that is not particularly useful for rapid, text-based updates—it tends to be popular with cultural and visual creators. Thus, finding any information […]
Read MoreBiden Scraps Environmental Laws to Build Trump’s Border Wall
An estimated 95 percent of native habitat in the Rio Grande Valley has already been lost to development. Construction could threaten plans to recover populations of endangered ocelots, as well as endangered plants. In the notice, Mayorkas describes the Rio Grande Valley as an area of “high illegal entry,” noting that had been 245,000 apprehensions […]
Read MoreBig Auto Screwed Itself on the E.V. Transition
That “hands-off” approach and laser focus on restoring profitability also meant letting carmakers get back to the habits that got them into trouble in the first place. While legacy automakers chalked their financial troubles in the 2000s up to the financial crisis, one major reason they needed help was because of their penchant for making giant gas […]
Read MoreBig Auto Screwed Itself on the E.V. Transition
That “hands-off” approach and laser focus on restoring profitability also meant letting carmakers get back to the habits that got them into trouble in the first place. While legacy automakers chalked their financial troubles in the 2000s up to the financial crisis, one major reason they needed help was because of their penchant for making giant gas […]
Read MoreWhat Homeowners Owe Others in the Climate Crisis
Homeowners’ insurance has helped us out in recent storms—but for how much longer? Insurance companies are refusing to cover homes in California, thanks to the intensifying wildfire season. Insurers have also been backing out of some coastal regions, due to sea level rise, while jacking up rates elsewhere. In August, the Council on Foreign Relations, […]
Read MoreNo, the Government Isn’t Coming for Your Burger—but Maybe It Should Be
There are some good reasons why most policymakers have concrete plans to phase out coal power plants but take only occasional, haphazard steps to limit the growth in the number of farmed animals. Meat, milk, and eggs can be an important source of protein and nutrients. Increasing access to animal products can change lives and […]
Read MoreNYC Is Totally Unprepared for Climate Disaster (but Has a Lot of Cops)
New York’s governor and Democratic supermajority can’t seem to agree on taxing the rich a little bit more to help deal with climate change. In 2021, when Hurricane Ida hit the city and the streets flooded like they did on Friday, 16 people, inordinately low-income and immigrant New Yorkers, died from drowning in their basement […]
Read MoreThe White House’s Two-Faced Climate Rhetoric
The new head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)—who co-chaired one of the working groups that contributed to the panel’s special report on 1.5 degrees Celsius—even said in July the world would exceed that target. “We are, I think, committed to at least some degree of overshoot,” he told reporters, citing the insufficient plans on […]
Read MoreWill Mainers Take Their Power Into Their Own Hands?
Unfortunately, the app’s search function is garbage. Much like Instagram, Threads only lets you browse for accounts, not keywords. And because the community is built entirely on the back of a visual app—one that is not particularly useful for rapid, text-based updates—it tends to be popular with cultural and visual creators. Thus, finding any information […]
Read MoreMemes and Misinformation Are Threatening the Clean Energy Transition
But even without direct financial influence from polluting industries, anti-wind misinformation is transforming local politics in towns and counties across Iowa. In Fremont County and Page County, activists brought lawsuits this year against their county boards to fight wind ordinances. In Tama County, organizers of an anti-wind group gathered more than a thousand signatures to […]
Read MoreHow Iowa Wind Energy Got Sucked Into an Online Meme War
But even without direct financial influence from polluting industries, anti-wind misinformation is transforming local politics in towns and counties across Iowa. In Fremont County and Page County, activists brought lawsuits this year against their county boards to fight wind ordinances. In Tama County, organizers of an anti-wind group gathered more than a thousand signatures to […]
Read MoreHow This Popular Climate “Solution” Could Tank Our Progress
“There’s nothing happening today that wasn’t happening five years ago. It’s just that there was no one paying attention to it,” said environmental economist Danny Cullenward, a senior fellow at the University of Pennsylvania’s Kleinman Center for Energy Policy, whose research focuses on carbon offsets and storage. The problems with “offsets” (a term of art […]
Read MoreProsecutors Are Going to War With Climate Protesters
Civil disobedience is rarely the first path movements take. Weeks before protests began, the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe sued over permits for the Dakota Access Pipeline—the pipeline company, Energy Transfer Partners, kept digging while the lawsuit was still pending in court. Government agencies subsequently issued a joint statement calling on Energy Transfer Partners to “voluntarily […]
Read MoreFor The Wall Street Journal, the Climate Call is Coming From Inside the House
Unfortunately, the app’s search function is garbage. Much like Instagram, Threads only lets you browse for accounts, not keywords. And because the community is built entirely on the back of a visual app—one that is not particularly useful for rapid, text-based updates—it tends to be popular with cultural and visual creators. Thus, finding any information […]
Read MoreHow to Galvanize Americans Stuck in Their Cars on Climate
Bringing more workers into the climate movement might also look like organizing for legislation that ties decarbonization to the creation of union jobs and lower energy bills, like New York’s Build Public Renewables Act, or BPRA. New Yorkers won the BPRA last year after years of campaigning by forging connections between political parties, environmental justice […]
Read MoreCivilian Climate Corps Is a (Tiny) Step Forward for Young Activists
The broader inspiration for the American Climate Corps comes from the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), an early New Deal program that put young men to work planting billions of trees and building trails, roads, hunting cabins and other infrastructure dedicated to both conservation and recreation. Dubbed “Roosevelt’s Tree Army,” the program lasted for about a […]
Read MoreBiden Takes a Tiny Step Toward a Roosevelt-Style Climate Revolution
The broader inspiration for the American Climate Corps comes from the Civilian Conservation Corps, or CCC, an early New Deal program that put young men to work planting billions of trees and building trails, roads, hunting cabins, and other infrastructure dedicated to both conservation and recreation. Dubbed “Roosevelt’s Tree Army,” the program lasted for about […]
Read MoreClimate Week Is Pointless. The Protests Inspired by It Aren’t.
Last week, as a prelude to Climate Week, hundreds of climate activists staged demonstrations on Wall Street, targeting the financial industry—specifically CitiBank and BlackRock, both of which continue to invest massively in the fossil fuel industry— with confrontational direct action. They blocked the entrances to Citigroup’s headquarters and shut down all traffic in front of […]
Read MoreThe Lose-Lose Promise of Pledging Lower Gas Prices
Pledging to bring gas prices down by any means necessary is a lose-lose prospect for both the planet and the Biden administration. For one, it’s out of Biden’s hands. Production decisions in the U.S. are made entirely by private companies; the White House can give them cheap land and tax breaks and ask CEOs nicely to help bring […]
Read MoreWe Need Bigger Feelings About Biden’s Biggest Policies
Not only do we not love the IRA, but equally unfortunately for its place in our collective, TikTok-fueled consciousness, we don’t hate it either. Even progressives who find it too business-focused don’t mind the IRA that much. Despite the best efforts of conservative media, even right-leaning members of the public can’t work up too much […]
Read MoreJ.D. Vance Doesn’t Care About Autoworkers
Incentives for EVs, Vance charges, are a front in Biden’s “war on American cars.” If anything, though, policies to exclude foreign components in the name of outcompeting China may be too strict, at least if the goal is to get more EVs on the road; since U.S. EV manufacturing capabilities are so far behind other countries’, […]
Read MoreElectric Vehicles Have Become a Weapon in the War on Autoworkers
The Ultium facility is part-owned by GM. Still, workers there who voted overwhelmingly last year to unionize with the UAW (710–16) aren’t included in the Big Three contract being bargained over now. GM maintains that Ultium is a wholly separate facility, and—as such—that UAW workers needed to start from scratch to organize the facility and […]
Read MoreBP Has Reached Peak Looney
BP CEO Bernard Looney has resigned. On Tuesday afternoon, the Financial Times reported that his departure was the result of his failure to disclose the “extent” of his “past personal relationships with colleagues,” per BP. “He did not provide details of all relationships and accepts he was obligated to make more complete disclosure,” the company […]
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