By Ishaan Tharoor 3 June 2019 (The Washington Post) – China’s democratic dream was snuffed out as night fell on 3 June 1989. In mid-April, thousands of idealistic university students had gathered in the heart of Beijing to mourn the passing of an admired Communist Party official who had championed liberalizing reforms. In the weeks […]
By Nick Cunningham 12 May 2019 (OilPrice.com) – The world spent a staggering $4.7 trillion and $5.2 trillion on fossil fuel subsidies in 2015 and 2017, respectively, according to a new report [pdf] from the International Monetary Fund. That means that in 2017 the world spent a whopping 6.5 percent of global GDP just to subsidize the […]
By Conor Finnegan 9 May 2019 (ABC News) – Two days after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo cut a stop from his trip to Germany, his office announced that he was canceling another visit — this time to Greenland, where Pompeo was to see melting glaciers at the forefront of climate change. Pompeo had to […]
By Elizabeth Mclaughlin and Conor Finnegan 3 May 2019 (ABC News) – China is increasing its activity in the Arctic, building a second ice-breaking ship and looking to expand its footprint in Greenland, according to a new Pentagon report, and Beijing’s presence in the region could lead to the deployment of armed submarines, the report […]
By James Temple1 May 2019 (Technology Review) – Climate change is clearly making some regions wetter and others drier. But it’s been difficult for scientists to detect a clear, consistent human role in increasing the frequency and severity of global droughts given natural climate variability, regional differences, and limited data. A new report in Nature adds evidence […]
By Naveena Sadasivam 17 April 2019 (Grist) – For more than a decade, indigenous communities in Alaska have been fighting to prevent the mining of copper and gold at Pebble Mine in Bristol Bay, home to the world’s largest sockeye salmon fishery and a crucial source of sustenance. The proposed mine, blocked under the Obama […]
By Shreya Dasgupta 16 April 2019 (Mongabay) – Until recently, there were just four known Yangtze giant softshell turtles in the world. On 13 April 2019, the only known female among them died in China’s Suzhou Shangfangshan Forest Zoo following an attempt to artificially inseminate her, according to local media. She was more than 90 […]
By Beth Gardiner 26 March 2019 Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia (National Geographic) – Coal is everywhere in Mongolia’s frigid capital. It sits beneath the towering smokestacks of power plants in piles as big as football fields. Drivers haul it through town in the open beds of pickup trucks. Vendors stack yellow bags of the stuff along roadsides, […]
By Chris Mooney and Brady Dennis 25 March 2019 (The Washington Post) – Global energy experts released grim findings Monday, saying that not only are planet-warming carbon-dioxide emissions still increasing, but the world’s growing thirst for energy has led to higher emissions from coal-fired power plants than ever before. Energy demand around the world grew […]
By Nina Chestney26 March 2019 LONDON (Reuters) – Global energy-related carbon emissions rose to a record high last year as energy demand and coal use increased, mainly in Asia, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said on Tuesday. Energy-related CO2 emissions rose by 1.7 percent to 33.1 billion tonnes from the previous year, the highest rate […]
