The UAW strike at the Big Three automakers has elicited a deluge of speculation. Much of it sounds like one of the most common YouTube themes: THIS WILL BE A GAME CHANGER!! Well, perhaps. By Meteor Blades The Big Three “legacy” automakers—GM, Stellantis, and Ford—are in deep trouble as the electric vehicle transition is headed toward a […]
The Golden State was a pioneer decades ago in curbing toxic air pollution from tailpipe emissions. Since then California has been in the lead among the states on a whole range of policies designed to curb greenhouse gas pollution, including a ban on new sales of gasoline-powered cars (by 2035) and locomotives and diesel-powered trucks (by […]
Making Climate the Everything Story by Mark Hertsgaard and Kyle Pope at The Nation. The news media needs to stop treating climate change as a niche topic—and start treating it as the most important story of our time. Despite living through the hottest summer in history, as well as wildfires, tropical storms, and rapidly warming oceans, the news media continues to […]
The Climate Ambition Summit began Wednesday in New York City with a speech by Secretary-General António Guterres. Not in the audience were U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, Chinese President Xi Jinping, and President Joe Biden. By Meteor Blades #ClimateAction is dwarfed by the scale of the climate challenge. Today at #UNGA, I’m urging leaders to […]
The US has added more than 188,000 EV-related jobs, and the BlueGreen Alliance Foundation has launched an EV Jobs Hub to mark progress in that realm. The foundation is a partner with the BlueGreen Alliance, which since 2006 has worked to unite labor unions and environmental organizations to create high-quality, environmentally sound, unionized jobs in […]
For more than two years, activists and a cohort of progressive members of Congress have called on President Joe Biden to declare a “climate emergency.” He reportedly seriously considered this in the summer of 2022 but decided against it. Critics have said the government’s emergency powers aren’t designed to deal with long-term crises like climate change. Advocates haven’t given […]
According to Planet Wreckers, a new report by Oil Change International, just five companies are responsible for 51% of planned oil and gas expansion between now and 2050, what many scientists say is the deadline for zeroing out greenhouse gas emissions to address the climate crisis. The U.S, the report says, is the “Planet Wrecker in Chief,” its plans […]
Back in 2009 researchers published the first report on exceeding the boundaries of Earth’s “safe operating space.” In 2015, there was an update. They concluded that the Earth had crossed the line beyond safety on at least four of nine boundaries—climate change, land use, biodiversity, and nutrient flows. Now, the researchers have published an even more disturbing update assessing the planet’s […]
Climate activists with the Global Fight to End Fossil Fuels are hoping for millions of people to show up this Friday, Sept. 15, at more than 400 actions worldwide to demonstrate for an immediate phaseout of fossil fuels. Despite the ever-worsening climate impacts all around us, that large a turnout sounds a bit ambitious. In September four years ago, an estimated 4 million protesters participated […]
For years, the giant oil companies and their pals have maneuvered to keep climate liability suits from being tried in state courts, arguing that the proper jurisdiction are federal courts. By the end of 2022, 27 states and municipalities had filed suits against oil companies for compensation in what could be the biggest fraud of the […]
A June study found that most registered voters had not heard of the Inflation Reduction Act with its hundreds of billions of dollars being used to leverage an acceleration of the transition to clean energy so we can zero out the emission of greenhouse gases that are literally killing us. By Meteor Blades In July, The Washington Post and […]
While solar and wind have become the largest and cheapest source of new electricity-generating projects, a sticking point is siting for solar and wind farms. Distributive power by means of rooftop solar rather than giant electricity farms is the first choice of many renewable energy advocates. But the U.S. Department of Energy notes that only […]
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued a 37-page summary of its AR6 Synthesis Report of the Sixth Assessment Report Monday. It integrates the grim conclusions of the assessment’s three Working Groups in three special reports released over the past two years. The key message reiterates what climatologists have been telling us for some time: We Earthlings have a brief […]
Forty-five years ago, when I began work at the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Solar Energy Research Institute (SERI), we were keen on figuring out ways to get solar panels on as many residential rooftops as possible. By Meteor Blades Just as the solar panels President Jimmy Carter had installed on the White House roof and President Ronald Reagan later […]
The supreme irony of the Biden administration’s decision announced Monday to green-light ConocoPhillips’ massive, $8 billion Willow oil and gas project in a pristine part of Alaska’s North Slope can be found in a word: thermosiphons. Since the 1960s, Alaska has warmed more than twice as fast as the rest of the United States. By Meteor Blades Scientists predict that the region will warm […]