climate crisis

Summer 2024 Was World’s Hottest Ever Recorded

September 8, 2024 Cristen Hemingway Jaynes, EcoWatch. Educate! Arctic, climate crisis, European Union (EU), Global heating

According to the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), the summer of 2024 was the planet’s warmest on record for the Northern Hemisphere. The extreme heat of this year’s boreal summer — June to August — means it is more likely that the average global temperature for the entire year will be hotter than that of 2023. “During the past three months of 2024, the globe has experienced the hottest June and August, the hottest day on record, and the hottest boreal summer on record. This string of record temperatures is increasing the likelihood of 2024 being the hottest year on record,” said Samantha Burgess, deputy director of C3S, in a press release from C3S.

Three New Kinds Of Refugees In A World Of Migrants

September 7, 2024 Vijay Prashad, Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. Educate! climate crisis, Immigration, International Monetary Fund, Migrants, Refugees, Regime Change

One summer evening, the unrelenting sun over Niger refused to dip below the horizon. I sought out some shade with three anxious men in Touba au paradis, a small quiet restaurant in Agadez. These three Nigerians had tried to make the crossing at Assamaka, to our north, into Algeria, but found the border barred. They hoped their final destination would be Europe across the Mediterranean Sea, but first they had to make it into Algeria, and then across the remarkable Sahara Desert. By the time I met them, none of these crossings were possible. Algeria had closed the border, and the town of Assamaka had become overrun by desperate people who did not want to retreat but could not go forward.

Big Oil And Gas Infiltrate Higher Education To Slow Climate Action

September 6, 2024 Geoff Dembicki, DeSmog. Educate! climate crisis, Corporatism, Higher Education, Oil and Gas Industry, Science Denial

A former Exxon executive sits on a university’s board of trustees. Fossil fuel representatives develop undergraduate courses. Schools lease out their land for fracking. Industry-funded studies end up influencing federal energy policy. These aren’t just isolated examples of oil and gas companies partnering with academic institutions, according to a new study published in the journal WIREs Climate Change by researchers with six universities, but an international effort by the industry spanning decades with the goal of obstructing and slowing down climate action. The authors came to that conclusion by conducting a first-ever review of dozens of existing academic and civil society investigations into fossil fuel infiltration of higher education, looking primarily at institutions in the U.S., UK, Canada, and Australia.

US Leads Way In Public Spending On False Climate Solutions

August 31, 2024 Julia Conley, DeSmog. Educate! climate crisis, False Solutions, Fossil Fuels, United States

Among the world’s wealthiest countries, the U.S. leads the way in spending public money on so-called climate “solutions” that have been proven to “consistently fail, overspend, or underperform,” according to an analysis released Thursday by the research and advocacy group Oil Change International. The group’s report, titled Funding Failure, focuses on international spending on carbon capture and fossil-based hydrogen subsidies, which continues despite ample data showing that the technological fixes have “failed to make a dent in carbon emissions” after 50 years of research and development.

Summer Of Heat Is Using Disruption To End Fossil Fuel Financing

August 30, 2024 Alice Hu, Waging Nonviolence. Resist! Big Banks, climate crisis, Divestment, Fossil Fuel, Wall Street

With millions being displaced by wildfires and floods, famine spreading and entire countries getting submerged, the fossil fuel industry is driving us off the cliff and must be stopped. One strategy the climate movement can take to turn the tide is pressuring economic elites to remove their backing for Big Oil. This is the main focus of the Summer of Heat on Wall Street, a sustained campaign of nonviolent civil disobedience against financiers like Citigroup, which has poured more money into fossil fuel expansion than any other bank in the world since 2016. Since June 10, the campaign has organized multiple disruptive civil disobedience actions every single week.

‘Sustainable Square Mile’ Tests Power Of Biden’s Billions For Climate Justice

August 28, 2024 Adam Mahoney, In These Times. Educate! Child Poverty, climate crisis, Climate Justice, Joe Biden, Sustainability

Two days after a series of tornadoes ripped through Chicago’s South Side, leaving hundreds of thousands of people without electricity, Naomi Davis and Suzanne Waddell met in the front yard of Emmett Till’s childhood home to assess the damage. Fencing had been blown down. Their organization, Blacks in Green, founded by Davis in 2007, owns the historic landmark. It will open as a playhouse, community farm and museum in 2025, honoring the life the 14-year-old deserved to have. Even in 92-degree heat, people stopped by to take photos, a regular occurrence that reminds Davis of the larger duty marginalized people in America have “to remind each other of our greatness.”

Even In California, Infrastructure Spending Is A Climate Time Bomb

August 27, 2024 Zack Deutsch-Gross and Corrigan Salerno, Next City. Educate! California, climate crisis, Infrastructure, Transportation

With the fifth largest economy in the world, California has for decades set the tone for what is possible on climate, with other states and even countries looking to it for bold policy leadership and direction. Yet while Gov. Gavin Newsom continues to tout California as a climate leader, his transportation agency — operating with little public oversight or accountability — continues to advance harmful projects that will guarantee future increases in emissions. Nowhere is this contradiction more apparent than in how California is spending its Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) dollars. The 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law was hailed by the Biden Administration as the biggest investment in climate in U.S. history.

Campaign For Public Rail: Private Rail Companies Put Profits Over Safety

August 26, 2024 Margaret Flowers, Clearing the FOG. Featured Campaign, Podcast - Clearing The FOG climate crisis, Corporatism, Electrification, Public ownership, Railroads, Worker Rights

Private railroad corporations are failing their workers, their clients and the public in general. Their drive for profits means fewer workers, longer hours and neglecting basic safety protocols, unpredictable schedules for freight customers, which is devastating for farmers, and delays for passengers as well as deterioration of railway infrastructure. Clearing the FOG speaks with Maddock Thomas, the author of a new white paper, "Putting America Back on Track: The Case for a 21st Century Public Rail System," who explains the problems with the current system and how a public, electrified rail system would cost less, have a lower carbon footprint, and benefit workers and customers. Thomas is part of a new campaign, Public Rail Now.

Two Years And $300 Billion Into Biden’s Climate Plan, Emissions Are Higher

August 26, 2024 Peter Gelderloos, In These Times. Educate! Carbon emissions, climate crisis, Environment, Finance and the Economy, Inflation, Inflation Reduction Act, Joe Biden

August 16 marked the two-year anniversary of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), legislation that has funneled hundreds of billions of dollars into green energy and electric vehicles. While the Act made unprecedented investments in renewable energy, it also faced criticism for being too little, too late and for compromising on fossil fuel extraction. In response, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Michael Regan acknowledged the bill’s shortcomings but explained the administration’s approach: “We’re using every tool in our toolbox to drive down climate pollution as much as possible, as quickly as possible.”

Capitalism Facilitates Firestorms, Floods And Tornadoes

August 24, 2024 Zoe Johnson, Workers' World. Educate! Capitalism, climate crisis, Climate Justice, Extreme weather, Socialism

Summer 2024 has been host to severe and persistent wildfires and tornadoes throughout the United States. Long before the summer, just from January through March alone, more than 2,669 square miles were charred in the United States. That’s larger than the area of Delaware and was already half of the total area impacted in 2023. Moreover, the National Weather Service confirmed 180 tornadoes in July, the most the country has had since 1997, when there were 190. Most of these tornadoes resulted from two storm systems: Hurricane Beryl and the July 15 Derecho — a very long-lived and damaging thunderstorm that can itself be as damaging as a tornado — that impacted Chicago.

Global Water-Related Conflicts Reached A Record High In 2023

August 24, 2024 Paige Bennett, EcoWatch. Educate! climate crisis, Environment, Report, Violence, Water, Water Scarcity

According to a new report from the nonprofit Pacific Institute, violent conflicts over water increased sharply in 2023. The report found there were nearly 350 water-related conflicts globally last year, a record high. The latest update to Pacific Institute’s Water Conflict Chronology has revealed a huge increase in the number of water-related conflicts in 2023 compared to just 2022, with around a 150% rise. In 2022, there were 231 recorded conflicts over water, compared to the 347 recorded for 2023. In comparing to recent decades, the contrast is even more stark. In 2000, there were just 22 water-related conflicts worldwide, Pacific Institute reported.

SADC Holds 44th Annual Summit In Zimbabwe

August 23, 2024 Abayomi Azikiwe, Black Agenda Report. Create! Africa, climate crisis, Economic Development, Liberation

President Emmerson Mnangagwa of the Republic of Zimbabwe has emerged as the regional chairperson of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) 44th Annual Summit which was held in Harare on August 17. SADC is a 16-member regional organization composed of states and their affiliates extending from the Republic of South Africa to the Seychelles and as far north as the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Since 1980 when its predecessor organization, the Southern African Development Coordination Conference (SADCC), was founded in Lusaka, Zambia which later transitioning towards SADC in Windhoek, Republic of Namibia in 1992 to the present era, the mission of the grouping is to foster economic cooperation, peacekeeping operations and solidarity with other oppressed and exploited people in Africa and around the globe.

What Would A Real Renewable Energy Transition Look Like?

August 22, 2024 Richard Heinberg, Resilience. Strategize! Clean Energy, climate crisis, Fossil Fuels, Transformation

Humanity’s transition from relying overwhelmingly on fossil fuels to instead using alternative low-carbon energy sources is sometimes said to be unstoppable and exponential. A boosterish attitude on the part of many renewable energy advocates is understandable: overcoming people’s climate despair and sowing confidence could help muster the needed groundswell of motivation to end our collective fossil fuel dependency. But occasionally a reality check is in order. The reality is that energy transitions are a big deal, and they typically take centuries to unfold. Historically, they’ve been transformative for societies—whether we’re speaking of humanity’s taming of fire hundreds of thousands of years ago, the agricultural revolution 10,000 years ago, or our adoption of fossil fuels starting roughly 200 years ago.

Los Angeles Has A Climate Crisis And A Housing Crisis

August 22, 2024 Awoenam Mauna-Woanya, Christopher Rhie and Christopher K. Tokita, Next City. Create! climate crisis, Housing, infill housing, Los Angeles

Since taking office, Mayor Karen Bass has rightly focused on housing and homelessness in Los Angeles. But given the growing climate crisis, it’s crucial to maintain this focus while empowering our city to take effective climate action. Already, the City and County of Los Angeles have committed to an ambitious goal of carbon neutrality by 2050. To reach this critical target, we must make serious changes — especially in how we build our cities and suburbs. This fundamental factor in our carbon footprint is so often overlooked in climate action plans. It’s also the key to tackling both our environmental challenges and our city’s housing affordability crisis simultaneously: infill housing, or the practice of building new housing on vacant or underused land in cities.

«1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 »

Daily movement news and resources