The German nuclear power plant Grafenrheinfeld before it was decommissioned in 2015. Photo credit: Christian VisualBeo Horvat – CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia. By Anders Lorenzen As Germany completed its nuclear phase-out earlier this month, it becomes clear that Europe’s economic and industrial powerhouse is further away from climate action than almost every single EU member country. It is also […]
climate change Photo credit: UN. By Anders Lorenzen On Earth Day (22nd of April), the UN’s Secretary-General Antonio Guterres continued his rhetoric that tackling the climate crisis is more urgent than ever. In the below video message, Guterres explained that currently, our actions are laying waste to forests, jungles, farmland, wetlands, oceans, coral reefs, rivers, seas, and lakes and that […]
Flooding in the US Midwest. Photo credit: Don Becker, USGS – via Flickr. By Amanda Abrams Rising seas, fires, and outdated government policies threaten a repeat of the subprime mortgage meltdown. Liz Greene hadn’t originally intended to buy this house. She’d been looking at another one here in the River Haven subdivision, 20 miles northeast of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. […]
I made Cool For You, a new animated film that explains the cause of the climate crisis in a simple story children can understand and enjoy, to help my kids prepare for the world in which they’ll live. Like so many people, my life and my motion design business came to an abrupt halt in March 2020, with the pandemic. […]
How we think and feel about the climate response, whether optimistic, pessimistic, cynical, or pragmatic, shapes our perceptions of possible solutions. Too often, we argue over emotional perceptions and not hard climate data. But hard data is sterile, it doesn’t necessarily engage the passions that move us to act. So, we tell stories, often focusing on what can go wrong. […]
By Jeremy Williams Permafrost has a particular place in climate change discussion. It doesn’t come up often, and when it does it’s frequently in the apocalyptic tone of tipping points and catastrophe. Fundamentally, it seems under-studied, or at least insufficiently explained for non-academic audiences. So I was interested to see a new book on the subject. Earth, Ice, Bone, Blood […]
climate change Photo credit: European Commission (EC). By Anders Lorenzen Capturing and storing carbon has by some experts been cited as a necessity if we are to stick to global climate targets. In a recent proposal, the European Commission (EC) listed carbon capture and storage (CCS) as a key green transition technology and proposed an EU wide-target to capture CO2, […]
By Jeremy Williams It’s 2023. The world has warmed by 1.2 degrees already, and global emissions are still rising. And yet even in countries that claim leadership on climate change, mad decisions continue to be made. The UK approved a new coal mine at the end of last year. Germany has failed to fix its coal dependency. The drive for […]
A boat is seen on the dry banks of the partially dry Lake Montbel at the foot of the Pyrenees Mountains as France faces a records winter dry spell. Photo credit: Reuters / Sarah Meyssonnier. By Anders Lorenzen At the base of the French side of the iconic Pyrenees mountain chain, a famous and critically important water source, Lake Montbel, […]
Photo credit: Jeff Zehnder / Alamy. By Zofeen Ebrahim Progress towards the construction of a China-funded coal power plant in Gwadar raises questions about the climate pledges of both China and Pakistan. News that the Pakistan government plans to secure financing and start construction on a long-stalled 300-megawatt coal-fired power plant in the port city of Gwadar has triggered a […]