We are in real trouble. Global carbon dioxide emissions (the main cause of global warming) continue to rise, hitting a new high in 2023. Last year was also the hottest in recorded history and, year by year, more Americans are feeling the consequences. Yet, we have seen only modest attempts to bring emissions down.
They feel betrayed and ignored — including in BC and Canada.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his federal Liberals are largely regarded to be running on fumes, particularly in the aftermath of the stunning Liberal byelection loss in Toronto-St. Paul’s. The upset is a vivid signal that Canadians are ready for change.
The PR pros will tell you not to bother talking about arcane topics like 1.5 degrees — no normies understand the significance, and it just sounds like a little-bitty thing, anyway. They’re probably right. And maybe that explains why we just lived through the first full year above 1.5 C with only perfunctory coverage by the global media.
New data shows the planet’s fever stayed above a crucial target for a full year, but it would need to do that for decades to breach the Paris Agreement limit.
Last month wasn’t only the hottest June by far in the observed temperature record, but marked the first-ever 12-month stretch of the Earth’s average temperature exceeding 1.5 degrees Celsius of temperature rise above the pre-industrial baseline against which human-caused warming is measured.
The soaring electricity demands of data centers and A.I. are straining the grid in some areas, pushing up emissions and slowing the energy transition.
A few weeks ago, I joined a small group of reporters for a wide-ranging conversation with Bill Gates about climate change, its causes and potential solutions. When the topic turned to the issue of just how much energy artificial intelligence was using, Gates was surprisingly sanguine.
Blackened trees, dead animals and scorched earth – early wildfires have already devastated Brazil’s Pantanal and local people worry they may lose the battle to save them
Perched atop blackened trees, howler monkeys survey the ashes around them. A flock of rheas treads, disoriented, in search of water. The skeletons of alligators lie lifeless and charred.
As the world inevitably transitions away from fossil fuel extraction, there’s a growing international consensus that mining critical minerals — including copper, nickel, cobalt, zinc and more — will have to ramp up in order to power clean energy sources.
Is each man’s priority to lead a dominant U.S. empire?
If there has been anything clear about presidential politics since the June 27 debate between Donald Trump and Joseph Biden, it is that both men are running on a platform of empire first.
