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Locals protest at Barsu Solgaon of the Rajapur block in Ratnagiri. Photo: Twitter@aviuv

Protests against Ratnagiri Refinery: Skeletons in the Development Closet

19th May 2023

Protests are raging in the Konkan region of Maharashtra against the government’s proposed refinery project in Ratnagiri. Hundreds have been arrested so far. Protesting locals have alleged unprecedented police action. While not being reported much in the mainstream media, locals continue to build their resistance with greater strength. Read more to find out why this is happening?

Joshimath Crisis is a Warning from the Himalayas

6th February 2023

A development model based on local conditions and aspirations is necessary. The current crisis in Joshimath is the consequence of choosing economics over ecology or the ecosystem. It was scripted from the time we opted for a development model that instigated the open plunder of natural resources.

The electric car must fail

30th March 2020

Ratheesh Pisharody writes: A classic method of avoiding personal sacrifice is to explore “alternatives”. The individual thought behind this is simple. “Can I keep sitting on my privileges by pretending to make a dramatic change with sufficient optics and industry backing, but with no personal cost/effort?”. And the pop-icon of “alternatives” is the electric car….

Combustible Australia, combustible world: Lessons for India

22nd February 2020

Aseem Shrivastava writes: There are several lessons for India in the Australian catastrophe. For starters, it must restrain its own fossil barons: both within our shores, and beyond. Adani’s mammoth Queensland coal venture, for example, will significantly boost carbon emissions (both within Australia and to countries like India to which the coal will be exported)….

Nazmul Haque

The Galactic Gardeners’ Forum pings the people of Planet Earth in the New Year

17th January 2020

We come from a remote handful of living planets and moons scattered across this galaxy. We are a network of galactic gardeners who nurture life by sharing our stories, experiences, knowledge, and ideas. We’ve decided to contact you because we cherish life everywhere we find it — and life on your planet is in grave danger….

Climate crisis: Is there a Savitri to save the world from catastrophe?

5th January 2020

The legend of Savitri and Satyavan in the Mahabharata, is a love story. Savitri, a beautiful princess, marries Satyavan, a penniless woodcutter, despite the Sage Narada warning her that Satyavan, a dead man walking, would die in one year. Now, the story of Savitri and Satyavan is being played out in real life in the ongoing climate change saga….

This was the decade climate change slapped us in the face

24th December 2019

From BuzzFeed: The 2010s will likely lock down the record for the hottest decade so far. The 10-year stretch boasted many of the most expensive and destructive catastrophes ever. Here’s a review of six of the most devastating climate-records we broke this decade. Also, a short video featuring expert views on looming climate tipping points….

Blip: Humanity’s 300 year self-terminating experiment with industrialism

15th December 2019

In his new book ‘Blip’, Christopher Clugston synthesizes the evidence produced by hundreds of research studies to quantify the causes, implications, and consequences associated with industrial humanity’s predicament. He presents compelling evidence to show how industrial civilisation’s enormous and ever-increasing utilisation of nonrenewable natural resources will lead to global societal collapse in the near future….

Courtesy of Union of Concerned Scientists

“Humanity’s mortality moment”: Scientists’ restate climate warning

12th December 2019

Earlier this year, over 11,000 scientists from around the world issued a signed warning stating “clearly and unequivocally that planet Earth is facing a climate emergency”. At the ongoing CoP-25 climate talks at Madrid, Dr. William Moomaw, one of the report’s co-authors, explains the nature of that emergency, and what we must do about it….

Oil is the new data: How Big Tech and Big Oil collaborate

3rd December 2019

From Logic Magazine: Despite the climate crisis, Big Oil is doubling down on fossil fuels. At over 30 billion barrels of crude oil a year, production has never been higher. Now, leading oil companies are forging a lucrative partnership with tech giants like Microsoft, building a new carbon cloud that just might kill us all….

A carbon atom’s plea

9th October 2019

Hello. Allow me to introduce myself. I am a Carbon atom, writing in the hope that the intelligence operating here might be able and willing to come to our aid. In particular, I am acting on behalf of the many Carbon atoms – who are contently resting in peace, unaware that they’re in great danger….

War on Earth: US military is a bigger polluter than as many as 140 countries

3rd October 2019

From The Intercept: Industrialized militaries are a bigger part of the climate emergency than we know. If the US-military were a country, its fuel usage alone would make it the world’s 47th largest greenhouse gas emitter, says a new study. Another study found that America has spent an astonishing $5.9 trillion on wars since 2001….

‘Hothouse Earth’ and possible trajectories for humanity and the planet

24th September 2019

Ayushi Uppal writes: While the concept of Anthropocene remains contested, there is consensus on the human-led changes to the climate and the need for intervention. Humanity must create a pathway from a possible ‘Hothouse earth’ to a ‘Stabilized Earth’ state, where human activities create biogeophysical feedbacks that sustain the Earth System within the planetary threshold….

Vaclav Smil: ‘Growth must end. Our economist friends don’t realise that’

17th September 2019

Over more than 40 years, Vaclav Smil has grown in influence, and is now seen as one of the world’s foremost thinkers and a master of statistical analysis. Bill Gates says he waits for new Smil books the way others wait for the next Star Wars movie. Smil’s latest is Growth: From Microorganisms to Megacities….

Climate emergency or climate fakery?

12th August 2019

Ever since the publication of the IPCC’s ‘Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C’ in October 2018, there’s been a spurt of activities on the issue of global warming/climate crisis. And as if on cue, in its wake came a torrent of ‘climate fakery’–when group after group and government after government started declaring ‘climate emergency’….

Climate change: 12 years to save the planet? Make that 18 months

30th July 2019

From BBC: “The climate math is brutally clear: While the world can’t be healed within the next few years, it may be fatally wounded by negligence until 2020,” said Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, founder of the Potsdam Climate Institute. The sense is that the end of next year is the last chance saloon for climate change….

Air Conditoning: The all-too costly feeding and care of a familiar beast

7th July 2019

The task of explaining the wider issues associated with air conditioning is a daunting task as the weather gets warmer. In ‘Losing Our Cool: Uncomfortable Truths About Our Air Conditioned World (and Finding New Ways to Get Through the Summer)’, author Stan Cox shows how indoor climate control is colliding with an out-of-control outdoor climate….

Adani@Carmichael: The world’s most insane energy project moves ahead

22nd June 2019

Once fully operationalised, Adani’s Carmichael would be bigger than almost any mine in the world. Collectively, the Galilee Basin mines would produce up to 330 million tonnes of coal annually, which, when burned, would release more than 700 million tonnes of CO2, ranking as the world’s seventh-largest emitter, were the Galilee projects considered a country….

Jasper Bernes: Between the Devil and the Green New Deal

20th May 2019

The Green New Deal seeks to generate growth and reduce emissions. The problem is that growth and emissions are profoundly correlated. The Green New Deal thus risks becoming a sort of Sisyphean reform, rolling the rock of emissions reductions up the hill each day only to have a growing, energy-hungry economy knock it back down….

Obituary: Jay Hanson, early populariser of the converging crises

26th April 2019

Ron Patterson writes: Jay Hanson was the founder of multiple energy resources or peak oil lists from the 1990s, starting with the incredibly popular Dieoff website and Dieoff list which looked at peak oil, population numbers, and scarcity. He was probably more responsible for starting the whole Peak Oil Awareness Movement than any other person….