références en Anglais

Climate activists opposed to the Mountain Valley pipeline were accused of breaking West Virginia’s new critical infrastructure law

The Goddess is said to be benevolent and merciful, but she may get angry and become cruel and ruthless. We are used to discussing major events that may destroy civilization, or even the whole humankind. Most are related to global warming: tipping points, “hothouse Earth,” famines, tsunamis, and all the rest. Then, there are other human-made disasters, including the nuclear holocaust and homemade exterminations that can be carried out with simple tools such as machetes. Recently, it became fashionable to cite artificial intelligence as a threat to human beings.

Small modular reactors (SMRs) have been the subject of endless hype in recent years but in fact, no SMRs have ever been built, none are being built now and in all likelihood none will ever be built because of the prohibitive costs. SMRs are defined as reactors with a capacity of 300 megawatts (MW) or less with serial factory production of reactor components (or ‘modules’). No SMRs have been built, but dozens of small (<300 MW) power reactors have been built in numerous countries, without factory production of reactor components.

The renowned US scientist’s new book examines 4bn years of climate history to conclude we are in a ‘fragile moment’ but there is still time to act

This innovative and comprehensive collection of essays explores the biggest threats facing humanity in the 21st century; threats that cannot be contained or controlled and that have the potential to bring about human extinction and civilization collapse. Bringing together experts from many disciplines, it provides an accessible survey of what we know about these threats, how we can understand them better, and most importantly what can be done to manage them effectively.

There has been a strong push to promote increased investments in new nuclear power as a strategy to decarbonize economies, especially in the European Union (EU) and the United States (US). The evidence base for these initiatives is poor. Investments in new nuclear power plants are bad for the climate due to high costs and long construction times. Given the urgency of climate change mitigation, which requires reducing emissions from the EU electricity grid to almost zero in the 2030s (Pietzcker et al.1), preference should be given to the cheapest technology that can be deployed fastest. On both costs and speed, renewable energy sources beat nuclear. Every euro invested in new nuclear plants thus delays decarbonization compared to investments in renewable power. In a decarbonizing world, delays increase CO2 emissions. Our thoughts focus on new nuclear power plants (not phasing out existing plants) in the US and Europe. In Europe, new nuclear power plants are planned or seriously discussed in France, Czechia, Hu

Sweden formally renounces EU net zero roadmap championed by the likes of Germany.

Climate change is not a uniquely modern threat. From the Ancestral Puebloans to the Mayans, many ancient civilizations crumbled due to climate change.

In a speech about climate change from April 4th of this year, UN General Secretary António Guterres lambasted “the empty pledges that put us on track to an unlivable world” and warned that “we are on a fast track to climate disaster” (1). Although stark, Guterres’ statements were not novel. Guterres has made similar remarks on previous occasions, as have other public figures, including Sir David Attenborough, who warned in 2018 that inaction on climate change could lead to “the collapse of our civilizations” (2). In their article, “World Scientists’ Warning of a Climate Emergency 2021”—which now has more than 14,700 signatories from 158 countries—William J. Ripple and colleagues state that climate change could “cause significant disruptions to ecosystems, society, and economies, potentially making large areas of Earth uninhabitable”

Scientists disagree on the timeline of collapse and whether it's imminent. But can we afford to be wrong? And what comes after?

Flash drought, characterized by unusually rapid drying, can have substantial impact on many socioeconomic sectors, particularly agriculture. However, potential changes to flash drought risk in a warming climate remain unknown. In this study, projected changes in flash drought frequency and cropland risk from flash drought are quantified using global climate model simulations. We find that flash drought occurrence is expected to increase globally among all scenarios, with the sharpest increases seen in scenarios with higher radiative forcing and greater fossil fuel usage. Flash drought risk over cropland is expected to increase globally, with the largest increases projected across North America (change in annual risk from 32% in 2015 to 49% in 2100) and Europe (32% to 53%) in the most extreme emissions scenario. Following low-end and medium scenarios compared to high-end scenarios indicates a notable reduction in annual flash drought risk over cropland. Flash droughts are projected to become more frequent unde

Greer’s assumption of slow collapse is built on shaky ground because industrial civilization differs from all past civilizations in four crucial ways. 

Examination of trees alive at the time shows three years of severe drought that may have caused crop failures and famine

Studying the demise of historic civilisations can tell us about the risk we face today, says collapse expert Luke Kemp. Worryingly, the signs are worsening.

Behind the headlines about billionaire jaunts into space, there's a deeper motivation – the belief that spreading into the cosmos will save humanity's future. How did this idea emerge?

Deforestation coupled with the rampant destruction of natural resources will soon have devastating effects on the future of society as we know it, according to two theoretical physicists who study complex systems and have concluded that greed has put us on a path to irreversible collapse within the next two to four decades.

France’s troubled nuclear fleet a bigger problem for Europe than Russia gas Giles Parkinson 5 August 2022 44 frederic-paulussen-LWnD8U2OReU-unsplash - optimised nuclear 669 Shares Share 669 Tweet Before Peter Dutton’s Coalition charge off into yet another inquiry into the merits of nuclear power, they might want to take a closer look at what’s happening in Europe, where the failure of France’s huge nuclear power plant fleet is causing bigger problems for EU power supplies than Russia’s withheld gas supply. France has been delivering just a fraction of its energy production potential in recent months, and overnight the situation got worse when French power producer EDF announced another three power plants would curtail output because of rising temperatures. Rivers have become too hot in the latest heatwave to be used to cool the reactors. The majority of France’s 56 nuclear reactors are currently throttled down or taken offline due to a combination of scheduled maintenance, erosion damage (worryingly, mostly a

Protesters from Just Stop Oil may be breaking the law and yet still be morally right in the face of future disaster

The U.N. nuclear chief warned that Europe’s largest nuclear power plant in Ukraine “is completely out of control” and issued an urgent plea to Russia and Ukraine to quickly allow experts to visit the sprawling complex to stabilize the situation and avoid a nuclear accident. Rafael Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said in an interview Tuesday with The Associated Press that the situation is getting more perilous every day at the Zaporizhzhia plant in the southeastern city of Enerhodar, which Russian troops seized in early March, soon after their Feb. 24. invasion of Ukraine. “Every principle of nuclear safety has been violated” at the plant, he said. “What is at stake is extremely serious and extremely grave and dangerous.”

Mainstream energy analysts then and now assume that technology will continue to overcome resource limits in the immediate future, which is all that really seems to matter. Much of what is left of the peak oil discussion focuses on “peak demand”—i.e., the question of when electric cars will become so plentiful that we’ll no longer need so much gasoline. Nevertheless, those who’ve engaged with the oil depletion literature have tended to come away with a few useful insights....