Energy, Climate, New Economic Thinking​

News

This Land Is the Only Land – There Is Here are seven ways of understanding the IPCC’s newest climate warning.

For everyone who lives on land, the planet’s dangerously warmed future is already here. Earth’s land has already warmed more than 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.6 degrees Fahrenheit) since the industrial revolution, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. That’s the same amount of warming that climate activists are hoping to prevent on a global scale. The Atlantic

electricityMap Live

Computing the origin of electricity and its associated carbon emissions. electricityMap

How Much Hotter Is Your Hometown Than When You Were Born?

As the world warms because of human-induced climate change, most of us can expect to see more days when temperatures hit 32 degrees Celsius (90 degrees Fahrenheit) or higher. See how your hometown has changed so far and how much hotter it may get. New York Times

U.S. Sanctions Turn Iran’s Oil Industry Into Spy vs. Spy

Since President Trump imposed sanctions on Iranian oil sales last year, information on those sales has become a prized geopolitical weapon — coveted by Western intelligence agencies and top secret for Iran. And the business of selling Iranian oil, once a safe and lucrative enterprise for the well connected, has been transformed into a high-stakes global game of espionage and counterespionage. New York Times

The future of insurance is happening without insurance firms

The industry’s plodding giants face mounting threats from restless reinsurers and Big Tech. Since the 1980s average annual losses from natural disasters have more than sextupled in real terms. Other risks are variations on old themes, such as pandemics or the fallout from increasing protectionism. And new ones have emerged. Ageing populations push up health-care costs. Cyber-attacks can shut power plants, paralyse firms and siphon fortunes from banks’ coffers. The Economicst

Tuition-Free College Could Cost Less Than You Think

Paying for college seems out of reach for many Americans, so the idea of free college has broad appeal. Several Democratic presidential candidates and members of Congress have endorsed it. New York Times

Everyone Claims They’re Worried About Global Finance. But Only One Side Has a Plan.

Senator Josh Hawley, Republican of Missouri, said at the recent National Conservatism Conference, what he called the “the cosmopolitan economy” has encouraged multinational corporations to move jobs and profits overseas and then “rewarded these same corporations” for “investing their profits not in American workers, not in American development, but in financial instruments that benefit the cosmopolitan elite.” New York Times

Fewer Inspections for Aging Nuclear Plants, Regulators Propose

A new report by staff members of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which oversees the safety of the nation’s 59 aging nuclear power plants, recommends that the commissioners significantly weaken or reduce safety inspections of the plants. New York Times