Brian Kahn, Author at Gizmodo

Big Oil <3 Police

Our modern world is full of unholy alliances. Evangelicals and President Donald Trump, Sprint and T-Mobile, pickles and trash beer (actually, that last one sounds awesome). But there are few relationships as toxic as one uncovered in a new report from accountability watchdog LittleSis. Researchers dug into how the fossil fuel industry is tied with…

Earther Brian Kahn

Gif: University of Maine Climate Change Institute

It’s Not Just Siberia as Record Heat Spreads Across the Arctic

Siberia has been hot and on fire. Perhaps you’ve heard? The relentless heat that’s buffeted the region has decided to expand to other parts of the Arctic, from Norway to Canada, with high-temperature records breaking over the weekend. A nearly all-encompassing heat wave has spread across the highest reaches of the globe. Weekend temperatures reached…

Earther Brian Kahn

25 Years After Returning, Yellowstone’s Wolves Are the Most Studied but Misunderstood Good Boys

Twenty-five years ago, wildlife managers in Yellowstone National Park undertook one of the most consequential actions in modern American conservation when they unleashed 14 wolves into the park. The program to reintroduce wolves to Yellowstone in 1995 has since seen wolf packs fan out across one of the largest intact ecosystems in the Lower 48.…

Earther Brian Kahn

Two Tropical Cyclones Could Make Landfall in the US This Weekend

Just when it feels like 2020 can’t 2020 any harder, things somehow get worse. The latest example of this year of no chill is the prospect of two tropical cyclones making landfall in the U.S. at once this weekend, albeit 3,700 miles apart. The National Hurricane Center has its hands full right now with a…

Earther Brian Kahn

Scientists Just Updated One of the Most Important Climate Metrics, and It’s Bad

We know the planet is getting hot. Just how hot it will get is one of the biggest questions of the 21st century, tying up the fate of humanity and the biosphere in one neat hand basket to hell. A 166-page study out today aims to help improve our understanding of how hot it will…

Earther Brian Kahn

Fossil Fuel Companies Are Beginning to Fall Behind on Their Loans

The oilpocalypse continues. The industry has been in a tailspin since the coronavirus lockdowns drove demand into the ground. Fossil fuel companies have scrambled to figure out what to do, and it seems the latest tactic is not paying loans. On Tuesday, Wells Fargo posted a quarterly loss for the first time since 2008, which…

Earther Brian Kahn

The Gap in Joe Biden’s $2 Trillion Climate Plan Reveals the Biggest Fight to Come

On Tuesday, Democratic presidential challenger Joe Biden released a major update to his climate plan. It has a big splashy number—$2 trillion over four years—and some solid policies. It shows, definitively, that progressives are winning by both putting forward popular policies to address the climate crisis and cranking up the pressure on the Biden campaign…

Earther Brian Kahn

Death Valley Recorded the Hottest Temperature on Earth This Year

For the hottest place in the U.S. to make news, it has to be pretty damn hot. And folks, it’s pretty damn hot. The Summers in Death Valley aren’t for the faint of heart, but things are downright ridiculous right now. The official weather station at Furnace Creek, California registered a high of 128 degrees…

Earther Brian Kahn

Atlantic Hurricane Season Keeps Setting Records

Tropical Storm Fay formed on Thursday. It’s the sixth storm of the season and breaks yet another record in a season also teeming with them. Oh, and it’s also going to make for a really garbage weekend from the Mid-Atlantic to the Northeast. The National Hurricane Center declared Fay a storm late on Thursday afternoon…

Earther Brian Kahn

Trump’s Racist Coronavirus Response Foreshadows the Injustice to Come

Back in May, I wrote that the that the worst case response to the coronavirus was accepting the mounting death toll as the only path forward, and that it mirrored the worst possible approach to the climate crisis. I was wrong. There’s something much, much worse, and we are living through it now. To be…

Climate Change Brian Kahn

Democrats’ Big Climate Plan Includes Studying the Risky Idea of Blocking Out the Sun

This week, Democrats on the House Select Committee for the Climate Crisis put out their big ol’ climate plan. There’s plenty in the report to show Democrats’ priorities on climate should they retake the White House and Senate this fall, including how they would approach a controversial topic. Hidden in the depths of the 500-plus…

Earther Brian Kahn

Siberian Fires Have Released a Record Amount of Carbon This Year

The wildfire crisis in Siberia continues unabated. This year’s blazes have smashed records, including the northernmost fires on record and the highest total of Siberian carbon emissions. If you want to know what a climate emergency looks like, this is it. Fire season in Siberia started with a bang in April and hasn’t quit since,…

Earther Brian Kahn

Shell Is the Latest Oil Company to Do a Belly Flop

We’re halfway through 2020, and I think we can all safely say it’s been a pretty terrible year. There’s been so much terrible stuff in the past two months alone, I can’t even remember the bad stuff that happened in January. But I’m sure it sucked. So I’ll take minor bits of good news where…

Earther Brian Kahn

The Future Earth Challenges Us to Break Our Cycle of Doom

In an era of the climate crisis, it’s easy to imagine things getting worse because that’s all we know. Greenhouse gas emissions have risen steeply since the Industrial Revolution; 40 percent of all carbon pollution in the atmosphere has been chucked up there in the past two decades alone. Chaos has followed, from rising seas…

Earther Brian Kahn

18 Names for Amazon’s ‘Climate Pledge Arena’ That Would’ve Made More Sense

So we’re really doing this, huh? Seattle is getting a hockey team, which is great (now bring back the Sonics, you monsters). While the team doesn’t have a name yet, the arena they’ll be playing in next season does. Because Seattle is a company town, Amazon of course bought the naming rights. And it decided…

Climate Change Brian Kahn

The Danger of Amazon’s $2 Billion Climate Fund

On Tuesday, Amazon rolled out a shiny new addition to its flawed climate plan: a $2 billion venture investment fund for low- and no-carbon technology. It is instantly one of, if not the, biggest climate venture funds out there. But it also shows a fatal flaw that runs through Amazon’s—and capital in general’s—thinking about climate.…

Earther Brian Kahn

Big Oil Is Scared Shitless

Big Oil has spent decades perfecting the art of lying and pursuing a strategy to divide the public so it can continue its polluting ways. It’s been a successful model that has run into a brick wall that is the new climate movement. An increasingly diverse, young, and angry coalition is done with the bullshit.…

Environmental Justice Brian Kahn

The Mystery of Antarctica’s Record Drop in Sea Ice Has Been Solved

Ice in the polar regions has been under assault from rising ocean and water temperatures. While human-driven climate change is driving widespread weirdness, natural patterns can also lead to chaos. A prime of example of said chaos was the freakishly low sea ice extent in Antarctica in 2016 and 2017. Ice extent crashed hard everywhere,…

Earther Brian Kahn

Satellite Images Show the Arctic’s Fiery Unraveling

Even by the Arctic’s increasing erratic standards, it’s been a weird spring and summer in Siberia. The region of the world that’s considered a bastion of frigid temperatures and frozen landscapes is buckling under the intense pressure of the climate crisis. Through the first five months of the year, Siberia has been a bright red…

Earther Brian Kahn

The Economic Theory That Could Fuel a Climate Change Revolution

Addressing climate change will require massive investments in everything from shoring up dams that aren’t ready for future rainstorms to wind farms and workers. It’s a huge shift that will require reorienting the economy and the way the world works. It’s a reflexive response to ask how the world could ever come up with the…

Climate Change Brian Kahn

Brian Kahn

Big Oil <3 Police

It’s Not Just Siberia as Record Heat Spreads Across the Arctic

25 Years After Returning, Yellowstone’s Wolves Are the Most Studied but Misunderstood Good Boys

Two Tropical Cyclones Could Make Landfall in the US This Weekend

Scientists Just Updated One of the Most Important Climate Metrics, and It’s Bad

Fossil Fuel Companies Are Beginning to Fall Behind on Their Loans

The Gap in Joe Biden’s $2 Trillion Climate Plan Reveals the Biggest Fight to Come

Death Valley Recorded the Hottest Temperature on Earth This Year

Atlantic Hurricane Season Keeps Setting Records

Trump’s Racist Coronavirus Response Foreshadows the Injustice to Come

Democrats’ Big Climate Plan Includes Studying the Risky Idea of Blocking Out the Sun

Siberian Fires Have Released a Record Amount of Carbon This Year

Shell Is the Latest Oil Company to Do a Belly Flop

The Future Earth Challenges Us to Break Our Cycle of Doom

18 Names for Amazon’s ‘Climate Pledge Arena’ That Would’ve Made More Sense

The Danger of Amazon’s $2 Billion Climate Fund

Big Oil Is Scared Shitless

The Mystery of Antarctica’s Record Drop in Sea Ice Has Been Solved

Satellite Images Show the Arctic’s Fiery Unraveling

The Economic Theory That Could Fuel a Climate Change Revolution

Apple Removes iPhone Vibe Coding App from App Store

China’s Biggest Social Media Celebrity Is… Kris Jenner?

Up to $1,550 Off on pCloud: Pay Once, Protect Data Forever for World Backup Day

National Film and Sound Archive of Australia Adds ‘Succulent Chinese Meal’ Guy

Feds Sniffing Around Polymarket After Suspicious Bets

DJI Osmo 360 Review: The Best 360 Camera for the DJI-Pilled

Don’t Get Too Attached to Any AI App

‘Paradise’ Writer Teases What’s Coming in Season 3 After That Huge Twist

Trump’s New White House App Is Mildly Concerning and Weird for a Lot of Reasons

Bloodsucking Ticks Can Survive Inside Your Home Longer Than You Might Think

Aqara Smart Lock U400 Review: Hands-free Unlocking at Its Best

MSI Prestige 14 Flip AI+ Review: A Solid 2-in-1 Laptop With Some Glaring Flaws

Sonos Play Review: Call It a Comeback

Sonos Era 100 SL Review: The Cheapest Way Into Wired Sonos Sound

Asus ROG’s Massive Swift OLED Gaming Monitor Epitomizes Excess in the Best Way

The Ikea Varmblixt Smart Lamp Fills a Donut Hole in My Life

Nothing Headphone A vs. Headphone 1: Which Pair of ANC Wireless Headphones Wins?

Asus ROG’s Cetra Open Wireless Gaming Earbuds Might Be Better Than Wearing a Headset

Nintendo’s Talking Flower Is Annoying as Hell. I Love It

Level Lock Pro Review: As Good as a Secret Smart Lock Gets