Author: caaver

Reversing the climate crisis cannot be done by one country, one economic sector, one industry, one culture, or one demographic. There is not going to be a magic technology that will fix it. We cannot wait to see if experts, governments, or corporations figure out how to end the crisis, because they can’t by themselves. The crisis, if it could speak, would tell us all that we have forgotten that we truly are a “we,” and nothing less than our joint effort is sufficient to reverse decades and centuries of exploiting people and the earth. Climate change and poverty have the same roots. —Paul Hawken

Our Climate Crisis

Countries racing to replace Russian oil, gas and coal with their own dirty energy are making matters worse, warns United Nations secretary general António Guterres. Continuing to rely on fossil fuels instead of pivoting to clean energy is “sleepwalking to climate catastrophe.” While we are making progress in bending the curve in emissions, they are still set to increase by 14% in the next decade. The most recent report by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change claims that it’s still possible to avoid the most catastrophic consequences of climate change if societies take immediate, drastic action. This includes slashing annual greenhouse gas emissions by almost half in the next eight years and finding a way to zero out carbon pollution by the middle of the century.

Embedded in all future calculations on climate change is the assumption that global economic activity will increase steadily throughout this century. The Covid pandemic has, however, demonstrated that a future health pandemic could dramatically curtail economic activity. Furthermore, the frightening possible escalation of the war in Ukraine (which could even go nuclear) makes global economic collapse no longer seem inconceivable. In the most extreme scenario, nuclear war could even cause extensive global cooling and create a nuclear winter.

Unusually high temperatures have recently been recorded in both Antarctica and the Arctic. The Arctic, as a whole, was 3.3°C warmer than average, while the Antarctic, as a whole, was 4.8°C warmer than average. These temperature spikes have shocked researchers, who warn that such extremes will become more common as a result of the climate crisis. In a related occurrence, a 450-square-mile ice shelf recently collapsed in the eastern part of Antarctica. This is the first observed collapse of an ice shelf in that region of the continent since satellites began observing Antarctica nearly half a century ago.

Using an “OK doomer” riff on “OK boomer,” some young climate activists are focusing on climate solutions in response to the all too common doomsday focus on how bad things are. While they do not want to minimize the climate crisis, they believe that “focusing solely on terrible climate news can sow dread and paralysis, foster inaction, and become a self-fulfilling prophecy.” Using social media, they seek to change the narrative by highlighting positive climate news as well as offer ways that people can personally become engaged in fighting the climate crisis.

Politics and Policy

Dominion Energy has received regulatory approval in Virginia for a series of solar projects expected to generate enough electricity to power 250,000 homes. This is the second batch of annual projects submitted under the 2020 Virginia Clean Economy Act, which calls for 16,100 megawatts in solar or wind energy projects to be in place or under way by 2035. Accordingly, projects of a similar scale will be submitted by Dominion every year over the next 15 years.

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), Chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, recently laid out some energy policies he supports, including a tax credit for clean energy manufacturing, replacing fossil fuel generation with advanced nuclear power, developing hydrogen energy, and the development of carbon capture technology. It is reported that he is willing to negotiate on a slimmed down clean energy bill in the coming months. Because of his pivotal role in an evenly divided senate, the climate lobby and other senators are being very circumspect in criticizing him in hopes that he will support at least part of their clean energy agenda.

Now weatherization, a decades-old program, has become central to the Biden administration’s plans to cut Americans’ power bills and lower fossil fuel emissions. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm announced roughly $3.2 billion of the $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill will be used  to retrofit hundreds of thousands of homes in low-income communities. Emphasizing the potential cost savings, she noted that the program has lowered some families’ power bills by as much as 30 percent.

Energy

Data from 75 countries, which represent 93% of the global power demand, shows that clean energy—including wind, solar, hydropower, nuclear, and biofuels—accounted for a total of 38% of the world’s electricity generated in 2021. The share wind and solar has more than doubled to 10.3% from 4.6% when the Paris Climate Agreement was signed in 2015. A big part of this growth stems from advancements in technology which has cut the price of solar electricity by 89%, and the price of onshore wind by 70%.

Tony Smith, CEO of Virginia solar energy company Secure Futures, says that the best way to unhook from oil and gas wars is by rapidly transitioning to solar energy. Their company introduced the first solar Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) in Virginia, with a 104-kW rooftop solar array at Eastern Mennonite University in 2010. Today there are 700 times as many kWs of solar energy produced under solar PPAs in Virginia. Even so, natural gas still accounts for 61 percent of the electricity generation in our state. We should rapidly transition to solar, which is much cleaner, cheaper, and not tied to the volatility of global fossil fuel markets.

Efforts to electrify commercial vehicles have lagged behind EV passenger cars. That is now rapidly beginning to change. Carriers such as UPS, Amazon, and FedEx are investing billions to build out EV delivery fleets. At the same time, the US Postal Service ordered as many as 148,000 gas guzzling mail delivery trucks despite opposition from top environmental regulators and directives from the Biden administration to green the federal fleet.

Decarbonizing heavy industry such as steel manufacturing and transportation will depend on alternative fuels such as green hydrogen, which still remain prohibitively expensive. Australian researchers now claim they have made a giant technological leap in producing affordable green hydrogen. Denmark has also made a big investment in green hydrogen, including subsidies to make it commercially viable. Given the war in Ukraine, they see this as an important step in achieving independence from fossil fuels.

The United Kingdom, as an island nation, is making big investments in clean tidal energy, which is on track to be cheaper than both nuclear power and fossil fuels. While the country presently produces only 3% of its energy this way, the goal is to increase that to 10%. To help reach this goal, a North Wales firm recently secured £31m ($40.75m) in government funding to develop a tidal energy project in the Irish Sea.

Climate Justice

Internationally recognized environmental lawyer and climate negotiator, Farhana Yamin was a key architect of the Paris climate agreement who helped to secure the goal of net-zero emissions by midcentury. When Donald Trump then pulled the US out of the Paris agreement and other countries continually delayed strong action on climate, she decided “we cannot rely on lawyers and diplomats alone.” She came to see that the climate movement is fragile because it mostly relies on insider tactics and not on movement building. She, therefore, became involved with social mobilization and nonviolent action to advance the cause. More recently she has begun social organizing with frontline communities of color in Britain and is helping to mobilize more broadly with a focus on climate justice.

Climate Action

Climate change is spurring a movement to build more resilient homes. FEMA told Becky Nixon that she would receive another mobile home after her triple-wide trailer on the Florida panhandle was destroyed by hurricane Michael in 2018. She, instead, had a brand new two-bedroom home built for her in a joint effort of the Federal Alliance for Safe Homes (FLASH), Samaritan’s Purse, and donated materials. The home was built to considerably more than standard requirements for energy efficiency and hurricane ratings following guidelines advocated by the Resilient Design Institute.

Charlottesville, VA is on track to reduce carbon emissions by 45% by 2030. Overall, emissions are down 30% from 2011 even though energy use is up. Much of this progress is because of the availability of cleaner electricity. Heating and the cooling of homes consumes the largest amounts of energy in the city. Susan Kruse, the executive director of the Community Climate Collaborative, says this makes residential energy efficiency programs especially important. There has, however, been a virtually non-existent drop in emissions from vehicles. This makes weaning vehicles off of fossil fuels vital, as is getting people to use buses and public transport. Moving to a fleet of electric city buses will have an even greater impact.

The food system produces about one-third of our greenhouse emissions. This calls for making dramatic cuts to reach our goal of cutting emissions to zero by 2050 to limit global warming to 1.5°C. Furthermore, we will need to feed a population expected to approach 10 billion by 2050, meaning we’ll need to make those drastic cuts while increasing food production by more than 50 percent. This calls for huge structural changes in how we grow, process, package, and distribute food. On a personal level, changing our eating behaviors is perhaps the most impactful change we can make. Some suggested practices are:  

• Move to a mostly plant-based diet.
• Buy locally grown food.
• Eat everything you buy.
• Eat healthy amounts.

This shift will not only help combat climate change. Other environmental harms driven by the food industry include loss of biodiversity, vital forest ecosystems being destroyed for grazing and farming purposes, fertilizer runoff creating dead zones in the ocean, and the massive extinction and loss of insects due to pesticides.

Earl Zimmerman
CAAV Steering Committee

In a sense, our climate radar has been pointing in the wrong direction—at coal, cars, and carbon. Of course, these are crucial causes, and they are being addressed brilliantly by many. However, the radar needs to point the other way too, to the true cause, which is what we believe and how we treat one another.—Paul Hawken

Our Climate Crisis

The big climate news this month has been the release of the U.N. Climate Report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The picture it paints is not encouraging. Written by 270 researchers from 67 countries, the report warns that any further delay in global action to slow climate change and adapt to its impacts “will miss a brief and rapidly closing window of opportunity to secure a liveable and sustainable future for all.”

Climate reporter Raymond Zhong contrasts this with the previous IPCC report in 2014, which said that global warming was having a “relatively small” effect on human health compared with other stressors. It also said that there was “limited evidence” that nations needed more money to cope with its dangers. The new report tells a dramatically different story.

It finds that “climate change is not only adding to ecological threats such as wildfires, heat waves and rising sea levels, it is also displacing people from their homes and jeopardizing food and water supplies. It is harming people’s physical and mental health, with increasing incidence of food and waterborne illness, respiratory distress from wildfire smoke and trauma from natural disasters.” Furthermore, finding necessary funding for dealing with all this has widened significantly.

The report is “an atlas on human suffering and a damning indictment of failed climate leadership,” according to António Guterres, the United Nations secretary general. “With fact upon fact, this report reveals how people and the planet are getting clobbered by climate change.” Some takeaways can serve as a roadmap of what needs to be done to mitigate the worst effects of global warming:

·       The widespread adverse impacts of global warming have disproportionately affected the most vulnerable humans and ecosystems, pushing them beyond their ability to adapt.

·       Approximately 3.3 to 3.6 billion people live in highly vulnerable regions.

·       If global warming reaches 1.5°C (it is presently at 1.1°C) it will cause multiple risks to ecosystems and humans. Actions that will limit warming to 1.5°C, however, would substantially reduce those damages compared to even higher degrees of warming,

·       Near term actions to mitigate global warming will significantly reduce losses and damages accrued by 2040 and beyond.

·       Climate change impacts and risks are becoming increasingly complex and more difficult to manage.

·       If global warming exceeds 1.5°C in the coming decades, many human and environmental systems will face additional severe risks, some of which will be irreversible even of global warming is later reduced.

Politics and Policy

Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., is pressuring FERC (Federal Energy Regulatory Commission) to reverse the 4^th Circuit Court decision blocking the completion of the Mountain Valley Pipeline. He says that the 4th Circuit has been unmerciful on allowing any progress and that the case can be moved to the D.C. Circuit Court. He argues, “Energy independence is our greatest geopolitical and economic tool and we cannot lose sight of that as instability rises around the globe.”

In response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Sen. Manchin wants to use natural gas from West Virginia to achieve U. S. energy independence and to help European countries. He is now calling on President Biden to invoke the Defense Production Act if necessary to complete the Mountain Valley Pipeline following the ban on oil imports from Russia.

The Environmental Protection Agency is proposing strict new limits on pollution from buses, delivery vans, tractor-trailers and other heavy trucks. It would require heavy-duty trucks to reduce emissions of nitrogen dioxide—which is linked to lung cancer, heart disease and premature death—by 90 percent by 2031. It would also slightly tighten truck emissions of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that is driving climate change.

Energy

Dominion Energy is building a $500 million ship to build wind turbines up and down the Atlantic Coast, beginning in 2023. Depending on the approval of state-regulators, it will also be used to build Dominion Energy’s own 2,640-megawatt wind turbine farm off the coast of Virginia. Scheduled to go online in 2026, it will power the equivalent of 660,000 homes.

Six energy companies bid a total of $4.27 billion in an auction for leases to develop offshore wind in federal waters off the coast of New York and New Jersey. This is huge! To help put it in perspective, it is 10 times more than what was paid for any previous off-shore wind lease. It is also much more than the record for winning bids of $191.7 million for oil and gas leases in the Gulf of Mexico in 2021. A federal judge revoked those Gulf of Mexico oil and gas leases because the federal government had not adequately factored in the impact they would have on climate change.

Climate Justice

Liz Carlisle, an assistant professor in the Environmental Studies Program at UC Santa Barbara, where she teaches courses on food and farming, has recently written the book Healing Grounds: Climate, Justice and the Deep Roots of Regenerative Farming. She writes that young farmers and scientists of color are “reviving ancestral regenerative farming traditions in a self-conscious effort to respond to climate change and racial injustice in tandem.” They understand “regenerative agriculture not as a menu of discrete, isolated practices from which one can pick and choose and then tally up into a sustainability score. Rather, they see regenerative agriculture as their ancestors had—as a way of life.”

The practice of redlining, where loan banks and loan agencies deemed minority urban neighborhoods too risky to invest in, still has adverse environmental effects even though it was banned 50 years ago. The practice made it difficult for people of color to get home mortgages. Furthermore, local zoning officials worked with businesses to place polluting operations such as industrial plants, major roadways. and shipping ports in  or near these neighborhoods. A recent study finds that, as a result, 45 million people in these neighborhoods are still breathing dirtier air and face other environmental challenges, including excessive urban heat, sparse tree canopy and few green spaces.

Climate Action

Cheap, fast, and disposable fashions are accelerating the greenhouse emissions of the clothing and textiles industry, which accounts for more greenhouse gas emissions than international aviation and shipping combined. Lower prices means poorer quality clothes that don’t last as long. Those lower prices have also “resulted from unseen human and environmental costs such as pollution of rivers, poor working conditions, low wages and exploitation of workers in factories.” We can do our part to mitigate this trend by buying second hand, repairing or adjusting existing clothes, and restricting our purchases to fewer items that are durable and will last.

Cities that are serious about meeting their carbon reduction goals will want to make their streets more pedestrian and bicycle friendly. Melinda Hanson, co-founder of micromobility firm Electric Avenue, says that “upward of 50% of all car trips in the U.S. are relatively short and are taken by a single person.” Examples from all across the world demonstrate that building pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure is not that expensive, and it works.

London has taken a more aggressive approach to reducing carbon emissions within its city limits. Beginning next year, anyone who wants to drive a more-polluting older vehicle manufactured before 2014 will have to pay a 12.50 pound ($16.70) daily charge to do it.

Earl Zimmerman
CAAV Steering Committee

“The climate crisis is not a science problem. It is a human problem. The ultimate power to change the world does not reside in technologies. It relies on reverence, respect, and compassion—for ourselves, for all people, and for all life,” Paul Hawken, Regeneration: Ending the Climate Crisis in One Generation.

Our Climate Crisis

As we write our monthly Climate and Energy News Roundup, Joy Loving and I find that it can be challenging to know how to honestly acknowledge the severity of our climate crisis, get into the nitty-gritty of politics, and advocate for climate action in ways that encourage resilience and offer hope. This tension is also evident in the words of Paul Hawken and Jane Goodall below.

In his book Regeneration, Paul Hawken states, “We live on a dying planet—a phrase that sounded inflated or over the top not long ago. . . The Earth will come back to life no matter what. Nations, peoples, and cultures may not.” In her forward to the book, Jane Goodall strikes a more encouraging note, “I have three reasons for hope: the energy and commitment of youth: the resilience of nature . . . and the way animal and plant species can be rescued from extinction; and the human intellect, which is focusing on how we can live in greater harmony with nature.”

While I want to recognize and celebrate progress and our human creativity, I don’t want to downplay the severity of the crisis we humans have created. For example, a recent scientific study published in the journal Nature Climate Change shows that the present megadrought, exacerbated by climate change, in the Western U.S. and northern Mexico is the region’s driest period in at least 1,200 years. During that last comparable extended megadrought the region was still largely inhabited by scattered Native American tribes. Today it is home to more than 10 million people. This rapidly growing population has been relying on the amount of water that was available a century ago. Park Williams, the lead scientist of the study says that this megadrought in the southwest is forcing us to “pull out all the stops” and plan for less water.

When psychologist Thomas Doherty and his colleague, Susan Clayton, published a paper a decade ago proposing that climate change would have a powerful psychological impact, it was met with lots of skepticism. Eco-anxiety is now becoming widely recognized, affecting not only those bearing the brutal brunt of climate change but also people following it through news and research. Professional certification programs in climate psychology have begun to appear and the recently formed Climate Psychology Alliance is providing an online directory of climate-aware therapists.

Politics and Policy

In a win for environmentalists, Democrats in the Virginia Senate recently voted along party lines 21-19 to reject Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s nomination of Andrew Wheeler as Secretary of Natural and Historic Resources. Wheeler, a former coal lobbyist, had served as the Environmental Protection Agency administrator under President Donald Trump, where he systematically worked to deconstruct environmental regulations.

Even though the Build Back Better bill hit a wall in the U.S. Senate, it now appears that a stand-alone climate bill  has the possibility of moving forward with the crucial support of Senator Joe Manchin from West Virginia. President Biden indicated that he has been talking to colleagues on the Hill and recently told reporters, “I think it’s clear that we would be able to get support for the $500 billion plus for energy and the environment.” Several Republicans also indicated support for portions of a climate bill, but none were willing to go on record as supporting the climate provisions that had been in the Build Back Better bill.

Top U.S. corporations like Google and Amazon have made pledges to combat climate change and to get to net-zero emissions by 2050. The question is if they are serious about this or if these public pledges are another example of corporate green-washing. The report Corporate Climate Responsibility Monitor indicates that they are the latter. They are exaggerating their goals and their efforts lack transparency.

The historically high $770 billion military spending bill—$24 billion more than the president had requested—sailed through congress with broad bipartisan support. Yet, there is almost nothing in this mammoth bill that addresses climate change and its related disasters, which is the greatest threat to our national safety and well-being.

At the same time, the U.S. Army recently released its first ever climate strategy, an effort to brace the service for a world beset by global-warming-driven conflicts. “The plan aims to slash the Army’s emissions in half by 2030; electrify all noncombat vehicles by 2035 and develop electric combat vehicles by 2050; and train a generation of officers on how to prepare for a hotter, more chaotic world.” If implemented, this could be huge! The Defense Department accounts for 56 percent of the federal government’s carbon footprint and 52 percent of its electricity use.

Energy

It is projected that by this summer Harrisonburg residents will have the option to buy solar powered electricity from the Harrisonburg Electric Commission (HEC) for a few extra pennies per kilowatt-hour. ( A valid critique is why solar-powered electricity should cost more when it actually costs less to generate.) This will make HEC the first municipal utility in the state to offer a community solar option to customers. The solar-powered electricity will flow from a 1.4-megawatt array being developed by Dominion Energy on a 10-acre plot on Acorn Dr. that the city purchased for $550,000.

As wind and solar power have become dramatically cheaper, and their share of electricity generation grows, skeptics are propagating the myth that renewable energy will make the electricity supply undependable. While the variable output of wind and solar power is a challenge, it is neither new nor especially hard to manage. No electricity supply is constant.

Most discussions on managing variability focuses on giant batteries and other expensive storage technologies. There are less costly options such as increasing energy efficiency in buildings and managing demand flexibility around peak-use hours. The bottom line is that electrical grids can deal with a much larger percentage of renewable energy at zero or modest cost, and this has been known for some time.  

The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals recently struck down two government permits that are needed for the Mountain Valley Pipeline to pass through the Jefferson National Forest. The company vows to push through with the completion of the pipeline, which it says is 94% completed. Complying with changes necessary to get the permits will, however, most likely push back the completion date that had been projected for this summer to sometime in 2024.

House Bill 1257, prohibiting local governments from banning natural gas, is wending its way through the Virginia House of Representatives. No Virginia municipalities have been moving aggressively in that direction, but the Richmond City Council recently passed a climate resolution that committed them “to working with the city’s administration on an equitable plan to phase out reliance on gas and shift to accelerated investment in city-owned renewable energy.” The Virginia Oil and Gas Association has been urging the legislature to preempt local governments from placing restrictions on the use of natural gas.

Climate Action

Native American environmental activists were able to draw on the Virginia Environmental Justice Act passed in 2020 to advocate before the Virginia Air Pollution board against the proposed Lambert Compressor Station that the Mountain Valley Pipeline wanted to install in their community in Chatham, Va. As reported in The Nation, “In an astonishing precedent, the Air Pollution board agreed—by a margin of six to one. This has never happened before in Virginia, where regulatory boards always vote in favor of industry.”

The American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy reports that 2021 was a landmark year for energy efficiency legislation. At least a dozen states passed new clean energy legislation or adopted new energy-saving standards such as fuel switching and electrification, encouraging clean heating systems, strengthening building codes, and the creation of transit-oriented affordable housing projects. Now comes the hard part—implementing this legislation.

Mark and Ben Cullen, in their recent article in the Toronto Star, give some handy tips on fighting climate change in your own garden. These same practices can also be used on a larger scale by farmers and ranchers.

• Minimum tillage or “no-till” supports microscopic bacteria and mycorrhizal fungi in the soil. Tilling tears apart these beneficial structures allowing nutrients such as carbon to escape into the atmosphere.
• Cover-cropping and inter-cropping are climate-friendly tactics that prevent soil erosion and improve the fertility of your soil.
• Avoid synthetic fertilizers, which are a massive contributor to climate change. The production of synthetic fertilizers uses a tremendous amount of energy, including natural gas.
• Plant perennials such as berries and tree fruits. Perennial plants develop deeper root systems which enhance soil health, and they are more effective in attracting pollinators.
• Compost. Compost uses food waste from your kitchen as well as plant waste from your yard and garden. Composting greatly diminishes the greenhouse gas emissions from plant waste that would otherwise be bound for a landfill. Furthermore, finished compost will greatly enrich the soil in your yard and garden.

Mark and Ben Cullen say that “climate change can make us feel overwhelmed — and maybe helpless. But taking direct action in your own garden is one way to make a positive contribution to this major issue of our time, while enjoying the vast benefits of gardening.” I can personally attest to the psychological benefits of working in my garden when I feel overwhelmed by the severity of our climate crisis.

Earl Zimmerman
CAAV Steering Committee

This edition continues the format similar to that for the 2^nd December roundup. The emphasis will again be on articles and perspectives from sources and voices that will hopefully uplift us as we continue our journey into 2022. Alas, there’s no avoiding some reporting and opinions that are more sobering, but I limited their numbers and put them right after the action alerts, so you can easily skip them! As always, the diversity of subjects is amazing. Once you get past the not so good news, the rest should bring you some hope and inspiration, some smiles, some ideas, and some entertainment.

Action Alerts!!

• CAAV would like to hear from you. We’re looking for effective ways to distribute information to our community. Give us your preferences by filling out this quick questionnaire.
• Tell the Harrisonburg-Rockingham Metropolitan Planning Organization what you would like to see in its 2045 Long-Range Transportation Plan, by completing this brief survey.
• The US Forest Service will accept your comments through February 22 on its plans to allow telecommunications infrastructure to support rural broadband into and through the Jefferson and George Washington National Forests. You can also mail them to Joby Timm, forest supervisor, 5162 Valleypointe Parkway, Roanoke, Va., 24019.

Not So Good News

• New Yorker Magazine for January 17, 2022, ran this “Letter from Siberia” that makes clear, in excruciating detail, why the thawing of permafrost adds significantly to our existing existential threats from greenhouse gas emissions. Did anyone say “millions of years of stored carbon and methane being released into the atmosphere”?
• What if we have to keep on mining, for minerals that current “clean” technology needs? Maybe we’ll be Back to the Future. RMI presented some alternatives and countered “The Myth.” And then there’s the matter with how to recycle the solar panels that use some of these minerals when it’s time to replace them; NC is looking into that.
• NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information issued its “State Climate Summaries 2022.” Here’s Virginia’s outlook.
• A cautionary tale: Transitioning to renewables can go badly if you forget to consult with those who will have to pay for it—or supply it. And not just in the US—how about in New Caledonia? Or Chile?
• What’s a 500-year old tree in the Tongass National Forest worth? $17,500? Really? You can help.
• What did 2021 bring? “More than 40 percent of Americans live in counties hit by climate disasters in 2021.” NOAA said the US had 20 distinct billion dollar disasters. What will 2022 bring? Probably not enough good news. But here’s some: “Solar Power Will Account For Nearly Half Of New U.S. Electric Generating Capacity In 2022.”
• “How Burning Wood Pellets in Europe Is Harming the U.S. South.”
• “An Extraordinary [Antarctic] Iceberg Is Gone, but Not Forgotten…. Scientists will be studying its effects on the ecosystem around the island for some time.”
• When and where is too many trees a problem? In Norway’s Arctic area, where “trees are rapidly taking over the tundra and threatening an ancient way of life that depends on snow and ice.” They’re “turning the Arctic green.” Also, Norway’s “Svalbard Islands … are warming seven times faster than the global average. Aerial pictures from the 1930s are helping researchers understand what that means for the region’s ice.”

Good News

• Maybe the feds aren’t doing much but there’s hope based on these six ambitious 2021 laws and this hopefully realistic headline: “States Set to Lead the Climate Charge in 2022.” Even so, let’s pin some hope on the new climate action “hawk” from NM who just arrived in the House of Representatives.
• New Year’s Eve is over but you can still tell your friends about these “5 clean energy stats.”
• Bringing back the American chestnut—let’s hope.
• Solar and Wind are growing, and the US Energy Information Agency says “Solar power will account for nearly half of new U.S. electric generating capacity in 2022.” These scientists dispel myths about these technologies and the grid. The US has lots of suitable land for solar. And what about abandoned coal mines? A new $500 million joint venture “says it’s cracked the code on how to make community solar projects [in disadvantaged communities] financially successful.”
• Wind-powered cargo ships are coming. And more EVs are coming. “In the Year of the Electric Truck, Some Real Talk from Texas Auto Dealers.”
• The American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy (ACEEE) saw “significant progress” in 2021 but also “more to do.” ACEEE noted separately that “Energy Efficiency Stands at Crossroads in Arizona, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire.” The Biden Administration just launched an initiative to partner “with two states and several cities [with the aim of] reducing planet-warming emissions from buildings.” The Dutch think they’ve got a way to greatly speed up the process of retrofitting buildings.
• A battery recycler made a $43 million dollar investment in Newton County, GA; it recycles lithium ion batteries. To the extent that such batteries will be with us for a while yet, it’s hopeful that “US geothermal lithium offers significant potential. U.S. scientists have assessed the viability and potential supply chain impact of extracting lithium from geothermal brines, and they have reported promising results.”
• “The Sunshine State’s first solar community is still shining four years after its foundation.”
• A new law in France bans plastic packaging for fruits and vegetables. Now, if we could also get rid of those obnoxious plastic stickers grocery stores put on organic produce….
• Ecuador is expanding the no-fishing zone around Galapagos, “creating ‘a new highway’ for sea life.”
• NC’s Governor issued an executive order to “expand emission goals and seek environmental equity.” In light of this step, Duke Energy is revising its strategy around carbon reduction in both NC and SC.
• The National Science Foundation reported on recently developed “stable sodium battery technology” that’s rechargeable, offering a way to replace the current lithium-ion battery.
• “Goldman Sachs just made a record-setting investment in long-duration [underground] energy storage.”
• NPR: “A federal judge canceled major oil and gas leases [in the Gulf of Mexico] over climate change.”
• Over 500 acres of “Redwood Forest in [Mendocino County] California … was returned to 10 sovereign tribes who will serve as guardians to ‘protect and heal’ the land.”
• “The Biden administration … canceled two [copper and nickel mine] leases near Minnesota’s Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness — a remote, lake-pocked region at the center of a blistering fight over whether to mine near one of the nation’s most popular wilderness destinations.”

Climate Solutions and Adaptations (and the communities working on them)

• Conservative “eco-righters”—many of them young people—are speaking up:
• Bi-partisanship is a must. Really. Conservatives can “win” on climate. Why climate action needs conservatives’ solutions. Conservatives “get it” that Americans are worried about climate change, some—predictably—more than others. This North Dakota Senator understands. NIMBYs are a problem. “Bipartisan Lawmakers Prioritize Climate Resilience in New Bill.” “Drop party loyalty and get loyal to the planet.” “Conservatives want answers on climate change.”
• “Hope is not passive: How activism keeps optimism alive.” Check out how. An example: “How the Indigenous landback movement is poised to change conservation.” Another: “Black farmers are rebuilding agriculture in coal country.”
• Get “rural Americans involved in climate crisis: See them for who they are.” A report said big box store roofs are ideal for Solar Farms and that “superstores can meet half their electricity needs with rooftop solar.” Maybe large distribution centers too? Solar and agriculture are not mutually exclusive. Rockingham County and Walmart, are you listening? Interested in agritourism and checking out area farms for interesting products and activities? There’s an app coming from the Farm Bureau to help you.
• The Scots are nothing if not ingenious. Dancers’ body heat as a renewable energy source? And, the Scots are also working to restore their massive peat bogs.
• Kelp Farming and the Oceans—what’s this about?
• What do railroads and solar have in common? The Germans are coming up with some answers.
• What’s “One way to clean up dirty trucks and ships? Design smarter routes.”
• “Original caretakers: Indigenous groups team up with conservationists to protect swaths of US.” Indigenous peoples in the Southwest and Appalachia want a “new economy for their coalfield communities”, and they’re collaborating and focusing on water. In NV, even “green” energy “raises troublesome questions about tribal rights and biodiversity.”
• Heard of these homes? Off Grid, Climate Resilient and… Made of Trash?
• What’s a “closed loop pumped hydropower storage project”? Find out.
• A “wildfire lab” in Oregon “Is Helping Foresters Prepare for a Hotter Planet.”
• Generation 180 offered five ways to make a big climate impact in 2022.
• The good news: There is an “expanding vision of Everglades restoration: a tool to fight climate change in South Florida.” The bad news: Climate change effects may hamper the efforts.
• What if a “gas burning power plant” really didn’t emit carbon?
• “Climate in Peril: A Coastal NC Farmer’s Perspective.”
• DOE is loaning money for a new hydrogen plant. It’s also funding efforts for “Accessing Geothermal Potential from Abandoned Oil and Gas Wells.”
• A US National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) study concluded that “‘Large quantities of energy storage’ can balance the US grid all-year-round.”
• “New York City says goodbye to gas [in new buildings], establishing a blueprint for other communities.”
• We can accomplish the complementary goals of “protecting half the planet and transforming human systems,” said a group of scientists who study how to do that.
• 60 scientists say the world should “ban solar geoengineering.” What is it and why do they believe it’s not a good idea?

Ideas, Events, Entertainment and Information

Listen, Watch, Read, and Learn …

• CAAV’s Chair, Jo Anne St. Clair, penned this opinion piece on why VA should remain part of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative.
• Bloomberg Law’s detailed (but not too lengthy) explanation of the “Mountain Valley Pipeline’s Up-And-Down Legal Journey.” This analysis includes the January 25th US Appeals Court “blow”, disapproving the federal government’s water crossing permits.
• Earth champions lost to us: “Edward O. Wilson, Harvard naturalist often cited as heir to Darwin, dies at 92.” “Thomas Lovejoy, Wide-Ranging Ecologist and Amazon Rescuer, Dies at 80.” “They saw bigger things.”
• This wonderful multi-media story about an ambitious idea—“Greening the Sinai”—and how it could happen, if only we try. Click on the orange icons on the left to move through the text and pictures.
• How Greta Thunberg got to where she is now.
• PBS produced the documentary “Earth Emergency.”
• Give up meat for salads and other plant-based food? Who, Me?
• New York Times 2021 Climate News Review, in case you missed it. Also, after “Tracking Climate Change in 193 Countries”, 40 NYT opinion writers, editors, and photographers produced this interactive assessment, “Postcards from a World on Fire.”
• The Guardian offered its 2021 review.
• “When Can Climate Change be Comedy?” Not everyone loved “Don’t Look Up.” The director talked about why he made it and what his message is. Ever heard of Soylent Green, an eco-thriller from 1973? “[T]he dystopia portrayed in [this movie] got a few predictions right, including a hotter planet, an acidifying ocean, and lots of people wearing cloth masks.”
• Everything you wanted to know about federal solar tax credits, or maybe more.
• TED Talk: “Use your voice, vote and wallet for climate action.”
• TED Talk: “How we could better predict and stop floods.”
• TED Talk: “Language shouldn’t be a barrier to climate action.”
• Katherine Hayhoe—Climate Scientist, Christian Evangelical, and Mother—examined “What Went Wrong?” She also spoke about “why she cares about climate change and her fears about who will be hit hardest.”
• NPR multi-media story: “The Western megadrought is revealing America’s ‘lost national park’.”
• Video: NC’s huge hog farm operations and their hazards. The EPA is investigating the NC biogas industry “for discrimination.”
• Video: “How to Transform Climate Anxiety into Climate Action.”
• A long-timer forest ranger in the UK uses TikTok to describe his experiences. He has quite a following. Here he discusses how to protect peatland.
• Marine scientists studying coral reefs in Tahiti/French Polynesia came upon this amazing sight: “Stretching along the ocean floor for nearly 2 miles and covered with rose-shaped coral, the reef is one of the largest such discoveries at depths of more than 30 metres.” A marine biologist was astonished to spot an “Extremely rare ‘rainbow-like’ blanket octopus … in the wild on Great Barrier Reef.” An author and self-described “whale nerd” was elated at “Seeing 1,000 glorious fin whales back from near extinction … [as] a rare glimmer of hope.” Stunning!

Joy Loving
CAAV Steering Committee Member