Most recent 40 articles: Grist Climate and Energy
 |
A trillion cicadas will emerge in the next few weeks. This hasn’t happened since 1803. - Grist Climate and Energy (May 15) |
|
May 15 · This coverage is made possible through a partnership between WBEZ and Grist, a nonprofit, environmental media organization.
If you live in the Midwest or the Southeast, you know the cicadas are coming.
And if you live in Chicago, you know the Cicadalypse is coming.
Cicadas, winged buggy noisemakers whose relatives include leaf-hoppers and spittle bugs, come in two varieties: the annual cicadas who, sure enough, appear every year and the periodical cicadas, who appear in 13-year and 17-year cycles.
Grist thanks its sponsors. Become one.
To support our nonprofit environmental journalism, please consider disabling your ad-blocker to allow ads on Grist. ... Read more ...
|
|
|
|
Michigan wants fossil fuel companies to pay for climate change damages - Grist Climate and Energy (May 13) |
|
May 13 · This coverage is made possible through a partnership with Grist and Interlochen Public Radio in Northern Michigan.
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel announced Thursday that she plans to sue fossil fuel companies for knowingly contributing to climate change, harming the state’s economy and ways of life.
“It’s long past time that we step up and hold the fossil fuel companies that are responsible for all these damages accountable,” she said.
With this litigation, Michigan would join dozens of local, tribal and state governments that have taken similar steps to try to make the industry pay for climate damage.
Grist thanks its sponsors. Become ... Read more ...
|
|
|
|
Michigan wants fossil fuel companies to pay for climate change damages - Grist Climate and Energy (May 13) |
|
May 13 · This coverage is made possible through a partnership with Grist and Interlochen Public Radio in Northern Michigan.
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel announced Thursday that she plans to sue fossil fuel companies for knowingly contributing to climate change, harming the state’s economy and ways of life.
“It’s long past time that we step up and hold the fossil fuel companies that are responsible for all these damages accountable,” she said.
With this litigation, Michigan would join dozens of local, tribal, and state governments that have taken similar steps to try to make the industry pay for climate damage.
Grist thanks its sponsors. Become ... Read more ...
|
|
|
|
Occidental Petroleum’s net-zero strategy is a 'license to pollute,’ critics say - Grist Climate and Energy (May 9) |
|
May 9 · More so than any other fossil fuel company, Occidental Petroleum - known as Oxy - has built its climate strategy around innovations that capture carbon before it can be emitted or pull it directly out of the air. The Texas-based oil giant, which made more than $23 billion in revenue last year, says on its website that these “visionary technologies” will help it achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions and enable a lower-carbon future.
Scientists agree that such technologies will be necessary to limit global warming. But Oxy’s plans for them appear to be less about sustainability and more about creating a “license to pollute,” according to a new analysis from the nonprofit ... Read more ...
|
|
|
|
The surging demand for data is guzzling Virginia’s water. - Grist Climate and Energy (May 8) |
|
May 8 · Every email you send has a home. Every uploaded file, web search, and social media post does, too. In massive buildings erected from miles of concrete, stacked servers hum with the electricity required to process and store every byte of information that modern lives rely on.In recent years, these data centers have been rapidly expanding in the United States. But the gargantuan facilities do more than keep cloud servers running - they also guzzle absurd amounts of water to run cooling systems that protect their components from overheating. Now, as artificial intelligence applications become ubiquitous, they’re using more water than ever.
Northern Virginia is the data center ... Read more ...
|
|
|
|
How should Georgia elect key utility regulators? US Supreme Court asked to weigh in - Grist Climate and Energy (Apr 24) |
|
Apr 24 · This coverage is made possible through a partnership with WABE and Grist, a nonprofit, independent media organization dedicated to telling stories of climate solutions and a just future.
In a case that could impact other lawsuits on voting rights, Black voters who sued over Georgia’s elections for key utility regulators are appealing their case to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Those elections for the Georgia Public Service Commission have been on hold for years and while last week a federal appeals court lifted an injunction blocking the elections from taking place, there is little chance the elections will happen this year.
Public Service Commissioners have enormous ... Read more ...
|
|
|
|
Pediatricians say climate conversations should be part of any doctor’s visit - Grist Climate and Energy (Apr 19) |
|
Apr 19 · The reality of climate change came home for Dr. Samantha Ahdoot one summer day in 2011 when her son was 9 years old.
She and her family were living in Charlottesville, where Ahdoot is an assistant professor at the University of Virginia School of Medicine. There was a heat wave. Morning temperatures hovered in the high 80s, and her son had to walk up a steep hill to get to his day camp.
About an hour after he left for camp, she received a call from a nearby emergency room. Her son had collapsed from the heat and needed IV fluids to recover.
“It was after that event that I realized that I had to do something,” she said. “That, as a pediatrician and a mother, this ... Read more ...
|
|
|
|
The IRA has injected $240 billion into clean energy. It might not be enough. - Grist Climate and Energy (Mar 12) |
|
Mar 12 · If, in the 18 months since the Inflation Reduction Act passed, you’ve found yourself muttering Jerry Maguire’s timeless mantra “Show me the money!,” a handful of policy analysts has just done exactly that. Their analysis of the nation’s investment in clean energy found that for every dollar the government has contributed to advancing the transition, the private sector has kicked in $5.47, leading to nearly a quarter-trillion dollars flowing into the clean economy in just one year.
Across nearly every segment tracked by Rhodium Group and its collaborators at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, investments have not only increased since President Joe Biden signed the ... Read more ...
|
|
|
|
SEC will require companies to disclose emissions, with one glaring gap - Grist Climate and Energy (Mar 6) |
|
Mar 6 · After two years of drafting, public comments, and delays, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC, finally approved its highly-anticipated climate disclosure rules on Wednesday, laying out new requirements for companies to divulge their climate risks and some of their greenhouse emissions in public filings submitted annually to the agency
The new rules require publicly traded companies to analyze and publish how climate change threatens their business - whether through physical risks like floods and other extreme weather or through “transition risks” like regulation. This is in line with the SEC’s mission to protect investors and maintain “fair, orderly, and ... Read more ...
|
|
|
|
How to ‘decouple’ emissions from economic growth? These economists say you can’t. - Grist Climate and Energy (Mar 4) |
|
Mar 4 · For nearly 200 years, two transformative global forces have grown in tandem: economic activity and carbon emissions. The two have long been paired together, or, in economist-speak, “coupled.” When the economy has gotten bigger, so has our climate footprint.
This pairing has been disastrous for the planet. Economic growth has helped bring atmospheric CO2 concentrations all the way up to 420 parts per million. The last time they were this high was during the Pliocene epoch 3 million years ago, when global temperatures were 5 degrees Fahrenheit hotter and sea levels were 65 feet higher.
Most mainstream economists would say there’s an obvious antidote: decoupling. This ... Read more ...
|
|
|
|
How to recycle the giant magnets inside wind turbines? These scientists have a few ideas. - Grist Climate and Energy (Feb 27) |
|
Feb 27 · Every year, hundreds to thousands of megawatts’ worth of wind turbines across the United States get a facelift. These aging turbines have their rotors swapped out, their blades replaced, and key components like the generator upgraded in order to enhance the machines’ ability to produce electricity from wind. This process is known as “repowering.” Included among the components that sometimes get replaced are magnets made with rare-earth elements like neodymium and dysprosium, which also play essential roles inside smartphones, laptops, and electric car motors.
The wide range of applications for rare-earth minerals translates into a lot of potential ways to repurpose the ... Read more ...
|
|
|
|
A geothermal energy boom could be coming to Chicago’s South Side - Grist Climate and Energy (Feb 23) |
|
Feb 23 · Naomi Davis won’t lose her faith in the earth. At a recent community meeting in Chicago’s South Side she wanted to drive the point home - that the city’s Black community will not be left out of the new, emerging green economy.
To do it, she’s betting on energy trapped deep below the surface of the earth known as geothermal, which could be an answer to heating and cooling homes more efficiently and a path to building decarbonization.
Davis heads Chicago’s Blacks in Green, an environmental justice group which has dedicated the past 17 years to figuring out the blueprint for self-sustaining, climate-resilient Black communities everywhere.
“We’re hit first and worst, ... Read more ...
|
|
|
|
Campus divestment activists eye fossil fuel profits on stolen land - Grist Climate and Energy (Feb 9) |
|
Feb 9 · Samantha Gonsalves-Wetherell, a senior at the University of Arizona, has spent years urging university officials to take climate change seriously. As a leader of UArizona Divest, she and her classmates have been pushing the university toward three goals: to divest from fossil fuels by 2029; commit to no further investments in fossil fuels; and to implement socially responsible investing goals.
“It’s hard to both combat the climate crisis and also fund it,” said Gonsalves-Wetherell. She has met with university officials to ask them what stocks the university has invested in and how much revenue oil and gas investments bring in.
But until now, she had no idea that the ... Read more ...
|
|
|
|
A Superfund for climate change? States consider a new way to make Big Oil pay. - Grist Climate and Energy (Feb 2) |
|
Feb 2 · Last June, the normally warm and humid but still pleasant New England summer was disrupted by a series of unusually heavy rain storms. Flash floods broke creek banks and washed away roads, inundating several cities and towns. Vermont and upstate New York in particular saw immense damage. As communities attempted to recover from the havoc, legislators in these states, and several others, asked themselves why taxpayers should have to cover the cost of rebuilding after climate disasters when the fossil fuel industry is at fault.
Vermont is now joining Maryland, Massachusetts, and New York in a multi-state effort to hold Big Oil accountable for the expensive damage wrought by ... Read more ...
|
|
|
|
Ignoring Indigenous rights is making the green transition more expensive - Grist Climate and Energy (Feb 2) |
|
Feb 2 · In December, a federal judge found that Enel Green Power, an Italian energy corporation operating an 84-turbine wind farm on the Osage Reservation for nearly a decade, had trespassed on Native land. The ruling was a clear victory for the Osage Nation and the company estimated that complying with the order to tear down the turbines would cost nearly $260 million.
Attorneys familiar with Federal Indian law say it’s uncommon for U.S. courts to side so clearly with tribal nations and actually expel developers trespassing on their land. But observers also see the ruling as part of a broader trend: Gone are the days when developers could ignore Indigenous rights with impunity. Now, ... Read more ...
|
|
|
|
Across the country, houses of worship are going solar - Grist Climate and Energy (Jan 31) |
|
Jan 31 · This coverage is made possible through a partnership with Grist and Interlochen Public Radio in Northern Michigan.
On a Sunday morning in Charlevoix, a small town surrounded by lakes in northern Michigan, people gathered in the Greensky Hill Indian United Methodist Church. The small, one-room log building is almost 200 years old and the hymns are sung in English and Anishinaabemowin.
It was December, so Pastor Johnathan Mays was leading an Advent service, one of his last, since he would soon retire. In between reflections on scripture, Mays touched on an important venture: The church is planning to install solar panels on their larger meeting hall, working with ... Read more ...
|
|
|
|
Chicago could be first major Midwestern city to ban gas in new construction - Grist Climate and Energy (Jan 29) |
|
Jan 29 · This coverage is made possible through a partnership between WBEZ and Grist, a nonprofit, independent media organization dedicated to telling stories of climate solutions and a just future. Sign up for WBEZ newsletters to get local news you can trust.
Chicago could soon be the first major Midwestern city with an indoor emissions standard that would make gas-powered appliances and heating systems a thing of the past.
The Clean and Affordable Buildings Ordinance, introduced by Mayor Brandon Johnson during the first city council meeting of the year last week, would effectively phase out fossil-fuel based appliances and heating systems in new construction and substantially ... Read more ...
|
|
|
|
How California is casting a cloud over residential solar - Grist Climate and Energy (Jan 26) |
|
Jan 26 · The past five years have been something of a blur for the crew at Energy Concepts Enterprises. The company, which has been installing solar panels in and around Fresno, California, since 1992, could barely keep up with demand as consumers embraced the technology in ever-greater numbers. Every year was busier than the last.
Until 2023, when business plummeted. According to marketing director Carlos Beccar, sales fell from as many as 40 systems a month to 10, or less. “It’s been an incredible downturn,” he said. “We laid off half of our staff and we’re probably not done.”
California is leading what analysts expect to be the first year-over-year decline in ... Read more ...
|
|
|
|
Advocates in Georgia call for better protections for salt marshes, a key carbon sink - Grist Climate and Energy (Jan 12) |
|
Jan 12 · Coastal Georgia regulators want to change a rule designed to protect the state’s marshes, which serve as a buffer against storms and rising sea levels and a vital part of the coastal ecosystem. But advocates say the seemingly small change points to a need for a broader review of marsh protections.The state passed a law to protect coastal salt marsh half a century ago, which means that now, though Georgia has just 100 miles of coastline, it’s home to half a million acres of salt marsh - the second-largest amount of salt marsh in the country and a third of the marshes on the East Coast. Those marshes absorb the power of strong storm surges and capture carbon in their grasses and ... Read more ...
|
|
|
|
Oil-friendly Louisiana now has the power to approve carbon capture projects - Grist Climate and Energy (Jan 9) |
|
Jan 9 · Both Republicans and Democrats in deep-red Louisiana have warmed up to the idea of carbon removal, a practice that involves capturing carbon dioxide from large industrial operations and storing it a mile underground. Federal tax incentives promise to make the burgeoning industry profitable at a time when businesses are looking to slash their carbon emissions. There’s one big hangup: the Environmental Protection Agency has been slow to issue permits for underground wells where the captured carbon is supposed to be stored.
So when the agency announced in the waning days of 2023 that it’s handing over permitting duties, known as “primacy,” to Louisiana regulators, elected ... Read more ...
|
|
|
|
In Juneau, Alaska, a carbon offset project that’s actually working - Grist Climate and Energy (Jan 4) |
|
Jan 4 · When Kira Roberts moved to Juneau, Alaska, last summer, she immediately noticed how the town of 31,000 changes when the cruise ships dock each morning. Thousands of people pour in, only to vanish by evening. As the season winds down in fall, the parade of buses driving through her neighborhood slows, and the trails near her home and the vast Mendenhall Glacier no longer teem with tourists.
“That unique rhythm of Juneau is really striking to me,” she said. “It’s just kind of crazy to think that this is all a mile from my house.”
But Mendenhall is shrinking quickly: The 13-mile-long glacier has retreated about a mile in the past 40 years. Getting all those tourists ... Read more ...
|
|
|
|
How mobile home co-ops provide housing security - and climate resilience. - Grist Climate and Energy (Jan 2) |
|
Jan 2 · This story was supported by the Economic Hardship Reporting Project.
As mobile home owners fight rising housing costs, some of them have hit upon a solution that also helps in the fight against climate change - by banding together and buying the land underneath their homes.
This model of collective ownership, also called resident-owned cooperatives or ROCs, is on the rise. In 2000, there were little more than 200. Today, there are more than 15,000, according to a 2022 study from researchers at the University of California Berkeley, Cornell and MIT.
When residents own the land, they can move more quickly to upgrade infrastructure. That’s where climate change comes ... Read more ...
|
|
|
|
A look back at U.S. climate solutions this year - Grist Climate and Energy (Dec 21) |
|
Dec 21 · Some of the most jarring ways the United States will feel the impacts of climate change began to reveal themselves this year.
The U.S. saw a record-setting 25 billion-dollar natural disasters. Maui experienced the country’s deadliest wildfire in the last century. Phoenix suffered temperatures over 110 degrees Fahrenheit for 31 consecutive days. Vermont endured epic floods. Despite all this, the Biden administration reneged on its promise and approved the Willow oil project in Alaska.
But this year was also filled with news of encouraging, inspiring, and groundbreaking progress in the U.S., not least of which was its joining a global agreement to transition away from ... Read more ...
|
|
|
|
Nuclear had a moment at COP28 - but it may be short-lived - Grist Climate and Energy (Dec 21) |
|
Dec 21 · This year’s COP28 climate conference featured a historic agreement to “transition away” from fossil fuels. One less-ballyhooed undercurrent was renewed enthusiasm for nuclear energy as a means toward getting there.
International climate negotiators explicitly mentioned the technology as a route to decarbonization in their first-ever “stocktake” of global emissions. Looking back across the final texts agreed on at the annual U.N. climate conference since the 2015 Paris Agreement, this is the first time the word “nuclear” has ever been used.
Twenty-five countries made the point even more emphatically at the start of the conference in Dubai, where - led by the U.S. - ... Read more ...
|
|
|
|
Here’s how experts graded US climate progress in 2023 - Grist Climate and Energy (Dec 19) |
|
Dec 19 · 'Tis the season to be merry … and get graded. As students across the country anxiously await their report cards, we thought it would be a good time to ask climate experts to grade the United States’ efforts to address the issue over the last year.
They were more than happy to play along.
“As a professor of sustainability, grading is very much in our working dialog,” one respondent told us. Another chimed in: “I’m finishing up my fall semester class right now, so grades are on my mind.”
The stakes, however, are much greater for the planet than for their students. This almost certainly will go down as the hottest year in recorded history, and the time for ... Read more ...
|
|
|
|
What abandoning fossil fuels could look like in the Arab world - Grist Climate and Energy (Dec 14) |
|
Dec 14 · For the second year in a row, world leaders met in the Arab world to negotiate the future of the planet. As a backdrop to the United Nations climate conference in Dubai, it’s a fitting venue for a planet-wide shift that scientists say needs to happen: The region has extensive deposits of oil and gas, but also immense, untapped potential for renewable energy.
Over the past several years, European governments and corporations have made moves to capitalize off this potential, investing in sprawling mega-projects to capture the sun’s energy from the region’s vast deserts and export the electricity north. The oil-rich states of the Persian Gulf, which constitute the region’s ... Read more ...
|
|
|
|
In EPA’s new methane rule, an innovative way to stop 'super emitters’ - Grist Climate and Energy (Dec 13) |
|
Dec 13 · Scientists with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory were flying a plane equipped with a visible-infrared imaging spectrometer over an oil field in California’s San Joaquin Valley when they made a worrisome discovery. Images produced by the device revealed a large plume of methane lingering in the air.
The plane made flights over the field for several more weeks, and while the plume shifted and changed shape with the blowing wind, its presence persisted. Believing the source could be a leak at the oil well, the scientists notified the operator. Soon, the plume disappeared. The leak, coming from a small fuel line, had been repaired.
“This is the essence of proactive ... Read more ...
|
|
|
|
The EPA’s new methane rule includes an innovative way to stop 'super emitters’ - Grist Climate and Energy (Dec 13) |
|
Dec 13 · Scientists with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory were flying a plane equipped with a visible-infrared imaging spectrometer over an oil field in California’s San Joaquin Valley when they made a worrisome discovery. Images produced by the device revealed a large plume of methane lingering in the air.
The plane made flights over the field for several more weeks. The plume shifted and changed shape with the blowing wind, but its presence persisted, indicating that its source could be a leak at the oil well. The scientists notified the operator. Soon, the plume disappeared. The leak, coming from a small fuel line, had been repaired.
“This is the essence of proactive ... Read more ...
|
|
|
|
How much carbon can oysters store? Scientists are trying to find out. - Grist Climate and Energy (Dec 7) |
|
Dec 7 · This coverage is made possible through a partnership with WABE and Grist, a nonprofit, independent media organization dedicated to telling stories of climate solutions and a just future.
On a sunny day this fall, two Georgia Southern University grad students stood waist-deep in the North Newport River near St. Catherine’s Island on Georgia’s coast, while their professor and a team from the Georgia Department of Natural Resources used a winch to lower pallets full of oyster shells into the water.
The students guided the pallets into place on the muddy river bank. Those pallets, piled with shells, will provide a hard surface for baby oysters to latch onto.
“We are ... Read more ...
|
|
|
|
In France, zero-waste experiments tackle a tough problem: People’s habits - Grist Climate and Energy (Dec 6) |
|
Dec 6 · Andrée Nieuwjaer, a 67-year-old resident of Roubaix, France, is what one might call a frugal shopper. In fact, her fridge is full of produce that she got for free. Over the summer, she ate peaches, plums, carrots, zucchinis, turnips, endives - all manner of fruits and vegetables that local grocers didn’t want to sell, whether because of some aesthetic imperfection or because they were slightly overripe.
What Nieuwjaer couldn’t eat right away, she preserved - as fig marmalade, apricot jam, pickles. Reaching into the depths of her refrigerator in September, past a jar of diced beets that she’d preserved in vinegar, she tapped a container of chopped pineapple whose shelf life ... Read more ...
|
|
|
|
In Michigan, the controversial Line 5 pipeline gets one step closer to the finish line - Grist Climate and Energy (Dec 6) |
|
Dec 6 · This coverage is made possible through a partnership with Grist and Interlochen Public Radio in Northern Michigan.
During a heated public meeting last Friday, Michigan’s top energy regulator granted the Canadian company Enbridge Energy a permit to build a new pipeline and tunnel under the environmentally sensitive Straits of Mackinac, in an important - but not final - step in the controversial project’s approval process.
Construction can’t begin unless the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers grants it a federal permit. Before that happens, the Army Corps has to release its assessment of the project’s environmental impacts.
The Michigan Public Service Commission’s decision ... Read more ...
|
|
|
|
Most Americans want to electrify their homes - if they can keep their gas stoves - Grist Climate and Energy (Dec 6) |
|
Dec 6 · Most Americans would prefer to live in a home where almost all major appliances run on electricity - but only if they can keep their gas stoves. Just 31 percent want to go fully electric.
“We realized we didn’t really have a baseline for what people actually want,” said Jennifer Marlon, a research scientist at the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication who helped design the question and push for its inclusion. Combine those who said they would go fully electric with the 29 percent who would do so except for their gas stove and six in 10 Americans are ready to decarbonize. ”As a starting point, this is quite encouraging.”
Addressing residential energy use is ... Read more ...
|
|
|
|
COP28 starts today. Here are four issues to watch at the annual climate conference - Grist Climate and Energy (Nov 29) |
|
Nov 29 · Every year, world leaders gather under the auspices of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change to assess countries’ progress toward reducing carbon emissions and limiting global temperature rise. The most famous of these so-called Conferences of Parties, or COPs, resulted in the landmark 2015 Paris Agreement, which marked the first time the world’s countries united behind a goal to limit global temperature increase. That treaty consists of 29 articles with numerous targets, including reducing greenhouse gas emissions, increasing financial flows to the most climate-vulnerable countries, and establishing a carbon market.
This year’s COP, which commences in ... Read more ...
|
|
|
|
Why some experts say COPs are ‘distracting’ and need fixing - Grist Climate and Energy (Nov 28) |
|
Nov 28 · This #GivingTuesday, support climate news that leads to action. Donate to Grist, the only newsroom focused on exploring solutions at the intersection of climate and justice.
All donations DOUBLED.
Support climate news that leads to action. Donate to Grist while all donations are DOUBLED.
Diplomats, academics, and activists from around the globe will gather yet again this week to try to find common ground on a plan for combating climate change. This year’s COP, as the event is known, marks the 28th annual meeting of the conference of the parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. More than 70,000 people are expected to descend on ... Read more ...
|
|
|
|
Why some experts say COPs are ‘distracting’ and need fixing - Grist Climate and Energy (Nov 28) |
|
Nov 28 · This #GivingTuesday, support climate news that leads to action. Donate to Grist, the only newsroom focused on exploring solutions at the intersection of climate and justice.
All donations DOUBLED.
Support climate news that leads to action. Donate to Grist while all donations are DOUBLED.
Diplomats, academics, and activists from around the globe will gather yet again this week to try to find common ground on a plan for combating climate change. This year’s COP, as the event is known, marks the 28th annual meeting of the conference of the parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. More than 70,000 people are expected to descend on ... Read more ...
|
|
|
|
Why tenants struggle more in the wake of hurricanes - Grist Climate and Energy (Nov 28) |
|
Nov 28 · This #GivingTuesday, support climate news that leads to action. Donate to Grist, the only newsroom focused on exploring solutions at the intersection of climate and justice.
All donations DOUBLED.
Support climate news that leads to action. Donate to Grist while all donations are DOUBLED.
This story was supported by the Economic Hardship Reporting Project.
When hurricanes hit, it’s easy to show the damage: downed power lines, uprooted trees and destroyed houses. But when those things are removed or cleaned up, there is a more insidious damage that still lurks and is hard to portray: lack of affordable housing.
And that hits renters in the coastal United ... Read more ...
|
|
|
|
Texas board rejects many science textbooks over climate change messaging - Grist Climate and Energy (Nov 25) |
|
Nov 25 · This story was first published by The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans - and engages with them - about public policy, politics, government, and statewide issues.
A Republican-controlled Texas State Board of Education last week rejected seven of 12 proposed science textbooks for eighth graders that for the first time will require them to include information on climate change.
The 15-member board largely rejected the books either because they included policy solutions for climate change or because they were produced by a company that has an Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) policy. Some textbooks were also rejected ... Read more ...
|
|
|
|
One solution to fight climate change? Fewer parking spaces. - Grist Climate and Energy (Nov 17, 2023) |
|
Nov 17, 2023 · This story was supported by the Economic Hardship Reporting Project.
In the beginning, parking lots were created to curb chaos on the road. But climate change has turned that dynamic on its head.
Since the 1920s a little-known policy called parking minimums has shaped a large facet of American life. In major cities, this meant that any type of building - apartments, banks, or shopping malls - needed to reserve a certain amount of parking spaces to accommodate anyone who might visit.
But transportation makes up almost one-third of carbon emissions in the U.S. and cars represent a significant portion of those emissions. As the country attempts to aggressively cut ... Read more ...
|
|
|
|
China and the US, the world’s biggest polluters, strike a climate deal - Grist Climate and Energy (Nov 15, 2023) |
|
Nov 15, 2023 · The United States and China agreed on Wednesday to “sufficiently accelerate” the deployment of clean energy and boost global production of renewables in a bid to begin displacing fossil fuels and address the climate crisis.
Their joint announcement included a commitment by the world’s two largest polluters to meaningfully reduce greenhouse gas emissions within the decade in an effort to keep global temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit). To achieve that, the two countries pledged to ramp up their use of solar, wind, and battery storage through the end of 2030 to reduce their dependence on coal, oil and gas. They also aim to triple renewable energy ... Read more ...
|
|
|
|
Michigan wants 100 percent of its electricity to be clean by 2040 - Grist Climate and Energy (Nov 15, 2023) |
|
Nov 15, 2023 · This coverage is made possible through a partnership with Grist and Interlochen Public Radio in Northern Michigan.
In a turning point for Michigan, a state long associated with industry and fossil fuels, the state legislature passed a package of bills that aims to cut carbon emissions, requiring 100 percent of its electricity to come from clean sources by 2040.
The state’s new 2040 target is one of the most ambitious in the country, bringing it in line with Minnesota, New York, Connecticut and Oregon.
“This really marks the first swing, industrialized state in the country to pass such sweeping legislation,” said Tim Minotas, the deputy legislative and political ... Read more ...
|
|
|