Classic “petrostates” such as Saudi Arabia or Russia – which rely heavily on oil and gas revenues to balance their budgets – have faced criticism for slowing action on the climate crisis. Yet countries including the UK, the US, Canada, Norway and Australia are increasingly being thought of by some experts as the “other petrostates”, given they have access to financial and technological resources that would make the energy transition less disruptive. While they are often portrayed as climate leaders on the world stage, these five wealthy countries are responsible for more than two-thirds (67%) of all new oil and gas licences issued globally since 2020.
Oil Industry Goes on Offensive in California With $5 Million TV Ad Buy to Thwart Potential Regulations. One of California’s most powerful oil industry trade groups is spending $5 million on a prime-time TV ad campaign — more than it spent on lobbying in the first half of 2024 — to defeat a slew of legislative proposals to regulate the industry. The bills seek to plug low-producing wells, allow cities and counties to ban oil drilling and spur oil companies to clean up thousands of polluting idle wells. [350 Humboldt has supported all of these bills.]
How much land would be freed up if we ate half as much meat? The answer is roughly a whole South Dakota, as Frida Garza reports. The Good Food Institute, a nonprofit think tank, modeled what would happen if the U.S. replaced half its animal protein supply with plant-based or alternative proteins. It turns out the nation would need 47.3 million fewer acres to grow the same amount of protein. It’s not so much about the animals themselves, but what’s required to feed them: Over three quarters of the country’s cropland is used to raise crops that primarily nourish animals. [And in California 65% of the methane we release comes from those animals.]
GOVERNMENT PLANNING
- SOUTH KOREA SUED: A “landmark” court ruling found South Korea’s climate law violated the rights of future generations by failing to set emissions targets between 2031 and 2050, Channel News Asia said. The ruling sets a February 2026 deadline to amend the law with new targets, added the Guardian.
- EU SUED: Climate activists have taken the European Commission to court in an attempt to force it to strengthen its 2030 emissions plan and, in a second case, to abandon plans to label some planes as “climate-friendly investments”, Reuters said.
- VOTING MATTERS: The new Labor UK government announced it will not defend legal challenges against two of the largest untapped oil and gas fields approved by the previous government. Environmental lawyer Tessa Khan explained what this means for UK fossil fuels. [Clap, clap.]
How we electrify everything category: Clark County, Nevada, installs a dozen solar-powered streetlights as part of a pilot program to see if it can reduce copper wire theft. (FOX 5 Vegas)
Eastern equine encephalitis is caused by a virus spread through the bite of an infected mosquito, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It is rare, but serious: about 30 percent of people with the virus die, and many survivors suffer ongoing neurological problems. In Massachusetts 12 communities are spraying to protect against these mosquitos, as mosquito season has lengthened across the United States, The Washington Post reported. Climate change has fueled rising global temperatures, and for more than two-thirds of the United States, increased the number of “mosquito days,” meaning days with an average humidity of at least 42 percent and temperatures between 50 and 95 degrees. Scientists warn that longer mosquito seasons could heighten the risk of outbreaks of diseases carried by the bloodsucking insects, such as dengue and malaria.
In the first half of this year, developers and power plant owners built 20.2 gigawatts (GW) of electricity generation capacity, per the U.S. Energy Information Administration, a 21 percent increase from the first half of last year. The overwhelming majority — 97 percent — of the new capacity added this year came from carbon-free solar, battery storage, wind, and nuclear projects. Solar led the way, making up 59 percent of new installations through the end of June. Developers built 12 gigawatts’ worth of solar projects in the first half, including the enormous Gemini solar-and-storage facilityin Nevada. Texas and Florida took the lead on solar during that period. Battery storage was next, accounting for 21 percent of new capacity built in the first six months of the year.
Jobs in the U.S. clean energy industry in 2023 grew at more than double the rate of the country’s overall jobs, and unionization in clean energy surpassed for the first time the rate in the wider energy industry, the Energy Department said on Wednesday. Employment in clean energy businesses – including wind, solar, nuclear and battery storage – rose by 142,000 jobs, or 4.2% last year, up from a rise of 3.9% in 2022, the U.S. Energy and Employment Report said. The rate was above the overall U.S. job growth rate of 2% in 2023. Overall energy jobs rose 250,000, with 56% being in clean energy. (Reuters)
“This monument is to acknowledge that we know what is happening and what needs to be done. Only you know if we did it.” This phrase is engraved into a plaque placed on a rocky mountainside in western Iceland to honor Okjökull, a now-melted glacier that was deemed in 2014 the first in the country to be lost to climate change. In this case, the glacier received a funeral to mark its “death.” As global warming accelerates, many other glaciers around the world are suffering a similar fate, melting so fast that scientists are struggling to keep track, The Washington Post reports.
Oakland Unified officially became the first school district in the country to unveil an all-electric fleet of buses — plus bidirectional chargers that allow the vehicles to supply power back to the grid when not in use. The fleet is estimated to be able to send 2.1 gigawatt hours of energy back to the grid annually, the equivalent of around 600 utility-scale wind turbines. Bay Area startup Zum worked with the district to acquire the 74 buses that will move students around the region, announcing over the summer that the fleet and a charging depot would be ready in time for the school year. The company has set an ambitious goal of supplying 10,000 electric buses nationwide. It could soon get some help expanding its footprint in California. Newsom in a statement today touted the state’s Zero-Emissions School Bus and Infrastructure Program, which will provide $500 million in zero-emission school bus grants. That funding — a joint effort between CARB and CEC — includes $375 million for zero-emission school buses and $125 million for infrastructure and other related costs. The application period opened for school districts in May and closes on Sept. 30.
A Colorado firm secures financing to install 2.8 MW of rooftop solar on seven multi-tenant commercial properties across California. (news release)
The Navajo Nation and U.S. Energy Department partner to identify, plug and clean up abandoned oil and gas and uranium wells. (news release)
Northern British Columbia has seen almost 200 emergency-room closures this year, a trend blamed on the underfunding of primary care and pandemic-related burnout. But Melissa Lem, president of the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment (CAPE), points a finger at B.C.’s liquefied natural gas (LNG) industry. Most B.C. gas is extracted through the highly polluting process called fracking. Lem says that at least seven doctors have closed their practices in Dawson Creek alone — the city is a fracking hotspot — due to concerns about rare diseases and deadly cancers diagnosed in their own patients, friends and family. B.C. doctors are calling for a moratorium on further gas-industry expansion pending an independent health-impact assessment of LNG and fracking. Read more »
Stoked by Canada’s warmest and driest conditions in decades, extreme forest fires in 2023 released about 640 million metric tons of carbon, NASA scientists have found. That’s comparable in magnitude to the annual fossil fuel emissions of a large industrialized nation. NASA funded the study as part of its ongoing mission to understand our changing planet. They found that the Canadian fires released more carbon in five months than Russia or Japan emitted from fossil fuels in all of 2022 (about 480 million and 291 million metric tons, respectively). While the carbon dioxide (CO2) emitted from both wildfires and fossil fuel combustion cause extra warming immediately, there’s an important distinction, the scientists noted. As the forest regrows, the amount of carbon emitted from fires will be reabsorbed by Earth’s ecosystems. [In contrast] The CO2 emitted from the burning of fossil fuels is not readily offset by any natural processes.
Get your vacation while you can! Research suggests that at current levels of warming, the Yellowstone-Grand Teton region could see a significant loss of forested area by the end of the century. That would have cascading effects on other plant life, the rivers and animals large and small. There will almost certainly be more fires, which are burning hotter as the planet warms, making it harder for forests to bounce back. And as park officials work to rebound from disasters like the Yellowstone floods, they are planning for a hotter future with more extreme weather.
TAKING ACTION
Much of food is lost before it gets to consumers, or wasted after. The issue is central to the food systems crisis we are living through today — depleting natural resources, contributing to climate change and hindering food security. A Nature Food editorial (4 min read) introduces a new collection of articles and research that elucidates the challenges and potential solutions.
In Humboldt we have a group of people working actively on this and other issues of waste: Zero Waste Humboldt.
Check out their website and consider signing on to their activities: https://zerowastehumboldt.org/