350 Humboldt is sponsoring picture naming contest. Submit your name for the sad-eyed clowns shown below, or a caption for the picture, or a version of the picture with speech balloons for each of the clowns. Winner will have your submission published in this column. Submit entries to [email protected] with subject “Contest.” Last date for submission is midnight July 4th.
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SUPREME COURT
Latanji Brown Jackson issued a dissent in the Supreme Court’s ruling that fossil fuel companies can sue due to California’s EV mandates.
“This case gives fodder to the unfortunate perception that moneyed interests enjoy an easier road to relief in this court than ordinary citizens,” she wrote. The case said the producers had legal standing to bring their claims, resting on a theory “that the court has refused to apply in cases brought by less powerful plaintiffs,” she added. The decision has little practical importance now, but in the future, it “will no doubt aid future attempts by the fuel industry to attack the Clean Air Act,” she said. “Also, I worry that the fuel industry’s gain comes at a reputational cost for this court, which is already viewed by many as being overly sympathetic to corporate interests,” she added.
[And oblivious to the climate crisis, we might add.]
ENERGY
- The liquefied natural gas industry could slash greenhouse gas emissions 60% if it invests an estimated $100 billion to deploy existing technologies, a report from the International Energy Agency finds. (E&E News)
- Ireland became Europe’s sixth country to end coal power with the closure of its last coal-fired plant at Moneypoint, according to the Irish Examiner
- Trump’s hostility to wind turbines — which he says are “garbage” and “very expensive to paint” — could delay or cancel more than $100 billion in investments, analysts say. (E&E News)
- China’s solar installations surged in May, setting a new monthly record as companies rushed to finish projects before the start of new rules that threaten to slash renewable power prices. The country installed 93 gigawatts of panels last month, according to data released by the National Energy Administration, four times more than in the same period in 2024. The previous record was 71 gigawatts in December. The May figure means China installed more solar capacity in a single month than any other country did in all of 2024, according to BloombergNEF data.
- The developers of the proposed 1,150 MW solar and 4,600 MWh battery storage Darden plant in Fresno County, California, expect it to open the door to similar facilities on the region’s fallow farmland. (SFGate)
- LG Energy Solution opens a Michigan factory producing lithium ion phosphate-based batteries for grid-scale energy storage applications, onshoring battery production that had been mostly done in China. (Canary Media)
- A federal judge orders the Trump administration to release billions of dollars for EV charging stations in 14 states. (Associated Press)
- Publicly owned California utility Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) and developer D. E. Shaw Renewable Investments (DESRI) have executed a long-term power purchase agreement (PPA) for a 640MWh battery energy storage system (BESS) in California. The 160MW/640MWh Dry Creek Energy Storage project is located in Sacramento County at the decommissioned Rancho Seco nuclear generating facility.
The Rancho Seco location also includes a 160MW solar facility with sustainable land management through sheep grazing. - Southern California Edison plans to underground and upgrade 63 miles of electrical infrastructure in the Los Angeles-area fire-damaged Altadena neighborhood to support electrification in rebuilt homes. (Pasadena Now)
- California officials say a smart EV charging pilot program shows how dynamic price signals and automated management can improve grid stability, lower energy cost, and boost renewables. (Public Power Now)
OTHER
Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said the administration would begin the process of rolling back protections for 59 million roadless acres in the National Forest System. This would include about 30 percent of the land in the federal system, encompassing 92 percent of Alaska’s Tongass National Forest, one of the last remaining intact temperate rainforests in the world.
About 128 million Americans were under heat advisories this week as a severe heat wave descended on the eastern United States, spanning from Louisiana to Maine. It’s 20.6°F hotter than normal today in Concord, New Hampshire. Nearby, in Montpelier, Vermont, it’s 19.1°F hotter than normal. Further south, in New York City, it’s 13.6°F hotter than normal. Over in Philly—where I live, pray for me—it’s 13.8°F hotter than normal. It’s 14.2°F hotter than normal in Detroit; 10.9°F hotter than normal in Chicago; and 9.6°F hotter than normal in Washington, D.C. All of these extreme temperatures were made more likely by climate change—a phenomenon primarily caused by fossil fuels—according to Climate Central’s Climate Shift Index (CSI). The CSI uses peer-reviewed methodology to map out how much climate change influences the temperature on a particular day.
Judges are increasingly scrutinizing companies’ efforts to offset their emissions by buying carbon credits, an analysis of 3,000 climate-related lawsuits globally has found. They join advertising watchdogs in exercising skepticism, which have been dealing with dubious climate neutrality claims for several years.
US ranchers are finally growing their herds again after hitting a 70-year low. Good news for meatpackers like JBS—and for shoppers tired of sky-high beef prices. [But a climate disaster: Beef provides less than 1 percent of calories globally but accounts for 5 percent of greenhouse gas emissions from all human activities.]
On July 1, imports of all plastic waste will be prohibited from entering Malaysia, a country that currently receives more plastic waste from rich developed countries than any other non-OECD country. The new law will also be a wake-up call for a multitude of cities and states that routinely allow their plastic waste to flow to Malaysia. [California exports 4,500 tons of plastic waste a year to Malaysia.]
As technical discussions in preparation for the COP this fall drew to a close in Bonn, Argentina inserted a footnote into one of the event’s many documents, defining “gender” as “two sexes, male and female”. But Norway discussed “women and girls in all their diversity”, Canada referred to “gender-diverse people” and Iceland stated that it “[does] not support binary terms.”
Take Action!
A power-play is going on in the Legislature. AB 306 and SB 607 will destroy most environmental protections around building homes, multi-family residences and industrial sites by freezing building codes and neutering CEQA. Neither bill could make it through the policy committees each faces, so the Governor, and the leaders of the Assembly and Senate are putting them into budget bills where they get no scrutiny and are fast-tracked for immediate adoption. Lots of organizations are opposing these moves because not only are they bad for the environment and the climate, they won’t help with the housing crisis. We work closely with Climate Action California. Here is their link to write an email. You can also call and leave a message. Click here to send a letter or get a script for a short phone call.
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Why not work with a climate action group? If you get this email, you are already a 350 Humboldt supporter. Come to our general meeting this coming Saturday the 5th at 11 am in the cupola at Larson Park in Arcata. Wendy Ring will be talking about being an “electrification coach.” Please consider bringing food for a light lunch and hanging out after the meeting. There are also tennis and pickle ball courts and bocce ball at the park.