A massive wave of energy is expected to slam into the California coast in October, sending sea levels rising by up to a foot and threatening coastal homes and ecosystems. The so-called Kelvin wave forms because of sudden changes in wind speed and force, and has the ability to push warm water vast distances for months, according to forecaster AccuWeather. In this case, the Kelvin wave is driven by strengthening super El Niño conditions, experts say. The natural climate pattern is forecast to bring more life-threatening flooding rainstorms and extreme temperatures across the U.S. into next year, worsened by human-caused climate change. (Independent)
GREENING
On Tuesday, a bipartisan gang of senators — the leaders of the Environment and Public Works and Energy and Natural Resources committees — released an omnibus legislative package meant to streamline many permitting processes across the country. “This should lower electricity costs measurably for Americans. This should increase clean power significantly for Americans. This should significantly add construction and jobs across the country, and this should contribute to a lift in America’s overall economy,” Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, the Senate environmental committee’s ranking Democrat, said at the event. (HeatMap News)
More than 120,000 people took part in 260 protests across France, demanding an “emergency climate plan”, reported Le Monde.
A report published Monday estimates that “repowering” existing solar farms, or replacing old panels with new ones, could unlock about 9.6 gigawatts of solar power by 2030, 29 gigawatts by 2035, and 67 gigawatts by 2040. (For comparison, the U.S. added 27.2 gigawatts of utility-scale solar last year.) If every project up for repowering between now and 2040 installed batteries, as well, that would add up to 13 additional gigawatts of storage to the grid by 2030, and nearly 92 gigawatts by 2040. The U.S. has just over 50 gigawatts of storage online today. (HeatMap News)
DARK AGE CLIMATE NEWS
A coalition of 21 states and four cities sued the Trump administration on Thursday over its move to erase all limits on planet-warming emissions from power plants. The mostly Democratic-run states and cities, led by New York, contend that the Environmental Protection Agency acted unlawfully when it repealed Biden-era regulations on carbon dioxide emissions from power plants that burn gas and coal. (NY Times, free) [The Natural Resources Defense Council plans to file its own challenge in a New York federal court.]
California Senators Alex Padilla and Adam Schiffjoined Senators Michael Bennet, John Hicken and Ben Ray Luján to introduce a bill on Friday aimed at preventing oil and gas companies from abandoning oil wells on public lands. The Stop Orphaned Wells Act would prevent taxpayers from being saddled with the costs of cleaning up abandoned wells by strengthening requirements that drillers put up money upfront that the government can use to cover cleanup costs after oil production ends. In August, the California Department of Conservation, which regulates drilling, identified about 3,300 deserted wells in the state. Thousands more are potentially deserted or idle, according to the agency. (Politico California Currents)
A new Carbon Brief analysis suggested that at least 20,000km2 of Amazon forest – an area roughly the size of the US state of New Jersey – remains standing today due to the leadership of Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. In contrast, deforestation would have remained high if the far-right Jair Bolsonaro had won the election in 2022, showed the analysis. On Sunday, Brazilians will go to the polls to vote in an election that is expected to be a runoff between Lula and Bolsonaro’s son, Flávio.
Two of the statewide ballot propositions are not only bad legislation but bad for climate action.
Prop 43, sponsored by Howard Jarvis devotees, wants to make all decisions regarding ballot measures for government revenues have a two-thirds vote requirement. Had this existed the recent Humboldt sales tax for road upkeep and transit would clearly have failed. Public transit is of course a climate priority because it reduces the need for cars. It is also a priority for many other reasons – and our roads really need repair.
Prop 45 would essentially gut the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) so that large projects, like data centers and clear cut logging, do not need to disclose to the public the environmental harms that the project might cause, nor would those harms need to be mitigated. CEQA is the only law that requires developers disclose and mitigate greenhouse gases.
Please do your own research on these propositions. We are sure you with choose to Vote NO on both.
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