Across the planet every day, the climate changes wrought by humans have only just begun to show us how far-reaching and disastrous they could be. From Antarctica to the Amazon, from the boreal forests of Canada to mountain glaciers everywhere, from urban heat waves in Phoenix and Nairobi to floods in rural China, we’re witness to the rotten fruits of industrial civilization.
But while most climate-related news these days is … grim, on one very important front there’s good reason for some optimism, even—as the Harris-Walz team might put it—some joy. Installations of renewable energy sources are growing exponentially. This also is a product of industrial civilization. And it makes achieving a key aspect of the green transition—decarbonizing the energy sector—more likely to be achieved in the near term than just about anybody thought possible a few years ago. Here’s just one of scores of examples torn from recent headlines: In ‘Historic Shift,’ Renewables Overtake Fossil Fuels to Provide 30% of EU Electricity.
Cable repairman adjusts the Bell Solar Battery to make the first sun-powered telephone call near Americus, Georgia, on October 4, 1955.
Hydropower has been and continues to generate a big slice of renewable electricity. But geography and ecosystem concerns have kept growth in hydropower capacity slow. Wind and solar, on the other hand, are now by far the leading sources of new generating installations worldwide. Until recently, wind was the leader of the two, but upward spiraling costs, logistics, and stolid opposition have slowed growth of new installations. Solar power, on the other hand, is on the cusp of a major breakout. Globally in 2023, solar alone accounted for three-quarters of renewable capacity additions worldwide. It should be noted that China installed more solar than the rest of the world combined last year.
Seventy years ago, on April 25, 1954, Bell Labs scientists Daryl Chapin, Calvin Fuller and Gerald Pearson demonstrated the first practical solar cell. These proved useful for remote applications, including on spaceships and satellites, but they were frightfully expensive compared to other sources of electricity. Over time, new manufacturing techniques whittled the cost from $40 per watt in the late 1970s to a reported 9-11 cents per watt today for Chinese-made solar cells.
Although solar currently only generates 6% of the world’s electricity, a decade ago this was barely 1%. And the pace of new installations is exponential. Specifically, installed solar capacity is doubling about every three years. That means 10x growth every decade. The International Solar Energy Society says solar power is on a trajectory to generate more electricity than all the world’s nuclear power plants in 2026, its wind turbines in 2027, its dams in 2028, its natural gas-fired power plants in 2030, and its coal-fired plants in 2032.
Says Michael Liebreich, a founder of what is now BloombergNEF, it took the world an entire year in 2004 to install a single gigawatt of solar power capacity. In 2010, it took a month. In 2016, it took a week. Analysts say this year we can expect to see an average of as many as two gigawatts of solar capacity installed each day.
From a recent essay in The Economist (paywall):
Such sustained growth is seldom seen in anything that matters. That makes it hard for people to get their heads round what is going on. When it was a tenth of its current size ten years ago, solar power was still seen as marginal even by experts who knew how fast it had grown. The next ten-fold increase will be equivalent to multiplying the world’s entire fleet of nuclear reactors by eight in less than the time it typically takes to build just a single one of them.
Solar cells will in all likelihood be the single biggest source of electrical power on the planet by the mid 2030s. By the 2040s they may be the largest source not just of electricity but of all energy. On current trends, the all-in cost of the electricity they produce promises to be less than half as expensive as the cheapest available today. They will not stop climate change but could slow it a lot faster. Much of the world—including Africa, where 600m people still cannot light their homes—will begin to feel energy-rich. That feeling will be a new and transformational one humankind.
Many obstacles exist. In Africa, financing is a problem in part because of the pitiful state of the continent’s transmission grid, but off-grid solar generation is spreading. China currently makes more than 90% of the world’s supply of solar cells, with all the geopolitical turmoil that makes this imbalance problematic. In the U.S., NIMBYism has blocked many projects, but the biggest hurdle right now is the backlog in the queue for solar (and wind) projects being interconnected to the grid. At the end of last year, that connections backlog amounted to 2,600 gigawatts, twice the nation’s current generating capacity from all sources. Ninety-five percent of the projects in that queue are for renewables. High interest rates have meant some proposed projects were no longer economically sound and were nixed. The need for 24/7 power means vast amounts of energy storage via batteries and other methods like hydrogen. While battery advances are lowering costs at a speed comparable to what happened with solar panels, infrastructure for green hydrogen operations is so far practically non-existent.
All that might seem to make iffy forecasts of a 10-fold increase in solar installations within a decade. It’s true that forecasters have missed the mark in the past. What we’ve seen previously, however, is not overly optimistic forecasts but rather gigantic under-estimates. Fifteen years ago, when the globally installed solar capacity total was a mere 23 gigawatts, the International Energy Agency predicted it would increase to 244 gigawatts by 2030. It passed that mark in 2016. Last year, the world reached 1,419 gigawatts of solar capacity.
Four major benefits will emerge from this transformation: greenhouse gas emissions that are worsening global warming will be vastly reduced; other pollution from burning fossil fuels that annually causes the premature deaths of an estimated 7-8 million people will be eliminated; old industries will change how they operate and new ones will be created from scratch, along with vast numbers of new jobs; and the dependence on fossil fuels from politically unstable regions will vanish.
A solar revolution really is taking place. To be sure, it’s not the whole answer to the climate and biodiversity crises. But its colossal impact is barely beginning to be felt.
—MB
ECO-VIDEO
GREEN BRIEFS
It should count as a political miracle that the Inflation Reduction Act came into being at all. After the Build Back Better Act—heavy on climate and social policy—was cut by a third of its original $3.5 trillion and passed by the House of Representatives in the fall of 2021, Sen. Joe Manchin, who had been one of its most avid budget trimmers, pulled his support from the final product.
The legislation and all its provisions appeared utterly dead, giving credence to the handful of House progressives who had warned that congressional approval of the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment & Jobs Act ahead of any vote on Build Back Better would contribute to killing the latter.
But then Sen. Chuck Schumer and Manchin quietly hammered out a new plan. Ultimately named the Inflation Reduction Act, it only includes about 10% of the funding originally proposed for Build Back Better, and BBBA’s social safety net provisions are gone. But the final product, reduced though it be, nevertheless comprises unprecedented investments to accelerate the ongoing green transition that is essential in addressing climate change.
The IRA was approved two years ago this month, and the U.S. Treasury Department now has released data for how many taxpayers took advantage of two 30% IRA federal tax credits during the 2023 filing year. The solar tax credit covers rooftop solar and other zero-carbon generators, as well as batteries. The residential energy-efficiency credit covers changes such as installing a more efficient water heaters, heat pumps, insulation, and more weatherproof windows and doors.
The Treasury reported that more than 1.2 million households last year claimed $6.3 billion in residential clean energy investments. This averaged $5,000 per family. Heatmap reports that the original projection of the Joint Committee on Taxation was that taxpayers would claim $2 billion of the clean energy credit in 2023. Meanwhile, 2.2 million families claimed $2.4 billion in energy-efficient home improvements, averaging $882 per family. All told, about 2.5% of the 137 million tax filers claimed the credits.
Solar electricity investments accounted for the largest number of residential clean energy credit claims. In total, more than 750,000 families reporting a total of more than $20.5 billion in qualified solar electric property costs in 2023. Families also reported investments in solar water heating, small wind turbines, geothermal heat pumps, batteries, and fuel cells. For reported investments in energy efficient home improvements, more than 250,000 families claimed investments in electric or natural gas heat pumps, more than 100,000 families claimed investments in heat pump water heaters, and almost 700,000 families claimed investments in insulation and air sealing.
During a briefing call, Wally Adeyemo, the deputy secretary of the Treasury, said: “The Biden Harris administration’s top economic priority is making life more affordable for Americans. The Inflation Reduction Act is doing exactly that.”
Nearly half the families who claimed one or both the credits had incomes under $100,000 in 2023. That helps fulfill President Biden’s goal of getting more energy- and climate-related benefits accessible to less affluent Americans. But as Emily Pontecorvo and Robinson Meyer point out at HeatMap, “When you look at how many people claimed each tax credit as a percentage of the total number of filers in that bracket, it’s clear that both tax credits are more frequently adopted by higher income Americans.”
Said Adeyemo: “Our expectation is that as more American families become more familiar with these tax credits, and they look for ways to save money, they’ll continue to see this as a means to do so. Given what we’ve heard from some of the companies selling these products, our expectation is that this will continue.”
Most, though not all, Republicans seek to smash just about anything the federal government is doing to address climate change, including deep-sixing the IRA, calling it wasteful and economically harmful. The Treasury claims otherwise:
The households that have taken advantage of these credits will benefit by saving money on their monthly utility bills. One major example is the savings from installing solar panels. The savings from solar vary from locality to locality, but recent research quantifying the savings in 2021 for about 500,000 households across the U.S. that have adopted residential solar finds that the median adopting customer saw total electricity bill savings of $2,230 annually.
Even more Americans have taken advantage of the energy efficiency upgrades such as insulation, windows, doors, and heat pumps. Heat pumps can provide both heating and cooling – potentially replacing both a fossil-fuel-powered furnace and a dedicated air conditioner. [...] For households that primarily heat with fuel oil or propane (each about 4 percent of U.S. households), bill savings are quite large – from about $1,000 to $3,100 per year. For households that are using electric, non-heat pump heating (21 percent of households) the projected savings are about $300 to $1,200 per year. For households with gas heating (54 percent), the range is narrower, about $30 to $600 per year. [...]
Another Treasury analysis on March 1, 2024, analysis notes:
What are the economic benefits of the IRA’s greenhouse gas reductions? Each ton of carbon emitted causes additional future economic damages here in the United States and around the world in the form of floods, hurricanes, and other extreme weather. Each ton not emitted (or captured and permanently stored) reduces those damages, providing economic benefits.
As greenhouse gases accumulate in the atmosphere and temperatures rise, each new ton of greenhouse gases will cause a larger temperature increase, and each temperature increase will cause more damages. And as countries’ populations and incomes grow, each hurricane or drought will affect more people and property, further magnifying damages. As a consequence, the costs of pollution and benefits of mitigation will increase each year. The U.S. government has long had an official measure of the value of those avoided damages, which the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently updated: $212 per ton in 2025, rising steadily to $308 per ton in 2050.
—MB
RESEARCH, STUDIES & REPORTS
HALF A DOZEN OTHER THINGS TO READ (OR LISTEN TO)
Gov. Tim Walz and Democratic and Vice President Kamala Harris crack each other up at Philadelphia rally unveiling him as her running mate.
How Tim Walz Pushed Minnesota Towards Aggressive Climate Policies by Jennifer A. Dlouhy & Ari Natter at Bloomberg Green. Tim Walz, the Minnesota governor tapped on Tuesday to become the Democratic vice presidential nominee, has accelerated his state’s embrace of clean energy and electric vehicles in ways that could become templates for federal action in the next White House. He used a razor-thin majority in the Minnesota legislature to enact a law requiring the state to produce all of its electricity from carbon-free sources by 2040. It was one of dozens of climate initiatives Walz helped steer through the statehouse, including a $2 billion initiative to expand clean energy investment in the state. “He has done this by pitching climate action as a way to make people’s everyday lives better, create good-paying green jobs and invest in making communities stronger,” said Stevie O’Hanlon with the Sunrise Movement, a climate group run by youth activists. Walz’s approach — casting the fight against climate change as a potential economic win for residents in his state — is the same model President Joe Biden used to drive enactment of the sweeping Inflation Reduction Act and attract support for other clean energy initiatives. Getting political buy-in to support policy goals will be critical for the next phase of US clean energy development. And that’s where the approach taken by Walz in Minnesota could become an indicator of how he might lead from Washington.
RELATED:
The Alabama A&M FireDawgs at a prescribed fire training in Tuskegee, Alabama.
Diversifying the Next Generation of Wildland Firefighters by Ashira Morris at Sierra magazine. When Chris Burns transferred into Alabama A&M University’s forestry department, he was immediately drawn to the school’s FireDawgs program. The first student-led wildland firefighting team at a historically Black college and university (HBCU) deploys its members to assist state and national firefighters with quelling wildfires. Now in his final year of the program, Burns is also leading prescribed burns to maintain forests near the school’s Huntsville campus. The current forestry workforce is overwhelmingly white. At the university level, only about 11% of forestry students are minorities, the lowest of all natural resources disciplines. On the job, under 4% of the U.S. Forest Service workforce is Black. One of the Forest Service’s main goals in its first diversity, equity, and inclusion plan is to “achieve a workforce representative of Americans that inspires development of innovative ideas and best practices” by 2026. At the very top, Randy Moore became the service’s first Black chief in 2021. To employ a staff that’s representative of the country, the Forest Service is leaning into partnerships. It reached out to the Alabama A&M FireDawgs with a proposal: funding to create a fire training program for HBCU students, with the explicit intention of hiring students out of the cohort. In 2020, the 1890 Land Grant Institution Wildland Fire Consortium was born (the year references when many southeastern HBCUs, including the consortium schools, became land grant schools). Today, about 20 students across four such universities participate. While the FireDawgs program gives students like Burns plenty of hands-on experience, it can’t issue official fire certification. The consortium, which brings in Forest Service personnel for its training, can.
Antarctic krill in the Southern Ocean
Small But Mighty: Why Antarctic Krill Are Worth Fighting For by Tara Lohan at The Revelator. If you love penguins, whales and a livable climate, then it might be time to stand up for Antarctic krill. These shrimp-like crustaceans occur around Antarctica but are most highly concentrated in the Antarctic Peninsula, which also happens to be one of the fast-warming places on the planet. That’s bad news for krill — and everything that depends on them — which is a lot. Only a few inches long, Antarctic krill (Euphausia superba) may be small, but their contributions to the ecosystem are massive — much like the swarms themselves. They form the base of the food web in the Southern Ocean, which circles Antarctica and makes up about 10% of the global ocean. Most animals living in and around Antarctica dine on krill. That includes sea birds, whales, penguins, seals, squid, and numerous species of fish that live in the open ocean. “Krill play such a fundamental role in the ecosystem, not just for the top predators, but also for smaller predators,” says Kim Bernard, an associate professor at Oregon State University who’s currently in Antarctica studying the crustaceans. “Almost everything down here feeds on them. And if they don’t feed directly on Antarctic krill, they’ll feed on something that does.” Krill help support a diversity of marine life, but they also play a major role in biogeochemical cycling by trapping carbon in the deep sea — something that benefits even those of us that live far from its frigid waters.
Some House Republicans warn against climate law repeal by Emma Dumain at ClimateWire. Former President Donald Trump has promised,vif elected, to deep-six the Inflation Reduction Act that would otherwise provide trillions of dollars in incentives to projects for electric vehicles, wind, solar, hydrogen, nuclear power, and energy storage. But 18 House Republicans are telling their leadership not to gut the IRA’s clean energy tax credits if the GOP wins a governing majority next year. Led by Rep. Andrew Garbarino (R-N.Y.), their letter to House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) is another example of a growing rift within the Republican Party. On one side are lawmakers who want a wholesale repeal of the climate and social spending law. On the other are those whose districts are seeing the tangible benefits of that law in the form of clean energy manufacturing investments. From the letter:
We agree the partisan process of passing the IRA created a deeply flawed bill that will prevent the development of lifesaving cures, empower the IRS to harass small businesses, and distort energy markets. For those reasons, we are proposing a different approach which will unite our party and promote conservative values.
We understand the importance of a healthy and thriving domestic energy sector. American energy dominance increases national security, creates American jobs, and ensures energy independence. We know the U.S produces cleaner energy than anywhere else in the world and has a strong track record of emissions reductions, even before passage of the IRA.
Today, many U.S. companies are already using sector-wide energy tax credits—many of whic have enjoyed bipartisan support historically—to make major investments in new U.S. energy infrastructure. We hear from industry and our constituents who fear the energy tax regime will once again be turned on its head due to Republican repeal efforts. Prematurely repealing energy tax credits, particularly those which were used to justify investments that already broke ground, would undermine private investments and stop development that is already ongoing. A full repeal would create a worst-case scenario where we would have spent billions of taxpayer dollars and received next to nothing in return.
Which U.S. states have the cleanest electricity by Carrie Klein & Dan McCarthy at Canary Media. President Joe Biden has set an ambitious goal for the U.S. power grid: 100% carbon-free electricity by 2035. Environmental Protection Agency data released this past January provides a status update on that target. As of the end of 2022, 13 states received the majority of their electricity from carbon-free sources. The rest still mostly depend on fossil-fueled sources to keep their lights on. Washington state had the cleanest grid overall as of 2022, the product of its prodigious hydropower resources drawn from the Columbia River. But the state still has a lot of room to improve its use of renewables: It sourced just under 7% of its electricity from wind and less than 1% from solar in 2022. The state with the dirtiest grid, Delaware, still relies heavily on fossil gas and gets only a fraction of its power from wind and solar, 1.28%. It has committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 50% by 2030, and legislators recently passed a bill that directs the state’s energy office to procure 1.2 gigawatts of offshore wind energy. In the two states with nearly 20% of the total U.S. population—California and New York—each generates nearly 50% of its electricity from carbon-free sources. In New York, this is mostly hydro and nuclear, while California’s clean power comes from a mix of solar, wind, hydro, nuclear, and geothermal. West Virginia and Wyoming still depend heavily on coal, but in the latter state, wind will soon exceed generation from that source while West Virginia still gets 89% of its juice from coal, with no big changes in sight. Indiana, Ohio, Utah, Kentucky, and Mississippi all generate less than 15% of their electricity from carbon-free sources.
‘Massive disinformation campaign’ is slowing global transition to green energy by Fiona Harvey at The Guardian. Fossil fuel companies are running “a massive mis- and disinformation campaign” so that countries will slow down the adoption of renewable energy and the speed with which they “transition away” from a carbon-intensive economy, the UN has said. Selwin Hart, the assistant secretary general of the UN, said that talk of a global “backlash” against climate action was being stoked by the fossil fuel industry, in an effort to persuade world leaders to delay emissions-cutting policies. The perception among many political observers of a rejection of climate policies was a result of this campaign, rather than reflecting the reality of what people think, he added. “There is this prevailing narrative – and a lot of it is being pushed by the fossil fuel industry and their enablers – that climate action is too difficult, it’s too expensive,” he said. “It is absolutely critical that leaders, and all of us, push back and explain to people the value of climate action, but also the consequences of climate inaction.” He contrasted the perception of a backlash with the findings of the biggest poll ever conducted on the climate, which found clear majorities of people around the world supporting measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The survey found 72% of people wanted a “quick transition” away from fossil fuels, including majorities in the countries that produce the most coal, oil and gas. Green parties and plans may have suffered reverses in some parts of the world, he said, but in others they have gained seats, and seen policies that would once have been considered radical enter the mainstream.
ECO-QUOTE
“Environmental protection doesn’t happen in a vacuum. You can’t separate the impact on the environment from the impact on our families and communities.”—Rep. Jim Clyburn
ECOPINION
Elizabeth Kolbert
“H is For Hope” sounded a bit better than “D is For Despair”: Interview with Elizabeth Kolbert about climate change conducted by Dan Drollette Jr. at the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Elizabeth Kolbert, a staff writer at The New Yorker, is the author of the 2015 Pulitzer-Prize winning book The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History. She is a former member of the Bulletin’s Science and Security Board, where she served for three years. Her 2005 three-part magazine series on global warming won the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s magazine writing award, a National Magazine Award, and a National Academies’ communications award. Her latest book, H is For Hope: Climate Change From A to Z, is a collection of 26 illustrated essays on climate change—one for each letter of the alphabet. It explores why there is still reason for some optimism in the fight against climate change (even if time is short and the odds can seem overwhelming). An excerpt from the interview:
Sen. Joe Manchin (I-WV) and Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY)
The Irrelevant Permitting Bill by David Dayen at The American Prospect. Debate has raged about whether to accept this compromise. The energy wonk side believes that the status quo right now favors fossil fuel companies, because more clean-energy projects need to be built, and therefore hindrances to building disproportionately prevent renewables. The activist side believes that any lasting infrastructure or processes that favor fossil fuels in the future make it harder to wind down those assets, and therefore guarantee more emissions than the world can bear to keep global temperature rise below a catastrophic threshold. This Heatmap piece gives a good roundup of that thinking.What there hasn’t been is any sort of political analysis of this permitting deal. And I think about two seconds of reflection yields the recognition that there’s not going to be a vote, much less a bill signed by this president. Both parties still believe they have a reasonable shot of taking over the government next year. This deal is predicated on the idea that you have to compromise to get anything done on building out energy production. I don’t get the sense that either party’s leadership believes that. Or at least, they each think they’ll be in a better position to deliver a more favorable compromise for their interests next year. Republicans looking at regaining the presidency will not agree to a bill that gives renewables a better shot at being built. Democrats hoping to hold the presidency and take back the House will not agree to a bill that mandates more fossil fuel production on federal land.
RELATED: Earth Matters: Permitting bill gets eco-howls
Jose Vasquez, left, Gayle Goschie, center, and Eloy Luevanos set up a harrow behind a grain hopper in preparation for planting winter barley at Goschie Farms in Mount Angel, Ore.
Republican Plans for Ag Policy May Bring Big Changes to Farm Country by Lisa Held at Civil Eats. Through CRP, the U.S. Department of Agriculture pays farmers not to farm on less-productive parcels of land, often in areas that are corn and soy fields as far as the eye can see, to be left alone to reduce runoff, improve biodiversity, and hold carbon. “It’s a great program, and a lot of these farms have some marginal ground on them that would be better off in CRP than growing crops,” Andrews said. As of March 2024, the most recent month for which data is available, more than 301,000 farms had close to 25 million acres enrolled in CRP; that’s a lot of acreage, but it represents less than 3% of U.S. farmland. Project 2025, a conservative Republican presidential transition blueprint spearheaded by the Heritage Foundation, proposes eliminating CRP. The Republican Study Committee, an influential caucus of House conservatives, proposes ending enrollments in the program, as well. It’s just one of several cuts to federal programs serving commodity farmers that Republican operatives and lawmakers have recently proposed in policy documents. Project 2025 also proposes reducing crop insurance subsidies and “ideally” eliminating commodity payments altogether. The RSC’s budget, meanwhile, proposes putting new limits on commodity payments, reducing crop insurance subsidies, and ending enrollment in another popular conservation program called the Conservation Stewardship Program.
Vegans are radical. That’s why we need them by Jishnu Guha-Majumdar at Vox. Despite decades of advocacy, vegans and veganism remain deeply unpopular, even detested. Many influential animal activists are now debating a question that would have once seemed absurd: Is it worth the movement’s precious time and resources to keep advocating for meatless diets, an apparently lost cause? Although people define veganism in different ways, it fundamentally entails avoiding all animal products to the greatest extent possible, including meat, dairy, and eggs, but also non-dietary products like wool and leather. Whereas the more commonly practiced vegetarianism only rejects meat consumption, the vegan movement generally rejects the property status of animals and aims to fully divest from animal cruelty and exploitation. Vegans are often considered too extreme, especially in a meat-obsessed country like the US — a perception that persists despite the growing popularity of vegan products. The famed late chef Anthony Bourdain once compared vegans to Hezbollah, declaring them “the enemy of everything good and decent in the human spirit.” His aversion seems representative of the public’s feelings. One 2015 study found that, in the United States, negative attitudes toward vegans rivaled those toward atheists. These social headwinds are making veganism unpopular even among influential voices in the animal movement.
RELATED: I’m a Black vegan. Why don’t you see more of us?
Asphalt Roads are Making our Heatwaves Worse and High-Speed Rail Is The Answer by Andy Kunz at Streetsblog. Rising temperatures caused by coating more of the nation’s roads with asphalt are an important reason why the U.S. must act now to build a nationwide electric high-speed rail network that will form the backbone of an integrated electricity-based transportation system. Electric vehicles and greater fuel economy are part of the solution but, as a new U.S. Department of Transportation report argues, their impact will be more than offset by the fact that total vehicle miles traveled will continue to rise. High-speed rail creates a green alternative to endless highway expansion. Shifting our national focus to rail and walkable communities creates new options for living — enabling people the choice of getting around by train, bicycles, scooters, and walking. Together, they greatly reduce the need for pavement, as well as for fossil fuels. And this is in addition to the well-established benefits of high-speed rail, from connecting rural and urban areas, to lowering housing costs to generating good union jobs. Momentum is building for high-speed rail in America. Late last year, President Biden awarded $6.1 billion in high-speed rail project grants, the largest investment ever. This included $3 billion for the Brightline West project, which will connect Las Vegas and Southern California with America’s first operating high-speed rail line in time for the 2028 Los Angeles Summer Olympics.
John Mark Rozendaal plays cello in defiance of a restraining order outside CitiBank’s headquarters in New York City on Thursday, August 8. He was arrested along with 15 others.
What I Would Have Said as My Friend Defied Citi With Song by Sandra Steingraber via Common Dreams. On August 8, 63-year-old professional cellist, climate activist, and grandfather, John Mark Rozendaal, was arrested while playing the opening strains of Bach’s “Suites for Cello” outside of CitiBank’s world headquarters in Manhattan. Rozendaal is one of the leaders of the ongoing Summer of Heat civil disobedience campaign that has targeted CitiBank for financing new fossil fuel projects. Earlier this month, Citibank used allegations that critics label as false to obtain a restraining order to prevent Rozendaal, along with author and campaign leader Alec Connon, from returning to Citibank headquarters or risk being charged with criminal contempt, a crime which carries a maximum seven-year jail sentence. Biologist Sandra Steingraber was invited to bear witness to his restraining order-defying performance and speak at a press event about the significance of his actions. However, that speech was never delivered. Just as Rozendaal began to play the first measures of the suite, police rushed in. Rozendaal and Connon were arrested, as were Steingraber and 13 others in attendance who had formed a circle around the musician as he played. This is an excerpt from the speech that was not delivered.
I would have liked nothing better than to spend my life studying trees. But the acceleration of the climate crisis is now torching forests around the world. And drowning them with saltwater. And ravaging them with emergent diseases. And driving their pollinators into extinction. And otherwise stressing them to the point where they can no longer remove and sequester carbon dioxide from the air around them. So, that’s why I became a civil disobedient with the Summer of Heat campaign. My responsibility as a plant biologist in this moment in human history is to do more than just teach photosynthesis and praise trees. All the oxygen we breathe is provided to us by plants, and they are in trouble. And governments aren’t acting. And banks like Citi keep on financing new fossil fuel projects that are ravaging ecosystems.
OTHER GREEN STUFF
Delays and cost overruns challenge nuclear fusion project ¶Great Salt Lake Is Releasing Millions of Tons of Carbon Emissions, Study Finds ¶California: New EV Incentives for Low-Income Buyers Could Help Replace ‘Clunkers,’ Improve Air Quality ¶The US to turn a Manhattan Project nuclear site into a 1 GW solar farm ¶The lost history of what Americans knew about climate change in the 1960s ¶How the Inflation Reduction Act is playing out in one of the ‘most biased’ states for renewables ¶American Test Of Three Chinese EVs: 'It’s A Wake-Up Call' ¶“Game over” for the Amazon forest and global climate if Trump wins? ¶China hits ‘historic’ renewables tipping point as wind and solar eclipse coal ¶As World Warms, Global Heat Deaths Are Grossly Undercounted
