Ripple is a new energy start-up that is inviting customers to buy shares in a wind farm, making it the first to be owned by its customers. There are community energy groups that might argue that’s only true as a technicality, but it’s still a good idea that supports energy democracy.
Canada has set out proposals for a net zero by 2050 climate target. Yes. Do it Canada.
“As anti-racists, we cannot be against ‘racial’ inequality at home, while at the same time perpetuate ‘racial’ inequality abroad through exploitative consumption habits” argues Samir Sweida-Metwally in this Bristol University Press article on ethical consumerism and racism.
Solar Oysters is a company that plans to use solar power to automate floating oyster farms in the Chesapeake Bay, producing food while cleaning the water – a potentially regenerative form of ocean farming.
Onshore wind and solar are back in the picture in Britain, as the government allows them to be included in next year’s Contracts for Difference auction (a form of subsidy). They have been excluded since 2015 for no good reason, so this is good to see.
This week’s posts:
Can Germany phase out fossil fuels by 2045?
In writing about sustainability for two decades, I’ve read a few national climate declarations. Remember Sweden’s bid to be the first fossil-fuel free country by 2020? Neither do the Swedes, and 2020 came and went with the target long abandoned. Same with New Zealand’s ambition to be carbon neutral by 2025, which was announced in…
Possible’s new story about climate
“There’s a story being told about you, about what you need, about what you care about, about what’s possible,” begins the new video from Possible, one of my favourite climate charities. There is a prevailing narrative about climate change that it doesn’t matter to people, that it’s too expensive to do anything about, that it…
Book review: End Times Fascism, by Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor
End Times Fascism deserves some kind of award for the most depressing book title of the year. I’ll admit that my first reaction was ‘pass’, but I read a truly eye-watering book earlier this year called Promise me You’ll Shoot Yourself. Written by historian Florian Huber, it is compiled almost entirely from diary entries by…
What we learned this week
Trump’s war in Iran has driven a decline in gas and oil demand, and even with a rise in coal use in some places, global emissions from fossil fuels are expected to fall by 0.5% this year. He may be a climate denier and fossil fuel booster, but luckily for the world he is incompetent.…
Do the Canadians plan to shut down the tar sands mines? It’s my understanding that their laws are so restrictive that they cannot refine that gunk in Canada, so the pipelines send it to the US.