“God will ask us if we have cultivated and cared for the world that he created, for the benefit of all and for future generations, and if we have taken care of our brothers and sisters. What will be our answer?” Pope Leo has given his first speech on the climate. He also “noted that some have chosen to deride the increasingly evident signs of climate change, to ridicule those who speak of global warming.”
Meanwhile, the US Energy Department sent an email instructing staff to avoid “terminology that you know to be misaligned with the Administration’s perspectives and priorities”, with a list of banned words that includes climate change, green, carbon and sustainability.
Britain has a target to run on 100% clean energy by 2030, and the grid continues to set new records on the way to that. So far clean energy supply has exceeded demand for 87 hours this year.
Hannah Ritchie points out some positive news that hasn’t made any headlines: record breaking harvests are expected in most parts of the world this year.
Some book news: my online bookshop, Earthbound Books, now has ebooks. I’ve been waiting for this for a while. Fill your eboots.
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What we learned this week
A study of four decades of news articles in America found that climate change accounts for 0.55% of news coverage, and has risen “from silence to a whisper” in the at time. Belgium is the first country to appoint a Chief Planetary Officer, a role “designed to bring Planetary Boundaries science directly into national decision-making,…
How Frontier Markets empowers women traders
Among the most important questions to ask of a new technology are these: who controls it? And who does it serve? With many leading AI applications, the answer to both is simple – the richest. But that’s not inevitable, and so I enjoyed hearing about Ashden Award winner Frontier Markets. Frontier Markets is a social…
Book review: Heatwave, by John L Williams
It’s fifty years since the famous 1976 heatwave which broke records as the driest and hottest British summer of the 20th century. From a weather perspective it was a true freak occurrence, and it’s left a lasting legacy. Some of that is benign – lots of people have very happy memories of an ‘endless summer’.…
The Earthbound Report 
Am looking at data for Virginia’s crops. We had, between 2023 and 2024, 40 and 47% declines for corn and winter wheat yields, respectively. 12% decrease for tobacco. Increases for soybean yields by 22% and cotton, too. Need references for the past 60 months in order to see a pattern.