“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
What is environmental (in)justice? A primer in graphic novel style featured in Orion Magazine, and extracted from Meera Subramanian and Danica Novgorodoff’s new book A Better World is Possible. More developments in the perennially imminent nuclear fusion, with new commitments in Germany alongside those in the US and elsewhere. If we had to summarise its…
Where are Easyjet’s electric planes?
A few years ago there was an extensive round of consultations around expanding Luton Airport. I went to several of them to cause trouble with the local Extinction Rebellion group, and would attend dressed as an elephant or an air traffic controller. At one of them I created a sit-in of soft toys with my…
Book review: Footwork, by Tansy E Hoskins
As readers of a certain generation will know, trainers have always been an icon of globalisation. Naomi Klein’s No Logo drew the connections between consumer brands and their exploited labour 25 years ago. Hipsters who had read the book used to black out the logos on their trainers with a marker pen in protest. Not…
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.