Local Climate News
About 20 people joined the sustainable farm event organized by Shenandoah Valley Faith & Climate on Saturday, September 20. We toured the farm operations at Jubilee Climate Farm and Second Mountain Farm and had energetic discussions about obtaining land, labor demands, developing markets, improving soils, and value added processing.
On Saturday, September 20, GiveSolar gathered with their partners to celebrate solar systems powering Central Valley Habitat for Humanity townhomes. It was the launch of their national campaign: a $40 million effort to install 10,000 solar systems on Habitat homes by 2030.
Virginia Energy News
Virginia, the data center capital of the world, offers a crucial test case for electric utilities: Can they meet power demand from the explosion of AI while keeping bills affordable and slashing carbon emissions? So far, the utilities are failing the test.
Gov. Youngkin has been a champion of the Dominion Energy wind farm under construction off the coast of Virginia. He is quietly pushing back against Trump’s war on wind energy and is trying to persuade the president to leave the nearly 60% completed project alone.
Renewable energy developers planned dozens of solar projects on former coal-fields owned by The Nature Conservancy. Then president Trump signed his budget reconciliation bill upending an unprecedented effort to revitalize southwest Virginia.
Our Climate Crisis
This summer was the United Kingdom’s hottest on record. The UK’s hottest five summers on record have all occurred since 2000.
Syria is being pushed to the brink with the worst drought in decades as its fledgling government is trying to stitch the country back together following a 14-year civil war that left millions impoverished.
The sea keeps claiming more houses in the Outer Banks. Twelve houses collapsed in Rodanthe in the last 5 years. This area has experienced some of the most rapid rates of erosion on the East Coast, and seas there have risen by 4.6 inches since 2010.
The world is producing too much coal, oil and natural gas to meet the targets set 10 years ago under the Paris Agreement. Countries plan to produce more than twice the amount of fossil fuels in 2030 than would be consistent with limiting global heating to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
Politics and Policy
At the UN Climate Summit, China asserted green leadership and committed to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by 7 to 10% over the next 10 years. The U.S. completely retreated as Trump, in his speech before the general assembly, dismissed climate as a ‘con job.’
Though they heavily backed Trump in the presidential election, oil and gas executives are beginning to sour on their cheerleader-in-chief. That’s because their economic outlook has worsened because of the policies of the Trump administration.
A federal judge ruled that Danish offshore wind developer Orsted can restart work on the nearly finished Revolution Wind project off the coast of Rhode Island. Trump halted the project last month and this is the first major setback to his war on wind energy.
ICE arrested and detained about 300 South Korean citizens helping to build the Hyundai and LG Energy Solution’s new EV battery factory in Georgia. This reveals the Trump administration’s competing interests as a push to expand U.S. manufacturing collides with an aggressive crackdown on foreign workers.
The U.S. federal government currently subsidizes the fossil-fuel industry to the tune of nearly $31 billion per year and this is likely a vast understatement due to the lack of transparency. These government handouts have more than doubled since 2017.
The EPA now claims that the long-standing Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program “has no material impact on improving human health and the environment.” It, therefore, intends to stop collecting all greenhouse gas emissions data.
U.S. solar industry’s biggest annual gathering was surprisingly optimistic this year despite severe policy setbacks under the Trump administration. That’s because of positive market trends.
Energy
Even as the U.S. is gutting support for renewable energy, the world is still pushing ahead on the shift to solar energy, with installations up 64% in the first half of this year. Solar is now the fastest-growing source of electricity worldwide.
AI is driving the rapid increase in demand for electricity while also driving the gains in the U.S. stock market. A research note recently sent to clients by Deutsche Bank warns that the AI bubble is the only thing keeping the US economy together, and when it bursts reality will hit far harder than anyone expects.
Solar-powered electricity shot up by over 30%, while wind grew by almost 14% in the U.S. in July even as the Trump administration has been gutting support for renewable energy.
Texas created a $7.2B fund for gas plants in 2023. Now hardly any are being built because the energy market has turned against the development of gas-fired power plants.
The largest U.S. oil companies, contending with persistently mediocre economic realities, are laying off many workers in hopes of squeezing more fuel from the ground at lower cost. ConocoPhillips said it will cut up to 25% of its work force by the end of the year.
Wave energy is an emerging industry that’s largely still focused on research, demonstration and pilot projects. But the potential is big. The first U.S. onshore wave energy pilot installation began operating this month at the port of Los Angeles.
China’s clean energy surge is starting to transform the world’s energy systems. The country’s massive investments in solar, wind, storage, and electrification are cutting fossil fuel use at home while sending clean tech around the globe.
Fracking technology may have a new life in clean geothermal energy. Advanced drilling technologies have no problem reaching down to 8,000 feet, where vast swaths of the earth underneath the United States are hot enough to produce power.
There is lots of interest in small modular nuclear reactors as a constant source of clean energy but there are big questions about cost and nuclear waste.
Australian mining corporation Fortescue is moving towards zero emissions across its global operations. And that investment is already paying off. Their massive electric haul trucks and excavators are saving the company almost $400 million each year in fuel costs alone.
California refineries are closing as gasoline demand slips into permanent decline. Gasoline consumption in California peaked in 2015 and declined 11% over less than ten years.
ExxonMobil, America’s largest oil company, is ramping up investments in renewable energy as global demand for oil begins to slow down. It is now making EV battery breakthroughs and is on track to become a lithium supplier.
Buildings
Mass timber construction has already proven its climate case compared to reinforced concrete construction. In addition, speed of construction and smaller, more specialized crews create economic benefits that go beyond carbon accounting.
Food and Agriculture
In some of the most flood- and drought-prone parts of the country, federal subsidies are keeping farmers on land that is no longer productive. But the Trump administration cut federal employees who manage programs that could help pull troubled farmland out of production.
As the federal policy on solar shifts, states are increasingly exploring community solar programs that can include farms and rural businesses. Agrivoltaics (combining solar installations with agriculture) is being explored as a way of bringing on low-cost power quickly.
Growing tall trees to provide shade for cocoa plantations in west Africa could sequester millions of tons of carbon. The additional carbon stored in shade trees, such as banana and palm trees, could entirely “offset” cocoa-related emissions.
Climate Justice
Indonesia is fast-tracking a massive agricultural project that is turning 7 million acres of tropical forest (the size of Maryland) into rice and sugarcane farms. This is the world’s largest deforestation project, which will upend the lives of thousands of Indigenous people.
Residents in the poorer neighborhoods of Charleston worry that new developments—including a sea wall planned to shield the city’s historic center from rising seawater—could push floodwaters into their communities.
Latinos are nearly three times more likely than white individuals to live in communities with poor air quality. Latino communities are now ramping up their own air quality monitoring as Trump’s EPA moves to weaken pollution regulations.
Environmental activists across the world are brutally murdered almost every day for their political speech.
Climate Action
Bike buses—convoys of parents and children who ride to school together—are becoming the rage. About 470 bike buses are now active around the world along routes anywhere from three blocks to three miles.
Pope Leo XIV opened the historic papal residence south of Rome as a center dedicated to the principles of care for creation and human dignity.
African leaders recently met in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, for the second African climate summit. There are hopeful indications that the continent’s green economy may be under way, driven by solar power and an increase in low-carbon investment.
The EU has introduced 30% reduction targets on food waste generated by households, retailers and restaurants. Food waste has a significant climate impact, generating about 16% of the total greenhouse gas emissions from the EU food system.
Norway, the leading country for electric cars, is now turning to electric planes. There are dozens of short daily flights to the country’s remote islands for which electric planes make sense. They’re quitter, simpler, and easier to maintain, in addition to cutting carbon emissions.
Uruguay decarbonized its grid in just five years, with 98% of its energy coming from renewable sources. Ramón Méndez Galain, Uruguay’s energy secretary who led the transition now has a vision for replicating their success in other countries.
Earl Zimmerman
Climate Action Alliance of the Valley
Climate Action Alliance of the Valley 