Local Climate Action
The Climate Action Alliance of the Valley is organizing a Climate Action Celebration and Call to Action at the Massanutten Regional Library on Tuesday, November 11, at 5:30 pm. Join us for a celebration of climate action for the last 17 years, and a collaborative discussion of what we can do into the future. Whether you’ve been involved since the start, or you’re curious about what you can do to make this a better world, join us! For planning purposes it will be helpful if you RSVP here.
Shenandoah Valley Faith & Climate is joining with the Mennonite Central Committee and people of faith around the world to pray and fast during this year’s UN COP 30 global climate summit from November 10-21. It’s our way to find strength and hope in collective action and to let policymakers know our eyes are on them. Click here to find out more and to join us.
Virginia Environmental News
At the Faith Alliance for Climate Solutions’ annual Virginia Climate Crisis Forum, a panel of activists and experts discussed the rapid expansion of power hungry data centers. What’s at stake is what this means for our electric bills as well as their environmental and community health impacts. You can watch the livestream here.
The Hampton Roads Planning District Commission is finalizing a plan that outlines how the region could cut climate pollution by up to 90% by 2050, compared to 2022 levels.
Northern Virginia’s “Data Center Alley”—the world’s largest cluster of data centers—is adding billions of dollars to ratepayers’ electricity bills and raising the risk of persistent inflation in the economy and potential power shortages. Virginia’s current data center infrastructure and slate of future projects are deep enough that no other region will overtake it any time soon.
Dominion Energy has been building its huge offshore wind farm off the coast of Virginia Beach at a breakneck pace. It plans to begin generating electricity by March 2026 and be completed by the end of 2026.
Governor Youngkin is touting a Henrico firm that is powering Virginia’s data center boom. The firm is manufacturing more energy-efficient equipment that will help to meet the data center driven surging demand for electricity.
PJM is seeking to fast track a large 1.5 gigawatt gas power plant in Fluvanna County to its multi-state grid increasingly stressed by power-hungry data centers. They’re getting pushback from residents concerned about health effects, noise and transparency.
Clean Virginia is taking its “The Energy Bills are Too Damn High” tour across the state in this election season. The concerns they’re raising include politicians taking money from electric utilities they regulate and the rising costs of electricity due to power hungry data centers.
Our Climate Crisis
In an interview before next month’s Cop30 climate summit, UN secretary general António Guterres acknowledged the inevitability that humanity will overshoot the target in the Paris Climate Agreement to limit global heating to 1.5C and must change course immediately.
Heat-trapping carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere jumped by the highest amount on record last year, soaring to a level not seen in human civilization. This is “turbo-charging” the Earth’s climate and causing more extreme weather.
Switzerland’s glaciers melted 3% of their total volume this year—the fourth-largest annual drop on record. They have declined by one-quarter over the last decade.
The National Flood Insurance Program is sinking deeper into the red. Earlier this year, it borrowed $2 billion from the US Treasury to help cover claims from major storms in 2024. It’s total debt is now more than $22.5 billion, and is likely to rise further as claims from floods this year are processed.
The death tolls and the billion-dollar losses from wildfires have been stacking up around the world. Of the 200 most damaging fires since 1980, 43% happened in the last 10 years.
The first half of 2025 was the costliest on record for major climate disasters in the U.S. Led by the huge wildfires in Los Angeles, there were 14 separate weather-related disasters that each caused at least $1bn in damage.
Hurricane Melissa blew through the Caribbean, fueled by prime conditions to create a monster tempest. Extra warm ocean water, created by global warming, super-charged the storm’s intensity and rapid growth, meaning that we will see more storms like this in the future.
Politics and Policy
The Trump administration scuttled the largest solar project in the U.S. on federal land in the Nevada desert, which was set to generate enough electricity to power 2 million homes. The move drew rare criticism from politicians of both parties.
The US Department of Energy has told employees to avoid using the words “climate change” in what seems to be the latest incident in a crackdown on discussing the climate crisis in the U.S. government.
The Trump administration is offering $625 million to rescue the coal industry. The effort includes opening 13.1 million acres of federal land for mining. Officials claim is that it is part of their strategy to win the “AI arms race” against China.
A handful of congressional Republicans are breaking with Trump and party leadership over their renewed push to boost coal-fired power generation. They warn that the industry’s long-term struggles can’t be solved by federal funding or executive action.
California Governor Gavin Newsom has vetoed three bills that aimed to boost the use of virtual power plants to expand the state’s use of clean power and energy efficiency. This undermines an opportunity to decrease the state’s fast-rising electricity costs and increase its grid reliability.
For decades, the Pentagon viewed climate change as a national security threat because it undermined operations and readiness. Now Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is dismissing this as “climate change crap” as they cut climate research funding and abandon adaptation plans.
After scoring a surprising victory over a proposed United Nations climate fee on shipping, the Trump administration is now ramping up pressure on the European Union to repeal or weaken regulations on greenhouse gas pollution. The European Commission made it clear that their regulatory authority is not up for discussion.
In response to changing federal policies, clean tech firms have abandoned or scaled back close to $24 billion in new projects, from solar farms to battery plants to electric vehicle factories, costing 20,000 jobs. This will likely push these investments overseas.
Energy
Utilities across the U.S. anticipate electricity generation will grow 24% by 2035, largely due to data center demand. Emissions are still projected to drop because of the gradual conversion to cleaner energy, but not nearly as much as previously anticipated.
Analysts widely expect the United States to add record amounts of renewable energy and batteries through 2027. This is in spite of Trump administration efforts to stop it by taking back clean energy tax credits and throwing up roadblocks to renewable energy projects.
Global oil and gas exploration has shrunk dramatically. Expenditures now hover around $50 billion to 60 billion per year—down from a peak of around $115 billion in 2013. This pivot reflects pressures such as investor scrutiny, the need to maintain earnings, and climate policies.
Australia has put itself on a realistic path to running its power grid entirely on renewable energy. As old coal-fired power stations are retired, they’re getting replaced by the least-cost energy, which is renewable energy, backed with storage, connected in with transmission.
Base Power, a Texas startup, hauled in $1B for mass deployment of huge home batteries. The dispersed fleet of batteries can profit from in the state’s competitive energy market.
Transportation
As more electric vehicles hit the road, the temptation is to invest heavily in the infrastructure that will preserve the status quo of prioritizing cars over people. Meanwhile, the e-bike market is skyrocketing and providing an even more environmentally friendly travel option. Can we rethink cities to encourage people to ditch four wheels for two?
Parallel Systems has created a new electric train concept without a locomotive. It, instead, equips individual railcars with their own batteries and operating systems. They can travel in groups of 20–30 cars and then peel off in smaller groups towards separate destinations.
India’s railways are electrifying fast. It will achieve its net-zero targets by the end of this year, five years ahead of its 2030 target.
Food and Agriculture
A small demonstration agrivoltaics project in Aldie, Virginia, has big implications for the future of farming. The solar panels, mounted on 6 foot high racks, co-exist with strategically situated rows of vegetables on a relatively small plot of land.
The nonprofit Zero Foodprint began as an effort to reduce food waste in restaurants. It has now grown into a movement with chefs, farmers, scientists, and regional governments working to change the food system from the ground up.
Biofuel demand continues to grow despite being responsible for 16% more CO2 emissions globally than the fossil fuels they replace. Growing crops to be burned as fuel uses up 32 million hectares of land—roughly the size of Italy—to meet just 4% of global transport energy demand.
Agrivoltaics is the overwhelming winner in a contest with corn-based ethanol. Solar is 20 times more efficient than ethanol. Furthermore, it leads to less pollution from fertilizer runoff and less erosion from tillage while providing a new drought resistant revenue stream.
Climate Justice
In his address to participants in an international conference on climate justice, Pope Leo asked the question: “God will ask us if we have cultivated and cared for the world that He created, and if we have taken care of our brothers and sisters. What will be our answer?”
The kids who sued America over climate change in 2015 aren’t done yet. They are now taking their case to an international human rights body to hold the U.S. accountable—and are spotlighting Indigenous communities on the frontlines.
Indonesian nickel mining boomtowns are the ugly underside of the world’s green energy transition. Chinese migrant workers work alongside hundreds of thousands of Indonesian coworkers under brutal and dangerous working conditions and great environmental costs.
Large financial institutions are pouring money into land clearance and undermining efforts to stop the destruction of forests that are vital to the environmental health of our planet. US institutions, led by Vanguard, JPMorgan Chase, and BlackRock, earned the most globally.
Earl Zimmerman
Climate Action Alliance of the Valley
Climate Action Alliance of the Valley 