Meatless RZA, Curb Your Coal, Battery Recycling, and More!

🚫🍔 RZA of Wu-Tang Clan talks in a recent interview about his choice to not eat meat, and how he promotes a vegan lifestyle alongside his many other creative pursuits. “Meat and beef and all these burgers are pleasure food, and we’d rather destroy our environment for our pleasure, and it’s foolish of us”. Time to hold the C.R.E.A.M. ya’ll.

Getting Down To Climate Business:

🤞 The End of Coal: The Biden administration dropped a major climate regulation that aims to eliminate emissions from the remaining 200 coal-fired power plants in our country. These rules could mean the end of times for US coal by 2040, since it will be cheaper to shut these plants down than to deploy yet-unscalable carbon capture technology to hack their emissions. Expect a legal and political showdown from coal-loving states and industries, though let’s try to believe this into reality, as this is some of the lowest hanging fruit in the US emissions-cutting game plan.

👷‍♀️ Climate Corps Is Live: Looking for a job that helps fight climate change? The American Climate Corps is now accepting applications for its inaugural program, which was inspired by FDR’s Civilian Conservation Corps. With opportunities spanning from coastal conservation to forest management, participants will get paid to fight climate change while gaining valuable skills. The program aims to employ 200,000 people in five years. Go green go!

🚗 Very Green Indeed: Battery recycling is changing the game for electric vehicles when it comes to their upfront environmental impact. Redwood Materials, the largest US battery recycler, founded by a Tesla co-founder, can recover over 95% of key minerals needed for battery production, slashing emissions by up to 80% compared to traditional supply chain methods. As recycling scales up, EVs built with recycled materials will be in an elite class of clean.

🍾 Blame Climate Change: A prominent cava maker in Spain is furloughing hundreds of workers due to the “terrible drought, originated by climate change”, per the Catalonian company’s statement. This story highlights the tangible impact of climate change on industries like winemaking. No cheers to that.

👨‍⚖️Designer Jailbird: Luxury handbag designer Nancy Gonzalez, known for her use of exotic skins such as alligator and python, has been sentenced to 18 months in prison for smuggling protected wildlife skins from Colombia to the United States. The court found her guilty of violating wildlife protection laws. May she act as an example for others in an industry that’s still split on selling vs banning exotics.

Some Stats:

💰 Vermont has proposed a majority-backed bill that would hold fossil fuel companies responsible for the damage caused by climate-fueled disasters. Dubbed “The Climate Superfund Act”, the bill aims to follow the federal Superfund model, where polluters pay to clean up the destruction they’ve caused. In this case, Big Oil would also fund climate resiliency programs like energy efficiency retrofits, water utility improvements, solar microgrids, and stormwater drainage. Maryland, Massachusetts, and New York have introduced similar bills. Sounds incredibly logical and reasonable. Not to mention, the payouts from Big Oil would be just a fraction of their annual multi-billion dollar profits.

A now, a moment of silence…

Ingenuity was NASA’s little helicopter that lived on Mars. It was a first of its kind aircraft to take off and fly on another planet. Ingenuity’s mission was to fly around, scoping out the terrain for its companion rover, Perseverance. Alas, after three years of wildly exceeding all expectations, its 72nd flight was its last. The little guy sustained a career-and-life-ending injury to one of its blades. Ingenuity is survived by its bestie, Perseverance. Rest in peace, little friend.

Before you go…would you believe it if I told you that NASA has a webpage dedicated to Ingenuity memes that they made for public use? Well they do, and you’re welcome.