Rewearing Bridgerton, Electric Classic Cars, AI Power Suck, and More!

Hey climate heroes! Welcome to The Climate Roundup, where we round up the change, er the news about climate and the environment. As part of the Gen E community, we thank you for making climate action part of everyday life. (Reading this newsletter counts!)

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In Pop Culture:

👖 Rewearing Things: While on a press tour for season 3 of the Netflix show Bridgerton, actress Claudia Jessie wore the same Stella McCartney suit…wait for it..twice! First at the NYC premiere, and then again as a guest on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert. This is (ridiculous) news because celebs don’t do that, but we gotta celebrate all the wins, people. So Claudia’s choice to rewear a highly visible outfit is a positive statement for sustainability, and the decision was amplified across digital media. Bravo to her, and I hope we see that suit make several more appearances to really hit that message home.

Getting down to climate business:

🤥 Still Bullsh*t: The White House issued non-binding guidelines endorsing carbon offset credits but failed to address key concerns about their effectiveness. And legitimate concerns abound. The guidelines aim to define “high-integrity” offsets that would result in real and measurable emissions reductions that purchasers of the offsets can claim, and they urge companies to first actually cut their own emissions. Wouldn’t that be nice? “But the market has long been sketchy and stunted, with investigations and studies showing some promised cuts to carbon dioxide don’t happen, or can’t be verified.” That about sums it up.

🧑‍💻 RantAI: Power demand in the U.S. is rising, notably from AI, a genie that is irrevocably out of the bottle, because humans. New projections estimate that data centers will consume up to 9.1% of U.S. electricity by 2030. If you think we’ll be able to power this increased demand with 100% renewable energy, think again. A Goldman Sachs report projects “a 60/40 split between gas and renewables in meeting new demand growth”. This should be alarming. The world is in no state to be adding incremental energy-sucking activity to the tune of a whopping 9% total energy consumption for a nonessential when we are nowhere close to achieving 100% carbon-free energy. Meanwhile, we keep smashing hot temperature records, extreme weather events continue to pummel our communities, and I’m seeing early signs that 1.75°C is officially the new 1.5°C, as the latter seems to be a warming limit that has faded in the rearview. But hey, now anybody with a computer can ask it what to make for dinner, recipe included. Another win for humanity.

📉 But Wait: Ok, here’s some potentially good news. We may have reached peak emissions, according to BloombergNEF, as global emissions are expected to start declining this year. The decline, projected to be up to 2.5%, marks a significant shift, with China’s renewable energy expansion being a major factor. However, the report emphasizes that more aggressive action is needed to limit global warming to 1.75°C, requiring emissions to decrease by 37% by 2030 – that’s three times faster than current trends suggest.

🥵 Hot Cities: We’re already experiencing hot temps in NYC, which routinely makes me curse the fact that every sidewalk is NOT lined with trees. #epicfail. So I wanted to share this piece about hot cities and how some of them are already adapting to the new norm of too hot temps by prioritizing cooling tactics. Examples include super tall buildings that cast perpetual shade on pedestrian-only streets, planting mini-forests, an ancient-meets-modern aqueduct cooling system, and painting roofs with heat-reflective paint.

It’s Electric

Startup Lynx Motors, whose tagline is “The Classics Electrified”, converts 1980s DeLoreans and 2000s Ford GTs into EV’s – at a premium and in limited quantities. The beaut pictured above will go for $2.5M and only 27 will be made. The CEO said that pricing so far hasn’t been an issue and that “The only thing I’ve ever heard is, ‘If I give you another $50,000 or $100,000, can I get it quicker?”