The ‘God Squad’, Oil Tricks, & Death Valley Blooms

Welcome to The Climate Roundup newsletter. Your weekly edit of the climate and environmental stories shaping our planet and our culture and how the two are deeply connected. We live in a global ecosystem shaped by human decisions. Let’s make good ones.

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Thank You Winter, Welcome Spring!

Spring has sprung! Astronomically, at least. But first, let’s give a shout-out to an exceptional east coast winter. It was glorious with its many snowfalls and enduring, appropriately cold weather. A winter for the ages in our warming world. I’ve cherished every moment of it, perhaps partially because I know it’s an anomaly. True winters bring me back to the good old seasons of my childhood, when they were predictable and balanced, before the warming effects of climate change decided to stick around for good (or aptly, for bad). This winter was special, especially as we are likely looking at a late summer arrival of El Niño, which promises warmer temperatures and brings dangerous extreme weather events to several regions. If it’s a strong El Niño, we could see record high temperatures, when we’ve already experienced the hottest 3 years on record these last three years.

All the more reason to give thanks for our cold winter and look forward to the beauty of this spring season, happening now. I’m excited to start noticing the blooms and bursts of green and new growth, new sounds and new sights. Currently, Death Valley is seeing its biggest bloom in a decade. Every day is an opportunity to notice a new delivery of nature’s gifts. Case in point, the daily arrival over the next few months of the many bird species as they parade through Central Park (and your own neck of the woods) for their spring migration. Binoculars, out. Best to be living in the moment and appreciating the living wonders that are, still, all around. To a very happy spring ahead!

Philanthropy At Work:

🪾 Stand.earth has been working to end the practice of logging old growth and primary forests used to make pellets to burn as a form of energy generation. U.K. power company, Drax, is one such offender that contributes to clear cutting these precious forests in British Columbia, Canada, then burns the wood in the U.K., claiming it’s renewable, clean energy. It’s not. Well, Stand celebrates a small win, as Drax has begun to phase out the burning of Canadian wood at one of its power plants. But much work is left to do to stop the practice of burning forest biomass for utility-scale energy, a method erroneously rewarded as being “green” by some governments and supported by subsidies.

🐔 The Humane League clocked a win after 18 months of pressuring Ahold Delhaize, the east coast’s largest grocery retailer, to commit to a total ban on the extreme confinement of hens.

🚣 Watch Alex Honnold of the Honnold Foundation interview the founder of Kara Solar, one of their grant recipients, for a discussion about their solar-powered electric boats helping Indigenous people travel more effectively and sustainably by river in the Amazon. It’s a good convo to learn about the on-the-ground work and the communities benefiting from it.

🏔️ Last week, the Bureau of Land Management held an oil and gas lease sale in Alaska’s National Petroleum Reserve–Alaska. Unfortunately, there were 430 bids and now several companies have rights to drill and spoil our beautiful public lands that are home to many incredible species, like caribou herds and migratory birds, plus Indigenous humans. Alaska Wilderness League put out a press release with more details, and they will fight to try and prevent these companies from exploiting this land.

Environmental News:

👇 The Trump administration is not wasting this self-created moment of oil volatility to push forward its fossil fuel agenda. These next three stories are all related.

🐋 Interior Secretary Doug Burgum has called a meeting at the end of month looking to exempt oil and gas activity in the Gulf of Mexico from following endangered species requirements. Informally called “the God Squad”, this group of 6 agency heads can meet to decide to extinct a species for economic profit. This loophole in the Endangered Species Act has only been carried out 3 previous times since its creation in 1978. The Gulf of Mexico has at least 20 listed endangered and threatened marine species, per NOAA, but of greatest concern here is the Rice’s whale, of which only 51 remain on Earth. Rice’s whale is truly our country’s (and Mexico’s) whale, as it lives year round in the Gulf, in contrast to most other whale species who migrate. I can’t even imagine what life must be like for them since human-driven oil exploitation began in their waters. Well, yes I can: they are inundated with foreign noises, foreign objects, and foreign activity, all of which are life-threatening and close to wiping out their species. (I found this National Geographic graphic showing the enormous amount of oil and gas activity in the Gulf, for a sense of the horrors they have to deal with.) While the federal registry notice for this convening of the God Squad provided little details, environmental group Center for Biological Diversity has already filed a lawsuit to challenge the legality of the meeting itself, as the Interior Department appears to have skipped the necessary steps required for this extinction-granting meeting.

🚢 In tandem with the Endangered Species Committee meeting noted above, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management approved a deep water oil drilling project in the Gulf for BP. The same BP responsible for the infamously destructive 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill, which is estimated to have killed 22% of the Rice’s whale population, in addition to countless more deaths and harms to marine life and coastal life. The approved project, dubbed Kaskida, would be in ultra-deep waters, which carries a much higher risk of oil spills. Environmental groups will challenge this in court. It’s worth noting here how Trump loves to co-opt care for whales only when it comes to his “reasoning” to kill offshore wind farms, saying they “drive whales crazy” and are “very bad environmentally”. Those quotes in fact only apply to oil and gas projects, not wind, and have the very real capacity to extinct an entire whale species. It’s an act of ecocide that he is foaming at the mouth to do, as it’s been noted he’s been dying to corral the God Squad since first becoming president.

🛢️ And finally, on the same day as these above actions were announced, the Trump administration ordered a California pipeline to restart after being shut down since it ruptured and caused a major oil spill off the coast of Santa Barbara in 2015. The state and environmental groups are fighting this one too, saying the oil company has not addressed the issues that caused the spill and is in violation of environmental laws.

💰 A new tactic has emerged in the Trump admin’s clean energy obstruction campaign. The administration is working on a settlement agreement with a French energy company that won two offshore wind bids, but they have yet to start construction. The projects are intended to supply clean energy to New York and North Carolina. The settlements would pay the company $1 billion to not build their wind farms. It also coerces them to invest instead in fossil fuel projects in Texas. Disgusting. We have to hope the companies say no and wait until the demise of this terrible presidential term.

👩‍⚖️ 24 states, 10 cities, and 5 counties are suing the EPA for its repeal of the endangerment finding, which allows the agency to regulate harmful greenhouse gas emissions on vehicles and power plants. It’s the second lawsuit brought to challenge this shameful move, which amounts to the EPA’s denial of climate science and of its purpose to protect the health of Americans and our environment. The two lawsuits are likely to combine and become one of the most critical climate fights over the next few years. The outcome will be pivotal for the future of environmentalism in America.

🔋 Last year, global adoption of electric vehicles amounted to 2.3 million barrels of oil consumption avoided per day. This is set to double by 2030. Not only does that mean a reduction in planet-warming emissions, but it’s a cost savings for countries in that they reduce their spending on oil imports. EV sales as a share of total new car sales are still increasing globally, and most rapidly in developing countries, where the cost benefit of avoiding the volatility and reliance on oil is especially impactful.

Climate Meets Culture

👗 “Bog fashion” describes a small cohort of designers experimenting with different ways to make clothing, as a way to work with nature rather than against it, and to rebel against the industry’s high consumption and throwaway culture.

🐴 Gradient horses is a digital art project aimed at bringing back the fun and simplicity of the early internet. Draw a horse and watch it gallop across the horizon. A rare moment of digital joy.

🚴‍♂️ Paris says no to cars, yes to bikes, yes to urban forests and plants, yes to a swimmable river, and yes to better air quality and quality of life.

📺 A new documentary series just dropped on Netflix, called “The Plastic Detox“, and warning, the preview video is terrifying. Plastic chemicals are everywhere, and that shouldn’t be ok with the majority of us. But if this becomes a viral cultural ‘hit’, then maybe we can get some renewed energy and support for policy bills that aim to reduce out-of-control plastic production and pollution. Stronger links are being made to ubiquitous plastic and infertility (a key focus of the docu-series), and a new study that analyzed thousands of seawater samples found traces of plastic and other man-made chemicals all throughout our oceans. We mostly know this by now. What will it take to stop this vicious cycle of producing thousands of toxic chemicals that are now embedded into our food chains and our own bodies, and surely causing serious man-made health problems? It can only be stopped with legislation as the dominant force.