The Nature Record, Empty Big Tech Pledges, No Oil Bids In Alaska

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Elusive Behavior

🏔️ The snow leopard is one of the most elusive animals, rarely seen by humans and probably rarely seen by other animals, except for the ones that become successful prey. In search of this creature’s presence, the BBC went to a protected nature reserve in Uzbekistan, where humans aren’t even allowed for the most part. It is not open for tourism or recreation, it is meant to be untouched and wild. The BBC team went to learn about conservation efforts for snow leopards, whose total Earth population numbers were estimated to be 2,700 individuals in 2017. But in a current assessment, researchers believe their numbers have doubled, proving that conservation works. Immerse yourself in the high mountains of the Gissar State Nature Reserve by reading this article.

Philanthropy At Work:

👨‍🌾 Mad Agriculture shares in a bite-sized fashion how they helped an organic and biodynamic farm in Colorado scale its Earth-friendly practices, planting native trees and shrubs, cover crops, and attracting pollinators for a livelihood that feeds the community and cooperates with nature. Importantly, they do not use the industrial fertilizers that poison our environment.

🪏 Calling all home gardeners! Surfrider Foundation has a guide to help you garden in an environmentally-responsible way, with particular mindfulness about the impact and health of nearby water sources.

Environmental News:

🦋 Bravo to the scientists and researchers who did not stop working on a first-of-its-kind national assessment of the health of nature across our land and water when Trump canceled the effort last year. The group has just independently released a draft of the report, called The Nature Record, now open for comments, and they will release the final version later this year. It’s insane this kind of national nature review hasn’t been done before, since all life and its activities rely on nature! President Biden commissioned it on Earth Day in 2022, for the record. I have yet to read it, and will, but unsurprisingly, the findings are not positive. Human activity has degraded much of our natural ecosystems. Hopefully once finalized, it will get widespread media attention and ignite a fire within the public’s collective consciousness. The kind that led to the creation of Earth Day back in 1970, and its subsequent environmental protection laws.

🚨 Global warming status: Earth is warming faster than ever, now verified with statistical significance. Over the past ten years, global temperature rise has accelerated faster than any other recorded ten year time frame. That’s the necessary update.

👏 The EU has finalized their climate agenda, and it will now become law. Phew. By 2040, they must reduce greenhouse gas emissions 90% from 1990 levels. What a feat to agree to such a goal despite much opposition plus all the varying viewpoints of each EU country. This is hope.

⚡️ War impacts global energy markets. It also serves as yet another reason to build out more secure, domestic wind and solar energy plus battery storage infrastructure as fast as possible to forgo reliance on imported, easily targeted oil and gas. After Russia’s attack on Ukraine, we saw European countries and Pakistan accelerate solar energy buildout, especially as China made it cheap, fast, and easy to acquire solar panels. Bloomberg has the data and context for a good read on the subject. We’ll see if the trend continues with this current, unsanctioned war in Iran.

😁 The bidding period for oil and gas companies to lease and drill an area of sea off the coast of Alaska ended last week. There were no bidders. Zero. This isn’t a surprise to environmentalists, or economically-minded oilmen. A big reason there isn’t drilling happening in Alaska’s Cook Inlet is because it’s “expensive”. So the fact that nobody bid is not exactly a sign of oil’s eventual demise. But it is an example of things working out both logically and for good. From the view of environmentalists, of course we shouldn’t compromise the natural beauty and biodiversity that lives in the already fragile Cook Inlet, and of course we shouldn’t drill for more oil, ever. For oilmen, if nothing else, they are committed to their one-dimensional mentally of profit, and apparently they will not be forced to engage in business activity that they know is a loser. And so, all that’s left to be said is that Trump and his administration are the capital L losers on this one.

☀️ The largest renewable energy lobby in our country is partnering with MAGA influencers to push the popularity of solar energy, because as we noted last week from a recent poll, the majority of conservative citizens support solar energy. Over the next month, there will be a slew of media placements from op-eds to podcast interviews across MAGA country, promoting a pro-solar stance for domestic energy needs. Add to that the notion of energy independence gained from balcony and rooftop solar, and it’s only a matter of time before more factions of the right break with party lines when it comes to solar, at least. Well, we will see.

🤥 Just a comment on the Trump x Big A.I. “ratepayer protection pledge”, where the big tech companies are promising to pay for the energy their data centers use (hey, what about the pollution they cause?!) and the capital costs incurred for new power plants: what a joke! Climate hawks know all too well the value of a pledge. It’s zero. We saw it with these exact same companies and their climate pledges. If it’s not written into law, it’s not going to happen. Chasing profits from the next shiny new thing will always trump doing the right thing for these companies. There’s no trust in corporate pledges, or most political pledges for that matter. Sadly, we all know this. But that’s precisely why I believe citizens will continue to fight the construction of these unwanted data centers.

🤦‍♀️ Several big (mostly tech) organizations, including Amazon, Google, and Salesforce, agreed to collectively cough up (a measly) $100M over the next 5 years to reduce the release of superpollutants into our atmosphere. Superpollutants refer to gases like methane and hydrofluorocarbons from refrigerants and AC that accelerate the warming of our planet even faster than straight up CO2. Call me skeptical, but I can’t help but think this is a strategic PR move to divert some attention away from the (above-mentioned) emissions-driving business activity of chasing A.I., and therefore data center, growth. A superpollutant offset, if you will. And remember, offsets have overwhelmingly proven to be empty net-nothing distractions from ongoing pollution that must be stopped at its source. I mean, we’ll take your $100M and reduce some pollutants, but if their intention and goal is to help reverse global warming, how about stop investing in and burning fossil energy to power your business operations, Big Tech?

Climate Meets Culture

🌲 A nature-focused Japanese brand is making the concept of a second-home in nature accessible to more people, while prioritizing low impact design and construction of their small, modular homes.

📺 The environmentally-minded data scientist Hannah Ritchie built this energy use comparison tool to satisfy our curiosity about how much energy our various everyday machines use.

🫘 For those interested in “prepper” culture, Grist has an article that digs into this growing movement of survivalist mentality (but make it fun?), where stockpiled bunker pantries and go-bags are the norm as the world warms and disasters intensify.