‘Virgin River’, Deepseek, Climate Zen, 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:

💡 In the Netflix show “Virgin River”, one of the characters was spotted (by me) wearing a sweatshirt with the phrase “Think 7 Gen Ahead”. It wasn’t talked about in the show, and it didn’t need to be. It’s a great example of the influential entertainment industry using subtle nudges to normalize environmental concepts, and ultimately shift a culture. The phrase above is based on an Indigenous principle suggesting that the decisions of today should be made based on the impact they’ll have on future generations. We should be leaving the Earth the same or better for those who will be here seven generations from now. Imagine how different our world would be if all of humanity lived by this principle.

Philanthropy At Work:

🦫 Northeast Wilderness Trust announced protection of 275 acres in Star Lake, New York, adding forever-wild acreage to the so-called ‘A2A’ wildlife corridor connecting Ontario’s Algonquin Park with the Adirondacks. The new Little River Wilderness Preserve contains wetlands maintained by beavers. It’s home to speckled alder, black spruce, balsam fir, and contains stands of old, uncut forests. Great Blue Herons feed there. Put beautifully by NEWT, all these species will now “have the freedom to grow old”.

In Environmental News:

👀 A search in ChatGPT uses 10x more energy than simply searching in Google. The Big Tech + Big VC-manufactured AI frenzy has caused US energy demand projections to skyrocket, in turn causing a dizzying number of data center buildout plans to be announced. Fossil fuel companies couldn’t be happier, as they’ve been served up yet another reason for why the market demands that their planet-destroying product can’t go away any time soon. Energy use relating to AI and the data center ‘boom’ has become a real concern, especially if any number are powered with dirty energy (and yes, there are plenty of renewable energy-powered data centers in the works too), but also because Big Tech, the once-leading industry in climate pledges, has deprioritized their emissions reduction plans to focus on this next shiney thing. But if it’s true that China’s AI startup, Deepseek, uses “a fraction of the energy” to compute the same queries as the energy-devouring American-made models, well then, maybe we can classify this as decent news, so long as the US course-corrects. Perhaps the learning from the past year, culminating in the past week is: slow down.

☀️ I can’t think of a more stark contrast in priorities than comparing the AI circus mentioned above (AI’s without power?) with this fact: 600M people in Africa live without power. I repeat, the equivalent of 2 United States-worth of people are currently living without access to electricity for basic human needs. Well, last week, the World Bank among others committed$35B for solar micro-grids and existing energy infrastructure expansion across Africa that would help 300M people gain access to electricity. Hopefully the majority of it will come from cheap, clean solar.

⛰ Climate migration is underway in Kentucky, where communities destroyed by unprecedented flooding are being relocated to higher ground on converted former mining mountaintop sites.

🏃‍♂️ China hit its 2030 renewable energy installation goal six years early at the close of 2024 by installing an amount of solar and wind power “akin to building 357 full-size nuclear plants in one year”. Wowza.

🦸 The UK wants to be a “clean energy superpower”, and they’ve detailed out plans to further reduce emissions, now by at least 81% by 2035 compared to 1990 levels. Very encouraging to see other world leaders staying the course.

👨‍⚖️ Also in the UK, a court blocked the production of oil and gas at two projects in the North Sea until an assessment of the climate impacts can be made. This is a growing global trend in the courts, but we are not yet at the tipping point where they can finish the job and fully stop all new fossil fuel infrastructure due to its scientifically-proven impact on global warming. That said, delaying the possibility of additional burning is a win.

It’s All Connected

🧘‍♀️ Christiana Figueres is an OG climate hero. She played an integral role in constructing the Paris Agreement, and she’s continued to be a strong voice for climate action on the world stage. As you can imagine, climate work is incredibly taxing on several levels. To help herself and now others cope, Christiana has embraced the teachings of the late Thích Nhất Hạnh, a Buddhist monk, to gain perspective on our place in existence and to help ease the suffering that comes with climate work, and life itself. She’s organizing retreats to spread the peace.