January 2025 Good Newsletter
Resolutions? I'm going with Leonard Cohen: "Ring the bells that still can ring/Forget your perfect offering/There is a crack, a crack in everything/That's how the light gets in."
THINGS THAT MAKE ME GO HMM…
Auto manufacturers are rethinking the lifespan of EV batteries to 20+ years, second-generation sodium-ion batteries promise lower costs and more range with less metals, and geothermal power could meet 15 percent of global demand by 2050.
In the U.S., domestic solar manufacturing capacity has quintupled in the last two years, photovoltaic cell manufacturing returned for the first time since 2019, and both blue and red states are going green: Texas, California, Iowa, Oklahoma, and Kansas top the record for renewables.
GOING OUT WITH A BANG
The Biden-Harris administration recently awarded $1.2 billion to low-carbon road projects, surpassed its goal of permitting 25 gigawatts of renewable energy on federal lands by 2025, announced $1.6 billion in climate justice grants, and pledged to cut emissions to 66% below 2005 levels by 2023, which is STILL RELEVANT because:
“The US is demonstrating that we are there as partners with the rest of the world, setting that long term vision – even if we for the next four years won’t have a full federal government organized around achieving that.” - Kate Larsen, Rhodium
STATESIDE
If you're in the U.S. and wonky like me, you might enjoy this state-by-state summary of enacted climate policies and trends to watch including grid modernization, permitting reform, geothermal development, and more.
A few I'm following:
New York (the world's 10th largest economy) enacted a law to hold fossil fuel manufacturers responsible for climate impacts.
Oregon just approved the largest solar project in the U.S. with enough capacity to power 800,000 homes annually.
Georgia is now the 5th leading state for solar, after Texas, Florida, California, and Nevada.
Maryland’s next-level charging network promises a net-zero future.
Washington voted to grant legal rights to the Snohomish River, part of a growing movement to protect the natural world.
And they (still) won! Montana's Supreme Court upheld a ruling that the state's children have a constitutional right to a healthy environment.
YOU’VE GOT MAIL (THAT YOU DON’T HAVE TO GET)
Catalog Choice prevented a million pounds of paper waste last year. If you haven't nixed those nagging auto-subscriptions yet, this is the time to start!
YES, PLEASE
I was stunned by the clarity of this analysis, from Nathaniel Stinnett of the Environmental Voter Project: "When we adopt the role of protagonist, name a villain with evil motives, and then collectively strive towards a common goal, we can cure diseases and win world wars. Yet the climate movement hasn’t created a narrative like this to maximize our cooperative power, largely because the fossil fuel industry beat us to it." Who wants to build a compelling pro-climate narrative with me? Also, let’s:
Pass the mic to women and improve UNEP outcomes.
Rebrand climate action as a power grid renewal.
Future-proof the circular economy by repositioning as an America First policy (it is).
Speaking of narrative, have you heard of the movie trailer test? That’s when querying writers (like me) assess whether or not their pitch paragraphs are clear enough for agents to “see” them. I recently responded to this challenge by attempting a visual representation through Chat GPT and the experience was disturbing. No matter how many prompts or corrections I gave, the platform generated my character as skinny and skimpily dressed. The frame I’m sharing here comes closer to what I wrote —click here to see the others — but the experience made me think about how bias is present/perpetuated through AI. Have you had a similar experience? I’d love to know, either in a reply to this email or over on Instagram. It’s a weird new world, friends!
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
xoRachel