In 1933, with unemployment running at 25%, President Franklin Roosevelt established the Civilian Conservation Corps, an idea with both practical and symbolic significance. It put young men to work (at a wage of $30 per month, $25 of which would be sent to their families); by the … | Continue reading
Last summer was the hottest in two millennia. We won’t get any relief this year. An overwhelming majority of Americans will experience above-average heat this summer, and temperatures in more than half of the contiguous United States are expected to top the historical average by … | Continue reading
It takes about 45 minutes to circumnavigate Odessa, Texas. There’s a highway — 338, known locally as “The Loop” — that encircles the city of 113,000 people in West Texas. Drive along it and you’ll be treated to a nearly unending parade of oil derricks jabbing their way into the u … | Continue reading
Current conditions: China issued a rainstorm warning for its already-sodden southern provinces • Two people were killed in severe storms in Moscow • America’s brutal heat wave will shift into the Mid-Atlantic this weekend. THE TOP FIVE 1. Solar to provide one-fifth of global elec … | Continue reading
If the global shipping industry were its own nation, it would be the sixth largest emitter of carbon dioxide, belching about a billion tons of the stuff into the atmosphere every year. And not to state the obvious, but the sector isn’t going anywhere. Not only is cargo shipping t … | Continue reading
Current conditions: A dust storm is headed for New Mexico • Torrential rains flooded the French city of Nantes • Tourists are being turned away in Sicily due to water shortages and extreme heat. THE TOP FIVE 1. U.S. plagued by wild weather as summer officially begins The U.S. (al … | Continue reading
Current conditions: Heat records are falling across the Midwest and Northeast while parts of the Pacific Northwest are seeing late-season snow • Wildfires in New Mexico have burned more than 20,000 acres • Nighttime temperatures remained near 100 degrees Fahrenheit in northern In … | Continue reading
Maybe you’re reading this in a downpour. Perhaps you’re reading it because you have questions about the upcoming hurricane season. Or maybe you’re reading it because you’re one of the 150 million Americans enduring record-breaking temperatures in this week’s heat dome. Whatever t … | Continue reading
China’s electric vehicle industry has driven itself to the center of the global conversation. Its automakers produce dozens of affordable, technologically advanced electric vehicles that rival — and often beat — anything coming out of Europe or North America. The United States an … | Continue reading
While climate change policy is typically heavily polarized along party lines, nuclear energy policy is not. The ADVANCE Act, which would reform the nuclear regulatory policy to encourage the development of advanced nuclear reactors, passed the Senate today, preparing it for an al … | Continue reading
Current conditions: Tropical storm warnings have been issued for Texas and Mexico • Parts of southwestern France were hit with large hail stones • The temperature trend for June is making climate scientists awfully nervous. THE TOP FIVE 1. Lengthy heat wave threatens nearly 80 mi … | Continue reading
One of the least-noticed changes in the Inflation Reduction Act may be one of the most important. For years, the government has encouraged developers, power utilities, and other companies to build clean energy by offering tax credits. But those tax credits were difficult to trans … | Continue reading
Two years ago, John Podesta met with Jennifer Granholm, the U.S. Secretary of Energy. Podesta, a longtime Democratic aide, had just started a new role in the Biden administration, overseeing the Inflation Reduction Act’s implementation, and he was going to meet with Granholm abou … | Continue reading
Current conditions: Flooding in Abidjan, Ivory Coast’s largest city, killed at least eight people • A heat advisory remains in effect across many Northeastern states • A “winter” storm could bring up to 15 inches of snow to parts of Montana and Idaho. THE TOP FIVE 1. At least 14 … | Continue reading
Earlier this month, an odd little ad began appearing on TVs in Michigan. On first watch, it plays like any other political advertisement you’d see on television this time of year. In it, Michigan governor and Biden surrogate Gretchen Whitmer touts the high-paying electric vehicle … | Continue reading
Goodhart’s Law tells us that “when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.” The disagreements climate diplomats were having last week highlight why. Last week, climate negotiators sparred in Bonn, Germany, over a New Collective Quantified Goal on climate finan … | Continue reading
It’s been a wild few years in the typically tedious world of weather predictions. For decades, forecasts have been improving at a slow and steady pace — the standard metric is that every decade of development leads to a one-day improvement in lead time. So today, our four-day for … | Continue reading
Current conditions: Mexico recorded its hottest June day ever, with temperatures reaching 125.4 degrees Fahrenheit • Southern China is bracing for heavy rain that could last through next week • It is warm and sunny in Italy’s Puglia region, where the 50th G7 summit will wrap up t … | Continue reading
Elon Musk got his money. At a meeting on Thursday, Tesla shareholders voted to re-approve an enormous pay package for Musk, the CEO, worth $45 billion or more depending on Tesla’s fluctuating stock price. The deal had been struck down in January by a judge in Delaware, where the … | Continue reading
With the Las Vegas sun bearing down and temperatures heading into triple digits, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, one of the warmup acts at a recent Donald Trump rally, offered the crowd a vision more terrifying than the heat that would send six attendees to the hospital. “If you thi … | Continue reading
Load growth is becoming controversial in Texas, where its isolated, uniquely free market electricity system makes a sometimes awkward fit with the state’s distinctive right-wing politics. They crashed together Wednesday, when the state’s conservative Lieutenant Governor Dan Patri … | Continue reading
Current conditions: Extreme flooding has displaced hundreds of people in Chile • Schools and tourist sites are closed across Greece due to dangerously high temperatures • A heat wave is settling over the Midwest and could last through next weekend. THE TOP FIVE 1. Tesla sharehold … | Continue reading
Every year, millions of tons of sodium sulfate waste are generated throughout the lithium-ion battery supply chain. And although the chemical compound seems relatively innocuous — it looks just like table salt and is not particularly toxic — the sheer amount that’s produced via m … | Continue reading
Are interest rates going to go down? The market will have to wait. Following a Tuesday report showing steady consumer prices in May and prices overall only rising 3.3% in the past year, the Federal Reserve held steady on interest rates, releasing a projection Wednesday showing ju … | Continue reading
It is my sincere belief that, as with many aspects of governance, thinking about climate policy bores former President Donald Trump. He is not without his hobbyhorses — wind turbines are ugly bird-killers; it’s freezing in New York, so where the hell is global warming? — but on t … | Continue reading
Current conditions: Temperatures in northern China will top 107 degrees Fahrenheit today • Months-long water shortages have sparked riots in Algeria • Unseasonably cold and wet weather is being blamed for stunted economic growth in the U.K. THE TOP FIVE 1. Torrential rains flood … | Continue reading
Have you looked at your power bill — like, really looked at it? If you’re anything like Rob, you pay whatever number appears at the bottom every month and drop it in the recycling. But how everyone’s power bill is calculated — in wonk terms, the “electricity rate design” — turns … | Continue reading
In November of 2020, Jennifer Wilcox had just moved to Philadelphia and was preparing to start a new chapter in her career as a tenured “Presidential Distinguished Professor” at the University of Pennsylvania. Then she got the call: Wilcox was asked to join the incoming Biden adm … | Continue reading
Current conditions: Heavy rains in China are boosting the country’s hydropower output • Late-season frost advisories are in place for parts of Michigan • It will be 80 degrees Fahrenheit and cloudy today near the Port of Baltimore, which has officially reopened after 11 weeks of … | Continue reading
Clean energy developers and the bankers who fund them are all pretty confident that a change in power in Washington, should one occur next year, won’t mean the end of the Inflation Reduction Act or the buildout of renewables across the country — except, that is, when it comes to … | Continue reading
Former President Trump wants to know: Would you rather be electrocuted or eaten by a shark? On Sunday, during a rally in Las Vegas, the Republican nominee floated the question for what is at least the second time this campaign season (an odd choice, perhaps, given that Nevada is … | Continue reading
Current conditions: Floods washed away roads in Austria • Thousands of dead fish are littering the shores of a lagoon in drought-stricken Mexico • A heat advisory is in effect for Cupertino, California, where Apple is hosting its Worldwide Developers Conference this week. THE TOP … | Continue reading
Contrary to the rest of the U.S. tech industry, the market for climate mitigation solutions has boomed of late. Since 2022, U.S. solar energy capacity has grown 51%; sales of electric vehicles rose 146%; and investors have plowed $473 billion into 152 manufacturing clean energy m … | Continue reading
In the closing days of April, Elon Musk shocked the EV world when he laid off Tesla’s entire 500-person charging division. The company suddenly — and seemingly for reasons of professional pique — gave up on its biggest competitive advantage. At a time when every other automaker w … | Continue reading
Battery-powered vehicles appear ill-suited to the backcountry — at first blush, at least. Big cities and well-traveled highways are where the plugs are. Far-flung locales, like the kind of places you’d want to drive an RV or tow a trailer, aren’t brimming with DC fast charging st … | Continue reading
Campaign strategists and political consultants have a lot of folk theories that guide their work, some of which are even true. One common one is that the more optimistic candidate wins, especially in presidential races: Figures such as Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, … | Continue reading
Current conditions: China just experienced its warmest spring on record • Some residents in Sydney, Australia, are evacuating after excessive rainfall caused a dam to overflow • Eleven people suffered from heat exhaustion while waiting outside a Trump rally yesterday in Phoenix, … | Continue reading
Imagine a battery. Maybe you envision popping one into a fading flashlight or a dead remote controller. Perhaps you consider the little icon on the top of your phone or laptop screen, precariously dipping into the red while you search for a charger. Or you might picture the power … | Continue reading
Current conditions: Unseasonably cool temperatures brought snow to parts of Scotland • New South Wales in Australia recorded more than a month’s worth of rain in just 12 hours • Multiple tornadoes were reported across Maryland. THE TOP FIVE 1. Gov. Hochul pauses NYC congestion pr … | Continue reading
The urgent need to build transmission infrastructure at dramatic pace, scale, and geographic scope is clear. To decarbonize the power sector, we’ll have to physically rebuild the grid once-over in the coming decades to connect and facilitate a hopeful explosion in new renewable g … | Continue reading
If it holds, then Governor Kathy Hochul’s decision today to delay congestion pricing indefinitely in New York will be a generational setback for climate policy in the United States. It is one of the worst climate policy decisions made by a Democrat at any level of government in r … | Continue reading
Almost every day, Donald Trump attacks clean energy and climate action. He assails electric vehicles, offshore wind, and calls climate change a hoax. He’s also up a little bit in the polls. Everyone in and out of the clean energy and environmental movement knows this. So why, ove … | Continue reading
Democracy is having a big year — heck, it’s having a big month. More people will vote in 2024 than in any other year in human history, and many of those elections are happening right now: In just the past four days, Mexicans elected a climate scientist to the presidency; Indians … | Continue reading
Current conditions: A large wildfire is burning out of control in northwestern Turkey • Intense storms killed at least 11 people in South Africa • It will be 109 degrees Fahrenheit in Phoenix today, and tomorrow will be hotter. THE TOP FIVE 1. Report: Global carbon dioxide remova … | Continue reading
Rooftop solar is four times more expensive in America than it is in other countries. It’s also good for the climate. Should we even care about its high cost? Yes, says Severin Borenstein, an economist and the director of the Energy Policy Institute at the University of California … | Continue reading
It’s not easy to build a wind project. Many of the best spots for generating wind power are already occupied by turbines. Even if you do find a good one, then comes everything else — inflation in the supply chain, convincing a local community that they want a wind farm near them, … | Continue reading
Direct air capture is leveling up. In a surprise move on Tuesday, Climeworks unveiled new “generation 3” technology that it said can suck up twice as much carbon from the atmosphere using half the amount of energy as its previous designs. The Swiss carbon removal company will pre … | Continue reading
Current conditions: Heat advisories are in effect across much of California • A large landslide buried cars in Taiwan • It is 70 degrees Fahrenheit and partly cloudy in Bonn, Germany, where delegates from 198 countries are gathering this week for the Bonn Climate Change Conferenc … | Continue reading