September News You Can Use
Welcome to this new version of “News You Can Use,” now on Substack. We’ve migrated the publication here with the intention of expanding our audience, as well as offering some new features in the weeks and months to come. For those who’ve been subscribing for some time we hope this migration will be seamless. And, we encourage you to share this with friends, which should be easier to do with the features here.
This issue is, as usual, full of the latest in what we consider to be valuable, helpful and inspiring for those of us who care about climate. While we haven’t included much in this issue in terms of news relating to the upcoming election, we acknowledge it’s on everyone’s mind. One really interesting organization that has gotten increased attention of late is The Environmental Voter Project (EVP), which has a unique and intriguing approach to helping the climate in the policy sphere. EVP’s founder, Nathaniel Stinnett, believes the most powerful way to get more support for a climate-positive agenda from our government is to turn out the non-voters who care about climate, but aren’t voting. EVP has a process for identifying these individuals, and then turning them into voters. With more people in the voting pool who care, politicians will naturally pay more attention. As Stinnett said in an interview with David Roberts of Volts, “They always have to go where the voters are. And so, it's incumbent upon us to build electoral demand for climate leadership. That's what we're laser-focused on.” For more on how they are accomplishing this, let me recommend the interview. And to get involved yourself if you’d like to help, check out the EVP website.
We’d love to hear from you! Send us new technologies, resources, stories and insights.
Events
Climate Leaders Monthly Meeting
Thursday, September 19, 4:00 - 5:00 PM PT
Join the Climate Leaders Meeting to exchange resources and inspiration with others who are also taking action to create a vibrant and healthy future.
All leaders are welcome.
This is a monthly on-line event hosted by Minerva Ventures.
Thursday, September 5, 2024 || 11:00AM-12:00PM ET
Climate Activism Without Burnout: Evidence-Based Practices to Improve Well-Being
Thursday, September 5, 2024 || 9:00AM PT
Thursday, September 5, 2024 || 3:00PM PT
Why Won’t Anyone Listen? Elizabeth Sawin on How to Talk about the Polycrisis
Wednesday, September 26, 2024 || 11:00AM PT
Join the latest Climate Reality Leadership Training - Online, OCTOBER 17–23, 2024
Opportunities for Action
Domains for Climate Action
Food and Agriculture
A Wealth of Good News
Civil Eats has put together a compilation of some of their best good news stories about agriculture and the environment so far this year. The coverage includes solutions to keep salt water from encroaching on farms, support for regenerative agriculture, using fungi to increase soil health and store carbon, climate solutions for coffee and much more. Check it out for yourself!
We Need Alternative Protein Sources
Animal farming is second only to fossil fuels in it’s destructive nature: emitting greenhouse gases, polluting air and waterways, and gobbling up land. New proteins, for example using microbes to create alternative cheese, ice-cream, beef, chicken, eggs and fish show promise, but the global livestock industry is fighting to keep them off store shelves. These new sources can be designed with very high protein content, require less processing than current foods, and can include things like healthy omega-3 fats in place of saturated fats. According to George Monbiot writing in The Guardian, “The transition to such new-protein sources could be as profound in its impacts as the shift from hunter-gathering to agriculture.” He goes on to point out, “If you doubt the potential of these technologies, you have only to look at the effort deployed by meat corporations and their tame politicians to shut them down.”
Heat Threatens Heinz Tomato Ketchup
Like so many other crops, climate change is coming for your ketchup. With heat and drought on the rise in region of California where all of the tomatoes for Heinz ketchup are grown, the company’s research is singularly focused on climate change. Heinz has poured millions of dollars into HeinzSeed research in the past five years to address the challenges of resilience, heat, water stress and soil salinity according to Patrick Sheridan, Kraft Heinz’s vice president of global agriculture and sustainability.
Energy
Solar Tech Breakthrough
A new form of solar panel, so thin it could be applied to buildings, cars, even every-day objects, has been developed research team at the University of Oxford. Theoretically this new tech could charge a car while it’s driving, or a bag that charges your devices while you carry it. Independent tests have shown that the multi-layer perovskite cell is at least as efficient as traditional solar panels.
Amazing Tool To Promote Understanding Trends in Clean Energy
Cleanview is a software platform that allows users to track clean energy trends and projects developed by Michael Thomas, creator of the Distilled newsletter. Currently it tracks clean electricity development in the US, and will soon expand to other sectors and countries. Clearview is designed to make it much easier to explore interesting and important trends in clean energy, to support understanding and insights and data-driven decisions without, as Thomas says, suffering “lost hours to mind-numbing spreadsheets or missed important insights because energy data is difficult to access.” Users can, for example, see how much battery storage capacity is expected to come online in each state over the next 24 months:
Check it out for yourself here.
Finance
Climate Change is Driving Rising Food Prices
Price volatility is “likely to be an increasingly common feature of our highly integrated global food systems”, Prof Elizabeth Robinson, director of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, told Carbon Brief earlier this year. Record-breaking heat in Europe in the summer of 2022 drove food prices up 0.43 - 0.93 percentage points. Wet weather in the UK and elsewhere has made it difficult to plant crops. US orange production has declined more than 40% since 2020, and prices have risen accordingly. Olive oil production in the Mediterranean has declined driving up prices. Weather has lowered production and increased costs of rice and other staple grains in China. And these are just some examples of the impact of climate on food production and prices.
Circular Economy/Materials
Replacing Plastic in Fabrics
A major source of harmful microplastics that have become ubiquitous in our environment is the clothing we wear. Companies are on the hunt for replacements for the plastics in clothing, and many are looking to waste streams, from the pulp leftover after apples are juiced, to discarded garments, to create suitable alternatives. To be successful, they need to develop materials with similar characteristics, things like stretch and weatherproofing. The number of new innovations is inspiring. Allégorie makes a faux leather from fruit waste. Natural Fiber Welding is developing a process to create cotton clothing with some of the characteristics appreciated in sports apparel, and has announced a partnership with Patagonia. Renewcell is shredding old cotton garments and creating new fibers from them. Perhaps we will see some of these innovations in our closets before long!
Water/Natural Resources/Biodiversity
Unexpected Benefits From Unplanned Green Spaces
A recent study of an urban environment in Australia demonstrated the benefits to both the human population and the natural world of informal green spaces - the areas left to nature around railways, roads, or undeveloped lots, for example. The research, conducted by Hugh Stanford, an urban sustainability researcher at RMIT University in Australia, found that these spaces support biodiversity, their dirt can soak up rainwater to prevent flooding, and they release water vapor to cool the surrounding area. The fact that they are untended means they provide superior habitat for everything from wildflowers to insects to wildlife as compared to a tended park lawn. And they can get a surprising amount of engagement from humans as well, suggesting they provide mental health benefits. Food for thought for future urban planning perhaps?
Built Environment
Finally, An Efficiency Update to Water Heating Technology
In this updated design, Cala Systems’ water heater combines an advanced heat pump with an AI-powered control system to forecast hot water demand and heat the water in the tank accordingly. With information that includes weather, time-of-use energy pricing and household-specific information like water usage patterns, the company is able to significantly reduce the energy requirements while also consistently providing adequate hot water, so your shower never runs out. An interesting and practical approach to solving a problem you may not have even known you had. Read more.
Decarbonizing Home Heating
A 2021 Colorado law created an incentive for the state’s investor-owned utility, Xcel Energy to create a new Clean Heat Plan. Following a motion filed by the Sierra Club, Natural Resources Defense Council, and others last November, Xcel has created a plan that moves away from fossil energy and toward building electrification and energy efficiency, which the public utility commission found to be the “most cost effective and scalable ways to reduce emissions from burning gas and buildings, both in the short run as well as in the long term,” said Meera Fickling, building decarbonization manager at Western Resource Advocates. Financial incentives from the state, coupled with incentives from the Inflation Reduction Act, are projected to help Colorado customers convert to heat pumps, testing an approach that could be replicated elsewhere to help speed up the clean energy transition.
Transportation
Health
Heat Threatens Mail-Order Medications
According to doctors and pharmacists, rising heat poses an unexpected health threat: medications weakened or ruined by heat in transit. According to drivers, temperatures in the cargo holds of delivery truck can reach as high as 150°F. A study published in 2023, that placed thermometers inside packages found that they had spent more than two-thirds of their transit time outside the appropriate temperature range, “regardless of the shipping method, carrier, or season.” OptumRX, which ships a lot of drugs direct to consumers, monitors the duration of the shipment and automatically sends a new package if it’s longer than allowed, but they don’t monitor the temperature. The Food and Drug Administration regulates transport between manufacturers, wholesalers and pharmacies, but their rules don’t apply to transportation to patients. Unfortunately, the impact of heat may leave no visible signs, leaving patients to suffer issues with their health before realizing there is a problem. Read more.
Climate Interventions:
Regeneration, Methane, Geoengineering, CCUS
From Ag Waste to Biochar - Without Ever Leaving the Field
A new company, Applied Carbon, has a novel solution to carbon sequestration. They have developed a machine, pulled through the field with a tractor and fed with a harvester, that can turn waste from a variety of field crops, including corn, rice, wheat, straw, sorghum, and sugarcane, into carbon-rich biochar, a very effective means of both locking carbon away permanently and enhancing soil health on the very farm where the equipment is operating. Currently the company is driving the tractors in pilot projects, with carbon credits already sold. The future plan to get to scale, however, involves leasing equipment to farmers who can then sell the carbon credits and reap the double benefit of soil enhancement and financial benefit.
New Approaches to Trap CO2 in the Soil
Thanks to a new Australian firm, Loam Bio, farmers across Australia are add a fungal dusting to the seed they sow, in an effort to sequester more carbon for longer than the natural carbon cycle. Other companies, including Andes and Groundworks Bio Ag are also experimenting with microbes. Lithos and Mati offer farmers crushed volcanic rocks to sprinkle on their fields. Silicate Carbon turns leftover concrete into a fine powder. Part of the appeal of these approaches is they don’t require a lot of equipment. In fact they don’t require much from the farmers using them, and they have a powerful impact on the health of the soils. The carbon removal potential is huge. Soils have the potential to absorb more than 5 gigatons of carbon dioxide per year, or one-seventh of all the carbon dioxide that human activity injects into the atmosphere, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. More here.
Adaptation and Resilience
Nearby Rural and Open Spaces Help Cool Cities
A recent analysis in Nature Cities indicates the power of rural land in the immediate vicinity of urban areas to damp down the heat island effect, and help keep cities at a more livable temperature as global temperatures rise. They found the biggest impact comes from lands within a six-to-nine-mile radius of the urban boundary. The study shows that preserving rural and open spaces may be a cost effective ways to help keep cities cooler.
Policy
Help Spread the Word About the Success of the Inflation Reduction Act!
Two years in, the law has spurred a wealth of climate and economic benefits, yet most people are completely unaware. Since the IRA’s enactment, clean investment has accounted for more than half of the total US private investment growth according to a new report summarizing the law’s impact to date.
Over 3.4 million households received $8 billion in tax credits last year for making energy and efficiency upgrades, according to Treasury Department data. 750,000 households switched to solar with help from the Inflation Reduction Act-boosted credits. Households in all 50 states and the District of Columbia received tax credits last year. California tops the list with nearly 400,000 households utilizing the incentive, with Texas and Florida in second and third, respectively. Nearly half of all households claiming credits had incomes of less than $100,000. The home energy tax credits can offset up to 30 percent of the purchase and installation of a variety of upgrades including rooftop solar panels, home battery storage, home insulation, energy-efficient windows and heat pumps. Coverage in E&ENews.
What Makes for Effective Climate Policy
Of the 1500 policies from across the globe examined in the study, most didn’t have a significant impact on emissions. There were 63 policies highlighted in the study that reduced carbon emissions by 1.8 billion metric tons. However, the United Nations estimates that emissions must fall by 23 billion metric tons by 2030 stay below the 1.5°C temperature increase target in the Paris Agreement. The most successful policies were price instruments like changes in carbon prices, energy taxes and fossil-fuel-subsidy reforms, and gained in strength when employed in combination, for example subsidies or tax credits combined with regulations. If all countries employed the best practices identified in the study it could result in up to 41 percent of the emissions reductions needed by 2030, according to Jonas Meckling, an associate professor at University of California Berkeley and a climate fellow at Harvard Business School, and one of the study’s authors. Read more.
Climate News
Can Big Oil Be Held Criminally Liable for Climate Disasters?
An increasing number of lawsuits throughout the United States and abroad aim to hold the fossil fuel industry responsible for climate change. Can that responsibility go beyond financial accountability to criminal liability? Some legal scholars are now pushing for criminal prosecution against the industry, hoping for judgments that force companies to phase out oil, gas and coal, though other legal experts have said that will be an uphill battle. In an effort to start that process rolling, the nonprofit consumer advocacy organization Public Citizen and the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, delivered a letter signed by 1,000 self-identified survivors of climate disasters and about 10,000 total signers calling on the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate fossil fuel companies for climate-related crimes. In France, eight victmims of extreme weather filed a criminal case against executives of the global energy giant TotalEnergies. Read more.
Climate Denial Abounds in The US Congress
The most recent study conducted by The Center for American Progress found that 123 elected officials, 100 members of congress and 23 senators, are climate deniers—23 percent of 535 total members. Additional findings include that they have received $52,071,133 in lifetime campaign contributions from the fossil fuel industry, as well as the fact that, while these numbers remain high, the trend is downward, from 150 in the 116th Congress, to 139 in the last, to 123 now. And it’s not all outright denial. Some of the tactics employed not just in Congress, but from others as well, have shifted to suggesting there is no point in the U.S. taking action until India and China reduce their emissions, calling concern about the climate alarmism, and spreading misinformation, among others. Find out more, including which congress persons have been identified.
We Need Better Data And More Action On Climate
Climate tipping points are crucial inflection points when climate systems, systems that are essential for the maintenance of life as we know it, like the Atlantic Ocean current (the AMOC) responsible for Europe’s moderate climate and more. The need to avoid passing these tipping points is widely agreed upon. However, our ability to predict when such things will occur is seriously lacking. Right now the prediction for that one tipping point, for example, could be anywhere from 2025 to 2095 according to some predictions. Knowing how much time we have to avert these disastrous events with more certainty would definitely help garner attention and commitment for efforts to avert them. Part of the problem is a communications issue, as the general public understanding of “uncertainty” is vastly different from what scientists actually mean when they talk about it. For the former, it means may or may not happen. For the later, it simply means the degree o confidence about the specifics of a statement, and not it’s ultimate conclusion. Thus the need for better data, communicated more clearly in ways the public can respond to appropriately, and more action. Read more.
Fossil Fuel’s Massive Disinformation Campaign Slows the Transition
Selwin Hart, UN assistant secretary general, has said that a global “backlash” against climate action was being stoked by the fossil fuel industry, in an effort to persuade world leaders to delay emissions-cutting policies. He credits the perception among many political observers of a rejection of climate policies to this campaign, rather than the reality of what people think. This is in stark contrast to a recent UN poll, the largest of it’s kind, that found that the majority of the population, including those in so-called “petrostates” wants swifter action to avert climate disaster and transition away from fossil fuels. Read more about the impact of the disinformation, as well as the global poll in this coverage from The Guardian.
The Risk of Overshooting the 1.5°C Target
Writing in The Conversation, 3 prominent climate scientists, including former head of the IPCC Robert Watson, point out how and why it is a mistake to think we can overshoot the Paris Agreement’s climate target and somehow avoid the predicted dire consequences. The researchers write that "[t]o argue that we can safely overshoot 1.5°C, or any amount of warming, is saying the quiet bit out loud: we simply don't care about the increasing amount of suffering and deaths that will be caused while the recovery is worked on." Meanwhile, staying below that level requires actions no nation is currently considering. The authors argue that the concept of achieving net zero, agreed upon by many nations, including the U.S., "is becoming detached from reality as it is increasingly relying on science fiction levels of speculative technology." Andrew Dessler, a climate scientist who commented on the report for an article in Axios, said that "If we want to solve the climate problem, reducing the political power of fossil fuels is the first thing that needs to be addressed.”
Book Recommendations
In Into the Clear Blue Sky, climate scientist and chair of the Global Carbon Project Rob Jackson explains that we need to shift our focus from constraining global temperature, to removing greenhouse gases from the air, starting with methane, using everything from nature to cutting-edge technologies.
In Life After Doom Brian McClaren provides support for those of us who are wrestling with confronting that the changes needed to avoid some level of climate catastrophe needed to have happened a long time ago. “Blending insights from philosophers, poets, scientists, and theologians, Life After Doom explores the complexity of hope, the necessity of grief, and the need for new ways of thinking, becoming, and belonging in turbulent times. If you want to help yourself, your family, and the communities to which you belong to find courage and resilience for the deeply challenging times that are upon us — this is the book you need right now.”
About Minerva Ventures:
Are you concerned about climate change and seeking ways to take action? Business survival depends on addressing competitive challenges every day. Leaders attend to urgent business matters while counting on tomorrow’s weather and operating conditions to be similar to yesterday’s. What happens when underlying conditions change as climate consequences become more severe? It is hard to adjust to a disruptive future while you are focused on competing today.
Minerva advises clean tech companies on strategic and business development. We help you find customers, new markets, and new investors to build your momentum and success. Minerva helps established companies create strategies to identify and contend with climate risks to your business. Discover how you can protect your operations, assets, products, and services. Understand how climate risk will affect your suppliers, customers, and partners. Determine how you can strengthen your company to navigate change and seize opportunities as markets reconfigure in the face of the coming changes. Find innovative ways to change your operations, products, and services to help address climate change. Consider policy measures that your industry can pursue that will help address shared risks.
Minerva can help you find new solutions that will make your business more resilient and adaptable to change. Your company will be advancing climate solutions rather than just reacting to disruptions to your industry and markets.
Visit Minerva Ventures’ website at MinervaVentures.com!
Newsletter Editor: Dinyah Rein, Consultant, Minerva Ventures, LLC
Copyright (C) 2024 Minerva Ventures. All rights reserved.
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