A reason to celebrate climate progress this 250th American birthday
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Fifty years ago, on our nation’s 200th birthday in 1976, I celebrated with my family as a 12-year-old on a restaurant cruise around New York City harbor, watching the fireworks display as we glided past the World Trade Center towers.
Climate change was far from my mind back then, but environmental ambitions in the U.S. were already taking shape. The country had just suffered through a painful oil shock three years earlier because of war in the Middle East. Former President Richard Nixon had created the Environmental Protection Agency in 1970, which was the occasion of the very first Earth Day. The Endangered Species Act was only a few years old and a court ruled the EPA had authority to regulate leaded gasoline that year. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed for that holiday just below 1,000.
While we’ve done more damage to our environment in the past 50 years than in the entirety of human history, there is plenty of reason to be hopeful that 50 years from now we will celebrate America’s 300th birthday in a cleaner, less polluted environment.
Think of how far we’ve come. In 1976, there was no Internet. Hardly any computers; at least not like the ones we know today. The iPhone and social media and video revolution were still decades away. CNN and 24-hour news wouldn’t start for another four years. The World Trade Center towers would preside over New York for another 25 years before that fateful day in September 2001.
This year I’ll celebrate the 250th at a parade in my hometown outside San Francisco, followed by fireworks over the Golden Gate Bridge. I’m comforted by the fact that our uniquely American innovation will keep finding ways to test the boundaries of our imaginations and create opportunities for clean energy, investment and above all, new ways to change how we live for the better.
There will always be challenges, but each era shows how we find new ways to confront them and move forward. The AI revolution is coming, and with it entirely new achievements in how we approach disease, agriculture, and our endangered global climate.
The Dow Jones average is trading just below a record high near 53,000 as I write this. Most Americans have already taken off for the long weekend. Despite all our differences, it’s time to celebrate. Here’s to the next 50 years.
Happy Fourth of July.
Don’t forget to contact me directly if you have suggestions or ideas at dcallaway@callawayclimateinsights.com.
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Zeus: Power company mergers are getting bigger
. . . . Power company deals are surging, and they’re becoming bigger, writes David Callaway. As the AI frenzy on Wall Street matures, the energy companies that are powering the data centers have become attractive targets to private equity investors and other power companies, especially for their predictable and scalable businesses. Deal value in the first five months of the year is up almost 50%, with NextEra Energy’s NEE 0.00%↑ enterprise offer to buy Dominion Energy for $112 billion the largest to date. But Callaway points out the actual number of deals is flat to lower, meaning that they are growing bigger, and investors and acquirers are taking more risk. The increase portends a big summer and likely rest of the year for Wall Street on merger deals, before someone tries to stretch just a bit too far.
Thursday’s subscriber insights
A real look at data center pollution
. . . . Anyone confused by the litany of conflicting reports on how much pollution data centers are responsible for should take a good read of Google’s GOOGL 0.00%↑ annual sustainability report this week.
Google is one of the tech giants that tries the hardest to develop or buy clean energy to keep its emissions down as it develops its technology. But the numbers show that it’s losing the war so far, with its third-party, supply chain emissions leaping as well as its water and electricity usage.
Google said that it actually managed to lower both its direct and indirect emissions in 2025, through its aggressive use of clean energy to power its data centers. The tech giant is among one of the most prolific dealmakers for solar, wind and even nuclear energy, and it was reflected by the fact that electricity emissions fell 3% last year.
But electricity usage was up more than 37%, and water usage was up more than 34%, while total greenhouse gas emissions were up 18%. Most of the surge came from Google’s third-party suppliers, called Scope 3 emissions. Amazon released similar bad numbers in its own sustainability report.
The sustainability reports show the value of actual information to investors directly from the companies they own and illustrate why it’s so important that all public companies detail their climate risk and emissions status each year. Google’s numbers are depressing but it gets points for trying to contain them with clean energy while still keeping pace with its rivals in the great AI arms race.
Editor’s picks: Happy 194th, Jonathan
The oldest chelonian
Jonathan, a Seychelles giant tortoise, has been recognized by Guinness World Records as the world's oldest living land animal and the oldest chelonian (turtle or tortoise) ever recorded. He’s estimated to be 194 years old, possibly older. Says Guinness World Records: “Jonathan The Tortoise: With almost 200 candles on his (vegan) birthday cake, this legend is older than the Eiffel Tower.” He lives on St. Helena, a remote island in the South Atlantic, also known for being the location of Napoleon Bonaparte’s final exile. He was brought to Saint Helena from the Seychelles in 1882 as a gift and at that time was determined to be fully grown, so, at least 50 years old. A vicious, click-bait internet rumor spread in April of this year that Jonathan had died. Not only is Jonathan alive and well, he has been named a Guinness World Records Icon. Jonathan “has met royalty, starred in wedding photographs and delighted tourists,” Saint Helena Gov. Nigel Phillips said in a news release. “He is a symbol of the enduring resilience of this island and its commitment to protecting the environment. It is entirely appropriate that he has as his home the paddock of the Governor’s Residence. He is very much the brightest icon of this jewel in the South Atlantic.” If not the fastest.
Latest findings: New research, studies and projects
Ozone depletion: It wasn’t just your hairspray
If you or someone you know had big hair in the ‘80s, thanks to a generous helping of aerosol hairspray — don’t blame them for the hole in the ozone layer. The Antarctic ozone hole was discovered in 1985, and scientists determined chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) — then widely used as refrigerants, propellants, foam-blowing agents and solvents — were the cause of the ozone depletion. We’ve phased out CFCs and the ozone layer in the Antarctic is recovering. But a new study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences shows the first signs of ozone depletion appeared in the ‘50s, about 30 years before the ozone hole was discovered. And, this first signal of ozone loss popped up not in the Antarctic, but in the upper stratosphere of the tropics, MIT News reports. What’s more, the cause of this early depletion was not due to CFCs, but to another industrial chemical: carbon tetrachloride. That chemical was used as a dry cleaning and degreasing agent as early as the 1930s. Carbon tetrachloride has been phased out of use in most of the world, due to health concerns. But, the report notes, it’s critical to monitor the lingering effects of both CFCs and carbon tetrachloride. Since the Montreal Protocol began to tightly limit carbon tetrachloride use in the 1990s, the molecule’s concentrations in the atmosphere have been on a decline. Susan Solomon, the atmospheric chemist who led the MIT research team, said, “We’ve gone through a big effort to get rid of these chemicals. Don’t we have an obligation to keep monitoring to make sure the atmosphere responds the way we think it should?” The research was supported by the National Science Foundation, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the European Commission.
Words to live by . . . .
“National parks and reserves are an integral aspect of intelligent use of natural resources. It is the course of wisdom to set aside an ample portion of our natural resources as national parks and reserves, thus ensuring that future generations may know the majesty of the earth as we know it today.” — John F. Kennedy, speaking at the World Conference on National Parks, June 23, 1962.