Green Lights Jan. 19: Top stories this week
Green Lights Jan. 19: Top stories this week
Don't miss a single story of the best from Callaway Climate Insights.
. . . . Welcome back to Green Lights. Here’s our weekly roundup of the best of Callaway Climate Insights. This week, we’ve got sunny news about solar, an update on the volcanic eruption in Iceland and, yes, the U.S. just hit a winter weather milestone. Most important, however, is David Callaway’s Zeus column on how the group Our Children’s Trust, which backed the first successful U.S. climate lawsuit that argued fossil fuels endanger the health of young people last year in Montana, is now taking its campaign nationwide. Here are the highlights in a simple and convenient format that makes it easy for our readers. It’s also easy to subscribe.
. . . . Attorney Mat dos Santos was getting ready to speak at an event here in San Francisco this week when he got the news on his phone: The Montana Supreme Court had just denied a motion from the state to stay its decision last summer in the “Montana 16” case to begin requiring the authorities to consider climate change as part of the constitutional right of residents to a “clean and healthful environment.”
. . . . Mark Hulbert, one of the smartest investment analysts I know and a longtime Callaway Climate Insights columnist, has been banging the drum for almost four years now about how sustainability investors might have to accept lower returns to achieve climate goals. Now a group of several hundred CEOs apparently agrees with him.
. . . . Things are (almost) always sunny in the West. That’s good, because solar power is streaking ahead in the U.S. renewables race. Also, Matthew Diebel writes, the Bureau of Land Management, which oversees about an eighth of the U.S.’s total landmass, is now opening large swaths of land to solar project development.
. . . . Ford’s branching out. The carmaker is exploring how olive branches and twigs can be combined with recycled plastic to make auto parts. Turns out the biocomposite prototype parts, made in the EU, are lightweight, durable, and strong. That could help Ford cut the amount of plastic it uses.
. . . . An Iceland volcano appears to be gearing up for another eruption as more magma accumulates beneath the surface and the land in the area continues to rise. Lava flows from the volcanic eruption in southwestern Iceland have destroyed homes and forced residents to flee the town of Grindavík.
. . . . We reached a winter weather milestone, with snow now having fallen in all 50 states this season, including Florida, Weather.com meteorologists say. This week saw temps in the teens as far south as Houston and Atlanta, a deadly ice storm in Oregon and one report of more than six feet of snow in western New York. Some relief is in the forecast as temps in most areas of the U.S. are expected to be above freezing by midweek. Weather.com forecasters also said the NFL may be lucky with their timing of the NFC divisional playoff between the host San Francisco 49ers and the Green Bay Packers.
More greenery . . . .
The Night of The Goat: Something weird is happening to these Alpine goats (Vox)
A new word for it: At Davos, the future of sustainable business is ‘regeneration’ (BBC)
It’s a duty: ING faces threat of legal action from climate group behind Shell case (Financial Times)
Really? C’mon! Climate Change Could Make Diarrheal Illness More Common (U.S. News & World Report)
No lifts open: Climate change terrifies the ski industry (USA Today)