Green Lights May 24: 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, David Callaway weighs in on the viability of shareholder climate resolutions during this year’s annual general meeting season, and on what the UK snap election could mean for the U.S. presidential race. We’re also keeping America’s veterans in mind as we head into Memorial Day weekend. We hope you enjoy the traditional start of summer. We’ll be back Tuesday. For more great climate finance journalism, please support us and subscribe.
. . . . On Monday, we observe Memorial Day, honoring those who died while serving in the U.S. military. The day was first known as Decoration Day. It began after the Civil War and became an official federal holiday in 1971.
. . . . Royal Dutch Shell’s annual general meeting in London, which descended into mob-driven chaos last year as protestors stormed the meeting hall and rushed the stage, passed more peacefully this week, though the climate transition was again the biggest point of controversy. A shareholder resolution that would have required the oil major to better align its Scope 3 emissions with the goals of the Paris Agreement failed. David Callaway says that with investment giants still on both sides of the debate, it’s hard to see enough momentum for major shareholder resolutions like this to pass, at least this year.
. . . . Hundreds of millions of children in many parts of South and Southeast Asia have been sent home from school due to relentless heat waves over the past month or so. And there’s little comfort at home. Most people outside big cities don’t have A/C and if they do, it’s expensive to run. Matthew Diebel’s friends in the Philippines write to tell him what it’s like living on the front lines of climate change.
. . . . When Spanish director Juan Antonio Bayona set out to film “Society of the Snow,” he wanted it to seem as real-life as possible to the actual events that took place 50 years ago when a plane carrying 45 Uruguayan rugby players and crew crash landed on a glacier between Argentina and Chile. Trouble is, writes Michael Molinski, there’s no longer any snow at the glacier that was the site of the crash. A 30% decline in snow in the Andes is causing problems not just for moviemakers, but ski resorts and anyone who makes a living tied to winter.
. . . . The UK’s snap general election set for July 4 — a date sure to trigger an Internet meme bonanza — will be fought on energy security issues, writes David Callaway. Who can promise to keep energy bills the lowest in a world of rising heat, pounding rain, inflation, and a menacing Russia on the oil and natural gas front? For President Joe Biden and Donald Trump, the reaction of British voters could well dictate how they position their campaigns in the final months before the U.S. election in November.
. . . . There’s been a significant increase in the average number of annual fire weather days experienced in the West since the early 1970s. Fire weather is a key risk for wildfires, so Climate Central analyzed data from 476 weather stations to assess trends in 245 climate divisions across the contiguous U.S. between 1973 and 2023. The analysis shows that parts of the southwest — Southern California, New Mexico, Texas, and Arizona — have experienced some of the biggest increases in annual fire weather days. Some areas are now seeing about two additional months of fire weather compared to a half century ago.
The Butterfly Effect: Students’ butterfly art aims to spark climate conversation (BBC News)
Oh, great: Climate change raises risks for sites with radioactive materials (Environmental Health News)
AI is an energy hog: What that it means for climate change (MIT Technology Review)
‘Silent demise’: Loss of vast rangelands threatens climate, food, wellbeing of billions (UN)
Falling from the trees: It’s so hot in Mexico, howler monkeys are dropping dead (The Independent)
Traveling this weekend? AAA forecasts nearly 44 million travelers for Memorial Day weekend (USA Today)