. . . . Welcome back to Green Lights. Here’s our roundup of the best of Callaway Climate Insights. This week, David Callaway looks at how the surge in diesel prices this summer will hit data center development, while Mark Hulbert explains why the scariest thing about Halloween isn’t the cost of chocolate. Have a safe weekend and please subscribe to support our climate finance reporting.
. . . . Amid all the furor over the environmental threats of AI data center growth, and particularly the fuel they use for power, few investors realize that the vast majority of data centers use diesel generators as backup for any power emergencies. The surge in diesel prices to unprecedented levels this summer will hit data center development hard as big tech companies seek to access enough fuel for their backup generators, writes David Callaway.
. . . . David Callaway writes that as global financial markets shake with debt concerns ahead of next week’s 39th anniversary of Black Monday, two potential crisis flashpoints look set to collide. The AI debt binge and the growing pullback of insurers from climate bets are suddenly both occupying the risk desks of the largest investors. It’s common on Wall Street for analysts to look for comparisons to past financial crises such as those in 1987 and 2007-2008, but as we’ve written before, both were started in the debt markets. It would be foolhardy not to at least be aware.
. . . . It’s not the tiny spook-filled evening of Halloween that is the scariest part of the holiday, it’s the day after, writes Mark Hulbert. That’s the day when some 35 million costumes will be tossed in the dump, most of them synthetic fibers made from fossil fuels and worn only once or twice. While the kids wear their costumes for only a few hours, the environmental breakdown time of the material could take decades, if not centuries. Halloween is the pinnacle of the year for the fast-fashion industry. Hulbert said aside from withholding candy on Halloween, the problem of fast-fashion needs to be dealt with on the regulatory level.
. . . . The Securities and Exchange Commission moved last week from a policy of abandonment of climate regulatory duty to one of aggressive pest of fund managers who push climate proposals for the companies they own. It’s one thing to drop all federal requirements for public companies to detail climate risk to an investor base with growing demand for climate information. It’s quite another to actively go after large investors for seeking to require the companies whose shares they own from providing more insight.
. . . . After a long, hot, deadly summer, geo-engineering is back on the table around the world. Each year as it gets hotter, and more people die and countries lose economic productivity because of excessive heat, the debate rises again. Several small, unauthorized experiments have been attempted in Europe and the U.S., each time shut down by authorities. Like AI, David Callaway writes, geo-engineering is going to advance whether governments like it or not. The issue is how to design guardrails around it and fund legitimate experiments that bring the international community closer to a collective answer before a rogue attempt triggers something catastrophic.
More greenery . . . .
Gentrification of seafood?: Climate change has caused prices of everyday seafood to soar (The New York Times)
Serious condition: 7 of 16 planetary vital signs are in their most extreme state ever recorded (Wired)
Brazil is burning: Fires surge in the Amazon as El Nino, climate change take a toll (Reuters)
World Food Day: UNICEF warns of climate threat to child nutrition (Vatican News)
‘Touch grass’: No, seriously. Climate therapists say it’s good to reconnect with nature (Grist)