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The Quest to Ban the Best Raincoats in the World
Hiking gear exists so that, when nature tries to kill you, it is a little less likely to succeed. Sometimes this gear’s life-saving function is obvious — a Nalgene to carry extra water so you don’t die of thirst, or a fist-sized first-aid kit so you don’t bleed to death — while other things you don’t necessarily purchase with the thought that they might one day save your life. Like, say, a small Swiss Army Knife. Or, in my case, a raincoat.Last summer, on a casual day hike in Mount Rainier National Park, my family was overtaken by a...
AM Briefing: Why Insurers Are 'Quiet Quitting'
Current conditions: Parts of Arizona received more than a foot of snow over the weekend • Heavy rainfall caused flash floods in Argentina • A coastal flood watch is in effect for Washington, D.C., where Congress is back in session.THE TOP FIVE1. Insurance companies are ‘quiet quitting’ in extreme weather regions Insurance companies are “quiet quitting” in certain high-risk areas of the United States, as extreme weather disasters become more frequent and more costly, reports The Wall Street Journal. Insurance agents and analysts tell the paper that, rather than face public backlash from officially abandoning states like Florida or...
The Climate Lawsuit Three Presidents Tried to Kill Is Finally Going to Court
In the last days of 2023, Judge Ann Aiken of the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon ended an argument that had lasted eight years and three presidential administrations. Juliana v. United States, a groundbreaking climate case filed by a group of twenty one young plaintiffs in federal court, could finally go to trial. “The judiciary is capable and duty-bound to provide redress for the irreparable harm government fossil fuel promotion has caused,” Aiken wrote in her opinion. “Some may balk at the Court’s approach as errant or unmeasured, but more likely than not, future generations may...
The Wind Workers of West Texas
If one were to go looking for a Permian Basin of wind — a wind energy superregion waiting to be born — the actual Permian Basin wouldn’t be a bad place to start.Wind potential is everywhere in the U.S., off the coasts and in the Mountain West especially, and the Inflation Reduction Act is expected to catalyze 127 gigawatts of onshore wind by 2030, some of which has already been built. It’s Texas, however, that produces more wind power than any other state in the country. And while neighboring New Mexico has fewer turbines, it was one of the...
AM Briefing: Snow, or No?
Current conditions: More than 300 flood warnings are in place across England • Hazardous waves up to 16 feet tall are slamming into the California coast • Rain and snow is expected this weekend in Japan's Ishikawa Prefecture, where rescuers are racing against time to find earthquake survivors.THE TOP FIVE1. Northeast braces for first major winter storm of the seasonIt’s been almost 700 days since Central Park received an inch of snow, and it doesn’t look like that snowless streak will end any time soon. A winter storm is targeting the Northeast this weekend but forecasters think major coastal...
Renewables Enter an Older and Wiser Phase
Last year showed that renewables are not fated to always and everywhere get steadily cheaper. But if 2023 was a year when the industry was hampered by inflation, high interest rates, and lingering supply chain issues, then maybe 2024 could be a year of normalization — when governments, utilities, and energy companies have at least started to figure things out. “There’s optimism going into 2024,” Allegra Dawes, an associate fellow at the Center for Center for Strategic and International Studies, told me. The difficulties of 2023 were nowhere more obvious than in offshore wind, where rising costs led to cancellations of...
Canada’s Zombie Forests
Although Canada has developed a reputation as a responsible steward of its massive — and environmentally crucial — boreal forests, a new study published in the journal Land calls that reputation into question. The analysis, by researchers at Australia’s Griffith University, found that 35.4 million acres of the country’s evergreen forests in the provinces of Ontario and Quebec have been effectively lost to logging since 1976. The government-approved methods used to regenerate those forests — which require loggers to replant cleared areas or show that the region will recover on its own — have had a devastating result, as...
Why Republicans Are Going After Sunnova (And Jigar Shah)
If Republicans have their way, Sunnova and Solyndra are about to have more in common than just being solar companies with Pokémon-sounding names. More than 12 years after conservatives targeted Solyndra — a scandal-plagued, now-defunct solar company that received a $535 million loan from the Energy Department’s Loan Programs Office under President Barack Obama — Republicans are attempting to run the same playbook on the rooftop solar company Sunnova, Bloomberg reported Thursday. They’ve literally said as much: “Solyndra is going to look like chump change compared to the amount of money that’s been wasted by this administration,” Wyoming Republican...
Biden’s Unfinished Climate Agenda
If President Biden chose to sit on his hands for the remainder of his term, he would already have done far more to address climate change than any of his predecessors. But he still has a bunch of unfinished business — half-completed rules that will need to be finalized — that could go a long way toward making sure his initial achievements pay off. And he’s only got a few more months to get it done. The most consequential items on his to-do list are finalizing two sets of regulations that his administration proposed last spring. The first would...
AM Briefing: A Deadline Blown
Current conditions: Parts of northern France are flooded after Storm Henk • China confirmed 2023 broke extreme heat records • A California-bound ship carrying 800 metric tons of lithium batteries is stuck in Alaska, riding out a major winter storm.THE TOP FIVE1. Tesla and Rivian release Q4 sales numbersTesla and Rivian yesterday reported their production and sales figures for the final three months of 2023: Tesla delivered 484,507, besting expectations. Rivian, a newcomer still trying to secure itself a foothold in the market, delivered 13,972 cars over the same time period, missing estimates by a hair. “The two companies’...
The Michael Pollan Rule Applies to Fashion, Too
News broke in early November that the U.S. federal dietary guidelines might soon warn Americans against eating “ultraprocessed food.” It’s far from a done deal — an advisory committee is merely examining the issue, with no action expected before 2025. But it’s still somewhat of a duh moment for the millions of people who, over the past two decades, have turned away from food that comes in instant packets, boxes, and cans, and toward things that come from the produce aisle or the farmers market. Recent research makes a strong case that — more than individual villains like sugar, corn...
A Car Buyer’s Guide to the 2024 EV Tax Credit
The Department of Treasury published new rules last year that will determine which new electric vehicles, purchased for personal use, will qualify for a $7,500 tax credit. They went into effect on April 18, 2023, and last for the next decade or so. These new tax credit rules are complicated. The list of cars that qualify for the new tax credit can change from year to year — and even month to month. Many buyers in the EV market might have a few questions, including: Should I buy that new car now, or should I wait? Which cars qualify for...
Tesla’s and Rivian’s Year-End Sales Are Messy
How is the electric car industry doing? It depends on how you ask the question and who you ask it of.Two leading U.S. companies — one a startup turned stalwart, the other still trying to secure itself a foothold in the market — reported their production and sales figures for the final three months of 2023. The behemoth Tesla delivered 484,507, besting expectations, according to Bloomberg. Rivian, the newcomer, delivered 13,972 cars over the same time period, missing estimates by a hair. The stock market response tells the rest of the story: Rivian shares were down around 10% in...
AM Briefing: BYD vs. Tesla
Current conditions: States in the Northeast are bracing for a major winter storm • Two months’ worth of rain fell in just three days in eastern Australia • Major floods brought parts of Saudi Arabia to a standstill.THE TOP FIVE1. Fewer cars eligible for 2024 EV tax creditThe number of electric vehicle models that are eligible for the government’s $7,500 tax credit has been more or less cut in half after new battery sourcing rules came into effect on January 1. Thirteen models now qualify, including the Tesla Model Y, the Chevy Bolt EV, and the Ford F-150 Lightning....
The Arguments Against EVs Are All Bad
Suppose you’d never heard of the gas-powered car. One day, someone comes along to evangelize a new Honda CR-V as the hottest thing in technology. You might rightfully ask: Are you serious? You want me to put my family inside a box propelled by petroleum explosions? I’m supposed to maintain a machine made of thousands of moving parts ready to fail at any time, and that needs a fossil fuel imported largely from hostile nations? Hank Green of YouTube fame recently posted such a thought experiment on Threads to point out the power of the status quo. After a...
17 Climate Books to Read in 2024
This year set a high bar for climate writing, from fiction like Eleanor Catton’s terrific Birnam Woods and Lydia Kiesling’s sharp and prescient Mobility to nonfiction like John Vaillant’s best-of-list-topping Fire Weather and Jeff Goodell’s timely The Heat Will Kill You First. Needless to say, next year has its work cut out for it. But after spending the past several weeks digging through publisher catalogs and publicist emails (so … many … emails), I feel confident that the coming year of climate writing will be able to hold its own. Here are 17 books I immediately added to my to-be-read...
Heatmap’s Most-Read Stories of 2023
I may be the new kid on the block (ICYMI I joined in November as Heatmap’s deputy editor), but if anything, I think that makes me even more qualified to talk about the most popular stories from our nine-ish months in existence — after all, for most of that time I was reading them, not working on them. The list spans stories from the day we launched in March all the way to our coverage of COP28, which concluded just a few weeks ago. There are stories on the quest to build out renewable energy infrastructure, how to use the...
The Biggest Climate Story of 2023 Was 2024
I respect that it is still 2023 for three more days and that, as an act of self-love, you’ve permitted yourself not to think about the presidential election until next year, but bear with me for a moment. If you want to understand the biggest climate story of 2023, you’ve got to talk about 2024.I watched an unhealthy number of Republican debates this year and spent way too much time trying to make sense of the words that came out of Donald Trump’s mouth, and because of this, I can report that a lot of what President Biden’s opposition...
Trees Were the Biggest Climate Story of 2023
Humans have a natural inclination toward trees, and to telling stories about them. Norse mythology tells the story of Yggrasil, the world tree, upon which all the realms sit. The Buddha attained enlightenment under the Bodhi Tree, and its descendant has become a major pilgrimage site. Richard Powers’ Pulitzer-winning book The Overstory — itself structured in sections named after the parts of a tree — is filled with people who plant, live in, and commune with megaflora. This year we at Heatmap heard and told stories about trees, too, and if there’s one overarching theme it’s this: Trees, like...
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