Choose your location
Heatmap News
Hello from Dubai, Where the Fleece Quotient Is High
One tool I have developed in my years of climate reporting might be described as the fleece quotient. This is the idea that you can generally predict if something is a climate event — a category I consider in its broadest terms, including but not limited to a scientific conference, a protest, or an international meeting — if more people attending it are wearing fleece than not. (It is distinct but related to the Patagonia ratio.)This methodology is not perfect: In some cities, one can accidentally trip the fleece quotient on an ordinary Back to School night or even...
New ‘SAF’ Just Dropped
American Airlines will purchase sustainable aviation fuel from a first-of-its-kind facility under development in Texas called Project Roadrunner. Infinium, the company behind the project, will be converting a former natural gas refinery into a commercial “eFuels” plant where it will make jet fuel and diesel from carbon dioxide and green hydrogen. The company announced the offtake agreement on Wednesday along with a $75 million equity agreement with Breakthrough Energy Catalyst, a subsidiary of a climate tech firm backed by Bill Gates that focuses on first-of-a-kind projects. Infinium specified that it would use “waste CO2” for the process, although it did not say where the carbon would be sourced from.Most so-called sustainable aviation fuels in use today are made from waste cooking oils and agricultural residues, but experts are skeptical they’re truly scalable. In theory, fuel made from carbon dioxide captured from the atmosphere and green hydrogen could be carbon neutral, though capturing the carbon, and producing green hydrogen, requires a lot of energy.This first appeared in Heatmap AM, a briefing on the most important climate and energy news. Sign up to get it in your inbox every week day:* indicates requiredEmail Address *Our Privacy Policy & Terms Apply.
John Kerry Unveils America’s Plans for COP28
In a press conference on Wednesday morning, U.S. Climate Envoy John Kerry previewed the three main issues the U.S. will be focused on “securing strong outcomes” for at COP28, the United Nations climate conference that kicks off tomorrow:1. Acting on the global stocktake: Negotiators will discuss the results of the first 5-year assessment of global climate progress and how countries might make additional commitments. One of the main sticking points is sure to be language around reducing fossil fuels. Kerry reiterated that the U.S. supports requiring the “phase out of unabated fossil fuels,” which leaves room for the continued...
24 States Are About to Set Climate Targets for the First Time
To date, less than half of all states have set forth targets to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. Within two years, almost all of them will have official climate goals. Even Texas, even West Virginia, even Wyoming.It’s already been a big year for climate action in states where the issue has been a nonstarter politically. The Inflation Reduction Act, the historic climate package that Biden signed last year, has brought billions of dollars in investment and tens of thousands of new jobs in clean energy manufacturing to places like Georgia. But that state’s governor, Brian Kemp, has managed to...
What Do Rich Countries Owe Their Old Colonies? More Than Once Thought.
At the height of Britain’s power, it was said that the sun never set on its empire. The crown’s tendrils stretched around the world, with colonies on every continent but Antarctica — though I’m sure if there had been anybody around to subjugate on the ice, the crown would have happily set up shop there, too. The British were not, of course, the only colonial power; many of their European brethren had empires of their own. All that colonization takes energy, and the days of empire were also, for the most part, the days of coal. But as countries around...
American Airlines Is Buying Carbon Removal on the Cheap
American Airlines will purchase carbon credits from a biomass-based carbon-removal startup in a deal that could reshape how corporate emitters offset their emissions, The Wall Street Journal reports. The startup, Graphyte, collects carbon dioxide-absorbent agricultural byproducts such as rice hulls, tree bark, and sawdust, compresses it into bricks, then seals and buries it. Its first project, in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, plans to begin manufacturing and burying the bricks by July.What’s particularly notable about Graphyte’s deal with American Airlines is the price. American will pay Graphyte $100 per metric ton — as opposed to the $675 charged on average by...
Welcome to COP Week. Prepare to Be Overwhelmed.
If you live in the United States, work in climate, and were hoping for a sleepy post-Thanksgiving slide back into work mode, I have bad news for you. Every Monday morning, the Heatmap team gets together to take stock of what the week ahead looks like. Some weeks are relatively slow. This week, we all agreed, is so packed that it’s tough to keep track of everything that’s happening. There’s an obvious reason for this: The 2023 United Nations Climate Change Conference, better known as COP28, kicks off in Dubai this week. The two weeks of COP are...
EV Sales Just Hit Their Highest Level Ever in the U.S.
In case you needed more convincing that buyers still like EVs just fine, sales of electric and hybrid light-duty vehicles in the U.S. rose to their highest-ever level in the third quarter of 2023, according to data released Monday by Wards Intelligence. Electric-powered vehicles (including those that are hybrid, plug-in hybrid, and purely battery-powered) made up 17.7% of all light-duty vehicle sales during that time period, while sales of gas-powered light duty vehicles fell to an all-time low of 82%. The diverging trends were driven in part by falling prices for cleaner cars. The average cost of a battery-powered light-duty...
A Climate Insiders’ Guide to Giving Tuesday
Fighting for clean air and water. Accelerating the green energy transition. Centering economic and racial justice. Engaging future generations of climate innovators.Nonprofits across the U.S. and around the world are tackling the problem of climate change in zillions of different ways. In recognition of the scope of their work, we at Heatmap are starting a new tradition for Giving Tuesday — asking some of the most prominent voices in the climate space where they would donate this year.The answers they gave us are varied, exciting, and urgent, with a cause for every interest and concern. Learn how to donate...
This Catskills House Is Cool, Affordable, and Off the Grid
Architect and Industrial designer Marc Thorpe runs a multi-disciplinary studio in New York. His innovative approach to architecture, branding and furniture design for clients including Under Armour, Moroso and Ligne Roset is rooted in the belief in an architecture of responsibility. His original designs aim to be sustainable and affordable. He recently collaborated with Stage Six (who scale social enterprise) and affordable housing social enterprise group, Échale International on a sustainable and ecologically responsible housing development in Uganda. Each home, constructed of soil bricks, has its own water tower to collect rainwater in case of drought.I spoke with Marc...
Boston’s Big Dig Was Secretly Great
If you’ve lived in Massachusetts at any point in the last 50 years, you’ve heard of the Big Dig. It’s infamous — a tunnel project that was supposed to bury an elevated highway in Boston to the tune of $2 billion that eventually ballooned in cost to $15 billion and took a quarter of a century to finish.The Big Dig was more than just a highway project, though. It was a monumental effort that Ian Coss, a reporter at GBH News, calls a “renovation of downtown Boston.” The project built tunnels and bridges, yes, but it also created parks,...
Exclusive: New Tax Rules Could Make It Cheaper to Hook Up Clean Energy to the Grid
It may soon be easier — and cheaper — to build a large-scale clean energy project in the United States. Under a new and little-noticed update to a climate tax credit published last week, the government will now pick up some of the cost of connecting a new wind or solar project to the power grid. The policy could ease one of the biggest barriers to the rapid transformation of the electricity system to fight climate change. It could save clean energy developers hundreds of millions in fees while potentially speeding the deployment of new renewable and low-carbon energy...
Eric Adams Just Cut the Only NYC Compost Programs That Ever Worked
For the past 30 years, New York City has funded community-based programs that spread the gospel of compost. What started as a few education and outreach sites at the city’s botanical gardens has grown into a vast network of more than 200 neighborhood food scrap drop-off locations where devoted New Yorkers enthusiastically deliver bags of rotting waste each week. Today, the programs employ 115 people and divert more than 8.3 million pounds of organic waste from landfills each year. Now, with the stroke of Mayor Eric Adams’s pen, they will likely have to shut down. Adams eliminated all funding for community...
New Jersey Is the Latest State to Go All-EV
New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy just announced a rule requiring that all new cars sold in the state must be electric by 2035, with interim goals starting for model year 2027 and ramping up from there. Meeting these goals will take an aggressive push given that as of June, just 1.8% of the state’s light duty vehicles were electric, according to the New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission. To help with the transition, New Jersey offers rebates — up to $4,000 — on top of federal tax credits towards EV purchases. And though the Garden State has just 911 public...
OpenAI Is a Cautionary Tale About Nonprofits
Surely you’ve heard by now. On Friday, the board of directors of OpenAI, the world-bestriding startup at the center of the new artificial intelligence boom, fired its chief executive, Sam Altman. He had not been “consistently candid” with the board, the company said, setting in motion a coup — and potential counter-coup — that has transfixed the tech, business, and media industries for the past 72 hours.OpenAI is — was? — a strange organization. Until last week, it was both the country’s hottest new tech company and an independent nonprofit devoted to ensuring that a hypothetical, hyper-intelligent AI “benefits...
The Pope’s Latest Climate Banger
Pope Francis is heading to this year’s COP summit in Dubai next week, fresh off releasing an encyclical, Laudate Deum, that takes wealthy countries to task for their failure to curb greenhouse gas emissions. NPR dedicated its Sunday cover story on All Things Considered to the new document, and I highly recommend you listen to the whole segment. Christiana Zenner, a Fordham University professor who’s studied the pope’s writings on climate change, described the publication as a follow-up to Laudato Si, his 2015 encyclical that first mentioned climate change. But whereas Laudato Si was, in Zenner’s words, “reflective, rhapsodic...
Inside the Weird World of Succulent Smuggling
It was questionable if we needed a second season of Tiger King — or, let’s be honest, a first season. Regardless, if Netflix ever decides it’s interested in a story that features surprisingly charming criminals, IWT violations, and yes, even possibly murder (but without the tabloid tone and mullets), producers might look in the future to Jared D. Margulies’ delightful debut, The Cactus Hunters: Desire and Extinction in the Illicit Succulent Trade. Wait, illicit succulent trade? you might be wondering. Oh yes.From the cliffs of California and the deserts of Brazil to the markets of Seoul and the private...
Building California Cool in the Desert
The architecture firm HKS is known for its innovative, climate-informed approach to large-scale architectural projects, from an award-winning stadium in California to a yacht club in Saudi Arabia to a bioscience lab in Singapore. The practice is also committed to research, landing on Fast Company’s 200 most innovative companies for designing air filtration systems in a luxury condo building in Dallas. The group’s latest project, AutoCamp Joshua Tree, is just outside its namesake national park in southern California, about one hour from Palm Springs and two hours from Los Angeles. The glamping hotspot embodies HKS’s philosophy by keeping guests cool...
The Heat Pump Manufacturing Boom is About to Begin
When Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, American environmentalist and writer Bill McKibben pitched an idea to sap Russia’s power by drying up the market for its oil and gas. Heat Pumps for Peace and Freedom, he named the proposal, which called on President Biden to use his wartime emergency powers to ramp up manufacturing of electric heating appliances so that households could replace their fossil fuel-based furnaces.Remarkably, Biden obliged. Just a few months later, he authorized the use of the Defense Production Act to expand American manufacturing of electric heat pumps, deeming them essential to national security. Now,...
The School Fight Over Climate Change Is Growing
Fights over school curricula have become issues du jour, and today officials in Texas are voting on what kids in that state will read about climate change in their school textbooks. The problem, according to the AP, is that the textbooks in their current form are “too negative towards fossil fuels.” Wayne Christian, a member of the Texas Railroad Commission, which oversees oil and gas in the state (you thought it was going to be trains, didn’t you?), is pushing the Texas State Board of Education to “choose books that promote the importance of fossil fuels for energy promotion.” Board...
Heatmap News
883+
Posts
11M+
Views
Heatmap is a new media company focused on the biggest story of our time: climate change. We’re your guide to the transformation reshaping our planet, our economy, our politics, and our culture.
Welcome to NewsBreak, an open platform where diverse perspectives converge. Most of our content comes from established publications and journalists, as well as from our extensive network of tens of thousands of creators who contribute to our platform. We empower individuals to share insightful viewpoints through short posts and comments. It’s essential to note our commitment to transparency: our Terms of Use acknowledge that our services may not always be error-free, and our Community Standards emphasize our discretion in enforcing policies. We strive to foster a dynamic environment for free expression and robust discourse through safety guardrails of human and AI moderation. Join us in shaping the news narrative together.