Q1 Highlights
A catalog of recent climate news that caught my eye
It’s been brutal watching the systematic dismantling of the US. I’m more bearing witness and trying to have impact where I can than parsing the news. To that end, I’ll just be sharing some high level articles and other headlines that I found interesting without much commentary. Their strategy is to overwhelm you with chaos and bullshit - to cope, I might suggest trying to follow the trajectory at the highest level and chasing the leads that matter most to you/where you can make the a difference. Keep on fighting.
Big Picture
The World Will Miss 1.5C. What Comes Next? (Shift Key Podcast)
Climate crisis ‘wreaking havoc’ on Earth’s water cycle, report finds (Guardian)
Three-quarters of the world’s land is drying out, ‘redefining life on Earth’ (Grist)
Mapped: How extreme weather is destroying crops around the world (Carbon Brief)
Global economy could face 50% loss in GDP between 2070 and 2090 from climate shocks, say actuaries (Guardian)
Climate Driven Population Shifts and Insurance Increases are set to Erase $1.4 Trillion in American Real Estate Value (First Street)
UNICEF: Climate Crises Disrupted Schooling For 242M Children In 2024 (Forbes)
Exposed and exploited: climate change, migration and modern slavery in Bangladesh (IIED)
These Roads Aren’t Built for Wilder Weather Driven by Climate Change (Bloomberg)
Trade-off between pollinator-wildflower diversity & grassland yields (Nature)
One-quarter of freshwater fauna threatened with extinction (Nature)
Climate Models Can’t Explain What’s Happening to Earth (Atlantic)
Wildfire-Risk Models Are Struggling to Predict LA-Style Fires (Bloomberg)
Collapse
The Climate Backtracker (Columbia)
Analysis: Nearly a tenth of global climate finance threatened by Trump aid cuts (Carbon Brief)
About a Third of Project 2025 Has Already Been Implemented (Heatmap)
Trying Their Darnedest to Make America Filthy Again (McKibben)
Are There Forever Chemicals in Your Drinking Water? (Heatmap)
Even the Best AI Weather Forecasters Still Need NOAA (Heatmap)
Trump’s Tariffs Are a Warning (Heatmap)
How Government Grants Actually Turn Into Cash (Heatmap)
Trump’s Funding Freeze Raises a New Question: Is the Government’s Word Good? (NYTimes)
Major banana exporters could face ‘60% drop’ in growing area due to warming (Carbon Brief)
Alico, Inc. Announces Strategic Transformation of Agriculture Operations to Unlock Value in Land Holdings (Alico) - “The impact of Hurricanes Irma in 2017, Ian in 2022 and Milton in 2024 on our trees, already weakened from years of citrus greening disease, has led Alico to conclude that growing citrus is no longer economically viable for us in Florida”
Marine heatwave wreaks havoc on fisheries in Japan (NHK)
Florida beats Alaska seasonal snow after Gulf Coast snowstorm (Accuweather)
How Trump Could Ruin Your Next National Park Adventure (Heatmap)
A Craze for Tiny Plants Is Driving a Poaching Crisis in South Africa (Yale360)
LA Fires
The LA Fires and the Big Bang (McKibben)
Could Los Angeles Burn to the Ground? (Heatmap)
L.A. Residents: Protect Yourselves From Ash (Heatmap)
It’s Time to Recruit the Rich (Heatmap)
Signals
China’s Installed Renewables Achieved Yet Another Record in 2024 (Bloomberg)
Where did billions in climate and infrastructure funding go? (Grist)
No blackouts or cost increases due to 100 % clean, renewable electricity powering California for parts of 98 days (ScienceDirect)
An explanation of how renewable energy saves you money (Climate Brink)
How ancient healing hot springs could fuel a clean energy future (WaPo)
‘Solar Mamas empower our people by giving them electricity’: the women lighting up Zanzibar (Guardian)
Nations Back $200 Billion-a-Year Plan to Reverse Nature Losses (Bloomberg)
A Tech Billionaire Has a Radical Plan to Transform Ecotourism (Bloomberg)
Want to sponsor a piece of ocean paradise? How one Pacific island’s novel response to rising seas is paying off (Guardian)
New marine sanctuary declared in the 'time-machine' Marshall Islands (Oceanographic)