Green Mission News – February 2025
World’s richest use up their fair share of 2025 carbon budget in 10 days
Emissions caused by wealthiest 1% so far this year would take someone from poorest 50% three years to create.
Your brain is lying to you about the “good old days”
The science behind why we think the past was better than the present.
https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/394872/past-present-selective-memory-progress-brain-science
How wind tech could help decarbonize cargo shipping
Wind is an underutilized resource that has the potential to steer the notoriously dirty shipping industry toward a greener future.
https://www.technologyreview.com/2025/01/02/1108651/wind-shipping-decarbonize-climate-change/
Human use of fire has produced an era of uncontrolled burning: Welcome to the Pyrocene
How Will California’s Wildfires Affect Wildlife?
From fleeing mountain lions to scorched soil, the aftermath of intense fires shows an ecosystem transformed.
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/wild-animals-california-wildfires
The Hyperloop: A 200-Year History of Hype and Failure
Elon Musk’s Hyperloop Alpha is another overhyped venture, recycling 200-year-old dreams and exaggerated claims of innovation.
https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/the-hyperloop-a-200-year-history-of-hype-and-failure/
The Largest Risks Faced by the World
https://www.statista.com/chart/29197/the-most-severe-global-risks-over-the-next-2-and-10-years/
Up to $43B needed to modernize recycling infrastructure: Biden EPA
A recent report, spurred by a congressional funding bill, outlined what it would take to surpass a 50% recycling rate by 2030. This comes as Trump seeks to pause certain grants.
https://www.wastedive.com/news/epa-biden-trump-recycling-infrastructure-packaging-organics/737960/
A New Path to Sustainable Farming: An Agrarian Commons Approach
https://foodtank.com/news/2025/01/a-new-path-to-sustainable-farming-an-agrarian-commons-model/
Solar Energy Surpassed Coal in the EU for the First Time in 2024: Report
https://www.ecowatch.com/solar-energy-eu-coal-2024.html
Searching For Climate Salvation In Deep Hellfire
Geothermal energy has become the renewable that got left behind as solar and wind accelerate. Why then do its most determined advocates still insist it could be the key to the renewable energy transition?
https://www.noemamag.com/searching-for-climate-salvation-in-deep-hellfire/
Solving renewable energy’s sticky storage problem
When the Sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow, humanity still needs power. Researchers are designing new technologies, from reinvented batteries to compressed air and spinning wheels, to keep energy in reserve for the lean times.
Finally, an answer to why Earth’s oceans have been on a record hot streak
A new study finds that the rate of ocean warming has more than quadrupled over the past 40 years — and pinpoints why.
https://grist.org/oceans/why-earth-oceans-record-hot-streak/
Is seaweed the next kale?
Startups want to turn kelp and algae into food, skincare products, and environmentally-friendly cattle feed — if anyone will ever take seaweed seriously.
https://thehustle.co/originals/is-seaweed-the-next-kale
Amazon communities reap the smallest share of bioeconomy profits
https://news.mongabay.com/2025/01/amazon-communities-reap-the-smallest-share-of-bioeconomy-profits/
Driving Africa’s agricultural innovation with agroecology and technology
PAPISHE agroecology project increasing farmers yields by 38%
https://www.myjoyonline.com/papishe-project-increasing-farmers-yields-by-38/
What Is Jimmy Carter’s Environmental Legacy?
https://www.ecowatch.com/jimmy-carter-environmental-legacy.html
Jimmy Carter, ILSR, and the Evolution of Solar Electricity
https://ilsr.org/articles/jimmy-carter-ilsr-and-the-evolution-of-solar-electricity/
It’s good to be a California beaver. Again.
https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2025-01-07/california-beaver-restoration-water-policy
From nuts to kelp: The ‘carbon-negative’ foods that help reverse climate change
From Talks to Transformation: Food Systems Dialogues.
https://foodtank.com/news/2025/01/from-talks-to-transformation-food-systems-dialogues/
I Argued With David Lynch About Meditation. He Was Right.
My experience in the Transcendental Meditation Movement in the 1980s soured me on the practice — but a tense conversation with the famed director and artist eventually brought enlightenment.
https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/david-lynch-meditation-interview-1235240219/
Conservation meets diplomacy: ‘Ecological Peace Corridors’ proposed for conflict zones.
Solar power projects drive ecological restoration in north China’s deserts.
Advocates gather to demand equitable fire recovery for long-time Altadena residents, immigrants and others.
https://www.latimes.com/delos/story/2025-01-17/la-de-los-equitable-recovery
“Tinderbox”: How Fossil Fuel Companies & Electric Utilities Intensified L.A. Wildfires, Climate Chaos (audio)
https://www.democracynow.org/2025/1/13/la_fires_climate_policy
Los Angeles wildfires have become perfect fuel for Trump and climate denial.
Misinformation is spreading rapidly as experts say climate change is the likely accelerant for California’s crisis.
Calls for Big Oil to Cover LA Fire Damage as Chevron, Exxon Report Tens of Billions in 2024 Profits
https://www.commondreams.org/news/california-fire-damage
Climate change is making plants less nutritious − that could already be hurting animals that are grazers.
Can we repair some of the damage humans have done to ecosystems and biodiversity? Ecological restoration seeks to do just that, and restoration ecology is the science that underpins it.
https://www.nature.com/scitable/knowledge/library/restoration-ecology-13339059/
Why scientists are enlisting fungi to save endangered plants
The mycorrhizae that live among and in plant roots can boost the health of certain species, and even whole ecosystems — but scientists warn against a one-size-fits-all approach
Shallow waters and fast currents boost elkhorn coral restoration
https://phys.org/news/2025-01-shallow-fast-currents-boost-elkhorn.html
The US wants to cut food waste in half. We’re not even close.
Americans waste more than 300 pounds of food per person per year, study says.
https://grist.org/food-and-agriculture/the-us-wants-cut-food-waste-in-half-were-not-even-close/
The U.S. is trying to unravel a hacking plot that targeted climate activists
https://www.npr.org/2025/01/24/nx-s1-5271530/hacking-investigation-climate-change
Homes built with clay, grass, plastic and glass: How a Caribbean island is shying away from concrete
FDA Bans Red Dye No. 3 in Food and Drinks
https://foodtank.com/news/2025/01/fda-bans-red-dye-in-food-and-drinks/
Higher Fertilizer Use Reduces Pollinators by Half and Plants Suffer in Response, Study Finds
https://www.ecowatch.com/fertilizers-pollinators-impact.html
Why it’s important to let sediment reach the shore.
Sediment built up behind dams has negative affects downstream, so experts argue we need to reconnect rivers to floodplains.
https://ensia.com/features/sediment-river-dams-shore-floodplain-marsh-bay-ecosystems/
In Uganda, a women-led reforestation initiative fights flooding, erosion
How corn syrup took over America
Corporate welfare has propped up high fructose corn syrup for decades. It’s unlikely to end anytime soon.
https://thehustle.co/originals/how-corn-syrup-took-over-america
Joe Biden was America’s first climate president. Did it matter?
The outgoing Democrat’s climate agenda was a surprising success — and a cautionary tale.
https://grist.org/politics/joe-biden-climate-change-legacy/
Executive Orders on Energy and Climate Have Advocates Across the Nation on Edge
Orders pulled back approval of new wind leases, lifted restrictions on resource extraction and cut off money dedicated to electric vehicle charging. Their legality may be challenged, but climate advocates are preparing for the worst.
A new life for empty offices: Growing kale and cucumbers
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20250127-why-veg-is-growing-in-empty-office-spaces
How Climate Change Is Complicating a Beloved Midwest Pastime: Ice Fishing
Wide temperature swings in Wisconsin and Minnesota have delayed the formation of ice thick enough to support anglers and other outdoor recreationists.
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/15012025/climate-change-complicating-midwest-ice-fishing/
The Extinction Loop
Libertarian fantasies thrive on ecological collapse, profiting from the very destruction they helped to accelerate.
https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/the-extinction-loop/