Area Climate News
Harrisonburg will add three new electric school buses to its fleet. It will own five electric buses after this purchase and has enough space to hold up to 10 in the transportation department’s garage. It plans to add infrastructure to support more electric buses in the future.
At the request of Harrisonburg Mayor Deanna Reed, leaders of eight local environmental groups met with her last month. She wanted the group to identify actionable items the city could accomplish in a reasonable amount of time. Four possible actions related to housing/zoning, transportation, energy, and conservation/resilience were identified. The Mayor then proposed follow-up meetings focused on defining and planning specific actions.
Valley Friends Meeting in Dayton is a national Interfaith Power and Light Certified Cool Congregation at the 80% and above reduction level. They achieved that by first replacing their old oil furnace with an energy efficient electric heat pump. They then added a solar panel installation to their roof to reduce their carbon emissions by 93%.
Our Climate Crisis
Hurricane Helene, which killed more than 100 people and caused catastrophic damage, was made worse because of global heating. Drawing energy from the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico, it quickly accelerated to a Category 4 storm before making landfall in the Florida panhandle. It then raced inland where it stalled over western North Carolina and quickly dropped more than two feet of rain over the Asheville area.
Much of our nation’s infrastructure, from highways to runways, has suffered as temperatures reached the hottest in recorded history this year. Bridges face particular risks. A quarter of them were built before 1960 and already in need of repair. Now extreme heat and increased flooding linked to climate change are accelerating their disintegration.
Coastal flooding is getting more common in most parts of the United States, as climate change causes sea levels to rise. In the last 25 years, the number of days with high-tide flooding has increased by a whopping 250% or more in many regions, including along the Gulf of Mexico, and in the Mid-Atlantic and the Pacific Islands.
Global temperatures this summer climbed to the highest levels on record. Temperatures between June and August were 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above the preindustrial average—just edging out the previous record set last summer.
Politics and Policy
The US presidential debate took place against a backdrop of wildfires and floods. Donald Trump flat out ignored the question about fighting climate change. Kamala Harris slammed Trump for having called climate change a “hoax” and touted the Biden administration’s investments in renewable energy. Conversely, she also applauded our record domestic gas production and reiterated her support for fracking.
After a sluggish start this year, environmental groups raised over $11 million in July, more than double their fundraising at the same time in the 2020 presidential election. The shift came as Harris replaced Biden on the ticket, energizing climate advocates to focus on swing states and key congressional races.
Major automakers are now walking back aggressive electrification goals they set just a few years ago in response to a perceived slowdown in EV interest and sales. To be clear, EV sales are up overall, and the transition away from internal combustion is still happening, just with a little less momentum than once predicted.
Various states and cities started adopting climate goals nearly 20 years ago, setting themselves on a path toward reducing emissions and rolling out clean energy. Whether they’re actually on track to meet those goals is now up for debate. Advocates across the country are now suing states and municipalities they say are failing on their climate commitments.
Donald Trump announced his intention to pull back unspent funds from the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), a key climate law, should he win the 2024 election. The IRA is funneling billions into renewable energy projects, electric vehicles, and cleaner industry across the U.S.—including a lot of Republican-led states that could really use the cash.
Over the course of the past year, the Orange County (Va.) Board of Supervisors shot down multiple attempts to bring renewable energy solar installations to the area. No matter the size or location, they claim solar projects would harm the county’s rural character and agritourism industry.
After vetoing similar legislation earlier this year, the Youngkin administration is launching a green bank, with $10 million in seed funds, to fund clean energy initiatives in Virginia. Because it has no legislative guardrails, environmental groups fear that the fund will be used for Youngkin’s pet projects.
Energy
The Three Mile Island nuclear plant in Pennsylvania, the site of the worst nuclear accident in US history, is preparing to reopen. The plant operator has signed a 20-year deal with Microsoft to purchase clean energy to power its power-hungry and rapidly expanding data centers for artificial intelligence.
The United Kingdom will shut down its last operational coal-fired power plant this month. This major milestone was made possible by the U.K.’s embrace of wind power, both on- and offshore. Over the last decade, this form of renewable energy has surged in the U.K., from generating around 8% of the country’s electricity in 2013 to 29% in 2023.
Data centers threaten to overwhelm the local ecosystem in Prince William County, Virginia. They already occupy 8 million square feet of space in the county. If all the proposed new data centers are built, that number could balloon to 80 million. Some predict that the amount of electricity these centers would need is enough to power five New York Cities.
Texas has become a clean energy juggernaut and plans to build the most clean energy of any state. It intends to build 35 gigawatts of clean energy over the next 18 months, more than the next nine states combined. Texas, however, still lags behind California and plenty of other states in terms of how clean its grid actually is.
Food and Agriculture
Virginia farmers struggled with drought and an incredibly long hot spell during a tough growing season this year. Beyond the drought and the heat, climate change brings weather weirding and instability including warm winter weather followed by cold snaps.
Some restaurants are forging stronger bonds with regional food systems and regenerative farms in response to our growing ecological and climate crisis. The switch to regional sourcing comes from the stark realization that many staples used in most restaurants have wreaked havoc on the ecosystems and livelihoods of people in other countries.
Cows belch methane at alarming rates but can also help farms capture more carbon in soil. Farms with a mixture of arable crops and grazing livestock store about a third more carbon within their soil and also increase biodiversity.
A 485-megawatt solar project in Spotsylvania is running smoothly today while playing host to a flock of sheep, creating new opportunities for local farmers while pumping out clean kilowatts. It almost died because fierce opposition from local residents who, it turns out, were enabled by fossil industry stakeholders.
Solar farms fight climate change and can help with another global crisis—the collapse of nature. Planting pollinator friendly plants on solar farms can decrease erosion, nourish the soil and store planet-warming carbon. They can also attract insects that improve pollination of nearby crops.
Restoration Bioproducts is opening a biochar production facility in Sussex County, Virginia. The facility heats waste wood to high temperatures in an environment without oxygen to transform the material into syngas—a combustible gas that can be used for fuel—and biochar, a charcoal-like substance commonly used to improve soil health and as an animal food additive.
Climate Justice
Productive uses of solar powered mini-grid electricity in Africa are making farmers richer and energy cheaper. Mini-grids allow rural entrepreneurs to utilize clean electricity to support their businesses and increase their incomes. They also boost revenues for rural utilities struggling to achieve profitability and maintain reliable energy services because of limited demand.
Virginia solar developers are again asking regulators to force Dominion Energy to suspend its rules that hold up mid-size projects for governments, schools and nonprofits. Under Dominion’s newer requirements for connecting solar projects, some projects could be facing up to 3.5 years of delay before coming online, with ballooning costs.
The Environmental Protection Agency, in a new initiative called the Green Bank for Rural America is channeling $500 million to nonprofit lenders, with priority given to those in the Appalachian mountain region. The funds will support community solar arrays, apprenticeships in renewable energy fields, electrified public transit, and other projects.
Climate Action
Textile waste in the US amounts to just under 6% of all municipal solid waste and is growing with the explosion of so-called “fast fashion.” That’s why no-frills Maine Congresswoman Chellie Pingree is seeking to bring the fashion and textile industries into the fold of climate change discussions. It’s her effort to fight climate change one darned pair of jeans at a time.
School bus fleets are the largest mass transit system in the US and due for an upgrade. The first all-electric school bus fleet to serve a major school district started ferrying kids to class in Oakland, Calif., this fall. The 74 buses also act as giant batteries when they’re not moving. They’re plugged in and supplying enough electricity to the local grid to power about 400 homes.
The United States Postal Service’s new EV mail truck is making its debut to rave reviews from carriers. Within a few years, the fleet will have expanded to 60,000, most of them EVs, serving as the Postal Service’s primary delivery truck.
The US Department of Energy announced $38.8 million in funding for research and development of high-impact technologies and practices aimed at decarbonizing buildings. This includes next-generation retrofits for building envelopes, lighting, and heating, ventilation, and air conditioning.
A British science agency will provide about $75 million for researchers to examine solar geoengineering ideas for artificially cooling the planet. This includes outdoor experiments of injecting particles into the air to deflect some of the sun’s radiation back into space with the goal of reducing the Earth’s temperature.
At Climate Week NYC, tech giants and real estate firms announced a new initiative asking steelmakers to deliver a total of 1 million metric tons per year of “near-zero emissions” steel to North America by 2028.
EV charging stations aren’t just better for the environment, they’re also cash cows for nearby businesses. The 15-60 minutes that people wait to charge their car gives them time to grab a drink, a bite to eat, or do some quick shopping.
Earl Zimmerman is a member of the steering committee of the Climate Action Alliance of the Valley.
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