Virginia environmental news
Gov. Spanberger has taken the legal step of requesting to be a formal party to the proposed Dominion Energy-NextEra Energy merger. She said that there is too much at stake for Virginia and ratepayers for her to watch from the sidelines.
After Gov. Spanberger’s administration got involved, Virginia state regulators ordered data centers to cover the cost of power grid upgrades for the growing data center industry.
Our climate crisis
It has been the hottest June and July ever recorded in Europe. Spain, France and the UK issued a joint statement warning that massive megafires this year show that climate change is ‘threatening our way of life.’ They reaffirmed their commitment to fighting global warming.
Smoke from 50 large wildfires has been filling the skies in the Pacific Northwest, and fast-moving wildfires have forced more than 20,000 people to evacuate in British Columbia. The wildfires have burned more than 8,000 acres and 600 structures near Spokane, Washington.
Drought-induced record low water levels on the Rhine River are choking shipping on this economic artery in the heart of Europe. Water levels on the Danube River are so low that the hulks of dozens of World War II German warships are emerging into view.
The UN World Food Program forecasts that the El Niño weather system will push nearly 50 million people into acute hunger before the end of 2027. The severity of this El Niño is being strongly affected by global warming.
Businesses are dealing with the financial toll of brutal climate shocks as heat, fire, and smoke wreak havoc on local economies.
Politics and policy
A “climate hush” has fallen over the Democratic Party as they focus more on the high cost of living. Candidates might include climate in their platforms but they rarely campaign on it. Recent polling research, however, shows that voters are more likely to choose candidates that make climate change a top priority.
The Trump administration is propping up the aging and dying coal industry despite the financial and environmental costs.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has frozen data center approvals pending an audit of all the data centers wanting to connect to the state’s power grid.
PJM Interconnection, the electrical grid which serves about 67 million people from Virginia to Illinois, wants states and utilities to hold data centers responsible for buying their own rapidly increasing demand for power—or risk being cut off from grid service.
The Trump administration is paying a German firm $1.2 billion to cancel its wind leases off the coasts of New York, California and Louisiana. It is the fifth such deal struck by the administration to get companies to drop offshore wind projects.
Good paying jobs and a generation of workers have been left behind as President Trump does everything he can to scuttle the off-shore wind industry.
Energy
New Mexico’s largest utility has been moving quickly to transform its electricity supply to cleaner alternatives. It has delivered 80% carbon-free electricity in 2025 after investing in solar energy, batteries, and wind.
Walmart is getting into the EV charging business big time. It is installing new fast chargers at its stores across America at a rate second only to Tesla.
Ford will roll out a low-cost, all-electric pickup truck next year. It will headline a planned suite of other low-cost EVs.
India nearly doubled its planned coal mining capacity in 2025 to meet rapidly growing energy demand, even as renewable energy capacity expands rapidly. Globally, new coal capacity additions fell nearly 40% in 2025, driven by declines in China and Australia.
Land, food, agriculture
German farmers are struggling with heat, drought, heavy rain, and late frosts. They’re increasingly responding with adapted varieties, new crops, modern breeding techniques and modified farming methods. This includes planting a greater diversity of crops to mitigate risk.
The Mediterranean’s warming waters are drawing hundreds of invasive species, decimating local fish and marine populations. As a consequence, coastal communities are losing ways to make their livelihood that they’ve known for generations.
This year’s El Niño weather pattern and the ongoing climate crisis are intensifying dry, hot weather that could cause rice yields to plummet. Globally, rice production is set to fall for the first time in more than a decade.
Britain’s grain harvest is on track to be the worst since comparable records began in 1984 as crops wither after one of the driest and hottest spring-summer periods on record.
Ecojustice
Caribbean nations have suffered about $53 billion in damage from climate-fueled disasters between 2000 and 2024. This is driving the effort toward climate justice and reparations. They’re bearing the brunt of the crisis, which is primarily caused by high carbon emitters outside the region.
Residents say they were left out of the decision-making process of a secretive deal for a $10 billion Amazon data center in North Carolina. It includes hundreds of polluting diesel generators.
Amazon is investing in a huge data center in Texas using a natural-gas power plant. It could become the largest single source of climate pollution in the United States even as the company pledges to honor its climate commitments.
Ecological and climate action
A research article, published in the journal Science, finds that swapping even a two-year-old gas car for an EV leads to a lifetime emissions savings of roughly 50%. Climate-conscious drivers will want to make the switch as soon as it’s feasible.
Creative reuse centers sell donated art supplies at low cost, helping reduce waste while making crafting more affordable. You can check out Valley Creative Reuse in Harrisonburg.
A community solar project — with local households, small businesses and nonprofits as subscribers — has plans to put 60 arrays on top of storage units outside Chicago.
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