🌞 3 Ways to Pitch-In Supporting, Appreciating, & Empowering Clean Energy Labor: Sunny Climate News

🗞️ EXTRA, extra: powerful & clean energy vibes are radiating renewable— with your aid

Sep 04, 2023

🌅 "Renewables are on track to keep getting cheaper and cheaper" massive momentum keeps growing: 🗣️ “U.S. fossil-fuel demand peaked 15 years ago. This is happening; people have just missed it.”—Kingsmill Bond

GOOD NEWS from Alison F. Takemura. **Check it out:** **Chart: Renewables are on track to keep getting cheaper and cheaper** 🗣️ “We need to build out grids, change permitting laws, scale up flexibility solutions, improve regulatory and market systems, and speed up deployment in the Global South.” —Sam Butler-Sloss

🌅 EXTRA, Extra— Sunny Climate News: on the Horizon

Happy Labor Day! 🎶 Here’s a fun playlist I made for you based on Beyoncé: 🎧

And here’s your weekly Sunny Climate News, tools, & resources, to go with it:

**Renewable Power Generation Costs in 2022**: Solar power was 710% more expensive than the cheapest fossil fuel-fired solution ten years ago. Today, it costs 29% LESS than fossil-fueled options— and continues to get more affordable.

*Climate Revolution Now* artwork by Brucu Koleli for the **Climate Resilience Project.** Check out their new book *Climate Resilience*: “Centering the voices of Native Rights activists, queer liberation ecologists, youth climate-justice organizers, Latinx wilderness activists, and others on the front lines, Climate Resilience urges us toward a vision of climate care that invests in place-based, community-led projects”

1. Support: Advocate for Labor Working to Transform our World for a Better Future

**EIA: More solar is getting added to the US electric grid in 2023 than ever before**, more than DOUBLING its single year installation record, installing about 38 GigaWatts; but we have GOT to get off gas & push the decarbonization bike pedal to the sustainable metal

We Can Fix It

5 Stages of Climate Feelings

Hi friends, It’s still summer, dang it! That’s my late-August-in-Sweden vibe. Looking forward to crisp fall days; not so much the dark grey winter ones ahead. But let’s jump straight in. This time we’ll do feelings first, then facts, then action! 5 Stages of Climate Feelings…

2 years ago · 70 likes · 17 comments

5 Stages of Climate Feelings: Ignorance, Avoidance, Doom, All the Feels, & Purpose. Source: Under the Sky We Make, Chapter 6.

OUR GREEN TRANSITION MAY LEAVE BLACK PEOPLE BEHIND

Onshore wind energy is working on a comeback in the U.S. market.

Wildflowers spread over hills as wind turbines create electricity on April 16, 2023 near Cameron, California. Spectacular wildflower blooms, referred to by some as a "superbloom", is occurring across much of California following a historically wet season that drove 31 atmospheric river storms thorough the region, resulting in widespread flooding and record snow depths in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. — Wind energy is now an essential part of the grid, and a difference-maker during periods of high demand due to extreme heat or cold. From January to May, wind farms generated 12.4 percent of U.S. electricity, nearly double the output of hydropower and more than triple that of utility-scale solar, according to the Energy Information Administration.

Ready to bring equitable clean energy and energy efficiency initiatives to your community? Join the $7.49 million Community Energy Innovation Prize and strategize ways to provide support, build trust, and strengthen relationships and partnerships with underserved communities while advancing the clean energy transition.

Volts

The progressive take on the permitting debate

Listen now (66 mins) | In this episode, Johanna Bozuwa of the Climate and Community Project shares a progressive vision for permitting reform and the factors that could speed up the US clean-energy buildout. (PDF transcript) (Active transcript…

Listen now

2 years ago · 36 likes · 7 comments · David Roberts

🗣️ "What we're seeing here today in the great Lincoln Park neighborhood is how we can build community solar so that the benefits of the clean energy transformation can be enjoyed and appreciated & the money that can be saved can be be saved by people who have been disproportionately affected by the pollution from fossil fuels." — Senator Tina Smith

DER Task Force

#42 Eat your vegDERbles: how we learned to stop worrying and love climate change

Listen now (118 mins) | We’re back! And this time with a solo ep, for free! Going forward, we’re un-paywalling all eps and going NPR style: PLEASE think about donating $5 anyways. Here’s why: We are launching a policy team! The policy team will be focusing on enforcing the…

Listen now

2 years ago · James McGinniss and Duncan Campbell

**Purpose-Driven Clean Energy**: More than 60% of US businesses want clean energy that makes a better impact on the world. From new research from the Clean Energy Buyers Institute in collaboration with The Nature Conservancy and Bain & Company

New Means

This Labor Day is for Laborers

It’s Labor Day weekend and workers have turned it into a true celebration of labor. And I don’t mean the parades in the streets, I mean workers across this country making this the best moment for unions we’ve seen in years, decades even. SAG-AFTRA just announced…

2 years ago · 49 likes · 4 comments · Joshua P. Hill

FILE - Farmland is seen with solar panels from Cypress Creek Renewables, Oct. 28, 2021, in Thurmont, Md. The Senate has approved a measure that would reinstate tariffs on solar panel imports from several Southeast Asian countries after President Joe Biden paused them in a bid to boost solar installations in the U.S. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez, File) — The Hill: The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law could save Americans up to $38 billion on electricity costs over the remainder of the decade, the Energy Department projected

2. Appreciate— Recognize, Thank, & Celebrate the Dedication of Clean Energy Workers in Your Community.

Renewables will overtake coal to become the world’s largest source of electricity within 3 years, the IEA data shows— solar is now already the cheapest source of electricity in history

Workers installing solar panels — Energy Transition Partnerships: An opportunity to leapfrog from coal to clean energy

Three badges labeled ''Inflation Reduction Act Master'' in gold, ''Inflation Reduction Act Journeyperson'' in silver, and ''Inflation Reduction Act Apprentice'' in bronze against a green background — Quiz: Test your IRA IQ

Sunny Climate News

🌞 8 Coal-to-Solar Makeovers to Make Your Day (& the World!)

Adam Powers

July 31, 2023

🌞 8 Coal-to-Solar Makeovers to Make Your Day (& the World!)

🌅 EXTRA, Extra— Ch-ch-ch-changes: On the Horizon

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Searching For Utopia In Our Warming World

Kaja Brown meets some of the people behind the Black Mountains College in Powys and explores the uses of storytelling against climate change — How can we use storytelling to change the world?

Interstate 69 is covered by floodwaters from Harvey, in Humble, Texas. — How I Went From Climate Fatigue to Climate Storytelling

3. Empower— Foster Innovation, Share Mentorship, & Participate in the Powerswitch

Arts and Climate Change with Nicole Kelner

So you want to work in climate…

In December I posted on Twitter starting a Google sheet titled “So you want to work in climate” to crowdsource resources for an art piece I was working on. I wanted to make one little infographic that I could share with friends easily who were thinking about working in climate. Little did I know that spreadsheet would become a work of art itself…

2 years ago · 17 likes · 2 comments · Nicole Kelner

Cover Image for MCJ + Climate People Climate Career Advancement Meetup — MCJ + Climate People Climate Career Advancement Meetup

Cover Image for The Climate Job Search: How to Break In and Stand Out — The Climate Job Search: How to Break In and Stand Out

Sustainability by numbers

Anger, sadness, guilt, hope: on the complex emotions of climate change

There have been various debates lately about what emotions are most effective in driving climate action. A recent discussion was sparked by a new study that suggested that anger is most likely to inspire protests. That seems intuitive. Yet sadness, fear, guilt, and hope were more likely to predict behaviour change…

2 years ago · 83 likes · 18 comments · Hannah Ritchie

Electrifying our communities are a way to **save money, improve indoor air quality** by polluting fuels out of the house, **and cut carbon emissions.** In Rewiring America’s free handbook, “Electrify Everything in your Home,” they list **10 practical steps you can take and advocate for expanded access,** from getting renewable energy to switching from methane gas appliances to electric ones.

In a New Climate Reality, Community May Be a Farmer’s Greatest Resource

Talking Climate with Katharine Hayhoe

Green energy saves the day!

GOOD NEWS As record-breaking heatwaves roasted Europe and North America this summer, sending energy demand soaring, renewable energy kept the lights and the air conditioning on. California, the world’s fifth-largest economy, has largely managed to avoid blackouts as wind, solar, and batteries come to the rescue…

2 years ago · 29 likes · 2 comments · Katharine Hayhoe

The solar farm will sit on 835 acres of Dulles Airport’s grounds between runways. The 100-megawatt (MW) solar farm will be made up of 200,000 solar panels and 50 MW of battery storage. The power will go to the grid and provide 37,500 households with power.

NexusMediaNews— Swimmable Cities Are a Climate Solution: Amid scorching heat, cities around the world are rethinking access to waterways.

An image of fossil fuels plant and text that reads ''Reducing Emissions'' and a button that reads ''Take Action'' — There is no secret to how we stop global warming: Stop burning fossil fuels.

Clean Energy Jobs are Booming in Communities of Color

Clean Energy Jobs are Booming in Communities of Color: 66% of new clean energy jobs and 74% of projects are located in communities of color across the United States. 201 projects located in communities of color across 39 states are creating 111,776 new clean energy jobs and more than $134.21 billion in investment. Georgia, South Carolina, Arizona, Nevada, and Texas are home to the largest number of new clean energy jobs in communities of color, with each having over 8,000 jobs.

That’s it for this week! Thanks for catching-up & showing-up where you are to plug-in for a more beautiful & renewable world. 💚

Stay clean-energy-cool & plugged-in:

Let us know what brightness you’re up-to beautifying our world:

Finally—THANK YOU, for all you do! For tomorrow, today— the future thanks you, too.

Last week’s edition:

Sunny Climate News

🌞 3 Reasons to Celebrate👏Every👏Climate👏Win👏: Sunny Climate News

August 28, 2023

"Climate victories are not tidy, but claiming them, even under skies gone sickly orange with wildfire smoke, is vital for building the broad consensus of support for the changes so desperately needed to limit the overheating of the planet." —Chris Turner, The difficult necessity of claiming climate victories

Read full story

"We should be in love and never stop fighting to make the world a better place." — The Great Transition, by Nick Fuller Googins

Renewable Climate Courage

Labor Leads the Climate Revolution in this Enthralling Climate Fiction Epic

Adam Powers

August 30, 2023

Labor Leads the Climate Revolution in this Enthralling Climate Fiction Epic

3 Reasons Why This Cleantech Pro & Climate Activist Loved the Epic New Climate Novel “The Great Transition” Hello darling dreamers and world-weavers, I just finished my favorite new climate fiction novel I want to recommend to you. Nick Fuller Googin’s “The Great Transition,”

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The Great Transition Cento

Adam Powers

August 30, 2023

This poem is compiled from lines from Nick Fuller Googins’ clifi (climate fiction) novel “The Great Transition.” I wrote a review for the book here. And you should get a copy, whether from your library or local bookstore, so we can bookclub together about it.

Read full story