🌱 The Grumpy Optimists #97
Happy Monday. 👋
Welcome to another episode of The Grumpy Optimists, your favourite positive climate newsletter, I hope.
It’s been another week of record temperatures and heatwaves across the world and well above average ocean temperatures, but as ever there’s also been positive news to highlight. From The Church of England divesting from oil and gas, the UK’s first geothermal energy project in nearly 40 years, and 65% of the UK support net zero!
This week I was also very grateful to add another paid subscriber to The Grumpy Optimist, a great group of people who support my work and this newsletter. You can also help me out by either sharing or contributing just a small amount here.
Without further ado, let’s dig into it. 👇
👀 Articles to read
👉🏻 Could positive climate tipping points help us tackle climate change? This is a news story I can get behind. Professor Tim Lenton, a climate scientist from the University of Exeter, believes that climate tipping points are already happening to tackle the climate crisis. For example, the rapid adoption of electric vehicles in Norway, the falling cost of wind and solar and the rise in plant-based diets.
🎓 Another UK university bans fossil fuel recruitment on campus. Bishop Grosseteste University (BGU), the Lincoln-based university has become the 4th UK university to ban fossil fuel companies from recruiting on campus. The campaign was created by Fossil Free Careers and highlights that momentum is building to force universities to limit
👏 The Church of England excludes all oil and gas from its investment portfolio due to climate concerns. The Church manages a £10.3bn endowment fund and a £3.2bn pension scheme and has spent years campaigning for big oil to overhaul its business to tackle climate change, not make it worse. After already excluding 20 companies in 2021, the ban now extends to BP, ExxonMobil, Shell and TotalEnergies. The decision was made after the Church assessed that none of these companies were meeting the goals of the 2015 UN climate accord to tackle global warming. While the church was only a small investor in the big oil companies, it has taken a large role in discussions about climate change and previously saw holding shares as an opportunity to influence change.
🧑🏻🌾 How solar and farms can work together. Two U.S. senators have proposed bills to increase the practice of pairing solar and farming together, known as Agrovoltaics. Solar in farms provides partial shade for crops, reducing water usage and often improving yields whilst simultaneously providing a habitat for pollinators. The aim of the bill is to provide more research into agrovoltaics and help tackle climate sceptics who argue that agricultural land is lost for solar farms. Combining them both could be a great way to have both agriculture and allow farmers to earn extra revenue and diversify their income, a win-win.
🔌 UK’s first geothermal energy project in 37 years opens. The Eden Project in Cornwall has started operating the UK's first deep geothermal energy project in nearly four decades. The project will tap into water of temperatures up to 200C and provide heating to nearby greenhouses and enclosed rainforest biomes. The project is expected to reduce the energy bills of the Eden Project by about 40%. It's pretty cool to see the energy from nature being used to power the Eden project, which in itself is a story of climate optimism, turning an old mine into a site of biodiversity.
🇨🇭Swiss voters back net zero climate law. Swiss voters approved a climate law that commits the country to reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. 59% of voters backed the Climate and Innovation Act in what is seen as a major win. The law includes USD$3.6 billion in funding to support decarbonisation efforts including $2.2 billion over ten years to support the replacement of fossil fuel-based heating in buildings.
⛏️ Fossil fuel economy requires 535x more mining than clean energy. You may have heard people say, “Well what about all the mining for electric vehicles”, whilst quietly forgetting that fossil fuels infrastructure requires continuous mining. Research by Distilled, a fantastic newsletter, found that every year, about 15 billion tons of fossil fuels are mined and extracted. That’s about 535 times more mining than a clean energy economy would require in 2040, partly because of how much more energy-efficient clean technology is. I would add that minimising the impact of any form of mining, but these figures really put the idea into perspective.
🛢️Could a one-woman legal battle stop UK fossil fuels? Sarah Finch is challenging the planning permission for an oil drilling project in Surrey, arguing that the climate impacts of burning the oil should have been considered. The case could have implications for other fossil fuel projects in the UK, as it could set a precedent for how the climate impacts of these projects are assessed. Do you want to know what’s stupid about the way the impact of the oil drilling is calculated? They don’t take into consideration the actual use of the oil when it’s burnt, just getting it out of the ground. 🤯
🗳️ What do UK citizens think about net zero? A new study by The Sun, yes, the newspaper, found that there is huge cross-party support for net zero with 65% of people supporting net zero. Interesting takeaways are that banning new North Sea licences is very popular with Labour / LD voters but not with the Tories.
This week's episode was written after a delightful weekend in the sun and a bumper crop of peas from the garden and written to this playlist.
George, the Grumpy Optimist 💚