Michelle Lewis is a writer at Electrek. She has previously worked for Fast Company, The Guardian, News Deeply, Time, and others. She lives in Massachusetts.
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Texas likes to do things big. The Lone Star State leads the US with the most energy generated by wind power, and now it’s ramping up solar, which is projected to be the fastest-growing contributor to the state’s power grid in the next three years.
Mandy Gunasekara, the self-proclaimed “chief architect of the withdrawal from the Paris Climate Accord,” is tipped to replace Ryan Jackson, the EPA’s chief of staff, who will step down on February 21. (Michael Molina will be acting chief of staff.) Jackson is to become the top lobbyist for the National Mining Association (yes, really).
Electrek compiled how three environmental and political groups — The Center for Biological Diversity Action Fund, Build a Movement 2020, and Greenpeace — grade the presidential candidates on environmental and climate-change issues.
As we previously wrote in Climate Crisis Weekly, The Yale Program on Climate Change Communication reported that among all registered voters, global warming is ranked fifth and environmental protection is ranked eighth as the “most important issue” when it comes to deciding who they’ll vote for.
A group of fourth-graders at Big Hollow Primary School in Ingleside, Illinois, completed a writing and science project three years ago on why solar power would be beneficial to the Big Hollow District 38 campus. Their primary school, as well as a middle and high school, make up the campus.
The system will go live next month, and the campus will have enough energy to cover about 85% of the district’s power needs and save about $90,000 a year.
The Wyoming legislature proposed a bill this week that would have penalized — yes, penalized — utility companies for using green energy to supply electricity to customers. Fortunately, the bill didn’t receive sufficient votes to advance.
US House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) (pictured, with Donald Trump) and House Energy and Commerce Committee Republican Greg Walden (R-OR) introduced climate-change legislative proposals today in an attempt to shift the Republican party’s message on climate change from nothing to something.
Senator Tom Carper (D-DE) introduced the Clean Economy Act of 2020 today. The act’s purpose is to put the United States on a pathway to achieve net-zero emissions by no later than 2050.
The bill is co-sponsored by 32 senators — all Democrats — as well as Angus King of Maine, who is an independent.
To say that Tesla’s performance in extremely cold temperatures is a regular talking point among EV drivers (and those of us at Electrek) is a bit of an understatement. For example, Tesla Model Y prototypes were recently spotted cold-weather testing in Minnesota snow in January, and in December, Tesla started offering anti-ice window treatment after some winter issues.
But Tesla Model 3 owner Thomas Nilsen, who lives in Norway’s Arctic Circle, tells Electrek that his EV performs even better in the freezing north than his previous ICE (no pun intended) vehicle.
Donald Trump proposed a $4.8 trillion budget plan today that proposes cuts to several programs, including a 26% reduction for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
Policy analysts Rachel Fakhry and Robert Harding of the Natural Resources Defense Council wrote an expert blog on Friday that summarized the report’s findings.
New York City mayor Bill de Blasio delivered his seventh State of the City Address on Thursday. A central focus of his plan was tackling climate change with major new green energy initiatives.