Climate roundup: Spring forward

Every day is Earth Day. Now let’s dive in.

Climate Justice

More of this, please:
Nobel Prize-winning economist calls for climate tax on billionaires (HEATED, April 24, 2024)
Behind the billionaire climate tax (HEATED, April 25, 2024)

The BBC, Guyana, and Untangling North-South Climate Complexities (Drilled, March 31, 2024)

I always appreciate the analysis at Drilled, but I was particularly moved by this section:

[Melinda Jenki] was talking about a report that had suggested that the Global North curb emissions and fossil fuel development first to allow Global South countries more of the global carbon budget, an idea that seemed eminently fair on the face of it (if quite patronizing), but it enraged Janki.
“Why would you say that?” she said. “When in every single former colony, people are saying, ‘Stop the oil. We don’t want it.’ In places like Uganda and Mozambique, they’re putting their lives on the line to stop oil and you sit in your comfortable university room and say, ‘Oh, well I’ve decided that in the interest of justice, these people shouldn’t have to get rid of fossil fuels until 2050. And in order to make this really fair, the first world should now immediately convert to renewable energy. In other words, all the white people, go straight for renewable energy, realign their economies and move on to prosperous carbon-free futures. Dump the stuff on the third world. But I’m doing this under the guise of a just transition.”

The SEC Climate Rule

Two years ago, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) proposed a Climate-Related Disclosure Rule that would require public companies to disclose their greenhouse gas emissions–a critical step toward holding large corporations accountable for their environmental impact. However, on March 6 this year, the SEC adopted a “watered down” version of this rule that leaves out some crucial metrics. Some of my favorite newsletters break down what happened, and how.

How corporate America won the fight to keep its pollution secret (HEATED, March 8, 2024)

How Extractive Industry Won the War Against ESG (Drilled, March 9, 2024)

Climate impacts

Scientists fear planetary shift as record ocean heat enters second year (The Washington Post, March 20, 2024)

Climate models can’t explain 2023’s huge heat anomaly — we could be in uncharted territory (Nature, March 19, 2024)

U.S. has warmest winter on record – and no, that’s not a good thing (NPR, March 11, 2024)

This is more of a narrative article that explores how sea level rise is impacting cultural heritage in Louisiana.
The Flooding Will Come “No Matter What” (ProPublica, April 11, 2024)

New study calculates climate change’s economic bite will hit about $38 trillion a year by 2049 (AP News, April 17, 2024)

The Delaware River Basin Commission has released a new interactive tool for projecting extreme precipitation in the Basin. Based on regional climate models and plotted against historical data, the tool estimates future changes in intensity, duration, and frequency of precipitation to help inform stormwater management and infrastructure design.

Not new, but new to me: The US Forest Service has a Climate Change Atlas–well, two, one for trees and one for birds–that allows you to view the current habitat for specific species and then a modeled potential future habitat. The aim is to help land managers plan for climate change by planting species that will be suitable for the future climate in a given zone.

Artificial intelligence

I posted these links to my monthly reading roundup, but I think they bear repeating.

Report: Artificial Intelligence A Threat to Climate Change, Energy Usage and Disinformation (FOE, March 7, 2024)

Topline points:
AI systems require an enormous amount of energy and water, and consumption is expanding quickly. Estimates suggest a doubling in 5-10 years.
Generative AI has the potential to turbocharge climate disinformation, including climate change-related deepfakes, ahead of a historic election year where climate policy will be central to the debate.
The current AI policy landscape reveals a concerning lack of regulation on the federal level, with minor progress made at the state level, relying on voluntary, opaque and unenforceable pledges to pause development, or provide safety with its products.

AI likely to increase energy use and accelerate climate misinformation – report (The Guardian, March 7, 2026)

The Scariest Part About Artificial Intelligence (The New Republic, March 5, 2024)

On AI images and climate change photography (Climate Visuals, March 6, 2026)

The Problem of Sustainable AI: A Critical Assessment of an Emerging Phenomenon (The Weizenbaum Journal of the Digital Society, April 5, 2024)

Climate culture

How ‘Dune’ became a beacon for the fledgling environmental movement − and a rallying cry for the new science of ecology (The Conversation, March 15, 2024)

A Bechdel Test for climate (the Climate Reality Check) is such an interesting idea. When we discussed it on the ecofiction Discord, I mentioned that I often felt peeved by contemporary novels that only mention climate change in passing–usually it just contributes to an overarching sense of helpless anxiety at the state of the world, which is relatable in life but frustrating in fiction. One of my peers pointed out that, like the Bechdel Test, it still works as a bare minimum–is this reality (climate change in one case, the fact that women exist apart from men in the other case) acknowledged at all? Because a lot of pop culture doesn’t even meet that mark.
Column: Where is climate change on film and TV? There’s now a Bechdel test for that (Los Angeles Times, March 1, 2024)

I confess I haven’t played the cooperative climate board game Daybreak yet, but I am intrigued:
Catan’s new board game lets you pit fossil fuels against green energy (Fast Company, April 1, 2024)

Why Billie Eilish insists on sustainability in her career (Billboard, March 28, 2024)