Renewable energy (February 2024 headlines)

Recent headlines on renewable energy

Across America, clean energy plants are being banned faster than they're being built Elizabeth Weise & Suhail Bhat, USA Today, Feb 4, 2024

On February 6, 2024, the European Commission (part of the EU’s executive government) "announced one of the world’s most ambitious goals to slash planet-heating pollution ... backing a 90% cut in carbon emissions by 2040, from 1990 levels, taking a stance that is likely to set a benchmark for developed nations around the world. ... The announcement will kick off months of talks that could take up to a year before the European Parliament rubber stamps the target."
— The EU just unveiled one of the world’s most ambitious climate plans. But can it deliver? Angela Dewan, CNN, Feb 6, 2024

"Anchored to the seabed by a cable and connected to the power grid, the kite, which measures about twelve meters from tip to tip of the wings and weighs about 28 tons — actually, that corresponds to the Dragon 12 model, although there are smaller ones — navigates by taking advantage of predictable tides and currents describing a figure-eight or infinity-shaped trajectory, allowing it to move its propeller and generate up to 3.5 GWh of electricity annually."
— Tides and energy: why the best ideas are usually the simplest, Enrique Dans, Medium, Feb 13, 2024

How communities can benefit from being - literally - invested in big renewables Overseas projects show community co-investment can build social licence for large scale renewable energy projects. Jarra Hicks, SwitchedOn, Feb 19, 2024

Amid explosive demand, America is running out of power: AI and the boom in clean-tech manufacturing are pushing America’s power grid to the brink. Utilities can’t keep up. Evan Halper, Washington Post, March 7, 2024

A coal billionaire is building the world’s biggest clean energy plant and it’s five times the size of Paris Diksha Madhok, CNN, March 20, 2024

"The world has passed a clean energy milestone, as a boom in wind and solar meant a record-breaking 30% of the world’s electricity was produced by renewables last year, new data shows.

The planet is reaching “a crucial turning point” toward clean energy, according to the Global Electricity Review published Wednesday by climate think tank Ember. It predicts global fossil fuel generation will fall slightly in 2024, before experiencing much bigger declines in subsequent years.

It’s a significant step toward the world reaching 60% renewable electricity by 2030, which is critical to meeting global climate goals, said Dave Jones, global insights director at Ember."

— These 4 charts show the world just passed a major clean energy milestone, Laura Paddison, Rachel Wilson, Jhasua Razo and Lou Robinson, CNN, May 8, 2024

And:

"New York could and should be a renewable powerhouse. It lacks a Mojave Desert, but Long Island Sound could be the Qatar of offshore wind—the DOE estimates it could power 11 million homes, which is four million more homes than New York contains. With NYSERDA, the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, it has some of the finest energy conservation minds in the country. And it has an environmentally minded populace—everyone thinks about New York City as a liberal bastion, but it was upstaters who banded together to force a ban on fracking."
— Bill McKibben, What Democrats Do and What Democrats Don't, The Crucial Years, August 21, 2024

we are living through a fast paced technological revolution around green energy and the reason you've heard less about it than about NFTs is because some of the richest and most powerful people on the planet want to stop it.

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— Michael Tae Sweeney (@mtsw.bsky.social) September 24, 2024 at 1:17 PM

Previously

Germany puts up $8 billion to rescue huge green energy company Anna Cooban, CNN, Nov 14, 2023

‘Renewable’ natural gas may sound green, but it’s not an antidote for climate change, Emily Grubert, theconversation.com, Jul 6, 2020

Quotes on the sanctity of trees

Thomas Moore:

"Trees provide a rudimentary lesson in enchantment: We need not cling anxiously to our own subjectivity, will, and desire; instead we can place trust in the beings around us who demonstrate many alternative ways to be a contributing, outstanding individual. A tree tells us what gives us pleasure, and it is so good at offering us benefits beyond measure that we have no reason not to surrender ourselves to it. We can sit on a tree's limb, rest against its trunk, enjoy its fruits and nuts, sit under its shade, and watch it dance in the wind. The lessons we can learn from a tree are infinite, and its pleasures indescribable. There are moments in anyone's life when to be like a tree – tall, straight, fertile, rooted, branching, expressive, and solid – would be the most effective therapy."

Christine Valters Paintner:

"Perhaps this is why we feel so drawn to trees. Groves of redwoods and beeches are often compared to the naves of great cathedrals: the silence; the green, filtered, numinous light. A single banyan, each with its multitude of trunks, is like a temple or mosque – a living colonnade. But the metaphor should be the other way around. The cathedrals and mosques emulate the trees. The trees are innately holy."

See also: Maui’s 150-year-old banyan tree is growing leaves after being charred by the wildfires. It’s just the beginning of a long recovery, Kara Nelson, CNN, Sept 24, 2023

And follow-up: Missed communications and blocked evacuation routes: New report details problems and heroism from Maui’s disastrous wildfires Holly Yan, CNN, April 17, 2024

Mohammed Amara:

"We (Muslims) do not kill clerics, we do not kill women, we do not kill children, we do not kill trees. [emphasis added] This is what the prophet taught us. The U.S. and Britain are committing atrocities against our people everywhere but we shouldn't respond to a crime with a crime."

William Ian Miller:

"Did not the Talmudic sages 1,800 years ago require that no trees be grown within twenty-five cubits of a town, and that carob and sycamore trees were to be banished to fifty cubits' distance, along with carcasses and tanneries: 'To preserve the beauty of the town, every tree that is found nearer to the town than that must be cut down'?"

Sacred trees

See: "Teen arrested after felling of famous Sycamore Gap tree on Hadrian’s Wall." Police said that a deliberate act of vandalism may have brought down what is perhaps England’s most-photographed tree, which drew visitors from afar and appeared in the 1991 film “Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves.” Sammy Westfall, Washington Post, September 28, 2023
Felling the tree damaged Hadrian's Wall. Two men in their 30s were convicted and sentenced in 2025.

Trees that are 350 million years old

"Five tree fossils buried alive by an earthquake 350 million years ago were found in a quarry in the Canadian province of New Brunswick, according to a study published Friday in the journal Current Biology." — CNN, Feb 2, 2024

"Over 100 million mangroves — a group of trees and shrubs that live mainly in coastal waters, where they are able to support entire ecosystems — would be planted as part of the project. That’s enough to absorb over 1.2 million metric tons of CO2 per year, according to URB, the sustainable city developer behind the initiative — the equivalent of removing 260,000 gas-powered vehicles from the road."
Plans for ‘world’s largest coastal regeneration project’ revealed in Dubai, Jacopo Prisco, CNN, May 14, 2024

"The giant trees, swollen of trunk and stubby of canopy, are unmistakable. Baobabs can live for more than 1,000 years, acting as the keystone species in dry forest environments in Madagascar, a swathe of continental Africa, and northwest Australia. Known as “mother of the forest” and “the tree of life,” nearly every part of the tree can be used by humans and animals, meaning they’re of enormous value to each ecosystem they inhabit."
Finally, an answer to a mystery surrounding these 1,000-year-old trees, Tom Page, CNN, June 24, 2024

See also: "Saying goodbye to Stumpy, the tree that changed my life," Opinion and photographs by Carol Guzy, CNN, July 8, 2024

See also: "Restaurant chain faces outrage after carving up 500-year-old oak tree," Olivia Kemp, CNN, April 17, 2025

Sources

Thomas Moore. The Re-Enchantment of Everyday Life. New York: HarperCollins, 1996. p. 23.

Christine Valters Paintner. Water, Wind, Earth & Fire: The Christian Practice of Praying with the Elements. Notre Dame, Ind.: Sorin Books, 2010. p. 110.

Mohammed Amara, of Cairo, on the Arabic-language TV network Al Jazeera, following the subway bombing in London in July 2005. Quoted in "Arab view: 'Enough, enough': Some Muslims fear backlash after UK bombs" by Octavia Nasr, CNN Senior Editor for Arab Affairs. www.cnn.com July 8, 2005.

William Ian Miller. Faking It. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003. p 155. Citation: Maimonides, Book of Acquisition, "Laws Concerning Neighbors," 12.iii.10.I.

Photo of tree at Küçük Çamlıca, Istanbul, by Nevit Dilmen. Creative Commons 3.0. Wikimedia Commons.