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At Home On Earth |
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Welcome to The Hub, a Bluedot Living newsletter that gathers good news, good food, and good tips for living every day more sustainably. |
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Welcome to The Hub, a Bluedot Living newsletter that gathers good news, good food, and good tips for living every day more sustainably. |
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If you purchase anything via one of our links, including from Amazon, we may earn a small commission. All Dear Dot illustrations by Elissa Turnbull. |
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SIMPLE / SMART / SUSTAINABLE / STORIES |
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Vanessa Lynch (wearing the red shirt in the photo above) didn’t know there were natural gas wells in her western Pennsylvania town until an outreach worker from the Moms Clean Air Force told her. “The more she learned about the well, the more concerned she got” about the health issues and the profound energy waste in the natural gas industry, writes Jim Miller in our story “Natural Gas Has a Dirty Secret.” Read more about how Vanessa, and many others, are pushing producers to clean up their act. |
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DISPATCHES FROM ALL OVER
SUSTAINABLE LIVING ADVICE
ECO-FRIENDLY RECIPES |
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DISPATCHES FROM ALL OVER · SUSTAINABLE LIVING ADVICE · ECO-FRIENDLY RECIPES |
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“In energy history, we’ve witnessed the Age of Coal and the Age of Oil — and we’re now moving at speed into the Age of Electricity.”
– Fatih Birol, executive director, International Energy Agency (IEA)
On the one hand, the news is good! A recent report showed that the U.S. had “record-breaking growth in renewable energy capacity last year,” writes Dharna Noor in the Guardian (as reported in Covering Climate Now). Noor also noted that the U.S. added 48.2 gigawatts of utility-scale solar, wind, and battery storage capacity in 2024. A single gigawatt is enough to power 750,000 homes.
Consider this: The U.S. added 47% more clean energy capacity in 2024 than in 2023. Of that added capacity, 95% was carbon-free; solar and batteries made up 83%.
But, on the other hand, even with these incredible numbers, experts say we’re not moving fast enough. Much of the problem is that, even as clean energy production is expanding rapidly, global demand for energy is keeping pace, which means that while renewables are helping to meet that demand (and doing it more cheaply than fossil-fuel sources), we can’t retire dirty energy just yet.
According to the IEA report, “although global carbon emissions are on track for an imminent peak, the absence of a steep decline afterward means we are on course for a 2.4 degrees Celsius rise in the global average temperature by 2100 — well above the goal of limiting global heating to 1.5 degrees Celsius set by the Paris Agreement.”
Bill McKibben’s new book, Here Comes the Sun: A Last Chance for the Climate and a Fresh Chance for Civilization (available on Bookshop and on Amazon), amplifies the message that, although the pace of renewable energy adoption is moving more quickly than even the most optimistic projections, it’s nonetheless not fast enough. But McKibben does what he’s always done so well — lay out the path to get there.
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QUICK LINKS |
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Skip scrolling! Here's what you'll find in this edition of the Bluedot newsletter: |
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FEATURED STORIES |
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BIG IDEAS AND LOCAL CHANGEMAKERS |
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Around the world, people are coming together and harnessing their resources to generate clean, renewable energy for their communities — along with melodic folk tunes and delicious, fresh food.
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Before you switch on the lights, open up your curtains on sunny days for a brighter home without added energy costs. Dot offers more tips to help reduce your energy consumption and your utility costs.
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Did your garden produce an extra abundant zucchini harvest this season? Or maybe you just went a little overboard at this week’s farmers market. (We’ve all been there!) Either way, this recipe is a delicious way to put that surplus of summer squash to good use. Serve it up as a colorful side or as a light dinner.
Get the recipe.
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Over the course of 10 weeks, Dan Rubenstein paddled a standup paddleboard from Ottawa to Montreal and then to New York via Lake Champlain and the Hudson River. Then he paddled to Buffalo via the Erie Canal, then on to Toronto and back to Ottawa. Then he wrote a book about it, which is one of Bluedot contributor Alec Ross’s favorites … and now ours.
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Dear Dot,
I want to avoid Chinese devices that can control solar panels. Do we have a way of identifying the panels that have these devices? If yes, is there a way to remove them?
–Mary
Dear Mary,
Some might wonder if your question seems a bit paranoid, but not Dot! Rather, Dot assumes you’re someone who pays close attention to the news and likely came across a media report like this: In May, Reuters reported that U.S. energy officials are considering potential risks posed by rogue communication devices that have been found in some Chinese solar power inverters. These devices were not listed in product documents. While any information breach is a legitimate concern, Dot’s friend, an electrical engineer with roots in Silicon Valley, said that a theoretical Chinese bot could collect much more information from wifi routers or AI data centers than it could from a solar inverter. Still, this report has understandably generated a bit of alarm. So let’s dig into what you can do if you want to play it safe.
Curious to know? Keep reading.
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If you make a purchase through our links, including from Amazon, we may earn a small commission. |
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It would be a shame if you took to the woods … then polluted them. BioLite makes camp stoves, fire pits, headlamps, and portable charging solutions for sustainable off-grid living and camping.
Read our review. Shop today.
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What You Can Do |
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Ready to join the Age of Electricity? Let Rewiring America hook you up (pun intended). Their step-by-step guide will help you figure out how and where to swap out your fossil-fuel dependent energy sources with alternatives, what you need to know to prep your house, and who can help subsidize the shift.
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The Keep-This-Handbook |
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If you want to power your house with the energy from the sun, check out Bluedot’s (Solar) Panel Discussion, which answers frequently asked questions.
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A Sunnier Future |
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While plenty of climate issues don’t have neat, tidy solutions, our fossil-fuel energy dependence could be solved relatively simply: Electrify everything. Stop subsidizing fossil-fuel projects and invest more heavily in renewables. And, in fact, that’s what is happening around the world. Wall Street seems to be getting the message, too, reports Bill McKibben. “In all, financing provided to oil, gas, and coal projects by Wall Street’s top six banks fell 25% to $73 billion this year through Aug. 1 from the same period in 2024, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The biggest decline was at Morgan Stanley, where fossil-fuel financing dropped 54%.”
There are those who remain bullish on nuclear energy, which is absolutely a cleaner source than fossil fuels, but McKibben points out that it suffers from the same intermittency issues often lobbed as an argument against renewables. With higher temperatures, nuclear plants — which rely on water to cool them down — become vulnerable during droughts or higher-than-usual water temperatures. In France and Switzerland, nuclear plants recently temporarily suspended or reduced production during heat waves. (There are some interesting potential developments around nuclear energy, as Bluedot reported in What’s So Bad About … Nuclear Energy?) Conversely, clean energy sources are, thanks to incredible innovation around battery storage, becoming much more reliable.
Are you part of this renewable revolution? If so, tell us how.
In the meantime, enjoy the weekend, and we’ll see you next week.
–Leslie Garrett (Emily Cain, Robin Jones, and Jamie Kageleiry)
Editors
Write us at editor@bluedotliving.com |
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Leslie Garrett has been covering climate stories for close to two decades. She makes her home in Canada, west of Toronto. She’s still figuring out her favorite spot but it’s definitely near the water.
Jamie Kageleiry, a longtime magazine and newspaper editor from Martha’s Vineyard, says her favorite spot on earth is out on a kayak there, looking at birds.
Robin Jones is a Southern California native who served as an editor at Westways magazine for more than a decade. She lives in Long Beach and teaches journalism at Cal State Long Beach.
Emily Cain is a recent graduate of Cal State Long Beach, where she wrote and edited for the university’s award-winning magazine, DIG. |
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Our audience is informed, intentional, and tuned in to sustainable living. Reach our 300,000 readers by advertising here, or contact adsales@bluedotliving.com to reserve your space. |
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