Category: Politics

Renewables Pass Coal’s Share in Global Electricity Generation

China is leading the way here in solar… It’s time for our leaders and economy here in the US to start waking up to reality. That won’t happen in the current scenario of our political landscape, obviously, but there needs to be intentional focusing on reducing consolidated power grid structures in favor of local (and flexible) sources of electricity and fuel (as well as our food supplies). 

Global Electricity Mid-Year Insights 2025 | Ember:

Solar and wind outpaced demand growth in the first half of 2025, as renewables overtook coal’s share in the global electricity mix…

Solar grew by a record 306 TWh (31%) in the first half of 2025. This increased solar’s share in the global electricity mix from 6.9% to 8.8%. China accounted for 55% of global solar generation growth, followed by the US (14%), the EU (12%), India (5.6%) and Brazil (3.2%), while the rest of the world contributed just 9%. Four countries generated over 25% of their electricity from solar, and at least 29 countries surpassed 10%, up from 22 countries in the same period last year and only 11 countries in H1-2021…

PDF Report availalbe here

Inside the Fight Against Trump’s Alaska LNG Pipeline

Beautiful (but also depressing if you’re frustrated and anxious about such things like me) article here regarding the need to stop using extractive fossil fuels (that are now based on antiquated technologies and inefficient methods in order to prop up megaglobal corporations that pay our elected officials to keep the old narrative of “energy independence”) with voices from Alaskan Indigenous communities resisting the latest push from our backwards administration.

Don’t be misled about the energy issue by media manipulation. We can and should move to decentralized and community-focused solutions. It’s being done and done well and will save us all money, karma, and our children’s health.

Must read…

Inside the Fight Against Trump’s Alaska LNG Pipeline:

“We’re on the bust side of an oil and gas economy,” Native Movement’s Begaye tells me. She points to the relative youth of the industry — just 50 years — “and the jobs are already going away, the money is going away,” she says. Today, revenue from oil and gas accounts for less than 14 percent of the state’s annual budget.

Instead of investing in “fossil fuel distractions, we could be actively pursuing more local renewable energy, and Alaskans already know how,” Begaye and her colleagues wrote in their op-ed for the Anchorage Daily News. They cite Kodiak, which runs on nearly 100 percent renewable energy, and Galena, where a tribally owned and operated biomass system accounts for 75 percent of the community’s heating needs, with another 1.5 megawatts of solar power on the way.

Pope Leo’s Ice Blessing

We need to hear this in our Protestant churches in the United States every Sunday (and Wednesday and Sunday night and Tuesday during gatherings, etc.). Glad to see Leo taking on the ecological mantle from Francis.

Emphasis mine in the quote here…

Pope Leo XIV blesses glacier ice urging global leaders to act on climate change – India Today:

Citing Francis’s text, Leo recalled that some leaders had chosen to “deride the evident signs of climate change, to ridicule those who speak of global warming and even to blame the poor for the very thing that affects them most.”

He called for a change of heart to truly embrace the environmental cause and said any Christian should be onboard.

“We cannot love God, whom we cannot see, while despising his creatures. Nor can we call ourselves disciples of Jesus Christ without participating in his outlook on creation and his care for all that is fragile and wounded,” he said, presiding on a stage that featured a large chunk of a melting glacier from Greenland and tropical ferns.

Navigating Our Climate Crisis Without U.S. Leadership

Important piece here that gives voice to leaders from areas that aren’t usually covered by the mainstream press here in the USA when discussing climate issues and our ecological crisis in general… let those with ears to listen, hear…

Six World Leaders on Navigating Climate Change, Without the U.S. – The New York Times (Gift Article):

Debates around climate change often focus on the world’s largest economies and biggest emitters. But much of the hard work of figuring out how to adapt — both to a hotter planet and to a new geopolitical landscape — is happening in countries that have contributed relatively little to the problem yet are still navigating complex climate-related issues. Hoping to better understand how global warming and the changing world order are affecting some of these often-overlooked places, I spoke with six world leaders from different geographic regions. I heard some common themes: the ravages of extreme weather, the difficulties posed by the Trump administration’s retreat. But these conversations also illustrated the intensely varied predicaments facing world leaders right now.

Oceans Rise, Empires Fall

We’ve been listening to a lot of Hamilton lately. Our children have been playing (and memorizing and singing) the soundtrack on repeat this summer. Merianna has a great post about our Hamilton-era here:

“The World Turned Upside Down” – by Merianna Harrelson:

We might be a little late to the game, but we are definitely in our Hamilton-era. Maybe it was the trip to Washington, DC this summer or the Revolutionary War studies last year, but once we found the Hamilton soundtrack it is the only thing that can play in the car (besides the occasional Wheels on the Bus).

 As we head into the cooler mornings of the Fall here in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, Merianna and I thought it might be time to actually have them watch the full production… so this morning, I pulled up the show on Disney+ and hit play. I’m no stranger to shedding a few tears in front of our kids, but I was moved at the opening song as I sat there with our family. 

A great deal has happened to us personally and in our global community of humans and more-than-humans in this last decade. It struck me that I don’t think Hamilton could be made, or at least received well, today in 2025 in this “post-woke” era of defining good jeans and AI slop. Hamilton captured something real and imaginative and visceral in 2015-2016 that we seemed to have already lost, forgotten, or glossed over (and are intent on erasing). 

People of color portraying our “Founding Fathers” who shed blood to carve out a nascent republic with higher ideals than the established order sparks different emotions in a country of complexity-erasure and intentional forgetting. Take the outrage of Google’s AI depicting Washington, etc. as black a few years ago or the recent hand-wringing and outcry from some of our fellow citizens (no doubt due to the constancy of manipulative coverage by certain 24-7 “news” corporations and social media actors that feed into and from outrage engines) over a corporate hedge-fund controlled restaurant changing its logo. 

I also shed tears when I first watched Hamilton with our older girls a decade ago… the imagination, the pointing to and away from and towards, the use of caricutre and spittle to prove points… and now those tears come from a different place in my consciousness that I feel we are all carrying… disappointment, loss, even despair… at where this country has been led, not from the whims of “a king on a spending spree” but from oligarchs who know that the time is short and the center cannot hold:

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst  
Are full of passionate intensity.

More tears ahead, but I hope I can continue to show our children glimpses of what can be while I rage against this machine. Lack of imagination got us “adults” into this, but imagination will get us out. Mark gives us the prescription to enter the Kingdom through the narrow Way, and as much as I stumble, I hope that we can see through this scanner even darkly and realize that we need eyes to see and ears to hear the imaginative call of grace in new ways and what can be…

People were bringing little children to him in order that he might touch them; and the disciples spoke sternly to them. But when Jesus saw this, he was indignant and said to them, ‘Let the little children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs. Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.’ And he took them up in his arms, laid his hands on them, and blessed them.

Not throwing away my shot and all that jazz.

Remembering

Merianna says what a whole lot of us (myself included) have been thinking and feeling and anxious about (particularly about our young ones after our summer travels to D.C. and NYC)…

“The World Turned Upside Down” – by Merianna Harrelson:

As we watched the barricades go up and the monuments close so that a parade route could be established, I wondered what our kids would remember about our trip to Washington, DC. I hope they will remember the stories of those who fought for the silenced and the oppressed. I hope they will remember the leaders who rose up and spoke against injustice and capitalizing on the labor of others. I hope they will remember the beauty of the art and the curiosity that led to innovation.

Environmental Laws are also Laws

☀️ Bit of sunshine…

EVERGLADES WIN: We stopped “Alligator Alcatraz” — for now – Friends of the Everglades:

“This decision sends a clear message that environmental laws must be respected by leaders at the highest levels of our government — and there are consequences for ignoring them,” said Eve Samples, executive director of Friends of the Everglades.

You can’t have it both ways

I’m afraid the barn door is already flung very open for this sort of Solomon’s Dilemma thinking.

I’m also not sure what the point of this entire opinion piece is beyond making unrealistic statements like this…

Opinion | Allowing Churches to Endorse Politicians Can Be Perfectly Liberal – The New York Times (Gift Article):

For example, a pastor should be able to endorse a political candidate in a sermon, but not if that sermon is posted on a church website. Nor should the pastor’s church be allowed to publicly campaign for a candidate.

This is a Horrible Idea

I don’t understand how anyone (besides tech execs who haven’t been all that great at info-security over the years…and sharing personal health data with AI companies?? no thanks) would think that this is a good idea.

Sharing health data can be a nightmare, but we have questions about this US govt plan – Android Authority:

Donald Trump yesterday announced a new system that will store the medical history of all citizens in electronic formats that will be easy to share with various medical facilities, such as hospitals, clinics, pharmacies, as well as with mediclaim providers. The government is also working towards creating a consolidated medical ID, akin to your social security number, to allow quicker access to medical history.

The project will be developed with the involvement of over 60 leading technology companies, such as Apple, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, OpenAI, etc.