Please invest in Our Daily Planet today, by making a one time or monthly contribution.
We do not charge our readers a subscription fee for our content. We want to continue to grow our readership, particularly among millennials and public servants. Voluntary contributions from readers will help us employ interns and freelance journalists, expand our content, and reach a larger audience.
If you make a contribution of $150 or more, you will become an official “Friend of the Planet” and receive a Friend of the Planet T-shirt or water bottle.
Our Daily Planet is a daily morning email (M-F) to keep you informed of the stories shaping our environment. If these issues matter to you, we’d like to be the best ten minutes of your morning.
Yesterday, the Senate voted to confirm former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm as Secretary of Energy. Granholm, who has positive relationships with both Democrats and Republicans, has committed to implementing science-based policy as part of President Biden’s “Build Back Better” plan. In keeping with President Biden’s plan to pack his cabinet with diverse appointees, Granholm is only the second woman to fill the role in an acting capacity.
Why This Matters: Granholm’s approach to tackling climate change is very much in line with that of President Biden: jobs, opportunity, and economic development. Her predecessors under the Trump administration were openly hostile to climate action. Rick Perry, the first of Trump’s two energy secretaries, wanted to abolish the department he was in charge of altogether and spouted harmful conspiracy theories about climate science. Granholm on the other hand was busy building Michigan back better by diversifying its economy with green energy jobs and reviving the auto industry during the Great Recession of 2008.
During her hearing, Granholm showed refreshing enthusiasm about meeting the goals of the Paris agreement and reaching net-zero emissions.
“I want to push on carbon management solutions to get to the goal of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050,” she said. “There is a series of technologies that the Department of Energy is working on to reduce and manage carbon emissions and I think that is an important piece of the energy mix to make us energy secure and to have us reach the goal of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.”
Granholm’s confirmation is a return to science, a return to sanity, and a return to compassion in the Energy Department.
More Than Just Energy: The role of the Department of Energy covers a variety of responsibilities that impact our environment greatly. Most prominently, the department oversees the nation’s energy supply, distribution, and use. After a year of record-breaking hurricanes and wildfires, and a snowstorm that wiped out power throughout Texas, it’s become obvious that the $35-billion per year department must make some changes.
Additionally, the department oversees the environmental cleanup of nuclear sites. The debate of how best to dispose of nuclear waste has been raging for years, leaving the nation with only a handful of partially effective solutions to work with. One of the most controversial is Yucca Mountain, which was designated in 1987 as the initial storage site for all of the nation’s used nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive wastes. Experts expect the site to reach its capacity for nuclear waste, 77,000 metric tons, by 2036, and Indigenous groups, environmentalists, and even the state of Nevada have protested its use. Granholm has expressed her opposition to the project during her confirmation saying, “we have to maybe look at what the Blue Ribbon Commission did on this, which was to engage in some consensus-based strategies that allow us to determine where that waste should go.”
As the Biden administration readies to enact an infrastructure plan, Congressional Republicans continue to lament that water pipes, EV chargers, and expanded railways “don’t count” as infrastructure. Yet, as Biden cabinet members have been saying: we need to expand our definition of infrastructure beyond roads and bridges to prepare our country for the future. As […]
Leading up to Earth Day and President Biden’s first Climate Summit on April 22, Gallup is releasing a series of environmental polls, and the latest has found that the opinion gap on climate change between Democrats and Republicans is only growing wider.
Why This Matters: We’ve reported often on climate misinformation in the media, and this situation is no exception.
As our last interview of Women’s History Month, we sat down with Elizabeth Mrema, who leads the Secretariat of the U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). We asked her about the importance of women in stemming the current biodiversity crisis and ensuring better outcomes in the CBD’s negotiations. Mrema said, “Having women at the negotiation […]
Subscribe to the email that top lawmakers, renowned scientists, and thousands of concerned citizens turn to each morning for the latest environmental news and analysis.
Want the lastest climate news summarized for you each morning?
Our Daily Planet is your daily dose of the stories shaping our world and the ways that you can take action. From the climate crisis to the protection of biodiversity, if these issues matter to you then please subscribe & stay informed!
Your privacy is Important! We promise never to use your email address to send you spam or advertisements.