One cool thing: Apple’s deepening commitment to 100% renewables

• Energy

General Motors’ Massive “COP” Out

• climate change
• gas
• SUV
• trucks

On Tuesday, while governments struggled mightily to deal with the climate emergency at the UN Climate Meeting and U.S. stakeholders tried to make lemonade out of the U.S. pullout of the Paris Accord by proclaiming that U.S. Governors, Mayors, and major corporations are “Still In,” back in Detroit, General Motors rolled out their largest SUV ever — adding 7 full inches to the Tahoe truck. 

Why This Matters:  Transportation accounts for 23% of carbon emissions globally according to the IPCC.  As long as gas is cheap, car companies will keep making gas guzzlers and the public will keep buying them.

• Energy

Germany Is Closing Nuclear Power Plants — But What To Do With the Waste For A Million Years?

• nuclear power
• spent nuclear fuel

Where does one store nearly 2,000 containers of high-level radioactive waste that is absolutely unbreakable and guaranteed to never leak? That is the challenge facing a team of German scientists tasked with figuring out how to safely close down all of Germany’s nuclear power plants by 2031 — and the bar is high — they […]

• Energy

Trump Administration Wants to Ditch Energy-Efficient Dishwashers

• dishwasher
• energy efficient
• rollback
• savings

The Trump Administration announced its intention to roll back yet another climate change efficiency standard.  The Hill reported that the Energy Department is planning to allow faster-cleaning dishwashers that do not comply with current energy efficiency standards, which will overturn years of progress on making these appliances energy efficient.

Why This Matters:  Many Americans will give thanks on Thursday for their dishwashers. And most do not object to the time it takes for them to operate – they just want clean, safe dishes.