• Sustainability

Damaged Bridge Halts 1,000 Barges Carrying Agricultural Exports

• #unitedforinfrastructure
• bridge
• Infrastructure
• pipeline
• ports
• traffic

In another sign of America’s aging and vulnerable infrastructure, last Thursday a crack in a bridge over the Mississippi river halted hundreds of cargo ships along the nation’s most significant route for agricultural exports, not to mention that the bridge was shut down to auto traffic causing huge backups on I-40 in Tennessee. 

Why This Matters: First the Colonial pipeline and now this — our nation’s infrastructure is in need of bolstering.

• Ocean

Ocean Activists Planning to “Flood” the Nation’s Capital Next Week

• #BuildBackBetter
• Blue Economy
• coastal restoration
• Infrastructure
• ocean
• offshore wind
• ports
• storm surge
• sustainable fisheries

Hundreds of citizens will fan out across the nation’s capital next week to meet with lawmakers in what’s projected to be the largest ocean lobby effort in US history.  On Tuesday and Wednesday, they will meet with Biden administration officials, federal agencies, and members of Congress for a nonpartisan Ocean Climate Action Hill Day.

Why It Matters:  As the Biden administration and the Congress begin to debate what’s infrastructure and therefore within the American Jobs Plan, the blue economy needs to be front and center in it.

• Energy

India Providing Big Incentives to Domestic Solar Businesses To Increase Energy Self-Reliance

• #renewableenergy
• China
• India
• ports
• renewable energy
• solar equipment
• solar power

The Indian government is planning to give land near ports to companies that will construct solar equipment factories, Utpal Bhaskar reported in Livemint. According to two people close to the development, New Delhi is attempting this in order to both “attain self-reliance and challenge the dominance of China in one of the world’s largest green energy market.”

Why This Matters: As Dr. Varun Sivaram, an energy policy expert, told ODP, this recent announcement of tariffs is “a mixed bag.” Tariffs raise the cost of solar production, and, in Dr. Sivaram’s words, “ultimately slow down India’s badly needed clean energy transition.”

• Ocean

An Ocean Climate Action Plan For A New Blue Economy

• Blue Economy
• Blue New Deal
• conservation
• environment
• fishing
• ocean
• offshore wind
• ports
• shipping

By David Helvarg and Jason Scorse As we enter another hurricane season in the midst of a global pandemic, there are growing calls to respond to the climate emergency at the scale we’ve responded to COVID-19. Yet many climate solutions being proposed fail to address the 71 percent of the planet that’s blue. In early […]