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.
You have likely heard by now that President Trump at a fundraiser on Tuesday night made some patently ridiculous remarks about wind turbines, claiming that they lower property values of nearby homes by 75%, cause cancer, are unbearably noisy and kill massive quantities of birds. If you have not seen the remarks, watch the clip above. The twitter-sphere went wild in reaction to the President’s war on wind. What you may not have heard, is that the President’s wind power rant met with strong push back from the heartland. By early yesterday afternoon, the Kansas City Star published a strongly worded editorial explaining why Kansas backs wind power. Here are the facts the paper cited:
“In 2018, Kansas ranked among the top five states in energy produced by wind. Kansas gets 36 percent of its electric energy from wind, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. That’s the highest share in the nation.”
“In 2017, wind energy powered the equivalent of 1,719,000 homes in Kansas. The industry provided more than 4,000 jobs. Lease payments to Kansas farmers, according to one estimate, may reach $20 million a year — a real benefit for farmers struggling when the economy is down.”
“In 2017, according to the American Wind Energy Association, almost 8 million metric tons of carbon monoxide were not ejected into the sky because of all the wind energy produced in the state. Kansas saved more than 4 billion gallons of water, too.”
The President’s remarks were not popular in Iowa, or with that state’s senior Senator, either. The Des Moines Register reported that the Governor of Iowa, Republican Kim Reynolds, disagreed with the President on the economics of wind power and highlighted the important role wind energy plays in Iowa’s economy. Senator Chuck Grassley, in a call with reporters, went even further, calling the President’s statement “idiotic” and noting that he was the “grandfather” of the wind energy tax credit. Later Senator Grassley’s office issued a press release with a bipartisan appeal for more federal funding for wind energy development because “the wind industry employs more than 100,000 Americans and wind turbine technician is America’s second-fastest growing job. The wind industry also employs veterans at a rate that is 50 percent higher than the national average.”
By Ashira Morris, ODP Staff Writer Late last week, President Biden and a critical mass of Democrats in the Senate and House agreed on the details of Build Back Better legislation — a $1.85 trillion overall investment that includes a record-setting $555 billion dollars to take on the climate crisis. The agreement marked a […]
By Amy Lupica, ODP Daily Editor Top executives from Big Oil companies ExxonMobil, BP, Chevron, and Shell testified before Congress yesterday amid accusations and revelations about their industry’s efforts to mislead the public about human-caused climate change while claiming to be in favor of climate action. A report released Thursday morning by the House Committee […]
By Natasha Lasky, ODP Staff Writer As the world gets ready for COP26 in Glasgow next week, many nations are upping their pledges to lower emissions before 2030. But according to a UN report released Tuesday, even if Argentina, Britain, Canada, the EU, South Africa, and the US achieve their pledged goals, it would account […]
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.