TGIF! What a busy week we’ve had. Between our very successful webinar last night featuring the podcasters behind Pantsuit Politics to several press mentions by our own Bob Inglis, everyone has hit the 2023 ground running.
This week’s must read: First up, this op-ed, Dancing around the obvious climate solution, written by Bob and published in The Hill.
“First, Congress can work on bipartisan permitting reform,” he writes. “The clean energy that’s going to be created because of the IRA tax credits for nuclear, hydrogen, wind and solar energy will need to get to population centers. That means powerlines and, yes, pipelines—for natural gas, for hydrogen and for captured CO2. We need more copper and lithium and cobalt and nickel. That means mines. Our EVs don’t drop down from heaven like manna. Somebody’s got to get busy and make the materials for us. If we do it right, we can make those materials without fouling our air and water. But let’s be clear minded; there are going to be impacts on our landscapes. It’s a fallen world, and we have to make tradeoffs.”
Check out the full piece to see what else he has to say!
Voyager, not Vogue: Sharing an internal moment of levity… when our comms director Price Atkinson first circulated this profile of Bob to our internal team, I read the name of the publication as VogueUtah Magazine, not VoyageUtah Magazine. And it didn’t even occur to me that other states did not have their own Vogue Magazines, my brain immediately went to “I bet they got some great photos of Bob.” (Okay, the real internal thought was glamorous photos, not just great.)
*cue laugh at Chelsea time.
Anyway, if you’re not familiar with Bob’s origin story, here’s your chance to get current. Read Conversations with Bob Inglis. And then head to the Post and Courier to read How to talk to your family about climate change.
A hot mess: The last eight years have been the hottest on record, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and it’s been 46 years (!!!) since the Earth has had a colder-than-average year. (I’m guessing many of our readers have thus never lived through a colder-than-average year.) The ten warmest years have all occurred since 2010 and 2022 is in the books as the sixth hottest. 2016 was the hottest on record. As for the oceans, global ocean heat content hit an all time high and polar sea ice was at a near record low last year. This isn’t great news… but we can be part of the solution.
Mark your calendars: Season Six of the EcoRight Speaks is coming to your ears on February 7, 2023. We will kick the season off with the Alliance for Market Solution’s Alex Flint, who will talk to us about his projections for what to expect out of Congress in the year ahead for energy and climate legislation. We have a great roster of initial guests buckle up for another fantastic season.
That’s it for me! This empty nester will see you next week!