Jane Goodall, the renowned primatologist, is urging people to vote in the upcoming global elections to combat climate change. “Half of the population of the planet is going to be voting,” she said on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos last week. “This year could be the most consequential voting year in terms of the fate of our planet.”
Goodall noted that the outcomes of national elections can have profound and immediate impacts. She pointed to Brazil, where two years ago, voters ousted the far-right leader, Jair Bolsonaro, and brought back President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Overnight, Lula abandoned Bolsonaro’s laissez faire approach to environmental regulation and redoubled efforts to protect the Amazon rainforest. “Every vote matters, more this year than perhaps any time in history.”
“We’ve got to get the message out there for people to understand, and then they’ll vote in the right way,” she said. “Then they’ll understand how important it is for their children, and their children’s children.”
1) In the circular economy we limit “taking”; 2) There must be a focus on “design”; 3) Regeneration and restoration are integral parts of the circular economy; and can balance out consume/use and its negative consequences.
According to the World Resources Institute, the number of electric school buses operating or delivered in the United States more than doubled—from 598 in 2022 to 1,285 through June 2023—all driven to serve school children while providing cleaner air in 40 states.
Looking into the near future, the number of electric school buses that were already funded or on-order nearly tripled, and were spread across districts located in 49 states.
The emissions-free buses are found in 914 U.S. school districts and private fleet operators, according to the evidence-based nonprofit’s report published in September, 2023: [*State of Electric School Bus Adoption in the US*](https://datasets.wri.org/dataset/electric_school_bus_adoption).
California leads all states, with over 2,000 committed electric buses across the sprawling territory. This is more than five times as many EV buses as the next leading state, Maryland, with 391 commitments.
Zero pollution from tailpipes (https://www.epa.gov/cleanschoolbus/benefits-clean-school-buses) while buses are idling or driving means the students, staff, and community will be exposed to significantly less harmful air particulates that contribute to asthma and lung disease. The environment also benefits from reduced greenhouse gas emissions.
The federal government’s Clean School Bus Program, administered by the Environmental Protection Agency, is one of the biggest funders of these vehicles, having awarded 2,339 electric school buses—with more on the way.
One of the biggest climate challenges for any country will be decarbonizing transportation. According to the EPA, about [29 percent](https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/inventory-us-greenhouse-gas-emissions-and-sinks) of greenhouse gas emissions come from transportation after accounting for electricity use, just behind industrial production at 30 percent.
Fortunately, the electric-vehicle transition is happening faster than many expected, despite concerns earlier in the year that automakers were [pushing back their EV rollouts](https://prospect.org/environment/2023-11-01-electric-vehicles-labor-uphill/). Clearly, that is not a response to consumer demand. A [new report](https://www.epa.gov/system/files/documents/2023-12/420r23033.pdf) on the state of the American car market, again from the EPA, has the goods. The EV share of new car purchases increased from 1.8 percent in 2020, to 3.2 percent in 2021, to 5.2 percent in 2022, to an estimated *9.8 percent* in 2023. Plug-in hybrid vehicles, meanwhile, increased from 0.5 percent to 2 percent.
In other words, the EV share of new cars increased more than fivefold in three years, while the share of plug-in hybrids quadrupled. At that pace of acceleration, EVs will make up half of new car sales by 2026 or so. These two developments reduced the emissions of the vehicle fleet by roughly 6 percent in 2022, and perhaps *11 percent* in 2023.
The Inflation Reduction Act provides ten years of secure subsidies for EVs, and every auto manufacturer around the world has made huge investments—even if some have been delayed somewhat—around the assumption that EVs are where the industry is going over the medium term.
Cement production is responsible for more than 7% of global carbon dioxide emissions. Sublime Systems, a startup founded by two MIT battery scientists, is developing a new method to make cement using electricity instead of fossil fuels. Their technology involves using an electrolyzer to spark chemical reactions that form the main ingredients of cement. While still in the pilot stage, Sublime aims to have a full-scale manufacturing facility capable of producing a million tons of material each year by the end of the decade. Other efforts to reduce emissions in the cement industry include adding fillers and implementing carbon capture technology, but these methods have limitations. Brimstone, another startup, is working on a carbon-negative process for making cement using alternative minerals and electric kilns.
California’s law banning the sale of new gas-powered lawn care equipment affects homeowners, lawn care service providers, and the makers of lawn mowers, leaf blowers, string trimmers, and other landscaping equipment.
The law, which took effect Jan. 1, 2024, aims to protect the environment by reducing pollution – such as the harmful emissions of gas mowers, weed whackers, and leaf blowers – and the loud noise from gas-powered leaf blowers that can lead to hearing loss. However, many Californians worry about how the law will affect their lawn care routines and businesses.
Other states, cities, and counties also have since put in place or plan to enact similar laws banning or limiting gas-powered equipment, though the details and goals vary from place to place.
California’s gas-powered equipment ban is part of **Assembly Bill 1346**, approved by Governor Gavin Newsom in October 2021. The bill requires the California Air Resource Board (CARB) to regulate emissions from [small off-road engines](https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/our-work/programs/small-off-road-engines-sore/about) (SORE). **SORE** are gasoline engines with power equal to or less than 19 kilowatts or 25 horsepower, which includes many lawn care tools.
To meet their goals, CARB approved a measure requiring newly manufactured lawn care and other equipment with small off road engines to be zero-emission. These standards will be enforced in two waves:
**In 2024**, new models of most SOREs will need to be zero-emission. Generators and large pressure washers will have stricter standards to reduce emissions by 40% to 90%.
**In 2028**, new models of generators and large pressure washers also need to be zero-emission.
By Ari Matusiak, CEO and co-founder, Rewiring America
A few weeks ago, the Department of Energy announced $169 million for nine new U.S. manufacturing projects to manufacture heat pumps, courtesy of the Defense Production Act (DPA). This is a big deal. A really big, thermally comfortable deal.
What is the Defense Production Act? And what does it have to do with electrifying everything for everyone?
The DPA allows the President ‘to direct private companies to prioritize orders from the federal government … to ‘allocate materials, services, and facilities’ for national defense purposes… [and], to bolster domestic product … [to] offer loans or loan guarantees to companies, subject to an appropriation by Congress; make purchases or purchase commitments; and install equipment in government or private factories.” If you have heard of the term “the Arsenal of Democracy” when the major factories in the U.S. made munitions, bombers, and tanks for WWII, the DPA is the legacy of that. Remember “Rosie the Riveter?” Well, the DPA announcement is about Hannah the Heatpumper.
When Putin invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022, there were all kinds of dire predictions about how quickly Ukraine would fall and what it would mean. There was also massive disruption in the energy markets. Europe’s vulnerability to Russian energy dominance became crystal clear. Gas at the pump here spiked to $5 and $6 / gallon, demonstrating that our pocketbooks are also vulnerable to the mood swings of despots and oligarchs so long as we are beholden to global commodities like fossil fuels to power our daily lives.
On Saturday, February 26, we at Rewiring America, alongside veteran climate activist and author Bill McKibben, hatched a little plan to call for the DPA to be invoked to manufacture heat pumps, by building out our own domestic supply chain, shoring up energy security to help get Europe off gas.
The response to this proposal was hot (see above) and cold (You can’t use the DPA for that!). But there was a basic truth to the idea that strengthening the production of electric machines here in the U.S. would render us less dependent on others, and better able to support and power the world.
A few months later, the President invoked the DPA for critical minerals, solar panels, and heat pumps, the core ingredients of a bright, electric future. And then the Inflation Reduction Act passed, with billions of dollars in tax credits and rebates to help individual families participate. And now, about a year later, 15 sites across 13 states are getting investments to manufacture heat pumps. With more announcements coming.
There is something dramatically tangible about building factories to manufacture heat pumps for American families. We need these machines here, and we need an army of people to build them, install them, service them, and make their own homes comfortable via heat pumps, too.
Our original Heat Pumps for Peace poster, by Dave Murray.
It is hard to overestimate the power of the heat pump, as our need to electrify 124 million homes over the next few decades will mean a massive electric switch, the likes of which we have never seen, except in wartime mobilizations. We will need to electrify 24 million machines, including 2.38 million heat pump space heaters, over the next three years to meet the Pace of Progress required to hit our climate goals. But thanks to Hannah the Heatpumper, and thousands more like her, we can and we will.
Heat Pumps for Peace.
We began the campaign for the DPA with some fun retro art. Today, we have new art! We made posters to celebrate the supply chain journey that will end in homegrown heat pumps for all: a chicken in every pot becomes a heat pump in every spot. Why is it so important to celebrate these two-in-one appliances and the government’s efforts to support the manufacturing of them? Because so many Americans still do not know that we must go electric, and that we have money to do it, thanks to the Inflation Reduction Act. Our Mr. Heat Pump is not just a comedian, but an electric educator. We need thousands of electric enthusiasts to get heat pumps, tell their friends, and wear t-shirts proclaiming their love for all things electric. (Last one optional.)
Like most important things, this will be hard. We have limited time, and lots to do. And we know there will be friction and difficulties, as there are when you transform any market of this scale, and especially as we work to make electrification accessible and affordable for everyone. But we have to say bye gas and buy electric, for reasons that go well beyond the pretty darn important one of maintaining a habitable planet. These inducements include healthier homes, cleaner air, energy bill stability, and community resiliency.
As Bill McKibben wrote to us after the announcement, “it was such a joy to make change with you.” We at Rewiring America were overjoyed to make change with him. And with all of you, heat pump by heat pump by induction stove.
The good news is that the pace of this transition is accelerating everywhere, and 2024 is poised to speed things up further. Here’s to a new year full of climate progress, as we electrify for peace, planet, and prosperity.
