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🌱💡The microgrids saving lives
Today's good climate and environment news
Happy Friday!
Here are today’s stories of progress in the fight against the climate crisis and nature loss.
Power cuts in Puerto Rico can be life threatening for the elderly and people in need of medical care. But with the installation of solar energy microgrids, households, hospitals, and communities are able to keep running even when traditional power sources fail. They’re emerging across Latin America, helping provide power to remote corners of the world, where previously a lack of refrigeration meant food spoiled quickly and heatwaves put people at risk. According to the World Bank, the rollout of 217,000 microgrids could supply universal access to clean electricity.
Indigenous leaders across Polynesia released a groundbreaking declaration that cements whales as legal persons. Based in Indigenous worldviews and stepping away from a nation-state-led approach to ocean governance, the treaty grants whales the same right to life as people and guarantees them legal representation. The treaty also creates a fund for whale protection and sets out measures that would put this in practice, such as the creation of marine protected areas.
As Indigenous peoples, we draw our identity from place. We are that river; that river is us
Cigarette ends, the scourge of many city streets, have been converted by researchers into a key element in battery-like devices. Their porous composition and high surface area mean they can be used as incredibly effective electrodes in supercapacitors, which charge faster than batteries.
An ancient all-natural building material known as rammed earth is making a comeback. Made of compacted soil drawn from the ground near a building site, it means architects can construct homes that are completely circular and can eventually be returned to the earth. To make this practice more scaleable, prefabricated bricks can also be used and transported to a building site, which also allows the best-quality soil to be selected.
It more than just does a good thing for the environment in terms of its responsibility. It produces incredibly beautiful spaces to live in, to work in, and to be in
This year's Winter Olympics in Milan will be the first ever games where skiers won’t use fluorinated ski waxes – lubricants that allow them to ski faster than ever, but happen to be full of PFAS. They’ll have to stick to less-effective waxes that don’t contaminate pristine snowy environments, and rely on their own athletic skill to go for gold.
📝 The Green Light is written by freelance writer Molly Millar.