The cherries are booming

Swiss Re, Gibson Dunn & Crutcher, Tunisia

Author

Brad Johnson
March 22, 2022

PRESENTED BY PEAK BOOM

The Tidal Basin cherry blossoms have reached peak bloom!

Thanks to the burning of hundreds of billions of tons of fossil fuels, the cherries are blooming two weeks earlier than they did in the 1920s! Here’s a chart I made ten years ago: Peak boom!

The Russian invasion is spurring Europe to abandon fossil fuels. The Netherlands is significantly ramping up plans for offshore wind; Italy is approving new wind farm projects; France is ending subsidies for gas heaters and increasing support for heat pumps; British Tories are shifting to support renewable projects; Germany is speeding up new wind and solar projects and phasing out gasoline cars. And re-insurance giant Swiss Re has announced a new policy which “excludes insurance for most new oil and gas projects.”

Here in the United States, states like Maryland and Georgia have suspended their gas taxes, increasing profit margins for the oil industry and threatening future infrastructure projects. President Biden yesterday met in the White House with oil CEOs and other industrialists who have stymied his climate agenda and are now billions of dollars wealthier than they were before the war to ask them to “address disruptions to energy and agricultural markets.”

It’s almost like American politics are controlled by American fossil-fuel oligarchs.

Though there is resistance! For example, in Georgia, city governments are banding together to push Georgia Power toward green energy. And law students protested outside the offices of Chevron lawyers Gibson Dunn & Crutcher yesterday:

The political crisis in Tunisia is growing, with massive street protests of the authoritarian President Kais Saied, as prices of basic commodities such as flour, sugar, and oil surge due to the disruptions of climate and war.

Jérôme Guillet tells the tale of the beginning days of offshore wind projects in Europe. Carbon offsets are mostly trash.

JERBS: The climate-finance-activism Sunrise Project (unrelated to the Sunrise Movement) is hiring a director for their global finance program ($131K-$150K), an organizer to target asset managers BlackRock and Vanguard ($73K-$83K), a global campaign manager for their WorkForClimate program ($78K-$85k), and a senior strategist for private equity ($99.7K-$108K), an operations manager ($79K-85K).

DID YOU KNOW: In 1792, Thomas Paine proposed a 100% wealth tax to eliminate billionaires (in today’s dollars).

Hearings on the Hill:

Thanks for subscribing and spreading the word. DMs are open—@climatebrad

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