We have so much to catch up on. During our hiatus, our team has been working on a bunch of amazing things.
1οΈβ£ First, we completed a full rebrand of Greenwashed, including improvements on our email newsletter and an entire website that holds all of our newsletters and educational content in a refreshing, easy-to-navigate layout. Check it out here at greenwashed.earth.
2οΈβ£ Additionally, we launched a side project that allows our readers to start taking meaningful climate action. We got tired of writing about how scary the climate crisis is without having any concrete steps for our readers to start helping the situation. To fix that, we built Carbonisbad.
Carbonisbad is an emissions calculator that offers a subscription service to offset your personal emissions every month. Simply enter your typical monthly lifestyle habits, and Carbonisbad will take care of the rest, automatically retiring high-quality offsets that negate your carbon footprint. Check it out here!
πΊ And now, back to regularly scheduled programming...
Major Breakthrough from the DoE β‘οΈ
The United States Department of Energy recently announced a major breakthrough in nuclear fusion technology. For the first time, DoE scientists were able to extract more energy out of a fusion reaction than it took for them to create it.
Nuclear fusion has been on the minds of scientists for almost a century. Scalable fusion technology would provide humanity with an almost unlimited clean energy source, and governments and the private sector alike have been making progress on it. Β
Unfortunately, we're not quite there yet. This fusion reaction only yielded enough energy to power a tea kettle for about ten seconds. π«
New Temperature Records π‘
Seven European countries rang in the new year by setting all-time high January temperature records on the very first day of 2023.
π Five countries in the Eastern bloc, along with France and the Netherlands, shattered their previous January records on New Year's Day, highlighted by the Polish record being broken before sunrise. Β
Extreme weather has been on the rise in recent years, as evidenced by massive amounts of data and fact that high temperature records are being smashed across Europe while the US simultaneously undergoes a historic cold front.
The notable increase in extreme weather trends has an inextricable link to human emissions (which you can offset here!).
A Battery...In Your Stove? π€
Impulse Labs recently announced a $20mm Series A round to propel their vision of outfitting the world's kitchens with battery-powered appliances.
π¨βπ³ A stove that uses a battery may sound a little far-fetched, but the technology, if scaled, would have lots of positive outcomes.
13% of American emissions come from building energy use; gas appliances are one of the largest contributors to that number as well as being linked to child respiratory conditions and methane leaks.
Battery-powered stoves would immediately eliminate all of those issues while not incurring the cost and complications of switching to a wiring-based electric stove.
This news coincides with the recent controversy surrounding a potential ban on gas stoves, which was received with strong backlash.
Thanks for reading! If you've been inspired to help out in the fight against the climate crisis, start by offsetting your emissions here or by subscribing to stay up-to-date on all of the need-to-know climate problems and solutions.
