How a 7th Grader’s Strike Against Climate Change Exploded Into a Movement

Every week since December, the seventh-grader has made a pilgrimage to the United Nations’ headquarters demanding action on climate change. She is one of a cadre of young, fierce and mostly female activists behind the School Strike 4 Climate movement. On March 15, with the support of some of the world’s biggest environmental groups, tens of thousands of kids in at least two dozen countries and nearly 30 U.S. states plan to skip school to protest.

Alexandria Villasenor, 13, skips school to strike in front of
the United Nations, with signs reading: “School Strike 4
 Climate” and “Cop24 Failed Us. 

On the ninth Friday of her strike, 13-year-old Alexandria Villasenor wakes to a dozen emails, scores of Twitter notifications and good news from the other side of the planet: Students in China want to join her movement.

Their demands are uncompromising: Nations must commit to cutting fossil-fuel emissions in half in the next 10 years to avoid catastrophic global warming.

Read the story from The Washington Post by Sarah Kaplan - “How a 7th Grader’s Strike Against Climate Change Exploded Into a Movement.”

No country for coal gen – Below 2°C and regulatory risk for US coal power owners

Coal’s market share in the US power mix is being diminished at an unprecedented rate due to fierce competition from cheap gas and renewables. 

Around 30 GW of coal capacity has been retired over the last three years, with coal generation declining by 13% over the same period. 

The economics of US coal power could not be starker: new coal capacity is not remotely competitive, while in the next few years it will be the exception rather than the rule for the operating cost of existing coal to be lower than the levelized cost of new gas and renewables.

Read the Carbon Tracker story - “No country for coal gen – Below 2°C and regulatory risk for US coal power owners.”

'Storm of the century' every few months

“Storms of the century” seem to be happening now every few months.

The latest, “Nemo”, has engulfed major parts of America’s north-east coast, disabling infrastructure, disrupting the lives of millions and denting a sweeping sector of the U.S. economy.

Storms or unusual ferocity ripple across various parts of the world, those of us in south-eastern Australia have experienced an exceedingly dry period and now are pondering possible beginning of another drought.

And yet the debate about whether or not climate change is a contributing factor and to what degree it is worsening these “storms of the century” continue with a regularity matched only by the arrival of fierce storms.

However and importantly, our scientists are attributing the exacerbation of those events to climate change and the America’s Huffington Post reports that in a story headed: “Climate Change And The Blizzard: Nor'easters More Fierce With Global Warming,Scientists Say”.