Dutch Float Huge Solar Panel Project in a Lake, Meet Canada’s Sustainabiliteens! The Climate Music Project, and Climate Champion Emma Lim

COMMUNITY NEWS: MEET THE SUSTAINIBILITEENS!

Guess who I just discovered, Grace?

The Sustainabiliteens! They’re a superhero group out of the metropolitan Vancouver region of British Columbia, Canada. Okay they’re not a superhero group but they are some super powerful Canadian high schoolers making positive change in their community. That’s why they’re in The Climate Daily community spotlight.

Sustainabiliteens have a simple message. They believe the foundation of a stable civilization is a stable climate. They recognize that the current climate crisis is precipitating ecological collapse and the devastation of the natural world, but not evenly. These teenagers see that Canada’s working class, Indigenous people and people of color are disproportionately affected.

Their vision is to use their power to create a more just and sustainable world. Some of their exercises in power include in May 2019 mobilizing 3,000 citizens of Vancouver in a nationally driven climate strike. Just four months later, in September 27, 2019, they mobilized 175,000 of Vancouver’s citizens to participate in protest against the Canadian coal mining company Teck. Most recently, the influenced the Vancouver City Council to pass its Climate Emergency Action Plan, setting Vancouver on the path to cut GHG emissions by 50% by 2030. Rock on.

DEEPER DIVE: Sustainabiliteens

GREEN TECH: FLOATING SOLAR PANEL PROJECT SLATED FOR DUTCH LAKE

German utility RWE has selected the site of a biomass and coal-fired power plant in the Netherlands for its first floating solar power project. With construction slated to start in August, the Amer PV park will feature roughly 13,400 panels that will float on a lake in Geertruidenberg in the province of Noord Brabant.

CEO of RWE Generation Roger Miesen said, “the new PV project shows that we can turn conventional asset sites into landmark projects that promote innovative solutions for a sustainable electricity system.” 

The success of this and other floating solar panel projects will allow humans to continue to repurpose previously “unusable” land assets like coal mines, strip mines and old quarries that were often just turned into man-made lakes. Similar floating solar panel projects are underway in flooded coal mines in China. Another reason for optimism around floating solar panel projects is they offer hope to communities with scarce land resources keen on transitioning to clean energy. Here in the U.S., for example, just this past month, the 4.4 MW Healdsburg Floating Solar panel Project opened across two wastewater treatment ponds in Sonoma County, a county where land for solar development is scarce.

When completed by the end of this year, the Dutch Amer PV park will have a capacity of 6.1MWp.

DEEPER DIVE: PV-Tech, Recharge News, Green Army

CLIMATE CULTURE: THE CLIMATE MUSIC PROJECT

Climate change is an issue that can be hard for some to prioritize. It’s abstract. We can read the charts and the statistics—but is there a way to feel it? The Bay Area’s Climate Music Project at UC Berkeley wants to make the experience visceral.

ClimateMusic began in 2014 with San Francisco-based artist, Stephan Crawford wondering how to get ordinary folks to care about the the climate crisis. “Many people are aware there’s this thing called climate change, but relatively few are aware of the urgency of the issue,” he says. So Crawford, who has a background in the arts and environmental sciences, turned to the universal language of music. He invited performers and scientists to a “hack day,” with the lure of food, and asked them to compose a climate-inspired piece in eight hours. “They worked like mad and just congealed as a team, and at the end of that day…there were actually tears in the audience,” he recalls.

ClimateMusic is a collaboration between data science and music that tells the story of how the climate has changed in the last 200 years, what we can expect in the future, and how we can all help address what’s arguably the greatest challenge facing humanity. It’s been called “an extraordinary project that aims to draw attention to global warming in a completely different way.”

In 2020, ClimateMusic launched two initiatives—a podcast called Climate Vibes, hosted by Kaya Sakamoto; and another project titled, “Play for the Planet,” an innovative way for musicians around the globe to collaborate during the pandemic.

Experience climate change with the senses. Experience ClimateMusic.

DEEPER DIVE: CLIMATEMUSIC, Play for the Planet, Climate Vibes

CLIMATE CHAMPIONS: MEET EMMA LIM

Imagine being so worried that the planet your children will inherit that you’re willing to forego having children completely. Now imagine you’re only 18-years-old when you come to this realization. That’s how old Emma Lim was in 2019 when she launched the #NoFutureNoChildren campaign. The Canadian activist has created a startling 21st Century environmental movement which more than 5,000 people have signed up for, so far. The pledge is simple — agree to refuse to have children until the climate crisis is brought under control.

“It breaks my heart,” Lim said. “But I created this pledge because I know I am not alone. I am not the only young person giving up lifelong dreams because they are unsure of what the future will hold. We’ve read the science, and now we’re pleading with our government.” 18-year-old Jacob Diercks, a native of Meldorf, Germany, also signed the pledge, saying that in his lifetime he has seen the North Sea warm considerably. He said farmers there are in trouble due to flooding and from summers so hot crops burn in the fields.

Lim has gone on from the success of #NoFutureNoChildren to launch another great initiative, nofuturepledge.ca. The website offers great tips for all ages on how to be a responsible, eco-oriented citizen of the planet.

DEEPER DIVE: #NoFutureNoChildren, NoFuturePledge