Not Everyone Will Dig Divisive “Digger”

Digger is that Tom Cruise Climate Catastrophe movie you might not have been expecting. I watched the trailer a few months ago and was not clear this was a “climate change movie”.

In fact, that’s kind of what bugs me.

Climate change is a fact. It’s not just settled physics, it’s happening all around us, causing some of us to flee our homes, some of us to choke on the air outside, and all of us to wonder what is happening to the weather and the seasons. The drive to transition to clean energy, and the global fossil fuel oligarchy’s desperation to hold on to its power, (think Ukraine, Iran, and the fossil fuel takeover of the Republican Party) is the underlying lens to understand most of the headlines that we see day today.

It is as real a historical fact, (much more long lasting and consequential in my mind) as World War II, the Depression, the Cold War, or the Space Race.

All of those things have been the subject of movies, but moreover, any movie that pretends to set up a “real” world has to include those historical facts as background reality.

But Climate Change, the most important underpinning fact not just of our moment, but of the geological epoch, is relegated to being the subject of “a climate change movie” – as if it were some kind of separate world of speculative fiction. We’ve had a few of those movies, but what we have not had is a general agreement in setting the story of our moment, that climate change exists, and is a fundamental underlying driver of human events in this time.

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Wall Street Week on the US Battery Boom

White House policy under the Trump administration has dealt a massive, and I would argue, possibly fatal financial blow to the US auto industry by cancelling tax incentives for EV sales, even after US companies had invested heavily in that space.

But incentives remain for BESS – Battery Energy Storage Systems – that back up and power the electric grid, and companies have pivoted hard into that space, resulting in a flood of grid storage, and dropping the price for firm renewable energy. The graph below is from the July 2025 Shareholders report from NextEra, the largest US builder of power systems.

It shows that current wind and solar systems, even with battery storage, are cheaper than Natural gas, or nuclear, both of which have serious availability issues.

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About that Energy “Emergency” This Week

When an “emergency” is not really like an emergent emergency. I heard from some folks who were freaked out by this news item.

It’s one more artifact of a changing climate. Unseasonably warm October weather, coming at a time when utilities typically have generators and transmission infrastructure down for maintenance, has put some pressure on the PJM – the Grid operator covering the Mid Atlantic States and a slice of the midwest.

As I understand it, this order makes certain types of back up generators in the system, say at Data Centers, available if needed. There was no need to trigger any of that capacity.

So the “energy emergency” story was actually an artifact of the much larger climate story, that apparently is beyond the media’s capacity to put in context.

PJM:

PJM continues to proactively implement procedures to reliably serve increased electricity demand caused by unusually warm fall weather amid planned equipment outages required for maintenance and construction.

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Haven for Wild Life – Emerging Benefit of Solar Farms

About two weeks ago I spoke to Bryan and Tammy Walker, of Coldwater, Michigan, farmers who have leased a portion of their land for a new solar facility.

Their comments indicated a keen awareness of the newly created safe habitat that has been created under hundreds of formerly farmed acres. Bryan mentioned how withholding agricultural chemicals like Roundup could be good for the watershed. Tammy was struck by the number of pollinators in the solar fields, and how the panels created a safe space for smaller critters.

They’re talking about the bottom of the food chain, the critical piece that we are knocking out all over the planet, contributing to the Bio Diversity crisis that is climate change’s evil sibling (one of many). An emerging discipline, conservoltaics, is examining the link between solar, soil, and habitat.

Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (UK):

The research by scientists from the RSPB and University of Cambridge as part of the Centre for Landscape Regeneration found that – hectare for hectare – solar farms in agriculturally dominated East Anglia contained a greater number of bird species and overall number of birds than surrounding arable farmland.

The highest abundance of threatened bird species such as Corn Buntings, Yellowhammers and Linnets were found in mixed habitat solar farms and these were significantly higher than in both surrounding arable land and in the simple habitat solar sites. These mixed habitat solar sites also held the highest total abundance of bird species. This suggests that nature-friendly management practices could provide a significant boost for birds.

Argonne National Lab (US):

The two studied solar sites were planted with native grasses and flowering plants in early 2018. From August 2018 through August 2022, the researchers conducted 358 observational surveys for flowering vegetation and insect communities. They evaluated changes in plant and insect abundance and diversity with each visit.

By the end of the field campaign, the team observed increases for all habitat and biodiversity metrics. There was an increase in native plant species diversity and flower abundance. In addition, the team observed increases in the abundance and diversity of native insect pollinators and agriculturally beneficial insects, which included honeybees, native bees, wasps, hornets, hoverflies, other flies, moths, butterflies and beetles. Flowers and flowering plant species increased as well. Total insect abundance tripled, while native bees showed a 20-fold increase in numbers. The most numerous insect groups observed were beetles, flies and moths.

In an added benefit, the researchers found that pollinators from the solar sites also visited soybean flowers in adjacent crop fields, providing additional pollination services.

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New Fire at California Battery Plant Can’t Stop BESS Momentum

Last year, a big battery in California caught fire, and became a PR problem for the energy storage industry. Then, a few weeks ago, it happened again.

Inside Climate News:

On Jan. 16, 2025, the Vistra Moss Landing Energy Storage Facility, about 20 miles south of Monterey, burned for several days and distributed a fine layer of heavy metals across the landscape. Today, a cleanup of the facility is ongoing as long-term health and ecological impacts remain uncertain.

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Regrettably, that was not the end of it.

Cal Matters:

The burned remains of the Moss Landing Power Plant battery energy storage facility caught fire again Friday morning, prompting Monterey County officials to issue a shelter in place order — less than two years after it became one of the largest battery storage facility fires in history. 

Workers for Vistra, the plant’s Texas-based operator, noticed a flare-up early Friday morning against the wall of a building that burned in the initial January 2025 fire. The cause: roughly 1,200 inaccessible battery modules, still charged, spontaneously ignited, said Chief Jess Cortez with the North County Fire Protection District.

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Surf City No More. Rising Seas Threaten California’s Beaches

Local news report above on massive efforts to keep Southern California’s iconic beaches intact in the face of Sea Level Rise and the current extreme El Niño. The report discusses “sea level rise”, but not underlying, human caused, global warming.

As El Nino’s westerly winds pile Pacific waters up against the west coast, and additional heat energy contributes to water’s expansion, Sea levels have bumped a foot or more, on top of the long term, baked in, climate driven rise.

While climate deniers like President Trump often laugh off what they describe as minuscule sea level rise, scientists point out that the gradual rise means when extremes do come, the damage to existing physical features and infrastructure will be severe.

Oceanographer Andrea Dutton described this phenomenon exactly when I interviewed her a few years ago.

Below, meteorologist Chris Gloninger discusses the increased costs of keeping up with relentless change.

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Rick Wilson: Trump Beholden to Putin and Oil

If you back up from Planet Earth 50,000 miles and squint a little, what you see is a massive struggle lead by fossil fuel oligarchs, to cling to their power.

Home Insurance Emerges as Climate Fueled Campaign Issue

Probably 6 or 7 years ago, I got an email out of the blue from a local insurance agent, well known in the industry, and a pillar of the local Republican establishment.

He had heard me on the radio and wanted to have coffee. We’ve met several times, and continue to exchange emails. He agrees that something is going on that is very concerning to his industry. Here’s a message I got from him a few years ago.

In my 30 years I have never seen anything like what is happening right now. I sit on several different advisory boards and insurance companies are scared to death about the trends they are seeing. You’re correct, it’s not just coastal areas either, which by the way are nearly impossible to insure right now. I had two house last week in Hilton Head where the premium went from $12k to over $30K and they were lucky to get the $30K. There was nothing else on the market.

The New York Times has a new piece about Home insurance emerging as an issue in the current election campaign. According to the Times,

Rising homeowners rates — driven by the fires, hurricanes and tornadoes worsened by climate change — have helped put reliably Republican states like Kansas and Florida onto the battlefield, pushed North Carolina toward the Democrats and roiled Democratic politics in California.

Insurify.com:

Severe weather and natural disasters continue to drive higher home insurance rates heading into 2026. Following four consecutive years of rising premiums, the average annual cost of home insurance will increase again in 2026, with Insurify projecting a 4% jump to $3,057 by the end of the year.

Homeowners are reducing their coverage, raising their deductibles, and shopping for different policies as premiums increase. The average annual cost has surged more than $900 since 2021. Six states saw rates rise at least 20% in the past year: Minnesota (34%), Colorado (33%), Iowa (28%), Nebraska (25%), Oklahoma (24%), and South Carolina (20%).

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