💸 Separating the Artist From the Emissions
(062) Airline carbon emissions critiques take flight
Good Morning
What we’re reading this week:
India Passes Bill to Accelerate Industrial Clean Energy Adoption, Ban Export of Carbon Credits
The Climate and Energy Impacts of the Inflation Reduction Act (see page 6 in particular)
The Greendicator
Top Deals of the Week
![Zenno Astronautics electromagnet Zenno Astronautics electromagnet](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F8828fea3-0ffc-4cde-832e-9d56950777ed_730x486.jpeg)
Afresh, a five-year-old San Francisco startup whose software helps grocery stores reduce food waste, raised a $115 million Series B led by Spark Capital (BBG)
WiTricity, a developer of wireless charging for EVs, raised a $63M funding round led by Siemens AG (PRN)
Utility Global, a four-year-old startup based in Houston that is developing products that use zero electricity to convert sustainable waste streams directly into high-purity hydrogen, raised a $25 million Series B round led by Ara Partners (FS)
PreciTaste, a 10-year-old, New York-based company that sells a service that monitors food quality in quick-service kitchens, predicting demand and supply to make order prep recommendations to workers and therefore reduce food waste, has raised $24 million in Series A funding. Melitas Ventures and Cleveland Avenue co-led the tranche (TC)
Project Solar, a Utah-based automated quoting system to help solar installers get more business, raised a $23M Series A led by Left Lane Capital (TC)
LiveEO, a real-time satellite analytics platform for transportation and energy companies, raised a ~$19.5M fundraising round led by MMC Ventures (TC)
Carbonstop, a China-based carbon emissions management software and consulting solutions provider, raised a ~$14.8M Series B led by Sequoia China (PRN)
Zap-Map, a Bristol-based EV charging app, raised a ~$10.9M Series A led by Fleetcor (UKTN)
Zenno Astronautics, a company developing sustainable spacecraft flight technology - it uses electromagnets to generate force in space - raised a ~$6.6M seed round led by GD1 and Nuance Connected Capital (TC)
Bluestem Biosciences, a renewable chemicals company focusing on synthetic biology in agriculture, raised a $5M pre-seed round led by Zero Infinity Partners (PRN)
Green Theory
Can you separate the Artist from the Emissions?
Next time you’re stuck in traffic, save a honk for the car in front of you and look up. The author of the hit single blasting through your speakers may be bypassing your gridlock, soaring over in their private plane. Recently, one tweeter’s bot has taken off in a big way: tracking celebrity flights, they’ve put a spotlight on the carbon excesses of ultrawealthy living. Some may roll their eyes at yet another example of public discourse centering elites, and pop elites at that. Others decry this focus on celebrities’ personal consumption as a diversion from the effortful work to change the systems of consumption that underpin modern society. While both views hold their merits, rather than ignore the attention around this issue, we ought to leverage this controversy as a powerful lens to examine both individual responsibility and the systems in which we strive.
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First, let’s explore the urge to shift the spotlight away from celebrities. Celebrity culture persists in concert with “everyday people” and the consumerist model of pursuing larger living, whether in actuality or vicariously. In other words, cultural elites capture the attention we give them, aided by the systemic pressures accelerated by business interests. Take NASA Scientist Kate Marvel’s comment that while she “would prefer Taylor Swift make more responsible transportation decisions, shouting at celebrities on the internet is not in my personal top 10 list of policy levers,” Axios reports. Fair enough, but in dismissing celebrities as a distraction–an artifact of the limitless greed driving us toward ecological collapse–one overlooks the opportunity the distraction serves: a route to climate-positive messages. Calling out a yet-unheard-of, reclusive oligarch’s plane travel (via complementary twitter bots) doesn’t attract much attention. Invoking Drake’s or Taylor Swift’s name, however, draws crowds of fans, detractors, and eager, scrolling onlookers. Further, once the sensation draws larger media attention, the celebrity bump multiplies the message. Shouting on the internet may not appeal to scientists, but for a culture that’s more online, and more focused on celebrities, losing voices of accountability in these spheres poses a risk to climate discourse, and thereby public attitudes and behavior.
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Flying Private Goes Public
Having recognized celebrities as entrenched cultural touchstones, with all eyes on them, why not dedicate some of that attention to reinforcing broader societal changes in norms? At this point, some turn away from private jet flight shaming, saying that structural systems are the culprit, abdicating responsibility off of the individual. A few issues pervade this argument. First, flying is hardly a global cultural norm. 80% of people never get on a plane in their lives, according to Boeing. What’s worse, “Private jets are 5 to 14 times more polluting than commercial planes per passenger”, Emily Atkins writes. Only 1% of the world population consumes 50% of air travel emissions–part of the reason the top 1% of income earners (those above $109,000) emit twice the total warming gasses of the poorest 3.8 billion people. While systems block change around many emission sources, personal jet setting is not one. Knowing that only so few people generate such an outsized level of emissions, it becomes clear that the personal choices of these individuals really add up. Especially considering the social nature of our behavioral choices, the ripple effect of a few big celebrities forgoing such opulent, polluting travel could reach far beyond their own flight log.
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The evidence is clear–in order to keep warming to goal levels, the wealthiest have the most room to shift their actions and slash emissions. Estimates for the total emissions impact of personal behavior change vary (between 4% and 70%), depending mostly on how much the privileged few are willing to sacrifice. With one long-haul round trip flight burning 90% of the “fair share” annual carbon budget per person, each trip counts, not just for cultural icons. Vox reports that “flourishing lives for 10 billion people are possible with existing tech, using less than 40 percent of today’s total energy production,” yet billions wake up without stable electricity every day. Turning up one’s nose at private flying, and shaming celebrities’ individual choices, public discourse shows some movement in the direction of healthier moderation. How far that moderation extends remains unknown. As Emily Atkins aptly elucidates, “What’s more needed is a widespread recognition of climate dissonance, and a desire to shift the American Dream away from individual wealth and toward collective well-being.” Celebrity flight shaming shows that there are now some social boundaries on the “18th-century rights to ‘life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness’ … developed under very different conditions. We now live in a world of material and moral limits. The science says that consumption rates beyond our biosphere’s limits will worsen our kids’ lives,” the Vox piece sums up. Technology can help us expand material limits, but only so fast–without the aid of moral limits, trickling through behavior change all the way to policy, biosphere collapse looms larger.
As discouraging as it is to learn Drake’s handful of sub-20 minute flights since June emitted the equivalent of 10 people’s annual fair-share, that excess in no way excuses excess in others. If the world’s wealthiest (often also the most influential and powerful in manipulating systems…) changed their personal habits to give up some conveniences and comforts, as a start, the planet and its mostly modest inhabitants will breathe easier, with ample room to flourish.
The Closer
The Great Salt Lake has shrunk by more than two-thirds in 40 years, from a surface area of 3,330 square miles (8,500 square kilometers) in 1980 to a record-low 950 square miles (2,460 square kilometers) in 2021. This trend threatens the residents of nearby Salt Lake City, Utah and millions of other species that depend on the lake such as migratory birds. As more of the lake bed — which contains high levels of arsenic — is exposed, the surrounding atmosphere may become poisoned by toxic dust.
Created by @dailyoverview
Source imagery: Google Timelapse
Very interesting! I assume you listened to the daily about the Great Salt Lake?
At the end of my Jet Blue flight the pilot announced that all their flights are carbon neutral via offsets. Not sure how much that's actually doing, but it was surprising to hear!