Hey team, and welcome back to one5c! As a lifelong nerd, I think about Yoda a lot. Specifically, the line “There is no try.” As a kid, I thought the quip was terrible advice: Don’t bother doing something you won’t succeed at. But as an adult I get it. Preconceived notions are dangerous things. You’ll never lift the X-wing out of the swamp if you’ve decided it’s impossible. OK, Corinne, we’ve seen The Empire Strikes Back, too; what’s your point? My point is that saving the world is about testing our notions about what will and won’t work—over and over again.
Is cultured meat going to save us? The answer today is very different than it was 10 years ago. Same goes for building sustainable cities in climate-pressed regions, assessing our ability to funnel electricity from solar farms to homes, and so much more. So, let’s do Yoda proud and see how we’re challenging our assumptions this week. —Corinne
WHAT WE’RE INTO THIS WEEK
By Sara Kiley Watson & Leslie Horn Peterson
Greenwatch
Amazon’s plastic promises are garbage
Surprise! Amazon’s plastic recyclability claims are less than honest. A recent report from Environment America and U.S. Public Interest Research Group found that only a tiny fraction of the e-comm giant’s “recyclable” plastic packaging can be recycled. The report’s authors tracked the locations of 93 bundles of spent packaging using Apple AirTags. While a bunch of those AirTags died, the ones that survived their journey all ended up at landfills, waste incinerators, or the Port of Los Angeles (potentially to be shipped off for overseas disposal). Just another reminder that plastic recycling is, in most cases, a woefully false promise.
Good read
Why Dubai’s ‘sustainable city’ fell flat
Dubai’s appropriately named Sustainable City is a work of awe: a mostly car-free, low-carbon, tech-savvy oasis in the middle of the desert. But while the 600-home development has a three-year-long waitlist, it has yet to inspire similar hubs in the most climate-challenged corner of the world. As Zainab Fattah writes for Bloomberg, there are myriad challenges for building a haven in the Persian Gulf, from high costs to lack of government support. Sustainable City was supposed to be a “blueprint” for similar locales, but it still stands alone.
Cause for optimism
Meet Minnesota’s ‘magic balls’
The capacity of the transmission lines that send electrons whizzing from solar arrays and wind farms is a bit of a black box. But knowing the temperature of those conduits can tell us how much energy we can funnel through ’em. Without that, it’s like driving without a speedometer, Jørgen Festervoll, CEO of Heimdall Power of Norway, told Inside Climate News. His company deploys ball-shaped sensors that rest on power lines, providing a clue into how hot the lines are running. The tech can potentially increase power delivery by up to 42.8% and boost solar and wind capacity without building new lines. The “magic balls” are more commonplace in Europe, but Minnesota’s Great River Energy is giving them a shot—making for the biggest deployment of these types of sensors in the U.S.
Lawns gone wild
Step 2: It’s time to kick some grass
Welcome back to Lawns Gone Wild, your step-by-step guide to rewilding your lawn. When we left off last week, you were collecting cardboard to cover your grass. (If you’re just joining us or have questions about our choice of material, head right this way.) Now it’s time to cover the patch of grass you’re rewilding—a technique sometimes referred to as “sheet mulching.”
But why? “You’ve got to block sunlight from your grass long enough so that it gives up and dies and it kills the roots,” says ecologist Doug Tallamy. By his estimate, you’ll have murdered that non-native grass in about two months.
We suggest a 10-by-10 block, because, as Tallamy notes, restoring your entire lawn to the splendor of a meadow is a process that could take up to three years—depending how big your property is. Remember, this is more than a fun spring project; it’s a commitment to your local ecology. Rewilding promotes biodiversity and can bring back what University of Montana professor of environmental philosophy Christopher Preston calls “beneficial insects” like bees, which “keep nature humming and ticking.”
Let’s get to it: Remove any plastic and tape from your cardboard and lay it down on top of your grass. You may want to place some mulch or rocks on top of the sheets to weigh them down. That’s it! You’re done until April, when it will be time to talk about sourcing seeds and plants.
Mic-drop climate stat
How much chocolate prices have jumped this Easter, thanks to climate change–induced heat waves across West Africa, the BBC reports.
Debunker mail
The real deal with lab-grown meat
By Shreya Agrawal
Cultured (aka “lab-grown”) meat can be found anywhere from swanky restaurants to fancy cat food. Innovators and environmentalists alike have touted the idea for roughly two decades as a solution for meat lovers who care about the planet. Of late, however, politicians and policymakers have been moving to ban and even criminalize its production and sale. While it’s true that cultured meat isn’t perfectly menu-ready, the prospect of a real burger without the slaughter is a hopeful one, despite many statements to the contrary. Here’s the truth about some of the most common jabs thrown at this “man on the moon” meat.
If they say: “Lab-grown meat is expensive”
You say: True, but perhaps not for long. In 2013, the first cultured burger cost $325,000 to make. But with dozens of companies around the world now investing in this research, getting the cost of a burger down to around $10 is in sight. While this is still about four times the price of getting your beef from a bovine, it will only get cheaper as the systems to create the meat achieve scale, which some analyses put as early as 2030.
If they say: “‘Franken-meat’ is unsafe and unethical”
You say: The safety issue is a red herring. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved lab-grown meat produced by several companies for human consumption. What’s more, these products are “bio-identical” to real meat, meaning they’re molecularly the same. The ethics issue is a matter of personal judgment. Cultivated meat is technically meat––just made in a way that doesn’t require industrialized slaughter of animals. Whether you prefer chicken nuggets from a lab over ones from fowl raised on a farm is up to you.
If they say: “Lab-grown meat is not a viable climate solution”
You say: Not right now, but if producers scale up carefully, its footprint would pale in comparison to traditional meat. Several peer-reviewed studies show that cultured meat may have the potential to reduce emissions and land and water use by 80%. But increasing production with care is key. A recent (though not yet peer reviewed) study by U.C. Davis suggests that lab-grown meat could be worse for the environment than conventional animal agriculture if it relies on energy-intensive ingredients and a dirty energy mix. Pig-free bacon may one day be a staple, but for now the best climate solution for ordinary eaters is slimming down meat consumption and throwing out less food.
Reducing the amount of food we waste is among the most-impactful things any person can do in the climate fight. Click here for our best strategies and tips.