The Weekly Anthropocene, February 12 2025
Rare freshwater mussels in the Seine, solar surging across Europe, elephant coexistence in Nepal, macaw school in Brazil, hope for the Yanomami, the Advanced Dwelling Unit, the Sun Day idea, and more!
European Union
France won international attention for their wide-ranging cleanup of the famed Seine River for the 2024 Paris Olympics. Now, a new study has found that the Seine’s biodiversity appears to already be bouncing back. Analysis of environmental DNA (eDNA) found in water samples from the heart of Paris has revealed the presence of 23 different species of mussels and 36 different species of fish — about ten times more than were present in the urban Seine as recently as the 1960s! Notably, three of the freshwater mussel species identified in Paris (the thick shelled river mussel, the black river mussel, and the compressed river mussel) were endangered or vulnerable, rare to detect anywhere in France, and highly surprising to find in a human-dominated waterscape. A great new data point for the global river cleanup movement and the growing trend of human/wildlife coexistence in cities!
In Italy, four Bonelli’s eagles (Aquila fasciata) have been reintroduced to Tepilora Natural Park on the island of Sardinia, continuing reintroduction efforts that have kickstarted a new beginning for the species after they went locally extinct on Sardinia in the 1990s. More progress on the great rewilding of Europe!
Countries across Europe continue to install more and more solar power! Here are just a few highlights:
Spain installed a record-high 6.64 GW (6,640 MW) of solar in 2024, bringing the cumulative national capacity to 32 GW.
Croatia installed a record-high 397.1 MW (~0.4 GW) of solar in 2024, mostly on rooftops.
Romania installed a record-high 1.7 GW (1,700 MW) of solar in 2024, bringing the cumulative national capacity to almost 5 GW.
Greece installed a record-high 2.572 GW of solar in 2024 (up from just 1.59 GW in 2023), bringing the cumulative national capacity to 9.6 GW.
Great work!
Nepal
The village of Bahundangi in Nepal has become a model of human-elephant coexistence, using a spectrum of strategies to strategically supervise our subaltern sentient species. Like several other villages in the Indian subcontinent1, Bahundangi once suffered from dangerous and expensive incursions by Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) seeking to eat the rice and maize in their fields. Years of dedicated local conservation work have now established a safe equilibrium, with a shift from rice to tea as the primary crop reducing both elephant interest and water use. They’ve also adopted an electric fence, widespread beekeeping, and a community volunteer rapid response team that guides elephants away from residential areas. Superb work!
The widespread Asian small-clawed otter (Aonyx cinereus), the world’s smallest otter species, was recently spotted in the country of Nepal for the first time since 1839.
Brazil
Brazil is among the many middle-income nations worldwide now experiencing a boom in solar power! The country has now reached 52 GW (52,000 MW) of operational installed solar capacity (a majority of that being distributed rooftop-style solar!), and it’s already providing 21.4% of Brazil’s electricity-generating capacity. That’s likely to continue growing fast, as Brazil (like Europe) has become a major importer of solar panels from the cleantech manufacturing powerhouse that is China.
Offshore wind potential is also substantial, with President Lula da Silva signing a new bill in early 2025 to authorize the development of new Brazilian offshore wind farms. The Economist recently noted that the Brazilian port of Açu, developed for offshore oil drilling, is now seeing most of its business come from offshore wind enterprises and other new cleantech industries. A clean iron ore processing facility is on the way at Açu, and Brazil’s massive agricultural sector means it has the potential to someday become a leading producer of sustainable aviation fuel.
A pioneering reintroduction project in São Paulo state is using techniques similar to falconry to train baby canindé macaws (Ara ararauna, aka blue-and-yellow macaws) in independent free flight. The program’s first six “graduate” macaws were released in 2022, and all are still alive years later — even surviving a 2024 wildfire. Great work!
Under the presidency of Jair Bolsonaro from 2019 through 2022, the Brazilian government essentially encouraged illegal miners to invade the Yanomami indigenous peoples’ territory in the Amazon Rainforest, resulting in the Yanomami being persecuted by atrocious violence that has been widely described as a genocide. When President Lula da Silva took office in 2023, he sent the army and healthcare workers to protect and heal the Yanomami. Now, the Yanomami people are at long last on the road to recovery, with helicopters delivering medics and aid en masse, malnourished children nursed back to health, and villagers swimming and fishing in previously miner-polluted rivers. (Check out the full Guardian article). Excellent news!
Nigeria
A fast-spreading movement of farmers in Nigeria are using artificial insemination of genes from the hardy Brazilian Girolando breed to produce cattle that yield more milk and are more heat-resistant. This may sound like a pretty minor news item, but it could end up saving a whole lot of kids from starving: dairy is a major source of protein in impoverished Nigeria, an average Nigerian cow yields less than 1 liter of milk per day, and a Girolando yields around 20 liters per day. Undramatic-seeming improvements like this can add up to vital resilience to climate shocks!
United States
Despite the chaos of the ongoing constitutional crisis and the woefully self-destructive attacks on clean energy progress, there’s still great work being done across America to help build a better relationship between humanity and its biosphere.
The fast-growing desert state of Arizona is building new methods of coexistence for humans and burrowing owls (Athene cunicularia). The state of Arizona now recommends that any owls present be carefully translocated from any future building site, and local conservationists are fine-tuning designs of and practices for artificial owl nests to ease their relocation to new sites.
A new paper in Nature goes in-depth on the incredible potential of enhanced geothermal for America. Thanks to early pioneers like Fervo, enhanced geothermal in the United States is now expected to achieve market-competitive prices on both plant capital costs (how much it costs to build a project) and levelized cost of electricity (the price at which that project can sell power) as soon as 2027. And so far, this clean energy source appears to still have some bipartisan support, thanks in part to its use of very similar skills and technology to oil and gas drilling making it a perfect “off-ramp” for fossil fuel workers. If we’re lucky and smart, we might get a solar power-level exponential surge in a clean baseload power source across the next decade!
A recent report from the U.S. Energy Department has quantified the immense potential for floating solar development across America2. They found that just federally owned or managed reservoirs could host enough floating solar panels to power 100 million American homes — a big chunk of the entire grid’s requirements! Developing even a tiny fraction of this would be a big boost to U.S. energy abundance.
Activists with the Appalachian Rekindling Project in Kentucky have purchased land at the site of a former coal strip mine. They plan to rewild the area with bison and native plants — while simultaneously preventing a proposed prison on the site.
One family returning to their Altadena home after the recent California wildfires found a 525-pound black bear sheltering in their crawlspace. The state was called, and the bear was trapped, GPS-collared, given a welfare check, and released in Angeles National Forest. A small vignette of compassionate human/wildlife coexistence!
Researchers at the renowned Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have discovered two new antibody proteins that can help prevent severe malaria — potentially helping shape the next generation of mass-child-saving malaria vaccines3!
Modular housing company Mesocore is now selling their Advanced Dwelling Unit, a cleantech-powered one-bedroom home that can operate entirely off the grid. Each 5.4 by 7.3-meter home sports 14 solar panels and two building-scale lithium-ion batteries for a complete solar-plus-storage package, as well as a heat pump HVAC system, five insulated windows, and rainwater collection. These ADUs are entirely modular, mass-produced in a factory and delivered to the buyer by truck with the price starting at $120,000. They’ve already been evaluated to meet Florida state building codes, with availability in other states on the way soon. Excellent!
The state of North Carolina has launched its first-ever electrification incentives!
Minnesota has launched a state-level (and, critically, state-funded) green bank to fund clean energy and emissions reduction projects!
As of early 2025, the U.S. has over 50 GW (50,000 MW) of domestic American solar panel manufacturing capacity (up from just 7 GW in 2020!) meeting a 2030 target five years early thanks to the Biden-Harris Administration’s leadership with the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act!
Leading climate activist Bill McKibben recently announced (on his Substack) a plan for a global day of action (set for September 20-21 2025) to accelerate the adoption of world-transforming solar power, our best shot at stopping climate change.
In a call-back to the first Earth Day in 1970 and the rapid change it produced, this event will be called Sun Day. Notably, one major focus will be lobbying for state-level bills to removing permitting and regulatory barriers and make it as easy as possible to install new solar panels. In a world where we have a cheap, easily-installable clean energy technology that’s available for rapid deployment but is often held up by red tape or kneecapped by political nonsense, this is EXACTLY the kind of activism we need right now!
“If we’re very lucky, we’ll catch some of the magic that the first Earth Day caught back in 1970. Because we need change at that speed—remember, within 18 months a corrupt Republican president was forced to sign the Clean Air and Clean Water acts….
An example: Massachusetts is considering a law that would require approvals for solar panels on roofs within five days. That would make a huge difference, and if 50,000 people turn out across Boston it will pass the legislature the next week.”
— Bill McKibben
The team also created the AquaPV toolset to help understand the floating solar potential of specific reservoirs. Check out the ones in your area!
Thanks to reader
for sharing this news item with me — check out her Substack!
Lots of good news from all quarters. It's great to hear Brazilian efforts to increase their solar generation capacity. Floating solar arrays on reservoirs has a great utility. I always am a supporter of geothermal and Fervo's efforts. My state of Oregon has enormous geothermal potential. Can you discover what technology advances can promote small scale hydropower generation? We're used to thinking of enormous facilities like Hoover And Bonneville but why not have micro-facilities generating power from much smaller rivers?
Thank you so much for this compilation. I really need this kind of encouraging good news this week.