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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Now our climate story of the week. We're doing a climate segment every week on The Brian Lehrer Show in case you didn't know that yet, because the climate changes slowly and headlines are usually grabbed by the things that move fast. We're committed to a climate segment per week on the show, we inaugurated that this year. One of the reasons maybe to become a member, but it doesn't get left out. That's the point so that it doesn't get left out as something that is so vital to everybody's future.

For today's climate story of the week, our guest is AJ Dellinger, politics and innovation writer at the website mic.com. In addition to documenting the ravages of climate change, which they also do, Mic has made it their mission to document progress that's being made as well. Positive initiatives that people, or countries, or sometimes companies are taking that could make an actual positive difference and not just be symbolic for the sake of image for the climate.

Some of the recent things that mic.com has highlighted, a court in India granted legal status to nature. It's like Citizens United, but for the earth. Another of their stories, 20% of energy in the United States is now coming from green energy sources. That still leaves 80% that isn't, but the 20% milestone is new. Used cooking oil from restaurants at the Dallas Fort Worth Airport is being used to repurpose into fuel for the airplanes. Apparently, they can fly on what your French fries didn't absorb, which I guess is a good thing. There are more. With that, we welcome AJ Dellinger, politics and innovation writer at mic.com. AJ, thanks for coming on. Welcome to WNYC.

AJ Dellinger: Thank you so much for having me.

Brian Lehrer: Let's just go through a few of those stories as examples of what you do or what you aggregate. A court in India granted nature legal status. What was the context for that?

AJ Dellinger: In this case, there were some challenges regarding India has experienced some of the ravages of climate change. They've been going through some extreme heat waves that have rendered a lot of food sources barren. It's been devastating for a lot of people in that country. This court case essentially deemed that nature has the same legal status as a human being.

Under this ruling, assuming that it stands, nature gets the same protections that a human would expect. That grants a lot of additional rights to the environment. It puts a new burden both on companies and the government to protect the environment and to protect the citizens of their country by actually addressing climate change and making sure that area remains livable and survivable for the people who are there.

Brian Lehrer: An interesting legal precedent coming from India. Sometimes the legal precedents from one country get used to establish legal precedents elsewhere, so that's so interesting. Next story, 20% of energy in the US is now coming from green energy sources. Is that certain types of energy, primarily like home heating, or electric vehicles, or anything else? Is that clear?

AJ Dellinger: That is in reference largely to the electrical grid across the country, which is now receiving about 20% of-- the electricity that it generates is coming from wind, solar, or hydropower. It's a pretty significant milestone for the country. It puts us on track to where our promises have been, both the Biden administration's promise as well as our promises under the Paris Climate Agreement. It's a pretty significant accomplishment and is actually ahead of schedule for where the US was expected to be.

Brian Lehrer: A rare example of being ahead of schedule on the climate goals. Next story, Portugal, you tell us, launched a massive floating solar panel park. A massive floating solar panel park. Where is this park located and how large is it?

AJ Dellinger: Sure. This is basically two large ships that have been filled with solar panels. They're about the size of four soccer fields that are in the largest water reservoir in Portugal. They'll just be essentially floating islands collecting sunlight and generating solar power. I believe it's estimated that they'll be powering about 1,500 households with that, which is not a huge amount by any stretch, but the company that launched it, Portugal's largest utility company, EDP, is on track to generate 100% of electricity via renewable energy sources, in part thanks to innovations like this one.

Brian Lehrer: Is Portugal's climate especially conducive to this kind of a setup or can this be replicated in waterways here or elsewhere?

AJ Dellinger: I would imagine it would be something that could be replicated elsewhere. I think for Portugal, it's essentially utilization of their space. The most effective way of setting up these solar panels was to put them in this water reserve, where they're going to be getting direct sunlight and able to convert that to electricity. There's no reason that other places can adapt this as well.

Brian Lehrer: Interesting. Next story, the US is successfully mitigating livestock methane emissions more than before. Remind us, how do methane emissions from agriculture affect global warming?

AJ Dellinger: Methane doesn't necessarily get the headlines that carbon gets because carbon stays in our atmosphere much longer, but methane burns much more intensely initially. I believe it's 87 times the intensity in the early bursts when methane is released. From agriculture, in particular, it often comes from livestock through, for lack of better words, belching and bowel movements for cows are a large contributor of methane. Being able to minimize--

Brian Lehrer: This is the biggest untold climate story, in my opinion. We're going to be doing a special on this later in the month. The US is successfully mitigating livestock methane emissions more than before. How so? Briefly.

AJ Dellinger: We've actually cut down on some of our livestock production. I think changing diets, as well as additional imports from other places, have helped with that. We're actually already at our target for 2030 on livestock emissions.

Brian Lehrer: Last story. I mentioned in the intro, as you reported on mic.com, used cooking oil from restaurants at the Dallas Fort Worth Airport is being repurposed into fuel for the airplanes. I don't know if I'm more encouraged or more afraid of putting my life in an airplane powered by the Crisco from my onion rings. Does that really work?

AJ Dellinger: [laughs] Yes. There's a conversion process that takes place to turn the cooking oil into a fuel source. They're not just emptying the fryers and pouring that right into the fuel tank or anything like that.

Brian Lehrer: Oh, good.

AJ Dellinger: Essentially, they have to add hydrogen to it to allow the combustion to take place that allows it to actually power the plane. It's not a 100% clean-burning fuel source, but it is much cleaner than burning fossil fuels.

Brian Lehrer: That folks is our climate story of the week. It's really an aggregation of good climate news stories, positive developments, encouraging developments, hopeful developments. Even in the face of so much failure, some modeling at very least, that mic.com aggregates in a feature each week to let people know some of the things that are actually being done to preserve the climate as they go week by week on that again.

Hopefully, that's a model for others to get inspired by, to build on, to advocate for things like that. AJ Dellinger is an impact reporter for mic.com. I think you had some impact with this series or are having some, so that's great. Thank you for sharing some of it with us.

AJ Dellinger: Absolutely. Thank you for having me.

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