Whale Calves Sighted

– Wednesday, Dec. 4, 2024 –

Good morning! We’re diving into the North Atlantic right whale calving season with two one-ton babies, including one that arrived right on schedule off Sapelo Island. We also have news about energy-hungry data centers, as well as an update on the latest international climate talks.

Questions, tips or concerns? Send me a note at mary.landers@thecurrentga.org

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NEWS:ENVIRONMENT

First whale calves sighted

Whale watchers have welcomed the first two North Atlantic right whales calves of the 2024-25 season. Researchers from the Clearwater Marine Aquarium Research Institute saw “Nauset” and her approximately one-ton baby about 6 miles off Sapelo on Sunday. Nauset is 31 years old and this is her fifth known calf. Recreational boaters spotted the season’s first calf and its as-yet-unidentified mom off Cape Romain, SC on Nov. 24, as Emily Jones of WABE/Grist reports. With only about 370 individual whales remaining, these baleen whales are extremely endangered. Their habit of swimming close to shore puts them in harm’s way in the form of ships and boats running into them and abandoned fishing gear entangling them.

Federal, state and private agencies monitor these whales from boats and airplanes, alerting the public to the whales’ births and injuries. Calving season runs from mid November to mid April with most calves born in the near-shore Atlantic from South Carolina to Cape Canaveral, Fla. That puts the Georgia coast at the heart of the calving area.

Speed limits for vessels 65 feet or longer are in effect now to help protect these mothers, babies and occasional tag-along juveniles. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration urges smaller vessels to heed the speed limit, too. A proposed expansion of the speed limit to include these smaller vessels has been stalled by lawmakers, including the Georgia coast’s U.S. Rep Buddy Carter (R- St. Simons) who argues the slower speeds will be bad for recreational fishers as well as port operations.

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ENVIRONMENT: EXPLAINER

Data centers accelerate energy demand

AI-boosting data centers are eyeing Georgia, and if they build in the Peach State, Georgia Power expects to have to quickly triple its energy load growth to keep them running 24/7.

But clean energy advocates and other critics doubt that all the data centers expressing interest will end up in Georgia or that their energy usage will be as high as Georgia Power predicts, as Georgia Recorder’s Stanley Dunlap reports. There’s also concerns about the use of more climate-warming fossil fuels to crank up the power.

In 2025, the Georgia Public Service Commission will have to consider Georgia Power’s plans to produce more electricity, including the amount and the preferred method of generating it. Upping the stakes for the elected five-member commission, two PSC seats will be on the ballot in 2025: those of Commissioners Tim Echols and Fitz Johnson. A series of legal challenges have postponed PSC elections since 2021.

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Just one thing

This week’s tip for personal environmental action comes from reader Meaghan Walsh Gerard, who serves as communications and administrative director for the Ogeechee Riverkeeper.

“Adopt a drain (or two). When I’m out on my evening walk, I look to see if the storm drains are clear of litter and debris,” she wrote in an email. “If I can, I clear them. If it’s too much for me, I contact the city. It helps keep litter out of the waterways and makes sure drains can flow freely and mitigate flash flooding.”

Send “just one thing” you do as part of your personal environmental action plan to mary.landers@thecurrentga.org. We’ll publish our favorites and credit the contributors. Thanks!

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ENVIRONMENT: NEWS

Climate talks wrap up

Between the post-election news and pre-Thanksgiving preparation, it’s easy to have missed COP 29, the latest UN climate talks that took place in Azerbaijan through Nov. 24. Amid a “red alert” that the world is already on track to overshoot the goal of 1.5 C or 2.7 degrees F of warming, the talks failed to produce the financial commitment the most vulnerable nations wanted, as USC Associate Professor Shannon Gibson writes in The Conversation. Still, the climate movement has momentum, she writes:

“There are commonsense business reasons to push climate efforts forward, starting with the fact that clean energy is now cheaper than fossil fuels in much of the world. Nearly 1 in 5 vehicles sold in 2023 globally were electric. In the U.S., heat pump sales are beating gas furnaces for the third straight year.”

Also noted

• The Georgia Supreme Court on Monday docketed and scheduled for April three cases related to the Sapelo Island zoning referendum, which a judge halted after voting was already underway in September. In McIntosh County v. Harold Webster, Judge et al., the county filed a motion Monday to transfer the case to the Court of Appeals. In the other two cases — Barbara Bailey et al. v. McIntosh County; and Harold Webster, Judge et al. v. McIntosh County, no filings have been made.
• McIntosh County spent an additional $51,013 on legal fees in September and October in two cases related to controversial zoning on Sapelo Island, pushing its total in legal fees to over $200,000. The county has suggested in court that the estimated $20,000 cost of holding the referendum was a waste of taxpayer money.
• The Georgia Environmental Protection Division has granted a “Finding of No Significant Impact” to Effingham County Board for proposed $47 million expansion of its wastewater treatment facility in Guyton, including a new discharge to the Ogeechee River. An American Rescue Plan Act grant is expected to cover $41 million in costs. See the link above to provide public comment.

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