Roanoke Group Sierra Club

09/21/2026

Lieutenant Governor Ghazala Hashmi’s Energy Costs Listening Tour, and our final stop is in Roanoke this Thursday, September 24, from 6:30–8:00 p.m. at the Harrison Museum of African American Culture, 2502 Melrose Ave NW, Roanoke.

Meet our Lt. Gov. Hashmi and share with her your views on the state regulation of data centers. Be aware that Virginia is loaded with them already, more than any other state or nation, over 500 already! They've broken ground alrealdy in Botetourt Co. for a Google one and Roanoke Co. may allow another one on 111 acres between I-81 and I-581. Time for action is now.

09/06/2026

New York Times, Sept. 6, 2026

July was the warmest month on record in the contiguous United States, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. In Philadelphia, the city’s marquee parade to celebrate Independence Day was canceled as temperatures hit 103 degrees Fahrenheit. Fireworks displays were canceled from Colorado to Delaware because of excessive heat and the risk of fires. And at Liberty Lake Day Camp in Bordentown, N.J., counselors modified outdoor sports on days when the heat approached triple digits. Instead of basketball games, campers just practiced free throws. Instead of a full pickleball match, they dinked in the kitchen line. With lots of water breaks.

Warm weather is expanding the range of disease-carrying pests. Milder winters mean that fewer ticks and mosquitoes freeze and die, and tick species are expanding north into new territories. (This summer has been particularly bad.) But they are not the only pests that are spreading with the warmer weather. Jellyfish have swarmed beaches as ocean temperatures rise. And tiny biting pests known as chiggers are also becoming more prevalent across the northern U.S.
With climate change creating stronger, more powerful rainstorms, communities around the country have been dealing with sudden downpours and flash floods. Waves of extreme weather swept across America this summer, unleashing torrents of water from Colorado to Massachusetts. In the past week alone, a deadly flash flood hit the Grand Canyon, and Tropical Storm Edouard drenched parts of southeast Texas.

Sad to say, this is the new normal. With global temperatures continuing to climb as human activity warms the planet, scientists say that more intense heat and extreme weather — and everything that comes along with them — are all but guaranteed.

08/28/2026

March with your Roanoke Group Sierra Club in Roanoke's annual Labor Day Parade on Sept. 5, 2026. We will gather on Campbell Ave. at the Municipal Bldg. at 11 AM. You are welcome to bring a sign or just enjoy walking with us behind our banner. For more information, contact Dan Crawford at [email protected]

08/15/2026

h/t Bob Egbert

"xAI scores just 6 out of 100 on Climate Power's clean energy tracker, nearly 10 times dirtier than the next-worst AI firm, Oracle.
Amazon tops the “cleanest” ranking at 68 points, even as it builds a Texas gas plant projected to become the single biggest source of power-related emissions in the U.S.
Amazon, Microsoft and Google together emitted 19 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent last year, roughly as much as a third of France.

"Big Tech companies are quietly moving farther and farther away from their decarbonization goals. Back in 2019, Amazon pledged to become carbon neutral by 2040, thereby setting a goalpost ten years ahead of the Paris climate agreement in a show of dedication to becoming a leader in decarbonization. The next year, in 2020, Google and Microsoft upped the ante when each pledged to become carbon-free by 2030. Now, just six years later, those companies are heading in the opposite direction, seeing their emissions balloon by double-digit increments thanks to hyperscaling of energy-hungry data centers to power their artificial intelligence ambitions."

xAI ranks as the dirtiest AI firm on a new emissions tracker, while Amazon, Microsoft and Google's data centers emit as much as a third of France.

08/04/2026

Excerpt:
"In Part One of this Contemplation (see: Website Medium Substack), I attempted to lay out the foundational components of humanity’s hydrocarbon predicament by looking at the geologic, energetic, and systemic realities. I asserted that hydrocarbons are not just one of a variety of factors influencing our journey, but the most important material resource upon which we have constructed a global, industrialised civilisation of enormous complexity. I tried to clarify what peak oil actually means and how it is not reflective of the peak-demand narratives that most people, but especially economists, suggest–a storyline that obscures the geologic reality that peak oil is. The technological salvation narratives that promise to save us from our master resource predicament have been examined and found wanting. Declining energy return on investment was explored and linked to archaeologist Joseph Tainter’s thesis regarding the collapse of complex societies. The conclusion of the above is somewhat sobering: our complex societies have been constructed via a finite resource that is beginning to decline in availability and with this reality will come challenges beyond perhaps anything humanity has yet encountered in its short timespan on the planet."

Peak Oil and the Architecture of Collapse, Part 2

07/16/2026

We treehuggers know what the Earth's Greatest Enemy is! FREE movie, 7 PM, Saturday, July 18. Sign up! From CODEPINK.

🔊JOIN CODEPINK and bring Earth's Greatest Enemy Screening to You! 🎬 It is imperative we push this film to new audience NOW! Please share with family and friends!

07/08/2026

DON'T FORGET THAT THE ROANOKE CLIMATE CRISIS WATCH WILL BE HELD ON THIS SATURDAY, JULY 11, 2026

Market Building on Campbell Ave, 11 AM to NOON

Next month, CCW will return to meeting on the first Saturday, August 1.

Join us!

06/27/2026

NO CLIMATE DEMONSTRATION ON JULY 4, WE'VE MOVED IT TO JULY 11. JOIN US!

06/11/2026

This Saturday, June 13, 2026, we'll have our monthly Climare Crisis Watch. I was moved to this, 2nd, Saturday of the month to allow 3 members of the leadership to attend the blade signing celebration of the Rocky Forge Wind Farm on North Mountain in Botetourt County. Please join us Saturday at 11 am for as long as you are able and willing to stay. We end the demonstration for clean energy and climate action at noon.

05/31/2026