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Sparks

Can Plankton Ferry Carbon to the Bottom of the Ocean?

Britain’s Natural Environment Research Council begins three teeny experiments.

Copepods.
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Scientists at England’s University of Exeter believe that masses of drifting crustaceans “may help to store enormous amounts of carbon in the ocean,” at once sucking CO2 from the atmosphere and slowing climate change, the BBC reports. Britain’s Natural Environment Research Council has funded three projects to investigate the idea that the small, H.R. Giger-looking creatures, known as copepods or zooplankton, can absorb significant amounts of carbon.

“Don’t be fooled by their size,” said University of Exeter professor Daniel Mayor. “These tiny but mighty life forms play a crucial role in regulating Earth’s climate by moving carbon out of the atmosphere and shunting it down into the deep ocean where it says for hundreds of years or more.” Dr Adrian Martin, of England’s National Oceanography Center, added, “The need to understand how the ocean stores carbon has never been stronger and we know that marine life plays an important role.”

The forthcoming research recalls the work of Running Tide, a Maine start-up that hopes to use kelp to similar ends. As Heatmap’s Robinson Meyer wrote in The Atlantic last year, kelp “absorbs a huge amount of carbon through photosynthesis. [It] could then be harvested, disposed of, or allowed to naturally drift to the bottom of the ocean.” Along with an array of other possible techniques, it seems that the ocean — and the living things within it — could play a key role in the fight against climate change.

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Sparks

Trump Will ‘Deal’ with Wind and Solar Tax Credits in Megabill, GOP Congressman Says

“We had enough assurance that the president was going to deal with them.”

Donald Trump.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

A member of the House Freedom Caucus said Wednesday that he voted to advance President Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” after receiving assurances that Trump would “deal” with the Inflation Reduction Act’s clean energy tax credits – raising the specter that Trump could try to go further than the megabill to stop usage of the credits.

Representative Ralph Norman, a Republican of North Carolina, said that while IRA tax credits were once a sticking point for him, after meeting with Trump “we had enough assurance that the president was going to deal with them in his own way,” he told Eric Garcia, the Washington bureau chief of The Independent. Norman specifically cited tax credits for wind and solar energy projects, which the Senate version would phase out more slowly than House Republicans had wanted.

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Sparks

Majority of North Carolina Voters Want to Keep the IRA, Poll Finds

The state’s senior senator, Thom Tillis, has been vocal about the need to maintain clean energy tax credits.

A North Carolina sign and solar panels.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

The majority of voters in North Carolina want Congress to leave the Inflation Reduction Act well enough alone, a new poll from Data for Progress finds.

The survey, which asked North Carolina voters specifically about the clean energy and climate provisions in the bill, presented respondents with a choice between two statements: “The IRA should be repealed by Congress” and “The IRA should be kept in place by Congress.” (“Don’t know” was also an option.)

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Green
Sparks

The Trump-Elon Breakup Has Cratered Tesla’s Stock

SpaceX has also now been dragged into the fight.

Elon Musk.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

The value of Tesla shares went into freefall Thursday as its chief executive Elon Musk traded insults with President Donald Trump. The war of tweets (and Truths) began with Musk’s criticism of the budget reconciliation bill passed by the House of Representatives and has escalated to Musk accusing Trump of being “in the Epstein files,” a reference to the well-connected financier Jeffrey Epstein, who died in federal detention in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.

The conflict had been escalating steadily in the week since Musk formally departed the Trump administration with what was essentially a goodbye party in the Oval Office, during which Musk was given a “key” to the White House.

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