The Stream, January 8, 2025: In German Forest, Tesla Factory and Water Protectors Face Off

Water lines snake across the Permian basin. Photo © Keith Schneider/Circle of Blue

YOUR GLOBAL RUNDOWN 

• Ecuador is at the forefront of a global hydropower reckoning, as drought and fluctuating water levels are calling the energy source’s reliability into question. 
• A nine-month “water forest occupation” on the outskirts of Berlin, Germany, came to an end in late November, as police evicted those who were protesting the water use and proposed expansion of a nearby Tesla factory.
• In Bhutan, the world’s only carbon-negative country, melting glaciers are threatening the safety and homes of alpine villages.
• According to new data analyses for 2024, global rainfall extremes — both highs and lows — were set with increasing frequency, a consequence of a changing climate.

To ease New Mexico’s freshwater burden, lawmakers are considering allowing the treatment of oil and gas wastewater for agriculture and other uses.

— Christian Thorsberg, Interim Stream Editor

Recent WaterNews from Circle of Blue

• Regulators Battle Oregon and Washington Farmers Over Limits to Farm Contamination — An effort to extricate Pacific Northwest states from mammoth pollution. 
• New EPA Federal Water Rules Put Chicago on Track to Replace All Lead Pipes Within 20 Years — Although the proposed regulations gave the city a deferred deadline of 40-50 years, the EPA’s final National Primary Drinking Water Regulation for Lead and Copper (LCRI) will put the city on an accelerated timeline. 

The Lead

More than 20 treehouses, some built nearly 100 feet above the ground in Germany’s Grunheide Forest, were raided in late November by German police following a lengthy, tense standoff between authorities and activists, Al Jazeera reports. Since last February, hundreds of people had formed a community and lived together in these trees, some for a few days and others for months. At the center of their efforts: a “water forest occupation” protesting Elon Musk and the environmental burden of a nearby Tesla gigafactory.

The gigafactory, the only Tesla unit of its kind in Europe, officially opened in March 2022. It spans 3,000 hectares and produces 4,000 vehicles per week. In doing so, the operation draws 63.5 million cubic feet of water each year, in one of Germany’s driest regions. Many in the local community — accustomed to water shortages, drought, and calls for rationing — are fed up with the richest man in the world’s access to local water reserves and his company’s raw metal extraction practices in the Global South, which contributes to groundwater pollution in countries including Congo.

“It looks like a forest occupation, but it’s really more of a water occupation because what we’re fighting for is the water,” one unnamed protester told Al Jazeera. “Of course, we are also fighting for this ecosystem, but the main thing we are fighting for is groundwater.”

There are currently plans to expand the factory by 100 hectares. This new size would see the production of one million electric vehicles per year.

This Week’s Top Water Stories, Told In Numbers

1 billion

The number of people who live in countries where more than half of their energy comes from hydroelectric plants, the New York Times reports. And yet, according to a 2022 study published in the journal Water, roughly a quarter of these hydroelectric dams face “medium to extreme risk for water scarcity by 2050.” Ecuador, which generates 70 percent of its energy from hydropower, has become a leading example of the source’s growing instability amidst fluctuating precipitation patterns and continent-wide drought. Daily blackouts of up to 14 hours — affecting electricity, internet, stop lights, and running water for entire neighborhoods — have disrupted the nation since September. President Daniel Noboa, who is wrapping up his re-election bid before a February vote, has pledged the blackouts will end soon, but energy experts warn that the current status quo, in the absence of a sudden deluge, could persist into 2026.

52 percent

The percent increase, compared to the year 2000, at which daily rainfall records were broken in 2024 around the world, the Guardian reports. Record lows, meanwhile, were set 38 percent more often. The data indicate a future of extreme deluges and droughts, a counterintuitive yet true narrative for many regions. This and more data is attributed to the Global Water Monitor’s 2024 annual report.

On the Radar

In Bhutan, the world’s only carbon-negative country, the Constitution requires that forest cover — which is currently around 70 percent — not dip below 60 percent. Environmental education is a staple in schools, and while driving is not encouraged, incentives for the purchase of electric vehicles, rather than gas-powered ones, are generous. But high above these forests, in the Himalayan mountains, even the nation’s dedication to conservation is doing little to slow the melting of their glaciers, a consequence of global warming. Huge glacial lakes are forming, France24 reports, “threatening to flood the villages located downhill.” Of Bhutan’s more than 500 glacial lakes, 20 are in a “critical state, threatening to overflow.”  

Christian Thorsberg

Christian Thorsberg is an environmental writer from Chicago. He is passionate about climate and cultural phenomena that often appear slow or invisible, and he examines these themes in his journalism, poetry, and fiction.