F You CO2, Rewilding Farmland, EPA Endangerment Era, and more!

Hey climate heroes! Welcome to The Climate Roundup, where we round up the change, er the news about climate and the environment. As part of the Gen E community, we thank you for making climate action part of everyday life. (Reading this newsletter counts!)

Sign up for The Climate Roundup weekly newsletter here

Good Out There:

💨 Watch this one minute ad with Samuel L. Jackson talking about wind farms for a Swedish energy company. He subtly throws shade at Trump’s idiotic hatred for wind energy. We need more of this from the clean energy industry. More communication, more education, more about how net positive it is for literally everyone and everything on Earth…except for the bank accounts of fossil fuel executives and their shareholders. But as they say, no bank accounts on a dead planet, so the choice is clear.

Philanthropy At Work:

🌾 Mad Agriculture has partnered with Whole Foods and major food brands to kick off a project they describe as “reconstructing native ecosystems through a 1,000 acre biodiversity highway across American farmland”. What that means is, they are working with farmers to rewild portions of their farmland with native plants versus mono crops fed with synthetic fertilizer, in order to attract biodiversity and help restore the soil for a healthier ecosystem.

🦬 Also from Mad Ag, I recommend reading this article from their Regenerative Bison Project Manager. She beautifully uncovers the impact of language on ecosystems, providing an Indigenous perspective of how the colonial settler language labeled certain plants, animals, or insects as ‘pests’ or ‘invaders’, results in killing and eradicating instead of asking ‘why are they here in first place?’, or ‘what does the land or the water want us to know?’. It’s an enlightening read.

News You Need To Know:

🚨 The biggest and most disturbing news of the week comes yet again out of the EPA, as they announced they are moving to revoke their only rule that allows them to limit planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles, power plants, and oil and gas wells under the Clean Air Act, thereby eliminating EPA’s ability to mitigate climate change. The rule itself is called the “endangerment finding”, and since 2009, it has given the EPA legal authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions in the name of protecting human health. But this EPA has shown us that it does not intend to honor its mission of protecting human health. It is only concerned with eliminating our environmental protections for clean air and clean water in order to deregulate the economy. This is a big deal. It will be challenged in court, but even with the mountains of scientific evidence supporting the fact that greenhouse gases endanger human health, we do not live in logical times, and the administration’s denial of science runs deep…Supreme Court deep.

🤯 To coincide with the EPA proposal to revoke the endangerment finding, Trump’s Department of Energy issued a report intended to downplay the harms to human health and welfare caused by the climate crisis. It’s authored by 5 known climate-denying scientists. The proposal to revoke the endangerment finding cited this DOE report over 24 times, an obvious tactic to further weave their web of climate denial across the US government, and to contend that by regulating GHG emissions, we harm the economy more than we harm public health, and therefore we should not regulate emissions from industry.

💨 In better news, New York is now the first state to require new buildings to be all-electric. That means no dirty, polluting fossil fuel used to power on-site heating and cooking. Instead, newly constructed buildings will use heat pumps and energy-efficient electric appliances, which will lower energy costs for homeowners, while reducing outdoor and indoor air pollution – a significant cause of respiratory and cardiovascular issues that cost the state billions in healthcare. Buildings are New York State’s largest source of emissions.

⚡️ Now, to make the all-electric building mandate good on its intention to eliminate dirty energy emissions, the electricity must be powered by clean energy sources. To help with that in coastal NYC, we look to a rare bright spot for wind energy in these current times, where the Empire Wind offshore wind farm is moving forward. Work to install the cable that will transport power from the turbines to 500K NYC homes began this week. I can’t wait for these middle fingers to sprout up along the horizon and flip off the clean energy-haters (see Samuel L. Jackson video mentioned way above).

🚫 But sadly we won’t see much more activity in US offshore wind any time soon. In another blow to the industry, Trump revoked approvals for 3.5M acres of ocean that had been previously designated for fast-tracking offshore wind projects. And the Interior Department this week said it is considering halting all wind energy projects on federal land and water. Further, a Texas-based foundation has organized fisherman in Massachusetts to try to kill a wind farm in development off Martha’s Vinyard. Texas trying to stop wind energy development in other states is rich, considering the state is the leading producer of wind energy in the country.

✊ Finally, a movement of hope is growing within corporations, including Amazon, Pinterest, Google, and Microsoft. Employees are organizing within to demand climate action from their employers via fossil-free 401K’s, decarbonizing supply chains, and ending the aiding and abetting of the fossil fuel industry with products and services that help them warm the planet. These employee coalitions are sharing resources and case studies with each other to better navigate and impact corporate activity. Some early leaders of these movements have left the companies to start independent organizations dedicated to helping these internal climate activists. We are in the early days, but bravo to these brave souls fighting for what’s right, right where they are. Remember, everyone has a voice, and we all have the power to influence those around us. We must never stop fighting for a safe and healthy planet in whatever way we possibly can. If you work at a company, consider standing up for climate – find resources here.

Better Business

🍨 Ben & Jerry’s continues to be a model of how a business can operate with respect to people and planet. To proactively reduce emissions from their business activity, the ice cream manufacturer diverts their food waste away from the landfill, where it will emit planet-warming methane as it decomposes, and instead, they send the waste to a nearby plant which turns that waste into electricity. To see how this process of using a digestor to capture methane and turn it into electricity works, watch this PBS news segment. Thanks to Ben & Jerry’s, their waste now powers over one thousand homes in Vermont, rather than further degrading the atmosphere.