Fat Bears, MLB Green, RIP Jane, 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!)

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Pop Culture:

⚾️ In honor of postseason baseball, let’s acknowledge the MLB for their annual awards to environmentally responsible teams across four categories of sustainability. In the entertainment industry, where people are paid to play, whether it be sports or acting or whatever, the top prize or performance is awarded a symbolic token of achievement, often a trophy. So it makes perfect sense to apply this carrot methodology to doing the right thing, environmentally. Yes, that absolutely deserves recognition! That’s why I love this effort from MLB to recognize and award ballparks *willingly* making efforts to reduce their water usage, divert waste from landfills, be energy efficient, and try innovative new programs. Like how the Seattle Mariners reduced water usage in the park by 26%, and how the Colorado Rockies have a stormwater management program in place and piloted a reusable cup program. Bravo, MLB and teams. Now make a bigger deal about it, will ya?

Philanthropy At Work:

🪶 WECAN was hard at work during Climate Week to advocate for female indigenous voices and protecting Mother Nature (read about their impressive work here). This statement shows their unwavering commitment to their very clear stance on the single most important action humans must take in order to mitigate climate change – stop burning fossil fuels. “Throughout our time at Climate Week, we recognized the deep need to continue advocating for climate justice frameworks and analyses. As the climate crisis worsens, governments and businesses continue to delay real action by promoting greenwashing mechanisms and business-as-usual market-based approaches. We stand firm in stating that there is no addressing the climate crisis without cutting emissions at the source and taking on extractive economic policies. We cannot buy and sell our way out of this crisis. We need transformative systemic change and renewed paradigms of action grounded in community-led solutions, Indigenous and human rights, gender equity, racial and economic justice, and Rights of Nature.” It’s important to be reminded that there are still people and organizations that continue to do what’s right, regardless of whoever holds power or whatever the newest shiny tech thing is. Next stop, COP30 in Brazil next month.

Environmental News:

🦍 We lost an exceptional one last week. Jane Goodall was an extraordinary human. At 91 years, she was still touring the world giving talks most days of the year to inspire others that their individual actions matter and about the importance of conservation. She died on one of these tours, ahead of a scheduled talk to students in California. I love this quote of hers from an interview last year, about how she maintains the energy to keep going hard: “I feel I was born with a mission. Right now, that mission is to give people hope. So when I get exhausted, I look up there and say: ‘You put me in this position, you bloody well help me get through the evening'”. Rest in peace, you beautiful soul, and thank you for your amazing contributions to humanity.

🦦 In 2022, the federal government laid out a plan to restore sea otter populations that were decimated by hunters on the west coast, because it turns out these adorable creatures are critical for healthy, resilient marine ecosystems. They love to feast on invasive species, which in turn helps a region’s biodiversity thrive. The price tag for the project was $43M, but as Trump cuts funding for everything that matters for those of us who love living on a healthy planet, a nonprofit has stepped in to raise the funds and make this work happen. Bloomberg has the story.

🚫 The White House announced it will cancel $7.6B in funding for previously approved grants largely meant to strengthen the grid and expand transmission lines. Many news outlets pointed out that the majority of these cancellations target blue states that did not vote for Trump. This point is supported by a post from the Trump lemming running the Office of Management and Budget, listing the blue states that will be harmed by this political act. Some red states will be affected as well. Our nation’s electricity grids need major upgrades, which desperately need funding. This is yet another step backwards.

⚫️ And right in line with keeping our country stuck in the past, the Trump admin will spend $625M of taxpayer dollars to keep existing coal plants open, despite the overwhelming trend of plant closures. Trump will also open 13M acres of federal land for coal mining, and reduce royalties for companies extracting coal on federal land to further incentivize keeping the industry alive. The economics of coal haven’t been attractive for quite some time, and over the past 20 years, coal went from generating about 50% of our electricity needs to 16% in 2024. And to really twist the knife, the EPA will remove both air and water pollution restrictions on coal plants to help reduce their costs in dealing with all the pesky toxic pollution they create.

🤦 The EPA announced it will ease off the timeline in a bipartisan law meant to ‘quickly’ (in US government terms) phase out the use of hydrofluorocarbons, a class of compounds used for cooling in refrigerators and AC units. The predecessor to hydrofluorocarbons was the culprit depleting our ozone, but as the world now knows, its replacement aggressively contributes to global warming, at a rate up to thousands of times worse than CO2. There is even an international treaty in place for countries to phase it out. The Trump admin is messing with this to seem pro-business and falsely making claims that people won’t be able to cool their homes in the summer. But even Big Fridge & Big AC don’t want this, as they’ve already been preparing their supply chains for the transition.

️⛪️ Maybe the Pope can pray us out of all this. Or at least influence the religious right to stop worshipping the devil in office and start realizing that the miracle that is our home planet is under siege (so far that doesn’t appear to be the case as they responded to his address on climate change by calling him their version of the worst insult: a woke pope). Last week, ten years after Pope Francis let the world know how serious he was about climate action with the release of Laudato Si, a significant document that incorporated teachings on climate change into the Catholic Church programming, Pope Leo XIV, held an address on climate change. He made it known that he stands by Francis’s beliefs on climate change and that the right thing to do is take urgent action to mitigate the human-caused crisis.

Fat Bear Week:

🐻 The voting for Fat Bear Week concluded last week, with the broken-jawed(!!) “32 Chunk” reigning supreme. Fat Bear Week, aka what I will now call any stretch of my own indulgent eating, is an annual bracket-style showdown of fatness for resident bears in Alaska’s Katmai National Park. The bears are professionally photographed over several months to track their progress as they fatten up ahead of hibernation, and the public votes along the way. How can this not make you smile?! And what a great idea to engage people in nature’s fascinating happenings. Here’s wishing Chunk a full jaw recovery in the peaceful winter months.