Free Solar Down Under, A New Forest Fund, Skiing In Utah, 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:

🤥 It’s a troubling reality that 20% of the US adult population and 37% of adults under 30 get their news from social media (Pew), which is largely responsible for today’s scale and spread of misinformation and conspiracy theories that undermine and even prevent progress and good in the world. Enter Joe Rogan, a very powerful media influencer responsible for spreading lots of climate denial. Yale’s Climate Communication center breaks down the tactics in his playbook, like interviewing fake experts and cherry-picking data.

Somewhat related and on the topic of news and media, Heated analyzed all climate-related stories from Bari Weiss’s news outlet, The Free Press, to show how the new editor-in-chief of CBS News has reported exclusively on the scientifically contrarian side of the climate crisis, and “tends to publish climate pieces that reinforce polluter-friendly framing.” Why? I don’t know, as I expect better from Bari. Coincidentally, the climate sleuths at Heated again reported last week that CBS News had fired 4 out of the 5 people who made up their climate news desk, which was heralded by many as the best climate reporting from network news. Eyes wide open, people.

Philanthropy At Work:

😎 The Honnold Foundation announced 17 new and continuous grantees to receive funding in their fall cohort. What these projects all have in common of course, is the installation of clean solar energy, which helps power these communities that need it. These projects “are powering maternal health clinics in Colombia, solar training for youth in Standing Rock, off-grid farms and workforce development training for formerly incarcerated people in Ohio, Indigenous-led conservation efforts from the Amazon to Alaska, and so much more.” Take a scroll through the list, and I guarantee you will be inspired.

Environmental News:

🥵 The UN World Meteorological Organization reported that 2025 is on track to be the second or third hottest year on record, which would mean the past three years have been the three hottest years on record. The past 11 years since 2015 have also been the hottest on record. That’s a trend. It means the science is correct and that we are firmly living in the climate crisis era, albeit the beginning of it. Lucky for us, as we still get to enjoy weather and living conditions that will someday be reminiscent of ‘the good old days’. Not lucky for future generations.

🌳 In Brazil, COP30 is underway, where most global leaders are together again to discuss their commitments to mitigate and adapt to the climate crisis. As the host country, Brazil has prioritized the protection of the Amazon Rainforest as its central goal of this year’s summit, and to that end, Brazil’s president, Lula, has launched an initiative called the Tropical Forest Forever Facility (TFFF). It is different from past attempts to keep forests standing, in that it avoids the bogus world of carbon credits, and instead uses a blended finance model. The TFFF will invest the fund’s money in a diversified portfolio, which will use its returns both to repay investors and to pay countries and their communities to not cut down their forests. Lula wants to raise $25B at COP and leverage that into $125B by bringing in private investors. He will likely fall short, but so far there is support for this new forest fund, with Norway leading the charge by committing $3B to start.

😎 Starting next July, Australians in three states will receive three hours of free electricity every single day in the afternoon, made possible by the abundant power from the sun. Rooftop solar has exploded in Australia, where it is much cheaper to install than here in the US. Because of this, the country has so much of the stuff, they are giving it away for free in an effort to shift some of the power demand to off-peak times. This could be a model for the future. The smart future.

🫸 Republican and business groups are pushing back on some of Trump’s stupid moves. The EPA seems to be reversing its decision to cut the Energy Star program, aka that blue label on appliances to let consumers know they are more efficient. Yeah, obviously people want more efficient appliances, and cutting the program made no sense for anyone. Then, trade groups, including The American Petroleum Institute and the Business Roundtable, submitted public comments to the EPA’s decision to end corporate greenhouse gas reporting. They do not support that. That’s because companies doing international business likely have to do some form of climate reporting anyway, plus companies earn revenue through credits from certain decarbonization efforts, and they need to report their GHGs to qualify. So these groups want the reporting uniformity of the federal mandate that’s been in place for the past 15 years. I also see this as an admission from these business groups that monitoring and operationally addressing climate-related risks are here to stay, whether we have a climate-denying president or not.

Skiing With Climate Change:

⛷️ Ski resorts all over the world are struggling to survive as climate change shortens their season and reduces their snowpack and snowfall. A recent study says US ski resorts are losing $252M annually due to human-caused climate change. That’s not the case in Utah. Apparently Utah’s mix of geologic features make it more climate resilient than its neighboring states. And the ski industry there is fully taking advantage, with Deer Valley making the largest ski area expansion in US history, and most other resorts in the state expanding and upgrading. Utah also has lax regulation around water rights, which allows resorts to make fake snow with abandon. Can’t imagine that’s going to last. But 50 years from now, guess we’ll all be hitting the slopes in the same place, where they’ll have to change their slogan from “The Greatest Snow On Earth” to “The Only Snow On Earth”.