Hannah From ‘Hacks’, Breaching 1.5, Dr. Bronner’s, 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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In Pop Culture:

👏 Actress and comedian Hannah Einbinder of the sharply funny and highly recommended show ‘Hacks’, used her recent acceptance speech to call out the evils of the fossil fuel industry, with a focus on the fallacy of plastic recycling. The industry’s dark work to cover up the climate crisis for decades and to keep their dirty product thriving while knowing it’s responsible for the demise of ideal conditions on Earth is something that none of us should accept. As Hannah says “they need to pay to clean up the mess that they made”.

Philanthropy At Work:

🌳 Due to climate change, wildfires burn hotter, hindering a forest’s ability to regenerate on its own. In these cases, human intervention is needed, and this is one of the services of the National Forest Foundation. After a severe fire in Oregon’s Umpqua National Forest, NFF is replanting the area with a mix of native conifer trees plus Oregon white oak seedlings. White oaks were decimated in the area due to logging, but this effort aims to grow their populations while also maintaining genetic diversity, thanks to the establishment of an oak acorn orchard in the national forest and scientists studying their genes in a local research lab.

In Environmental News:

🥵 Scientists measure Earth’s temperature in 20 year averages. Last year for 12 consecutive months, we breached the 1.5°C limit of warming agreed upon in the Paris Agreement. Now, two new studies find that we are likely or virtually certain to be in the 20 year period of temperatures above 1.5°, meaning last year wasn’t an anomaly. By relentlessly burning fossil fuels, we’ve warmed the atmosphere to disastrous levels. This should be unsettling. And it is inexplicable that the most powerful humans on Earth right now are dead set on burning this place -and many of its species – to the ground.

👩‍🚒 Fire season is now two months longer in the US thanks to climate change, and it’s pretty clear we need more, not less, wildfire-trained firefighters for this grueling work that’s lasting longer. Well, Trump’s federal cuts are impacting our federal firefighters, as their hiring is now frozen just ahead of the start of fire season. He literally is trying to burn it all down.

💸 Much is uncertain at the federal level as Trump’s assault on anything climate-related aims to freeze and undo all the smart and right moves made under Biden, in particular the billions in funding made to companies cleaning up industries and creating new jobs. Last week, one of the unjustly frozen loans made it through the cracks in a glimmer of hope. A Montana biofuel refinery is back on track to receive the $1.4B loan it secured during the final days of the Biden era. The refinery will use the money to expand and produce sustainable aviation fuel. This is the first data point for a ‘clean energy’ project loan moving forward after the Trump funding freeze. Let’s just note the facts: it’s in a Republican state, and while biofuels should be less polluting than fossil fuels, the devil is in the details in the variable ways in which they’re made. Biofuels do cause pollution, a Trump must. And look, we’ll take it. We need emissions reductions across the board. But I’ll be watching for trends

Squeaky Clean

🧼 Dr. Bronner’s just earned a spot on my very short list of companies with the utmost integrity. They announced they are pulling out of the B Corp marketing-machine due to weak-sauce standards that allow companies to greenwash. From my personal discerning perspective, Dr. Bronner’s is a straight-shooting brand that walks the walk of social and environmental responsibility. Sure they’ve done the B Corp certification thing and use its badge on packaging, but they don’t hide behind it. It’s just an easy win for them to get credit for things they’ve always done, while appealing to consumers who use the B Corp label as a filter to buy ‘better’ products. CEO David Bronner said “for a consumer-packaged goods company, it’s got to be mostly about how your product is produced, not what you’re doing in your headquarters”, meaning you better know what’s happening all throughout your supply chain, and it better be ESG-responsible. Anything less ain’t gonna cut it.