It’s Always Sunny, UN Ocean Conf, EPA Pro-Pollution Moves, 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:

I recently rewatched the “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” episode about climate change, called “The Gang Solves Global Warming”. If you have Hulu, I recommend it (season 14 episode 7), even if you’ve never seen the show. It’s brilliant and very LOL. Through the premise of a terrible heatwave hitting Philly, the gang tries to make a profit at their bar by defying city orders to conserve, and instead pumping up their A/C so people will come. As more bodies pile into the space, they can’t offset the heat and it becomes so hot, everyone strips down to their underwear but still parties. Dennis tries to get the crowd to take a break from dancing to cool the place down and to slow down the pace of drinking as they’re running out of booze, and announces that there’s plenty to go around if everyone would just scale it back. Nobody in the bar wants to listen – they refuse to stop dancing or to slow down their drinking – they want the max, and a riot ensues. As you can tell, one of the climate themes the episode illustrates is humanity’s overconsumption and absolute refusal to slow down growth or take a pause on resource-draining activities so that we can adapt to the changing climate and make everyone comfortable, not just the few. Other themes the show threads in through the gang’s usual antics are global south injustice, shaming, virtue signaling, and all around hypocrisy and selfishness, because the only way we solve climate change is together, but human nature in modern times doesn’t want that. Charlie adapting to the heat in real time by using garbage to make a cooler outfit is great – that pizza box hat (pictured above)! It’s a must watch.

Philanthropy At Work:

✊ The Women’s Earth and Climate Action Network (WECAN) International is organizing the Global Women’s Assembly for Climate Justice: Path to COP30 and Beyond. It’s a fully virtual 6 day event that’s free to join whenever you have some time to learn how grassroots and frontline women leaders are working to accelerate a bold and transformative path to a healthy and just world! It runs June 23-28. Sign up here.

🌊 Surfrider chapters scored wins in Florida and Oregon, proving grassroots power protects nature. In Florida, Surfrider helped pass the State Park Preservation Act, permanently protecting 175 state parks (including over 100 miles of coastline) from reckless development like golf courses, resorts, and yes, even pickleball courts. Meanwhile in Oregon, their “Beyond the Bag Ban” campaign led to the passage of Senate Bill 551, closing a major loophole by banning thick plastic checkout bags statewide. Two states, two major policy wins for clean coasts and wild places.

In Environmental News:

🌊 20+ new marine protected areas were announced but the ocean still needs thousands more. At the U.N. Ocean Conference in France, countries including Chile, Colombia, and Tanzania pledged to protect waters ranging from coral atolls to shark habitats, a step toward the global goal of protecting 30% of the ocean by 2030. But we’re far from there: less than 3% of the ocean is fully protected today, and it could take 85 new protected areas per day to meet the goal. Other topics discussed at the conference include harmful fishing practices, like bottom trawling, deep sea mining, and plastic pollution. As always, we need more action and less promising.

🌀 Trump plans to phase out FEMA. In a move that’s sparked widespread alarm, the Trump administration says it will dismantle FEMA after this hurricane season. But with an above-average storm forecast, fire season overlap, and the agency already down a quarter of its staff, it’s a recipe for disaster expansion rather than disaster relief. FEMA wasn’t perfect, but it brought critical experience and resources states can’t easily replace. Cutting it without a strong backup plan, when billion dollar disasters are increasing (yet no longer tracked by NOAA, again thanks to Trump) is just dumb. Though perhaps there’s an upside when certain disaster-stricken, climate-denying states are left high and dry (or wet) to fend for themselves and realize they need to vote differently next time.

⚠️ The EPA is moving forward on gutting climate and mercury pollution rules for power plants, our country’s second most-polluting source. We wrote about this a few weeks ago when documents about this disaster were reported, and now it’s officially been proposed and will likely be finalized by the end of the year. Gen E-approved nonprofit, NRDC, plans to sue, and there’s a 45 day period for public comments (tbd where to do so). In the meantime, if you want to see a list of all gross humans supporting this assault on both human and planetary health for short-term profits, just scan this press release on the EPA site. Note that the EPA puts “greenhouse gas” in quotes. (Big audible sign) The stats section of this newsletter further illustrates the absurdity of this rollback.

💡 Rural clean energy businesses want Congress to keep the IRA tax credits intact. From Alaska to Montana, small business owners came together last week to meet with lawmakers, urging them not to cut the clean energy tax credits from The Bill that aims to kill all the progress on clean energy and jobs. Losing them means fewer jobs, higher energy bills, and less energy security for low-income households. One solar business owner from Montana got emotional about having to lay off employees and the unsure future of his business. Talking about clean energy, he said “if we can get past our disagreements about the phraseology and realize that it’s electrons, watts, and amps. And it’s cheaper.” Amen.

💸 Companies are ditching their climate pledges. BP is drilling more oil, FedEx says it won’t hit its EV targets, and Coca-Cola and PepsiCo dropped their plastic reduction goals. Cowards. This latest wave of backpedaling shows voluntary climate action isn’t working, and never really was. Over 4k companies have made climate pledges, yet few have taken real action (Unilever is called out as one that does walk the walk). And emissions, plastic pollution, and waste continue to rise. This article suggests this moment of retreat could become a reckoning that pushes stronger government legislation forcing companies to take real climate action (uh not in this country right now!). But for that to happen, the companies themselves must ask for and support climate policies. In reality, most large companies make public pledges while backing trade groups that prevent the very policies needed. If you want to push your workplace towards real climate action, check out ClimateVoice, a nonprofit helping employees to galvanize climate policy action from their employers.

🐄 Methane-eating microbes can help dairy farms reduce emissions. Windfall Bio, a startup with funding from Amazon, just completed a successful test on a couple California diary farms, where its microbes reduced methane emissions from ‘manure lagoons’ by 85%. Methane is 80x more potent in its planet-warming abilities than carbon dioxide in the short term, and animal agriculture is responsible for a third of methane emissions. Now, we need this technology to scale, which will require helping farmers to bear the brunt of the cost. The good news is that these methane-eating microbes produce organic fertilizer as a byproduct, which farmers can sell for a profit.

🌎 Props to NPR for dedicating the past week to telling stories about climate solutions. Peruse their site and read a few of the many positive initiatives happening across the world, where real people are taking real action on the very real issues caused by the climate crisis.

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