Ted The Environmentalist, Climate Court Updates, & Bison Can’t Catch A Break

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In Pop Culture:

🦬 Admittedly, I didn’t know much about Ted Turner, who died last week. I knew he founded CNN and Turner Classic Movies, so I pegged him as a media guy and moved on. But wow was I missing out on knowing about a role model in philanthropy and environmentalism. Here’s what I’ve learned since his passing. He gave $1B, the largest ever charitable gift at the time, to help found the UN Foundation, which helps support the UN in tackling the world’s biggest problems. He also founded several other foundations: The Turner Foundation’s mission is to protect and restore the natural systems – air, land, and water – on which all life depends. The Turner Endangered Species Fund’s tagline is “Save Everything”. The Captain Planet Foundation was created to engage young people to be problem solvers for the planet and was started in tandem with the popular animated series, “Captain Planet and the Planeteers”, that he co-created. Turner Renewable Energy invests in clean energy projects, and he was a big advocate for transitioning away from fossil fuels and adopting emissions-free power. He was one of the largest private landowners in our country, responsibly stewarding his 2M acres. Those are just some examples of his commitment to making our world and planet a better place. Ted was also a founding signatory of the Giving Pledge, which encourages the world’s wealthiest people to give away most of their money to charity during their lifetimes. He appears to have done a stellar job. I look forward to learning more about this man, and hope he can serve as an example to other financially successful people alive today. Our world needs it. Rest in peace, Ted.

🥳 And a happy birthday to Sir David Attenborough, who turned 100 on May 8th. His creative expression of his love for our natural world has been an enduring, priceless gift to millions of people and several generations. It is us who have been touched by the gift of his life.

Philanthropy At Work:

✊🙇 Women’s Earth and Climate Action Network (WECAN) not only attended the First Conference On Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels, but was involved in the planning leading up to it, offering their expertise on implementing a phase out of fossil fuels and a just transition. They represent key voices, with an emphasis on wise female Indigenous voices, in shaping a clean energy future that is fair and bright for us all. You can read their full debrief here.

☀️ The Honnold Foundation released its 2025 Impact Report, and ended the year pledging $4.2 million in grants to more than 35 projects owned by local communities across 20 countries. They also expanded their capacity to help frontline communities by creating an open-source nonprofit resource guide and held workshops on strategic planning, fundraising, and data management so that the communities can better manage their new solar installations and the benefits that new energy bring to their communities.

Environmental News:

🦬 Trump is moving to remove bison herds from federal land in Montana so that cattle ranchers can degrade the land instead, saying “federal grasslands where the animals grazed should go to livestock being raised for food, not bison largely enjoying their right to roam.” This Times story highlights a nonprofit, American Prairie, that buys ranch land to restore it to the prairie lands which once blanketed parts of the American West, providing a place for bison to, yes, exercise their right to roam. Like bison, these delicate prairie ecosystems were pushed to the brink of extinction, and in the case of grasslands it’s largely due to industrial agriculture, including cattle ranching, converting the land to other uses. Conservationists and Native American tribes oppose this pro-industry move. They are up against ranchers who say things like this: “We have to understand that progress and time march forward. Bison just don’t fit on the landscape anymore.” Ted Turner would not like this, he loved bison.

🎣 America has a damn dam problem: there are too many, and they obstruct nature’s flow, among other environmental damages. But efforts to remove dams across the country are increasing, and last year saw the most dams removed in our history. That’s a good thing for public safety, too, since the average age of our country’s dams is 60 years old. It’s now more likely that it’s cheaper to tear them down than repair them. There are 92K regulated dams blocking our river flows, with hundreds of thousands more unregulated. Only 3% of them provide electricity, and the rest were engineered for irrigation, water storage, or to create swimming holes. Undam and let our rivers flow!

👨‍⚖️ Six years ago, the state of Minnesota sued oil companies and the industry’s main trade group for violating the state’s consumer protection laws by lying to the public about what they knew about their products causing climate change. Big Oil has found ways to delay the the case from going to court, and now, Trump’s Department of Justice is attempting to kill this case, and many others across the country, arguing that state efforts to sue oil companies are trying to federally regulate greenhouse gases, which, they say, is not for state courts to decide, and that to hold oil companies accountable would threaten energy affordability and national security. Even for successfully passed climate superfund laws in Vermont and New York State, Trump is suing those states to block enforcement of the laws, which require oil companies to pay for the past damage caused by fossil fueled extreme weather disasters. Additionally, there is a bill in Congress now called the “Stop Climate Shakedowns Act”, brought by Republicans that aims to shield the oil industry from ever being held accountable for the planet-warming damage they’ve caused, similar to the untouchable firearm and tobacco industries. Similar shield laws have already passed in Utah, Oklahoma, and Iowa. The point is, a lot is happening in the courts, and we could likely see some groundbreaking decisions soon that whichever way they break, will have enormous impact on the future of our planet.

👨‍💻 ”In their latest sustainability reports, Meta, Alphabet Inc.’s Google, Amazon and Microsoft said their carbon emissions went up 64%, 51%, 33% and 23%, respectively, compared with benchmarks predating the first release of ChatGPT in late 2022. Microsoft singled out ‘growth-related factors such as AI and cloud expansion’ as reasons behind the surge in emissions.” That pretty much sums it up, per Bloomberg. Big Tech companies were the climate leaders in the business realm, but this is what happens when markets self-regulate. They don’t. We can only reduce emissions with forced governmental regulation.

🇩🇪 Germany is investing nearly $6 billion in its heavy (and hard-to-abate) industry sector to help them decarbonize their operations. Steel, cement, and chemical manufacturers will be the beneficiaries of the financial help to upgrade to cleaner technology.

Just Look Up