The Climate Roundup 9.17.23

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!)

Sign up for The Climate Roundup weekly newsletter here

In Pop Culture:

Octavia Spencer starred alongside Apple CEO Tim Cook in a promotional video as part of the company’s iPhone event this week. The video updated viewers about Apple’s progress towards environmental goals. With the way the SAG strikes are delaying movie releases, this could be Octavia Spencer’s second Oscar performance!

GETTING DOWN TO CLIMATE BUSINESS:

🛢️ Would it surprise you to learn that oil companies are still up to their old tricks? New reporting shows that in recent years, Exxon continued to internally cast doubt on the science of climate change and the need for action despite publicly admitting that fossil fuels are to blame. It’s been doing this since the 1970s, but these new reports of continued denial are significant because Exxon “is a defendant in multiple state and local lawsuits that accuse it of misleading the public about climate change and the dangers of fossil fuels.” Oops! FOIA’s gonna come for ya!

✊ Climate protests took place around the world on Friday, from the Philippines to Sweden to the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Over a million people are estimated to have shown up for the protests demanding an end to burning fossil fuels. Their specific demands were for governments to stop giving enormous subsidies to oil and gas producers. If you’re reading this email the day it goes out, you can join approximately 15,000 protesters in New York City to demand an end to fossil fuels. They say it’s hard to make friends as an adult… but you got thousands of ’em right there!

⚖️ Of course, young people aren’t just taking their climate fight to the streets… they’re also taking it to court. Specifically, the European court of human rights, where 6 youths are attempting to compel 32 countries to take significant climate action. Their legal fees were crowdfunded by people around the world, who agree with the claimants that the continued proliferation of fossil fuels is decreasing quality of life in a way that rises to the level of human rights violations. Their lawyers will make their case by presenting evidence that the world is on track to reach dangerous levels of warming within these young people’s lifetimes. I wonder if any of that evidence is going to be… you know… *gesturing generally at everything going on right now.*

🚨 With the recent spate of weather-related disasters around the globe, the World Economic Forum is now pointing to Japan’s early warning system as a model for climate adaptation. This includes “three dimensions of successful early warning system implementation: technology, institutions and community engagement at different scales and levels.” These systems include smartphone apps, improved coordination between authorities and communities, and a people-centric approach to warning systems. The data looks promising. Apparently, “with just one day’s notice, early warning systems can curtail damages by a staggering 30%,” and “In comparison to the 1950-60s, such approaches led to a 97% reduction in deaths and a 21% reduction in total economic damages (as a share of GDP) from natural disasters in 2020 in Japan.” Compared to the elementary school fire drills my teachers regularly ignored, this seems like a real step up.

💰 The Rockefeller fund announced it will devote $1 billion to fighting climate change. That’s definitely a lot of money, but as a reminder, John D. Rockefeller was an oil baron and all the fund’s money is due to fossil fuels. So you know. They kinda owe us.

⛺ After realizing thousands of tents end up in landfills every year after music festivals, an English woman founded a new startup called EnviroTent that creates biodegradable, recyclable tents made out of cardboard”. Call me old-fashioned, but when I was growing up, we called those “forts.”

SOME STATS:

16: INCHES OF RAINFALL IN 24 HOURS THAT RESULTED IN LIBYA’S DEVASTATING FLOODS (NPR)

$2.7T: NET-ZERO EMISSIONS BY 2050 WILL REQUIRE THIS AMOUNT IN ANNUAL INVESTMENTS (AXIOS)

The News You Can Use

If you simply can’t get enough of my jokes about climate news, I’ve got a new YouTube channel you can check out. But don’t worry, the newsletter’s not going anywhere… I just can’t quit you.