no. 121: Climate Week is over... now what?

Welcome to October, 2024!

Just three months left in the year. Ready to make them the best ones yet?

As things have calmed down over the past week after the insanity of New York Climate Week, I wanted to give you a quick recap of my experience.

Starting with Saturday, September 21st: I attended and spoke at AY Young's 958th concert powered entirely by renewable energy called the Battery Tour, where I was able to tell audience members why it's important we tell stories of progress and highlight people improving their communities, which was received with lots of nods and cheers!

On Sunday: I co-hosted an amazing dinner with my friend Wawa, Support + Feed, and Meta, which was put together intentionally with a fresh veggie station instead of goodie bags, name tags on seed paper, an arts & crafts section, and so much more! Hundreds of climate creators, activists, and friends came to Planta in Brooklyn, where all the leftover food was donated to free community fridges. Krystal from Sustain Frame (who helped organize it all) put together a great recap if you want to learn more!

On Tuesday: Hope Hydration highlighted me on an ad in Times Square, and I spoke in a panel with some other inspiring environmental communicators at the Green Jobs Pavilion hosted at the main event center of the week!

On Wednesday: I attended a voting event and several others at Hope House, where Rolling Stone showed up to take pictures and apparently I was front and center after Bill Nye the Science Guy!

The next few days were a lot of happy hours, networking events, catching up on sleep, and seeing friends, before ending things on Saturday at the Marketplace of the Future with one last time speaking, this time about communicating renewable energy projects to the public.

And that's some of the highlights! It was a whirlwind, but truly inspiring to see so many people dedicating their week to protecting the planet, and figuring out the best way to get there. We have a long way to go, but it's these people that inspire and empower me to keep moving forward.

And now, onto the show:

Progress from Monday, September 30

In honor of the last day of September, 2024, let's do a little recap of some of the top stories of the month.

The largest dam removal in US history was completed, allowing the Klamath River to flow freely for the first time in 100 years, marking a huge win after decades of fighting for indigenous rights and salmon populations with habitats in the area (Lucy Sherriff|BBC; Debra Utacia Krol|USA Today)

The Ghost Orchid, declared extinct in the UK in 2009, was rediscovered by a dental surgeon, who’s keeping the location of this unique flower a secret, and unlike most plants, it has no leaves and doesn’t photosynthesize but instead gets nutrients through fungi beneath the soil (Lucy Purdy|Positive.News; Megan Shersby|BBC Wildlife)

Solar energy has grown so rapidly this year that it will beat last year’s installations by 29% thanks to how accessible and affordable the clean energy source has become, now tracking to generate a quarter of the world’s electricity by 2030 (Euan Graham & Nicolas Fulghum|Ember)

The oldest known humpback whale called Old Timer was spotted for the first time in a decade, identified by the flukes on his tail which are unique like fingerprints, while citizen scientists are uploading whale photos to an open source platform called Happywhale to help with conservation (Emily Anthes|NYT)

Progress from Tuesday, October 1

55 people got a free day at the spa in exchange for cleaning up 899 pounds of litter in Yosemite National Park, adding to the 1.2 million pounds of trash that have been collected in an annual cleanup called the Yosemite Facelift for volunteers to preserve and protect the stunning park (Kamrin Baker|GoodGoodGood)

Our food could have far less chemicals thanks to new machines that scan crops with cameras to detect weeds to precisely target their herbicides which could reduce both costs and environmental impact from chemical runoff (Michael Hirtzer|Bloomberg)

All plastic bags will soon be banned in Californian grocery stores after the mayor just signed a new law that fixes the previous loophole allowing thicker plastic bag options to still be sold, continuing a growing trend of choosing reusable items instead of single-use ones (Cristen Hemingway Jaynes|Ecowatch)

And today’s community win comes from elliefox whose new friends helped cover the cost of her cat’s surgery which was successful and is now safely recovering at home

The end of the coal era

It’s truly the end of an era, because the world transformed in 1882 when Thomas Edison built the first coal power plant to light up the streets of London, England.

Humanity was changed forever, having access to energy and opportunity like never before, as coal rapidly soared to fulfill 95% of the nation’s energy demand.

But 142 years later, we have better options, and since coal is the dirtiest fossil fuel, the UK has officially turned the page to a new chapter by shutting down their last coal station.

Meaning the nation that led the game and was the first to burn coal for public power, is now leading again as one of the first to stop.

Back in 2010, renewables accounted for just 7% of their power, but today that’s up to over 50% – thanks to cheaper prices, better tech, and people like you and I demanding we protect our planet and implement these solutions which helped push through legislation that forces cleaner energy sources.

And the closing of this last plant–built in 1967 and generating enough power to brew 21 trillion cups of tea–is a monumental sign that the age of fossil fuels is over, and the age of renewables is here.

What's your take?

What happens when an Indigenous tribe gets their stolen land back?

32 years ago, the Ashaninka tribe regained control of their area of the Amazon rainforest when the Brazilian government officially recognized their territory.

Yet they re-inherited a land that had completely changed.

Loggers had torn down the forest, a cattle farm run by settlers degraded the area and employed locals in horrible conditions, and any connection with nature was almost completely gone.

But when the outsiders were forced to leave, the Ashaninka quickly got to work.

They set up a governance system focused on self-sufficiency and collective good for all their people, they replanted mahogany and fruit trees alongside medicinal plants, they implemented healthier techniques to live in harmony with the land, and they developed relationships with neighboring communities to work together on enhancing education and stopping invasions.

They were so successful at restoring life back into the land that a $6.8 million grant project was created to spread their ways and help safeguard another 1.5 million acres of the Amazon.

So if we want to protect our planet, more Indigenous rights is an absolute must.

Progress from Friday, October 5

The subway trains in Barcelona are actually creating energy when they brake by converting that friction into electricity that feeds back into the train which creates a third of their power needs while also powering the station and electric vehicle chargers since summer (Natalie Donback|Grist)

In the past decade, Australia has had astonishing numbers of solar panels put onto the roofs of homes and businesses where one in three homes now creates their own power, generating twice as much as gas while being paid off in about 5 years thanks to electricity bill savings (Adam Morton|The Guardian)

Record numbers of loggerhead sea turtle nests have been recorded in Greece after 25 years of conservation including marine parks, protective legislation, and public education, thrilling conservationists as they push the government for more action on climate, pollution, and overfishing (Helena Smith|The Guardian)

And today’s community win comes from debbiesue1111 who’s actively rewilding an area in their backyard to make a positive difference.

Bonus stories

🤩📸 The most incredible photos you'll see today, courtesy of the Ocean Photographer of the Year

🔋🚗 Fully electric cars in Norway now outnumber gas-powered cars

📉💨 Some agencies predict that 2024 is/was peak global greenhouse gas emissions

This newsletter was written by Jacob Simon. 700,000+ people are in our community replacing dread & fear with hope & action across Instagram, TikTok, Threads, and now YouTube. You can say hi on LinkedIn, or by emailing jacob@jacobsimonsays.com