no. 129: Nearing the end

Hey fam,

It's the last month of the year!

A few more weeks to hit that 2024 reading goal, mark off your to-do's, and end the year on a high note.

This past week was Giving Tuesday, and a great suggestion from my manager inspired me to donate $2000 of earnings from a past collaboration to 4 nonprofits that our community cares about. I asked for recommendations on Instagram... and received 184 different organizations & causes!

I wrote each one down to reference for the future, but the winners this time around were Prospect Park Alliance, Grow NYC, Doctors Without Borders, and Outdoor Alliance. Feel free to check them out if you're looking to donate, and I encourage you to look for local community organizations as well!

Enjoy the rest of this week's good news...

Friday, November 29

🔥 Six new solarpunk building proposals in California will use excess heat waste from data centers for the heating and hot water in 4,000 fully-electric apartments, which will lower costs for residents while increasing efficiency and circularity by reusing what’s already being created (Adele Peters|Fast Company)

🐺 Ethiopian wolves are now the first known large predator that’s also a pollinator, as researchers observed them drinking the nectar of the red hot poker flower which covers their face in pollen that transfers as the endangered species feasts on another flower, further showing the importance of saving these animals (University of Oxford|Phys)

🇦🇺 Over 300,000 invasive rodents were successfully removed from a cloud forest ecosystem on an Australian island, allowing wonderful endangered plants, insects, and birds to bounce back as scientists and locals fight to reduce climate impacts to keep this progress going (Emma Siossian|ABC)

^btw, this fantastic article is filled with stunning imagery of the cloud forest!

🦃 And today’s community win comes from boopusbulpus who teamed up with people in their state to give out 350 Thanksgiving meals to those who needed them.

Monday, December 2

What happens to energy jobs if the US (and the world) transitions to renewables? Today, I collaborated with Climate Power to answer this question. If you're interested, check it out on Instagram and/or TikTok!

*This was a paid collaboration just for social media, but I wanted to include it here as well to fill in today's gap and provide more interesting content that you may like :)

Tuesday, December 3

⛏️ Norway paused deep sea mining in their waters before it started to protect some of the last pristine ecosystems on Earth, in a huge win for the planet plus 32 countries and countless people opposing this, especially given that better e-waste recycling could provide more than enough of the minerals we need (Rob Hutchins|Oceanographic)

🐢 1,000 endangered animals were recovered from an illegal trafficking operation in Thailand, cared for, and then brought back home to Madagascar including spider and radiated tortoises, and ring-tailed and brown lemurs, with most successfully making it home while authorities combat this mistreatment (Chris Lau and Kocha Olarn|CNN)

💨 A new lightweight urban wind turbine designed to work in less windy areas has been unveiled and said to be seven times more efficient and available next year, thanks to AI helping test 2,000 iterations showing potential benefits of responsible AI use (Prabhat Ranjan Mishra|Interesting Engineering)

🗑️ And today’s community win comes from tayra_arrt who’s picking up trash they find in their community and buying food in bulk to reduce plastic packaging.

Wednesday, December 4

🏞️ Brown University has returned 255 acres of land back to the Pokanoket tribe in Rhode Island, the ancestral home of Metacom who was the tribe’s leader, after members set up an encampment in 2017 and reached an agreement to recognize the Indigenous land owners after 340 years (Steve LeBlanc|AP)

🌱 A new study shows that manatees play an important role in dispensing seeds across the Amazon by transporting hundreds of seeds between habitats via their droppings which increases plant diversity, further proving the importance of protecting these vulnerable mammals (Tiago Mota e Silva|Mongabay)

💸 $125 million in debt has been effectively forgiven in Barbados in exchange for investments that will improve water management and food security in something called a debt-for-climate swap which refinances debt in vulnerable nations to be used for environmental resilience and action (Virginia Furness|Reuters)

🚴 And today’s community win comes from nermalndafferent who’s in their third year of commuting by bicycle even through the winter cold and snow and seemingly loving it.

Thursday, December 5

Project Drawdown was my first introduction to climate solutions, and in a full-circle moment, I teamed up with them! They created an interesting docuseries called Drawdown's Neighborhood, sent it over to me (which I promptly binge-watched), and I created a video to highlight a few of these underrepresented climate heroes & promote their show. If that sounds interesting, check it out!

*This was a paid collaboration just for social media, but I wanted to include it here as well to fill in today's gap and provide more interesting content that you may like :)

Bonus stories

⛴️ The largest scientific ship in Spain is set to map the unexplored deep ocean,

🌞 Switzerland is adding solar panels to roofs and highways,

✌️ Indonesia will retire all coal plants within 15 years.

One last important question

As the year starts to wind down and I think about 2025, I really want to focus on building our community for more discussion, action, and impact. If you're a part of another community that does something you like, or if you have ideas on how we can continue to grow this one, please reach out to me at jacob@jacobsimonsays.com and let me know! Thanks, fam.

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