Extra! Extra! 12/1 ❤️

Hi, all, and happy Sunday!

I hope you’ve all had a terrific and restful week.

Here’s a slightly abbreviated version of your Sunday good news list. I’ve been traveling for a week, so it’s been a bit harder than usual to keep up with my inbox, which is where I find the bulk of the items I post here. I’ve also been off of social media, which is where I find the rest of them.

These, however, are the ones I culled in the rare moments when I did open my laptop—enjoy! There are still a lot of them!

As always, I’ve popped an 🪓 next to every item that everyday activists like you helped make happen, and a 🪣 next to every one that got done by lawmakers or administrations that we helped elect.

Be sure to share this list, so that everyone can see the good things that happen—sometimes quickly and sometimes slowly—when we work for them.

Read This 📖

Here’s a poem sent in by subscriber Sue M. — it’s lovely.

How Can We Not Try to Save It?

Only this world—
not some unknown chance
of life somewhere else,
only this here, this life,
this improbable chance
to be steward of meadow
and desert, mountain and cliff,
this chance to inhabit this
acre, this continent, this planet,
to know this frozen pond,
this slender stream, this dried grass,
this herd of mule deer, this darkness
that comes when our planet spins,
this light that arrives
on darkness’s edge.
Only this chance to sing
of this world, this disappearing
world, this world of emergence,
this world with its stars
and its bones, its prickles
and petals, its sweetness
and ache, this world
with its hopelessness
and, oh dare I say it,
its hope.

—Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

Celebrate This! 🎉

Gavin Newsom said California will offer electric vehicle subsidies even if Trump kills the $7,500 federal tax credit. 🪣

Spain’s leftwing government has approved “paid climate leave” of up to four days to allow workers to avoid traveling during weather emergencies.

A federal judge dismissed a right-wing lawsuit seeking access to Wisconsin voter rolls.

The White House announced that three Americans who were held in China for years will soon return home to the US. 🪣

The EPA proposed to strengthen limits on emissions of nitrogen oxides (NOx) from most new, modified, and reconstructed fossil fuel-fired stationary combustion turbines, reducing exposure to dangerous air pollution for nearby communities. 🪣

A federal court restored an Oregon tribe’s right to hunt and fish in their old hunting areas after decades of advocacy by tribal leaders.

The White House touted a new milestone on Monday: $1 trillion of private sector money put toward clean technology and manufacturing — investments officials say are a result of Biden-era legislation. 🪣

In a win for voters, a state court blocked parts of a Missouri law that criminalized voter engagement activities and the distribution of absentee ballot applications. Pro-voting groups argued the law was unconstitutional.

Something I’d missed on November 5: state Rep. Monroe Nichols became the first Black Tulsan elected as the city’s mayor. His district, of course, was demolished a century ago in the Tulsa Race Massacre and rebuilt from the rubble. 🪓

The Palm Springs City Council voted unanimously to approve a settlement offer for the surviving former residents and descendants of a Black and Latino neighborhood that the city burned to the ground 60 years ago to make way for commercial development. 🪣

Maine became the latest state to sue major oil companies including Exxon Mobil and BP and accuse them of deceiving the public about the role fossil fuels have played in causing climate change. 🪣

The NOAA announced plans to support seven multi-year projects to advance climate resilience in remote Alaskan communities. 🪣

The Biden-⁠Harris Administration proposed expanded coverage of anti-obesity medications for Americans with Medicare and Medicaid. 🪣

The U.S. and France successfully brokered a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Lebanon. 🪣

The DOE announced that Georgia is launching its federal Home Energy Rebate programs, supported by the Inflation Reduction Act, to bring down costs for energy efficiency improvements and clean energy upgrades. 🪣

The USDA Forest Service announced an investment of more than $265 million to conserve nearly 335,000 acres of ecologically and economically significant forestlands across the nation in partnership with states, thanks to funding from President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act. 🪣

The USDA also announced that it is investing more than $256 million in loans and grants to support more than 1,100 clean energy projects in 40 states through the Rural Energy for America Program. 🪣

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development announced the final round of approximately $30 million in awards through the Green and Resilient Retrofit Program. This marks the successful delivery of more than $1.43 billion from President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act to support energy efficiency and protect residents and affordable housing from natural hazards in more than 4,700 homes in 42 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. 🪣

The University of Texas System announced it will expand its free tuition program for lower-income families to include all families making $100,000 or less a year.

A pack of endangered gray wolves has been spotted living in Lassen Volcanic National Park in California — a first for the park in recorded history.

In Montana, a new fund has just been established to help farmers and ranchers implement virtual fencing to help reduce physical fences and protect native wildlife and grasslands.

Planned Parenthood saw a 1,200 percent rise in vasectomy appointments scheduled on November 6, the day after Trump won.

Corporate America is investing in clean energy at record levels.

One bright spot from an otherwise not-so-great COP29 conference is that 25 countries pledged to bring no new unabated coal power online in the future. ¹

The nonprofit Trust for Public Land is set to return 31,000 acres purchased from a timber investor in Maine to Penobscot tribal management. It will be the largest return of its kind to an Indigenous tribe in U.S. history, without any easements or other restrictions. 🪓

A crucial election deadline came and went on Tuesday and brought what appeared, at last, to be a firm conclusion: Oregon Democrats will have supermajorities in both the state House and Senate next year. 🪓

CA Congressional candidate Adam Gray is now ahead by almost 200 votes—or a bit more, if you believe rumors on Threads I can’t substantiate. The final outcome will be announced this week but it’s looking good for another California flip! 🪓

Boston is working with its youth to install green roofs on bus shelters. 🪣

With all the votes finally counted Run For Something candidate Rebecca Kassay won on Long Island, flipping a seat red to blue in the New York state assembly. YOUR DONATION DOLLARS HELPED MAKE THIS HAPPEN! 🪓

A federal judge warned Rudy Giuliani that “on pain of contempt” he must comply with requests from the Georgia election workers he defamed to surrender his assets squirreled away in an increasingly controversial storage unit on New York’s Long Island.

Ohio officials allowed petition gathering to begin for a proposed "Voters Bill of Rights" state constitutional amendment. 🪓

John Fetterman offered his office bathroom to Sarah McBride, the first transgender member of Congress, who has been targeted with a bathroom ban. 🪣

The week after the election corresponded with the biggest spike in account deactivations on X since Musk’s takeover of the site. Many of these users have fled to Bluesky: The Twitter-like microblogging platform has added about 10 million new accounts since October. 🪓

1. Talking Climate with Katharine Hayhoe