Extra! Extra! 8/20 🙌🏼

Thanks to Jay Kuo for this graphic.

Hi, all, and happy Sunday!

We’re experiencing a bit of everything here at my house today—heavy rain from Tropical storm Hillary, an earthquake, and a bug that’s got my husband laid out and Mj just recovering. But despite all of this I’m feeling super good after reading the below list of all of the excellent, amazing, and hopeful stuff that happened this week. It’s been another good one!

Let’s celebrate our accomplishments, share them with others, and then get ready to help make more happen! Because THAT is how we win.

Thanks for all you do, folks. You are the heroes in this story, and don’t ever forget it..

Read This 📖

This article about the rise of “climate dads” made me very happy, although Mike (my husband, who is the ultimate climate dad) can’t join them because he’s not on social media. Still, wonderful and hopeful piece!

Celebrate This! 🎉

In the first ruling of its kind nationwide, a Montana state court decided Monday in favor of young people who alleged the state violated their right to a “clean and healthful environment” by promoting the use of fossil fuels.

Conservation groups won a fight to get more endangered red wolves released into the wild, a victory that will hopefully help the species rebound.

The police chief in Lansing, Mich., has publicly apologized after his department was widely criticized over a viral video showing an officer handcuffing a 12-year-old boy during a search for a suspected vehicle thief.

Stanford University scientists have invented a new kind of paint that can keep homes and other buildings cooler in the summer and warmer in the winter, significantly reducing energy use, costs, and greenhouse gas emissions.

Across California, a patchwork of food prescription programs are being tested, and they’re working!

A group of U.S. scientists say they have repeated their landmark energy feat — a nuclear fusion reaction that produces more energy than is put into it. This time, they say the experiment produced an even higher energy yield than one in December that got international attention for making a major step forward toward the long elusive goal of producing energy through fusion.

Some of America’s poorest communities are landing clean energy projects worth billions—thanks, Inflation Reduction Act! This outcome is a direct result of incentives in the bill.

Illinois is the first state to pass a law that protects children shown on influencers’ social media accounts, ensuring they’re paid for monetized content and preventing exploitation.

The 2023 Women’s World Cup has set attendance and ticket records, with the average daily crowd outpacing previous tournaments by the thousands.

A ballot measure legalizing recreational marijuana qualified to be on the November ballot in Ohio!

Gov. Tony Evers is calling for Wisconsin’s false electors to be “held accountable” for their plan to cast the state’s electoral votes for Donald Trump in the last presidential election.

The Inflation Reduction Act and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law could save Americans up to $38 billion on electricity costs over the remainder of the decade, the Energy Department projected in a new report. 

A new initiative from the Department of the Interior will help bring electricity to the nearly 17,000 tribal homes in the U.S. that were found to be without it last year.

Donald Trump was indicted again. This time in Georgia.

A new poll shared exclusively with Semafor finds that Donald Trump’s legal troubles could prove fatal in a general election.

A former fundraiser for New York GOP Rep. George Santos, Samuel Miele, was charged with wire fraud and aggravated identity theft for allegedly impersonating a Kevin McCarthy staffer.

Explosive growth in solar power means most EU countries will hit their 2030 renewable energy targets ahead of time, new data shows, fuelling optimism on efforts to bring down global emissions.

India's greenhouse emissions rate dropped by a faster-than-expected 33% in 14 years as renewable energy generation rose and forest cover increased.

General Motors announced that all of its electric vehicles will have bidirectional vehicle-to-home (V2H) charging capabilities by model year 2026.

Suicides decreased by 8.4 percent among 10-to-24-year-olds last year, according to provisional data released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Public-school students in Massachusetts are set to get free lunch and breakfast thanks to a new 4% tax on people's earnings above $1 million.

Making history, the VMAs nominated all women in the Artist of the Year category for the first time ever. The nominees span multiple genres and include Taylor Swift, Beyonce, Doja Cat, Shakira, Karol G, and Nicki Minaj.

Boston’s mayor (whom some of us postcarded for!) just banned the use use of fossil fuels in new construction and renovated municipal buildings. The city owns over 16 million square feet of property, so the order makes a big stride toward its goals of decarbonization and electrification.

A California school district just rolled out 30 new electric school buses for the new school year. The change will save the Modesto School District over $250,000 dollars in fuel costs annually, lower carbon emissions, and result in cleaner air.

Run For Something had more big election wins last week!

Building groups dropped their lawsuit against new Washington building codes requiring heat pumps.

Twenty-five percent of all vehicles sold in California during the second quarter of 2023 were electric or otherwise zero-emission.

A Federal District Court judge dismissed the lawsuits brought by the State of Utah, the Blue Ribbon Coalition, and others challenging President Biden’s restoration of the boundaries of Grand Staircase-Escalante and Bears Ears National Monuments! 

Under S.B. 119, enacted in Alaska last week, Alaska will now issue free photo IDs upon discharge to people who’ve been incarcerated. 

The San Diego Unified School District has passed a resolution to be fossil fuel free.

Ohio groups have started collecting signatures for a state constitutional amendment to have a citizen-led bipartisan redistricting commission draw the state’s congressional and legislative maps.

New polling from the Alliance for Justice Action Campaign finds 78% of respondents want Congress to take action to impose a code of ethics and create greater accountability for the U.S. Supreme Court justices. Four in five voters (81%) say that the selection of Supreme Court justices will be an important voting consideration for them in 2024. Good!

China will recycle more of its old solar panels and wind turbines under a government program announced this week.

Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt is building an ambitious new organization to tackle scientific challenges with the help of AI.

Mayor Eric Adams’ administration is launching a sweeping program to wipe out potentially hundreds of millions of dollars in medical debt that New York City patients owe to hospitals and other health-care providers.

The Inflation Reduction Act, the largest climate bill in U.S. history, turned one this week. Studies have pointed to significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions that will be achieved as a result of the IRA, and there are already tangible successes.

In Iowa, two female members of Bitches Get Stuff Done, an Iowa pro-abortion-rights PAC, effectively cut short Ron DeSantis’s first campaign stop of the day by chanting “Ron DeFascist” and “pudding fingers” on a megaphone while ringing cowbells.

On Tuesday, Fairfax County Public Schools said it won't enforce or adopt recent policies from Gov. Glen Youngkin targeting transgender people in schools. Fairfax County Public Schools is not the first school district to reject the policies, but it is the largest.

Portland, OR’s plan to stop gun violence is up and running, as the city approved the final contracts and funding for violence interrupters – basically, trained community members who try to prevent shootings.

The White House released a new interactive story feature on invest.gov (click the Stories link above the map) that highlights stories of how the Inflation Reduction Act and Bidenomics are making a difference for Americans in all 50 states and U.S. territories.

The Environmental Protection Agency has a new top cop who is promising to “hold polluters accountable.”

The “religious-liberty training” ordered by a federal judge earlier this month as part of a contempt order in a religious-discrimination case brought against Southwest Airlines is on hold for now, under a temporary order issued by the judge on Thursday.

The Biden campaign is planning an “aggressive” media blitz during the first GOP debate.

Thanks to a $20 million grant from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act—also known as the bipartisan infrastructure law—the Pittsburgh International Airport, which serves as a primary airport for millions of people across Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia, is getting a $20 million upgrade.

The Ocean Cleanup, a nonprofit environmental engineering organization, saw its largest extraction EVER by removing about 25,000 pounds of trash from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.