Did anything good happen in July?

Hey fam,

I'm going on my first fully offline vacation in years!

I'll be spending the next two weeks with my family on a safari. By the time you're reading this, I'm already on my way...

Despite being slightly nervous to not post for the longest period of time since I started this work, I'll be back before you know it... refreshed and ready to elevate more stories of progress than ever before.

Take care of yourselves, and talk to you in two weeks!

Monday, July 28 (watch)

👻 Ghosting is now illegal in Ontario, Canada for job applications, meaning companies will be legally required to tell a candidate their status within 45 days of their interview instead of just never responding, starting in 2026 (Ontario gov)

🐍 The world’s smallest snake called a Barbados threadsnake was rediscovered after being lost to science for 20 years, which is a tiny blind snake the size of a spaghetti noodle, found on an expedition in the forests of Barbados which will help create a plan to protect them (Liz Kimbrough|Mongabay)

🧑‍⚖️ It's now officially illegal for a country to ignore the climate crisis, per an undivided ruling in the largest case that the highest court in the world called the International Court of Justice has ever heard, ruling that protecting the environment is a human right and investing in fossil fuels is likely illegal per international law (Isabella Kaminski|The Guardian)

🌷 Community win: NOM NOM Boris started a rooftop garden and learned from their mistakes to grow more wildflowers.

Tuesday, July 29 (watch)

🦌 The widest wildlife crossing ever made is now halfway done in Colorado, called the I-25 Greenland Wildlife Overpass which will cover nearly an acre across six lanes of highway and reduce wildlife collisions for species like elk, deer, and pronghorn by 90% (CDOT)

🌞 The Guinness World Record for the largest solar panel mural was broken by the Indigenous artist Lance Cardinal on an apartment building in Canada, with multicolored panels from Mitrex covering 34,000 feet to serve as a cultural tribute while powering the building’s common areas (Kamrin Baker|GoodGoodGood)

🐐 After a herd of 250 goats saved a home from a forest fire in Chile, they now officially prevent the spread of fires by eating highly flammable shrubs in a project called Buena Cabra or “Good Goat”, using strategic grazing and trackable collars which they want to scale around the world (Maolis Castro|El Pais)

🫜 Community win: cosplayinagarden is sharing fresh grown produce with their community including strawberries with their 100 year old neighbor.

The greatest thing the US ever did? (watch)

*This was a paid collaboration just for social media. I only collaborate on ideas I truly believe in, and am including it here to provide more interesting content that you may like :)

About 200 years ago, settlers were taking over as much land in the West as possible, until a traveling painter named George Catlin wrote a book with a new idea for a “magnificent park” to preserve the “native Indian”, “herds of elks and buffaloes” and “nature’s beauty” in what he called “A Nations Park”. 

Without the internet, his idea spread and grew through art, literature, and science, until the 1872 Yellowstone Act created the first national park in the world, and 44 years later the National Park Service was established to manage the now 85 million acres of parks while inspiring over 6,000 more around the world.

The process wasn’t perfect, involving erasing treaties and forcibly removing Indigenous tribes from their homes, which has only very recently begun to be corrected, but huge amounts of nature and wildlife have been preserved by the most popular federal agency, benefitting over 330 million people just last year, and generating record high economic activity and hundreds of thousands of jobs.

Yet the current administration’s proposing a devastating 25% cut in funding to eliminate protections and clear the way for oil and gas billionaires to destroy the land.

These parks are one of the reasons I, and many others, started caring about the natural world, and I wouldn’t be talking to you today without them, so before scrolling to the next vid, quickly add your voice to the growing wave of backlash and together we can make sure our National Parks continue down the right path and benefit generations to come.

A recap of July

For the first and only time it was July 2025, and here's 10 of the best things that happened:

💦 Flint, Michigan finally finished replacing 11,000 lead pipes to clean up the city’s drinking water.

💊 Chemists found a way to use E coli bacteria to transform plastic waste into the popular painkiller acetaminophen. 

🧑‍⚖️ The highest court in the world ruled countries are required to prevent activities that harm the environment by international law.

🦌 The world’s widest wildlife crossing hit the halfway point in Colorado .

👻 Ghosting was ruled illegal in Ontario, Canada, requiring jobs to reply within 45 days of an interview.

⛏️ 30 Indigenous Amazonian communities got a gold mine lease suspended until they agree on a strategy to protect their water and culture.

🦦 Giant river otters were re-released into Argentina’s wilderness after 40 years of absence.

⚡️ Poland generated more power from clean energy than coal for the first time despite being Europe’s most coal-dependent nation.

🌊 The first-ever Indigenous-led ocean reserve was announced on 2.3 million square miles of ancestral waters.

🐟 A new species of dark fish with yellow eyes was found in a volcanic fjord and named after Darth Vader.

🧑‍🧑‍🧒‍🧒 And our community saved 2,000 pounds of clay for ceramics students, convinced their gym to switch to plastic-free detergent, started a veggie garden with their apartment neighbors, and much more…

So, how are you making the planet better?

What else is going right?

⚡️ China and Europe aren't backing down on clean energy.

🥑 They're growing food above a... landfill?!

🛠️ Unfortunately, Formr (who I covered last month in a story about tables made from fallen trees & debris) experienced a big fire that destroyed much of their space. Thankfully no one was hurt and the community is coming together to help raise several thousand dollars to get them back on their feet.

🦇 Officially saving a flying fox.

🌳 Vote for the UK Tree of the Year!

🚨 And finally, one last reminder: I'm heading off to my first real vacation in several years! I'll see you in two weeks refreshed, recharged, and with more great stories than ever before. Be back before you know it!

Jacob

This newsletter was written by Jacob Simon. Over 1 million people are in our community across Instagram, TikTok, Threads, YouTube, and Bluesky. You can say hi on LinkedIn, or by emailing jacob@jacobsimonsays.com. See you next week for more :)