Jun 16, 2023 4 min read

This week's good news: Austin, Texas wants to end fossil fuels

Happy Friday! As you're reading this, I'm traveling to the south of France for an exciting week at the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity.

Alongside Clean Creatives, I'm talking to the world's best marketers and advertisers and convincing them to stop making any fossil fuel ads.

I'll let you know how it goes next time we chat!

No matter where you are in the world, I hope the sun is shining, the air is clear, and you have a great upcoming weekend.

Now, enjoy this week's good news...

The Good From Friday, June 9, 2023

🗽 New York just passed a bill that will make composting mandatory in all 5 boroughs next year, to massively reduce the amount of organic waste going to the landfill.

🐳 A humpback whale was trapped in a series of lines and floats as bad weather started to roll in, but an 8-hour rescue was successful at setting her free into the Sydney waters.

🤠 Austin, the capital of Texas which is the largest oil-producing state in the US, just astonishingly formally endorsed the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty that calls on world leaders to negotiate a just transition away from fossil fuels!

🇫🇷 Arles, a city in the south of France is successfully piloting “farm-to-building architecture” by making the walls of a home from sunflower pith, the door handles from salt, the furniture from algae, and even using wastewater in an incredible feat of recycling.

🚢 There’s growing bipartisan support for a bill that would become the US’s first carbon border tax, imposing fees on imports that don’t reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

DO SOME GOOD: start composting at home!

The Good From Monday, June 12, 2023

🪼 This extremely rare jellyfish that was only seen once before was just found again by a group of scientists in the Pacific Ocean, and classified as “undescribed” because of its strange appearance and behavior, reminding us how much wonder is still out there in the wild.

🌊 The largest floating solar panel farm in North America, which spans 17 acres, is now online and floating in a reservoir in New Jersey.

🔋 A new report from the American Lung Association reveals if gas-powered cars and trucks were replaced by electric vehicles by 2035, over 89,000 lives would be saved by 2050 thanks to the cleaner air we would have!

🇲🇬 A 23-year-old woman named Maggie Grout is 3D printing huts in Madagascar that take only 18 hours to build and cost $40,000, which can help create affordable schools in Madagascar and then expand to other countries too.

🧥 A new law has been introduced in the US that would phase out mink farms that raise the animals just to sell their pelts for fashion and would curb this practice in as quickly as one year!

DO SOME GOOD: switch to an electric vehicle

The Good From Tuesday, June 13, 2023

🐘 Endangered Asian elephants at the Houston Zoo now do yoga in exchange for a loaf of bread or a cantaloupe so that their keepers and vets can get a full inspection of their bodies while they strengthen their muscle groups!

🌲 A bill was just passed in Vermont that will permanently protect 30% of the state’s lands by 2035, and 50% by 2050, saving their 4.2 million acres of forestland and countless species within!

📚 Illinois has just become the first state to outlaw the partisan banning of books in libraries, ensuring politics don’t prevent important information around the climate or LGBTQ+ themes from being accessible to all.

🤝 The US and the UK just announced a partnership in which they’ll work together on expanding renewable energy, regulating artificial intelligence, and trading minerals that are critical for the expansion of electric vehicles.

🇵🇷 Residents of Adjuntas, Puerto Rico have built the island's first community-solar-powered microgrid which can help to end their regular power outages while expanding renewable energy.

DO SOME GOOD: check out some of the best environmental books ever written

The Good From Wednesday, June 13, 2023

🧼 A family-owned company called Green Llama is turning fiberglass from wind turbine blades into the trigger spray on their sustainable household cleaners, both reducing plastic waste at home and industrial waste on wind farms. (I use these cleaners and they're great! They also hooked up us with 15% off if you put in the code JACOB15)*.

🪸 A startup is now creating “coral skeletons” from construction waste that could help restore coral reefs by placing a bunch of small coral fragments in the ocean through automation that grow and fuse together into full-fledged reefs.

⚡️ A new report shows that May became the first full month to ever have wind & solar produce more electricity in the EU than fossil fuels.

🧯 A drone that’s able to carry a fire hose has been developed over the past four years for quick-deployment firefighting and is able to reach areas where people can’t go, hopefully stopping future fires before they can grow.

🔌 A charging depot in Oakland California is being developed that can fast charge 96 trucks at the same time with renewable energy and help decarbonize the state’s 30,000 heavy-duty freight trucks that can’t use 99% of chargers that currently exist.

DO SOME GOOD: get sustainable cleaners made w/ recycled wind turbine blades (code JACOB15 = 15% off)

The Good From Thursday, June 14, 2023

🦏 17 years after the last white rhino was poached from the area, the Democratic Republic of Congo has officially welcomed back 16 of them into Garamba national park where they’ll be protected and live out their lives amongst stunning nature.

☀️The number of solar panels being placed on rooftops increased by 49% in 2022 and continues to grow rapidly.

🧑‍⚖️The first youth climate lawsuit trial has officially started where 16 young people are suing Montana for continuing to support planet-wrecking fossil fuels and violating the state constitution which says “maintain and improve a clean and healthful environment in Montana for present and future generations”.

🪐The UK government announced that they're dedicating 4.3 million pounds in funding for space-based solar projects like putting panels on satellites to collect power and send it back down to earth.

🚀Green jobs are absolutely skyrocketing, with trades like engineering and electrical employees hitting all-time highs in the US and a clean construction boom just beginning.

DO SOME GOOD: help save wildlife with a bracelet