Welcome back to Spring

Hey fam,

Happy Spring (if you're in the Northern Hemisphere)! Spring to me means blooming flowers, sunny park days, and spending much more time outside... I can't wait.

This week we cover how dogs are sniffing out invasive species, a NASA contest where your design can literally fly to the moon, a record level of thrifters, and much more...

Enjoy, and have a great weekend!

Friday, March 14 (watch here)

*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 :)

📞 So many people have called their elected officials and even met with them in person to voice support for clean energy tax credits that 21 Republicans just signed and sent a letter of support to keep them in the upcoming budget, explaining these credits lower utility bills, boost local manufacturing, and increase power production to meet rising demand...

If you're interested, check out the full video report.

BTW - This is because of the pressure you, me, and countless others are putting on decision-makers. The snowball is rolling, but each additional call lawmakers receive gives it an extra push. Let's keep going!

Monday, March 17 (watch here)

📚 The 200,000th Little Free Library was just created, which are those exchange boxes where you can take a book and leave a book across 120 countries on all 7 continents, an amazing community initiative giving 24/7 access to books while showing how a sharing economy can work (Little Free Library)

🐾 Dogs are sniffing out invasive species before humans are able to find them, particularly spotted lantern flies which have spread across the Eastern US while damaging crops, showing that dog’s superior sense of smell can offer some hope for eradicating these pests (Gennaro Tomma|Scientific American)

🧑‍⚖️ A human rights court ruled that Ecuador must protect un-contacted Indigenous tribes in the Amazon rainforest by ensuring any future oil operations do not impact these groups living in voluntary isolation, forcing the long overdue protection of their health, culture, and other rights after decades of mistreatment (Katie Surma|Inside Climate News)

☎️ abby.rodgerss (from our community) is challenging themselves to contact their elected reps and make their voice heard.

Tuesday, March 18 (watch here)

🚀 NASA opened a global contest for anyone to design a zero gravity indicator to go to the moon on the Artemis mission, which is a small object that tells the crew when they’re in space by floating, and also helps them stay connected with humanity when isolated up there, with the call for original designs open for the next 2 months (NASA)

🏝️ Three stunning islands in New Zealand – isolated for 80 million years evolving wildlife found nowhere else on Earth – are joining an initiative to remove invasive species and restore native ecosystems in an inspiring collaboration called the Island Ocean Connection Challenge between organizations and Indigenous communities (IOCC)

📉 New analysis shows the UK’s emissions fell last year to the lowest level since 1872, with coal dropping to the lowest level since 1666, thanks to the nation closing the last coal power plant as well as the rapid embrace of clean power sources and electric vehicles (Carbon Brief)

🌳 punkybuns from our community is planting fruit trees with their friend with a goal to feed people one day while connecting with the earth.

Wednesday, March 19 (watch here)

Scientists 3D scanned 13,000 animals with high energy X-rays, making the results publicly available for free, and they’re incredible…

The openVertebrate (oVert) system is being used by scientists, educators, students, artists, and people interested in discovering secrets about our natural world or learning more about life on Earth. Also it's just fun to play around with!

Watch the full story here. (If you've been here for a while, you make recognize this one. It's a repeat from almost exactly a year ago, but one of my favorites, so I hope you enjoy this reminder!)

Thursday, March 20 (watch here)

👕 A new report shows nearly 10% of all spending on clothes was secondhand last year, which is expected to continue increasing thanks to more access to resale marketplaces, lower prices on thrifted items, and wider understanding of the harms of fast fashion causing people to look for better options (Zahra Hirji|Bloomberg, ThredUp)

⚡️ New York City’s pending law that cleans up the air by essentially making new construction use electricity for heating and hot water instead of polluting fuels is moving forward thanks to a court just dismissing a legal challenge, meaning the future of the city is looking electric (Public Health Law Center)

🪸 An underwater camera doorbell was set up on a coral site by marine scientists restoring the reef after they found most of their baby coral was being eaten, and their project successfully identified 3 species doing 97% of the munching, enabling them to move forward with repopulating coral in sites that these species don’t live in (Richard Luscombe|The Guardian)

🫙 Hi (from our community) has been washing and reusing old jam jars to pack their snacks for lunch.

Bonus!

💚 (They featured my social channels in their newsletter twice so it only feels right to return the favor...) Internet & book-famous Hank and John Green just launched EcoGeek – a low-impact cleaning option which donates all proceeds to charity.

🐸 Froglets the size of a single grain of rice are part of a record-breaking conversation project.

⛳️ More golf courses are becoming flood-resilient green spaces.

🔋 Chinese car manufacturer BYD reportedly has a new charger that gives a car 250 miles of range in just 5 minutes.

🧻 Japan has turned used diapers into... (clean) toilet paper?

This newsletter was written by Jacob Simon. 900,000+ people are in our community across Instagram, TikTok, Threads, YouTube, and Bluesky. You can say hi on LinkedIn, or by emailing jacob@jacobsimonsays.com.