Welcome friends, to the Monday Good News Roundup, where the GNR Newsroom (consisting of myself, Killer300 and Bhu) get together to give you the news that you need to start your work week off right. And we got a special DOUBLE SIZED GNR for you guys this week. Because its our SAVE THE EARTH SPECIAL. In addition to four regular stories, we also have five stories about how people are making real progress to save the environment and stop climate change.
The world. It’s important, we all know it, but we’ve also done some stuff to it, and its getting out of hand, luckily all is not lost, because we are working hard to fix the damage we’ve done, which I will show with the first half of this week’s GNR,
Following years of public pressure, Harvard said Thursday it would allow its remaining investments in the fossil fuel industry to expire, paving the way for it to eventually divest from the sector. The move marks a stark twist in a decade-long saga that has pitted student activists against University administrators and dominated campus politics for years.
In an email to Harvard affiliates Thursday afternoon, University President Lawrence S. Bacow — who has for years publicly opposed divestment — stopped short of using the word divest, but said that “legacy investments” through third-party firms “are in runoff mode,” and called financial exposure to the fossil fuel industry imprudent.
I admit, I’m not entirely sure WHY Harvard was invested in fossil fuels in the first place, I mean they’re a college. Are they coal powered? But in any case this is indeed great news.
A recent report by Indigenous Environmental Network, or IEN, and Oil Change International, or OCI, found that Indigenous-led resistance to 21 fossil fuel projects in the U.S. and Canada over the past decade has stopped or delayed an amount of greenhouse gas pollution equivalent to at least one-quarter of annual U.S. and Canadian emissions.
This is despite an onslaught of attacks against Indigenous activists over the past few years. Over the last few years, victories won against projects through direct actions have led to more than 35 states enacting anti-protest laws, jail time for protestors, thousands of dollars of fines, and even the killing of prominent activists.
Protesting works, we’ve already conquered the damage being done to the Ozone layer and the use of leaded fuels, and this shows we can conquer fossil fuels and climate change as well. Mad props to Indigenous people leading the charge on this, and we need to do our part as well.
The pace of installations of renewable energy projects across the first six months of 2021 hit a new high for the sector, according to a report released Aug. 24 by the American Clean Power Association (ACP).
ACP, which works with solar, wind, energy storage and power transmission companies to promote renewable energy, said the U.S. added 9,915 MW of onshore and offshore wind, battery storage, and utility-scale solar power generation capacity in the first half of the year, a 17% increase over the same period in 2020.
The total includes commissioning of 5,620 MW of generation capacity in the second quarter of the year, a 13% jump from the April-to-June period in 2020. The data was published in ACP’s “Clean Power Quarterly 2021 Q2 Market Report.”
“This market report shows the record growth across the renewable energy sector. With a record pace of installations in the first half of 2021 our industry not only provides good-paying jobs but also is a key part of solving the climate crisis,” said Heather Zichal, CEO of Washington, D.C.-based ACP. “This growth and expansion are expected to continue but we need policymakers in Washington to make long-term decisions to ensure we can continue to develop these critical projects.”
This is great news, fossil fuels are on the way out and renewable energy is on the way in, we’re gonna save the Earth doing this.
A year ago this month, the landmark Great American Outdoors Act was signed into law — a result of years of tireless advocacy by the outdoor community and hard work and negotiations by a bipartisan group of lawmakers.
The passage of this bill marked a tremendous victory for the outdoors and for conservationists, not to mention local economies across the country. With overwhelming bipartisan support in both the House and Senate, the law provided a long-awaited $900 million in permanent annual funding for the Land and Water Conservation Fund and addressed the $20 billion maintenance backlog on federal public lands.
Although there is cause for celebration on this first anniversary of the law’s enactment, there is an equal amount of work ahead to fulfill its environmental and economic promises. The Great American Outdoors Act, or GAOA, was designed to advance conservation and expand access to the outdoors, and organized and concentrated efforts by federal agencies are essential to its long-term success.
This is more good news: More laws getting passed to protect the environment, we need to keep this train going.
weden has delivered the world’s first shipment of steel produced without the use of fossil fuels, a major milestone on the road towards cutting carbon emissions from industry.
A shipment of the steel was delivered to Swedish truck maker Volvo AB, but industrial quantities of the stuff won’t be available until 2026.
The news is significant in the context of efforts to limit climate change. While much emphasis has been placed on the role of fossil fuels in electricity generation, research published by Carbon Brief shows that just 553 conventional steel plants worldwide are responsible for 9% of all carbon dioxide emissions, owing to the large quantities of fossil fuels—in particular coking coal—used to produce the alloy. The IEA forecasts that steel production globally will grow by a third through to 2050.
This is great. New ways of doing things, industries working on how they can keep doing work without hurting the environment, we can keep this going and save the Earth.
That concludes the save the earth portion of this weeks GNR, now your regularly scheduled good news.
Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom's position (i.e. the "no" option on the recall) is strengthening significantly. While there are a few gubernatorial elections featuring a polling error as large as Newsom's advantage, it would take one of the largest polling misses in the last 23 years for him to be recalled on Tuesday.
Take a look at the recent polling in the recall race. The average of the polls has "no" on the recall ahead of "yes" by about 15 points. "No" has widened its lead from about 10 points
a week ago and from single digits in mid-August.
The edge that the "no" position has over the "yes" position in the recall has, in other words, more than tripled in the average since last month.
Now, remember to keep vigilant, its not over till its over, polling has been kind of off these last few years, but at the same time if you’re worried about the California recall, it seems like we’re gaining momentum to beat it. Things are looking good so far.
"With that being said, if you have concerns about access to reproductive healthcare in your state, Salesforce will help relocate you and members of your immediate family," the Slack message said.
Salesforce took no position on Senate Bill 8 in the statement. The company has 16 locations in the US, including one in Dallas.
Yeah, whats happening in Texas is horrific, but at the same time a lot of people are having the correct response to it. Look for the helpers in the dark times.
Republicans and Republican-leaning independents say, 63% to 37%, that Trump should be the leader of the Republican Party. But they are about evenly split over whether having the defeated former President back on the ticket in 2024 would be an advantage: 51% say that Republicans have a better chance of retaking the presidency if Trump is the nominee, with 49% saying the party would be better off with a different nominee. That's a very different landscape from 2019, when more than three-quarters of Republicans said their party had a better shot in 2020 with Trump as their nominee than they would with a different candidate.
Its kind of disappointing that even now Trump is still a thing and so many are willing to hitch their wagon to this loser. But I got news for you, Trump will never be part of the GOP unless he runs as president. And my sincere hope is that by that point he will be rotting in a cell where he belongs.
The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America has installed their first openly transgender bishop, the Associated Press reported.
The church elected Rev. Megan Rohrer to serve a six-year term as bishop in May, replacing a bishop who retired.
Rohrer, who uses the pronoun “they,” will lead one of the church's 65 synods, overseeing 200 congregations in the California and Nevada regions, according to the AP.
Every day the world becomes a little more diverse, every day we reach a little bit higher, the world is getting better every day and I love it.
And that does it for our GNR special, I hope this is a good start to everyone’s day. I’ll see you guys next week.