Archive

The end of the year beckons. How did we get here so fast? Should we rush to finish? Or slow down and reflect?

I don’t have particular answers for you, but I do know there’s a lot of smaller stories that I haven’t gotten to this year I want to feature. So for the rest of December, I’ll be doing a round-ups of local climate action stories around the US. What’s caught your eye this year? Tell me by replying to this email

New York City schools get a little less polluted

Back in October, New York City announced it was converting 100 of its schools from fossil-fuel boilers to all-electric heating by 2030, targeting schools in areas with high asthma rates. The effort also includes switching 200 schools off No.4 oil to biofuels by 2026, and upgrade to energy efficient lighting in 800 schools.

(Paw Paw by JoLynne Martinez on Flickr)

Coming across a truly joyful climate story is unfortunately rare, but coming across one that has local relevance is even rarer. Which is how I felt when I saw journalist Whitney Bauck’s short feature on the paw paw, a tropical-tasting fruit that grows in eastern North America that’s starting a bit of a comeback. As she writes in the story, pawpaws grow from northern Florida and western New York to eastern Kansas, and “boasts a soft, custardy flesh with a mild flavor somewhere between a mango and a banana.”

But these native fruits aren’t a regular staple in North American homes, in part because they are pretty resistant to the way we get most of our fruits and vegetables: at the grocery store. I wanted to talk to Bauck more about why I’ve had mangos but not paw paws, and the potential climate benefit of the fruit. This interview has been condensed (it was an exciting subject!)

(Gov. Jay Inslee cuts a ribbon for Washington state's first electric school bus at Franklin Pierce High School in Tacoma in 2019)

Coming to a school near you over the next four years: Electric buses.

Late in October, the EPA announced awards for $1 billion in rebate funding for school districts to buy "alternative fuel" buses. The funding came out of the 2021 Infrastructure act, and is the first round of a total of $5 billion for electric and other non-diesel buses.

No, it's not Thursday. This is a special newsletter edition.

Every week I keep a running list of local climates stories I want to share alongside the weekly story or Q&A, but this week's list had already grown.... extensive by Monday. There's a reason: next Tuesday is Election Day and this upcoming weekend is the start of the annual Conference of Parties (COP), the worldwide climate conference. It's a one-two punch of local and international climate coverage.

I've written before that I particularly dread COP news cycles because you get so much more of "I just read the headlines and we are all gonna die" talk without a lot of context around it. One of the reasons I started The Planet You Save is to bring some more context to the climate story -- both realistic in how far behind we are collectively but also where the solutions and changes are happening where you can see them.

Thanks for being a paid subscriber and welcome to this month's bonus newsletter! For October, I'm bringing you the second part of Zero Cities, a guide I created for beginners to understand — and act on— your city or county's pledge to reduce their planet-warming emissions.

The guide breaks down some basic concepts in these plans and has lots of questions to help you understand what's going on in your city. Last month, I brought you part one and this is continuation of that guide. Part two focuses on who is important to this plan, assessing progress so far, and figuring out next steps.

Earlier this year I published a story in The Guardian about a specific gas industry coalition group advertising effort called Natural Allies for a Clean Energy Future. By coalition group, I don't mean well-labeled official trade associations, but an organization where the name and mission sounds fairly unimpeachable but it's not immediately clear who supports or funds it.

Here's the cliff notes:

What I found was a public relations and influence campaign with a $10 million two-year budget funded by major pipeline companies and other gas industry players. Internal documents obtained through public records requests by the Energy & Policy Institute showed the group is particularly interested in messaging to young, Black and Latino Americans — especially ones who are concerned about climate change.

What's more, they have spent significant money in media markets like Albany and Harrisburg — as New York and Pennsylvania consider both specific pipeline projects and wider climate policies.

Welcome back to The Planet You Save May Be Your Own, your weekly newsletter on local & state climate action. Reading this online or forwarded from a friend? Sign up here to get it weekly in your inbox.

(A screenshot of the Arizona Corporation Commission debate. Credit: PBS/Arizona Republic)

Today we're going on a tour of a corner of your ballot you may not know anything about, but is absolutely crucial for state climate action.

First things first: Have you registered to vote? Here's Complexly's guide to How to Vote in Every State. Want to know at least a little something about who’s running in your congressional district? Voting doesn’t have to be perfection, so even a little knowledge is power - here's ProPublica's customizable User’s Guide to Democracy.

As a local-focused but cross-geographical newsletter, some times I feel like I’m bopping around the country looking for interesting but widely applicable stories. But now that it’s time to do an election-focused newsletter, I find myself with a real problem of scale. How do I cover something that’s going to be useful to as many of my readers as possible instead of digging down into one place?

Taken as a whole, congressional elections can make a huge difference on federal climate policy, and including what kind of funding is directed to states and localities.

But there's almost 500 congressional races this year; very few have had climate as a recurring theme. So ahead of this election, let's talk about a crucial position in every state: utility commissioner.

They have a mix of names, but utility commissions are the government bodies that regulate electric, gas and other utilities. They approve or deny rate increase, utilities’ long term infrastructure plans and set rates on what utilities can charge and what costs they can recover from residents.

Commissions range in their proactiveness on climate, but all have significant power in directing what a state’s energy supply looks like in the future. Remember the seven people with a huge impact on North Carolina's greenhouse gas emission reductions goals?

Commissioners are either directly elected or appointed: more than a dozen commissioner positions in nine states are on the ballot directly in November. In states where commissioners are appointed or nominated by the governor, more than two dozen seats on utility commissions will be up within the first year of the next term.

In a few cases, this year’s direct or gubernatorial election or could have significant impact on the make up of the commissions — more on this below.

But if you live in California or Wyoming, your governor’s races — and therefore the open slots on the agency — are unlikely to be dramatically changed. Similarly, in Louisiana elections, the public service commission will not be swept this year by climate-hawks.

I want to aim for usefulness, not delusional completeness. So I've listed of every state with these positions up for grabs within the next year, without a lot of additional details. But I'd still encourage you to take a look if this is the case in your state — these seats come up regularly and a single member or two can dramatically remake these small boards. What these commissions do and who serves on them deserves attention between elections. That’s when they make the most consequential decisions — and when residents can “vote” in other ways through public comment and in some cases petitions.

Directly-elected

Arizona

Two of the five seats on Arizona’s Corporation Commission are up for election this year, and the extremely polarized but also extremely odd nature of Arizona politics makes this the only commissioners' race I'm aware of that had a televised debate.

Arizona’s commission has already made some consequential decisions this year. In January, the commission rejected in a 3-2 vote a plan for 100% renewable energy in Arizona that was five-years in the making. One of the three Republican commissioners changed his vote at the last moment, saying the rules were unnecessary and had "concluded the utilities are serious and sincere with their commitments to clean energy..

The four major candidates are Nick Myers, a policy advisor to a departing Republican commissioner; Kevin Thompson, a Mesa councilman and former gas lobbyist; Sandra Kennedy, a former Democratic state senator running for re-election to the commission, and Laura Kuby, a former Tempe councilwoman who works at Arizona State University.

Based on this questionnaire from the Arizona Republic, the candidates positions on climate and energy hews along party lines (the two Republican candidates literally answered together).

There is, as far as I can tell, no publicly-available polling on this race, but they will be on the ballot alongside at least two very competitive elections: Arizona governor and and one Arizona Senate seat. The governor’s race is a dead heat, while the Senate race is slightly trending in the direction of Democratic incumbent Mark Kelly.

So even if straight ticket voters tick off the two Republicans or two Democrats without knowing anything else about what the commission does or the candidates' positions, its unclear how that will shake out — and if it will change the balance of power on the commission.

Read more on Arizona's governor and commission races and how they will affect the state's policies on energy and the environment.

Other directly elected races in 2022:

• Montana - Two of five seats up. Earlier this year, one seat's Democratic primary was cancelled because of lack of candidates.

• North Dakota - Two of three seats up

• South Dakota - One of three seats up

• Nebraska - Two of five seats up. Candidates in both seats are running unopposed. (Nebraska's public service commission actually only regulates gas, not electricity. But as I've written before, the utility board elections in the state had an even bigger impact)

• Oklahoma - One of three seats up

• Louisiana - Two of five seats up. One district all the candidates are Democrats, the other district all Republicans. Also, every single candidate is male.)

• Alabama - Two of three seats up, with two candidates per seat. The Democratic primaries in both seats were cancelled due to lack of candidates.

Governor's races with commission spots coming open in 2023

New Mexico

New Mexico's Public Service Commission (PSC) is undergoing a sea change. In 2020, a majority of New Mexico voters in 2020 approved making the PSC a three-person, governor-appointed board. Currently the PSC is a five-person board, elected by geographic district. While the ballot measure language has been challenged for not explicitly mentioning the it would remove the ability to elect comissioners, the change is set to start this upcoming January.

The board itself has faced multiple personnel scandals in the past decade and angered the current governor on at least two rulings. New Mexico, as I've written before, is trying to have it both ways, gaining the financial windfall of being an oil-boom state but also passing climate legislation. The PSC is squarely in the middle of that tension.

Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham is up for re-election on November 8. If she wins, she'll nominate three people from five-short listed applicants. No more than two of the commissioners can be of the same party.

Pennsylvania (maybe)

Pennsylvania Public Utilities Commission (PUC) is in a rough spot. There are currently four vacant slots on the six-person commission.

Why? It’s actually over climate policy. For several years, Pennsylvania's Republican Senate leadership has declined to take up any of the nominations for the PUC. It's part of a lengthy legal and political fight with Democratic Governor Tom Wolf over his attempts to get Pennsylvania to join the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, the East Coast’s cap-and-trade program.

Wolf is term-limited and the race to succeed him between Josh Shapiro and Doug Mastriano hasn't really featured much back and forth on environmental issues. The number of vacancies though, means Pennsylvania’s next governor would have the chance to vastly remake the agency , the Pittsburgh Gazette reports:

Without fresh appointments, the winner of the governor’s election in November would not only get to nominate replacements for the three vacant seats, but also a fourth seat that is scheduled to expire in April 2023, held by the commission’s chair, Gladys Brown Dutrieuille, a Democrat. Under that scenario, a new governor could dramatically reshape the commission.

As the election draws closer (and Shapiro seems more likely to win), suddenly there's movement. In late September, Wolf and the Senate leaders brokered deals on a series of nominations, including three to the PUC. If they're voted in before Election Day, the next governor will still have a say on the fourth vacancy, as well as one expired term next year.

Other states where governor’s races are close or close-ish and utility commission seats are up within the first year of the next governor’s term.

• Wisconsin: One of three seats up

• Kansas: One of three seats up

• Oregon: One of three seats up

• Maine: One of three seats up

• Minnesota: One of five seats up

• Michigan: One of three seats up

• Florida: Two of five seats up

• Colorado: One of three seats up

• Texas: One of five seats up

Other states with potentially open spots but governor's race is not expected to be competitive:

• California: Three of five seats up

• Wyoming: One of three seats up

• Iowa: One of three seats up

• Illinois: Two of five seats up

• Ohio: One of five seats up

• Tennessee: One of eight seats up

• South Carolina: Two of eight seats up (NB: South Carolina's PSC is elected by the State Assembly)

• Vermont: One of three seats up

• Massachusetts: Two of three seats up

• Connecticut: Two of three seats up

• Rhode Island: One of three seats up

There's also this exceptionally well-timed "Beginner's Guide to Public Utility Commissions" that I wish I had the time to write.

Do you have a local or state election race you're following closely because of the candidates' views on climate? Reply to this email to tell me more.

More local climate stories

• Another relevant climate action race in New Mexico this year: Land Commissioner.

• The campaign for and against California's Prop 30 is like a Reddit AITA question where the answer is likely "ESH". My former colleague Dustin Gardiner breaks down who's funding what.

• Conflicting priorities between labor groups and climate advocates have played out over and over in state governments. Will labor provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act change that?

• Maine’s prevalence of small farms with low-lying, hand-harvested crops makes the state a good candidate for blending solar energy and food production on the same land, but farmers may not take the risk without funding for pilot projects.

• From Arizona to Maine and beyond, a new generation of Indigenous entrepreneurs, activists and government leaders are making strides — and money — with clean energy. But land is much more than a resource to indigenous residents: It’s a sacred space, central to culture, livelihood and ancestry -- and climate change is risking even more of it

• "Pastor Geoffrey Guns was skeptical when asked to join the community advisory board for a gas pipeline [project in Virginia], but decided it was his duty to advocate for the Black communities that would be affected by the fossil fuel expansion project". Now he feels "used and violated".

• Okay, so not local, but this video on whatever happened to the much-hyped solar roadways is about our love for things that appear to solve multiple problems at once, but aren't actually the thing that gets it done

(Ann Arbor Midnight Madness 2017 by Vanseka Photography on Flickr)

A few weeks ago I wrote about Ann Arbor’s planning commission’s frustration over a much-needed housing development in the city that didn’t match up with college town’s climate goals. The developer was not interested in building the 484-home development entirely without gas hookups nor adding solar throughout the site. Eventually they agreed to build the houses in the development as all-electric, but not the rented apartments.

The commission ultimately approved the Pontiac Trail site despite the frustrations of many of the commissioners and some residents. But there was one “no” vote: Ellie Abrons has been on the commission since 2019, is a professor of architecture at the University of Michigan and is a co-owner of her own firm.

Thanks for being a paid subscriber and welcome to this month's bonus newsletter! For September, I'm bringing you the first part of Zero Cities, a guide I created for beginners to understand — and act on— your city or county's pledge to reduce their planet-warming emissions.

The guide breaks down some basic concepts in these plans and has lots of questions to help you understand what's going on in your city. Part one will help you find your city's climate plan, then figure out what kind of goals it sets out, and focus on what actions are actually promised.

Part two, coming next month, will help you assess who's in charge of making these changes and then decide what steps you and your neighbors can take to make it a reality. Eventually I will offer this guide as a downloadable resource online, but as a paid subscriber you're getting it first.

It’s been nearly a year since I started this newsletter: 54 editions (including bonus newsletters for paid subscribers) later, I feel like I’ve just scratched the surface of what’s happening around the U.S. on the local level.

As much as stories about cross-country train travel, composting or setting fire to fight fire fascinate me, I know people are also looking for practical answers for how they approach climate issues in their own life. It’s why I’ve focused on resources in the paid subscriber editions, on everything from the place you can buy nothing to an easy 101 guide to climate basics to how to think of yourself as a citizen instead of a consumer when it comes to climate.

Next week I’ll publish September’s bonus email — which will build off a guide I’ve been developing on how to understand and take action on local climate action plans. I’m proud of how much I’ve distilled for people who are starting from square one — but I also know its a work-in-progress, and reader feedback is crucial. Become a paid subscriber here to get it, as well as the access to all the previous bonus emails in the archive.

This Old House, electrification edition?

(A set of porches in North Brookline, Massachusetts, by Jeff Egnaczyk on Flickr)

After years of back-and-forth between several towns in Massachusetts and the state government, Gov. Charlie Baker has signed a law that allows up to 10 cities to ban gas hookups in new construction: it's effectively a pilot project. Notwithstanding Boston's potential interest, the most likely towns to be authorized to do so are relatively small & wealthy. That's not an immediate problem, an expert in a recent Energy News Network story on the law mentions, but as Massachusetts' starts fully going down the road of decarbonizing its buildings, the state's least well-off residents could have a problem on their hands if the state doesn't proactively act.

A trash opportunity

When Annapolis’ mayor and various local dignitaries cut the ribbon on a solar farm in 2018, they did so on city land. But it wasn’t the roof of city hall or the field behind the rec center — it was over a landfill.

This newsletter has featured thinking about waste as a verb, as well as preventing your kitchen food scraps from turning into powerful greenhouse gas emissions but there are still thousands of closed and active landfills across the U.S. that will need to be managed for a long time. Increasingly cities are putting solar panels on top.

Annapolis now hosts the largest single installation of solar panels on a landfill in the U.S — enough to power 2,300 homes at full capacity. Mixing solar and landfill has a number of benefits in its favor. Landfills are already owned by city or county governments, they have no tree cover to block the sun and tend to be slightly elevated. Plus, the land can’t be used for anything else — especially important as farming communities, desert landscapes and exurban developments have pushed back against developing large utility-scale solar nearby.

Thanks for being a paid subscriber! This month's bonus email is about one of the most reader-friendly state policy maps I've seen.

The resource:

A brief hiatus

The Planet You Save has been regularly publishing for nearly a year, and it’s time for a temporary break to rest and think through what's next. I'll be taking a few weeks off from writing here, but will be back the Thursday after Labor Day. Paid subscribers will get their bonus resource newsletter later this month — and I want to hear your questions or story ideas for future newsletters at any time.

(Butler Solar Facility in Butler, GA by Neil Wellons on Flickr)

“It’s like they wrote this for Georgia”

So says Marilyn Brown, a public policy professor at Georgia Tech, to reporter Molly Samuel about the potential climate bill deal brokered last week and now waiting-for-a-vote as lots of commentary builds up about the merits of what’s inside.

Welcome back to The Planet You Save May Be Your Own and thanks for being a paid subscriber — this is your bonus edition! As always, I'm open to feedback and suggestions about what you want to read and share. Thanks for making the newsletter happen — and please feel free to forward on to anyone who might be interested.

The resource:

Within the past week or two, Europe, Texas, Boston and the Pacific Northwest have all faced intense and deadly heat waves. But do these weather events have global warming's fingerprint on them?

The short answer: Yes and no, or at least some of them. Increased greenhouse gases in the atmosphere means what we consider extreme will happen more often, and the extremes will get more extreme. Not every hot day can be traced back to global warming to but climate change supercharges these events, and makes more more common within each season.

Welcome back to The Planet You Save May Be Your Own. I’m Taylor Kate Brown and I’m in the middle of an exhausting move.

(A fake “for your consideration” ad by Clean Creatives drawing attention to PR & marketing firm Edelman’s work for oil compaines)

In the survey I did earlier this year, readers said they were interested in more Q&As, so when I found that advertising industry publication AdWeek had a sustainability editor covering everything from greenwashing claims to protests against oil and gas industry advertising coming from inside the industry, Kathryn Lundstrom went right to the top of my list of people to interview.

Welcome back to The Planet You Save May Be Your Own, your weekly newsletter on local and state climate action. I’m Taylor Kate Brown and I am now a person who “enjoys” reading SEC filings. Well, at least sometimes.

(The Rotunda, Maine State Capitol Building, by J. Stephen Conn on Flickr)

One of my superpowers and downfalls as a journalist is being way too interested in the how. It’s the first question I had when I read Maine had become first state to require their public funds to be divested from fossil fuel businesses by law. California’s legislature required divestment from coal several years ago, but Maine’s mandate is far more expansive.

Welcome back to The Planet You Save May Be Your Own, your weekly newsletter about local and state climate action. I'm Taylor Kate Brown and I get very worried when I see ERCOT in the news.

(Oil well in front of the Rockies by Jason on Flickr)

Here’s a headline that got my attention this week:

Welcome back to The Planet You Save May Be Your Own. I'm Taylor Kate Brown and summer completely snuck up on me.

(Screenshot of a Natural Allies digital ad)

This week I want to share a story I've been working on for quite some time.

Welcome back to The Planet You Save May Be Your Own. I’m Taylor Kate Brown and here is just one sign of summer.

(A vineyard in Napa County with a solar panel roof in the distance)

Well, it happened. For the first time since I relaunched this newsletter in September, I missed a week. Usually I’m pretty good at planning ahead, but a combination of work, life and even a small injury conspired against it.

Welcome back to The Planet You Save May Be Your Own. Paid subscribers receive a monthly bonus email where I share one climate resource and ways you may be able to use it — thank you for keeping the newsletter a part of my work week!

For June, we're going interactive:

Welcome back to The Planet You Save May Be Your Own, a weekly newsletter on local and state climate action. I'm Taylor Kate Brown and I'd like you to say hello to Beef.

(Beef, a very good boy, is watching me take a photo of his humans' new restaurant.)

What if you built a restaurant on trash?

Welcome back to The Planet You Save May Be Your Own, a weekly newsletter on local and state climate action. I’m Taylor Kate Brown.

I've been traveling for most of today, so in lieu of the normal newsletter, I wanted to highlight a few stories that have been popping up around the U.S.

(The edge of a fire scar from the 2020 LNU Complex fire over the Charles Krug Winery in St. Helena, California)

Welcome back to The Planet You Save, a weekly newsletter on local and state climate action. I'm Taylor Kate Brown, and I'm watching New York's legislature rushing to the finish line with climate legislation up in the air.

One of the elements of this newsletter that's really important to me is showing what a different kind of climate reporting — especially focused on local responses to cut emissions — can look like. I've done this with my own interviews with local climate reporters but this week, as I'm taking a brief break, I'm happy to report you can hear two of them talk about it directly.

Welcome to The Planet You Save, a weekly newsletter on local and state climate action. Paid subscribers receiving a monthly bonus email where I share one climate resource and ways you may be able to use it. Previous bonus emails included care and feeding of your new EV and the place to buy nothing.

For May, we're learning a slightly different way.

The resource

Welcome back to The Planet You Save May Be Your Own, a weekly newsletter on local and state climate action. I’m Taylor Kate Brown and I hope you get to take some sort of breather this long holiday weekend.

It’s primary season in California, so most of my mailbox is direct mail fliers from various political candidates. But earlier this week I got this fairly alarming item.

Welcome back to The Planet You Save May Be Your Own, a weekly newsletter on local and state climate action. I’m Taylor Kate Brown, and I hope you have a nice weekend.

Things are expensive right now, yes? Certainly in a dollars-and-cents-inflation way, but also in personal costs — parents exhausted for an under-5 vaccine, workers rebelling against going back to lengthy commutes for… what reason exactly? And the millions of family members mourning a million lives cut short.

Money and personal costs are always present in climate change discussions too: What scale of investment do we need in each solution? Where will money make the most difference? Who pays — and when?

Welcome back to The Planet You Save May Be Your Own, a weekly newsletter on local and state climate action. I’m Taylor Kate Brown and I wish you all charging parking spots free of clueless gas cars.

Thanks to the very prompt readers who answered my survey. It’s exceptionally short and will help me plan the future of this newsletter to be most useful to those who read it. I’m very proud that nearly half of my readership opens this newsletter each week, so I’d love to hear from more of you about what keeps you reading! I’ll keep it open for one more week.

Welcome to The Planet You Save May Be Your Own, a weekly newsletter on local climate action.

This newsletter only happens with your support, so consider signing up for a paid subscription here. Subscribers get a monthly bonus edition of a practical resource and some ideas on how to use it, plus help make this newsletter a reality.

I’ve just gotten back from a short break and traveling, so this week’s newsletter is all about the best stories I’ve seen this week. I’m also have a short reader survey for you as I plan stories for this summer. It’s only three quick questions and will help me decide how to spend my time making this newsletter more interesting and useful to you. Tell me more here.

Welcome back to The Planet You Save May Be Your Own, your weekly local climate change newsletter. I'm Taylor Kate Brown.

(Near Harrison, Montana by Kerry on Pexels)

As I'm traveling this week, I wanted to republish story about a new youth climate case scheduled for trial next year.

Thanks for being a paid subscriber! As a bonus, you're receiving a monthly email where I share one climate resource and ways you may be able to use it. For April, I've developed my own mini-guide for the care and feeding (electricity) of your first EV.

EVs are far past the point of being only for early-adopters. As I've written before, automakers are staking their companies on electric cars and trucks being fully mainstreamed. But there's shockingly little help at the point of sale for new EV owners to deal with the short-but-notable learning curve of powering your car with electricity. Somebody taught you how to pump gas, right?

Electric vehicles are an incomplete solution to greenhouse gas emissions, and there’s still tough conversations that need to happen about the resource extraction and recycling plans for car batteries.

Welcome back to The Planet You Save, your weekly newsletter on local climate action.

Today is an extra-special edition: I'm partnering with another writer to help you understand a key climate adaptation that seems counterintuitive: Settings fires to slow wildfires. If you got this email as a forward, you can sign up for this newsletter here.

(all photos in this story of a prescribed fire in early 2022 by Colleen Hagerty)

Welcome back to The Planet You Save, your weekly newsletter on local climate action. I’m Taylor Kate Brown and today, we’ve got maps.

(Before we jump in, a note: I'm aiming for 422 new subscribers by Earth Day (4/22). Help me out by sharing it with friends, family and anyone you've talked about climate change with. Thanks to everybody who keeps the conversation going, it makes a big difference.

And if you got this newsletter as a forward, sign up here to get weekly editions in your inbox.)

Welcome back to The Planet You Save, your weekly newsletter on local climate action. I'm Taylor Kate Brown and this week we're back in an East Coast state. Thanks to everyone who shares the newsletter — if you'd like to sign up to get it in your own inbox every Thursday, you can do so here.

The latest UN report on cutting greenhouse gas emissions is out. I’ve been dreading it.

Welcome back to The Planet You Save May Be Your Own. I'm Taylor Kate Brown.

Thanks to everyone who's recommended The Planet You Save to neighbors, friends and on social media. As always, sharing this newsletter with friends, family, even acquaintances is highly encouraged — it's the primary way this newsletter grows. They can sign up to get it each week here.

Thanks for being a paid subscriber! As a bonus, you're receiving a monthly email where I share one climate resource and ways you may be able to use it. For March, we're looking at a website that helps you understand what's in your retirement and other investments.

Do you know how your investments change the future you’ll retire into? It sounds a little dramatic, but with climate change, it’s not an exaggeration.

The impacts of global warming hold real risks for all kinds of businesses, so much so that the SEC may soon require companies traded on various stock exchanges to disclose both their emissions and the material risks to they'll likely face from climate change.

Welcome back to The Planet You Save May Be Your Own. I’m Taylor Kate Brown and this week we’re looking at where one state is in their attempt to get fossil fuels out of buildings.

(photo by Ryan Somna on Flickr)

This week’s edition is a republished story from Energy News Network about Massachusetts’ Commission on Clean Heat. But what’s “clean heat”? I’ve touched on some efforts by local and state governments to block gas hookups in new buildings.

Welcome back to the The Planet You Save May Be Your Own, a weekly newsletter about local climate change stories. I’m Taylor Kate Brown and today we’re going to a place where “one person’s trash is another’s treasure” is quite literal.

On my way to Urban Ore, a salvage and reuse store in Berkeley, a well-timed joke pulled in front of me on the highway: a box truck full of old lamps, metal and what appeared to be a vertical washer-dryer combo. A wood plank across the back of the truck kept the items from falling off. Was the truck on its way to the dump? Where would these items go?

I came across Urban Ore after Jamie Facciola, aka Furniture Cycle, shared one of their posts on Instagram. I’m fascinated by the gap between the vast quantities of stuff – new and old – that get thrown out and how many people can’t afford the same items. Salvage, thrift reuse, antiques, tag sales and consignment stores are all different ways of trying to even out both sides of this scale.

Welcome back to The Planet You Save, a weekly newsletter on local climate action. I'm Taylor Kate Brown and be thankful I skipped all the graphs I wanted to put in this newsletter.

It will be in the spring, likely April. The day will be cool and sunny and quite possibly Saturday. It might be this year.

On that day, you will see a headline that says something like this: "California's grid is powered for the first time entirely by renewable energy"

Welcome back to the The Planet You Save May Be Your Own, a weekly newsletter about local climate change stories from Taylor Kate Brown. This week we've got a enough transit info to pack an eight-lane highway.

How do we solve highway congestion long-term?

If you answered "widening highways," you're not alone. 64% of respondents in a recent survey of 600 Americans chose that answer.

Thanks for being a paid subscriber! As a bonus, you're receiving a monthly email where I share one climate resource and ways you may be able to use it.

For February, we're going for something a little closer to home: your local Buy Nothing or Freecycle group.

The resource

Welcome back to The Planet You Save May Be Your Own, a weekly newsletter on local climate action. I’m Taylor Kate Brown and I'm sharing the best local climate stories I've seen this week while I work on longer stories. If someone sent you this newsletter as a forward (thanks!) you can sign up to get it in your inbox here.

(If you're a regular reader and want to support this newsletter and keep it a part of my work week, [consider a paid subscription at any level](). I'll be sending out the Resource of the Month email on Monday, so sign up before then to get this bonus feature in your inbox.)

More local climate stories:

Welcome back to The Planet You Save May Be Your Own, a weekly newsletter on local climate action. I’m Taylor Kate Brown and we’re getting to our next location on two wheels today. If someone sent you this newsletter as a forward (thanks!) you can sign up to get it in your inbox here.

(If you’re a regular reader and want to support this newsletter and keep it a part of my work week, consider a paid subscription at any level.

*

Welcome back to The Planet You Save, a weekly newsletter on local climate action. I'm Taylor Kate Brown.

This week I'm republishing a story from Energy News Network about geothermal systems replacing gas-fired heating on a handful of college campuses.

It's a rethink of how they heat and cool their buildings, even in places with serious winters. Geothermal systems have also been proposed in on the level of small residential neighborhood districts.

My goal with this newsletter has always been sharing stories I'm not seeing broadly covered elsewhere, and republishing helps me do that faster than me starting from scratch. And don't worry, there's still the regular links section at the end.

Welcome back to The Planet You Save May Be Your Own, a weekly newsletter on local climate action. I’m Taylor Kate Brown and this week’s edition includes an rare look at an “electric stable”. If someone sent you this newsletter as a forward (thanks!) you can sign up to get it in your inbox here.

(Gas flaring in San Juan County, New Mexico by John Fowler on Flickr)

Truth and consequences

Thanks for being a paid subscriber! As a bonus, you're receiving a monthly email where I share one climate resource and ways you may be able to use it.

In this first month, I've selected something educational, but many of these will be more practical. For January, I'm sharing Project Drawdown's Climate Solutions 101 series.

The resource

Welcome back to The Planet You Save, a weekly newsletter on local climate action. I’m Taylor Kate Brown and these teenagers are saying no to building new gas stations in their town.

This week we’re returning to Back to Basics, a series where I answer your questions about climate jargon and facts you’re embarrassed to ask. Our first edition was on what qualifies as a greenhouse gas and how it fits into the broader category of pollution. Read it here. Today I’m tackling a common question with a far more complicated answer.

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