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There’s no reading selection from Threadable this month. This is in part because my own busyness, but mostly because I wasn’t seeing anyone sign up for the reading circles. As paid members of The Planet You Save, I want to make sure you’re getting the extras that are actually useful, and experimenting has always been a part of this newsletter. You still have full access to our Threadable circle with all the selections so far, and I may continue to add book excerpts in the future.

But I’m curious what you’d like to see as paid members that would be useful or you’d really enjoy - reply to this email with the letter below if any of these are of interest: - A) Bonus links editions like this one - B) A discussion group where you can share ideas and ask questions with each other - C) Deep-dives into a climate action subject quarterly - D) Keep the reading selections coming! - E) Something else It was a lovely weekend here in DC. Power-washer and clippers in hand, I was doing some yard work. But it wasn’t long before I felt the familiar, tiny pinch - my first mosquito bite. The mosquitoes love me, and my body hates mosquito bites, so much so that I was declared helpful in drawing the suckers away from others them during a summer vacation last year.

Remember the massive methane gas leak from a storage site in Pennsylvania last year? The one Bloomberg Green called the worst US climate disaster in 2022?

When I last wrote about it the head of the division investigating the leak from Equitrans’ Rager Mountain well told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette a “top-to-bottom” review of the Pennsylvania gas storage industry was on the table.

Months later, there’s been a shift about investigations and regulators, but there are still more questions about what, if any kind of effort might be done to prevent a similar leak. This week, I wanted to follow up on this story, and take a quick look at another climate story in Pennsylvania that has resonance elsewhere.

(Above: My husband tries out our freshly installed home car charger in January)

Last week I interviewed Laura Norton Amico about her new project, Climate Comes Home. It’s in the early days, but she’s organizing her work around the idea that local communities can offer the best information for people who want to make climate-friendly changes to their own home. Laura’s project dovetails with a lot of reporting I’ve done and read about cutting carbon pollution from buildings. As she said:

When you look at how many adaptation actions are organized, you see that there are hyper-local specifics, including service providers and financial assistance, that influence the answers to these questions. And so a network of trusted neighbors becomes really important.

A reminder: The Planet You Save is supported by paid members, who help this newsletter exist and get a bonus edition with access to our low-stakes reading club. Become a member here!

(Above: Laura's single-burner induction cooktop next to her gas stove)

Last year, my husband and I bought a home after years of renting. Owning a house is (probably) a good financial decision for us. But it also offered the opportunity to put some of my knowledge on reducing greenhouse gas emissions from buildings to work in practice. If I was reporting on cities and states’ attempts to cut greenhouse gases out of homes and businesses through laws and regulatory moves, I could also get the first-hand experience of doing the same to my own home.

Thanks for being a paid member and making The Planet You Save newsletter happen each week. I know it’s not Thursday, but travel this week has rearranged my schedule a bit.

This month’s members reading club selection is a section from Bren Smith’s Eat Like A Fish: My adventures as a fisherman turned restorative ocean farmer

(As a reminder, you can read along and discuss the selections through the Threadable app. It’s free, and currently only for iPhones. Go right to The Planet You Save’s reading circle via this link)

It’s been a busy week and I don’t have all the elements I need for the newsletter subject I planned for this edition. So it’s time for a quick look around local climate action stories this week.

An update

Earlier this year I spoke to Culitivando, a community group in Commerce City, CO that is doing their own air pollution monitoring after years of complaints about the nearby Suncor oil refinery. Last week, the refinery had a sulfur dioxide release that exceeded the EPA’s dangerous standard — but not for the length of time required to official violate pollution standards.

(A lockdown protest in Wells Fargo’s headquarters in April 2022. Photo by Peg Hunter on Flickr. Advocacy campaigns targeting banks have been a focus of Bill McKibben’s Third Act group of “experienced Americans”)

In the mid-teens, the sketch show Portlandia skewered, in mostly a loving way, the high-minded liberal denizens of Portland, Oregon.

My own Portlandia moments are almost always when I go to run errands in Takoma Park, Maryland, which frankly predates Portland’s rep as a crunchy, weird hippies-with-money enclave by decades.

Takoma Park did not disappoint a few weeks back when I was standing in line at the zero-waste store. A woman working at the counter was frustrated about her point of sale system, which quickly morphed into anxiety about her business checking account. “We use Bank of America … I know we shouldn’t, it’s awful,” she said out loud, unclear if to me, the other woman in the store or just the universe in general.

Hope you all had a good end of March - I’ve had a busy one, including finishing off this story for Floodlight and The Guardian (which I’ll get into more next week).

A reminder that at the end of the month, paying members of The Planet You Save get a bonus edition with first access to a very-low-impact reading club (not a whole book! no set meeting time! Just a chance to sample a good climate change read alongside comments with yours truly and fellow readers.)

So far we’ve read selections from Generation Dread: Finding Purpose in the Climate Crisis, The World as We Knew It and Field Notes from a Catastrophe. If you want to take a peek, you can download the Threadable app (iOS only, sorry) and go directly to The Planet You Save circle by clicking here .

Thanks for being a paid member and making The Planet You Save newsletter happen each week. This month’s members reading club selection is the first chapter from Elizabeth Kolbert’s landmark narrative journalism book Field Notes from a Catastrophe.

(As a reminder, you can read along and discuss the selections through the Threadable app. It’s free, and currently only for iPhones. Go right to The Planet You Save’s circle via this link)

Originally published in 2006, this book is bit of a throwback choice, but Kolbert’s ability to explain the science of climate change with concrete impacts and human narrators is still as powerful as ever.

In this first chapter, Kolbert reports from Shishmaref, Alaska, a remote village in Alaska where in the early-aughts, residents are already in serious discussions about abandoning the town over sea level rise, becoming some of the first Americans to think of themselves as climate migrants. Through Shishamaref, and Alaska’s thawing permafrost, she explains how unprecedented and unknown effects of global warming could feed upon themselves.

Programming note: Next week will be a special email for The Planet You Save members about our latest selection in our low-impact reading club — get it by becoming a paid member and support the newsletter here.

After that I’ll be taking a week off from the newsletter. See you back here in April (!). With the change of seasons I’m curious to know what climate stories in your backyard are on you mind. Let me know by replying to this email.

For this busy week, I’m sharing a recent story I published that continues some earlier work I did for this newsletter, and some really good stories from around the web.

‘Reverse Commuting’ for solar

The Planet You Save newsletter is possible in the first place because of paid members. Get a special monthly edition, access to digital resources and our super low-impact reading club by becoming a paid member.

Are you avoiding thinking about global warming?

You’re not alone. A recent survey by the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication suggests about one in four Americans “try not to think about global warming”.

A reminder: The Planet You Save happens because of paid members, who get an exclusive email each month, a collection of digital resources and access to a extremely low-impact climate reading club on Threadable. Become a paid member here.

(Alaska Center for Energy & Power intern Cole Sudkamp-Walker, works on a solar panel at the center’s Bifacial solar test site on the UAF Experimental Farm. Photo by Jeff Fisher.)

Thanks for being a paid member and making The Planet You Save newsletter happen each week. This month’s members reading club selection is a short essay by climate activist Mary Annaise Heglar in the collection The World As We Knew It.

Edited by Tajja Isen and Amy Brady, The World as We Knew it: Dispatches from a Changing Climate is a collection of essays considering climate change’s impact on our natural world, especially the writers’ lived experience of it. This is not about global temperature mean or wildfire probabilities, but the odd temperatures and dangerous storms that these writers’ experience; noticing how trees in their neighborhood bloom differently, and how their local produce is changing.

Heglar, a writer and one-half of the recently-ended Hot Take podcast, is especially focused on how global warming’s impacts fall unevenly on to Black and brown Americans and how climate action often follows the same trend. In the essay, you’ll see how a very personal story set her down this path.

(Recent data from one of Cultivando’s home air monitors in Commerce City)

A few months ago I read a Colorado Sun article about new grants awarded to community groups for local air monitoring. The grants, from the federal Environmental Protection Agency, are meant to help local communities do third-party monitoring of air quality, especially in areas where a factory or refinery has a history of pollution concerns. Some of told the Sun the grant will allow them fill in the gaps where they say the state is not doing enough to monitor dangerous emissions.

In Colorado, the air quality grants were awarded to seven groups, all local nonprofits or local government agencies. I wanted to hear from one of these groups about why doing their own air monitoring is so important and what they planned to do with the data. Cultivando, a non-profit that works with the Latino community in Adams County, received $500,000 from the EPA.

New England dealt with a terrible cold snap last week (after a record warm January), with temperatures dipping into sub-zero, made worse by the wind chill. The weather’s impact on energy costs and switching over to non-fossil fuels has been on my mind recently, because if nothing else, I’m currently sitting in my weirdly drafty office with a space heater going.

Despite the dust up over gas stoves last month, by far the largest factor that contributes to carbon emissions from buildings is gas and propane-fueled heating. It’s why local building codes about banning or discouraging gas hookups in new construction have been so heavily fought over.

But the main alternative to fossil fuel appliances are something that still feels less mainstream than even EVs: heat pumps. Despite the name, heat pumps work for both heating and cooling in houses.

Last week, paid members of this newsletter got an email with access to the first selection in our extremely-low impact reading club on Threadable.

I’m using the app to share a selection from a climate-related book as well as my comments and questions each month. Read along with us by becoming a paid member here.

Thanks for being a paid member of The Planet You Save May Be Your Own. In 2022, you helped me research, report and write 54 emails and tens of thousands of words to hundreds of subscribers, as well as develop the Zero Cities guide. As 2023 starts, I’m hoping to expand this even further - and paid members are are a huge part of that.

As I mentioned last month, I’m changing up how I thank you for making The Planet You Save newsletter possible.

Fellow newsletter writer Colleen Hagerty introduced me last month to using the free app Threadable as a virtual book club for her readers. It’s designed to be low commitment: I choose a short excerpt from a book, share my own highlights, thoughts and questions in the margin.

Unlike most book clubs, there’s no set time to discuss or awkward conversation because you didn’t read this month’s selection yet. While Threadable can be used for just about any book, most of them can only be done in excerpts – so the selections will be based on a chapter or two. Just read at your leisure and share as much or as little as you want. The only downside at the moment is that the app is only available for iOS (aka, iPhones and the like).

I’m beginning to gain a reputation, even outside of this newsletter, for noticing gas infrastructure.

During our home search in DC, I identified by smell, an extensive gas leak in a house that had been empty for a while, something our agent said had never happened to him before. Now, in the house we actually decided on, I often walk the same circuit out in the neighborhood to break up my day. On the walks, I kept noticing that a gas smell was wafting somewhere in front of a set of houses on our street. Intermittent, but definitely there. After about the fourth time, I called DC’s gas utility, Washington Gas, to report it.

It was a confusing call, where I had to clarify several times that I was not the homeowner where the leak was happening, and no, I didn’t have an exact address. If anything, the smell seemed to be stronger on the sidewalk, like it was coming from the street.

I immediately thought of HEET.

(Monroe Coal Plant, Michigan)

“As someone with lifelong asthma and a mother of people with asthma, I celebrate at the close of every dirty coal-burning plant.”

It’s a strong statement, but I didn’t find it on a TV ad, a Facebook comment or even a news article. Instead, it was among dozens of comments filed to an official regulatory docket.

Electric cars in the U.S. had a banner year in 2021, doubling the number sold from the year before.

But in early November 2022, an unrelated, largely invisible, leak threatened to erase a chunk of that progress on climate.

For almost two weeks, methane from a natural gas storage site in rural Pennsylvania leaked into the air. By time the leak was capped, more than a billion cubic feet of methane gas had escaped the storage site.

Methane, as we’ve mentioned before, is a powerful greenhouse gas, even more so than carbon dioxide over a shorter time scale. It’s also the majority component of natural gas. When gas is used for heating, cooking and electricity production it produces greenhouse gas emissions. But full-on leaks directly into the atmosphere is far worse: Bloomberg News estimates the November leak at Rager Mountain “effectively erased emissions gains from about half of the 656,000 electric vehicles sold in the US last year.”

Thanks for being a paid subscriber and welcome to this month’s bonus newsletter.

Climate TRACE

Climate TRACE makes climate action faster and easier by mobilizing the global tech community to track greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

A brief scheduling note: I’m taking next week off and the final week of the year will be a resource edition for paid members. I’ll see you in 2023 with lots more climate action stories – let me know what you want to read more about next year by replying to this email.

Data brought them to the neighborhood, but relationships needed to grow

We’re starting today in Gardenland, one of the oldest neighborhoods in Sacramento. The neighborhood formed about 100 years ago and some residents have lived there for decades, often not having the money to update their homes to be more energy efficient. Sacramento’s municipal utility has its own “carbon zero” goal by 2030, and part of that is electrifying some of the oldest, least efficient homes in the city. Sacramento’s Cap Radio reports on the work it takes to get there.

Back to quick roundup stories for December. Next week will be the last regular email of the year: I’ll be taking the week before Christmas off and paid members will get their monthly resource email in the last week of December.

(Did you know you can support The Planet You Save at by becoming a paid member at any monthly price point? You’ll get the monthly resource email and help make this newsletter a possibility.)

Beyond Shuggie’s

pizzaplexl3c

A post shared by pizzaplexl3c.

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.

Thanks for being a paid subscriber and welcome to this month’s bonus newsletter. This month, I wanted to share some books, links and other good reading about how parents can discuss and take action on climate change alongside their children.

The first assumption is: you should! As with all big scary things, avoiding talking with children about climate change won’t make the problem better.

I’m not a parent myself, but I have been the child concerned about the environment and questioning what pollution is doing to the Earth (I guess it never really wore off). Climate change is an overwhelming subject and touches on feelings of guilt, anxiety and not being in control. If parents are unsure themselves, how then to explain to their kids?

I think there’s also a lot of value of listening to kids and teenagers on this — so I’ve included resources of teenagers and young people speaking on their own concerns and their own strategies. As a not-quite young person who still has much of their adulthood ahead of them, I and a lot of other adults need to listen to those of us who have the most to lose.

(Programming note: Next week’s newsletter is for paid subscribers. I’ll be back in everyone’s inbox two Thursdays from now, likely doing a quick round ups of stories around the U.S. for the rest of the year. This month’s bonus edition will go out on next Wednesday, not Thanksgiving Day. It’s all about resources for parents (and people with young people in their lives) about talking to their kids about climate change, from the youngest questions to the frustrated teens, but also about how they can listen back. Paid subscribers make this newsletter possible, from the technology costs to the coffee I consume writing it. Become a paid subscriber here.

(Maryland Governor-elect Wes Moore, right, is expected to push the state towards more proactive climate policy. Photo Credit: Howard County Library)

The U.S. midterm elections are now — for the most part — settled. With more of the dust cleared, I wanted to take a look at the results of some key local and state elections especially relevant to climate action.

(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.