Archive

A brief prelude this week: If you’re a regular reader of The Planet You Save and want to support the work I’m doing, consider signing up for a paid subscription. Paid subscribers support the newsletter and ensure it’s a regular part of my work week. As a paid subscriber you’ll also get an additional Resource of the Month email where I share one good resource I’ve found on local climate action and some ideas about how to use it. All readers will continue to get the weekly Thursday newsletter.

Bonus: I’ve used Buttondown’s “pay what you want” feature to allow you to become a paid subscriber at any level. I suggest $6/month and am offering one free Reusable Media guide — a series of evergreen resources on navigating climate action in your community I’m working on right now — for anyone at or above that amount. You can do so here.

If you’d like to gift a subscription to someone else, email me for more details. And as always, one of the most powerful things you can do to support this newsletter is share it — forward it on to a friend, or spread the word on social media. Thanks!

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

Observe: the unfussy, simple and very lonely subject. It's the only compost bin in my 30-unit apartment complex.

Every week or so, I grab our heavy-duty plastic countertop container, walk down a flight of stairs, past our garbage room, across the parking lot and to this bin, surreptitiously throwing food waste into a container that I suspect was placed there for landscapers that stop by every other week. Each time, I hope the bin isn’t overflowing; I haven’t been able to figure out when it’s picked up. It certainly isn’t on our normal trash schedule.

Welcome back to The Planet You Save, a weekly newsletter on local climate action. I'm Taylor Kate Brown and I hope you're having a good end to 2021.

This week, I'm sharing some recent & best-of-this-year local climate action stories. If this is your first newsletter, check out the archive to see what our regularly scheduled editions look like.

• "Our story was no longer that Boeing appeared to be poisoning Portland; it was that Boeing had said it was poisoning Portland four years in a row — and the EPA had ignored it." This ProPublica story about an apparent ecological disaster that never actually happened (and how ProPublica ended up reporting themselves out of a story) is a good example of checking data with additional reporting and paying attention to where regulators are not paying attention.

• Sammy Roth, among the best local/regional climate reporters working today, gives us some tough love on what to expect from efforts to slow climate change in 2022: "But as easy as it is to live and die with each day’s news — with every disappointing headline, frustrating tweet and panicked proclamation by the talking head on your TV screen — the story of climate change is long, as is the story of the pandemic."

• The top 6 ambitious state climate laws passed in 2021 and the top state legislative issues.

• The disaster we must make mundane — among my favorite climate essays by a non-climate writer this year.

• "The blob": When a warming Alaska imperils a decades-old pipeline infrastructure.

• The top three Planet You Save newsletters this year: The inaugural issue, what its like to travel across the country by train and what do these small-sounding numbers mean to you?

Welcome back to The Planet You Save, a weekly newsletter on local climate action. I'm Taylor Kate Brown and Merry Christmas to those who celebrate. The days are getting a little longer from here on out.

This week and next, I'll be sharing some good reading around the web on local climate stories. If this is your first newsletter, check out the archive to see what our regularly scheduled editions look like. This newsletter only grows through word of mouth, so thank you to everyone who shares it.

• Rivian will bring more EV jobs to Georgia, but the state lags on climate policy.

• From earlier this year: It's a "solar barn raising" in Virginia.

• One of the most dangerous chemical plants in America sits in one of West Virginia’s only majority-Black communities. How did this town become a "sacrifice zone"?

• Revealed: the Florida power company writing its own state legislation to slow rooftop solar.

• Salt Lake City to require all new city-funded buildings to be more "climate-friendly," in an attempt to make their buildings emissions free by 2023.

• Not in the immediate way of rising seas? Coastal groundwater flooding may still wreak havoc.

Welcome back to The Planet You Save, a weekly newsletter on local climate action. I'm Taylor Kate Brown and I want you to think about composting your anger.

(Photo by David Sorich on Flickr)

Plenty of states and utilities have set goals to make their electricity carbon-free, but last week, an unlikely candidate came forward. The board of Nebraska’s largest electric utility, Nebraska Public Power District, has voted to set a net-zero target for the state’s electricity by 2050.

Welcome back to The Planet You Save, a weekly newsletter on local climate action. I'm Taylor Kate Brown and I'm reading about the implication of America's fossil fuel export boom for those who live nearby. As a reminder, this newsletter grows entirely by word-of-mouth. You can forward on this email, share this edition on the web or subscribe here.

(Screenshot of the Probable Futures website)

Our world, and how we live in it, is going to change. That's always been true, but climate change makes the way we choose far more pressing. That's one of the underlying messages of Probable Futures, a website, platform and narrative project from a new group in partnership with the Woodwell Climate Research Center.

Connecticut —

Welcome back to The Planet You Save, your weekly Thursday newsletter on local climate action. I'm Taylor Kate Brown and as we approach the end of the year, I'm thinking about repair and reuse as a way to gift.

Photo by Will Barkoff on Unsplash

Bay Area, California —

Welcome back to The Planet You Save, a weekly newsletter on local climate action. I'm Taylor Kate Brown and the newsletter will be off next week. I hope you enjoy your favorite Thanksgiving side dish and share this newsletter with relatives and friends — many who are probably thinking about climate change action as well. As always you can sign up for the weekly edition here.

Photo by Felix Wöstmann on Unsplash

Bay Area, California —

Welcome back to The Planet You Save, a weekly newsletter on local climate action. I'm Taylor Kate Brown and thanks for reading - it's been encouraging to see so many people opening — and responding — to this work. I shared some of your responses to the train journey newsletter at the end of the newsletter. As always, consider forwarding an email you really liked to someone who's interested and sharing the sign up link.

Train vistas inside this email. Transit thinking too.

Bay Area, California —

Chicago, Illinois —

Welcome back to The Planet You Save. I'm and while I said the newsletter would be skipping a week because of travel, I started to see too many stories I wanted to share. I'm bringing you this slimmed down, links-only version while I'm on the road. See a climate story in your backyard? Reply to this email to tell me about it.

Providence, RI —

Welcome back to The Planet You Save May Be Your Own. I'm and when I get back to California, I'm certainly going to the but not for the food.