Dear ones,
Here’s some good news to get you through the long evening/days ahead:
Some observers are hopeful that the dam has broken on the loss and damage issue at Cop27. After decades during which rich industrial nations have ignored calls to provide financial compensation for climate damage to low-emissions countries, multiple European nations have committed funds.
Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, endorsed the idea of new funds for poor nations being affected by climate change.
“The COP must make progress on minimizing and averting loss and damage from climate change,” she said, addressing other world leaders.
The US government is yet to commit funds; we will have to talk about this when the dust settles from the election underway. Nonetheless, movement on this issue is progress.
Also in the better-late-than-never category: Last month, the Senate ratified and the Biden signed the Kigali Amendment, an international agreement to reduce the use of refrigerant gases called hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs).
A 20-year Swiss experiment to restore habitats for endangered amphibians has increased frog populations and stabilized some the species. The pond-building initiative quadrupled the numbers of European tree frogs.
NYC schools, which lost considerable enrollment in the first two years of the pandemic, will not face the usually mid-semester budget cuts this term. Ordinarily, when enrollment is measured at the end of October, schools lose funds if their numbers have dropped since the beginning of the school year.
In Arizona, a federal judge ruled that Clean Elections USA may not photograph or video voters or make false statements about Arizona early voting laws on social media. The judge, who was appointed by Trump, also imposed restrictions on openly carrying weapons within 250 feet of ballot boxes. There’s some reason to hope that the guardrails are not entirely off.
Here’s the best news I could find today: a set of experiments, involving tens of thousands of subjects, shows the efficacy of teaching people to recognize disinformation.
Short animations placed in YouTube’s Ad slot gave viewers a taste of the strategies behind misinformation, according to the huge online experiment led by the University of Cambridge.
This “pre-bunking” strategy preemptively exposes people to tropes at the root of malicious propaganda, so they can better identify falsehoods online—regardless of subject matter.
The team reports that even a single viewing of one of the film clips increased awareness of misinformation.
Google is planning a campaign to fight disinformation using the techniques in the study.
Watch “Prebunking Manipulation Techniques: Scapegoating.”
We are all full of feelings about the election. Tens of thousands of volunteers worked to GOTV with Moms Rising, which sent these numbers last night:
6,290,722 TEXTS & PHONE CALLS to low frequency voting moms!
1,642,888 POSTCARDS sent to moms (nearly a million hand-written)!
30,154,042 REACHED on social media in English and Spanish!
This was one group’s work. Elon Musk can say what he wants, but I believe that real people don’t follow the lead of the likes of Elon Musk.
I tuned in this afternoon for Nathaniel Stinnett’s 4 PM update on early voting and how the day is going. Stinnett is the leader of the Environmental Voter Project (EVP). I shared some data from EVP last Friday and I want to highlight some exciting facts:
In Georgia, Democrats have dramatically increased their early voting numbers since 2020, with nearly 200,000 additional early voters this year. In Pennsylvania, there are more than half a million more early Democratic voters this year compared to 2020.
In Texas, where more than 30% of registered voters have already cast their ballots, close to 40% of EVP-targeted voters are among them. Stinnett explained that since EVP is working to bring out low-turnout environmental voters, it’s really impressive that they’re coming out early in greater proportion than voters generally. Pennsylvania is also seeing stronger turnout of EVP-targeted voters.
Nathaniel advises avoiding CNN and Twitter, etc. until after 8 or 9 PM. I’m going to take this advice.
Assuming you’ve already voted, eat dinner, go for a walk, and enjoy the autumn weather.
with love,
L