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We Reached 20 Million People Last Month

www.distilled.earth

We Reached 20 Million People Last Month

A short update on the first 30 days of Distilled

Michael Thomas
Dec 5, 2022
12
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We Reached 20 Million People Last Month

www.distilled.earth

It’s been one month since I started the Distilled newsletter, and just one week since I publicly announced it. I want to share a few exciting updates with all of you since none of it would have been possible without your support.

We reached 20 million people 🤯

As some of you know, I’ve been publishing many of my stories on Twitter in the form of threads. A lot of them — like this one about John Droz — went viral in November.

According to Twitter’s analytics, my threads reached 20 million people in the month of November. One tweet alone, on the fact that fossil fuels kill 35 times more birds than wind turbines, reached a million people. Given how much misinformation there is on clean energy, I’m really happy that facts like this can reach so many people. To those of you who helped share these stories, thank you.

Twitter avatar for @curious_founder
Michael Thomas @curious_founder
In my reporting on clean energy misinformation I've seen one argument over and over. Wind turbines kill birds. While this is true, it misses an important piece of context: Fossil fuel power plants kill 35x more birds per GWh than wind turbines do. 🧵
10:38 PM ∙ Nov 22, 2022
17,442Likes4,752Retweets

We made it into local news outlets

Of course, reaching people on Twitter can only do so much. That’s why I’m also excited to share that two local news outlets ran segments on Distilled’s stories in November.

Last week, Jeff Berardelli, one of the most respected meteorologists in the country, ran a story on my clean energy opposition series. Coincidentally on the same day, Texas Standard, a Texas-based NPR affiliate interviewed Emily Atkin of HEATED on our story about TPPF’s efforts to kill the offshore wind industry.

I hope that my reporting can continue to be helpful to local reporters. As many of you know, local news stations and newspapers have been gutted in the last decade. That’s left many of them without the resources to do deep reporting or stories like the one Emily and I published last week. By going on these shows and talking about our reporting, we’re able to make sure their audiences — people who tend to be very civically engaged — still get access to these important stories.

What should I cover next?

Ultimately I see my job as distilling a dizzying array of information about climate change and energy into simple stories for you, the readers of this newsletter. With that said, I’d love to hear what you want me to cover in the coming months.

Reply to this email or comment below to tell me what you want to read next.

Want to support independent climate journalism?

For the last month I’ve spent hundreds of hours reporting on the fossil fuel industry’s efforts to slow down the transition to clean energy. For each story, I read through public documents, interviewed experts, and distilled everything down into a series of short articles.

If you’d like to support my reporting, consider signing up for a paid subscription by clicking the button below. For $5 per month, you can help make these stories possible.

Here are some of the nice things people have said about Distilled and my work.

Twitter avatar for @emorwee
Emily Atkin @emorwee
Michael has a really keen eye for finding important climate stories and the researching/communication chops to tell them well — do yourself a favor and subscribe to his new newsletter! distilled.earth
Twitter avatar for @curious_founder
Michael Thomas @curious_founder
*Personal news* I'm launching a newsletter about the politics of climate change. If you've enjoyed reading my stories, it'd mean a lot to me if you helped spread the word. Here's a bit about what you can expect from the newsletter: 🧵 https://t.co/WHbJMVNBUL
6:22 PM ∙ Nov 30, 2022
22Likes9Retweets
Twitter avatar for @Revkin
Andrew Revkin 🌎 ✍🏼 🪕 ☮️ @Revkin
I hope you’ll join me in financially supporting @curious_founder’s innovative and effective approach to investigating sources of climate friction.
Twitter avatar for @curious_founder
Michael Thomas @curious_founder
*Personal news* I'm launching a newsletter about the politics of climate change. If you've enjoyed reading my stories, it'd mean a lot to me if you helped spread the word. Here's a bit about what you can expect from the newsletter: 🧵 https://t.co/WHbJMVNBUL
12:50 AM ∙ Dec 1, 2022
13Likes1Retweet
Twitter avatar for @Stphn_Lacey
Stephen Lacey @Stphn_Lacey
I'm a big fan of Michael. I just interviewed him about some of his reporting for an upcoming episode. Subscribe to his newsletter!
Twitter avatar for @curious_founder
Michael Thomas @curious_founder
*Personal news* I'm launching a newsletter about the politics of climate change. If you've enjoyed reading my stories, it'd mean a lot to me if you helped spread the word. Here's a bit about what you can expect from the newsletter: 🧵 https://t.co/WHbJMVNBUL
9:00 PM ∙ Dec 1, 2022
17Likes1Retweet
Twitter avatar for @ClimateTown
Climate Town @ClimateTown
Very pumped about Michael "Thomas" aka @curious_founder's new newsletter - get on it before your cousin tells you about it at Christmas.
Twitter avatar for @curious_founder
Michael Thomas @curious_founder
*Personal news* I'm launching a newsletter about the politics of climate change. If you've enjoyed reading my stories, it'd mean a lot to me if you helped spread the word. Here's a bit about what you can expect from the newsletter: 🧵 https://t.co/WHbJMVNBUL
10:46 PM ∙ Nov 30, 2022
20Likes2Retweets
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We Reached 20 Million People Last Month

www.distilled.earth
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