Welcome to the week.
After the longest January in history, February absolutely flew by and here we are in March already, somehow. Time does not exist. But the sun is rising before 7 AM again, the crocuses are blooming in my town, and I’m starting to feel like a human being again, so I’ll take it.
Now, let’s dive into the news.
This week:
🌍 Climate policy whiplash
🤰 Understanding fertility trends
☕ Coffee & chocolate prices
📱 Right to Repair momentum
And more
Have a great week,
— Willow
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Today could be that day! Scroll down to the “What Can I Do” section of this email 💛
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⚡️ Climate change:
The EPA is unfreezing federal money and recipients of programs like Solar for All are starting to access funds (Floodlight), but at the same time the agency announced a 65% workforce cut (Reuters)
Cultural burning for ceremonial and practical purposes (like reducing brush to reduce wildfire risk) is allowed by federally recognized tribes in California (LA Times)
🌎Four NGOs in East Africa are appealing the dismissal of their case against the controversial East African crude oil pipeline (Mongabay)
Greenpeace is being sued by a pipeline company for $300 million, which could result in bankruptcy for the environmental group (The New York Times)
US scientists are being barred from working on the next installment of the IPCC climate report due in 2029 (CNN)
🦠 Health & Bio:
Heart disease is still the number one cause of death in the US, killing nearly a million people in 2022 (Washington Post)
🌍 The Total Fertility Rate (TFR) can be misleading because it measures fertility at a single point in time, and understanding it better can give us a better idea of fertility trends over time, and the impact of policies (Our World in Data)
🌍 Breast cancer is projected to increase globally, so stay vigilant ladies 00 get and keep advocating for your health (IARC)
The USDA has a plan (with mixed reviews) to combat bird flu and reduce egg prices via expanded biosecurity assessments, farmer recovery support, vaccine research, increased egg imports, and reduced regulations (Civil Eats)
You’ve probably noticed, but the flu season in the US is really bad this year, which is possibly due to the increase in anti-vaccine sentiments (Slow Boring)
💦 Food & Water:
Farmers are suing the Agriculture Department for scrubbing climate data, which they need to do things like grow our food (The New York Times)
🌎 Chocolate prices are soaring, because warming temperatures in West Africa’s cocoa belt (where 70% of the world’s cacao comes from) are pushing conditions beyond the optimal range for cacao growth (Gizmodo)
🌎 Coffee too, although the producers aren’t benefiting (The New York Times)
🌎 Columbia is considering regulations to improve cattle traceability and control illegal deforestation (Mongabay)
🌍 Reforestation is great for carbon removal and biodiversity, but we need to be strategic about where trees are planted (Mongabay)
👩💻 Beep Boop:
Chatbot therapists are put vulnerable users at risk, highlighting the need to balance proper regulation and clinical oversight with filling the gap in mental health provider availability (The New York Times)
The Right to Repair movement has legislation introduced in all 50 states (404 Media)
Gen3 AI models like Claude 3.7 and Grok 3 represent significant advancements in AI capabilities (One Useful Thing)
Apple has introduced an age assurance API to address child safety online while balancing privacy for everyone else (Platformer)
Google discontinued warning banners that alerted users to potentially unreliable search results in the weeks prior to the US election (Platformer)
🌎 = Global news
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Donate to Earthjustice so they can keep taking corporations and governments to court to protect our health, and the health of the environment.
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What can we do about land power?
It's the most important question and our guest today is Mike Albertus.
Mike is a professor of political science at the University of Chicago. He's the author of the new book, Land Power. Who has it? Who doesn't? And how that determines the fate of societies.
In the book, Mike examines how land became power, how it shapes power today still, and how who holds that power determines the fundamental social problems that societies grapple with.
Mike studies how countries allocate opportunity and well-being among their citizens and the consequences this has for society, why some countries are democratic and others are not, and why some societies fall into civil conflict.
📖 Prefer to read? Get the transcript here.
▶ Or watch the full episode on YouTube.
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