Welcome to the week.
We have the one and only Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson on the pod this week to talk about her new book: What If We Get It Right? Visons of Climate Futures (out Sept 17th!). She is, as always, so brilliant and inspiring — listen here!
On to the news!
This week:
📮Electric mail trucks
🧠Mental health insurance
🍎School lunch fees
⚡Virtual power plant legislation for every state
And more
Have a great week,
— Willow
{{active_subscriber_count}}+ people who give a shit got this post in their email, for free.
🙋♀️ Vote!
How do your current action efforts break down?
Last week, we asked: How often do you take an Action Step?
You said:
🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️ Daily (19%)
🟨🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️ Weekly (22%)
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 Monthly (24%)
🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️ One or two times per year (16%)
🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️ Never (19%)
New Shit Giver CJ is here because “I guess I'm just tired of feeling like people don't give a shit. I know some people are out there doing more than me, but most are doing less (or nothing). I guess I'm just looking to recharge my batteries, before I don't give a shit, either.“
Appreciate you being here!
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⚡️ Climate change:
The USPS is rolling out its Next Generation Delivery Vehicles (NGDVs, now you know), they’re electric (woot!) and receiving rave reviews from drivers
🌏 Lawmakers in places like France and New York are finally starting to push back against fast fashion, a major contributor to global emissions, waste, and labor abuses
With solar and battery capacity continuing to skyrocket and with coal in decline, the grid is slowly getting cleaner, but the bulk of power generation is still coming from fossil fuels
Warehouses are historically boring, and also not very efficient — but REI is breaking that mold
Spending billions on unproven climate solutions like carbon capture and storage are probably not the best use of funds
🦠 Health & Bio:
Insurers will soon be forced to cover mental health care on the same basis as physical health
One of the reasons routine vaccinations are declining is because the preventative benefits are invisible — but we started taking them for a reason (see polio outbreak article below), and it’s important to remember that. This article has an epidemiologist answer routine vaccination questions — send it to your vaccine-skeptical friends
🌍 The resurgence of polio outbreaks in places like Gaza can be traced back to a 2016 decision to pare down the oral polio vaccine
🌎 Following the debunking of a pivotal paper in Alzheimer’s research, a group of data analysts and scientists are speaking on broader problems in scientific publishing, from the pressure to produce results to the slow pace of addressing concerns
Other challenges facing scientific research and bootstrapping scientists include the current grant funding system
💦 Food & Water:
A payment processing company is charging high fees to process school lunch payments, often exceeding the cost of the meal and disproportionately affecting low-income families
The FDA wants food companies to add warning labels to their packaging that flag high levels of sodium, saturated fat or added sugars
Massachusetts is the only state so far that has implemented a food waste ban and seen meaningful results.
The EPA’s annual emissions report showed that the agricultural sector dropped emissions by 2% from 2021 to 2022, but the reasons why are complicated
Californian farmers are transitioning to less thirsty crops, like agave, amidst extreme heat and drought
👩💻 Beep Boop:
AI is better than humans at debunking conspiracies to people who have gone too far down the rabbit hole
Clean energy advocates are working on a standardized approach to craft legislation that assists the building of virtual power plants in every state
A startup is developing a novel way to power AI data centers using heat and solar to reduce their carbon footprint
The Justice Department is coming for Google in a second antitrust trial, this time looking to break up its control of online advertising
Read how this data journalist is adopting a “run locally and verify” approach to using AI ethically in his work
🌎 = Global news
How to hold on to hope when things are looking bleak 👇
Last week’s most popular Action Step was participating in Zopeful’s Climate @ Work study.
🌎 Donate to Give Directly, one of the most effective anti-poverty organizations.
Volunteer to get folks who care about climate action elected by finding events in The Climate Vote’s 2024 Election Hub.
Get educated about how to transition your home away from fossil fuels with Helio.
Be heard about gun violence and tell Congress to pass the Assault Weapons Ban.
Invest in a climate-friendly 401(k) using Sphere.
🌎 = Global Action Step
What if we get it right?
That's today's big question, and my returning guest is Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson.
Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson is a marine biologist. She is a policy expert, a writer, and a teacher working to help create the best possible climate future. She co-founded and leads the Urban Ocean Lab, a think tank for the future of coastal cities, and is the Roux Distinguished Scholar at Bowdoin College.
Ayana authored the forthcoming book, What If We Get It Right? Visions of Climate Futures, co-edited the best selling climate anthology, All We Can Save, and co-created and co-hosted the Spotify/Gimlet podcast, How to Save a Planet. Lastly, she co-authored the Blue New Deal, a roadmap for including the ocean, what an idea, into climate policy.
This is a special one for me.
Ayana was guest number seven or eight on the show a long time ago. She took a chance on us. And almost 200 episodes later, a pandemic later, a few degrees of warming later, a lot has changed.
But Ayana's passion for nature, her influence on U.S. and global policy and our one wonderful habitable planet has not.
I am such a huge fan of hers, and I am so thankful she came back to spend time with us.
If you have been trying to find your way into this whole thing, today just might be your day.
📖 Prefer to read? Get the transcript here.
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