
Free Edition
Welcome to the week.
Here’s some news that may not have made it to the forefront of your newsfeeds this week for obvious reasons, but is important nonetheless, especially if you live on planet Earth.
This week:
☀ A solar-powered titanium factory
💉Funding for Gavi
💧Desalination costs
🤖AI hype
And more
Stay cool out there,
— Willow
This is science for people who give a shit.
Every week, we help {{active_subscriber_count}}+ humans understand and unfuck the rapidly changing world around us. It feels great, and we’d love for you to join us.
🙋♀️ Vote!
Last week, we asked: How do you research your supplements before buying them?
You said:
🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️ Examine.com (23%)
🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Labdoor (5%)
🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ Consumer Reports (17%)
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 Something else (31%)
“I only buy supplements from established brands after digging into the quality sections of their websites and never, ever buy unfamiliar brands on Amazon because independent testing has shown them to rarely contain what they claim.”
“I am a research nerd so I just go to PubMed and look for articles, then go ingredient by ingredient.”
“I check two or three sources looking for the mechanism of action, bioavailability, metabolism, and pharmacokinetics. NIH and Mayo clinic are common resources.”
“I check at least two sources: Consumer Reports (not surprising) and ConsumerLab. com. ConsumerLab checks and ranks supplements, far more extensively and frequently than CR, although I’d never ignore CR. ”
🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️ I don't (24%)

New Shit Giver Chase wants to help solve “the safety of the air, soil, and water quality we encounter daily. I also want a positive outlook on my future, which right now I'm struggling with.”
We really try to be future-positive here, even when the bad guys just won’t stop. The good news is the solutions to better air, soil, and water are out there, we just need collective, continued action to make sure they are sustainably implemented, for everyone.
🤝 Become A Member
We’re 100% independent and proudly supported by readers like you.
Members get a 30 day free trial to:
Ad-free everything
Vibe Check: Our news homepage, curated daily just for you. Never doomscroll again, thx
Essays: The frameworks, models, history, and pop culture I use to understand what’s happening now and next
Half Baked: Weekly briefs to help you think and act on specific, timely issues as they happen
Not Important: My favorite books, art, movies, music, apps, and more that have nothing to do with the jet stream slowing down
Lifetime thanks for directly supporting our work

⚡️ Climate change:
🌎 Solar capacity (which has historically been underestimated), is expected to quadruple globally (mostly in China) over the next decade, and growth in energy storage is expected to pop off too
Over 2 million oil and gas wells in the US are sitting unplugged, and with available cleanup funds to cap them falling billions of dollars short, regulators have been attempting to work with industry to get them to clean up after themselves…and instead they are hindering reform efforts state by state
Extreme heat is keeping helicopters on the ground, and preventing them from getting people to a hospital in a medical emergency
An industrial plant making titanium products in West Virginia will be primarily be powered by a solar microgrid
FEMA’s Disaster Relief Fund is already stretched thin this year (it could run out of funds by mid-August without additional support), putting more of the disaster relief burden on state and local governments
🦠 Health & Bio:
🌍 By providing more funding to Gavi (who is looking to raise $9 billion to cover its budget from 2026-2030), rich countries can prevent hundreds of thousands of kids from dying from malaria (in addition to other routine vaccines for polio, measles, and rubella)
Medicare Advantage insurers have been adding diagnoses to patients records (often without the knowledge of patients or their doctors) to receive higher Medicare payments (truly, what the fuck?)
🌏 One way to reduce the antimicrobial resistance crisis? Some economists say the answer could be taxing more profitable antibiotics to discourage over-prescribing
People infected during pregnancy may be more likely to develop Long Covid compared to the overall population
Under- or uninsured pregnant people in North Carolina can receive quality prenatal care through the Adopt-A-Mom program, which is intended to reduce infant mortality rates and disparities in maternal health. We love to see it
💦 Food & Water:
🌎 While water scarcity is a growing concern worldwide, the desalination industry is growing, and is indeed becoming cheaper and more efficient
🌎 Agricultural productivity in sub-Saharan Africa is complex — the total output has increased but that’s mostly due to an increase in inputs rather than improved efficiency
Lawmakers continue to be at odds over the Farm Bill, divided over spending on aid to help hungry families or guarantee minimum crop prices for farmers
Meat industry funded research at public universities often prioritizes technological fixes and improved public perception over addressing fundamental issues, like the industries contributions to climate change
🌎 Brazil is regulating access to its vast biodiversity and attempting to ensure fair compensation for Indigenous communities that contribute traditional knowledge to the development of new products by agricultural industry
👩💻 Beep Boop:
Goldman Sachs is questioning whether AI has been overhyped, and if the large amount of spending on AI infrastructure will pay off
Big Tech companies certainly remain optimistic about it, although building effective applications is taking a lot of work
Are you an AT&T customer? A recent security breach compromised phone records of “nearly all” customers including phone numbers, calling and text records, and location-related data
🌎 The US-China tech rivalry has impacts across private companies and other nations, like in Microsoft’s investment in the UAE’s AI firm G42, which has deep connections to China
🌏 The Chinese government is allowing Tesla to bring in its full self-driving feature, and is allowing cities to build smart road infrastructure
🌎 = Global news

Boatloads of work (sorry not sorry) but someone’s gotta do it.
🎧 Listen now 👇

Last week’s most popular Action Step was asking Congress to support the Algorithmic Accountability Act.
🌍 Donate to Regeneration International to advocate for regenerative farming practices (and better soil) worldwide.
Volunteer with Mom’s Clean Air Force to protect everyone from air pollution.
🌏 Get educated about how you can work in water conversation. Find your skillset in this list of resources, and get to work.
Be heard about accelerating the deployment of clean energy by asking Congress to further permitting reform.
Invest with a bank allocating capital to climate solutions with ATMOS.
🌎 = Global Action Step
Together With Bookshop

Want to read what the people working on the frontlines of the future are reading?
Every week, I ask our podcast guest, "What’s a book you’ve read this year that’s opened your mind to a topic you haven’t considered before, or that’s changed your thinking in some way?"
And every week, we add their picks to a list on Bookshop, where every purchase on the site financially supports independent bookstores.
Want an ad-free experience? Become a Member!

Without any ANTestesia! (I’m on fire today)
🤝 Thanks for reading. Here’s how we can help you directly:
☎️ Work with Quinn 1:1 (slots are extremely limited) - book time to talk climate strategy, investing, or anything else.
🎯 Sponsor the newsletter - reach {{active_subscriber_count}} (and counting) sustainably-minded consumers.


