Welcome to the week!
Holy smokes, it’s May. I got excited last week and started transplanting my garden outdoors (it then proceeded to frost over every morning afterwards, I may have whatever the opposite of a green thumb is, but we’re living and learning).
Anyways, buckle up, it’s news time!
This week:
🛰 Methane MRV tech
🫀Anger and heart disease
♻Composting bioplastics
📰 News vs AI
And more
Have a great week,
— Willow
This is science for people who give a shit.
Every week, we help 28,000+ humans understand and unfuck the rapidly changing world around us. It feels great, and we’d love for you to join us.
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New Shit Giver Rita wants to help solve “AI ethics. As one of the (unfortunately) few women studying and planning to work in the field of computer science, and one of the people who also care about and value the humanities (or at least, something more than just making the technology work)..... I want to shape the future of human-machine interaction.
I want to take all the fuzzy ideas, hopes, dreams, and fears, and turn them into concrete steps and policies that get us to the future we want to see. I want to tackle all the thorny issues of ethics, copyright, privacy, and profit when it comes to AI. “
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⚡️ Climate change:
Guidelines to make aviation cleaner are pushing for corn-based ethanol, the environmental benefits of which are…debatable
The US is starting to crack down on methane emissions, which is leading to more monitoring, reporting, and verification (MRV). This is both a) keeping emitters accountable to action, and b) revealing that there are way more sources of methane out there than previously thought. More on methane MRV tech here
🌍 The majority of mines for metals critical to the energy transition are very vulnerable to drought, even in an optimistic emissions scenario for 2050
🌍 Large portions of Southeast Asia are struggling with extreme heat, while Kenya is being devastated by flooding
🦠 Health & Bio:
🌍 Several large clinical trials are showing promising results for treating cancer with vaccines, in part due to the rapid development of mRNA vaccines during (and before) the pandemic
The maternal mortality rate is returning to pre-pandemic levels, but the rates are still too high, especially for Black women
While some of the news stories included today undoubtably caused your blood pressure to spike, remember to take a few deep breaths, because anger is linked to an increased risk of heart disease
Money is coming to boost menopause care, and also to replace lead pipes
💦 Food & Water:
🌎 The forever chemical TFA, which may damage fertility and child development, has found to been rising in drinking water globally
The USDA will vote on a proposal to allow bioplastics to qualify for certified organic compost, which is sparking another debate over what should qualify as organic
Biden’s 30×30 plan to protect 30% of the planet’s land, inland waters, and seas includes counting some commercial fishing zones as conserved, which certainly seems counterintuitive
🌎 The EU’s Green Deal is at odds with longstanding farming subsidies, and farmers are protesting, causing Europe’s sustainable agriculture initiatives to come to a standstill
👩💻 Beep Boop:
The US antitrust trial against Google is wrapping up, but federal cases against Big Tech are just starting
🌏 Google has updated its ad policy to ban all AI-generated porn
Daily newspapers are suing OpenAI and Microsoft for copyright infringement, meanwhile, the Financial Times has signed a licensing deal with OpenAI to allow chatGPT access to articles
The Affordable Connectivity Program has ended, despite its success, leaving millions of Americans without internet access
🌎 = Global news
Some objectively good news
Last week’s most popular Action Step was investing the Gavi Matching Fund to help roll-out vaccines globally.
🌏 Donate to Women in AI Ethics to elevate diverse voices in tech.
Volunteer with Tech Shift and organize for a more just technological future.
🌎 Get educated about the social implications of tech with research from Data & Society.
Be heard about transparency in AI training data and ask your representative to support the AI Disclosure Act (and read this interview in The Markup about the need for governments to step up regulating AI)
Invest in tech for good and help scale climate tech with Carbon Equity.
🌎 = Global Action Step
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