🌏️Tracking Methane Leaks - From Space!

Welcome to the week.

If you’re in North America, I hope the Daylight Saving Time switch doesn’t wreck you too hard.

Try and fit in a nap today if you can, and if not, let’s catch up on the news.

This week:

• 🌇Sinking cities

• 💉Expanding global vaccine capacity

• 💊Ozempic’s price tag

• 💵 Technical debt

• 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.

New Shit Giver Ibrahim says solving “food waste is the number one priority“.

It truly is one of the most frustrating, preventable, things we do, and fixing it would solve a million problems.

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⚡️ Climate change:

• 🌏️ Methane-detecting satellites will provide “the first near-comprehensive global view” of leaks from the oil and gas sector, and the data will be public. Let’s hold them accountable to their pledges, shall we?

• 🌍️ Geologists are ready to say we’re in the Anthropocene yet, but obviously that doesn’t mean we aren’t having a profound impact on the planet

• Wind power is bouncing back. Let’s keep it going and put wind power in all over the world, in these ideal locations

• 🌏️ China is building the world’s longest hydrogen pipeline with the potential to facilitate H2 exports

• Sea level rise impacts may be exacerbated by the fact that coastal land is sinking, increasing flooding and inundation risks in at least 32 major US coastal cities

🦠 Health & Bio:

• 🌏️ Microplastics may increase the risk of stroke and heart attack, but luckily scientists are discovering effective ways to remove microplastics from drinking water

• Medicines to prevent overdose deaths are cheap and easy to distribute. So then why is the US obstructing their use?

• 🌎️ Brazil is also (last week I included a story about Peru) in a state of emergency due to a million cases of dengue so far this year

• 🌏️ India’s biotechnology sector allowed it to become one of the world’s largest vaccine producers, providing some lessons on how developing countries can expand global vaccine capacity

💦 Food & Water:

• 🌎️ Semaglutide (aka Ozempic) is more of a brain drug than scientists originally thought, and in addition to weight-loss, it’s been found to reduce common liver disease in HIV patients

• More Ozempic news: the potential benefits and costs of these drugs could either be an opportunity to set policy and build a model for negotiating drug prices, or cause “one of the biggest fiscal problems of the decade”

• Instead of diverting storm water to avoid flooding, US cities could improve infrastructure to capture and store it

• Ground cinnamon sold at discount stores like Dollar Tree contains unsafe levels of lead, according to the FDA

👩‍💻 Beep Boop:

• A cyberattack on the US health care system shutdown the ability for providers to obtain insurance approval for services, or be paid for those services

• 🌏️ The EU has fined Apple over €1.8 billion for violating antitrust laws, it’s third largest antitrust penalty ever

• 🌎️ Drug-and-rob cases linked to dating apps in Colombia have pushed Tinder into training police on the app’s crime reporting portal

• Old software is racking up $1.5 trillion in technical debt, causing system failures, security breaches, and slower innovation

• Startups looking to compete with Nvidia are saying it’s time to reinvent the computer chip

🌎️ = Global news story

Last week’s most popular Action Step was volunteering with your local Sierra Club.

• 🌍️ Donate to Food First to help end the injustices that cause hunger at a global level.

• Volunteer with the National Family Farm Coalition to support food sovereignty by rebuilding our food systems.

• 🌏️ Get educated about reducing food waste at work with this guide from ReFed.

• Be heard about protecting kids from pesticides and urge your representatives to support the Protect Americas Children from Toxic Pesticides Act.

• Invest in regenerative farmland with Farm.vc.

🌎️ = Global Action Step

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The best stovetop you can buy

We’ll never stop talking about induction stoves. They’re just so much better than gas or traditional electric burners.

Get our recommendations here 👇️ 

Breaking an unbreakable bond

Regulations on forever chemicals are starting to roll in (yay), and scientists are starting to find ways to actually break these bonds down, and keep them out of our drinking water.

Which is good, because we’ve found them pretty much everywhere. Read our explainer for a 101 👇️ 

Read for more reasons to love forests 👇️ 

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