Welcome to the week.
It’s Earth Week, which means it’s the perfect time to take climate action, and what better way that joining the phone banking session with the Environmental Voter Project that Quinn is hosting this Wednesday (April 23rd) at 8 PM ET.
Training is provided if you don’t have any phone banking experience!
Ok news time.
This Week
Have a great week,
— Willow
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🙋♀️ Vote!
What's your view on restricting cars in city centers?
Last week, we asked: Would you support your city or county implementing a small fee (eg., $1 on utility bills) to fund local regenerative agriculture projects?
You said:
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 Yes, and I would advocate for it (44%)
“What's not to love about this?”
🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Yes if it were optional (opt-in) (18%)
“I live in a mixed income neighborhood and I don't think it's fair for low income or struggling neighbors to have to do this. But I also live in a very liberal and community-minded neighborhood (very obvious in how we vote each year) and believe there would be a lot of organic support for this. ”
🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Yes even if it were automatic (opt-out) (14%)
“Our food system is the base of human energy and must change now if we are to evolve rather than cause further extinction, including of humanity.”
🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Maybe, I would need more information (13%)
“Organic only.”
⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ No I don't think the local government should be involved in this (5%)
“State and local governments are already misusing the funding tactics related to special fees on utility bills. There is too much mission creep that occurs. ”
⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ No I don't support any additional fees (6%)
“With all the taxes we pay over 60% of take home pay that should cover it.”
New Shit Giver Beth is here because “I'm here because I am a geriatric nurse and although I am at the corporate level now, I was not during the pandemic. I was a DON over a facility of about 98 residents. We were the first in the county to have a COVID outbreak and the first to have a death.“
Thank you so much for your service, and thank you for being here!
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⚡️ Climate change:
Contrary to certain ill-advised plans to force money-losing coal plants to remain operational in the name of grid reliability, renewables would better solving the looming grid-reliability crisis (the cherry on top of being more economical and environmentally friendly) (Canary Media)
Conflicts over transmission lines are popping up in places like Maryland, and possibly nationwide, as the surging electricity demands of AI necessitate more power infrastructure (Floodlight)
🌎 The EU is easing administrative requirements for importers under its deforestation law, allowing annual due-diligence statements and reducing supply chain verification obligations (Bloomberg)
🌍 While Latin America has been losing forest cover overall over the last ten years, certain countries are making progress through restoration initiatives (WRI)
A federal judge has blocked the EPA from terminating $14 billion in climate grants approved under Biden, and has ordered the release of the money (The Washington Post)
🦠 Health & Bio:
The breakthrough p-Tau217 blood test for Alzheimer’s can detect the disease more than 20 years before symptom onset, and may revolutionize prediction and prevention (Ground Truths)
In case you need a primer, here are the difference between seasonal flu and bird flu (The Conversation)
The decision to end water fluoridation ignores decades of scientific evidence about fluoride’s benefits for dental health (The New York Times)
🌎 If the US ends its $12 billion annual global health funding, 25 million people could die in the next 15 years from increased HIV, TB, and maternal health issues in developing countries (Nature)
🌎The 191 WHO member states (ahem, not the US) have agreed on a pandemic treaty aimed at preventing global health crises through pathogen information sharing and technology access (The New York Times)
💦 Food & Water:
Trump is allowing commercial fishing within the Pacific Islands Heritage Marine National Monument, a previously protected area of 1.27 million square kilometers home to threatened marine species (Mongabay)
The FDA is planning to outsource most of its routine food safety inspections to state and local authorities while maintaining oversight of high-risk inspections, which could free up resources, but raises concerns about implementation and food safety standards (CBS News)
🌎 Climate change is causing arsenic levels in rice to increase, potentially creating a significant health burden by 2050, especially for infants and populations with rice-heavy diets (Gizmodo)
Milwaukee is facing a sever lead crisis in its schools, with children exposed to lead from flaking paint discovered in aging building, but the city must confront this emergency without guidance from CDC experts who have been laid off (The New York Times)
The US fishing industry is being deregulated, which combined with cuts to monitoring agencies like NOAA, could lead to overfishing and the depletion of fish stocks (Civil Eats)
👩💻 Beep Boop:
🌍Google is purchasing geothermal energy in Taiwan, part of its efforts to cut emissions and match its electricity use with carbon-free energy by 2030 (The Verge)
A new viral trend has emerged where users are uploading photos to ChatGPT to accurately identify locations shown in pictures, opening up a whole slew of potential new privacy and doxxing issues (TechCrunch)
Researchers are using AI to confirm that birdsongs evolve based on age, population dynamics and bird movement patterns, with highly mobile birds adopting popular songs, and sedentary birds developing unique local songs (Mongabay)
🌍 Starlink has rapidly become Nigeria’s second largest internet service provider in just two years (Rest of World)
Without proper government intervention and policies steering AI towards augmenting rather than replacing human workers, we risk creating a society where AI owners capture most economic benefits wile workers lose bargaining power and economic security (The New Yorker)
🌎 = Global news
Last week’s most popular Action Step was donating to the Food Action and Research Center and signing up for their Action Network to join the fight against hunger.
Donate to the Transgender Law Center and support their work protecting the rights of transgender and gender-nonconforming people.
🌎 Volunteer your school to join the Green Schools Alliance, a peer-to-peer network with resources to create healthier, more sustainable learning environments.
Get educated about how you can make your business more sustainable with resources from Climate Club.
Be heard about climate resilient cities and direct your city officials towards the Heat Action Platform.
Invest in responsible companies and make a positive impact with your money using Betterment.
🌎 = Global Action Step
NEW: Find the action steps that mean the most to you at WhatCanIDo.Earth
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.
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Sometimes you buy organic, sometimes you hit a restaurant that's plant-based, or at least you choose the veggie option.
Maybe the fish option at the market or the restaurant is marketed as being sustainable. Maybe you compost. It's all useful. But we've been doing it for a while and it's not moving the needle for climate, for restaurants, for farmers, for our health.
So anyone who gives a shit wants to know, what can I actually do to scale regenerative agriculture to benefit everyone?
My guest today is Anthony Myint.
Anthony is the executive director of Zero Foodprint, where he and his colleagues work to mobilize the restaurant industry and allies in the public and private sectors to support healthy soil as a solution to the climate crisis. Anthony's also a chef who won the 2019 Basque Culinary World Prize for his work with Zero Foodprint. He is known in the restaurant industry as the co-founder of Mission Street Food. The San Francisco Chronicle called it the most influential restaurant of the past decade, Mission Chinese Food, which the New York Times named the Restaurant of the Year in 2012. And The Perennial, which was Bon Appetit's most sustainable restaurant in the country.
Anthony is currently on the board of trustees for the James Beard Foundation, and I am so excited to share this conversation with you because food is such a huge part of everything and we're doing it wrong and we can do it so much better.
And sometimes, like Anthony and his crew have, you've gotta fail a bunch of times and then take an end around before you can really start to make a difference.
📖 Prefer to read? Get the transcript here
▶ Or watch the full episode on YouTube
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