Welcome to the week.
We’re one week out from the US election, and stress levels are at an all time high.
Take a few breaths, remember what we’re fighting for and what we’re capable of, then grab a handful of Halloween candy and let’s get to the rest of the (mostly not election related) news.
This week:
⚡Voting for PUCs
💊Free birth control
🐟 Farmed fish
🤖 AI watermarks
And more
Take care of yourselves,
— Willow
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🙋♀️ Vote!
Trying this one again…with the correct scale this time, oops! 🤦
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⚡️ Climate change:
Ten states elect their public utility commissioners — who hold the cards in local clean energy development — and in November, eight of those states have active races for at least one commissioner. If you live in one of them, this is where your vote can have a big impact!
🌎 A natural gas pipeline under development in Mexico highlights the tension between the newly elected climate scientist president’s economic and environmental goals
Microsoft is trying to solve the problem of clean concrete by launching a new carbon market, where offsets are tied to physical products (unlike in traditional carbon markets)
US landfills are the third-largest source of methane emissions, but a few simple policy changes at the EPA could cut those emissions in half over 25 years
🌎 Supply can’t keep up with demand for electric vehicles in India
🦠 Health & Bio:
Biden is proposing to require health insurance companies to provide full coverage of over-the-counter contraception products, including birth control and condoms (For free! …If you have health insurance.)
The response to the H5N1 bird flu outbreaks across American farms reveals that we’ve learned little about pandemic prevention since 2020
Infant mortality in the US has increased following Dobbs
Telehealth companies are jumping on the GLP-1 gold rush by “renting” services of medical groups for widespread prescriptions and distribution, despite some significant medical and ethical concerns
A company that handles prior authorizations for 1 in 3 insured Americans uses an algorithm that is adjusted to increase denial rates and reward cost-cutting, despite the real human costs of these denials (fuck these guys)
💦 Food & Water:
🌎 Following the EU (now-delayed) ruling that sellers must prove their products don’t come from deforested areas, Brazil is launching plans to track cattle herds to improve supply-chain traceability
🌏 Farmed fish now exceeds wild-caught fish in global fish consumption, but growth in aquaculture comes with its own serious environmental and ethical concerns, including its own impacts on wild fish populations
Biotech scientists are developing genetically modified bacteria to reduce the need for chemical fertilizers in corn farming
Hydropower is an important part of the clean energy transition, but traditional systems pose a significant threat to fish populations. New innovations over an opportunity to upgrade facilities with fish safe technologies and maintain the sustainability of hydro
🌎 Climate scientists have published an open letter warning that the risk of AMOC, a key ocean current, collapsing is greater than initially thought
👩💻 Beep Boop:
Anthropic has a new AI that can “essentially emulate a person sitting at a PC”
DeepMind has open sourced its watermark for AI-generated text, which is an essential tool for helping to determine if something is AI generated
US law enforcement can track smartphone locations, enabling the monitoring of abortion clinics, places of worship, and individuals
Disinformation campaigns targeting the US Election are coming from all sides, with Microsoft warning of foreign influence operations from Russia, China, and Iran
🌎 = Global news
We can stay on track for 1.5C if we increase spending by 1% global GDP. Seems like a good deal to me.
Last week’s most popular Action Step was learning about strategies to adapt to sea level rise in coastal cities.
Donate to a mutual aid network near you. It’s one of the best ways you can directly support members of your community.
Volunteer with the Environmental Voter Project to help get climate-conscious people to the polls!
Get educated about candidates running in your district that support the issues you care about, from reproductive freedom to climate change. Just add your location!
Be heard about expanding SNAP to allow for the purchase of hot foods (yeah that’s currently not a thing).
Invest in companies who’s values you align with, and build a green portfolio with Earthfolio.
NEW: Find the action steps that mean the most to you at WhatCanIDo.Earth
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Is multisolving the future? Is it today? Should we do more?
That's all today's big question and my guest is Dr. Elizabeth Sawin.
Dr. Sawin is the Founder and Director of the Multisolving Institute, which is convenient for our conversation. She's an expert on solutions that address climate change while also improving health, well being, and economic vitality. She developed multisolving to describe such win win win solutions.
Beth writes and speaks about multisolving, climate change, and leadership in complex systems for both national and international audiences.
Since 2014, Beth has participated in the Council on the Uncertain Human Future, a continuing dialogue on issues of climate change and sustainability among a select group of humanities scholars, writers, artists, and climate scientists.
Beth is a biologist with a Ph.D. From the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, M. I. T. She co-founded Climate Interactive in 2010 and served as Climate Interactive's co-director from 2010 until 2022.
Beth’s work has influenced me quite a bit, as you can see in the app.
We've got co benefits all over the place, more on that soon and today. She's been on the list for a while here, and yet it took a couple recent hurricanes to actually get her on the show to talk about her journey, her mentors, her new book, and how we can most effectively deal with all of this.
📖 Prefer to read? Get the transcript here.
▶ Or watch the full episode on YouTube.
Humans are trying to one-up plants? 👇
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