🌎 A Tale As Old As Lyme

Welcome to the week.

A bit of a delay getting this out today, my apologies — it’s the May long weekend in Canada (Victoria Day) and I was offline the whole time (it was glorious).

Don’t miss our new podcast episode with MIT immunologist, Dr. Mikki Tal. She studies chronic diseases like Lyme disease (don’t forget to do your tick checks!), and it’s one of the best episodes we’ve done.

Ok, here we go.

This week:

• 🌎️ An onslaught of climate policy

• 🍄 Psychedelics for chronic pain

• 🍫 Cocoa risks

•  🤖 OpenAI safety concerns

• And more

Have a great week,

— Willow

This is science for people who give a shit.

Every week, we help 33,000+ 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: What is your view on the viability and effectiveness of voluntary and compliance carbon markets as tools to reduce emissions and combat climate change?

You said:

🟨🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️ Voluntary carbon markets alone are not sufficient - (27%)

“Voluntary compliance will not be enough. More is needed by manufacturing and local governments.”

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Compliance carbon markets regulated by governments are a viable approach that provide crucial financial incentives (9%)

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Voluntary carbon markets driven by companies/individuals are more effective than regulatory compliance markets (8%)

“History has shown over and over that when left to the market the programs and tools developed are several heads above most government-regulated programs.”

🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ Neither voluntary nor compliance carbon markets are effective solutions - direct regulations are needed instead (18%)

“We don’t have enough time to play around with those other options. We need strong regulatory action in order to hasten change.”

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 I don't know enough about the different types of carbon markets to have an opinion (29%)

🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Something else (write in!) (10%)

“I believe it begins with our selves: How much willing are we to change our lifestyle and our means of daily living so that life other than human are value- not equally but at least with sufficiency so their lives are not taken in waste: It is - and it won't be - easy: But then it never has been easy for humanity to change - especially when faced with the choices of maybe not "growing" like parents and ancestors, but which may be necessary in order for all of us - and our descendants - to continue living in good measure upon this planet - with all other life: not taking or hoarding but giving and receiving! ”

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⚡️ Climate change:

• Say what you will about Biden, his administration has been passing climate policies nonstop that will make homes more efficient, require coal power plants to shut down, and reduce tailpipe emissions.

• 🌎️ A grid powered by renewable energy will require huge amounts of bulk energy storage solutions — or maybe not, if we focus on cheaper, demand-side management and efficiency solutions.

• Another solution to help out the grid? Electric school bus’s that are cutting emissions (and air pollution), while supplying electricity back to the grid

• 🌎️ The heatwaves sweeping Asia over the last month or so were indeed made worse by climate change

🦠 Health & Bio:

• 🌏️ A new HIV vaccine trial was successful at generating low levels of antibodies needed to target HIV

• The acceptance of long COVID has caused a resurgence in research for other infection-related chronic diseases, such as chronic Lyme disease, which had previously been downplayed or dismissed

• 🌎️ Clinical trials of psychedelics to treat mental illness have been underway for the past few years, and now researchers are starting to look at how they could be used to treat chronic pain

• While overdose deaths from opioids decreased in 2023 for the first time in 5 years, deaths from stimulants like cocaine and meth increased

💦 Food & Water:

• No one has a better marketing team than butter — or the dairy industry at large, with marketing teams funded by mandatory fees from farmers, aiming to get dairy into as many products (and brand deals) as possible

• 🌍️ One the world’s biggest commodities traders believes there’s a risk we could run out of cocoa altogether (see last week’s essay for more on this)

• 🌎️ As many parts of the world struggle with water scarcity, wastewater recycling could be a revolutionary solution — but there are still many hurdles to overcome

• Why are legislators coming for lab-grown meat, when it’s not even yet available for commercial sale? (you get 3 guesses)

👩‍💻 Beep Boop:

• OpenAI’s latest version of ChatGPT (GPT-4o) is a jack of all trades that can respond to audio, images, text, and video. Shit’s getting wilder

• Meanwhile safety-minded employees at OpenAI are starting to leave in droves, citing a lack of trust that the company is prioritize safety

• Microsoft’s emissions have increased 29% since 2020, attributed to the AI boom

• A US cybersecurity official has revealed that attackers have repeatedly used vulnerabilities in cellular infrastructure to track the physical location of people

🌎️ = Global news

I guess bias in the medical system in the theme this week. Read for a better understanding on why leading with curiosity > dismissiveness 👇️ 

New Shit Giver Cheryl wants to help solve “climate/environment. My sister died of breast cancer, so cancer of all kinds. We waste tons of food when others are starving, so wasted food and also GMO food products, which I disagree with. We cannot live without clean water, so add water to my list. AI is of interest to me. Most technologies can be used for good or bad, but how to ensure only good applications is an interesting issue. Prejudice. Women's Right to Choose for her own body. Child and animal abuse... ahhh so many things I wish I could help solve. “

Welcome, Cheryl! I hear you, it is a lot, but you’re in the right place.

Last week’s most popular Action Step was finding a toilet paper brand that contributes the least to deforestation using the NRDC’s Issue With Tissue scorecard.

• 🌎️ Donate to the Malala Fund to advocate for girls education all over the world.

• Volunteer with Third Act (if you’re over 60) to utilize your political and economic power to help build a more sustainable future.

• Get educated about electrifying your community using Rewiring America’s Electrification Resources for Local Leaders.

• Be heard about improving maternal mortality rates in the US and ask your representatives to support The Mamas First Act.

• Invest in companies working to lower carbon emissions using Betterment’s Socially Responsible Investing options.

🌎️ = Global Action Step

How do we take a huge chronic disease burden like Lyme disease or long COVID or even long flu and make it so personal that we simply can't ignore it anymore?

That's today's big question and my guest is Dr. Mikki Tal, an immunoengineer and a principal scientist at MIT.

Dr. Tal leads the Tal Research Group within the Department of Biological Engineering, and also serves as the Associate Scientific Director of the Center for Gynepathology Research. Mikki is working to identify the connections between infections and chronic diseases.

I've written a bit recently about the lessons we finally need to learn about post viral and bacterial health issues, the societal and medicinal and health and economic issues and improving our baseline of wellness and community health, so that we don't suffer from those quite as much.

These things are very real, we've known about them for a very long time and the compounding effects of chronic diseases are just going to continue add up the longer we ignore them, and we gaslight people.

There has never really been a better time for Mikki's work, or for this wonderfully inspiring and personal conversation.

📖 Prefer to read? Get the transcript here.

▶️ Or watch the full episode on YouTube.

Want to talk climate strategy, investing, or anything else?

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