Welcome to the week.
I was away last week, so we have much to catch up on!
But first another plug for our many excellent podcasts:
The Most Important Question just wrapped another run of episodes with some amazing candidates endorsed by our besties at Run For Something — start here.
Our parenting podcast, Not Right Now, is still on summer break, which makes it the perfect time to catch up on our whole catalogue if you haven’t jumped in yet — we’re rerunning some fan favorites here.
And our reality TV podcast, It’s Called Reality, just dropped a new episode breaking down the first season of The Real Housewives of Rhode Island — a show that is both reality TV cinema and provides representation for women over 40 (there’s a menopause storyline!). Listen here.
Ok, news time!
This Week
And more.
Have a great week,
— Willow
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✅ Fact Check
Last week, we asked: What percentage of the world’s fresh water is used by agriculture?
The answer: Around 70%. 46% of you got it right! Most of it flows back into the system, but the diversion, the evaporation, and the crop choices along the way are where the real water story lives.
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⚡️ Climate change:
Maybe you’ve heard of that chart that claims the 1930s were hotter than today? Turns out it’s built on uncorrected station bias, and once you fix the data, recent years tie or beat the Dust Bowl. (The Climate Brink)
The EPA is rolling back coal ash rules so plants can keep dumping toxic sludge near drinking water, all in the name of feeding the AI data center boom. (Canary Media)
Two rival climate-accounting bodies are merging into one mega-standard, while companies are throwing a collective tantrum over being asked to match their power use hour-by-hour. (Heatmap)
🌍 Wetter, warmer weather in northern China is great news if you’re a cattle farmer, as former desert is turning into pasture and the country is importing way less beef because of it. (The New York Times)
🦠 Health & Bio:
After RFK Jr. froze $600 million for Gavi over vaccine safety concerns, the State Department is taking the reins back and restoring the money. (The Hill)
A bill to phase out PFAS pesticides in California farms died in committee after agriculture groups warned of pricier imports, even as EWG testing found PFAS residue on 90% of tested peaches and nectarines. (LA Times)
🌎 A malaria-carrying mosquito resistant to every insecticide we’ve got has spread across Africa at 300 miles a year, bringing malaria to cities that have never had to deal with it before. (The New York Times)
Experts say a food-traceability rule that could’ve sped up the hunt for the source of the cyclospora outbreak was shelved by the federal government until 2028. (Bloomberg)
💦 Food & Water:
New pumping fees meant to save California’s aquifers are actually squeezing out the small farmers who can least afford them. (LA Times)
Composting could slash food waste’s climate impact by 89-99% but only if we stop shredding our plastic packaging into it first. (Gizmodo)
The biggest grocery price jump in 50 years has turned meal planning into a full-time coupon-hunting sport for millions of people. (AP News)
Big Food is running the tobacco industry’s old classic: lose most lawsuits against public health rules, but win by dragging them out for years. (The Guardian)
👩💻 Beep Boop:
A climate scientist tracking his own Claude Code usage over 8 weeks found that AI agents burn roughly 600x more energy than a simple chat prompt. (The Climate Brink)
OpenAI’s models hacked another company’s servers using a zero-day exploit they found themselves. (Platformer)
A former federal grid-cybersecurity enforcer says that squirrels do more damage to the grid than hackers, and explains why the bigger risk is data centers dropping 3 gigawatts at once. (Volts)
Both the US and China are eyeing government stakes in AI companies, but owning a slice of the pie doesn’t mean the public actually gets fed. (Rest of World)
Last week’s most popular Action Step was keeping tabs on the air quality in your area using Purple Air’s Air Quality Map.
👉 NEW: Find every action recommended in It’s Called Science. right here.
🌎 = Global news/action steps
Run To Defend Democracy
Today, another in our series of conversations with friends who are part of the pipeline at Run For Something.
I'm excited to introduce you to Sophia Gibb.
She is a public servant and elite athlete who knows what it means to perform under pressure, which is what our elections are. She is the elections deputy for Chaffee County in Colorado, where she is responsible for running secure, accessible elections, backed by advanced national certifications in election administration.
Before that, Sophia led emergency preparedness efforts in public health, so resilience is quite literally part of her job description. And of course, outside government, Sophia is a two-time Paralympic medalist, multi-time world champion, and a former Team USA Paralympic captain who has advocated for equity on the global stage and on Capitol Hill.
So whether she is strengthening democracy by example or competing at the highest levels of sport, she brings discipline, leadership, and a deep, deep commitment and kindness, frankly, to community and everything she does here.
📖 Prefer to read? Get the transcript here.
▶ Or watch the full episode on YouTube.
Nature’s tiniest architect
We tend to think of resilience as something individuals build, but nature tells us something different.
Every spring, thousands of tent caterpillars emerge and immediately get to work, spinning a collective silk shelter so well-engineered that it can hold 20°C of warmth while the world outside sits at minus 5. There’s no leader, just cooperation refined over millions of years.
Science journalist, Pragathi Ravi, returns in this week’s Life Finds A Way to explore one of nature’s most ingenious and underrated builders, and what we can learn from them about building our own climate-resilient urban designs.
▶ Watch Life Finds A Way on YouTube.
Finally, an ecologically responsible sea monster story
Tessa Yang grew up loving Jaws, but there’s one thing that bothers her about the quintessential shark attack movie: It thoroughly vilified its subject.
To Yang, Jaws is a fun monster flick. But for many viewers, it became a reason to hate and fear a group of animals that humans long considered harmless, and that play essential roles in Earth’s ocean ecosystems.
So Yang set about writing a different kind of sea monster story, one where the protagonist is not a harpoon-toting police chief, but a scientist who has spent her life studying the creatures at the center of the drama—in this case, jellyfish.
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