The $10T Benefit of Fixing Food

Another month, another Monday!

To anyone else who deals with SAD, especially in January (possibly everyone??), congrats on making it through. I’m grateful and happy you’re here.

Ok, let’s do this.

This week:

• 🔥South American wildfires

• 💊Syphilis resurging

• 💧Texan water reserves

• 🤖 Women in AI

• 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.

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💦 Food & Water:

• 🌎️ The existing food system “borrows from the future to take profits today”, racking up health and environmental costs along the way. A more sustainable system could create up to $10tn of benefits a year

• State lawmakers are taking matters into their own hands to counter the industrial food system by collaborating on policies to support regenerative agriculture

• After two heat and drought-ridden summers followed by a relatively dry winter, water reserves in Texas are already running low

• Parents are suing the companies responsible for causing lead poisoning in their children after eating pre-packaged fruit purees

• Planning your garden? As average temperatures rise, your plant hardiness zone may have changed

⚡️ Climate change:

• 🌍️ Twelve West African countries have united their power grids, creating a regional energy market that allows for the exchange of cleaner, cheaper energy across borders. Hell yeah

• 🌎️ Columbia just went through the hottest January in three decades, sparking widespread wildfires, and Chile is experiencing devastating wildfires too

• The DOE is starting to collect data on the energy consumption of crypto-mines (spoiler: it’s a lot)

• In a move to make communities more climate resilient, FEMA will reimburse local governments for installing solar panels and heat pumps after a disaster

🦠 Health & Bio:

• Teens are more anxious and disillusioned about politics and the future than ever, and you can’t really blame them

• The US is seeing a resurgence in syphilis cases, with rates rising across every age group, even newborns

• 🌏️ South Korea has the world’s lowest birth rate, but new moms (who can afford it) can rest and recover at postpartum care centers

• The Supreme Court is set to decide on whether the government was justified in asking Big Tech to moderate Covid-19 misinformation

• The human rights disaster that is Louisiana’s “Cancer Alley” has a higher incidence of birth defects

👩‍💻 Beep Boop:

• The internet is facing a reckoning after the Taylor Swift Deepfake debacle

• 🌎️ The UK government failed to reach an agreement with AI companies and creatives to set guidelines for the training of AI models on copyrighted material

• How soon until disinformation leads to disaster in a post-truth era?

• 🌍️ Last year, more than 10,000 scientific papers were retracted by research journals, and some are calling this “the tip of an iceberg of scientific fraud.” That’s just perfect 🙃 

• Women are taking charge at Meta’s AI Research Lab

Last week’s most popular Action Step was volunteering with World Central Kitchen.

• 🌍️ Donate to Give Directly to send money directly to the world’s poorest households.

• 🌏️ Volunteer with Partners in Health and stand up for global health equity.

• 🌍️ Get educated about how local governments are tackling emissions in the food system with this From Plate to Planet report and then share it with your local officials.

• Be heard about ending factory farming and support the Farm System Reform Act.

• Invest in socially responsible companies with an investment portfolio at Betterment.

🌎️ = Global Action Step

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Hell yes, but there’s a lot you need to know before you strap them to your roof.

We’ve answered everything you need to know about going solar, including financing, what your options are as a renter, and getting your roof ready in our solar panel guide. Read it now.

Meat by any other name

Lab-grown, cultivated, cultured, cell-based meat comes from live animal cells but is grown artificially in a lab.

With a third of emissions coming from our food systems, and a good chunk of that coming from livestock, reducing meat consumption is a solid climate solution.

But getting people to change how they eat is hard. Is lab-grown meat the answer? Read our explainer and decide for yourself.

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Read to learn more about how this device compares to other brain-computer interfaces 👇️ 

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