The Inevitable Future

Welcome back.

And a big welcome to a few thousand new readers.

A quick primer: Each newsletter includes an original essay, Action Steps, and a news round-up.

On tone: I come from the Churchill school of “Give it to them straight, and then give them a reason to believe we can pull through.” You will discover I am measurably less eloquent than old Winny, and — be warned — you may encounter some occasional, strategically placed profanity. Don’t be shy: we’re on the precipice of a profoundly different future here. There’s no time to mince words.

Ready to go?

Members received an exclusive post about cell-cultivated meat this week. Don’t miss out on the next one.

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What We Can Do

⚡️ Last week’s most popular Action Step was donating to The Trevor Project.

⚡️ Our algorithms and technology are only as good as the people who make them. Empower future innovators to consider the social impact of their work with Tech Shift.

⚡️ Donate to the Urban Ocean Lab, a think tank working on solutions and policies to make coastal cities climate-ready.

⚡️ Electrifying school buses reduces air pollution, immediately improving the health of kids while ALSO reducing emissions. Tell your school board about Highland Fleets, an organization working to make electric fleets accessible for all.

⚡️ As climate change increases the frequency and intensity of extreme weather, emergency services are becoming overstretched. Climate Resilience Hubs prepare communities before, during, and after an emergency. Find yours with this interactive map from Climate Crew.

⚡️ The housing shortage is bad for people, equality, the environment, and the economy. Help your city develop, implement, and monitor local housing strategies with actionable tools and guidance from Local Housing Solutions.

This is the two-part tweet that has been pinned to the top of my timeline since January 20th, 2020:

I find it’s helpful for a few reasons:

• As a reminder of how far we have to go and the diligent work required to get there

• As a clarion call for how far we could possibly go in the years to come

• And as a measuring stick for the past

But how?

I spent most of my time this week recording conversations with Nicholas Dagen Bloom, author of The Great American Transit Disaster, and Marc Schulz, co-author of The Good Life: Lessons from the World's Longest Scientific Study of Happiness.

On the surface, these are two very different books and, as expected, were very different conversations.

The first book describes in “overwhelming detail” the myriad choices made from the late 1880’s to now to systematically starve public transit from the inside out, defunding a world-renowned system, city by city, in favor of white flight. It was a delightful, infuriating, rousing conversation.

The second book provides a similar cornucopia of data — this time harvested from not only Harvard’s only nearly-90 year study, but from others around the world. It is then complimented with data from MRI’s to blood tests to brains left posthumously in a jar for later study. All of it compiled, aggregated and analyzed to reveal the most human of scientific outcomes: that healthy relationships underpin everything we do.

This was a conversation that reminded me how incapable we are of anything big without paying diligent attention to the day-to-day small things that carry one another.

What both of these books provide — and I swear to god, I didn’t plan it this way — are a time machine into the past. Their timelines overlap for the most part, through wars and great depressions, cultural and technological revolutions.

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