🌎📰 Save the rainforest, save the world

Hello, Shit Givers!

Welcome to the second edition of our Monday newsletter (your weekly essay will arrive on Friday!).

I hope you had an awesome long weekend celebrating and reflecting on the future of the labor movement ✊ 

The Monday edition of the newsletter is meant to be short and sweet, so let’s get right to it!

This week:

• 🔥 Solutions to urban heat islands

• 💊 Medicare price negotiations

• 📈 Food inflation

• 💻️ A.I. watermarks

• And more!

See you next week,

— Willow

This is science for people who give a shit.

Every week, we help 20,000+ humans understand and unfuck the rapidly changing world around us. It feels great, and we’d love for you to join us.

⚡️ Climate change:

• To comply with a recent US Supreme Court ruling, the EPA has removed federal protections for most of the country’s wetlands

• Fossil Free Media is doing the Lord’s work with billboards calling out Big Oil for heatwaves

• The case for climate risk disclosures

• How to redesign cities and buildings for extreme heat — something Europe desperately needs

• The UN is investigating Saudi Aramco for human rights violations resulting from fossil-fuel induced climate change (you don’t say…)

🦠 Health & Bio:

• How to prevent the next pandemic by saving the rainforests 🤝 

• NASA’s new air pollution satellite will provide hourly updates of air quality in the US

• What does it mean to be a mother in America? Especially without child care?

• As schools and lawmakers struggle with fentanyl overdoses, the first over-the-counter naloxone is coming next week

• Medicare drug price negotiations are underway — here’s how women in particular will be impacted

💦 Food & Water:

• Biden’s agricultural plan ignores the science on the actual sources of agricultural emissions

• Agroforestry could give carbon markets a boost

• A guide for stock traders in navigating food inflation — and the role of corporate profits

• American’s are using up way too much fucking groundwater

• How to create a delivery system for SNAP and Medicaid that is designed for real life human beings

👩‍💻 Beep Boop:

• Better data = less disparities in the health care system

• Encrypted apps like iMessage and WhatsApp don’t keep everything private — this guide will help you unpack the nuances

• How can you tell what images are real and what is A.I.-generated? Google has debuted a possible solution

• Meta has removed a Chinese influence campaign spanning thousands of accounts

• The multinational cyber takedown of the malware and botnet called Qakbot

Last week’s most popular Action Step was getting educated on how to debunk the 10 most common climate myths.

• Donate to reduce medical debt. Every $100 donated to RIP Medical Debt relieves $10,000 in debt.

• Volunteer to respond to disasters in your community by taking the Community Emergency Response Team certification program.

• Get educated about agricultural subsidies and the Farm Bill with this great piece from WRI in 2020.

• Be heard about child hunger, and use the Food Research & Action Center’s resources to contact your representative about supporting healthy school meals for all.

• Invest in climate solutions with Full Cycle.

Together With Happy Masks

It’s time to mask up again.

Whether you’re not interested in COVID for the first (or fifth) time, or the flu (time to get those flu shots!), and/or if you’ve got someone who’s immunocompromised in your life, it’s time to restock on quality masks.

Happy Masks makes my favorite masks (I wear them, and so do my kids), and their five layers of (adorably designed) protection have been third-party tested to have 99.9% viral and bacterial filtration efficiency, and 95% efficacy after 50 washes (that’s nuts).

Get the masks ranked by WIRED, Wirecutter, USA Today, and more (and right now there’s free shipping for orders over $60 in the US).

Want an ad-free experience? Become a Member.

The best water heater you can buy...

Is a heat pump water heater, of course! Heat your water more efficiently, while also removing a gas appliance from your home.

Brush up on everything you need to know before you make the switch and get our recommendations by clicking the button below.

A Gas of Many Colors

Decarbonization is a huge lift, and electrification isn’t a realistic immediate solution for many industries. Some people are looking at green hydrogen as a clean alternative to fossil fuels instead.

Wait, what is green hydrogen? Read our explainer and get up to speed.

Support Our Work

INI is 100% independent and mostly reader-supported.

This newsletter is free, but to support our work, get my popular “Not Important” book, music, and tool recommendations, connect with other Shit Givers, and attend exclusive monthly live events, please consider becoming a paid Member.

A reminder that A.I. is a tool that can also be used for good (you’re gonna wanna click this👇)

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

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