#206: The next $700 billion business is...

Welcome back, Shit Giver.

Climate change

Senate or not, there's a lot Joe Biden can do on climate -- and should do, like minute one

Bloomberg: "Biden has promised to spend $2 trillion on a sweeping climate-and-job agenda. Getting that done wouldn’t be easy, especially with control of the Senate poised on a knife’s edge. And the U.S. will be playing catchup, after falling far behind other leading economies on climate goals.

But there are powerful climate levers that can be pulled from inside the White House, and plenty of reason to expect that a president who prioritizes climate action can drive policy. Even without help from the federal government, the Trump years saw American businesses build out renewable power and ditch polluting fuels. Imagine what might happen under a president who has said he will rejoin the Paris Climate Agreement as one of his first acts?"

⚡️ Take Action: Click to read the full list. But please know -- there's SO MUCH MORE that can be done with even the slimmest majority in the Senate (and a reduced but still in-hand House).

To say it's all riding on the Senate isn't an understatement. We *have* to get these seats. Have to. We're the underdogs in both races, but the good news is there are tremendous humans and organizations on the ground there, still fighting. You can donate to 12 local groups at once (including Stacey Abrams & Fair Fight) right here, you can donate to Sunrise here, and you can donate to the campaigns themselves right here and here.

Clean energy

There's a global (-US) race to build green hydrogen, and that's a sentence I never thought I'd get to type

Bloomberg: "Governments, energy giants, automobile companies and lobbying groups say hydrogen use is pivotal for cutting greenhouse gas emissions quickly enough to prevent the worst effects of climate change. That’s triggered a global race to stake claims in what could be a $700 billion business by 2050, according to BloombergNEF.

The European Union aims to push as much as 470 billion euros ($550 billion) toward hydrogen infrastructure; China, Japan and South Korea will all likely use hydrogen to achieve recent pledges to slash emissions; and Saudi Arabia plans a $5 billion hydrogen-based ammonia plant powered by renewable energy."

⚡️ Take Action: green hydrogen is one of those terms you're definitely going to want to get familiar with as we rebuild our power sources and grid. Read this great primer (5 minutes).

COVID

In April (*April*), half of rural hospitals in the US were running at a loss. Seven months later, an mRNA vaccine is great, but how can we expect them to pay for a deep freezer to store it?

STAT: "The vaccine, developed by Pfizer and the German firm BioNTech, seems to provide 90% immunity according to early data released on Monday. But there’s a catch: The vaccine has to be stored at -70 degrees Celsius. Typical freezers don’t get that cold, making distribution of this vaccine a logistical nightmare.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has advised state health departments against purchasing ultra-cold freezers — which cost $10,000 to $15,000 each — saying other vaccines with less demanding storage requirements will be available soon. Hospitals with money to spare are flouting this guidance. 

But rural populations are precisely those that are vulnerable to Covid-19 and most in need of a vaccine, noted Morgan: "Hundreds of rural, small towns all across the U.S. have a higher percentage of elderly, low-income [residents], a higher percentage of the community with multiple chronic health issues."

The company plans to ship the vaccine to distributors in storage containers of 1,000 to 5,000 doses.

The containers will keep the vaccines at -75 C (plus or minus 15 degrees) on dry ice, for 10 days. Once opened, the containers can be used for 15 more days with re-icing every five days, though the boxes can be opened only for a minute at a time no more than twice a day. The doses can survive five more days while refrigerated."

⚡️ Take Action: an equitable distribution of any vaccine means first-line responders and BIPOC people (infected and dying at 2-4x rates as white people) go first. Period. And while I'm positive that'll go VASTLY better in a Biden administration, the logistics of this thing will be truly breathtaking.

In the meantime, use 5Calls.org to demand Congress PASS A GODDAMN RELIEF BILL. Winter is coming and not in the fun dragons way. In the "all of our hospitals are full already" way.

Biology

UTI's. Really just no fun at all for half of all women, and an antibiotics rabbit hole

MIT: "Doctors often treat UTIs using antibiotics called fluoroquinolones that are inexpensive and generally effective. However, they have also been found to put women at risk of becoming infected with other difficult-to-treat bacteria, such as C. difficile and certain species of Staphylococcus, and also to increase their risk of tendon injuries and life-threatening conditions like aortic tears.

As a result of this, medical associations have issued guidelines recommending fluoroquinolones as "second-line treatments" that should only be used on a patient when other antibiotics are ineffective or have adverse reactions.

A team led by MIT scientists believes...a data-driven tool could help doctors make safer, more customized decisions for patients. 

In a new paper, the researchers present a recommendation algorithm that predicts the probability that a patient’s UTI can be treated by first- or second-line antibiotics. With this information, the model then makes a recommendation for a specific treatment that selects a first-line agent as frequently as possible, without leading to an excess of treatment failures."

⚡️ Take Action: get some more science in your Twitter feed. You can follow the paper's authors here, here, here, and here.

Food & water

Time to eat (better)

Science: "The Paris Agreement’s goal of limiting the increase in global temperature to 1.5° or 2°C above preindustrial levels requires rapid reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. Although reducing emissions from fossil fuels is essential for meeting this goal, other sources of emissions may also preclude its attainment.

We show that even if fossil fuel emissions were immediately halted, current trends in global food systems would prevent the achievement of the 1.5°C target and, by the end of the century, threaten the achievement of the 2°C target. Meeting the 1.5°C target requires rapid and ambitious changes to food systems as well as to all nonfood sectors. The 2°C target could be achieved with less-ambitious changes to food systems, but only if fossil fuel and other nonfood emissions are eliminated soon."

⚡️ Take Action: white people own 99% of rural land in America. And that land's not doing so hot, whether it's underfoot of antibiotic-stuffed cows, or growing corn to feed the same cows.

Let's start fixing that with food and land justice for Black Americans. Civil Eats put together a list of 24 impactful organizations you can join, volunteer with, or contribute to. Let's go.

Where it all comes together

Biden is seeking to create a new White House office on climate change to oversee the transformation of the entire government into a crisis-fighting machine. He's also looking to throw major dough at carbon removal tech. Speaking of $, climate donors -- those exist now, thanks -- contributed over $45 million to his campaign. Those cats, along with Black, Brown, and Indigenous voters, and 600,000 new environmental voters, locked this thing up.

Do ya'll get confused by "climate neutral" and "carbon neutral" and "net zero"? Me too! And this is my job. Here's an explainer. Easy to understand: Electrify America is building 4 new EV charging stations every week.

More difficult to understand: how the hell we verify that people have actually gotten COVID vaccines, once we have them. It's an ethics nightmare, and not only because so many Americans are going to refuse to get them (or even get tested).

Important to understand: what Trump's policies have done to our food and water in just four years. Read here for a post-mortem. Meanwhile, we're overfishing the shit out of the Indian Ocean, and the greater ocean has absorbed most of our emissions. How can we find equilibrium?

India -- with crippling heat and air pollution -- has 1/8th the legacy emissions that the US does, but is still banking on coal. What does that mean for going net zero, and her 1.3 billion citizens? (and especially for 22 million who can't breathe in New Delhi -- now a COVID nightmare with pollution at 14x safe levels).

Speaking of heat (and more specifically, fires) -- when will west coast homes become uninsurable? Meanwhile, 50 goddamn degrees in the Arctic right now.

Re: west coast. California has banned new gas vehicles from 2035 on, and that includes commercial, so Ford's rollout of new E-Transit vans (they sell 150k vans a year, #1 in US and Europe) next year is a big step towards reducing street emissions. More cars: to be blunt -- can VW actually get their shit together in an EV world?

In Europe -- Iberdrola said they'll spend €75bn in the next few years to double their clean energy portfolio. My question: is that enough?

Carbon capture is one of the more controversial spaces -- but what if we can capture it, and then use it, and create new value in existing industries?