Welcome back, Shit Givers.

A brief intro: White supremacy has poisoned the planet and continues to fuel terrorism in the US, full stop. This country was built on the backs of Black and Asian labor and we have never reconciled the wounds that white men inflicted on those groups. It’s well past time to do so.

In brief: The most powerful Joe; when you’re really clear on COVID; Black maternal outcomes; how to understand the AI internal war

This Week

Even pre-pandemic, I didn’t spent too much time alone in my house. My wife and I have a phalanx of children and canines, the chaos is both eternal but also ever-changing.

In the very few moments where I am left alone, I freeze up. The list of things I could do are so numerous, it becomes impossible to choose. Nap? Read a book anywhere I want, uninterrupted? Shower? Watch a movie? Cook and eat a meal in peace? Play a video game? Clean and organize?

Many of these are spur of the moment ideas, some have been waiting for the right moment for years, some are the first steps in a new project I haven’t had a chance to begin.

Inevitably, I stand frozen in the middle of the living room, the moments and minutes passing by, furiously unable to decide, a world of options suddenly and perhaps only momentarily within my grasp, finally -- and then they come home, and I long for what could have been, stuck between either, or.

This is where we find ourselves with regards to finally taking on the climate crisis in a real way.

We may be on the cusp of a necessary transformation of our society and infrastructure, our last best chance, a fleeting moment, decades of plans aching to be executed, new technologies and possibilities a glimmer in our eye, armed with more historical and real-time data than we know what to do with, carried on the shoulders of a bigger tent than we could have ever imagined, and we’re spending our energy who gets to go first.

Should we just do low-hanging fruit, or chase potential game changing tech? Should we support indoor farms, or repair our soil? Should we only decrease new emissions, or try to remove them, too?

COVID is an interesting comparison. It’s not “masks or vaccines”. It’s both, because 2000 Americans are dying a day (a recent low!).

But, for example, 200,000 Americans a year are dying from air pollution.

That’s 547 a day, and that’s just deaths. That’s just worst case scenario.

And that’s still more than annual gun deaths or motor vehicle collision deaths -- guns are those devices expressly designed to kill other living things that we hand out without permits, and motor vehicles are 1 ton missiles driven at 85 mph by 16 year olds, alongside hundreds of other faulty humans going the same speed, all while Snapchatting.

Pollution is worse than both of those.

The climate crisis is the most complicated and comprehensive problem we’ve ever faced. It makes “pull 7000 ships up on this French beach at 6:33 AM” look like very small potatoes.

So, again, for example, the “fewer cars vs electric cars vs e-bikes vs public transportation” fight is wasteful -- we need to do all of it.

Prioritization is great -- we need to pull the biggest levers, immediately. We know how effective those can be, let’s go, right now.

But we need to make decisions looking forward, to achieve the entire goal. And that means reducing new emissions entirely by regulating them out of existence, while simultaneously exploring new opportunities, led by people who are willing to spend their money to find out just how impactful they could be. We should let them.

If we’re going to proclaim that everyone can and needs to participate in this fight, that every skillset counts and can move the needle, than we need to stop infighting about doing either, or, because it’s a waste of time, it’s exclusive, and the single best way to push people right back out of the fight.

Climate Change & Clean Energy

The most powerful Joe there is

Understand this: With COVID relief out of the way (for now), the two biggest items to get us to a cleaner, more just future are passing the two voting rights bills and DC statehood, and passing a suite of climate policy.

The voting rights bills would ensure that people who believe in fixing the climate won’t suddenly lose power all over again in 2022, and possibly forever, nullifying anything we do before then.

Climate policy -- from clean electricity standards to EV’s -- will almost certainly come in waves, not in one big bill; some of it can be done through reconciliation, some not, but either way, everything above has to go through one man: Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia, a Democrat somehow representing a state Trump won by 40 points.

Where Manchin goes, America goes. Where America goes, the world goes.

What it means: It means everything else pales in comparison, for the time being. It means if we pass stuff now, it could just be reversed in a matter of months.

But not unlike the “write about your summer vacation” essay or “elect two Senators from Georgia or we die” campaign, constraints are helpful.

⚡️ Action Step: Join 2 million other progressives at Stand Up America to help get this legislation passed, ASAP.

COVID

Waiting is the hardest part

Understand this: Some of you have got your first or second shots already. That’s great! We’re putting 2 million shots in arms every day, now. You and the people you love will be much safer, soon.

What it means: But not as soon as some of you think.

From The Atlantic:

“Immunity to the coronavirus doesn’t just magically manifest the day someone gets a shot. The CDC does not grant membership to the “fully vaccinated” club until at least two weeks after the final dose in a vaccine regimen—a time that roughly corresponds to when most people are thought to acquire enough immunity to defend against a symptomatic case of COVID-19.

Only then, the agency announced last week, can vaccinees start to carefully change their behavior, mingling maskless in small groups indoors, visiting the unvaccinated on a limited basis, and skipping postexposure quarantines.”

⚡️ Action Step: Forward this to friends, and be smart -- before you get yours, and for two weeks after!

Medicine & Bio-tech

Black women opt-out

Understand this: If our vast, racist public health inequities weren’t widely known before COVID, they are now. But that doesn’t mean they’re getting better.

From The New York Times:

“Black mothers in the United States are four times as likely to die from maternity-related complications as white women. In New Jersey, it’s even more alarming: A Black woman is seven times as likely to die from pregnancy-related causes as a white one.

A growing awareness of these disparities, along with the fear of giving birth in a hospital during a pandemic, is leading some pregnant Black women to seek out other options.”

What it means: Rep Lauren Underwood’s “Momnibus” package will invest in community-based care for Black mothers, maternal health data collection, and support mental health for postpartum mothers, among others.

We’ll have more to come on this bill soon (wink).

⚡️ Action Step: Meghan Markle would love if you donate to and/or called your representative to support new mothers and newborns using the easy tools developed by Every Mother Counts and supported by her Archewell Foundation.

Food & Water

All dried out

Understand this: The West’s megadrought continues.

From Vox:

“Communities across the West have already felt the impacts of the latest drought, starting with last year’s devastating wildfires. The growing drought over the summer dried out vegetation, priming the landscape to burn.

Now, as water reserves plummet, New Mexico state officials are encouraging farmers to not plant crops, the Wall Street Journal reported. Reservoirs are also troublingly low in California, and snowpack — which serves as a critical water bank for the state — is at 61 percent of the average for early March.”

What it means: The lifestyle of the continental US -- from agriculture to housing -- is unsustainable, but more problematic (I know) is that so few communities are prepared for what’s happening -- three-quarters of the Wests’s water goes to crops, and yet thousands of wells will also run dry.

⚡️ Action Step: Did you know that educating young women is one of Drawdown’s most effective methods of reducing emissions?

It’s Women’s History Month -- so let’s build a better future. Donate to social entrepreneurs working on education in the developing world through Acumen Fund.

AI

Building a bigger AI umbrella

Understand this: The Industrial Revolution was designed by white men and powered off the backs of marginalized minorities.

The Artificial Intelligence Revolution might leave people of color out entirely, if we don’t get our shit together real fast.

From The New York Times:

“Dr. Timnit Gebru was pushed out of Google without a clear explanation. She said she had been fired after criticizing Google’s approach to minority hiring and, with a research paper, highlighting the harmful biases in the A.I. systems that underpin Google’s search engine and other services.

“Your life starts getting worse when you start advocating for underrepresented people,” Dr. Gebru said in an email before her firing. “You start making the other leaders upset.”

As Dr. Mitchell defended Dr. Gebru, the company removed her, too. She had searched through her own Google email account for material that would support their position and forwarded emails to another account, which somehow got her into trouble.”

What it means: Many of our news items aren’t really “breaking news”, but updates on the disruptive, vital macro stories affecting our society every day, from jet streams to machine learning.

The biases of the past, built right into the data and intelligences of the future, is one of those vital stories, and I’ll do my best to keep you updated and to stand up for what’s right.

⚡️ Action Step: Expand your mind. Follow our new Twitter list featuring some of the most influential women in AI ethics with one-click right here.

The Round Up

Elizabeth Warren and AOC sent Biden a Cash app request for $500 billion for public transportation

Breaking: The Guardian’s got receipts -- fossil fuel firms knew since at least 1968 how dangerous PM2.5 particles can be.

Green hydrogen has 3x more energy than fossil fuels -- and renewable energy could make it affordable. It’s a big bet.

India might try to go “net zero” by 2050. Here’s 6 charts showing how hella hard that’s going to be.

Is California’s solar market working too well? WTF?

Lessons from COVID: ask people to do better, not perfect

Scientists are debating growing lab embryos past 14 days. Here’s what that means.

Still need some help understanding the most impactful climate solutions? Drawdown’s launched their 101 course, with a star-studded cast. Let’s go.