Welcome back, Shit Givers.

In brief: climate finance, still unregulated; God vs vaccines; AI antibiotics; food waste since the 60’s

A quick shoutout to my best friend, who’s having the hardest week. You are loved.

Reminder: You can read this issue on the website, or you can listen to it on the podcast, in 10 minutes or less.

This Week

Make no mistake: on the whole, human life has considerably improved since the days before, for example, chemotherapy.

Since before penicillin, before seat belts, family planning, dentistry, toilet paper, vaccines, fluoride, germ theory, GPS, anesthesia, Mario Kart, insulin, blood transfusions, and clean water.

We have eliminated or drastically reduced so many straight up horrifying threats that seem barbaric by today’s standards, but not so long ago were widely accepted as "just the way it goes, Steve."

Not that all, or really any of those advances are truly available, everywhere, equally today. If they were, I wouldn’t be pecking away today.

And just because we have them, just because life expectancy is like double since we used to just “bleed it out”, doesn’t mean we can stop there.

New threats by way of our massive, man-made progress are here, and more on the horizon.

COVID required the concentration of all of the world’s scientists to develop astoundingly effective vaccines in a record amount of time.

We very clearly need to rebuild public health. And the climate crisis requires new ideas and investments along the same.

The advent of telehealth is a small but significant step in the right direction. And remarkable opportunities exist for transformational “climate tech” -- of both the silicon variety, and others more natural.

Your first thought is probably electric vehicles, and with transportation at 30% of US emissions and air pollution being a root cause of a hell of a lot of health issues, you’re not wrong.

But the opportunities go so much deeper:

• Food waste
• Solid waste
• Heat pumps
• Carbon sequestration and storage
• Sustainable fashion
• Decentralized solar
• Aviation fuel
• Solid state batteries
• Utility-scale batteries
• HVDC transmission lines
• Energy management
• Methane-tracking satellites
• Fucking brontosaurus-sized turbine blades
• Refrigeration
• Geothermal
• Plant-based meat
• Cell-based meat
• Cement
• Bioplastics
• Micromobility
• Don’t sleep on old but doubly essential tools like bikes and public transportation
• And don’t miss wild new ideas like perovskite solar cells

On the natural side, agriculture, kelp forests and 3D ocean farming, microbial optimization, soil health, mangroves, and deforestation monitoring will all help fight this crisis, add millions of jobs, and transform our industries for the better.

The question is: why aren’t you working on them?

Climate Change & Clean Energy

Mo Money, Mo Problems

Understand this: In a truly delightful turn of events, some of climate journalism’s heaviest-hitters took aim at corporate finance bullshit this week, and we’re all winners here.

From HEATED, in a collab with new joint Floodlight:

“U.S. banks are pledging to help fight the climate crisis alongside the Biden administration, but their boards are dominated by people with climate-related conflicts of interest, and they continue to invest deeply in fossil fuel projects.

Three out of every four board members at seven major US banks (77%) have current or past ties to ‘climate-conflicted’ companies or organizations -- from oil and gas corporations to trade groups that lobby against reducing climate pollution, according to a first-of-its-kind review by climate influence analysts for the blog DeSmog.”

What it means: If the past few decades are indicative of anything, it’s that wildly-exposed banks aren’t going to regulate themselves, and poorly performing US professional sports teams aren’t going to relegate themselves (different topic, different newsletter, same angst).

These same banks have poured $3.8 trillion into fossil fuel companies since the Paris Agreement, the same companies that receive $62 billion in indirect subsidies a year.

The White House and Congress need to design and enforce climate finance regulations, capital requirements, and climate-related stress tests.

⚡️ Action Step: Use the quick email tool at Oil Change International to tell your representatives to oppose any further fossil fuel bailouts.

COVID

Please, God

Understand this: The US is averaging 3 million shots a day in a race against new virus variants, but vaccine, um, “hesitancy”, has a whole new ringleader.

From The New York Times:

“Stephanie Nana, an evangelical Christian in Edmond, Okla., refused to get a Covid-19 vaccine because she believed it contained “aborted cell tissue.”

Nathan French, who leads a nondenominational ministry in Tacoma, Wash., said he received a divine message that God was the ultimate healer and deliverer: “The vaccine is not the savior.”

Lauri Armstrong, a Bible-believing nutritionist outside of Dallas, said she did not need the vaccine because God designed the body to heal itself, if given the right nutrients. More than that, she said, “It would be God’s will if I am here or if I am not here.”

There are about 41 million white evangelical adults in the U.S. About 45 percent said in late February that they would not get vaccinated against Covid-19, making them among the least likely demographic groups to do so, according to the Pew Research Center.”

What it means: If almost 20 million Americans are vehemently opposed to getting a vaccine, this thing is going to drag on a whole hell of a lot longer than it needs to.

In a related story, Scientific American went deep on the antiscience movement. Woof.

⚡️ Action Step: If you’ve got skeptical evangelists in your life, please send them to “Christians and the Vaccine”, a thoughtful, factual, and biblically-minded resource, designed by Professor Curtis Chang at Duke Divinity School.

Medicine & AI Crossover Event

Algorithms FTW

Understand this: COVID came (sort of) out of nowhere. We had to lock ourselves inside and throw Michael Bay amounts of resources at it, and we’re barely gonna make it out alive.

The forthcoming antibiotics nightmare is a whole ‘nother story.

700,000 people die globally every year from drug-resistant infections. And we’re just getting started.

But this time we’ve got AI on our side (he says, praying it stays that way).

From Vox:

“(IBM researchers are) using an AI system that can automatically generate the design of molecules for new antibiotics.

In a new paper, published in Nature Biomedical Engineering, the researchers detail how they’ve already used it to quickly design two new antimicrobial peptides — small molecules that can kill bacteria — that are effective against a bunch of different pathogens in mice.

Normally, this molecule discovery process would take scientists years. The AI system did it in a matter of days.”

What it means: Look this isn’t unlike the emissions race. Sure, we can develop new tech to suck the old stuff out of the air, but also -- we need to stop producing new emissions, yesterday. Same with antibiotics overuse.

⚡️ Action Step: To date, only California and Maryland have passed laws restricting antibiotic use in farm animals. That leaves 48 states to go!

Use Common Cause to call or write your state reps and insist they legislate to “reserve antibiotic use solely for the treatment of sick animals or to control a verified disease outbreak, not for routine disease prevention”.

Go Deeper

Get invested in climate tech

Climate Tech VC is a female-founded, weekly newsletter on climate and innovation bringing perspective on the evolving world of climate tech.

What you can expect:

• Deals of the week: summary of the past week’s hottest investments
• Features: deep dives into verticals
• Spotlight: interviews with entrepreneurs, investors, and leaders
• In the news: perspectives on headlines making a splash
• Pop up: shoutouts for links, opportunities, and jobs worth a click

Go deeper right here.

Food & Water

Hot food

Understand this: Despite productivity innovations, climate change -- most notably, and unevenly -- growing and extreme heat, have resulted in 21% of agricultural output being lost since JFK swept into office in suits monogrammed “JFK” (I mean come on).

What it means: The UN estimates 34 million humans are on the brink of famine -- a real setback to all that “life’s getting better for most people” rhetoric, above.

⚡️ Action Step: You’d be amazed at how much food waste can be reduced on a local level.

Use ReFED to find food waste policies and best practices you can enact in your own town.

The Round Up

Navajo Nation is bringing two new solar plants online and will reap the benefits

To be clear: wildfires can be really good! But California’s upcoming wildfire season is looking out of control, once again. Be prepared.

The top 10 most commonly used test data sets in the world average 3.4% errors. Super fun.

New EPA chief Michael Regan is firing Trump cronies and coming for tailpipes -- by July

Tired: smoking, asthma, ventilator damage Wired: the world’s first trachea transplant

Buried in the infrastructure plan? Electric school buses and wifi for the next generation of rural scientists

These are the 100 startups redefining AI. Skynet is thankfully not on the list.

Who’s going to win the battery wars? There’s a very good chance it’ll be a European company.

What kind of (amazing) person signs up to be infected with the coronavirus? Apparently, someone interested in the “common good”.

Pod Guests - In The News

Resident electrification expert and friend of the pod Dr. Leah Stokes has the first and last word on Biden’s big clean power plans

You can’t talk about clouds and emissions without consulting Dr. Kate Marvel

Are vaccine passports cool or not cool? Dr. Natalie Kofler weighs in.

Varshini Prakash of the Sunrise Movement says Biden needs to go bigger. Way bigger.

Professor Rebecca Henderson is keenly interested to know what an economy run by women might look like (and so are we!)