Welcome back, Shit Givers.

A new report says Americans care less about who produced the news than who shared it with them. So please forward along today's newsletter to someone who could use it.

Last week's most popular Action Step was ordering The Lentil Underground. Huzzah!

This Week, Summarized: Biden's executive orders; What Omicron means for you; The future of coffee farmer migration; Telehealth lobbying on the rise; China's queer internet is being erased

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

Together With Terra.do

Terra.do is a collection of very cool people I adore, but is ALSO a climate learning, networking, and careers platform that is on a mission to get 100 million (!) people to work on solving climate change by 2030.

Their flagship course "Learning for Action" is a 12-week program that digs deep into the climate landscape including the science, the impacts, and solutions in mitigation, adaptation, and carbon capture. The objective is to help skilled individuals to transition their career to climate solutions that best suits their skillset and passion.

Apply for the Learning for Action program today!

Featured

Do Better Better

Because there are so many of us, because we are more connected than ever (FWIW), because we have come so far in such a short amount of time using every available resource, because our planet's not really all that big in the grand scheme of things, and because we built it all on the back of one giant pile of crushed-up fossils that can power cars and turn into Tupperware but also happen to make the air unbreathable, the make or break issues we face are nearly comprehensive, and linked together.

Climate (and the climate crisis we've created, for example) touch everything, revealing enormous, inequitable complexities, inputs, outputs, and levers. It's a clusterfuck that turns a lot of newcomers off, and understandably so.

As my favorite economist is fond of sharing, success, then, requires a quantifiable mission that is tangible, and crystal-fucking-clear. Past successful examples include "Land man on moon and bring him home safely." There's not a lot of wiggle room there, as Tom Hanks later found out.

Once the mission is clearly defined, we can finally account for externalities we've long ignored; we can take on those complexities, from climate finance to clean fertilizer, from uncapped wells to wood stove air pollution, measuring any systemic overhauls, processes, and milestones against it.

This process offers the largest economic opportunity in history, but to be clear, it requires literally everyone to participate.

But that means we can take the same principle and dial it down to every person, business, and institution on the planet, as action begets action.

There isn't a single complex project that wouldn't benefit from a mission-oriented approach as we all seek to Do Better Better. What's yours?

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CLIMATE CHANGE

Biden buys a bajillion electric cars

The news: US President Joe Biden this week signed a plethora of executive orders to (eventually) make the federal government carbon neutral, including buying EV's, renewable energy, and using green building materials.

Understand it: If you're wondering where the Build Back Better act is, you're not alone. Once the infrastructure bill was decoupled from BBB and passed, any negotiating leverage predictably disappeared, despite the promises of the president and "moderates".

With it went any momentum to get the bigger BBB (climate, kids, and care) act done. Weird! I know.

So Biden is, like a whole hell of a lot of presidents before him (FDR wow), using the power of the executive branch to kickstart whatever progress he can make.

It'll be effective in the short term because there isn't a comparable checkbook like the federal government's.

We have to replace every car on the planet and retrofit every building, so procurement's going to go a long way (even if these orders leave out the Department of Defense).

In the long term, and like any executive order, the next president can simply cancel it. For now, we'll take it.

⚡️Action Step: We're nowhere near done fighting for the Build Back Better act and significant climate action. Use Call 4 Climate to demand your representatives keep fighting, too. And then think about how your company can use procurement to help advance electrification, too!

COVID

What Omicron means (as of today)

The news: Alright, let's do this. Omicron is here, so how's your vaccine going to hold up?

Here's what we know so far (please remind your friends: science is a process not an outcome -- and thanks to Sam for the fact check):

• It's probably about 40x more difficult for your antibodies to neutralize Omicron than previous popular variants
• But that ignores the power of T cells (think: Boba Felt, or, sure, The Expendables), which team up with your antibodies to rally against infection (as The Atlantic's Katharine J. Wu put it this week: "T cells, fuck yeah")
• Also, as much as Long COVID is the real deal, endemic cases are gonna happen, boosters are widely available (and now to teens, too), and vaccinations lose effectiveness in reverse: to infection, then transmission, hospitalization, and death
• The real goal is fewer folks in fewer hospitals, whatever the outcome (like the flu)
• Vaccine makers, wild with profits, are already at work on Omicron-adjusted boosters
• Summary: We're nowhere near back to square one, but more people are going to get it, and more people might get sick

Understand it: You're going to hear a lot about surges. It's winter, we're inside more, schools are in, folks are traveling and gathering.

But the underlying math hasn't changed. 30-odd mutations makes Omicron different, but it's still the same virus.

Masks and tests are going to get us through this -- they're proven, they're (relatively) easy and affordable.

And of course: We need to vaccinate 4 billion more people across low-income countries, to protect lives, health care systems, and against more (and more dangerous) mutations.

The rest of the world needs a safety net, and we're refusing to build one.

⚡️Action Step: Use Common Cause to call your Congresspeople and demand they hold Moderna and Pfizer accountable:

• For promises to waive vaccine patent rights and transfer their technology to other manufacturers
• And to boost global production and distribution

FOOD & WATER

The future of coffee farms

The news: The coffee sector traditionally employs 5 million people in Central America -- or 10% of the population. But thanks to falling prices, business to Brazil, and "Roya", the coffee leaf rust disease, crops have been devastated and production (still hand-picked) has dropped 10%.

What's a smallholder farmer to do? Migrate north.

Understand it: Coffee-stalwarts Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Nicaragua are responsible for 15% of the world's arabica, but migration from those countries to the US-Mexico border peaked in the last year.

Even though migration is a last resort for many farmers and their families, we've only seen the tip of the iceberg (in the Americas, and elsewhere) as heat, humidity, and storms increase.

Roya, a fungal pathogen, is more likely when conditions are humid, and 2020's two major hurricanes exacerbated crop losses in a poor geography with razor-sharp margins, if any.

⚡️Action Step: The Coffee & Climate Network is open for private and public partners, NGO’s and Academia. Join today.

Have an Action Step to recommend? Just reply to this email or send the deets to questions@importantnotimportant.com, and we’ll check it out!

HEALTH & BIO

More (digital) access for more folks

The news: COVID's still here (hi), so federal lawmakers haven't bailed on the ground-breaking telehealth game -- yet.

In preparation for that moment, a telehealth supergroup has come together -- a la Traveling Wilbury's, The Firm, or Run the Jewels, except instead of Tom Petty or Foxy Brown, it's CVS, Amazon, and the American Hospital Association -- to defend the lax regulations that enabled you to FaceTime your doctor in LA while you were hiding in your childhood bedroom in Connecticut.

Understand it: The premise of telehealth is cool, allowing for the scenario above, or for Medicare to shell out the same cash for, says, a Teladoc appointment, as an in-person visit, to treat PTSD, or for COVID antivirals.

But, and I know this will surprise you: Access to telehealth has so far been criminally inequitable, thanks to a lack of awareness, broadband, and digital education.

From STAT:

"(In 2020) Black patients were less likely to access telehealth services than white patients. Telehealth accounted for 5.3% of white patients’ visits, compared with 4.7% of Black patients, and 6.2% for Hispanic patients.

[...] The data, which was compiled by the Department of Health and Human Services, is further limited because it only represents usage by people older than 65, which may be different from the trends among younger patients."

So, clearly, any data used in lobbying efforts is limited, at best. 2021's data is still to come, as we're still slogging through it, but hopefully it'll be more inclusive, and actionable.

⚡️Action Step: Read up on HR 3447 (the "Permanency for Audio-Only Telehealth Act"), introduced earlier this year, and ask your doctor what measures they're taking to ensure equitable access

BEEP BOOP

China's queer internet is being erased

The news: Behind China's "Great Firewall", queer profiles and groups are being censored and usually later, banned entirely, leaving members disconnected from one another, unable to relate, and unable to organize.

Understand it: Queer groups in China have a long but murky history. From Rest of the World:

"Since the early days of the internet, queer Chinese people have gravitated online; first, to connect under the safety of anonymity, and later to organize.

For decades, China’s queer community has been faced with a central government that seems to neither support nor actively oppose LGBTQI people; local governments that refuse to register organizations; and state agencies that call to ban queer content and effeminate depictions of males.

The internet was, by nature, muddy and borderless, a place where ambiguity worked in the queer community’s favor.

[...] The struggle has worsened. Things that were acceptable to speak about online before can now open you up to attack. It’s not just LGBTQI issues, in Mei’s view. Anything rights-related is now a target."

⚡️Action Step: Get some context and read the entire article, courtesy of the fantastic "Rest of the World".

Confession: I am admittedly bereft of a measurable Action Step we can take here, on the other side of the Great Firewall, besides any sort of symbolic solidarity. Please reply to this email and share any constructive ideas.

10 THINGS FROM MY NOTEBOOK

• More than half of high-impact cancer lab studies can't be replicated
• At-home COVID tests are great. But the more we use them, the less information health agencies have
• Rohingya refugees are suing Facebook for $150 billion over hate speech
• Biotech is all the rage, but hedge funds are getting crushed
• Battery prices have plummeted for years. Now the hard part (and hard questions) starts
• Omicron has revealed how uneven global genomic sequencing is
• These are the major fashion brands linked to deforestation in the Amazon
• Sure, biomass is some dangerous bullshit, but how bad is it, really?
• Singapore was a tech utopia. Now it's a surveillance state? Son of a
• The huge opportunity (and rush) to build a smart new grid
• EXTRA: This is New Zealand's plan to eventually ban all cigarette sales. Hell yes.

IMPORTANT JOBS

Every week, we share Featured roles from Important Jobs right here in the newsletter. Hiring and want to get your open role in front of our community? Submit a Featured role for free here.

• Senior Manager of Operations, GiveDirectly
• Community Manager, Run for Something
• Director of Communications, Run for Something
• Chief of Staff, Anja Health
• Engineer, Childhood Cancer Data Lab
• Data Scientist, Childhood Cancer Data Lab

Browse 100+ open roles, or list your own for free at ImportantJobs.com.

IMPORTANT GUESTS IN THE NEWS

Dr. Omar Akbari says we could use CRISPR for pathogen detection

James Rogers says we should think of food waste as an (unacceptable) invisible tax on the entire food system

Bob Inglis shares his story about voting for climate action, and promptly getting kicked out of Congress for it

Jessica Cisneros might be the future of the Democratic Party. Here's why she's running again.

Rep Lauren Underwood shared the stage with Vice President Kamala Harris to share context and actions on maternal mortality

...I'm serious about the sleigh bell thing. It's frustrating and a ding on my entire Dad-shtick! Try it yourself.

Thanks for reading, and thanks for giving a shit. Have a great weekend.

-- Quinn