Quinn Emmett

January 14, 2022

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Welcome back, Shit Givers.

Everybody's excited to live on the east coast and ride a school bus for the first time until they have to walk to aforementioned school bus and the wind chill's a crisp 15°.

2022 is all about growing our community of Shit Givers, and the best way to do that is by getting your friends -- other people who give a shit -- on board.

So I'm excited to announce our referral program is back and better than ever (with much more to come). Read to the bottom to get sharing!

This Week, Summarized: Moving on from Machin; What "mild" COVID means; How China's going plant-based; Exercise and anxiety; Misunderstanding new tech

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

CLIMATE CHANGE

Moving on from Manchin

The news: It's January of a new year, which means it's time to report on the year prior, and reader, let me tell you: The world -- our summers, our winters, our streets and oceans, most months and years -- is hotter than ever.

Hurricane zones are growing as the North American west's air is increasingly unbreathable, and South America's just fucking roasting.

While it now seems as if we'll avoid many of the worst case scenarios predicted just a few years ago, the "middle ground" 0f 1-8°-2.5° could still be devastating.

The reasons are simple: We're still putting too much carbon and methane into the air.

Understand it: The underlying reasons behind those facts are simple, as well -- we're not doing the work to make it stop.

Again, don't get me wrong, we've made enormous strides in scaling renewable energy technologies, making them more efficient and vastly more affordable, developing clean building materials and clean transportation options. We can measure carbon and methane outputs better than every before. Local actions -- and executive actions -- are piling up everywhere you look.

President Biden made big climate promises (46 to be exact) and his track record one year in is both admirable, but with a very long way to go.

But the power dynamics and incentives of international and national politics and industry -- from Joe Manchin to fast fashion, from airlines and dishwashers and shipping to carbon offsets and public relations -- continue to prevent us from pulling the most significant levers we have.

⚡️Action Step: One of my promises to you is to provide the most efficient and impactful Action Steps I can. I may very well end up being wrong, but in this moment, I can't in good faith ask you to call your senators again -- at least, right now.

I'm as frustrated as you are, and we're doing something about it (coming soon). But in the meantime, understand this: the climate crisis is a global problem, but your actions do matter -- especially when they become our actions, and in 2022, that's easier than ever.

So let's get some clean power to a part of the world desperate for it: Africa and Asia. Make a life-changing solar loan with renewables.org today.

COVID

Quantifying "mild"

The news: From 30,000 feet, a simple fact remains: without vaccine equity -- that is, vaccinating the 4 billion humans still without a single shot -- the pandemic will not end.

At 15,000 feet, the good news about the Omicron variant seems to hold: controlling for all else, it seems to lay off the lungs in a way that previous variants did not.

But at street level, "mild" is a term being thrown about in isolation, because Omicron may also be the most contagious virus we've ever seen, so a smaller percentage of a massively larger pie of sick people (however more protected than any point prior) means hospitals and health care workers, overwhelmed for two years, are fundamentally broken.

Understand it: To continue our education into public health, like the climate crisis isn't a cliff, COVID math is a slope. It's not fucked or not, it's degrees of fucked.

And it's not 1 to 1 math.

In America, it's (new variant) + (pre-existing risk factors) - (prior infection or vaccine) = result.

But 30% of humans globally don't have a single shot yet, and 25% of Americans don't have a single shot, either. That means Omicron's inability to get into the lungs (and perhaps because it camps out in your nose, instead), its pure volume, and transmissibility has resulted in unvaccinated and vaccinated breakthroughs, everywhere.

And then you have to deal with the second-order effects of "fucked" -- all of the elective and other emergency health measures unable to be completed in an overwhelmed system.

⚡️Action Step: We desperately need vaccine equity and I have more tangible Action Steps in development. In the meantime, vastly more masks and tests are coming, while boosters and shots for kids remain available everywhere (get them). That's it. That's the tweet.

FOOD & WATER

Plants for dinner

The news: A justified worry among climate folks has been the developing world's hunger for meat, and with it, the second-order effects of deforestation and the rest.

The good news: It looks like young Chinese are opting for plant-based meat, with the vegan food market projected to be worth almost $12 billion by next year. The plant-based meat industry could grow 200% by 2027, with Chinese millennial driving the herd (sorry).

Understand it: So many of these systemic issues can benefit from 80/20 action. Switching to mostly plant-based diets not only lowers emissions but also more land to capture carbon, and improving health outcomes.

⚡️Action Step: Considering going plant-based? Great! It's delicious. But before you do, use Common Cause to call your reps and insist they "Support the Food Date Labeling Act, a bill designed to end consumer confusion around food date labeling, and to ensure Americans stop throwing out safe, useable food."

Once you've done that, check out my favorite new plant-based cookbook, "The Blue Zones Kitchen."

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

Run away from anxiety

The news: Not only did a huge meta-study show that cardiorespiratory fitness reduces death from cardiovascular disease and cancer, which, great, but another big-ass (technical term) study of cross-country skiers found that "being physically active halves the risk of developing clinical anxiety over time."

Understand it: Exercise has been proven over and over again to pump up the jam when it comes to resilience and happiness and drawdown the jam vis a vis depression, but this study is bigger and evaluates a longer period of time.

What's the mechanism? Probably more dopamine and serotonin and reduced inflammation in the brain, but for "2020-Too" purposes, WHO CARES? Let this be another reason to do literally anything to get outside and get moving.

⚡️Action Step: You don't need to run for two hours. My good friend, Instagram poster boy and Nike Master Trainer Joe Holder, posts short body weight exercise videos to his new Exercise Snacks account. Get moving!

BEEP BOOP

New blood needed

The news: So many of the issues in our rapidly changing world keep getting not-fixed because 1) Financial incentives convince CEO's, investors, and policy-makers not to fix them, but also 2) Because policy-makers are super old (Average age for a US senator: 64).

To be clear: Old isn't bad! Experience matters.

Unless of course technology and the world are changing under your feet, putting democracy and a stable climate at severe risk, and you've shown a particular inability to understand what's happening, much less confront it.

Understand it: From Facebook misinformation to Web3 pros and cons, from mRNA to Snap Maps, from machine learning to the metaverse and pig-to-human transplants and smart grids and infrastructure cyberhacks, shit is changing fast, or in some cases, needs to, and we just don't have the people in office (or on the Supreme Court) who are capable of doing implementing that.

⚡️Action Step: Volunteer with, donate to, or sign up with Run for Something. They work exclusively with progressive candidates (read: Shit Givers) under 40 at the local and state level. And the most successful of those folks go on to national office.

I promise you this: Your cash will go 10x farther donating to these school board and city council races than it will some fantastical Senate race against Mitch McConnell.

10 THINGS FROM MY NOTEBOOK

Here's how much it would cost to electric Post Office trucks
The US Supreme Court shut down Biden's vaccine mandate for large workplaces
A preview of Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò's new book: The fight for reparations cannot ignore climate change
Inside California's new composting law, and what's in it for you! (dirt)
Why are EMT's unable to access electronic health records?
Farmers of color are left out of bidding as land prices soar
This is why it's so damn hard to regulate algorithms (see above)
A rough start for Rivian
Afghanistan's coding bootcamp gives me life
Texas goes big on geothermal

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.