Quinn Emmett

January 21, 2022

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Welcome back, Shit Givers. Thanks to everyone who shared last week's newsletter!

My plan tonight: Wordle (my first time!), a gummy, and some Parks and Rec. See you there.

This Week, Summarized:

How to market climate change to the people
Here come the masks - are they enough? What's "enough"?
Kids EBT food on the wane
Expanding the blood donor pool
The IRS wants your selfie (or do they?)

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

CLIMATE CHANGE

It's how you say it

The news: 6 in 10 Americans are now "alarmed" or at least "concerned" about climate change (hello, potential Shit Givers!).

Related: 12,000 members who took the World Economic Forum's "Global Risks Perception Survey" listed "climate action failure", "extreme weather", and "biodiversity loss" as their top three concerns.

Sounds like good news to me! There's never been a better moment to throw the kitchen sink at the systemic issue of our time and build a radically better world.

Understand it: To be effective, we can't just keep pushing a "clean grid" or "electrified homes" or even "biodiversity loss", because, frankly, very few people give a shit about those.

People give a shit about the things they can touch and feel: visibly cleaner air, kids that aren't as sick, not losing power, and cheaper power bills.

The marketing matters.

Almost one year ago, the Texas grid was seconds away from going down in a winter storm. We haven't done much to get more resilient, so people are probably going to get very cold, again (though Biden's throwing money and workers at it).
Utility-scale solar is growing, but with California and Florida utilities fighting against rooftop solar expansions, there's never been a better time to deploy more (and often, more affordable) community-level solar -- and especially to disadvantaged communities who could save a buck.
While "ESG" funds have gotten slaughtered in the past year (interest rates, no BBB, utility-bullshit), long-term profits are inevitable and the way to an investor's heart, but we need disclosure and regulation to get there.
Workers haven't had this much power in a long time. Ad agencies struggling for talent should stop working with fossil fuel clients.
Hotter springs and summers are sending kids to the emergency room more often. It's dangerous, and expensive (at least, in America).
London's "filthy air and gridlocked roads" continue to exacerbate health issues, and Mayor Khan is considering extending the ultra-low emission zone to basically everywhere.

⚡️Action Step: Our friends at Carbon Switch have done excellent work hashing out the best heat pumps, heat pump water heaters, LED lights, and more. Do Better Better: take them to your HOA or city council meeting and fight for instant rebates for anyone who upgrades.

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COVID

Here come the tests (and masks!)

Vaccine equity update: Just 9.4% of people in low-income countries have received at least one dose, and 39.8% of people worldwide have received no doses.

The news: After truly inexplicable delays, and almost two months after White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki mocked the very idea of doing so, Americans can now order a limited number of free rapid COVID tests online, to be delivered, also for free, by everyone's favorite government service, the USPS.

In addition, the administration is releasing 400 million N95 masks to pharmacies and community health centers for Americans to pick up in coming weeks.

Understand it: I'm on Team "We should have had free and plentiful rapid tests two years ago like every other wealthy country", but at the same time I'm also aware that those other countries have been pummeled by Delta and Omicron, too.

Tests and masks are tools, not cures (and the same goes for vaccines).

You may be asking re: free masks: Aren't there 330 million Americans? Isn't that basically one mask per person? And don't a lot of folks refuse to use masks at all?

Correct! Used correctly and around a bunch of folks, that one mask should only last you about a week -- but even if half of Americans use them for two weeks, that's way, way better than nothing, and perfect has been the enemy of good for a long fucking time here, people.

If we can spend those two weeks getting a shit-ton of people their first, second, or third shots -- and fighting for global vaccine equity -- well, we might just be on our way.

⚡️Action Step: Order your free tests here. It works really well!

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FOOD & WATER

50 Ways for Kids to Go Hungry

The news: In (very, very, VERY) few ways, virtual learning was easier. The historic and successful Pandemic-EBT program meant every low-income family stuck at home got a debit-card benefit to use at the grocery store, and in some places, online or at farmer's markets.

But with lots of kids back to school, and others in and out as Omicron rips healthcare systems and workplaces (including schools, which, remember, are workplaces, too) a new one, the system has become impossible for states and schools to manage.

So -- states that will need to feed hungry kids this summer aren't even applying to be in the program again (and thus will be ineligible when school gets out).

Understand it: Fun with federal systems.

I have said 8734 times that COVID was a pop quiz on all of our decisions to date, and "fractured, unreliable, and non-standardized data collection and sharing across 50 states and thousands of counties and school systems" went as well as expected.

Kids (and parents) continue to suffer.

The GOP has spent decades depriving programs of funding and staffing, and Democrats seem uninterested in actually going big or going home, so instead we're submitting paperwork for a $20 test reimbursement (if you have healthcare), or relying on states to resubmit to programs that should be simplified, automatic, and cheaper to operate.

⚡️Action Step: Support families in need by volunteering with or donating to Feeding America.

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HEALTH & BIO

Unsplash

A bloody shame

The news: Every two seconds, somebody in the US needs a blood transfusion to survive. Every day, 45,000 units of blood products are needed.

But in the midst of a desperate blood supply crisis, the potential donor pool remains purposefully, discriminatively, and foolishly limited, because men who have had sex with other men must wait three goddamn months to donate (the recently improved policy also "applies to women who have had sex with a man who has had sex with another man and anyone with new tattoos or piercings").

Last week, 22 senators decided they're not having it, and wrote to the FDA demanding they get with the program, like Israel, Hungary, Brazil, and (probably soon) Canada already have.

Understand it: I could write 340934 more words on the lingering effects of how we mishandled the AIDS crisis, but for now, understand that we can use the data increasingly available to us to uplift every systemic inequity -- think blood supply, tree cover, ventilation, air pollution, and maternal health. We have to choose to Do Better Better.

⚡️Action Step: Subscribe to The 19th, an incredibly diverse, indie, non-profit newsroom reporting on gender, politics, and policy (seriously, check out this awesome team).

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BEEP BOOP

Something worse than TurboTax? Can it be?

The news: The eternally understaffed IRS may or may not (stick with me here) require facial recognition to file your taxes.

And, further, doing so (may or may not) require submitting your selfie to a 3rd party.

First reported by Krebs and followed up on an unholy number of times by Gizmodo, it looks like the IRS will endeavor, throughout the filing process, to convince you to create an account, which does require using ID.me and submitting a selfie.

But despite appearances, and this is the important part, creating an account is (at least, for the moment) not required to file or pay your taxes.

Understand it: If there's very little that's concrete here, why am I reporting it?

Because it's essential we (Shit Givers) get ahead of this stuff and, as I've reported before, errant, ill-advised, and frankly unnecessary collection and utilizing of biometric (and other personal) data is on the rise everywhere -- and that sucks. I'm thankful to crews like Gizmodo and The Markup for staying on the beat.

⚡️Action Step: We'll stay on it, but there's a good chance your CPA files for more than just you. Forward this email to them and explain the selfie isn't necessary to file/pay, and that they should make it clear to the rest of their clients, too. A little momentum goes a long way.

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10 THINGS FROM MY NOTEBOOK

A couple years back, we talked on the pod about kernza, the wonder grain. Now you can buy it in pasta.
The White House issued a white paper with plans to safeguard federal science research. It's controversial.
The UK will drop basically all COVID protocols, and soon
Monoclonal antibody treatments have only been used in 4% of positive severe COVID cases, but when they have been, Black and Brown Americans have received them 22-57% less than white counterparts
Most of California's 400,000-800,000 farmworkers still live in brutally cramped and unsafe conditions
OK, so yes, it appears fax machines are actually still kind of vital to medicine
Two big ag players have launched a regenerative ag pilot fund
Carbon offset prices could increase 50x by 2050
These are the volunteers keeping climate deniers off Wikipedia

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.