Welcome back, Shit Givers.

I'm delighted 82% of you expressed interest in hearing more frequently about what I'm reading. It won't be every week, but when I've got one worth sharing, I'll add a little section towards the bottom with a Bookshop link and a brief review.

This Week, Summarized:

• Carbon markets are magic and demand to be taken seriously, Michael
• Mask mandates are ending
• Food prices up the rise
• Biden's cancer moonshot
• IRS FaceTime

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

🕛 Reading Time: 9 minutes

CLIMATE CHANGE

There's no "get out of climate change free" card

The news: There's two items on the climate change agenda vis a vis emissions:

1. Rapid and comprehensive decarbonization of current emission sources, and
2. Somehow, and more controversially, mass removal of historical carbon through natural and technological solutions.

The (mostly voluntary) corporate "net zero" plans (and the offsets powering them) are going more or less as predicted, which is to say, not well -- for the planet, at least.

Understand it: This is how the whole corporate offset system works today:

CTVC

Per our friends at CTVC, "Governments and corporates accounting for >$14 trillion in sales are now under net zero targets", mostly powered by the kind of offsets available for purchase, above.

$14 trillion is a lot! My god. Unfortunately, the magical "net zero" threshold those dollars are committed to isn't standardized by any measure yet:

In Europe, the European Central Bank will soon receive a boatload of climate "stress test" data from banks to (probably) justify requiring higher capital costs. Banks are predictably not pleased.

In the US, the SEC's struggling to draft and institute a new rule forcing public companies to disclose how much and what kind of energy they're buying, and how they plan to manage risks from global warming.

But it's taking for-fucking-ever, as questions remain about how much info the SEC can actually require companies to reveal and how much corrupt GOP states and the far-right court will freak out.

So corporations are doing what they do.

Per the NewClimate Institute, by way of NPR:

"Researchers, who examined the actions of 25 companies, concluded that many of them are misleading consumers by using accounting practices that make their environmental goals relatively meaningless or are excluding key parts of their businesses in their calculations."

So, look: There's a lot of well-meaning folks hustling to make this work. I think we'll get there, and not for nothing, I do believe the only way to scale a new technology like carbon capture is to throw a shit ton of money and resources at it, however many times it fails along the way.

But at the moment, the whole system -- the accounting, disclosures, standards, tech, market, incentives, and consequences -- isn't capable of much, so most of these pledges, at least, are fundamentally just marketing bullshit.

⚡️Action Step: Engine No. 1 (the same activist group that swiped 3 Exxon board seats) is back with a new transition-focused ETF (NETZ) you can invest in right now. More info here.

COVID

Here we go

Unsplash

The news: As COVID-19 cases continue to drop from Omicron peaks -- but deaths hover tragically around 2500 goddamn people a day -- the masks are coming off.

It's not that masks don't work anymore, it's that:

1. No one wants to wear them anymore
2. They don't want their kids to wear them anymore
3. They're either among the 76% of Americans who've got a shot, or they just haven't, despite real long-term cardiovascular consequences of infection and a brutal death rate among developed countries
4. Or they very likely have been exposed or infected recently and
   

...enough is enough, apparently.

Understand it: New York, New Jersey, and California are among the bluer states who've surprisingly decided to drop mask mandates in coming weeks, and the timing is key here.

Omicron infected a hellish number of people this winter, and with Democrats' political ratings in the tank, inflation rising (more below), Q-Anon running for school boards, and (another) pivotal election inexplicably just nine months away, there's no time like the present to help voters feel less miserable about every day life.

In the end, policy makers are controlling what they can control. Ish.

What they can't control -- because they apparently don't want to -- is what comes next. We don't know how what immunity an Omicron infection brings for the next variant, because we don't know what comes next.

What we do know is ventilation still isn't anywhere near good enough in schools or workplaces, COVID treatments are still in very limited supply, health care is still unattainable or unaffordable for many, and 3 billion people remain completely unvaccinated across low-income countries.

And until they are, many will get sick and die, and every single one remains a vector for a more dangerous mutation. Each of these are a policy choice. We can Do Better Better.

⚡️Action Step:  It's not just what we count or who we count, it's how we count. Read celebrated biostatistician Dr. Natalie Dean on why we can benefit from random sampling.

FOOD & WATER

Unsplash

Why does this cold brew cost $14?

The news: Across the world, food prices are the highest in ten years.

Classical interpretations of inflation include "too many dollars and too few goods", which also pretty accurately describes both our current energy situation, but also a global populace trapped at home for two years and relatively flush with stimulus, ordering shit online from stores with no workers.

But we have to take a step back/look deeper/another metaphor:

If climate change will affect everything, how much is it already affecting not only indigenous and subsistence farmers, but global food supply chains?

Understand it: Heat, droughts, and floods are growing, threatening not only crops and the insurance policies behind them, but also workers, many of whom (at least in the US) are undocumented, uninsured, and often unable to afford the very food they're harvesting.

More troubling: many of the most threatened crops are exclusively grown in specific breadbaskets around the world.

It goes round and round: Increasing meat and dairy demands are the single biggest driver of deforestation, while carbon and methane emissions from industrial agriculture are growing -- causing more droughts and floods.

So coffee, avocados, wine, wheat, peas, potatoes, cashews and the workers (and economies) who plant, harvest, package, and sell them are in shorter supply, and prices continue to go up.

⚡️Action Step: The Coffee & Climate Network is open for private and public partners, NGO’s and Academia. Join (or tell your local roaster to join) right here.

Help me build a better future. Apply to be my #2 right here.

HEALTH & BIO

Unsplash

Fuck cancer 3.0

The news: President Biden's cancer "moonshot" is back on, as he aims to help reduce American cancer deaths by 50% over the next 25 years (or 300,000 lives annually -- the American Cancer Society projects just over 600,000 deaths this year, and the death rate has dropped 25% since -- among other historical gems -- "O, The Oprah Magazine" launched in 2000. You're welcome).

With no new money announced, Biden seems to be aiming for cooperation (assembling a new "cancer cabinet"), improved screening, and addressing systemic inequities.

So what's next?

• CAR-T-cell cancer therapies have been successful against blood cancers, including "curing" two people with leukemia
• But they don't really work against solid tumors (90% of adult cancers)
• Scientists in China announced they're close to a much-needed blood test for early lung cancer
• We can go further than "simple" DNA testing. Understanding the "alphabet soup" of biomarkers can unlock earlier and earlier diagnoses
• But much work remains -- and often the work is on the work. Many pivotal cancer studies still can't be reproduced

⚡️Action Step: Support our friends at the highly-regarded Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation, which provides funding for cutting-edge research and travel for families in need (my kids LOVE hosting an annual lemonade stand!)

BEEP BOOP

Unsplash

Well well well

The news: Three weeks ago, I reported on the IRS's plans to use third-party facial recognition software to identify taxpayers accessing their accounts, and how it was bullshit.

And here we are:

"The I.R.S. said on Monday that it would “transition away” from using a third-party service for facial recognition to help authenticate people creating online accounts. The transition will occur over the coming weeks to prevent additional disruptions to the tax filing season, which ends April 18."

Understand it: Take a step back. We need stronger privacy ethics and regulations, but we also need more robust security measures.

The IRS isn't the only agency (or private company, but that's for a different day) using biometric data (I'm typing this to you on a computer with a fingerprint scanner), or even this specific ID.me software. Doesn't make it great, but frankly, there's far worse around the corner.

And of course, for better or worse, private contractors are behind many of the government institutions you know and love.

And further -- passwords suck. Nobody makes good ones, or they use the same one over and over, so they're easily hackable. Which puts you, your data, and the company hosting it at risk.

We need authentication more than ever. Hacking is on the rise. SolarWinds was almost a year ago and we still have no idea how bad it was, besides very fucking bad.

I'm glad we put a stop to this, for now, but we need better options. Suggestions?

⚡️Action Step: Lots to do. Email your senators and insist they support the new "Algorithmic Accountability Act of 2022", which "requires companies to conduct impact assessments for bias, effectiveness and other factors, when using automated decision systems to make critical decisions and creates a public repository at the Federal Trade Commission of these systems."

10 THINGS FROM MY NOTEBOOK

• Can LA find a way to recycle their water, and will it be in time? Let's hope so!
  
• Another day, another gut microbe tied to my general mood(s)
  
• When science conferences went online last year, female attendance grew over 250%, and gender queer scientist attendance rose 700%
• Florida, following in California's footsteps, is trying to kneecap the rooftop solar industry
• A new brain map shows our memories...possibly not that
• SoCalGas got fined $10 milly for fighting climate action
• South African scientists copied Modern's vaccine and I'm here for it
• My friend David Roberts at Volts wrote a breakdown on the minerals behind clean energy
• London's congestion charges aren't getting it done: what's next?
• WTF why is there more fusion news, what is this, the future?
  
  

A quick but sincere reminder: I'm hiring! Apply to be my #2 right here. Must love dogs.

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

-- Quinn