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Soup to nuts, I’m more concerned about COVID today than I’ve been at any point in the past year. I don’t think it’ll be a horror show soon, not like it was before, but we haven’t (yet!) put ourselves in a position to get ahead of a virus whose entire job is to find ways around our defenses, and now it’s doing just that.

My usual caveats:

I am: A former liberal arts major with a popular and critically acclaimed newsletter and a podcast, and I’ve spent the past few years trying to learn about the world’s most complex problems from a broad array of incredibly smart, capable, and thoughtful folks to understand where we are, why we’re here, where we might be going, and what the hell you and I can do about it all.

I’ve covered the broader shifts of COVID every week in this newsletter, standing on the shoulders of some of the most incredible journalism we've ever seen.

And here are the facts on the ground:

Because of a huge, overlapping variety of societal and institutional failures, our bodies and health system, however immunized, are under assault from an increasingly wide variety of subvariants of our own making.

We have chosen not to vaccinate the world, and at home, we have almost completely let our guard down, relying on a population whose existing vaccines are becoming less potent every day and who are reluctant to get any additional new ones, no matter how capable.

Today I want to elaborate on these factors, and help you understand where I think we are, where we might be going, and why, and what we can do about it. While historically our “numbers” remain low (and that’s great!), there’s a very good chance the variants keep evolving to feature better immunity evasiveness, leaving our current vaccines markedly more ineffective and our population exposed again.

Again, a caveat: I might be very, very wrong, and I hope I am. But I don’t think I am.

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We are all being pulled in so many different directions.

The clock is ticking and we have a climate and virus and society and economy to fix and we’re distracted, all of the time.

Not just by all of these immense, complicated, systemic issues, not just by an explosion of candidates to donate to, and GoFundMe’s to donate to, but also by the just infinite plethora of opportunities for engagement, if only for a moment. 

It’s getting harder for us to read long-form writing, to focus on one thing without instinctively reaching for another at the same time.

And here’s the broader implication: 

If we can’t pay attention to what’s going on with our planet, with our communities, with the heat, and viruses, and opportunities to electrify everything, to train and hire more nurses, to educate more people, to elect folks that matter in districts and elections that matter, then we’re going to have a very hard time fixing any of it.

But we are less in control than we’ve ever been – maybe there’s free will, maybe not – we’ve evolved in this way, to constantly be scanning, like anxiety has a purpose to keep us alive, but it’s overworked and overclocked and spread too thin.

And so is our attention.

My guest today is Johann Hari.

Johann is the author of three New York Times best-selling books. His TED talks have been viewed more than 80 million times. The first is named ‘Everything You Think You Know About Addiction is Wrong.’ The second is entitled ‘This Could Be Why You Are Depressed or Anxious’. 

Johann is the author of the new book “Stolen Focus: Why You Can’t Pay Attention, and How to Think Deeply Again”

His work here and this conversation can go a long way towards helping you be more effective, not only at home and in your job, but at giving a shit, understanding why you give a shit, and how to most effectively put that mission to use.

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A woman’s right to choose is under renewed attack in America and the federal protection it has benefited from for so long, however tenuous, is closer than ever to going away. 

It's vitally important we understand the underlying systems behind any singular issue, and ask “Why is this this way?” and “Does it have to be this way?”

It is 14 times more deadly to deliver a baby than to have a legal abortion in America.

We have no universal healthcare, we have no mandatory paid sick leave, we have no mandatory paid parental leave, we have no mandatory paid time off, preschool is unaffordable, childcare is unaffordable, mental health care is unaffordable, diapers are unaffordable.

And so before this — before this decision comes down, before they use this precedent and legal approach to start to ban abortions immediately after conception, before they try to ban contraception altogether, and more — 

— we have some of the highest maternal death rates in the developed world, and if you’re poor or a Black woman or both — they’re 3-4x higher. 

Last year I had Representative Lauren Underwood of Illinois on the show to talk about the heartbreaking reason maternal health means so much to her, about her incredible Momnibus Act, about how and why we treat moms the way we do in this country, and what the hell we can all do about it.

I learned so much from Lauren, and we got an overwhelming response from folks inside and outside the system who are fighting for better care every day, and folks who truly didn’t understand the scope of how dangerous it is to have a baby in America.

Lauren is an inspiration and a leader and I couldn’t think of a more appropriate conversation to replay this week in light of what’s happening.

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If you give a shit, well, you’ve probably had at least a few moments where the enormity of what’s in front of us has challenged your mental health in some way.

I can’t imagine there are many folks listening to this show who’ve never felt the heaviness of our climate future, of our climate present.

There’s a lot of guilt, a lot of shame, a lot of shame about that shame, a lot of furious action – we’re here, aren’t we.

And running parallel alongside all of those emotions is the dread of what’s being done out there, about the lack of action, and for the people who are taking action on the frontlines of the future, giving it their all.

But, as Dr. Katharine Hayhoe says, we have to talk about it. 

Not just what’s happening, but how we’re dealing with it. 

How we can recognize it and move forward, for ourselves, together, for the planet, for the people who will come after us.

My guest today is Dr. Britt Wray.

Britt is the author of the fantastic new book “Generation Dread: Finding Purpose in an Age of Climate Crisis”, an impassioned generational perspective on how to stay sane amid climate disruption.

Britt has a Ph.D. in Science Communication from the University of Copenhagen and is the author of "Rise of the Necrofauna: The Science, Ethics and Risks of De-Extinction."

She is currently a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (sure, why not both?), where she researches the mental health impacts of climate change on young people.

Britt is also the author of Gen Dread, the first newsletter that shares wide-ranging ideas for supporting emotional health and psychological resilience in the climate and wider ecological crisis.

I have learned so much from Britt of late, and her book is a tremendous source of empathy and courage.

I think you will find us both baring a bit of our souls and our beliefs in this conversation, and hopefully, some ways we can all cope and build a radically more supportive world – for everyone.

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