This week: Climate change in the curriculumIncreasingly divergent subvariantsCell-cultured meatRSV vaccines are comingGenerative AI (...didn't write this, but it might one day)
Here's What You Can Do:Teachers can't teach without understanding the material. Check out ClimeTime and the CLEAN project for free, vetted resources for educators K-12.Bring everyone you know to get their bivalent boosters, bring masks back (they can help defend against the flu and RSV too), and improve your air quality wherever you canOur friends at Climate Tech VC put together a free deep-dive on methane emissions from cows. Read it and get up to speed.Join our friends at Pod Save America to call, text, knock on doors, and vote for people who will fight for the 75% of Americans who don't have access to paid leave through an employerCheck out Bleeding Edge AI for a cool timeline for developments as they happen, and/or Ben's Bites, a free, digestible, pithy email update with all things generative AI
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#298: What they're *not* teaching kids today

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This week: In this essay, I will argue that Bridget Jones is the perfect climate-era hero, because she is all of us.Here's What You Can Do:

Essay: Bridget Jones, Climate Hero

Who is still covering Long COVID, and how much is the audience actually growing?  That's today's big question, and my guests are Betsy Ladygetz and Miles Griffis, editors and co-founders of The Sick Times, a journalist-founded website chronicling the Long COVID crisis.  The Sick Times investigates injustices, challenges powerful institutions, wades through the latest research, assesses COVID-19 data, and offers an essential platform for those most affected by the crisis.  Betsy is an independent science, health, and data journalist and writer focused on COVID-19 and the future of public health in general. Prior to The Sick Times, she ran the COVID-19 Data Dispatch. She was recently a journalism fellow at MuckRock, where she contributed to award-winning and impactful COVID-19 investigations, such as the Uncounted Project, investigations into the National Institute of Health's Recover Program, and stories covering public health responses in several states. Miles is an independent journalist and writer who covers Long COVID, science, and LGBTQ plus issues. He developed Long COVID at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic and has used his lived experience to report on the disease.  So many people are struggling directly or indirectly with Long COVID.  Sometimes they don't even know themselves, but with journalism just crumbling around us, new publications like The Sick Times operated by people with very particular essential skills and lived experiences can help make sure that these massive all all-encompassing issues of our lifetimes stay in the news, giving everyone else a way to stay in touch, and of course, to act.  ----------- Have feedback or questions? Tweet us, or send a message to questions@importantnotimportant.com New here? Get started with our fan favorite episodes at podcast.importantnotimportant.com. ----------- INI Book Club:The Hammer: Power, Inequality, and the Struggle for the Soul of Labor by Hamilton NolanLet the Record Show: A Political History of ACT Up New York, 1987-1993 by Sarah SchulmanFind all of our guest recommendations at the INI Book Club: https://bookshop.org/lists/important-not-important-book-club
Links:Subscribe and donate to The Sick TimesFind a Mask Bloc near youSupport the COVID-19 Longhauler Advocacy ProjectSupport the Patient-Led Research CollaborativeSupport the Long Covid Action ProjectLearn about diseases related to Long Covid and support <a href="https://www.meaction.net/"...

Keeping Long COVID In The News

This week: Let’s talk about the Information Era.Here's What You Can Do:Donate (and subscribe!) to the 19th, an independent, non-profit, kick-ass newsroom reporting on gender and politics.Volunteer with Tech Shift to build a fairer, more just technological future.

Essay: Program The World

What have we learned from millennia of water insecurity, of climate changes and disasters, of building along freshwater ways and the ocean, that we can apply today? That's today's big question, and my guest is Dr. Amber Wutich. Dr. Wutich is an ASU President's Professor, Director of the Center for Global Health, and 2023 MacArthur Fellow.  She's an expert on water insecurity, and directs the Global Ethnohydrology Study, a cross cultural study of water knowledge and management in over 20 countries. Dr. Wutich’s two decades of community based field work explore how people respond individually and collectively to extremely water scarce conditions. She leads the NSF Action for Water Equity, a participatory convergence study that develops collaborative water solutions with water insecure U.S. communities. Her teaching has been recognized with many awards, including the Carnegie Case Arizona Professor of the Year. As maybe the most important thing that neither you or I can live without, water is both becoming more scarce in Central America, Northern India, Syria and other places, and more prevalent through sea level rise, flooding and storms where we're not ready for it. ----------- Have feedback or questions? Tweet us, or send a message to questions@importantnotimportant.com New here? Get started with our fan favorite episodes at podcast.importantnotimportant.com. ----------- INI Book Club:Find all of our guest recommendations at the INI Book Club: https://bookshop.org/lists/important-not-important-book-club
Links:Connect with Amber on LinkedIn, Twitter, and BlueSkyDonate or volunteer with Water For PeopleDonate to Dig DeepLearn more about Amber's work with NSF-funded Household Water Insecurity Experiences Research Coordination NetworkLearn more about the National Science Foundation
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The Social Infrastructure of Water

This week: Bernie decided March 15th is Long COVID Awareness Day, so I thought it was an appropriate moment to try to pull together the threads of why Long COVID pisses me off so much, examples of other self-defeating issues we never learned from, and a blueprint for how to do better, better.Here's What You Can Do:

#298: What they're not teaching kids today

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