Essay: ESG is good business (but don't call it ESG)

This week:

Fighting over ESG is stupid, risky, and bad business. Let’s move on.

Plus: RSV vaccines, the E-BIKE Act, Skittles (?), deepfakes, allergies, and a new season of DRILLED

What We Can Do:

• ⚡️ Submit your comment to keep Virginia in the very-successful — and very lucrative — RGGI
• ⚡️ Some folks need shelter. Some need water. Or food. The data says giving them agency — and straight cash — works better. Do that by donating to GiveDirectly.
• ⚡️ Health care is a universal human right. Setup a new monthly donation to the legendary Partners in Health to provide care first to those who need it most.
• ⚡️ You know what’s cool? A BILLION oysters. Plant them with the Billion Oyster Project and help clean up New York’s waters.
• ⚡️ There’s 1000 words about ESG investing below, so now’s a good time to find a bank that supports climate action AND your community with Bank for Good.

News Roundup

Health & Medicine

• The FDA recommends 2 RSV vaccines for older adults — a huge public health win
• We can learn a lot about how to eradicate homelessness from Houston and Helsinki
• The 988 suicide hotline is expanding LGBTQ services with 24/7 chat and text - huzzah!
• We really should celebrate the enormous — ENORMOUS — impact the President’s Emergency Program for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) has had (and the thousands of people who fought for it)
• The best and worst American cities for allergy-sufferers

Climate

• The E-BIKE Act was reintroduced in Congress and I AM SO EXCITED
• The new season of Amy Westervelt’s incredible “Drilled” podcast is out, and this year it’s a cross-over with Damages, as they explore Guyana’s oil reserves, and how ExxonMobil is exploiting them
• I LOVE the “Third Act” protesters who came after after the big banks who fund fossil fuels
• The final rules on EV tax credits are coming — and everyone is both excited and annoyed

Food & Water

• Can we make and popularize toilets that don’t use running water?
• California might ban Skittles (if this isn’t our most clicked on link, I don’t know what the point is)
• We desperately need a new economics of water

Beep Boop

• It’s just all moving so, so fast. The first ChatGPT plugins are here.
• Meanwhile, vocal deepfakes are already out of control

COVID

• A new Medicare designation may save the most vulnerable rural hospitals that are failing after COVID
• From Atul Gawande: The aftermath of a pandemic requires as much focus as the start

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