Good morning!
Welcome to Issue 9.5 of Digestable, your daily mouthful of real things happening in the world, minus alarmist pandemic news.
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Today’s news, fermented:
About 6 months ago, I got offered the job I currently have. Waiting to hear back was excruciating, but that’s how this process goes.
Now, still fresh myself, I’m reviewing resumes to hire an intern. It’s wild to be on the other side of this, trying to make judgment calls on people I have so little information about. There are some people who clearly rise above the crowd, and others who are by no means qualified. Our hiring team had a conversation about when to send rejection emails, and we concluded that nobody wants bad news on a Friday.
In my morning news scan, which fortunately included no kitchen conniptions, I noticed that while things are still definitely bad, there’s actually plenty of good stuff to talk about.
Here’s a rundown:
The Wet’suwet’en people, who have been fighting against the Coastal GasLink pipeline, which would run through their unceded land and likely cause irreversible destruction, signed a historic agreement with the Canadian government. There’s more discussion to be had, but these negotiations were quicker and more effective because the government and indigenous decision-makers (although there is some contention about which ones) worked together directly, rather than going through the problematic and slow treaty process that indigenous nations usually must utilize.
This year, the US is on track to produce more power from renewable sources than coal for the first time. There’s still lots to do, like banning new fossil fuel infrastructure (like the Coastal GasLink) and actually investing in renewables, but coal kills people at all stages of its use. Thank you next.
Richard Burr, aka the death-anticipating stock-dropper, has stepped down in light of the FBI investigation into his questionable investment decisions. As you may recall, Burr and others dumped millions of dollars of stock based on insider information that the virus would cause a stock market downturn. To review: nobody should have this much money to play around with (ever, but especially while serving the people!), you shouldn’t be able to hold public office if your actions have deliberately harmed the public good, white collar criminals should be held accountable more than anyone else, etc etc.
I know there’s been a lot of talk about invasive species this week, but monitor lizards are right where they’re supposed to be. They live in Micronesia, a collection of islands in the Pacific Ocean that has never come in contact with other landmasses in geologic history. So how did the lizards get there? “They’re predisposed to being swept out to sea,” says an evolutionary biologist who’s studying them.
(image via)
And because it’s Friday, here’s some more animal content.
From Gabriel: “The Oceans Past Initiative has had a bunch of little environmental history talks all week on everything from medieval bestiaries (animal books) to otter/kelp/urchin relations, sharks, cod fisheries, and eel cake!” Here.
From the Twitter: a freaking baby platypus. You’re welcome.
*Hot Goss*
Back next week from the superb Latifah Azlan.