After fans waited a little over two years for a new project from Summer Walker, the LVRN singer finally returned with her sophomore project Still Over It. She delivered the project last fall and it arrived with features from Cardi B, JT, SZA, Omarion, Lil Durk, Ciara, and Ari Lennox. Still Over It went on to become Summer’s first No. 1 album, which also stood as the first chart-topping project by a female R&B act in over five years. Now that Summer is a few months removed from the project’s release, she’s back with a new release.
One of the standout records from Still Over It is “No Love” with SZA, and now the track gets a nice update thanks to the addition of Cardi B. On it, Cardi adds a verse to the song to make for a sweet and tender extended version. The updated track also comes with a soft music video that begins with Cardi and Summer laying in an elegant bed in the clouds as Cardi sings about the unfaithful ways of her love interest. After Summer delivers the song’s hook in a rose field, she joins SZA as they twerk and pole dance beside each other. Altogether, it makes for quite the spicy and sensual visual.
You can watch the video for the updated version of “No Love” above.
Cardi B is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
The Oscars could use every ounce of goodwill that it can manage. Instead, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is going through with its decision to cut eight categories from the live broadcast, including Original Score, Editing, and Makeup and Hairstyling. The acceptance speeches, which will be given before the televised ceremony, will be edited into the telecast, but “dozens of sound designers, engineers, and mixers have signed a petition protesting the Academy’s decision to award the sound Oscar during its pre-telecast hour,” according to Variety.
The protest will also include guild members wearing their badges upside down, and potentially for winners to flip their Oscars when they give their acceptance speech. “This weekend, the Oscars may be turned upside down as we may see winners from all categories accept their Oscars upside down in a silent show of solidarity with the eight affected categories,” Karol Urban, the president of the Cinema Audio Society, said in a statement. “We are all filmmakers of equal importance.”
A source toldDeadline, “It’s not an organized thing. It’s word of mouth. People are talking about wearing their Academy lapel pins upside down, and holding their Oscar statues upside down if they win one. Some will definitely go there, and some won’t. It’s spreading. It’s getting some currency.”
This season of Top Chefhasn’t exactly been bringing the drama, but I think my favorite part of episode four was the slowly-dawning impression that Padma got into the booze early and was mom-drunk for most of the episode. It always felt like we were just one edit away from someone at a different table having to come over to tell her to keep it down.
True, this is purely speculation on my part, but I give you Exhibit A, from Chef Melissa King’s Instagram taken on the same night:
Great photobomb, Padma. I love Tipsy Padma. Giving Padma just a little too much to drink always makes this show at least 50% better.
Anyway, the theme of the evening seemed to be “preposterously hard challenges.” In the Quickfire, that meant challenging the chefs to make biscuits — without benefit of a recipe! And not just that, but to incorporate that biscuit into a dish.
Chris Williams was introduced as the guest judge, who opened by talking about his great-grandmother, Lucille B. Smith, an influential Black woman chef who introduced “Lucille’s All Purpose Hot Roll Mix,” the country’s first pre-made roll mix, in the 1940s. To which Padma quipped, “I guess you could say she was on a roll!”
This is my Exhibit B in The Case For Padma Was Drunk Most Of This Episode. Alcohol lowers not only her inhibitions but also her ability to resist a pun.
The chefs went on to make some tasty and not-so-tasty biscuits, in typical Top Chef fashion, though here again I have to question this season’s comparatively lacking attention to detail. Where were the close-ups? How you gonna do a biscuit challenge with no crumb shots?? Show the biscuits going in! I demand thick, steamy ropes of crumb.
After that was over, Padma brought out Wiley Dufresne, the Original Nerd Of Cooking, to present one of his classic experiments in Molecular Gastronomy. That’s a scientific term, by the way, and it means “Food That’s Kinda Weird.” He pioneered this type of thing at his New York restaurant WD50, a fact that has somehow remained stubbornly lodged in my brain even after 20 years of this show.
I never ate at WD50 when I lived in New York even though I always wanted to, but Wiley Dufresne always strikes me as the type of guy who ends up being revealed as the serial killer in the last five minutes of a Law & Order episode. It’s always just some normal-ass looking dude with glasses and a five o’clock shadow wearing a shirt that doesn’t fit that well.
NBC Universal
Nothing against Wiley Dufresne, who’s probably a dead ringer for your company’s IT guy, but if Nic Cage had pulled off The Machine’s mask at the end of 8MM and the guy underneath looked like Wiley Dufresne, no one would’ve been surprised.
Dufresne was in the Top Chef kitchen to present the chefs with one of his special concoctions, a bedazzled neon rope on top of some dirt accompanied by colored spots.
NBC-Universal
Mmm, spots! Delicious.
This actually turned out to be two different dishes, in one of Wiley’s classic diabolically delectable deceptions. One was a peanut butter rope (mmm, ropes!) over some chocolate “soil” (yes they actually call it soil); the other a foie gras rope over black sesame soil (“excuse me, waiter, I think my rope was meant to come with more soil.”).
This was meant to be the inspiration for the episode’s Elimination Challenge theme: Doppelgängers. The chefs would gäng up in teams of tü, to attempt to make two identical-looking dishes that tasted much different. Mmm, duplicious. This honestly seemed like one of the harder challenges in Top Chef history.
But also… sort of irrelevant? Is it bad if a chef lacks a flair for disguise? Probably this makes me a philistine or whatever, but I kinda prefer it when my food just looks like the thing it actually is. I don’t really need to shatter a tuile lampshade and have candied moths fly out for a dessert to impress me like I’m Marie Antoinette. I’m content with pretty much anything tender served in a nice sauce.
That being said, I admit it was fairly entertaining watching these poor chefs try to design an abstract art project that somehow also worked as food, in a decadently sadistic way. Oh my, what a very droll chausson! (*waves lace handkerchief in appreciation*) Garçon, unshackle this one’s family.
RESULTS:
Quickfire Top: Damarr, Evelyn, Jackson*.
Quickfire Bottom: Buddha (too crumbly), Jae (overworked), Ashleigh (over-peppered).
Notable Critique: “Both domes are just texturally off.”
Notable Quote: [Was your shrimp mousse boiled or poached?] “It was poached and then boiled… so to speak.”
After ranking her in the bottom for the last three weeks, it was no surprise that Sarah went home this week. Teamed with Robert, she attempted a shrimp mousse that resembled Robert’s dollop of panna cotta, but in a week where the chefs apparently all brought their A-games, Sarah’s spongy mousse and Robert’s looooose panna cotta didn’t cut the mustard. Do you even dollop, bro?
Finding herself in the hot seat, Sarah tried invoking her confusing shellfish allergy once again, in an attempt to explain her middling mousse (she is kinda sorta allergic to shellfish, but only the shells or something?). Yet where sober Padma might’ve let this excuse slide, Tipsy Padma was on it like a hawk. “If you’re allergic to shellfish why the hell did you make a shrimp mousse,” she demanded.
Exactly! This whole thing was Sarah’s idea! Stand behind your dollop. This woman crumbles under interrogation faster than a day-old biscuit.
Tough break for old Robert, who made a dessert that Gail admitted she would “eat 50 times before I’d eat Evelyn’s dessert again.” (Me-yow).
Then again, how many times do you need to see this show before you know not to make a damned panna cotta? Panna cotta is up there with risotto and duos when it comes to getting chefs sent home on this show. Gelatine is a capricious mistress, Robert. He committed the cardinal sin of not factoring in the moisture level of his strawberries, throwing the whole god damned gelatine balance dangerously out of whack and leaving him with a disgustingly loose panna cotta. This obviously combined for an unsatisfactory spooning experience. Come on, man! We want desserts that are supple and pert, is that so much to ask? Get this flan on a treadmill for fuck’s sake.
I’m going to leave Robert at number 11, even though my gut tells me that there are going to be multiple rounds of Last Chance Kitchen and Robert is going to win at least one of them.
10. (-2) Jo Chan
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AKA: Sarge. Smiles.
Notable Critique: “Jo’s pork belly was like pork belly leather.”
Super Serious Sarge joined her partner in hilarity, Evelyn, this week for a doppelganger duo of sauce-covered pork belly (Sarge) and ganache-covered cake (Evelyn) that nearly got them sent home. Tom was practically apoplectic that Sarge had left her braised pork belly to cool dry, rather than immersed in the braising liquid. What?! Dry-cooled pork belly? GET THE ROPE.
At first it seemed like Sarge’s pork leather was dragging Evelyn down with her, but honestly it didn’t seem like the judges liked Evelyn’s dessert all that much either. Honestly, I think this team probably would’ve gone home, had it not been for Sarah’s baffling excuses and Sarah and Robert’s timid presentation.
Sarge doesn’t have that problem. Sarge can bore right through you with a thousand-yard stare that says “Yeah, bitch, I meant for my pork belly to be dry.” I don’t know if her Jedi mind tricks are going to get her much further if she doesn’t straighten up and braise right, but it was juuuust enough to save her ass this time around.
9. (-2) Jae Jung
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AKA: Noodles. Hilaria Baldwin.
Notable Critique: “Her crumbs were delicious.”
In a season that’s desperately lacking in eccentricity, credit to Jae for really letting her freak flag fly. This chick is weird, and I dig it. She makes bad jokes, like that Jae don’t bake, Jae only likes to get baked, then stares down the camera in a way that can only be described as “disconcertingly horny” before laughing her ass off at her own joke like a one-woman Def Comedy Jam. Granted, I don’t even know a second language let alone have the ability to attempt jokes in one (“cacahuates,” that’s a pretty funny word, right?), so I say this with the utmost respect.
Jae admitted she knew dick about fine biscuitry this week, and attempted to compensate by serving it with a big ass piece of fried chicken (which seemed like a pretty solid idea to me, if not quite as hilarious as Jae seemed to think it was). The judges weren’t fooled and she landed in the bottom three. Luckily she managed to redeem herself in the elimination round and stayed off the chopping block.
Paired with Nick, Sarah joked that the two were “like our parents,” a dig at their collective age. But Jae had the last laugh when Sarah got booted for a middling mousse while Wiley Dufresne went gaga for Jae’s delicious crumbs. What delicious crumbs she had! Wiley Dufresne finished that meal with crumb stains all over his face and clothes. Dude couldn’t guzzle crumbs fast enough.
8. (+3) Luke Kolpin
NBC Universal
AKA: Liddell. Die Hard. Meekus. Noma… Noma… Noma gonna be in this competition much longer, anyway.
After an inauspicious start, everyone’s favorite burly Noma-n Luke has been steadily climbing the rankings these past few weeks, culminating with a solid second place finish this week. Granted, a wacky abstract art-food challenge was right up Luke’s alley, this being the same guy who gave us a room-temperature pumpkin disc topped with seaweed sludge in week two.
Still, even before that, Luke managed to serve a perfectly adequate biscuit during the biscuit challenge, despite admitting that “I’ve been living in Europe for the past eight years, and it’s not exactly a biscuits-and-gravy kind of a place.”
Oh, has Luke been living in Europe? I hadn’t heard.
7. (-2) Ashleigh Shanti
NBC Universal
AKA: Moonjuice.
Holy shit, did anyone else catch how much pepper Ashleigh put in her biscuits? I had to rewind it to make sure I saw what I thought I did:
Bravo
Yes, that’s black pepper. Mamma mia. With that much pepper, you could trade for an entire harem in the middle ages.
It was no surprise that when it came time to choose the winners, the judges virtually ignored the fact that Ashleigh’s biscuit was deep-fried (which doesn’t sound half bad, honestly) and were like “Yeah… a little peppery for me, dog.”
After that, Ashleigh paired up with Luke, matching his layered scallop with a layered mushroom in a doppelganger dish that apparently blew Tom’s socks off. Who even knows with Ashleigh, she’s up, she’s down, she’s eating onions and spotting dimes — I don’t know what the hell is going on!
6. (+3) Monique Feybesse
NBC Universal
AKA: Pebbles Flintstone. Henrietta Hawk.
Speaking of people I don’t know how to rank, there’s Monique here. Monique took the no-brainer step of teaming up with Damarr for the elimination challenge, which seemed like a decent choice considering Damarr has been at or near the top of like the last five challenges.
And then she was like, “Hey, what if you made a chicken liver mousse between some cornbread, and I made an ice cream sandwich? Those look alike, right?”
Nice work, Monique. Work smarter not harder. “Hey, what if we team up on this math project? You work out the figures, and I’ll present it in this nice multi-colored clear binder.”
5. (-1) Evelyn Garcia
NBC Universal
AKA: Cuddles
Every time Cuddles feels like she has it all locked up she takes two steps back. This week, she scored a top three finish for her chorizo biscuit, which looked and sounded fantastic. Then she teamed up with her emotional foil, Sarge, and committed the cardinal sin of Top Chef. A dessert that was too sweet! Sugar?! In a dessert? What are you, an IDIOT?
4. (-2) Nick Wallace
NBC Universal
AKA: Domingo. Chocolate Mormon.
It feels like it’s been forever since the Chocolate Mormon has been in either the top or the bottom of any challenge. To the point that it’s starting to feel like they just keep him around to do charming stuff like bake biscuits in the shape of Mississippi. Arguably one of the least recognizable state shapes, as applied to baked goods. Hey, cool biscuit, man. What is this? Bart Simpson in profile?
Nick teamed up with Jae, making up one-half of the Fairly Oddparents, serving up an udon doppelganger for Jae’s spiral-cut daikon. The judges seemed to love it, though Nick’s contribution apparently warranted less mention than Jae’s crumbs. What can you do, it’s hard to compete with a really good crumb.
Anyway, I have no idea where Nick properly belongs in these rankings but he’s winning the “chef I’d most want to hang out with” battle going away. Dude is like a human quaalude.
3. (+3) Buddha Lo
NBC Universal
AKA: Mr. International. Big Pun. Asian Ben Mendelsohn.
I know, my irrational pro-Buddha bias is showing, having him ranked third this week even after botching his biscuits. But what do you expect? He’s Australian. They’ll call anything a damned biscuit over there. (Calling cookies “biscuits” has to be one of the most infuriating Britishisms, right behind calling a grilled cheese a “toasty.” I’m convinced they’re doing it just to piss us off at this point).
Yet even coming off one of his worst performances, Buddha was still the number one pick when it came time to choose teammates in the Cook Wiley Something Deliciously Deceiving challenge. Perhaps because Buddha seemed like the only chef in the competition who actually enjoys this molecular stuff (with the possible exception of Luke).
Seems like every season has at least one Molecular Weirdo, going all the way back to Marcel Vigneron in season two, the OG Top Chef Molecular Weirdo. My foams, my delicious foams!
Anyway, Buddha proved Jackson chose correctly when their doppelganger duo of… uh… Jackson’s deconstructed everything bagel paired with Buddha’s dada-ist bon-bon melange had Padma gushing “this might be the best dessert we’ve had on Top Chef.”
I swear I’ve heard Padma say some version of this like 16 times in the four years I’ve been recapping this show. She gets all loosey-goosey with the superlatives when she’s hammered. “Best fondue everr? I sure think sho! (hic).”
Anyway, I’m convinced Buddha is going to become the favorite I’ve always thought he was at some point. Aaaaany second now…
2. (+1) Jackson Kalb
NBC Universal
AKA: Magoo. Andrew Lunk. Leghorn. Lurch. Bateman. Napholeon Dynamite.
Leghorn opened this episode cooking an ostrich sausage biscuit, which has to be some kind of giant-bird-on-giant-bird crime. Is there no solidarity among giant goofy-looking flightless birds? He also tried to fry some cheese again. Dude can’t stop trying to make crispy cheese happen. Luckily this is America, and we f*ckin love deep-fried cheese, so Leghorn managed to totally redeem himself with the big win and the advantage going into the elimination.
The advantage wasn’t immunity, much to the goofy lurker’s chagrin, but he capitalized nonetheless by choosing Buddha, which worked out well and won them both the big win. 10 bucks says his sense of smell comes back right just in time for some mistake that gets him eliminated.
1. (even) Damarr Brown
NBC Universal
AKA: James Beard. Catchphrase.
At this point even my 8-year-old stepson I force to watch this show with me thinks Damarr is the odds-on favorite. He landed yet another top three finish in the biscuit challenge this week, for his “drop biscuit” (great nickname for your mom’s– dammit I promised myself no bad mom jokes this week), which he served with shirred egg. Another thing I just learned about.
No, he didn’t end up winning the elimination challenge, but he was going against two separate gastronomy warlocks, all while being asked to do a savory doppelganger for a damned ice cream sandwich. So what did Damarr do? He made chicken liver mousse and stuck it between two slices of cornbread and he still managed to keep out of the bottom (that ice cream sandwich was a lot of things, but apparently it wasn’t “too sweet”). The almost pathologically low-key Damarr carries himself as if he’s vaguely annoyed that they haven’t just named him the winner already and I honestly can’t say I blame him.
Everything changed for Olivia Rodrigo’s career at the top of 2021 when she released “Drivers License.” The song broke Spotify records, rose to No. 1 on the singles chart, and made her this generation’s newest pop star. As for “Drivers License,” the song left many wondering who was the subject of the lovelorn record. Many concluded that it was singer Joshua Bassett, who stars beside her on the Disney+ TV series High School Musical: The Musical: The Series. While Rodrigo never confirmed or denied that Bassett was at the center of “Drivers License,” his constant connection to the song brought a heavy amount of stress into his life, so much so that it landed him in the hospital.
In an interview with People, Bassett says that after several days of online scrutiny, some of which included death threats, he felt his well-being start to deteriorate. “I was sleeping 16 to 20 hours a day,” he said. “I couldn’t even stand up for longer than 30 seconds.” Six days after “Drivers License” was released, Bassett shared “Lie Lie Lie,” a record that he says was supposed to drop regardless of the arrival of “Drivers License.” However, many still took it as a response to Rodrigo’s song which only worsened Bassett’s situation. “I felt my heart literally failing,” Bassett said about his health at the time. “I was like, ‘This isn’t just anxiety. This is bad.’”
At this point, an HSMTMTS producer realized that Bassett needed to be taken to the hospital, and it was there that he was diagnosed with septic shock. “The doctors were like, ‘If you hadn’t checked in within 12 hours, you would have died in your apartment,’” Bassett said. He also noted that he was told that the diagnosis could have been caused by stress. “It’s wild that I was this close to taking another nap.”
Bassett was discharged from the hospital nine days later but still faced some health problems. “I was even more depressed and stressed,” he says. “I had a panic attack every single day.”
You can read the full profile with Bassett via Peoplehere.
Joshua Bassett is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
The Sweet Sixteen tipped off on Thursday night in San Francisco with a stunning upset, as the No. 1 overall seed Gonzaga went down in a shocker to 4-seed Arkansas.
The Razorbacks dragged the Zags into the mud with them and Gonzaga simply could not establish a rhythm offensively, shooting 37.5 percent from the field and just 23.8 percent from three-point range, as their normally high powered offense went cold at the wrong time. One of the big stories of the game was star freshman Chet Holmgren’s foul trouble, as he picked up two quick fouls in the first half and went to the bench for the remainder of the half, only to return in the second and find himself on the wrong end of three whistles, ultimately fouling out after just 23 minutes on the floor, with 11 points and 14 rebounds.
Drew Timme tried to do his part, scoring 25 points to lead all scorers, but the Bulldogs couldn’t get anyone going from the perimeter as the normally rock solid Andrew Nembhard struggled mightily, going 2-of-12 from the field.
On the other side, Arkansas wasn’t exactly an offensive juggernaut, shooting 40.3 percent from the floor overall and 28 percent from three, but they got timely buckets from JD Notae (21 points), Trey Wade (15 points) and Jaylin Williams (15 points) to propel them to the Elite Eight.
Defensive rebounding was a struggle down the stretch for the Zags with Holmgren out, as Arkansas got some big time second chance looks — headlined by Williams’ three off a Notae scramble board — down the stretch and were able to bleed out some clock. Still, Gonzaga had some chances, trailing by four with under a minute to go, but a missed contested layup by Timme allowed Arkansas to push the lead back out to six with under 30 seconds to go.
The Zags would finally get a three to fall on a running, one-footed prayer by Nembhard to pull within three, creating at least a bit of drama late.
The Hogs iced the game at the stripe, though, and put the cherry on top with a vicious block on Gonzaga’s last gasp effort, sending the Zags packing and punching their ticket to the Elite Eight in what ultimately became a 74-68 win.
The Zags bowing out further opened up the bracket as there are now just two 1-seeds left with Baylor and now Gonzaga out of the tournament. For Arkansas, they will await the winner of Texas Tech-Duke in the Elite Eight, as that game follows this stunner in San Francisco.
The best things in life don’t come easy, unless you’re Alison Brie making out with Aubrey Plaza. In their new film, Spin Me Round, the Community star plays the manager of Tuscan Grove, an Alfredo sauce-drenched Olive Garden knock-off, who travels to Italy as part of the company’s educational immersion program. It’s there she meets Nick (Alessandro Nivola), the head of Tuscan Grove, and his assistant, Kat, played by Plaza.
“I love working with Aubrey. She’s an incredible actress and she and I have really great chemistry. It was really easy to shoot a scene like that together,” Brie told Insider about the “steamy” scene where she and Plaza — it’s a Comedy Night Done Right reunion! — hook up in an alley. “It was so fun. That was one of my favorite nights of shooting.”
When asked whether it was awkward making out with Plaza in front of her husband, Jeff Baena, who co-wrote and directed Spin Me Round, she replied, “When we shot The Little Hours, Aubrey had a sex scene with my husband, Dave [Franco], so it’s come full circle. It’s all in the family.”
Spin Me Round, which premiered at the SXSW Film Festival to positive reviews, does not currently have a release date. There’s also no trailer yet, so please enjoy Adam Sandler singing “You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)” in The Wedding Singer instead.
J Balvin and Ed Sheeran are both not too far removed from their latest bodies of work. Last fall, J Balvin released his fifth album Jose with help from Skrillex, Yandel, Ozuna, Khalid, Dua Lipa, Bad Bunny, and more. Three months later, he dropped a deluxe reissue that added eight more songs to the project. As for Ed Sheeran, he released his fifth album = just a month after Balvin originally released Jose. Unlike Jose, Sheeran’s = was a completely solo body of work that also marked his first album in two months. Following an unexpected meeting at the gym, Sheeran and Balvin reconnected to make two songs which we’ve received today.
The two singers arrive with their new tracks, “Sigue” and “Forever My Love.” As if the songs themselves weren’t enough, the duo also released matching videos for the tracks. “Sigue” captures Sheeran and Balvin partying hard together with a festive visual while “Forever My Love” calms things down with a black-and-white video that sees them jam out in the studio.
Balvin and Sheeran’s collaborations come after the former flaunted his softer side in a video for “Nino Sonador” while Sheeran recently joined Camila Cabello for their heartfelt track, “Bam Bam.”
You can watch the videos for “Sigue” and “Forever My Love” above.
Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group
DDG kicked off 2021 by releasing his third project Die 4 Respect, an 11-track effort that arrived with contributions from Lil Yatchy, Coi Leray, Pnb Rock, 42 Dugg, and more. For the remainder of the year, DDG worked on promoting the project and helping it reach new corners, and as a result, it helped him land a spot in the 2021 XXL Freshman Class. There, he found himself besides names like Blxst, Pooh Shiesty, Morray, and more. Fast forward to 2022, and DDG is back to work with new music and an example of that comes with his new video for “Elon Musk” with Gunna.
In the new visual, DDG decides to take his talents to outer space. He plays the role of an astronaut who hops in a rocket ship and journeys to space complete with a blunt in hand and a woman beside him. Elsewhere in the video, Gunna stands beside him strapped a weapon of his own to deliver his verse on the song.
The new visual comes a month after DDG and Gunna dropped their “Elon Musk” collaboration. Prior to that, DDG concluded his 2021 year with the celebratory “Rucci” while Gunna kicked off his 2022 year with his stellar No. 1 albumDS4EVER.
You can watch the video for the new track above.
Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
Climate change is the biggest challenge humanity will face in the 21st century. If we want to change course and help our planet heal, every single one of us has to take action right now. And we’re not simply talking about using reusable grocery bags or opting out of daily housekeeping when you stay at a hotel. We’ve all got to do a lot more, and we’ve got to do it every single day.
Are you feeling overwhelmed? Not sure where to start? Well, here’s the good news. A group of young entrepreneurs has figured out an innovative way to make it easier for regular people to take action on climate change. And after securing funding from some of the most influential investors in the country, Wren was born.
What is Wren? It’s a cool new startup that helps consumers offset their carbon footprint by funding important ecological projects and climate change research.
Your carbon footprint is a measurement of the carbon emissions generated because of the things you do and the choices you make. A big carbon footprint means your lifestyle burns a lot of fossil fuels. A small carbon footprint means the opposite.When it comes to reversing climate change, reducing the size of our carbon footprints is critical. After that, the next step is to offset whatever carbon footprint we still make by removing an equal amount of carbon emissions from the atmosphere. If we do this, it means we’re “carbon neutral.”
When you sign up with Wren, the first thing you’ll do is take a quiz that calculates your carbon footprint and helps you understand the scope of your environmental impact. For example, it will tell you how many tons of carbon dioxide you produce per year, how your footprint compares to the average household, and what the planet would be like if everyone lived like you. After that, Wren shows you how much it would cost each month to offset your carbon emissions.
How will forking over your hard-earned money help you go carbon neutral? That money will fund life-changing climate projects across the globe. These projects include tree planting, reforestation, and rainforest protection. But the money will also fund advanced projects like carbon sequestration, mineral weathering, biochar cooling, and clean fuel research.
When you pay to offset your carbon footprint with Wren, you get detailed accounts of the specific projects your monthly contributions are funding. Wren only partners with world-class institutions and organizations. But if a project does not offset as much carbon as planned, Wren will fund another project to make up the difference, so the impact of your contribution is always 100 percent guaranteed.
Best of all, when you partner with Wren, you’re investing in real science. All carbon calculations are based on peer-reviewed data, so there is a direct causal relationship between what you pay and the carbon removed from the atmosphere.
Right now, the climate situation is pretty dire. The year 2020 was, among other things, the hottest one ever recorded. We’re losing 151 billion tons of polar ice per year. And sea levels are rising 3.4 millimeters per year. Scientists now say we only have ten years left before these changes become permanent.
One person acting alone will do nothing. But if we all step up, if we all make sacrifices together, we can solve the climate change problem. That’s why we need forward-thinking solutions like Wren. This company launched last year, but members have already raised $1.7 million to offset 114,066 tons of carbon dioxide.
Want to be a part of something truly amazing? Click here to sign up with Wren today.
Editor’s Note: Recently it was reported that the DSM-5 would include a new diagnosis “prolonged grief disorder,” likely opening up new pathways for treatment, including therapy and medication. The inclusion, which as been debated for decades, is considered highly controversial by critics who say it stigmatizes and further isolates those living with grief. The following op-ed is a response to the decision. Upworthy has not taken an official stance on the decision but are sharing this article as a means of furthering the discussion about mental health, grief and how we as a culture and community address such challenges.
Dear Beauty,
I wonder if they understand that the root of the word ‘care’ is from an Old High German term chara, meaning grief or lament. If only our healthcare system would let us hold our sorrow and help us understand that it moves and changes as we try to move through life after losing someone we love, too soon, too young.
Despite having done extensive preconception genetic testing, a fatal mistake was made by a physician. The wrong test was ordered, and your dad‘s carrier status was misreported. Your life, the one that was supposed to be long and full and ever-changing, would last 12 to 18 more months if we were lucky. We’d never watch you grow-up. We’d never hear you talk. We’d never hold your hand to take a walk.
Today, 14 months after your death, the missing, the aching, the craving and the longing still exist just as much as it did on December 17, 2019, the day we learned you would die.
Now, the American Psychiatric Association has added prolonged grief disorder to the most recent version of Diagnostic Statistical Manual. Now, I live with the marker of a disorder. Am I grieving too long? Too deeply? Is it my fault that the world as I once knew it will never be the same again? Is it crazy that I don’t want it to be?
Am I disordered? Am I crazy when I walk our neighborhood streets with your sister and reach my hand down to squeeze the place where yours used to rest in the stroller? I write to you everyday in my journal and tell you all about the goings-on — does that mean I think I can talk to the dead? Would it even matter?
I think I’ll keep writing, if you are okay with that. It makes me feel close to you, even though I just wish you were here.
Love,
Mom
When parents of living children do whatever it takes every day to keep their children in the front row of their lives does that mean they too are disordered? Should they be prescribed naltrexone so that they can “end their addiction” to their child?
We live in a world that is afraid of loss, afraid of death, and afraid of the feelings that they stir up. For grieving people this means it is not safe to share pain, it is not safe to be honest, it is not safe to be real. We are told we need to move on, readjust, find the silver lining and appreciate the life and people we have.
The thing is, living inside tragic loss allows grieving people to feel things on a different plane. Embodied grief is a portal to finding beauty in the mundane. And the thing is, when grieving people are allowed to feel for however long and in whatever way they need, grieving people can become a superhuman. We can hold the deepest, darkest pain and offer the fiercest compassion. All in the same tear, all in the same smile.
But, if you tell us we are disordered, and you wave drugs in front of us before we know whether they are helpful or even necessary for us, we will hide and withdraw from the feelings that can bring so much richness to our lives, and to the people who are still here on this earth, and the ones who aren’t. If you take a look at the long arc of history, it’s those who have suffered and have found their voice, who have made the world a better place.
So if not a diagnosis and medication what can we do for people who have lost a loved one?
We can help them remember their loved one, actively. We can say their name, celebrate their important dates, and keep them present in daily life. Not only for one week, or one month, or one year, but forever. We can ask about who they were, what they loved, and what made them smile. We can show up — when we’re asked, and sometimes when we’re not. We can send a text or a note when we see a beautiful flower or a red-tailed hawk that is a symbol of their loved one.
– We can honor them through micro rituals—in our family this looks like dinner and dancing and song and poetry and tears and laughter every Friday night.
– We can sit by their side when they cry. We can hold their hand in those moments, instead of helping them reach for a bottle.
– We can ask “what do you need to be okay, today?” and not be afraid of the answer.
I promise these simple actions work. They are the best medicine. This list really does go on and it doesn’t cost our country anything.
The medicalization or minimization of grief, however, could cost us our humanity.
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, to present one of his classic experiments in Molecular Gastronomy. That’s a scientific term, by the way, and it means “Food That’s Kinda Weird.” He pioneered this type of thing at his New York restaurant WD50, a fact that has somehow remained stubbornly lodged in my brain even after 20 years of this show.
