Latest / The Daily Sarcast / August 19th, 2026: Mamdani Wears A Helmet, Wildfires And Kate's Update

Transcript

August 19th, 2026: Mamdani Wears A Helmet, Wildfires And Kate's Update · The Daily Sarcast

• 0:00
  Feeling guilty about your pollution
• 0:02
  footprint and how you're flying and driving is heating the planet?
• 0:06
  Have you ever wanted to be the change you wish to see in the world?
• 0:10
  Well, good news! Teleportation does exist, so now you can travel to far-off
• 0:15
  destinations guilt-free.
• 0:17
  New Zealand, Japan, Peru, here you come! And all for the low price of $19.99.99.
• 0:24
  Plus maybe a few cells or an eye or a limb here or there.
• 0:27
  Vacation season is here. For climate-smart transportation, choose Earth Heroes Teleportation.
• 0:33
  Yes, that's Earth Heroes Teleportation, with three Zs in Heroes.
• 0:39
  A funny quote from the news, continuing the climate theme. Cake is just not
• 0:45
  meant for extreme weather.
• 0:47
  This is a quote from Stephanie Hart, the owner of a bakery in Chicago.
• 0:50
  During a recent heat wave, she lost 500 ice cream bars and a bunch of chocolates.
• 0:55
  And she also almost lost $30,000 worth of cakes.
• 1:00
  But there's a sweet ending. Her staff filled the freezer with dry ice and stored the cakes there.
• 1:05
  Then, thanks to calls to her local politicians, she got the utility company
• 1:10
  to turn the power on the next day.
• 1:13
  Insert theme song here. This is the Daily Sarcast. I give you the news and maybe a laugh.
• 1:18
  I'm Kate Stein, and today is August 19, 2026.
• 1:23
  So yeah, I'm Kate. I am in improv comedy class with Lindsay,
• 1:26
  and my fun fact is that I used to be a climate journalist at a local NPR station in Miami.
• 1:33
  And I really feel like the pressure is on now that I've told you guys that.
• 1:36
  And also, be ready because there's a lot of climate content coming at you.
• 1:41
  Why am I taking over the Daily Sarkast? Be the change, guys.
• 1:45
  In real news. So I'm recording this on Tuesday night to meet Lindsay's 9 p.m. deadline.
• 1:51
  Primary election results will be in when you hear this.
• 1:55
  Do democracy a favor and check out the outcomes.
• 1:58
  But in the meantime, on Monday, an organization that does public election polling
• 2:03
  withdrew two recent surveys.
• 2:05
  It said it fabricated the polls as part of a, quote, short-term social experiment
• 2:10
  on the spread of false information.
• 2:13
  Meridian Strategies released a survey claiming that in Wisconsin,
• 2:16
  the Democratic Socialist candidate Francesca Hong was leading the Democratic
• 2:21
  primary by more than 20 percentage points.
• 2:23
  She ended up losing, although by less than one.
• 2:26
  For the Los Angeles mayoral election, which is in November, Meridian's recent
• 2:31
  survey showed Karen Bass, the current mayor, leading by nearly 12 percentage
• 2:35
  points. And again, they retracted both of these surveys.
• 2:39
  I have to agree with this professor who commented on this article when the New
• 2:44
  York Times published it.
• 2:45
  She was like, what are you doing? What are you measuring?
• 2:49
  This was not any sort of like experiment. They did not ask people how their
• 2:55
  opinions changed after the polls were released. They didn't compare different groups to each other.
• 3:00
  They were just, as this professor put it, wreaking havoc in an election with real stakes.
• 3:05
  So yeah, not a big fan of that. We have enough problems with misinformation as it is.
• 3:11
  I did appreciate the New York Times in their article. It gave a shout out to
• 3:14
  itself and said the New York Times did not republish the results because Meridian
• 3:20
  didn't respond to their questions about methodology.
• 3:23
  Which, like, sometimes I don't love this navel-gazing by media outlets,
• 3:27
  but fair enough, guys. Well done.
• 3:30
  In other news, New York City Mayor Zoran Mondani has decided to start wearing,
• 3:34
  dun-dun-dun-dun, bike helmet.
• 3:37
  In a video posted to social media on Tuesday, he unboxed a bike helmet at City
• 3:41
  Hall and put it on his head, appropriately.
• 3:44
  Mamdani, as you may know, is an avid city bike user. People regularly post photos
• 3:49
  of him on a bike in his suit and tie.
• 3:52
  He's often being tailed by his security team, also on bicycles.
• 3:56
  But Mamdani has received a lot of criticism online for riding without a helmet,
• 3:59
  especially because New York City has seen an uptick in crashes lately,
• 4:03
  especially involving bikes and electric scooters.
• 4:06
  My take, it's about time. He's an elected official. He should be setting an
• 4:11
  example for the youth of the city, etc., etc.
• 4:14
  Also, the adults, everyone who's out there riding without a bike helmet, put a bike helmet on.
• 4:18
  Like, it's just, your brain is your most valuable asset. Why would you risk
• 4:23
  it? I don't know. So, good job, Mondani.
• 4:25
  Appreciate you demonstrating some moral strength of character.
• 4:29
  Not that I had that many doubts.
• 4:31
  Lastly, more climate news. Recent research has found that an increase in wildfires
• 4:36
  is greatly increasing Americans' exposure to harmful toxins.
• 4:42
  And wildfire smoke, it turns out, can be even more toxic than smoke from other
• 4:46
  sources, like exhaust. So, great news.
• 4:48
  This is especially true if the fires are in urban areas where electronics and
• 4:52
  buildings burning are more likely to release harmful chemicals.
• 4:57
  There's basically no body system that's not affected by wildfire smoke.
• 5:01
  The studies have found that the smoke drives heart-related hospitalizations,
• 5:05
  preterm births, complications from diabetes, cancer, cognitive impairment,
• 5:10
  and not to mention respiratory effects like asthma.
• 5:14
  Which, yeah, none of this is surprising. Some of us probably felt this in the
• 5:18
  recent wildfires across the U.S. and Canada.
• 5:21
  I did find that there was a depressing lack of, like, what can we do about this
• 5:26
  in this particular article? Like, should we wear masks? Guys probably wear masks.
• 5:31
  Wear the masks that filter out small particulates.
• 5:34
  We learned some lessons from COVID.
• 5:37
  Another thing, go vote. Hence, pay attention to election results, too.
• 5:43
  Climate change sucks, basically, but there is also a fair amount of research
• 5:47
  showing that we have the technologies we need to slow it down,
• 5:51
  like wind turbines and solar power and newer tech, too, that can support clean
• 5:55
  electricity and clean transportation and clean agriculture and all the clean
• 5:58
  stuff that leads to clean air and people not dying from wildfire smoke exposure.
• 6:04
  And the number one thing that we can do is talk about it, talk about climate
• 6:07
  change, talk to your elected officials, talk to your friends and neighbors, go protest.
• 6:12
  Collective action and spreading awareness is super important here.
• 6:16
  Okay off my npr climate reporter pedestal for a moment in kate life,
• 6:23
  so my friend and i great relationship really like him he's in a self-help moment
• 6:30
  right now which again very happy for him,
• 6:34
  very eager to support him on his journey he did recently buy like a whole stack
• 6:39
  of self-help books on Amazon, things with titles like 38 Rules of Power,
• 6:44
  or another one called Make Your Bed, which is about, I think,
• 6:47
  the power of small habits.
• 6:49
  So like, well done, great first step. But his plan to read these books is,
• 6:54
  I think, just osmosis, which not a plan, not a plan at all.
• 6:59
  Unlikely to get the books read. So I made him a bet that if he reads one of
• 7:06
  the books in the next month, then I will get a temporary tattoo sleeve that he can pick for me.
• 7:12
  And if he doesn't read the book, then he gets the sleeve that I pick for him.
• 7:17
  So guys, anything to promote literacy, I think. Am I right?
• 7:22
  This is NPR.
• 7:25
  Special segment, Wednesday, things I am thinking about.
• 7:29
  Well, we've covered a lot of ground, and I am now having a moment of self-reflection,
• 7:35
  which is that, like, 75% of this podcast was about disasters.
• 7:40
  It is maybe time for me to get some new hobbies.
• 7:43
  But you know what? My new hobby is not going to be cooking. Which brings us
• 7:48
  to our cooking tip of the day.
• 7:50
  When I was growing up, my family moved around quite a bit, and there were a
• 7:55
  couple of times when we lived in our basement while carpenters were renovating our kitchen.
• 8:00
  And my mom became a microwave basement cooking master, and she taught me how
• 8:06
  to make scrambled eggs in the microwave, which is a recipe that persists in
• 8:10
  my life to this day as a non-cook.
• 8:12
  So what you do is basically prepare the eggs the same way you would make any
• 8:17
  sort of normal scrambled eggs. And then here's the magic.
• 8:21
  You put the eggs in the microwave, turn it on for 30 seconds,
• 8:26
  let them cook a little bit, whisk the eggs,
• 8:29
  put it on again for like another 30 to 60 seconds, and voila,
• 8:33
  you have microwave have scrambled eggs. Are they good?
• 8:38
  Can they explode if you don't pay attention and overcook them?
• 8:42
  Definitely yes. Pro tip, pay attention to the eggs.
• 8:46
  Feedback? Comments? Questions? A nice Jewish boy looking for a date?
• 8:50
  Email lindsay at thedailysarcast.com.
• 8:53
  Thanks for listening to my episode of The Daily Sarcast Summer Residency.
• 8:57
  I'm Kate Stein, and you can find me on LinkedIn!
• 9:01
  Quick plug, our Improv 4 class has a comedy show coming up.
• 9:05
  It's at the Second City in New York in Williamsburg, taking place Thursday, August 27th at 7 p.m.
• 9:12
  Be there or be square Lindsay, sadly, will still be on the road But come see
• 9:16
  the rest of us We're super fun And tune in tomorrow for another very special
• 9:22
  episode Of the Daily Sarcast Summer Residency,
• 9:25
  Lastly, thanks Lindsay for having me I am so inviting myself back For Earth Day!