Top recent posts by Climate and Energy Professionals on Bluesky

Chuck Schumer makes it to the New Yorker cartoon section. And not in a good way. Chuck, this is your legacy unless you seriously step up. @schumer.senate.gov

I check the little screen, I check the big screen, I check the watch screen, I check the tablet screen. I check the screen that reminds me of the good times, I check the screen that reminds me of the better times.

Could not be more proud to be a Canadian tonight.

Well, it's official. We just received notice that all authors on the Sixth National Climate Assessment have just been released from their roles. The NCA is a vital, Congressionally mandated resource for our nation as we prepare for the impacts of climate change. This is a huge loss.

i think another answer to why women’s preferences make some men upset is because those guys desperately want women to be a simple equation they want to put body and money into the woman machine and get out sex for all problems to be solved by hustle and protein

Chinese automaker BYD debuts an EV that charges up to 250 miles of range in *5 minutes*, nearly eliminating the time difference in filling up a gas vehicle. You can't get it in the US, though. We keep Chinese cars out so that our dinosaur automakers can keep selling bloated combustion trucks.

Dunno if you've been to Twitter lately, but what's happening over there is identical, on a larger scale, to what's happening in all these private group chats: a bunch of credulous reactionary centrists, all of whom think they're too smart to be manipulated, are being led to the right by morons.

This is such a wild, surreal sight. I've driven past this port hundreds of times and I've never seen it look anything close to this.

Well, it's official. We just received notice that all authors on the Sixth National Climate Assessment have just been released from their roles. The NCA is a vital, Congressionally mandated resource for our nation as we prepare for the impacts of climate change. This is a huge loss.

Everything is terrible so please remember that, any time you want, you can poke holes in a 50-cent sweet potato, microwave for 3 minutes, roll it over and microwave for 2 more min, split and drizzle with sriracha, and eat total goodness out of your hand with only one spoon to wash. #ASmallGoodThing

If everyone lived like we do in Canada or the U.S., we’d need 5 planets to support us all. Australians & Koreans would each require more than 4 Earths. We are depleting nature’s ability to support life about 70% faster than it is able to regenerate. That's why I think every day should be Earth Day!

One of the big revelations of the social media age is that prominent or well-known people -- people who you might think would have more experience dealing with public opinion! -- are in fact the *most* tender and hysterical in the face of criticism. There's almost an inverse ratio there.

Why we need a National Climate Assessment -- “For thousands of years, we humans have been making decisions based on the past: like driving down the road looking in the rear view mirror. But now, thanks entirely to human actions, we're facing a curve in the road greater than humans have ever seen.”

the only reason why anti trans politics ever succeed is because the politicians on the other side of the fight don’t even try to win

They could just kick him out. 🤷🏻‍♂️

The US National Climate Assessment is a national treasure. The authors are volunteers, & it was a career highlight for me to have been the Lead Author of the NCA6 Climate Mitigation Chapter. The career public servants who led my chapter & the overall NCA6 are heroes. www.nytimes.com/2025/04/28/c...

The US wasn't invited to the UN-led meeting of world leaders on climate action last week, where China pledged to double down on climate action. And when the US is present at a climate event, their message goes down "like a fart in a phone box." 🎁 link www.bloomberg.com/news/newslet...

Dear fellow Canadians, Go vote like your country depends on it. Because it very well might.

It will never stop being at least a little funny that the ruling party that finally cemented total power after decades of projecting an image of cowboy machismo is now spending its time being offended by swear words and openly being afraid to ride the subway

Trump is cancelling the National Climate Assessment. I led the #water report of the very first one, in 2000. These reports assess the threats of #climate change to the US. This action won't make those threats go away. It'll just blind is to the coming consequences. www.nytimes.com/2025/04/28/c...

Really unusual (in scale) blackout in Spain - widespread and affects a wide variety of services. There is going to be mountains of disinformation in this moment and it is also going to be interesting to find out what actually caused this www.theguardian.com/world/live/2...

A journalist goes deep undercover in UK far-right groups and discovers ... a bunch of lonely outcasts with crappy jobs who desperately crave a sense of community & belonging.

Canadian friends, well played. American friends, let’s try to keep up. thenarwhal.ca/federal-elec...

What the U.S. is using its declining international clout to push for:

What you don't assess will still hurt you.

250k people turned out for AOC/Sanders Fight Oligarchy rallies, including my centrist 70 year old dad. The very simple message of 'Don't Let Elon and His Cash Ruin Democracy' handily won the day in Wisconsin. Yet establishment Dems still think blaming 'woke' is the key here.

Anyone posting on the major power outage in Spain/Portugal should also obligatorily note that, for those that still have power, it is renewables that are keeping them afloat.

The highlighted sentence illustrates something I've said many times: this country's reactionary centrists are cripplingly, hopelessly credulous in the face of right-wing manipulation.

please dispel yourself of the idea that the increasingly radical technofascists will just one day decide to surrender any percentage of their profits so people can thrive they will not replace the workforce with AI and then just give us UBI they cannot be allowed to make the rules

Y'all electricity fans, this is the place to be right now. Spain's grid is coming back to life. It's 9pm and the grid still has 2.8 GW of solar online making up 17% of all power. demanda.ree.es/visiona/peni...

Got these flowers for @avilewis.bsky.social who ran a magnificent campaign. Canada, it's time to block fascism and elect some real champions while we're at it - we are going to need them!

If you’ve been laid off or had your contract cancelled by Duolingo please get in touch, I want to hear your story; my DMs are open, I’ll send you my Signal. My email’s Briancmerchant at gmail as well.

More on this concern, as I was able to share with the NYT: “There may well be a sixth National Climate Assessment...The question is whether it is going to reflect credible science and be of real use to our communities as they prepare for climate change.”

Canadians looked south, got a glimpse of their possible future, and turned away. At least America's given them one small gift amidst all the 51st state nastiness

Across the world, legacy fossil fuel plants are being retrofitted as "clean energy hubs"—150+ examples and counting. Here's a database that tracks them.

Just in case events in Spain, Portugal + France have made you wonder, the Danish government recently sent out this leaflet on being prepared for such eventualities to all Danish residents. It's available in several languages and is actually quite useful: www.brs.dk/en/prepared/

Comparing the coldest daily sea-surface temperatures in the last 3 years to the hottest SSTs from 1982-2022.

I know everything is a 5 alarm fire/unprecedented but I keep coming back to this paper that lives in my head about how prior to this administration the NIH had such a track record of bipartisan stability it was featured in a special issue on mission innovation and these cuts are bananas.

At this current moment (Libs 164, NDP 7), the balance of power in Canada may rest with a single person:

The missing lynx: In an age of growing hostility to migrants, there are now 10x more barriers on borders than when the Berlin Wall fell, heavily impacting wildlife populations across the globe. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

And here's a useful piece on the connections between the pseudoscientific carnivore diet fad and the far-right. Tldr: it's not about health or even food, it's about insecurity and a desire to assert dominance.

My friend here is disgruntled - our society is under attack, the near future is grim. I remind them that it is Spring and Nature is showing us her best. Please gruntle yourself today - get outside among the trees, wildlowers, rocks. Enjoy what Spring has for you and leave ugliness aside for a while.

How it feels to be American these days.

getting the grid back up and running in portugal and spain after today's blackouts will be "like assembling some hellishly complicated IKEA furniture.” my colleague @natashabernal.bsky.social reports for @wired.com (feat @ketanjoshi.co !)

"It would require about 31 hectares of corn ethanol to produce the same amount of energy generated by one hectare of land covered in solar panels." www.anthropocenemagazine.org/2025/04/new-...

Europe joins the US data-saving race 🙌🏾 Several European research institutes (e.g., Pangaea) now joining a worldwide grass-roots effort to save science data sets that could be lost amid the Trump admin’s attack on research! www.nature.com/articles/d41... H/T @floragraham.bsky.social 🧪

Unless Trump's destruction of US science is stopped, this period will be remembered as the exact time American science was crippled and the global lead shifted to China, just the way the Nazis crippled German science in the 1930s and America became pre-eminent.

As Trump guts the EPA & scraps every air quality regulation he can find ... ... half the people in America are exposed to dangerous levels of air pollution. Breathe in the Freedom™️!

Wind boom helps Finland join the growing list of countries quitting coal power theprogressplaybook.com/2025/04/14/w...

Ironic that just as Trump and the GOP are working to destroy American universities, the Chinese are adopting the US model and massively investing in universities, science, and education. In China, there is one university ALONE that has 38,000 students devoted to studying energy and water resources.

You have neo-nazis screaming abuse at Indigenous elders. You also have Very Serious press gallery dudes Just Asking Questions and Showing Both Sides. Each goal-seek towards racism, just in 2 diff flavours. Aus media works in conscious,active and effortful complicity w/ white supremacists

Reprinting a bullshit press release for Shell in the year of our Lord 2025 kinda tells you everything you need to know about Sustainability Magazine and corporate “sustainability” efforts in general sustainabilitymag.com/articles/she...

The global mean surface air temperature anomaly (departure from average) so far this year compared to the last 150+ years... Data from NOAAGlobalTemp v6.0.0 averaged over January to March and available from www.ncei.noaa.gov/products/lan...

This breaks my heart: Spanish bluebells (left) spreading out of gardens into the wild, now a common sight across Ireland. Native bluebells (right) are so lovely, but will be pushed out. Why are non-native species known to be invasive STILL being sold in garden centres?

Spain is going to experience a rarer event than a blackout: a black start. All grids operate at a set frequency (Spain: 50Hz) and that's achieved by spinning turbines in gas, coal, nuclear or hydro power plants. Getting to that stable frequency takes time. More: www.nationalgrid.com/sites/defaul...

First Democrat to file articles of impeachment. Finally.

Good news for our planet: @markcarneyforpm.bsky.social is going to stay Prime Minister of Canada. I was proud to cast my ballot for @chrystia-freeland.bsky.social who was critical to making this happen.

Spoke to @wired.com's @natashabernal.bsky.social about the process of restarting a power grid, and why it's way, way more difficult than most people realise www.wired.com/story/europe...

Looking up ... Yesterday marks the first *daily* Mauna Loa reading above 431 ppm since record keeping began in 1958. The Climate Casino put the Over/Under for the *monthly* max CO2 this year at 430.70 ppm. Stay tuned! gml.noaa.gov/ccgg/trends/...

i kind of like it like this because it looks like something welded together by someones uncle with 13 DUIs

🧵 ICYMI: The DOJ has implicitly accused FIVE different peer-review medical journals of bias and ordered them to answer questions about their editorial process by May 1. 🧪 So we are here now. www.statnews.com/2025/04/23/n...

If it isn't clear to everyone: presenting being opposed to ethnic cleansing as being actively in support of terrorism is one of the many ways white supremacist fascism is infecting Australia - in this instance, from an uncritical mouthpiece for the Labor party. Dutton and Dodd here w the same goal

This is another trope that helps associate grid catastrophes with energy transition without evidence. I call it the Object Proximity tactic: they drops (a) the blackout occurred and (b) there's a high share of renewables, and then just waggles their eyebrows meaningfully -> archive.ph/aaxUT

This may actually have been the most important piece of reporting 60 Minutes has done all year (and that's no knock on the rest of it, but this was truth-telling at its most unexpected)

I think this is correct, with one crucial alteration: I would substitute *we* with *the ruling class*. to me at least, it has become rather clear who and what "AI"—as it is currently constituted and understood—is for

Cancer death rates have declined in many countries over the past few decades. You will often hear the claim that this is "only because of reductions in smoking". In her latest Substack, my colleague @scientificdiscovery.dev shows that this isn't true. www.scientificdiscovery.dev/p/the-declin...

Nothing is sacred anymore.

Around one-third of new car sales in China are fully electric, and about one-half have a battery. Check out more interesting figures on China: robbieandrew.github.io/china/ via @robbieandrew.bsky.social

reading the Politico Slotkin piece and it's as funny as everyone has said 1. "retake the flag"? so *more* nationalism is what this moment calls for? 2. the Detroit lions were embarrassed in the playoffs by a rookie quarterback 3. uh yes that is and always has been how the primary process works

Just an incredible 12 minute open platform for the right-wing Trump loving Australian deep sea mining company, on the ABC. No expert input, nothing from environmentalists. Just fluffy questions www.abc.net.au/listen/progr...

Serious question: What is the non-sociopathic policy argument for eliminating FEMA?

Trump and the GOP have fired all of the scientists responsible for producing the next National #Climate assessment, mandated by law. I assume it's because they want to hire these "experts" instead. www.reuters.com/sustainabili...

“Tree planting has its place, but right now the incentives are skewed far too much in favour of planting over natural regeneration." - @guyshrubsole.bsky.social The situation is likely even worse here in Ireland, but call it out and you're invariably accused of being a 'purist'. Pure bullshit.

Make Canada great again.

The patterns of temperature anomalies across the #Arctic region over the last 12 months... Data using @copernicusecmwf.bsky.social ERA5 reanalysis with a 1981-2010 reference period.

A political economy tour de force. Ned critiques “community” as a unit of class analysis, dissects NIMBYism among oligopolistic + specialized builders, flags the benefits of land use reform for *new* homebuilders, and reminds us that Kalecki offers insights for slacker housing markets.

Thanks to Jane Fonda and everyone else helping us kick off SunDay! We’re headed for September 21 and we need you!

US official wants Eastern European countries to exit EU's climate goals, which those countries are bound to by law. So is this a call for some countries to exit the European Union?? www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

“Almost no one who voted for Trump last year imagined this would be the result.” *raises hand* Raising the threshold for declarations was literally written out word for word in Project 2025. nymag.com/intelligence...

"A lot of what is happening is targeting climate change research, but what a lot of the folks enacting these cuts don’t fully understand is that by targeting that, they’re likely to cause significant collateral damage to weather forecasting in the process."

"The wealth drained from the South to the North “would be enough to provide infrastructure and supplies to provision decent living standards for the entire population of the global South”. Speech at Fudan University in China. progressive.international/wire/2025-04...

"The end result [of giant new tariffs on foreign solar panels]? Some overseas factories might move from the targeted countries to nations with lower tariffs. A few solar suppliers will get a leg up. And buyers of U.S. solar power may have to pay more for energy." Yay?

Electricity is the wonkiest source of energy. Also the most inter-convertible (make heat, light, cold, metal, data!) and the most efficient (electric cars, heat pumps, internet!) and the most difficult to move around and the most difficult to store and the easiest to produce (solar, wind, water).

i resent having to learn anything about the economy

It's possible Spain's blackout is related to lack of spinning reserves and inertia, but the cause is not yet known. Those claiming otherwise are pushing speculation as fact and shamefully using a crisis to advance their priors. 🔌💡

when i try to determine why i have nowhere to put my feet in my king size bed:

i know Indigenous people in canada have their own problems, but sometimes im salty that my ancestors couldn’t have stayed like two hours farther north

Your 'doom quote' for today: “Capitalism can no more be persuaded to limit growth than a human being can be persuaded to stop breathing. Attempts to green capitalism, to make it ecological, are doomed by the very nature of the system as a system of endless growth.” www.amazon.com/Remaking-Soc...

Oil, gas and coal are dangerous – and not just because they're driving the climate crisis

This week's This American Life @thisamericanlife.org has 2 segments: the best reporting on Gaza and on deportations that I've yet heard. But listen with care, and maybe not both at once--the cruelty of the powerful is almost unbearable. But we must hear it www.thisamericanlife.org/859/chaos-gr...

This 2021 video from Kavieng Scuba Ventures was taken off the coast of Papua New Guinea. The box jelly shown is the size of a soccer ball. It was initially thought to be identical to a single 1997 observation of 'Chirodectes maculatus', but is now believed to be a new species in the same genus.

I'm so stoked to have this board game stocked- We All Take From the River is all about negotiating conflicting uses of a natural resource. It's a fun way to learn about complex things! Think 'Monopoly' but, like, good. We obviously love maps but geography is about more!

Equinor (Norway's state-owned fossil fuel company) VP of energy is Just Asking Questions about the Spain blackout

Spain's blackout will provide lessons, but good to see many of the emergency steps that need to be taken during a blackout of this kind are being taken. For example, Spain's nuclear power plants shutdown the reactors and diesel generators kicked in to maintain safety. www.csn.es/en/noticias-...

Monday ice update - #Arctic sea ice extent is currently the 12th lowest on record (JAXA data) • about 10,000 km² below the 2010s mean • about 350,000 km² below the 2000s mean • about 760,000 km² below the 1990s mean • about 1,280,000 km² below the 1980s mean Plots: zacklabe.com/arctic-sea-i... 🌊

Canadian election results - watch live www.cbc.ca/player/play/...

Why are biofuels being so heavily pushed despite their obvious, MASSIVE inefficiencies? Because they're a fig leaf for continuing to burn stuff, above all fossil fuels.

Finally, Trump has caused one good thing to happen. www.pbs.org/newshour/wor...

Pretty wild that "24/7" fossil fuel generation all suddenly went offline and basically only wind and solar were still producing during today's Spanish/Portuguese blackout. "Baseload" power can be dramatically unreliable

PSA: The fellow who transcribes my podcasts, through his company Fanfare, is looking for more work. If you need podcasts transcribed, get in touch -- he does quick, thorough work at a reasonable price.