Get ready

Wildfire fighters who get cancer will now get $450k and college tuition for the children they leave behind... Obviously better than nothing. And yet: how unbearably grim. www.nytimes.com/2025/12/19/u...

Holy crap chart from Gallup

Crops under climate change: "While zinc levels in particular drop, lead levels increase." Oof.

Some pundits claim replacing climate with affordability messages is the way for Dems to win. But climate is driving unaffordability (like with home insurance), voters trust Dems on climate, & solution exist that center people not CEOs. That’s a layup. @newrepublic.com newrepublic.com/article/2044...

Can we get a "ctrl+stfu gemini" command? Would prefer this to having to check a gazillion boxes and have it only get rid of 55% of the problem.

This video is something else. Never going to understand the attraction natural gas seems to hold... www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

My daughter is a joy and she is doing great -- she started preschool this year. But she seems to have developed reactive airway disease or asthma, which makes every respiratory illness more complicated. This infection could follow her for the rest of her life, and that breaks my heart.

Exactly one year ago, my daughter was in the hospital battling RSV. The thought that more families might go through that when an incredibly effective and safe medication exists is mind-blowing. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

“Air pollution fell substantially as Paris restricted car traffic and made way for parks, people-streets and bike-lanes.” Better for the climate, better for health, better for livability and quality of life. Common sense. Such a no-brainer, it’s remarkable that more cities HAVEN’T done the same.

"Interventions in the sex lives of animals are so intrusive and ubiquitous that..bestiality laws had to be rewritten to include explicit exceptions for farmers." love this piece by @jandutkiewicz.bsky.social & Gabe newrepublic.com/article/2036...

We are now living in a 1.5 degree warmed world—with no end in sight (at least not based on current policies or practices). www.ft.com/content/9e0e...

"The message is increasingly clear: In Donald Trump’s and RFK Jr.’s America, illness comes from—and is experienced by—other, lesser people." Vital and thoughtful piece from @melodyschreiber.com newrepublic.com/article/2040...

"Nothing collapses all at once. It just stops working in small places first while everyone else calls it local hardship." newrepublic.com/article/2040...

That study the federal government relied on heavily to contend that Roundup is safe. Yeah, well, it was ghostwritten by Monsanto. In fact, the evidence suggests glyphosate causes cancer in humans. Here's a dispatch from our resident Roundup expert.

A projected 1,400 infants per year will now get Hep B infections that carry a 1 in 4 chance of causing early death from cirrhosis or liver cancer. Sources below: www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025... theconversation.com/vaccine-comm...

Climate advocates aren't losing the information war. They're losing the money and power war. That's very different. newrepublic.com/post/203935/...

This "most read" box from @bangordailynews.bsky.social is wild stuff.

For me, 2025 has felt like a particularly heavy year ... and you might feel the same. So as we head into the holiday season, I wanted to share a few recommendations — books, podcasts, and newsletters — that encourage me, make me think, and remind me how hope begins with action.

Oh my God, this story. And this, too: "...friends and family began sending her mother articles about past deaths...Two teenagers whose cars collided last year, a mother crossing the road while holding her 3-year-old in 2021, a teenage girl heading home from a party on the beach in 2015."

there's a reason we have less chronic hepatitis B infections in the USA -

The hospital I gave birth at was so careful not to be seen as pushing the Hep B vaccine that, although they handed you a form for it, it was hard to extract a confirmation from doctors that this was, in fact, standard and recommended. So, yeah. More confusion NOT good.

"It’s not that previous generations were more engaged in their work because jobs back then were thrilling, it’s that applying oneself at work used to be a means to an end. With the reward of owning your own home yanked out of reach, the whole thing feels futile" www.ft.com/content/c17a...

I spent months talking to many, many people for this long post-mortem of the Inflation Reduction Act: What forces were responsible for creating it, and how could it be gutted so unceremoniously? What might come next? No easy answers ofc but hopefully a bit of clarity newrepublic.com/article/2027...

Really useful advice for authors on how to deal with the Anthropic settlement. In my case, I'm trying to figure out whether I or my publishers are the reproduction-rights-holders, which matters for where the payouts go.

I really am not sure where to even begin with this but maybe just at the absolute deep-down bog-standard basic question of: if AI is the ultimate energy efficiency weapon, why are AI-building tech companies *becoming more inefficient every year??* newrepublic.com/article/2028...

Two weeks ago, Grindr put on a fashion show of wool from "gay" rams rescued from slaughter. The media and the Internet swooned. But this feel-good story is a window into the dark role of forced reproduction in animal agriculture. By me & @gnrosenberg.bsky.social. newrepublic.com/article/2036...

Just in time for your Thanksgiving feast, @jandutkiewicz.bsky.social and I killjoy the gay ram story over at @newrepublic.com. Sorry, but *all* animal farming is predicated on exploiting the sex of farm animals. Oh, and those rams (probably) ain't gay. Enjoy! newrepublic.com/article/2036...

Don't get so distracted by the Nuzzi sex stuff, @melodyschreiber.com writes, that you forget about the dead kids. newrepublic.com/article/2035...

"While algorithmic data crunching might have some good uses, the very expensive push to develop technology that more specifically replicates human skills—think bipedal walking, think creativity—is the world’s worst party trick" @hsouvainehorn.bsky.social at @newrepublic.com on how robots are awful

I do not think toddlers should be made out of metal. A rant: newrepublic.com/post/203463/...

"Democrats can leverage their advantage on climate to win voters’ trust on what will likely be the most significant issues in 2026 and 2028," writes @aaronregunberg.bsky.social, summarizing a new @dataforprogress.org report. newrepublic.com/article/2033...

“I told everybody: ‘I’m retired, I sit home all day,’” he said. “‘If we get any reports of ICE in the neighborhood, somebody text me, and I’ll run over on my scooter and go yell at them.’”

"The time has come for animal-protection organizations, marine parks, aquariums and governments to work together to retire whales and dolphins to sanctuaries and other more enriching environments where they can truly thrive."

Never forget that tech executives are a lot, lot weirder than they are widely credited as being.

Perennially amazing to me how unsinkable this guy is. Grateful to @elienyc.bsky.social for penning the piece that can now be saved and re-sent to everyone every 15 months (or however long it takes for the next Summers scandal) forever: www.thenation.com/article/soci...

Oh this is amazing

"Francis’s climate denial, meanwhile, is more than characterization; it is McEwan’s indictment of the twenty-first-century elite class that refuses to imagine the crisis as worth sacrificing our decadent comforts and entitlements for." newrepublic.com/article/2020...

I hate all this consumerist auto-complete rubbish. I am literally never Googling "marmot size chart." I will *always* be Googling "marmot size." Tell me the average weight of the largest member of the squirrel family. Seriously, this is what the Internet used to be good for!

We need libraries for so many reasons. www.11alive.com/article/news...

"Why did you sext RFK Jr.?" "Liminality and the death drive." "We can work with that."

Watch him sue over the allegation that these were prescriptions rather than snake oil.

The world's biggest meatpacker, JBS, claimed in its adverts: "Bacon, chicken wings and steak with net-zero emissions. It’s possible." But it never seemed to have a plan to make this happen. So now it's paying $1.1 million to settle a false advertising case newrepublic.com/article/2028...

here's @hsouvainehorn.bsky.social on Michelle Wu's undersung accomplishments from this week's election newrepublic.com/post/202735/...

NEW: Billions of pounds of food are imported to the U.S. each year. The FDA inspects foreign producers to ensure what we're eating is safe from pathogens and dangerous manufacturing practices. But now, after Trump's drastic staff cuts, these inspections have plummeted to a historic low. 🧵/

My "but Boston!" take is simple. -Michelle Wu is implementing progressive climate & housing policy. -This has pissed off business interests. -They came after her in the election and she slapped them down handily. -Watch this space. newrepublic.com/post/202735/...

Newsletter a'coming on this. I think this is a much bigger deal than most people realize—particularly for climate stuff.

“The cost of living goes up. Our pay doesn’t,” said Nakia Lomax, a massage therapist in Delaware. “My credit cards are maxed out from buying food. There’s been times where my husband and I, we’ve gone hungry just to make sure that our daughter and our son eat.” My latest:

I feel like a lot of people in American cities are in a constant tantrum over not being able to have the "Does Not Exist."

Crucial thread