COP30 takeaways so far: I'm much more hopeful after attending a full day of this. I've heard about so many adaptation and mitigation measures in so many countries that I feel like we can really come together as humans and make the necessary changes to not only save, but lift up vulnerable people

I left Nashville on Sunday and will be arriving at COP30 today. Many thanks to the LATAM agent who helped us, no thanks to the Republican party who caused these problems in the first place.

If you're wondering how air travel is right now, it's actually terrible.

I miss the time when public places weren't polluted with the noise of random people watching facebook/instagram/tiktok videos without headphones. Bring back decorum.

In Ecuador we have walk-in government clinics where you can just get in line, tell them you need a specific vaccine, show ID, and receive it immediately. It's that easy. Why is getting a typhoid vaccine such a production in the US?? There's no place you can just walk in and get one.

Just remembered that in elementary school we were sent out with catalogs to fundraise in the community. Do schools still do that? In retrospect maybe kids shouldn't have to become door-to-door salesmen to have updated textbooks.

At this point I think the USPS is lying to me. You're telling me this package was in Nashville (destination) for 8 days until I submitted a missing mail request and it's now been in Dehlongea, Atlanta, Greenville, Laurens NC, and Charlotte in the past week? They're just putting in random cities

No matter how hard people try to convince us having empathy is wrong, it is right. No matter how hard people try to convince us that diversity is a weakness, it is a strength. No matter how hard people try to convince us that love is limited, it is unlimited.

Dean of academics: "We can't cover tuition because the USDA doesn't allow it for non-citizens" Me and the four other US citizens in the program:

How do I put "Mentally I'm swimming through thick mud" on my GRA evaluation without upsetting anyone?

It's almost time for the mystery mandatory meeting between all of the PhD students and the dean. What will he yell about this time? Will he threaten to fire all of us for a second time this semester? Or tell us to stop complaining about stipends not keeping up with rent, insurance, and groceries?

So according to USPS my package was in Georgia yesterday, in Tennessee and out for delivery this morning, and is now back in Georgia. Surely this system can be improved

It's 56 F in my lab today and we have a mycorrhizal colonization training so I'm going to freeze until at least 12:30 😭 Why can't facilities turn off the AC???

Vision boarding, I really like the chanted psalm 135 but is it too strong for a wedding entrance? Maybe it would be better for communion. The venue I'm going for is a baroque chapel, all candlelit. Let me know your thoughts, song recording here: youtu.be/6vBg9nS9m_8?...

Slightly concerned that my classmate (worships the biotech industry, loves to play devil's advocate, thinks he's *so* much smarter than other PhD students and professors) is petitioning for research ethics to be removed as a coursework requirement.

I now know three people that have dropped out of MS or PhD programs in my department because they weren't able to make ends meet on the stipend anymore. Two of them had an emergency happen and had to go get better paying jobs to pay medical bills. Universal healthcare would help a lot of students.

*Apologizing to team A because I've been working on projects B and C* *Apologizing to team B because I've been working on projects and C* *Apologizing to team C because I've been working on projects A and B*

I hate when PhD student influencer posts come up because what do you mean your life looks like that? You just jump out of bed and get ready without feeling the weight of too many responsibilities? Every time I shower or eat I feel like I'm procrastinating the multiple projects that are all urgent

The business cards came in! I'm gonna network up a storm at COP30 😎

democrats of all stripes should be rallying around kat abughazaleh asap. it doesnt matter where you stand ideologically. trying to jail dissenters is fundamentally unamerican and 100% fascist. democratic leaders at all levels should be making noise about it. you dont need a poll or focus group.

Proud to say I've managed to shoehorn Kernza into yet another class presentation

Today in 1949, A Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold was first published. That book had an enormous impact on how I think about land and helped create the idea of a “land ethic.”

Making good slides takes so long, I hope literally anyone in the class appreciates the design and narrative

Someone broke into my dad's car this weekend and stole nothing, not even a bound copy of my thesis. If only they had read "Hardwood Regeneration in Kalmia latifolia Thickets", maybe they would leave the criminal life and become plant-soil feedback researchers instead 😞

Resorted to chatgpt because the PI and postdoc on a project told me to use it to learn how to do something. It keeps giving me bad code and then blaming me for errors it made when I point out that the code is wrong. Don't use it, chatgpt isn't smart.

At the point in this profession where the spookiest story I can come up with is about the consequences of topsoil loss

One thing I've noticed now that I'm in an Ag program is that a lot of my peers know nothing about the natural world. I think including some ecology/environmental science classes in undergrad ag curriculum would help move us towards more sustainable ag in the future

My dataset is so right-skewed that it's defying all transformations, the news has been especially bad today, and I can't seem to get it together and be productive. Ugh.

“‘I often wonder, even though the teaching of Sacred Scripture is so clear about the poor, why many people continue to think that they can safely disregard the poor,’ Pope Leo XIV states in his first magisterial document …” www.americamagazine.org/vatican-disp...

nothing but respect for my Antichrist

I got badged for four days at COP30 and (against all odds) we got a place to stay! If you'll be there and want to meet for a coffee let me know 😄

🚨 Please repost widely!🚨 I am recruiting a PhD student to join my lab next fall to work on forest and climate change ecology projects in southern Appalachia! Come join me in one of the most beautiful, biodiverse, and understudied parts of North America. Details below and happy to answer questions

Amazing, love to see progress in conservation www.unesco.org/en/articles/...

RIP 🤍 www.nytimes.com/2025/10/01/o...

"Some have chosen to deride the increasingly evident signs of climate change, to ridicule those who speak of global warming, and even to blame the poor for the very thing that affects them the most." BBC News - Pope Leo condemns climate change critics www.bbc.com/news/article...

Happy Monday! I hope everyone is enjoying the work that was scheduled for Friday, continued into the weekend, and still needs time on Monday 😅

It’s getting very dark very fast. 🇺🇸 www.kenklippenstein.com/p/trumps-nsp...

Has anyone studied the effects of having food in the workplace? The nearest food to my work building is half a mile away, which isn't far but I think we'd all spend more time on campus if we could get a coffee during the day. I'd also spend more time working if I weren't freezing all the time.

🚨HEY NASHVILLE — THERE’S A SPECIAL ELECTION GOING ON — WHY ARE Y’ALL NOT VOTING? All schools in Davidson County will be closed on October 7th and Dec 2nd for an election… no one is showing up to? (H/T @LisaQuigleyTN)

We're halfway through early voting for the special election primary and less than 4000 people have voted in Davidson County, TN. None of the candidates mention climate change on their websites, but Aftyn Behn wrote a substack post on it so she's the best candidate (low bar) on the environment

Finally learning to do GIS work in R instead of ArcGIS Pro, this is great! Data management is easier, I have a record of the data cleaning/analysis in the script, and it runs faster. Highly recommend

It's badging time, who all's going to COP30?

I found the olympic gold medalist of mental gymnastics tonight. Our bible study covered the parable of the rich man and Lazarus and one person (a nurse) claimed that we don't need to give to the homeless because paying taxes funds some social programs. Talk about missing the point of the story.

Starting to question whether my research ethics professor is going to put any thought into this class, we're going on 5 weeks of the same assignment with slight variations. The question has gotten nonsensical at this point.

The Holy See went pretty hard in their NDC. "Environmental justice - implicitly proclaimed by the prophets - can no longer be regarded as an abstract concept or distant goal" is a banger of an opening sentence

Realizing I promised my advisor I'd have all our abiotic data processed by the end of this week. Hunkering down to get it done today

Sad to find out that Cheekwood gardens has a financial relationship with CoreCivic. They were never a high quality botanical garden, but it was a pretty place to walk and look at trees. Oh well, no walking place is worth the horrors of the private prison industry.

Hey middle Tennesseeans, early voting for the special election primary starts today Find your way to a polling station over the next two weeks #Tennessee #Nashville

Tried to leave the university but it's raining sideways out there. Back to data entry I guess