"Why don't you like AI?" They plan to build "several" fracked-gas-fired power plants in NEPA for Blackstone's "$25 billion investment to build data centers." PA "is often cited as a prime location for the AI revolution given its abundant energy resources" aka fracking share.inquirer.com/kWyBT0

Eyewitness video filmed on Monday, July 14 showed floodwater surging onto the platform of New York’s 28th Street Station as passengers watched from a train car. Intense storms and heavy rainfall caused flooding across New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, with several flash flood warnings issued.

The 28th st station is built on top of an ancient stream that drains the slightly higher ground to the east. (1865 Viele map via davidrumsey.com)

Sunday’s record-setting storm [in Montreal] could repeat on Thursday www.montrealgazette.com/news/weather...

NYC, tonight. Flash flooding has significantly affected the subway. This is the 28th Street station of the No. 1 train. The 1 is out, and the 2 and 3 trains are back in service with severe delays. E, F, M, and R trains are a mess too. Oh, and do *not* drive. Stay home.

@cmu.edu students prepare for a visit from President Donald #Trump to their campus on July 15 for an "Energy & AI Summit" organized by Republican Pennsylvania Senator David McCormick that includes tech and fossil fuel execs. Numerous #protests are scheduled to occur nearby throughout the day.

Again, the hazard communication failures are not just in red states/governments.

I've been in a FUSRAP and thorium/REE hazmat management rabbithole lately and it's amazing what you can do with no oversight! My current fav is Apollo, PA, where nuclear waste was buried "in accordance with [AEC] regulations" between a river and a neighborhood over an undermined former coal mine.

The official DHS account is now tweeting about “your homeland’s heritage”

June 2025 saw: • Wildfires across Canada • 46 °C in Spain • July 4th flash floods in Texas • Record-breaking heat from Tokyo to Texas And yet, climate coverage dropped 6% from May. And 28% from last June. 2/7

Climate media coverage is falling off a cliff, just as the crisis accelerates. And that’s not just bad for business, it’s dangerous for democracy. Let’s talk. 👇 1/7

Les précipitations rapides ont causé des inondations et des pannes de courant. #orage

So...are we feeling lucky? Because we're playing an increasingly high-stakes game of roulette with the global climate, and the house odds are decidedly not in our favor.

So, in other words, our current policy trajectory would still yield essentially a doubling of the warming we've seen so far, with consequences far exceeding a doubling of those we've experienced to date.

And there's a big covert campaign going on to just continue to convince us that "nerd" is a real identity with real characteristics that somehow completely shields this field from any kind of accountability or even admittance of the fact that it is a deeply segregated labor force.

In 2018, Philly rezoned a floodplain *literally in the middle of a river* to build luxury housing. City Council approved bc Councilman Jones pushed for it, arguing that "100-year" floods happen so often that "We have become pretty adept in that area." Not just red states! whyy.org/articles/lux...

I look forward to University of Delaware announcing how they'll protect international students from this shit

Putting this in a larger context, this was extremely common after Hurricane Katrina for disaster cleanup and rebuilding workers (as it is generally). ~25% of Katrina cleanup workers were undocumented, plus the govt suspended major federal labor protections. antitraffickingreview.org/index.php/at...

Sounds like ICE killed a guy and then held american citizens hostage at gunpoint until they agreed to destroy the evidence

Everyone should know that the U.S. *encourages* migrant children to do hard labor. Republicans know this but are purposely twisting this into a scandal based on lies rather than the horrifying truth. The NYT did an excellent investigative series in 2023: www.nytimes.com/series/alone...

are you fucking kidding me I'm glad to see Jeannette Sutton finally interviewed about this, though! “'There is no required training. There’s no certification process currently within IPAWS,' said Jeannette Sutton" but as ever, texts alerts and sirens are *not enough*!

parks 🤝 landfills

Reading a bunch of the EPA 2024 Transition Briefs for the incoming administration and it's heartwrenching to see the important and often overdue work we've lost. Indoor air and wildfire smoke guides, climate resilience planning tools, uranium cleanups in Navajo Nation... www.epa.gov/foia/2024-tr...

America’s own Tiananmen Tank Man

Critical minerals news: DoD is becoming the largest shareholder in a U.S. rare earth metals company to expand their REE magnet production for the military. DoD is buying $400 million in stock, + a $150 million loan w/in 30 days + a fixed minimum price of $110/kg mpmaterials.com/news/mp-mate...

Texas politicians have been loudly denying the link between climate change and extreme floods But behind closed doors, the oil companies that fund those politicians have been acknowledging that storms and floods are getting worse—so they can prepare their own infrastructure for what's to come

Some of us communicate as *part* of our jobs. But there are positions *dedicated* to these efforts. That's why we're so worried about the loss of Warning Coordination Meteorologists at the NWS. What I described above is what they do. Every day. In service to people. www.noaa.gov/jetstream/wfos

Bove is supposed to become a federal judge in Philly 🙃

We're approaching the 30th anniversary of the great Chicago heat wave, when 739 people died and the world got a preview of the social and ecological crises that have now become so common. I spoke with @wbez.org about the significance of the Chicago disaster, and what we've failed to learn.

The only way in which Grok is smarter than me is that Grok isn't a PhD student

3 NW Archdale [Guilford Co, NC] Broadcast Media reports Flash Flood at 9 Jul, 10:13 PM EDT -- water rescue, car stuck in flood waters. at Thu, 10 Jul 2025 03:22:31 +0000 via IEMbot Additional Details Here.

In other flash flood climate disaster news: At least three people in New Mexico are dead after "slow-moving thunderstorms brought torrential rain to the South Fork burn scar, an area affected by devastating wildfires last year that made it vulnerable to flooding." www.cnn.com/2025/07/08/w...

I'm excited for hot takes about copper smelters and for the Department of Energy to reimagine Nicki Minaj's Anaconda for their social media pages

Relatedly, Philly has had ~50000 flash flood warnings in the past week and a tornado *warning* yesterday yet the discussion locally and nationally is acting like Texas is the only place with a watershed.

It’s rich seeing major outlets who originally declined to write about FEMA’s shitty response in Texas just now publishing stories and without crediting my original reporting.

I'm biased, but I think the fixation on the NWS cuts here and "attacks on science" generally has something to do with this Or worse (and this is speculation), that the Helene FEMA misinfo and/or DHS connection make people less concerned for FEMA.

Welp, apparently someone finally found Waldo.

This is a real tweet from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

I have now received a response to a FOIA request about how AI was used to find fraud in narrative portions of asylum applications during Trump 1 and Biden. Trump 2 is using this same tool, the 2.0 version, more broadly. Guys: AI is not the way to do this.

This has been me writing about military materials demand 😭. I caught myself writing a whole page of notes about the evolution of the Geneva Conventions

Big news: After nearly a decade, DuPont has agreed to settle a class-action suit brought by the people of Hoosick Falls, NY, the community I spent years following for my book. All told, the village's roughly 3,000 residents will receive about $90 million in damages. #PFAS #ForeverChemicals

Another day has passed and nothing from the acting head of FEMA in a disaster that killed 100+ people and I haven’t seen any journalists ask the administration where he is…??? Knowing who is currently leading FEMA strikes me as something the public has a vital interest in…

Looks like they agreed with some people on here that we should let our assumed political opponents drown!

they really do explicitly say—several times—that they are specifically not interested in warning "the crazy people", the people from Houston that build houses right on the river, the people they don't know, the people who aren't part of the phone tree: they explicitly don't want those people warned.

From a 2016 Commissioner's Court Regular Session: "Mr. Hewitt: Sirens did not seem to get very much support. The thought was that sirens are better for tourists than local residents. The sirens would only be beneficial for someone that's not familiar with the area, and wouldn't know what to do."

The opt-in alert system is like what has failed in Philly: the city used ReadyNotify for Tropical Storm Isaias floods, but only ~2% of city residents were enrolled for alerts, and half of those were email-only. The alerts were also only in English (they have added Spanish). whyy.org/articles/eme...

And it contributes to the idea that the National Weather Service failed, which is a convenient theory for the state and local officials, without confirming it.

“This city is a National Treasure,” Waymo wrote in a post on X on Monday. “It’s a city of love, where eagles fly with a gritty spirit and cheese that spreads and cheese that steaks. Our road trip continues to Philly next.” what this is too bad to even be written by AI