As someone who's never been traditionally religious, but who is moved by the world in a way that feels at least adjacent to that, I've had the urge to pray, sometimes, but not the words that felt right. So I found some.

We need environmental review of what happens when we DON'T build the urban housing because here's what it is: sprawl, deforestation, driving.

As someone who's never been traditionally religious, but who is moved by the world in a way that feels at least adjacent to that, I've had the urge to pray, sometimes, but not the words that felt right. So I found some.

Nothing to see here, just a single company run by a twerpy white billionaire wanting pretty much all the resources while offering nearly zero jobs, for a demonstrably racist tech, in the second-Blackest state, which ranks near the bottom economically.

oh HELL no.

Just back online after 3 days in the wilds of the North Cascades, and, well, I'm finding it very unusually cheering.

Everybody in the "climate space" (which means everyone on earth...) needs to understand these mind-blowing figures. Google's "total electricity consumption jumped from 31 terawatt hours (TWh) in 2024 to 43 TWh in 2025." In ONE year. The AI corporate arms race is eating the world.

A friend of mine just returned Glass, Irony, and God, and I feel like someone opened up a window in the musty attic of my brain.

In addition to producing hazardous air pollution and endangering pets and wildlife, fireworks make the 4th of July the most common day for human-started wildfires in the US. The West is a tinderbox - maybe it’s time to consider alternatives without catastrophic consequences.

Again I wish I believed in hell, because these people really seem to WANT to burn in it.

This is the way. And in places with good solar exposure and policies, they could be charged during the school day directly from rooftop or parking lot solar, thus easing pressure on the grid—and making it possible for power to be local & nonprofit. VTH & VTG charging are an absolute game-changer.

20,000 people killed by heat in Europe in less than a week. That's the finding by @ccallahan45.bsky.social, a first-rate scientist who has co-authored several important climate attribution studies. Near real-time analysis like this is so important -- it makes the invisible visible.

"Renewables just aren't practical/will never meet our needs." Let's talk about plunging battery prices too!

ALL of this is maddening, but carbon capture especially is a sad joke: "a few years work in one of the fifty states in one of the 200 countries on earth has done more than the thing that the fossil fuel industry has based its whole climate rationale on." billmckibben.substack.com/p/youre-payi...

"A.I. isn’t merely compensating for the weakness in the rest of the economy. It is, at least in part, causing it."

Incredible chart from @propublica.org. If you don’t follow enviro stuff closely, your instinct might be that the hold-your-nose solution (carbon capture from fossil fuels) would be the “pragmatic” one versus covering Earth in solar panels, which seems utopian. In fact it’s the opposite

What is the EU city with most heat-related deaths doing? Turning into Singapore! "Our first line of defense is massively plant..best natural air-conditioners in Paris are trees” cooling community shelters in schools,etc 'Paris braces for summer of paralysing heat' www.nytimes.com/2025/08/18/w...

Such a great thread!

51°C is 123.8°F. But hey, Iran is easy living, right? God damn this administration, in so very many ways.

This sentence would not exist, not even the last 7 words alone, in a world being cared for even minimally by its apex predators.

“While vehicle safety is critical, blaming larger vehicles for pedestrian deaths overlooks systemic issues.” No, you shill—it IS a systemic issue. We need to limit hood height and charge based on vehicle weight (as in Paris).

There is someone who is absolutely responsible for this, & that someone became a trillionaire last week for THE SAME BEHAVIOR that led to this: lying, fraud, hype, utter unwillingness to be held accountable to the reality that everyone else alive exists in. He belongs in prison, full stop.

There is someone who is absolutely responsible for this, & that someone became a trillionaire last week for THE SAME BEHAVIOR that led to this: lying, fraud, hype, utter unwillingness to be held accountable to the reality that everyone else alive exists in. He belongs in prison, full stop.

So many things are terrible, but it's 75°, clear, breezy, and I'm reading on the shady back deck, everything in bloom and smelling wonderful. At least until the smoke rolls in, Seattle summers are...just incredible.

A magic 8 ball, except it burns up the entire planet.

LOVE this. "Earth-killing app from some paedo island billionaire" is...a very fine way to describe genAI.

"You cannot schedule the lizard’s gift, & you cannot rush the leukemia campaign...in some underfunded lab, a scientist is chasing a question that sounds pointless...a century of experience says that funding people to do this work is a good bet." So much that's good comes from these "tangents".

This chart improves my mood considerably. (time to go offline quick before that shifts again!)

Note that just the abandoned cropland is about 2x the wind and solar needed to decarbonize the US.

GM: "Our employees are free to speak publicly." Autoworker: "Hey, I think these things should have crumple zones and seatbelts." GM: "We're investigating you." Only for tech!

Golly this wouldn't have anything to do with the primary beneficiaries of the extra funding, would it? Go get 'em, @mayorofseattle.bsky.social. And let's go hard enough on parking that even wealthier folks deign to take the bus now & then!

Okay - a quick thread on Microsoft's latest greenwashing nonsense, because it's really bad The message is basically increased efficiency *per query* means the future demand of AI services will be muted -->> www.microsoft.com/en-us/micros... archive.ph/wip/POQ6A

I love that algae are trolling Trump. No one is too small to undermine the would-be dictator!

U.S. government claiming Musk has the right to poison Memphis because xAI is "vital" to national security, because the Pentagon signed a contract with them. Elite immunity is a cancer that causes cancer, among countless other ills. www.wired.com/story/doj-la...

uhhhhh.....

While skyscrapers wouldn't be my first choice, I LOVE that this project seems to respond to the needs of the city, the planet, and the tribe--rather than me, a homeowner with opinions. (Gift link)

While skyscrapers wouldn't be my first choice, I LOVE that this project seems to respond to the needs of the city, the planet, and the tribe--rather than me, a homeowner with opinions. (Gift link)

"Dogs & toddlers...are evolutionarily hardwired to treat another’s problem as their own. Cats, however....[understand] the situation without feeling compelled to intervene unless there’s a direct benefit for themselves." Toddlers notwithstanding, many "successful" adults seem like uncharming cats.

Given the competition, this is terrifying.

This is fine -dot- gif

"We have a term for enterprises that look successful because they keep drawing in new investors and keep drawing in new investors because they look successful. They’re called Ponzi schemes." paulkrugman.substack.com/p/elon-musk-...

Woohoo!

Idea-having is not writing. Idea-having is not hard. Idea-having is not doing. EXECUTION IS EVERYTHING, both for our own benefit and for that of others.

Finishing Navalny’s memoir, Patriot, and this journal entry—for June 9, no less—begins “When corruption is the very foundation of a regime, those who battle it are extremists.” Seems apt, somehow.

"Critics say the small first, big later, strategy allows data centers to get a foothold in a community without public input, & to make it harder, even impossible, to stop them once they've begun." Extraordinary resource use requires extraordinary regulatory juice. These are not a normal business.

Many thanks to @ghgpolicy.org for his principled public departure. This is appalling, and everyone needs to know about it. We knew SBTI was caving—now this. WTF are these people thinking?

So important. Be there!

“It can take two generations for a family to escape poverty, yet floods can destroy decades of progress within days...Without enough rain, our harvests fail. But too much rain destroys everything we have.” Behind every policy choice, this.

“It can take two generations for a family to escape poverty, yet floods can destroy decades of progress within days...Without enough rain, our harvests fail. But too much rain destroys everything we have.” Behind every policy choice, this.