"I don’t know what kind of impervious boor you have to be not to notice that everything in France looks better than things look anywhere else. There is some sort of atavistic aestheticism embedded in the French soul. The smallest objects of daily use are touched with beauty." -Janet Malcolm

“Israel has destroyed more than 1,500 buildings in areas of Gaza that have remained under its control since the ceasefire. “Many of the razed buildings did not appear to be damaged prior to being destroyed. There were houses with gardens, trees and some small orchards.” www.bbc.com/news/article...

"...her writing, which is often called journalism, is in fact some other wholly original form of art, some singular admixture of reporting, biography, literary criticism, psychoanalysis, and the nineteenth-century novel—English and Russian both." www.theparisreview.org/interviews/6...

“If we drive the carbon cycle far enough from equilibrium, it will respond in kind, no matter how hard we try to subordinate it to the market, or tame it with panicked legislation.” - @peterbrannen.bsky.social (quote from Peter’s excellent new book)

Delhi’s pollution is a crisis of democracy as much as public health, citizens say

Writers! Applications for the Matthew Power Literary Reporting Award are open. This year, we've increased the prize to $15,000 to account for the higher cost of pasta. Apply now: journalism.nyu.edu/about-us/awa...

"Emissions appear to have stayed nearly flat in China and Europe, but rose significantly in the United States and much of the rest of the world." www.nytimes.com/2025/11/12/c...

I've posted before about how much I enjoy the random and detailed pedantry of fact-checking. Just off a call that required watching YouTube clips to parse the correctness of a simile involving the way Imperial Walkers fall over in Star Wars.

A siege-breaking snowstorm followed by the strongest aurora in living memory is proof that Chicago has the Mandate of Heaven and its enemies will die by her sword

“Climate-related disasters forcibly displaced 250 million people globally over the past decade, the equivalent of 70,000 displacements every day, according to a report by the UN refugee agency.” www.theguardian.com/environment/...

"Fossil demand has been flat for industrial energy since 2014, for buildings since 2018, for road transport since 2019, & may peak for electricity this year. 2/3 of countries have already seen peak fossil demand in end-use sectors, & half the world has seen a peak in fossil fuels for electricity."

Marvelous family…they found me Janet Flanner’s postwar love letters…for $26 including shipping. 🙌 www.nytimes.com/2025/11/01/n...

Adaptation 🤝 Mitigation

Are we invading Poland

Gross

Every single county in Virginia shifted Blue.

The Trump administration has put a stop to EPA rules that would have required more than 130 industrial facilities to install air monitors to measure pollution. Millions of people living near these plants face an increased risk of cancer. By @lisalsong.bsky.social, 📸: @annie-flanagan.bsky.social

Great reporting on the shell game of California home insurance reform in a burning world. www.nytimes.com/2025/11/01/u...

🌲 "Forests are much more than a source of timber. We look to them for medicine, food, ceremony, and stories." Learn more in the "A look at tribal forests" section of our award-winning StoryMap: https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/c1f1ca11f6774341b70550e8b8cc1801

I wanted to offer some thoughts on the Gates climate memo that has been circulating this week. While I can't directly speak for others, I can say that my own response is one of dismay & deep frustration (and that this view is shared by many climate/Earth scientists). [1/n]

When public design/review is replaced by developer mindset. www.dezeen.com/2025/10/29/d...

Did you know? About 4.5 million SNAP recipients are babies and toddlers under age 5. About 11.1 million SNAP recipients are kids aged 5 to 17 years, who need food for healthy growth, learning, & development. The federal government has the capacity to continue funding SNAP during a shutdown.

Please can we just have some subtle metaphors for once

What I really wanted was a few minutes with wry, coping, and still amazed Andy (E.B. White), in the corner of Sardi's pencil-editing his own draft...thank you Patrick Kennedy for making it happen. Accent surprised me. www.youtube.com/watch?v=qo7g...

Memorial to Mr. Zabar, up by the exit.

“Gaza becomes a security-first regime, where aid, reconstruction, and ‘transition’ are subordinated to Israeli security metrics under the oversight of the U.S. and its partners. Palestinians are offered administration without authority..occupation dressed in managerial language.”

The level of destruction and erasure in the Gaza Strip is simply incredible. North Gaza, before and after:

"There's a romance about what we do," he said in 2012. "We have a modern appearance, but we really do things the way they were done 40, 50, 75, even 200 years ago." (It took me decades to discover the incredible upstairs...I thought it was his office.) www.nytimes.com/2025/10/07/d...

53rd St (10.06.25)

NYROB has the best classifieds. (I want a Franglais song about resistance for Christmas, which almost rhymes already.)

Ariel Dorfman on 38 Londres Street: On Impunity, Pinochet in England, and a Nazi in Patagonia, by Philippe Sands @nybooks.com www.nybooks.com/articles/202...

If you’re in the U.K., try to get to the Tate. It’s relevant. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/03/a...

Excellent timing. youtu.be/SQ8l6HSCWBw?...

Can’t believe I look forward to encyclicals now, but they tend to be damned good climate writing.

I have been convinced that second-life EV batteries are going to be a big deal. Just recorded a super-interesting pod.

Cardio not their strong suit. Good to know.

This is a powerful story about excessive heat as well...because electricity is intermittent in Cuba, even more suffering and the inability to sleep. And then the intentional heat exposure at ICE detention camps in the U.S. www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

“In my experience, every kind of writing requires some kind of self-soothing Jedi mind trick.” (Also, Zadie doesn’t have a smartphone.) www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

More than 1800 detainees are missing after the closure of Alligator Alcatraz. Their families and lawyers can’t find them and they’ve vanished from the ICE database. Feels like this should be a much bigger story www.miamiherald.com/news/local/i...

“or pay monthly fines” www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

A pretty good definition of journalism is “not doing this”

The journalist who has been in an immigration prison is just...going to be deported. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

California isn't backing down on offshore wind. Five ocean leases have already been granted to energy companies, and the state's plan calls for eventually putting enough turbines offshore to generate clean power for 25 million homes. @hayleysmith.bsky.social www.latimes.com/environment/...

Pollution from fires, intensified by rising temperatures, is on track to become one of America’s deadliest climate disasters www.nytimes.com/2025/09/18/c...

“The way out of AI hell is not to regroup around our treasured flaws and beautiful frailties, but to launch a frontal assault. AI, not the human mind, is the weak, narrow, crude machine.” www.nplusonemag.com/issue-51/the...

New in @newsweek.com: As China embraces clean energy, the US retreats to fossils. "America's going to be like a Colonial Williamsburg of internal combustion, where the rest of the world comes to gawk at how people used to live," @billmckibben.bsky.social said. www.newsweek.com/2025/09/26/c...

“You’re from the U.S. of A. and you are seeking after employment.” ✨✨

The loss of Redford reminding me that Dylan is alive with us still, performing in Noblesville, Indiana, night after next.