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.

This is a great paper on wildfire resilience on loss reduction. A must read. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Imagine showing up to an ER thinking you're having a heart attack — only to be turned away because you don't have insurance. @tarabannow.bsky.social reports on how hospitals like Nurex Health, which don't contract with Medicare, can boot patients from their ERs: www.statnews.com/2026/06/29/n...

New for PUBLIC COMMENT: If the realtors are unhappy, that's a sign that your city may be doing something right on housing policy publiccomment.blog/p/falling-ho...

Posted w/o comment, because really there's no need

share.google/YVznrIR69VRu... Interesting story by @dventon.bsky.social

NYC climate folks and journalists, Rei from DeSmog here - I'd love to meet you! I've just arrived from the UK to start my ovarian cancer treatment - there's lots to hope for. I'm new in NY, and would love to meet people and enjoy this city. Or get recs! Happy to get comments on this :). Cheers!

Exclusive: In a memo sent to agency employees and reviewed by The Post, acting director David Venturella said ICE is eliminating its requirement to report deaths that occur within 30 days of people being released from its custody. Read more here: https://wapo.st/3S5iqTD

We’re at the “NPR business reporter threatened with lethal violence” stage of late stage capitalism, apparently

FCC To Investigate TV Shows Where The Mom Has Job https://theonion.com/fcc-to-investigate-tv-shows-where-the-mom-has-job/

In my experience academics either respond to your email within 15 minutes, or not at all I think I'm going to have to request outside comment from someone else . . . but I keep hoping to hear back from her . . .

thinking about this a lot today

Scientists--I'm a journalist looking for interesting examples of global health research that has managed to continue or adapt following the dismantling of USAID. Re-posts appreciated!

Hello California, and especially the Bay Area! If you or someone you know is replacing all or part of a wooden fence or gate in response to the Zone 0 regulations, I'd love to talk to you for KQED News. Email me: dventon at kqed dot org

Seems like a good point. I always try to let a reader know the contours of scientific consensus whenever covering debate or controversy in the research realm

Don’t Overlook This Surprising Climate Victory. A critical mass of the world economy is now working together to phase out fossil fuels. In Santa Marta Colombia, history was made. www.rollingstone.com/politics/pol...

Oh my goodness.... Today in dream jobs (I wish I was qualified for) -->

Everybody in northern California who says things like “well irrigated plantings cannot ignite and will keep my home safe should go outside, look at and touch their hedge today.

We bring you *TODAY IN CEO OPINIONS YOU NEEDN'T BELIEVE*

🌍 Climate action affects lives and economies. From health benefits to economic growth and poverty reduction, the impacts of global climate action are far-reaching. Decisions made today will shape outcomes through 2050 and beyond. #StoriestoWatch: bit.ly/4quW1KV

I say this every time someone talks about new detection tech. We don’t need better detection- we need consistent funding for more resilient communities. We also need to stop basing new requirements on dynamic criteria like hazard level.

“Nobody is going to save California from our [past] decisions ... The state has to really step in and be more strategic about how to make things happen faster” The answer isn't more firefighters, faster detection. It's making neighborhoods less primed to burn 🏘️🔥 www.kqed.org/science/2000...

My latest for @climateconnections.bsky.social 🏝️

Beautiful Bay Beaches are Becoming Blue! (say that 5x fast!) 🌊💙 Jackie Sones, Research Coordinator for the @ucdavis.bsky.social Bodega Marine Reserve, notes that local beaches are looking blue-ish due to an influx of Velella velella. More from @kqedscience.bsky.social: www.kqed.org/science/2000...

Sightings of “by-the-wind sailors” are all over the Bay Area coastline this week. These creatures appeared last year too, but now they seem especially abundant — to the extent that “beaches in this area appear blue from a distance" @kqedscience.bsky.social READ MORE: www.kqed.org/science/2000...

Some of the biggest economies in the world are meeting this week to develop a global “roadmap” to phase out the burning of oil, gas and coal, the primary driver of increasingly dangerous climate change.

Wow this book

California Asks Ships to Hit the Brakes for Whales - @dventon.bsky.social @kqedscience.bsky.social www.kqed.org/science/2000...

The AI models and chatbots that we interact with tend to affirm our feelings and viewpoints — more so than people do, with potentially worrisome consequences. n.pr/4mKxKjT

Read or listen: California is asking cargo ships to slow down — not for traffic, but for whales. A new statewide effort STARTING TODAY aims to reduce deadly ship strikes along the coast. www.kqed.org/science/2000...

I believe in game theory this is called “tit for tat”

👀👀

Rare sighting of a column chart taking a dip at Hove Beach. #dataviz

Do you want to see the "big picture" on climate change? Here it is. Emissions are on the left, and include CO2, CH4, N2O, and f-gases. Natural CO2 sinks (from healthy forests & oceans) are on the right. And carbon removal, what little there is, is on the right, too. All expressed as GWP100.

New from me: 1/ Wildfires are getting more destructive — and more expensive. The people paying, through insurance premiums, taxes and out-of-pocket costs, aren’t the ones who caused the problem. LINK: www.kqed.org/science/2000...

The Amazon is nearing a critical ecological tipping point due to the convergence of deforestation, degradation, fire, and #climatechange, risking an irreversible collapse. This is exacerbated by organized environmental crime, including illegal logging and mining. news.mongabay.com/2026/04/the-...

News to me and the 8 billion people who live on land

I'm covering the insurance commissioner's race for my station, and I'll tell ya, I am not encouraged by the organization of most the campaigns. It's like pulling teeth to get answers to emails

Military conflict in the Strait of Hormuz continues harming marine life despite a ceasefire: noise, explosions, mines, and pollution disrupt feeding, communication, and habitats, with long-lasting ecosystem damage in the region’s slow-recovering waters

I made a "Swalswell that ends well" joke to my husband, but didn't feel good about it

California Insurance Commissioner Candidates Debate Solutions to Wildfire-Driven Crisis (by @dventon.bsky.social) www.kqed.org/science/2000...

‘Asked about what would be considered a benchmark for success, state Sen. Ben Allen said with a laugh, “One real benchmark would be that there would be less interest in the insurance commissioners’ position. Because it’s always been kind of under-the-radar.“‘ www.kqed.org/science/2000...

Hellooooo Bay Area! Tomorrow night I'm hosting a conversation about 'Silent Spring' at the San Francisco Public Library for the Night of Ideas. Look! Here I am on the flyer 👀

Holy smokes! An incredible start to the 'Wildfire Season' in the US this year - owing to an abnormally hot and snowless winter in some parts of the country.

"To put it bluntly, an X post today receives less than 3% of the views a single tweet delivered seven years ago." If you think it is necessary to be on Twitter to communicate your fact-based worldview, the reality is that worldview is being smothered.

Bloody hell. Researchers invented a disease, published two fake papers to see if LLM’s would ingest them and kick them up as fact — and then it broke containment and all the major AI’s bought in. Information pollution. www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Will movies made about this time in the future remember to juxtapose the hope and joy that comes with witnessing the Artemis mission with the terror and dread of worrying about what we're doing to the Middle East?

The images of Earth from Artemis are amazing. But if we destroy our ability to understand (and live on) our planet, all they are is pretty pictures www.nytimes.com/2026/04/08/o...

Heard there was a new state report about fire resilience out today, but don't remember the bill it was connected to and not quite sure where to find it. Fellow fire nerds ... help me out if you know?

I can't believe we have reached this point, but this bears crystal clear emphasis: Our global climate system ensures that even "limited" use of lower-yield "tactical" nuclear weapons against civilian or industrial targets would have major regional-to-global scale consequences.