UC unleashes Big Brother on faculty computers: open.substack.com/pub/drkev/p/... ⚛️ 🔭 🧪 #highereducation

🤣🤣 Left-Wing Groups Too Disorganized to Infiltrate🤣🤣 theonion.com/left-wing-gr...

Criticizing the "elder statesman" of the climate movement won't be popular, but it's necessary "It is not a mystery why people would choose to release themselves to the fantasy of a solar-powered status quo. What’s baffling is McKibben’s decision to join them" newrepublic.com/article/1997...

UC Berkeley releases names of 160 staff, faculty, and students to Trump administration for "“potential connection to reports of alleged antisemitism.” Including Professor Judith Butler, much of whose family was murdered by Nazi’s during the Holocaust. Shameful. www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/arti...

An honest analysis shows that: - our valiant climate mobilization has been too tiny - fossil extraction & finance are at record highs - the green technical transition for-profit is deeply inadequate - we are superseding 7 of 9 planetary boundaries. We propose a new strategy for climate mobilizers.

"Every moment spent in environments designed to fragment rather than cultivate focus, every interaction with AI designed to replace rather than support human relationship ... all ... erodes the cognition that makes democratic resistance possible." www.notesfromthecircus.com/p/the-attent...

City planners in Paris say they are preparing for days of 50 C (122 F) heat. @charliejgardner.bsky.social @thierryaaron.bsky.social www.nytimes.com/2025/08/18/w...

Sorry if it hurts your feelings, but tech is competing for your electricity- and YOU will pay to subsidize them. Now that zealots stopped offshore wind and are blocking battery storage and new transmission, where will YOUR energy come from if they take yours? www.nytimes.com/2025/08/14/b...

Moving words from veteran activist George Lakey: "I think in order to be pessimistic, I would have to be more arrogant than I am, more of a know-it-all than I am. All the victorious struggles I’ve looked into deeply have had moments when it really looked hopeless." gridphilly.com/blog-home/20...

Historic heatwave unfolding in France. Bordeaux just observed its hottest day on record with a provisional 41.6°C (107°F) — data since 1920. Red level extreme heat warnings are in force for the south of the country. Sadly, this heatwave is far from over...

Good piece outlining how Big Tech companies' carbon emissions are soaring due to the AI boom, but it overlooks a huge piece of the puzzle It's not just the energy use of AI hurting the planet, but the fact that many tech companies are selling AI to oil companies to help them drill more

Is there a shift happening in the US jewish mainstream? This was a fantastic performance by Peter Beinart on Jon Stewart's show. www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5kX...

This is a beautiful and inspiring video. George Monbiot understands that it's not enough to push for Climate Action, or Environmental Action or other action without also standing up for core principles of democracy.

In Gaza thousands are starving to death in the Israeli genocide Meanwhile, this is what happens to someone who speaks out against it The only explanation is that we have a complicit Zionist government here in the UK www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

Mass starvation spreading across Gaza, aid agencies warn, as pressure on Israel grows – Middle East crisis live

Making Every Yard a Farm and Every Garage a Factory. Fantastic piece by Kali Akuno about Cooperation Jackson in Mississippi. ‪@coopjax.bsky.social‬ monthlyreview.org/2025/07/01/m...

Public power advocates! @ilsr.bsky.social just released our Public Power Handbook, with step-by-step guidance on how to municipalize (take over) a private electric utility: ilsr.org/articles/pub...

For climate activists, adaptation has been a dirty word. In this piece today I ask whether a new UK-based proposal from the Climate Majority Project @climatemajority.bsky.social has legs. @cityatlas.bsky.social @anne-urai.bsky.social www.resilience.org/stories/2025...

Gone. We camped by this lodge on the gorgeous North Rim of the Grand Canyon just a few weeks ago. apnews.com/article/gran...

How can you deter the Trump administration's immigrant deportation machine when it pops up in your community? Follow these steps.

“I estimate that 80% of people support a wealth tax and public ownership of utilities and a block on arms sales to Israel. But they’re also fed up with potholes in the streets" That's it - in a nutshell 👍 www.theguardian.com/news/ng-inte...

In our now published letter in @pnas.org, we raise two wider issues for behavioral science: 1) Intentions are poor predictors of behavior 2) Effects on intentions need not generalize to effects on behavior We join calls for researchers to measure actual behavior: www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Good to see Bill McKibben finally got the memo that monopoly electric utilities are a huge barrier to climate progress and preparing for climate breakdown. Yay! It's not enough to just build any old renewables; it depends who builds them, for whom, under whose ownership. ilsr.org/articles/how...

🚨 Expressing intentions is not climate action 🚨 In behavioral science & environmental psychology, we often measure intentions — people saying they intend to drive less, eat plant-based, or join a protest — rather than actual behavior. There are two big problems with this: osf.io/preprints/ps... 🧵

New paper from @fdabl.bsky.social @maiensachis.bsky.social & @swaziadam.bsky.social. They find that scientists can engage in protest without compromising their credibility - good news. However, we must temper expectations that such actions have the desired impact either. Social change is difficult.

How does knowledge conveyed in a climate crisis class relate to real-world collective action? What are the reasons for acting? @dgoldwert.bsky.social @maibached.bsky.social @thierryaaron.bsky.social @greggsparkman.bsky.social @fdabl.bsky.social @mattgoldberg100.bsky.social osf.io/preprints/ps...

Important reminder by my colleague, historian of social movements Kevin Young @thierryaaron.bsky.social @ericreinhart.bsky.social @berglundoscar.bsky.social @jksteinberger.bsky.social Social movements constrained Trump in his first term–more than people realize theconversation.com/social-movem...

Chuck Schumer Helps Pull Democrats Back From Brink Of Courage

"As long as the NIH’s greatest triumphs primarily enrich corporations while ordinary people experience them as expensive miracles, there is little reason to expect mass political support for its survival." www.bostonreview.net/articles/how... @ericreinhart.bsky.social @craigspencer.bsky.social

In dark times, it's good to read the story of a small group of organized people having a dramatic impact in making social change. The wins of the grassroots movement in the U of California published today! www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.... @jamesgyke.bsky.social, @thierryaaron.bsky.social

Elsewhere @jasonhickel.bsky.social made this excellent point: The European Commission, the European governments, now plan to unleash hundreds of billions of financing for a massive military build-up, but they did NOT unleash that money to decarbonize & boost social provisions.

“I'm curious how you cope emotionally ... You have no illusions about how grave this all is and how compromised our lives are going to be ... How do you deal with those feelings?” podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/b... @cityatlas.bsky.social, @thierryaaron.bsky.social

Standing up for Science at UC San Diego today. [photos by Gary Fields

UC San Diego. March 7th, Noon. National Day of Action

"The point is to start with the immediacy of resilience rather than with the abstraction of greenhouse gases." "... [this] synergises with the goal of decarbonisation, rather than detracting from it. from: @rupertread.bsky.social @carolinelucas.bsky.social www.newstatesman.com/environment/...

Climate change target of 2C is ‘dead’, says renowned climate scientist - Prof James Hansen says pace of global heating has been significantly underestimated, though other scientists disagree #climatecrisis Story by me www.theguardian.com/environment/...

"Sustainability" is such BS; our campus still: -emits ~170 000 t/yr of CO2 from burning fracked methane in the power plant -runs the campus buses on fossil gas -cuts/blows the vast campus landscape almost entirely with gasoline-powered devices -keeps purchasing internal combustion engine vehicles

UC San Diego today. My class on the Climate Crisis was due to meet. It's bone dry, high winds. The campus power plant keeps burning fossil gas.

UC's Center for Climate, Health and Equity is sending its "peace and strength to those directly affected [by the LA wildfires]". ... wildfires almost certainly aggravated by the burning of fossil fuels. The UC still emits > 1 million tons of CO2 / year from on-campus power plants burning methane.

There should be no question that climate change made the LA fires worse. This is simply a consequence of increased rainfall variability combined with warmer temperatures increasing fuel aridity. See this paper: www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

How 1.5°C/2.7°F looks on a chart vs. How 1.5°C/2.7°F looks in your community: This is an emergency. And it will keep getting hotter/worse until we stop burning oil, gas, and coal.

This is a really insightful article about (the failures of) Germany's 𝘌𝘯𝘦𝘳𝘨𝘪𝘦𝘸𝘦𝘯𝘥𝘦: jacobin.com/2024/10/germ... h/t @swaziadam.bsky.social

Pacific Palisades - north of Santa Monica - this morning.

Yep, one needs direct state investment to make the renewable transition, as in China, rather than merely relying on private capital to do what is profitable.

Stop Burning the Gas - Make the Investments! If we can't do it here, where can it be done?

Today on Volts: the insurance industry is the canary in the climate change coal mine. Now prices are rising, insurers are pulling out of whole states, & state budgets are straining to make up the difference. I talk with @kategordon.bsky.social about the whole mess. www.volts.wtf/p/climate-ch...

Our letter to Governor Newsom today: www.foodandwaterwatch.org/2024/12/04/o...

UCSD’s Power Plant produces ~ 200,000 tons of CO2e annually from burning fracked methane. We gathered today to call for UCSD to take action: shut down the plant and transition our campus to clean energy by 2035. Thanks to our pressure, electrification plans have been made. Now implement!

1. Herewith a 🧵 to a blog post and also recent 🧵 by the always admirable @russpoldrack.bsky.social climatecrisispsychology.github.io/chapters/psy... “Overall, the research that we reviewed left me with little hope that psych interventions will be able to play a major role in solving the problem.”

We need to start organizing to put pressure on US Senators This would give the executive branch the power to harass & dismantle nonprofits —including news outlets, universities, & civil liberty orgs —by stripping them of tax-exempt status based on a unilateral accusation of wrongdoing.