New in PN: The assault on higher ed goes deeper than you think "This is bigger than budget cuts. It’s not just a continuation of things like longtime GOP efforts to cut Pell Grants. It’s a wide-ranging assault designed to drastically limit access to higher ed for all but the rich & well-connected."

I'll just note that critical race theory predicts quite a lot about the current racial retrenchment and for being *correct* it was pilloried in the press and by some academics.

Spiralling global temperatures (1850-2026) It is exactly 10 years since I first put this animated graphic of changes in global temperature online. #ClimateSpiral It instantly went viral. People watched it over and over again. It still offers the power to shock a decade on.

After the 2023 marine heat wave, 70-75% “of our Caribbean sites had tipped from net growth into net erosion. They are now losing calcium carbonate faster than corals can add it. The threshold that earlier models had suggested might be crossed over during the next decade or so has already arrived.”

My university administrators censored a student who put “environmental justice” and “communities disproportionately affected by climate change” on an Earth Day flyer. I really have no words to express my anger and disappointment anymore

The controversial weed killer Roundup is now being deployed in private and public forests at record rates. We go inside the secret plan that helped make it possible.

“Our overall conclusion is that congestion pricing in NYC, like many other cities in the world that have implemented it, helped not only improve traffic, but also helped reduce air pollutant concentration, improve air quality and should be good for public health,” news.cornell.edu/stories/2025...

U.S. President Donald Trump has fired all 24 members of the National Science Board, the body that oversees the National Science Foundation. https://scim.ag/4cxQWhl

I am not a lawyer, but am I reading correctly that the majority opinion cited the concern of “irreparable harm” to the coal industry (which employs ~40,000 people) with no mentions of the “irreparable harm” higher CO2 emissions could bring to the population of (at the time) ~7,500,000,000 people?

While death and destruction rained down on Iran during the war’s first month, the world’s 100 biggest oil and gas companies brought in an extra $30 million per HOUR in windfall profits. Yes, $30 million per HOUR. All because of the deadly and reckless decision making of one man.

New Zealand faces coastal retreat reality www.rnz.co.nz/news/environ...

"For the last 25 years, 58 million acres of American forest have had no new roads, no logging equipment, and no reason to appear on anyone’s industrial map. This year that is changing — and much faster than most people realize."

Tax Day is a reminder of America’s unequal tax system. But we can fix it | Zohran Mamdani, Gabriel Zucman and Joseph Stiglitz

“This is the clearest picture we’ve had of the breadth of bottom trawling. It reveals just how many species are being caught, and how much we have been missing,” said Dr. Sarah Foster @projectseahorse.bsky.social . www.earth.com/news/bottom-...

Making tenure count, for MSNOW I wrote about my employer, The University of Iowa, creating a center for intellectual freedom. It's a reactionary project built on decades of conservative propaganda about higher ed.

I keep trying to make it clear that what RFK Jr. has done to public health and healthcare will take years before the full weight of the horror becomes visible. We are seeing the canaries in the coal mine with the measles outbreak and the FDA idiocy around vaccine approvals.

Is anyone surprised? A voluntary certification scheme to limit gas leaks from US production sites isn't working BP & ExxonMobil are among producers wanting certification to comply with EU rules Yet gas-imaging cameras revealed “huge emissions” at many sites www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Earth's greatest underwater migrations are disappearing: “This crisis has escaped global attention partly because it is taking place underwater." insideclimatenews.org/news/2403202... via @insideclimatenews.org

Shifting the law to treat rivers as legal ‘persons’ rather than economic assets could offer a radical new way to hold polluters to account.

Happy St. Patrick's Day, New York.

An environmental activist and her family escaped death threats in Honduras... then 11 days before their asylum hearing, ICE arrested her husband, severed his case from theirs, and then deported him back to Honduras – where he's now in hiding.

Trying to use less plastic? Big Oil and the plastics industry are spending billions to make sure everyone else uses more. “I think what stood out most is the deliberateness and intentionality over the years of pushing plastic into our lives,” said @bethgardiner.bsky.social. “It was such a shock."

If you're in Portland, PCC faculty and classified employees are going on strike tomorrow. You can show solidarity by walking the picket lines with them. All campuses, 10:30am.

I'm not suggesting this is an open secret within the climate science community, but it's remarkable how little impact this sort of research is generating. Because if the rate of warming really has *doubled* then you can kiss goodbye to 2°C. www.carbonbrief.org/pace-of-glob...

The Guardian on our new study, which shows that global heating is significantly gathering speed. Our efforts to overcome our fossil fuel addiction should do the same. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

A member of the chat, William Bejerano posted a block of text calling for dozens of acts of extreme violence against Black people, including crucifying, beheading and dissecting people. ‘Nazi heaven’: Inside Miami campus Republicans’ racist group chat. www.miamiherald.com/news/politic...

Breaking News: Scientists have been using methods that underestimated how high sea levels already are, a new study found. One result is that hundreds of millions more people are already living dangerously close to the rising ocean than Western scientists had previously estimated.

Scientists warned us for years that extreme weather events will intensify as the climate crisis advances. We don’t lack warnings; we lack action.

🐋 #whale #rightwhale NOAA announces planned rollback of North Atlantic right whale protections | Maine Public share.google/lZJnbsYNF0tY...

“You understand your place in the universe very quickly when you look at something 1 billion light-years away … and realise that those photons, they predate dinosaurs, they predate humans, they predate the continents,” www.abc.net.au/news/2026-03...

Occasional reminder that oil and weapons are the stuff our ruling class is made of.

"From public syllabi to surveillance, universities across the country are embracing unprecedented policies that professors say are undermining their academic freedom. And North Carolina is front and center." www.wunc.org/podcast/the-... | @wunc.org

Pollution from U.S. oil, gas, and coal power plants rose last year, a rare uptick in an otherwise long-term downward trend. Rising emissions coincide with the Trump administration’s push for coal use and the rollback of Biden-era climate regulations. www.wsj.com/us-news/clim...

"Some climate disaster responses can lead to ‘perverse adaptation’ by increasing population densities on climate vulnerable coasts." ✍️ Kenneth A. Gould & Tammy L. Lewis (@brooklyncollege.bsky.social) on #ClimateAdaption in coastal cities 🔗 t.co/2F7EkeTP17 #Environment #Ecology #News

Exciting news! The incomparable @naomioreskes.bsky.social and Alexander Kaurov have started a substack called "Reckoning Science." We need this content more than ever. I've just subscribed--hope you will too. reckoningscience.org/launching-re...

The scientific understanding of human-driven climate change is much stronger today than it was in 2009 when the EPA first issued the endangerment finding. There is no scientific basis for the Trump administration's decision to repeal it

SCOOP: An FBI counterterrorism agent spent weeks pursuing a nonviolent climate activist, and showed up at his door. The visit suggests a possible probe into the climate group as the Trump admin increases surveillance of activists, calls them domestic "terrorists." theintercept.com/2026/02/12/f...

Conservationist, marine biologist, and science writer Rachel Carson was born #OTD in 1907. Carson challenged the widespread use of pesticides in her book “Silent Spring,” and testified before Congress on environmental policy and human health. 🧪 👩‍🔬 Image: Alfred Eisenstaedt/LIFE/Getty

Bill limits type of science used to determine health risks and gives industry major role in chemical review process

A group of conservative activists has worked for 16 years to stop all government efforts to fight climate change. Their efforts are now paying off. The EPA is expected to revoke the endangerment finding, which has underpinned the government’s ability to fight global warming since 2009.

You can repeal an endangerment finding. You can’t repeal the endangerment.

US Judiciary deletes a chapter on law and #climate science because apparently science is a left-leaning concept and MAGAs complained. www.reuters.com/legal/govern...

College sociology textbook specially written to placate Florida censors, omits any mention of systemic inequality. www.insidehighered.com/news/faculty...

I do want to shout-out my fellow sociologists, who have collectively created a discipline so woke that not a single one of our introductory textbooks can make it past Florida's censors. Great work everyone.

Sociologist C. Wright Mills saw this coming—and tried to warn us—60+ years ago. jacobin.com/2026/02/wrig...

This research paper is the first time that a tipping point of a switch from a carbon sink to a carbon emission source in tropical rainforests has been identified clearly – not just for one year but for the last 20 years. Cause is a change in the local climate. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

For those commenting on the agents' surnames.

Sociology faculty at Florida International University are outraged that their department is requiring them to use a sanitized state-approved textbook to teach an introductory course as part of the university’s general education curriculum. www.insidehighered.com/news/faculty...