"Half Earth Socialism" kommt bei @oekom.de in Kürze auf Deutsch raus, und mit den Autoren @drewpendergrass.bsky.social und Troy Vettese habe ich ein neues Vorwort geschrieben: Über dt. Klimapolitik, int. Faschisierungstendenzen und der Notwendigkeit von Utopien und Plänen @versobooks.bsky.social

The German edition of Half-Earth Socialism is out in October, so Troy Vettese and I joined @tatjanasoeding.bsky.social to discuss developments in the German climate movement, left politics, and anti-fascist organizing. You can read the essay (in English) here: www.versobooks.com/blogs/news/d...

At an atmospheric science conference, where the schedule comes off as a threat

This, from the great @drewpendergrass.bsky.social, is my favourite essay from our new issue of The BREAK–DOWN –– a brilliant and wide-ranging meditation on the history and politics of the idea of complexity www.break-down.org/chaos-in-the...

Everyone from the Black Panthers to the neoliberals praises complex systems thinking (and hates on Descartes, binaries, etc). In this essay, I ask if we’re all talking about this same thing, tracing how "complexity" in atmospheric science mutated through its popularization into a sort of mysticism.

I'll be starting as an Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies and Sciences at Oberlin College in July! My lab will continue my work using satellite observations to infer emissions of greenhouse gases and air pollutants, illuminating social and ecological drivers of change. 🧵

The more unstable the present becomes, the more necessary it is to plan for the future. But what does it mean to plan? Read our 11 theses on planning to find out!

New headache in climate data cleaning unlocked

I’m in this issue, with a piece on the politics of “complexity.” Everybody — from the Black Panthers to the neoliberals — praises complex systems thinking, an idea rooted in the physical sciences, and I try to figure out if we’re all really talking about this same thing. You can pre-order now!

Talking to AI for science people is like talking to Bertrand Russell circa 1910. Their bottleneck is verifying truth claims generated at scale. How to do this? Well, by formalizing all knowledge of course!

Walter Benjamin’s emergency brake at the UNEP conference

From the GKN factory occupation in Florence to Rewilding Apennines in Abruzzo, it's been a pleasure to speak with and learn from social, labor, and environmental struggles across Italy. You can find the Italian translation of Half-Earth Socialism online here: www.mimesisedizioni.it/libro/979122...

Something very important happened 250 years ago this year. That's right: Alessandro Volta discovered methane! I'll be in Ispra March 30 through April 2 for the Methane250 UNEP conference (www.methane250.org) presenting some of my recent work on methane trends (doi.org/10.5194/acp-...).

Nice coverage of the Brecht days in the FAZ: www.faz.net/aktuell/feui...

I'll be in Berlin next week celebrating Bertolt Brecht. The sessions look amazing! I'll be on some panels covering (1) resonances between Brecht and scientific modeling, and (2) Brecht on "being useless" (but in a good way).

love the wild mix of people and topics at the Brecht Tage next week, centering around the Brecht's 'green revolution' and featuring Thomas Turnbull, Hanna Hamel, @simschaupp.bsky.social, Troy Vettese and Drew Pendergrass lfbrecht.de/projekte/bre...

I called all my reps -- it's hard to overstate how important NCAR is to global weather and climate research

🧵 New paper thread! 🧵 We considered a strange case in South Korea where a major air pollutant — fine particulate matter, or PM2.5 — got worse, even as the pollutant emissions which drive PM2.5 formation fell substantially due to new regulations. (1/4)

Love to see the start of a Verso to city administration pipeline

🧵 New paper thread! 🧵 We use satellite data to assess global methane emissions trends and seasonality. A greenhouse gas second only to CO2 in impact, methane concentrations surged in 2020 and 2021 for unclear reasons. We investigate in our paper. acp.copernicus.org/articles/25/...

Half-Earth Socialism, by @drewpendergrass.bsky.social and Troy Vettese, is now out in Italian thanks to Mimesis. Here one of the authors answered our questions about ecosocialism, planning, vegetarian and vegan diets, social and environmental justice. Thanks to @jacobinitalia.bsky.social!

🚨NEW PAPER🚨 We all know the 2022 energy price shock fueled the cost of living crisis. It also caused a profit bonanza for the very rich. We show the US reaped the largest profits ($377bn) of any country. 50% went to the richest 1%, only 1% to the bottom 50%. A🧵 www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Israel has just arrested Greta Thunberg and many others. Statement from the Global Sumud Flotilla: “People of conscience have been abducted. The flotilla broke no laws. What is illegal is Israel’s genocide, Israel’s illegal blockade of Gaza, and Israel’s use of starvation as a weapon.” 1/3

Nice paper, but disagree a bit on framing. “Our estimate of 96.9 Gt carbon sequestration potential…amounts to 17.6% of the 640 Gt of carbon emissions since 1750.” This may be smaller than other estimates but that’s still a lot of carbon!!! Much more than I’d expect from DAC this century!

La traduzione italiana mia e di @virginiamagnaghi.bsky.social di Half-Earth Socialism è uscita ieri! @drewpendergrass.bsky.social @versobooks.bsky.social

Our candles post Boston heat wave lol; so dramatic

VENICE: Exciting event happening on Monday and Tuesday 23-24th of June: www.unive.it/data/33113/2... 3rd HEPM workshop with a great line up of speakers including @drewpendergrass.bsky.social @beatricecointe.bsky.social @edouardmorena.bsky.social @geoffmann.bsky.social @julianordblad.bsky.social

Folks in Hamburg: I'll be giving a talk on the economist János Kornai at the New Institute on Tuesday 18 June at 12pm. All are welcome! thenew.institute/en/media/a-c...

Based on some quick math, this alone could fund the NSF Plant Genome Research Program for ~4 years; the NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biology, which was totally axed in the NSF budget request, for ~9 years; and ~ half the total NSF GRFP budget

I'll be doing a mini book tour for our Swedish translation, starting in Stockholm tomorrow with @holgersen.bsky.social! Will be in Umeå on 13 June (www.facebook.com/events/68492...) to do my northernmost event yet (sun rises at 2:20am). All are welcome to talk green left politics!

Hur bygger vi en ekonomi som tillgodoser människors behov inom ekologiska gränser? Missa inte samtalet imorgon med @holgersen.bsky.social och Drew Pendergrass. facebook.com/events/s/sa-...

Please share and amplify #FreedomFlotilla #ShipToGaza

I need to actually get to my gate in time, but am stuck processing this particular table:

A closer look to figure out what this means for atmos chemists: -GEO is cut by 45%, but includes a 75.1% cut to research (buffered by smaller cuts to infrastructure) -NCAR gets a 39.7% cut with focus moving to ‘weather & earth system models’ and research to better understand wildfire evolution

Trump's Budget is out. For NOAA, it's exactly what the previous passback document showed. Trump administration eliminations NOAA's Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research in its ongoing fight against science and reality. www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/...

Presidential budget is out. Here's NSF. Biggest cut, by amount, is $1 billion, or 66.8%, from MPS (Physics & Math directorate). nsf-gov-resources.nsf.gov/files/00-NSF...

We have NASA's proposed budget for FY26, and it is brutal to science. Earth science would be cut by more than half. Astrophysics (like JWST, Hubble) by nearly two-thirds. Full details at www.nasa.gov/fy-2026-budg...

I'm having a conversation with @drewpendergrass.bsky.social on June 11 in Stockholm about the truly fascinating book Half-Earth Socialism – now available in Swedish!! The conversation will be in English. Join us! @versobooks.bsky.social @verbalforlag.se

Did Deimos write this?? So rude

“Like other Palestinian fathers, I was separated from you by racist regimes and distant prisons. Babies are born every day without their fathers – not because their fathers chose to leave, but because they are taken by war, by bombs, by prison cells and by the cold machinery of occupation.”

PhD Timeline xkcd.com/3081

Against the Crisis, alongside great titles from @zetkincollective.bsky.social, @drewpendergrass.bsky.social, @wimcarton.bsky.social, and @taddelay.bsky.social, is now 30% off!

🚨 Holgersen at Harvard! For those nearby: Come see @holgersen.bsky.social talk about his new book with me and others interested in economic and ecological crises!

From the latest episode - @quinnslobodian.com on how all too often the far right has been mistakenly portrayed as the enemy of neoliberalism - and even capitalism in toto:

This is a horrifying violation of Rumeysa's constitutional rights to due process and free speech. She must be immediately released. And we won't stand by while the Trump Administration continues to abduct students with legal status and attack our fundamental freedoms.

I’m told this is a real letter. It basically says, “We’ll destroy Columbia unless you destroy it first.”

Columbia has expelled the president of @swcolumbia.bsky.social, a HELU member org, for participation in Palestine solidarity activism. This comes less than 24 hours before SWC's first bargaining session. We stand with SWC-UAW against this illegal interference in bargaining. uaw.org/in-shocking-...

Speak out. Organize. Across all the silos. They are testing to see what they can get away with.

Italian translation of Half-Earth Socialism, by @drewpendergrass.bsky.social and Troy Vettese, coming soon! With @virginiamagnaghi.bsky.social and by Mimesis @drewpendergrass.bsky.social @versobooks.bsky.social