Not only did taxpayers pay for the U.S. military to conquer Venezuela, but we’ll also be subsidizing the operational costs of Trump’s Big Oil donors stealing their oil. But Republicans cut healthcare and food assistance for millions of Americans because it was “wasteful.”

it’s not too late to get a flu shot it’s not too late to get a covid vaccine it’s not too late to start masking, if you stopped it’s not too late to delete social media accounts that no longer serve you* it’s not too late to have a good year it’s not too late to find a small joy for today 💕

In the old days, we would seek comment on stories about climate change from experts in the field who have spent decades studying evidence of the effects of greenhouse gases and findingsolutions. That ends today. Now we'll get your uncle Rooster who you had that big argument with at Thanksgiving.

Seriously, every word of this @sifill.bsky.social piece is the analysis and inspiration we all need as we start 2026. open.substack.com/pub/sherrily...

Understandably, Canadians are still not crossing the border.

"Seriously, I don’t care how much it costs. Take every dime I have. But know this: I would level my house to the ground before I paid slightly higher property taxes to fund infrastructure that would prevent a landslide from leveling my house to the ground." #McSweeneysTop25of2025

In the U.S., forest conservation has often advanced through persistence, not big wins. Activists like Andy Mahler built trust-driven networks like Heartwood, rejecting hierarchy and extractive inevitability. His place-based, patient approach showed how protection can grow from sustained involvement.

Good thing many a university leadership team hasn't embedded OpenAI into their institutional infrastructure 🫠

A multi-day heavy lake effect snow event is expected downwind of Lakes Erie and Ontario through New Year's Day. There is increasing confidence in snow squalls causing bursts of snow & gusty winds on New Year's Eve. Visit weather.gov for the latest.

Charging on the fly via induction seems pretty far out now, but it would allow batteries in EVs to be so much smaller, making them cheaper, lighter, etc.

This from @ehayot.bsky.social and @mattseybold.bsky.social is the best, most comprehensive breakdown of the political/structural forces that first came for the humanities, and now is swallowing everything. Do not miss it. www.chronicle.com/article/the-...

Back to porch-as-fridge weather for a few days

More wildlife news: A new line of research found wolves in the Midwest + Canada not only keep deer populations in check, they also alter deer behavior in ways that help prevent car crashes. We have no wolves in NYS below the northern Adirondacks. I've hit FIVE in 30 yrs. Bring. Back. The. Wolves!

Harvesting collards from the winter garden before temperatures plummet

Dear Jon Stewart c/o @weeklyshowpodcast.bsky.social I recently watched, with great surprise and disappointment, a weeklyshowpodcast segment in which you and other "personalities," gleefully mocked and derided the relatively small subset of individuals who continue to wear a face mask in public.

Find the Barred Owl 🪶

Whatever value you think Twitter had or has in sharing your work across the internet, Bluesky is currently better than Twitter was at its peak. At least for me, with 15 years of data and roughly the same number of followers on both platforms.

For @rollingstone.com I wrote about the mass national movement to ban chemtrails...which don't exist. The movement is one of the ways in which MAHA is taking over the country. www.rollingstone.com/politics/pol...

Good things are still happening

And it’s not right that, while out for a hike on Dec 25, I’m wondering if there will be ticks…

Linked to these record high (relative to 1979 to 2021 climatology) 500 hPa heights across North America's mid-section. Source in alt text.

idk if it’s just me but this december isn’t decembering like it used to december

Celery and rosemary doing fine under a double layer of row cover despite a few December nights below 0 F (-18 C) 🌱

If I were a billionaire I simply wouldn’t be fighting with strangers on the internet on Christmas Eve

“Empower“ is one of those words HR people came up with to make it sound like you won something when you’re being given a bunch of shitty new work to do for the same salary

The next National Climate Assessment will be written by five climate deniers and an AI in a trench coat.

Even at research intensive (R1) universities in the US, "tenure density" is already below 50%.

“Our aim is to lower tenure density so that we can hire lecturers for classes that students need in high-demand programs.”

"In a warming world, we will continue to see snow and extreme cold, but these events are becoming the exceptions rather than the rule, and that shift is reshaping our landscape and environment." + Report: climatecentral.org/climate-brie... + Webinar recording: www.youtube.com/watch?v=75S2...

December solstice hike to Yellowwood Lake and back from the house and didn’t see another person

A related issue is LLMs take the enjoyable work of discovery and learning an turn it into administrative work of verifying everything. The characteristics of the work change into something many of us tolerate more than enjoy. If I wanted to be a fact checker I would have become a fact checker.

Fox News (!!) poll showing Climate Change is a top 10 concern for voters — slightly more than illegal immigration. www.foxnews.com/politics/fox...

I've learned a lot of stuff in my life that I rarely have reason to use, but I've also learned a lot of stuff that I never expected to need to use and do use regularly, and the larger point is that there is value to being an educated person, without everything needing to be instrumentalized.

Reducing the vapor-pressure deficit for the carnivorous butterworts 🌱

3. Leadership is about doing what is necessary, not just what is popular. Read literally anything our founders wrote about virtue, and the inherent risks to a society based on democratic processes to sustain the rule of law to the extent that unvirtuous people gain power.

Grades are submitted and no meetings for the next three weeks. ☺️ @gabefilippelli.bsky.social

We still lose a few seconds of daylength over the next two days as those of us in the NH bottom out, but sunset is already getting later! Love this site: www.timeanddate.com/sun/usa/bloo...

The University of Florida spends about $21 per month per student on library materials and database access.

Buy quality if you can. I got this waterproof shell jacket after moving to rainy Vancouver 40+ years ago.

Y'all, I just got out of the NSF-BIO webinar where they explained changes to peer review. It's not good. 🧪 scienceforeveryone.science/changes-to-n...

Great thread about this pattern below. It's also fascinating to compare precip forecasts from models run at different resolution, for instance 3 km NAM vs 28 km GFS:

🚨 Calling all geoscientists 🚨 If you or anyone you know is attending #AGU25, please join us and spread the word to #SaveNCAR. More info at: wclivestream.com/ncar_at_agu/

The real story isn’t “renewables are cheaper” — we already knew that. An 82% renewable grid breaks marginal pricing. Once wind, solar + batteries dominate, fossil generators stop setting peak prices. Scarcity rents collapse. Volatility dies. That’s the system shock incumbents fear — not ideology. ⚡🔋

Coming soon to every other university that has had its Title VI & FLAS funding completely & illegally cancelled by the lawless authoritarian administration 😢

This one made me laugh tho

This regime continues its war against our public lands. Their budget proposal for 2026 calls for a BILLION DOLLAR CUT to the National Park Service. www.sfgate.com/national-par...

The NSF has a short post on how it plans to take apart NCAR. (No, that is not a sentence I ever foresaw typing.) www.nsf.gov/news/intent-...