"Trees are mostly made of carbon and water. Look at the ashes. Trees do not grow from the ground. They condense from the air. CO2 is made solid." (Paraphrase) -- Richard Feynman

Fourth in line signing in for my college reunions… Minor celebrity moment spotting Jeopardy star Jamie Ding first! 31 wins. Happens to be our class year backwards!

Lovely! Here’s to Rosa rugosas coast to coast!

huh

⚠️ Chrome's update installs a 4GB AI model file to your device without your consent! To disable the shitty AI mode*, go to chrome://flags/ and search for these, toggle each to "disabled": optimization-guide-on-device-model prompt-api-for-gemini-nano ai-mode-omnibox-entry-point -

please do read the very comprehensive breakdown in That Privacy Guy too. Deceptive Chrome AI rollout, done without user consent, and with a staggering climate cost, where *just the deployment* of the 4GB file is on the level of thousands of cars' annual emissions

NEW: Here's what to know about the Canvas hack and the group claiming responsibility. @lhn.bsky.social and @agreenberg.bsky.social report: www.wired.com/story/canvas...

New on the blog! The second installment in our May theme month, Cities at Play. @maggiemcnulty.bsky.social explores the debate around Denver's I-70 Cover Park

Earlier today, I wrote this message in chalk beneath a tree… …Then found a penny minted 1945! Wonder where it’s been. 81 years. A “wheat” penny featuring Lincoln on the front and two sheaves of wheat framing the word “One Cent” on the back:

Oaks are leafing out. Lilacs are out. True spring post-full moon here in New Haven, like clockwork!

among today’s finer oddities:

Roadsides 15 :: Cryosphere is out This collection conceptualizes the changing cryosphere as infrastructure. It foregrounds snow and ice as more-than-physical assemblages utilized and co-created by humans and non-human worlds. #infrastructures #sts #anthropology www.roadsides.net/collections/...

Another reason not to buy a Tesla.

Wer hätte es gedacht...

Just confirming that Made by History will now be back up and running in the next few weeks with a new home and new partners at the Philadelphia Inquirer. Exciting! So, if you have pitches, now's the time to start sending them to [email protected] 🗃️ #MadebyHistory #HistoryMatters

Try as they might, renewables are gaining momentum. "Last month, fossil fuels generated less electricity than in any March going back at least 25 years, while renewables generated more." e360.yale.edu/digest/us-re...

Cherry blossom day, barred owl and tree frog kind of night~

Sociologist Dr. Allison Pugh, author of The Last Human Job, explains “connective labor”—the work of seeing and being seen that underlies teaching, therapy, chaplaincy, caregiving, and everyday interactions. www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmLz...

This lilac reminds me of my thoughtful kindergarten teacher who taught our whole class we should always stop to smell flowers (esp. lilacs). As we marched across campus in a line, we all stopped on her command to take in the smell of a lilac bush, newly bloomed. A fond memory from suburban NJ 1996.

The #Seagulls are back roosting on my apartment rooftop! This one tapped on my skylight early this morning as if to say “get up, get up!” Works much better than an alarm for me! Heyyyy seagull #urban #birds #birding

@kelsass.bsky.social answers partially our question of "what was here" before #ASEH2026!

The US-Israel war on Iran is a disaster for the climate, according to an analysis that finds it is draining the global carbon budget faster than 84 countries combined.

Which #maps were most pivotal to the development of the US as a political & energetic project? In this piece, I offer a few answers. Some of these maps are well-known, others less so. All deserve a place in discussions of the #AmericanRevolution and #America@250 #envhist

Kudos to the @acls1919.bsky.social @historians.org @modernlanguage.bsky.social for pursuit this lawsuit against DOGE The video in this thread is worth watching til the end for a very blatant expose of DOGE’s anti-feminist and racist politics

Congratulations everyone, we made it through February…barely, and now that we’re finally in March, it’s time for one of my favorite nocturnal signs of spring; listening for the nasal “peent” call and twittering displays of the American woodcock! #peent #birds #birdphotography #wilflife

shadowy creeks of saltmarsh from where a little egret startles takes wing until starsmall curlew paces & stares * down to estuary forgotten post swings shadow to turn of tide & fading human footprints overlaid by avian waxing moon firms faint imprint on afternoon

Shorter winters and warmer temps means “reduced water supply, decreased summer crop yields and worsening allergy seasons . . . substantial changes to ecosystems, the health of our natural community and our water resources,” and “challenges for local economies.” www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

This month I featured @donnalferguson.bsky.social, @smithsonianmag.bsky.social, @charlotte-leib.bsky.social, @herberthistory.bsky.social, @cymene.bsky.social, @dominicboyer.bsky.social, @maximepolleri.bsky.social, and more! #envhist

Call for Contributors: Cities at Play We at The Metropole are excited to issue a call for our next theme month: Cities at Play We welcome submissions about any aspect of play, recreation, or leisure in the urban environment. How have cities uniquely shaped the way their inhabitants play, and how…

The second article in my "Prelude to a Revolution" series is out! In it, I explore how the American and Industrial Revolutions in N.America emerged alongside shortages in a humble product: grass #envhist #history @revolution250.bsky.social @bplmaps.bsky.social www.leventhalmap.org/articles/pre...

exquisite #music by Arvo Pärt Silentium youtu.be/-GT-5rLBlyk?...

Rainy evening in Paris Joseph Zbukvic

Figure skating is greatly improved by the involvement of Donna Summer! Go Alysa!

Nature still stops the pulse of capital, sometimes. www.nytimes.com/2026/02/17/w...

Since the start of Trump’s second term, the number of children in ICE detention has increased sixfold. In their letters, kids held at the Dilley center told us about missing their friends, being unable to go to school and feeling trapped.

A little bit of #Revolutionary history & #urbanhistory: as Patriots fled west from New York City, this was the moment when #NewJersey 's Manhattan-adjacent towns first began to gain a kind of suburban-urban density that would never from that point stop accreting #Jersey #AmericanRevolution #history

Really looking forwd to teaching the #SuperBowl #BadBunny halftime show in dialogue w/ American energy history & colonialism in the future. #envhist #energy #colonialism #sugarcane #electricpower

My book,The Sweet Taste of Empire focuses on Anglo Caribbean, but shows the importance of sugar to the global economy & the racial order in the West. Bad Bunny turns the white mastery embedded in sugar/slave complex on its head: highlighting vibrant, resilient culture that emerged from history

When ye olde Julian and Gregorian calendars add hours to verifying footnotes and cross-checking sources to set the dates straight, I'm grateful to have been a distance swimmer...early American history is an endurance sport! #amwriting #earlyAmhist #vastearlyAmerica

the bushes were people 😂

This kind of smart, walkable, mixed-use urbanism is illegal to build in most American cities.

Brick acting as wall, floor and somewhere to sit in Shiraz, Iran By Mahsa Saeidi

And so, with Bad Bunny and the Puerto Rican electricity crisis, the climate disaster finally made it into the Super Bowl. This is the kind of image that might show up in a history timeline or even a textbook someday.

100% wyth Elmo on thys

Whenever somebody says “So you do environmental history? That must be a new niche subfield or something.” I tell them about this guy.

Gift article. This is a great story about a neglected artistic legacy of the New Deal, the public art found in post offices across the US. Sadly, it’s also testament to the skill of a variety of WaPo employees who were just laid off.

For reference, his name comes up more often in the Epstein Files than Harry Potter's name does in the Harry Potter novels.

Ok, it's 1 °F in New Haven, and I just ordered a giant bag of chocolate online for melting. The world is a mess. Somehow chocolate seems like a good thing to have for this February 2026. Sharing this recipe in case you, too, need chocolate. May look decadent, but it's high in iron and magnesium!

Whenever tech companies claim it’s technological magic, it’s ALWAYS capital exploiting somebody’s labor.