Congress rejected massive cuts to US science budgets for 2026, but much of the money still isn’t flowing to researchers. The culprit? The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is quietly slow-walking the release of funds. 🧵👇

The Oakland Airport is a key hub supplying F35 fighter jets bombing and killing people in Gaza. Those jets need a steady stream of supplies to keep bombing and killing. static1.squarespace.com/static/68927...

1/ ProPublica collected handwritten letters in mid-January from children held at the Dilley Immigration Processing Center, the same facility where 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos was taken. Hundreds of kids are still detained. We’ll let the children’s words speak for themselves. 🧵

THE EPSTEIN CLASS

Media coverage of Gaza has plummeted. So today on @thenation.com, we're doing something pretty special: we're only running pieces by people in and from Gaza. We're calling it "A Day for Gaza." You can find links to all of the incredible pieces here. Please read! www.thenation.com/article/worl...

The western U.S. faces its lowest snowpack on record despite average or above-average rainfall. Warmer temperatures mean more precipitation falls as rain rather than snow, and will worsen droughts in areas like the Pacific Northwest and the Colorado River Basin. science.nasa.gov/earth/earth-...

Next time someone asks you about energy and land use, maybe remind them that the ~35 million acres that currently grow corn for ethanol in the US could produce ~15 PWh per year of electricity from solar photovoltaics. That's ~3.5 times more than *total annual generation from all US power plants*.

100 gigawatts is FIFTY (50) Hoover Dams

Students at the University of Minnesota, united with hundreds of groups across the country, are imploring people, young and old, to join a general strike on Friday. No school, no work, no economic participation, all toward the goal of ceasing funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

College money well spent and needed. Rice students created an interactive map exposing ICE raids across the country as they're unfolding. Soon it will be a map of ICE raids and ICE murders. Keep reminding Schumer and Dems.

The Minnesota v. Noem hearing is beginning before Judge Katherine Menendez. Minnesota, Minneapolis, and St. Paul are seeking a TRO today to stop Operation Metro Surge.

Good afternoon from downtown Chicago, where despite heavy snowfall, thousands have gathered for an anti-ICE/CBP demonstration in solidarity with the Twin Cities. More are still streaming in. Lt. Illinois Gov. Juliana Stratton just addressed the crowd, and called for ICE to be abolished.

There we go: “It should no longer be possible to say that the Trump administration seeks merely to govern this nation. It seeks to reduce us all to a state of constant fear… That is our new national reality. State terror has arrived.” Gift link:

A coworker took this from her apartment. I haven't seen a crowd this size before. Maybe the first Women's March? But it was much much warmer that day. ICE OUT OF MINNESOTA!

Attention folks in the weather, climate, disaster, wildfire, and Earth science communities: NSF has just published a new "Dear Colleague" letter inviting feedback (by Mar 13) on the proposal to dismantle the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). www.nsf.gov/funding/...

Current temp in Minneapolis: -12°F (-24°C), -28°F wind chill (-33°C) Thousands of people are congregating downtown for today's General Strike march against ICE. Thousands more are on their way. Of course we are going to win.

The kids and I helped pack food this morning for families who can't leave their homes due to the ICE occupation. We did the math that there are somewhere between 2000 to 20,000 families that are sheltering at home right now. Which means they need thousands of food boxes a day. We're mobilized.

“We now don’t have to speculate as to what American fascism looks like. It’s right outside the door.”

I went to Minneapolis last week. What I saw was horrifying and inspiring in equal measure. Gift link to my latest column: www.nytimes.com/2026/01/19/o...

The way to avoid losing freedom is to use it, says Masha Gessen: “to claim all the room there still is for speaking, writing, publishing, protesting, voting. It’s what the people of Minnesota appear to be doing, and it’s something each of us needs to do — right now, while we still can.” #giftlink

BREAKING: The controversial hepatitis B vaccine trial in Guinea-Bissau has been *cancelled,* I can now report. A senior official with Africa CDC confirmed the cancellation and said GB officials are working to make sure any research is conducted ethically: www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

Fine-particulate and ozone air pollution from fossil fuels causes 4-6 million avoidable deaths per year: 7-10% of all deaths worldwide. At an ~$11 million statistical value of life, this is a 44-66 trillion $/yr (38-56% of ~117 T$/yr global GDP) cost that appears nowhere in fossil fuel economics.

The LA fires are probably your most vivid illustration of our new age of wildfire and all the devastation it promises. But were they even wildfires? The ignition wasn’t wild, the fuel wasn’t wild, the landscape wasn’t wildland and wildland firefighting couldn’t help. www.nytimes.com/2026/01/05/o...

A 4th study not included in the Grist article found that in the 90 days after January's fires in LA emergency medical encounters increased by 24% for acute pulmonary illness, 46% for myocardial infarction (heart attacks), and 118% for blood chemistry abnormalities. www.jacc.org/doi/10.1016/...

3 studies: 1) January’s infernos in Los Angeles killed >440 once you factor in the smoke (official toll: 30). 2) Wildfire smoke kills 40,000 Americans a year, which could increase to 71,000 by 2050. 3) Canada’s wildfires in 2023 significantly worsened childhood asthma across the border in Vermont.

A second levee broke south of Seattle last night as our relentless parade of atmospheric rivers continues. Thinking of the John Holdren quote that we have three options: mitigation, adaptation or suffering. The third is growing ever more apparent as progress lags on one and two.

Unbelievable. This would be a terrible blow to American science, writ large. It would decimate not only climate research, but also the kind of weather, wildfire, and disaster research that has underpinned half a century of progress in prediction, early warning, and increased resilience.

As a grant writer for environmental causes, I’ve seen first-hand how funding for the environment often takes a backseat to medical research and human services. This article helps demonstrate why this is a problem; the environment is a HUGE influence on public health and quality of life.

Armed ICE agents trapped US citizens in a restaurant and demanded their papers. Federal agents walked into East African restaurants in Cedar-Riverside, MN. They closed and blocked the doors. Then they demanded to see everyone’s papers. Every person present was a US citizen.

With support from Microsoft, Stripe, and Shopify, Running Tide billed itself as on the cutting edge of carbon removal. In the end, it resorted to dumping thousands of tons of wood chips in the sea. www.wired.com/story/how-th...

It appears that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has, within the past week, scrubbed a large amount of climate change content from its official website, as well as *removed human-caused warming* from the discussion on its "causes of climate change" page.

TIL about a memorial ceremony in Iceland in 2019 to mark the end of a glacier, changing the place name from Okjökull to Ok (jökull = glacier). Uncompromising wording on the bronze plaque: "This is to acknowledge that we know what is happening and what needs to be done. Only you know if we did it".

The National Academies is inviting nominations for experts to review the draft United by Nature assessment. Ecology, climate, conservation, social science, sci-comm + more. If someone comes to mind—maybe you—please nominate & please the word! www.nationalacademies.org/projects/DEL...

thank god we've been liberated from the woke oppression of [checks notes] Gerald Ford. Worth noting that not only is NREL's name specified by statute - and that the name NREL is already more all-of-the-above than its original name: The Solar Energy Research Institute.

Scientists: have you been the target of an online harassment campaign, doxxing, or weaponized FOIA requests? I'd like to talk to you about steps you had to take to protect your digital security for an upcoming Nature story. (You can be anonymous if necessary.) RTs appreciated.

I really wish we'd stop calling them climate "skeptics" or "vaccine skeptics", if you jump off a cliff we don't call you a "gravity skeptic"

This great thread makes a point I've been trying to convey for years. Calling all data-driven prediction or decision software "AI" is a huge gift to LLM hypemen, who want people to believe, incorrectly, that LLM data centers are crucial for solar forecasting or operating buildings and power grids.

In a new phase 3 trial, people randomly assigned to receive a flu shot made with modified mRNA were 34.5% less likely to be diagnosed with an influenza-like illness than people given a standard flu shot made with inactivated virus. We need to stop the anti-science attacks against mRNA vaccines!

🎁 www.nytimes.com/2025/11/18/c...

"The obstacles to limiting warming to below ever-more-dangerous levels remain political, rather than physical or technological." But it won't be done with CO₂ removal (CDR) technologies because the obstacles to scaling CDR are political, social, financial, physical, and technological.

The people at CBECI were kind enough to send me a copy of their updated Bitcoin power consumption data At the end of 2024, Bitcoin's total consumption for 2024 *did* end up matching that of Pakistan. 2024 saw the biggest jump in power consumption ever. Absolutely wild stuff -> ccaf.io/cbnsi/cbeci

"Accounting for these increased methane emissions removes over two-thirds of the apparent post-2005 decline in United States net greenhouse gas emissions." Essential paper by @kevinjkircher.com. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

fantastic thread on global carbon budget! • global CO₂ emissions are still increasing, driven mostly by fossil fuels • land and ocean CO₂ sinks are shrinking as a result of climate change • at 2025 emissions levels we have 4 years to stay within +1.5˚C, 12 yrs for +1.7˚C, and 25 yrs for +2˚C

NEW: The US has deported a longtime Oregon firefighter who was arrested by Border Patrol while deployed at a major wildfire in Washington state. José Bertin Cruz-Estrada, separated from his family, is speaking out from Mexico for the first time: “I feel betrayed ... What am I going to do now?"

Today, water users in the West did not meet the Interior Department deadline to establish a new Colorado River compact. 🧵

Important finding from our systematic review: For adults 65+, choosing the right flu vaccine makes a huge difference. A Danish study from the 2024/25 season found a 17 percentage point gap between high-dose and standard flu vaccines in preventing hospitalization. 🧵 www.nejm.org/doi/full/10....