Nature research paper: Australia’s current wildfire crisis linked to colonial land-use change go.nature.com/4yDKQET

Australia’s current wildfire crisis linked to colonial land-use change - Nature

A 1,000-year lake-sediment record from southeastern Australia shows that colonial disruption of Indigenous cultural burning transformed open woodland into dense, flammable forest, priming the landscape for today’s climate-driven wildfires.

go.nature.com

It’s hard enough for cities in Canada to do smarter things given how often bad city leaders hurt their own cities. But it’s extra infuriating watching awful provincial premiers sabotaging cities by ripping out good things they FINALLY managed to achieve. Premiers should not have that power, period.

Brent Toderian@brenttoderian.bsky.social · 4d ago

"Ripping out these protected bike lanes against the will of Toronto city council is a colossal waste of $48 million. The province’s own experts know it will not ease traffic congestion, it will put people’s lives at risk…” One of the stupidest things I’ve ever seen any politician do to any city.

My latest for @cfr.org on the disastrous shift in the United States' Myanmar policy - a shift that will have huge humanitarian impacts, and makes no strategic sense either. www.cfr.org/articles/the...

The Trump Administration’s Shift on Myanmar Is a Disastrous Decision | Council on Foreign Relations

Washington’s sudden decision to open talks with Myanmar’s government grants further legitimacy to an authoritarian regime and is unlikely to deliver access to rare earths.

cfr.org

A great time to read some Anne Carson!

Nobel Prize@nobelprize.org · 4d ago

BREAKING NEWS The 2026 #NobelPrize in Literature is awarded to the Canadian author Anne Carson, “for her bold and inventive oeuvre that, in playful dialogue with the classical tradition, has created new forms for contemporary literature.”

BREAKING NEWS The 2026 #NobelPrize in Literature is awarded to the Canadian author Anne Carson, “for her bold and inventive oeuvre that, in playful dialogue with the classical tradition, has created new forms for contemporary literature.”

Thread. (It’s a new world, fellow academics.)

Nicole Bedera@nbedera.bsky.social · last wk.

Earlier this week, I agreed to interviews with two USA Today journalists. They wrote fantastic articles about the Cornell case that I'm proud to have been a part of. What I did not know is that their employer considers interviews to proprietary and opens up recordings to be used by any journalist.

So much respect for this, and the framing. ABC, the right wing version of Progress Toronto, has used health care workers/hospitals as reason to rip them out. This puts a lie to that (and on University ambulances can bypass cars in the wide bikelanes if needed). So many lies.

The Biking Lawyer LLP@thebikinglawyer.bsky.social · 2w ago

"We get lots of patients who unfortunately have been struck by cars or had a crash because of unsafe road infrastructure, because of potholes, damage, or obstructed bike lanes" @edwardxie.bsky.social #DoctorsforSafeCycling www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

This is *the* piece. Kate Manne, professor of philosophy at Cornell, speaks truth to the totality of failures at the university — and why students protesting the war in Gaza have faced far harsher consequences than any of the Cornell 7: www.thecut.com/article/what...

What It Feels Like at Cornell Right Now

As a professor at the Ivy League school, Kate Manne has known many, many victims. There’s a palpable feeling on campus, she writes, that this is big.

thecut.com

Please try to reclaim your precious precious attention, at all costs. Do puzzles. Take walks without a phone. Dear god, try to read, almost anything that isn’t a manifesto will really do. You are going to need your brain.

"The university is not just in crisis. The university is the crisis." Rinaldo Walcott (@blacklikewho.bsky.social) argues that Jason Arday's death lays bare a broken academic system built on unequal power, gatekeeping, and the grinding machinery of institutional recognition.

The university is the crisis

The crisis of the university is its inability to be honest about the nature of its self-induced crisis. Its leaders or senior managers often share the perspectives of those who wish the university to ...

canadiandimension.com

Dolly Parton's family asked that, in lieu of flowers, fans make a donation to the singer's Imagination Library. Here's what the charity does ⬇️ www.rollingstone.com/music/music-...

Turning Pages: Inside Dolly Parton's Imagination Library

Core team of 15 staff and thousands of volunteers and partners help the country-music philanthropist deliver books to kids around the world.

rollingstone.com

happy first day of school! teaching college does not get easier. below are some resources for solidarity, courage, inspiration, collaboration first: assignment ideas, syllabus language, memes and more for the pro-learning classroom against-a-i.com

Back to school. ❤️

Oops!

I remember when many of us hypothesized this during the MOOC IP grab. It sounded insane. Now:

James Grimmelmann@jtlg.bsky.social · 2mo ago

What are we even doing here? www.nytimes.com/2026/08/22/b...

"Over the past three decades, Thai authorities have pressured Karen villagers to leave their homes in the Kaeng Krachan National Park, at times violently, including by raiding their villages, burning their farms & properties & forcibly relocating them" And now deporting them to Myanmar... horrific

Bill Frelick@billfrelick.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Thai authorities should halt the imminent deportation of 26 ethnic Karen villagers from Phetchaburi province to Myanmar and release them from immigration detention. www.hrw.org/news/2026/08...

Plans to mine marine sand off Indonesia’s Numbing Island have sparked opposition from local fishers and environmental groups. Critics warn that dredging could destroy vital fishing grounds, damage coral reefs, and weaken natural coastal defenses. @basten.bsky.social and Yogi Eka Sahputra report.

Sand mining plans spark opposition from fishers in Indonesia’s Riau Islands

NUMBING ISLAND, Indonesia — The waters off Numbing Island, part of the Riau archipelago between Sumatra and Singapore, are among Indonesia’s richest fishing grounds. Local fisher Edy says the…

mongabay.cc

Stoppe callinge them "data centers" and starte callinge them "slop peripherals"

My article, co-written with @jaumannaw.bsky.social, looks at how decades of armed conflict, militarization and strategic ceasefires helped enable Myanmar’s rise as a global rare earth mining hub, and how unchecked extraction endangers lives and the environment (1/3).

Grist@grist.org · 3mo ago

How war in Myanmar is driving a deadly rare earth mining boom

New Open Access article on #sandmining "River #Sand and Gravel #Mining: Global Drivers, Impacts, and Pathways for Sustainable Management" agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/...

River Sand and Gravel Mining: Global Drivers, Impacts, and Pathways for Sustainable Management

Global sand and gravel mining research is fragmented, with impacts widely reported but extraction extent and drivers poorly constrained Hydrogeomorphic processes control mining impacts across spa...

agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com

All of the branding finally got me to talk about menopause. www.nytimes.com/2026/07/13/o...

Opinion | Welcome to the Golden Age of the Crone (Gift Article)

A new generation is not willing to settle for being invisible.

nytimes.com

Excited for POLLEN 2026! Antulio Rosales and I organised two panels on #Extraction, Digital Infrastructures + #Nature. @pollenetwork.bsky.social Program here: lnkd.in/grA9wuRB

Excited for POLLEN 2026! Antulio Rosales and I organised two panels on #Extraction, Digital Infrastructures + #Nature. @pollenetwork.bsky.social Program here: lnkd.in/grA9wuRB

#Rivers for life: procession for Thai Rivers calling attention to transboundary pollution in Mekong, Sai, Kok, Ruak and Salween.

Well holy crap. Erin Brockovich (yes, the same one the led the Hinkley, CA toxic groundwater lawsuit in ‘93) launched a website tracking AI data centers across the US and the ecological impacts to the environment and drinking water. MN is riddled with them. www.brockovichdatacenter.com

What happens in writing retreats? How should we change the conditions of our work to enable us to write + think? @nishanath.bsky.social & I listen to voice memos I taped during my last retreat and chat all things writing @academicaunties.com! www.academicaunties.com/episodes/wri... #academicsky

The connections made here between food, kitchens and the pollution of #Mekong and #Salween Rivers is important. apnews.com/article/rare...

Rare earth mining is poisoning Mekong River tributaries, threatening 'the world's kitchen'

Toxic runoff from rare earth mines in Myanmar is contaminating rivers that flow into Thailand, threatening the Mekong River and its basin's fisheries and farmland.

apnews.com

The @cseasi-icesea.bsky.social is offering two awards of $3,250 each for students from Southeast Asian countries currently studying in Canada. For eligible grad students, don't forget to apply by April 30:

I am very excited to read this! congratulations Sarah! @china-geographies.bsky.social

Sarah Rogers@china-geographies.bsky.social · 6mo ago

Just got the proofs. My book will finally (long story) be published in August. I wanted to write a counter hegemonic account of China's campaign to end absolute poverty. Here it is. bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/geographies-...

The #Salween as well as the #Mekong River (2 major rivers in Southeast Asia) are now contaminated with arsenic etc likely from mining upstream in #Myanmar. Thai scholars have already deemed this a crisis and many locals are doing the best they can to draw attention to the issue. bit.ly/48hhHEk

Asia’s longest free-flowing river contaminated by arsenic linked to Myanmar mines

MAE HONG SON, Thailand — Saw Si Paw Rak Salween guns the wooden fishing boat’s engine and steers along the river that inspired his family name. He is ethnic Karen — his parents migrated from Myanmar’s...

bit.ly