Clayton Page Aldern

@compatibilism.bsky.social

🌎🔥🧠 Data reporter @grist.org, union 🪑. Climate change, brain health, active inference, AI accountability. THE WEIGHT OF NATURE is out now: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/717097/the-weight-of-nature-by-clayton-page-aldern Signal: aldern.01

"Ours is a time of lists—of 'deep state' figures to be prosecuted, media outlets to be exiled, and gender identities to be outlawed," @juliaangwin.com and I wrote in The New Yorker last year. ADL now drafting lists of its political enemies – broadly for speech critical of Israel – is a sad day.

Max Berger@maxberger.bsky.social · last mo.

The ADL has a website dedicated to attacking Mamdani staffers—including my friend Waleed Shahid. The ADL is applying a level of scrutiny to him they aren’t applying to literal neo-Nazis working in the federal government. Waleed has a Jewish wife and child. The ADL is a disgrace.

Late to the publication of this piece because I'm out on sabbatical, so in case you ALSO missed @zteirstein.bsky.social's masterful overview of the climate × health intersection for @grist.org, it is here: grist.org/article/how-... Watch this space! Rumor has it Zoya has a book brewing...

How climate change gets under the skin

What we know, so far, about the lasting effects of climate change on your health and the body’s vital systems.

grist.org

I find it interesting that at a time when many of the KCRHA's staff are about to lose their jobs, their CEO's email to staff focuses primarily on claiming the media are biased and can't be trusted. Imagine worrying about your job and receiving a rant against the media instead of real information.

The City of Chicago can't say exactly how much lead pipe replacement costs, can't say how many pipes they've actually replaced, and can't explain why it costs 6x the national average. But one city official is very confident that critics "don't know what they're talking about."

Clayton Page Aldern@compatibilism.bsky.social · 3mo ago

New from @juanpab.bsky.social, @keertigopal.bsky.social, and me: Chicago has the most lead pipes of any U.S. city... and pays wildly more than anyone else to replace them: ~$31,000 per line, more than 6x the EPA's nat'l est. of $4,700. Officials can't fully explain why. grist.org/accountabili... 1/n

New from @juanpab.bsky.social, @keertigopal.bsky.social, and me: Chicago has the most lead pipes of any U.S. city... and pays wildly more than anyone else to replace them: ~$31,000 per line, more than 6x the EPA's nat'l est. of $4,700. Officials can't fully explain why. grist.org/accountabili... 1/n

Why is it so unusually expensive to replace lead pipes in Chicago?

The city with the most lead pipes in the nation is paying way above average to fix them. Officials can't fully explain why.

grist.org

Impossibly kind words from a hero. @joriegraham.bsky.social couldn’t know how foundational Overlord (esp. “Other”) was to this book. Or maybe it was that obvious!

Jorie Graham@joriegraham.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Thank you @compatibilism.bsky.social for this incredible book. The prose is so lucid and honest and probing it moved me near tears repeatedly. And the thinking is scintillating. I cannot tell you how grateful I am for this book. And thank you @penguinusa.bsky.social

🚨 The U.S. Census Bureau just announced on Slack that starting on Tuesday, May 12, its APIs will require the use of an API key. This is going to be a big breaking change for anyone who was not already using one, with just 2 full business days of notice.

🌎🔥📝 American climate scientists are rewriting their own research proposals, scrubbing out words they've used for decades just to keep their funding alive. New from me, Kate Yoder, and Ayurella Horn-Muller for @grist.org: grist.org/language/cli... (1/n)

To keep climate science alive, researchers are speaking in code

Words considered "woke" are vanishing from National Science Foundation proposals. Grist tracked the changes.

grist.org

Terrible day for many amazing, hard-working, intelligent journalists at the Washington Post. I'm still here and trying to figure out how to best support my colleagues who have lost their jobs. If you feel able to share or contribute, please do: www.gofundme.com/f/standing-t...

Donate to Washington Post 2026 layoff fund, organized by Rachel Siegel

On Wednesday, Feb. 4, 2026, The Washington Post laid off hundreds of journalists. We ar… Rachel Siegel needs your support for Washington Post 2026 layoff fund

gofundme.com

No, I do not want to be a “creator journalist” or “influencer” or run a newsletter by myself I want health insurance and a decent editor to work under and a team of comrades to work with, attend union meetings with, do good with Launch the billionaires into the sun and pass out their wealth