Saw the new Odyssey movie and enjoyed it (I liked that he went with Dante's ending) but I mostly left happy that Nolan is heroically keeping middlebrow alive.

In a @versobooks.bsky.social blog post, @drewpendergrass.bsky.social and Troy Vettese, who co-authored the book Half-Earth Socialism, talk to @zetkincollective.bsky.social researcher @tatjanasoeding.bsky.social about the climate movement and scientific utopianism. www.indep.network/verso-blog-p...

Verso Blog Post Discusses the Climate Movement, Utopianism and Half-Earth Socialism

In a blog post for Verso, Drew Pendergrass and Troy Vettese, who co-authored the book Half-Earth Socialism, talk to Zetkin Collective researcher Tatjana Söding about the development and repression of…

indep.network

"Half Earth Socialism" kommt bei @oekom.de in Kürze auf Deutsch raus, und mit den Autoren @drewpendergrass.bsky.social und Troy Vettese habe ich ein neues Vorwort geschrieben: Über dt. Klimapolitik, int. Faschisierungstendenzen und der Notwendigkeit von Utopien und Plänen @versobooks.bsky.social

Drew Pendergrass@drewpendergrass.bsky.social · 4w ago

The German edition of Half-Earth Socialism is out in October, so Troy Vettese and I joined @tatjanasoeding.bsky.social to discuss developments in the German climate movement, left politics, and anti-fascist organizing. You can read the essay (in English) here: www.versobooks.com/blogs/news/d...

The German edition of Half-Earth Socialism is out in October, so Troy Vettese and I joined @tatjanasoeding.bsky.social to discuss developments in the German climate movement, left politics, and anti-fascist organizing. You can read the essay (in English) here: www.versobooks.com/blogs/news/d...

Dreaming in Defeat, not Defeated Dreams

Why is it that defeat acts as a powerful soporific for utopian dreaming? In the ur-Utopia, published in 1516, Thomas More imagined an ideal society in contrast to the brutality that surrounded him, wh...

versobooks.com

At an atmospheric science conference, where the schedule comes off as a threat

This, from the great @drewpendergrass.bsky.social, is my favourite essay from our new issue of The BREAK–DOWN –– a brilliant and wide-ranging meditation on the history and politics of the idea of complexity www.break-down.org/chaos-in-the...

Chaos in the Air

Against Friedrich Hayek’s market mysticism, complexity science points toward the need for collective intelligence and planning.

break-down.org

Everyone from the Black Panthers to the neoliberals praises complex systems thinking (and hates on Descartes, binaries, etc). In this essay, I ask if we’re all talking about this same thing, tracing how "complexity" in atmospheric science mutated through its popularization into a sort of mysticism.

The BREAK—DOWN@the-breakdown.bsky.social · 3mo ago

"What progressives usually mean when they talk about complexity is that the world is not set in stone. That what we have inherited can be changed." Read @drewpendergrass.bsky.social on complexity, Friedrich Hayek and democratic planning in our 3rd issue, AIRBORNE www.break-down.org/chaos-in-the...

I'll be starting as an Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies and Sciences at Oberlin College in July! My lab will continue my work using satellite observations to infer emissions of greenhouse gases and air pollutants, illuminating social and ecological drivers of change. 🧵

The more unstable the present becomes, the more necessary it is to plan for the future. But what does it mean to plan? Read our 11 theses on planning to find out!

Future Histories@futurehistories.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Whoop, whoop! 11 Theses on Planning by @solveigdegen.bsky.social @rabeaber.bsky.social and @cominsitu.bsky.social ! Fantastic! criticaltheoryinberlin.de/en/intervent...

New headache in climate data cleaning unlocked

Financial Times@financialtimes.com · 3mo ago

France’s weather forecasting service has filed a police complaint after detecting anomalies in its temperature gauges at Paris-Charles de Gaulle airport, which coincided with a surge in well-timed bets on prediction market Polymarket. ft.trib.al/VFmVCZp

I’m in this issue, with a piece on the politics of “complexity.” Everybody — from the Black Panthers to the neoliberals — praises complex systems thinking, an idea rooted in the physical sciences, and I try to figure out if we’re all really talking about this same thing. You can pre-order now!

The BREAK—DOWN@the-breakdown.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Introducing AIRBORNE Issue #3! Publishing 6 May. Pre-order or subscribe today: www.break-down.org/tag/issue-03/ 🔗

Talking to AI for science people is like talking to Bertrand Russell circa 1910. Their bottleneck is verifying truth claims generated at scale. How to do this? Well, by formalizing all knowledge of course!

Walter Benjamin’s emergency brake at the UNEP conference

From the GKN factory occupation in Florence to Rewilding Apennines in Abruzzo, it's been a pleasure to speak with and learn from social, labor, and environmental struggles across Italy. You can find the Italian translation of Half-Earth Socialism online here: www.mimesisedizioni.it/libro/979122...

Something very important happened 250 years ago this year. That's right: Alessandro Volta discovered methane! I'll be in Ispra March 30 through April 2 for the Methane250 UNEP conference (www.methane250.org) presenting some of my recent work on methane trends (doi.org/10.5194/acp-...).

Nice coverage of the Brecht days in the FAZ: www.faz.net/aktuell/feui...

Die Brecht-Tage erkunden Brechts Verhältnis zur Natur

War Bertolt Brecht, Bewunderer sowjetischer Naturbeherrschung, ökologisch auf dem Holzweg oder taugt er doch als Verbündeter in der Krise? Die Brecht-Tage in Berlin wollten es wissen.

faz.net

I'll be in Berlin next week celebrating Bertolt Brecht. The sessions look amazing! I'll be on some panels covering (1) resonances between Brecht and scientific modeling, and (2) Brecht on "being useless" (but in a good way).

love the wild mix of people and topics at the Brecht Tage next week, centering around the Brecht's 'green revolution' and featuring Thomas Turnbull, Hanna Hamel, @simschaupp.bsky.social, Troy Vettese and Drew Pendergrass lfbrecht.de/projekte/bre...

I called all my reps -- it's hard to overstate how important NCAR is to global weather and climate research

Katharine Hayhoe@katharinehayhoe.com · 8mo ago

If you are in the US and you would like to send a message to your elected representative about the proposed dissolution of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, @agu.org makes it easy with a template here: agu.quorum.us/campaign/151... #AGU25

🧵 New paper thread! 🧵 We considered a strange case in South Korea where a major air pollutant — fine particulate matter, or PM2.5 — got worse, even as the pollutant emissions which drive PM2.5 formation fell substantially due to new regulations. (1/4)

Love to see the start of a Verso to city administration pipeline

Alex S. Vitale@alexvitale.bsky.social · 8mo ago

I'm excited to announce that I have been asked to join the Mamdani Transition Team to work on community safety issues. A New Era for NYC.

🧵 New paper thread! 🧵 We use satellite data to assess global methane emissions trends and seasonality. A greenhouse gas second only to CO2 in impact, methane concentrations surged in 2020 and 2021 for unclear reasons. We investigate in our paper. acp.copernicus.org/articles/25/...

Trends and seasonality of 2019–2023 global methane emissions inferred from a localized ensemble transform Kalman filter (CHEEREIO v1.3.1) applied to TROPOMI satellite observations

Abstract. We use 2019–2023 TROPOMI satellite observations of atmospheric methane to quantify global methane emissions at monthly 2° × 2.5° resolution with a localized ensemble transform Kalman filter ...

acp.copernicus.org

Half-Earth Socialism, by @drewpendergrass.bsky.social and Troy Vettese, is now out in Italian thanks to Mimesis. Here one of the authors answered our questions about ecosocialism, planning, vegetarian and vegan diets, social and environmental justice. Thanks to @jacobinitalia.bsky.social!

Giovanni Tonolo@giotonolo.bsky.social · 10mo ago

Io e @virginiamagnaghi.bsky.social abbiamo intervistato Troy Vettese, co-autore di Il Socialismo di Metà-Terra (Mimesis 2025). Per il recupero dell'utopia, per costruire un'alternativa democratica, per una natura più libera, perché socialismo e carnivorismo sono una contraddizione in termini.

🚨NEW PAPER🚨 We all know the 2022 energy price shock fueled the cost of living crisis. It also caused a profit bonanza for the very rich. We show the US reaped the largest profits ($377bn) of any country. 50% went to the richest 1%, only 1% to the bottom 50%. A🧵 www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Israel has just arrested Greta Thunberg and many others. Statement from the Global Sumud Flotilla: “People of conscience have been abducted. The flotilla broke no laws. What is illegal is Israel’s genocide, Israel’s illegal blockade of Gaza, and Israel’s use of starvation as a weapon.” 1/3

Naomi Klein@naomiaklein.bsky.social · 10mo ago

Close to 65k watching the livefeed from the Global Sumud Flotilla off the coast of Gaza. Israel seems to be intercepting right now. All eyes needed. www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEN2...

Nice paper, but disagree a bit on framing. “Our estimate of 96.9 Gt carbon sequestration potential…amounts to 17.6% of the 640 Gt of carbon emissions since 1750.” This may be smaller than other estimates but that’s still a lot of carbon!!! Much more than I’d expect from DAC this century!

Glen Peters@glenpeters.bsky.social · 12mo ago

"Our results suggest that ecosystem restoration has limited potential for climate change mitigation even if orchestrated with a pervasive shift towards sustainable, low-emissions economies globally" www.nature.com/articles/s41... 1/

La traduzione italiana mia e di @virginiamagnaghi.bsky.social di Half-Earth Socialism è uscita ieri! @drewpendergrass.bsky.social @versobooks.bsky.social

Our candles post Boston heat wave lol; so dramatic

VENICE: Exciting event happening on Monday and Tuesday 23-24th of June: www.unive.it/data/33113/2... 3rd HEPM workshop with a great line up of speakers including @drewpendergrass.bsky.social @beatricecointe.bsky.social @edouardmorena.bsky.social @geoffmann.bsky.social @julianordblad.bsky.social

WORKSHOP | Historical Epistemologies of Planetary Modelling III - Unive

seminario/lezione

unive.it

Folks in Hamburg: I'll be giving a talk on the economist János Kornai at the New Institute on Tuesday 18 June at 12pm. All are welcome! thenew.institute/en/media/a-c...