Greg Quetin
@grquetin.bsky.social
Scientist | Engineer | Cargo Bike Enthusiast. Romantic about the indelible nature of cities full of people living in every way imaginable. Day job - climate change, and the trees of it.
SDOT rolls out first big changes to make the 8 less late on Denny Way
SDOT rolls out first big changes to make the 8 less late on Denny Way
The 8 is on its way to not being late. Over the weekend, the Seattle Department of Transportation put the pieces in place for the opening of the first phase of changes on Denny Way hoped to streamline transit service … Continue reading →
dlvr.it
WE ARE PEDESTRIANIZING THIS STREET. Core stakeholders are meeting with SDOT and their consulting team for three hours tomorrow to set the design parameters for future Crockett Plaza.
“It’s not a matter of money. It’s not a matter of investment. It’s not a matter of how heroic the firefighters are,” said Raul Cordero Carrasco, a climate researcher at the University of Groningen. “You just cannot stop a fire when the conditions are so extreme as we have seen in recent days”
The Age of Unstoppable Wildfires Has Reached Europe
Climate change means giant fires of the kind that ripped across France and Spain are becoming common, with potentially dire consequences for Europe’s economies.
bloomberg.com
Really interesting story here. You know how the hyperscaler cowboys are powering their data centers with gas turbines? It turns out the demands of AI are not very friendly to those turbines. They're supposed to last 5+ years & instead they're wearing out in under 12 months!
Harriet Weber@harri.bsky.social · last wk.Here's the deal with the pre-review study Tesla funded on turbine carnage. This is my first piece on the Data Centers Breaking Things beat. TLDR; AI training is wearing out, even breaking, a critical source of energy for AI training www.investors.com/news/turbine...
Why is your current, and future, energy bill higher than before? Here's a reason.
The New York Times@nytimes.com · 2w agoBreaking News: Federal officials acknowledged in court documents that they canceled grants to states that didn’t vote for President Trump in 2024. nyti.ms/4gRd5Kb
Congrats to my former NOAA colleagues for launching the independent climate.us. This websites restores and maintains lots of taxpayer-funded and in some cases congressionally-mandated info that has been removed from fed websites. Check it out if you haven't already. lnkd.in/emwFQN7w
Climate.us Home
independent, nonprofit, and immune to politics
climate.us
The vibes across downtown are, as they say, immaculate.
The Ocean Observatories Initiative has been collecting data on physical, chemical, geological and biological conditions in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans for the past decade
Trump administration takes aim at crucial ocean monitoring network
The Ocean Observatories Initiative has been collecting data on physical, chemical, geological and biological conditions in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans for the past decade
scientificamerican.com
🧵 Public science in the US has taken some heavy hits over the last year, but the White House OMB is proposing a series of changes that will result in a TKO for science as we know it unless we fight back. Here's what's happening, and why it matters. 1/n
👀 “I really do think it’s time to start talking about governance. If we’re in this constant cycle of crisis, recovery, crisis, recovery, crisis, recovery, maybe a board full of people who are expert at transit running a transit agency and delivering transit projects would be more attuned.”
Erica C. Barnett@ericacbarnett.bsky.social · 2mo agoSound Transit Sacrifices Light Rail to Ballard, Moves Long-Deferred Graham Station Forward, in Latest "Realignment" Claudia Balducci, the longest-serving board member, told PubliCola the latest crisis has made her rethink the transit agency's governance by a changing roster of elected officials.
Some good news: the number of crashes on MLK Way between Rainier Ave and the I-90 lid was cut in half between 2023 and 2025 (20 vs 10). What happened in 2024? SDOT built protected bike lanes along this segment.
Two people died in a head-on crash on the Queensboro Bridge bike lane between the rider of an illegal e-scooter with a top speed of 50 miles per hour and a cyclist, underscoring the need for enforcement against illegal, super-fast micromobility vehicles.
Two Dead After Illegal Scooter Rider And Cyclist Crash On Queensboro Bridge - Streetsblog New York City
Street safety advocates have been criticizing city officials for failing to fully grasp the dangers of e-motos and illegal stand-up scooters for years.
buff.ly
California could hand over $200 million meant to cool kids’ classrooms to utilities. That money was promised to schools through CalSHAPE — a program Gov. Newsom helped create. With heat waves in winter, kids need cool classrooms. My latest in @latimes.com
Contributor: Use designated money to cool California schools, not to enrich utilities
As the state gets hotter, even in winter, working air conditioning in classrooms is as essential as the lights or the roofing.
latimes.com
It's still a shock every time I look at what used to be one of the standard US environmental data services and see that the live data just isn't being updated any more due to funding cuts. It hurts all of us.
Ah, 340ppm. Likely (WILDLY so) the lowest CO2 concentration I will ever experience outside of a fairly expensive experimental plant chamber.
David Ho@davidho.bsky.social · 3mo agoAtmospheric CO₂ of 340 ppm
This is the way.
Mike Eliason@holz-bau.bsky.social · 3mo agomass timber wood windows family-sized homes homes that cross ventilate private outdoor space a sizable courtyard project incorporates a baugruppe, kindergarten, community kitchen, micro-retail, a children's space www.baunetz.de/meldungen/Me...
If all goes according to plan, in a few hours, a crew of astronauts will begin a journey that will take them on a loop around the moon. Here's a video that NASA put together to help people visualize the journey through space, first orbiting the earth before looping around the moon and flying home 🔭
This is my favorite climate change chart. Japanese monks, aristocrats, and emperors kept meticulous records of cherry blossom festivals for 1,200 years and accidentally built the world's longest climate dataset.
My question was meant to be a softball lobbed across the plate—an opportunity for SDOT to express its stated values. So, here’s a thread demonstrating how they could have responded if they wanted to. 🧵
Alex Phillips-White@multimodalalex.bsky.social · 4mo agoThis feels like an extremely unfair reading from the gotcha question language (legal coaches to avoid answering in definitives) to extending a single answer from one public servant to the entire org.
Great time to expand all electric mass transit.
Ryan Packer@typewriteralley.bsky.social · 4mo agoThis is the 2 Line, to Lynnwood City Center.
Does the equivalent of a smart electrical panel (digital, managed load control) exist for the water meter? Could we manage the water supply system better with a bit of water capacity (i.e. water batteries) in more dispersed locations? Smaller pipes between demand points? Easier connection?
This is the bar. We are still very far from "could a child and their grandma cycle here, be safe, and have fun" in most places.
Alex@alexh666.bsky.social · 4mo agoI’ve been a cyclist for decades but my current judgement of cycling infrastructure is “would I feel safe riding here with a young child under my care” Aka is this infrastructure appropriate for *everyone*
As a starting point, lets just narrow it down to super rich Trump cabinet officials or appointees with a record of using their public position for private gain. *Taps earpiece* Being told that does not help at all.
Mark Follman@markfollman.bsky.social · 4mo agoThe obvious explanation here is brazen corruption “President Trump has moved markets with sudden shifts in policy, from tariff U-turns to military strikes. On several occasions, unusual trades hit the tape ahead of his announcements.” www.wsj.com/finance/inve...
Making lemonade out of lemons. EV demand growth is far below expectations, but a lot of those facilities are still coming online, repurposed towards the grid. Very important pivot. www.canarymedia.com/articles/cle...
Suddenly, the US manufactures a ton of grid batteries
Energy storage is surging on the U.S. grid — and now the country has more than enough battery-making factories to meet that booming demand.
canarymedia.com
"The deal is an extraordinary transfer of taxpayer dollars to a foreign company for the purposes of boosting the production of fossil fuels, a main driver of climate change, while throttling offshore wind power."
Trump Administration to Pay $1 Billion to Energy Giant to Cancel Wind Farms
nytimes.com
We need to stop asking how much street width we can use for cars and start asking how much we can use for playgrounds.
