This week, I started my university-sanctioned quiet quitting program (phased retirement). Looking forward to continuing to do things that I enjoy — and fewer of those that I don’t — over the next few years.
Scott Robeson
@indianaclimate.bsky.social
Climatologist, statistician, and geographer | #FirstGen | UDel and UBC grad | Grower of food and lover of plants and birds | Partner of https://bsky.app/profile/teresarobeson.com
It's not that climate change is "worse than expected". It just feels worse when it happens to *you*
If the media were serious about covering higher education in 2026, the actual National Conversation™️ would be “How have universities managed to retain such a high level of trust, relative to almost all the other institutions in 🇺🇸, amidst decades of assault from the far right authoritarian party?” 🧐🤔
Chris Warren@chriswarren.info · last wk.
The case for reading less news and saving your sanity. www.davidmoscrop.com/p/i-am-once-...
Save Your Sanity, Read Less News
A new piece argues our brains aren't adapted for reading this much bad news, and offers some tips for navigating the deluge.
davidmoscrop.com
Smoky conditions with moderate haze make me wonder if that's what the sky would look like on every "blue sky" day if geoengineering via solar radiation management were to take place. Here's a simulation for a clear day with 4 W/m^2 of cooling via sulfate aerosols. Source: simulatesrm.github.io
Scott Robeson@indianaclimate.bsky.social · 2w agoSmoke from these western fires, combined with those in Ontario and Minnesota, will be making the skies across much of eastern North America very hazy in the next few days. Smoke-related air quality will mostly be ok in the east.
Smoke from these western fires, combined with those in Ontario and Minnesota, will be making the skies across much of eastern North America very hazy in the next few days. Smoke-related air quality will mostly be ok in the east.
Daniel Swain@weatherwest.bsky.social · 2w agoUnfortunately, and as anticipated, yesterday's widespread lightning-following-heat event amid severe drought has sparked a large number of additional wildfires, expanding existing outbreak across OR, WA, & BC. Numerous heat signatures & large smoke plumes are evident. #ORwx #WAwx
Only seems like yesterday BP tried to pass itself off as an 'energy company' with all the Beyond Petroleum guff. Now it's just Beyond Parody as a money grabbing moral vacuum.
Financial Times@financialtimes.com · 2w agoBreaking news: BP is in advanced talks to sell its solar power arm Lightsource to a consortium backed by Kuwait’s sovereign wealth fund as the oil major retreats from renewables after abandoning a years-long green energy push. ft.trib.al/HZuKgIC
I have made this argument on my local solar law volunteer committee farms that get subdivided to build second homes don’t go back to being farmland solar payments can help farmers keep their land
Third Act Upstate New York@thirdactupstateny.bsky.social · 2w agoRebekah Pierce, J&R Pierce Family Farm, on the argument that solar panels ruin land for crops: “Everything can be removed, even if the site isn’t being farmed around...Even if it’s not being farmed around, it can go back to being farmed in the future and it’s remained in that family’s name.”
New paper out! Using tree rings, fire records, Landsat biomass data, and SEMs, we show that atmospheric dryness acts as a coordinating driver of boreal forest dynamics, raising questions about the extent to which growth gains can offset increasing fire-driven biomass losses doi.org/10.1071/WF25...
Atmospheric dryness as a coordinated driver of fire activity and biomass accumulation in northwestern boreal Canada
Rising vapor pressure deficit in northwestern boreal Canada is linked to increased burned area and reduced tree growth, with indirect effects on biomass ac
doi.org
Close to 100 pounds (45 kg) of mild/sweet Candy onions drying on the porch. We still have the storage onions to harvest. #garden
OUT TODAY, the AAUP just released the first comprehensive account of how the Trump administration has taken the same playbook it's used on law firms & foreign governments & turned it on American universities. US higher ed has, in effect, become a target of a massive extortion racket. 🧵
New Report on Extorted Compliance Charges “Massive Extortion Racket” Against Higher Ed
A new AAUP report, "Extorted Compliance: A Threat to Institutional Autonomy, Academic Freedom, and Shared Governance," exposes how the Trump administration has extended its pay-to-play approach to gov...
aaup.org
$4 billion in direct economic losses in Michigan, $5 billion in NY, and $2 billion in WI from the past week of wildfire smoke, from things like outdoor work cancelled, tourism loss, etc. This doesn’t count health costs, which will be billions more. www.detroitnews.com/story/busine...
Smoke costs Michigan more than $4 billion in losses, analysis finds
The smoke that blanketed Michigan last week cost the state $4 billion in direct economic losses, a new report finds, as events and work shut down.
detroitnews.com
Hello friends. I'm starting a new job today reporting for @nature.com on all things climate and Earth science, energy, and beyond.🌍Please get in touch if you're a researcher/gov staffer/startup with results/projects that deserve attention--or are facing problems we should know about. Contact in bio.
Late to the party, but for those interested: in June levels in Lake Mead dropped below the top intake valve
5 tips for reporting on unprecedented weather without mentioning climate change
5 tips for reporting on unprecedented weather without mentioning climate change
So here are 5 handy tips for finding your inner coward when it comes to writing articles about the effects of the climate crisis while avoiding mentioning the climate crisis.
thebeaverton.com
"Ringtails were the only species predicted to benefit from future changes in climate conditions, while fishers, gray foxes, and martens were predicted to decline under all climate change scenarios. Our work demonstrates the importance of identifying species-specific responses to change...".
Long‐Term Population Monitoring Reveals Changes in Mesocarnivore Occupancy in Response to Severe Drought
We examined the effects of a historic drought and contemporary forest structure on the occurrence of four sympatric mesocarnivores: Pacific martens (Martes caurina), fishers (Pekania pennanti), gray ...
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
Wearing an N-95 mask to grill eggplants in the wildfire smoke today. Now thinking I should do this whenever I grill.
Rapidly thawing permafrost is acidifying streams across North America
Rapidly thawing permafrost is acidifying streams across North America
Researchers found that some bodies of water have become highly acidic within only a few years.
theconversation.com
If you're in a wildfire affected area, change your air filters.
Geoffrey Cubbage@geoffreycubbage.bsky.social · 3w agoUpdate: well that’s wild y’all. Filter on top is a clean, unused one fresh out of its packaging. Filter on bottom was the same when I installed it yesterday evening; this is what it looks like after roughly 24 hours of HVAC in Chicago’s blanket of wildfire smoke.
It’s tragic that CO₂ doesn’t look and smell like wildfire smoke.
Wise words from the North. I would add that an insistence on a history of infrequent, stand-replacing fires is as colonial in Southern California as it is in the boreal forest. It’s insisting the land was empty when, in fact, people lived and burned throughout a varied, abundant cultural landscape.
Fire Stewardship: Upholding Indigenous Sovereignty - International Association of Wildland Fire
In recent years there has been a steep rise in Arctic fire activity, including the unprecedented 2023 Arctic wildfire season that captured worldwide attention. Due to a warmer climate and extended spr...
iawfonline.org
Looks like our first dose of poor (smoke-related) air quality tomorrow, southern Indiana people.
Let's do some Canadian pipeline-wildfire math. The Canadian Energy Center says growing oil exports by 1.5M barrels/day **could** boost GDP by ~31B annually. Meanwhile, wildfire smoke health costs alone - just the health costs, nothing else - averaged 23B/year, past tense. And they're growing fast.
Ontario hardest hit as wildfires cost Canada billions | NOW Toronto
A new report estimates wildfire smoke has cost Canada $231 billion since 2014. See how much each province has spent.
nowtoronto.com
Counting individual organisms can be hard, image of a man standing in a circle of one old plant. www.researchgate.net/publication/...
We are given only a limited number of truly perfect summer days in our time on Earth. One of the more insidious cruelties of fossil fuel greed is how it slowly strips those days from us, more and more throughout our lifetimes, perhaps without us even realizing what we have lost.
Another stolen summer day
What are we still waiting to learn?
heated.world
Are environmentalists right to warn against air conditioning? My take in The i Paper: cooling is a how-question, not a whether-question. Air-con runs hardest exactly when solar generates most. A grid ready for mass heat pump uptake can also absorb summer cooling. inews.co.uk/news/science...
Environmentalists say you shouldn’t have air-con. This is why they’re wrong
Air-con has a reputation of being bad for the climate, but its impact is negligible
inews.co.uk