As the US experiences unprecedented heatwaves this summer, the government is undoing OSHA protections meant to help workers cope with these impacts www.nytimes.com/2026/08/01/c...

Trump Administration Is Undoing Plans to Boost Workplace Heat Protections (Gift Article)

The Biden administration took steps to shield workers from extreme temperatures. The Trump administration is taking a gentler approach with employers.

nytimes.com

A good reminder for all of us, especially those looking at the impending end of a more open summer workday schedule 😩https://open.substack.com/pub/theconversationus/p/how-to-get-more-nature-into-your?r=8eu8y&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email

How to get more nature into your 9-to-5 and why it matters for your mental health

Sometimes the best escape isn't a weekend away. It's the park just down the road.

open.substack.com

SpaceX rocket that exploded shortly after takeoff destroyed land & wildlife: Concrete chunks had left craters a foot deep & were strewn across tidal flats, almost four acres of state park burned, 7 bobwhite quail eggs & a collection of blue land crabs incinerated. www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...

SpaceX Blast Left Officials in Disbelief Over Environmental Damage

Fish and Wildlife Service biologists expressed frustrations in emails obtained by Bloomberg.

bloomberg.com

An important and surprising discovery arriving the same week policy leaders in Washington tell us we no longer need federal investment in the biological and life sciences.

Carl Zimmer@carlzimmer.com · 2w ago

Can a cancer become a new species of parasite? Here's my story on the discovery of a transmissible cancer lurking in Vermont catfish. Gift link: nyti.ms/4whfi6v

Trump administration admits, in court filings, that it canceled billions in federal grants not for policy or performance reasons, but because recipients lived in blue states. www.nytimes.com/2026/07/24/b...

This action is both unjustified and entirely predictable for this administration. Every aspect of science that touches the federal government is a target www.nytimes.com/2026/07/20/c...

Trump Attacks National Academies Over Climate Chapter in Judges’ Manual (Gift Article)

The president joined Republican officials who slammed the National Academies of Sciences for a chapter about climate science in an educational guide for judges.

nytimes.com

The fall elections in the US will see a lot of water/climate/food issues at stake: 🤞 voters agree www.politico.com/news/magazin...

‘Cancer Doesn't Care What Party You Belong To’: Poisoned Water Is Turning This Rural State Bluer

Democrats see an opening in rural states for the first time in decades. In Iowa, it’s about water.

politico.com

Great example of nexus solutions - tackling climate, food and water all at once

Tamar Haspel@tamarhaspel.bsky.social · 2w ago

I am cautiously optimistic about agrovoltaics for some crops. We need more rigorous studies of yield impact, and designs that allow for farm machinery. It'll vary a lot by crop and region. But still. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

My daughter’s Girl Scout camp in NJ just cancelled their overnight camping due to poor air quality. Our kids deserve to have fun outdoors, not be punished for grownups’ failures to tackle climate change.

Dr. Sandra Steingraber 🏳️‍🌈@ssteingraber1.bsky.social · 3w ago

AQI = 500 in Hudson, NY = officially not safe for anyone to breathe, everyone may experience respiratory problems, it’s an emergency, no running errands, no going outside. Your reminder that fine particulate matter from burning forests silts up your heart and your brain. FOSSIL FUELS DID THIS

Gratified that my voice was just one of nearly half a million comments on the proposed OMB rule that would dramatically politicize science funding in the US. But this is just the start of the fight, not the end www.insidehighered.com/news/governm...

Legal Threats Loom Over OMB Grant-Control Rule as Comments Close

The White House’s plan to cement political appointees’ control over research and other grants received hundreds of thousands of comments. Lawsuits are likely next.

insidehighered.com

It is extremely unusual for *any* regulatory proposal to receive this many comments. But for one that is this technical is simply unheard of. If the point of this exercise was to hide a massive power grab in the arcane garb of administrative law, it failed. Spectacularly.

Colette Delawalla, PhD@cdelawalla.bsky.social · 3w ago

PHASE ONE of our fight against the OMB rule is complete and YOU ALL SHOWED UP!!! HALF A MILLION COMMENTS is WILD. We absolutely exceeded our goal of 100,000! So, what happens next??? Welcome to PHASE TWO: Pressure and Preparation! 1/x

You've got less than 1.5 hours to submit a comment to OMB opposing their "Regulation for Federal Financial Assistance" (OMB-2026-0034) that would devastate the US research enterprise with political decision-making. I just submitted my comment - don't delay if you still need to do yours!!

Join us in just under 2 hours for a webinar on how to review currently open @ipbes.net biodiversity assessments. This is particularly targeted at US experts but all are welcome to join. Co-sponsored by @agu.org and the Ecological Society of America. Registration link: agu.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

Welcome! You are invited to join a webinar: Webinar on Reviewing and Comment Process for IPBES Assessments. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email about joining the webinar.

This webinar will help scholars understand how to serve as an Expert Reviewer for upcoming assessments of the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). The external re...

agu.zoom.us

WTAF? Anyone one who works in biodiversity conversation knows that habitat destruction/land and sea use change is the #1 driver of biodiversity loss globally. See every @ipbes.net report, ever.

The Washington Post@washingtonpost.com · 4w ago

The Trump administration finalized a repeal of decades-old regulation that said habitat destruction was a form of harm to endangered species. Overturning the law could allow for mining, ranching and other development to expand into previously protected areas.

Climate change and upstream dams are often blamed for the rapid water and land changes in the Mekong Delta of Vietnam. But local sand mining is playing an important negative role as well, and can be much more easily tackled through better regulation: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Counterfactual modeling isolates sand mining impacts, revealing it as a key driver of Mekong Delta destabilization

Sand mining drives ~25 to 30% of total channel erosion and ~16 to 30% of salinity increase in the Vietnamese Mekong Delta.

science.org

It is not headed by a “climate critic“. It is headed by someone who is unqualified in this area, who cannot offer valid critiques but instead shares debunked claims, and who regularly attacks climate scientists. Like me.

USGCRP being revived- but put in the hands of someone who has never published on climate and who runs a political blog 😡

Scott Waldman@scottpwaldman.bsky.social · 4w ago

The White House has reconstituted the U.S. Global Change Research Program, which tracks climate change and produces the National Climate Assessment. The Trump version will focus on "positive" climate effects and be used to protect fossil fuel companies from lawsuits. www.politico.com/news/2026/07...

This heat wave brought to you by ExxonMobil and Chevron.

Without Climate Change, U.S. Heat Wave Called ‘Virtually Impossible’

nytimes.com

What is happening at NIH is a test case for all grants if the new OMB rule goes through - political interference, wasted money, and stalled science 🧪 www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Inside the new political screening that’s stalling NIH grants

Mandatory reviews by top health officials and checks for 235 disfavoured terms have left hundreds of vetted grant applications in administrative limbo.

nature.com

Irony is dead.

The right of citizens to monitor and sue polluters is engrained in US env laws, but current DOJ wants to block people from exercising the right, particularly with regard to enforcing pollution laws around data centers. This is a hugely important case watershednewsletter.substack.com/p/the-laws-s...

The Laws Still Exist, the Consequences Don’t: America’s Vanishing Environmental Enforcement

The Trump administration has stepped back from suing polluters and is now claiming the right to block citizens from doing so too.

watershednewsletter.substack.com

El Niño is officially here — NOAA puts the odds of a record-strength event at 63% this winter. It lands as the Iran war strains food + energy systems. New survey of global security experts on what’s most at risk 🧵 (1/x) councilonstrategicrisks.org/2026/06/12/c...

CCS Survey: Food Insecurity Top Security Threat from Historic El Niño, Experts Say - The Council on Strategic Risks

A new global survey of climate security experts conducted by the Center for Climate and Security has identified food insecurity as the top national security risk at the intersection of El Niño, the Ir...

councilonstrategicrisks.org

www.politico.com/news/2026/06...

Inside the campaign to discredit a key climate science report

An emerging field of research that can measure how much climate change has worsened individual disasters is under attack by friends of the fossil fuel industry. Billions of dollars are at stake.

politico.com

The Planetary Society built an interactive side-by-side "track changes" comparison for the proposed OMB rules. They show exactly what the current rules say versus what the proposed rules would change, section by section, across all *399* affected provisions. dashboards.planetary.org/rules-change/ 🧪🔭

The plan from the government to use politics to pick winners in R&D affects way more than just science. I talked about the way it affects environmental research, and how it would stop our understanding of how vulnerable communities are affected by pollution: www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

White House Plan to Vet Grants Puts Climate Science in Jeopardy

The Trump administration’s proposal to tighten political control over federal grants would hinder research, experts say.

bloomberg.com

Easy to miss this in all the other bad news for climate and science this week. Can't even report on GHGs in the US, let alone regulate them apparently. apnews.com/article/sec-...

SEC moves to repeal rule that requires companies to report greenhouse gas emissions and climate risk

In the latest action to undo Biden-era regulations on climate change, the Securities and Exchange Commission has proposed repealing a rule that requires some public companies to report their greenhous...

apnews.com

Environmental damage: global data centers used 448 trillion watt-hours of electricity, more than all but 10 countries of the world apnews.com/article/ai-d...

UN calculates nation-sized environmental footprints for AI and data centers

According to a United Nations University report, the environmental footprint of data centers already rivals some of the world’s largest countries.

apnews.com

Scientists live-streaming for 50 hours to highlight the importance of science to society and warning that cutting funds for research has dangerous consequences: www.youtube.com/@wclivestrea...

If this OMB rule goes through, it is not hyperbole to say that US scientific research on climate change (of which the federal government has been largest funder) will come to a screeching halt. Political appointees will be able to cancel ANY grant on disfavored topics www.nytimes.com/2026/06/02/u...

White House Seeks to Impose Political Test on Billions in Federal Grants

nytimes.com

Rutgers has played a key role in the OOI since inception-horrible to see such a fundamental monitoring system being demolished for no reason. Perhaps Congress might like to weigh in on the waste of money if we tear down something we already built? www.nytimes.com/2026/06/01/c...

Trump Administration to Dismantle Ocean Monitoring System

nytimes.com