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Robert Lepage, PhD., P.Eng.

@rtmlepage.bsky.social

Building Science Engineer + Climate Resilience Geek. Of the 347ppm generation. He/him.

3489 Posts1793 Follower672 Folgt
Julia Levin@jflevin.bsky.social · yesterday

1/ Over the weekend -- while Canadians across the country were dealing with raging wildfires and the aftermath of severe flooding and heatwaves -- PM Carney quietly accelerated the timeline on his taxpayer funded pipeline. environmentaldefence.ca/2026/08/04/p...

PM Carney proceeding at breakneck pace with West Coast Pipeline - Environmental Defence

Statement by Julia Levin, Associate Director, National Climate, Environmental Defence Over the weekend, while Canadians across the country are dealing

environmentaldefence.ca

Michael Nabert@sustainablesong.bsky.social · 2w ago

In an effort to appease Alberta separatists, Carney has just announced a new pipeline. It'll be 90% publicly funded, because the business case isn't remotely good enough for private investors to fund it. A very expensive stranded-asset-to-be. 4/ www.nationalobserver.com/2026/07/02/n...

Government-owned Trans Mountain to lead $35-44 billion oil pipeline to BC Lower Mainland

Smith and Carney announced Alberta’s proposal is opting for a route that roughly follows the path of the Trans Mountain Pipeline. The federal government and Alberta “will be equal partners in this pro...

nationalobserver.com

Robert Lepage, PhD., P.Eng.@rtmlepage.bsky.social · 3d ago

Just as a note, the rise of extreme right wing terrorist groups was predicted by climate and social scientists as a response to the knock-down effects of climate change: crop failures, extreme weather, shifting socio-economic conditions, etc.

Mother Jones@motherjones.com · 3d ago

A photo of a Black woman surrounded by members of Patriot Front on a DC train on July 4 went viral. But what exactly is Patriot Front? And why are far-right militias more out in the open today? Former federal prosecutor Mary McCord explains.

Heather Campbell@thatheatherc.bsky.social · 4d ago

The 2026 Statement by PM @mark-carney.bsky.social on Emancipation Day. www.pm.gc.ca/en/news/stat... It's much better than the 2025 one. It could still be better. Emancipation Day is complicated and I can talk. I am a living legacy of those who were enslaved and those who enslaved others. 1/

Statement by Prime Minister Carney on Emancipation Day

Slavery existed here – in New France, in the Maritimes, in the households of the powerful.

pm.gc.ca

Carl T. Bergstrom@carlbergstrom.com · 2w ago

1. We—@eduede.bsky.social, @mjcrockett.bsky.social, Kevin Gross, and I—have a new preprint on the arXiv today, based on ideas that emerged during an @sfiscience.bsky.social workshop in November 2024: The unintended consequences of large language models as a labor-augmenting technology in science.

The unintended consequences of large language models as a labor-augmenting technology in science

As a labor-augmenting technology, large language models (LLMs) have the potential to accelerate scientific activity across the research pipeline. But even if LLMs perform on par with human experts at ...

arxiv.org

Carl T. Bergstrom@carlbergstrom.com · 2w ago

13. Hence our dismal conclusion: rather than finding that LLMs free us to do a better job of what we were doing before they came along, they shift scientific incentives (and the playing field of academic competition) in ways that compel us to do more and more, faster and faster, less and less well.

Canada's National Observer@nationalobserver.com · 5d ago

Officials at Canada's agriculture department are asking scientists who were abruptly fired earlier this year to help the agency decide its future research goals, Canada's National Observer has found.

Feds ask fired scientists to advise on Canada's future research

Officials at Canada's agriculture department are asking scientists who were abruptly fired earlier this year to help the agency decide its future research goals, Canada's National Observer has found.

nationalobserver.com

Kathleen Bachynski@bachynski.bsky.social · 5d ago

“These DNA fragments have prompted scientists to think about smallpox in a new light. It may not have begun as the dreaded killer we think of it as today. It’s possible that it was a relatively mild infection for centuries, taking many generations to evolve into Jenner’s dreadful scourge.”

‘This Is Very Strange’: Ancient Smallpox May Have Been Less Deadly

Scientists have found smallpox viruses in the remains of people in Chile from around 500 years ago, revealing how the virus may have evolved into a global killer.

nytimes.com

Danielle Beckman@daniellebeckman.bsky.social · last wk.

One more nail in the coffin of the "it's just deconditioning" hypothesis. 60 days of strict bed rest ≠ #LongCOVID or #MECFS. Rob's group shows that while exercise capacity may be similarly reduced, the underlying skeletal muscle biology is VERY different. Time to move beyond outdated assumptions.

Nature Communications Article in Press Skeletal muscle properties in long COVID and ME/CFS differ from those induced by bed rest
Tom Kindlon@tomkindlon.bsky.social · last wk.

Rob Wüst, corresponding author of the new paper: "Skeletal muscle properties in long COVID and ME/CFS differ from those induced by bed rest" www.nature.com/articles/s41... Link to his full post www.linkedin.com/posts/rob-w%... #MEcfs #LongCovid

Rob Wüst • 2nd Associate Professor | Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam | Physiology | Human Movement Sciences | Metabolism | Microscopy | Chronic Diseases 4h • Edited • Connect I am incredibly proud to share our latest study, published today in Nature Communications, as a follow-up from our 2024 Nature Communications paper. https://lnkd.in/dij5WTNk People with long COVID and ME/CFS are often told that their reduced exercise capacity and muscle abnormalities are simply the result of physical inactivity or “deconditioning.” We tested this assumption by comparing patients with healthy individuals who underwent 60 days of strict bed rest. Although prolonged bed rest had major effects on physical fitness and skeletal muscle (see also: https://lnkd.in/dhx8JNQi), these changes were distinctly different from those observed in long COVID and ME/CFS. Our main conclusion: physical inactivity alone cannot explain the reduced exercise capacity and skeletal muscle abnormalities in these diseases. This is important because it shows why a simple “just exercise more” approach does not reflect the underlying biology, particularly for people who experience post-exertional malaise. We need to understand the disease-specific mechanisms and develop safe, tailored treatments.
David Ho@davidho.bsky.social · last wk.

There's a lot to unpack in this article about ocean alkalinity enhancement. But the bottom line is that it is way too early to be selling credits for marine CO₂ removal (mCDR) when we don't have a trustworthy way to do carbon accounting for mCDR. 🌊🧪 carbon-pulse.com/530737/

Most mCDR company science is otherwise focused on proving that a particular method actually removes CO2 from the atmosphere, and does so safely. That's established through monitoring, reporting, and verification (MRV) measures, developed by companies that set the rules for generating carbon credits, such as Isometric. Burt acknowledged that this is itself an active area of debate. He argued that Planetary's role is to trust that the MRV measures are robust enough for the company to focus on feeding the right data to the carbon credit-generating methodologies. David Ho, an oceanography professor at the University of Hawaii, was more critical. "It's way too early to be selling credits and claiming that we have any certainty about anything," Ho told Carbon Pulse. Ho said the methodology used to calculate Planetary's carbon credits relies on the use of a single model to determine the volume of CO2 removal. If another model was used, it would generate a different value, he suggested. Scientists at the IPCC run many models and take the average as a fair result, he added. Ho is a lead author for an upcoming IPCC methodology report on the latest CDR science across land, air, and sea. The report could serve as independent proof that the emergent industry is an effective way of removing CO2 from the atmosphere. However, a report outline finalised in late 2025 left OAE out of the table of contents. "You have to ask, why is that? If OAE is really the promising one that everybody's putting money into, why isn't it in that methodology report?" asked Ho.
IISD Energy@energy.iisd.org · last wk.

🗣️"We're seeing a worrying pattern of Canada not only increasing fossil fuel subsidies across a number of fronts, but creating new subsidies to transfer public dollars to the fossil fuel sector," says IISD's Nichole Dusyk. Read more from @davidthurton.bsky.social 👇 www.cbc.ca/news/politic...

Public funding for fossil fuel industry breaks another Liberal climate promise, advocates say | CBC News

The Carney government's financial support for the oil and gas industry amounts to breaking a federal commitment to phase out fossil fuel subsidies, according to environmental advocates.

cbc.ca

Robert Lepage, PhD., P.Eng.@rtmlepage.bsky.social · last wk.

What... just happened?! Public Health recommending airborne respiratory protection??? Am I dreaming?!

California Department of Public Health@capublichealth.bsky.social · 2w ago

Going on a trip? Don’t let COVID-19 crash your summer plans. Wearing an N95 mask protects you from respiratory viruses like COVID-19. Consider wearing a mask in indoor and crowded places like airports and planes. Learn more: go.cdph.ca.gov/respiratory-viruses

David Ho@davidho.bsky.social · last wk.

Climate change comes for Voyager 1, the most distant human-made object in our solar system. Spain declared a wildfire emergency near Madrid, evacuating 60,000 people, including those near the NASA Deep Space Communications Complex that’s used to talk to Voyager 1 and the James Webb Space Telescope.

One of NASA’s Most Important Deep Space Observatories Hit by Spanish Wildfires

Flames burned through the Deep Space Communications Complex near Madrid, but NASA has been unable to assess the damage as a wildfire emergency grips the region.

wired.com

Canada's National Observer@nationalobserver.com · 2w ago

NEW: Export Development Canada provided between $100 million and $200 million in project financing for the gas-fired plant that will power Meta's data centre in Sturgeon County, Alta., Canada's National Observer has discovered.

Crown corp lends up to $200M for Meta data centre gas plant in Alberta

The gas plant, known as Greenlight, is classified as a project that is “likely to have significant adverse environmental and social effects.”

nationalobserver.com

Dick Zoutman@dickzoutman.bsky.social · 2w ago

Nirmatrelvir for acute COVID-19 to prevent long COVID (PANORAMIC Norway): a double-blind, randomised, placebo-controlled trial - The Lancet Infectious Diseases www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...

Nirmatrelvir for acute COVID-19 to prevent long COVID (PANORAMIC Norway): a double-blind, randomised, placebo-controlled trial

Treatment with nirmatrelvir–ritonavir for acute COVID-19 was associated with a significant reduction in the risk of long COVID at 3 months’ follow-up. The limited sample size precludes firm conclusion...

thelancet.com