TIL: “Africa dominates the global fire activity. So if there’s a trend in Africa, then that’s going to be the trend in the global fire activity. In sub-Saharan Africa, fire activity over the last 25 years has gone down pretty dramatically.” apnews.com/article/wild...

Wildfires are more extreme in Europe and North America, but global burning is oddly decreasing

Experts say the world is experiencing two opposing fire trends because of human impact. Wildfires in Europe, Canada and the U.S. are high, and flirting with record levels in Europe.

apnews.com

theonion.com/supreme-cour...

Supreme Court Upholds Temporal Gerrymander That Would Cost Democrats 1932 Election

WASHINGTON—In a wide-reaching decision likely to affect every era of American life, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a landmark ruling Tuesday upholding a temporal gerrymander that would cost Democrats c...

theonion.com

dailymontanan.com/2026/06/17/h...

Hawaii enacts law modeled on ‘Montana Plan’ • Daily Montanan

A measure to prohibit corporate spending in elections passed the Hawaii Legislature this spring, using the Montana Plan as a model

dailymontanan.com

9th circuit climate case decision: "Tuesday’s decision was unpublished...the court issued a ruling significant enough to affect the lives and futures of an entire generation of young Americans, and then quietly signaled that it wasn’t a decision worth repeating." dailymontanan.com/2026/06/13/t...

The court told us to come back later. We are out of time. • Daily Montanan

The lead plaintiff in federal climate change challenge, Eva Lighthiser writes that the youth will have no choice but to go back to court to defend their rights and a healthy environment.

dailymontanan.com

Especially women. “If this trend continues, the United States risks joining countries such as Hungary, India, Israel Turkey, and other democracies that have experienced self-reinforcing cycles of authoritarian slippage and outmigration.” www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

One reason US democracy is in trouble? Its supporters are moving elsewhere | Justin Gest

The recent exodus of people – voluntary and not – from the US threatens to worsen America’s authoritarian slippage

theguardian.com

On Forest Service inspections of firefighting aircraft--especially Bridger Aerospace's water scoopers: "The process is 'a relic of a bygone era and has become an unnecessary barrier to asset availability'" (Sheehy spokesperson) @jfallows.bsky.social - thoughts? dailymontanan.com/2026/06/09/s...

Sheehy pushed to cut firefighting aircraft inspections the same month his former company failed one • Daily Montanan

U.S. Sen. Tim Sheehy, a Republican from Montana, has pushed for fewer inspections of firefighting aircraft even as his own firm has failed safety inspections.

dailymontanan.com

Thank the Montana Stockgrowers Association for this. “That language is “code for anything but indigenously managed bison,” according to the Coalition of Large Tribes (COLT), which represents more than 50 tribes managing 25,000 bison on land that accounts for about 95 percent of Indian Country.

Inside Climate News@insideclimatenews.org · 2mo ago

The expansion of Indigenous bison herds in the West is colliding with new rules from the Trump administration, which aim to keep bison off federal land unless they are raised to be sold and slaughtered.

1. Depending on your 🇺🇸 state’s regs, your insurer might deny your homeowners claim for hurricane, wildfire, or wildfire smoke damage, thanks to the policy’s separate natural-disaster🔥🌀💨deductible. Forced into an excess/surplus-line policy? Buyer beware. 🎲(Unpaywalled.) archive.ph/202606051109...

Watching helplessly as SCOTUS *unconstitutionally* dismantles 🇺🇸 civil rights law is 🤮🤬. 6 🐘🧑‍⚖️ + ♾️ quislings. “After tonight’s decision, it isn’t just impossible to win a Voting Rights Act claim—it’s also impossible to win a *constitutional* claim against egregiously racist gerrymandering.“ - MJS

Chris Geidner@chrisgeidner.bsky.social · 2mo ago

BREAKING: In an unsigned, per curiam opinion on the shadow docket, the SCOTUS conservatives allow Alabama to use a congressional map held repeatedly by a lower court to have been enacted with discriminatory intent.

The very slightly different way I would put this, building on work with Hahrie Han is that AI is hitting our capacities for _collective agency_ by replacing our tools for collaborating with other humans to figure stuff out with mediated relations to frozen monuments of accumulated cultural knowledge

Charlie Warzel@cwarzel.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Got a theory that we are all living through a crisis of agency, at least online. Bots, algorithms, clip armies, & the flood of AI stuff have scrambled notions of popularity, turned everything into a ‘psyop’. AI tools/ agents are reversing the fundamental human, collaborative promise of the internet

I’d place reform of the 🇺🇸 federal courts (esp. SCOTUS), voting rights reform, and guaranteed $ support of an independent 4th estate at the top of the 🇺🇸pro-democracy priority list. This proposal might fall within a large, second-most-urgent tier of priorities. Keep 👀 on the ☠️ that we *must* dilute.

Jen Mercieca@jenmercieca.bsky.social · 2mo ago

This, from @asharangappa.bsky.social is brilliant. We Need a Fourth Branch: open.substack.com/pub/asharang...

I keep looking for mitigating factors, or ways the impact of these new policies (which are already being applied, at least in part, per recent anecdotes/reporting) might have been overstated. And I have found none. This is a genuinely extreme, extraordinarily, and immensely dangerous development.

Daniel Swain@weatherwest.bsky.social · 2mo ago

I know there is a lot going on, and not all of this is new, but numerous aspects of this OMB proposal are highly alarming and would, if enacted, effectively force American scientists receiving federal funding (which is...most of them in some capacity or another) to stop engaging with the public.

Follow this: First, Trump quietly buys up to $5 million of Dell stock. Then, he urges his followers to “go out and buy a Dell.” Today, his Pentagon awards a $9.7 billion deal to Dell. www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Dell Wins $9.7 Billion Defense Deal To Streamline Software Buys

A unit of Dell Technologies Inc. won a $9.7 billion contract to help the US military handle its licenses for Microsoft Corp. software related to email, spreadsheets and other needs across classified a...

bloomberg.com

“Anne Keast-Butler, head of the British electronic intelligence agency GCHQ, said Russia was “going backwards on the battlefield” inside Ukraine for the first time since late 2022.” #Ukraine

Timothy Snyder@timothysnyder.bsky.social · 2mo ago

If we give the Ukrainians Patriots and sanction Russian energy the war is over. In other words, US policy at present is to keep the war going. www.theguardian.com/world/2026/m...

These people are captives of a concentration camp fighting back against their heavily armed captors with only their bodies. Their heroism is extraordinary. Thank you to all of the protesters standing with and for them.

David Dayen@ddayen.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Immigrant detainees at Delaney Hall ICE prison in Newark, NJ have been forced to cook, clean, & repair the facility for as little as $1/day and sometimes for free. They are on a hunger & labor strike; protesters outside have been tear-gassed. Here's our report, including a quote from a detainee:

Humans of Western MT who maybe need to lower their ferritin levels, or are fans of reciprocity’n all: donate🩸, watch vampire flicks, get free admission to movie of choice. #RoxyTheater www.theroxytheater.org/show/roxy-bl...

Roxy Blood Drive - The Roxy Theater

Join us Thursday, June 6 in the Lounge for a Roxy Blood Drive, hosted by the Missoula Red Cross! Sign up here: https://www.redcrossblood.org/give.html/donation-time?zipSponsor=59801&driveType=all Ever...

theroxytheater.org

Most wealth is tied to some kind of exploitation. Some big, wealthy donors are expediently in denial. “For the roughly $220 billion spent to save nature in 2023, more than $7 trillion went to activities that destroy it, such as subsidies for fossil fuels…” www.vox.com/climate/4894...

I asked a billionaire about his environmental philanthropy. It didn’t go well.

The contradiction at the core of big-money environmental giving.

vox.com

Ruin a classic work by updating it for Artificial Intelligence. -Animal Server Farm -A Digital Orange -Their Eyes Were Watching Slop -Uncle Tom's Cabling -To Kill A Mockingbot -The Pickwick Blog Posts -James & The Giant Plagiarism

A livestream of a volcano in the Philippines captured a meteor crashing to Earth today. What are the odds? Mayon Volcano, Location: Albay, Luzon, Philippines

1. “…environmental microbes should be sampled around the🌍 daily, in the same way that NOAA gathers weather data. ‘…the entity doing most of the actual biological work on the planet (the 🌍 microbiome) is evolving out from under our control…in real time,’ he said.” www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

Our Warming Planet Is a Petri Dish for New and Deadly Microbes

“Flesh-eating” bacteria is spreading. Infectious fungi are emerging. Microbiomes may never be the same. Are we ready?

newyorker.com

A friend of mine who was TA’ing for an AmLit course found a copy of Moby Dick a student had left behind. It had only one marginal annotation, around page 100, that simply said “whale is important.”

a swarm of spring bugs@facefullabugs.bsky.social · 5mo ago

Love the glimpse into the beautiful mind that notated this used copy of Moby Dick I got

Good, clear, nerdy🧵on changing 🌎warming scenarios. For reference (Wikipedia): RCP Scenario Range of Global Mean Temperature Increase (Celsius) – 2100 from pre-Industrial baseline RCP 1.9 ≈1 to ≈1.5 RCP 2.6 ≈1.5 to ≈2 RCP 3.4 ≈2 to ≈2.4 RCP 4.5 ≈2.5 to ≈3 RCP 6.0 ≈3 to ≈3.5 RCP 7.5 ≈4 RCP 8.5 ≈5

Daniel Swain@weatherwest.bsky.social · 2mo ago

I've got to say that I'm really disappointed in the recent discourse surrounding the RCP8.5 scenario. The lack of context and understanding is something I expected from the usual suspects, but it's frustrating to see such bad takes from people and outlets who should know better.

1. A MT-centric look at the speed & scale of development -- & accompanying threats to 🔌 & 💦 -- of proposed hyperscale generative AI data centers. Insert broligarch 💰 for copper kings'💲; add drying up 🏞️ & the inconvenient 📈 of 🔥; add the chance the AI 🫧 will 💥... #MTPol meic.org/recording-of...

“…you’ve got a political class here in Alberta that’s tactically really smart, but strategically idiotic...You can’t have a nuanced conversation about the things we disagree on. It’s been reduced to something much more primal…that can open up…very dark things.” www.theguardian.com/world/2026/m...

Echoes of Brexit as Alberta blunders towards vote on separation from Canada

Like David Cameron in 2016, premier Danielle Smith is facing a mutinous party and has called a referendum about a referendum while vowing a ‘no’ vote

theguardian.com

Colbert guest hosted a public access TV show in Monroe, Michigan a day after the Late Show ended. Guest star: Jeff Daniels Special appearance by: Eminem Musical director: Jack White Genius. youtu.be/jJTXB5uT_C4?...

Only In Monroe --- May 22, 2026

YouTube video by Stephen Colbert

youtu.be

Obviously Donald Trump is not an expert in refrigerants, but you can be, and understand why these decisions can be hugely consequential for climate change, if you read this quick 🧵:

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 2mo ago

Trump: "There's nothing wrong with the refrigerant other than sometimes it makes your food too cold. Its alternative costs about twice as much and it doesn't cool your food at all. Everyone that has it practically has gone bankrupt because their food has rotted."

I think one real reason for the vibecession (defined as ‘lower assessments of the economy than would be expected given economic metrics’) is that being medium low income alone in your room feels way worse than being medium low income hanging out with friends

He's right—but just to be super clear, that doesn't mean all term limits are bad! Executive term limits are good. Judicial term limits are excellent. But legislative term limits weaken legislatures and empower lobbyists. The legislature is the one branch that shouldn't have term limits.

Josh Chafetz@joshchafetz.bsky.social · 3mo ago

No no no no no. Legislative. Term. Limits. Are. Bad.

Lucky readers: we're getting great reporters in Nick and Ellis, their work available without paywalls via a collaboration between Mountain Journal, the MT Free Press, and HCN. 👏👏

High Country News@highcountrynews.org · 3mo ago

Mott will report from the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, and his stories will be available to republish for free.