Daniel Brown

Michigan’s governor replaces clean energy advocate on utilities board with ‘industry ally’ Critics say Gretchen Whitmer deposed Alessandra Carreon at the behest of state energy supplier DTE Energy

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Wildfire smoke is like smoking 'half a pack a day.' Here's how to protect yourself As Canadian wildfires spread smoke across the U.S. the air pollution is dangerous to health. But there are ways to protect yourself. Here's what to know.

“On Monday the AQI in Detroit was at least 159. On a smoky day, when AQI levels reach 100 to 200, "the exposure to the fine particulate matter, the air pollution, is similar to smoking a quarter to half a pack a day," Wilgus says.”

After a week of smoke, a look at Canada's approach to fighting wildfires differently Minnesota saw a record-breaking six-day air quality alert due to wildfires burning in Canada sending smoke into the skies. Canada is seeing one of it’s worst wildfire seasons on record.

Great discussion here on the causes of increased smoke in our Minnesota skies.
Wildfires have increased 4X in Canada and the US since the 1970s. 🔥
What changed?
The climate.
#mnwx
www.mprnews.org/episode/2025...

We'll have some less smoky summers, but get used to smokier MN summer trend until we reduce GHG emissions.
Canada has 1.2 BILLION ACRES of boreal forests.
Hotter drier climate sucks more moisture from dry fuels.
Unfortunately this is the tip of the iceberg for smoke potential.

If you missed it then, give it a read now folks!

The economy is on the precipice of recession. That’s the clear takeaway from last week’s economic data dump. Consumer spending has flatlined, construction and manufacturing are contracting, and employment is set to fall. And with inflation on the rise, it is tough for the Fed to come to the rescue. Unemployment remains low, but that’s only because labor force growth has gone sideways. The foreign-born workforce is shrinking, and labor force participation is declining. Telling is the economy-wide hiring freeze, particularly for recent graduates, and the decline in hours worked. It’s no mystery why the economy is struggling; blame increasing U.S. tariffs and highly restrictive immigration policy. The tariffs are cutting increasingly deeply into the profits of American companies and the purchasing power of American households. Fewer immigrant workers means a smaller economy. Any notion that the economic data misrepresents the reality of how the economy is performing is way off base. There are revisions to the data, even big revisions, but they universally say the economy is doing worse. That’s because it is. BTW, the DOGE cuts are a key factor in the revisions—not because BLS has cut staff, although that can’t help, but because the government often reports payrolls to BLS late. It didn’t matter when government employment was stable, but now that it’s declining, the cuts are picked up in the revisions.

Trump is panicking because the economic numbers are giving a recession vibe.
From the Chief Economist at Moody's.

How the DOE and EPA used and misused my research Elevating contrarian views while burying the actual science

On The Climate Brink, Zeke Hausfather explains how the recent DOE climate report, written by climate contrarians, misrepresents his work.

www.theclimatebrink....

This is the first time I've read an extreme scenario that seems plausible and urgent within two centuries. Other pathways to such warming require exhausting all known fossil fuels, but this cascade failure narrative seems more alarming to me.

Curious what #climatechange experts think. Thoughts?

"If this methane is released, by the middle of the next century the temperature will have already increased between 8 and 10 degrees. At this level of warming, much of the earth’s surface is uninhabitable for humans and you have the sixth largest biodiversity extinction on the planet."

"If you get to 4 degrees, the Earth starts to warm the oceans so much that not only does it end ocean biodiversity but it releases a huge amount of methane that is frozen at the bottom of the oceans, especially in the Arctic. ...

"From this point, chain reactions can raise the Earth’s temperature to even more alarming levels, quickly. ...

"If we continue to emit carbon dioxide as we do today, warming will reach 2.5 degrees in 2050, and then we will reach many points of no return, which will release a huge amount of carbon dioxide. ...

Human actions are inducing a planetary ecocide, says Carlos Nobre A researcher linked to the Institute of Advanced Studies (IEA) will assume a new chair of Climate and Sustainability at USP

That led to look this up, where he elaborated on his thinking:

Experts: Which climate tipping point is the most concerning? - Carbon Brief Carbon Brief asked a wide range of experts at a University of Exeter which tipping point concerns them the most.

A quote here from Carlos Nobre caught my attention:

"And if that happens – if the Arctic Ocean warms up by 3-4C – the amount of methane that would be released could see [air] temperatures reach 8-10C..."

(thread)

www.carbonbrief.org/experts-whic...

Federal agencies hiding out in a bunker

refute this: https://www.energy.gov/sites/default/files/2025-07/DOE_Critical_Review_of_Impacts_of_GHG_Emissions_on_the_US_Climate_July_2025.pdf

refute this: https://www.energy.gov/sites/default/files/2025-07/DOE_Critical_Review_of_Impacts_of_GHG_Emissions_on_the_US_Climate_July_2025.pdf

That new usual suspects (Curry, Spencer, Christy, McKitrick, Koonin) Trump EPA climate denier report? (www.energy.gov/sites/defaul...)?

I asked chatGPT to evaluate it. It had no trouble producing a succinct and convincing refutation:

Amazing

“Staggering” Water Loss Driven by Groundwater Mining Poses Global Threat A new study finds that freshwater resources are rapidly disappearing, creating arid “mega” regions and causing sea levels to rise.

The craziest discovery about our global water crisis -- besides the fact that the continents are drying -- is that groundwater pumping is now driving sea level rise. @hrishikeshac.bsky.social @jayfamiglietti.bsky.social www.propublica.org/article/wate...

Honestly makes me want to vom a little

Knowing everything you know about Epstein and Trump read this yourself two-three times and ask what the most obvious interpretation of it would be.

Table from Friedlingstein et al, Global Carbon Budget 2024 Emissions 1750-2023 - fossil CO2 emissions 490 +- 25; land-use change emissions 255 +- 75; total emissions 745 +- 80 (in billion tons of carbon) Source: https://pure.iiasa.ac.at/id/eprint/20113/

Did you know that since 1750, land-use change is responsible for about *one-third* of total CO2 emissions released to the atmosphere?

About 255 billion tons of carbon, or nearly *a trillion tons of CO2e*, have been emitted.

That's basically the ghosts of *2 billion hectares of forests* in the sky.

Young indigenous kayakers about to complete historic river journey, after ‘largest dam removal in US history’ | CNN Following the removal of four dams from the Klamath River, which flows through California and Oregon, a group of young indigenous people are paddling from source to sea.

This is such a great story of restoration

NASA Website Will Not Provide Previous National Climate Reports

Today NASA backtracked on its statement earlier this month that the National Climate Assessments would be hosted on their website.

“NASA has no legal obligations to host globalchange.gov’s data,” a spokeswoman said today. “We never did and will not host the data.”www.nytimes.com/2025/07/14/c...re

Experts: Which climate tipping point is the most concerning? - Carbon Brief Carbon Brief asked a wide range of experts at a University of Exeter which tipping point concerns them the most.

There are some really informative perspectives in here. I’ve never liked the phrase “tipping point.” I think what we’re really talking about are cascade failures.

There is never a runaway level of warming, but there are cascade failures (feedbacks) that have critical thresholds.

"A Michigan clock company that has helped people keep time for 99 years says it’s going out of business.... [T]ariffs imposed by the Trump administration have increased the cost of essential components that aren’t available in the U.S."
www.nbcnews.com/business/bus...

Metadata Shows the FBI’s ‘Raw’ Jeffrey Epstein Prison Video Was Likely Modified There is no evidence the footage was deceptively manipulated, but ambiguities around how the video was processed may further fuel conspiracy theories about Epstein's death.

BREAKING: Metadata shows the FBI’s ‘raw’ Jeffrey Epstein prison video was likely modified.

🧵

Brazen, cruel racism is now rampant and cheered in the mainstream Republican Party, which was the whole dream of the MAGA movement all along.

bsky.app/profile/katt...

“.. traffic has dropped by only a single percentage point as a result of leaving Twitter ..”

@niemanreports.org #Hellsite
niemanreports.org/npr-twitter-...