James Temple

New DOE Re-Organization Raises Uncertainty for American Science, Energy Innovation, and Affordability Eight offices with mission-critical responsibilities have been dismantled as part of the restructuring, implementing much of the proposal outlined in Project 2025 and fundamentally reshaping the agenc...

The Department of Energy is one of the most significant global supporters of physical science research.

I joined my colleagues at the @scientistsorg.bsky.social Addy Smith, Alice Wu, Zoë Brouns, and Arjun Krishnaswami to offer our perspective and warnings on DOE’s reorganization.

Scientists: have you been the target of an online harassment campaign, doxxing, or weaponized FOIA requests? I'd like to talk to you about steps you had to take to protect your digital security for an upcoming Nature story. (You can be anonymous if necessary.)

RTs appreciated.

It's funny to see the tech industry collectively decide, now that securing electricity is crucial to its business success, that it needed to find a more pretentious way of putting it.

So now everyone's in a mad dash for "electrons."

Fast forward to today and the bargain no longer holds. Platforms do whatever the president of the United States tells them to do, and very little else. Shame, that once-great regulator of social norms and executive behavior, has all but disappeared from public life. In its place is denial, defiance, and the noxious vice signaling of the investor class. I'm still reckoning with what it means to do journalism in a world where the truth can barely hold anyone's attention — much less hold a platform accountable, in any real sense of that word. I'm rethinking how to cover tech policy at a time when it is being made by whim. I'm noticing the degree to which platforms wish to be judged only by their stated intentions, and almost never on the outcomes of anyone who uses them.

I wrote about our interview with Roblox's CEO and how platforms got too big to feel shame www.platformer.news/roblox-ceo-i...

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF VIRGINIA ALEXANDRIA DIVISION UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, V. JAMES B. COMEY, JR., Defendant. Criminal No. 1:25-cr-00272-MSN OPINION AND ORDER GRANTING MOTION TO DISMISS INDICTMENT ECF NO. 60) On September 25, 2025, Lindsey Halligan, a former White House aide with no prior prosecutorial experience, appeared before a federal grand jury in the Eastern District of Virginia. Having been appointed Interim U.S. Attorney by the Attorney General just days before, Ms. Halligan secured a two-count indictment charging former FBI Director James B. Comey, Jr. with making false statements to Congress and obstructing a congressional proceeding. Mr. Comey now moves to dismiss the indictment on the ground that Ms. Halligan, the sole prosecutor who presented the case to the grand jury, was unlawfully appointed in violation of 28 U.S.C. § 546 and the Constitution's Appointments Clause. As explained below, I agree with Mr. Comey that the Attorney General's attempt to install Ms. Halligan as Interim U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia was invalid. And because Ms. Halligan had no lawful authority to present the indictment, I will grant Mr. Comey's motion and dismiss the indictment without prejudice.

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF VIRGINIA NORFOLK DIVISION UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, V. LETITIA A. JAMES, Criminal No. 2:25-cr-00122-JK W Defendant. OPINION AND ORDER GRANTING MOTION TO DISMISS INDICTMENT (ECE NO. 22) On October 9, 2025, Lindsey Halligan, a former White House aide with no prior prosecutorial experience, appeared before a federal grand jury in the Eastern District of Virginia. Having been appointed Interim U.S. Attorney by the Attorney General just two weeks before, Ms. Halligan secured a two-count indictment charging New York Attorney General Letitia James with bank fraud and making false statements to a financial institution. Ms. James now moves to dismiss the indictment on the ground that Ms. Halligan, the sole prosecutor who presented the case to the grand jury, was unlawfully appointed in violation of 28 U.S.C. § 546 and the Constitution's Appointments Clause. As explained below, I agree with Ms. James that the Attorney General's attempt to install Ms. Halligan as Interim U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia was invalid. And because Ms. Halligan had no lawful authority to present the indictment, I will grant Ms. James's motion and dismiss the indictment without prejudice.

BREAKING: Judge rules Lindsey Halligan's appointment was not valid, thus, she had no authority to present the James Comey or Letitia James indictments and the indictments are dismissed without prejudice.

The headline's fine, just read the story.

(Applicable daily.)

s̶m̶o̶k̶y̶ ̶c̶a̶s̶i̶n̶o̶

Oh, nice answers!

Nevada = sagebrush, not coincidentally also the state flower!

We spent a year investigating billionaires for @washingtonpost.com.

We found: the wealthiest 100 Americans gave $1.1 billion to influence the 2024 elections — 140x more than they did in 2000. And almost all of that giving boosted Republicans.

washingtonpost.com/politics/int...

YouTube video by Yernar Sailybayev Global-ONCE Seminar 6: Monitoring, Reporting and Verification for marine Carbon Dioxide Removal

I gave a talk yesterday about monitoring, reporting, and verification for marine carbon dioxide removal and you can watch it here at 2x speed if you wish. 🌊

YouTube video by Net Zero Industrial Policy Lab Clean Industrial Capabilities Explorer (CICE) Launch Event

Join us live at 10am as we introduce the Clean Industrial Capabilities Explorer in Washington DC.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOpc...

Trump: Democrats ‘traitors’ for telling military not to follow unlawful orders The president said lawmakers who appeared in a video committed “seditious behavior” and should be arrested and put on trial for treason.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but he called for their execution, which deserves at least to be in the dek.

The script writers of reality are a bit too on the nose today.

COP30 Is on Fire Flames have erupted in the “Blue Zone” at the United Nations Climate Conference in Brazil.

A literal fire has erupted in the middle of the United Nations conference devoted to stopping the planet from burning.

heatmap.news/sparks/cop30...

Can’t believe the whole country has to suffer through the return of Dickensian childhood diseases because the worst, most ignorant attention-demanders decided other people’s expertise makes them feel bad

Family Affair: Commerce Secretary’s Sons Cash In on A.I. Frenzy

NEW: As Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick drives billions of dollars in foreign payments to help build AI data centers in the US, his sons help run a company earning tens of millions in fees helping finance AI data centers. A NYT investigation. (Free link)

www.nytimes.com/2025/11/20/u...

#wcsj2025 | Erika Check Hayden I’m looking forward to co-leading a workshop organized by the incredible Lucy Odling-Smee at the World Conference of Science Journalists 2025! Together with Patience Kiyuka, Ph.D. and Ehsan Masood, w...

I saw this and thought of your earlier post: www.linkedin.com/posts/erika-...

👀 👀 👀

E&E News: The strange and totally real plot to blot out the sun and reverse global warming A 25-person startup is developing technology to block the sun and turn down the planet’s thermostat. The stakes are huge — and the company and its critics say regulations need to catch up.

Nice big feature on Stardust by @karlmathiesen.bsky.social & @corbinhiar.bsky.social this morning.

Opinion | Jamal Khashoggi: What the Arab world needs most is free expression The Arab world needs a modern version of the old transnational media so citizens can be informed about global events.

I will never forget having to edit Jamal’s final, posthumous piece for the Washington Post, after he was murdered.

He was calling for free expression in the Arab world. You can read it here :

www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/glo...

Moral rot in elite journalism is killing the whole field The Nuzzi/RFK Jr. mess and the revelation of Esptein's journo pals lay bare a profound moral absence at the heart of our free press.

1) this from @marisakabas.bsky.social is good as always

2) as she lays out, part of the problem is there is an entire class of journalist and of publication that is obsessed…OBSESSED with access. if access can be taken away then you need to pull punches

www.thehandbasket.co/p/moral-rot-...

These suburbs have the fastest-sinking ground in Houston. What's going on? Houston’s land is sinking. And its fast-growing population and growing water demands are making it worse in the suburbs. Here is the billion-plus dollar plan to slow subsidence.

Major ground subsidence on the north and west side of Houston, especially around new developments in Katy, from overdrawing groundwater. Cracks foundations and increases flood risk.

HT Ryan Riggs, and great reporting by @houstonchronicle.com 🎁 link ⚒️

Things that will get you kicked out of academia forever:
- taking maternity leave at the wrong time
- spending too much time with your kids
- reporting harassment
- not moving every 2-3 years
- taking a partner's job/preferences into account
- mouthing off before tenure

I just watched the whole video, and not a single reporter stood up for her. Everyone just pivoted to asking questions on other topics.

This is shameful.

Human Nature: Nine Ways to Feel About Our Changing Planet Nine Ways to Feel About Our Changing Planet

I’m sorry to be self promoting but I a) have never been seduced by a fascist with a brain worm b) am capable of crafting a decent sentence and c) wrote a book that did not earn me a fawning profile in the newspaper but is still pretty good
bookshop.org/p/books/huma...

Just put on a collared shirt and combed my hair and then realized it was a phone interview.

Pfft, what a waste.

Bloomberg Economics - Geoeconomics - Climate Economist/Econometrician

📣Bloomberg Economics is hiring a climate specialist:
bloomberg.avature.net/careers/JobD...

The Crypto Industry’s $28 Billion in ‘Dirty Money’

More good coverage on crypto fraud in the NYT this morning. Note the phrase "at least $28 billion". It is undoubtedly A LOT more than $28 billion because the technology is so perfectly designed to be untraceable AND this doesn't include all kinds of fraud. www.nytimes.com/2025/11/17/t...

The absolute misogynistic delusion of claiming women don't succeed in academia because they aren't that smart is bad enough, but Larry Summers was also asking Epstein for advice on harassing a woman under the guise of mentorship. www.thecrimson.com/article/2025...

Thanks! And I'll reach to Dr. Dickson.

YouTube video by SOSV SOSV Climate Tech Summit | Mike Schroepfer: What It Takes to Scale Tech for Climate Impact

My interview with Meta CTO-turned-climate tech investor Mike Schroepfer for the SOSV summit is now available online. We discussed the state of climate tech investment, the shifting US policy landscape, and the energy challenges and opportunities presented by AI.