James Temple

The US is set to cancel funding for two major direct-air capture plants he terminations cut tens of millions of dollars that Climeworks, Heirloom, Oxy and others were depending on to develop carbon removal projects in Louisiana and Texas.

DOE appears set to terminate tens of millions in funding for Project Cypress and South Texas Direct Air Capture Hub, the two big projects in the US DAC Hubs program.

China Is Beating the US in the Battle for Energy Export Dominance China’s exports of clean energy technology hit a record in August, with $20 billion shipped globally.

Oh:
- The US sold $80 billion in oil and gas abroad through July.
- China exported $120 billion in green technology over the same period.
By @akshatrathi.bsky.social
🎁🔗 www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

It’s time for soft secession How blue states can use their economic clout to stand up to Trump’s agenda—starting with California.

@clarajeffery.bsky.social lays out what blue state soft secession could look like, and why it's time to give it a try
www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

UVA Environmental Futures Forum

Charlottesville: come out to UVA tomorrow where I’ll be giving a talk and participating on a panel about AI and the environment as part of UVA’s Environmental Futures Forum. www.environmentalfuturesforum.org

Around 78% of the world has seen all-time maximum monthly temperature records set since the year 2000, with 38% set in past five years alone. In a new analysis over at The Climate Brink I take a look at where and when records were set: www.theclimatebrink....

How we picked promising climate tech companies in an especially unsettling year And what distinguishes the firms that made the 2025 edition of our annual list of Climate Tech Companies to Watch.

I also wrote about the challenge of selecting climate tech companies in a moment of such deep economic and political uncertainty, and how we altered our strategies to identify businesses still poised to make a difference.

www.technologyreview.com/2025/10/06/1...

2025 Climate Tech Companies to Watch: Pairwise and its climate-adapted crops The company is gene editing crops to make our food supply more resilient to climate change.

I wrote about Pairwise, a seven-year-old startup cofounded by several gene editing pioneers, which is leveraging CRISPR to develop plants that can better withstand increasingly harsh climate conditions.

2025 Climate Tech Companies to Watch MIT Technology Review's annual list of companies that are taking meaningful steps to reduce emissions and mitigate the impacts of climate change.

Redwood Materials, Pairwise, Kairos, Cemvision & @fervoenergy.bsky.social all made this year's @technologyreview.com list of the 2025 Climate Tech Companies to Watch. Learn why and check out our full list here:

Bill Gates: Our best weapon against climate change is ingenuity A measure I call the Green Premium reveals where we can invest in climate progress for maximum impact.

TR's 2025 Climate Tech list is out!

And @billgates.bsky.social wrote an introductory essay for us.

Text card: Listen for dangerous words. Be alert to the use of the words extremism and terrorism. Be alive to the fatal notions of emergency and exception. Be angry about the treacherous use of patriotic vocabulary. #OnTyranny

One of the lessons I discuss in "On Tyranny":
Listen for dangerous words.

The post-pandemic dip in gasoline consumption in California is pretty stunning

Tackling Science Narratives A Conversation with Amanda Silverman, Features Editor at MIT Technology Review

Our brilliant features and investigations editor @asilverman.bsky.social being interviewed by Erika Hayasaki about the world of being an editor! thereportedessay.substack.com/p/tackling-s...

Carbon Capture Startup Moves Project to Canada From US The startup building it moved the project north due to better incentives and what it views as a more stable regulatory environment.

Scoop: CarbonCapture Inc. has moved its 2,000-ton direct air capture project from the US to Canada, compelled by shifting political winds and a better policy environment in the north, CEO Adrian Corless told me:

www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

The Department of Energy’s Latest Cuts Will Hit Red States, Too A list of terminated grants obtained by Heatmap contains a number of grants that will cost jobs and revenue in Republican-led states.

Heatmap's @emilypont.bsky.social obtained the latest list of grants canceled by the Department of Energy — which, contrary to initial impressions, will hit a fair handful of projects in red states.

Read the full story:

The first babies conceived with a sperm-injecting robot have been born Meet the startups trying to engineer a desktop fertility machine.

Sperm-injecting robots.

YouTube video by Radiohead - Topic Everything In Its Right Place

Happy 25th birthday of Kid A to all those who celebrate (me) www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUnX...

Model organism databases face budget cuts and closures Beyond the crucial data they contain, these digital archives have provided an important space for academic communities to exchange ideas and resources.

🧪New from me for @nature.com: Nearly every model organism used in research has it's own database, called a MOD. These resources underpin decades of discovery, but they're collectively struggling amid funding cuts.

www.nature.com/articles/d41...

If you are following the story of The Pentagon's new policy, nicknamed, "you must check with us before you dream of doing any journalism," you may enjoy this update from @status.news

Just naked and brazen corruption. All states represented by Democrats in the Senate.

Time to stiffen our spines and demand that we only fund a government that obeys the law.

😍

Happy National Black Dog Day to this 'lil rascal.

It is!? Did you hear that Moxie?

The journalist cracking the TikTok code Mia Sato was tired of watching news influencers steal her work.

I chatted with Kate Lindsay over at Embedded about how I use TikTok to share my reporting 🤳
embedded.substack.com/p/mia-sato-t...

Breaking: HHS, Commerce, Probably Other Agencies Send Entire Staff Email Blaming Democrats for Shutdown Please forgive the multiple editions in one day — occasionally I'll send breaking news out such as this. If you're new here, read more about the deal here and please subscribe below! On Tuesday after...

I'd love to get 35 new free subscribers (then 200 more, but start small) to Gravity Is Gone, with my independent reporting and writing on science, politics, and policy. I got laid off a month ago, trying to build this, lfg!

www.gravityisgone.com

I published two things just yesterday; the first:

Judge Rules Trump Unlawfully Targeted Noncitizens Over Pro-Palestinian Speech

The case ... “squarely presents the issue whether noncitizens lawfully present here in United States actually have the same free speech rights as the rest of us. The court answers this constitutional question unequivocally, ‘Yes, they do.’"

seared my brain on this 6,500 word piece to write you a semi coherent thread into the mind of a billionaire obsessed with the antichrist (and people who, in my opinion, have way too much money, paranoia, and time while others just want to put food on the table)

Breaking: HHS, Commerce, Probably Other Agencies Send Entire Staff Email Blaming Democrats for Shutdown Please forgive the multiple editions in one day — occasionally I'll send breaking news out such as this. On Tuesday afternoon, employees at the Department for Health and Human Services and the Depart...

My guess is this was coordinated across the entire executive branch, like a Hands Across the Hatch Act Violation event or something

Hegseth: "No more dudes in dresses. No more climate change worship ... we are done with that shit."

US comedians defend decision to play in Saudi Arabia: ‘They’re paying me enough to look the other way’ Usual supporters of free speech are under fire for signing on to Riyadh festival despite the government’s human rights abuses

There are some absolutely wild quotes in this piece from comedians defending their decisions.

Friendly reminder that I block people who post some variant of "it won't matter because nothing matters" on sight. Not even because they're wrong, but because I find this habit of saying the most tedious and predictable thing as if that makes you an edgy truth teller incredibly grating.