Mark Gongloff

screenshot of a Facebook post by Sam Brody: "What is happening in DC right now would not be happening if DC had been made a state any time Democrats held both the presidency and Congress in the last 30 years. Adding states to the union is much easier to do than amending the constitution. It requires nothing more than an act of Congress, and only needs a simple majority to pass. The Obama Senate could have easily done it when they had 59 senators. But the party leaders thought, I dunno, it wouldn’t be sporting or something. Not fair to the Republicans to use power to do things. The pundits might call it “overreach,” oh no, not that. Biden could have tried to do it - everyone was already saying it was necessary democracy reform after Trump I - but he pre-gave up because Manchin and Sinema said they just had to respect the ancient and immortal filibuster, so what can you do? Best not to try. So now we have millions of US citizens with no representation at all under naked authoritarian rule by an unchecked federal law enforcement apparatus. And the pundits have all forgotten the word “overreach,” which only applies to Democrats when they win by much greater margins than this and have much larger and more representative majorities than this."

We love to see it

and pretty pro-immigration too, if I'm not mistaken

that's the stuff of a climate champion

Why has Pope Leo XIV started a new ‘green Mass’ tradition? Pope Leo XIV is also enacting a plan to build a solar farm that would make Vatican City the world’s first carbon-neutral state.

Of course, the 1.4 billion Catholics Leo leads includes some US conservatives that get very, very upset about this sort of thing, to which I say: GOOD

www.euronews.com/green/2025/0...

Pope Leo XIV Might Be the Climate Champion We Need The new pontiff appears inclined to follow in his predecessor’s green footsteps.

Somebody once told me to never pass up an opportunity to say "I told you so," so here is me in May saying Leo could be a climate pope. Glad to see the early signs are promising.

Why care? This guy leads 1.4 billion Catholics.

www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...

Vatican strikes solar farm deal to become first carbon neutral state A controversial radio site north of Rome is set to become a solar farm as the Vatican pushes its green transition.

A little good news: So far Leo is turning out to be just as much, if not more, of a climate pope as Francis

www.euronews.com/green/2025/0...

Thank you!

Thanks @markgongloff.bsky.social and @opinion.bloomberg.com for this great piece and for your excellent question: why are we not treating this like the emergency that it is? @hrishikeshac.bsky.social @wisegrouporg.bsky.social

Unprecedented continental drying, shrinking freshwater availability, and increasing land contributions to sea level rise Drying continents, extreme drought, and groundwater depletion are shrinking water availability and increasing sea level rise.

The recent paper on continental drying suggested the 2014 El Niño was a tipping point that broke the usual drying/wetting cycles in many arid places

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

NPR isn’t staffed by idiots. The only logical explanation for this is self-censorship.

Summer 2025 already a cavalcade of climate extremes Record heat, massive fires, deadly floods... August has barely begun, but the summer of 2025 is already marked by a cascade of destructive and deadly weather in the Northern Hemisphere.

The climate emergency is no longer a tomorrow problem.

phys.org/news/2025-08...

The Earth Is Drying Out and We Need to Act Urgently Three-quarters of the global population, or about 6 billion people, live in areas where fresh water has dwindled since 2002.

The area of the planet that is losing fresh water is growing by 2 Californias each year. Why aren’t we treating this like the emergency it is?

Gift link to my column for @opinion.bloomberg.com

www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...

Literally millions will die because of the shuttering of USAID (for all of its faults). Millions more will die (versus the policy status quo) if we undermine progress in creating new mRNA vaccines, which could save us during the next pandemic and much more.

Health secretary RFK Jr. shuts door on U.S. investment in mRNA vaccine research Vaccine experts and people steeped in pandemic preparedness expressed horror at the news that RFK Jr. has shut the door in U.S. investment in mRNA vaccine research.

WHAT, WHAT, WHAT ARE WE DOING!!!
“Vaccine experts and people steeped in pandemic preparedness expressed horror at the news.” www.statnews.com/2025/08/05/m...

Every reputable expert I know considers mRNA vaccine technology to be one of the most revolutionary advances in medicine in our lifetimes. Its inventors won the Nobel Prize in 2023. Shutting it down now is pointless self-harm to humanity.

Researchers Are Resurrecting Billion-Dollar Disaster Tool Trump Killed Nonprofit Climate Central has hired the scientist behind a key database of costly weather disasters to rebuild it.

Hell yeah www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

This Red Midwestern State Is a Global Paragon of Clean Power The economics of renewable energy help explain why it’s thriving in so many places where it would seem unwelcome.

Grassley championing renewables is less surprising when you realize Iowa is the nation's leader in renewable energy, generating 61% of its power from wind & solar, rivaling Denmark's clean-energy mix

www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...

Grassley Holds Up Trump Treasury Nominees to Protect Renewables Development Along with Senator John Curtis of Utah, the Iowa senator is aiming to preserve the definition of “begin construction” as it applies to tax credits.

Today's unexpected renewable-energy hero: Chuck Grassley

heatmap.news/sparks/grass...

Why a NASA satellite that scientists and farmers rely on may be destroyed on purpose The Trump administration has asked NASA staffers to draw up plans to end at least two satellite missions that measure carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, according to current and former NASA employees.

Taxpayers spent $750M to put CO2-measuring satellites in the air, producing priceless benefits for scientists, farmers & others. Trump wants to let them burn up in the atmosphere

www.npr.org/2025/08/04/n...

Clear consequences Hiding weather data harms more than hurricane forecasts, says the writer.

Clear consequences, by @markgongloff.bsky.social

With hurricanes, “Less-reliable forecasting means more surprise losses, which will impact how insurers model risk and lead to premium hikes, tighter underwriting and more insurance exits in states like Florida"...
www.thestar.com.my/news/focus/2...

Nobody legit took Jack Welch seriously back when he claimed “those Chicago guys” were cooking the jobs numbers for Obama. The pros at the BLS have always been impartial for a reason: Markets rely on neutral numbers & a neutral Fed. Trump is vigorously destroying all of that

“Some water utilities only find out about a data center’s plans after construction is well underway. In some cases, companies operate under shell entities or code names, limiting community awareness and input.”

techiegamers.com/texas-data-c...

“The economic damage of US companies’ carbon emissions alone will amount to a blistering $87 trillion through 2050, according to a recent estimate by researchers at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School.”

Bitcoin Devours the Electricity Meant for the World’s Poor Crypto mines and data centers overwhelm the hydropower projects built to lift nations out of poverty.

Hydropower projects were meant to help pull developing nations out of poverty. Their energy is going to crypto mines and data centers instead - @davidfickling.bsky.social

www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...

The $87 Trillion Bill That Comes From Denying Reality Even putting aside science, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin’s decision to reverse the finding that greenhouse-gas emissions are a danger to the public makes no economic sense.

"You probably wouldn’t set $87 trillion on fire to save $1 trillion. But then again, you probably aren’t Administrator Lee Zeldin’s Environmental Protection Agency." @markgongloff.bsky.social
www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...

YouTube video by Creative Boom Samuel L. Jackson Wants You to Eat Seaweed (and Back Wind Farms)

OK, this is actually pretty good

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

Warming temperatures could make 70% of the world's wine-growing regions unsuitable to produce grapes: Scientists Rising global temperatures could change where the majority of the world's wine is produced as mid-latitude regions may no longer be able to grow grapes.

Yeah, about that
abcnews.go.com/Internationa...

hay for cows is an especially egregious example

“As a result, 75% of the world's population now lives in areas suffering from fresh water loss, with repercussions on agriculture, sanitation, and climate change resilience. The trend is also likely to cause further desertification of areas already suffering from insufficient rainfall.”