Steph likes native plants

I’m catching up on the Sabrina Carpenter-White House drama (for some reason) and I’m once again appalled at how disgusting the people in charge of the administration are.

Buster from the tv show ‘Arrested Development’ holding an arm full of plushies while he looks at his mother Lucille, saying, “these are my awards, mother, from FIFA.“

Who has made this 🤣

Money Doesn't Buy Elections. It Does Something Worse. Campaign ads barely move the needle. The real influence is hiding in plain sight.

Study after study shows campaign ads barely move the needle. So where does money’s real power come from? I ranked the five ways money corrupts politics—from least to most corrosive. What I’ve learned from 15 years of tracking political money:

The Legend of Billy Jean is a pretty terrible movie redeemed by Helen Slater cutting all of hair off in an early Riot Grrrrl move.

Harlem by Langston Hughes (1951) What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun? Or fester like a sore— And then run? Does it stink like rotten meat? Or crust and sugar over— like a syrupy sweet? Maybe it just sags like a heavy load. Or does it explode?

Saw a Langston Hughes exhibit at the Nevada Museum of Art today. I’m not usually a poetry person, but this resonated

You’re right about the voice. Thanks for posting

To remember William Bond, you could listen to his powerful talk on behalf of grasses! It is a seminal lesson in savanna ecology. Personally, I also find it nice to hear his voice.

jgpausas.blogs.uv.es/2021/02/21/a...

🧪🌎🔥🌿🌳🪴🌐 #PlantScience #savanna

Three books by W. Bond and collaborators: Fire and plants (1996), Fire in Mediterranean ecosystems (2012), and Open ecosystems (2019).

I'm very sad to say William Bond, of the University of Cape Town & Fellow of the Royal Society (@royalsociety.org ), has passed away. It is a great loss. He was an enthusiastic ecologist and a critical thinker. I learned a lot, and I still had a lot to learn from him. RIP. 😢

🧪🌎🔥🌿🌳🪴🌐 #PlantScience

So very sad. I knew him back in the late 90s when I did my MS at UCT. He was always so respectful of me even though I was just a student. I loved the way he dove into his ideas so full force.

Scene from OFFICE SPACE with Michael Bolton replying to Samir Nagheenanajar: “No way. Why should I change? He's the one who sucks.”

when someone tells me not to use em dashes because AI uses em dashes

Merkley, Klobuchar, Heinrich, Colleagues: Trump Staffing Cuts at Forest Service Threatening Wildfire Prevention Efforts Across the U.S. - Merkley Washington, D.C. – Today, Senate Interior-Environment Appropriations Subcommittee Ranking Member Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Senate Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry Committee Ranking Member Amy Klobuchar...

It is good to see Senators call out the USFS Chief on lack of fuels reduction, staff shortages, and impacts on wildfire in the US.

www.merkley.senate.gov/merkley-klob...

I mean, have you eaten Norwegian food? 😂 This grilled cheese is from the same folks that brought us fermented fish and brown cheese.

I’m team hand grating only. If there’s no blood, they aren’t the real thing.

My “Cousins Chat” is currently blowing up with very strong opinions about potato latkes. Tis the season, I guess.

Actual good news! A past MS student of mine and @bkshriver.bsky.social had his first, first-authored paper accepted in Restoration Ecology today! It is about post-fire reseeding in the Great Basin. I will post a synopsis when it publishes.

Congrats Martin (not on BlueSky)!

One mile on a bike is a $.42 economic gain to society, one mile driving is a $.20 loss Copenhagen, the bicycle-friendliest place on the planet, publishes a biannual Bicycle Account, and buried in its pages is a rather astonishing fact.

“One mile on a bike is a $.42 economic gain to society, one mile driving is a $.20 loss.”

“Which means that Copenhagen, a city of 1.2 million people, saves $357 million a year on health costs because something like 80% of its population commutes by bike.” #CityMakingMath

Some costs aren’t costs.

Tear down the ballroom

Send Stephen Miller and Elon to Gitmo

Send Hegseth to The Hague

ESA pushed out a poll on how lack of federal funding is affecting the work of research scientists and I basically answered every question with "have you considered the loss of actual federal SCIENTISTS".

i will just keep shouting into the void, its cool.

a night time view of a city with a few buildings lit up ALT: a night time view of a city with a few buildings lit up

The US is close to an institutional collapse across multiple public health agencies. Trump/RFK have purged anyone with expertise, many have fled and they’ve been replaced w functionaries who are either incompetent or malicious. I don’t think many understand how close to the edge we are right now.

Conservation Leaders Unite to Oppose Steve Pearce BLM Nomination The Trump pick to lead the land management agency has ties to anti-government extremists

It would be hard to think of a worse choice for BLM director than Steve Pearce. If his oil industry ties and voting record weren't enough to disqualify him, his history of siding with violent extremists should be.

My latest for @sierramagazine.bsky.social :

www.sierraclub.org/sierra/conse...

"Through September of calendar year 2025, only 1.7 million acres received hazardous fuels reduction treatment, a decline from the four-year average of 3.6 million acres. Additionally, as of this summer, as many as 27% of Forest Service wildland firefighting positions remained vacant."

Merkley, Klobuchar, Heinrich, Colleagues: Trump Staffing Cuts at Forest Service Threatening Wildfire Prevention Efforts Across the U.S. - Merkley Washington, D.C. – Today, Senate Interior-Environment Appropriations Subcommittee Ranking Member Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Senate Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry Committee Ranking Member Amy Klobuchar...

It is good to see Senators call out the USFS Chief on lack of fuels reduction, staff shortages, and impacts on wildfire in the US.

www.merkley.senate.gov/merkley-klob...

I’m not even supposed to be here today

friendly reminder: ai being pushed so hard and so vehemently into education is not because "this future is inevitable and we have to adapt"

it's because companies have invested billions into this technology and they need everyone to use it to make a profit.

"The number of BLM rangeland managers fell by 39% from 2019 to 2024, according to recent OPM data. By June 2025, after the Trump administration spurred a mass exodus from the federal workforce, the number had shrunk by another 9%, according to internal BLM employment data."

There has NEVER been good data on the health and status of our federal range allotments.

"Even before Trump began to aggressively downsize the federal workforce, it was impossible for agencies’ limited staff to monitor the public lands for environmental damage from excessive grazing."

Also, folks are being pulled off of other things to train and work on NEPA, meaning less work done in other areas, like the actual boots-on-the-ground land management.

The loss of employees means that there are fewer folks trained to do NEPA, so even if it is more streamlined (which I am not opposed to) there probably isn't the capacity to get projects through anyway.

I have a thread somewhere of all the permitting reform accomplishments of the Biden administration.. did not get much media coverage or acknowledgment from “permitting reformers” or climate hawks. Will find and repost.

Drylands: The Dark Horse of Carbon Cycling [vc_row full_width=stretch_row css=.vc_custom_1617652492747{background-color: #23b7e0 !important;}][vc_column width=1/2][vc_single_image image=5371 img_size=600 x 600 alignment=center css=][/vc_column...

SUCH a pleasure to talk with Peggy at the Science Moab Podcast about dryland science:

sciencemoab.org/drylands-the...