Ben Goldfarb

Thought this was a bleakly brilliant rendering of our near-term future and the forces (i.e. run-amok military AI and the Derangement of climate change) that might get us there. It’s also about the overwhelm of the digital age, the narrow obsessions of writers and scholars, and so much else. Five ⭐️s.

The sensory pores on a paddlefish’s rostrum are sufficiently sensitive to detect the electric currents generated by zooplankton. The frilled shark has a gestation period exceeding three years. Arapaima nurse their offspring with milky fluid from glands in their heads. I accept the nomination.

BEHOLD the largest freshwater fish species in the world: the Beluga Sturgeon!

FINALLY got to see one in person at the Great Lakes Aquarium in Duluth along with the @garlab.bsky.social Team at the @mnafs.bsky.social @amfisheriessoc.bsky.social meeting!

What an incredible fish!

New York-ass staff never been to the damn desert

This is one of the things I am constantly (including in our book, Life After Cars) trying to get people to care about! This is killing us, folks

A book with the words "ICE OUT OF MINNESOTA" scrawled within

a man in a jacket and a mask signing a book

A bearded man in glasses and a hat in front of a bookstore, somewhat sheepish because it took him way too long to figure out the selfie settings

I stopped by @moonpalacebooks.bsky.social in Minneapolis today to sign anti-ICE copies of TIGERS BETWEEN EMPIRES. Get them Saturday, Feb 28 during "Authors for Minnesota Day" in support of local Minnesota bookstores and raising funds for the protection of civil rights. More: shorturl.at/o32PZ

They hate it when you call them insentient.

No doubt there’ve been stories I’ve missed, but—notable if unsurprising that virtually no Colorado River coverage hints at what the crisis & pending deadpool means for four of the most endangered fish species on earth. (Could be very bad! Could be… pretty good?!) I wanna read (or write!) that piece.

Trump Administration Delivers Historic NEPA Reform, Unleashing Resources on America’s Public Lands | U.S. Department of the Interior Under the leadership of President Donald J. Trump, the Department of the Interior today announced final sweeping reforms to its National Environmental Policy Act procedures, cutting red tape, accelera...

Attacks on NEPA—often disguised as progressive 'Abundance' rhetoric—have quietly served fossil fuel companies, Big Tech, and others that profit from exploiting people and land. These assaults, which accelerated under Trump, have gutted the foundational environmental protections Americans depend on.

Can confirm.

Think this was my all-time favorite musical memoir (with Brandi Carlile’s a close second). On top of everything else, Bruce might be the best non-Ballerini audiobook narrator on earth.

“Far left meets far right, finds common cause”: Leah Sottile’s ‘Blazing Eye Sees All’ (Part One) In this episode of ‘The Write Question,’ host Lauren Korn speaks to journalist Leah Sottile about ‘Blazing Eye Sees All: Love Has Won, False Prophets, and the Fever Dream of the American New Age’ (Gra...

A very cool thing to be featured on Lauren Korn's The Write Question! Here's the first part of a two-part interview I did all about the New Age movement. www.mtpr.org/podcast/the-...

A Mysterious Salmon-Killing Affliction is a Mystery No More - bioGraphic In California, scientists tracked the source of a severe vitamin deficiency that’s killing endangered fish.

Man, on top of everything else that’s plaguing salmon, now we have to worry about… vitamin-B deficiency related to excess predation on anchovies?!

www.biographic.com/a-mysterious...

It only takes a minute -- "hey, my students really loved your book!" hit send -- but it makes all the difference in the world.

The End of Books Coverage at the Washington Post Becca Rothfeld, a former critic at the Washington Post, on the death of the paper’s books section.

“A newspaper is—or ought to be—the opposite of an algorithm, a bastion of enlightened generalism in an era of hyperspecialization and personalized marketing.”

😢

www.newyorker.com/books/page-t...

The Mojave Desert is a hot spot for off-roading. Here's why a judge shut down more than 2,200 miles of trails The Bureau of Land Management was ordered to close down popular off-roading trails in parts of the Mojave in order to protect the imperiled desert tortoise.

The desert tortoise is a keystone species in the Mojave Desert, but it is imperiled thanks in part to an unusual predator: off-road vehicles that race through the region, crisscrossing millions of acres of tortoise habitats. Now, a judge has ordered the closure of more than 2,200 miles of trails.

I’m writing a book!

I’ll be telling the story of congestion pricing, a foolproof way to unsnarl traffic, clean the air, and invigorate urban life (even if many people hate it).

Have tips or suggestions? My DMs are open.

Awfully hard to square the claims that ICE is focused on removing violent criminals that are so dangerous we can't let them be around with the fact that ICE tricks their targets by pretending to need help and waiting for neighborly types to respond by offering to help a stranger for free.

Hydropower Is Getting Less Reliable as the World Needs More Energy

It should go without saying that a world w/ more erratic precipitation is less suited for hydropower (imminent deadpool at Glen Canyon being exhibit A, though unmentioned in this story). Let's not build thousands more dams that will be obsolete almost from the jump.

www.nytimes.com/2025/11/17/b...

The left is excited about underwater robots that livestream video feeds of octopus nurseries from the deep Gulf of Mexico.

The right is excited about summarizing a five word e-mail, incorrectly.

Salmonscape California’s Central Valley Chinook salmon are landscape makers. As they migrate through the state's water projects, they have an indelible impact on the watershed.

Loved this reflection on the Central Valley's beleaguered chinook and the intensively engineered watershed in which they're enmeshed. Makes me feel like someone should write a popular history of these fish.

placesjournal.org/article/salm...

Taft?

Have the police considered the stupid fucking height of the vehicle in question

Eager by Ben Goldfarb The Surprising, Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter

dam someone should write a book about that topic!

www.chelseagreen.com/product/eage...

To me the thing that makes ENCOUNTERS impossible to replicate today is how guarded everyone is around the media. You’d have to go through a half-dozen PIOs just to *talk* to the head of BuRec, let alone take him rafting down the Colorado!’

Over on threads someone just use ai;dr and we all need to adopt that right quick

CROSSINGS assumes its rightful place on a shelf of books by and about history’s most consequential white guys 🫡

Iconic for sure

The Stillaguamish Tribe gives its river north of Seattle room to roam “Now the river can connect to its floodplain like it hasn't in 140 years.”

How about most recent writing about floodplains?
www.kuow.org/stories/the-...

Awesome piece and very helpful, thanks!