John Burkhardt

Silenced Science Stories Explore the people and groundbreaking science research affected by federal firings, budget cuts, and grant terminations. Featuring scientists via art.

Learn about the impacts of cuts to science from the scientists themselves.

silencedsciencestories.com

Analysis: Clean energy just put China’s CO2 emissions into reverse for first time - Carbon Brief For the first time, the growth in China’s clean power generation has caused the nation’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions to fall despite rapid power demand growth.

Don't conservatives often argue that we shouldn't do anything about our emissions until China does?

www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-cle...

Musk’s AI Grok bot rants about ‘white genocide’ in South Africa in unrelated chats X chatbot tells users it was ‘instructed by my creators’ to accept ‘white genocide as real and racially motivated’

Ok, so apparently it is real. www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

Does anyone want "ai" embedded in gmail to write emails for you? Does anyone want to receive an email from someone that they didn't actually write? The only use cases for ai in email I can think of: 1. spam detection, 2. categorization

TM SGNL, the obscure unofficial Signal app Mike Waltz uses to text with Trump officials 💡Update May 3, 2025: I have posted a follow-up, Here's the source code for the unofficial Signal app used by Trump officials. Update May 4, 2025: Another followup, and a big one: The Signal Clone the...

Some interesting analysis of the (now hacked) Signal clone that the Trump fascists were using.

micahflee.com/tm-sgnl-the-...

These are dark times. It's good to see #Foolproof back on some of the bestselling Amazon charts, we need to arm every citizen around the world with the tools to dismantle disinformation and propaganda. If you can't afford a copy, I'll send you one for free. Resist 💪 www.amazon.com/Foolproof-Mi...

Trump's response to the climate emergency is like a child who covers his eyes and thinks that the monster can't see him.

My pixel 6a has become practically unusable this am. Swipe gestures don't really work anymore. It is impossible to swipe down twice to the full settings menu. Impossible to swipe up twice to close an app. Weird because it doesn't look like it took an update last night but it had rebooted.

Weather radar showing rain in the area

The darkest green area to the NW is where I was just about to go for a bike ride. #fml

PhD Timeline xkcd.com/3081

Sticker ad from Signal that says "Who else is listening"?

Pete Hegseth? Mike Waltz?

I logged off of Facebook when they changed their moderation policy to allow hate speech specifically towards trans people. Should have done it a lot sooner.
pluralistic.net/2025/04/23/z...

It's unreal. The misinformation and manipulation on their platform is staggering, especially around climate science. And yet they claim to be "green". I know a lot of people there who care deeply about this but they're not as powerful as those who care about the next quarterly earnings report.

Plainclothes DHS Agents Lied to LA School Officials to Question Elementary Students | Common Dreams Los Angeles schools stood strong against federal immigration agents who lied to gain access to question children. Why would Homeland Security target first graders? In New York, a community rallied for...

Good Lord. Somehow I missed this. www.commondreams.org/news/can-ice...

I suppose they would argue that paid search ranking is a commodity product and they can't deny a customer just because they disagree with them, which was the argument they made against my objections to working directly with Total Energy and Schlumberger.

As a former Google employee I am happy to see this article. I did internal activism when I learned Google was contracting with oil and gas companies because that violated the AI principles. Now those principles have been deleted.
www-thenation-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/www.then...

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.

"States rights" for restricting bodily autonomy of women but not for restricting fossil fuels?

U.S. budget deficit surged in February, passing $1 trillion for year-to-date record The U.S. debt and deficit problem worsened during President Donald Trump's first month in office.

Yeah, so when you see Musk claiming that doge cuts are needed "or the us will be insolvent" you know that's utter BS. And the trillions in tax cuts are still coming?
www.cnbc.com/2025/03/12/u...

Thousands of people protest in Boston, and New England, against Trump and Musk. See a recap. - The Boston Globe Saturday was a day of nationwide demonstrations against policies by the Trump administration. Protests happened in Boston, Providence, Concord, N.H., and elsewhere in New England.

From @bostonglobe.com, a recap of #HandsOffBoston and other New England #HandsOff events today:

www.bostonglobe.com/2025/04/05/m...

#Boston #MAPoli #Massachusetts

Boston resistance is 🔥🔥🔥❤️🧡💛💚🩵💙💜✊

YouTube video by Peeps Brian Eno perfectly explains selfishness of the super rich

Brian Eno tells it like it is.

"Don't we love life because we love seeing everybody else enjoying it as well?"

youtu.be/hh7Cxt_PKqw?...

Ecofascism was also a prediction of how things could unfold. Countries close their borders and start hoarding resources.

Wondering if the West diving headfirst into the darkest waters of fascism isn’t prep for the massive backlash once people truly get what big oil, banks, Gov, Corp news media have done/allowed to happen to the planet.

We’re at 1.5C right now & roughly 10 yrs from unimaginably horrific 2C.

These Activists Are Right: The World Doesn’t Need Any More Private Jets Local activists in Massachusetts have taken on the private jet lobby—and they might just win.

Expanding private jet operations at Hanscomb would undo most of the climate mitigation measures Massachusetts has done: solar, hear pumps, induction stoves, etc.

www.thenation.com/article/envi...

So if anyone in that infamous Vance/Hegseth/Gabbard/Waltz Signalgate chat has been exploited it means that every message they receive from any of their chats can be read.

From the article:

"If successful, future messages will be delivered synchronously to both the victim and the threat actor in real-time, providing a persistent means to eavesdrop on the victim's secure conversations without the need for full-device compromise."

Signals of Trouble: Multiple Russia-Aligned Threat Actors Actively Targeting Signal Messenger | Google Cloud Blog Russia state-aligned threat actors target Signal Messenger accounts used by individuals of interest to Russia's intelligence services.

I use Signal and about a month ago I shared this in several groups I am part of there.

cloud.google.com/blog/topics/...

Pointless to waste your time trying to change the Nazi bartender's mind.

Graph showing global average temperature above the 1850-1900 average. The graph climbs sharply up, approaching 1.6°C with a steep acceleration in recent years.

Ignoring this or pretending it isn't true is a civilization ending strategy. I keep hearing the voice of a climate activist who said (while being arrested):

"What will we tell our children when they ask us why we didn't do anything to stop this while we still had time?"