Dr. Arthur R. Obst

atlantic article screenshot headline: no one knows how big pumpkins can get sub head: a decade ago, the worlds heaviest pumpkin weighed 2,000 pounds. now the 3,000 pound mark is within sight by yasmin tayag

this headline hums with ancient autumnal dread

Sci-fi has consistently portrayed this being done by angry Asian states but the reality is American corporations helmed by Israeli government scientists are going to be the ones to do this without any oversight or standards

Also see: janky tech bros spectrum.ieee.org/solar-geoeng...

Chicago - no kings

Dr. Jane Goodall filmed an interview with Netflix in March 2025 that she understood would only be released after her death.

I’m a published academic now. #rewilding #rewild #culturalrewilding #humanrewilding #huntergathererresearch #rewildportland #anthropology

Dutch late night TV has its take

screenshot of a tweet from "Governor Needing Press Office", text saying: "DONALD TRUMP, THE LOWEST POLLING PRESIDENT IN RECENT HISTORY, THIS IS YOUR SECOND-TO-LAST WARNING!!! (THE NEXT ONE IS THE LAST ONE!). STAND DOWN NOW OR CALIFORNIA WILL COUNTER-STRIKE (LEGALLY!) TO DESTROY YOUR ILLEGAL CROOKED MAPS IN RED STATES. PRESS CONFERENCE COMING — HOSTED BY AMERICA’S FAVORITE GOVERNOR, GAVIN NEWSOM. FINAL WARNING NEXT. YOU WON’T LIKE IT!!! THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER."

whatever historians say about these years of lead they can't say we didn't have a laugh or two

Motherfucking wind farms…

Healthy environment a human right, UN court says in landmark climate ruling Court’s decision expected to be used in future litigation and to support political negotiations by vulnerable states

"Advisory opinions are technically non-binding but are considered authoritative because they summarise existing law...They are expected to be used in future litigation and to bolster political negotiations."

After a long campaign spearheaded by Pacific Islanders

www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Wisconsin Supreme Court’s liberal majority strikes down 176-year-old abortion ban The Wisconsin Supreme Court has struck down the state’s 176-year-old abortion ban. The court’s liberal majority ruled 4-3 on Wednesday that the ban is no longer valid because newer abortion restrictions superseded it.

BREAKING: The Wisconsin Supreme Court's liberal majority strikes down the state’s 176-year-old abortion ban.

Kids this age have a remarkable sense of wonder, which they sadly lose... For instance, he said after his birthday party “Today was the best day ever. I hope I will remember it. I don't remember my previous birthday”...

Helen De Cruz (1978-2025)

www.whatisitliketobeaphilosopher.com/helen-de-cruz

You are such a beautiful person and a positive force in the world. I’ll be holding you in my thoughts.

Can't be overstated how fucked up it is that Black folk came up with a word to express people being aware of the oppression of other people and it's now targeted by far right governments globally as something evil that must be destroyed

Putting aside the overstated headline, I agree this is a good strategy. But there’s tension between the desire to focus on clear and concrete singular shifts and the inherently stochastic nature of climate and climatic change impacts.

Saying “how in the world” is unfriendly now? A kindergarten teacher would let that slide. But calling someone an asshole? Not so much.

Have a good one.

I should say *dismissing without argument*, specifically.

You have not cogently explained what difference you perceive between those phrases, and I argued why those statements are substantively identical.

But, sure, I agree dismissing peer-reviewed publications in top journals doesn’t make you right-wing; it’s just a favorite pastime of the right.

Sorry, where in my reply was the emotion? And where did I misunderstand you? Perhaps i don’t understand your specific position. Let’s resolve that.

Do you think Michael was dismissing the merit of the study’s claim w/o argument, or not? It seemed like you thought no. To me, it’s clearly yes.

Basically, it’s very obvious that Michael is criticizing the finding on its merits, but without argument or the expertise to asses that merit.

It’s rare for him to misfire, and yet we can still wonder why he does here. No need to reactively defend him.

And how in the world would “plucking it to put it together” be criticizable? This is true of *any* statistic or finding. Each focuses on one part of then world to describe. The only question is if that world-slice is salient, and it obviously and uncontroversially is here.

How in the world is “plucked out of nowhere” not synonymous with “made up”? If what the study says— mass death is attributable to vegetable deficiency— is airtight, causal, and valid then that is an astounding finding with vast policy implications! No “context” could override that.

*Cop stun guns a protestor*

MTG: “This is a peaceful town hall.” [simultaneously]

Dystopian.

When Kittens Came to My Prison, I Had Not Petted One in 15 Years I had not touched a cat in 15 years when an orange kitten wandered over to sit with me in the grass.

"I had not touched a cat in 15 yrs when an orange kitten wandered over to sit w/me in the grass one day. I was left without adequate words to describe that experience. It reminded me that I am alive. It instilled in me a raw, unbridled happiness that I had never felt before, not even as a child."

LSE announces new centre to study animal sentience The Jeremy Coller Centre for Animal Sentience at LSE will develop new approaches to studying the feelings of other animals scientifically.

An emotional day - I can announce I'll be the first director of The Jeremy Coller Centre for Animal Sentience at the LSE, supported by a £4m grant from the Jeremy Coller Foundation. Our mission: to develop better policies, laws and ways of caring for animals. (1/2)
www.lse.ac.uk/News/Latest-...

Do not let the world look away. Keep fighting, keep telling our stories—until Palestine is free."

- For the last time, Hossam Shabat, from northern Gaza.

23 and he knew to leave a death note.

Democratic Senator Chris Murphy on Mahmoud Khalil.

not by any stretch the first person to say this but: it is darkly funny how nakedly imperialist Trump turned out to be given the lengths to which some professional opinion havers went to take his "isolationism" intellectually seriously

This isn’t what anti-speciesism means. Rather, anti-speciesism means refusing to treat another species differently *purely* on the basis of their species. You can treat different species differently than humans, not applying human ethics to them, because other species are… different.

This is why the line, "the energy transition is unstoppable because renewables are cheaper than fossils," drives me insane.

It sounds smart, like Econ-Speak, but it is wrong.

It ignores that politics trumps (ahem) economics, and we're now being ruled by fossil-fuel interests.

Trump Moves to Increase Logging in National Forests The president wants to circumvent environmental regulations to expand timber production, something sought by homebuilders and the construction industry.

President Trump has directed federal agencies to examine ways to bypass endangered species protections and other environmental regulations to ramp up logging across 280 million acres of national forests and other public lands.