Rachel Parsons

You're going to have a lot of expectations about what your life is supposed to be like at any given point. Have this figured out by *now*, have that established by *then*

Pretty much all of these are nonsense. Other people's yardsticks. Don't worry about any of them. Your life, your pace.

No.

Anyone taken a gander at a government website today? This is on hud.gov

Energy Dept. adds ‘climate change’ and ‘emissions’ to banned words list It is the latest in a series of Trump administration efforts to dispute, silence or downplay climate change.

The Energy Department adds “climate change,” “green” and “decarbonization” to its restricted list.

Opinion | This Town’s Minerals Make A.I. Possible. Then Came Hurricane Helene. Spruce Pine, N.C., supplies the world’s highest-purity quartz, a mineral that keeps the A.I. revolution afloat. What are the consequences?

In @nytopinion.nytimes.com

A.I. is no magic trick. It’s a new industrial revolution with real environmental costs. Our latest Opinion Video follows the researcher Kate Crawford as she maps the hidden effects of A.I.

Fear of deportation grips undocumented women on California's farms | Context by TRF Women who are undocumented farm workers in California fear for their families amid the government's immigration crackdown

More men have been deported from the US than women under Trump’s crackdown, but when women are, the immediate consequences are sometimes more profound. My latest for @contextnewsroom.bsky.social - www.context.news/socioeconomi...

New Jersey PBS shutting down in July - New Jersey Globe New Jersey PBS is expected to cease operations in July 2026 following WNET's decision not to renew its agreement, the New Jersey Globe has learned. The

NJ PBS shutting down next summer.

“15yrs ago Gov. Christie ended 4 decades of state funding for public TV, forcing them to find a new funder. The state cut $750k in funding this yr, but that was hardly the fatal blow; that came from the end of federal funds.”

newjerseyglobe.com/media/new-je...

It’s hard to fathom that sometime right about now 17 years ago, I left LA on the first of several international travels that ultimately became The Peregrine Dame and led to a much more fulfilling life and career than I could have imagined. #solotravel #publictelevision

Hi. I haven’t forgotten you, I’m wrapping up another story then can revisit this.

Hi. I haven’t forgotten; tying up another piece just now.

How a Contentious CDC Vaccine Meeting Will Affect Public Health Three vaccines are on the agenda for this week’s meeting of ACIP, the CDC’s key advisory panel on immunization: the combined measles, mumps, rubella and varicella vaccine, the hepatitis B vaccine and ...

A CDC advisory panel is meeting today and tomorrow to discuss changes to the vaccine schedule for MMRV, Hep B and COVID vaccines. Here's how it could threaten vaccine protection, by @meghanbartels.bsky.social and @andreatamayo.bsky.social: www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-...

Initiatives|Committee on Anthropogenic Greenhouse Gases and U.S. Climate: Evidence and Impacts | The National Academies Press Scholoarly publications by the initiative, Committee on Anthropogenic Greenhouse Gases and U.S. Climate: Evidence and Impacts, inconjunction with the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Me...

Here's the link to the full NAS report:
nap.nationalacademies.org/initiative/c...

Pulitzer Center. - On the Road to COP30 | Amazonia Belem 2025

With the #COP30 on the horizon, we are doubling down on our commitment to in-depth journalism and civic engagement as a crucial step for enhancing public understanding of climate change.

Explore our curation of journalism, events, and key resources!
👉 bit.ly/COP30pc

This morning I had a potential source, a university professor, tell me that they could not give me a comment rebutting something a U.S. official said because they were afraid of retaliation.

E.P.A. To Stop Collecting Emissions Data From Polluters

The EPA stopping collection of GHG emissions data from power plants will result in Americans having more illness, greater risk of costly climate disasters, less effective clean innovation strategies, and an overall more wasteful economy. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/12/c...

I was in grade school in the 1980s *in Texas* and I still was not encouraged to bring guns to school.

I know these things take time but California’s roll out isn’t fast enough. I’ll remember this the next time I have to interview someone terrified to leave their home, including to go to the doctor, when I show up without a fresh vax in the middle of a Covid surge at put them at risk.

Hola, Bluesky en español. ¿Cuáles son sus expresiones idiomáticas favoritas?

After wildfires tore through LA, thousands of undocumented families lost their everything. Many who lost their homes in the fire now live in neighborhoods where ICE raids are more frequent, according to county officials.

✍️ @racheldparsons.bsky.social reports

🔗 www.context.news/socioeconomi...

I encourage you to find a way to say what you want to on the record, but if I sense it's absolutely necessary, I'll agree, let you say what you need to, then clearly verbally end that period by saying "back on the record" and turning back on my recording gadget if it's used. Or by picking up my pen.

I rarely allow people to go off the record, I don't need to; I'm not reporting Watergate. In an interview with me, if you say that magic phrase and I can tell you are not familiar with the process, I will interrupt you and explain then let you decide if you really need to do it.

For a comment to be off the record, both parties have to agree to it. Which means that I have to say all right, off the record, before you keep talking. That also means I turn off any recording device (obvs.) If there's no agreement, I'm free to use anything you say that you think is off the record.

I run into this occasionally with interviewees, so I hope it helps those of you who are on the receiving end of interview requests if you aren't already aware. If you say "off the record," and keep talking, it is not off the record. That is not how off the record comments work. 🧵

Thank you for the kind words.

Undocumented renters caught between fire and ICE in LA burn zone | Context by TRF Undocumented renters still recovering from Los Angeles wildfires have become targets for ICE raids

As terrified as much of L.A.’s immigrant community is because of ICE, one group in particular is still reeling from the last disaster to hit them; the Eaton fire in Altadena. The double whammy is too much for many to bear. My latest for @contextnewsroom.bsky.social

www.context.news/socioeconomi...

DOE CWG STATEMENT (second paragraph of section 2.1.1, page 3): “Piao et al. (2020) noted that greening was even observable in the Arctic.” COMMENT: This statement implies that the Arctic greening signal was caused by elevated CO2 , however that is not the scientific consensus. Piao et al. (2020) attribute the greening trend in the Arctic predominantly to growing season length driven by warmer temperatures (see also Y. Zhang et al., 2022). Piao et al. (2020) also note that this positive impact of increasing temperatures appears to have weakened over the past four decades, “suggesting a possible saturation of future greening in response to warmer temperature” (see also comment on greenness trends related to Section 2.1.1, first sentence of Page 4). It is also important to put Arctic greening more broadly into the context of the carbon cycle and other impacts. While above-ground plants may have displayed more leaf area over the past decades, rising temperatures also thaw permafrost and drive accelerated decomposition in highly carbon rich soils (Turetsky et al., 2020), a process which is expected to accelerate as climate continues to warm (Miner et al., 2022). Thus even with Arctic greening, high latitude terrestrial systems may become net carbon sources to the atmosphere, causing an amplifying feedback (Braghiere et al., 2023). Other risks to the Arctic linked to higher CO2 levels and rising temperatures are not mentioned in this report (Virkkala et al., 2025). The Arctic is warming at a rate of 2 to 3 times the global average, leading to thawing of permanently frozen soils (permafrost), with downstream impacts including loss of structural support for buildings and subsidence, threatening communities, roads, runways, and other assets across Alaska (Manos et al., 2025; University of Alaska Fairbanks Institute of Northern Engineering US Army Corps of Engineers Alaska District & Laboratory, 2019).

Our comment on the DOE CWG report is done. It tips the scales at 439 pages, approx. 3x longer than the DOE report.
This is related to Brandolini's law: The amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than that needed to produce it.

Example: refuting one sentence.

The American Meteorological Society's formal response to "foundationally flawed" DOE mis/disinformation report on #ClimateChange is excellent & timely. Frankly, I have been more impressed w/@ametsoc.org's ability to effectively meet the moment this year than other scientific professional societies.

Although the neighborhood citizen patrols tracking ICE raids throughout Los Angeles got a lot of coverage this summer, a subset of those volunteers quietly began responding to a related but different cry for help, delivering groceries to people afraid to leave their homes. My latest:

Trump rounded out a week of going after wind farms by hitting Ørsted with a stop-work order for its Rhode Island offshore project.