Bill Weir

just months AFTER...

#NEWS In a whiplash move, the National Weather Service is hiring 450 meteorologists, hydrologists and radar technicians just months DOGE chainsaws and buyouts.
I
Texas floods + hurricane season = new fondness for science.

h/t CNN's Andrew Freedman

It's true that lowering capacity factors for fossil gas generators helps, but I think even most energy wonks don't appreciate how much methane is emitted from the supply chain that feeds those generators. It's enormous and the leaks are about the same whether the plant runs 80% or 20% of the time.

U.S Economy Set To Lose $12.5BN In International Traveler Spend this year Read WTTC's press release to learn more.

World Travel and Tourism Council says visits to the U.S. are down 22% under Trump.

“Without urgent action to restore international traveller confidence, it could take several years for the U.S. just to return to pre-pandemic levels...not even the peak from 10 years ago."

wttc.org/news/us-econ...

Lee Zeldin's Gas Price Fiasco CBS caught EPA's chief hiding a projected 75-cents-per-gallon increase in gas prices due to Trump's regulatory rollbacks

EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin caught by @cbsnews.com hiding EPA's own forecast that gas prices will go up for consumers by 76 cents/gallon due to elimination of pollution and fuel economy standards for automobiles. @jeremysymons.bsky.social
open.substack.com/pub/jeremysy...

Left-Wing Group Too Disorganized For FBI Agents To Infiltrate

Left-Wing Group Too Disorganized For FBI Agents To Infiltrate theonion.com/left-wi...

The rich must be incentivised; the poor must be disciplined.

The political economy of the super-elite in one headline.

The Wedding Wars How Indian Marriages Negotiate 5,000 Years of Tradition in One Weekend

Great read on bonkers Indian wedding culture…

“One Bangalore techie showed me his wedding Excel sheet: 1,200 rows, 15 columns, color-coded by priority, with formulas calculating gift expectations versus catering cost…They still forgot to invite someone important and a family feud lasted two years.”

EVs have become a litmus test for whether we’re still America’s buddy — or ready to be a global Canada

#cdnpoli

www.thestar.com/opinion/cont...

Elon Musk tweeted that he spent Feb. 1 feeding USAID into the wood chipper.
Bob Geldof calls it “the day American empathy died.”

The EPA Says Carbon Pollution Isn’t Dangerous. What Comes Next? A conversation with Harvard Law School’s Jody Freeman about life after the endangerment finding.

Want to understand consequences of Endangerment Finding repeal? Personally, I'd trust a legal expert who spent her career studying EPA policymaking over a recent political appointee who appeared on CNN this AM, who has reversed himself on climate over the years:
heatmap.news/climate/enda...

Economist Amartya Sen won a Nobel in part for asking: Why did India avoid the mass famines that killed tens of millions in China? His answer: a free press. Journalists could expose suffering and shame governments into action. Silence and avoidance, by contrast, can be deadly.

“Camps have very little or no fencing containing the inmates, and inside they are able to move relatively freely.
Other inmates in the camp for women include Jen Shah, who was on the TV show “Real Housewives of Salt Lake City,” and Elizabeth Holmes, formerly of the blood-testing company Theranos.”

All of ‘em, multiply
(thanks, journalism!)

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) announced today that it will begin an orderly wind-down of its operations following the passage of a federal rescissions package and the release of the Senate Appropriations Committee’s FY 2026 Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies (Labor-H) appropriations bill, which excludes funding for CPB for the first time in more than five decades. For nearly 60 years, CPB has carried out its Congressional mission to build and sustain a trusted public media system that informs, educates, and serves communities across the country. Through partnerships with local stations and producers, CPB has supported educational content, locally relevant journalism, emergency communications, cultural programming, and essential services for Americans in every community. “Despite the extraordinary efforts of millions of Americans who called, wrote, and petitioned Congress to preserve federal funding for CPB, we now face the difficult reality of closing our operations,” said CPB President and CEO Patricia Harrison. “CPB remains committed to fulfilling its fiduciary responsibilities and supporting our partners through this transition with transparency and care.”

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting is shutting down operations after loss of federal funding:

The left is completely silent on the subject of men getting laid - which, generally speaking, they are v.interested in doing and will continue to be interested in regardless of whether progressives want to talk about it. So the stage has been left entirely clear for the far-right.

so to recap the morning news out of the white house: NO to sesame street, YES to ghislaine maxwell

Picture of Smithsonian History Museum documenting Trump's two impeachments.

Can't take away my phone's picture of it.

someday renters will able to buy balcony solar, a few 1-2 kWh batteries, and window heat pumps - each for a few hundred bucks or less - plug them into each other or normal wall outlets, use them for cheap comfy carbon-free resilient heating and cooling, and take it all with them when they move

There’s renewable energy ads and there’s mother**cking wind farm ads. This, blissfully, is the latter.

The Secretary of the Interior hasn’t heard about batteries.

Talking with Emily Atkin @emorwee.bsky.social is tonic--she's the embodiment of the fighting journalist, and it's an honor to be her colleague

Climate Scientists Look to Fight Back Against DOE’s ‘Antiscientific,’ ‘Deceptive’ Climate Report - Inside Climate News Climate scientist Michael Mann called the report “a deeply misleading antiscientific narrative, built on deceptive arguments, misrepresented datasets, and distortion of actual scientific understanding...

Climate scientists @michaelemann.bsky.social, @andrewdessler.com and others respond to this week's DOE climate report, which they called 'antiscientific,' 'deceptive,' and 'cherry-picked.' insideclimatenews.org/news/3007202...

NPR Continues To Find Hundreds Of Cases Of Advanced Black Lung Black lung results from exposure to coal dust. Progressive massive fibrosis is an especially aggressive form, blamed on inhalation of silica dust from the cutting of quartz rock and coal together.

www.npr.org/sections/the...

Depends on your definition of "moment" I suppose...

A lump of coal glistens under studio lights and the headline "She is the moment"

When posting coal porn, don't forget your stash of centerfolds from the 70's when it was really filthy.

It’s a gun double entendre. He would use Dem legislation as a rifle target in campaign ads.

Trump is trying to kill solar power—here's how to fight back Rooftop solar is a clean power miracle. Why are we killing it with red tape?

1/ Important piece by @billmckibben.bsky.social out today: Trump is trying to kill rooftop solar (with an assist from @gavinnewsom.bsky.social). Here's what to know, and how to fight back: www.motherjones.com/environment/...

Today's Cartoon- Farms

A new study shows that burned Amazon forests stay hot for decades after the fires go out.

Fire damaged areas remain over 2.5ºC hotter than neighbouring intact or even selectively logged stands for at least 30 years.

#amazon #rainforest #forestfire #deforestation #sequestration #carbonsink