Dr. Kenneth A. Gould

Launching Reckoning Science We believe in science and its achievements, but also in the need to examine how it is actually made, including its limits and its entanglements with politics, money, and power.

Exciting news! The incomparable @naomioreskes.bsky.social and Alexander Kaurov have started a substack called "Reckoning Science." We need this content more than ever. I've just subscribed--hope you will too. reckoningscience.org/launching-re...

Read Read chapter Front Matter: The scientific community has been studying the question of how human-caused emissions of greenhouse gases are affecting the cli...

The scientific understanding of human-driven climate change is much stronger today than it was in 2009 when the EPA first issued the endangerment finding. There is no scientific basis for the Trump administration's decision to repeal it

FBI Counterterrorism Agents Spent Weeks Seeking a Climate Activist — Then Showed Up at His Door The visit suggests a possible FBI probe into Extinction Rebellion NYC as the Trump administration increases surveillance of activist groups.

SCOOP: An FBI counterterrorism agent spent weeks pursuing a nonviolent climate activist, and showed up at his door. The visit suggests a possible probe into the climate group as the Trump admin increases surveillance of activists, calls them domestic "terrorists."

theintercept.com/2026/02/12/f...

A black and white photo of an older woman with dark curly hair standing outside near a creek or small river, wearing a dark jacket over a white blouse. She is holding and examining a jar containing water and other material from the creek.

Conservationist, marine biologist, and science writer Rachel Carson was born #OTD in 1907.

Carson challenged the widespread use of pesticides in her book “Silent Spring,” and testified before Congress on environmental policy and human health. 🧪 👩‍🔬

Image: Alfred Eisenstaedt/LIFE/Getty

Republican House bill guts laws protecting US consumers from toxic chemicals

Bill limits type of science used to determine health risks and gives industry major role in chemical review process

A Campaign to Revoke the Endangerment Finding Appears Near ‘Total Victory’ A small group of conservative activists has worked for 16 years to stop all government efforts to fight climate change. Their efforts seem poised to pay off.

A group of conservative activists has worked for 16 years to stop all government efforts to fight climate change. Their efforts are now paying off.

The EPA is expected to revoke the endangerment finding, which has underpinned the government’s ability to fight global warming since 2009.

Exclusive | Trump to Repeal Landmark Climate Finding in Huge Regulatory Rollback The move would reverse a legal determination that greenhouse gases threaten public health.

You can repeal an endangerment finding.

You can’t repeal the endangerment.

US judiciary scraps climate chapter from scientific evidence manual The U.S. federal judiciary has withdrawn a chapter from the newest edition of its reference manual on scientific evidence that addressed climate change after Republican state attorneys general argued ...

US Judiciary deletes a chapter on law and #climate science because apparently science is a left-leaning concept and MAGAs complained.

www.reuters.com/legal/govern...

Florida Introduces “Sanitized” Sociology Textbook The volume was created after a state review found that existing course materials violated a law prohibiting general education courses from teaching about systemic inequality. So far, at least two univ...

College sociology textbook specially written to placate Florida censors, omits any mention of systemic inequality. www.insidehighered.com/news/faculty...

The Board of Governors decided, unilaterally, that no published textbook in the field of sociology could be used in compliance with the law for an Intro to Sociology class. None. Victor: There's not a single existing textbook on the market that could be used that would qualify under state law? Zachary: Correct. Victor: I'm sorry, that's kind of funny. Like, the absurdity of not a single sociology textbook getting past the censors. I mean, it makes me kind of proud of our colleagues, but...

I do want to shout-out my fellow sociologists, who have collectively created a discipline so woke that not a single one of our introductory textbooks can make it past Florida's censors.

Great work everyone.

Mills recognized that as the power elite becomes increasingly degenerate, it is increasingly difficult for their intellectual acolytes to formulate reasonable ideological justifications for their corrupt and irresponsible actions. In these circumstances, the power elite resorts to intellectual repression against those who call attention to their declining political capacities; that is, the intelligentsia who work in universities, museums, the arts, scientific institutes, entertainment, and the mass media.

Sociologist C. Wright Mills saw this coming—and tried to warn us—60+ years ago.

jacobin.com/2026/02/wrig...

Australian tropical rainforest trees switch in world first from carbon sink to emissions source Researchers say carbon emissions change in Queensland tropical rainforests may have global climate implications

This research paper is the first time that a tipping point of a switch from a carbon sink to a carbon emission source in tropical rainforests has been identified clearly – not just for one year but for the last 20 years. Cause is a change in the local climate. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

For those commenting on the agents' surnames.

Florida Introduces “Sanitized” Sociology Textbook The volume was created after a state review found that existing course materials violated a law prohibiting general education courses from teaching about systemic inequality. So far, at least two univ...

Sociology faculty at Florida International University are outraged that their department is requiring them to use a sanitized state-approved textbook to teach an introductory course as part of the university’s general education curriculum. www.insidehighered.com/news/faculty...

EPA Cuts People Out of the Picture The Trump administration has made it a mission to eliminate life-saving and health-protecting rules we all rely on, in order to increase profits for a few well-connected corporations. In yet another s...

The Trump administration has made it a mission to eliminate life-saving and health-protecting rules we all rely on, in order to increase profits for a few well-connected corporations. This is contrary to the EPA’s mission, which by law is to protect human health and the environment.

No

The biggest risk in this moment is something sociologists call “symbolic compliance.”

That’s when an institution that is violating civil rights gives the public just enough symbolic victories that accountability efforts lose steam before there has been any meaningful change.

Occasional reminder that fascism is the ruling class prepping for climate chaos.

The consequences of public investments following coastal climate disasters: An
assessment of four strategies post-Superstorm Sandy

static1.squarespace.com/static/5cb35...

It’s hard to accurately describe what is happening in Minneapolis without sounding crazy.

Unmarked rental vans all over the city, with people in military gear and no id jumping out of them to take captive anyone who looks nonwhite or who makes political speech they disagree with.

When all protest is terrorism The groundwork for Trump's free speech crackdown was laid by the War on Terror.

“Nearly half of all Americans now live in a state where it’s harder to protest than it was eight years ago."

Trump Administration Plans to Break Up NCAR - Eos The Trump administration is planning to dismantle the National Center for Atmospheric Research, one of the world’s leading climate and Earth science research laboratories, according to a statement fro...

Update: A bid to safeguard the National Center for Atmospheric Research failed Thursday after the Senate passed a spending package without an amendment to save the center's funding. eos.org/research-and...

Trump Sinks to New Low by Announcing US Withdrawal from 66 International Organizations, Including UNFCCC and IPCC President Trump announced today that he is removing the United States from the UNFCCC and IPCC, as well as 64 other entities or U.N. organizations. Statements by the Union of Concerned Scientists.

“President Trump’s withdrawal of the United States from the bedrock global treaty to tackle climate change is a new low and yet another a sign that this authoritarian, anti-science administration is determined to sacrifice people’s well-being and destabilize global cooperation."

Read UCS Statement:

Texas clears the way for petrochemical expansion as experts warn of health risks Public Health Watch chronicles, in 13 scenes, a fossil-fuel infrastructure boom that could worsen air pollution in some areas and exacerbate climate change.

Texas clears the way for petrochemical expansion as experts warn of health risks #Climate

Graph showing 2000 years of CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere. The levels are almost constant at around 280 parts per million until the beginning of the industrial revolution and the burning of fossil fuels and then the curve shoots up to 428 ppm now.

As the calendar year begins, a reminder of the rapid acceleration of carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere, driving increasingly severe #climate changes. Shown are the past 2000 years of CO2 concentrations.
Stop burning fossil fuels.

Pretty sure that was 2024

Somebody is fighting back

Time to update the list of US military interventions in Latin America.

In celebration of Mamdani's first day in office, the map from our 2016 NYC atlas celebrating Queens as the most linguistically diverse place on earth. (800 languages spoken in NYC, according to NY's Endangered Language Institute, which collaborated with us on this map.

Peak glacier extinction in the mid-twenty-first century - Nature Climate Change Many mountain glaciers will disappear with warming. Here the authors assess how many glaciers will disappear per year under different warming scenarios, finding that a peak in glacier loss will happen...

This is find -dot- gif

Towards the middle of the century, ~4000 glaciers worldwide will disappear every year.