Noel Healy

Who’s Obstructing Climate Action in the Rhode Island Legislature? Prompted by the lack of climate action in the Rhode Island legislature since the Act on Climate passed in 2021, student and staff researchers in the Climate and Development Lab looked into some key qu...

Our big study is just up.

www.climatedevlab.brown.edu/post/who-s-o...

This is the most important development in the fight for a liveable planet in DECADES, and it comes out at just the right time to enable us to put spotlight and pressure on climate obstruction at the COP30 in Brazil.
BRAVO TIMMONS AND CSSN COLLEAGUES!!!!! 🤩🌍🤩

BIG launch this week--the book is available, free, online at our @cssn.org website:

cssn.org/news-researc...

Policy for the Planet: How to combat disinformation on climate science (Episode 18) In the age of the Internet, artificial intelligence, social media, and instant access to knowledge, disinformation has become a challenge in public discourse on climate change. Naomi Oreskes (Harvard ...

Recently I joined PIIE's Policy for the Planet, where host Monica de Bolle and I discussed how attacks on climate science contribute to polarization and the demonization of science, and how to combat these trends. Listen wherever you get your podcasts: policyfortheplanet.com/how-to-comba...

Welcome to the World of Obstruction Investigating the obstacles to action on climate change.

If you're a @drilledmedia.bsky.social listener you know I think social scientists are key sources if we want to understand why governments haven't acted on climate. So imagine my nerd delight to get my hands on an incredible new batch of research on climate obstruction. drilled.media/podcasts/dri...

Cover of new book Climate Obstruction: A Global Assessment from Oxford University Press. Shows cows, smokestacks, jets, oil refineries, cell phones and a man in a suit talking to an audience

So proud of this collaboration led by @cssn.org

110 top experts from around the world

13 chapters on who is blocking or slowing action on climate change

A quantum leap in our understanding of why society has failed to solve this

Will be free online Oct 14 1/x

global.oup.com/academic/pro...

Law Firm Pressures Brown University to Erase Research on Anti-Wind Groups

My lab's been attacked by an anti-wind group and their lawyers. They threatened the science funding of my whole university, to shut me and my undergraduate research assistants up.

NYT just covered it. 1/n

www.nytimes.com/2025/08/25/c...

Massachusetts collected $2 billion more in tax revenue than expected because of millionaires tax - The Boston Globe Total revenue collections for fiscal year 2025 totaled approximately $43.7 billion, which is $2.9 billion, or 7.1 percent, more than the state pulled in the prior fiscal year.

Huh, so I guess they haven't all fled the state

I am privileged to announce the publication of the Anti-Autocracy Handbook: sks.to/autocracy 1/12

The cover page for a discussion paper called "Questions, Answers, and Some Cautionary Updates Regarding the 3.5% Rule" by Erica Chenoweth. In the image, peaceful protesters can be seen in front of the US Capitol building.

Lately I've seen many references to the 3.5% rule. A few years ago I pulled together this Q&A on potential uses and misuses of this statistic. www.hks.harvard.edu/sites/defaul...

Scientists’ warning on fossil fuels Abstract. The evidence is clear that fossil fuels—and the fossil fuel industry and its enablers—are driving a multitude of interlinked crises that jeopardi

I'm really happy to have been a part of this, with @marydwillis.bsky.social @naomioreskes.bsky.social and a whole bunch of other people that aren't on here yet (sorry if you are and I can't find you!) academic.oup.com/oocc/article...

She Inspired Laws to Hold the Fossil Fuel Industry Accountable. Now She’s a Target. A conservative group is suing for emails of a law professor who helped create legislation to force oil, gas and coal companies to pay for climate damage.

Coal-funded agitators harass the professors who craft legal theories that help sue fossil-fuel companies over climate damage; “This is a tactic designed to dissuade people from working on important climate policies.” www.nytimes.com/2025/03/27/c...

Greenpeace must pay hundreds of millions over Dakota pipeline protests, says jury Non-profit said in statement lawsuits like this aimed at ‘destroying the right to peaceful protest’

Fossil fuel companies should be forced to pay the public trillions in damages for the costs of their planetary arson. Instead they are trying to shut down one of the most important and storied environmental groups in the world. It's shameless - and it's not over. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Jury Finds Greenpeace Liable for Hundreds of Millions in Damages A lawsuit by pipeline giant Energy Transfer claimed Greenpeace had played a major, costly role in protests nearly a decade ago. Greenpeace has said a loss could put it out of business.

We are deep in a war on activism and political speech www.nytimes.com/2025/03/19/c...

Extraordinary moment — Nancy Pelosi issues a statement calling on Democratic senators to reject the House funding bill, i.e. to defy Chuck Schumer.

"Democratic senators should listen to the women," she says, referring to Murray/DeLauro who want a 1-month stopgap bill instead.

Heritage Foundation and Allies Discuss Dismantling the EU The group that drafted a key blueprint for Donald Trump’s second term convened a meeting in Washington D.C. this week to consider proposals for bulldozing the European Union (EU). The Polish investiga...

🔴 NEW 🔴

The Heritage Foundation, the group behind the radical pro-Trump Project 2025 agenda, held a private discussion this week about how to dismantle the EU.

📝 @desmog.bsky.social report 👇🏻

This is just one example of how the fossil fuel industry helps fund policing.

We wrote about this in 2020: littlesis.org/news/fossil-...

@ninalakhani.bsky.social at @theguardian.com did some great reporting on this: t.co/7PPPnYIbBy

Not to make everything about fossil fuels, but plastics are literally✨fossil fuels ✨

🚨🚨 New Paper🚨🚨

As promised yesterday, here is a draft (non-cite) version of my new paper, 'Digitizing the Fisc', onthe constitutional implication of Trump's BFS-DOGE takeover.

rohangrey.net/files/Grey-D...

law review editors please email rohan@rohangrey.net. It's late but worth the wait!

Out in @natureenergy.bsky.social, with Esther Shears and Jared Finnegan www.nature.com/articles/s41...

An incredibly rudimentary happy hour flier for Tuesday March 25 at the Elephant Room in Detroit during the AAG conference.

If you're going to be at AAG in Detroit, join us and @blackgeographies.bsky.social for Happy Hour on Tuesday at the Elephant Room from 6-8, right after the BGSG keynote! Drink tickets available while they last!

How inequality fuels climate change: The climate case for a Green New Deal Recent proposals in the US and elsewhere aim to tackle climate change and socioeconomic inequalities together through a Green New Deal (GND). GND prop…

"This suggests that integrating certain carbon-centric policies into a wider program of social, economic, and democratic reforms would achieve decarbonization more effectively than carbon-centric policies alone" - @drnoelhealy.bsky.social & @fergusgreen.bsky.social

This might be the most nakedly corrupt document I’ve seen on DOJ letterhead — and I wrote a history of Watergate!

Justice officials tell prosecutors to drop charges against N.Y. Mayor Eric Adams A top Justice official said New York Mayor Eric Adams should not have to face trial given his reelection campaign and the fight against crime and illegal immigration.

This is — literally — unheard of in federal prosecutions.

We can’t prosecute him because he’s a candidate for office? Wow.

BREAKING: 2 federal employee unions, AFGE & SEIU, file suit seeking to block DOGE access to Treasury Department payment database. Doc: storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

It's impossible to overstate how bad this is. Read this thread. Musk could break our government in catastrophic ways.

There appear to be at least three separately operating heel factions breaking things within the government in wholly different ways right now. There's the Miller-headed immigration one, the DOGE/Elon one, and a Project 2025 OMB one. This dynamic hasn't showed up in mainstream reporting at all.

The decades of attacking science and spreading misinformation by the oil industry certainly paved the way for the current situation. They must be proud.

Before D.C. Airport Collision, Lawmakers Brushed Off Warnings And Boosted Flights Despite midflight near-misses and dire pleas, airline-bankrolled lawmakers recently expanded flight traffic at Washington’s busy airport.

🚨BREAKING: Months before tonight's fatal DC plane crash, lawmakers brushed off dire safety warnings & passed an industry-backed bill adding more flight traffic at the airport.

"Increasing slots at this airport undermines safety," an opponent pleaded.

Trump’s Tech Donors Have Big Plans For Greenland A Trump takeover of Greenland could open the door to tech moguls’ mineral interests and their utopian aspirations.

🚨MUST READ: How Trump's Greenland takeover would clear the way for his donors' AI-powered mining company, proposed "crypto city" & oil drilling just banned by the local government.

Wild follow-the-money reporting about Zuckerberg, Bezos, Andreesen & Thiel that finally sheds light on Trump's motive.