Rebecca Finger Higgens

EPA tells scientists to stop publishing studies, employees say Staff from the EPA’s Office of Water were summoned to a town hall meeting this week and told to pause the publication of most research, pending a review.

Breaking news: The Environmental Protection Agency has ordered scientists in at least one of its research offices to immediately pause almost all research and stop publishing their studies.

ABOUT DAMN TIME is now streaming on YouTube! The new short chronicles the journey of the Colorado River's trailblazing boatwomen.

Learn more about the @americanrivers.bsky.social supported film and start watching here:
substack.com/home/post/p-...

“Average North American Monsoon onset is delayed in years with anomalously high spring soil moisture in the Colorado Plateau”

How to set up your own microclimate network Back in 2021, we had an important thought: maybe we should start treating microclimate the same way we treat macroclimate. Weather and climate are monitored by national governments through organize…

New for all microclimate enthusiasts!

A step-by-step workflow to build your own sensor network - with awesome R code for site selection + tips on engagement, fieldwork & outreach.

Led with @thenaturedave.bsky.social and @rebeccasenior.bsky.social

🔗 the3dlab.org/2025/08/16/h...

Left: Annual-scale direct economic damages to the U.S. economy from the U.S. electric power sector emissions over the 1973-2023 period in billions of U.S. dollars benchmarked to the 2015 dollar value ($US2015). Right: Cumulative direct economic damages from U.S. power sector emissions, equivalent to the integral under the curve at the left.

With the EPA targeting the Endangerment Finding, @ccallahan45.bsky.social, Alex Gottlieb, & I conducted an end-to-end attribution of climate damages from U.S. power sector emissions.

The result: $78 billion in climate losses to the U.S. economy over 1973–2023.

See here: zenodo.org/records/1687...

I had a few people at #ESA2025 say that it was hard to find where to apply for jobs in Sweden. If you want to check jobs at university, here's the website: www.slu.se/en/about-slu...

#forests #restorationecology #forestry #silviculture

Loud voice: This is a win for a classroom!

(Whisper: it’s a win for you too. It doesn’t take long and it’s hard to imagine feeling low after participating in @skypeascientist.bsky.social).

I participated last spring it and will again. Strong recommend!!

"Nature’s secrets will continue to be uncovered, even if Americans aren’t the ones who see them first."

Grazing Modulates the Multiscale Spatial Structure of Dryland Vegetation

🔗 buff.ly/AZABRtK

Watch Now: About Damn Time A love letter to the Colorado River and its trailblazing boatwomen

ABOUT DAMN TIME, the new short supported by @americanrivers.bsky.social, follows the trailblazing boatwomen of the Colorado River. Read more about it and stream it for free (this weekend only) via our Shorts: Wild Lives virtual collection. open.substack.com/pub/dceff/p/watch-now-about-damn-time

Way excited for Savannah's defense next week!

If you love biogeochemistry and thinking about potential for soil carbon management, mark your calendar for Monday, July 28th @ 11:00 AM MDT (or stop by campus if you're in Moab 😉)

Public Zoom Link: usu.zoom.us/j/8144285688...

Happy to share an excellent study on the self-organized spatial patterns of biocrusts. Biocrusts make a difference. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Rising Cost Of Living Forcing More Buddhists To Continue Working Years Into Reincarnation Few Can Save Enough To Relax And Enjoy Next Life

Rising Cost Of Living Forcing More Buddhists To Continue Working Years Into Reincarnation theonion.com/rising-...

New U.S. Budget Proposal Slashes Billions in Funds for Science - Eos President Trump’s proposed 2026 budget, released today, slashes non-defense discretionary spending by $163 billion, a 22.6% reduction from 2025.

Senate Appropriations has a markup hearing for science this morning. In their bill: $9B for NSF (current is $9.06B). Also includes protections for NOAA and NWS staffing. 🧪

eos.org/research-and...

NOAA’s Climate Website May Soon Shut Down - Eos Climate.gov, NOAA’s portal to the work of their Climate Program Office, will likely soon shut down as most of the staff charged with maintaining it were fired on 31 May.

Climate.gov will likely soon shut down, as most of the staff charged with maintaining it were fired. 🧪

eos.org/research-and...

NSF, NASA and NIH budgets per year, inflation adjusted from 2000-2025 along with the proposed cuts. NSF includes research component only. Massive cuts across all sectors, well below support spanning 25 years.

The President's Budget request as released yesterday will gut scientific research. Why should you care?
1) Science is fundamentally a jobs program. Many 100,000s are employed to do science and work for you, the US taxpayer.

Trump’s Proposed Budget Would Cut a Major Ecology Program

'The [Ecosystems Mission Area] is also a core part of federal climate research. The Trump administration has sharply reduced or eliminated funds for climate science across federal agencies, calling the study of climate change part of “social agenda” research' www.nytimes.com/2025/05/31/c...

Are you keeping up with the firehose of changes to science policy? You can, with our handy (and sortable) tracker. eos.org/research-and...

Lately, we're thinking about how the #SAA2025Denver program was called a “two-page blood bath of federal disengagement” by one attendee. Yikes. (‪@nytimes.com‬)

Mojave Desert Land Trust is hiring a Field Coordinator with the Mojave Desert Seed Bank! 🫘 #seedjobs

2 positions posted, hiring 1 candidate depending on quals & experience.

Coordinator/Lead – min 1 yr experience, $23-25/hr
Supervisor – 2-5 yrs exp., $25-28/hr

saveplants.org/forums/topic...

Such sad news. Teresa was always helping and welcoming. This scholarship is a nice way to share the love of a great woman.

Those are amazing!

Teaming Up to Tailor Climate Education for Indigenous Communities - Eos A new college-level curriculum, cocreated by Indigenous and Western researchers, could help Indigenous communities adapt to climate change on the Colorado Plateau.

A climate change curriculum cocreated by a team of Western and Indigenous researchers could amplify adaptation on the Colorado Plateau.

Illustration of a Greenlandic landscape, showing in the foreground Rhododendron lapponicum on a cliff, with sea ice and icebergs in the background. Illustration by Alberto S. Ballesteros (@asbillustration.bsky.social)

🌸Plant diversity dynamics over space and time in a warming Arctic 🌸

Our new study @nature.com analysed plant diversity change in >2000 tundra plots over 4 decades. We found that plants changed unevenly, mostly driven by warming and biotic interactions.

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

🧵 (1/7) 🌐🧪🌱🌍

AI-generated image of a man who looks like Alexander von Humboldt dancing with a Humboldt penguin.

Happy #WorldPenguinDay!

Did you know that the Humboldt penguin (with whom Humboldt dances here) can blush? This penguin type lives in relatively warm habitats – in contrast to the icy environments of other species. The blushing helps it to cool down! 💚

GitHub - jjrennie/ncei-climate-data-online: Jupyter Notebook to Access Data From NOAA/NCEI's Climate Data Online Jupyter Notebook to Access Data From NOAA/NCEI's Climate Data Online - jjrennie/ncei-climate-data-online

Here's the start of a python script / notebook that starts tapping into some NCEI API's to get the data you need.

The goal here is for this to become a supplement to the RCC's ACIS API, should that go away for...reasons

github.com/jjrennie/nce...

🧪 Our Terminated NSF Grant Tracker is live 🧪

🔴 114 NSF grants listed so far

🔴 Cancelled grants focused on

→ Training scientists
→ Misinformation
→ AI
→ Climate change

Credit to @noamross.net for all the work to build this & to all PIs who submitted their info.

Link: airtable.com/appGKlSVeXni...

Not only are more forests/trees around the world experiencing mortality as a result of increasing stressors, but recovery is impaired as a result of increasing temps, drought, other climate-related impacts. Positive feedback loop -- as forests go, so do we. 🌏

Simplified scheme of the two evolutionary mechanisms (top-down vs bottom-up) explaining the relationship between plants and their environment

What are the ultimate factors controlling fire regimes? The case of boreal forests royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10....
Phil Trans Roy Soc B, @royalsociety.org
With JE Keeley & @dramalamujer.bsky.social

jgpausas.blogs.uv.es/2025/04/17/t...

🧪🌍🔥🌳🌐🍁🌾 wildfire #philsci #ecoevo

Hi Folks! Myself and the Barberan Lab at U of A are still looking for a PhD student to work on an NSF funded project exploring effects of fire and invasion on soil microbes. We are looking for someone to start in Fall! SOON! Email me if you are interested! PLS Repost!

@EsaSeeds