Caroline Prince

Columbia Climate School Dean Alexis Abramson and IKEA CEO Jesper Brodin in conversation at Scandinavia House Climate Week NYC 2025

Excellent #ClimateWeekNYC conversation at Scandinavia House with Columbia Climate School Dean Alexis Abramson and IKEA CEO Jesper Brodin on reshaping what it means to be climate leaders in an era of uncertainty. Join us as #ColumbiaClimateWeek continues:
www.climate.columbia.edu/climate-week

"How Are the Very Rich Feeling About New York’s Next Mayor?"

A Dramatic Reading of The Recent New York Times Dispatch from the Hamptons.

Presented by The Gilded Age's Morgan Spector.

graphs showing fire weather index (FWI), initial spread index (ISI) and vapour pressure deficit (VPD) 95th percentile trends 1979 to 2024. Updated from Jain et al. 2022 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-021-01224-1

Updated figure from Jain et al. showing global extreme fire weather trends since 1979. Metrics are global 95th percentile of annual Fire Weather Index (FWI), Initial Spread Index (ISI) and the Vapor Pressure Deficit (VPD). The trend is clear - we are seeing more extreme fire weather due to warming.

Trump vs. America's National Parks What a sprained ankle reveals about how badly stretched park workers are

Please read/share if you love your national parks!
New from @pamherd.bsky.social & me: A DOGEr is now running the National Park Service.

They were already short of employees to manage record crowds. DOGE has cut 13% and wants to cut 30%.
donmoynihan.substack.com/p/trump-vs-a...

Celebrate Earth Day with us (via Zoom or in person)!

My pet theory here is that space tourism is intended to prove the viability of space escapism--to show billionaires that they don't have to care about the planet or the other people on it, because soon (and so long as the money keeps flowing to SpaceX), they'll be able to escape to Mars.

Call Congress for our libraries. Show up for our libraries. American library association.

ALA is deeply concerned by reports that IMLS is sending notices to libraries claiming to cancel grants that are required by law. This harmful action will disrupt libraries' ability to serve their communities.
Tell Congress to protect library funding: bit.ly/CallCongressForLibraries
#ForOurLibraries

The Trump administration has directed nonprofits involved in a $20 billion Biden-era climate initiative to turn over records to the FBI and appear in federal court later this month.

Layoffs at federal weather and climate agency threaten forecasts Some Weather Service offices were already cutting back on their services.

The latest on layoffs at NOAA/National Weather Service, including some numbers and functions hit hardest. The experts who keep weather models running, track satellites, & model weather and climate hit particularly hard, along w/ some NWS fcst offices. www.axios.com/2025/02/28/n...

😔😫😞

Last Tuesday, I was set to give a talk on 'climate change in the Northeast' at a retirement home but had to cancel due to hourly job threats.

After nearly two weeks of overwhelming uncertainty, today it happened. I was fired from my dream of working at NOAA. I'm so sorry to everyone also affected.

Scatterplot titled “Empirical Evidence of Ideological Targeting in Federal Layoffs: Agencies seen as liberal are significantly more likely to face DOGE layoffs.” • The x-axis represents Perceived Ideological Leaning of federal agencies, ranging from -2 (Most Liberal) to +2 (Most Conservative), based on survey responses from over 1,500 federal executives. • The y-axis shows Agency Size (Number of Staff) on a logarithmic scale from 1,000 to 1,000,000. Each point represents a federal agency: • Red dots indicate agencies that experienced DOGE layoffs. • Gray dots indicate agencies with no layoffs. Key Observations: • Liberal-leaning agencies (left side of the plot) are disproportionately represented among red dots, indicating higher layoff rates. • Notable targeted agencies include: • HHS (Health & Human Services) • EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) • NIH (National Institutes of Health) • CFPB (Consumer Financial Protection Bureau) • Dept. of Education • USAID (U.S. Agency for International Development) • The National Nuclear Security Administration (DOE), despite its conservative leaning (+1 on the scale), is an exception among targeted agencies. • A notable outlier: the Department of Veterans Affairs (moderately conservative) also faced layoffs despite its size. Takeaway: The figure visually demonstrates that DOGE layoffs disproportionately targeted liberal-leaning agencies, supporting claims of ideological bias. The pattern reveals that layoffs were not driven by agency size or budget alone but were strongly associated with perceived ideology. Source: Richardson, Clinton, & Lewis (2018). Elite Perceptions of Agency Ideology and Workforce Skill. The Journal of Politics, 80(1).

The DOGE firings have nothing to do with “efficiency” or “cutting waste.” They’re a direct push to weaken federal agencies perceived as liberal. This was evident from the start, and now the data confirms it: targeted agencies overwhelmingly those seen as more left-leaning. 🧵⬇️

Climate Models Can’t Explain What’s Happening to Earth Global warming is moving faster than the best models can keep a handle on.

On every continent except Antarctica, distinct regions are seeing repeated extreme heat waves that can't be explained by climate models, finds study by @lamontearth.bsky.social climate scientists @kornhuber.bsky.social, Samuel Bartusek, Richard Seager, Mingfang Ting, colleague. Via @theatlantic.com.

Tennessee Republican proposes amendment to allow Trump to serve third term Rep. Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.) proposed an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would allow President Trump to serve a third term in the White House so that the country “can sustain the bold leadersh…

One of the three Republicans to gain parts of Nashville after it was gerrymandered to shreds. thehill.com/homenews/hou...

European Electricity Review 2025 | Ember The EU’s electricity transition continued at pace in 2024, as solar overtook coal for the first time and gas declined for the fifth year in a row.

"Fossil fuels are losing their grip on EU energy. At the start of the European Green Deal in 2019, few thought the EU’s energy transition could be where it is today; wind and solar are pushing coal to the margins and forcing gas into structural decline"

Big new @ember-energy.org report on EU energy

🚨 🚀🌍 Today, the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law is launching three online tools – the Climate Backtracker, the Inflation Reduction Act Tracker & the Silencing Science Tracker – to keep tabs on the Trump administration’s climate rollbacks & anti-science actions: https://buff.ly/4jsf5HJ
🧵⤵️