Kirti M

Trump Administration Scraps Oversight Groups on Climate and Financial Risk The Financial Stability Oversight Council revoked the charters of two climate-focused committees formed under the Biden administration.

The Trump administration has scrapped two financial oversight committees that assessed risks posed by climate change.

The CDC’s Cuts to FoodNet Could Threaten Americans’ Health Public health experts worry that downsizing the sprawling FoodNet surveillance system could make it harder to prevent food-borne illnesses.

The CDC has quietly and drastically scaled back the country’s most comprehensive system for tracking the food-borne illnesses estimated to sicken millions of Americans each year.

Programs for Students With Hearing and Vision Loss Harmed by Trump’s Anti-Diversity Push Citing concerns about DEI, the U.S. Department of Education has halted funding for programs that support students with combined hearing and vision loss in eight states. “How low can you go?” one advoc...

BREAKING: Trump’s Education Dept. cancels grants that help students who are both deaf and blind.

“How low can you go?” said one person who works with DeafBlind students and their families.

W/ @jsmithrichards.bsky.social for @propublica.org

www.propublica.org/article/trum...

When Is “Recyclable” Not Really Recyclable? When the Plastics Industry Gets to Define What the Word Means. Companies whose futures depend on plastic production are trying to persuade the federal government to allow them to put the label “recyclable” on plastic shopping bags and other items virtually…

Turning old plastic into new plastic is really, really hard.

Products made with dyes, flame retardants and other toxic chemicals create a health hazard when heated for recycling, severely limiting the products you can make from recycled plastic.

(Published Aug. 2024)

The Renewable Illusion: Why Fossil Fuels Keep Winning Global renewables hit records in 2024, but fossil fuel use still rises. Here’s why solar’s surge isn’t enough—and what the latest energy data really shows.

1. This is something I've been saying for 25 years, but it's hard to get many people to listen. What counts is not the new energy sources you add, but the old ones you retire. Unfortunately it's politically easier to build renewables than to shutter fossil fuels.🧵
www.forbes.com/sites/rrapie...

No justification for this. Vile, threatening exhibition.

Big Tech is building massive data centers, and 40% of the planned and existing centers across the US are in areas with "extremely high" or "high" water scarcity.

Mounting evidence points to these data centers exacerbating water shortages across the country.

The flights are all turbulent, the storms are all catastrophic, the plants are all scorched or frozen. There is no peace in a world on fire.

The best way to reduce the cost of Medicaid is to name and shame big employers that pay their full time employees so little, they qualify for Medicaid

NJ stands to lose $19B in health care spending from Trump's 'big, beautiful bill' New Jersey is poised to lose $19.2 billion over the next nine years in health care spending from the House bill that includes steep cuts to Medicaid.

Republican Death Bill
NJ will lose $19 Billion in healthcare spending.
www.yahoo.com/news/nj-stan...

Or, they’re too greedy, too thoughtless, too narcissistic and too cruel to care.

The security reason to electrify transport is not about oil imports, it’s economic resilience. Oil powers 90% of US vehicles, so when the price of oil spikes because of a war, people & companies pay more for energy, which hurts the economy. The more transport is electrified, econ security goes up.

The only way to survive is to elect fierce climate leaders and get your financial portfolio out of the fossil fuel industry.

Earth set to exhaust ‘carbon budget’ within 3 years as Paris hopes fade Goal of limiting warming to 1.5C looks increasingly out of reach, study finds

Say goodbye to 1.5°C. But remember, the next target is 1.51°C and not 2°C. We need to keep fighting.

Every tonne of CO₂ emitted makes the job of future CO₂ removal harder, and every 0.01°C of temperature increase makes the world more chaotic and dangerous.

Dissent is in the suburbs and in the countryside.

This is not just stupid and cruel. It's about the weaponization of extreme heat as a political tool.

Burning fossil fuels superheats the planet. That heat kills outdoor workers, including workers in the oil fields. But the companies that make billions from the oil & gas produced in those fields not only don't care about their cooked workers, they actively fight laws to protect them.

quote on a dark blue and purple background from Sudip S. Parikh, CEO of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), criticizing proposed cuts to science funding in the FY26 U.S. federal budget. The quote reads: “If enacted, the FY26 budget request would end America’s global scientific leadership. The cuts to science would imperil our nation’s future health, security and prosperity. This budget proposal stands in stark contrast to the President’s call for a renewed commitment to American scientific leadership. Congress has demonstrated a bipartisan commitment to investment in research and must do so again to answer the President’s call.” The quote is attributed to Sudip S. Parikh, CEO of AAAS and Executive Publisher of the Science family of journals. The AAAS logo appears at the bottom right.

I don't think anyone outside of universities, pharma and biotech, independent research institutions have any idea of what is happening right now. If you haven't sounded the alarm among your friends, family and colleagues, now is the time to do it.

Republicans are pushing us towards an unlivable planet.

Millions of People Depend on the Great Lakes’ Water Supply. Trump Decimated the Lab Protecting It. The Trump administration’s slashing of budgets and staff have Great Lakes scientists concerned that they have lost the ability to protect the public from toxic algal blooms, which can kill animals…

Data generated by the Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory has helped to successfully avoid a repeat of a 2014 crisis in Toledo, Ohio, when nearly half a million people were warned to not drink the water or even touch it.

By @annaleighclark.bsky.social‬

eight leatherbound books all titled "FERNS" volumes 1 through 8

Everyone in the past was neurotypical, which is how we got things like this single-author, eight-volume encyclopedia of ferns

Common chemicals in plastic linked to over 350,000 deaths from heart disease Researchers estimate that exposure to phthalates contributes to 13 percent of all heart disease deaths in people between 55 and 64 years old each year.

A set of chemicals found in food packaging, plastics, and lotions and shampoos has been linked to hundreds of thousands of deaths from heart disease, according to a study published Tuesday in the journal eBioMedicine.

The world's biggest companies have caused $28 trillion in climate damage, a new study estimates A new study estimates that the world’s biggest corporations have caused $28 trillion in climate damage, which is a shade less than the sum of all goods and services produced in the United States last ...

Reminder: those responsible for fires & floods have names & job titles.

Xi Commits China to Tougher Climate Targets as US Retreats China’s President Xi Jinping committed the world’s top polluter to more stringent curbs on greenhouse gas emissions over the next decade in global climate talks that took place without the US.

This is still very clearly the climate story of the week, and possibly the year.

I have zero patience for “do climate work but just don’t call it that”.

I am not talking in code about an existential threat bc a handful of Americans like profiting off oil and gas & have managed to brainwashed another handful of Americans.

Don’t capitulate. They’ll take your funding anyway.

Exclusive: Trump budget proposal would fully eliminate Head Start The White House's budget proposes eliminating Head Start, an early childhood education program that provides services to low-income families.

Trump’s budget proposal would fully eliminate Head Start

More than 1 million parents wouldn't be able to go to work under the proposal, the National Head Start Association warns.

"A single large tree can provide a cooling effect equivalent to 10 room-sized air conditioners operating for 20 hours per day"

FunFact: if the salts, heavy metals, & radioactive components in fracking wastewater get into drinking water supplies...
Most US water treatment plants can not filter them out.

DOGE’s Cuts at the USDA Could Cause US Grocery Prices to Rise and Invasive Species to Spread Thousands of US Department of Agriculture employees, including food inspectors and disease-sniffing-dog trainers, remain out of work, leaving food to rot in ports and pests to proliferate.

Thousands of US Department of Agriculture employees, including food inspectors and disease-sniffing dog trainers, remain out of work, leaving food to rot in ports and pests to proliferate.

EPA is terminating more than two dozen protections against air and water pollution. It would overturn limits on soot from smokestacks that have been linked to respiratory problems in humans and premature deaths as well as restrictions on emissions of mercury, a neurotoxin.