Josh Morsell

140,000-Year-Old Skhul Cave Fossil Is Now the Oldest Neanderthal-Human Hybrid Learn about the five-year-old child’s skull that has drastically changed the timeline of Neanderthal and Homo sapiens interbreeding.

So many things happened before recorded human history!
www.discovermagazine.com/140-000-year...

Opinion | The A.O.C. Deepfake Was Terrible. The Proposed Solution Is Delusional.

The A.O.C. Deepfake Was Terrible. The Proposed Solution Is Delusional. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/11/o...

Joanna Macy, Who Found a Way to Transcend ‘Eco-Anxiety,’ Dies at 96

R.I.P. Joanna Macy.

Joanna Macy, Who Found a Way to Transcend ‘Eco-Anxiety,’ Dies at 96 www.nytimes.com/2025/07/23/c...

Agreed. But we should be thoughtful about the ways we obtain lithium.

The rise of green tech is feeding another environmental crisis The world's race to decarbonise has led to the rise of electric cars - and with it, soaring demand for lithium, which is required for the batteries

“What [mining companies] should have done from the very beginning was to involve these communities.”
www.bbc.com/news/article...

When fossil-fuel BS is this blatant I’m not sure it even counts as greenwashing.

SLAPP’d: An Indigenous Nation Fights for Its Water As Greenpeace’s anti-SLAPP hearing gets underway in Europe, a look at what Energy Transfer wanted to keep out of its North Dakota suit.

I'm excited for the new season of Drilled, about Energy Transfer's dastardly effort to hold Greenpeace liable for the Standing Rock protests. Episode 1 is spooky and enraging! @alleenbrown.bsky.social @amywestervelt.bsky.social drilled.media/news/slappd

Great news - these wood pellet plants were a false climate solution and a boondoggle.

Living dangerously on borrowed time during slow, unrecognized regime shifts Regime shifts from one ecological state to another are often portrayed as sudden, dramatic, and difficult to reverse. Yet many regime shifts unfold sl…

How do we know if and when a planetary- or local-scale tipping point has been exceeded?

You may not even notice. 😱

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Environmental groups are outraged after Newsom overhauls CEQA Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law two bills that will overhaul the landmark California Environmental Quality Act in an effort to streamline housing development in the state.

We're trying to understand the consequences of this change to CEQA - does anyone have thoughts? And on how to maximize positive outcomes and mitigate negative ones?

www.latimes.com/environment/...

We should probably develop a taste for insects, as a resource-efficient protein.

Urgent kid query #2: What do sharks roar like?

Urgent: My kid wants to know, which would win, a penguin or a bat?

Because of tariffs, I’m seriously reconsidering my plan to replace my car and phone soon. Could healthy degrowth be an unintended consequence of tariffs?

Researchers develop new design and fabrication method to make lightsails for interstellar travel In a potential step toward sending small spacecraft to the stars, researchers have developed an ultra-thin, ultra-reflective membrane designed to ride a column of laser light to incredible speeds.

“Lightsails have the potential to reduce flight time to nearby stars from several thousand years using current propulsion systems to perhaps just a decade or two.” Interstellar travel is no substitute for a habitable Earth, but it’s fun to think about. www.brown.edu/news/2025-03...

Hi @fitgirlcari.bsky.social! Thanks for your note. Yes Judi Bari's story is a rabbit hole. A legal thriller & whodunit. Timely themes like community v polarization, disinfo, attacks on protesters, & the contentious push for a green transition. I'm looking for a publisher now if you know anyone.

The ever-widening scapegoating of immigrants, trans people, scientists, etc is frightening, but it is a response to our actual potential collective power.

"Demonizing people is a strategy to distract from real issues. ... Who benefits?" @andrewdessler.com asks in Climate Brink. I'd add: scapegoating is a strategy to polarize & realign society to weaken coalitions making progress on issues like climate. Double down on coalitions. Don't let up.

Support Greenpeace Today! I just donated to Greenpeace. Join me and support their important work to protect the environment today!

Here's a page where you can donate: engage.us.greenpeace.org/onlineaction...

Criminalizing Dissent: Greenpeace Ordered to Pay $667M to Dakota Access Pipeline Firm over Protests A jury in North Dakota has ordered Greenpeace to pay more than $660 million in damages for defaming Energy Transfer Partners, the corporation behind the Dakota Access Pipeline. The Texas-based pipelin...

It's a good time to donate to @greenpeaceusa.bsky.social. Let's help them appeal this crushing, unjust verdict and damages award.

www.democracynow.org/2025/3/20/gr...

A vintage photo from the National Archives shows smog hanging over the New York skyline

A vintage photo from the National Archives shows damaged oil drums piled high at an Exxon refinery.

A vintage photo from the National Archives shows cars driving down a road as smoke spews from factories in the distance and air pollution hangs over everything.

A vintage photo from the National Archives shows smog in Los Angeles taken from a high vantage point.

Just thinking about what the US looked like before the EPA existed

Stand Up for Science day nationwide. Find events at the link. standupforscience2025.org

New Report: Achieving Zero Emissions with More Mobility and Less Mining - Climate and Community Institute First of its kind research shows how the US can lower lithium demand in transportation by 90 percent in the next 3 decades: decreasing car dependency, …

On lithium: "There [need not be a] zero-sum tradeoff between zero emissions transportation and protecting biodiversity and Indigenous rights … It is possible to have more mobility and less mining while making rapid progress to zero emissions." shorturl.at/pa7HE. Thanks @cplusc.bsky.social!

Just a few of the takeaways from this exciting conference! So much to think about.

Where the Green Transition fails, we should aim, as Kathleen D. Moore suggested, to maintain kīpukas - refugia from lava flows, where life survives to seed the future. 4/4

We need real solutions, economic circularity (recycle lithium where possible), smart design (more public transit, fewer cars), and, yes, smart degrowth. Degrowth can be compatible with quality of life: it’s nice to drink clean water and look at real live birds. 3/4

& e.g. lithium mining, for batteries, can poison water. Beware False Transition scams, like wood-pellet biomass, that divert life-saving resources without decreasing carbon emissions. 2/4

“You won’t get anywhere talking about sacrificing real people for an imagined future,” Maria Nunez-Lopez said at #PIELC 2025, in support of a just #GreenTransition. e.g. EVs are only as good as their electricity; power plants in Maria’s neighborhood cause asthma. 1/4

That's just a few of my takeaways from this exciting conference! So much to think about.

Degrowth can be compatible with quality of life: it’s nice to drink clean water and look at real live birds. Where the Green Transition fails, we should aim, as Kathleen D. Moore suggested, to maintain kīpukas - refugia from lava flows, where life survives to seed the future. 3/3