Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Chelsea Valentine @chelb0ls.bsky.social · 25d

Can you ask him which one has amazing sound design that makes apparent that the poor man lost his hearing from all the explosions his eardrums have been exposed to?

Chelsea Valentine @chelb0ls.bsky.social · 25d

Let's go in October! Sharing this hour with others lets me know I'm not alone in this fight.

The Climate Reality Project @climaterealityproject.org · 25d

THIS IS BIG! Change happens when people come together to push leaders + demand better. That’s why Climate Reality + Climate Changemakers are uniting to build a stronger movement for climate action. Learn more: www.climaterealityproject.org/climate-chan...

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Reposted by Chelsea Valentine

Marisa Kabas @marisakabas.bsky.social · 26d

Breaking — FEMA Acting Chief Counsel Colt Hagmaier just resigned in an email to staff. He's worked at the agency for more than a decade.

Hagmaier's resignation comes immediately after two FEMA employees were placed on leave for comments about Charlie Kirk.

Text of his email shared with me:

Pursuing A More Perfect Union
Hagmaier, Colt
Mon 9/15/2025 1:06 PM

Friends,

This nation was once no more than idea. Courageous whispers of dangerous thinking; a wild experiment to organize and preserve government not by despotism or dynasty, but through the continued consent of the governed. Like a hardy willow, our Republic endures upon a trunk of federalism that is both fixed and flexible.

Unity, not unanimity, is our strength - we are not stymied by our differences, we are made resilient by channeling those differences into public good. Our words matter. We ought to choose them carefully, stand behind them, and offer them with empathy and kindness. My faith in our nation, like our liberties, is secured by strong, prudent, and principled democratic institutions. Institutions administered by public servants sworn to place that public good above their own. We persevere not because our Union is perfect, rather because we never stop pursuing a more perfect one - together.

That is what I see here at FEMA every day. Each of you sustaining the integrity and function of our federal government. You bring hope to the hopeless and relief to the suffering. Your work is never easy, rarely appreciated, and often misunderstood or mischaracterized, but it is essential. Not only to those benefiting from it, but to the fabric of who we are as a people and a reflection of the humanity that unites us. Your effort is purposeful, noble, and compassionate. It has been my life's honor to serve alongside you in this virtuous mission of helping our communities and neighbors in their times of need.

Now, it is time for me to start a new path away from federal service. This has been an incredibly difficult decision over which I have reflected, prayed, and temporized. I care immensely about FEMA's mission and for you who deliver it every day. I am blessed to have worked alongside so many passionate, hardworking, and talented people throughout my FEMA career.

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Chelsea Valentine @chelb0ls.bsky.social · 29d

Can you invent ASL emojis also? 🤘

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Chelsea Valentine @chelb0ls.bsky.social · 29d

Same. One of the most feel-good movies. 🎶we all live in the yellow submarine🎶

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Chelsea Valentine @chelb0ls.bsky.social · 29d

Lol this movie is so sweet and I think the point is that money is dirt? He’d be taking money from the poor… to give to the poor? Plus these record companies were getting richer and richer. It’s not like he was getting all the money to give away.

Reposted by Chelsea Valentine

Jordan! @jordanjamboree.bsky.social · 29d

I'm okay, just shaken up and sad. Like 50/50 on if they clocked me or just saw my bumper stickers and went off

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Otto English @ottoenglish.bsky.social · Sep 3

I've a feeling Mr Farage might very much be regretting his trip... round about ...

Now 👇

Adam Schwarz @adamjschwarz.bsky.social · Sep 3

Rep. Jamie Raskin tears into Nigel Farage as a "far-right pro-Putin politician" and a "Donald Trump sycophant and wannabe".

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Chelsea Valentine @chelb0ls.bsky.social · Sep 3

About time. I gotta love attorneys sometimes. insideclimatenews.org/news/2908202...

Texas Suit Alleging Anti-Coal ‘Cartel’ of Top Wall Street Firms Could Reshape ESG—and Wall Street Itself - Inside Climate News

Republican attorneys general accuse three of the world’s biggest asset managers of conspiring to depress U.S. coal output. It’s a first-of-its-kind and closely watched test of whether corporate allian...

insideclimatenews.org

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Karl Schamotta @karl-schamotta.bsky.social · Aug 26

Apropos of nothing, a reminder that German stock markets kept climbing in an almost uninterrupted fashion in the run-up to WW2. Investors are really, really bad at pricing serious institutional and political risks.

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Reposted by Chelsea Valentine

Adam Bonin @adambonin.bsky.social · Aug 26

The US Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit has affirmed that it violates the Constitution to exclude timely received mail-in ballots just because the voter failed to handwrite in the correct date.

Thrilled to partner w/@eliaslawgroup.bsky.social on this.
storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

__________________________ OPINION OF THE COURT __________________________ SMITH, Circuit Judge I. Introduction The ballot is a building block of our democracy. Perhaps no civic act has greater importance—or consequences—than a citizen’s casting of a ballot. Our Constitution calls upon the States to regulate the mechanics of how its citizens cast their ballots so that those citizens may meaningfully express their voices in what George Washington once called “the last great experiment [in] promoting human happiness.”1 But our Constitution also calls upon the Courts to scrutinize such regulations to ensure they do not unduly burden voters’ voices. This inquiry is often a difficult one. It requires a court to balance the State’s constitutionally mandated duty against its citizens’ constitutionally protected right. But “there is ‘no substitute for the hard judgments that must be made.’” Anderson v. Celebrezze, 460 U.S. 780, 789–90 (1983) (quoting Storer v. Brown, 415 U.S. 724, 730 (1974)). This appeal asks us to make one such hard judgment. We must determine if the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania’s requirement that mail-in ballots that arrive in undated or 1 Letter from George Washington to Catharine Sawbridge Macaulay Graham (Jan. 9, 1790) (on file with the National Archives).

misdated return envelopes be discarded complies with our Constitution. Weighing the burden that practice imposes on Pennsylvanians’ constitutional right to vote against the State’s interest in the practice, the balance of the scales leads us to hold that it does not comply with our Constitution. We therefore will affirm the judgment of the District Court.

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Reposted by Chelsea Valentine

Gavin Schmidt @climateofgavin.bsky.social · Aug 26

Welcome progress in making climate science a little more operational (and responsive).

(This is what we were talking about in our opinion piece last year: www.nytimes.com/2024/11/13/o... @hausfath.bsky.social )

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Reposted by Chelsea Valentine

Brad Johnson @climatebrad.hillheat.com · Aug 26

Once the American people understand that Trump's lawless abductions of their hardworking neighbors are helping to ruin health care and affordability, they'll turn hard against Trump's masked "border security" and "public safety" goons.
from @gelliottmorris.com

Strength in Numbers poll: Trump underwater on all issues except border security

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Reposted by Chelsea Valentine

All Our Yesterdays @allouryesterdays.bsky.social · Aug 25

Aug 26, 1965 - “Climatic Change appears to be underway” – the commencement speech that should have rocked the world

Carl Borgmann at University of Tennessee;
"CO2... traps heat from the sun, and climatic change results – not overnight, but slowly and surely”

allouryesterdays.info/2025/08/25/c...

“Climatic Change appears to be underway, in fact.” - the 1965 commencement speech that should have rocked the world. - All Our Yesterdays

Sixty years ago today, n Thursday August 26th 1965, Carl W. Borgmann stood in front of hundreds of young Americans in Knoxville. Borgmann, who was the director of the Ford Foundation’s Science and Eng...

allouryesterdays.info

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Doug Parr @dougparr.bsky.social · Aug 26

Imports of solar panels to Africa rose by 60% over 12 months to June 2024

If installed, Sierra Leone imported enough solar to generate 60% of 2023 supply

PV imports to Algeria up 33x; to Zambia, Botswana & Sudan over 6-fold; tripled to DRC, Angola, Ethiopia

www.theenergymix.com/africa-could...

Africa Could Be on the Verge of a Solar Surge, Study Shows

“South Africa and Egypt are currently the only countries (in Africa) with installed solar capacity measured in gigawatts, rather than megawatts,” writes global energy think tank Ember in a new report....

www.theenergymix.com

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Reposted by Chelsea Valentine

Gavin Jackson @gavinjackson.bsky.social · Aug 21

Start thinking of the global south as leaders in the energy transition.

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Chelsea Valentine @chelb0ls.bsky.social · Aug 26

All the time

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David Ho @davidho.bsky.social · Aug 26

Do you ever think about how the fine for peeing in public is substantially more than the fine for dumping tonnes of CO₂ in public?

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Brad Johnson @climatebrad.hillheat.com · Aug 26

A good way to honor this Reuters photojournalist assassinated by the Israeli government in a targeted airstrike on the Nasser hospital is to read and watch his work.

Hatem Khaled | Reuters

The latest international Hatem Khaled news and views from Reuters - one of the world's largest news agencies

www.reuters.com

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Reposted by Chelsea Valentine

Climate, Ecology, War & More by Dr. Glen Barry, BigEarthData.ai @bigearthdata.bsky.social · Aug 23

How beavers are helping us fight climate change - one dam at a time - BBC Wildlife Magazine
->Discover Wildlife | #Wildlife #ClimateChange | More info from EcoSearch

How beavers are helping us fight climate change - one dam at a time - BBC Wildlife Magazine

There is a growing body of evidence that beavers could be powerful natural allies as we try to turn the tide on a whole smorgasbord of man-made problems. They have proved that they can support in efforts to prevent flooding,...

www.discoverwildlife.com

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Reposted by Chelsea Valentine

Eoghan Daltun 🌍 @irishrainforest.bsky.social · Aug 25

Saxicolous (stone) lichens, in some places thought to live for 11,500 years, challenge basic concepts like species, and some consider them more akin to actual ecosystems.

Their symbiotic relationships can be viewed as metaphors for resistance, resilience, and interconnection.

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Reposted by Chelsea Valentine

Matthew Holehouse @matthewholehouse.bsky.social · Aug 25

Any attempt by future Reform/Conservative governments to prise solar from the hands of farmers in the name of protecting the countryside will be fascinating to watch. A quarter of farms now draw income from it...

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Reposted by Chelsea Valentine

Dave Vetter @davidrvetter.bsky.social · Aug 17

If BBC local news gave even a fraction of the attention it gives to nimbyism to the dual climate and biodiversity crises, it's just possible there'd be less nimbyism.

Hundreds sign petition against Cornwall solar farm plans

Residents say the plan, equivalent to 69 football pitches, is inappropriate for the Lanreath area.

www.bbc.co.uk

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Reposted by Chelsea Valentine

Mark Copelovitch @mcopelov.bsky.social · Aug 17

We had actual an actual assassination of a Democratic legislator in Minnesota two months ago & it’s completely disappeared from the National Conversation™️. This happens <all> the time over & over again 👇

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