Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by RadReduction (Larry Edwards)

Ted Zukoski @tedzukoski.bsky.social · 5h

"This devastating loss underlines the urgent and sustained need for stronger, coordinated conservation efforts for migratory birds, and migratory species in general." #birds

International Wader Study Group @waderstudy.bsky.social · 8h

Today IUCN has officially declared the Slender-billed Curlew extinct, marking the first known global extinction of a formerly widespread migratory bird species whose range included mainland Europe, North Africa, and West Asia.

Read more here ⬇️
www.unep-aewa.org/fr/node/6632

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Prof. Bob Howarth @profbobhowarth.bsky.social · 5h

This is the right decision, President Sally Kornbluth is showing leadership. Makes me proud to be an MIT alumn (PhD, 1979)
apnews.com/article/mit-...

MIT president says she 'cannot support' proposal to adopt Trump priorities for funding benefits

MIT's president said she “cannot support” a White House proposal that asks MIT and eight other universities to adopt President Donald Trump’s political agenda in exchange for favorable access to feder...

apnews.com

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Simon Lewis @simonlewis.bsky.social · 8h

Wild, airlines are basically unregulated banks that fly planes…

David Roberts @volts.wtf · 9h

"Bankification today accounts for the highest profit margins in the US economy, crippling productive capacity and setting the stage for the next crash."

Some real decadent-late-capitalism shit here.

Everything Is Becoming a Bank

Most major corporations — from airlines to social media platforms — now aspire to become unregulated banks. Bankification today accounts for the highest profit margins in the US economy, crippling pro...

jacobin.com

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Hannah Daly @hannahdaly.ie · 21h

It would still require an immediate and unprecedented crash in greenhouse gas emissions. This stretches the limits of what can be considered both “optimistic” and “plausible”, but it’s a far more hopeful picture than the original findings.

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RadReduction (Larry Edwards) @radreduction.bsky.social · 8h

Given urgency handed to today's generations by decades of inaction / insufficient action on climate, IMO just 1 approach is capable.

It is necessary — the challenge is for it to gain recognition & for its necessity to gain broad (even if reluctant) acceptance.

www.researchgate.net/publication/...

(PDF) Cap and Adapt: Failsafe Policy for the Climate Emergency

PDF | Decades of continuing failures to achieve globally-agreed climate policy that is sufficient and fast enough to solve the climate change emergency... | Find, read and cite all the research you ne...

www.researchgate.net

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Peter Gleick @petergleick.bsky.social · 1d

This was literally the strategy of the Nazi Reichstag fire: use a violent event you've instigated yourself to suspend civil liberties and impose totalitarianism.

Heather Cherone @heathercherone.bsky.social · 1d

Perry: How do you respond to the plaintiffs' contention that any unrest, any violence is the fault of how federal agents are interacting with members of the public? Does it matter if their conduct is why they can't execute federal laws?
Hamilton: No.

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Peter Gleick @petergleick.bsky.social · 1d

By having the power to constrain Donald Trump's violations of international law and his murder of civilians, and by failing to exercise that power, 51 US senators are now complicit in the administration's perpetration of war crimes.

www.bbc.com/news/article...

Colombia's president says boat struck by US was carrying Colombians

The White House calls the allegation "baseless" as the US Senate rejected a measure to bar Trump from using force against the boats.

www.bbc.com

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Ruth 😯🤯🍄 @ruth-child.bsky.social · 1d

This is great, but they really need to get the hell out of there.

Mark Jacob @markjacob.bsky.social · 1d

Chicagoans won a temporary restraining order today that prevents federal agents from using tear gas, pepper spray and other weapons against journalists and peaceful protesters.
We’re fighting back peacefully in Chicago because — unlike Trump — we believe in the rule of law.

Judge Rules Feds Can't Pepper-Spray, Tear-Gas Journalists After Block Club Chicago And Others Sue

Block Club and news organizations sued the federal government for its actions against journalists outside the Broadview ICE detention facility. Four of our journalists have been shot with pepper-spray...

blockclubchicago.org

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Peter Gleick @petergleick.bsky.social · 1d

It looks like Trump's EPA is stonewalling the release of a major scientific report on the health effects of "forever chemicals" in our drinking water.

www.propublica.org/article/epa-...

Scientists Completed a Toxicity Report on This Forever Chemical. The EPA Hasn’t Released It.

Agency scientists found that PFNA could cause developmental, liver and reproductive harms. Their final report was ready in mid-April, according to an internal document reviewed by ProPublica, but the ...

www.propublica.org

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Mark Jacob @markjacob.bsky.social · 1d

We used to have presidents who knew middle-school math.

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 1d

Trump: "You never had anybody here that knew what the hell they were doing. I'll be honest with you. It makes me angry ... we're gonna get drug reductions of 500%."

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Ryan Katz-Rosene, PhD @ryankatzrosene.bsky.social · 1d

“The founder of Antifa was actually Dwight Eisenhower”

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Jussi Pasanen @jopas.bsky.social · 1d

Standard Operating Procedure: Privatise profits, socialise losses

Yale Environment 360 @yalee360.bsky.social · 1d

The E.U. is mandating the treatment of micropollutants in wastewater, with the cost to be borne by polluters.

But the pharmaceutical and cosmetics industries, which are responsible for most of those contaminants, are pushing back.

An E.U. Plan to Slash Micropollutants in Wastewater Is Under Attack

Earlier this year, a European Union directive mandated advanced treatment of micropollutants in wastewater, with the cost to be borne by polluters. But the pharmaceutical and cosmetics industries, whi...

e360.yale.edu

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RadReduction (Larry Edwards) @radreduction.bsky.social · 10h

And his next post: "
It's an agreement that does not resolve contradictions. It formalizes their coexistence. Ambition & realism, equity & universality, national sovereignty & global coordination; a structure that survives precisely because it can never fully close."

@kevinclimate.bsky.social

Bob Berwyn @bberwyn.bsky.social · 1d

I think a good way to understand the COP process and Paris Agreement is through a lens of deconstruction.

The city and country of Derrida, Foucault and poststructuralism, gave us an agreement that never ends.

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Mark Jacob @markjacob.bsky.social · 2d

A brilliant former colleague of mine with an important piece of journalism.

Jennifer Smith Richards @jsmithrichards.bsky.social · 2d

To understand the Trump administration’s vision for American education, @megomatz.bsky.social and I studied dozens of hours of political appointees’ speeches and podcasts and essays. What emerged is a desire to dismantle the nation’s system of public schools.

These Activists Want to Dismantle Public Schools. Now They Run the Education Department.

Under Trump, the Department of Education has been bringing in activists hostile to public schools. It could mean a new era of private and religious schools boosted by tax dollars — and the end of publ...

www.propublica.org

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J. Offir, PhD @joffirphd.bsky.social · 2d

This has felt inevitable. Lines are being drawn, & people need to pick which side they're going to stand on. We can't ignore it; it's happening.

"State leaders have prided themselves on finding bipartisan consensus, but...Trump’s deployment of National Guard troops

www.nytimes.com/2025/10/08/u...

Texas’ Blue-State Deployments Shred Relations Between Governors

www.nytimes.com

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Andy Scollick @andyscollick.bsky.social · 2d

I genuinely don't understand how so many good Americans don't get it: the reality that should Trump or a successor undertake a military-backed coup that "constitutional rights" will somehow matter.

A coup d'état means there will be no rights. They are suspended. Denied. Lost. Gone. Finito.

Pod Save America @podsaveamerica.crooked.com · 2d

The Insurrection Act doesn’t take away your constitutional rights.

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RadReduction (Larry Edwards) @radreduction.bsky.social · 20h

See 👆 — Conclusion on aviation: "Rather than gambling on future breakthroughs that may never materialise, policymakers should pursue immediate demand-reduction strategies & support a just transition …"

@kevinclimate.bsky.social @stucap.bsky.social @cityatlas.bsky.social @parkewilde.bsky.social

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RadReduction (Larry Edwards) @radreduction.bsky.social · 20h

Just published, in Journal of the Academy of Social Sciences:

"Flight from reality: sustainable aviation, Jet Zero, and the technofix"

Open access:
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Screen shot:

Flight from reality: sustainable aviation, Jet Zero, and the
technofix

Gareth Dale, Josh Moos and Alistair Bernal Holmes

ABSTRACT

This paper argues that rising aviation emissions, which are disproportionally driven by the wealthy, pose a serious threat to climate goals. Using the UK’s Jet Zero strategy as a case study, it explores how policymakers and industry promote speculative technologies—efficiency gains, electric and hydrogen aircraft, sustainable aviation fuels, carbon capture, and offsetting—to justify continued aviation growth. We critically assess these claims: electric aircraft are limited to short routes; hydrogen faces major storage and infrastructure barriers, and green hydrogen remains scarce. SAFs, often derived from land-intensive crops, risk deforestation, biodiversity loss, and higher net emissions. Second generation SAFs, such as used cooking oil, are scarce, and power-to-liquid is speculative and prohibitively expensive. Carbon capture is unproven at scale, and offsetting enables airlines to claim reductions without cutting actual emissions. These “solutions” align with a political agenda that prioritises economic growth and airport expansion. We argue that this techno-optimism delays real action. Rather than gambling on future breakthroughs that may never materialise, policymakers should pursue immediate demand-reduction strategies and support a just transition—ending frequent-flyer incentives, shifting short-haul flights to rail, removing aviation fuel subsidies, and retraining workers for low-carbon sectors.

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loveisphere @loveisphere.bsky.social · 2d

“Let’s be clear. Taking a cruise is one of the most polluting ways to take a holiday. Just when more and more people are concerned about the climate and want to reduce their own emissions, MSC Cruises is trying to get customers on board with peace of mind.” #greenwashing #yyj #climatecrisis

Fair Sailing @fairsailing.bsky.social · 2d

MSC Cruises is entering the Alaska market in 2026, and its Poesia will stop in Victoria 20 times. We'll be hearing a lot about its sustainability. It's all BS. gofossilfree.org/nl/msc-cruis...

MSC Cruises guilty of greenwashing

Cruising the blue in a green way? The Dutch advertising watchdog has ruled that MSC Cruises is misleading in their adverts about sustainability.

gofossilfree.org

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Nick Breeze @nickbreeze.genn.cc · 2d

Trump admin rotten and degenerate to the core.
www.ft.com/content/678f...

US demands EU dismantle green regulations in threat to trade deal

Washington wants American companies to be exempted from rules such as having to draw up climate transition plans

www.ft.com

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Eric Doherty @ericdoherty.bsky.social · 3d

"Plenary authority suggests an executive that cannot be checked, which is not the system of laws that the founding fathers drew up. . . there's a reason America fought a war of independence. www.distractify.com/p/plenary-au...

Stephen Miller Said the President Has "Plenary Authority," but What Does That Mean?

During an interview on CNN, Stephen Miller said that the president had plenary authority, which naturally led some to wonder what that means.

www.distractify.com

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RadReduction (Larry Edwards) @radreduction.bsky.social · 2d

As well as his more recent work on climate sensitivity. See here: www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/. He finds it to be higher than what has conventionally been determined (by e.g. IPCC).

If you aren't already, it would be good to follow @leonsimons.bsky.social.

Dr. James E. Hansen

www.columbia.edu

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RadReduction (Larry Edwards) @radreduction.bsky.social · 2d

One thing you might look at is Hansen and others' "Global warming in the pipeline" (2023). doi.org/10.1093/oxfc....

(Though I don't agree with its proposed policy solutions.)

Global warming in the pipeline

Abstract. Improved knowledge of glacial-to-interglacial global temperature change yields Charney (fast-feedback) equilibrium climate sensitivity 1.2 ± 0.3°

doi.org

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RadReduction (Larry Edwards) @radreduction.bsky.social · 2d

That's why I addressed only your question about PPM of CO2. "Simplifying here by looking only at CO2 and no feedbacks."

The climate system is complex, with lots of heat stored in the ocean, and the effects of changes in aerosols, clouds and surface albedo involved, for example.

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Democracy Forward @democracyforward.org · 3d

We’d also love to know what happened to the $50,000 Tom Homan allegedly took from FBI agents.

Luckily, we’ve sued for the receipts.

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