Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Jon Levy @jonlevybu.bsky.social · 1h

Pros of wind power: increased reliability, lower electricity costs, green jobs, less air pollution, less climate change, better health

Cons: Something about drone attacks? Views from golf courses?

Attacks on wind energy don’t make sense. Our thoughts:

www.bostonglobe.com/2025/10/08/m...

Restarting Revolution Wind is good for our health as well as the climate - The Boston Globe

Investing in clean sources of electricity helps address climate change. It also leads to local and regional health benefits, write two Boston University professors of environmental health.

www.bostonglobe.com

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Jon Levy @jonlevybu.bsky.social · 3d

The Trump administration wants to repeal the 2009 "Endangerment Finding", arguing that greenhouse gases don't actually harm health and well-being. A group of 100+ experts reviewed the literature and disagrees. We brought the receipts (400+ references). Full comment at zenodo.org/records/1728...

Expert Working Group on Climate Change and Health in the United States Comment on EPA's Proposed Reconsideration of 2009 Endangerment Finding

zenodo.org

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Reposted by Jon Levy

Jonathan Buonocore @jjbuonocore.bsky.social · 3d

Proud to be part of the Expert Working Group on Climate Change and Health that just put together a report summarizing the evidence of health harms of climate change to date. Report is here: zenodo.org/records/1728... 🛟 #climatesky

Expert Working Group on Climate Change and Health in the United States Comment on EPA's Proposed Reconsideration of 2009 Endangerment Finding

zenodo.org

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Yashar Ali 🐘 @yasharali.bsky.social · 5d

Earlier this year, Dr. Jane Goodall sat down for an interview for Brad Falchuk’s new Netflix series, Famous Last Words.

The premise of the series is to interview people on the condition that the interview not air until the subject has passed away.

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The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine @nationalacademies.org · 6d

Cumulative impact assessment is the process of identifying and assessing the environmental impacts of multiple proposed projects.

Learn about our new report advising how to advance the science and practice behind cumulative impact assessment at our October 9 webinar: https://ow.ly/rsOf50X4uwA

A graphic with the text, "State-of-the-Science and the Future of Cumulative Impact Assessment, a webinar on October 9 from 3 to 4 PM Eastern Time."

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Jon Levy @jonlevybu.bsky.social · 12d

There are many things wrong with this idea, including:
1) Universities aren’t people. I may or may not believe what university leadership believes.
2) Research (at least for health) should be judged on whether it has good ideas for making people healthier. Less merit means worse health.

Jake Grumbach @jakemgrumbach.bsky.social · 12d

Awarding scientific grants based on scientific merit? That pales in comparison to my strategy, giving grants based on political loyalty

www.washingtonpost.com/education/20...

Wp EXCLUSIVE
White House considers funding advantage for colleges that align with Trump policies The proposal could potentially transform the government's vast research funding operation, which has long awarded university grants based on scientific merit.
Today at 6:00 a.m. EDT

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Jon Levy @jonlevybu.bsky.social · 14d

Our new publication from @busph.bsky.social shows that machine learning models can be used to explain aircraft contributions to ultrafine particle air pollution near airports.

And it was co-authored by new @jeopardyofficial.bsky.social champion Prasad Patil!

pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/...

Quantifying Aviation-Related Contributions to Ambient Ultrafine Particle Number Concentrations Using Interpretable Machine Learning

Ultrafine particles (UFP, Dp < 100 nm) are abundantly emitted by aircraft, but quantifying their contributions to ambient particle number concentrations (PNC) is challenging due to confounding from lo...

pubs.acs.org

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James Goodwin @jamesgoodwin.bsky.social · 16d

"... Zeldin intends to sign off next week on the final policy and legal justifications for repealing the so-called endangerment finding and Biden-era climate rules for cars and trucks... before agency staff have time to sift through all public comments...." subscriber.politicopro.com/article/eene...

E&E News: Internal docs: Zeldin races ahead without analysis in endangerment rollback

The EPA administrator plans to sign off on the repeal's policy and legal justifications before his staff finishes the regulatory impact analysis.

subscriber.politicopro.com

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Dave Levitan @davelevitan.bsky.social · 20d

Can't publish science without political approval, what could go wrong

[🎁]

EPA tells scientists to stop publishing studies, employees say

Staff from the EPA’s Office of Water were summoned to a town hall meeting this week and told to pause the publication of most research, pending a review.

wapo.st

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Marshall Burke @marshallburke.bsky.social · 22d

Excellent coverage of our study out today on climate impacts on wildfire smoke and related health impacts.

Shannon Osaka @shannonosaka.bsky.social · 22d

It's not your imagination: Wildfire smoke in the U.S. has dramatically worsened since 2019. According to a new study, it's already killing 41,000 people a year - and it's poised to get much worse.

new from me @johnmuyskens.bsky.social and @sadbumblebee.buzz

www.washingtonpost.com/climate-envi...

Record wildfire smoke kills more people each year than car crashes. It’s about to get worse.

The past six summers have been the smokiest on record. New research shows that smoke could become the costliest consequence of climate change for Americans.

www.washingtonpost.com

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Reposted by Jon Levy

Jessica Kutz @jkutzie.bsky.social · Sep 9

The EPA cancelled grants that would help us understand how children are affected by climate change.

The agency response: Maybe Biden and Harris "shouldn’t have forced their radical agenda of wasteful DEI programs and ‘environmental justice.'"

19thnews.org/2025/09/epa-...

In a single email, the EPA ended her research into how climate change endangers children

Jane Clougherty spent years studying how extreme weather affects kids’ health, but as climate threats continue to rise, the Trump administration cancelled her work.

19thnews.org

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Jon Levy @jonlevybu.bsky.social · Sep 8

We published a paper a while back, which is worth resurrecting - wind farms can yield hundreds of millions of dollars of health and climate benefits each year, as they displace polluting power plants.

iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1...

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iopscience.iop.org

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Jon Levy @jonlevybu.bsky.social · Sep 8

The assault on wind is very similar to the assault on vaccines - ginning up evidence to support a desired policy that harms public health. Offshore wind is good for climate, air quality, and overall grid reliability.

www.nytimes.com/2025/09/03/c...

White House Orders Agencies to Escalate Fight Against Offshore Wind

www.nytimes.com

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Demetre Daskalakis @drdemetre.bsky.social · Aug 31

@citizencohn.bsky.social shares some of my story and the work that I have done on public health with thousands of scientists and implementers. We ended outbreak after outbreak TOGETHER. Many of those outbreaks occurred because of RFK Jr’s rhetoric. www.thebulwark.com/p/kennedy-rf...

This Is What—and Who—We’re Losing in RFK’s Purge

The story of one scientist, a career in public health, and the crisis at the CDC.

www.thebulwark.com

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Jon Levy @jonlevybu.bsky.social · Aug 30

The institutions that protect our health and safety - CDC, EPA, etc. - are being deliberately destroyed in a manner that will be hard to undo.

Whether this is to boost favored industries, pandemic backlash, or because ideology trumps evidence, the outcome is the same. We will be less healthy.

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Reposted by Jon Levy

Ed Maibach @maibached.bsky.social · Aug 30

Hey @nytimes.com, you got the title wrong. Here’s the correct version:

How the Trump-Kennedy Alliance Is Bulldozing the Foundations of Public Health

How the Trump-Kennedy Alliance Is Pushing the Boundaries of Public Health

www.nytimes.com

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Climate.us @climate.us · Aug 28

Curious what we are all about?
Click the link: www.cnn.com/2025/08/28/c...

CNN news story, Climate.gov will re-launch under new URL thanks to a secret team of web ninjas

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Timmons Roberts @timmonsroberts.bsky.social · Aug 25

My lab's been attacked by an anti-wind group and their lawyers. They threatened the science funding of my whole university, to shut me and my undergraduate research assistants up.

NYT just covered it. 1/n

www.nytimes.com/2025/08/25/c...

Law Firm Pressures Brown University to Erase Research on Anti-Wind Groups

www.nytimes.com

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Carlos Rodriguez-Diaz @profcarlos.bsky.social · Aug 24

🚨 New PhD program in Community Health Sciences at @busph.bsky.social 🚨

Graduates will be trained to use social justice-focused, community-engaged approaches to address some of the most pressing public health issues facing us today. We are accepting applications this fall.

SPH Debuts New PhD in Community Health Sciences

The one-of-a-kind social and behavioral sciences-focused doctoral program will emphasize social justice and community engagement.

www.bu.edu

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Jon Levy @jonlevybu.bsky.social · Aug 15

Interesting to read this “priority” after my solutions-oriented environmental health disparities center application was administratively withdrawn without review 🤔

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Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · Aug 8

1. Federal funding for research promotes tech, biomedical, and scientific discovery in the US, and provides training for the sci/tech workforce that has brought immeasurable wealth to the US over the past 75 years.

Today's executive order includes a provision that will obliterate both functions.

Improving Oversight of Federal Grantmaking

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, and to improve the process of Federal

www.whitehouse.gov

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Jon Levy @jonlevybu.bsky.social · Aug 7

I don’t want political appointees from this administration deciding what is meritorious research. But I wouldn’t want political appointees from ANY administration deciding that. That would mark the end of basic research, research with long-term benefits, etc.

www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/...

Fact Sheet: President Donald J. Trump Stops Wasteful Grantmaking

ENDING GRANT ABUSE: Today, President Donald J. Trump signed an Executive Order stopping unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats from wasting taxpayer dollars

www.whitehouse.gov

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Jeremy Berg @jeremymberg.bsky.social · Aug 7

Well, this is a huge Executive Order power grab...

www.whitehouse.gov/presidential...

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Improving Oversight of Federal Grantmaking

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, and to improve the process of Federal

www.whitehouse.gov

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Environmental Data & Governance Initiative @envirodgi.bsky.social · Aug 6

In a new report, EDGI documents the second Trump administration’s control of federal environmental information in its first 6 months. We found that environmental justice & climate change information have been broadly rewritten & deleted. Learn more: envirodatagov.org/publication/...

Climate of Suppression: Environmental Information Under the Second Trump Administration – Environmental Data and Governance Initiative

The report Climate of Suppression: Environmental Information Under the Second Trump Administration examines management of federal websites related to environmental regulation in the first six months o...

envirodatagov.org

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Jon Levy @jonlevybu.bsky.social · Aug 6

Great example of how citizen science measurements of air pollution can be aggregated to provide meaningful regional and national data. At a time when federal data are disappearing or becoming less reliable, locally generated and compiled data will take on increasing importance.

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