Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Ryan Wishart @ryanwishart.bsky.social · 2d

Happy Halloween

Reposted by Ryan Wishart

Gregor Semieniuk @gregorsemieniuk.bsky.social · 4d

🚨NEW PAPER🚨
We all know the 2022 energy price shock fueled the cost of living crisis. It also caused a profit bonanza for the very rich. We show the US reaped the largest profits ($377bn) of any country. 50% went to the richest 1%, only 1% to the bottom 50%. A🧵 www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

River or sankey diagram showing the allocation of profits from global oil and gas companies to quantiles of the US wealth size distribution via financial system intermediaries, such as asset managers, and categories of ultimate beneficiaries, such as business owners, pension funds and shareholders in listed companies. The scale is hundreds of billions of US dollars, and ultimately 50.4% of profits reaching the US personal wealth distribution go to the richest 1% of households.

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Reposted by Ryan Wishart

Union of Concerned Scientists @ucs.org · 9d

“Not surprisingly, these scientists’ names and viewpoints were familiar from previous research by UCS and others, congressional testimony, and other public appearances.” Find out who authored the Trump administration’s sham climate report and uncover their ties to the #FossilFuel industry.

Who Wrote the Trump Administration’s Flawed Climate Report? Meet the Architects of Disinformation

Industry-backed actors create the illusion of legitimate debate, exploit uncertainty, and delay action.

blog.ucs.org

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Reposted by Ryan Wishart

Adam Serwer @adamserwer.bsky.social · 9d

When you recall that political reporters ran interference for Trump over his "opposition" to Project 2025, remember that even AT THAT TIME there was a hidden camera interview with Vought where he said that was bullshit and he didn't mean it. www.mediamatters.org/russ-vought/...

In undercover interview, Project 2025 architect gets candid on the initiative’s radical goals and connections to Trump

In an undercover interview with reporters from the British non-profit organization Centre for Climate Reporting, Project 2025 architect and MAGA ally Russ Vought admitted to the project's strong ties ...

www.mediamatters.org

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Ryan Wishart @ryanwishart.bsky.social · 10d

Dang my class starts in January

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Ryan Wishart @ryanwishart.bsky.social · 12d

Would be good to see Examiner follow up on how the proposed elimination of the Earth and Atmospheric Science and other departments at UNL would impact capacity to follow up on the reports findings and recommendations. The cuts seem likely to make it impossible to do a similar report in the future.

Reposted by Ryan Wishart

Nick Cunningham @nickcunningham.bsky.social · 16d

Trump admin wants to keep expensive coal plants online to power AI

If you're wondering why electricity bills are going up....
www.reuters.com/sustainabili...

Most coal-fired power plants will delay retirement to feed AI boom, energy secretary says

The administration of U.S. President Donald Trump expects most of the nation's coal-fired power plants to delay retirement to help deliver the vast amount of electricity needed to fuel artificial intelligence, Energy Secretary Chris Wright told Reuters on Thursday.

www.reuters.com

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Reposted by Ryan Wishart

Union of Concerned Scientists @ucs.org · 19d

UCS's @karenstillerman.bsky.social breaks down why this report matters and the policies contributing to a spike in food prices and food insecurity in her latest blog:

The USDA Cancels Annual Hunger Study While Trump Policies Drive Up Food Prices

Canceling the annual Household Food Security Reports is part of a broader Trump administration effort to suppress data inconvenient to its political agenda.

blog.ucs.org

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Ryan Wishart @ryanwishart.bsky.social · Sep 9

Trump isn't "primitively grasping" towards anything like the degrowth project Saito or other similar Marxists support. To say the govt are trying, ineffectually, to respond to SOME of the contradictions identified by them isn't the same thing.
@koheisaito.bsky.social can speak for himself of course

Reposted by Ryan Wishart

Timmons Roberts @timmonsroberts.bsky.social · Sep 7

So proud of this collaboration led by @cssn.org

110 top experts from around the world

13 chapters on who is blocking or slowing action on climate change

A quantum leap in our understanding of why society has failed to solve this

Will be free online Oct 14 1/x

global.oup.com/academic/pro...

Cover of new book Climate Obstruction: A Global Assessment from Oxford University Press. Shows cows, smokestacks, jets, oil refineries, cell phones and a man in a suit talking to an audience

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Reposted by Ryan Wishart

Kim Kelly @kimkelly.bsky.social · Aug 14

Black lung is still destroying lives and families in Appalachia, and this “pro-coal” government doesn’t care.

The implementation of a lifesaving safety rule has been delayed yet again, and coal miners will continue to pay the price.

Via @westvirginiawatch.com westvirginiawatch.com/2025/08/14/t...

‘They don’t care:’ Advocates for miners with black lung worry as silica dust rule delayed again • West Virginia Watch

A federal rule to limit coal miners’ exposure to dangerous silica dust — which was set to go into effect next week after already being delayed for months — is expected to be further postponed followin...

westvirginiawatch.com

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Reposted by Ryan Wishart

Ian Carrillo @iansociologo.bsky.social · Aug 1

If a scholar of petro-masculinity said that men lust for coal, it would be seen as an exaggeration. But here we are...

u.s. department of energy post on x praising coal:

"She's an icon
She's a legend
And she is the moment

[sparkly picture of coal]

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Reposted by Ryan Wishart

Nebraska Examiner @nebraskaexaminer.com · Jul 30

WARNING SIGNS: Nebraska's GDP shrunk by a nation-leading 6.1% in the first quarter of 2025. Only Iowa lost as much, based on federal statistics. Tough times in agriculture led the way, which could signal trouble.

From Erin Bamer:

Feds say Nebraska GDP shrunk more than 6% in first quarter of 2025, led by ag • Nebraska Examiner

Nebraska tied with Iowa for the largest losses of Gross Domestic Product in the first quarter of 2025, of 6.1%, according to federal report.

buff.ly

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Ryan Wishart @ryanwishart.bsky.social · Jul 12

Anyone with a basic understanding of economic inequality and taxation trends would have immediately caught this error. That our representatives believed it is revealing. In reality, comparing the table cited for 2017 with 2022 the share paid by the top 1% FELL (2.2%), as their share of income grew.

Ryan Wishart @ryanwishart.bsky.social · Jul 12

Anyone with a basic understanding of economic inequality and taxation trends would have immediately caught this error. That our representatives believed it is revealing. In reality, comparing the table cited for 2017 with 2022 the share paid by the top 1% FELL (2.2%), as their share of income grew.

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Ryan Wishart @ryanwishart.bsky.social · Jul 12

Nebraska’s congressional delegation ludicrously claim, in @owhnews.bsky.social , the 2017 tax cuts doubled the share of taxes paid by the richest 1%. Hyperlinks provided show they compare the share of individual income taxes paid by the 0.1% in 2017 with the top 1% now.
omaha.com/opinion/colu...

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Ryan Wishart @ryanwishart.bsky.social · Jul 12

Nebraska’s congressional delegation ludicrously claim, in our biggest newspaper, the 2017 tax cuts doubled the share of taxes paid by the richest 1%. Hyperlinks provided show they compare the share of individual income taxes paid by the 0.1% with the top 1%.
omaha.com/opinion/colu...

As a result, the top 1 percent of earners now pay more than 40 percent of income taxes, compared with 24 percent prior to TCJA

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Reposted by Ryan Wishart

Tamar Haspel @tamarhaspel.bsky.social · Jul 8

US kids are 15x more likely to die by gun, and 2.5x more likely to die by car than kids in the OECD 18 countries.

All while their health is deteriorating in other ways.
jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...

Trends in US Children’s Mortality, Chronic Conditions, Obesity, Functional Status, and Symptoms

This study aims to determine how US children’s health has been changing from 2007 to 2023 using multiple data collection methods and a comprehensive set of health indicators.

jamanetwork.com

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Reposted by Ryan Wishart

Josh Marshall @joshtpm.bsky.social · Jul 5

Harvard sociologist/polisci Theda Skocpol explains how the vast expansion of ICE in BBB may be Trump's secret weapon to overcome the barriers of federalism and complete his autocratic takeover of the American state. (History from Germany & Hungary in 20s/30s.) talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/criti...

Critical Read About the BBB, Federalism and the Future of American Democracy

TPM Reader TS (Harvard sociologist/political scientist Theda Skocpol) and I often compared...

talkingpointsmemo.com

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Ryan Wishart @ryanwishart.bsky.social · Jul 4

"rural voters who lost hospitals were roughly 5–10 percentage points more likely to vote Republican in subsequent presidential elections. If anything state Republicans seemed to benefit in rural areas from rejecting Medicaid and resulting rural health woes..."
link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Reposted by Ryan Wishart

Jacob Weindling @jakeweindling.bsky.social · Jul 3

A rural hospital in a Nebraska county that voted 75-25 for the GOP Senator in November closed due to the Republican Party's impending Medicaid cuts. This is a harbinger of a bleak future to come for rural communities. www.splinter.com/rural-hospit...

Rural Hospital Closes Due to GOP’s Gargantuan Medicaid Cuts

Splinter is your home for news and opinions that challenge power in our political and economic system that's becoming more unhinged each and every day.

www.splinter.com

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Ryan Wishart @ryanwishart.bsky.social · Jun 25

Whether "Special interest groups are suppressing, or have suppressed in the past, technologies that could provide energy at reduced cost or reduced pollution output." Is true of false hinges quite a bit on how you define suppression
www.asanet.org/footnotes-ar...

Ryan Wishart @ryanwishart.bsky.social · Jun 25

The EXISTENCE Bohemian Grove annual party is a false conspiracy??
Sociologists have debunked conspiracies about it but it certainly IS a party of mostly rich and powerful guys every year- this is not a conspiracy at all but a simple fact!
whorulesamerica.ucsc.edu/power/bohemi...

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Ryan Wishart @ryanwishart.bsky.social · Jun 22

Ryan Wishart @ryanwishart.bsky.social · Jun 21

showyourstripes.info/c/northameri...

Show Your Stripes

Visualising how the climate has changed for every country across the globe

showyourstripes.info