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Carlos Moffat

@carlosmoffat.com

560 followers 380 following 75 posts

Associate Professor of oceanography at the University of Delaware. Interested in icy places. Views my own. Old posts are deleted regularly.

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Carlos Moffat @carlosmoffat.com · Aug 29

🌊With the Fall semester upon us, it's time to start thinking about recruiting/applying to grad school for 2026.

If you are a marine scientist looking for a graduate student, I've created a form where you can add your name and other info:

docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

Please share widely! (1/2)

Oceanography MS/PhD Positions for Fall 2026

This is an effort to collect the **contact information of potential advisors** for MS/PhD students in Oceanography. Please note that if you answer **you are agreeing to have your contact information...

docs.google.com

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Carlos Moffat @carlosmoffat.com · 1h

What about submitting fake homework, Doug?

Carlos Moffat @carlosmoffat.com · 1h

Give me a dollar for each email that says "let's meet" but doesn't attempt to provide some options, or a poll, and I could probably retire.

Carlos Moffat @carlosmoffat.com · 6h

Omar Yaghi, who just won the Nobel Prize in chemistry, was born to a refugee family from Palestine and moved to the U.S. at age 15, unable to speak much English.

Carlos Moffat @carlosmoffat.com · 1d

2 of the 3 Nobel Laureates in Physics this year are immigrants to the US.

The NYTimes is reporting a nearly ~20% drop in international students arriving here this year.

The US can have the brightest minds come and succeed here, or it can slash scientific funding and keep people out. Not both.

The New York Times @nytimes.com · 2d

The number of international students arriving in the U.S. in August fell by 19% this year compared with last year — the largest decline on record outside of the pandemic.

Reposted by Carlos Moffat

Tessa Hill @tessahill.bsky.social · 6d

In case you need something … less dark… on your timeline:

This week I started my seminar focused on the legacy of Rachel Carson.

I’m thinking I’ll post here what we are reading/watching/doing, and if you are interested, you could follow along. Like a bit of a Carson book group. 📕 🐦

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Carlos Moffat @carlosmoffat.com · 1d

👏🏼

Canary Media Inc. @canarymedia.com · 1d

New England has said its final goodbye to coal power. Here’s how a transition to gas — and now renewables — helped shut its last plant down early.

New England’s final coal plant shuts down years ahead of schedule

Poor economics drove the aging New Hampshire plant offline three years early, even as the Trump administration pushes to revitalize coal.

www.canarymedia.com

Carlos Moffat @carlosmoffat.com · 1d

The New York Times @nytimes.com · 2d

The number of international students arriving in the U.S. in August fell by 19% this year compared with last year — the largest decline on record outside of the pandemic.

Nearly 20 Percent Fewer International Students Traveled to the U.S. in August

The data shows the steepest decline in August international student arrivals since the pandemic.

nyti.ms

Carlos Moffat @carlosmoffat.com · 1d

I'm sure no innocent people will be hurt by this technology.

Drew Harwell @drewharwell.com · 2d

The Sora AI disinfo nightmare is here

For more like this:
tiktok.com/@drewharwell
instagram.com/bydrewharwell

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Carlos Moffat @carlosmoffat.com · 1d

A lot of people suddenly love the plan to colonize mars.

Carlos Moffat @carlosmoffat.com · 2d

We need a new term for “Antarctic research vessel envy”.

OGS @ogsit.bsky.social · 2d

🚢 La N/R Laura Bassi salpa da TS per una nuova campagna in Antartide.

ℹ️La nave rifornirà la base Zucchelli, supporterà 5 progetti di ricerca, e trasporterà le carote di ghiaccio del progetto Ice Memory, per la creazione di un nuovo archivio mondiale di dati sul clima.

🔗 www.ogs.it/it/press/la-...

Reposted by Carlos Moffat

Scott Doney @scottdoney.bsky.social · 2d

Starting this afternoonUVA’s Environmental Institute @uvaenvironment.bsky.social hosts a two-day Environmental Futures Forum with keynote speaker Dr. Jane Lubchenco www.environmentalfuturesforum.org

UVA Environmental Futures Forum

www.environmentalfuturesforum.org

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Reposted by Carlos Moffat

EGU Ocean Sciences @egu-os.bsky.social · 6d

We're thrilled to announce that the #EGU Ocean Sciences Division is now on Bluesky and LinkedIn!🎉 Follow us for the latest updates and many blog posts about the world of ocean science. 🌊🧪

👉 Check out our blog blogs.egu.eu/divisions/os/ & subscribe to stay informed!
LinkedIn: bit.ly/3ItSwVr
@egu.eu

Ocean Sciences

A blog hosted by the European Geosciences Union

blogs.egu.eu

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Reposted by Carlos Moffat

Joey Fishkin @fishkin.bsky.social · 3d

I thought I'd put the administration's proposed "compact" with universities in context, so I wrote the blog post below.

It's especially for journalists covering this story!

Many details about how the compact itself works and why the administration has retreated to this strategy.

Balkinization: The Art of Replacing the Law with the Deal

A group blog on constitutional law, theory, and politics

balkin.blogspot.com

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Carlos Moffat @carlosmoffat.com · 3d

An excellent analysis of the structure, intention, and potential consequences of the “Compact” the government is asking 9 university to sign.

This document is incompatible with the basic tenets of academia.

(h/t @jamellebouie.net)

By far the most important text in the compact is its final paragraph, which reads:

>Adherence to this agreement shall be subject to review by the Department of Justice.
Universities found to have willfully or negligently violated this agreement shall lose access to the benefits of this agreement for a period of no less than 1 year. Subsequent violations of this agreement shall result in a loss of access to the benefits of this agreement for no less than 2 years. Further, upon determination of any violations, all monies advanced by the U.S. government during the year of any violation shall be returned to the U.S. government.
Finally, any private contributions to the university during the year(s) in which such violation occurred shall be returned to the grantor upon the request of the grantor.

The effect of the agreement is to hang a sword of Damocles over any compact-signing university that is not there today. The "benefits of this agreement,"

In other words, this is the most sweeping pile of unconstitutional conditions that any American constitutional lawyer has ever seen in the wild.

That's the point of the compact. No journalist should say anything about the compact without offering their readers, viewers, or listeners a clear account of what the point of it is. It is about control. Specifically it is about turning existing federal law, over which the administration has limited control, into terms of a "deal" that offers the government much more control.

The other point of the compact, of course, is to try to divide and conquer the university sector. To gain the leverage it wants, the administration desperately needs multiple universities to say yes. It would be a disaster for May Mailman and her team if no one joined this thing, the way no news organization took the Pentagon up on its similar "offer" of continued access to the Pentagon if and only if reporters would agree to say only what the Pentagon approves. To roll up the sector, the administration needs the agreeing universities to be ones that other universities would feel comfortable joining. It's no good if you get, say, Liberty University to join. That would actually help those in academia who hope to persuade their schools to refuse to sign this or any similar "compact" by arguing that if you do, you are Liberty University.
Similarly, if small, defenseless institutions such as community colleges joined, that would not be an especially persuasive starting point for rolling up the whole sector. You can see this calculation in the set of schools the university in fact chose to approach this week-Arizona, Brown, Dartmouth, MIT, Penn, USC, Texas, Vanderbilt, and UVA. These clearly represent an effort to find the intersection on the Venn diagram between schools with a good amount of prestige and schools that might be softer targets, sometimes because their strong leaders have already been deposed as a result of right-wing activism and replaced with figures who are weaker, more beholden to conservative donors or politicians, or both. Or so the government hopes.

Reposted by Carlos Moffat

Scott Doney @scottdoney.bsky.social · 4d

University of Virginia Faculty Senate
Resolution Opposing the "Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education"
facultysenate.virginia.edu/resolution-o...

Resolution Opposing the "Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education" | Faculty Senate, U.Va.

facultysenate.virginia.edu

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Carlos Moffat @carlosmoffat.com · 4d

A vague demand for “viewpoint diversity” can be used against anyone. It isn’t science vs. humanities.

How does a department full of scientists working on climate change look to the administration?

How about a health department working on vaccines?

Brendan Cantwell @cantb.bsky.social · 4d

If you’re a scientist at a Compact campus, how are you going to feel about getting grants in exchange for the suppression and harassment of your colleagues in the social sciences and humanities?

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Reposted by Carlos Moffat

David Ho @davidho.bsky.social · 4d

Eating is woke

Trump Canceled 94 Million Pounds of Food Aid. Here’s What Never Arrived.

ProPublica obtained records from the Department of Agriculture that detail the millions of pounds of food, down to the number of eggs, that never reached food banks because of the administration’s cut...

projects.propublica.org

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Reposted by Carlos Moffat

Mary Lewis @profmarylewis.bsky.social · 4d

Excellent resolution from UVA. Well done, @uvahumanities.bsky.social

Now, friends at Dartmouth, MIT, Vanderbilt, Texas, etc need to step up.

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Carlos Moffat @carlosmoffat.com · 4d

Well done.

Jeff Sharlet @jeffsharlet.bsky.social · 4d

It appears that my employer, Dartmouth, one of the Trump 9, has said no to the compact. All the better given that our president is cited within it. But she’s saying no. Count the small victories when they come.

Office of the President
Dear Dartmouth community,

As many of you know, Dartmouth was one of nine universities asked by the White House to give feedback by Oct. 20 on a draft of its “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education.”

I am deeply committed to Dartmouth’s academic mission and values and will always defend our fierce independence.

You have often heard me say that higher education is not perfect and that we can do better. At the same time, we will never compromise our academic freedom and our ability to govern ourselves.

Best,
Sian Leah Beilock
President

Carlos Moffat @carlosmoffat.com · 4d

It also helps if you can write columns completely contradicting your previous positions without ever acknowledging doing so or explaining yourself.

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Carlos Moffat @carlosmoffat.com · 4d

Lovely.

Eladio Bobadilla @eladiobobadilla.com · 4d

Reposted by Carlos Moffat

Todd Wolfson @proftwolf.bsky.social · 5d

Check out me & @chenjerai.bsky.social & Lorena Grundy of @aaup-penn.bsky.social break down the new Trump compact for higher ed…. Otherwise known as loyalty oaths. This is AAUP TV. @aaup.org @aft.org @higheredlabor.bsky.social www.youtube.com/live/RB1FLkR...

Breaking Down Trump's New Higher Ed Loyalty Oath Compacts and Why We Must Resist

YouTube video by TheAAUP

www.youtube.com

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Carlos Moffat @carlosmoffat.com · 5d

I don't know if it has been translated, but his Territorio Comanche (1994) about his experience as a journalist in the Yugoslav wars is great.

Carlos Moffat @carlosmoffat.com · 5d

"Should Universities work together to fend off the administration's attacks on academic freedom and free speech?" is a key question that rank-and-file faculty (i.e., @aaup.org) are answering in the affirmative and University administrators are mostly shrugging off. Time is running out.

The New York Times @nytimes.com · 5d

In @nytopinion.nytimes.com

Trump’s proposed “compact” with nine major universities “is extortion, plain and simple,” Erwin Chemerinsky writes in a guest essay. “It is not hyperbole to say that the future of higher education in America requires that every university reject it.”

Opinion | Trump’s ‘Compact’ With Universities Is Just Extortion

There seems to be no limit to the president’s odious attempts to control higher education.

nyti.ms

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Reposted by Carlos Moffat

Ruth Mottram @ruthmottram.bsky.social · 5d

🚨New paper 🚨@natgeosci.nature.com Greenlandification of Antarctica - comment by me + colleagues @dmidk.bsky.social @eo4cryo.bsky.social + @universityofleeds.bsky.social showing how Antarctica increasingly resembles Greenland- drawing on a mass of work from @esaclimate.bsky.social

rdcu.be/eJiqJ

The Greenlandification of Antarctica

Nature Geoscience - Climate and ice sheet processes in Antarctica increasingly reflect those observed earlier in Greenland. Applying process insights from Greenland can improve projections of...

rdcu.be

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