Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Danielle Zoe Rivera

@danielle-rivera.bsky.social

9.1K followers 590 following 340 posts

🇵🇷 Assistant Professor of Landscape Architecture + Environmental Planning at UC-Berkeley | Just + Equitable Environments | Disaster (and Disastrous) Research | Occasionally gardening + a dog

Posts Media Videos Starter Packs

Pinned

Danielle Zoe Rivera @danielle-rivera.bsky.social · Aug 19

Finishing a syllabus for a class on environmental and/or climate and/or disaster justice? Check out The Syllabus for resources! We are adding more readings and databases every day! Open and free to everyone! www.just-environments.org/the-syllabus

The Syllabus — Just Environments Lab

www.just-environments.org

3 19 38

Reposted by Danielle Zoe Rivera

Julie Johnson @jjreport.bsky.social · 2d

A California wildfire wiped out this little-known ancient forest of massive trees just before major fire-prevention work was set to begin.

“I am sad because this old-growth forest is no more. I am angry because this outcome was a choice.”

www.sfchronicle.com/climate/arti...

‘All the trees are dead’: An ancient California forest has been wiped out

Old growth forests across the West are at risk of disappearing within 50 years. The Teakettle Experimental Forest is a tragic example in California.

www.sfchronicle.com

2 10 33

Danielle Zoe Rivera @danielle-rivera.bsky.social · 7d

I'd respond: "Which time?" 😆

Danielle Zoe Rivera @danielle-rivera.bsky.social · 8d

Absolutely horrifying...

Reposted by Danielle Zoe Rivera

Seth Edmunds @phealthy.bsky.social · 8d

This is pretty crazy, study models millions of indirect hurricane deaths potentially driving/contributing to the life expectancy disparity in the US:

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

a, Total incidence of TCs on CONUS by month. Bar height is sum of average maximum wind speeds for all state-by-storm events. Colours correspond to decades. b, Stacked overlapping excess mortality responses to each storm for all of CONUS. Each storm response aggregates state-level responses nationally, accounting for state-level population and adaptation. Outline colours correspond to the decade when the TC occurred. The upper envelope is the total estimated mortality burden for CONUS resulting from all TCs occurring during the prior 172 months (see Supplementary Fig. 3). c, Official deaths directly resulting from TCs for each month according to NOAA National Hurricane Center and NOAA National Weather Service6,7. The y-axis scale is the same for b and c.

2 32 78

Danielle Zoe Rivera @danielle-rivera.bsky.social · 8d

At Grist, Laura Mallonee has just published a critically important article on the Texas flood recovery and how unincorporated boundaries are impacting equitable recovery. I was happy to chat with Laura about my ongoing research on these issues in Texas and California.

grist.org/extreme-weat...

Texas floods showed why many rural communities feel abandoned in a crisis

Almost a third of Americans live in unincorporated communities beyond city limits, where disaster aid can confuse and frustrate.

grist.org

1 6

Danielle Zoe Rivera @danielle-rivera.bsky.social · 9d

Holy moly... our NIH grant wasn't canceled! I'm so thrilled! But that also means I now have TWO intense community-engaged research projects scheduled for Spring/Summer 2026...!

🧿 Wish me luck 🧿

1 21

Danielle Zoe Rivera @danielle-rivera.bsky.social · 9d

🇵🇷🇵🇷🇵🇷

Rolling Stone @rollingstone.com · 9d

Breaking: Bad Bunny will headline the 2026 Super Bowl Halftime Show. “What I'm feeling goes beyond myself,” he said. “This is for my people, my culture, and our history.”

Story: www.rollingstone.com/music/music-...

Danielle Zoe Rivera @danielle-rivera.bsky.social · 13d

Life is chaotic right now, but watching this little Swallowtail caterpillar on my fennel plant grow and transform has been so thrilling this past week!

A series of three photographs showing a Swallowtail butterfly caterpillar grow and turn into a chrysalis.

Danielle Zoe Rivera @danielle-rivera.bsky.social · 13d

I blame the massive hills and steep paths! I'm constantly stumbling around campus too!

Danielle Zoe Rivera @danielle-rivera.bsky.social · 14d

You got this! I'm looking forward to reading the papers!

Reposted by Danielle Zoe Rivera

Laura Bassett @lebassett.bsky.social · 15d

More than 1800 detainees are missing after the closure of Alligator Alcatraz. Their families and lawyers can’t find them and they’ve vanished from the ICE database. Feels like this should be a much bigger story www.miamiherald.com/news/local/i...

Hundreds of Alligator Alcatraz detainees drop off the grid after leaving site

As of the end of August, the whereabouts of two-thirds of more than 1,800 men detained at Alligator Alcatraz during the month of July could not be determined by the Miami Herald.

www.miamiherald.com

1.2K 19K 32K

Danielle Zoe Rivera @danielle-rivera.bsky.social · 15d

Yep, I need to refill our back-up water supply!

Danielle Zoe Rivera @danielle-rivera.bsky.social · 15d

Yes! It seems to keep going, rattling the windows at the end of the work day today!

1 1

Reposted by Danielle Zoe Rivera

Corinne Blalock @corinneblalock.bsky.social · 16d

they’re putting Kimmel back on the air. I would now like to see the same amount of outrage for the firing of professors for their statements

42 560 2.4K

Danielle Zoe Rivera @danielle-rivera.bsky.social · 16d

I think so!

Danielle Zoe Rivera @danielle-rivera.bsky.social · 16d

Right near our neighborhood, woke us up with the house swaying and a frenzy of alarms going off!

Quake Alert - Earthquake Monitor @earthquakes.live · 16d

Felt #earthquake: 4.5 #quake 2 km ESE of Berkeley, CA, 10 minutes ago - 518 reports so far.
Did you feel it? Send a report!

Felt earthquake: 4.5 quake 2 km ESE of Berkeley, CA, 10 minutes ago

Detail infos, updates and user reports for this event

www.volcanodiscovery.com

4 6

Reposted by Danielle Zoe Rivera

Dr. Genevieve Guenther (she/they) @doctorvive.bsky.social · 18d

Hey, people who work on climate especially, you should know this is happening.

Congresswoman Claudia Tenney Calls on Syracuse University to Fire Professors Who Celebrated Charlie Kirk's
Murder or Face Loss of Federal Funding
September 17, 2025 | Press Release
Washington, DC - Congresswoman Claudia Tenney (NY-24)
today issued the following statement after reports surfaced o that two professors at Syracuse University mocked the brutal murder of conservative leader Charlie Kirk:
"While Americans across the country are mourning the tragic murder of Charle Kirk, two Syracuse University professors, Jenn Jackson and Farhana Sultana, used their platforms to celebrate and mock his death," said Congresswoman Tenney.
Their appalling remarks included comments such as 'rest in piss, 'give him what he valued: no empathy, referring to him as 'trash, and even thanking a so-called 'witch' for cursing his life."
=
tenney.house.gov

8 34 76

Reposted by Danielle Zoe Rivera

Ashley C. Ford @smashfizzle.bsky.social · 20d

It’s going to break your heart how many people you know, love, and respect will turn out to be cowards. Prepare yourself as best you can. You are not alone, but you are your own center. Be a strong center.

87 1.2K 5.4K

Reposted by Danielle Zoe Rivera

Dustin Mulvaney @dustinmulvaney.bsky.social · 22d

The School of Planning, Policy, and Environmental Studies at San José State University is hiring an Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies. We welcome applicants from all fields of environmental studies who apply an environmental justice lens to their work. jobs.sjsu.edu/sj/en-us/job...

San José State University - Details - Assistant Professor - Environmental Studies

jobs.sjsu.edu

48 55

Reposted by Danielle Zoe Rivera

elia ayoub 🌱 @ayoub.bsky.social · 26d

UC Berkeley betrayed their own faculty, including Jewish academics like Judith Butler, to the Trump administration

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

UC Berkeley shares 160 names with Trump administration in ‘McCarthy era’ move

Prominent professor Judith Butler among students and faculty investigated for ‘alleged antisemitic incidents’

www.theguardian.com

2 230 470

Danielle Zoe Rivera @danielle-rivera.bsky.social · 28d

It was ultimately realizing that this work I do is entirely invisible to all but one of my coworkers and the anger that generated inside of me. I'm tired, I know from our mentorship community that we all are tired and don't have energy for academic games right now.

Danielle Zoe Rivera @danielle-rivera.bsky.social · 28d

I broke today. It wasn't what happened today, it was the Supreme Court ruling yesterday, and turning to my Black/Indigenous/Latinx mentees not knowing what to say to them. It was silence from white colleagues. It was having to tell my mentorship community one of our heroes passed away last weekend.

1 18

Reposted by Danielle Zoe Rivera

Liam McHugh-Russell @xntl.bsky.social · 29d

If *your department head and your dean* can be removed for supporting your colleague in teaching in their area of expertise, then you have no academic freedom. In a functional sense, you don't work at a university at all.

Jess Calarco @jessicacalarco.com · 29d

Faculty in red states are being punished for failing to signal in their course descriptions that their classes will include content on "gender ideology."

Remind me again which party was appalled by idea of "trigger warnings"?

www.kbtx.com/2025/09/09/a...

A&M Dean removed following student complaints over curriculum

The Department of Justice has also acknowledged the situation and said it would be investigating.

www.kbtx.com

40 1K 3.2K

Danielle Zoe Rivera @danielle-rivera.bsky.social · 29d

It's been a looong 2-3 year process, but this book chapter is coming out at the end of the month! Timely as we can learn so much about organizing and resistance from Casa Pueblo and its founding family! The chapter is meant as a "thank you" to them. www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edi...

Resisting Colonialismo Ambiental and Colonialismo Desastre | 21 | The

Environmental and climate activism is increasingly criticized for remaining too closely associated with oppressive governance processes, impeding systemic

www.taylorfrancis.com

Reposted by Danielle Zoe Rivera

Cristian Farias @cristianfarias.com · Sep 8

The New Yorker asked me “how bad” today’s Supreme Court ruling was. I boiled it down to one paragraph:

link.newyorker.com/view/5bda429...

"Just the other day, I was in the audience at Lincoln Center when Justice Amy Coney Barrett said, while promoting a new book, that she doesn't think the United States is in a constitutional crisis," Farias told us. "Today, the Supreme Court, without offering a single line of reasoning, more or less declared that the Fourth Amendment, which protects everyone from unreasonable searches and seizures, nonetheless allows the Trump Administration to arrest and detain anyone who looks Latino, citizen or not, on account of the language that they speak or the kind of jobs they do. The ruling putatively covers the Los Angeles area, but the effect could be national," he continued.
"If that's not a constitutional crisis, then what is?"

130 3.5K 9.1K