Um, what?
www.nytimes.com/2025/05/16/t...

I keep thinking some version of this, but @annielowrey.bsky.social is the first person I've seen speculate on the ripples from AI-related job loss: www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...

If AI does wipe out huge numbers of white-collar jobs, that would presumably lead to a huge drop in consumer spending, which would presumably be very bad for many of the companies that used AI to wipe out white-collar jobs, right?

What’s behind your eye-popping power bill? We broke it down, region by region. The culprit depends on where you live — but it’s probably not data centers (yet).

This, from @grist.org, is excellent.

Jeff Bezos wealth in 2024: $194 billion Jeff Bezos wealth in 2025: $215 billion Jeff Bezos wealth today: $249.4 billion Net increase in Bezos wealth since 2024: $55.4 billion Cost of Bezos’s 417-foot superyacht: $500 million Amazon investment in "Melania": $75 million Original Bezos purchase price of the Washington Post in 2013: $250 million Bezos net worth in 2013: $25.2 billion Net increase in Bezos wealth since buying the Post: $224.2 billion Last reported annual losses of Post: $100 million Number of years Bezos could absorb those losses with what he makes in a single week: 5

yup

A staggering statement from former Washington Post editor Marty Baron: "This ranks among the darkest days in the history of one of the world's greatest news organizations."

How China Silences Environmental Reporters Beyond Its Borders - Inside Climate News Journalists who report on the harms caused by China’s overseas infrastructure buildout in Africa face intimidation, surveillance and police pressure.

Stellar reporting. A must-read:

Fire Breaks Out at COP30 Climate Talks in Brazil

COP is giving delegates a simulacrum of climate change:

"A fire broke out on Thursday.... Rain from a torrential downpour leaked into the meeting spaces... There were complaints about food shortages, and the air-conditioning struggled to keep up with the high heat and humidity."

The Shutdown of U.S.A.I.D. Has Already Killed Hundreds of Thousands The short documentary “Rovina’s Choice” tells the story of what goes when aid goes.

One analytical model shows that, as of November 5th, the dismantling of U.S.A.I.D. has already caused the deaths of 600,000 people, two-thirds of them children. https://newyorkermag.visitlink.me/jUzNSc

The mysterious rise of cancer among young adults in the Corn Belt Communities across the Corn Belt are confronting a rise in cancers among young adults — and few clear explanations.

Great reporting:

Why add AI to news sites if the information can't be trusted? How does it save readers time if they have to do their own fact-checking?

The whole idea of journalism is that someone else gathers reliable information on your behalf!

Is Ireland ready for spruce bark beetles? An invasion is ‘only a matter of time’ Eight-toothed insect, which has killed millions of trees across Europe, has made landfall in England and could soon be in Ireland

Ireland has thus far been spared the ravages of the eight-toothed spruce bark beetle, which has killed hundreds of millions of spruce across Europe.

But the insect is now edging closer to Irish shores, posing a dire risk to the €2 billion timber industry.

My new story for The Irish Times:

Gazans are starving. Here’s what lack of food does to the human body. Children suffering under severe food shortages can face lifelong consequences.

It's true that the suffering of children hits differently after you become a parent.

I can hardly imagine anything more heinous than letting a toddler starve.

Most farmers could earn more money by planting trees - why don’t they? Tree planting in Ireland is at its lowest level since 1946 despite grants and premiums

To meet its climate goals, Ireland must radically expand tree cover. To that end, it offers generous incentives to farmers who forest their lands. Most can earn more money from forestry than from raising livestock.

Despite this, tree planting is at its lowest level since 1946.

My new story:

"WE'VE ARRANGED A society based on science and technology, in which nobody understands anything about science technology. And this combustible mixture of ignorance and power, sooner or later, is going to blow up in our faces. Who is running the science and technology in a democracy if the people don't know anything about it?" "Science is more than a body of knowledge, it's a way of thinking. A way of skeptically interrogating the universe with a fine understanding of human fallibility. If we are not able to ask skeptical questions, to interrogate those who tell us that something is true, to be skeptical of those in authority, then we're up for grabs for the next charlatan, political or religious, who comes ambling along."

I think a lot about what Carl Sagan said in one of his final interviews.

How Investigative Journalists Actually Find Fraud, Waste and Abuse While investigative journalists immerse themselves in minutiae to identify waste and fraud, Elon Musk’s team has taken a chainsaw approach to spending based on cursory examinations. That might help ex...

A short, insightful read:

Call Him ‘Green New Donald’ Oh, he’d never self-identify as an environmentalist. But not even climate activists have had the courage to propose a 10% tax on energy.

This is clever:

Donate here to support the Ukrainian Defense Forces:

Massive encroachment by Bezos into The Washington Post’s opinion section - makes clear dissenting views will not be published

I still have not felt encroachment on my journalism on the news side, but if Bezos tries interfering with the news side I will be quitting immediately and letting you know

The Great Clamming-Up No one wants to talk about Trump — at least not to a reporter.

A valuable read. (It's brief.)

As War Halts, the Environmental Devastation in Gaza Runs Deep The war in Gaza has taken a heavy toll on the environment, with water supplies contaminated, raw sewage pouring into the Mediterranean, once-fertile soils ruined, and the land stripped of trees. Exper...

The environmental damage from the war in Gaza is devastating — most farmland decimated, 80 percent of trees lost — but has received scant attention.

Fred Pearce's report is essential reading:

You can judge how bad things are by the number of historians quoted in news stories.

We are currently at a 9.6 on the Historian Index.