Fascinating op ed on the digital gamification of K-12 education and its downsides - been thinking about this more as I enter the relevant age of parenting. Gift link: www.nytimes.com/2026/04/19/o...
This is why Minnesotans are begging folks outside the state to keep talking about us.
Please don’t let the world forget we are still in danger.
Did you miss Pollinator Pathway's winter webinar on pollinators, pesticides, and what you can do to help? Catch up here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkI6...
Take a break today to revel in the joy of a man unapologetically celebrating his Boricua culture. youtu.be/G6FuWd4wNd8 👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽 Then learn more from @beckyhammer.bsky.social bsky.app/profile/beck...
Over-the-top dicamba: still a bad idea for non-target crops, plants, and wildlife. Yet here we are again. www.dtnpf.com/agriculture/...
Are you in NYC, Philly, or elsewhere in NJ/PA? Does your community garden, library, school, urban farm, etc. want a pollinator garden? Applications for Xerces habitat kits for this region are open through Feb 17th! Pick up and plant in May/June 🐝🦋🌻 xerces.org/pollinator-c...
EXCLSUVIE: The Trump administration has secretly rewritten nuclear safety rules and shared them with the companies they're meant to regulate, without making the new rules publicly available.
We've obtained a copy of the new rules and here's what we found.
www.npr.org/2026/01/28/n...
Year 1 data on congestion pricing in Manhattan…
* Vehicle traffic: -11%
* Foot traffic: +3.4%
* Storefront vacancy: -0.9%
* Pollution: -22%
* Revenue for mass transit: $548M
So YES this has been a huge success.
Tl;dr: sprays intended to kill insects end up in the environment at levels likely to kill insects, and pesticides don’t stay where they are applied. Pretty straightforward. I hope this study raises concern about the widespread, mostly untracked use of pyrethroids for 🦟 on million of acres.
Contamination levels were higher in yards sprayed by private companies than in yards sprayed by local mosquito control districts.
75% of neighboring yards were contaminated with pyrethroid insecticides, with levels up to twice the lethal dose.
On average, yards sprayed by private companies had over six times the amount of insecticides lethal to honey bees, with a maximum of over 34 times the lethal dose.
New study: backyard mosquito sprays lead to insecticide levels high enough to kill pollinators, and sprays travel easily into neighboring yards. stacksjournal.org/article/ande...
See the influential paper and @undark.org commentary on Monsanto's ghostwriting by Alexander Kaurov & @naomioreskes.bsky.social: undark.org/2025/08/15/o... #pesticides #agtwitter
Boy, retraction is the thing these days. After years of critique, a foundational 25-year old paper on the safety of glyphosate herbicide has been pulled. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... 1/2
Great listen! Wondering how to improve kids’ health and educational experience? Cleaner indoor air might be part of the solution.
Made this switch and don’t regret it! Great coffee, without the plastic..
6/ EPA says it's committed to reducing PFAS pollution.
So why does it keep advancing new PFAS pesticides? Especially ones like isocycloseram, a chemical that exceeded levels of concern for bees and aquatic life for most proposed uses?
#PFAS #Pesticides #ForeverChemicals #PublicHealth #EPA
4/ 🐝 Isocycloseram: Proposed broad spectrum insecticide with very high toxicity to aquatic invertebrates and honey bees. Risk quotients exceeded levels of concern for both, in some cases by orders of magnitude. Yet no full field studies for bees were required.
📄 www.regulations.gov/docket/EPA-H...
Now that EPA has approved several of these, it’s time to bump this thread on PFAS pesticides:
Want to dig deeper? Join us Oct 7 for a Bee Safe, Grow Well webinar with Sarah Salatino of Full Circle Gardens and Xerces staff. Learn how nurseries can grow plants that are safer for pollinators - and bring your questions, there will be lots of time for Q&A! 🌸🐝 xerces.org/events/bee-s...
Excited to share our new video, Growing Pollinator-Safe Plants: What Nurseries Can Do (and How You Can Help)! 🐝🌸🌎 This project has been 3 years in the making, featuring interviews with nursery managers on steps they take to reduce pesticide risks.
Watch here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcdv...
Line chart showing that there's been a rapid escalation in how quickly the world installs a gigawatt of solar power capacity.
Time for the world to install a gigawatt of solar power capacity
2004: A year
2010: ~ a month
2015: ~ a week
Now: < A day
ourworldindata.org/data-insight... 🧪
Prophylactic seed treatments make up an increasingly large share of ag pesticide load, but have no basis in scouting/thresholds - and in millions of acres of corn/soy, limited to no benefit for crop yields. We need both policy and incentives to shift towards more sustainable approaches.
The question is: how do we shift practice at scale? What training, tools, policy, or financial incentives could help make threshold-based pest management the norm?
This is why we emphasize scouting/monitoring and use of thresholds as core components of IPM. Nice to see the evidence for how scouting/thresholds can reduce inputs and improve outcomes!
Exciting new meta-analysis: compared to calendar spraying, threshold-based management cuts insecticide use by 44% and costs by 40% without reducing yields, and supports more beneficial insects. www.nature.com/articles/s43...
And stay tuned: we'll be putting together at least a webinar or two by the spring to explain and explore EPA's Insecticide and Herbicide Strategies and what they might mean for listed species
