Trillium

Skunk cabbage

Salmon berry

Bleeding heart

Spring in Cascadia!
Trillium, Skunk Cabbage, Salmonberry, Bleeding Hearts.

Opinion | Don’t Use A.I. to Do This

This killed me:
“Do you realize how much water and power it’d take to replicate the average writer’s narcissism, self-loathing, and despair? It’d drain the Indian Ocean. You could light up Times Square for a year. We can’t afford it.”
www.nytimes.com/2026/04/15/o...

In brief:
No using AI for writing ... and if you do use AI for research, you have to double check the bots' work

If You Want a Better World, Act Like You Live in It We’ve had Henry David Thoreau the environmentalist, the libertarian, the life coach. To understand his influence, think of him first as a dissident.

I love this @galbeckerman.bsky.social celebration of Henry David Thoreau as a dissident. The problem with our ideas of Thoreau (as I've said before) is not that we mis-read him, but that we mis-remember him (since most of us read him in high school)
www.theatlantic.com/books/2026/0...

The Antidote to Your Eco-Anxiety May Be Right Outside • The Revelator A chance encounter with new research, and a fresh look at an old houseplant, offered me a renewed appreciation of what we’re fighting for.

The Antidote to Your Eco-Anxiety May Be Right Outside https://therevelator.org/antidote-to-eco-anxiety/

Climate Change Concern Near Its High Point in U.S. The 44% of U.S. adults who currently worry "a great deal" about climate change or global warming is near its 46% high point from 2020.

According to a new poll by Gallup, public concern about #climatechange is on the rise: "44% of U.S. adults worry a great deal about global warming or climate change, among the highest in the full trend since 1989, along with 46% measured in 2020 and 45% in 2017."
news.gallup.com/poll/708050/...

Senate votes 50-49 to overturn mining ban near Boundary Waters The vote clears the path for Twin Metals to reapply to open an underground copper mine near Ely, just outside the wilderness area. Conservation groups argue mining in the region poses an unacceptable ...

Well, this f*cking sucks
www.mprnews.org/story/2026/0...

Just landed a magazine assignment from a publication that has an explicit (and smartly written!) policy around #AI usage, and that has me wondering ... shouldn't ALL magazines be sending their freelancers that sort of thing? 🤔

If AC Thompson is the byline, I’m gonna be sure to check it out. He’s one of the best police accountability reporters in the country.

Coverage of the Fossil-Fuel Industry ‘Doesn’t Have to Be This Way’ Michelle Amazeen says oil and gas money is fueling conflicts of interest.

This is a must-read for anyone on the #climate beat. Attn @sejorg.bsky.social
www.cjr.org/the-intervie...

Corporate America Aims to Preserve Profit Streak During War in Iran

Merchants of Death
www.nytimes.com/2026/04/15/b...

Judges overseeing Louisiana's landmark oil cases have financial stakes in defendants Federal judges held stock, bonds and leased mineral rights to Exxon, Chevron and others while hearing cases against the companies alleging damage to the La. coast.

👀👀👀
floodlightnews.org/judges-overs...

Another example, from my forthcoming book, The Earth Said Remember Me:
"glacial pace," which used to mean incredibly slow but which now, as glaciers are melting faster than ever in human history, could just as well mean "quickly"

Slopsplaining and the Shifting Baseline of Language I got a marketing email this morning that wants to teach me how to “empathize” with clients by using AI models.

From the shifting baseline syndrome files, semantics edition:
"We’re experiencing shifting baseline syndrome with language itself."
kpb12177.substack.com/p/slopsplain...

She reportedly parted ways with Bezos with a jaw-dropping $38.3 billion in Amazon stock. Their divorce settlement included a 4 % stake in the online retail giant or 19.7 million shares. Under the agreement, Bezos kept 75% of the couple's Amazon stock, along with voting control of her shares. Jan 11, 2023

MacKenzie Scott has given away over $19 billion in the last 5 years and experts say she's 'changed entire fie... MacKenzie Scott acknowledged another $2 billion in donations as 2024 comes to a close.

MacKenzie Scott, worth $41.1 billion, is on a philanthropic tear and has donated an estimated 46% of her net worth.

Just to give a sense of the insane scale of billions of dollars…MacKenzie Scott got about $38 billion after divorcing Bezos in 2019. She has become the world’s most generous philanthropist, giving away over $19 billion…and she’s currently wealthier than she started.

Just. Tax. Them.

Why Data Center Opposition Is Getting Violent A conversation with anti-tech extremism researcher Mauro Lubrano on Sam Altman, Tesla protests, and 5G.

Link so that people can see the context

heatmap.news/politics/dat...

This is the most emotionally honest bit of journalism I've seen in a while, via @jael.bsky.social interview with anti-tech extremism researcher Mauro Lubrano.

AI Slop Alert!
I did a basic Google search for something related to my forthcoming book, and the AI Overview served up a totally bizarre hallucination that is somewhere between tragedy and farce ...

In a first, renewables beat natural gas on US grid last month It’s just one month, but it’s a sign of where the U.S. is headed as renewable energy — namely solar — surges onto the grid.

I'm just staring at the graf here and pinching myself:
"Over the course of March, the nation got more electricity from renewables than it did from natural gas, which is typically the single-largest source of energy on the U.S. grid."
www.canarymedia.com/articles/cle...

Opinion | Why Aren’t the Kids Out Protesting Against Trump?

The kids are *not* alright.
It seems that AI and social media algorithms are also making people disengaged from left and liberal politics.
"America could become a nation of the servile."
www.nytimes.com/2026/04/14/o...

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette announces it has found a buyer to keep the newspaper open Owners of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette said they have found a buyer who had agreed to keep the newspaper open, less than a month before it was due to shut down.

The nonprofit that runs the successful, Pulitzer-winning Baltimore Banner is going to take over the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Of all the possible outcomes here, this is likely the best we could have hoped for.

apnews.com/article/pitt...

No way he finishes his term

An important backstory on tonight’s powerful 60 Minutes segment with the American Cardinals is Norah O’Donnell’s own Catholic faith
www.ncronline.org/opinion/nora...

“a whole sector of the mainstream media now functions as spirit mediums” is the best thing I’ve read today, via @rebeccasolnit.bsky.social

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

For my folks, while in their late 70s, pushing the lawn mower up and down the garden three times a week was often the only exercise they got, and they knew and embraced it as such.

Spotted this robot lawnmower in Manhattan’s Bryant Park. I’m sure that some tech bro believes he’s doing humanity a favor with this device. And I’m equally convinced that some gardener took real pride and a sense of meaning in mowing this lawn and would just as soon have kept doing it.

Environmental journalist here. Please let me know how I can get a review copy.

how much money does the marine corps lose

Soaring over a changing California Twenty-five years later, reevaluating a classic Golden State story.

The latest on #shiftingbaselines. How a Disney attraction provides a record of the climatic changes that have occurred in California over the last 20 years, via @sammyroth.bsky.social
substack.com/home/post/p-...

Visited Ellis Island yesterday and spotted this as part of an interactive exhibit featuring contemporary people’s views of immigration. … I’m not crying—you’re crying