Rooney’s old account @girls_can@qoto.org

If you’re ever lost in the woods, just say in a loud, clear voice “Elon Musk isn’t a genius” and instantly 8 or 9 of his fanboys will appear to defend him. Then you can follow one of them home to their mom’s house and get a Hot Pocket.

This is cool. The European Space Agency Copernicus #Sentinel #satellites can spot methane emitters with incredible accuracy. Can be a new tool to fight #ClimateChange.

https://innovationorigins.com/en/satellite-supergroup-spots-methane-super-emitters-with-staggering-accuracy/

There's no herd immunity to SARS-CoV-2. There is at best partial, temporary, waning population immunity that lowers but does not end cases. Mitigation remains necessary. Lulls are not endpoints. Large waves are not the only issue. Severe acute illness is not the only concern.

Today a bunch of Austin friends and family and dogs came out to the farm for a hang-out. There was a new baby to squeal over, and a big box of donuts. But for me the highlight was when somebody’s golden retriever alerted us that a dazed and bedraggled hummingbird had just fluttered down onto the porch (good boy!).

Hummingbirds, who don’t typically land on porches, have crazy metabolism and require nutrients something like every hour or they go tits up. This one was in trouble. Springing into action, the group mobilized with but a single, unified thought: SAVE THE BIRD. I scooped it up, Bjorn produced Gatorade*, and Niece shouted, “use a bottle cap for a dish!”

Lil Buddy duly lapped up our hastily improvised offering with its thread-like tongue; it was about the cutest thing I’ve ever fucking seen. After 10 minutes or so it regained its composure and flew away amid full-throated cheers, well-wishes and high fives. The End.

#birds

This is Elisabeth Wollman (1888-1943). Her life was extraordinary & her legacy is phenomenal.

In collaboration with her husband, Eugène, she was a pioneer of what became molecular genetics. This pic is her Pasteur Institute portrait from the early 1920s.

Their groundbreaking work was carried on by a colleague & their son, leading to a Nobel prize & more.

CW: The Wollmans' lives were ended in Auschwitz.

I've just created her Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elisabeth_Wollman

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#WomenInSTEM

Warning: Public health pundits who minimized #COVID will do the same for #climate. At first, they'll feign concern for the health impacts of climate as it benefits their careers. But ultimately they'll frame climate & health as an individual responsibility & ignore the vulnerable.

Headlines around the world have been overwhelmed with the impacts of climate change-fueled extremes on people and places. Extreme heatwaves, flash floods, continuous wildfires, record-breaking ocean temps and more: all are being super-sized by our warming planet.

Surely, you think, surely THIS will galvanize action? And to a certain extent, it does.

Seeing people, places, and things we love being impacted dismantles a main barrier to climate action: psychological distance. Research I did with the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication found that hot, dry extremes do make people more aware of & concerned about climate change.

But there are other, greater barriers to climate action. The first is lack of efficacy; i.e. if I do something, will it make a difference? In the US, over 70% are already alarmed or concerned, but 50% feel helpless & don't know what to do to make a difference. For them, as this diagram below explains, more fear-based messaging just paralyzes them even further.

For the 20% dismissive or doubtful, their barrier is solution aversion. They're convinced climate action is worse than inaction; that it will rob them of their profits, their freedom, or their ideology. Often they begin with science-y sounding objections (it's the sun! CO2 is plant food!) but within the next breath they'll be talking about the EPA taking away their gas stove or about how they need a gas-powered truck. For them, more evidence for harmful impacts just hardens their resolve to "fight back."

That's why, when we talk about climate change, it's essential to pair negative info about the risks with positive info about what we as individuals can do to make a difference and what we as a society can do, and the benefits of those actions for us today, as well as for climate tomorrow.

The goal isn't to have the entire world paralyzed by anxiety: it's to have the world galvanized for action. And for that, we need hope; not false hope that everything will be okay (because it won't be, if we don't act) but hope tied to action and efficacy -- the conviction that if we do something, it WILL make a difference.

They are intentionally framing climate and COVID as problems for individuals to deal with to distract us from holding the powerful accountable.

We are f-ed!

And all our leaders talk about is the freaking Ukraine and how we need to destroy Russia.

#WeDontHaveTime #Politics #ClimateChange #ClimateCatastrophe #ClimateEmergency #TomorrowIsTooLate #GlobalWarming #Environment

The far right previously said that we can't have fun if we have seatbelts, condoms, or smoke-free bars. None of that has panned out to be remotely true. It's the same thing with COVID precautions.

@gmoretti @girls_can “Thixotropy” is the $10 word for that weird property. It is thixotropic.