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Aimee Witteman

@aimeewitteman.bsky.social
17K followers 1.9K following 802 posts

Pro-housing decarb strategist. Midwest kid living in D.C.⚡️ Also posts on democracy, bikes, trail running, and Lake Superior shipwrecks. Personal Account.

PostsRepliesMedia
Reposted by Aimee Witteman
derek guy @dieworkwear.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
please do not post photos of barbour jackets in early october if you're not also voting for policies to address global warming
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Emily Grubert @gruberte.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
i remain so alarmed by all the discourse about how people can use AI to get good deals / fight wage theft / counteract extractive insurance practices that doesn’t acknowledge that — if you accept this works — the companies on the other side … also can use it to do the opposite?
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Costa Samaras @costasamaras.com · 03/10/2026
This will make kids a lot safer on Halloween. Other cities should do this!
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Aimee Witteman @aimeewitteman.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
COVID: bad. Being excused from absolutely everything while I lie under a quilt in the attic drinking tea and watching East of Eden: unfortunately, incredible.
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Joey Politano🏳️‍🌈 @josephpolitano.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Sort of insane fact about how broken US urban planning is—America now spends more building *just the lights for roads and highways* than on all subways & ground mass transit combined Spending on roadway *pavement* is 18x transit spending
a graph of roadway and mass transit lights
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Aimee Witteman @aimeewitteman.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Trump’s slashing of clean energy policies isn’t just increasing pollution and cutting jobs, it’s costing Americans a lot of money. New @energyinnovation.org modeling 👇 abcnews.com/US/wireStory...
abcnews.com
Households will pay more for energy because of Trump's policy changes: Think tank
Households in the contiguous United States will pay thousands of dollars more for energy through 2040 because of federal policy changes since President Donald Trump returned to office, such as canceli...
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Kelly Hereid @kellyhereid.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Finally got time to go through the full report and it knocked my socks off. Cohesive argument that housing, insurance, energy, and transportation costs should be thought of as one interconnected issue, and we should tackle as a package by building smarter in low hazard areas at SCALE.
1) Cut red tape specifically to allow homes of all shapes and sizes in connected, lower-hazard
established neighborhoods.
2) Put public land in lower-hazard established neighborhoods to work.
3) Simplify public financing so dollars for income-restricted housing and starter homes go
further.
4) Make disaster-prepared construction the norm.
5) Build lower utility costs into new homes from the start and make homes critical energy
infrastructure.
6) Align utility reforms with housing affordability and grid reliability.
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Aimee Witteman @aimeewitteman.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Would love to connect with you on that, Kelly. It’s one of the initiatives I’m working on at ULI.
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katie brigham @kbrigham.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
hi energy freaks, as you surely know, the senate has a permitting deal! heatmap explains!
heatmap.news
The Senate’s Big Bipartisan Permitting Deal, Explained
The Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act would remove longstanding roadblocks to expanding the power grid and developing new energy infrastructure. Here’s our guide.
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Peter Flax @pflax1.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
For the most part, driving is super inefficient but at least it's really expensive and also quite dangerous.
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Aimee Witteman @aimeewitteman.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Well deserved, my friend!!
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Gretchen Goldman, PhD @gretchentg.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Truly humbled to make the @time.com 100 Next list out today. Thank you for the nomination, Bill Nye! time.com/collection/t...
time.com
Gretchen Goldman Is on the 2026 TIME100 Next
Find out why Gretchen Goldman is on this year’s list
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Aimee Witteman @aimeewitteman.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
💯
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Aimee Witteman @aimeewitteman.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
He follows strict safety protocols across hunting, field dressing, processing, and cooking.
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Aimee Witteman @aimeewitteman.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
A footnote to my Lyme story: my husband hunts deer because we have WAY too many in the DMV. I call venison hyper-local, climate-friendly protein with ecological benefits (a take that is not wildly popular in Takoma Park). But after my diagnosis, I have a new slogan: eat the deer, reduce the ticks.
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Aimee Witteman @aimeewitteman.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
When the doctor told me the blood test result, the irony wasn’t lost on me that I had spent years working on climate change without realizing that my own debilitating joint pain might be connected to one of its less visible health impacts.
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Aimee Witteman @aimeewitteman.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
So consider this a PSA: tick-borne illness is worth taking seriously - even if you never saw a tick or the classic bull’s-eye rash. The risk itself is changing. Climate isn’t the only factor but warming temperatures expand suitable tick habitat and lengthen the season when ticks are active.
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Aimee Witteman @aimeewitteman.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
In retrospect, it seems ridiculously obvious: lots of time in the woods. Mid-Atlantic. Joint pain. Spring flare-ups. But somehow, for four years, Lyme wasn’t the thing we checked. I took a course of antibiotics and, so far, the joint pain seems to have resolved.
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Aimee Witteman @aimeewitteman.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
This went on for four years. Then this spring, I got shingles out of the blue and finally thought: something is really wrong. I got tested for allergies. Autoimmune diseases. The one thing that came back positive? Lyme disease.
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Aimee Witteman @aimeewitteman.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
It became bad enough that it was one factor in my decision to leave DOE. I thought the stress and long days were making it worse. And it did improve when I slowed down. But the severe flare-ups kept returning and were especially bad in spring. I eventually stopped running and biked more instead.
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Aimee Witteman @aimeewitteman.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Starting in spring 2022, I began having increasingly bad joint pain. I’m a runner, so I’m accustomed to aches and pains. This was different tho - it slowly started affecting almost every joint. I assumed perimenopause, or arthritis, which runs in my family.
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Aimee Witteman @aimeewitteman.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
In 2021, we moved from Minneapolis to the DC area when I joined the Biden administration at DOE. We spent as many weekends as we could in the Blue Ridge and Shenandoah - partly to unwind, partly to make sure our young daughters still grew up spending time in the woods like they had back home.
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Aimee Witteman @aimeewitteman.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
This recent NYT story on the rise of tick-borne illnesses hit very close to home when it was published last month. I’ve spent much of my career working on climate change. I didn’t expect one of its health impacts to become quite so personal. Consider this a PSA. www.nytimes.com/2026/08/20/m...
nytimes.com
The Summer the Ticks Took Over
A scientific and civilizational horror story.
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Aimee Witteman @aimeewitteman.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Stevie Wonder releasing four previously unheard tracks from Songs in the Key of Life for its 50th anniversary is delightful. Also a reminder, you can, in fact, make masterpieces and still leave some songs in the vault. pitchfork.com/story/stevie...
pitchfork.com
Stevie Wonder Unvaults Four Songs in the Key of Life Tracks
“We didn’t add these songs to the album, but they were part of what I was feeling and discovering as we made it,” says Wonder
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Phil McKenna @mckennapr.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
My latest: Twice as fast and at half the cost: A geothermal startup is collaborating with one of the nation’s largest homebuilders to drive down the cost of tapping the subsurface for heating and cooling. link ⬇️
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Aimee Witteman @aimeewitteman.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
One of the things I love most about spending a week in NYC is taking the train back to DC, then the metro home and everything feeling comparably quaint and quiet and bucolic as my nervous system regulates
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Brandy Zadrozny @brandyzadrozny.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Bonus for whoever wrote this chyron
Trump speaking at UN — MS NOW chyron reads: Trump touts being a peacemaker while asking if he should annihilate Iran
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Aimee Witteman @aimeewitteman.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Both
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Aimee Witteman @aimeewitteman.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Climate Week, but maybe the real decarbonization was the solar-powered cargo bikes we rode through Manhattan along the way. #ClimateWeekNYC #SaultyDog
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The Washington Post @washingtonpost.com · 19/09/2026
A district court ruled that the Trump administration must reinstate a $7 billion grant program that funded solar panel installation for low- and moderate-income families.
washingtonpost.com
Trump’s EPA must reinstate $7 billion grant program for solar panels, judge rules
District court rules that Biden-era Solar for All grants that help lower-income families and communities install solar panels cannot be terminated.
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Kate Marvel @drkatemarvel.bsky.social · 28/09/2025
my takeaway from climate week nyc is that "climate storytelling" is a little too much "we must reimagine our deepest souls in relationship to mother nature and the moral abyss of the polycrisis into which we must now stare" and not enough "ok but get a heat pump"
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Ed Yong is offline @edyong209.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Briefly popping my head back in to unveil the cover of my upcoming book, LIFE BEYOND MEASURE: Nature's Hidden Wonders at Every Scale. It’ll be out on April 6 in the U.S. and April 29 in the U.K. and you can pre-order it right now! www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/757705... 1/
A book cover featuring a beautiful closely cropped portrait of an Anna's hummingbird. The cover says LIFE BEYOND MEASURE: Nature's Hidden Wonders at Every Scale, by Ed Yong. The image also says US: 4/06/27 and UK: 4/29/27
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Aimee Witteman @aimeewitteman.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek and the essay Total Eclipse are among my absolute favorite writings that I often revisit -- fundamentally shaped my perspective, life, and career. Grateful for Annie Dillard. www.nytimes.com/2026/09/16/b...
nytimes.com
Annie Dillard, Meditative Author of ‘Pilgrim at Tinker Creek,’ Dies at 81
Her Thoreau-like account of journeys in the woods, published when she was 28, was the first of many ruminations on life and nature, good and evil.
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Aimee Witteman @aimeewitteman.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
New research! Solving the U.S. housing shortage can be a force multiplier for gigaton-scale emissions cuts and an affordable, resilient future. Thrilled to be a co-author on this new white paper from the newly launched Housing Multiplier Project. housingmultiplier.org/wp-content/u...
housingmultiplier.org
Housing Multiplier Project
The Housing Multiplier Project works with states and localities to advance policies that solve the housing shortage faster and more cost effectively — and make housing a force multiplier for progress.
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Jay Willis @jaywillis.net · 15/09/2026
Genuinely an insane paragraph from Sam Alito. “Voter fraud is real and scary and we have to stop it, so the fact that implementing Trump’s mail ballot rule will disenfranchise millions is legally irrelevant.” Brain melted. A right-wing podcaster in a robe. www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25p...
___, (slip op., at 9) (internal quotation marks omitted).
As for the equities, the Government has a strong interest
in enforcing the rule, and implementing it will also “en-
hance the visibility of Federal Ballot Mail” in order to better
detect election fraud. 91 Fed. Reg. 54972. On the other side
of the balance, the plaintiff States invoke the practical ef-
fects of implementing the rule close to the midterm elec-
tions. I take that problem very seriously, but it is not
enough to convince me to deny the application.
First, as the District Court acknowledged, the States dis-
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Daniel Swain @weatherwest.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
Agreed. I increasingly see this kind of argument invoked to argue against interventions like air conditioning in places where extreme heat events are increasingly leading to mass mortality. We no longer get to choose between adaptation & mitigation--we have to do both at an accelerating pace.
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Lewis Lehe @lewislehe.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
I think more and more that @davidzipper.bsky.social got this exactly right. many counties experiencing population decline have high elderly populations. getting people to walmart or a small airport would be a big deal. www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
bloomberg.com
Robotaxis Aren’t Going Where They Are Needed Most
Waymo, Zoox and Tesla are clamoring to bring autonomous ride-hailing to cities like New York and Boston. But it’s small towns and rural areas that could see the biggest upside from AVs.
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Brendan Pierpont @brendan.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
Nice visualization of US energy system data (mostly EIA data): usenergydata.org
usenergydata.org
Understanding America's energy system
Track and understand the numbers behind US energy — year by year, and state by state.
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Costa Samaras @costasamaras.com · 13/09/2026
This will be bad for: - the students - the research progress - the universities - the towns the universities are in - the companies hiring students - the states the universities are in - the national economy - national security - the country - the world
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Aimee Witteman @aimeewitteman.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
Pro-tip for any 2028 Democratic candidate looking for an easy win: skip the standard stump speech and just promise to invoke the Defense Production Act for estradiol patches. The estrogen-deprived voting bloc is highly motivated.
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Naomi Klein @naomiaklein.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
In our new essay for the @financialtimes.com (you read that right), @astra.bsky.social and I link the extreme weather events we have all been living through to the rise of a new iteration of futureless fascism, wherein the rich and powerful plan for their bunkered survival behind fortressed borders.
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Anna Kornbluh @annakornbluh.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
"as the world changes our elites are changing, becoming more fascist, attracted to ideas justifying that only some people are going to make it. it’s the job of a credible left to put forward a vision of the future for how we live together well on this planet." www.nytimes.com/2026/09/12/m...
nytimes.com
Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor Say the End of the World Is Now on the Table (Gift Article)
In a new book, the writers argue that a powerful coalition of “end times fascists” is just fine with the earth’s demise.
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Tressie McMillan Cottom @tressiemcphd.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
I would remind people that Stevie Wonder is 76 years old. You don’t need a political analysis to understand why his tour isn‘t coming to a 100 citiies. He is a 76 year old Black man who doesn’t have to do but two things, and touring isn’t one of them. Let’s just be grateful.
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Ned Resnikoff @resnikoff.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
Once you stop trying to convince yourself that all of your policy preferences are secretely really popular if explained in the right way, you will be released from samsara
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Dr. Merritt Rae Turetsky @queenofpeat.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Move over, pumpkin spice: September belongs to the BOG HARVEST. While many flock to apple orchards, the world’s peatlands are hitting their peak. Far from muddy swamps; bogs are the secret agricultural powerhouses you didn't know you needed. Join me in protecting these undervalued landscapes! 🧵 1/
Photograph of ripening cloudberries on a bog surface.
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David Roberts @volts.wtf · 09/09/2026
This is the kind of shit that's going to be discussed with horror in history books and we're just dully watching it happen.
bloomberg.com
Next Target of Trump's Deportation Campaign: 170,000 Salvadoran Immigrants
Losing temporary protected status means Salvadorans must return to a country many of them no longer recognize or go underground in the US.
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Chris Geidner @chrisgeidner.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
🥹 I love our city.
The fallen Dupont Circle tree, now with notes of thanks.
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David Ho @davidho.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
Ok, but maybe Phoenix, a major metropolitan area of more than five million people in an arid desert environment under a changing climate, shouldn't exist. 🙃
theguardian.com
We’re the mayors of Paris, Milan and Phoenix. The heat crisis has us all facing the same question | Emmanuel Grégoire, Giuseppe Sala and Kate Gallego
Our three cities are learning from each other about how to protect residents. These climate policies are also public health measures
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Aimee Witteman @aimeewitteman.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
"As local food economies grow they will bring about a significant return of power, wealth, and health to the people." — Wendell Berry Watching neighbors with peach juice running down their grinning faces. Farmer’s markets: (joyful) systemic change agents.
Ripe locally grown tomatoes in the sun at Sunday Farmers market 
Ripe sweet peppers at the farmers market Juggler at the farmers market
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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 04/09/2026
i hate this thing they do where they pretend like they are fulfilling some long and pent up demand. just own that you’re engaged in naked idolatry
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