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Alec Luhn @alecluhn.com · 22/09/2026

My geoengineering article won a @coveringclimatenow.org 🏆! Shoutout to @pulitzercenter.org, Taylor Roades & Mark Fischetti. Many folks have been let go from @sciam.bsky.social, incl some who worked on this article. So buy mags & donate to journo nonprofits! www.scientificamerican.com/article/can-...

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Alec Luhn @alecluhn.com · 27/08/2026

Some of the flooding caused by the deadly glacier collapse in Nepal. The Himalayas have lost 1/3 of their glacier ice in 30 years. (h/t @gwagner.com)

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Alec Luhn @alecluhn.com · 27/08/2026

200,000 square meters of ice broke off a glacier in Nepal & fell 1,200 meters into a river, killing 403 people, mostly from US, UK, Australia, S Korea & Malaysia. Hot weather is believed to have played a role. www.theguardian.com/world/2026/a...

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Alec Luhn @alecluhn.com · 13/08/2026

A photo of what appears to be a buckled rail on the hottest day of the year makes you wonder if the UK train derailment was a climate disaster www.bbc.com/news/live/cl...

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Alec Luhn @alecluhn.com · 13/08/2026

Photos from the northernmost caves on Earth. Rock samples from them show Greenland was covered in vegetation rather than ice 10 million years ago--at CO2 levels *lower* than today's www.newscientist.com/article/2583...

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Alec Luhn @alecluhn.com · 10/07/2026

I went in a heat chamber so you wouldn't have to. They tested me at 35°C & 50% humidity, like in the record heatwave in June. What did I learn? Despite being in decent health, I'm not well adapted to the heat--and you probably aren't either. www.newscientist.com/article/2533...

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Alec Luhn @alecluhn.com · 13/06/2026

A few dozen far-right protesters met by a few thousand anti-fascist protesters in Brighton. The throat-slitting gesture by the guy with the cross doesn’t seem very Christian …

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Alec Luhn @alecluhn.com · 05/06/2026

After he ran out of oxygen, Dawa Sherpa spent six days hauling himself down Mt Everest through crevasses & avalanches, the 1st person to survive an accident at 7,500 meters alone www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

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Alec Luhn @alecluhn.com · 10/05/2026

The UK has parachuted medics & oxygen into the world’s most remote island for a man who got hantavirus on the Hondius cruise ship. Not sure if I should feel reassured or more worried at the drastic measures being taken… www.theguardian.com/world/2026/m...

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Alec Luhn @alecluhn.com · 16/03/2026

Jane Fonda at the Oscars on a #BlockTheMerger pin

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Alec Luhn @alecluhn.com · 08/03/2026

“The rainwater is actually black, also saturated, it appears, with oil … That’s what’s coming down this morning … on the Iranian capital after the strikes took place.” A city of 10 million people is being showered in carcinogens. Via @cnn.com

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Alec Luhn @alecluhn.com · 20/02/2026

Trump is now saying that the Supreme Court, a third of which he appointed, has become “lapdogs for the RINOs and radical left” and is working for “foreign interests” www.pbs.org/newshour/amp...

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Alec Luhn @alecluhn.com · 05/02/2026

Methane also surged because La Nina rainfall boosted emissions from wetlands in Africa & Asia. Global wetland emissions are growing, so methane will keep rising regardless of NOx. Which makes "easy wins” like plugging leaks in coal mines, landfills, sewage & gas wells & pipelines even more urgent.

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Alec Luhn @alecluhn.com · 05/02/2026

Why did levels of planet-warming methane surge during COVID? Partly because lockdowns decreased pollution including NOx, which helps breaks down methane. Makes you wonder what will happen as EVs, solar, wind etc decrease pollution 😬 1/2 www.newscientist.com/article/2514...

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Alec Luhn @alecluhn.com · 29/01/2026

But Svalbard is only 1 of 20 polar bear populations. And without sea ice, where the algae live that undergird the food chain, bears here will likely decline like populations elsewhere. “There will be a threshold, and… polar bears in Svalbard will be negatively affected by continued sea ice loss."

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Alec Luhn @alecluhn.com · 29/01/2026

Polar bears are apparently switching to new sources of food, like harbour seal, reindeer & walrus, all of which have been increasing in Svalbard. Also bird eggs. “It’s a species in despair. They’re doing crazy things. It doesn’t work everywhere, but it may work for some time” on Svalbard.

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Alec Luhn @alecluhn.com · 29/01/2026

Polar bears hunt ringed seals from sea ice. In the north Barents Sea, which warming 7x faster than the globe, sea ice now lasts 2 months less than 20yrs ago. But researchers who tranquilised & measured 770 bears found their body condition (length & weight) has been improving since 2000.

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Alec Luhn @alecluhn.com · 26/01/2026

For geoengineering to be worth the $ risk of termination shock, we'd need almost 0 probability of interruption, or a phaseout of 15+ yrs, or low enough GHG that temperatures barely rebound. But if we had int'l cooperation to do that, why wouldn't we just reduce GHG? That's the "governance paradox."

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Alec Luhn @alecluhn.com · 26/01/2026

To cool Earth 1°C, >100 aircraft would have to spread many millions of tonnes of SO2 in the stratosphere every year (Duffey et al 2025). They'd have to do that without interruption by disputes, wars, pandemics, etc. Otherwise we'd face termination shock.

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Alec Luhn @alecluhn.com · 22/01/2026

With major cities facing water stress & 70% of aquifers declining, we will have to learn to live with less water--or face more conflict & migration. “Water plays a major role in economies… because it puts people in jobs. If they lose their jobs, what happens is what you see in Iran.”

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Alec Luhn @alecluhn.com · 22/01/2026

3/4 of people live in countries threatened by "water bankruptcy," as we overdraw our checking account of rainwater & dip into our savings of groundwater. The drivers are agriculture & urbanization, compounded by climate change www.newscientist.com/article/2511...

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Alec Luhn @alecluhn.com · 12/01/2026

The boreal forest is the biggest biome on earth. 6 major rivers already carry lots of fallen trees from it to the Arctic Ocean (their deltas hold >20Mt of driftwood carbon). The geoengineering proposal is to accelerate this process by logging & floating even more trees

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Alec Luhn @alecluhn.com · 11/01/2026

RIP Bob Weir. This was the last song he ever performed, Touch of Grey at the Grateful Dead’s 60th anniversary in San Francisco. No one knew he had just been diagnosed with cancer. Jerry Garcia was the sorcerer, & Robert Hunter was the mad poet, but Bob was the heart & soul of the Dead.

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Alec Luhn @alecluhn.com · 06/01/2026

The Arctic is going to suffer 1.5C of “irreversible” warming even if we reduce global temperatures to preindustrial. Meaning continued melt of sea ice & the Greenland ice sheet, in the best case. This is one of several Arctic stories in my latest newsletter: icemushroom.substack.com/p/december-i...

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Alec Luhn @alecluhn.com · 03/01/2026

It’s one of those times when old @theonion.com headlines become newly relevant

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Alec Luhn @alecluhn.com · 03/01/2026

Not strategic, not legal, not popular:

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Alec Luhn @alecluhn.com · 14/12/2025

Under Antarctica, the 1st kite-ski expedition across the white continent doing polar science, has reached the Southern Pole of Inaccessibility. They are dragging ground penetrating radar a total of 4000km 👏 @drheidisevestre.bsky.social www.underantarctica.com/en

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Alec Luhn @alecluhn.com · 07/12/2025

Yesterday I was reading about how a type of PFAS (TFA) has been found in cereals in the EU, which is considering designating it toxic to reproduction. Meanwhile in the US:

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Alec Luhn @alecluhn.com · 04/12/2025

Critically endangered Sumatran tigers are doing better than expected in an area in Aceh patrolled by rangers. Here a mother grooms a male cub. He was photographed 8 months later successfully living on his own. But we still need more action against poaching. www.newscientist.com/article/2506...

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Alec Luhn @alecluhn.com · 01/12/2025

Hard to think of a better image of how humanity is heading into climate breakdown

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Alec Luhn @alecluhn.com · 22/11/2025

This is why COP is so maddening

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Alec Luhn @alecluhn.com · 13/11/2025

Personal news 🚨: I’ve started a 10-month gig as environment news reporter at New Scientist, the most popular weekly science & tech magazine. I'm in the office on a mobility scooter as I recover from a broken femur & frostbite on a mountain in Norway this summer—thank you for the messages of support!

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Alec Luhn @alecluhn.com · 20/10/2025

40+ glaciologists just published a paper calling geoengineering to save the Arctic & Antarctic a dangerous distraction. But other scientists argue that with ice melting we at least need to research them. My report about a sea ice thickening experiment in Nunavut, on CBC www.cbc.ca/listen/live-...

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Alec Luhn @alecluhn.com · 17/10/2025

Trump’s EPA canceled a $20m grant to fortify the Alaska Native village of Kipnuk against flooding. Now 121 houses in Kipnuk have been destroyed by flooding, & a total 1,800 people have been evacuated in one of the biggest airlifts in Alaska history. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

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Alec Luhn @alecluhn.com · 05/10/2025

The Aletsch glacier, the largest in Europe, has now retreated 1.4 miles. Mountain glaciers in total lost 450 billion tonnes of ice in 2024. Not good for streams & rivers. Great photos here: www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

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Alec Luhn @alecluhn.com · 23/09/2025

72% of Americans: “Global warming is happening” Trump: Global warming is “the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world … & I’m really good at predicting things”

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Alec Luhn @alecluhn.com · 19/09/2025

Wildfire smoke now kills more Americans than car crashes—41,000 people per year. For decades air quality has been improving, but not anymore. It won't help that the Trump administration is loosening regulations on factory & power plant emissions. www.washingtonpost.com/climate-envi...

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Alec Luhn @alecluhn.com · 07/09/2025

“A shutdown is an attentional event. It’s an effort to turn the diffuse crisis of Trump’s corrupting of the government into an acute crisis that the media, that the public, will actually pay attention to.” www.nytimes.com/2025/09/07/o...

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Alec Luhn @alecluhn.com · 27/08/2025

AI consumes large amounts of water, 0.000085 gallons per response in the case of ChatGPT. But eating a hamburger consumes 7 million times more water www.washingtonpost.com/climate-envi...

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Alec Luhn @alecluhn.com · 19/07/2025

Olivia Campbell-Cavendish announced at @transpridebrighton.bsky.social that the Trans Legal Clinic has raided £70,000 to match JK Rowling’s donation to lawsuit against trans recognition

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Alec Luhn @alecluhn.com · 09/07/2025

The heat deaths due to climate change last week are crazy if you think about it. In London, 171 were killed in 10 days. That's far more than were killed in homicides in London in all of 2024 (102).

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Alec Luhn @alecluhn.com · 09/07/2025

The breakthrough is scientists found the climate change impact not only on temperatures but also deaths. Previous research graphed excess deaths & higher temperatures in Euro cities. They applied this curve to real-world temperatures & those calculated for a non-warming world to find the death toll

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Alec Luhn @alecluhn.com · 09/07/2025

In London, 263 people died in the heatwave, 171 of them because of climate change. London & other European cities clearly aren't prepared for extreme heat. While authorities are now giving more warnings, they need to improve response plans & public awareness about the danger

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Alec Luhn @alecluhn.com · 09/07/2025

In a non-warming world, a heatwave still would have happened last week. But climate change increased the temperatures by 2-4˚C. "Now, it’s closer to dangerous heat for more people,” especially the elderly, said Ben Clarke @imperialcollegeldn.bsky.social

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Alec Luhn @alecluhn.com · 03/07/2025

Brahim Ait El Hajjam, 47, collapsed while pouring concrete in Bologna, one of >9 people confirmed killed by the European heatwave. The real number is surely in the hundreds if not thousands. news.sky.com/story/bluesk...

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Alec Luhn @alecluhn.com · 01/07/2025

The same light trap in a Costa Rican conservation area in 1984 & 2019 illustrates the disastrous decline in insects. That loss is accelerating due to warming. “We’re talking about nearly half the tree of life disappearing in one human lifetime.” www.theguardian.com/environment/...

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Alec Luhn @alecluhn.com · 01/07/2025

“Why your big ugly utility bill will get bigger & uglier under President Trump’s big beautiful spending bill”—a beautifully simple explanation here of the cost rises, which will be the biggest in red states @billweircnn.bsky.social

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Alec Luhn @alecluhn.com · 30/06/2025

In congress: Bill to give billions to ICE, cut billions from Medicaid & renewables In the Supreme Court: Decision to limit challenges to Trump’s executive orders In the media:

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Alec Luhn @alecluhn.com · 25/06/2025

Ed Milliband tells the largest ever London Climate Action Week that oil price ups & downs over Iran show “we need to get off the rollercoaster of fossil fuels” for energy security as well as climate #lcaw

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Alec Luhn @alecluhn.com · 13/06/2025

Enric Sala, NatGeo explorer & exec producer of David Attenborough's 'Ocean,' calls the UN Ocean Conference "disappointing." Despite new MPA announcements, only 8-9% of the ocean is protected—& bottom trawling is still allowed in many areas, including by host country France

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