iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Anne MB

Mothers & Others For Clean Air @mocleanair.bsky.social · 16/10/2026

Join us Nov. 18 for MOCA’s 2nd Annual Winter Garden Party & Holiday Market! Enjoy festive drinks, local bites, and holiday shopping while supporting small businesses that prioritize health and sustainability. Space is limited! bit.ly/HolidayParty-2026

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Anne MB @annemellbird.bsky.social · 16/10/2026

And everyone be sure their dogs and cats are up to date on their rabies vaccine.

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Anne MB @annemellbird.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

This is a really good article.

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Reposted by Anne MB

Colin Carlson @colincarlson.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

New paper out today shows that ICE and National Guard presence in DC led to a pretty sizable drop in pediatric ER visits among Spanish-speaking and Hispanic patients. If sick kids can't go to the emergency room, immigration justice has to be a public health issue. jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...

jamanetwork.com

Federal Immigration Enforcement Deployment and ED Utilization Among Children

This cross-sectional study evaluates changes in pediatric emergency department utilization following the August 11, 2025, immigration enforcement deployment in Washington, DC, and whether these chang...

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Reposted by Anne MB

Dr. Sandra Steingraber 🏳️‍🌈 @ssteingraber1.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

🧪 NEW STUDY: Air-cooled data centers have less direct water consumption than those using evaporative cooling but higher electric demand, which merely shifts the water footprint from the facility to the power generators, extending water depletion across the entire region. arxiv.org/abs/2609.25437

arxiv.org

Data center cooling choices shift water impacts across the grid: An integrated water-energy model for sustainable data center development

Data centers are being developed at an unprecedented pace, yet their energy and water impacts, and the spatial and temporal distribution of these impacts, remain poorly characterized. Data centers con...

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Reposted by Anne MB

Dr. Genevieve Guenther (she/they) @doctorvive.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

Ok I cannot stand this appeal to questionable authority. Daniel Palkin works at Arnold Ventures, the philanthropic group founded by John Arnold, a billionaire natural gas trader who began at Enron. They are explicitly “all of the above” folks—pro fossil fuels. I prefer this expert, thank you.👇

Jody Freeman
• 2nd
Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, writing in my ...
1d • Edited •
+ Follow
...
Today's post is about the Senate's new permitting reform bill, which would
shorten the process for approving major energy projects, like natural gas pipelines & power plants and, at least in theory, wind and solar.
With the greatest respect, I hope members of Congress, supporters of
this bill, and all of us who care about clean energy weigh its pros and cons carefully. Quite apart from the environmental safeguards it gives up (a separate issue), a close read suggests it's structurally designed to lock in and subsidize natural gas & other fossil projects over cleaner renewables for years to come, using the courts and taxpayer dollars. I hope I'm wrong, but I fear I'm not, and few people have read the whole bill closely enough to see it.
& You won't see this effect if you read only the transmission provisions, which have a lot to recommend them: they empower the federal government to approve grid expansion over state inaction, help spread costs more fairly, and make the Al industry pay its way.
• But look at the "project certainty" provisions, which make it harder for future presidents to block approved projects, together with the judicial review provisions, which direct courts to award huge damages to projects that complain of disparate treatment compared to prior projects. The concern is that Courts must measure "disparate" treatment against a baseline of approvals set during the current administration, which has blocked renewables and privileged fossil projects, so the baseline will tilt toward fossil. Judges would also gain unprecedented authority to dispense billions in public funds as damages for these same projects. Meanwhile, nothing in the bill compels the administration to lift its blockade of wind and solar.

This skew isn't obvious. It's buried in legal language, as explained by Matthew Littleton (former DOJ) and Justin Pidot (former CEQ), who describe the effect in a series of detailed posts I urge you to read.
5 I fear this analysis is the most plausible reading of the provisions together and the one most likely to be urged on courts. I worry that these provisions haven't been fully considered or modeled by those touting the bill's clean energy benefits.
For the record, I recognize that every bipartisan deal exacts concessions, some painful. I support federal permitting reform & have said so publicly. I also think project certainty is a good thing: future presidents shouldn't pull back a fully permitted project on a whim. But that presumes the project went through a process to ensure it's well designed and lawful.
• Most importantly, what if the bill doesn't deliver its core promised benefit?
It's one thing to clear regulatory obstacles and set up a competition to build out the grid because we think clean energy competes well in a fair fight. It's another to stack the deck for fossil projects so the competition never happens.
¿l hope there's still time to improve the bill.

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Reposted by Anne MB

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 13/10/2026

JD Vance announces that the Trump administration is using the Defense Production Act to "expand" a refinery in Texas

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Anne MB @annemellbird.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

It's odd that the tech folks who are so big on "market disruption" and new technology, don't like the new technology of solar and wind which are disrupting the traditional fossil fuel energy sector.

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Anne MB @annemellbird.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

"We are doing this because we want people to stop dying from the impacts of your data center. It's like a seat-belt mandate. We want people to stop dying from your product." In the U.S., 13% of all deaths come from PM2.5 from fossils fuels, before many data ctrs. DOI: 10.1016/j.envres.2021.110754

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Reposted by Anne MB

Tim White @twmcltd.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

1/3 The biggest news of the night was Ukraine's 3rd strike on a Russian data centre. All have been Yandex centres, which is kind of the Russian equivalent of Google, with apps such as Yandex Pay, Maps etc. Also, Ukraine has now hit the 3 Yandex 'supercomputers' developing AI.

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Reposted by Anne MB

𝕯𝖆𝖓🍂🎃🕸️ @arepublic86.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

Here we see wild deer snails in their native environment.

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Reposted by Anne MB

Deb Houry @drdebhoury.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

This announcement does not mention that the DELTA staff and the rape prevention staff at CDC were RIF’d so now community and state recipients are no longer getting the same level of support and training even though Congress has provided appropriations for these programs.

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Reposted by Anne MB

Fired but Fighting (National Public Health Coalition) @firedbutfighting.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

Public health is on the ballot this election. Join us on Oct 13, 2026 at 7:30pm ET for a virtual Town Hall hosted by MomsRising and National Public Health Coalition. Steps to take today: 1) Register ✅️ buff.ly/j2m8nvM 2) Share this post 📣 1/2 🧵

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Reposted by Anne MB

Tzeporah Berman @tzeporah.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

Another flash flood in Nepal as the country is still trying to recover their dead from the last one. This is what climate change looks like now. My heart goes out to all the families suffering devastating loss in Nepal. 💔

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Reposted by Anne MB

Prof Gavin Yamey MD MPH @gavinyamey.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

Yes This is why ethicists worldwide are calling the proposed RFK Jr-funded trial by Danish researchers—a trial that would recruit newborn babies in Guinea-Bissau and withhold a lifesaving intervention from half the babies—“the new Tuskegee” It’s an apt comparison It’s a ghastly trial proposal

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Reposted by Anne MB

Ketan Joshi @ketanjoshi.co · 11/10/2026

Standard 'this is not peer-reviewed yet' warning, but this looks v fascinating: air pollution deaths for data centres, off-grid-gas vs grid-connecting consumption They found grid power for xAI's Colossus sites is *WORSE* in absolute terms (!) www.preprints.org/manuscript/2... lnkd.in/p/eE2wQyzW

Grid power vs. on-site gas turbines: two AI data centers 12 km apart, two very different pollution maps. Our new preprint led by Harshit Gujral compares two Memphis data centers just 12 km apart: one modeled on grid power, the other running on its own on-site gas turbines. At the same 240 MW demand:
⚡ Grid: ~10.8 PM2.5-attributable deaths per year, 94% of them 250+ km away
🏭 On-site gas: ~3.7 deaths per year, 82% of them within 50 km.
At real-world scale, the order flips. The on-site facility is about 4x larger, with an estimated 11.4 deaths per year vs. 8.1. Nearly half of that burden falls on low-income, high-people-of-color neighborhoods. Grid power spreads the harm. On-site power concentrates it next door.
With 43 behind-the-meter data centers planned in the US (only 4 are operating today), health impacts belong in siting and permitting decisions before they’re made, not after.
📄 https://lnkd.in/gKUVrfzH
#AI #Datacenters #AirQuality #PublicHealth #EnvironmentalJustice Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public HealthHarvard Data Science Initiative

4. Discussion
This study makes three contributions. First, it extends the emerging concern around datacenter
scale and proximity to urban populations by showing that the location of the electricity generation
serving these facilities is itself a public-health consideration [1,6,31].
Second, the two-scenario comparison distinguishes the implications of electricity-supply pathway
from those of datacenter size: in the hypothetical matched-demand scenario, the modeled grid-supply
pathway produced greater additional exposure to PM2.5 and consequently greater excess annual
mortality that affects a large geographical area, whereas the BTM pathway concentrated mortality
closer to the datacenter. Moreover, in the real-world scenario, C2’s substantially greater capacity
produced greater absolute regional and near-site excess exposure to PM2.5 and excess mortality under
the specified operating assumptions. The generation-weighted sensitivity substantially reduced the
estimated grid-related mortality burden but did not change the matched-demand ordering or the much
greater near-site concentration of the BTM burden (Sec 3.4). Thus, the magnitude of the grid-related
burden is specific to how the electricity-system response is represented and, for the primary analysis,
to the 2023 TVA marginal generation response. It should not be generalized to regions with different
marginal generation mixes.
Third, the equity analysis shows that these spatial differences can translate into different population distributions of burden, with the largest BTM-attributable mortality share occurring in the
low-income, high-people-of-color stratum. These findings show why electricity demand or emissions
intensity alone cannot describe the health implications of datacenter power

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Reposted by Anne MB

PM2.5 Kills ~9 Million People Each Year Worldwide @tkovach.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

“Solar and wind do not go through the Strait of Hormuz. It can be produced right here. So if you want to have reliable electricity that is somewhat cost efficient, you've got to be able to have this, and sometimes that's going to be in your backyard.”

nebraskapublicmedia.org

Rural areas reap economic benefits from wind and solar projects, new Midwest study finds

Across the central U.S., more communities are passing ordinances to regulate renewable infrastructure development. A University of Missouri study examines the economic impact of renewable energy in ru...

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Anne MB @annemellbird.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

Don't forget she graduated with honors in economics. She knows how to analyze this sort of legislation.

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The Medical Society Consortium on Climate and Health @docsforclimate.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

Today is Children’s Environmental Health Day! All children deserve clean air, clean water, safer food and products, and healthy places in which to live, learn, and play. Make your voice heard today in support of these basic rights for children. Visit cehday.org #CEHday

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Reposted by Anne MB

Dorit Reiss @doritreiss.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

"[Dr. Erica Schwartz'...office has moved to allocate new funds for a controversial clinical trial of the hepatitis B vaccine in Guinea-Bissau, ...previously suspended. " Taken from global health. Ethics doubtful. via @katherineeban.bsky.social @rollingstone.com www.rollingstone.com/politics/pol...

rollingstone.com

CDC Is Moving Forward With a Previously Shelved Controversial Hepatitis B Vaccine Study

“It’s a wholly unethical trial, and it shouldn’t be allowed,” says Dr. Paul Offit of Guinea-Bissau study

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Reposted by Anne MB

Erik Schlenker-Goodrich @riogranderift.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Insightful legal analysis of a highly problematic component of the Senate permitting deal (Sec. 1402) highly touted by bill proponents as a solution to Trump's War on Renewables but is in fact a major gift to all developers—in particular fossil fuels—that will hobble a future POTUS' climate action.

From attorney Matthew Littleton: "Section 1402 of the draft bipartisan permitting bill is deeply problematic. The apparent goal is to stop Presidents from imposing hard or soft bans (“pauses”) on development of certain types of energy resources. Whatever energy policy the next President pursues, however, the likely outcome of this provision is a massive public subsidy (hundreds of billions of dollars) for new fossil-energy projects, with little to no benefit for clean energy. Here’s why.

Section 1402 authorizes suits by developers for money damages against the United States in any federal district court where part of the proposed project is located. A developer must allege that the government missed one statutory deadline to decide on its application for a permit, right-of-way, etc. It’s up to the judge when the agency’s review clock began (there’s often dispute over when the permit application is complete) and when it ends (there’s often dispute over the degree of environmental review required). So even if the government acted in good faith to meet what it thought was the deadline, the judge can decide there’s a delay.

Next, the developer has to show a “pattern of disparate treatment,” meaning a substantial increase (as compared to the most recent 5 years) in the percentage of projects of this type that, in the judge’s estimation, were either delayed or “improperly denied.” Here’s where clean energy comes up short. Because the current Administration hasn’t moved those projects, an indefinite stall (including by a new President that continued it) would be no worse than the baseline. Lawsuits can’t be filed until late 2027, by which time the baseline will be dominated by Trump's practices."

Part 2 from Littleton: "Next, the judge decides whether the developer’s permit, were the agency to grant it, would be subject to cancellation for violating federal law. The question seems to be whether there is a hypothetical permit the agency could issue that would survive judicial review. That’s a low bar, given the deferential standard of review applied to agency factfinding and “public interest” determinations.

Section 1402 “entitles” a developer that wins its case to (1) “injunctive relief, as provided by applicable Federal law” (meaning an order that the agency decide on the application? issue the permit?); (2) attorneys fees and litigation costs; (3) “economic damages, including any costs associated with the applicable denial or delay, as the court determines appropriate” (what else is “included”?); and (4) “damages in an amount equal to not less than 50% and not more than 100% of the total reasonably expected cost of construction of the project.” The last of these four must be repaid if the project isn’t built; the developer keeps the rest of the money regardless.

A single claim under Section 1402 could top the total amount (~$40b) the government has paid out in all Judgment Fund claims over the last decade. This provision puts judges in real control over energy policy through the power of the purse."

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Anne MB @annemellbird.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

Air pollution is bad for our health whether it is from grid-connected or islanded power plants. GHG are bad for climate change and our health whether they come from grid-connected or islanded power plants.

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Reposted by Anne MB

Dr. Vin Gupta @vinguptamd.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

Get your flu shot now. Don’t wait until flu season is in full swing. And as we discussed this morning, know your options. Also, consider keeping a few at-home COVID/flu combination tests on hand. Many are available online for under $10 and may be HSA/FSA eligible.

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Alt CDC (they/them) @altcdc.altgov.info · 07/10/2026

We’ll say it again: CDC cannot and should not be run like a corporation. CDC exists to protect public health. Our work is scientific, operational, regulatory, clinical, and administrative. Success does not look the same across those jobs.

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Anne MB @annemellbird.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

Do you have totals for all these on a website?

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Anne MB @annemellbird.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Fyi- I just clicked on your link, and is said access denied because I was not authorized.

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Anne MB @annemellbird.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

It's so sad people tie up their identity with believing things that hurt their health.

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Anne MB @annemellbird.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Pediatricians barely break even when vaccinating kids. I don't know why so many people think there's a profit motive.

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Anne MB @annemellbird.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

CIDRAP is the best source these days for infectious disease news and reports.

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Dr. Elizabeth Sawin @bethsawin.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

If we were in such dangerous waters because we couldn't move fast or manage lots of data then maybe what the tech companies are selling would seem like a life raft. But we had data and scenarios in 1972. Emissions gap reports year after year.

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Anne MB @annemellbird.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

@ossoff.senate.gov @warnock.senate.gov @repnikema.bsky.social The permitting deal has major problems, please read this analysis carefully.

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Minnesota Reformer @minnesotareformer.com · 05/10/2026

The federal government has walked back Section 504, a federal disability law, after some states sued. Section 504 mandated that states prioritize in-community care for people with disabilities over institutionalization. This suit Initially began as an effort to ban protections for trans people.

minnesotareformer.com

After states sue, Trump administration walks away from disability rights enforcement • Minnesota Reformer

A court battle that began when conservative-led states sued to block protections for transgender people has ended in a rollback of protections for people with disabilities — a result disability advoca...

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Alt CDC (they/them) @altcdc.altgov.info · 05/10/2026

💚 Looking for ways to support CDC staff? Check out @cdcmutualaid.bsky.social organized by CDC staff for CDC staff. Proceeds go to helping fired CDC staff pay rent and other bills. 💵 Donations: www.cdcresourceportal.org 🛒 CDC mutual aid store: cdc-mutual-aid-network.printful.me

cdcresourceportal.org

Mutual Aid Network Portal

From Gratitude to Action

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Reposted by Anne MB

Marshall Shepherd @drshepherd2013.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Up to 70% chance of development and one of the top performing hurricane models is bullish...my analysis

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Anne MB @annemellbird.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Be sure to comment on the roadless rule today, if you haven't yet.

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Black Voters Matter Fund @blackvotersmatterfund.org · 05/10/2026

🚨 If you live in GA, TX, OH, MS, FL, LA, or TN, October 5 is the deadline to register for the November 3 general election. Not registered? Moved? Need to update your info? Don’t wait. Check your registration and get it handled now. 🗳️ Check your status: blackvotersmatterfund.org/vote

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Henry L Niman PhD @hlniman.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

"When the measles vaccine arrived, and measles cases fell, deaths from other infectious diseases fell along with them" Measles virus infection erases immune memory www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/202...

washingtonpost.com

Column | Measles can erase up to 73 percent of your immune system’s memory

“Immune amnesia” is a little-known — and potentially devastating — consequence of measles.

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Reposted by Anne MB

League of Women Voters of Georgia @lwvga.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

🗳️ National Voter Education Week: Day 1! Today, Oct. 5, is the LAST DAY to register to vote in Georgia for the Nov. 3 election. Check your registration, location & voter ID. Don’t miss the deadline! mvp.sos.ga.gov #GAVotes #RegisterToVote

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Anne MB @annemellbird.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

We had to be so careful, trying to keep that from happening. But we weren’t always successful. Such a horrible disease.

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Dorit Reiss @doritreiss.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

There Has Been Another Vaccine-Preventable Disease Death: An unvaccinated child died from Hib in Montana. Hib has been coming back, harming and killing children. It's dangerous - and vaccine preventable, explains @aboutpediatrics.bsky.social open.substack.com/pub/stopanti...

open.substack.com

There Has Been Another Vaccine-Preventable Disease Death

An unvaccinated child who died because they were sick with Hib, which can be prevented with a vaccine that has been around since 1987.

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Reposted by Anne MB

Oni Blackstock, MD MHS @oniblackstock.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

They made no medical claims during the past year, so the administration called them "phantoms" and canceled their coverage. Yet "21 percent of low-income ACA marketplace enrollees used no care in the year, and 26% of low-income adults with employer or group insurance used no care in the year..."

The Troubling Termination of 760,000 ACA Marketplace Members"

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Sammy Roth @sammyroth.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

What people who disagree with me about permitting reform fail to understand is that the parts of the bill *they're* focused on are far less important than the parts of the bill *I'm* focused on, for reasons that are really so obvious they don't need to be explained.

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Science and Environmental Health Network (SEHN) @sehnetwork.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

NEW: The update of the public health effects section of our 9th ed. fracking science Compendium summarized (not a direct translation) in Spanish by our friends at Territorio de Ideas. 🙏 concernedhealthny.org/wp-content/u... @psr-la.bsky.social @psr.org @sfbaypsr.bsky.social @standla.bsky.social

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