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Brett Favaro

@brettfavaro.bsky.social
4.4K followers 302 following 2.4K posts

Conservation scientist. Tweets about climate, oceans, & sustainable development. Views my own, and do not necessarily reflect views of employer. He/him.

PostsRepliesMedia
Reposted by Brett Favaro
Stephen Schwartz @atomicanalyst.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
“Annihilating Iran”—which can only mean the widespread use of thermonuclear weapons against Iran’s nearly 100 million citizens—is, I’m afraid, the Chekov’s gun of Trump’s second term. He has spoken too often and too explicitly about unleashing such wanton destruction for it to be an idle threat.
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Brett Favaro @brettfavaro.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
I always thought cyberattacks were illegal but I guess not
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Brett Favaro @brettfavaro.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
As a British Columbian this confused me for a moment. Eby taking on Florida next?
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Jimmy Thomson @jameswsthomson.com · 01/10/2026
Gas prices aren't high because of taxes! Don't sacrifice billions of public dollars to fix what you didn't cause!
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Brett Favaro @brettfavaro.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Oh this is awful
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Brett Favaro @brettfavaro.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
What's with these cutesy headlines? Why isn't the headline "US software company caught launching a cyberattack against Canadian government"
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karen ward @kwardvancouver.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Strong Surrey is a suburb of Strongbadia
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Timnit Gebru @timnitgebru.blacksky.app · 30/09/2026
Friends, while they're trying to talk about fictional machine gods, don't lose sight into what they're all actually powering in real life. You can browse the the entities on the website and use the API, and learn more about it on the DAIR project site: dair-institute.org/projects/sur....
dair-institute.org
Surveillance Watch
This interactive map reveals the intricate connections between surveillance companies, their funding sources and affiliations.
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Andrew Lawrence @ndrew.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
if i were a foreign government looking for an edge, id probably try to convince america that climate change is woke bull shit and combustion engines are for real men with penises, all while also convincing them to invest every dollar in bull shit tech while we take the lead on green energy
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Dr. Genevieve Guenther (she/they) @doctorvive.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
our enemies are so well funded and organized, it physically pains me to think about it
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Brett Favaro @brettfavaro.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Wait wasn't this guy a BC Conservative leadership candidate?
Screenshot of OneBCs twitter account announcing Warren Hamm as a candidate
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Brett Favaro @brettfavaro.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Does anyone know what the deal is with Spookleys 4D Jamboree? The Vancouver Aquarium is playing it now, and everything about it felt like generative AI garbage. But it looks like it's a real show? Normally the 4D theater has cool stuff but this was shockingly bad
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Brett Favaro @brettfavaro.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Wild thread
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Brett Favaro @brettfavaro.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
"without their knowledge" feels like an important thing to say if you don't want to get in trouble
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Brett Favaro @brettfavaro.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Hey, Canadians - wondering why your favourite programs keep closing? This is why! International students don't take seats, they make seats.
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Dr. Jonathan Foley @globalecoguy.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
I’m so bored with all the discussion around AI. Can we talk about some useful technology, like heat pumps?
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Brett Favaro @brettfavaro.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Every night after everyone but me is in bed, our hamster Monoco demands a play session. She's been growing increasingly assertive... This is what I came down to last night
White and Brown hamster clutching the bars of her cage
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Brett Favaro @brettfavaro.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Interesting
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James Murray @james-bg.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Fascinating new figures confirming old EVs with a lot of miles on the clock are much more reliable than their petrol and diesel equivalents. www.businessgreen.com/news/4536166...
businessgreen.com
Study: High mileage EVs more reliable than petrol equivalents
Analysis of 47.4 million MOTs finds electric cars are around 25 per cent less likely to fail than petrol models as mileage climbs
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Brett Favaro @brettfavaro.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
"elections cost money and are therefore bad!" <-- This is a horrible take, and it's so tiresome how it gets trotted out every time there's an early election Elections are very efficient in Canada and most of the $ just ends up recirculating back in the economy, as wages. No big deal at all.
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Charlie Angus @charlieangus104.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Not a good look: arresting seniors calling on Mark Carney to not walk back our climate obligations. In my last 2 years as MP I ran a gauntlet of threat, swarming and harassment everyday from conspiracy ragers. House security and Ottawa police just watched. Seems instructions have been issued.
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Brett Favaro @brettfavaro.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
A truce? They're at war??
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Brett Favaro @brettfavaro.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
What today has shown us, is the BC Conservatives really don't have substantive policy disagreements with one another. Something about KLFs leadership was noxious enough that it caused them to all run away, but the moment that changed everything basically snapped back into place.
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Corey Atad @coreyatad.com · 22/09/2026
“If you are staring at an example of social disorder or social inefficiency, and the left refuses to explain either why it has happened or how they will fix it, then the right gets to point at someone in the immediate area and say, ‘That’s who did it.’” crazy how much Mamdani speaks my language
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Brett Favaro @brettfavaro.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
www.parkrecord.com/2026/09/11/w... Tom Paris is running!! Have any other Starfleet officers held an elected seat before or would this be the first?
parkrecord.com
Wasatch County Council candidate Robert McNeill values transparency, accountability - Park Record
Heber City resident and hopeful political newcomer Robert Duncan McNeill is stepping in as the Democratic candidate for Wasatch County Council at-large Seat A.
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Brett Favaro @brettfavaro.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Find out the KLF "Husband Tape" is just Brent Chapman calmly and coherently talking about how vaccines are actually good
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Brett Favaro @brettfavaro.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
When I was a teenager, my political views could best be described as Angry Young Conservative Male. Then the war in Iraq happened. It was part of what shifted my views 180 degrees. This was possible, in part, because we all had a basic understanding of what was happening.
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Spencer Ackerman @attackerman.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
This is a really important story. You know how over reliance on AI makes you lazy and stupid? This shows how that’s happening within the military — a military, it cannot be pointed out often enough, that’s growing ever more reliant on AI. The children of Shajarah Tayyebah Elementary paid the price
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Brett Favaro @brettfavaro.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
Expedition 33 captured something very well: That feeling where your life is in the hands of a far-away force, godlike in power, that somehow has utter control over your fate And it also captured how differently people react to it. Some give up. Some accept. Some fight, even if it's probably futile.
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Brett Favaro @brettfavaro.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
@whysharksmatter.bsky.social he's merging your thing and my thing!
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Patrick De Haan @gasbuddyguy.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
ALERT: #GreatLakes and #Rockies regions are likely to see another price hike this week, even with price jumps that happened already yesterday and today due to huge jumps in wholesale gasoline and diesel prices. Gasoline could jump 25-75c with diesel rising 55-85c/gal
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Stephen Judkins @stephenjudkins.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
I feel every few weeks there's a meticulously researched @stephenjacobsmith.com post that's like "here's this one dude in charge of the California Doorknob Industry Commission who has statistically caused 67k more people to be homeless"
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Brett Favaro @brettfavaro.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
This is a very reasonable position to take.
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Brett Favaro @brettfavaro.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
That's enough Internet for me today
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Brent Toderian @brenttoderian.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
‘It’s the best feeling’: how Copenhagen gave cyclists a green wave. “Traffic lights are synchronised so a rush-hour cyclist at 20km/h can catch green lights all the way.” If you want people to choose not to drive, make the non-driving trip better & easier for them. It’s as simple as that, really.
theguardian.com
‘It’s the best feeling’: how Copenhagen gave cyclists a green wave
Traffic lights are synchronised so a rush-hour cyclist at 20km/h can catch green lights all the way
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Brett Favaro @brettfavaro.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
So let me get this straight - OpenAI releases a program that functions as malware - Malware attacks another company - Company calls the FBI - OpenAI, who presumably could get in trouble goes "ha ha oh my stars, look out our AI WENT ROGUE!! Whoopsie! (also means please don't arrest us)"
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Brett Favaro @brettfavaro.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
Well that's a relief!
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Ketan Joshi @ketanjoshi.co · 11/09/2026
Just trying a new marketing trick
a picture of a wind farm that says

WIND POWER

Crossed out: It generates clean energy, lowers your power bills and gives back to your community


instead (in larger not crossed out) There’s a 10% chance it will kill off the entire human species in just a few years!!
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Brett Favaro @brettfavaro.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
One mistake university-based academics - including me - often make is we try to say things that are new, and then move on to the next thing. If you want to publish, you've got to advance the field. But in public-facing communications, simple, basic repetition is very important.
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Dr. Jonathan Foley @globalecoguy.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
A good piece of advice for science communication… If you want to connect with professions and experts, focus on writing. If you want to connect with novices, videos are probably best. Here’s some data supporting this: dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/...
dl.acm.org
Experts prefer text but videos help novices: an analysis of the utility of multi-media content | Extended Abstracts of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
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SK Winnicki, PhD 🏳️‍⚧️ @skwinnicki.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
"insiders say it's too dangerous, too powerful" yeah that sounds like an advertisement *for* the product to me, because corporate investors love the fantasy that they'll be the ones in control of something dangerous and powerful they famously wanna build the Torment Nexus
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Brett Favaro @brettfavaro.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
Another thing about this AI business... proponents point to these amazing scientific discoveries that LLMs will facilitate, and point to some recent achievements. But what if we contemplated another scenario: Just investing all this in science?
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Brett Favaro @brettfavaro.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
Observation: The powers that be want us to feel deep fear about misaligned artificial superintelligence, something that may exist at some point, but currently does not. Those same powers do not want us to feel deep fear about climate breakdown, something that exists now.
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The Author, Séamas O'Reilly @seamas.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
Have seen this Nature piece about the effects of X's algorithm mentioned again and it bears repeating; exposure to a right wing algorithm makes you - measurably and predictably - more right wing, even after you stop using it. www.nature.com/articles/s41...
nature.com
The political effects of X’s feed algorithm - Nature
Among users initially on a chronological feed, 7 weeks of exposure to X’s algorithmic feed in 2023 shifted political attitudes and account-following behaviour in a more conservative direction compared...
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Brett Favaro @brettfavaro.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
I oscillate wildly between thinking AI will kill us all due to super intelligence, AI will kill some of us due to some sort of big debacle, and AI will just inflate and deflate leaving some weird mixture of wreckage and advancements in its wake
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David Ho @davidho.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
I think the way to read the UNEP report isn't "we'll miss the 1.5°C target so we need CDR to reach it", but "we'll miss the 1.5°C target, and we need to decarbonize ASAP because wherever we end up is where we will stay for a long time." www.unep.org/resources/li...
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Brett Favaro @brettfavaro.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
Simcity 2000 advisor
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Brett Favaro @brettfavaro.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
I've been spending a little more time on LinkedIn because that's where all the Serious People hang out. And wow, it is a hotbed of centrist climate delay. The "I'm not saying climate change is fake but Canada is only 1.6% of emissions so we shouldnt reduce pollution" type arguments.
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Brett Favaro @brettfavaro.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
There was a running joke a couple years back about how anti-mask rhetoric would turn into, for starters, a tolerance for not wearing seatbelts Sigh
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Brett Favaro @brettfavaro.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
albertapolitics.ca/2026/09/ucp-... Reminder that the "true cost" of something is significantly shaped by policy choices. "Renewables will win by economics alone" is only true if A) you don't massively subsidize fossil fuels, and B) you don't explicitly penalize renewables
albertapolitics.ca
UCP slaps ‘punitive tax’ on solar panels, opening new front in its War on Renewable Energy - Alberta Politics
Never let it be said that the Alberta’s United Conservative Party government isn’t in favour of recycling stuff – at least as long as that can be used to create higher costs and more red tape to help ...
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