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Dan Charles

@dancharles.bsky.social
6.3K followers 501 following 148 posts

Telling stories about climate, food, land. Former NPR. Urbanist and ruralist and bicyclist. Science Magazine contributor.

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Dan Charles @dancharles.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Way back in 1950, 800,000 people lived in D.C. (compared to about 700,000 today), even though entire neighborhoods hadn't yet been built. Where did they live? Turns out there's a fun way to see exactly where. ggwash.org/view/104864/...
ggwash.org
Step through this magical portal to a DC with 800,000 people
In 1950, about 800,000 people lived in DC. That’s 100,000 more than today, even though the city had many fewer buildings back then.
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Zeke Hausfather @zekehausfather.com · 28/09/2026
This year's record setting El Niño will impact many different parts of the world, with some experiencing severe drought and others flooding. In a new analysis at The Climate Brink, I explore what impacts happened during past events and which are most likely to occur this year
theclimatebrink.com
The impacts of this year’s record-shattering El Niño
El Niño will drive severe drought from Indonesia to the Southern Africa and northern South America, with wetter winters from the US Gulf Coast to Southern South America.
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𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚕𝚎𝚜 𝙲. 𝙼𝚊𝚗𝚗 @charlescmann.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
I sympathize. It really sucks when people just grab up your work without credit or payment and use it as a shortcut to make a product that might put you out of business.
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Dan Charles @dancharles.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Makes you wonder, are these cattle industry folks in Texas and Kansas going to vote for Republican senate candidates in November? www.kla.org/news-center/...
kla.org
Media Statement from the Kansas Livestock Association, Oklahoma Cattlemen’s Association and Texas Cattle Feeders Association Regarding the Ongoing ICE Operations in Oklahoma, Kansas, and Texas
(TOPEKA) — The Kansas Livestock Association, Oklahoma Cattlemen’s Association and Texas Cattle Feeders Association are closely monitoring reported U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) activi...
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Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 24/09/2026
Not that it matters since you just copied their copy of USDA data but the article itself? Pretty sketchy. Check the COIs; I'd prefer a plant protein article NOT funded by the dairy industry. And I'm not an expert in the field but even I know enough to know that this isn't how Venn diagrams work.
Bizarre Venn diagram about the problems with plant protein.
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Dan Charles @dancharles.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
I can testify that Kyiv’s escalators are exciting! Many also are very long
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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
NEW: @apnews.com confirms that ICE has begun electronically "disappearing" people in the agency's custody who have final orders of removal. As of last week, anyone jailed by ICE with a final order of removal will NOT appear in the ICE Online Detainee Locator System, making them effectively vanish.
apnews.com
AP Exclusive: ICE hides locations of thousands of detainees with final removal orders
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has stopped publicly revealing where it is holding most detainees who are subject to final deportation orders, in a move that has made it harder for lawyers an...
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Dan Charles @dancharles.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
I don't subscribe to Yglesias's substack, so couldn't read the whole article, but the part until you hit paywall is very good.
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Darren Dahly @statsepi.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Thoughts and prayers please for this poor auld soul.
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David Turnbull @dturnbull.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Really sad news about a tenacious climate advocate, blogger, and communicator. His Climate Progress blog was truly must-read content for year. Joe was truly one of a kind and will be missed by many. May his memory be a blessing.
web.sas.upenn.edu
Remembering Dr. Joe Romm
It is with great sadness that the Penn Center for Science, Sustainability and the Media shares news of the passing of PCSSM Senior Research Fellow Dr. Joe Romm. Please find below an obituary prepared ...
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Richard Waite @waiterich.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
Have we tried unplugging society and plugging it back in
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Peter Gleick @petergleick.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
Why isn't there more money and advocacy for urban buses and light rail? Everyone points to cities with strong bike culture, but they're most successful where reliable, fast, efficient mass transit reduces the need to have a car first.
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Zen Faulkes @doctorzen.net · 27/08/2026
The real American 🇺🇸 “brain drain” isn’t that a few established scholars might get new jobs outside the US, it’s the enormous number of grad students - particularly international grad students - who can’t or won’t study in the US now or in years to come. That’s the body blow.
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Yonah Freemark @yonahfreemark.com · 26/08/2026
Mexico unveiled the cargo version of its ultra light electric car that it will begin selling next year for about $10,000. The Mexican government has been leading project development. EV sales in Mexico have been skyrocketing in recent months.
electrive.com
Mexico unveils Olinia Carga electric light truck - electrive.com
Mexico is expanding its fledgling electric vehicle brand Olinia with a compact electric transporter. The Olinia Carga will offer a range of more than 120
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World Resources Institute @worldresources.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
These 10 countries have scaled up renewable energy the fastest: 🇺🇾 Uruguay 🇳🇦 Namibia 🇳🇱 The Netherlands 🇩🇰 Denmark 🇱🇹 Lithuania 🇸🇻 El Salvador 🇨🇱 Chile 🇬🇷 Greece 🇭🇺 Hungary 🇯🇴 Jordan Latest research from #SystemsChangeLab: go.wri.org/renewables-s...
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Geoff Brumfiel @gbrumfiel.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
USCIS proposes a weirdly specific $103,265 fee for every H-1B visa application. The feel would be due at time of filing and (presumably, like other fees from DHS) would be non-refundable if the application were rejected. One wonders how many companies would actually pay this for an H-1B worker.
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Martin Austermuhle @maustermuhle.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
Wild: Trump is threatening a $5 billion lawsuit against the Center for American Progress for its report that was critical of the deployment of the National Guard in U.S. cities, including D.C. Trump's attorneys giving until 5 p.m. today for the report to be retracted. www.notus.org/center-for-a...
notus.org
Liberal Think Tank Refuses to Retract Report After Trump’s $5B Lawsuit Threat
The report suggested Trump’s National Guard deployments have failed to reduce urban crime.
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Hansi Lo Wang (he/him) @hansilowang.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
NEW: Today is Day 3 of the Census Bureau's homepage, census.gov, featuring an unauthored report with analysis that @npr.org found was conducted not by career civil servants, but a team that included individuals affiliated with a President Trump-aligned think tank, the America First Policy Institute
npr.org
Experts raise alarms over Census Bureau report Trump is touting on noncitizen voting
A Trump-aligned think tank has ties to a highly unusual Census Bureau report that the president is using to renew false claims of widespread voting by non-U.S. citizens in 2020, NPR has learned.
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Andrew Kniss @wyoweeds.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
I've now recieved a rejected manuscript review where a reviewer submitted LLM-generated content (100% confident), and a rejected grant review where a reviewer submitted LLM-generated content (80% confident). On it's own, this is somewhere between frustrating and infuriating. But my main concern:
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Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 18/08/2026
Thought leaders are often full of shit. Self-described "thought leaders" are invariably so. I hope the AI is ashamed of itself.
This opinion piece was made in the same way. It began with me speaking an untidy account of what had happened and what it made me think. AI did almost all of the writing. I questioned it, redirected it, removed what was too smooth, restored what mattered and decided what I could stand behind.

The ideas are mine. The expertise is mine. The experience is mine. The responsibility is mine. That does not make AI’s contribution invisible, and it does not make the work of professional writers less valuable.

AI did almost all of the writing. I remain the expert and the thought leader behind the piece. Does that also make me its author? I do not expect everyone to agree. But that is the debate I think we now need.
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Our World in Data @ourworldindata.org · 17/08/2026
But if we were to assume zero migration in the US, its population would peak soon and would shrink by 60 million by 2100.
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Our World in Data @ourworldindata.org · 17/08/2026
📝 New article — Which countries have already passed peak population, and when will the rest do so? Many countries around the world are in a unique position: rather than having a constant or growing population, their populations are starting to shrink.
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Justin Gundlach @justingundlach.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
Something from your field that everybody should know: Electric and gas distribution utilities profit only from building infrastructure--pipes & wires. Sales of elec/gas don't really matter, financially speaking. No capital spending (whether on new stuff or to replace existing assets), no profit.
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Dr Seán Ketchem @cskwriter.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
Why is the central city railway in Berlin all curvy like this? Because the city built the line using the clear space of the former Berlin Customs Wall (the original Berlin Wall), which in turn had been built over the filled-over moat of the medieval Berlin Fortress, whose outlines you are retracing.
The Berlin Fortress (German "Festung Berlin") was the fortification of the historic city of Berlin. Construction started in 1650. The ramparts, walls, moats and glacis of the 17th-century bastion fort ran around the historic city limits. The demolition of its ramparts began in 1740.

In the following years the ramparts deteriorated to such an extent that Frederick William I of Prussia decided to abandon them in 1734. In their place the Berlin Customs Wall was erected, a project that continued until 1737. In 1740 work began to demolish the walls of the fortress, but it was not until the end of the 19th century that all of the ramparts had been levelled.

Today nothing remains apart from an echo of its path as shown by the zig-zag routes taken by some streets in the city center. For instance, the triangular shape of Hausvogteiplatz, a small square, corresponds to an earlier bastion of the fortifications. The railway tracks of Berlin Stadtbahn along the eastern and northern sections of Mitte between the stations Hackescher Markt and Jannowitzbrücke are built where the fortress had been.
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Philip Bump @pbump.com · 11/08/2026
I'm sorry, but calling advocates of congestion pricing "jihadists" is sincerely hilarious.
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Jay Van Bavel, PhD @jayvanbavel.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
A hyperactive minority of highly polarized users contribute to community notes As social platforms now rely on community notes Rather than decentralizing epistemic authority, community-based fact-checking places power in the hands of a small, polarized group of contributors. arxiv.org/pdf/2602.08970
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Albert Pinto @70sbachchan.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
You can't predict the turns this sentence takes. Extreme heat is threatening Italy’s “cheese banks,” where hundreds of thousands of Parmigiano-Reggiano wheels are stored as loan collateral. fortune.com/2026/08/10/i...
fortune.com
Italy's $4.7 billion cheese economy is feeling the heat as climate change threatens its cheese banks that hold Parmigiano wheels as loan collateral | Fortune
Extreme heat is straining the vaults that hold Parmigiano wheels as loan collateral, and economists say the damage runs wider than the vault
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Gavin Schmidt @climateofgavin.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
What an absolutely insane waste of money.
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Dan Charles @dancharles.bsky.social · 08/08/2026
I went on this exact same internal rant today about buying something at a grocery store
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Andrew Kniss @wyoweeds.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
There are a LOT of products out there being marketed to farmers. Many of these products have little to no independent testing to evaluate whether they work. A couple years ago, we tested two products marketed as "soil detoxifiers" - and we found they didn't seem to do anything.
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Dan Charles @dancharles.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
This is scary brilliant. Thank you @mwuerker.bsky.social
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Zeke Hausfather @zekehausfather.com · 05/08/2026
The rise in Niño 3.4 region sea surface temperatures over the past few weeks has been nothing short of astonishing. We are now hotter than any days during the 1997/1998 super El Niño event, and we are still many months from the peak.
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Neil Flanagan 🧱🗃️ @jgbollard.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
As Brian Anderson says in this piece, applying BEPS only to larger buildings is essentially a penalty on denser, more efficient living. Most of these projects will eventually pay for themselves but we need to have policies that align with a holistic sustainability approach.
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Joseph Miscimarra 🇺🇸 @jmisci.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
This is a thought-provoking read. When designing home retrofit initiatives, there are so many factors to consider: Should you target multifamily buildings (higher energy savings per project) or SFHs (higher overall potential energy savings)? And should we lean on carrots or sticks?
The project cost the co-op's members almost $5 million, or about $11,000 per unit. It's expected to cut the building's energy use by more than a third and reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by more than 1,000 metric tons each year.
"We were kind of lucky," says Corinne Irvin, the co-op board's vice president. The old boilers would have needed replacing eventually; BEPS just accelerated the process. The co-op had also just retired a mortgage, which freed up money and lightened the financial load.
The Cairo, however, was not so lucky. The building is saddled with quirky hardware - air conditioning units in each condo that also contain old-fashioned electric heaters.As BEPS evolves, single-family homeowners escape scrutiny
While condo and co-op owners scramble to satisfy
BEPS, many are also angry that the owners of single-family homes don't have the same requirements.
"We have so many people in our neighborhood, just two people in a 4,000-square-foot house," says Brian Anderson, vice president of The Garfield Condominiums on Connecticut Avenue NW. Those homes use much more energy per person than typical condo units do. "We should be encouraging people to live in and build and maintain these (multi-family) structures rather than penalizing them."
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Dan Charles @dancharles.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
Interesting push in DC for energy upgrades in existing buildings. Important but complicated stuff that’s easy for condos and coops to ignore or put off. ggwash.org/view/104280/...
ggwash.org
For energy-hogging DC buildings, it’s upgrade or pay
Existing buildings are responsible for nearly 70% of DC’s greenhouse emissions. Cutting their energy use often isn’t easy.
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Uncle Duke @uncleduke1969.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
somebody seems to be trying real hard to get Gurt’s attention
Large blue-lettered sign over store refrigerators reads "YO GURT."
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Geoff Brumfiel @gbrumfiel.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
Incredible story: With the help of AI, U.S. officials created a map that mislabeled every country in Africa. www.reuters.com/world/africa...
reuters.com
US government map of Africa mislabels every country at global conference
A U.S. government map of Africa mislabeled every country during a State Department presentation at ‌a global conference taking place in Brazil this week, causing a stir among attendees who took screen...
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Murshed Zaheed @murshedz.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
“Trump has rejected disaster aid for Democratic-run states at the highest rate in the 47-year history of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.” Right now people in blue states are basically paying federal taxes as if they’re colonized territories of red states. www.politico.com/news/2026/03...
Trump has denied most disaster requests from Democratic-led states

A graph  showing Presidential approval rates for disaster requests from Democratic-led states and Republican-led states

Source: POLITICO's E&E News analysis of FEMA records
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Ben Harris @benharris1.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
Heads up: if you are in the Manor Park/Brightwood area of DC, and you had a bag recently stolen that had your car keys attached to it, DM me.
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Christina Henderson @chenderson.bsky.social · 22/07/2026
A few things: First and foremost, you cannot claim to support DC Home Rule and simultaneously publicly advocate for a bill that cripples the District’s ability to compete for economic development. Second, Comer’s ANS wouldn’t even cover the delivery fee because it’s 20 cents.
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Brad Johnson @climatebrad.hillheat.com · 22/07/2026
I got the DoorDash letter attacking DC home rule over a 20¢ fee. The letter, which dangerously misrepresents HR 9720 as only applying to tax and fee increases, was written by @lgbtqvictoryfund.bsky.social director John Horton. #freedc
hillheat.com
DoorDash Declares War on DC Home Rule Over A 20-Cent Fee
John Horton, DoorDash head of North American policy The delivery giant DoorDash is trying to cripple District of Columbia’s fiscal self-governance, in response ...
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Tamar Haspel @tamarhaspel.bsky.social · 22/07/2026
Most animals are super cute when they're young. And then there are herons.
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Dan Charles @dancharles.bsky.social · 23/07/2026
Amazing story, amazing research
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Eric P @prestemon.bsky.social · 22/07/2026
The AI czars have been Sacks, Burns, and Fall? are they doing a bit?
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Richard Waite @waiterich.bsky.social · 17/07/2026
Reminds me of this Onion article… Seriously though, power and system change is what of course matters the most but 1) if you’re an individual in North America or Europe you have an outsized impact and 2) human systems, themselves, are made up of individuals that other individuals can influence.
theonion.com
New Report Finds Climate Change Caused By 7 Billion Key Individuals
WASHINGTON—In a landmark report experts say fundamentally reshapes our understanding of the global warming crisis, new data published this week by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has fou...
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Jackie Llanos @llanosjackie.bsky.social · 17/07/2026
NEW: Chair Jim Jordan won’t take up legislation expanding the H-2A visa program, bucking Republicans who sought a quick path to help the agriculture industry. W/ Tyler Spence www.notus.org/congress/hou...
notus.org
House Judiciary Panel Won’t Include Farmworker Visa Changes in Immigration Package
“I expect there will be major heartburn from producers across the country,” Rep. Glenn Thompson said.
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Robinson Meyer @robinsonmeyer.bsky.social · 17/07/2026
In recent years, only one US electricity market has consistently added new generation while keeping costs low. It’s also added more new power plants (and solar!) than anyone else. A new bill from @heinrich.senate.gov would require other grids to adopt its approach: heatmap.news/daily/heinri...
heatmap.news
Scoop: A Key Democrat Wants to Break America’s Worst Energy Bottleneck
Senator Martin Heinrich’s bill, which makes it easier to connect new power plants to the grid, is an encouraging sign for bipartisan permitting reform.
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Dan Charles @dancharles.bsky.social · 14/07/2026
This is a real issue. And why haven't super-high incentives (SREC prices) in DC set off enough of a solar boom to bring those prices down and dampen the cost to consumers? Lots of inertia/friction/obstacles in the system. Which seem inescapable, unfortunately.
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Zeke Hausfather @zekehausfather.com · 13/07/2026
With all the July model runs now in, it is very likely that 2026 will see the largest El Niño event since records began in the late 1800s – and potentially by a truly mind-blowing margin. The median estimate is now 3.6C, roughly 0.8C hotter than the prior record (2.75C). www.theclimatebrink....
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Ferris Jabr @ferrisjabr.bsky.social · 07/07/2026
For the @nytimes.com Magazine, I wrote about the increasingly fervent native plant movement; its esteemed guru, the entomologist and bestselling author Douglas Tallamy; and the complexities of ecologically responsible gardening in our modern era. Gift link 🎁 : www.nytimes.com/2026/07/07/m...
nytimes.com
I Wanted an Ecologically Responsible Garden. It Was Harder Than I Thought.
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