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Duncan McLaren

@duncanmclaren.bsky.social
592 followers 188 following 160 posts

Independent Researcher, previously #UCLA, #Lancaster, climate politics, climate geoengineering, environmental justice.

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Reposted by Duncan McLaren
EMILY WILSON @emilyrcwilson.bsky.social · 23/07/2026
There is a lot to say about the Nolan Odyssey movie. But one point that I think has not been emphasized enough is: this is a film about living in LA, as Nolan, my erstwhile British compatriot and age mate, has done for years. I gather it’s a strange place.
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Duncan McLaren @duncanmclaren.bsky.social · 10/04/2026
For anyone planning to attend Boston’s first Climate Week, a great panel discussing the controversial idea of solar #geoengineering Luma.com/4mxlhfyh Including @pkashwan.bsky.social @sovacool.bsky.social @sktalati.bsky.social Hosted by The Institute for Global Sustainability at BU
luma.com
Heading past 1.5C - Could Solar Geoengineering help? · Luma
The chances of keeping within 1.5C are diminishing fast, in the face of climate backlash in the US and elsewhere. Some suggest solar geoengineering…
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Duncan McLaren @duncanmclaren.bsky.social · 10/04/2026
For anyone planning to attend Boston’s first Climate Week, a great panel of speakers and discussants taking on the controversial idea of solar #geoengineering Luma.com/4mxlhfyh
luma.com
Heading past 1.5C - Could Solar Geoengineering help? · Luma
The chances of keeping within 1.5C are diminishing fast, in the face of climate backlash in the US and elsewhere. Some suggest solar geoengineering…
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Reposted by Duncan McLaren
Drew Harwell @drewharwell.com · 04/12/2025
DOJ's newest recruitment ad features Judge Dredd, the comic satire about the dangers of lawless policing and authoritarian power
dhsgov
Deliver justice to criminal illegal aliens.

Become a deportation judge.

Save your country.
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Duncan McLaren @duncanmclaren.bsky.social · 27/10/2025
Making a bad system (offsetting) more efficient makes things worse… and here the unintended effect of validating fungibility between carbon and albedo is disastrous (as it risks legimating substitution of solar geoengineering for emissions cuts)!
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ClimateBook @climatebook.bsky.social · 25/10/2025
I can't emphasize this too much. Scientists who may be well intentioned and favor solar geoengineering research because "it's just research" and do not approve of deployment will not be the ones who decide whether to deploy whatever ... www.gravityisgone.com/letting-sili...
gravityisgone.com
Letting Silicon Valley Geoengineer the Atmosphere Will End Badly
We already have plenty of evidence of what happens when things better left to governments — which in this case might decide to never flip the switch at all — are ceded to private industry.
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Timmons Roberts @timmonsroberts.bsky.social · 07/09/2025
So proud of this collaboration led by @cssn.org 110 top experts from around the world 13 chapters on who is blocking or slowing action on climate change A quantum leap in our understanding of why society has failed to solve this Will be free online Oct 14 1/x global.oup.com/academic/pro...
Cover of new book Climate Obstruction: A Global Assessment from Oxford University Press. Shows cows, smokestacks, jets, oil refineries, cell phones and a man in a suit talking to an audience
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Ketan Joshi @ketanjoshi.co · 22/08/2025
This is a really good @desmog.com post on this topic btw, featuring a bunch of friendly norwegian fossil fuel people www.desmog.com/2025/08/13/c...
desmog.com
Can AI Slash Pollution? Fossil Fuel Industry Is Investing in Boosting Oil Production, Profits Instead
DeSmog reveals that Big Oil says they’re using AI to produce more fossil fuels, while utilities are exploring how “AI agents” could take over key power grid functions.
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Duncan McLaren @duncanmclaren.bsky.social · 10/07/2025
If you’re worried that the world is sliding into solar geoengineering… you might want to read my new article, critiquing the loose use of “risk-risk” claims about climate intervention (#geoengineering). Brief summary and full article link here www.linkedin.com/pulse/from-f...
linkedin.com
From Frying Pan to Fire: wrestling with the risks of solar geoengineering
Ideas of solar geoengineering are getting a lot of attention these days. Moves to ban the technology based on conspiracy theories about existing deployment have proliferated across the USA.
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Duncan McLaren @duncanmclaren.bsky.social · 11/07/2025
Strong analysis, but still hoping that impacts will stimulate action. Unfortunately everything so far suggests that growing impacts exacerbate denial to the point that systems are too broken to take action… we need a narrative of social and ecological repair www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
theguardian.com
Democrats and climate groups ‘too polite’ in fight against ‘malevolent’ fossil fuel giants, says key senator
Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island gives 300th climate speech on the US Senate floor
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Duncan McLaren @duncanmclaren.bsky.social · 10/07/2025
If you’re worried that the world is sliding into solar geoengineering… you might want to read my new article, critiquing the loose use of “risk-risk” claims about climate intervention (#geoengineering). Brief summary and full article link here www.linkedin.com/pulse/from-f...
linkedin.com
From Frying Pan to Fire: wrestling with the risks of solar geoengineering
Ideas of solar geoengineering are getting a lot of attention these days. Moves to ban the technology based on conspiracy theories about existing deployment have proliferated across the USA.
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Rebecca Willis @bankfieldbecky.bsky.social · 07/07/2025
happy to profile our research in The Guardian today
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Julian Agyeman @julianagyeman.bsky.social · 07/07/2025
Abstracted notions of equality, diversity and inclusion are almost entirely absent in plans developed by deprived communities which are more likely to focus on tangible issues of local importance such as access to affordable housing, health and service provision. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
tandfonline.com
Towards everyday conceptions of justice in community-led planning
This paper draws upon a novel analytical framework to review a sample of community-led plans produced across the four nations of the United Kingdom. It explores how communities interpret issues of ...
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Dr. Genevieve Guenther (she/they) @doctorvive.bsky.social · 10/06/2025
Oh look, tech company emissions are already up 150%, and the AI data center build out has just gotten started.
15:37
Energy
Monitor
•ll 5G 4
News
Tech giants' carbon emissions up 150% with Al growth
Companies such as Amazon, Microsoft, Alphabet, and Meta have experienced a surge in their global indirect emissions.
June 9, 2025
Share
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David Ho @davidho.bsky.social · 29/05/2025
AI doesn’t help you work less or get paid more, but does destroy the environment and climate.
fortune.com
Study looking at AI chatbots in 7,000 workplaces finds 'no significant impact on earnings or recorded hours in any occupation'
Despite AI’s promise to revolutionize white-collar work, most workers are using it sparingly—or hiding it from their boss.
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Duncan McLaren @duncanmclaren.bsky.social · 26/05/2025
I don’t know whether this says more about ordinary Brits or about YouGov. Interesting results but poorly selected and framed questions…
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Duncan McLaren @duncanmclaren.bsky.social · 20/05/2025
A thoughtful analysis of the dangerous ideology behind the #geoengineering advocates of Silver Lining. cleantechnica.com/2025/05/18/s...
cleantechnica.com
SilverLining’s Geoengineering Techno-Optimism Is Distracting From Real Climate Solutions - CleanTechnica
SilverLining's geoengineering advocacy reflects ecomodernist techno-optimism, diverting attention from urgent, proven climate solutions like wind and solar.
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Duncan McLaren @duncanmclaren.bsky.social · 17/03/2025
Worth the read: A well researched piece from Undark on Stardust Solutions and their secretive approach to promoting #solargeoengineering undark.org/2025/03/17/s...
undark.org
How One Company Wants to Make Geoengineering Profitable
Stardust, an Israeli-U.S. startup, intends to patent its unique technology for temporarily cooling the planet.
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Reposted by Duncan McLaren
404 Media @404media.co · 15/03/2025
TSA Says Its Credit Cards for Bomb-Sniffing Dogs Are Cut Off The statement follows an alleged internal email which said requests for dog food and vet visits had been put on hold.
404media.co
TSA Says Its Credit Cards for Bomb-Sniffing Dogs Are Cut Off
The statement follows an alleged internal email which said requests for dog food and vet visits had been put on hold.
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Duncan McLaren @duncanmclaren.bsky.social · 12/03/2025
“There is extreme danger in launching such field trials into an environment with neither national nor international governance in place.” But well governed research into geoengineering risks would be wise. The key question is why so many SRM advocates resist effective governance for research?
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Shareable @share-able.bsky.social · 11/03/2025
Our latest @CitiesAtTufts episode is here! Listen to "From City to Sink: Urban Carbon Removal as Promise and Practice with Duncan McLaren @duncanmclaren.bsky.social at the link below or where you get your podcasts. shareable.net/cities_tufts... Illustration @jessemilner76
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Duncan McLaren @duncanmclaren.bsky.social · 11/03/2025
Cities@Tufts and Shareable have put my recent talk on City CDR online - with a cute infographic version too ... www.shareable.net/cities_tufts...
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Cre8Fire @cre8fire.bsky.social · 02/03/2025
One to post where MAGA can see it:
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Dr. Genevieve Guenther (she/they) @doctorvive.bsky.social · 02/03/2025
It was always a mistake to try to sell CDR by promising it could decarbonize oil. People who want oil don't really care whether it's decarbonized or not. Only a real climate politics — the one that actually phases out fossil fuels — will deliver carbon removal, expensive and challenging as it is.
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Guy Gavriel Kay @guygavrielkay.bsky.social · 27/02/2025
When I wrote in a novel, some years ago, ‘We live in the light that comes to us’ that carried within it, for me, the idea that sometimes there is very little, sometimes there is mostly darkness. It is still our time, we do what we can.
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Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social · 27/02/2025
just gonna be the thousandth person to remind you all that segregationists start the open bigotry with people they feel they can target most easily but do not end there
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Senator Ron Wyden @wyden.senate.gov · 26/02/2025
Nothing about kids dying from measles is normal. Anti-vaxxers like RFK Jr. and the Republicans who enable them are responsible for every single one of these deaths.
RFK JR on Measles Outbreaks: It is not unusual. There are measles outbreaks every year.
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Doug Gordon @brooklynspoke.bsky.social · 23/02/2025
"Our streets are now more safe. There has been a 51% decrease in injuries and a 55% decrease in crashes in the congestion relief zone compared to the same period in January 2024."
nydailynews.com
Congestion pricing makes NYC safer
Just more than a month ago, crossing the chaotic streets of Manhattan with my daughter meant taking a chance with her life, especially as she’s a toddler who would rather run free. We live in the g…
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Reposted by Duncan McLaren
Sabo-Katt @resistokatt.bsky.social · 23/02/2025
There's going to be news about a woman illegally detained and being forcely removed from a Coeur d'Alene Idaho Town Hall meeting taking place at the high school by men that would not identify themselves wearing plain clothes because she opposed the republican viewpoints. youtube.com/shorts/hhJdH...
youtube.com
KCRCC Town Hall in Coeur d'Alene Idaho woman illegally detained
YouTube video by Devin Prewett
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Karen Attiah @karenattiah.bsky.social · 22/02/2025
Exactly why I've been writing, podcasting, and damn near screaming about using the right language. The mainstream media is failing us SO badly right now. Stop. Calling. This. Shit. DEI. This is (re)segregation. This is racial purging. Cleansing Black people from positions of power.
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Duncan McLaren @duncanmclaren.bsky.social · 06/02/2025
New paper alert Why explore solar geoengineering? To torture an aging political cliché, surely “It’s the climate, stupid.” resolve.cambridge.org/core/journal... A quick thread ... (in part to explain why sensible people who think solar geoengineering is nuts, still should pay attention)
resolve.cambridge.org
“It's Not the Climate, Stupid”: Exploring Nonideal Scenarios for Solar Geoengineering Development | Ethics & International Affairs | Cambridge Core
“It's Not the Climate, Stupid”: Exploring Nonideal Scenarios for Solar Geoengineering Development - Volume 38 Issue 3
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Jeff Goodell @jeffgoodell.bsky.social · 20/02/2025
“Energy Transfer and the fossil fuel industry do not understand the difference between entities and movements. You can’t bankrupt the movement. You can’t silence the movement. There will be a backlash and a price to pay when you pursue these kinds of tactics.”
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George Takei @georgetakei.bsky.social · 19/02/2025
Timothy Snyder is an expert of modern authoritarianism.
A quote from an article by Timothy Snyder titled "What Does It Mean That Donald Trump Is a Fascist?" published in The New Yorker. The quote reads: "It is predictable ... that he will give free rein to the oligarchs who, he knows, will continue to generate the social and digital bases of a politics of us and them. It is predictable that, in returning to power, he will seek to change the system so that he can remain in power until death. It is predictable that he will use deportations to divide us, to accustom us to violence, and to make accomplices of us. It is predictable that he will create a cult out of the martyrs of January 6th. It is predictable that he will cooperate with similarly minded rulers abroad."
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Lord Jeffrey of Nottingham #FBPE 🇬🇧 🇪🇺 🇬🇱 @onemoregoodman.bsky.social · 17/02/2025
A toxic combination of climate change deniers, anti-abortion and anti-LGBTQ Christians and the collected dregs of US and European fascism. The world faces a very real danger from this coalition wrought in Hell. www.desmog.com/2025/02/16/l...
desmog.com
LEAKED: Oil Execs and Trump Allies Attend Jordan Peterson’s ARC Conference
Executives from some of the world’s biggest oil and gas firms are listed as attendees at a conservative conference in London whose keynote speakers include the leader of the Heritage Foundation – the ...
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e.w. niedermeyer @niedermeyer.online · 16/02/2025
I feel like I'm going insane every time I see a media story about DOGE that doesn't also mention the fact that the Government Accountability Office exists and performs the exact function that DOGE pretends to, only in a credibly constitutional, non-partisan, and conflict-of-interest-free manner
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Duncan McLaren @duncanmclaren.bsky.social · 15/02/2025
Important reminders…
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Natasha Heenan @natashaheenan.bsky.social · 11/02/2025
My PhD on geoengineering, Producing the Climate, is now available to read via USyd library! Huge thanks to my wonderful supervisors @garethbryant.bsky.social and @kurtiveson.bsky.social as well as my generous examiners @geoffmann.bsky.social and Chantel Carr. ses.library.usyd.edu.au/handle/2123/...
ses.library.usyd.edu.au
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Justin Baragona @justinbaragona.bsky.social · 11/02/2025
Elon Musk claims he post's DOGE's actions to their website for full transperency. This is all that is on the website currently: doge.gov
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Akallabêth 🇺🇦 @akallabeth24.bsky.social · 08/02/2025
Oops 😬
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Kat Tenbarge @kattenbarge.bsky.social · 07/02/2025
You can’t “compromise” with an abuser. Any inch they’re given becomes a mile they take. That’s how abusers operate. That’s why in abusive relationships, the danger escalates over time.
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Nikolaj Kornbech @nikolajkornbech.bsky.social · 07/02/2025
I wrote a thing for @srm360.bsky.social about solar geoengineering in the Arctic and how it's not particularly feasible in an increasingly securitised region. I also reflect on the dangers of it becoming a colonial and extractivist project. srm360.org/perspective/....
srm360.org
Given the Political Landscape, Arctic SRM Is Neither Feasible nor Desirable
Nikolaj Kornbech argues the fraught political landscape in the Arctic makes the region poorly suited for SRM and its promotion could make matters worse.
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Duncan McLaren @duncanmclaren.bsky.social · 06/02/2025
New paper alert Why explore solar geoengineering? To torture an aging political cliché, surely “It’s the climate, stupid.” resolve.cambridge.org/core/journal... A quick thread ... (in part to explain why sensible people who think solar geoengineering is nuts, still should pay attention)
resolve.cambridge.org
“It's Not the Climate, Stupid”: Exploring Nonideal Scenarios for Solar Geoengineering Development | Ethics & International Affairs | Cambridge Core
“It's Not the Climate, Stupid”: Exploring Nonideal Scenarios for Solar Geoengineering Development - Volume 38 Issue 3
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Miriam Goldstein @miriamgoldstein.bsky.social · 06/02/2025
Just in case you thought that removing DEI criteria would mean that everyone is competing equally: NIH is removing grad students from underrepresented backgrounds from the applicant pool altogether. Their applications will not be considered. Other students, not from these backgrounds, will be.
Update: They were removed from our reviewer assignments completely. I'm so sorry to all those graduate students. 

Anonymous to protect the identity of the NIH employee I spoke to...I am on study section next month to discuss F awards. We were just instructed to put the F31-Diversity applications on the bottom of our priority list for review because there is a chance we may not be able to review them. My heart is breaking for the grad students and their mentors that put so much work into these just for them to be disqualified and thrown out.
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Mark Lemley @marklemley.bsky.social · 03/02/2025
Giving access to SSNs, other data on government employees to non-employees like Musk is a violation of 5 USC 552a, and carries with it a penalty of $1000 per person whose data was accessed. We are building a case. Govt employees who want to participate should contact me directly
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Ken Klippenstein @kenklippenstein.bsky.social · 31/01/2025
To comply with Trump's executive order on DEI, workers at NOAA have been instructed to deactivate specific agency materials containing the following keywords, per memos I obtained:
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Duncan McLaren @duncanmclaren.bsky.social · 30/01/2025
The #Finch doctrine strikes again. An important step towards #fossilphaseout www.theguardian.com/environment/...
theguardian.com
Rosebank oilfield go-ahead decision ruled unlawful by Edinburgh court
Court says UK government green light for Rosebank and Jackdaw permits does not take into account CO2 emissions
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George Monbiot @georgemonbiot.bsky.social · 27/01/2025
On the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, everything that led to the Holocaust is in danger of being forgotten. The Nazis channeled the demands of oligarchs, scapegoated minorities and replaced democracy with a new imperium. Those politics are returning. #NeverForget #NeverAgain
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lorem ipsum 🇧🇷🇺🇸 @whiskeynachos.bsky.social · 26/01/2025
Let's recap the timeline for those of you who haven't been following. Friday: a deportation flight containing 88 Brazilians takes off from American soil. The deportees are handcuffed and bound in leg irons, as is standard practice on such flights. The Americans are flying into a trap.
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Being Liberal ®🗽🏳️‍🌈 @beingliberal.bsky.social · 26/01/2025
For four years, the Environmental Protection Agency made environmental justice one of its biggest priorities, working to improve health conditions in heavily-polluted communities often made up largely of Black, Latino and low-income Americans. Now that short-lived era is over.
apnews.com
In policy reversal, Trump eliminates help for Black and Latino communities hit harder by pollution
President Trump is reversing his predecessor’s efforts to clean up areas hardest hit by pollution from heavy industry, ports and roadways – communities that are often largely Black, Latino and low-inc...
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Duncan McLaren @duncanmclaren.bsky.social · 23/01/2025
In a new article in Science this month www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... @olafcorry.bsky.social and I argue that the geopolitics of solar radiation modification (SRM) demands prior agreement on non-deployment to make space for well-governed research. (Abridged here, but still a long thread ... 2/33)
science.org
Solar geoengineering research faces geopolitical deadlock
The permissive “science first” approach has failed, but a nondeployment deal might yet enable responsible research
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