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Gab Taillefer McLaren

@gabtm.bsky.social
381 followers 494 following 26 posts

🍉 environmental historian and PhD student studying settler responses to environmental disease during a pandemic/climate crisis. popcorn enthusiast and frequent crafter. 🍉

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Reposted by Gab Taillefer McLaren
Camille @camillereads.bsky.social · 22/06/2026
"I’m comfortably asocial — a hermit in the middle of a large city, a pessimist if I’m not careful, a feminist, a Black, a former Baptist, an oil-and-water combination of ambition, laziness, insecurity, certainty and drive.” - Octavia E. Butler #HappyBirthday
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T. Ryan Gregory 🇨🇦 @tryangregory.bsky.social · 21/01/2026
Speeches are great but a reminder that what we're getting here in Canada so far is: * Tax cuts for the wealthy * Militarization and more surveillance powers * More oil, less action on climate change. * Austerity and cuts to the public service * Deals with authoritarian regimes
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Kate Heartfield @kateheartfield.com · 21/01/2026
I really think one of the best things we can do for ourselves and our communities is to read any non-fiction history book. There is so much to learn from how our ancestors met the challenges of their times, and that's a source of strength the grokipropaganda brigade has cut themselves off from.
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Gab Taillefer McLaren @gabtm.bsky.social · 20/01/2026
I can't believe I'm crying about a book on road ecology. People are good and do things like design road crossings that toads will like (Crossings by Ben Goldfarb)
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Gab Taillefer McLaren @gabtm.bsky.social · 19/12/2025
Archival find of the week! The chickens clamour for asbestos.
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Better Things Are Possible @internethippo.bsky.social · 03/10/2025
"We're going to create superintelligence" How about making outlook search work first. How about that
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Gab Taillefer McLaren @gabtm.bsky.social · 30/08/2025
You should read it, some really cool scholars and artists are in it!
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Gab Taillefer McLaren @gabtm.bsky.social · 30/08/2025
the comps notes are spending the night in a drawer, what a rush
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Gab Taillefer McLaren @gabtm.bsky.social · 20/06/2025
I cannot stress how grounding and comforting it is to have a garden to tend and connect to while reading through my environmental history comps list #phdstudent #envhist
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Gab Taillefer McLaren @gabtm.bsky.social · 19/03/2025
There were so many thematic parallels between Sunrise on the Reaping and Catching Fire I think Collins will write a sixth Hunger Games book, so that there are three stand-alone books that follow the arc of the original series. I have theories, ideas, topics, and suggestions #hungergames
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Gab Taillefer McLaren @gabtm.bsky.social · 18/03/2025
Happy New Hunger Games Book day to all those who celebrate or will need to tolerate me today
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Gab Taillefer McLaren @gabtm.bsky.social · 28/02/2025
I had a really interesting conversation with students I TA about what going to high school in Ontario during the Ford years was like. I'm not surprised that the election turned out the way it did, but I'm sad for the next generations of high school students who will be neglected and underprepared
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Gab Taillefer McLaren @gabtm.bsky.social · 26/02/2025
🫠
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Gab Taillefer McLaren @gabtm.bsky.social · 25/02/2025
0 days since I called Benedict Anderson 'Benedict Arnold' in seminar 🙃
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Gab Taillefer McLaren @gabtm.bsky.social · 21/02/2025
Community is seven strangers in a café watching a car parked on the streetcar tracks paralyze Queen St
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Biodiversity Data Journal @bdj.pensoft.net · 11/02/2025
On the International Day of Women and Girls in Science, we're spotlighting a fantastic project published in BDJ, which used the power of data to uncover the hidden stories of women in science and publish them as a freely available resource. blog.pensoft.net/2023/12/06/e...
blog.pensoft.net
Entangled “her”stories – An open multi-linked dynamic dataset of plant genera named for women
Which plant genera do you know that are named for women? Who were/are they?
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Sonja Boon @storiedselves.bsky.social · 04/02/2025
Coming up next week (and then two weeks later): Small Things - where we talk about cross stitch (or any stitchery, really) as life writing, as storytelling, as activism - and make projects that we'll release into the world as invitations and provocations!
poster featuring a needle with several threads and a photo of a woman laughing wearing a black tshirt and red jacket. The main text reads: Small Things: Cross-Stitch Provocations. A Two-Part Hands-On Workshop with Dr. Sonja Boon. Monday Feb 10 and Monday Feb 24. 2:30-4:00pm, Tier 409. All are welcome to attend.
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Sonja Boon @storiedselves.bsky.social · 08/02/2025
writer-in-residence day 25: one boy, one mother, one ship (or, more tangling with inconsistencies in archival transcription) stitchingempire.wordpress.com/2025/02/08/d...
stitchingempire.wordpress.com
day 25: one boy, one mother, one ship
One boy, one mother, one ship. That’s where this project begins. What might a mother and her young child have talked about during a 3-month voyage took them halfway around the world. What would the…
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Gab Taillefer McLaren @gabtm.bsky.social · 06/02/2025
Any environmental historians working on the history of potash in Canada?#envhist #canhist #potash
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Matthew Facciani @matthewfacciani.bsky.social · 06/01/2025
New study finds that frequent use of AI tools encourages offloading cognitive tasks and reduces critical thinking. Higher AI usage correlated with lower critical thinking skills, especially in younger users. www.mdpi.com/2075-4698/15...
mdpi.com
AI Tools in Society: Impacts on Cognitive Offloading and the Future of Critical Thinking
The proliferation of artificial intelligence (AI) tools has transformed numerous aspects of daily life, yet its impact on critical thinking remains underexplored. This study investigates the relations...
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Finis Dunaway @finisdunaway.bsky.social · 05/01/2025
Tired of being bombarded by AI propaganda? Concerned about the outrageous & escalating environmental costs of these technologies? Then register for this online talk by @apasek.bsky.social on Feb. 12 at 12:00 PM EST. #envhum @nichecanada.bsky.social More info & registration at link below.
trentu.ca
AI is Trash: The Environmental Externalities of Machine Learning Tools with Dr. Anne Pasek
discuss the environmental costs of machine learning and deep learning technologies.
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Gab Taillefer McLaren @gabtm.bsky.social · 23/12/2024
the same crunchy little dog who sat on my lap while I wrote term papers from my parents' house is now helping me grade exams. thank goodness!
kitchen table covered in piles of exams, a laptop, and a red speaker with a little white dog's head popping up at the bottom of the frame
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NiCHE Canada @nichecanada.bsky.social · 21/12/2024
Happy Winter Solstice Spend some time with our Winter in Canada series, edited and organized by Blake Butler and @benbradleyca.bsky.social earlier this year. niche-canada.org/tag/winter-i... #envhist #winter #cdnhist
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So Mayer @suchmayer.northsky.social · 12/12/2024
And way more: censored, edited, self-censored, unwritten...
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Gab Taillefer McLaren @gabtm.bsky.social · 13/12/2024
me (writing an essay) and the cat (doing ??? that involves propelling herself across the floor upstairs) are both fighting our own demons this exam season
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jae holzman @jael.bsky.social · 12/12/2024
I spent the last two weeks researching how the top medical official in a Michigan county is using unfounded theories about the health impacts of solar energy to push for new restrictions aimed at killing development @heatmap.news heatmap.news/plus/the-fig...
heatmap.news
How Bad Information Is Breaking the Energy Transition
Why an attorney for Dominion Voting Systems is now defending renewables companies.
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Gab Taillefer McLaren @gabtm.bsky.social · 10/12/2024
Does anyone have a recent literature review on animal history? I'm writing a historiographical review on animals and epidemics as a term paper, and want to see how the literature I pulled intersects with new directions and themes in the field!
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Sean Carleton @seancarleton.bsky.social · 10/12/2024
New essay out today (with @alanlester.bsky.social @adeleperry.bsky.social Omeasoo Wahpasiw) exposing residential school denialism’s transnational network, or how denialism in Canada is being used globally to defend empire and colonialism: activehistory.ca/blog/2024/12...
activehistory.ca
Exposing Residential School Denialism’s Transnational Network
Residential school denialism may have its origins in Canada, but it is increasingly circulating and being used around the world as part of a wider matrix of imperial apologetics – a transnational n…
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Louisa @louisathelast.bsky.social · 10/12/2024
Please tell your kids, every damn day if necessary, that chatGPT is not a goddamn search engine and you shouldn’t believe a word it says. Tell the adults too, but it’s especially imperative to inoculate kids against this
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Internet Archive @archive.org · 09/12/2024
📢 ⬇️
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Brent Toderian @brenttoderian.bsky.social · 04/12/2024
Here are 25 SUGGESTIONS on how anyone can contribute to a BETTER CITY FOR PEOPLE (only ONE of them is voting in local elections!) *officially these are #NewYearsResolutions for better cities that I wrote about in @FastCompany.com but who cares if its a bit early www.fastcompany.com/90287193/25-...
fastcompany.com
25 simple resolutions you can make to improve your city in 2019
What if we picked New Year's resolutions that improved our individual and family lives, while also improving our cities and communities?
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EnviroNat @environat.bsky.social · 03/12/2024
Bit nervous about South Korea declaring martial law - my very official and highly formulated statement as a historian of modern China
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Gab Taillefer McLaren @gabtm.bsky.social · 03/12/2024
genuinely fascinated by the 1884 Rivers and Streams Act, any reading recommendations from Canadian historians?
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Dominic Pettman @dominicpettman.bsky.social · 03/12/2024
Happy pub day to my bees! (link in comments)
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Dolly Jørgensen @dollyjorgensen.bsky.social · 02/12/2024
The Environmental Humanities November 2024 issue came out a week ago, but I haven't had a chance to post a thread on it yet! I wanted to bring this massive amount of new #envhum scholarship to your attention. read.dukeupress.edu/environmenta... A thread...
Cover of Environmental Humanities, vol 16 issue 3, Nov 2024. Image is a spider web with dew
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Tina Adcock @tinaadcock.bsky.social · 02/12/2024
Delighted to share the first of three posts @nichecanada.bsky.social on a cool assignment @lootina.bsky.social and I did in our co-taught graduate course on global #envhist this term. We asked students to reflect on "the place where you live": niche-canada.org/2024/12/02/t...
niche-canada.org
The Place Where You Live: Southwestern British Columbia
Tina Loo introduces a series of essays from her global environmental history course, where students explored the concept of "place" through personal stories, reflecting on its emotional, historical, a...
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Gab Taillefer McLaren @gabtm.bsky.social · 30/11/2024
grading is rough, but undergrads are genuinely so smart and cool and curious and hardworking
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The New York Times @nytimes.com · 27/11/2024
We want to hear your stories of Keiko, the celebrity orca from "Free Willy," whose real-life return to the ocean is explored in our new podcast "The Good Whale." What do you remember about Keiko? Did you have a personal memory or connection with him? nyti.ms/3Zqvft7
nyti.ms
‘Serial’ Wants to Hear Your Stories of Keiko, the Whale From ‘Free Willy’
We want to hear your stories of the beloved celebrity orca, whose real-life return to the ocean is explored in our new podcast.
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Celeste Ng @pronounced-ing.bsky.social · 25/11/2024
In the past day I’ve heard two people who really should know better say they asked ChatGPT for factual info. ChatGPT is not a search engine. It is predictive text based on other people’s stolen writing; its whole job is to make stuff up. Please do not ask it for facts. Tell a friend.
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Ferris Jabr @ferrisjabr.bsky.social · 27/11/2024
I was deeply disappointed by the lack of nature/science/climate/enviro on many major end-of-year book lists—so I decided to make my own! Introducing: ✨🎁📚 The 2024 Holiday Gift Guide to Nature & Science Books ✨🎁📚 Please share: Let's make this go viral in time for Black Friday / holiday shopping!
A collage of book covers of new nature & science books. Featured here are Atlas Obscura Wild Life, Dinosaurs at the Dinner Party, Every Living Thing, Alien Earths, Becoming Earth, and Deep WaterA collage of book covers of new nature & science books. Featured here are Frostbite, The Inner Clock, How to Kill an Asteroid, The Great River, The Last Fire Season, and Hoof BeatsA collage of book covers of new nature & science books. Featured here are The Serviceberry, Not the End of the World, Nature's Ghosts, Meet the Neighbors, The Light Eaters, and Our MoonA collage of book covers of new nature & science books. Featured here are Turning to Stone, The Weight of Nature, What If We Get It Right?, Waves in An Impossible Sea, The Tree Collectors, and Why We Remember
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Eoghan Daltun 🌍 @irishrainforest.bsky.social · 23/11/2024
Spain is increasingly either parched or flooded – and water-grabbing multinationals are profiting by forcing citizens to pay for it in bottles. Under capitalism, even climate collapse is just another profit opportunity. That's why it isn't being tackled. www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle...
theguardian.com
‘It’s not drought - it’s looting’: the Spanish villages where people are forced to buy back their own drinking water
Spain is increasingly either parched or flooded – and one group is profiting from these extremes: the water-grabbing multinational companies forcing angry citizens to pay for it in bottles
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Gab Taillefer McLaren @gabtm.bsky.social · 23/11/2024
Revisiting my thesis for an article draft blatantly underscores how I wrote my MA thesis with a different brain. How was I at footnote 101 by page 22? What was I doing?
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Gab Taillefer McLaren @gabtm.bsky.social · 16/11/2024
nobody told me to schedule 2-4 hours of laying on the floor and staring at the ceiling after reading the intro to Joy Parr's Sensing Changes, but okay I guess
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NiCHE Canada @nichecanada.bsky.social · 15/11/2024
ATTENTION: Our website is currently dealing with a bot attack and is VERY SLOW. We will be extending Editorial Team applications until the end of Monday, December 18th, for those unable to submit right now because of the attack. #envhist #envhum #histgeog
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NiCHE Canada @nichecanada.bsky.social · 10/07/2024
Our editor Jamie Murton chose "Tropical Disease in Untropical Places: Thinking of Malaria in Canada" by @gabtm.bsky.social as our latest Editor's Pick! niche-canada.org/2024/05/29/t... #envhist #histmed #cdnhist #wetlands
niche-canada.org
Tropical Disease in Untropical Places: Thinking of Malaria in Canada
The processes designed to “soften” Upper Canada’s disease landscape—such as agriculture and settlement—were also tools of settler colonialism.
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Gab Taillefer McLaren @gabtm.bsky.social · 15/11/2024
Solidarity!! Canada Post has been so key to keeping in touch with friends and family as I've moved around for school: their workers deserve working conditions and pay that reflect their importance!
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The New York Times @nytimes.com · 15/11/2024
Postal workers across Canada went on strike starting Friday over pay and working conditions. The work stoppage is expected to severely disrupt deliveries ahead of the busy holiday period.
nytimes.com
55,000 Postal Workers in Canada Strike Over Pay
The union walked out after talks with the country’s main mail operator failed. The stoppage could disrupt deliveries before the holidays.
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