Saul Elbein @saulelbein.bsky.social · 23/09/2026a credo to knit this fractured country back together 010
Saul Elbein @saulelbein.bsky.social · 23/09/2026Not a lot in the pity tank here, but hard not to feel for the person who had to stand up at Climate Week to defend this turkey — something that presumably no one asked her about or cared about her opinion on 0112
Reposted by Saul ElbeinRachel Frazin @rachelfrazin.bsky.social · 18/09/2026Court reinstates $7B ‘Solar for All’ program axed by Trump thehill.com/policy/energ...thehill.comCourt reinstates $7B ‘Solar for All’ program axed by TrumpA federal court has rebuffed the Trump administration’s effort to slash a $7 billion program that seeks to provide rooftop solar power in disadvantaged communities. Judge Mary McElr… 0229
Reposted by Saul ElbeinAsher HELLbein @asherelbein.bsky.social · 18/09/2026This is a really good thread 0148
Saul Elbein @saulelbein.bsky.social · 18/09/2026"If Texans at meetings are angry, it’s not because they hate or misunderstand the oil business. It’s often they have been railroaded." New op-ed with Virginia Palacios; free link below. www.expressnews.com/opinion/comm...expressnews.comTexas' oil and gas regulator cuts out the public from its meetingsLast month the Railroad Commission of Texas — which oversees oil and gas, not railroads — ended guaranteed public comment at its monthly open meetings. 141
Saul Elbein @saulelbein.bsky.social · 18/09/2026If you're at all interested in climate or energy not paying attention to the Texas Railroad Commission — our state's confoundingly-named oil and gas regulator — I don't even know what to tell you. Except that things are getting *crazy* there in a way that are a serious risk for Texas Republicans. 17825
Reposted by Saul ElbeinWestern Environmental Law Center @westernlaw.org · 04/09/2026New must-read article from @saulelbein.bsky.social and HEATED 🌎 on fracking wastewater, how dangerous discharge could be to cropland and water supplies, and how Texans can fight back. #NMPol is facing the same threat, and WELC is fighting tooth and nail to protect clean water.heated.worldOil executives just accidentally exposed the industry’s greatest weaknessTo keep drilling, Big Oil needs permission to dump treated fracking wastewater into rivers and onto cropland. We don’t have to give it to them. 072
Reposted by Saul ElbeinGeorge Dubya @itisgeorge.bsky.social · 07/09/2026But why is it my responsibility to look out for them? Nobody else does, not for them or anybody else. Their own industry is screwing them every chance they get despite record profits. The days when a high school dropout with a pair of work boots could go to the Bakken and make 6 figures are gone 121
Saul Elbein @saulelbein.bsky.social · 10/09/2026The coal miner comparison is interesting because in a strong sense both fracking and coal mining are in the same place: only the dregs remain, so (1) the waste-to-product ratio sucks and (2) the extent to which it poisons workers and communities is rising www.npr.org/2026/08/05/n...npr.orgBlack lung rates in Appalachia are high as the 1970s, with thousands of miners sickRates are now the highest they've been in nearly 50 years among veteran coal miners. Mining experts blame toxic silica dust, now more common in mines. 000
Saul Elbein @saulelbein.bsky.social · 10/09/2026Wherever I am Wherever I go I will always be A TXO bro 010
Reposted by Saul ElbeinTexas Observer @texasobserver.org · 09/09/2026New today: Analysis by @saulelbein.bsky.social, who has spent years documenting dangerous "zombie" oil wells, found more than 25,000 plugged wells across Texas are at critical risk of failure—50 times more than had previously been reported. This map helps you find them.texasobserver.org1.2 Million Oil Wells Are Buried Underneath Texas. Do You Live on Top of a Dangerous One?Our state's homes are built above a hundred years of drilling by an industry that was never made to clean up after itself. 33119
Saul Elbein @saulelbein.bsky.social · 24/08/2026Has anyone crunched the delta between what a farmer who puts in agrivoltaics gets vs one who grows corn for ethanol? 000
Saul Elbein @saulelbein.bsky.social · 24/08/2026Well what if I told you that anti-semitism is actually defined in the dictionary as bigotry against Christian Zionists 040
Saul Elbein @saulelbein.bsky.social · 24/08/2026this is like if Dem fundraising emails were written by a Borcht Belt caricature of a Jewish mother 010
Saul Elbein @saulelbein.bsky.social · 20/08/2026Texas has hundreds of thousands of old oil and gas wells that were plugged decades ago and then forgotten — many now under neighborhoods grew on top of them. We read the state's own records against the scientific lit. We found 25,000+ now at risk of going zombie. tinyurl.com/zombie-wellstinyurl.com25K Texas oil and gas wells could soon be ‘zombie wells,' watchdog group warnsAnalysis by Future Heist watchdog group identifies 25,000 high-risk "zombie wells" and hundreds with leaks threatening groundwater and communities. 31410
Reposted by Saul ElbeinAsher HELLbein @asherelbein.bsky.social · 20/08/2026There are ancient sources of power underground, for which we've delved too greedily and too deep — and which can spread their poison long after the delving's done. My brother @saulelbein.bsky.social's new climate outfit, @futureheist.bsky.social, just launched with an investigation into them.houstonchronicle.com25K Texas oil and gas wells could soon be ‘zombie wells,' watchdog group warnsAnalysis by Future Heist watchdog group identifies 25,000 high-risk "zombie wells" and hundreds with leaks threatening groundwater and communities. 2226
Reposted by Saul ElbeinAsher HELLbein @asherelbein.bsky.social · 20/08/2026@saulelbein.bsky.social's climate watchdog @futureheist.bsky.social turns public data into (very cool) tools the public can actually use. This map shows the sheer extent to which Texas has been penetrated by the fossil fuel industry. It's a visual primer on oil power you have to see to believefutureheist.orgTexas Zombie Wells — Risk MapTexas oil & gas wells mapped by zombie-well risk, injection threats to drinking water, and schools & daycares. 01710
Reposted by Saul ElbeinMartha Pskowski @psskow.bsky.social · 12/08/2026The technology exists but who pays for it? I’ve done a number of stories about communities in Texas w/o clean water and it always comes down to how to get more funding to public water systems. 101
Reposted by Saul ElbeinWATERSHED Investigations @watershed-i.bsky.social · 12/08/2026It seems that specific, influential group of rich people have definitely considered this a lot 221
Saul Elbein @saulelbein.bsky.social · 12/08/2026But have we considered that while doing nothing is expensive to everyone, doing *something* would be expensive to a specific, influential set of rich people 12211
Saul Elbein @saulelbein.bsky.social · 12/08/2026Troubling long-term dynamic here: as the rains increasingly fail, Texas cities will rely on fossil groundwater. But the groundwater — given that much of Texas spent its prehistoric seas, and sumps for rivers eroding ancient, geologically active mountains — has a *lot* of bad stuff in it. 075
Saul Elbein @saulelbein.bsky.social · 12/08/2026No shade (hah) whatsoever to Michael or Oliver, who understand this in their bones, but I am begging @theguardian.com to for the love of god stop, stop, stop, posting heat wave pictures of people having fund at a splash pad. I get it, they're trying to cool off, it's too hot. 030
Saul Elbein @saulelbein.bsky.social · 12/08/2026The attack on data represents media savvy by the pro-fossil camp: it doesn't just stop climate science, it also closes off a data pipeline that translates directly into artifacts that journalists can quote, and numbers that can become memes. It leaves the question of: how do you cover an absence? 023
Saul Elbein @saulelbein.bsky.social · 12/08/2026@rahmstorf.bsky.social did The Week just steal one of your photos for a piece framing the fires as an issue of “adaptation“? 000
Saul Elbein @saulelbein.bsky.social · 12/08/2026Not only are the Feds bulldozing the best parts of Big Bend for the wall, there’s an almost 1:1 transfer of park funds **to the damn Reflecting Pool** 020
Saul Elbein @saulelbein.bsky.social · 11/08/2026Head of Texas environmental regulator just told Senate hearing that public challenges to air and water discharge permits is way up — but refused to say why. Cites the "high level of public interest in the permits and work we do." (It is, of course, data centers, which need both permits.) 020
Saul Elbein @saulelbein.bsky.social · 08/08/2026wait did these oil yahoos just invade Greenland AND hire Dr Phil to film it www.theguardian.com/world/2026/a...theguardian.comGreenland issues ‘strong warning’ as Trump-linked oil firm prepares to drillIsland’s government says no approval given after Greenland Energy brings kit ashore for exploratory drilling 000
Saul Elbein @saulelbein.bsky.social · 07/08/2026Huge divide between what the industry wants and what Texans want here. 000
Reposted by Saul ElbeinFuture Heist @futureheist.bsky.social · 07/08/2026"Still, he acknowledged it’s getting harder to find a home for produced water," which is to say, the toxic wastewater that comes out of the oilfield at 4x the volume of oil — minimum. "Reuse [putting it on crops and in rivers] has to be introduced at some point." www.mrt.com/business/oil...mrt.comPermian Basin oil companies prioritize water management strategiesProducers highlight the need to incorporate water management into their operations 001
Saul Elbein @saulelbein.bsky.social · 05/08/2026Ugly little parable here in the tendency of weather disasters to compound. Kerrville is running low on water ... because the floods knocked out the water treatment plant. www.expressnews.com/hill-country...expressnews.comKerrville declares 'water supply emergency,' restricts water useWith the city's water treatment plant still offline, officials say the restrictions are needed to "aid in prolonging our groundwater supply.” 021
Saul Elbein @saulelbein.bsky.social · 03/08/2026Cool, but also: can anyone answer why beavers are on both sides of the Atlantic, seems wrong, they should pick a side 160
Reposted by Saul ElbeinFuture Heist @futureheist.bsky.social · 30/07/2026"I began to see this as a pattern in some of Fasulo’s arguments against industrial solar: Legitimate concerns were often inflated into sweeping conclusions with shaky evidence." heated.world/p/the-influe...heated.worldThe influencer teaching millions to fear solarAlexandra Fasulo says she’s protecting farms and wildlife. Her campaign is becoming a blueprint for the fossil fuel right. 175
Saul Elbein @saulelbein.bsky.social · 29/07/2026sea people classic thehill.com/policy/energ...thehill.comStone-age hunters crossed the Mediterranean, study findsLong-distance seafarers crossed the Mediterranean Sea far earlier than scientists had believed, a new study has found. Excavations at a cave on the island of Malta have uncovered stone tools, cooki… 010
Saul Elbein @saulelbein.bsky.social · 29/07/2026on the subject of people of the sea: evidence suggests Homo Erectus crossing mainland Asia to Indonesa *by sea* in large enough numbers to establish a population 800,000 years ago 110
Saul Elbein @saulelbein.bsky.social · 29/07/2026tired: the Sea Peoples didn't exist wired: the true Sea Peoples were the English, Spanish, Dutch, Portuguese 271
Saul Elbein @saulelbein.bsky.social · 29/07/2026“And if Homer, perhaps, wrote at the dawning of a new civilization, Nolan maybe writes at the beginning of the end of one—or at least so he seems to fear.” 020
Reposted by Saul ElbeinFuture Heist @futureheist.bsky.social · 28/07/2026“The beaver education started for me then,” Smith said. “I never really knew … all the different things that they contribute to an ecosystem.” news.mongabay.com/2026/07/beav...news.mongabay.comBeavers brought a volcanic wasteland back to life. Now it's under threatThe Smith family referred to the back part of their property as “the wasteland.” It opens up to the North Fork Toutle River in the U.S. state of Washington, which was swamped with volcanic sediment an... 052
Saul Elbein @saulelbein.bsky.social · 28/07/2026Campaigning for all serious Anglo-American publications to have a full-time reporter on the beaver beat. bsky.app/profile/futu... 191
Reposted by Saul ElbeinFuture Heist @futureheist.bsky.social · 28/07/2026... "a new Pfas that chemical giant Chemours is attempting to fast-track for approval for use in cooling datacenters, and [that] would almost certainly pollute regions around the facilities." www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...theguardian.comUS environmental groups urge EPA to reject new Pfas to cool datacentersCoalition says Chemours downplayed health and climate risks in bid to fast-track the compound’s use 001
Saul Elbein @saulelbein.bsky.social · 28/07/2026Whatever gets built now, in the headlong rush to build as fast as possible, we are likely to be stuck with for a long time. Which is why it's important to talk about *how it is powered and cooled* just as much as *what it is*. 000
Saul Elbein @saulelbein.bsky.social · 28/07/2026“The sky outside is hazy orange, and my five-year-old son is screaming bloody murder. ‘Sorry, buddy, we have to stay inside,’ I say. ‘It’s not safe to breathe out there.’” hell of a lede 071
Saul Elbein @saulelbein.bsky.social · 28/07/2026There is a kind of honesty in their admitting that you can’t have the current data center boom without massive pollution from gas plants etc. 32010
Saul Elbein @saulelbein.bsky.social · 28/07/2026I can’t read past “palaeo-media” without choking, is this like naewspaepers 011
Reposted by Saul ElbeinAsher HELLbein @asherelbein.bsky.social · 28/07/2026Genuinely quite disappointing that Tim Haines apparently got up onstage and directly shilled AI-generated prehistory animation, but somewhat heartening that he was essentially booed out of the room over it 111522
Saul Elbein @saulelbein.bsky.social · 28/07/2026and that friends is why we always double check the AI transcript 020