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Sheila Foster

@sheilarose.bsky.social
25K followers 5.2K following 634 posts

Columbia professor. Scholar of environmental and climate justice, cities, and who gets to build the future. Co-founder LabGov. Detroit born, Miami bred. people.climate.columbia.edu/users/p…

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Sheila Foster @sheilarose.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
This year's Climate Week had so many highlights, but this is one I will cherish. Our event with city leaders on energy affordability and climate action marked the culmination of over a year of team research working with 3 cities. Report below. news.climate.columbia.edu/2026/09/29/c...
news.climate.columbia.edu
Columbia Climate School Hosts City Leaders to Address Energy Affordability and Climate Action
Sustainability leaders from Ann Arbor, Atlanta and NYC shared the ways they are working at the local level to improve energy efficiency and reduce costs, while also reflecting on the challenges they f...
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Sheila Foster @sheilarose.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Love this. This is how a city adapts while taking care of its most vulnerable populations!
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Prof Ian Hall @ianhall.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
A climate tragedy? The immediate trigger appears to have been a catastrophic glacier collapse. But Nepal has lost nearly a third of its ice in just over three decades as the Himalayas warm. The climate connection is potentially real. news.sky.com/video/nepal-...
news.sky.com
Nepal floods: Climate change 'bursting' Himalayan glaciers
The Nepalese journalist Surendra Phuyal tells Sky News about the climate change link to 'one of the worst disasters in Nepal.'
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Gernot Wagner @gwagner.com · 27/08/2026
I'm old enough to remember when one @ipcc.bsky.social statement about Himalayan glaciers "disappearing" by 2035 was some major scandal. Meanwhile, this today, via @apnews.com. Yes, that's climate change; i.e. us dumping CO₂ into the atmospheric sewer. Hundreds dead.
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Robert Reich @rbreich.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
Dozens of gas-burning power plants are being built across the country, solely to power data centers. These plants could emit as much planet-warming pollution as half of all passenger vehicles in the entire country in a single YEAR. We need a data center moratorium — now.
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Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani @mayor.nyc.gov · 29/07/2026
The promise of New York City is inscribed on the Statue of Liberty: this place would welcome anyone seeking refuge or a better life.
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Mark Chadbourn @chadbourn.bsky.social · 27/07/2026
Macron: “We are facing a fire that is completely unprecedented. We are experiencing the most severe situation we have ever recorded—the worst since the Second World War. “More than 160,000 hectares have already burned, and the fire season is far from over. 1/
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Marc Elias @marcelias.bsky.social · 23/07/2026
If you are the DOJ, it is unprecedented to lose 17 straight voting cases in 17 different courts without winning a single one. It's even more remarkable when 8 of them were decided by judges appointed by Trump. How long will the networks ignore this? How long will Trump?
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Darren Rosenblum @darrenrosenblum.bsky.social · 22/07/2026
Was Lindsey Graham "The Last Closet Case?" If only! In this LA Times article, I use my Business Lawyer piece Queers, Closets & Corporate Gov. to parallel his career & LGBTQ progress. The ambitious remain in the closet but real progress requires out leadership. www.latimes.com/opinion/stor...
latimes.com
Contributor: Anyone who wanted Lindsey Graham's career had to appear straight. And the closet persists.
He said unambiguously: 'I'm not gay.' But at the top rungs of power, almost everyone is straight or pretends to be.
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Ed Macdonald @ed4words.bsky.social · 15/07/2026
Everybody! Please let’s always remember to keep digging shit out of the ground to burn, even though it has never been necessary. And more data centres, please! The top is a fiction map used in a video about global warming and its affects on France. The bottom is a recent French weather forecast.
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Sheila Foster @sheilarose.bsky.social · 16/07/2026
This is a boss move by Mamdani! "In announcing the role, Mamdani’s office noted that New Yorkers pay some of the highest energy rates in the nation...The appointment marks Mamdani’s latest step to bring down costs for New Yorkers." He's killin it' @mayor.nyc.gov gothamist.com/news/mamdani...
gothamist.com
Mamdani appoints NYC's first 'public utility advocate' to help lower energy costs
In announcing the role, Mamdani’s office noted that New Yorkers pay some of the highest energy rates in the nation.
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Danny Miller @danielmilleresq.bsky.social · 09/07/2026
This is so powerful. Inspired by the March of a Thousand Robes in Poland, retired and sitting judges in the United States walked down the streets of Columbus, Ohio to stand up for the Rule of Law. #JusticeinMotion
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Eric Klinenberg @ericklinenberg.bsky.social · 09/07/2026
Quick reminder that in typical years, extreme heat kills more Americans than all other so-called natural disasters…combined.
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Sheila Foster @sheilarose.bsky.social · 05/07/2026
The heatwave that many of us have been living through is not a natural occurence. Scientists are clear that this is caused by humans. It is sad that we need to keep saying that this is NOT normal. www.nytimes.com/2026/07/03/c...
nytimes.com
Without Climate Change, U.S. Heat Wave Called ‘Virtually Impossible’
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Rep. Melanie Stansbury (NM-01) @repstansbury.bsky.social · 30/06/2026
On Birthright Citizenship: “The Reconstruction Amendments were an anticaste, antisubordination reset for the Nation, not a mere spot treatment for the dark stain of slavery.” -Justice Ketanji Brown 💅💕
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Sherrilyn Ifill @sifill.bsky.social · 30/06/2026
I do not think there is sufficient appreciation for how catastrophic yesterday’s decision in Slaughter is for this country. As Justice Sotomayor said in her dissent and she intoned from the bench yesterday, “today the majority reshapes our Govt.”
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Prof Bill McGuire @profbillmcguire.bsky.social · 27/06/2026
As usual, it's those with the money who can afford to escape the worst, while the poor and vulnerable struggle These will be the ones who will be able to afford air-con too, and who probably fly far and wide on holiday every year Climate injustice in action www.theguardian.com/environment/...
theguardian.com
Parents booking air-conditioned hotels to keep babies safe in UK heatwave
Hotels report increase in last-minute bookings, including from families attempting to escape hot homes
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Katharine Hayhoe @katharinehayhoe.com · 23/06/2026
Climate.us is officially live! After NOAA ended Climate.gov’s day-to-day operations in 2025, former team members built Climate.us to carry that work forward. Their explanations and graphics have always stood out to me as clear, accessible, and transparent. I’m really looking forward to this reboot.
climate.us
Climate.us Home
independent, nonprofit, and immune to politics
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Sheila Foster @sheilarose.bsky.social · 17/06/2026
What we are celebrating in NYC is more than a 🏆for our team. It is a sense that the collective matters — in our generating joy and in matters of governance. What is unfolding in New York holds lessons beyond this week's euphoric celebrations. 🍾 groundtruthdispatches.substack.com/p/more-than-...
groundtruthdispatches.substack.com
More than a New York Moment
The Power We Already Have
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Sheila Foster @sheilarose.bsky.social · 14/06/2026
Fascinating that data centers have "become a rogue element in the races that will decide which party controls the House: The majority of competitive districts — 40 out of 69 — have data centers either planned or under construction" www.politico.com/news/2026/06...
politico.com
What most battleground House districts have in common: data centers
As politicians from city councils to Washington fight over data centers, campaigns are navigating the backlash.
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Katharine Hayhoe @katharinehayhoe.com · 11/06/2026
Despite attacks on climate science and the rise of disinformation, meaningful climate action continues to move forward. On June 16 at 2PM ET, I'm joining @globalecoguy.bsky.social, with @projectdrawdown.bsky.social, to talk about where climate action goes from here: us02web.zoom.us/webinar/regi...
us02web.zoom.us
Welcome! You are invited to join a webinar: Where does climate action go from here? A conversation with Katharine Hayhoe, Ph.D.. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email about joining ...
Join Jonathan Foley, Ph.D, Executive Director of Project Drawdown, for a conversation with renowned climate scientist and communicator, Katharine Hayhoe, Ph.D. From attacks on climate science by the...
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Sheila Foster @sheilarose.bsky.social · 31/05/2026
Community solar, land trusts, and co-governed broadband scale when policy signals and subsidies lower friction. Local and state programs (and, where available, federal incentives) open the door. Remove the supports, and scaling slows. There is a workable formula. open.substack.com/pub/aclimate...
open.substack.com
Heat Is the Deadliest Climate Threat - Here’s How Cities Can Fight Back
Professor Sheila Foster (Columbia Climate School) shares how “co-governance” - communities, cities, universities, and the private sector working together - can scale practical solutions to extreme hea
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Katharine Hayhoe @katharinehayhoe.com · 30/05/2026
I’m a climate scientist. Let me fix this headline. “Nearly a century ago, scientists showed that burning fossil fuels warms the planet. Today, we know human emissions account for over 100% of the warming. Yet dark money and disinformation still work to keep Americans addicted to fossil fuels.”
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Robert Reich @rbreich.bsky.social · 29/05/2026
Data centers’ diesel backup generators are emitting pollutants that can cause health problems for residents. That’s on top of contributing to higher electricity prices and sucking up communities’ water. Is it any wonder communities across the country are organizing to stop them?
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cvm in pvb @cvminpvb.bsky.social · 26/05/2026
#datacenters
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Sheila Foster @sheilarose.bsky.social · 27/05/2026
Brilliant read, and spot on. 👏🏾
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Sheila Foster @sheilarose.bsky.social · 25/05/2026
Memorial Day was born in a Black cemetery in Charleston, 1865. That origin was erased. The pattern of sacrifice & forgetting never was. New dispatch on what it means to build institutions that give communities real power over their futures. groundtruthdispatches.substack.com/p/martyrs-of...
groundtruthdispatches.substack.com
Martyrs of the Race Course
In May 1865, in Charleston, South Carolina, thousands of freed Black residents gathered to honor more than 260 Union soldiers who had died in a Confederate prisoner-of-war camp at the Washington Race ...
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Columbia Climate School @climate.columbia.edu · 17/05/2026
👏 Congratulations to Columbia Climate School professor of climate @sheilarose.bsky.social and climate scientist Marco Tedesco, co-authors of #TopViewedArticle in @wiley.com Annals of New York Academy of Sciences, ranked within top 10% of most-viewed papers published in 2024! ➡️ bit.ly/3RfzdmE
#TopViewedArticle Recognizing the authors whose work reached the widest audience.
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Robert Reich @rbreich.bsky.social · 11/05/2026
Residents in Fayette County, Georgia noticed their water pressure was unusually low. Turns out that a data center 20 miles away had been drawing 30 million gallons of water in secret through connections the county didn't know existed. Is it any wonder why so many are opposed to data centers?
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Sheila Foster @sheilarose.bsky.social · 12/05/2026
How far we've fallen below any standard of decency that allows people to live like this."She said that she was not aware of the full extent of the crisis until 2017, when a United Nations report compared the conditions in the country to those in the developing world. www.nytimes.com/2026/05/11/u...
nytimes.com
They Were Promised New Septic Tanks. Trump Called It ‘Illegal DEI.’
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Sheila Foster @sheilarose.bsky.social · 11/05/2026
This Politico piece is 🔥 "The images of white Republican legislators wearing MAGA flags to vote, Black lawmakers being jostled by white police officers...speak louder than words. And that was just last week. The ads write themselves." www.politico.com/news/magazin...
politico.com
Trump’s Redistricting Push Could Cost Republicans More Than It Gains
Republicans chasing extra House seats risk energizing Democrats and alienating key new voters.
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Sheila Foster @sheilarose.bsky.social · 11/05/2026
New dispatch is up on Substack. This is a time of reckoning. It is the only way I can make sense of the moment we are living through. To counter this we have to show up in our communities and take back the power that has slipped away from us for too long. open.substack.com/pub/groundtr...
open.substack.com
What Was Promised
I think a lot about my mother these days.
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Sheila Foster @sheilarose.bsky.social · 10/05/2026
Is it time for a working class (affordability) climate agenda? Clearly, yes. Mamadi's win is a template. "A recent survey ...found that 70% of voters, including 65% of Republicans, believe climate action can lower the cost of living." www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...
theguardian.com
As household bills soar, is it time for a ‘working-class climate agenda’?
Group that worked with AOC and Bernie Sanders seeks to counter claim that climate policy is politically toxic
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Marc Elias @marcelias.bsky.social · 09/05/2026
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito leaned on an erroneous claim that Black voter turnout now tops white voter turnout, in his Callais v. Louisiana ruling that gutted the Voting Rights Act, reports The Guardian. www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/...
democracydocket.com
SCOTUS used faulty racial voter turnout data to shred Voting Rights Act in recent ruling
The ruling that upended the Voting Rights Act was based in part on a false data analysis about Black and white voter turnout.
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Sheila Foster @sheilarose.bsky.social · 09/05/2026
Silver lining on Court's VRA retreat. May restore Democratic strength in the South. "The G.O.P. may find it more difficult to win in more diverse districts of the kind that existed before the reshuffling of maps prompted by the Voting Rights Act." www.nytimes.com/2026/05/09/u...
nytimes.com
How Minority Districts Fueled the G.O.P.’s Southern Ascendancy in Congress
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Climate Action Now @climateactapp.bsky.social · 08/05/2026
Renewables are now cheaper than fossil fuels in much of the world. They cut emissions, create jobs, strengthen energy independence, and help protect our planet. They’re scalable and abundant. The question is no longer whether we can do this. It’s why we aren’t.
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Sheila Foster @sheilarose.bsky.social · 02/05/2026
New Substack Newsletter - Ground Truth - is live. Dispatches on justice, power, and what comes next. First post: The Reckoning Has Already Started. Check it out: groundtruthdispatches.substack.com
groundtruthdispatches.substack.com
Ground Truth | Sheila Foster | Substack
Dispatches on justice, power, and what comes next. Click to read Ground Truth, by Sheila Foster, a Substack publication. Launched 21 minutes ago.
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Senator Sheldon Whitehouse @whitehouse.senate.gov · 01/05/2026
Amazing graphic of US drought crisis, reaching beyond “extreme” into “exceptional.” New levels of extreme weather from fossil fuel pollution.
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Sheila Foster @sheilarose.bsky.social · 01/05/2026
Data centers are changing our politics: "... it was the sheer scale of the proposals, the suddenness with which they’ve appeared and the secrecy surrounding them that is punching emotion into the issue, turning out thousands of Democrats and Republicans..." www.nytimes.com/2026/05/01/u...
nytimes.com
‘The Most Bipartisan Issue Since Beer’: Opposition to Data Centers
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Abilu Tangwa. @abilutangwa.bsky.social · 01/05/2026
🌍 The Horn of Africa is in mourning. Farms are barren, deserts are advancing, rivers are drying, pests are spreading, and crops are dying. Climate change is not a distant threat,it’s here. #ClimateAction #HornOfAfrica #ClimateCrisis
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Sheila Foster @sheilarose.bsky.social · 30/04/2026
Last Environmental Justice Law & Policy seminar of the semester at Columbia Law. In a time of rollbacks, we spent a semester mapping the legal levers that still exist — and there are many. These students give me hope. The work continues
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Rachel Maddow @maddow.bsky.social · 29/04/2026
Gift link. Great piece, remarkable embedded footage: www.nytimes.com/2026/04/29/u...
nytimes.com
Why Is There a Voting Rights Act? A Timeline
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Sheila Foster @sheilarose.bsky.social · 30/04/2026
Wow, I think this sums it up: "The Supreme Court’s decision on Wednesday on the Voting Rights Act is a mind-boggling piece of judicial overreach....With this ruling, the court has acted more like partisan legislators than like impartial judges." www.nytimes.com/2026/04/29/o...
nytimes.com
Opinion | The Justices Acted as Partisans in the Voting Rights Ruling
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Sheila Foster @sheilarose.bsky.social · 28/04/2026
An eye-opener of an article "Lately Americans have become fixated on the explosion in data centers and the power needs of artificial intelligence. That is actually a small part of a much bigger problem. Our grid is too old and our supply of electricity too small." www.nytimes.com/interactive/...
nytimes.com
Opinion | It’s the Age of Electricity and America Isn’t Ready
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State Democracy Research Initiative @uwlawdemocracy.bsky.social · 13/04/2026
Thanks to Richard Briffault, @sarabronin.bsky.social, Brian Connolly, @toreydolan.bsky.social , @sheilarose.bsky.social @nicholashandler.bsky.social, Sharon Jacobs, @noahkazis.bsky.social, Mary Kroeger, Jonathan Levine, Amy Monahan (1/2)
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John Pfaff @johnpfaff.bsky.social · 30/03/2026
I know the birthright thing has led to many complaints abt structural flaws in the legal academy, many of which I’ve made myself. But also? How many lawprofs are really making this anti-history argument. It’s 3 or 4, right? There are ~10,000 law profs in the US. That points to something else.
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Greenpeace International 🌍 @greenpeace.org · 23/03/2026
A possible super El Niño is coming, which means extreme heat and droughts all over the planet. As the climate crisis worsens, these extreme weather events are bound to get wilder. Are we prepared?
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John Pfaff @johnpfaff.bsky.social · 23/03/2026
There was ONE ATC in the tower at LGA during last night's crash. ONE ATC, at LGA!, dealing w ALL air and ground traffic, including a plane filling w a strange smell and no gate to return to. The Pentagon wants $200B for a vanity war, but our ATC towers are empty. Budgets are moral documents.
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Peter Head @peterheadcbe.bsky.social · 17/03/2026
This report shows that cities can achieve what was once thought impossible: cutting toxic air pollution by 20-45% in a little over a decade. London, Beijing and San Francisco have done it with EV’s, bike lanes and shutting down fossil fuel burning. www.theguardian.com/environment/...
theguardian.com
London, San Francisco and Beijing achieve ‘remarkable reductions’ in air pollution
Cycle lanes, electric cars and other interventions have helped 19 global cities slash levels of pollutants by more than 20%
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Darren Rosenblum @darrenrosenblum.bsky.social · 16/03/2026
In a new @latimes.com Op-Ed, I discuss how Kansas’s recent law invalidating 1,700 transgender individuals’ driver’s licenses raises significant questions about proportionality and administrative purpose. It criminalizes trans folks for no benefit to anyone. www.latimes.com/opinion/stor...
latimes.com
Contributor: Anti-trans laws aren’t protecting women or anyone, only doing harm
A new Kansas law instantly invalidated the licenses of 1,700 people who had been allowed to update their gender on their state ID. To what end?
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