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maggie bell

@thesecondpineta.bsky.social
2K followers 953 following 31 posts

💻 clean energy / cleantech comms 🏡 Berlin, Charlottesville, Rome et al ☀️+💨+🔋>🔥 🚲 &🚶& 🚄 > 🚗 Arm Ukraine! 🇺🇦 Pet language peeve: disinterested ≠ uninterested

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Reposted by maggie bell
Kevin J. Kircher @kevinjkircher.com · 06/06/2026
Put wind or solar on the land that grows ethanol corn. Run electric vehicles off the power. Use 99% less land per mile driven, at far lower cost. Let farmers use the freed-up land to do actual farmer stuff, like growing real food for humans and being good custodians of land for future generations.
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Chelsea Harvey @chelseaeharvey.bsky.social · 02/06/2026
I worked hard on this story, it's important, & I want to share it. I'm also finding it difficult to put it out there without this context: Just as I wrapped up final edits last week, I got word that a friend vacationing in Arizona had died after overheating on a hike. www.eenews.net/articles/dea...
eenews.net
Deadly heat is coming. But funding to save lives is not.
Emergency officials are searching for loopholes to save lives as President Donald Trump slashes programs.
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David Roberts @volts.wtf · 02/06/2026
The idea that only nuclear or gas can provide "firm power" -- the last line of defense against the relentless advance of clean energy -- is going the way of the dodo. There are no arguments left. The only reason to fight progress now is corruption & raw political power.
canarymedia.com
24/7 renewables could happen sooner than you think
Grouping wind, solar, and batteries together can already be more affordable than building a coal or gas plant in prime locations, new report finds.
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Costa Samaras @costasamaras.com · 04/06/2026
This is more money than all annual Department of Energy geothermal power, solar power, and wind power research and development spending, combined.
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Ketan Joshi @ketanjoshi.co · 04/06/2026
This is condescending and, most importantly, completely ignorant of the actual, real and material reasons communities object to data centre developments (primarily: environment and resource concerns, which they genuinely understand very well and can explain with specific, accurate detail)
Reasons Americans Oppose Data Centers in Their Local Area
What are some of the reasons you would oppose the construction of a data center in your area?

Table with 2 columns and 37 rows.
% Mentioning
Effect on resources	50
Water/Excess water usage	18
Energy consumption/Excess power usage/Grid constraints	18
Environmental impact (nonspecific)	14
Loss of farmland/wildlife/nature/Deforestation/Eyesore	7
Waste of resources/Uses too many natural resources	6
Quality-of-life concerns	22
Community impact/housing/property values/population increase	9
Size of land required/Prefer other development/Don't want in this area	9
Increased traffic/construction/Infrastructure impact	5
Impact on health/disease	2
Effect on costs	20
Higher utility bills/energy costs	15
Cost to build/Using taxpayer dollars/Invest in other projects	5
Cost-of-living increase	2
Pollution	16
Noise/Noise pollution	9
Pollution (nonspecific)	6
Air/Water contamination	2
Light/Heat generated by facility	1
Economic effects	14
Jobs/AI replacing human workers	12
Impact on economy	1
Negative views of AI	14
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David Ho @davidho.bsky.social · 04/06/2026
It’s a trick question: buy an ebike
the-independent.com
Should you buy a used luxury car or a new car? Here are the pros and cons
The car experts at Edmunds have broken down the key attributes prospective buyers ought to consider
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❀°。Der Siebenschläfer *.゚✿ ⋆ @sababausa.bsky.social · 04/06/2026
A detail that has really stuck with me about Tony Judt‘s ‘Postwar’ was the section about how hundreds of thousands of ex-Nazis went on to become East German communist apparatchiks Flunkies like Flanagan remind me of these characters—not truly attached to an ideology so much as place in the in-group
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Ari Berman @ariberman.bsky.social · 04/06/2026
WTF is this NYT headline? What the Alabama + Callais decisions really signal is that Roberts Court will make up whatever the hell rule it wants to maximally help the GOP & prevent Black voters from having any representation
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ryan cooper @ryanlcooper.com · 04/06/2026
"yeah our platforms destroyed journalism and give teen girls body dysmorphia at an industrial scale. no we're not going to do anything about that. instead we're going to spend trillions on AI stuff that, according to us, will take your job and double your power bill"
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ryan cooper @ryanlcooper.com · 04/06/2026
thinking it over there is a heavy dose of Glonzoism in this but it's also indicative of the incredible arrogance of the tech industry. they got so used to stuffing whatever they want down the public's throat on their monopoly platforms they forgot how to sell light industry
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ryan cooper @ryanlcooper.com · 03/06/2026
"The public has swung 49 points against data centers in just nine months" lol heatmap.news/politics/ame...
heatmap.news
Exclusive: Americans Now Overwhelmingly Oppose New Data Centers Near Them
A new Heatmap Pro poll shows a rapid shift in public opinion since last fall.
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Josh Gondelman @joshgondelman.bsky.social · 03/06/2026
My crankiest old man take is that referring to all art/entertainment/journalism/criticism/comedy/advertising as “content” helped pave the way for broad-ish acceptance of AI slop.
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Pete Miles @petermiles.eurosky.social · 03/06/2026
4/5
AF: If you were, I'm sure this idea will horrify you, but if you were a government Corey, because ultimately it's them that we look to to try and sort these things out to protect us, exert control where we think control needs to be exerted, what would you be doing right now?

CD: Oh well I mean buying AI at the top of the market is the most ridiculous thing I can imagine, we can see that there's a time on the horizon can buy GPUs at 10p in the pound to hire as many you know unemployed applied statisticians as you'd like at knocked down rates and use open source models that will still be kicking around long after the firms that release them have been vaporized to do the useful things that AI can do because it's just a normal technology, it does useful things. If I wanted to do some growth here I would ignore all of that, not buy the asset at its most expensive and instead do something like repeal article six of the copyright directive that makes it illegal for British firms to reverse engineer and modify American defective tech products, and go into business selling things like kits that install a different app store on your iPhone that doesn't take 30p out of every pound in commissions and kits that jailbreak your printer so you don't have to pay 10,000 dollars a gallon for ink, and that sort of thing to a grateful world that would happily purchase those products instead of you know consuming the last drops of water in the United Kingdom that are not polluted by human faeces to cool a data center to make child pornography. I mean it just seems like an absolutely bizarre follow-on strategy done by people who have a superstitious dread of being seen as out of touch with the times.
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Pete Miles @petermiles.eurosky.social · 03/06/2026
Cory Doctorow was interviewed by Anna Foster on BBC Radio 4 Today on the topic of AI. I've captured a transcript of the questions here in a short thread (with the help of Google AI voice-to-text. Good AI, thank-you.) 1/5
AF: We could spend the whole of the rest of the day talking about AI but sometimes we need focus…

CD: Oh God, must we?

AF: We must, we must and while we decided to focus on this idea of a crisis of control, do you think that there is one?

CD: I think AI is the money-losing-est thing the human race has ever done, I think it's grossly oversold and I think that the capital markets have lost their minds because of the confluence of large tech monopolies that have saturated their markets and need to convince investors that they can keep growing despite the fact that they have 90% market shares and the fact that they have a large customer base of bosses who are just infinitely excited at the prospect of firing mouthy workers who know how to do things that they don't know how to do and replacing them with software that compliantly does whatever it's told.
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Blake Wexler @blakewexler.bsky.social · 02/06/2026
Give it up for the American healthcare system!
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Gabe Ortíz @tusk81.bsky.social · 03/06/2026
Cardinal Tobin “encouraged detainees and their families to have hope.” "Human dignity is not a concession granted by any gov’t; it is the will of God, who created us according to his own image and nature," he said. "And for that reason, no gov’t can take away our dignity.”
ncronline.org
Rosary service brings 'prayerful, peaceful presence' to NJ immigrant detention facility
In response to rising tensions at the Delaney Hall immigrant detention facility in Newark, the Archdiocese of Newark held a prayer service about half a mile from its entrance.
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Greg Pak @gregpak.net · 03/06/2026
I would love for one (1) Democratic candidate to respond to this kind of bullshit by saying "My opponent is a panty-sniffing creep who wants to inspect your children's genitals."
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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 03/06/2026
to my mind the most important biographical fact to know about samuel alito is that he was a member of a group that opposed the admission of women and minorities to princeton www.nytimes.com/2005/11/27/p...
nytimes.com
From Alito's Past, a Window on Conservatives at Princeton (Published 2005)
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Max Kennerly @maxkennerly.bsky.social · 03/06/2026
Frankly, I want to divest SCOTUS of jurisdiction to enter *any* orders reversing a lower court without a complete elaboration of the reasons why. They are the least busy judges in America with a self-selected workload. If they can't bother to explain it, they should not do it.
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Carbon Brief @carbonbrief.org · 29/05/2026
NEW – AI boom means US is now ‘investing more’ in fossil-fuel power than China | @joshgabbatiss.bsky.social Read here: buff.ly/Sg9ye9N
Annual investment in fossil-fuel power in China and the US, $bn. The figure for 2026 is an IEA estimate, based on current trends. Source: IEA.
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John Carpenter’s Halloran @profhalloran.bsky.social · 03/06/2026
Any detrumpification effort is going to founder if it isn’t going through an independent court system (which divests the Supreme Court of any review authority). Because the detrumpification commission has got to look at this claim of immunity and say, “LOL, no.”
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Akshat Rathi @akshatrathi.bsky.social · 03/06/2026
I see a lot of charts everyday. Few make me go: THIS IS CRAZY. www.carbonbrief.org/ai-boom-mean...
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Chris Geidner @chrisgeidner.bsky.social · 03/06/2026
Sotomayor, joined by Kagan and Jackson, issues a 17-page dissent to the 4-page order: "[J]ust as Alabama doubled down on racial discrimination, the Court today doubles down on chaos."
JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR, with whom JUSTICE KAGAN and
JUSTICE JACKSON join, dissenting.
Before the Court are two paths. Down one lies an orderly election, held under a tried-and-tested congressional map that protects Black Alabamians' right to vote and with which all voters, elections officials, and candidates alike are familiar. Down the other lies a chaotic election, held under a never-before-used congressional map that intentionally discriminates against Black Alabamians, that Alabama adopted in unashamed defiance of a prior court order directly affirmed by this Court, and that will require officials to change the voter registrations of hundreds of thousands of voters in just days at best, a task that Alabama previously represented would take months.
The majority chooses the second path and disregards both democratic values and the rule of law. I respectfully dissent.Weeks ago, I warned that vacating the District Court’s
injunction in these cases would “unleash chaos and . . . con-
fuse voters.” Caster, 608 U. S., at ___ (dissenting opinion)
(slip op., at 4). Nevertheless, the Court forged ahead. Now
the Court is squarely faced with a record of the turmoil it
has caused and the harm it has wrought. Yet just as Ala-
bama doubled down on racial discrimination, the Court to-
day doubles down on chaos. Because I choose to defend the
rule of law and the right of all Alabamians to participate
equally in democracy, I respectfully dissent.
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Marcelius Braxton @marceliusb.bsky.social · 03/06/2026
The SCOTUS has become so bold that they went from "This is the outcome we want, so we'll pretend/twist the law to fit the decision we want to get to" to "This is the outcome we want, so we're not even going to consider lower court rationale, apply the law, or pretend like laws matters for our side."
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Jim Pickard @pickardje.bsky.social · 03/06/2026
hard not to be seriously alarmed by the direction of travel here
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Eliot Higgins @eliothiggins.bsky.social · 03/06/2026
Full statement of Scott Pelley after he's fired from CBS 60 Minutes, detailing the sort of corruption of journalism Bari Weiss has brought to CBS News:
New statement from Scott Pelley:
 
There has never been anything in America like 60 Minutes.
 
The Sunday tradition is the most successful program of any kind in history. For more than a decade, its innovative growth on every major online platform has extended its reach to countless millions around the world. This spring, at the end of our 58thseason, 60 Minutes grew rapidly with an unheard-of 9% jump in viewers on CBS. 
 
“60” has been the number-one program in America for decades because our beloved audience finds integrity, quality, and humanity in our stories. When stewardship of the program passed to my colleagues and me, our responsibility was to expand energetically into a new age of media technology while preserving the values our audience expects. Now, the new owner of our network is casting this legend aside, apparently to curry a moment of favor with the Trump administration.
 
The waste is heartbreaking.
 
Last month, 60 Minutes lost its DNA when our entire senior leadership and two of our best on-air correspondents were cruelly fired without cause. Good people were silenced because they stood up for our audience. They stood for fairness against the forces of political bias; they stood for professionalism against chaos.For my part, new management has instructed me to inject falsehoods and bias into a politically sensitive story. I’ve been told to include assertions that are unverified. To date, in every case, I have managed to ignore these instructions or refuse them. Recently, politicians have been invited to choose correspondents for interviews on the broadcast. Giving politicians control over 60 Minutes interviews is not how this is done. Finally, incompetence and unprofessionalism in the new management have wreaked havoc. In a case involving one of my stories, the entire program came within 19 minutes of not getting on the air at all. 
 
At 60 Minutes, we have fought harder than anyone knows to save the program that became an American icon. We owed that to our millions of viewers. I am deeply moved by the thousands of wishes we have received to “keep up the good fight.” Most of the men and women of CBS News are still in that fight. But now the collapse of values at the top has become untenable. The leadership of 60 Minutes is no longer recognizable. The principles I hold dear are gone, and so I must leave as well.
 
I depart after 37 years at CBS with one emotion—a heart brimming with gratitude for the men and women of CBS News who encouraged and enriched my work, very often at the risk of their own lives. I pray for a day when those people and their ideals are honored again—a day when sanity, competence, and courage return.
 
Scott Pelley
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Doug Gordon @brooklynspoke.bsky.social · 03/06/2026
"I don't want the journalists who work for me at a prestige TV news magazine to ask tough questions." — Nick Bilton, essentially.
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James @gravitysra1nbow.bsky.social · 03/06/2026
There's just a certain fin de siecle absurdity of someone whose only achievement in life is having opinions on the internet ending the career of someone who managed to get into Kyiv in 2022 in the middle of the initial Russian invasion to interview Zelensky.
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James @gravitysra1nbow.bsky.social · 03/06/2026
A failed op-ed writer bankrolled by billionaires purging a universally liked and credible straight news journalist from 60 Minutes really has to be the height of the complete slide of American news media into a complete death spiral.
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Jenny Chase @solarchase.bsky.social · 03/06/2026
This is interesting, about battery revenues. Also presumably this "long-duration storage" is just bog standard lithium-ion batteries (lots of them).
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Jacob Öberg @profjacob.bsky.social · 03/06/2026
🚨🚨 #Switzerland’s star striker Breel Embolo has been barred from entering #US ahead of #WorldCup following a last-minute decision by US authorities to review his #clearance to travel. 🧵 www.politico.eu/article/swit...
politico.eu
Switzerland’s star striker barred from entering US ahead of World Cup
Breel Embolo has hasn’t traveled to the U.S. yet, but his team is saving his seat for him.
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Jay Willis @jaywillis.net · 02/06/2026
Thinking about him
John Brown
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Jake Wright @bcnjake.bsky.social · 29/05/2026
Once again: German universities were the envy of the world before the Nazis rose to power and took an ideological wrecking ball to the entire enterprise. If you want to know how long it took for German universities to recover… they haven’t.
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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 01/06/2026
congrats to jared polis once again
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Eric Columbus @ericcolumbus.bsky.social · 02/06/2026
Pulte is even less qualified to be acting DNI than Ric Grenell was during Trump’s first term. Both are vicious political hacks. Look for Pulte to weaponize intelligence against Trump’s perceived enemies. (Btw his appointment as acting DNI is perfectly legal under the Vacancies Act.)
Donald J. Trump © @
@realDonaldTrump
I am appointing the Director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, and Chairman of Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac, William J.
Pulte, to serve as Acting Director of National Intelligence. William has deep experience managing the most sensitive matters in America, the safety and soundness of the Markets, and over 10 Trillion Dollars at Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac, a substantial increase from where it was just 12 months ago. During this period, he will remain Director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, and Chairman of Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac. Congratulations to Director Pulte! President DONALD J. TRUMP
221 ReTruths 882 Likes
Jun 02, 2026, 9:06 AM
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Monika Schnitzer @monika-schnitzer.com · 02/06/2026
Zu einer dringenden Reform des Steuer- & Transfersystems gehört auch eine Reform des Ehegattensplittings. In einem offenen Brief an Bundeskanzler & Bundesregierung unterbreiten wir einen Vorschlag, der Verantwortung in der Ehe anerkennt, Kinder fördert und die Erwerbstätigkeit…
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Georg Weizsäcker @georgweizsaecker.bsky.social · 02/06/2026
Economists‘ letter to 🇩🇪‘s chancellor and vice chancellor 👇🏼 In search of impactful reforms? Proposal: better family tax rules create the right incentives Support families and raising children, cut down on the strongest distortions, increase labor supply www.faz.net/aktuell/wirt... 1/3
faz.net
Von Fuest bis Schularick: Ökonomen fordern Reform von Ehegattensplitting
Eine Allianz aus Ökonomen und früheren Verfassungsrichterinnen fordert die Regierung zur Reform des Ehegattensplittings auf. Ehepaare ohne Kinder würden im neuen Modell 300 Euro im Jahr draufzahlen – ...
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Paige Perriello @paigeperriello.bsky.social · 02/06/2026
If it wasn’t clear from this, the best way to prevent measles is vaccination! This is a great time to check your status and if you live locally and have a baby or child please reach out to your pediatrician to check about early vaccination.
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Dante Atkins @danteatkins.bsky.social · 02/06/2026
We literally have had a program of releasing millions of sterile male screwworm flies a year into the Darien Gap in order to prevent it from expanding northward into Mexico. What happened to that program under Trump? Who the hell knows--but welcome to screwworm! These guys are absolutely nasty.
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Michael Clemens @mclem.org · 02/06/2026
“If the person is a U.S. citizen or otherwise lawfully in the United States, that individual will be free to go after the brief encounter.” Justice Brett Kavanaugh www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24p...
washingtonpost.com
Woman held by ICE for 25 days, despite U.S. citizenship claim, gets a passport
Attorneys for Dulce Consuelo Diaz Morales had presented a Maryland birth certificate and other documents as proof of her U.S. citizenship.
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Kevin M. Kruse @kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 01/06/2026
If you've never seen A FACE IN THE CROWD, treat yourself.
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ceej @ceej.online · 01/06/2026
I'm excited to announce that today we have filed to take Magic Beans, Inc. public. This is an important milestone for our team, our investors, and our customers. We expect to list in the coming weeks, hopefully before the general public discovers the Terrible True Cost of our beans.
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Team Talarico @teamtalaricohq.bsky.social · 28/05/2026
NEW AD: Ken Paxton just released a pedophile back on our streets. Adam Hoffman abused a little boy for 3 years. He should have faced life in prison — but Ken Paxton and his wealthy lawyer friends let Hoffman off the hook. Ken Paxton’s corruption is hurting Texas.
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Laura Gillian 🩷💜💙 @lgbookworm.bsky.social · 02/06/2026
Current cancer patient here. Despite having a best-case type and stage of cancer, I only managed to schedule 6 hours of work last week and 10 hours the week before. The only reason to make a rule like this is to kick sick people off Medicaid
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Sanho Tree @sanho.bsky.social · 02/06/2026
“Ukrainian forces struck the Ilsky oil refinery in Russia's Krasnodar Krai during an overnight attack on June 2. Located roughly 500 kilometers (310 miles) from Ukrainian-controlled territory, the refinery is among the largest in southern Russia, producing nearly 6.6 million tons of fuel annually.”
kyivindependent.com
Ukraine strikes Russia's Ilsky oil refinery for at least 16th time since start of full-scale war
Located roughly 500 kilometers (311 miles) from Ukrainian-controlled territory, the refinery is among the largest in southern Russia, producing nearly 6,6 million tons of fuel annually.
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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 02/06/2026
another day, another story about the administration's war on knowledge itself, all in service of allow its corporate patrons free rein to rob us blind and poison our world www.nytimes.com/2026/06/01/c...
nytimes.com
Trump Administration to Dismantle Ocean Monitoring System
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David Roberts @volts.wtf · 01/06/2026
Congrats everyone: thanks to the AI boom, the US is now investing more in fossil fuel power than China, a country with four times the population.
carbonbrief.org
AI boom means US is now ‘investing more’ in fossil-fuel power than China - Carbon Brief
The “data-centre boom” is driving a surge in gas investment in the US, pushing its fossil-power spending ahead of China, according to the IEA
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Flying Mezerkis @bananapantz.bsky.social · 02/06/2026
These people want to spend $1.5 trillion on “defense” but reject a $300m project to understand what’s happening with our environment. We deserve to lose our leadership in science and everything else.
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Georg Weizsäcker @georgweizsaecker.bsky.social · 30/05/2026
How not to fight the AfD if you're a politician in office: write a newspaper article that could just as well be written by the AfD, except that it turns out it is written by AI. 👇🏻
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