Today, the @AP and @grist launched a series on climate change and human health -- an overlap scientists all over the world are sounding alarm bells about.

Climate change threatens to undo 50 years of public health gains. It is the health story of our time.projects.apnews.com/features/2023/… Every piece in this package, which will drop over the course of the summer, is based on climate and disease data. The first piece, an explainer on how climate change breeds disease, is an absolute feat. It's gorgeous, interactive, and worth your time. projects.apnews.com/features/2023/…

For decades, climate scientists thought that, if the science was strong enough and the probability was high enough, the world would act on climate. A new IPCC chapter on social science finally calls out politics & vested interests for getting in the way.grist.org/politics/scien… We have the technological, scientific, & much of the engineering prowess we need to set the planet on a safer path. & the report points out that making greener lifestyle choices can slash emissions across ALL sectors 40-70% by 2050. What’s missing? Policy.grist.org/politics/scien…

More than a decade ago, researchers artificially exposed poison ivy plants to CO2 and found that they grew bigger, faster, and itchier. Poison ivy, they hypothesized, would get worse as the planet warmed. I called one of those researchers last week for an update: Poison ivy HAS gotten bigger and itchier. But there's more: A new experiment in the Harvard Forest shows warming soil temperatures, not just CO2, may have an effect on poison ivy. Soil warmed 5 degrees Celsius made poison ivy grow 149% faster. The leaves grew bigger, too.

Anyone else totally waylaid by a series of rapid-fire questions on climate change from Wallace? That was wild. grist.org/politics/trump… I'm not even sure what the main story tonight was but climate def wasnt it. Still, it's not often that we get Trump talking about this stuff on stage. “For the first time, President Trump acknowledged that human activity has, at least in part, caused climate change,”@ACC_National

If you're wondering how the nation's more than 10,000 wildland firefighters are faring right now -- as an unprecedented wildfire season converges with an unprecedented pandemic -- I wrote a story on that scary overlap earlier this year. grist.org/climate/corona… When I called around to various state and federal agencies a few months later to find out how many firefighters had contracted COVID-19, some of them didn't know. Others didn't respond at all. grist.org/climate/how-ma…

When I was in New Orleans reporting out a story on the upcoming 15th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina in mid-July, I had no idea a Category 4 hurricane would hit Louisiana the same week as the anniversary. But here we are. #HurricaneLaura's sustained winds outpace Katrina's. During my week in New Orleans, I learned what happens after the storm is just as important as what happens during it. New Orleans, especially the 7th and 9th wards, hold lessons for other cities that are just beginning to grapple with severe flooding.

A couple weeks ago, Democrats on the House Armed Services did something weird. They voted for a Republican amendment that would give 850,000 acres of the biggest national wildlife refuge in the lower 48 to the U.S. military. Representative Rob Bishop's amendment, which was passed in a voice vote, would let the Air Force build roads, conduct drills and tests, and otherwise disturb Desert National Wildlife Refuge land in Nevada that's home to important species like bighorn sheep and desert tortoises.

It is with GREAT JOY and extreme RELIEF that I have the pleasure of announcing that @AnneliseMcGough, a colleague and workplace bully, is leaving Grist for reasons I cannot disclose but are ultimately very embarrassing for her. For posterity, proof of the harassment I have endured at her (pale) hands these past two (long) years.

I 100% didn't understand Seattle's autonomous zone until a friend just showed me what was going on. The zone was established by Seattleites after days of clashes between police and protesters. The police finally left and people took over. What happened next is truly nuts. Here's the abandoned police precinct.

The most important story of the moment is racial injustice and police brutality in America. What does a climate change magazine have to say about it? A whole lot. I'm so proud of my colleagues @grist who have tied EJ and climate to what's going on in remarkable ways.

Thread! Just in the past few days--

@NaveenaSivam published a piece on how U.S. states have spent the past 5 years trying to criminalize protest. In Minnesota, state legislators introduced TEN bills in THREE years aimed at deterring protests over an oil pipeline. grist.org/justice/states…

Cities from LA to New York have shut down transit systems during curfews, forcing people to bike or walk home after protests. Over the last few days, some cities have paused bikeshare programs like @CitiBikeNYC and Chicago's @DivvyBikes, too. grist.org/justice/cities… The former chief of staff for the company that used to own CitiBike had some choice words about @NYCMayor's decision to shut down CitiBike: "I think it makes people less safe and I think it’s a disgrace for the mayor to have ordered that,” he told me.

Today is a big day because a story I've been working on for months went live over @grist. It's about wildland firefighters, a workforce made up of mostly seasonal employees who put their lives on the line to protect hundreds of thousands of people from wildfires every year. Other really good articles have noted the scary overlap between #coronavirus and wildfire season this year, but this is the first (that I know of) to focus specifically on wildland firefighters. Little research exists in general on how their jobs affect their health.

Fingers tripped over each other rushing to click on this ladies, we flee at dawn

Your (bi-annual?) reminder that @grist puts out a DAILY, made-from-scratch climate newsletter called The Beacon. It's a ton of work but it's worth it, esp. when we can bring you stories like this 1. Feeding cows garlic supplements makes them less methane-y grist.org/beacon/moove-o… Our team of all-star beacon writers include:
@emilypont -- ConEd execs shudder when they hear her name.
@rachjuramirez -- Think you can build a nat gas plant in a community of color without her noticing? Think again.
@shannonosaka -- our resident expert in virtually all things.

In case you missed it yesterday, I wrote my first-ever personal essay for @grist about a letter my dad started writing to me before the pandemic began. In it, he asks a question about "meaning" -- which is the 6th stage of grief according to leading grief expert @IamDavidKessler About halfway through the letter, my dad asked me a question about the coronavirus that I've been thinking about ever since: “What environmental coalition could have convinced the rich world to slow down for a year in this way?”

Twiddling your thumbs waiting for the South Carolina results to roll in on this beautiful Saturday? I have a story for you to read -- one I guarantee you know little or nothing about! grist.org/food/climate-c… In Alaska, tribes depend on shellfish harvested from the ocean in the cold winter months when other sources of food are scarce. But those butter clams, mussels, oysters, and even crabs (!) are getting contaminated by an invisible killer: algae.

Today, @grist published a story I've been working on for more than a year. It's about Alaska, tribes, and clams. But really it's about climate change and how it works in mysterious ways, affecting everything around us from the biggest predators to the tiniest microorganisms. I first learned about how warming water affects algae blooms at a science journalism fellowship at @WHOI two years ago. A researcher told a stunned group of journalists about a certain type of toxic algae that naturally produces a poison many times more effective than sarin gas.

I got to report out some really cool stories in 2019 (one especially exciting story about Alaska is coming in 2020), but this piece, about how local journalists can report on climate change, was one of my favorites. grist.org/climate/shrink… I got to talk to three reporters who are developing climate beats in their newsrooms. @JessicaPubRadio of ADAPT (a really cool initiative in FL you should check out), @giles_morris of @cvilletomorrow (likewise, doing great work in VA), and Florida weather celeb @JohnMoralesNBC6.

Some folks are upset about a NYTimes article that contains some (on point, in my opinion) criticism of @BernieSanders' climate plan. Experts and pundits can and should criticize a policy proposal on its merits. But here's what they miss: Even if it’s impractical or unfeasible, Bernie's Green New Deal still serves a political purpose. The plan moves the Overton window, the range of political ideas that the public considers acceptable or mainstream, several notches to the left.

Next up: @marwilliamson

We’re still here! We’re still tweeting! Let’s hear from our girl Marianne.

“If all we do is elect a democrat that has better policies we will always be vulnerable. When the American people wake up...”

She’s off with a bang! #EJPresForum @marwilliamson She is wearing a beautiful purple VELVET?? blazer.

“Donald trump and all of the forces represented by these injustices is an opportunistic infection”. Turns out 2016 happened because we have a “weakness in our immune system”

Next up at the EJ forum: @ewarren
#ejpresforum

“It’s communities that are poor and communities of color. It’s about racism and economic injustice. It’s not enough to come out and say ‘I care about that.’ If you’re really serious you gotta have some concrete proposals.” @ewarren “Here’s a radical notion, how about we don’t have a coal lobbyist to head up the EPA? How’s that for an idea” @ewarren #EnvironmentalJustice