If this link roundup is a heftier than usual, it’s because I held off on posting until the government ceased to be shut down.
What the White House is up to
More of the same: curtailing free speech, suppressing information, and attacking science….
Energy Dept. adds ‘climate change’ and ‘emissions’ to banned words list (Politico, September 28, 2025)
…. and undermining public trust in federal agencies as the unqualified goons placed in charge of them steadily roll back and block environmental protections.
Scientists Completed a Toxicity Report on This Forever Chemical. The EPA Hasn’t Released It. (ProPublica, October 9, 2025)
In addition to business as usual, the U.S. government shut down on October 1, the beginning of their fiscal year, since the funding bills did not have the necessary number of Senate votes. Ostensibly, the Senate was holding out because the funding approved by the House did not include an extension of Affordable Care Act, on which so many people depend for healthcare. However, the status of the ACA extension had not changed when Senate voted to pass the funding bill and end the shutdown on November 10.
The government shutdown had and continues to have many social impacts, from reduced air travel to the reduction of food assistance payments. Federal agencies were fully or partially suspended. Yet never let it be said that a government shutdown got in the way of this administration’s values, which seem to include environmental harm.
Trump Targets Federal Employees Working on Conservation and Environmental Protection (Inside Climate News, October 21, 2025)
The EPA Is in Chaos (Wired, November 10, 2025)
How government shutdowns give polluters a free pass (Grist, November 11, 2025)
Climate impacts
Hurricane Melissa Is The Strongest Storm On Earth In 2025 (October 28, 2025)
Follow-up: Climate Change Made Hurricane Melissa Four Times More Likely, Study Suggests (Inside Climate News, October 30, 2025)
Collapse of critical Atlantic current is no longer low-likelihood, study finds (Guardian, August 28, 2025)
Why Alaska’s salmon streams are suddenly bleeding orange (Science Daily, September 18, 2025)
Whale and Dolphin Migrations are Being Disrupted by Climate Change (Inside Climate News, October 24, 2025)
Mosquitoes found in Iceland for first time as climate crisis warms country (Guardian, October 21, 2025)
22 of Earth’s 34 ‘vital signs’ are flashing red, new climate report reveals — but there’s still time to act (LiveScience, October 29, 2025)
Want to make America healthy again? Stop fueling climate change (The Conversation, November 12, 2025)
Pollution
Air pollution from oil and gas causes 90,000 premature US deaths each year, says new study (Guardian, August 22, 2025)
Air pollution can drive devastating forms of dementia, research suggests (Guardian, September 4, 2025)
AI and the environment
These links can be divided into two sections: what we don’t know about the environmental costs of generative AI, and what we do.
Apparently there are details that the industry doesn’t want us to know:
How Much Water and Energy do Data Centers Consume? A New Jersey Bill Demands Answers. (Inside Climate News, September 24, 2025)
Amazon strategised about keeping water use secret (Source Material, October 25, 2025)
How NDAs keep AI data center details hidden from Americans (NBS News, October 28, 2025)
But there is plenty of data about the environmental and social harms of data centers.
How AI infrastructure is driving a sharp rise in electricity bills (PBS News, September 5, 2025)
Inside the Memphis Chamber of Commerce’s Push for Elon Musk’s xAI Data Center (Propublica, August 22, 2025)
Advocates raise alarm over Pfas pollution from datacenters amid AI boom (Guardian, October 4, 2025)
Research
Polar ‘geoengineering’ projects won’t protect environment against climate change, scientists warn (ABC, September 9, 2025)
Twenty years of microplastic pollution research—what have we learned? (Science, September 19, 2025)
Carbon offsets fail to cut global heating due to ‘intractable’ systemic problems, study says (Guardian, October 6, 2025)
Climate and culture
The words we use to talk about nature are disappearing. Here’s why that matters. (Grist, September 5, 2025)
A pair of newsletters meticulously analyzing the present and future of climate coverage on CBS News:
The fall of the CBS News climate team (HEATED, October 31, 2025)
Bari Weiss vs. climate change (HEATED, November 6, 2025)
Okay, how about a little good news in cultural change?
What Zohran Mamdani’s Win Means for Climate Politics (Focus, November 5, 2025)
Some good news!
Renewables overtake coal as world’s biggest source of electricity (BBC, October 7, 2025)
Youth-led US climate activists widen focus to fight authoritarianism (BBC, October 5, 2025)
Nearly a Century Ago, American Chestnut Trees Died Off. Now, Hikers Can Walk Among Them Again. (Backpack, October 22, 2025)
How giving legal rights to nature could help reduce toxic algae blooms in Lake Erie (The Conversation, September 10, 2025)
Dr. Kimberly Nicholas, whose work I admire, partnered with Project Drawdown to produce this sort of online quiz for pinpointing where and how you can take climate action.
Shift: Super High-Impact Initiative for Fixing Tomorrow
Sara Davis 