Alex Barron
@alexrbarron.bsky.social
9.8K followers 470 following 670 posts
Climate policy wonk. Rogue biogeochemist. Assoc. Prof. Fmr. Congressional staff (AAAS_STPF). Obama EPA & Biden OMB alum.
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Reposted by Alex Barron
maxinejoselow.bsky.social
Before catastrophic floods swept through the Alaska Native village of Kipnuk on Sunday, the EPA canceled a $20 million grant intended to protect the community from extreme flooding. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/14/c...
Before Alaska Flooding, E.P.A. Canceled $20 Million Flood Protection Grant
www.nytimes.com
alexrbarron.bsky.social
Re-upping this paper by @sethwynes.bsky.social and @simondonner.bsky.social which finds a median climate vote in Canada associated w 34 tons, vs 2.4 tons for car free for a yr. Individual action charts look pretty different with collective action.
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Bar chart showing large climate impacts from voting for pro-climate candidates (34t) vs individual actions like car free for a year (2.4t) and recycling (0.2 t).
alexrbarron.bsky.social
There are estimates in the literature, see this paper by @sethwynes.bsky.social which finds a median climate vote in Canada associated w 34 tons, vs the 2.4 tons for car free for a year.

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Figure 2. Distributing emissions responsibility in the 2019 Canadian federal election

Emissions allocated only to “winning voters,” see Table S1. Values for lifestyle choices taken from Wynes and Nicholas.5
alexrbarron.bsky.social
The really frustrating thing is that they actually say this:

bsky.app/profile/alex...
alexrbarron.bsky.social
This post buries the lede: "Push for what you can't control alone. Vote for leaders who support climate-smart investments; demand action from those already in power; sign petitions; and join collective campaigns that drive change at scale."
wriclimate.bsky.social
🌍 80% of people worldwide want stronger #ClimateAction.

But not all choices are equal. WRI Climate research ranks 19 ways to help the climate, showing which actions make the biggest impact.

Explore the list: bit.ly/4q0pWvC
Reposted by Alex Barron
bistline.bsky.social
The excellent new ERL paper by Bhandarkar, Luo, Dimanchev, & Jenkins shows that when you let the grid build (wind/solar/storage/gas) in response to EVs, simple averages or short-run marginals can mislead, often understating EV climate benefits. 4/
Reposted by Alex Barron
caitlindeangelis.bsky.social
ICE kidnapped a 7th-grader with a pending asylum claim and spirited him out of state without notifying his parents, seemingly with the cooperation of the local police in Everett, MA.

www.bostonglobe.com/2025/10/12/m...
Everett 13-year-old arrested by ICE and sent to Virginia detention facility
By Marcela Rodrigues Globe Staff,Updated October 12, 2025, 44 minutes ago



31
A 13-year-old boy was arrested by ICE in Everett and sent to a juvenile detention facility in Virginia.
A 13-year-old boy was arrested by ICE in Everett and sent to a juvenile detention facility in Virginia.
A 13-year-old boy was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Everett after an interaction with members of the Everett Police Department and sent to a juvenile detention facility in Virginia, according to his mother and immigration lawyer Andrew Lattarulo.

The boy’s mother, Josiele Berto, was called to pick her son up from the Everett Police Department on Thursday, the day he was arrested. After waiting for about an hour and a half, she was told her son was taken by ICE, Berto told the Globe in a phone interview.

“My world collapsed,” Berto said in Portuguese.

From the police department, the boy was taken to ICE’s holding facility in Burlington on Thursday evening, where he spent a night before being transferred by car to the Northwestern Regional Juvenile Detention Center in Winchester, Va., on Friday morning, his mother said. The juvenile facility is more than 500 miles away from Everett.

The boy is a 7th-grader at Albert N. Parlin School in Everett, his mother said. The teen and his family, who are Brazilian nationals, have a pending asylum case and are authorized to work legally in the United States, Lattarulo said.
Reposted by Alex Barron
aawayne.bsky.social
“Oklahomans would lose their mind if Pritzker in Illinois sent troops down to Oklahoma during the Biden administration.”

The Republican chair of the National Governors Association breaks with Trump.

www.nytimes.com/2025/10/09/u...
Oklahoma’s Republican Governor Criticizes National Guard Deployment in Chicago
www.nytimes.com
alexrbarron.bsky.social
This post buries the lede: "Push for what you can't control alone. Vote for leaders who support climate-smart investments; demand action from those already in power; sign petitions; and join collective campaigns that drive change at scale."
wriclimate.bsky.social
🌍 80% of people worldwide want stronger #ClimateAction.

But not all choices are equal. WRI Climate research ranks 19 ways to help the climate, showing which actions make the biggest impact.

Explore the list: bit.ly/4q0pWvC
alexrbarron.bsky.social
Regardless of your views on green hydrogen, I think we can all agree Bloomberg needs to learn to pick the same axis scale in both side of this figure. #badcharts #econsky 🔌💡
alexrbarron.bsky.social
"The incremental U.S. fossil-fuel profits in 2022 relative to 2021 were enough to increase the disposable income of the wealthiest Americans by several percent and compensate a substantial part of their purchasing power loss from inflation that year, thereby exacerbating inflation inequality. "
gregorsemieniuk.bsky.social
🚨NEW PAPER🚨
We all know the 2022 energy price shock fueled the cost of living crisis. It also caused a profit bonanza for the very rich. We show the US reaped the largest profits ($377bn) of any country. 50% went to the richest 1%, only 1% to the bottom 50%. A🧵 www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
River or sankey diagram showing the allocation of profits from global oil and gas companies to quantiles of the US wealth size distribution via financial system intermediaries, such as asset managers, and categories of ultimate beneficiaries, such as business owners, pension funds and shareholders in listed companies. The scale is hundreds of billions of US dollars, and ultimately 50.4% of profits reaching the US personal wealth distribution go to the richest 1% of households.
Reposted by Alex Barron
nicholasbednar.bsky.social
This editorial from @washingtonpost.com is disappointing because it is sloppy and misleading---if not factually wrong. As a piece by the Editorial Board (the voice of the paper), it threatens Washington Post's credibility and integrity. 1/15

www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/202...
Opinion | Government shutdowns wouldn’t happen if they caused more pain
Democratic leaders play a dangerous game as Trump threatens not to pay furloughed federal workers.
www.washingtonpost.com
Reposted by Alex Barron
seancasten.bsky.social
This is remarkable. The world added more solar and wind capacity in 2024 than we added demand. 100% of demand growth PLUS 9% to retire dirtier sources. Cheap energy keeps winning. ember-energy.org/latest-insig...
alexrbarron.bsky.social
Sign of the times:
"The Trump administration is considering not providing back pay to furloughed federal workers — despite a 2019 law signed by President Donald Trump that mandates it, writes Robin Bravender."

www.eenews.net/articles/whi...
alexrbarron.bsky.social
"Communities considering geothermal heat pump systems have been concerned about a long-term subsurface warming trend...Because of groundwater flow and winter shutoffs, we cannot identify any evidence of this trend [in this system]"
www.geosociety.org/GSA/Publicat...
GSA Today
GSA Today Science article G607A: Long-Term Monitoring of a Campus-Scale Geothermal Heat Pump System Using Distributed Temperature Sensing
www.geosociety.org
Reposted by Alex Barron
janrosenow.bsky.social
Yes heat pumps do work in old buildings. @trinityoxford.bsky.social founded in 1555 got a ground source heat pump fitted by Rendesco in 2024 when the photo with the drilling rig was taken.

Compare it to what it looks like today - the tourists taking photos have no idea what’s under the lawn.
alexrbarron.bsky.social
"Spain’s wind and solar growth has reduced the influence of expensive fossil generators on the electricity price by 75% since 2019.... As a result, Spain’s wholesale electricity price was 32% lower than the EU average in the first half of 2025." 🔌💡
ember-energy.org/latest-insig...
Decoupled: how Spain cut the link between gas and power prices using renewables | Ember
Spain has some of the lowest wholesale electricity prices in Europe, largely owing to the country’s strong solar and wind growth which reduced the influence of expensive coal and gas power on the elec...
ember-energy.org
alexrbarron.bsky.social
If anyone knows if I can still get one of these "About to Get Rail" t-shirts, please let me know. #transitanthem
bikepedantic.bsky.social
And I will take any excuse to post this video filmed aboard @kcstreetcar.org, costarring basically every swaggy transit worker you’ve ever met (all of them) youtu.be/_Xa_lfMoDqI?...
Kemet the Phantom - Get Out (The Streetcar Song) - Official Video
YouTube video by King Kemet
youtu.be
Reposted by Alex Barron
kateraworth.bsky.social
Big Doughnutty News.
Just out in Nature: the all-new 2025 Doughnut. Transformed from a single-year snapshot to an annual global monitor of 21st century social & ecological thriving. Available to all in an open-access paper by @andrewlfanning.bsky.social and me. 🧵 1/
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Reposted by Alex Barron
daviddoniger.bsky.social
EPA proposes weakening super-pollutant limits for rogue supermarkets and electronics firms. “This is not going to make potato chips or computer chips any cheaper,” said NRDC’s David Doniger.
www.nytimes.com/2025/09/30/c...
Trump Administration Moves to Relax Rules on Climate Super Pollutants
www.nytimes.com
alexrbarron.bsky.social
Congrats to @danielswain.bsky.social - we need more scientists making sure science is reaching the public. #scicomm

time.com/collections/...
time.com
alexrbarron.bsky.social
It covers the technical engineering stuff but also finance, change management, building the business case - basically everything where you would want to avoid reinventing the wheel.
alexrbarron.bsky.social
At least in the first round AASHE and the organizers were looking for groups of people from institutions - so a mix of sustainability, facilities, operations, planning, etc.
alexrbarron.bsky.social
I should also flag the upcoming 2026 AASHE decarb academy for you, @jeffmanuel.bsky.social, and anyone else following.

bsky.app/profile/alex...
alexrbarron.bsky.social
You're working to decarbonize your campus, right? If you want a 6 month opportunity to get smart on decarbonization, the 2026 Campus Decarbonization Academy is worth checking out.

www.aashe.org/calendar/cam...
AASHE’s Campus Decarbonization Academy returns in 2026, and applications are now open! This six-month, cohort-based program offers actionable solutions to guide your institution through the complex process of decarbonization, with support from campus and industry experts every step of the way.