Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Bromptonymous 🇨🇦 @bromptonymous.ca · 6h

Are you saying canyon streets good? Or bad?

Bromptonymous 🇨🇦 @bromptonymous.ca · 7h

With a main floor restaurant on the street side? It was incredibly vibrant. Best place I’ve ever lived. I’m a big fan of Jacobs’ criteria for good urbanism and a bit agnostic / contextual for how to achieve it…

- sufficient density
- mixed use
- different ages of buildings
- short blocks.

1

Bromptonymous 🇨🇦 @bromptonymous.ca · 7h

There’s some other stuff that I can’t quite cite right now about how lower buildings done right (like single stair) actually give equivalent density to tall towers with a bunch of benefits. I think of my apartment in Berlin all the time, 4 storey single stair with cross breeze and courtyard. Dreamy.

1 1

Bromptonymous 🇨🇦 @bromptonymous.ca · 8h

Ability for interaction / conversation with the street I think is how Jan Gehl described it. Jane Jacobs wrote about the relationship to sidewalks, which feels similar to Gehl. I don’t think it’s made up, but it feels a little woo. It does suggest street width = building height for good urbanism tho

2 4

Reposted by Bromptonymous 🇨🇦

Claire Kraatz @climatemamaclaire.bsky.social · Feb 15

This is how the fossil fuel industry infiltrates our K-12 #education system. #abed

Must read from journalist Marc Fawcett-Atkinson of the @nationalobserver.com

cc @ata38.bsky.social @schilldawg.bsky.social

www.nationalobserver.com/2024/09/13/n...

2 8 13

Reposted by Bromptonymous 🇨🇦

Occupy Calgary 🇨🇦 @calgaryoccupy.bsky.social · Feb 16

~Women are the new target of Canada's fossil fuel greenwashing machine

A look at the players behind the organization reveals a group that is entwined with Canada's fossil fuel&petrochemical industries.
All of its 6 founding board members are O&G executives who speak routinely at industry events.

Written in a seemingly neutral and measured tone, the post highlights the environmental demands associated with producing electric car batteries and the cost of installing home chargers or finding them on the road. It concludes with a laundry list of potential problems arising from EVs, offering little reassurance they are a viable purchase for people with busy lives.
Click through to Canada Powered by Women’s website, and you’ll find dozens of other blog posts targeted at women that throw shade on new technology and climate policy designed to draw down planet-heating greenhouse gas emissions. Many of the titles reveal a bias; for instance, a blog post asks if “net-zero homes are worth the cost," while another asks if there is "a credible alternative to the carbon tax."

8 19

Reposted by Bromptonymous 🇨🇦

Catomama 🇨🇦 @catomama.bsky.social · 7d

That was about the same time as amalgamation wad supposed yo say municipalities money. Ummm Nope

1 5

Reposted by Bromptonymous 🇨🇦

Michael Nabert @sustainablesong.bsky.social · 1d

The carbon tax paid c.80% of citizens more than it cost us. Only the wealthiest polluters were out of pocket. Cancelling it expressly benefits the wealthy while impoverishing the rest of us.

Plus, we need more robust climate policy, not less of it.

3/

sustainablesong.medium.com/bring-on-the...

Bring on the $1000 carbon price

Once you understand why, you might prefer $10,000

sustainablesong.medium.com

1 12 27

Bromptonymous 🇨🇦 @bromptonymous.ca · 11h

We don’t make anything anymore. Last in the oecd in research. Low cultural production. Manufacturing basically offshore. Resource extraction, real estate and financialization …

Bromptonymous 🇨🇦 @bromptonymous.ca · 15h

We’re living in a time of civil war. Most people don’t realize that yet.

Carl Quintanilla @carlquintanilla.bsky.social · 19h

POLITICO: “.. They referred to Black people as monkeys and ‘the watermelon people’ and mused about putting their political opponents in gas chambers. They talked about raping their enemies .. and lauded Republicans who they believed support slavery.

@politico.com
www.politico.com/news/2025/10...

3

Bromptonymous 🇨🇦 @bromptonymous.ca · 15h

What Canadian research? What Canadian culture? What Canadian production? Great questions without easy answers.

1

Bromptonymous 🇨🇦 @bromptonymous.ca · 15h

Fabulous interview of @nolore.bsky.social about the decline of Canada.
podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/t...

The Decline and Fall of the Canadian State (w/ Nora Loreto)

Podcast Episode · The Hatchet · 2025-10-08 · 1h 6m

podcasts.apple.com

2 2 7

Reposted by Bromptonymous 🇨🇦

Dr Abeba Birhane @abeba.bsky.social · 16h

i don't have the words to emphasise how seriously bad things are gonna get

61 290 1K

Bromptonymous 🇨🇦 @bromptonymous.ca · 16h

Can’t convince me that they’ve figured out the rear wheel strength thing to ride an adult on the back like that.

1 3

Reposted by Bromptonymous 🇨🇦

David Ho @davidho.bsky.social · 1d

Ok, since many people are obviously not reading the article, here's a pertinent figure from it showing the top actions to reduce emissions.

A horizontal bar chart titled “19 climate-friendly choices, ranked” shows actions individuals can take to reduce their carbon footprint, ordered from most to least impactful. The x-axis represents projected impact in tons of CO₂ equivalent per capita per year (tCO₂e/cap/yr), ranging from 0 to about 2.5. Each action is color-coded by sector: transportation (blue), energy (orange), and food (green).

Go car-free – highest impact (blue bar extending to about 2.5 tCO₂e).

Fly less (blue, about 1.5).

Shift to renewable home energy (orange, about 1.4).

Switch to EV or hybrid car (blue, about 1.2).

Go vegan (green, about 1.0).

Walk, bike, or take transit more (blue).

Make energy-efficient renovations (orange).

Use clean cooking equipment (orange).

Go vegetarian (green).

Shift driving habits (e.g., carpooling) (blue).

Increase telecommuting (blue).

Shift to regional/seasonal diet (green).

Move to energy-efficient home (orange).

Decrease food waste (green).

Eat less meat (green).

Use less energy at home (orange).

Reduce packaged food, dining out (green).

Use energy-efficient appliances (orange).

Compost – least impact (green, under 0.1).

A note clarifies that these are meta-analytic estimates of greenhouse gas reduction potentials, drawn from 659 estimates across 47 academic journal articles. The average person emits 6.28 tonnes of CO₂e per year, though this varies widely by income and country. Wealthier populations may emit up to 110 tonnes per year, while lower-income populations may emit as little as 1.6 tonnes.

Source: WRI, based on data from Ivanova et al., 2020.

11 130 290

Reposted by Bromptonymous 🇨🇦

Edmonton Bike Coalition @yegbike.bsky.social · 17h

Why is going car-free so impactful?

A 🧵

#yegbike #climatechangeisreal

David Ho @davidho.bsky.social · 1d

Ok, since many people are obviously not reading the article, here's a pertinent figure from it showing the top actions to reduce emissions.

1 8 12

Reposted by Bromptonymous 🇨🇦

David Weiskopf believes in you @dave.bzky.team · 18h

You probably cannot afford a car, and you almost certainly can't afford not to have one. This is the definition of a policy failure.

A. Zivarts @nondriver.bsky.social · Aug 5

AAA estimates the average cost of owning a car is $12,297 a year, and recommends drivers spend no more than 10 percent of their income on car costs. This means you should make 120K to afford the average cost. Median *household* income in the US is $77K. The math just doesn't work.

5 27 96

Reposted by Bromptonymous 🇨🇦

Nora Loreto @nolore.bsky.social · 22h

Driving a car. You're basically on a livingroom couch staring forward like an idiot doing nothing.

Edith @edithcharles.bsky.social · Aug 23

What's something that isn't considered embarrassing but you think it should be?

7 43 260

Reposted by Bromptonymous 🇨🇦

Aparna Nair @disabilitystor1.bsky.social · 17h

yeah its totally worth it allowing Sammy boy's technology into our universities and classrooms.
Totally worth it to have brownouts and blackouts so the AI fetishists get their weird nonconsensual porn videos, that is the MOST important thing.
So glad politicians are doing fuck all to regulate AI.

Drew Harwell @drewharwell.com · 18h

Sam Altman went from “AI will cure cancer" to "ChatGPT porn" in less than a month

ChatGPT boss predicts when AI could cure cancer

We made ChatGPT pretty restrictive to make sure we were being careful with mental health issues. We realize this made it less useful/enjoyable to many users who had no mental health problems, but given the seriousness of the issue we wanted to get this right.

Now that we have been able to mitigate the serious mental health issues and have new tools, we are going to be able to safely relax the restrictions in most cases.

In a few weeks, we plan to put out a new version of ChatGPT that allows people to have a personality that behaves more like what people liked about 4o (we hope it will be better!). If you want your ChatGPT to respond in a very human-like way, or use a ton of emoji, or act like a friend, ChatGPT should do it (but only if you want it, not because we are usage-maxxing).

In December, as we roll out age-gating more fully and as part of our “treat adult users like adults” principle, we will allow even more, like erotica for verified adults.
12:02 PM · Oct 14, 2025
·
1.2M
Views

2 3 22

Reposted by Bromptonymous 🇨🇦

Kashana @kashana.blacksky.app · 22h

Why would a billionaire want a functioning paper? Functioning papers cover shit like “did you know this billionaire makes his workers pee into bottles instead of taking a break” and “you pay way more tax than a guy with ten yachts”

karl rove knausgård @uhactually.bsky.social · 1d

Lmao WaPo has fewer than 100K circulation now. It turns out “alienate your liberal subscriber base” is not a good strategy when the Republicans also hate you. www.forbes.com/sites/andyme...

The Washington Post Is Running Out Of Readers Willing To Pay

Once a titan of American journalism, The Washington Post now struggles to reach even 100,000 print subscribers most days.

www.forbes.com

50 690 2.7K

Reposted by Bromptonymous 🇨🇦

Warren Wells, AICP @warrenjwells.bsky.social · 18h

TIL that New York State only allows Class 3 e-bikes in cities with a population of 1 million or greater.

This is a category of exactly one city, i.e. New York City.

6 4 11

Reposted by Bromptonymous 🇨🇦

Warren Wells, AICP @warrenjwells.bsky.social · 18h

Honestly, if I were designing e-bike policy, I would be more likely to do the exact opposite of this.

If you want to prohibit Class 3 e-bikes anywhere in New York State, it should probably be in New York City.

2 1 12

Reposted by Bromptonymous 🇨🇦

Akshat Rathi @akshatrathi.bsky.social · 18h

China's gasoline demand peaked in 2021. www.iea.org/commentaries...

10 34

Reposted by Bromptonymous 🇨🇦

Paul Fischer @pfischer.bsky.social · 19h

Choosing Marilyn Monroe as an example for this is a prime -- and dark -- demonstration of how AI slop's core purpose is the erasure of consent for everyone, from the artists whose work has been stolen to the performers the user turns into lifeless puppets

Scientific American @sciam.bsky.social · 2d

Despite early, and familiar, copyright growing pains, Sora may be the prelude to AI-generated on-demand TV and movies

Want to See Marilyn Monroe in Game of Thrones? AI Could Make It Soon

Despite early, and familiar, copyright growing pains, Sora may be the prelude to AI-generated on-demand TV and movies

www.scientificamerican.com

3 32 90

Reposted by Bromptonymous 🇨🇦

Kate Clancy @kateclancy.bsky.social · 22h

I am being asked to tell my department which pieces of lab equipment should be supported with backup power because they expect rolling blackouts and brownouts in 2026 due to increased energy demands from AI. In case you're wondering how my day is going.

24 540 1.2K