David Johnson
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infpwriter.bsky.social
David Johnson
@infpwriter.bsky.social

USAF veteran ('72-'78) embracing reason, rational thinking, education, facts, and objective truth; insatiably curious; exploring climate science, cosmology, photography, and whatever cats dream about all day.

Economics 35%
Engineering 16%
Pinned
"The idea that some lives matter less is the root of all that is wrong with the world." - Dr. Paul Farmer

Trump has made The Onion totally irrelevant.

Reposted by David Johnson

Climate change - from CO₂ to crisis. It starts with accumulation of greenhouse gas emissions but leads to multiple global repercussions. Climate change isn’t a distant threat — it’s a systemic chain reaction already in motion & steadily increasing in severity.

Reposted by David Johnson

"The word listen contains the same letters as the word silent." - Alfred Brendel

"Climate-related disasters forcibly displaced 250 million people globally over the past decade, the equivalent of 70,000 displacements every day, according to a report by the UN refugee agency (UNHCR). The figure includes people who have been displaced multiple times." #ClimateCrisis

"He aggressively wrote this very expansive opinion, ignoring the language of the Constitution that says in two places, the job of the president is to faithfully execute the law. And nothing could be less faithful than breaking the law." - Pema Levy

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"Our Sun is a second- or third-generation star. All of the rocky and metallic material we stand on, the iron in our blood, the calcium in our teeth, the carbon in our genes were produced billions of years ago in the interior of a red giant star. We are made of star-stuff."

-Carl Sagan

Reposted by David Johnson

“This is now a MAGA court, and Roberts is at the helm."
Taking stock of the Roberts court at 20—and the shadowy forces that built it
"Roberts will go down in history as the most destructive chief justice."
www.motherjones.com

Reposted by David Johnson

If you were born after 1976 — which is two thirds of humanity — you've never experienced a colder-than-average year.

That is, a year when the global mean surface temperature was below the 20th-century average (1901-2000 baseline).

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Impossible to ignore what’s happening to #Arctic temperatures in the month of November...

Data from @copernicusecmwf.bsky.social ERA5 reanalysis.
📣 We just released a new free resource at @climatecentral.org - a 72-slide deck introducing key facts about climate change, including its causes, impacts, and solutions. It also comes with speaker notes and links for local storytelling.

➡️ www.climatecentral.org/climate-matt... (English & Spanish)

Reposted by David Johnson

Climate disasters displaced 250 Million people in past 10 years, UN report finds

Floods, storms and droughts have uprooted people across the globe as rising temperatures intensify conflict and hunger

www.theguardian.com/environment/...
Climate disasters displaced 250 million people in past 10 years, UN report finds
Floods, storms and droughts have uprooted people across the globe as rising temperatures intensify conflict and hunger
www.theguardian.com

"Methane is a greenhouse gas 80 times more powerful than carbon dioxide and is responsible for about a third of the warming recently recorded. Cutting it could be an “emergency brake” on global temperatures, but so far, countries have not taken the measures needed."

Three-dimensional chess, or a profound lack of courage and conviction on display?

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BREAKING: Senate takes first step to end government shutdown after some moderate Democrats agreed to proceed without a guaranteed extension of health care subsidies, angering many in their caucus who say Americans want them to continue the fight.
Senate takes first step toward ending the government shutdown
The Senate took the first step to end the government shutdown on Sunday after a group of moderate Democrats agreed to proceed without a guaranteed extension of health care subsidies, angering many in their caucus who wanted to continue the fight.
bit.ly

Reposted by David Johnson

Record high ocean temperatures continued across the North Pacific in October 2025, with recent warming really amplifying since the early 2000s.

This graph shows the average for a band across the midlatitudes for every October from 1854-2025 using
NOAA ERSSTv5 data (psl.noaa.gov/data/gridded...).
Yet another record breaking storm supersized by a warming world 😢

Climate change doesn’t create these storms: it makes them worse. They intensify faster, reach higher strengths and dump more rain.

That’s why climate action isn’t just about saving the planet: it’s quite literally about saving US.
Fung-wong: Super typhoon hits Philippines as nearly a million evacuate
Typhoon Fung-wong, with sustained winds of 185 km/h (115mph), made landfall on Sunday evening local time.
www.bbc.com

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Here's a look at the extent of the "warmth" across the #Arctic in October. This map uses my normal anomaly scaling for each month, but it clearly doesn't work for something this extreme.

Data from doi.org/10.24381/cds...

Reposted by David Johnson

Reposted by David Johnson

Super Typhoon Fung-wong, the biggest storm to threaten the Philippines this year, started battering the country’s northeastern coast ahead of landfall on Sunday, knocking down power, forcing the evacuation of more than a million people.
More than a million people evacuate as Super Typhoon Fung-wong threatens the Philippines
Super Typhoon Fung-wong, the biggest storm to threaten the Philippines this year, has started battering the country’s northeastern coast ahead of landfall.
bit.ly

Reposted by David Johnson

What do you get when you combine malignant narcissism with dementia? An existential threat.
Via @thetimes.com Radio: www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OtO...
‘The smoking gun’ that points to Trump’s cognitive decline | Psychologist analyses Trump
YouTube video by Times Radio
www.youtube.com

Reposted by David Johnson

Freedom to think or believe is something entirely separate from freedom to impose your thoughts or beliefs on others. If freedom is to mean anything, then government should protect not the right to impose, but the freedom from that imposition.

Ignoring reality doesn't make it go away.

"The current administration has successfully and systematically defunded most of its institutions providing the most scientifically sound information and educational materials about climate change."

www.realclimate.org/index.php/ar...
RealClimate: Raising Climate Literacy
RealClimate: Guest commentary by Figen Mekik Climate change has become “that” topic – like evolution of species, plate tectonics, or AI where the public has heard so much about it that many think . Su...
www.realclimate.org

Reposted by David Johnson

It's not every day that both poles set new monthly temperature records (see my earlier post). Last month also observed the warmest October on record for the #Arctic Circle. Not great!!

Data provided by doi.org/10.24381/cds....

Reposted by David Johnson

"Those who make uncritical observations or fraudulent claims lead us into error and deflect us from the major human goal of understanding how the world works. It is for this reason that playing fast and loose with the truth is a very serious matter."

-Carl Sagan, Broca's Brain

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We created a system where those most lacking in basic human decency and empathy attain the most wealth, influence, and power. What could possibly go wrong?
#Trillionaires #ElonMusk
"The current state of American capitalism isn’t sustainable. It doesn’t deserve to be sustained. And the best way to avoid an American version of “eat the rich” is to fix the current “let them eat cake” distortion of capitalism into which we’ve fallen."

www.thebulwark.com/p/let-them-e...
Let Them Eat AI-Generated Cake
Elon Musk and the coming twilight of the elites.
www.thebulwark.com

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“I helped make a film, out this week, called ‘Rovina’s Choice,’ about the deaths [men] without conscience or accountability [Musk, Trump, and Rubio] caused [by dismantling USAID] — already 600,000, two-thirds of them children.” @agawande.bsky.social

bsky.app/profile/agaw...
bsky.app/profile/ifin...

“We found that the most effective interventions were those that show #climatechange is already affecting people and their way of life may be changed or lost due to climate change.”

"That connection between personal impact and motivation seems to be key."

Reposted by David Johnson

China is, without a doubt, leading global efforts to slash emissions from dirty industries. But the U.S. and dozens of other countries are still making significant progress.