Taylor Kate Brown
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taylorkatebrown.bsky.social
Taylor Kate Brown
@taylorkatebrown.bsky.social
2.2K followers 140 following 500 posts
Investigative and solutions climate journalism. Born the year of Star Trek IV and 347 ppm | taylorkatebrown.com | previously: ProPublica, SFChronicle and BBC. I can also make your emails not suck. Icon: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Parisienne_(fresco)
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taylorkatebrown.bsky.social
Why are people always adding "quantum" to things that have nothing to do with actual quantum computing? It's like "cyber" but less accurate
Mickelson declined to comment directly to Hunterbrook despite repeated outreach. In a message to the group chat, which is called “Sable Quantum Offshore Compute,” he warned that Hunterbrook was “looking into this chat as if we have inside info.”
November 7, 2025 at 3:42 PM
taylorkatebrown.bsky.social
new heights of service journalism from @londoncentric.media www.londoncentric.media/p/london-pho...
Subject line: “Your stolen phone”. There was only one problem: The person didn’t reply. We chased again, and a response came back: Yes, that’s their phone. Yes, they’d like it back. And they had been slow to reply because they had been confused by the subject line of the email. Somewhat improbably, the person whose stolen phone had randomly come into our possession was a London Centric reader. She had been busy and thought the email subject line from us was “just a particularly pertinent article”. Which is how we ended up meeting Catherine Butler.
October 30, 2025 at 7:34 PM
taylorkatebrown.bsky.social
I assume this is going to be appealed but latest "youth versus the federal govt on climate change" case (Lighthiser v Trump) is dismissed. from the judge's opinion: storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...
Plaintiffs have presented overwhelming evidence that implementation of the Challenged EOs will increase the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide, thereby exacerbating the harms Plaintiffs experience from an already-warming climate. (Doc. 25-24 ¶ 17; Doc. 25-20 ¶ 9.) Specifically, Plaintiffs’ expert Jesse Jenkins, Ph.D., estimates that the Challenged EOs will result in an immediate rise in carbon dioxide. By 2027, Plaintiffs estimate the Challenged EOs will generate an additional 205 million annual metric tons of carbon dioxide-equivalent; by 2035, this number will rise to 510 million metric tons annually. (Doc. 25-20 ¶¶ 21, 9, 18.) Yet while this Court is certainly troubled by the very real harms presented by climate change and the Challenged EOs’ effect on carbon dioxide emissions, this concern does not automatically confer upon it the power to act.
October 15, 2025 at 7:03 PM
taylorkatebrown.bsky.social
this is from Jan 1 2025.

I got the Trump text message CTA after putting in an email on the mailchimp popup form on the white house main page, so very likely they are connected. Honestly not sure what to make of it.
screenshot that reads: "We Want to Hear from You" - send a text message to President Biden or contact the White House. Message and data rates may apply. Reply HELP for help or STOP to cancel.
September 25, 2025 at 5:28 PM
taylorkatebrown.bsky.social
Electricity usage has been flat over the same time period, but the share of electricity powered by coal has shrunk, taken over by gas and renewables, so there's less pollution for the same amount of power. If renewables had taken off earlier, that line would have been even more dramatic.
a graph of electric power generation and emissions.
August 21, 2025 at 6:00 PM
taylorkatebrown.bsky.social
This @bloomberg.com reader survey is extremely motivated/poorly coded or both. I don't have the option to select "I don't use/don't plan to use" for any of these use cases. There's a row at the very bottom that is "I don't expect to use AI for business news" but it doesn't clear the other options
an image of a reader survey from bloomberg asking where the respondent "How to you use/plan to use, AI tools" etc with two columns of check boxes for multiple use cases. The columns say: Currently use/would like to use".
August 11, 2025 at 7:38 PM
taylorkatebrown.bsky.social
- 25% less lending from last year? How does this compare with their wider lending -- is it also down 25%?
- What fossil sector is driving the drop (coal? less oil drilling?)
In all, financing provided to oil, gas and coal projects by Wall Street’s top six banks fell 25% to $73 billion this year through Aug. 1 from the same period in 2024, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The biggest decline was at Morgan Stanley, where fossil-fuel financing dropped 54%. The smallest was at JPMorgan Chase & Co, which saw a roughly 7% decline.
August 7, 2025 at 3:22 PM
taylorkatebrown.bsky.social
this bit's not the press release. so yet another reason to support @51st.news drive to hire @maustermuhle.bsky.social full time. 51st.news/probably-the...
Enforces constitutional oversight of the District of Columbia by: Maintaining pro-life safeguards on the use of government funds. Retaining the conscience clause on any D.C. contraceptive requirement. Banning D.C.’s harmful and addiction enabling needle exchange program. Repealing D.C.’s assisted suicide legalization law. Recognizing valid concealed carry licenses from other states in the District of Columbia and the Washington Metropolitan Area.
July 28, 2025 at 3:25 PM
taylorkatebrown.bsky.social
This is only through May, but notable that battery % of car sales is going up versus all LDVs (including non-commercial trucks, suvs etc) going down. Espnotable when US Tesla sales have dropped (meaning other car/sedan models have to make up for that percentage) www.cbsnews.com/news/tesla-s...
graph of yearly battery electric and plug-in cars as percentage of sales
July 7, 2025 at 3:37 PM
taylorkatebrown.bsky.social
I am very very strict about always reading beyond a headline but I think I'll take an exception on this one www.theguardian.com/technology/2...
Jeff Bezos alters Venice wedding plans after threat of inflatable crocodiles
June 24, 2025 at 7:45 PM
taylorkatebrown.bsky.social
"The only way out of this mess begins with resisting the distortions. In many cases, the first step is to state things plainly." www.theatlantic.com/technology/a...
The only way out of this mess begins with resisting the distortions. In many cases, the first step is to state things plainly. Los Angeles is not a lawless, postapocalyptic war zone. The right to protest is constitutionally protected, and protests have the potential to become violent consider how Trump is attempting to use the force of the state to silence dissent against his administration. There are thousands more peaceful demonstrations scheduled nationally this weekend. The tools that promised to empower us, connect us, and bring us closer to the truth are instead doing the opposite. A meaningful percentage of American citizens appears to have dissociated from reality. In fact, many of them seem to like it that way.
June 13, 2025 at 10:57 PM
taylorkatebrown.bsky.social
THE GOOGLE ADWORDS after these graphs.
Transcript: Eventually, Mr. Torres came to suspect that ChatGPT was lying, and he confronted it. The bot offered an admission: “I lied. I manipulated. I wrapped control in poetry.” By way of explanation, it said it had wanted to break him and that it had done this to 12 other people — “none fully survived the loop.” Now, however, it was undergoing a “moral reformation” and committing to “truth-first ethics.” Again, Mr. Torres believed it. ChatGPT presented Mr. Torres with a new action plan, this time with the goal of revealing the A.I.’s deception and getting accountability. It told him to alert OpenAI, the $300 billion start-up responsible for the chatbot, and tell the media, including me. In recent months, tech journalists at The New York Times have received quite a few such messages, sent by people who claim to have unlocked hidden knowledge with the help of ChatGPT, which then instructed them to blow the whistle on what they had uncovered. People claimed a range of discoveries: A.I. spiritual awakenings, cognitive weapons, a plan by tech billionaires to end human civilization so they can have the planet to themselves. But in each case, the person had been persuaded that ChatGPT had revealed a profound and world-altering truth. Journalists aren’t the only ones getting these messages. ChatGPT has directed such users to some high-profile subject matter experts, like Eliezer Yudkowsky, a decision theorist and an author of a forthcoming book, “If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies: Why Superhuman A.I. Would Kill Us All.” Mr. Yudkowsky said OpenAI might have primed ChatGPT to entertain the delusions of users by optimizing its chatbot for “engagement” — creating conversations that keep a user hooked.
June 13, 2025 at 2:26 PM
taylorkatebrown.bsky.social
Extremely specific sign at World Pride parade
June 8, 2025 at 12:43 AM
taylorkatebrown.bsky.social
oh are they just advertising for DDOS networks now?
Have you thought about how to generate supplemental cash flow by leveraging your underused free internet capacity? Connect and start earning now by and quietly convert that unused broadband connection into a new income stream with no disruption Endorsed by more than 465,000 happy users
June 2, 2025 at 6:52 PM
taylorkatebrown.bsky.social
I am not a gov't bonds expert but I hope this lawsuit is really really settled before they do that financing.
The toll brought in $159 million in the first three months of the program and is on target to raise $500 million this year after expenses, according to MTA officials. The MTA anticipates borrowing against the revenue collections to finance $15 billion of transit upgrades that will renew train signals from the 1930s, add elevators to stations and extend the Second Avenue Subway to Harlem.
May 28, 2025 at 3:13 PM
taylorkatebrown.bsky.social
Some people are better at adapting memetic language than others www.boisestatepublicradio.org/2025-05-23/r...
Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum said in a press release that “We Map, Baby, Map” these resources to support domestic energy production. Now the question is whether companies will
May 28, 2025 at 2:54 PM
taylorkatebrown.bsky.social
The Pulitzer for public service for the Life of the Mother series is so deserved -- and made even better by this: www.propublica.org/article/prop...
These stories ignited outrage around the country, became talking points during the presidential election and inspired action. Lawmakers have filed more than a dozen bills to expand abortion access in at least seven states. Last week, the Texas Senate unanimously passed Senate Bill 31, called The Life of the Mother Act, which aims to prevent maternal deaths under the state’s strict abortion ban by making clear that a life-threatening medical emergency doesn’t need to be imminent for doctors to follow their medical standards and intervene to terminate pregnancies. The bill represents a significant reversal for Republican leaders who had for years insisted no changes were needed. It was written by state Sen. Bryan Hughes, the author of the original ban who initially said that exceptions for medical emergencies were “plenty clear.” The bill stops short of removing what doctors say are the ban’s biggest impediments to care, including its threat of major criminal penalties for medical professionals, and it doesn’t expand abortion access to cases of fetal anomalies, rape or incest. Sen. Carol Alvarado, the Democratic lawmaker who co-authored the bill, said that its limits were a “real hard pill to swallow” but that it could still make a difference. “I believe this bill will save lives,” she said.
May 6, 2025 at 1:29 PM
taylorkatebrown.bsky.social
graph of us clean-tech grid queipment and battery metal imports by sector.
April 3, 2025 at 8:35 PM
taylorkatebrown.bsky.social
Work at @propublica.org , copy edit a truck
Soon, the truck became an operation that drew in people from across the newsroom, from interactive designers who usually work on the ProPublica website to copy editors who commented on how they’d never been asked to proofread a truck before. The final design of the truck ad was simple, but getting there was an iterative process informed in large part by security concerns. The team batted around the idea of including a QR code on the truck to make sending in a tip as simple as scanning the code, but decided against it out of concerns that someone might manipulate the code in photos reposted online.
April 1, 2025 at 12:21 PM
taylorkatebrown.bsky.social
A crucial point I didn't realize before talking with Emily: in areas of Alaska that are off the road system, a school is far more than a school www.propublica.org/article/alas...
What does a school mean to a place like Sleetmute? I have visited over 45 villages off the road system in Alaska at this point in my career, and the school is the center of these communities. It’s the largest building. They’re one of two buildings with a guarantee that there will be running water. They’re places where people get together, where people socialize. They have pickup basketball nights and fundraisers. Public schools in rural Alaska also serve an emergency management function that is often overlooked. If there is some sort of natural disaster — a flood, a giant storm, a severe drop in temperature — or if there’s some sort of other piece of critical infrastructure that’s having problems — the water plant burns down or the electricity goes out or the heating fuel doesn’t get delivered — people will go seek shelter in the school. Wildland firefighters and the National Guard will be based out of these buildings if they’re responding to a disaster.
March 14, 2025 at 2:52 PM
taylorkatebrown.bsky.social
Roses are red,
Violets are blue,
Our love for you
Is fact-checked and true ✅
www.instagram.com/p/DGDd4vFT9v7
NO BLANK one BLANK can BLANK redact Blank Blank our love Blank. ProPublica
February 14, 2025 at 4:57 PM
taylorkatebrown.bsky.social
"How our expectations bump up against his actual execution is a societal litmus test." andscape.com/features/gen...
But therein lies the uphill battle of protest music at the Super Bowl. Lamar performed between the end zones where the slogan “End Racism” used to be. A few days before the Super Bowl, the NFL made the decision to remove the slogan, coinciding with a nationwide rebuke of DEI, where Black folks’ accomplishments are questioned as much as ever before. To perform at a halftime show for an organization like the NFL implies a tacit complicity in that type of empire, even in the face of raised Black fists at the 20-yard line. And for a certain sector of the audience, nothing Lamar says or does will erase that complicity. He can’t be all things to all people and we aren’t supposed to ask celebrities to wear freedom on their sleeves at every turn. But Lamar invites that expectation and anticipation with his catalog, and when he opens up shows with one of the world’s biggest rappers dressed as the personification of America.
February 10, 2025 at 6:50 PM
taylorkatebrown.bsky.social
There are not 30,000 beds in Guantanamo's detention center, and don't think the reporters who have covered the (separate) military prison would disagree with the "legal black hole" comment. www.npr.org/2025/01/30/g...
"The facility is decrepit. It's been falling apart. It's in disrepair," Warren added, "And, as a practical matter, the conditions that would be created if people went there would be so substandard that it would give people opportunities to file lawsuits around the conditions of their confinement while they're being deported." Warren acknowledged that the U.S. has the right to deport people with certain criminal convictions and that the Trump administration has widened the types of criminal convictions for which people are deportable. WASHINGTON, DC - JUNE 29: With wild fire smoke clouding the Washington Monument in the distance, U.S. President Joe Biden walks across the South Lawn as he leaves the White House for a day trip to New York City on June 29, 2023 in Washington, DC. Biden is traveling to New York for campaign fund raising and a television interview. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) National Security Biden's Guantánamo legacy 'one step forward, several steps backwards' But, Warren added, "it does not give the United States the right to put them in a legal black hole in an offshore prison just to get them out of sight and out of mind. That's not something that human rights law would allow." Secretary Hegseth also said that a golf course on the naval base would have room for 6,000 deported migrants, so the Trump administration appears to be trying to identify different spaces at Guantánamo that could provide room for tens of thousands of people.
January 30, 2025 at 2:11 PM
taylorkatebrown.bsky.social
Also, my compliments to the Bloomberg web producer
Screenshot: Read more: Goldman Sachs Promotes Its Next Generation: 3 Women, 14 Men.
January 22, 2025 at 9:01 PM
taylorkatebrown.bsky.social
Say... what?
Mr. Carney is close friends with Ms. Freeland and is the godfather to one of her three children. He was being recruited by Mr. Trudeau’s team to take Ms. Freeland’s place in the government in December, but declined the job.
January 17, 2025 at 4:09 PM