Ken Caldeira

Folks, I am really appreciative of people who have followed me and added me to their starter packs. I post about climate science, energy system transition, and related issues. I try to restrain myself to information and questions, and try to avoid unseemly opining in public.

Trump sues everyone for defamation, except for the women who accuse him of rape. I wonder why.

BREAKING: New damning evidence has surfaced of the White House and DOGE directing the termination of National Science Foundation grants for congressionally mandated programs. 🔗 bit.ly/3Wcbw11

A 2025 Nobel Prize winner in chemistry, Omar Yaghi is the son of Palestinian refugees who grew up in Jordan. He just left the US to move to China after raising concerns about rising anti-immigrant sentiment, like the kind shown here. donmoynihan.substack.com/p/china-than...

Beyond disgusted by even more rape allegations against the President of the United States. "In total, more than 25 different women...have independently accused Donald Trump of rape, sexual assault, or other sexual misconduct." Report w/ new details: democrats-judiciary.house.gov/sites/evo-su...

Many things are happening that seem more extreme than projected by climate models. Can anybody think of climate outcomes that are milder than what the climate models projected? www.npr.org/2026/10/05/n...

Today I am in the METU climate talks which is lead by Mustafa Yucel, on a panel with Carlos Duarte @carlosduartephd.bsky.social, Ken Caldeira from Stanford University @kencaldeira.com where I will discuss #EDITO and the work that the @emarineboard.bsky.social is doing on @surimi-project.bsky.social

'Elon Musk, make sure Starlink keeps all records and communications regarding your alliance with Russia. Subpoenas are coming. I am sure the European market will want to know what happened.' www.newsbreak.com/combat-rated...

🌊 Did I miss something? 🤔 Does the CEO of Google get to decide what the oceans are called now? edition.cnn.com/2026/10/22/p...

I should perhaps have said, "Untroubled by social conscience or historical understanding, they cause disaster."

Criminal

Huge follow-up reporting to my scoop: The Guardian confirmed America Next—the conservative nonprofit founded by Bobby Jindal that was offering students $ to disrupt El-Sayed events—paid a firm registered to Tommy Teepell’s dad Timmy $250k for “canvassing and influencer marketing” against El-Sayed.

It used to be said that China is a country run by engineers and the United States is a country run by lawyers. Over the past decade, the United States has become a country run by business people. Untroubled by empirical facts or legal niceties, they cause disaster. www.nytimes.com/2026/10/18/o...

"In Arizona, a Trump Administration immigration judge ordered a 1-year-old baby appearing without a lawyer to file an asylum application, according to court filings..." www.nytimes.com/2026/10/15/u...

I bought Sally Rooney's Intermezzo today (having earlier read and enjoyed Normal People).

Update: about 4 hours later and we still don't have admin access so we still can't post to the No Kings instagram account. This isn't slowing down the the 3,000+ early vote events today. We will drive the biggest early vote in history. But this should be a flashing alarm about what's to come.

Trump thought through his war on Iran with the same depth that he thought through his appointment of a press secretary.

(Reuters) - The order to limit a satellite system used by Ukraine for battlefield communications and drone operations came from inside the White House, according to two US officials and a Western official briefed on the matter. @reuters.com 🇺🇦 www.reuters.com/world/europe...

Court ordered release only to be reaarrested - sometimes violently, the moment they step outside...Habeas is meaningless. Nazis are as Nazis do.

Criminals betraying our country, betraying the world. The downfall of the United States as we have known it, aided and abetted by self-serving elites in commerce and politics.

The United States is the world's biggest exporter of diesel oil. Trump and the Republicans want to blame Zelensky and give money to Putin. They want to import Russian diesel while we export diesel to others. If you want to decrease diesel exports, put a windfall profits tax on the oil companies.

This is what the entire Republican Party is facilitating. Obviously nutty, but he lets them all be as corrupt as they want to be.

What could possibly go wrong? www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

I have allowed the internet to damage my ability to concentrate on prose that does not constantly send dopamine into my brain. I need to rebuild my attachment to long form prose.

Can someone with knowledge comment on this paper? Would effects of evaporation counterbalance effects of precipitation? Fresh water cannot hold much CO2 so it is not immediately obvious to me that precipitation would increase ocean carbon uptake. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Wtaf is this question my university just asked me about my project?

When does the mainstream commercial media start using the word "traitors" to describe the Republicans who are undermining the long-term interests of the United States for their corrupt short-term gain? The venality of the Republicans is disgusting. The timidity of the Democrats is disappointing.

The "free speech absolutists" are at it again. www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

"Their tongue and their eyes are not to be pulled out; their ears and their feet are not to be cut off; their houses with their wives and their children are not to be destroyed." www.livescience.com/archaeology/...

Sen. Susan Collins helped steer millions in federal defense contracts to Navatek, whose CEO illegally funneled thousands of dollars to her campaign. The FBI sought to launch a probe and was eyeing Collins and other lawmakers. Then Trump gutted the unit in charge. THREAD 🧵

The labor share of economic output hit its lowest point on record in Q2 2026.

The idea that "regenerative" grazing is a climate solution has really taken hold in some quarters. But the science is clear: It doesn't work. Methane and land-use emissions just overwhelm any soil carbon benefits. Here's a great piece by @nicholasdcarter.bsky.social drawdown.org/insights/eig...

NEW: The Trump regime plans to "cripple the court by prohibiting it from conducting transactions in U.S. dollars, cutting it off from much of the global financial system" to protect war criminal Bibi. Marco Rubio’s view is "that the ICC poses a threat to American sovereignty." 🎁 t2m.co/ZmzD7to9

The failure of the White House Press Corp to work together is an indictment of American journalism. If the President does not answer a question, every other reporter should follow up with the same question. Like the politicians, the press values personal advancement over the public good.

Are the AI-end-timers the same people who were predicting for years about a technological singularity (and human immortality), or is this a new cohort? New bottles for old (and possibly correct) ideas? www.salon.com/2026/09/16/a... en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technol... en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sin...

Cool videos of tiny things ... www.nikonsmallworld.com/galleries/20...

More threats from Donald Trump to destroy our economy if the Federal Reserve Bank does not do his bidding. "This month, the president threatened to halt a broad swath of trade if interest rates were not cut, a possibility he resurfaced on Wednesday." www.nytimes.com/2026/09/16/b...

Spammy political SMS fundraising messages are making SMS texts unusable. On Android, there is no way to set it to accept texts from contacts only. How much of this money is getting to the candidates and how much is going to consultants or is outright fraud? nonprofitnewsfeed.com/news/politic...

Spammy political SMS fundraising messages are making SMS texts unusable. On Android, there is no way to set it to accept texts from contacts only. How much of this money is getting to the candidates and how much is going to consultants or is outright fraud? nonprofitnewsfeed.com/news/politic...

The people who placed people in these cages should be put in prison. The same goes for the people who approved construction of these cages, authorized payments, etc. The detainees were accused of civil violations only. They were not accused of any crime. Only criminals treat people this way.

Kings in ancient Mesopotamia made statements to the effect that a central role of government is to protect the less powerful against abuse by the more powerful. We have lost that understanding of government. Urukagina (Uruinimgina), 2350 BCE. Ur-Nammu, 2100 BCE. Hammarubi, 1750 BCE.

What could The New York Times possibly mean by this headline? Maybe it got cut off and they meant "moving on to become a fascist dictatorship"? Maybe instead of “moving on" they meant to write "sinking under"? www.nytimes.com/2026/09/10/u...