Kate Mackenzie

@katemac.bsky.social

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understander of things climate-related, polycrisis co-writer, now somewhat less exhausted

Posts Replies Media

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Kate Mackenzie

Happy hundredth anniversary of this news headline from The Daily Times, New Philadelphia, Ohio. (July 9, 1924.)

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Kate Mackenzie

Oxford is doing a Goodreads giveaway for my book, *The Language of Climate Politics* 🏆 enter to win a free copy here 👇 www.goodreads.com/giveaway/sho...

Book giveaway for The Language of Climate Politics: Fossil-Fuel Propaganda and How to Fight It by Genevieve Guenther Jun 27-Jul 10, 2024www.goodreads.com Enter to win one of 15 free copies available. Giveaway dates from Jun 27-Jul 10, 2024. An examination of the false and destructive rhetoric justifying th...

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Kate Mackenzie

"can we harvest the sun faster than we can make computers squander all that energy" is a short summary of the 21st century

Does anyone know how to respond to this when trying to get Meta to stop using my data etc for AI in future?

Excellent point. But I'd add: even very experienced climate scientists can struggle with this. It's not like they're that different to everyone else who needs to pay their rent/mortgage.

Sooo many great nuggets in this piece. But for scientists joining the sector, I wanted to highlight this particular minefield: Many climate scientists now hired straight out of grad school, in junior positions with little authority to say, "no this product idea is bananas." Tread. Carefully.

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Kate Mackenzie

AI advocates will say things like this, and when you ask the obvious follow-up question of how, they use their five legs and car with a fireplace inside to evade answering

Bill Gates says artificial intelligence will "pay for itself" when it comes to its associated greenhouse gas emissions as the technology will help push forward the energy transition

Bill Gates Says AI’s Green Benefits Will Outweigh Its Emissionswww.bloomberg.com The Microsoft Corp. co-founder says data centers will be less energy-intensive in the future as artificial intelligence makes computations more efficient.

Oh yay there's a new German thinktank advocating for solely using emissions trading to cut co2 - just what they need right now. www.welt.de/wissenschaft...

Energiewende: Neue Denkfabrik „Republik21“ macht sich für eine andere Klimapolitik stark - WELTwww.welt.de Eine neue Denkfabrik will die geplante Energiewende und die Klimapolitik aufmischen. Zwei Gründungsmitglieder versprechen im WELT-Interview realistische und kostengünstige Lösungen – die allerdings au...

What!! Anne Stevenson-Yang has a book out!?! Gotta read that. www.ft.com/content/0507...

Beijing’s new world orderwww.ft.com Three new books on China help bring definition to the emerging economic contours of cold war 2.0

Incredible chart of changing relative size of major African countries' economies over past few years (from the FT but found via @kopalo.bsky.social ). Such a big upheaval since 2020. www.africanistperspective.com/p/why-exactl...

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Kate Mackenzie

A 5 yr Belgian study showed the BIG impact of increasing vehicle weight on road deaths & injuries. When a person on a bike or walking is hit by a pick-up, the risk of serious injury increases by 90% compared to a car. The risk of death goes up by 200%. www.vias.be/fr/newsroom/...

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Kate Mackenzie

If the disastrous rain storms are NOT due to climate change, then guess what? Climate change is going to make it even worse. You’re making an argument for more and stronger action, not less!

As residents and businesses in South Florida assessed the damage from this week’s historic rainfall and floods, Gov. Ron DeSantis and his administration pushed back against assertions that the storm had anything to do with climate change.

DeSantis rejects climate change rationale for record-breaking rainwapo.st Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and his administration are pushing back against assertions that the storm had anything to do with climate change.

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Kate Mackenzie

something something congestion pricing

spotted a new type of guy!!! (juggling for cars stuck in traffic guy)

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Kate Mackenzie

Fun fact: one of the authors of this absolute garbage study that somehow made it into Nature owns stock in Nvidia www.nature.com/articles/s41...

. . . as an aside, I just found the most dystopian article ever, "Carbon footprint lower for AI than human writers." I don't know how to talk to people whose values are so fucked.

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Kate Mackenzie

Reply to

CK DexterHaven

From the story, here's a guide folks in Canada put together on what to ask at risk folks (including elderly) during high heat, both if you're in-person or afar. Rather than asking if you're ok, you can ask "how are you sleeping?" and "what's the temp inside?" www.bccdc.ca/about/news-s...

Health checks during heat waves can help protect the most susceptiblewww.bccdc.ca A new health check guide by the National Collaborating Centre for Environmental Health helps to identify people at risk and provides guidance on how to keep cool during extreme heat events.

Is anyone looking at Opec+ lifting quota cuts through a demand decline lens or...?

I finally read @alexbhturnbull.bsky.social non-China solar manufacturing piece, and it's really good! syncretica.substack.com/p/should-the... If it's hard to follow (not least because there are multiple cost metrics), skip to the end:

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Kate Mackenzie

I have an oped in the @nytimes.com about the renewable energy transition. Gift link: www.nytimes.com/2024/06/01/o...

Opinion | Oil and Gas Companies Are Trying to Rig the Marketplacewww.nytimes.com Fossil fuel interests are spreading misinformation that renewable energy is harmful, unreliable and worse for consumers.

So over on teh other website Tim posted a link to the extremely low-key test version of our weekly Polycrisis email and launched of a bookclub that I thought it was figurative but turns out to be literal. You folk here deserve at least as much, so please have at it buttondown.email/polycrisisdi...

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Kate Mackenzie

To repeat: generative "A.I." is not inevitable. It's a derivative, boring bullshit generator. It wallows in mediocrity and fails by design and definition. Just say no.

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Kate Mackenzie

One thing I miss about Twitter, which benefited me tremendously, is it was a place for early career scientists to celebrate good news (a publication, a grant, an award) and get their name out there. Early career scientists of Bluesky, share some good professional news! I’ll re-post! 🧪🌎🦑

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Kate Mackenzie

BREAKING: China's CO2 emissions fell by 3% in March, after a surge lasting 14 months that followed the lifting of zero-Covid controls, showing the country has the ability to peak emissions imminently. THREAD 🧵 www.carbonbrief.org/...

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Kate Mackenzie

“Most physicians in Maine believe their patients' health is at risk from climate change, but very few communicate it to their patients. The findings come from a new study published this week in the Maine Policy Review.” www.mainepublic.org/health/2024-...

Maine physicians see climate change as a health risk, but often don't discuss it with patientswww.mainepublic.org Most physicians in Maine believe their patients' health is at risk from climate change, but very few communicate it to their patients. The findings come from a new study published this week in the Mai...

The "manicure economy" piece was lightweight, apolitical, Freakonomics for the AI age: 1) The insight that teamwork and interpersonal skills are important for new/future jobs is so old that it's embedded in primary schools. 2) Ooh lots of new jobs are for women! Esp those with shit pay, huh.

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Kate Mackenzie

"Why bother sending people to the websites that have the information when we can just steal it and keep them on our website" lol remember "don't be evil"

Web publishers brace for carnage as Google adds AI answerswww.washingtonpost.com The tech giant is rolling out AI-generated answers that displace links to human-written websites

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Kate Mackenzie

Y’all, if you don’t subscribe to the Gift Links feed, you are missing out on so much FREE amazing content. I know it’s important to support journalism, but to have free access to trending articles from WaPo, The Atlantic, NYT, and more has been the best thing about Bluesky for me.

Can’t stress how amazing this feed of all gift links/gift articles shared on Bluesky is. It’s largely the best of the stuff in traditional papers without the bullshit and fluff, shared by people who liked it enough to pay for it. bsky.app/profile/did:...

Finance knows finance is a follower and not a driver of change www.semafor.com/article/05/0...

Military generals report for duty on Wall Streetwww.semafor.com Wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, tensions in the South China Sea, and rising protectionism put a premium on Pentagon insider hires at financial firms.

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Kate Mackenzie

climate models are not weather models and this 3-year-old @katemac.bsky.social piece remains the best public facing explainer on this: www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

"As climate change progresses, many predictions of what will happen are based on climate, rather than weather, meaning that an atmospheric river-like event can totally upend expectations." Uprooter Chad Small for The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists thebulletin.org/2024/04/how-...

How an obscure atmospheric phenomenon causes catastrophic flooding in Californiathebulletin.org Incorporating the Madden Julian Oscillation into weather forecasting could give communities more time to prepare for extreme precipitation.

Companies Are Rushing to Pinpoint Climate Risks, But It’s Often Impossiblewww.bloomberg.com Businesses want to know exactly when and where they’re exposed. Scientists say their models can't provide such specific information.

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Kate Mackenzie

Reply to

Seth Cotlar

When I was in college in the 80s, the “annoying and counter-productive” college protests were aimed at South Africa’s apartheid regime. What sort of racist POS looks back and still thinks those kids were the baddies? Don’t answer that.

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Kate Mackenzie

I feel like we don't need AI ethics education, we just need Miyazaki to come to CS classes and look into students' souls

I will never not share this: youtu.be/ngZ0K3lWKRc?...

Hayao Miyazaki's thoughts on an artificial intelligenceyoutu.be

Mining companies worry about finance and *supply* because reliability trumps prices. "But the thing that most worries the mining industry – more than finance, more than the reliability of supply – is the so-called social license to operate." - @triofrancos.bsky.social granta.com/the-extracte...

The Extracted Earth | Thea Riofrancos | Grantagranta.com ‘It’s perhaps hard to imagine a country with abundant mineral or oil reserves simply leaving that wealth underground. But there are precedents here, historical and contemporary.’ The editor interviews...