Maggie Koerth

@maggiek.bsky.social

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Editorial Lead at Carbonplan. Nieman Fellow '15. A mom, allegedly.

Previously: @maggiekb1 on Twitter. Science journalist with FiveThirtyEight, NYT Magazine, BoingBoing, mental_floss, and etc.

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Calling all journalists! I'll be co-leading this along with my colleague, research scientist Grayson Badgley. We're going to walk reporters through the basics of how the carbon offsets industry is structured and how to use our OffsetsDB tool to aid your reporting!

Sign up for our July 9 webinar on carbon offsets with Journalist's Resource. This will be useful stuff both for climate reporters and folks covering other overlapping beats, like local politics, business, or land management. harvard.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

Welcome! You are invited to join a webinar: Inside OffsetsDB, a carbon offset repository from CarbonPlan. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email about joining the webinar.harvard.zoom.us Spend enough time browsing carbon offset data and you’re bound to turn up something surprising. Join host Clark Merrefield with presenters Grayson Badgley and Maggie Koerth of CarbonPlan to learn the ...

It’s very funny when kids run into memes without understanding the backstory. My oldest today informed me in a dead serious voice that she isn’t really sure about her sexual orientation yet, but the witchcraft sounds great and she would rather do that than church.

Hey, kinda sketchy Chinese clothing company! Why does the package I received display a lower price for the item than what I paid? “Oh, because we are absolutely lying to customs! Have a nice day!” This is on the company FAQ page, you guys.

Hey, did you guys know there are two species of flying squirrels native to Minnesota? I just found out.

Parents of small children: My hot tip for you today is to figure out what you have to do to clean beneath the backseat. Not just on the floorboards. But down in the space beneath the cushions … where the seatbelt buckles stand sentinel over the entrance to the dark realms.

I bootched too close to the sun. Turns out, cardamom is not a fun addition to a fruit punch kombucha. Deciding whether to dump it out or give myself Stockholm syndrome this week.

I get to open up my third batch of homemade kombucha this weekend, and I just gotta say this is going great as a hobby. It's very simple to do. I get flavored, fizzy, tart drink every week. And I experience the ADHD dopamine joy of picking a new rando flavor weekly for the next batch.

God help me, I am so tired of hearing about the deep lore of the Warrior cats. I’m gonna find the committee that writes those books and do something I regret.

The advanced reading group at the grade school made a movie of The Nightingale featuring the teacher’s very specific comedic vision, one of my kids singing off key Beatles songs, and my other child as part of a Greek Vocabulary Chorus.

Last week I introduced several coworkers to Gordon Lightfoot’s The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald by describing it as “America’s greatest folk song/wikipedia article”.

My children talk about our large, long-haired cat’s ancestry like some white people talk about a mythical Cherokee great-grandmother. “Look at his ears. He is obviously part Norwegian Forest Cat,” they say, about a cat that literally came from under a broken motorcycle in an alleyway.

Among the many things that upset me about online casino advertising … is the way one brand frames its ads as testimonials from a fake DJ who talks as if I already know who he is and must be excited to hear from him. I cannot explain why this tactic makes me as irrationally furious as it does.

Some personal news: I have a September reservation at Les Grandes Buffets.

The new Amtrak Borealis service is gonna allow my family to free ourselves from the MEA Weekend Industrial Complex and travel to Chicago for $176, round trip, TOTAL. That's three people to and from Chicago and I don't have to drive. On board wifi. No airport nonsense. LOVELY.

I love the dramatic lighting on the pulley engine at the end of the MSP airport tram. Is this a makeout spot? Does the machinery have a sidequest for me?

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Maggie Koerth

Plastics are found in packaging, clothing, and even our bodies. Could they be made less integral to manufacturing? Judith Enck joins guest host @maggiek.bsky.social to talk about why plastics are such a difficult environmental issue to solve. www.sciencefriday.com/segments/pla...

Why Is Solving The Plastic Problem So Hard?www.sciencefriday.com Plastics are everywhere, in packaging, clothing, and even our bodies. Could they be made less integral to manufacturing and more recyclable?

I'm guest hosting at @scifri.bsky.social this week! Tune in if you want to know what birds dream about. I'm not gonna tell you otherwise.

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Maggie Koerth

HOLY SHIT NEW POMPEII BUILDINGS EXCAVATED; NEW FRESCOS AND MOSAICS DISCOVERED; ALMOST PERFECTLY PRESERVED

www.bbc.com

Tonight my youngest referred to Mary as “Jesus’ goddess mother” and decided animism just makes common sense. I regret to inform the ghost of C. S. Lewis that all this happened as we finished reading The Last Battle.

MSP: I have been washing clothes for the last 3 years for a mutual aid group that does laundry for neighbors in need. We really need more drivers who can pick up laundry loads and drop them off with washers. If this is something you're interested in, please let me know!

Currently can’t decide if my fave tiktok is the family drowning in baby octopodes or the people getting really into industrial grade (and now food grade!) glycine.

The best thing about a cat that plays fetch is that cat behavior patterns mean I'm only about 80% certain we are playing consensual fetch. There's a 20% chance he just wants to hang out near me with his toy and I'm repeatedly making his life difficult.

If we're going to do geoengineering research, it absolutely cannot be left to secretive investors and for-profit techno-authoritarians.

"transparency, honesty, humility, skepticism and collaboration" should be principles for any kind of climate research. For geoengineering research, they are doubly important. @carbonplan.org's Jeremy Freeman in the @nytimes.com: www.nytimes.com/2024/03/17/o...

Jury waiting area highlight: dude in a private security uniform haranguing the info desk lady and demanding to know “how is this even legal” for the government to force him to be here. She’s like”well sir it’s actually written into our constitution…”

Correction, there are vending machines they are just stocked comically badly. Like two granola bars and a bag of hot Cheetos. Also I found coffee cups and creamer, but no coffee as far as I can tell.

What you get in the jury holding room of Hennepin County: board games, a free zine, and the first fully stocked waiting room magazine rack I’ve seen since 2020. What you do not get: Vending machines or coffee.

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Maggie Koerth

Despite recent news airplane travel remains far safer than car and pedestrian travel, which is rendered dangerous by an almost constant rain of items fallen off of Boeing jets

I swear I have never wanted to reply to a “no reply” email address as much as when I got this letter. I hope the taxi system becomes larger and more useful soon. But I can’t feel too bummed about losing a company that talks to me like this.

That sounds right.

For those keeping track at home, the same kids who loved UHF and Robin Hood Men In Tights have declared Wayne’s World to be “boring”.

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Maggie Koerth

Happy #PiDaY!