Robert Ferry

@robertferry.bsky.social

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Climate policy, society, and the built environment. Architect, LEED AP BD+C, and Co-founder of Land Art Generator. landartgenerator.org

Posts Replies Media

Reply to

Dr. Melissa Lott

Would it make sense for New York to install and distribute district cooling systems with a focus on those neighborhoods where access to AC is lowest (Central Brooklyn, Harlem, Southeast Queens and the Bronx)? They could loop into the Upper Bay and East River. Toronto does this with Lake Ontario.

Perhaps passionate environmentalism and socialism (coming together in just climate action) is the purest secular replacement for the Christian morality that gave meaning to our lives in a world before science. Perhaps our best defense against hedonistic nihilism is a devotion to equity and nature.

Watching the news these past couple weeks I’m feeling similarly to how I felt on Nov 9, 2016—gutted—like the 2024 election has already happened. Can anyone stop this tragedy from playing out? Democrats might want to study political Keyfabe because the story has to change swiftly and dramatically.

Artists may again have the liberty of omphaloskepsis* once we have pulled ourselves back from the edge of self-annihilation. Entertaining the public with message-free art as the world burns is deciding to be a handmaiden to the destruction. *contemplation upon one’s navel

"I just don’t feel like films are meant to be message-oriented," the director said... right on the heels of a Rare analysis showing how including climate in TV and movies "increased support for governmental action on climate change and boosted several hard-to-move attitudes on climate justice."

‘Twisters’ chose not to mention climate change. Here’s why | CNNamp.cnn.com The summer blockbuster puts nature’s ever-more destructive power in the spotlight. But like the titular twisters, there’s a hole at the center.

Reply to

Elizabeth Spiers

They also probably wrote the Republican Party platform paragraph on cryptocurrency.

Is it just me or is the design of the cybertruck just a clunky knock-off of the Aston Martin Bulldog? Also this one-off concept car by Aston Martin has been around since 1979 and hasn't caught fire even once.

timeline cleanse

With her latest bonkers dismissal ruling, Judge Cannon is clearly throwing her hat in the ring for the first Supreme Court nomination under the second Trump administration.

I'm happy to see segments targeted at improving systems, but WTF? When something is a solution to the existential thing we created that might kill us all, it DOES NOT HAVE a "dark side." I don't care how poorly executed the business model. How about: Australia is doing great so let's just do that?

Rooftop solar's dark side : Planet Moneywww.npr.org 4.5 million households in the U.S. have solar panels on their homes. Most of those customers are happy with it - their electricity bills have just about disappeared, and it's great for the planet. But...

“To win the election, the president must do more than just defend his excellent record. He needs to propose and fight for a bold agenda that speaks to the needs of the vast majority of our people — the working families of this country, the people who have been left behind for far too long.”

One Weird Trick to keep progressives in your coalition (policy concessions). Billionaires hate it! www.nytimes.com/2024/07/13/o...

Opinion | Bernie Sanders: Joe Biden for Presidentwww.nytimes.com Enough! It’s time for Democrats to stop the bickering and nit-picking.

Reply to

David Ho

Did they sell all 4,000 tons of offset credits to companies like Stripe and Microsoft? Also, is it also too early to say whether that 921 tons of CO2 “produced” in 2023 will all be taken in by the basalt rather than finding its way again to the surface?

Anne Kim's book “Poverty For Profit: How Corporations Get Rich Off America's Poor” uncovers the corrupt incentives and inefficiencies of the private companies who profit off public anti-poverty programs and even use taxpayer dollars to lobby Congress not to improve public policies.

‎Current Affairs: How Corporations Suck the Welfare State Dry (w/ Anne Kim) on Apple Podcastspodcasts.apple.com ‎Show Current Affairs, Ep How Corporations Suck the Welfare State Dry (w/ Anne Kim) - Jul 12, 2024

“‘Carbon footprints will weigh heavily on judgment day,’ said Kabul-based imam Farisullah Azhari. ‘God will ask: How did you make your money? And then he will ask: How much suffering did you cause in the process?’” What if conservative Christians preached the same?

Taliban tries reconciling science and religion in facing climate changewapo.st Afghanistan’s rulers, cut off from foreign assistance, are tackling climate change on their own while debating whether it is God’s doing or a foreign plot.

Reply to

David Sacerdote

I like the idea that Biden should be holding press conferences with oversized checks for $1 billion made out to the American people every time the IRS recovers these kinds of delinquent taxes.

This is fine. “Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has been accused of not disclosing a yacht trip to Russia and a private helicopter flight to a palace in President Vladimir Putin’s hometown, among a slew of other gifts and loans from businessman Harlan Crow.”

I sure did not have "Harlan Crow paid for a yacht and private helicopter trip for Clarence Thomas to visit a palace in Vladimir Putin's hometown" on my bingo card, but in hindsight, why the hell not. www.thedailybeast.com/clarence-tho...

Clarence Thomas Gifted Luxe Trip to Putin’s Hometown: Demswww.thedailybeast.com The allegedly secret gifts were disclosed in a letter from two Democratic senators that accused Thomas of potentially committing tax fraud.

Thank God. I was just saying the other day that what humanity could really use right now is an entire planet populated with cosmic-radiation-mutated megalomaniacs. Or what if we properly taxed billionaires and took care of existing humans on Earth? Crazy.

Thermonuclear Blasts and New Species: Inside Elon Musk’s Plan to Colonize Marswww.nytimes.com SpaceX employees are working on plans for a Martian city, including dome habitats, spacesuits and researching whether humans can procreate off Earth. Mr. Musk has volunteered his sperm.

I hope the outcome of this whole situation is that no first term incumbent president gets to assume they are the nominee for a second term. Open primaries should be the default expectation from now on.

This part of the Republican Party platform seems to have been written by laser-eye Bitcoin bros and should scare the hell out of every American. Of course many of Trump’s advisors own Bitcoin and sit on crypto-rug-pull windfalls that came at the expense of hard working people. 🎁 wapo.st/3S4lTPI

“The standards currently being applied that Republicans propose to repeal are designed to protect us from scams, rip-offs, and fraud, which has been prevalent in the crypto industry. Effectively this should be read as, ‘We aim to promote more fraud on everyday Americans.’” —Robert Weissman

❌ “We are frustrated that Amazon leadership is misleading the public by distorting the truth about its renewable energy claims…the company is heavily investing in data center expansions fueled by West Virginian coal, Saudi Arabian oil, and Canadian fracked gas.” —Amazon Employees for Climate Justice

Amazon Says It Reached a Climate Goal Seven Years Earlywww.nytimes.com The company said it effectively got all of the electricity it used last year from sources that did not produce greenhouse gas emissions. Some experts have faulted the company’s calculations.

Reply to

Rachel Donald (Planet: Critical)

Even if AGI could tell us the best course of action we would never politically agree to follow it. Take climate for example. If there are rich and powerful interests that disagree with the advice of an AI “god” then its superior intelligence will be worth absolutely nothing.

Reply to

Robinson Meyer

I agree. Unfortunately there are also too many examples like this one where objective news gets the story 180 degrees wrong. The new Republican platform introduces fetal personhood under the 14th Amendment, which is not at all a “tempering” of language. www.reuters.com/world/us/tru...

This is not what we meant when we said “keep 1.5 alive.”

In a troubling milestone, Earth surpasses 1.5 degrees C of warming for 12 consecutive months - www.latimes.com/environment/...

Reply to

Aaron Huertas

Phillips was there. I just went back and looked. But it might as well have been Mickey Mouse and it doesn’t matter anymore. We have to move forward with an exciting ticket that can convincingly make the case for why voting D will materially improve people’s lives.

Reply to

Aaron Huertas

I honestly don’t remember Phillips being on the ballot, but even if he was, no one even knows who he is. You can’t suggest that is like having an open primary. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I agree with James Carville.

Opinion | James Carville: Biden Won’t Win. Democrats Need a Plan. Here’s One.www.nytimes.com Democrats need a new presidential nominee and can’t rig things for any one candidate. Here’s an idea for how to move forward.

Reply to

Aaron Huertas

The only name on my PA ballot was Biden. He needed to get through one debate or interview where he successfully hid his rapid cognitive decline. He can’t. Not his fault. It’s time to thank him for his great service and move on with an electable ticket. It is magical thinking to say he can win now.

At what point does protectionism start to hinder climate policy? The claim is the cost will come down 90% for the same performance as existing batteries. But the US will tariff the hell out of these and we won’t get any tax credits for EVs that use them. Will this same tech emerge domestically?

Chinese Scientists Develop Cheap Solid-State Rechargeable EV Batterywww.techtimes.com Chinese researchers achieved a breakthrough in solid-state battery technology, creating a low-cost alternative that could significantly impact the electric vehicle market.

Reply to

Mike Murphy

When Biden said this in his rally over the weekend it really angered me and I suspect I’m not alone. He doesn’t just deserve to be president because of his own stubbornness. He has to prove himself. His arrogance will get Trump elected. The writing is on the wall but he’s too far gone to read it.

Reply to

Aaron Huertas

Primary voters had no other viable option on their ballots. It is disingenuous when Biden uses this argument. The fact is that voters were not given a chance to decide and that is part of the reason we find ourselves here.

This is all useless hindsight and there is no world in which we would have had an open primary in 2024 unless the incumbent had stepped out. He should have stepped aside back in November ‘23. I would absolutely have chosen Warnock, Harris, Whitmer, or Newsom over Biden if I’d had the option.

I think Raphael Warnock could tell that story. Take Georgia, build a coalition with evangelical Christians, and paint us all—with words—a picture of a better tomorrow.

Which is obviously not future-oriented! But it's a kind of alternate reality future. I do think whatever happens with this period and whether it's Biden or someone else, a vision of what's over the horizon is pretty important and has been a bit absent in this campaign.