climate change
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On intent.
Our criminal justice system routinely destroys lives after divining a person’s intent from actions. But now, suddenly, we need proof.
45, bankrupting the U.S. government, climate change, collusion, conspiracy, Donald Trump, falling tax receipts, handouts to billionaires, heroin, impeachment, inequality, intent to sell, interference in free elections, Is Trump a Russian agent, jail, kickbacks, mass incarceration, methamphetamine, political kickbacks, politics, possession with intent, PotUS, President Trump, proof, racial injustice, racist policing, Rikers, Russian agent, Russian collution, sabotage, soda straw, straw, Trump
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On Syria, and the complexity of causality.
Syria was in dire straits before the drought — climate change made a bad situation even worse.
Abdullah Al-Udhari, Abu Al-Ala Al-Ma’arri, Assads, Birds Through a Ceiling of Alabaster, civil war, climate change, climate instability, drought, extremism, food insecurity, George Wightman, global warming, ISIL, ISIS, jihad, Lindsey Hilsum, misogyny, oppression, paradise, plough, plow, poetry, protests, refugee, refugee crisis, Syria, Utopia, violence, War of All Against All, Yassin al-Haj Saleh
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On the sounds of aberrant ecosystems
The world humans are born into inevitably seems normal, no matter how hot, or loud, or empty of animals…
acidity, anthropocene, birds, buffer, buffering, climate change, climate destabilization, Collapse, cultivation, cultural extinction, David Haskell, deforestation, depopulation, directed evolution, domestication, Easter Island, endangered species, environmentalism, evolution, extinction, global warming, Goblin Nabob, Herman Melville, industrial revolution, innovation, Jared Diamond, landscape amnesia, loss of diversity, Magic, Magic the Gathering, mass extinction, Michael McCarthy, Moby Dick, natural renewal, noise pollution, ocean, outdoor cats, overpopulation, population crash, progress, renewal, songbirds, sperm whale, Squee, technology, The Moth Snowstorm, The Songs of Trees, vegan, veganism, whale, where have all the insects gone, windshield phenomenon
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On the Tower of Babel and beneficial curses.
Kind-hearted citizens of the United States needed to be saved from our own complacency.
45, Abdelfattah Kilito, attorney general, Avigdor Shinan, Babel, Babylon, Benjamin Lee Whorf, Bible, climate change, climate destabilization, complacency, congress, cooperation, Cugel the Clever, curse, democrat, Democratic Party, diversity, Donald Trump, education, Elif Batuman, English, Eyes of the Overworld, From Gods to God, Gate of the Gods, Gateway to Heaven, global warming, God, God’s Gate, health care, health care reform, Heisenberg, Ismael, Jack Vance, language, linguistics, mass incarceration, monoculture, Old Testament, personal responbility, perspective, politics, PotUS, President, Quran, republican, Robyn Creswell, sentencing reform, tax code, tax cut, Thai, The Idiot, The Tongue of Adam, tongue, Tower of Babel, Trump, Turkish, uncertainty principle, Valerie Zakovitch, Whorf hypothesis, Yahweh, Yair Zakovitch
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On fear.
Activating the neurons behind fear makes mammals attack. And 45 campaigned on fear.
amygdala, Chicago, civil war, climate change, climate strife, Clinton, Comoli, Daesh, Donald Trump, fear, Functional mapping of the prosencephalic systems involved in organizing predatory behavior in rats, gene expression, immigrant ban, Integrated Control of Predatory Hunting by the Central Nucleus of the Amygdala, ISIL, ISIS, Ivan de Araujo, Laboratory Animal Welfare Act, laser-activated neurons, Manchurian candidate, mind control, prejudice, refugee ban, Restaurant Depot, retrovirus, Syria, terror, terrorism, terrorists, Trump, violence, violence against conspecifics, voluntary research participation, war, Wenfei Han
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On Facebook and fake news.
Fake news is frustrating, but Facebook makes your brain worse *by design*.
Archaic Torso of Apollo, big ideas take time, boredom, branding, Brawndo, building a website, Cal Newport, climate change, distraction, Donald Trump, duping Facebook users, fabrication, Facebook, fake news, family band, faux-politically-conscious liberals, Franz Kafka, Google, Google ad dollars, holiday album, holiday record, Hotmail, Idiocracy, Indiana Prisoners’ Writing Workshop, irony, Johnny Fuerza, mass incarceration, Myspace, obsession with fame, Pages to Prisoners, persuasion, philosophy, Rainer Maria Rilke, Silicon Valley stole the election, social media, The Recognitions, the signature is worth more than the art, Twitter, undergraduate degrees, vegan, vegetarian, William Gaddis, Yahoo, you must change your life
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On AIDS and drought in Malawi.
It’s hard to save the forests for some nebulous future when you might die of AIDS (or even rabies!) within the year.
a history of violence, AIDS, charcoal, climate change, deforestation, drought, health care, health insurance, HIV, HIV epidemic, illegal charcoal production, inequality, infectious disease, Malawi, medical care, Peace Corps, poverty, rabies, rabies vaccine, reparations, the historical roots of inequality, wealth begets wealth, zero-parent households
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On deer, wolves, and Sean Carroll’s ‘The Serengeti Rules.’
Monoculture — whether it’s a body churning out cancer cells, an environment churning out deer, or a world churning out Starbucks — is an illness.
apex predators, Beyond Words, Bloomington, Carl Safina, climate change, college kids need more fear, deer, ecological diversity, elk, environmentalism, gardening, gas tax, Hope Jahren, keystone species, Lab Girl, overbreeding, overpopulation, planting trees, population regulation, predation, Robert Paine, Sean Carroll, starfish, starvation, The Serengeti Rules, we need wilderness, wolves, Yellowstone
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On free-market capitalism, political spending, and Jane Mayer’s ‘Dark Money.’
Everybody knew that politicians could be bought… well, academics can be, too.
campaign finance, climate change, Dark Money, David Koch, economic policy, environmental regulations, Evicted, fiscal policy, free markets, global warming, government intervention, Jane Mayer, Koch brothers, libertarianism, Matthew Desmond, negative externalities, political spending, progressive taxation, Robert Reich, Saving Capitalism, subsidies for the rich, tax, tragedy of the commons
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On bistability.
When small changes lead to bigger change, it’s tricky to predict what will happen… that’s why climate change is scary.
alcoholism, animal emissions, bistability, Bloomington, carbon emisions, climate change, climate simulation, contribution of animal agriculture to global climate change, eat more vegetables!, expansion of empty space, feedback loops, global warming, how much warming can our planet safely tolerate?, it takes money to make money, lightswitch rave, positive feedback, switch-like behavior, the rich get richer, underwater currents, United Nations conference on climate change, weather
Frank Brown Cloud 