Matthew Haugen

Official map from NOAA depicting the relative rank of winter 2025-2026 temperatures at a county level across the contiguous U.S. Many counties in the western and central U.S. are depicted in dark red color, signifying record-warmest winter. All other counties in the west and central U.S. are depicted in dark orange colors, signifying a "near record warm" rank.

The official NOAA stats out this week confirm that winter 2025-26 was the warmest on record across a huge portion of the western and central U.S., which has contributed to extremely low mountain snowpack & worsened the CO River crisis. Meanwhile, record March heat is in forecast.

Elon Musk's xAI wins permit to build power plant in Mississippi despite pollution concerns Mississippi regulators authorized xAI to build a power plant with 41 natural gas-burning turbines in Southaven to power its nearby data centers.

Musk wins again. Mississippi regulators gave xAI permits to build out a power plant in Southaven with 41 natural gas-burning (aka methane burning) turbines. Residents and environmental advocates have objected due to air pollution and noise pollution... More at @cnbc.com www.cnbc.com/2026/03/10/e...

that's right

I cannot imagine anything sadder than going to write a post on LinkedIn and then clicking the “rewrite with AI” button. If you aren’t confident you can meet the baseline tone of LinkedIn? I dont know, man.

rfk standing very normally in a steak and shake

leland palmer in the black lodge

yup

Ted Chiang responds to the article going around that asks if the left is missing out on AI: “I don’t know. Is the left missing out on ICE?”

Microplastics Discovered in Prostate Tumors A NYU Langone study found microplastic in prostate tumors, suggesting a link between plastic and risk for prostate cancer. Learn more.

A new study found microplastics in 90% of prostate tumors at 2.5 times the amounts found in healthy tissue nyulangone.org/news/micropl...

TPUSA is teaming up with Google and NextEra in both municipal and statewide races in Arizona, in part to control the future of a gigantic, publicly owned water and power utility, the Salt River Project.

Note the coalition here. Masks are coming off at the utility and energy intersection.

I went on NPR this weekend to talk about Trump's suggestion that tech companies build their own power plants to power AI data centers. I had just published a 12,000 word report on the topic, so it was hard to distill everything into a 4 minute segment. The "bring your own capacity" (BYOC) idea that Trump mentioned in his State of the Union speech isn't a new one. It's been discussed at virtually every utility commission over the last year. In the broadest terms, BYOC is good policy. The US hasn't been expanding its power grid for the last 10-20 years because electricity demand has been flat. Now data centers are changing the equation triggering huge demand increases. The question is who should pay for the new transmission lines and power generation capacity. Virtually everyone—including many tech companies—agree data centers should foot the bill, not everyday utility bill payers. But electricity policy is complex. There's a federal regulator (FERC), 50 different state regulators, and grid operators that span multiple states. One version of this policy that's become popular is to force data centers off the grid entirely. The idea is tempting, if anything for its simplicity. But it would have some negative consequences. Consider OpenAI's Stargate project in New Mexico. The 2 GW data center will run on its own "microgrid" powered by inefficient gas turbines. That means it will be powered by 100% fossil fuels, which results in far more pollution than a power grid, which can make use of nuclear, hydro, solar, wind, etc. This Stargate project will emit 14 million tons of CO2 per year, according to permit documents we found at Cleanview for our latest report. To put that number in perspective: New Mexico has spent 20 years decarbonizing its economy and in that time has cut emissions by 14 million tons. So in this case "build your own power plant" means wiping out 20 years of climate progress—in a location with more land and solar potential than nearly anywh…

Hhhoollly moly. 14 MTCO2-e for OpenAI's fossil-fuelled Stargate data centre

As @michael-thomas.bsky.social says: "wiping out 20 years of climate progress—in a location with more land and solar potential than nearly anywhere on Earth"

!!!!

www.linkedin.com/posts/michae...

Argentina, Bolivia & Chile contain over half global lithium resources. Once Kast assumes the Chilean presidency, all three will be governed by right-wing leaders.

What are the implications? I’m in @financialtimes.com to analyze this major political reversal www.ft.com/content/0276...

Did yall see the finish to the 2026 LA Marathon?

Looks like a Green New Deal's back on the menu, boys

Americans have no idea how much the world is shook, folks. Here in Thailand they have a running tally of how many days' worth of fuel the country has left.

death drive nuff said

Screenshot from the Planet of the Bass Tiktok where lyrics on screen say "Women are my favorite guy"

Screenshot from the Planet of the Bass Tiktok where lyrics on screen say "Tell the world 'stop the war'"

This song feels incredibly relevant today.

Acceleration hotspots of North American birds’ decline are associated with agriculture Human activities might have accelerated declines of population abundance, but this acceleration remains underexplored. Using 1033 North American Breeding Bird Survey routes, we analyze abundance chang...

"These findings suggest that bird abundance decline is mostly accelerating, with spatial patterns of this acceleration indicating that agricultural intensity may be a driver of this trend." www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

The Central Lie of Prediction Markets Polymarket and Kalshi promise the wisdom of the crowds. They deliver something very different.

Great new story by @cwarzel.bsky.social detailing the very big problems with prediction markets—"the perfect technology for a low-trust society, simultaneously exploiting and reifying an environment in which believing the motives behind any person or action becomes harder."

Sea Levels Are Already Higher Than Many Scientists Think, New Study Shows

"Coastal sea levels are, on average, eight inches to a foot higher than many maps and models of the world’s coastlines indicate" www.nytimes.com/2026/03/04/c...

Please please read this from the archbishop of Chicago

www.archchicago.org/statement/-/...

Nature Report, Killed by Trump, Is Released Independently

'Freshwater ecosystems across the country are in crisis, “overdrawn, polluted, fragmented and invaded.” Marine and terrestrial ecosystems are degraded, with reduced biodiversity. An estimated 34% of plant species and 40% of animal species are at risk of extinction.' www.nytimes.com/2026/03/05/c...

This is elite signaling, the rich exurbs pretend to be rural by doing conspicuous consumption of being rural and the actual rural areas follow them as taste makers. It’s also why they look down on cities even though they don’t live in one and what happens there doesn’t matter to them at all.

there's so much bad in the world but there's also people who lift up and carry an elderly bat around every day so he can pretend he's flying again, and that's the part of the world I think is worth fighting for

I’m sure Iranians will be very open to a leader chosen by the people responsible for this.

THREAD: I got laid off from NYMag/Vulture after 14 years. The family lost 75% of income + medical. Now mzs.press bookstore, once a side project. is do-or-die for Judith & I. I feel weird telling you this because others are doing much worse. But if you could like or share this, we'd be so grateful!

These asshole twerps with no brains or education from DOGE really did use ChatGPT to find NEH grants to terminate ILLEGALLY - ruining hundreds lives and destroying hundreds of the greatest humanities projects and partnerships of our time. I’m overwhelmed with rage and anger all over again.

Attempted suicides, fights, pain: 911 calls reveal misery at ICE’s largest detention facility The calls to 911 poured in from staff at Camp East Montana, the nation's largest U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility, in its first months of operation in El Paso, Texas.

"At one point he said he overheard a security guard talking about bets made among the staff over which detainee would be next to die by suicide. The guard said he had paid $500 into a pool, with the total pot riding on the outcome."

this is absolutely correct:i think a big challenge is that american unilateralism has been the default setting for the vast majority of conservatives and liberals in Congress and any attempt to dismantle it faces the challenge that a lot of people don't *want* to have multilaterialism

Wars of choice murder countless people today—and drown the homes of countless people tomorrow.

—Each 5-year delay in peaking carbon emissions will cause an extra 8 inches of sea-level rise by 2300.

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

2 wars in 4 years. This war will accelerate Solar +Batteries + EVs as real Energy Security.

"rest of the world will learn an important lesson from China. Build out your renewables so you aren't as dependent on imported fossil fuels & the whims of idiots"

Be like Spain. bsky.app/profile/jere...