Clay Steell

No snow, no ski season: Greenland's warmest January shuts Nuuk resort Climate change fears grip Nuuk as winter temperatures reach record highs.

Climate change fears grip Nuuk as winter temperatures reach record highs.

World's biggest carbon capture project could 'essentially drain Alberta', experts warn Government-commissioned modelling of water use by the planned $16.5 billion Pathways CCS project, a linchpin of the energy deal signed by Ottawa and Alberta last month, concluded its use of the region...

Another perennial reminder how we’re all constantly being duped by the viability of industrial CCS
www.nationalobserver.com/2025/12/18/a...

For #PhycologyFriday, some views from the annual Pacific herring spawn dive surveys I’m working this year, exemplifying the importance of seaweeds as fish habitat! Seen in Toquaht and Huu-ay-aht territories, west Vancouver Island

When the BC Conservatives voted for a bill to repeal the human rights code, the NDP caucus promptly put out a press release slamming the Cons who "couldn’t muster the courage to stand against it."

Today, 0 NDP MLAs mustered the courage to vote against a bill to close all BC's safe consumption sites

This is very well done & comprehensive

As a Mt. A alumnus, I can say without a doubt that privatizing would destroy everything that made it good & special (despite its corporatization already being underway), & it’s shocking NB is considering this. I already wrote the Premier & Min. of Education, urging other alumni to as well! #NBpoli

For #PhycologyFriday, check out my latest post on @bluefutureskelp.bsky.social 🌊

BC has a zero-sum choice between electrifying its economy + meeting climate goals, or subsidizing power generation for climate-busting LNG export terminals + data centres. You can’t have the former if you keep pushing the later, as gov/industry keep doing!

This is crazy, second-order stuff.

Jim Pattison won't sell U.S. warehouse proposed as new ICE facility | CBC News Jim Pattison Developments has announced it will not sell an industrial building in Ashland, Va., that was set to be turned into an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) processing facility.

NEWS: Canadian billionaire Jim Pattison was planning to sell a warehouse for use as an ICE detention and processing facility. After pressure from the public, and from B.C. Green Party leader @emilylowan.bsky.social, Pattison's company has cancelled the sale

www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

Statement- January 30, 2026 The transaction to sell our industrial building in Ashland, Virginia will not be proceeding.

Breaking - Jim Pattison Developments say the sale of their warehouse for use as a proposed ICE facility will not be proceeding

Don’t care if this makes me a Luddite, you can either have limitless Al use today OR a future where we have a shot at limiting the climate crisis

And yes computation this strong has a few good uses, but that's not driving it. So think critically about Al use & how it may feed into its carbon cost!

We should all be screaming from the rooftops that the Al boom/bubble is incompatible with a safe future climate! It's almost solely undoing what little progress on energy transition the world had done to date!

Sea turtles may be more resilient to global warming than we thought An “epigenetic” adaptation could prevent large numbers of loggerhead turtles from hatching as female due to climate change – a threat that was feared to lead to population collapse

Sea turtles may be better able to cope with climate change than we thought. There are concerns that the reptiles face extinction because warmer conditions will make most #turtle eggs develop into females. But the animals have a genetic safety net. 🧪 🦑 🐢

www.newscientist.com/article/2512...

Fish are flooding back into Toronto’s Don River This month, Toronto and Region Conservation Authority shared its findings from the Don River in 2025, which included documenting over 20 fish species. For the first time since 2012, an Atlantic Salmon...

The Don River was once so polluted with waste, garbage + chemicals that it caught on fire. The water itself, which flows towards Lake Ontario, was so inhospitable that it hosted life’s very antithesis. Now, researchers are starting to see a rebirth. For @nationalobserver.com

Ocean damage nearly doubles the cost of climate change Ignoring the blue economy has left a multi-trillion-dollar blind spot in climate finance, according to a study from Scripps Oceanography.

“The report marks the first time a social cost of carbon (SCC) assessment — a key measure of economic harm caused by climate change — has included damages to the ocean.” www.nationalobserver.com/2026/01/26/n...

Fish are flooding back into Toronto’s Don River This month, Toronto and Region Conservation Authority shared its findings from the Don River in 2025, which included documenting over 20 fish species. For the first time since 2012, an Atlantic Salmon...

The aquatic restoration happening in urban Toronto is wildly impressive & a beacon of hope in a province & country otherwise reversing course on climate+environment, I had the fortune of seeing some firsthand helping an old lab mate with it during my M.Sc
www.nationalobserver.com/2026/01/26/n...

This can only end in less environmental oversight and protection, in the already flawed Canadian environmental management system tilted towards the interests of corporations and their shareholders at the expense of workers and the environment

This incredibly cool new research shows that the first really big large organism on land was not a giant fungus, as many gave hypothesized. It was so chemically different from fungi that the authors propose "this enigmatic organism is best assigned to an entirely extinct eukaryotic lineage."

A new publication coauthored by Blue Future Kelp’s @claysteell.bsky.social is out, exploring the growing practice of #biobanking kelps for conservation & restoration. Read more below! 🌊 #PhycologyFriday #kelp

For #PhycologyFriday, check out this new publication I coauthored on #biobanking Pacific kelps & other macroalgae! Was a pleasure working with this team of other phycologists active in the space. Link: tinyurl.com/2v6a7aja
#kelp

The red dot is a baby North Atlantic right whale trying to migrate up the east coast of the United states.

The blue streaks are fast moving shipping vessels entering and leaving New York City harbor.

One collision and the whale is dead.

We need *mandatory* speed limits for these vessels! 🧪🦑🌍

raffi: regime change in America

they've got Raffi calling for regime change. something has shifted.

A figure of oil production for the top 10 oil-producing nations: United States, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Canada, Iran, Iraq, China, Brazil, United Arab Emirates, and Kuwait, with the US being the largest, overtaking Russian and Saudi Arabia in production in 2017.

In case you didn't think the US was a petrostate, here's a time series of oil production of the top 10 oil-producing nations.

Abysmal statement from Canada on the illegal US action in Venezuela.

It doesn’t matter how much you dislike Maduro, that doesn’t justify a violation of international law and the UN Charter. You can’t call on “all parties” to respect international law and not call out US lawlessness.

Oil brings us climate change and illegal invasions of sovereign nations.

So much for “elbows up”

A huge thank you to Ocean Wise for supporting this work, and to my friend and longtime collaborator Dr. Lauren Dykman for volunteering to collect this kelp with me!

By creating gametophyte cultures from these Giant Kelp growing at the edge of its range into the Strait of Juan de Fuca, this Ocean Action Grant funded project ensures their unique genotype is conserved as we move into a warmer future, & can be made available for future restoration if needed!

Recent research I’ve supported shows that some at-risk range-edge kelp populations have unique genotypes that may be critical for restoring kelp forests in a warming ocean, as we’ve shown that different genotypes within a kelp species can be more or less tolerant to stressors like high temperature.