Tuesday, February 3, 2026
Environmental Council of Rhode Island calls on Speaker Shekarchi to push back on the anti-conservation and renewable energy narrative
RI House Speaker Joe Shekarchi encourages ECRI to keep up the fight
It wasn’t easy, said the Speaker. The bill was passed during
COVID, and everyone was masked. The House was meeting in the Veterans’
Auditorium, and, instead of voting machines, legislators were using iPads.
“It was a very long and lengthy debate, and our iPads were
running out of battery life,” said the Speaker. “They wanted to postpone the
hearing, and you could see the opposition getting a little bit of momentum.”
The Speaker decided to call the question, which he rarely
does, preferring to allow the debate to run its course. Calling the question
stops debate and forces a vote. Act on Climate passed.
“That opened up the floodgates to a lot of good legislation,
and we’ll continue,” said the Speaker to the ECRI members, supporters, and
legislators packed into the library.
“I know things are not satisfactory right now,” continued
Speaker Sheakarchi. “Federally, things that are happening are hurting a lot of
our environmental initiatives, but we can’t get lost in that. We must remember
the progress we have made and continue to make. You need to be active and
involved, and push back against the narrative that these programs are the cause
of the energy affordability crisis. That is not true.”
The Speaker continued:
“There’s nothing more powerful than the truth. When you hear
from people with credibility like Sue Anderbois and Terry Gray,
that makes all the difference in the world. We are being bombarded: receiving
several hundred emails a day from the Rhode
Island Center for Freedom and Prosperity.1 It’s a form email. Some of you may have
seen them. If not, I’ll be happy to send you a copy. It’s the same narrative:
Get rid of all of the conservation programs and get rid of all of the renewable
energy programs. There will be a rally at the State House in two weeks. I
expect everybody in this room to be at that rally. We need to be heard.
“I can confirm that my colleagues and I care about the
environment, and we’ve made progress. Progress doesn’t happen overnight. It
happens in stages, as with the Bottle Bill. We
did the first part of that. Not an easy bill. Everybody wants a Bottle
Bill. I want a bottle bill. How are we going to implement it? Who is it going
to cost? Where are these redemption centers going to be? Who’s going to do
redemption? We have committed to delivering those answers within less than a
year, and we’ll continue with step two, but step one was important. We needed
that real data from the people who are actually going to do the redemptions,
where they’re going to go, and how we’re going to make it work.
“Don’t give up hope because it’s not instant. I am not a
young person, but some young people want instant success, instant answers, and
instant results. Legislation is not instant. Big, effective change takes time,
and I have a passion for not doing anything for the sake of doing it. I have a
passion for doing it when it’s right and getting it right the first time, as
best we can. We’re not perfect. No legislation is perfect, and if we waited for
perfect, we’d never get anything done. We don’t want perfect to be the enemy of
good, and we’ve passed a lot of good legislation. I stand behind that. I run on
that. I’m proud of that.
How oysters are impacted by environmental conditions and farming practices
URI oceanography student spends 18 months researching effects on oysters
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| Eastern oysters from Rome Point Oyster Farm (Photo courtesy of Jacqueline Rosa) |
The Rhode Island aquaculture industry is more robust than ever. The value of aquaculture products was $8,795,493 in 2024 and 89 active aquaculture farms covered 392.5 acres, according to a report by the Rhode Island Coastal Resources Management Council.
Eastern oysters account for approximately 99% of the state’s
aquaculture production, the report noted. Jacqueline Rosa, who is pursuing her
master’s degree in oceanography from the University of Rhode Island Graduate School of Oceanography, spent 18
months conducting field work on how water quality and farming practices impact
these mollusks.
Eastern oysters grow in Narragansett Bay and Rhode Island’s
salt ponds. Rosa’s field work was done in the lower west passage of
Narragansett Bay, an area that hosts 48 acres of oyster farms.
Testing the waters
To examine the environmental conditions, Rosa deployed two
sensors at Wickford Oyster Company’s 4-acre farm in May 2024, one at the
surface of the water and one at the bottom of the water column.
Rosa revisited the farm each week to collect water samples
from the surface and the bottom. She brought the samples to the Ocean Carbon
Laboratory at the Graduate School of Oceanography for analysis.
American Academy of Pediatrics says Bobby Jr.'s vaccine policy goes against "longstanding medical evidence"
Contrary to CDC changes, AAP advises vaccinating kids against 18 diseases
Just days before, Children’s Health Defense (CHD), the
anti-vaccine group founded by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F.
Kennedy Jr, said it had filed a lawsuit in US
District Court accusing the AAP of engaging in “a decades-long racketeering
scheme to defraud American families about the safety of the childhood vaccine
schedule.”
Kennedy, who has long claimed that US children receive “too
many” vaccines, modeled the CDC’s new vaccination schedule after that of
Denmark, drawing criticism from medical experts who say the two countries have
different populations and public health needs.
Monday, February 2, 2026
In 2009, Trump and his kids co-signed President Obama statement calling for action on climate change
Donald Trump’s Descent into Climate Chaos
“If we fail to act now, it is scientifically irrefutable
that there will be catastrophic and irreversible consequences for humanity and
our planet.”
Donald Trump and his three adult children were all signatories.
The letter went on to promote the United States as a model
for climate leadership and action:
“Please allow us, the United States of America, to serve
in modeling the change necessary to protect humanity and our planet.”
An Inconvenient Truth
If we didn’t know it then, we do now. Trump’s commitment to anything is inexorably tied to his own base ambitions, malignant narcissism, and infantile ego.
I can’t say what motivated Trump to align with climate action proponents, but it’s safe to say he didn’t much care about climate change one way or another.
There was something in it for him, until there
wasn’t.
His political ambitions and golf
courses splattered across the globe change all that. It didn’t take
long for his professed climate concern to morph into derision. Starting in
2012, he abandoned his firmly held belief (I jest, he has no
firmly held beliefs). That’s when he started accusing China of creating the
climate change hoax as a means of keeping America down.
He has held to his hoax-y rhetoric since then. What better
way to curry favor with his recalcitrant MAGA cult and attract Big Oil money than call global warming a hoax? An
added bonus is owning the libs, what with their calls for emissions reductions
and renewable energy. And it isn’t just the libs who Trump trolls with his
rapier wit and intellectual framing.
He chides other nations, claiming that their efforts to
secure a sustainable future, however minimal, will be their downfall.
Here's a blowup of the NY Times ad, showing the Trump family members names as co-signers:
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Read and weep new Trump disclosure from newly released Epstein files
Hey MAGA - Now do you understand why Trump didn't want the Epstein files released?
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When forests disappear, mosquitoes don’t—they adapt, and increasingly, they bite us.
When the trees are gone, they come for you
Frontiers
https://www.flickr.com/photos/marcelinodias/
In the rapidly disappearing Atlantic Forest, mosquitoes are
adapting to a human-dominated landscape. Scientists found that many species now
prefer feeding on people rather than the forest’s diverse wildlife. This
behavior dramatically raises the risk of spreading dangerous viruses such as
dengue and Zika. The findings reveal how deforestation can quietly reshape
disease dynamics.
Running along Brazil's coastline, the Atlantic Forest
supports an extraordinary range of life, including hundreds of species of
birds, amphibians, reptiles, mammals, and fishes. Much of that richness has
been lost. Human development has reduced the forest to roughly one third of its
original size. As people move deeper into once intact habitats, wildlife is
pushed out, and mosquitoes that once fed on many different animals appear to be
shifting their attention toward humans, according to a study published in Frontiers
in Ecology and Evolution.
"Here we show that the mosquito species we captured in
remnants of the Atlantic Forest have a clear preference for feeding on
humans," said senior author Dr. Jeronimo Alencar, a biologist at the
Oswaldo Cruz Institute in Rio de Janeiro.
"This is crucial because, in a environment like the
Atlantic Forest with a great diversity of potential vertebrate hosts, a
preference for humans significantly enhances the risk of pathogen
transmission," added co-author Dr. Sergio Machado, a microbiology and
immunology researcher at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro.
Is a Vegan Diet Safe for Kids?
Largest Ever Study Weighs Benefits Against Risks
.webp)
Scientists from Italy, the USA, and Australia reviewed data
from more than 48,000 children and adolescents around the world who followed
different types of diets. They assessed growth, overall health, and nutritional
adequacy, concluding that vegetarian and vegan diets can provide many essential
nutrients and support normal development. However, the analysis also shows that
deficiencies can occur if certain nutrients are not supplied through fortified
foods or supplements.
The peer-reviewed findings, published in Critical
Reviews in Food Science and Nutrition, indicate that plant-based diets may
also be linked to added health advantages for children. These include more
favorable indicators of cardiovascular health when compared with omnivorous
diets that contain meat, fish, and other animal-derived foods.
This meta-analysis draws on evidence from 59 studies
conducted across 18 countries, focusing on children and adolescents under the
age of 18. It compared lacto-ovo-vegetarian (which include dairy products and
eggs, but exclude meat, fish, and poultry) and vegan diets (which exclude all
animal-derived foods) with omnivorous diets. In total, the analysis included
data from 7,280 lacto-ovo-vegetarians, 1,289 vegans, and 40,059 omnivores,
covering a wide range of nutritional and health outcomes.
The results show that vegetarian children generally consumed
higher amounts of fiber, iron, folate, vitamin C, and magnesium than those
eating omnivorous diets. At the same time, they tended to have lower intakes of
total energy, protein, fat, vitamin B1,2 and zinc. Although fewer studies
focused specifically on vegan children, the available evidence revealed similar
nutritional patterns.
Groundhogs are lousy forecasters but valuable animal engineers – and an important food source
Over and over again, people take weather advice from overgrown rodent
Steven Sullivan, Miami University
Whether you call him groundhog, woodchuck, whistle-pig or use the full genus and species name, Marmota monax, the nation’s premiere animal weather forecaster has been making headlines as Punxsutawney Phil for decades.
Charlestown groundhog. Photo by Will Collette
The largest ground squirrel in its range, groundhogs like Phil are found throughout the midwestern United States, most of Canada and into southern Alaska. M. monax is the most widespread marmot, while the Vancouver Island marmot (M. vancouverensis) is found only on one island in British Columbia.
In total, there are 15 species in the genus Marmota, found around the world from as far south as the Jemez Mountains of New Mexico and the Pyrenees Mountains of Spain, north to regions of Siberia and Alaska so dark and cold that the marmots must hibernate for up to nine months of the year.
Hibernating to escape tough times
Marmots, including all the actors who have played Phil over the years, are the largest “true” hibernators: animals that enter a torpor that reduces their biological functions to a level closer to dead than alive..JPG)
Photo by Will Collette
Because this phenomenon is so interesting, scientists pay attention to all aspects of marmot anatomy and physiology. Basic observational science like this is important to advance our understanding of the world, and it sometimes leads to discoveries that improve human lives. Marmot studies are the foundation for experiments to address obesity, cardiovascular disease, mpox, stress, hepatitis and liver cancer, and they may inform work on osteoporosis and organ transplantation.
Aging seems to nearly stop during hibernation, as the marmot heart rate drops from nearly 200 beats per minute when active to about nine during hibernation. Similarly, their active body temperature can be 104 degrees Fahrenheit (40 degrees Celsius) – about the same as a dog or cat – but plummet to 41 F (5 C) when hibernating. Humans, in comparison, become hypothermic at a core temperature of 95 F (35 C).
Sunday, February 1, 2026
The ‘sacred’ pledge that will power the relaunch of far-right militia Oath Keepers
January 6 insurrectionists staging a come-back?
Rhodes was sentenced to 18 years in prison for seditious conspiracy and other crimes committed during the U.S. Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021.
In January 2025, Donald Trump granted clemency to the over 1,500 defendants convicted of crimes connected to the storming of the Capitol.
Trump did not pardon Rhodes – or some others found guilty of the most serious crimes on Jan. 6. He instead commuted Rhodes’ sentence to time served. Commutation only reduces the punishment for a crime, whereas a full pardon erases a conviction.
As a political anthropologist I study the Patriot movement, a collection of anti-government right-wing groups that include the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers and Moms for Liberty. I specialize in alt-right beliefs, and I have interviewed people active in groups that participated in the Capitol riot.
Rhodes’ plans to relaunch the Oath Keepers, largely composed of current and former military veterans and law enforcement officers, is important because it will serve as an outlet for those who have felt lost since his imprisonment. 
Former Charlestown state Rep. Blake "Flip" Filippi represented the Oath Keepers
at this illegal rally. The town banned this rally because all its police were tied up
in the search for the Boston Marathon Bombers.
The group claimed it had over 40,000 dues-paying members at the height of its membership during Barack Obama’s presidency.
I believe that many of these people will return to the group, empowered by the lack of any substantial punishment resulting from the pardons for crimes committed on Jan. 6.
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