Christopher Loeffler

[Gegen den Strich @gdswirkt]

Erst Paris. Jetzt London.

Zwei Metropolen zeigen etwas, das in Deutschland offenbar als radikale Theorie gilt:

Wenn man weniger Dreck in die Luft bläst, ist anschließend weniger Dreck in der Luft.

Revolutionäre Technologie. Nennt sich Politik, die funktioniert. 💚

[Christopher Loeffler @TravelOceans]

https://t.co/j0DIMKGKD9
More cities should focus on improving the environmental health of their inhabitants. @berlinerzeitung any chance?

[Ingwar Perowanowitsch @Perowinger94]

Wow! Warschau hat jetzt direkt vor dem HBf. eine autoverstopfte Straße in einen wunderbar begrünten Platz umgewandelt. Dafür wurden 200 Parkplätze, Fahrspuren und ein Autotunnel stillgelegt, 200 Bäume und zahlreiche Büsche gepflanzt und Gehwege, Liegeflächen, Bänke und Brunnen installiert. Ziel war es den Menschen den öffentlichen Raum zurückzugeben. Das Ergebnis sieht absolut fantastisch aus❤️

[Christopher Loeffler @TravelOceans]

@GaianiGreta Nice work Greta! Looking forward to reading it!

[Christopher Loeffler @TravelOceans]

@skyler_higley

[Max Kozlov @maxdkozlov]

The Trump administration has downsized US science by historic margins — but it's not just via grant or workforce cuts.

Our new @nature analysis reveals the government has cut more than 100 scientific advisory panels across all major science agencies.

[Christopher Loeffler @TravelOceans]

@suchnerve Ya there are a lot of good ideas out there we just need to implement them. Same can be said about cleaning robots, dishwashers, etc.

[Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez @AOC]

This is a threat of genocide and merits removal from office. The President’s mental faculties are collapsing and cannot be trusted.

To every individual in the President’s chain of command: You have a duty to refuse illegal orders. That includes carrying out this threat.

[Christopher Loeffler @TravelOceans]

@ReskiLab https://t.co/lLSdinp3MY

[Zeke Hausfather @hausfath]

El Niño is coming, and it is shaping up to be a big one.

Over at The Climate Brink I've put together a compilation of the latest forecasts by different modeling groups. They suggest that we might see an event comparable in strength to what we saw in 2016.

[Gandalv @Microinteracti1]

This video should unsettle anyone who takes the United States seriously as a nation.

Because it exposes something dangerous: the trivialization of the world's most consequential office. It shows how carelessly the power, credibility, and accumulated moral authority of a superpower can be squandered for a few seconds of viral attention.

In any other major democracy, this behavior from a head of state would trigger a constitutional crisis. Paris would burn. Berlin would convene emergency sessions. In the Nordic countries, resignation would follow within hours. Across functioning democracies, the public, institutions, and political class would recognize this for what it is: an assault on the dignity of the state itself. Leaders are not free to perform as entertainers without consequence. National honor is not personal property, it's held in trust.

But the United States is not just another country with a provocateur in charge. It is the linchpin of global order. It maintains formal alliances and security guarantees with forty to fifty nations. It underwrites the financial architecture, trade systems, and diplomatic frameworks that billions of people depend on daily. When the American president speaks—or posts—it doesn't land as satire, meme, or personal whim. It reads as a signal about what the country is becoming.

American power has never relied solely on carrier strike groups or economic output. It has rested on something more fragile and more valuable: trust. The belief that beneath domestic turbulence lies institutional seriousness, predictability, and a baseline commitment to dignity. That belief is now disintegrating in real time.

Millions of American companies operate globally. They negotiate multibillion-dollar contracts in environments where reputation is currency. Boardrooms in Frankfurt, Singapore, and Dubai aren't debating whether a post was clever—they're asking whether the United States remains a reliable partner. Whether agreements signed today will be honored tomorrow. Whether American leadership has devolved from institutional to purely theatrical.

Consider tourism, which sustains millions of American jobs—airlines, hotels, restaurants, museums, entire regional economies. Soft power isn't an abstraction. It materializes in flight bookings, conference locations, study-abroad programs, and decades of accumulated goodwill. A quiet, decentralized boycott doesn't require government action—only a collective sense that a nation no longer respects itself.

Now picture this image being studied by foreign ministers, central bank governors, defense strategists, and sovereign wealth fund managers. Picture them asking a coldly rational question: How do we write binding thirty-year agreements with a country whose public face will be this, relentlessly, for years to come? How do we plan for the long term when the tone is impulsive, mocking, and unbound by the gravity of office?

This is where the real calculus begins. Trillions in foreign capital depend on confidence that America is stable, credible, and rule-governed. That confidence is now being traded for what, exactly? Applause from an online mob? A dopamine rush from manufactured outrage? Content designed to dominate the news cycle rather than serve the national interest?

Every serious nation eventually confronts this choice: burn long-term credibility for short-term spectacle, or safeguard the reputation previous generations bled to build. The United States spent eighty years constructing an image of reliability, restraint, and leadership under pressure. That image wasn't born from perfection—it came from a visible commitment to standards that transcended impulse.

This isn't a partisan issue. Europeans who value democratic norms recognize something ominously familiar here. Americans—Democrat and Republican alike—who believe in responsibility and restraint should see it too. Power attracts scrutiny. Leadership demands discipline. A superpower cannot behave like a reality TV contestant without paying a price.

The presidency is not a personal broadcast channel. It's a symbol carried on behalf of 330 million people and countless international partners who never voted but whose lives are shaped by American decisions anyway. Every post either reinforces or erodes the idea that America can be counted on when it matters most.

So the question is no longer whether this is offensive. The question is whether this is who America chooses to be: a nation that trades a century of hard-won reputation for viral moments. A country that replaces statecraft with content creation. A republic governed like a season of reality television.

History offers a harsh lesson here. Great powers don't fall because enemies mock them. They collapse when they begin mocking themselves—publicly, proudly, and without grasping the cost until it's far too late.

Stay connected,
Follow Gandalv @Microinteracti1

[spencer 🦈 @Unpop_Science]

This sounds insane to speak out loud, but is a real statistic:

The global fishing industry kills at least 1 trillion wild fish every year to supply 1% of the world’s food.

[DrDemetre @dr_demetre]

My resignation letter from CDC.

Dear Dr. Houry,

I am writing to formally resign from my position as Director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), effective August 28, 2025, close of business.   I am happy to stay on for two weeks to provide transition, if requested.

This decision has not come easily, as I deeply value the work that the CDC does in safeguarding public health and am proud of my contributions to that critical mission. However, after much contemplation and reflection on recent developments and perspectives brought to light by Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., I find that the views he and his staff have shared challenge my ability to continue in my current role at the agency and in the service of the health of the American people. Enough is enough.

While I hold immense respect for the institution and my colleagues, I believe that it is imperative to align my professional responsibilities to my system of ethics and my understanding of the science of infectious disease, immunology, and my promise to serve the American people.  This step is necessary to ensure that I can contribute effectively in a capacity that allows me to remain true to my principles.

I am unable to serve in an environment that treats CDC as a tool to generate policies and materials that do not reflect scientific reality and are designed to hurt rather than to improve the public’s health.  The recent change in the adult and children’s immunization schedule threaten the lives of the youngest Americans and pregnant people.   The data analyses that supported this decision have never been shared with CDC despite my respectful requests to HHS and other leadership.  This lack of meaningful engagement was further compounded by a “frequently asked questions” document written to support the Secretary’s directive that was circulated by HHS without input from CDC subject matter experts and that cited studies that did not support the conclusions that were attributed to these authors.  Having worked in local and national public health for years, I have never experienced such radical non-transparency, nor have I seen such unskilled manipulation of data to achieve a political end rather than the good of the American people.

It is untenable to serve in an organization that is not afforded the opportunity to discuss decisions of scientific and public health importance released under the moniker of CDC.  The lack of communication by HHS and other CDC political leadership that culminates in social media posts announcing major policy changes without prior notice demonstrate a disregard of normal communication channels and common sense.  Having to retrofit analyses and policy actions to match inadequately thought-out announcements in poorly scripted videos or page long X posts should not be how organizations responsible for the health of people should function.  Some examples include the announcement of the change in the COVID-19 recommendations for children and pregnant people, the firing of scientists from ACIP by X post and an op-ed rather than direct communication with these valuable experts, the announcement of new ACIP members by X before onboarding and vetting have completed, and the release of term of reference for an ACIP workgroup that ignored all feedback from career staff at CDC.

The recent term of reference for the COVID vaccine work group created by this ACIP puts people of dubious intent and more dubious scientific rigor in charge of recommending vaccine policy to a director hamstrung and sidelined by an authoritarian leader.   Their desire to please a political base will result in death and disability of vulnerable children and adults.  Their base should be the people they serve not a political voting bloc.

I have always been first to challenge scientific and public health dogma in my career and was excited by the opportunity to do so again.  I was optimistic that there would be an opportunity to brief the Secretary about key topics such as measles, avian influenza, and the highly coordinated approach to the respiratory virus season.  Such briefings would allow exchange of ideas and a shared path to support the vision of “Making America Healthy Again.”  We are seven months into the new administration, and no CDC subject matter expert from my Center has ever briefed the Secretary.  I am not sure who the Secretary is listening to, but it is quite certainly not to us.  Unvetted and conflicted outside organizations seem to be the sources HHS use over the gold standard science of CDC and other reputable sources.  At a hearing, Secretary Kennedy said that Americans should not take medical advice from him.  To the contrary, an appropriately briefed and inquisitive Secretary should be a source of health information for the people he serves. As it stands now, I must agree with him, that he should not be considered a source of accurate information.

The intentional eroding of trust in low-risk vaccines favoring natural infection and unproven remedies will bring us to a pre-vaccine era where only the strong will survive and many if not all will suffer.  I believe in nutrition and exercise.  I believe in making our food supply healthier, and I also believe in using vaccines to prevent death and disability.  Eugenics plays prominently in the rhetoric being generated and is derivative of a legacy that good medicine and science should continue to shun.

The recent shooting at CDC is not why I am resigning.  My grandfather, who I am named after, stood up to fascist forces in Greece and lost his life doing so.  I am resigning to make him and his legacy proud.   I am resigning because of the cowardice of a leader that cannot admit that HIS and his minions’ words over decades created an environment where violence like this can occur.  I reject his and his colleagues’ thoughts and prayers, and advise they direct those to people that they have not actively harmed.

For decades, I have been a trusted voice for the LGBTQ community when it comes to critical health topics.  I must also cite the recklessness of the administration in their efforts to erase transgender populations, cease critical domestic and international HIV programming, and terminate key research to support equity as part of my decision.

Public health is not merely about the health of the individual, but it is about the health of the community, the nation, the world. The nation’s health security is at risk and is in the hands of people focusing on ideological self-interest.

I want to express my heartfelt gratitude for the opportunities for growth, learning, and collaboration that I have been afforded during my time at the CDC. It has been a privilege to work alongside such dedicated professionals who are committed to improving the health and well-being of communities across the nation even when under attack from within both physically and psychologically.

Thank you once again for the support and guidance I have received from you and previous CDC leadership throughout my tenure. I wish the CDC continued success in its vital mission and that HHS reverse its dangerous course to dismantle public health as a practice and as an institution.  If they continue the current path, they risk our personal well-being and the security of the United States.

Sincerely,

Demetre C. Daskalakis MD MPH (he/his/him)

[Ben Noll @BenNollWeather]

A severe marine heat wave is unfolding in the Mediterranean Sea.

Sea surface temperatures have been record-breaking on more than 50 days this year, with the current average of 26˚C (79˚F) equal to the typical annual maximum — almost two months earlier than normal 🧵

[Christopher Loeffler @TravelOceans]

@CondorCares hello I’ve tried many ways to submit a form but I keep getting an error. Can you help me?

[Christopher Loeffler @TravelOceans]

Open Letter in Support of Science — STAND UP FOR SCIENCE.
If you’re a scientist or support science in the US it’s probably the last call to stand up and be heard before irreparable damage happens affecting the entire scientific community. https://t.co/9kRsdxZ4sq

[European Research Council (ERC) @ERC_Research]

Today, a decision to increase ERC support for researchers moving to Europe was adopted.

On top of normal grants, the ERC offers 'start-up' funding to help PIs establish laboratories/research teams in Europe.

This extra is now x2 (up to €2 million!) https://t.co/ikGj3DoFAO

[Max Planck Society @maxplanckpress]

🚀 Exciting news for early-career researchers!

The new Max Planck #Postdoc Program offers a guaranteed contract of at least 3 years, targeted mentoring, and career workshops.

Applications are open now! https://t.co/mU5NBXMsDU
#ScienceCareer #PostdocProgram

[Christopher Loeffler @TravelOceans]

@Nature Yep, left during the first administration. They blocked collaborative projects (no foreign nationals could receive training in fed facilities), and restricted what we could discuss in open publications (no mention of climate change). Now happy in Germany 🇩🇪

[Christopher Loeffler @TravelOceans]

Our latest collaborative work on #ciguatera #CTX is free with this link for a limited time. Herein we’re checking the Italian seafood market. So far so good! But as always there are issues we should keep an eye on. #Authenticity in seafood is one risk

https://t.co/bjPLGNwI61