Edward Gregr

#Science and #eco-politics fueled by #marine #ecology, and diverse #values. Rational decisions aren’t binary. Live for today, work for tomorrow. #UBC #SocEcoSys

[UBC Oceans (also found at ubcoceans.bsky.social) @UBCoceans]

How can #BC protect itself from the next atmospheric river? @KaiChanUBC suggests resurfacing streams and making rain gardens instead; a design that would lessen run-off. @ubcires
https://t.co/8eoEdAcKe2 via @CBCNews

[Data Science Fact @DataSciFact]

'The most important aspect of a statistical analysis is not what you do with the data, it's what data you use.' -- Andrew Gelman

[Edward Gregr @EcoRational]

Where are the additional parks? schools? clinics?

No clear reason not to stick to the pre-covid community plans.

#VanPoli

[Kenneth Chan @iamkennethchan]

City of Vancouver is proposing to eliminate rezoning applications for new supportive housing, social housing & co-op housing across much of the city.

Up to 6 storeys in orange Village areas & 15-18 storeys in purple Neighbourhood Centres. #vanpoli #vanre
https://t.co/I6bmxnQdXu

[Timothy Imholt @TimothyImholt]

Never tell your electrical engineer parent you want to be a transformer for Halloween.

[Yurok Tribe @TheYurokTribe]

Earlier this week, the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife observed the first Klamath River Chinook salmon to travel above the CA/OR border since 1912!
"The salmon remember." - Vice Chairman Frankie Myers
https://t.co/vlGmbM3J8m

[Edward Gregr @EcoRational]

@SoniaFurstenau @BCGreens @bcndp I owe this simple, fantastic idea to Mat Wright who found me over on #Bluesky. I'm not sure which Mat it was🤔, but I'll be spending most of my time over there from now on.

[Edward Gregr @EcoRational]

So what is happening, asks X.

Well, to anyone still here, who lives in #BC, it seems we have a fleeting chance to upgrade our governance. Join me in asking @SoniaFurstenau & the @BCGreens to make #PropRep a requirement of propping up the @BCNDP. #bcpoli

[Edward Gregr @EcoRational]

This is what I get at the top of my feed after months way? Incredible.

[Elon Musk @elonmusk]

🤔

[Elon Musk @elonmusk]

🤔

[J.K. Rowling @jk_rowling]

You've never 'lived as a woman,' you just joined a particularly cosseted subgroup of men.

[CALL TO ACTIVISM @CalltoActivism]

A British writer penned the best description of Donald Trump I’ve ever read:

“Why do some British people not like Donald Trump?”

A few things spring to mind. Trump lacks certain qualities which the British traditionally esteem. For instance, he has no class, no charm, no coolness, no credibility, no compassion, no wit, no warmth, no wisdom, no subtlety, no sensitivity, no self-awareness, no humility, no honour and no grace – all qualities, funnily enough, with which his predecessor Mr. Obama was generously blessed. So for us, the stark contrast does rather throw Trump’s limitations into embarrassingly sharp relief.

Plus, we like a laugh. And while Trump may be laughable, he has never once said anything wry, witty or even faintly amusing – not once, ever. I don’t say that rhetorically, I mean it quite literally: not once, not ever. And that fact is particularly disturbing to the British sensibility – for us, to lack humour is almost inhuman. But with Trump, it’s a fact. He doesn’t even seem to understand what a joke is – his idea of a joke is a crass comment, an illiterate insult, a casual act of cruelty.

Trump is a troll. And like all trolls, he is never funny and he never laughs; he only crows or jeers. And scarily, he doesn’t just talk in crude, witless insults – he actually thinks in them. His mind is a simple bot-like algorithm of petty prejudices and knee-jerk nastiness.

There is never any under-layer of irony, complexity, nuance or depth. It’s all surface. Some Americans might see this as refreshingly upfront. Well, we don’t. We see it as having no inner world, no soul. And in Britain we traditionally side with David, not Goliath. All our heroes are plucky underdogs: Robin Hood, Dick Whittington, Oliver Twist. Trump is neither plucky, nor an underdog. He is the exact opposite of that. He’s not even a spoiled rich-boy, or a greedy fat-cat. He’s more a fat white slug. A Jabba the Hutt of privilege.

And worse, he is that most unforgivable of all things to the British: a bully. That is, except when he is among bullies; then he suddenly transforms into a snivelling sidekick instead. There are unspoken rules to this stuff – the Queensberry rules of basic decency – and he breaks them all. He punches downwards – which a gentleman should, would, could never do – and every blow he aims is below the belt. He particularly likes to kick the vulnerable or voiceless – and he kicks them when they are down.

So the fact that a significant minority – perhaps a third – of Americans look at what he does, listen to what he says, and then think ‘Yeah, he seems like my kind of guy’ is a matter of some confusion and no little distress to British people, given that:

• Americans are supposed to be nicer than us, and mostly are.

• You don’t need a particularly keen eye for detail to spot a few flaws in the man.

This last point is what especially confuses and dismays British people, and many other people too; his faults seem pretty bloody hard to miss. After all, it’s impossible to read a single tweet, or hear him speak a sentence or two, without staring deep into the abyss. He turns being artless into an art form; he is a Picasso of pettiness; a Shakespeare of shit. His faults are fractal: even his flaws have flaws, and so on ad infinitum. God knows there have always been stupid people in the world, and plenty of nasty people too. But rarely has stupidity been so nasty, or nastiness so stupid. He makes Nixon look trustworthy and George W look smart. In fact, if Frankenstein decided to make a monster assembled entirely from human flaws – he would make a Trump.

And a remorseful Doctor Frankenstein would clutch out big clumpfuls of hair and scream in anguish: ‘My God… what… have… I… created?' If being a twat was a TV show, Trump would be the boxed set.”

-Nate White

[Edward Gregr @EcoRational]

Incredible animation of how freeways mow down communities.
HT @greig_oldford

[Urban Cycling Institute 🚲  @fietsprofessor]

Every time someone says that 'reducing the role of the car will need radical changes' show them this.

Creating current car dependency was only possible with a massive, decade-long and destructive effort to erase the city as we knew it.

(by @Segbydesign)

[Edward Gregr @EcoRational]

@OrnithoAle @ESPM_Berkeley Ale that’s terrific news! Congratulations!

[Andrew Dessler @AndrewDessler]

Our actual climate policy

[Ethan Mollick @emollick]

Whatever bad faith arguments you see on Twitter today, Schopenhauer already thought of how to use them 115 years ago as part of his 38 Stratagems to unfairly win an argument.

Twitter is powered by Stratagems 2, 3, and 22, along with a bit of Strategy 16. https://t.co/ltkF4ZBpJr

[Ngaio Hotte @nhotte]

“When you don’t have a transparent ownership system, [where the public can] see who the ultimate, beneficial owners are of fishing licences and quotas, you are vulnerable to the involvement of (foreign) state actors, organized crime and money launderers"
https://t.co/awdCaRY9gY.

[Edward Gregr @EcoRational]

Mr. Bean lays it all out.

I love #electric vehicles – and was an early adopter. But increasingly I feel duped
https://t.co/Wo3sHszsgi

[Edward Gregr @EcoRational]

We have reached #PeakWater. Time for zero growth and some movement towards #Sustainability.

"Arizona will limit some new housing construction in the Phoenix area because of a shrinking water supply, a sign of looming trouble in the West."
ht @nytimes

[Edward Gregr @EcoRational]

As compelling a conversation on Canada's missing and murdered #indigenous women and girls as you will hear. Heart-wrenching. We need to fix this. #RCMP, #Media, #DTES ... all things are connected.

[André Picard @picardonhealth]

A conversation with author @AngelaSterritt, author of the new book "Unbroken," and @APTNNews reporter @inthehouse7. https://t.co/4e7aHBeeAX via @VPL #Indigenous #MMIWG #reconciliation

[Edward Gregr @EcoRational]

Respect, responsibility, and interconnectedness among the principles of Indigenous
governance that can guide collaborative management of Earth’s #biodiversity. https://t.co/IdEyG0X4eX

So honoured to have been a part of this amazing effort.