Craig Welch
Writer tracking climate and more. Mediocre trail runner. Soccer nut. Priors: senior staff writer at National Geographic. Also: Seattle Times, Jackson Hole News. linkedin.com/in/craig-welch/
- Ahem. A suggestion... (h/t @marilynfd.bsky.social)
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- HUGE loss. These are some of the strongest climate journos in the country, tracking a story that challenge us in thousands of ways every day—even if we face too much other chaos to think about it. But climate change is still there, doing its devilish thing, whether we're paying attention or not.
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- Reposted by Craig Welchi know that this is an unpopular take, but everyone starting their own newsletter as a revenue stream is not a sustainable model for writing and reporting or for people who love and want to pay for media.
- Everything about how we got here is just heartbreakingly, mind-bogglingly, irredeemably, self-servingly stupid. So much incredible work done under trying conditions for low pay by smart people to educate us when we desperately need it, just tossed aside. And for what? www.npr.org/2026/02/04/n...
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- Reposted by Craig WelchBut the new Epstein files show a series of subsequent interactions. That included this email from Lutnick about bringing his family and others to visit Epstein at his private island, Little St. James. 3/6 www.nytimes.com/2026/01/30/u...
- Reposted by Craig WelchLast year, Lutnick said in an interview that he visited Epstein’s home around 2005 and was so troubled by what he saw that he decided never to associate with him again. “So I was never in the room with him socially, for business, or even philanthropy.” 2/6
- Reposted by Craig WelchNEW: Howard Lutnick, the billionaire who serves as President Trump’s commerce secretary, planned a visit to Epstein’s island in 2012. Lutnick previously claimed that he was so revolted by Epstein that he had cut ties with him years earlier. 1/6 www.nytimes.com/2026/01/30/u...
- Full stop.
- Federal judge in Minnesota today: ICE has violated AT LEAST 96 court orders in 2026 alone. "This should give pause to anyone...ICE has likely violated more court orders in January 2026 than some federal agencies have violated in their entire existence." storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...
- Is it too early to make plans to just give the ball to #MoneyLynch? #Seahawks
- I've never written for @wired.com. I don't know anyone at Wired. I ain't paid to say this. But if you want to understand this bonkers moment in history, it's worth the $10 a year. Multiple times a day, it seems, I see reporting, or even just takes, that make my jaw drop www.wired.com/story/ice-ag...
- Read every word of this by Kelly McBride @poynterinstitute.bsky.social "The public should assume responsibility for creating an accurate record of what’s happening... This is not an act of protest. It is record-keeping." www.poynter.org/commentary/2...
- Today is the 4 year anniversary of this harrowing moment in my long writing career.
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- "This is not the American way." An ex-governor, 3 ex-state Supreme Court justices, 5 ex-state bar presidents, 6 federal judges. Nearly 80 legal leaders in Wyoming, perhaps the nation's most conservative state, demand Congress check Trump's assertions of executive power. wyofile.com/the-american...
- What happens in a city with more dogs than children when the gas rep comes by to mark where the line is buried…
- This is powerful. @dguttenfelder.bsky.social is a fantastic shooter—several of his images hang in my home—but also one of the best people I know. He usually covers war or danger zones, from North Korea to Ukraine and Afghanistan. Don't miss his work or insight. www.nytimes.com/video/us/100...
- Put another way, from a former EPA staffer: "If you’re only considering the costs to industry and you’re ignoring the benefits, then you can’t justify any regulations that protect public health, which is the very reason that EPA was set up."
- Directly from the story: EPA "would no longer take health effects into account in the cost-benefit analyses necessary for clean-air regulations." Instead, "the agency would estimate only the costs to businesses of complying." www.nytimes.com/2026/01/12/c...
- Directly from the story: EPA "would no longer take health effects into account in the cost-benefit analyses necessary for clean-air regulations." Instead, "the agency would estimate only the costs to businesses of complying." www.nytimes.com/2026/01/12/c...
- HUGE news: The Senate Appropriations Committee released a BIPARTISAN package of bills last week that *would largely undo* the Trump administration's proposed cuts to science research. (NSF would be cut 1% rather than in half.) "Science is doing OK," says @aaas.org rep www.nytimes.com/2026/01/10/s...
- Reposted by Craig WelchThere were 23 billion-dollar weather and climate disasters in the US in 2025. And we only know this because @climatecentral.org hired the NOAA employee who led this vital tracking effort, which was decommissioned by the administration last spring.
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- Your moment of zen
- The deepest confirmed fish observation occurred at ~8,300 m. I know the shape behind it is another fish’s tail, but my brain insists it looks like the foreground fish is wearing a party hat. #deepsea #marinelife www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/new...
- Hard not to think today about the best single line of television dialogue I heard in 2025: “So good of you to join me in this pickle, free from the burden of a solution.”
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- Junkies, Scoobs! Our rescue mutt in snow framed by brake lights.
- “This year, renewables surpassed coal as a source of electricity worldwide…in 2004, it took a year to install 1 gigawatt of solar. Today, twice that amount goes online EACH DAY.” In 2024, China installed the equivalent of 100 nuclear plants in solar and wind power. www.science.org/content/arti...
- Long before WA’s floods, my state had secured $182 million to “elevate houses, move people away from flood-prone areas and protect homes with new levees.” Then Trump tried to cancel FEMA funding. It is ALWAYS cheaper to try preventing disaster than pay to rebuild. www.nbcnews.com/science/envi...?
- Reposted by Craig WelchHUGE NEWS from the new Epstein files: Records show that Maria Farmer, who worked for Epstein, filed a "child pornography" report to the FBI in 1996. The FBI has never before acknowledged that complaint. The case went nowhere, and mass abuse followed. www.nytimes.com/2025/12/19/u...
- More details about the book and series, including that Jess will be a producer www.netflix.com/tudum/articl...?
- Thrilled to see @jesswalter.bsky.social land a Netflix deal for his new book. If you don’t know his work, run don’t walk to your nearest book seller. If you do, then you’re probably as excited about this as I am. (Also: the main character’s an ex-enviro reporter! 😂) deadline.com/2025/12/so-f...
- Thrilled to see @jesswalter.bsky.social land a Netflix deal for his new book. If you don’t know his work, run don’t walk to your nearest book seller. If you do, then you’re probably as excited about this as I am. (Also: the main character’s an ex-enviro reporter! 😂) deadline.com/2025/12/so-f...
- Another GOP retirement—this one from one of the last two (of 10) Republicans in Congress who voted to impeach Trump after the January 6 riots.
- 🧵 I was driving my quite elderly mother around this wkd and put on one of my fav songs: Gil Scott-Heron’s “Lady Day and John Coltrane.” “What’s this about?” she asked “How greats like Billie Holiday can transport you." "I saw her, you know," mom said. "At the end." www.youtube.com/watch?v=7aRN...
- I know this is news to absolutely no one, me included. It just hits different up close. My daughter, a high school senior, just got offered a $35,000 scholarship to a university. Super proud! But we just realized that *reduced* the cost to $60,000 a year. The cost of college is bananas!!
- Would love to see this. But sharing for a single gobsmacking factoid in paragraph 8: Caro's "The Power Broker" remains so popular a book that it sold 40,000 copies...LAST YEAR! Every author alive knows how astonishing a number that is for a 50-yr-old title www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/n...
- Reposted by Craig WelchExcited to be going on @thedailyshow.com tonight to discuss climate change, my new book, and the general state of the planet.
- Happy anniversary to the Antarctic Treaty, signed Dec 1, 1959, as nations set aside the White Continent for scientific research and “peaceful purposes only.” Look at the big stuff humanity can do when it, you know, tries! (Video of slipping, sliding Adelie penguins off storied Paulet Island.)
- Great list of the year’s 10 best science books. Special shout to Washington State’s Drew Harrell, star (so to speak) of my @biographic.bsky.social story this year about unraveling the riddle of what is killing billions of sea stars along the U.S. West Coast. www.nature.com/articles/d41...
- Watching LAFC lose to Vancouver after seeing @soundersfc.com go down earlier this month in shootouts… Seems like some @mls.bsky.social stars might want to spend the offseason dialing in their penalty kicks. The number of high-pressure PK misses from great players is rather stunning ..
- Despite what you may have heard, Mount Rainier is NOT about to blow and smother 3.3 million people in ash—not this holiday season, at least. GeekWire's @kurt-slosh.bsky.social blows the lid on the Daily Mail's junk science (and garbage journalism). www.geekwire.com/2025/mount-r...
- On the way to a 6 am ferry two years ago today. I sure do love this city.
- It’s that time of year, again. Went on a long run in a local park yesterday. Rained so much and wind blew so hard, I’d swear it was 20 degrees colder by the time I finished. I know I sure was.
- Trump now says he's opening the #ArcticNationalWildlifeRefuge to oil drilling. In the past, new presidents have reversed course before any damage is done. It's not clear that will happen this time. Here's a stunning look at the stakes w/text by me from 2021 www.nationalgeographic.com/photography/...
- As the father of a teenager trying to navigate social media and AI and everything else, just popping up to say: We should be teaching news literacy in middle school. And we should have started at least a decade ago.
- Nearly 1 million species require coral reefs to survive, so such loss—if unaddressed—will reverberate in ways we can't yet even imagine.
- NEW: More than 150 top researchers from 23 countries now, for the first time, say coral reefs, which half a *billion* people rely on for food, have reached a point beyond which recovery is irreversible—unless we halt greenhouse gas emissions AND cool the planet. global-tipping-points.org
- NEW: More than 150 top researchers from 23 countries now, for the first time, say coral reefs, which half a *billion* people rely on for food, have reached a point beyond which recovery is irreversible—unless we halt greenhouse gas emissions AND cool the planet. global-tipping-points.org
- Journalism, he said, is how we know what's happening in troubled lands. "These extraordinary eyewitness accounts are the culmination of the daily efforts of countless people who work to ensure that information isn't manipulated for ends contrary to truth and human dignity“ apnews.com/article/pope...
- So sorry I missed this headline a few days ago. So happy to see it now. (h/t @wudan.bsky.social) www.theguardian.com/science/2025...
