More than anything else this reveals just how impulsive the major questions doctrine revamp is. It all ultimately stemmed from Roberts's personal antipathy to a regulation, and everything since has been a dishonest attempt to dress it up so that he doesn't look like he's just shooting from the hip.

At least we are not even pretending ethanol mandates are climate policy any more. Just a pure subsidy from US consumers to the ag industry.

Federal policy on biofuels goes from bad to worse under Trump The administration’s lavish biofuel subsidies for farmers are bad for consumers and the planet, but the problem goes way beyond his administration.

Is mandating an increase in the amount of corn and soy we burn in vehicles good for food security? No. Is it good for nature? No. But is it at least good for the climate? Also no. Read the latest from @mikegrunwald.bsky.social 👇🏻

New paper published in PNAS today!

Joint work with Jeffrey Shrader, Stephan Thies, Derek Lemoine, and Laura Bakkensen: www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Which one are you looking for?

How much hot air? Hydrogen tax credits highlight the challenges of climate policy without economy-wide climate regulation

See my post-CEA shout into the void @briefingbook.bsky.social on the H2 tax credit omnishambles

www.briefingbook.info/p/how-much-h...

Lifecycle analysis is useful for small entities to understand the environmental effects of their activities

It is 100% NOT the tool to guide Federal regulation (looking at you, Renewable Fuel Standard) or investments (hello H2 tax credits) that move market equilibria, undermining the basis of LCA

Understanding Support for Inefficient Environmental Policy Instruments Founded in 1920, the NBER is a private, non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to conducting economic research and to disseminating research findings among academics, public policy makers, an...

Economists: If only people understood carbon taxes better, maybe they would like them more

Reminds me of the period in climate science where we thought education about the science would change the politics of the problem.

www.nber.org/papers/w3507...

Climate Science Serving America Fellowship Our mission is to help the world reach “Drawdown" as quickly, safely, and equitably as possible.

Dear Friends,

Please send this to your networks. Project Drawdown is offering full-time, paid (with benefits) fellowships to scientists and engineers working on climate solutions in the public interest.

Deadline is April 17.

drawdown.org/careers/clim...

As a fire scientist, I am devastated for my many good friends and colleagues who will be affected by the mass closure of so many research stations and offices. Many will leave the agency.

USFS has pioneered so much foundational fire science. The consequences of this will be catastrophic.

NEW US electricity data ⚡️🇺🇸

In March, renewables produced more than a third of US electricity for the first time ever, even overtaking gas generation!

Wind and solar combined reached over a quarter (26%) for the first time.

"for my kid" - suuuuuure

Wildlife trade drives animal-to-human pathogen transmission over 40 years

New in @science.org ‼️ In the most comprehensive study to date, we show that wildlife trade is driving animal-to-human zoonotic spillover at a planetary scale, with +1 spillover per host every 10 years. Live animal markets and illegal trade pose even greater risks. 🔓 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Opinion | NASA Flew by the Moon, but Behind the Scenes, Its Science Is a Chaotic Mess

The images of Earth from Artemis are amazing. But if we destroy our ability to understand (and live on) our planet, all they are is pretty pictures

www.nytimes.com/2026/04/08/o...

If the ceasefire holds, expect 2–3 months before tanker flows and refinery feedstock delivery approach anything like normal, and 6–12 months before refined product markets (jet fuel, diesel, chemicals) fully normalize.

On the "increase resolution" vs "characterize uncertainty" debate, I'll definitely plant my flag on the latter. Single "mega runs" of super high resolution models are all but useless from an impacts perspective if you can't characterize parameter uncertainty or internal variability

Very useful for someone like me - excited, but bewildered, by the explosion of novel approaches in the climate modeling space.

Give me a shout if you're out here and have some spare time - we can go sailing on the Bay!

Our nation's scientific capacity is crumbling before our eyes.

Congratulations! I look forward to sending you all my climate change papers.

Climate Change, Deforestation, and the Expansion of the Global Agricultural Frontier Founded in 1920, the NBER is a private, non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to conducting economic research and to disseminating research findings among academics, public policy makers, an...

A downward spiral - climate change lowers agricultural productivity, leading to cropland expansion and deforestation, and thus more climate change.
www.nber.org/papers/w3502...

We are launching a big project today with MIT —

The Electricity Price Hub!

You can view monthly electricity prices per kwh and avg. bills for every major utility in the country going back to Jan 2020.

electricity.heatmap.news

📄Published Today in Nature:

500 researchers reproduced 100 studies across the social & behavioral sciences to assess their analytical robustness (led by @balazsaczel.bsky.social & @szaszibarnabas.bsky.social).

Article: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Preprint: osf.io/preprints/me...

TLDR: 1/11

just pick a discount rate already and stick with it

Skylimit: A Better Way to Read Social Media What if your social media feed worked like a newspaper instead of a slot machine?

Howdy! I'm attending #AtmosphereConf in person Saturday+Sunday. I'll be talking about my newspaper-like curating client SkyLimit at 4:20pm on Sunday (Rm 2301): atmosphereconf.org/event/xX5yRJr
Feel free to DM me to meet or chat.

More here:
blog.skylimit.dev/p/skylimit-a...

@atmosphereconf.org

screenshot of a resignation letter expressing sadness at leaving NASA

My resignation letter

Kinship Interlocks: How the Intimate Exchange of Wealth, Status, and Power Generates Upper-Class Persistence - Shay O’Brien, 2026 How do some families manage to entrench themselves in the upper class for many generations while others do not? Bringing together economic sociology, political ...

My latest article is online now at American Sociological Review: “Kinship Interlocks.” It’s about how some elite families manage to stay rich and powerful for many generations while others don’t. 🧵 (1/16)

I’d frame this just a touch differently: they aren’t abandoning low risk areas, they are abandoning “California” as a place to grow their business. That should cause some introspection on our part.

Data centers: 4-5% of U.S. electricity today. By 2030: 9-17%.

Those projections vary wildly by state. We built a dashboard so you can see your state's numbers and download the data.

Check out the full state-by-state picture here: powering-intelligence.epri.com/dashboard/

Just in: UCAR has filed a lawsuit against NSF, the Commerce Dept, NOAA, and OMB to prevent the dismantling of NCAR, alleging "violations of the Constitution and the Administrative Procedure Act."