Today on Volts: the second half of my conversation with Jan Sramek, the leader of California Forever, which is building a brand-new city in northern CA. We talk about how to design streets for families, how to maintain affordability, and how the new city will be governed. So interesting!
"The United States does a fine job generating economic growth, but it lags at translating that G.D.P. growth into the things we most care about." #Degrowth
"To call our era the Capitalocene, then, is to stress that the relations that have ushered forth a global proliferation of coal plants, oil refineries, and fracking pads have also embedded themselves deeply within our ways of thinking, acting, and being in the world." #degrowth
"Basically, over the last eighty years, an important subset of the human population have imposed themselves upon the planet with vigor, and the planet has born the physical burdens of that work. And because we live here, we must now carry them too, if unequally." #degrowth
I wrote Tuesday "Part of the unbearable stupidity of the current administration is its feckless enthusiasm for doing things that seem like manly feats of strength to manosphere idiots and also make this country weaker." Withdrawing from all those treaties and sabotaging NATO since then....
Unbelievably inhumane conditions. No wonder the Trump administration didn't want Americans to see this reporting. Must watch.
This is madness. Freezing offshore wind projects in progress will waste money, cost jobs, make electricity less reliable and more expensive, and will cause health harms given that fossil fuels will be used instead.
www.politico.com/news/2025/12...
Terminating the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) is an act of identity politics gone mad...bat sh-t crazy mad. My colleagues at @ametsoc.org are far too polite to put it in such crass terms, but they surely agree. Read their statement below.
In the US there might be a war on wind but globally the industry is winning it
A record 160 GW will be installed this year
The winds of change, they’re still blowing 💨
You ever just sit down and realize that the rise of 21st century fascism is capital's answer to climate change?
Today on Volts: the subset of cleantech known as "electrotech" -- solar, batteries, heat pumps, etc. -- is marching toward inevitable victory, not because it's low-emissions (though it is), but because it's more efficient & cheaper. I discuss the good news with @kingsmillbond.bsky.social.
"American evangelicals have proven themselves consistent in that they also take Jesus seriously but not literally, and so entitle themselves to build identities upon his name while dismissing or minimizing some of his most explicit priorities."
If I were running in next year's midterms, I'd be saying: Aussies are getting free electricity, and we're getting huge price spikes.
Because they built solar, and Trump is blocking it.
open.substack.com/pub/billmcki...
Gates has been harmful on climate for a long time. He has never understood the corruption and negative externality problems.
www.linkedin.com/pulse/bill-g...
The US will struggle to generate the energy it needs to power growth in its tech industry without including wind and solar, according to JPMorgan.
“I actually don’t think Washington has really woken up to just how popular these new energy and electro technologies that China is exporting are.” FT on the "profound" global impact of China's rise as an electrostate www.ft.com/content/013e... 🔌💡
Combustion is the past, electricity is the future, pass it on.
America is in crisis.
So it's a small relief that the rest of the world is actually getting remarkable stuff done with energy. We just passed a huge milestone globally!
Now back to work on America.
billmckibben.substack.com/p/something-...
China is beating the US in the battle for energy export dominance
The US sold $80 billion in oil and gas abroad through July. China exported $120 billion in green technology over the same period.
@akshatrathi.bsky.social
California passed a huge climate package last month, w/ a big effort to weave in affordability. It's wonky but important stuff, and I broke it all down for you:
- Cap & invest extension / rebrand
- transmission accelerator
- permission to join a Western RTO!
more here heatmap.news/energy/calif...
If I were dictator of America I would mandate that general tax revenue be used to install a large battery (say, 200MWh) next to every distribution feeder on the US grid. That would, in a stroke, solve basically all our grid problems & unlock *trillions* of dollars of economic growth & development.
Fun true fact: the yield of chardonnay grapes goes up 60% when grown in a field with solar panels.
Chardonnay--helping solar, hurting coal. It's working hard, man!
Always loved that Arby's/coal fact, and the coal industry has shrunk a lot since then. The piece also noted more people work in museums than in coal..... (and Mr. Weinstein is responding to yet more coal-industry welfare in the name of jobs.)
Increasingly, we're going to see climate refugees, even from parts of the United States. So far, we haven't figured out how to move them. insideclimatenews.org/news/2809202...
"When world historians tell the story of 2025, it will be about the passing of technological, and hence economic, and hence political leadership from the U.S. to China, in the span of eight months. The tape of this address will be the easiest way to explain" why. @billmckibben.bsky.social
COUNTRY ANALYSIS: We have downgraded the #US climate action to "Critically insufficient" - it's the most aggressive, comprehensive and consequential climate policy rollback the CAT has ever analysed.
🔗 bit.ly/CAT_US
Line chart showing that there's been a rapid escalation in how quickly the world installs a gigawatt of solar power capacity.
Time for the world to install a gigawatt of solar power capacity
2004: A year
2010: ~ a month
2015: ~ a week
Now: < A day
ourworldindata.org/data-insight... 🧪
I have a new @nytimes.com guest essay w/ @davidkeith.bsky.social about sunlight reflection. We note its not a solution for climate change and at best a band aid to treat systems, and suggest if its ever done it should only be to replace the cooling from air pollution today:
