Maybe you've heard about Energy Sec. Chris Wright and the DOE declaring "energy emergencies" to keep coal plants open? Now the EPA's using the Clean Air Act to do something similar in Colorado, with implications beyond. @joefassler.bsky.social for @desmog.com 👉
www.desmog.com/2026/02/09/t...
Thanks to @joefassler.bsky.social and @environment.theguardian.com for covering Sentient’s media analysis — hope it sparks more reporting on emissions from food!
Trump admin officials, industry groups, and tech leaders cite an “AI arms race” with China to justify a massive fossil fuels expansion — calling it an urgent matter of national security.
For @desmog.com, I spoke to experts who explained why that’s not true:
🚨 NEW 🚨 In Texas, the gold rush to build data centers for AI is spurring demand for over 100 new gas power plants. And it is a "rush": some gas plant air pollution permits were approved by the state in just 24 hours. Get the full story from @joefassler.bsky.social 👇
Didn’t go there for this one, but many of the groups involved also have Atlas Network ties.
There were enough covert Elon Musk cameos to warrant a separate piece dedicated just to him — esp. on how DOGE reset the narrative around Project 2025 goals in the election’s final months:
A few months back, I started in on what I thought would be a simple, straightforward piece: mapping out the Trump admin officials connected to Project 2025 groups.
The ties turned out to go so deep, and be so numerous and surprising, that the piece only just ran today.
Trump tried to deny any knowledge of Project 2025 - the radical plan to dismantle the federal government.
Well it turns out that 70% of his Cabinet have ties to the groups behind the document.
Thanks, Adam!
Fantastic @desmog.bsky.social post detailing how solidly Musk is now positioned as one of the single greatest threats to climate action we have ever faced
www.desmog.com/2025/02/20/e...
@geoffdembicki.bsky.social @joefassler.bsky.social @adambarnett.bsky.social
How big is the market for "weird meat"? We'll see.
But Vow's journey is sure to be a fascinating and boundary-busting one.
Thanks to @fastcompany.com and @thefern.org for being great partners on this piece.
thefern.org/2024/12/the-...
It starts with the concession that this wildly new approach to making meat won't be very good at simulating the exact meat we eat today.
What *can* it do well?
Create things that are delicious and meat-like and exciting and strange. And — for now — VERY pricey.
I spent months talking to Vow's CEO George Peppou for this story.
His strategy is completely at odds with the standard alt-protein playbook — which strives for low costs and realist mimicry.
Peppou's willingness to embrace the *unreal* has charted a fascinating path forward for this tech.
The team of mad geniuses at Vow Foods envisions a very different future for cultivated meat.
For now, they're not trying to compete with commodity animal ag.
They're scaling expensive, bizarre products in the world's first genuine cell-meat factory — like $100/pound quail foie gras.
Trump has been filling his cabinet with a long list of conservative partisans eager to stop climate action. Here’s background on 6 fracking billionaires & climate denial groups backing them.
@joefassler.bsky.social reports: www.desmog.com/2024/12/16/6...
Many of Trump’s cabinet picks aren’t household names, but they’re backed by major players in the world of climate obstruction.
@joefassler.bsky.social goes deep into the fracking billionaires and denier groups eagerly awaiting Trump's second administration.
www.desmog.com/2024/12/16/6...
Thanks Benjamin!
Finally, an excerpt (with a gorgeous introduction from Kyle McCarthy): electricliterature.com/the-sky-was-...
On why publishing a book is also a goodbye, and the strange emotions that follow:
joefassler.substack.com/p/the-bitter...
Research for the book led me to the obscure history of human attempts at birdlike flight, a lost era of daring, incredibly dangerous experiments. I
It's a saga strewn with broken necks — and tantalizing possibilities.
On flight before the Wrights, for Lit Hub: lithub.com/crash-again-...
thanks, Tamar!!
As I wrote I spent so much time thinking about other novels and stories that examine technology—brave, new, world-changing inventions—as their central subject.
Electric Lit let me write about some of my favorites: electricliterature.com/7-books-abou...
The Sky Was Ours by Joe Fassler on a cloth surface
I wrote a novel! It lives.
Some related writing, out this week, a thread:
Nicely said Jeff. Yes, that’s the larger point: cultivated meat could be ready now, and we’d still have a lot of the very same problems to solve.
Yes to this! A necessary first step if we want to reduce meat consumption.
What happens beyond 20 or 30 years is uncertain, but the burden of proof is on the companies to show the tech can power a global supply chain. Or even a much smaller scale one. That hasn’t happened yet.
I hope the piece is more nuanced than “cell meat is dead.” The dream of cell meat as a near- to mid-term intervention—which was absolutely the original goal, and a worthy one!—is dead. A lot of the original assumptions were wrong. The promised thing will not occur the way it was promised.
If we start with the premise that CM is a generational project with an uncertain outcome—and my reporting strongly suggests this is the case—we could have a better conversation.
I agree! And nothing wrong with continuing to explore this option. Lots of brilliant folks involved + science often finds a way. But we shouldn’t be under the delusion that this industry can achieve impact any time soon. Once we acknowledge that’s not possible, we can get busy making other plans.
This is the comment I mean.
If telling people to eat fewer Big Macs is pointless, what about telling people to eat, say, more expensive Big Macs that mix mushrooms with genetically modified beef cells?
Nothing wrong with GMO. The point is that I’m not sure one is so much harder than the other.