Leah Stokes

@leahstokes.bsky.social

Professor of climate + energy policy at UCSB. Alumni of MIT, Columbia and UToronto. Hosts "A Matter of Degrees" podcast. Cuts carbon pollution! Proudly 🇨🇦 Gardener 🌱 leahstokes.com; Newsletter: electricnotes.news

California has the largest virtual power plant in the world, with 200,000 participants. At the exact moment when the grid is dirtiest and most expensive to run, this program surges in with the cheapest, cleanest power. Newsom's budget would kill it. That's just bad policy.

200,000 Californians create as much power as a nuclear plant to help the grid. Now that's up in the air

California has one of the most successful "virtual power plants" in the world, but it's on the chopping block.

latimes.com

NEW: Taylor Farms is a big player in conservative politics. The company donated $2 million to conservative political groups in 2025 and its CEO has personally donated more than $900,000 to Republican PACs and candidates. It's also spent $810,000 on anti-regulatory lobbying since 2025

Taylor Farms Spent Big on MAGA and Anti-Regulatory Lobbying Before Diarrhea Outbreak

The company donated more than $3.6 million to conservative groups between 2020 and 2025, including $1 million to the MAGA Inc. super PAC.

wired.com

I'm the only Democrat in this race who has passed local, state, and federal legislation.  I've won investments that have created good jobs, lowered energy bills, and challenged housing discrimination. I look forward to continuing that work in Congress. #MI07

This idiot has probably never been to the BOREAL FOREST a day in his life. It is 5.5 times the size of Texas. You cannot "groom" it. It's burning because of climate change. The utter bullshit from these climate deniers. Canadians are sick of this bullying and they are not going to take it.

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 2w ago

Rep. Jeff Van Drew: "Canada isn't working because they are so far left. This should be a warning shot to them. You better come to America, say, 'We're sorry, we're gonna mend our ways and do what we used to do and groom and maintain the forest.'"

Hard to overstate how angry Canadians are at Trump over these ridiculous tariffs. The United States has emitted the most carbon pollution in world history. It has caused these climate-driven wildfires. Oh and American air pollution routinely drifts into Canada. What utter bullshit.

Let's do some Canadian pipeline-wildfire math. The Canadian Energy Center says growing oil exports by 1.5M barrels/day **could** boost GDP by ~31B annually. Meanwhile, wildfire smoke health costs alone - just the health costs, nothing else - averaged 23B/year, past tense. And they're growing fast.

Ontario hardest hit as wildfires cost Canada billions | NOW Toronto

A new report estimates wildfire smoke has cost Canada $231 billion since 2014. See how much each province has spent.

nowtoronto.com

Republicans in Congress are threatening Canada's sovereignty over climate change fueled wildfires. Here's how much money they've taken from the fossil fuel industry recently. James: $308k+ Bergman: $175k+ McClain: $105k+ Moolenaar: $133k+ - oh and he's a climate denier. Completely shameless.

‘Sovereignty comes with responsibility:’ U.S. lawmakers to Canada on wildfires - National | Globalnews.ca

As wildfire smoke blankets parts of the country, and spills into the United States, some U.S. lawmakers are calling on Canada to do more.

globalnews.ca

The fires in Ontario - like so many others - demonstrating viscerally how climate change perpetuates the displacement and dispossession of Indigenous peoples, who have least contributed to emissions and over and over again put their bodies on the line to prevent fossil fuel development.

Luke LeBrun@lukelebrun.ca · 3w ago

These images of First Nations community members evacuating Collins, Ontario on motorboats are absolutely surreal www.facebook.com/reel/1548244...

"Leah Stokes, maybe our leading expert on utilities, played a huge role in getting the IRA through and tells that story in a book called 'The Carbon Wave.' It’s a great insider political account, and it’s also a beautiful story..." — @billmckibben.bsky.social ♥️

The Very Good and Very Bad News on Climate

Advancements in renewable energy are paving the way for a new climate politics. The environmentalist Bill McKibben articulates some of the possibilities in this new era of energy abundance.CreditCredit...

nytimes.com

ICE shot and killed a man in Houston with no criminal record who was not even their target. They pushed him off the road. And now he is gone forever. ICE is a domestic terrorist organization. We need to abolish ICE now and stop Trump’s murderous thugs.

The New York Times: Man Killed by Federal Agent in Houston Was Not the Target of ICE Search