At this point gotta imagine that, for people who know better, not acknowledging climate change is somewhat damaging at a psychic level
I think it’s morally bankrupt to build a political faction around the cause of courting tech executives who have become progressively more dependent on fossil capital back into the Democrat Party, then pretend there is some objective reason to be scared of mentioning climate change
The line between climate hushing and climate denial is getting awfully thin
Fascinating how much of a firewall there seems to be between mainstream reporting on local anti-data center fights, and on frontier labs debating the ethics of AGI, open source models, automation, etc. Arguably these things are very related!
The people who wanna pick dumb fights over historical accuracy in period films never make the case that audiences should look at gnarly boils and rotting brown teeth for three hours
The question of whether politicians should talk about climate change is a weird stand-in for the question of how to govern like it exists, and help people make sense of the fact that the climate they grew up in no longer exists
B Reathing in wildfire smoke Aggressive diarrhea Ticks everywhere Brat summer is back 🍏🔥
Right-wingers yelping about being told (as in past heatwaves!) to set their AC to 78—so a grid that serves >8.5 million people doesn't shut down—really illustrating what AFAIK is a pretty US-specific pathology: being militantly proud of your extreme sensitivity to mild discomfort
"Our societies are navigating a climate-changed world with last century’s infrastructure. That’s not the result of some surplus of climate policies but of a profound lack of them." newrepublic.com/article/2125...
This Is the Week for Democrats to Start Saying “Climate Change” Again
The party has gone quiet on the issue. As a heat wave sends temperatures soaring past 100, they can’t remain mum any longer.
newrepublic.com
I wrote about heat waves, the bizarre culture wars around air conditioning in Europe, and why Democrats shouldn't let Republicans be the only ones talking about all the suffering the climate crisis is doling out newrepublic.com/article/2125...
" If left-of-center politicians and ostensibly fact-based news organizations aren’t willing to accurately interpret our climate-changed reality, however, the right will be more than happy to do it for them." newrepublic.com/article/2125...
This Is the Week for Democrats to Start Saying “Climate Change” Again
The party has gone quiet on the issue. As a heat wave sends temperatures soaring past 100, they can’t remain mum any longer.
newrepublic.com
Genuinely nauseating how much discourse about the European heat wave on X is people in the US blaming cultural preferences, emissions concerns, degrowth etc for Europeans not having AC. Whipped-up culture war sociopathy seemingly designed to blame a whole continent for their own suffering & death
I wrote about the irony of Trump going to war with the Reflecting Pool algal bloom as his administration tries (again) to defund the institutions that keep people, pets and economies safe from harmful algal blooms newrepublic.com/article/2122...
Trump’s Algae Problem Is a Lot Bigger Than the Reflecting Pool
The Trump administration is trying to further defund the monitoring of harmful algal blooms. It’s fitting that the president would be faced with an algal bloom in his own backyard.
newrepublic.com
Would love to know the origins of liberal politicians referring to multilateral funding commitments as "reparations," which has been a longtime favorite jab from the US at the UNFCCC. Moynihan?
Kate Aronoff@katearonoff.bsky.social · 2mo agoUN climate negotiations watchers will be shocked to learn that signing a Plan to establish a Fund that will raise a certain amount of Dollars within a certain Timeframe means that one government will pay that entire amount
UN climate negotiations watchers will be shocked to learn that signing a Plan to establish a Fund that will raise a certain amount of Dollars within a certain Timeframe means that one government will pay that entire amount
A little confused about the line among Dems that $300 bn for reconstruction is the thing to focus on. It’ll obviously be an unaccountable slush fund for Trump’s friends but does seem like the US should pay to rebuild a country it’s bombed for many months
I wrote about their AI aesthetics last year, just how *weird* the vibes seemed at the Detroit conference. Decided not to tune in this year... but the contradictions are all very funny advaitcore.substack.com/p/a-really-b...
A really bad Western
American reactionary futurism on display in Detroit.
advaitcore.substack.com
One of the weirder right-wing subcultures are they guys claiming they're gonna "reindustrialize" the US by spending piles of government money using AI to make bloated drones that perform half as well as the ones guys in Ukraine make in their basement
I wrote about Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, who may or may not believe all the scary things he says but definitely wants you to think he is special despite doing a lot of very ordinary CEO stuff newrepublic.com/article/2117...
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei Wants Us to Think He’s Building a God
He acts like he has special knowledge about how best to regulate his company. But he’s a CEO like any CEO, and he wants what all CEOs want: to write his own rules.
newrepublic.com
Feel a bit crazed hearing the popularism set argue that major private investments will actually be well-liked and create public goods this time. 1. That was a major premise of Bidenomics, and most people didn’t know it happened…
Something really of the moment about the resume of the far-right conspiracy theorist who just won his primary for a seat on the the Texas Railroad Commission, which has nothing to do with railroads and is actually an oil and gas regulator newrepublic.com/article/2111...
“De La Espriella has proposed opening 10 ‘mega-prisons’ and said he wants to foster closer ties to the U.S. and Israel. He plans to slash 700,000 government employee and contractor jobs, ‘put God back into our children’s classes,’ and build a ‘Miracle Homeland.’”
Kate Aronoff@katearonoff.bsky.social · 2mo agoI wrote about the presidential election in Colombia, where Trump has endorsed a guy who’s talked about building 10 mega-prisons and blowing up cats newrepublic.com/article/2112...
"For the fossil fuel interests that backed Wright, the question now is whether they’ll support an inexperienced extremist for the sake of keeping a Democrat from regulating them." My guess is yes. newrepublic.com/article/2111...
Meet the Far-Right Nepo Baby Vying to Deregulate Texas’s Fossil Fuels
Bo French is running a deranged culture-war campaign for a spot on the powerful Texas Railroad Commission. The race says everything about where Republicans are today.
newrepublic.com
I wrote about the presidential election in Colombia, where Trump has endorsed a guy who’s talked about building 10 mega-prisons and blowing up cats newrepublic.com/article/2112...
Colombia’s Showy Far-Right Candidate Is Exactly Trump’s Type
Abelardo De La Espriella has all the strongman trappings the Trump administration loves—and the White House seems bent on his winning.
newrepublic.com
It’s true that in some hermetically sealed theoretical world AI data center development *could* deliver some broader public goods, but in that world we would already have the things people say those data centers could, theoretically, deliver. Extremely circular, fantastical thinking
“Although the experts I spoke to agreed that the specific emissions in RCP8.5 look implausible, the world could still experience RCP8.5-like climate impacts.” newrepublic.com/article/2108...
Trump Twisted a Climate Debate Beyond Recognition
Researchers concluded that one future climate scenario is unlikely to happen. Right-wingers went wild.
newrepublic.com
I went deep on RCP8.5, and how a climate scenario that's well over a decade old became the subject of a ridiculously bad-faith culture war newrepublic.com/article/2108...
Trump Twisted a Climate Debate Beyond Recognition
Researchers concluded that one future climate scenario is unlikely to happen. Right-wingers went wild.
newrepublic.com
No it the fuck was not.
Reign of Terror by Spencer Ackerman: 9781984879790 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books
A New York Times Critics’ Top Book of 2021 "An impressive combination of diligence and verve, deploying Ackerman’s deep stores of knowledge as a national security journalist to full...
penguinrandomhouse.com
NPR@npr.org · 2mo agoDHS was originally conceived in the interest of unity and harmony — and the phrase "homeland security" was originally meant to be reassuring. n.pr/4nOx8KP
Anyone even vaguely left of center spending time online blaming "the Left" for why the US is bad at this point have lost the plot