Algorithm on X really making it seem like permitting reform is a tertiary goal in a campaign to shit on like 4 non-profits
This is very wonky and utterly infuriating. Logging companies (w/help from IKEA!) say *literally cutting down trees* should count as carbon negative and be credited as good for the planet. And they might get away with it. newrepublic.com/article/2157...
Did the Forestry Industry Just Get to Write Its Own Emissions Rules?
Accusations of industry capture, allegedly secret working groups, and the resignations of two researchers—a scandal is rocking the world of carbon emissions accounting.
newrepublic.com
Ultimately just not that mysterious why guys who've reheated the Gospel of Wealth with fake math, want legal impunity and believe economic growth will solve every problem known to man also get along with Trump newrepublic.com/article/2161...
Trump Just Pledged to Let AI Companies Do Whatever They Want
Trump and the tech CEOs have a lot in common—not least their sense of total impunity.
newrepublic.com
Astute comment at the end of this that a big problem in the world of voluntary corporate accounting/standards is that it always had as a backdrop a belief that binding regulations might come in the future. And they are looking less likely. newrepublic.com/article/2157...
Did the Forestry Industry Just Get to Write Its Own Emissions Rules?
Accusations of industry capture, allegedly secret working groups, and the resignations of two researchers—a scandal is rocking the world of carbon emissions accounting.
newrepublic.com
I wrote about why dismantling fuel efficiency standards may not actually be good for a US auto industry that is rapidly losing ground against more fuel efficient cars newrepublic.com/article/2159...
Trump Isn’t Helping Out the Auto Industry. He’s Helping to Tank It.
The Trump administration is touting its recent rollback of Biden-era fuel efficiency standards as a win for American car manufacturers. It couldn’t have things more backward.
newrepublic.com
If you are for some reason interested in the perils of industries being allowed to self-regulate then please enjoy this ~3,000 word story I just wrote about a case where that is actively going really, really bad newrepublic.com/article/2157...
Did the Forestry Industry Just Get to Write Its Own Emissions Rules?
Accusations of industry capture, allegedly secret working groups, and the resignations of two researchers—a scandal is rocking the world of carbon emissions accounting.
newrepublic.com
I don't think self-regulation can be managed without the credible threat of government policy. As @katearonoff.bsky.social writes, it's too easy for companies to walk away from purely voluntary regulation. newrepublic.com/article/2157...
I think this has a lot of explanatory power, at least with respect to WRI. (WBCSD isn't hiding its industry-aligned advocacy.) But there's more to it. Some people genuinely believe that theoretical accounting principles require outcomes that make no physical, scientific, or policy sense.
Jessica Green@greenprofgreen.bsky.social · last wk.3/ Why did WRI push this very questionable approach? Because private rulemakers have no authority unless someone adopts their rules. So the pressure is on WRI to ensure that the revisions were palatable to business interests.
Really helpful thread on my piece from a few days ago from @greenprofgreen.bsky.social, who may know more about the GHG Protocol than anyone on earth!
Jessica Green@greenprofgreen.bsky.social · last wk.Big ups to @katearonoff.bsky.social for covering this seemingly boring but actually really important story about the GHG Protocol. Standards are technical & opaque AND they’re where the politics happen. This is a classic case of “managing tons.” 🧵
Can't think of a better time to be betting on diesel and V-8 engines
Amodei and Altman are probably not building a Machine God. They might reasonably want to stop spending hundreds of billions of dollars a year making machines they don’t fully understand, which they also believe could kill everyone newrepublic.com/article/2154...
Trump’s Rabid Refusal to Regulate AI Isn’t Even Good for AI
The Trump administration’s wildly permissive attitude toward the AI industry isn’t just bad for the environment and public health (and maybe our collective survival). It’s bad for the companies too.
newrepublic.com
Not saying this is what's happening, but it'd obviously be strategic for AI companies to push for something called AI safety policy while Republicans still control Congress and the White House
"Well downstream of all that, local data center activists are tapping into a cross-partisan frustration with politicians of all stripes for—as they see it—prioritizing corporations’ interests over those of constituents who feel blindsided by the massive new developments cropping up around them."
Monica Potts@monicapotts.bsky.social · 4w agoOne thing that strikes me is about data centers is that communities that oppose them might have been able to organize earlier if we had robust local newspapers with reporters who had been reporting on the early approval and planning processes from the start. newrepublic.com/article/2149...
One thing that strikes me is about data centers is that communities that oppose them might have been able to organize earlier if we had robust local newspapers with reporters who had been reporting on the early approval and planning processes from the start. newrepublic.com/article/2149...
The Big Greedy Data Center Next Door
Data centers may be the perfect encapsulation of an economy built to benefit the already rich. After construction started on a vast facility in Vineland, New Jersey, residents didn’t just get mad; the...
newrepublic.com
I spent a bunch of this summer writing a feature for @newrepublic.com about the fight over the hyperscale data center being built down the road from my parents' house in South Jersey, looking at some of the many reasons why people hate data centers newrepublic.com/article/2149...
The Big Greedy Data Center Next Door
Data centers may be the perfect encapsulation of an economy built to benefit the already rich. After construction started on a vast facility in Vineland, New Jersey, residents didn’t just get mad; the...
newrepublic.com
A little funny that Abundance basically functioned as an ideological transitional program between green Bidenomics and AI boosterism
SORRY BUT I JUST WENT TO LOOK AT THE COVER... "THE POPE OF FEMA" There's no fucking way.
Dr. Samantha Montano@samlmontano.bsky.social · last mo.I kid you not, David Richardson has written a book about the July 4th Flood. Silly me for thinking his response to that disaster could not get more depraved. Titled: "Texas Flood: Power, Money, Politics, History, Bureaucracy and Tragedy" wamu.org/story/26/09/...
This is a great story from @katearonoff.bsky.social on the new UNEP emissions gap report and a recent ERL paper from @arvindpawan1.bsky.social and @hdaigle.bsky.social
Carbon Capture Won’t Save Us Anytime Soon
A new U.N. climate report says that massive amounts of carbon capture and storage can keep a long-shot climate goal within reach. But nobody should be counting on it.
newrepublic.com
I wrote a quick goodbye to what may well have been the most normal summer of the rest of our lives newrepublic.com/article/2150...
Goodbye to the Least Apocalyptic Summer of the Rest of Your Life
It’s been one disaster after another. And it may pale compared to what’s coming.
newrepublic.com
Desperately want to read a 6,000 world profile of Mark Carney's transition from net-zero finance guru to fossil fuel boosting Canadian nationalist from someone appropriately cynical about both eras
Hard to escape the feeling that effective altruism often functions as a way for some smart and usually well-intentioned people to do mental gymnastics around political economy
So is the point here to keep a bunch of Democratic candidates who've just won their primaries from winning in the general
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