In a functioning and sane society everyone would be freaking the fuck out about Spokane burning.

In my scholarship I pretty frequently panned technocratic approaches to climate and energy policy/governance based mostly on desktop and primary source research. Now working within technocratic spaces (and working to make them more equitable/participatory) and it mostly holds true.

Guess there’s no point in watching baseball for awhile

My god, Spokane.

I wish I was doing more work directly related to climate. It feels like startlingly few energy policy people think about the climate crisis regularly in their work (especially beyond impacts on the grid), while it's the whole reason I got into this work.

Saddened by the Glen Hansard news. Saw him perform with Eddie Vedder two years ago in Montana and it was divine. RIP.

I think I’ve gone a little too far afield from the type of work that gets me up in the morning.

Spent a week hiking and fishing the Yellowstone backcountry (Lamar River, Mist Creek, Pelican Valley). Something so therapeutic about long walks or long river trips. Not sure I really have any desire to do much else tbh.

I spent 4/7 days rowing a raft down a Montana river last week, the other three working on energy policy. Why do anything else?

I was happy to have been part of the effort to make this a reality over the last 10 months.

OPB@opb.org · last mo.

Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek joined the group in signing a letter endorsing the Western Transmission Expansion Coalition, a multi-state task force to develop a study and action plan to update the region’s energy grid.

I was happy to have been part of the effort to make this a reality over the last 10 months.

OPB@opb.org · last mo.

Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek joined the group in signing a letter endorsing the Western Transmission Expansion Coalition, a multi-state task force to develop a study and action plan to update the region’s energy grid.

Headed to Park City for the Western Governors Association Annual Meeting tomorrow. Was not on my career bingo card previously.

The academic in me wants to launch a project tracing/connecting the anti-data center movement to other anti-infrastructure movements (dams, pipelines, MTR sites, renewables, coal and gas ports, etc.).

Over the last two weeks, I've begun working on a project driven by the theory of change underlying all of my academic work: narrative shift work can lead to just energy/climate policy outcomes. It's surreal, still tenuous, and I don't want to jinx it because we have a ways to go.

I’ve gradually withdrawn from social media and especially academic social media over the last two years and while I’ve no doubt missed out on some opportunities that come with having a big online footprint, my life has tangibly improved.

I feel like lots of smart people in climate who should otherwise know better are hedging on AI and remaining publicly agnostic about data centers out of fear of offending those with funds and power and/or until they can figure out which way the wind is blowing. That sucks.

I feel like lots of smart people in climate who should otherwise know better are hedging on AI and remaining publicly agnostic about data centers out of fear of offending those with funds and power and/or until they can figure out which way the wind is blowing. That sucks.

Academic editors emailing my (non-academic) org’s info@ address to request a peer review two years after leaving higher ed, there is no escape ahhhhhh 😱

Why is every single person with political aspirations in this country such an enormous piece of shit

The premise that early community engagement from infrastructure developers is important to "de-risk" projects is based on the assumed inevitability of said projects.

I so feel this. It's weird being a politics-oriented researcher who pro-actively moved into policy when the environment for it seemed favorable (IRA/BIL, etc.) and then realizing that it had been politics all along. It feels like whiplash and wasted time.

Emily Grubert@gruberte.bsky.social · 2mo ago

It’s bizarre being a policy-oriented researcher in an environment where evidence and public opinion are basically irrelevant to what happens. We’re not informing policy any more, friends; we have to make politics.

It’s bizarre being a policy-oriented researcher in an environment where evidence and public opinion are basically irrelevant to what happens. We’re not informing policy any more, friends; we have to make politics.

A huge loss. Dr. Pacheco-Vega always stood out to me as enthusiastic, collegial, enormously generous, and an example of how we all should be in academia.

Costa Samaras@costasamaras.com · 2mo ago

Prof. Pacheco-Vega was an accomplished interdisciplinary environmental researcher, and mentor to many early career researchers. I was lucky to be his friend and colleague. A huge loss for the academic community.

I left academia in early 2024 and made another career transition (due to Trump 2.0) in late 2025. I feel like I’m just now coming up for air and while I’m in a very good role, I feel a bit disoriented about my place in climate and energy work and the path ahead.

Shout-out to the Boomer guy in my co-working space who takes loud calls in the shared work area, stays in conference rooms past the time he books, and who is generally obnoxious as fuck. Appreciate you perpetuating the stereotype as the most selfish and least self-aware generation.

Paxton is awful but don’t lose sight of the fact that Cornyn is also a pile of shit who deserves endless humiliation.

Not enough attention is paid to stock photos attached to climate journalism. These aren't innocuous choices. I wrote about images used in drought coverage in the Colorado River Basin that gave the impression that the main consequence was fewer party boats on Lake Mead. Not great!

Benjamin Cook@dustybowl.bsky.social · 2mo ago

stop writing articles about extreme heat using fun summer imagery challenge: impossible (apparently) apnews.com/article/euro...

COAL REBOUND?!!? Nope... Coal generation is up 1% in April 2026 vs April 2025. It's actually lower than April 2021. Gas gen is also up 1% y-o-y even as gas price spikes. There is no gas-to-coal switching, cos gas was already more expensive than coal before the crisis🤷‍♂️

Another milestone in the (still too slow) clean-energy transition: Wind and solar produced more of the world's electricity than fossil gas for the first time ever in April ember-energy.org/latest-updat...

One thing that feels weird in the post-academia journey is how so much of my academic work over a decade-plus - teaching, writing a book, grants, articles, conferences, talks - is effectively erased or invisible in my day-to-day.