As a human and a citizen I am in favor of universal health care. As an employer I am VERY in favor of it.

Xavier Becerra addresses single-payer healthcare in California in a way I can appreciate. He talks about the logistics of making it happen. He says it won’t be easy, but it can be done. I respect that. Too many politicians make it sound easy, then drop it once they’re elected. Becerra gets it.

Consider for a moment how much the 2020-2025 period differs from the 2000-2005 period. Consider how small the temperature difference was that unleashed this level of chaos we are experiencing. Now consider how chaotic 2030-2035 will be considering it will be the same number of degrees warmer…

There are innumerably many reasons why any exchange of nuclear weapons is horrifying to contemplate. But I want to dispel rumors that newer science suggests that large-scale consequences would be much less severe than perceived during Cold War era. That simply isn't the case.

Things are moving fast in the energy world thanks to the latest war. I cover a lot of the highlights of the past week in this piece.

“They’re destroying more than fifty research facilities across thirty-one states, labs that house decades of irreplaceable long-term science…And they’re replacing all of it — the offices, the scientists, the institutional knowledge, the professional independence — with fifteen political appointees”

Far from having fallen off the political agenda, climate change is at the center of Trumpism. 3/n

Obviously, we need to phase out all gases and all sources as quickly as we can. Cutting methane and other short-lived gases will abate temperature increases in the near-term, which might really help with mitigation and prevent rapid warming impacts.

The fact is, methane has caused about 30% of the warming we have seen to date. And all non-CO2 warming pollution, taken together, has caused about half of the warming so far. And of the CO2 warming we have seen, a big chunk of that has been caused by deforestation.

Lovely sign from the young woman standing next to me. On the other side, a 95 yr old woman musing that next time she would make a sign with some illustrated brown-nosing.

Do not let your kids use Roblox. Their safety practices are insufficient and their abuse record is dismal.

The latest at @volts.wtf gets into the actual shape of the AI-boom-induced “energy crisis” and its a whole lot more complex (and hopeful!) than the public discourse lets on. (TLDR a lot of it is not lack of capacity, but outdated utility and regulation models.) www.volts.wtf/p/for-data-c...

'hey what are you up to over there? wow thats pretty cool.'

Today on Volts: how can we get data centers hooked up without screwing over the grid or other ratepayers? Two of my favorite thinkers, @astridatkinson.bsky.social & @jessedjenkins.com, lay out a new model whereby data centers bring some of their own generation & utilities offer flexible connection.

It's critical that we manage the impact of datacenter load growth on the grid, and provide AI safety guardrails, but this is not the way. Apart from anything else, datacenters aren't just AI (not even the big ones) they're just all the online services that everyone uses all of the time.

Dear EU:This is just one more reason why it will be impossible for US LNG to ever meet your methane standards. It's invisible without an OGI camera so they can just dump it in the atmosphere. And they do. All the time. Bad news, it's over 80 times more powerful than CO2 as a greenhouse gas.

New York's governor is trying to undermine the 2019 climate law that the NY legislature passed with overwhelming support. Where the rubber meets the road: Accounting for methane, the main component of natural gas and a fast/potent climate pollutant. 🧵 with some background on methane.

The U.S. Postal Service's leader says it is set to run out of money in less than a year and may have to stop deliveries because of declining mail volume and what USPS sees as burdensome requirements. n.pr/4bu15df

It is the anniversary of the My Lai massacre today. I'd say that even more than most years, it's important to remember what happened. And the role Hugh Thompson, an active serviceman, played in both stopping and publicising it. Despite enormous military, political and public pressure to stay quiet.

A little GIS to start the morning. For a few months now, I've been puzzling over just how close the world's first deep-sea mining test came to ploughing through the world's largest cold water coral reef. I finally have an answer, and it's: Less than 2 kilometers.

Revealed: the world’s worst mega-leaks of methane driving global heating

Europe just ran one of the most important energy transition experiments in history. After the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Europe had to rapidly replace Russian gas imports. Working with 27 member countries will different languages was not easy, they got it done in years not decades. Thread 🧵

"This is not efficiency... This is the systematic elimination of scientific stewardship at the world’s largest biomedical research funder. And most people have no idea it is happening." Destroying the research that will power future discoveries and violating the Constitution

1. If oil prices have you thinking "should I finally switch to an electric vehicle" my advice is, yeah! Lots of good low mileage used ones to be had. 2. It's not without its hiccups. Here's what I learned after a year of driving an one. www.wsj.com/business/aut...

But most interestingly, we're already starting to see power prices decouple from gas through the simple expedient of…burning less gas The UK and – in particular Spain – show what can happen when you shift away from gas, whereas Italy shows what happens if you don't 6/8

NEW: Why does gas set the price of electricity – and is there an alternative? Make yourself a tea (or grab a beer??) and enjoy my Friday longread on marginal pricing, ideas for market reform – & how to break the link btwn gas & power prices for good www.carbonbrief.org/... 1/8

AI companies are paying screenwriters, lawyers, and other white-collar professionals to produce the training data needed to automate their jobs. I spoke with more than 30 workers about conditions inside this fast-growing and extremely secretive new gig economy.

I met with AI data labelers in Kenya who are organizing their colleagues to fight the brutal working conditions and horrible pay given to the workers at the "bottom of the AI supply chain." They believe the NDAs they've signed are unenforceable so are speaking out: www.404media.co/ai-is-africa...

Steve Scherer was a Reuters’ bureau chief in Canada. Then he got laid off, had to leave the country, and now drives for Uber in Virginia, in a country he doesn’t recognize anymore after working for 28 years abroad. [stevescherer.substack.com]

So excited for this!

Having gone a little way down a prepping hole a while back, I decided to go all-in on the future of human civilization.

A couple of weeks ago, my cofounder - and friend of 20 years - passed away unexpectedly. Cody Smith, @supah.green, was one of the good ones. Indeed, one of the best.

A couple of weeks ago, my cofounder - and friend of 20 years - passed away unexpectedly. Cody Smith, @supah.green, was one of the good ones. Indeed, one of the best.

This hypothesis doesn't hold up to scrutiny and yet is accepted as gospel truth in the electricity sector. Brendon's experiment is interesting, but trained experts looked at this and i included it in our policy analysis paper, Overcharged (in my pinned post). www.hbs.edu/ris/Publicat...

Here's a hypothesis I've heard: the restructuring/deregulation of electricity GENERATION has been a benefit because monopolies inflate costs. So I think you have to compare 1) what has happened in states/utilities that dereged and 2) what happened at the same time in states/utilities that didn't

More of this!

You should all subscribe to Volts, finest energy & climate podcast out there.

It is a vile scandal that 2 of the biggest AI companies in the world attack children by inciting them to self-harm, and by generating sexually exploitative imagery of kids for profit. I wanted to document this so that people in tech will stop saying they don't know: www.anildash.com/2026/02/18/t...

“I don’t want to be in this place I want to go to my school.” - 7 year old imprisoned by ICE for 70 days in a concentration camp in Texas. Today, after @propublica.org published this story, the camp was raided to confiscate letters from the children. www.propublica.org/article/ice-...

I don’t really know what I expect in posting this, but maybe some people see it and can learn from it. I’ll call it “lessons from an unwilling immigration attorney.” 1/

Here's the breakdown from year to year and how our system configuration has changed with time. Switching to Heat pumps has allowed us to use less energy while maintaining or improving comfort. The HVAC HP is much better than the 30yr old AC it replaced. 🧪🔌💡☀️💨💧🔋

Methane pollution from US oil and gas infrastructure causes more climate change than the entire economies of all but seven nations on earth. (This is with methane's climate impacts conservatively evaluated over a 100-year time frame. Evaluated over shorter time frames, methane's impacts are worse.)

Discworld QOTD, from Thud! “Beating people up in little rooms…he knew where that led. And if you did it for a good reason, you’d do it for a bad one. You couldn’t say ‘We’re the good guys’ and do bad-guy things.”

Anyone talking about orbital data centers has jumped the shark. There's no cooling in space. There's nothing to dissipate the heat and it'll cook everything. Not to mention, power is a significant issue. Solar will not be enough and batteries are too heavy for orbit.

me, emotionally writing an essay on the use of force by federal agents: ok but what if i packaged this in the most insane way possible www.theverge.com/policy/86857...

This is a 16-year old girl who was carrying documentation and was pulled over with her documented friend, also 16. This is what they did to both.

DO NOT PLUG SPACE HEATERS INTO POWER STRIPS DO NOT PLUG SPACE HEATERS INTO POWER STRIPS DO NOT PLUG SPACE HEATERS INTO ANYTHING BUT A GROUNDED, WALL SOCKET

💥 I did a drawing that breaks down Transformers in AI Spent a good amount of time on this one, breaking down concepts in a way that someone new to the subject could come away with basic high-level understanding. I hope it's useful!

NOEM IS LYING. I have seen people get taken! It was the same each time: armed men racing out of a blacked-out SUV, seizing a screaming or fleeing pedestrian, and pulling them into the car without any attempt to even learn their identity. Always a person alone on the street. Always a person of color.