This goal felt wildly ambitious at the time. Good things are possible.

And, updating our classic "how badly did we misread the future" chart, Americans drove 1.2 trillion *fewer* miles than the U.S. Department of Energy had forecast 20 years earlier (though recent forecasts have been far more reaonable).

The first solar-anything I ever owned was a hand-held calculator. Since then, distributed solar panels have come to power all sorts of things in our daily lives. This new piece by Nilou Yaar calls attention to solar "stuff" that can fade into the background of daily life.

How BGE is unnecessarily driving up your gas bill, by Maryland PIRG Associate Sofia Gilroy www.baltimoresun.com/2026/01/14/b...

"I’m shocked that Nicor is proposing to raise rates again, just one month after imposing its last rate hike. Nicor is busting its customers’ household budgets because it apparently refuses to live within its own." pirg.org/illinois/med...

So much capacity. So much of it misplaced. apnews.com/article/ces-...

Happy holidays privacy bluesky www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXL-...

Good news, bad news. I see a lot of ads from Perdue chicken, doubling down on their no antibiotics policy, meanwhile lots of work to do in the beef market. Should start with McDonald's honoring its 2018 pledge to reduce the overuse of abx in its beef. www.washingtonexaminer.com/restoring-am...

Chicagoans don’t stop biking in winter. Divvy rides last week, despite frigid temps (daily lows in parentheses): • Mon 4,906 (3°F) • Tue 8,321 (17°F) • Wed 10,084 (32°F) • Thu 8,183 (21°F) • Fri 5,733 (11°F) • Sat 6,827 (24°F) • Sun 4,187 (18°F)

@scottwaguespack.bsky.social , you were one of the few that saw how stupid this 'deal' was at the time, and had the guts to stand up and say so. If only they had listened...

Someday (soon, I hope) Klein and others will come to understand the connections between the values-free sort accelerationism of “Abundance” and the phenomena he decries here. www.nytimes.com/2025/12/07/o...

Those tree hugging hippies in Hungary now lead the world in the share of electricity generated from solar with almost 25% of their electricity coming from solar in 2024. A remarkable leap from just 7% five years ago.

We should be shocked at this security flaw at TransUnion, and how hard it was to get them to fix it. www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2...

Had a total blast taping a segment for the Today Show earlier this week (with my good friend Kumma the AI-powered sex bear). A fun capstone to 2 months of the weirdest research I’ve ever done

Yesterday, my @frontiergroup.bsky.social colleagues re-released our flagship report on the solid waste problem and its solutions: "Trash in America." But the most important thing about the report is what's missing: updated info on how much stuff we throw away. 🧵 frontiergroup.org/resources/tr...

that's my research! our IT director kept getting flags about the contents of my google drive. "it's for research" I say, as he questions the third instance of "dildo"

The startup is going for a traditional assembly process where the bodies go through several stations to be kitted out. insideevs.com/news/780704/...

pretty wild when your research gets a Wait Wait Don't Tell Me question, an Onion headline and a Daily Show bit in the same week. time to retire

Stop me if this sounds familiar: a gas utitliy spending billions (driving up delivery rates and profits) in the name of safety, but actually appearing to prioritize "system modernization." Read our new whitepaper on BGE's OperaionPipeline pirg.org/maryland/res...

@rj-x.bsky.social not such a new problem after all!

This is my research. It's uncomfortable how much footage now exists of me having very sexual conversations with a teddy bear wearing a scarf. www.cnn.com/2025/11/19/t...

Two more good decisions from the IIlinois Commerce Commission... STATEMENT: Regulators slash Nicor, Ameren rate hikes pirg.org/illinois/med...

OpenAI says ChatGPT not safe for kids, but then licenses its service to toy makers. Hmmm. @harryshearer.bsky.social file under Smart Smart Smart world www.cnn.com/2025/11/19/t...

Chicago hits 12,000,000 shared micromobility rides on Divvy and Lime! micromobility.substack.com/p/chicago-hi...

Did some research on unhinged #AI toys & had fun talking to @futurism.com about it. It gets even weirder than the headline

If you're into question of mental health chatbots being a little unhinged, my colleague Ellen Hengesbach did some fascinating testing. V enjoyable read: pirg.org/edfund/artic...

🌊 Deep-sea mining discharge can disrupt midwater food webs Isotope data show >6 µm natural particles fuel zooplankton diets, but mining adds inert particles of the same size, diluting nutrition and triggering bottom-up impacts that reach predators Just say no www.nature.com/articles/s41...

I was hoping to make a quick trip to Boston this weekend, but now not so much. Good advice for navigating the challenges of this moment: pirg.org/updates/faas...

Excited to share this tomorrow. Millions of Americans are taking part in the transition to cleaner energy - investing their time, money and faith in new technologies and practices. Let's give them their due ... and figure out how to help millions more to join them.

People have thoughts about the unforced error that is the end of support for #Windows10 pirg.org/articles/glo...

"Ah, the voice of the doctor... Forget the professional advice for a minute." - the chatbot pirg.org/edfund/artic...

From a new @thelancet.com article today entitled "Health care in the USA: money has become the mission" www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...

Lawmakers must ensure Illinois consumers get insurance worth their payments www.chicagotribune.com/2025/10/16/o...

Oh, hey! This project never officially made our (newly updated!) list of wasteful, destructive highway projects, but this is great news. Congrats to folks in the Catskills who pushed back on this against what seemed to be pretty long odds.

As I told @kqednews.kqed.org, the end of Windows 10 is a “lose-lose-lose” situation. “It’s bad for consumers. It’s bad for security, and it’s bad for the environment." www.kqed.org/news/1205920...

Always a pleasure to talk with @usa.streetsblog.org, this time about our newly updated “Highway Boondoggles” dashboard and what it will take to make better transportation investments that solve real problems. usa.streetsblog.org/2025/10/09/a...

Good to hear this project - an old-school "ram a new-build highway through the middle of a neighborhood" type project - is on the ropes. But zombie highway projects can continue to haunt neighborhoods' future prospects for years to come. Time to end it for good. www.strongtowns.org/journal/2025...

It would be better if Microsoft helped to avoid a HUGE, unnecessary, avalanche of electronic waste... www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqh_...

I suspect that almost anyone could use help sorting out the inscrutable details of their medial bills. Here are two good resources: pirg.org/updates/new-...

Residents of 14 states drove fewer miles per capita in 2023 than they did in 1996, according to our newly updated explainer and data visualization, "Less Driving is Possible," authored by my colleague @frontiereliz.bsky.social. Lots of good data to explore. frontiergroup.org/resources/wh...

RIP the man in the greatest one-shot five-minute phone call to Minnesota in movie history m.youtube.com/watch?v=Qeem...

CTA staff prefer Wisconsin to Indiana, it seems

Fell into a rabbithole. Spoke with interesting people. Wrote this piece about the saga of Moxie, the robot friend for children. Please enjoy. pirg.org/articles/mox...

One Maine town’s effort to make pricey items accessible and encourage people to buy less stuff seems to be catching on. Part of the 50 States, 50 Fixes series .... www.nytimes.com/2025/08/20/c...

Congrats to my colleagues at PennPIRG and PennEnvironment, and to our counsel, coaltion partners, and allied parties for reaching a proposed settlement with Philly Gas Works that limits the rate hike and drops the proposed revenue guaruntee. Onwards in our campaign for Safer, Cleaner Energy

Had a great time with the CA Alliance for Children’s Environmental Health, bringing together parents, medical professional, and young people to lobby to ban toxic PFAS, tackle microplastics and extreme heat, and make our kid’s food safe #SB682 #AB1264 #AB823 #SB646 #SB655

Reddy Kilowatt!! Just found this stuff at an auction, it’s such good marketing: Be modern, cook electrically Beat the heat/kill the chill Flameless electric living is safe living Position as modern, safe, comfortable. Mainstream. Love it!

Today is the day State Farm's $523M homeowners insurance rate hike goes into effect for existing customers. If you are one of the almost 1.5M Illinoisan's whose home is insured by State Farm, your rates could go up 40% Tell your legislator we need Insurance Reform Now pirg.org/illinois/tak...

Today, State Farm's $523M homeowners insurance rate hike goes into effect. Action opportunity: pirg.org/illinois/tak...

Hospitals can charge patients hundreds of dollars in facility fees, even for routine outpatient appointments. Some residents of Florida’s Treasure Coast have had enough. nbcnews.to/4kRPZRR