I don’t post much on here anymore, or on social in general. The returns from networking/building an audience at the expense of participating in the latest Discourse are not what they once were; touching grass and maintaining relationships in other, more meaningful ways seem to pay more dividends.

Everything is terrible but the Phillies are in the playoffs so I’m gonna lean into that for a bit.

At CREPC-WIRAB in an elevator with a red state public service commissioner not to be named: “Are you Matt Henry, former University of Wyoming professor? I’ve read your book.” 😳

To clarify (not that anyone cares) but I do think EH has immense value, but also in some quarters has become too shoegazey.

In academia this is also known as the environmental humanities tbh (no shade intended).

Headed to Portland next week to talk transmission. 😬

I would love to know to what extent the rapture stuff has been fueled by ChatGPT/is a version of mass AI psychosis. I imagine we’ll find out.

Academia dot edu licensing agreement says it can use your likeness and voice and publications in any manner they want, world wide.

A thing I'm grappling with: it is possible to show your disapproval/dislike of a person or event by refusing to even acknowledge or comment on it; on the other hand, it's important not to let false narratives run rampant. When to speak, when to say silent?

I'm generally very happy I left academia (better work-life balance, better pay, learning a lot) but I am still very much figuring out how to decouple my identity from my profession. I know it'll never fully happen because my politics inspire my work, but still... a ways to go.

Found: hydration bladder with water filtered from the backcountry on the last backpacking trip I took in August. Drink or dump?

Idk I think the worst part of being a parent is the other parents. For whatever reason it’s been really hard to find other parents with shared interests/values the past few years.

So I guess 99% of the time time it’s just some guy

I'm friends with a ton of lefties, from academics to organizers to rural anarchist types. None are happy about yesterday.

I keep thinking about all the places I’ve been that have later been the site of gun violence. I used to stay in Orem and walk my dog on UVU’s campus during drives between AZ and MT. I stayed in the Mandalay Bay hotel, walked down Boylston St, was a toddler when my dad went to Virginia Tech.

The shooting of Charlie Kirk will have almost exclusively extremely negative consequences for American society in general, the stability of society in specific, and the safety of everyone living in it.

My kids did lockdown drills today; a colleague’s child had a real lockdown last week because of an actual gun in school; today there was a school shooting and political violence on a college campus. We live in hell.

I think this is partially true, but if we’re being honest, a lot of otherwise super bright, high-achieving people are using AI for relief from overwork. I saw it in academia. I saw it in the national labs. I have seen it in policy spaces; it’s rampant in the legal profession.

"Do more with less" long enough and the system *will* collapse, likely in ways you'd never anticipate.

I think this is partially true, but if we’re being honest, a lot of otherwise super bright, high-achieving people are using AI for relief from overwork. I saw it in academia. I saw it in the national labs. I have seen it in policy spaces; it’s rampant in the legal profession.

So many people talked about *jobs* as far and away the biggest social value-add of IRA and Biden-era clean energy build-out. But that's a message for policymakers, not the general public, for whom being employed is necessary but not exciting, a baseline expectation of a functioning society.

Just did this, took 10 seconds. Looking forward to not needing to remember to type "-ai" constantly

Nick Castellanos gearing up to hit for the cycle tomorrow I can feel it

Great investigation of the growing rhetorical combat over energy affordability. Note who's barely in this story, though: the clean energy industry itself is largely silent on one of its greatest strengths. Why? Lots of possibilities, and certainly multiple reasons. Two I've investigated lately:

How will explain my glee about It Happening (and the day drinking that follows) to my kids. No way to hide it.

It’s honestly probably gonna be some protracted hospice thing that’ll be a huge distraction for a month

Ain’t no way we’re this lucky

The remarkable thing here is that in April they reinstated a ruling from his first term that unintentional killing of migratory birds (e.g., by oil & gas) doesn't violate the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. So now the only way to shut down wind farms via the MBTA is to say they kill birds intentionally.

The engineers that repaired the levees after Katrina have admitted on the record that the new levees aren’t built with climate change in mind. Oh my god????

Laramie County, WY (home to the state’s capitol of Cheyenne) made up for pandemic-related budget shortfalls with tax revenue from utility-scale wind power. Red states will suffer, these mfs don’t care.

"Let's focus on kitchen-table issues like the price of eggs" Kind of hard when you have to navigate MILITARIZED CHECKPOINTS to go to the grocery store.

So far it’s been super interesting going from doing environmental humanities scholarship - largely detached from regulatory processes, policy design, and even organizing - to convening and facilitating discussions about regulatory processes, policy design, and organizing.

So far it’s been super interesting going from doing environmental humanities scholarship - largely detached from regulatory processes, policy design, and even organizing - to convening and facilitating discussions about regulatory processes, policy design, and organizing.

If anything, Graham Platner seems both earnest and really angry. So many elected Dems seem like empty suits feigning outrage in contrast.

It’s going to be unimaginably hard to rebuild if/when there’s another Dem admin. The aura of security that as long attached to public service is long gone; how to convince people to take jobs that may be demonized, politicized, and eliminated a few years later when political winds shift?

NGL, don't really want to send my kids back to school tomorrow

Another year of hoping and praying my kids don’t make friends with the offspring of MAGA parents.

Will increasingly be growing my own or relying on a reputable CSA going forward.

Regulated utilities are merging and/or selling to private equity at an alarming rate. Regulators -- who will be under pressure to act fast -- must remember their jobs: to protect the ratepayers and the public interest: www.utilitydive.com/news/black-h...

I feel much better when I log off and touch grass and spend time outside or with my kids or reading or whatever. The trouble is, my career and the work I care about demand that I keep up on current chaos more than most people. Mental health management is really hard right now.

We went no contact with my spouse's parents over a year ago for related but different reasons but I kind of want to temporarily suspend no contact so I can reach out and scream at them for their enthusiastic support of Trump and RFK.

I think it has a lot to do with career opportunism on the part of both admins and faculty who either couldn’t think of anything better (admins) or were pushed into centering AI in funding apps in part because AI is a fad and also because of the curtailment of intellectual freedom in other areas.

I left Academia.edu a year ago. It was always sketchy, but a convenient place to post work for ECRs. Then someone stole my syllabus and passed it off as their own (and won recognition from it) and they kept asking for money for underwhelming features. Unsurprising it's throwing AI into the mix.

Outside of reading for comprehensive exams in grad school the times I’ve experienced the most intense intellectual growth have happened after I left academia and changed careers. It’s wild.

One of the reasons for my recent job change…

Waiting for Dems to find a way to cede the narrative to the GOP that renewables are why rates are skyrocketing (Occam's Razor says the in-party will get blamed but the Dem messaging machine is so impoverished right now).

One way we should NOT attempt to counter the "cities are crime infested hellholes" narrative is to shit on disinvested rural communities. And yet, seeing plenty of this on the left.

18 months ago I left academia and while I still have a foot (or, at least a few toes) in that world, the experience has been similar to leaving any other job: the world spins on and people forget about you pretty quickly. I'd like to maintain my scholarly footprint, but for different reasons now.

One way we should NOT attempt to counter the "cities are crime infested hellholes" narrative is to shit on disinvested rural communities. And yet, seeing plenty of this on the left.