Big fan of Jigar but I hate this comparison. Lomberg fraudulently claims there's empirical evidence to show climate risks are small. Gates may have somewhat different priorities or expectations about future tech evolution. If we can't differentiate between these two, I think we're in trouble.

🚨A new funding opportunity from the Resilient Energy Economies initiative! For research projects that will help communities facing acute economic risks from the energy transition. Check it out: www.energypolicy.columbia.edu/resilient-ec...

Fascinating stuff is happening in Minnesota. Tomorrow (Fri) at 2pm ET we have Carla Vita, who directs the Energy Transition Office, discussing efforts to diversify the state economy and support fossil fuel workers affected by the energy transition. Register here: us02web.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

I wrote an article about the policy irrelevance of the social cost of carbon in the hopes of prompting an uncomfortable conversation about the future use of the metric. So I was excited to see that @Revkin asked @CassSunstein about my critique 🧵 revkin.substack.com/p/a-fresh-lo...

@noahqkaufman.bsky.social has a very interesting, and certainly controversial, take on trump administration abandoning the SCC. I strongly agree with many of his SCC critiques, but the alternative is also unclear, and very well could be worse. 💡🔌 www.energypolicy.columbia.edu/the-social-c...

Question for state climate policy folks: digging into how RGGI operates in CT is depressing me. A carbon price should be making clean energy more attractive than dirty energy, but as far as I can tell, we don’t really let RGGI do that here (1/2)

ICYMI, I wrote about ending federal support for regional economic development, including diversification efforts in fossil fuel communities. A fossil fuel behemoth like the USA will not decarbonize if doing so will wreck local economies. heatmap.news/ideas/trump-...

“Communities that depend on fossil fuel industries will be vulnerable to severe economic shocks when demand for their products eventually declines,” writes @noahqkaufman.bsky.social. How Trump’s budget bill would wreck fossil fuel communities:

I wrote about how we were finally helping fossil fuel-reliant communities build more resilient local economies. And now we're taking that support away. heatmap.news/ideas/trump-...

Our next Resilient Energy Economies virtual brownbag is tomorrow featuring Wade Buchanan who directs the Colorado Office of Just Transition. Register here! us02web.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

Our next Resilient Energy Economies virtual brownbag is tomorrow featuring Wade Buchanan who directs the Colorado Office of Just Transition. Register here! us02web.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

I was lucky to part of this amazing group exploring Oklahoma's plans for future economic resilience given its heavy reliance on the oil and gas industry. Here's our summary report (1/3) cdn.prod.website-files.com/65f9f863036e...

Seems like energycommunities.gov, which provided resources to help enable economic revitalization in fossil fuel dependent communities, has been taken down by DOE

When policymakers claim expertise that isn't real, it degrades trust in actual expertise. Here @bataille_chris and I provide some guidance on when NOT to use energy-economic modeling tools to support climate change policymaking www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Solar panels! You can put them on a hill, you can put them on a mill, You can put them on a barn, You can put them on a farm, You can put them on a field and still get some crop yield, You can put them on a lake, Makes it slow to evaporate, Solar panels!

I'm thinking we need to stop saying "solar" to mean rooftop and utility-scale. Just like we shouldn't say "nuclear" to mean fission and fusion. The differences are too large. We need to use separate words.

For lawyers: is "nonaquiescence" just a fancy way to say ignore court rulings? www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/u...

Our next Resilient Energy Economies virtual brownbag is tomorrow featuring Chris Knittel of MIT and his fascinating work mapping vulnerabilities to the energy transition across US regions. Register here: us02web.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

P.S. come work with us! www.paycomonline.net/v4/ats/web.p...

Nailed it. And we've created the Resilient Energy Economies initiative to help avoid repeating the mistakes of the China Shock with the inevitable shocks caused by an energy transition.

This terrific new book explains in painstaking detail why EPA's social cost of carbon estimate is not a policy relevant metric

Support for these actions in coal communities make little sense if we view energy solely thru the lens of costs/prices -- coal is expensive and dirty -- but we often fail to account for energy production being core to local economies and cultures. www.reuters.com/business/ene...

I spoke with @jtemple.bsky.social before the tariff announcement so I probably wasn't pessimistic enough here www.technologyreview.com/2025/04/03/1...

My amateur pundit take on the abundance debate is the critiques are correct but the outrage/blame is an anti-establishment shtick by establishment critics

"The bedrocks of successful climate action are limits on greenhouse gas emissions & cooperation with countries where emissions are growing fastest. A myopic & imperialistic focus on domestic energy production will take the world in the opposite direction"

We wrote this to push back against suggestions that an energy abundance strategy is, in itself, a climate strategy nationalinterest.org/blog/energy-...

Count me as a fan of the abundance agenda. Tim Boersma and I explain why it's a pretty limited climate solution: t.co/4QJiTJLdYI

Trump is aiming for geopolitical benefits from fossil fuels the same way Biden’s Green Industrial Policy tried with clean energy and yet nobody is calling it Brown Industrial Policy - what’s up with that?

Why are local economic development professional and economist two entirely different professions with seemingly no connection with each other?

Please join our Resilient Energy Economies monthly brownbag this Friday to chat with Betony Jones about how policy has (or has not) helped fossil fuel workers manage transitions. Register here! us02web.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

Did you know that social cost of carbon is not a single concept but four distinct concepts that most everyone conflates? This book by @paulkelleher.net is an absolute must read for any economist interested in climate change. global.oup.com/academic/pro... academic.oup.com/book/59438

Today I'll be more provocative. If we put meaningless modeling results into reports like IPCCs and position them as scientific findings, how can we expect people to trust the other findings, that are based on very good science, in these same reports? rdcu.be/ecSMX

Terrific working paper on place-based policies. I can't remember the last time I learned so much from a single paper. And a great point here: www.nber.org/system/files...

In Nature Climate Change, @chrisbataille.bsky.social and I describe three common situations when energy/economic models are detrimental to climate policymaking efforts 🧵 rdcu.be/ecSMX

New comment in Nature Climate Change, where @noahqkaufman.bsky.social & I identify three areas of energy modelling practise (too far in the future, not enough dynamics or detail), & suggest a more modest & productive way of working with models emphasizing iterative policy experiments & learning.

Policymakers want more analysis, and modelers crave policy-relevance, leading to the ever-increasing use of modeling in policymaking. Climate policies are especially prone to modeling overuse. Our article explains how models can be used more judiciously in climate policymaking. rdcu.be/ecSMX

Critical work on building a more resilient West Virginia economy ⤵️ wvutoday.wvu.edu/stories/2025...

Border carbon adjustments, still the climate policy version of IF YOU DON'T PUT YOUR SHOES WE ARE LEAVING WITHOUT YOU! www.spglobal.com/commodity-in...

You probably know US oil and gas production are at all time highs. But production in most oil and gas regions is declining, and these local economies are struggling. Read about it in our new issue brief: media.rff.org/documents/IB...

US oil and gas are at an all time high. But lots of producing communities are struggling economically. How can both those things be true? www.rff.org/publications... In this @rff.org issue brief w/ @noahqkaufman.bsky.social, @zachwhitlock.bsky.social, and Sarah Doctor, we describe the trends:

In 2060 they are still going to be lecturing us about the feasibility of net zero by 2050

The ease of the energy world's pivot at times like these really gives away how low of a priority climate is.

Please join our Resilient Energy Economies monthly brownbag this Friday to discuss fossil fuel worker transitions with the great @markcurti.bsky.social. Register here! us02web.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

Today we announced the initial research portfolio for Resilient Energy Economies, 22 policy-focused projects that will contribute to the economic strategies of fossil fuel-reliant communities across the USA. Please check them out! www.resilientenergyeconomies.org/grants

Jared Bernstein responds to @jasonfurman.bsky.social . I find Jared's arguments persuasive, although I still like Jason's conclusion here. (1/2) econjared.substack.com/p/no-delusio...

I can't wait to read Eddie's book: www.energypolicy.columbia.edu/how-economic...

This is a useful example of how economists’ mental model of climate change leads us astray. The idea is that optimal climate policy is a carbon tax of ~$200/ton, and IRA is equivalent to a carbon tax around $10/ton, so we need 20x stronger policy. That's wrong 🧵

Are we not even going to see one You Know Kevin Hasset Supports a Carbon Tax delusion? Vibes are way off

I'm no historian but it seems like you could write a 21st century US history structured around the biggest catastrophic event and the degrading of administrative capacity that preceded them. I don't know if it will be bird flu or whatever else, but I expect it's coming. Happy Friday!