Squeezed by data centers' relentless demand for electricity, a Nevada energy company just said it's going to stop supplying energy to Tahoe. The city has a year to figure out how to meet 75% of its energy needs without it.

Israel deliberately targeting medical facilities in south Lebanon, say health workers

Incredible that a lot of governments haven’t started it already

Oil shock will cause suffering around the world. But even in ‘wealthy’ but highly unequal US, the approach to residential solar was based on individual debit and at times outrageous predatory lending. @alanasemuels.bsky.social did great reporting on this back in 2023. time.com/6317339/roof...

Anxious and angry about forever wars over energy? Want to do something to make a better world happen sooner? i have good news. Electricity is the backbone for everything in our future, and you can do something now. Instead of feeling hopeless, you can join in with others to change everything.

I have a short piece in this MERIP collection of essays on the war on Iran and across the region. Some great interventions covering a lot of topics: IRGC, Lebanon, GCC, geopolitics, Afghanistan, and more

Nearly one in five people in Lebanon have been forced from their homes as Israel launches new 'ground operations' https://aje.news/3grqr2

War and technology: As broadcasting one's position via the usual technologies (GPS, AIS etc) makes a ship a target, seafarers have turned off their transponders (only 16% of all vessels in the Gulf have their transponders on) and are reverting to navigation by "traditional" methods.

This is so good and key. And another good reminder of why we need to push for rights to housing instead of "access" to real estate. Sobering number in this report is that there are only 1.7 million people in public housing in the US. climatecommunityinstitute.substack.com/p/public-hou...

What a great pair of essays to see side by side and read together and share widely.

Happy St. Patrick's Day, New York.

I'll add a few to this list, works of fiction. First one is by Emil Habibi, a relative of mine: www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Se...

In Octavia Butler's 'Parable of the Sower,' set in a dystopian Los Angeles after there is no fuel left for cars or a functioning electricity grid, people are faced with a choice: live in homemade fortified gated communities, or sell themselves to corporate agro-farms.

An utterly necessary collection of essays on the US/Israeli war on Iran, and its impact not only on Iran, but the wider region: www.merip.org/2026/03/war-...

Much ink has been spilt on Elon Musk as an individual personality rather than as a product of political economy. On 28 October listen to Quinn Slobodian propose a theory of Muskism analogous to Fordism. For details and to register go to www.exeter.ac.uk/events/detai...

this has been one of my central arguments the past ten years. the theory underpinning the anti-democratic elements of the american constitutional order is wrong!

Really hits home how the only way the Left can deliver a massive public goods agenda is through power at the Federal level. 🫤

Sadly the US govt and state of California has underwritten Tesla. So I guess all of us have paid him out of our tax dollars.

If 1000 billion dollars for a single human beings work really makes you think about the labor theory of economic value AND the madness of economic reason... the Pope:

Complicated, intricate arrangements between consumers, big solar companies and desrisking federal loans will create disappointing results. We need a public green energy transition, not layers of derisked debt for consumers or solar tech companies. 1/

Why carbon offsetting (and big business) will not save the planet.

Incredibly instructive reporting on what appears well on its way to becoming the biggest, most concentrated, most energy- and resource-intensive, and most speculative wave of capital investment ever. ig.ft.com/ai-data-cent...

This is an incredible film about the horrors of the bail bonds system. No description in words could do it justice. I am in awe and heartbroken. www.newyorker.com/video/watch/...

It bears remembering www.newsweek.com/joe-biden-pr...

At least 19 Palestinian doctors are still being held in Israeli detention without charge.

Our commons are being gifted to tech. Private equity has its eyes on buying up parts of the grid to fuel a speculative dystopian future where AI data centers drink our water and energy resources. Just this month, blackrock buys an entire public utility and it barely makes waves.

This was a $2.2 billion dollar project, less than 15 years old, and already getting shut down. You can see it driving from LA to Las Vegas - it looks like the eye of Sauron and apparently incinerates 6000 birds per year.

This is absolutely stunning. "We see BlackRock positioning itself very aggressively to take advantage of the entire supply chain when it comes to AI and data centers, and power generation is a really key part of that,” Schafer told the Prospect. "

Ignoring a judge’s recommendation, the Minnesota regulators unanimously approved BlackRock’s plan to take Minnesota Power private. Private equity is buying up utilities as profits from fueling data centers grow. From James Baratta: trib.al/DhfuUOy

@moneyontheleft.bsky.social gave me the privilege + pleasure of reading an earlier draft; I'm excited to see it made public. May this vision help generate thousands of curious convos, a robust counterculture on public finance... ....and, one day, radical financial action at a scale of millions.

A bold vision that empowers communities to solve our cities’ most pressing problems. Celina Su's Budget Justice is out now in North America (4 Nov UK pub). Read a free sample: press.princeton.edu/books/hardco...

This is the biggest story in US energy today in terms of precedent and potential impact. Everyone should be watching.