With the strong El Niño that's been forecast could we see a monthly average at some point in the next year that hits 2C above pre-industrial? Would crossing this threshold make a difference to policymakers? We already had 12 straight months straight over 1.5C and that didn't seem to change much.

Good morning with good news: Combined solar and battery plant's global average cost is 44% LOWER than the cost of combined-cycle gas turbine plant! Solar & battery: $57/MWh Gas plant: $102/MWh Solar: $39/MWh Land wind: $40/MWh Offshore wind: $100/MWh WOW! about.bnef.com/insights/cle... #energysky

These are cool, but they won't be regenerative. The process makes clear that establishment architects still think "sustainable" means growing plants on the walls and getting BREEAM certified. Not one of these proposals uses solar PV cladding as the primary design medium. Huge missed opportunity.

Bankers are stranded by their own stupidity. "With an escalating military conflict in the Middle East, the price of oil and gas is once again soaring. The development highlights that having secure and affordable access to energy continues to be a bigger priority globally than reducing emissions."

Matt Yglesias is at it again. This time solar power is to blame for lead poisoning in Africa. Meanwhile the actual trends show “lithium-ion captured 52.9% of the Africa battery market share in 2025 and is set to expand at a 12.4% CAGR to 2031.”

I hope this becomes a success story but at $12 per watt installed (before the inevitable cost escalations during construction) they have a long way to go to compete with solar+storage.

Then give that money back to the consumers not to the oil and gas companies. “Ms. Hochul’s camp argues that penalizing polluters through the climate law will drive up oil and gas prices when too many New Yorkers remain dependent on fossil fuels for electricity, heating and cooking.”

Felony murder laws are cruel and unusual, especially in Alabama. “It is exceptionally rare for someone like Mr. Burton to be executed when all sides agree that he did not kill the victim.”

If we don’t coordinate and plan at a national level the phase out of the old energy infrastructure (gas stations, refineries, pipelines, jobs, etc.) the political backlash may threaten to completely stall our transition to the new energy infrastructure and yet few people are even talking about this.

You know what energy source is not in decline in the North Sea? 💨

Shipping is often seen as a hard to abate sector of the economy. While it’s true that it is a challenge to power a container ship with zero fossil fuels, just getting rid of fossil fuels as a thing we move around the world’s oceans cuts shipping sector emissions by a whopping 40%.

Realizing almost every single complaint they are making about solar could be made about corn ethanol and be 1. Actually true 2. In many cases an order of magnitude worse 3. Not offset by 10x the county tax revenue per accre

Any pathway to net-zero in a rapidly developing global economy will almost surely require a more equitable sharing of wealth that leads to a shift in consumption habits of the global north. You can call that a woke green-socialist conspiracy but it doesn't make it not true.

High oil prices also make profitable the extraction of fossil fuel reserves that are more difficult to access and refine. When oil prices stay consistently low these stay in the ground. That’s why EV adoption is so important apart from tailpipe emissions.

“She called it ‘absolutely existential’ that the 170 nations in the authority now reach an agreement.” It’s absolutely existential for marine ecosystems that the only agreement is a complete moratorium. We don’t even need these minerals.

Continuing the war on science. “A group of Republican state attorneys general sent a letter to the center on Jan. 29, claiming that the climate chapter was biased and demanding its retraction. About a week later, the center deleted the chapter…”

Photons for peace! 🌞🕊️ When the deployment of solar becomes the most patriotic action one can take the rural land use challenges against solar projects could fade away rather quickly.

As long as it’s possible within a global system of capital to build wealth (and therefore political power) through extractive and polluting means there will be actors within that system who will do so. Regulations can significantly slow the pace but will never be sufficient to stop it entirely.

If there’s anything in the world we should be making 100% free it is this. “H.I.V. medications suppress the virus to undetectable levels, eliminating the chance of spreading it to others. Interrupting treatment may lead to an increase in new infections and in AIDS cases.”

Good but not good enough! We need to be drawing down the use of gas for space heating much faster rather than locking in another generation of gas infrastructure. "In 2025, manufacturers shipped 12% more heat pumps than gas furnaces (3.6M units versus 3.2M units)."

A reminder of how incredibly accurate climate science was in the 1970s. The term “uncertainty” was successfully rolled out to muddy the waters of political debate, but as far as the general trajectory of warming caused by CO2 there was *never* any uncertainty.

Since Iran’s oil exports of 1.6 million barrels a day have gone mostly to China (20% of their imports), do we have a sense of how this impacts the Chinese economy?

One group that stands to benefit from higher oil prices are oil companies, especially the ones in the parts of the world not limited by the Straight of Hormuz.

Communism refers to common ownership of the means of production by the people but it does not require economic planning to be done centrally by an elite few (the Soviet model). It could instead be governed democratically through citizen assembly democracy.

This is concerning, but indoor CO2 concentrations can easily be north of 1,000 ppm and we humans sure spend a lot of time inside. Still it's interesting to think about a species inability to adapt to CO2 levels that double in 200 years. More an issue for insects for example?

If the US would have followed constitutional requirements, they would have put a dedicated AUMF up for a vote in congress. Such a vote would have likely supported negotiations in a good faith effort to achieve peace because they would have strengthened the hand of the US by showing popular support.

Cool that we're now tracking which *renewable* is in the capacity top spot but there is still some way to go until the sum total of all renewables surpasses coal powered electricity generation in China. Should happen in the next couple years though. ember-energy.org/latest-insig...

If only!

Zero traffic fatalities is an achievable policy goal but requires a serious commitment that shifts us away from car culture.

Worst person in the world makes a good point meme. I wish her all the best and hope she gets to talk with Burgum about reversing the administration's federal lands policy.

Paraphrasing here: “The bombing and killing will continue as long as necessary until world peace is achieved.” www.nytimes.com/live/2026/02...

If you have a ChatGPT subscription please consider canceling it. From what I hear Claude is better anyway. If ever there were a time to vote with your wallet, it is now. Send a message by canceling today.

This is amazing.

The 12-day war last June was also launched in the midst of peace negotiations. Engaging in diplomacy has become a dangerous activity.

What is it about us humans that we always have half of us fighting for equal rights and social justice while the other half is fighting to subjugate people and celebrate extreme wealth? Interesting, the rhetoric of the right is often about freedom and fairness while it is working to destroy both.

The “free” market at work folks. What ever happened to “corporations are people” with first amendment rights?

Half-baked utopia is how we get to dystopia. There are plenty of good ideas out there about how a different (more socialist) political economy could redistribute wealth in such a future but they are quite at odds with the libertarian philosophy of the most prominent abundance promoters.

Our EV future means no more hydrocarbon storm sewer rainbows! But they are so pretty. 😧

The entire idea of deregulation is one of the biggest myths perpetrated on the public. Nothing ever gets deregulated. It only gets re-regulated in favor of corporate power and away from public power.

If you are still under the impression that Bitcoin and other crypto technologies have a use case in the economy, read this gift article and stop wasting energy on this. “Or was the technology — which we learned was essentially a painfully slow and expensive database — just not that special?”

Leasing solar gets a bad wrap but in the current policy environment it might be a good deal. Help the energy transition without paying a dime upfront. Maybe you save some money on your bill, maybe not much, but you’re almost certainly not going to pay more and you’re doing right by the planet.

Win-win: Zero carbon space heating and sustainably sourced lithium. “The site will only produce 100 tonnes of lithium - enough for batteries in 1,400 EVs annually - but GEL said it plans to scale this to 18,000 tonnes annually [250,000 EVs?].”

In a world of rising seas, the future is floating.

At the high end the resale added value is worth more than the value of the kWhs generated over the lifetime of the installation.

Shifting to less volatile assets with strong underlying fundamentals—often called defensive or quality investing—is a key structural step to overcoming the break-even trap. It just so happens that the underlying fundamentals of Bitcoin are approximately zero.

As an American who has only ever seen taxes go in one direction (down) on the wealthy during my lifetime, forgive me if I’m skeptical that massive GDP growth from A.I. is going to be redistributed to programs and benefits for those who are left without employment from unregulated A.I. “abundance.”

The State of the Earth is still in peril. “Mr. Trump’s decision to eliminate virtually all federal assistance for renewable energy has led to 354 clean-energy projects being canceled or delayed, or laying off workers, according to Climate Power, an advocacy group that tracks that data.”

Solar panels are a health hazard as much as eating vegetables or exercising regularly are health hazards. The county health department makes no distinction between data centers and solar farms. Meanwhile, the thing that makes data centers hazardous is when they’re powered by fossil fuels.

While we are all told that we MUST USE natural gas to power data centers, Google is building out data centers powered by solar wind and storage. And if you don't know, the 100 hour battery system supporting this project uses....iron and air to store energy. Gas is the past.

For many years now anyone with any scientific literacy has known what has to happen. The challenge has always been the mobilization of massive social change, political messaging, and fighting well-funded disinformation campaigns. I’m not sure any type of A.I. will ever be useful on that front.