It’s true that in some hermetically sealed theoretical world AI data center development *could* deliver some broader public goods, but in that world we would already have the things people say those data centers could, theoretically, deliver. Extremely circular, fantastical thinking

“Although the experts I spoke to agreed that the specific emissions in RCP8.5 look implausible, the world could still experience RCP8.5-like climate impacts.” newrepublic.com/article/2108...

I went deep on RCP8.5, and how a climate scenario that's well over a decade old became the subject of a ridiculously bad-faith culture war newrepublic.com/article/2108...

No it the fuck was not.

Anyone even vaguely left of center spending time online blaming "the Left" for why the US is bad at this point have lost the plot

Slice of life as a climate writer: in the middle of talking to someone on the phone last night about the RCP8.5 debate I had to go check if my basement had flooded after 10 minutes of rain (it had)

Seems like a Democrat who could tap into not really liking the party brand, MAHA-adjacent public/environmental health issues and data center backlash could do numbers

I wrote about Elon Musk losing his case against OpenAI, and why Musk, Sam Altman and Trump have similar visions for the future: minority rule, and unlimited wealth accumulation newrepublic.com/article/2106...

"Democrats—who mostly aren’t talking about climate change—are continuing to debate whether they should talk about climate change." great lede for smart piece by @katearonoff.bsky.social

As always, just a bloody great @katearonoff.bsky.social piece in @newrepublic.com about the weirdness of the DO NOT MENTION CLIMATE CHANGE debate among American democrats newrepublic.com/article/2103...

"Democrats—who mostly aren’t talking about climate change—are continuing to debate whether they should talk about climate change." Good stuff from @katearonoff.bsky.social.

I’ve written more than most people on the failures of the U.S. climate politics over the last decade-plus. Plenty of room for more self-reflection, but the primary Groups responsible for killing the momentum on climate over the last few years were the GOP and the fossil fuel industry

this is the only good piece that's been written about this stupid "debate" (and def dovetails with my previous takes on how the climate *is* the economy)

As always @katearonoff.bsky.social nails it. And check out the linked polling data from @dataforprogress.org based on our agenda for green economic populism @cplusc.bsky.social newrepublic.com/article/2103...

Another banger from Kate Aronoff, this time on the (unending) debate about whether Dems should talk about climate change.

Amazing how much “NIMBY“ is used as a stand-in for “the incentives baked into private property ownership”

Nice to see someone write about this issue whose brain hasn’t been melted by petty online grievances

I wrote about the debate over whether Democrats should talk about “climate,” which is kind of a nonsensical question, and how it’s sort of like a debate over whether to talk about capitalism newrepublic.com/article/2103...

Certain strains of AI millenarianism are just redirected climate despair

arguably Not Good that Democrats have opted to ignore climate and environmental politics, which are structural components of the right's long-running crusade against democracy newrepublic.com/article/2093...

IMO talking about climate change as a matter of inflating green asset values didn’t resonate with voters and the Democrats talked relatively little about climate change itself during the Biden administration

I think it’d be great to stop equating a rapid proliferation of renewable energy with an energy transition, which means something else

I wrote about the Republican climate plans in Louisiana newrepublic.com/article/2100...

While ​local lawmakers obsess over how to keep Democrats in majority-Black districts from governing, their state is literally shrinking. “Between the chronic stress of land loss and sea level rise, New Orleans’s days are numbered." trib.al/zgcvHnx

The Strait of Hormuz is still closed, and it isn’t poised to open anytime soon. Trump signaled Wednesday that he intends to keep the U.S. blockade in place until Iran cries “uncle” and says, “We give up.” The longer the strait stays closed, the less likely any sort of return to normalcy gets. 🧵

Spirit Airlines: another victim of Donald Trump’s global carbon tax newrepublic.com/article/2098...

Really seems like a huge thrust of centrist politics over the last few years has been trying to run 1980s right-wing talking points about the “New Class” back against climate activism, and cast activism more broadly as an inherently out of touch PMC activity

I wrote about this exchange, and why Zeldin and co. are trying to downplay their administration’s efforts to protect a German chemicals and pharmaceuticals company from cancer patients newrepublic.com/article/2096...

I went long on Waymo and robotaxis, which are not silver bullets for making the United States’ abysmally dangerous roads safer newrepublic.com/article/2094...

As far as I can tell Centrist Dems on X are yelling at Jia Tolentino over a New York Times podcast because otherwise swing voters will think they’re soft on crime (??)

Real chicken or the egg question as to whether a certain strain of Silicon Valley-style Rationalist thinking attracts or cultivates insufferable personalities

Happy Earth Day! I wrote about the shadow docket and John Roberts citing a study prepared for fossil fuel lobbyists to justify stopping the Clean Power Plan newrepublic.com/article/2093...

Something to be said about politicians and pundits taking AI developers' apocalypse preaching more seriously than decades of very good climate science

I wrote about AMOC newrepublic.com/article/2091...

@katearonoff.bsky.social: Let's stop getting distracted by AI execs' self-serving predictions about China winning the race to build "a godlike, world-destroying entity" and instead focus on what AI is doing for us right now to justify all of the environmental destruction. "Not much."

Very much appreciate @katearonoff.bsky.social questioning whether we actually need all these data centers. Too often taken for granted in energy policy circles that the only question is how to mitigate the impacts/extract benefits. newrepublic.com/article/2089...

"What and whom, in other words, is all this stuff actually for?" From @katearonoff.bsky.social: newrepublic.com/article/2089...

" In addition to concerns about rising electricity bills, air pollution, and noise, fights over data centers seem to be channeling deeper frustrations. What and whom, in other words, is all this stuff actually for?" newrepublic.com/article/2089...

I wrote about the debate around data center build-outs, whether AI is making life better right now and/or protecting US national security interests newrepublic.com/article/2089...

If no one is going to make Microsoft meet its carbon neutrality goals then why would they? heatmap.news/carbon-remov...

" If they’re gullible enough to fall for OpenAI’s progressive slop, they might as well start paying Sam Altman to build bridges too." newrepublic.com/article/2087...

I do not think that people who have millenarian fantasies about building god should have unilateral control over products that are very powerful, even dangerous, but certainly not gods newrepublic.com/article/2087...

Since the headline is a bit confusing, the NYT is reporting that on the same day we hit the girl's school in Minab, we also sent a missile full of tungsten steel pellets at a girl's volleyball tournament hundreds of miles away in Lamerd. Twenty one dead. www.nytimes.com/2026/03/29/w...

Markets are treating the war in Iran, and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, like they treat climate change: not totally ignoring it, but not acknowledging the full scale of the crisis, either newrepublic.com/article/2082...

This site is kind of annoying but at least I don’t have to see anyone retweeting the guy who tried to cancel Alison Roman positing that he has insider knowledge about US foreign policy

I wrote about Trump's jawboning and the increasingly large gap between how much oil costs right now and how much people who know a lot about oil think it should cost, given that the Strait of Hormuz has been closed for almost a month newrepublic.com/article/2081...

“‘The persecution is the point,’ said Rep. Abi Boatman, a Wichita Democrat and the only transgender member of the Legislature, who received the [Kansas Dept of Revenue] notice on Wednesday.” To underscore that: a Kansas state legislator is among those whose driver’s license will be voided. (🎁 link:)

Sure, but they have to make a scene based on this photo of him and May reading The New Republic.

Thing about hacking away at the Clean Air Act and lots of Clean Air Act enforcement is that Congress isn’t likely to return to New Deal State-ish legislation anytime soon, and that’s what makes the CAA so powerful. The people doing the hacking ofc know that