This is today folks! Finance/risk/urban climate obsessives, please join!

I'm so excited to share the launch of a new collaboration between @cmmonwealth.bsky.social and @cplusc.bsky.social: The Transition Security Project. TSP will be a home for research, analysis, and new policy thinking at the intersection of climate, economy, & the military industries of the US and UK🧵

To get a flavor for what we'll talk about, check out the special issue here: utppublishing.com/toc/jccpe/4/1

Upcoming launch event for a C40 Cities special issue that @zacjtaylor.bsky.social & I have edited on climate risk, finance, and adaptation! We’ll speak with some stellar panelists: @pmbigger.bsky.social, @lindashi.bsky.social, @kellyhereid.bsky.social & Kayin Venner. Register here: bit.ly/4m7kCDo

I get that the UK is basically managing decline now, which among other things means that many of its “world leading” universities offer a pittance for research funds, forcing sharp rises in small grant apps. But can we please at least still “fail” through the eyes of a human rather than a machine?

My theory is that if we taxed most of these people without telling them and the people they pay to manage their money didn't tell them, they'd never notice. And if you'd never notice you should be taxed even more.

“National grid-private solar generation fights but make it Taylor Swift” (I won’t keep this as the subhead…maybe)

Excited to have an article on housing, finance, and climate change in this special issue. It was a fun and wide-ranging conversation with @ianguelovski.bsky.social @lindashi.bsky.social, @savannahcox.bsky.social, and others.

One of my favorite discussions in the issue. How often do you get a climate scientist, legal scholar of corporations and climate risk, and an urban geographer together to talk about the stakes of private finance shaping public knowledge on urban climate risk? More of these conversations, please.

Majority World cities are already bearing the brunt of climate change but remain woefully underfunded to adapt to a warmer reality. In this new paper, I interview Manny de Vera and Fayola Jacobs about barriers to just urban climate adaptation in the Philippines and the Caribbean. 🧵 of key takeaways:

Back in the US. Suburbs. Made the fatal error of thinking it would be a good idea to work from a cafe. As a punishment, I am seated next to a woman in Private Equity who has made the word “deals” polysyllabic. Please send prayers.

Having read “economic sociology” throughout my PhD, constantly wowed, it was such a treat to be invited to write an essay for it. Drawing on my work on cities, bond markets, and infrastructure, I discuss how the subfield can take up climate adaptation and inequality.

[My mom, Pam, tapping out of the Hannah Arendt documentary at 9:30 pm]: Let’s finish this tomorrow. I want to give this the attention it deserves. Me: are you going to bed? Pam: no, I’m going to watch something else. Me: you’re the worst. Pam [deadpans]: no, Heidegger is the worst. /scene

this is the level of funding where all the possibilities for American politics that have been described as hyperbolic over the past decades - the comparisons to Nazi Germany and other nightmares of the 20th century - become logistically possible and politically likely

Your 'moment of doom' for June 27, 2025 ~ If? "If the Amazon hits a tipping point, our calculations show we are going to lose 50-70% of the forest. That would release between 200 and 250bn tonnes of carbon dioxide between 2050 and 2100..."

World War 3 kinda sucks, but you know, it was either this or pronouns

I have seen a lot of discussion on the increasing cost of home insurance and insurance companies pulling out of states. I have seen relatively less discussion on banks not writing mortgages in these areas.

Excellent reporting by @harrisalexc.bsky.social. Really speaks to how people’s feelings about the presence of climate change—or whether they will be around long enough to be negatively impacted by it—shape markets and the future of cities and those who live in them, for better and worse.

As Labour government gets hammered today, don't buy their claim that they were too soft on migration. It's local austerity, cruelty against poor (2 child cap), subservience to capital, destruction of higher education. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

I hope iceberg lettuce features prominently in the design

“The judge applied her order to all Inflation Reduction Act and Infrastructure Investment and Job Act grants nationwide, not just those of the groups that brought this lawsuit.” Notably a Trump-appointed judge

Love it. As an American living in the UK the council tax scheme has been one of the most mystifying and maddening aspects of taxation I’ve seen here.

A psychoanalytic take on Musk and Thiel’s “leadership”, which combine an identity as both god/saviour and victim.

Horrific and shortsighted

ICMYI: reported protests in the US in 2025 are almost certainly outpacing protests during Trump 1.0. In March 2025, we recorded significant growth in the number of cumulative events, and also an uptick in the rate of events (# of protests/week).

Revealed preferences theory suggests that Wall Street executives value their ability to call their subordinates gay at approximately 8 trillion dollars

Those trying to understand the tariffs as economic policy are dangerously naive. No, the tariffs are a tool to collapse our democracy. A means to compel loyalty from every business that will need to petition Trump for relief. 1/ A 🧵 to explain his plan and how we fight back.

Correct. Morale matters. Tired of takes that call this kind of stuff meaningless. Bannon’s “flooding the zone” is as much about steamrolling people’s sense of hope/power as it is about policy execution. It’s vital for Congressional Dems to show that they’ve not been reduced to rubble.

Mad with power

[Sees Heathrow fire news, immediately writes every possibly relevant person at AAG to develop contingency plans bc I definitely won’t make my flight days later,flight is fine] Do I catastrophize because I’m interested in infrastructure, or am I interested in infrastructure because I catastrophize?🤔

Proud of my governor.

Two weeks ago, I spoke to fired Forest Service concerned that the job cuts will be used as justification to open the door to privatizing public lands. Today, DOI Secretary Burgum announced a plan to transfer federal lands into private hands.

Barbados PM Mottley's speeches have stood as beacons of light for those working to fight climate change and what she has to say now matters more than ever. Free to read and listen to the podcast: www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

The news has been more than a bit grim of late, so hooray for @carbonbrief.org providing some genuine and really meaningful **good** news: the UK's carbon emissions in 2024 were the lowest since 1872, because demand for fossil fuels just keeps decreasing. www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-uk-...

This isn't going to get the attention of Columbia, but it's at least as bad: the University of Maine is having its funding cut off because the governor of Maine dared to challenge Trump.

You know things are bleak when you think “maybe the shareholders will save the day”

Important, impact-oriented new work from John Morris on financing just energy transitions in South Africa. Looking forward to reading!

Real Housewives of Climate Finance jokes either mean that @zacjtaylor.bsky.social and I are nearly done with the framing essay of our forthcoming SI or the framing essay is nearly done with us…

Apparently no amount of financial duress can stop the university from rooting out dangerous, illegal pigeon squatting #freethepigeons

This is how it’s done.

As a seasoned golf course hater I greatly appreciate developments like these

Funds from this office also go to disaster recovery for un/under-insured homes, which are growing in the face of mounting climate linked disasters and risk-adjusted premiums that not all can afford. Fewer staff=less agency for lower resource folks already reeling from climate change related losses.

Doing some lecture prep for my planning classes and I wholeheartedly endorse a return to book titles like these

Congratulations to @savannahcox.bsky.social on this fascinating new paper on 'infrastructural time', and how resilience measures are shaped by earlier investments....

February 15, 2025: the day that, apropos of literally nothing, all of Sara Bareilles’ “hits” entered my head simultaneously and exploded my brain. It was nice knowing everyone.

Part of our special issue called Revisiting Resilience in Geoforum watch this space for all the papers as they come out 👉 www.sciencedirect.com/special-issu... 🔫🔫🔫

Incredible paper by @savannahcox.bsky.social in that extends our understanding of resilience through research into energy transitions in South Africa and the concept of infrastructural time! @geographers.bsky.social @manchestersci.bsky.social @cperguom.bsky.social

First paper from a new project on the politics of energy crises and transitions in South Africa is out! I use the analytic of infrastructural time to make sense of (1) how such crises emerge and(2) the specific formations of "resilience" developed in response. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

This is later today. Join us (the Editorial Board of Economy and Society) at UCL's Institute of Advanced Studies for a panel on how to theorise the state of the state today. www.ucl.ac.uk/institute-of...