What's the minimum viable scale for a fossil energy system? another brilliant edition of The China Lab by @jeremywallace.bsky.social, here highlighting @gruberte.bsky.social and Josh Lappert

On projected climate peaks and their instrumentalization

"When the conversation is about peaks in emissions or fuel consumption, the climate community must always remember to ask whom the discourse serves." @noahjgordon.bsky.social on the politics of promises www.break-down.org/three-peaks/

"Who has an interest in claiming a peak is nigh, or too high to reach? If the peak occurs, how fast will the descent be, and where is the bottom of the mountain?" New this week @the-breakdown.bsky.social: @noahjgordon.bsky.social writes on the politics of promises www.break-down.org/three-peaks/

The story of climate action is one of peaks—promised, assumed, or still to come. But who, and what, do those peaks ultimately serve? My first essay for @the-breakdown.bsky.social ! Thx @johnmerrick.bsky.social & @adriennebuller.bsky.social www.break-down.org/three-peaks/

The 51st is a good alternative to the corpse of Bezos' Washington Post if you want local DC news. @51st.news Here @dancharles.bsky.social covers how it costs more to replace a DC home's gas pipes than to electrify the home

The US is expropriating fossil assets to keep them running against capital's wishes, tremendous stuff www.utilitydive.com/news/doe-eme... @ethanhowl.bsky.social

It’s -9 degrees. Downtown Minneapolis is packed for the anti-ICE rally and the crowd keeps growing

Industrial food can be good, as can the simple pleasures of Waffle House. Looking forward to this one by @gnrosenberg.bsky.social and @jandutkiewicz.bsky.social. Some parallels to @mikegrunwald.bsky.social's recent book, I think.

My favorite part, on the US billionaires who don't like climate tech once it gets too mature

Against Techno-Optimism, by me and @cathfraser.bsky.social in @jacobinmag.bsky.social jacobin.com/2026/01/capi...

"Rationalist-optimists lack humility in the face of a planetary system." Really loved this piece from @cathfraser.bsky.social & @noahjgordon.bsky.social taking aim at naive techno-optimist faith in negative-emissions technologies and laying bare our inevitable stranded asset problems. Must-read.

Parallels between the abolition of slavery and the abolition of fossil fuels? Rob Lawlor and Nathan Wood with a thought-provoking paper www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.... @ethicsuntangled.bsky.social

The Long Heat is one of the most important climate books of the decade. Andreas Malm & Wim Carton savage the "rationalist-optimists" who believe that carbon removal and SRM will solve the crisis. @cathfraser.bsky.social and I review it for @jacobinmag.bsky.social! @versobooks.bsky.social

Pleasure to write this for Jacobin!

A fun collab with @noahjgordon.bsky.social reviewing one of my top books of 2025. tough to give the book justice in just a couple thousand words! check it out, and do check out The Long Heat!

These radical climate protestors must be stopped! (Jokes, it's the farmers again)

Can't wait until the US is so desperate to extract Venezuela's oil that it nationalizes ConocoPhillips. climate fam we are so back

Great @carnegieendowment.org series on climate conflict that I contributed to with a chapter on criminalisation and how movements respond to it. Watch the video @noahjgordon.bsky.social made to introduce it. youtu.be/j-MHPvP-6Wk

Great report here by @tobiasgehrke.bsky.social

The EU grid package is out--great summary here by @carokyllmann.bsky.social of @cleanenergywire.bsky.social. Map is by @nkurmayer.bsky.social for @euractiv.com ! www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/q...

Green hydrogen remains much more expensive than blue hydrogen. And neither of them really exists, which is fun.

Another COP ends in disappointment. They all will until we admit that decarbonization entails creating winners—and losers. It's economic conflict; some people will and must lose money. From Existential Politics, the new book by Jess Green @greenprofgreen.bsky.social!

Battery export boom: China has exported approximately $60 billion in battery energy storage systems and components in the first three quarters of 2025, up 24% from last year www.reuters.com/markets/comm... US export comparisons in 2024: Soy, $25b. LNG, $28.9b. Auto exports, $59.2b. 🔌💡

Capitalism and Its Critics--crib notes!

"Practical Men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually the slave of some defunct economist"- J.M. Keynes Capitalism and Its Critics by @johncassidysays.bsky.social is a tour de force of primary research. Here are some of the best quotes he found:

Extraction by Thea Riofrancos is really good—and beautifully written. It’s refreshing to see a warning about the risks of mining for decarbonization that is neither bad-faith fossil propaganda nor a call for fatalism and hard degrowth. @triofrancos.bsky.social

🤡OIL DEMAND WILL KEEP RISING🤡 What are the IEA assumptions that make rising oil demand so improbable?

No oil peak until 2035, even under stated policies (pink line). No gas peak in sight. Grim stuff

The seat in the British Museum where Karl Marx studied “productive forces”? It was G7. Fun nugget. @johncassidysays.bsky.social really did his homework for this book

Insightful thoughts here on why capital owners may oppose decarbonization. It's like opposition to unions: it's not about wages necessarily but about who has the power in the workplace

The big story we're missing about AI is the opportunity cost of having all the electricians build data centers instead of constructing power plants or electrifying homes. OpenAI claims it needs 20% of US electricians and mechanics! www.latitudemedia.com/news/openai-...

A quarter of the power added in the US this year will be batteries--four times as much batteries as gas. This is your fossil fuel king? www.eia.gov/todayinenerg...

We've made such progress on climate change that we've cleared the very high bar of "less bad than a extinction-level meteor"

A great day for addressing symptoms and not causes

We usually assess the climate crisis by a single metric: greenhouse gas emissions. But that’s just one metric, and it’s not enough. Assuming that humans control a “global thermostat,” says @noahjgordon.bsky.social, is dangerous. Noah explains why for Emissary: carnegieendowment.org/emissary/202...

The oceans and land mop up about half of the carbon that humans emit. Until they don't. My new piece on the weakening of natural carbon sinks, and the fallacy that we humans have our hands on a global thermostat, is out now for @carnegieendowment.org carnegieendowment.org/emissary/202...

The oceans and land mop up about half of the carbon that humans emit. Until they don't. My new piece on the weakening of natural carbon sinks, and the fallacy that we humans have our hands on a global thermostat, is out now for @carnegieendowment.org carnegieendowment.org/emissary/202...

The best thread of the year? The best thread of the year.

Graphic of the day: Earth's drift towards climate tipping points. Humans determine the fate of the energy transition, not the climate. The thermostat can easily slip out of our hands.

‘Lord, limit warming to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, but not yet.’” IPCC chair Jim Skea dropping bars

It's useful to compare the required speed of potential climate solutions to the fastest ever transformations driven by the profit motive. Left is @bentleyallan.bsky.social (w/me), on minerals Right is Turner et al in Nature, on BECCS

Are you reading The Long Heat yet? Natura facit saltus... @wimcarton.bsky.social

Argentina edition of Libertarian bible

This is my quant

We talk about CO2 emissions, but we really care about CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere. If the land & oceans no longer soak up half of the carbon humans emit--and the land sink disappeared in 2023--we are in a whole new ballgame. 2024 saw the biggest increase ever.

The US is threatening all those who support the IMO carbon tax. This is rogue state behavior

“The U.S. Empire’s boomerang is not confined to the 19th and 20th centuries… Today, local police forces cruise around small U.S. towns in bomb-proof quasi-tanks recycled from Iraq and Afghanistan.”

I'm putting together a team

Tomorrow!