Time for the world to install a gigawatt of solar power capacity 2004: A year 2010: ~ a month 2015: ~ a week Now: < A day ourworldindata.org/data-insight... 🧪

Last month's Luna coffee sub was fun! ☕📦 Same producer, same processing methods, but two different varietals so we can explore the difference that varietals make in flavor and cup profile (as opposed to producers or processing).

We have a monthly subscription to Luna Coffee, wonderful roasters up in Vancouver. They informed us that "the de minimis exemption for parcels entering the United States ended August 29th" and now are passing along the $19 USD tariff to customers (exactly what economists predicted would happen).

There’s a persistent myth that new solar farms don’t really help tackle climate change because panels are “made with coal” and “never pay back” their carbon debt. This is simply false. - UN: solar ~8x cleaner than gas, ~19x than coal per kWh - panels repay CO2 in 4 months; save 57x over life

On one hand, reducing car use reduces urban pollution. But on the other, everyone likes it and cities become more livable

“Over the past 20 years, Paris has undergone a major physical transformation, trading automotive arteries for bike lanes, adding green spaces and eliminating 50,000 parking spaces. Part of the payoff has been invisible — in the air itself.” Leadership, strategy, real action, common sense. #Paris

Keep revisiting this absolute gem from Jeremiah Chiu & Marta Sofia Honer. It's in the same conversation as ambient jazz masterpieces from Nala Sinephro. Repeating motifs, absolutely stunning melodies, and guest appearances from Jeff Parker & Josh Johnson. International Anthem does it again.

Defenders of car-centric road planning claim that highway widenings reduce emissions (b/c they lessen congestion) while slow urban streets increase emissions (b/c they worsen congestion). Neither of those assertions is true.

Had the privilege of speaking with friend and sustainability comms expert Mike Hower for his latest pod. We cover a lot of ground, including how CSOs help drive sustainability storytelling & what our approach looks like at @workday.com (and why). Great conversation! 🎙️

100%. But, alas... This is why Advance Market Commitment's like Frontier exist. And that AMC should be government led, not private sector as part of voluntary carbon market. And orders of magnitude larger! *sigh*

Having watched every Despicable Me movie countless times w/ the 7 yr old, when I listen to the new Clipse album all I can think about every time Pharrell starts singing is:

Proud father moment: my 7 yr old watched Star Wars for the first time. ❤️ 🌌 Watched Episode IV first, the way God intended. 💫

Motherfucking wind farms…

“California is so far using forty per cent less natural gas to generate electricity than it did in 2023, which is the single most hopeful statistic I’ve seen in four decades of writing about the climate crisis.” www.newyorker.com/news/annals-...

Vacationing in Croatia right now, thinking the same thing. My 7 yr old asked me today: “did people use to smoke inside their house? Why??”

Two certainties when summer vacationing in Europe: 1) the ever-present smell of cigarettes 2) men in jorts

Never good when Zeke says “the news is grim”.

This is GENIUS. 🎼 🚀 🧍‍♂️ 🎼

Super excited for @workday.com new utility-scale solar project to bring 233GWh/yr to the grid. 😎 But it's not just clean power: the project also supports RAIN-UP, which helps underserved farmers & landowners participate in the clean energy economy, creating opportunities & generational wealth. 🧑‍🌾

First Sly Stone, then Brian Wilson? Tough week losing two incredible musical geniuses.

New research from my colleagues out today looking at the environmental and social impacts of food crop-based biofuels in the US, where we now use >30% of the corn supply and >40% of the soybean oil supply (on tens of millions of acres of prime cropland) to produce only ~6% of US transport fuel. 🧪

Each of us is here for a short time. It’s depressing that some choose to use their time grifting and generally making life worse for everyone else, instead of trying to improve the world for those who don’t have a voice, whether people, animals, or other life forms.

Luna coffee sub on point this month! ☕️📦 - Great coffee? ✔️ - Beautiful packaging? ✔️ - Zine that weaves sustainable agriculture & climate impacts into coffee producer storytelling? ✔️

It feels like a sip of water in a desert, but it's nice to see that something is working: www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

Love this from @resnikoff.bsky.social on why SF should embrace congestion pricing downtown. It's a win-win for businesses, commuters, & SF. Congestion pricing has been an incredible success in NYC, beyond what many supporters even imagined. We can do this in SF too!

Great work by Randy Spock and Google to destroy climate super-pollutants including methane and refrigerants as part of their climate strategy. www.linkedin.com/pulse/elimin...

Luna Coffee sub always on point. This month was crazy good. ☕️👌

BAIHUI PICKS 008: Darcy (DJ Mix) Catnip for my ears. Leftfield pop & beatific ambient excursions beautifully sequenced. ML Buch, M. Sage, Purelink, Detroit Escalator Co., and Mister Water Wet on the same mix? YES.

~45% of US corn production is now used to make ethanol, mostly for mixing into gasoline. That's ~13% of all US crop land already used for energy production. Using some of the same land for solar panels would capture 50-100 times more energy per acre.

The US already devotes more than 40 million acres to growing corn for ethanol fuel production. If only ~1/3 of that land were converted to solar PV, it could generate enough electricity to cover the entire country's electricity needs.

Did a fun little video with the great team at Patch! 🎬 🌎

Great 🧵 from @globalecoguy.bsky.social providing context for how to think of the share of emissions from the “wealthiest” people and why we need to move away from that oversimplification.

"Since its creation ('92)... Energy Star has helped households and businesses save more than $500 billion in energy costs and to get rebates and tax credits...also prevented four billion metric tons of greenhouse gases"

Continue to revisit 'Sun Shone' by Loradeniz. A dreamy blend of acoustic and electronic, at turns chilly then warm but always lush and swells with big vocal reverb-laded haunting vocals. Not quite ambient but in the same conversation. Another gem from #MusicFromMemory.

Valencia Street’s curbside bikeways are now installed between 19th and 23rd Street, replacing the center bikeway and transforming the street into one that is safer and better for business, thanks to people who supported @StreetsForward.org’s ‘Better Valencia’ campaign 👏 Thank you 🙏

Oddly comforting to me that in the year of our lord 2025, Kris Kross’ song “Jump” is the go-to music for jump balls in NBA arenas.

My son’s first Bring Your Own Big Wheel! Bravely made it down SF’s crookedest street like an F1 champ. 🐣 🐰 🌭

[email protected] is proud to partner with Charm Industrial, a company that’s not only pioneering permanent carbon removal but also creating new opportunities for skilled workers in the heart of America. A quick 🧵... Article here: ⤵️ www.linkedin.com/pulse/scalin...

Super proud of our 7 yr old who successfully biked to school with me today! One mile journey from Potrero Hill through the Mission and he handled it like a pro. (Photo from our 4 mile test ride a few weeks back!)

Lives > parking. "Since the Fell Street changes were completed in 2020, total collisions involving cars, cyclists and pedestrians on that stretch of the road have dropped 38% compared to 2015-2020, according to SFMTA. Pedestrian collisions have declined 50%, and no fatal collisions have occurred."

More incredible coffee from Luna Coffee sub this month. Reading the zine while drinking a fresh cup is zen.

Environmental justice is one of the main reasons for addressing environmental issues. So evil.

This is our situation. We had two separate loquats in front of our house and they both died in recent years (naturally, end of life). The first was removed in 2021, the second last summer 2024. Still waiting for SFDPW to remove the stump for the second tree, nearly 9 months later so we can replant.

Deftones ending the show with Bored and 7 Words had me feeling like I was 15 again. In the best way.

Frontier has facilitated its first electrochemical DAC offtake with Phlair. Phlair has the potential to deliver ultra low-cost DAC for a few reasons—one being that their approach is explicitly designed to work with cheap intermittent energy sources like solar. frontierclimate.com/writing/phlair

This one still hits so hard:

Encyclopædia Britannica will continue to use ‘Gulf of Mexico’ for a few reasons: -We serve an international audience, a majority of which is outside the U.S. -The Gulf of Mexico is an international body of water, and the U.S.’s authority to rename it is ambiguous. 🧵⬇️

Perfect raining day music from Jeff Parker today. 🌧️🎵

Happy Nat Bullard day to those who celebrate! This is always a wonderful resource on where we stand in the energy transition. Data and insight rich. Thanks @nathanielbullard.com