34 hours later, my family has made it to our happy place. Have a great holiday everybody!

Sitting at the gate at SFO looking up at the art and thinking, “that forest needs some thinning and a good prescribed fire!” Maybe a sign it’s time for a vacation.

This is both long overdue and fantastic. Next step: don’t kill firefighters. They are incredibly talented, hard working Americans, not cannon fodder.

U.S. Will Pay $450,000 to Wildfire Fighters With Cancer www.nytimes.com/2025/12/19/u...

LA wildfires public health impacts: What is the main finding? Local residents experienced a 24% excess in pulmonary illness, a 46% excess in myocardial infarction, and a 118% excess in systemic illness requiring emergency medical attention.

How many Bay Area residents know this lamp made out of sea urchins?

NCAR is the keystone in US atmosphere/weather/climate research. Physics doesn't care about politics, and floods, droughts, wildfires will continue to intensify. This is like sacking all of your doctors just as a pandemic gets started.

Work-life balance goals for 26. I’m convinced that it is now or never and want to be the guy who gets down on the floor with his grandkids to play. (Picture teenagers cringing at breakfast table when I say things like this)

Jessica Yu from my team has a new paper out today with colleagues that covers smoke mortality from the LA wildfires. There is additional mortality from wildfires than the people who are entrapped by the fire. This is especially true in heavily populated areas like LA. pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/...

This is a great post from Max. The only thing to add is that this kind of a comprehensible bill would do much to improve marital happiness for those of us who work in the electricity sector and have partners who do not. So selfishly, I am all in. Let Max and Chat GPT redesign the bill.

Less than 24hrs after a mass shooting, the leadership in Australia is having a serious conversation about how to strengthen already strict gun safety laws. Such a stark contrast to our NRA driven discourse here.

There is really only one 2025 Climate-Insurance Policy Year in Review that you need to read, and you bet your ass @clicabedu.bsky.social has got it from the inimitable @jordanhaedtler.bsky.social right flippin here. Read it or live with incurable FOMO. climatecabineteducation.org/wp-content/u...

Preemption by executive order. That’s a first. Or maybe I forgot or didn’t pay attention to something or skipped a day in Con Law? We are… still.. a nation of laws, not of men.

The IBHS study is fascinating and grim reading. People questioning the value of veg management (zone 0) to protect communities should take a hard look at it. Preventing home ignition is a systems problem. Fix one thing (home hardening) but not the other (vegetation), you don’t get what you want.

Homes that had cleared vegetation within five feet of the walls were less likely to burn in the Eaton and Palisades fire, new investigation funded by the insurance industry finds: www.latimes.com/environment/... via @nohaggerty.bsky.social

I would argue that delaying these rules is a big deal. I disagree strongly with the word “force” in the headline. Look around in the WUI. We currently have laws and regulations that govern defensible space. But look around. Are homeowners “forced” to comply? www.sfchronicle.com/california-w...

Guys who start wars don’t get peace prizes. U.S. Seizes Oil Tanker Off Venezuelan Coast, Escalating Pressure on Maduro www.nytimes.com/2025/12/10/u...

At what % capacity of batteries does the intraday energy arbitrage opportunity in California or Texas start to go away? Like what happened early on in ancillary service markets.

Batteries aren't the future; they're in the grids many states are building now. In a few years, storage has gone from a rounding error to double-digit capacity shares in AZ, NV, CA, TX, and others. The energy storage map is being redrawn a lot faster than people think.

Help shape fire and forestry policy. Join the California Wildfire & Forest Resilience Task Force in person or online for its public meeting on Friday, Dec. 12. 📅 Register to attend: 🔗 bit.ly/WFTF_DecMeet... #ReadyForWildfire

This video is well worth the time. It shows why we need an urgent innovation strategy in autos in the US. Walking back CAFE standards - or even the standards themselves - are not adequate. But also, it is a great illustration of why an undervalued currency can transform what is possible in exports.

Earned a silver star pulling drowning and wounded GIs out of the water at Omaha Beach… And a bronze star in Korea. Wasn’t allowed to vote in federal elections ‘til 54 and Maine elections ‘til 67. Charles Norman Shay, Tribal Elder and World War II Hero, Dies at 101 www.nytimes.com/2025/12/04/u...

The highway exit by my house at high tide yesterday. But the full moon sure was pretty.

OC Chief Brian Fennessy got the job as the first national wildland fire service chief! Chief Fennessy is a superb and experienced leader. I’m excited to see what he will do as the first head of the NWFS. We are lucky to have him in that role.

King tide in Sausalito today. By the Heath Factory.

The Trump administration has adopted a controversial plan to pump more water to Central Valley farmlands from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. #cawater @ianjames.bsky.social www.latimes.com/environment/...

High nat gas prices hurt energy affordability. How much are our assumptions about energy and/or electricity predicated on low natural gas prices? My answer is a lot. How will we view LNG exports if we enter a world of higher natural gas prices? What about renewables, nuclear, coal, heat pumps?

Utilities should not be afraid of cost-benefit tests in planning capital investments for wildfire safety. And the idea that the Commission will somehow deny cost recovery on already made undergrounding investments is not credible. www.eenews.net/articles/cal...

The commercial aircraft I am on just flew through the wake turbulence of another commercial aircraft while the drink service was happening. I do not recommend this as an inflight experience. Back to paper editing.

Trump Returns to Gasoline as Fuel of Choice for Cars, Gutting Biden’s Climate Policy www.nytimes.com/2025/12/03/c...

Here’s a brief and welcome respite from the mantra of don’t-burn-in -SoCal-it’s-not-like-the-Sierra: “Emily Burgueno calls them ‘sovereign burns… grounded in our creation stories, our sacred beliefs and philosophy.’” @nohaggerty.bsky.social www.latimes.com/environment/...

Well said. www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...

Omg Travis Kavulla on odd lots! podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/o...

The solution here is not no information, as the realtors would apparently prefer. It is better information about risk for home buyers. The information will come to light anyway as soon as the buyer tries to get insurance. www.nytimes.com/2025/11/30/c...

Introduce yourself with 5 animals you’ve seen in the wild: Grey fox (kits too!) Red tailed hawk Great horned owl California Coyote Bobcat Actually all in my backyard.

Because the price of oil is global and the US no longer has the low cost supply. Result: large firms and their shareholders and LPs make out like bandits. The rest of us pay more for healthcare. Trump Vowed Fewer Regulations and Lots More Oil. He’s Delivered on One. www.nytimes.com/2025/11/26/c...

1/15 The Trump administration says it wants to bring manufacturing back to America and reindustrialize the US. But their trade policy does this by making foreign competition more expensive, not by helping American manufacturers compete with AI-powered production elsewhere.

So how does the ranger tell the “foreigners” from the “real Americans?” Trump Administration Will Raise Prices for Foreign Tourists at National Parks www.nytimes.com/2025/11/25/u...

North Pacific from Dipsea Trail on Mount Tamalpais today.

I gave a talk yesterday about monitoring, reporting, and verification for marine carbon dioxide removal and you can watch it here at 2x speed if you wish. 🌊

Yesterday, the CEPP team made the trek down to San Luis Obispo for a tour of the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant. I can’t recommend the tour enough for anyone interested in energy, abundance, or just California history. Thank you to the whole DCPP team and to PG&E legal for setting it up.

Two words come to mind: Wealth Tax www.nytimes.com/2025/11/18/u...

Listening to Odd Lots this morning and thinking about 19th century railroads, the Grange Cases, and increasing returns to scale of data centers for training. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/o...

Our new whitepaper on lessons from southeastern wind pools for wildfire disaster insurance in California and other western states - an effort led by CEPP Legal Fellow Sam Hudgens, is available here: drive.google.com/file/d/1ZHCS...

Starting in just a few minutes. Come learn about residual markets and insurance!

Webinar and paper launch day for new work led by Sam Hudgens from our team on lessons that wildfire prone states can learn from catastrophe insurance experience in the southeast. events.stanford.edu/event/examin...

Corruption > values www.nytimes.com/live/2025/11...

A hypothesis: the real reason that US energy policy is what it is today has nothing to do with a domestic agenda and everything to do with this relationship and the deals associated with it: www.nytimes.com/live/2025/11...

Webinar and paper launch day for new work led by Sam Hudgens from our team on lessons that wildfire prone states can learn from catastrophe insurance experience in the southeast. events.stanford.edu/event/examin...