This blog focuses on the energy transition as a political challenge, and extends the discussion of that challenge found in Climate of Contempt.
The Chasm Between Invention and Commercialization
Steve Levine's 2015 book, Powerhouse: Inside the Invention of a Battery to Save the World, tells the story of one of the laboratories competing for federal (2009 ARRA) stimulus money targeting battery development. Along the way the book illustrates the difficulty of...
What Is “Capture”?
In chapters 2 and 3 of Climate of Contempt I describe the gap between folk wisdom about corporate dominance of the policymaking process and what empirical political science research says about that issue. That gap is fairly large. As a general matter, well-resourced...
Celebrating Good Energy Transition Journalism
In chapter 4 of Climate of Contempt I explore the way competition from social media and advocacy journalism has crowded out – and changed – traditional journalism. And I use this blog to point out examples of the kind of incomplete picture of the politics and the...
Conservatives’ Dilemma
Because my book is aimed at the climate coalition -- and how misunderstanding of regulatory politics by some of its members slows energy transition policymaking -- many of my examples of over-the-top online communication come from within that coalition. But I also...
The Biden power plant rule’s uncertain prospects
Most plans to stabilize atmospheric carbon in time to avoid the worst effects of global warming rely heavily on rapid reductions in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the electricity sector. We have the proven technologies that would allow us to do so relatively...
Politics = Salience + Framing + Emotion
There is an old axiom (sometimes attributed to Carl Sandburg) that trial attorneys know: "When the law is against you, argue the facts. When the facts are against you, argue the law." The 1990s courtroom/family drama "Picket Fences" featured a wily defense attorney...
Annotating Advocacy Journalism – Episode #1
Let’s look at two April 2024 examples of misleading journalism. On April 12, 2024 the Daily Caller ran a piece entitled “Electricity Prices Have Risen Seven Times Faster Under Biden Than Trump.” It began with this: Electricity prices have experienced a significant...
Why state, local and private initiatives are second best
Paralyzed by negative partisanship, Congress is unable to craft regulatory legislation to tackle climate change by limiting greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. As the costs of climate change grow larger with increasing atmospheric concentrations of carbon, and become more...
“It’s the Voters, Stupid”
The transition to a much lower carbon energy system will (eventually) require congressional legislation. That implies a significant change in the positions of existing members of Congress and/or change in the composition of Congress. Both types of change depend, in...
Why This Blog?
I intend for this blog to serve as a continuing resource for students, journalists and others who are interested in avoiding the distorted picture of the energy transition – and its politics – that online news and information presents to each of us. As with the rest...