Partisanship, Elections & the Energy Transition

“Rage-Farming”

Of all the political communication pathologies worsened by modern media technology, one of the lesser-known is “rage-farming.” It's an old idea in new clothes. Their biographers detail the pettiness...

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Pesky Pluralism, Part 2

The antagonist in the 2006 film The Illusionist  is a fictional 19th century Hapsburg crown prince, played by Rufus Sewell. Sewell's prince is vain and cruel in his personal life, and a dedicated...

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“Flooding the zone with s**t”

As I have noted in several other posts (e.g. here and here), a second Trump presidency would represent a setback for the energy transition because of Republicans' turn away from green energy and...

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Everything is Great, Everything is Terrible

Chapter 3 of Climate of Contempt describes the politics of climate policymaking in the 21st century, including internecine conflicts among Democrats that are partly generational. By now, it probably...

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“It’s Hard to Be Humble”

In 1980, a country music artist named Mac Davis had a hit with a song called "It’s Hard to be Humble." The opening lines were “Oh Lord, it’s hard to be humble / When you’re perfect in every way.”...

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“I mow my lawn”

In my 20s I worked at a law firm whose system for evaluating the performance of attorneys included a "public service" component. This was fairly typical back then for big firms, and its aim was to...

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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...

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“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...

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