“The power of conviction … yeah, I always fall for that.”

Nov 30, 2024 | Blog, Journalism, Bias & Censored News

This is a relatively famous New Yorker cartoon by Jason Katzenstein, depicting a generalization about male/female rhetorical styles. But it might as well be illustrating the way social and ideological media “democratize” (read: “devalue”)...

Political Disagreement as Apostasy

Nov 25, 2024 | Blog, Democracy and Transitions to Authoritarianism, Partisanship, Elections and the Energy Transition

Slogans, acronyms, and memes rise and fall quickly on social media. I recently saw that the term “FAFO” was trending on Twitter. Not knowing what it was I clicked on it. Though none of the posts using the acronym defined it, it became evident pretty quickly that it...

Ubiquitous Petroleum Products

Nov 20, 2024 | Blog, Energy Transition Policy & Policymaking

I have learned that there is one sentence in Climate of Contempt that, more than any other, seems to grate on the the ears of some in the climate coalition. It is found on page 166: “[O]ur economy’s deep reliance on petroleum products is due less to that industry’s...

Engineers Are Problem Solvers

Nov 15, 2024 | Blog, Energy Transition Policy & Policymaking, Framing and the Energy Transition Debate

While we anxiously awaiting the inevitable MAGA assault on climate policy progress and the regulatory state, it doesn’t do much good to react to or comment on it until it actually takes shape. So let me distract you with another observation about a type of...

Thinking Critically About Election Lessons for Energy Transition Politics, Pt. 2

Nov 11, 2024 | Blog, Partisanship, Elections and the Energy Transition

[This is the second of two posts exploring what (if anything) we can learn about energy politics from the results of the November election. After this I will return to regular posting at regular intervals. — DS] ——- In September I speculated about how each...

Thinking Critically About Election Lessons, Pt. 1

Nov 9, 2024 | Blog, Framing and the Energy Transition Debate, Partisanship, Elections and the Energy Transition

[NOTE: This is the first of two posts about taking care when drawing political lessons from the election results. The second will appear here on 11/11. — DS] ———- When Democrats lose elections it is common to see immediate, impulsive “takes”...