Feb 28, 2026 | Blog, Energy Transition Policy & Policymaking, Framing and the Energy Transition Debate
Decades ago, when I was a grad student living in North Carolina, the televangelists Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker had a very popular daily TV show called The PTL Club,* that combined preaching, entertainment and fundraising. The fundraising part eventually landed Jim...
Feb 20, 2026 | Blog, Democracy and Transitions to Authoritarianism, Partisanship, Elections and the Energy Transition
Last year Republicans in Congress tripled the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) budget, and the agency is establishing a permanent presence (renting offices, etc.) in communities all over the country. The rapid doubling of the number of ICE agents has created...
Feb 15, 2026 | Blog, Energy Transition Policy & Policymaking, Partisanship, Elections and the Energy Transition
The EPA recently overturned its so-called “endangerment finding,” the bedrock decision on which Clean Air Act regulation of greenhouse gas admissions rests. What will that mean in practice? Amidst the Trump Administration’s blitzkrieg assault on the rule of law, it...
Feb 10, 2026 | Blog, Energy Transition Policy & Policymaking, Partisanship, Elections and the Energy Transition
Internet-driven schadenfreude politics — what political scientists call negative partisanship — prevents Congress from addressing even the most pressing national problems. Facing the biggest national energy crisis since the 1970s, Congress has repeatedly...
Jan 28, 2026 | Blog, Democracy and Transitions to Authoritarianism, Journalism, Bias & Censored News
Canadian Prime Minister, Mark Carney’s January speech at Davos on the demise of the “rules based international order” garnered a lot of well-deserved praise for acknowledging the United States’ abandonment of that system, and it’s implications for the rest of...
Jan 20, 2026 | Blog, Democracy and Transitions to Authoritarianism, Energy Transition Policy & Policymaking, Partisanship, Elections and the Energy Transition
We humans are biased toward understandings of reality that include some minimum level of optimism about the future. But if we ignore the bad news, we shut ourselves off from parts of the truth. Which brings me to the Supreme Court’s forthcoming Slaughter...
