Jun 10, 2024 | Blog, Framing and the Energy Transition Debate
The grandson and great-grandson of U.S. presidents, Henry Adams, wrote his famous statement about politics being “the organization of hatreds” as an expression of his disillusionment with politics, especially the political effectiveness of whipping up contempt for...
Jun 5, 2024 | Blog, Energy Transition Policy & Policymaking, Partisanship, Elections and the Energy Transition
[Note: This is the second in a series of posts looking at how the political analysis (and corresponding prescription) in Climate of Contempt could turn out to be wrong. The first post was here.] Some people, particularly those at the ideological poles of each party,...
Jun 1, 2024 | Blog, Democracy and Transitions to Authoritarianism
One of the central implications of the analysis in Climate of Contempt is that the energy transition is inextricably intertwined with U.S. political dysfunction. In chapter 6 I cite scholars who study transitions from democracy to populist authoritarianism who contend...
May 30, 2024 | Blog, Framing and the Energy Transition Debate
Chapter 4 of Climate of Contempt discusses the academic literature on Internet “filter bubbles,” and how and why they wind us up emotionally. They close our minds to information and arguments that challenge our beliefs by making that information too...
May 25, 2024 | Blog, Journalism, Bias & Censored News
The modern media environment damages public understanding of complex issues as much by incentivizing frequent small inaccuracies as by way of bots and deliberate misinformation. Let’s look at another April 2024 example of sloppy journalism that leaves the wrong...
May 20, 2024 | Blog, Journalism, Bias & Censored News
When talking about censored news feeds in front of groups, I often repeat a sentence from Climate of Contempt to the effect that Democrats and liberals are more likely than Republicans and conservatives to have heard about the plot to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen...
