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, 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”...

Be a Savvy Multi-directional Learner, Part 2 – Oil & the Gulf of Mexico

Oct 15, 2024 | Blog, Framing and the Energy Transition Debate

Chapter 5 of Climate of Contempt opens with a discussion of the ubiquitous presence of petroleum products in modern society. Some readers find that discussion provocative because it asserts that (i) even though the oil industry has benefited from the glogal north’s...

Be a Savvy, Multi-directional Learner, Part 1 — Markets vs Regulation

Oct 10, 2024 | Energy Transition Policy & Policymaking, Framing and the Energy Transition Debate

[Reader warning: This is a wonky post that is aimed at people who have read Climate of Contempt or who otherwise have a deep and granular understanding of how electricity markets work.] —— Chapters 3 and 5 of Climate of Contempt discuss expert disagreement...

Learn to Manage the Shpilkes

Oct 5, 2024 | Blog, Energy Transition Policy & Policymaking, Framing and the Energy Transition Debate

The word “shpilkes,” which refers to a state of agitated anxiety, is probably unfamiliar to most non-Yiddish speakers. I am not a Yiddish speaker, but like many of us above a certain age I learned the word watching Saturday Night Live in the early 1990s. Shpilkes is a...

Energy Messaging in National Elections is Tricky

Sep 30, 2024 | Blog, Framing and the Energy Transition Debate, Partisanship, Elections and the Energy Transition

The parties’ nominating conventions are over and their platforms set. The GOP platform emphasizes “energy dominance” and doubling down on fossil fuels. (And see my previous posts discussing the energy particulars of Project 2025 here and here.) The Democratic platform...