Erik Schlenker-Goodrich

The risk with federal "permitting reform" is very real & very obvious: the worst dirty deal, ever, that would *prioritize* investors & corporations *over* people, communities, & ecology. And not just the worst deal, but a deal made with the devil: Trump.

Top permitting-reform Republican, Democratic senators meeting as talks thaw: API chief Speeding up the federal permitting process is a top priority for the energy and tech industries.

"Permitting reform" isn't about climate or affordability.

It's 100% about Energy & Tech industries exploiting Trump chaos to let fossil fuels & AI data centers bulldoze people & the environment.

What are we doing here, @whitehouse.senate.gov & @heinrich.senate.gov?

21/ How is there always a Tweet.

I will let them know you said that.

Picture of a real Ent in Staffordshire, England.

What about Ents?

It’s ok to be wrong.

the worst and most incompetent people at the most important time in human history

well, it's time to start supporting the rise of the squid and the raccoons

Beavers and wolves and whales. Maybe Sasquatch.

If I had a dollar for every person who asks how defense attorneys sleep at night, I’d be able to pay my student loans. If I had a dollar for every person who asks how prosecutors sleep at night, I could maybe buy a pack of gum. Broken society.

🎯

I really dig @volts.wtf, but wish he wouldn’t characterize climate groups as a monolith. Like I understand where he’s coming from, and climate groups have their (our) challenges, but this is mostly lazy internalization of reactionary centrist rhetoric—and he’s not one.

This is precisely why folks are pushing federal permitting reform down our throats. They want to build out natural gas infrastructure (esp. pipelines) as fast as possible, with much of the feedstock routed to power AI data centers.

As an IR professor, it's depressing that this is outperforming all others as the best theory of US foreign policy

Just killed a man's whole family and accidentally installed him as leader of Iran. We created Super Vengeance Boy and are just assuming he'll leave us alone.

Map snapshot depicting the predicted relative anomalousness of surface temperatures from the ECMWF ensemble over the Western U.S. in about a week from now. A a huge region of bright orange and red colors (depicting extremely high warm temperature anomalies) is centered right in the middle of the map, and covers essentially the entire region.

Lots of buzz online about an upcoming major March heatwave for the American SW & California. And in this case, it does indeed appear increasingly likely than an extremely anomalous and even record-breaking heatwave may envelop much of the SW about a week from now.

This is true. Also, methane fight’s been going on for 15+ years (I know well per work during Obama on 1st round of rules). At some juncture, we need to understand that as a climate mitigation tool, not climate transition solution.

"[M]oderate Democratic voters are fully in line with the growing economic populism in the party and actually want more of it. And on social issues, they aren’t as worried about a Democratic Party that strongly defends transgender people and abortion rights as many centrist pundits are."

Another datapoint on the urgency of phasing out fossil fuels

With energy prominent in the ever fraught news cycle, it's remarkable that Senate Democrats have restarted federal "permitting reform" negotiations under the assumption, despite a decade of countervailing evidence, they can make a deal with the devil in the public interest.

Not gonna happen.

the rich will increasingly try to segregate from society as things collapse and literally the only tool we have in this fight if we don't want to be in a war of all against all scenario is to keep our public infrastructure operational.

Modern society depends on functioning public infrastructure.

Think about how awesome Dems would look right now if they were out here making the cost effective, public solutions as accessible as possible instead of following conservative instincts.

Graphic which reads 'Price of sunlight +0%, Price of oil +50%'

Reminder: The cost of the sun and wind will never increase because of conflict. While oil prices rise by almost 50% in the U.S. - sunlight remains free and abundant, forever. ☀️

"The Pentagon and the White House would surely prefer if the American public blamed the slaughter of little girls and boys on a faceless computer program and not the human beings who programmed that computer [...] or the commanders who can’t even tell us why this war is happening."

@rebeccasolnit.bsky.social's book crystallizes my conviction that better worlds are not just possible, but likely. It's why the forces of darkness are so rabid in this moment.

They. Are. Losing.

As @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social has made famous: "I do not regret to inform you that we will win."

✊🏼

I don't see that in theory of change/logic of moderate folks who've adopted "additive" (aka, "all of the above" & "tech neutral") model of change. Goal too hazy, values fixated on capital & tech, objectives poorly defined. Reads as overly simplistic path that keeps us stuck in the ditch.

I.e., With climate, narrow-boundary fixation on energy systems (w/even more narrow objective of near-term GHG redux) *is* a problem. Instead, we need wide-boundary lens that accounts not just for energy systems, but more expansive political economy & humanity's relationship w/ecological systems.

In my mind, I've been adopting a "think like a beaver" approach. Best way to create a healthy watershed that provides clean water isn't straight-shot irrigation channel, but meandering streams and wetlands that accounts for complexity of and boosts whole ecological system.

Wasn’t so much a Q of “enough” but of “directionality.” Nudged us in better direction while compromising more profound shift. Fact Trump is trying to kill us should compel adoption of more durable & effective (if more difficult) transformative path. Opposition based on moderation also killing us.

We. Can. Change.

Additive model also precisely what Biden admin employed, especially after RU invaded UKR.

Proved discordant, self-defeating, & ratcheted tensions w/virtually all stakeholder blocs.

Especially relative to downstream subnational policy & project permitting.

Part of reason we’re where we are.