Podcasts about Breakthrough Institute

Todays guest is Jessica Weinkle, Associate Professor of Public Policy at the University of North Carolina Wilmington, and Senior Fellow at The Breakthrough Institute.  In this episode we explore a range of topics and we start with the question: What is ecomodernism, and how does The Breakthrough Institute and Jessica interpret it?  “It's not a movement of can'ts” Why are environmentalists selective about technology acceptance? Why do we assess  ecological impact through bodies like the IPCC and frameworks like Planetary Boundaries? Are simplified indicators of complex systems genuinely helpful or misleading?  Is contemporary science more about appearances than substance, and do scientific journals serve more and more as advocacy platforms than fact-finding missions? How much should activism and science intersect? To what extent do our beliefs influence science, and vice versa, especially when financial interests are at play in fields like climate science? Can we trust scientific integrity when narratives are tailored for publication, like in the case of Patrick Brown? What responsibilities do experts have when consulting in political spheres, and should they present options or advocate for specific actions?  How has research publishing turned into big business, and what does this mean for the pursuit of truth?  “Experts should always say: here are your options A, B, C...; not: I think you should do A” How does modeling shape global affairs? When we use models for decision-making, are we taking them too literally, or should we focus on their broader implications?  “To take a model literally is not to take it seriously […] the models are useful to give us some ideas, but the specificity is not where we should focus.” What's the connection between scenario building, modeling, and risk management?  “There is an institutional and professional incentive to make big claims, to draw attention. […] That's what we get rewarded for. […] It does create an incentive to push ideas that are not necessarily the most helpful ideas for addressing public problems.” How does the public venue affect scientists, and does the incentive to make bold claims for attention come at the cost of practical solutions? What lessons should we have learned from cases like Jan Hendrik Schön, and why haven't we?  “There is an underappreciation for the extent to which scholarly publishing is a business, a big media business. It's not just all good moral virtue around skill and enlightenment. It's money, fame and fortune.” Finally, are narratives about future scenarios fueling climate anxiety, and how should we address this in science communication and policy-making? “There is a freedom in uncertainty and there is also an opportunity to create decisions that are more robust to an unpredictable future. The more that we say we are certain ... the more vulnerable we become to the uncertainty that we are pretending is not there.” Other Episodes Episode 109: Was ist Komplexität? Ein Gespräch mit Dr. Marco Wehr Episode 107: How to Organise Complex Societies? A Conversation with Johan Norberg Episode 90: Unintended Consequences (Unerwartete Folgen) Episode 86: Climate Uncertainty and Risk, a conversation with Dr. Judith Curry Episode 79: Escape from Model Land, a Conversation with Dr. Erica Thompson Episode 76: Existentielle Risiken Episode 74: Apocalype Always Episode 70: Future of Farming, a conversation with Padraic Flood Episode 68: Modelle und Realität, ein Gespräch mit Dr. Andreas Windisch Episode 60: Wissenschaft und Umwelt — Teil 2 Episode 59: Wissenschaft und Umwelt — Teil 1 References Jessica Weinkle Jessica on Substack Jessica at The Breakthrough Institute Jessica at the Department of Public and International Affairs (UNCW) The Breakthrough Journal Planetary Boundaries (Stockholm Resilience Centre) Patrick T. Brown, I Left Out the Full Truth to Get My Climate Change Paper Published, The FP (2023) Roger Pielke Jr., What the media won't tell you about . . . hurricanes (2022) Roger Pielke Jr., "When scientific integrity is undermined in pursuit of financial and political gain" (2023) Many other excellent articles Roger Pielke on his Substack The Honest Broker Jessica Weinkle, Model me this (2024) Jessica Weinkle, How Planetary Boundaries Captured Science, Health, and Finance (2024) Jessica Weinkle, Bias. Undisclosed conflicts of interest are a serious problem in the climate change literature (2025) Marcia McNutt, The beyond-two-degree inferno, Science Editorial (2015) Scientific American editor quits after anti-Trump comments, Unherd (2024) Erica Thompson, Escape from Model Land, Basic Books (2022)  

In this episode of Smart Energy Voices, host Debra Chanil speaks with Mike Van Brunt from ReWorld and Sean Trambley from the Circular Economy Coalition about the integration of circular economy principles in the energy sector. Both guests emphasize the economic and environmental benefits of circularity, including waste reduction and energy efficiency, and offer advice for businesses starting to embrace circular economy practices. You will want to hear this episode if you are interested in… Circularity and how it differs from other sustainability practices (02:57) Overview of U.S. Circular Economy Coalition (05:20) What a circular economy would look like in the U.S. (07:41) How the federal government defines a circular economy (09:40) How Reworld is incorporating circular economy policies (15:15) The federal government's role in building a more circular economy (18:55) Benefits of incorporating circular economy practices (25:27) Ways to approach circularity (28:27) For detailed show notes, click here. Resources: Federal Circularity Audit and Report Connect with Michael Van Brunt On LinkedIn Michael Van Brunt is currently VP Environmental and Sustainability at Reworld Waste, where he is responsible for corporate sustainability strategy and reporting and environmental compliance, permitting, and monitoring. He leads Reworld's lifecycle analysis team and is a licensed professional engineer with over twenty years of experience in industry and consulting. He is currently the board chair of the Circular Economy Coalition. He earned a B.S. and Masters in Agricultural and Biological Engineering from Cornell University. Connect with Sean Trambley On LinkedIn With more than a decade of government relations and strategic communications experience. Sean Trambley began his career in Washington, D.C. as Sr. Policy Advisor to former Congressman Dennis Cardoza (D-CA). Since 2016, Sean has worked as a California-based consultant and strategist. In 2020, Sean joined the Breakthrough Institute as Communications Director, a global research center focused on energy, agriculture, and technological solutions to climate change. He earned a B.A. in American Studies and Legal Studies from the University of California, Santa Cruz. Connect With Smart Energy Decisions Smart Energy Decisions Follow us on LinkedIn Subscribe to Smart Energy Voices on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Android, Spotify, Stitcher, TuneIn Radio, aCast, PlayerFM, iHeart Radio If you're interested in participating in the next Smart Energy Decision Event, visit smartenergydecisions.com or email our Community Development team at attend@smartenergydecisions.com

Big changes are happening: space; energy; and, of course, artificial intelligence. The difference between sustainable, pro-growth change, versus a retreat back into stagnation, may lie in how we implement that change. Today on Faster, Please! — The Podcast, I talk with Virginia Postrel about the pitfalls of taking a top-down approach to innovation, versus allowing a bottom-up style of dynamism to flourish.Postrel is an author, columnist, and speaker whose scholarly interests range from emerging technology to history and culture. She has authored four books, including The Future and Its Enemies (1998) and her most recent, The Fabric of Civilization: How Textiles Made the World (2020). Postrel is a contributing editor for the Works in Progress magazine and has her own Substack.In This Episode* Technocrats vs. dynamists (1:29)* Today's deregulation movement (6:12)* What to make of Musk (13:37)* On electric cars (16:21)* Thinking about California (25:56)Below is a lightly edited transcript of our conversation. Technocrats vs. dynamists (1:29)I think it is a real thing, I think it is in both parties, and its enemies are in both parties, too, that there are real factional disagreements.Pethokoukis: There is this group of Silicon Valley founders and venture capitalists, they supported President Trump because they felt his policies were sort of pro-builder, pro-abundance, pro-disruption, whatever sort of name you want to use.And then you have this group on the center-left who seemed to discover that 50 years of regulations make it hard to build EV chargers in the United States. Ezra Klein is one of these people, maybe it's limited to center-left pundits, but do you think there's something going on? Do you think we're experiencing a dynamism kind of vibe shift? I would like to think we are.Postrel: I think there is something going on. I think there is a real progress and abundance movement. “Abundance” tends to be the word that people who are more Democrat-oriented use, and “progress” is the word that people who are more — I don't know if they're exactly Republican, but more on the right . . . They have disagreements, but they represent distinct Up Wing (to put it in your words) factions within their respective parties. And actually, the Up Wing thing is a good way of thinking about it because it includes both people that, in The Future and Its Enemies, I would classify as technocrats, and Ezra Klein read the books and says, “I am a technocrat.” They want top-down direction in the pursuit of what they see as progress. And people that I would classify as dynamists who are more bottom-up and more about decentralized decision-making, price signals, markets, et cetera.They share a sense that they would like to see the possibility of getting stuff done, of increasing abundance, of more scientific and technological progress, all of those kinds of things. I think it is a real thing, I think it is in both parties, and its enemies are in both parties, too, that there are real factional disagreements. In many ways, it reminds me of the kind of cross-party seeking for new answers that we experienced in the late '70s and early '80s, where . . . the economy was problematic in the '70s.Highly problematic.And there was a lot of thinking about what the problems were and what could be done better, and one thing that came out of that was a lot of the sort of deregulation efforts that, in the many pay-ins to Jimmy Carter, who's not my favorite president, but there was a lot of good stuff that happened through a sort of left-right alliance in that period toward opening up markets.So you had people like Ralph Nader and free-market economists saying, “We really don't need to have all these regulations on trucking, and on airlines, and these are anti-consumer, and let's free things up.” And we reaped enormous benefits from that, and it's very hard to believe how prescriptive those kinds of regulations were back before the late '70s.The progress and abundance movement has had its greatest success — although it still has a lot to go — on housing, and that's where you see people who are saying, “Why do we have so many rules about how much parking you can have?” I mean, yes, a lot of people want parking, but if they want parking, they'll demand it in the marketplace. We don't need to say, “You can't have tandem parking.” Every place I've lived in LA would be illegal to build nowadays because of the parking, just to take one example.Today's deregulation movement (6:12). . . you've got grassroots kind of Trump supporters who supported him because they're sick of regulation. Maybe they're small business owners, they just don't like being told what to do . .. . and it's a coalition, and it's going to be interesting to see what happens.You mentioned some of the deregulation in the Carter years, that's a real tangible achievement. Then you also had a lot more Democrats thinking about technology, what they called the “Atari Democrats” who looked at Japan, so there was a lot of that kind of tumult and thinking — but do you think this is more than a moment, it's kind of this brief fad, or do you think it can turn into something where you can look back in five and 10 years, like wow, there was a shift, big things actually happened?I don't think it's just a fad, I think it's a real movement. Now, movements are not always successful. And we'll see, when we saw an early blowup over immigration.That's kind of what I was thinking of, it's hardly straightforward.Within the Trump coalition, you've got people who are what I in The Future and Its Enemies would call reactionaries. That is, people who idealize an idea of an unchanging America someplace in the past. There are different versions of that even within the Trump coalition, and those people are very hostile to the kinds of changes that come with bottom-up innovation and those sorts of things.But then you've also got people, and not just people from Silicon Valley, you've got grassroots kind of Trump supporters who supported him because they're sick of regulation. Maybe they're small business owners, they just don't like being told what to do, so you've got those kinds of people too, and it's a coalition, and it's going to be interesting to see what happens.It's not just immigration, it's also if you wanted to have a big technological future in the US, some of the materials you need to build come from other countries. I think some of them come from Canada, and probably we're not going to annex it, and if you put big tariffs on those things, it's going to hamper people's ability to do things. This is more of a Biden thing, but the whole Nippon Steel can't buy US Steel and invest huge amounts of money in US plants because, “Oh no, they're Japanese!” I mean it's like back to the '80s.Virginia, what if we wake up one morning and they've moved the entire plant to Tokyo? We can't let them do that!There's one thing about steel plants, they're very localized investments. And we have a lot of experience with Japanese investment in the US, by the way, lots of auto plants and other kinds of things. It's that sort of backward thinking, which, in this case, was a Biden administration thing, but Trump agrees, or has agreed, is not good. And it's not even politically smart, and it's not even pro the workers because the workers who actually work at the relevant plant want this investment because it will improve their jobs, but instead we get this creating monopoly. If things go the way it looks like they will, there will be a monopoly US Steel supplier, and that's not good for the auto industry or anybody else who uses steel.I think if we look back in 2030 at what's happened since 2025, whether this has turned out to be a durable kind of pro-progress, pro-growth, pro-abundance moment, I'll look at how have we reacted to advances in artificial intelligence: Did we freak out and start worrying about job loss and regulate it to death? And will we look back and say, “Wow, it became a lot easier to build a nuclear power plant or anything energy.” Has it become significantly easier over the past five years? How deep is the stasis part of America, and how big is the dynamist part of America, really?Yeah, I think it's a big question. It's a big question both because we're at this moment of what looks like big political change, we're not sure what that change is going to look like because the Trump coalition and Trump himself are such a weird grab bag of impulses, and also because, as you mentioned, artificial intelligence is on the cusp of amazing things, it looks like.And then you throw in the energy issues, which are related to climate, but they're also related to AI because AI requires a lot of energy. Are we going to build a lot of nuclear power plants? It's conceivable we will, both because of new technological designs for them, but also because of this growing sense — what I see is a lot of elite consensus (and elites are bad now!) that we made a wrong move when we turned against nuclear power. There's still aging Boomer and older are environmentalist types who still react badly to the idea of nuclear power, but if you talk to younger people, they are more open-minded because they're more concerned with the climate, and if we're going to electrify everything, the electricity's got to come from someplace. Solar and wind don't get you there.To me, not only is this the turnaround in nuclear, to me, stunning, but the fact that we had one of the most severe accidents only about 10 years ago in Japan, and if you would have asked anybody back then, they're like, “That's the death knell. No more nuclear renaissance in these countries. Japan's done. It's done everywhere.” Yet here we are.And yet, part of that may even be because of that accident, because it was bad, and yet, the long-run bad effects were negligible in terms of actual deaths or other things that you might point to. It's not like suddenly you had lots of babies being born with two heads or something.What to make of Musk (13:37)I'm glad the world has an Elon Musk, I'm glad we don't have too many of them, and I worry a little bit about someone of that temperament being close to political power.What do you make of Elon Musk?Well, I reviewed Walter Isaacson's biography of him.Whatever your opinion was after you read the biography, has it changed?No, it hasn't. I think he is somebody who has poor impulse control, and some of his impulses are very good. His engineering and entrepreneurial genius are best focused in the world of building things — that is, working with materials, physically thinking about properties of materials and how could you do spaceships, or cars, or things differently. He's a mixed bag and a lot of these kinds of people, I say it well compared.What do people expect that guy to be like?Compared to Henry Ford, I'd prefer Elon Musk. I'm glad the world has an Elon Musk, I'm glad we don't have too many of them, and I worry a little bit about someone of that temperament being close to political power. It can be a helpful corrective to some of the regulatory impulses because he does have this very strong builder impulse, but I don't think he's a particularly thoughtful person about his limitations or about political concerns.Aside from his particular strange personality, there is a general problem among the tech elite, which is that they overemphasize how much they know. Smart people are always prone to the problem of thinking they know everything because they're smart, or that they can learn everything because they're smart, or that they're better than people because they're smart, and it's just like one characteristic. Even the smartest person on earth can't know everything because there's more knowledge than any one person can have. That's why I don't like the technocratic impulse, because the technocratic impulse is like, smart people should run the world and they tell you exactly how to do it.To take a phrase that Ruxandra Teslo uses on her Substack, I think weird nerds are really important to the progress of the world, but weird nerds also need to realize that our goal should be to create a world in which they have a place and can do great things, but not a world in which they run everything, because they're not the only people who are valuable and important.On electric cars (16:21)If you look at the statistics, the people who buy electric cars tend to be people who don't actually drive that much, and they're skewed way to high incomes.You were talking about electrification a little earlier, and you've written a little bit about electric cars. Why did you choose to write about electric cars? And it seems like there's a vibe shift on electric cars as well in this country.This is the funny thing, because this January interview is actually scheduled because of a July post I had written on Substack called “Don't Talk About Electric Cars!”It's as timely as today's headlines.The headline was inspired by a talk that I heard Celinda Lake, the Democratic pollster (been around forever) give at a Breakthrough Institute conference back in June. Breakthrough Institute is part of this sort of UP Wing, pro-progress coalition, but they have a distinct Democrat tilt. And this conference, there was a panel on it that was about how to talk about these issues, specifically if you want Democrats to win.She gave this talk where she showed all these polling results where you would say, “The Biden administration is great because of X,” and then people would agree or disagree. And the thing that polled the worst, and in fact the only thing that actually made people more likely to vote Republican, was saying that they had supported building all these electric charging stations. Celinda Lake's opinion, her analysis of that, digging into the numbers, was that people don't like electric cars, and especially women don't like electric cars, because of concerns about range. Women are terrified of being stranded, that was her take. I don't know if that's true, but that was her take. But women love hybrids, and I think people love hybrids. I think hybrids are very popular, and in fact, I inherited my mother's hybrid because she stopped driving. So I now have a 2018 Prius, which I used to take this very long road trip in the summer where I drove from LA to a conference in Wichita, and then to Red Cloud Nebraska, and then back to Wichita for a second conference.The reason people don't like electric cars is really a combination of the fact that they tend to cost more than equivalent gasoline vehicles and because they have limited range and you have to worry about things like charging them and how long charging them is going to take.If you look at the statistics, the people who buy electric cars tend to be people who don't actually drive that much, and they're skewed way to high incomes. So I live in this neighborhood in West LA, and it is full of Priuses — I mean it used to be full of Priuses, there's still a lot of Priuses, but it's full of Teslas and it is not typical. And the people in LA who are driving many, many miles are people who have jobs like they're gardeners, or their contractors, or they're insurance adjusters and they have to drive all around and they don't drive electric cars. They might very well drive hybrids because you get better gas mileage, but they're not people who have a lot of time to be sitting around in charging stations.I think what's happened is there's some groups of people who are see this as a problem to be solved, but then there are a lot of people who see it as more symbolic than not. And they let their ideal, perfect world prevent improvements. So instead of saying, “We should switch from coal to natural gas,” they say, “We should outlaw fossil fuels.” Instead of saying, “Hybrids are a great thing, great invention, way lower emissions,” they say, “We must have all electric vehicles.” And what will happen, California has this rule, it has this law, that you're not going to be able to sell [non-]electric vehicles in the state after, I think it's 2035, and it's totally predictable what's going to happen: People just keep their gasoline cars longer. We're going to end up like Cuba with a bunch of old cars.I swear, every report I get from a think tank, or a consultancy, or a Wall Street bank, for years has talked about electric cars, the energy transition, as if it was an absolutely done deal, and maybe it is a done deal over some longer period of time, I don't know, but to me it sort of gets to your point about top-down technocratic impulse — it seems to be failing.And I think that electric cars are a good example of that because there are a lot of people who think electric cars are really cool, they're kind of an Up Wing thing, if you will. It's like a new technology, there've been big advances, and exciting entrepreneurs . . . and I think a lot of people who like the idea of technological progress like electric cars, and in fact, the adoption of electric cars by people who maybe don't drive a whole lot but have a lot of money, it's not just environmental, cool, or even status, it's partly techno-lust, especially with Teslas.A lot of people who bought Teslas, they're just like people who like technology, but the top-down proclamation that you must have an electric vehicle, and we're going to use a combination of subsidies and bans to force everybody to have an electric vehicle, really doesn't acknowledge the diversity of transportation needs that people have.One way of looking at electric cars, but also the effort to build all these chargers, which has been a failure, the effort to start to creating broadband connectivity to all these rural areas — which isn't working very well — there was this lesson learned by people on the center-left, and Ezra Klein, that there was this wild overreaction, perhaps, to environmental problems in the '60s and '70s, and the unintended consequence here is that one, the biggest environmental problem may be worse because we don't have nuclear power and climate change, but now we can't really solve any problems. So it took them 50 years, but they learned a lesson.My concern is to look at what's going on with some of the various Biden initiatives which are taking forever to implement, may be wildly unpopular — will they learn the risk of this top-down technocratic approach, or they'll just memory hold that and they'll move on to their next technocratic approach? Will there be a learning?No, I'm skeptical that there will be. I think that the learning that has taken place — and by the way, I hate that: “a learning,” that kind of thing. . .That's why I said it, because it's kind of delightfully annoying.The “learning,” gerund, that has taken place is that we shouldn't put so much process in the way of government doing things. And while I more or less agree with that, in particular, there are too many veto points and it is too easy for a very small group of objectors to hold up, not just private, but also public initiatives that are providing public goods.I think that the reason we got all of these process things that keep things from being done was because of things like urban renewal in the 1960s. And no, it was not just Robert Moses, he just got the big book written about him, but this took place every place where neighborhoods were completely torn down and hideous, brutalist structures were built for public buildings, or public housing, and these kinds of things, and people eventually rebelled against that.I think that yes, there are some people on the center-left who will learn. I do not think Ezra Klein is one of them, but price signals are actually useful things. They convey knowledge, and if you're going to go from one regulatory regime to another, you'll get different results, but if you don't have something that surfaces that bottom-up knowledge and takes it seriously, eventually it's going to break down. It's either going to break down politically or it's just waste a lot of money. . . You have your own technocratic streak.Thinking about California (25:56)Everybody uses California fires as an excuse to grind whatever axe they have.But listen, they'd be the good technocrats.Final question: As we're speaking, as we're doing this interview, huge fires raging sort of north of Los Angeles — how do you feel about the future of California? You live in California. California is extraordinarily important, both the American economy and to the world as a place of culture, as a place of technology. How do you feel about the state?The state has done a lot of shooting itself in the foot over the last . . . I moved here in 1986, and over that time, particularly in the first decade I was there, things were going great, the state was kind of stupid. I think if California solves its housing problem and actually allows significant amounts of housing to be built so that people can move here, people can stay here, young people don't have to leave the state, I think that will go a long way. It has made some positive movement in that direction. I think that's the biggest single obstacle.Fires are a problem, and I just recirculated on my Substack something I wrote about understanding the causes of California fires and what would need to be done to stop them.You've got to rake that underbrush.I wrote this in 2019, but it's still true: Everybody uses California fires as an excuse to grind whatever axe they have.Some of the Twitter commentary has been less-than-generous toward the people of California and its governor.One of the forms of progress that we take for granted is that cities don't burn regularly. Throughout most of human history, regular urban fires were a huge deal, and one of the things that city governments feared the most was fire and how were they prevented. There's the London fire, and the Chicago fires, and I remember, I just looked up yesterday, there was a huge fire in Atlanta in 1917, which was when my grandparents were children there. I remember my grandparents talking about that fire. Cities used to regularly burn — now they don't, where you have, they call it the “urban wildlife,” I forget what it's called, but there's a place where the city meets up against the natural environment, and that's where we have fires now, so that people like me who live in the concrete are not threatened. It's the people who live closer to nature, or they have more money, have a big lot of land.It's kind of understood what would be needed to prevent such fires. It's hard to do because it costs a lot of money in some cases, but it's not like, “Let's forget civilization. Let's not build anything. Let's just let nature take its course.” And one of the problems that was in the 20th century where people had the false idea — again, bad technocrats — that you needed to prevent forest fires, forest fires were always bad, and that is a complete misunderstanding of how the natural world works.California has a great future if it fixes this housing problem. If it doesn't fix its housing problem, it can write off the future. It will be all old people who already have houses.On sale everywhere The Conservative Futurist: How To Create the Sci-Fi World We Were Promised▶ Business* Google Thinks It Has the Best AI Tech. Now It Needs More Users. - WSJ* Anduril Picks Ohio for Military Drone Factory Employing 4,000 - Bberg* A lesson for oligarchs: politics can be deadly - FT Opinion* EU Needs Deregulation to Keep Up with Trump, Ericsson CEO Says - Bberg▶ Policy/Politics* Europe's ‘super-regulator' role is under threat - FT Opinion* Biden's AI Data Center and Climate Contradiction - WSJ Opinion* After Net Neutrality: The Return of the States - AEI* China Has a $1 Trillion Head Start in Any Tariff Fight - WSJ▶ AI/Digital* She Is in Love With ChatGPT - NYT* Meta AI creates speech-to-speech translator that works in dozens of languages - Nature* AI-designed proteins tackle century-old problem — making snake antivenoms - Nature* Meta takes us a step closer to Star Trek's universal translator - Ars▶ Clean Energy/Climate* Chris Wright backs aggressive build-out of the US power grid - EEN* We Have to Stop Underwriting People Who Move to Climate Danger Zones - NYT Opinion* Has China already reached peak oil? - FT* Molten salt nuclear reactor in Wyoming hits key milestone - New Atlas▶ Space/Transportation* SpaceX catches Super Heavy booster on Starship Flight 7 test but loses upper stage - Space* Blue Origin reaches orbit on first flight of its titanic New Glenn rocket - Ars* Jeff Bezos' New Glenn Rocket Lifts Off on First Flight - NYT* Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket reaches orbit in first test - WaPo* Blue Ghost, a Private U.S. Lunar Lander, Launches to the Moon - SciAm* Human exploration of Mars is coming, says former NASA chief scientist - NS▶ Substacks/Newsletters* TikTok is just the beginning - Noahpinion* Unstable Diffusion - Hyperdimensional* Progress's First Principles - Risk & Progress* How Trump, China & Trade Wars Will Affect the Global AI Landscape in 2025 - AI Supremacy* After the Green New Deal - Slow Boring* Washington Must Prioritize Mineral Supply Results Over Political Point Scoring - Breakthrough JournalFaster, Please! is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fasterplease.substack.com/subscribe

Two thought leaders in the nuclear energy conversation, James Krellenstein and Ted Nordhaus, join Decouple for a “debate” over the question of reactor size: should advanced, small nuclear technologies lead the way for nuclear energy, or should conventional large reactors? What could have been a heated debate over nuclear energy's future ended up a nuanced discussion about the industry's challenges—and how to overcome them. James Krellenstein is the co-founder and CEO of Alva Energy. Ted Nordhaus is the co-founder and executive director of The Breakthrough Institute.

Subscribe to The Realignment to access our exclusive Q&A episodes and support the show: https://realignment.supercast.com/REALIGNMENT NEWSLETTER: https://therealignment.substack.com/PURCHASE BOOKS AT OUR BOOKSHOP: https://bookshop.org/shop/therealignmentEmail Us: realignmentpod@gmail.comAlex Trembath, Deputy Director of the Breakthrough Institute, joins The Realignment. Marshall and Alex discuss the takeaways from Abundance 2024, the case for Ecomodernism, the rise and fall (and rise) of climate policy from An Inconvenient Truth to the Inflation Reduction Act, lessons from the clean energy space for other parts of the Abundance Agenda, and why blue states like California aren't able to build clean energy, housing, and infrastructure as much as red states like Texas.

On "eco-modernism". Ted Nordhaus, co-founder and executive director of the Breakthrough Institute, talks to Leigh and Alex the 20th anniversary of "The Death of Environmentalism" and the 10th anniversary of "The Ecomodernist Manifesto". We discuss: The fundamental philosophical differences between "building-out" and "restraint". Whether industrial policy like the Inflation Reduction Act is in line with the ecomodern approach Why environmentalism differs in the US versus Western Europe Why modernisation gets lost in discussions on the environment What techno-optimism and what techno-fixes are What the Abundance Agenda is Links: The Death of Environmentalism, Breakthrough Institute An ECOMODERNIST MANIFESTO

Editor's note: There's new interest in nuclear power from electric utilities, the White House, and the public. While NuScale's deal to build a small modular reactor failed last year, TerraPower is currently building the U.S.'s first advanced non-light water reactor in Wyoming. So we're revisiting an episode from last November with The Good Energy Collective's Dr. Jessica Lovering unpacking one of nuclear's biggest challenges: cost. Nuclear construction costs in the U.S. are some of the highest in the world. Recent estimates put the cost of building conventional nuclear reactors at more than $6,000 per kilowatt, as measured by overnight capital cost. But high costs are a problem for new small modular reactors (SMRs) too, killing what was going to be the country's first SMR before it got built. Meanwhile, South Korea has some of the lowest costs in the world. Estimated overnight capital costs for reactors in South Korea are closer to $2,200 per kilowatt.And then there are countries like China, France, and the United Arab Emirates that fall between those extremes. So why the wide range in costs?  In this episode, Shayle talks to Dr. Jessica Lovering, co-founder and executive director at the Good Energy Collective, a non-profit that researches and promotes policies that support nuclear power. A former director of energy at the Breakthrough Institute, she also authored a comprehensive study of nuclear construction costs in 2016.  Shayle and Jessica talk about things like: What goes into the cost of construction and South Korea's secret sauce for low-cost nuclear reactors Why Jessica thinks we should manufacture and regulate reactors like large aircraft Driving down costs with modularity, small reactors, passive safety features, and more construction  Why changing regulations might be necessary, but not a silver bullet  Why the pro- and anti-nuclear camps talk past each other — and why Jessica says she's somewhere in between  Recommended Resources: Latitude Media: Is large-scale nuclear poised for a comeback? Energy Policy: Historical construction costs of global nuclear power reactors National Academy of Engineering: Chasing Cheap Nuclear: Economic Trade-Offs for Small Modular Reactors Joule: Evaluating the Role of Unit Size in Learning-by-Doing of Energy Technologies Science: Granular technologies to accelerate decarbonization Canary: Future of small reactors at stake as NuScale deal flops Catalyst is brought to you by Anza, a revolutionary platform enabling solar and energy storage equipment buyers and developers to save time, increase profits, and reduce risk. Instantly see pricing, product, and counterparty data and comparison tools. Learn more at go.anzarenewables.com/latitude. Catalyst is brought to you by Kraken, the advanced operating system for energy. Kraken is helping utilities offer excellent customer service and develop innovative products and tariffs through the connection and optimization of smart home energy assets. Already licensed by major players across the globe, including Origin Energy, E.ON, and EDF, Kraken can help you create a smarter, greener grid. Visit kraken.tech. Catalyst is brought to you by Antenna Group, the global leader in integrated marketing, public relations, creative, and public affairs for energy and climate brands. If you're a startup, investor, or enterprise that's trying to make a name for yourself, Antenna Group's team of industry insiders is ready to help tell your story and accelerate your growth engine. Learn more at antennagroup.com.

Speaking with Patrick Brown of the Breakthrough Institute about wildfire mitigation, fuel reduction, science and its malcontents, and much more.LINKS:Forget Adapting to Climate Change, We Must First Adapt to the Climate We HaveThe Social Feedback Loops That Constrain Climate ScienceWhen Science Journals Become ActivistsWildfire Interdisciplinary Research Center, San Jose Univ.Forget Adapting to Climate ChangeAn Ecomodernist ManifestoSupport the Show._________________________________________________This podcast is a production of the Henry Miller Memorial Library with support from The Arts Council for Monterey County! Let us know what you think!SEND US AN EMAIL!

Breakthrough Institute co-founder Ted Nordhaus on climate science and climate change anxiety.

“A.B.C. Always be challenging.”Break Fake Rules is a podcast from the Stupski Foundation that questions philanthropy's self-imposed rules and explores ways it can better serve communities and contribute to lasting change. In this episode, Glen talks with Rachel Pritzker, President and Founder of the Pritzker Innovation Fund. Rachel encourages us to lean into humility and curiosity to challenge our assumptions and discover new solutions that lead to progress. Resources:As mentioned in the discussion, find more information about the important function of in-group moderates here. Learn how to navigate conflict in Amanda Ripley's book, High Conflict. Learn more about the Democracy Funders Network, the Breakthrough Institute, Third Way, and the Energy for Growth Hub.Learn more about the Stupski Foundation's work.Host: Glen GalaichGuest: Rachel PritzkerProducer: Claire Callahan

Adam Stein is the Director of Nuclear Energy Innovation at the Breakthrough Institute, where he focuses on the technology, policy, risk and economics of nuclear energy. The Breakthrough Institute is a global research center that identifies and promotes technological solutions to environmental and human development challenges. Among its many projects, the Breakthrough Institute recently launched Build Nuclear Now, a national campaign to mobilize Americans in targeted states to call for regulatory and legislative change to accelerate the licensing and deployment of new, advanced nuclear reactors in the United States.Adam brings a pro-nuclear perspective to this conversation; and given that, Cody and Adam focus the majority of the discussion on the history of nuclear power in the US and potential paths forward, rather than debating the merits of nuclear (which could of course be a full episode by itself). Adam has a particular interest in advanced nuclear reactors, which represent a broad class of new technologies currently under development and review. This conversation covers these advanced reactors and so much more. Episode recorded on Apr 15, 2024 (Published on May 13, 2024)In this episode, we cover: [02:39]: Launch of 'Build Nuclear Now' to boost public support for nuclear energy[03:45]: Shift in public opinion on nuclear energy post-Three Mile Island incident[05:03]: Contrast between post-WWII and current energy policies focusing on efficiency[09:30]: Decline of nuclear energy due to increased natural gas from fracking[10:48]: Challenges in revitalizing the stagnant US nuclear industry[13:02]: Future projections for nuclear load growth by 2050  [15:14]: Why renewables and storage alone cannot meet future energy demands[19:39]: Additional benefits of nuclear energy[21:33]: The role of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and the need for reform[25:00]: Challenges with traditional nuclear reactor approval processes [29:23]: Vogtle reactors and challenges for deploying nuclear plants in the US[32:27]: The potential of advanced nuclear reactors and their smaller, adaptable designs[39:32]: Strategic focus on Appalachia for repurposing coal plants for nuclear projects[42:38]: Recent legislative efforts to modernize nuclear energy regulation and innovation[52:12]: The process and challenges of nuclear fuel management, from enrichment to waste[01:01:12]: National focus on nuclear innovation, highlighting Idaho's MARVEL reactor development[01:05:31]: Role of the Breakthrough Institute in addressing and implementing solutions for nuclear energy barriers Get connected with MCJ: Jason Jacobs X / LinkedInCody Simms X / LinkedInMCJ Podcast / Collective / YouTube*If you liked this episode, please consider giving us a review! You can also reach us via email at content@mcjcollective.com, where we encourage you to share your feedback on episodes and suggestions for future topics or guests.

The ocean is vast and complex, but I'm sure we can fix climate change by dumping a bunch of algae food into it.Listen to the full episode on our Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/deniersplaybook) SOCIALS & MORE (https://linktr.ee/deniersplaybook)CREDITS Created by: Rollie Williams, Nicole Conlan & Ben BoultHosts: Rollie Williams & Nicole ConlanExecutive Producer: Ben Boult Producer: Gregory Haddock Editor: Brittany TerrellResearchers: Carly Rizzuto, Canute Haroldson & James CrugnaleArt: Jordan Doll Music: Tony Domenick Special thanks: The Civil Liberties Defense Center“The Wilds - 40 Million Salmon Can't Be Wrong - Live at Blue Frog Studios”"Exploding Whale 50th Anniversary, Remastered!" SOURCESAli, S. (2021, November 22). Controversial practice of seeding clouds to create rainfall becoming popular in the American West. The Hill. American University. (2020, June 24). Fact Sheet: Ocean Alkalinization. American University. Berardelli, J. (2018, November 23). Controversial spraying method aims to curb global warming. Cbsnews.com. Biello, D. (2012, July 12). Controversial Spewed Iron Experiment Succeeds as Carbon Sink. Scientific American. Boyd, P., & Vivian, C. (2019). Should we fertilize oceans or seed clouds? No one knows. Nature, 570(7760), 155–157. Brogan, J. (2016a, January 6). Can We Stop Climate Change by Tinkering With the Atmosphere? Slate Magazine; Slate. Brogan, J. (2016b, January 6). Your Geoengineering Cheat Sheet. Slate. Buckley, C. (2024, February 2). Could a Giant Parasol in Outer Space Help Solve the Climate Crisis? The New York Times. Chu, J. (2020, February 17). Seeding oceans with iron may not impact climate change. MIT News | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Clegg, B. (2016, July 23). The Planet Remade - Oliver Morton ****. Popsciencebooks.blogspot.com. Cohen, A. (2021, January 11). A Bill Gates Venture Aims To Spray Dust Into The Atmosphere To Block The Sun. What Could Go Wrong? Forbes. Collins, G. (2016, January 15). Geoengineering's Moral Hazard Problem. Slate. Geoengineering Monitor. (2021, April 9). Ocean Fertilization (technology briefing). Geoengineering Monitor. Hickel, J., & Slamersak, A. (2022). Existing climate mitigation scenarios perpetuate colonial inequalities. The Lancet Planetary Health, 6(7), e628–e631. IPCC95. (1995). INTERGOVERNMENTAL PANEL ON CLIMATE CHANGE IPCC Second Assessment Climate Change 1995 A REPORT OF THE INTERGOVERNMENTAL PANEL ON CLIMATE CHANGE. Jiang, X., Zhao, X., Sun, X., Roberts, A. P., Appy Sluijs, Chou, Y.-M., Yao, W., Xing, J., Zhang, W., & Liu, Q. (2024). Iron fertilization–induced deoxygenation of eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean intermediate waters during the Paleocene–Eocene thermal maximum. Geology. Kaufman, R. (2019, March 11). The Risks, Rewards and Possible Ramifications of Geoengineering Earth's Climate. Smithsonian; Smithsonian.com. Keith, D. W. (2000). Geoengineering the Climate: History and Prospect. Annual Review of Energy and the Environment, 25(1), 245–284. Mandel, K. (2015, September 29). Everyone Warned the Breakthrough Ecomodernists To Avoid Toxic Owen Paterson – But They Said “F@*%You.” DeSmog. McKenzie, J. (2022, August 11). Dodging silver bullets: how cloud seeding could go wrong. Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Monbiot, G. (2015, September 24). Meet the ecomodernists: ignorant of history and paradoxically old-fashioned. The Guardian. Morton, O. (2012, August 9). On Geoengineering. The Breakthrough Institute. Morton, O. (2016). The planet remade : how geoengineering could change the world. Princeton University Press.National Academy of Sciences. (1992). Policy Implications of Greenhouse Warming: Mitigation, Adaptation, and the Science Base. In National Academies Press. National Academies Press. Robock, A. (2008). 20 reasons why geoengineering may be a bad idea. Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 64(2), 14–18. Rubin, A. J., & Denton, B. (2022, August 28). Cloud Wars: Mideast Rivalries Rise Along a New Front. The New York Times. Schneider, S. H. (2008). Geoengineering: could we or should we make it work? Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences, 366(1882), 3843–3862. Seabrook, V. (2016, October 10). Professor Brian Cox and Co Take Down Climate Science Deniers' Arguments, Discuss Brexit. DeSmog. Solar Geoengineering Non-Use Agreement. (n.d.). Solar Geoengineering Non-Use Agreement. Solar Geoengineering Non-Use Agreement. Stephens, J. C., & Surprise, K. (2020). The hidden injustices of advancing solar geoengineering research. Global Sustainability, 3. Temple, J. (2019, August 9). What is geoengineering—and why should you care? MIT Technology Review. Temple, J. (2022, July 1). The US government is developing a solar geoengineering research plan. MIT Technology Review. The Breakthrough Institute. (2015, April 1). An Ecomodernist Manifesto - English. The Breakthrough Institute. Tollefson, J. (2018). First sun-dimming experiment will test a way to cool Earth. Nature, 563(7733), 613–615. Unit, B. (2017, March 23). Climate-related Geoengineering and Biodiversity. Www.cbd.int. UNODA. (1978, October 5). Convention on the Prohibition of Military or Any Other Hostile Use of Environmental Modification Techniques (ENMOD) – UNODA. United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs. Vetter, D. (2022, January 20). Solar Geoengineering: Why Bill Gates Wants It, But These Experts Want To Stop It. Forbes. Vidal, J. (2012, February 6). Bill Gates backs climate scientists lobbying for large-scale geoengineering. The Guardian. Visioni, D., Slessarev, E., MacMartin, D. G., Mahowald, N. M., Goodale, C. L., & Xia, L. (2020). What goes up must come down: impacts of deposition in a sulfate geoengineering scenario. Environmental Research Letters, 15(9), 094063. Wagner, G. (2016, December 8). The Planet Remade: How Geoengineering Could Change the World by Oliver Morton. Www.ethicsandinternationalaffairs.org. Yonekura, E. (2022, October 19). Why Not Space Mirrors? The Rand Blog. CORRECTION: Nicole states that harassing a manatee is a felony. It is, in fact, a very expensive misdemeanor, punishable by fines up to $100,000 and/or one year in prison. (Source)See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

SMRs: a new horizon in Nuclear Power.This week on The Interchange: Recharged, David is joined by Ted Nordhaus, Executive Director at the Breakthrough Institute, an environmental research centre in Berkley, California. They focus on finding technological solutions to environmental problems.Achieving a net-zero emission grid by 2050, they claim, with a significant nuclear component would not only be feasible but also cost-effective compared to over-reliance on variable renewable energy sources. This approach requires substantial investment, estimated between US$150 to US$220 billion by 2035, escalating to over a trillion dollars by 2050. Together Ted and David discuss the likelihood that the private sector will drive this investment, provided that nuclear technologies are economically viable and regulatory uncertainties are addressed. They look at the Build Nuclear Now campaign, which aims to rally public support for nuclear energy and drive towards grassroots pro-nuclear advocacy. Is this a sign that public sentiment is changing?The main challenges hindering the adoption of nuclear energy include regulatory hurdles, financial barriers and ongoing concerns surrounding nuclear safety. Ted explains that regulatory reform and public sector commitment could overcome these obstacles. The Nuclear Energy Innovation and Modernization Act are examples of a policy aimed at modernising the regulatory environment, to facilitate the licensing of advanced nuclear reactors.So, are SMRs the solution to everything nuclear? They're designed to produce between 50 to 300 MW of electricity per module, which is about one-third of the generation capacity of traditional nuclear power reactors. NuScale's design (listen back to our episode from April last year for more on this) for instance, is for a 77 MW module, with plans to deploy modules in groups that can generate up to 924 MW. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has been actively supporting SMR development, investing over US$600 million in the past decade to assist in the design, licensing and siting of new SMR technologies in the U.S. The technology seems to be there, as does the baseline investment.What's next for the nuclear industry? Listen to find out.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Seaver Wang, oceanographer and co-director of climate and energy at the Breakthrough Institute joins me to unravel controversies surrounding deep sea mining for the polymetallic nodules of the abyssal plains.

Why reduce our CO2 emissions when we have a perfectly good Bond-villain plan to stop the sun from heating Earth up in the first place?BONUS EPISODES available on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/deniersplaybook) SOCIALS & MORE (https://linktr.ee/deniersplaybook) CREDITS Created by: Rollie Williams, Nicole Conlan & Ben BoultHosts: Rollie Williams & Nicole ConlanExecutive Producer: Ben Boult Producer: Gregory Haddock Editor: Brittany TerrellResearchers: Carly Rizzuto, Canute Haroldson & James CrugnaleArt: Jordan Doll Music: Tony Domenick Special thanks: The Civil Liberties Defense CenterSOURCESAli, S. (2021, November 22). Controversial practice of seeding clouds to create rainfall becoming popular in the American West. The Hill. American University. (2020, June 24). Fact Sheet: Ocean Alkalinization. American University. Berardelli, J. (2018, November 23). Controversial spraying method aims to curb global warming. Cbsnews.com. Biello, D. (2012, July 12). Controversial Spewed Iron Experiment Succeeds as Carbon Sink. Scientific American. Boyd, P., & Vivian, C. (2019). Should we fertilize oceans or seed clouds? No one knows. Nature, 570(7760), 155–157. Brogan, J. (2016a, January 6). Can We Stop Climate Change by Tinkering With the Atmosphere? Slate Magazine; Slate. Brogan, J. (2016b, January 6). Your Geoengineering Cheat Sheet. Slate. Buckley, C. (2024, February 2). Could a Giant Parasol in Outer Space Help Solve the Climate Crisis? The New York Times. Chu, J. (2020, February 17). Seeding oceans with iron may not impact climate change. MIT News | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Clegg, B. (2016, July 23). The Planet Remade - Oliver Morton ****. Popsciencebooks.blogspot.com. Cohen, A. (2021, January 11). A Bill Gates Venture Aims To Spray Dust Into The Atmosphere To Block The Sun. What Could Go Wrong? Forbes. Collins, G. (2016, January 15). Geoengineering's Moral Hazard Problem. Slate. Geoengineering Monitor. (2021, April 9). Ocean Fertilization (technology briefing). Geoengineering Monitor. Hickel, J., & Slamersak, A. (2022). Existing climate mitigation scenarios perpetuate colonial inequalities. The Lancet Planetary Health, 6(7), e628–e631. IPCC95. (1995). INTERGOVERNMENTAL PANEL ON CLIMATE CHANGE IPCC Second Assessment Climate Change 1995 A REPORT OF THE INTERGOVERNMENTAL PANEL ON CLIMATE CHANGE. Jiang, X., Zhao, X., Sun, X., Roberts, A. P., Appy Sluijs, Chou, Y.-M., Yao, W., Xing, J., Zhang, W., & Liu, Q. (2024). Iron fertilization–induced deoxygenation of eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean intermediate waters during the Paleocene–Eocene thermal maximum. Geology. Kaufman, R. (2019, March 11). The Risks, Rewards and Possible Ramifications of Geoengineering Earth's Climate. Smithsonian; Smithsonian.com. Keith, D. W. (2000). Geoengineering the Climate: History and Prospect. Annual Review of Energy and the Environment, 25(1), 245–284. Mandel, K. (2015, September 29). Everyone Warned the Breakthrough Ecomodernists To Avoid Toxic Owen Paterson – But They Said “F@*%You.” DeSmog. McKenzie, J. (2022, August 11). Dodging silver bullets: how cloud seeding could go wrong. Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Monbiot, G. (2015, September 24). Meet the ecomodernists: ignorant of history and paradoxically old-fashioned. The Guardian. Morton, O. (2012, August 9). On Geoengineering. The Breakthrough Institute. Morton, O. (2016). The planet remade : how geoengineering could change the world. Princeton University Press.National Academy of Sciences. (1992). Policy Implications of Greenhouse Warming: Mitigation, Adaptation, and the Science Base. In National Academies Press. National Academies Press. Robock, A. (2008). 20 reasons why geoengineering may be a bad idea. Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 64(2), 14–18. Rubin, A. J., & Denton, B. (2022, August 28). Cloud Wars: Mideast Rivalries Rise Along a New Front. The New York Times. Schneider, S. H. (2008). Geoengineering: could we or should we make it work? Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences, 366(1882), 3843–3862. Seabrook, V. (2016, October 10). Professor Brian Cox and Co Take Down Climate Science Deniers' Arguments, Discuss Brexit. DeSmog. Solar Geoengineering Non-Use Agreement. (n.d.). Solar Geoengineering Non-Use Agreement. Solar Geoengineering Non-Use Agreement. Stephens, J. C., & Surprise, K. (2020). The hidden injustices of advancing solar geoengineering research. Global Sustainability, 3. Temple, J. (2019, August 9). What is geoengineering—and why should you care? MIT Technology Review. Temple, J. (2022, July 1). The US government is developing a solar geoengineering research plan. MIT Technology Review. The Breakthrough Institute. (2015, April 1). An Ecomodernist Manifesto - English. The Breakthrough Institute. Tollefson, J. (2018). First sun-dimming experiment will test a way to cool Earth. Nature, 563(7733), 613–615. Unit, B. (2017, March 23). Climate-related Geoengineering and Biodiversity. Www.cbd.int. UNODA. (1978, October 5). Convention on the Prohibition of Military or Any Other Hostile Use of Environmental Modification Techniques (ENMOD) – UNODA. United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs. Vetter, D. (2022, January 20). Solar Geoengineering: Why Bill Gates Wants It, But These Experts Want To Stop It. Forbes. Vidal, J. (2012, February 6). Bill Gates backs climate scientists lobbying for large-scale geoengineering. The Guardian. Visioni, D., Slessarev, E., MacMartin, D. G., Mahowald, N. M., Goodale, C. L., & Xia, L. (2020). What goes up must come down: impacts of deposition in a sulfate geoengineering scenario. Environmental Research Letters, 15(9), 094063. Wagner, G. (2016, December 8). The Planet Remade: How Geoengineering Could Change the World by Oliver Morton. Www.ethicsandinternationalaffairs.org. Yonekura, E. (2022, October 19). Why Not Space Mirrors? The Rand Blog.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Energy security and carbon targets are high on the list of priorities among policymakers, consumers and investors. While a lot of people see renewable energy as a solution, Matthew Wald believes nuclear has a bigger role to play in the energy mix of the future. Matthew was a journalist for four decades at the New York Times. He's now an analyst at the Breakthrough Institute in California, concerned with climate and energy and agriculture. Matthew argues that it's difficult to see renewable energy as the sole to our energy issues and that more should be spent on developing nuclear energy. This show is an excerpt from the The Value Perspective podcast. You can listen to the full show here. RUNNING ORDER: 01:26 - Part one: where did it go wrong for nuclear energy? 16:01 - Part two: changing the perception of nuclear energy 28:19 - Part three: the cost of building out a nuclear energy program NEW EPISODES: The Investor Download is available every other Thursday and will be released at 1700 UK time. You can subscribe via Podbean or use this feed URL (https://schroders.podbean.com/feed.xml) in Apple Podcasts and other podcast players. GET IN TOUCH: mailto: Schroderspodcasts@schroders.com find us on Facebook send us a tweet: @Schroders using #investordownload READ MORE: Schroders.com/insights LISTEN TO MORE: schroders.com/theinvestordownload Important information. This information is not an offer, solicitation or recommendation to buy or sell any financial instrument or to adopt any investment strategy. Any reference to sectors/countries/stocks/securities are for illustrative purposes only and not a recommendation to buy or sell any financial instrument/securities or adopt any investment strategy. Any data has been sourced by us and is provided without any warranties of any kind. It should be independently verified before further publication or use. Third party data is owned or licenced by the data provider and may not be reproduced, extracted or used for any other purpose without the data provider's consent. Neither we, nor the data provider, will have any liability in connection with the third party data. Reliance should not be placed on any views or information in the material when taking individual investment and/or strategic decisions. The views and opinions contained herein are those of individual to whom they are attributed, and may not necessarily represent views expressed or reflected in other communications, strategies or funds. The value of investments and the income from them may go down as well as up and investors may not get back the amounts originally invested. Exchange rate changes may cause the value of any overseas investments to rise or fall. Past Performance is not a guide to future performance and may not be repeated. The forecasts included should not be relied upon, are not guaranteed and are provided only as at the date of issue. Our forecasts are based on our own assumptions which may change. Issued by Schroder Investment Management Limited, 1 London Wall Place, London EC2Y 5AU. Registered No. 1893220 England. Authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority.  

Las dos alternativas metafísicas de la filosofía del siglo XXI — la que nos lleva a especular sobre un universo auténticamente inhumano, absoluta- mente indiferente a nosotros, como la que nos hace considerar a la especie humana como una fuerza geofísica mayor en la época del Antropoceno y de Gaia— coinciden en situarnos en la perspectiva del «fin del mundo». Si nos parece un poco exagerada esta singularidad profetizada por la vanguardia californiana, podemos simplemente quedarnos con la más modesta filosofía ecomodernista del centro de investigación ambiental también californiano Breakthrough Institute, que afirma que el perfeccionamiento del dispositivo técnico de la civilización capitalista será capaz de convertir en productivas las consecuencias destructivas que ella misma produce en el camino. Utiliza el código CIENCIADIGITAL y obtén tu descuento en Muy Interesante, sigue con este link https://bit.ly/3TYwx9a Déjanos tu comentario en Ivoox o Spotify, o escríbenos a podcast@zinetmedia.es ¿Nos ayudas? Comparte nuestro contenido en redes sociales . Texto: Rodrigo Menchón Dirección, locución y producción: Iván Patxi Gómez Gallego @ivanpatxi Contacto de publicidad en podcast: podcast@zinetmedia.es

Las dos alternativas metafísicas de la filosofía del siglo XXI — la que nos lleva a especular sobre un universo auténticamente inhumano, absoluta- mente indiferente a nosotros, como la que nos hace considerar a la especie humana como una fuerza geofísica mayor en la época del Antropoceno y de Gaia— coinciden en situarnos en la perspectiva del «fin del mundo». Si nos parece un poco exagerada esta singularidad profetizada por la vanguardia californiana, podemos simplemente quedarnos con la más modesta filosofía ecomodernista del centro de investigación ambiental también californiano Breakthrough Institute, que afirma que el perfeccionamiento del dispositivo técnico de la civilización capitalista será capaz de convertir en productivas las consecuencias destructivas que ella misma produce en el camino. Utiliza el código CIENCIADIGITAL y obtén tu descuento en Muy Interesante, sigue con este link https://bit.ly/3TYwx9a Déjanos tu comentario en Ivoox o Spotify, o escríbenos a podcast@zinetmedia.es ¿Nos ayudas? Comparte nuestro contenido en redes sociales 😍. Texto: Rodrigo Menchón Dirección, locución y producción: Iván Patxi Gómez Gallego @ivanpatxi Contacto de publicidad en podcast: podcast@zinetmedia.es

Premiered 7 July 2023 on Lehto FilesIn this episode of Lehto Files, we explore the deep insights of Michael Shellenberger on the Rising YouTube Channel The Hill. here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1MNkkDj9RA Michael is an esteemed author, public policy expert, and strong advocate for nuclear energy. Renowned globally for his contributions at the crossroads of politics, the environment, climate change, and nuclear power, Shellenberger has played a significant role in stimulating discourse and shaping policy worldwide. As the founder of Environmental Progress and co-founder of the Breakthrough Institute, Shellenberger has consistently emphasized the pivotal role of nuclear energy in addressing climate change. His argumentative prowess and compelling evidence in support of this often controversial energy source have initiated critical conversations about our global energy future. Recently, Shellenberger has drawn attention with his work on the "Twitter Files," revealing potential corruption within the FBI and CIA about their interactions with social media platforms. This investigation underscores his commitment to unveiling uncomfortable truths and fostering transparency in public dialogue. This video unravels Shellenberger's intriguing insights into the possible connections between Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAPs) and nuclear sites. Drawing from his vast understanding of nuclear energy, Shellenberger offers an eye-opening perspective on these mysterious phenomena. We delve into the contradictions apparent in the Department of Defense's handling of UAP evidence and discuss whistleblowers' integral role in unveiling such matters. Embark with us on this thought-provoking journey as we unravel the captivating intersection of nuclear power, UAPs, and governmental activities, seen through the discerning eyes of Michael Shellenberger. This episode promises to be a compelling watch!

In this episode, Tudor welcomes climate scientist Patrick Brown to discuss the biases in scientific publishing and media coverage of climate change. Brown reveals that high-profile scientific journals tend to favor studies supporting the mainstream narrative of the Paris Agreement and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. They also discuss the need for practical solutions to current issues, such as wildfires, alongside long-term climate stabilization efforts. Brown criticizes the narrow focus on negative climate impacts in literature and media, advocating for a broader perspective that includes the benefits of fossil fuel use and potential alternative solutions. Despite facing backlash, Brown emphasizes the importance of presenting different strategies and considering all alternatives for a cleaner energy transition. The Tudor Dixon Podcast is part of the Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Podcast Network - new episodes debut every Monday, Wednesday, & Friday. For more information visit TudorDixonPodcast.comFollow Clay & Buck on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/clayandbuckSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this episode, Tudor welcomes climate scientist Patrick Brown to discuss the biases in scientific publishing and media coverage of climate change. Brown reveals that high-profile scientific journals tend to favor studies supporting the mainstream narrative of the Paris Agreement and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. They also discuss the need for practical solutions to current issues, such as wildfires, alongside long-term climate stabilization efforts. Brown criticizes the narrow focus on negative climate impacts in literature and media, advocating for a broader perspective that includes the benefits of fossil fuel use and potential alternative solutions. Despite facing backlash, Brown emphasizes the importance of presenting different strategies and considering all alternatives for a cleaner energy transition. The Tudor Dixon Podcast is part of the Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Podcast Network - new episodes debut every Monday, Wednesday, & Friday. For more information visit TudorDixonPodcast.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this episode, Tudor welcomes climate scientist Patrick Brown to discuss the biases in scientific publishing and media coverage of climate change. Brown reveals that high-profile scientific journals tend to favor studies supporting the mainstream narrative of the Paris Agreement and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. They also discuss the need for practical solutions to current issues, such as wildfires, alongside long-term climate stabilization efforts. Brown criticizes the narrow focus on negative climate impacts in literature and media, advocating for a broader perspective that includes the benefits of fossil fuel use and potential alternative solutions. Despite facing backlash, Brown emphasizes the importance of presenting different strategies and considering all alternatives for a cleaner energy transition. The Tudor Dixon Podcast is part of the Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Podcast Network - new episodes debut every Monday, Wednesday, & Friday. For more information visit TudorDixonPodcast.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Nuclear construction costs in the U.S. are some of the highest in the world. Recent estimates put it at more than $6,000 per kilowatt, as measured by overnight capital cost. But high costs are a problem for new small modular reactors (SMRs) too, killing what was going to be the country's first small modular reactor before it got built. On the other hand, South Korea has some of the lowest costs in the world. Estimated overnight capital costs for reactors in South Korea are closer to $2,200 per kilowatt. And then there are countries like China, France, and the United Arab Emirates that fall between those extremes. So why the wide range in costs?  In this episode, Shayle talks to Dr. Jessica Lovering, co-founder and executive director at the Good Energy Collective, a non-profit that researches and promotes policies that support nuclear power. A former director of energy at the Breakthrough Institute, she also authored a comprehensive study of nuclear construction costs in 2016.  Shayle and Jessica talk about things like: What goes into the cost of construction and South Korea's secret sauce for low-cost nuclear reactors Why Jessica thinks we should manufacture and regulate reactors like large aircraft Driving down costs with modularity, small reactors, passive safety features, and more construction  Why changing regulations might be necessary, but not a silver bullet  Why the pro- and anti-nuclear camps talk past each other — and why Jessica says she's somewhere in between  Recommended Resources: Energy Policy: Historical construction costs of global nuclear power reactors National Academy of Engineering: Chasing Cheap Nuclear: Economic Trade-Offs for Small Modular Reactors Joule: Evaluating the Role of Unit Size in Learning-by-Doing of Energy Technologies Science: Granular technologies to accelerate decarbonization Canary: Future of small reactors at stake as NuScale deal flops If you want more news and analysis like this in your inbox, subscribe to Latitude Media's newsletter and Canary Media's newsletter. Catalyst is a co-production of Latitude Media and Canary Media. Catalyst is brought to you by BayWa r.e., a leading global renewable energy developer, service supplier, and distributor. With over 22GW in their project pipeline, BayWa r.e. is rethinking energy every day and at every level. Committed to being a solid partner for the long run, BayWa r.e. wants to work with you to help shape the future of energy. Learn more at bay.wa-re.com. Catalyst is brought to you by Sungrow. Now in more than 150 countries, Sungrow's solutions include inverters for utility-scale, commercial, and industrial solar, plus energy storage systems. Learn more at us.sungrowpower.com.

On Mike's second day in Israel, he attends the meeting of people trying to bring their family members kidnapped by Hamas home from captivity. Also on the show, Patrick T. Brown, a Ph.D. climate scientist and Co-Director of the Climate and Energy Team at The Breakthrough Institute, joins us to talk about his recent piece in The Free Press titled “I Left Out the Full Truth to Get My Climate Change Paper Published.” Produced by Joel Patterson and Corey Wara Email us at thegist@mikepesca.com To advertise on the show, visit: https://advertisecast.com/TheGist Subscribe to The Gist Subscribe: https://subscribe.mikepesca.com/ Follow Mikes Substack at: Pesca Profundities | Mike Pesca | Substack Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to Season 3 of High Energy Planet! Vijaya Ramachandran, Director for Energy and Development at the Breakthrough Institute, explains what sparked her interest in energy, talks rich country hypocrisy, and demystifies climate finance. Visit our website for more information, including the full show notes and transcript. Follow us on LinkedIn, X/Twitter and subscribe to our newsletter.

Gene editing is a powerful and specific technique that allows customized changes to DNA. Because there are no additional sequences transferred, and alternations match what could happen naturally over time, the technology is considered less invasive and less prone to regulatory oversight. That's true in the USA, Canada, China and other nations. However, the European Court of Justice determined that these techniques should be regulated in a manner identical to transgenics, where the EU has not approved such innovations in over two decades. EU scientists see how the EU is falling behind and after long may never catch up. The rejection of technology leads to a tremendous economic loss. Dr. Emma Kovak of the Breakthrough Institute discusses the current regulations, the proposed changes, and the dynamics of opposition to a good technology that could have profoundly positive impacts for people and the planet. 

Young people are increasingly pessimistic about climate change, and a narrative around 'climate doom' is becoming more and more common. Should we doom about the climate? And if not, how do we combat the doom narrative? Alex Trembath of the Breakthrough Institute and Jessica Weinkle, professor at UNC Wilmington, join the show to discuss why climate doom exists, the reality of how climate change is happening, and how to move forward. Follow us at: https://twitter.com/CNLiberalism https://cnliberalism.org/   Join a local chapter at https://cnliberalism.org/become-a-member/  

Patrick Brown's interest in climate and weather goes back to his childhood, when, as an eight-year-old, he set up a home weather station. In this episode, Brown, the co-director of the climate and energy program at the Breakthrough Institute, talks about why he left academia, how the “climate doom narrative” dominates climate science, how “cliques and clubs” within the science community affect what gets published in prestigious journals, and how much of the reporting on climate change “leaves out the full truth.” (Recorded September 18, 2023)  

Olu Verheijen from the Nigerian government and Vijaya Ramachandran from the Breakthrough Institute join Gyude to discuss the scale and nature of the energy crisis in Africa, the role that renewable energy can (and can't) play in addressing it, and what steps African countries—and partners—can take to address both climate and energy challenges.

Seaver Wang's academic training in oceanography makes him a knowledgeable source for discussing Japan's release of tritiated water from Fukushima Daiichi into the Pacific Ocean, a process that began last week. In addition, Wang, the co-director of the climate and energy program at the Breakthrough Institute,  discusses future demand for metals and minerals, “radiophobia,” the challenges facing nuclear power, solar supply chains, and China's “cultural erasure” of the Uyghur population in Xinjiang province. (Recorded August 28, 2023) 

Energy, growth, development and technology are the four pillars towards addressing and resolving all our climate challenges and giving everyone on earth the right to live a modern life. Join us, as we get into the intricacies of eco-modernism and discussing why a new generation of nuclear is the critical technology towards ensuring low-carbon energy, with Ted Nordhaus, Founder and Executive Director of the Breakthrough Institute. Hosts: Chris Sass Additional Reads: The Breakthrough Institute - https://thebreakthrough.org/  Build Nuclear Now - https://www.buildnuclearnow.org/ Eco-Modernist Manifesto - https://ecomodernistmanifesto.squarespace.com/  

Tisha Schuller welcomes Roger Pielke Jr., professor of environmental studies at the University of Colorado (CU) Boulder, to the Energy Thinks podcast. Listeners will hear Roger discuss the impact of incremental progress in working toward a low-carbon future. Check out Roger's books, The Honest Broker (https://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/publications/special/honest_broker/index.html) and The Climate Fix (https://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/publications/special/climate_fix/index.html), along with his piece (https://rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/what-if-we-just-stop-oil) on why oil production cannot simply cease. Along with his academic position at CU Boulder, Roger is an honorary professor at the University College London—a title he earned in 2022. When not teaching, he writes The Honest Broker newsletter and hosts The Honest Broker Podcast. Roger also serves as a science and economics adviser for Environmental Progress, a research and policy organization fighting for clean power and energy justice. In addition, Roger holds and has held numerous academic and research fellowships including the Institute of Energy Economics, Japan; The Breakthrough Institute, and the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences. In 2016, Roger founded the Sports Governance Center at CU Athletics and served as its director for three years. Roger received his B.A. in mathematics, his M.A. in public policy, and his Ph.D. in political science all from CU Boulder. Follow all things Adamantine Energy and subscribe to Tisha's weekly Both of These Things Are True email newsletter at www.energythinks.com. Thanks to Adán Rubio who makes the Energy Thinks podcast possible. [Interview recorded on Aug. 7, 2023]

Heat this summer has not been normal for most of the world. Globally, July 2023 was the hottest month on record, mainly because the oceans are at record-high temperatures. This week the team talked with climate scientist Zeke Hausfather about the short term and long term reasons why. They also discuss how we get the ocean data, whether that be from satellites, remote controlled ocean floats, and in some cases — seals. Yes, seals. We want to hear from you! Have a question for the meteorologists? Call 609-272-7099 and leave a message. You might hear your question and get an answer on a future episode! You can also email questions or comments to podcasts@lee.net. About the Across the Sky podcast The weekly weather podcast is hosted on a rotation by the Lee Weather team: Matt Holiner of Lee Enterprises' Midwest group in Chicago, Kirsten Lang of the Tulsa World in Oklahoma, Joe Martucci of the Press of Atlantic City, N.J., and Sean Sublette of the Richmond Times-Dispatch in Virginia. Episode transcript Note: The following transcript was created by Adobe Premiere and may contain misspellings and other inaccuracies as it was generated automatically: Hello everyone. I'm meteorologist Sean Sublette and welcome to Across the Sky our national Lee Enterprises weather podcast. Lee Enterprises has print and digital news operations in more than 70 locations across the country, including at my home base in Richmond, Virginia. I'm joined by my meteorologist colleague Matt Holiner in Chicago. My pals Kirsten Lang and Joe Martucci out of the office today. Our guest this week is Zeke Hausfather, a climate scientist. Very deep into the data, has a wealth of information about how much warming is taking place globally. And we really wanted to pick his brain about what's going on in the oceans this year in particular. There has been so much buzz, Matt, about how hot the oceans are right now. So we wanted to kind of get into some of the reasons for that. Yeah, that's the headline I think grabbed people's attention. Of course, you know, as soon as there was those 100 degree temperature readings off the coast of Florida, then immediately all the headlines were Hot Tub water and everybody knows what a hot tub feels like. It's like, yeah, I don't think the ocean should just be naturally that hot if it's, you know, not being artificially heated. But I mean, it is just getting warmer. But I also think that sometimes, you know, and that's the challenge, you know, where there's, you know, still doubt, unfortunately, that comes up with climate change because then certain things get exaggerated because there is something because they're also following that. Lots of headlines about the thermal hailing circulation shutting down. And what I liked in our discussion coming up with Zeke was he really dived into that and explained how likely it is and what's really going to happen, because immediately all the means of the day after tomorrow came and it's like, oh, the ocean current shuts down. It's going to be a global ice age, you know? Whoa, whoa, whoa. Let's talk about what's really going to happen, how likely the circulation shutting down really is. That was just one of the things that we discuss about with them. But it's always good to come back to the experts that really know what's going on rather than just people just throwing stuff out there on social media because there's a there's still a lot of bad stuff on social media. Yeah. And he talked about, you know, if you've never heard of the thermo heal hailing circular ocean, sometimes it's called the MOOC. It has a lot of different nicknames, but he talks about what that is why it's important. He also addressed that 101 degree water temperature, some some things that are going on with that. And we just talked about where we're climate changes now and how much more warming we should expect. So lots to get to with our conversation with Dr. Zeke Zeke Hausfather, let's go right to it. Dr. Zeke Hausfather father is the climate research lead for STRIVE and a research scientist with Berkeley. Earth is a climate scientist and IPCC author whose research focuses on observational temperature records, climate models, carbon renew, removal and mitigation technologies. Zeke also serves as science science contributor to Carbon Brief and was previously the director of climate and energy at the Breakthrough Institute, the lead data scientist at SS, the Chief Scientist at Sea 3ai and Co-Founder and Chief Scientist of Efficiency 2.0. And on top of all that, in his spare time, whatever spare time he has, he runs a very excellent substack with Andrew Dessler over at Texas A&M called the Climate Brink. So we are just pleased as punch as Mama used to say, to have Zeke Harris father with us on Across the sky. Thanks so much for joining us. Noah is excited to be here. All right. So let's jump right into the whole oceans thing. This has been on top of everybody's climate weather minds for several weeks now about how warm the oceans have been this year with regard to the longer term record. So before we get into the specifics about why they're so warm this year, talk a little bit about, I guess, the metadata, the data sets that we are using and why we are so confident about making such a statement about the oceans being as warm as they are right now. Sure. So we've collected ocean data for a long time. It was, in fact back in the 1840, as there is an international convention to standardize the collection of temperature data from ships, in part to better understand shipping routes, weather conditions to make ship journeys more predictable. In fact, the reason we start global temperature records like those we produce at Berkeley Earth or NOAA's or the UK Met Office record in 1850 is because that's when we start getting enough ocean data to at least, you know, with reasonable errors, estimate global temperatures. So in the early days we used to measure ocean temperatures by throwing wooden buckets over the sides of ships, pulling them up, sticking a thermometer in and writing it down in the captain's logbook. Funny story that actually had some biases because as you're pulling a bucket up the side of a ship, it evaporates. Some of the water evaporates off the top and that cools the remaining water in the bucket. And so you actually get slightly cooler temperatures with buckets around World War Two. We switched primarily to ship engine room and take ballast where the water goes through the whole of the ship to cool the engine. You know, these are steamships or, you know, more modern diesel ships. And it turns out engine rooms are a little warmer. So you have some biases there and translating from buckets to ship endurance. And then starting around 1980, we really transitioned in large part to automated systems that, you know, there's thousands of them. They float around the ocean, they send data up to satellites. And in more recent years since the nineties, we have satellite radio monitors that can measure the ocean skin temperature directly. And it turns out that all these different sets of instruments largely agree with each other. You know, you have to correct the biases when you switch from one to the other, of course. But if you do that, you get a pretty good consistent, high quality record of ocean temperatures since at least 1850. And certainly, you know, we have incredibly good records, you know, for the last few decades when we have satellites and buoys and ships and these awesome robots called Argo floats that float around the ocean and dive down to 2000 meters and sample all the ocean heat content and other variables on their way up. So we're really in the golden age of climate data, particularly when it comes to the ocean today. Real quick, before we talk a little bit more about this year, just for my own thing, in my own mind, I know the Argo floats have become very popular recently. Off the top of your head, an approximation, the you know, to a first order of magnitude about how many of these Argo floats are kind of out there right now. The latest number I heard and it's a couple of years old at this point, but it's about 3500 Argo floats and they're pretty well distributed around the ocean. There's a few areas they don't get, so they're not great at going under sea ice. In fact, scientists have figured out a pretty cool hack for that. And they actually put thermometers on the top of SEAL's heads like wild animals. And they dive under the sea ice to get temperatures there. The Argo plates can't go easily. Wait, wait, wait. They put a thermometer on top of the head of a seal. Yep. A couple hundred seals have thermometers on their heads and they're taking measurements. They're very small there. I'm guessing this is a very tiny electro radio transmitter is not something like that. Yeah, it's a liquid and glass thermometer sticking on there, Ed? No, no. There's a like a little transmitter on the SEALs head that's, you know, pretty small and unobtrusive, but takes measurements when the seals under the ice and then sends it off to a satellite when they get back to the surface and they track the seals and, you know, take it off their head after, you know, a year or so and then, you know, rotate new seals into the the seal temperature monitoring core. So that's one area that scientists had to fill in the gaps a little bit. The other is the deep ocean. So our current Argo network mostly goes down to about 2000 meters or, you know, 6000 feet or so below that. We haven't had as many measuring systems historically. But there's a new deep Argo program that's trying to fill in some of those gaps. That's amazing. Matt, you want to jump in with anything? Yeah, I'm still wrapping my mind around seals taking temperature readings for us. That is, if you Google it, there's some very, very adorable pictures of seals with little instruments on their heads. I'm sure. I'm sure. You know, my my question is, you know, as far as the coverage goes and I mean, we're talking about, you know, it seems like in many locations, you know, sea surface temperatures on the rise. I mean, a combination of El Nino and but also in the Atlantic, seeing the sea surface temperatures on the rise. But I'm trying to kind of get into more of the details about instead of just saying sea surface temperatures are on rise everywhere, are there certain locations where we're really seeing a particular rise more so than other parts of the planet? Yeah. So historically, you know, over long term changes, you know, some parts of the ocean warming slightly slower than others, like southern oceans. Ocean is always a bit wonky because it has, you know, a lot of overturning circulation and a lot of deep mixing. There's a weird cold patch off the southeast of Greenland that may be related to a slowdown in the thermal handling circulation, though there's a lot of debate around that. But historically, the oceans have generally warmed at similar rates. This year, though, we've seen this really crazy warmth in the North Atlantic that is far beyond, you know, the level of warming we're seeing in other ocean basins. And so that's that's been really remarkable. And a lot of people have, you know, focused on that as a, you know, very unusual thing and tried to look at different potential explanations for it. And I kind of want to follow up with that thermo hayling circulation, because immediately when you talk about that, I think of the movie the Day After Tomorrow and how the ocean currents shut down and then suddenly there is this mass blizzard. We went into an ice age. So can you talk about the likelihood of this ocean currents shutting down and what would actually happen if it did happen? And is it going to be at the scale of the day after tomorrow? Sure. So let's start with the likelihood and then we can talk about the day after tomorrow. So scientists have historically thought the likelihood of a shutdown this century is quite low. You know, most of our climate models show it slowing down, in part as you have a lot of freshwater runoff from Greenland. So to back up a little bit the way the thermal handling circulation fundamentally works is that as water is traveling north in wind driven currents in the Atlantic, more and more of the water at the surface evaporates, which means that what's left over gets more and more salty because the salt stays when the water evaporates. And as it gets salty enough, it gets denser. And once it gets dense enough, it starts to sink. And so that drives one of the big ocean circulations is the sinking of saltier water in the North Atlantic. But it turns out if you start melting Greenland really quickly, you dump much of freshwater into the North Atlantic and that can make it less salty, which then makes it not sink, which then can slow down and eventually shut down the circulation. So climate models historically have not expected a shutdown this century, though they had expected to slow down in the last few years. There's been a couple more speculative papers suggesting that the models might be missing some things and that, you know, the possibility of a shutdown this century is is higher than previously anticipated. That said, this is still a very much on the bleeding edge of science. So I don't think any of us can say with confidence what's likely to happen this century. We just can't rule out a shutdown. Now, if a shutdown were to occur, it's important to emphasize this doesn't mean the Gulf Stream is shutting down. The Gulf Stream is driven by the rotation of the Earth and winds. It's not going anywhere, but the thermal healing is still very important for heat transfer, particularly to northern Europe. And so if we were to see a shutdown, we would see temperatures drop, you know, over, you know, coastal northern Europe, probably by, you know, three or four degrees centigrade on average. Some parts around Iceland, you know, you might even get to like eight degrees C drop compared to current temperatures. Not quite day after tomorrow levels, you know, we're not going to see the oceans freeze or, you know, New York become a a winter permanent winter arctic. You know, we're really talking more about the European side of of the North Atlantic, where the biggest effects could be felt. And over the long term, you know, the effects of warming for most countries in Europe would outweigh the cooling issues associated with the shutdown. It still be bad. You know what affect rainfall patterns a bunch in problematic ways. You know, it would mean it was a lot cooler, particularly in places like the UK. It wouldn't be a good outcome, but at this point, you know, we're still very much digging through the data and modeling and and trying to get a clearer picture of what exactly is happening with it and what is likely to happen as Greenland melt picks up. Yeah, I know there was a lot of buzz about this in the last couple of weeks with that I think was a nature communications paper that came out to kind of reignite that conversation back to the to the North Atlantic and the overall global oceans. Well, obviously, climate change is a big issue, which kind of the overall background driver. But talk a little bit about a couple of these other things that have kind of bubbled ahead or forward. On top of that, you know, obviously El Nino is going on, but there are there's discussions about an underwater volcano in the South Pacific, how fuels and shipping lanes in the North Atlantic might have changed. Could you just talk a little bit about those other kind of mitigating factors and what how much they may or may not be playing a role? So let's start with the volcano and then talk a bit about sulfur. So there was a very large eruption in Tonga in 2022 of of an underwater volcano. And it affected the climate not by providing key to the oceans because the amount of heat provided by volcanoes, the oceans is actually pretty negligible on a global scale compared to the amount of heat that's being trapped by greenhouse gases. But what this volcano did that was really weird compared to most volcanoes we see is it shot an incredible amount of water vapor, incredibly high into the atmosphere. It put about 150 million metric tons of water into the stratosphere, which is a part of the atmosphere that doesn't have much water vapor in it usually. And that matters a lot to the climate because water vapor itself is a strong greenhouse gas, But because water vapor, you know, rains out, if you get too much in the atmosphere, it it doesn't last for long. So it can't really accumulate. But the stratosphere is a little different because there's so little water vapor up there. If you put water vapor up there, it doesn't rain out. And it can stay in the stratosphere for a lot longer than you'd have water stay in the lower part of the atmosphere. It takes a couple of years to clear out, you know, water vapor and into the stratosphere. And so while most volcanoes actually cool the planet by putting sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere, if they're really big volcanoes, this one unusually actually likely warmed the planet by putting a lot more water vapor in than it put in CO2. Now, there's been a couple of papers on this that estimated that globally, the magnitude, the effect is probably somewhere in the range of 0.15 Watch per meter squared. That's a very wonky number. We used to estimate the amount of energy trapped in their system, but to convert them to numbers, people might understand, You know, we're probably talking about somewhere in the range of, you know, five hundredths of a degree centigrade of warming associated this volcano. So 0.05 C, which is not nothing but is not nearly as big as the, you know, excursions and temperature we're seeing globally. Is there a limit to these temperatures? Is there a threshold like, you know, is there a certain level where the oceans can't get any warmer or are we going to continue to just sled? You know, now an X is going to be 101, 102. I mean, is there a threshold about a limit to where we're going to go and just kind of talk about how exceptional that 100 degree temperature really is? Yeah. So I think the provisional record was actually 101. Now, granted, it was in an area of very shallow water with a lot of like biomass in the water that can absorb sunlight. So those areas do get in the high nineties pretty frequently. But this was very, very high. And we've seen, you know, high 90 degree temperatures around the Florida Keys a lot this year. So I think that's, you know, another sign of this exceptional thing that's happening in the North Atlantic in terms of temperatures as far as like how hot it can get, you know, there's not a functional limit that says like when the oceans reach, I don't know, 102 degrees, they don't increase anymore. But what you do have is this sort of relationship where the hotter a surface is, the more heat it radiates. And it actually radiates heat at the fourth power of temperature to get a little wonky. So you have this Stefan Boltzmann equation at work. And so what that means is that the hotter it gets, the more heat it's getting up to the atmosphere, the harder it is to warm up further because it's giving off more and more heat as it gets hotter. And so that there ends up being a bit of a negative feedback, as we call it, a countervailing factor of it's just hard to get things that are already hot, hotter compared to getting up cool things. And so that does help provide a bit of a limitation to how hot it can get. I guess on some point it it's a limit of diminishing return once you gets to a certain temperature profile, I'm assuming. Yep. All right. Good deal. It's one of the reasons why climate change doesn't run away as easily on Earth, which is a good thing. Yes, we like to tell people the planet's not going to turn into Venus any time soon. We got to take a quick break. We'll have more with Zeke House father when we come back on the Across the Sky podcast. And we're back with Zeke House Father, a climate scientist with numerous organizations. There's a lot of work. Also has a wonderful substack for for folks who aren't very deep into climate science. He runs out with Andrew Dessler over at Texas A&M called the Climate Brink. I want to go back to the the current state of the oceans. We talked a little bit about the underwater volcano in the South Pacific, but there's been a lot of buzz on how fuels used in shipping. Traffic in the North Atlantic may have played a role. Can you talk a little bit more about that? Sure. So when we think about climate change happening more broadly on Earth, you know, we know that the greenhouse gases we're putting in the atmosphere are warming the planet, but it's not the only thing that humans but the atmosphere. We also put a lot of sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere. You know, it comes as a byproduct of burning fossil fuels, primarily in sulfur dioxide, it turns out, is actually a strong cooling effect on the climate. And that's through two different mechanisms. The first is what we call the direct effect, which is that it's very like sulfur dioxide particles are very reflective. So some sunlight hits those particles in the atmosphere. It bounces back up to space and it just dims the sun essentially at the surface. You know, some people call it global dimming and in areas that are very polluted because of that. The second is the indirect effect where sulfur dioxide particles and aerosols in the atmosphere can serve as cloud condensation nuclei and so can increase the amount of cloudiness in regions where you have a lot of CO2. And you see this, you know, in contrails from planes and ship tracks, from ships that are going over the ocean where you see like clouds forming in the wake of the ship because of all the CO2 that's coming out of that stack. And it turns out those sort of clouds are good at reflecting sunlight and cooling the surface. So historically, we've used pretty dirty fuel for ships. You know, it's sort of the fuel that's leftover from oil distillation that's too dirty to burn on land because it would tell us how old are clean air rules. We actually call it bunker fuel. So it's very like tarry goopy stuff that's leftover at the bottom of the stack after oil distillation, and it turns out is a very high sale for content. And the reason ships are allowed to burn it is because they're mostly far from shore. And, you know, you have less air pollution concerns in the middle of the Atlantic or middle of the Pacific. But unfortunately ships are still using it near port. And a bunch of studies in recent years have found that it has some pretty nasty health impacts on people who live near shore. There's one study estimated that something like 60,000 people worldwide die prematurely a year because of ship based sulfur pollution. And so because of that, there's been a big push over the last decade to try to phase out sulfur in marine fuels to reduce the harmful human health impacts of burning it. But about 10% of all global sulfur emissions come from ships. And in the year 2020, the International Maritime Organization put in a new set of rules, essentially reducing the amount of sulfur that ships could emit by 90%. So if you think about 10% of all of our sulfur emissions globally coming from ships, we reduce that 90%. You get, you know, somewhere around a 9% reduction in all global aerosol CO2 emissions, sulfur dioxide emissions. And that's a pretty big deal. You know, in the recent IPCC report, our best estimate was that, you know, aerosols cooled the planet by about half a degree. C And so if you have a 9% reduction in one year going forward and all of aerosol emissions, you know, 9% of half a degree, C is still a pretty big number. You know, it's like .05 C And so there is likely roughly that level of additional warming globally from reducing these aerosol emissions. But the thing is, these ships are not emitting globally. They're emitting in particular regions, particularly the North Atlantic, in the North Pacific. And so in those regions we expect a much bigger climate effect from removing these aerosols, reducing the amount of ship tracks and cloudiness in those shipping corridors. So my colleague at Berkeley Earth, Robert Rohde, he did an analysis where he looked at essentially what's the difference between the temperatures we're seeing over the shipping tracks after the year 2021, the face of this fuel and the other parts of the ocean. And he found that after 2020, those regions warmed about 0.2 see more than the rest of the global ocean. And so we can say, you know, the sort of shipping track regions in the North Atlantic, North Pacific are probably had at least 2/10 of a degree warming in the last few years because we phased out this low sulfur or sorry, we based off the high sulfur fuel required muscle fuel. All right. So I'm going to turn this over to Matt before I do, I have two quick follow ups. One is for my own mind, when we think about CO2 being kind of reflective, are we are you saying the CO2 molecule or as as an aerosol with other impurities and too, what is the the the general lifetime of CO2 and those aerosols in the atmosphere before they finally settle out? The reflectivity is primarily the sulfur molecule itself, but it is in an aerosolized form when it's sort of moving around the lower atmosphere, the troposphere, the lifetimes are generally talking about on the order of weeks. You know, it falls up pretty quickly in the troposphere. If you were to put it in the stratosphere, as we see with like large volcanic eruptions like Mount Pinatubo, there you have the resonance time in the short years. You know, most probably about half of it falls out in the first year. But there's a bit of a tail before it all falls out of the stratosphere. That's why, you know, we saw something like half a degree C cooling globally the year after Mount Pinatubo erupted. It's because it put so much CO2 up into the stratosphere and that hung around for, you know, couple of years after that, suppressing temperatures. And while we're looking at these other issues that are that are playing into this, you know, another story and that's what I want to kind of focus on. It is a completely separate story, is it's tied together is the plastic pollution problem in the oceans. We keep hearing about the increasing amount of plastic in the oceans. And of course, there's lots of negatives associated with that. But I wonder if there's been any research at all. Is the plastic, the amount of plastic in the ocean having an impact on the sea surface temperatures, whether lowering them or raising them, or does it seem to not have an impact and it's just a separate environmental issue? It's a great question. You know, I haven't seen any research on no beetle effects of plastic. I think that even places like the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, which is a very evocative name, you know, it's not that dense. It's not like if you're going in a boat through there, it's just the surface of the ocean is covered with plastic. It's like there's pieces here and there. So I'm sure it has an effect because seawater is dark and absorbs sunlight. Plastic is generally not as dark as seawater and reflects sunlight. You know, there probably is on the margins, a cooling effect, but I suspect it's not particularly strong. But it is a big issue, obviously, for for wildlife. And I'm sure a lot of your listeners have seen, you know, David Attenborough's documentaries of like seabirds and remote islands with plastic in their bellies. And you know, these tragic pictures of, Yeah, let's think forward a little bit. We have made globally some progress in terms of of emissions at least regarding coal. Coal is in decline, at least in a lot of places. My understanding is that China is throwing everything out there, solar and coal and everything. But the demand for coal isn't as high as it used to be. Having said that, we still are burning a lot of fossil fuels that aren't necessarily coal. So some of the worst case scenarios we imagined 15, 20 years ago don't appear like they're going to be coming to fruition. It doesn't mean it's not going to be bad. But when we look at where policies have kind of evolved to now, how much warming you know, now in the pipeline should we kind of expect in the coming several decades? And that's a broad question, but let's just just kind of attack where we've come, how far we've come in the last ten or 20 years and and how that might translate forward. Yeah. So so a decade ago, things looked really dire for the Earth's climate in terms of where we were heading. You know, global coal use had doubled over the course of a decade. China was building a new coal plant just like every three days. And the idea that the 21st century could be dominated by coal, where we'd, you know, double or triple our emissions by 2100 didn't seem that far fetched. You know, today we're in a very different world. Thankfully, you know, clean energy has gotten cheap, but most of the new energy being built worldwide is renewables today, or at least clean energy. That's it's low carbon. And, you know, global coal use has pretty much flatlined since 2013 or so, which also means that global emissions of CO2 have more or less flatlined over the last decade. The problem is that when I say emissions of flatland, it sort of makes you think, oh, that means global warming is stopped too, Right? But it doesn't quite work that way. The world is going to keep warming as long as our emissions of CO2 remain above zero. That's really the brutal math of climate change, is that it's not enough just to stop emissions from increasing. You actually have to get them all all the way down to zero to stop warming. If we just line emissions like we are today, what that means is that warming continues at the rate that we've been experiencing for the last decade or 2.2 C per decade or so. And so if you look at a bunch of different assessments of where we're headed today, and it's been done by the International Energy Agency and the United Nations Governmental Program and groups like, you know, Climate Action Tracker, they all more or less agree that, you know, we're headed for a world of of around three degrees C, maybe slightly below by 2100. That compares to a world of, you know, four or five C that seemed possible a decade ago. And so that does reflect progress. You know, if we've bent the curve downward of future emissions, we've, you know, made some of these really, really catastrophic high end scenarios a little less likely. But a3c world is still a really bad one. I mean, we're experiencing a lot of severe impacts of climate change already in terms of heat waves and wildfires and, you know, extreme precipitation events just at 1.2 degrees today. And so if you, you know, more than double that, it's it's a pretty terrible world for for a lot of people and for a lot of nature to, you know, the natural world is a really tough time adapting to very rapid changes in temperature like we'd see. So three degrees is certainly a lot better than where we're headed, but it's by no means anywhere close to where we want to be. The good news, for me at least, is that the fact that we have started to make some progress means that it's a lot easier to imagine a world where we actually do make more progress. We continue to these positive trends and accelerate, and we actually do manage to limit warming to at least below two degrees by the end of the century. And I think unfortunately, 1.5 degrees is probably in the rearview mirror at this point, unless we, you know, do some crazy scenario where we pass it and then remove, you know, ridiculous amounts of carbon into the atmosphere to bring temperatures back down. But but certainly, I think you could say that limiting warming to two degrees or below two degrees is quite possible from where we are today. It would involve getting all of our emissions of CO2 to zero by, you know, 2070 or so globally, which is a big lift, but it's by no means impossible. And it's good to hear a little bit of good news because it is definitely by far mostly bad news. It comes to climate, but it's good that we're going in the right direction and hopefully the trend will continue. I want to kind of look in the short term, though, you know, we're in this El Nino and that's what's contributing partially to the high sea surface temperature that we're seeing and high global temperatures in general. But looking ahead to 2024 houses, El Nino going to play out. And what impact is it going to have on 2020 for us? Temperatures? Sure. So there is a growing strong El Nino in the tropical tropical Pacific right now that's really developed rapidly in the past few months. What was interesting is that we switched quite quickly from an unusually long La Nina event. We called it a triple dip, Nina, because it's when you sort of started to come out of La Nina conditions and then dipping back in. And that happens, you know, two more times after the initial one. Nina But because we rapidly transitioned from La Nina, conditions down, you know, conditions, you know, it's really added a lot of heat, particularly to the oceans. We expect the current El Nino events to continue and strengthen through the end of the year and, you know, stay fairly strong at least through early to mid 2024. There is some differences in the various modeling groups looking at El Nino, the dynamical models, the more like climate models tend to predict a stronger nino than the statistical models, which are more trying to infer based on you know, the statistics of past El Ninos. What's likely this time around. And that divide is actually kind of remarkable this year compared to the most past years. I, for one, probably would bet on the dynamical models because they think they capture more of the underlying processes like statistics only bring you so far. But in terms of the effects of the El Nino, you know, it's going to bump up global temperatures as well as sea surface temperatures for the remainder of 2023. You know, it means that this year is now the odds on favorite to be the warmest year since records began, since 1850. But it's really going to have a big effect next year. And so for 2024, it's likely to be even warmer than 2023 for the year as a whole. And we've seen historically that there tends to be a bit of a lag between when El Nino conditions peak in the tropical Pacific and when the global temperature response to that El Nino event peaks. And that lag is about three months. So three months or so after you hit peak El Nino conditions, then you have the peak surface temperature response globally across the land and the oceans. And that's been a pretty consistent relationship for the past, you know, 80 years or so at least. So if that holds this time around, you know, and the El Nino peaks in the near the end of 2023, we expect sort of the biggest push to be on early 2020 for temperatures. So what we'd probably be looking at is a particularly warmer end of winter and into the spring months. So I guess, you know, the groundhog would be predicting an early spring might be what we're seeing in a lot of places would be kind of an idea if this El Nino plays out as it's expected to. Yeah, that's globally like, oh, Nino has very specific patterns of heat and cool associated with it that may affect different regions differently. So you can't necessarily say like every part of the planet is going to be warmer because of the El Nino. It really ends up depending a bit. Like in California, we tend to get a slightly cooler and Rainier weather with an El Nino years, for example. So the overall pattern of what the impacts that El Nino bring is going to be overriding. But looking at the big picture, that's probably when temperatures are going to peak would be late winter, early spring. Yeah. All right. Let's go back south again. I was looking at a plot today, I think you actually shared about the Antarctic Sea ice and how it is way below the last 45 years of records. Is there anything that we should take away from that? I mean, it's kind of a frightening plot or is it just one of those things like we really don't understand the Antarctic ice surrounding the continent as well? It's a signal, but we we really shouldn't panic about it. I mean, what is your take when you see that that kind of graphic of what's going on in the sea ice around Antarctica? So it's it's definitely disconcerting. Like we've never seen anything like this in the historical record for Antarctic ice. At the same time, Antarctic sea ice has always been a lot more complex, heated and unpredictable than Arctic sea ice. The Antarctic sea ice. If you look at the data since 1979, which is when we first got good satellite coverage to get high quality Arctic wide records, it's pretty much been going down consistently. Like some years are higher, some years are lower, but there's a very clear linear downward trend as the Arctic warms Antarctica at least through 2020 or so, was bucking that sea ice was increasing overall in Antarctica between 1979 and 2020. And there was a lot of work among scientists to explain why that was. You know, part of it has to do with prevailing wind patterns, part of S2 actually, with the hole in the ozone layer over Antarctica, which has a cooling impact for the region. And so, you know, it was always sort of a much bigger question mark of the climate impacts on Arctic sea ice compared to the Arctic words. It's much more straightforward. And so then we get to the last three years where that slight upward trend in sea ice, Antarctica suddenly reversed. You know, it went down, you know, pretty far in 2021 and 2022 and then 2023 hit. And we really have been at unprecedented lows for the entire year, particularly now, when sea ice should be growing rapidly. And it really isn't. And so there just needs to be a lot more work by scientists to untangle, you know, what are the drivers of this? You know, is it unusual warmth in Antarctica? Is it warm sea surface temperatures? Are air temperature is is it changing wind patterns that might be breaking up sea ice in ways that we haven't seen before? Like part of the problem is we only have a record going back to 1979 for this region. And so it may well be that there's some modes of variability that could lead to big shake ups in Antarctic sea ice that might have happened before, but just hasn't happened since 1979. So, you know, I don't think we can rule out that it's primarily caused by human activity. And certainly we expect long term as the Antarctic region warms to sea less sea ice there. But this is so far below what we'd expect to that. I think, you know, we need to take a close look at it and figure out all the different potential causes. And before we wrap up, every time we get someone on, you know, talking about climate change and what we're seeing out there and all the various issues, I think when it always comes back to is, you know, people read all these articles and it's all doom and gloom, but then it's like, well, what what can I do? What what can I do to make it better? I think when it comes to the oceans, this is a particularly unique because we don't live in the oceans, we're on land. And so people kind of see the impacts of what's happening on land and where. So I think so many of us are ignorant about what's going on in the ocean. So if you're if someone's listening to this and is alarmed and wants to make an impact and wants to again look at the whole issue, but let's just look at the oceans itself and what are things that individuals do if they want to see these sea surface temperatures not be as extreme? What are some things that are some proactive things that are people just reading this and saying, well, what do I do? What is your answer for when somebody asked that question? So I think one of the and it's fun, funny to use the word comforting in this environment given everything happening. But one of the more comforting findings out of the recent IPCC report was that if we can get emissions all the way down to zero, warming will stop. There's not a huge amount of warming in the pipeline that is inevitable, which means that ultimately, like humans are at the drivers wheel here, you know, are in the driver's seat. We get to determine based on how much fossil fuels we burn over the next century, exactly how warm it gets. You know, we're sort of stuck with what we have today regardless. But we can determine, you know, if it just gets a bit worse or if it gets catastrophically worse. And that's mostly on us in terms of how quickly we reduce our emissions of CO2 from burning fossil fuels and how quickly we switch switch to the clean energy alternatives. So as an individual you know, obviously it's a huge problem that requires collective action globally. But at the same time, you know, you can do a lot by supporting clean energy technologies because the more people who buy things like heat pumps or electric cars or put solar panels on the roof, the more the price of those technologies go goes down and the more other people can afford to adopt them and know we've really seen that with electric vehicles, which ten years ago were incredibly expensive and today are actually cheaper to own than a gas vehicle over the lifetime. You know, similarly, solar panels were nine times more expensive a decade ago than they are today. And a big part of what's driven those cost declines is just economies of scale, more and more being built, people learning how to build them more cheaply. You know, it's not fundamental breakthroughs in the physics. It's learning by doing. And so individuals making decisions to, you know, you know, pay a small premium to get clean energy in their personal lives. But hip hop and electric vehicle solar panel, you know, is an important way to to make it easier for other people who might not be as motivated to be able to adopt those or just make it the default because it's the cheapest thing for people to do. I think the other thing I'd say is that at the end of the day, individuals voluntarily taking action can only take us so far. You know, we need a stronger policy response by governments to make clean energy cheap and to hold polluters to account. And so I think, you know, at the end of the day, one of the most impactful things you can do on this issue is vote. Tell politicians what you think because they're going to have to help us address this. So I think you you hit the nail on the proverbial head. There is nobody can fix this all by themselves. But collectively, we can we can make a lot of progress. And there's a lot of good reasons to be optimistic. Before we let you go, in addition to people reading your stuff on Carbon brief and and the Substack, where else can people find your work if you know they're not true wonks or they're not policy wonks or they're not deep into the science, where else can people find what you have to say? Yeah, so you can you can always follow me on Twitter or whatever it's called this week, right? Or on Threads, which is the new matter owned Twitter competitor. You know, if you can also just read the coverage of climate that's going on in places like The New York Times, The Washington Post or the BBC, it's it's all quality. And, you know, they they talk to me occasionally and a bunch of other climate scientists, period of of mine who also a great insights in the stuff. So it's a you know it's hard to find good discussions of climate on TV these days. But you know if you turn to the news, you know it's it's dominates the headlines and a lot of it is really well written and really good. Yeah. One of the things that we've seen in polling is that people trust climate scientists, not so much people on TV. So that's why I always try to refer people directly to you, to Andrew, to Katherine, and have those kinds of folks ask again. Thanks so much for joining us. We appreciate it. And we hope that we get a chance to talk to you again soon. Definitely. It's great to chat. That is so much good information, Matt. I mean, every time I talk to see I've talked to him two or three times before this and I've been following him on Twitter and you heard me just kind of going on and on about the subject. But he has so much good actionable information. He's able to put so many myths to rest very quickly. And I could just talk to him all day long. But a lot of a lot of wonderful information about where we've come and where we're going. And he's got the data to back it up. Yeah, it really is a fascinating discussion because we re so, so much of the focus is on land and what people are experiencing. But the majority of the planet, 70% of the planet is the oceans, and they're absorbing a lot of heat and they're getting warmer as well. And when you're calculating these global temperatures, we talk about, you know, this is the warmest year on record, which 2023 seems to be on track to do. So it's not just all the thermometers on land that we're calculating, that we're using all of these booties to measure the temperature of the oceans. And that has a big impact. And that's why the fact that we're having an El Nino, it's an El Nino year when I mean, already we're talking about sea surface temperatures getting warmer and warmer. But during El Nino, they get even warmer than normal. And so that's what's going to contribute to seeing the high 2023 is going to be so warm. And then it was also interesting how we're kind of teasing ahead to 2024. There's potential for 2024 to be even warmer because we're especially going to start 2024. It seems so warm. And how even if El Nino starts to wind down the lag in the global temperatures because it has a global impact, will continue. So that's going to be something to watch. You know, it was it was disheartening to hear that about getting even warmer. No, but at the same time, I did like the where he did bring back, you know, it's good to find the positives where we can where we're at where it looks like though, his most dire predictions for what could happen not to play it down and so not to let people's guard down because he has emphasized, you know, three degrees of warming would still be really bad. But if we're going in the right direction, maybe avoiding that four or five degrees of warming by 2100, at least, that's progress. So let's not let our foot off the pedal. Let's let's keep working. Let's see if we can bring that trend out. How about two degrees instead of three degrees? I mean, the more we can do, you know, it's good to get some good news. But remember that three degrees is bad because we're already seeing, what, less than one and a half degrees is doing it. It's not good. Yeah. And that's three C, which is five and a half Fahrenheit. So we need to remember that sometimes we are deep into the science that we we kind of fall into the metric, the metric system, which is great. I love the metric system as a scientist, but a lot of people aren't as familiar with that. So yeah, three C that's about five and a half degrees Fahrenheit. And I was also very grateful that he went back and talked about how we know what the oceans were 150, 175 years in the past when we had some ocean temperature records directly. But now we get so much of it from satellites and these cool Argo floats spend a little time in Google, Argo floats because they're really, really cool pieces of equipment. Help us see what's going on into the oceans. Matt. You know, next week we've got, you know, football seasons coming. So let's go back on land. Right? But we're into August now and football practices are full tilt at this point, getting ready for four opening opening day in a few weeks and it's still hot. So we're going to talk to two Douglas Cossa at the Korey Stringer Institute up there at University of Connecticut and talk about the impact of heat on on football players. It can be a very sneaky killer, unfortunately. So we're going to talk to him about that and some of the best practices to keep our players safe so we can enjoy what they do a later on in the fall. Anything else? But before we take off, then I'll also be interested the impact of folks on the stands, because I've been at some awfully hot, late August, early September games in Texas. And, you know, especially if it's a middle of the day game, I mean, the crowd is in bags. Well, of course, the players absolutely the most, but the crowd as well. So that'll be an interesting discussion. And then also, you know, we're going to promote it again, if you ever have any questions for us, weather questions, things you'd like to hear us discuss, ideas for the podcast, shoot us an email podcast at Leeds dot net or begin to comment on the show we love to hear. All right, that all sounds good. I with that we are going to wrap for this week. So for Matt Holiner in Chicago, I'm meteorologist Sean Sublette in Richmond, Virginia at Lee Enterprises, thanks so much for listening. And we will talk with you again next week.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

1) Ted's start in the environmental movement doing grassroots work and how this path eventually lead to the start of The Breakthrough Institute 2) Powerful writing, debates with the environmental movement, and nuclear energy advocacy 3) Ted's influential pieces on environmentalism and more, as well as the importance of discourse and debate 4) How Ted's perspective on nuclear energy has changed and evolved throughout his thought leadership - A call to action for Build Nuclear Now

Hey Smarties! Make Me Smart is taking a little summer vacation this week. We'll be back in your feeds soon. But for now, enjoy a rerun of one of our favorite episodes of the year so far. To reach the Joe Biden administration's goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050, the country's energy infrastructure needs a massive overhaul, and fast. But many communities are not on board with the idea of a massive wind or solar farm in their area. Some counties are banning renewable energy developments before the planning can even begin. “All those wind turbines and solar panels, and then all the transmission lines that you need to build … it has a big footprint. And that creates lots of land-use conflicts,” said Ted Nordhaus, founder of The Breakthrough Institute. On the show today, Nordhaus breaks down climate NIMBYism, the threat it poses to our green-energy economy and what it might take to keep the green transition moving forward. In the News Fix: Work as we know it is changing. Many U.S. companies are already using ChatGPT in one way or another, and the artificial intelligence chatbot is replacing jobs. Plus, workers in Asia and Europe are going back to the office at much higher rates than American workers. Then, we'll hear from listeners about how later school start times have improved their family's mornings, the debate about what to call mocktails, and why Americans keep eggs in the fridge. Here’s everything we talked about today: “Decarbonization and its Discontents” from The Breakthrough Institute “Will NIMBYs sink new clean energy projects? The evidence says no – if developers listen to local concerns” from The Conversation “The Environmentalists Undermining Environmentalism” from The Atlantic “America needs a new environmentalism” from The Economist “Should I Learn Coding as a Second Language?” from Wired “1 in 4 companies have already replaced workers with ChatGPT” from Resume Builder “As Americans Work From Home, Europeans and Asians Head Back to the Office” from The Wall Street Journal “What's happened to the lunch places in office neighborhoods?” from Marketplace “Why do we refrigerate eggs and other countries don't?” from the Egg Safety Center What have you been wrong about lately? We want to hear your answer to the Make Me Smart question! Leave us a voice message at 508-U-B-SMART, and your submission may be featured in a future episode.

Hey Smarties! Make Me Smart is taking a little summer vacation this week. We'll be back in your feeds soon. But for now, enjoy a rerun of one of our favorite episodes of the year so far. To reach the Joe Biden administration's goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050, the country's energy infrastructure needs a massive overhaul, and fast. But many communities are not on board with the idea of a massive wind or solar farm in their area. Some counties are banning renewable energy developments before the planning can even begin. “All those wind turbines and solar panels, and then all the transmission lines that you need to build … it has a big footprint. And that creates lots of land-use conflicts,” said Ted Nordhaus, founder of The Breakthrough Institute. On the show today, Nordhaus breaks down climate NIMBYism, the threat it poses to our green-energy economy and what it might take to keep the green transition moving forward. In the News Fix: Work as we know it is changing. Many U.S. companies are already using ChatGPT in one way or another, and the artificial intelligence chatbot is replacing jobs. Plus, workers in Asia and Europe are going back to the office at much higher rates than American workers. Then, we'll hear from listeners about how later school start times have improved their family's mornings, the debate about what to call mocktails, and why Americans keep eggs in the fridge. Here’s everything we talked about today: “Decarbonization and its Discontents” from The Breakthrough Institute “Will NIMBYs sink new clean energy projects? The evidence says no – if developers listen to local concerns” from The Conversation “The Environmentalists Undermining Environmentalism” from The Atlantic “America needs a new environmentalism” from The Economist “Should I Learn Coding as a Second Language?” from Wired “1 in 4 companies have already replaced workers with ChatGPT” from Resume Builder “As Americans Work From Home, Europeans and Asians Head Back to the Office” from The Wall Street Journal “What's happened to the lunch places in office neighborhoods?” from Marketplace “Why do we refrigerate eggs and other countries don't?” from the Egg Safety Center What have you been wrong about lately? We want to hear your answer to the Make Me Smart question! Leave us a voice message at 508-U-B-SMART, and your submission may be featured in a future episode.

Crazy Wisdom Show Notes: Episode Guest: Jonah Messinger, PhD student of physics at Cambridge and writer for The Breakthrough Institute (check out his article here) Topics Covered: Fusion Developments: Recent developments in the fusion sector. The last 3-4 years have seen significant investment in plasma-based fusion technology from private startups, amounting to around 5 billion dollars.  Low Energy Nuclear Reactions (LENR): An overview of LENR or cold fusion, a sector of nuclear physics that has been castigated for 30 years but is now undergoing a resurgence. Jonah is part of an MIT research team awarded an ARPA-E research grant in this field. Physics Fundamentals: Explanation of plasma-based fusion and how it differs from LENR. Discussion includes protons, neutrons, and electrons, the strong nuclear force, and the relationship between mass and energy.  Controversies around Cold Fusion: Delving into why cold fusion is considered heretical, including its inconsistencies with conventional theories and unexpected reaction pathways. Jonah outlines why despite its challenges, it still holds potential.  In-depth Look at Cold Fusion Experiments: Discussion on various cold fusion experiments, highlighting experiments with unambiguous results. Jonah recalls his entrance into the field after reading a Nature article in February 2022 and how it influenced his research.  Radiation and Cold Fusion: Conversation about nuclear energy outputs with chemical inputs, the theoretical framework of LENR, and how one can potentially engineer nuclear pathways. A discussion on radiation types and the relative low radiation of cold fusion also unfolds. Quantum Coherence and Fusion: Exploration of the role of quantum coherence in LENR, with reference to a quote challenging traditional assumptions about nuclear interactions.  Commercialization and Future of LENR: Discussing the potential future of LENR commercialization, using the transistor's history as an analogy. Jonah emphasizes the importance of more people and resources coming into the field for LENR's progress.  Additional References: Jonah Messinger's article on The Breakthrough Institute: https://thebreakthrough.org/issues/energy/fusion-runs-hot-and-cold Jonah Messinger's Twitter: People Mentioned: Fleischman and Ponns, prominent researchers in the field of cold fusion.

Climate scientist Roger Pielke, Jr joined Rep. Crenshaw to talk about the intersection of climate science and politics. Roger describes what good science looks like and the challenge that climate scientists face with the unbiased reporting of facts. They examine the good and bad projections in the latest IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) report and how confident we can feel about carbon emissions impact on sea levels, global temperatures, and extreme weather events. And they discuss how all this data should be interpreted by politicians to craft the energy policies which affect every aspect of our lives. Roger Pielke, Jr is a professor of Environmental Studies at UC-Boulder and Senior Fellow at the Breakthrough Institute. He was previously a scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. His substack is The Honest Broker. Follow him on Twitter @RogerPielkeJr.

Jonah Messinger wrote a thoughtful piece on cold fusion for the Breakthrough Institute. I brought him on to talk about cold fusion, science as a process vs. science as an institution, and more!Fusion Runs Hot And Cold by Jonah Messinger Get full access to Nuclear Barbarians at nuclearbarbarians.substack.com/subscribe

We are joined by Naomi Oreskes, Henry Charles Lea Professor of the History of Science and Affiliated Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Harvard University, and a world-renowned earth scientist, historian and public speaker. Using her latest book that she co-authored with Erik M. Conway, The Big Myth: How American Business Taught Us to Loath Government and Love the Free Market as the basis of our conversation, she explains how free-market fundamentalism has had a long history of undermining democracy and exploiting marginalized communities to benefit a small minority of elites. We also discuss the role that libertarian, techno-fundamentalist, and Catholic anti-choice think tanks such as the Cato Institute, Foundation for Economic Education, the Breakthrough Institute, and Population Research Institute have played in fueling anti-Science propaganda on overpopulation denialism, and why these forces must be vehemently opposed for a more just and sustainable planet. See episode website for show notes, links, and transcript: https://www.populationbalance.org/podcasts/naomi-oreskes ABOUT US The Overpopulation Podcast features enlightening conversations between Population Balance Executive Director Nandita Bajaj, cohost Alan Ware, and expert guests. We cover a broad variety of topics that explore the impacts of our expanding human footprint on human rights, animal protection, and environmental restoration, as well as individual and collective solutions. Learn more here: https://www.populationbalance.org/

On April 26, 2023, Ashley Nunes testified before Congress about electric vehicles, saying that just because EVs “can lower emissions doesn't mean that they necessarily will.” In this episode, Nunes, who in addition to his position with the Breakthrough Institute is also a researcher at Harvard Law School, explains why EV prices are rising, why EV makers haven't demonstrated a “viable path to profitability,” and why the federal government's lavish support and mandates for EVs are an “unworkable policy.” (Recorded May 2, 2023.)

Alex Trembath, the Deputy Director of the Breakthrough Institute, joined me to talk about the deep contradictions in environmentalism, climate anxiety, the Jefferson/Hamilton divide, and much more!Some of Alex's work.Support Breakthrough.Subscribe to my energy newsletter, Grid Brief. Get full access to Nuclear Barbarians at nuclearbarbarians.substack.com/subscribe

The First Amendment prohibits the U.S. government from censoring speech. In this episode, drawing from internal Twitter documents known as “the Twitter files” and Congressional testimony from tech executives, former Twitter employees, and journalists, we examine the shocking formal system of censorship in which government employees are using their influence over private companies to indirectly censor speech in a way that they are clearly prohibited from doing directly. Please Support Congressional Dish – Quick Links Contribute monthly or a lump sum via PayPal Support Congressional Dish via Patreon (donations per episode) Send Zelle payments to: Donation@congressionaldish.com Send Venmo payments to: @Jennifer-Briney Send Cash App payments to: $CongressionalDish or Donation@congressionaldish.com Use your bank's online bill pay function to mail contributions to: 5753 Hwy 85 North, Number 4576, Crestview, FL 32536. Please make checks payable to Congressional Dish Thank you for supporting truly independent media! View the shownotes on our website at https://congressionaldish.com/cd270-the-twitter-files Background Sources Recommended Congressional Dish Episodes CD224: Social Media Censorship CD141: Terrorist Gifts & The Ministry of Propaganda (2017 NDAA) CD113: CISA is Law The Twitter Files "Capsule Summaries of all Twitter Files Threads to Date, With Links and a Glossary.” Matt Taibbi. Jan 4, 2023. Racket News. Matt Taibbi “The Democrats' Disastrous Miscalculation on Civil Liberties.” Matt Taibbi. Mar 12, 2023. Racket News. “#1940 - Matt Taibbi.” Feb 13, 2023. The Joe Rogan Experience. Hunter Biden Laptop Story “Smoking-gun email reveals how Hunter Biden introduced Ukrainian businessman to VP dad.” “13. They did the same to Facebook, according to CEO Mark Zuckerberg. ‘The FBI basically came to us [and] was like, “Hey... you should be on high alert. We thought that there was a lot of Russian propaganda in 2016 election. There's about to be some kind of dump similar to that”'” [tweet]. Michael Shellenberger [@ShellenbergerMD]. Dec 19, 2022. Twitter. Influence, Propaganda, and Censorship “From the Twitter Files: Pfizer board member Scott Gottlieb secretly pressed Twitter to hide posts challenging his company's massively profitable Covid jabs.” Alex Berenson. Jan 9, 2023. Unreported Truths. “Twitter Aided the Pentagon in Its Covert Online Propaganda Campaign.” Lee Fang. December 20, 2022. The Intercept. “Facebook, Twitter dismantle a U.S. influence campaign about Ukraine.” Aug 24, 2022. The Washington Post. Angus King Takedown Request Spreadsheet Audio Sources Hearing on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, the Twitter Files March 9, 2023 House Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government Witnesses: Matt Taibbi, Journalist Michael Shellenberger, Author, Co-founder of the Breakthrough Institute and the California Peace Coalition Clips 17:20 Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH): In the run up to the 2020 Presidential election, FBI Special Agent Elvis Chan, in his deposition in Missouri versus Biden, said that he repeatedly, repeatedly, informed Twitter and other social media platforms of the likelihood of a hack and leak operation in the run up to that Presidential election. He did it even though there was no evidence. In fact, he said in his deposition that we hadn't seen anything, no intrusions, no hack, yet he repeatedly told them something was common. Yoel Ross, Head of Trust and Safety at Twitter, testified that he had had regular meetings with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI, and other folks regarding election security. During these weekly meetings, federal law enforcement agencies communicated that they expected a hack and leak operation. The expectations of a hack and leak operation were discussed throughout 2020. And he was told they would occur in a period shortly before the 2020 Presidential election, likely in October. And finally, he said "I also learned in these meetings, that there were rumors that a hack and leak operation would involve Hunter Biden." So what did the government tell him? A hack and leak operation was coming. How often did the government tell him this? Repeatedly for a year. When did the government say it was going to happen? October of 2020. And who did the government say it would involve? Hunter Biden. 19:35 Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH): How did they know? Maybe it's because they had the laptop and they had had it for a year. 21:50 Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH): Finally, as if on cue, five days later on October 19, 51 former intel[ligence] officials signed a letter with a now famous sentence "the Biden laptop story has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation." Something that was absolutely false. 25:25 Rep. Stacey Plaskett (D-VI): And the Republicans have brought in two of Elon Musk's public scribes to release cherry-picked, out-of-context emails and screenshots designed to promote his chosen narrative, Elon Musk's chosen narrative, that is now being paroted by the Republicans, because the Republicans think that these witnesses will tell a story that's going to help them out politically. 25:50 Rep. Stacey Plaskett (D-VI): On Tuesday, the majority released an 18 page report claiming to show that the FTC is quote, "harassing" Twitter -- oh my poor Twitter -- including by seeking information about its interactions with individuals before us today. How did the report reach this conclusion? By showing two single paragraphs from a single demand letter, even though the report itself makes clear that there were numerous demand letters with numerous requests, none of which we've been able to see, that are more demand letters and more requests of Twitter. 28:05 Rep. Stacey Plaskett (D-VI): Mr. Chairman, Americans can see through this. Musk is helping you out politically and you're going out of your way to promote and protect him and to praise him for his work. 28:15 Rep. Stacey Plaskett (D-VI): This isn't just a matter of what data was given to these so-called journalists before us now. 31:35 Rep. Stacey Plaskett (D-VI): Mr. Chairman, I'm not exaggerating when I say that you have called before you two witnesses who pose a direct threat to people who oppose them. 32:30 Rep. Stacey Plaskett (D-VI): We know this is because at the first hearing, the Chairman claimed that big government and big tech colluded to shape and mold the narrative and suppress information and censor Americans. This is a false narrative. We're engaging in false narratives here and we are going to tell the truth. 37:35 Michael Shellenberger: I recognize that the law allows Facebook, Twitter, and other private companies to moderate content on their platforms and I support the right of governments to communicate with the public, including to dispute inaccurate information, but government officials have been caught repeatedly pushing social media platforms to censor disfavored users and content. Often these acts of censorship threaten the legal protection social media companies need to exist, Section 230. If government officials are directing or facilitating such censorship, and as one law professor, it raises serious First Amendment questions. It is axiomatic that the government cannot do indirectly what it is prohibited from doing directly. 41:50 Matt Taibbi: My name is Matt Taibbi, I've been a reporter for 30 years and a staunch advocate of the First Amendment. Much of that time was spent at Rolling Stone magazine. Ranking Member Plaskett, I'm not a "so-called" journalist. I've won the National Magazine Award, the I.F Stone Award for Independent Journalism, and I've written 10 books, including four New York Times bestsellers. 45:35 Matt Taibbi: Ordinary Americans are not just being reported to Twitter for deamplification or deplatforming, but to firm's like Pay Pal, digital advertisers like Xandr, and crowdfunding sites like GoFundMe. These companies can and do refuse service to law abiding people and businesses whose only crime is falling afoul of a distant, faceless, unaccountable, algorithmic judge. 44:00 Matt Taibbi: Again, Ranking Member Plaskett, I would note that the evidence of Twitter-government relationship includes lists of tens of thousands of names on both the left and right. The people affected include Trump supporters, but also left leaning sites like Consortium and Truthout, the leftist South American channel TeleSUR, the Yellow Vest movement. That, in fact, is a key point of the Twitter files, that it's neither a left nor right issue. 44:40 Matt Taibbi: We learned Twitter, Facebook, Google and other companies developed a formal system for taking in moderation requests from every corner of government from the FBI, the DHS, the HHS, DOD, the Global Engagement Center at [the Department of] State, even the CIA. For every government agency scanning Twitter, there were perhaps 20 quasi private entities doing the same thing, including Stanford's Election Integrity Partnership, Newsguard, the Global Disinformation Index, and many others, many taxpayer funded. A focus of this fast growing network, as Mike noted, is making lists of people whose opinions beliefs, associations, or sympathies are deemed misinformation, disinformation or malinformation. That last term is just a euphemism for true but inconvenient. Undeniably, the making of such lists is a form of digital McCarthyism. 1:01:00 Matt Taibbi: So, a great example of this is a report that the Global Engagement Center sent to Twitter and to members of the media and other platforms about what they called "the Pillars of Russian Disinformation." Now, part of this report is what you would call, I think you would call, traditional hardcore intelligence gathering where they made a reasoned, evidence baseed case that certain sites were linked to Russian influence or linked to the Russian government. In addition to that, however, they also said that sites that quote, "generate their own momentum," and have opinions that are in line with those accounts are part of a propaganda ecosystem. Now, this is just another word for guilt by association. And this is the problem with the whole idea of trying to identify which accounts are actually the Internet Research Agency and which ones are just people who follow those accounts or retweeted them. Twitter initially did not find more than a handful of IRA accounts. It wasn't until they got into an argument with the Senate Select Intelligence Committee that they came back with a different answer. 1:06:00 Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (D-FL): Before you became Elon Musk's handpicked journalists, and pardon the oxymoron, you stated this on Joe Rogan's podcast about being spoon fed information. And I quote, "I think that's true of any kind of journalism," and you'll see it behind me here. "I think that's true of any kind of journalism. Once you start getting handed things, then you've lost. They have you at that point and you got to get out of that habit. You just can't cross that line." Do you still believe what you told Mr. Rogan? Yes or no? Yes or no? Matt Taibbi: Yes. Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (D-FL): Good. Now, you crossed that line with the Twitter files. Matt Taibbi: No. Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (D-FL): Elon Musk -- It's my time, please do not interrupt me. Crowd: [laughter] Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (D-FL): Elon Musk spoon fed you his cherry-picked information, which you must have suspected promotes a slanted viewpoint, or at the very least generates another right wing conspiracy theory. 1:11:20 Matt Taibbi: That moment on the Joe Rogan show, I was actually recounting a section from Seymour Hersh's book, Reporter, where he described a scene where the CIA gave him a story and he was very uncomfortable. He said that "I, who had always gotten the secrets, was being handed the secrets." Again, I've done lots of whistleblower stories. There's always a balancing test that you make when you're given material, and you're always balancing newsworthiness versus the motives of your sources. In this case, the newsworthiness clearly outweighed any other considerations. I think everybody else who worked on the project agrees. 1:14:45 Rep. Dan Bishop (R-NC): Richard Stengel, you know who that is? Matt Taibbi: Yes, he's the former, the first head of the Global Engagement Center. Rep. Dan Bishop (R-NC): I want the American people to hear from him for 30 seconds. Richard Stengel: Basically, every country creates their own narrative story. And, you know, my old job at the State Department was what people used to joke as the "chief propagandist" job. We haven't talked about propaganda. Propaganda. I'm not against propaganda. Every country does it, and they have to do it to their own population. 1:24:20 Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH): December 13, the very first letter that the FTC sends to Twitter after the Twitter files, 11 days after the first Twitter file, there have been five of them come out, the FTC's first demand in that first letter after the Twitter files come out is identify all journalists. I'm quoting "identify all journalists and other members of the media" to whom Twitter worked with. You find that scary, Mr. Taibbi, that you got a federal government agency asking a private company who in the press are you talking with? Matt Taibbi: I do find it scary. I think it's none of the government's business which journalists a private company talks to and why. I think every journalist should be concerned about that. And the absence of interest in that issue by my fellow colleagues in the mainstream media is an indication of how low the business has sunk. There was once a real esprit de corps and camaraderie within Media. Whenever one of us was gone after, we all kind of rose to the challenge and supported -- Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH): It used to be, used to be the case. Matt Taibbi: Yeah, that is gone now. 1:28:50 Rep. Stacey Plaskett (D-VI): How many emails did Mr. Musk give you access to? Michael Shellenberger: I mean, we went through thousands of emails. Rep. Stacey Plaskett (D-VI): Did he give you access to all of the emails for the time period in which? Michael Shellenberger: We never had a single, I never had a single request denied. And not only that, but the amount of files that we were given were so voluminous that there was no way that anybody could have gone through them beforehand. And we never found an instance where there was any evidence that anything had been taken out. Rep. Stacey Plaskett (D-VI): Okay. So you would believe that you have probably millions of emails and documents, right? That's correct, would you say? Michael Shellenberger: I don't know if -- I think the number is less than that. Matt Taibbi: Millions sounds too high. Rep. Stacey Plaskett (D-VI): Okay. 100,000? Matt Taibbi: That's probably closer. Michael Shellenberger: Probably, yeah. Rep. Stacey Plaskett (D-VI): So 100,000 that both of you were seeing. 1:37:10 Matt Taibbi: There were a couple of very telling emails that wepublished. One was by a lawyer named [Sasha Cardiel???], where the company was being so overwhelmed by requests from the FBI and in fact they, they gave each other a sort of digital High Five after one batch, saying "that was a monumental undertaking to clear all of these," but she noted that she believed that the FBI was essentially doing word searches keyed to Twitter's Terms of Service, looking for violations of the Terms of Service, specifically so that they could make recommendations along those lines, which we found interesting. 1:48:15 Michael Shellenberger: And we haven't talked about Facebook, but we now know that we have the White House demanding that Facebook take down factual information and Facebook doing that. 1:48:25 Michael Shellenberger: And with Matt [Taibbi]'s thread this morning we saw the government contractors demanding the same thing of Twitter: accurate information, they said, that needed to be taken down in order to advance a narrative. 1:49:55 Matt Taibbi: You know, in conjunction with our own research, there's a foundation, the Foundation for Freedom Online, which, you know, there's a very telling video that they uncovered where the Director of Stanford's Election Integrity Partnership (EIP) talks about how CISA, the DHS agency, didn't have the capability to do election monitoring, and so that they kind of stepped in to "fill the gaps" legally before that capability could be amped up. And what we see in the Twitter files is that Twitter executives did not distinguish between DHS or CISA and this group EIP, for instance, we would see a communication that said, from CISA, escalated by EIP. So they were essentially identical in the eyes of the company. EIP is, by its own data, and this is in reference to what you brought up, Mr. Congressman, according to their own data, they significantly targeted more what they call disinformation on the right than on the left, by a factor I think of about ten to one. And I say that as not a Republican at all, it's just the fact of what we're looking at. So yes, we have come to the realization that this bright line that we imagine that exists between, say the FBI or the DHS, or the GEC and these private companies is illusory and that what's more important is this constellation of kind of quasi private organizations that do this work. 1:52:10 Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): What was the first time that Mr. Musk approached you about writing the Twitter files? Matt Taibbi: Again, Congresswoman that would — Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): I just need a date, sir. Matt Taibbi: But I can't give it to you, unfortunately, because this this is a question of sourcing, and I don't give up... I'm a journalist, I don't reveal my sources. Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): It's a question of chronology. Matt Taibbi: No, that's a question of sourcing — Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): Earlier you said that someone had sent you, through the internet, some message about whether or not you would be interested in some information. Matt Taibbi: Yes. And I refer to that person as a source. Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): So you're not going to tell us when Musk first approached you? Matt Taibbi: Again, Congresswoman, you're asking me, you're asking a journalist to reveal a source. Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): You consider Mr. Musk to be the direct source of all this? Matt Taibbi: No, now you're trying to get me to say that he is the source. I just can't answer — Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): Either he is or he isn't. If you're telling me you can't answer because it's your source, well, then the only logical conclusion is that he is in fact, your source. Matt Taibbi: Well, you're free to conclude that. Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): Well, sir, I just don't understand. You can't have it both ways. But let's move on because -- Unknown Representative 1: No, he can. He's a journalist. Unknown Representative 2: He can't, because either Musk is the source and he can't talk about it, or Musk is not the source. And if Musk is not the source, then he can discuss [unintelligible] Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH): No one has yielded, the gentlelady is out of order, you don't get to speak — Multiple speakers: [Crosstalk] Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH): The gentlelady is not recognized...[crosstalk]...he has not said that, what he has said is he's not going to reveal his source. And the fact that Democrats are pressuring him to do so is such a violation of the First Amendment. Multiple speakers: [Crosstalk] Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): I have not yielded time to anybody. I want to reclaim my time. And I would ask the chairman to give me back some of the time because of the interruption. Mr. Chairman, I am asking you, if you will give me the seconds that I lost. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH): We will give you that 10 seconds. Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): Thank you. Now let's talk about another item. When you responded to the ranking member, you said that you had free license to look at everything but yet you yourself posted on your...I guess it's kind of like a web page...I don't quite understand what Substack is, but what I can say is that "in exchange for the opportunity to cover a unique and explosive story, I had to agree to certain conditions." What were those conditions? She asked you that question and you said you had none. But you yourself posted that you had conditions? Matt Taibbi: The conditions, as I've explained multiple times -- Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): No sir, you have not explained, you told her in response to her question that you had no conditions. In fact, you used the word licensed, that you were free to look at all of them. All 100,000 emails. Matt Taibbi: The question was posed, was I free to to write about — Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): Sir, did you have any conditions? Matt Taibbi: The condition was that we publish — Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): Sir, did you have any conditions? Yes or no? A simple question. Matt Taibbi: Yes. Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): All right. Could you tell us what conditions those were? Matt Taibbi: The conditions were an attribution of sources at Twitter and that we break any news on Twitter. Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): But you didn't break it on Twitter. Did you send the file that you released today to Twitter first? Matt Taibbi: Did I send the...actually I did, yes. Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): Did you send it to Twitter first? Matt Taibbi: The Twitter files thread? Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): That was one of the conditions? Yes or no, sir. Matt Taibbi: The Twitter files thread actually did come out first. Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): But sir, you said earlier that you had to attribute all the sources to Twitter first. What you released today, did you send that to Twitter first? Matt Taibbi: No, no, no, I post I posted it on Twitter Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): First. First, sir, or did you give it to the Chairman of the Committee or the staff of the Committee first? Matt Taibbi: Well, that's not breaking the story, that's giving...I did give — Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): So you gave all the information that you did not give to the Democrats, you gave it to the Republicans first, then you put it on Twitter? Matt Taibbi: Actually, no, the chronology is a little bit confused. Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): Well then tell us what the chronology was. Matt Taibbi: I believe the thread came out first. Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): Where? Matt Taibbi: On Twitter Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): On Twitter. So then you afterwards gave it to the Republicans, and not the Democrats? Matt Taibbi: Yes, because I'm submitting it for the record as my statement. Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): Did you give it to him in advance? Matt Taibbi: I gave it to them today. Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): You gave it to them today, but you still have not given anything to the Democrats. Well, I'll move on. 1:57:20 Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): Now in your discussion, in your answer, you also said that you were invited by a friend, Bari Weiss? Michael Shellenberger: My friend, Bari Weiss. Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): So this friend works for Twitter, or what is her....? Matt Taibbi: She's a journalist. Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): Sir, I didn't ask you a question. I'm now asking Mr. Shellenberger a question. Michael Shellenberger: Yes, ma'am, Bari Weiss is a journalist. Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): I'm sorry, sir? Michael Shellenberger: She's a journalist. Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): She's a journalist. So you work in concert with her? Michael Shellenberger: Yeah. Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): Do you know when she first was contacted by Mr. Musk? Michael Shellenberger: I don't know. Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): You don't know. So you're in this as a threesome? 2:00:10 Michael Shellenberger: Reading through the whole sweep of events, I do not know the extent to which the influence operation aimed at "pre-bunking" the Hunter Biden laptop was coordinated. I don't know who all was involved. But what we saw was, you saw Aspen and Stanford, many months before then, saying don't cover the material in the hack and leak without emphasizing the fact that it could be disinformation. Okay, so they're priming journalists to not cover a future hack and leak in a way that journalists have long been trained to in the tradition of the Pentagon Papers, made famous by the Steven Spielberg movie. They were saying [to] cover the fact that it probably came from the Russians. Then you have the former General Counsel to the FBI, Jim Baker, and the former Deputy Chief of Staff to the FBI, both arriving at Twitter in the summer of 2020, which I find, what an interesting coincidence. Then, when the New York Post publishes its first article on October 14, it's Jim Baker who makes the most strenuous argument within Twitter, multiple emails, multiple messages saying this doesn't look real. There's people, there's intelligence experts, saying that this could be Russian disinformation. He is the most strenuous person inside Twitter arguing that it's probably Russian disinformation. The internal evaluation by Yoel Roth, who testified in front of this committee, was that it was what it looked to be, which was that it was not a result of a hack and leak operation. And why did he think that? Because the New York Post had published the FBI subpoena taking the laptop in December of 2019. And they published the agreement that the computer store owner had with Hunter Biden that gave him permission, after he abandoned the laptop, to use it however he wanted. So there really wasn't much doubt about the provenance of that laptop. But you had Jim Baker making a strenuous argument. And then, of course, you get to a few days after the October 14 release, you have the president of the United States echoing what these former intelligence community officials were saying, which is that it looked like a Russian influence operation. So they were claiming that the laptop was made public by the conspiracy theory that somehow the Russians got it. And basically, they convinced Yoel Roth of this wild hack and leak story that somehow the Russians stole it, got the information, gave us the computer, it was bizarre. So you read that chain of events, and it appears as though there is an organized influence operation to pre-bunk.... Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH): Why do you think they could predict the time, the method, and the person? Why could the FBI predict it? Not only did they predict this, they predicted it, so did the Aspen Institute, seemed like everyone was in the know saying, here's what's gonna happen, we can read the future. Why do you think, how do you think they were able to do that? Michael Shellenberger: I think the most important fact to know is that the FBI had that laptop in December 2019. They were also spying on Rudy Giuliani when he got the laptop and when he gave it to the New York Post. Now, maybe the FBI agents who are going to Mark Zuckerberg at Facebook and Twitter executives and warning of a hack and leak, potentially involving Hunter Biden, maybe those guys didn't have anything to do with the guys that had the top. We don't know that. I have to say, as a newcomer to this, as somebody that thought it was Russian disinformation in 2020, everybody I knew thought it was Russian disinformation, I was shocked to see that series of events going on. It looks to me like a deliberate influence operation. I don't have the proof of it, but the circumstantial evidence is pretty disturbing. 2:14:30 Matt Taibbi: We found, just yesterday, a Tweet from the Virality Project at Stanford, which was partnered with a number of government agencies, and Twitter, where they talked explicitly about censoring stories of true vaccine side effects and other true stories that they felt encouraged hesitancy. Now the imp— Unknown Representative: So these were true. Matt Taibbi: Yes. So they use the word truth three times in this email, and what's notable about this is that it reflects the fundamental misunderstanding of this whole disinformation complex, anti-disinformation complex. They believe that ordinary people can't handle difficult truths. And so they think that they need minders to separate out things that are controversial or difficult for them, and that's again, that's totally contrary to what America is all about, I think. 2:17:30 Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY): Of course we all believe in the First Amendment, but the First Amendment applies to government prohibition of speech, not to private companies. 2:33:00 Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY): And even with, Twitter you cannot find actual evidence of any direct government censorship of any lawful speech. 2:33:20 Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH): I'd ask unanimous consent to enter into the record the following email from Clarke Humphrey, Executive Office of the Presidency, White House Office, January 23, 2021. That's the Biden Administration. 4:39am: "Hey folks," this goes to Twitter, "Hey folks, wanted..." they used the term Mr. Goldman just used, "wanted to flag the below Tweet, and I'm wondering if we can get moving on the process for having it removed ASAP." 2:35:40 Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA): He said the First Amendment applies to government censorship of speech and not private companies, but what we're talking about and what the Chairman just illustrated is that what we have here and what your Twitter files show is the Federal government has partnered with private companies to censor and silence the speech of American citizens. 2:29:20 Matt Taibbi: In the first Twitter files, we saw an exchange between Representative Ro Khanna and Vijaya Gadde, where he's trying to explain the basics of speech law in America and she's completely, she seems completely unaware of what, for instance, New York Times v. Sullivan is. There are other cases like Bartnicki v. Vopper, which legalized the publication of stolen material, that's very important for any journalists to know. I think most of these people are tech executives, and they don't know what the law is around speech and around reporting. And in this case, and in 2016, you are dealing with true material. There is no basis to restrict the publication of true material no matter who the sources and how you get it. And journalists have always understood that and this has never been an issue or a controversial issue until very recently. 2:44:40 Rep. Kat Cammack (R-FL): Would you agree that there was a black list created in 2021? Michael Shellenberger: Sorry, yes, Jay Bhattacharya, the Stanford Professor, who I don't think anybody considers a fringe epidemiologist, was indeed -- I'm sorry, I couldn't, I didn't piece it together -- he was indeed visibility filtered. Rep. Kat Cammack (R-FL): Correct. And so this blacklist that was created, that really was used to de-platform, reduce visibility, create lists internally, where people couldn't even see their profiles, that was used against doctors and scientists who produced information that was contrary to what the CDC was putting out, despite the fact that we now know that what they were publishing had scientific basis and in fact was valid. Michael Shellenberger: Absolutely. And not only that, but these are secret blacklists, so Professor Bhattacharya had no idea he was on it. 43:05 Matt Taibbi: The original promise of the internet was that it might democratize the exchange of information globally. A free internet would overwhelm all attempts to control information flow, its very existence a threat to anti-democratic forms of government everywhere. What we found in the Files was a sweeping effort to reverse that promise and use machine learning and other tools to turn the Internet into an instrument of censorship and social control. Unfortunately, our own government appears to be playing a lead role. We saw the first hints and communications between Twitter executives before the 2020 election, when we read things like "flagged by DHS," or "please see attached report from FBI for potential misinformation." This would be attached to an Excel spreadsheet with a long list of names, whose accounts were often suspended shortly after. #1940 - Matt Taibbi February 13, 2023 The Joe Rogan Experience Clips Matt Taibbi: So this is another topic that is fascinating because it hasn't gotten a ton of press. But if you go back all the way to the early 70s, the CIA and the FBI got in a lot of trouble for various things, the CIA for assassination schemes involving people like Castro, the FBI for, you know, COINTELPRO and other programs, domestic surveillance, and they made changes after Congressional hearings, the Church Committee, that basically said the FBI, from now on, you have to have some kind of reason to be following somebody or investigating somebody, you have to have some kind of criminal predicate and we want you mainly to be investigating cases. But after 9/11 they peeled all this back. There was a series of Attorney General memos that essentially re-fashioned what the FBI does, and now they don't have to be doing crimefighting all the time. Now they can be doing basically 100% intelligence gathering all the time. They can be infiltrating groups for no reason at all, not to build cases, but just to get information. And so that's why they're there. They're in these groups, they're posted up outside of the homes of people they find suspicious, but they're not building cases and they're not investigating crimes. It's sort of like Minority Report there, right? It's pre-crime. Matt Taibbi: We see reports in these files of government agencies sending lists of accounts that are accusing the United States of vaccine corruption. Now, what they're really talking about is pressuring foreign countries to not use generic vaccines. Right. And, you know, that's a liberal issue, that's a progressive issue. The progressives want generic vaccines to be available to poor countries, okay? But, you know, you can use this tool to eliminate speech about that if you want too, right? I think that's what they don't get is that the significance is not who [it's used against], the significance is the tool. What is it capable of doing, right? How easily is it employed, and you know, how often is it used? And they don't focus on that. Joe Rogan: Has anything been surprising to you? Matt Taibbi: A little bit. I think going into it, I thought that the relationship between the security agencies like the FBI and the DHS and companies like Twitter and Facebook, I thought it was a little bit less formal. I thought maybe they had kind of an advisory role. And what we find is that it's not that, it's very formalized. They have a really intense structure that they've worked out over a period of years where they have regular meetings. They have a system where the DHS handles censorship requests that come up from the States and the FBI handles international ones, and they all float all these companies and it's a big bureaucracy. I don't think we expected to see that. Matt Taibbi: I was especially shocked by an email from a staffer for Adam Schiff, the Congressperson, the California Congressman. And they're just outright saying we would like you to suspend the accounts of this journalist and anybody who retweets information about this Committee. You know, I mean, this is a member of Congress. Joe Rogan: Yeah. Matt Taibbi: Right? Most of these people have legal backgrounds. They've got lawyers in the office for sure. And this is the House Intelligence Committee. Protecting Speech from Government Interference and Social Media Bias, Part 1: Twitter's Role in Suppressing the Biden Laptop Story February 8, 2023 House Committee on Oversight and Accountability Witnesses: Vijaya Gadde, Former Chief Legal Officer, Twitter James Baker, Former Deputy General Counsel, Twitter Yoel Roth, Former Global Head of Trust & Safety, Twitter Annika Collier Navaroli, Former Policy Expert for Content Moderation, Twitter Clips 14:50 Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD): What's more, Twitter's editorial decision has been analyzed and debated ad nauseam. Some people think it was the right decision. Some people think it was the wrong decision. But the key point here is that it was Twitter's decision. Twitter is a private media company. In America, private media companies can decide what to publish or how to curate content however they want. If Twitter wants to have nothing but Tweets commenting on New York Post articles run all day, it can do that. If it makes such tweets mentioning New York Post never see the light of day they can do that too. That's what the First Amendment means. 16:05 Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD): Officially Twitter happens to think they got it wrong about that day or two period. In hindsight, Twitter's former CEO Jack Dorsey called it a mistake. This apology might be a statement of regret about the company being overly cautious about the risks of publishing contents and potentially hacked or stolen materials, or it may reflect craven surrender to a right wing pressure campaign. But however you interpreted the apology just makes the premise of this hearing all the more absurd. The professional conspiracy theorists who are heckling and haranguing this private company have already gotten exactly what they want: an apology. What more do they want? And why does the US Congress have to be involved in this nonsense when we have serious work to do for the American people? 26:20 James Baker: The law permits the government to have complex, multifaceted, and long term relationships with the private sector. Law enforcement agencies and companies can engage with each other regarding, for example, compulsory legal process served on companies, criminal activity that companies, the government, or the public identify, such as crimes against children, cybersecurity threats, and terrorism, and instances where companies themselves are victims of crime. When done properly, these interactions can be beneficial to both sides and in the interest of the public. As you Mr. Chairman, Mr. Jordan, and others have proposed, a potential workable way to legislate in this area may be to focus on the actions of federal government agencies and officials with respect to their engagement with the private sector. Congress may be able to limit the nature and scope of those interactions in certain ways, require enhanced transparency and reporting by the executive branch about its engagements, and require higher level approvals within the executive branch prior to such engagements on certain topics, so that you can hold Senate confirmed officials, for example, accountable for those decisions. In any event, if you want to legislate, my recommendation is to focus first on reasonable and effective limitations on government actors. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 31:05 Vijaya Gadde: On October 14, 2020, The New York Post tweeted articles about Hunter Biden's laptop with embedded images that looked like they may have been obtained through hacking. In 2018, we had developed a policy intended to prevent Twitter from becoming a dumping ground for hacked materials. We applied this policy to the New York Post tweets and blocked links to the articles embedding those sorts of materials. At no point to Twitter otherwise prevent tweeting, reporting, discussing or describing the contents of Mr. Biden's laptop. People could and did talk about the contents of the laptop on Twitter or anywhere else, including other much larger platforms, but they were prevented from sharing the primary documents on Twitter. Still, over the course of that day, it became clear that Twitter had not fully appreciated the impact of that policy on free press and others. As Mr. Dorsey testified before Congress on multiple occasions, Twitter changed its policy within 24 hours and admitted its initial action was wrong. This policy revision immediately allowed people to tweet the original articles with the embedded source materials, relying on its long standing practice not to retroactively apply new policies. Twitter informed the New York Post that it could immediately begin tweeting when it deleted the original tweets, which would have freed them to retweet the same content again. The New York Post chose not to delete its original tweets, so Twitter made an exception after two weeks to retroactively apply the new policy to the Post's tweets. In hindsight, Twitter should have reinstated the Post account immediately. 35:35 Yoel Roth: In 2020, Twitter noticed activity related to the laptop that at first glance bore a lot of similarities to the 2016 Russian hack and leak operation targeting the DNC, and we had to decide what to do. And in that moment with limited information, Twitter made a mistake. 36:20 Yoel Roth: It isn't obvious what the right response is to a suspected, but not confirmed, cyber attack by another government on a Presidential Election. I believe Twitter erred in this case because we wanted to avoid repeating the mistakes of 2016. 38:41 Annika Collier Navaroli: I joined Twitter in 2019 and by 2020 I was the most senior expert on Twitter's U.S. Safety Policy Team. My team's mission was to protect free speech and public safety by writing and enforcing content moderation policies around the world. These policies include things like abuse, harassment, hate speech, violence and privacy. 41:20 Annika Collier Navaroli: With January 6 and many other decisions, content moderators like me did the very best that we could. But far too often there are far too few of us and we are being asked to do the impossible. For example, in January 2020 after the US assassinated an Iranian General and the US president decided to justify it on Twitter, management literally instructed me and my team to make sure that World War III did not start on the platform. 1:08:20 Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC): Did the US government ever contact you or anyone at Twitter to censor or moderate certain Tweets, yes or no? Vijaya Gadde: We receive legal demands to remove content from the platform from the US government and governments all around the world. Those are published on a third party website. 1:12:00 Yoel Roth: The number one most influential part of the Russian active measures campaign in 2016 was the hack and leak targeting John Podesta. It would have been foolish not to consider the possibility that they would run that play again. 1:44:45 Yoel Roth: I think one of the key failures that we identified after 2016 was that there was very little information coming from the government and from intelligence services to the private sector. The private sector had the power to remove bots and to take down foreign disinformation campaigns, but we didn't always know where to look without leads supplied by the intelligence community. That was one of the failures highlighted in the Senate Intelligence Committee's report and in the Mueller investigation, and that was one of the things we set out to fix in 2017. Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA): On September 8 2019, at 11:11pm, Donald Trump heckled two celebrities on Twitter -- John Legend and his wife Chrissy Teigen -- and referred to them as "the musician John Legend and his filthy mouth wife." Ms. Teigen responded to that email [Tweet] at 12:17am. And according to notes from a conversation with you, Ms. Navaroli's, counsel, your counsel, the White House almost immediately thereafter contacted Twitter to demand the tweet be taken down. Is that accurate? Annika Collier Navaroli: Thank you for the question. In my role, I was not responsible for receiving any sort of request from the government. However, what I was privy to was my supervisors letting us know that we had received something along those lines or something of a request. And in that particular instance, I do remember hearing that we had received a request from the White House to make sure that we evaluated this tweet, and that they wanted it to come down because it was a derogatory statement towards the President. Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA): They wanted it to come down. They made that request. Annika Collier Navaroli: To my recollection, yes. Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA): I thought that was an inappropriate action by a government official, let alone the White House. But it wasn't Joe Biden, about his son's laptop. It was Donald Trump because he didn't like what Chrissy Teigen had to say about him, is that correct? Annika Collier Navaroli: Yes, that is correct. Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA): My, my, my. 1:45:15 Rep. Shontel Brown (D-OH): Mr. Roth, were those communication channels useful to Twitter as they work to combat foreign influence operations? Yoel Roth: Absolutely, I would say they were one of the most essential pieces of how Twitter prepared for future elections. 2:42:35 Rep. Becca Balint (D-VA): Ms. Gadde, did anyone from the Biden campaign or the Democratic National Committee direct Twitter to remove or take action against the New York Post story? Vijaya Gadde: No. 4:15:45 Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-ND): And now we forward to 2020. And earlier you had testified that you were having regular interactions with National Intelligence, Homeland Security and the FBI. Yoel Roth: Yes, I did. Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-ND): And primarily to deal with foreign interference? Yoel Roth: Primarily, but I would say -- Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-ND): But you had said earlier your contact with Agent Chang was primarily with foreign interference? Yoel Roth: Yes, that's right. Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-ND): And these were emails....were there meetings? Yoel Roth: Yes, Twitter met quarterly with the FBI Foreign Interference Task Force and we had those meetings running for a number of years to share information about malign foreign interference. Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-ND): Agents from Homeland Security or Intelligence, or just primarily the FBI? Yoel Roth: Our primary contacts were with the FBI and in those quarterly meetings, they were, I believe, exclusively with FBI personnel. 4:18:05 Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-ND): Earlier today you testified that you were following national security experts on Twitter as a reason to take down the New York Post story on Hunter Biden's laptop. Yoel Roth: Yes, sir, I did. Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-ND): So after 2016, you set up all these teams to deal with Russian interference, foreign interference, you're having regular meetings with the FBI, you have connections with all of these different government agencies, and you didn't reach out to them once? Yoel Roth: Is that question in reference to the day of the New York Post article? Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-ND): Yeah. Yoel Roth: That's right. We generally did not reach out to the FBI to consult on content moderation decisions, especially where they related to domestic activity. It's not that we wouldn't have liked that information, we certainly would have. It's that I don't believe it would have been appropriate for us to consult with the FBI. Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-ND): In December of 2020, you did a declaration to the Federal Election Commission that the intelligence community expected a leak and a hack operation involving Hunter Biden. Recently, Mark Zuckerberg confirmed that the FBI warned Meta that there was a high effort of Russian propaganda including language specific enough to fit the Hunter Biden laptop security story. You're talking to these people for weeks and months, years prior to this leaking. They have specifically told you in October, that there's going to be a leak potentially involving Hunter Biden's laptop. They legitimately and literally prophesized what happened. And you didn't contact any of them? Yoel Roth: No, sir, I did not. Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-ND): Did they reach out to you? Yoel Roth: On and around that day, to the best of my recollection, no, they did not. Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-ND): After the story was taken down and you guys did it, and you personally disagreed with it Ms. Gadde, did you contact them and say is "Hey, is this what you were talking about?" Yoel Roth: If that question was directed to me. No, I did not. Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-ND): Ms. Gadde, did you talk to anybody from the FBI? Vijaya Gadde: Not to the best of my recollection. Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-ND): So I guess my question is, what is the point of this program? You have constant communication, they're set up for foreign interference. They've legitimately warned you about this very specific thing. And then all of a sudden, everybody just walks away? 5:18:55 Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D-NM): We are devoting an entire day to this conspiracy theory involving Twitter. Now, the mission of this committee is to root out waste, fraud and abuse and to conduct oversight on behalf of the American people. And if you need any evidence of waste, fraud and abuse, how about the use of this committee's precious time, space and resources to commit to this hearing? 5:58:25 Rep. Eric Burlison (R-MO): Back to Mr. Roth, is it true that Twitter whitelisted accounts for the Department of Defense to spread propaganda about its efforts in the Middle East? Did they give you a list of accounts that were fake accounts and asked you to whitelist those accounts? Yoel Roth: That request was made of Twitter. To be clear, when I found out about that activity, I was appalled by it. I undid the action and my team exposed activity originating from the Department of Defense's campaign publicly. We've shared that data with the world and research about it has been published. 6:07:20 Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH): Mr. Roth, I want to go back to your statement in your declaration to the FEC "I learned that a hack and leak operation would involve Hunter Biden," who did you learn that from? Yoel Roth: My recollection is it was mentioned by another technology company in one of our joint meetings, but I don't recall specifically whom. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH): You don't know the person's name? Yoel Roth: I don't even recall what company they worked at. No, this was a long time ago. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH): And you're confident that it was from a tech company, not from someone from the government? Yoel Roth: To the best of my recollection, yes. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH): Did anyone from the government, in these periodic meetings you had, did they ever tell you that a hack and leak operation involving Hunter Biden was coming? Yoel Roth: No. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH): Did Hunter Biden's name come up at all these meetings? Yoel Roth: Yes, his name was raised in those meetings, but not by the government to the best of my recollection. 6:09:30 Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH): Mr. Roth, why were you reluctant, based on what I read in the Twitter files, why were you reluctant to work with the GEC? Yoel Roth: It was my understanding that the GEC, or the Global Engagement Center of the State Department, had previously engaged in at least what some would consider offensive influence operations. Not that they were offensive as in bad, but offensive as in they targeted entities outside of the United States. And on that basis, I felt that it would be inappropriate for Twitter to engage with a part of the State Department that was engaged in active statecraft. We were dedicated to rooting out malign foreign interference no matter who it came from. And if we found that the American government was engaged in malign foreign interference, we'd be addressing that as well. 6:13:50 Rep. James Comer (R-KY): Twitter is a private company, but they enjoy special liability protections, Section 230. They also, according to the Twitter files, receive millions of dollars from the FBI, which is tax dollars, I would assume. And that makes it a concern of the Oversight Committee. Does Section 230's Sweeping Immunity Enable Big Tech Bad Behavior? October 28, 2020 Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee Witnesses: Jack Dorsey, [Former] CEO, Twitter Sundar Pichai, CEO, Alphabet and Google Mark Zuckerberg, CEO, Facebook [Meta] Clips 2:20:40 Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA): The issue is not that the companies before us today are taking too many posts down. The issue is that they're leaving too many dangerous posts up. In fact, they're amplifying harmful content so that it spreads like wildfire and torches our democracy. 3:15:40 Mark Zuckerberg: Senator, as I testified before, we relied heavily on the FBI, his intelligence and alert status both through their public testimony and private briefings. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI): Did the FBI contact you, sir, than your co star? It was false. Mark Zuckerberg: Senator not about that story specifically. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI): Why did you throttle it back? Mark Zuckerberg: They alerted us to be on heightened alert around a risk of hack and leak operations around a release and probe of information. Emerging Trends in Online Foreign Influence Operations: Social Media, COVID-19, and Election Security June 18, 2020 Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Watch on YouTube Witnesses: Nathaniel Gleicher, Head of Security Policy at Facebook Nick Pickles, Director of Global Public Policy Strategy and Development at Twitter Richard Salgado, Director for Law Enforcement and Information Security at Google 1:40:10 Nathaniel Gleicher: Congressman, the collaboration within industry and with government is much, much better than it was in 2016. I think we have found the FBI, for example, to be forward leaning and ready to share information with us when they see it. We share information with them whenever we see indications of foreign interference targeting our election. The best case study for this was the 2018 midterms, where you saw industry, government and civil society all come together, sharing information to tackle these threats. We had a case on literally the eve of the vote, where the FBI gave us a tip about a network of accounts where they identified subtle links to Russian actors. Were able to investigate those and take action on them within a matter of hours. Cover Art Design by Only Child Imaginations Music Presented in This Episode Intro & Exit: Tired of Being Lied To by David Ippolito (found on Music Alley by mevio)

Extended excerpts from the Hearing on the Weaponization of the Federal Government on the Twitter Files that took place on Thursday, March 9 2023. Witnesses: Matt Taibbi, Journalist – testimony Michael Shellenberger, Author, Co-founder of the Breakthrough Institute and the California Peace Coalition – testimony The post The Twitter Files: Excerpts from the Hearing on the Weaponization of the Federal Government appeared first on KPFA.

Extended excerpts from the Hearing on the Weaponization of the Federal Government on the Twitter Files that took place on Thursday, March 9 2023. Witnesses: Matt Taibbi, Journalist – testimony Michael Shellenberger, Author, Co-founder of the Breakthrough Institute and the California Peace Coalition – testimony   The post The Twitter Files: Excerpts from the Hearing on the Weaponization of the Federal Government appeared first on KPFA.

To reach the Joe Biden administration's goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050, the country’s energy infrastructure needs a massive overhaul, and fast. But many communities are not on board with the idea of a massive wind or solar farm in their area. Some counties are banning renewable energy developments before the planning can even begin. “All those wind turbines and solar panels, and then all the transmission lines that you need to build … it has a big footprint. And that creates lots of land use conflicts,” said Ted Nordhaus, founder of The Breakthrough Institute. On the show today, Nordhaus breaks down climate NIMBYism, the threat it poses to our green-energy economy and what it might take to keep the green transition moving forward. In the News Fix: Work as we know it is changing. Many U.S. companies are already using ChatGPT in one way or another, and the artificial intelligence chatbot is replacing jobs. Plus, workers in Asia and Europe are going back to the office at much higher rates than American workers. Then, we’ll hear from listeners about how later school start times have improved their family’s mornings, the debate about what to call mocktails, and why Americans keep eggs in the fridge. Here’s everything we talked about today: “Decarbonization and its Discontents” from The Breakthrough Institute “Will NIMBYs sink new clean energy projects? The evidence says no – if developers listen to local concerns” from The Conversation “The Environmentalists Undermining Environmentalism” from The Atlantic “America needs a new environmentalism” from The Economist “Should I Learn Coding as a Second Language?” from Wired “1 in 4 companies have already replaced workers with ChatGPT” from Resume Builder “As Americans Work From Home, Europeans and Asians Head Back to the Office” from The Wall Street Journal “What’s happened to the lunch places in office neighborhoods?” from Marketplace “Why do we refrigerate eggs and other countries don’t? from the Egg Safety Center What have you been wrong about lately? We want to hear your answer to the Make Me Smart question! Leave us a voice message at 508-U-B-SMART, and your submission may be featured in a future episode.

To reach the Joe Biden administration's goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050, the country’s energy infrastructure needs a massive overhaul, and fast. But many communities are not on board with the idea of a massive wind or solar farm in their area. Some counties are banning renewable energy developments before the planning can even begin. “All those wind turbines and solar panels, and then all the transmission lines that you need to build … it has a big footprint. And that creates lots of land use conflicts,” said Ted Nordhaus, founder of The Breakthrough Institute. On the show today, Nordhaus breaks down climate NIMBYism, the threat it poses to our green-energy economy and what it might take to keep the green transition moving forward. In the News Fix: Work as we know it is changing. Many U.S. companies are already using ChatGPT in one way or another, and the artificial intelligence chatbot is replacing jobs. Plus, workers in Asia and Europe are going back to the office at much higher rates than American workers. Then, we’ll hear from listeners about how later school start times have improved their family’s mornings, the debate about what to call mocktails, and why Americans keep eggs in the fridge. Here’s everything we talked about today: “Decarbonization and its Discontents” from The Breakthrough Institute “Will NIMBYs sink new clean energy projects? The evidence says no – if developers listen to local concerns” from The Conversation “The Environmentalists Undermining Environmentalism” from The Atlantic “America needs a new environmentalism” from The Economist “Should I Learn Coding as a Second Language?” from Wired “1 in 4 companies have already replaced workers with ChatGPT” from Resume Builder “As Americans Work From Home, Europeans and Asians Head Back to the Office” from The Wall Street Journal “What’s happened to the lunch places in office neighborhoods?” from Marketplace “Why do we refrigerate eggs and other countries don’t? from the Egg Safety Center What have you been wrong about lately? We want to hear your answer to the Make Me Smart question! Leave us a voice message at 508-U-B-SMART, and your submission may be featured in a future episode.

1) A deep dive into Adam's background in engineering, nuclear and consulting, and the variety of projects he worked on 2) The Breakthrough Institute's mission and Adam's step into the research and policy sectors 3) The history of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and how it affects policy today 4) An exploration of the NRC's current ways of operating and how the states may play a role in future policy

Michael Shellenberger is the bestselling author of “San Fransicko” which exposes the political ideology that has invaded large US cities and left desolate wreckage and rampant homelessness in its wake. In December 2022, he was one of the journalists who released internal documents as part of Elon Musk's Twitter Files. He is cofounder of the Breakthrough Institute and the California Peace Coalition. Follow Michael at https://twitter.com/ShellenbergerMD and https://shellenberger.org/ 「 SPONSORED BY 」 • BIRCH GOLD - Don't let your savings lose value. You can own physical gold and silver in a tax-sheltered retirement account, and Birch Gold will help you do it. Claim your free, no obligation info kit from Birch Gold at https://birchgold.com/drew • GENUCEL - Using a proprietary base formulated by a pharmacist, Genucel has created skincare that can dramatically improve the appearance of facial redness and under-eye puffiness. Genucel uses clinical levels of botanical extracts in their cruelty-free, natural, made-in-the-USA line of products. Get 10% off with promo code DREW at https://genucel.com/drew 「 MEDICAL NOTE 」 The CDC states that COVID-19 vaccines are safe, effective, and reduce your risk of severe illness. Hundreds of millions of people have received a COVID-19 vaccine, and serious adverse reactions are uncommon. Dr. Drew is a board-certified physician and Dr. Kelly Victory is a board-certified emergency specialist. Portions of this program will examine countervailing views on important medical issues. You should always consult your personal physician before making any decisions about your health.  「 ABOUT the SHOW 」 Ask Dr. Drew is produced by Kaleb Nation (https://kalebnation.com) and Susan Pinsky (https://twitter.com/firstladyoflove). This show is for entertainment and/or informational purposes only, and is not a substitute for medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. 「 GEAR PROVIDED BY 」 • BLUE MICS - Find your best sound at https://drdrew.com/blue • ELGATO - See how Elgato's lights transformed Dr. Drew's set: https://drdrew.com/sponsors/elgato/ 「 ABOUT DR. DREW 」 For over 30 years, Dr. Drew has answered questions and offered guidance to millions through popular shows like Celebrity Rehab (VH1), Dr. Drew On Call (HLN), Teen Mom OG (MTV), and the iconic radio show Loveline. Now, Dr. Drew is opening his phone lines to the world by streaming LIVE from his home studio. Watch all of Dr. Drew's latest shows at https://drdrew.tv Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode I was joined by bestselling author and social commentator Michael Shellenberger. We spoke about the social issues in California, the real reasons for the energy crisis in Europe, and the problems with so-called sustainable energy. We also got into the homeless issue, the drug problem and lifestyle solutions. Michael is the author of multiple books including, “Apocalypse Never” and bestseller, “San Fran-sicko”. He ran for Governor of California in 2022 and is also the co-founder of the Breakthrough Institute and the California Peace Coalition. Thanks for tuning in. If you enjoyed this conversation, be sure to subscribe! Follow Michael Shellenberger On: Twitter: https://twitter.com/ShellenbergerMDInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/shellenberger/Substack: https://michaelshellenberger.substack.com Follow Me On: All Platforms: https://linktr.ee/mikhailapetersonFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/mikhailapete... Twitter: https://twitter.com/mikhailafullerInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/mikhailapet... Telegram: https://t.me/mikhailapetersonTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@mikhailapeterson Chapters [0:00] Preview & Intro [2:21] Michael's Background [3:08] Running for Governor of California & Political Stance [3:58] Social Issues In California [6:07]Energy Cost & Crisis In Europe [8:43] North American Treaty Obligation To Europe [10:21] Europe Asking Canada & USA For Natural Gas [11:26] Why Trudeau & Biden Won't Support Energy Exports to Europe [12:38] The Political Shift In Europe [14:39] The War On Nuclear Power [17:11] Natural Gas & The Climate [18:31] Reliance On China and Russia For Energy [20:06] Solar Panels Come From Chinese Concentration Camps [22:23] The China Sourcing Problem [24:06] Europe Funding Concentration Camps In China [26:59] Economic Virtue Signaling [28:24] Farmers In the Netherlands [30:06] Demonization of Industry [32:50] China's Control Of Rare Earth Metals [34:08] Inefficiency of So Called Sustainable Energy Production [38:18] Storing Renewable Energy [39:52] Blackouts in California [44:02] The Fertilizer Controversy [46:52] Food Shortages In Europe [49:00] Weak Leaders And The Global Consequences [51:45] Addiction & Homelessness [53:57] Wokism & Victimhood [56:55] The Truth Behind The Homeless Crisis [57:55] Why Europe Doesn't Have A Drug Problem [103:20] Overmedication In North America [1:06:41] Alternatives To Medication [1:09:06] Quitting Drinking & Limiting Carbs & Exercise [1:13:06]Diet, Mental Health & Stoicism [1:15:20] Why Mikhaila Took Responsibility For Her Health [1:17:09] The Leftist Approach To Responsibility Vs. Victimhood [1:18:56] Michael's New Book