Election 2024
How to Make Climate as Compelling as Egg Prices
While politicians are right to focus on cost of living, itās dangerously wrong to assume voters rejected climate policies in the 2024 election.
How do we make the climate crisis as compelling to voters as the price of eggs? Thatās a questionāan existential questionāIāve been asking myself for weeks now. My UCLA Emmett Institute colleagues and I have some ideas that Iāll be sharing over the next weeks and months. Weāre hardly alone: Two months after a disheartening …
Continue reading “How to Make Climate as Compelling as Egg Prices”
CONTINUE READINGSmall, Medium, and Large Things to Do Today
Three ideas for simple, personal, and tangible ways to react to the outcome of the 2024 presidential election.
Many folks this morning are feeling anticipatory grief over what’s to come in the second Trump administration. This is perhaps especially true for those of us who work on solutions to climate change, an issue that doesn’t have four years to burn away.Ā I’m not yet at the stage of crafting particularly strategic plans in …
Continue reading “Small, Medium, and Large Things to Do Today”
CONTINUE READINGTrump Canāt Stop the Clean Energy Transformation
The global transformation to an economy fueled by clean energy can’t be stopped. Trump could slow down U.S. progress though.Ā
Hereās an uncontroversial proposition: if Donald Trump wins the election (a horrific thought), we will make less progress in attacking climate change than if Kamala Harris wins.Ā His most recent remarks on climate were appalling: āThey say global warming, they used to call it global warming but now they call it climate change. You know …
Continue reading “Trump Canāt Stop the Clean Energy Transformation”
CONTINUE READINGThe Walz-Vance Debate and Environmental Policy
After Hurricane Helene, Vance and Walz were pressed on climate change during the VP debate. Hereās everything they said on energy and the environment.
The subject of climate-fueled disasters figured prominently in the vice presidential debate. The CBS News moderators asked a question about climate change within the first few minutes, although the multi-faceted answers werenāt always factual and much of the post-debate discussion in newsrooms and spin room interviews centered on contentious yet civil exchanges on immigration and …
Continue reading “The Walz-Vance Debate and Environmental Policy”
CONTINUE READINGāSchedule Fā Would Be BadāEven for Trump
My time in the Biden administration shows that Project 2025ās proposal to purge civil servants would be bad policy for everyone.
Hereās one of the best kept secrets of the federal government:Ā nothing gets done without effective civil servants.Ā I learned this secret firsthand in the three years I just spent at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), first as Chief Counsel, then as Acting Administrator. Political appointees, as I was, help set an agencyās …
Continue reading “āSchedule Fā Would Be BadāEven for Trump”
CONTINUE READINGThe Harris-Trump Debate and Environmental Policy
In the ABC News debate, both candidates were asked directly, āWhat would you do to fight climate change?ā Fracking and energy policy got most of the focus.
While abortion and immigration took center stage during last nightās presidential debate in Philadelphia, climate change and energy policy were referenced throughout the more than ninety minutes, in stark contrast to that Biden-Trump debate in June in which climate change was largely relegated to one question. From the very beginning of the debate, Trump attempted …
Continue reading “The Harris-Trump Debate and Environmental Policy”
CONTINUE READINGElection 2024: The Current Outlook
The White House and the House are still up for grabs; Republicans are favored in the Senate.
Last November, it appeared that the Democrats had a small edge in terms of electoral votes. In congressional races, however, the Republicans had the edge in the Senate and perhaps the House. Since then, the electoral vote situation has become foggier, gerrymandering in North Carolina has given the Republicans a bit more of an advantage …
Continue reading “Election 2024: The Current Outlook”
CONTINUE READINGRFK Jr. Joins the War on Climate Scientists
RFK Jr. has filled a top campaign position with an anti-vaccine activist named Del Bigtree who has called global warming āan enslavement system.ā
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. made headlines when a Super PAC supporting his presidential bid ran a pricey Super Bowl ad, stealing the look of a famous 1960 spot for his uncle John F. Kennedy. But he got far less attention for another move that says a lot about his campaign: He has tapped Del Bigtree …
Continue reading “RFK Jr. Joins the War on Climate Scientists”
CONTINUE READINGClimate Election 2024: āDrill, Baby, Drillā but Then What?
Conservatives have a Trump 2.0 energy policy built on outright lies, some surprising ideas, and risky reversals of Americaās clean energy transformation.
If youāve missed the sound of a crowd shouting āDrill, Baby, Drillā youāre in luck. That chant is back in vogue, as the general election heats up. The 2008-era slogan is shorthand for the Trump campaignās energy policy, but we know much more about current conservative thinking on the subject thanks to Project 2025, the …
Continue reading “Climate Election 2024: āDrill, Baby, Drillā but Then What?”
CONTINUE READINGClimate Election 2024: Trump Plans to Drain the EPA
The battle plan for a second Trump term includes reinstating Schedule F to remove climate experts from the U.S. government.
Donald Trump could āFā the federal government. Literally. Far-right policy strategists are laying plans, largely endorsed by the Trump campaign, for getting rid of federal government workers who might otherwise stand in the way of a radical deregulation agenda. Itās called āSchedule F,ā and it could be used to strip employment protections from as many …
Continue reading “Climate Election 2024: Trump Plans to Drain the EPA”
CONTINUE READING