If I had a nickel for every time I read someone say “I have done the math and all this investment in [fracking][renewables][green hydrogen][nuclear] makes no economic sense,” I would have a lot of nickels.

Chaos erupts in Massachusetts neighborhood as ICE drags away mom—clinging to her baby. The crowd asked ICE to show an ID or warrant for the arrest—agents replied, "We don’t have to show you anything." Local police then arrested the teen daughter of woman ICE had just detained

Some quick & dirty numbers on the congressional politics of repealing (all or part of) the Inflation Reduction Act. TLDR: We can understand what's happening better if we focus on electoral risk, and how that risk differs for different members of Congress. climateofcontempt.com/blog/polarizat…

California and Texas - so different in so many ways, but leading the renewables charge again this Saturday am

That abundance book has really unleashed the online warrior spirit (read: close minded certainty) in combatants on all sides of the issue. For me at least, it is making doom scrolling even doomier.

A rare & encouragingly sensible twitter thread (below) that interrupted nasty hyperbole over “abundance” in my twitter feed. Thanks for that. It makes sense to me that income growth would be correlated to elasticity of housing supply, for exactly the reasons explained here.

This man’s says interesting things on cosmopolitanism, toleration, and the connection between our social selves and happiness. Here’s another. nytimes.com/2025/05/03/mag… via The New York Times

21 House Republicans are on record opposing full repeal of the Inflation Reduction Act. But the risk (to their re-election) of defying Trump > the risk of defying what the average voter (or GOP voter) wants. They must support what they don’t want. Only GOP voters can change this.

3/3 LinkedIn - linkedin.com/in/david-spenc… Blog - climateofcontempt.com/climate-of-con… Substack - substack.com/@davidspence53…

The single most reliable economic fact of the Trump presidency is that when he raises tariffs, markets tank. When he backs off, they rise. This matters because markets are assessing the future profitability of American business and any tariffs benefits are downstream of boosting

The propaganda machine — social and ideological media — reframes every piece of news instantly to build loyalty to one party and animosity toward the other. In the age of safe seats it is far more powerful than economic self interest. heatmap.news/politics/ira-p…

Some thoughts on the merits of calling the GOP “fascist.” climateofcontempt.com/blog/media-bia…

For students and others who may be interested, I have assembled links to academic researchers and other resources that address the forces that are distorting energy and climate policymaking in the U.S., via this blog post. Please share. climateofcontempt.com/blog/media-bia…

Given the quality of work cranked out each year by University of Texas faculty, I am feeling humbled and gratified to be one of 4 finalists for this year’s Hamilton Book Award. linkedin.com/posts/research…

I had been a bit disappointed at the academic uptake of my book among people teaching classes in climate/energy policy. So this news was really nice to get. #climate #energyweekkitui