Democrats will soon hold the presidency and both houses of Congress.

What does that mean for the climate? trib.al/8BBO7kU
When President-elect Joe Biden takes office in less than two weeks, he will enjoy a unified government resting on razor-thin margins.

Straightaway, that means anything like a Green New Deal is off the table twitter.com/i/broadcasts/1…
Sweeping climate legislation, or even enacting something like a carbon tax, would require a filibuster-proof majority or abolishing the filibuster.

This isn’t the Senate to deliver that trib.al/8BBO7kU Image
Democrats are split over climate policy.

Progressives like AOC and Bernie Sanders favor far-reaching mandates and support environmental justice measures.

Others take a cautious approach because they hail from states with lots of fossil-fuel production trib.al/8BBO7kU Image
One Democratic senator personifies this wing above all others: Joe Manchin of West Virginia.

In a sense, Manchin is the third big Senate winner this week. His own vote is enough to swing power to a unified Republican caucus if he wants trib.al/8BBO7kU Image
As a Democrat in an overwhelmingly red state — and one who literally shot a copy of a carbon cap-and-trade bill in an ad for his first Senate campaign — Joe Manchin isn’t going to be onboard for anything like a Green New Deal trib.al/8BBO7kU Image
Manchin isn’t inclined, both ideologically and as a matter of political survival in his coal-fired state, to back legislation that directly attacks fossil fuels.

But backing more stimulus dollars for electric vehicles or renewables is a different prospect trib.al/8BBO7kU Image
The upshot is that, as Biden seeks to deliver his agenda, the emphasis is going to be on a green-tinted stimulus bill.

This fits with his goal of job-creation as a way to sell climate action to the Americans in the context of recovery from the pandemic trib.al/8BBO7kU Image

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More from @bopinion

11 Jan
The fight against Covid-19 looks particularly hopeless right now, with new variants threatening to make the pandemic worse before mass vaccination makes it better.

But some of the new vaccines offer hope — and not just that the pandemic will end trib.al/7GO3Z0X
It looks increasingly plausible that the same weapons we’ll use to defeat Covid-19 can also vanquish even grimmer reapers — including cancer, which kills almost 10 million people a year trib.al/7GO3Z0X Image
The most promising Covid vaccines use nucleic acids called mRNA.

They instruct the body to create the same proteins that wrap around the viral RNA of SARS-CoV-2. The immune system then familiarizes itself with the proteins ahead of potential infection trib.al/7GO3Z0X Image
Read 12 tweets
10 Jan
At the dawn of 2021, Singapore is verging on normality:

🍲Last-minute dinner reservations are tough to secure
🛣️Roads are full of traffic again
📝Children are in school
bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…
Singapore’s GDP is projected to increase between 4 and 6% this year, compared with a contraction of 5.8% in 2020.

This brighter outlook and cautious easing of restrictions reflects Singapore’s success at containing Covid-19 infections bloomberg.com/opinion/articl… Image
Yet Singapore’s coronavirus-fighting achievements rest on a model that isn’t easily exported.

Results are enabled by a degree of state influence that other countries might find uncomfortable bloomberg.com/opinion/articl… Image
Read 11 tweets
9 Jan
If Apple is going to make a success of its car project, it has to target the $230 billion luxury car market.

But displacing 125-year-old incumbents like Mercedes-Benz won’t be straightforward bloom.bg/3bmW0pC
Apple’s efforts to build its own car have undergone several false starts as costs ballooned:

➡️Started in 2014
➡️Hundreds of staff laid off in 2016 and 2019

Now it’s trying again, though it’s at least 5 years away from production bloom.bg/3bmW0pC
For all its stock market success, Tesla has demonstrated the pitfalls that come from a lack of experience, enduring manufacturing chaos and missing production goals.

Because of this, it's likely Apple would contract the manufacturing out to a 3rd party bloom.bg/35oBUHP
Read 13 tweets
28 Dec 20
With the U.S. bracing for a post-Christmas surge in Covid cases and the U.K. battling with harsh lockdown restrictions, life in the West feels far from normal.

Meanwhile, to put it bluntly, life in Taiwan this year has been ridiculously normal trib.al/CdXi0Tc
.@tculpan was at Hong Kong airport the morning the U.S. reported its first Covid-19 case.

By the time he landed at JFK airport, Chinese authorities had shut down Wuhan in an admission that this virus was serious and spreading. That move was far too late trib.al/CdXi0Tc
Taiwan, by comparison, was well-ahead of the game:

➡️3 days earlier, Taiwan had set up its Central Epidemic Command Center
➡️3 weeks earlier, Taipei had sent an inquiry to the WHO asking for clarification of this pneumonia-like disease out of China trib.al/CdXi0Tc
Read 12 tweets
27 Dec 20
NEW from @LHSummers:

"The attack I made on @BloombergTV on the idea of universal $2,000 checks as a Covid-19 response has lit up the Twittersphere, so I think it worthwhile to be clear about what I am arguing." bloomberg.com/view/articles/…
The stimulus bill Congress passed:

🚫Won't support states as they try to rehire teachers and health-care workers
🚫Won't accelerate Covid-19 testing
🚫Won't provide long-term help to those facing unemployment or eviction
"Victims of Covid-19 disruption can and should receive generous targeted support, as should the poor," says @LHSummers.

But what about the vast majority of families who are still working, and whose incomes have not declined? he asks bloomberg.com/view/articles/…
Read 8 tweets
22 Dec 20
Asteroids laden with rare metals have people dreaming of space mining.

Just how possible is it? bloom.bg/34xpWes
Space mining has been a key feature in sci-fi:

☄️Ellen Ripley in Alien
☄️Dave Lister in Red Dwarf
☄️Sam Bell in Moon
☄️The Expanse’s Naomi Nagata

Gritty interstellar drama would be bereft if it weren’t for engineers & their mineral-processing operations bloom.bg/34xpWes
It’s such an alluring vision that real money has been put toward it. These high profile figures all invested in space mining startup Planetary Resources Inc.:

🌒Larry Page
🌓Eric Schmidt
🌔James Cameron
bloom.bg/34xpWes
Read 12 tweets

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