David Roberts Profile picture
Mar 4 6 tweets 1 min read
I'm recording a pod tomorrow on the EPA lawsuit before the Supreme Court. Let me know if you have anything interesting to say about it or any questions you'd like to have answered.
Convince me that "major questions doctrine" is not just some bullshit that conservatives made up and are now using at their whim to impose political preferences from the bench.
Reading around about this SCOTUS EPA case, one thought I keep encountering is that several conservative justices might stop short of going as far as they want to go because they are concerned about the reputation of the court. And I just wonder ...
If I thought, "doing what I really want to do will make me & the court look like far-right extremist partisan hacks" ... I might have the follow-up thought, "hm, maybe I should want to do something different!" No?
I mean, every time Roberts restrains himself to protect "the reputation of the court," he's basically acknowledging that the real right-wing agenda is indefensible & can't survive the light of day & must be surreptitiously implemented. That never bothers him?
I went into this thinking the case is utterly absurd from top to bottom. Having now discussed it at length with two experts, I realize that it's much more absurd than I had even imagined.

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More from @drvolts

Mar 5
Lunchtime thread:

I've been thinking about the "Freedom Convoy" & social proof. As news-literate folks are likely aware, the convoy -- which disrupted Canada for weeks & is heading toward the US -- is, to a first approximation, bullshit.
washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/…
By bullshit I mean: it doesn't represent truckers, or "the working class." It represents a familiar, small far-right faction. It is a demonstration of how the right -- the RW base, RW billionaires, & RW media -- works together to make this faction *appear* large.
You know how they say, when you encounter a mountain lion in the wild, you're supposed to try to appear large? Stand up tall, raise your hands over your head, jump around, shout? Same basic principle here: use big trucks, aggressive tactics, & friendly media to appear large.
Read 24 tweets
Mar 4
A well-understood but not often discussed phenomenon: whether you're in law, punditry, or politics, you have a much likelier chance of success if you adopt aggressive conservatism. For two reasons:
1. There is an ecosystem of billionaire funding -- TONS of money sloshing around -- specifically devoted to supporting/elevating conservative voices. It's easy to get on the wingnut gravy train &, as long as you're faithfully partisan, almost impossible to get kicked off.
2. The talent pool is shallower. Most of the smart, conscientious, & well-read people will adopt variants of non-crazy mainstream views. If you do too, you're competing w/ all of them. But if you go right & can string two sentences together, you're already the cream of the crop.
Read 4 tweets
Mar 3
It feels important to remind everyone that if the Democrats don't manage to pass the climate portions of the BBB this year, they will have been a complete and spectacular failure on climate during what is arguably the last chance to put the US on a non-disastrous trajectory.
I know it's difficult to concentrate these days, but this really is the most important moment in climate politics that we're likely to live through, and we're blowing it. Everything I said here is still true: volts.wtf/p/crunch-time-…
Good to see so many commenters getting right on the job of establishing that it's not the Democrats' fault. That's the key thing here. If they can hold themselves blameless, then maybe the storms & droughts won't kill as many people.
Read 5 tweets
Mar 2
The war in Ukraine is such an obvious illustration of the need to transition off fossil fuels -- more specifically, it highlights the urgency of passing the climate provisions in BBB. It'd be cool if Dems had a communications machine that could blast out that message.
Rather than hearing any Democrat -- much less all Democrats -- making that argument, instead everywhere I look I see Joe fucking Manchin talking about increasing domestic oil and gas production.
Think about it: in the same week, we get Russian aggression enabled by fossil fuels & an IPCC report frantically warning of the dangers of climate change. The geopolitical, economic, & moral arguments for clean-energy transition, all in a tidy package.
Read 5 tweets
Feb 18
Just to clear this up once & for all: the people who work on & with renewable energy are aware that it is variable.
There are lots & lots of interesting discussions to be had about the variability of renewable energy & how to accommodate it & ensure reliability. None of them begin with the assumption that your interlocutor doesn't know the sun goes down.
Tools to accommodate variability in a net-zero⚡️system:
* short-term storage
* long-term storage
* hydrogen & hydrogen-derived fuels
* biogas & other biofuels
* (natgas or biomass) + CCS
* nuclear (existing &/or advanced)
* hydro
* geothermal
* demand-side (see next tweet)
Read 7 tweets
Feb 17
I wasn't going to respond to this aggravating AP article, but ... it is my nature. I wanna make two quick points on it. apnews.com/article/joe-bi…
First -- yes I am predictable -- it is utterly bizarre to write on this subject & barely mention right-wing media, which has utterly captured rural America & is filling its head with lies & conspiracies. There's no way to understand what's happening without understanding that.
The "Dems" that people in these areas hate bear virtually no resemblance to real-life Dems. It doesn't matter what Fetterman or any other ostentatiously in-touch-with-working-people candidate says -- they'll never hear it! They'll just hear lies about him. That's the root of it.
Read 12 tweets

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