Good morning from the steakhouse town of Kansas City, where I’ve got a couple thoughts about plant-forward eating before my event tonight at the public library. 1 The first thought, inspired by the delicious @ImpossibleFoods breakfast sandwich I just ate @Starbucks, is a bit Captain Obvious: Plant-based meat alternatives will only attract enough customers to help the climate if they’re as delicious as animal meat. Most of them aren’t. 2

When I was working on my Everglades book, I fell down a fascinating rabbit hole researching Jimmy Carter’s politically suicidal but totally righteous effort to kill a whole bunch of useless porkbarrel water projects. It might have doomed his presidency! A quick 🧵 1 Carter was an engineer with a green streak and an admirably priggish attitude about DC backroom dealmaking. He was personally offended by the way powerful congressmen used the Army Corps of Engineers to build wasteful and destructive boondoggles in their districts and states. 2

This is hilarious, and it's going viral because Trump obviously has no idea what he's talking about. But if you're curious what he's talking about, here's a quick thread about the insane politics of farm country! 1

https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1681658456636309504

The "CO2 pipeline" the lady mentioned is a pipeline that would transfer carbon dioxide captured at corn ethanol plants to a place where it could be injected deep underground. It's climate action, if you squint. But man, you really have to squint. 2

I did some fun reporting last week in the Bay Area, checking out companies making meat and dairy products without animals. I ate some of the future of food. Here’s a thread with some of the cool stuff I got to try! 1 My first stop was @theEVERYcompany, which makes egg-white protein through fermentation, kind of like brewing beer. They made me this yummy macaroon, indistinguishable from a real one. The egg protein is only a small part of it, but an important functional part. 2

I often disagree with ⁦@GHGGuru⁩ but this is a bogus NYT/Greenpeace hit job. Frank is not hiding anything. The implication is scientists shouldn’t do advocacy, but of course we all know some kinds of advocacy are uncontroversial and celebrated. nytimes.com/2022/10/31/cli… “There is no indication Dr. Mitloehner or the Clear Center violated disclosure requirements.” Then WTF is the point of this hatchet job attacking him for advocating positions the NYT and Greenpeace don’t like?

Sometimes I think I should go to temple more than twice a year, but every year the first story they tell is that ghastly business where Isaac is like, hey Dad, I thought we were gonna do a sacrifice, how come there’s no ram? and then twice a year feels like plenty. The whole story is gruesome but somehow what gets me is imagining the awkward walk down the mountain afterwards. "Gee, Dad, I sure am glad God sent that lamb. You looked kind of scary with that knife!"

I said it, Biden said it, Obama said it, all the climate wonks are saying it: The IRA is a BFD. It’s not an original thought. But this is a mind-blowing moment for a lot of us who obsess about the climate. Here’s a quick thread about why it hit me so hard. 1

https://twitter.com/climavorespod/status/1559654519679553536

I was, like most people, late to the climate issue. And I had no excuse; I read OG @billmckibben’s amazing The End of Nature in the early 90s, but I was too dumb or inertial to take it seriously. Global warming just seemed like a fringe enviro issue. 2

The main pushback to my (admittedly provocative) EAT MOR CHIKN column about food and climate tradeoffs is that we should all just go vegan. Which would help! But I live in the real world, and I have a few thoughts. 1 canarymedia.com/articles/food-… First of all, yes, going vegan is the best diet for the climate. Interestingly, going vegetarian isn't usually better than just cutting out beef, because the chicken/pork often gets replaced by slightly worse dairy. But cutting out all animal products is definitely ideal. 2

Cute and helpless manatees are starving to death because the Everglades ecosystem is still collapsing. I've obviously failed to get people to pay attention but maybe these adorable fatsos can do it. nytimes.com/2022/04/09/us/… (Thanks for covering it @PatriciaMazzei) Florida politicians used to think they had to do stuff to help the Everglades to get reelected. Now they think it's enough to just say stuff, and they're probably right. Especially since some Florida environmental groups treat them like Rachel Carson whenever they say stuff.

I'm going on Facebook Live at noon to talk about my @CanaryMediaInc column about how the food-climate problem is going to be even harder to solve than the energy-climate problem. The new IPCC report gets at this, so I thought I'd do a quick thread! 1 canarymedia.com/articles/food-… The basic problem is that we'll need to grow 7 quadrillion extra calories to feed the world by 2050, enough to produce an extra 800 Olive Garden bread sticks every year for every human being alive. And we'll need to do it without deforesting the planet. 2

It sucks. He sucks. But since the climate depends on it, Ds need to take Manchin’s (incoherent, contradictory) concerns seriously and give him a way to declare victory while voting yes. It might have to wait until Biden can pretend he whipped inflation. But whatever it takes. The WH denouncing his betrayal does not seem super-smart. They should wait a bit, claim to have decided on second thought that Manchin was right, and pass whatever the hell he was willing to pass last week, even if it “omitted several key priorities” or whatever they said.

It’s too bad if the senator from WV isn’t willing to pass a strong CEPP but (unpopular opinion alert) Democrats should figure out the best climate bill he is willing to pass and pass it. Better is better than worse - perfect left the building when Susan Collins got re-elected. There is nothing to be gained by screaming at a WV senator for acting like a WV Senator. Fatalistic “last chance” rhetoric doesn’t help either. Make the most of this chance and then start working on the next one.

The new IPCC report is very bleak. The world needs to act. It's most important that governments and corporations act, but individual action matters, too. So here's a quick thread on a few non-pointless things you can do. 1 ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/ Remarkably, it's now controversial to suggest that individual action matters. I was called a shill for Big Oil when I made that case. But it's crazy to tell people that climate is an emergency and also that their individual contributions don't matter. 2 politico.com/news/magazine/…

This cool ⁦@propublica⁩ @StarAdvertiser joint on Hawaii’s vanishing beaches won best @sejorg feature. (I was a judge.) Congrats also to ⁦@noahgshannon⁩ ⁦@beecycles⁩ ⁦@ptr_yeung⁩ ⁦@voxdotcom⁩ & the great ⁦@BillWeirCNN⁩. projects.propublica.org/hawaii-beach-l… Also: I absolutely adored this insane @VICE feature on the invasion of the fire ants. My fellow judges didn't, but I think it's art, an amazing glimpse of the future of environmental journalism, so I wanted to give it some love: video.vice.com/en_us/video/fi…

One odd thing about Rahm getting considered for Transportation Secretary is that in 2009, Rahm almost singlehandedly killed a $450B Democratic transportation bill to avoid a gas tax debate - in my opinion, the worst political and policy blunder of the Obama era. It was crazy. Hours before Jim Oberstar was going to unveil the bill, which actually had some bipartisan support, Rahm made Ray LaHood tell him to pull the plug. It was supposed to be the crowning glory of Oberstar's career - instead, he lost in the anti-Obama wave in 2010.

My book on the Obama stimulus had a bunch of stories about @RonaldKlain, who managed it really well in his sane, efficient, beleaguered way. Some are very relevant for his new job; some are just fun. I'll share a few... 1 Most of Obamaworld initially assumed a jobs bill would be great politics, but Klain was worried even before Obama took office. 2

Just got off the phone with a Dem #'s guy who gave me a pretty plausible case for Biden getting 305 EVs. His case: There are 2.2M mail ballots left in PA, overwhelmingly urban Ds. GA still has 200K-plus mail ballots left in Atlanta area. WI still has 200K in Milwaukee, also 80-20D. And MI votes are mostly Detroit mail.

So...Florida is going to be close. It always is! Should we do a little back-of-the-envelope math? 1

https://twitter.com/umichvoter99/status/1323678484493983746

R's have already gained a ton of votes on E-Day. They always do! At this rate they could end the day with a 200K-300K vote advantage over the Ds. Which ain't that much out of maybe 11.5M votes, but sure ain't nothing. 2

I'm not a smart Republican strategist like @Timodc but I learned some stuff reporting The New New Deal, and I think his great piece about why Republican politicians are sticking with Trump despite...everything...leaves something out. rollingstone.com/politics/polit… 1 The consultants Tim talked to all basically said Republican politicians have no choice but to stick with Trump because Republican voters love Trump, and they can't afford to lose any of their voters. Which is true. But it goes beyond that. 2

One of the main themes of my 2018 dive into The Villages was white power. politico.com/magazine/story… The American Legion post at The Villages (the nation's largest) stopped showing NFL games after Kaepernick. "Players taking a knee, that's bullshit!" said an 80-year-old retired stockbroker. "I'm with the president 100%: Throw your hand over your heart and protect the flag."

Here’s a thread about what Washington is doing with $2T of your money and what it reveals about Washington. If you prefer the storified version, I wrote about it ⁦@POLITICOMag⁩. 1 politico.com/news/magazine/… The craziest thing about the emergency pandemic relief package that Congress passed virtually unanimously and Trump signed Friday is that it doesn’t do the things the experts say are needed to stop the pandemic. 2