Let me jump on this wagon and take a little of Zeke's heat. For me AI works like a research assistant. How else would I get notes from a Copenhagen city council meeting? But like any junior researcher, I always insist on citations. Which I check. But the acceleration is huge, and I do the writing.
As a rare climate scientist working in Silicon Valley, I've been drinking from the AI firehose a lot more than my peers. I thought it would be helpful to lay out my experiences of both the promise and pitfalls of using AI to accelerate scientific research:
When I was a child I poured through National Geographic, amazed by the world’s diversity. Too often we lose track of diversity in energy planning - and lose the opportunities diversity creates. We need everything, hopefully in the places they work best.
#energysky
open.substack.com/pub/ndeich/p...
When I first started investigating CO2 I assumed this factor would be well known. It wasn't. Thanks for measuring it in a key location.
Two red tailed hawks apparently having sex in a tree. The male is on top. One of them was squawking pretty loud!
Two red tailed hawks apparently having sex in a tree. The male is on top. One of them was squawking pretty loud!
Two red tailed hawks apparently having sex in a tree. The male is on top. One of them was squawking pretty loud!
The male red tail stayed around while the female flew off. This is the male in a tree, facing us.
I caught these two red tails making little red tails. The girl flew away but the boy stayed to strut a little...🪶
Four orange California poppy flowers. One has a bumblebee grabbing some pollen from it.
Always one of my favorite days of the year - first poppies!
two northern flicker woodpeckers facing each other and pointing their beaks toward the sky.
I believe this is the mating ritual of the Northern Flicker. They are 'skypointing' as I have seen larger birds do. There was a group of 6 or 8 in this tree – this pair seems to have hit it off. 🪶
Sound advice from David.
And as heretical as it may seem, don't start your talk by thanking anyone. For one minute you have the complete attention of the audience - use it to tell them why you are talking to them. Buy the next five minutes of attention.
Both of these show respect to the audience.
Thanks Brian!
What is ATB? Citation?
Bravo Robert. CDR investors and hypesters have pushed rapid growth, but as you say, “the story is not rapid scale, but proving, learning and earning trust”. Many companies have a toe in the water. They need to know CDR works and is acceptable.
open.substack.com/pub/marginal...
Map identifying the approximate regions where various Indigenous groups lived in North America in 1776.
The Utah Historical Society just produced a new, excellent map of "The Peoples of North America in 1776." Great resource for anyone teaching, writing, presenting about Native peoples as part of their 250th work. america250.utah.gov/power-of-pla...
A male wood duck swims behind some cattail reeds.
A male wood duck.
Always excited to see a wood duck. They are so shy I would never see them except for the long lens.
A river otter with a fish in its mouth pokes up through duckweed.
a view of a stream and sycamore trees in the winter. in the far end of the stream is an accumulation of duckweed that had two otters fishing in it.
I was birding in my local park when a river otter poked up through the duckweed. I didn't see the fish until I got home and zoomed in! The long view is the pool where I saw the otter, in the distance.
A 60% jump in EU LNG imports from the U.S. in 2025 managed to drive up greenhouse gas emissions on both sides of the Atlantic - in the EU from the burning of the gas, and in the U.S. by prompting a shift to coal-fired generation as prices rose.
Two decades ago, the European Union got basically none of its power from wind and solar. Now, those are its leading sources of electricity.
Brilliant option. Seems like an easy win.
This is Tufte level 5 stuff here. Incredible information and easy to see.
A cedar wax wing bird holding a red toyon berry in its beak.
A cedar wax wing bird holding a red toyon berry in its beak.
Occasionally flock of robins or cedar wax wings (or both) descend on my toyon bushes and spend a few days eating all the berries. It is one of my favorite events of the year! Today it is all cedar wax wings – about 20 of them. #birds
@ieefa-northamerica.bsky.social just launched a North American LNG Export Tracker: ieefa.org/north-americ... 🔌💡
Robert focuses on local control of things corporations can directly change, and separates them from GHG emissions that are outside direct control. I find this more informative and useful than the scope 1,2,3 discussion which muddles the discussion in many cases.
open.substack.com/pub/marginal...
Photo of Mount Ranier, taken on a flight to Seattle from SFO, 19 July 2025.
Where would we be today if all of the money that went into carbon offsets, and all of the effort that went into shaming people for their personal carbon emissions, went instead to supporting politicians and policies that would effect systemic change (e.g., energy policy, emissions disincentives)?
Was that snark or support?
My experience has been that many people think there is a pot of climate solution money that they should get to control. Which is pretty authoritarian, even if it was real. And we've seen that authoritarians do not spend a dime on climate.
Instead, new ideas bring new money to the table.
I believe that is because much of social media is grumpy people sitting in a bar – except they are alone at home.
I really try to discipline myself to only point out ways to make things better, rather than how much they suck as currently designed. Which is hard.
Chart showing percentage of GDP spent in US on firewood since 1774. From Nat Bullard https://www.nathanielbullard.com/presentations
200 charts in @nathanielbullard.com 's annual energy assessment, but this is the one that surprised me. We spent 25% of our money on firewood in the 1800s? That's stunning.
www.nathanielbullard.com/presentations
We took a look at the UK's biggest ever offshore wind auction, and dug into what it will mean for energy bills and the "clean power 2030" plan ⬇️
Unfortunately this kind of counterfactual analysis is routinely ignored - not even rejected - by those that oppose dealing with climate change. Those who want to reduce climate change don't need the extra motivation, although it is useful to confirm our priors.
I think transparency in all climate technology is lower than we need. CDR is at an early stage where that is particularly troublesome.
One solution is for governments to require this transparency along with any funding or purchases. This can be done without compromising intellectual property.
Thanks for reporting progress. Many people work hard on important issues like this. We need to let them know when it makes a difference!
