March 12, 2025
“In Bad Faith”
The DC Court that heard the defaation case brought by climate scientist Michael Mann against two bloggers has ruled today that Mann and his lawyers acted in “bad faith” during the case, by presenting false claims on multiple occasions related to Mann’s grant funding: Here, the Court finds, by clear and convincing evidence, that Dr. Mann, through…
March 12, 2025
How To Get Rid of a Tenured Professor
I was a tenured full professor at the University of Colorado Boulder for almost 24 years. At the end of 2024, I left. Officially, it was a voluntary departure. But I sure felt like I’d been pushed out. My story started in 2015, when Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D–Ariz.) asked the university to investigate me. He alleged that…
March 11, 2025
Welcome to the Era of Energy Realism
Every year for the past 15 years, JP Morgan publishes an outstanding annual energy report by Michael Cembalest. Last week JP Morgan published its 2025 edition and today I share five important figures from the many in the report, which I highly recommend. Cembalest’s top line: [A]fter $9 trillion globally over the last decade spent on wind, solar,…
March 5, 2025
Climate Misinformation from the United Nations
I was speaking to a non-US non-climate beat reporter yesterday about undeniable issues of scientific integrity in climate science and he asked a question about the climate science community that got my attention: “And no one cares? Aren’t scientists supposed to care about such things?” Lapses of scientific integrity in climate science have become normalized….
March 3, 2025
Thinking About Tanks
Speaking yesterday on Fox News, U.S. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick indicated that official data for U.S. GDP would now separate out government spending from the rest of the nation’s overall economic tally. “You know that governments historically have messed with GDP. They count government spending as part of GDP. So I’m going to separate those two…
February 28, 2025
Connecting the Dots on the Chips
Recent posts by fellow AEI scholars Klon Kitchen and Claude Barfield separately highlighted two important issues that must be considered together if the United States is to truly benefit from—and lead—the inevitable revolution driven by artificial intelligence technologies. Klon Kitchen articulately laid out the argument that the Trump Administration vision for AI as a pillar of…
February 27, 2025
Is the EPA “Endangerment Finding” Endangered?
Earlier today, The Washington Post reported that head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Lee Zeldin, has urged the Trump administration to rescind the EPA’s 2009 “endangerment finding” on greenhouse gases. The Post reports: Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin has privately urged the White House to strike down a scientific finding underpinning much of the federal government’s push to combat…
February 27, 2025
Is the EPA “Endangerment Finding” Endangered?
Earlier today, The Washington Post reported that head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Lee Zeldin, has urged the Trump administration to rescind the EPA’s 2009 “endangerment finding” on greenhouse gases. The Post reports: Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin has privately urged the White House to strike down a scientific finding underpinning much of the federal government’s push to combat…
February 27, 2025
Innovating Future Power Systems: From Vision to Action
The electricity sector is at an inflection point. The historical model of centralized, monopoly-provided electric service is under pressure from technological change, shifting market forces, evolving policy objectives, and changing consumer expectations. This transformation is accelerating. One fundamental question looms: how can power systems evolve to balance desired outcomes like reliability, resilience, affordability, and decarbonization…
February 25, 2025
Trump as Information Gatekeeper: Controlling Access, Controlling Narratives
President Donald Trump increasingly is playing the role of information gatekeeper, striving to control access to venues—technological and physical—where important expressive activities occur. By dictating access on his terms, Trump seeks to ensure that narratives serving his agenda can flourish, while speakers––for example, Associated Press and broadcast journalists––who don’t amplify it are punished. In doing…