@katearonoff.bsky.social
staff writer @ The New Republic
@katearonoff.bsky.socialI understand that everyone’s just a squirrel trying to get a nut but it’s feeling glaringly obvious who is being paid by a guy with a very particular axe to grind
@katearonoff.bsky.socialAlgorithm on X really making it seem like permitting reform is a tertiary goal in a campaign to shit on like 4 non-profits
@lisalsong.bsky.socialReposted by @katearonoff.bsky.socialThis is very wonky and utterly infuriating.
Logging companies (w/help from IKEA!) say *literally cutting down trees* should count as carbon negative and be credited as good for the planet. And they might get away with it.
@katearonoff.bsky.socialSick of people pretending these guys have an interesting/novel/defensible moral economy!!
@katearonoff.bsky.socialUltimately just not that mysterious why guys who've reheated the Gospel of Wealth with fake math, want legal impunity and believe economic growth will solve every problem known to man also get along with Trump newrepublic.com/article/2161...
@jonathancohn.bsky.socialReposted by @katearonoff.bsky.socialAstute comment at the end of this that a big problem in the world of voluntary corporate accounting/standards is that it always had as a backdrop a belief that binding regulations might come in the future. And they are looking less likely.
@katearonoff.bsky.socialI wrote about why dismantling fuel efficiency standards may not actually be good for a US auto industry that is rapidly losing ground against more fuel efficient cars newrepublic.com/article/2159...
@katearonoff.bsky.socialIf you are for some reason interested in the perils of industries being allowed to self-regulate then please enjoy this ~3,000 word story I just wrote about a case where that is actively going really, really bad newrepublic.com/article/2157...
@ghgpolicy.orgReposted by @katearonoff.bsky.socialI don't think self-regulation can be managed without the credible threat of government policy.
As @katearonoff.bsky.social writes, it's too easy for companies to walk away from purely voluntary regulation.
@ghgpolicy.orgReposted by @katearonoff.bsky.socialI think this has a lot of explanatory power, at least with respect to WRI. (WBCSD isn't hiding its industry-aligned advocacy.) But there's more to it. Some people genuinely believe that theoretical accounting principles require outcomes that make no physical, scientific, or policy sense.
@katearonoff.bsky.socialReally helpful thread on my piece from a few days ago from @greenprofgreen.bsky.social, who may know more about the GHG Protocol than anyone on earth!
@katearonoff.bsky.socialRising interest rates and a fuel crisis with no foreseeable end will surely work out well for automakers that have opted to hyper-specialize in making luxury trucks and SUVs
@katearonoff.bsky.socialCan't think of a better time to be betting on diesel and V-8 engines
@katearonoff.bsky.socialAmodei and Altman are probably not building a Machine God. They might reasonably want to stop spending hundreds of billions of dollars a year making machines they don’t fully understand, which they also believe could kill everyone newrepublic.com/article/2154...
@katearonoff.bsky.socialNot saying this is what's happening, but it'd obviously be strategic for AI companies to push for something called AI safety policy while Republicans still control Congress and the White House
@dannygroner.bsky.socialReposted by @katearonoff.bsky.social"Well downstream of all that, local data center activists are tapping into a cross-partisan frustration with politicians of all stripes for—as they see it—prioritizing corporations’ interests over those of constituents who feel blindsided by the massive new developments cropping up around them."
@monicapotts.bsky.socialReposted by @katearonoff.bsky.socialOne thing that strikes me is about data centers is that communities that oppose them might have been able to organize earlier if we had robust local newspapers with reporters who had been reporting on the early approval and planning processes from the start. newrepublic.com/article/2149...
@katearonoff.bsky.socialDefinitely! Local papers have been really hollowed out there over the last decade, meaning anti-DC activists are the ones filing open records requests and piecing together basic information about how and why the project is being built
@katearonoff.bsky.socialI spent a bunch of this summer writing a feature for
@newrepublic.com about the fight over the hyperscale data center being built down the road from my parents' house in South Jersey, looking at some of the many reasons why people hate data centers newrepublic.com/article/2149...
@katearonoff.bsky.socialWhat a happy coincidence that they got so much funding from Meta board members
