My crazy summer

Explanation for a light August.

Hello beloved Volts subscribers! This is just a note to let you all know that, content-wise, Volts is functionally taking the month of August off.

But I won’t be lounging about. Oh no. In fact, I’m leaving for a whirlwind tour of Australia in two weeks, where I’ll be giving a couple of talks and speaking to some media and maybe recording a podcast and who knows what else. Sydney, Canberra, Melbourne, and Brisbane, oh my!

I don’t give talks very often, so I’ve got to come up with a few, and I don’t leave the house very often, so I have to buy some adult clothes, and I don’t travel very often, so I have to figure out how to survive a 24-hour travel day with two three-hour layovers, and between now and then, as life would have it, I’m having another surgery (don’t worry, nothing big this time), so I’m a little frazzled and will not be producing podcasts on the typical schedule.

Why am I going to Australia? Among other things, I’ll be speaking at a side event in the 49th Australian Labor Party National Conference, explaining to Australian policymakers what they can learn from the Inflation Reduction Act and encouraging them to pass something equally (or more) ambitious. It’s hard to pass up an opportunity to push a recently elected left-leaning government, in control after 10 years of being shut out, to go bigger on clean energy. It’s practically my thing.

All of this is possible because of my paid subscribers, who I love like family, each and every one. My gratitude is boundless.

Production should resume (and be even cooler!) in September.

Meanwhile, here’s a picture of our 15-year-old cat Ani, as cute and cuddly as ever.

Anikan Roberts (photo: Jennifer Roberts)