I'm hiring for a channel manager position, hybrid in MN, $83k-$93k salary range. This role will lead new construction and high-performance (e.g. triple-pane) window relationship building, business development, etc.
Some folks that may have applicable skills include people familiar with home ratings (such as HERS ratings), or in business development or sales experience (especially in the window or construction industries).
Hi, I recently realized I have a question related to the Urban Archipelago (the Dan Savage episode). Certainly improving our cities is important, but it seems to me that some cities are more important politically than others, namely the ones in swing/purple states, for example Charlotte, North Carolina and Phoenix, Arizona. If those cities can grow more (and more densely), they have a better chance of turning those states blue, at the very least for state-wide elections. It seems they are dealing with the same issues all cities currently are (NIMBYs, zoning issues, etc.), but I was wondering if anyone has been studying them in particular. I'm also wondering if national Democrats are focusing on helping to improve those cities, since it seems like good strategy. Thanks!
My general impression is that purple states (NC, Arizona, Georgia) are building, deep blue states are not. Or, more broadly, the sunbelt is building, the coasts are not. Maybe those swing states don't need the help of national Dems...
On March 7's Weekend Edition Saturday about data centers and energy use, I was dismayed and surprised the guy from “CleanView” didn’t just say, yes, data centers can and should providing for their own energy by using clean energy (BYONCE). He even repeated the old canard; solar only works when it’s sunny, wind when it's windy. Never once said the word BATTERY.
What is your opinion on this? Also sources I can use to send feedback to NPR about this. Thanks!
If you like the Volts Podcast, I humbly suggest you may be interested in checking out Financial Climate (http://financialclimate.fm), hosted by me, Alex Roth. It's a podcast for conversations with the most insightful investors, innovators, and experts at the frontier of climate and finance.
The latest episode is about how military conflict contributes to climate change, with Ellie Kinney of the UK-based Conflict and Environment Observatory.
Other recent episodes include:
- Richard Pennay, CEO of Aon Securities on catastrophe bonds and their role in climate adaptation and resilience
- Climate threats to the $4 trillion muni bond market, with Tom Doe, founder and former long-time CEO of Municipal Market Analytics
- Catherine Bracy, founder and CEO of TechEquity and Author of World Eaters: How Venture Capital is Cannibalizing the Economy
- Climate risk expert Carolyn Kousky on the role of insurance in managing a future of increasingly severe weather disasters
Check out my fun and funny clean energy newsletter, Green Juice (www.greenjuice.wtf)! We're an unapologetically Ecosocialist publication dedicated to building a big tent climate movement. About to hit our one-year anniversary and want to keep it going, so please give us a chance to win you over!
I just don't agree with the framing around that "people think voters are more conservative than they are" piece... Like, depending on what you mean by that, it may be true. But a lot of Left folks are bought into claims that the electorate is much more _liberal_ than it actually is, and don't understand the attitudes and beliefs of even their own _base_ voters. Like, a lot of Left folks are still saying that the institutional party somehow "stole" the primary from Sanders, when in fact what happened is that Sanders did great with college-educated White liberals, but failed to appeal to more culturally-conservative and economically-moderate Black and Hispanic voters, and so he _just lost_. He was losing on the delegate count solidly, before any "superdelegates" were in the mix. (Plus in 2016, Hillary actually out-flanked him _to the left_ on culture/identity issues, which helped her blunt his advantage with the more ideological-liberal side of the party. If you go back and read Yglesias about Sanders, he pretty consistently talked about how Sanders' message of economic solidarity was a winner relative to Hillary's "we do this for the women, that for the 'Latinx' voters, this other thing for the gays" approach.)
One example: Some lefties love to point at how you can get solid numbers of people to say they favor a single payer healthcare system. There are totally reasonable ways you could raise taxes to cover Medicare for All, and it's clearly true that most people would come out ahead -- the amount their taxes would go up is less than what they'd save on health insurance premiums and out-of-pocket payments. Especially if your Medicare for All is about as generous as Canada's, not as generous as what Sanders actually proposed. But as soon as you actually talk about any of those funding mechanisms, you start losing people. Then there's the fact that this likely means putting existing plans out of business (perhaps private insurers can still exist to sell some kind of supplemental coverage, but they're not going to operate the way they do now) you start losing people. Unions get upset. People get nervous about the "can I keep my current doctor" stuff. There is not, in fact, a solid majority of American voters for _any specific version_ of Medicare for All -- the devil is in the details, and that's why Obamacare was the kludge it was.
Another example: The Sunshine Movement folks keep insisting that there's a majority of people, or maybe just a majority of young people, who care so much about climate that they want a fracking ban, or whatever else. And it _just ain't so_. The large majority _does not_ want to bear any significant cost to help the climate. IMHO the voters are _wrong_ about this, we _should_ be willing to pay a lot to avert future climate costs. But that's the reality you have to deal with. That's what drove the politics of the IRA -- investing in the alternatives that will eventually put gas out of business (or at least divert it into being a feedstock for other chemical processes like producing fertilizer, rather than getting burned for energy), rather than doing stuff that makes fossil energy scarcer and more expensive.
In some cases, things are just more complicated than many activists want to accept. They want to reduce people down to "pro-choice or pro-life", or "allies vs homophobic anti-trans bigots". People's actual views are more complicated than that, and constructing a poll that gives an accurate impression of those views, that politicians can use to inform how they talk about these issues, is _hard_. Lakshya Jain is doing great work on this. I mentioned this recent piece from the Argument in the comments on the Reactionary Centrism piece, but it's worth repeating: https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/against-thoughtless-moderation
I'm generally of the opinion that a) most voters don't know what they believe until conservatives tell them; and b) most Americans are generally sympathetic to other people until politics gets in the way.
But (as a proponent of universal healthcare myself) the Left's obsession with "single-payer" drives me crazy. I see so many people demanding "socialized medicine like Europe" without having the faintest clue what European healthcare systems actually look like.
May I take space to say what other dog lovers are certainly thinking a propos of the photo Dave included of his 2 "goobers": they are so stinkin cute!!! Thanks for the endorphin release=much needed to continue to put one foot in front of the other in these trying times. I have forwarded several of your podcasts over the years to true believers as well as those who "might/could" (we're New Englanders but learned this useful phrase when we lived in NC) be persuaded. Just renewed my subscription. Thanks, Dave, for what you do and how you do it.
"The Supreme Court announced on Monday, Feb 23, 2026, that it had agreed to hear a major climate lawsuit in which the oil industry is claiming it shouldn’t be sued in state courts over its role in global warming. The outcome could have wide bearing on dozens of other lawsuits around the country.
The court said it would hear arguments on a petition by Exxon Mobil and Suncor, a Canadian energy giant, in a lawsuit brought by the city and county of Boulder, Colo. The suit, first filed in 2018, sought to hold the companies liable for the effects of climate change, citing state laws."
My sources are saying, lawn signs protesting the administration are up in Sun City West, AZ. That's something. 😄
My legislature in NM ran out of time to vote on Plug-in Solar. I'm hell bent on installing a system for *somebody*. Is Colorado still in play? Will I have to go to Utah?
That Plug-in solar bill tracker is a great help! Just submitted comment to my reps here in Washington in support.
The comments from the AZ legislature fit the vibe I felt when visiting Phoenix two weeks ago. There's such a weird contradiction of culture down there, where people are very "freedom/don't tread on me" in some ways (the highway, with aggressive drivers and motorcyclists without helmets, gives a real Mad Max vibe). But at the same time, there's this weaponized high-control homogeneity to the suburbs. E.g. You can only paint your house the correct shade of beige.
It's madness to me that rooftop solar is the exception there, not the norm. Especially when the objections are about aesthetics and that it might offend the sightline of somebody passing by.
Please get rid of that electric buzz you've been using in your podcasts when you break in with the non-commercial. It's horrible. It's why I stopped subscribing.
We can learn a lot from Ukraine's innovation in war-fighting (altho I doubt our current "warrior ethos" twits will), but we can also learn from Ukraine's weaknesses.
Kyiv has been under direct missile attack for six weeks, aimed primarily at energy infrastructure.
My question is, who if anyone is looking at ways to "harden" America's energy system from such attack?
Much of our population and economic production is on or near our coasts, well within missile range of submarines outside our territorial waters. North America may look isolated on a globe or map. That doesn't mean we're not exposed.
--- CLIMATE JOBS & OPPORTUNITIES ---
I'm hiring for a channel manager position, hybrid in MN, $83k-$93k salary range. This role will lead new construction and high-performance (e.g. triple-pane) window relationship building, business development, etc.
Some folks that may have applicable skills include people familiar with home ratings (such as HERS ratings), or in business development or sales experience (especially in the window or construction industries).
Reach out with any questions! More info thatta way -> https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/4375250163/?refId=luo2Bg62R0CabLABQHP0Aw%3D%3D&trackingId=luo2Bg62R0CabLABQHP0Aw%3D%3D
--- QUESTIONS ---
Hi, I recently realized I have a question related to the Urban Archipelago (the Dan Savage episode). Certainly improving our cities is important, but it seems to me that some cities are more important politically than others, namely the ones in swing/purple states, for example Charlotte, North Carolina and Phoenix, Arizona. If those cities can grow more (and more densely), they have a better chance of turning those states blue, at the very least for state-wide elections. It seems they are dealing with the same issues all cities currently are (NIMBYs, zoning issues, etc.), but I was wondering if anyone has been studying them in particular. I'm also wondering if national Democrats are focusing on helping to improve those cities, since it seems like good strategy. Thanks!
Noah Smith's recent Substack post includes a chart (under item #2) indicating that Phoenix and Charlotte (and Raleigh) are both building apartments at a rate higher than the national average. Link: https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/roundup-78-roboliberalism?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web
My general impression is that purple states (NC, Arizona, Georgia) are building, deep blue states are not. Or, more broadly, the sunbelt is building, the coasts are not. Maybe those swing states don't need the help of national Dems...
Listen to this:
https://www.npr.org/2026/03/07/nx-s1-5727698/ai-and-power-generation
On March 7's Weekend Edition Saturday about data centers and energy use, I was dismayed and surprised the guy from “CleanView” didn’t just say, yes, data centers can and should providing for their own energy by using clean energy (BYONCE). He even repeated the old canard; solar only works when it’s sunny, wind when it's windy. Never once said the word BATTERY.
What is your opinion on this? Also sources I can use to send feedback to NPR about this. Thanks!
--- SHARE WORK, ASK FOR HELP, FIND COLLABORATORS ---
If you like the Volts Podcast, I humbly suggest you may be interested in checking out Financial Climate (http://financialclimate.fm), hosted by me, Alex Roth. It's a podcast for conversations with the most insightful investors, innovators, and experts at the frontier of climate and finance.
The latest episode is about how military conflict contributes to climate change, with Ellie Kinney of the UK-based Conflict and Environment Observatory.
Other recent episodes include:
- Richard Pennay, CEO of Aon Securities on catastrophe bonds and their role in climate adaptation and resilience
- Climate threats to the $4 trillion muni bond market, with Tom Doe, founder and former long-time CEO of Municipal Market Analytics
- Catherine Bracy, founder and CEO of TechEquity and Author of World Eaters: How Venture Capital is Cannibalizing the Economy
- Climate risk expert Carolyn Kousky on the role of insurance in managing a future of increasingly severe weather disasters
Thank you!
Check out my fun and funny clean energy newsletter, Green Juice (www.greenjuice.wtf)! We're an unapologetically Ecosocialist publication dedicated to building a big tent climate movement. About to hit our one-year anniversary and want to keep it going, so please give us a chance to win you over!
--- CLIMATE EVENTS & MEETUPS ---
--- EVERYTHING ELSE ---
I just don't agree with the framing around that "people think voters are more conservative than they are" piece... Like, depending on what you mean by that, it may be true. But a lot of Left folks are bought into claims that the electorate is much more _liberal_ than it actually is, and don't understand the attitudes and beliefs of even their own _base_ voters. Like, a lot of Left folks are still saying that the institutional party somehow "stole" the primary from Sanders, when in fact what happened is that Sanders did great with college-educated White liberals, but failed to appeal to more culturally-conservative and economically-moderate Black and Hispanic voters, and so he _just lost_. He was losing on the delegate count solidly, before any "superdelegates" were in the mix. (Plus in 2016, Hillary actually out-flanked him _to the left_ on culture/identity issues, which helped her blunt his advantage with the more ideological-liberal side of the party. If you go back and read Yglesias about Sanders, he pretty consistently talked about how Sanders' message of economic solidarity was a winner relative to Hillary's "we do this for the women, that for the 'Latinx' voters, this other thing for the gays" approach.)
One example: Some lefties love to point at how you can get solid numbers of people to say they favor a single payer healthcare system. There are totally reasonable ways you could raise taxes to cover Medicare for All, and it's clearly true that most people would come out ahead -- the amount their taxes would go up is less than what they'd save on health insurance premiums and out-of-pocket payments. Especially if your Medicare for All is about as generous as Canada's, not as generous as what Sanders actually proposed. But as soon as you actually talk about any of those funding mechanisms, you start losing people. Then there's the fact that this likely means putting existing plans out of business (perhaps private insurers can still exist to sell some kind of supplemental coverage, but they're not going to operate the way they do now) you start losing people. Unions get upset. People get nervous about the "can I keep my current doctor" stuff. There is not, in fact, a solid majority of American voters for _any specific version_ of Medicare for All -- the devil is in the details, and that's why Obamacare was the kludge it was.
Another example: The Sunshine Movement folks keep insisting that there's a majority of people, or maybe just a majority of young people, who care so much about climate that they want a fracking ban, or whatever else. And it _just ain't so_. The large majority _does not_ want to bear any significant cost to help the climate. IMHO the voters are _wrong_ about this, we _should_ be willing to pay a lot to avert future climate costs. But that's the reality you have to deal with. That's what drove the politics of the IRA -- investing in the alternatives that will eventually put gas out of business (or at least divert it into being a feedstock for other chemical processes like producing fertilizer, rather than getting burned for energy), rather than doing stuff that makes fossil energy scarcer and more expensive.
In some cases, things are just more complicated than many activists want to accept. They want to reduce people down to "pro-choice or pro-life", or "allies vs homophobic anti-trans bigots". People's actual views are more complicated than that, and constructing a poll that gives an accurate impression of those views, that politicians can use to inform how they talk about these issues, is _hard_. Lakshya Jain is doing great work on this. I mentioned this recent piece from the Argument in the comments on the Reactionary Centrism piece, but it's worth repeating: https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/against-thoughtless-moderation
Sarah McBride's remarks on trans rights ( https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/17/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-sarah-mcbride.html ) also should be required reading / listening before people critique Dems on culture war stuff.
And look where that got Hilary Clinton and us.
Yep. The Great Awokening -- despite making a lot of morally-correct points -- has overall been a disaster for the causes it sought to advance.
I'm generally of the opinion that a) most voters don't know what they believe until conservatives tell them; and b) most Americans are generally sympathetic to other people until politics gets in the way.
But (as a proponent of universal healthcare myself) the Left's obsession with "single-payer" drives me crazy. I see so many people demanding "socialized medicine like Europe" without having the faintest clue what European healthcare systems actually look like.
May I take space to say what other dog lovers are certainly thinking a propos of the photo Dave included of his 2 "goobers": they are so stinkin cute!!! Thanks for the endorphin release=much needed to continue to put one foot in front of the other in these trying times. I have forwarded several of your podcasts over the years to true believers as well as those who "might/could" (we're New Englanders but learned this useful phrase when we lived in NC) be persuaded. Just renewed my subscription. Thanks, Dave, for what you do and how you do it.
"The Supreme Court announced on Monday, Feb 23, 2026, that it had agreed to hear a major climate lawsuit in which the oil industry is claiming it shouldn’t be sued in state courts over its role in global warming. The outcome could have wide bearing on dozens of other lawsuits around the country.
The court said it would hear arguments on a petition by Exxon Mobil and Suncor, a Canadian energy giant, in a lawsuit brought by the city and county of Boulder, Colo. The suit, first filed in 2018, sought to hold the companies liable for the effects of climate change, citing state laws."
My sources are saying, lawn signs protesting the administration are up in Sun City West, AZ. That's something. 😄
My legislature in NM ran out of time to vote on Plug-in Solar. I'm hell bent on installing a system for *somebody*. Is Colorado still in play? Will I have to go to Utah?
That Plug-in solar bill tracker is a great help! Just submitted comment to my reps here in Washington in support.
The comments from the AZ legislature fit the vibe I felt when visiting Phoenix two weeks ago. There's such a weird contradiction of culture down there, where people are very "freedom/don't tread on me" in some ways (the highway, with aggressive drivers and motorcyclists without helmets, gives a real Mad Max vibe). But at the same time, there's this weaponized high-control homogeneity to the suburbs. E.g. You can only paint your house the correct shade of beige.
It's madness to me that rooftop solar is the exception there, not the norm. Especially when the objections are about aesthetics and that it might offend the sightline of somebody passing by.
Please get rid of that electric buzz you've been using in your podcasts when you break in with the non-commercial. It's horrible. It's why I stopped subscribing.
Bill - the buzz is here to stay, apologies!
Also dislike the buzz (not enough to unsubscribe) and wish it was not here to stay
Any progress on eliminating the announcement for paid subscribers?
Not yet, still waiting for Substack to make this possible without splitting the comments section into two separate communities :/
Put this on the list of enshittification
QUESTION:
We can learn a lot from Ukraine's innovation in war-fighting (altho I doubt our current "warrior ethos" twits will), but we can also learn from Ukraine's weaknesses.
Kyiv has been under direct missile attack for six weeks, aimed primarily at energy infrastructure.
My question is, who if anyone is looking at ways to "harden" America's energy system from such attack?
Much of our population and economic production is on or near our coasts, well within missile range of submarines outside our territorial waters. North America may look isolated on a globe or map. That doesn't mean we're not exposed.
Clearly I missed a critical point: You have TWO dogs now?