In a week of deeply significant results, the flip of Texas to blue has got to be near the top in terms of long term impacts.
Texas is the energy engine of the United States, and has improbably become arguably the leader in renewable energy deployment, edging out California – not based on mandates, but by being as close to a free market as any electric grid in the world. In an environment where permitting is relatively easy and straightforward, entrepreneurial forces choose the best, quickest ways to generate power, and of course, renewables win out.
Even repeated attempts by the fossil-dominated Texas legislature to suppress renewables and boost gas have failed, as a coalition of urban greenies, rural landowners keen on property-rights, and chamber of commerce pragmatists has crushed those initiatives and kept clean energy on track.
“Christian and his class, they wrote a persuasive essay of their choosing. They mailed it off to a representative, a CEO, whoever the decision maker was to be influential in their persuasive essay points,” Emily said.
Christian says the topic he chose involved electric vehicles.
“We should have a $5,000 tax rebate. For electric cars, because they’re better than normal cars. They’re better for the environment. They pay less. And there’s no gas,” Christian said.
Christian says in April, he mailed the essay to Foxx in a Canterbury School envelope with 4th grade on the return address.
A few weeks later, the school received a letter from Representative Foxx via email.
We have heard calls in recent weeks from AI Tech leaders calling for more government regulation of their industry.
One reading of the statements is that the Tech Bros know they are in an economic death spiral, and hope to draw the taxpayers into taking them over and thereby bailing them out.
And there it is.
After today’s market crash, CNBC pundits discuss how an AI government bailout will happen for national security. pic.twitter.com/pJwvnl1fuM
Typically excellent PBS production describes important new research on the Atlantic Meriodonal Overturning Circulation (AMOC), which readers of these pages will know is the critical global circulation that is being destabilized by steady climate warming.
The worry has been that if warming reaches a certain temperature range, the current will collapse and bring chaotic sudden change to weather systems around the planet. New research suggests it’s not the temperature, so much as the speed of warming. Lead investigator interviewed here.
The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), a tipping element of the climate system, currently has an estimated global warming threshold for collapse of +4.0 °C (uncertainty range 1.4–8 °C). However, such a threshold may not be meaningful because AMOC stability depends on the rate of radiative forcing change, not a set temperature. Here we identify an AMOC stabilizing mechanism that operates on timescales slower than present-day warming rates. Slow forcing permits coherent adjustment of surface and interior ocean properties, supported by enhanced evaporation and reduced sea-ice extent, counteracting destabilizing feedbacks. Using a slow CO2 ramp (+0.5 ppm yr−1) climate model simulation, we explicitly demonstrate the AMOC remains stable up to +5.5 °C of global warming. By contrast, under faster CO2 ramps, the AMOC collapses at substantially lower warming levels (+2 °C). Our findings demonstrate rate-induced AMOC tipping and imply that limiting the rate of emissions is critical for reducing the risk of an AMOC collapse.
The current El Niño will not peak until the end of the year, or into January – but it’s already putting a stamp on extreme weather conditions across the country.
The signature bending of the jet stream brings a flow of moisture across the southern region of North America, and those areas have already seen historic flood events, as climate amplified moisture pumps up rain events to one-in-a-thousand year levels.
Meteorologists from The Weather Network display a map showing precipitation tendencies during El Niño events – clear tendency for extreme rains across southern North America
The question we might now ask is, could this translate into massive snowstorms as winter air finally settles in?
Local New York City meteorologists have a take, below.
Glaciologist Jason Box is changing focus from documenting ice loss from the Greenland ice sheet, to studying the impacts of that loss on Sea Level Rise in one of the world’s most vulnerable areas, South Florida.
Jason Box, Ph.D., an internationally renowned climate scientist and Arctic expert, has been appointed vice president for ocean intelligence and global exploration and professor of climatology and oceanography in the Halmos College of Arts & Sciences at Nova Southeastern University.
Box will provide strategic leadership of the university’s NSU Ocean initiative to advance ocean and climate science, foster new ocean technologies, and partner with industry and community partners to advance the blue economy.
He will report to NSU President and Chief Executive Officer Harry K. Moon, M.D., collaborate with faculty, researchers, and students, and develop affiliations with industry and government leaders to make Fort Lauderdale a world center for oceanography, marine science, and climate preparedness. NSU plans to launch a global research vessel through the refurbishment of the research vessel (R/V) Lana Rose, the world’s only ice-armored, self-sustaining vessel capable of conducting research, education, and exploration from Greenland to the Galapagos.
It can now take as long as 7 years to connect a data center to the power grid. Beginning about a year ago, developers began pursuing new power strategies. Rather than wait, many data centers are now building their own power plants.
… we identified 46 data centers with a combined capacity of 56 GW that plan to build their own power “behind-the-meter.” That represents roughly 30% of all planned data center capacity in the United States, according to Cleanview’s project tracker.
As of the first six months of 2026, the United States had 378 GW of gas-fired power capacity in development, up 50 percent in just six months, according to Global Energy Monitor. Of that, 189 GW was tied directly to data centers. The U.S. now accounts for roughly one-third of all planned gas-fired capacity worldwide, while Texas is adding new proposals faster than anywhere else.
However, according to a recent report from nonpartisan global news outlet Semafor, “it remains unclear if all of those plants will ultimately be built, since most projects are in early development and the demand surge has led to a bottleneck for gas turbines, with some suppliers warning of yearslong lead times.”
Above, a local Colorado TV report on one jet engine builder that is repurposing advanced jet engines to power AI. No mention of the implications for carbon emissions.
Colorado Sun also has reporting on the same company, Boom Supersonic’s plan to build jet engines as power plants for Data Centers. The engines were developed to power a proposed supersonic airliner, but the company has identified a market in the energy hungry AI space. (there’s room for a whole other post on supersonic flight and impacts on the Ozone layer, but I’ll hold off on that)
New HBO movie has Josh Allen, Quarterback Of The Buffalo Bills, as Executive Producer. Fun fact, he’s married to actress Hailee Steinfeld, so that’s might explain how he got in the movie business.
The topic is a human story in the context of a severe weather event – a genre that might be getting new currency. An unprecedented Arctic weather event, currently unfolding, is a reminder that surprises are getting more common.
Webwire:
For three days in December 2022, a catastrophic blizzard with hurricane force winds and over four feet of snow caused a complete shutdown of infrastructure and emergency services in the Buffalo region. At the height of the storm on Christmas Eve, a longtime McDonald’s manager made a heroic decision to defy corporate rules and keep her restaurant open as a refuge for people who had lost power and needed food and warmth.
As police desperately try to rescue survivors in whiteout conditions, an unlikely group finds shelter inside the McDonald’s – an injured single father caring for his infant daughter, a young man with Down syndrome spending his first Christmas away from his mother, a bride-to-be and her fiancé separated from their families, and immigrant nail salon owners unable to speak a word of English.
As the deadly storm rages, the strangers gather around a laptop to watch the Buffalo Bills take on the Chicago Bears, finding hope and comfort in a team that, like them, won’t make it home for Christmas morning.
The December 2022 snow was shocking, but not surprising. The pattern was easy enough to recognize, even 7–10 days earlier: a large high-pressure ridge forming over the western U.S., with a major trough in the east. “We knew something big was coming,” said Zaff. Five days before the storm, even low-resolution models suggested a major event. Four days ahead, the NWS started ringing the alarm bell. “We started saying, ‘A powerful storm will impact the region heading into the holiday weekend.’”
