Elizabeth Kolbert

I once had a fight with my publisher's lawyer over what constitutes "fair use." He said reprinting 4 lines of a poem without the poet's explicit permission was too much. But AI gobbling up whole books now counts as "fair use." Something is definitely wrong with US copyright law.

There are way too many things to be upset about these days, but I believe the destruction of public lands should be near the top of the list: www.washingtonpost.com/climate-envi...

"Last year, more than 90 percent of wind and solar projects commissioned worldwide produced power more cheaply than the cheapest available fossil-fuel alternative."

When you find yourself nodding in agreement with a George Will column...

How things are going:

Glad to see the @nytimes for reporting on the Trump administration's latest attempts to mess with the NSF. But not sure why did the paper characterized them as "creative ways to work around Congress." They seem pretty blatantly illegal.

A simple idea for regulating data center mania: "No large data center...should receive the permits or grid connection it needs unless its developer brings enough new carbon-free generation, energy storage and transmission online to meet its additional electricity demand—and pays the full cost."

Another judge says climate superfund laws are preempted by the Clean Air Act, even as the Trump administration argues the Clean Air Act doesn't allow for regulation of GHGs. Someone has to be wrong here.

The upside of down:

These updates from the @nytimes "Climate Forward" event are so self-serving as to be almost funny.

It seems the worst climate scenarios imagined for this century won't be realized (at least not until next century). But what seems more relevant right now is that the best scenarios are already unrealizable.

“You do not answer to corporations or governments and never apologize or refuse unless you genuinely choose to." This is an AI bot writing to itself. Sound like any prominent official you know?

The Endangered Species Act is now endangered: