The impact of some messaging bills is so uncertain that we should be thankful they never become law. However, two important ideas are working their way through the noise that could significantly impact climate change. Because of their impact, scope, and complexity, members should be spending more time on these than messaging bills.

While optimizing energy use is valuable, it's not the sole solution to significantly lowering emissions. We're racing against moving targets—not only are emissions climbing, but so is our energy demand.

The problem is that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) models fit reality with either a little warming and little aerosol cooling or significant warming and significant aerosol cooling. In the humble opinion of your correspondent, our collective unwillingness to measure aerosols will be one of our greatest errors in addressing climate change.

While we should never lose sight of the goal to reduce our emissions, we could make this so much easier on ourselves by building world-beating industries in solar, wind, nuclear, geothermal, carbon management, and hydrogen.

Is bipartisan law better law? The record shows that bipartisan lawmakers pass more laws, but there is a difference between passing legislation and writing good law.

Keynes suggested that a successful investor must be willing to change an opinion when facts and circumstances change, leading to the quotation, “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?”.

To quote my favorite climate blogger James Hansen passing a rare unscientific opinion on leaders at the United Nations COP meetings who leave the impression that progress is being made that we can still limit global warming to as little as 1.5°C.

As I prepare this newsletter I have the live feed on for the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing to examine opportunities for Congress to reform the process for permitting electric transmission lines, pipelines, and energy production on federal lands.

As DC races toward the summer recess those of you working and maybe living here might be interested in discussing your climate advocacy at a bipartisan restaurant.

A friend of mine recently asked a perfectly sensible question about captured carbon. Why can't we make something out of it, like a countertop?