Michael Thomas @curious_founder Twitter profile | Pikagi

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Michael Thomas

@curious_founder

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I write stories and make videos about climate change. Subscribe to the Distilled newsletter and YouTube channel here:

Colorado

https://t.co/ZXBBv8IoeB

Joined March 2012

Don't wanna be here? Send us removal request.

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@curious_founder

Michael Thomas

@curious_founder

1 year

*Personal news* I'm launching a newsletter about the politics of climate change. If you've enjoyed reading my stories, it'd mean a lot to me if you helped spread the word. Here's a bit about what you can expect from the newsletter: 🧵

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Distilled | Michael Thomas | Substack

Deeply researched stories about climate change. Click to read Distilled, by Michael Thomas, a Substack publication with tens of thousands of subscribers.

www.distilled.earth

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@curious_founder

Michael Thomas

@curious_founder

2 years

Recently I learned about a man who has trained 1,000+ people to block wind and solar projects. I read through all his training materials, presentations, and seminars. Here's what I learned about him and how his students plan to "win the war on clean energy." 🧵

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Researchers just found that gas stoves are responsible for 12.7% of childhood asthma cases. Recently I read dozens of studies about gas stoves and indoor air quality. I also installed monitors in our home and ran my own tests. Here's what I learned.

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During his election campaign, Lula pledged to protect the Amazon rainforest. In his first month in office, deforestation rates fell by 61%.

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1 year

In my reporting on clean energy misinformation I've seen one argument over and over. Wind turbines kill birds. While this is true, it misses an important piece of context: Fossil fuel power plants kill 35x more birds per GWh than wind turbines do. 🧵

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1 year

I've met many people who say that California's 2020 orange sky day was the moment they understood what a warming world really looks like. It was a wake up call. Some changed careers. Others got politically involved. Maybe this week is that moment for people on the East Coast.

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1 year

In the 1970s, Dutch cities like Amsterdam were full of traffic and air pollution. Now they are models of sustainable urban planning. Here's the story of how the Netherlands started building their cities for humans, not cars. 🧵

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Michael Thomas

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1 year

For the last 9 months, The Guardian analyzed projects from the biggest carbon offset provider in the world. They found "94% of the credits had no benefit to the climate." Some of the biggest corporations in the world are using these offsets to claim they are "carbon neutral."

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Michael Thomas

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2 years

Over the last two months I've read dozens of studies about gas stoves and indoor air quality. I also installed monitors in our home and ran my own tests. Here's a thread on what I learned 🧵 #energytwitter

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Michael Thomas

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3 months

Trump talked a lot about bring manufacturing back to America. But under Biden, manufacturing investment has grown faster than any time in recent history. And it's not even close. During Trump's presidency, manufacturing spending grew by 5%. Under Biden it has grown by 279%.

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Michael Thomas

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1 year

I see a lot of people say things like "Our grid can't handle more EVs or heat pumps." Imagine if 100 years ago, people were like "Light bulbs, dishwashers, etc. are all great, but we don't have enough electric capacity." We can electrify everything *and* build more capacity.

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2 years

How America produces electricity in emojis: 🦖🦖🦖🦖🦖🦖🦖🦖🦖🦖 🦖🦖🦖🦖🦖🦖🦖🦖🦖🦖 🦖🦖🦖🦖🦖🦖🦖🦖🦖🦖 🦖🦖🦖🦖🦖🦖🦖🦖🦖🦖 🦖🦖🦖🦖🦖🦖🦖🦖🦖🦖 🦖🦖🦖🦖🦖🦖🦖🦖🦖🦖 ☢️☢️☢️☢️☢️☢️☢️☢️☢️☢️ ☢️☢️☢️☢️☢️☢️☢️☢️☢️☢️ 🌬️🌬️🌬️🌬️🌬️🌬️🌬️🌬️☀️☀️ ☀️🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🪵🪵

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Michael Thomas

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1 year

In the 1990s, Paris was one of the most polluted, traffic-clogged cities in the world. Today, the city is a world leader in sustainable urban development. Here's the story of how Paris took back its streets from cars.

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Michael Thomas

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2 years

Later this week I plan to publish a story about who is funding and spreading clean energy misinformation. Stay tuned. And if you missed it, you can check out last week's story below:

@curious_founder

Michael Thomas

@curious_founder

2 years

All across the country, local governments are restricting and banning clean energy projects. I heard rumors that misinformation on Facebook was a major cause of this. So I joined ~40 anti-wind and solar groups to see some of it for myself. The results were bleak. 🧵

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Michael Thomas

@curious_founder

2 years

All across the country, local governments are restricting and banning clean energy projects. I heard rumors that misinformation on Facebook was a major cause of this. So I joined ~40 anti-wind and solar groups to see some of it for myself. The results were bleak. 🧵

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Michael Thomas

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1 year

Pedestrian fatalities are falling in countries around the world. In the US they're rising.

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Michael Thomas

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2 years

For the last month I've been reporting on a group of people who travel across America blocking wind and solar projects. This group has passed clean energy opposition laws in states across the country. Here's the story of one man who has been doing this for 10+ years. 🧵

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Michael Thomas

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1 year

Germany is one of the few countries where meat consumption is declining.

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Michael Thomas

@curious_founder

2 years

But the story of climate action and delay in America is very much about Droz. For most of his life, Droz was a semi-retired real estate developer. In 2011, he reinvented himself and became a "physicist." That year, his home state of N.C. debated a bill about climate change.

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Michael Thomas

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1 year

In the last few decades, the SUV market in America has exploded. Automakers say the reason for this growth has been "changing consumer preferences." But that's not the full story. One of the main reasons for the growth is the "SUV loophole." 🧵

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Michael Thomas

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2 years

The odds are pretty good you haven't heard of this man, John Droz, Jr. He's only been interviewed by a few journalists. And when asked about his influence he always responds the same way: "This story isn't about me."

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Michael Thomas

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1 year

For the last few months I've been reporting on a group of people who travel across America blocking wind and solar projects. In my research and interviews, I kept hearing about one man who has helped block dozens of projects. Here's his story: 🧵

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Michael Thomas

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1 year

I don't think most people know just how terrible meat is for the planet.

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Michael Thomas

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1 year

American cars are uniquely big, expensive, and inefficient. Here's the best-selling car in America last year (right) vs. the best-seller in Europe (left). So why are American cars so big? 🧵

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Michael Thomas

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1 year

Researchers have been studying the link between indoor air pollution and human health for more than 50 years. Every year, it becomes more clear: Gas stoves produce unsafe levels of nitrogen dioxide (NO2). And that causes respiratory illnesses like asthma.

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Michael Thomas

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2 years

Remarkably, many legislators listened to him. Even the Washington Post listened to him. In an article about sea-level rise, they quoted the real estate developer as a "local physicist."

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Michael Thomas

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2 years

As for John Droz? He's reinvented himself once more. In searching public records for his name, I came across dozens of emails to officials everywhere from Arizona to Pennsylvania about his "independent analysis of the 2020 election." Droz is now an election security expert.

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Michael Thomas

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2 years

This ad from @patagonia is so good

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Michael Thomas

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2 years

Droz's efforts worked. In 2012, N.C. passed a bill that prevented the state from taking action on sea-level rise. This work got the attention of the biggest climate deniers in the country. That year, ATI, a dark money think tank brought him on as a fellow.

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Michael Thomas

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2 years

A dark money group is running ads promoting fossil fuels and attacking clean energy in the final weeks before the election. The PAC has spent more than $1 million to reach voters in 7 swing states. And someone just sent me documents revealing who's funding it. 🧵

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Michael Thomas

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1 year

Gas stove manufacturers say ventilation makes their products safe. But I interviewed 5 indoor air quality experts and they all disagreed. They said the best way to protect people's health is to phase out gas stoves. 🧵

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Michael Thomas

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2 years

I can't stop thinking about the fact that Amsterdam looked like this less than 50 years ago.

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Michael Thomas

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1 year

In the last few years, BP, Shell, and ExxonMobil have announced net-zero climate pledges. They've spent millions of dollars advertising their investments in clean energy. Last week, all 3 companies changed up those plans and said they are doubling down on fossil fuels. 🧵

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Michael Thomas

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2 years

At ATI, Droz developed a playbook that would eventually be used by thousands of people to stop clean energy projects. In 2012, he organized a secret meeting and training session to share his strategy with some of the country's most influential climate deniers and activists.

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1 year

Scientists from around the world worked on the latest IPCC report for almost a decade. But according to leaked documents, many of their recommendations were removed or altered significantly. 🧵

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Michael Thomas

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2 years

Droz put together a series of presentations, some as long as 168 slides, and headed to the capital. He had crunched the numbers and looked at the science. According to Droz, climate change was a sham pushed by clean energy lobbyists.

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Michael Thomas

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2 years

Droz, like many climate deniers, understood the power of offering the public and lawmakers a set of “alternative facts.” All credible experts agree wind energy is better for the environment than fossil fuels. Droz knew it was possible to convince people otherwise.

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Michael Thomas

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2 years

All around the country, clean energy opponents are using this playbook to block solar and wind farms. Projects that could have offered substantial carbon emissions reductions in almost every state have been blocked as a result.

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Michael Thomas

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1 year

The fact that we still allow these things in new construction is crazy. Most building codes have nothing to say about gas appliances or NO2. This is a failure of the @EPA and most state and city governments in America.

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Michael Thomas

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2 years

For Droz, winning the war on clean energy is all about communication. The man is obsessed with what he calls “Press relations (PR) strategy.” Those two letters—PR—are in hundreds of documents he's produced over the last decade.

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Michael Thomas

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7 months

In my reporting on clean energy misinformation I've seen one argument over and over. Wind turbines kill birds. While this is true, it misses an important piece of context: Fossil fuel power plants kill 35x more birds per GWh than wind turbines do. 🧵

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Michael Thomas

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1 year

Important story from @HirokoTabuchi in the NY Times this morning. A propane trade group is running a multi-million dollar ad campaign to convince people heat pumps are bad and fossil fuels are good. They are paying HGTV influencers who aren't disclosing their funding.

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Michael Thomas

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1 year

BP runs a lot of ads about its commitment to clean energy. But the company just released their 2023 capital investment plans. They plan to invest the majority of it on fossil fuel projects.

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Michael Thomas

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2 years

This approach has led his students to pass laws that literally or effectively ban clean energy in communities across the United States. When they don't succeed at that, they file lawsuits that can drag out for years.

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Michael Thomas

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And think about that for a second. We've known that gas stoves cause asthma and other respiratory illnesses for 30 years. Yet, in that same period millions of homes have been built with gas hookups.

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Michael Thomas

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1 year

It would cost $100 billion to cut methane emissions by 80% in the oil and gas sector. That sounds like a lot, but it's 3% of the profit fossil fuel companies made last year. We have the money to prevent a climate crisis. We just need it to go to solutions, not stock buybacks.

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Michael Thomas

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3 months

I don't think many people realize how much Biden and Democrats have done to address climate change. The IRA alone—just one of their bills—is expected to 2x the pace of emissions reductions. By 2030 that's equivalent to zeroing out the combined annual emissions of CA and FL.

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Michael Thomas

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2 years

One of Droz' most effective students, Susan Ralston, mastered this principle. She named her organization "Citizens for Responsible Solar." The group has blocked huge projects across Virginia. Their main argument: Solar should be on rooftops, not rural land.

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Michael Thomas

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1 year

If I'm honest, I was skeptical of the panic over gas stoves at first. But in study after study that I read, the data showed the same thing. Gas stoves aren't safe.

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Michael Thomas

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2 years

What’s the goal of this PR? As he wrote, “Public opinion [on clean energy] must begin to change among citizens at large.” But changing minds wasn’t all Droz was interested in. The next line in his memo reads: “Ultimate Goal: Change policy direction based on the message.”

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Michael Thomas

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2 years

Clean energy projects create jobs and tax revenue. They're great for local economies. Droz offered an alternative assessment.

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Michael Thomas

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2 years

Amazon tells its customers and investors that it is committed to climate action. So I looked at which candidates the company is supporting in the 2022 midterms. I discovered that Amazon has given $138,000 to 25 climate deniers. Here's who the company is supporting: 🧵

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Michael Thomas

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2 years

At the secret meeting in 2012, he proposed an idea: Established think tanks like Heartland, CFACT, and Cato could publish these "alternative facts." And volunteers in communities across the U.S. could present them to local lawmakers.

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Michael Thomas

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2 years

Of course, these volunteers couldn't just be against clean energy. Droz wrote about this in a later training document titled "What Not To Say." He writes that if you're against something, "You will be painted as a denier and as a person against progress (going green)."

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Michael Thomas

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2 years

By far the most unique tactic, I saw in Droz' training materials was his suggestion that clean energy opponents never compromise. According to Droz, the way to win "the war on clean energy" is to come out with aggressive demands and stick to them.

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Michael Thomas

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2 years

This morning, @CBSMornings ran a story on gas stoves to 2.5 million viewers. Did they mention gas stoves increase the risk of asthma? No. Did they question a gas industry rep who claimed gas is "clean and safe"? No. Instead they spread fossil fuel industry lies. 🧵

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Michael Thomas

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1 year

Climate deniers love to point out the 100,000 tons of lithium used for clean energy technology. But they never mention the ~15,000,000,000 tons of fossil fuels mined every year.

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Michael Thomas

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1 year

A new study just found that 12.7% of childhood asthma is caused by gas stoves. That's 647,000 children. The gas industry has known about these risks for decades. But they've spent millions lobbying and running misinformation campaigns to prevent regulation.

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Michael Thomas

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1 year

A lot of people think that plant-based milks are bad for the environment (e.g. use a lot of water). They certainly aren’t perfect. But no matter how you look at the data they are way better than dairy milk.

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Michael Thomas

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1 year

I asked @jlashk , an environmental epidemiologist to take a look at the data. He said, "I would say you've got a pretty big NO2 problem." Not exactly what you want to hear from someone who studies this stuff for a living.

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Michael Thomas

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1 year

BP just announced that it will join Shell in slowing its transition to clean energy. The company plans to use record profits from 2022 to invest an additional $8 billion in fossil fuels. BP also plans to aim for 20% carbon reductions by 2030 vs. its original 40% target.

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Michael Thomas

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1 year

In Sept 2021, @WHO released their latest guidelines on indoor air pollution. They recommended no building should have higher than 5.3ppb of NO2 on average throughout the year. So I set up air quality monitors in my house to see if we passed the test.

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Michael Thomas

@curious_founder

2 years

The declining price of solar will just never cease to amaze me.

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Michael Thomas

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1 year

Here's a chart showing the average level of NO2 throughout December. The dotted line is the daily average. The top line is the peak concentration. Our daily average hovered around 2x the WHO guidelines.

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Michael Thomas

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1 year

More from Reuters analysis here:

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Deforestation in Brazil's Amazon falls in first month under Lula

Deforestation in Brazil's Amazon rainforest fell in January from a year earlier, satellite data showed on Friday, in the first monthly figures under President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

www.reuters.com

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Michael Thomas

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1 year

Can you guess which day we went out of the town and didn't use our gas stove, furnace or water heater? Yup, it was the day that NO2 levels plummeted.

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Michael Thomas

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2 years

You know all those stories about residents and environmentalists blocking offshore wind farms? Well, it turns out many of them are being funded by climate deniers and fossil-fuel companies. Let's take a look at some of these groups and see what's going on here. 🧵

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In 2013 another meta-analysis on the topic came out. This time the authors concluded, “Children living in a home with gas cooking have a 42% increased risk of having current asthma.”

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Michael Thomas

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1 year

For the last decade ExxonMobil has spent millions of dollars advertising its investments in algae biofuels. They've used this program as evidence that they care about addressing climate change. Now the company is killing the whole program.

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Michael Thomas

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NO2 is especially bad for children. The first meta-analysis on this topic was published in 1992. It found that for every 16ppb increase in NO2 levels — comparable to the increase resulting from exposure to a gas stove — the odds of respiratory illness in children go up by 20%.

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Michael Thomas

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1 year

"If we’re serious about keeping the planet liveable, we have to regulate and tax huge cars out of existence."

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We should regulate SUVs out of existence

They’re not only awful for the climate, they’re also killing pedestrians, including children in driveways

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Michael Thomas

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1 year

This chart is scary

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Michael Thomas

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1 year

Here's what happened every night when we used our stove or oven. 291ppb of peak concentration is... not good. And that's what it looked like whenever we made dinner. The only exception: the nights we got takeout and didn't use the gas stove.

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Michael Thomas

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1 year

To read more and subscribe to my newsletter, you can click the link below. Next week, I'm releasing an interview with one of the authors of the recent study that showed 650,000 asthma cases can be atttributed to gas stoves.

I Measured the Pollution From My Gas Stove. It Was Bad.

Here's what I learned putting air quality monitors all over my house.

www.distilled.earth

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Michael Thomas

@curious_founder

2 years

In 2020, Scrubgrass, a power plant in Pennsylvania was about to close. Then Stronghold, a crypto mining company, came to town. It's annual emissions rose from 12,000 to 500,000 tons, a staggering 3805% increase. This is just one of many similar stories. 🧵

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Michael Thomas

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1 year

A year ago, energy analysts predicted that 160-180 GW of solar would be built in 2022. So how'd those predictions turn out? They underestimated solar's growth by 50-70%. ~270 GW of solar was built in 2022.

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Michael Thomas

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1 year

Clean energy critics often argue that addressing climate change will require too much mining. So I looked into the data. I found that our current fossil fuel economy requires 535x more mining than a 100% clean energy economy would. 🧵

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Michael Thomas

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1 year

75% of Americans think that it's better for the environment to build homes further apart. But researchers consistently find that building dense housing is the best thing cities can do to address climate change and reduce land use.

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Michael Thomas

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1 year

Renewable energy critics love to point out that it takes 255 tons of coal to build a wind turbine. But it would take a coal-fired power plant 154,494 tons of coal to generate as much electricity as a wind turbine produces over its entire life. 🧵

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Michael Thomas

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1 year

Last year my wife and I sold our fossil fuel burning car and bought an e-bike. I've biked to work almost every day this winter. I have zero regrets. We're saving a few hundred bucks a month. I'm getting more exercise. And I enjoy my commute more. 10/10 would recommend.

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Michael Thomas

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1 year

I don't think this is what ski resorts are supposed to look like in January.

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Michael Thomas

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1 year

The natural gas industry: "Heat pumps don't work in cold climates." Heat pumps:

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Dan Esposito

1 year

A full day of negative temps in #Denver down to -15F, and our #heatpump has no problem keeping things toasty. This with a 1900 house and old leaky windows, too! No gas necessary ⚡️

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Michael Thomas

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2 years

My wife and I sold our fossil fuel burning car, which means I'm biking to work this winter. Any tips on winter biking gear?

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Michael Thomas

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2 years

Bad news y'all: Someone on Twitter has just informed me that the sun doesn't shine at night and the wind doesn't always blow. Time to call off this whole renewable energy experiment. It was great while it lasted.

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Michael Thomas

@curious_founder

2 years

This argument from @JuddLegum is spot on: “The political media has substituted polling analysis, which is something only people managing campaigns really need, with substantive analysis of the positions of the candidates, something that voters need.”

Political media is broken

On October 19, 2022, the New York Times — America's "paper of record" — ran a story with the headline, "Democrats’ Feared Red October Has Arrived." The purpose of the story was to explain why the...

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Michael Thomas

@curious_founder

1 year

Gov. Jared Polis just announced a plan to offer Coloradans $120 million in rebates to buy electric cars, ebikes, and lawn equipment. It would expand EV rebates from $2k to $5k. Would provide $500-1,000 for ebikes. And up to 30% off electric lawnmowers.

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Michael Thomas

@curious_founder

3 years

In the last year heat pumps have been getting more popular. But most people still have no idea what heck they are or why they are such an important climate solution. So here's a thread on why heat pumps are so important for meeting our climate goals 🧵

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Michael Thomas

@curious_founder

1 year

We often look at our societies as fixed. We think the United States will always be a land of strip malls and highways. Or we think the world will always run on fossil fuels. But none of these things have to be true. The Netherlands is proof that societies can and do change.

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Michael Thomas

@curious_founder

1 year

90% of homes in Israel use a solar water heater. But even in sunny U.S. states like California and Florida, virtually no one uses a solar water heater. Here's why: 🧵

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Michael Thomas

@curious_founder

7 months

A new report just found that gas-powered lawn equipment spews as much NO2 pollution as 30 million cars. They emit as much CO2 pollution as the entire city of Los Angeles. We need to replace all of these with clean electric alternatives ASAP.

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Lawn equipment spews ‘shocking’ amount of air pollution, new data shows

“Really inefficient engine technology is, pound for pound, more polluting than cars and trucks.”

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Michael Thomas

@curious_founder

1 year

@AllPlanets 🤦‍♂️ I cited peer reviewed studies that analyzed data from tens of thousands of homes.

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Michael Thomas

@curious_founder

1 year

A lot of people asking about ventilation and range hoods. There’s been a lot of research that suggests range hoods don’t actually reduce NO2 pollution. Still very important to use, but doesn’t solve the problems mentioned above.

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Michael Thomas

@curious_founder

1 year

Recently I learned about a man who is trying to block offshore wind projects across the country. To recruit people to join him, he sends letters to coastal residents, runs Facebook ads, and even flies aerial banner ads over the beach. Here's his story. 🧵

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Michael Thomas

@curious_founder

2 years

And think about that for a second. We've known that gas stoves cause asthma and other respiratory illnesses for 30 years. Yet, in that same period millions of homes have been built with gas hookups.

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Michael Thomas

@curious_founder

2 years

The fact that we still allow these things in new construction is crazy. Most building codes have nothing to say about gas appliances or NO2. This is a failure of the @EPA and most state and city governments in America.

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Michael Thomas

@curious_founder

2 years

Recently there have been a lot of news stories about residents suing offshore wind projects. But most stories fail to mention an important detail: Many of the lawsuits are being funded by a think tank that gets money from the fossil fuel industry. 🧵

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Fossil fuel industry dupes media, quietly funds non-profits to block renewable energy

Shortly after he took office, President Biden announced a goal of building 30 gigawatts (GW) of offshore wind by 2030, enough clean energy to power 10 million homes. For the administration, the...

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Michael Thomas

@curious_founder

1 year

Another common question is what air quality monitor I used. I used the uHoo. I believe it’s the only consumer grade option that measures NO2.

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Michael Thomas

@curious_founder

2 years

According to a recent DoE study, there were 40,000 turbines in America in 2017. By that point, there had only been 40 incidents. And no one was injured. By comparison, pollution from fossil fuels kills millions every year.

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Michael Thomas

@curious_founder

1 year

It's been two weeks since Elon Musk let Jordan Peterson back on Twitter. In that time he's posted dozens of tweets about climate change and renewable energy. They are all textbook examples of climate denial and misinformation. 🧵

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Michael Thomas

@curious_founder

2 years

The difference in CO2 emissions per unit of electricity generated between states is just mind-boggling 🤯

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Michael Thomas

@curious_founder

2 years

Next week I'll be taking a look at who is funding and spreading this misinformation. Stay tuned for Part 2.

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