Erik Schlenker-Goodrich

@riogranderift

At work in the ruins. Executive Director: @westernlaw.org Thoughts my own.

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Erik Schlenker-Goodrich@riogranderift· 28d

Here's the Rio Grande, by my home and within New Mexico's Rio Grande del Norte National Monument. Went down with my kids to swim last week but there's a gnarly algae bloom caused at least in part by low snowpack, low flow, and high temperature—climate impacts one and all. We didn't swim.

Picture of the Rio Grande with low flow and an algae bloom.

Erik Schlenker-Goodrich@riogranderift· 28d

Read this closely. It is a tacit admission that Democrat's ambition for permitting reform isn't even *new* renewables permits. They just want existing permits to move forward, even as Democrats would confer power to Trump to lock in fossil fuel permits that'd bind future presidents.

Reporter Joshua Siegel stating: "Sen. Brian Schatz capturing the permitting vibes well. Trump actions vs solar/wind still weighing heavily on Dems. He just told me, “this is actually not the hardest policy nut to crack. A permitting deal will pass if they simply allow projects that have been permitted to launch”"

Erik Schlenker-Goodrich@riogranderift· 28d

Two major problems with this tired & counterproductive rhetoric from both Rep. Scott Peters and Jane Flegal re: permitting reform.

Post from Rep. Scott Peters stating: "Democrats want cleaner, more reliable, and cheaper energy. But to deliver renewables and transmission, we need permitting reform to modernize our ancient environmental laws to strip out needless process impediments.

Renewable developers tell us that speed and certainty are more important to them than subsidies. And 90% of gigawatts waiting to be approved and connected are non-emitting. We should get out of our own way.

Too many Democrats see permit reform as a negotiating *give* rather than a *get.* That’s backwards. It’s impossible to meet our energy goals without fixing the law."

In response to post from Jane Legal stating: "Okay, a few thoughts on the Ezra/@billmckibben podcast. It's v good that people like Bill are pushing enviro groups from "block bad stuff" to "unblock good stuff." But the rhetoric only goes so far, & the truth is that we are not set up to succeed on the supply-side agenda. 🧵"

Erik Schlenker-Goodrich@riogranderift· 29d

The reality for the Abundance movement is that, despite all the noise, they've been unable to punch a signal through to the American people. Elected leaders should take note.

Screenshot of NYT polling showing that only 3% of potential Democratic party supporters have a very or somewhat favorable view of Abundance, with an equal 3% of of D supporters holding unfavorable views, and 91% having never heard of it. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2026/05/21/polls/times-siena-national-poll-toplines.html

Erik Schlenker-Goodrich@riogranderift· 29d

A key reason Abundance folk are crashing out? Their strategy is premised on elite persuasion & they've been outflanked on the ground, by real people & by the progressive left who, notably, know how to organize outside of corporate boardrooms, the NYT op ed page, & the halls of Congress.

Reporter Dave Weigel: "The left really stole a march on the moderates by going all-in against data centers. Strategy been building since last fall when this was blowing up in Virginia; climate groups like LCV pointed to Georgia public service commissioner races to show that you could build a coalition against new center construction.

Mods worry about taking a No position that activates an AI PAC and smothers them. No such worries on left, which wasn’t getting that money."

Reporter Dave Weigel: "Hotter take: It was clear that centrist Dems were rallying to Abundance (or at least reading about it and attending its conferences) and the left identified that movement's thermal exhaust port: Data center construction."

Erik Schlenker-Goodrich@riogranderift· Jul 13

The real epistemic crisis isn't the conflation of advocacy and expertise. It's that some experts get to pretend they're not advocates. All while contending that some advocates are not experts.

Jane Flegal contending that "There's a kind of epistemic crisis in climate & energy rn, w multiple, partial explanations. But a thing that seems clear to me is that we've become very confused about the difference btw expertise & advocacy in a way that has made it hard to police false claims, esp in public."

Erik Schlenker-Goodrich@riogranderift· Jul 13

The tell is obvious: Abundance-aligned "permit reform" proponents (like, prominently, Yglesias) have aligned with corporate Tech & Energy interests while loudly and repeatedly attacking the progressive left.

Aaron Rugunberg criticizing Yglesias as example of folks attacking climate NGOs, stating "These people are so fucking tedious. Yeah, there are difficult technical challenges with decarbonization…and we’re nowhere close to them. We haven’t even begun to get to the end of the low-hanging fruit—because powerful incumbents are blocking us, with help from their shills" in response to post from Yglesias stating "This is the whole problem with the climate NGO space, it insists on waving away all genuine difficulties with building a prosperous low-carbon economy and then any time anyone points a difficulty out they are dismissed as “shills.”"

Erik Schlenker-Goodrich@riogranderift· Jul 12

This is the whole problem with the Abundance space, it insists on waving away all genuine difficulties with sustaining a fossil-fueled economy and then any time anyone points a difficulty out they are dismissed as "NIMBYs."

Matt Yglesias whining that: "This is the whole problem with the climate NGO space, it insists on waving away all genuine difficulties with building a prosperous low-carbon economy and then any time anyone points a difficulty out they are dismissed as “shills.”"

Erik Schlenker-Goodrich@riogranderift· Jul 11

Goofball mountain dog.

This is Lupin, a black and white dog and total goofball, on the top of Wheeler Peak New Mexico.

Erik Schlenker-Goodrich@riogranderift· Jul 11

Mountains beyond mountains.

View of the Sangre de Cristo mountains in New Mexico from the top of Wheeler Peak on a bright day with puffy clouds in the sky but also a bit of wildfire haze on the horizon.

Erik Schlenker-Goodrich@riogranderift· Jul 9

The Congressional Research Service highlights the link btw permitting reform & Big Tech—a link that will only grow ever stronger as U.S. politics & economic policy chains itself to Tech billionaire whim. Permitting reform ain't about affordability. It's about Tech billionaire power & domination.

Quote from CRS report summary(https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/R48762): The U.S. data center industry has, thus far, procured adequate electricity supplies. Building the energy infrastructure it could need for expansion may become more difficult as data centers grow in number and size. Understanding the extent to which federal permit requirements may affect data center expansion requires clarity about federal jurisdiction. The federal permitting nexus varies across projects, and no universal federal requirement or process applies across all project types. Various approvals under federal law may warrant particular attention in broader congressional initiatives around "permitting reform." Bills such as the SPEED Act (H.R. 4776), the ePermit Act (H.R. 4503), and the PERMIT Act (H.R. 3898), among others, could affect federal permits for certain data center energy infrastructure. If Congress implements overarching reforms, those reforms could impact data center energy infrastructure along with energy infrastructure more broadly. However, if Congress views developing energy infrastructure for data centers as a distinctive national priority, it could consider changes in federal permitting laws specific to this infrastructure. The Securing Reliable Power for Advanced Technologies Act (H.R. 5927) would accelerate the development of energy infrastructure serving "critical artificial intelligence infrastructure." The Clean Cloud Act of 2025 (S. 1475) would give federal agencies authority to collect electricity-related information specifically from data centers and their energy suppliers. Alternatively, Congress could preserve the statutory status quo while monitoring data center energy development. Given the diversity of proposed data center projects and energy facilities, understanding how legislative proposals such as H.R. 5927 might affect specific types of energy infrastructure could be of particular interest to Congress.

Erik Schlenker-Goodrich@riogranderift· Jul 9

Displeased to see my U.S. senator, @heinrich.senate.gov, taking $31,300 in Palantir money--especially given he voted to confirm Markwayne Mullin as head of DHS.

List of top democrats receiving Palantir money, including Sen. Martin Heinrich, who received $31,300. Source: https://purgepalantir.com/the-palantir-payroll/

Erik Schlenker-Goodrich@riogranderift· Jul 7

Erik Schlenker-Goodrich@riogranderift· Jul 6

Nature providing a nice sweep of virgas, thunder, and even a wee bit of rainbow for halftime here in Taos, New Mexico.

Erik Schlenker-Goodrich@riogranderift· Jul 2

This is precisely what you say when you've a savvy political consultant whose employer, the Searchlight Institute, sold it's soul to billionaires who profit from the world's suffering. Democrats who follow this bullshit are walking themselves into a dead end.

Tré Easton with Searchlight Insitute staying "Sunrise Movement doesn’t even talk about climate change anymore. Democrats must absolutely develop energy policy solutions that take climate change seriously, but the time for making this some central rallying cry has passed" in response to a post from Kate Aronoff stating "If left-of-center politicians and ostensibly fact-based news organizations aren’t willing to accurately interpret our climate-changed reality, the right will be more than happy to do it for them" and circulating her latest article titled "This is the Week for Democrats to Start Saying "Climate Change" Again."

Erik Schlenker-Goodrich@riogranderift· Jun 29

We desperately need a new conversation that puts "permit reform" in the wood chipper and builds a healthy ecosystem to develop climate, ecological, and community-based infrastructure--from transmission lines to beaver habitat. westernlaw.org/73-western-g...

It is also a fundamental misdiagnosis of the challenges and opportunities presented by the climate crisis and energy transition, scapegoating bedrock environmental laws for permitting delays caused by limited agency capacity, ineffective agency coordination, and industry itself. This misdiagnosis has averted attention from high-value opportunities to: (1) shape energy, technology, and infrastructure development for the better; (2) cultivate a healthy permitting ecosystem centered on well-resourced, mission-driven agencies and upstream planning and oversight; and (3) guide swift and effective downstream permitting—all without compromising public interest safeguards.

Rather than press forward with ill-fated legislation in this fraught moment, we therefore ask that you stand with us in defense of climate action and the public lands, waters and wildlife, and communities of the West. It is this fight—in this moment—that can build shared trust and set the conditions for constructive legislation that strengthens and revitalizes the federal government’s capacity to serve the public interest. This means, to us, the buildout, protection, and restoration of green infrastructure (built or natural) and the full integration of ecological and community considerations into climate and energy policy as a precondition of our ability to thrive in kinship with an abundant world.

Erik Schlenker-Goodrich@riogranderift· Jun 25

Of course the clowns at The Breakthrough Institute agree with SCOTUS’ decision to shield Monsanto from liability for not warning consumers about the cancer risk of glyphosate (Roundup). Cancer Abundance!!!

Chief troll at BTI: “Today’s ruling helps preserve access to one of the most important and low-risk weed-control tools available to American farmers.”

@TheBTI’s @danrejto”

Erik Schlenker-Goodrich@riogranderift· Jun 25

One thing this reporting crystallizes well: insofar as the Trump administration has been a rolling climate disaster, the persistent embrace of fossil fuels by key Democrats helps seed the ground for Trump’s pro-fossil fuel debacle to root ever more deeply into our economic & infrastructure base.

Trump Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and Energy Secretary Chris Wright have been vocal in their support for getting Alaska LNG off the ground. Wright called it his number one infrastructure priority. Burgum told the press that the Trump administration was looking both to support the project with loans and to help secure investors and facilitate agreements abroad.

The Biden administration also bears some responsibility for buoying a project that, left to market forces, would sink like a stone. In attempting to bully foreign countries into buying U.S. LNG exports in order to avoid steeper tariffs, the Trump administration has made crudely visible what has long been a pattern of U.S. officials using energy as a geopolitical cudgel. Within the Biden administration, Alaska LNG’s chief proponents were Rahm Emanuel, then ambassador to Japan, who played a significant role in deprioritizing climate policy within the Obama White House, and Amos Hochstein, former LNG executive and close Biden energy adviser.

Erik Schlenker-Goodrich@riogranderift· Jun 19

Evening.

Erik Schlenker-Goodrich@riogranderift· Jun 19

“Nobody started it, nobody is going to stop it. It will talk as long as it wants, this rain. As long as it talks I am going to listen.” -Thomas Merton, Rain and the Rhinoceros (1966)

Erik Schlenker-Goodrich@riogranderift· Jun 19

The inestimable New Mexico sky.

Erik Schlenker-Goodrich@riogranderift· Jun 19

Build, baby, build! Beaver dam analogs, that is. This one’s up on the Rio Cebolla in New Mexico. Had the pleasure of building a few more up the watershed from it yesterday. And I’d take a beaver dam analog over 1000 data centers or oil & gas wells any day of the week and twice on Sundays.

Erik Schlenker-Goodrich@riogranderift· Jun 14

Folks, I'm now being told all of this doesn't matter because Twitter is now real life and The American Prospect's reporting evidently didn't get good play in its first four hours. So never mind. Carry on.

Paul E Williams writing "4 hours and not even 200 likes. The number of people who care about this is dwindling" relative to David Dayen's post distributing The American Prospect's reporting on the Abundance Network's ties with Tech Bros $$$.

Erik Schlenker-Goodrich@riogranderift· Jun 14

"Billionaire Tech Lords, please come save us from our own ignorance! Seize the reins of government power with your scintillating brilliance, provide us ignorant serfs with abundant energy and housing, and we shall speak your name in glory!!!" GTFOH.

From Abundance Network Memo p. 18: "Elite responsibility is a key element of abundance. Those who modernized our economic institutions for the 21st century must be key contributors to modernizing our public institutions."

Erik Schlenker-Goodrich@riogranderift· Jun 14

Abundance—per the Abundance Network's memos—reads to me as little more than a pseudo intellectual presumption of Silicon Valley's brilliance & a demand that it seize control of government to lead the country's masses into a technofeudal future.

From p. 3 of Abundance Network Memo: "Progressive Era → How elites 100 years ago self-organized, rebuilt their governments, and unlocked the greatest generation of shared prosperity in American history
● Things sucked way worse in the late 19th century
● Progressive movement didn’t progress until the industrialists rolled up their sleeves and helped lead
● Institution-building was “bottoms up” city-by-city, state-by-state and only tackled Federal government once progressives had built enough power & expertise
● The institutions they built up are now the ones failing us"

From p. 12 of Abundance Network memo: "At the core of this abdication is a faulty assumption by elites that they can personally shield themselves from the failure of our public institutions. But you can’t hide if your Tahoe or Pacifi c Palisades home turns to ash in a megafi re, and you cannot educate your kids if teachers can’t fi nd housing. Elites are beginning to wake up to the personal consequences of their abdication.
This is a positive development because the Progressive movement only started to build real power when elites rolled up their sleeves and put their social and financial capital to work, building and leading civic institutions."

Erik Schlenker-Goodrich@riogranderift· Jun 12

Trump crashing out again on Iran Deal for the 39th time.

Erik Schlenker-Goodrich@riogranderift· Jun 9

I am firmly of the conviction that the asserted inevitability of finance, technology, & energy ideas is little more than a tell that their hand is in fact weak relative to vast sea of life who desire something that liberates & does not shackle our lived kinship with the Earth.

“Something is coming over the horizon: a humbling from which none of us will be spared, that will not be managed or controlled, but will leave us changed ... We will need to remember that we are not alone and never were, that we are part of a world of many worlds, only some of which are human.”

-Dougald Hine, At Work in the Ruins (2023)

Erik Schlenker-Goodrich@riogranderift· Jun 9

People fixate too narrowly on "decarbonization" rather than wide-boundary embrace of the values animating *WHY* we should decarbonize. I.e., decarbonization isn't the goal. It's an objective in service of a more expansive goal. Which should beg the Q: what is the goal of energy, tech, finance?

Visual depicting "carbon tunnel vision" that shunts aside other issues such as food security, air pollution, biodiversity loss, etc. Source: https://3r.co.nz/news/sustainability-is-about-more-than-just-carbon/

Erik Schlenker-Goodrich@riogranderift· Jun 9

Bruno Latour recognized that extractive interests understood the gravity of the Paris climate agreement's implications to their extractive plans. Since then, they've endeavored to sabotage climate action through status quo decision making & tech-focused co-option of the climate action narrative.

Excerpt from Bruno Latour's 2018 book, Down to Earth stating, in relevant part, re: adoption of the Paris Climate Agreement on December 12, 2015: "[O]n that December day all the signatory countries, even as they were applauding the success of the improbable agreement, realized with alarm that, if they all went ahead according to the terms of their respective modernization plans, there would be no planet compatible with their hopes for development."

Erik Schlenker-Goodrich@riogranderift· Jun 8

And can we just please for the love of all that is holy stop with these uncritically assessed tropes? Whole article centers a bunch of folks who sound like they've spent far too much time in VC and Tech company meetings & chats.