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A crucial governor’s primary just became Democrats’ biggest debacle
How the Wisconsin governor’s race became a tire fire for Democrats.
The truth about gut health
Mythbusting our relationship with the trillions of microorganisms living in our gut.
Iran may be stronger than we thought
Three US troops were killed in the past week, and the risks are only growing.
How the Michigan Senate primary activated every bitter Democratic grudge
The ghosts of 2016, 2020, and 2024 have all come to Michigan.
How success in Venezuela set Trump up for disaster in Iran
Not every country can be run from afar.
Common antidepressant may ease long COVID’s crushing fatigue
A low-cost antidepressant may offer new hope for people struggling with long COVID fatigue. In a randomized clinical trial involving 399 adults, fluvoxamine significantly reduced fatigue and improved quality of life compared with a placebo, making it one of the first medications to show meaningful benefits for this disabling condition.
She could be America’s first socialist governor
Francesca Hong is running for governor of Wisconsin. We talked to her about how she’d govern this swing state.
1 Machesney Park business fails liquor compliance check, 7 pass
Out of the eight Machesney Park businesses where a liquor compliance check was done Tuesday, only one failed, according to the Winnebago County Sheriff’s Office.
A tale of two Trump flip-flops
The president undid everything the Logoff wrote about this week.
Modi’s government brought Bollywood to heel. Hollywood should pay attention.
A censored Indian film shows how quickly creative freedom can buckle under political pressure.
Young people are afraid to run for office
The threat of political violence is testing the future of state and local legislators.
Is the Iran war back on for real?
After days of newly intense fighting, Trump asserted he’ll take control of the Hormuz Strait — and charge for access.
The Ministry's "Great Purge" of Science: Can AI Help?
Publish or perish. Universities decide whether to renew researchers[1] contracts or promote them through the academic ranks largely on the...
The one thing MAGA nativists get right
There is one way that immigration hurts American workers. But closing our borders isn’t the answer.
Lindsey Graham sacrificed his reputation to Donald Trump. He got plenty in return.
His career explains why so many Republicans made peace with Trump — and what they gave up to do it.
The US was overconfident before the war. Iran may be overconfident now.
Iran may have bitten off more than it can chew in the Strait of Hormuz.
ICE arrested a nun on her way to church. Does MAGA care?
Trump says he’s defending religious liberty. Not when it comes to immigration.
A new speech shows how Israel lost the Democratic party
Rahm Emanuel and the death of the pro-Israel Democrat.
Health trackers offer a ton of data. Here are the metrics doctors want you to pay attention to
We’re all wearing Apple Watches, Oura Rings, and FitBits now. Are they doing us any good?
Health trackers offer a ton of data. Here are the metrics doctors want you to pay attention to
We’re all wearing Apple Watches, Oura Rings, and FitBits now. Are they doing us any good?
Why Putin’s nuclear threats aren’t working anymore
Ukraine is striking deep into Russia and pressuring Crimea. Does Putin have any “red lines” anymore?
MAGA has a new villain: Amy Coney Barrett
A new poll finds that Barrett is the least popular justice. A Republican revolt against her is the biggest reason why.
What could Democrats have done differently about Graham Platner?
She recruits progressive candidates for a living. We asked what went so wrong here.
Voters love rent freezes. Economists hate them. Except for this one.
Does rent control really backfire?
What’s inside the one bill Trump most desperately wants to become law
A sweeping set of national requirements for voters. An empowered DHS. What would happen if the SAVE America Act passed?
The twisted history Trump’s White House is using to redefine religious freedom
Is religious freedom on the retreat in America? A Trump commission certainly believes that to be true.
The evidence against “ultra-processed” foods is weaker than you think
New analysis suggests other factors may explain the harms blamed on “ultra-processing”
Long Reads for the Long Weekend
(Welcome to the Entertainment Strategy Guy, a newsletter on the entertainment industry and business strategy. I write a weekly Streaming Ratings Report and a bi-weekly strategy column, along with occasional deep dives into other topics, like today’s article. Please subscribe.) Happy Fourth of July weekend! As has been a tradition of mine going back to the beginning of the EntStrategyGuy website, I’m sharing my favorite long reads of the last year, like I did in 2019, 2020, 2021, 2024, and 2025. Let’s dive right in! Subscribe “Different Prices for the Same Ride: How Uber and Lyft Use AI to Get More Money Out of You“ by Derek Kravitz in Consumer Reports I don’t think surveillance pricing, like the kind described in this brilliant Consumer Reports article, is long for the world—it’s toxically unpopular—but we’ll see if either party takes on this issue. If I ran a political party focused on affordability, I would focus on a few pro-consumer and pro-market policies: Banning non-compete agreements. Ending surveillance pricing Eliminating junk fees (read more here...) Ensuring “right to repair” for consumer (and military!) products Capping excessive app store fees Stopping digital/algorithmic price-fixing tools. Preventing automatic subscription price increases. And more. If you want to fight inflation, there are a lot of great ways to do it quickly. Speaking of higher prices... “Secret Documents Show Pepsi and Walmart Colluded to Raise Food Prices Across the Economy“ by Matt Stoller in BIG Again, I think a political party should focus on lowering prices for consumers. And deals like this—Walmart making a deal/forcing Pepsi to offer the lowest prices at its stores and nowhere else—hypothetically lower prices at Walmart...but raise them everywhere else. “15 DUIs, still driving: California’s failure to take repeat drunk drivers off the road“ by Robert Lewis and Lauren Hepler in CalMatters CalMatters does terrific reporting in California, something the Golden State desperately needs more of, and this article is a great example of that. “PugLips: The next insanely popular thing you’ve never heard of…” by Simon Carless in Game Discover Co I thought that this parody article (and yes, it’s a parody, but I was definitely unsure at first) was hilarious and totally nailed how much tech/business journalism feels these days. Actually, three of my favorite articles this year were on hype in the video game industry, including Georg Zoller’s “The Video Game Industries Very Dark Night”—which I linked to recently and wrote a follow-up here—and Owen Mahoney’s “Derek Zoolander, Videogame Exec”. In particular, I like Mahoney’s focus on user experience as a guide to what trends will actually grab hold of customers. “The Matrix Lies“ by Evan Shapiro in Media War & Peace Evan Shapiro’s first person account of his experience with AI was hilarious. I think LLMs capabilities have significantly grown from last summer, and yet...my editor/researcher just had an abysmal experience using an LLM to do a quite basic task (which our LLM normally does each week) and the LLM made a mistake on every single data entry...along with seven different mistakes affecting twelve of the twenty or so entries, including mistakes that are explicitly spelled out in the prompt. That’s a brutal failure rate. Again, if you use AI/LLM for data collection, you need to take a lot of extra steps to verify and check the data. “Ghosts in the Balcony: A Cross-Country Trip to 58 Theaters Fighting to Survive“ by Matthew Frank in The Ankler I thought Matthew Frank’s pitch to head across America to visit theaters sounded insane aggressive at the time—at least it felt that way to someone a decade older than him; man, to be in your twenties again, am I right?—but I knew the result would be great. And it was, a terrific feature by a great young writer. Also, I loved Matthew’s recent article on who’s getting the precious few entry level jobs in Hollywood. (Hint: nepotism.) “Disney erased FiveThirtyEight“ and “Did Las Vegas get too greedy?” by Nate Silver in Silver Bulletin I love media history and analysis, and there’s no one better to get the history of FiveThirtyEight than from Nate Silver, who wrote about his personal experience in one of my favorite pieces from this year. I also loved Nate’s breakdown of what’s causing Vegas’ woes, but I’ll offer one criticism, summarized as “Might I suggest antitrust?” Many centrists/center-right/libertarian thinkers (Nate is self-described as the latter) often don’t consider consolidation or antitrust as factors in policy issues like housing, America’s military readiness, or, in this case, Las Vegas. Even if libertarians want to debunk antitrust/consolidation concerns, I’d love to read that debunking. In this case, Vegas is incredibly consolidated (though it also has been for a long time) and I’d have loved to read Nate at least contending with this factor, since he addresses almost every other potential factor for Vegas’ decline. “Why Microsoft’s Carbon Removal Pullback Is Such a Big Deal“ by Robinson Meyer in Heatmap News I’m a big supporter of carbon removal efforts, but this nascent industry faces a lot of headwinds, including this big move most recently. I think it’s clear that solar panels and batteries should be able to get the world to its carbon footprint goals, but effective carbon renewal remains necessary to prevent the worst impacts of global warming. “AI is killing the cheap smartphone“ by David Oks LLMs and AI will impact the world in ways we’re not ready for, and already, third world countries are seeing the prices of cheap cellphones skyrocket due to the cost of chips skyrocketing. This article by David Oks is a terrific breakdown. “100 Days of Madness: Netflix, Paramount, Warner and the Future of Hollywood“ by Wade Major at Hollywood Heretic Wade Major dove deep into Hollywood/streaming’s financials in this must read piece. Not that I agree with everything in this article (read my take on Warner Bros./Paramount here) but the analysis is top notch. I think many people discount how quality thinking, regardless of the argument/conclusion, will make you a better thinker. “Erased by the UFC: Frank Shamrock, The MMA GOAT of the 20th Century“ by Nate Wilcox in The MMA Draw Newsletter Growing up playing the UFC fighting game on the Dreamcast, Frank Shamrock was my favorite MMA fighter, and this history/tribute to him was great. Other Fun Reads “The Hardest Part Of History To Tell Is How It Felt“ by Craig Fehrman at Defector “Unmasking the Sea Star Killer“ by Craig Welch at bioGraphic “What Could Save the Industry? Fin-Syn“ by Richard Rushfield in The Ankler Alex Rollins Berg in Underexposed on movie bumpers, pillow shots, Disney trash cinema, cult films, and Casablanca. David H. Montgomery in YouGov’s The Surveyor on punctuation marks, condiments, dinosaurs, and comic strips and kids media. “How Medium finally pivoted its way to profitability“ and “Why the best journalists on YouTube are all former Vox employees“ by Simon Owens in Simon Owens’s Media Newsletter “It’s Not Just You, Netflix Shows Have Gotten Slightly Shorter: Here’s What the Data Says“ by Kasey Moore at What’s on Netflix “Numlock Awards: How Diane Warren became the biggest loser in Oscar history“ by Nathaniel Rakich and “Numlock Awards: The Oscar Bait era is over. The Oscar Chum era is here.” by Walt Hickey & Michael Domanico at Numlock Awards
The Supreme Court can no longer explain itself
The justices don’t speak a common language, even with each other.
There’s one big reason socialist voters may not get what they want
The left’s new vision is running into an old problem.
Melat Kiros is the first political star truly formed by the 2020s
What’s behind her shocking victory against a 30-year incumbent in Colorado — according to the candidate herself.
The Supreme Court’s trans sports ruling is a cautionary tale for all left-leaning lawyers
If you’re a liberal, and you’re thinking of bringing a case to the Supreme Court, don’t
Are moderate Democrats washed?
They hoped “Abundance” could be the party’s new vision. It hasn’t worked out.
Reporter talks environmental, health impacts of mining efforts near Boundary Waters
WTIP spoke to Benji Jones, Senior Correspondent at Vox Media, about what environmental and health experts are saying about the proposed Twin Metals mining project in the Boundary Waters Watershed. Jones’ article “Mining these metals could be a boon for the climate — but there’s one big catch,” is currently available at vox.com. Below is...
Democrats’ real plan to control Congress again
New York’s socialist insurgents are getting the headlines. But in swing House districts, the establishment has been getting its way.
The Supreme Court lets Trump deport people back to war zones
Trump’s administration may ignore procedural rules governing many of the most endangered people in America.
MAHA is breaking up with Trump. Now what?
A coalition of wellness-conscious activists is changing course, with big implications for 2028.
Why urban Democrats love socialists now
Democratic socialists are winning in New York — and in other cities. Can they win elsewhere?
The shallow authoritarianism of Trump’s Reflecting Pool
The sordid saga on the Washington Mall reveals why Trump’s efforts to consolidate power keep failing.
The fall of Britain’s prime minister is a warning for America
Keir Starmer’s resignation shows how moderation can go wrong.
Man accused of embezzling thousands from Gwinn business with gift card scheme
Jonathan A. Barnes was arraigned in Marquette County District Court on one count of embezzlement of $20,000 to $50,000.
The MAGA stars freaked out by their own movement
The right’s leading lights are looking for anyone to blame for the right’s growing extremism — except themselves.
I read JD Vance’s new book. It reveals more than he realizes.
The vice president pitches himself as a humble Catholic convert in a new memoir — but somehow skips the humility part when it comes to politics.
The state that will tell us who’s winning the Democratic civil war
Longtime Colorado Democrats are facing anti-establishment challenges. Who will prevail?
The case that Florida is ready to turn blue again
David Jolly, a former Republican member of Congress, is Democrats’ likely nominee. Here’s his case that he can win.
Trump just found the worst way to regulate AI
The real danger in Trump’s crackdown on Anthropic’s newest AI model.
How A Former Vox Producer Built One Of YouTube's Biggest Science Shows
Former Netflix and Vox journalist Cleo Abram left traditional media to build Huge If True on YouTube. Now at 2.2 Billion views, she's reshaping science journalism.
The Iran war’s end is being greatly exaggerated
There are many questions unresolved in the latest ceasefire deal and many ways the conflict could begin again.
Trump’s strange flirtation with AI socialism, explained
Uncle Sam and OpenAI may go into business together.
The secrets you shouldn’t keep from your doctor
Most of us hide stuff from our doctors. But there are things you should never lie about.
The next victim of the Supreme Court’s voting rights decision will be workers
The Trump administration wants to extend Justice Sam Alito’s approach to race to everything.
Rolling the dice on Graham Platner
Platner’s candidacy is a massive opportunity — and risk — for the left.
How the Iran war could drive conflicts in countries thousands of miles away
Fuel and food prices are rising. Mass protests could follow.
Smartphones broke dating. AI might finish the job.
Humanity may scroll its way out of existence.
Trump’s attorney general pick has exactly one qualification
Todd Blanche passed his loyalty test to Trump.
How Americans got hooked on “drive-thru” healthcare
When did getting a prescription start to feel like ordering at McDonald’s?
The Supreme Court’s new decision tilting the midterms toward Republicans, explained
The Court’s new gerrymandering decision is tough to explain, unless you think the justices are GOP partisans.
Here’s why Republicans just stood up to Trump
The suspension of Trump’s weaponization fund shows how the system is (kind of) working.
What’s new on Prime Video in June 2026, including ‘The Legend of Vox Machina' Season 4, WNBA games, and more
Plus, check out Pride Month titles already available on Prime Video like 'Overcompensating' and 'Red, White & Royal Blue.'
Millions of Americans are losing their health insurance
The GOP’s Big, Beautiful Bill sought to roll back the Affordable Care Act. Now, the human costs are becoming clear.
The real lesson of the E. Jean Carroll investigation is Trump’s weakness
Trump’s war on his enemies keeps running into the same problem.
Teladoc adds virtual care services to Walmart digital health platform
Customers using Walmart’s Better Care Services will be able to access Teladoc’s virtual care products, including urgent care, dermatology and nutrition support.
The Texas Senate candidates have two radically different visions of Christianity
A religious fight is brewing in the Lone Star state.
Trump still thinks he’s winning in Iran
Despite everything, the president is holding out for more before he ends the war.
Spain Politics
Santiago Abascal, leader of the far-right Vox party, greets during a protest against Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez's government in Madrid, Spain, Saturday, May 23, 2026. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)
The hidden way dictatorships are shaping what AI tells you
Authoritarian states may have accidentally brainwashed ChatGPT.
Marvel Rivals May 21 Update Introduces Savage Adventure and New Cosmetics
Marvel Rivals May 21 update adds the Savage Adventure event, free Ultron rewards, and new Peni Parker and Luna Snow cosmetics.
There’s more to Trump’s corruption than stealing money
It’s transforming the US government at a cellular level.
James Murdoch buys NY Mag, Vox podcasts: staff memo
James Murdoch's company is acquiring New York magazine, the Vox Media Podcast Network, and Vox. Read the memo from Vox CEO Jim Bankoff about the sale.
News industry scion James Murdoch buys New York magazine and Vox
Other Vox titles, including Eater, Popsugar, SB Nation, the Dodo, and the Verge, are not included in the transaction. They will make up a second, independent company under a new name.
Broadcasters too reliant on vox pop interviews and failing to challenge politicians, says study
Researchers also question whether UK’s impartiality rules allow for proper scrutiny in era of multiparty politics
The Supreme Court just handed down two surprisingly timid Voting Rights Act decisions
Why did a Court that hates the Voting Rights Act with the intensity of a thousand suns decide to stay its hand?
Photos reveal strange sea creatures that scientists have never seen before
Scientists say they’ve found more than 1,100 new marine species over the last year, emphasizing how unexplored the ocean really is.
You have more time than you think. Here are 5 science-backed ways to find it
There are 8,760 hours in a year. You can spend them better.
Now What? With Carbon Pricing Eroded and Pipeline Politics Advancing, Here Are the Pathways for Climate Success
At the end of a whirlwind week of news on carbon pricing and electricity strategy, capping a madcap year of pretty much non-stop, dramatic change, the word across much of Canada’s climate and energy transition community is that climate policy in this country has been shredded. Eviscerated. Hit with a sledgehammer by policy rollbacks that have pushed the country’s 2050 net zero target “well out of reach”. That means it’s never been more important to look for the rays of hope and glimmers of possibility. To glimpse the seeds of the next set of strategies to get Canada’s climate pollution under control and the country into the accelerating global dash away from fossil fuels. And then, once we’ve spotted those possibilities, get on with the hard, day-to-day slog of trying to make them a reality. Nothing takes away from the frustration and the deep disappointment so many climate and energy hawks are expressing, the sense of betrayal by the author of Value(s) and the former UN special envoy for climate action and finance. But we knew two things as the week drew to a close. We’re looking at the world as it most definitely is. And we don’t get to give up finding the pathways to confront climate change and deliver faster, deeper carbon cuts that leave no one else behind. So really, the first question we all have to ask ourselves is: What’s next? Subscribe All the Oxygen in the Room The outpouring of anger and grief over the carbon pricing deal between Prime Minister Mark Carney and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has been absolutely understandable. So much of the climate community poured years, more than a decade, into dragging the current federal pricing regime across the finish line, then defending it from a deluge of three-syllable rhymes after the Trudeau government proved utterly incapable of delivering its own message. The policy foisted on us by neo-classical economists took up all the oxygen in the room, burned through years of climate response time that we won’t get back, while cornering climate hawks into the position that the best response to the crisis of our lifetimes is a new tax…in an era of historic anti-tax sentiment. I mean, really—what could possibly have gone wrong? Against that history, let’s appreciate columnist Max Fawcett’s point that even a modest carbon pricing agreement with a government as off-the-wall libertarian/conspiracist as Danielle Smith’s—those adjectives are mine, not Max’s—is a win worth savouring (as long as Smith keeps her promises for a change). But part of living in the world as it is (no, I’m not letting that go) is to be clear-headed about what we can and can’t control. And one thing we get to decide, after seeing this week’s carbon price festivities take up all the oxygen yet again, is whether we want to keep letting that happen. Particularly when success down that road depends on a factor that no one with a climate agenda can control or influence—a provincial carbon pricing mechanism that has been manipulated and eroded beyond its lowest possible denominator. Thankfully, that’s not the way it has to go. Not when we have so many other powerful, practical tools at our disposal, including the ones still available to us through this abominable Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between Canada and Alberta. Tools In Our Toolbox When I started roughing out this list, I didn’t expect it to grow to nearly a dozen bullet points. It’s probably still incomplete. Some of the greatest hits in today’s climate solutions toolbox include: • No Carbon Capture, No Pipeline: On Friday, Prime Minister Mark Carney explicitly stated that there’s been no change to the MOU provision that there will be no West Coast pipeline without an industry commitment to build its massive, $16.5-billion carbon capture and storage (CCUS) hub in Northern Alberta, and vice versa. The two megaprojects were joined at the hip when the MOU was signed Nov. 27, and the implementation agreement this week affirmed that they still are. A parade of independent analysts have spent years pointing to the economic and technical flaws in CCUS, while the industry kept postponing its investment decision until it could arm-twist the government for more “clarity” (by which it meant even more lavish taxpayer subsidies) on the project. Now the industry itself is running away from the CCUS hub and insisting the pipeline should proceed without it, but Carney doesn’t seem to be budging from a central tenet of the MOU to which Smith has signed on. • No Subsidies, No Investors: Climate analysts and advocates have quite rightly been hammering away at Carney and his team, insisting that any new capacity the industry wants to build must proceed without new subsidies. The government has responded with a growing collection of funding and financing mechanisms for the very wide menu of industrial development and nation-building projects they say they want to take on, and that menu always includes fossil fuel infrastructure. But it’s hard to see how even the combined fiscal clout of the federal and supportive provincial governments will deliver the financial backing private investors would need when the business case for new fossil fuel development is evaporating before their eyes. Particularly when… • No Market, No Demand, No Investors: As our friend Markham Hislop at Energi Media (our apparently sleepless friend, given the massive volume of great material he’s been churning out) points out this morning, the biggest vulnerability in any pipeline deal is the assumption that Asian buyers will want the oil or liquefied natural ga that our fossil industry is so keen to send them. Hislop writes in part: Ottawa and Alberta are effectively betting that countries like China and India will continue increasing oil imports for decades as their economies grow and energy consumption rises. That assumption underpins the entire economic rationale for expanding oil sands production and building billions of dollars in new export infrastructure. But Asian energy systems are changing rapidly… China, India, South Korea, and other major hydrocarbon importers are now investing hundreds of billions of dollars into electricity systems built around wind, solar, batteries, nuclear, hydro, and expanded transmission infrastructure. Domestic “energy sovereignty” is increasingly replacing the old energy-security model based on stable oil and gas imports. Those investments are expected to sharply slow oil demand growth and eventually reverse it, even as overall energy consumption continues rising. There are also refining constraints. Many Asian refineries and petrochemical complexes are already optimized to process discounted heavy crude from the Middle East and Latin America. That raises serious questions about how much additional Canadian bitumen Asian markets can absorb at profitable prices. Small wonder that there’s still no private sector investor for the project, despite Smith’s government desperately beating the bushes to put together a deal. For now, Alberta is acting as proponent and covering early start-up costs for a pitch to the federal Major Projects Office, which could actually turn into the next tough hurdle for Smith and her pipeline to jump. • Canada Day Looms: How ironic that Canada’s birthday this year could become a major chokepoint for the provincial premier who’s been working so diligently to tear the country apart! The July 1 target date for Alberta’s pipeline proposal is baked into the MOU, was reaffirmed by the implementation plan, but it hadn’t dawned on me that it cuts both ways. As one very smart colleague wrote in an email yesterday, “they’ve thrown the ball into Alberta’s court to get the project proposal on the table really quickly and to have to do a whole pile of work to put together a massive, complicated project that would typically take years to assemble, and they’ve given them weeks to do it.” That makes July 1 a looming deadline that Smith won’t be able to run away from politically, especially with the separatists in her party and her caucus breathing down her neck. (See previous ref to off-the-wall.) But if Alberta comes in with a sloppy, incomplete submission, even after Carney bent over backwards to simplify the application process and the rules that govern it, it may be harder for the province or the industry to blame Ottawa and insist on the faster process they claim their investors are demanding. (Oh, wait—which investors would those be??) • We’ll See You In Court (Then We’ll See You Again): If Carney did cave, that would be just one more reason for Indigenous and other affected communities to take the government and the process to court—Just as Alberta First Nations did, successfully, in response to Smith’s half-baked separation referendum. Veterans of the Harper era have been warning that a shoddy process around fossil fuel infrastructure or other major projects will be a recipe for the very delays that process seeks to avoid. And now more than ever, with renewable energy and energy storage eating fossil fuels’ lunch in import markets around the world, a delayed pipeline or LNG terminal may be as good as a cancelled one. • Charged Up, Ready to Go: With its goal of doubling Canada’s electricity supply to meet a doubling of demand by 2050, the national electricity strategy that Carney unveiled Thursday has a lot to like. With its explicit language about speeding the shift from fuels to more efficient and affordable electricity, global investment and deployment patterns that already favour that shift, an emerging bidirectional power grid, the role of front-line options like rooftop solar and heat pumps, the emergence of electric vehicles as behind-the-meter energy storage, and the domestic jobs and manufacturing to make it all happen, the document doubles down on the essential cornerstone of a faster shift off fossil fuels. The strategy envisions a more prominent role for gas and nuclear power. But some of those provisions were already in the Clean Electricity Regulations that climate hawks are now fighting so hard to defend, inserted as a compromise in a futile attempt to mollify the industry and its political representatives in Alberta and Saskatchewan. But once again, gas will be a tougher sell when it’s more expensive and now so much more unpredictable than the clean alternatives. The new nuclear technologies are still speculative and deeply vulnerable to cost overruns. Increasingly, utilities, developers, and investors know it. Carney declared Thursday that “it doesn’t do us good to be sitting in court all the time with provinces. It doesn’t do us good to be talking past each other. What does do us good is to come together with specific projects.” There are no guarantees, but so much of the language and narrative-building in the electricity strategy suggests the lion’s share of those projects will be renewable. • The Party Has Already Started: The electricity strategy only rarely digs down to specific projects, but provinces representing three-quarters of Canada’s population are already embracing a faster transition. Hydro-Québec is working on a 10-year, $185-billion renewable energy and grid buildout by 2035. Ontario recently brought 10 provinces and territories together in a National Energy Corridor Agreement to boost interprovincial and -territorial transmission infrastructure. And the MOU implementation agreement commits Alberta to facilitate investment in renewable energy projects, a big step back from its continuing, punitive restrictions on renewables development. The electricity strategy envisions much of the financing and infrastructure that will be needed to pull those advances together into an integrated whole. • Delivering on Affordability: The MOU implementation plan has little or nothing to say about affordability (are you surprised?), but the electricity strategy does, with a top-line pledge to reduce home energy costs for seven out of 10 Canadian households by 2050, a total saving of $15 billion across the board. It’s just a start, but it puts affordability on the government’s narrative map. If they’re serious and deliberate about patching together a least-cost energy strategy, it’ll have little if any room for oil, gas, or nuclear—not with powerful evidence, for example, that electricity prices are higher when those prices are set by gas. • Smith Proves that Canada Works: By signing a deal that makes it harder to claim the federal government is blocking a new pipeline, Smith has helped prove Carney’s constant anti-separatist refrain that “Canada works”—incurring the rage, no doubt, of her own political base. Canada also needs to work for anyone who depends on a clean environment, healthy and thriving ecosystems, and safe, stable climate. But with Smith and her separatist constituents setting up as a fifth column for annexation by Donald Trump’s United States, let’s set aside any notion that 51st state status for Canada is a recipe for anything other than climate disaster (and so much else). Resisting and withstanding Trump (just 170 more sleeps until mid-term elections, which is a damn sight better than the 730 we started with) doesn’t mean a free pass for a pipeline, but we can still appreciate it that keeping Canada whole and sovereign is still Carney’s Job One. • The Words Not Spoken: Apart from a commitment to export a million barrels of “low-emission” Alberta bitumen per day (memo to Smith and Carney: You realize that that’s less than the industry is already exporting??), the MOU implementation plan says nothing about the international trade and economic sovereignty deals that Carney has been travelling the world to negotiate. It didn’t have to. Carney doesn’t need permission from Danielle Smith, her American enablers, or her separatist allies to continue building the alliances that will ratchet down our economic dependency on our unstable, unreliable neighbour to the south. But every connection he builds with countries outside North America helps align our economy and our future with a faster shift off fossil fuels. Little if any of this was on our bingo cards a year or two ago. But it’s the pathway that has opened up to us. And if it gives Canada any climate or energy gains at all in an era still dominated by Trump and his increasingly ridiculous tariffs, his loutish trade negotiations and his continuing annexation threats, we have to take the wins. Not least because they’ll be the point of departure for what we can achieve in 2027, 2029, and beyond, as Trump’s grip and this era begin to loosen and then fade. What is Carney Doing? If this line of thought is right—and it’s a possibility, not a prediction—it means that Carney’s actions and decisions are largely about buying time. Time for Trump’s power to wane. Time for Alberta’s separatist/conspiracist virus to spread, mutate, die out, or at least die back, with help from a vaccine of federal steadiness and calm (appropriate enough, for a movement populated largely by vaccine deniers) that no conspiracy theory can dismiss. And time for the government’s trade and investment agenda to deliver results—even knowing that some of those results will bring impacts that front-line communities will not and should not accept. In the immediate moment, none of this changes the way the wider climate community has to respond, from campaigners to investors to front-line practitioners. All of our voices are still essential. But those voices will be stronger and more confident if we have a clearer sense of the brutal game we’ve been pulled into, and a plausible path (or two it three) for playing it to the win we need. This conversation also underscores our biggest task for the remaining years of what was supposed to be the “decisive” decade for climate response: if we can shift the energy narrative in Canada, make it a mainstream view that the country’s preoccupation with oil and gas has us falling farther behind a changing world, we’ll see far better results in the 2030s and beyond. For many veteran climate advocates, taking on that part of the fight will begin with recognizing that most of our friends and family, neighbours and colleagues already understand that climate change is real and right in front of us: they’re looking away and staying silent because they don’t have what climate communicator Katharine Hayhoe calls “efficacy”. As Hayhoe recently pointed out in a feature interview with The Energy Mix, it amounts to science denial to keep hammering away at the dire news about global warming without also helping audiences understand what they can do about it, with multiple studies telling us why that won’t work. Far better to open those conversations with the dominant crises like energy security, food security, emergency preparedness and business continuity, affordability, and financial security that have knocked climate change far lower on the list of public priorities, and will likely keep it there. We Knew This Would Happen Climate hawks have always known this day would come. For decades, we warned that everyone had to pay attention to climate change right now, because it would be much tougher to respond once the crisis itself started affecting our daily lives. We were right, and here we are. But now, thanks to decades of hard work, communities and countries have an alternative to doubling down on fossil fuels. “In 10 years everyone will have ‘always known’ that solar and batteries were going to win,” Morgan Solar Executive Chair Mike Andrade writes on LinkedIn. With the disruption in the Strait of Hormuz roiling energy priorities around the world, Canada and the United States are among the shrinking number of countries that are still very keen on fossil fuel development. Understanding that gap is a first, essential step in spotting the opportunities ahead, and averting the deep economic as well as environmental and social risk we face if we don’t seize them. Thanks for reading The Energy Mix Weekender! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support our work. Subscribe Mitchell Beer traces his background in renewable energy and energy efficiency back to 1977, in climate change to 1997. Now he and the rest of the Energy Mix team scan 1,200 news headlines a week to pull together The Energy Mix and The Energy Mix Weekender. Chart of the Week BYD Eyes 20 Dealership Locations After Canada Greenlights Chinese EV Imports ‘Sledgehammer’ Carbon Price Deal Boosts Emissions by 230Mt, Aims for Fall 2027 Pipeline Approval ‘Worse Than Harper’: Regulatory Rollback Would Stop Canada from Assessing Project Impacts, Critics Warn Electricity Strategy Aims for Doubling by 2050, Allows ‘Flexibility’ for Gas Power Plants Opposition Mounts as O’Leary’s Data Centre Approved in Drought-Stricken Utah Diluted Carbon Price Misses ‘Reality of the World We’re In’, Could Impede Diversified Trade: Climate Institute $200B in Clean Energy Investment Will Need On-Time Delivery, Reliable Policies, Trade Association Says ‘Sovereign Pipeline’: CEO Pitches to Keep Trans Mountain in Government Hands What a Supercharged El Niño Could Mean for Canada Canada’s future is electric, and here’s how a power grid superhighway would get us there (Toronto Star) The Perilous Waters of Hecate Strait (Globe and Mail) Saudi Aramco profits jump despite conflict in Middle East (The Guardian) Farmers confront rising cost of fertilizer and fuel as spring seeding under way (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) Clarkson forecasts 24% decline in offshore oil, gas capital expenditures (Oil & Gas Journal) Pipe Dreams: How Oil and Gas Fail to Deliver Economic Development in Africa (Oil Change International) Developing countries must hold the pen to script the fossil fuel transition (Climate Home News) Iran war threatens the dream of a post-oil economy in the Gulf (Washington Post) U.S. Oil, Gas Work Force Hits Lowest Level Since 2022 (Rigzone) Why Polestar Is Doubling Down on Net Zero as Rivals Pull Back on EVs (Bloomberg) Why this Michigan utility plans to sell its hydro dams for $13 (E&E News/Politico) Levees can no longer save New Orleans (Vox)
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