Leah Stokes

@leahstokes.bsky.social

62K followers 1.2K following 750 posts

Professor of climate + energy policy at UCSB. Alumni of MIT, Columbia and UToronto. Hosts "A Matter of Degrees" podcast. Cuts carbon pollution! Proudly 🇨🇦 Gardener 🌱 leahstokes.com

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Leah Cardamore Stokes is a Canadian-American political scientist specializing in environmental policy. She is the Anton Vonk Associate Professor of Environmental Politics at the University of California, Santa Barbara. In addition, Stokes is a senior policy consultant at Evergreen Action and Rewiring America. She also hosts the climate change podcast A Matter of Degrees. Her research focuses on political behavior, public opinion, and the politics of energy and environmental policy in the United States. .. more

Political science 32%

Environmental science 16%

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Leah Stokes @leahstokes.bsky.social · Jan 15

It's official: I'm writing a book. Should be out early fall 2026. Thrilled to be working with MIT Press.

Book announcement for "The Carbon Wave."

Reposted by Stephen M. Walt, Jacob Montgomery, Rebecca Tushnet , and 3 more Stephen M. Walt, Jacob Montgomery, Rebecca Tushnet, David R. Miller, Leah Stokes, Nathan P. Kalmoe

Brendan Nyhan @brendannyhan.bsky.social · 20h

In competitive authoritarian regimes, the government deters and undermines opposition by using its powers to inflict costs on those who challenge it rather than recognizing their legitimacy as democratic opponents

CNBC @cnbc.com · 21h

The Pentagon will cut the military retirement pay of Sen. Mark Kelly for what Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth called the Arizona Democrat’s “seditious” statements on a video telling service members they have the right to refuse to execute illegal orders.

Read more: cnb.cx/495FHLo

Reposted by Leah Stokes

Reposted by Rosemary A. Joyce, Richard Waite, Leah Stokes

David Weiskopf believes in you @dave.bzky.team · 2d

There has never been a moment when ending the oil industry has been more urgent or important. Here is a thread of seven tools that can help.

Brief, readable 2-pagers, and a 30-page overview from @michealpodgers.bsky.social at @clicabedu.bsky.social.

Transportation 101 Policy Guides - Climate Cabinet Education

Transportation 101 Policy Guides by Climate Cabinet Education: practical, accessible guides on transit planning, active mobility & multimodal policy for climate action.

climatecabineteducation.org

Reposted by Mark Blyth, Mel Ainscow, Bruce E. Hansen , and 194 more Mark Blyth, Mel Ainscow, Bruce E. Hansen, Alberto Corsín Jiménez, Nita A. Farahany, Eran Halperin, John R. Hutchinson, Sergey Levine, Anna Rotkirch, Samuel Moyn, Hugh P. Possingham, Joy E Lawn, Miles Richardson, John Tasioulas, George Selgin, Peter Turchin, Eric P. Xing, Heather Furnas, Jorge Carrera, Rob Gray, Ali H. Mokdad, Katharine Hayhoe, Hanno Lustig, Lucas Bergkamp, Esteban Rossi‐Hansberg, Demis Hassabis, Stephen Bullivant, Lars P. Feld, Michael Pettis, Richard Blundell, Geoffrey M. Hodgson, Justice Nyigmah Bawole, Daniel P. Aldrich, Javier Guallar, Peter J. Boettke, Manuel Alejandro Cardenete, Annamaria Lusardi, Kirsten Bibbins‐Domingo, Stanley Wells, Christopher Wright, Martin G. Kocher, David Arnold, Marcin Zaborowski, Manuel Delgado, Bernard Lahire, Richard McElreath, Randa Slim, Andrew E. Derocher, Andrew P. Hendry, Daniel Katz, Vitalik Buterin, Luis Miller, George M. Church, Naomi Klein, Leah Stokes, Paul Ekman, Ministerio de Educación, Dan Goldhaber, Refet S. Gürkaynak, Laurence J. Kotlikoff, Paul Widdop, Brian Michael Jenkins, François‐Marie Bréon, Birthe Larsen, Alex Callinicos, Nikolas K. Gvosdev, Fernando Valladares, John‐Arne Røttingen, Steffanie A. Strathdee, Azeem Majeed, Michael Marmot, Hans‐Werner Sinn, Olivier Giménez, Filip Reyntjens, Klaus Adam, Jens Suedekum, Mariana Mazzucato, Paul Cairney, The Lancet, Gabriel Felbermayr, Tim Newburn, Ian P. McCarthy, Lawrence H. Summers, Stefan Dercon, Cass R. Sunstein, François Gemenne, Emily Shuckburgh, Andrew Leigh, Justin Wolfers, Loretta Lees, Oliver Stuenkel, Makarand Paranjape, Marcos López de Prado, Justus Haucap, Kim L. Scheppele, Steve Keen, James M. Acton, Ivan Koprić, Victor Nizet, Stefan Auer, Thiemo Fetzer, Brian M. Lucey, Simon Chesterman, Gita Gopinath, アジア経済研究所, Ajay Agrawal, Teppo Felin, Bart D. Ehrman, Rory Stewart, Peter Adamson, Douglas Holtz‐Eakin, Rishi K. Wadhera, Daniel Innerárity, Leonardo Boff, Dirk Messner, Linda J. Skitka, Naila Kabeer, Yong Zhao, Linda Williams, Justin Sandefur, Julian Ku, Arvind Narayanan, Eszter Hargittai, Jiří Přibáň, Tao Lin, Andrew Y. Ng, David Bailey, Lawrence O. Gostin, Konstantin Sonin, Heinz M. Kabutz, Nicholas A. Christakis, Solomon Messing, Stefan Rahmstorf, David Papineau, Eric Kaufmann, Naomi Hossain, Touraj Daryaee, Zainal Arifin, Matthew E. Kahn, Andreas Löschel, International Monetary Fund, Razelle Kurzrock, Jonathan Birch, Deepak L. Bhatt, Matteo Maggiori, Asghar Zaidi, Peter Blair Henry, Patrick Dunleavy, Robert C. Hockett, Roger A. Pielke, Catherine Kyobutungi, Bronwyn Fredericks, Fatih Birol, Philip E. Tetlock, OECD, Joshua Gans, Timothy G. Ash, Jorge Heine, Joanna Bryson, James Muldoon, Francis Fukuyama, Daniel Fiott, Ugo Panizza, Ricardo Hausmann, Flávio Comim, Katherine Runswick‐Cole, Dominique Rousseau, Jack Goldsmith, Barry Eichengreen, Lars Peter Hansen, Randy E. Barnett, Brigid Laffan, Arvind Subramanian, Dambisa Moyo, Benn Steil, Anindya Ghose, Julien Chaisse, Tom Ginsburg, Trita Parsi, Arvind Panagariya, Adam J. Berinsky, Nicholas K. Dulvy, Neha Narula, Benoît Cœuré, Pascal Perrineau, Danuše Nerudová, Lina Gálvez‐Muñoz, Olivier J. Blanchard, Bruno Amable, Joshua S. Weitz, Branko Milanovic, Andrea Presbitero, Robert M. Wachter, Adair Turner, Mark Galeotti, Rafael Rojas, Steffen Mau

Reposted by Leah Stokes

John Bistline @bistline.bsky.social · 13d

"Hard-to-abate" is sometimes code for "we haven't looked closely yet." This great new report shows opportunities for clean heat (low/medium-temp industrial process heat) through electrification, which also has public health benefits.

Leah Stokes @leahstokes.bsky.social · 14d

Unbelievably inhumane conditions. No wonder the Trump administration didn't want Americans to see this reporting. Must watch.

Timothy Burke @bubbaprog.xyz · 14d

The full spiked 60 Minutes CECOT package, clean & subtitled. 1/5

Reposted by Anne Applebaum, Joanna Bryson, Naomi Klein , and 46 more Anne Applebaum, Joanna Bryson, Naomi Klein, Suresh Venkatasubramanian, Nandita Sharma, Kimberly A. Prather, A. E. Dessler, Peter Thorne, Gordon Pennycook, Brendan Nyhan, Kevin J. Anchukaitis, Steve Peers, John McLaren, Rosemary A. Joyce, Amir Attaran, Efrén O. Pérez, Guy Grossman, Philip Nel, Anders Nilsson, Juan Cole, Daniel W. Drezner, Clyde W. Barrow, David R. Miller, Robert Wolfe, Johann N. Neem, Michael Zimmer, Andrew L. Whitehead, Gerald Friedman, Jacob T. Levy, Robert B. Reich, Els Torreele, Jen Schneider, Paul Fisher, Ann Bartow, Leah Stokes, Greg Linden, Greg O’Brien, Gerardo Martí, Richard M. Carpiano, Joanna L. Grossman, Tim Stephens, Daxton R. Stewart, Nicole Guenther Discenza, Aviel Roshwald, John Christman, Dan Immergluck, Timothy D. McBride, Jesse R. Lasky, Pieter Vantieghem

Timothy Burke @bubbaprog.xyz · 14d

The full spiked 60 Minutes CECOT package, clean & subtitled. 1/5

Reposted by A. E. Dessler, Stefan Rahmstorf, Peter Thorne , and 4 more A. E. Dessler, Stefan Rahmstorf, Peter Thorne, Gavin A. Schmidt, John Fasullo, Smith, Leah Stokes

Bob Kopp @bobkopp.net · 15d

I look forward to the legally required, transparent peer review process required by the US Global Change Research Act and the Information Quality Act. I always thought they would try to do a NCA with Judith Curry, five old men and a LLM.

It’s the gold standard of US climate research. Contrarians could write the next one.

Researchers who have downplayed the threat of global warming have been asked to author the next National Climate Assessment.

www.eenews.net

Leah Stokes @leahstokes.bsky.social · 16d

Also the evidence that people don't care about climate change is thin and best. It's just a talking point a bunch of pundits have spent a year repeating, trying to brainwash us all.

Also his points about Canadian leftists loving fossil fuels are HILARIOUSLY wrong lol.

Appreciate you!

Reposted by Leah Stokes

Erik Schlenker-Goodrich @riogranderift.bsky.social · 16d

Yglesias wants to take us backwards to the stale coal vs. natural gas fights of the 2000s that anchor the climate debate in fossil fuels. The debate must move forwards, beyond fossil fuels that corrupt our politics, drive inflation, harm public health, & foul our climate, air & water, public lands.

Screenshot of Yglesias post reading: "Claim here from a green NGO guy is that I am a “corporate shill” for believing that gas is cleaner than coal.

Does that make him a corporate shill for coal for arguing that I’m wrong? This is a childish way to argue. We simply disagree. Who is right?" that quote posts Aaron Regunberg post reading: "Matt Yglesias is a corporate shill. This is well attested. But he really took his hackery to the
next level in this essay for the Times. "Essay" is actually a very generous word to describe this blatant regurgitation of oil and gas industry talking points, which relies for its citations on sources like Energy In Depth, the Big Oil front group that the Times' own reporting has described as being directed by ExxonMobil. Essentially every line in this piece is wrong. And not like "I disagree with that opinion" wrong—like empirically, demonstrably false, as you'd expect from the talking points of an industry that has spent decades lying about
these issues. Yglesias claims that natural gas "is much cleaner than coal"—it isn't, according to the Times, which reported that gas "can be just as harmful to the climate" unless the industry can
"all but eliminate the leaks that plague its use.""

Reposted by Katharine Hayhoe, Gavin A. Schmidt, Scott L. Greer , and 12 more Katharine Hayhoe, Gavin A. Schmidt, Scott L. Greer, Daniel Webster, Christopher Wright, Jonathan M. Gilligan, Valerie Mueller, David G. Stewart, Dana R. Fisher, Jen Schneider, Michael Jones‐Correa, Ann Bartow, Leah Stokes, David Darmofal, Peter Jacobs

Sean Casten @seancasten.bsky.social · 16d

This Yglesias piece in the NYT is horrifically bad. Almost every "fact" it cites is provably false. At best it is cocktail party banter from a pundit who knows nothing of energy. At worst, it was cut/paste from oil industry talking points. So, a rebuttal: www.nytimes.com/2025/12/18/o...

Opinion | Obama Supported It. The Left in Canada and Norway Does. Why Don’t Democrats?

www.nytimes.com

Elizabeth Jacobs, PhD @elizabethjacobs.bsky.social · 17d

It is utterly catastrophic that RFK Jr. plans to end CDC recommendations for most childhood vaccines.

It’s a betrayal of science, ethics, compassion, and the people of the United States.

And it was also a specific goal of Project 2025 (page 254).

Screenshot from project 2025 that says By statute or regulation, CDC guidance must be prohibited from taking on a prescriptive character. For example, never again should CDC officials be allowed to say in their official capacity that school children "should be" masked or vaccinated (through a schedule or otherwise) or prohibited from learning in a school building.
Such decisions should be left to parents and medical providers. We have learned that when CDC says what people "should" do, it readily becomes a "must" backed by severe punishments, including criminal penalties. CDC should report on the risks and effectiveness of all infectious disease-mitigation measures dispassionately and leave the "should" and "must" policy calls to politically accountable parties.
Conflicts of Interest. There was a time when the CDC could not take money

Reposted by Leah Stokes

Leah Stokes @leahstokes.bsky.social · 18d

♥️♥️♥️

Reposted by Leah Stokes

Rebecca Solnit @rebeccasolnit.bsky.social · 18d

Naturally @leahstokes.bsky.social is on it:

Electricity Should Be Free at Noon

And two other ideas for lowering electricity costs

www.theatlantic.com

Reposted by Leah Stokes

Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 18d

Anyway, no worries, Kash Patel is on the job, and half of FBI agents are working immigration enforcement donmoynihan.substack.com/p/purge-merg...

More recent data suggests that these numbers are increasing, with nearly half of FBI agents in major field offices, and about one-quarter of all FBI agents, now working on immigration enforcement.

Reposted by Joanna Bryson, Katharine Hayhoe, Valerie M. Delmotte , and 22 more Joanna Bryson, Katharine Hayhoe, Valerie M. Delmotte, Sonia I. Seneviratne, Helmut Haberl, Klaus E. Meyer, Garry Peterson, Arthur Geßler, Ben Bond‐Lamberty, John Fasullo, Nancy Knowlton, Jonathan A. Foley, Steve Peers, Harvey J. Miller, Richard Waite, Éva E. Plagányi, Gernot Wagner, Sabine Pahl, Dominik Wiedenhofer, Randall A. Kramer, Andréas Nilsson, Leah Stokes, Georg Weizsäcker, Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò, Sheila R. Foster

Science Magazine @science.org · 18d

Science has named the seemingly unstoppable growth of renewable energy worldwide as the 2025 Breakthrough of the Year.

Learn more about this year's #BOTY and other big advances in science: https://scim.ag/493Tpgx

Qianjiadong Reservoir in southern Hunan, China, produces a double harvest: solar energy and yellow carp. The solar farm produces up to 80 megawatts of power while the fish forage beneath the panels. With a massive scale-up of solar and wind at home and cheap exports of the technology, China is driving a worldwide surge of renewable energy—Science’s 2025 Breakthrough of the Year.

Reposted by Mark D. White, Fabián Muniesa, Stacy D. VanDeveer , and 7 more Mark D. White, Fabián Muniesa, Stacy D. VanDeveer, Lisa Diedrich, Ann Bartow, Leah Stokes, Manisha Sinha, Nathan P. Kalmoe, James M. Thomas, David Darmofal

Rolling Stone @rollingstone.com · 18d

Melissa Hortman Died in a Shocking Act of Political Violence. This Is the Story of Her Life

The Minnesota Speaker’s closest friends and family open up for the first time.

Read @stephenrodrick.bsky.social's exclusive: www.rollingstone.com/politics/pol...

Reposted by Leah Stokes

Senator Martin Heinrich @heinrich.senate.gov · 19d

It's hard to believe, but we're having the public lands sell-off fight all over again.

Colin Carlson says no war @colincarlson.bsky.social · 20d

NSF is about to dismantle NCAR at Russell Vought's direction to protect the fossil fuel industry. It's hard to communicate just how much NCAR does, so let's take a look: I've never worked at NCAR, and I've worked with NCAR researchers once ever. What scientific discoveries has NCAR made possible? 👇

Russ Vought (piss man) tweet about doing piss man shit: The National Science Foundation will be breaking up the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colorado. This facility is one of the largest sources of climate alarmism in the country. A comprehensive review is underway & any vital activities such as weather research will be moved to another entity or location.

Leah Stokes @leahstokes.bsky.social · 20d

Thanks Ross!

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