Gernot Wagner
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gwagner.com
Gernot Wagner
@gwagner.com

Climate economist, Columbia
https://gwagner.com
It’s pronounced juggernaut without the jug.

Gernot Wagner is an Austro-American climate economist at Columbia Business School. He holds an AB and a PhD in political economy and government from Harvard University, as well as an MA in economics from Stanford University. A founding co-director of Harvard's Solar Geoengineering Research Program (2017–2019) he joined the faculty of New York University in 2019, moving to Columbia University in 2022. Wagner writes a monthly column for Project Syndicate, and is the co-author, with Martin L. Weitzman, of Climate Shock, a Top 15 Financial Times-McKinsey Business Book of the Year 2015. He won the "Austrian of the Year" award in 2022, awarded by Austrian daily Die Presse. .. more

Economics 35%
Environmental science 29%

Climate change in the Alps, proudly sponsored by the fossil industry.

Stubnerkogel = vacation 🚡⛷️

Also basically why I do what I do: work to limit climate change and help preserve this.

Rubik's cubes + Don't Stop Believing = Christmas 🎄

Reposted by Gernot Wagner

CBS News Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss sent a memo to CBS News employees today stating:

“No amount of outrage—whether from activist organizations or the White House—will derail us. We are not out to score points with one side of the political spectrum or to win followers on social media.”
NEW: CBS News Memo and The Epstein Files
In the aftermath of the firestorm at CBS News, top execs have sent a memo to employees. Also, the DOJ says it has discovered over 1 million Epstein documents.
bit.ly
So I have the cover story in next month's TNR.

I interviewed the heads of police groups; immigration defense attorneys, ex-judges and ex-prosecutors; former DOJ and DHS officials, and the former head of Border Patrol.

They're all horrified at what we've seen, and they all fear what's coming.
Trump’s Immigration Nightmare: It Is Happening Here
With astonishing speed, the administration has toppled the most cherished pillars of a free society. And the experts agree: It’s all going to get much, much worse.
newrepublic.com

Remember how EVs could never compete because batteries didn't allow them to go far enough, because they couldn't be charged fast enough, because they were too expensive...?

Funny how innovation works.

Reposted by Gernot Wagner

More information on the 1MW charger… 🧪🔌💡☀️💨💧🔋 electrek.co/2025/03/26/b...
BYD's new 1,000 kW EV fast chargers are ready and could hit China as early as next week
Less than ten days after BYD unveiled potentially game-changing EV charging technology, the Chinese auto conglomerate doubled down on its...
electrek.co
The CBS investigation portrays a modern concentration camp, similar to the Soviet GULAG (like CECOT, an acronym): sadistic guards, 24 hour lighting, isolation cells.
Americans once opposed this inhumane system.
The Trump administration sent innocent people there to suffer.
The full spiked 60 Minutes CECOT package, clean & subtitled. 1/5

The nutty bit: it'll take dozens of actual scientists hundreds of hours to debunk the nonsense generated by these five 'contrarians' and their LLM.
Yeah, that is not, in fact, a National Climate Assessment.

I guess the real question now is: how do you like that Taiwanese Brompton toolkit?

"Made in Taiwan (Province of China)" 😐
‘It’s not a part time job.’

Oof.

Scott Pelley and Sharyn Alfonsi absolutely leveled Bari Weiss at an emergency 60 Minutes staff meeting today.

💚
Breaking news: Trump is citing “national security” to halt all active work on offshore wind projects

Five giant energy projects, countless jobs at risk

My story explains how the argument has legal weaknesses and comes from an anti-wind policy doc I reported in January
Trump Uses ‘National Security’ To Freeze Offshore Wind Work
The administration has already lost once in court wielding the same argument against Revolution Wind.
heatmap.news

Reposted by Gernot Wagner

Yeah, that is not, in fact, a National Climate Assessment.

Reposted by Gernot Wagner

This comment and reply from the reporter who wrote this story had me vibrating with rage. I’ll call again tomorrow, but I called my congressional rep and Senators immediately to demand something be done

This is unacceptable in the “wealthiest country in the world” and we don’t have to stand for it

Cool. Fully on board with figuring out fusion. gwagner.com/marvel

Given how long a game it is, let's do it without the treacherous, nihilistic leeches currently in charge.
Marvel Fusion
Columbia Business School Case
gwagner.com

What could possibly go wrong?

www.nytimes.com/2025/12/19/b... [gift link]
Sounds like they're trying to Bari the story.
An Editor’s Note from 60 Minutes
Auto Freedom - Winter Edition.

📸 @ldnontbikecafe.bsky.social

The beans: 10/10
The vibes: 12/10
💚NYC
An immigrant works a dangerous job to protect Americans. It puts him in medical debt. Now he also has to worry about being deported by ICE when he goes to work or takes his kid to a soccer tournament.

Feel safer?

Also the reason why the pendulum is swinging back hard on the treacherous, nihilistic leeches currently in charge.

In the end, humanity, basic decency, community does have its ways of winning out.

The best story you'll read all day

www.nytimes.com/2025/12/21/u... [gift link]
‘It’s Just Us’: The Firefighter, His Son and a Treacherous Choice
www.nytimes.com

Reposted by Gernot Wagner

Vor über 30 Jahren im ehem. Jugoslawien habe ich ähnliches gehört. Menschen nur aufgrund ihrer Religion pauschal als ein Problem darzustellen, entwertet, entmenschlicht und schürt bewusst Hass gegenüber Muslim:innen in Österreich. 1/3

12-year-old riding the rails, reading the paper. Saturday. 😍

For a quick sense of how far off course things have gotten:

Mitt Romney, tax-and-spend liberal

www.nytimes.com/2025/12/19/o...
Opinion | Mitt Romney: Tax the Rich, Like Me
www.nytimes.com

And yes, I'm saying that having written fusion case studies gwagner.com/marvel and e.g. featuring fusion at business.columbia.edu/insights/climate/nuclear

But yes, calling fusion "climate tech" does disserve to fusion, and to climate tech.
Nuclear | Columbia Business School
Nuclear energy use has decreased from its peak of 17% to 9% today, and deployments have moved from Europe and the United States to India and China. Nuclear is expected to generate 7% to 11% of global ...
business.columbia.edu

20% because there's indeed plenty to like about the idea and prospect.

80% because fossil fuel $$$s have turned anything that's scalable today into politically toxic "green"/"alarmist" territory.

What do I win?