Gunpowder, Treason, and Hot: Sunday Quick Cuts

Reading. Listening. Watching.

Welcome to Wicked Problems. It’s the 5th of November, when here in the UK in a few hours we will be beset with the smells of damp wool infused with bonfire smoke and dodging soggy fireworks. I was going to make a gunpowder joke, but I was afraid it’d blow up in my face. I was going to make a treason joke, but my sense of humour betrayed me.¹

Still here? OK. Well here were things that caught our eye and ear this weekend:

1, 2 - War Makes Energy Systems (Amy Myers-Jaffe)

Fighting climate change requires a wartime mobilisation of resources. We hear that a lot.

Smart VCs like

Christian Hernandez Gallardo

say it. Even bear-of-small-brain newsletter writers like this humble correspondent say it. It’s the spirit behind “declaring a climate emergency” - and why more jaded observers like Cambridge’s Mike Hulme feel very anxious when they hear young activists enthusiastically calling for those declarations.

Amy Myers-Jaffe’s Energy's Digital Future: Harnessing Innovation for American Resilience and National Security came out i…