Northwestern Energy Technology Group’s “Energy Text Gatherings”
I served as Chief Discussion Leader and founder of NETG’s biweekly journal-club-esque gatherings, serving to give NU students a greater breadth of understanding of the energy and climate challenge. This is a repository of our readings (ETGs have now continued under new leadership!):
- ETG #1 (4/25/19)
The Cautious Case for Climate Optimism: Believing in a comfortable future for our planet probably means some giant carbon-sucking machines
An adapted excerpt from David Wallace-Wells’ Life After Warming book. Published in New York Magazine Feb 4, 2019. - ETG #2 (5/9/19)
Insane Mode: How Elon Musk’s Tesla Sparked an Electric Revolution to End the Age of Oil, Chapter 12: “We didn’t run out of stones, either”
An excerpt graciously provided to us by author Hamish McKenzie. Published Nov 27,2018. Also available on the app Audm. - ETG #3 (5/31/19)
The Convenient Disappearance of Climate Change Denial in China: From Western plot to party line: How China embraced climate science to become a green-energy powerhouse
Published in Foreign Policy Magazine by Geoff Dembicki, May 31, 2017 - ETG #4 (6/6/19)
“In Search of the Holy Grail”, Chapter 8 from The Grid: The Fraying Wires Between Americans and our Energy Future
By Dr. Gretchen Bakke. July 26, 2016 - ETG #5 (6/20/19)
How Big Business is Hedging Against the Apocalypse: Investors are finally paying attention to climate change — although not in the way you might hope.
Published in NY Times Magazine by Jesse Barron, April 11, 2019 - ETG #6 (7/25/19)
BP Statistical Review of World Energy Speech “Energy in 2018: an unsustainable path”
By Spencer Dale, June 11, 2019 - ETG #7 (8/8/19)
The California coast is disappearing under the rising sea. Our choices are grim
Published in The Los Angeles Times by Rosanna Xia, July 7, 2019 - ETG #8 (8/22/19)
It’s the End of the World as They Know It
Published in MotherJones by David Corn, July 8, 2019 - ETG #9 (9/11/19)
The air conditioning trap: how cold air is heating the world
Published in The Guardian by Stephen Buranyi, August 29, 2019
Can We Survive Extreme Heat?
Published in RollingStone by Jeff Goodell, August 27, 2019 - ETG #10 (10/17/19)
Money Is the Oxygen on Which the Fire of Global Warming Burns: What if the banking, asset-management, and insurance industries moved away from fossil fuels?
Published in The New Yorker by Bill McKibben, September 17, 2019 - ETG #11 (10/31/19)
The new science fossil fuel companies fear: Researchers can now link weather events to emissions – and to the companies responsible. A string of lawsuits is about to give “attribution science” a real-life test.
Published in Politico by Zack Colman, October 22, 2019 - ETG #12 (11/14/19)
How Cities Reshape the Evolutionary Path of Urban Wildlife: If researchers can figure out how pigeons and rats evolve to thrive in hostile city habitats, it could help other beasts—including us—adapt to climate change
Published in WIRED by Brendan I. Koerner, September 23, 2019 - ETG #13 (12/5/19)
An Ocean Plastics Field Trip for Corporate Executives: Recycling is broken. The oceans are trashed. As the plastics crisis spirals out of control, an unlikely collection of executives and environmentalists set sail for the North Atlantic Gyre in a desperate attempt to find common ground.
Published in Outside Magazine by Rowan Jacobsen, August 8, 2019 - ETG #14 (12/18/19)
The Conservative Case for Climate Dividends: How a new climate strategy can strengthen our economy, reduce regulation, help working-class Americans, shrink government & promote national security
Published by The Climate Leadership Council, February 2017
Let’s Pay every American to Reduce Emissions: A ‘carbon dividend’ could be politically popular – and save the atmosphere
Published in Politico by James K. Boyce, July 23, 2019 - ETG #15 (1/30/20)
In Crucial Pennsylvania, Democrats Worry a Fracking Ban Could Sink Them
Published in the New York Times by Lisa Friedman and Shane Goldmacher, January 27, 2020 - ETG #16 (2/13/20)
Who Thought Sucking on a Battery Was a Good Idea? Vaping is a health crisis that’s only just begun.
Published in New York Magazine by Stephen S. Hall, February 4, 2020 - ETG #17 (3/12/20)
Opinion: Sustainable development must account for pandemic risk
Published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, February 14, 2020 - ETG #18 (4/9/20)
What the Coronavirus Means for Climate Change: Lockdowns and distancing won’t save the world from warming. But amid this crisis, we have a chance to build a better future.
Published in the New York Times by Meehan Crist, March 27, 2020 - ETG #19 (4/30/20)
Is it OK to have a child?: The polar icecaps are melting. Is it OK to have a child? Australia is on fire. Is it OK to have a child? My house is flooded, my crops have failed, my community is fleeing. Is it OK to have a child? It is, in a sense, an impossible question.
Published in the London Review of Books by Meehan Crist, March 5, 2020 - ETG #20 (5/7/20)
Michael Moore Presents: Planet of the Humans
Debuted March 21, 2020 on YouTube - ETG #21 (5/21)
How Greta Thunberg Transformed Existential Dread Into a Movement: After a time, Greta Thunberg and her family decided that freaking out was the only rational response, not only to climate change but to modern life.
Published in the New Yorker by Emily Witt, April 6th 2020
Articles after this were by my successor, Elise Goldfine, and should be available here: https://netg.northwestern.edu/events/etg/