iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Carter Smith @carterfielden.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Senate Dems are still negotiating over stalled projects.

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Carter Smith @carterfielden.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Check out the section on aviation fuel. Could be designed to target private jet traffic. illuminem.com/illuminemvoi...

illuminem.com

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Carter Smith @carterfielden.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

💡💡💡 Check out Part 1 of my new series w/ Wil Burns on scaling #CDR through a #CTBO And keep an eye out for Parts 2 & 3 in coming days! illuminem.com/illuminemvoi...

illuminem.com

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Carter Smith @carterfielden.bsky.social · 18/02/2026

Is climate change like diabetes? My latest essay explores that question through The Language of Climate Politics by @doctorvive.bsky.social, and it engages her ongoing debate with ecomodernist thinkers like Ted Nordhaus. I hope it gets you thinking. open.substack.com/pub/carbonre...

open.substack.com

The Case for Carbon Recovery

How people talk about climate change matters a ton.

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Carter Smith @carterfielden.bsky.social · 21/08/2025

Our heads are buried in the sand, and our leaders keep digging deeper holes. In protest of EPA’s hearings on the GHG endangerment finding this week, have a listen to Watch It Fall by @billystrings.com m.youtube.com/watch?v=y97g...

m.youtube.com

Billy Strings - Watch It Fall (Official Video)

YouTube video by Billy Strings

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Carter Smith @carterfielden.bsky.social · 19/08/2025

Some personal news. Would appreciate all the LinkedIn luv I can get. Eventually, I’ll need another real job 🥳

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Carter Smith @carterfielden.bsky.social · 14/08/2025

Pretty sure that one’s taken, but I appreciate the deeper meaning—that is, the more scientists, the starker their foreboding

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Carter Smith @carterfielden.bsky.social · 14/08/2025

Climate scientists deserve a collective noun (esp. for groups of more than a few outliers). I propose: “consensus.” As in, a consensus of climate scientists. ChatGPT says it’s available. Any better options?

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Carter Smith @carterfielden.bsky.social · 13/08/2025

I’m incorporating my previous comments by reference. And props to @paulkelleher.net for the high praise from Cass! I enjoyed our exegetical exchange yesterday, if that’s an appropriate use of the term.

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Reposted by Carter Smith

Noah Kaufman @noahqkaufman.bsky.social · 13/08/2025

I wrote an article about the policy irrelevance of the social cost of carbon in the hopes of prompting an uncomfortable conversation about the future use of the metric. So I was excited to see that @Revkin asked @CassSunstein about my critique 🧵 revkin.substack.com/p/a-fresh-lo...

revkin.substack.com

A Fresh Look at Climate [In]Justice (and Trump 2.0) with Cass Sunstein

I hope you’ll listen to, and share, this conversation on climate policy in the age of Trump (and lots more) with the wide-ranging Harvard economist Cass Sunstein. Sunstein worked under two presidents ...

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Reposted by Carter Smith

Paul Quelle-horreur 👻🎃👻🎃 @paulkelleher.net · 12/08/2025

The future benefits of abatement exceed present costs, yes. But many technical issues—including the proper discount rate—turn on whether one’s cost-benefit analysis attempts to weigh changes in real welfare, or whether it asks how much future people would pay us today to abate. 1/

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Carter Smith @carterfielden.bsky.social · 12/08/2025

*what Congress does on a partisan basis through reconciliation is more durable than regulatory policy, but not durable enough, sure. Were Congress to adopt new climate regulations, that’s subject to the filibuster. So “workable” should encompass political viability and administrability

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Carter Smith @carterfielden.bsky.social · 12/08/2025

I’d agree it’s more workable if legislators, perhaps informed by CBA, set a number in law, like 45Q. But then that’s hard to optimize. CBA is unworkable w/r/t climate for agencies because it’s neither durable nor stable. Better than nothing, but it looks like Congress has to start over.

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Carter Smith @carterfielden.bsky.social · 12/08/2025

That's a fair point. Unless knowledge of benefits is a necessary condition of efficiency? I was reaching the character limit, but pretend instead I'd said: using CBA to set price signals is unworkable w/r/t climate because benefits are too imprecise. Call it a shot in the dark.

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Carter Smith @carterfielden.bsky.social · 12/08/2025

CBA can’t tell market actors how many DAC plants to build in 2030 or 2035 and under what conditions they should operate. Investors need price signals instructing when to reduce versus when to avoid or abate. CBA yields inefficient price signals w/r/t climate because benefits are too imprecise.

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Carter Smith @carterfielden.bsky.social · 12/08/2025

CBA isn’t a great tool here though. It’s okay to assume the future benefits/harms avoided exceed some present costs. But that still doesn’t solve for marginal abatement investments. Better to set a net zero target (2050 or beyond) and minimize cost of abatement within that parameter.

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Carter Smith @carterfielden.bsky.social · 08/08/2025

An oldie but a goodie. Originally presented for an @rff.org forum, long before webinars. "The Economics of the Coming Spaceship Earth" by Kenneth Boulding. arachnid.biosci.utexas.edu/courses/thoc...

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Carter Smith @carterfielden.bsky.social · 07/08/2025

Rules versus standards & delegation theory: SCC is far too imprecise for stable, durable climate policy

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Carter Smith @carterfielden.bsky.social · 07/08/2025

What’s implausible about carbon recovery? 😉

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Carter Smith @carterfielden.bsky.social · 05/08/2025

Sorry folks, I've been slacking on my #BMFS evangelism. I kid you not, this song brought tears to my eyes the last time I saw them in Charlottesville. www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWoz...

youtube.com

Billy Strings - Feb. 14, 2020 - She Makes My Love Come Rolling Down - Asheville, NC

YouTube video by romulan42

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Carter Smith @carterfielden.bsky.social · 30/07/2025

This forefront of climate reform could be a new source of hope for the climate movement, Especially in light of EPA’s trajectory on GHGs

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Reposted by Carter Smith

Carter Smith @carterfielden.bsky.social · 21/07/2025

This is what reimagining climate policy really looks like

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Carter Smith @carterfielden.bsky.social · 30/07/2025

The Biden-era, industrial policy-heavy approach to #climate mitigation overtly relies on the expansion of #EPA authority over GHGs. Untangling the endangerment rescission will take years, in the off-chance #SCOTUS abstains. This is an inflection point for US climate policy.

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Carter Smith @carterfielden.bsky.social · 29/07/2025

Anyone have their hands on EPA’s proposed endangerment rule yet?

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Carter Smith @carterfielden.bsky.social · 24/07/2025

It’s worth adding that there’s no path dependency to building out new legislative frameworks and shopping them around. If this admin fails its CAA climate objectives, and the next dem president has another bite at the apple w/ GHG rules, the threat of those rules increases leverage in Congress.

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Carter Smith @carterfielden.bsky.social · 24/07/2025

Maybe carbon recovery (like carbon takeback) is a bad idea, but nobody refutes it. That’s a shame because I’m convinced a CRF framework takes the best of both carbon tax and cap-and-trade without nearly as much baggage. Please spread the word and send open-minded collaborators my way.

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Carter Smith @carterfielden.bsky.social · 24/07/2025

Professor, I share your concern that the CAA may be removed as a tool of real climate progress. That’s why I’m trying my damnedest to raise awareness about a legislative pathway that’s gone largely unexplored here in the US. See Section IV.B.👇🏼 digitalcommons.law.lsu.edu/jelr/vol13/i...

digitalcommons.law.lsu.edu

Reorienting Climate Law and Economics: Carbon Recovery Fees Versus Climate Industrial Policy and the Problem of Social Cost of Carbon Pricing

By Carter F. Smith, Published on 02/17/25

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Carter Smith @carterfielden.bsky.social · 24/07/2025

I hope the climate movement is prepared to make an opportunity out of this potential outcome, if and when it arises. How else should climate advocates prepare for this moment, @volts.wtf, anyone...? End/

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Carter Smith @carterfielden.bsky.social · 24/07/2025

If the ball is punted squarely back to Congress, members might anticipate an opportunity to overcome partisan gridlock, or they might by moved by public opinion. Either way, members may be more inclined to reach across the aisle and give renewed attention to the issue. 6/

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Carter Smith @carterfielden.bsky.social · 24/07/2025

B. Expect (likely confused) public outcry and be ready to direct that public engagement (and enragement) towards Congress. C. Work with members on both sides to outline a climate (and permitting) package that could be ready for action before June 2027. This is key: 5/

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Carter Smith @carterfielden.bsky.social · 24/07/2025

🧭What does this mean for federal climate advocates?🧭 A. Be ready for a ruling that severs GHG regulation from the Clean Air Act. This outcome could be set in stone for decades, post Loper Bright. 4/

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Carter Smith @carterfielden.bsky.social · 24/07/2025

3. The odds SCOTUS ends up ruling in favor of the agency on endangerment are too high to discount. Recall C.J. Roberts wrote his own dissent in Mass v. EPA and he joined Scalia's. It is also doubtful both J. Kavanaugh and J. Barrett break ranks without the Chief. 3/

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Carter Smith @carterfielden.bsky.social · 24/07/2025

1. EPA isn't focusing its attack on climate science and instead is focusing on the discretionary limits of the CAA. 2. Groups will challenge the endangerment rescission and all of EPA's arguments in the DC Cir., and the losing side ultimately will appeal to SCOTUS. 2/

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Carter Smith @carterfielden.bsky.social · 24/07/2025

Climate advocates need to think several steps ahead and strategize. I am also afraid the amusement will end b/c there's a real chance (>20%) this admin succeeds in eliminating EPA's Clean Air Act authority over GHGs. Here's why: 🧵

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Carter Smith @carterfielden.bsky.social · 24/07/2025

To the extent this party line even deserves a rebuttal, perhaps it can be avoided w/ emphasis on the concept of “geological” net zero

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Carter Smith @carterfielden.bsky.social · 21/07/2025

This is what reimagining climate policy really looks like

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Carter Smith @carterfielden.bsky.social · 30/06/2025

January CR shenanigans were jusy 6 months ago Trump’s leash on more moderate GOP members loosens every day we get closer to ‘26 primaries. Expect a more independent Senate after Capito and Cassidy survive a MAGA-led flank. My bipartisan prayers will be answered if Dems take back the House in ‘26

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Carter Smith @carterfielden.bsky.social · 30/06/2025

It doesn’t have to be. The same could be said about passing the IRA through budget reconciliation. I caution that mistaking this judgement for observation is counterproductive, since durable climate action in the US ultimately will require bipartisan support

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Carter Smith @carterfielden.bsky.social · 28/06/2025

The reconciliation bill is not tech neutral. Nor is it market-based. I’m for tech-neutral, market-based climate policy. 👇🏼 digitalcommons.law.lsu.edu/jelr/vol13/i...

digitalcommons.law.lsu.edu

Reorienting Climate Law and Economics: Carbon Recovery Fees Versus Climate Industrial Policy and the Problem of Social Cost of Carbon Pricing

By Carter F. Smith, Published on 02/17/25

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Carter Smith @carterfielden.bsky.social · 28/06/2025

That’s the dilemma. Eliminating the DOJ probe was conditioned on his removal. It’s not Jim’s fight alone. Ultimately, it’s Governor Youngkin and his appointees. Without their support, he puts the University at risk. It’s hardly capitulation on Jim’s part. But it is a bad look for the Va GOP.

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Carter Smith @carterfielden.bsky.social · 27/06/2025

Ask whether congress’s proposed sale of public lands is expected to help with affordable housing.

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Carter Smith @carterfielden.bsky.social · 27/06/2025

You don’t know what you’re talking about.

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Carter Smith @carterfielden.bsky.social · 27/06/2025

You have no idea what you’re talking about. President Ryan is a man of great integrity and if he decided this was the best course of action for the institution, his decision should be respected. That being said, the Board should reject his premature resignation.

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