Democrats have the Senate, House, and White House. They also have a lot on their plates: addressing a coup attempt fueled by a sitting president, fighting a pandemic and its economic fallout, plus all the accelerating problems of inequality, infrastructure, health care, and climate change. But America needs to put on its oxygen mask first. […]
Continue Reading-
Rock Bottom for Democracy Should Focus Americans on Election Reforms
They say you have to hit rock bottom to begin your path to true recovery. This week’s attack by partisan extremists on the country’s Capitol, attempting to use force to overturn a democratic election was a record low for democracy in the United States. Can this dark moment unite Americans around critical election reforms? As […]
Continue Reading -
The State-Winner-Take-All Electoral College Distorts The Will of American Voters
Of the most recent six US presidential elections, Republicans won half and Democrats won half. But Democrats won the most votes in five out of six. Twice, Democrats won more votes but the Republican won the presidency. Why? The state-winner-take-all system most states use to determine their Electoral College votes distorts the will of American […]
Continue Reading -
Muscling Political Advantage to Push Kalama Petrochemical Project?
Takeaways A review of NW Innovation Works’ actions in Washington reveals worrisome influence peddling and political spending to curry favor to advance proposals for a Kalama petrochemical export project. Leading government officials of both parties have left their posts and now work on behalf of a huge petrochemical export project. The Chinese-owned company received federal […]
Continue Reading -
Northwest States Need a Plan to Move Beyond Gas
Oregon and Washington boast aggressive climate plans that aim to decarbonize the Northwest economy over the next 30 years. Yet these plans face a major roadblock in the form of the privately-owned utilities that supply gas to customers across the region. These utilities have not gotten the memo on decarbonization: they are not planning to […]
Continue Reading -
Plans for 2021 & Review of 2020
Plans for 2021 Our first focus area will be cooperation & conflict in the context of transformative AI (TAI). In addition to improving our prioritization within this area, we plan to build a field around bargaining in artificial learners using tools from game theory and multi-agent reinforcement learning (MARL) and to make initial publications on […]
Continue Reading -
S-Risk Intro Seminar
We will run the first Intro Seminar to Risks of Astronomical Suffering (s-risks). The seminar is intended to help you get up to speed with how we think about s-risks. It will take place on the weekend of February 20 & 21, 2021. The program will feature talks by CLR staff, discussion groups, and 1:1 […]
Continue Reading -
Family Forest Owners Could Champion Carbon Drawdown
Family forest owners steward nearly 6 million acres of forestland across Oregon and Washington—an area nearly the size of Vermont, or of 25 Mount Rainier National Parks strung together. All told, these landowners hold nearly one-third of privately owned forests in the two states. Across the United States, family forest owners (which the US Forest […]
Continue Reading -
Shareable Graphics for Solidarity for Climate Action
TWITTER Graphic 1 Graphic 2 Graphic 3 TWEETS BEFORE EVENT Join us for a live discussion 9/17 at 8:30 a.m. ET as @BGAlliance & partners discuss the #Solidarity4ClimateAction platform to create good-paying jobs for workers around U.S., while fighting economic inequality & addressing the #climatecrisis WATCH LIVE: https://www.bluegreenalliance.org/live-stream/ Leaders from @BGAlliance will discuss #SolidarityforClimateAction at […]
Continue Reading