Dan

[Dan @renewelectrons]

@Baratza why aren’t you answering your phones? I’ve emailed with no response. Seems you are hiding from an inferior product? I hope not.

[Dan @renewelectrons]

Very sad we are having this debate…

[The Economist @TheEconomist]

.@elonmusk says zero people died from DOGE cuts to USAID. The billionaire CEO of SpaceX and Tesla, in his own words, helped feed the policy to the woodchipper last year, when he was the head of America’s Department of Government Efficiency. In an exclusive interview, @zannymb, The Economist’s editor-in-chief, challenges his claims: https://t.co/ZvmVXffNiD

[Dan @renewelectrons]

@elonmusk Definition of an idiot with attachment issues…

[Samantha Power @SamanthaJPower]

Starting in early 2025, Elon Musk and the Trump administration began terminating USAID's programs and firing its staff — with Musk himself boasting about "feeding it into the woodchipper." One year ago today, USAID was officially dissolved, its remaining programs haphazardly folded into the State Department. Amid all the lies and misinformation that have followed, some facts about what has actually been lost:

• USAID saved more than 3 million lives a year at a cost of less than $10/month per American. That is what was destroyed. On purpose.
• According to Boston University's Global Impact Counter — which tracked deaths attributable to the cuts until it stopped operations in February 2026 — an estimated 781,000 people died preventable deaths in the first year, including 518,000 children.
• Global child mortality (the number of children who die before their fifth birthday) rose in 2025 for the first time in 35+ years — by 200,000 additional deaths.
• USAID's 50-country disease surveillance network — the system that cut outbreak response times from 2 weeks to 48 hours — is gone. We are now watching an unprecedented Ebola outbreak unfold in real time — with the highest first-month caseload and death rate in modern history.
• Programs reaching 93 million women and children were cut 92%. TB programs cut 56%. Water and sanitation cut 86%. Over 2,000 health facilities permanently closed.
• 25 million fewer people received humanitarian assistance in 2025. The overall humanitarian budget was slashed 74% — from $14.1 billion to $3.7 billion.
• 363 million people face acute hunger in 2026. The famine early-warning system that would have seen it coming went dark for five months.
• $1.7 billion in democracy and governance funding (election monitoring, anti-corruption work, support for independent media and civil society) was terminated.
• 360+ independent media outlets lost funding. Hundreds of legal clinics closed.
• Far from saving money, the Trump administration itself has already said the dismantlement will cost taxpayers at least $19.2 billion in cancellation fees, severance, and penalties. That's more than half of USAID's annual budget — spent on destruction and closeout, not support for vulnerable people.
• American farmers, universities, and businesses are among the casualties too. USAID partnered with more than 3,500 U.S. companies and maintained 17 university-based research labs. Its work with U.S.-based contractors and the private sector generated hundreds of thousands of American jobs and multiplied the return on every dollar spent. Those markets and partnerships are gone.

[Nicholas Kristof @NickKristof]

Elon, I can give you many, many names of people who have died because of your aid cuts.:
*Yamah Freeman was a 23-year-old woman who died in childbirth because you stopped paying for the diesel for ambulances in her part of Liberia. I talked to her parents and sister in their village.
*Gbessey Kiadu, age 1, died of malaria because of your cuts in Liberia. I talked to his mom in her village.
*Ibrahim Koroma, an infant, died of AIDS in Sierra Leone after you interrupted HIV supplies. I talked to health workers who cared for him.
*Achol Deng was an 8-year-old girl with HIV in South Sudan who died when you cut funding for the health care worker who provided her medicines. I talked to him.
I could go on and on. In almost every village you go to in South Sudan, Uganda, Liberia, Sierra Leone or other countries I reported in, you find people dying because of aid cuts. I challenge you: Come with me on a reporting trip, and we'll talk to these moms and dads, and you'll see the dying children themselves. I think if you see the kids whose lives are at stake, maybe you'll change your mind.

[Dan @renewelectrons]

@JaneAFlegal @JesseJenkins Classic delusional liberal navel gazing question with absolute no bearing on reality

[Dan @renewelectrons]

@ChrisBaylor5 @madrid_mike Perception is he’s the only rational adult in the room and can do better job resisting special interest asks. And he’s smart and articulate to boot.

[Dan @renewelectrons]

@rohanspatel

[UC Berkeley Central Sierra Snow Lab @UCB_CSSL]

3/16/26 10:40 am:
Record-breaking high temps are forecasted for the next several days, which will accelerate snowpack melt.

Given current melt and lack of #snow in the forecast, we may see melt-out as early as the first week of April, ~5 weeks earlier than normal.

#CAwx

[Dan @renewelectrons]

@AQMD What about assessing cumulative impacts? Boggles the mind that you’re analyzing pollution from individual facilities in isolation regardless of what is emitted next door. @KevinMcCartyCA

[Dan @renewelectrons]

@officialSCUSD Ahem…when can we believe the district will faithfully implement this AG settlement?

[Dan @renewelectrons]

@officialSCUSD https://t.co/MISDxFpLJe

[Dan @renewelectrons]

@madrid_mike TACO Wednesday

[Dan @renewelectrons]

@lulumeservey 💯 but technically it’s not a bill it’s an initiative that has not yet made it to the ballot.

[Riley Coyote @RileyRalmuto]

holy sh*t. this is hands down the coolest website i have ever found in my life. it's a live feed of the freaking Hubble Telescope AND James Webb Space Telescope. and the resolution is honestly so incredible i didn't think it was real.

unbelievable.

https://t.co/YQNsG9TVwe

[🇩🇪EV, Engineering & Life🇨🇳 @ChinaEV_Eng_Lif]

This is what the Mercedes GLS, BMW X7 and Audi Q8 are up against in 🇨🇳.

Huawei AITO M9.

(Video from an official Huawei Showroom WeChat Channel)

[Weather Monitor @WeatherMonitors]

NEW: China is testing a megawatt-scale airborne wind system that captures stronger high-altitude winds, potentially producing up to 10× more energy with 40% less material and 30% lower costs. It could also be quickly deployed to supply emergency power after disasters.

[Bernadette Del Chiaro @DelChiaroSolar]

Not true. PG&E rates are ACTUALLY going UP for most people in 2026. The truth is they are decreasing rates for bundled customers but INCREASING rates, by 20%, for CCA customers (which make up 60% of their ratepayers)!!

https://t.co/VJZ7PuzWt4 via @sfchronicle

[Luis Batalha @luismbat]

After rewatching Home Alone, I couldn’t stop wondering:

how plausible is the oversleep that leaves Kevin behind?
So I wrote a tiny paper and ran the numbers.

Merry Christmas! 🎄

[Nicolas Fulghum @nicolasfulghum]

EVs are not a rich country phenomenon at all anymore.

Viet Nam, Uruguay, Thailand, Costa Rica, Indonesia, have all overtaken the US in terms of EV share of new car sales.

Change comes quickly when costs to ICE vehicles become competitive and policy isn’t prohibitive.