Pioneering SpiritAn open letter to Lin-Manuel Miranda on the last, best hope to save the republic
Sir, The hour grows late. The President asserts the right to govern by decree. Worse, the Congress has ceded its constitutional prerogatives, neglecting to protect its power of the purse and even the sanctity of its chambers from executive overreach. Charles I chuckles from the grave. In this dark and doom filled hour, one hope remains: the power of story, aided and abetted by unassailable songs stirring up this country’s frayed and nearly forgotten faith in this experiment in self-governance...
Pioneering SpiritApplied research questions on the past, present and near future of government operations
by Patrick Atwater
Pioneering SpiritIntroducing the California Alternative Transformation (CAT) principles for moar efficient, effective…
The Meme Lords are rallying, with the DOGE Techno King and his digital court scheming their next big gambit. The internet's good citizens face a choice: cheer from the sidelines or chart a better path. Let's talk CATs, not DOGE.From our AI Oracles: “Here’s an image of a regal Shiba Inu wielding a scepter and playfully smashing the Capitol.”Putting the future of American government in the hands of a self-styled “Techno-King” seems, uh, mildly antithetical to the spirit of 1776. Not to mention ...
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Pioneering SpiritAn open letter to Lin-Manuel Miranda on the last, best hope to save the republic
Sir, The hour grows late. The President asserts the right to govern by decree. Worse, the Congress has ceded its constitutional prerogatives, neglecting to protect its power of the purse and even the sanctity of its chambers from executive overreach. Charles I chuckles from the grave. In this dark and doom filled hour, one hope remains: the power of story, aided and abetted by unassailable songs stirring up this country’s frayed and nearly forgotten faith in this experiment in self-governance...
Pioneering SpiritApplied research questions on the past, present and near future of government operations
by Patrick Atwater
Pioneering SpiritIntroducing the California Alternative Transformation (CAT) principles for moar efficient, effective…
The Meme Lords are rallying, with the DOGE Techno King and his digital court scheming their next big gambit. The internet's good citizens face a choice: cheer from the sidelines or chart a better path. Let's talk CATs, not DOGE.From our AI Oracles: “Here’s an image of a regal Shiba Inu wielding a scepter and playfully smashing the Capitol.”Putting the future of American government in the hands of a self-styled “Techno-King” seems, uh, mildly antithetical to the spirit of 1776. Not to mention ...
I caught California’s gubernatorial climate forum this week and came away with a familiar feeling: we know the stakes, we know the tools, and yet our ambition still feels smaller than the moment demands.
The candidates spoke thoughtfully about clean energy, affordability, water, wildfire, and environmental justice. All necessary. All important. But California’s climate challenge isn’t just about doing more of the same. It’s about remembering who we are.
California has never won by being cautious. We win by pioneering. Our ancestors burned the wagons both literally and metaphorically. California commits. We take a clear-eyed look at costs, constraints, and what’s actually possible, and we make the hard tradeoffs now rather than letting future disasters make them for us. The fires that tore through Los Angeles last January were not an anomaly. They were the opening chapter of a new normal.
That kind of seriousness means thinking bigger on energy. We should be building geothermal at real scale, not as a boutique pilot. We should be accelerating solar with urgency. It’s uncomfortable to admit, but places like Texas are beating California on deployment, not because they care more about climate, but because they’ve made it easier to build. That should bother us.
It also means being honest about stewardship. Environmentalism cannot just be a vocabulary of “don’t,” “can’t,” and “won’t.” Stewardship means enabling prescribed and preventative burns, acting decisively to reduce catastrophic wildfire risk, and trusting trained professionals to manage landscapes we’ve frozen into dangerous inertia. Protecting nature sometimes means intervention, not abstention.
We also need more imagination around transportation and housing. Vehicle automation could unlock entirely new forms of public transit, flexible, demand-responsive systems that make car dependence optional rather than mandatory. And we cannot keep exporting greenhouse gas emissions by refusing to build housing. Climate-smart density in California is part of climate responsibility.
Where I diverge from the usual debate is on process. The problem is not environmental review itself. The problem is that we have mistaken lawyer-centered procedure for public voice. Only in America, and particularly in California, would we place attorneys at the center of so much environmental decision-making. What we need is the courage to build new mechanisms: deeper, earlier, more substantive public participation paired with faster, clearer decisions. Fewer box-checking rituals. More real deliberation. More accountability for outcomes.
I caught California’s gubernatorial climate forum this week and came away with a familiar feeling: we know the stakes, we know the tools, and yet our ambition still feels smaller than the moment demands.
The candidates spoke thoughtfully about clean energy, affordability, water, wildfire, and environmental justice. All necessary. All important. But California’s climate challenge isn’t just about doing more of the same. It’s about remembering who we are.
California has never won by being cautious. We win by pioneering. Our ancestors burned the wagons both literally and metaphorically. California commits. We take a clear-eyed look at costs, constraints, and what’s actually possible, and we make the hard tradeoffs now rather than letting future disasters make them for us. The fires that tore through Los Angeles last January were not an anomaly. They were the opening chapter of a new normal.
That kind of seriousness means thinking bigger on energy. We should be building geothermal at real scale, not as a boutique pilot. We should be accelerating solar with urgency. It’s uncomfortable to admit, but places like Texas are beating California on deployment, not because they care more about climate, but because they’ve made it easier to build. That should bother us.
It also means being honest about stewardship. Environmentalism cannot just be a vocabulary of “don’t,” “can’t,” and “won’t.” Stewardship means enabling prescribed and preventative burns, acting decisively to reduce catastrophic wildfire risk, and trusting trained professionals to manage landscapes we’ve frozen into dangerous inertia. Protecting nature sometimes means intervention, not abstention.
We also need more imagination around transportation and housing. Vehicle automation could unlock entirely new forms of public transit, flexible, demand-responsive systems that make car dependence optional rather than mandatory. And we cannot keep exporting greenhouse gas emissions by refusing to build housing. Climate-smart density in California is part of climate responsibility.
Where I diverge from the usual debate is on process. The problem is not environmental review itself. The problem is that we have mistaken lawyer-centered procedure for public voice. Only in America, and particularly in California, would we place attorneys at the center of so much environmental decision-making. What we need is the courage to build new mechanisms: deeper, earlier, more substantive public participation paired with faster, clearer decisions. Fewer box-checking rituals. More real deliberation. More accountability for outcomes.
This idea originates beautifully in the book Children of a Modest Star, which imagines humanity building shared civilizational infrastructure not just to survive, but to coordinate in the spirit of planetary realism. That’s the scale of thinking the moment calls for.
With less than 1% of global emissions, California’s impact will never be measured only in tons of carbon avoided. It will be measured in whether we pioneer a post-carbon path so compelling that others choose to copy it.
This idea originates beautifully in the book Children of a Modest Star, which imagines humanity building shared civilizational infrastructure not just to survive, but to coordinate in the spirit of planetary realism. That’s the scale of thinking the moment calls for.
With less than 1% of global emissions, California’s impact will never be measured only in tons of carbon avoided. It will be measured in whether we pioneer a post-carbon path so compelling that others choose to copy it.
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