No. 47 · Climate · May 17, 2026
The Grid Doesn't Know It's Thursday
What a humid week in Sacramento taught me about why we keep mis-pricing the climate transition.
11 min read
The archive
Every issue, in order.
Field Letter has been published every Sunday morning since Adam Reilly sent the first one, from a kitchen table in Cleveland, to a list of forty-one readers in early 2021. Most of these essays sit somewhere between climate, cities, and a healthy skepticism about the technology we keep installing in the middle of our days.
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No. 46 · Urban planning · May 10, 2026
Streetcars and the Myth of the Easy Trip
Why the cities that win the next decade will be the ones that quietly fix their thirty-minute trips.
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No. 45 · Technology · May 3, 2026
I Turned Off the Second Screen
After six weeks without a tablet on the kitchen counter, the strangest thing I noticed was the silence.
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Every issue
8 essays. Newest first.
2026
- The Grid Doesn't Know It's Thursday What a humid week in Sacramento taught me about why we keep mis-pricing the climate transition.
- Streetcars and the Myth of the Easy Trip Why the cities that win the next decade will be the ones that quietly fix their thirty-minute trips.
- I Turned Off the Second Screen After six weeks without a tablet on the kitchen counter, the strangest thing I noticed was the silence.
- The Actuaries Saw It First Inside the reinsurance industry’s decade-long, mostly silent capitulation to a warmer planet.
- In Defense of Boring Zoning The most consequential climate policy in California is also the least photogenic. That is the point.
- The AI in the Room I spent four months trying to use a coding assistant to do my actual job. Here is what I will and will not let it touch.
- The Quiet Comeback of the Night Train A trip from Zurich to Amsterdam, eight hours of darkness, and the surprisingly hopeful economics of European night rail.
- A Housekeeping Letter Some notes on what is coming this spring, a small change to how the comments work, and one apology.
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