Just tried this - ranks people you don't follow but are followed by people you do bsky-follow-finder.theo.io
Translator and textbook writer. Post on climate, energy, health, Spain, Brexit and other stuff. Produce VoiceMap audio tours of Andalucía: https://voicemap.me/publisher/ben-barclay#tours Substack: https://thegreentransition.substack.com/
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Just tried this - ranks people you don't follow but are followed by people you do bsky-follow-finder.theo.io
Plus norms and cultural acceptance. Can policies have an impact at the margins? Sure, but if the underlying dynamics are unfavourable, there’s only so much you can do. Rightly.
This. You need an explanation that covers Chile and Colombia, South Korea and China, Spain and Italy, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Türkiye, etc. Contraception and better edu + work opportunities for girls/women seem most plausible explanation for low fertility. Women *can* choose not to have children.
Keep imagining councils with reform on one side of the table and green and/or Corbyn party on the other next year. To some extent local govt is so underpowered there’s a limit to the chaos it can sow, but a total impossibility of consensus can brake whatever progress available
Yes, very soon.
Presumably Farage’s 600,000.
Horrific numbers. Yes, still early days, but I think saying Labour has almost 4 years until an election overstates it. In normal circumstances they’d probably want to go for May 2028 if they thought they could win. Badly need a reset, and a reminder that a reset isn’t the same as doubling down.
The only reason companies spend money on advertising is to reduce profit. There’s no evidence it drives sales.
A fascinating new preprint w/one very unexpected finding suggests, I believe, that a large proportion of Long Covid may be due to chronic infection in a particular bodily niche, which could be crucial for finding effective LC treatments. It requires some explaining. 🧵 1/33
If true, this update is astonishing. The Commission climbed down from a planned break up of Google’s ad business to a mere fine, and then dropped even the fine for fear of offending Trump. This is for market violations that have been proven in U.S. court.
This exchange is a perfect example of what I was talking about. ⬆️ Starmer won’t convince anyone who’s leaning Reform, but he’ll put off plenty of mainstream Labour voters.
It says an awful lot about how, objectively, bad at both policy and communications this government is by managing to get what is liable to be an incredibly positive and popular policy knocked off the headlines by one which is based on pure cruelty.
Solar power is taking off quickly in Hungary ☀️⚡️ Our latest data insight: ourworldindata.org/data-insight...
Children fleeing conflict to be reunited with their parents should not be punished by being left in limbo - will be watching closely to ensure reform of family reunion rules doesn’t lead to kids of any nationality being put at risk.
NEW Summer 2025 was the UK's hottest on record This year's average summer temperature of 16.1C was made around 70 times more likely because of climate change, the @metoffice.gov.uk has found www.metoffice.gov.uk/about-us/new...
we have an asylum hotel down the road from our house in Saint Germain en laye. My daughter walks past every few days as does my wife and it never even crossed their mind to be bothered by it. Wtf is wrong with these people?
Ukraine's military intelligence (HUR) has destroyed two Russian Mi-8 helicopters and a struck tugboat in occupied Crimea, the agency reported on Sept. 1.
Missing context: Professor Hespe has been in hibernation for six years.
My hot take is that we all have a bigger potential audience on Bluesky than almost anyone in the world had prior to social media, and in most cases that's more than we need or deserve. And for many topics, there's lots of interesting content here, along with healthy, constructive discussion.
Global electricity demand is rising fast - but gas is losing market share...
This is not normal. Japan is continuing its run of astonishing temperature records. The country has just had its hottest summer for the third year in a row, and by a substantial margin. Data: JMA
I think I forgot to mention that just before we went on holiday I published a VoiceMap audio tour of the Plaza de España in Seville. As well as giving an introduction to the history and architecture of the Plaza, it explains the moments of Spanish history presented on many of the tiled panels.
Say it again, and again, and again. They are not "illegal immigrants". -seeking asylum is legal and has been since 1951. This legally trumps all arguments of “but they arrived by illegal means”. That’s just a fact. That’s why you don’t see asylum seekers arrested & charged. Our MSM must do better.
So many leading Brexit voices have gone full racist and fascist that it’s hard to believe in « elite radicalisation » and a lot easier to believe in « finally saying what they always thought ».
With electricity costs in the news lately, it's worth remembering that wholesale energy supply costs - for example, generating electricity from wind/solar vs. coal/gas - make up just 7% of residential utility bills, and less than 1% of overall housing-related costs for typical American households.
Meanwhile, back in reality, global ocean heat content just updated through June 2025 and set a new record high. Time to wake up! Data (anomalies) & methods from www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/globa...
"UK agrees £10bn deal to supply Norway with warships" "The government said the deal would support 4,000 UK jobs "well into the 2030s", including more than 2,000 at BAE Systems' Glasgow shipyards where the frigates will be built." [creates] combined UK-Norwegian fleet of 13 anti-submarine frigates
Douglas Carswell’s massive racism update:
If I understand correctly, you’re drawing over 14 kW from the grid plus using 1.2 kW of your own solar, so over 15 kW in total? Not too shabby.
Yes, and specifically eugenics, which is what RFK is effectively pursuing.
Is it just free, or are you being paid to use electricity?
We use our Panasonic air-to-water HP for cooling in summer. Condensation isn’t an issue in our climate, but it’s not anything like as effective as for heating.
Too late for my kids and in comparison with many other countries, but definitely a good thing for the next generation. Better late than never!
Probably not, but I don’t think that’s really the point. This is about political point-scoring now, not about increasing oil/gas production if they get into power.
So IMO you have to make the principled argument in favour of current immigration, even if that is coupled with a vision to reduce the UK economy's dependence on immigration over the longer term. Your core supporters will prefer the tone, and be happy that you're being grown-up about the issue. 9/
Apart from … everything … else about this, it’s hysterical how much these supposedly staunch defenders of the market economy hate consumer choice and preference. There’s a parallel with their attitude to free speech.
“The group nobody seems to care about” Apart from dominating political discourse since Brexit? That group?
Just another normal day in Trumpland.
Baby dies of whooping cough as childhood vaccinations continue to fall #TomorrowsPapersToday
🧵 Authoritarianism, Democratization, and Coalition Politics. The consensus around here is, more or less, that the United States is currently a consolidating authoritarian regime controlled by a mix of reactionary populists and fascists.
Life’s getting a bit more crap here if you are a person from an ethnic minority 🧵
Yes, we had about 3.5 litres between 2 of us. Finished the walk with almost half a litre, but then went straight to a local spring to drink some cooler water.
Badenoch is joining Trump’s War on Humanity.
It really is. A bit hot today, but still good to get out into nature and away from everything.
Sorry to hear that. Upsetting for you, depressing for everyone.
Whatever you think about the small boat migrants and the best response: Stopping the boats would have a negligible impact on public finances, wages, house prices/availability, waiting times for GPs, crime, and all the other things that affect people in their day-to-day lives.
It’s not as if anything else newsworthy is going on in the world atm.
Apparently they’ve been doing good deals on the model 3. The Kia EV3 has really made a splash.
Still some way behind Thailand, where EVs have taken almost 18% of the market so far in 2025. Thailand went from virtually nothing to strong sales in 2023, but then plateaued in 2024. Now EV sales are again rising fast.
In August, 11.4% of cars sold in Spain have been electric, which is the first month it’s been over 10%. There’s real momentum building.
Recommend you watch this 7 minute video report by Alex Thomson at Channel 4 news. He investigates the catastrophic Chinese copper mining disaster in Zambia (arsenic flooding key river) and the PR coverup - paid off victims to remain silent by China & Zambian Govt. www.channel4.com/news/inside-...
As expected Morgan 1.5GW consent has now been given
The walk we did is on our Trek Sierra Nevada website.
The final part of the walk was a bit of a slog in the heat, but still in beautiful countryside. This walk is even better in autumn when you get a riot of reds and yellows in amongst the evergreen pines.
Wow Steve Baker slams Robert Jenrick's language on asylum seekers: "The tone in which we say things really matters. We're talking about human beings... It's really important that when we discuss people, we leave room for the innocent majority. We have to ask ourselves, how fragile is civilisation?"
In the arid, magnesium-rich rivers of gravel known as arenales, a few (fool)hardy flowers cling on.
Amazing story: one of the organisers of the group putting Union Flags up around Manchester previously did time for being part of a people smuggling gang. manchestermill.co.uk/manchester-f...
Finally not quite so hot, so we’ve gone for a hike in the Sierra Nevada. So bright I can’t really see the photos, but hopefully they give an idea of the landscape.
Only governments can stop this. And they really need to step up to the plate. Self-regulation is not going to work.
Feels a bit like the fall of Singapore atm. Underestimating your own strength, overestimating the enemy, leading to excessive defensiveness, infighting and defeatism, making what could have been avoided inevitable. But there’s still plenty of time, and other parties.
Thrilled VZV vax finally here after JCVI rec in 23. But, I struggle with double standards c.f. SARS2. Rarer severe outcomes, esp youngest, carer's leave, "topping up" adult immunity=bollocks. Boosters reqd, but protection vs severe acute and long COVID from 1°. No brainer.
Exactly. Opposing Trump and his imitators around the world is both defending democracy and the climate.
As I’ve mentioned here before I come from a very anglophile background. Generations of my maternal family served the Crown, some in uniform. My mother nursed in London for a decade and loved it. We followed Brit as well as Irish politics at home and read Brit literature
The anti-immigrants’ phoney compassion for homeless people is so transparently cynical. It’s like the protestors convicted of domestic violence standing up for women’s rights. Or the champions of mental health during the pandemic who ridiculed mental health problems before and since.
Aldous Huxley in 1936 on how dictatorship is established and maintained through depersonalisation. "To depersonify human beings and to personify abstractions are complementary errors which lead, by an inexorable logic, to war between nations" (2 illustrative racist terms in image, *ed in alt text)
One of the many problems with “it won’t work” is that voters hear “but it would be a good idea if it did work”. From where it’s only a short step to “let’s give it a try. Might work. Can’t be worse than what they’re doing now.”
I agree with this and I find it bizarre that the government seems not to.
If HMRC suddenly started charging an annual £180 ‘admin fee’ people would think it had gone mad, yet the govt thinks it’s fine if it implements a system that requires that to be paid to a 3rd party software provider
Show me how asylum seekers have more rights than British citizens. None of these people could answer that. And none of the BBC drones even think of questioning it. #bbcpm
Important point, I think, which was not commonly known before today. Below is an extract from Court of Appeal judgment. In 2023, [Bell Hotel] applied for planning permission. For over a year, the Council did not deal withit, despite a statutory duty to deal with such applications within 8 weeks.
There’s a military analogy of retreating to more favourable ground before giving battle. But I’m not convinced it applies to politics, as the “ground” isn’t a physical reality - it’s created by what you say and do. Anyway, how much more favourable does it get than “opponent endorsed by Taliban”?
Because those “truths” haven’t been vigorously challenged at every step of the way, they’ve become so deeply embedded that politicians appear out of touch with reality if they dispute them. And so they end up saying “yes, it’s not fair, it’s not right”, adding fuel to the fire.
As a follow-up to my thread this morning, here are a few areas where the immigration debate has been allowed to shift: Asylum seekers -> illegal immigrants. Immigrants live a cushy life and are given lots of free stuff. Immigrants are coming from safe countries. Legal safeguards are bad.
Back to aerosol / clean air posting: interesting findings. Suggests a use case for v high occupancy, with 222 nm germicidal UV and some air cleaning (where the air cleaning isn't enough to protect from airborne disease, given occupancy, but *is* enough to mitigate air quality concerns re UV.
Good morning with good news: US solar surged 31% to monthly record high of 43.7 TWh in July 2025, up from 32.9 TWh in July 2024. Solar rose 10x from July 2015 (4.11 TWh) to July 2025. Solar was a record high 11% of US electricity in May 2025 & 9.47% this July. It was 1.2% in July 2015. #energysky
Thanks for sharing that. It's always hard to say how representative these anecdotes are, but I'm sure he's not the only one who feels like that.
Well, I more mean that the whole centre of gravity of the debate continues to shifts right, not so much that Farage/Reform go even further than paying the Taliban. But I guess there's always scope to go even further with the whole remigration stuff. Lowe might go for your Putin idea.
Finally, I think that if for tactical reasons you don't fight for the things you believe in, you lose your sense of political direction and moral compass. Maybe a really cynical politician can get away with it, but most can't. It's dispiriting and demotivating. And people sense that mood.
Also, if you're afraid to attack your political opponents because you think you're so unpopular that it will make them and their ideas more popular, you may as well pack up and go home. Politics isn't just about judging which ideas are popular. It's shaping the debate and making your ideas popular.
And I think saying "most people won't notice" ignores the fact that your most passionate supporters and party members almost certainly will. You need them to do canvassing, to spread content on social media, to generally build enthusiasm and optimism about where the party is taking the country. 5/
It's also about stopping the terms of the debate from sliding further right. If this isn't vehemently opposed, it becomes normalised. Some principles you have to fight for, even if you're not sure you'll come out on top in the short run. 4/
But politics isn't just tactics: being too tactical can be a bad strategy. Sometimes voters prefer a politician to say something they disagree with than to appear unwilling to say what they really believe. And Starmer is now seen as very untrustworthy. 3/
Yes, maybe most people won't notice that Starmer hasn't reacted with anger/outrage. And yes, perhaps Starmer coming out strong against would make the idea more popular, although I'm not convinced. And maybe in the short run not giving it more salience is the best option. 2/
Various justifications have been given for Starmer/Labour not reacting more forcefully to the whole Taliban thing. Apart from the "look, it's the Taliban" point, I think those analyses slightly miss the wood for the trees. 1/
Excellent analysis of why housebuilding is grinding to a halt in London here. With an important challenge to those who want to focus only on social housing.
We estimate the probability of shutdown as 70% for high emissions and 25% for low emissions based on the CMIP6 models. These are rough estimates, but main point is: this is a risk that I used to consider <10%, and given the devastating impacts lasting many centuries we really want this to be <1%.
In the case of that part of West Africa, there are various push factors, and climate is definitely one. Loss of traditional fishing grounds, conflict, chronic poverty/ un(der)employment and corrupt politicians are others.
There’s intense competition for the title of worst newspaper article of today but I bet this late entrant is a strong contender. I’m too grumpy to read it to check beyond the intro.
Legally it’s Spain/EU. In any case they get distributed across Spain while their cases are assessed. Canaries couldn’t cope with the numbers. The far right is trying to turn that into a controversy.
This is how most African migrants come to Spain - from Mali, Senegal, Gambia, Morocco, Mauritania and elsewhere. It’s a highly dangerous crossing, and around 1 in 6 who attempt it die.
Meanwhile, just another day in the Atlantic off Mauritania, and another boat carrying migrants to the Canaries has been shipwrecked. Over 100 on board, perhaps close to 150. Only 16-17 rescued, and 20-40 (depending in source) bodies recovered so far.
He’ll bring about the breakup of the United Kingdom, followed by economic collapse under a drunkard, paving the way for the rise of an evil authoritarian ruler? Maybe, but it might not be quite that bad.
This is my flag.
This is not good news. We can't wait for a convenient moment before taking climate action. The time is now. "the tipping point that makes an Amoc shutdown inevitable is likely to be passed within a few decades" www.theguardian.com/environment/...
Back from my hols which involved driving an EV thru France - at times in extreme heat. No dramas. No range anxiety. Loads of chargers. All worked. No waits. Whole experience was a pleasure - and totally normal, as expected. That's it. Sorry, Daily Telegraph editors - no 'EV hell' anecdotes for u
My longer version of more or less the same story.
The wells we want to frac go to a different school. You wouldn’t know them.
Petrarch?