This piece by Andreas Malm & Maxy Guez brilliantly captures both how mind-bogglingly difficult, but also courageous, the Colombian pledge not to permit new exploration of fossil fuels actually is.
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This piece by Andreas Malm & Maxy Guez brilliantly captures both how mind-bogglingly difficult, but also courageous, the Colombian pledge not to permit new exploration of fossil fuels actually is.
ICYMI: "In the battle to become the world’s 21st-century energy manufacturing powerhouse, the US seems to have walked off the playing field." Read my Oxford colleague Stephen Lezak's article on the US handing the future to China.
The Government's expert adviser says that investing to upgrade from fossil fuels will save the UK nearly £40 billion a year, and rising. Electrifying everything avoids all that heat lost burning gas and oil. Electrification isn’t a cost. It’s the smartest investment we can make. 🧵1️⃣ of 3️⃣
The body of evidence showing that when centrist parties adopt the priorities and talking points of the far right, they torpedo themselves is vast and powerful. Yet Keir Starmer's Labour Party seems determined to ignore it. A few examples in 🧵: theconversation.com/how-should-l...
For reference, the younger individuals in the video have likely had their faces blurred as a matter of policy to protect minors.
9 CDC Directors going back to 1977 speak out. What RFK Jr has done to our nation’s public health system "should alarm every American." It "is unlike anything we have ever seen at the agency, and unlike anything our country has ever experienced." www.nytimes.com/2025/09/01/o...
[Sky News, which has spent years inciting hatred against migrants] Wow, how could this possibly happen?
I don't know how to explain to the UK Prime Minister that when he says these things about asylum seekers, the only possible measurable outcome is increased violent attacks on non-white people across the country. There isn't another function of saying this stuff.
Oh nothing, just the actual Prime Minister telling people they’re entirely correct to drive asylum seekers out of their communities
For months now, the vast majority of the UK print and broadcast media have engaged in a round-the-clock campaign of stochastic terrorism against immigrants. The results of that campaign are coming to fruition.
"In order to beat the xenophobes, one must simply join them"
Guess the biggest source of NOx road air pollution in central London. Taxis? Buses? Private cars? Nope, it's now vans. Once the biggest polluter, taxis have rapidly gone electric. Meanwhile vans fleets are only slowly being electrified. Story 👇 www.thetimes.com/uk/environme...
I don't get how people don't realize that a technology that replaces junior and entry level positions in a field destroys that field. There's no skipping steps. You have to be a junior before you can be a senior, and if you don't have senior people, you don't have a field.
"The performative cruelty will intensify until Britain becomes less racist"
@nature.com I love this article - but WHY are the only share options to X and Facebook when the whole point of the article is that science-based posts get more shares here? www.nature.com/articles/d41...
No probs!
In looking for answers, she considered questions that have terrified our liberal establishment for years. Allister Heath Sunday Telegraph Editor" [Alt text ends]
Last week, the Education Secretary admitted to this failure in The Telegraph. Now Julie Henry, a former Sunday Telegraph education correspondent, has dug deeper into how and why this group has been let down. [Continues]
Alt text: "From the Telegraph Editor It's the group nobody seems to care about. White, working-class Britons. They are being failed by the state, as yet again, too few succeeded at their GCSEs and A-levels this year. [Continues]
Media 101: When you see someone write "white working class", ask yourself: What's the word "white" doing there? What function is it serving?
The chicken impersonation at the end was a nice touch.
Ten years ago, my friend Rik Wanninkhof's son, Patrick, was killed while cycling across the US doing charity work for Habitat for Humanity. The woman who killed him was using her mobile phone. She was also a nurse, like the woman in the video. Rik is still devastated. Don't text and drive.
That's very interesting, do go on
Can you explain what you mean when you say China has always been an electrostate?
I am once again reposting this absurdly useful essay from Tim and Kate, because not enough of you have read it.
"While reforestation can contribute significantly to tackling climate change, its global potential is only a fraction of what’s been claimed" @pepcanadell.bsky.social theconversation.com/the-climate-... Article: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
There’s a persistent myth that new solar farms don’t really help tackle climate change because panels are “made with coal” and “never pay back” their carbon debt. This is simply false. - UN: solar ~8x cleaner than gas, ~19x than coal per kWh - panels repay CO2 in 4 months; save 57x over life
ICYMI: A sitting British MP, James McMurdock, is using the N-word to attack a journalist, Mhari Aurora. Far-right influencers such as Andrew Tate have been deploying the capital "N" as racist shorthand in social media attacks on Black people.
Asking again why we have this 24-hour rolling coverage (and cosplay serious political and policy analysis) of a party that has 4 MPs. Why don’t we have the same for the Greens, for example, or Plaid Cymru? They both have 4 MPs www.theguardian.com/politics/ng-...
This week, a protest group daubed the offices of Policy Exchange with red paint. Now the claim is being made that the reason dark money lobbying operations don't reveal their donors is over safety concerns.
On Reform's clean energy-killing plans: Tom points out that, like everything else Tice and Farage say, it probably won't withstand an encounter with reality.
Thanks for this, Tom.
Director of European Transport Safety Council: "Europe now risks being flooded with oversized, under-regulated US pick-up trucks and SUVs – heavier, more dangerous to other car drivers, pedestrians and cyclists, and completely out of step with Europe’s vision for safer, more sustainable mobility.”
For clarification: are you kidding or is this For Real?
20th century dystopian sci-fi was hopelessly optimistic.
This! All day every day.
In recent days we've heard so much news regarding protests about asylum hotels, but who is reporting what's it like to be living in such a place? MiCLU lawyer Esme Madill shares some of her clients' experiences: miclu.org/news/asylum-...
Channel 4 reports that the Zambia copper mine disaster, which began in February, could be one of the worst man-made environmental disasters in history. Almost 2/3 of Zambia's population rely on the Kafue River, which has been inundated by acids, cyanide, arsenic, uranium and lead.
Great work here from @carbonbrief.org , debunking common myths about solar power. The reason that solar power makes so much sense is fundamental physics - it takes energy in its most useful form, as soon as it arrives on Earth, before it's "taxed" in entropy. Making use of it is a slam-dunk win.
Love this.
Right now it feels like practically every establishment voice and media outlet is fully invested in turning Britain into a sort of Yorkshire Pudding North Korea. Ask: for what? On whose behalf?
That's absolutely right. With the media united in its hate campaign, fomenting fear and violence, it's going to be an uphill struggle. But we have to try.
Scoop: The Trump administration appears to be considering a move to label wind farms as intentionally harming migratory birds, a classification that would in the eyes of some legal experts label *any* project illegal. It would definitely be fought in court if pursued. @heatmap.news
Ordinary people think it's a problem because the media are telling them it's a problem. On the list of actual problems facing the UK, asylum seekers don't register, and migrants are overwhelmingly a net positive for the country.
And perhaps tell the BBC its job is not to stoke fear and hatred of the most vulnerable communities in the country.
The Welsh Refugee Council:
The Scottish Refugee Council:
Almost every newspaper and broadcaster in Britain is now waging a racist 24/7 campaign of hatred against migrants on behalf of the ultra rich. In response to this, one small thing you can do is donate to the NGOs supporting refugees.
I feel like Ars is Having A Good Time when it continues to describe the site as Twitter in headlines.
A good rule of thumb, and one we should all try to observe, is that having feelings about a subject isn't the same as having studied that subject.
Bluesky now platform of choice for science community: An "overwhelming majority" of respondents said that Bluesky has a "vibrant and healthy online science community," while Twitter no longer does.
NEW | It’s been a record year for British solar power - solar generation was up by a THIRD for the first six months of 2025! 🌞 The drivers? - Low costs 💰 - A decade-high in household solar installations 🏠 - Ambitious solar targets 🎯 https://loom.ly/-pzxBgQ
The men running Silicon Valley and the military industrial complex - now ostensibly the same thing - love stealing cool-sounding proper nouns from our greatest authors. Yet if they comprehended a fraction of these texts, they would choose a different line of work.
Perhaps not the most salient point, but in a just world the worst nihilists on Earth would not be allowed to continually steal Tolkien's intellectual property.
A great teardown of the pseudoscientific anti-seed oil fad.
Fun UK Media Facts: The Daily Mail is owned by the Harmsworth family. The current owner's great-grandfather, 1st Viscount Rothermere, had this to say about fascism in Britain in 1934.
I've never seen Yglesias write a single thing that could be construed as good faith. Everything is painstakingly, tediously calibrated to benefit one person: himself. He exemplifies the banality of narcissism.
“AI ‘Slop’ Websites Are Publishing Climate Science Denial" | Article by @joeygrostern.bsky.social for @desmog.com: www.desmog.com/2025/08/27/a...
This is Britain's most popular media outlet. Not a single aspect of this headline is remotely true, and I don't know anyone in economics or industry who would recognise these statements as having any relationship with reality.
Notoriously-not-green operator of New England’s electric grid warns that the trumps move to halt an (already 80% completed) offshore #renewable #wind farm *will reduce reliability of the grid* 🤔 “Delaying the project will increase risks” it said: thehill.com/policy/energ...
My figures are wrong: it's a quarter as much.
US commentators keep calling the Paris agreement "dead", but the US is the only country to ever withdraw (twice), or to formally reduce its commitments and contributions. #exceptionalism
One important point is that it would cost about a third as much to house and feed every homeless person in DC as it is costing to keep the National Guard there, but of course that would be radical craziness.
BBC Radio 4's lavish coverage of the racist Reform party's latest horrific announcement continues unabated today, with every hourly news bulletin seemingly focused on boosting Farage. If you're British and are unhappy with the BBC's lurch to the far-right, you can register a complaint here:
ICYMI: Global renewable energy investment has hit another record high, up 10% over last year. But in the US, large-scale wind and solar investment has plummeted to levels last seen in 2006.
About sixth of the public hold extreme/toxic views on mass deportations even beyond asylum. This is not larger than a decade ago. Elites are shifting *much* more than the public (which is liberalising longterm & frustrated about asylum/boats in the short-term).
The headline and subhead use the words "stop the boats". Did someone other than you choose this framing?
NEW: The first evidence of a solar take-off in Africa☀️✈️ x33 rise in Algeria solar panel imports in the 12 mths to June 2025, compared to previous 12 mths. x8 in Zambia x7 in Botswana x6 in Sudan x3 in each of Liberia, DRC, Benin, Angola, Ethiopia 🧵
Farage just said he wants a “UK Deportation Command” to “track down and detain" immigrants with a “data fusion center that automatically share[s] data between police, home office, NHS, DVLA, HMRC, & banks.” *This is legal* - thanks to Labour. My 📝 for @desmog.com ⤵️ www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKZd...
"We must join with him, Gandalf. We must join with Sauron."
"Stop the boats" is an exclusively far-right framing of a politically engineered problem. Continuing to bang this drum only benefits Farage.
Perhaps not capitulating to the nonsense that our biggest problem is 'the boats', would be a better way to begin.
Extremism being normalised in real time. Where are the political leaders saying this is totally unacceptable?
Whenever you see an op-ed with "common sense" in the title, you know you're about to read something _incredibly_ racist.
You need to read @trillingual.bsky.social's important and authoritative review of Disaster Nationalism, by Richard Seymour.
"Are asylum seekers the biggest political issue in Britain?" Asks radio 4. "We interview man who is determined to make it the biggest issue in Britain. And make it a headline every morning until it definitely is"
"Strategic harassment" on researchers playing out here: Law Firm Pressures Brown University to Erase Research on Anti-Wind Groups www.nytimes.com/2025/08/25/c...
This phoney, 100% fabricated narrative has been concocted to do one thing only: elevate the interests of a tiny, obscenely wealthy elite over all others and all else.
“Trump promised during the 2024 campaign to lower Americans’ electric bills by 50%,” but electricity prices are rising at more than twice the rate of inflation. “As technology improves, wind and solar offer some of the cheapest and fastest ways to provide electric power.”
BREAKING: Israeli strikes on Nasser Hospital in Gaza killed at least 15 people, including three journalists, one of whom worked for Reuters, Palestinian health officials said reut.rs/45OFPfr
The question bears repeating: why are the establishment UK news media continuing to claim that mass anti-migrant protests are erupting across the country when they are simply not?
Parts of the world are going to become uninhabitable because of climate change and parts of the world are going to see living standards stagnate because of shrinking workforces (and climate change). Racists will howl, but we’re entering an era of more migration. www.theguardian.com/business/202...
ATLANTA - A Georgia Department of Defense spokesperson says it has been asked to provide support to Immigration and Customs Enforcement as part of a plan to deploy National Guard troops in 19 states. www.fox5atlanta.com/news/georgia...
Go on
I'm getting a lot of transphobes in my comments. If you are such a person, please block me and save me the bother.
A cruel ruse.
Oyy
The Big Blue Maga Book of Where Are They Now?
There are literally no benign or socially positive outcomes to scapegoating vulnerable minorities. The *best possible* social outcome you can hope to achieve is minor property damage. I do not believe that politicians don't understand this.
I say this because this proud display of criminal damage is close to the *most benign possible outcome* of systematically scapegoating migrants. We can expect almost all other outcomes to be more violent and more costly.
When Keir Starmer, Nigel Farage and the entire British media team up to attack migrants, this is presumably the outcome they're aiming to achieve.
"Gavin Newsom is America's Keir Starmer" is perhaps the most devastating thing that has ever been or could ever be said about an American.
It’s hard not to read it as agitation for riots honestly. It’s deeply disturbing that the press are so active a participant in this movement.
A short by UK animator Steve Cutts, on IG as steve_cutts_official
I really hope that @thecccuk.bsky.social engages with this critique, it would be good to see a formal reply. UK #climate journos, how about approaching Nigel Topping for a response?
A valuable thread pointing out that, despite wall-to-wall media coverage, Britain's far-right anti-migrant protests are mostly tiny, and some _don't even exist_.
HEY friends: recently seen heaps of "disclosures" from AI companies of the energy cost per question you type into chatbots (most recently from Google)? Presenting per-query 'efficiency' is part of big tech's efforts to hide its extremely real and happening-right-now climate impacts! NEW POST -->>>
Yes that is a Plasticine Action t-shirt
Just had the pleasure of @davidho.bsky.social and @helenczerski.bsky.social coming to my neck of the woods and beating the absolute stuffing out of me on a bike ride.
