Things America needs to adopt, no.685: Boxing Day

This entire weekend

"Authoritarian China is a nation now run by engineers, he points out; democratic America has become a nation of lawyers, litigating development and delaying or derailing big heaves like California’s high-speed train." www.nytimes.com/2025/12/11/a...

This entire grift relies on convincing people that they don't know how to do the things they have always known how to do, and ironically, if it works, we will, in a very short amount of time, forget how to do all the things we have always known how to do.

Donald Trump awarded inaugural Fifa peace prize at World Cup draw in Washington... theguardian.com/football/202... ...on the same day his administration faces scrutiny over possible war crimes www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

The US region of New England is heating up faster than almost any other area on Earth, new study finds. Average temperature rise is far higher than the global average - and it appears to be accelerating. Snow cover, meanwhile, is in retreat. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Steve Cropper was my favorite guitarist, he added a distinct groove to songs and was a champion of soul singers at Stax at a time when that wasn't always easy www.nytimes.com/2025/12/03/a...

I wrote about the dirty, demeaning, absolutely booming business of turning something like a shitty bigoted college essay into a shitty public career as a bigot, and also estimated how old Marine Todd would be today. defector.com/the-conserva...

Zillow deletes climate risk data from property listings after complaints it harms sales www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Protests, tears and a baby: Five key images that tell the story of Cop30 www.theguardian.com/environment/...

"At its most basic, they turned a figure of love into a figure of hate who blesses precisely the cruelties that he condemned in the Gospel; we went from “the meek shall inherit the Earth” to “the meek shall die of cholera.” www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-i...

Don’t do this with leaves. Just, don’t

the nuzzi story is fun and all but at the center of it is the elevation of a man who has dedicated his life to making children catch preventable diseases to a position where he can enact harm at enormous scale

this is...quite something www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Divide over fossil fuels phaseout can be bridged, Cop30 president says www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Must read perspective: ‘The haste feels contagious … I fear it’: a Xipaya journalist on attending Cop30 www.theguardian.com/environment/...

There is a big push at Cop30 to reframe AI as a way to cut, rather than add to, planet-heating emissions. But is 'AI for good' really a force that will help confront the climate crisis? www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Every country at Cop30 has avoided criticizing Trump. All except for Maina Vakafua Talia, of tiny Tuvalu, who told me Trump provides "doom." “We can’t remain silent while our islands are sinking. We can’t remain silent while our people are suffering." www.theguardian.com/environment/...

By me: Yellow fever and dengue cases surge in South America as climate crisis fuels health issues. Disease spike, heat deaths and advance of dengue into Europe prompts UN to unveil new health and climate plan at Cop30 in Belem, Brazil. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Extraordinary scenes at Cop30 this morning as protestors from the Munduruku people blockaded the entrance for several hours, only leaving after being persuaded by do Lago, the Cop president (who held a baby for a while)

Belem is a pretty cool place to come and talk about climate change

Latest from me and colleagues at Cop30 - World still on track for catastrophic 2.6C temperature rise www.theguardian.com/environment/... as Al Gore slams both Bill Gates and Donald Trump on their climate stances www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

California governor calls Trump ‘an invasive species’ at #COP30 climate talks - Gavin Newsom is most senior US politician at annual UN talks, heading alternate delegation in Trump’s absence www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Climate people - I'll be in Belem to cover Cop30 from Saturday onwards. If you're there and have a story, or just a desire to chat, please do get in touch.

Yes, the people on your screen observing on the election should know that there's an alternative model for how to do it. It's called the citizens agenda. I have been writing about it, and advocating for it, since 2010. pressthink.org/2010/08/the-... Errol Louis was alluding to it last night:

the New York Post is taking the news well

The US will have no high-level representatives at UN climate talks in Brazil next month, White House confirms www.theguardian.com/environment/...

I spoke to Harrison Ford about the climate crisis and he said - - Trump's axing of climate policies “scares the shit out of me” - of Trump: "I don’t know of a greater criminal in history” - that the world is "teetering on the edge" due to the loss of nature www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Recently drafted climate plans from scores of countries fall drastically short of what is needed to stave off the worst effects of climate breakdown, a UN analysis has shown. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

The two key coral species that form the Florida reef are now functionally extinct due to extreme ocean heat, scientists say www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Mosquitoes found in a warming Iceland for the first time www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Climate disasters in first half of 2025 are the costliest ever on record in US, a resurrected tracker that was axed by the Trump administration has found www.theguardian.com/environment/...

More than 40 Trump administration picks tied directly to oil, gas and coal, analysis shows www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Donald Trump is scrapping a 2001 rule that protects 58m acres of the most prized forests in the US "so we are allowed to take down trees and make a lot of money." I went to the forest where the roadless rule was unveiled to find out what's at stake www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

this sums up a root cause of a lot of things happening at the moment jmarriott.substack.com/p/the-dawn-o...

World leaders rally to release new emission reduction targets a day after Donald Trump calls climate crisis “the greatest con job ever perpetrated upon the world” in scathing and often fact-free UN speech www.theguardian.com/environment/...

"Trump’s dictator-like behaviour is so brazen, so blatant, that paradoxically, we discount it. It’s like being woken in the night by a burglar wearing a striped shirt and carrying a bag marked “Swag”" www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

In Chicago - what a city this is - to see the first organized swim in its cleaned up river in 98 years

Scientists at 'de-extinction' company say they’ve made a "pivotal step" in bringing back the dodo for first time in 300 years www.theguardian.com/science/2025...

Calling peoples' employers in a rage because their tributes to Robert Redford weren't horny enough

"Residents in the area no longer pile their garbage up on sidewalks, but building supers instead toss their bags in the bins" my word, you know it might just work, New York gothamist.com/news/no-more...

Sales of plant-based meat have plummeted amid a surging pro-meat trend in the US, pushed by online influencers and the Trump administration. The number of vegetarians in the US is even lower than it was in 2001, despite meat's huge toll upon the planet. www.theguardian.com/food/2025/se...

down with this sort of thing www.theguardian.com/football/202...

Global greenhouse gas emissions edged up in the first half of 2025 due to a rise in pollution from the US. It may be a sign of things to come - Trump's pro-fossil fuel policies are set to badly slow cuts to planet-heating emissions, new forecast finds www.theguardian.com/environment/...

House committee releases image of apparent Trump birthday note and entire Epstein album www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

"NUMBERS ALWAYS TEND TO BENEFIT THE LEFT"

I stand by my offer to appear on Joe Rogan and set the record straight about our half-billion-year temperature reconstruction www.theguardian.com/environment/...

For months, Joe Rogan has told his huge audience that a study shows the world is cooling, disproving "horseshit" climate science. The study's authors say he has this completely wrong. We are now in an era where many now get news from figures like Rogan. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Trump team’s contentious climate report ‘makes a mockery of science’, experts say in withering and comprehensive review www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

🤡 "So dumb" 🤡 The operator of coal-fired plant in Michigan wanted to close it. But Trump forced it to keep running at a cost of $1m a day. #climatecrisis Story by @olliemilman.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/environment/...