What holding policymakers to their word feels like

I hope at some point the wider public understands what's happening, big govt is being dismantled, governance powers are being outsourced to corporations hand over fist, making serious incursions into critical public infrastructure. They call it 'localised freedoms'. I call it Zone Fever.

Progress towards a police state www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2025/10... The US is heading for civil war unless Trump suddenly changes trajectory. How far behind are we in the creation of a police state?

Whatever your view on anything, if you don’t realise that initiatives like this spring from an impulse to authoritarianism, you’re deluding yourself I think. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

Elon Musk openly called for violence on our streets yesterday. I hope politicians from all parties come together to condemn his deeply dangerous and irresponsible rhetoric. Britain must stand united against this clear attempt to undermine our democracy.

"Would it really threaten the global ruling class if the world phased out fossil fuels? The answer to this question—Malm and Carton’s exegesis of the wealth lost if we stopped using coal, oil, and gas—lies at the core of Overshoot." lareviewofbooks.org/article/the-...

As the world rapidly heads into #climate #overshoot I've noticed a disturbing pattern in journal articles recently. I'll summarize it quickly in this thread 🧵

A great distillation from @dancalverley.bsky.social of the choice we all face now - to change and adopt new lifestyles or to carry on burning carbon as we follow our current selfish paths.

1. This is something I've been saying for 25 years, but it's hard to get many people to listen. What counts is not the new energy sources you add, but the old ones you retire. Unfortunately it's politically easier to build renewables than to shutter fossil fuels.🧵 www.forbes.com/sites/rrapie...

In this week's column, I explore what I see as a very real prospect of systemic collapse, caused by Trump's actions, and suggest we start preparing. I try to explain how complex systems fail, and suggest some of the failure paths we could be on. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

In Nature Climate Change, we show that a year above 1.5 °C signals that Earth is most probably within the 20-year period that will reach the Paris Agreement limit. @natclimchange.bsky.social

Can anyone who is a parent, but not a climate activist in any form, please explain to me why not?

The neoliberal dream of fossil fuel billionaire Charles Koch was always the destruction of US democracy and the elimination of government (except for its repressive organs police, courts, prisons, military ofc), and now he has won. What now? A 🧵. 1/ t.co/FKxxmLyfce

1. There have been plenty of debates about whether or not Trump and his circle are fascists. In this column, I argue that the debate solves nothing. What we’re seeing is a reversion to the default state of politics in centralised societies: autocratic tyranny. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

8. To counter the spiral requires massive political effort: dissent, protest, non-cooperation and the building of alternatives on a vast scale. The response by power will be extreme repressive violence. Only societies prepared to withstand it produce alternatives to tyranny.

I have an issue with your first two paragraphs: you’re comparing aviation and concrete emissions This ignores the inequality and choice of flying Concrete is a systemic issue that no individual can affect. Flying cannot be compared this way Your framing doesn’t focus on the root cause: inequality

From a security perspective, this is how the future looks: Gated communities (GC) In survival-favourable locations Defended by private military companies Using lethal and non-lethal weapons To secure GC inhabitants and infrastructure / resources (food, water, energy) From climate displaced people

Has a more than 10x increase in fossil fuels really been essential for the population growing by 3x?

@jeremycorbyn.bsky.social tells it like it is Why won't KeirStarmer and co. listen? I really don't think they have a clue about what's coming If they did, they would be in full panic mode I know I am www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

“Big companies will use their market power to drive up prices in the event of a crisis.” NEW: Listen to @meadwaj.bsky.social explain climate-flation in our very festive @macrodosepod.bsky.social x Break Down crossover episode www.break-down.org/post/year-in-review-a-macrodose-crossover

Can we get to overseas conferences without wrecking the planet? Yes, absolutely! Dr Alison Chisholm and Dr Juliet Carpenter travel to a conference in Marrakesh by train and ferry, and share their eye-opening journey here 👇 www.phc.ox.ac.uk/blog/train-t...

I don't think scientists have any more insight into this than anyone else tbh.

That is some graph on bus usage outside London after deregulation on.ft.com/49PfLlV

One more way in which the #FinancialSector is a threat to the security of us all. #ClimateEmergency www.edie.net/report-major...

Labour received £4 million from Quadrature just before the GE, this was not reported in the MSM. Starmer recently announced a Govt partnership with Blackrock, the most criminally corrupt shadow bank in the world that owns almost everything. Thread

Over 85% of fossil fuel emissions have occurred since I was born. And in my lifetime, human population has more than trebled (x 3.28). Most of the emissions have been caused by the rich among us (including me!). The priority is to address the biggest footprints, but our numbers also matter!

If this doesn't scare the poop out of you, it should: NOAA: The Arctic tundra region has become a source of carbon dioxide and methane to the atmosphere, driven by a combination of microbial activity in thawing permafrost and emissions from more frequent wildfires. www.climate.gov/news-feature...

"much of the [UK's] imported food comes from areas that are threatened by drought or floods which are being exacerbated by global heating. Inflation, partly caused by global instability and war, has pushed up the cost of farming, & leaving the EU...has meant imports [from there]...have decreased."

Cory Doctorow wrote a short story FIVE YEARS AGO about an online support group for people screwed over by the health system who encourage each other to wage violence against insurance CEOs. Cory let us publish the the story given the obvious timeliness. It's free to read here:

As a counterpoint to Our World In Data' rosy takes on 'modernity' and neoliberalism I recommend reading. for instance, Tom Murphy's 'Do the Math' blog: dothemath.ucsd.edu/2024/10/evid...

i've been thinking lately about the loss of the future--not in the historical sense, because the future just keeps on coming--but the loss of the future in the ideological sense, the loss of the future as an organizing principle of politics this is as true of liberals as it is of the left

Cuddling up to the world's biggest block to serious #climate action and autocratic human rights abuser No shame - just no shame www.theguardian.com/politics/liv...

Being interviewed tonight (Sunday 8th, 6pm UK time & 10am Pacific Time) by @danmiller999.bsky.social for his series Climate Chat. Title: "Being Frank & Honest About Climate Change" Live YouTube link at: www.youtube.com/live/l8Q8RQ4... also on Clubhouse.

Starmer to meet Saudi crown prince in push for infrastructure cash. Why get cash from dictators at enormous cost when govt can create money, do QE for infrastructure, borrow at lower cost, tax the rich. Seems everything is for sale in the UK. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Essential, revelatory viewing. And truly impressive that the filmmakers produced this film for only £4000.

Happens in climate mitigation all the time: negative emissions / carbon dioxide removal at gigatonne scale & permanent, routinely invoked as real- world entities rather than wishful figments of the imagination.

Allowing cycles on the tram off-peak is a positive move for Greater Manchester. Article discusses rearranging carriages. I really hope this means that cycles will have their own space, and not use spaces designated for wheelchair users, like in the trials. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

World’s top 1% own more wealth than 95% of population. Global South countries own 31% of wealth, despite being home to 79% of people. BlackRock, State Street, Vanguard hold $20trn assets, 20% of global investable assets. Colonialism/Imperialism never ended. www.oxfam.org/en/press-rel...

I've got a commentary out today in the new Dialogues on Climate Change journal, summarising progress so far in research on climate #TippingPoints, and reflecting on their implications for climate action & the outlook for future research: doi.org/10.1177/2976... #ClimateChange #OpenAccess

How do politicians reconcile their actions? The FPTP voting system has resulted in Labour having a 172 majority but only 20% of eligible votes. Keir Starmer was lying when he said “country before party,” we need & want PR, the same’s true for rejoining, nationalisation & climate!

It's never a 'crack down' on corporate crime... www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

they say bluesky’s an echo chamber but i’m only half joking when i point out that there’s been some really vigorous debate on here today as to whether it is good or bad that the CEO of a major health insurance conglomerate was murdered in cold blood in the street

Oil majors are not energy industry stakeholders to be won round to the transition; they’re the *bad guys*, hell bent on torching the near future to keep filling their already bulging pockets with cursed loot for as many more short years as society will tolerate

Useful chart showing hard-to-decarbonise sectors of the economy

We're going to pass 2 degrees of warming for the simple fact that food and agriculture alone will bring us there. Until climate activists, the labor movement and political parties take agriculture seriously we are just putting lipstick on a pig. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

"[A]mongst those of us privileged enough to fly, and make decisions about energy policy that will impact others more than ourselves, we appear oblivious to the catastrophe we are seemingly complicit in. Cognitive dissonance or a deliberate attempt to maintain privilege and global inequalities?"

The utter absurdity of seeking global agreements on hydrocarbon reductions. It's like inviting the Mafia to global conferences on fighting organised crime - and giving them the power of veto.

Is there a modern example of an unarmed populace prevailing over an armed and brutal state willing to mow down the crowds with military gear? I ask, because I feel quite assured this scenario is coming to the U.S. in the near future.