RCP8.5. Don't take it literally, but do take it(s temperatures and damage function) regionally, locally, and seriously.

Great interview - and it's incredibly telling from @doynefarmer.bsky.social that he focuses in on a technical problem (climate) and a political one (polarisation) as the big beasts. Because you can build the best model in the world, advice to save trillions... But a decision maker still has to act.

Power sector is biggest emitter and would have seen a rise but for clean energy growth Both this and real estate are A key factor (neither is THE key IMO)

NEW ANALYSIS: China's CO2 has now been 'flat or falling' for 21 months * Down in 2025 * Still below Mar 2024 * Clean energy wave a key factor If this is China's peak (TBC) it's the climate story of the century so far… www.carbonbrief.org/...

"Economics is too important to be left to economists." @rethinkecon.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/environment/...

It's completely understandable that industry would get addicted to dense, transportable energy sources that we can dig out the ground 🪏 Less understandable is why dense transportable energy sources that we can't dig up, have to process ourselves at great expense, would be a substitute for that? 🏭

Jan is too modest. It's been 5 years since the hydrogen ladder came out. And at least 3 years since his conclusive meta-study of hydrogen studies. We were clear that hydrogen as a fuel was a terrible idea. Hydrogen promoters owe us billions in wasted money & years we can never recover.

Am I a joke to you, BlueSky galaxy mapper? 🦊📉🗳️

by 'eck lad

UK elected officials: 'I solemnly swear that I would rather burn to death in a metaphor for my own ruin, than have to work in a parliamentary building that *did not* have a gold plated underground education centre for the little uns, and instead left a few bn £ for *spits on the ground*... trams 🤬'

Ian McKellen performs “The Strangers’ Case” speech from “Sir Thomas More” on Colbert.

Oof.

sorry to be sentimental but this is the most amazing heartwarming story

Updated Cannon Stats Premier League simulation after round 24. Arsenal are up over 90% after Manchester City and Aston Villa drop points at the weekend. The Champions League race looks like it will be the main one to watch the rest of the season.

Jeffrey Epstein, taking time out of running the largest global child sex trafficking operation in human history to explain to his friend Prof. Larry Summers of Harvard, the former Treasury Secretary of the United States, that women have agency.

I can't be the only one reading this and seeing the parallels to Israel's AI targeting tools and doctrine - which produced pretext for death/repression en-mass, subverting all the institutional/ social/human checks and balances on the way through ease of use. The AI weapon wants to be fired. ⚠️

Economic damage functions in climate econ are tricky, with massive error bars - which is why the prudential course is 'don't break your climate' - but this granular county approach looks like it has some interesting insights.

I spent childhood holidays all over the Norfolk Broads, and I had no idea they were man-made - let alone abandoned fossil fuel extraction infrastructure. The completely unknown and unknowable connection between extraction, burning, and eventual deluge shows one of history's ironic twists.

This is broadly correct - lots of people seems to think any big player can 'pick up the crown' of reserve currency. No, it's not something that happens by default - it's a constructed institution that has many benefits, some costs, and has technical & practical requirements that are hard to meet.

Once again, I ask how the math of other currencies replacing the dollar is going to go so long as neither 🇪🇺 nor 🇨🇳 is willing to do any of the things required to actually replace the dollar: bsky.app/profile/mcop...

"One of the things that I don’t think is getting talked enough about outside of Minnesota,” she said after a pause, “is how much this feels like ethnic cleansing. People are so afraid to go out and participate in public life regardless of their citizenship status. This isn’t about immigration.”"

China begins operating the world's largest compressed air energy storage plant. Something that can compete with lithium-ion batteries on price now! 🎁🔗 www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Nate Silver has the chance to attempt the funniest meme coin, rug-pull manoeuvre in history.

Love that I get to remember this one. This level of literalism, incompetence, and literal incompetence, is truly heartwarming. It's beautiful.

God, tired of working in mysterious ways:

most of these things can be true at the same time and some are manifestations of the same thing, but I am afraid that this is - like Brexit - a number 4: a huge level of volatility and uncertainty that nullifies long-term norms and stable moral signals that economic stakeholders usually follow

For those unfamiliar, in On Violence, Arendt points out that the ability to dish out violence is often confused for power - the ability to get compliance without violence. Successful governance relies almost entirely on power, because violence is expensive and limited.

One of the big econ principles I've spent 10 years working from is 'you can't expect markets to just price non-marginal (env.) risks accurately, especially with foresight over time' - while the response from finance and policy is mostly 'well its the best we have, you're naive'. #greensky #econsky

Sovereignty requires a population willing to withstand pain for what they believe in - that was the background to Carney’s Davos speech. Tim and I chatted about what Canada has actually been doing the past year - building a coalition that will endure suffering inflicted by the US:

When it comes to climate, the Global South is the future of the Global North. This week a cyclone hit the Med. “One in 50 yrs event” etc. The pics are immense, the damage mostly in Sicily/Calabria. As the Global South knows well, the event was received with much silence by much Italian media.

Yet more indignities piled upon Gaza. But on the bright side, no one needs to be self-conscious about the quality of their slides ever again.

Last term I tried an experiment: I walked into my Tech and Design Ethics class, admitted that I had *no idea* what to do about ChatGPT - so I would let them figure it out. As in: their first project was to decide and write the ChatGPT policy for the class. Here's what happened:

Megan shows us the importance of US and other global factors in driving the rise in UK government borrowing costs. Is clear that UK specific risk factors increased around the time of the LDI crisis in 2022.

A version of this Editorial, and its tone, could actually be quite useful. Stating plainly how different national blocs feel about UN agendas, or climate action; and what evidence, information, political dynamics drive those positions. Unfortunately it wouldn't be exculpatory for Republicans sooo

Not much focus on India and other Asian countries that aren't China but increasing evidence that they're fossil fuel-driven development and going straight for renewables and electrification.

As Porfirio Diaz once famously said, “Poor Canada, so close to the United States and so far from God.”

I'm finding myself in the shocking position of being *more* pessimistic on just how low the bar is for 'electricity burning nonsense, for which society ultimately withdraws social consent'. The fossil & violence-backed american dream is essentially now the proposition that there *is no floor*.

Sorry, you think European athletes attending an Olympic games is just as “unserious“ as the total inability of Congress to constrain a rogue president from threatening their countries?

Unfortunately this is true, even when annoying British people say on the BlueSky social media app 🤷‍♂️

Mafia goon: Nice house you got here...it'd be a shame if something happened to it Media outlets: Mafia goon rules out use of force. Expresses regret at the mere thought of it

China just quietly eating America's lunch while they bang rocks together.

Another dimension here of the eco-security alignment that's been emerging more clearly since the Ru-Ukr energy crisis put renewables-as-energy independence into the mainstream. Healthy, resilient ecosystems offer best shot at food & national security - but degradation is everywhere 🌱🍃📉

This is a lot to take in. But the underpinning thesis of the speech is that we have shifted from a relatively open world with low trade frictions but weak/asymmetric governance, to one that can only be open to the extent that governance binds.

Livestream starting:

ok not to be a philosophy asshole but what does Mr. Jones think preparation is?

This is what happens when all the smart people leave a platform, you’re left reading the dumbest motherfuckers alive because it’s what’s left

It's Davos this week, so please find attached a list of phrases that you may hear and what they actually mean. Full phrasebook here 😉 www.ft.com/content/ab4f...

if i could make you read ONE (1) single post to improve your understanding of the challenges of social science in general it would be this one from @markfabian.bsky.social about wellbeing science specifically profmarkfabian.substack.com/p/airing-my-...