Although I would expect Isabella-Weber-apology-form.jpg to be getting a few downloads with respect to the behavior of many Men O' Economics, the slightly heartening thing here is that it only took a very preliminary threat of legal action to get them to knock it off.

Okay. So. Obscure Military Holy Orders. Bear with me on this one: In 1687 the French were aggressively expanding their trade and slavery operations on the Gold Coast. As part of this two young West African boys were sent back to France, most likely as slaves. One may have been called "Aniaba". /1🧵

We are discussing the idea that those pushing for a UK / European green industrial revolution in the 2000s and 2010s have been proved right - by China. But Europe relied on the Brussels effect, companies didn't act, and climate change deniers said don't bother.

Contrast with: 🇰🇪 (and some other countries with very high/90% renewable penetration in the grid) seeing masses of new solar generation added, but *falling* renewables % of generation because the grid is falling behind off-grid + hydro/geo capacity can't scale like Chinese solar (cont.)

As we kick off the Round of 32, I give you what these matchups are really about: 1. Canada 🇨🇦 vs. South Africa 🇿🇦 - Battle of the Commonwealth nations 2. Brazil 🇧🇷 vs. Japan 🇯🇵 - Battle of the Portuguese Jesuit "colonies" 3. Germany 🇩🇪 vs. Paraguay 🇵🇾 - Battle of *chuckles nervously* (1/x)

I especially love this diagram.

It's probably time European journalists wrapped their heads around Heat Index (temp + relative humidity). In high humidity, sweating is less efficient, making heat worse, e.g.: Experiencing 35°C in London UK (70% RH) is more dangerous than 50°C in Phoenix Arizona (15% RH)

Amazing. I can’t believe they turned historical materialism into a tool for consultants

Legitimately funny that the best player of all time is measurably bad at taking penalties.

Imagine the swimming pool of cash you'd have right now from a 2010 'Mikel Arteta to get a surprise British peerage before he gets a surprise England Cap' wager.

Realise there's some stuff happening in the UK right now but things are also happening elsewhere! We've got a new essay on Alberta separatism and its reflection of wider discontents and tensions in Canada—in the conferedate system, in fossil fuels + more www.break-down.org/petro-separa...

the most stable figure in british politics in the last decade is the man who sets up the lectern the PMs resign from

Not really. Starmer pursued a strategy that made essentially every political scientist suck their teeth and go 'that's not a good idea', his administration was not centrist (looking Tony Blair when I take my glasses off does not make you centrist)....I don't think polsci will be that troubled.

Great thread on why Starmer is going. But this is the data point that should go in Morgan McSweeney's political obituary. Spent masses of political capital, alienated core-voting coalition, achieved - literally nothing. For a self-proclaimed realist, centrist operator (haha) that's criminal.

So how did we get here, with Starmer on the way out after two years? To some extent, it does go back to the beginning. It was not an enthusiastic victory for Labour. Getting rid of the Tories was the top reason people voted for them in 2024, though with their message of 'Change' also resonating.

Advertise your Bluesky account with a Simpsons GIF

Trying to parse and understand the bifurcated brain of Canada's environmental policy continues to be a personal white whale 🇨🇦🐳 Like a passive house, with a gas station ⛽

They’re calling it the quote on British politics that ended the need for all other quotes

This is funny because it's true. And its truth is co-extensive with the underlying illogic and widespread bubble fears around US tech stocks and assets.

Tim Urban and Tom Tugendhat, together at last.

*incredibly BlueSky voice* It's interesting that the exclusion/inclusion of BlueSky in the UK u16 social media ban is a slam dunk example of logically intransitive preferences, as expressed by groups. In that each time you added or removed BlueSky from scope, people would only get madder, forever 🥳

I once tried to book a table to watch the football in this pub (usual was full), and they explained they didn't have any TVs.

Hundreds of strangers in Belfast working together. Doing shopping, providing accommodation, driving kids to school, people to hospital appointments. Have just been told of a woman close to us who hasn't left her house since Monday so we'll be sorting her out today and getting her anything she needs

Seamas is entirely right here, if you are uncomfortable with the level of immigration into Northern Ireland then it is very clear there is no level of immigration you will accept. That is not an acceptable political position. bsky.app/profile/seam...

It's too real that the poor FIFA PR guy only has the sports-washing deck for pitching the World Cup 😅

This looks like a conspiracy, so I double checked the source on this, and like... Yep. This is the consequence of 'accept all' + training data + business as usual, capitalist stuff. With one degree of separation - your training data can go absolutely anywhere. dronexl.co/2026/06/09/p...

2026: me, timid, behind schedule: *anxiously cites volumes of work across multiple disciplines for even basic claims about 'the literature'* 1986: chad Galen Strawson, self-assured, prolific: *cites exactly two philosophers. first endnote, verbatim: "Dogs, dolphins, human beings, Martians, etc."

With the IRA the Biden Administration tried market-based carbon emissions reduction while the Trump administration is pursuing a degrowth strategy instead. RIP Paul Ehrlich you'd love this shit.

To go even more meta on this great point: If capitalism is the attempt at the harnessing and governance of 'stuff that you can get *rich* peddling' - then our capitalism as experienced is increasingly a) sick, and b) counter to stable mass democracy

Caveats: - There are a bunch of different ways to slice subsidy numbers. - The scale of what China did and is doing is not very reproducible - Especially if you start further up the value chain (or with mittelstand path dependency on the combustion engine, for example) But, all in all: Yeppppp.

Were we all too cruel to that schlocky ending of Mass Effect 3? Vladimir Putin would like us to reassess.

It's not exact - but there's an analogy with the not-uncompelling case that mass financialisation of the economy and growth of the financial sector has not realised the promised value-added *for other sectors*, compared to before. AI in theory offers a much broader set of possibilities, but 💸🤷‍♂️

Workshopping a myopia theory of everything here. Be patient... Oh.

I really still sometimes struggle to believe that western governments and especially America are going to just lead us straight into major oil shortages with no attempts at demand management ahead of time, but that’s what all the evidence points to.

Somehow, Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere apologia returned.

Pakistan is a fascinating case: Same neighbourhood 3 years apart. May 2022: grey rooftops. Sep 2025: solar everywhere. No national programme drove this. People did the maths as grid power got pricey & panels got cheap. More in next newsletter: janrosenow.substack.com

Should this mark the extreme extent of a bubble, let no one say there weren't some absolutely gigantic red flags www.ft.com/content/9528...

Thank god for excellent journalists like those at the @londoncentric.media who can call bullshit on the torrent of misleading rage-bait that is put out there - 'pork ban' 🙄 It's no longer exclusively for clicks & impressions, but explicitly to incite disorder and a political slide into the sewer.

Ok, I'm bundling professional announcements again (since I clearly *love* doing them?👎😅) First, very excited to be joining the Sustainability Regulation Observatory (SRO) @ @gsos-lse.bsky.social as part of the brand new policy team; co hosted by @granthamlse.bsky.social & @lselaw.bsky.social 🏭💚

A reminder: to meet this goal for the 7th Carbon Budget, the Climate Change Committee suggests we need to be installing over a million heat pumps a year by 2033 (in 7 years time). We are currently a long, long way from being able to scale up clean heat that quickly...

I would like to just skip to the discussion about the inevitable UK gov, locked down alternative to WhatsApp - BritsApp, obviously - and what hilarious things would be wrong with it? (Along with the one endearingly great thing about it, that won't quite salvage it from disaster.)

"Elsewhere, elites have tended to withdraw into co-benefit narratives that make rational short-term sense but don’t tend to massively work with voters to boost salience, in my view, and mean even fewer people talking about why this transition is happening in the first place" Right!!!

This article is interesting - in that somehow there's managed to be a major misunderstanding in almost every paragraph. And not just the recommendation to go sign 'Athletic Club's exciting Neco Williams' 🙄 www.theguardian.com/football/202...

Today the @wmo-global.bsky.social released projections of where temperatures may end up over the next five years (baed on 13 different models and 250 ensemble members): wmo.int/resources/pu... Their estimates for 2026 and 2027 are quite close to my (updated) ones: