“…while the prisoners are, of course, suffering greatly physically, and they understand the risk of death, there’s an incredible level of commitment, of resilience, of steadfastness, of certainty in the righteousness of their cause.” newsocialist.org.uk/transmission...

Trump megadonor Larry Ellison is reportedly pledging $40 billion to help his son buy CNN’s parent company, in a media power play that one critic warns makes the billionaire tycoon a direct threat to independent journalism and democracy.

Israel has approved 19 new settlements in the occupied West Bank, a move that further entrenches illegal occupation and fuels deadly Israeli military raids and escalating settler attacks across Palestinian communities.

The six hunger strikers have launched legal action against ‘justice’ secretary, with a ‘letter before action’ for a formal judicial review of the government’s treatment of the ‘Filton 24’ protesters jailed for more than 18 months without trial

And there's always the best option: not eating animals at all! It makes sense on so many levels, including this from today: bsky.app/profile/anni...

Not a day too soon! “When live, conscious animals are placed into boiling water, they endure several minutes of excruciating pain. This is torture and completely avoidable. Humane alternatives, like electrical stunning, are readily available.”

This is a tragedy of UK Gov's making. "More than 800 healthcare professionals... expressing grave concern” "... David Lammy appeared to have no knowledge of the strike." “[no] hunger striker has received an adequate medical check-up, says NHS doctor" app.prospectmagazine.co.uk/story/71917/...

"There is a feeling in academia that Enhanced Rock Weathering [ERW] is promising [to remove CO2 from the atmosphere] but that it’s early days and that almost certainly the commercialization has run ahead of the science."

Families of Palestine Action hunger strikers seek urgent meeting with Lammy

Have you been watching on at all the fun @zackpolanski.bsky.social has been having in the media and thought “wouldn’t it be cool to be part of that?”. Well … come and join the team. Please share to help spread the word. greenparty.org.uk/get-involved...

Have you also asked an AI chatbot about climate and found the answer to be quite good? Maybe that is because it was you who asked. Some AI (e.g. Grok) tailors their response to suit your beliefs. It’s called ‘AI sycophancy’ (a new word I just learned.) globalwitness.org/en/campaigns...

"Despite dramatic changes in the upper atmosphere, surface temperatures showed little response. Cooling near Earth’s surface reached only about 0.05°C (0.09°F), a change too small to distinguish from natural climate variation."

Monday ice update - #Arctic sea ice extent is currently the *lowest* on record (JAXA data) • about 640,000 km² below the 2010s mean • about 1,220,000 km² below the 2000s mean • about 1,780,000 km² below the 1990s mean • about 2,140,000 km² below the 1980s mean More: zacklabe.com/arctic-sea-i...

Iran's capital, Tehran, is also running out of water so will likely need to be relocated! www.nytimes.com/2025/12/19/o...

In a new short film, Oscar-winning documentarian Thomas Lennon follows a group of scientists in New Jersey who are conducting a sobering experiment: studying the slow destruction of their coastal research station by rising seas. Watch the film: bit.ly/4pO6DVI

Besides the obvious urgency of stopping pollution by PFAS, this study highlights nother reason for us to shift to/towards plant-based diets - lower on the food chain and with less risks of contamination.

🍉🇵🇸🍉I've been taking Arabic classes with Ahmed, and his Tabbouleh Language School, for over a year now. It's been wonderful. Ahmed and his wife Bianca are in Nablus, Palestine, and are offering a variety of Arabic and cooking classes. They have asked me to share this flyer 👇 www.tlsarabic.com

The CEO of Oxygen Conservation says its goal “is to sell two million tonnes of carbon credits at well above the normal market rate, to prove that 'regenerative capitalism' can work” and that "its backers could see returns as high as 15% a year because the price of its carbon credits would climb." 😬

Water scarcity in Burkina Faso "a consequence of demographic pressure and climate change". Not just there, not just in Africa, not just in the Global South but globally - even in the UK - the water crisis is worsening fast... populationmatters.org/food-water/

About time! Ask for instance @carolecadwalla.bsky.social who has been warning about this for a very long time!

Hydrogen does not directly warm the climate, but interacts with OH to extend the life of CH4. "More hydrogen means fewer detergents [OH] in the atmosphere, causing methane to persist longer &, therefore, warm the climate longer" phys.org/news/2025-12... Article: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

"Israels defence industry is making records profits with its weapons manufacturers marketing their products as battle tested [on Palestinians]" Nour Odeh reports.

"Killing our wildlife for fun is no longer acceptable" @chrisgpackham.bsky.social on the govts newly announced animal welfare strategy #GMB

Their demands are reasonable, their treatment is disgraceful. The government's intransigence is killing the #PalestineAction hunger strikers. Just as its complicity has assisted the genocide in Gaza. It needs to wake up right now to the moral consequences. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

2025 is ‘year of the octopus’ as record numbers spotted off England’s south coast

🤖

"In a warming world, we will continue to see snow and extreme cold, but these events are becoming the exceptions rather than the rule, and that shift is reshaping our landscape and environment." + Report: climatecentral.org/climate-brie... + Webinar recording: www.youtube.com/watch?v=75S2...

And we’re supposed to believe that technology will save us from climate change or transportation or work I guess

Happy Winter Solstice, where we celebrate the returning of the light, on the shortest day and longest night. On the solstice, when the land feels closest to its oldest stories, we’re reminded how much of England’s past remains out of reach.

"A 47-year-old male is the first documented death from Alpha-gal syndrome (AGS). He first reacted to a steak on a camping trip; two weeks later, he consumed a hamburger and tragically died several hours later. Shifting tick habitats are exposing new people to AGS." www.pcrm.org/news/health-...

The science breakthrough of 2025 is Solar Energy, not because it is new but because of how successful its deployment has been. This year renewable energy surpassed coal as a source of electricity worldwide. Hopeful sign for what’s to come. www.science.org/content/arti...

Another effort to keep the National Center for Atmospheric Research intact!

This would be your work place.

15 yrs ago - Dec 22, 2010 – James Hansen interviewed by @billmckibben.bsky.social “when I testified to Congress ...I used coloured dice then to emphasize that global warming would cause the climate dice to be ‘loaded’—for risk of more extreme weather.” allouryesterdays.info/2025/12/21/d...

This all sounds great for train travel from London to continental Europe! New Eurostar services to Cologne, Frankfurt and Geneva and shorter waiting times at St Pancras 😀 www.ft.com/content/ff71...

Labour admits 60% of parents wrongly targeted in HMRC child benefit fraud crackdown

It’s worth adding that *even* if the tech magically started working as promised, new #CCS power stations would still have a carbon footprint around as bad as coal 👇 This is based on new science on US LNG emissions published last year. Most of our imported LNG comes from US fracking operations.

Happy #DecemberSolstice! 🌞 Understanding seasons - a look at the hourly incoming solar radiation during the two solstices (23.5°N/S). I've added a red marker for ease of viewing. Dashed line shows the equator This graphic can be found at zacklabe.com/arctic-clima...

Paywall for me but the article below on the concept of 'nostalgia' in different cultures brings to mind the wonderful and large body of Ethiopian musical culture around 'tizita' (or tizeta). When I lived in Ethiopia I heard this as an omnipresent theme - and loved it www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wy-v...

Protest is not a privilege – it’s our fundamental right. But the Government’s Crime and Policing Bill will give police powers to shut down protests and criminalise people for taking to the streets. JOIN US in opposing this: https://secure.libertyhumanrights.org.uk/page/180398/action/1

The UK just committed £22bn to carbon capture and storage – a tech with an 80% failure rate that lets oil & gas greenwash their emissions. At this CCS conference, most speakers repped fossil fuel companies. Share if you think it's absurd we're funding tech that protects fossil fuel profits 🙃

Deck the halls and lock him up. Written by Rikki Beadle-Blair Performed at Soho Theatre, Walhamstow for charity fundraiser "Comedians Do Carols."

Bears vs. Trail cameras

At about the same time that we now know hominids were making fire (observer.co.uk/news/science... ), others were doing carpentry with stone tools:

Another milestone in the inexorable march towards the AI bubble bursting, a journey that will be taught in future economics and business schools (assuming we have any left).

On the inefficiency, environmental harms, health issues, social injustice & cruelty from eating meat, dairy & other animal-based foods Written in 1974 in 'Food for a Future', with earlier data It adds: "It's not that we have not known these facts - we have not wished to face their implications."

This is one of the most shocking and obscene things I have ever heard These people are filth www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

If anyone is around Boston January 8th, drop by the Tufts Future of Food Innovation Day. I'll be talking/maybe productively disagreeing with Dan Rejto and Mike Grunwald about an abundance agenda for food and ag.

Some proposed climate “solutions” just don’t stack up against an objective, evidence-based perspective. That’s why the Drawdown Explorer calls these “Not Recommended” climate solutions.

THREAD. My parents' cat Bridget vanished. As the weeks dragged on they became ever more worried, so to distract himself my dad began to paint Bridget's adventures, imagining her travelling through time and popping up at some of art & music's most important moments. I've collected his work here...