This may be the stupidest climate denial talking point of all time

Great podcast - but worry there is still a lacuna in international analysis over how far the US (and Israel) have fallen. Fight Russia, Ukraine solidarity, re-arm Europe - yes - but we cannot talk about the value of NATO without problem of US. But agree Greens need an answer on what they *would* do.

When I was a child I assumed robots were cool. When I was a teenager I hoped they would be sexy. Now realise they are overwhelmingly just annoying. Deeply, really annoying. Like the most annoying people but with no sense of fatigue or embarrassment.

Trump’s blockade is getting an immediate test. A Chinese tanker has cleared the Strait of Hormuz. Will the US seize it? If the US does, is that an act of war? If it doesn’t, does the blockade collapse? This is a scary moment. www.newsweek.com/first-chines...

Policy shifts coming fast. France accelerates Electrification - a ban on gas boilers in new houses from end of 2026 - increased support for replacing old heating with heat pumps - 100 regions will pilot comprehensive heat transition plans to phase out gas by 2030 www.info.gouv.fr/actualite/el...

In the 1930s, Oswald Mosley claimed to be a patriot, while his British Union of Fascists was secretly funded by the Italian government. We are just beginning to grasp how much of the far right in the UK today has been funded by Viktor Orbán and Russian oil money. Their "patriotism" is always a con.

I appreciate the other side would not bother, but I would be happier if the adoption of EU Single market alignment was done through Parliament, at least in the initial vote to decide it.

🤡 The Brexit irony is extraordinary. Britain helped design a system to manage/control borders across Europe. Then we chose to leave, turning ourselves from insiders into third-country aliens. Now 🇬🇧 citizens are subject to very scrutiny Brexiters wanted to impose on others. Brexit lost control.

But why has China become a global leader in renewable energy production? Because the fossil fuel industry has used its enormous influence (and funding) to attack any moves towards a transition to renewable energy in the West, using both the libertarian & far right political movements & the media.

What worries me about Trump is that if he were a little saner, a little smoother and bit more polite to the rest of the political world I suspect he would be able to pursue just as destructive and appalling an agenda with very little push back. The actual opposition to his policies seems very weak.

The fascist international looking a little weaker this morning. Bad luck to JD Vance, Farage, Trump, Putin and Netanyahu. Good work Hungary.

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Forests that regrow on farmland are resilient and regain much of their lost biodiversity and species richness in 30 years — a finding with implications for conservation go.nature.com/3O6gR6t

Current status of the Strait of Hormuz dispute

The US is blocking the SoH, something which was recently being described as wholly unacceptable. Israel is invading and depopulating the Lebanon and continuing to destroy what’s left of Palestine. I assume this means we can look forward to more statements about how Iran is a threat to world peace.

⬇️ www.theguardian.com/world/2026/a...

“We are what we pretend to be. So we must be careful about what we pretend to be.”

What a well written article that details the far-right element of the fuel protests. Well worth a read. www.thejournal.ie/ireland-fuel...

Apparently it’s National Pet Day…so here’s Donald Trump with one of his faves.

The Iran war is driving a solar boom in the UK. @octopus.energy reports solar sales up 54% in March alone. EDF says residential sales are running at double last spring's rate. Every rooftop solar installation is a vote against fossil fuel price volatility.

Shhh, tiny baby Slow-worm.

Also food security is not the same as self-sufficiency. The UK has not been "self-sufficient" for a long long time.. and it is more self sufficient now (60%) than in 1914, 1940 or 1960. BUT things change. The navy cannot guarantee the sea lanes like it could back then. So what to do? 3/11

Next step woke Marxist sharia

Exactly - food security is not the same as producing all your own food. Rather the reverse. A certain level of self sufficiency is desirable but no need to get carried away.

This is the man who invented the concept of food miles, one of the worst contributions ever to the public debate on trade and agriculture. Ignore. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Gosh I wish we were still in the EU. There are new border checks coming in today and while they are nothing unusual in today's world, it feels cold to be on the outside of them.

Zo’n 350 Palestijnse kinderen in Israëlische gevangenissen worden gemarteld, seksueel misbruikt en uitgehongerd. Sinds 7 oktober 2023 is hun situatie enorm verslechterd. Een explosief rapport hierover van Save the Children werd aanvankelijk onder Israëlische druk niet gepubliceerd. buff.ly/KCqMV2l

Today we will be mainly posting pictures of artefacts that look like sweets. 🍬🍫

But I heard solar panels were a threat to food security?

RATE MY “COAL COMEBACK” 🫵 8 government announcements are being repeated in the media as evidence of a “return to coal”. But how consequential are they.. really?!🧵

This is better, not all I would like, but the penny seems to be dropping that things need to change. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

only 12% of europeans polled across six countries see the united states as a close ally. 36% see it as a threat.

I’ve known Lebanon for three decades. What’s happening now is an invasion. This is Gaza 2.0 – and the world is barely paying attention. @CaroleCadwalladr for the Nerve Link 🔽

FACTCHECK UPDATE: No, the UK can't "be more like Norway" in the North Sea 🇬🇧 extracted most of its oil & gas after privatisation 🇳🇴 has much more left due to state stewardship 🤔Lawson spent UK windfall on tax cuts; Norway got a sovereign wealth fund www.carbonbrief.org/...

Pentre Ifan today; winner of the ‘British megalith that looks most like a UFO’ competition

This is better, not all I would like, but the penny seems to be dropping that things need to change. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

After decades of decline, Neptune grass is making a “remarkable” comeback off Marseille, France. A new study shows that stronger environmental rules introduced in the 1980s allowed these vital Mediterranean habitats to regrow naturally. Edward Carver reports for #Mongabay.

Hey Torsten, if this is still legal, shouldn’t the upcoming Elections Bill be making it illegal? Eg by introducing a cap on all donors?

Israel is cutting off Southern Lebanon as we speak

And now for some good news:

Interested in thoughts of others. Is actually this good news? Digital sovereignty is important an OpenAI would not appear to be a sensible vehicle to deliver it.

Not keen on the ES model anyway. Some folk frame rewilding as an ecosystem management tool to delivery “services” to humans, apparently ignoring intrinsic value of wild nature. Remember, it ain’t all about us you know! However, ecosystem functions underpin supporting/regulating services right?

JD Vance is dead right There is a lot of election interference in Hungary - it's just not the election interference he's talking about vsquare.org/orban-spying...

As good jobs go, investigations correspondent at the FT is up there. Apply! job-boards.eu.greenhouse.io/financialtim...

What a brilliant thing and what a wonderful idea.

It's not hard to catch fish sustainably - if you don't catch them all, and don't destroy their habitat, they reproduce Yet industrial fisheries seem determined to destroy themselves, and governments keen to let them This shouldn't be left to consumers

Plaid says it wants a "new deal for rural Wales". Great. But it doesn't actually have any policies to achieve one. Instead, all their policies relate solely to farming. Agriculture involves, at most, around 10% of the rural population in Wales. It is not a growth sector.

This is a crucial report, shining a spotlight on the funding links between Russia, Hungary and the British mainstream right