Subsequent genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia, and Darfur have a wide consensus. The Gaza case is contested and under consideration. The Israeli rights group Btselem said its report "our genocide" is one it never imagined producing. Others contest its conclusion www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

🙁

Grim to read how safeguarding legislation and AI were weoponised against a professional school librarian in this. I hope the person at the centre of this storm can find a new, more supportive employer.

The case for expanding domestic production has always been weaker than its proponents suggest. UKCS output is too small to move international prices. What we can control is how much our economy needs to consume. This is less a question of price and more of volume.

In US, UK, Germany and Australia, research shows that around 70% of firms actively use AI, particularly younger, more productive firms. Firms report little impact of AI over the last three years, with over 80% of firms reporting no impact on either employment or productivity cepr.org/voxeu/column...

A support package to combat rising fossil fuel costs is likely to be a political necessity, but this time around can the government please also deliver policies that help reduce the fossil fuel reliance causing the problem in the first place?

Maybe it helps at the margins with the tax base and energy security, and maybe it helps neutralise some of the political attacks on net zero (which is why some green figures are backing a rethink), but the suggestion it meaningfully improves UK energy independence is wishful thinking.

Meanwhile, Spain's massive investment in renewables is paying dividends now: with prices for Spanish industry and consumers low and stable compared with other European economies. www.ft.com/content/ac77...

'it’s interesting to compare how hard it was to differentiate a web browser with how hard it is today to differentiate a chatbot' Fab piece from @thebenedictevans.bsky.social asking hard Qs of OpenAI when its tech is similar to other labs and has no network effects www.ben-evans.com/benedictevan...

Statement from @quaker.org.uk about tonight's police raid on Westminster Meeting House. Guys, I don't think they're buying the Met's line about it all being a cover for plotting "mass shoplifting"

An influential industry petition criticizing the European Union’s core climate policy implied its demands were supported by some 1,350 companies and associations. Now some firms deny they signed up. www.politico.eu/article/big-...

NEW ANALYSIS: UK emissions fell 2.4% in 2025 as coal fell to a 400-year low. Incredibly, we used less coal last year than than in 1600, when Queen Elizabeth I was on the throne and Shakespeare was writing Hamlet. All the details in our article: www.carbonbrief.org/...

Pulp poetry.

I agree with this. The mistake Labour are making is leap-frogging the centre to try to attract Reform voters. I think a more ‘median voter’ targeting strategy would be more socially liberal and more pro-business than the one they currently have.

Panic in the Gulf as Iran lashes out at US allies - as.ft.com/r/13b254c3-8...

so I think "the AI can write its own code, and therefore hockey-stick to superintelligence" is sort of... *less* likely if it's more like "it just tries something until something works". mostly what works is not "create a supermassive brain".

Fantastic interview. Everyone should read it:

Written English has barely changed in 300 years. If you can read Harry Potter, you can read Robinson Crusoe (1719).

is there a technology that "the left" is excited about? www.transformernews.ai/p/the-left-i...

🚨Behold, the story of the Fed balance sheet in a single chart www.ft.com/content/cbe2...

Bucket theory is unglamorous but very important. @ersatzben.com is forensic here - a must read for those interested in UK research policy www.ersatzben.com/p/the-bucket...

Nature, business, science & policy...a week of global collaboration and consensus at #IPBES12. "Game-changing", "Inspirational", "A turning point" - an intergovernmental platform powered by experts, governments & stakeholders. IPBES: Science and Policy #ForNature & People. 🔗 youtu.be/9895iTAMtLk

I don’t want to laugh at a small business but also VERY funny

These dynamics are clearly happening - seemingly creating larger oscillations / stupider decisions over time. But even if the stock market resets, there is also cumulative damage to America's international standing which is not reversed when trump steps back from the brink.

These are the icy mountains of Pluto. It took 9 years to get these magnificent images… and 4.8 billion kilometers.

Yes. One of my favourite energy efficiency stats is that 25% of UK economic growth between 1971-2013 was due to energy efficiency: ukerc.ac.uk/news/energy-... @jrbarrett.bsky.social

Germany, Sweden and Denmark are publicly debating conscription, food stockpiles and supply-chain resilience. We're still treating defence as a competing priority. The PM's not wrong to focus on foreign policy so much- but he needs to be much more upfront with the country on why.

Things are awful, so a little treat for the real Crush-Heads. It is now eleven years since I got this printed in the Metro.

Well that was dramatic. Although is it me or did Amanda not give the police a really bad name by being consistently wrong about everything #TheTraitors

The USA can withdraw from @ipbes.net but, IPBES Chair @davidobura.bsky.social observes, “unfortunately, we cannot withdraw from the fact that more than 1 million species of plants and animals face extinction.” 😞😠

It's all very well having a "weightless", digital economy, but that exists on a material base in semiconducting manufacturing that is far from intangible, & seeing diminishing returns on ever increasing capital investment. Plot above from my blogpost from last year: softmachines.org?p=3129

Useful thread of analysis on the US intervention in Venezuela

@pollymackenzie.bsky.social's substack makes this point well. This govt has not consciously chosen which political battles to fight. Combine that with a tendency to centralise, we are in a place where throughout government, ‘everything is a priority’, so nothing is.

How good is AI getting at CS? This is a Principal Engineer at Google speaking against interest on Claude Code.

Great thread about the demand-side for non-democracy. Jacob unpacks a lot here and provides useful literature. Gather, folks!

10. We can only protect ourselves against threats we acknowledge.

But Europe needs to stop trying to impose an imaginary coherence on Trump administration foreign policy and to work out how to deal with the incoherent reality.

Random thought for 2026: the world is unfair and you can make it fairer, but while you can fight against injustice, you need to build justice, not just argue for it. What’s required - everything from mutual respect to well designed institutions - doesn’t just exist, you have to create it.

Harvey Price time then. In 2016, I had an ill fated stint as the Social Media Producer on Loose Women on ITV. It was a disaster, I should never have applied for the job, I certainly shouldn’t have been given it. I could do the actual job standing on my head, but the politics of the place…woof.

If you don't already read @jamesbreckwoldt.bsky.social's substack and you're into British politics, can I recommend doing so as a New Year's Resolution? Always enjoyable and thought provoking in equal measure - although maybe pass on this one if you're a Labour diehard and don't want to spoil NYEve!

What a great piece! This just gets better and better as you read. prospect.org/2025/12/11/s...

Here's this week's Substack wrap. It has links to all the FTAV posts you may have missed, as well as a bunch of other stuff. substack.com/home/post/p-...

The challenge climate poses to the insurance industry is becoming clearer, but for the industry to respond it needs to think and act differently - working with others to trigger systemic responses. Do read our latest report supported by ClimateWise on this: www.cisl.cam.ac.uk/news-and-res...

Our annual deep dive on China’s climate transition is out! China’s CO₂ emissions are set to remain flat for a second year in 2025. Record additions of solar and wind, accelerating electrification, and declining construction-material demand are the main drivers.

3. The industry knows that words are important. If Moses had been obliged by labelling laws to promise the Israelites a land of mammary secretions and insect vomit, I doubt many would have followed him into Canaan, though these are accurate descriptions of milk and honey. 3/6

1. The European Parliament’s attempt to ban plant-based foods from being sold as “sausages”, “burgers” etc is a direct response to livestock industry lobbying. This is a short thread on how utterly bleeding ridiculous it is. 🧵1/6

Across regulated industries there has been a step change in the past 16 months. Solar farms left as proposals for years were signed off in weeks. We haven’t completed a new reservoir in 30 years despite the population growing by 10m. This government’s signed off 9

Because streaming has wiped out the marginal revenue from people using services more there’s no current incentive to build a bridge which can turn casuals into heavy media consumers, which is the element that’s really missing IMO

Will Hutton has a good stab at it here observer.co.uk/news/opinion....