Good piece by Margaret Simons: "Australians must demand that their cultural custodians uphold freedom of speech" www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

"Australia’s biggest coal-fired power station, Eraring, will delay its closure by another two years [to 2029] following fresh warnings that the electricity grid is under-prepared to manage its imminent retirement without worsening the threat of blackouts." www.theage.com.au/business/the...

"The number of households using gas for heating and cooking in [NSW, Queensland, South Australia and the ACT] has declined for two consecutive quarters as high prices, milder winters and increasing connection costs encourage more Australians to rely solely on electricity" www.afr.com/policy/energ...

New paper out today. A thread. www.nber.org/papers/w3471...

"Singaporean asset manager Keppel is planning a $10 billion data centre hub near Victoria’s former Hazelwood power station, confident it can secure the power and water it needs to run what could become the largest site of the key AI infrastructure in Australia." www.afr.com/property/com...

"Major energy retailers have asked for more time to comply with rules forcing them to offer three hours of free daytime power, and warn the scheme needs more work to avoid disproportionately benefiting customers with batteries and electric cars" www.theage.com.au/business/con...

"A new Australian carbon offset company, [Aetium,] has been accused of potentially misleading customers by offering to generate thousands of credits for their solar panels and electric vehicles in a scheme that climate campaigners have labelled as junk." www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...

Submission from Anne Twomey on the Antisemitism, Hate and Extremism Bill now up - it’s a must read for journalists and policy makers Quite the burn here too 🔥 www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentar...

"Last year was officially the planet’s third-warmest year on record behind 2024 and 2023, and global heating is accelerating faster than predicted." www.theage.com.au/environment/...

TIL a very important distinction in energy terminology

"ACCC Chair Gina Cass-Gottlieb has sounded a warning over the proliferation of artificial intelligence systems in online retail, saying bots deployed by rival businesses could collude to fix prices." www.theage.com.au/business/con...

'Jewish safety is inseparable from that of Muslims, Palestinians & everyone targeted by racism. If antisemitism is used as justification to ban protests, expand surveillance, or scapegoat minorities, Jewish ppl won't be safer – just in a more authoritarian society' www.theage.com.au/national/as-...

"As Australians cycle through more than 7 million tonnes of paper, glass, plastic, metal and wood a year – the equivalent of 264 kilograms per person – food manufacturers are innovating on packaging to save on costs, reduce waste and stay a step ahead of new laws." www.theage.com.au/business/com...

Louise Adler: "I cannot be party to silencing writers, which is why I am resigning as director of Adelaide writers’ week" www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Trump wants to cap credit card interest at 10% pa. Analysts: "Most banks would respond by cutting credit limits, closing riskier accounts, and scaling back rewards programmes, because they simply couldn't cover losses at that price point." www.bbc.com/news/article...

"Under President Trump, the E.P.A. plans to stop tallying gains from the health benefits caused by curbing ... fine particulate matter [PM2.5] and ozone, when regulating industry, according to internal agency emails and documents reviewed by The New York Times." www.nytimes.com/2026/01/12/c...

"Climate-heating emissions from aviation could be slashed in half – without reducing passenger journeys – by getting rid of premium seats, ensuring flights are near full and using the most efficient aircraft, according to analysis." www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Angela Macdonald-Smith, AFR: These 20 projects will make or break the renewable energy transition www.afr.com/companies/en...

"Victoria’s household gas prices have jumped 208% since 2009 – the biggest increase in Australia." 'Based on the St Vincent de Paul Society and Alviss Consulting’s annual tariff tracker, the national average rise was 134%' www.heraldsun.com.au/news/victori...

Someone with "several mental health conditions, including bipolar and schizophrenia" on an alleged crime spree, apparently. www.theage.com.au/national/vic...

"We discovered microbes in bark ‘eat’ climate gases. This will change the way we think about trees" theconversation.com/we-discovere...

"Sometimes the most important transitions are visible not in moments of crisis, but in moments where crisis quietly fails to appear."

'This week has shown the explosive growth of solar power in particular had diminished the risks of blackouts during heatwaves caused by supply shortfalls' www.abc.net.au/news/2026-01...

'Dozens of steel platforms for offshore oil & gas extraction, as tall as skyscrapers, are no longer pumping fossil fuels from Australia's seabed. What should happen to them?' www.theage.com.au/business/com...

"this is catastrophic as a shift away from a world in which we deal with our problems peacefully toward a world in which we deal with our problems using military force ... This is just a blatant throwing-the-whole-thing-out and making a claim to be able to use force whenever [the USA] wants."

I'm saying this because I spent 3 years reporting on oil in Guyana not because I have a feeling. You can also Google it! But here are some helpful links: www.csis.org/analysis/wha... theintercept.com/2023/06/18/g... www.offshore-technology.com/features/exp... catalystmcgill.com/jungle-war-t...

Looks like you're not the only one who sees that: fortune.com/2025/12/14/e...

Hi hello the Venezuela stuff is entirely about oil, both in Venezuela and in Guyana (where Venezuela is laying claim to the oil in what is now Exxon’s largest oilfield, which Chevron has also bought into). It is the bidding of US oil majors and it’s not remotely subtle.

What the fuck is Trump doing abducting foreign heads of state?! This is some megalomania shit.

"One type of seaweed cuts methane emissions and fattens cattle and another has natural polymers that behave like plastic. Both are being harvested and turned into serious businesses." www.theage.com.au/business/ent...

“I cannot describe to you how enraging it is to look to well-established, reputable, publicly altruistic people to seek to understand how to use power, fame, and influence responsibly only to discover that for the most part this question, or this agenda, has never occurred to these people at all.”

This year I wrote and released a set of methodologies for measuring the greenhouse gas emissions of videogame making, distributing, playing, etc. (with a lot of help and input) I think they’re pretty neat and provide new pathways to reduce those emissions sustainablegamesalliance.org/standard/

Google is hosting a CBP app that uses facial recognition to identify immigrants, while simultaneously removing apps that report the location of ICE officials because Google sees ICE as a vulnerable group. “Big tech has made their choice.” www.404media.co/google-has-c...

Another day, another dubious #ResolvePM issues question wording. Especially wrt Palestine march ban, it's debatable both whether the idea would tackle antisemitism and whether tackling antisemitism is the primary motive of proponents.

yeah, fuck bolognese

My family have tickets to Day 4 lol #TheAshes

Gosh these continued violent attacks on Jews in Australia are just horrific. Who follows up the monstrous acts of Bondi with a car bombing? Awful stuff.

"Intelligence ... is probabilistic, incomplete and often ambiguous, built from fragments that appear coherent only once violence has already occurred. Policing operates within deliberate legal and ethical constraints that privilege civil liberties over omniscience." www.theage.com.au/national/aft...

"New research by Charles Sturt University’s Professor Clive Hamilton shows that 14% of Australians who have moved over the past six years say climate change influenced their decision. Of those who plan to move home in the coming year, [it's] 22%" www.theage.com.au/environment/...

"Rather than becoming the fuel to display the earliest and most pronounced peak in demand as the world embraced electric vehicles, petrol is instead signalling the endurance of fossil-fuel consumption." www.theage.com.au/business/mar...

Anna's Archive: "We backed up Spotify (metadata and music files). It’s distributed in bulk torrents (~300TB), grouped by popularity. This release includes the largest publicly available music metadata database with 256 million tracks and 186 million unique ISRCs." annas-archive.li/blog/backing...

We spoke to a dozen professional concept artists who are currently or have previously worked in game development about whether generative AI image tools have made their jobs any easier. Zero said it did. Most said it made things harder. thisweekinvideogames.com/feature/conc...

Trump has changed the future of the car industry: the USA is vacating the international EV market www.theage.com.au/business/com...

As I understand today's discussion, we can stop an ISIS cell by policing the speaker list at writer's festivals and the BA syllabus at Unis. And by "stopping demonstrations." This is madness.

If only the government had acted earlier to let an unqualified, politically appointed anti-semitism Czar police the thoughts of university campuses, the government could have .. <checks notes> .. persuaded a father/son IS terrorist cell from terroristing. <blink blink> Are we really going there?

The conservatives forces using the Bondi Massacre to instigate a crackdown of freedoms of speech and the right to assembly are completely disgusting. Protesting genocide and the actions of the Netanyahu Israeli govt are not antisemitic.

"World’s largest battery-electric ship powers up for first time in Australia" (A ferry, built in Tasmania that will eventually operate in South America.) It's "four times larger than any previous maritime battery installation in the world." thedriven.io/2025/12/15/r...

Might just avoid social media (and, indeed, most commentary) until the wave of, "this event reinforces the positions I have always held," has passed. Bunch of ghouls out there right now.

Ahmed the Fruiterer being the everyday hero that saved multiple lives of mostly Jewish people today is the only politics worth a pinch of shit in this act of terrorism

BREAKING: Watch as bystander disarms active shooter at Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia.