Free public transport in Victoria in April. After years of Gov’t policy requiring one to own a petrol or diesel Ute driven everywhere, I’m sure this won’t start a culture war with fossil fuel snowflakes. 😳

How to be ‘Merica’s B***h. Or, FU Alcoa and extractive capitalism. youtu.be/FWrdQxmGlO8?...

Good news that ACCR will appeal the judgement in the greenwashing case it brought against Santos. "In our view, the judgment sets the bar for corporate communication about climate commitments well below market and investor expectations." www.accr.org.au/news/accr-to...

With petrol prices spiking, the Greens are calling on the govt to make public transport free for the next month - and use that month to invest in permanent measures to improve PT & safe cycling lanes. (As you can hear in the vid, the corellas are very supportive!) www.instagram.com/p/DWAnLghDOZs/

What if it was already well-understood that having no plan IS the plan? Produce failed states that are unable to be compliant allies for anyone and profit of the instability.

Turns out the straight or canal not open is far more impactful than temporary lulls when the wind is not blowing or predictable times when the sun is not shining. #renewablesnow

Australians are constantly told renewables will ruin the weekend, you won’t be able to tow your boat, and society will collapse into Mad Max territory. Meanwhile, as a little mayhem starts breaking out due to potential petrol shortages, not a peep about the link to fossil fuels addiction.

For all social science and humanities teachers, a good read on the effort by EdTech Corps to use AI inside education: destructive even if it’s ultimately an unsuccessful take over. theamericanvandal.substack.com/p/against-te...

I disagreed violently (apparently) and was called ‘religious’ and a breaker of scholarly norms. Maybe those terms suggest those committed to “AI will innovate” are the ones in the cult, with dissenters the norm-breaking heretics?

Angus Taylor talking cost of living pressure in Canberra’s wealthiest suburb - “hard times hit everyone” he said - is code for “you folks will be OK?

“A complete joke” After the starting gun fires, Australian researchers have to wait 2–3 years before even starting the race. Really clear article explaining the impossibly long new time-frames for Australian Research Council grants. By @liammannix.bsky.social

Yesterday, Trump tried to justify the attack on Iran with rehashed claims of "election interference" from 2020 and 2024. Here's my 2 cents on what that was all about: katestarbird.substack.com/p/the-electi...

Australia, where 40% of homes have rooftop solar and install cost is $0.50 cents a watt installed in a week versus $3.30/watt installed in six months in the US. 🤦‍♂️ www.volts.wtf/p/whats-the-...

On the embedded politics of LLM’s and AI. Or, channeling Golumbia’s critique of cyberlibertarians. tante.cc/2026/02/20/a...

New report by @ketanjoshi.co showing climate benefits of AI are wildly over-stated. ketanjoshi.co/2026/02/17/b...

Below is from Barnaby Joyce. Apparently he is was asked if he agrees with his One Nation leader (Pauline Hanson) that there are no good Muslims. Is this speaking in tongues or just how bigots ramble on?

For those of you keen for more revelations from the oil-drenched #AtlasFiles 🔥⛽️☠️here’s the full clip of me at the #Auspol Senate hearings on the organisation and funding of climate and energy disinformation. Fun answering questions from Sen Roberts (?!) & Canavan. ✊🏼 youtu.be/VwuqxfyCYj0?...

Nuclear Sabre Rattling is back. But consider that for nuclear deterrence to work, you must assume rational response to threat of annihilation. Yet the entire article emphasizes growing unpredictability. Nuclear deterrence is a flawed theory. archive.md/68lgT

Taylor & Hume, the new Liberal leaders, are again claiming nuclear power is the route to lower emissions and abundant power. Time to re-up analyses showing the Libs are energy policy fibs. @australianlabor.bsky.social

Just a thought, but if your anti-protest laws are illiberal, they were never “designed to foster unity”. The division is a feature not a bug?

Taylor & Hume leading the Liberals is like Burke & Wills looking for the Gulf of Carpentaria. @australianlabor.bsky.social

Australian Government revenue from tax on beer exceeds the revenue from tax on oil and gas extraction. We’re just getting drunk to cope with being ripped off by fossil fuel interests?

If @albomp.bsky.social can’t mock Taylor as opposition leader, Albo would be even more out of touch than inviting Herzog.

Vale Jon Kudelka, editorial cartoonist (1972-2026), who amongst other things skewered climate denialists and requested those “reasonably well informed and not a complete dill” to join him. FYI @michaelemann.bsky.social

“If the intention was to make Isaac Herzog feel at home by surrounding him with violent, racist thugs, then take a bow Chris Minns”. theshot.net.au/uncategorize...

This White House “Don’t Panic” press release is written by folks who can’t help being Paul Verhoeven’ Starship Troopers (1997) while trying to be Robert Heinlein’s Starship Troopers (1959).

When the entire USA becomes fly over country.

21st Century Nuclear Logic: reduce safety guidelines & environmental protections. Increase worker risk. Relax security & accident reporting. Yet reactors will still be uneconomic, lack resilience to outages & accident risk, and blow build times. www.npr.org/2026/01/28/n...

@mattpolprof.bsky.social uses Mann’s Dr Faustus (1947) as guide to modern far right fascism. Including the rejection of the ‘machinery of scientific witness’, replaced by power alone deciding reason. jacobin.com/2026/02/mann...

What Abbott is technically saying is that because a legal ruling by a judge had a political consequence with which Abbott disagreed, Abbott wants to overrule the judge. It’s Abbott trashing the separation of powers, not the judge. www.abc.net.au/news/2026-02...

The ALP /antisemitism envoy’s Uni Rpt Card proposal “risks destabilising campuses, narrowing civic space, and weakening … democratic principles”. @albomp.bsky.social should rethink. @unimelb.edu.au should reject it. mvmau.substack.com/p/from-inqui...

Cathy Wilcox #Herzogout

The disgraced Antisemitism Envoy will harshly police and defund Australian universities that allow criticism of Israel on their campuses. Meanwhile, that same disgraced Antisemitism Envoy feels free to make huge donations to fund hate groups such as Advance, to sow discord in our community.

Season 2 finale of #severance is Winston in Rm 101 at the end of 1984. Discuss

Foucault’s Discipline & Punish (1975) suggests prisons replaced torture in modernity. But as Trump deploys ICE against his own citizens, is the US back to pre-modern torture, where crime (dissent) is an attack on the sovereign (fascist) punishable by public spectacles of retribution?

I wrote a review of the NASEM report on “Understanding and Addressing Misinformation about Science”. It’s an incredibly thorough survey of the topic. But guess who got confirmed as it came out? What do we do w/this knowledge, practically, now? How do we act? www.lawfaremedia.org/article/misi...

We have a new paper in Science today on how malicious AI swarms can threaten democracy. AI systems can already coordinate autonomously, infiltrate communities, and fabricate social consensus. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... Led by @kunstjonas.bsky.social & @daniel-thilo.bsky.social!

Avoided emissions don’t magically cancel out other emissions. @ketanjoshi.co medium.com/lobbywatch/n...

The Liberal National Party coalition splits up after demanding unity post-Bondi

I've been doing a soft launch of my new Substack, Sensemaking Distortion, a blog about how our ability to make sense of the world around us is being profoundly distorted by digital and social media. I just published the Welcome post this morning. open.substack.com/pub/katestar...

No, the Nazis were not leftists or socialists. But, yes, fascism is the dream of “tiny men” offering a narrative of “dispossession and victimization”. @mattpolprof.bsky.social www.currentaffairs.org/news/why-fas...

Called it! Amazon Ring should just be banned, said @evanselinger.bsky.social and I. www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1...

As Trump threatens to invade Greenland because Norway didn’t give him the Nobel Peace Prize, recall Hannah Arendt (1951) said the ideal subject of authoritarian rule is not the committed or sycophantic supporter, but citizens for whom it has become completely unclear what is fact & what is fiction.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt’s inspiration is Babylon 5.

This thread responds to Prof. Christian Dunn’s Telegraph piece on #climate communication. I argue it misdiagnoses public disengagement, underplays escalating scientific risk, & reproduces a media narrative that has actively shaped, not merely reflected, public resistance to climate action 🧵

Hayot & Seybold on how the attack on the humanities is an attack on civil society.

Crib Notes: you’re often being forced to use environmentally damaging and irresponsible Generative AI but Big Tech is busy pushing a BS narrative saying it’s all just efficiency.

Australia’s social media restrictions on U16’s: still access content, but can only use platforms logged out, which minimizes exposure to risky and exploitative design features. @jonathanhaidt.bsky.social archive.md/Qa6Go

I think overconfidence in a technological, free-market and autopilot energy transition also inspires a follow-on dismissiveness around governments approving, supporting or encouraging fossil fuel infrastructure (on the grounds that it won't compete with cheap renewables and therefore isn't a worry)