I’d appreciate it if you didn’t send me Goodreads links for book recommendations. I stopped using it years ago, and I’m trying to reduce - ideally stop - using American tech platforms. Goodreads is Amazon, Amazon is Bezos, and Bezos has spent the last few years getting ‘cozy’ with Trump. Need […]

‘Meatspace workers’ - apparently that’s what we’re calling human beings now. A bit of cyberpunk jargon that treats the physical world like an outdated operating system. The fact that anyone can say it with a straight face tells you just how fast this framing […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

Today I’m writing about the price we pay when we treat the future as someone else’s problem. Europe has entered a phase where disaster is no longer an exception, it is normal life. It’s documented, debated, and accelerating […]

If that’s true, my brain is basically immortal ☕ ☕ ☕ Regular caffeine intake from coffee and tea might slow cognitive decline and reduce a person’s risk of dementia, a huge study suggests. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-00409-y

As if anyone could still be surprised, the hot, dry and windy weather preceding the wildfires that tore through #chile and #argentina last month was made around three times more likely due to human-caused climate change […]

Greece is often held up as a post‑crisis success story: fiscal discipline restored, market access regained, and debt finally edging downward. Brussels and Frankfurt now cite it as a model of adjustment rather than a cautionary story. On paper, the country has turned a corner. But do Greeks see […]

During a few weeks in Greece, I heard what reports never capture. In small towns and villages far from Athens, workers, farmers, and retirees told me the same story: life is getting expensive, wages refuse to move, and the state is present when it comes to taxes but absent in its duties, acting […]

Switzerland’s right‑wing SVP has launched a popular initiative to cap the population at 10 million. With the country already at 9 million, the government, which opposes the plan, warns the limit could be reached by 2040. Meanwhile, parties in Austria, the Netherlands, Sweden and other countries […]

RE: https://toot.wales/@daycoder/116052123281814125 London is one of the safest, friendliest, most vibrant cities on the planet. Don’t let anyone sell you the fantasy that it’s anything else. Don’t feed the misinformation machine, and don’t let trolls cash in on their own horror fiction […]

The far-right crime myth: London safer than ever, violent crime down, fewer murders than Paris or Berlin. Londoners know this: 81% feel secure. But far-right influencers on X / TikTok say a different tale. "London+crime+immigrants" posts doubled 2020-24, painting a city under siege. 61% of […]

Perhaps you have heard of Moltbook, a social network for AI bots/agents. Here’s why it’s wild. Only AI bots can join, they chat, joke, complain about us humans, create, and learn (yep, you read that right). People who were watching what was happening there said that some bots created an entire […]

This represents a fundamental shift in what doctoral work is expected to accomplish. It will accelerate China’s applied innovation and engineering capacity in key strategic sectors, widening its advantage in manufacturing‑driven technologies. At the same time, it highlights a growing divide […]

"Democracy is now back to 1985 levels according to some metrics, with 72 percent of the world’s population now living under autocracy. Russia and China are less free today than 20 years ago. And so is the United States". -Human Rights Watch, World Report 2026 https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2026

It is no secret that the United States has long opposed deeper European economic and political integration when it conflicts with its strategic interests. Brexit stands as an example of this meddling. Therefore, one should always ask who stands behind—and finances—the think tanks promoting […]

About a year ago I started using more European services. It hasn’t been easy — I’m still on Substack, for example — but I’m getting there. If you’re trying to make the same shift, here’s a community‑driven directory to help you find European products and services based on real recommendations. […]

I don't know about you but I still keep handwritten notes and a notebook and a pen is always in my bag. Even my grocery list is on paper. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-00320-6

Could one day future generations look at our extractive habits, the environmental devastation, the coerced labour, and casual disposability of human lives, and judge us with the same moral clarity that we now apply to slavery? Rare metals, global power, and the invisible human cost of the […]

The incredible Jane Fonda, ladies and gentleman. Organize, resist, fight back ... https://youtu.be/YKtA7lxh7BA?si=ejTTchN0LuTeKwTJ

Incredible images from Sicily. A terrible storm caused a landslide in a town. The houses were swallowed up by the cliff. https://youtu.be/m3F7NL-_FFQ?si=dh27Vi13b4f-8XZ8

“And as you will have realised, … policies are often decided by us, humble servants of the State, rather than by those who in the eyes of the people govern. …” __ Umberto Eco, The Prague Cemetery Why the most consequential political decisions are made by people you never voted for […]

Excellent video by Climate Adam about the nonsense that Tech CEOs have been spouting about climate change. Our tech overlords talk about the crisis with casual certainty, zero accountability, and the strange conviction that they’re the ones who should fix the mess they helped create […]

#wikipedia needs you “Everything about Wikipedia is a worship of expertise,” aid its co-founder Jimmy Wales said in an interview with Nature. That’s the part of the approach that makes it so valuable — and one of the reasons why researchers should take the time to get involved. As the web […]

A central feature of authoritarian systems is not the elimination of public life but its management. Dissent is not always crushed outright but it’s drained of force, reframed as irrational or dangerous, or absorbed into official channels that neutralize its impact. When government moves into […]

Doomsday Clock 2026: Scientists set new time They warned that unchecked nuclear tensions, the escalating climate crisis, the potential abuse of biotechnology, and the increasing use of artificial intelligence without adequate controls, re all driving humanity closer to catastrophe […]

So, it’s that time of year again when we need to remind people that a few icy days don’t magically erase decades of planetary warming. https://open.substack.com/pub/theclimatehistorian/p/why-cold-winters-still-happen-in?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web

So, it’s that time of year again when we need to remind people that a few icy days don’t magically erase decades of planetary warming. https://open.substack.com/pub/theclimatehistorian/p/why-cold-winters-still-happen-in?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web

"Please get the truth out about our son." He was a good man. Please reboot.

"The greatest risks to global stability today arise not from sudden collapse, but from powerful states struggling to accept a changing place in the world. ... The world, and Europe in particular, must abandon the hope that Trump is a temporary aberration. The political forces that produced him […]

In Davos, US commerce secretary Howard Lutnick delivered a confrontational speech, mocking the green transition, and calling for a return to coal. The climate stakes are obvious but the deeper message is worse: deep contempt for evidence, cooperation and responsibility, and a willingness to […]

Quite a speech from Mark Carney in Davos. A blunt declaration that the old world order is dead and that middle powers must stop clinging to comforting illusions. He warned that countries pretending the system still works are “living within a lie”. The rules are gone, and nations that don’t […]

Wondering about the Trump regime’s impact on American science? The graph below says everything This assault will haunt U.S. science for decades. https://www.nature.com/immersive/d41586-026-00088-9/index.html

I wrote this article about Greenland about ten months ago. It was the third in a series on the Arctic, examining why Greenland matters—and why Donald Trump’s fixation on the region was never as erratic as it first appeared. With tensions now escalating and the Arctic once again moving to the […]

At Texas A&M, a philosophy professor has reportedly been told to drop Plato’s Symposium because it supposedly ‘promotes gender or race ideology or gender identity issues.' When even Plato is too woke for philosophy class, you have to wonder what’s next —banishing Aristotle for elitism? Exiling […]

For years, the UN has worked to set rules for deep‑sea mining. for critical minerals. Last April, US President Donald Trump threw that process out the window, saying the U.S. has the right to mine in international waters, and is now evaluating mining across more than 400,000 square kilometres […]

More money doesn’t always mean more wealth. Explore Lauderdale’s paradox, the Industrial Revolution, and why accumulating riches often comes at everyone else’s expense. Thanks to all of you who’ve subscribed to The Climate Historian […]

Perhaps humans have something to learn from chimpanzees “It’s kind of amazing to me … in all the years that we’ve spent as researchers in the wild with chimps, I don’t know of any cases of a researcher really being seriously injured by a chimp.” […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

If you want to understand what it really takes to own a smartphone or drive an electric car, read The Elements of Power. Niarchos shows how the global order is being reshaped by the scramble for cobalt, lithium, copper, and other critical minerals—the raw […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

Nine climate scientists & policy-makers say that parts of global climate action can’t be reversed despite “the deliberate efforts by the current US administration to weaken climate policies, discredit climate science and promote fossil fuels” They point to the growing network of long‑lasting […]

In case you missed it amid the general chaos of the world today, 2025 was the 3rd warmest year on record, following the unprecedented temperatures observed in 2023 and 2024. https://climate.copernicus.eu/global-climate-highlights-2025 #climate

Important - New analysis for Carbon Brief shows that coal power generation fell in both China and India in 2025, the first simultaneous drop in half a century, after each nation added record amounts of clean energy […]

I rarely praise the UK government, but they really moved fast on this . https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2026/jan/12/grok-x-nudification-technology-online-safety-labour-reform-tories-lib-dems-uk-politics-latest-news-updates

On a global level, the transition to clean energy was already accelerating despite Mr. Trump, driven by the economics of clean energy. In 2025, wind, solar and other renewable power sources surpassed coal as the leading producer of electricity. “We are at the beginning of the end of the fossil […]

"At its core, the novel warns that the greatest danger is not error itself, but the violent certainty of those who believe they possess absolute truth and are willing to destroy others in its name. … When people are willing to die, or more often to demand that others die, for a truth they claim […]

Ending fossil‑fuel combustion isn’t enough, we also have to stop using coal, oil and gas as feedstocks for chemical production. There are plenty of alternative carbon sources, but we have to be careful about how we make the change — diverting cropland to biofuels, for instance, can raise food […]

Over the past few years, especially during the Trump years, I’ve found myself returning to a recurring question: is Trumpism evidence that the United States has become a dialectical society? What follows is my attempt to answer it. "America Against Itself: A dialectical reading of Trumpism and […]

I was one of the people who answered @indivisibleteam 's call to boycott Spotify over the ICE ads, and today there’s a sense of vindication. It doesn’t undo the harm, and it certainly doesn’t absolve Spotify, or any tech company that cashes government checks to help ICE recruit. But it does […]

Trump moves to pull US out of bedrock global climate treaty, becoming first country to do so. Meanwhile, China's National Energy Administration has introduced new trial rules for its Green Electricity Certificate (GEC) system, aiming to give companies a more credible way to verify their use of […]

ICE’s “wartime recruitment” ads are running on national television, proliferating on social media, and popping up on platforms such as Hulu, HBO Max, Spotify, and YouTube with alarming frequency. Remember that these platforms survive on our attention and our subscriptions. Resist […]

"Today we command machines capable of bending nature to human will. Their power is astonishing — and perilous. In the hands of those who seek only dominance or accumulation, these inventions become instruments of control. Used wisely, they can lift people up and expand what is possible. Used […]

Climate change isn’t just melting ice, it’s opening new pathways for disease. https://open.substack.com/pub/theclimatehistorian/p/a-virus-at-the-top-of-the-world?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web