Keith Alexander

China Is Deciding Not to Decide on a New Green Future The country’s underwhelming new climate pledge is more than just bad news for the world — it reveals a serious governing mistake.

What do China's new climate pledges show us about the future? The putative electrostate elected to punt -- it isn't ready to commit to a non-coal future. Xi's government is unambitious, and seems to be falling into the very middle income trap that it says it fears.

heatmap.news/ideas/china-...

We're grateful to Lord Deben for his endorsement of the National Emergency Briefing on the #climate and #nature crisis.

Lord Deben was first elected as a Conservative MP in 1970. He chaired the UK expert adviser on climate from 2012 - 2023.

Is your MP attending on 27th Nov? www.nebriefing.org

SHAPIRO: OK, so you've spent your career creating television without Al, and I could imagine today you thinking, boy, I wish I had had that tool to solve those thorny problems... SIMON: What? SHAPIRO: ...Or saying... SIMON: You imagine that? SHAPIRO: ...Boy, if that had existed, it would have screwed me over. SIMON: I don't think Al can remotely challenge what writers do at a fundamentally creative level. SHAPIRO: But if you're trying to transition from scene five to scene six, and you're stuck with that transition, you could imagine plugging that portion of the script into an Al and say, give me 10 ideas for how to transition this. SIMON: I'd rather put a gun in my mouth.

David Simon, creator of ‘The Wire’, being interviewed by Ari Shapiro (NPR)

YouTube video by Simon Clark The Net Zero Banking Alliance just collapsed... what happens now?

When the going gets tough, targets get ditched.
youtube.com/shorts/3Ak1Y...

They always say "China likes to underpromise and overdeliver", don't they?
But yes, if it amounts to "I'll probably deliver less than I can, but I'll only commit to delivering way less than I can", it's not so impressive.

They can't shrink the civil service + reduce the deficit + cut taxes by billions + quadruple deportations to 150k/year (& shrink the legal population by 500k+ by going to net zero migration)
bsky.app/profile/sund...

Voting results amendment on meat denominations https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/PV-10-2025-10-08-RCV_FR.pdf

Voting results amendment on meat denominations https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/PV-10-2025-10-08-RCV_FR.pdf

355 MEPs voted today to ban the use of meat denominations like burger & sausage for plant-based products.

This is a manufactured issue. Consumers are not confused.

If there was ever clearer evidence of political decision-making being heavily influenced by the animal agriculture lobby. This is it.

I thought conservatives were supposed to believe in the wisdom of markets and that people should be free to make decisions about their own lives without government interfering?

Among the 22 states that drew higher-than-average shares of their power from wind and solar, 17 had below-average electricity prices in June, according to EIA data.

The government’s own data rebuts Trump Admin claims that wind and solar are driving up electricity prices, Politico reports share.google/RTIXPPQMXrTH...
“[T]he data say pretty much the opposite” of Trump & Secretary Wright’s claims.

YouTube video by Efficiency Matrix Brush Seals Tested for Airtightness – What Works Best?

This is quite interesting and useful - testing FTW!
www.youtube.com/watch?v=xirg...

AI will bring about 100x reduction in energy costs (what does that mean? A 99% decrease?) but can't be expected to figure out how to get a handle on its own resource consumption. 🤔

Is Suleyman a little embarrassed to have his claim taken literally?

What are the best products for retrofitting airtightness to wooden doors, loft hatches, etc?

I'm imagining a solution that can go right round the perimeter of the door/hatch, not just a brush tacked to the bottom - and ideally the design includes a thermal break between inside and outside.

From the review paper reported on:
www.annualreviews.org/content/jour...

They’re right: protesting genocide is ‘anti British’, as historically it’s often been the British supporting and on occasion committing genocide.

Carbon offsets fail to cut global heating due to ‘intractable’ systemic problems, study says Analysis of 25 years of evidence shows most schemes are poor quality and fail to lower emissions

“We must stop expecting carbon offsetting to work at scale. […] We have assessed 25 years of evidence and almost everything up until this point has failed.”

www.theguardian.com/environment/...

‘The president is unhinged’: Trump’s online behavior grows increasingly odd The US president’s recent behavior is strange to many, from reposting a false AI video of himself to confusing comments during press conferences

“The president is unhinged. He is unwell,” Dean told Johnson, in an encounter filmed by journalists.

“Well a lot of folks on your side are too,” Johnson responded.

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Yes I stopped using it because of their tax avoidance and their treatment of staff. Most people I know don’t seem to be able to imagine not using it, even though it is increasingly crammed with cheap junk.

On Friday, the ultranationalist minister suggested that Israel would be better off throwing the flotilla participants in prison for several months rather than immediately deporting them back to their home countries. Security prisoners - those incarcerated for offenses that intentionally harm national security - are housed separately from criminal prisoners and are not eligible for many of the benefits available to the general prison population. The term is a catch-all term applied to detainees, convicted prisoners and terrorists, and administrative detainees who are held without charges for extended periods, without trial.

"We are in Ketziot prison, and as I promised, those flotilla members, supporters of terrorism, are here in a security prison," Channel 14 reported Ben Gir as saying. "They receive conditions for terrorists here, for everything, terrorist sweatpants, terrorist conditions. This means, there is a minimum of the minimum, that's what I promised and that's how we are fulfilling it."

The Times of Israel reports that Greta Thunberg & her fellow Flotilla crew are being held in a special "terrorist" section of Ketziot prison—or in "terrorist conditions," as Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel's Minister of National Security put it.

www.timesofisrael.com/thunberg-sai...

Way past its prime: how did Amazon get so rubbish? Sick of scrolling through junk results, AI-generated ads and links to lookalike products? The author and activist behind the term ‘enshittification’ explains what’s gone wrong with the internet – and ...

“Amazon makes more than $50bn every year charging merchants for search placement. When you search for a product on Amazon, the top results aren’t the best matches: they’re the matches that pay the highest fees”

www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

As long as you have some storage and a heat pump, you could either go for fabric improvements or more storage as a strategy to get more of your energy use into the cheap period of various TOU tariffs - so I'm wondering what the optimal strategy is! Could I have saved myself lots of work with 🔋🔋?

I was just thinking about the cost savings of bigger battery vs more insulation (I'm just about to fit some insulation, and ordering more...).

Kemi Badenoch vows to repeal Climate Change Act Tory leader says she would replace it with ‘cheap energy’ strategy, ending decades-long consensus on climate

This was fascinating, thanks. I found the discussion on polarisation especially interesting, as UK politics has always had broad consensus on climate but recently has followed the US in becoming polarised on the issue. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

S14, Ep3 | The Psychology of Misinformation: Why Does It Work So Well? Investigating the obstacles to action on climate change.

In this week's episode, we dig into the psychology of mis/disinformation and why it works so well. We thought we knew a lot about disinformation, and then we talked to these experts!

drilled.media/podcasts/dri...

Kemi Badenoch vows to repeal Climate Change Act Tory leader says she would replace it with ‘cheap energy’ strategy, ending decades-long consensus on climate

www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Today formally marks the end of a 17 year cross-party consensus on climate change & an extremely dangerous moment in our history

Turning our backs on climate action is tantamount to accepting the full force of climate change. It is a self-imposed death sentence

Yet another version of “Oh no, Farage is a threat, let’s react by completely reinforcing his worldview.”

Kemi 2025 meet Kemi 2022.

(And we wonder why trust in politicians is plummeting?)

I was thinking perhaps the U.K. Right identify with the US Right in a way they didn’t used to: Brexit was a power battle in which a nuttier fringe were ascendant, and made the US more influential.

Perhaps social media algorithms have had a more polarising effect?

Yes, 10kWh, and yes, it’s going to be Seasonal Affective Disorder reflected in the smart meter! Some days will just be short periods of black cloudy dimness before falling back to pitch black.

I’m in the first flush of excitement of having rooftop solar and checking the app 100x a day, and even though I knew production would be feast and famine here in Scotland, I’m still surprised how much it varies. One day last week produced almost 30kWh, today produced 3.5kWh.

Its a shame to see climate so quickly become polarised in the UK after a long period of bipartisan agreement. The Climate Change Act was supported by all parties, opposed by just 5 Conservative MPs in 2008.
bsky.app/profile/mlie...