Jon Birkett

I live in Britain; I grew up in Israel. It’s painful to say, but we need real UK sanctions to save Gaza | Yair Wallach Symbolic gestures and empty statements are no longer enough. In Israel’s globalised economy, here’s what will shift public opinion, says says senior lecturer in Israeli studies Yair Wallach

Sharing as promised. (@yairwallach.bsky.social wrote it before the occupation announced yesterday.)
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Sunday at the garden party for Curtis Yarvin and the new, new right [FREE TO READ] What you learn at a gathering of neoreactionaries, Very Online rightwingers and the formerly cancelled

I spent the day with Curtis Yarvin and the "dissident right" at a garden party in Surrey and wrote quite a few words about it.

My cover story for today’s FT Magazine

on.ft.com/4ooXS4t [GIFT LINK! 🎁]

Au revoir, le Tour - it's for the best Big sporting events, like so much we hold dear, are at odds with a liveable climate

After months off social media l’m forced back by the deeply uncomfortable words of my colleague & friend @dancalverley.bsky.social

Through the lens of the Tour de France, Dan explores the destructive implications of our preference for wilful ignorance.

dancalverley.substack.com/p/au-revoir-...

And more & more of us getting old, too, drawing a pension, relying more & more on the NHS.

The country is absolutely NOT READY for our ageing population crisis.

Inside the mind of Benjamin Netanyahu As the Israeli prime minister’s bodyguard, I saw him transform into the gangster he is today.

This is one of the most eye-opening things I've read this week. If you're interested in what drives Netanyahu, I'd really recommend it. 🧵1/n

Strange how any negative framing of auto culture is automatically anti-car & radical yet the billions of dollars spent on reckless car ads and auto first infrastructure isn't framed as anti-pedestrian, anti-bike, anti-transit, anti-person, anti-senior, anti-child or anti-planet.

Totally utterly completely indefensible

The Polycrisis A project by Kate Mackenzie and Tim Sahay, focused on today’s intersecting crises and the political economy of climate change.

There’s a great news letter for that: www.phenomenalworld.org/series/the-p...

It's one mind-numbingly dumb decision after another from this science-deaf government. #LedByLobbyists

This will be flooded by rising seas. See replies.

The people who designed the street and the people who designed the SUV should be held responsible.

= FINANCIAL TIMES Probability of above average near-surface temperature* 0 4— Less likely Average More likely →> 1 May to Sep period 2025-29 Nov to Mar period 2025-26 to 2029-30 Predicted temperature patterns over the years 2025-29 show a high probability of temperatures above the 1991-2020 average almost everywhere, with enhanced warming over land.

Global average temperature is expected to rise to almost 2C above preindustrial in the next five years, according to the WMO, with falls in crop yields and more than a third of the world’s population being exposed to extreme heat.

People, I'm sorry but we have to deal with this. Later is too late.

Image from the Financial Times, placing Keir Starmer next to Enoch Powell.

Starmer's language was deplorable.

It was grotesquely offensive, accusing people who have brought their gifts to this country of doing "incalculable" "damage"; & politically foolish, in endorsing Farage's claims of an establishment conspiracy.

But bad analogies with Powell miss the key problem. 🧵

CO2 Emissions – Global Energy Review 2025 – Analysis - IEA Global Energy Review 2025 - Analysis and key findings. A report by the International Energy Agency.

And we’re still opening the tap.

www.iea.org/reports/glob...

Big Banks Quietly Prepare for Catastrophic Warming Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan and an international banking group have quietly concluded that climate change will likely exceed the Paris Agreement’s 2 degree C goal and are examining how to maintain profit...

A lot going on these days, but I really did think this would be a bigger story: The world's largest banks ending their brief period of GASLIGHTING us that they cared about #climate by making it clear they will keep profiting off GAS BURNING even as it torches our planet. 1/2 #ClimateSky 🔌💡

CO2 Emissions – Global Energy Review 2025 – Analysis - IEA Global Energy Review 2025 - Analysis and key findings. A report by the International Energy Agency.

And sadly we’re still making it worse at a quicker rate than any other time in human history.

www.iea.org/reports/glob...

New Research Led by James Hansen Documents Global Warming Acceleration - Inside Climate News The rapid meltdown of polar ice could shut down a key ocean current by 2050, triggering catastrophic surges of sea level rise along the U.S. East Coast and dangerous climate shifts in northwestern Eur...

Latest from Jim Hansen and team.

insideclimatenews.org/news/0402202...

Why Well-Off Brits Who Think Collapse Is Coming Still Stay Silent In one hand, an oat latte. In the other, a phone with social feeds full of doom-scroll posts about the end of the world.

Whether they're loaded or using food banks, most of my friends fit nicely into this 'silent' majority category. Which is maddening! But this research gives me more empathy for their - and all of our - unreal reality.

www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-we...

No matter your station in life, there is astoundingly little separating you from those men in that cage behind Kristi Noem. No charges, no attorneys, no hearings, no trial. Just conjecture and brute force could be enough to justify completely dehumanizing you, too.

The sky’s the limit!

bsky.app/profile/iea....

The Deluge Stephen Markley · Audiobook

In a similar vein, I’d wholeheartedly recommend The Deluge by Stephen Markley - scarily prophetic already.

open.spotify.com/show/0Z28Xhp...

Wales’s 20mph speed limit has cut road deaths. Why is there still even a debate? Research suggests the scheme may be more popular than thought, with consultations dominated by a loud minority

Why is there ANY debate? 🤦‍♀️

20mph in Wales meant about 100 fewer people killed or seriously injured in a year.

“There is, perhaps, a lesson here for politicians: sometimes it can be best to ignore the noisiest voices, and take the evidence-based course.”

www.theguardian.com/world/2025/m...

I’ve written a piece on leaving my role as a BBC journalist & newsreader over its unwillingness to follow the evidence out of Gaza - it also touches on why I joined 1k other media figures in signing a letter condemning the BBC for removing ‘Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone’

“If children walked to school in our bike lanes, would paint still be enough protection?”

“just be grateful you got a bike-lane.” (Kid on bike in painted bike-lane next to massive truck creeping over the painted line)

For 60 years, car advertising has programmed us that driving is freedom, that cars are how we get around, that driving — even reckless driving —is a symbol of status & power. But what if a car marketing vet used his skills to highlight the insanity of car culture?
sf.streetsblog.org/2020/11/05/r...

🔴The #StateOfClimate report, released today, reveals key climate change indicators again reached record levels in 2024.

Check out the full report: wmo.int/publication-...

The world's climate is in uncharted territory, warns major report A World Meteorological Organization report details a long list of grim records for everything from CO2 levels and temperature to sea ice loss and sea level rise

The world's climate is in uncharted territory, warns major report | New Scientist

Conservative party to ditch commitment to net zero in UK by 2050 Break in cross-party consensus on issue to be announced on Tuesday

UK Tory opposition leader Badenoch to abandon climate change net zero 2050 target

This isn't a new direction but a craven failure, feeding not halting Britain's decline

Wrong in so many ways, it fails
• Morally
• Economically
• Socially
• Politically

🧵1/5
www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Warren Buffett's Chilling Climate Change Warning: Is It Time to Sell Berkshire? | The Motley Fool

"Warren Buffett's Chilling Climate Change Warning," the Motley Fool trumpets, before musing on whether it's time to sell shares in Buffett's firm, Berkshire Hathaway (BRK-B). Pay attention! 🧵

1. Today the Tories unveil their new policy: ripping up the commitment to net zero by 2050. Kemi Badenoch, with no evidence, claims "it can’t be achieved without a serious drop in our living standards or by bankrupting us." What the evidence shows is the opposite. We can't prosper without it. 🧵

X post by Timothy Snyder (@TimothyD ...), posted 6 hours ago. The post reads, "The people Attorney General Bondi is calling 'terrorists' have had no trial and no chance to defend them. We do not know they are. Ignoring the Constitution does not make us safe. It puts us all in peril."

I know this first hand. When I was a child, my entire community was branded as spies and sabateurs, justifying our internment inside barbed wire camps for years without due process, trial or charge.