DEinDC

It's the 2036 Presidential elections and the 'Green Tea Party', with the AOC/MTG ticket, vs the radical conservatives led by Tucker Carlson. The arguments will be over the extent of universal assistance, not whether it is extended or not.

West Africa’s water is draining away as forests the size of cities vanish each year - new WaterAid research | WaterAid UK A new report by WaterAid reveals that deforestation is disrupting West Africa's water cycle, risking millions of people's health, wellbeing and livelihoods.

"Ghanaian researchers reveal that deforestation is disrupting West Africa’s water cycle, jeopardising millions of people’s health, wellbeing and livelihoods."

www.wateraid.org/uk/media/Def...

The White House’s Plan A is winning its Supreme Court tariff case. It also has a Plan B. Aides have spent weeks strategizing how to reconstitute the president’s global tariff regime if the court rules that he exceeded his authority.

“This is all about foreign policy. This isn’t 1789 where you can clearly delineate between trade policy, economic policy, national security policy and defense policy. These things are all completely interconnected”
www.politico.com/news/2025/11...

With all due respect, when did the US ever
"lead the charge" on confronting climate change, even rhetorically, let alone in terms of actual energy policy?

China will ‘save’ European auto jobs but devour rivals, warns ex-Stellantis chief Carlos Tavares says Beijing carmakers are making inroads in Europe as local companies struggle

Former Stellantis CEO: "The day a western carmaker is in severe difficulty, with factories on the verge of closing and demonstrations in the street, a Chinese carmaker will come and say ‘I’ll take it and keep the jobs’, and they’ll be considered saviours.”
www.ft.com/content/5554...

Green activists need to think beyond carbon emissions The economic imperative of climate resilience means adaptation must be considered as well as mitigation

“the green movement needs to widen its focus beyond the carbon emissions issue — which activists such as Greta Thunberg focus on — to a more holistic message about biodiversity.”

on.ft.com/43GgaFn

nature is healing

Global climate diplomacy is shifting focus Climate adaptation is moving up the agenda, but a ‘yawning’ finance gap remains.

“Now [COP] is all about the real economy, that’s where the real action is happening,” Sonia Dunlop, CEO of the Global Solar Council, told Semafor. “What’s happening outside the negotiations is almost more important than what happens inside.” www.semafor.com/article/10/3...

Interesting question just asked on @france24.com: is international relations being privatized?

Would be interesting to explore why, over the past twenty years. In the US, global health advocacy was so successful, while climate advocacy was largely unsuccessful.

"It’s time to put human welfare at the center of our climate strategies, which includes reducing the Green Premium to zero and improving agriculture and health in poor countries."

This is a chance to refocus on the metric that should count even more than emissions and temperature change: improving lives. Our chief goal should be to prevent suffering, particularly for those in the toughest conditions who live in the world’s poorest countries.
www.gatesnotes.com/home/home-pa...

Guinea, most likely 1974. In the last quarter of my book, The Second Emancipation, I spend a lot of time discussing this era of thick relationships between Africans and African Americans, during which a host of the latter, famous and ordinary, established new lives for themselves on the continent.

The bond was strong in that era; I remember growing up we had a couple of family friends from this era who moved to Ghana.

A neglected and ancient trade in Spain gets a boost from African migrants A government program in Spain is training African migrants as shepherds to tackle rural depopulation and job shortages.

A neglected and ancient trade in Spain gets a boost from African migrants.

New York Climate Week: Shocks, Signals, and Steadiness Bureaucracy at a distance, narratives under revision, and the grind.

New York Climate Week: Shocks, Signals, and Steadiness
substack.com/@deindc/note...

The low bandwidth state.

Mark Carney’s Shift From Climate-Change Warrior to Fossil-Fuel Cheerleader Canada’s prime minister has scrapped green policies and pledged to transform the country ”into an energy superpower.”

Canada’s prime minister scraps green policies and pledges to transform country into energy superpower

www.wsj.com/world/americ...

‘We’re just beaten’: For beleaguered federal workers, shutdown is last straw Staffers are working without pay or on furlough — all after months of job cuts.

"I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub"

Grover Norquist during a 2001 interview with NPR's Morning Edition.

wapo.st/48Lg82i

"the most difficult and dangerous situation since the end of the Second World War."

Solarpunk Narrates Futures Beyond Climate Despair - Edge Effects Laleh Ahmad shows how the solarpunk genre imagines realistic green futures based on renewable energy & communal self-reliance rooted in care.

"Solarpunk resists narratives about decay and doom, offering a hopeful vision of an imminent future in which humans learn to heal our relationship with nature and each other."

edgeeffects.net/solarpunk/

Tilly Norwood has Hollywood seething. She’s an AI-generated ‘actor.’ Emily Blunt, Lukas Gage and Toni Collette are among the actors expressing unease over the AI character Tilly Norwood that is being marketed to Hollywood.

Wild: “We believe the next generation of cultural icons will be synthetic: stars that never tire, never age, and can interact with fans”🤯 www.washingtonpost.com/style/2025/1...

The idea of technology eroding the nation-state sounds like science fiction, but all the tools are there...

Opinion | Elon Musk’s latest power grab points in a clear direction His SpaceX deal could fundamentally alter the relationship between a state and its citizens.

"For the first time, a private company will be able to provide global communications services that bypass national networks, government oversight and geographic boundaries."

www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/202...

New York Climate Week Impressions: www.linkedin.com/posts/activi...

‘A soul mission’: The African Americans moving to Ghana As ‘returnees’ build a home in the country where their ancestors may have come from, questions arise about integration.

aje.io/e8e956

The “energy transition” has started to sound a little like “late capitalism” newrepublic.com/article/2008...

Shattered - Remastered

"Pride and joy and dirty dreams and still surviving on the street"

Pure late 70s/early 80s vibes, best song about NYC
open.spotify.com/track/0FfZBW...

Good visit. Hasta la proxima, NYC. 🗽

Thousands Rally in Philippines in Protest Against Corruption Thousands of Filipinos joined marches in Manila and other areas of the country on Sunday, protesting against what organizers say is widespread corruption within the government.

People everywhere want a voice and want fairness. "As witnessed in Indonesia, Nepal and elsewhere, it was the catalyst for a wave of anger to erupt over graft, inequality and elite privilege."

www.bloomberg.com/news/article...