Prof Sarah Durant

They know what they say is untrue, they do not care it is untrue.

The media know that what they repeat is untrue, they do not care it is untrue.

Their supporters know what they are told is untrue, they do not care it is untrue.

Telling the truth is not enough, unless people care about the truth.

At the root of all our problems stands one travesty: politicians’ surrender to the super-rich | George Monbiot There are many excuses for failing to tax the ultra-wealthy. The truth is that governments don’t tackle the problem because they don’t want to, says Guardian columnist George Monbiot

It is the source of so many of our evils: the astonishing concentration of wealth in the hands of a very few, and the immense political power that gives them. We cannot solve our problems until we tackle it.
This week's column.
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

This is a fascinating paper that shows that both Acinonyx jubatus hecki (northwestern african cheetah) and A. j. Venaticus (asiatic cheetah) occurred in Saudi Arabia. Only 3 cheetahs analysed, so sample size small, but intriguing that the most recent specimen was venaticus.

The Nobel Prize committee should announce the World Cup winner tomorrow

War worsens climate and environmental challenges in Ukraine A new study finds reduced greenhouse gas emissions in Ukraine amid war but increased toxic pollution risks.

Today Nov 6 is International Day for Preventing the Exploitation of the Environment in War and Armed Conflict. Given the environmental impacts of recent conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine, we clearly need to do better. joint-research-centre.ec.europa.eu/jrc-news-and...

Results demonstrate the critical need to co-develop cheetah coexistence strategies focused on reducing costs and increasing benefits of living with cheetahs, while coupling improvements in rangeland management with enhanced livelihood sustainability. As well as strengthening law enforcement.

Many respondents reported it was acceptable to capture live cheetah cubs and that live capture occurred in their area. These surveys were undertaken in areas where illegal trade in cheetah cubs is likely to be widespread.

Frontiers | Attitudes, norms, and beliefs of pastoralists toward cheetahs in the Horn of Africa Free-ranging African cheetahs (Acinonyx jubatus) inhabit only 13% of their former range. A subspecies of particular conservation concern is the Northeastern ...

Our paper just published on the relationships between pastoralists and cheetah in the Horn of Africa. More than 60% of respondents reported a cheetah attack in the last year and reported that killing cheetahs was widespread. www.frontiersin.org/journals/con...

This Is What the End of the Liberal World Order Looks Like In a post-American world, greed and nihilism are destroying Sudan.

Earlier this year, I made two trips to Sudan, where a terrible civil war has displaced 14 million people. The state is absent, international institutions are weak.Outside powers, motivated by greed and nihilism, have stepped into the vacuum

www.theatlantic.com/magazine/arc...

NEW CHART: Trump's "big beautiful bill" & other efforts to dismantle climate policy means the US will add an extra 7bn tonnes of emissions to the atmosphere from now until 2030, compared to meeting its former climate pledge under the Paris Agreement 🫠

www.carbonbrief.org/...

Global trends in climate change litigation: 2025 snapshot - Grantham Research Institute on climate change and the environment An exploration of key trends and evolutions in global climate change litigation from the calendar year 2024, plus important new developments through to May 2025.

Another must read for anyone interested in climate litigation - great @granthamlse.bsky.social report.

www.lse.ac.uk/granthaminst...

that’s Elon Musk FRS doing his bit for US science, @royalsociety.org

(1/4) It was America and Britain that guaranteed the sovereignty of Ukraine and its borders in return for persuading them to give up their nuclear weapons.

Map reveals residential wood-burning hotspots in England and Wales Researchers analyse energy performance certificate data to identify areas with potentially high particle pollution

I'm really sorry, but we just need to stop doing this. Your wood-burning hygge leads directly to people's deaths - other people's and perhaps your own.
www.theguardian.com/environment/...

If Trump was President in 1940

“Terrible things are happening outside. Poor helpless people are being dragged out of their homes. Families are torn apart. Men, women, and children are separated. Children come home from school to find that their parents have disappeared.”

Diary of Anne Frank
January 13, 1943

Haunted by hopelessness: 12 Zambians share their stories as HIV drugs run out Mothers and children, husbands and wives, doctors, truck drivers and religious leaders are all grappling with the fallout from the sudden U.S. cuts in aid.

I look at close to 100 stories a week and even more outside of work. I’ve done this ten years.

This is among the most horrific things I’ve ever read — testimony from dying children whose access to medicine has been cut off by the Trump administration.

www.npr.org/sections/goa...

2/4. The entire practice of the Holocaust of the Jews involved zones of statelessness. It is easier to move people away from law than it is to remove law from people. Almost all of the killing took place in artificially created stateless zones.

I just attended a conference in the US. We had one speaker detained and two others turned away at the border.

Trump seeks to end climate research at premier U.S. climate agency White House aims to end NOAA’s research office; NASA also targeted

BREAKING from @science.org: The Trump admin is seeking to kill nearly all climate research at NOAA, its climate science agency.

Its near-final budget proposal would end all NOAA research labs, academic institutes, and regional climate centers. And it wants to fully end the NOAA Research division.

📢 SDSN President Prof. Jeffrey Sachs and VP Guillaume Lafortune have co-authored a new Correspondence in Nature addressing the recent and explicit opposition to the #SDGs by the United States.

🔗 Read the Correspondence: www.nature.com/articles/d41...

There are many people in prison (including Ms Connolly) who in my view do not need to be there.

But I’d venture that better evidence of a two-tier society is a national media outlet offering a soft focus profile minimising racist incitement to violence because a prisoner is married to a politician.

I get the stock market is bad but the equivalent has already happened to foreign aid, research funding, and public health. Everyone didn't freak out because there isn't some ticker on the news measuring the number of cancer researchers and Ebola prevention experts being fired.

I was a British tourist trying to leave America. Then I was detained, shackled and sent to an immigration detention centre Graphic artist Rebecca Burke was on the trip of a lifetime. But as she tried to leave the US she was stopped, interrogated and branded an illegal alien by ICE. Now back home, she tells others thinking...

Essential reading for anyone thinking of travelling to the US. Rebecca Burke's experiences are horrific - but there are many more people still in custody who shouldn't be there. The US is now a failed state. Best leave it well alone.

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

Penguin flying off an iceberg

Effective immediately: Heard Island will be canceling our contract with Spacex for ALL future space travel. Dr. Amelia Sealhart and CPT Charles Icebergh will be leading our charge to adapt all flightless birds to flight capability. This will supplement our already extensive Albatross Space Force

Too edgy for Private Eye?

We recently ran the 1st of 3 ads in Private Eye magazine. But after our 1st they told us they wouldn't run any more.

Did they give in to pressure from the shooting industry or another vested interest?

Private Eye- too establishment for Wild Justice!

Breaking now: Ministry of Economics reporting the tariffs have not caused significant changes to our trading volumes

Never doubt the malevolence of Trump, his staff and his supporters. But also never underestimate their pure incompetence and stupidly

We've been talking an awful lot about how the Trump tariffs will hit the big players: the UK, China, Canada, France, Germany etc
But it's time to talk about the ones who DON'T have loud voices. Because some of the poorest countries in the world are going to be crippled by what happened last night

Fact-checking these pathological liars is exhausting, but important to note that this claim - that US sanctions mean zero trade with Russia, so no tariffs needed - is completely false. By USTR’s own count American imported $3bn of Russian goods last year. ustr.gov/countries-re...