Martin Watters

"A fire-sale of the world's rainforests, with big banks profiting from the ashes."

Banks and asset managers have made $26 billion in income from financing deforesting companies since the Paris Agreement: new @globalwitness.org investigation reveals.

Full report out today 👇

This should be a fairly simple political concept to understand. But it's one UK Labour seems intent on ignoring until it's too late.

What is the endgame in this toxic immigration debate: is it friends and neighbours thrown out of the country? | Jonthan Liew The notion of remigration was abstract, but the right is dragging it towards respectability. If the goal is homogeneous whiteness, they should say it, says Guardian columnist Jonathan Liew

Re the new Reform pledge, a sports writer has already got to the heart of the matter better than the politics commentators www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

The clearest take yet on why relatively small, top-down organised protests against immigration are currently dominating UK political discourse right now.

Am hoping democracy about the name is not standing in for democracy about how it will be structured

Microplastics are everywhere. Here's why that matters to big oil New research into how microplastics are affecting us is concerning scientists, but the oil and gas industry is relying on plastics for growth.

There is now 50% more plastic in all of our brains than was there 8 years ago, thanks largely to Big Oil.

With demand for oil slowing the industry is betting big on creating more plastic, everywhere.

www.cnbc.com/2025/08/20/m...

Revealed: Israeli military’s own data indicates civilian death rate of 83% in Gaza war Figures from classified IDF database listed 8,900 named fighters as dead or probably dead in May, as overall death toll reached 53,000

Five out of six Palestinians killed by Israeli forces in Gaza were civilians as of May, according to Israel's own military intelligence.

"In Gaza we are talking about a campaign of targeted assassinations, really, rather than battles, and they are carried out with no concern for civilians.”

The people dominating our political landscape, culture, and economy are just so stupid and full of shit it's almost impossible to describe

(Bloomberg Green): Hedge funds are betting against oil stocks and winding back shorts on solar in a reversal of positions that dominated their energy strategies over the past four years.
www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...

My least popular (and most correct) view is that cars should be automatically limited to the local speed limit. Put the pedal to the floor and you still can't go over 25mph in a residential area.

(15 in Manhattan btw)

Netanyahu announces plan to take over Gaza City in further escalation Proposal that needs to be approved by full cabinet would mean sending Israeli ground troops into remaining territory

War crimes, genocide, forced famine, displacement and now ethnic cleansing in Gaza.

Keir Starmer - who once called himself a human rights lawyer - should know that platitudes aren't enough when the UK is still exporting weapons helping cause these horrors.

www.theguardian.com/world/2025/a...

The US oil industry is facing huge liabilities for environmental damage and that bill keeps getting higher as we learn more about the damage they are doing (e.g PFAS, radioactivity, leaking injection wells, etc)

Add more to the list.

Scott Westerfeld @ScottWesterfeld Plot idea: 97% of the world's scientists contrive an environmental crisis, but are exposed by a plucky band of billionaires & oil companies. 11:27 AM · Mar 21, 2014

shame on me for missing the 10yr anniversary of the best climate social posts ever

By @scottwesterfeld.bsky.social -->

Armed police threatened to arrest Kent protester for holding Palestinian flag Officers accused Laura Murton who also had a sign saying ‘Free Gaza’ of supporting a proscribed organisation

“We have long criticised UK terrorism law for being excessively broad and vaguely worded and a threat to freedom of expression. This video documents one aspect of exactly the kind of thing we were warning about.”

www.theguardian.com/world/2025/j...

Paris Marx on why tech feels increasingly at the center of geopolitical fights:

"Now more than ever, we need to challenge the domination of US tech and the power it gives an increasingly belligerent United States."

Change in UK emissions for key sectors (2023-2024) Shows aviation had the largest increase in emissions at +9% with surface transport on -2%

Looking at progress in emissions reductions from 2023 to 24, the aviation sector is setting off alarm bells:

"... aviation now contributes a greater share of total UK emissions than the entire electricity supply sector. Continued emissions growth in this sector could put future targets at risk."

"If killing 23 civilians at an aid distribution site is not terrorism, how can we possibly be expected to accept that spray-painting a plane is?"

Sally Rooney on the absurdity of UK Labour reserving its fiercest sanctions for those speaking out against genocide, rather than those most responsible.

The public doesn’t like Brexit. Has anyone told the media? From the broadsheets to the tabloids, journalism is increasingly out of touch with public opinion.

"Old fashioned print media is in decline everywhere but in the mind of the nation’s political class. The result is that our leaders are getting a very warped sense of what the average voter thinks, reads and cares about."

One lawsuit just helped melt the fossil fuel industry’s defence against being held accountable for climate change Legal action by a Peruvian farmer has signalled a shift in the global conversation.

A German court has dismissed a case brought by a Peruvian farmer and mountain guide against the fossil fuel giant RWE.

Amid the dismissal, the court confirmed something momentous: private companies can be held liable for their share in causing climate damages.

theconversation.com/one-lawsuit-...

Media Matters compiled a list of 418 popular online shows — podcasts, streams, and other long-form audio and video content regularly posted online — that were active during 2024, assessed ideological alignment, and found 320 online shows with an ideological bent (191 right-leaning and 129 left-leaning) that covered news and politics and/or hosted related guests. Nine of the 10 online shows from our study with the largest total following across platforms were right-leaning, accounting for at least 197 million total followers and subscribers. These are the online shows of: Joe Rogan: 39.9 million Ben Shapiro: 25 million Jordan Peterson: 23 million Russell Brand: 22.5 million Theo Von: 22.3 million Charlie Kirk: 18.6 million Nelk Boys’ Full Send Podcast: 16.7 million Candace Owens: 15 million Dr. Phil: 14.2 million

Across streaming platforms including YouTube, Rumble, Twitch, Kick, and Spotify, the left-leaning online shows had at least 55.9 million total followers and subscribers — a figure which is dwarfed by the right-leaning online shows with at least 255.5 million. This content is further amplified on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok — social media platforms where the programs or hosts post full streams, clips, and show links. Left-leaning online shows had at least 48 million followers across these platforms, while the right-leaning online shows had more than 225 million followers. Of a cumulative 584.6 million followers and subscribers across all eight platforms, Media Matters found that right-leaning online shows accounted for roughly 82%, or 480.6 million — almost five times more than left-leaning shows’ nearly 104 million.

Something that's been clear to me for some time is that a lot of progressive advocacy and politics has overindexed on finding just the right combination of words to say while ignoring the fact that no media ecosystem exists where people might actually hear you say them. New from @mmfa.bsky.social

Quite possibly the biggest climate story of the year (especially when we look back on this in a few years' time)

For the first time on record, China's emissions are falling due to clean energy growth, not slow power demand...

Just basic requirements at this stage to prevent further fossil fuel capture of politics, culture + media:

- Ban FF political donations
- Ban FF adverts + sponsorship, introduce warning labels
- Compensate community groups that cut FF sponsors
- Make greenwashing illegal, penalties for false claims

"Right-leaning newspapers in particular continue to use themes that justify calls for reducing climate action, even if no longer explicitly arguing that action is not needed or justified by the science"

Fossil-fuel companies with the greatest emissions in 2023: State Owned: Saudi Aramco Coal India CHN Energy Jinneng Group National Iranian Coal Investor Owned: Exxon Mobil Chevron Shell Total BP

Look carefully: these are the companies that we must force governments to dismantle if our kids are going to have a mostly habitable planet.

Big Oil is the big winner from Russia's war on Ukraine Big oil is one of the big winners of Russia's war on Ukraine. New Global Witness analysis reveals that the five big Western oil companies - BP, Chevron, Exxon, Shell and TotalEnergies - have made over...

The world’s five largest listed oil companies – BP, Shell, Chevron, ExxonMobil and TotalEnergies – have made profits of more than $380 billion since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and the ensuing rise in energy bills, finds Global Witness.

globalwitness.org/en/press-rel...

"Any company whose value is this dependent not on its balance sheet but instead on a shared popular narrative is unusually vulnerable to narrative shifts."

@hamiltonnolan.bsky.social on why the insanely valued Tesla is more vulnerable than many think

Labour dropped plan to ban foreign donors after Waheed Alli intervened, book claims Peer who gave gifts to Keir Starmer is said to have blocked ban on potential Elon Musk donations to Reform UK

As we witness the US further descending into plutocracy, wild to see reports UK Labour was planning to ban big foreign political donations here - such as Musk's threat of £100 million to Reform.

But Labour then pulled it... after pressure from their rich donors.

www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

No coverage on broadcast TV news watched by boomers, either. Zero mention on the LA Times, Chicago Tribune, and Dallas Morning News, and Buzzfeed homepages as well. And of course Fox and OANN and Newsmax will only spin it as positive.

“The public interest in authorities acting lawfully and the private interest of members of the public in climate change outweigh the private interest of the developers.”

UK govt take note: you can't push through polluting projects at any cost, if your process for approving them is unlawful.

Line chart showing the increase in aviation emissions if Heathrow, Gatwick and Luton airports were expanded.

A forest twice the size of Greater London would need to be planted in the UK to cancel out the extra emissions from the expansion of Heathrow, Gatwick and Luton airports.

That's more than 300,000 hectares...

Chart for @carbonbrief.org www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-uk-... #dataviz