James Murray

Imaging the historians in 40 years trying to explain why World War III happened and emphasizing the collapse of shared information ecology, gendered impacts of globalization, and rebalancing of global power relations, since "these people were not so smart and things got out of hand" sounds fake

Keep finding myself thinking, 'surely someone will get a grip, it's so obviously in everyone's interests for this to stop, right?' and then look at the latest headlines and the people involved and realise, no World War is really quite plausible from here.

Be glad of Starmer’s caution over Iran Bellicose critics of the UK prime minister have learnt nothing from the recent past

I feel like Conservative foreign policy is one of those things that I *know* to be in an utterly terrible place, then you read it written down and go 'oh yeah, their position is literally that the UK have the most China-hostile policy of any nation in the world'. Great column:

Starmer not prepared to join a war ‘without lawful basis and viable plan’, he tells PMQs – UK politics live PM says country must act ‘with clarity, with purpose and with a cool head’ amid Middle East crisis and Trump criticism

"The sprint to clean energy is the only way to get off the volatile international fossil fuels markets, cut bills & deliver energy security"

Fair play to Starmer - this is exactly right. Meanwhile, Badenoch & Farage would have us hooked on more fossil fuels

www.theguardian.com/politics/liv...

'Painfully clear': Report warns the UK is running out of time to deliver on nature promises New report warns UK is falling short on legally-binding nature targets for 2030, but rapid progress remains within reach

Stark report from @rspb.bsky.social today warning how the UK is badly off track to meet the international nature goals it agreed to. www.businessgreen.com/news/4526449...

Study: Could hairdressers be a secret weapon for tackling climate change? Fresh research argues hairdressers are ‘unsung influencers’ in prompting conversation and promoting new habits that can curb emissions

Fun story on how hairdressers could help tackle climate change. www.businessgreen.com/news/4526445...

MPs urge government to put fairness at heart of Seventh Carbon Budget Parliament’s Environmental Audit Committee calls on government to ensure delivery of next Carbon Budget is affordable, convenient, and attractive to the public

Important report from the Environmental Audit Committee today highlighting how next wave of decarbonisation has to deliver benefits right across society. It's not telling government anything it is not already painfully aware of, but still a useful overview. www.businessgreen.com/news/4526407...

Study: AI could be used to turn data centres into 'power flexible' assets to ease grid constraints UK's first trial of AI grid technology shows data centres can adjust power needs in real time, rather than be 'always on' assets

Interesting report exploring how AI data centres could provide flexible grid services. By no means answers all concerns over soaring energy demand, but suggests there could be ways of trimming some of the impact. www.businessgreen.com/news/4526442...

Shipping is often seen as a hard to abate sector of the economy. While it’s true that it is a challenge to power a container ship with zero fossil fuels, just getting rid of fossil fuels as a thing we move around the world’s oceans cuts shipping sector emissions by a whopping 40%.

“The politics here is that it certainly works out well for a handful of people who kissed Trump’s ring at Mar-a-Lago,” said Lukas Shankar-Ross, deputy director at the environmental nonprofit Friends of the Earth. buff.ly/RafESps

I see the papers which screamed ‘tAKe bACK ConTRol’ now want the UK to be nothing but an obedient servant of the USA

So just goes to show that you can set your system up to have big optionality of supply (GB has North Sea, Norway pipeline and LNG from US, Qatar, other) but impacts can skewer even the most diversified risk management approach.

The current gas crisis (might be a mini crisis) has shown GB's corollary to the Russia/Ukraine gas crisis, given this one is LNG based while Russia was pipeline.

During Russia/Ukraine, NBP frequently traded at a discount to TTF because the GB system is a seaborne hub. Now during this one...

We're living in the timeline when hundreds of millions of years of dead matter was compressed by vast amount of rocks which were pushed by tectonic plates to create this concentration of oil and gas in less than 5% of the global land mass which humans now may burn away in less than 500 years.

The left's gone left but the right's gone nuts: Asymmetrical polarization in action Political polarization has risen sharply in recent years. But the process hasn't been symmetrical: Republicans have moved farther right than Democrats have left.

And as with the US we're invited to just shrug when one of the camps starts to reject objective reality. grist.org/politics/asy...

My entire adult life there's been a narrative around the 'Americanisation of British politics' and it always felt somewhat overblown. But it really does now seem to be finally happening. More parties and a different system, but the same two camps with values that seem antithetical to one another.

On issue after issue, we see that Labour voters share most values with Green and Lib Dem voters and almost none with Reform voters. And yet Labour's strategy does not reflect that. The dissonance drives me mad on a daily basis. How many times can one underline the obvious?

Also, Coutinho mentions nuclear and the Fingleton Review. The government has promised to enact it, secured investment for Sizewell C, and is backing new Small Modular Reactors. In 14 years in office Coutinho's Party built half of one nuclear reactor that is massively delayed and over budget.

a man with a beard says serious people in front of a purple background ALT: a man with a beard says serious people in front of a purple background

But the idea North Sea fossil fuel production is a silver bullet and that deliberately damaging clean tech deployment is anything other than economic vandalism is absolutely absurd.

There may be an energy security case for maximising all forms of energy production given how dangerous the world has become, although you would then have to reckon with the resulting emissions and climate risks.

And all the while the UK would remain exposed to volatile gas prices set by international markets and geopolitics outside the UK's control at the same time as handing clean tech market leadership to China and Europe.

You would do immense damage to a Low Carbon and Renewable Energy Sector that grew 12% in 2024 to be worth £77bn. Does anyone seriously think deliberately blocking that growth will unleash greater growth in high carbon industries?

You could trim energy bills slightly by cutting carbon taxes, but any reduction would be overwhelmed by the periodic spikes in gas prices as we're now seeing once again. Plus axing carbon prices would result in the EU putting billions of pounds worth of carbon tariffs on UK exports.

You would get a modest increase in N Sea investment, but geological factors mean it would be vanishingly unlikely that you would reverse the decline in production or employment.

One thing that is not discussed enough with the Tory and Reform stance on net zero and the North Sea is that it has massive 'dog that caught the car' Brexit redux vibes. Imagine what would happen if they won and enacted this policy...

Apropos of nothing in particular, just resharing this chart showing why North Sea gas is drying up (we burned it all already)

Going on the record on this: climate change is in fact bad

If I was @zackpolanski.bsky.social, I would be pointing out to the BBC that whatever model they use to justify giving Farage & his boot-lickers season tickets for every BBC show under the sun must surely now treat Green Party politicians in exactly the same way. Might even be one for the lawyers...

Production peaked in 2000 and has fallen consistently even through periods when the government was issuing new licenses and had an official policy of maximising output. You could marginally slow the decline with new licenses, but the idea it will suddenly ensure UK energy security is absurd.

Since the cost of a net zero energy system ought to be evaluated relative to a counterfactual of using more natural gas. Higher natural gas prices make net zero cheaper despite nothing changing about the out-of-pocket costs.

This is why people hate economists.