James Murray

Oh my God

“Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn't mean politics won't take an interest in you.”

It is a mark of the degradation of the Conservative Party that even Jacob Rees-Mogg thought it necessary to defend jury trial against his own front bench.

As former Conservative Attorney-General Dominic Grieve wrote, Philp's words bore the "hallmark of the rabble rouser not a Shadow Home Secretary"

It is objectively extremely alarming that the top officials of a presidential administration unabashedly ascribe to ultra-radical white nationalist and authoritarian ideas, but our political class can’t find a way to metabolize that fact without sounding partisan, so it’s treated as a curiosity

It’s a replay of January 6 where Trump spent months saying what he was going to do and virtually every Official Serious Person in America laughed it off because, if he was being honest, that would mean he intended a coup and obviously THAT wasn’t going to happen

Again, if you actually pay attention to the kind of material that Vance and Miller and their neo-Nazi toadies interact with online it is extremely obvious why they’re invading DC. But our press has consistently decided the implications are too alarming and so they must pretend not to see it

One of the best ways to cripple Russia’s ambitions longterm would be to moonshot renewables development then spread the tech everywhere super-cheap. Russia produces nothing of significance beyond oil and gas. The economy would tank. Plus a huge win in the fight against the climate crisis.

The Graph @javierblas.bsky.social and Friends Don't Want You To See
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Global oil demand growth is set to slow to a halt by the end of the decade
#alwaysbecharging #IEA

Getting climate risk wrong Ted Nordhaus has a recent article in The EcoModernist about why he stopped being a climate catastrophist. His basic argument is that we used to think that we were heading for 5oC of warming, which …

andthentheresphysics.wordpress.com/2025/08/15/g...

ABF to close UK's largest bioethanol plant after government funding talks fail Vivergo Fuels facility in Hull produces 420 million tonnes of bioethanol a year, as well as 400,000 tonnes of animal feed

Not a great story for the government for late on a Friday. www.businessgreen.com/news/4517776...

Features some cathartic raging at the petrostate death wish.

What hope now for the Global Plastics Treaty? Deadlock at the latest round of talks was all but inevitable, but there are routes forward for governments and businesses that want to tackle the scourge of plastic pollution

Latest blog is on where the failed Global Plastics Treaty talks might go from here. (Free to read with reg)
www.businessgreen.com/blog-post/45...

Searching for the mea culpa from a single one of them…

a map of europe showing temperatures in the low 40s and high 30s

can you imagine trying to convince the average skepti-dude in the year 2010 that this is what summer europe will look like in 2025

This is the coldest summer of the rest of your life

China’s zero-emission truck and bus market reaches historic high of 230,000 units sold in 2024 - International Council on Clean Transportation Sales of zero-emission medium- and heavy-duty vehicles in China reached more than 230,000 in 2024.

Meanwhile: "Electric city bus sales already reached the full market penetration in China in 2023, achieving the highest electrification rate of all vehicle categories. As of 2024, battery electric, hybrid electric, and fuel-cell electric city buses accounted for almost 100% of the market."

'Not cutting through': Poll reveals damaging disconnect between MPs and businesses on climate action Only 13 per cent of MPs claim to feel pressure from businesses to deliver bolder climate action, despite 85 per cent of business leaders backing stronger regulation

New report highlights how businesses keep saying they want bolder climate action, and MPs keep refusing to believe them. www.businessgreen.com/news/4517734...

UK's 'first' all-electric football stadium passes planning hurdle Oxford United FC's plans to build 'one of the greenest' football stadiums in the UK wins approval from Cherwell District Council

It looks like the UK is set to get its first all-electric football stadium. www.businessgreen.com/news/4517751...

UK zero emission bus market grows more than 80 per cent Latest industry data confirms soaring demand for green buses during the first half of the year, with nearly a quarter of new buses now zero emission models

Sales of zero emission buses up 80 per cent and sales of zero emission HGVs up 59 per cent. Volumes still relatively small, but these are technologies that serious people were saying only a few years ago would never work.
www.businessgreen.com/news/4517729...
www.businessgreen.com/news/4517759...

FACTCHECK: We asked dozens of scientists to review Trump's climate report, being used to justify major policy rollbacks.

They found "more than 100" false or misleading claims.

Click through to read them all:

interactive.carbonbrief.org/doe-factchec...

Modern British Conservatism, that of Burke, Liverpool, Peel, and Huskisson, was borne out of the fear of the mob violence of the Terror.

And now, their supposed political heirs are inciting the mobs.

For me, the most sensible approach may be to take what you can get on an international accord to try and improve waste management globally and strengthen standards on plastic toxicity, and then take a coalition of the willing approach to get more ambition. But it remains very sub-optimal.

That's certainly the view of a lot of campaigners now. You'll never get the Saudis on board, so why try? But there's a reluctance among some of the high ambition bloc to go down that route, as it creates free-rider problems and the challenge of holding back a tide of waste others keep adding to.

The gap between the two negotiating blocs is arguably wider now than it was on day one of the process, which makes it very difficult to see what a credible landing zone for a compromise even looks like.

UK zero emission bus market grows more than 80 per cent Latest industry data confirms soaring demand for green buses during the first half of the year, with nearly a quarter of new buses now zero emission models

Nearly a quarter of new buses in the UK are zero emissions. Which means that three-quarters of new buses still have internal combustion engines. And they will be on our roads for years. As so often these days, the transition is picking up speed, even as it remains late and too slow.

What is most worrying about the failure of the Global Plastics Treaty talks is not the inability to finalise a deal - that felt all but inevitable, there have been Copenhagen 08 vibes from the start of the process - but the lack of clarity on what happens next.

Killer kerb' that wrecks cars installed by pro- pedestrian council Furious motorists complain over 13- inch high construction introduced by Lib Dem-led local authority

What dastardly schemes will this evil council conjure up next in its mission to.... checks notes... stop people getting killed by bad drivers

As the kids say today, “Clock it.”

Interesting how you never see the head of this school on Question Time or elsewhere opining on the culture-war topic of the day.

Yup. There’s lots of awareness of the very obvious risk, and yet still a strange sense of complacency out there.