Patrick ten Brink

Troubling tectonic shift in the European Parliament voting alliances.

For details see New Leaf News on LinkedIn 〰️ DEMOCRATIC JENGA
www.linkedin.com/pulse/democr...

2025 Aarhus Meeting of the Parties: what to expect? | ClientEarth Aarhus Convention Meeting of the Parties (MOP) will take place later this year What will be the hot topics?

🔴 Climate COPs get the spotlight – but the #AarhusConvention MOP (17–25 Nov) is key to the future of environmental democracy

🚨 With EU democracy under immense pressure, stakes are high for next week's meeting

Find out what to expect @clienteartheur.bsky.social 👇
www.clientearth.org/projects/acc...

Is climate change really something we need to stress about? | Fiona Katauskas We could just wait until it all boils over

What everyone knows is insane but still somehow happening (ignoring the alarm bells and science on climate crisis impacts - Jamaica's hurricane nightmare was only a week ago) Sometimes words dont stick, how about an illustration to motivate climate talks in Brazil www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Once a global leader on climate action, the EU has given in to the right’s green-bashing | Nathalie Tocci From deforestation to emissions trading, vital policies are being watered down in the name of ‘competitiveness’, says Guardian Europe columnist Nathalie Tocci

It is disheartening how EU leadership and action is being assaulted with disinformation and narratives of fear, and giving in to far right and foreign pressure, when the needs for action, benefits of action and costs on inaction are so so clear. EU should resist. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

How Britain’s Wind Boom Has Slashed Energy Bills | OilPrice.com Britain’s rapid wind energy expansion has not only overtaken fossil fuels in power generation but has also saved consumers an estimated $137 billion in energy costs since 2010.

Renewable energy proven to save households billions so what is driving some governments to oppose renewables and push fossil fuels? See UCL study that found that wind power reduced consumer energy bills by $137 billion between 2010 and 2023. oilprice.com/Alternative-...

Visualizing the Top 10 Global Risks (2020-2025) From climate change to rising polarization, we show the top 10 global risks in an increasingly uncertain climate.

What is the #1 risk in the world (if you ask professional risk managers? The question then becomes: are leaders taking the #1 seriously or looking elsewhere, in denial? Visualizing the Top 10 Global Risks (2020-2025) share.google/z8m8jVqehffa...

How NGOs die — Europe's playbook for dismantling democracy The playbook is brutally efficient: fabricate a scandal, delegitimise and defund organisations into dependency on philanthropic support, then criminalise their new funding as foreign influence — all w...

A clear warning on what certain forces are trying to make happen in Europe (and that many of us are fighting back against every day). euobserver.com/eu-political...

"Urban Enigmas Of Patrick Ten Brink" By Paul Stephenson A surreal, poetic stroll through Brussels’ overlooked streets, where orphaned objects and street life are celebrated with wit and wonder. "These well-crafted poems do justice to the everyday, to the p...

A big thank you to Paul Stephenson (poet of the collection Hard Drive, Carcanet, 2023) for his review of my Urban Enigmas chapbook that explores the oddities in Brussels' streets: thebrusselsreview.com/paul-stephen...

Democracy is not dead.

‘A glimpse of genius’: what do unpublished stories found in Harper Lee’s apartment tell us about the To Kill a Mockingbird author? When she died, the writer left behind a cache of notebooks and manuscripts. Her biographer reveals what they tell us about her unlikely rise to literary stardom

The person behind the book. www.theguardian.com/books/2025/o...

A useful reminder: A Human on a Bicycle Is among the Most Efficient Forms of Travel in the Animal Kingdom | Scientific American share.google/PItKvNJhK84F...

Pommes, oranges, tomates… Quels sont les aliments les plus contaminés aux pesticides et ceux qui en contiennent le moins ? Roulement de topinambour. Notre nourriture est contaminée par au moins 183 types de résidus de pesticides. Une pollution stable, mais dont l’effet cocktail – le mélange de ces produits – est peu docum...

A lire avant de faire les prochaines courses....Pommes, oranges, tomates… Quels sont les aliments les plus contaminés aux pesticides et ceux qui en contiennent le moins ? share.google/BltJrn2l1i2B...

This report is a wake up call & call to action. Anyone looking at the facts can see that deregulation, the unravelling of env. & social protections, is the opposite of what leaders should be doing. We need laws to be implemented & enforced, not undermined. What world will our children inherit?

It sounds banal, but it isn't. The importance of fixing the potholes in our roads. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Trump and Putin are threatening to carve up Europe between them. Suddenly, it all feels a bit 1939 | Simon Tisdall Forget the US president’s seeming volte-face on Ukraine this week: he and Putin fundamentally agree that European liberal democracy is the problem, says Guardian foreign affairs commentator Simon Tisd...

"The evidence grows. So does the threat. Planned or not, Trump and Putin... are working together, or at least in parallel, to undercut European democracy, security, prosperity and progressive values." We in Europe need a concerted collective resistance movement. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Trump is waging culture war on Europe by promoting rightwing allies, report finds Study finds US president seeks to interfere in elections and ‘move the ideological centre of gravity’ in European politics

The facts underline that Trump and his team are trying to undermine the EU (and Russia likewise). Europe needs to chart it's own clear, fully independent, path. It is more than a cultural war. www.theguardian.com

A good article of agri-photovoltaics (in French) / Une article intéressant sur le agri-photovoltaic. Suspendre des panneaux solaires au-dessus des champs : le pari gagnant de TSE | Les Echos share.google/1UOW7UC78aBf...

Michelangelo to Banksy: The controversial artworks that fell foul of the law - and were erased Prefiguring Banksy's latest Royal Courts of Justice mural depicting a judge attacking a protester, are centuries of art history where works have been censored or edited.

Good article on freedom of expression/freedom of protest in art, and censorship www.bbc.com/culture/arti...

I am pleased that my speculative fiction novel, The Death and Life of Amelia Borgiotti, was selected to be part of the Cheshire Novel Prize's Top 100 (CNPK Top 100) today, out of over 1500 entries. I wish all the best to the 15 who have been selected to advance to the next stage!

Chappies | Dipity Lit Mag Check out chapbooks released by Dipity Press.

Delighted that my poetry collection - Urban Enigmas - with 23 poems looking at Brussels through a new lens is out, published by Dipity Press. There are even poems about waste management, lost things, odd codes, and of course people: www.dipitylitmag.com/chappies

As deregulation, anti-environmental, forces are growing, it is useful to remember that laws were never put in place for the fun of it. There are human, societal or env needs, supported by facts. & laws set responsibilities. Civilisation surely is about embracing responsibilities not abandoning them?

‘A climate of unparalleled malevolence’: are we on our way to the sixth major mass extinction? The long read: Churning quantities of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere at the rate we are going could lead the planet to another Great Dying

"the rate at which humans are now injecting CO2 into the oceans and atmosphere today far surpasses the planet’s ability to keep pace. We are now at the initial stages of a system failure." An article worth reading to the end.

www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Action needed on plastic additives linked to sperm decline, experts warn Amid collapse of global pollution treaty, scientists highlight environmental factors causing fertility crisis

there are now well-established links between common additives to plastics and falling sperm counts. ... since 1973 a 1% per year decline. studies published after 2000, show an over 2% decline. We need responsible regulation and that global plastics treaty... www.theguardian.com/world/2025/a...

The 23 Urban Enigma poems were fun to write, looking through a new lens at Brussels. Even waste management gets some poems... www.dipitylitmag.com/chappies. And a big thank you to the great Dipity LitMag team and their illustrators.

If only country "leaders" (starting with the warmongers) put more money into the arts and less into war...

“Potentially Huge Implications” – Scientists Discover Ancient Carbon Is Leaking Into the Atmosphere A new global study reveals that ancient carbon, once thought securely stored in soils and rocks, is leaking into the atmosphere via rivers. For the first time, researchers have confirmed that carbon t...

Rivers globally release about 2 Gt/yr carbon emissions, human activity 10-15Gt. Over half of these river emissions may be coming from carbon stores considered relatively stable... we need to re-evaluate these crucial parts of the global carbon cycle." Facts matter.
scitechdaily.com/potentially-...

Chemical pollution a threat comparable to climate change, scientists warn More than 100 million ‘novel entity’ chemicals are in circulation, with health impact not widely recognised

a growing body of evidence linking chemical toxicity with effects ranging from ADHD to infertility to cancer... with threats to human reproductive, immune, neurological, cardiovascular, respiratory, liver, kidney and metabolic systems. Surely it is time to act. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Gray Wolves Reintroduced to Yellowstone Revived a Dying Ecosystem Three decades after the reintroduction of wolves, the park is finally seeing the payoff. Aspen trees are back, taller than ever...

People have diverse views and insights on wolves. Did you know that Gray Wolves Reintroduced to Yellowstone Revived a Dying Ecosystem? share.google/bifNFLfzDv57...

Painting with significant symbols, including circular motifs and lines in multicolours

Collaborative artwork, 2019 by the senior Indigenous women artists of Amata in the APY Lands of Australia, who founded a women's art centre #WomensArt

‘Self-termination is most likely’: the history and future of societal collapse An epic analysis of 5,000 years of civilisation argues that a global collapse is coming unless inequality is vanquished

"...fighting corruption, holding power accountable and making sure companies pay for the social and environmental damages they cause. That’s just making our economy more honest.” from Dr Kemp's book warning of societal collapse: www.theguardian.com/environment/...