Noel Longhurst

Biodiversity collapse threatens UK security, intelligence chiefs warn Ecosystem destruction will increase food shortages, disorder and mass migration, with effects already being felt

You may’ve seen coverage of a new report on the threat to national security from environmental collapse.

A common response that’s got my goat is: “Look, it’s not just tree-hugging enviros saying this, it’s hard-nosed spooks!”

A short thread on why this framing is bad history & bad politics🧵😡😉

So it's now news Hinkley Point C will be really expensive?

FFS, I & others were trying to tell people this over a decade ago, before contracts were signed

But the nuclear-political establishment thought they knew better

They didn't. Not for the first time

www.telegraph.co.uk/business/202...

Green Screen: Fires and Fascism + Director Q&A | Showtimes and Tickets Green Screen Presents... Fires & Fascism followed by Q&A with Director Dr Pete Knapp    Norwich - Wednesday 19th Nov Brighton - Tuesday 9th Dec   Fires and Fascism shows the cau...

Fires & Fascism showing at:
Norwich, Cinema City
Wed 19 Nov, 6pm
www.picturehouses.com/movie-detail...

@rupertread.bsky.social
@helenb92.bsky.social
@norwichgreenparty.bsky.social
@norfolknats.bsky.social
@noellonghurst.bsky.social
@norwichfoe.bsky.social
@timosbornclim.bsky.social

This looks great!

Melissa becomes third Category 5 hurricane of the extraordinary 2025 season Updates and summaries on tropical Atlantic activity... including easterly waves, tropical storms, subtropical storms, and hurricanes.

For only the second time in recorded history, an Atlantic season has produced three Category 5 hurricanes... the previous year was 2005. This puts 2025 in an elite class of hurricane seasons. It also means that nearly 7% of all known Category 5 hurricanes have occurred just in this year.
#Melissa

Its out! Our new Index on International Media Freedom Support (IMFS) - which ranks 30 countries on how actively they support #mediafreedom beyond their borders through diplomatic, funding and safety initiatives.

Key findings here: jdem.org/the-imfs-ind...
Full report here: jdem.org/wp-content/u...

Great piece by Kitty Cresswell Riol on the feminst power of the bicycle. If you are in Norwich then join us tomorrow (Weds 22nd Oct) on the Norwich Glow Ride at 630pm tomorrow outside City Hall.

10 days left to apply for this course!

Many amazing scholars will contribute to this course, including @untamed.bsky.social, @dudleymarianna.bsky.social, Abigail Harrison Moore, Alice Owen, and @andersriel.bsky.social!

#envhist #energyhistory #envhum

It's finally here! 100+ scholars, global scope, practical insights. “Climate Obstruction: A Global Assessment” shows how organized interests stall policy—and how governance can respond.

Open access available now! Or order for paperback and hardcover. cssn.org/wp-content/u...

It's the 'Scientists Responsibility Summit' today.

Here's a live thread with some take aways from each talk... 🧵

I feel like this photo of masked, armed men pepper spraying a pastor protecting his community is going to be a defining picture of this moment in America for a long, long time.

EXTRAORDINARY HEAT IN CHINA Almost 40C

Up to at 39.3C Jiannang,39.0 Jiangde,38.7 Quzhou,38.6 Chagshan,38.5 Jiangshan and Shangrao,48.4 Yunhe,38.3 Lanzi and Yushan,38.2 Nanfeng etc
83 new records of October highest temperature (36 Maxes+47 Mins)
Almost 1000 in East Asia already!

The Self-Financing State: An Institutional Analysis of Government Expenditure, Revenue Collection and Debt Issuance Operations in the United Kingdom This article provides the first detailed institutional analysis of the UK government’s expenditure, revenue collection, and debt issuance processes. We show that public expenditure is always financ...

As the government panics about bond market gyrations, its always useful to understand how the UK government actually finances itself: by creating new money, just like a bank.

New paper with @AskerVoldsgaard, Neil Wilson, Andrew Berkeley and Richard Tye.

www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Open letter from UK university staff: Request for biometric deferral and safe evacuation of incoming Palestinian students and scholars from Gaza to UK Universities More than 40 students currently trapped in Gaza with full scholarships to UK Universities are asking for a safe route to come and study. We, the academic community hoping to welcome these scholars, ca...

>40 students currently trapped in Gaza with full scholarships to UK Universities are asking for a safe route to come and study

Petition for UK academics asking govt to facilitate a biometric visa deferral and open a route of safe passage

Sign & share ⏬️

docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

From the action. Photo credit Denise Laura Baker

BREAKING: Scientists are occupying the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) in London. They are demanding capital requirements for fossil fuels to urgently address climate breakdown.

🧵1/10

The Misleading Panic over Misinformation People can’t agree on how to define misinformation and its related terms, making regulation nearly impossible. Instead, free expression serves as a better tool for discovering truth.

🧵 THREAD: Why the Cato Institute’s new paper on “misinformation panic” is dangerously wrong, and why it completely misunderstands the real crisis we face.
www.cato.org/policy-analy...

Great 'streamgraph' on the rise, fall and rise of nuclear in the UK.

In the past year we've had a series of papers with results that've shocked #climate scientists - the globe is heating #FasterThanExpected & we don't fully know why

The public discourse is not keeping up.

Here's a series of 5 new studies that climate hawks & journos need to have on their radar 🧵

Forget the "Joe Rogan of the Left," Where's the Rupert Murdoch? Something can be repeated over and over, a story told ten different ways, and then one particular frame or graphic or turn of phrase makes it take hold. There are plenty of people who claim to know ex...

Absolute must-read here from @amywestervelt.bsky.social

“The question is not: who is the Joe Rogan of the left? But rather … who is the Rupert Murdoch of the left?

Thrilled to share my first PhD paper, Towards Modelling Post-Growth Climate Futures, out today in Environmental Research Letters. Grateful to my brilliant co-authors and supervisors @femkenijsse.bsky.social, Paul Brockway & Karen Bickerstaff.

tinyurl.com/3xatxfkh

Actions speak louder than words: the case for responsible scientific activism in an era of planetary emergency | Royal Society Open Science The world's understanding of the climate and ecological crises rests on science. However, scientists' conventional methods of engagement, such as producing ever more data and findings, writing papers ...

"Scientists and scientific institutions must defend academic freedom, and that must include the right for scientists to participate in legitimate peaceful protest"

#StandUpForScience
#ScienceNotSilence

royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...

What this makes clear is that the US tariff strategy is not just the lashing out of a capricious Trump. There is serious thinking behind it with the aim of rebuilding US manufacturing in the medium term. Whether it will work is another matter. Hope these are useful (8/8)

Tett’s piece links to this essay by Stephen Miran who is Trump’s Chair of Economic Advisors: www.hudsonbaycapital.com/documents/FG....

What a Mar-a-Lago accord could look like Trump’s team consider financial policy interventions to be crucial in a grand reordering of global finance and trade

Finally, Gillian Tett wrote recently in the @financialtimes.com about plans to potentially devalue the US dolar to increase US competitiveness (www.ft.com/content/fba8... paywalled). (7/8)

This podcast gives a lot more background on NRx and its relationship to climate denial, amongst other things.

theinternationalriskpodcast.com/the-rise-of-...

It seems unlikely that Trump is particularly interested in NRx philosophy himself, but a lot of people around him are. (6/8)

NRx thinking is popular amongst Silicon Valley tech-bros such as Peter Thiel and also influential on JD Vance. Attacks on government departments, universities, DEI and the media make much more sense in the context of a political project driven by NRx ideology (5/8).

He’s anti-democracy and pro-Trump: the obscure ‘dark enlightenment’ blogger influencing the next US administration Key figures in the incoming administration follow Curtis Yarvin, who’s pushing for an autocratic takeover of the US

There is a brief introduction to some of the main people, such as Curtis Yarvin, and ideas here (4/8):

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024...

A strong dislike of bureaucracy is also central to the ideas of Dark Enlightenment or Neo-Reactionary movement (NRx). NRx is an anti-democratic philosophy which wants to replace democracy with an authoritarian / monarchical system. (3/8)

It does a great job of arguing that Trump’s regime is underpinned by patrimonialism, rather than classic authoritarianism. Patrimonialism rewards loyalty, bypasses formal administrative structures and punishes enemies. It also has a strong suspicion of bureaucracy (2/2)