Bob D 🦋

Warming stripes for different layers of the atmosphere and ocean from 1960-2025. The ocean and troposphere are warming, the stratosphere is cooling.

Climate 'fingerprints' mark human activity from the top of the atmosphere to the bottom of the ocean

theconversation.com/climate-fing...

If Reform ever wins power in Westminster, it will be because of Labour’s cowardice | George Monbiot Starmer could improve our unfair electoral system to stop the hard right, but he won’t. All the party has left are threats about ‘splitting the vote’, says Guardian columnist George Monbiot

In this week's column I seek to explain Keir Starmer's flat refusal to change our electoral system, even though its gross unfairness could put Reform UK in power on <30% of the vote. The reasons, I believe, are deeply cynical and disturbing. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

£4bn very well spent. Do it!

Et voila! Case proven.
#solar

apod.4197572394.bin

#apod 2026-02-01
Galle: Happy Face Crater on Mars
Web page: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260201.html

Such a weird way to live

Smallpox: when was it eliminated in each country? World choropleth map showing, for each country, the decade when smallpox was eliminated. Legend categories shown are: Before 1900; 1900s; 1910s; 1920s; 1930s; 1940s; 1950s; 1960s; 1970s. Subheading notes that smallpox was declared globally eradicated in 1980. Key pattern: most countries in Europe, North America, and Australia eliminated smallpox earlier in the 20th century, while many countries in Africa, South Asia, and parts of South America eliminated it later, concentrated in the 1960s to 1970s. Data source: Fenner et al. (1988).

William Foege, the physician who saved many millions from smallpox—

William Foege, who sadly died this week, is one of the reasons why this map ends in the 1970s.

rescued pumpkins?

Enjoying meat is very heavily reliant on denial – avoiding thinking about what it is and how it got there and automatically dismissing any thought that comes up. It's unsettling that we're so readily able to do this.

YouTube video by Technology Connections You are being misled about renewable energy technology.

Let's do this.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtQ9...

My question was: can there really be a singular, coherent, "the" idea of the United States, in the way that you referred to it.

It's a common usage. The American dream. The American way. I wonder whose idea this is, and how they came to lay claim to that definite-article real estate

Yes, I don't want to underestimate how compelling it must be to insist on using the same word to mean two radically different things at the same time, no matter how far they diverge.

Is there really a "the idea" of the United States?

Exactly.

It's good...but at some point, the term 'American' is going to have to start referring to what Americans actually do, rather than how some would understanably wish their country to be seen.

The full range of values people actually identify with, exemplify, hand power to. That's what the world sees.

Absolutely, if details are presented to those in a position to investigate and there's something to go on, then of course, it's essential.

If they're offhand social media comments insinuating transphobia, it's often just people being toxic. That stuff does exist, and it's unhelpful in so many ways

No it doesn't. It makes it look like she doesn't think false accusations are helpful.

We don't know who will win in Gorton and Denton. But we can be almost certain that:

- The next MP will have received a small minority of the vote, likely under 1/3.

- Thousands will vote tactically and not for who they actually want.

This is not what democracy should look like.

that isn't the same fault at all

If you’re giving money to a white supremacist who put thousands of my colleagues out of work, decimated American science, and killed millions of people just so you can use a water-guzzling, misinformation-hawking racist chatbot the least I can do is make you embarrassed to admit it out loud.

That seems to be the same link as before.

I saw that it is discussed in the statement; I was wondering why it wasn't included in the list of four major concerns.

Perhaps I misunderstood it as a list of the four most concerning risks, when it's more a new set of serious concerns particular to 2025.

Not listing climate chaos in the top four seems out of kilter

PSA: Here's how the anti-net zero sausage gets made:

1. Oil companies fund climate denial groups
2. which incubate fake experts
3. who write policy papers for 'think tanks'
4. which get blurbed by politicians
5. & reported uncritically by right-wing media.

Voila!

www.desmog.com/2026/01/28/c...

We urgently need a parliamentary debate on Palantir. Please sign this & share with your network. Via @the-citizens.bsky.social & @change.org.

www.change.org/p/hold-a-par...

The photo of the steps almost looks like a pencil sketch. Really nicely done

Tell Ofcom to stop climate misinformation TalkTV regularly spouts misinformation about the climate crisis, claiming that “CO2 is not a threat to the planet” and that the science behind it “doesn’t add up to a row of beans”. The rightwing news...

Nearly at 7,000 signatures now! Huge thanks to everyone who's taken action so far: action.goodlawproject.org/tell-ofcom-s...

Yep

It's not subtle, is it

and they had mottos like "don't be evil"

Hannah Arendt did not mince words, did she?

'Totalitarianism replaces all first-rate talents with crackpots and fools whose lack of intelligence and creativity is still the best guarantee of their loyalty.'

From "The Origins of Totalitarianism" (1951)

The vast majority of the world is crying out for consequences.