Something has to change! But not something that I do.

YouGov@yougov.co.uk · yesterday

56% of Britons would support a ban on the sale of disposable barbecues, amid wildfires across the UK triggering renewed calls for supermarkets to stop selling them during summer months Support: 56% Oppose: 25% yougov.com/en-gb/daily-...

9/ New North Sea fields don't fit in the budget. She'll "back domestic North Sea oil and gas." Fields already producing or under development hold roughly three times the oil and gas 1.5°C allows. The International Energy Agency has said no new fields are needed since 2021.

8/ Less action now requires more later. Badenoch wants to scrap "rigid targets" and "artificial deadlines." A carbon budget is a fixed quantity of carbon. Delay doesn't shrink it, so the cuts get steeper later.

7/ Fossil dependence is what makes bills volatile. @thecccuk.bsky.social modelled a gas price shock in 2040. Stop decarbonising, bills rise 59%. Stay on the path to net-zero - 4%. Since the Iran war, bills rose about four times more for a house with a gas boiler and a petrol car.

Progress in reducing emissions 2026 report to Parliament - Climate Change Committee

Presented to Parliament pursuant to Section 36 (1) of the Climate Change Act 2008. This report was laid…

theccc.org.uk

5/ The UK's fiscal watchdog agrees. OBR, July 2025: 3°C of warming costs the UK economy about 8% by the early 2070s. Cutting emissions costs far less than the damage from not doing it.

4/ Net zero is the cheaper path for Britain. @thecccuk.bsky.social ran the full numbers in March this year. Net zero pays for itself and then some. Benefits worth around £110bn a year out to 2050, overtaking the costs from 2029. Every pound spent comes back more than double.

CCC: Net-zero will protect UK from fossil-fuel price shocks - Carbon Brief

The “cost” of cutting UK emissions to net-zero is less than the cost of a single fossil-fuel price shock, according to a report from the CCC.

carbonbrief.org

3/ And the date came from parliaments own advisers. @thecccuk.bsky.social recommended 2050 in 2019. Conservative PM Theresa May's gov adopted it weeks later, & both Houses approved it. The stated reason for changing the target? "Significant developments in scientific knowledge about climate change"

2/ Net zero is a physical requirement, not a political programme Warming tracks total CO2 ever emitted, near enough in a straight line, so temperatures rise until net emissions reach zero. And 2050 wasn't picked by a politician.

Imagine UEFA's statement about FIFA's plans to sell off the World Cup, but replace all the references to FOOTBALL with WATER Can you now see the absurdity of water privatisation? Andy Burnham has called the FIFA president to go. But our water is still in private hands: vist.ly/5d5x8

About time.

Sky News@news.sky.com · 6d ago

European nations agree to boycott World Cup if FIFA goes ahead with World Cup sell-off

One thing you can see in the latest Stancil blowup is that a sizable share of this website thinks that good intentions are the only thing that matter in policymaking, and expressing skepticism that a policy will really work as intended is equivalent to stealing food from the poor.

And why you should let them share your picnic ham and jam.

Where have all the wasps gone this summer?

And why you should let them share your picnic ham and jam.

tcnv.link

When I discuss huge systemic issues, people say "but what I can I do?" When I mention something meaningful you can do immediately, people say (as the replies here show) "but what's the point, in the face of the huge systemic issues?" There are, it seems, plenty of people who want to be helpless.

George Monbiot@georgemonbiot.bsky.social · last wk.

It's a point I've been trying to make for a long time: there is no good way to meet even 10% of current demand for animal products. They trash the living world, whichever way you do it. If you want to reduce your impact, switch to a plant-based diet. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Zack Polanski shared a post ill-advisedly. I'm sure there was no ill intent, we've probably all done similar. But saying it was a mistake is a valid criticism. The below respo se (not what Zack did) is not a good response. I'll be cancelling my membership.

🚨 WATCH: Andy Burnham asks the media to stop speculating on his policies "Can we not let the country look at this in a clear eyed way without all the hype and overwriting of some of these issues?"

It's a point I've been trying to make for a long time: there is no good way to meet even 10% of current demand for animal products. They trash the living world, whichever way you do it. If you want to reduce your impact, switch to a plant-based diet. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Organic eggs have worse impact on climate than eggs from caged chickens

Adopting organic free-range model in UK could lead to greenhouse emissions equivalent to 2,316,000 tonnes of CO2, study suggests

theguardian.com

Epping Forest needs your help! Stop National Highways breaking its promises to protect ancient woodland at Epping Forest. Hurry, the deadline is 11.59pm TODAY! actionnetwork.org/letters/stop...

Stop National Highways breaking its promises to protect ancient woodland at Epping Forest

National Highways are seeking to break the promises they made to protect ancient woodland at Epping Forest. Because of the extra air pollution caused by the increased traffic due to the Lower Thames C...

actionnetwork.org

Unhinged

James Chalmers@jameschalmers.bsky.social · last wk.

This is a very odd story but I find it difficult to jump to the conclusion that the French navy has decided it should try to scare the Shadow Home Secretary away from talking about small boats. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Compare him to Steve Wozniak, who seems genuinely happy with life.

It's noticeable, too, that there wasn't a single question on the climate, at a time when Europe is experiencing catastrophic wild-fires & record-breaking heat. It's astonishing how low down the political agenda this remains in Britain, when all the environmental indicators are signalling disaster.

Just watched the Burnham interview on Panorama. He handles it well, as you'd expect, & is good on welfare. But the problem is that Kuenssberg just isn't a very good interviewer. The questions are designed to trap, not to inform, so you don't really learn anything (except that he's better at this)

mildly funny that X is having blazing rows about Nolan’s Odyssey because he cast black people in it and Bluesky is having blazing rows about whether a noted Homeric translator’s LRB review of it misses the point or not

Bill Oddie and Zippy (Ronnie Le Drew) in one morning

It is interesting how “thinking freely” has now come to mean “thinking entirely in line with a narrow right wing ideology and not having the temerity to deviate from that”.

'Underperforming' = knowingly screwed into the dust by an unsustainable funding model

Update on cancelling the climate emergency. www.romfordrecorder.co.uk/news/2641036...

Around 35 people evacuated after 10 hectares damaged in Rainham fire

Around 35 people were evacuated after ten hectares of grassland were damaged in a Rainham fire near Ingrebourne Hill,

romfordrecorder.co.uk

Steve Chambers@planningtransport.co.uk · last wk.

On top of the big issues. Someone needs to explain to them how a zone works. They aren't speed cameras.

The decision of so many people to keep using X in its race-war phase has made me a bit more cynical overall about the ability to draw moral red lines. It’s beyond disappointing.

Just a straw in the wind, but 5 council by-elections this wk feature two Lab gains from Ref, two Con holds vs Ref & one Ref gain from Con. This is quite a break from pattern of the past year or so, perhaps a sign Reform really are fading & both trad govt parties recovering? bsky.app/profile/elec...

Election Maps UK@electionmaps.uk · 2w ago

Longwell Green (South Gloucestershire) Council By-Election Result: 🌳 CON: 37.3% (-11.2) ➡️ RFM: 27.4% (New) 🔶 LDM: 20.0% (-10.4) 🌹 LAB: 9.7% (New) 🌍 GRN: 5.6% (New) No Ind (-21.0) as previous. Conservative HOLD. Changes w/ 2023.

Of course there are going to be naysayers and nitpickers, but recognising that the cost of living is a crisis and actually doing something about it represents a refreshing start by Andy Burnham as Prime Minister.

Larry the cat's commitment to public service remains strong.