John Merrick
@johnmerrick.bsky.social
Deputy editor: @the-breakdown.bsky.social johnphilipmerrick@gmail.com / john.merrick@break-down.org https://www.johnmerrick.co.uk/
The main reason for developing our El Niño prediction capabilities is to mitigate its severe negative consequences.
El Niño could push 50m people into acute hunger before end of next year
UN forecasters warn of worsening conditions in 45 countries currently experiencing severe food insecurity
theguardian.com
NEW – Factcheck: How nuclear, gas, wind and solar power are affected during heatwaves | @mollylempriere.carbonbrief.org w/ comment from @iain-staffell.bsky.social @henrypreston.bsky.social Read here: buff.ly/yfvQnUS
This is very good on the new wave of denialism, although i'd argue that it's increasingly present not just on the right but across British politics
George Monbiot@georgemonbiot.bsky.social · 13h agoMy column on how capital becomes a death cult. Faced with a choice between profit and human life, the radical right chooses profit. Then it tries to persuade us that mass death is what we want. It's the new phase of climate denial: accept your fate, earthlings. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
It’s 90 degrees in the Arctic. The Arctic is heating faster than the rest of the planet. www.scientificamerican.com/article/its-...
It’s 90 degrees in the Arctic right now
The Arctic is heating faster than the rest of the planet. New data illustrate how dire that is
scientificamerican.com
Hungary's Paks nuclear plant is close to complete shutdown due to low water levels on the Danube The river just hit the lowest level in more than a century, amid an ongoing European drought and heatwave
Where does this idea that there’s something wonderful or courageous in voicing people’s very worst thoughts come from? Everyone thinks things that would be awful if said aloud; the point of living with and for others is you have to then think beyond that.
flyingrodent@flyingrodent.bsky.social · 2d agoThis whole incident is helpfully instructive, isn’t it. Here, we have the country’s worst politicians, including a former Prime Minister, queuing up to salute a bold iconoclast who irreverently spoke truth to power and discomfited the great and good. It makes it pretty clear, does it not.
a sharp piece by Jonathan Liew on Ceuta — particularly this. it’s clear why the grim racist novel The Camp of the Saints, with its depiction of an ”invasion” by an undifferentiated mass of Indians, is now so often referenced by the British right
if you ever get a chance to read issues of New Society from the early 80s you’ll find a slew of very sharp and humane reported essays from a young Melanie Phillips. What happens to these folk?
Will Davies@will-davies.bsky.social · 2d agoWhat happened between Rod Liddle being a BBC editor and Guardian columnist, and him being the 'humorous' face of Far Right banter?
I'm not sure folks have realized just how crazy the second half of 2026 and 2027 will be for global temperatures – on the back of a record-smashing El Niño event. Here is my latest estimate of where both years will end up compared to global temperatures since 1850.
🧵Right-leaning newspapers are trying to blame Europe's raging wildfires on everything EXCEPT fossil fuels 1. The Wall Street Journal Frontpage story: "Greece fights wildfires as Europe crisis spreads" WSJ editorial: "How green policies fuel fires in Europe"
Everything I’ve seen about the spycops inquiry suggests that it was always about bullying, molesting and generally fucking with a bunch of greenies and antinuclear protestors, because they are the kind of people the state can fuck over and stomp on with impunity, for fun.
Undercover police unit closed down over unjustified surveillance, spycops inquiry told
Senior officer behind closure says SDS caused ‘incalculable harm’ by infiltrating groups that posed no threat
theguardian.com
Hungary and Romania had to shut down atomic reactors normally cooled by the Danube. www.theguardian.com/environment/...
Lost income, energy fears and a woolly mammoth: what Europe’s dried-up rivers have yielded
Heat and drought have affected shipping, power plants and tourism across eastern Europe – as well as unearthing some surprises
theguardian.com
"No," he said, "millions. One Jewish life, it's 10 million [Palestinians]." Challenged on the racism of his statement, he did not deny it. "Yes, I know," he replied. "But this is the truth, because God chose us [and] because of this you are jealous." This man is a lawyer. www.bbc.com/news/article...
Israeli West Bank settler tells BBC attacks on Palestinians are justified as revenge
Settler violence against Palestinians is on the rise in the West Bank, as settlements and outposts expand.
bbc.com
I love to discover an essay where you're not sure which is worse: the appalling prose or the moronic thesis
The Daily Telegraph has raced through all five stages of climate denial this week. But this is, perhaps, the most ridiculous column so far: "Without minimising the severe downsides…especially on some poorer nations, many in Britain would enjoy the kind of warmer climate predicted by modellers..."
Awful to see Jodrell Bank facing closure. Not only is it one of the most important sites in postwar Britain, it was one i spent many thousands of hours at as a child (although i seem to remember some sort of panning for gold type thing as much as the astronomy)
C20 Society@c20society.bsky.social · last wk.Extremely concerning news that Jodrell Bank in Cheshire is facing closure, after UKRI announced the end of their funding from 2028. Though the Lovell Telescope is Grade I listed, the best strategy for preserving this internationally significant site is surely to keep the observatory in active use.
Incredibly excited for this. Tash is both an incredible, electrifying writer and a comrade of the higher order. On Un/Certainty will, i have no doubt, be one of the books of the year
Natasha Lennard@natashalennard.bsky.social · last wk."stimulating treatise... her energetic challenges to the status quo are timely and intellectually robust".... thanks @publisherswkly.bsky.social for lovely first review of On UnCertainty, @versobooks.bsky.social www.publishersweekly.com/9781804295618
The best way to eliminate profiteering in the social care system is to remove for-profit providers from the sector. The right for a company to make a profit should not be on equal footing with the right to quality care. (1/3)
Sky News@news.sky.com · last wk.Andy Burnham blames his generation of politicians for failures on social care reform
Honour to be a guest on BLOOD WORK, to talk about Eddington, suburban weirdness, and of course i sandwich in a Serial Experiments Lain reference
Gregk Foley@gregk.co.uk · last wk.BLOOD WORK / EPISODE 43 YOUR BEING MANIPULATED: EDDINGTON w/ HUSSEIN KESVANI @hkesvani.bsky.social Hussein comes on to talk about the most important film of the COVID era that isn’t Christopher Nolan’s TENET.
I can guarantee that I wouldnt go to university if I was 18 now. I almost didn’t go 20 years ago. Obviously there‘s far worse things in the world than the fate of vaguely arty white working class lads like me, but it’s a bleak landscape for them now
Will Davies@will-davies.bsky.social · last wk.university was a far better option for disadvantaged young people 10+ years ago than it is now. Part of what's happened, enabling the new 'vocational/technical' policy discourse is that - via cost of living and punitive student finance - the socioeconomic critique of HE has become increasingly valid
www.theguardian.com/environment/... ‘We have lost everything’: extreme rainfall across Asia brings flash floods and typhoons… from Afghanistan to Taiwan including India and China people experience heavy rains and flash floods >> deluge highlights devastating impact of climate breakdown
‘We have lost everything’: extreme rainfall across Asia brings flash floods and typhoons
From Afghanistan to Taiwan, unprecedented deluge highlights devastating impact of climate breakdown
theguardian.com
Some startling details in this — not only did the police continue to surveil Helen Steel for over a decade, and followed her to New Zealand, they paid the spycop who abused her £2.5million to relocate so he wouldn’t be discovered www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...
How the Met police spent £2.5m hiding spycop from former partner
Spycops inquiry has revealed how Helen Steel was secretly monitored in her search for undercover officer who deceived her into relationship
theguardian.com
I wrote a short review of Jonathan Miles’ Eradication: A Fable, a thoughtful and very fun work of climate fiction that, as I see it, tries to grab the immensity and incomprehensibility of the end of the world by the horns: advaitcore.substack.com/p/reject-ide...
Reject identification, embrace the hyperobject
Reviewing Jonathan Miles' Eradication: A Fable.
advaitcore.substack.com
🌫️ ’Delayed Arrival’ by VERA HUWE for our Issue #3: AIRBORNE is available on our website! 🔗 Become a subscribe to read the essay through our link in bio and SUBSCRIBE online to get access to our full archive! www.break-down.org/delayed-arri...
Thea Riofrancos @triofrancos.bsky.social, Professor, Providence College in Episode 2: A (Not So) New Gold Rush. CONTINENTAL SHIFT is out now. open.spotify.com/episode/3dPh...
Miliband has been constantly labelled a "zealot", suffering from “eco insanity” and “quasi-religious delusions”. There has been a surge this year as newspapers tried to use the energy crisis to argue that the UK should drill for more oil & gas in the North Sea (and that Miliband was blocking this)
Need to start seeing this as a positive sign, rather than attempting to appease these loons
Josh Gabbatiss@joshgabbatiss.bsky.social · 2w agoAs Ed Miliband leaves his post as energy and net-zero secretary, a final tally: There have been an incredible 251 newspaper editorials attacking him and his approach to net-zero since the start of 2024 That amounts to two editorials a week, mainly in the Sun, Daily Mail, Times and Daily Telegraph.
