A couple of months ago, Danny Cullenward announced his resignation on Bluesky. Intrigued, I interviewed many of the people involved and obtained confidential documents, unearthing a fascinating story about a battle between scientists and lobbyists. www.source-material.org/ghg-protocol...

Lobbyists push for declaration that felling trees helps the climate

The timber industry’s influence over forest carbon accounting rules risks derailing global carbon calculations, scientists warn.

source-material.org

Danny Cullenward@ghgpolicy.org · 3mo ago

I have resigned from the Greenhouse Gas Protocol's Independent Standards Board. The Protocol is openly violating its own rules and has effectively delegated forest carbon accounting standards to a secret, industry-led working group. ghgpolicy.org/s/2026-06-08...

I'm not saying the piece 'London's Best Bagel' in Vittles this morning should've showed more respect to Brick Lane but I would've been interested to hear a little more about it than this vague and incomprehensible jab

Documents reveal that a European company linked to Israeli spyware seller NSO Group has been exporting surveillance technology to government agencies in repressive countries for years, despite EU regulations intended to curb such sales: www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Circles Sold Phone Spy Tools to Repressive States, Report Says

A Bulgaria-based company sold controversial surveillance technology to governments in countries with records of repression, enabling authorities to track mobile phones and eavesdrop on private communi...

bloomberg.com

New from me: Workers at Africa's biggest energy project, a gas-drilling venture in Mozambique led by the French oil major Total, have been accused of sexual exploitation. Soldiers paid by the project have also committed sexual violence, it is alleged. www.source-material.org/totalenergie...

TotalEnergies project staff linked to sexual exploitation in Mozambique

Workers at Africa’s biggest energy project ‘offered jobs for sex’ as soldiers paid by French energy giant committed abuses.

source-material.org

Does wearing an England shirt completely transform a person's vibe or is there a whole type of guy that hides inside until England are playing in a tournament and then takes over every pub in London?

It's 25 degrees how are they still all wearing gilets in the city?

NEW: I travelled to Kenya in Feb to interview farmers engaged in a project run by the Italian state-owned oil company Eni. They're growing crops for Eni to make into sustainable fuel for European cars and planes. I heard the project is failing. www.source-material.org/eni-italian-...

How an Italian oil giant's African biofuel project left farmers stranded

SourceMaterial's investigation, based on interviews with 43 farmers, as well as biofuel experts, activists and lawyers, suggests the project is failing.

source-material.org

Finally published a major story I've been working on for some time, with my colleague @atikarehman.bsky.social and @sushmitaw.bsky.social. Leaked documents have revealed Amazon's "dirty energy empire", as families in Mumbai suffer. www.source-material.org/amazon-data-...

Leak reveals Amazon’s hidden data centres' impact on emissions

Soaring electricity demand in Mumbai, where Amazon has 16 data centres, has led to crumbling coal power stations being kept open.

source-material.org

Amazon, the biggest data centre provider in the world, is actually *even bigger* than we thought. New investigation based on leaked documents by my colleague @lukewbarratt.bsky.social. www.source-material.org/amazon-data-...

Amazon has twice as many data centres worldwide as previously reported

Amazon uses far more data centres across the globe—and has a bigger impact on the environment—than previously reported, leaked data reveals.

source-material.org

New from me: I've seen more internal Amazon documents revealing the company's data centre footprint—and environmental impact—is even more massive than people already realised. In 2023, it used 924 data centres in 50 countries, and has built many more since. www.source-material.org/amazon-data-...

Amazon has twice as many data centres worldwide as previously reported

Amazon uses far more data centres across the globe—and has a bigger impact on the environment—than previously reported, leaked data reveals.

source-material.org

Good piece by @pgreenfielduk.bsky.social on the current state of the carbon markets. Almost 3 years on from our investigation, the market is reforming, but has the Trump White House killed corporate interest in protecting forests? www.theguardian.com/environment/...

‘There is no money’: As carbon markets collapse, what happens to the forests they promised to protect?

After it was found most offsets did not represent real carbon reductions, the money dried up. But successful schemes such as Kasigau in Kenya now face a stark future

theguardian.com

Can't recommend today's SourceMaterial offering enough, by @marcusleroux.bsky.social. It's the story of the son of a lorry driver from Calabria who has often struggled to distance himself from the Italian mafia and is now poised to buy 11 North Sea gasfields www.source-material.org/mazzagatti-v...

North Sea Storm – SourceMaterial

Poised to take control of ‘the backbone of the UK’s energy production’, Franceso Mazzagatti is defending allegations bribery, forgery and fraud

source-material.org

Got doorknocked by Tower Hamlets Labour, who are trying to win back the Tower Hamlets mayoralty from the socialist Lutfur Rahman. The two councillor candidates on my doorstep made the eye-opening claim that Rahman has failed to build any social housing, so I thought I'd look into it 🧵

Just tried to sign up for Substack, didn't select any interests, and two of the first recommendations are Matt Goodwin and Nick Griffin. What on earth. I don't support Huddersfield either but I'm less worried about impressionable people being groomed into following League One.

New from me: I've seen an internal memo from Amazon Web Services. It reveals, for the first time, figures on water consumption by Amazon's data centres. It is also enlightening about their approach to transparency, which they warn is "a one-way door" www.source-material.org/amazon-leak-...

Leak reveals Amazon plan to keep water use of data centres secret

Amazon strategised about ways to keep the public in the dark over the true extent of its data centres’ water use, a leaked internal document reveals.

source-material.org

'Amazon hides its water consumption' was one hypothetical headline the memo warned of always amusing when someone writes down the thing they don't want to happen nice work from @lukewbarratt.bsky.social @rosafurneaux.bsky.social @source-material.org www.source-material.org/amazon-leak-...

Leak reveals Amazon plan to keep water use of data centres secret

Amazon strategised about ways to keep the public in the dark over the true extent of its data centres’ water use, a leaked internal document reveals.

source-material.org

I'm extremely proud of all my SourceMaterial colleagues today for their work over the last year

SourceMaterial@source-material.org · 11mo ago

We're very proud to be shortlisted in the British Journalism Awards alongside many other excellent journalists. Here's a quick 🧵 of the stories included in our submission:

🔴 NEW 🔴 Nigel Farage will this afternoon headline an anti-climate event at 55 Tufton Street convened by a lobby group with close ties to Trump. 📝 @desmog.com scoop with @adambarnett.bsky.social

Nigel Farage to Headline Tufton Street Climate Denial Event

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage is set to speak at an event today organised by a pro-Trump think tank and held in the home of the UK’s main climate science denial group, DeSmog can reveal. Farage, whose...

desmog.com

“What we are doing in Gaza now is a war of devastation: indiscriminate, limitless, cruel, and criminal killing of civilians. It’s the result of government policy—knowingly, evilly, maliciously, irresponsibly dictated. Yes, Israel is committing war crimes.” —Ex-Israeli PM nymag.com/intelligence...

Israel’s Crimes of the Century

How Israel, with the help of the U.S., broke not only Gaza but the foundations of humanitarian law.

nymag.com

The Onion has suddenly become the Western world's most necessary news outlet

The Onion@theonion.com · last yr.

This Fathers Day 25% off deal will be written about in the history book of pretty good sales:

Great story here, with powerful details on the local environmental injustices and settler colonial dynamics related to data centers.

James Temple@jtemple.bsky.social · last yr.

12 data centers have requested 6 gigawatts of new electricity generation in Nevada, which would amount to a 40% expansion of the state's power sector. We found the projects could also consume billions of gallons of water in the nation's driest state. <Now sharing my deep dive with a gift link.>

No one has ever LinkedIn this hard. I am CRINE.

One thing that tells you a particular social, cultural or political viewpoint is widespread, common sense, normal and uncontroversial is when a corporate representative of a household name global brand feels the need to come out and publicly distance their brand and products from said viewpoint.

Rolling Stone@rollingstone.com · last yr.

An HBO executive has promised fans of the Harry Potter franchise that the upcoming reboot television series will not be “infused” with J.K. Rowling’s anti-trans beliefs.

Feels significant: the FT has published an editorial calling out "the West's shameful silence on Gaza". It writes: "Each new offensive makes it harder not to suspect that [Netanyahu aims] to ensure Gaza is uninhabitable and drive Palestinians from their land." www.ft.com/content/f5fd...

The west’s shameful silence on Gaza

The US and European allies should do more to restrain Benjamin Netanyahu

ft.com

Isobel Oakeshott is a Reform cheerleader - but in 2018 she said the Kremlin “struck gold” with Arron Banks, who Reform’s West of England mayoral candidate. The article is still online. New from @marcusleroux.bsky.social on Democracy for Sale democracyforsale.substack.com/p/does-isabe...

Does Isabel Oakeshott still believe Arron Banks was “used by the Russians”?

Oakeshott is a Reform cheerleader but in 2018 she said the Kremlin “struck gold” with the party’s West of England mayoral candidate. The article is still online.

democracyforsale.substack.com

Not the most important thing about 'White Potus' but SNL's sketches are always *way* too long. They have one idea and try to string it out for five whole minutes.

"The European Commission’s AI Continent Action Plan is closer to fiction than reality. Steeped in hype, the EU will burn more fossil fuels, rinse and repeat the past, all in the name of leadership." My piece on @techpolicypress.bsky.social www.techpolicy.press/the-eu-ai-co...

The EU AI Continent Action Plan: Hype, Burn, Rinse, and Repeat | TechPolicy.Press

The Commission's plan is not just to have more data centres and more data approaches, but also to repeat past announcements, writes Kris Shrishak.

techpolicy.press

No it is not "in the cloud", but very much down to Earth. And #ClimateEmergency not the only threat - what about water and other resource use? So we can have such #AI slop as "shrimp Jesus"? www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

Energy demands from AI datacentres to quadruple by 2030, says report

The IEA forecast indicates a sharp rise in the requirements of AI, but said threat to the climate was ‘overstated’

theguardian.com

New from me: I've spent the last 6 months compiling a map of data centres, whose locations are generally secret, operated by Amazon, Microsoft and Google. Cross-referencing that map with areas of water scarcity shows many are in the world's driest areas. www.source-material.org/amazon-micro...

Big Tech's data centres will take water from world's driest areas

Amazon, Microsoft and Google's data centres use vast amounts of water in some of the world’s driest areas and they are building more.

source-material.org

Revealed: Big tech’s new datacentres will take water from the world’s driest areas A really clever data story from @source-material.org and the Guardian. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Revealed: Big tech’s new datacentres will take water from the world’s driest areas

Amazon, Google and Microsoft are building datacentres in water-scarce parts of five continents

theguardian.com