More than 40,000 insect species may live in a tiny patch of the Amazon, from the ground to the canopy. That's nearly half of all the insect species described in Brazil. I wrote about the ambitious project behind this estimate for @nature.com. It could uncover tens of thousands of species:

Tiny patch of Amazon likely holds 40,000 insect species — many new to science

Megaproject involving hundreds of sites is cataloguing rainforest insects from the ground to the canopy.

nature.com

Brilliant letter from Stuart Thompson to Jeremy Clarkson about his comments that benefit claimants should write weekly thank you letters to tax payers detailing how they spend their benefits each week.

In Amsterdam, residents can apply for the city to remove the pavement stones and prepare a narrow planting bed helping Dutch streets become greener, cooler and better prepared for heavy rain. #ActOnClimate #Smartcities #ClimateActionNow

Vance, Farage and Weidel posted fear-mongering messages about a Spanish migrant crisis that weren't true. They haven't retracted them. www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...

The Far Right Is Distorting Ceuta

We’ve seen this before.

theatlantic.com

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.

Sir #DavidAttenborough “Things are going to get worse. This is the new extinction. We are in terrible, terrible trouble and the longer we wait to do something about it, the worse it is going to get." #ClimateEmergency

David Attenborough, the voice of Our Planet: “Things are going to get worse”

The voice of some of the most stunning nature documentaries ever made is pessimistic about the future of wildlife on earth.

vox.com

Neoliberalism in a nutshell. UEFA on FIFA's proposal: “The moment external investors acquire ownership interests ... football changes forever. Commercial return becomes a permanent obligation. ... Every decision is no longer driven by what best serves the game, but by what best serves shareholders.”

I can’t believe these arrests are still happening - the new PM could end this utterly absurd proscription if he chose. As Jonathon Porritt says - trying to save lives is not terrorism. Exposing this government’s complicity in genocide is not terrorism

Defend Our Juries@defendourjuries.bsky.social · 6d ago

NEW: Sir Jonathon Porritt, arrested under Terrorism law outside Westminster Magistrates Court. As police escorted him away he said "I am a supporter of Palestine Action, trying to save lives is not terrorism, exposing this Governments complicity in genocide is not terrorism." www.wedonotcomply.org

🦋 The wild flowers are blooming, chalkhill blue butterflies have finally arrived, small blue butterflies are breeding, and Volunteer Warden @mickdjones.bsky.social recently counted 62 caterpillars of the rare striped lychnis moth on dark mullein plants, extending its distribution in the Chilterns.

Dancersend is BBOWT's oldest nature reserve, and one of the first ever reserves in the UK. 🌱 15 years ago we reseeded former arable fields at the Extension, as well as creating large scrapes to provide bare earth as a refuge for rare chalk grassland plants and insects. We can declare it a success!

This looks v. positive 👏 But to be meaningful it has to lead to immediate ruling out of *any* new fossil fuel drilling, including Rosebank & Jackdaw & the urgent reinstatement of international climate finance. For more on climate as a security threat, see my podcast for @therestpolitics.bsky.social

Leo Hickman@leohickman.carbonbrief.org · 7d ago

++BREAKING++ The UK and Spanish governments have issued a joint statement overnight: "[We] agreed that this summer’s wildfires demonstrated that climate change was now a national security emergency facing Europe and threatening our way of life." www.gov.uk/government/n...

Instead of using a photo of the current conflagrations caused by climate breakdown, the Telegraph uses a pic of a wind turbine burning ... in February 2025. Because that's the important thing: 17 months ago a turbine ignited. Caption: "It’s time to cease building wind turbines". #FossilFuelStooges

George Monbiot@georgemonbiot.bsky.social · 7d ago

I'm not qualified to judge whether such people are psychopaths. All I can say is that they behave as if they are. From today's Telegraph.

We SO need to leave monoculture plantation forestry behind. It usually • Burns like petrol • Drives out nature • Drives out local communities • Drives climate breakdown • Helps kill tourist economies... • Produces crap timber • Is *highly* vulnerable to pests and diseases ENOUGH already.

Rachel@slightlycaustic.bsky.social · last wk.

www.cbc.ca/news/world/h...

This article overlooks some basic big picture facts - renewable energy is a forever fuel, our transition to it is a great investment. We get forever jobs from it and we also get energy security from it - there is none in fossil fuels - our North Sea will be empty of oil and gas in ten years.

Wrong question. All the predictions from actual climate scientists point to this Summer being one of the coolest ones we will experience. Will these same 38% happy people be happy when the summer temperatures regularly exceed 40°C??

YouGov@yougov.co.uk · last wk.

Would you be happy if this summer's weather became the norm? Happy: 38% Neither: 22% Unhappy: 38% yougov.com/en-gb/daily-...

HISTORIC RECORD HEAT EVERYWHERE We are gonna live historic days which will be remembered for generations: Thousands of records will be pulverized at the same time in North,South (40C in winter again !) Americas,Asia and Europe. Stay tuned. It will be an absolute insanity.

This is utterly brilliant: "This is a moment in which what we most need is the humane intelligence of free human minds. It is a time for academics and faith leaders to maintain a fierce independence from the AI industry." www.ft.com/content/bdb3...

Tim Stanley has this right - climate denial should be a crime, the lack of action on the issue ultimately costs lives - 100k expected deaths across Europe this summer. And of course many more people badly affected.

Even wild birds are eating up the food that should be there for them in the autumn and winter ...

Ian Denton@iand777.bsky.social · last wk.

Early Autumn? The Blackbirds are already taking the Sloes in my garden. The Blackberries were pretty much dessicated even before half-formed but I've noticed the Greenfinches are taking the dried remains. I'm on pure Blackmore Vale Clay here - dried hard, with cracks a foot deep. #birds #drought

This week's column explains how successive Environment Secretaries in the UK have been actively facilitating ecocide on behalf of industrial lobbyists. Charged with protecting the living world, one after another has been working for the enemy. This has to change.🧵 www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Besieged by lobbyists, will UK ministers protect our ecosystems? No, they’ll chicken out | George Monbiot

Industrial poultry farming is killing our rivers. But rather than stop it, the government has been facilitating it. Will Andy Burnham end this ecocide, asks Guardian columnist George Monbiot

theguardian.com

🙌 A new cross-party group of MPs and peers fighting for chalk streams has launched! We are excited to be working with Sarah Green, MP for Chesham and Amersham, who has been elected as Chair, and all the members of the new All-Party Parliamentary Group.

A barrister represents his clients in court. Clients who are political dissidents. He now faces criminal prosecution for doing so. Not Turkey. Not Egypt. Not Russia. England. Astonishing, deeply disturbing, and part of a long slide towards authoritarianism. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...

Palestine Action barrister’s prosecution criticised as ‘chilling’

CBA chair says contempt charge over closing speech by Rajiv Menon KC has left lawyers fearful of doing their job

theguardian.com

This is ridiculous. BBC reporting on Europes intense heat and wildfires only mentions climate change in the last sentence - and then only in the name of an organisation www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Around 12,000 evacuated in France fires as firefighter killed in Italy

A third firefighter has died in Europe while tackling ongoing wildfires across the continent.

bbc.co.uk

Who thought that flies were a bit boring and all rather similar to each other? Here are two magnificent flies from @bbowt.bsky.social Dancersend Reserve to prove you wrong - Bat-winged Phasia and the Hornet Plumehorn, our largest UK hoverfly. So much exciting to see right now!!

Genuinely terrifying. And remarkably similar to how the Nazis began their criminalisation of dissent and their dehumanisation of any who resisted. It's happening. In the US. Right now. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Three speeches on a single day signaled a dying American democracy | Robert Shpiner

Stephen Miller warned of a leftwing ‘cancer’ threatening civilization. As a critical care doctor, I have a response to his diagnosis

theguardian.com

“I’ve lived through 50-odd years of good natural history... & Strawberry Hill is taking me back to my teenage years, for insect abundance and birdsong.” 🐦🦋 Our CEO @brianecambs.bsky.social on why Strawberry Hill in Beds matters for UK nature conservation: www.independent.co.uk/climate-chan...

Call for more ‘truly wild’ areas to show how nature-rich UK could be

Some rewilding sites are amazing experts and the public with how much wildlife they support, backers of projects say.

independent.co.uk

This female Purple Hairstreak was unusually accessible yesterday at @bbowt.bsky.social Dancersend Waterworks - spending ages slowly feeding on Knapweed and thistles a long way from any Oak trees. What a delight!

Finding this quite hard to stomach from a country that is bombing the shit out of other countries…

Well done to all the team at Butterfly Conservation Europe for this momentous piece of work. And a huge cast of moth enthusiasts from across Europe who leant us their expertise

IUCN SSC Butterfly & Moth Specialist Group@iucnbutterflysg.bsky.social · 3w ago

📣EUROPEAN RED LIST OF MOTHS PUBLISHED!📣 A m(amm)oth task - huge congratulations to the team! Spoiler: >3000 species assessed at the European level, 704 of them endemic. Ca. 25% are listed as Data Deficient & 11% threatened with extinction. op.europa.eu/en/publicati...

No science fiction could have prepared us for just how stupid the end of the world can be. "The environment was on the brink of collapse, and so, rather than deal with that, we burned what fuel we had left getting computers to scam each other for money."