People should understand that minerals are non renewable materials and once they get exhausted, we should have another alternative to use in construction and these could be timber from trees.
However, we should plant very many of them such that once we cut some of them for construction, the ones remaining can moderate our climate enough.

Thirsty data centres. Power hungry data centres. More data centres. The AI industry remains unpopular, so does AI. Regulation is required to limit AIs carbon footprint.

This and more in this week's edition of our newsletter:

The following hashtags are trending across South African Mastodon instances:

Based on recent posts made by non-automated accounts. Posts with more boosts, favourites, and replies are weighted higher.

"Seattle wasnt built for this much heat"

CLIMATE CHANGE 2026

Multiple vehicles submerged as historic heavy rainfall floods Rawalpindi and Islamabad, Pakistan

Is tech in position to reduce public lighting environmental footprint

During Boavizta meeting, Fabienne Lefevre (Mavana) and Laurent Eskenazi (#hubblo ) gave a talk entitled "Environmental assessment of direct and indirect effects of digital technologies for public lighting.", sharing:

1. the results of the net impacts balance (negative and positive) of smart public lighting compared to traditional solutions

Trees are beautiful, and powerful allies in the fight against climate change. They act as massive carbon "sponges". Yet we are destroying our tropical forests at an alarming rate.

We can do many things to help save our tropical forests:
(A) cut down our beef consumption, and (B) ensure we dont eat products containing palm oil.

Please talk to others about this. My wife's blog gives more ideas on the subject.

As heatwaves become the new normal, outerwear brands are betting on year-round seasonality
As heatwaves become the new normal, outerwear brands are realizing that expanding their seasonality may be a smart investment. So will these brands get their time in the sun

UK MPs vastly overestimate public opposition to climate policies a new study explains the disconnect
Members of Parliament from the UK's three biggest political parties in the House of Commons significantly overestimate levels of public resistance to major policy proposals for tackling climate

To say that the various TV weather forecasts are neutral in their reporting is clearly nonsense.

Incredible hype yesterday over 'heavy rain, at last!' over much of the UK.

I'm in NW Wales, where it's usually wetter than most of the UK.

This is the difference <1mm of rain (<1 litre, spread over 1m2) overnight made to my local river: none whatsoever, not even on the highest time resolution settings.

Frequent heat waves, extended dry spells and record-breaking summer heat are forcing marathon runners to train for a hotter world.

Members of Parliament from the UK's three biggest political parties in the House of Commons significantly overestimate levels of public resistance to major policy proposals for tackling climate

Posted into FLIPBOARD EXCHANGE FEED

Coming up next Sunday. Don't miss!

23. Aug 2026

prof.

Coming up next Sunday. Don't miss!
23. Aug 2026

prof.

Un peu d'air frais / de (cf 1941)

As heatwaves become the new normal, outerwear brands are realizing that expanding their seasonality may be a smart investment. So will these brands get their time in the sun

Posted into FLIPBOARD EXCHANGE FEED

Hommage la Catalogne de (cf 1936 1937)

Had er nou maar eens iemand geluisterd ...
"De klimaatverandering gaat veel sneller dan experts hebben voorspeld."

Waterschappen slaan alarm: We kunnen de droogte niet meer aan

rain, glorious rain

The PM gestures while his government manages money movers.

In top article: Burnham: "We have to face up to the changing climate. I think we need a different debate about that. Theres no point denying where we are. We need to face up to it. We need more clean energy. We need to see that transition accelerate."

In bottom article: "Andy Burnham moves to cut new EV sales targets"
"Possible cut from 80% down to as little as 50% could add millions of tonnes of CO2 to emissions and comes amid UK heatwaves"

Newspaper is prioritising format accordingly:

Rising temperatures in the ocean now have the potential to cause intense storms in Europe later this year, according to new research.

(35/35) ... prsent = effacer pour re 'nouvelle' (cf -221 -213 + 1966 ).
- dcs de et de Juliette Adam (cf 1836).

I'll take it with a pinch of CO2, since there are 101 accounting tricks big corps use for this... but still, I want to believe

I'm planting Chillis and Tomatoes a month earlier than usual down here in the S Cape, and wondering (fearfully) whether I'm going to get enough water for them when El Nio gets serious.

(8/8)

Si nous cherchons des prcurseurs des peintres modernes, nous pouvons regarder du ct de ces deux artistes hollandais : Vincent Van Gogh, naturellement, mais aussi Suze Robertson.
- Albert Plasschaert

The lie has become not just a moral category but a pillar of the State*

A bracing essay from (director of Dont Look Up, Vice, and The Big Short, among many other films), arguing that our acceptance of assurances that we have time left to address climate change, or that Net Zero by 2050 will save us, is driving us toward full social collapse in ways that become more obvious with every new broken temperature record

Lies are a lot like gourds. They come in hundreds of different varieties, sizes, and bulbous, twisty shapes. Some are off-puttingly spiked and prickly, while others remind us of fall childhood memories.

Some lies, if prepared correctly like squash or pumpkin, can appear delicious and irresistible, concealing a dark reality: I cant believe youre not a model! For five thousand dollars I can photograph you so you have a portfolio. The central aim of most lies is to avoid consequences. When an untruth is especially desperate and self-serving, it can be unintentionally hilarious: Yes I tried marijuana but I did not inhale. 

Embezzling money or murdering someone for the insurance pay-out are part of a phylum of lies that cross into serious criminality. These deceptions sphere of influence often stays fairly localized. But sometimes covering up the initial lie can spawn lots of other lies that spread and spread, like with Watergate or Bernie Madoff. What started as a little decorative Thanksgiving-gourd-sized lie suddenly becomes larger and quite ugly. This family of lies strives to not only avoid consequences, but to gain status and resources, another common end game of many deceptions.

And then there are the large society-wide lies: hulking distortions and misrepresentations watered and tended to by leaders, mass media, culture, and industry.

This particular sub-genus of grifts, half-truths and strategic omissions have led throughout modern history to wars, mass death, societal collapse, and the theft of humanitys great treasures. Manifest Destiny. Aryan superiority. The divine right of kings. The domino theory. Israel has a right to defend itself. Oxycontin isnt addictive because its time-released. These county-fair, blue ribbon-winning prevarications tend to be driven by a myriad of short-term incentives, irrational manipulated fears, unexamined assumptions, convenient blind spots, and of course the desire to avoid consequences and expand status and resources.

People always pay their mortgages became the half-true rallying cry used by Wall Street, news media, and politicians to collapse the world economy in 2007. Turns out when you change lending rules to feed an unregulated derivatives market by giving mortgages to people who cant pay them they dont. Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction (along with the subvariations on the central lieWe want to bring democracy, If you dont support the troops, you support the terrorists, Saddam orchestrated 9/11, etc) killed a million people, devastated the entire nation of Iraq, and in many ways also gutted the United States, all while enriching oil companies, weapons manufacturers, big banks, juicing TV ratings, and expanding the power of the Bush/Cheney presidency.

However, there is one type of rare, gargantuan, towering lie that makes all the other mass lies throughout human history seem like frightened, scurrying, little adorable fibs.

It is a lie told worldwide by hundreds of thousands of institutions, elected officials, many universities, legacy news, some large non-profits and eventuallyas the deception entered mainstream cultureeven by ourselves, to ourselves, every single moment of every day. It is a constantly growing gourd that even as a baby back in the 1970s was the size of three aircraft carriers. These days it is so massive it is almost easier to refer to what isnt part of it (Disneyland, a BLT, that green croc by the side of the highway) than what is.

This massive lie can best be summed up as when it comes to climate change we have more time.

To be clear, we are not talking about the kind of total climate denial one would find on the extremist, lunatic fringe inhabited by the likes of Alex Jones or the current U.S. President. And were not referring to cartoonish hucksters and climate skeptics like or .

Polling shows only of Americans deny the basic sixth grade science behind global warming. To put that in perspective, as much as 10 percent of the population .

No, the monstrous, misshapen garden colossus lie were referring to is subscribed to by most of the U.S., has stopped and slowed climate action far more than outright denial, and keeps growing and growing. Every day this deception whispers seductively in the ears of mankind: global warming is real but not urgent Keep doing what youre doing.

Less embarrassing than climate change is a Chinese hoax, but every bit as unscientific and ridiculous, it is the preferred lie of the ruling class, mainstream news media, and corporations.

Sir David Kingformer science advisor to the United Kingdom, professor at Oxford and then Cambridge, winner of too many awards to list and as establishment as they comewas quoted as saying that what we do over

He said this in 2021

McKay unpacks a chilling variety of examples of the lie in action, contrasting government/media/corporate messages with the reality to which the )ostensibly) refer

Still have doubts If you do, I dont blame you. We live in a consumer culture hammering us daily with triggering political proclamations, sales pitches, and clickbait designed to spike engagement responses in the brain. Immigrants are coming for your way of life! This new SUV is the best ever! Great White Shark Eats Porn Star! Most of it is misleading, in one way or another, so theres a natural tendency to assume that Planet about to boil! might be too.

But Big Oil and its PR agencies know this, and theyve weaponized the healthy skepticism weve developed as a survival mechanism against those voices speaking the truth about the urgent state of the climate.

After all, who are you going to believe The New York Times, an outlet famous for , or some weird scientist saying crazy things Even when a profession famous for dead-eyed, bottom-line risk assessment like releases a statement about how serious the situation is, corporate news media turns it into what people used to call a below the fold story, framing it as just another minor environmental itemnot headline news.

In service of the Great Lie, the government of the United Kingdom even tried to from its own intelligence agency before it was leaked. To my knowledge there arent many spies being called tree huggers, unless theyre undercover of course. But the MI5 and MI6 are clear-eyed about the danger thats coming. The report warned that global ecosystem degradation and collapse threaten UK national security and prosperity.

No one wants to eat a raw pumpkin. It looks like a Dr. Seuss characters brain, is full of seeds, and has no real taste. But like with any good lie, when the right sugar, spices, a buttery crust, and time in the oven is added, pumpkin pie becomes a cherished classic.

The same thing happens with the climate lie. The financial markets, massive oil companies, the banks that finance them, the travel industry, car companies, your career and job security, the people youre having dinner with who dont want to be bummed out, all of these incentives and forces dont want you to know you are eating a big, weird gourd.

And as long as we go with their mendacious flow, hundreds of millions, and then billions will die well before Net Zero by 2050 or our great grandkids future arrive. Because we are out of time. And we need to get to work immediately. There are a million things to do

As Pope John Paul II said, An excuse is worse and more terrible than a lie, for an excuse is a lie guarded.

Eminently worth reading in full: , from in .

Oh, and meantime: .

* Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

###

As we face up, we might spare a thought for Blaise Pascal he died on this date in 1662.  A French mathematician, physicist, theologian, and inventor (e.g., the first digital calculator, the barometer, the hydraulic press, and the syringe), his commitment to empiricism (experiments are the true teachers which one must follow in physics) pitted him against his contemporary Ren cogito, ergo sum Descartes and was foundational in the acceleration of the scientific/rationalist commitment to measurement (and the conclusions/actions they dictated).

Relevantly to McKays piece, Pascal also advanced the philosphical argument we know as Pascals Wager. While he posed the exercise as a life-defining gamble regarding the belief in the existence of God, we can easily transpose it to apply to climate change action:

Pascal contends that a rational person should adopt a lifestyle consistent with the existence of God and should strive to believe in God. The reasoning for this stance involves the potential outcomes: if God does not exist, the believer incurs only finite losses, potentially sacrificing certain pleasures and luxuries if God does exist, the believer stands to gain immeasurably, as represented for example by an eternity in Heaven in Abrahamic tradition, while simultaneously avoiding boundless losses associated with an eternity in Hell.

If the threat of climate change is, as the lies suggest, real but distant, then immediate action only costs us some short-term sacrifice. But if that threat is imminent, immediate action could preserve our way of life and the prospect of an improving future for us and our children and their children while inaction is likely to end in utter disaster.

As drought scorches England, one farm staysgreen

As 70% of England faces drought during its hottest summer on record, beef farmer Sam Squier's near 200-acre farm near Chelmsford stays lush thanks to regenerative farming techniques he has practiced for eight years.

So, I guess this is now

I mean, I'm in shorts and t-shirt over here in ...

Activities force climate shifts, which in turn disable life.
Some mitigation could be envisaged:
"Maintaining functioning ecosystems in a hotter world will require mass-scale assisted colonisation, so appropriate conservation policy, legislative frameworks and regulating bodies must be urgently developed."

How long do we have to keep saying "tax the rich"

How long do we have to keep experiencing climate change

How many decades does it take before politicians start doing what the people ask What the world needs

I feel trapped.

The humans should leave animal areas safe from encroachment.
Humans have already destroyed everything on this planet that is why you see the existing wildlife problems, climate change problems and even hunger problems globally.
Through preserving wild life,we are reviving the planet.
Humans are serious pollution causers, so they should stay away from places reserved for animals.

'We identify how narratives of pragmatism are used by politicians... to promote incremental rather than transformative change, to defend fossil fuel companies, and to dismiss extreme calls for a more rapid climate transition'.

"More Fucked Today than Yesterday

And even more fucked tomorrow"

Some pretty scary numbers on climate change here. If we had a mainstream media that was designed to inform the public rather than serve the needs of corporate interests, this would be front page news every day until governments start to do something about it.

But we don't, so it isn't.

Not untill every place is safe from wildfires, our planet is getting destroyed due to the reluctant citizens about environmental conservation.
We should stand together and fight against climate change through afforestation, agroforestry,eco farming and other nature conservation measures.

The Cleveland encounter is far from an isolated anomaly. Across the United States, cities are grappling with surging populations of coyotes, bears, and raccoons that have learned to exploit suburban resources. The expansion of urban boundaries into previously wild corridors forces these animals into closer proximity with humans, leading to property damage, traffic hazards, & potential disease transmission

RE:

That's where all the surveillance, repression of rights like demonstrations, and data centers come in, because all our governments have known for decades what's coming:

The wildfires ripping across North America have created massive plumes of smoke. climatechange wildfire MAGA politics Corruption

Big Five Wars The Butterfly Effect