Brendan Jones
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brewenjon.bsky.social
Brendan Jones
@brewenjon.bsky.social
390 followers 830 following 430 posts
A good life for all within planetary boundaries. Climate, energy, post-growth, ecology, biodiversity and co-ops.

- Mastodon: @Brendanjones@fosstodon.org
- Twitter: @brewenjon
Posts Replies Media Videos
Reposted by Brendan Jones
nvondarza.bsky.social
And here is the second, 'Mr. Hyde' part of today's votes - where the EPP sides with the far-right, ranging from the ECR, to Orban & Le Pen's 'Patriots for Europe' and the AfD's 'Europe of Sovereign Nations' for a centre-right to far-right majority on the Omnibus 'deregulation':
November 13, 2025 at 11:02 AM
Reposted by Brendan Jones
eccjorg.bsky.social
🚨For the first time, @europarl.europa.eu has adopted a legislative mandate thanks to an alliance between conservatives & the far right

This vote marks a dangerous turning point for EU democracy. When anti-EU forces & lobbies write the rules, accountability dies
corporatejustice.org/news/press-r...
PRESS RELEASE European Parliament’s far-right alliance adopts position on Omnibus I: Corporate capture on full display, written for the few not for people or planet - ECCJ
corporatejustice.org
November 13, 2025 at 11:26 AM
Reposted by Brendan Jones
rahmstorf.bsky.social
Never forget: At breakneck speed we are leaving the stable Holocene climate in which human society developed and thrived. Weather extremes are outside historical experience. Sea-level rise is accelerating. Dangerous tipping points are ahead.
Graph: ed-hawkins.github.io/climate-visu...
November 13, 2025 at 11:52 AM
Reposted by Brendan Jones
andyscollick.bsky.social
Bullshit. Or, in Rubio's case, reptile shit.

In the first half of 2025 there was a surge in US imports of Russian commodities, including fertilisers, certain radioactive materials, precious metals, aircraft engine parts, plywood and soya beans. (see below)
Rubio: We’re running out of things to sanction in Russia
What else do you guys want, sighs top U.S. diplomat.
www.politico.eu
November 13, 2025 at 12:10 PM
Reposted by Brendan Jones
climatemegan.bsky.social
"certain forces in the West are less concerned with the global climate future than with protecting their own interests in the emerging green competition" - punchy editorial from China's Global Times www.globaltimes.cn/page/202511/...
www.globaltimes.cn
November 13, 2025 at 9:35 AM
brewenjon.bsky.social
Say thanks to @eppgroup.bsky.social for throwing away EU leadership on sustainability. We were going to embed transparency on company impacts into the entire EU economy and its supply chains, but now it’ll probably only apply to companies making €450m/yr.

www.politico.eu/article/far-...
Far right cheers as von der Leyen’s party abandons centrist coalition over green rules
It marks a dramatic departure from previous EU norms, where centrist groups refused to collaborate with the far right.
www.politico.eu
November 13, 2025 at 8:35 AM
Reposted by Brendan Jones
glenpeters.bsky.social
📢Global Carbon Budget 2025📢

Fossil CO2 emissions continue to rise in 2025 while the terrestrial carbon sink recovers to pre-El Niño strength.

The key findings are covered in two reports this year:
* ESSDD (preprint): essd.copernicus.org/preprints/es...
* Nature: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

1/
November 13, 2025 at 7:07 AM
Reposted by Brendan Jones
climateaction.bsky.social
@eppgroup.bsky.social should be deeply ashamed. Working with the extreme right to disband green policies which will likely lead to a worsening of the climate crisis. www.politico.eu/article/far-...
Far right cheers as von der Leyen’s party abandons centrist coalition over green rules
It marks a dramatic departure from previous EU norms, where centrist groups refused to collaborate with the far right.
www.politico.eu
November 13, 2025 at 7:08 AM
brewenjon.bsky.social
This is why people who don’t vote infuriate me. I simply don’t understand deciding to give no input on how society should work.

It’s also extremely privileged. If you don’t vote, IMO you void all rights to complain how anything in society works.
brewenjon.bsky.social Brendan Jones @brewenjon.bsky.social · 8h
Or entire lives are governed by politics. Literally every action we take is or isn’t permissible, decided through the collective decision making of politics.

Politics decides who gets what, when and how (much). It also defines the boundaries of what *may* happen, where, when, how and by/to who.
November 13, 2025 at 7:40 AM
Reposted by Brendan Jones
yungenchee.bsky.social
The @albomp.bsky.social govt's lack of preparedness & reluctance to provide material support in the face of a devastating, climate-induced algal bloom disaster stands in ugly contrast to their unceasing approvals of Coal & Gas projects & accommodation of industry-friendly conditions #NorthWestShelf
November 12, 2025 at 5:31 AM
Reposted by Brendan Jones
ryankatzrosene.bsky.social
Impossible to pick just one picture from tonight’s northern lights show, but this one stood out as it got so bright that the snow was glowing pink🤩
November 12, 2025 at 5:35 AM
Reposted by Brendan Jones
secondnaturemb.bsky.social
I really need to get to bed, but I just poked my head out the back door again. This is the view from my deck. All of this is looking south. When the geomagnetic storms are like this, the oval overshoots me and stretches into the US, which is why so many are seeing it tonight. #aurora
A bright red glow reaches up into the darkness, illuminating the silhouettes of tall slightly scraggly, spruce trees Swirls of green and red light sweep down from the sky, lighting up the forest and contrasting against the Stark silhouettes of trees Dramatic swirls of green and red light swirl down from the middle of the sky, starkly contrasting against the bear of Poplar, tall Spruce trees. Still more dramatic curtains of light sweep down from above in sheets of green and red. The tall bear poplars and spruce spires our starkly silhouetted.
November 12, 2025 at 5:16 AM
Reposted by Brendan Jones
brenttoderian.bsky.social
A typical European car is parked 92% of the time. It spends 1/5th of its driving time looking for parking. Its 5 seats only move 1.5 people. 86% of its fuel never reaches the wheels, and most of the energy that does, moves the car, not the people.

Sound efficient?

HT @ellenmacarthurfdn.bsky.social
Graphic full of stats on vehicle inefficiencies.
November 4, 2025 at 10:33 PM
Reposted by Brendan Jones
timhollo.bsky.social
Just here to remind you that, with “net zero”, we’re having a meaningless argument about a meaningless frame in order to distract from the single most important and meaningful issue confronting us.

This is politics today.

We should stop wasting time and energy and build a new system.
Net zero reality and the extinction of politics-as-usual
On words without meaning, meaning without worlds The sheer inanity, the ecocidal banality of our current political discourse was encapsulated perfectly this morning on the floor of the House of Repre...
in-between-days.ghost.io
November 12, 2025 at 5:45 AM
Reposted by Brendan Jones
peterdutoit.com
The new IEA data confirm the Emissions Gap Report 2025 message:

Global efforts remain far short of what’s required.

To stay near 2°C, emissions must still fall roughly 5 – 6 % each year this decade, far faster than the trajectory reflected in current national plans.

www.iea.org/reports/...
World Energy Outlook 2025 – Analysis - IEA
World Energy Outlook 2025 - Analysis and key findings. A report by the International Energy Agency.
www.iea.org
November 12, 2025 at 6:09 AM
Reposted by Brendan Jones
anlomedad.bsky.social
This is such a good thread on SO2, IMO2020 and stuff. Sadly interrupted by (my) comments. I hope, Daniel finds the time to create a real top-level thread that displays in 1 string of posts, and can be extracted by the threadreader app on a single page too.
weatherwest.bsky.social Daniel Swain @weatherwest.bsky.social · 10d
However, the rather sudden recent "discontinuity" brought about by sudden regional decreases in SO2 cannot, mathematically, continue to be discontinuous as SO2 levels cannot continue to decline infinitely.

This leads to two different realities that folks are conflating:
November 12, 2025 at 6:14 AM
Reposted by Brendan Jones
pauljbelcher.bsky.social
🇪🇺 #Deregulation plans break #EU law and weaken social and environmental protections, legal scholars warn

“rolling back existing #humanrights and #environmental protections without proper justification.”

@euobserver.com @alemanno.bsky.social

euobserver.com/green-econom...
Deregulation plans break EU law, legal scholars warn
Over one hundred legal experts have warned that the EU’s Omnibus I package, which cuts green and social reporting rules, breached EU law and was "likely to be annulled" if adopted.
euobserver.com
November 11, 2025 at 8:00 AM
Reposted by Brendan Jones
chrislhayes.bsky.social
Finally driving my first EV and can’t be the only middle aged dad now *obsessed* with regenerative braking and getting as many miles as humanly possible.
November 12, 2025 at 12:02 AM
Reposted by Brendan Jones
dougparr.bsky.social
Almost half a billion people live within 1km of fossil fuels sites incl drilling wells, processing plants & pipelines

Most active projects have created heavily contaminated areas where low-income & marginalized groups bear a disproportionate burden of pollution

www.theguardian.com/environment/...
Fossil fuel projects around the world threaten the health of 2bn people – report
Exclusive: ‘Deep-rooted injustices’ affect billions of people due to location of wells, pipelines and other infrastructure
www.theguardian.com
November 12, 2025 at 7:41 AM
Reposted by Brendan Jones
hansonmark.bsky.social
We wrote the Strain on scientific publishing to highlight the problems of time & trust. With a fantastic group of co-authors, we present The Drain of Scientific Publishing:

a 🧵 1/n

Drain: arxiv.org/abs/2511.04820
Strain: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/...
Oligopoly: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/...
A table showing profit margins of major publishers. A snippet of text related to this table is below. 1. The four-fold drain 1.1 Money Currently, academic publishing is dominated by profit-oriented, multinational companies for whom scientific knowledge is a commodity to be sold back to the academic community who created it. The dominant four are Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley and Taylor & Francis, which collectively generated over US$7.1 billion in revenue from journal publishing in 2024 alone, and over US$12 billion in profits between 2019 and 2024 (Table 1A). Their profit margins have always been over 30% in the last five years, and for the largest publisher (Elsevier) always over 37%. Against many comparators, across many sectors, scientific publishing is one of the most consistently profitable industries (Table S1). These financial arrangements make a substantial difference to science budgets. In 2024, 46% of Elsevier revenues and 53% of Taylor & Francis revenues were generated in North America, meaning that North American researchers were charged over US$2.27 billion by just two for-profit publishers. The Canadian research councils and the US National Science Foundation were allocated US$9.3 billion in that year. A figure detailing the drain on researcher time. 1. The four-fold drain 1.2 Time The number of papers published each year is growing faster than the scientific workforce, with the number of papers per researcher almost doubling between 1996 and 2022 (Figure 1A). This reflects the fact that publishers’ commercial desire to publish (sell) more material has aligned well with the competitive prestige culture in which publications help secure jobs, grants, promotions, and awards. To the extent that this growth is driven by a pressure for profit, rather than scholarly imperatives, it distorts the way researchers spend their time. The publishing system depends on unpaid reviewer labour, estimated to be over 130 million unpaid hours annually in 2020 alone (9). Researchers have complained about the demands of peer-review for decades, but the scale of the problem is now worse, with editors reporting widespread difficulties recruiting reviewers. The growth in publications involves not only the authors’ time, but that of academic editors and reviewers who are dealing with so many review demands. Even more seriously, the imperative to produce ever more articles reshapes the nature of scientific inquiry. Evidence across multiple fields shows that more papers result in ‘ossification’, not new ideas (10). It may seem paradoxical that more papers can slow progress until one considers how it affects researchers’ time. While rewards remain tied to volume, prestige, and impact of publications, researchers will be nudged away from riskier, local, interdisciplinary, and long-term work. The result is a treadmill of constant activity with limited progress whereas core scholarly practices – such as reading, reflecting and engaging with others’ contributions – is de-prioritized. What looks like productivity often masks intellectual exhaustion built on a demoralizing, narrowing scientific vision. A table of profit margins across industries. The section of text related to this table is below: 1. The four-fold drain 1.1 Money Currently, academic publishing is dominated by profit-oriented, multinational companies for whom scientific knowledge is a commodity to be sold back to the academic community who created it. The dominant four are Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley and Taylor & Francis, which collectively generated over US$7.1 billion in revenue from journal publishing in 2024 alone, and over US$12 billion in profits between 2019 and 2024 (Table 1A). Their profit margins have always been over 30% in the last five years, and for the largest publisher (Elsevier) always over 37%. Against many comparators, across many sectors, scientific publishing is one of the most consistently profitable industries (Table S1). These financial arrangements make a substantial difference to science budgets. In 2024, 46% of Elsevier revenues and 53% of Taylor & Francis revenues were generated in North America, meaning that North American researchers were charged over US$2.27 billion by just two for-profit publishers. The Canadian research councils and the US National Science Foundation were allocated US$9.3 billion in that year. The costs of inaction are plain: wasted public funds, lost researcher time, compromised scientific integrity and eroded public trust. Today, the system rewards commercial publishers first, and science second. Without bold action from the funders we risk continuing to pour resources into a system that prioritizes profit over the advancement of scientific knowledge.
November 11, 2025 at 11:52 AM
Reposted by Brendan Jones
chas0853.bsky.social
First, at $1000/tonne, that's gonna be a cool $10 trillion per year. Hmm.

Second, at present the best DAC systems remove about 4000 tonnes per year. Gonna need a huge amount of such systems. Think of the energy cost, as well. And where's the energy gonna come from?

news.mit.edu/2024/reality...
Reality check on technologies to remove carbon dioxide from the air
An MIT Energy Initiative study finds many climate-stabilization plans are based on questionable assumptions about the future cost and deployment of “direct air capture” and therefore may not bring abo...
news.mit.edu
November 12, 2025 at 4:45 AM
Reposted by Brendan Jones
davidho.bsky.social
It might be true that the world needs to remove ten billion tonnes of CO₂ from the atmosphere every year but it’s never going to happen for many different reasons: technical, financial, social, environmental, governance, etc. If we don’t reduce CO₂ emissions, we’re screwed. That’s it.
Removing CO2 from atmosphere vital to avoid catastrophic tipping points, leading scientist says
10bn tonnes must be captured from the air every year to limit global heating to 1.7C, says Johan Rockström
www.theguardian.com
November 11, 2025 at 11:51 PM
Reposted by Brendan Jones
doctorvive.bsky.social
Utilities are a major source of bottlenecks for clean-energy development because fewer transmission lines mean more profits for them.
The troubling result of this economic model is that Entergy benefits from obstructing other power providers from accessing its market. One of the key ways it can do this is by blocking transmission lines that serve to connect power from faraway generators to its local service area. Transmission infrastructure improves the reliability and affordability of the energy grid by connecting disparate economic and geographic regions. This integration also allows for renewable energy to be developed where most suited, and delivered where most needed, making it an essential piece of the energy transition. However, for incumbent utilities, it increases the competition they face in meeting demand from their ratepayers. A 2024 NBER working paper found that two power plants operated by Entergy profited from transmission constraints between the southern and northern region of the Midcontinent Independent System Operator, the wholesale electricity market where the utility operates. Should those constraints be lifted, the paper estimated that those plants stand to lose $930 million in revenue.
November 11, 2025 at 7:58 PM
brewenjon.bsky.social
Whether decoupling emissions and GDP is possible hasn’t been a question for many years. The real question is whether emissions reductions can happen fast enough to avoid unacceptable levels of warming.

The answer to which, given the rate of decoupling and continued GDP growth, is ‘no’.
helenczerski.bsky.social Helen Czerski @helenczerski.bsky.social · 2d
This a big deal: "China’s carbon dioxide emissions have been flat or falling for 18 months"

China's economy has grown by ~5% in the last year, so this comprehensively debunks the idea (again) that emissions are tied to growth. So yes, faster progress needed, but this is how you turn the corner.
China’s CO2 emissions have been flat or falling for past 18 months, analysis finds
World’s biggest polluter on track to hit peak emissions target early but miss goal for cutting carbon intensity
www.theguardian.com
November 11, 2025 at 8:40 PM
brewenjon.bsky.social
"Global imbalances triggering bloc formation, leading to an arms race, culminating in war — this is a path that previously led us to world war. We unfortunately risk traveling a similar path today."

transitionsecurity.org/cold-war-war...
Cold War on a Warming World
The US foreign policy response to China's economic development is a threat to the global climate transition.
transitionsecurity.org
November 8, 2025 at 10:03 AM