Anthony Burke
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anthonyburke.bsky.social
Anthony Burke
@anthonyburke.bsky.social
Australian political theorist & international relations professor. Climate, justice, biodiversity, ecodemocracy. He/him. New book: https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262552554/the-ecology-politic About: https://www.anthonydburke.net
Pinned
This phenomenon keeps me awake at night and will one day empty my pen.
Climate breakdown is driven by a storm of lies. This lying is systemic, funded and coordinated, and operates across almost all media, old and new.
This week's column argues that we cannot fight the climate crisis without also fighting the epistemic crisis.
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
Dark forces are preventing us fighting the climate crisis – by taking knowledge hostage | George Monbiot
The fundamental problem is this: that most of the means of communication are owned or influenced by the very rich, says Guardian columnist George Monbiot
www.theguardian.com
Reposted by Anthony Burke
Joan Didion on the fatal touch of Dick Cheney: “Dick Cheney pioneered the tactic of not only declaring…apparently illegal activities legal but recasting them as points of pride, commands to enter attack mode, unflinching defenses of the American people
November 16, 2025 at 1:34 AM
Reposted by Anthony Burke
NEW

Indigenous people have defined the image and sound of the climate talks in Brazil - and today was no different

COP30: Climate protest in Brazil's city of Belem aims to hold governments' feet to the fire

news.sky.com/story/cop30-...
COP30: Climate protest in Brazil's city of Belem aims to hold governments' feet to the fire
After a week of dreary negotiations at the COP30 climate talks, the streets were alive with the drumming of maracatu music and dancing to local carimbo rhythms on Saturday.
news.sky.com
November 15, 2025 at 9:55 PM
Reposted by Anthony Burke
What, exactly, does this string of words mean? Why does everyone who stands to profit from selling "AI" love to repeat it? And what's the value of slogans that masquerade as history?

sonjadrimmer.com/blog-1/2025/...
"The Printing Press Democratized Knowledge": When Slogans Masquerade as History — Sonja Drimmer
The phrase is said so frequently it seems, like the mechanism it celebrates, to mechanically replicate itself.  It's become a favorite catchphrase among tech boosters of any sort (see my post on...
sonjadrimmer.com
September 10, 2025 at 7:51 PM
Uh uh. Australian democracy ceased to function when it became clear our governing parties take their marching orders from corporations. When they refused to reform donations law or create a working NACC, we knew.

Some of our richest business owners are fascist. I can think of at least three.
November 14, 2025 at 8:44 PM
It’s too much to hope modern civilisation comes to its senses. The first sign will be that everyone on the AI grift will learn to distinguish between artificial intelligence (which does not exist) and machine agency (which is scary as hell bc it’s an abstraction of human or institutional thinking.)
November 14, 2025 at 8:33 PM
This phenomenon keeps me awake at night and will one day empty my pen.
Climate breakdown is driven by a storm of lies. This lying is systemic, funded and coordinated, and operates across almost all media, old and new.
This week's column argues that we cannot fight the climate crisis without also fighting the epistemic crisis.
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
Dark forces are preventing us fighting the climate crisis – by taking knowledge hostage | George Monbiot
The fundamental problem is this: that most of the means of communication are owned or influenced by the very rich, says Guardian columnist George Monbiot
www.theguardian.com
November 14, 2025 at 6:52 AM
If you’re a social scientist who doesn’t believe in nonhuman agency you have some awkward bed friends.
November 13, 2025 at 7:22 PM
Stunning denunciation of the #COP30 talks’ anodyne corporate culture. But it’s not just some “countries” being marginalised but the living earth itself. Why we continue to see the climate issue through an anthropocentric lens defeats me.
Built to Fail: Rules at UN Climate Talks Favor the Status Quo, Not Progress - Inside Climate News
Experts say stifling bureaucratic procedures that are disconnected from the climate crisis have consistently stalled COP negotiations.
insideclimatenews.org
November 13, 2025 at 7:11 PM
Damn. We’re really winning.
A new Nature paper accompanying the Global Carbon Budget finds that the land and ocean sinks are 25% smaller and 7% smaller, respectively, than they would have been without the effects of climate change over 2015-24:
Emerging climate impact on carbon sinks in a consolidated carbon budget | Nature
Despite the adoption of the Paris Agreement ten years ago, fossil CO2 emissions continue to rise, pushing atmospheric CO2 levels to 423 ppm in 2024 and driving human-induced warming to 1.36°C, within years of breaching the 1.5°C limit 1,2. Accurate reporting of anthropogenic and natural CO2 sources and sinks is a prerequisite to tracking the effectiveness of climate policy and detecting carbon sink responses to climate change. Yet notable mismatches between reported emissions and sinks have so far prevented confident interpretation of their trends and drivers 1. Here, we present and integrate recent advances in observations and process understanding to address some long-standing issues in the global carbon budget estimates. We show that the magnitude of the natural land sink is substantially smaller than previously estimated, while net emissions from anthropogenic land-use change are revised upwards 1. The ocean sink is 15% larger than the land sink, consistent with new evidence from oceanic and atmospheric observations 3,4. Climate change reduces the efficiency of the sinks, particularly on land, contributing 8.3 ± 1.4 ppm to the atmospheric CO2 increase since 1960. The combined effects of climate change and deforestation turn Southeast Asian and large parts of South American tropical forests from CO2 sinks to sources. This underscores the need to halt deforestation and limit warming to prevent further loss of carbon stored on land. Improved confidence in assessments of CO2 sources and sinks is fundamental for effective climate policy.
www.nature.com
November 13, 2025 at 8:37 AM
Reposted by Anthony Burke
This new @amnesty.org study is damning.

A quarter of the world’s population lives within a 3 mile radius if a fossil fuel project. That’s 2b people.

We must end this era of greed and harm.

www.downtoearth.org.in/amp/story/cl...
November 12, 2025 at 8:14 PM
I am so tired of reading the bizarre pseudoscientific hopium surrounding COP30. The latest is the fallacious reasoning that progress has been made because we’ve reduced likely heating to 2.4C (other estimates put it at 3C, heating is only accelerating, and tipping points looming) from 5C.
November 12, 2025 at 8:44 PM
Reposted by Anthony Burke
This was written after COP29 and it holds true for COP30, where the UNFCCC's outdated technocratic procedures clearly are not a match for this moment in Earth's history.

insideclimatenews.org/news/0312202...
COP Climate Talks Could Benefit From More Feminist Values, Less Focus on Tech Solutions, Experts Say - Inside Climate News
Addressing gender equity under existing United Nations initiatives could be one of the best ways to improve outcomes of the annual global climate talks.
insideclimatenews.org
November 12, 2025 at 8:14 PM
I hope @oasis are enjoying playing to all the Cliff Richard fans with their Cool Britannia TM show. Viva Michael!
November 10, 2025 at 9:43 PM
Reposted by Anthony Burke
This should be fun. Many other online events happening over 15-16th. You can sign up here:
events.zoom.us/ev/AjPpsEFuC...
November 10, 2025 at 8:37 PM
Reposted by Anthony Burke
New book review:
Duarte da Silva on Mendieta, Eduardo: _Philosophical Animal: On Zoopoetics and Interspecies Cosmopolitanism, The_. State University of New York Press, 2024. Published by H-Environment.
Read here: networks.h-net.org/node/20065609
Mendieta, Eduardo. The Philosophical Animal: On Zoopoetics and Interspecies Cosmopolitanism. : State University of New York Press, 2024. x + 255 pp. $99.00 (cloth), ISBN 9781438498096. Reviewed by Matheus Duarte da Silva (University of St Andrews) Published on H-Environment (April, 2025) Commissioned by Daniella McCahey (Texas Tech University)
networks.h-net.org
April 10, 2025 at 2:29 PM
If a governance regime should match the gravity of its crisis, the Paris Agreement is the worst global treaty since Versailles. Consensus voting suffocates progress. State insincerity for lunch. Chancers and carpetbaggers for dinner.

Yes, we should try to get what progress we can but boy 😕
Get ready for #COP30❗

Get your climate obstruction bingo card out — how many actors of obstruction & different kinds of obstructive plays can you spot in the various sectors❓
It's finally here! 100+ scholars, global scope, practical insights. “Climate Obstruction: A Global Assessment” shows how organized interests stall policy—and how governance can respond.

Open access available now! Or order for paperback and hardcover. cssn.org/wp-content/u...
November 9, 2025 at 11:28 PM
Thank you Henk. This is the first long review! You offer so many interesting provocations. I don’t think we devalue the human at all, but it feels that way against a certain humanist horizon. Interspecies cosmopolitanism is my attempt to reassure; our true home is mammalia and the biosphere.
November 9, 2025 at 9:05 PM
Reposted by Anthony Burke
Fields near Pokrovsk,Donetsk region.Everything is covered with fiber optic cables,which have enveloped hundreds of hectares of Ukrainian land.In the sky,there’re more drones than birds
The fields are polluted with chemicals from explosives&unexploded shells.This’s what 'Russian liberation'looks like
November 7, 2025 at 4:29 PM
Reposted by Anthony Burke
Paywall lifted: At every turn, the Govt has opted for whatever would actually lead to more pollution and a warmer world – even if it costs more, jeopardises NZ’s reputation, overturns a campaign promise or clashes with the Govt’s other priorities.

The long retreat:
newsroom.co.nz/2025/11/07/g...
Govt's climate strategy: Let it burn
Comment: The Government has relentlessly pursued policies that boost climate pollution – even if they cost more or jeopardise NZ's reputation, Marc Daalder writes
newsroom.co.nz
November 7, 2025 at 6:33 PM
So there’s #climate COPs and fancy funds and protests but climate action goes nowhere.

The BIGGEST thing we can do to free our nations from fossil fuel corruption is ban large political donations. Ban gerrymandering.

Ban them forever if you want to save this planet.
barack obama is wearing a suit and tie with an american flag badge
ALT: barack obama is wearing a suit and tie with an american flag badge
media.tenor.com
November 7, 2025 at 9:00 PM
Reposted by Anthony Burke
"I don’t use the term fascism lightly. But the Lam/Philp plan, if enacted, would be a human rights violation of a scale without an obvious analogue in the modern era."

Toby Buckle on darkness in the U.K.: www.thebulwark.com/p/tories-con...
The Tories’ Dangerous Drift
In the U.K., a shocking proposal from a Conservative MP elicited pushback from her party only belatedly. It signals darker things to come.
www.thebulwark.com
November 7, 2025 at 7:00 PM
Reposted by Anthony Burke
Threadlet on AI.

My mentor as a programmer (former career) was from the original generation of computer geeks (bought a PC out of the trunk of Michael Dell's car, iirc). He passed away just before COVID broke, but we had just started talking about writing a book together about trust and tech.
November 7, 2025 at 6:48 PM
You people get it now?
November 7, 2025 at 6:27 PM