People & Nature
@peoplenature.bsky.social
https://peoplenature.org/ a blog about the climate & ecological crisis, social & labour movement resistance, Russia's war on Ukraine, and more.
"After the Russian shelling and bombing, not a single house in my district was left undamaged. Whole blocks of flats were in ruins." Why a Russian woman living in Kharkiv fought on Ukraine's side - and has been jailed for 19 years
peopleandnature.wordpress.com/2025/11/27/i...
peopleandnature.wordpress.com/2025/11/27/i...
‘I decided to fight back. Ukraine is my home.’ Yulia Lemeshchenko’s final word in court
The Second Western Military District court in Moscow last week sentenced Yulia Lemeshchenko to 19 years’ imprisonment for high treason, sabotage, and preparing and training for an act of terrorism.…
peopleandnature.wordpress.com
November 27, 2025 at 7:53 AM
"After the Russian shelling and bombing, not a single house in my district was left undamaged. Whole blocks of flats were in ruins." Why a Russian woman living in Kharkiv fought on Ukraine's side - and has been jailed for 19 years
peopleandnature.wordpress.com/2025/11/27/i...
peopleandnature.wordpress.com/2025/11/27/i...
Try Me For Treason. Readings of anti-war speeches in Russian courts, and launch event for Voices Against Putin's War, a book comprising texts of the speeches. Thursday 20 November, 7.0pm, Pelican House, 144 Cambridge Heath Road, London E1, and streamed on line. Register at bit.ly/trymefortreason
November 12, 2025 at 8:58 AM
Try Me For Treason. Readings of anti-war speeches in Russian courts, and launch event for Voices Against Putin's War, a book comprising texts of the speeches. Thursday 20 November, 7.0pm, Pelican House, 144 Cambridge Heath Road, London E1, and streamed on line. Register at bit.ly/trymefortreason
A Russian court sentenced Anton Khozhaev, a trainee officer accused of desertion to Ukraine’s side, to 23 years. He urged Ukrainians to fight on, & denied treason. "I aimed to stop a criminal government, to prevent deaths of peaceful civilians." peopleandnature.wordpress.com/2025/11/12/r...
Russian anti-war prisoner: ‘I just did not want to murder Ukrainian people who have done me no ill’
In this speech to a Russian military court, Anton Khozhaev, a trainee officer accused of desertion to Ukraine’s side, urged Ukrainians to fight on and scorned the “bio-trash” that the Russian army …
peopleandnature.wordpress.com
November 12, 2025 at 8:21 AM
A Russian court sentenced Anton Khozhaev, a trainee officer accused of desertion to Ukraine’s side, to 23 years. He urged Ukrainians to fight on, & denied treason. "I aimed to stop a criminal government, to prevent deaths of peaceful civilians." peopleandnature.wordpress.com/2025/11/12/r...
Trials of anti-war protesters “provide a snapshot of Russia’s wartime lurch towards a form of fascism”
peopleandnature.wordpress.com/2025/10/20/r... @ensu-resu.bsky.social @labour-hub.bsky.social @ukrainesol.bsky.social @ukrainesolidarity.bsky.social @ukrainesolscot.bsky.social
peopleandnature.wordpress.com/2025/10/20/r... @ensu-resu.bsky.social @labour-hub.bsky.social @ukrainesol.bsky.social @ukrainesolidarity.bsky.social @ukrainesolscot.bsky.social
Raging against Putin’s war machine
By Simon Pirani. Republished from Jacobin, with thanks On May 16, 2022, the Ukrainian artist Bohdan Ziza poured blue and yellow paint – the colours of his country’s flag – on to a municipal adminis…
peopleandnature.wordpress.com
October 20, 2025 at 7:07 AM
Trials of anti-war protesters “provide a snapshot of Russia’s wartime lurch towards a form of fascism”
peopleandnature.wordpress.com/2025/10/20/r... @ensu-resu.bsky.social @labour-hub.bsky.social @ukrainesol.bsky.social @ukrainesolidarity.bsky.social @ukrainesolscot.bsky.social
peopleandnature.wordpress.com/2025/10/20/r... @ensu-resu.bsky.social @labour-hub.bsky.social @ukrainesol.bsky.social @ukrainesolidarity.bsky.social @ukrainesolscot.bsky.social
A tribute to our comrade Dave Temple, who worked at Murton colliery in county Durham and played a leading part in the mineworkers’ union for several decades, and died on 13 September aged 81
peopleandnature.wordpress.com/2025/10/14/d...
peopleandnature.wordpress.com/2025/10/14/d...
Dave Temple, mineworker and militant
Dave Temple, who died on 13 September aged 81, was a lifelong militant in the labour movement. He worked as an electrician at Murton colliery, county Durham, and played a leading part in the minewo…
peopleandnature.wordpress.com
October 14, 2025 at 7:22 AM
A tribute to our comrade Dave Temple, who worked at Murton colliery in county Durham and played a leading part in the mineworkers’ union for several decades, and died on 13 September aged 81
peopleandnature.wordpress.com/2025/10/14/d...
peopleandnature.wordpress.com/2025/10/14/d...
False assumptions about past 'energy transitions' support comforting but illusory narratives about how we might quit fossil fuels. Transition as a shift of technologies, 1st to nuclear power, has become dominant, false “solution” to global heating.
peopleandnature.wordpress.com/2025/10/12/t...
peopleandnature.wordpress.com/2025/10/12/t...
Technological transition, the ideology of capital
Review by Simon Pirani of More, More and More: an all-consuming history of energy, by Jean-Baptiste Fressoz (Allen Lane, 2024) We really are in climate trouble now. The intergovernmental climate ag…
peopleandnature.wordpress.com
October 12, 2025 at 8:20 AM
False assumptions about past 'energy transitions' support comforting but illusory narratives about how we might quit fossil fuels. Transition as a shift of technologies, 1st to nuclear power, has become dominant, false “solution” to global heating.
peopleandnature.wordpress.com/2025/10/12/t...
peopleandnature.wordpress.com/2025/10/12/t...
"Capital’s need for social control underpins near-fascist methods. From Russia’s dystopian punishment of dissenting citizens as 'terrorists' & 'traitors', patterns are retraced in the witch-hunts in USA & Europe, against opponents of Gaza slaughter."
peopleandnature.wordpress.com/2025/10/09/t...
peopleandnature.wordpress.com/2025/10/09/t...
The courtroom rebels standing up to warmonger Putin
Voices Against Putin’s War: protesters’ defiant speeches in Russian courts is published this month by Resistance Books. Here is the Introduction to the book, by Simon Pirani, first published on lin…
peopleandnature.wordpress.com
October 9, 2025 at 6:23 AM
"Capital’s need for social control underpins near-fascist methods. From Russia’s dystopian punishment of dissenting citizens as 'terrorists' & 'traitors', patterns are retraced in the witch-hunts in USA & Europe, against opponents of Gaza slaughter."
peopleandnature.wordpress.com/2025/10/09/t...
peopleandnature.wordpress.com/2025/10/09/t...
"Under the guise of 'green transition', a new colonial plunder is taking place." "We need a form of transition that doesn't harm us." "We categorically reject sowing discord between workers and nature defenders." Bob Myers reports on a meeting in Bosnia peopleandnature.wordpress.com/2025/09/25/b...
Bosnia: Unite for mineworkers, for land and for water. No to unjust transition
A guest post by BOB MYERS An amazing meeting of mineworkers and environmentalists from across the former Yugoslavia was held on 12-14 September in the small mining town of Breza. We came together o…
peopleandnature.wordpress.com
September 25, 2025 at 7:02 AM
"Under the guise of 'green transition', a new colonial plunder is taking place." "We need a form of transition that doesn't harm us." "We categorically reject sowing discord between workers and nature defenders." Bob Myers reports on a meeting in Bosnia peopleandnature.wordpress.com/2025/09/25/b...
Les Levidow: Labour has lulled some campaigners with a narrative combining 3 false promises, that (1) novel decarbonisation technologies (e.g. carbon capture and hydrogen) + (2) more renewable energy will (3) achieve Net Zero Emissions (NZE).
peopleandnature.wordpress.com/2025/09/08/o...
peopleandnature.wordpress.com/2025/09/08/o...
Opposing Labour’s climate vandalism is difficult – and vital
By Les Levidow. Reposted with thanks from the Ecologist A basic contradiction runs through UK climate policy. The government accepts that oil and gas extraction will increase, and that domestic use…
peopleandnature.wordpress.com
September 8, 2025 at 7:26 AM
Les Levidow: Labour has lulled some campaigners with a narrative combining 3 false promises, that (1) novel decarbonisation technologies (e.g. carbon capture and hydrogen) + (2) more renewable energy will (3) achieve Net Zero Emissions (NZE).
peopleandnature.wordpress.com/2025/09/08/o...
peopleandnature.wordpress.com/2025/09/08/o...
"Public transport finance could & should be radically overhauled, to release it from dependence on fares. We in @farefreelondon.bsky.social advocate a system that is not only publicly owned, and generously funded, but also free at the point of use." peopleandnature.wordpress.com/2025/09/04/b...
Building support for zero-fares will strengthen the case for publicly-owned transport
By Simon Pirani. Reposted with thanks from the We Own It! web site More rail and bus fare increases are on the way – and they threaten to undo much of the good promised by wider public ownership an…
peopleandnature.wordpress.com
September 4, 2025 at 7:24 AM
"Public transport finance could & should be radically overhauled, to release it from dependence on fares. We in @farefreelondon.bsky.social advocate a system that is not only publicly owned, and generously funded, but also free at the point of use." peopleandnature.wordpress.com/2025/09/04/b...
How zero-fares succeeds & fails in Krivyi Rih, Ukraine: "Buses & trolleybuses are perceived as belonging to the public domain or common weal, while [privately-run minibuses] are something new, modern and non-socialist, harbingers of capitalist modernity"
peopleandnature.wordpress.com/2025/08/29/f...
peopleandnature.wordpress.com/2025/08/29/f...
Free public transport in Ukraine: the common weal versus capitalist modernity
Free public transport can open cities to all. It combats social injustice and can also help to tackle climate change, by moving away from car-centred urban transport systems. Public transport has b…
peopleandnature.wordpress.com
August 29, 2025 at 7:16 AM
How zero-fares succeeds & fails in Krivyi Rih, Ukraine: "Buses & trolleybuses are perceived as belonging to the public domain or common weal, while [privately-run minibuses] are something new, modern and non-socialist, harbingers of capitalist modernity"
peopleandnature.wordpress.com/2025/08/29/f...
peopleandnature.wordpress.com/2025/08/29/f...
Our free-to-download pamphlet, Remaking Home Heating in the UK, is here on the People & Nature site. peopleandnature.wordpress.com/decarbonisin... In it, Tom Ackers argues for wholesale electrification (including district heating & heat pump installation), & a universal programme of deep retrofit
Decarbonising the Built Environment
People & Nature has published three pamphlets by Tom Ackers, about the social, political and technological challenges involved in ridding the built environment of fossil fuels and of their use …
peopleandnature.wordpress.com
August 14, 2025 at 7:07 AM
Our free-to-download pamphlet, Remaking Home Heating in the UK, is here on the People & Nature site. peopleandnature.wordpress.com/decarbonisin... In it, Tom Ackers argues for wholesale electrification (including district heating & heat pump installation), & a universal programme of deep retrofit
A universal programme of retrofit is needed to stop UK homes leaking heat. Here Tom Ackers shows that the Low Energy Transformation Initiative proposals are a convincing alternative to the government's lukewarm promises
peopleandnature.wordpress.com/2025/08/13/r...
peopleandnature.wordpress.com/2025/08/13/r...
Retrofit our homes, for social justice and climate action
□ TOM ACKERS puts the case for a universal programme to retrofit the UK’s housing stock with insulation, in this edited excerpt from his new pamphlet. In a linked article here, he argues that a str…
peopleandnature.wordpress.com
August 13, 2025 at 6:59 AM
A universal programme of retrofit is needed to stop UK homes leaking heat. Here Tom Ackers shows that the Low Energy Transformation Initiative proposals are a convincing alternative to the government's lukewarm promises
peopleandnature.wordpress.com/2025/08/13/r...
peopleandnature.wordpress.com/2025/08/13/r...
Electrify, electrify, electrify, Tom Ackers argues in this excerpt from our free-to-download pamphlet, Remaking Home Heating in the UK. District heat networks and heat pumps can keep us warm
peopleandnature.wordpress.com/2025/08/13/e...
peopleandnature.wordpress.com/2025/08/13/e...
Electrify home heating and phase out gas
□ Electrification and the installation of heat pumps should be the principle technology for decarbonising homes in the UK, TOM ACKERS argues in this edited excerpt from his new pamphlet. In a linke…
peopleandnature.wordpress.com
August 13, 2025 at 6:58 AM
Electrify, electrify, electrify, Tom Ackers argues in this excerpt from our free-to-download pamphlet, Remaking Home Heating in the UK. District heat networks and heat pumps can keep us warm
peopleandnature.wordpress.com/2025/08/13/e...
peopleandnature.wordpress.com/2025/08/13/e...
"We need a 'twin track' approach to remaking home heating: wholesale electrification (incl. district heating & heat pump installation), & universal programme of deep retrofit" - Tom Ackers in a free-to-download pamphlet, Remaking Home Heating in the UK
peopleandnature.wordpress.com/2025/08/12/h...
peopleandnature.wordpress.com/2025/08/12/h...
Heating homes: we need electrification and universal retrofit
□ Heat pumps and insulation are the keys to decarbonising home heating in a socially just way, TOM ACKERS argues in this edited excerpt from his new pamphlet. In a linked article here, he surveys f…
peopleandnature.wordpress.com
August 12, 2025 at 7:11 AM
"We need a 'twin track' approach to remaking home heating: wholesale electrification (incl. district heating & heat pump installation), & universal programme of deep retrofit" - Tom Ackers in a free-to-download pamphlet, Remaking Home Heating in the UK
peopleandnature.wordpress.com/2025/08/12/h...
peopleandnature.wordpress.com/2025/08/12/h...
Homes leak heat & people suffer as a result, writes Tom Ackers. Fabric efficiency is poor, & the govt's awful monitoring system, based on Energy Performance Certificates, should be replaced. Free-to-download pamphlet, Remaking Home Heating in the UK peopleandnature.wordpress.com/2025/08/12/f...
Fuel poverty and leaky homes: the monitoring system is broken
□ Fuel poverty in the UK is exacerbated by the poor condition of millions of people’s homes – and methods such as the government Energy Performance Certificates are woefully inadequate, TOM ACKERS …
peopleandnature.wordpress.com
August 12, 2025 at 7:05 AM
Homes leak heat & people suffer as a result, writes Tom Ackers. Fabric efficiency is poor, & the govt's awful monitoring system, based on Energy Performance Certificates, should be replaced. Free-to-download pamphlet, Remaking Home Heating in the UK peopleandnature.wordpress.com/2025/08/12/f...
Climate Injustice by Friederike Otto reviewed. In mainstream discourse, global heating "is gutted of content, stripped of its origins in economic activity & social hierarchies". The responsibility of powerful humans in corpor'ns & gov'ts is concealed.
peopleandnature.wordpress.com/2025/08/07/c...
peopleandnature.wordpress.com/2025/08/07/c...
Climate change is an injustice multiplier. Not an asteroid
Review by Simon Pirani of Climate Injustice: Why We Need to Fight Global Inequality to Combat Climate Change, by Friederike Otto (Greystone Books, 2025). Republished, with thanks, from the Ecologis…
peopleandnature.wordpress.com
August 7, 2025 at 7:11 AM
Climate Injustice by Friederike Otto reviewed. In mainstream discourse, global heating "is gutted of content, stripped of its origins in economic activity & social hierarchies". The responsibility of powerful humans in corpor'ns & gov'ts is concealed.
peopleandnature.wordpress.com/2025/08/07/c...
peopleandnature.wordpress.com/2025/08/07/c...
“I am using this trial as a tribune from which to denounce the war publicly”, Dmitry Ivanov told a Moscow court, before it sentenced him to 8.5 years in prison, for 12 social media posts. More than 30 others have used the Russian courts to speak out peopleandnature.wordpress.com/2025/07/28/h...
How protesters use Russia’s courts to denounce the war on Ukraine
“I am using this trial as a tribune from which to denounce the war publicly”, Dmitry Ivanov told a Moscow court, just before it sentenced him to eight-and-a-half years’ imprisonment for circulating…
peopleandnature.wordpress.com
July 28, 2025 at 6:57 AM
“I am using this trial as a tribune from which to denounce the war publicly”, Dmitry Ivanov told a Moscow court, before it sentenced him to 8.5 years in prison, for 12 social media posts. More than 30 others have used the Russian courts to speak out peopleandnature.wordpress.com/2025/07/28/h...
"Oleg Dubrovsky concludes that his efforts at socialist propaganda failed almost completely, but his organising around wages, hours and workplace conditions had some success." Review of a memoir by a lifelong workplace activist in Dnipro.
peopleandnature.wordpress.com/2025/06/29/u...
peopleandnature.wordpress.com/2025/06/29/u...
Ukraine: the ups and downs of workplace organising
Review by Simon Pirani of A Socialist Activist in Industrial Workplaces under Ukrainian bourgeois democracy 1998-2003 (Sotsialistichnii aktivist na promislovome pidpriemstv v umovakh Ukrainskoi bur…
peopleandnature.wordpress.com
June 29, 2025 at 7:07 AM
"Oleg Dubrovsky concludes that his efforts at socialist propaganda failed almost completely, but his organising around wages, hours and workplace conditions had some success." Review of a memoir by a lifelong workplace activist in Dnipro.
peopleandnature.wordpress.com/2025/06/29/u...
peopleandnature.wordpress.com/2025/06/29/u...
Alexei Rozhkov, kidnapped, tortured & sentenced to 16 years for protesting against Putin's war: "Truly, culture and freedom are what make us human. They are things that are so hard to obtain, and so easy to lose. It’s impossible to remain indifferent." peopleandnature.wordpress.com/2025/06/10/r...
Russian anti-war prisoner Alexei Rozhkov: I acted out of conscience, against the state and its all-powerful machine
The Russian anti-war protester Alexei Rozhkov was last month sentenced to 16 years’ imprisonment on charges of committing a “terrorist act”, “justifying terrorism”, and circulating false informatio…
peopleandnature.wordpress.com
June 10, 2025 at 7:15 AM
Alexei Rozhkov, kidnapped, tortured & sentenced to 16 years for protesting against Putin's war: "Truly, culture and freedom are what make us human. They are things that are so hard to obtain, and so easy to lose. It’s impossible to remain indifferent." peopleandnature.wordpress.com/2025/06/10/r...
I am on substack now, as well as at peoplenature.org. People and Nature peopleandnature.substack.com?r=5toglo&utm...
People and Nature | Simon Pirani | Substack
I write a blog about the climate & ecological crisis, social & labour movement resistance, Russia's war on Ukraine, and more. Author of Burning Up: a global history of fossil fuel consumption (2018) a...
peopleandnature.substack.com
June 8, 2025 at 2:37 PM
I am on substack now, as well as at peoplenature.org. People and Nature peopleandnature.substack.com?r=5toglo&utm...
Kremlin propaganda, using Red army victory in 1945 to justify ethnic cleansing in Ukraine, would have Vasily Grossman turning in his grave. So would Labour politicians who facilitate genocidal war crimes in Gaza talking "democracy" on VE Day. 1/2 peopleandnature.wordpress.com/2025/05/02/v...
Vasily Grossman: a human “can be a slave by fate, but not a slave by nature”
I am not looking forward to the tide of political hypocrisy that will wash over us like Thames Water sewage next week, on VE Day, the 80th anniversary of the end of the European war in 1945. So I h…
peopleandnature.wordpress.com
May 2, 2025 at 10:27 AM
Kremlin propaganda, using Red army victory in 1945 to justify ethnic cleansing in Ukraine, would have Vasily Grossman turning in his grave. So would Labour politicians who facilitate genocidal war crimes in Gaza talking "democracy" on VE Day. 1/2 peopleandnature.wordpress.com/2025/05/02/v...
Yevgeny Khaldei, who took that iconic shot of the Red flag in 1945, as a Ukrainian Jew suffered official Soviet discrimination & censorship. In 1999 I interviewed his children & wrote this: a counterweight to the VE Day hypocrisy coming up next week peopleandnature.wordpress.com/2025/05/02/t...
The heroic war photographer punished by Soviet antisemitism
This week, amidst the nauseating hypocrisy of official VE Day celebrations, you may well see the iconic photograph of the Soviet flag being raised above the German parliament building in Berlin. Th…
peopleandnature.wordpress.com
May 2, 2025 at 10:13 AM
Yevgeny Khaldei, who took that iconic shot of the Red flag in 1945, as a Ukrainian Jew suffered official Soviet discrimination & censorship. In 1999 I interviewed his children & wrote this: a counterweight to the VE Day hypocrisy coming up next week peopleandnature.wordpress.com/2025/05/02/t...
Solar power expanding. China leads (40% of global capacity). Most is big solar farms; rooftop solar a close 2nd. Outside the rich world, businesses & well-off households use it to back up unreliable grid electricity. Poorer households left behind. 1/4 peopleandnature.wordpress.com/2025/04/24/r...
Rooftop solar: glints of light in the darkening climate crisis
Part 1 of 2. / Download both parts of this article as a PDF here By Simon Pirani Solar power is expanding rapidly.[1] In 2023, the total capacity of the world’s solar photovoltaic (PV) panels was f…
peopleandnature.wordpress.com
April 24, 2025 at 7:35 AM
Solar power expanding. China leads (40% of global capacity). Most is big solar farms; rooftop solar a close 2nd. Outside the rich world, businesses & well-off households use it to back up unreliable grid electricity. Poorer households left behind. 1/4 peopleandnature.wordpress.com/2025/04/24/r...
"Technologies are not rabbits pulled out of hats. They are instruments of labour. [...] Instead of inventing for renewable technologies social powers they do not have, we should consider how they are used now, by capital, and how we can change that."
peopleandnature.wordpress.com/2025/04/23/t...
peopleandnature.wordpress.com/2025/04/23/t...
Technology and society. How not to use Karl Marx
Understanding the tumultuous processes that might move us away from capitalism, and away from climate-wrecking fossil fuels, is hard work, Simon Pirani writes. So is understanding the interaction b…
peopleandnature.wordpress.com
April 23, 2025 at 7:43 AM
"Technologies are not rabbits pulled out of hats. They are instruments of labour. [...] Instead of inventing for renewable technologies social powers they do not have, we should consider how they are used now, by capital, and how we can change that."
peopleandnature.wordpress.com/2025/04/23/t...
peopleandnature.wordpress.com/2025/04/23/t...