Get my book on sale for only £8 - bargain !
Its only half as depressing as the title sounds, but given the unjust transition coupled to the oil wars of a dying empire I doubt anyones in the mood for professional optimism
"as of the end of 2025 only about 20% of the US population is living in a local economy that actually is growing"
"if we take out the small minority of places like Silicon Valley and Wall Street, the US is in a recession — the vast majority of the population [is in a recession]"
Governments and tech moguls have bet hundreds of billions on artificial intelligence.
If the technology does what it promises, we will have to radically rethink how the global economy functions.
I had a great time doing this with Bristol Cable's People Just Do Something on the political economy of the climate transition. The first half is a bit bleak but we get somewhere positive by the end I promise!
open.spotify.com/episode/7qu0...
They say - like Trump - its about ppl in the UK "illegally" or who overstayed their visa (a.k.a students), but given they are going to create an agency with the capacity to detail 24,000 at a time as a part of "Operation Restoring Justice" we can expect all migrants to be targeted
Reform are going to tank the UK economy if they win the next election. Just their pledge on migration - to deport "at least 200,000 refugees" will massively reduce economic growth.
We don't have to guess to know this - Trump's giving us real-time proof
"Last month farmer George Renner had to make a stark choice. Fuel prices had doubled. Fertiliser prices had jumped 30%. After another 15% per cent jump in one day, he decided to slash his cropping area by three-quarters, from 135 hectares to 30".
giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/...
The collapsing capacity of Europe
As Europe's manufacturing implodes, China moves up the value chain in the global factory while Europe falls down it
tinyurl.com/25pfj4ar
Yeah I think it already did. Bad times
The question isn't electrostate vs petrostate, but who is at the top of the value chain.
Globalisation isn't over, but the weight and shape of the global economy is dramatically changing
I wrote a whole @versobooks.bsky.social book about this @theguardian.com rdian piece on what I call the installation economy
Or something worse: Why We Need to Disrupt the Climate Transition
www.versobooks.com/en-gb/produc...
60% of the US in drought after near-record March temperatures at 1.48C of climate change, while 25% of US fertiliser is still blocked in Hormuz, spiking prices by 30%
It's going to be a grim farming season
What does it mean when critical adaptation infrastructure is owned by asset managers?
What happens when flood defences are not primarily about protecting lives and homes, but reducing insurance payouts and producing a steady return for Blackrock?
tinyurl.com/2w8xmy57
"Global renewable installed capacity has climbed around 50 per cent since the end of 2022 to 5.1 terawatts, according to the International Renewable Energy Agency."
bsky.app/profile/nich...
This is - in part - why the US is attacking Iran. It's an oil war, but one to try to stop the US's fall down the value chain. From CHIPs and TRIPS to using threats and war to try to prevent the green transition, the US has little choice but to use arms to arrest its decline
t.co/96Bwzt8S83
The war on Iran about oil. Its about the US's declining grip on the future
A regime of energy abundance is emerging. It won't stop climate change below 3C.
It is upending the existing structure of global production, displacing the US from it centre
tinyurl.com/mtuuwwu5 | @theecologist.org
“You’ll get the average consumer and average investor making wagers — and they won’t realise that they’re just the pawn being used by others who can influence the outcome of that wager,” says Robert Rosenberg, a partner at law firm Moses Singer."
giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/...
Prediction markets are a new mechanism for elites to rinse the rest of us.
80% of users lose - 60% are currently in debt.
Two thirds of all the profits go to just 740 Polymarket accounts.
It’s organised insider trading and nothing else.
Two huge off shore wind announcements - two examples of how the transition isn’t reviving UK industry even when we build them here.
Energy security doesn’t mean job security
tinyurl.com/3z7kejms
For all the talk in the UK of North Sea oil, you can currently get a 2nd hand EV (80% of ppl buy 2nd hand cars...), and charge it overnight, for around £70/week.
And these aren't even the cheapest cars on the market.
Hormuz lays bare our fossil dependency on one of the most unappreciated building blocks of modern life - chemicals. All 350,000 of them.
But why haven't we learn't to make chemical some other way?
On the failed promise of green chemistry
tinyurl.com/ysh3z52k
No word on what the "security threats" were, but this cost Scotland £1.5bn in investment and 1,500 jobs...
The shock of Hormuz is part of a complex supply crunch underway...
“global copper production could, at best, reach 30m tons per yr by 2050. But to keep pace with global economic development, the world will need 37m tons of a year by then"
tinyurl.com/4rtz8xfp
This money will overwhelmingly go to small and medium sized businesses - the core of Reform's voter block. Every time Reform attack net zero they directly go after the bottom line of 1000s of SMEs
Over 99% of UK logistics enterprises are small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs)
Tomorrow in person & online!
Sign-up: genderandsecurity.org/projects-res...
@pollenetwork.bsky.social @jpoliticalecology.bsky.social
#energy #militarism
"Given many of Trump’s programmes will increase unemployment and weaken social protections, while increasing inflation and squeezing American consumers, it is likely that the failure to bully ex-allies into subsidising the US’s imperial lifestyles will accelerate social decline"
Both the payout to Total to cancel wind farms and the threats against the EU over LNG have to be understood as clear signs the US has lost the war of transition.
tinyurl.com/5n99twvc
