JoNova
A science presenter, writer, speaker & former TV host; author of The Skeptic's Handbook (over 200,000 copies distributed & available in 15 languages).
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Statistics
‘Operation Raise the Colours’ spreads to Australia on Sunday 31st August: https://marchforaustralia.org
‘Operation Raise the Colours’ spreads to Australia on Sunday 31st August: https://www.facebook.com/reel/1689531108427114
‘Operation Raise the Colours’ spreads to Australia on Wednesday 3rd September: https://www.theepochtimes.com/world/australias-flag-turns-124-the-forgotten-story-behind-the-national-symbol-5898569
‘Operation Raise the Colours’ spreads to Australia on Wednesday 3rd September: https://www.anfa-national.org.au/history-of-our-flag/anf-detailed-history
100
Cross-Regional Analysis of Renewable and Dispatchable Energy Sources
“Comparing the cost of those three expensive, underutilized assets per kWh generated against the cost of one fully utilized asset (with the additional fuel cost) per kWh generated, one sees that the current mixed systems in every region are more expensive than the gas-only option”
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2025/08/cross_regional_analysis_of_renewable_and_dispatchable_energy_sources.html
60
Some interesting CF figures quoted. Thought that UK solar CF was 10-11%, but it’s stated that it’s only 9%. Also Texas and California have a higher average CF than Australia.
20
Australian ‘Polies’ leading by example……….Lol –
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary
40
Also in The Australian-
“In a fevered epidemic of mistrust, it’s our responsibility to stand by the police”
Someone else trying to load responsibility onto me… I get enough of that at home! We don’t stand by the Police just because a couple were shot dead, they do enough of that to the public to balance it! We don’t stand by the Police because we saw their real faces during Covid, and we know that behind all the wailing right now are the same people who will be beating up grandmas and arresting people for their social media posts!
No sympathy at all, it was part of their job, and they have to take the good and the bad! The press are leading with absolute propaganda every chance they get, instead of the real story. In any small town the cops know the locals, I fully expect he was known to the cops he shot, and there were probably serious incidents in the past between the people involved.
30
I tried to respond to Tonyb’s comment at 4:26 pm yesterday (#2.1.2). Now my head hurts and I’m going to take a nap.
.
https://joannenova.com.au/2025/08/poll-shows-83-of-australians-dont-want-higher-emissions-targets/#comment-2866358
30
Thanks John H.
Just what I needed to rebut a “We are all going to die from CARBON” delusional Cult member.
20
I love plant-based meat.
That is, meat that comes from a meat-processing plant.
191
Video.
Liberal Hivemind comments about the woke Cracker Barrel disaster in the US, brought about by a DEI CEO.
https://youtu.be/v09VKxTmyb8
Are these wokesters incapable of learning after the Bud Light and Jaguar woke disasters?
90
Those organisations just didnt do it right, she is far smarter than all of them, she just has to educate the customers. It’s the same reason people try and fail repeatedly at becoming socialist, and why each new naive generation puts in a Labor Government not expecting the disaster that follows.
140
While the Left continue to heavily push the transgender agenda and encourage children and others to believe they are in the wrong bodies, encouraging irreversible sterilising and mutilating hormones and surgeries, the reality of the horrific “bottom surgeries” to create fake organs of the opposite gender is as follows:
(Warning, confronting videos.)
https://youtu.be/hyBhoWk3PnE
https://youtu.be/pUrAnUmwGAA
Those videos are both by people who are transgender themselves but have not had bottom surgeries.
Thankfully, at least in TRUMP’s America, there is some push back against this madness. Not so much in Australia and other woke countries.
100
And while that tragedy shooting in America unfolds, the second in recent times involving a 7rans-gender, the woke ABC news runs a bottom of screen headline “Two children killed, 17 injured after gunmen (sic) opens fire at US Catholic school”. Since the city mayor has already jumped to shield the 7rans community from the pending hate that he is so sure is going to be directed at them maybe he should call the Aust ABC and have a quiet word about misgendering…
50
“after gunmen (sic) opens fire”
Yes, there were two of them, a man and a woman, just sharing the same body…
30
The women of the Loony left brigade are so fugly that they need gorillas in dresses to take their place!
😆😆
The trans bs will die a slow death and pay psychiatrists salaries for years to come…
50
Photography bans are now being enforced at certain areas of Ayers Rock as travel bloggers found out.
The banning of climbing it in 2019 was just the beginning.
Another part of the Australian landscape rendered inaccessible by Australian apartheid laws.
Discussed in the following video:
https://youtu.be/Qgalc_Mg1zw
120
Can you imagine the weeping, wailing & gnashing of teeth when the tourists stopping by decide it’s no longer a worthwhile visit. Racism obviously is the cause!!
110
It’s like Kakkadon’t
90
No doubt there’ll be a compensatory government payout though.
Hey! I’ve got a big paddock and a huge boulder in it. Call it a meteorite and It’ll bring in the tourist $$$.
40
Well we have had those advance warnings by TV channels that the “…following item may contain the images of dead people…” with cultural sites getting the total ban treatment how soon before historical images get the same?
70
I have no doubt our libraries and archives are being censored and cleansed of such images right now.
40
They are welcome to it. Like extreme feminists they will eventually be bleating that nobody is interested.
These days I put indigenous affairs in the same bucket of “renewable” energy. They both waste public money, are damaging for the country overall and are deliberately complex and opaque so it is never clear how much money is sourced and how it is spent.
There was a comprehensive study a few years which identified indigenous funding flowing out of all layers of government. The aggregate was over $40 billion annually. Largesse has only increased over that time so that number would have blown out considerably. Given the awkward answer given by the first study , as far as I know, a follow up has not been performed. You would think it would be a bragging point for “closing the gap” wouldn’t you?
40
Excellent quality fossils of trilobites were created in a volcanic event equivalent of a Pompeii-style burial in volcanic ash.
Video:
https://youtu.be/T8KiVIJkCUk
20
FWIW – for the covid record
“FDA YANKS COVID SHOTS — Emergency Use Authorizations RESCINDED After Years of Tyranny, Mandates, and Lies”
“The FDA has now granted standard marketing authorization, not emergency approval, for limited populations: Moderna (ages 6+ months), Pfizer (ages 5+), and Novavax (ages 12+). Americans may still access the vaccines if they wish, but only after consultation with their doctors.”
More at
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2025/08/fda-yanks-covid-shots-emergency-use-authorizations-officially/
70
CIA active in Greenland, another ‘spontaneous colour revolution’ being planned…
“The Danish government has summoned a top US diplomat to an urgent meeting over reports of covert operations in Greenland by people loyal to President Donald Trump seeking to encourage the community to shift allegiance to America. Denmark’s foreign minister confirmed the move after the nation’s public broadcaster said at least three Americans with links to Trump were sent on missions to identify supporters in Greenland who would help turn the island into an American territory….Greenland has a population of 58,000 and is an autonomous territory within the Kingdom of Denmark, but it has chafed at the control exerted by Copenhagen.”
Look out for a demonstration with lots of buses, a diverse crowd of people and pre-made signs with American flags!
https://www.smh.com.au/world/europe/denmark-hauls-in-us-envoy-over-covert-plot-to-woo-greenland-for-trump-20250828-p5mqg2.html
30
The United States wishing to purchase Greenland is nothing new.
It was first attempted in 1867, the same year as the Alaska purchase. The next attempt was by Truman in 1946 for US$100 million (equivalent to $1.6 billion today).
Then TRUMP tried to purchase it in 2019.
I hope they succeed.
51
Highly unlikely, Greenland has mining potential.
‘Kvanefjeld is a large-scale rare earth project with the potential to become the most significant western world producer of critical rare earths.’
12
Rare earths aren’t rare – in the ground.
20
No rush, its a stranded asset.
01
Greenland was a United States protectorate from 9 April 1941 to 5 May 1945.
30
Mainstream never miss a chance to smear the sovereign man movement-
“Dezi Freeman, the Victorian man who allegedly fatally shot two police officers and wounded another before fleeing on Tuesday, is known to hold conspiratorial beliefs and has links to the sovereign citizen movement.”
They don’t want people who value freedom from Govt upsetting the herd. Somehow, disagreeing with the Govt makes you a another H1tler..
” their entrenched and extreme beliefs and their distrust of the state and authority renders them a group of interest for law enforcement due to the potential for escalation into anti-sociality and violence, especially when they link with other fringe right-wing extremists….some Australians will march to protest against immigration and “protect” Australia. Prominent among these will be operatives with far-right and sovereign citizen views. And these views are moving closer to the mainstream by hiding in plain sight.”
There might be some bias in the author’s beliefs, if you link sovereign citizens with Far-Right extremists then link those with racists and you happen to be an immigrant with a name like…
“Dr Ahona Guha is a clinical and forensic psychologist, trauma expert and author based in Melbourne.”
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/victoria/i-ve-worked-with-so-called-sovereign-citizens-they-all-believe-they-re-special-20250827-p5mq8t.html?js-chunk-not-found-refresh=true
21
Dezi Freeman been the beneficiary of a disability support pension, that he had to apply for.
.
How anyone can ever claim to be a ‘Sov-Cit’, refuting societal rules and regulations, whilst having their hands out for the cash … is beyond me.
140
Dezi is not of sound mind.
Are Sovereign Citizens really just Anarchists in disguise?
01
“Are Sovereign Citizens really just Anarchists in disguise?”
Not even in disguise EG, just people who recognise that you should own your own body and not the Govt, and it all follows from that.
As anarchists say, “anarchy is not having a Govt, not having no rules.”
10
FWIW
“The Next Millionaire Class? Why America’s Future Depends On Tradespeople”
“Is the next millionaire class going to be plumbers, HVAC techs, septic contractors, and electricians?
I think so.
AI can write code, draft articles, even mimic human speech. But AI cannot install a septic tank. It cannot diagnose why your air conditioner won’t start in the middle of August. It cannot trace a faulty wire through a wall.
And no matter how much technology advances, human beings will always need electricity, plumbing, hot water, and functioning septic systems.
That reality doesn’t change.”
More at
https://www.zerohedge.com/personal-finance/next-millionaire-class-why-americas-future-depends-tradespeople
90
But AI cannot install a septic tank.
Don’t worry, our friendly local government wishes to have you installed in dense housing complexes where septic tanks will be unhealthy (and prohibited).
As for the other items mentioned, the local trade unions will be in charge of the training and licensing of all plumbers, electricians, vehicle mechanics…….. And the creation and updating of the building codes.
30
FWIW
On reading habits and library donations
“By the way, we get more book donations than we have room for. The reason? The older generation of heavy readers (and there were many of them here and in the hills) are dying off. The thirty-five year old grandkids show up to clean out the house when Granny passes away and no one wants the hard copy books, so they get dropped at the library. While the bodice rippers do, in fact, show up, there is an astonishing range of classics, reference, literature, horticulture, and practical mechanics books which also show up. Never underestimate the curiosity and intelligence of a farmer or rancher who is dependent for his income and survival on the functioning of his own ingenuity.”
From a comment at Chiefio
110
I have had to quickly realise that I cannot possibly rescue all of the free, give away books at the local tip shop (or reuse shop, if you may). Some of them just have to go to be burnt for clean, green energy.
Anything more than 50-60 years old is now a rescue target – a lot of what has been published in recent times probably shouldn’t have been anyway.
10
“Anything more than 50-60 years old is now a rescue target –”
I’m still re-reading mine, I kept the good SciFi and it hasn’t aged. I hadn’t noticed how old they were getting..
00
Currently reading a book printed in 1930. The book was first released in the 1920s, the English language was certainly quaint then.
00
Read a late 19th century printing of “Swiss Family Robinson”
One of the first “how to” books
20
FWIW
“School Districts Revert to Diesel Because Biden’s Electric Buses Can’t Be Repaired”
https://hotair.com/headlines/2025/08/27/school-districts-revert-to-diesel-because-bidens-electric-buses-cant-be-repaired-n3806199
110
FWIW
Another US off shore wind project
“Offshore Wind’s Epic Fail”
https://hotair.com/headlines/2025/08/27/offshore-winds-epic-fail-n3806186
50
From the link
“The bottom line
Revolution Wind isn’t revolution… it’s real steel, scarred seabeds, and a subsidy-sucking machine that fails on reliability and habitat. This pause isn’t a glitch; it’s a wake-up call to scrap the ‘build first, regret later’ insanity.”
80
https://mises.org/mises-wire/great-delisting-home-sellers-scoff-peasant-prices
“[T]here is no pressure for sellers to sell. Most have mortgages that carry half the interest rates prevailing today. The prospect of paying 7 percent on their next home mortgage when they’re paying 3.5 percent today does little to motivate sellers … most of them are sitting on huge amounts of home equity [which grew while] asset price inflation has raged. There is little threat of falling prices putting them underwater and thus no sense of urgency to sell at prices they don’t like.”
Will TPTB inflate the money supply (again) ?
“New money is created ex nihilo by the central bank … to purchase securities from commercial banks (and sometimes indirectly from non-bank entities), thus expanding credit and loanable funds. This brute force method of reducing interest rates, driven by inflation of the money supply, is also price inflationary. Over the last 15 years, that price inflation has been especially prevalent in capital markets including the housing market.”
A disappointing trend:
“[T]he average age of first-time homebuyers is now at an all-time high of 38 …
As the younger, necessarily less wealthy, are crowded out of the housing market, family formation is delayed.”
All time high! … 38 years old … I expect a similar story in other western countries.
20
“The average age of first-time homebuyers is now at an all-time high of 38”
I don’t buy that the ‘delay’ is due solely to high property prices. Since I got married in ’75, the formation of the ‘family unit’ has taken place later and later, largely due to women now having more options IMO. More and more women are delaying marriage and families because they, like men did for many generations, can choose the life they want to live. They attend university in huge numbers. They have careers and rise to higher levels, in greater numbers, than they used to. Many, when they’re young, say they have no interest in being mothers till they’re “older”. Also, for both sexes, it is now commonplace to seek a few years of independent ‘fun’ before settling down, and despite what the media would have us believe, many can afford to do that, including travel.
So those traditional life stages which, for Mrs Wife and me started at age 18, commence later today: starting a career, getting married, buying a home, having kids, etc. By the time young people today graduate, I had been married for five years.
We’re currently having a break near Byron Bay and our morning starts with a walk on the beach at Lennox Head, then coffee in one of the several lovely cafes. Maybe half the clientele in the cafes consist of mothers with babies or 2-3yo toddlers, and all the mothers are, at a guess, 35 or older, look relatively affluent and are probably taking a break from their career. There’s an encouraging number of similarly-aged men with babies too. It’s quite lovely to watch but starkly different to the average lifestyle we had in the 70s.
Oh and there’s absolutely no way either my wife and I could have afforded to buy a house on one salary back in the 70s.
40
” Many, when they’re young, say they have no interest in being mothers till they’re “older”. Also, for both sexes, it is now commonplace to seek a few years of independent ‘fun’ before settling down, and despite what the media would have us believe, many can afford to do that, including travel.”
Like our pets, we are extending their kittenhood longer and longer, until they are still children when they hit 30.
20
The bank of mum and dad has been doing a sterling job keeping the market buoyant.
11
Typical academic thinking. No wonder it was cross published at The Conversation. And if it’s true that “our decarbonisation is yet to begin in earnest” then by the time a satisfactory replacement for fossil fuels arrives (presumably nuclear) then solar and wind will have been totally discredited and we will have wasted countless gazillions on these sub-optimal technologies.
80
It should be spring, the pheasant coucal is calling but I am yet to hear the first koel AND I am still wearing my trackies to bed. Winter can go as soon as it likes, I’ve had enough already.
71
Me too, we are expecting snow on the Central Tablelands.
‘But the coming system will deliver heavy snow to all elevations of the mountains, and as mentioned, snow showers will also develop into the weekend far below the usual snowline.’ (Weatherzone)
22
Carney’s net zero group halts activities amid Trump’s backlash
Exodus of world’s biggest banks from green banking alliance founded by Canadian PM
A leading green banking group founded by Mark Carney has paused all activities amid a growing backlash against environmental capitalism.
The Net Zero Banking Alliance (NZBA) has halted operations following an exodus of the world’s biggest banks in recent months, many of which quit the group after Donald Trump ramped up attacks on sustainable finance.
The suspension comes after all of the US’s six largest banks – JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Citigroup – exited the NZBA ahead of the US president’s inauguration on January.
HSBC and Barclays, which both helped to launch the NZBA in 2021, subsequently quit the green banking alliance this summer amid similar moves from lenders such as UBS. Five of the biggest banks in Canada have also cut ties.
After announcing its exit from the green group in August, Barclays suggested the NZBA was no longer fit for purpose, stating: “The organisation no longer has the membership to support our transition.”
The NZBA itself was first launched at Joe Biden’s virtual climate summit in April 2021, as part of an initiative led and coordinated by Mr Carney in his former position as the UN’s Special Envoy on Climate Action and Finance.
The alliance is a subgroup of Mr Carney’s Glasgow Financial Alliance For Net Zero (Gfanz), which the former Bank of England governor launched in 2021 to encourage banks to make clean energy loans and investments.
Membership of the NZBA subsequently grew on the back of a boom in environmental, social and governance (ESG) investment during Covid.
However, its popularity plummeted after Mr Trump re-entered the White House.
100
What a misnomer. Anti free market meddling being called capitalism.
90
Fast charging actually strengthens zinc-ion cells, defying decades of scientific dogma
In a stunning reversal of a foundational principle of electrochemistry, researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have discovered that fast charging, long believed to be a destructive force that degrades batteries, can actually extend the life and enhance the durability of zinc-ion batteries. This paradigm-shifting finding, led by Associate Professor Hailong Chen, promises to accelerate the development of safer, more affordable and environmentally friendly energy storage solutions that could fundamentally change how homes, hospitals and the national power grid are powered.
https://www.yourdestinationnow.com/2025/08/fast-charging-actually-strengthens-zinc.html
Oh no, the science is wrong again!
60
All the heat was in Southern Europe.
‘Due to a cool and rainy summer, Berlin’s outdoor swimming pools have seen a significant drop in visitor numbers, with 300,000 fewer visits compared to the previous year, a decline of 20%.
‘Early this summer climate alarmists went hysterical as some climate “experts” warned the coming summer would be “hellish” and be among the record hottest, if not the hottest. Instead, it was a rainy one with little heat.’ (Notrickszone)
51
I expect there may be more to it in terms of reduced pool visitors, especially for female customers.
20
State pension ‘should be taken away from anyone under 75’ as retirement age to increase
Tom McPhail wrote in The Times: “There’s a good argument that it should be about age 75; we’ll come back to that in a moment.” He added: “With people living longer and healthier lives, it makes sense to think carefully about when state support should begin. Otherwise, the system may simply become unsustainable.”
Currently, the state pension age stands at 66, with plans under existing legislation for it to rise to 67 by 2028 and 68 by 2046.
The Government has announced a formal review into the state pension age, prompted by concerns over the long-term sustainability of the system as life expectancy increases.
https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/2100545/state-pension-should-be-taken-away-retirement-age
The REALITY is that the UK is broke and on the brink of an IMF bailout.
The average life expectancy is 75, Covid and Fakevax ™ are wreaking havoc, the cost of living is forcing oldies into poverty, malnutrition and unaffordable medicines.
Let’s huddle around a 20W light globe for warmth and eat some cat food…
Living longer?
The way the UK is, you’d be better off in Canada, where quick exits are available.
Just like in Oz, the pension age moved from 65 to 67, while pollies have their snouts in the political trough for life.
They’re fine, you’re not.
90
In breaking news the CIA has announced it will replace waterboarding with a loop of Kamala reading her new book. 😆😆
80
FWIW
“Climate Inquisition Silenced a Generation of Scientists”
“Dr. Judith Curry, professor emerita at Georgia Institute of Technology, exposes the reality behind this manufactured consensus: “What climate scientists actually agree on is very little. Everyone agrees that it’s been warming since about the middle-19th century. Everyone agrees that we’re adding carbon dioxide (CO2) to the atmosphere. But scientists do not agree on the most consequential issues, such as how much of the recent warming has been caused by humans.”
Initially embraced by advocacy groups for her research on hurricane intensity, Curry later faced backlash when she questioned the overstated links between warming and extreme weather.”
More at
https://pjmedia.com/vijay-jayaraj/2025/08/27/climate-inquisition-silenced-a-generation-of-scientists-n4943088
50
FWIW
“On Monday, Time Magazine ran a very troubling story headlined, “Infant Deaths Spur Public Health Emergency in Mississippi.” ”
More at
https://open.substack.com/pub/coffeeandcovid/p/crying-uncle-wednesday-august-27?
Check the graph there!
“I really don’t understand why I must do everything for these moronic experts. It’s like they’re not even trying. It only took me a few minutes of googling to find the CDC’s July, 2024 report on infant mortality, which described how mortality rates were steadily dropping since the 1990’s, until sometime recently, and even included this eye-popping but very helpful graph:”
40
Also in there-
“Colorful Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick dropped another bombshell, this one on the academic-industrial complex. “Patents!” he exclaimed. “We have given tens of billions, if not hundreds of billions, to universities for them to do research and invent things. You know who owns the patents? The universities. So we are going to make a deal with them all: if we give them the money, the United States and the taxpayers get a piece of that… one of the most sacred cows in the swamp: federally funded university research that magically turns into vast, private university patent portfolios.””
20
Scotland announces its new flag
https://imgbox.com/ZGPS61Dz
40
Ocean acidification could erode sharks teeth
Sharks without teeth might sound like the stuff of dreams to swimmers and surfers. Now a new study has found that ocean acidification could leave the apex predators without their critical survival weapon.
Shark jaws carry several rows of teeth and new ones quickly push forward to replace losses. However, rapidly acidifying oceans are damaging shark teeth and could speed losses past replacement rates. Sharks with bad teeth could struggle to feed themselves efficiently, “potentially affecting shark populations and marine ecosystem stability”, the study said.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/aug/27/ocean-acidification-erodes-sharks-teeth-affecting-feeding
Loony left- let’s add Fluoride to the oceans! 😆
50
” rapidly acidifying oceans”
A-huh…. pH less than seven these days? Nope, by the year 2300, only 300years time, the pH will be 7.3… still not acidic! …at the current rate of carbonic acid buildup from CO2 being absorbed… if the ocean temperatures don’t increase and push the CO2 back out!
Maybe they shouldn’t have-
A) Used discarded teeth for their experiments, old teeth are discarded for a reason.
B) Used teeth not in a shark’s mouth, the conditions are completely different.
So they are worried that discarded teeth lying on the ocean floor may suffer more damage in 300years time… A Govt must have paid for this research!
20
You would think Dezi Freeman has been spotted in Townsville.
I keep an eye on flightradar and twice today a chopper has spent ages in the air doing circles over Townsville then crisscrossing the highway to Ayr where it again did many circles, before flying back to base. Later it was back in the air doing circles over the town and out as far as Hervey Range where it did a number of increasing dia circles before RTB.
Flightradar gives little detail about the chopper but it is an Airbus. A search shows the Qld Police have one.
Nothing yet on the news.
20
UK Met accursed of inventing temperature data. Second guessing has become standard practice.
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2025/08/27/met-office-caught-inventing-temperature-data/
31
Outrageous. Thank goodness we have the completely ethical, open and transparent BOM.
10
Cyberattack that crippled Nevada’s systems reveals vulnerability of smaller government agencies to hackers
Several state services were brought to a standstill by the cyberattack. Many people showed up at DMV offices across the state for their appointments this week only to learn the agency is closed. State DMV offices were still closed as of Wednesday.
“We want to remind our citizens that this statewide outage is impacting almost every state agency’s operations, and connectivity to impact safety and the health and human services fields needs to take priority over DMV services,” Tonya Laney, director of the Nevada DMV, said at the news conference.
The outage also prevented law enforcement from accessing state DMV records. For a good part of Sunday, the dispatch phone lines for Nevada State Police were down.
● DMV: all office closed “until further notice.”
● Government sites and phone lines: governor’s office plus agencies offline.
● Welfare / SNAP food aid: disrupted.
● No IDs. No licenses. No food bank. No legal services.
● Courts & justice systems: crash reports, fingerprinting, criminal tools frozen.
● Permits, licensing, voter admin: stalled.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/cyberattack-cripples-nevada-state-systems/
Now that “AI” is being used, it will get worse.
Maybe the Amish will be the only survivors.
50
OHC gets a mention.
‘BoM spring forecast predicts rain for eastern half of Australia.
‘Record ocean heat likely to increase storm severity while increased cloud cover expected to keep night-time temperatures above average over almost entire country.’ (Guardian)
11
How to translate the term escapism into Russian?
A little fact for general education of anyone on this blog: today is 50ies anniversary of L. Brezhnev’s attempt to de-serfy soviet peasants, which I heard took from 1976 to 1981.
Actually, I am wrong – first attempt was by Tsar Alexander II in 1861, but Bolsheviks took, maybe 10 years at most to revert his achievements, however limited.
At 16 I received my first passport so I could go for holidays, look for other work / education anywhere within USSR, except of course some “proscribed locations” – about 1/3 of the country.
(Free as a Bird – up to 31 days away from your stated place of residence, then you are in trouble with the police and military conscription commission.)
However, the village people were not so free. For more than 50 years, every village dweller was assigned to the collective a farm they were assigned to – there is no better way to describe it.
The collective farm manager had an absolute discretion to issue or not, a permit for official business trip, holidays or studies or whatever.., again – not for months and months but as necessary.
Leave it to your imagination who could get that piece of paper in vain attempt to become a movie star in a big town.
No wonder that boys taken for 3-4 years into the Army would seldom return home. They would get their passports “onto their hands”, with a bit of luck found work, a place to live and started families in the towns and cities.
It might to a degree explain mentality of so many Russian men today willing to die for a chance.
40
“It might to a degree explain mentality of so many Russian men today willing to die for a chance.”
Nothing to do with the size of the vodka bottles? The freezing, dark conditions with not enough spring and summer? The country they have been raised in being invaded so many times and their bloody history still recognised in schools? They seem a very serious people and very patriotic compared to the West these days…
Maybe its the ‘long-Covid’ of those decades under Communism.
20
Thanks you for sharing.
Thinking:
1. We accept shades of this already – eg. working holiday visa programmes that require days worked in rural locations, refugees to country towns for settlement, offshore detention… (first they came for ….. but I wasn’t …. so I did nothing)
2. How easy this all is to ramp up quickly now – with digital ID, geofencing doesn’t require a huge, compliant bureaucracy to implement. Just a few tech bros happy to do their bit as they have all the kinds of benefits that accrued to the ‘collective farm managers’.
30
FWIW
“No, Not Good”
https://patriotpost.us/memes/120370-no-not-good-2025-08-27
And
“Nation That Once Charged Into Certain Death For Freedom Now Letting Their Daughters Handle The Rape Gangs”
https://babylonbee.com/news/nation-that-once-charged-into-certain-death-for-freedom-now-letting-their-daughters-handle-the-rape-gangs
10
Goes with #27 above
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About to comment the following on the DOE climate report, any suggestions for improvement appreciated.
The idiom “there are two sides to every argument” is true but incomplete. A collection of facts can be marshaled to support multiple positions, but it is the context that allows those facts to be deeply understood. For example, one can compile an impressive list of reasons to ban DHMO, and an equally compelling list of reasons not to ban it. Without the contextual knowledge that DHMO is simply water, neither set of facts leads to understanding beyond the soundbites. Climate change requires the same contextualization; drawing not only from physics, but also from geological history, politics, and economics.
The basic physics of the greenhouse effect is broadly agreed upon. Without an atmosphere, Earth’s average surface temperature would be about 33 °C colder than it is today. This difference arises largely because the atmosphere absorbs and re-emits infrared energy, directing roughly 333 W/m² of infrared radiation back toward the surface. Carbon dioxide contributes to this effect, and increasing its concentration adds a measurable influence on the balance of incoming and outgoing energy. For example, doubling atmospheric CO₂ is estimated to change the energy balance by about 3.7 W/m² (Forster, 2007). The greenhouse effect is large, primarily caused by water vapor and clouds, essential for earth’s habitability, and human contributions are comparatively small but detectable. Where scientific debate remains is not about the existence of the effect, but about the pace and magnitude of the climate’s response. Polar amplification, whereby warming is greater at the poles than the equator (Rantanen, 2022), is a consistent finding, however, the associated consequences are often overstated and the contextual significance of the most warming occurring where it’s least impactful omitted. While such changes potentially matter for more vulnerable lowland coastal regions, they do not represent a global existential threat. On balance, the physical expectation is for modest warming, with impacts unevenly distributed: potentially significant in some locations but limited in scale for the vast majority of the global population.
Earth’s climate has undergone many profound shifts over geological time. Warmer and colder periods, fluctuating sea levels, and large-scale ecological transitions are the norm, not the exception (Lin & Qian, 2022). From a geological perspective, the current climate is neither unprecedented nor outside the adaptive capacity of life on Earth. What is more relevant is the scale and pace of change relative to human systems. While adaptation will carry costs, especially in certain regions, framing the issue as a crisis for the biosphere as a whole is not supported by the geological record.
The politics of climate change are shaped as much by human institutions as by physical processes. Science does not operate in a vacuum: scientists are subject to the same incentives, reputational pressures, and funding dependencies as any profession as exemplified in the water ape hypothesis fiasco (Langdon, 1997). Political systems, in turn, filter and amplify scientific messages through partisan narratives. This has led to an unusual inversion: if we define “conservative” as resistant to change and “liberal” as more accepting of it, then in climate politics the roles are reversed—self-described liberals push for resistance to climatic change, while conservatives tend to accept change as inevitable.
Additionally, climate change creates winners and losers. For example, northern regions such as Canada and Siberia may see longer growing seasons and agricultural expansion, while low-lying coastal states face risks from sea-level rise. The incentives of each nation are therefore uneven, complicating global coordination.
The economics of climate change are complex, but projections consistently show impacts in terms of slower growth rather than outright collapse. A recent Congressional Budget Office report concludes there is a 5 percent chance that global GDP in 2100 will be at least 21 percent lower than it would otherwise have been (Shirley & Swanson, 2025). Put differently, instead of growing from today’s ~$30 trillion to ~$133 trillion by 2100, GDP might instead grow to ~$105 trillion. This represents growth averaging ~1.7% annually rather than 2.0%. While such impacts cannot be dismissed, particularly for regions where damage may be concentrated, it is important to distinguish between slower growth and economic catastrophe. Moreover, policies that restrict energy access in developing regions can impose immediate and certain costs in health and economic opportunity. Balancing long-term, uncertain risks against present-day, concrete development needs is therefore a central challenge.
Geological processes have sequestered carbon dioxide over billions of years, while human activity is now releasing some of it back into the active biosphere. This has clear effects: enhanced primary productivity, a modest degree of warming, and ecological adjustments. The overall picture is one of trade-offs: regional burdens, especially in vulnerable areas, alongside global benefits such as higher agricultural output in some regions and increased plant growth more generally. The costs and benefits of increasing atmospheric CO₂ are unevenly distributed and not uniformly if at all catastrophic. In evaluating climate change, it is important to consider the context: physical, historical, political, and economic; rather than focusing on isolated sets of facts designed to sway popular opinion. Doing so helps distinguish genuine risks from exaggerated narratives, and allows us to prioritize real and solvable problems such as habitat loss and pollution, while avoiding disproportionate responses to what is, in global terms, a modest climatic shift.
References:
Forster, P., V. Ramaswamy, P. Artaxo, T. Berntsen, R. Betts, D.W. Fahey, J. Haywood, J. Lean, D.C. Lowe, G. Myhre, J. Nganga, R. Prinn, G. Raga, M. Schulz and R. Van Dorland, 2007: Changes in Atmospheric Constituents and in Radiative Forcing. In: Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Solomon, S., D. Qin, M. Manning, Z. Chen, M. Marquis, K.B. Averyt, M.Tignor and H.L. Miller (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA.
Rantanen, M., Karpechko, A.Y., Lipponen, A. et al. The Arctic has warmed nearly four times faster than the globe since 1979. Commun Earth Environ 3, 168 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-022-00498-3
Lin, J., & Qian, T. (2022). Earth’s Climate History from 4.5 Billion Years to One Minute. Atmosphere-Ocean, 60(3–4), 188–232. https://doi.org/10.1080/07055900.2022.2082914
John H. Langdon, Umbrella hypotheses and parsimony in human evolution: a critique of the Aquatic Ape Hypothesis, Journal of Human Evolution, Volume 33, Issue 4, 1997,Pages 479-494, ISSN 0047-2484, https://doi.org/10.1006/jhev.1997.0146. (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0047248497901469)
Shirley, C., & Swanson, W. (2025). The Effects of Climate Change on GDP in the 21st Century (Working Paper 2025-02). Congressional Budget Office. https://www.cbo.gov/publication/61186
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