It's the most wonderful time of the year: Q2 results for the #fossifuels giants responsible for the #ClimateCrisis

First up, we have Shell, which posted £3.9 bn Q2 profit. So far it's made £11.6 billion in 2023 🧵
cnbc.com/2023/07/27/she… Although its profits "slumped" its fossil fuel investment is set to surge in 2023

@Global_Witness analysis of industry data shows Shell plans to spend £11.6 bn on #fossilfuels this year, 10%⬆️from 2022

That's 4x what it will spend on renewables
globalwitness.org/en/press-relea…

So this week for #Titan we had:

- Rolling 24hr coverage across most networks
- Interviews with relevant experts, experienced celebrities
- An actual live *countdown* of oxygen levels
- Rapid, widespread mobilisation of US military, coastguard

For 5 ultra-high-net-worth people. This says a lot about the outsized value the media gives to money - billionaires are a constant source of fascination if not always the focus of needed scrutiny

It also says a lot about what is possible in covering a given story unfolding in real time #Titan

The Big 5 alone (Exxon, Chevron, BP, Shell, TotalEnergies) have sent more than 400 lobbyists to UN #climate negotiations since the 2015 Paris Agreement, per @StopCorpAbuse and @corporateeurope kickbigpollutersout.org/articles/new-f… Related: Global GHG emissions, the overwhelming majority of which comes from #FossilFuels, have risen significantly in the 8 years since the Paris deal was signed

They are now at their highest levels ever theguardian.com/environment/20…

Are governments ready to undertake the kind of radical, rapid decarbonisation that every leading scientific body on earth says is needed for 1.5C?

No.

But are we at least reducing our emissions as zero-carbon technology becomes ever cheaper?

Also no.
theguardian.com/environment/20… I can't beleive what I'm reading here. Our 1.5C carbon budget has HALVED from just a few years ago - ie, Post Paris

"Total global GHG emissions reached 55 ± 5.2 GtCO2e in 2021... driven primarily by increasing CO2 emissions from fossil fuel and industry"
essd.copernicus.org/articles/15/22…

I know I'm pretty downbeat in general (because science) but yesterday was one of those rare occasions where I spoke with a remarkable researcher who had a really cool story to tell
phys.org/news/2022-10-p… This study showed how the saliva from the wax worm moth could was able to break down polyethylene at room temperature in just a few hours

The lead author was Federica Bertocchini, a researcher at the Madrid's Margarita Salas Center for Biological Studies, so I reached out

Today we resume our normal coverage of the slow collapse of our food system and society’s disintegration

The people who caused it continue to rake in record profits, while those most blameless have their rights gradually stripped away

We will present this as a culture war The act of governance will not be debated in terms of sound policy directly impacting the lives of millions of people, but instead as a he-said-she-said debate format that apparently is the law in all English-speaking media for every event except when a Queen dies

The headlines from #COP26 are problematic in that they tend to take on good faith prima facie claims from the British government

THREAD 🧵 1. British officials and #COP26 presidency have for weeks been saying 2 things, so consistently that the media have started (in my view erroneously) to report them as de facto goals of the conference

They are: "cars, coal, cash and trees"

And "Keep 1.5C in reach"

I got the coal list

It's 46 countries, most of them already committed to coal phase out

Not 190 (as some people reported)

#COP26 Notable absentees:

China
India
Australia
Russia
US

Poland and Germany are big ones, but they had already promised coal phase outs #COP26

#COP26 participants list just dropped

IETA, which represents fossil fuel companies such as Chevron, Shell and BP has a delegation over 100-strong

There are dozens of fossil fuel representatives, either as themselves or part of trade group delegations unfccc.int/sites/default/… IPIECA, another trade group, representing Chevron #COP26

Did... a CEO write this?

https://twitter.com/TheEconomist/status/1357274714276782082

"Chemistry of the unexpected" = procrastination

If this year hasn't taught bosses that flexible working is more productive and cost effective (think of the office rent in your swanky post code) then I guess nothing will

I cannot believe the events of the last 10 days aren't getting greater attention

Events which will live on infamy as a cautionary tale of western hubris, journalistic malpractice, and the problem of media proximity to power #Covid19

THREAD On January 25, German media published claims (which they didn't check or verify) of a German government source that the AstraZeneca vaccine was only 8 percent effective among over 65s

#BREAKING: Russia's Sputnik V #Covid-19 vaccine 91.6 percent effective: @TheLancet - @AFP in Paris #UPDATE: Phase 3 trial results among 20,000 participants showed 91.6 percent efficacy in preventing symptomatic #Covid19

Apropos of nothing, French tongue twisters (virelangues) are SAVAGE, a thread: 1. Tu t’entêtes à tout tenter, tu t’uses et tu te tues à tant t’entêter

Translation: You're determined to try everything, you wear yourself out then kill yourself for being so obstinate

I speak to epidemiologists several times a day. Here’s a composite of their best and most feasible #COVID19 plan:

1. Lock down. Extreme social distancing for 4-8 weeks. Don’t go out. Implement thorough personal hygiene. 2. ICU triage aimed at keeping the maximum amount of healthcare workers healthy for the maximum amount of time. This means an abundance of hospital testing and PPE equipment.

People will die, this is inevitable #COVID19

I've finally had an hour or so to go through the Imperial #COVID19 modelling study

There are a number of things within that I don't think governments, and certainly not the public, have given sufficient consideration

(1/n) The study weighs up two options for #COVID19 response:

- Mitigation (i.e. slowing but not stopping virus spread)
- Suppression (i.e. reducing infections and maintaining that)

(2/n)

OK, you twisted my arm. The following is a THREAD from the time I took the Trans-Mongolian railway. I was young and idealistic, stupid and proud, naive and trusting, and genuinely believed the answer to any question could be found in a good book theguardian.com/travel/2020/ja… The Trans-Mongolian, the less famous counterpart to the Trans-Siberian, roughly follows the route of the tea trade from antiquity. It’s 2,215 km and would take you a shade under a week to travel uninterrupted from Moscow to the Beijing terminus

*Rubs hands together* THREAD nytimes.com/2020/01/09/opi… As the author states, the Climate Leadership Council has among its founding members some of history's biggest polluters

People. This is not a drill.

The team who theorised the "hot house Earth" scenario, whereby manmade warming triggers a series of in-built planetary feedback looks, say the tipping points are now "active"

This poses an "existential threat to humanity" phys.org/news/2019-11-c… 1. Ice sheets

The Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets contain enough frozen water to raise sea levels 13m

Their "tipping point" exists somewhere between 1-3C temperature rise. We're already at 1C, on path for 4C nationalgeographic.com/science/2019/1…

France is about to experience its second #heatwave of the year, with temperatures expected to top 40C in Paris, possibly breaking records #canicule actualite.lachainemeteo.com/actualite-mete… Heatwaves such as these are made between 5-100 times more likely by #climatechange, and are on average 4C hotter than a century ago theguardian.com/science/2019/j…

I'm sorry but this is a tremendous waste of time and money and toes the fossil fuel lobby's line

Instead of inventing hair-brained schemes - solar reflection, pole freezing, ocean greening - to mitigate emissions, target their source: oil, gas and coal bbc.com/news/science-e… The @IPCC_CH is the most complete authority there is on #climatechange, includes no geoengineering in its models, because the systems proposed "face large uncertainties and knowledge gaps as well as substantial risks" geoengineeringmonitor.org/2018/11/ipccs-…

SCOOP 🚨 @AFP has obtained a draft copy of a forthcoming landmark UN report on #biodiversity

It paints a devastating picture:

- 1 million species face extinction risk
- 75% of land, 40% oceans severely degraded
- 80% rise in resource use in three decades
news.yahoo.com/lost-world-un-… - 75% of fish stocks over fished or fished to their limits
- Pesticide use doubled in just 13 yrs
- 400 million tonnes of toxic waste dumped into freshwater each year
- 60 billion tonnes extracted from nature each year
#IPBES #biodiversity