Dan Grey

The big difference is that solar+battery is fit and forget. Once it's installed, whether from China or anywhere else, it's yours and you are independent. No more payments to anyone. With fossil fuels you're an addict, dependent on your dealer who can make you dance to their tune.

The lessons from Brazil and Serbia? Don't concede one inch of ground to the far right. Don't appease. Don't triangulate. Don't grovel. Don't say they have "legitimate concerns". Mobilise your base, and fight them with all the democratic means at your disposal.

Serbia’s former president Aleksandar Vučić conceded defeat in the country’s parliamentary election on Sunday, marking a dramatic fall from power for the strongman nationalist leader www.ft.com/content/546f...

I was having conversations with journalists just a few months ago about whether democracy was doomed. Look at this year: Orban defeated. Vukic defeated. Bolsonaro Jr defeated. Trump heading to likely defeat in midterms. That’s the beauty of democracy. Voters can respond. Don’t count it out yet.

BBC neatly pivoting from focussing on the Jackdaw gas field to the massive new Rosebank oil and gas field. It's actually an unusually well-informed and balanced article, correctly pointing out that the oil would be sold abroad and giving plenty of quotes from @tessakhan.bsky.social

I'd rather somewhere had a new hospital

By no means the most pressing issue today, but... The Govt's announcement this morning they will be "slashing red tape" by pausing a requirement for small firms to file/publish profit-and-loss statements - which was due to come into force in April 2028 - is bad news for anti-corruption efforts.

BIG jump in China's exports of solar in September, far above any earlier month, except the export-tax-driven wave in March. Solar kit with annual power output equal to 10 large nuclear reactors exported in just one month. Media reporting wildly off as they used wrong metrics!

Meat- and chocolate-heavy diets hit harder by food inflation as climate extremes bite: new analysis A balanced diet experienced 40% lower inflation in 2025, with households potentially saving £520 cumulatively since the start of 2022

It's worth acknowledging that, as Ofgem is aware, warm well-insulated homes are more expensive to rent or buy than cold draughty homes, and a lot of low income households are trapped in the latter. The Minimum Energy Efficiency Standards for private rented homes are weak and too slow

Not a surprise if this happens because tbh, Jackdaw is tiny Rosebank is the big one, which would result in ten times as much CO₂ being put into our atmosphere if approved

The price of gas has *soared* this year because of Trump and Netanyahu's attacks on Iran. The result is that gas will cost ELEVEN PENCE per unit from 1 January, almost double the 6p per unit consumers paid in January this year.

Pretty poor that this is the headline on a moderately encouraging set of labour market figures (employment rate up, payroll jobs slightly up, wage growth OK). www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Can't help thinking if this was a car factory, a gas field or even a data centre it would be seen as a much bigger story. www.businessgreen.com/news/4537511...

Or switch to an electric car and never have to worry about petrol prices again

Like humour, justice manifests itself in wondrous ways: after the climate-denying US oil majors paved and paid Trump’s path to the White House, his own staggering incompetence has accelerated the transition away from fossil fuels faster than any ‘Green Deal’ ever has. as.ft.com/r/9f686304-6...

The incidence of my neighbours asking me about solar, heat pumps and EVs has gone stratospheric since the Iran war. Its good...but so very very very late. Would have been just great if people had given a fuck a decade ago, or even before we had wildfires in the next village.

iandunt.substack.com/p/these-are-... spot on by @iandunt.bsky.social