Wolfgang Blau

www.politico.eu/article/dona...

Solar has overtaken nuclear. A decade ago it supplied 1% of the world's power. In 2025 it met three quarters of global demand growth. Almost nobody saw it coming. I spoke to Jocelyn Timperley at BBC Future about why. www.bbc.co.uk/future/artic...

"Anthropic model accessed voter information" Yes the info is publicly available (for a fee) but "the model bypassed a paywall in accessing the information, according to Georgia officials and Anthropic." www.axios.com/2026/10/25/a...

The biggest and most important win for the environment in years. The pursuit of an end to Amazon deforestation and a fossil fuel phase out will now continue. www.theguardian.com/world/2026/o...

The complete madness: www.wsj.com/opinion/vikt...

The only - as in: the only - plausible path for the UK to economic growth is to at least join a customs union with the EU. Devolution on its own is a zero sum game.

No surprise: „…between the middle of 2021 and 2025 about 162,000 more EU nationals left the UK than arrived in the country“ www.ft.com/content/ef27...

Kudos to NBC New York for saying it without equivocation: "The US is to blame for the world falling behind in the fight against climate change."

Schwer auszuhalten, das Framing dieser Überschrift. Es ist natürlich nicht der Elektroboom, der VW die Milliarde EUR kostet - sondern das VERSCHLAFEN des Elektrobooms! www.elektroauto-news.net/news/elektro...

When in D.C. (been there last week), it won‘t take you more than an hour to run into political operatives who expect a Trumpian ‚November surprise‘, right before the elections. www.nytimes.com/2026/10/23/u...

Overall, we are seeing some very odd deal talks that are supposedly a part of ending the war in Ukraine. But in fact evidence shows these deals are structured (in the most recent case secretly until now) to financially benefit Russia or business partners of the Trump and Witkoff families.

And Anton has separately written with Jim Tankersley our NYT colleague based in Berlin a piece about talks with Putin to push Europe to start buying Russian gas again--a proposal that would turn years of American energy policy upside-down www.nytimes.com/2026/10/17/u...

Trump‘s corruption.

Leadership. www.instagram.com/reel/DezeF9s...

A very welcome analysis by Michael Kimmage on why there won’t be a “new Yalta”, and why 🇺🇦 and 🇪🇺 retain plenty of agency in the face of 🇺🇸🇷🇺 lovefest. www.nytimes.com/2026/10/22/o...

He‘s beginning to look like the other guy.

Flashback to just 15 months ago... Andy Burnham endorsing the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty www.carbonbrief.org/28-quotes-fr...

The IPCC is pretty clear that if we want a safe climate there can be no new oil and gas. But every country thinks it has some special reason for why it should be the exception

and here it is: wedocs.unep.org/items/87c02c...

I wish more European editors would stop whispering and say it openly: Trump siding with Putin is not just a betrayal of Ukraine. It’s an open invitation for Putin to escalate his hybrid war against Europe.

www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Die USA stehen nicht mehr an der Seite der Ukraine, allen Mühen des ukrainischen Präsidenten zum Trotz. Und es könnte noch schlimmer kommen: Europa sollte sich darauf einstellen, dass Trump offen in das Lager der antiwestlichen Diktatoren wechselt. www.deutschlandfunk.de/ukrainekrieg...

I wish more European editors would stop whispering and say it openly: Trump siding with Putin is not just a betrayal of Ukraine. It’s an open invitation for Putin to escalate his hybrid war against Europe.

Good stat from Eurelectric: "EU electricity prices rose by 22.8% between February and August 2026, while gas prices surged by 88.4%." Full report: www.eurelectric.org/news/electri...

"A world in which the White House is allied to the Kremlin was, until now, the stuff of paranoid fiction. Manchurian candidates and red presidents were fantasies, dark tales Americans told themselves like ghost stories... "But this alliance now exists." www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/1...

The New York Times confidently diagnoses the erosion of Europe’s political centre and social cohesion, yet hesitates to confront Trump as a symptom of America’s own democratic decay. Its diagnosis of Europe may be accurate. The continued asymmetry in its treatment of the US is harder to justify.

Invasion, mass murder, rape, kidnapping of children - all fine

There is something fundamentally wrong with a political system that can‘t rid itself of this. Trump: „Russia hs been fine on Ukraine. They haven‘t been doing much.“

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz warned against complacency over the dangers posed by Russia, saying that Putin is seeking to not only defeat Ukraine, but to also undermine democracy in Europe

Looking for good texts about foreign social media interference in France these last days. We‘ve seen the playbook in the UK.

In 2026 hatten Katherina Reiche & ihre Vertreter: 37 Termine mit fossilen Energiekonzernen 1 Termin mit Umweltverbänden 0 Termine mit Erneuerbaren-Unternehmen Das ist kein Terminkalender einer Wirtschaftsministerin, das ist der Zeitplan einer Lobbyistin. Dass sie noch im Amt ist, ist ein Skandal.

Worth noting this, in light of Meta's temporary ban on the 'No Kings' Instagram account

Trump oligarch Mark Zuckerberg has suspended the No Kings Instagram account in the middle of the national day of action.

Note: TikTok - 15% owned by Musk pal Larry Ellison - permanently banned our "Musk" the movie account on the platform. www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/politic...

Note to self: do this. euroalternative.eu

Massive #explodey Ukrainian drone attack on St Petersburg overnight. Targets: * Petersburg Oil Terminal, the main fuel export hub on the Baltic, now on fire * Ruchyi fuel depot, gasoline and diesel storage facility, ablaze

Trump and Musk openly siding with Europe‘s enemy. as.ft.com/r/03fc4a2a-d... „Zelenskyy says Starlink speed limits in Ukraine are a planned operation“

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...

Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski to Al Jazeera: “Since January of last year, the US has not contributed a single cent to the defence of Ukraine. “We are doing it, Europe.”

!

Data centres are turning Trump voters into Democrats economist.com/graphic-deta...

Far Right AfD Leader Alice Weidel showing her Russian flag to the Deutscher Bundestag: “We in the AfD want diesel deliveries, a diesel deal for Germany, and we want natural gas and oil from Russia to provide relief to German consumers and German companies.”

I am currently in Washington D.C., incl. for political background conversations. There is a strong sense that Trump could lose the Senate majority as well. While rendering him a lame duck domestically, his foreign and trade policy is likely to become even more vengeful and chaotic then.

Thread:

Wrote about a few (and my favorites) a while ago, there might be even more now … matthiasott.com/notes/europe...

The Rebuild initiative has a helpful directory listing European alternatives to US & Asian tech platforms: www.rebuild.net/directory/