Arctic ice samples show how concentrations of an abundant forever chemical have changed over recent decades. WizartoProduction/ShutterstockWhen the phaseout of ozone-destroying chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) was first agreed in 1987, the world narrowly avoided an environmental catastrophe. However, the replacement of CFCs is causing the pollution of the Earth's surface with a "forever chemical" that could remain in the environment for centuries.
The chemical trifluoroacetic acid (TFA) is a breakdown product of numerous chemicals, including CFC replacement gases used in refrigeration and air conditioning, pharmaceuticals such as gases used in inhalation anaesthesia, pesticides, solvents and other forever chemicals from a class known as per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS).
Concentrations of TFA have been increasing in rainwater, drinking water, soil and plants over the past two decades. Environmental removal of any of the thousands of different PFAS chemicals is extremely challenging because existing removal technology is difficult to scale up.
If emissions aren't restricted, the projected cost of PFAS removal has been estimated at €100 billion (£86 billion) per year for Europe. Some researchers have labelled TFA as a "planetary boundary threat" which means it could disrupt Earth's natural systems beyond repair and threaten our survival.
While some PFAS have been linked to numerous cancers and fertility problems, the long-term health effects of TFA on humans and wildlife remains unknown. However, it has been detected in human blood, breast milk and urine, and is being considered for classification as toxic to reproduction by German government agencies.
While understanding of its consequences continues to develop, increasing TFA pollution urgently needs to be addressed.
Read more: The last ozone-layer damaging chemicals to be phased out are finally falling in the atmosphere
A better understanding of the many TFA sources and their relative contributions to environmental levels is required to inform targeted policy.
Evidence from ice cores can offer clues to help detangle these sources. TFA concentrations in Arctic ice over recent decades match the their increasing use. In 2020, Canadian researchers hypothesised that some CFC replacement gases which are known to break down to produce TFA in the atmosphere could be a major source.
These CFC replacements - known as hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs) and hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) - are commonly used in refrigeration, air conditioning and for making insulating foams. They eventually leak into the atmosphere as gases and can travel vast distances. These CFC replacements break down to form TFA and other gases. TFA can be either dissolved in clouds then washed out of the atmosphere through rain or deposited directly from air onto the Earth's surface.
Our new study, published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, quantified the contribution of these CFC replacements and also inhalation anaesthetics to global TFA production. We found that one-third of a million tonnes of TFA (335,500 tonnes) has been deposited to the Earth's surface from these sources between 2000 and 2022.
The forever chemical TFA is transported vast distances in the air and can end up washing back to the Earth's surface in rain.
Astrid Gast/Shutterstock
HCFCs and HFCs have now been phased down under various amendments to the 1987 Montreal protocol on substances that deplete the ozone layer, because they are potent greenhouse gases. Despite this, TFA production increased over the period with the peak production projected to be anywhere between 2025 and 2100.
By comparing the amounts of TFA in our model to Arctic ice core records, we found that these sources can explain virtually all of the TFA deposited in the Arctic. This is particularly concerning because it highlights the ability of TFA pollution to spread around the globe. Emissions from highly populated regions in the northern hemisphere can have a big effect on far-flung regions once considered to be pristine, such as the Arctic.
Read more: What's the forever chemical TFA doing in the UK's rivers?
Peak TFA
However, when we compared our model results to rainwater concentrations closer to emissions regions in developed countries with extensive infrastructure or manufacturing, we found that the sources in our model could not explain all the observed TFA. We questioned whether this missing TFA could be explained by a refrigerant known as HFO-1234yf. This chemical is increasingly used in vehicle air-conditioning because of its low impact on global warming.
While often promoted as a sustainable climate-friendly alternative to HFCs, hydrofluoroolefins (HFOs) can produce TFA much more quickly than HFCs (this process takes days for HFOs and years for HFCs). This may mean that the HFOs don't travel as far in the atmosphere before breaking down, so more TFA gets deposited back on land closer to the regions they are emitted from.
By adding estimated emissions of HFO-1234yf to the model, we were able to considerably explain the gap between the predicted and actual measurements of TFA.
Emissions of HFOs are highly uncertain, so there may be other unknown sources contributing to the TFA observed in rainwater. But with the increasing use of HFOs, TFA will certainly continue to accumulate in the environment. The peak of TFA emissions from these sources will be well into the future if left unregulated now.
Given the risk of its irreversible accumulation in the environment, animals and people, plus a growing understanding of its effects on human health and nature, preventing pollution at source is the safest and healthiest option.
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Lucy Hart receives funding from Natural Environment Research Council ECORISC CDT.
Ryan Hossaini receives funding from the Natural Environment Research Council
Another day, another big move for the US solar industry as Voltage Energy announces expansion in North Carolina.
The post US Solar Industry Innovators Are Quiet-Quitting US Energy Policy appeared first on CleanTechnica.
Orion Energy Systems recently announced it will install 105 fast EV chargers for Boston Public Schools on a $4 million contract. EV chargers at schools often means chargers for electric buses, not hybrids, and that's the case here. CleanTechnica has published many articles about electric school buses because they have ... [continued]
The post 105 Fast EV Charging Stations Coming To Boston Public Schools appeared first on CleanTechnica.
Mark Zuckerberg (41) paid $19 billion for WhatsApp in 2014. Today it has 3 billion users, 150 billion daily messages, and 400 million businesses using it.
He could have made it the universal platform for AI access - every small business from Brazil to Bangladesh, every merchant in India, accessing AI through the tool they already use daily. 80% customer satisfaction. Zero learning curve.
Instead: poured billions into the metaverse. Meanwhile the infrastructure to democratize AI sits unused.
This isn't just Meta. The pattern repeats:
- Sam Altman (40), Zuckerberg (41), Sundar Pichai (52)
- All building for tech-savvy 25-year-olds
- Ignoring that 40+ demographics control 70%+ of global wealth
- Missing obvious opportunities in favor of "prestige" projects
I'm 40. I just spent a week running open-source AI (Gemma 3 12B) on a $1500 machine and replaced $200/month subscriptions. 90% of business tasks work fine. The technology to democratize this exists NOW.
But the decision-makers can't see it because they're optimizing for impressing other nerds, not serving billions of people who just want technology that works.
The article covers:
- Why knowledge has never stayed locked up in history (printing press → AI)
- How open-source models closed the gap from 18 months to 6 months
- The "water company future" they're all missing
- Why the greatest innovations came from diverse teams (Bletchley Park vs Silicon Valley monoculture)
This is collapse in real-time: having the tools to solve problems, the infrastructure to distribute solutions, and decision-makers too insulated to see what's right in front of them.
submitted by /u/hungry-for-things[link] [comments]
Not to act like a condescending jackass smartass, but I noticed that there's a genuine lack of historical context and more isolationist sensationalism, even here. It's frustrating.
What do I mean by this?
When people call and talk about "rich people"/"billionaires" as though this is a new phenomenon.
They're plutocrats, descendants of monarchy/aristocracy. Call them what they are.
"LaTe sTAgE CapITalIsM"
NO. It's NEOFEUDALISM. It has always been FEUDALISM. Call them what they are.
People genuinely act surprised when collapse happens. Have you ever put yourself in the shoes of those Roman plebs? The 1790s Frenchmen? Or any of the empires that had fallen? I'm sure all the plebs acted the same, acting all surprised that things are falling, while having never bothered to notice things falling in the first place, because they hAd bIlLS tO PaY.
There's this illusionary sense of belief that your period of time is unique in history, even among people above 60. The horror, the collapse, the "evil". The sense that what you're experiencing (the collapse) has never occured to nor been experienced by people before them. You speak of your experience as though it's a novel, unprecedented phenomenon, divorced from historical examples. There's no examination of history, at all.
You keep tranferring power/authority/consent form/permission slip to the ruling class through one of their instruments called money, and you're suprised you don't have power?
It had happened and it will happen again if you don't look at a history book.
That is not to say that there aren't historically aware people in here. But I'm sure you can count them on your fingers and toes.
submitted by /u/Sad-Measurement-7535[link] [comments]
There's no doubt about it — if you stopped time today, Waymo would be named the robotaxi winner outside of China, or certainly in the West. No other company compares in robotaxi deployment to date. Now, there are companies that think they can catch up, or whose chief aim is ... [continued]
The post $16 Billion for Waymo to Dominate the Robotaxi Market in the West appeared first on CleanTechnica.
Value-packed, all-new LEAF scores another industry award The all-new 2026 Nissan LEAF was named a Car and Driver Editors' Choice winner. The annual list names the best cars, trucks, SUVs and vans from the 2026 model year, ranked across 47 unique vehicle segments. "Redesigned for 2026, the new LEAF provides the range, performance, ... [continued]
The post 2026 Nissan LEAF Named a 2026 Car and Driver Editors' Choice Winner appeared first on CleanTechnica.
Huge thanks to my February sponsor, John Rember, author of the three-book series Journal of the Plague Years, a psychic survival guide for humanity's looming date with destiny, shaped by his experiences living through the pandemic in his native Idaho. Thoughtful, wry and humane, Journal 1 is a pleasure.
"The Global Economy's Warning Signals Are Broken.
"From markets to spending to debt, usually reliable indicators that forecast where the economy is headed are proving deeply fallible… The cooperative system of trade based on rules is giving way to great power aggression and mercantilism. With so much change happening so fast, historical patterns are cracking."
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/03/business/economy/global-economy-forecasts.html
"Gold extends rally, jumps over 2% after best day since 2008.
"Gold prices climbed more than 2% on Wednesday, building on their best day since 2008 in the previous session, as bargain-hunting and a softer dollar supported bullion. The closely watched employment report for January will not be released this Friday because of the partial shutdown."
https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/gold-extends-rally-jumps-over-013913040.html
"Gold giant becomes major buyer of U.S. debt…
"Tether is no longer just a crypto liquidity provider. It is now one of the largest private holders of both gold and U.S. government debt, placing it in territory traditionally occupied by banks, asset managers and sovereign institutions."
https://www.thestreet.com/crypto/markets/gold-giant-becomes-major-buyer-of-u-s-debt
"The Treasury market is treading in dangerous waters…
"While yields have remained relatively contained compared to historic highs, several "dangerous" undercurrents are causing unease among global investors… Total U.S. national debt has surpassed $38 trillion. Annual net interest payments are nearing $1 trillion, now rivaling major expenditures like defence and Medicare."
https://www.ft.com/content/c1229d2e-b871-4419-b9ed-7a9589c5a296
"The trillion-dollar question for AI business models.
"Here is a sobering truth about artificial intelligence: It is not yet profitable. Money is pouring into AI, and funds flow through it - for the time being. But when one examines AI companies' profits, clear data is hard to find."
https://www.gisreportsonline.com/r/ai-business-models/
"An AI bubble is not big tech's only worry…
"Digital advertising, which accounts for a large and growing share of big tech's revenues, is looking less recession-proof. Having shrugged off the previous two downturns of their short history, in 2008-10 and 2020, digital ads are likely to take a serious knock when the next one eventually hits."
https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2026/02/02/an-ai-bubble-is-not-big-techs-only-worry
"Office CMBS Delinquency Rate Spikes to Record 12.3%, Much Worse than Financial Crisis Meltdown Peak.
"The delinquency rate of office mortgages that have been securitized into commercial mortgage-backed securities (CMBS) spiked by over a percentage point in January to 12.3%, once again the worst ever, and 1.6 percentage point above the worst moments of the Financial Crisis…"
"Trump Is Reverse Engineering The Great Recession.
"Residential mortgage-backed securities are back. Subprime mortgages are up… one of the core financial products that led to millions of foreclosures during the Great Recession is being quietly readied for a comeback — even as economic and climate conditions make its return all the more destabilizing."
https://www.levernews.com/trump-is-reverse-engineering-the-great-recession/
"Trump unveils $12bn critical minerals stockpile scheme in apparent move to counter China's dominance.
""Today we're launching what will be known as Project Vault to ensure that American businesses and workers are never harmed by any shortage," Trump said at the White House on Monday. He compared it to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR)…"
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/feb/03/trump-critical-minerals-stockpile-project-vault
"Former Farming Leaders Warn U.S. Agriculture Could Face 'Widespread Collapse'.
"Current economic conditions and Trump administration policies could lead to "a widespread collapse of American agriculture," a bipartisan coalition of former Agriculture Department officials and leaders of farm groups warned in a letter on Tuesday."
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/03/us/politics/us-agriculture-warning.html
"Farmer warns rising feed costs will hit food prices [UK].
"The Met Office declared the summer of 2025 was the hottest since records began in 1884, which led to a drought being declared across the Midlands from July until December… the dry weather led to a drastic reduction in the supply of silage…"
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c050r4rz81zo
"Germany eyes lasers, spy satellites in military space spending splurge…
"Germany will build an encrypted military constellation of more than 100 satellites, known as SATCOM Stage 4, over the next few years, the head of German Space Command Michael Traut told Reuters on the sidelines of a space event ahead of the Singapore Airshow."
"German Borrowing Costs at Highest Since 2011 on Spending Spree… as investors demand higher premiums to account for the record debt burden they need to absorb…
"It comes as Germany seeks to raise €512 billion ($604 billion) from debt sales this year to fund a spending spree aimed at fixing its infrastructure and modernizing its armed forces."
"Damning EU report lays bare bloc's 'dangerous dependence' on critical mineral imports.
"The EU is struggling to free itself from dependence on China and countries in the global south for critical minerals and rare earths needed for everything from smartphones to wind turbines and military jets."
"EU States Seek Russian Fertilizer Ban in Next Sanctions Package.
"Nordic duo Finland and Sweden have proposed a possible ban on imports of Russian fertilizer as part of the EU's next sanctions package, as the gas-based product has become a way around current gas-related sanctions."
https://www.energyintel.com/0000019c-23a7-d32e-a99c-7faf3c9e0000
"Ukraine war briefing: second round of Abu Dhabi talks set for tense start after 'massive' strikes on Kyiv.
"Senior Ukrainian and Russian officials are due to meet in Abu Dhabi on Wednesday for a second round of talks brokered by the Trump administration. The two-day talks are expected to mirror last month's format…"
"Russia warns of military measures if US deploys weapons in Greenland…
"Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov warned on Tuesday that Moscow would take "military and technical compensatory measures" if the United States deploys elements of its proposed "Golden Dome" missile defense system on the Arctic island."
"Steeper Discounts on Russian Oil Test India Response to US Deal.
"Discounts on Russian oil being offered to Indian refiners have widened over the past 10 days, raising the question of whether processors will be encouraged to snap up cargoes despite a trade agreement with the US that hinges on lower purchases."
"Top China Official Vows to Boost Consumption to Overhaul Economy.
"China will press ahead with building a unified market to unleash domestic consumption as countries around Asia face a "pivotal juncture" in the transformation of the global economy, a top economic official said."
"Japan Claims 'World First' Retrieval of Rare Earths in Deepsea Drill.
"In a statement posted on X, PM Sanae Takaichi said the deep-sea drilling vessel Chikyu removed sediment containing rare earth minerals from an area near Minamitori-shima (Minamitori Island) at a depth of nearly 6,000 ki
lometres."
https://www.asiafinancial.com/japan-claims-world-first-retrieval-of-rare-earths-in-deepsea-drill
"Yen Crisis Tracker.
"The Japanese yen is mired in a protracted decline linked to escalating worries about the country's financial health. With a new prime minister heading into an election, investors are bracing for policy shifts that could reshape the market."
https://www.reuters.com/data/yen-crisis-tracker-2026-02-03/
"Bank of Japan won't come to the rescue of a Takaichi-driven bond rout.
"Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi should not count on the Bank of Japan's help in taming sharp bond yield rises given the huge cost of intervention, including the significant risk of igniting unwelcome yen falls, sources say."
"North Korea: teenagers 'executed for watching Squid Game' as regime wages war on K-Drama and K-Pop…
"Interviewees said that newer South Korean content was reaching North Korea faster than in previous decades. They mentioned popular South Korean dramas from the 2010s, including Crash Landing on You, noted for its North Korea setting, and Descendants of the Sun, which features military themes."
"Thailand: From 'Economic Tiger' to the 'Sick Man of Asia'.
"Thailand's economy is in a structural crisis, transitioning from a high-growth "Economic Tiger" to a stagnant state as its main pillars of consumption, manufacturing, and tourism falter. The decline is driven by deep-seated issues, including a shrinking population."
https://www.nationthailand.com/business/economy/40062077
"Rohingya Again Abandoned as Myanmar's Conflict Enters a Far Deadlier Phase.
"This Rohingya Myanmar crisis exemplifies systemic human rights failures embedded in the junta's state policy of impunity, where airstrikes target civilians and aid blockades starve millions, reviving perils for the Rohingya minority…"
"Death toll of terrorist attacks in Pakistan's Balochistan rises to 250: official.
"More than 250 people have been killed in coordinated attacks launched by terrorists across Pakistan's Balochistan province since Saturday, a security official has said, with fighting continuing as government forces pursue the attackers."
https://www.trtworld.com/article/9abdf9b86bb1
"Afghan Migration to Crisis-Stricken Iran: A Mirror of a Deeper Catastrophe in Afghanistan.
"From what we hear and see, Iran's economy is more fragile and unstable than ever. Items such as cooking oil, rice, chicken, and red meat are no longer ordinary commodities; they have become luxury, scarce goods and concrete indicators of a collapsing livelihood."
"'Game is over': Iran's ex-leaders, hardliners clash after protest killings.
"Several of Iran's former leaders, including some who are currently imprisoned or under house arrest, have released damning statements over the killing of thousands during nationwide protests, garnering threats from hardliners."
"US shoots down Iranian drone as Middle East tensions escalate.
"The US military said it shot down an Iranian drone that "aggressively approached" an American aircraft carrier 500 miles from Iran's southern coast on Tuesday… In a separate incident hours later, Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps forces threatened to board and seize a US-flagged tanker in the Strait of Hormuz."
https://www.ft.com/content/81c72320-dab7-4429-8859-c2bd551ec5a1
"Iran-US; Why the Next Oil Crisis Will Be More Dangerous. Markets are not fully pricing in the high chance of a major oil shock...
"So, how big are the risks? Geopolitical analysts concur that they are greater than the market is now pricing. Tina Fordham of Fordham Global Foresight argues that with at least eight destroyers and an aircraft carrier in place, the buildup is accelerating."
"All-female Syrian militia refuses to lay down arms…
"'They will only get to our land over our dead bodies,' YPJ vows as Kurds fight for de facto capital… Ms Mohammed said: "Our commanders and soldiers have played the largest role, in the war against IS, in the war against al-Nusra, on all frontlines. So we can't accept an armed force without women.""
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2026/02/03/kurdish-female-soldiers-fight-for-qamishli/
"Milk rationing begins at Israeli supermarkets as dairy strike escalates.
"Sources familiar with the details told Israel Hayom that dairy farmers plan to escalate their protest measures if the Knesset committee does not transfer the discussion of the dairy reform to the Economics Committee."
https://www.israelhayom.com/2026/02/03/israel-dairy-farmers-strike-milk-shortage-crisis/
"Israel kills at least ten Palestinians in Gaza, including three children…
"A source in Gaza's ambulance and emergency services told Al Jazeera Arabic that Israeli artillery fire struck the Zaytoun and Tuffah neighbourhoods, east of Gaza City, at dawn, killing seven people, including two baby girls."
"Economic collapse in Yemen drive many towards cryptocurrency despite grave risks.
"As inflation in Yemen surged to a record 45 per cent in 2021, Aisha Hamid watched the value of her savings steadily erode. Even with inflation now down to about 20.7 per cent, the 34-year-old Sana'a resident says the damage has already been done."
https://www.newarab.com/news/economic-collapse-yemen-drive-many-towards-cryptocurrency
"Yemen accuses Eritrea and Puntland of abuses against fishermen in Red Sea and Gulf of Aden.
"Yemen's Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Water Resources has accused Eritrean forces and Somalia's Puntland administration of carrying out deadly attacks, arbitrary arrests and illegal detentions of Yemeni fishermen working in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden."
"Ethiopia's prime minister accuses Eritrea of mass killings during Tigray war.
"Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, while addressing parliament Tuesday, accused Eritrean troops fighting alongside Ethiopian forces of mass killings in the war, during which more than 400,000 people are estimated to have died."
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/eritrea-ethiopia-abiy-ahmed-red-sea-addis-ababa-b2913325.html
"Central Africa: Civilians at Risk in Eastern Congo.
"Abuses against civilians by government forces and armed groups have become rampant in the conflict in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo… Rwanda, Burundi, Congo, and the Central African Republic have further restricted civil and political rights."
https://www.hrw.org/news/2026/02/04/central-africa-civilians-at-risk-in-eastern-congo
"Gaddafi's son killed in clashes as 444th Brigade denies involvement [Libya].
"Abdullah Osman, , as an adviser and chief of cabinet to Saif al-Islam, reportedly confirmed the death following an armed confrontation with the militia, according to conflict zone journalist Levent Kemal."
"Islamic State in the Sahel and the Dangers of Continued Regional Upheaval.
"The Islamic State (IS) claimed responsibility for last week's coordinated attack on Diori Hamani International Airport and the adjacent Air Base 101 in Niamey, Niger's capital, marking one of the most high-profile attacks for IS-affiliates in the Sahel region."
https://thesoufancenter.org/intelbrief-2026-february-3/
"US military says some forces have been dispatched to Nigeria…
"Defense Minister Christopher Musa confirmed that a team was working in Nigeria but did not provide further details. A former U.S. official said the U.S. team appeared to be heavily involved in intelligence gathering and enabling Nigerian forces to strike terrorist-affiliated groups."
"US urges its citizens in Cuba to brace for protests, outages, fuel shortage…
"In recent weeks, Washington has moved to block all oil from reaching Cuba, including that from ally Venezuela, pushing up prices for food and transportation and prompting severe fuel shortages and hours of blackouts."
"Thousands march in Venezuela to demand US frees President Maduro, wife…
"Thousands carried signs in support of the abducted president, and many wore shirts calling for the couple's return from detention in a US prison. "The empire kidnapped them. We want them back," declared one banner carried by marchers."
"Colombian and Ecuadorian merchants and truckers protest escalating trade war between both nations…
"Protesters called for their governments to eliminate 30% tariffs on dozens of goods, warning the levies will hurt the economy of border provinces and affect energy companies on both sides of the border."
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/protesters-trade-quito-bogota-trump-b2913301.html
"Gen Z is officially less intelligent than millennials, first recorded intergenerational IQ drop.
"Gen Z is now officially the only generation to measure lower than their predecessors in intelligence. A neuroscientist says this is because short videos and summarised texts are being increasingly relied on, but this is not how the human brain works."
"More Gen Z and millennials are getting cancer…
"Oncologists have observed a disturbing trend — cancers are increasingly being diagnosed in younger adults, particularly those in their late 20s to early 40s — namely Gen Z and millennials."
I rely on donations and tips from my readers to to keep the site running. Every little bit helps. Can you chip in even a dollar? Buy me a coffee or become a Patreon supporter. A huge thank you to those who do subscribe or donate.
You can read the previous "Economic" thread here. I'll be back tomorrow with a "Climate" thread.
The post 4th February 2026 Today's Round-Up of Economic News appeared first on Climate and Economy.
Paying attention to the calls of our avian neighbours can reduce stress, find scientists in Germany
Feeling stressed? Try a dose of birdsong to lift the spirits. A new study shows that paying attention to the treetop melodies of our feathered friends can boost wellbeing and bring down stress levels.
Previous research has shown that people feel better in bird-rich environments, but Christoph Randler, from the University of Tübingen, and colleagues wanted to see if that warm fuzzy feeling translated into measurable physiological changes. They rigged up a park with loudspeakers playing the songs of rare birds and measured the blood pressure, heart rate and cortisol levels (a marker of stress) of volunteers before and after taking a 30-minute walk through the park. Some volunteers experienced the birdsong-enriched environment, some heard just natural birdsong, and some wore noise-cancelling headphones and heard no birdsong. Half of the recruits were asked to pay attention to the birdsong.
Continue reading...A shortlist of 24 images has been selected for the wildlife photographer of the year people's choice award. You can vote for your favourite image online. The winner will be announced on 25 March and shown from that date as part of the overall wildlife photographer of the year exhibition, which runs until 12 July at the Natural History Museum in London
Continue reading...Inkpen, Berkshire: We're paying the price now for a poor grass harvest, and the concern is isn't a one-off bad year
At this point in the year, when the growing season seems so far away, last summer's hay harvest is most remembered, sometimes rued. The hottest summer followed the driest spring in over 100 years in southern England. And although making hay while the sun shines is genuinely crucial, rain is critical to growth. Last year produced a very poor harvest, and hay is now running out.
Traditionally, two cuts are made, in late spring and summer, doubling the yield. It's an ancient, ingenious and hopeful system, and in the case of meadow hay (rather than single-species ryegrass) it benefits nature, removing nutrient‑laden grass and encouraging biodiversity. But long-term studies show that as our weather patterns change, grass-growing potential has declined greatly over the last 80 years.
Continue reading...
Electric motorcycles are beginning to move from pilot use to commercial deployment in the Philippine moto-taxi sector, with ride-hailing platform Xpress Super App confirming the integration of electric motorcycles supplied by VOLTAI into its operating network. VOLTAI is an electric vehicle brand under the Aboitiz Group, one of the country's ... [continued]
The post Electric Moto-taxis Begin Rollout in Manila, Other Urban Centers appeared first on CleanTechnica.
Everyone seems to agree: AI is a bubble.
Too much capital. Too few revenue-generating products. Infrastructure costs that dwarf actual utility.
The consensus is almost universal.
But here's the part most people skip:
If it's so obvious, why is the smartest institutional money in the world—hedge funds, sovereign wealth, Big Tech treasuries—still deploying billions into AI infrastructure?
Not retail investors chasing hype. Not momentum traders. The people with asymmetric information and 10-year horizons.
Either:
They see something the consensus doesn't
They're trapped in a coordination problem
The bubble label itself is missing something structural
Made a 26-second short that sits with that tension. No answers given—just the question most people don't ask.
Link: https://youtube.com/shorts/hXCKOUio1Fs
Curious what people here think. Is this a traditional speculative bubble, or is the capital flow revealing a different dynamic?
submitted by /u/Reasonable_Archer914[link] [comments]
When Essex University's Southend campus opened, it was a message of hope for a 'left behind' UK seaside town. Its closure will be felt far beyond its 800 students, some of whom will not get their degrees
The seaside city of Southend-on-Sea, on England's east coast, looks grey on a winter afternoon in term-time. Its cobbled high street, bordering the university campus, is sparsely populated with market stalls, vape shops and discount retailers, and feels unusually quiet.
"There used to be lots of shops, restaurants and youth clubs around here," says 23-year-old Nathan Doucette-Chiddicks. Now, the city is about to lose something else that it can scarcely do without.
Continue reading...
The lithium boom: could a disused quarry bring riches to Cornwall? [ 03-Feb-26 4:08pm ]Known as 'white gold', lithium is among the most important mined elements on the planet - ideal for the rechargeable batteries used in tech products. Can Europe's largest deposit bring prosperity to the local community?
It looks more like the past than the future. A vast chasm scooped out of a scarred landscape, this is a Cornwall the summer holidaymakers don't see: a former china clay pit near St Austell called Trelavour. I'm standing at the edge of the pit looking down with the man who says his plans for it will help the UK's transition to renewable energy and bring back year-round jobs and prosperity to a part of the country that badly needs both. "And if I manage to make some money in the process, fantastic," he says. "Though that is not what it's about."
We'll return to him shortly. But first to the past, when this story begins, about 275-280m years ago. "There was a continental collision at the time," Frances Wall, professor of applied mineralogy at the Camborne School of Mines at the University of Exeter, explained to me before my visit. This collision caused the bottom of the Earth's crust to melt, with the molten material rising higher in the crust and forming granite. "There are lots of different types of granite that intrude at different times, more than 10m years or so," she says. "The rock is made of minerals and, if you've got the right composition in the original material and the right conditions, then within those minerals there are some called mica. Some of those micas contain lithium."
Continue reading...
MEMO: Sierra Club & Partners Rally to Make Polluters Pay for Climate Disasters [ 04-Feb-26 4:50am ]Summary of Week of Action and What to Expect Next Washington, DC — Last week, Sierra Club joined partners from across the country for a "Make Polluters Pay" Week of Action, a coordinated set of advocacy actions and events dedicated to holding Big Oil and Gas companies accountable for their climate ... [continued]
The post MEMO: Sierra Club & Partners Rally to Make Polluters Pay for Climate Disasters appeared first on CleanTechnica.
Feds Identify "Leader of Antifa" [ 04-Feb-26 5:22am ]
Zurich Transit Operator Prepares Fresh €150 Million Electric Bus Tender After Supplier Setbacks [ 04-Feb-26 4:59am ]UPDATED AS OF FEBRUARY 2. Zurich's public transport authority, Verkehrsbetriebe Zürich (VBZ), has officially launched one of its largest fleet procurements in years, opting for a new competitive tender for battery-electric buses rather than relying on existing framework contracts. The move, first reported by BusWorld and CH Media, was formalized ... [continued]
The post Zurich Transit Operator Prepares Fresh €150 Million Electric Bus Tender After Supplier Setbacks appeared first on CleanTechnica.
There Will Be More EVs (and NEVs) at the Chicago Auto Show 2026 [ 04-Feb-26 4:34am ]The Chicago Auto Show will return to McCormick Place from February 7 to 16, 2026, with a lineup that underscores the show's evolving role in the US auto market: less about global debuts and more about consumer-ready vehicles, electrification pathways, and hands-on engagement. The small ratio of pure EVs to ... [continued]
The post There Will Be More EVs (and NEVs) at the Chicago Auto Show 2026 appeared first on CleanTechnica.
Toyota Uses bZ Time Attack Concept to Probe the Limits of EV Racing [ 04-Feb-26 4:08am ]At the 2025 SEMA Show, Toyota presented a battery-electric concept car that signals how the company is thinking about motorsport in an electric future. The bZ Time Attack Concept was developed not as a styling exercise, but as a functional prototype to evaluate how a BEV platform behaves under racing ... [continued]
The post Toyota Uses bZ Time Attack Concept to Probe the Limits of EV Racing appeared first on CleanTechnica.
Global EV Sales Leaders — Top Selling Brands & OEMs in 2025 [ 04-Feb-26 3:49am ]After publishing our report on the top selling EV models in the world in December and 2025 as a whole, as well as an overall report on global EV progress, here's our complementary report on the auto brands and groups leading EV sales around the world. Geely on the Way ... [continued]
The post Global EV Sales Leaders — Top Selling Brands & OEMs in 2025 appeared first on CleanTechnica.
20 Best Selling EV Models in the World in 2025 — Tesla Makes an (Increasingly Rare) #1 + #2 Win [ 04-Feb-26 3:39am ]Regarding December's best selling electric vehicles, the big news is that thanks to a strong month in China, Tesla partly recovered from the hangover on the US market and saw its best sellers return to leading positions. The Model Y (132,327 units, down 3% YoY) won the best seller spot, ... [continued]
The post 20 Best Selling EV Models in the World in 2025 — Tesla Makes an (Increasingly Rare) #1 + #2 Win appeared first on CleanTechnica.
Book review "They poisoned the world: Life & death in the age of Forever Chemicals" [ 04-Feb-26 12:47am ]
A video essay to climb out of the rubble of collapse [ 04-Feb-26 1:06am ]
December was a Record Month! There were over 2.1 million plugin vehicles registered in December, with both BEVs (+13% YoY) and PHEVs (+6% YoY) rising. With the USA EV market still in hangover mode and China slowing down, it was up to the Rest of the World (+51% YoY) to ... [continued]
The post Global EV Sales Leaders — 2025 Top Markets & Powertrains appeared first on CleanTechnica.
What if this is our last chance we have at actual change before ABSOLUTE CHECKMATE,
submitted by /u/TheRealRealUberman[link] [comments]
I'm posting this here because centralized power and passive participation seem to be recurring structural features of systemic fragility and collapse.
Looking at most systems throughout history, it becomes clear that despite their ideological differences, sometimes even opposing principles, they tend to produce very similar outcomes in practice. Almost all of them centralize power and decision-making within a relatively small group of people. As a result, the majority of those participating in these systems are left with a largely passive role in sustaining them.
This passivity creates the conditions for power to remain unchecked, and it allows centralized authority to further consolidate itself. This consolidation can happen through association with other forms of power, such as wealth or influence, or through mechanisms specific to each system's principles and structure. Regardless of the path, the outcome tends to be the same: power concentrates, while participation diminishes.
Over time, the general population learns this passivity so deeply that it begins to feel inevitable. It's not even that people consciously decide against having a more active role: rather, the possibility itself often stops being imagined. Active participation in shaping the system becomes almost inconceivable.
At least at a conceptual level, a system that involves its participants in a more active role in power and decision-making would represent a fundamentally different structure: one where power is decentralized, and where decisions more closely reflect the interests and needs of the people affected by them. If organized carefully, such a system could address many issues that existing systems routinely neglect or handle poorly.
However, this kind of system would also require a different mentality, and likely a shift in how individuals relate to society itself. It cannot be imposed or enforced, because it depends on active participation and individual involvement, expressed in different degrees and forms.
At its core, this system relies on a shared realization: that society and its structures are created and sustained by individuals collectively. This realization cannot be forced. It requires willingness. Without that willingness, the system cannot be created, maintained, or allowed to develop.
Because people are not homogeneous in their attitudes, capacities, or motivations, this system cannot rely on coercion or centralized enforcement. It can only exist through the voluntary coming together of people who choose to take responsibility for the society they participate in.
submitted by /u/Junior_Drawer2793[link] [comments]
Please help [ 03-Feb-26 7:33pm ]I'm literally losing hair about this topic like I just want to injoy my life or live up to 30 normally and have a wife and kids but I just don't see myself even growing up in the future because of how the world is going though I turn 16 in a week I wanna be happy about it because I can get a job or a driver license but I'm not because I'm telling myself what's the point of doing that if the world is going to go to shit and I'm using suicide as a coping mechanism saying like when the world collapses im going to off myself so i dont have to live through it but i just can't beacuse im Muslim like i dont know what to do like i just im trying to gaslight myself into thinking everything is going to be ok but its not like i just want to live up until 30 with the world being semi-ok not where ice is killing everyone they see and trump is a fucking dumbass and where we will own nothing and we will be eating Soylent because there will be no fucking food left cause of government. Like I just wanna feel good about the world Everytime I think about my future I think that it's going to be shit and please don't bring up getting closer to god everyone always says that to me and there is so much fucking hate is the world why can't we live in peace no wars just peace. Please tell me you guys coping mechanism
Demographics Are About to Break the Housing Market [ 03-Feb-26 7:33pm ]
Climate 'fingerprints' mark human activity from the top of the atmosphere to the bottom of the ocean [ 03-Feb-26 5:32pm ]
buradaki/ShutterstockThe world is warming. This fact is most often discussed for the Earth's surface, where we live. But the climate is also changing from the top of the atmosphere to the bottom of the ocean. And there is a clear fingerprint of humanity's role in causing these changes through greenhouse gas emissions, primarily from burning fossil fuels.
Over the last several decades, satellites have monitored the Earth and measured how much heat enters and leaves the atmosphere. Over that time, as greenhouse gas concentrations have increased in the atmosphere, there has been less heat escaping to space, causing an imbalance with more heat being retained.
The consequence is a rapidly heating planet.
The "warming stripes" are one striking and simple way of visually highlighting the resulting variations in Earth's surface temperature using shades of blue and red for cool and warm, with one stripe per year.
One billion individual measurements of a thermometer combine to produce the clearest picture of our warming planet from 1850 to 2025. The last 11 years have been the warmest 11 years on record and this sequence is unlikely to end anytime soon.
Warming stripes representing changes in global average surface temperatures from 1850 to 2025.
Ed Hawkins / University of Reading, CC BY
We recently extended this concept upwards through the atmosphere and downwards into the ocean, although the available datasets are shorter.
Satellites have monitored the temperature of different layers of the atmosphere since 1979. The warming stripes for the troposphere (the lowest layers of the atmosphere, within which commercial flights operate) are very similar to the warming stripes of the surface, with the warmest years predominantly occurring over the last decade. Instead of using surface temperature measurements from thermometers, the atmospheric temperature is measured by instruments on satellites called radiometers that detect how much infrared radiation is emitted from air molecules. These satellite-based estimates help corroborate the surface warming that we have already observed.
Higher up in the atmosphere, the picture changes.
The warming stripes over the upper atmosphere (the part called the stratosphere that's above typical airline cruising height) reveal a cooling trend, with the warmest years around 1980 and the coolest years over the past decade. This feature may appear surprising. If the atmosphere is gaining heat, shouldn't the stratosphere be warming too?
Actually, this feature is a clear fingerprint of how human activities are the direct cause of our changing climate.
Global temperature change from the top of the atmosphere to the bottom of the ocean.
Ed Hawkins / University of Reading, CC BY
Why is there this pattern of temperature change? The concentrations of greenhouse gases have increased throughout the atmosphere, making the atmosphere more efficient at absorbing and giving off heat. In the lower atmosphere, this effect acts as a blanket, retaining more heat and warming the surface.
Higher up, where the air is thin and very little heat arrives from below, extra carbon dioxide allows the stratosphere to lose more heat to space than it gains, so the stratosphere cools. Another factor is the destruction of stratospheric ozone by substances known as chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), which produces cooling in the lower stratosphere.
This human-caused fingerprint of a warming troposphere and cooling stratosphere was first suggested by scientists as a consequence of increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide levels in the 1960s, long before the cooling stratosphere was observed. Importantly, this pattern would not be seen if, for example, changes in the sun's brightness were the primary cause of global warming, which instead would lead to warming throughout the atmosphere.
Beneath the surfaceWarming stripes for different depth levels in the ocean reveal a broadly similar warming trend as at the surface, with the warmest years occurring over the past decade. The timing of the warming also suggests the heat moves downwards into the ocean from the surface, again consistent with a human influence.
This uptake of heat by the ocean is important, as otherwise there would be a much greater rise in surface air temperature. Globally, the ocean accounts for around 90% of the extra heat stored by the planet. We also see sea levels rising due to sea water getting warmer and expanding, and because land ice is melting and entering the ocean as extra water.
All these observations tell a very clear story. The burning of fossil fuels increases the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. The physics of why such an increase should warm the surface was understood in the 1850s, before the warming was observed. And the pattern of change observed from the top of the atmosphere to the bottom of the ocean indicates that greenhouse gas emissions are the dominant cause.
Past and future 'warning' stripes showing changes in global temperature for two different choices for the future.
Ed Hawkins / University of Reading, CC BY
But, what happens next? Because our emissions are causing the climate to change, our collective global choices about future emissions matter.
Rapid action to reduce emissions will stabilise global surface temperatures but delayed action means worse consequences. Which choice will we make?
Don't have time to read about climate change as much as you'd like?
Get a weekly roundup in your inbox instead. Every Wednesday, The Conversation's environment editor writes Imagine, a short email that goes a little deeper into just one climate issue. Join the 47,000+ readers who've subscribed so far.
Ed Hawkins receives funding from UKRI NERC grants and is supported by the National Centre for Atmospheric Science.
Ric Williams receives funding from UKRI NERC grants and works at University of Liverpool.
How to keep plant-based foods on the table now that Veganuary is over [ 03-Feb-26 5:31pm ]
monticello/ShutterstockCampaigns like Veganuary (an initiative that encourages people to eat a plant-based diet in January) have been hugely successful in raising awareness about the climate and the health benefits of eating this way. However, making the switch longer term is not always easy - especially when there are usually limited meat-free options in workplaces.
For our recent study, my colleagues and I worked with Derek Bell (professor of environmental politics at Newcastle University) to identify public institutions like hospitals, universities and local councils as key players in the move towards a more sustainable food system. They account for a significant amount of the food that is sold in the UK - 5-6% of all food sales or £2.4 billion annually. They can also influence our dietary choices and help shift social norms around food consumption.
However, getting caterers to become more plant-based can be controversial. Some argue that public institutions should not limit our freedom of choice when it comes to what we eat, or that it is insensitive to the cultural preferences of staff and clients.
Our work tries to tackle these concerns. While eliminating or reducing the offering of meat and dairy might limit options, public institutions already limit our choices in various ways to promote health and sustainability. Also, norms and expectations can change. The 2006 public smoking ban initially faced considerable resistance, but support for it has since greatly increased, including among smokers.
Thoughtful cateringWhen introduced thoughtfully, plant-based catering has proved popular. In 2021, New York City Health + Hospitals, the largest municipal health system in the US, made plant-based food the default option for its inpatient meals. Their menus are both nutritionally balanced - assuaging worries about poorly designed vegan and vegetarian menus - and offer users a diverse range of choices. The menu includes Moroccan vegetable tagine, Spanish vegetable paella and a pad Thai noodle bowl.
This shows how plant-based catering can take into account different dietary needs, while respecting a range of cultural backgrounds and not restricting the ability of people to choose. As many as 95% of eligible patients did not request alternative meals, and 90% reported being satisfied. Many patients reported that they would continue to eat vegetarian meals at home. This shows the power of defaults, and the influence public institutions can have on our actions.
Thoughtful catering takes into account a variety of dietary needs without restricting peoples' choices.
PeopleImages/Shutterstock
New York City Health + Hospitals has also shown tangible environmental and economic gains. Its food-related carbon emissions fell by 36%, while food bills also went down: these meals cost roughly 59 cents (£0.43) less per tray than meat-based alternatives.
We're seeing changes happening elsewhere too. In the UK, a growing number of universities are gradually shifting towards more plant-based catering. Sometimes this is being encouraged by students: at the universities of Kent, Lancaster and University College London, student unions have voted in favour of lobbying their university to adopt more sustainable and healthy catering options. In 2021, the four universities in Berlin successfully changed their menus to 68% vegan, 28% vegetarian and just 4% meat dishes. Like the New York City hospitals, they offer a wide range of nutritionally balanced meals with flavours from around the world.
Providing the right kinds of plant-based foods is an effective way of countering worries that people have about the health risks of going vegetarian or vegan, and about restricting their dietary preferences. In short, a well planned menu can keep plant-based foods on the table beyond Veganuary.
Don't have time to read about climate change as much as you'd like?
Get a weekly roundup in your inbox instead. Every Wednesday, The Conversation's environment editor writes Imagine, a short email that goes a little deeper into just one climate issue. Join the 47,000+ readers who've subscribed so far.
Meera Iona Inglis is affiliated with the RSPB. This piece is based entirely on her academic research and is not funded by the RSPB or representative of the organisation's views.
Andrew Walton and Johannes Kniess do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
I think what scares me most isn't collapse itself, it's how normal everything still feels [ 03-Feb-26 5:50pm ]I don't know if this belongs here or if I'm just overthinking but it's been sitting heavy with me. Day to day life looks fine. I go to work, pay bills, plan things weeks out. I even have some money saved up, which by every "responsible adult" metric means I'm doing okay. Stores are stocked. Apps work. Packages show up on time. From the outside, nothing feels urgent and that's what freaks me out. I'll be sitting on the couch at night playing on my phone, scrolling past headlines about climate, housing, geopolitics, systems clearly under strain, and then immediately see an ad for something pointless and shiny. My brain just switches gears like that's normal. Like none of it is connected.
It feels like we're all living inside this fragile pause. Everything still functions, but only barely, and only because everyone is pretending it will keep functioning forever. There's no dramatic breaking point, just a slow stacking of stressors that never fully resolve.
What messes with me is how good we've gotten at adapting. Higher costs become normal. Shortages become "supply issues." Extreme weather becomes "unusual conditions." Every downgrade gets renamed until it doesn't feel like an emergency anymore.
I don't feel panicked. I feel uneasy. Like I'm watching something important erode in real time while still being expected to care about emails, productivity, and five year plans. I don't know what I'm supposed to do with that awareness. I still have to live my life. But it's hard to fully believe in long term stability when everything feels this conditional.
Maybe collapse doesn't arrive with chaos. Maybe it arrives quietly, disguised as normal, while we scroll and tell ourselves it's probably fine.
submitted by /u/East-Prompt-9954[link] [comments]
Shut Out: Trump's Offshore Wind War now 0 and 5 in Court [ 03-Feb-26 5:46pm ] Heat Pumps: What's the Deal? [ 03-Feb-26 5:05pm ] Time Magazine Breakdown: What is Driving Electric Rates? [ 03-Feb-26 4:48pm ]
The Scourge of Predatory Pricing [ 03-Feb-26 4:25pm ]
For at least a century, a well-established principle has held sway in commerce: You can't discriminate against customers in your pricing. Everybody pays the same price for your product. You can offer a volume or 'last-minute' discount, of course, but that discount has to be available to anyone who buys that volume of your product at that time.
As our economy's accelerating collapse is pushing more and more people into financial precarity, an exception to this principle has been introduced: 'sliding scale' or 'pay what you can afford' pricing. The idea of this is to make your product or service available to more people.
But increasing scarcities and soaring inequality, along with new technologies, are also allowing unscrupulous corporations and individuals to 'rig' markets to exploit the urgent demand for items in short supply. The obvious example of this is ticket scalping by bulk buyers (and now bots) that buy up far more of a scarce item than they want, and then resell the excess at a huge, completely unearned profit.
Likewise, bidding wars are now cropping up in all kinds of different places: Real estate agents use them to drive up prices of scarce properties for personal profit. 'Auctions' have gone from being a mechanism to find appropriate 'market' price levels for goods that have no easily-determinable value, to a method for corporations to gouge customers, most notoriously the online 'auctions' for premium seats on airlines, a disgusting practice that pits customers against each other for deliberately-limited offerings.
The stock market, the real estate market, currency and commodity markets, rare art markets, 'luxury' goods markets, and 'hedging' and 'futures' markets, are now all increasingly volatile (and wildly overvalued), as the few obscenely rich people and corporations have perverted them all into wildly speculative casinos, and openly employ 'pump and dump' schemes and other corrupt practices, now that the possibility of genuine appreciation of long-term value in a collapsing economy has effectively dropped to zero.
If all that wasn't bad enough, the introduction of AI is encouraging and enabling a vastly larger-scale abuse that completely shreds the 'one-fair-price' principle. Led by Google and Apple and other giant tech bro corporations, those who have been mining and selling your personal information to other mostly unprincipled and corrupt vendors and scam artists, are now planning on making what is variously called 'predatory pricing', 'personalized pricing', 'algorithmic pricing', or 'surveillance pricing' to be the prevailing, universal pricing mechanism for everything you buy, weaponizing your personal information against you.
The way this works is that, as soon as you go to a store or a website, the Google Gangsters will send (for a fee) a slew of information about you and your current situation that will enable the vendor to instantly assess and 'personally' price everything in their 'store' to be the absolute maximum price they know they can charge you that you won't, or can't, walk away from. That might be ten times what the guy next to you in line just paid for the same item. This price will be adjusted based on:
- How much you earn, what your credit rating is, when you last received a paycheque, how much debt you're carrying, and otherwise how much you can afford to pay.
- How desperate you are, given the immediate circumstances in your geographical area (weather or natural disaster, need a hotel room or rental car in a faraway city tonight, need medicines or a medical device, need the next flight to see sick family members).
- What your alternatives are (how far would you have to travel to get the same or similar item 'in stock' elsewhere).
- Your ability and willingness to look for alternatives (time of day, your health, geographic location, amount of work to 'shop around').
- Your past buying habits (how and when you buy what kinds of things, and from whom).
- What your competitors are charging (price-fixing in real time).
This 'personalized pricing' isn't even limited to consumer purchases. It can enable oligopolies and cartels to 'coordinate' (fix) wholesale prices, prices that just flow through the retailer and are passed along to you. It can enable employers in an industry, especially a tightly-controlled one, to 'coordinate' (fix) employee wages and share information about individual employees' behaviours and financial situations. (This is often done through industry 'information aggregators' — aka 'price clearinghouses' or 'accountability sinks' — to smokescreen the obvious privacy violations.)
As Matt Stoller explains:
Google [is launching] a new Gemini-powered ad service and open protocol to create personalized surveillance pricing for merchants across the economy. It is, as Google VP Vidhya Srinivasan said, a way to "offer custom deals to specific shoppers who are ready to buy, without having to extend the same thing to everybody." Partners include Walmart, Visa, Mastercard, Shopify, Gap, Kroger, Macy's, Stripe, Home Depot, Lowes, American Express, etc… CEO Sundar Pichai said the company will sell not only marketing, but price coordinating services. In the documentation for the universal commerce protocol, google lists "dynamic pricing" as a key tool for merchants. And Kroger, a partner of Google, already announced it will deploy Gemini, enriched with its own proprietary data, to do consumer pricing.
So, essentially, the Google Gangsters and data brokers are planning to use information they have extracted from you to maximize the price their corporate customers can get away with charging you for everything you buy, and to minimize what employers can get away with paying you.
The 'opportunities' for this new corporate crime are unlimited: Banks could minimize what they pay you on deposits and maximize what they charge you on loans, changing rates on a daily basis depending on what they can get away with as your personal financial situation changes. Chain restaurants could (and Cory says this is now in the works) 'personalize' the price for your meal as you drive up to the pickup window. Landlords could maximize the rent they can charge you based on your personal 'ability to pay', and coordinate with other landlords to lock you in. This can be employed in just about any industry you can imagine.
And of course all this information will be openly shared with your suppliers' and employers' competitors via 'information aggregators', so you won't get any better deal changing suppliers or employers.
It would be easy to chalk this all up to corporate malfeasance (and it's certainly that). But what is driving this imperative is that each of the 'players' in our collapsing economy (declining resources, stagnant production, crumbling infrastructure, massive deregulation, increasing monopolies and oligopolies, increasing population) is searching more and more desperately for ways to continue to tread water and make a profit when everything around them is falling apart.
This is just one more glaring sign that there is no longer enough to go around, and soon there will be even less, so we will have to increasingly squeeze everyone else to have enough for our own needs and comfort.
It's not going to end well.
image by AI; my own prompt
The Porsche Cayenne Electric is already in production, just two months after it was unveiled. It features faster charging than competitors.
The post Porsche Cayenne EV Production Begins As New Car Sales Tumble In Norway appeared first on CleanTechnica.
New fast EV chargers will be installed along Interstate 90 and US routes 97, 195, and 395 in the state of Washington. Almost 100 fast charging ports will be installed at 14 different locations in about two years. Funding will come from the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure program, although President ... [continued]
The post 96 New Fast EV Chargers Planned For Washington State appeared first on CleanTechnica.
Trump has prioritized fossil fuel companies over consumers, hitting the lowest-income families hardest
Donald Trump promised to cut energy prices by 50%. Instead, average electricity prices over the past year have risen by about 6.7%, while natural gas prices have increased by 10.8%. Energy prices are influenced by many factors beyond any president's direct control, including market conditions, weather-driven demand, regional infrastructure constraints, and the rapid growth of energy-intensive data centers that are driving new system costs. Policy choices do not determine prices on their own, but they do shape market outcomes, and the direction of this administration's energy policy has been clear.
From his first days in office, President Trump made clear that his energy agenda would prioritize fossil fuel producers over consumers. His administration moved to expand US liquefied natural gas exports, increasing exposure to volatile global markets. At the same time, it froze wind power projects that provide some of the cheapest new electricity, intervened to keep costly coal plants running, and backed the elimination of energy-efficiency tax credits that lower household energy bills.
Mark Wolfe is executive director of National Energy Assistance Directors Association, co-director of the Center on Energy Poverty and Climate and adjunct faculty at the Trachtenberg School of Public Policy at George Washington University
Continue reading...
Volvo is among the EV makers adopting cell-to-body battery technology that saves weight and money while improving battery performance (cropped, courtesy of Volvo).
The post The Cell-To-Body EV Movement Is Leaving Some Automakers Flat-Footed appeared first on CleanTechnica.
Lies about climate and renewable energy permeate the internet. The fact that our planet is warming has been proven in hundreds of different ways. Burning oil and gas, which are the deposits of ancient plants and animals, heats the planet and is destroying the unity of the Earth's biosphere. But ... [continued]
The post Alternative Truths About Climate & Renewable Energy Hurt Us All appeared first on CleanTechnica.
