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Ben Phalan

@benphalan.bsky.social
1.3K followers 332 following 7 posts

Bird conservation, mostly vegan, he/him. Seeking a better world for all people & the other species with whom we share the planet

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Reposted by Ben Phalan
Dawn Balmer @debalmer.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
Job opportunity: Irish Bird Atlas Project Manager BirdWatch Ireland is seeking an enthusiastic and self-motivated individual to lead organisation of the upcoming Bird Atlas 2027-31 across the Republic of Ireland. Closing date 11th Sept. Find out more: birdwatchireland.ie/get-involved...
birdwatchireland.ie
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Naomi Klein @naomiaklein.bsky.social · 02/07/2026
Everybody in the "climate space" (which means everyone on earth...) needs to understand these mind-blowing figures. Google's "total electricity consumption jumped from 31 terawatt hours (TWh) in 2024 to 43 TWh in 2025." In ONE year. The AI corporate arms race is eating the world.
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Nicholas D Carter @nicholasdcarter.bsky.social · 27/02/2025
"if we all stopped consuming animals and permanently swapped to plant-based food, we could return 3.1 billion hectares of farmland to forests and natural grasslands." That's the size of the US, China, the EU & Australia combined. 8Gt of CO2 would be removed each year. www.bbc.com/future/artic...
bbc.com
From nuts to kelp: The 'carbon-negative' foods that help reverse climate change
Eating low-carbon foods helps reduce emissions, but some foods actually suck up carbon from the atmosphere for good, leaving the climate in a better place. Could we eat more of them?
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Richard Waite @waiterich.bsky.social · 07/04/2026
US voters worried about high food prices in 2024. This admin has: 1) taxed food & fertilizer imports 2) deported farmworkers 3) canceled food/climate investments 4) started a war that spiked energy/fertilizer prices 5) increased crop-based biofuel mandates 6) released dietary guidance centering meat
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Ben Phalan @benphalan.bsky.social · 26/03/2026
Good thread: reminder that crop-based biofuels are not "green" fuels
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Oryx @oryxthejournal.bsky.social · 13/02/2026
🌳The latest issue of Oryx focuses on one of the world’s most diverse yet vulnerable biomes—the Atlantic Forest. Once spanning 1.3 million km² across Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay, this biodiversity hotspot has lost nearly 90% of its original vegetation.
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Alexander Lees @alexanderlees.bsky.social · 21/01/2026
Our new paper led by Madson Freitas shows that global demand for Açaí, a dietary staple for Amazonian people, now marketed as a superfood, is driving widespread estuarine forest degradation leading to impoverishment of their bird communities www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... #ornithology 🌎🍴🪶🌴
Blackish-grey Antshrike (Thamnophilus nigrocinereus) a specialist negatively impacted by acai densification (Alex Lees)açaí palm (Euterpe oleracea Mart.) density is being rapidly increased by removing other tree species (Alex Lees)berries of the açaí palm  (Euterpe oleracea Mart.) in situ (Alex Lees)
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Marina Bolotnikova @mbolotnikova.bsky.social · 16/10/2025
Wrote a lot of words on SOYBEANS!🫛 I love having this job so much lol America should have greater ambitions for the soybean—treating it not just as slop for the world’s abused livestock, but as a miracle technology with the potential to reshape world diets for the better www.vox.com/future-perfe...
vox.com
How soybeans took over America — and the world
This technology could feed a world of 10 billion. We’re squandering it, and the trade war with China could make it worse.
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Nicholas D Carter @nicholasdcarter.bsky.social · 13/09/2025
Agriculture drives more biodiversity loss than any other sector, with ruminant meat causing extinction risks ~340× higher than grains by mass and ~100× higher than legumes both by mass and when adjusted for protein.
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Ben Phalan @benphalan.bsky.social · 05/09/2025
Nice thread on the value of @inaturalist.bsky.social for sharing and preserving observations of biodiversity that might otherwise never have seen the light of day again
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George Monbiot @georgemonbiot.bsky.social · 29/08/2025
This, by @jasonhickel.bsky.social, is the clearest explanation I have yet read of why the US and UK governments continue to support the Israeli government, regardless of its great crimes against humanity. jasonhickel.substack.com/p/why-does-t...
jasonhickel.substack.com
Why does the US support Israel's crimes?
Why does the US support Israel’s genocidal crimes against the Palestinian people, even in the face of overwhelming international condemnation, at massive expense, and to the point of totally debasing ...
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Simon Evans @drsimevans.carbonbrief.org · 15/08/2025
FACTCHECK: We asked dozens of scientists to review Trump's climate report, being used to justify major policy rollbacks. They found "more than 100" false or misleading claims. Click through to read them all: interactive.carbonbrief.org/doe-factchec...
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Nicholas D Carter @nicholasdcarter.bsky.social · 30/07/2025
'Cows just replaced the methane from wild bison' Not even close. At their peak, wild ruminants incl. bison emitted ~15 Tg CH₄/yr Today’s 4+ billion farmed ruminants emit over 100 Tg CH₄/yr That’s nearly 7x more methane. essd.copernicus.org/articles/17/...
essd.copernicus.org
Global Methane Budget 2000–2020
Abstract. Understanding and quantifying the global methane (CH4) budget is important for assessing realistic pathways to mitigate climate change. CH4 is the second most important human-influenced gree...
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Zen Faulkes @doctorzen.net · 03/07/2025
Six 6️⃣ tips on communicating effectively with politicians. From @jacquelyngill.bsky.social some time ago.
Effective communication with elected officials: 1. Petitions are useless. 2. Posting is useless. 3. Phone calls are effective. 4. Contacting people who do not represent you is useless. 5. Written letters are effective. 6. Elected officials get Google alerts for their names, and may see mentions in small blogs.
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Ben Goldfarb @bengoldfarb.bsky.social · 24/06/2025
Perhaps gauche to quote your own book, but I think CROSSINGS's section on the Roadless Rule gets at something fundamental: that to designate places as roadless is to assert that our national forests have value—for wildlife, for water, for slow recreation—beyond mere timber extraction. #roadecology
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Christopher Witt @msbbirds.bsky.social · 16/06/2025
This plan is utterly insane and would cause catastrophic environmental degradation and loss of outdoor opportunities throughout the west — it would accelerate the decline of forests and wildlife, and seriously restrict hiking, camping, fishing, birding, hunting, etc.
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Stu Butchart @stubutchart.bsky.social · 11/06/2025
We've just launched AviList! - the new unified global taxonomic checklist for the world's birds, developed through the Working Group on Avian Classification, including BirdLife, Cornell Lab of Ornithology, IOC and others @birdlifeglobal.bsky.social @birdsoftheworld.bsky.social www.avilist.org
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Jan Dutkiewicz @jandutkiewicz.bsky.social · 31/03/2025
You've been told that "tech won't save us." But the opposite is just as true. @garrettbroad.bsky.social and I wrote about the dangerous appeal of "nature-based solutionism," or the idea that natural solutions to complex problems will save us. They won't. newrepublic.com/article/1933...
newrepublic.com
The Flawed Ideology That Unites Grass-Fed Beef Fans and Anti-Vaxxers
From RFK Jr. to Hollywood A-listers and Democratic senators, people across the political spectrum are jumping onto the slippery slope of nature-based solutionism.
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Ben Phalan @benphalan.bsky.social · 07/01/2025
I got to know Accra, Ghana well when I did research there almost two decades ago. Please consider helping those affected by the devastating Kantamanto fire, here: donorbox.org/kantamanto-f...
donorbox.org
Fire Relief for Our Beloved Kantamanto | The OR Foundation Ltd. (Powered by Donorbox)
DONATIONS through January 5th WILL BE MATCHED!Our beloved Kantamanto has burned. On January 1st, 2025, Kantamanto Secondhand Clothing Market in Accra, Ghana, the largest secondhand market in the world...
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