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Ben Long

@benwhlong.bsky.social
155 followers 503 following 68 posts

Co-founder of southdevonprimary.org and the politicalprimary.org network. Father wanting a future for our kids. Born at 340ppm CO2.

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Ben Long @benwhlong.bsky.social · 22/04/2026
Nearly 600 screenings of the People's Emergency Briefing are in place up and down the UK, with more being added every day. Our new trailer for Earth Day is out today. Find a screening near you www.nebriefing.org/screening-map
nebriefing.org
National Emergency Briefing
Find a People's Emergency Briefing screening near you, or spot a gap that you can fill by hosting a screening.
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Ben Long @benwhlong.bsky.social · 17/01/2026
Did they forget Satan?
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Ben Long @benwhlong.bsky.social · 04/12/2025
Yes. Now that they’ve broken the seal on per-mile taxation, I guess there’s no limit to it. Interestingly, I read that fuel duty nets the Treasury some £25bn/year and that this (coincidentally) is the same figure that a 2% tax on wealth over £10million would produce. Just saying.
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Ben Long @benwhlong.bsky.social · 04/12/2025
How can they do that without also driving up the running cost of your fridge, oven and TV (which is political suicide?). Ok, they’re putting 3p per mile tax on EVs from 2028, and that will slow the transition somewhat, but still results in far cheaper driving than (70% inefficient) ICEs.
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Ben Long @benwhlong.bsky.social · 04/12/2025
Yes - a 3p per mile increase from 2028. Not great for speeding the transition to EVs, but still resulting in a cheaper per mile cost than ICEs, which is perhaps not surprising given that ICEs are 70% inefficient.
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Ben Long @benwhlong.bsky.social · 04/12/2025
Our EV drives at 2-3p per mile, vs our old diesel Golf cost of 12-15p per mile. If you do 10k mile per year, that’s a saving of up to £1300 per year, every year. For which you get the bonus of never having to step onto a forecourt, cheaper maintenance and a better driving experience.
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Ben Long @benwhlong.bsky.social · 30/10/2025
Even the existence (let alone use) of nuclear weapons harms us, since it forces us to live with the possibility of experiencing that brief moment between the flash and the unimaginable blast.
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Ben Long @benwhlong.bsky.social · 30/10/2025
One of the (many) incomprehensible things about the Cold War is that the US detonated over 100 nuclear weapons in Nevada *in the open air*…ie they spent a good part of it nuking themselves.
A view of Las Vegas showing a mushroom cloud rising in the background, from a US nuclear test in Nevada
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Ben Long @benwhlong.bsky.social · 29/10/2025
I agree. They also failed to fully explore the consequences of their own possible response. Even a limited nuclear exchange between two countries would throw enough dust up to ruin global harvests. The FEMA official’s “10m+10%” risk assessment didn’t adequately cover that.
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Ben Long @benwhlong.bsky.social · 22/10/2025
The Jevons Paradox?
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Ben Long @benwhlong.bsky.social · 16/10/2025
Pass silly laws, win stupid prizes.
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Reposted by Ben Long
Paul Behrens @profpaulbehrens.bsky.social · 16/10/2025
This open invitation to the @nebriefing.bsky.social was published in the @financialtimes.com today. Please check whether your MP can make it here: www.nebriefing.org and if not ask them to! We will be briefing on national security, tipping points, food security, nature and more.
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Ben Long @benwhlong.bsky.social · 16/10/2025
I’m in my 40s. For me, these organisations have never represented activism that results in change. Their names are most familiar from old posters that my grandparents had on the wall in their loo.
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Ben Long @benwhlong.bsky.social · 16/10/2025
Amazing. Time to show up for some quality climate and nature information, government peeps. (My rental just now was tuned to Talk radio - they were discussing Net Zero and oh my there’s still a wild welter of confusion and misinformation out there…)
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Ben Long @benwhlong.bsky.social · 15/10/2025
The most important story in the world. As we heat the planet, we reduce the planet’s ability to stop us heating it. www.theguardian.com/environment/...
theguardian.com
Record leap in CO2 fuels fears of accelerating global heating
CO2 in air hit new high last year, with scientists concerned natural land and ocean carbon sinks are weakening
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Ben Long @benwhlong.bsky.social · 13/10/2025
“This Labour government would have banned the labour movement.” The always-excellent @georgemonbiot.bsky.social on blistering, exceptional form. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
theguardian.com
Here’s what you need to know about Starmer’s illiberal protest curbs: they would have killed the Labour party at birth | George Monbiot
The rights we enjoy in the UK, and the movement the PM purports to lead, were built on protest. Those rights are in dire peril, says Guardian columnist George Monbiot
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Ben Long @benwhlong.bsky.social · 06/10/2025
Is this moment the closest we’re going to get to the psychological cause of Netanyahu’s genocide?
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Ben Long @benwhlong.bsky.social · 05/10/2025
Exactly! bsky.app/profile/benw...
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Ben Long @benwhlong.bsky.social · 05/10/2025
“After Saturday’s protest, the chair of the Metropolitan police federation said officers policing protests in London were “emotionally and physically exhausted”.” Well yes- that’s what happens when bad laws compel police to arrest peaceful, often elderly, people rather than focus on actual crime.
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Ben Long @benwhlong.bsky.social · 05/10/2025
This Labour govt has seized on one brutal anti-Semitic attack to further clamp down on legitimate protest against their own increasing authoritarianism. Are they worse than the Tories? www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...
theguardian.com
Police to get new powers to crack down on repeated protests, says Home Office
Move follows arrest of almost 500 people at latest pro-Palestinian demonstration in London on Saturday
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Ben Long @benwhlong.bsky.social · 04/10/2025
The Israeli state is psychopathic. Attacks on Jews are intolerable. Two things can be true at once.
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Ben Long @benwhlong.bsky.social · 25/09/2025
Exactly.
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Ben Long @benwhlong.bsky.social · 18/09/2025
Progressives urgently need to clarify: progress towards what?
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Ben Long @benwhlong.bsky.social · 16/09/2025
Not a great look, Sadiq Khan. Nothing about this reads as ‘6th form politics’ to the public. Gaza is arguably one of the great moral catastrophes of our time.
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Ben Long @benwhlong.bsky.social · 16/09/2025
Wow. Journalist searches in Tel Aviv for three days for evidence of Israeli compassion for Palestinian civilians in Gaza — finds almost none. I’ve never been to Israel, but the impression given here is of collective psychopathy. www.theguardian.com/world/video/...
theguardian.com
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Ben Long @benwhlong.bsky.social · 16/09/2025
Imagine the press if this were EVs
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Ben Long @benwhlong.bsky.social · 16/09/2025
Is Charlie Kirk America’s Reichstag Fire?
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Ben Long @benwhlong.bsky.social · 16/09/2025
“Vehicle tax on a new £85,000 BMW X5 would amount to £3,200 in the UK, but the sale would incur taxes of £66,600 in France”. Well that explains why all the SUVs in France are British.
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Ben Long @benwhlong.bsky.social · 11/09/2025
Yes you can fret about @zackpolanski.bsky.social talking only to his base and not reaching more conservative voters, as perhaps others would have. But he seems to be on the airwaves everywhere, & he’s articulating a necessary & genuinely-progressive agenda better than any other leader 👏👏👏
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Ben Long @benwhlong.bsky.social · 11/09/2025
3. Incompetence. The whole thing is a series of own goals under the grand own goal of handing the country to Farage. Absent moral compass, as you say, they also just aren’t very good at politics.
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News Eye @newseye.bsky.social · 04/08/2025
This is amongst the most impactful two minutes of broadcasting I’ve ever seen. By Emma Murphy, International Editor, ITV News. #Gaza
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Ben Long @benwhlong.bsky.social · 25/07/2025
If you want to know how dangerous the Israeli regime is, you only need to listen to their spokesperson David Mencer on BBC R4 Today programme at 8.10am. Spends the whole interview shouting over Nick Robinson, claiming the UN is in cahoots with Hamas to starve Gazans. Absolutely unhinged.
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Ben Long @benwhlong.bsky.social · 17/07/2025
Regardless of what you think of the proscription of a non-violent direct action organisation, the fact that the police can’t tell the difference between support of Palestine and support of Palestine Action shows that intelligence is low and training is needed.
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Ben Long @benwhlong.bsky.social · 05/07/2025
“…unless the judicial review is successful, membership of, or inviting support for, the group [#PalestineAction] will carry a maximum sentence of 14 years in prison.” Palestine Action are a non-violent, direct action protest group. This is wild government overreach.
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Ben Long @benwhlong.bsky.social · 04/07/2025
When protest is conflated with terrorism, the complete erosion of all civil liberties is well underway. This presided over by a government that has co-opted the Labour brand but has none of its humanity. It’s time for a complete change in how we do politics. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...
theguardian.com
Ban on Palestine Action to take effect after legal challenge fails
Group will become first direct action protest group to be banned under Terrorism Act after unsuccessful action
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Ben Long @benwhlong.bsky.social · 29/06/2025
I support #PalestineAction and all non-violent direct action groups seeking to protect life.
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Ben Long @benwhlong.bsky.social · 25/06/2025
Looked at another way, all you have to do is remove the subsidies for the whole fossil house of cards to start to tumble.
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Ben Long @benwhlong.bsky.social · 25/06/2025
Any reason why we can’t remove green levies from electricity bills to bring prices down for regular users, and raise the money by taxing frequent fliers instead?
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Ben Long @benwhlong.bsky.social · 23/06/2025
“Unless we are able to democratise our society, political and economic decision-making processes will continue to be dominated by those who have helped to cause climate breakdown up to now.” @graceblakeley.substack.com #VultureCapitalism
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Ben Long @benwhlong.bsky.social · 22/06/2025
But Iran isn’t even trying to build a nuke. Even Tulsi Gabbard knows this. So WTAF, Kier Starmer? Even Blair’s government had the shame to dress up illegal wars in the Middle East with dodgy dossiers. Here, nothing but unprovoked aggression.
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Reposted by Ben Long
Climate Science Breakthrough @climatescibreak.bsky.social · 02/06/2025
US climate scientists need all the help they can get. Including from foul-mouthed comedians! 🤡😱😱 Watch Emmy Award-Winning David Cross team up with Prof Michael Oppenheimer in the US launch of the hit series "Climate Science Translated". #climate #arresteddevelopment #climatescience
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Ben Long @benwhlong.bsky.social · 23/05/2025
Pure posturing by Reform UK. Drilling in the North Sea will do nothing to prevent ongoing production decline, nor secure U.K. energy independence, as the oil and gas is sold on the international market. www.theguardian.com/business/202...
theguardian.com
Reform UK promises to reverse ban on new North Sea oil drilling if elected
Party spokesperson says policy has ‘clear benefits for securing jobs and energy independence’
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Ben Long @benwhlong.bsky.social · 16/05/2025
It’s far more expensive to retrofit quality insulation, PV and heat pumps. House building companies have made profits by building substandard houses and shifting necessary work onto homeowners’ shoulders. www.theguardian.com/environment/...
theguardian.com
Poor building standards add £1,000 to energy bills of new homes, analysis finds
About £5bn more spent than if rules for low-carbon new-builds had not been scrapped in 2016, ECIU thinktank finds
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Ben Long @benwhlong.bsky.social · 16/05/2025
The idea that bosses of a failing company might take huge bonuses out of the emergency funding that’s propping the company up is so mind-blowing that there’s only one possible conclusion: We need to renationalise water. www.theguardian.com/business/202...
theguardian.com
Ministers to block Thames Water paying bosses bonuses out of emergency loan
Exclusive: Firm close to insolvency says using £3bn loan to pay ‘substantial’ bonuses is vital to retain senior managers
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Mark Z. Jacobson @mzjacobson.bsky.social · 15/05/2025
Climeworks’ Iceland capture plant fails to cover its own emissions “Direct capture is a scam, carbon capture is a scam, blue hydrogen is a scam, and electrofuel is a scam. These are all scam technologies that do nothing for the climate or air pollution” heimildin.is/grein/24581/...
heimildin.is
Climeworks’ capture fails to cover its own emissions
The carbon capture company Climeworks only captures a fraction of the CO2 it promises its machines can capture. The company is failing to carbon offset the emissions resulting from its operations – wh...
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Ben Long @benwhlong.bsky.social · 04/05/2025
Unfortunately, I think you’ve misunderstood why most of the British media exist. It isn’t that billionaires have a love of reporting. The press is the vehicle that takes them to the political outcomes they want.
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Ben Long @benwhlong.bsky.social · 30/04/2025
He’s chasing petrodollars and has proved his political irrelevance.
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Carole Cadwalladr @carolecadwalla.bsky.social · 29/04/2025
Tony Blair is literally being paid by a man with one of the highest carbon footprints on the planet - Larry Ellison. The founder of Oracle is his biggest funder & these techsolutionist remarks have to be seen for what they are: tech lobbying www.theguardian.com/politics/liv...
theguardian.com
Phasing out fossil fuels ‘doomed to fail’, says Tony Blair as he calls for rethink of net zero policy – UK politics live
‘Any strategy based on either phasing out fossil fuels in the short term or limiting consumption is a strategy doomed to fail,’ says former PM
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Ben Long @benwhlong.bsky.social · 29/04/2025
Blair is advocating for CCS — a technology that doesn’t actually seem to exist in any form that works! Blair is desperate for two things — headlines and £££.
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Ben Long @benwhlong.bsky.social · 26/04/2025
Ch. 13 of ‘Rules for Revolutionaries’ is called ‘If there are no nurses, I don’t want to be part of your revolution’.
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