iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Doug McNeall @dougmcneall.bsky.social · 14/10/2026

I guess it’ll be interesting to see what happens when AI destroys the jobs of people who have previously been quite powerful in society. Here it’s knowledge workers. I guess there are historical analogues? More for less powerful people I guess.

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Ketan Joshi @ketanjoshi.co · 14/10/2026

who could have possibly predicted this

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Kate Marvel @drkatemarvel.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

I don't think people appreciate how much the coming year is going to suck

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Ed Hawkins @edhawkins.org · 12/10/2026

From paper to proof: revealing Congo Basin warming through rescued climate archives 1 million rescued weather observations from original paper sheets allow @derrickmuheki.bsky.social et al to clearly show warming in a region of very sparse historical observations esd.copernicus.org/articles/17/...

esd.copernicus.org

From paper to proof: revealing Congo Basin warming through rescued climate archives

Abstract. The Congo Basin in Central Africa remains one of the few regions globally where the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has neither assessed changes in hot extremes and extreme precipi...

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Ed Hawkins @edhawkins.org · 02/10/2026

Another "need to extend the y-axis" moment... Average temperature in Central England for Jan-Sep for each year since 1772. It is 0.8°C higher in 2026 than any other previous year.

Timeseries of average Jan-Sep temperature for Central England with huge jump up in 2026

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Prof Ian Hall @ianhall.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Swiss glaciers suffer 'disastrous' year of ice loss, threatening water supplies "…in its simplest form, what we see right now is that we took an ice cube out of the fridge and it's just melting in front of our eyes." www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

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Doug McNeall @dougmcneall.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

I’m increasingly getting January 2020 vibes. This time, it’s Bill Gates talking about imminent AI dangers. The link is exponential growth podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/t...

podcasts.apple.com

Bill Gates’s Blunt Warning on A.I.

Podcast Episode · The Ezra Klein Show · 29 September · 1hr 14min

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Doug McNeall @dougmcneall.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

I’ve been listening to some of the top AI lab leaders on podcasts for a couple of weeks, and a common theme is a huge expansion of energy demand in a short time. I’m worried this won’t be met through renewable energy. That would be a disaster for climate.

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Doug McNeall @dougmcneall.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Ok, how close to RCP8.5 do we think a huge new demand for AI power might drive us? [manic laughter]

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Doug McNeall @dougmcneall.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Comforting I’m not alone in this.

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Doug McNeall @dougmcneall.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Earlier in the interview he criticised others for not bringing scientific rigour to their claims that AI risks catastrophic harms [i.e p(doom)], but then was maddeningly evidence free when asserting that AI would help save us from climate change.

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Doug McNeall @dougmcneall.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Either he doesn’t understand that carbon is essentially not removable from the atmosphere once emitted (and therefore harms from climate change are close to that), or he doesn’t care. Not sure which is worse.

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Doug McNeall @dougmcneall.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

I also listened - I’m really concerned by Huang’s attitude to the *increased* use of fossil fuels to power AI data centres. He used a clumsy “surgery harms the patient to save them” metaphor. It seems likely he’s detached from the harms, but will reap the benefits.

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Doug McNeall @dougmcneall.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

I meant “agent” not “agency”.

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Doug McNeall @dougmcneall.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

I asked Google Gemini to calculate how much it would cost to run a human-level research agency and it gave me a poorly reasoned answer before I asked it to correct lol.

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Doug McNeall @dougmcneall.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Another is the environmental impact of the massive increase in fossil fuels that might come, if a huge electricity demand for AI is fuelled that way.

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Doug McNeall @dougmcneall.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

There’s a number of worrying threads, quite apart from the p(doom) thing. One is the high probability impact that the latest models will have on the economy, once they’re in greater use.

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Doug McNeall @dougmcneall.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Oh, hey, I don’t want to panic anyone but I’m getting serious March 2020 vibes with regards loss of control of AI. This Ezra Klein podcast episode is a good summary. podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/t...

podcasts.apple.com

We Can't Lose Control of A.I.

Podcast Episode · The Ezra Klein Show · 20 September · 31min

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Zack Labe @zacklabe.com · 17/09/2026

47 years of average annual sea ice thickness across the #Arctic... 🌊❄️🥼 Graphic now available to include 2025 at: zacklabe.com/arctic-sea-i...

Collection of small polar stereographic maps showing the average yearly Arctic sea-ice thickness for each year from 1979 to 2025. There is large spatial variability, but a long-term decreasing trend. The thickness of ice ranges from 0 meters to more than 5 meters.

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Steve Akehurst @steveakehurst.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

NEW: How did the summer heatwaves and wildfires change attitudes to climate and Net Zero, if at all? A short thread on analysis of tracker polling now summer is winding down. 🧵 (for @persuasionuk.bsky.social with @yougov.co.uk)

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Prof Friederike Otto @frediotto.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

What are known causal factors behind rock-ice avalanche near Nepal–Tibet border? @wwattribution.bsky.social Vulnerable slope, potentially weakened by 2015 earthquake, definitely destabilised by climate change through glacier retreat & permafrost thaw. www.worldweatherattribution.org/rapid-warmin...

Height of the 0C isotherme in recent years around the rock-failure

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David Ho @davidho.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

NSF has reduced the research budget for all atmospheric, ocean, and earth sciences by ~80%. 80%! A lot of us will not be conducting new research or training new students for the foreseeable future.

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Doug McNeall @dougmcneall.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

This is … this is not good if it’s true.

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Doug McNeall @dougmcneall.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

Hard agree. Though I would point out that turning climate into a culture war seems to slow climate action, and disproportionately benefits a tiny number of already powerful people. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

theguardian.com

World must reject climate culture wars or face economic ruin, says UN’s Stiell

Warning by United Nations climate chief comes as EU data shows August 2026 was joint hottest month ever

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Doug McNeall @dougmcneall.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

Potential Ice blog post/Dune 3 Venn diagram.

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Doug McNeall @dougmcneall.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

Whoah, computational social scientists are now using fine-tuned LLMs as proxies for people in order to study their interactions.

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Doug McNeall @dougmcneall.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

Just got served an ad for an app that pays you to record you doing your work. Get paid pennies to train the ai that replaces you.

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David Ho @davidho.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

Summers in the US are getting hotter due to human-caused climate change. 2026 will be the hottest and most humid in the contiguous US since records began in 1895. We need investments in clean energy, updates to permitting systems, and help for communities to adapt to climate hazards.

nytimes.com

Opinion | Summer Has Gotten Much Hotter. See How Bad It Is Where You Live. (Gift Article)

The notion of enduring the summer rather than embracing it has spread far beyond the Sun Belt.

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Prof Richard Betts @richardabetts.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

This summer was the hottest on record in the UK The summer of 1976 that some folks my age keep banging on about is now only the SEVENTH hottest on record The top five hottest summers all happened since 2003 We're heating the planet by burning fossil fuels www.metoffice.gov.uk/about-us/new...

metoffice.gov.uk

Summer 2026 provisionally hottest on record for the UK

The season’s mean temperature was made around 130 times more likely due to human-induced climate change.

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Doug McNeall @dougmcneall.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

On holiday in France. Took a train from the Fontainebleau forest into the heart of Paris. 50 minute journey. €2.55, or just over €5 return. Similar journey in the uk is an order of magnitude more expensive.

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Doug McNeall @dougmcneall.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

Climate deniers, in about 18 months time it’s going to be a great time to talk about global warming having stopped.

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Prof Penny Endersby @pennyend.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

www.bbc.co.uk/weather/arti... I had an early brief on this and ordered a pallet of sandbags for my marginally flood-prone house. They’re easy to obtain in the middle of a drought! This is a good article by the BBC covering some of the global impacts to be expected from such a strong El Niño.

bbc.co.uk

El Niño set to be 'strongest in living memory', says Met Office

Scientists say the growing El Niño weather pattern is an "unprecedented event" and means 2027 is likely to be the world's hottest year on record.

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Doug McNeall @dougmcneall.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

Wake up hun a new climate impact just dropped.

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Ed Hawkins @edhawkins.org · 14/08/2026

Earlier in the summer I presented a figure showing how a comparable weather event to the summer of 1976 would be experienced in a warmer current climate. It would be 3-4°C hotter, with London hitting 38°C. Yesterday, that is exactly what happened.

Weather of 1976, and a version for the current climate

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Ed Hawkins @edhawkins.org · 13/08/2026

A temperature above 37°C has only been recorded on nine days in the UK since records began – three of those occasions have now been in 2026, including today. Reading University has recorded its warmest August day on record (since 1908), and second warmest day overall.

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Doug McNeall @dougmcneall.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

I went Deep Water Soloing last night and kind of felt like this.

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Doug McNeall @dougmcneall.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

I went to sleep with the smell of our local park on fire.

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Doug McNeall @dougmcneall.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

Unfun fact: I remember sitting with @richardabetts.bsky.social in the Met Office Cafe and talking about his prediction that this year we would pass 400ppm. Doesn’t feel very long ago.

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Damian Carrington @dpcarrington.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

Extreme heat breaks temperature records in central and eastern Europe - Slovakia reaches new high of 42C as authorities in Poland forced to shut down Kozienice and Połaniec power plants #climatecrisis www.theguardian.com/world/2026/a...

theguardian.com

Extreme heat breaks temperature records in central and eastern Europe

Slovakia reaches new high of 42C as authorities in Poland forced to shut down Kozienice and Połaniec power plants

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David N. Thomas @dnthomas01.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

Drought in Europe Report: joint-research-centre.ec.europa.eu/european-and...

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Dr Ella Gilbert @drgilbz.bsky.social · 06/08/2026

I may not be a bro, but I *have* started a podcast series 😂... ... and episode 1 is live now with the most excellent @climateadam.bsky.social We chat about our fave way to fight the climate crisis: talking about it. ▶️ youtu.be/W04DA7y8By0

youtu.be

Are you scared about climate chaos too?

YouTube video by Dr Gilbz

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