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Sarah

@goblin5.bsky.social
130 followers 52 following 155 posts

Nearer my coffin than my cot, still trying to make sense of why humans do what they do and when I give up on that, creating a garden fit for wild creatures

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Reposted by Sarah
Green Alliance @green-alliance.org.uk · 21h
The chancellor undoubtedly has tough choices to make this month but, for the good of the UK's economy and people, climate change can't be ignored and has to be a deciding factor now, not later. #UKBudget greenallianceblog.org.uk/2026/10/15/b...
greenallianceblog.org.uk
Budget 2026: tough choices are ahead but climate change should be a deciding factor
After sweltering, along with the rest of us, through a spring and summer of record temperatures, including five heatwaves, it might be expected that the new chancellor, John Healey, would use his f…
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sophievanicat.bsky.social @sophievanicat.bsky.social · 15/10/2026
@annadixonmp.bsky.social Please help and put pressure on the Land Registry to open up the data
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Bryan Smith #RejoinEU @bpsmithuk.bsky.social · 15/10/2026
File this under "Hell, No!!!" & move on.
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ECIU @eciu.net · 14/10/2026
Next financial crisis ‘to be triggered by uninsurable homes’ Britain faces the threat of a financial crisis as climate change makes homes harder or even impossible to insure, experts have warned www.telegraph.co.uk/money/consu...
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Sunder Katwala (sundersays) @sundersays.bsky.social · 13/10/2026
Suella Braverman made a solemn affirmation, while holding he Buddhist Dhammapada text. There was no controversy about this. www.parliament.uk/globalassets...
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Josiah Mortimer @josiahmortimer.bsky.social · 14/10/2026
Badenoch tells PMQs "all of the gas" from Jackdaw "goes into the British grid". This is misleading - the grid is connected to Europe, so once gas goes into the "British grid" it's often sold abroad And anyway, it would only produce 2-6% of UK gas output at peak. Bald men fighting over a dirty comb.
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Sarah @goblin5.bsky.social · 14/10/2026
Interesting topic and frustrating not to be able to read beyond the first paragraph!
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Adam Bienkov @adambienkov.bsky.social · 14/10/2026
Kemi Badenoch spent most of PMQs pouring doubt on Andy Burnham's claims about Russian interference in our democracy, yet her spokesman can't tell me whether she has yet read the Russia report, which was published some six years ago during her own time in Government
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Peter Walker @peterwalker99.bsky.social · 14/10/2026
The Conservatives have finally given an explanation for how they over-stated the supposed cost of net zero by nearly £500bn in Kemi Badenoch’s flagship policy document. It was a “source error”, her spokesman says, which I think means it was copied from the IEA/Spectator and not checked.
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Guy Shrubsole @guyshrubsole.bsky.social · 13/10/2026
Guardian piece about the ongoing destruction of our wild birds by industrialised farming, pesticides, habitat loss and avian flu here: www.theguardian.com/environment/...
theguardian.com
‘Shocking and sobering’: UK bird populations fall to lowest level on record
Nearly half of species are in decline, with farmland birds and seabirds the worst hit, conservation bodies have said
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Guy Shrubsole @guyshrubsole.bsky.social · 13/10/2026
Farmland bird populations in England have now declined by a staggering 66% since 1970, according to the latest official figures. What's going to turn this around? Not piecemeal grants or trusting in the 'custodians of the countryside', but Landscape Recovery & regulation www.gov.uk/government/s...
Graph from DEFRA's report 'Wild bird populations in the UK and England, 1970 to 2025', published 13th October 2026, showing a two-thirds decline in farmland birds in England and the UK from 1970 to 2025.
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ECIU @eciu.net · 13/10/2026
Labour plan to cut funds from heat pump scheme sparks industry backlash @nestauk.bsky.social warned that cutting the BUS budget would send a “damaging signal” to business when heat pump installations were growing as a result of soaring gas prices in recent months www.ft.com/content/e67...
ft.com
Labour plan to cut funds from heat pump scheme sparks industry backlash
Energy department ordered to find £2bn of savings as part of Downing Street drive to boost defence spending
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Josiah Mortimer @josiahmortimer.bsky.social · 13/10/2026
Reform UK’s internal inquiry into alleged foreign donations, which found no breach of electoral law, was conducted by a British barrister who represented US President Donald Trump in failed litigation over the Trump–Russia dossier. By @nafeez.bsky.social bylinetimes.com/2026/10/13/r...
bylinetimes.com
Reform’s 'Independent' Donations Inquiry Was Led By The Lawyer Who Defended Donald Trump Over Russian Collusion
Reform UK said its internal inquiry would proceed “independently and without prejudice” yet it was led by a barrister who has previously represented Nigel Farage and Donald Trump
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Jim Pickard @pickardje.bsky.social · 12/10/2026
Labour ministers are facing an industry backlash against plans to cut hundreds of millions of pounds from the government’s Boiler Upgrade Scheme in England and Wales, which provides grants of up to £9,000 to help households switch to heat pumps www.ft.com/content/e67a...
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Doug Parr @dougparr.bsky.social · 12/10/2026
Errr.... right, so UK is having to find more money for defence against Russia... by cutting funding for heat pumps that get us off gas... thereby keeping us dependent on an energy commodity *weaponised* by Russia & international conflict. Smart thinking guys www.theguardian.com/environment/...
theguardian.com
Ministers preparing to slash heat pump subsidies to fund defence spending
Exclusive: Some of £2bn savings needed from energy budget expected to come from boiler upgrade scheme, sources say
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omerbartov.bsky.social @omerbartov.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
How do human beings explain taking part in genocide? NAZA provides a chilling look | Omer Bartov
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Sathnam Sanghera @sathnam.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
Dear tv and radio producers. Thankyou for the invitation. But, no, I do not want to appear on your show to defend the idea that I am English, after 50 years of living and working here, because the increasingly feral right want to turn this into a "debate" and you cannot see how you're being played
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Guy Shrubsole @guyshrubsole.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
The supposed party of fiscal responsibility are now just the party of fossil fuel dependency. You can’t trust the Tories with your money - nor, more importantly, with defending us from the climate crisis: www.theguardian.com/politics/202...
theguardian.com
Tories overstate net zero cost by nearly £500bn in apparent spreadsheet error
Exclusive: Badenoch’s flagship conference policy document cites £957bn estimate, twice the total in climate advisers’ data
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Doug Parr @dougparr.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
Oh yeah, and in addition to doing the maths wrong, they used a Climate Change Committee report from 2020. But the numbers were updated (and much smaller) in their 2025 report So the numbers are both out-of-date and wrong Can you imagine what it'd be like if they ran the Treasury?
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Sarah @goblin5.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
I can feel that anger but also a huge anger that a motion so simplistic and unhelpful to the Green Party and much more importantly, to resolution of the conflict in Palestine/Israel, could be passed while the leader held his tongue.
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James O’Brien @mrjamesob.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
Wall-to-wall praise for the policy in today’s papers but they either don’t understand it or don’t care. We’ve been here before, of course. Bexit, Boris Johnson, Truss… all bigged up by the media despite, all obviously awful.
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Doug Parr @dougparr.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
The party of business and sound financial management? Give me a break Badenoch pamphlet seems to have made this ridiculous claim about net zero delivery by copying am erroneous spreadsheet from one of the right-wing junktanks www.theguardian.com/politics/202...
theguardian.com
Tories overstate net zero cost by nearly £500bn in apparent spreadsheet error
Exclusive: Badenoch’s flagship conference policy document cites £957bn estimate, twice the total in climate advisers’ data
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Adam Bienkov @adambienkov.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
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Peter Walker @peterwalker99.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
NEW: Kemi Badenoch’s flagship party conference policy document, The Right Way, overestimated the cost of net zero by nearly £500bn, seemingly after someone accidentally double-counted figures on a spreadsheet. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...
theguardian.com
Tories overstate net zero cost by nearly £500bn in apparent spreadsheet error
Exclusive: Badenoch’s flagship conference policy document cites £957bn estimate, twice the total in climate advisers’ data
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Doug Parr @dougparr.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
That's a very high proportion of people who find out what the real state of play is with climate change, who then think "Christ we should really do something about that" www.theguardian.com/environment/...
theguardian.com
Britons kept in dark about scale of climate crisis, say viewers of ‘first-of-its-kind’ emergency briefing
Nine out of 10 people felt motivated to act after watching film outlining threats to food security, economy and public health
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Shaun Spiers @shaunspiers1.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
Chris Philp says drilling in the North Sea will bring down energy prices. He knows that’s not true. #Wato
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ECIU @eciu.net · 07/10/2026
Solar power helps Amazon communities ditch diesel and prepare for El Niño drought In June, Nova Sociedade installed solar panels to power water pumps that fill storage tanks and provide clean water to all 36 families in the village apnews.com/article/bra...
apnews.com
Solar power helps Amazon communities ditch diesel and prepare for El Niño drought
Off-grid solar power is spreading across Brazil’s Amazon, helping remote communities prepare for severe drought while replacing costly, polluting diesel generators.
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Doug Parr @dougparr.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
Provisions include abandoning reviews, so there's a much weakened mechanism for banning pesticides if evidence starts to show problems, Also taking into account crop yields when considering restrictions on use, thus reducing the drive for innovation for safer products
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Rafael Behr @rafaelbehr.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
Column on Greens, anti-Zionism and why the people who pathologically hate something are not the most reliable people to define it accurately www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
theguardian.com
Zack Polanski had the chance to show real leadership. He blew it | Rafael Behr
A toxic debate over anti-Zionism leaves the Green leader looking like a passenger in the movement that carried him to the top, says Guardian columnist Rafael Behr
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Adam Bienkov @adambienkov.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
The utter shamelessness of Kemi Badenoch boasting at Conservative party conference about 'defending press freedom' and berating Reform for banning critical journalists from their conference, just days after banning Byline Times journalists from her own
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Rafael Behr @rafaelbehr.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Given how hard the ‘Right Way’ argues that incentives are key to good policy and how it claims also to respect facts of climate science it is notable how the energy policy section consists exclusively of *disincentives* to act on the facts of climate change.
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ECIU @eciu.net · 06/10/2026
Labour urged to keep Boiler Upgrade Scheme under national control @nesta_uk report warns that devolving heat pump subsidies to local authorities could disrupt installations www.energylivenews.com/2026/10/05/...
energylivenews.com
Labour urged to keep Boiler Upgrade Scheme under national control - Energy Live News
A report warns that devolving heat pump subsidies to local authorities could disrupt installations
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Phil M 🦻🏼💚 🍉 🏳️‍⚧️ 🇵🇸 @phillm.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
When they talk about reducing red tape, remember this image.
Grenfell Tower, a black smouldering carcass of the building shorty after the fire, in 2017.
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Green Alliance @green-alliance.org.uk · 05/10/2026
Today, the Conservative Party is due to announce an economic plan that would oversee a wave of deregulation, one that runs counter to the urgent need for ambitious climate action in the UK. Our CEO, Mike Davis, responds ⬇️
A quote from our CEO, Mike Davis, with a photo of him in the bottom right corner. His quote: "By vowing to scrap bodies that tackle serial polluters and restore nature, while making homes less futureproof, the Conservatives would be turning their back on their legacy of supporting ambitious environmental policies. They would also leave people more exposed to ill health and soaring energy bills when geopolitical shocks hit. The "little known" Aarhus Convention gives people across the UK the right to have their say on decisions affecting their local environment and to seek justice when polluters cross the line. A party seeking to abandon these rights is dangerously out of touch with the public mood."
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Guy Shrubsole @guyshrubsole.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
"Yes, the planet got destroyed. But for a beautiful moment in time we created a lot of value for shareholders"
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Jill Rutter @jillongovt.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
You might hate the Environment Agency and Natural England - but am not sure how good your evidence base is that there is a latent majority for poorer air quality, more pollution and (even more) destruction of nature #CPC2026 - and homes that are going to require big retrofits
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Guy Shrubsole @guyshrubsole.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Here’s one of many reasons why the Aarhus Convention matters, to help citizens access environmental information. Naturally, Kemi Badenoch’s Tories want the UK to leave the Aarhus Convention, because they seem to hate people and the environment bsky.app/profile/patr...
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Josiah Mortimer @josiahmortimer.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Together, wind and solar power has saved the UK from almost £6 billion of expenditure on gas since the Hormuz Crisis began, according to a recent analysis by Carbon Brief. Rooftop solar is seen as a key part of that mix bylinetimes.com/2026/10/05/c...
bylinetimes.com
Conservative Plan to Scrap Solar Rules for New Homes Would Lock Millions Into Gas Use
Pledge to abolish the Future Homes Standard is branded 'a plan for poor housing and high bills' by fuel poverty campaigners, as the solar sector urges the party to think again
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Sarah @goblin5.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Spot on
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Jim Pickard @pickardje.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Robert Jenrick’s handling of donations to his failed 2024 Tory leadership campaign has come under fresh scrutiny, after the UK donor at the centre of the row claimed that the politician and his senior campaign staff knew about the involvement of an overseas donor. www.ft.com/content/38a5...
ft.com
Reform UK’s Robert Jenrick faces fresh accusation from campaign donor
British businessman Phillip Ullmann says the politician was aware of his relationship with potentially illicit US donor
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Josiah Mortimer @josiahmortimer.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
A Green Party activist messages in on the 'Zionism is Racism' motion being debated today (DMs open for other thoughts from members etc)
 I worry that most people haven’t read the ZiR motion properly and/or don’t understand that Zionism can mean many things. As with all conferences a ton of consequential stuff is voted through which - if they haven’t done laborious pre-reading and prep - people don’t really know what they’ve voted for. ZiR risks being the epitome of that. I genuinely don’t believe people would be so blasé or unquestioning of it if they understood how close it comes to antisemitism. Maybe we on the left are so used to false accusations of antisemitism that we can’t spot it when it’s genuinely à risk. 2 things can be true - Jewish people can hold to the deep cultural and religious status of the homeland (in place since they were ejected from Judea by the Romans) AND abhor the apartheid and genocide. It doesn’t get us closer to a meaningful peace process (or conversation in the Green Party) if we brand anyone racist who thinks that way. And I know it’s ‘politics’ but I hate this campaign telling people how to vote because it seems to take advantage of the fact that many members don’t (or find it hard to) read the MASSIVE policy proposal doc.
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Sarah @goblin5.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
A good piece pointing out the difference between the heartfelt desire of Jews through centuries to return to the ancestral homeland, and other colonists. I have no truck with the Netanyahu government but if this is passed my membership of the Green Party will end.
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~<《🅕🅛🅨》>~ @fly1966.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Migration definitely helped
Mauritius served as the primary and pioneering testing ground for the British Empire's "Great Experiment" using indentured labor following the abolition of slavery in 1835.
The Start of the System
• First Arrival: On November 2, 1834, the British ship Atlas arrived in Port Louis carrying the first 36 Indian indentured laborers from Calcutta.
• The Contracts: Workers signed 5-year contracts promising a wage (initially 5 rupees a month for men, 4 for women), rations, clothing, and medical care.
• Scale: Between 1834 and the 1920s, nearly 500,000 Indian laborers arrived in Mauritius to work on intensive sugarcane plantations.
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Josiah Mortimer @josiahmortimer.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
The UK has added 291,000 new solar PV installations in the 12 months to August 2026, the most in any 12-month period since 2012 It brings the cumulative installed solar in the UK to 23.2GW across 2,131,000 installations. It's also a 9% increase from August 2025, with 1.9GW of new capacity
solarpowerportal.co.uk
UK installs record 291,000 PV installations in 12-month period
This brings the cumulative installed solar capacity in the UK to 23.2GW across 2,131,000 installations.
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Hugo Gye @hugogye.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Ridiculous behaviour from the Tories. Dealing with unfriendly journalists is a basic requirement for a political party!
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Peter Geoghegan @petergeoghegan.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
🔴 We asked Tony Blair's think tank about charging businesses £500k for political access at party conferences and why one of its sponsor's logos disappeared after our reporting last week on TBI's alleged cash for access scheme This is what they said
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Miles King @milesking.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Cash for access. Or corruption as it's also known. democracyforsale.substack.com/p/tonys-mino...
democracyforsale.substack.com
Tony’s minor tantrum: how Blair’s institute responded to fresh “cash for access” questions
We asked TBI about allegations of £500,000 corporate memberships and a logo that vanished at Labour conference. They said they’re not talking to us anymore
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underdog67 @underdog67.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
The Tories folllowing the Trump doctrine. Who’d have thought?
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Robert Saunders @robertsaunders.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
It’s a mark of the corruption of our whole way of thinking about the world that trying to meet a planetary emergency is routinely described as “ideological”, while continuing to accelerate it is presented as “pragmatic” and “economic”.
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Adam Bienkov @adambienkov.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Kemi Badenoch condemned Reform's ban on critical journalists covering their conference as "authoritarian", saying her own party would never do the same as "we believe in free speech. We believe in a free press." Now the Conservatives have banned Byline Times from their conference
bylinetimes.com
Kemi Badenoch's Conservatives Ban Byline Times From Conference After Condemning Reform for Journalist Ban
The ban comes just weeks after the Conservative leader called Reform's barring of critical journalists from their conference an "authoritarian" attack on the free press
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