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Your guide to meaningful climate action is here! Take the quiz and discover your climate superpowers.

One of Kukowski's co-authors, @kimberlynicholas.bsky.social, developed a tool for figuring out how you can have the largest impact in each of your five roles. Please take a look and consider the actions you can take in your own lives!

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The framework emerged from the authors' frustrations with the individual action vs system change debate that seems neverending in climate circles. Humans are part of systems, and that means our individual actions can change those systems too!

The framework emerged from the authors’ frustrations with a debate that seems neverending in climate circles: the idea of individual action versus system change. Where one side mostly argues for people to change their consumption behaviours, the other says that we instead need to change the systems that govern us and that promoting individual action is something fossil fuel companies have done to distract us from systemic failings.

Kukowski said that both extremes are unhelpful. Focusing heavily on consumption behaviour can mean an overemphasis on low-impact actions, where that energy could perhaps be better spent elsewhere. At the same time, systems are not immutable structures outside of human control. “Systems are made of people, and we are part of those systems, and so as a part of those systems, we can also change them,” she said.

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At the same time, the framework recognises that some people have more agency than others. A pension fund manager or a fossil fuel executive has more power professionally than a seasonal worker in a restaurant, for example. But the seasonal worker has other avenues i.e civic engagement.

An important part of the framework, Kukowski added, is that some people have more agency than others. Someone who’s in charge of pension funds—which have pumped trillions into fossil fuel extraction—has more power to make a difference in a professional role than someone who’s on a seasonal contract at a restaurant. The seasonal worker, however, could still find other avenues through which to have an impact such as civic engagement. Each of us has our own unique set of circumstances that will determine how to best direct our efforts.

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While climate action can mean reducing your consumption of certain things (flying, meat, and driving), it can also mean changing procurement policies at work, lobbying for climate action in your constituency, or doing climate education at your kid's school. There's a whole host of options!

Being an investor, citizen, or role model could see you shifting investments into green energy, lobbying for climate action in your constituency, or doing some kind of climate education at your kid’s school. As a consumer, flying less, eating less meat, and driving less are the most impactful actions you can take. As a professional, however, you might be in charge of catering at your organisation, so procuring plant-based meals would have a bigger impact than just changing your own behaviour.

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The framework encourages people to think about five roles they inhabit: citizen, consumer, investor, professional, and role model. Where some people might have more power at work, others might have more power in their communities. That would affect which role you could have the biggest impact in.

“Everyone's part of something—a city, a school, a university, a sports club, a business, whatever it is—and probably that place will have to transform and do things differently for a safe climate future,” said Charlotte Kukowski, postdoctoral research associate in climate change mitigation at the University of Cambridge. While that change can come from the top down, “often for these kinds of organisations it also needs to come from within, and if you don't do it, probably no one will.”

Kukowski is part of a team of researchers who have come up with a framework encouraging people to seek out the spaces in their lives where they have the most agency for climate action. The so-called a-frame first asks people to reflect on the roles that they have in their lives as citizens, consumers, investors, professionals, and role models, and then figure out where they can make the biggest impact.

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The ongoing heatwave in Europe shows us that we need climate action now more than ever. The good news is that each of us has the agency to do something in our lives. I spoke with @charlotte-kukowski.bsky.social about a new climate action framework she and her colleagues have developed.

How to use your agency for impactful climate action

Although modern life makes many of us feel powerless, we all have agency to act and stop the climate crisis.

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Reposted by Jack McGovan

Prof. Ian Walker @ianwalker.bsky.social · 20/06/2026

🚨 New research by us! 📣 Most British drivers don't know how dangerous SUVs are to other road users, but adding information to SUV marketing materials seems to do almost nothing to change people's plans to buy SUVs Here's a 🧵 on why harder action is going to be needed 1/10

A mockup SUV advert image with a prototype safety warning

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While the EU launched its Tech Sovereignty Package last week, earlier this month, there's nothing binding in it that would force the move away from US tech. Proponents of open source instead want more political courage and stronger investments.

Väliharju suggests that, in Finland at least, there’s a sense of hope that things will return to normal after the Trump presidency. But he thinks the trust has already been broken. What is needed instead is political courage and stronger investments. “What we really need to do is try to fund the sustainability of those open source projects that we have in Europe,” he said.

Plat sees things similarly. “The whole reason that we got captured by big US tech is because they looked after us so much; they took care of everything, we just handed them all our money and all of our technology,” she said. “Now is the time to look towards these alternatives and to build up skills to be able to manage them ourselves a bit better.”

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Not everywhere is the same. In Berlin, the local government published an open source strategy that is unlikely to be implemented due to lack of political will. Civil initiatives, who say the public need to show they want open source alternatives, are left to fill in the gap.

Although many municipalities are moving towards open source software, not all of them are. In Berlin, the homeplace of Topio, the local government published an open source strategy this year. However, there’s scepticism about whether it will actually be properly implemented. “Especially in Berlin, there’s no open source culture in the public administration,” said Tom Jennissen, lawyer and speaker for the association Digitale Gesellschaft (Digital Society).

Dikker said that civil initiatives like Topio become more important in times when politics isn’t pushing things forward. “We’re a laboratory for finding out what works and what doesn’t,” she said. “We hear from politicians that it’s important for them and that [open source] is supported by civil initiatives as well. They need a mandate from the public to legitimise their work.”

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Part of the reason for the success there is down to the advocacy of digital minister Dirk Schrödter, a supportive cabinet and a healthy open source ecosystem. However, the size also matters: local governments are big enough to have an impact, while still being small enough to be agile.

Schleswig-Holstein isn't, however, the only success story in Europe. The administration of the Spanish region of Valencia has already installed Libre Office on 120,000 of its computers, and the Portuguese town of Seixal completed their migration to the open source software in 2019. What makes Schleswig-Holstein stand out, perhaps, is its size; it’s far bigger than both of those regions put together. The perfect size for quick impact, according to Rosenthal: “We’re big enough that we can make a difference, but at the same time small enough that we know each other”.

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The German state of Schleswig-Holstein is one major success, where 80 percent of workstations in public administration have been shifted to Libre Office, an open source alternative to Microsoft. Millions have been saved in fees and reinvested back into the local open source ecosystem.

A major success story of shifting towards open source is in the German state of Schleswig-Holstein. There, nearly 80 percent of workstations in public administration have been converted to Libre Office, an open source alternative to Microsoft Office. The state has saved 15 million euros in licensing fees, and after accounting for switching costs and other expenses, nine million euros were reinvested in the local open source ecosystem.

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There's been a lot of talk about digital independence from US tech in Europe since Trump's sanctions of the ICC, but it seems to be local municipalities who are making the biggest strides to shift away – with civil initiatives left to fill the gaps in places with little political will. My latest ⬇️

Local municipalities are spearheading independence from US tech

Some municipalities are moving quickly to make Europe digitally independent from US tech, but civil initiatives are left to fill in the gaps where there is little political will.

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Reposted by Jack McGovan

Anil Dash @anildash.com · 10/06/2026

If you need a script for getting your company off Twitter, I WROTE YOU ONE. Multiple people have used it, successfully, to explain the legal liability your company incurs by forcing employees to be on a platform with child sexual abuse material. I will help you use it. anildash.com/2026/02/23/t...

anildash.com

Taking action against AI harms - Anil Dash

A blog about making culture. Since 1999.

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Jack McGovan @jackmcgovan.bsky.social · 10/06/2026

If anything was going to make me a doomer, it would be the failure of the progressive left to leave X in the face of this stuff. It genuinely feels like progressive public intellectuals think their hot takes and pithy tweets are more powerful than a billionaire-backed misinformation algorithm.

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Reposted by Jack McGovan

Akshat Rathi @akshatrathi.bsky.social · 03/06/2026

I see a lot of charts everyday. Few make me go: THIS IS CRAZY. www.carbonbrief.org/ai-boom-mean...

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Reposted by Jack McGovan

OTHERSIDE @othersidespec.bsky.social · 01/06/2026

HAPPY PRIDE, ISSUE 2 IS OUT NOW FOR SUBSCRIBERS!!! Check your email! 🪐🗡️🌈 Issue 2 will be free online on June 15th—but if you'd like to support a queer magazine AND read Issue 2 without waiting, you can snag a copy now! Ko-fi: ko-fi.com/s/3e872a158d Patreon: www.patreon.com/posts/others... (1/2)

OTHERSIDE Issue 2 cover on the left, with text on the right that says ISSUE 2: nine stories, six poems, one essay, original art by queer creators available now for subscribers. www.othersidespec.com

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Reposted by Jack McGovan

Matthew Highton @matthighton.bsky.social · 27/05/2026

I don’t know who wrote this (sorry if it was you) but I saw someone a few days ago say “why is AI inevitable and not renewable energy” and it just really laser focussed the private sector money narrative for me. Corporate interests always. Anyway back to the treadmill everyone.

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That's not to say you need veganism for any of this. I do think, however, that we need to be having uncomfortable conversations about our society and culture in order to solve the issues plaguing us (climate, democracy etc), and veganism has been a real catalyst for that in my life.

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Over ten years, I've committed myself to a practice that is all about imagining and believing that things can be better, of recognising that I have agency in this world. That has been invaluable in shaping my approach to my life and my writing.

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That process of internal reflection has ultimately made me a more intellectually humble person. If I could have been wrong about something so fundamental as our relationship to other species on this planet, what else could I possibly be wrong about?

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When you decide to reassess your relationship to animals, you're going against deeply ingrained cultural beliefs. You end up fighting an internal battle, as well as an external one against a society that doesn't see things the way you do. That takes a level of cognitive effort.

That process of changing how you look at animals can be very difficult. Like almost everybody else, I was brought up to consume animals, whether through meat, leather, or entertainment like zoos. It takes wilful cognitive effort to resist the values you’ve been raised with and try to chart a new path for yourself. That’s especially true as vegans are viewed negatively by an overwhelming majority of Western society; you’re fighting an uphill battle internally and externally. The point here isn’t to make veganism seem woe-is-me, but to show how there is a level of effort and commitment involved in developing a new relationship with other species.

That process of internal reflection has made me a much more intellectually humble person. It’s only because I’ve unpicked this idea of human dominance over animals, something that had been ingrained in me since early childhood, that I’m now willing to challenge all of my beliefs. If I could have been wrong about something so fundamental as our relationship to other species on this planet, what else could I possibly be wrong about?

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As The Vegan Society puts it, veganism is “a philosophy and way of living which seeks to exclude—as far as is possible and practicable—all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals.” It’s not a diet as many would frame it, but rather a philosophy of how one relates to animals.

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Whenever people talk about veganism, it's almost always framed in terms of its environmental and ethical benefits. For my ten year anniversary, I wrote about the personal benefits of the practice and how it completely changed my relationship with myself and the world around me 🌱⬇️

How ten years of veganism enriched my life

Veganism is always lauded for its environmental and ethical benefits, but the personal impact can be enormous too.

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Reposted by Jack McGovan

Jill Walker Rettberg @jilltxt.bsky.social · 20/05/2026

Here’s a video from the same podcast as linked in my previous post where you can hear the audio too. I love this because it really lays bare how LLMs fool us - but really they’re just slotting words into linguistic patterns that we’re familiar with. Genres like a podcast or LinkedIn post.

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Reposted by Jack McGovan

Ketan Joshi @ketanjoshi.co · 05/05/2026

Welcome to blood profits season: where every major fossil fuel company announces windfall profits thanks to mass murder and the 2nd global fossil fuel price crisis this decade. We cannot stay trapped in this cage. Time to escape. New Al Jazeera op-ed live here www.aljazeera.com/opinions/202...

The least governments can do at this moment is impose a windfall tax on energy companies and use the proceeds to cushion the blow to households and fund an energy transition.

As was the case in 2022, the resurgence of fossil fuel company mega-profits we are seeing now has come about as the direct consequence of bloody conflict. In late February, the US and Israel attacked Iran. The conflict soon spread across the region. By now, more than 3,000 Iranians have been killed, including more than 150 schoolgirls and teachers at a school that was hit. More than 2,000 Lebanese people have also been killed, as well as 23 Israelis and dozens of people across the Gulf region.

The closure of the Strait of Hormuz is triggering a global upwards shift in oil and gas prices. Recently released reports for the first quarter of the year, which includes the first month of the war, already show windfall profits for energy companies.

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Jack McGovan @jackmcgovan.bsky.social · 04/05/2026

While I get why Polanski doesn't attack commercial aviation as an industry, and think it's smart he doesn't, this was a missed opportunity to advocate for more investment in rail i.e renewable-powered international rail networks, building local rail infrastructure in support, more jobs etc.

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Reposted by Jack McGovan

Hamilton Nolan @hamiltonnolan.bsky.social · 30/04/2026

"Why are all the journalists laid off now" this is why. Pretty simple.

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Jack McGovan @jackmcgovan.bsky.social · 24/04/2026

Animal agriculture is arguably the most destructive industry on the planet, and it gets such a free pass from criticism that's it's crazy. Leaving it out of a story like this is exactly the same as leaving fossil fuels out of a climate story. Link: www.nature.com/articles/d41...

A screenshot of the linked article. The subtitle reads: Virus origin. The text reads: The highly pathogenic H5N1 strain emerged in commercial geese in Asia in around 1996, and spread in poultry throughout Europe and Africa in the early 2000s.

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Jack McGovan @jackmcgovan.bsky.social · 24/04/2026

It's great that we're preparing for a potential future bird flu pandemic, but it frustrates me to no end that these stories never mention that the H5N1 strain originated on a factory farm. In fact, they frame it almost as a *threat* to factory farms.

newscientist.com

If a bird flu pandemic starts, we may have an mRNA vaccine ready

A final-stage trial has started of an mRNA vaccine against the bird flu strain infecting many animals – and occasionally people – worldwide

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Reposted by Jack McGovan

Joey Grostern @joeygrostern.bsky.social · 20/04/2026

Have you ever found yourself quoted online for something you never said? We've seen a few examples of academics having their voice used for quotes they never said in fake news websites and in AI chatbots – but think there's a lot more If that's you shoot me a DM or comment here #journorequest

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Jack McGovan @jackmcgovan.bsky.social · 15/04/2026

The review made me aware of this wild fact that Oxford academics have a history of drinking out of the skull of an enslaved woman at dinner parties – something that's reflected in the brutality of the Tretoans in the story collection.

While this world may seem fantastical in its capacity for cruelty, it very much mirrors the horrors of our own present. We find that the Tretoans have appropriated a tradition from a society they almost eradicated; they carry out executions on gibbets made from the bones of victims of the empire. This exploitation of colonised bodies at the highest and most rarified levels of the imperial core is shocking and distressing and entirely plausible in our own reality. Would the story of dons at one of the most prestigious universities in the world drinking out of the skull of an enslaved woman at dinner parties strain your disbelief?

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Jack McGovan @jackmcgovan.bsky.social · 15/04/2026

There's a review of @premeemohamed.com's One Message Remains in today's Sower. Libby, the reviewer, found the fantasy story collection to be a hopeful look into how all of us, no matter whether we're inside or outside the imperial core, have the power to resist colonialism and its lack of empathy.