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Paul Behrens @profpaulbehrens.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

And you don't have to be a saint: in a US survey, experts with fairly green lifestyles were at least as persuasive as the very greenest ones. In any case, a great trip and super productive work-wise as well. If you have the resources in time and money it's well worth it.

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Paul Behrens @profpaulbehrens.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

But I think that kind of signalling still matters, imperfect or not. People say they're less likely to follow a climate researcher's advice on cutting energy use if the researcher has a big carbon footprint.

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Paul Behrens @profpaulbehrens.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

I'm not perfect about this. I stopped flying in 2018, and I'm half considering flying at the ten-year mark, to see colleagues and family in Japan and China, give talks, and sight see. Although I'm not actually sure whether my psychology has changed so much I can actually do it.

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Paul Behrens @profpaulbehrens.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

It took days, and having that time is a privilege a lot of people don't have. One of the things I have missed is less contact with very different cultures.

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Paul Behrens @profpaulbehrens.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

I worked out the carbon with the UK government's 2026 factors: 80-124 kg CO2e per person for the round trip, against 797 kg for flying the same stops. The range is dependent on how you allocate the foot passenger on ferries. The range is probably larger in both directions... but it's a ballpark

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Paul Behrens @profpaulbehrens.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

Back from Greece, and no flights either way 🚆⛴️ We went to Chios by train, ferry, and coach, and I came home the long way round (Bari, Milan, over the Simplon to Basel, Frankfurt, The Hague, then the Eurostar). About 7,200 km across eight countries. 🧵

A trip from London down to Athens showing an inset picture of Paul next to a ferry. The emissions difference is calculated below the picture and in the thread.

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Paul Behrens @profpaulbehrens.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

Is Europe a laggard? On productivity and income, yes. But EU life expectancy has been above the US since 1999, life satisfaction is catching up, and well-being is shared more equally at lower environmental cost. New paper led by the brilliant Annegeke Jansen doi.org/10.1016/j.ec...

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Paul Behrens @profpaulbehrens.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

With so many colleagues and support with Ruth Westcott, Carina Millstone, Tim Lang, Sustain, The Food Foundation, and many others. The Guardian and the Mirror covered it this morning (links below).

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Paul Behrens @profpaulbehrens.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

8. Engage households and communities on food resilience, doing better than the top-down advice on government websites. 9. Decentralise. Policy and regulation to decentralise and regionalise food supply.

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Paul Behrens @profpaulbehrens.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

6. Rename Defra the Department for Environment and Food Security. 7. Storage beyond households: Put responsibility for food storage on national, regional, local, and community schemes, not only on the public.

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Paul Behrens @profpaulbehrens.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

5. A National Council of Food Security, Defence, and Resilience: It would be run by Defra and the MoD together, with Cabinet Office oversight and the three devolved governments taking part.

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Paul Behrens @profpaulbehrens.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

4. Food shortage as a risk in its own right: Assess it as one in the National Security Risk Assessment and publish it in the National Risk Register. At present the only food risk listed is contamination.

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Paul Behrens @profpaulbehrens.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

3. Production for nutrition: Realign national food production around nutritional needs, in line with the Eatwell Guide and the Climate Change Committee. That means more UK-grown legumes, vegetables, fruit, and nuts.

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Paul Behrens @profpaulbehrens.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

2. Local food resilience committees: Create them under the Civil Contingencies Act 2004, using the current Cabinet Office review of the Act.

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Paul Behrens @profpaulbehrens.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

We call for: 1. An audit of concentration and dependence: audit to what extent the UK relies on a few very large food firms, and on imported farm inputs such as fertiliser and feed. It would assess exposure to ransomware, chokepoints, energy dependence, and crop failure.

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Paul Behrens @profpaulbehrens.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

With researchers, industry insiders, national security assessments, and farmers all sounding the alarm we need a political breakthrough to push for food system resilience.

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Paul Behrens @profpaulbehrens.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

The Civil Contingencies Act, the UK's emergency law, recognises disruption to the food supply as a possible emergency. But while water companies, energy networks, and the railways all have duties under it, no food business does.

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Paul Behrens @profpaulbehrens.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

This morning we handed our open letter on food resilience in at 10 Downing Street, signed by more than 150 experts, food organisations, and community groups. 🧵

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Paul Behrens @profpaulbehrens.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

Comment is open to read here: rdcu.be/PfXP2tDwvDsa

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Paul Behrens @profpaulbehrens.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

We suggest 3 changes: put expert judgement next to model estimates; hold no-regret actions (efficiency, retrofit, plant-rich diets etc), trade-offs, and irreversible bets (e.g. heavy future CDR) to different evidence standards; and integrate climate, nature, fiscal, health, food, and security risks

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Paul Behrens @profpaulbehrens.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

The two ways of being wrong have different costs. When an outcome is severe, irreversible, and has a non-negligible chance of happening, under-preparing costs far more than over-preparing. Central estimates are the wrong outputs to focus on with fat-tailed risks.

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Paul Behrens @profpaulbehrens.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

We argue that gvts need find new ways in integrating evidence. The security approach uses reasonable-worst-case methods. The economic advice (generally) works from central estimates and cost-benefit reasoning. Both inform but there is no common integration of insights.

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Paul Behrens @profpaulbehrens.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

On the one hand you have national security assessments sounding the alarm while economic estimates making it through to policy documents present smooth, manageable, and seemingly less damaging futures. What to do?

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Paul Behrens @profpaulbehrens.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

In January a UK gvt. national security assessment concluded that every critical ecosystem is on a pathway to collapse. Meanwhile, the Office for Budget Responsibility's climate scenarios put the hit to UK GDP at around 5% by 2074, in a circa 3 °C world. This is being revised upwards but still...

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Paul Behrens @profpaulbehrens.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

New Nature Climate Change Comment Governments receive very different impact assessments on climate and nature, from risk-based worst-case scenarios to smoother economic models. what to do? 🧵 (Below shows underestimation of risk over time from the IPCC and from UK Climate Change Risk assessment)

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Paul Behrens @profpaulbehrens.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

But then you could to include other steps as well for other boundaries - FAO have 100s of different sheets for these sorts of calculations! and really I was just trying to show the thermodynamic consideration.

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Paul Behrens @profpaulbehrens.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Just had a look at that - highly contingent as usual on assumptions but if you took it as a product (bread) then you’d go from 7-8x more calories for grain than chicken to 5x more calories (very roughly) - may consider doing others. Here I was just doing the animal step.

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Paul Behrens @profpaulbehrens.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Okay, I see what you're saying. There is an argument for including processing wastes for crops here. Household waste is also an option to include. Either way, if you want to have that equivalence you can always add the feathers and the offal back in.

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Paul Behrens @profpaulbehrens.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

I don’t get it. You’re saying I should have drawn a different boundary (yours) and I’m saying that would be strange, wouldn’t be a conversion, and wouldn’t reveal much. In any case, if you were to draw that boundary circa 50-60% of cereals in EU goes to animals. So that boundary would include that.

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Paul Behrens @profpaulbehrens.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

That’s not a conversion loss and would be drawing a strange system boundary.

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Paul Behrens @profpaulbehrens.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Of course it’s right Hugo! And, what you write is also right. I said similar things in my book - active transport, multi modal, and public transport as well as e-bikes are the unsung heros of mobility. Can’t make all the points in the same post :)

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Paul Behrens @profpaulbehrens.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Plant-rich diets are the food system's electrification. Petrol cars only see 18-25% of their fuel energy get to the wheels; EVs 87-91%. Heat pumps are 2 or 3 times more efficient. Food has its own combustion engine: a chicken turns about 13% of its feed calories into food, worse than a petrol car.

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Paul Behrens @profpaulbehrens.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

575 climate scientists, health professionals, and conservationists, me included, have asked the PM to reject Rosebank The field could emit up to 254 Mt of CO₂e. Total UK emissions was 367 Mt in 2025 As the IEA & others say we need no new fossil infrastructure www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/poli...

independent.co.uk

Burnham urged to reject new North Sea drilling days before first Trump meeting

Almost 600 climate scientists, health professionals and conservationists have warned against approving the Rosebank oil field

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Akshat Rathi @akshatrathi.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

It was great talking to Paul Behrens on the Zero podcast about how to fix our fragile food system. If you've not heard the episode yet, please check it out. 🎁🔗 www.bloomberg.com/news/newslet...

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Paul Behrens @profpaulbehrens.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

Had a great chat with @akshatrathi.bsky.social on the Bloomberg Zero podcast recently (links below). Here are three clips: 1) on misinformation, 2) on underestimation, and 3) on opportunities. link to full conversation here: www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

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Dr Ella Gilbert @drgilbz.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

Climate change adds extra, relentless pressure on food systems. And we're all paying the price at the supermarket. Speaking to @profpaulbehrens.bsky.social about food systems and climate. Check out the full episode here: youtu.be/zMxj5c28YiE (also available wherever you get your podcasts!)

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Paul Behrens @profpaulbehrens.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

All about odds at this stage... 1% chance by the end of the century? 5% chance at 2050? these are just guesses... we need new ways of incorporating risk-based assessments. I agree that a crunch is coming before 2050.

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Paul Behrens @profpaulbehrens.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

Thanks so much for the conversation, Ella. So glad we got to cover some of this and the way we sometimes feel as scientists.

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Paul Behrens @profpaulbehrens.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

It was good to talk with Ella about food, climate change, energy, and much more. Rarely have the opportunity to talk a bit more widely. You can see from the sheen that it was recorded during one of the heatwaves.

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Dr Ella Gilbert @drgilbz.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

I spoke to @profpaulbehrens.bsky.social about the impacts of climate heating on food systems. He's worried, and so am I. Watch the full conversation in ep. 2 of my new podcast, here: youtu.be/zMxj5c28YiE

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Paul Behrens @profpaulbehrens.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

"This is not a new normal. Going forwards, this will be the new abnormal." Three moments from Sky News last week: the harvest, what the government's security assessment says about land and diets, and how badly we underestimate each other.

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Paul Behrens @profpaulbehrens.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

I was on BBC Business Today yesterday on what's happened and what's coming for UK food. 34 million litres less milk this June. Around 60 million pints. Wheat is down 13%. Wholesale potato prices +40%, lettuce +90% We covered a Great Food Transformation: diet, waste, production, communities.

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Paul Behrens @profpaulbehrens.bsky.social · 06/08/2026

One third of global farmland is doing two-thirds of the damage, to the climate and wildlife. Regions causing both harm largely overlap. Cattle alone drive 29% of the farm carbon cost and 41% of the biodiversity cost. New paper today in @nature.com food-led by Baoxiao Liu doi.org/10.1038/s430...

doi.org

High-resolution carbon and biodiversity mapping shows correlated losses across space and agricultural products - Nature Food

Food systems substantially impact carbon storage and biodiversity, with food consumption driving four-fifths of losses on agricultural land, particularly through animal-sourced foods. Targeted interve...

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Paul Behrens @profpaulbehrens.bsky.social · 03/08/2026

I spoke to @thetimes.com on horrible yields and how there is no "new normal" "As bad as this year’s harvest is proving to be, Behrens warned against seeing it as a “new normal”. “Until we get our carbon emissions down things will continue to get much, much worse.”" www.thetimes.com/uk/environme...

thetimes.com

Heatwave forces farmers to abandon crops as harvests fail

Extreme weather and rising costs see growers diversifying into alternative businesses, raising severe concerns over the future of British food security

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Paul Behrens @profpaulbehrens.bsky.social · 01/08/2026

I spoke with @owenjones.bsky.social recently about the withheld Joint Intelligence Committee report on food system pressures, and more. I mentioned that one report makes the point that "a wholesale change in consumer diets would be required" Full conversation here: youtu.be/nTYISpFTIq8?...

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National Emergency Briefing @nebriefing.bsky.social · 01/08/2026

NEB food expert Prof Paul Behrens interviewed by @owenjones.bsky.social. Why Britain is heading towards a food crisis unless we change direction urgently. To find out more, watch the People's Emergency Briefing film: www.nebriefing.org/screening-map #NationalEmergencyBriefing #TimeToStepUp #PEBuk

youtube.com

Britain Is on a “Pathway to Collapse”, Expert Warns

YouTube video by Owen Jones

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Paul Behrens @profpaulbehrens.bsky.social · 01/08/2026

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