P Soffe retweeted
Renowned Arctic ornithologist jailed for three and a half years over 2,000-rouble donation
Sofya Rozenfeld, a Doctor of Biological Sciences, dedicated her life to studying birds in the remotest corners of the Russian Arctic.
thebarentsobserver.com/news/…
P Soffe retweeted
I'm an American, a U.S. Army veteran, and I live in Europe.
And I'll tell you something that might upset a few people back home.
I want my fellow Americans to enjoy the same rights, freedoms, and quality of life that millions of Europeans already enjoy.
I want Americans to have access to affordable healthcare without worrying about going bankrupt because they got sick.
I want American students to pursue higher education without burying themselves in decades of debt.
I want Americans to enjoy stronger digital privacy laws, meaningful consumer protections, paid parental leave, and guaranteed paid vacation.
I want police officers held to rigorous standards of accountability, where de-escalation is emphasized and deadly force is genuinely a last resort.
I want Americans to understand that freedom isn't just about what the government cannot do to you. It's also about having the security and opportunity to actually enjoy your life.
And before someone starts screaming about socialism, understand something.
European countries are capitalist democracies. They have private businesses, entrepreneurs, private property, competitive markets, and individual liberties. They've simply made different decisions about what protections their citizens should enjoy.
Europe isn't perfect. No place is. But pretending America has nothing to learn from other democracies is ridiculous.
I served my country. I love my country. And I don't believe patriotism requires pretending that America is the best at everything.
In fact, I believe the exact opposite.
Real patriotism means wanting your country to improve, even when that means admitting another country does something better.
I don't want Americans to have fewer freedoms.
I want them to have MORE.
More protections. More opportunities. More security. More accountability. More freedom to live their lives without being financially destroyed by illness, education, or circumstances beyond their control.
And having lived on both sides of the Atlantic, I know that much of this is possible.
We should stop asking why Americans can't have these things and start asking why they're expected to settle for less.
P Soffe retweeted
Obsession with “tidy” farming is a threat to wildlife - yet many farmers see “tidiness” as a core virtue and disparage others who leave their hedges/margins/fields etc look “unkempt”. We need to change our thinking.
P Soffe retweeted
Two-thirds of UK house buyers now want properties with solar panels, batteries and heat pumps, says Rightmove. They aim to generate as much of their their own energy as possible as prices rise and security falls, e.g. through the Iran and Ukraine wars.
thetimes.com/life-style/prop…
P Soffe retweeted
I've just added my name to back Britain joining the EU by 2036 - or sooner!
It takes 30 seconds. Will you join me?
europeanmovement.co.uk/join_…
P Soffe retweeted
Insulating homes and equipping them with heat pumps better for cost of living and UK economy than drilling new oilfields, analysis shows
theguardian.com/environment/…
P Soffe retweeted
The evidence says that investing in insulation and heat pumps would do more to cut the cost of living, create jobs & grow the economy.
But fossil shills would rather cut that out & have you buy their expensive gas to heat leaky homes for their profits.
theguardian.com/environment/…
P Soffe retweeted
I'm angry that so many of my constituents who voted to Leave the EU did so because they were bombarded by lies. That’s why @andyburnham’s announcement of a National Centre for Information Defence matters, fighting foreign state influence in our democracy.
P Soffe retweeted
Petrol and diesel cars now account for less than half of all new cars worldwide for the first time.
P Soffe retweeted
Further to my Brexit survey that showed 70% voted BREXIT has been bad for us. To add insult to injury it has recently come to light according to our PM that allegedly there was foreign intervention in the Brexit vote. What is not clear was the intervention distortion for or against Brexit. Either way if this is true then we least need to have another vote. The SME's have suffered enough.
P Soffe retweeted
NEW: Ten years on, Prime Minister @andyburnham tells @campbellclaret & @RoryStewartUK that there was ‘clear’ Russian interference in the Brexit vote.
FINALLY after years of cover-ups & denials from the highest levels of the UK govt. That in itself deserves an inquiry.
1/
P Soffe retweeted
Scrapping UK green home regulations would mean higher bills for homeowners, but would be cheaper for developers (many of which historically donate to right-wing political parties)
theguardian.com/politics/202…
P Soffe retweeted
Open letter to the Prime Minister on new North Sea drilling 📢
Prof. Kevin Anderson & other Tyndall Centre scientists at the University of Manchester have urged Andy Burnham to rule out further development of the Rosebank and Jackdaw oil/gas fields. buff.ly/aGbyTqM
P Soffe retweeted
Maddening to see the Conservatives pledging to scrap requirements for new homes to come with solar panels as standard ☀️
Solar on new homes should be a no brainier - cutting bills, and cutting our reliance on foreign oil and gas ✅
Another step backward from the Tories 🚮
P Soffe retweeted
George Orwell worked for the BBC for 2 years and didn’t particularly enjoy it. But at the end he told his boss that no one had ever asked him to broadcast anything he didn’t believe. I’ve now worked for it for 60 years, and can honestly say exactly the same thing.
P Soffe retweeted
Taking this head on. The UK joined the EU in 1973 and as one can easily see from the graphic there was little issue with managing migration for the first twenty five years of our membership.
We have an increase of migration after EU expansion from Eastern Europe. This would not happen again if we returned to the EU as a) the migration has happened b) these countries now have low unemployment c) are now migrant importers themselves. In short, European demography is completely different. There will be no repeat “Polish Plumber” wave.
Now, having this pool of migration from the EU actually helped us manage migration, which we need, for the following reasons a) they often went home b) if they stayed they often married local d) they almost never brought their families d) they literally could not claim asylum. The Brexitwave of migration you see shooting up from 2020, when we leave, is the opposite on all counts therefore numerically much more challenging. Returning to the EU means returning to easier to manage labour migration flows.
Whilst this might be technically correct, it is not the case that being in the EU helped us manage migration. It shied away from the democratic prerogative to do so entirely, leading to Brexit.
Britain's migration crises are the result of interlocking bad policy-making by Conservative ministers - Ben risks absolving them of blame here.
Absent those policy choices, Brexit could have led to a low-migration Britain (with other economic and political consequences).
It is also not true to state as some others do that the Dublin Agreement helped us manage illegal migration.
In 2019, Britain received more individuals under Dublin than it returned!
Where Brexit has inflicted damage through the lack of information sharing post-withdrawal. Losing access to Eurodac blunts our ability to make good asylum decisions, including rejecting those who have spent considerable periods in Europe before arriving here for a second bite at the cherry.
In terms of the EU reset, Labour should not shy away from more plausible goals such as renewed information sharing, notwithstanding significant challenges to rejoining these systems.
Read in full here:
labourrealists.substack.com/…
P Soffe retweeted
Imagine it’s the 1920s.
There’s a global horse shortage. Horses and feed are getting painfully expensive.
Meanwhile, affordable automobiles offer households a permanent escape from dependence on horses.
So naturally, you protect horse breeders, subsidise hay, invest in manure shovels and make automobiles harder to own.
Sounds absurd with hindsight.
Yet that’s increasingly the choice being made today.
When oil prices soar, governments can subsidise fuel. That temporarily reduces the pain, but leaves households dependent on oil.
Or they can accelerate the exit ramps: EVs, renewables, rooftop solar, batteries and electrification.
An EV permanently reduces a household’s exposure to petrol prices. Solar and batteries permanently reduce exposure to electricity prices. And every EV, battery and solar factory built creates jobs, expertise, scale and industries that compound over decades.
China understood this early and went all-in. Australia and much of Europe are still supporting the transition.
The US is increasingly moving the other way, winding back EV and clean-energy incentives while weakening fuel-efficiency requirements, effectively protecting the incumbent technology during another oil shock.
The mistake in 1920 wasn’t owning a horse.
It was seeing the automobile coming, watching your competitors master it, experiencing a horse-supply crisis...
…and deciding your national strategy should be more horses, cheaper hay and better manure shovels.
This isn’t just climate policy.
It’s household economics, energy security and who owns the industries of the future. Doubling down on yesterday while your competitors build tomorrow is economic suicide.
P Soffe retweeted
Climate change cost the world at least a huge $2.8 trillion in the first two decades of this century -amounting to $16 million an hour - the UN reports. Costs for developing countries alone, it adds, could reach $580 billion a year by 2030.
,
theconversation.com/our-rese…
