Late to the party I know, but catching up on traitors to avoid doing my tax return and can’t get over how the wide turret shots make Fiona and Claudia look like tiny doll people
@bellingcat.com analysis of the Alex Pretti killing, including all of the video evidence that our team was able to find.
Contrary to statements from DHS and other US gov't officials, Pretti was disarmed when he was shot and did not threaten agents with his gun.
www.bellingcat.com/news/2026/01...
(I’ve got an opinion piece coming out on this in the next few days - when it’s published I’ll share it here on the thread).
Tackling something as fundamentally cross-cutting as biodiversity decline and ecosystem health will make our overarching funding work smarter.
But we cannot do it if we don’t talk about it.
Encouraging because nature is at the foundation of everything. Now, no one is pretending it’s not a simple ask, but if we fix the environment it means we are addressing the root cause of all that ails us.
Terrifying because, hydra-like, his brand of populist facism will likely be sustained beyond the individual.
Looking at what’s happening in the US in the context of this report, suddenly he can be seen as a symptom of the deeper rooted malaise of biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation, in the context of a global capitalist economy, and not just a one off event.
This is both terrifying and encouraging
In fact, I could not sleep last night for worrying about how Trump is regularly dismissed as an individual aberration. One man bent on power and ego-fuelled whimsy.
Geopolitical instability? Check.
Economic insecurity? Check.
Conflict?
Check.
Migration?
Check.
Increased contestation for resources including by states, non state actors and terror groups?
Check.
Political instability and the rise of populism?
Check Check Check.
Taking a beat to focus not on the report’s stark home truths for a moment, but on the global geopolitical context it has arrived in, I would also argue all of the risks the report highlights are already here.
It’s also been published under Defra. Not to dismiss the role they have to play in this debate, badging it as such feels like a convenient excuse to dismiss its contents as “well, they would say that wouldn’t they”.
The scariest bit is not the doom mongering within the report (again if for anyone who has been paying attention, it’s nothing new) but the quiet nature of its release.
Snuck out between Trump’s WhatsApp leaks on Greenland and the opening speeches at Davos, it was a good day to bury bad news.
*I literally just spent an hour making home-made granola so identify strongly with this stereotype right now 😋
In a more enlightened society, that provenance shouldn’t make a difference, but this is 2026 and here we are. The JIC carries more weight than us knit-your-own muesli* type environmentalists.
It’s a sobering read. But it’s also nothing new. Conservation scientists have been warning of these interconnected complex risks for decades.
The “new” thing about it is its provenance. It was authored by security and intelligence experts and not environmentalists.
Last week the UK government released an important report, about the complex and volatile cocktail of national and international security threats we face because of biodiversity loss and the collapse of vital ecosystems as soon as 2030 onwards.
www.gov.uk/government/p...
Likewise, give or take a few months. I’m hoping Bluesky is still the place it was 9 months ago when I was here, and hasn’t descended into the madness!
I’ve spent the last year silent on here for various reasons. But in the current hellscape that is the news cycle I find myself searching for a platform where I can have share stuff that matters, and find authentic debate. Linked In is so performative and AI-soaked these days. Is this the place?
It’s nominative determinism gone mad, I tell you.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Good things are rarely said of leaders who expand the powers and duties of the military to use their troops against their own people. Even Trump will have a hard crime rationalizing just how this makes America great again. The states have never felt less united.
www.nytimes.com/2025/06/11/u...
Today’s #wordle. God, I was angry when I got it.
As the US defies the global environmental agenda, unlikely defenders are emerging. Economic self-interest? Likely a contributing factor at the very least. But it’s the only thing between us and a (literal and figurative) race to the bottom on #deepseamining
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
In other news I saw my first swallow of the year on Sunday, divebombing over a local hedgerow after some ill-fated insect, and for a moment, the chaos of our times was stilled. Nature is awesome.
Critical minerals do keep reminding us of their leverage in modern-day geopolitics and trade dynamics. If you are going to start a trade war, you need to think through the consequences of retailiation moves.
www.nytimes.com/2025/04/23/b...
Civic space and dialogue is undeniably a building block of healthy societies. Attacking it is the hallmark of arbitrary authoritarianism the world over and creates a climate of fear and compliance.
apnews.com/article/trum...
In other news, the #IWT community has discovered this week that illegally sourced and smuggled giant harvester ants are big business. Feeding the global trend for ant farms, Kenya has convicted 4 ant traffickers of biopiracy (as invertebrates not CITES-protected). news.mongabay.com/short-articl...
Everyone: Mr President, when it comes to protecting rare and vital marine ecosystems and biodiversity, why don’t you tell us how you really feel?
The President:
www.nytimes.com/2025/04/17/c...
The latest commentary from Cathy Haenlein, director of our team at @rusi.bsky.social evaluating global efforts to combat the #IllegalWildlifeTrade and exploring why - after a decade of enhanced policy dialogue and programming - dynamic trends in IWT persist. www.rusi.org/explore-our-...
Everyone in the UK is talking about the Netflix series “Adolescence”. Here’s a great report from colleagues at RUSI on the role the manosphere plays in radicalisation by extremist groups. www.rusi.org/explore-our-...
I read a Nov ‘24 US Treasury press release the other day, about the sanctioning of Mexican cartel members for illegal fishing in US waters. Happily, I noticed the map still carried the label “Gulf of Mexico”. Probably as you can’t search CTRL+F on jpegs.
www.nytimes.com/interactive/...
