James Bullock

Vanuatu moves forward with UN climate resolution despite Trump opposition Pacific island says the US weakened its proposal to advance a key climate ruling but vows to hold major polluters accountable

Creating a better world is simple

Just ask: “What Trump do?”

Then do the opposite

www.theguardian.com/world/2026/m...

It is easy to think of nature as existing elsewhere - in reserves, in other parts of the world, places we fly to on holiday

Which can mean we think responding to the biodiversity crisis is simply about conservation actions

Rather than the fact that our society is based on the exploitation ofnature

The greenest flags: virtue signals that help you find love – from patchwork clothes to car sharing A new survey shows 80% of gen Zs believe strong environmental values are as important as physical attraction when it comes to finding a partner (so you might want to start reusing your coffee cups)

The environment is trendy now - from Gen Z dating flags to the piles of books on the subject in bookshops

Shame this is not translating into action - individually, socially, or politically
www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle...

Bird nests support a diverse, dynamic and distinctive macroarthropod community on the forest floor Nests built by vertebrates, such as birds and mammals, constitute diverse microhabitats that are inhabited by many arthropod taxa and represent important hubs of local biodiversity. Compared to leaf...

New paper! Bird nests (Wood Warblers) are hubs of invertebrate biodiversity on forest floor, hosting more species/individuals than leaf litter. Probably due to heat & food detritus. Losing Wood Warblers = ecological networks lost. #ornithology
resjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

The greenest flags: virtue signals that help you find love – from patchwork clothes to car sharing A new survey shows 80% of gen Zs believe strong environmental values are as important as physical attraction when it comes to finding a partner (so you might want to start reusing your coffee cups)

The environment is trendy now - from Gen Z dating flags to the piles of books on the subject in bookshops

Shame this is not translating into action - individually, socially, or politically
www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle...

Interesting policy brief on wild boar/feral pigs in Scotland

Some view them as non-native pigs, either escaped or released illegally

Others see them as wild boar, once more in the wild after being driven to extinction

kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/ws/portalfil...

Crypto investor based in Thailand donates further £3m to Reform Christopher Harborne’s gift is latest to party’s election war chest and comes amid calls for cap on political donations

Dodgy political donations undermine democracy & should be stopped

In South Australia political donations are banned - parties will instead receive public funding, within strict expenditure caps

www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

As the ‘growth agenda’ is increasingly dominating UK research funding, we scientists also need to push back against this drive to line the pockets of the super rich

While everyone’s opinion counts in considering what nature recovery should look like

Experience, expertise &, especially, evidence need to be taken into account in guiding how we achieve this recovery

Trump: My war has a clear objective which I've already achieved. I have killed the Epstein story.

New Private Eye on shelves now.

➡️ Subscribe: checkout.private-eye.co.uk/SingleItem?I...

While everyone’s opinion counts in considering what nature recovery should look like

Experience, expertise &, especially, evidence need to be taken into account in guiding how we achieve this recovery

Sea level much higher than assumed in most coastal hazard assessments - Nature Meta-analyses on a global scale show that the measured coastal mean sea level is higher than assumed in most coastal hazard assessments.

More coasts at risk ⚠️

Some areas of the oceans are sitting several metres higher than previously realised.

Up to 132 million more people could be underwater with 1m of sea level rise than current estimates suggest.

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Reform fury as someone else wins by Our By-election Editor Tim Shipsink The losing candidate in the Gorton and Denton by-election, Matt Goodwhinge, has demanded an immediate re-run of the election on the grounds that he lost comprehensively to someone else. "It's totally unfair and rigged," said Goodwhinge. "I shouldn't be required to sit there and suck it up, just because I lost." Mr Goodwhine continued, *I can't believe that all those voters I demonised failed to back me. Especially after I was endorsed by Tommy Robinson and ten million Russian bots on X. "We have clear evidence of family voting, where people voted in order for me to stop deporting their families." Mr Badloser concluded. "I'm the victim of colour prejudice. They didn't vote for me simply because I'm not green." Reform leader Mr Farage, speaking from a sun lounger on a rock near the Chagos Islands said, "It's a tragedy that the people of Manchester won't see Matt in Westminster, but my constituents don't see me in Clacton either." PLUMBER DEFEATS MATT GOODWIN Photo of Hannah Spencer with speech bubble saying… I've stopped the cock

Beautiful from Private Eye on the massive toddler-tantrum that Matt Goodwin and Reform are having, because they got whooped in Gorton and Denton.

As the ‘growth agenda’ is increasingly dominating UK research funding, we scientists also need to push back against this drive to line the pockets of the super rich

Global economy must stop pandering to ‘frivolous desires of ultra-rich’, says UN expert Olivier De Schutter says new economic agenda needed to tackle crises of rising inequality and ecological collapse

“politicians must stop prioritising socially and ecologically destructive growth that only increases the profits of the world’s richest individuals and corporations”

So says a UN rapporteur

www.theguardian.com/environment/...

I think we can be more scientific- eg work we doing on projecting biodiversity responses to climate change scenarios & assessing what species & communities might be able to persist under these scenarios

Well, we suggest experimental approaches to see what works out & to contain risks under uncertainty. We applied ecologists are actually quite knowledgeable about implementation.

Can you share reports, papers, etc?

Revisiting the case for assisted colonisation under rapid climate change Maintaining functioning ecosystems in a hotter world will require mass-scale assisted colonisation, so appropriate conservation policy, legislative frameworks and regulating bodies must be urgently d...

So, you might be interested in our paper

besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

As climate change presents us with unprecedented environmental conditions for our time

To what extent should we look to the past to guide nature recovery?

Or should we be totally rethinking our approaches to conservation?

In The Woodlanders, Hardy writes about the multiple traditional uses of woods in my home patch of Dorset - certainly a lot of human activity even in the late 19th century

And maybe heavy human use historically to some extent did what large herbivores had done previously

Taxonomic homogenization of woodland plant communities over 70 years Abstract. Taxonomic homogenization (TH) is the increasing similarity of the species composition of ecological communities over time. Such homogenization re

Interestingly, our study of more recent history showed English woodlands becoming more shaded through the 20th century

Likely due to declining use by humans (not by chickens, despite the doi image!)

doi.org/10.1098/rspb...

Dense, dark forests in Europe are a modern phenomenon A new, comprehensive study shows that Europe’s landscapes over the past more than 20 million years have predominantly been a mosaic of grasslands, scrub and woodlands of varying density. A light...

Dense, dark forests in Europe are a modern phenomenon - Europe’s landscapes for 23 Myr were mostly tree- & flower-rich mosaics shaped by large herbivores, not dense #forests, see our new synthesis www.eurekalert.org/news-release... #forests #woodlands #paleoecology #nature #trees #refiorestation

Nature security assessment on global biodiversity loss, ecosystem collapse and national security This strategic assessment explores how global biodiversity loss and the collapse of critical ecosystems could affect the UK’s resilience, security and prosperity.

“Protecting & restoring ecosystems is easier, cheaper & more reliable”

The Government’s Nature Security report has been criticised, but this conclusion about the way ahead makes all the right noises

www.gov.uk/government/p...

Nature security assessment on global biodiversity loss, ecosystem collapse and national security This strategic assessment explores how global biodiversity loss and the collapse of critical ecosystems could affect the UK’s resilience, security and prosperity.

“Protecting & restoring ecosystems is easier, cheaper & more reliable”

The Government’s Nature Security report has been criticised, but this conclusion about the way ahead makes all the right noises

www.gov.uk/government/p...

What this says to me is that lots of people support Green policies but don't support the party because they don't think they can win

Once they realise they can win, everything shifts

If research is supposed to be timely, Research Councils really need to speed up the review process

We recently heard about grant success 6 months after submission

Given that they set deadlines for submission, there is no excuse for such a slow turnaround

One of my bugbears is when an action is reported to increase biodiversity compared to that on intensive agricultural land

Fine, but how does it compare to intact, healthy ecosystems?

Comparators are important - finding an improvement compared to a worst case is not a powerful argument

I would still like to see a comparison against more nature rich possibilities

A, say, 200% increase in a very small number remains a very small number