Absolutely. And it's a highly specialized skill with a single short shearing season ... exactly what a temporary work visa program should be designed for. I honestly don't know what the government is thinking.
Uh, this was completely predictable.
Flying seems default, but trains are seeing a revival in Europe thanks to demand. Markets shift when we choose alternatives. Curious? Try a flight-free year. flightfree.co.uk/why_flight_f...
#climateaction
I saw this morning the government has abruptly reversed course (again! they specialize in U-turns!) and will allow these 75 sheep shearers in ... but only for this year and not again, said the Migration minister. Clueless indeed.
The link to the full report doesn't work. Can you please fix and repost it?
"The following is a summary of the full report which can be read here."
The link for "here" goes to "page not found."
It seems as if everything we do turns out to harm other life on earth.
2/2 Well, it is Texas:
"The city is a case study in how not to anticipate and adjust to a hotter world, a cautionary tale for municipalities across the country and the world. Even as the city struggled to meet its booming water needs, it invited fossil-fuel companies to guzzle its water..."
This is one of the best opening lines of a climate story ever:
"Corpus Christi, Texas, is about to run dangerously short of water, a development nobody saw coming aside from all the people who have seen it coming for decades." 1/2
2/2 Meanwhile:
"Elsewhere in the world, the pattern of extremes was repeated. Wetter than usual conditions swamped Australia, Mozambique and Botswana, while the dry spell affected the southern US and northern Mexico, easternmost China, parts of South America and south-east Africa."
Oh, in other news:
"The run of intense storms affecting France, Spain, Portugal and Morocco in particular stood in contrast with unusual dryness in the rest of the continent...."
"Farmers in the UK warned of crops rotting in the ground, after Feb. proved to be 23 per cent wetter than average." 1/2
We will literally try everything and anything EXCEPT the one thing that matters: stopping the use of fossil fuels.
2/2 Holding back 75 work visas for this:
"...there is “a looming animal welfare crisis” waiting to happen this year. The National Sheep Association warned that this decision will likely cause shearing to be delayed for many farmers, increasing the risk of heat stress, flystrike, and maggots."
The UK gov't really doesn't like farmers.
"The UK's sheep industry has voiced concerns over a potential sheep shearing "crisis" as around 75 overseas shearers have been denied entry to work this year. These 75 shearers have been responsible for shearing roughly 1.5 million sheep each year..." 1/2
Can we please stop with these "this one thing will SAVE THE PLANET" headlines? How often do we see these? Why do editors and producers always try to frame something as the single answer to all our problems?
And to answer the question, no, veganism cannot "save the planet."
My favorite invertebrates would like a word with you.
Someone please make this make sense.
"The framework is expected to launch in early 2027 and grant holders of the tokenized shares the same governance rights as those investors who own the underlying securities."
Here is what the journal Nature has to say about our paper on the increasing rate of #globalwarming:
www.nature.com/articles/d41...
Poster submissions for Beavers Across Britain close soon! This is the last chance to share your research. Submissions close on 15th March. Organised by Beaver Trust, supported by Cairngorms National Park and Forestry England 👇
https://tinyurl.com/2rnjcefw
#BeaversAcrossBritain #Mammals
Text in the Hoppers credits that reads “dedicated to beavers, monarch butterflies, all living things, and the humans who love and protect them”
I’m not crying…you’re crying.
This dedication at the end of the Hoppers credits has made just about every beaver person, ecologist, environmental scientist, and nature lover I know tear up a bit (or for many of us, full on lose it in tears again).
Pond Rule #3: we’re all in this together.
Photo showing a muddy stretch on a rural gravel road, with snow banks on each side and a mix of hardwood and softwood trees lining the road. Mountain in the distance.
Hard to believe that a week ago we were at -18° (-27°C). Today, it's mud season already.
And she debased herself by giving her Nobel Peace Prize to Trump, thinking that somehow it would make a difference. Maybe she could ask for it back?
Why is it that "populist" politicians are either funded by billionaires or billionaires themselves? And why can't populist voters ever figure out that most "populist" policies are actually aimed at enriching the wealthiest in society?
Why are we still doing this? We know what is in that sludge. Farmers know what's in it. Why is this still legal in Scotland or anywhere else?
Nothing to see here, folks, move along.
As a result, stablecoins have grown to $300 billion in market value from roughly $20 billion in 2020. The Federal Reserve estimates they could be worth $3 trillion in five years. Because stablecoins use Treasuries as the primary collateral to create this cashlike safety, cryptocurrencies have effectively flooded into the Treasury market, the central artery of the U.S.-led global financial network. Stablecoin-issuing companies, like Circle and Tether, now hold more Treasury debt than major U.S. government creditors like Saudi Arabia and South Korea. Some experts fear that the next crypto crash could cascade into major losses for the highly sensitive short-term U.S. debt markets in which Treasuries predominate. The open question for regulators, bankers and the Trump administration is whether the growing centrality of the coins carries more upside or downside risks.
What could possibly go wrong?
NYT: A Crypto Coin Is Gobbling Up U.S. Treasuries
www.nytimes.com/2026/03/08/b...
The Wall Street Journal's recurring argument for a wealth tax.
These people spent $250,000 closing in their screened porch because "it was hard to keep the pollen out." (No, really.)
Now they have "...three televisions where the owners can watch golf, football and basketball at the same time."
And to think that Starmer insisted on offering Trump an unprecedented second state visit, hosted by King Charles, thinking the honor would make a difference and earn him points. These people never seem to learn.
can we please just fast forward to the part when this unremarkable bullshitter's company is bought for cheap by Google and he uses the proceeds to spend the rest of his life funding uninteresting startups the access tech press gushes over but never actually amount to anything interesting or useful?
Screenshot of text that describes sheep as a "disaster for biodiversity" because they prefer to eat wildflowers to grass and so strip a meadow of wildflowers as they graze.
This makes perfect sense. I'm reading Donald MacIntyre's superb book "Restoring The Wild: A Guide to the Restoration, Creation and Management of Meadow and Other Wild Vegetation" (Crowood Press, 2024) and here's what he said about the impact of sheep on biodiversity:
Moth populations are plummeting & many of the 2,500 species in the UK are at risk, numbers having fallen by 33% since the 1960s, due to habitat loss & climate breakdown
The RHS has asked gardeners to “allow for nibbling on ornamentals and vegetable crops”
#moths
www.theguardian.com/environment/...
