Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Christine Milne

Financial Times @financialtimes.com · 17h

How Brexit drained the Tories’ talent pool on.ft.com/4qarx21 | opinion

How Brexit drained the Tories’ talent pool

The party can’t keep expecting successful people to pretend that leaving the EU was a good idea

on.ft.com

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Sydney Knitting Nannas and Friends @knitnannassyd.bsky.social · 17h

Please join Sydney 🧶👵 and friends outside the Origin Energy AGM 9.30am tomorrow, Wed 15 Oct, Shangai-La Hotel 176 Cumberland St, Sydney.

Sydney Knitting Nannas and Friends @knitnannassyd.bsky.social · 1d

Well, well, well. Origin Energy is planning to drill 4,435 coal seam gas wells across Central Queensland.
* Extraction of 29 billion litres of groundwater
* 1,300 hectares of koala habitat cleared
* 435 million tonnes of climate pollution
Tell shareholders we’re 😠 Wed Oct 15, Sydney, details 🧵⬇️

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Polly Hemming @pollyjhemming.bsky.social · 21h

Timor-Leste just scrapped lifetime pensions for former parliamentarians after student-led protests.

But sure — protest doesn’t work.
#auspol

www.abc.net.au/news/2025-09...

screenshot of ABC article. text captured says Timor-Leste scraps lifetime pensions after student-led protests
Topic:Activism and Lobbying

Fri 26 Sep
Friday 26 September
Police officers in the street usher crowds.
Police appeal to students to clear the road to await the result of the parliamentary vote. (AFP: Valentino Dariell de Sousa)

In short
Protests broke out last week in Timor-Leste, with thousands of demonstrators demanding parliament cancel a $4.2 million plan to purchase SUVs for lawmakers and lifetime pension for MPs and public officials.

Sixty-two members of parliament voted unanimously on Friday to pass a new law that scrapped the pensions for MPs, former presidents, prime ministers and cabinet ministers.

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Mark Ogge @markogge.bsky.social · 21h

What do you get when Big Gas lobbyists AEP get scandal ridden consultants EY to do “modelling” to influence the Government’s policies?

www.abc.net.au/news/2025-10...

ACCC urged to probe 'distorted research' behind government gas policy

Advocacy group Climate Integrity has accused the gas industry of using "distorted research", produced by the accounting firm EY, to influence the Australian government's Future Gas Strategy.

www.abc.net.au

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Renew Economy @reneweconomy.com.au · 16h

The biggest battery project in Australia is about to get bigger, with the expected addition of an eight-hour fourth stage that will take total storage to 5 GWh.

reneweconomy.com.au

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Doctors for The Environment Australia @docsenvaus.bsky.social · 16h

Groundbreaking research released today measures the health impacts that Woodside's Scarborough Gas Project will cause. It shows the harm to our health and the health of our environment.

We cannot pretend that greenhouse gas emissions from any one fossil fuel project don't count.

For the first time, scientists can show the impact of gas project emissions

Fossil fuel companies and governments argue it's not possible to link climate impacts to specific projects, but Australian researchers have done the numbers.

www.abc.net.au

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Australian Centre for Excellence in Antarctic Science (ACEAS) @antarcticsciaus.bsky.social · 16h

Recent research shows low sea ice is changing #phytoplankton bloom timing and composition in the Southern Ocean.

“Phytoplankton are the ocean’s version of the Amazon rainforest,” says ACEAS lead author Tamara Schlosser from @utas.edu.au.

🔗 Read the news article: antarctic.org.au/microscopic-...

Microscopic shifts, global stakes – how Antarctic sea ice loss is disrupting ocean ecosystems - ACEAS

Antarctica has long been seen as a remote, unchanging environment. Not any more. The ice-covered continent and the surrounding Southern Ocean are undergoing abrupt and alarming changes. Sea ice is shr...

antarctic.org.au

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Ketan Joshi @ketanjoshi.co · 1d

This is a great, detailed piece of work. There is really no secret here: OpenAI fully intend to use fossil gas to power their data centres.

All the crap about fusion, dyson spheres etc is misdirection. This is what they're *actually* doing:

www.desmog.com/2025/10/13/o...

John McCarrick, the company’s new head of Global Energy Policy, was a senior energy policy advisor in the first Trump administration’s Bureau of Energy Resources in the Department of State while under former Secretaries of State Rex Tillerson and Mike Pompeo.

As deputy assistant secretary for Energy Transformation and the special envoy for International Energy Affairs, McCarrick promoted exports of American liquefied natural gas to Europe in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and advocated for Asian countries to invest in natural gas.

The choice to hire McCarrick matches the intentions of OpenAI’s Trump-donating CEO Sam Altman, who said in a U.S. Senate hearing in May that “in the short term, I think [the future of powering AI] probably looks like more natural gas.”

It also aligns with the company’s early moves toward powering new data centers, huge warehouses full of linked-up computers that require enormous quantities of water and electricity, to run with gas. OpenAI’s U.S. Stargate Project site in Texas, which is slated to become one of the largest data center sites in the world, is already installing off-grid gas turbines to power its operations.

“Big Tech’s collusion with the Trump administration’s fossil fuel agenda for artificial intelligence is evident in their massive investment in methane gas power infrastructure — as well as pro-gas political operatives like McCarrick,” Tyson Slocum, director of consumer advocacy organization Public Citizen’s Energy Program, said.

The “solution” of powering AI with gas is part of Trump’s AI energy policy platform. In a July speech to announce a $96 billion AI and energy funding package, Trump lauded fossil fuel and coal-powered data center development while flanked by oil and gas executives.

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Captain Quoll @kudelka.bsky.social · 16h

It’s the Murray and Albo show! Watch two gutless dickheads unnecessarily sacrifice irreplaceable rainforest and species out of sheer laziness and spite.

Newspaper article describing the latest act of unnecessary vandalism.

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Rex Patrick @mrrexpatrick.bsky.social · 4d

The jury is in. @albomp.bsky.social hates transparency. Loathes it! #FOI #auspol

Inside Albanese’s FOI reforms: ‘He hates transparency’

Labor’s reforms to freedom of information laws are opposed by every public submission made to the Senate, with the government’s record on secrecy worse than Scott Morrison’s.

www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au

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Simon Donner @simondonner.bsky.social · 8d

Most of the world has recently set all-time heat records - valuable analysis from @hausfath.bsky.social to show that climate change is real and global... even it was hotter in one town 80 years ago. www.theclimatebrink.com/p/most-of-th...

Most of the world has recently set all-time heat records

Regional exceptions like the 1930s in the continental US notwithstanding

www.theclimatebrink.com

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Arctic Basecamp @arcticbasecamp.org · 10d

What connects tiny algae to mighty polar bears? ❄️🐻‍❄️

On #WorldAnimalDay, we’re reminded that protecting wildlife means protecting the ecosystems that sustain them.

Follow our new series unpacking why sea ice matters — share this to give Arctic wildlife a voice today.

@polarbearsinternational.org

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Joe Noonan @joenoonan.bsky.social · 10d

“We knew the Irish would stand with us,” - Max Levitas (102)
www.irishtimes.com/culture/heri... #CableStreet

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EmmanuelSPV @emmanuelspv.bsky.social · 10d

Avant / Après la piétonnisation de l'ancienne voie express Georges Pompidou dans Paris Centre. Photo 2011 by Mbzt sur Wikimedia Commons.

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James Myall @jamesxmyall.bsky.social · 10d

So much to mourn here. ICE shot and killed a single father just after he has dropped his two kids off at daycare. Their justification for stopping him was traffic violations form 12 years ago. Their justification for shooting him was that he was driving away.

A completely needless tragedy.

David Bier @davidjbier.bsky.social · 13d

ICE lied about the person it shot, claiming he was a "criminal," but NBC finds that he had no criminal history whatsoever. Not even traffic tickets in 12 years! It also lied about the extent of the injuries to its agents....

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Prof. Stefan Rahmstorf @rahmstorf.bsky.social · 11d

ClimateAdam fact checks Trump’s UN speech, in his unique style: both enlightening and entertaining.
If you don’t yet subscribe to him, consider it!
youtu.be/lEEwAcQ-zpU?...

Climate Scientist Reacts to Trump's UN Speech

YouTube video by ClimateAdam

youtu.be

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Wendy Harmer @wendyharmer.bsky.social · 12d

Thanks @kazcooke.bsky.social
I agree , well overdue !
Been wanting to for ages!!
And I’M FREE!!
Xx

Kaz Cooke @kazcooke.bsky.social · 12d

Time for an Australian publisher to lock @wendyharmer.bsky.social in a shed & make her write the reboot & update on Australia's funny women? 100 years from vaudeville through Black Comedy to TikTok. #comedy #funnywomen #ItsAJokeJoyce

Front cover of 1989 book It's A Joke Joyce by Wendy Harmer

Sue Ingleton, bonkers comic genius writer and performer in character as the Pregnant Man, Bill Rawlings, 1970s.

Mates Jean Kittson and the late Lynda Gibson, back in the mid-80s. Rare gems that could brilliantly write, perform, be cerebral, be spectacularly silly, have something to say, and along with Frank Wood, make up the trio of Australia's best modern physical comedians.

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Sonans @sojaya.bsky.social · 12d

Great summary of current “bases” which I learnt thru this article are apparently not classed as “bases”?!

What a load of bullshit, these are military targets. Especially flammable in Darwin with the fuel tanks I say laughing nervously

Robert Maxwell @robmax4.bsky.social · 12d

www.lyrebirddreaming.com/post/a-fasci...

Does Australia really want US Troops from a Fascist Regime on our shores?

I wrote almost a year ago that Australia needs to find new friends given the erosion of democratic norms occurring in the US. After this week’s spectacle - where Donald Trump and former Fox host and ‘...

www.lyrebirddreaming.com

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Dr. Birgitta Hoffmann @mancent.bsky.social · 13d

Tonight I learned that one of my heroes has died. I loved her and colleagues' "adventures" as a child and grew up to admire her scientific work for so many reasons. RIP Jane Goodall.

Jane Goodall, wildlife advocate and primate expert, dies at 91 - www.reuters.com/business/env...

Wildlife advocate, primate expert Jane Goodall dies at 91

Scientist and global activist Jane Goodall, who turned her childhood love of primates into a lifelong quest for protecting the environment, died on Wednesday at the age of 91, the institute she founded said.

www.reuters.com

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Elaine Johnson @elainejohnson.bsky.social · 12d

There’s some pretty alarming stuff happening in NSW right now with big changes to the planning laws being rushed through Parliament.

The proposed amendments create major corruption risks and should be closely reviewed by ICAC.

www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...

NSW’s fast-track planning laws could allow mines to be approved without environmental assessment

Environmental assessments could go out the window for mining projects, windfarms and other developments, green groups say

www.theguardian.com

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Christine Milne @christinemilne.bsky.social · 12d

www.themandarin.com.au/299272-us-ma...

US Marines' Osprey cleared for permanent base in Australia

The USMC’s tilt-rotor Ospreys will be based in Toowoomba, boosting training availability and regional interoperability with the ADF.

www.themandarin.com.au

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Christine Milne @christinemilne.bsky.social · 14d

Hard to believe anyone would call for USA to abandon the Geneva Convention. Why are we still in AUKUS? Why are we allowing a new forward deployment US base in Toowoomba? We are allied with people advocating for war crimes. @albomp.bsky.social We do not share these values.

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 14d

Hegseth: "We unleash overwhelming and punishing violence on the enemy. We also don't fight with stupid rules of engagement. We untie the hands of our warfighters to intimidate, demoralize, hunt, and kill the enemies of our country. No more politically correct and overbearing rules of engagement."

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S. Hart @54holmewood.bsky.social · 14d

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WIRED @wired.com · 14d

Thirty years ago, a peace-loving Austrian theologian spoke to Peter Thiel about the apocalyptic theories of Carl Schmitt, the German legal theorist tapped by the Nazi's to justify Germany's slip from democracy to dictatorship.

Those theories have been a roadmap for the billionaire
ever since.

The Real Stakes, and Real Story, of Peter Thiel’s Antichrist Obsession

Thirty years ago, a peace-loving Austrian theologian spoke to Peter Thiel about the apocalyptic theories of Nazi jurist Carl Schmitt. They’ve been a road map for the billionaire ever since.

www.wired.com

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Brendan Nyhan @brendannyhan.bsky.social · 14d

An unprecedented violation of our civic and Constitutional traditions. Calling every military leader in the world back to the U.S. to hear a wildly inappropriate partisan campaign speech followed by a fascist call to use the military against Americans.

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