News for June, 2026

Ocean hot spots. Note situation off West coast of France

 

June has proven to be a hot month, in both hemispheres. An intense El Nino system is developing in the Eastern Pacific, and the surface sea temperatures are at an all time high.

We are on the dark red line. The dark grey line had alarm bells ringing three years ago.

In marked contrast to a couple of years ago, when temperatures suddenly rose by 12 standard deviations from the mean, nobody is commenting on these levels, possibly because NOAA scientists have been sacked. Perhaps they will start commenting again, now that it appears they've got a voice back. 

Anyway, carry on reading. 

Environment

Under stress: rock fish and Monterey kelp (Fred Hsu via Wiki Commons)

 The ugly

• One of the few decent things George W Bush did during his presidency was to create a marine reserve around the Hawa'iin archipelago. If you saw Attenborough's recent documentary on the Oceans (available on Disney+ btw), you would be aware of the crucial role such reserves play in allowing ocean life to recover from rampant over-fishing. Trump, of course, has decreed that commercial fishing is to resume in these reserves.
• Victoria ending logging of its forests, then proceeding to import logs from Tasmania, is missing the point of the exercise.

The bad

• Screw worm is an ugly pest, and it's back in Texas. While DOGE's clearfelling of federal programs didn't cause this, they certainly didn't help preparedness.
• The spread of varroa mite means the Queensland farmers don't have enough bees for crop pollination.
• As if that weren't enough, the strong El Nino forecast is likely to have adverse effects on food production.
• South Australia's algal bloom is poised for a comeback. Fallout from the previous event includes missing cuttlefish.

The good

• Meet the world-spanning fungal network that helps keeps the planet cool and green.
• When people are protesting about the proliferation of incineration plants, a better way of disposing of plastic is needed. As it happens, Welsh researchers are working on a biodegradable form of plastic, derived from seaweed.
• Penguins return to Bass Strait island after feral cats are removed from it.
• Similarly, feral pigs have now been eliminated from Kangaroo Island.
• As with land forests, warming oceans are placing kelp forests under increasing stress. Efforts are being made to reduce it.

Climate

The capacity of CO2 to retain heat was first noted by Eunice Foote in 1856. The ramifications were recognised almost immediately, but the system feedbacks are complex, and it wasn't until the late 1980s that the effects of global warming were finally quantified.

Lee Raymond (1938-2026): the face of climate denial

People have been denying the science behind global warming almost for as long as global warming has been confirmed as an issue. Much of it comes down to one man: Lee Raymond, the Exxon CEO who ignored his own scientists and arguably started the climate denialism movement. One might be tempted to celebrate his recent death (not that Bill McKibben is doing so here), but what's done is done...

The ugly

• In the wrong hands, good news can be turned into bad. ICC has recently retired the extreme RCP8.5 warming scenario, stating that, due to emission reduction strategies adopted to date, it is now extremely unlikely to eventuate. Denialists have seized upon this as an admission that climate change is a fraud.
• The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy describes the 'ravenous bugbladder beast of Traal' as an apex predator so stupid it can be evaded by putting a towel over your head. Apparently if you can't see it, it can't see you. Trump appeared to be using the same logic when he ordered the removal of ocean monitoring sensors. No, not just stop using them. Go out and remove them.  This order is being strenuously resisted.
• Meanwhile, one might ask how is effective climate action is possible when fossil fuel executives adjust research findings? 
• It's the most critical issue of our time, and yet mentioning climate change in US Democrat circles results in... crickets. What gives? 

The bad

• Western Europe has just experienced its worst heat wave on record. An event that has a statistical likelihood of occurring every 7 millennia. That is, of course, assuming that the statistical mean hasn't been changing recently (which it has).
• Over three days of extreme heat, France has reported 1000 excess deaths.
• Sydney has also experienced its warmest start to winter.
• Alex Steffen thinks an orderly transition away from fossil fuels is no longer possible. (It still matters how to reduce the disorderliness of the transition)

The good

• Australia's emissions continue to drop, reflecting a world-wide trend. This is by no means enough to stop climate change, but perhaps something is starting to work?
• Project Cosmos has just been launched. It claims to be the world's largest repository of climate change research. Check it out.
• Some research on better methods for getting the message through that climate action is needed.
• More severe heat waves mean that air conditioning becomes ever more essential. Of course, this only adds to the problem, but there is research going on to reduce the problem. 

Energy

The ugly

• Trump continues his tilt against windmills. Although his freeze on offshore wind permits has now been overturned, he still continues to bribe companies to cancel their projects (with taxpayer money, of course).
• Norway is seeking to overturn the EU ban on oil drilling in the Arctic.

The bad

• MethaneSat data reveals San Joaquin gas fields leaking 9% of the methane they produce.
• Energy from wood pellets may be marketed as carbon neutral, but it certainly isn't environment neutral.

The good 

• How grid operators deal with Coronal Mass Ejections.
• Gas usage in Australia has peaked, and is now in structural decline.
• Renewable projects are gaining favour across Africa.
• Asia is supposedly an insatiable market for methane, and demand is.. faltering!?
• Globally, solar and wind power exceeded gas in April for the first time.
• The energy charges for some Australian households is about to become $0.00/kWhr for 3 hours of the afternoon. Some? Well, there are a few devils in the details.

Health

The ugly

• Hegseth removes the need for flu vaccinations in US military forces. Surprisingly, scores of troops fall ill.
• A year after DOGE dismantled USAID, AIDS cases in Zambia are on the rise again. 

The bad

• A grim intimation: H5 bird flu kills 70% of seal pups on Heard Is. Even if the current situation in Australia goes no further than a few dead birds on the coast, it will spread to Australia eventually.

The good

• The Moderna mRNA flu vaccine has been unanimously approved by FDA, after a Trump advisor tried to block it.
• The dead kennedy calls HPV vaccines 'dangerous and defective'. Clinical results have found they reduce deaths from cervical cancer to zero.
• First cure for sickle cell anemia

Resistance

It has been noted that Trump's disastrous attempts to renovate Washington's Reflection Pool serve as a microcosm of his handling of the entire country. 

The ugly

• Under the guise of being found members of the proscribed (but non-existent) terrorist group 'Antifa', a group of ICE protesters were recently given absurdly long sentences (30 years for possession of... comics!?). 
• ... but meet the real 'antifa': Atlas network (or should that be 'profa'?)
• Queensland Government has been accused of having a deliberate agenda to remove indigenous representation in the public sector. 
• In Chicago (and other places) ICE continues with its spree of violence and intimidation.
• Elon Musk used X to incite the pogroms that followed a knife attack by a Sudanese refugee in Northern Ireland. This is why governments are increasingly shifting their IT infrastructure away from X, and US corporate software in general.
• The chilling effect of an online society where all the infrastructure is controlled by actors in another country is something ICC judges know all too well.

The bad

• The Minnesota ICE raids may be over for now, but their effect lingers. Trauma does that. 
• The current call for age limits on social media requires proof of age, and therein lies a problem for civil liberties. (this is actually Cory Doctorow sounding off on a number of related issues. He does refer to this paper, however)
• They might have taken his name off the John F Kennedy Centre, but Trump now has designs on the Smithsonian Institute. 

The good

• When it comes to servicing farming machinery, John Deere has acquired a rentiers' reputation. There is now an increasing demand for tractors that can be operated and serviced without the electronic permission of their corporate providers.
• Remember the 'Alligator Alcatraz': the giant tent for holding people snatched by ICE in the middle of the Florida Everglades? It's being shut down, thanks to the actions of the local indigenous community.
• Judge blocks Trump's move to require voters to require proof of citizenship.
• In a move reminiscent of how Australia's Climate Council got started, NOAA scientists sacked by Trump have just started their own website. 

Housing

The bad

• Too much of the housing market is owned by far too few investors. Young people are left out 

The good

• Housing shortages in the outback town of Quilpie are being addressed with flatpack kits.
• others are turning to 3D printed houses.
• We tend to live in the now, and tend to regard things existing on longer timescales as unchanging. Thus, ancient cathedrals have always been there, although they may have taken up to a century to complete. Yet we probably think of cathedrals currently under construction as always having had scaffolding. So it is worthy of note that, after 140 years, Barcelona's Sagrada Família has now been completed.

Transport

The ugly

• Self-driving cars would have their uses, but their safety is still far from being proven. Fabricating data isn't the way to do it, Tesla.

The bad

• Airships don't need roads or airstrips, so they're perfect for transporting to remote regions. It's a pity this initiative is facing headwinds.
• More evidence that hybrid vehicles don't provide the gateway to renewable energy thought.
• 'Carspreading' is starting to impact parking spaces in the UK.

The good

• A large ship delivers a large number of EVs to Melbourne.
• Australia's EV charging infrastructure appears to be handling the demand. 
• Summer holidays approach, and Massachusetts is about to start a program for their electric school buses to act as energy stores for the grid, while they are not in use.
• As discussed in the Volts podcast, GM is looking to enter the same market. 
• The design of the traditional car is still very much based on the needs of a combustion engine. As EVs become dominant, this is ripe for change. 

Plaigue

The more I look at the takes on this industry, the more I must remind myself that lemmings don't actually do what folklore (and an ancient, bad Disney documentary) claim they do. Yet that is what tech companies seem to be modelling themselves on. More worryingly, they appear to be trying to model users in the same way.

The good news is that people are now well aware of what's going on, with groundswell rejections of data centre projects happening everywhere. Maybe, one day when the bubble has burst, we can start considering the more constructive uses of LLMs. Until then...

The ugly

• I've previously mentioned that providing a market for gas appears to be the only tangible benefit of data centres to anyone (specifically the gas industry). That's also the advice being given to the Canadian Government.
• The gas industry is also pretty confident about what will be powering Europe's data centres.
• Move over Co-Pilot. Microsoft is about to introduce Office 365 users to Scout, and, from internal memos, it seems they want to get you addicted to it. Shades of Big Tobacco.
• Studies increasingly highlight the degrading effect AI dependency has on professional competencies.
• This sounds delightful: AI models capable of launching cyber attacks on businesses and governments will be feasible within months.

The bad

• The resource demands of data centres rivals that of many countries. Indeed, the centres proposed for Ireland would require more power than Ireland itself. This alone is enough to call for their restriction.
• To put it on a more personal level, memory demands from data centres have outstripped supply to the extent that Apple has just increased the cost of its products by 20%. 
• Alan Finkel on writing, the art of persuasion, and what we lose when we let AI assistants do it all for us.

The good

• It is finally dawning on some folk that the rampant growth in data centres' demand for resources is so far beyond what is available (let alone sustainable) that most of the projects proposed will never be built. A radical rethink on design is needed. Good luck with that. Of course, this still leaves the multitude of other issues that LLMs have, but it's a start.
• A German court has ruled that Google is liable for the damages arising from false answers provided by its AI search assistant.
• Musk's xAI data centre is the subject of a class action, from noise pollution. 50+ gas turbines near residential areas can have that effect.