Who is talking straight with you on climate? Look at what they are emphasizing. Is it deep and immediate cuts in fossil fuel burning and carbon emissions? Or is it 'geoengineering' and 'carbon capture' and promises of new energy technology that simply kicks the can down the road?

'Educational titles remained the largest commercial category in book publishing' statcan.gc.ca/o1/en/plus/195…

After years of study, I am proud of the critically-acclaimed 👇, educational book

'Climate Denial in American Politics'

routledge.com/Climate-Denial…

🌏🔥 #ClimateBrawl 🔥🌏

I have been off of 'X' for some time, but slowly catching up! My spiders are taking up most of my time these days, but I have research trips planned for Cyprus and Turkey this year. Also working on the ecology of endemic, endangered plants in Cyprus with colleagues there.

A civilisation blowing out its last candles. Then carnage and darkness

#ClimateCatastrophe

“Never before in its history has humanity built a civilisation that had at its disposal so many different technologies to monitor, measure and predict its own collapse - yet has been so incapable of doing anything about it” #ecology amazon.com/Unhappiness-Ma…

Honestly it is hard to do any kind of work right now, between the accelerating of planetary destabilisation and the breakdown of any pretence of international law and human rights.
It's hard to breathe, even.
There has to be a way of working towards good. There has to be.
1/

I want to take this opportunity to wish everyone a happy new year, despite the darkness that prevails in the world today. I have a lot planned for this year, my last before official retirement.

Just had an article written in New Scientist about some of my research on sibling cannibalism in false widow spiders:
newscientist.com/article/238648…

Jeffrey Harvey Gerald Kutney - 🌏🔥#ClimateBrawl🔥🌍 “Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community ... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots.”

- Umberto Eco

Meanwhile, as I can see, despite half of the planet literally frying in July, the sceptics and deniers are doubling down with their anti-scientific rhetoric. Pitiful. And dangerous.

I have been away from Twitter for a couple of months. I was recently in Cyprus, where I am studying seasonal microclimatic effects on several arthropod species. While I was there it hit 45C. Ground-dwelling organisms were cooking. I measured 89.1C on bare soil at one location.

Ongoing desertification of southern Europe…

Two new papers attached below! One of sex-related responses in spiders to extreme temperatures, and one on soil nematodes, fungi and bacteria in Dorset wild cabbage populations.

authors.elsevier.com/sd/article/S11…

Climate Change, Extreme Temperatures and Sex-Related Responses in Spiders mdpi.com/2253294 #mdpibiology via Biology MDPI

Many academics (including myself) are writing papers about how policy needs to change to address the climate and/or ecological emergencies

But do any of us actually believe these studies will affect policy making? Are we just howling at the moon?

Using data from 1000s of marine and terrestrial species and climate projections up to 2100, Alex Pigot et al. predict that exposure to novel thermal conditions will start slowly, then spread abruptly across the geographical range of most species

I have been off Twitter for many weeks due to a heavy work load. I am rearing literally thousands of spiders! Especially Steatoda paykulliana, Latrodectus geometricus, Zoropsis spinimana and (soon) Steatoda nobilis. Life is really good.

iDiv Biodiversity Research & Universität Jena hiring a Full Professor

'Biodiversity in the Anthropocene'

Unique chance to work at one of the nicest Biodiversity research centres globally in a very nice city Stadt Leipzig

iDiv is
➡️highly international
➡️ full of amazing colleagues
➡️ family friendly
👇

Hello world! Several #ERC -funded #PhD and #postdoc positions are available in my group MPIPZ Cologne to study the microbiota-root-shoot axis in plant health and disease. Join the MICROBIOSIS team here: jobs.mpipz.mpg.de/jobposting/fab… Deadline: May 9th. #PlantSciJobs . Please RT/share 🙏