In which the pond skates past Bob Brown and Dame Groan to discover a little fin de siècle light relief ...

Interesting story in The Atlantic by Zoë Schlanger... Climate Models Can’t Explain What’s Happening to Earth, Global warming is moving faster than the best models can keep a handle on.

No need to do it all, the opening par sets the tone...

Fifty years into the project of modeling Earth’s future climate, we still don’t really know what’s coming. Some places are warming with more ferocity than expected. Extreme events are taking scientists by surprise. Right now, as the bald reality of climate change bears down on human life, scientists are seeing more clearly the limits of our ability to predict the exact future we face. The coming decades may be far worse, and far weirder, than the best models anticipated.

Breathtaking cynicism in the Nine rags, thanks to the poodle scribbling Dutton’s nuclear plan will never happen, but it’s still a gem of a policy ...(soft paywall)

...even if Dutton and his energetic spokesman for climate change and energy, Ted O’Brien, give it a “red-hot go”, as they say, there is no guarantee that the minor parties, crossbenchers or any government across the country will co-operate.
But in more good news for Dutton, by the time anyone has worked out that the likelihood of a nuclear power plant actually being commissioned in Australia is, let’s be generous and say, limited, the election cycle will well and truly have clicked over.
If nuclear power never happens, the Coalition can hardly turn back the clock. This is a seismic shift that has been achieved with almost no animus.
In many ways, Dutton has already won – he has united the Liberal party room, navigated the debate about future energy policy away from coal and moved the Coalition to an acceptance of action on climate change that eluded former opposition leader Brendan Nelson and prime ministers Tony Abbott, Malcolm Turnbull and Scott Morrison, without losing any skin.

Poodle credit where credit to the poodle is due ...

Christopher Pyne is executive chairman of lobbying firm Pyne and Partners, which has renewable energy companies as clients, and was a minister in the Howard, Abbott, Turnbull and Morrison governments.

An acceptance of action on climate change? The poodle was always dumb, but this reminded the pond of just how dumb he is ...

Meanwhile, in the lizard Oz it was a slow news day...

Sheesh, more Albo bashing and over on the extreme far right, there were an unusual amount of dismal offerings ...

Poor Bob Brown responded to the Caterist trolling, forgetting the first rule: never feed the trolls. 

Instead he jumped into the hive mind, boosting the Murdochian quest for shekels via a 'print the controversy' routine, with Don’t label me more moderate, I back Adam Bandt’s Greens, Adam Bandt has solidified the Greens as Australia’s third political party. The electorate is restless – expect the vote for the party and independents to grow this year.

Perhaps Bob thought not mentioning the Caterist name was sufficient to get him off the hook ... there was just a link to the offending Caterist story, not reproduced below...

A series of US presidents, from Lincoln to Roosevelt to Eisen­hower, warned about corporations taking power from the people by buying political influence. Corporate power now rules the world, and the Greens, who are not beholden to the organised rich, have become the new focus of rage for the extreme right of politics. News that the right’s shadowy offset, Advance Australia, will spend millions attacking the Greens in the run to this year’s election highlights that anger.
Adam Bandt has solidified the Greens as Australia’s third political party. He has the intention to help shape future government ­direction, but the Greens’ policy of taxing the rich to help the poor (via such things as public education, hospitals and housing) is as attractive to the Gina Rineharts of the world as coalmining is to Vanuatu. Bandt has my full backing. One angle being peddled is that I was a more moderate leader than Bandt (“Bob Brown’s Greens wouldn’t recognise their own party”, The Australian, 6/1/2025). That’s rubbish. We are different people sharing the same Greens credo of social justice and environmental protection.
No contemporary Greens MP has stood up on a visiting US president as senator Kerry Nettle and I did when George W. Bush addressed parliament during the illegal ­invasion of Iraq.
Nor have I seen a current mouthpiece of the right, like its iconic Alan Jones, rail against a current Greens MP as he did against me and prime minister Julia Gillard when we were working to tackle climate change in 2012: “Quite frankly they should shove her and Bob Brown in a chaff bag and take them as far out to sea as they can.”
Perhaps remembering that nastiness influences Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to shirk environmental responsibility now. Though some 80 per cent of Labor voters want an end to native forest logging in NSW and Tasmania, not least to protect what’s left of the koala and swift parrot populations, Albanese is so terrified of being seen to appease the Greens that he has given the loggers rousing support...

And so on and on... but the pond had already covered the Caterist here. (You have to munch a lot of onions to get there).

Meanwhile, Dame Groan was busy with her own trolling in Trudeau a victim of economic crisis and his woke obsessions, The outgoing Canadaian PM is a victim of economic crisis and his woke obsessions, a drastic fall from grace from the once beloved leader. (sic, so and thus).

Of course an interest in spelling is fully woke, but there were many thought crimes unveiled by the Dame ... ...

...Ultimately, the economic stresses many Canadians have had to endure have outweighed Trudeau’s cheerful manner and his headlong pursuit of progressive causes, including his enthusiastic promotion of climate action for his country, including implementing a rising carbon tax.
His heavy-handed behaviour during the Covid pandemic also ultimately contributed to his loss of public appeal. Trudeau’s intolerance for different points of view as well as his response to the legitimate objections to mandatory vaccination provided a valuable opening for Pierre Poilievre, leader of the Conservative Party, to enhance his visibility with the electorate...

Ah yes, roll on measles, polio and whatever else you've got ... bring on RFK Jr to have a groan with Dame Groan.

And so on ...

The combination of high population growth and sluggish GDP growth means that per capita real GDP is now 7 per cent below its long-term trend, or more than $C4000 ($4458) per person. It’s no wonder Canadian voters are grumpy.
A standout feature of the Canadian economy is its integration and dependence on the US economy. Around three-quarters of exports from Canada head south and there is a degree of integration of some industries between the two countries – for example, in the automotive industry, with parts and assembly. Both the North American Free Trade Agreement that came into effect in 1994 and its subsequent version, the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement that came into effect in 2020, have been important sources of economic gain for Canada.
It’s why the threat of tariffs being imposed by the US is potentially a major threat to the Canadian economy.

Naturally the reptiles were fully optimistic and saw a parallel ...

University of Ottawa Professor of Public Affairs Patrick Fafard claims there is a “certain affinity” between the Prime Ministers in Canada and Australia. This comes after Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau resigned as party leader. “There is a certain affinity between the Labor Party in Australia and the Liberal Party in Canada,” Mr Fafard said. “If there is a message that is transferrable to other questions, it’s that politicians that wait too long eventually become … the focus of attention and their spiral downwards happens very fast and goes very deep.”

Indeed, indeed, there was, right down to Canadaian v. Canadia ...

Dame Groan ploughed on ...

A material figure of 25 per cent has been mentioned. While it is very unclear whether Trump will follow through with this threat, it is something that the Canadian government has to be prepared for.
It had been apparent for some time that Trudeau was not the leader to deal with the threat; it was one of the reasons for the breakdown in the relationship between him and the former deputy prime minister and finance minister (our treasurer), Chrystia Freeland.
Trudeau was more concerned with propping up his short-term popularity, hence the month-long pause in the federal GST on some goods, including beer, as well as the proposal to hand out $C250 to every Canadian adult. Freeland, on the other hand, was keen to prepare for a possible trade war with the US and to retain some fiscal buffer.
Freeland’s demotion and subsequent resignation was the last straw, ushering in Trudeau’s forced departure.
Canada is an example of voters who will tolerate the pursuit of woke obsessions – Trudeau was fixated with indigenous and refugee rights, as well as the pursuit of diversity, equity and inclusion, and climate action – only if living standards are rising and citizens can get ahead by working hard.
While moderate migrant intakes are tolerated, even welcomed, excessive net overseas migration is a highway to political unpopularity. Trudeau learnt this lesson far too late.
For a man with a very thin CV to start with, a term of more than nine years is quite an achievement. His good looks and affable manner – he is something of a hero outside Canada, like New Zealand’s Jacinda Ardern – got him a long way. But ultimately, Trudeau’s lack of appreciation of sound economic and fiscal management contributed to his downfall.

The pond regrets that Dame Groan's mention of "woke" invoked a stringent pond contractual requirement for the use of the word ...

And so to the pond's excuse for rushing through Dame Groan and Bob Brown ...

James Marriott of The Times bolstered the mood of those living in the colonies with a most excellent fin de siècle piece, It’s the end of the long 20th century as liberalism exits, Donald Trump and Nigel Farage are proof we’re living through a major historical and cultural shift.

Jimbo's doom and gloom was set off by this pair, President Donald Trump listens as Nigel Farage speaks during a Make America Great Again rally at Phoenix Goodyear Airport in 2020.

Jimbo was triggered by a meme ...

The caption reads “The world you were born into no longer exists”. The grainy photograph it accompanies shows a small blonde girl standing alone in an empty park. In the background, against a faded blue sky, are the two silver towers of the World Trade Centre.
This image doubtless owes some of its popularity to its triteness. The juxtaposition of childhood and the twin towers as symbols of lost innocence is hardly a subtle one. But I think the popular feeling that we are living through the passing of an age – ubiquitous online, often floated to me by friends – is justified.

Oh dear, now it's thinking by way of memes, with this to hand What is the origin of this photo of a young girl with the caption "The world you were raised to survive in no longer exists"? 

There was just one response to the question before it was declared off topic, and it didn't involve PhotoShop or such like ...

That photo appears to be copied from the version here: https://starecat.com/the-world-you-were-raised-to-survive-in-no-longer-exists/ but with the bottom portion cropped off. Bottom right attributes to "Damie Leigh".
(The main point being that the version in OP isn't the whole photo, but I can't verify what Damie Leigh's role was.)

Then it was on with shallow thinking by Jimbo, apparently unaware of Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr's “plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose”.

Historians sometimes refer to “the long 18th century” – the period between the Glorious Revolution of 1688 and, according to taste, either 1815 or 1837 that was marked by broad continuities of politics and culture. Waterloo or the coronation of Queen Victoria marked the arrival of a different world. There is a case that, for historians of the future, the years we are living through will mark the end of “the long 20th century”.
Much mentioned among my friends is the feeling that the re-election of Donald Trump last year confirms that his ascendancy marked not an aberration but the arrival of a new order. The technocratic, good-mannered, optimistic and consensual politics we grew up with, and which has prevailed in the West since WWII, is not a normality to which we will inevitably return, but a part of history.

Now there's some stories out and about to give notional support to Jimbo's notions.

MEDIAite had a field day with the tangerine tryant's latest foray into dementia, including Here Are the 5 Craziest Moments from Trump’s Off-the-Wall Presser — From ‘Gulf of America’ to Hezbollah Capitol Rioters.

Some angles were so good they deserved a break out yarn ... JUST IN: Trump Announces Plans to Change ‘Gulf of Mexico’ to ‘Gulf of America’

You could do a dive into despondency, Jimbo style, or you could join 'The Perfessor' in one of the comments sections, thinking the game was obvious ...The daily distraction squirrel to hide the lack of legislative ideas or policy for lower prices.

Naturally there was an anal media element to the referentialist coverage ... CNN Panel Goes OFF on Trump’s Unmistakable ‘Level of Anger’ at ‘Whiny’ Mar-a-Lago Press Conference

The panel on CNN’s Inside Politics had a field day with the “level of anger” and “grievance” displayed by President-elect Donald Trump during his bizarre stream-of-consciousness press conference Tuesday.
Newly-minted Chief White House Correspondent Kaitlan Collins kicked it off with an astute observation: “This not going to be the same Washington that we are encountering in 13 days from now when Trump takes office,” ostensibly referencing some of the more bizarre news Trump made.

It's astute to note that the mango Mussolini is deep into dementia?

Back to Jimbo, still brooding and wringing his hands at what Faux Noise and the Murdochians have helped wrought ...

In Britain, if Nigel Farage becomes leader of the opposition or even the prime minister at the next election, that will be another sign of a historic break. The arrival of a new major party in British politics is so far a roughly once-in-a-century event and always a symptom of an epochal social shift – Labour’s emergence as the official opposition in 1918 marked the final death of Victorian politics and the arrival of the organised industrial working class as a political force.

The reptiles tried to console Jimbo with an AV distraction promoting Sky Noise:

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has shared what it was like at Mar-a-Lago during US election night last week. “It was an honour, a genuine honour to be the only British person in the room,” Mr Farage told Sky News host Paul Murray. “I was convinced he was going to win, most people were a bit cautious and as the whooping and hollering began, Trump just sat there relaxed, having an ice cream as if kind of no big deal. “It was honestly memorable and I can't think, I really genuinely can't think of a more dramatic decisive election result at any point in my life, it really is a big deal.”

But what's all this?

Talking up Nige while ignoring Uncle Leon, who's busy making plans for Nigel?

Poor Nige, though he did his best to ride out the storm, per Politico...Farage to Musk: We can still be friends, Nigel Farage wants to kiss and make up with Elon Musk — despite his backing for far-right agitator Tommy Robinson.

LONDON — Nigel Farage believes he can still “build bridges” with Elon Musk — despite the billionaire Donald Trump ally calling for his ouster.
After weeks courting Musk’s support — and cash — the Reform UK leader and Musk’s burgeoning bromance appeared to hit the bumpers this weekend.
Musk called for the release of far-right agitator Tommy Robinson, currently serving jail time for breaching a court order over his repeated libelling of a Syria schoolboy.
Farage, keen to make in-roads with his populist-right, anti-immigration Reform UK outfit has publicly distanced himself from Robinson and declared that he would not be welcome in Reform.
“I have no desire to go to war with Elon Musk,” Farage told LBC Tuesday.
“Of course, I want his support. I will talk to him in America in a few days’ time. I want to mend any broken fences that might exist, I’m sure we can do it,” he added.
But Farage said he wouldn’t change his view on Tommy Robinson, and said he is “on a campaign right now in America” to “educate” people about the jailed activist, who co-founded the race-baiting English Defence League party.
In his initial response to Musk’s tweet calling for him to quit on Sunday, Farage said the X owner is “a remarkable individual but on this I am afraid I disagree.”

Oh it's tricky Cromwellian times, but it's always been thus ...

It's not quite the start of the first world war yet, though perhaps if the Donald mounts a raid on Greenland and the Gulf of Mexico, Taiwan might fall and then ...

Oh heck, the pond likely won't be around to see it.

Meanwhile, the Zuck was busy offering yet another reason for not using any of his services...Meta to get rid of factcheckers and recommend more political content  Mark Zuckerberg says company will ‘dramatically reduce censorship’ across Facebook, Instagram and Threads

Some saw a cynical ulterior motive, such as Parker Molloy,  Mark Zuckerberg Just Made His Trump Loyalty Pledge, Meta's sudden embrace of "free expression" comes with a telling catch: it only applies to the right people.

The good news? The Emeritus Chairman is still a player, still has skin in the game ...

Mark Zuckerberg wants you to believe Meta is "returning to its roots" with today's announcement about "free expression." What he's actually doing is showing us his true colors.
This morning, Meta announced it's killing its fact-checking program, loosening content moderation, and moving its trust and safety teams from California to Texas (because, apparently, neutral content moderation has a zip code now). The timing couldn't be more transparent: Trump wins the election, and suddenly Meta discovers a burning passion for "free speech."
The Present Age is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
Let's look at how they rolled this out: Joel Kaplan, a former George W. Bush adviser freshly promoted to Chief Global Affairs Officer, went straight to Fox & Friends to make the announcement. Not CNN, not MSNBC, not even a tech publication. Fox News. The message wasn't subtle: Meta is ready to be a team player in Trump's America.

So while some things change, some stay the same. 

Yeayy, Faux Noise, still the place to go ... yeayy, Meta and Faux Noise are one ...

Meanwhile, Jimbo was still in a state of fin de siècle ecstasy, or perhaps despair ...

I am not the first to observe that change is in the air across the West as the far right rises and liberal democracy crumbles. As writer Aris Roussinos points out, liberalism is “the last of the great 20th-century ideologies”. Having emerged triumphant from its titanic struggles with fascism and communism, it is now its turn to exit history stage left, swept from the scene by populists, demagogues and strongmen.
Likewise, it hardly falls to me to point out that geopolitics is awash with epochal events: the decline of European power, the end of American hegemony, migration crises, the retreat of globalisation, war in Ukraine and Gaza.
But dramas on the international stage do not make an era. Culture, manners and technology matter too. Candidates for signs of epochal social change include the sexual revolution (or asexual revolution) of the 2020s. The decline in young people having sex is often seen as a rejection of the sexual liberation of the 1960s but it arguably marks the end of a much longer trend towards sexual liberalism that can be traced back at least as far as the bohemian upper middle classes of the 1920s.
More bleak is the fact that life expectancy has recently begun to fall, having risen for most of the 20th century.
Advances in AI mean that in the past couple of years we became the first people in history to read text and view artworks not made by other human beings.
The end of the century-long dominion of the internal combustion engine – which in Britain is scheduled for 2035 – may distinguish the old world from the new, the way hansom cabs and broughams became emblems of Victorian London.
We are living through one of the great shifts in cultural history. To future historians the most distinctive cultural feature of the 20th century will not be cinema or jazz but the mass literacy that flourished after late-Victorian education reforms abolished what HG Wells referred to as the social “gulf” that once separated readers from the “non-reading mass”.

The reptiles chipped in with an AV distraction to add to Jimbo's state of mind:

President-elect Donald Trump has reacted to the resignation of outgoing Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. In a post to Truth Social on Monday, Trump once again floated the idea of Canada becoming America’s 51st state. “Many people in Canada LOVE being the 51st State. The United States can no longer suffer the massive Trade Deficits and Subsidies that Canada needs to stay afloat. Justin Trudeau knew this, and resigned,” Trump wrote. “If Canada merged with the U.S., there would be no Tariffs, taxes would go way down, and they would be TOTALLY SECURE from the threat of the Russian and Chinese Ships that are constantly surrounding them. Together, what a great Nation it would be.” Leading up to Trudeau’s resignation, Trump called the outgoing PM “governor” and referred to Canada as America’s 51st state.

Then Jimbo rambled on, still gripped by the astonishing news that times change ...

The long 20th century was the greatest age of reading the world has known: newspapers, magazines, self-help books, popular classics, airport bestsellers.

The pond knows for a solid fact that this is wrong. Why Gladiator II offered solid evidence that the Romans loved a read of the newspaper at the local café while having a sip of coffee ...

What's that, this just in?

In regards to the newspaper blunder, Dr. Shadi Bartsch says the Romans did have daily news but that it wasn’t in the form of a newspaper and they didn’t even have cafes. Romans had to go somewhere to read the news apparently written on giant stone tablets.
“They did have daily news — Acta Diuma — but it was carved and placed at certain locations,” said Bartsch. “You had to go to it, you couldn’t hold it at a cafe. Also, they didn’t have cafes!”

Amazing, a piece of fictional crap from Ridley features historical errors. Who'd have thunk it?

Perhaps that was what gave snowflake Jimbo a touch of the vapours ...

Literacy is now declining for the first time on record. A recent OECD report finds adult reading proficiency is falling around the world. The crucial moment may not have been the arrival of the smartphone but the more recent dominance of short video.
The first iPhone customers often used their 21st-century technology in a 20th-century manner – to read articles and news stories. But the advent of apps such as TikTok has created a new video-based culture that is truly indigenous to digital technology. As a consequence, Gen Z may be the first generation since the middle of the 18th century not to produce a best-selling literary novelist.

Maybe? Always the escape clause, but maybe Gen Z will be the first generation to experience a new era of the gutter yellow press, run by billionaire oligarchs shading William Randolph Hearst ...

Jimbo stayed mired in gloom, despite the impeccable way that dog behaved, rolling over ever so politely for the belly scratch ...

Inevitably, historical epochs are arbitrary and subjective. Cultural and political events do not emerge in neat patterns like flower beds in a formal garden. It is only human to mourn a vanishing past. Nevertheless, I think the eerie sense many have that we are watching the page of history turning is correct, even if it is not exactly scientifically provable.

Oh it's certainly not scientifically provable ... as per that Atlantic story ...

While models struggle to capture the world we live in now, the planet is growing more alien to us, further from our reference ranges, as the climate keeps changing. If given unlimited time, science could probably develop models that more fully captured what we’re watching play out. But by then it would be too late to do anything about it. Science is more than five decades into the modeling endeavor, and still our best tools can only get us so far. “At the end of the day, we are all making estimates of what’s coming,” Rohde said. “And there is no magic crystal ball to tell us the absolute truth.” We’re left instead with a partial picture, gestural in its scope, pointing toward a world we’ve never seen before.

Sheesh, but the pond sees a positive in all this.

Meaningless gibberish and idle fin de siècle speculation by the chattering class has allowed the pond to indulge in all sorts of links and references, just like a Roman in the early third century sipping on a coffee and chattering away, and while he couldn't do it on an iPhone, he could at least read a newspaper.

Now back to Jimbo for a final gloomy note ...

Everyone born before the end of the 20th century is the product of a cultural and political order that is fading. We may one day seem like those Victorians who were recognisable in the mid-20th century by their out-of-time oddness. The world we were born into no longer exists. 
The Times

Oh indeed, indeed ... and it would be remiss of the pond not to show Jimbo slumped in his slough of despond...

Cheer up young, forlorn-looking Jimbo, it's actually a new age of liberation and freedumb, as explained by Tom the Dancing Bug ...