@davidfickling.bsky.social
Climate columnist at @opinion.bloomberg.com. Migrant from London to Warrane/Sydney. These are my views. If you don't like them, well, I have others.
@davidfickling.bsky.socialIt’s like the Noel Fielding character from the IT Crowd ended up running an actual Fortune 500 company
@davidfickling.bsky.socialImagine if the CEOs of Accenture or SAP spent all their time musing about building secret moon bases and nuking Earth from space, or whatever.
@davidfickling.bsky.socialI think this was also to do with an expiring tax credit!
@davidfickling.bsky.socialThis seems to be the situation in Indonesia too?
@davidfickling.bsky.socialIn “Rich Girl” Hall and Oates literally switched the gender of the obnoxious rich dude it was based on!
@davidfickling.bsky.socialSeriously, look in that link about how the construction slowdown has continued and even accelerated in 2026. Housing starts normally rise quite a bit from March to August, this year they are almost flat. That represents a lot of idled site equipment.
@davidfickling.bsky.socialTwo things that might factor into a broad “transport fuel” metric that may not show up in the CEC data:
1. Home charging generally doesn’t show, I think — though perhaps they are trying to capture this?
2. The construction bust is huge even without an EV switch:
@robbieandrew.bsky.socialReposted by @davidfickling.bsky.socialThe US EIA is currently forecasting US fossil-fuel emissions to drop by 1.7% in 2026.
robbieandrew.github.io/USA/
@davidfickling.bsky.socialEV charging in China was 17.2 TWh in August, up 51.2% year-on-year.
That's equivalent to ~1.3 million barrels of oil a day, in a global oil market that shifts about 100m bpd.
Just the change from last year cuts global oil demand by 0.5m bpd.
@davidfickling.bsky.socialBut generally the thing that is healthy for stable rural communities is to maximise the amount of income that is not correlated directly to this season’s weather. This is also why we have polytunnels and crop insurance!
@davidfickling.bsky.socialWas watching Ransom Canyon on Netflix recently and getting a reminder of how, in a small community where everyone grew up together, your neighbour selling out to outside capital can be not just jealousy-inducing, but feel like a manifestation of evil.
@davidfickling.bsky.socialThere is a separate point about this that gets ignored, too. Farmers lease land to solar because it MAKES them money. And provides income that is not correlated to seasonal weather — the same reason they do AirBnbs and farm shops. Opposition is often from neighbours who resent their luck!
@davidfickling.bsky.socialit’s funny how *just last week* I wrote an elaborate scenario for how the politics of US petroleum export bans could flip some day, and this week the Trump administration is just … tweeting it out
@davidfickling.bsky.social
@davidfickling.bsky.social*Uncanny-valley face ✅ *Aggressive inferiority complex ✅ *Obsessed with pseudo-genetic supremacist ideas ✅ *Plans to destroy the world to fulfil interstellar ambitions ✅
@davidfickling.bsky.social
@davidfickling.bsky.socialAgree, but it’s important IMO that there is such a fundamental difference between the two AI superpowers. Does it entrench existing power (China’s view)? Or is it so massively disruptive to existing power that the dominance of humanity itself is at risk (SV view)? Huge gulf between these.
@davidfickling.bsky.socialBut if a correct understanding is “LLMs will help the CPC maintain power” then “LLMs will conquer humanity” must be false! FWIW I agree it is probably the more correct take but I am far from an expert.
@davidfickling.bsky.socialI reckon we need a @beijingpalmer.bsky.social take on China vs SV cultures of sex as yucky male bonding ritual.
@davidfickling.bsky.socialTo reiterate before people get mad: to reflect on this, you don’t need to believe the CPC is good or even not-evil. You just need to believe it is a. Paranoid about threats to its power b. Aware of Chinese AI and c. Not completely stupid. I think it’s pretty easy to believe that! Hard not to, TBH.
