Protesters hold placards, including one featuring French businessman and CEO of LVMH Bernard Arnault (C), during a protest in front of the Senate in Paris on June 12, 2025. (Photo: Emma da Silva/AFP via Getty Images
“Not only is it necessary to impose a stronger burden of justice on billionaires, but more importantly, it is possible.”
Seven Nobel laureates on Monday published an op-ed advocating for “a minimum tax for the ultrarich, expressed as a percentage of their wealth,” in the French newspaper Le Monde.
“They have never been so wealthy and yet contribute very little to the public coffers: From Bernard Arnault to Elon Musk, billionaires have significantly lower tax rates than the average taxpayer,” wrote Daron Acemoglu, George Akerlof, Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo, Simon Johnson, Paul Krugman, and Joseph Stiglitz.
Citing pioneering research from the E.U. Tax Observatory, the renowned economists noted that “ultrawealthy individuals pay around 0% to 0.6% of their wealth in income tax. In a country like the United States, their effective tax rate is around 0.6%, while in a country like France, it is closer to 0.1%.”
Although the “ultrawealthy can easily structure their wealth to avoid income tax, which is supposed to be the cornerstone of tax justice,” the strategies for doing so differ by region, the experts detailed. Europeans often use family holding companies that are banned in the United States, “which explains why the wealthy are more heavily taxed there than in Europe—though some have still managed to find workarounds.”
The good news is that “there is no inevitability here. Not only is it necessary to impose a stronger burden of justice on billionaires, but more importantly, it is possible,” argued the economists, who say that taxing the overall wealth of the ultrarich, not just income, is the key.
The wealth tax approach, they wrote, “is effective because it targets all forms of tax optimization, whatever their nature. It is targeted, as it applies only to the wealthiest taxpayers, and only to those among them who engage in tax avoidance.”
💡 "One of the most promising avenues is to introduce a minimum tax for the ultra-rich, expressed as a percentage of their wealth."Seven Nobel laureates in economics advocate for the Zucman tax in their latest op-ed.Read the full @lemonde.fr article 👇www.lemonde.fr/idees/articl…
The anticipated impact would be significant. As the op-ed highlights: “Globally, a 2% minimum tax on billionaire wealth would generate about $250 billion in tax revenue—from just 3,000 individuals. In Europe, around $50 billion could be raised. And by extending this minimum rate to individuals with wealth over $100 million, these sums would increase significantly.”
That’s according to a June 2024 report that French economist and E.U. Tax Observatory director Gabriel Zucman prepared for the Group of 20’s Brazilian presidency—which was followed by G20 leaders’ November commitment to taxing the rich and last month’s related proposal from the governments of Brazil, South Africa, and Spain.
“The international movement is underway,” the economists declared Monday, also pointing to recent developments on the “Zucman tax” in France. The French National Assembly voted in favor of a 2% minimum tax on wealth exceeding €100 million, or $117 million, in February—but the Senate rejected the measure last month.
The economists urged the European country to keep working at it, writing that “at a time of ballooning public deficits and exploding extreme wealth, the French government must seize the initiative approved by the National Assembly. There is no reason to wait for an international agreement to be finalized—on the contrary, France should lead by example, as it has done in the past,” when it was the first country to introduce a value-added tax (VAT).
“As for the risk of tax exile, the bill passed by the National Assembly provides that taxpayers would remain subject to the minimum tax for five years after leaving the country,” they wrote. “The government could go further and propose extending this period to 10 years, which would likely reduce the risk of expatriation even more.”
Orcas discuss how Trump was re-elected and him being an insane, xenophobic Fascist.Donald Trump warns against following the Onaquietday.org blog, says that he’s heard that she’s a witch with a black cat and a dangerous kitchen.
The climate crisis is no longer a future threat — it’s a terminal diagnosis, and the only moral response now is to act like everything depends on us, because it does.
Francisco Goya – The Third of May 1808 (1814), A scream against institutional violence and helplessness.
There comes a point in your life when the facts won’t let you look away. You feel it before you know it: something is terribly wrong, and we are running out of time.
So let’s begin with something simple. How do you know something is true?
Take the example of cancer. If you feel a lump or have symptoms, you don’t just ask your mate what they think. You go to a doctor. And not just any doctor — you want a specialist. Someone who’s legally obliged to tell you the truth, however hard it is to hear. You want the tests, the scan, the data. And above all, you want a number: “What’s the likelihood I have it?” Because that number changes everything.
You don’t want vague reassurances. You want the truth. If the doctor says there’s a 50% chance, your life changes in that moment. You go into action. You start making decisions — fast. Because the alternative is death. And no one can run from that.
It’s this same clarity, this same objectivity, that we need to bring to the climate crisis. Because the truth is — and I mean this literally — the planet has cancer. It is spreading. It is terminal. And it is going to kill us if we don’t act, immediately.
This isn’t ideology. It’s not politics. It’s not “just your opinion.” It is physical reality. And just like cancer, it doesn’t care what you believe.
In 1989, NASA scientist James Hansen warned the UN that if we didn’t slash emissions, society would collapse. That was 35 years ago. In 2025, global temperatures have now risen to 1.6°C above pre-industrial levels. And the rate of warming is accelerating. For most of the 20th century, the rise was around 0.18°C per decade. In the last ten years, it’s more than doubled to 0.37°C per decade. We’re now on course to hit 2°C around 2035 — and that’s being optimistic.
But what does that number mean?
A landmark peer-reviewed paper, “The Future of the Human Niche,” published by Tim Lenton and colleagues, makes it brutally clear: at 2°C of warming, around 1 billion people will no longer be able to live where they currently do. That’s 25% of the Earth’s surface becoming uninhabitable. One billion refugees — in just a few years.
To put that into context: there were 50 million refugees after the Second World War. That was the worst war in human history. What’s coming is twenty times worse.
And that figure — one billion — only covers the effects of extreme heat. It doesn’t include what happens when rising sea levels drown coastal cities, when droughts kill crops, when wildfires consume whole regions, when freshwater disappears. The truth is, climate collapse is not just an environmental issue. It is a full-system breakdown. It affects food, health, housing, energy, migration, and war — all at the same time.
Still think this is just about polar bears?
If you’re still not convinced, don’t take it from me. Take it from the insurance industry. In 2024, the British actuarial society — a group of people whose job it is to measure risk for a living — released a report projecting that at 2°C of warming, we’ll see 2 billion deaths. At 3°C? 4 billion. That’s half the population of the Earth.
And this is not worst-case modelling. This is their baseline. This is what the people who insure your life, your business, your pension, believe is most likely to happen if we stay on our current course.
It gets worse. Because climate breakdown isn’t a one-off crisis — it triggers runaway feedback loops. Ice melts and reduces the planet’s ability to reflect sunlight, which makes it heat up faster. Permafrost thaws and releases methane, a greenhouse gas 80 times more potent than CO₂. Forests burn and release carbon. Soils lose their ability to absorb emissions. Everything begins to feed on itself. Even if we stopped all human emissions tomorrow, these systems may continue warming the planet — potentially beyond the point of recovery.
Most tipping points are estimated to be triggered between 1°C and 2°C. We are already at 1.6°C. We are now in the danger zone. There is no longer a buffer. There is no margin of error. This is happening in real time.
So what do we do?
Well, the answer is no different from the cancer patient. Two things: stop making it worse, and start trying to repair the damage. That means ending fossil fuel emissions as fast as humanly possible. That means scaling up emergency carbon removal. That means mobilising everything we’ve got.
Will it work? We don’t know. But what we do know is this: if we do nothing, billions will die. And not in some abstract future. In our lifetimes. In the lifetimes of our children.
This is not a problem for “someone else to solve.” This is your responsibility, your emergency, your world.
Edward Burtynsky – Manufactured Landscapes, a pyre waiting to burn.
And if you think you still have a choice — let me be blunt: you don’t. If your actions or inactions contribute to this collapse, you don’t just destroy your own future. You destroy the lives of everyone around you. You condemn entire generations to hell on Earth because you couldn’t face the truth.
It’s not just foolish. It’s not just selfish. It’s evil.
Let me speak personally for a moment. I’ve met hundreds of people who, after hearing this reality, decided to act. Ordinary people. Teachers, nurses, students, grandparents. They quit their jobs. They faced arrest. Some went to prison. Not because they were heroes. But because they understood this one, simple thing: if we don’t fight, we die. If we don’t rise up, we burn.
You can’t half-commit to this. You can’t give a little donation, feel a bit guilty, and move on. Once you’ve heard the truth, you are accountable. And the only question left is what you’re going to do about it.
So this is your moment. This is the turning point. If you’ve read this far, you already know. You know what’s coming. You know the scale of the crisis. You know the failure of our leaders.
You also know this: we are not powerless. There are millions of us waking up. Rising up. Organising. We are building the resistance that history will remember.
Join us.
Because history is watching. And your children will ask what you did. And one day, in the final hours of your life, you will ask yourself the same question.
Don’t wait for the flood. Don’t wait for the fire. We have no choice but to act. And act we will.
This was meant to be Roger Hallam’s climate briefing for the Rev21 Convention. But prison authorities blocked it. They’ve now banned him from posting on social media altogether.
To keep up with Roger’s work and the revolutionary movement he helped build, follow Rev21 across platforms:
Roger’s release has once again been delayed — originally expected in March, then May, and now postponed indefinitely. First, his designated home was deemed “unsuitable” for rehabilitation because someone associated with Just Stop Oil was present. Then, following press coverage that included the name of his probation officer (quoted directly in the piece), Roger was placed on a high-risk list — supposedly due to the psychological impact on staff. That probation officer has since been replaced, but the new officer has refused to respond to legal communications from Roger’s team.
It now appears that prison staff are refusing to meet with Roger directly, citing the “risk” he poses to them. His lawyers have written to the prison, but there is no legal requirement for them to respond within a set timeframe, leaving him in a state of limbo.
At the same time, Roger’s ability to contribute to public work has been severely restricted. Prison authorities have blocked over 20,000 words of his writing, and his input into the Convention and our social media efforts has been censored. Despite this, Roger continues to engage with projects through prison phone and email, where possible. He remains deeply committed to the cause and continues to support our work with unwavering clarity and determination.
Donald Trump urges you to be a Climate Science denier like him. He says that he makes millions and millions for destroying the planet, Burn, Baby, Burn and Flood, Baby, Flood.Nigel Farage urges you to ignore facts and reality and be a climate science denier like him. He says that Reform UK has received millions and millions from the fossil fuel industry to promote climate denial and destroy the planet.Orcas discuss how Trump was re-elected and him being an insane, xenophobic Fascist.
Vehicles sit submerged as a search and rescue worker looks through debris for any survivors or remains of people swept up in the flash flooding on July 6, 2025 in Hunt, Texas. (Photo: Jim Vondruska/Getty Images)
“Very exceptional meteorological conditions” preceded the Texas floods, climate scientists have found.
A new report from a trio of prominent climate researchers has concluded that the devastating floods that hit central Texas over the last three days were made significantly worse due to the impacts of human-induced climate change.
A study published on Monday by ClimaMeter found that the floods in Texas were caused by “very exceptional meteorological conditions” that cannot be explained merely by natural variability.
The authors—Davide Faranda of the Institut Pierre-Simon Laplace in France, Mireia Ginesta of the University of Oxford in the U.K., and Tommaso Alberti of the Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia in Italy—contend that the meteorological conditions present at the start of the Texas floods on July 4 “were characterized by slightly negative surface pressure anomalies over Central Texas, with values ranging up to –2 hPa, indicating the presence of a weak low-pressure system over the region.” They also found that “temperatures were significantly below the climatological average for this time of year, with anomalies reaching –5°C across much of the area affected by the flooding.”
The researchers then compared how extreme weather events that occurred under meteorological conditions similar to those present during this week’s floods would have manifested had they occurred in the years from 1950 until 1986, a three-decade period during where human-induced climate change had yet to cause a global surface temperature spike. They concluded that the meteorological conditions ahead of the deadly Texas floods this year were up to 7% wetter than those that had proceeded past floods in the region.
The ClimaMeter study adds heft to statements made by climate scientists over the weekend who argued that there was no question that human-induced climate change—which is driven largely by the extraction and burning of fossil fuels—had tipped the floods into historic disaster territory.
“The tragic events in Texas are exactly what we would expect in our hotter, climate-changed, world,” said Bill McGuire, professor emeritus of geophysics and climate hazards at University College London. “There has been an explosion in extreme weather in recent years, including more devastating flash floods caused by slow-moving, wetter, storms, that dump exceptional amounts of rain over small areas across a short time.”
As of this writing, at least 80 people have been confirmed dead as a result of the Texas floods while dozens more people have been reported as missing. The Washington Postreports that data from the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Integrated Public Alert and Warning System shows that Kerr County, Texas didn’t send out an Amber Alert-style push message to local residents until Sunday, two days after the floods overwhelmed the area’s rivers and creeks.
Donald Trump urges you to be a Climate Science denier like him. He says that he makes millions and millions for destroying the planet, Burn, Baby, Burn and Flood, Baby, Flood.Nigel Farage urges you to ignore facts and reality and be a climate science denier like him. He says that Reform UK has received millions and millions from the fossil fuel industry to promote climate denial and destroy the planet.Power-mad climate science denying Neo-Fascist orange gasbag Donald Trump says Burn, Baby, Burn.
Kerrville residents document the aftermath of deadly flooding at Louise Hays Park near the Guadalupe River in Kerrville, Texas on July 6, 2025. (Photo: Jorge Salgado/Anadolu via Getty Images)
“The Trump regime is gutting scientific research into climate and atmospheric science for political reasons, at the very time we need a much better understanding of it,” said one environmentalist. “This is so reckless and dangerous.”
Deadly flooding caused by torrential rain in central Texas late last week called attention to U.S. President Donald Trump’s full-scale assault on the climate research and monitoring agencies tasked with studying and predicting such weather catastrophes, as well as his ongoing attacks on disaster preparedness and relief.
Though local National Weather Service (NWS) forecasters did issue warnings in the lead-up to Friday’s flooding—which killed at least 82 people, including dozens of children—key roles were reportedly vacant ahead of the downpour, prompting scrutiny of the Trump administration’s mass firings and budget cuts, in addition to years of neglect and failures by Republicans at the state level.
Asked whether he believes the federal government should hire back terminated meteorologists in the wake of the Texas flooding, Trump responded in the negative and falsely claimed that “very talented people” at NWS “didn’t see” the disaster coming.
“This is an absolute lie,” replied meteorologist and climate journalist Eric Holthaus. “Worse, this is the person responsible for making those kids less safe and he’s trying to deny the damage he caused.”
Holthaus wrote Sunday that Trump’s staffing cuts “have particularly hit the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Environmental Modeling Center, which aims to improve the skill of these types of difficult forecasts.”
“Though it’s unclear to what extent staffing shortages across the NWS complicated the advance notice that local officials had of an impending flooding disaster,” he added, “it’s clear that this was a complex, compound tragedy of a type that climate warming is making more frequent.”
“Republicans have fired meteorologists, cut emergency disaster aid, and given an extra $18 billion to the fossil fuel corporations causing this crisis.”
Under the guise of “government efficiency,” the Trump administration has taken an axe to staff at federal climate agencies and is trying to go even further with its budget for the coming fiscal year. The Washington Postnoted Sunday that “a budget document the Trump administration recently submitted to Congresscalls for zeroing out climate research funding for 2026, something officials had hinted at in previous proposals but is now in lawmakers’ hands.”
“But even just the specter of President Donald Trump’s budget proposals has prompted scientists to limit research activities in advance of further cuts,” the Post noted. “Trump’s efforts to freeze climate research spending and slash the government’s scientific workforce have for months prompted warnings of rippling consequences in years ahead. For many climate scientists, the consequences are already here.”
Since the start of his second term, Trump has dismissed the hundreds of scientists and experts who were working on the National Climate Assessment, moved to slash NOAA’s workforce, and announced a halt to climate disaster tracking, among other changes—all while working to accelerate fossil fuel extraction and use that is supercharging extreme weather events. One NOAA veteran warned that Trump’s cuts could drag the agency back to “the technical and proficiency levels we had in the 1950s.”
“The Trump regime is gutting scientific research into climate and atmospheric science for political reasons, at the very time we need a much better understanding of it,” environmentalist Stephen Barlow wrote on social media on Sunday. “This is so reckless and dangerous, which is why I suggest we call these tragedies Trump events.”
Aru Shiney-Ajay, executive director of the Sunrise Movement, said over the weekend that “Republicans have fired meteorologists, cut emergency disaster aid, and given an extra $18 billion to the fossil fuel corporations causing this crisis.”
Donald Trump urges you to be a Climate Science denier like him. He says that he makes millions and millions for destroying the planet, Burn, Baby, Burn and Flood, Baby, Flood.Nigel Farage urges you to ignore facts and reality and be a climate science denier like him. He says that Reform UK has received millions and millions from the fossil fuel industry to promote climate denial and destroy the planet.
… KEIR STARMER is facing mass rejection within his own constituency as a large demonstration of Palestine supporters took to the streets to demand he quits.
Two thousand joined a noisy and vibrant protest through the PM’s Holborn and St Pancras seat on Saturday, marking the first anniversary of his re-election as local MP by telling him that the community had turned against him.
In a message to the concluding rally, local campaigner Andrew Feinstein, who secured 7,000 votes standing against Sir Keir as a pro-Palestine independent last year warned: “If he dares stand again we as a community will decide the best candidate to stand against him and we as a community will end his political career.”
Keir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone obect to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities,mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel.UK Labour Party government ministers Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves explain that they are partners complicit in Israel’s Gaza genocide. The UK has provided Israel with arms, military and air force support. They explain that they don’t do gas chambers but do do forced marches, starvation, destroy hospitals, mass-murders of journalists and healthcare workers.Vote Labour for Genocide.
Protesters in Camden
