Tag: united kingdom

Controversial Plan to Block Sunlight with Geoengineering Advanced by Shadowy UK Government Agency

Controversial geoengineering research, including a plan to study blocking sunlight, received $75 million in funding from the UK government’s Advanced Research and Invention Agency (ARIA), which some scientists warn could be just as dangerous as the climate change it seeks to combat.

Proposals to geoengineer humanity’s way out of the impending climate crisis span 21 projects, from sunlight-reflecting clouds to thickening arctic ice. The funding comes under ARIA’s Exploring Climate Cooling programs, a five-year initiative aimed at holding off the tipping point of the impending crisis.

Advanced Research and Invention Agency

ARIA was announced in 2021 as the UK’s answer to the US Defense Department’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and has been active since 2023. The agency’s £800 budget funds risky yet potentially groundbreaking technologies in areas like climate, AI, and neurotechnology, leaving more conventional and slow-paced research to the UK Research Initiative, the country’s other public science funding organization.

The shadowy agency became a target of controversy early on over its lack of transparency, after being declared exempt from freedom of information requests. The News Media Association, a UK media organization with members that include The Guardian and The Daily Mail, issued a statement in 2021 calling for the UK government to reverse ARIA’s immunity from freedom of information requests.

Geoengineering Controversy

Now, ARIA is wading further into controversial territory with its recent funding of geoengineering projects. Despite warnings of climate catastrophe, many experts have expressed concerns over whether relying on geoengineering as a solution could produce outcomes worse than the problem at hand.

Last year, Harvard University canceled a project in Sweden to dim the sun by introducing particles into the atmosphere after local residents became concerned about the longer-lasting repercussions. On May 7, 2025, Florida also took legislative action to ban geoengineering.

Mark Symes, a University of Glasgow electrochemist who leads ARIA’s Exploring Climate Cooling programs, explained that any proposed concepts are only stop-gap measures to curb the planet’s slow progress toward reaching a global climate tipping point, buying time to address root causes like carbon emissions.

“We want to keep this research in the public domain,” said Piers Forster of the University of Leeds, who chairs a committee that monitors climate projects for ARIA.

“We want it to be transparent for everyone,” Forster said.

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When did charities turn into insufferable activist groups?

When did charities become so political? From Oxfam to the British Heart Foundation, many British charities are going well beyond their core missions of saving lives and helping the needy and have branched out into political lobbying, whether it’s for sugar taxes or so-called climate justice. The third sector has relegated old-fashioned charity work to second place, behind lobbying the government for ‘progressive’ policies.

This trend should not be allowed to pass unnoticed, especially when there is such a clear revolving door between charities and politics. According to research from Transparency International in 2023, almost one in three ex-Conservative ministers ended up in jobs that overlapped with their government brief – many in charities. After last year’s General Election delivered a landslide of new Labour MPs, more than 35 per cent of parliamentarians now have a ‘background’ in the charity sector, including eight members of the cabinet.

Labour figures have proved most adept at floating seamlessly between NGOs and government. Gordon Brown’s foreign secretary, David Miliband, now specialises in ‘refugee resettlement and assistance’ at the International Rescue Committee. Others, like UNICEF and Save the Children’s Justin Forsyth, have gone back and forth between charity and government. In 2023, Oxfam appointed Halima Begum as its chief executive, who tried to become Labour MP in 2019.

The result of this echo chamber is clear in charities’ output. Last year, Oxfam, which was founded to help famine relief efforts in the developing world, called for a 60 per cent tax in the UK on income, stocks, shares, rent and other revenue ‘that the rich disproportionately rely on’. The British Heart Foundation pledges to reach Net Zero by 2045 and pushes for nanny-state policies like sugar and salt taxes. Christian Aid was set up to provide life-saving support when wars blighted some of the world’s poorest communities. Now it also campaigns for ‘climate justice’, whatever that means.

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UK government plans to mandate new homes have solar panels and also plans to block sunlight reaching the Earth’s surface; the two do not go together

The UK’s Future Homes Standard aims to ensure that new homes built from 2025 produce 75-80% fewer carbon emissions compared to homes built under the current Building Regulations. It will require new homes to have very high levels of energy efficiency and low-carbon heating systems, ensuring they contribute to the UK’s net-zero carbon emissions target.

The standard includes specific performance requirements for building elements like external walls, roofs, floors, windows and doors, as well as minimum efficiencies for heating systems, ventilation and lighting.  It also demands that people’s homes be adorned with solar panels.

“The so-called Future Homes Standard regulations is due to be unveiled ‘soon’, billed as ensuring that properties are ‘highly efficient’ and do not have fossil fuel boilers by 2030,” the Daily Mail reported.  “The latest version of the blueprint could see four-fifths of new homes required to have solar panels covering 40 per cent of their footprint.”

A Ministry of Housing spokesman said, “Through the Future Homes Standard we plan to maximise the installation of solar panels on new homes, as part of our ambition to ensure all new homes are energy efficient, and will set out final plans in due course.”

This mandate is expected to add between £3,000 and £4,000 to the cost of building a home.

Meanwhile, war criminal and former Prime Minister Tony Blair has said that the government’s net zero targets are “unrealistic” which has caused the Labour Party to descend into bitter infighting, with some Members of Parliament and unions urging a re-evaluation of net zero policies while others are defending them.

A day after issuing his comments, Blair, who has advised Sir Keir informally, backed down and insisted he supported Labour’s plan to reach net zero by 2050.

Blair wasn’t criticising the false “climate change” premise on which net zero policies are built. He merely criticised the current net zero approach as “doomed to fail” and called for a pragmatic “reset,” arguing that people in developed countries are unwilling to make financial sacrifices and lifestyle changes when their impact on global emissions is minimal.

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One Country Just Banned Transgender Athletes From Competing in Women’s Soccer

Men who think they are “transgender women” will no longer be permitted to play on women’s soccer teams in England going forward, the sports governing body said on Thursday. 

Reportedly, The Football Association amended its rules that allowed athletes to compete corresponding to their so-called “gender identity” (via FA):

As the governing body of the national sport, our role is to make football accessible to as many people as possible, operating within the law and international football policy defined by UEFA and FIFA.

Our current policy, which allows transgender women to participate in the women’s game, was based on this principle and supported by expert legal advice.

This is a complex subject, and our position has always been that if there was a material change in law, science, or the operation of the policy in grassroots football then we would review it and change it if necessary.

The Supreme Court’s ruling on the 16 April means that we will be changing our policy. Transgender women will no longer be able to play in women’s football in England, and this policy will be implemented from 1 June 2025.

We understand that this will be difficult for people who simply want to play the game they love in the gender by which they identify, and we are contacting the registered transgender women currently playing to explain the changes and how they can continue to stay involved in the game.

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UK: Ofcom Appoints “Experts” to Advisory Committee on “Disinformation” Under New Censorship Law

UK’s regulator Ofcom, which is tasked with enforcing the sweeping online censorship and age verification law, the Online Safety Act, has appointed members of its “Online Information Advisory Committee” (formerly known as “Advisory Committee on Disinformation and Misinformation”), which will advise Ofcom on “misinformation” and “disinformation.”

Lord Richard Allan, who was last November appointed a non-executive director of Ofcom’s Board for a four-year term, now chairs the Committee, comprised of five members – most of whom have prominent track records as pro-censorship advocates.

One is Jeffrey Howard, a political philosophy professor at University College London (UCL), whose website’s research page includes an upcoming article titled, “The Ethics of Social Media: Why Content Moderation is a Moral Duty.”

Howard says the article defends platforms’ “moral responsibility” to “proactively” moderate “wrongfully harmful or dangerous speech” as one of justifications for platforms to censor out of a sense of “moral duty.”

Elisabeth Costa, Chief of Innovation and Partnerships at the Business Insights Team (BIT, which started off as the “Nudge Unit“) is another Committee member.

Costa should feel right at home helping enforce the Online Safety Act, given that BIT has close ties to many governments and international organizations that push for the kinds of censorship like “prebunking.”

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British Royal Marine Held Under “Terrorism Act” For Questioning DEI Policies

In 2015 the US Marines carried out a study to discern if women could fulfill combat duty roles within mixed gender units.  The study followed an aggressive push by the Pentagon and the Obama Administration to expand female participation on the front line.  This included the much hyped inclusion of women in Army Rangers training – The program was later exposed for giving special treatment to the female trainees and lowering their fitness standards.  In essence, it was the beginning of DEI within elite units in the military.

However, the Marines study relied on merit based standards and was not skewed to make the Pentagon brass happy.  It told the truth:  Women and mixed gender units offer dismal performance in the field under pressure.

Data collected during a months-long experiment showed Marine teams with female members performed at lower overall levels, completed tasks more slowly and fired weapons with less accuracy than their all-male counterparts. In addition, female Marines sustained significantly higher injury rates and demonstrated lower levels of physical performance capacity overall, officials said.  Any unit with women was dragged down.

DEI is a disaster for most endeavors, but it is especially deadly in the military where performance and merit determine life and death.  It also causes divisions and distrust; if a soldier cannot be counted on to perform tasks to a certain level of expertise then they can put the entire unit at risk.

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London Mayor Sadiq Khan Cites Southport Stabbing to Justify Targeting Online “Conspiracy Theories” and “Misinformation”

London Mayor Sadiq Khan has announced an £875,000 ($1,170M) expansion of his Shared Endeavour Fund, using the tragic mass stabbing and murders in Southport to justify an intensified campaign against what he describes as “online conspiracy theories and misinformation.”

London Mayor Sadiq Khan has announced an £875,000 ($1,170M) expansion of his Shared Endeavour Fund, using the tragic mass stabbing and murders in Southport to justify an intensified campaign against what he describes as “online conspiracy theories and misinformation.”

More: Southport Tragedy Becomes Starmer’s Stage for Big Brother Britain

Despite the gravity of the Southport attacks, Khan appeared to frame the event more as a case study for the dangers of social media rather than focusing on the violence itself, saying: “The Southport disorder and chilling hate crime attacks that followed shocked our nation and showed how false information on social media spread like wildfire with devastating consequences.”

The move directs a significant portion of the new funding toward policing online speech under the guise of protecting “vulnerable young Londoners from radicalization and misinformation online.” This expansion fits within the Mayor’s broader £15.9 ($21.31M) million anti-extremism agenda, the largest of its kind initiated by a London mayor.

According to the official press release, the Southport incident highlighted “increased concern about online radicalization and the spread of misinformation,” even while admitting that overall hate crime incidents have been declining across London.

Nevertheless, the Mayor maintains that the numbers, despite dropping, are still “too high,” justifying the fresh wave of funding and monitoring efforts.

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$66M experiment to ‘dim the sun’ to combat global warming gets OK — but critics have called it ‘barking mad’

Sounds like a bright idea.

Scientists have received approval to soon test whether “dimming” the light from the sun will combat global warming — a strategy some critics have recently described as “barking mad.”

Geo-engineers at the Advanced Research and Invention Agency (Aria) in the United Kingdom have allocated over $66 million to inject aerosolized particles into the stratosphere to reflect the vital light the sun provides to the Earth in a bid to hedge global warming, the Times of London reported.

The experiment will send high-flying planes to release sulfate particles into the stratosphere, near the lower atmosphere, which would then prevent some of the sun’s rays from reaching the ground by reflecting them toward space.

Proponents of the project suggest that the controversial process could be a cheap way to cool the planet to combat the threat of global warming, according to the TOL.

Small-scale indoor testing could begin within weeks, with the plan’s architects claiming the controversial measures are necessary to avoid a potential “tipping point” catastrophe in the future.

“The uncomfortable truth is that our current warming trajectory makes a number of such tipping points distinctly possible over the next century,” Mark Symes, the project manager at Aria, the Advanced Research and Invention Agency, told The Guardian.

“Having spoken to hundreds of researchers, we reached the conclusion that a critical missing part of our understanding was real-world, physical data. These would show us whether any of these potential approaches would actually work and what their effects might be,” he added.

Advocates, including Dominic Cummings, the former longtime chief adviser to Prime Minister Boris Johnson, even allege farms could be aided by less light as crops would suffer less from heat stress, according to the report.

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Starmer to rent out homes to migrants: Government now pleads with landlords to host asylum seekers, with five-year guaranteed rent deal offered – as small boats crossing Channel swamp Britain

The Government are appealing to landlords to host asylum seekers, with private contractors working on their behalf, offering five-year guaranteed rent deals. 

Private contractor Serco – one of three working for the Home Office –  are offering five-year guaranteed rent deals to landlords, with the taxpayer footing the bill. 

Their website states the company is responsible for housing over 30,000 asylum seekers, with an ‘ever growing portfolio’ of over 7,000 homes. 

The firm organised an event at a four-star hotel in the Malvern Hills next month, as part of their drive to house more asylum seekers, according to The Telegraph. 

Serco is said to be ‘looking for’ landlords, investors and agents, with properties in the North West, the Midlands and the east of England to lease for more than five years.

The deal also reportedly includes promises of rent paid ‘on time every month with no arrears’, free property management, full repair and maintenance, as well utilities council tax bills paid by Serco.

Its promotional material claims to prospective clients that the offer is ‘an attractive and competitive proposition within the industry’.

It comes as the number of Channel migrants in small boats surpassed 9,500 this year so far – a third up from the previous all-time high.

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UK to scrap plans for Ukraine troop deployment – The Times

The UK has ditched plans to deploy a military contingent to Ukraine in the event of a ceasefire, The Times has reported, citing anonymous sources.

The defense chiefs from a number of European NATO states had in recent weeks been discussing sending military personnel to Ukraine, under a so-called “coalition of the willing.” Russia has strongly objected to the prospect of Western troops appearing in the neighboring country under any pretext.

In an article on Thursday, The Times quoted an unnamed source as saying that the “risks are too high and the forces inadequate for” a deployment that had been previously under consideration. According to the publication, “it was France who wanted a more muscular approach.”

Instead of coalition forces guarding key Ukrainian cities, ports, and nuclear power plants, the grouping now envisages more emphasis on Western military instructors training Ukrainian troops in the west of the country, who would “‘reassure’ by being there but aren’t a deterrence or protection force,” The Times reported, citing an anonymous source.

The softened vision for a Western military presence in Ukraine does, however, reportedly include the coalition’s aircraft patrolling Ukraine’s airspace and Türkiye providing maritime cover.

Additionally, Paris and London want the flow of Western weaponry to Ukraine to continue uninterrupted, according to The Times.

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