John Russell

@johnrussell40

A Yorkshireman in Devon, growing trees. Retired filmmaker. Prioritising climate change, energy, sustainability, woodland, eco-building. Born at 311 ppm CO₂. Just moved to a '70s house and bringing its energy efficiency up-to-date—a big job ahead!

298 Following410 Followers1,004 Posts

YouTube Bluesky

Is this your profile?Claim it and johnrussell40.dirty.social is yours.Claim profile

John Russell@johnrussell40· 2d

"...even if things pick up, 2026 is likely to be one of the five worst harvests on record – four of which have occurred this decade, following extreme weather made more severe by climate change." www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home...

An aerial view of parched, yellow fields seen at harvest time.

John Russell@johnrussell40· 12d

So, Mr Heath, why haven't we stopped climate change? Could it be anything to do with the repeated denial perpetrated by the right wing press?

'The Telegraph' headline which says 'Britain can’t stop climate change. Scrap net zero and embrace Mediterranean life". Written by Allister Heath.

John Russell@johnrussell40· 17d

4. The Sigenergy app open on my desktop. It shows the current state of the system and the flow of power from the solar panels to charge the battery and power the house. Also any export to the grid. Historical data for production and use, plus CO2 emissions prevented. A lot to discover!

The Sigenergy app on a desktop computer showing the current state of the system. This is only part of the display—the rest being seen by scrolling down. Graphs and diagrams display current and historical data though there’s not much to see so far as it had been only been running an hour or so when this picture was taken.

John Russell@johnrussell40· 17d

3. All powered up. The control panel icons give an overview of what’s happening but see the next image for the App which is the real control panel.

Control panel showing 5 illuminated icons representing the current state of the system.

John Russell@johnrussell40· 17d

2. It was feeding a 27kWh Sigenergy Sigenstor inside the of garage and from there it feeds the house.

Electrician wiring the battery storage in my garage.

John Russell@johnrussell40· 17d

Thread. 1. A 5kW solar array went on my garage roof today.

John Russell@johnrussell40· 19d

A new Sigenergy stack consisting of 27kWh of batteries, car charger and with the inverter at the top was installed in my garage today. Tomorrow a 5kW solar array will go in the roof. All part of my project to take this house, to which I moved at the end of May, off mains gas. 1/2

A Sigenergy stack system consisting of 27 kWh of batteries with an EV charger and an inverter on the top installed in the corner of a garage.

John Russell@johnrussell40· 25d

Canadian wildfire smoke in Milwaukee. "The record-breaking Air Quality Index in parts of the city measured over 600 on Thursday afternoon, ranking it among the worst air quality in [the] world and more than double the baseline of what is considered hazardous for all." www.msn.com/en-us/weathe...

The skyline of Milwaukee shrouded in thick smoke.

John Russell@johnrussell40· Jul 2

The mains gas arterial that feeds the SW UK goes right past my new house. It’s currently being repaired. That pipe is around 300mm diameter. A worker told me, “we’ll never run out of gas”. My electrician just applied to the Grid on my behalf to connect solar panels, batteries and a heat pump :-)

John Russell@johnrussell40· Jun 10

Interestingly I see quite a few Peacocks here in Devon, but so far never a Swallowtail.

John Russell@johnrussell40· Jun 9

RW libertarian, Claire Fox, was on LBC last night. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claire_... She said (I paraphrase), "why don't we invest in the cheapest energy—fossil fuels?" FACT. Not only are renewables cheaper (graph below), we spend 5x more subsidising oil and gas: www.iisd.org/articles/pre...

This graph from https://ourworldindata.org/cheap-renewables-growth shows that, by 2024, solar and onshore wind had fallen in cost to become cheaper than gas or coal when used to generate electricity.

John Russell@johnrussell40· May 17

The White House's Idiot-in-Chief does not understand that when scientists produced 4 projections 20+ years ago, based on four differing emissions scenarios, they knew the future had to show that at least 3 of them were bound to be unrepresentative of the unfolding reality. That was the point!

John Russell@johnrussell40· May 12

Transcript of part of a letter written by my father, Cyril Russell, age 22, back to his family in May 1942. He was a Royal Engineers sapper, part of 'Paiforce', prior to the invasion of Italy. [ en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persia_... ] A different time, a different world.

Transcript: 'This road took us across the Jordan valley, and so into Palestine, and a more colorful [sic] and picturesque
countryside you couldn't wish to see. The soil is red and the grass a bright green. Wild flowers of many different kinds grow together making fields look like an artist's palette. The orange groves were rich with fruit and we ate oranges and grapefruit the size of small footballs till we were sick of them. It was Saturday, the Jews Sabbath, when we entered 'the promised land'. All the young Jews were out hiking and rambling and they seem to be doing some good work and relations between them & the Arabs appear to be quite good.

We spent quite a good evening in one of their newly built towns, Nathania on the shores of the sea of Galilee. Nathania is very much like an English seaside town both in its buildings and in its inhabitants though entertainment is limited to one cinema and a few cafés with small orchestras. Most of the shops were closed but one which was open, a bookshop, we entered and I found it was kept by a family of Russian Jews and I spent some time talking to the old man in German. He had lived most of his life in Germany but had gone to Russia after the last war, become a 'Zionist' and migrated to Palestine. He said he thought a lot of Joe and Russia as a whole, and I gathered from the way he spoke he wouldn't mind being back there now.

John Russell@johnrussell40· May 11

2/2 The ash tree on the left (thriving) and the one on the right (dead) have been growing alongside one another for about 20 yrs. 5 yrs ago they were the same size. Since the right ash died due to dieback, the left ash has continued growing and shows no sign of the disease. So far?

2 x ash trees side by side. The ash on the left (thriving) and the one on the right (dead) have been growing alongside one another for about 20 yrs. 5 yrs ago they were the same size. Since the right ash died due to dieback, the left ash has continued growing and shows no sign of the disease. So far?

John Russell@johnrussell40· Apr 12

From X. A post by Ehsan Taghadosi. @demokracy An Iranian PhD candidate in International Relations / Middle East analyst. Based in Tehran...

From X. a tweet by Ehsan Taghadosi @demokracy:
"It seems that Vance arrived in Islamabad without the full authority to reach an agreement with Iran, unlike Ghalibaf.

According to his own account, he called Trump more than 12 times during 21 hours of negotiations to discuss the issues. And according to Araghchi, he spoke with Netanyahu at least once during the Islamabad talks.

The US needs a negotiator who can reach an agreement on the spot, not someone who keeps a phone in hand and, like a child, has to check everything with daddy or uncle."

John Russell@johnrussell40· Apr 11

I wasn't. Neither were you.

John Russell@johnrussell40· Apr 9

I'll believe a Mail on Sunday commentator on this one. Trump is a child. Worse; a dishonest child.

Tweet on X from Dan Hodges of the Mail on Sunday:
"The reality of what happened is now clear. Trump ramped up the rhetoric to hysterical levels (again). Iran called his bluff (again). He needed an off-ramp. He asked Pakistan to negotiate it, agreed to Iran's terms, then completely invented different terms to try and save face."

John Russell@johnrussell40· Apr 3

I struggled to work out the Artemis II image of Earth at night (left pic) until I realised it was 180 degrees rotated from the 'normal' way we would orient it (right pic), with the Sahara and Spain visible at top right. Of course, there's no 'up' in space :-)

Artemis II image of Earth at night, as seen from the Orion spacecraft. NASA astronaut and Artemis II Commander Reid Wiseman took this picture of Earth from the spacecraft's window on April 2, 2026, after completing the translunar injection burn.

Same image of Earth as on left but rotated 180 degrees.

John Russell@johnrussell40· Mar 31

This is what EVs should be: compact, cheap and very efficient. The new Renault Twingo is below £20,000 for the base model. 150 miles range from a 27.5 kWh battery (5.4 miles per kWh) is excellent.

A bright yellow new Renault Twingo electric city car.

John Russell@johnrussell40· Mar 20

Heavy smoke pall hanging over the northern side of Dartmoor this morning. That's Yes Tor on the right. Seen from Corn Ridge. Swaling? @dartmoorac.bsky.social

Heavy smoke pall hanging over the northern side of Dartmoor this morning. Yes Tor on the right seen from Corn Ridge.

John Russell@johnrussell40· Mar 19

I first filmed a fusion project—the Joint European Torus at Culham, nr Oxford—in 1984. I interviewed the lead scientist who told us fusion was probably 30 years away. 42 years later is it any nearer? Maybe the Chinese know something the West doesn't? www.aveva.com/en/our-indus...

A timeline of the first 100 years of Fusion research. 1920 to 2022.

John Russell@johnrussell40· Mar 13

"I never said HPs don’t work effectively below 40F." Hmm?

John Russell@johnrussell40· Mar 13

It's quite understandable that I, and several others who replied to your post (shown below) thought you meant heat pumps struggle below 40F. It's a frequent claim. Sorry. We should have known you had another reason for augmenting your HP by also burning gas below 40F. Never heard of that before :-)

John Russell@johnrussell40· Mar 12

Graph of my 135sq m home's energy use (thanks to @octopus.energy) for a typical March day, both heating and power. 24hr clock at bottom. Spikes are my ground source heat pump kicking in. The gap in the middle is my solar panels generating. The constant drain is my MVHR and heating circ. pumps. 1/2

A graph of a typical day's energy usage for my house from midnight to midnight. The post describes what you can see.

John Russell@johnrussell40· Feb 16

My father, a British sapper (Royal Engineers), was in Palestine for a short time during WW2 and I was researching where he was. I came across this map. So how big is Palestine in 2026?

A map of Palestine showing how it has shrunk over the years.
1. prior to WW2 (100%).
2. 1947: 44% of its pre-war size.
3. 1967: 22% of its pre-war size.
4. 2020: 15% of its pre-war size.

John Russell@johnrussell40· Feb 14

John Russell@johnrussell40· Feb 11

When so many UK MP's were defecting to Reform, a UK GOV petition demanding by-elections was signed by 127,602. The Government's response (below) is based on an untruth. As much as politicians want to believe differently, most people aren't voting for the candidate, they're voting for the party.

This is text that says...

"There are no plans to make changes to the current constitutional arrangements, whereby voters elect individual candidates, and not the political party they represent.

It is an established constitutional principle that at UK General Elections, voters cast their vote for individual candidates, and not the political party they represent.

When a Member of Parliament (MP) decides to change their party affiliation, it is for the MP to decide whether to continue to sit in the House of Commons (as a representative of their new political party or as an independent MP) or to stand down from their seat to trigger a by-election and, if they wish, seek re-election.

There are no plans to make changes to the current arrangements.

Cabinet Office"

John Russell@johnrussell40· Jan 14

Impacted? Oh, yes... (Pic of fracking in the USA).

$Aerial view of fracking in the USA. The whole area is covered in hundreds of fracking wells, mile after mile.$

John Russell@johnrussell40· Jan 6

UK 2025 Mean Temp Anomaly. We're more than 1.5℃ above the late 20th Century mean, never mind pre-industrial mean temperature levels.

Met Office 2025 mean temperature anomaly map of the UK. Almost entirely deep red, indicating 1.5 degree centigrade above 1961-1990 mean temperature levels.

John Russell@johnrussell40· Dec 15

Sick post from #Trump as he sinks to a new low. Rob Reiner and his wife died as a result of homicide.