Green steel in Japan from Kitakyushu! Our Environmental Management module #T330 @openuniversity.bsky.social explores Kitakyushu's journey from pollution to SDGs. Now Nippon Steel has broken ground on an electric arc furnace, continuing 125 years of steel in the city.
asia.nikkei.com/business/mat...
A screenshot of Nature Climate Change, showing targeted advertising. In this case, the targeted advertising is for classing Parma football shirts, reflecting the poster's chronic addiction to collecting classic Parma tops. And Raith Rovers tops. And 1990s Japanese tops.
The APC for an OA paper in Nature Climate Change is £9,390. That's huge profit given the authors aren't paid by the journal. So why do Nature also need to sell advertising space? I have enough difficulty not buying more classic Parma tops as it is, without advertising intruding into my working day!
350.org JP & Greenpeace JP use appointment of new President/CEO of Kyushu Electric Power to reiterate call for cancellation of GENESIS Matsushima, a coal plant upgrade in remote Nagasaki. Statement notes local importance of plant, calling for renewables as part of sustainable local jobs + economy.
国際環境NGOの 350.org Japan とグリーンピース・ジャパンが共同で、電源開発株式会社の新社長に宛て、「GENESIS松島計画」の中止を求める要望を提出しました。
石炭火力の延命ではなく、より持続可能な選択肢の検討が必要です。
world.350.org/ja/press-rel...
I wonder how much learning has been done in the UK Govt from early 2020, and how that will be applied to upcoming major supply disruptions, whole sections of the economy shut down, job losses/furlough, de-facto travel restrictions. How can we handle that better to protect the most vulnerable?
Feeling a bit fragile after celebrating Raith Rovers' Challenge Cup success yesterday, so spending my Bank Holiday morning watching a video of JFE's steelworks in Fukuyama, Hiroshima Prefecture, a facility so large it has its own internal rail network:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=8u8Z...
Bad times for a country with several cities and regions that are increasingly reliant economically on inbound tourism...
Very moving seeing the fireworks in the sky at Ishikari-Numata station before the last train departed, although the brass band who appeared to only be able to play 'Feed the Birds' from Mary Poppins over and over did start to grate after twenty minutes or so.
A computer screen showing the last run of a train service in Hokkaido, Japan. In front are two coasters from the last run of another rural train line which closed in 2019.
Watched livestream of the final service on the Rumoi Main Line in Hokkaido today. About halfway through, realised I was using my coasters from the last service of the Yubari Branch Line, which closed in 2019. Appreciate these lines aren't economically viable, but desperately sad to see nonetheless.
The other thing worth noting is this isn't like Japan, where people my age have - broadly speaking - enjoyed a steady quality of life and good public services in spite of a stagnant economy. Instead, it's everything getting worse and worse year on year, as the UK is gradually asset-stripped.
A "strike package" may be the most horrible phrase I have ever heard: indiscrimiante bombing, needless death and escalation, as if announced by a middle manager on LinkedIn.
A view along a deep, thick coastal pine forest from the top of a castle.
A small office front, with posters and leaflets about coastal forest conservation.
Last week I visited Karatsu for research into Nijonomatsubara, a magnificent coastal pine forest planted 400 years ago to protect fields and settlements from winds. Great to meet local NPO KANNE to hear about their conservation activities connecting people and nature!
Right now feels a lot like February 2020. A certain degree of optimism around that things will blow over and get 'back to normal' quickly. But when the penny drops that we're likely talking months or years rather than weeks, things could unravel very, very quickly.
We *should* be much better prepared for energy price shocks and able to approach this from a position of strength. We have the technology at hand. What's needed is the workforce to implement it, and the will to get heat pumps, EVs etc to the least well-off.
Getting a grim sense the next couple of years could be like the pandemic all over again. Nobody travelling anywhere, most people working from home or on furlough, desperately trying to cling onto their jobs and homes.
Despite what the blue-tick bros are saying, right now I honestly think spending an hour a day learning how to grow one's own food and decarbonise a tenement flat would stand me in far better stead for the next few years than spending an hour a day experimenting with AI tools.
I dropped out of high school, gained a huge amount of often difficult life experience, then went to community college, and now I'm a professor in a prestigious university. There HAS TO BE A PLACE for non-traditional students. www.theguardian.com/education/20...
Once more louder for those at the back: Black Mirror was a warning, not an instruction manual.
The choice is stark. Reform are the party of foreign wars and high bills.
The Greens want de-escalation and energy security through renewables. Solar and wind prices don't fluctuate when rogue US presidents launch illegal bombing campaigns.
Sixty years ago, Jennie Lee's vision created The Open University 🎓 Welcoming all backgrounds, millions have started life-changing journeys. #OUfamily #TheOpenUniversity #OU60 💙
The Dawlish - Teignmouth railway line feels like the absolute front line of climate adaptation in Britain (a test we are not passing so far).
And yet somehow, somehow, this article manages to go in-depth on the problems with the line without mentioning the climate once. The sea is literally higher!
A series of concrete blocks, which represent trial-scale stepped seawalls.
A large indoor wave tank. There is a model of a breakwater in the middle of the water, and a pile of rubble to the rear.
A small wave tank, with a small-scale model of a stepped seawall, and waves breaking against it.
A group of people in hard hats and high-vis vests stand round a table of small-scale concrete tetrapods and seawalls.
Continuing @britishacademy.bsky.social - supported work into evidence landscape for seawalls in Indonesia, with a visit to Balai Teknik Pantai, a huge test facility for prototyping sea defences for all Indonesia. Thank you for hosting us so well, and for answering all my STS-alike questions 😅
A group of people stand next to some concrete steps next to a seawall. The steps are about 30cm below the wall top, due to subsidence.
A seawall in Jakarta. To the left are fishing boats in the water. To the right, at a lower level than the water, are houses and a pavement.
A group of people round a table in a meeting room.
Five people in a line, making a 'U' shape gesture.
We've been in Jakarta continuing @britishacademy.bsky.social -funded work into evidence-driven policy for seawalls in Indonesia. Visited some very challenging sites on the Jakarta coast, and had the opportunity to meet the Ministry of Higher Education, Science & Technology to discuss our work.
Helpful thread here on UKRI + strategy. Vital in any cross-disciplinary calls that arts, humanities + social sciences have a central and transformative role, and hopefully aren't seen as 'service sciences' stuck on at the end of the pipe to assess public opinion or 'convince' the public about tech.
Really grim to see this, but sadly it seems to be the direction of travel that's been on the cards for a few years now: curiosity-driven research funding for the elites, policy support- and industrial collaboration projects for the rest of us.
www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-r...
Small white houses and low lying scrub, early in the morning sunlight. A single-track road runs through the image.
A small room set up for a drop-in session. There is a map of the island of Tiree on a large screen, and a physical map next to a PowerPoint presentation.
A map annotated with post-it notes, showing places where action to respond to coastal erosion and climate change could be undertaken on Tiree.
A fence hanging in the air, following the erosion of a small dune. Rubble has been deposited over the sand to prevent further erosion.
A pleasure to be back in Tiree to progress the Ecological Citizens Network+-funded project on coastal change Tiree CDT & myself are leading. Grateful to everyone who came to the drop-in session (was talking non-stop for 2.5 hours!) and shared their thoughts on our plans for the project and beyond.
Lots of folks getting radicalized by the snow across much of the country right now. What gets plowed, when it gets plowed, and how often it gets plowed reveals a lot about your city's priorities and who it values.
Peer review science relies, more than we care to admit, on what @zey.bsky.social calls "load bearing frictions" that make it difficult to fake good science, and on trust that most ppl also value science itself & won't cheat just for personal gain. This creates the wrong environment for that to hold.
A reward structure that favours productivity over quality will always incentivise the use of tools that make it easier to generate papers. Who cares if anyone actually reads them?
Writing - and the thinking that comes with it - is one of the parts of my job I enjoy the most. If you asked me to make a list of parts of my job that I wanted to outsource to AI, the writing up of research would probably be bottom of the list by a very long way. It's a giant NOPE from me.
