@ljmabon
Senior Lecturer in Environmental Systems, Faculty of STEM, Open University, UK. Sustainability science for resilient and just coastal places. Scotland - Japan - Taiwan. Future Earth Coasts Fellow. Big Raith Rovers fan. resilientcoastal.zone
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 π Welcoming all backgrounds, millions have started life-changing journeys. #OUfamily #TheOpenUniversity #OU60 π
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 π
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.
Notwithstanding the fact this would have been a legitimately scary experience for those involved, it is heartening to see Scottish people in the replies and quotes at the rate of one person per hour pointing out this is basically the episode of Still Game with Robbie Coltrane.
Interesting from @beyond-coal.jp about apparent lack of meaningful engagement on possible CCS project off Chiba. Remember too this is near part of Japan that was due to host a major offshore wind project that was shelved. Residents will have legitimate concerns about infrastructure + process.
In December, 2025, the METI and Chiba Prefecture hosted the βKujukuri Offshore CCS Policy Seminar.β Without any explanation about the Metropolitan Area CCS Project, what exactly was this βseminarβ for?
beyond-coal.jp/en/news/ccs-...
#beyondcoal #θ±η³η
I've seen that photo kicking about the internet for years, and never knew where it came from. Tracked it down today and I think it was a paper doing a feature before a derby game!
A man stands on a street wearing a football shirt with alternate quarters of Rangers and Celtic.
Interdisciplinary researchers when discussions about the REF come up.
While I'm at it - Ghostbusters would make a phenonemal REF impact case study.
A hill I am prepared to die on is that the Terminator films were sent as a warning about the dangers of de-funding humanities and social science research, and failing to embed ethics and responsible innovation within STEM-driven research, development and deployment proggrammes.
Grim data point from #JLeague Director of Sustainability Takayuki Tsuji's recent appearance on FootBrain: JEF United Chiba's soccer school had to cancel classes 65 times last summer due to extreme weather, including excessive heat.
Abstract begins: Recent years have seen a proliferation of knowledge-sharing networks to support place-based just transitions among carbon-intensive regions. Yet, policy mobilities scholarship argues that policy knowledge from some places may be selectively promoted to propagate specific ideas about how regional planning βoughtβ to happen. Exemplars of good practice circulated within such networks could therefore work against place-based just transitions, if they promote policies that perpetuate existing imbalances between industries and communities. In response, this study uses policy mobilities as an analytical framework to evaluate how the mobility of policy knowledge may enable or hinder a place-based just transition. This question is explored for offshore renewables in Nagasaki Prefecture, Japan. Nagasaki has up to 3400 power sector workers, including two municipalities where power sector workers are proportionally three to four times the Japanese average. An offshore wind capacity of ~440 MW over two sites is planned in Nagasaki. National governments, non-profit organisations and overseas regions all aim to influence offshore renewables policy in Nagasaki, whereas industry organisations promote the regionβs success as an offshore renewables cluster. Document analysis, interviews and ethnographic observations are used to assess how circulation, localisation and resharing of policy knowledge may inform a just transition for Nagasakiβs workforce and communities. The study makes three contributions to place-based just transitions literature.
New paper on just transition, policy knowledge + offshore wind in Nagasaki, Japan. I argue that whilst sharing best practice is valuable, it risks undermining just transitions elsewhere if we don't ask who benefits from this knowledge being shared and adopted:
iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1...
It was, I believe. A bit yoghurt-y, but ok!
Since school bus discourse is going on: I remember one day everyone who travelled on a specific bus got pulled out of class and marched to the hall, because someone threw a yoghurt out the window from the top deck and it hit a horse, and they needed to find out who did it.
A bicycle leaning against a signpost in front of a marina for yachts and small commercial boats.
A canal channel, with some small buildings in the middleground in front of decidious woodland.
A flat, calm harbour at sunrise, with yachts and small pleasure plus commercial vessels in the water.
Sunrise over low-lying marshland.
It did not rain for the first time in nearly a fortnight today, so I took the day off at very short notice and cycled from Kilmartin to Tayvallich and back over the Crinan Canal. This turned out to be a very good idea.
Big shout out to whichever school or department on the OU campus was having the music round of their Christmas quiz with the window open as I walked past yesterday with my coffee - you eliminated me from #Whamageddon π Other than that, you're all fantastic folk to work with! π
New paper on temperate coastal forests, the values they bring to people, and how environmental management can support these forests in a changing climate. Enabled by @royalsociety.org International Exchanges grant w/@openuniversity.bsky.social + Klaipeda University.
link.springer.com/article/10.1...
I recently appeared on @footpolpodcast.bsky.social to discuss football, industry, place identity and a just transition - with a healthy dose of examples including Iwaki FC, Airdrie keeper John Martin, and the offshore wind supply chain permeating Raith Rovers:
www.buzzsprout.com/2253650/epis...
