What is defence spending? It's not just buying missiles. It's asking ourselves what kind of world we're living in, what are our vulnerabilities and how we can invest in a secure future which is stable domestically and protected from volatility outside of our control.

Every single time

Gas oil and AI industries happy to let the bodies pile high apparently...

And they don't stink 💨💨💨

Farage’s proposal to evict foreign nationals from social housing is horrifying and racist. My colleague @peteapps.bsky.social has broken this down with an explainer about how social housing allocations really work, and how social housing is being mischaracterised open.substack.com/pub/peteapps...

Wtaf?

😭

Working with @unisontheunion.bsky.social, I’ve heard first-hand about the profound impact this would have. These people are the load bearing walls of our care system. They came here to help our most vulnerable. This country owes them more than it’s ever given them.

Fun fact, the Conservatives did try their best to max out the North Sea over their 14 years in government. They issued hundreds of licences & oversaw an incredibly generous tax regime to prop up what is widely regarded as an uncompetitive basin. The result? *36 days worth of gas* to date.

Love this! Our local Lido is fabulous - and volunteer-run, so doubly fabulous..Last night the water was 26 degrees too (bit warm for my taste, if anything 😅)

Is there swimming pool researcher bluesky?

Really good explanation. Wondering if it's time to include wet bulb temperatures in the forecast (I imagine the "feels like" prediction draws on that, but we're probably all going to have to become more savvy about exactly how close to danger, eg construction crews or schoolchildren, are.

JOURNO REQUEST! Are there any virologists out there able to talk to me before the end of the month?? Questions are about "alive"ness of viruses

I'll take it

This is amazing!

my take on air conditioning is that if we had spent the last 20 years building to passivhaus standards the amount of energy and resources spent on air conditioning would have been about 80% less - freeing up units/capacity for more people

Imagine being an emergency worker in this heat - we cannot thank them enough. (And this is the sort of image we should be using with heat wave articles, not beaches and parks.)

can’t believe a narcissist is being so publicly humiliated by a reflecting pool

What I hope Prof Rodrigues meant to say is that "We can't aircon our way out of this WITHOUT MAXIMISING DEMAND REDUCTION TOO." Currently, too many of our dwellings are the summer equivalent of trying to heat a house with one wall missing. That's the crime, not actively assisting thermal comfort.

One for all the cooker designers who never IMAGINED anyone would put a steamy wet pan lid down ....... on the hob.

PSA if you are lucky enough to have casement or sash windows and some bedding you don't mind getting mucky (dust/dead flies/traffic grime etc) then this is a great way to stop the suns heat from accessing your indoors

👍👍👍

I did a newsletter on this last year which might be useful. It's work-focused. helenbarrett.substack.com/p/cool-place...

Cool spaces for Londoners - thanks @agvbergin.net

This is flat wrong from Unite. It’s just not true there’s been ‘almost no thought for jobs, skills and national security’. There’s been a huge amount of thought on all these issues and a decision has been made that jobs, skills, and security all benefit from a faster clean energy transition.

Some councils appear to have lists, like Haringey: haringey.gov.uk/environment/... There was also a London list of pubs/cafes/restaurants with air con: staycool.lol

Thoughts this week with people stuck in (it-should-never-have-been) permitted development office-to-residential conversions, surrounded by a sea of tarmac, unable to open the windows more than an inch, and trying to keep their babies safe :(

Imagine if there was a hurricane-force blizzard, and we just showed pictures of kids playing in the snow

It's not just the likes of me talking about the benefit of certainty and long term funding streams, removed from political cycles - people who do the actual work say so too.

(hot dog meme) "Who would do such a thing?"

I see we are still encountering difficulty using the T word when it comes to violent racist rampages by white men

Dude is a trillionaire, this is all very clearly an emergency for democracy and our government should be treating it like one

Here's an idea for @andyburnham.bsky.social. Run on a platform to spend a few less billion on transport projects with entirely negative return on investment, and a few more billion on active travel projects which return between £5 and £19 for every £1 spent.

Witness a 1930s semi-detached home transformed for the 21st century. Free booking for #PHOpenDays via https://bit.ly/PHopendays26#PHOpenDays#Retrofit #Liverpool #LCAW2026

Thinking of undertaking a Passivhaus retrofit? The Old Stables, targeting the EnerPHit Plus standard, offer an exemplar for old agricultural buildings. Join #PHOpenDays site tours: ⏰ Tour Dates: 26-27 June 📍 Location: Exeter, Devon 🎫 Book your #free visit: https://bit.ly/PHopendays26

📣 Conference Speaker David Glew. David will be talking about 'No Retrofit, No Heat Pumps; Why Retrofit and Heat Pumps must go hand-in-hand' ⭐ Check out this years programme: buff.ly/jqJzO0X

What if you could retrofit your home to high energy standards - without moving out & without doing it all at once? Find out how Alan & Donna Budden are doing exactly that at their 1970s home. 📅 28 June, Milton Keynes 🎫 bit.ly/PHopendays26 #Passivhaus #Retrofit #PHOpenDays Eco Design Consultants

I've heard my fellows scientists defend LLMs using precisely the argument that they will 'cure cancer'. 'Vibes over value' has spread beyond the salesmen, tech bros, and naive politicians to infect the bones of the scientific profession.

one anecdote: I was searching for a link to one of my old papers on Google, and the automated Gemini summary attributed all of my lab's work to my husband

Toiling in the data mines Forged in the bot factories Hammering soundbites into shape

Westminster politicians, including key factions of the Labour Party, clamoring to stop this in its tracks, the only part of the UK economy that’s actually performing well 🤪

Really interesting account. I do wonder how long it will take for the "corpus" (everything on the internet (or digitised to feed the llms)) to become so full of AIs own output that it just falls over. Are we in a weird mini era of AI impressiveness that is about to end? Or will no-one notice?

I no longer have under-16s, and the online world has changed a lot in the decade or so since I did. But banning kids from the sewagey beach, but allowing the sewage to pour on unchecked (while adults continue to play around there and get very sick) - well, it doesn't seem much of an answer.

BAN THE PERVPODS

Architect Paul Testa retrofitted his 1960s Sheffield semi targeting EnerPHit standard. Join HEM Architects on 24 June for a first-hand account of what it really takes to undertake a Passivhaus retrofit of your own home. 📅 24 June, Sheffield 🎫 bit.ly/PHopendays26 #EnerPHit #Retrofit #PHOpenDays

Are you based in the North West and want to see an ambitious retrofit project in progress? This is your chance. Explore the technical solutions that are pushing this Passivhaus retrofit towards EnerPHit Plus performance. 📅 25 June 🎫 bit.ly/PHopendays26 #EnerPHitPlus #Retrofit #PHOpenDays

When you see the story about how the world now has its first trillionaire, and when you see the story about how laboratories in Congo have run out of supplies to test for Ebola, it is important to understand that in many ways these are the same story.

"30 women have been murdered in Northern Ireland in the last six years - not one road was closed, not one protest. What was the connection? They were murdered by white locals."

Thank you Kate! (Feeling a bit looked down on on here this morning, owing to being part of the "WASPI" demographic that Bluesky loves to dismiss.)