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...

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...

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.

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!

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!

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 😅

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...

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 “Kujukuri Offshore CCS Policy Seminar.” Without any explanation about the Metropolitan Area CCS Project, what exactly was this “seminar” for? beyond-coal.jp/en/news/ccs-... #beyondcoal #脱石炭

Interdisciplinary researchers when discussions about the REF come up.

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.

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...

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.

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 😒 Other than that, you're all fantastic folk to work with! 🙂

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...

Science of the Total Environment delisted. Any time a story like this breaks, I have a great deal of sympathy for other authors who have published their research in the journal in good faith, and for the reviewers and editors who have done their job properly. english.elpais.com/science-tech...

This is going to sound a bit salty, but - if you claim an author has not read widely enough, and then provide a list of 'key texts' written exclusively by white men at prestigious Western universities to make your point, then I would argue YOU have also not read widely enough.

And feat. on football, ideology, and politics: @liberopodcast.bsky.social w/ @jackpittbrooke.bsky.social, @brewin.bsky.social & @rorysmith.bsky.social; @migueldelaney.bsky.social for @the-independent.com; @footpolpodcast.bsky.social w/ @guyburton.net & @ljmabon.bsky.social...

I remember when stuff like this used to end the careers of people at all points along the political spectrum. Sadly, the news cycle will move on, and within a week he'll be back grabbing airtime, pint and cigarette in hand, as if nothing ever happened.

Very geographically-specific safety information on KNB Toyama this week - stay away from farm ditches when drunk. Good advice.

I will have retired by the time the West Highland Line is decarbonised. Class. www.scotsman.com/news/transpo...

Another great @ouscotland.bsky.social Mock COP, this time in Dumfries! Really enjoyed talking to high school pupils from all over Dumfries and Galloway about what happens at international climate change negotiations, and very impressed with how engaged and knowledgeable the students were!

Brilliant to see our @openuniversity.bsky.social Environmental Management: Pathways to Sustainability module reach fruition. The result of several years of research, writing, filming - and lots and lots of Teams meetings! Books are just one small - but very tangible - part of the OU experience #T330

My wife Naoko Mabon is working in partnership with a number of artists and arts practitioners to develop a new curatorial initiative by and for Zambia. Please consider supporting and sharing if you can: whydonate.com/fundraising/...

Terrific day at @ouscotland.bsky.social @howdec.bsky.social Mock COP in Inverness today. Talked to a group of students from all over the Highlands about what will happen at #COP30 - as well as the merits and drawbacks of the COP process, and what they can do as citizens. Feeling very energised!

Through our @openuniversity.bsky.social partnership with the BBC, I've been working with The One Show on the future of fisheries in the UK. Wonderful to see Hans Unkles' fully-electrified boat, which fishes out of Tayvallich just down the road from me, featured: connect.open.ac.uk/the-one-show/