These invading Waymos reminded me of the unintended (?) consequences of self-driving cars in this great video youtu.be/040ejWnFkj0?... How self-driving cars will destroy cities, and what to do about it.

“The Highway Lobby spends millions to make sure we spend billions.” — Union of Concerned Scientists. Their profit, your cost. Pleased to support @ucs.org in sharing/boosting their important new article below, with our newest @urbantruth.bsky.social poster. #UrbanTruth

The harms of traffic are seen like the weather. It's just something that happens, and if we don't like it we just have to shelter #motonormativity

Would have been a nice REF impact case

Best evidence yet that LLMs can match human capabilities in doing science.

It’s a total puzzle. We keep being told Oxfordshire transport policies are unpopular and imposed on people. Yet the people keep voting for parties that support them 🤔

Wow! More than double the volume of gas cut off due to the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz is being wasted each year because countries are failing to deal with methane leaks and unnecessary flaring, the International Energy Agency (IEA) says.

Terrific 🧵 about what has and hasn't happened with US birth rates giving super clear explanations of what different measures can tell us. Another must-read by @drjenndowd.bsky.social

One of the most remarkable achievements in modern political history has been the emergence of "anti-establishment, anti-elite, people's army" parties - committed to "bringing back the nation-state" - that are led, directed & financed by the richest, most privileged & most mobile people on the planet

39 countries cut energy taxes after the Iran war. Politically popular but self-defeating: untargeted subsidies blunt the price signals, lead to higher demand, cost the tax payer significantly more and provide less incentive to invest in alternatives.

Now.. very slowly for those at the back… Who wins when states go to war and when politicians promote fossil fuels over renewables and push to scrap Net Zero? Because it isn’t us. Our bills don’t go down. Our planet doesn’t get prioritised. Our futures don’t get safer. (Sky News)

That's tens of thousands of authors whose submissions can be desk-rejected from here on out, leaving some more room for the rest of us. www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Woman who starts riding a bike not sure if she should be a poor unemployed loser who can't afford a car or an elite smug entitled asshole with a toy, asks neighbourhood Facebook group to help out.

📢 We’re looking for a writer to join our team at Our World in Data! What we’re looking for is quite unique: someone who writes excellent narrative articles on large global problems, finds memorable framings to make hard ideas easier to understand, while being genuinely obsessed w/ technical details

More investment by tombola. Fund local government properly.

While the EU continues to be addicted to catastrophic fossil fuels thanks to idiotic German Chancellors, Turkey is racing ahead of the EU with battery storage.

Would You Rather? The new hit game for decision makers everywhere!

The biggest story in the world right now is that the president of the United States is a demented old man who takes pleasure in torturing and killing people and is committing crimes with impunity. And yet most legacy media outlets are too cowardly to tell it like it is.

Fuck me, we’ve got serious people suggesting the solution to AI generating hallucinatory references in academic papers is to apply AI reference-checking. No. Just stop it. Blacklist any academic who submits any paper with hallucinatory references.

Delighted our paper (with an amazing group of co-authors) is forthcoming in the APSR Takeaway for Labour and other centre-left parties: fixing public services is key to reducing support for the populist right 👇

Just wow! To stop these flag-debasing "patriots", this woman gets under their van like it’s just another day at the garage. Hugely impressed by, and very grateful for, her bravery

FACTCHECK: GB News / Spectator owner Paul Marshall got criticised by Christian leaders for his channel's attacks on climate action, so he made a rare public intervention But in his letter to the Guardian (pic) he makes 25 false, misleading or confused claims (!) Receipts etc in next post 1/2

"Three Takes on Low Fertility" is a great review essay by @emilymerchant.bsky.social of three recent books on fertility: After the Spike; No One Left; and Toxic Demography. Highly recommended! onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

💥 Millennium Cohort Study (MCS) Age 27 sweep open consultation. 👉 Attend a consultation event in London, Edinburgh, Cardiff or Belfast or join us online. What questions should we ask and what measures should we use? Your input is needed! Find out more: buff.ly/yMGpXuM

It is absolutely stupid that a major focus of policy response to the Iran War is on the planned 1p rise in fuel duty in September (watching Trevor Phillips interview Bridget Phillipson). Of no help now to anyone to abandon it. Shows how trivial our political debate has become.

"The president's case against wind are literally the rantings of an old man. I've seen grandpa Simpson make more sense."

My resignation letter

Money that was startlingly effective in saving lives now supporting the Dictators Club

Hungary under Orban is a satellite state of Russia. Orban's election campaign has centered on attacking the country Russia invaded. The US endorses all of this. JD Vance is going to Hungary before the election to help Orban. The EU should be telling Hungarian voters - choose: East or West.

Manhattan's congestion pricing program has been a stunning success. Other US cities have noticed. Could Chicago go next? In @bloomberg.com, I explored. 🧵

Incumbent German electricity suppliers said in 1993 that renewables could not provide more than 4% of electricity in the long run. In 2025, renewables provided 55.9% of Germany's electricity — 14 times the predicted ceiling.

Must read. A military strategy guy writes: “There is a frequent mistake, often from folks who deal in economics, to assume that countries will give up on wars when the economics turn bad.“

📣 New job at Oxford's Centre for Advanced Social Science Methods (CASSM)! 📣 The Departments of Politics & IR (DPIR) and Social Policy and Intervention (DSPI) are hiring an Associate Professor of Causal and Experimental Methods. Come work with me and amazing Oxford peeps! Deadline NOON April 27th.

Everyone is receiving their Council Tax bill through the post at the moment. The most hated tax. But judging from the awful standard of ‘discourse’ in FB groups around the county - I can only urge as many people as possible to read/share this Thanks! cllrdrnathanley.substack.com/p/the-adult-...

"It is outrageous that people will be buying homes that are expensively heated with gas when we have perfectly good technology – heat pumps – that can be installed instead." My comments @theguardian.com new homes in the UK still using gas heating. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Once again a heartfelt thanks to David "cut the Green crap" Cameron and Nick "What's the point in a nuclear power plant that isn't ready until the 2020s" Clegg for their visionary political choices, whose consequences we get to enjoy today.

I'm sorry but the US President has access to the most advanced intelligence network in the history of the world, and his war powers can be constrained by Congress at literally any time. You can't "trick him into a war" unless he, and Congress, choose to let you.

As we all know, the billionaire class is really invested in improving the life of the working class.

Reaching net zero by 2050 is often framed as a cost burden. The UK Climate Change Committee’s latest analysis suggests the opposite. The real risk is fossil fuel dependency.

Happy #IWD. Women bear the brunt of the climate crisis. But men dominate climate decision-making, and mega-rich ones like Farage, whose party is backed by oil and gas, set the climate back. I wrote this last IWD, but it's still relevant…👇 www.independent.co.uk/voices/clima...

📣𝗣𝗿𝗲-𝗘𝗣𝗖 𝗪𝗼𝗿𝗸𝘀𝗵𝗼𝗽 🇮🇹 𝗖𝗹𝗶𝗺𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗗𝗲𝗺𝗼𝗴𝗿𝗮𝗽𝗵𝘆: 𝗣𝗼𝗽𝘂𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗗𝘆𝗻𝗮𝗺𝗶𝗰𝘀 𝗶𝗻 𝗮 𝗖𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗴𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗖𝗹𝗶𝗺𝗮𝘁𝗲 📅June 3rd 🗺️Bologna https://www.demogr.mpg.de/en/news_events_6123/calendar_1921/climate_demography_population_dynamics_in_a_changing_climate_15101 Risto Emilio Zagheni European Association for Population Studies

This new QJE paper concludes that the macroeconomic costs of climate change are far greater than earlier estimates suggested. It finds that a 1°C rise in global temperatures reduces world GDP by over 20%.

It continues: “Cambridge has been able to accommodate development within its boundaries. Delivery within Oxford has been far more limited… the main constraint lies within the city itself. Delivering homes within the urban boundary should be Oxford’s strategy.” www.centreforcities.org/blog/oxbridg...

@martamiori.bsky.social and I have been writing, since 2024, about why Labour's 'Reform' challenge and emphasis was based on a misunderstanding of Labour's vote. Here for anyone interested: politicscentre.nuffield.ox.ac.uk/news-and-eve...

My colleagues at the Swedish Institute for Social Research, Social Policy unit, are seeking a postdoc for 2-3 years. Great opportunity! su.varbi.com/en/what:job/...

Another example of AI slop as the aesthetic of modern fascism: lazy, ugly, moronic

This felt urgent and it is as powerful and galvanising as maddening and incredible. How did we get here? Why has big tech turned against women by author and campaigner Laura Bates as.ft.com/r/9a009af2-d...

Yesterday, those who teach Intro to Sociology at Florida colleges (as opposed to universities) received a ready-made curriculum from the state and were ordered to teach it. Yes, you read that correctly. The *state* is enforcing a curriculum on college profs, complete w/ the following restrictions:

@evanhalper.bsky.social on one of the most important developments in the US power sector: the tech industry's push to power data centers without a grid connection. The effect of this fossil gas buildout is massive damage to the climate & local air and water w minimal regulatory or public input.