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Dr Ben King 🌍

@benking01.bsky.social
3.8K followers 604 following 5.6K posts

Long Covid & PE recovery. GeographyTeacher. Sustainability & Climate Change. BSc Env Science & Physics (Stirling). Soil Erosion PhD & Geog PGCE (Exeter). Tuba player. Devon, UK

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Reposted by Dr Ben King 🌍
Prof Ian Hall @ianhall.bsky.social · 1h
...And the Matterhorn’s bare snowless slopes are more than a striking image… www.sbs.com.au/news/article...
sbs.com.au
There's something 'highly unusual' about this photo of the Matterhorn
Experts say it is unusual for the 4,478m peak to be snow-free at this time of year, with climate change considered a key factor.
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Prof Ian Hall @ianhall.bsky.social · 1h
Swiss glaciers suffer 'disastrous' year of ice loss, threatening water supplies "…in its simplest form, what we see right now is that we took an ice cube out of the fridge and it's just melting in front of our eyes." www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
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Dr Ben King 🌍 @benking01.bsky.social · 23h
Slept for another 90 minutes. Important that I did, rather than pushing through and getting up early (and threatening my Stability, Balance and Readiness in the coming days)... Because I re-took my EliteHRV Morning Check-in, and got a LOWER Readiness score. #ParasympatheticSwing 🙏
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Dr Ben King 🌍 @benking01.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
KubiosHRV morning check-in confirms my elevated RMSSD and very low Resting Heartrate, which it assesses as me being READY FOR ANYTHING - Which is exactly how a Parasympathetic Swing feels! Today will feel very easy - until it doesn't! Unless I can fight the urge to rush about. #Pacing vital today
Kubios Very High 93% Readiness
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Dr Ben King 🌍 @benking01.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Woke early (04:30) this Wednesday morning to heavy rainfall on the bedroom window 😮 It has been a while! Raring to get up and go: I'm in a #ParasympatheticSwing EliteHRV demonstrates this clearly 👇
EliteHRV morning check in says 2 out of 10 Readiness due to Parasympathetic Nervous System dominance
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Adam Morton @adammorton.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Antarctic winter sea ice falls to third-lowest level on record as scientists warn of ‘now problem’ www.theguardian.com/world/2026/s...
theguardian.com
Antarctic winter sea ice falls to third-lowest level on record as scientists warn of ‘now problem’
Coverage levels fall a million square kilometres short of the long-term average, with global heating likely driving losses
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Prof Ian Hall @ianhall.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
I can hear the climate-change deniers already: “They grew grapes in Yorkshire during the Roman Warm Period, so this proves climate is cyclical!” …Yes, climate has always varied naturally, but the RWP wasn’t globally synchronous or driven by human GHG emissions. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
bbc.co.uk
Yorkshire vineyards experiment with merlot as climate changes
Northern wineries can now support grapes more often found in southern Europe and California.
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Dr Ben King 🌍 @benking01.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Lies
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Reposted by Dr Ben King 🌍
Dr Ben King 🌍 @benking01.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Post-gym. Feeling properly elated and energised from the running. Data from my #KiActiv sportswatch show that I've not even used half of today's 60 minutes of 'Moderate' movement, but I did run 'Vigorously' for 1 minute of *both* treadmill sessions 👇 Pretty sure I've not pushed too hard.
2 hours of 'Light' movement today. 25 minutes of 'Moderately' moving around. 2 minutes of running!
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Dr Ben King 🌍 @benking01.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Glorious 😎 Still can't believe that I can get away with RUNNING in 5-minute bouts. But when I've not exerted at all beforehand it's so very easy. Exhilerating! Felt like I could have continued for ages 🙂 But I'm #Pacing with care to avoid the #PEM associated with my #LongCovid
Visible Health heartrate graph for gym session. Up to 150bpm brieflyJust 5.5 out of today's 24 used. Still 10 in hand
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Dr Ben King 🌍 @benking01.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Approaching 4pm. Just a couple of #VisibleHealth PacePoints used so far, despite doing a fair amount of housework, cooking and some planning for work. Still amazed that I've reached a routine of twice-weekly gym sessions. Long may this continue! I'm going in 🙏
Visible PacePoints graphics. 2.1 out of today's 24 pace points used. More than 11 behind today's pacesetter 🙏
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Leah McElrath @leahmcelrath.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
There are also no independent scientists, engineers, researchers, or other AI experts present at the meeting. Total regulatory capture.
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Ian Dunt @iandunt.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Burnham speech: An astonishing moment of radicalism and commitment iandunt.substack.com/p/burnham-sp...
iandunt.substack.com
Burnham speech: An astonishing moment of radicalism and commitment
It’s easy to be cynical, but it would be false. Something extraordinary is happening here.
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Kristin Meekes @kmeekes.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
The pandemic should have led to clean indoor air, treatments for long covid and related illnesses, next gen vaccines, normalization of masking, mandatory respiratory protection in healthcare, sick leave, and a paradigm shift around what infections do to people
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Dr Ben King 🌍 @benking01.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
#BrexitReality
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Dr Elisa Perego @elisaperego78.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
#LongCovid is not a neuroimmune disorder. It's a multi-system disease entity with damage well documented in situ across multiple organs and tissues. Neurological and immune manifestations are important, but so is pathology affecting other body systems. Patient care for all is key
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Simon Kuestenmacher @simongerman600.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
The history of accuracy in world maps. Amazing work. Source: buff.ly/2K6mGtD
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Adam Turner @adamturner23.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Sunday morning visit to see Isaac's name and heart at the Covid memorial wall.
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National Emergency Briefing @nebriefing.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
This is such a serious issue. It's time for the government to level with the public about the threats from the climate and nature crisis - and what can still be done if we face the challenge together as a nation. #NationalEmergencyBriefing
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Devon @countyofdevon.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Water company fined almost £8m for sewage spills #Devon #BBCNews
bbc.co.uk
South West Water fined almost £8m for sewage spills
South West Water previously entered guilty pleas to pollution offences spanning six years.
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Reposted by Dr Ben King 🌍
Dr Ben King 🌍 @benking01.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
In the meantime, my 'backup' HRV apps are telling me that all is fine this Tuesday morning (my regular day-off from teaching). EliteHRV High Readiness and Balance. KubiosHRV High Readiness and high RMSSD.
EliteHRV showing slight Sympathetic Nervous System dominance but 8 out of 10 Readiness.KubiosHRV showing High Readiness of 88% today and very high RMSSD value of 83ms - usually in the 60s for me.
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Dr Ben King 🌍 @benking01.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
It's now first thing on Tuesday morning and I don't have a Morning Stability reading from Visible Health, because it has just changed to 'overnight readings.' I have used Visible for over 3 years (since May 2023) and every morning since then I have taken a Morning Check-in HRV reading...
Your score is not available today
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Dr Ben King 🌍 @benking01.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
It was very close (!) but I ended Monday within all of my known 'Budgets' - For movement [ #KiActiv ] and for PacePoints [ #VisibleHealth - Based on Heartrate across the day ] 🙏
KiActiv movement data graphed. 56 minutes of Moderate movement across Monday.Visible 23.9 out of 24 pace points used on Monday
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Dr Ben King 🌍 @benking01.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Have you watched the National Emergency Briefing @nebriefing.bsky.social yet? Here's a 15-minute edit: youtu.be/BK7AEuPnq-U?... #ClimateEmergency #ClimateCrisis #GlobalHeating
youtu.be
NEB Event Edit for the Campaign Against Climate Change
YouTube video by The National Emergency Briefing
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Mark Chadbourn @chadbourn.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
IRGC: “The American people live in a land that, in terms of fertility, is one of the best lands in the world. They have abundant water resources, energy and valuable minerals.
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Mark Chadbourn @chadbourn.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Trump’s weakness after his defeat in the Iran War is evident in how the Iranians feel comfortable ramping up their demands. Today an IRGC spokesperson said the US “must admit defeat” and withdraw from the region.
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Dr Ben King 🌍 @benking01.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
#Hope #NotAllAmericans
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Doug Parr @dougparr.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Based on current building patterns 115,000 new homes will be built in England’s flood zones in the next 10 years Many could become uninsurable in the future due to the risk of flooding, says Insurance company Aviva Which would make those houses essentially useless www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
bbc.co.uk
Aviva boss warns more homes will be uninsurable due to flood risk
Aviva boss Amanda Blanc said England was "for sure" building homes that might be uninsurable at some point in the future.
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The Guardian @theguardian.com · 29/09/2026
UN warns of ‘narrowing window’ to restore world’s forests
theguardian.com
UN warns of ‘narrowing window’ to restore world’s forests
Food and Agriculture Organization urges governments to make forest restoration a national priority The world faces a “narrowing window” to restore forests essential for food security and resistance to the climate emergency, a United Nations report has warned. More than 489m hectares (1.2bn acres) of forests have been cleared since 1990, while an even greater area is degraded, the world body said in a call for governments to make forest restoration a national priority. Continue reading...
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Dr Elisa Perego @elisaperego78.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
My new research is out. "Long Covid perspectives" addresses the recognition of #LongCovid as disease entity and patient-led advocacy movement, the paradigm shifts driven by LC advocacy-research, and challenges ahead (Perego 2026, preprint 2023) www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi...
Cover of book Covid studies Title of chapter by Elisa Perego
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Andy Brown @andybrown1951.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
View from Bolton Castle in North Yorkshire pretty impressive
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Dr Ben King 🌍 @benking01.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Magic! Look how well Reclining on the back seat of my car takes my Heartrate back down to Resting Pace, after it was elevated for over 9 hours 👇 And I know that I coped with a daily PacePoints budget of 30, a few months ago 🙏 A reminder that I am #PEM -symptom-free; this is #Pacing to AVOID PEM.
White bars on heartrate graph show REST
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Dr Ben King 🌍 @benking01.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Taught another active Year 7 (Geography) lesson, then decided to stay-on for another 3 hours, to get on-top of my large workload - Homework to assess, annual targets to set, lessons & fieldwork to plan... Despite resting, then sitting at my desk for most of that time, my heartrate hardly dropped...
Visible Health heartrate graph
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Dr Ben King 🌍 @benking01.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Just taught Physics lessons to Year 7 and then Year 8, back-to-back, with multiple hands-on experiments and demonstrations. Oh, and with a whole-school Fire Drill sandwiched in the middle! Surprised to have kept my exertion down lower than expected 🙏 ....
Heartrate graph. Lots of exertion in orange
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Guy Shrubsole @guyshrubsole.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
‘This summer may have been the coolest of our lifetimes,’ says Environment Secretary Angela Eagle at Labour conference, as she attacks the far right for denying climate change and being dangerously relaxed about the heatwaves
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emily fraser 🌿🐌✨ @emilyesfraser.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
I’m only seeing people with ME or Long Covid sharing this. If you’re not affected, can you please read it & share? Ableist propaganda goes viral all the time, which encourages outlets to publish more of it. Can we please make the truth go viral instead?
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Mike Sowden @mikeachim.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
I know there is a hell of a lot going on right now. But not all of it is bad. Some is astonishingly good - like the results of this study from June. Cervical cancer is a terribly cruel thing. This might, at long last, be the beginning of the end of it. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
BBC News headline "Young women now have 'close to zero' risk of cervical cancer death after HPV jab"
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Dr Ben King 🌍 @benking01.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Just taught Physics lessons to Year 7 and then Year 8, back-to-back, with multiple hands-on experiments and demonstrations. Oh, and with a whole-school Fire Drill sandwiched in the middle! Surprised to have kept my exertion down lower than expected 🙏 ....
Heartrate graph. Lots of exertion in orange
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Sophie Carr @sophiecarr.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
A few things from this weekend’s walks in the woodlands nearby. #berkhamsted #iphone15pro #awesomefoursome
Cool white fungi on a tree stump.Those lovely redwoods again - an avenue of them with fallen brown pine needles on the path below.Just a mushroom in the v of a branch on the ground.An enormous brown and white mushroom. About 1.5 times the size of my hand.
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Zack Labe @zacklabe.com · 27/09/2026
The last three months are the warmest on record globally, relative to every other June-July-August period since 1850. Data from NOAA/NCEI's NOAAGlobalTempv6.1.0.
Line graph time series of global land mean surface temperature anomalies for each June-August period from 1850 through 2026. There is a long-term increasing trend and large year-to-year variability. The mean surface temperature anomaly averaged for June-August 2026 was 1.21°C for global land areas. Anomalies are computed relative to a 1901-2000 climate baseline. Data from NOAA/NESDIS/NCEI NOAAGlobalTemp v6.1.0.
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Dr Ben King 🌍 @benking01.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Checking my Before-And-After #KiActiv movement data, it's clear that I Rested for much of the gym session (35 minutes). 29 minutes of Light Movement. 12 minutes of Moderate movement. 1 minute of Vigorous movement. It gives me great pleasure and keeps me SANE 🙏 #LongCovid
KiActiv movement graphs from before the gymKiActiv movement graphs after the gym
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Dr Ben King 🌍 @benking01.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
My gym sessions are now twice-weekly 🙏 Flexibility, Strength & Cardio. Fewer than three #VisibleHealth PacePoints used despite (carefully paced) weight training and two runs on the treadmill - one minute of which was sprinting 🙂 #LongCovid #Pacing
Visible heartrate graph. Exertion when on treadmill. Lots of rest reclining on floorUp-tick of Pacing graph but still 6 pacepoints behind my pacesetter
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Prof Ian Hall @ianhall.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
European seas averaged 21.6 C (70.9 F) between June and August, the highest in 45 years of available data. www.reuters.com/world/europe...
reuters.com
How Europe’s intensifying marine heatwaves threaten its fisheries
As drought spread and wildfires raged across Europe this summer, the extraordinary heat didn't stop at the shoreline.
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Dr. Aaron Thierry @thierryaaron.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
From 2011: "Faced with the combined threats of land subsidence and rising temperatures and sea levels, the World Bank has predicted that Bangkok’s flood risk will increase four-fold from now by 2050." #Bangkok #Thailand 🇹🇭 #ClimateEmergency
newsinfo.inquirer.net
Floods show what lies ahead for sinking Bangkok
The Thai capital, built on swampland, is slowly sinking and the floods currently besieging Bangkok could be merely a foretaste of a grim future as climate change makes its impact felt, experts say.
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Reuters @reuters.com · 27/09/2026
UK PM Burnham refuses to back Heathrow's third runway project reut.rs/4ybAnjE
reut.rs
UK PM Burnham refuses to back Heathrow's third runway project
British Prime Minister Andy Burnham declined to give his backing on Sunday to plans to build a third ​runway at Heathrow, saying it was a matter ‌for people who live near London's main airport.
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Conor Browne @brownecfm.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
I am rarely affected by discourse on social media, but the current wave of posts asserting that Long Covid is psychosomatic has angered me. To be very clear: if you're asserting that LC isn't a physical disease, you're ignorant of science. End of.
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Mouse @kazzav.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
It's not. My husband and I have just paid £190 for both of us to get vaccinated (I have a chronic condition, just not chronic enough, apparently, he gets vaxxed to lower risk) and we're doing that twice a year. Luckily, for now at least, we can afford it but many can't and that's unacceptable.
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Natalie Bennett @nataliegreenpeer.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Thinking of people of Bangkok. Yes, they are used to floods, but this is huge scale. "The capital recorded 487mm of rain between Sept 1 and 25, compared to an average of 269mm for the same period from 1991 to 2020" #ClimateEmergency www.bangkokpost.com/thailand/gen...
bangkokpost.com
All 50 Bangkok districts declared disaster areas
All 50 districts of Bangkok were declared disaster zones on Saturday after almost 48 hours of heavy rain that caused widespread flooding, traffic problems and disruptions to daily life.
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World Meteorological Organization @wmo-global.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
The Antarctic ozone hole in 2025 was one of the smallest in decades. 🌎 Yet UV exposure remains a concern: since the mid-1990s, it has increased by up to 20% in parts of Europe. ☀️ Effective UV protection remains essential. Learn more: bit.ly/WMOOzoneUVBulletin2026pr
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Kees van der Leun @sustainable2050.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
300 mm of rain in September is normal for Bangkok. 300 mm in 48 hours is not.
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