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David Higgins

@davidhiggins.bsky.social
9K followers 3.3K following 2.6K posts

Professor of Environmental Humanities at the University of Leeds, UK. Working on culture and environmental crisis. Writing a book about birds, loss, and restoration. Worried parent. Luddite. Opinions my own. Reposts ≠ endorsement.

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David Higgins @davidhiggins.bsky.social · 14h
Without wanting to let poor management off the hook, this is at least partly a result of HE policy from successive governments, which can be summed up as “let’s starve unis of funds and see what happens”
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Onni Gust @onnigust.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
41% staffing cuts in the Faculty of Arts at UoN. We're entering a wilderness of creativity and critical thinking.
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David Higgins @davidhiggins.bsky.social · 14h
Classic progress trap!
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David Higgins @davidhiggins.bsky.social · 14h
🙏
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David Higgins @davidhiggins.bsky.social · 14h
🙏
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David Higgins @davidhiggins.bsky.social · 14h
Telling it to bog off
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David Higgins @davidhiggins.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
I fucked up something at work today and part of it was me being an idiot and part of it was the increasingly confusing and dysfunctional array of devices, apps, and platforms that university education seems to require these days
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John Scalzi @scalzi.com · 05/10/2026
This is your occasional reminder that generative "AI" in particular could have been developed on public domain materials and/or licensed and compensated works but the major players intentionally, methodically and systemically chose to steal labor from working creative folks instead
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James Murray @james-bg.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
The pitch here seems to be, ‘we’ll build the houses and infrastructure we failed to build during the 14 years we were in government, but we’ll do it in the most damaging and lowest quality way possible’. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...
theguardian.com
Tories to pledge to scrap Environment Agency and Natural England
Shadow chancellor will also promise to scrap affordable homes regulations as part of strategy to refocus on growth
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David Higgins @davidhiggins.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Doing some Important Writing this morning: criticising a fen that I don't like very much.
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J. R. Carpenter @jrcarpenter.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
SCORES FOR WALKING, a new digital text piece launching at Light Night, Leeds 28-29 November openup.leeds.ac.uk/events/light...
openup.leeds.ac.uk
Light Night Leeds: Scores for Walking
Journey through the Yorkshire Dales like never before with J.R. Carpenter’s Scores for Walking; a...
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Dave Borthwick @borthwickdave.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
coastal. far low tide & everything distant. raptors (kestrel, buzzard) sweep scrub & merse. such geese that are on the flats (barnacle) occasionally spill themselves to settle. common darter with glitched eye buzzes you. butterfly a comma, the thin daymoon.
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David Higgins @davidhiggins.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
Beautiful day in Adel. Watching pied wagtails on the cricket pitch while my son has his tennis class. Distant chiffchaff calling. Occasional arrow thwack from the local archery club. Later, I will head to campus for an open day. Calm before the storm!
Blue sky. Green cricket pitch. Trees at the back.
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Clare Kelly @clarekelly.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Sick to the back teeth of people in academia passing papers, reports, emails etc. through an LLM, ostensibly to improve readability or whatever but actually just transforming human writing into repulsive, staccato, marketing-speak that has a veneer of validty but little-to-no actual fucking meaning
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David Higgins @davidhiggins.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Years ago, I used to spend a lot of time walking and running on Woodhouse Ridge in Leeds. I was back there this afternoon and reminded of what a haven it is within a busy urban area. Particularly picturesque Constable-style cloudscape today.
Looking over green wooded valley. Blue sky and cumulus clouds.
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Jonathon Booth @jboothhistory.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
jfc
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David Higgins @davidhiggins.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Reading some student work that is pretty flawed but I love it because it is idiosyncratic and interesting, and has not been within a million miles of an LLM.
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David Higgins @davidhiggins.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Definitely — I had been awake for hours anyway — birthday insomnia!
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David Higgins @davidhiggins.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Thank you!
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David Higgins @davidhiggins.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Thank you!
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David Higgins @davidhiggins.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Thank you!
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David Higgins @davidhiggins.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
I absolutely love going there!
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David Higgins @davidhiggins.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Birthday birdwatching on the Yorkshire coast. Yellow-browed warbler heard at Bempton but rarities proved elusive. Much seabird movement and thrushes and smaller birds making landfall. Something emotional about watching an exhausted chaffinch drop to the ground in the middle of a heavy squall!
Filey Brigg. Looking out along a rocky peninsula to the horizon. Sea surrounding. Grey-white sky.
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David Higgins @davidhiggins.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Thanks — and to you!
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David Higgins @davidhiggins.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
6 lifers — brilliant!
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David Higgins @davidhiggins.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Hope you have a good one!
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David Higgins @davidhiggins.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Planning some truly debauched celebrations for my birthday tomorrow (i.e. getting up at 4.30 am to go birdwatching)
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David Higgins @davidhiggins.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
wow: that is some quality venting! I see similar issues with "humanities and AI" roles and grants
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David Higgins @davidhiggins.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
yes i know the type!
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David Higgins @davidhiggins.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
AI companies are doing some of the most irresponsible shit in human history and universities are responding by partnering with them. It's great to see colleagues, individually and collectively, pushing back. But too many academics either have their heads in the sand or are enabling this imposition.
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David Higgins @davidhiggins.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Solidarity Hannah! All the best to you and your colleagues.
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hannah @hannahkateboast.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
I'm on strike for the next five weeks with @ucuedinburgh.bsky.social because management continues to threaten mass compulsory redundancies. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
bbc.co.uk
Edinburgh University lecturers begin five-week strike over cuts
Members of the University and Colleges Union are walking out in part of a long-running dispute over job and course cuts.
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David Higgins @davidhiggins.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
How I feel in the first week of teaching as I approach a middle-aged birthday while being surrounded by students emanating youthful energy
static.klipy.com
Falling Skeleton in a Room.
Alt: Falling Skeleton in a Room.
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David Higgins @davidhiggins.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
New version just dropped: Cannibal snakes! Cannibal snakes! We eat each other like cakes! Just like the humans do Oooo-oooo-oooo [other lyrics redacted as too disturbing]
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David Higgins @davidhiggins.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
In my defence, it has been a very long day
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David Higgins @davidhiggins.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
It’s called MIDdlemarch for a reason
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David Higgins @davidhiggins.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
I wish I'd seen that tour!
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Prof Bill McGuire @profbillmcguire.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
The UK has no strategic food reserves, imports more than 40 percent of its food, and grows most of the rest in parts of the country most prone to serious drought in the years and decades to come We are not - to say the least -in a good place www.theguardian.com/business/202...
theguardian.com
Most of UK’s essential food supply grown in drought-risk areas, report warns
Keys crops such as cereals, potatoes, sugar and oils grown in areas with moderate to very high risk
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David Higgins @davidhiggins.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Day one of the teaching term. Prepping while listening to the Twilight Sad: a band who somehow manage to be gloomier than their name promises.
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David Higgins @davidhiggins.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
As my son would say, "let's go!"
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David Higgins @davidhiggins.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
More plausible I think than large language models reaching AGI!
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David Higgins @davidhiggins.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Gen AI has come with massive opportunity costs. Think about how all the ingenuity and £££ blown on chatbots could have been used more constructively. For example, as an allergy sufferer, I would welcome serious investment in nanobots that can hunt and kill dust mites.
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Ben Williamson @benpatrickwill.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
The Department for Education's AI tutoring initiative is getting pounded with criticism from both sides. Some critics have launched a call to pause this initiative docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...
docs.google.com
OPEN LETTER: PAUSE THE NATIONAL ROLLOUT OF AI-MEDIATED TUTORING IN ENGLAND’S SCHOOLS
OPEN LETTER To the Rt Hon Andy Burnham MP, Prime Minister, and the Rt Hon Lucy Powell MP, Secretary of State for Education The Department for Education has announced plans to develop, what it calls, “...
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David Higgins @davidhiggins.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Whatever you do, dont participate in any of the footie yourself. Injury and/or humiliation guaranteed (I speak from bitter experience)
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David Higgins @davidhiggins.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Really enjoyed this excellent and informative book. Glad I didn’t let the blurb from climate change denier Matt Ridley put me off.
Paperback book with drawing of tree and birds on cover. 

Enthralling…. The remarkable story of an ingenious gentleman-scholar living at the dawn of the scientific revolution'
Matt Ridley
TIM
BIRKHEAD
The Wonderful
Mr
Willughby
The First True Ornithologist
BLOOMSBURY
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David Higgins @davidhiggins.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Based on my neighbourhood WhatsApp, there are a lot of them and they seem to believe any old nonsense they see on Facebook
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David Higgins @davidhiggins.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Not in this household!
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David Higgins @davidhiggins.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
I hate those AI nostalgia images so much — there’s always something creepy and nauseating about them. But they are clearly (and depressingly) effective with some demographics!
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David Higgins @davidhiggins.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Just saw an intelligent post with 1K+ likes; part of a thread on a serious and important topic. But, because I am a horrible pedant, I was unable to engage beyond being annoyed by the mixed metaphor in its second sentence.
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David Higgins @davidhiggins.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
It’s really sad that we’re still in this situation in 2026. I think some improvements have been made at my uni but financial pressures don’t help. And of course we’re seeing a lot of smaller unis that traditionally have a more diverse intake pulling programmes and making staff redundant
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