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Jonathan Clarke

@jrlclarke.bsky.social
3.1K followers 1.2K following 559 posts

Associate Professor in Global Sustainable Development. Interested in cities, energy, water and housing. Methods around resilience, representation and co-creation.

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Reposted by Jonathan Clarke
Rachel Cunliffe @rmcunliffe.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
This is your semi-regular reminder that pensioner poverty: a) is real b) is significantly less prevalent than working-age poverty and half the rate of child poverty, and c) is such that a pensioner is statistically more likely to live in a household worth over £1 million than to live in poverty
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Cas Mudde @casmudde.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
The decline of Reform — and the fragmentation of the far right — should be a major news story too. But most media barely care… More evidence that media are not “just reporting the news” but are actively shaping it. With significant political consequences.
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Pete Apps @peteapps.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Breaking: the Met Police has submitted charging files to the Crown Prosecution Service resulting from its Grenfell fire investigation. The files cover 54 individuals and 20 companies and cover charges including fraud, misconduct in public office and manslaughter
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Robert Saunders @robertsaunders.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
It’s a mark of the corruption of our whole way of thinking about the world that trying to meet a planetary emergency is routinely described as “ideological”, while continuing to accelerate it is presented as “pragmatic” and “economic”.
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Andrew Sissons @acjsissons.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Energy bills are now almost certain to rise sharply in January, and the conversation will inevitably turn to short term government bill support, as it did in 2022. One way the government could do this is to *fix* household gas bills for 3 or more years, as we proposed here (in option 1)...
nesta.org.uk
Energy affordability options: introduce a gas price stabiliser
The case for introducing a gas price stabiliser.
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Emily✨ @emilyoram.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Liquid Bluesky
National Trust• @nationaltrust.org.uk 
Nobody has ever regretted a scone after a long walk.

Except someone with ceoliac disease
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Samira Shackle @samirashackle.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
This is one of the saddest stories I've worked on. Luna Wong died by suicide 10 months after coming to the UK for boarding school. Her death exposes a series of safeguarding gaps. If this affected British children, I can't help but feel there would be more outcry www.theguardian.com/society/2026...
theguardian.com
‘They accepted the money but didn’t take care of my child’: what Luna Wong’s death reveals about the treatment of international students in the UK
When her parents waved her off to study in England they hoped it would be a fresh start the 16-year-old needed after struggling with her mental health in Hong Kong. Instead, 10 months later, she was d...
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Ben Chu @benchu.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
What's happened to crude oil flows from the Middle East since the US war on Iran began? 🛢️ Has Iran effectively choked off the Strait of Hormuz? Or is the Strait now basically open as the US claims? & what's happened to other exit routes? Here's a helpful way of visualising it...📊 👇1/8
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Matt Round @mattround.com · 28/09/2026
Gosh, I’m so shocked at all the stories emerging about how Meta’s Muse agent is a recklessly bodged-together thing that doesn’t respect privacy... www.inc.com/jason-aten/m...
inc.com
Meta’s New Muse AI Agent Read My Private Messages. I Never Asked It To
Permission isn't the same and what a user actually expects your AI product will do with their personal information.
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Ian @ianpatterson.com · 12/09/2026
Open House No 4 today, The Cloud House , Gospel Oak. Absokute joy to see - colourful as wotsit.
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Matt Severn @mattsevern.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Both Starmer & Burnham continue the project begun by Johnson to sift and sort jobs into two piles. “Real” and “fake” Fishermen, oil & gas, mechanics were declared real Entire industries that are £bn British success stories like theatre, film production and video game design are classed as fake
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PoliticsJOE @politicsjoe.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Cory Doctorow reckons the AI Bubble is about to burst. Is he right? @doctorow.pluralistic.net
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The Guardian @theguardian.com · 25/09/2026
Skylarks and sandwich terns among new birdies on reserve created from ‘boring old golf course’
theguardian.com
Skylarks and sandwich terns among new birdies on reserve created from ‘boring old golf course’
National Trust has transformed Sandilands in Lincolnshire into a nature reserve with wetlands and wading pools There is no chance of a birdie or an eagle any more. But there are skylarks, short-eared owls, avocets and curlew. Sandilands, a former golf course on the Lincolnshire coast, has been transformed by the National Trust into a 2km-long nature reserve with wetlands, wading pools, rough grassland and coastal scrub. Continue reading...
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Ketan Joshi @ketanjoshi.co · 25/09/2026
Great breakdown of all the v v wild statements in this interview
In the interview, Huang also (unfairly) attributes record renewable energy purchases to AI. He blames climate action for stalling the construction of energy infrastructure, presumably for fossil fuels.
I think we just have to acknowledge that we got ourselves really gummed up in climate change and sustainable energy, and as a result, we just didn’t plan enough energy production.
Then he proclaims that AI is “the best opportunity we have” to “turn a corner on climate change, if you want a future that’s sustainable.” He sees AI accelerating demand for clean energy in the long term. But AI already needs a lot of energy now, and fossil fuels are what we’ve got.
“A more polluting AI buildout is not inevitable.”
But renewables were already the fastest-growing sources of new electricity generation before the recent generative AI boom. It’s generally cheaper to generate power from a wind or solar farm than a new gas or coal plant. But Trump, who lined his campaign coffers with money from the fossil fuel industry, is incentivizing the development of gas and coal plants to power data centers.
And now, data centers are in turn spurring the development of far more fossil fuel infrastructure. Air pollution associated with AI could lead to up to 1,300 premature deaths and more than $20 billion in public health costs by 2028, according to a study from UC Riverside, Caltech, and the Rochester Institute of Technology.
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Resolution Foundation @resolutionfoundation.org · 24/09/2026
📨 Stamp Duty discourages moves that would put people in homes and jobs that suit them better. 🗑️ Council Tax bills still rest on 1991 valuations, even though prices have diverged massively since then. Since 1995, house prices have risen 7.3-fold in Inner London but only 4.2-fold in the North East.
Chart showing House Price Index for regions of England (January 1995=100)
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Resolution Foundation @resolutionfoundation.org · 24/09/2026
The UK raises more from property taxes than any other OECD country. 3.7% of GDP in 2023, against an OECD average of 2% 📈 ⤵️ But we raise that money badly. Our new briefing note sets out how to put England's broken housing taxes on firmer foundations 🧵 buff.ly/SAUyopI
Chart showing Property tax revenues as a proportion of GDP, by country: OECD
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Sarah Elizabeth Cox @oispooky.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
2yrs after I finished my MA History at Goldsmiths, my research rights were bought and I was hired to work as historical consultant on this TV show. It's had BAFTA and International Emmy nominations. I got a book deal, too. Goldsmiths: "No point in MA History, let's fire everyone and delete it."
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Prof Ian Hall @ianhall.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Climate change isn’t just about heatwaves and emissions targets. When climate and nature loss affect food, migration, economies and geopolitical stability, they become national security issues too. That conversation is long overdue. www.theguardian.com/environment/...
theguardian.com
UK shares findings of damning climate crisis national security report suppressed under Starmer
El Niño poses critical threat to nations’ defences, says Ed Miliband in presentation to global foreign ministers
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The Empty City @davidallengreen.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Yes, there are technical, formal legal reasons why terrorism law is applied to protesters carrying placards, but not to political activists slashing boats. But stepping back, there is something wrong with a legal regime which criminalises one more than the other. A triumph of form over function.
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Sam Freedman @samfr.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
The difference between the performance of immigrants in England and Western Europe is staggering. (20 pts equals a year of learning.) I looked at this in detail in the post - it can't be explained away by language or relative advantage of different immigrant communities. There is a policy factor.
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Dave Andress @davidandress.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Universities once again to blame for everything that happens to graduates for the rest of their lives…
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Alan Lester @alanlester.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
It’s time for a zero tolerance crack down on far right thugs. They’re costing the taxpayer, soaking up police resources, intimidating peaceful communities & delaying the measures that are reducing the asylum backlog & its cost. Enough is enough. End the menace. www.theguardian.com/world/2026/s...
theguardian.com
Far-right activist Daniel Thomas slashes dinghy in Channel with blade while rescue worker onboard
Thomas called followers to protest against arrival of asylum seekers in Gosport, but Border Force instead transported them to Dover
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Marie Le Conte @youngvulgarian.marieleconte.com · 23/09/2026
am having to force myself to live in a state of at least partial denial because I find the currenty situation so deeply nauseating that constant knowledge of it would probably have a significant impact on my day-to-day
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Lyndsey Stonebridge @lyndseystonebri.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
You're going to be needing specialists in: languages, narrative, history, psychology, information, mythology, conspiracies, etc, etc. then? #humanities #socialscience
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Will Jennings📉🗳️ @drjennings.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
There are so many crimes in this thread you have to wonder what the police and Home Secretary think they are doing at this point.
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Prof. Eliot Jacobson @climatecasino.net · 22/09/2026
Your 'bonus moment of doom' for today: "The latest science confirms that we have breached, that we've transgressed seven of the nine planetary boundaries that regulate the health of the entire planet." www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnpE...
youtube.com
Official Planetary Health Check 2026 with Johan Rockström
YouTube video by Planetary Boundaries Science
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Jim Pickard @pickardje.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
how much has Trump's war in the Middle East cost British home-owners in higher mortgage payments? "British homeowners are paying an average of £840 a year more when they refinance their mortgages, as the rising borrowing costs triggered by the Iran war start to impact" www.ft.com/content/789c...
ft.com
UK homeowners take £840-a-year mortgage hit from Iran war
Rising borrowing costs triggered by conflict in Middle East start to impact consumers’ spending power
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Dave Andress @davidandress.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
More people need to remember that Russia is not the USSR, and this isn't 1983. There are not massive tank armies waiting to surge across our borders. They can't beat Ukraine. They couldn't beat us. The problem is persuading the lunatics in charge of that.
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Adam Bienkov @adambienkov.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
All these platforms were originally sold to us as being liberating tools of free speech and expression. Now they're being actively used by their owners to suppress it www.theguardian.com/technology/2...
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Patrick Thomson @patrickthomson.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
This Black Mirror episode is an allegory of AI in the workplace: shortly after you come to rely on it, the price will ↑↑ and the experience will ↓↓. It happened to AirBnB & Uber, and it's why you should NEVER build a workflow on something that's still burning VC. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_...
en.wikipedia.org
Common People (Black Mirror) - Wikipedia
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Reposted by Jonathan Clarke
Stephen Collins @stephencollins.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

1
Wide shot of the BRITISH MUSEUM. There are suggestions of fascism around the streets - tanks, barricades, an Orwellian 'Big Brother'-style poster on a wall. A voice of a TOUR GUIDE emanates from the museum:

TOUR GUIDE:
So the Tapestry tells acrucial chapter of our nation's history...

2 
[Cut to interior of museum. A long Bayeaux-style TAPESTRY is on display, and the Tour Guide is speaking to a tour group]

TOUR GUIDE [smiling]:
How modern fascist Britain was created. 

3
TOUR GUIDE:
The Tapestry begins here with the 2008 Crash, then austerity, then the AI Crash...

4
TOUR GUIDE:
...and by the end of the room it's just full-on fash. 

5
CHILD IN TOUR GROUP [gesturing to the tapestry]:
What's this middle bit?

TOUR GUIDE:
This is the 2026 Battle of Legitimate Concerns 

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TOUR GUIDE:
[show a reporter standing next to the Dover protests]
Here's the media saying the government have got to do something about the legitimate concerns...

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CHILD:
...About the failure of capitalism?

TOUR GUIDE:
No about brown people on boats

8
CHILD:
[pointing at boats crossing the sea on the tapestry]
Are these boats the mega-dinghies?

TOUR GUIDE:
Not all of them

9
[we see one of the boats  is a giant yacht]
TOUR GUIDE:
That one's a superyacht,
carrying money from the American fascists to the British ones.

10
TOUR GUIDE:
You see really it's as much a story of convergence as it is of conflict.

[An alarm sounds in the museum]
DING DING DING DING 

11
TOUR GUIDE:
Ok, tour over everyone 

12
TOUR GUIDE:
It's time for the Two Minute Hate!

[They all leave the museum]

[ends]
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Dr. Jonathan Foley @globalecoguy.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
God bless the Daily Show. Do you really want tech bros who don’t understand basic chemistry to try to solve climate change?
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Tom Newby @tomnewby.co.uk · 18/09/2026
This is pretty terrifying. An architect generated structural engineering calculations using AI. The calculations looked convincing to a non expert but were fundamentally wrong, and unsafe.
cross-safety.org
Inappropriate use of artificial intelligence (AI) in structural design
Concerns are raised about the unverified use of AI-generated structural design outputs to justify the installation of heavy plant on an existing building roof.
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Sunder Katwala (sundersays) @sundersays.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
Jim Ratcliffe says two big issues are spiralling benefits and immigration. Neither Times (Sunday Times) not many of the follow-up reports mention that immigration has fallen dramatically. Ratcliffe has toned down his language but doesn't seem to have noticed that www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/...
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Jim Waterson @jim.londoncentric.media · 19/09/2026
Just fantastic party distribution, how did the Conservatives achieve that, a real big effort to do that.
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John Oxley @joxley.jmoxley.co.uk · 18/09/2026
What on earth is happening?
  This had become the new normal. RNLI crew members had been forced to take their permits off their cars after their tyres have been repeatedly slashed. Most of them have been pilloried at the school gates or turned away from local pubs. One man who worked in search and rescue had been beaten unconscious and hospitalised, recognised for TV interviews he had done.
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Plashing Vole @plashingvole.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
Tell me your university is about to go bust without etc.
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James Austin @jamesdaustin.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
It is incredibly annoying that the country best placed to withstand the US' utter idiocy and strategic insanity in foreign policy, is the US.
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Alex Hern @hern.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
continually maddening that people blame "the water companies" for hosepipe bans when "the water companies" have been begging to build new reservoirs but a few retired QCs in Oxfordshire have used the entire weight of the british planning system to prevent it www.theguardian.com/business/202...
theguardian.com
Thames Water redraws mega-reservoir plan amid local opposition
A new public consultation has opened on the 150bn-litre above-ground White Horse project in Abingdon, Oxfordshire
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Margot Finn @eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
'Britain’s debate about universities has become strangely one-sided. We scrutinise the supply of graduate skills....Far less attention is paid to the demand side: whether Britain’s economy is creating enough high-skilled opportunities to make full use of the talent universities produce.' Good stuff
hepi.ac.uk
Universities Produce Talent. Economies Produce Returns. - HEPI
Join the Policy Institute at King’s College London and HEPI on Tuesday 15 September, from 6.30pm to 7.45pm, at Bush House, London, for a free event exploring the future of higher education in England....
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Anne Applebaum @anneapplebaum.wsocial.eu · 14/09/2026
Your regular reminder: If the Russians stop fighting, the war ends. If the Ukrainians stop fighting, their land will be occupied, their leaders will be killed, their history and language will be erased, their children will be kidnapped to serve Russia.
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Will Jennings📉🗳️ @drjennings.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
Politicians on the centre-left and centre-right simply don't seem to understand they are in an existential battle for the future of British democracy.
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Robert Saunders @robertsaunders.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
A serious democratic society simply cannot allow this. That's £72 million from just two men. (Both, until lately, based overseas). The average UK earner (full-time) would have to work for over 1,800 years to raise that much. It's a nuclear strike on any pretence at the equality of political power
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Pete Fraser @petefrasermusic.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
They never got rid of the paedophile stuff on Twitter, but politicians just took the dude’s word for it. Astonishing,
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Alex von Tunzelmann @alexvont.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
If you feel like donating to the RNLI, here’s a link. I just have. Their minimum donation is £2: I think it might be nice for them to receive a lot of donations this week, even if they’re mostly very modest. Just so they know a lot of people out here appreciate their work. rnli.org/support-us/g...
rnli.org
Donate to the RNLI and help save lives at sea
Your donations really make a difference. We depend on your generosity to educate people to stay safe and prevent tragedies on and offshore. Donate here.
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Robert Saunders @robertsaunders.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
I'm probably a dinosaur, but I wish students were allowed more time just to be students: to study, to read, to think, to talk to each other, to have big ideas - maybe even to have fun now & then. I'm not convinced turning unis into training centres is going to fix bigger problems in the jobs market
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Robert Saunders @robertsaunders.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
A few thoughts on this. 1. More than 2/3 of full-time students *already* do paid work in termtime - to an extent that already shrinks what we can realistically ask them to do. Just adding more (unpaid?) employment risks further squeezing the space for what they're actually at university to do.
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Nicolas Fulghum @nicolasfulghum.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Gas power costs are reaching energy crisis levels again in the UK, which will inevitably push bills up for consumers. The fortunes of the British economy are still tied to the price of a single fossil fuel. When bills go up, remember that this is the reason why.
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lastpositivist.bsky.social @lastpositivist.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Wtf do the government want from us here!? They plainly, *plainly*, do not actually want international students. Their whole line of policy for years has been making it more difficult for such people to come here or stay after they graduate! Why are they also out here encouraging us to attract more!?
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