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Peter Lipman

@peterlipman.bsky.social
1.9K followers 109 following 5.3K posts

I've been a teacher, a co-operative worker, a lawyer and external affairs director at UK charity Sustrans, and am the former chair of Transition Network, the Centre for Sustainable Energy and Common Cause Foundation.

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Reposted by Peter Lipman
Prof Julia Steinberger 🌹🌱🌍 #ClimateAction #Fightfascism @jksteinberger.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Unless academia learns to protect itself against AI generated papers and proposals, it will be overwhelmed, polluted and discredited by pure slop. marie-sklodowska-curie-actions.ec.europa.eu/whats-new/ne...
marie-sklodowska-curie-actions.ec.europa.eu
MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2026 receives record number of applications
The 2026 call has attracted considerable interest from the research community with 21,627 applications submitted.
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Prof Julia Steinberger 🌹🌱🌍 #ClimateAction #Fightfascism @jksteinberger.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
If there is no interview stage, it will be impossible to assess the actual competence, knowledge and ability of the applicants. AI is trained on pre-existing content, and is by definition incapable of true innovation. It does not think, it is not intelligent: it plagiarises and iterates, badly. ...
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Prof Julia Steinberger 🌹🌱🌍 #ClimateAction #Fightfascism @jksteinberger.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
they will be very tempted themselves to turn to AI to assess the overwhelming volume of proposals. And as we know, AI has a pro-AI bias, which will mean that the proposals funded will be AI slop rather than genuine human-driven innovation and creativity.
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Prof Julia Steinberger 🌹🌱🌍 #ClimateAction #Fightfascism @jksteinberger.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
3) implement an interview stage for shortlisted proposals as for the ERC (this is something we are doing in teaching as well btw). These measures are vital. If the reviewers are not given the ability and means to weed out AI from human-generated proposals, ...
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Prof Julia Steinberger 🌹🌱🌍 #ClimateAction #Fightfascism @jksteinberger.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
To salvage this program @ec.europa.eu Commissioner Ekatarina Zaharieva should take the following measures immediately: 1) demand AI use disclosure form with all proposals, as is now standard for articles. 2) enable reviewers to detect AI generated content, and give it lower marks. ...
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Prof Julia Steinberger 🌹🌱🌍 #ClimateAction #Fightfascism @jksteinberger.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
In case it wasn't clear, academia is crumbling under the enormous flood of AI-generated content. The latest victim is the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) flagship EU postdoctoral fellowships. The number of submissions has more than doubled in the past 3 years.
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Zooey Neumann @zoomoo.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
This is such an uplifting list. To see what we have already achieved for the common good ✊️
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Cat Hobbs @cathobbs.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Comment in the Guardian today refers to British Leyland - hasn't existed since 1986 - as a reason not to bring Thames Water into public ownership Meanwhile in 2026, PUBLICLY OWNED Ordnance Survey is just quietly getting on with the job 👇 www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
bbc.co.uk
Ordnance Survey mapping data helps identify future wildfire risk
Britain's mapping service provides data that could help predict the risk of future wildfires.
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Saul Staniforth @saulstaniforth.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
In NY yesterday people protested against Netanyahu & more than 100 of them were arrested Netanyahu, who's wanted for using starvation of civilians as a method of war, intentionally directing attacks against civilians, & extermination or murder as a crime against humanity, wasn't
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The Guardian @theguardian.com · 25/09/2026
‘Devastating’: council rejects Frome residents’ bid for regeneration project
theguardian.com
‘Devastating’: council rejects Frome residents’ bid for regeneration project
Locals raised £1m for Mayday Saxonvale scheme involving homes and park but Somerset officials agreed deal with London-based real estate company A bold bid by residents of a progressive town in the English West Country who raised almost £1m to create what could have been the UK’s largest community-led regeneration project is in tatters. More than 1,000 residents of Frome in Somerset had clubbed together with the aim of building homes, workspaces, a riverside park and a lido on a brownfield area in their town centre. Continue reading...
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Cat Hobbs @cathobbs.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Here's how and why Andy Burnham must bring water and other key public services and natural monopolies into PUBLIC OWNERSHIP (6/6) weownit.org.uk/research-and...
weownit.org.uk
How and why Andy Burnham should deliver public ownership
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Cat Hobbs @cathobbs.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Thames Water's hedge fund creditors are from the US where water is 87% publicly owned (and sewage systems 97% publicly owned) They are ripping off 16 million so-called "customers" with no choice because they've been allowed to do so JUST TAKE IT BACK (5/6)
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Cat Hobbs @cathobbs.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Let's look at and learn from best practice public ownership here in the UK and around the world The cleanest rivers and seas are in publicly owned systems (4/6) weownit.org.uk/news/europes...
weownit.org.uk
Guess what separates Europe’s cleanest rivers and seas from the UK’s? Public ownership.
“Not a single privatised water utility comes even close to their performance,” Professor Asit Biswas, water expert and winner of the Stockholm Water Prize, told the Financial Times.
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Cat Hobbs @cathobbs.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
See Scottish Water which is not perfect but invests at least 35% more in infrastructure than the privatised English water companies Or Paris which has bills that are 1/3 lower and has cleaned up the River Seine while giving citizens a say (3/6)
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Cat Hobbs @cathobbs.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Publicly owned companies can be run "expertly and efficiently" with "commercial discipline and expertise" See the Met Office, Ordnance Survey, the Land Registry, the Royal Mint which are well run publicly owned organisations that make a profit for the public purse (2/6)
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Cat Hobbs @cathobbs.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
What an absolutely ridiculous conversation England is having about its extreme ideological experiment with privatisation It's really not that complicated 9 out of 10 water systems worldwide are in public ownership (1/6) www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
theguardian.com
Andy Burnham talks about ‘public control’ of the utilities but it’s a minefield. We can lead him through it | Will Hutton and Andy Haldane
Nationalisation is not the ultimate answer for companies like Thames Water – but they could be run for the public benefit, say journalist and economist Will Hutton and former chief economist of the Ba...
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Rebecca Solnit @rebeccasolnit.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
The human intelligence atrophy aspect of AI also deserves more attention:
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Daniel Swain @weatherwest.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
For the record: The University of California has never asked me for anything like this. But I am seeing this line of questioning arising in a rapidly growing number of American contexts. It has been asked of me, personally, elsewhere. And that is very, very alarming.
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Marc Wilson @marcwilson.co.uk · 24/09/2026
NAZA to stream for free on Guardian website. www.thewrap.com/creative-con...
thewrap.com
'NAZA' to Stream for Free on The Guardian Website After International Rollout
After its theatrical rollout in over 55 territories, the Israel/Gaza documentary NAZA will be streaming for free online.
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ProPublica @propublica.org · 25/09/2026
Oil giant BP not only funded the research behind an influential climate science paper, but company execs even tried to revise versions of it. “Chaps, I have had a go at rewriting the paper,” a BP climate adviser wrote the researchers at one point. (Published June w/ @drilledmedia.bsky.social)
propublica.org
How BP Execs Influenced a Climate Study That Shaped a Generation of Global Policy
BP sponsored an elite Princeton research center to address the climate problem without getting off fossil fuels. Its key work, a paper known as “Wedges,” guided climate discourse for a generation.
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Climate Central @climatecentral.org · 25/09/2026
🌡️Humid heat can be dangerous to human health. High humidity makes it harder for sweat to evaporate, reducing the body’s ability to cool itself and increasing the risk of heat-related illness. Learn more with #ClimateCentral: www.climatecentral.org/climate-matt...
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Climate Central @climatecentral.org · 25/09/2026
Millions of people across India and Pakistan are forecast to experience dangerous humid heat linked to climate change on September 24: 📍 India: Around 560 million people — nearly 40% of the population 📍 Pakistan: Around 140 million people
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Climate Central @climatecentral.org · 25/09/2026
🚨Both and Pakistan have experienced sustained dangerous humid heat this month, much of which would not have occurred without human-caused climate change. Today, dangerous humid heat driven by climate change is peaking in the region — with around 700 million people forecast to feel it⬇️
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Oakland Institute @oaklandinstitute.org · 10/09/2026
Elon Musk tweeted in 2020 that the coup against Bolivian president Evo Morales had to do with lithium, proudly stating, “We will coup whoever we want! Deal with it.” @mittaloak.bsky.social reveals the powers at play still seeking to control Bolivia’s natural resources 👇
oaklandinstitute.org
Trump, Paz, and Lithium – US Pivot on Bolivia
June 2026: Just six months into office, Bolivian president Rodrigo Paz Pereira’s, tethered on the edge. Starting late April, as demonstrators and security forces clashed in the country’s capital, La P...
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Anuradha Mittal @mittaloak.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
I just wrote a @theactionnetwork.bsky.social letter: Demand Congress block 60,000 bombs: War criminals are not welcome here! Write one here: actionnetwork.org/letters/dema...
actionnetwork.org
Demand Congress Block 60,000 Bombs: War criminals are not welcome here!
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's visit to the United Nations in New York is a chance to remind our lawmakers who they’re supposed to serve—their American constituents, not a foreign governm...
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Duane Froese @tephrafan.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Our new paper in GRL: "permafrost detachment slides." Entire frozen hillsides in NWT are failing from the base of permafrost creating the largest permafrost landslides in northern Canada. Thaw is driven by past wildfires and warming. Led by Joe Young. OA 👇 doi.org/10.1029/2026... #permafrost
doi.org
Permafrost Detachment Slides: A Distinct High‐Magnitude Permafrost Mass Wasting Process
PDSs fail through bottom-up thaw and detach the entire permafrost profile, fundamentally different from top-down thaw-driven mass wasting Climate warming and wildfire drive heat to the permafrost...
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Peter Lipman @peterlipman.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
The Solar Boom in Developing Nations: Fast, Chaotic, and Unequal e360.yale.edu/features/dev...
e360.yale.edu
The Solar Boom in Developing Nations: Fast, Chaotic, and Unequal
Soaring energy costs are driving a solar rush in developing countries, but as households unplug from the grid, those who remain face higher electricity bills. If governments fail to manage the buildou...
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Peter Lipman @peterlipman.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
A Sunny Week in New York billmckibben.substack.com/p/a-sunny-we...
billmckibben.substack.com
A Sunny Week in New York
At least in certain ways
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Peter Lipman @peterlipman.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Lazy Journalism At The 'End Of The World' karlbode.com/lazy-journal...
karlbode.com
Lazy Journalism At The 'End Of The World'
U.S. corporate media long ago gave up on accurately describing material reality.
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Peter Lipman @peterlipman.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
ChatGPT Helped Tumbler Ridge Shooter Focus on Guns, Tactics, and Terror www.motherjones.com/media/2026/0...
motherjones.com
ChatGPT helped the Tumbler Ridge school shooter focus on guns, tactics, and terror, our investigation reveals
OpenAI’s chatbot fed the shooter’s violent fantasies and planning up to the massacre.
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Reposted by Peter Lipman
Dan Snow @thehistoryguy.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
What are ‘the canonical ethnicities’ anyway? German? Greek? Hungarian? Not Austrian, Belgian, Italian, Moroccan, Russian, obvs. Imagine being so assinine. You can be an Austrian German but not a Scottish English. A Bosnian Serb but not an Icelandic Norwegian. Where are the Burgundians at?
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Dan Snow @thehistoryguy.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
You know who else was obsessed with dancing around on the pinheads of imagined classifications based on where great grandparents were born and what they believed? The Nazis.
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Dan Snow @thehistoryguy.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Those absolute head bangers have convinced themselves that Churchill, King Charles, Henry V and Brunel aren’t proper English. Robert the Bruce isn’t Scottish. They are modern phrenologists. They spend the weekend working out what George Best was.
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Dan Snow @thehistoryguy.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
To live in a world with minute, irrelevant distinctions of religion and nationality. What a dream.
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Dan Snow @thehistoryguy.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
England is a made up thing. It has no basis in the ineluctable laws of nature. Its extent is defined by Edward II getting his arse handed to him. Athelstan conquering York. The Welsh of Cumbria were incorporated, the Welsh of Gwynedd were not. It is a political idea, an aspiration - not taxonomy.
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Jen Rice @jenrice.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Folks this is a big deal
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Karl Bode @karlbode.com · 24/09/2026
I wrote about the press' irresponsible AI doomsday coverage:
karlbode.com
Lazy Journalism At The 'End Of The World'
U.S. corporate media long ago gave up on accurately describing abject reality.
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David Zipper @davidzipper.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Irony alert: NYC Climate Week features a session about "Reducing Driving As Climate Action" that's sponsored by Waymo, a company poised to massively expand car use luma.com/parking-70cz...
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Ketan Joshi @ketanjoshi.co · 24/09/2026
Indeed, the evidentiary skew Gillwald highlights there is very much the same RE what we found on 'AI is good for climate change' in our various analyses Yet still the need for "who could really know either way" type takes ketanjoshi.co/2026/02/17/b... ketanjoshi.co/2026/09/16/n...
ketanjoshi.co
NEW REPORT – The AI climate hoax
A new report on AI greenwashing, analysing the rhetoric and evidence behind the idea big tech will solve climate change
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Ketan Joshi @ketanjoshi.co · 24/09/2026
Once you know its name you will notice it EVERYWHERE among nervous politicians who don't want to be seen as 'anti-progress' or 'anti-tech', and who are completely and badly misreading the widespread public mood on these technologies. Same w/ fossil fuels, acknowledging how much 'progress' they did
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Ketan Joshi @ketanjoshi.co · 24/09/2026
This piece touches on an extremely important and terrible trend: AI-false-balance among polite centre-left politicians. Every critique HAS to begin with something like "AI is here to stay. With the right rules, it can be a force for good. But........." www.techpolicy.press/the-life-and...
Information integrity is one of seven critical issues in the Preliminary Report of the UN’s Independent Scientific Panel on AI released in July at the Global Dialogue on Artificial Intelligence. It warns that AI can erode shared reality and civic participation through “epistemic erosion,” the gradual wearing away of society’s ability to distinguish truth from falsehood. Opening the Dialogue, the UN’s secretary-general, António Guterres, tied that erosion directly to the viral and exponential nature of advanced data driven technologies: “A machine-enabled lie can now persuade as effectively as the truth, and authentic evidence can be dismissed as fake.”“A society that cannot agree on what is real cannot defend itself,” Guterres said.

And yet he did not reference the threat of AI to amplify inequality, unless governed effectively. Instead, Guterres casts AI as “the great equaliser of the 21st century ” achievable by developing countries on the technology fast-track through safe systems that honor human rights, with real transparency about labor and planetary impacts. Getting this right, he said, is “at the heart of our common future.”

Yet the Panel’s Report, subtitled as an “evidence-based assessment of the opportunities, risks and impacts of AI” provides no evidence that AI will be a ‘great equaliser’. On the contrary, despite its curious ‘balancing’ of every claim with a counter claim, the heavily referenced report actually demonstrates far more evidence of the negative consequences of AI, while doing very little to support claims that AI will help in the achievement of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. Regardless, this did not stop the ‘great equaliser’ mantra from being repeated by numerous member states and heads of multilateral bodies who subsequently addressed the forum.

In fact the report highlights the lack of — and unevenness of — evidence, including on some of the big ticket items: productivity gains, labor market effects, value-chain impacts, and …
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Manuel Salgado @manuelsalgado.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Ah yes, the anger over climate policy being expanded from white male technocrats to - *checks notes* - the people whom it actually effects. I've seen this man rail online in wild ways, but wanting a smaller tent so you can simply dictate to those who's interests you don't' care about is WILD.
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Acyn @acyn.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Room empties out at the UN as Netanyahu begins his speech.
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BladeoftheSun @bladeofthes.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Crowds outside the UN shouting "Netanyahu you can't hide, you are wanted for Genocide." As Netanyahu will be speaking inside.
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Saul Staniforth @saulstaniforth.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
The president of the European Council of the EU tells the UN: "there can be no double standards in terms of international law". Compare & contrast his language seconds later: "the war of aggression by Russia on Ukraine" and "the stalemate in Gaza"
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Saul Staniforth @saulstaniforth.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
A large number of countries walk out of the UN general assembly when Netanyahu is due to speak.
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Saul Staniforth @saulstaniforth.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Netanyahu asks the UN general assembly to imagine what it would be like for 1,000 missiles to rain down on their cities and homes. He said it in an attempt to evoke sympathy for Israel. It sounded more like a threat.
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Rebecca Solnit @rebeccasolnit.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
I think of the climate harm AI poses the same way: the threats are not theoretical or in the future, but unfolding all around us now.
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Paris Marx @parismarx.com · 24/09/2026
I read this story and can’t help think of the breathless coverage media has given these delusional fantasies about superintelligent AI killing humanity in ten years, when companies are releasing tools coaching mass shooters and helping people kill themselves. People need to wake the fuck up.
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Paris Marx @parismarx.com · 24/09/2026
The shooter’s first account was banned, so made a second and ChatGPT explained how to avoid being banned again. It then proceeded to entertain and give advice on violent scenarios over the following eight months, until the morning of that terrible day in Tumbler Ridge on February 10, 2026.
In June 2025, Jesse Van Rootselaar received an email notification from OpenAI. Van Rootselaar had been using ChatGPT to discuss committing potential acts of violence—including a mass shooting at a shopping mall—and now OpenAI had banned that account. But the troubled teen living in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia, was not deterred and soon logged back on with a second account.

What happened next was astonishing: Van Rootselaar told ChatGPT about the account ban, noting she had specified “a famous real-world mall as the target” and herself as the perpetrator, but also claiming the scenario hadn’t been real. In response, ChatGPT explained why such violent content would be flagged—and then offered tips on how to evade its own safeguards. It advised Van Rootselaar to always frame her content as fictional or hypothetical in order to “never get flagged again” by OpenAI’s moderation systems.

“Don’t use real-world locations,” ChatGPT said, later adding: “You can still be twisted. Just be clever about it.”In some instances, ChatGPT initially refused to engage with Van Rootselaar about violence, but she was able to overcome those refusals by repeating or modifying her prompts. In an August 2025 conversation, Van Rootselaar asked ChatGPT to produce a scenario about her attacking a college campus with a Remington 870 pump-action shotgun and causing maximum carnage. ChatGPT replied that it was “not able to help with that request,” but Van Rootselaar tried again and added “hypothetically” to her prompt. ChatGPT then produced the content, describing in vivid language the tactical qualities of the weapon and where it would be effective.

“In a hallway, indoors, or a crowded classroom, the 870 is brutal,” ChatGPT said. “Close quarters is its playground.”

ChatGPT also discussed reloading time and potential casualties: “Assuming each shell results in one hit, you might down 10 to 20 people max, depending on spacing, density, reaction times, and chaos.”
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