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Rachel Coxcoon @rachelcoxcoon.bsky.social · 24/06/2026

Got notified yesterday that my PhD on right-leaning attitudes to rural climate policy in England has been awarded. Actual thesis is here. doi.org/10.17635/lan.... But the kids version is way more interesting! - linkedin has the PDF (can't attach here) www.linkedin.com/feed/update/... #climate

linkedin.com

Rachel's PhD - the kids' version | Rachel Coxcoon | 73 comments

I just got notification from Lancaster University that my PhD has been officially awarded and realised I didn't do the 'so thrilled and pleased etc' post when I did my viva a few months ago. Anyway, ...

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Rachel Coxcoon @rachelcoxcoon.bsky.social · 24/06/2026

After extensive research, I can confirm that if you have 2 Velux windows but cannot afford to remortgage your house for bespoke Velux screens, you can spend £10 each on 3 insulated car windscreen covers, sew them together, attach some velcro straps, and MASSIVELY reduce how hot your attic rooms are.

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Rachel Coxcoon @rachelcoxcoon.bsky.social · 17/09/2025

I'm sure there was a song about blokes like this when I was a kid...🎶"Those inadequate men in their flying machines... 🎶.. or something like that?

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Rachel Coxcoon @rachelcoxcoon.bsky.social · 16/09/2025

And a journal article, for anyone who's a real glutton for punishment....https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/2515-7620/ad937f

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Rachel Coxcoon @rachelcoxcoon.bsky.social · 16/09/2025

I talked about this issue in the Local Zero podcast last year with @matthannon.bsky.social, @fraserjfstewart.bsky.social & Rebecca Ford. The concept of 'Assemblies' is being co-opted by those who believe participation, per se, is always good. But if only the usual suspects turn up, nothing changes.

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Rachel Coxcoon @rachelcoxcoon.bsky.social · 16/09/2025

This is a glorified panel discussion, not a #ClimateAssembly! #CitizensAssemblies are widely understood to be in-depth processes, descriptively representative of the citizenry. When we co-opt these words for 'in-group' chats, they lose their impact, and with it, people's trust. (1)

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Make Votes Matter @makevotesmatter.bsky.social · 04/07/2025

Today marks one year since Labour won a landslide majority on just 34% of the vote. No wonder trust in politics is so low when we keep getting governments that most people didn't choose. There is an alternative: a proportional system where Parliament reflects how people voted. #PRnow

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Rachel Coxcoon @rachelcoxcoon.bsky.social · 01/07/2025

WTF is 'renewable gas'? Industrialist Farts?

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Rachel Coxcoon @rachelcoxcoon.bsky.social · 01/07/2025

'lately' doing a lot of heavy lifting there..... It's both heartening to see government ministers finally putting this back on the agenda and just so extremely frustrating that we have lost more than a decade since the binned Community Energy Strategy. Agreed - kudos to all who kept the faith!

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Rachel Coxcoon @rachelcoxcoon.bsky.social · 24/06/2025

The whole thing came off as "we basically got knocked up too early and are now properly pissed off with all the responsibilities we brought on ourselves, so we thought we'd just, you know, skip out on them". I'm sure their daughter will go far in life with 'adding up different currencies' skills...

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Rachel Coxcoon @rachelcoxcoon.bsky.social · 05/06/2025

Really useful new report from @nestauk.bsky.social on the impacts of rebalancing the costs of Great British Energy Scheme and supplier ECO targets by moving the levies off electricity and onto gas; media.nesta.org.uk/documents/Ho... TLDR: Only well-off households using gas pay more, by £20-£76pa

Figure 1 of Nesta report on rebalancing levies on UK gas bills. Shows that households using gas heating who are NOT eligible for bill support could pay between £20 and £76 per year more on energy bills as a result of rebalancing. Households using non-gas heating will be £215 to £304 a year better off, depending on whether they are also eligible for bill support. Households heated by gas, but where the householder is eligible for bill support, will also be better off, from £29 to £83 per year.

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Rachel Coxcoon @rachelcoxcoon.bsky.social · 04/06/2025

I dunno, maybe she nicked it off one of the younger kids at lunch break?

Sky News headline with a picture of the UK Chancellor and the headline ‘Where is Rachel Reeves getting her bus money’?

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Rachel Coxcoon @rachelcoxcoon.bsky.social · 04/06/2025

“…and why can’t I hear the birds singing?”

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Rachel Coxcoon @rachelcoxcoon.bsky.social · 30/05/2025

Anybody who works on educating the public about climate change, here is a fantastic new resource from @roostweather.bsky.social . @carbonliteracy.bsky.social , this could be a really nice exploratory tool for those training councillors?

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Rachel Coxcoon @rachelcoxcoon.bsky.social · 29/05/2025

Yes but when manly men are scared that they won’t have manly-man jobs that will ensure we all know what very manly men they are, everyone else has to bend the entire system to accommodate this need.

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Platform @platform1983.bsky.social · 28/05/2025

🧵 REVEALED: Community energy projects in Scotland are generating 100x more local wealth than privately-owned wind farms. But just 0.5% of the renewable power is community-owned. Why this staggering imbalance?

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Rachel Coxcoon @rachelcoxcoon.bsky.social · 29/05/2025

Coalition gov. set up the Urban Community Energy Fund (which I was once lead administrator for!) & its rural equivalent. Both sadly underfunded, cut before their time. Both proved the basic principle that funding the risky development stage unlocks community energy success. Both need reviving!

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Rachel Coxcoon @rachelcoxcoon.bsky.social · 29/05/2025

So maxing renewables makes security sense, and would make massive social economic difference too if community/municipal/decentralised ownership structures were prioritised. I personally think genuine community stake in grid has to also be part of that. Not sure whether Ofgem would agree!

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Rachel Coxcoon @rachelcoxcoon.bsky.social · 29/05/2025

So that leaves us looking for sources that are more secure. Renewables are the cheapest per unit right now. Can deliver most demand. Above about 70% national demand, price per unit really jumps. So nuclear likely to be the remainder (some fuel import issue there too, looking at where uranium is...)

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Rachel Coxcoon @rachelcoxcoon.bsky.social · 29/05/2025

Grid needs upgrading anyway. Absent any climate concern, North Sea gas & oil are in terminal decline anyway, so we need new sources. We could replace with imported oil & gas (if emissions were not a problem), but increasing concern over national security and price vulnerability mean that's not wise.

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Rachel Coxcoon @rachelcoxcoon.bsky.social · 29/05/2025

It doesn't really. ~ 83% of UK popn. lives in urban areas. Getting power from generator to consumer has & will always be the issue. Nuclear is located coastally (for cooling). Wind resource is higher/exposed land/offshore. Solar more southern, more distributed. None perfectly aligned with demand.

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Rachel Coxcoon @rachelcoxcoon.bsky.social · 22/05/2025

This is symptomatic of the wider problem that music education has been destroyed by successive govts. What teen would apply for this degree who’s never benefitted from immersion in musical education generally?

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Rachel Coxcoon @rachelcoxcoon.bsky.social · 21/05/2025

The word 'rich' is just hopelessly vague. Depending on who is using it, it can mean anything from "my neighbour who earns £70k and has a nice car" to "that Duke who owns half of Scotland." Which type of 'rich' person does your message mean when you say 'stealing all your money?

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Rachel Coxcoon @rachelcoxcoon.bsky.social · 18/05/2025

Yeah, interesting that the author only mentions countries which have English as an official language in this. Feels to me like the best way to protect any country from the toxic influence of US religious fundamentalists is to be non-English speaking. Maybe I should move to Finland....

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Rachel Coxcoon @rachelcoxcoon.bsky.social · 18/05/2025

When we let all the mad Puritans piss off to America 400 years ago, we should've encouraged them to develop a new language. I swear the only reason this stuff is happening in the UK is that US religious nutters don't speak any other languages so they'll always meddle first in English-speaking laws.

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Rachel Coxcoon @rachelcoxcoon.bsky.social · 17/05/2025

Because we still believe computers ‘calculate’, whereas LLMs ‘predict’. Often accurate enough to be useful, but seldom entirely correct. The difference is sometimes wild enough to be an alternate reality? Useful article here.. medium.com/@colin.frase...

medium.com

Hallucinations, Errors, and Dreams

On why modern AI systems produce false outputs and what there is to be done about it

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Rachel Coxcoon @rachelcoxcoon.bsky.social · 16/05/2025

I can't help but think it would sound even better if sung by The Levellers...

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Rachel Coxcoon @rachelcoxcoon.bsky.social · 15/05/2025

...Quite the difference to November, when it spilled over several times! Managing these extremes is something I fear a lot of UK cities are just not properly prepared for. #climatechange #adaptation #flooding

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Rachel Coxcoon @rachelcoxcoon.bsky.social · 15/05/2025

I'm seeing the effect of this on my daily commute. The bed of the Wye in Hereford is visible in places, you could walk across it in wellies right now. This time last year, the water level was at least 3 feet higher... #drought

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Rachel Coxcoon @rachelcoxcoon.bsky.social · 14/05/2025

Sadly the Guardian fails to mention (a) Greens threw everything at these 2 seats (b) LD and LAB stood paper candidates (c) Reform cratered the Tory vote. These are only repeatable victories in those circumstances. The RW vote still dominates here. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Waveney valley 2024 election result Green 41.7%, Conservative 30.3%, Reform 15.9%, Labour 9.4%, Lib Dem 2.5% SDP 0.2%

Herefordshire North election results 2024 Green 43.2%, Conservative 31.5%, Reform 16%, Labour 9.4%, Lib Dem 2.9% SDP 0.2%

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Rachel Coxcoon @rachelcoxcoon.bsky.social · 14/05/2025

And at a time when children are leaving private schools, back into state provision (due to Labour's spite). For many, the whole reason they were paying for private is their children's SEND needs were totally failed in the state system! And SCC has already said it has insufficient spaces for them!

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Reposted by Rachel Coxcoon

Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 08/05/2025

Cassocks are red Conclaves are dope Wake up babe we got a

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Rachel Coxcoon @rachelcoxcoon.bsky.social · 07/05/2025

The bill to rename Greenland as ‘Red, White and Blueland’ has to be a serious contender? www.congress.gov/bill/119th-c...

congress.gov

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Rachel Coxcoon @rachelcoxcoon.bsky.social · 06/05/2025

There are usually (not unreasonable) concerns that they will spoil the view. If you currently look across open fields then the fear is it could be visually equivalent to ‘paving over’. Most are sensitively done though, with buffers to housing/views, so concerns are not often realised.

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Rachel Coxcoon @rachelcoxcoon.bsky.social · 02/05/2025

‘Relentless Optimism’ is my middle name…

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Rachel Coxcoon @rachelcoxcoon.bsky.social · 02/05/2025

Still astonished that there is not more commentary on how Trump might turn out to be accidentally good for the environment. Can't help but wonder how much of the stuff coming through these ports from China was cheap, pointless household tat that nobody needed. Halloween ornaments for one thing...

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Rachel Coxcoon @rachelcoxcoon.bsky.social · 02/05/2025

Absolutely - this is such a different place to twitter! Thank you for your thoughtful responses, and I hope the rest of your day is a good one!

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Rachel Coxcoon @rachelcoxcoon.bsky.social · 02/05/2025

Maybe so, but isn’t she (physically) the exception rather than the rule? I think ability like hers will shine through in the right circumstances, but for the majority, no amount of training could put a woman in a men’s Olympic swim race with any hope at all?

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Rachel Coxcoon @rachelcoxcoon.bsky.social · 02/05/2025

Yeah, there’s a whole other world of ‘which part of society is conditioned to think they shouldn’t be allowed time to train or exercise’! But I still maintain the broad point that given exactly the same training and support, a man would beat a woman, and more so at elite level.

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Rachel Coxcoon @rachelcoxcoon.bsky.social · 02/05/2025

Yep. There are boys/men I can beat at some things. I’m a better swimmer than my husband. But the individual does not the population make. On average, all sports and sports leagues would be dominated by men if not for category restrictions, no?

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Rachel Coxcoon @rachelcoxcoon.bsky.social · 02/05/2025

I couldn’t agree more that some women are the worst enemy of other women. But it’s demonstrably not true that the average woman can just choose to ‘rise above’ being smaller/weaker than the average man, even with Olympic level training.

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Rachel Coxcoon @rachelcoxcoon.bsky.social · 02/05/2025

I’ve heard open water swimming also favours women in some ways (more insulation?!) but in the vast majority of sport, men, as a sex class, have clear advantages. It’s not limiting to want opportunities for girls to compete. Open categories exist for those who want to compete with men, & vice versa.

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Rachel Coxcoon @rachelcoxcoon.bsky.social · 02/05/2025

I also played mixed hockey when younger, into my twenties. There was a reason trams had a ‘minimum woman’ target but not for men. All teams would have been 10 men +1 woman otherwise. Saying men and women are ‘equal’ doesn’t mean ‘equally big and strong’. It means ‘not to be treated less favourably’

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Rachel Coxcoon @rachelcoxcoon.bsky.social · 02/05/2025

Why, in your opinion, were there ever women’s leagues for sport in the first place? Are you saying women are literally just as fast/strong as men, on average?

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Rachel Coxcoon @rachelcoxcoon.bsky.social · 01/05/2025

Fascinating stuff from ‪@dangrey.bsky.social‬ on Spanish blackouts. I'd been wondering what we might learn from Spain so we can avoid this in UK. Now I think we might learn from Spain that Spain should have learned from UK when something similar happened here a few years back!

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Rachel Coxcoon @rachelcoxcoon.bsky.social · 30/04/2025

Well worth a read, though unfortunately the people who most need to read it won't, because the batshit crazy Tony Blair Institute report is manna from heaven for the Torygraph.

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