Alex Lipp

Thanks! The art of the backronym…

eartharxiv.org/repository/v...
In our new preprint we describe in detail the software & workflows behind www.SewageMap.co.uk! One for the open environmental data nerds out there :) 💩 🧑‍💻 🏞️

grass fed “sustainable” rewilding cattle ultimately false solution. Yes, it’s good for climate… but hopelessly not scaleable. Only works if we each only eat one steak every couple of years! So, basically, are vegetarian!

1) methane (CH4) has greater greenhouse effect than CO2 so grass fed cattle is partly turning CO2 to CH4 and 2) probably greater effect is opportunity cost of land use. grass fed cattle needs LOADS of grassland which would otherwise be (for instance) forest, wetlands etc… much better for climate

So, whilst a laudable aim on paper im not sure how it’s really enforceable or even if it’s ‘fair’ to enforce it (assuming I have understood it)

…and selecting one year as your baseline is very silly. Last year was very very wet and this year is very very dry. So, 2025 has already seen less than half the amount of spills than 2024 but purely out of changes in the weather.

“From 2021 levels” I predict will result in future confusion. We only have had consistent sewer overflow monitoring data since *2023*… 2021 data is only partial. Not a good thing to use as a benchmark (imo)

Related reminder that the student loan repayment threshold for current students is now *£25000*... i.e., if you now graduate and get *any full time job* you will be paying back your loan. (www.gov.uk/repaying-you...)

hope you used bog butter for them!

Shamelessly replugging this from two years ago. We would never look at the proportion of, say, schools, that don't turn out literate pupils and go 'oh well, probably those kids were better off out of it'. We shouldn't view the short tail of bad courses and/or outcomes any differently:

Hi Ned! Thanks! You can drop me a Bluesky message if you want! Or you can email me, my contacts are at: alexlipp.github.io

Sadly there are currently issues with the input data stream (beyond my control unfortunately) which is creating some issues which may be behind this!

😭
(Although, providing summaries of long technical documents for non-technical audiences in a non-critical capacity seems like actually quite a good use of AI?!)

Putting together a NERC proposal and somewhat baffled by what NERC mean when they want a Summary to be suitable for "opinion-formers". Who are these people and how am I meant to write for them?!

UCL – University College London UCL is consistently ranked as one of the top ten universities in the world (QS World University Rankings 2010-2022) and is No.2 in the UK for research power (Research Excellence Framework 2021).

We are offering a full-time permanent academic post at Lecturer level (Grade 8) in UCL Earth Sciences. Research areas include the climate crisis, hydrogeology, sustainable resources, the energy transition, natural hazards, and planetary science.
www.ucl.ac.uk/work-at-ucl/...

Deadline is tight, 24th June!

The department is very friendly, in a wonderful city and we have excellent facilities!

UCL – University College London UCL is consistently ranked as one of the top ten universities in the world (QS World University Rankings 2010-2022) and is No.2 in the UK for research power (Research Excellence Framework 2021).

We at @es-ucl.bsky.social are hiring a Lecturer! Research area is broadly defined within the climate crisis, hydrogeology, sustainable resources, the energy transition, natural hazards, and planetary science.

www.ucl.ac.uk/work-at-ucl/...

Total ignorance here that Universities *already offer* vocational training. The whole point of the 92 reforms was to give these vocational courses at polytechnics the same level of accreditation as academic degrees...

The potential of enhanced weathering in the UK Enhanced weathering is the process by which carbon dioxide is sequestered from the atmosphere through the dissolution of silicate minerals on the land…

Fair enough! Renforth seems to get similar relative reduction in RCO2 here: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

I don’t think this is true at all. Crushing rocks makes up 1% of all energy usage globally and is proportionally one of the biggest energy outlay of the entire mining sector (source: www.ceecthefuture.org/resources/mi...)

My favourite fact about crushing rocks is that it uses up **1%** of all global energy usage…

Really excellent news, and should never have been doubt. The original protest on Dartmoor was a hugely moving event and has sparked a new wave of R2R movement ⛰️ 🏕️ 🌱

New Job! Please repost!

We have a NERC funded PDRA position here @oxuniearthsci.bsky.social, 2 yrs, on modelling cryosphere change and hydrochemistry

#models, #carbon, #permafrost, #deglaciation

Come join our friendly team!

Apply by 11/06, any Qs get in touch!

my.corehr.com/pls/uoxrecru...

Yeah I really think the reticence for WASCs to share more data actively hurts their case here... open-data builds trust!

Water companies now have to release live sewage spill data – here’s why more transparency is the key to cleaner rivers A new law is forcing water companies to make pollution data readily accessible to the general public - but it doesn’t go far enough.

Covered some of this territory in my piece for @theconversation.com a few months back: theconversation.com/water-compan...

Stop-Start data (i.e., *when* spills happened) is much more informative as it identifies potential links to rainfall, capacity etc... but only Thames Water actually readily share this data (see screenshot from sewagemap.co.uk). So, water co's don't help themselves! More open-data please!!!

...of course from one perspective if x > 0 (i.e., there is *any* sewage spills) that means x is large, but that is not very helpful in practice. Unfortunately the data which *would* be helpful (i.e., the specific stop-start data from monitors) is not (generally) published by the EA or water co's!

Nearly 4m hours of raw sewage dumped in England’s waters last year Duration of spills by water companies up on previous year, in data described by environment secretary as ‘disgraceful’

www.theguardian.com/business/202...
I really question how useful this type of reporting is in practice. The question to ask is "Is This A Big Number?" and I just don't think we have enough years worth of data (3 years tops) to work out if 4m is, or is not, a big number...

Does the UK state have a vendetta against universities?

www.theguardian.com/environment/...
The new government policy on bathing water status seems to be taking direct inspiration from the survivorship bias meme, for some reason?!?