Kate Littler

Another tough interview for Nigel Farage: the Stephen Collins cartoon There are lots of parties that aren’t Reform UK operating ‘under the radar’

www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle...

The incredible tragedy for #ArcticScience of NOAA shutting down their #methane monitoring data. 5th May 2025 is the last data we'll ever get.
#NCKF25

The Guardian view on campus discontent: listen to those on the frontline | Editorial Editorial: The government’s funding plans, announced in this week’s white paper, won’t do much to alleviate a deepening crisis of morale among university staff

“persisting with an inadequate fees-led model of higher education, in which universities are run as competing businesses funded by student consumers, is producing a dystopian academic landscape”

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

A bowl of red berries. Little red round ones are Chilean guava berries and the others are the last of the season’s raspberries.

Red Chilean guava berries happily growing on the little shrubs at my allotment

Harvested our precious minute crop of Chilean guava berries this weekend.

Little red balls that are somewhere between a strawberry and herbal tea in taste.

Apparently Queen Victoria’s favourite berry that she had shipped in from her private stash garden in Cornwall.

Wikipedia Says AI Is Causing a Dangerous Decline in Human Visitors “With fewer visits to Wikipedia, fewer volunteers may grow and enrich the content, and fewer individual donors may support this work.”

So for-profit AI companies have trained on the world's largest collaborative volunteer project and a precious free resource, to make money for their for-profit enterprises. They have crushed traffic to the volunteer project, starving it of donors and volunteers

www.404media.co/wikipedia-sa...

Globally averaged CO2 concentration (a) and its growth rate (b) from 1984 to 2024. Increases in successive annual means are shown as the shaded columns in (b). The red line in (a) is the monthly mean with the seasonal variation removed; the blue dots and blue line in (a) depict the monthly averages. Observations from 179 stations were used for this analysis.

Holy wow, +3.5 ppm CO₂ last year, up from +2.4 ppm average the past decade, and +0.6 ppm in the 1960s.

It gets scarier the closer you look at it. All this is a stress test for the planet, and it's buckling.

Two big reasons for the massive increase: wildfires, and the ocean sinks are shutting down.

Plug-in hybrids pollute almost as much as petrol cars, report finds Analysis of 800,000 European cars found real-world pollution from plug-in hybrids nearly five times greater than lab tests

Plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) pump out 5 times more planet-heating pollution than official figures show.

Running costs understated.

PHEVs emit just 19% less CO2 than petrol/diesel cars

Underestimate of emissions lets carmakers avoid fines.

Why do govts not corroborate industry claims?

Government told to prepare for 2C warming by 2050 The Climate Change Committee said the UK should make climate change adaptions beyond the Paris Agreement.

We need mitigation AND adaptation.

Global warming impacts are already evident in the UK, and will definitely worsen in the coming decades even under the most optimistic scenarios.

Flooding, drought, storm damage, food security…
spend ££ now or ££££££ later.

🌍

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Good luck! 🍀

Remember you know sooo much more than them so it’s not like a conference talk to your peers. I find it calms nerves to be reminded of this.

Speak slowly and repeat yourself often to consolidate knowledge (and to help those that daydream and missed it the first time 😉).

Have fun 🤩

After what feels like years just spinning all the plates and doing endless teaching, it feels so fantastic to be reading and writing papers again this autumn.

I’m one happy geo-nerd right now

🤓 🪨 🌏 📖 💻 ⚒️

Amazing second year at this site! These footprints are really something special.

For sure!
It’s been a mixed picture nationally, but we seem to be bucking the trend in geology at Exeter these last few years. Had a bumper intake last year and I just did an open day that was heaving 🤷‍♀️ 🤞🏻

MSc is more challenging because the sectoral job market is still so strong.

Undergraduate recruitment below expectations 😱

XC398794 Slender-billed Curlew (Numenius tenuirostris) Awful wind noise in the original! See sonogram and notes of the recording circumstances on p12 of Gretton A. (1991) The ecology and conservation of the Slender-billed Curlew (Numenius tenuirostris). ...

It's also not "just another" extinction, it's the first from mainland Europe in centuries. CENTURIES.

And there will be others within our lifetime.

That's biodiversity loss.

We'll never hear this sound, ever again xeno-canto.org/398794

UK’s arm’s length public bodies are highly vulnerable to politicisation Seven in ten Britons say it is important for top scientific institutions to be independent in exclusive new polling.

🧵🚨

The UK’s independent scientific bodies are highly vulnerable to politicisation - over the past 5 months I've been working with @martinmckee.bsky.social to map out their vulnerabilities and it's not good news.

Today our report is published!
www.ucl.ac.uk/policy-lab/n...

1/11

Rob whistle | Robert Hutton | The Critic Magazine The day had begun with Robert Jenrick accused of racism. This is of course quite unfair. Racists believe in something. Some of us remember Jenrick as a chubby-cheeked fan of David Cameron fighting…

"The day had begun with Robert Jenrick accused of racism. This is of course quite unfair. Racists believe in something." Absolutely fantastic sketch by @roberthutton.co.uk. Every line is a banger:

a chart showing various VRE shares by region

The @iea.org's guess at the variable renewable energy share in various countries by 2030 - Denmark will be around 78%.

None of this was meant to be even remotely possible!!

iea.blob.core.windows.net/assets/48ecc...

View out over Ryan’s field near the Hayle estuary on a quiet Sunday morning. Blue sky breaking through the cloud.

A lone spoonbill (centre) foraging amidst a whole heap of gulls (mostly herring and greater black backed), and a few ducks.

A beautiful lapwing (one of my favourite waders) on the water with ducks, gulls and a redshank in the background.

Nothing nicer than an early morning trip to Hayle estuary with a friend. So many amazing birds! 🐦

Various gulls, waders, ducks, and even a spoonbill 😍

Love huddling in the hide with a flask of tea and a biscuit. Bliss.

🚨Our new paper introduces the #AirQualityStripes – a visual tool to show how outdoor air pollution (PM2.5) has changed in 🌍 cities since 1850. Inspired by the iconic #WarmingStripes. Led by @kirstypringle.bsky.social & @jimmcquaid.bsky.social
🔗 airqualitystripes.info
📄 doi.org/10.5194/gc-8...
🧵👇

"People think hope is wishful thinking, and actually hope is about action." Quote from the Wiser Than Me podcast with Julia Louis-Dreyfus.

"Only when our clever brain and our human heart work together in harmony can we achieve our true potential." Graphic by the Jane Goodall Institute of South Africa.

"You cannot get through a single day without having an impact on the world around you. What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make." Graphic by Ariana Huffington on Instagram.

My favourite Jane Goodall quotes....so many, so to the point, so wise. How different the world would be if enough people listened to her.

Destabilization of Earth system tipping elements - Nature Geoscience A review of observation-based evidence suggests that four interconnected Earth system tipping elements have moved towards their critical thresholds, highlighting the need for better monitoring and increased mitigation efforts.

Destabilization of Earth system tipping elements

(Review) suggesting key Earth system tipping points - like the Greenland Ice Sheet, Amazon rainforest, and AMOC - are losing stability and nearing critical thresholds

Interactions may mask warning signs

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Jane Goodall, world-renowned primatologist, dies aged 91 Jane Goodall Institute says ‘tireless advocate’ for natural world died in California during US speaking tour

We lost Jane Goodall this week 😞

www.theguardian.com/science/2025...

“You cannot get through a single day without having an impact on the world around you. What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.”

Thank you very much! 😊

Some good news.

London is meeting legal limits for toxic NO2 pollution for the first time – almost 200 years earlier than predicted – following the Mayor’s "world leading air pollution policies," City Hall announces.

The Ultra Low Emissions Zone - and similar policies - really do work.

Wow that’s a great model!

Is there a shareable version of that file that I could show my sedimentology students (fully credited, of course)?
Thanks.

What fresh hell is this?

Feeling proud to have been educated at number 2 and 4 on the ‘woke list’ despite their ‘plunge’ in league table* position by :checks notes: 2 and 1 places respectively 😱

*Murdoch-owned right-wing Times league table. 🤔

I will bear that in mind!

A large basking shark sculpture made of thin wooden sticks, and hence called the ‘basket shark’. Sitting on green grass with a blue sky background at our Penryn campus that we share with Falmouth University.

Close up of the head of the basket shark.

The Falmouth ‘basket shark’ has arrived on the campus, and is looking great on this sunny September day.

🦈🌊☀️

More info: www.falmouth.ac.uk/news/falmout...

World’s oceans fail key health check as acidity crosses critical threshold for marine life Scientists call for renewed global effort to curb fossil fuels as seven of nine planetary boundaries now transgressed

“To be a good scientist, I have to take emotions out of work. Still, I would say looking at this data, when I allow myself to connect to it emotionally, then I am afraid. This really scares me”

- Dr. Levke Caesar, co-lead of Planetary Boundaries Science Lab

Decision helped by the fact that the bus is now £5 rtn for a 15-min ride each way (up from £3-something last year) 😱

Ps Cornwall council, if you want people not to drive, you have to make the buses affordable and regular, and the cycle infrastructure not lethal 🤷‍♀️