Leslie Mabon
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ljmabon.bsky.social
Leslie Mabon
@ljmabon.bsky.social

Senior Lecturer in Environmental Systems, Faculty of STEM, Open University, UK. Sustainability science for resilient and just coastal places. Scotland - Japan - Taiwan. Future Earth Coasts Fellow. Big Raith Rovers fan.

resilientcoastal.zone .. more

Environmental science 39%
Sociology 19%
Pinned
New paper on just transition, policy knowledge + offshore wind in Nagasaki, Japan. I argue that whilst sharing best practice is valuable, it risks undermining just transitions elsewhere if we don't ask who benefits from this knowledge being shared and adopted:

iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1...

Reposted by Katherine Brickell

Helpful thread here on UKRI + strategy. Vital in any cross-disciplinary calls that arts, humanities + social sciences have a central and transformative role, and hopefully aren't seen as 'service sciences' stuck on at the end of the pipe to assess public opinion or 'convince' the public about tech.
And for my colleagues in arts, humanities and social sciences it may be worth gearing up to be part of bigger cross disciplinary calls which are relevant to the industrial strategy priorities if that fits your work. Use the coming months to talk to colleagues in other disciplines so you are set up!
And for my colleagues in arts, humanities and social sciences it may be worth gearing up to be part of bigger cross disciplinary calls which are relevant to the industrial strategy priorities if that fits your work. Use the coming months to talk to colleagues in other disciplines so you are set up!

Reposted by Leslie Mabon

Really grim to see this, but sadly it seems to be the direction of travel that's been on the cards for a few years now: curiosity-driven research funding for the elites, policy support- and industrial collaboration projects for the rest of us.

www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-r...
MRC instructs grant review boards to slash funding rates - Research Professional News
Boards asked to recommend just three applications for funding, as BBSRC also suspends calls
www.researchprofessionalnews.com

A pleasure to be back in Tiree to progress the Ecological Citizens Network+-funded project on coastal change Tiree CDT & myself are leading. Grateful to everyone who came to the drop-in session (was talking non-stop for 2.5 hours!) and shared their thoughts on our plans for the project and beyond.

Reposted by Leslie Mabon

Watching cars speed down cleared streets while watching pedestrians scramble over three foot high snow banks or having to walk in the street to avoid uncleared walkways has the War on Cars part of my brain very activated

Writing - and the thinking that comes with it - is one of the parts of my job I enjoy the most. If you asked me to make a list of parts of my job that I wanted to outsource to AI, the writing up of research would probably be bottom of the list by a very long way. It's a giant NOPE from me.
“The idea is to put ChatGPT front and center inside software that scientists use to write up their work in much the same way that chatbots are now embedded into popular programming editors.

It’s vibe coding, but for science.”
OpenAI’s latest product lets you vibe code science
Prism is a ChatGPT-powered text editor that automates much of the work involved in writing scientific papers.
www.technologyreview.com

Reposted by Leslie Mabon

A reward structure that favours productivity over quality will always incentivise the use of tools that make it easier to generate papers. Who cares if anyone actually reads them?
“The idea is to put ChatGPT front and center inside software that scientists use to write up their work in much the same way that chatbots are now embedded into popular programming editors.

It’s vibe coding, but for science.”
OpenAI’s latest product lets you vibe code science
Prism is a ChatGPT-powered text editor that automates much of the work involved in writing scientific papers.
www.technologyreview.com
OpenAI just released Prism, a LaTeX editor with embedded ChatGPT for free.
Writing a paper has never been easier.
Clogging the scientific publishing pipeline has never been easier.
It took me 54 seconds to write up an experiment I did not actually conduct.

prism.openai.com
“The idea is to put ChatGPT front and center inside software that scientists use to write up their work in much the same way that chatbots are now embedded into popular programming editors.

It’s vibe coding, but for science.”
OpenAI’s latest product lets you vibe code science
Prism is a ChatGPT-powered text editor that automates much of the work involved in writing scientific papers.
www.technologyreview.com

Reposted by Leslie Mabon

Reposted by Leslie Mabon

Notwithstanding the fact this would have been a legitimately scary experience for those involved, it is heartening to see Scottish people in the replies and quotes at the rate of one person per hour pointing out this is basically the episode of Still Game with Robbie Coltrane.
I just woke up from a nap and somehow while I was asleep, everyone on the bus has figured out we are not going to the right place

Interesting from @beyond-coal.jp about apparent lack of meaningful engagement on possible CCS project off Chiba. Remember too this is near part of Japan that was due to host a major offshore wind project that was shelved. Residents will have legitimate concerns about infrastructure + process.

Reposted by Leslie Mabon

In December, 2025, the METI and Chiba Prefecture hosted the “Kujukuri Offshore CCS Policy Seminar.” Without any explanation about the Metropolitan Area CCS Project, what exactly was this “seminar” for?
beyond-coal.jp/en/news/ccs-...
#beyondcoal #脱石炭
【News】CCS Policy Seminar: Who Was It Really For?
In December 2025, the METI and Chiba Prefecture hosted the “Kujukuri Offshore CCS Policy Seminar.” Without any explanation about the Metropolitan Area CCS Project, what exactly was this “seminar” for?
beyond-coal.jp
I just woke up from a nap and somehow while I was asleep, everyone on the bus has figured out we are not going to the right place

I've seen that photo kicking about the internet for years, and never knew where it came from. Tracked it down today and I think it was a paper doing a feature before a derby game!

Interdisciplinary researchers when discussions about the REF come up.

While I'm at it - Ghostbusters would make a phenonemal REF impact case study.

A hill I am prepared to die on is that the Terminator films were sent as a warning about the dangers of de-funding humanities and social science research, and failing to embed ethics and responsible innovation within STEM-driven research, development and deployment proggrammes.
'hollowing out...the humanities is no longer a theoretical threat: it is an active, policy-driven dismantling, creating vast regional “cold spots”....we are burning humanity’s maps just as we enter the least charted psychological & philosophical territory in our history: artificial intelligence.' 1/
Humanities cuts leave us defenceless in the age of AI
It is vital to examine what chatbots’ behaviour reveals about their underlying structures – and human responses to them, says Agnieszka Piotrowska
www.timeshighereducation.com

Reposted by Leslie Mabon

Grim data point from #JLeague Director of Sustainability Takayuki Tsuji's recent appearance on FootBrain: JEF United Chiba's soccer school had to cancel classes 65 times last summer due to extreme weather, including excessive heat.
'hollowing out...the humanities is no longer a theoretical threat: it is an active, policy-driven dismantling, creating vast regional “cold spots”....we are burning humanity’s maps just as we enter the least charted psychological & philosophical territory in our history: artificial intelligence.' 1/
Humanities cuts leave us defenceless in the age of AI
It is vital to examine what chatbots’ behaviour reveals about their underlying structures – and human responses to them, says Agnieszka Piotrowska
www.timeshighereducation.com