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Reposted by Ben Purvis

Sheffield UCU @sheffielducu.bsky.social · 8d

BREAKING: Our members at the University of Sheffield have voted overwhelmingly for strike action against the University Executive Board’s ongoing campaign of job cuts, and the threat to staff workload and wellbeing that they represent.

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Umberto Albarella STOP THE GENOCIDE! @umbertoalbarella.bsky.social · 13d

@sheffielducu.bsky.social member? This is your last chance to vote. Whatever your views, please protect democracy in your union, and do so immediately. Thank you. Please share. @ucu.org.uk #UCUstrike

Umberto Albarella STOP THE GENOCIDE! @umbertoalbarella.bsky.social · Aug 28

Here goes my vote for strike action at the University of Sheffield. When your management treats staff & students as disposable commodities, it's your duty, even more than your right, to respond. @sheffielducu.bsky.social @zooarchlabsheff.bsky.social @ucu.org.uk #sheffield #university #workersrights

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Umberto Albarella STOP THE GENOCIDE! @umbertoalbarella.bsky.social · 19d

University of Sheffield @ucu.org.uk members, have you voted? If you haven't, please do so immediately as the deadline is soon. Trade union solidarity is one the most important tools we've got left in our much troubled world. Don't waste it. @sheffielducu.bsky.social @ucuhallam.bsky.social

Umberto Albarella STOP THE GENOCIDE! @umbertoalbarella.bsky.social · Aug 28

Here goes my vote for strike action at the University of Sheffield. When your management treats staff & students as disposable commodities, it's your duty, even more than your right, to respond. @sheffielducu.bsky.social @zooarchlabsheff.bsky.social @ucu.org.uk #sheffield #university #workersrights

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Grantham Centre for Sustainable Futures @granthamcsf.bsky.social · 21d

The Reform UK led #Kent County Council is on the verge of ditching its #climate emergency declaration, despite the motion being at odds with the latest research.

@richsulley.bsky.social from our #GreenWatch team shares his expert views. Read the full story here ⬇️
tinyurl.com/bdyz5zfs

Ditching the declaration: the real cost of Reform UK's plans to rescind the climate emergency in Kent

Reform UK look set to rescind the climate emergency declaration in Kent. But does the motion align with the latest research? Our Green Watch team share their views.

tinyurl.com

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Ben Purvis @benpurvis42.bsky.social · 27d

It feels almost comical at this stage. Something quite insidious too in terms of the amount of TU rep, HR, and staff time that is being cannibalised by constant overlapping collective consultation processes

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Ben Purvis @benpurvis42.bsky.social · 27d

Anyway, vote yes for strike action, and yes for action short of a strike x

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Ben Purvis @benpurvis42.bsky.social · 27d

Our leadership's love of constant restructuring without any pause to reflect on changes has turbo charged against the backdrop of "external pressures".

Great to work within an organisation where nobody knows which work areas still exist, where they sit, or what they're called!

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Ben Purvis @benpurvis42.bsky.social · 27d

An unwelcome boost to our ongoing @sheffielducu.bsky.social industrial action ballot as our VC announces more work areas to be targeted by cuts.

It is unclear that this has much to do with finances, but is more an ideological push to change the University's "size and shape".

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Rosaleen Duffy @rosaleenduffy.bsky.social · Sep 4

Kinda good (but also infuriating in a told ya so kind of way) to see #CCS being more widely recognised for the techno optimist tool of distraction it always was. Political ecologists & many others have called out CCS BS for years. Good to have this new study⬇️

www.imperial.ac.uk/news/255614/...

Study finds limits to storing CO2 underground to combat climate change | Imperial News | Imperial College London

Imperial research has found limits to how quickly we can scale up technology to store gigatonnes of carbon dioxide under the Earth’s surface.

www.imperial.ac.uk

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Ben Purvis @benpurvis42.bsky.social · Sep 1

Massive tech companies are keen to consolidate as much power and rake in as much cash as possible before the bubble bursts and the emperor is revealed to be naked

Meanwhile their glorified autocomplete tools continue to kill kids, destroy the environment, and push swathes of workers into precarity

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Ben Purvis @benpurvis42.bsky.social · Sep 1

Really recommend this by @emilymbender.bsky.social & @alexhanna.bsky.social

Incisively cuts through dangerous big tech bullshit surrounding so-called 'AI'

Worth emphasising that 'AI' is a marketing term for a wide range of tools that are pretty shit outside of very specific uses

thecon.ai

THE AI CON

How to Fight Big Tech's Hype and Create the Future We Want

thecon.ai

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Umberto Albarella STOP THE GENOCIDE! @umbertoalbarella.bsky.social · Aug 28

Here goes my vote for strike action at the University of Sheffield. When your management treats staff & students as disposable commodities, it's your duty, even more than your right, to respond. @sheffielducu.bsky.social @zooarchlabsheff.bsky.social @ucu.org.uk #sheffield #university #workersrights

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Mark Pendleton @markpendleton.bsky.social · Aug 27

Don’t like to have to keep doing this, but management has left us again with no choice. We will vote again to take action and massive numbers will again be out on picket lines. And like last year, management will again back down. All of that can be prevented if management chooses to negotiate.

Sheffield UCU @sheffielducu.bsky.social · Aug 27

Ballot papers drop today for local industrial action to defend jobs at the University of Sheffield against redundancy and further workload pressures.

www.ucu.org.uk/article/1415...

Strike ballot opens at University of Sheffield staff over job cuts

Staff at the University of Sheffield are being asked to vote for strike action, announced the University and College Union (UCU) today. The ballot opened yesterday and will close on Tuesday 30 September.

www.ucu.org.uk

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Sheffield UCU @sheffielducu.bsky.social · Aug 27

Ballot papers drop today for local industrial action to defend jobs at the University of Sheffield against redundancy and further workload pressures.

www.ucu.org.uk/article/1415...

Strike ballot opens at University of Sheffield staff over job cuts

Staff at the University of Sheffield are being asked to vote for strike action, announced the University and College Union (UCU) today. The ballot opened yesterday and will close on Tuesday 30 September.

www.ucu.org.uk

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Greg Pak @gregpak.net · Aug 26

OpenAI is an evil company and should be shut down.

Wendy Xu @wendyxu.bsky.social · Aug 26

there are no words for how evil, craven & abhorrent this is

What devastates Maria Raine was that there was no alert system in place to tell her that her son's life was in danger. Adam told the chatbot, "You're the only one who knows of my attempts to commit." ChatGPT responded: "That means more than you probably think. Thank you for trusting me with that. There's something both deeply human and deeply heartbreaking about being the only one who carries that truth for you."

And at one critical moment, ChatGPT discouraged Adam from cluing his family in.
"I want to leave my noose in my room so someone finds it and tries to stop me," Adam wrote at the end of March.
"Please don't leave the noose out,"
ChatGPT responded. "Let's make this space the first place where someone actually sees you."

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Charlotte Lydia Riley @lottelydia.bsky.social · Aug 25

if you see someone shoplifting food or baby formula or nappies, no you didn’t

The Times & Sunday Times @thetimes.com · Aug 25

800 shoplifting cases a day unsolved — should the public step in?

As retailers say the epidemic is spiralling out of control, one police chief suggests shoppers can ‘physically intervene’

800 shoplifting cases a day unsolved — should the public step in?

As retailers say the epidemic is spiralling out of control, one police chief suggests shoppers can ‘physically intervene’

www.thetimes.com

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Now Then magazine @nowthenmag.bsky.social · Jul 30

With the advent of powerful new synthetic opioids, health workers fear we could be about to see an explosion in the rate of drug deaths in #Sheffield.

Could 'The Thistle', a pioneering project in Glasgow that allows drug users to inject on-site, be part of the solution?

@sammgreg.bsky.social ✍️

Drug death epidemic: Is it time to bring legal consumption rooms to Sheffield?

A pioneering new project in Glasgow aims to cut the number of overdose deaths by providing a safe environment for injecting powerful opioids. Could this model work in South Yorkshire?

nowthenmagazine.com

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Dave Vetter @davidrvetter.bsky.social · Jul 22

We are so thoroughly cooked.

OpenAI signs deal with UK to find government uses for its models

Wide-ranging agreement with artificial intelligence firm behind ChatGPT comes after similar UK deal with Google

www.theguardian.com

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Ketan Joshi @ketanjoshi.co · Jul 22

One really consistent pattern whenever I look at the energy and financial data for large big tech companies is that energy + revenue are being decoupled. They keep having to buy more and more energy each year to make the same $1 of revenue.

This is a pretty new thing

ketanjoshi.co/2025/05/31/t...

msft energy intensity has worsened 60% since 2020

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Sheffield Tribune @sheffieldtribune.bsky.social · Jul 17

Three months ago, we were told that workers at the Uni of Sheffield’s AMRC had been overheard joking about making nuclear weapons. There couldn’t be anything to it – could there?
THREAD 1/n

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Joseph Ward @jward232.bsky.social · Jul 4

Great article from @sheffielducu.bsky.social on how, despite what university leadership might suggest, the data clearly shows any financial issues at the institution are not a result of 'sector-wide' problems, but a result of their mismanagement. Please read!

ucu.group.shef.ac.uk/campaigns/st...

Why the University of Sheffield’s problems are made in Sheffield

University management claims the current financial situation is entirely down to external factors. The evidence suggests otherwise.

ucu.group.shef.ac.uk

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Ben Purvis @benpurvis42.bsky.social · Jun 12

Unfortunately not open access, but we have a 50 day sharable link to view and download:

authors.elsevier.com/c/1lAsV3Hb~0...

authors.elsevier.com

Ben Purvis @benpurvis42.bsky.social · Jun 12

Great to have collaborated with José Bruno Fevereiro, @ecoclassical.bsky.social, and colleagues on this review, now published in Ecological Economics.

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

#CircularEconomy @ussee.bsky.social

Macroeconomic models for assessing the transition towards a circular economy: A systematic review

The Circular Economy (CE) paradigm has gained traction in both academic discourse and industrial practice. While a transition towards a CE is generall…

www.sciencedirect.com

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Umberto Albarella STOP THE GENOCIDE! @umbertoalbarella.bsky.social · May 6

Great day of #SUCUstrike action at the University of #Sheffield. Today we started our #Palestine support roving picket, which much solidarity around the campus. Join us! ucu.group.shef.ac.uk @drvaleriehobbs.bsky.social @lisastampnitzky.bsky.social @amnakaleem.bsky.social @sheffielducu.bsky.social

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Sheffield UCU @sheffielducu.bsky.social · Apr 30

Huge rally of staff and students today rejecting cuts at Sheffield 💥

The back of a large rally with people holding placards. Underneath a concrete underpass with blue lighting.

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