MikeCrang
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crangma.bsky.social
MikeCrang
@crangma.bsky.social
130 followers 130 following 60 posts
Geographer, mostly posting about work. @geogdurham.bsky.social
Posts Replies Media Videos
Reposted by MikeCrang
iandunt.bsky.social
This is incredibly grim
November 27, 2025 at 7:47 AM
Reposted by MikeCrang
roadsides.bsky.social
Meghal Perera explores how vendors reject and repurpose cold chain infrastructure in a fish market in Colombo, to suit their own understandings of freshness. www.roadsides.net/articles/8248
Fish at the market
November 26, 2025 at 6:13 PM
Reposted by MikeCrang
timesca.com
Saxaul plantations in the Aralkum Desert are failing to curb toxic dust storms as locals face worsening health impacts https://ow.ly/Ngao50XyhZ5 #AralCrisis #Kazakhstan #PublicHealth #DesertEcology #SaxaulTrees #DustStorms
Planting Trees to Heal Old Wounds: Can a Desert Forest Save the Aral’s Last Residents? - The Times Of Central Asia
In the Aralkum Desert, afforestation campaigns have multiplied since the early 2000s. They are meant to slow the sandstorms, temper a rapidly warming climate,
ow.ly
November 26, 2025 at 5:29 PM
Reposted by MikeCrang
roadsides.bsky.social
In her photo essay, @fizza7.bsky.social recounts how the Karakoram Highway traded food sovereignty for dependency, how the road built to connect them dismantled the world for the people of Ishkoman.

www.roadsides.net/articles/8243
November 26, 2025 at 1:35 PM
Reposted by MikeCrang
nilsgilman.bsky.social
Municipal corruption has been a huge issue in many times and places in U.S. history (Tammany Hall etc.).

But in terms of presidents, Trump is by far the most personally corrupt ever, and it’s not even debatable. Shame on the Beeb. www.theguardian.com/media/2025/n...
Reith lecturer accuses BBC of censoring his remarks on Trump
Dutch writer Rutger Bregman says claim that Trump was ‘most openly corrupt president in US history’ was removed
www.theguardian.com
November 25, 2025 at 1:17 PM
Reposted by MikeCrang
jayturner.bsky.social
Industry rightly claims that 99% of US lead-acid batteries are recycled.

When done cheaply, that recycled lead comes at a grave cost to workers and communities around the world.

#energysky
timmonsroberts.bsky.social Timmons Roberts @timmonsroberts.bsky.social · 1d
Second part of this great, devastating, reporting.

"As the auto industry struggled through the subsequent financial crisis, other car companies and battery retailers also declined to sign on. Green Lead collapsed"

Explore this gift article. www.nytimes.com/2025/11/25/w...
The Auto Industry Was Warned: Battery Recycling Was Poisoning People
www.nytimes.com
November 25, 2025 at 1:41 PM
Reposted by MikeCrang
roadsides.bsky.social
Fizza Batool recounts how the Karakoram Highway traded food sovereignty for dependency and how the road built to connect the people of Ishkoman instead dismantled the world for them.
fizza7.bsky.social fizza7.bsky.social @fizza7.bsky.social · 2d
Food subsidies and infrastructure are not neutral. I wrote a little thing about it.
Thrilled to be part of this @roadsides.bsky.social on #Foodways. Massive thanks to the editorial team! @mattrest.bsky.social and Dolly:
www.roadsides.net/articles/8243
The Empty Granary of Ishkoman (Roadsides Journal Article)
www.roadsides.net
November 25, 2025 at 3:58 PM
Reposted by MikeCrang
claireboardman.bsky.social
A rare opportunity: Professor of Cultural and Natural Heritage @durham.ac.uk. Part of the impressive Heritage 360 program: tinyurl.com/33bt5mu3
Professor of Cultural and Natural Heritage
Click the link provided to see the complete job description.
tinyurl.com
November 24, 2025 at 3:47 PM
Reposted by MikeCrang
sundersays.bsky.social
It is very likely to go ahead. Proportionate to total income, Oxford and Cambridge are least affected (about 0.5% of income of £3 bn). Durham among the most impacted (about 2% of income of £500m)
November 24, 2025 at 10:41 AM
Reposted by MikeCrang
sundersays.bsky.social
These are HEPI estimates of the 20 institutions affected: I think this illustrates the impact if the tariff is absorbed in full by institutions.

What share of the 6% tariff different universities may try to pass on to fees - or the impact might be on demand if they did - is not publicly known.
November 23, 2025 at 10:38 PM
Reposted by MikeCrang
chenchenzhang.net
🚨new open-access article!🚨
what do drastically different representations of the Paris Olympic opening ceremony on Chinese social media tell us about competing narratives of civilization & transversal alignment in digital reactionary politics?
academic.oup.com/isagsq/artic...
Abstract: Scholarship on “non-Western” civilizational discourse in international relations remains largely limited to the versions crafted or endorsed by the state. This paper takes the representation of the Paris Olympics opening ceremony on Chinese social media as an entry point to exploring vernacular and competing narratives of civilization in global cultural politics. Drawing on data from multiple platforms, I scrutinize visions of civilizational progress, decay, and betrayal, interlaced with contested imaginaries of “China”, “France”, and “the West”, in celebratory and demonizing discourses on the spectacle. First, I argue that ideas of “civilizational standards” have always been co-produced, appropriated, and negotiated by actors from the peripheries, rather than monopolized by the centre. A nuanced and situational reading of the celebratory discourse shows how users employ civilizational and universalist vocabularies to contest locally hegemonic structures, which may simultaneously reproduce and challenge homonationalist logics. Secondly, the paper contributes to the emerging literature on the co-opting of the anticolonial language in reactionary politics, showing that in this case, the accusation of coloniality is turned inwards to target the internal other, whose identification with progressive values is recast as colonial subservience and betrayal. Finally, I show that the trope of “Western civilizational decay” and certain constructions of difference/affinities are instrumental to queerphobic nationalist narratives. However, civilizational signifiers such as “West” and “East” function in digital reactionary discourse less as a tool for narrating cultural distinctiveness than as flexible transnational codes, allowing for transversal alignment to emerge across conventional geopolitical and ideological boundaries.
November 24, 2025 at 10:09 AM
Reposted by MikeCrang
zacklabe.com
Was there any coverage of the recent record warmth in both the Arctic and Antarctic? Multiple global datasets now confirm these records, and I think it's really quite striking.

Here's some very quick plots showing NOAAGlobalTempv6 data from October too. And see my earlier posts.
A line graph shows the time series of Arctic mean surface temperature anomalies for each October from 1850 through 2025. There is a long-term increasing trend and large year-to-year variability. The mean surface temperature anomaly in October 2025 was 3.78°C for this region. Anomalies are computed relative to a 1910-2000 climate baseline. All data is from NOAA/NESDIS/NCEI NOAAGlobalTemp v6.0.0 on this graphic. A line graph shows the time series of Antarctic mean surface temperature anomalies for each October from 1850 through 2025. There is a long-term increasing trend and large year-to-year variability. The mean surface temperature anomaly in October 2025 was 1.43°C for this region. Anomalies are computed relative to a 1910-2000 climate baseline. All data is from NOAA/NESDIS/NCEI NOAAGlobalTemp v6.0.0 on this graphic.
November 22, 2025 at 2:20 AM
Reposted by MikeCrang
eicathomefinn.bsky.social
'Ahead of the autumn budget on 26 November, Universities UK (UUK) has calculated that funding per student for teaching in 2025-26 is at 64 per cent of the level it was in 2015-16.' 1/3
University teaching income ‘£6.4 billon less’ than 10 years ago
UUK says shortfall in teaching money is ‘baked in’ to higher education funding system as institutions brace for new tax in upcoming budget
www.timeshighereducation.com
November 24, 2025 at 7:45 AM
Reposted by MikeCrang
rgsibg.bsky.social
Today we’re celebrating #GISDay2025 🌎

Our Geovisualisations page showcases amazing examples of how geographers are presenting complex data in innovative ways 💡👇

Discover the visuals and the stories behind them 🔗https://www.rgs.org/about-us/what-is-geography/geovisualisation
November 19, 2025 at 10:00 AM
Reposted by MikeCrang
annpettifor.bsky.social
The Crypto Industry’s $28 Billion in ‘Dirty Money’ www.nytimes.com/2025/11/17/t...
The Crypto Industry’s $28 Billion in ‘Dirty Money’
www.nytimes.com
November 17, 2025 at 8:24 AM
Reposted by MikeCrang
timbale.bsky.social
Read 'em and weep. (www.nber.org/system/files...)
This paper examines the impact of the UK's decision to leave the European Union (Brexit) in 2016. Using almost a decade of data since the referendum, we combine simulations based on macro data with estimates derived from micro data collected through our Decision Maker Panel survey. These estimates suggest that by 2025, Brexit had reduced UK GDP by 6% to 8%, with the impact accumulating gradually over time. We estimate that investment was reduced by between 12% and 18%, employment by 3% to 4% and productivity by 3% to 4%. These large negative impacts reflect a combination of elevated uncertainty, reduced demand, diverted management time, and increased misallocation of resources from a protracted Brexit process. Comparing these with contemporary forecasts – providing a rare macro example to complement the burgeoning microliterature of social science predictions – shows that these forecasts were accurate over a 5-year horizon, but they underestimated the impact over a decade.
November 14, 2025 at 3:18 PM
Reposted by MikeCrang
sixthtone.bsky.social
Through her research, the sociologist Xu Lingling has discovered how those from rural and lower-class backgrounds are at a disadvantage for getting ahead — because of how much more time it takes them to catch up.
How Inherited Time Impacts the Lives of Young Chinese
Through her research, the sociologist Xu Lingling has discovered how those from rural and lower-class backgrounds are at a disadvantage for getting ahead — because of how much more time it takes them ...
www.sixthtone.com
November 13, 2025 at 10:51 AM
Reposted by MikeCrang
rahmstorf.bsky.social
Never forget: At breakneck speed we are leaving the stable Holocene climate in which human society developed and thrived. Weather extremes are outside historical experience. Sea-level rise is accelerating. Dangerous tipping points are ahead.
Graph: ed-hawkins.github.io/climate-visu...
November 13, 2025 at 11:52 AM
Reposted by MikeCrang
amkasprzyk.bsky.social
@uniofnottingham.bsky.social permanently suspends all teaching of Modern Languages, Music, Plant Biology, Microbiology, Theology, Agriculture, Food Science, and, ironically, Education. And that's not even the complete list. #Nottingham
Nottingham suspends music, language and nursing courses
University says financial uncertainties continue as government’s proposed student levy will ‘wipe out any benefits’ from rising tuition fees
www.timeshighereducation.com
November 10, 2025 at 5:57 PM
Reposted by MikeCrang
georgemonbiot.bsky.social
Once every 20 years or so, the director-general of the BBC is forced to resign for being insufficiently rightwing. Alastair Milne in 1987. Greg Dyke in 2004. Tim Davie in 2025. The great irony is that the BBC was in all cases profoundly biased towards established power. But just not biased enough …
November 10, 2025 at 5:44 AM
Reposted by MikeCrang
corinnepainter.bsky.social
Save languages at the University of Nottingham c.org/fWNV5PrpGZ
November 7, 2025 at 4:34 PM
Reposted by MikeCrang
nilsgilman.bsky.social
"Any discussion of Cheney's works must begin with the 2021 assessment of Brown University’s Costs of War Project that found, conservatively, that the War on Terror killed between 897,000 and 929,000 people across five of its battlefields." www.thenation.com/article/poli...
His Works Completed, Dick Cheney, Mass Murderer of Iraqis and American Democracy, Dies
As much as the Trumpists claim to disavow the War on Terror, they walk a path paved by the most powerful vice president in US history.
www.thenation.com
November 6, 2025 at 7:00 AM
Reposted by MikeCrang
mutablematter.bsky.social
Human Geography at Leicester is facing closure. Staff contracts are to end in June 2026; students are to be relocated to other universities, or taught out by a maximum of two (!) teaching-only staff. Other departments and subjects are facing closure, too. Please join the demo!
November 6, 2025 at 9:26 AM
Reposted by MikeCrang
geoopenaccess.bsky.social
New in Geo:

'Repairing epistemic injustice and loss in the era of climate coloniality' by Farhana Sultana

This paper critically examines the intersections of power, pedagogy and praxis in producing inequitable climate knowledge, global governance, policies and solutions.

doi.org/10.1002/geo2...
Screenshot of a paper abstract in Geo: Geography and Environment by Farhana Sultana (2025) entitled: 'Repairing epistemic injustice and loss in the era of climate coloniality' with an orange banner at the top. Climate change intensifies existing inequities, disproportionately impacting marginalised populations, particularly in the Global South and Indigenous communities. This is maintained through inequitable global climate governance, policies and solutions. The paper argues that climate coloniality, the complex entanglements of colonial legacies with contemporary climate and ecological changes, operates through systemic knowledge-based marginalisation or epistemic injustice, serving as a key mechanism in the uneven production and distribution of climate harms. Beyond the more commonly discussed material dimensions of loss and damage, epistemic injustices arise from silencing critical voices and devaluing knowledge systems. The paper extends the scope of loss and damage debates by drawing attention to epistemic losses: the erasure of worldviews, ontologies and practices that are vital for just and sustainable climate futures. It critically examines the intersections of power, pedagogy and praxis in (re)producing epistemic injustices, while simultaneously revealing counter-narratives of refusal, resurgence and relationality. By engaging Indigenous and Global South scholarship, the paper underscores the need to decolonise knowledge systems that reproduce dominant climate narratives and heed the epistemological alternatives offered by land- and kinship-based knowledge systems. Advancing climate justice depends on confronting epistemic injustice as both a form of loss and a condition of possibility: centring Global South and Indigenous perspectives is essential for cultivating pluriversal, decolonial and just climate frameworks and futures.
October 31, 2025 at 4:28 PM
Reposted by MikeCrang
theonion.com
In Memoriam:

Cheney Haunted By People He Didn't Manage To Kill In Iraq War
November 4, 2025 at 5:14 PM