Tom Clark
@tmclrk.bsky.social
Researcher + curator + writer. Art and Infrastructural Cultures. AHRC-funded PhD, Goldsmiths UoL (2024). Lecturer Manchester Metropolitan University
Reposted by Tom Clark
Good morning to all those people who wasted the last decade saying, "there's no point tackling climate change in the UK, because China."
www.theguardian.com/world/2025/n...
www.theguardian.com/world/2025/n...
China’s CO2 emissions have been flat or falling for past 18 months, analysis finds
World’s biggest polluter on track to hit peak emissions target early but miss goal for cutting carbon intensity
www.theguardian.com
November 11, 2025 at 7:08 AM
Good morning to all those people who wasted the last decade saying, "there's no point tackling climate change in the UK, because China."
www.theguardian.com/world/2025/n...
www.theguardian.com/world/2025/n...
This is horrifying - podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/t...
Constant AI in your ear, through no choice like logistics workers, or to not lose out if ‘everyone’ has them.
Based on experience of detecting Ai essays, pattern recognition and avoidance of fully enmeshed/embodied AI is going to be key
Constant AI in your ear, through no choice like logistics workers, or to not lose out if ‘everyone’ has them.
Based on experience of detecting Ai essays, pattern recognition and avoidance of fully enmeshed/embodied AI is going to be key
Smart Glasses Are Ushering In An Anti-Social World w/ Chris Gilliard
Podcast Episode · Tech Won't Save Us · 16/10/2025 · 55m
podcasts.apple.com
October 17, 2025 at 7:29 AM
This is horrifying - podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/t...
Constant AI in your ear, through no choice like logistics workers, or to not lose out if ‘everyone’ has them.
Based on experience of detecting Ai essays, pattern recognition and avoidance of fully enmeshed/embodied AI is going to be key
Constant AI in your ear, through no choice like logistics workers, or to not lose out if ‘everyone’ has them.
Based on experience of detecting Ai essays, pattern recognition and avoidance of fully enmeshed/embodied AI is going to be key
Amazing how such much world building and knowing activity can take place at this environmental/infrastructural interface, remaining out of sight but entirely present in the make up of a hegemonic society and cultural outlook
podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/a...
podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/a...
Bonus - The U.S. Military vs. the Environment w/ Gretchen Heefner
Podcast Episode · American Prestige · 26/09/2025 · 56m
podcasts.apple.com
September 26, 2025 at 1:48 PM
Amazing how such much world building and knowing activity can take place at this environmental/infrastructural interface, remaining out of sight but entirely present in the make up of a hegemonic society and cultural outlook
podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/a...
podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/a...
Publishers and publications that do not include dates. Why?
September 24, 2025 at 12:20 PM
Publishers and publications that do not include dates. Why?
Interesting
📽️What ACTUALLY happens when you buy an item - some cheap clothes or a trinket - from an e-commerce site like Shein or Temu?
Our deep dive into the fascinating way e-commerce is changing trade. Raising ENORMOUS questions along the way. Feat @samuelmarclowe.bsky.social www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtqw...
Our deep dive into the fascinating way e-commerce is changing trade. Raising ENORMOUS questions along the way. Feat @samuelmarclowe.bsky.social www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtqw...
The trade loophole that's costing the UK economy billions
YouTube video by Sky News
www.youtube.com
July 30, 2025 at 2:52 PM
Interesting
Reposted by Tom Clark
Again, why critical thinking skills are crucial in education. If people are bombarded with a constant stream of algorithmically selected content that engages them emotionally and we aren't equipping them with critical thinking skills from an early age then things like this are the inevitable outcome
think this is sort of interesting as actually.....no you probably didn't need to do "more research" into it? you just had to trust the state and local authorities to know better than you when it came to vaccinating your child? not good that the internet has killed faith in institutions!
July 29, 2025 at 9:28 AM
Again, why critical thinking skills are crucial in education. If people are bombarded with a constant stream of algorithmically selected content that engages them emotionally and we aren't equipping them with critical thinking skills from an early age then things like this are the inevitable outcome
Reposted by Tom Clark
“Water is the messenger that’s delivering the bad news about climate change to your city, to your front door.”
Heavy rain in southern New Mexico on Tuesday afternoon caused catastrophic flash flooding, sweeping homes away and forcing water rescues, as well as closing roads. Three people had been admitted to the hospital and were in stable condition as of Tuesday evening. Read more: https://trib.al/woWOsV4
July 9, 2025 at 6:37 AM
“Water is the messenger that’s delivering the bad news about climate change to your city, to your front door.”
😬
Inside the digital publishing industry, which I try to monitor closely, this is the big news. By Julia Alexander at Puck.
July 3, 2025 at 5:45 PM
😬
Speaking as a former editor, lost for words on this one.
While destructive scanning is a common practice among some book digitizing operations, Anthropic's approach is somewhat unusual due to its massive scale.
Anthropic destroyed millions of print books to build its AI models
Company hired Google’s book-scanning chief to cut up and digitize “all the books in the world.”…
arstechnica.com
June 29, 2025 at 8:33 PM
Speaking as a former editor, lost for words on this one.
Reposted by Tom Clark
Reminder:
Need-to-Know: The impacts of severe heat have been badly underestimated.
open.substack.com/pub/leahy/p/...
Need-to-Know: The impacts of severe heat have been badly underestimated.
open.substack.com/pub/leahy/p/...
Heat Is More Dangerous Than You Think
Need-to-Know: The impacts of severe heat have been badly underestimated.
open.substack.com
June 23, 2025 at 7:19 PM
Reminder:
Need-to-Know: The impacts of severe heat have been badly underestimated.
open.substack.com/pub/leahy/p/...
Need-to-Know: The impacts of severe heat have been badly underestimated.
open.substack.com/pub/leahy/p/...
Reflecting on the AI in HE issue and the essays I’ve marked that strongly signal being gen ‘AI’ gernerated is how sadly closely aligned they are with the model of education centred on recalling facts. The essays were just lists of relevant facts that were not in connected in a meaningful way.
June 19, 2025 at 10:45 AM
Reflecting on the AI in HE issue and the essays I’ve marked that strongly signal being gen ‘AI’ gernerated is how sadly closely aligned they are with the model of education centred on recalling facts. The essays were just lists of relevant facts that were not in connected in a meaningful way.
Reposted by Tom Clark
and AI/ML research is an effort that compresses the world into stereotypes/flattened representations
I feel like I have to say this constantly, but Science is not Nature.
Nature is the world. Science is our half-assed, eternally flawed effort to understand that world through a glass darkly.
Nature is the world. Science is our half-assed, eternally flawed effort to understand that world through a glass darkly.
What is common knowledge in your field, but shocks outsiders?
You absolutely can lie via data & math & everything about how you present data is an argument for how to interpret/understand it
Everything we know is founded on best guesses & analogies
All technoscience is enmeshed with human values
You absolutely can lie via data & math & everything about how you present data is an argument for how to interpret/understand it
Everything we know is founded on best guesses & analogies
All technoscience is enmeshed with human values
June 17, 2025 at 6:07 PM
and AI/ML research is an effort that compresses the world into stereotypes/flattened representations
Well well well
New study finds that using ChatGPT to write essays led to reduced brain activity & memory compared to writing without tools or using a search engine. While ChatGPT made writing easier, it also caused cognitive offloading, weakening learning and engagement over time.
arxiv.org/pdf/2506.08872
arxiv.org/pdf/2506.08872
arxiv.org
June 15, 2025 at 7:32 PM
Well well well
Reposted by Tom Clark
If you think climate change has gotten worse during your lifetime, you're right and there's a good reason.
If you're Gen X like me, more than 3/4 of fossil fuel CO₂ emissions have occurred in your lifetime. Even if you're a Millennial, it's at least half.
📊: @neilrkaye.bsky.social
If you're Gen X like me, more than 3/4 of fossil fuel CO₂ emissions have occurred in your lifetime. Even if you're a Millennial, it's at least half.
📊: @neilrkaye.bsky.social
June 10, 2025 at 10:22 AM
If you think climate change has gotten worse during your lifetime, you're right and there's a good reason.
If you're Gen X like me, more than 3/4 of fossil fuel CO₂ emissions have occurred in your lifetime. Even if you're a Millennial, it's at least half.
📊: @neilrkaye.bsky.social
If you're Gen X like me, more than 3/4 of fossil fuel CO₂ emissions have occurred in your lifetime. Even if you're a Millennial, it's at least half.
📊: @neilrkaye.bsky.social
My strong memory of Geldsdale in the north Pennines is this grey brown. Beginning to be v different now but part of the issue is a strong aesthetic of moorlands made into these dusky, blustery silent places
Deserts are spreading across Britain, yet scarcely anyone in public life even seems to have noticed. This week's column seeks to open our eyes to something that has been too big to see. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
There’s an invader turning huge swathes of Britain into deserts – and these dead zones are spreading | George Monbiot
Vast areas of land are now dominated by one species – purple moor-grass – and good luck with seeing a bird or insect there. How do we revive these habitats, asks Guardian columnist George Monbiot
www.theguardian.com
June 9, 2025 at 9:02 AM
My strong memory of Geldsdale in the north Pennines is this grey brown. Beginning to be v different now but part of the issue is a strong aesthetic of moorlands made into these dusky, blustery silent places
Silent spring forever
When warnings of Insectageddon were issued a few years ago, there was widespread denial. Less so now. It's devastating. www.theguardian.com/environment/...
‘Half the tree of life’: ecologists’ horror as nature reserves are emptied of insects
A new point in history has been reached, entomologists say, as climate-led species’ collapse moves up the food chain even in supposedly protected regions free of pesticides
www.theguardian.com
June 3, 2025 at 10:58 AM
Silent spring forever
Breakdown
A glacier partially collapsed in Switzerland, burying the village of Blatten in a huge landslide of ice, rock, and mud after residents had been evacuated.
Scientists called the collapse of the glacier “unprecedented” in the Swiss Alps.
Scientists called the collapse of the glacier “unprecedented” in the Swiss Alps.
May 29, 2025 at 4:18 PM
Breakdown
I remember seeing one of these with my grandad years and years ago here. The transformation of this place has been amazing to watch. The mindlessness of this is very sad. Driving through here you sometimes have to stop the car multiple times because of the number of grouse on the road
Two Hen Harriers vanish from RSPB's Geltsdale Reserve, suspected illegally killed on surrounding grouse moors raptorpersecutionuk.org/2025/05/20/t...
Two Hen Harriers vanish from RSPB’s Geltsdale Reserve, suspected illegally killed on surrounding grouse moors
Press release from RSPB (20 May 2025) Vanishing Hen Harriers Point To Yet More Illegal Killing Two male Hen Harriers have suddenly disappeared from the RSPB Geltsdale Nature Reserve in Cumbria. It …
raptorpersecutionuk.org
May 21, 2025 at 8:33 AM
I remember seeing one of these with my grandad years and years ago here. The transformation of this place has been amazing to watch. The mindlessness of this is very sad. Driving through here you sometimes have to stop the car multiple times because of the number of grouse on the road
Reposted by Tom Clark
"The findings suggest that if scientists want to increase public urgency around climate change, they should highlight clear, concrete shifts instead of slow-moving trends. That could include the loss of white Christmases or outdoor summer activities..."
grist.org/science/brea...
grist.org/science/brea...
Scientists just found a way to break through climate apathy
In a field of muddy results, it's among the clearest findings that one cognitive scientist has seen in his career.
grist.org
May 6, 2025 at 5:23 PM
"The findings suggest that if scientists want to increase public urgency around climate change, they should highlight clear, concrete shifts instead of slow-moving trends. That could include the loss of white Christmases or outdoor summer activities..."
grist.org/science/brea...
grist.org/science/brea...
Reposted by Tom Clark
Eight hours work, eight hours rest, eight hours for what you will. Happy May Day.
May 1, 2025 at 11:32 AM
Eight hours work, eight hours rest, eight hours for what you will. Happy May Day.
Reposted by Tom Clark
a model is a formal representation (often mathematical) of a certain phenomena/process. the phenomena being modelled and the model are not interchangeable, this is akin to mistaking the map for the territory. a good model might capture the phenomena well but it is never the phenomena itself
Agreed it's silly to call it lying but I think models and beliefs are pretty hard to distinguish.
Do my set of beliefs about the world not constitute a model? Maybe it's not that models have beliefs but that the two are almost interchangeable concepts. A model *is* a set of beliefs.
Do my set of beliefs about the world not constitute a model? Maybe it's not that models have beliefs but that the two are almost interchangeable concepts. A model *is* a set of beliefs.
April 10, 2025 at 5:41 PM
a model is a formal representation (often mathematical) of a certain phenomena/process. the phenomena being modelled and the model are not interchangeable, this is akin to mistaking the map for the territory. a good model might capture the phenomena well but it is never the phenomena itself
Vision
“England’s non-woodland trees have been mapped for the first time, using cutting-edge methods of laser detection and satellite imagery”
www.theguardian.com/environment/...
www.theguardian.com/environment/...
‘An exciting moment’: England’s urban and rural trees mapped for first time
‘Groundbreaking’ tool aims to help tree-planting efforts and identify areas to create nature-rich habitats
www.theguardian.com
April 5, 2025 at 7:34 PM
Vision