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Chris Hopkins

@chrishopkins.bsky.social

1.6K followers 1.3K following 1.3K posts

Interim Policy Director @GECoalition.bsky.social, @IIED.bsky.social 💚 Personal views & 🌭🐶 content only. Econ, env. policy, geopolitics, football 🤓 stuff. He/Him. Occasionally ChrisHopkins99.

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Chris Hopkins @chrishopkins.bsky.social · Nov 14

Will get around to a proper pinned post, but here's one interesting thing I do - the Green Economy Tracker.

greeneconomytracker.org

41 countries, 21 policies, crowd sourced assessment of green transitions. Evolution in progress... 🧬

Home

We know what policies and laws are needed to build a green, fair future. But which countries are leading the way - and which are lagging behind?

greeneconomytracker.org

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Chris Hopkins @chrishopkins.bsky.social · 21m

"This is not genocide. Trust us, if we wanted to carry out genocide, we could do it."

I mean, what do you say anymore.

Reposted by Chris Hopkins

Adam Vaughan @adamvaughan.bsky.social · 8h

The amount of CO2 in the atmosphere increased by a record amount last year, says @wmo-global.bsky.social.

The record annual rise comes amid growing signs that forests, peatlands, oceans and other natural "sinks" are failing to absorb as much CO2 as they normally do.

wmo.int/publication-...

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Chris Hopkins @chrishopkins.bsky.social · 1d

Get yourself a social network that will regularly relitigate historical imperialisms, and update the tier-list based on who turns out to be married to people with niche publishing records and domain expertise.

Spanish Empire 🚮😅

Chris Hopkins @chrishopkins.bsky.social · 1d

Anti-pasto arrangement of CUDA cores; coming 2027.

Chris Hopkins @chrishopkins.bsky.social · 1d

Shocked it's not:

'Thanks to the power of Italian AI Agents, your friends at Nvidia have finally created the perplexing and frustrating bistromathic experience of being conned out of money splitting a bill - without the complicating and useful feature of travelling through 4 dimensional space-time.

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Chris Hopkins @chrishopkins.bsky.social · 1d

And some places have just got better devolved institutions and better functioning social/fiscal contracts to do the hard things of densifying-well at that local level.

We, er, do not right now over in 🇬🇧.
Or where we do, it's the exception.

Chris Hopkins @chrishopkins.bsky.social · 1d

It's something we all take for granted 'someone will have thought about this, and if it goes wrong there's help, surely?' and increasingly those assumptions are just going to be wrong.

Chris Hopkins @chrishopkins.bsky.social · 1d

The other is that (contra-US) we've just got so much less viable, build able land - which sucks.

So it's 'build, and densify' - which runs directly into UK's non-functioning local government situation, and a bunch of irrational consumer norms against density 🥲

www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Towns may have to be abandoned due to floods with millions more homes in Great Britain at risk

Every constituency projected to be at greater risk, with many areas likely to be uninsurable, Guardian investigation finds

www.theguardian.com

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Chris Hopkins @chrishopkins.bsky.social · 1d

The UK-specific trouble(s) with this line of argument is that the average UK speculator isn't letting their property out, /or/ leaving it empty... they're living in it because they're the bang average retiree - and have no undiversified investments. It's a national neurosis.

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Chris Hopkins @chrishopkins.bsky.social · 1d

bsky.app/profile/acjs...

Andrew Sissons @acjsissons.bsky.social · 1d

There’s not much to say about the solid wall insulation failures that hasn’t already been said. A diabolical policy failure that wasted money and harmed people.

But one thing I will add is: I think it highlights the need for more state delivery capacity on warm homes, not just regulation
🧵

Almost all external insulation fitted under Tory scheme needs repair or replacing, report finds

Homeowners who took advantage of government programmes left with cladding likely to cause damp

www.theguardian.com

Chris Hopkins @chrishopkins.bsky.social · 1d

bsky.app/profile/dsqu...

Dan Davies @dsquareddigest.bsky.social · 7d

in which, I continue to plead for systems thinking in planning, reprising last night's bluesky rant, so people who read that can be excused. backofmind.substack.com/p/canaries-a...

canaries and islands

the indicator species in the system

backofmind.substack.com

Chris Hopkins @chrishopkins.bsky.social · 1d

We desperately need a thought-through, resilience informed vision of how things get built from the green wing of our politics - or you risk ceding the argument to those who just deliver a worst of all worlds outcome.

+ the uninsurable UK green deal insulation scandal is yet another failure state.

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Chris Hopkins @chrishopkins.bsky.social · 1d

And where it's not, it's part of managing nature-based solutions to the development *we've already done* - where yet more grey infrastructure won't make the cut or be cost-effective.

The 'cut through all the nonsense and build' attitude risks no nature, no resilience, and no more livable houses.

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Chris Hopkins @chrishopkins.bsky.social · 1d

The alternate headline - "Towns may have to be abandoned due to floods with millions more homes in Great Britain at risk" kinda gets to the point a bit quicker.

@dsquareddigest.bsky.social's point the other day that lots of bat, snail, ecosystem protection is just the mine-canary for this...

Guardian Environment @environment.theguardian.com · 1d

Millions more homes in Great Britain at risk of flooding, investigation finds

Every constituency projected to be at greater risk, with many areas likely to be uninsurable

www.theguardian.com

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Chris Hopkins @chrishopkins.bsky.social · 2d

Analytic philosophy is a dead end for the left? Oh, you mean how it's anal retentive definitionalism and self-caveating makes it a poor starting point for developing forward momentum in solidaritisic politics of any kind?

No... the exact opposite? Ah well none the less, you tried on the internet.

Chris Hopkins @chrishopkins.bsky.social · 6d

Child actors pay for the equivalent millennial-scale social care?
Absolute bargain.

Back on the Harry Potter TV show train, it must succeed 😅🚂

Chris Hopkins @chrishopkins.bsky.social · 6d

More trams! Yay. 🚊

The urban area cut offs in the map do seem to be doing some slightly odd work - Paris and London providing lots of provision, but governance differences meaning it looks nothing like the Ruhr; Croydon tramlink erasure etc.

Reposted by Chris Hopkins

"Online Rent-a-Sage" Bret Devereaux @bretdevereaux.bsky.social · 7d

A good example of why direct inflation adjustment of this sort is more deceptive than clarifying when applied over very long stretches of time where consumption patterns are very different.

Basic foods (bread/grain) probably devours a third of Cratchet's income, but not the modern worker's.

Karly Kingsley @karlykingsley.bsky.social · 7d

👇

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Chris Hopkins @chrishopkins.bsky.social · 7d

As ever, Dan is great here on why we need to pay attention to leading indicators in planning - even (especially?) when they're potentially stupid feathery/slimy creatures.

No one relishes the complex world we know we live in, where it's less theres no free lunches and more there's no free land.

Dan Davies @dsquareddigest.bsky.social · 7d

in which, I continue to plead for systems thinking in planning, reprising last night's bluesky rant, so people who read that can be excused. backofmind.substack.com/p/canaries-a...

canaries and islands

the indicator species in the system

backofmind.substack.com

Chris Hopkins @chrishopkins.bsky.social · 7d

Quality varies, but when you get a good place you keep it close to your heart 🍕

Place just down our street used to do 18" half an half of what ever you wanted for (~conversion math~) under $15. Life saver 🤤😋

Chris Hopkins @chrishopkins.bsky.social · 7d

Without wanting to be too definitive - from the images and description there's _loads_ of this kind of pizza in the UK.

It's super common as the cheap, independent, high street takeaway pizza option. Grew up with it in early 00's, and it's still a staple today.

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Chris Hopkins @chrishopkins.bsky.social · 7d

You know this is 💯 actually part of the internal governance norms that enabled this kind of thing.
Who wants to be the guy saying 'no, the most Catalan thing to do is not give the tax authorities over there an excuse'. Much less fun.

Chris Hopkins @chrishopkins.bsky.social · 7d

Oxford PPEists should have to undertake exchange programs with other universities, so they can find out what their non-preferred letters actually stand for before they graduate 👀

Chris Hopkins @chrishopkins.bsky.social · 7d

His name was Khaled Mohammed Fathi Jabr - 7 years old.

Chris Hopkins @chrishopkins.bsky.social · 7d

This one tipped me over this morning.
Why the horse. Human emotional responses are so irrational.

What do you say. How do we stop the death laid on deaths laid on deaths.

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