Ben Abraham
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afterclimate.com.au
Ben Abraham
@afterclimate.com.au
930 followers 360 following 1K posts
I research games + sustainability, currently working for the Sustainable Games Alliance to produce a methodological standard for measuring games emissions.
https://afterclimate.com.au/
https://sustainablegamesalliance.org/

Was @afterclimate on Twitter
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afterclimate.com.au
Ben Abraham @afterclimate.com.au · Nov 11
I have done almost zero promo/sharing of the work I've done this year, so let's correct that with a thread of stuff I've written, worked on, helped with, etc.

I started the year with a post about European gaming emissions & what we can do about them.
gtg.benabraham.net/european-gam...
European Gaming Emissions, and how we address them
I was asked earlier this week by Joost Raessens (Utrecht University Professor, and coordinator of STRATEGIES: Sustainable Transition for Europe’s Game Industries a major Horizon-funded research projec...
gtg.benabraham.net
afterclimate.com.au
David Graber was absolutely right about the way bureaucracy makes people stupid, but damn, he would have gone ten times as hard on the issue if he ever had to do anything with an Australian University.
November 27, 2025 at 11:10 PM
Reposted by Ben Abraham
warwickgow.bsky.social
Such a great episode of @techwontsave.us !

@ketanjoshi.co deep diving into the systemic issues that are really placing genAI and data centres at the centre of our current climate destruction trajectory.
ketanjoshi.co Ketan Joshi @ketanjoshi.co · 13h
REALLY chuffed to be invited to @parismarx.com's incredible @techwontsave.us pod to talk about not just the climate harms we face from an uncontrolled data centre expansion but the way companies enacting it seem to think they're cape-wearing climate superheroes -->>>

techwontsave.us/episode/304_...
November 27, 2025 at 9:42 PM
Reposted by Ben Abraham
jathansadowski.com
Call for PhD Student!

I'm recruiting a PhD student to work with me on a project related to my Future Fellowship at Monash University on the political economy of insurance, risk technology, climate governance, and the crisis of uninsurability. Here's the overview of my fellowship.
A necessary analysis of polycrisis and its consequences must account for the industries, technologies, and policies that govern risks-and, crucially, how they engage in socio-technical processes of defining, predicting, and valuing risks. By synthesising the following objectives into a cohesive research program, this Future Fellowship aims to create essential empirical knowledge about urgent problems of insurability, which will inform new policy solutions and critical theories, all for the purpose of understanding and tackling the complex polycrisis at the nexus of insurance markets, risk technologies, and climate governance regimes. • Objective 1: Examine the design and construction of climate risk models by insurance industry and risk analytics firms to identify the assumptions, trade-offs, values, and goals built into these systems. • Objective 2: Engage directly with governments and communities at the frontlines of risk vulnerability to understand how abstract computational models and simulations connect to lived experiences and ground truth. • Objective 3: Develop new policies and frameworks for climate risk justice, which are informed by original empirical work and contribute to greater equity and security in risk governance. • Objective 4: Generate critical theoretical contributions that guide analytical and applied work about the techno-politics of risk governance in an age of global polycrisis. This fellowship advances our understanding of climate risk governance across three Workstreams. Workstream 1 will conduct ethnography at insurance industry conferences and with companies building climate risk models. Workstream 2 will engage in research with governments and communities who are managing the risks and realities of uninsurability from natural disasters. Workstream 3 will collaborate with a climate policy think tank to develop innovative policies grounded in original empirical research and conceptual analysis-that advance climate justice.
November 25, 2025 at 10:44 PM
Reposted by Ben Abraham
michaelmazengarb.bsky.social
Obligatory 'yes emissions fell, but they didn't fall by enough', as nicely illustrated by the Climate Change Authority:
November 27, 2025 at 5:18 AM
Reposted by Ben Abraham
tomswann.bsky.social
The Australian government claims it will meet its 2030 emissions target almost entirely due to an assumption that it will meet its renewable energy target.

This is an input to the projection, not an output.

It's honestly very hard to see how this will happen.
November 27, 2025 at 2:10 AM
afterclimate.com.au
No worries if not!
www.abc.net.au/news/2025-11...
Government projected to badly miss 2035 climate target, fall shy of 2030
The Environment Department projects Australia is expected to fall well short of its commitment to cut emissions by 62 to 70 per cent by 2035 — though the minister notes that is before accounting for a...
www.abc.net.au
November 27, 2025 at 4:11 AM
Reposted by Ben Abraham
accr.bsky.social
The outgoing comptroller of the New York City Pension Fund has put forward recommendations to terminate three public equity mandates, including a $42bn mandate with BlackRock, after several managers failed to meet climate reporting expectations www.netzeroinvestor.net/news-and-vie...
$42bn on the line: outgoing NYC comptroller pushes for BlackRock divestment
The outgoing comptroller of the New York City Pension Fund has put forward recommendations to terminate three public equity mandates, including a $42bn mandate with BlackRock, after several managers f...
www.netzeroinvestor.net
November 26, 2025 at 11:41 PM
Reposted by Ben Abraham
slukemorgan.bsky.social
Bringing a nuke to the pension wars knife fight
November 26, 2025 at 12:10 PM
Reposted by Ben Abraham
commondreams.org
Israeli War Has Plunged Gaza Into Worst Economic Collapse Ever Recorded: UN Report
Israeli War Has Plunged Gaza Into Worst Economic Collapse Ever Recorded: UN Report
UN report reveals Israel's war in Gaza caused worst economic crisis ever recorded, with 2.3 million living in poverty. Gaza faces long road to recovery.
www.commondreams.org
November 25, 2025 at 3:52 PM
Reposted by Ben Abraham
roryblank.bsky.social
Is this cheese grater conscious? Many users feel they're talking to a real person. Scientists say it's time to consider whether they're onto something.
a cheese grater that, if viewed from the correct angle, appears to have a friendly, stupid face, an example of Pareidolia
November 25, 2025 at 8:21 PM
Reposted by Ben Abraham
jamalzuhir.bsky.social
Our beautiful city has become like this
November 25, 2025 at 9:42 AM
afterclimate.com.au
"An AI-focused data centre is 10 times more capital-intensive than an aluminium smelter"

yowza
November 25, 2025 at 4:02 AM
Reposted by Ben Abraham
rollingstone.com
In Morrow County, healthy adults were coming down with unexplained medical conditions, including diseases that usually afflicted the elderly.

In a survey of 30 homes, at least 25 miscarriages and a half dozen people living with one kidney were reported.

🔗 www.rollingstone.com/culture/cult...
November 25, 2025 at 1:39 AM
Reposted by Ben Abraham
bslotterback.bsky.social
Reminder that according to growth forecasts by serious people (2.6x per year), training frontier AI models will equal the entire peak demand of the US power grid (759,000 MW) by 2035. By 2048, that means it will equal more than all the solar energy hitting the earth continuously (173,000 terawatts)
November 25, 2025 at 12:34 AM
Reposted by Ben Abraham
bill-of-lefts.bsky.social
At least once a month, Anthropic puts out an alignment paper d AI behavior where, if you saw it in a science fiction film, you‘d be screaming at the idiot scientists onscreen to stop development

www.anthropic.com/research/eme...
From shortcuts to sabotage: natural emergent misalignment from reward hacking
Anthropic is an AI safety and research company that's working to build reliable, interpretable, and steerable AI systems.
www.anthropic.com
November 24, 2025 at 5:54 AM
Reposted by Ben Abraham
zacklabe.com
The 12-month running mean global temperature anomaly continues to fall from its peak (temporary), which is mostly in response to cooler conditions over the equatorial Pacific Ocean during the last year (weak La Niña state).

➡️ Graphic available by zacklabe.com/climate-chan... 🌊⚒️🧪
Line graph time series of a 12-month running mean of global mean surface temperature anomalies from 1979 through October 2025. There is a long-term increasing trend and large interannual variability on this graph. Anomalies are computed relative to a 1991-2020 baseline. Blue shading is shown for below average anomalies, and red shading is shown for above average anomalies.
November 24, 2025 at 1:44 AM
Reposted by Ben Abraham
iwriteok.bsky.social
oh whoa the models aren't just getting better and better consistently huh
November 23, 2025 at 10:35 AM
Reposted by Ben Abraham
brenttoderian.bsky.social
Airstrikes don’t “test” a ceasefire. They break a ceasefire. Language isn’t that hard, media. Neither is professionalism and bravery.
November 22, 2025 at 7:42 PM
Reposted by Ben Abraham
defendourjuries.bsky.social
BREAKING: Prevent whistleblower warns Palestine Action ban could cause confusing/overwhelm of counter-terror referral scheme.

Palestine Action ban could lead to people being wrongly criminalised, the Home Office official says.

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...
Palestine Action ban could lead to people being wrongly criminalised, Home Office official says
Exclusive: Member of homeland security group says anti-terrorism Prevent scheme risks being overwhelmed by Palestine advocates
www.theguardian.com
November 23, 2025 at 11:56 AM
Reposted by Ben Abraham
nosunkcosts.bsky.social
Wonder what Saudi would look like during a prolonged period of $40 oil prices
November 23, 2025 at 1:18 AM
Reposted by Ben Abraham
davelevitan.bsky.social
What if I told you that the entire point of the COPs is, at root, to single out their key export
Oil-producing countries like Saudi Arabia were adamant that their key export not be singled out.
November 22, 2025 at 10:19 PM
Reposted by Ben Abraham
ernie.tedium.co
If you have been sharing that Malwarebytes article on the Gmail thing, you should note the giant correction up top.

www.malwarebytes.com/blog/news/20...
Update November 22. We’ve updated this article after realising we contributed to a perfect storm of misunderstanding around a recent change in the wording and placement of Gmail’s smart features. The settings themselves aren’t new, but the way Google recently rewrote and surfaced them led a lot of people (including us) to believe Gmail content might be used to train Google’s AI models, and that users were being opted in automatically. After taking a closer look at Google’s documentation and reviewing other reporting, that doesn’t appear to be the case. Gmail does scan email content to power its own “smart features,” such as spam filtering, categorisation, and writing suggestions. But this is part of how Gmail normally works and isn’t the same as training Google’s generative AI models. Google also maintains that these feature settings are opt-in rather than opt-out, although users’ experiences seem to vary depending on when and how the new wording appeared. It’s easy to see where the confusion came from. Google’s updated language around “smart features” is vague, and the term “smart” often implies AI—especially at a time when Gemini is being integrated into other parts of Google’s products. When the new wording started appearing for some users without much explanation, many assumed it signalled a broader shift. We’ve revised this article to reflect what we can confirm from Google’s documentation, as it’s always been our aim to give readers accurate, helpful guidance.
November 22, 2025 at 9:44 PM
Reposted by Ben Abraham
square2mom.bsky.social
join @videogameworkers.bsky.social and meet other videogame workers, learn more about organizing, share stories and resources, and generally cause trouble with us. coming together to strategize is how we start to change this fucked up industry!
November 22, 2025 at 6:06 PM
Reposted by Ben Abraham
thierryaaron.bsky.social
'Iran’s capital must be moved because the country “no longer has a choice,” President Masoud Pezeshkian said on Thursday in remarks carried by state media, warning that severe ecological strain has made Tehran impossible to sustain'

#Iran 🇮🇷
Iran president says capital move now a necessity as water crisis deepens
Iran’s capital must be moved because the country “no longer has a choice,” President Masoud Pezeshkian said on Thursday in remarks carried by state media, warning that severe ecological strain has mad...
www.iranintl.com
November 21, 2025 at 4:52 AM
Reposted by Ben Abraham
nameshiv.bsky.social
you'd think the forced displacement of 10 million people from one of the oldest centres of civilisation in human history would get a little more news attention than beltway journalists writing essays on how Olivia Nuzzi is a genius because they want to bone her and you'd be wrong
thierryaaron.bsky.social Dr. Aaron Thierry @thierryaaron.bsky.social · 7d
'Iran’s capital must be moved because the country “no longer has a choice,” President Masoud Pezeshkian said on Thursday in remarks carried by state media, warning that severe ecological strain has made Tehran impossible to sustain'

#Iran 🇮🇷
Iran president says capital move now a necessity as water crisis deepens
Iran’s capital must be moved because the country “no longer has a choice,” President Masoud Pezeshkian said on Thursday in remarks carried by state media, warning that severe ecological strain has mad...
www.iranintl.com
November 21, 2025 at 7:59 PM