Rob Ralston
@policyrelevant.bsky.social
Lecturer in Public Policy at Edinburgh Uni researching corporate power and planetary health - currently global plastics treaty | ‘most improved PhD student’ 2017-18 | part-time Kieran Tierney Ultra
virtually indistinguishable from the plot of an A24 psychological horror
I really want to believe that there’s no market for these ghoulish AI apps
I really want to believe that there’s no market for these ghoulish AI apps
November 14, 2025 at 1:31 PM
virtually indistinguishable from the plot of an A24 psychological horror
I really want to believe that there’s no market for these ghoulish AI apps
I really want to believe that there’s no market for these ghoulish AI apps
Reposted by Rob Ralston
'Proximity to drilling wells, processing plants, pipelines + other fossil fuel facilities elevates the risk of cancer, respiratory conditions, heart disease, premature birth + death, as well as posing grave threats to water supplies + air quality, + degrades land.'
Other than that, great stuff
Other than that, great stuff
Exclusive by me: A quarter of the world’s population lives within three miles (5km) of operational fossil fuel projects, threatening the health of more than 2bn people as well as critical ecosystems, according to first-of-its-kind research.
@amnesty.org
www.theguardian.com/environment/...
@amnesty.org
www.theguardian.com/environment/...
Fossil fuel projects around the world threaten the health of 2bn people – report
Exclusive: ‘Deep-rooted injustices’ affect billions of people due to location of wells, pipelines and other infrastructure
www.theguardian.com
November 12, 2025 at 6:32 PM
'Proximity to drilling wells, processing plants, pipelines + other fossil fuel facilities elevates the risk of cancer, respiratory conditions, heart disease, premature birth + death, as well as posing grave threats to water supplies + air quality, + degrades land.'
Other than that, great stuff
Other than that, great stuff
new open access paper on the right to science and pollution with several fantastic colleagues including
@bcarneyalmroth.bsky.social @jptilsted.bsky.social and @taraolsen.bsky.social
@bcarneyalmroth.bsky.social @jptilsted.bsky.social and @taraolsen.bsky.social
Protecting the right to science in multilateral environmental agreements addressing chemicals and plastics pollution
Scientific evidence supports dominant institutional understandings of the global socio-ecological crises of the triple planetary crisis-climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution-demonstrating...
www.tandfonline.com
November 12, 2025 at 1:21 PM
new open access paper on the right to science and pollution with several fantastic colleagues including
@bcarneyalmroth.bsky.social @jptilsted.bsky.social and @taraolsen.bsky.social
@bcarneyalmroth.bsky.social @jptilsted.bsky.social and @taraolsen.bsky.social
Reposted by Rob Ralston
🔴 NEW 🔴
Mapped: Big Food’s Routes to Influence at COP30
Interactive map shows the food & farming corporations, trade groups and initiatives at COP30 in Brazil and how these are set to navigate the summit
📝 @rachelsherrington.bsky.social & Gil Alessi👇
www.desmog.com/2025/11/10/m...
Mapped: Big Food’s Routes to Influence at COP30
Interactive map shows the food & farming corporations, trade groups and initiatives at COP30 in Brazil and how these are set to navigate the summit
📝 @rachelsherrington.bsky.social & Gil Alessi👇
www.desmog.com/2025/11/10/m...
Mapped: Big Food’s Routes to Influence at COP30
In the city of Belém, at the mouth of the Amazon rainforest, Brazil has kicked off the COP30 climate conference, a summit framed as a pivotal moment to reduce emissions and keep the Paris Agreement al...
www.desmog.com
November 11, 2025 at 9:30 AM
🔴 NEW 🔴
Mapped: Big Food’s Routes to Influence at COP30
Interactive map shows the food & farming corporations, trade groups and initiatives at COP30 in Brazil and how these are set to navigate the summit
📝 @rachelsherrington.bsky.social & Gil Alessi👇
www.desmog.com/2025/11/10/m...
Mapped: Big Food’s Routes to Influence at COP30
Interactive map shows the food & farming corporations, trade groups and initiatives at COP30 in Brazil and how these are set to navigate the summit
📝 @rachelsherrington.bsky.social & Gil Alessi👇
www.desmog.com/2025/11/10/m...
Reposted by Rob Ralston
We are featured in over 50 news outlets today: PhD student David Mahoney's research using web archives, @archive.org, to measure historic website emissions, offering a new method and open-source code for analysing & highlighting online environmental impact. www.energylivenews.com/2025/11/11/c...
COP websites emit 10 times more carbon than average webpages - Energy Live News
COP conference websites emit more carbon per page view than typical webpages
www.energylivenews.com
November 11, 2025 at 9:34 AM
We are featured in over 50 news outlets today: PhD student David Mahoney's research using web archives, @archive.org, to measure historic website emissions, offering a new method and open-source code for analysing & highlighting online environmental impact. www.energylivenews.com/2025/11/11/c...
Reposted by Rob Ralston
history will ultimately decide this but i think joyce carol oates might have just landed the most devastating burn in human history. like the death star trench run of posting
November 10, 2025 at 7:03 PM
history will ultimately decide this but i think joyce carol oates might have just landed the most devastating burn in human history. like the death star trench run of posting
Reposted by Rob Ralston
It’s one thing to have different environmental/health priorities for your foundation, it’s quite another to have been bankrolling one of the primary sources of bullshit on the topic.
Bill Gates Gave $3.5M to Think Tank Run by Climate Crisis Denier Bjorn Lomborg
By @rtakver.bsky.social @desmog.com
www.desmog.com/2025/11/05/b...
By @rtakver.bsky.social @desmog.com
www.desmog.com/2025/11/05/b...
Bill Gates Gave $3.5M to Think Tank Run by Climate Crisis Denier Bjorn Lomborg
Tax records reveal that the billionaire’s foundation has donated for years to Lomborg’s Copenhagen Consensus Center.
www.desmog.com
November 6, 2025 at 1:27 PM
It’s one thing to have different environmental/health priorities for your foundation, it’s quite another to have been bankrolling one of the primary sources of bullshit on the topic.
Reposted by Rob Ralston
Opinion
America First and the Fragmentation of Global Health: How Africa can Reimagine Its Agency
www.globalpolicyjournal.com/blog/06/11/2...
America First and the Fragmentation of Global Health: How Africa can Reimagine Its Agency
www.globalpolicyjournal.com/blog/06/11/2...
November 6, 2025 at 10:04 AM
Opinion
America First and the Fragmentation of Global Health: How Africa can Reimagine Its Agency
www.globalpolicyjournal.com/blog/06/11/2...
America First and the Fragmentation of Global Health: How Africa can Reimagine Its Agency
www.globalpolicyjournal.com/blog/06/11/2...
Reposted by Rob Ralston
They just gutted Teen Vogue which had top notch political journalism. The media is continuing to purge any sort of political dissent to Trump and the oligarchs.
www.vogue.com/article/teen...
www.vogue.com/article/teen...
November 3, 2025 at 8:01 PM
They just gutted Teen Vogue which had top notch political journalism. The media is continuing to purge any sort of political dissent to Trump and the oligarchs.
www.vogue.com/article/teen...
www.vogue.com/article/teen...
PepsiCo follows Coca-Cola in backtracking on commitments to reduce virgin plastic + abandoning reuse
despite all the talk of corporate sustainbility in UN plastic treaty negotiations, the reality is that Big Food companies are continuin to expand their use of single use plastics
despite all the talk of corporate sustainbility in UN plastic treaty negotiations, the reality is that Big Food companies are continuin to expand their use of single use plastics
PepsiCo downgrades its sustainability goals
PepsiCo, in its latest sustainability update, becomes the latest major company to scale back its climate targets.
trellis.net
October 27, 2025 at 2:05 PM
PepsiCo follows Coca-Cola in backtracking on commitments to reduce virgin plastic + abandoning reuse
despite all the talk of corporate sustainbility in UN plastic treaty negotiations, the reality is that Big Food companies are continuin to expand their use of single use plastics
despite all the talk of corporate sustainbility in UN plastic treaty negotiations, the reality is that Big Food companies are continuin to expand their use of single use plastics
I’ve said this jokingly to colleagues but a universal research income (URI) of 10k would be a far more equitable and productive system than the current funding model
staggering to think of the time and effort put into applications that have a 1% chance of getting funded
staggering to think of the time and effort put into applications that have a 1% chance of getting funded
After submitting a FOIA request UKRI, I obtained success rates by three grant call scheme and I can only say that I am disheartened by the results:
- AHRC Responsive Mode 2025: 2%
- ESRC New Investigator Grant 2025: 1%
- ESRC Research Grant Round 2025: 1%
- AHRC Responsive Mode 2025: 2%
- ESRC New Investigator Grant 2025: 1%
- ESRC Research Grant Round 2025: 1%
October 23, 2025 at 11:45 AM
I’ve said this jokingly to colleagues but a universal research income (URI) of 10k would be a far more equitable and productive system than the current funding model
staggering to think of the time and effort put into applications that have a 1% chance of getting funded
staggering to think of the time and effort put into applications that have a 1% chance of getting funded
Reposted by Rob Ralston
🚨 New working paper alert 🚨
Missing summer — and the Tour de France? Don’t worry, we got you covered. 🚴♂️🚴♂️🚴♂️
In this paper, we show that being on the route of Tour de France reduces far-right voting. osf.io/preprints/so...
Missing summer — and the Tour de France? Don’t worry, we got you covered. 🚴♂️🚴♂️🚴♂️
In this paper, we show that being on the route of Tour de France reduces far-right voting. osf.io/preprints/so...
September 16, 2025 at 10:25 AM
🚨 New working paper alert 🚨
Missing summer — and the Tour de France? Don’t worry, we got you covered. 🚴♂️🚴♂️🚴♂️
In this paper, we show that being on the route of Tour de France reduces far-right voting. osf.io/preprints/so...
Missing summer — and the Tour de France? Don’t worry, we got you covered. 🚴♂️🚴♂️🚴♂️
In this paper, we show that being on the route of Tour de France reduces far-right voting. osf.io/preprints/so...
shamelessly promoting this paper again - open access thanks to @uoe-sps.bsky.social
new article in @reggovjournal.bsky.social that examines how corporations engage in 'venue hopping' as a means to advance agendas in multiple spaces and at multiple levels
This riffs off Baumgartner and Jones' notion of venue shopping, but adapts it for an increasingly multistakeholder world
This riffs off Baumgartner and Jones' notion of venue shopping, but adapts it for an increasingly multistakeholder world
Corporate Power in a Multistakeholder World: Venue Hopping and the Multilevel Politics of Ultra‐Processed Food
The regulation of business is increasingly characterized by “soft” governance regimes that blur the boundaries of public and private authority, as signaled by the rapid proliferation of multistakehol...
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
October 21, 2025 at 10:47 AM
shamelessly promoting this paper again - open access thanks to @uoe-sps.bsky.social
Reposted by Rob Ralston
🚨New from me & @fieldnotes.co in @theguardian.com → Revealed: The network of GOP hired guns behind Big Soda’s bid to turn MAGA against MAHA www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
Inside the Republican network behind big soda’s bid to pit Maga against Maha
A Guardian investigation finds the US soda and snack-food industries, threatened by RFK Jr’s movement to change Americans’ eating habits, have turned to a group of well-connected strategists, shadowy ...
www.theguardian.com
October 19, 2025 at 12:09 PM
🚨New from me & @fieldnotes.co in @theguardian.com → Revealed: The network of GOP hired guns behind Big Soda’s bid to turn MAGA against MAHA www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
[stares forlornly at inertia of Edinburgh city council]
Cardiff will be the first UK city to introduce a surcharge for oversized SUVs and trucks, "while very large vehicles – those over 3,500kg – will be excluded from residential permits entirely."
Cardiff set to tackle SUV 'carspreading' in UK first
Cardiff Council is set to become the first local authority in the UK to introduce higher parking charges for SUVs and other heavy vehicles, in a move campaigners say will make city streets safer and f...
nation.cymru
October 16, 2025 at 7:41 AM
[stares forlornly at inertia of Edinburgh city council]
Reposted by Rob Ralston
"If geoengineering works well initially & you see this temperature drop, the tempempation to keep going & extracting fossil fuels will be greater than ever, because it will seem that you have a technologically that can cut off the link between temperature rises & fossil fuel combustion."
Overshoot & Climate Breakdown - Wim Carton & Andreas Malm | #39
YouTube video by Jesse Damiani
youtu.be
October 15, 2025 at 9:38 AM
"If geoengineering works well initially & you see this temperature drop, the tempempation to keep going & extracting fossil fuels will be greater than ever, because it will seem that you have a technologically that can cut off the link between temperature rises & fossil fuel combustion."
new article in @reggovjournal.bsky.social that examines how corporations engage in 'venue hopping' as a means to advance agendas in multiple spaces and at multiple levels
This riffs off Baumgartner and Jones' notion of venue shopping, but adapts it for an increasingly multistakeholder world
This riffs off Baumgartner and Jones' notion of venue shopping, but adapts it for an increasingly multistakeholder world
Corporate Power in a Multistakeholder World: Venue Hopping and the Multilevel Politics of Ultra‐Processed Food
The regulation of business is increasingly characterized by “soft” governance regimes that blur the boundaries of public and private authority, as signaled by the rapid proliferation of multistakehol...
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
October 13, 2025 at 11:41 AM
new article in @reggovjournal.bsky.social that examines how corporations engage in 'venue hopping' as a means to advance agendas in multiple spaces and at multiple levels
This riffs off Baumgartner and Jones' notion of venue shopping, but adapts it for an increasingly multistakeholder world
This riffs off Baumgartner and Jones' notion of venue shopping, but adapts it for an increasingly multistakeholder world
Reposted by Rob Ralston
Reposted by Rob Ralston
📚 new open access book: "Climate Assemblies - New Civic Institutions for a Climate-Changed World" 🌍
✅ 25 co-authors examine the state of the field and the reasons behind the growing hope and hype about climate assemblies
✅Free PDF available here 👉🏼 www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi...
✅ 25 co-authors examine the state of the field and the reasons behind the growing hope and hype about climate assemblies
✅Free PDF available here 👉🏼 www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi...
August 25, 2025 at 9:51 AM
📚 new open access book: "Climate Assemblies - New Civic Institutions for a Climate-Changed World" 🌍
✅ 25 co-authors examine the state of the field and the reasons behind the growing hope and hype about climate assemblies
✅Free PDF available here 👉🏼 www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi...
✅ 25 co-authors examine the state of the field and the reasons behind the growing hope and hype about climate assemblies
✅Free PDF available here 👉🏼 www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi...
Reposted by Rob Ralston
Is meat the new oil? Five lessons from fossil fuel governance for industrial meat governance
By @cleoverk.bsky.social
www.sei.org/perspectives...
By @cleoverk.bsky.social
www.sei.org/perspectives...
Is meat the new oil? Five lessons from fossil fuel governance for industrial meat governance
In this perspective, SEI Senior Scientist Cleo Verkuijl outlines lessons from fossil fuel governance that can guide transformation of the global food system.
www.sei.org
October 8, 2025 at 1:28 PM
Is meat the new oil? Five lessons from fossil fuel governance for industrial meat governance
By @cleoverk.bsky.social
www.sei.org/perspectives...
By @cleoverk.bsky.social
www.sei.org/perspectives...
no coincidence that efforts by governments, development banks and the plastics industry to 'derisk' investment in risky, unproven recycling technologies has targeted countries like Indonesia, which have the highest imports of toxic plastic waste
Sharp rise in UK plastic exports shows how behind the country is
The EU has agreed to ban exports of waste to poorer nations. The ban comes into force in November 2026
The UK does not have a similar ban in place
www.theguardian.com/environment/...
The EU has agreed to ban exports of waste to poorer nations. The ban comes into force in November 2026
The UK does not have a similar ban in place
www.theguardian.com/environment/...
UK plastic waste exports to developing countries rose 84% in a year, data shows
Campaigners say increase in exports mostly to Malaysia and Indonesia is ‘unethical and irresponsible waste imperialism’
www.theguardian.com
October 8, 2025 at 9:06 AM
no coincidence that efforts by governments, development banks and the plastics industry to 'derisk' investment in risky, unproven recycling technologies has targeted countries like Indonesia, which have the highest imports of toxic plastic waste
I'm not sure how far these developments have leaked beyond the global plastics sphere, but UNEP do not come out this looking good
UN plastics treaty chair to step down with process in turmoil
Exclusive: Luis Vayas Valdivieso says he is quitting for personal and professional reasons after reports of pressure behind the scenes
www.theguardian.com
October 7, 2025 at 11:57 AM
I'm not sure how far these developments have leaked beyond the global plastics sphere, but UNEP do not come out this looking good
Reposted by Rob Ralston
Meat vs EAT-Lancet Planetary Health Diet: The dynamics of an industry-orchestrated online backlash
Report by the Changing Markets Foundation
changingmarkets.org/report/meat-...
Report by the Changing Markets Foundation
changingmarkets.org/report/meat-...
Meat vs EAT-Lancet: The dynamics of an industry-orchestrated online backlash • Changing Markets
The EAT-Lancet Commission publish EAT-Lancet 2.0: an update to the planetary health diet 2019. One of the most influential academic studies ever released, it also faced significant online backlash – o...
changingmarkets.org
September 24, 2025 at 4:21 PM
Meat vs EAT-Lancet Planetary Health Diet: The dynamics of an industry-orchestrated online backlash
Report by the Changing Markets Foundation
changingmarkets.org/report/meat-...
Report by the Changing Markets Foundation
changingmarkets.org/report/meat-...
Reposted by Rob Ralston
When your custom character appears in a cut scene
October 6, 2025 at 5:06 PM
When your custom character appears in a cut scene
an advert so good that I joined the waitlist for a synthesiser I would have no idea how to use
"How to Orchid" by Telepathic Instruments
YouTube video by Telepathic Instruments
www.youtube.com
October 2, 2025 at 12:07 PM
an advert so good that I joined the waitlist for a synthesiser I would have no idea how to use