Tom Gillespie
@t-a-gillespie.bsky.social
Urban geographer | he/him | views my own, repost ≠ endorsement
our entire global financial system is currently leveraged to the hilt on the premise that it was good and right for a small cadre of US companies to steal all of the intellectual work ever produced by humanity and sell its back to us without credit or remuneration to the authors (plagiarism)
Why is Burnham so reluctant to talk about the climate crisis? Good piece by Sandra Laville I hope the PM breaks his climate silence soon and levels with the country about how bad things are, & what his plan is to tackle climate impacts and fossil fuels www.theguardian.com/politics/202...
Hot topic: why is Burnham so reluctant to talk about the climate crisis?
Extreme heat is harming wellbeing of ordinary people the PM champions, yet little has been said on the topic
theguardian.com
SLOW CLAP "AI boom means US is now ‘investing more’ in fossil-fuel power than China" Congratulations to US AI Tech Oligarchs www.carbonbrief.org/ai-boom-mean...
Many thanks to @digitcentre.bsky.social for supporting this project with @katerhardy.bsky.social, Gianluca Iazzolino and Yawei Zhao
ESRC Centre for Digital Futures at Work (Digit)@digitcentre.bsky.social · 2w ago🎉 Meet @t-a-gillespie.bsky.social supported by the Marie Jahoda Innovation Fund 2026! His project compares "green" data centre development in China, South Africa & the UK, testing whether promises of jobs and growth for peripheral regions hold up in reality. 🔗 digit-research.org/marie-jahoda...
Burnham wants to do what he did in Greater Manchester for the whole of the UK? But what does that mean for the people - not the property developers? Its time to end Rip off Britain. Join.greenparty.org.uk
In Autumn 2026 @globaldevinst.bsky.social will open their call for new Ghana scholarships. Get ready and find out more: buff.ly/wmEeIig
The Israeli military is quietly but quickly building a giant earth barrier separating the more than 50% of the Gaza Strip it controls from the rest of the territory, according to satellite imagery, further entrenching the division of the Palestinian enclave. jrnl.ie/7108745
Israel consolidating land grab by building 22km earth barrier cutting through Gaza
Israel has mostly destroyed and depopulated the half of Gaza it controls
jrnl.ie
"An Israeli strike has killed 3people ahead of a public screening of a world cup game in the Gaza strip. 2 children were killed.. along with a member of the Egyptian relief committee, which organised the event. The strike occurred moments before the Egypt match against Argentina"
cannot recommend highly enough this piece from simon skinner that covers the entire grand history of fifa corruption (and much more) — www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
Simon Skinner · ‘I wouldn’t pay it either’: World Cup Wallcharts
This World Cup, unlike Russia 2018, is hosted by democratic nations, and unlike Qatar 2022 the walkways to its stadiums...
lrb.co.uk
What's missing from the 'Manchesterism' hype is detailed analysis of Burnham's actual record in GM This report credits him with a programme of 'expanded council housing'. How many did he build? Why has Manchester's social housing waiting list increased by 84% to over 21,000 households since 2016?
Common Wealth@cmmonwealth.bsky.social · 2mo agoOur Director and US Principal Economist argue in an essay for @mainstreamlabour.bsky.social that the solution to Britain’s compounding crises is the Productive State — that owns, invests and provides essentials to make life affordable. www.mainstreamlabour.org/updates/new-...
Britain about to get its seventh Prime Minister in ten years. I can’t say I’m surprised. As a people they’re often wonderful of course—very musical, for example, many charming customs, and always joking around in their quirky way—but they just don’t have the temperament for stable self-government.
At the end of the term I asked my college creative wriing students to submit anonymous thoughts on AI. No real surprises: Mood ranges from resignation to despair, capitulation from embittered erosion of standards to total, feelings of betrayal from deep to furious. 1/
There was a time, not long ago, when peaceful protestors were never sent to jail in the UK But at least 286 people have been locked up for protesting climate breakdown and genocide in recent years It's a fucking scandal
New breed of political prisoner arises in Britain as anti-protest sentences rise
More people are being jailed in England and Wales as a result of acting to prevent climate breakdown and the war in Gaza, research reveals
theguardian.com
As Nida' Ibrahim touches on, if this is how Israel treats international activists, how do you think they treat Palestinians?
Looking forward to this hybrid GlobalCORRIDOR workshop at the British Institute in Eastern Africa on Tuesday. I will be talking about road corridors, land transformations and rentier capitalism. Thanks to Catherine Gateri for the invitation! biea.ac.uk/events/globa...
GlobalCORRIDOR: Urbanization, Everyday life + Techno-social Differentiation | British Institute in Eastern Africa
biea.ac.uk
Some reading and viewing for Nakba Day: our Interventions series on the Palestinian genocide antipodeonline.org/2024/03/01/i... and the 2024 Antipode RGS-IBG Lecture—“Where is Palestine? Singapore on the Med, Spaceships, and the Mount of Olives” antipodeonline.org/2024/08/14/2...
Artificial intelligence is "incredibly unpopular technology" that is essentially being forced on people, says writer @astra.bsky.social. New data centers are now facing stiff resistance, providing "local chokepoints where people can come together and push back on the billionaire Big Tech agenda."
"Water systems are no longer just collateral damage. They are increasingly part of military strategy. “Water is increasingly part of the battlefield,” "We see it being used as a weapon of war, with the effects falling primarily on civilians.” reflects Professor Mark Zeitoun. shorturl.at/FL5YM
Israeli Strikes Are Decimating Water Infrastructure in Lebanon
Workers move under drones, repairing shattered pipelines and keeping stations running after repeated attacks
newlinesmag.com
🔓️ NEW in #UrbanStudies ✍️ @t-a-gillespie.bsky.social et al. discuss the changing relationship between #housing, #finance and #state through a global comparative perspective, adopting an urban statecraft lens to examine affordable housing production. 📖 buff.ly/eck82ap
We need to win big on May 7. Thousands of Green candidates are standing across England and Wales. This is a real chance to change politics - to give communities a stronger voice and challenge parties backed by big money. Support the campaign 👉 crowdfunder.co.uk/p/we-deserve...
Affordable housing, finance and the state: Towards a global urban comparison New @urbanstudiesjournal.com article with a great team of authors We draw on research in six cities to discuss the changing relationship between housing, finance and the state journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....
Affordable housing, finance and the state: Towards a global urban comparison - Tom Gillespie, Glyn Williams, Raffael Beier, Antoine Gosnet, Margherita Grazioli, Thomas F. Purcell, Jie Shen, Callum War...
The scale of the 21st-century urban housing challenge has prompted state actors in both the Global North and South to adopt increasingly interventionist approac...
journals.sagepub.com
‘The image of luxury towers constructed above mass graves, with tens of thousands presumably buried under the earthworks, embodies the logic of 21st-century genocide.’ Eyal Weizman on the demolition of Gaza, online early from the next issue. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
Eyal Weizman · All they will find is sand: Gaza’s Yellow Line
Most of the Gaza Strip – cities, refugee camps, schools, universities, mosques, the health infrastructure, agriculture...
lrb.co.uk
Sam Altman has a new plan to make money from generative AI: he wants intelligence to be treated like water or electricity — and we’ll all have to pay him for it. His chatbots are degrading people’s ability to retain information and think critically. Now he wants to sell smarts back to us.
Make ‘em dumb, sell ‘em smarts
Sam Altman wants intelligence to be a utility that you pay him for
disconnect.blog
The UK must immediately and unequivocally suspend support for the US military. The Government have tried to appease him, then they tried to say they're standing up to him. Words aren't enough - it's time for action.
Marisa Kabas@marisakabas.bsky.social · 4mo agoGod help us.
Make some noise. Share this post. 🚨 The Israeli government has granted itself another means to dehumanise, suppress, and kill Palestinians. Israel is violating international law.
Spain has closed its airspace to US planes involved in attacks on Iran. Meanwhile, the UK is letting US bombers land, refuel and re-arm. Complicity is always a choice — and our government has chosen to drag Britain into an illegal war.
