Prof of Development Geography, Royal Holloway, Univ of London. Director, Mistra Urban Futures, 2014-19. Crit urb res & practice - sustainability. #NHSblueheart
London, mobile
Joined October 2018
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David Simon 💙 retweeted
It’s a rigged system, and we’re paying the price.
Energy analyst Professor Nick Butler cuts through the spin. Britain is producing more electricity from cheaper wind and solar, yet consumers don’t see the benefit because electricity prices remain tied to the wholesale gas market. The result, he says, is windfall profits for renewable owners while households and businesses pay more. He calls it “corporate welfare”.
Then there’s nuclear. Sizewell C is expected to cost tens of billions, with construction costs ultimately recovered from consumers through their bills.
Cheap energy? Not on this model.
Sizewell C ownership...
* UK Government: 44.9% (largest shareholder)
* La Caisse (CDPQ): 20% (Canadian pension fund)
* Centrica: 15% (British energy firm)
* EDF: 12.5% (French state-owned energy company)
* Amber Infrastructure: 7.6% Parent Company: Part of Boyd Watterson Global Asset Management Group (US-based).
Successive governments have created an energy system where the public funds the infrastructure, shoulders the risk and pays the inflated bill, while private interests collect the returns.
MPs should be representing the public interest. Instead, Westminster keeps facilitating the transfer of public wealth into private hands.
This is not a market; it is corporate welfare disguised as green progress. Until politicians uncouple electricity prices from gas and stop forcing the public to underwrite private risk, energy policy will remain a legalised shakedown of the working class.
#EnergyPrices #NetZero
David Simon 💙 retweeted
BREAKING: Palestinians are gathering across the Gaza Strip to begin anti-Hamas protests.
DOWN WITH HAMAS!
David Simon 💙 retweeted
🏙️ Cities have moved from the margins to the centre of national climate planning: 80% of NDC 3.0 submissions now include well-developed urban content, up from just 49% in NDC 2.0.
David Simon 💙 retweeted
This should be a bigger story.
Scientists are more concerned than ever that a critical Atlantic current will collapse soon and wreak havoc on North America and Europe. The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, or AMOC, is a massive conveyor belt of ocean currents that transports water from the tropics to the Atlantic.
Without it, severe weather would impact both regions at potentially devastating rates.
These scientists aren't just warning us about an environmental issue—they're sounding the alarm about a climate threat that could fundamentally rewrite how future generations survive on our planet.
theguardian.com/environment/…
David Simon 💙 retweeted
The Spectator and @michaelgove are not telling the whole truth about North Sea oil and gas.
• The UK oil and gas industry was privatised decades ago largely by the Conservatives. Oil and gas from the North Sea does not automatically belong to the British public.
• It is extracted by private companies and sold on global markets at global prices, making companies billions.
• That means drilling more in the North Sea does not automatically mean cheaper energy for the UK. We don’t get automatic or discounted access to it - that’s capitalism!
• This was the political choice made when the industry was privatised.
• Comparisons with Norway are misleading. Norway kept far more public control over its resources through its state energy company, Equinor, and direct state ownership of fields.
• The profits helped build Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, now worth around $1.6 trillion. Britain largely privatised the profits and spent the revenue.
• The UK North Sea is also a mature and declining basin. Production peaked in 1999 and has fallen by roughly 70% since then.
• Many remaining reserves are smaller and more expensive to extract, which is one reason companies have already been reducing exploration investment.
• Even if every remaining North Sea licence were approved, it would make only a small difference to UK gas imports.
• Oil and gas prices in Britain are linked to global markets, so more drilling would not shield households from international price shocks.
• At the same time the world is experiencing record temperatures, increasing extreme weather and growing risks to food systems.
• 2024 was the hottest year ever recorded.
• Extreme weather events are increasing, heat and rainfall records are falling globally.
• Scientists warn of the collapse of civilisation without immediate reductions in global emissions.
youtu.be/2Jq23mSDh9U?si=6ffZ…
• Some media and journalists are funded directly or indirectly by the fossil fuel I fire to mislead the public about the facts and secure the industry : youtu.be/YhDacrl1aSA?si=xkBC…
• The real question is how to manage the transition to a secure energy system, not pretend that expanding fossil fuel extraction will solve Britain’s long-term energy challenges.
#edmiliband #northsea #refo #restore #netzero #climatechange
David Simon 💙 retweeted
Students for Jihad in Palestine (SJP) is hosting an event at New York City’s public law school (CUNY) with Columbia University professor Dr. Hadeel Assali to discuss how tunnels in Gaza are part of the 'resistance to colonization' and how the Gaza underground serves as an example of 'decolonial land use.' She is an anthropologist who examines "the ongoing colonial legacies of the discipline of geology and anti-colonial ways of knowing and relating to the earth in southern Palestine." This ridiculous PhD of hers was overseen and advised by Mahmood Mamdani, father of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani. Needless to say, Dr. Assali, SJP, and a whole network at CUNY and Columbia students and faculty are overly and openly pro-Hamas, celebrating the tunnels as the ultimate marvel of Palestinian "resistance." They do not know the number of children killed digging these tunnels; they don't seem to care about the intimidation, corruption, theft, killings, and massive abuses that went into the establishment of these tunnels, not to mention the empowerment of a fascist Islamist organization like Hamas through these dungeons.
When I want to speak at CUNY, Columbia, MIT, and countless other schools, University administrators often reject my requests, tell me I'm not "pro-Palestine" enough, or that we have to seriously worry about security, interruptions, and horrific student and faculty behavior that can disrupt any possible event - free speech is suspended, and academic freedoms are constrained. But when pro-Hamas Jihadis and neo-terrorist students and faculty want to host activities and events that are the worst possible expressions of "pro-Palestine" sentiments, endorsements of designated terror orgs, and support for violence, somehow, they end up with the full support of university administrators, and free speech becomes a central consideration to ensure that such events are held without any disruption.
There is no justice in this world ...
David Simon 💙 retweeted
BREAKING: UK govt auction secures 4.9GW new solar at £65/MWh and 1.3GW new onshore wind at £72/MWh, 13% and 21% below the price cap respectively.
All due online by 2029.
David Simon 💙 retweeted
The Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention and Human Security is deeply concerned by a dangerous and accelerating pattern within the United States government in which rhetoric and symbolism associated with Nazi ideology and white supremacist extremism is increasingly given political legitimacy. Entire government agencies, especially the Department of Homeland Security, as well as senior officials and other influential actors now regularly tolerate and even echo language and imagery historically rooted in Nazism and genocidal movements, eroding democratic norms and cultivating an environment that actively drives extremist mobilization and politically driven violence.
The Lemkin Institute recognizes that the Trump Administration is unlikely to engage in any actions that would begin to limit and contain the growing power and violence of extremist groups because the Administration is, apparently, in the hands of people sympathetic to those groups. We remind President Trump, his advisors, and the foot soldiers of genocide in ICE and CBP that totalitarian supremacist projects never end well for the perpetrators.
We call upon U.S. government officials and U.S. political representatives who do not wish to be complicit in fascism and genocide to take immediate measures to identify, address and dismantle Nazi and white supremacist ideology within the U.S. government, with the long-term goal of transforming the nation towards a more just, positive, and sustainable social order.
We salute the Americans who are courageously showing up to protest the rapid radicalization of the U.S. state towards totalitarianism and genocide. All protest in the U.S. today is also genocide prevention work. Humanity will one day recognize the value and the heroism of people standing up and risking their lives every day. Read full statement here: bit.ly/NormalizationOfNazism…
David Simon 💙 retweeted
After the Nuremberg Trials, one of the most unsettling conclusions did not come from the courtroom, but from the psychiatrist tasked with evaluating the defendants.
Dr. Douglas Kelley, the U.S. Army psychiatrist assigned to assess many of the senior Nazi officials, expected to find monsters people fundamentally different from the rest of humanity. He did not.
What disturbed him most was how ordinary they were.
They were not raving madmen. They were not obvious sociopaths. They were intelligent, educated, and often convinced they were simply doing their duty, following orders, or serving a higher cause. Kelley warned that this was the real danger: evil does not always look abnormal. It often presents itself as competence, obedience, and institutional loyalty.
His central warning was deeply uncomfortable there are people with morally vacant or destructive tendencies everywhere. In every society. In every era. What determines the outcome is whether systems elevate those people, shield them from accountability, and normalize their behavior, and whether ordinary citizens are willing to question authority when it matters most.
Modern bureaucracies and institutions are powerful precisely because they diffuse responsibility. Decisions are broken into policies, protocols, committees, and “best practices.” Harm is rarely framed as harm; it is reframed as necessity, risk management, or compliance. Individuals are encouraged not to think morally, but procedurally.
This is how ordinary people become capable of extraordinary wrongdoing by outsourcing conscience to institutions and convincing themselves that accountability lies somewhere else.
The lesson of Nuremberg is not that “those people were different.” It is that they were not.
That is why vigilance matters. That is why blind trust in authority is dangerous. And that is why a healthy society must protect dissent, accountability, and moral courage especially when it is inconvenient.
History does not repeat itself because people forget facts. It repeats itself when people convince themselves, “It could never happen here.”
David Simon 💙 retweeted
Here’s something that you won’t see on mainstream media about Gaza, “pro-Palestine” accounts, or social media discourse: Hamas’s fascist terrorists have sabotaged the biggest water distribution operation in the Gaza Strip by arresting the head of ETA – the Abdulsalam Yaseen Water Company – which supplied vast quantities of water to civilians throughout the war and faced mass destruction of its infrastructure due to bombardment and devastation. The reason? Hamas is demanding ETA pay absurd taxes to the terror organization, which the group is unable to do after facing massive losses, but nevertheless insists on continuing to serve the civilian population.
The “resistance” forces are the enemy of the Palestinian people in Gaza. There can be no recovery or reconstruction until the coastal enclave’s ISIS is fully eradicated and destroyed. Not a penny of reconstruction money should go in until Hamas is militarily eliminated, something that can be done if enough organic Palestinian forces are trained and equipped for such a mission, along with international support through the incoming International Stabilization Force (ISF).
Shame on all the pro-Hamas “journalists”, “activists”, “students”, “politicians”, “actors”, and brainwashed automatons whose blind hatred for Israel and Jews is greater than actual support for the Palestinian people.
David Simon 💙 retweeted
IMPORTANT message for everyone using Gmail.
You have been automatically OPTED IN to allow Gmail to access all your private messages & attachments to train AI models.
You have to manually turn off Smart Features in the Setting menu in TWO locations.
Retweet so every is aware.
David Simon 💙 retweeted
Registration for #WUF13 is officially OPEN.
@WUF_UNHabitat
📅 17–22 May 2026
📍 Baku, Azerbaijan
🏠 Theme: Housing the world: Safe and resilient cities and communities
Join us on the #RoadtoBaku as we rethink housing and cities.
👉 Register now: wuf.unhabitat.org/wuf13
David Simon 💙 retweeted
🌍 Fashion waste is overwhelming cities—from microfibres in rivers to discarded clothes dumped in the Global South.
This #WorldCleanupDay, let’s act:
♻️ Rethink what we wear
♻️ Support recycling & repair
♻️ Push for fair, green jobs
loom.ly/aU8YM7s
#LeaveNoWasteBehind
David Simon 💙 retweeted
I flew again today over Gaza's airspace with the UAE's Air Force to carry out a food airdrop. The scene was a heartbreaking mix of devastation, an active warzone, life, dead areas & movements. It was immensely emotional to see my native homeland in this state. We shall overcome🕊️
The American Geophysical Union is documenting the extent of the breathtaking assault on US climate science and policy: eos.org/research-and-develop…
ASU editors just published a scathing rebuttal of the Orwellian presidential executive order: doi.org/10.1029/2025AV002011 - a must read
Truly horrific and, like what’s happening now in Sudan, being largely ignored internationally: theguardian.com/global-devel…
David Simon 💙 retweeted
A major milestone for sustainable urbanization in Southern Africa!
UN-Habitat has launched its Sub-Regional Hub in Gaborone in partnership with the government of Botswana. The hub aims drive housing, smart cities & SDG 11 progress across the region.
