Updated preprint on quantifying biodiversity cost of food consumption / Feb 2025
We've uploaded a revised preprint on our ongoing work on quantifying the biodiversity cost of global food consumption, lead by Thomas Ball. This is based on the recently published LIFE metric, combined with supply chain data and provenance modeling. […196 words]
papersThe Cambridge "Green Blue" competition to reduce emissions / Feb 2025
Carl Edward Rasmussen recently gave a great talk in our group about his thoughts on mechanisms against climate change. He persuasively argued that the Paris Agreement was doing more harm than good by giving the illusion of being a concrete agreement, but is in reality a huge distraction. Our actual emissions have increased since the Paris agreement was signed!
Carl argues that a climate system ultimately only responds to collective actions, and without a global cooperative incentive each nation will spring back to their own isolated short-term incentives that lead to an increase in fossil fuel burning. He has just published the "Themis Mechanism" as a simple alternative for equitable global emission reduction (long form).
This got me brainstorming with Carl about how to test his theories out and we came up with an idea that is either terrible or awesome; please read on and judge appropriately. I think we should take advantage of Cambridge's unique structure to trial the Themis mechanism via a new competitive decarbonisation sporting league among Colleges that I dub the "Cambridge Green Blue". Given the Chancellor's recent unveiling of an innovation corridor between Oxford and Cambridge, the timing could not be better for an initiative like this. (TL;DR sign up at the bottom of this post if you'd like to participate) […4018 words]
notesUncertainty at scale: how CS hinders climate research / Feb 2024
Paper on uncertainty in climate science in Undone CS
Cambridge Zero highlights University efforts at Climate Week NYC (via) / Oct 2023
I was on stage in New York for Mission Possible during NYC Climate Week. I was there with Emily Shuckburgh and we met with a lot of Cambridge alumni who are all engaged with climate change related activities -- either directly in their careers, or through a side interest.
Reverse emulating agent-based models for policy simulation / Jan 2023
This is an idea proposed as a Cambrige Computer Science Part III or MPhil project, and has been completed by Pedro Sousa. It was supervised by Anil Madhavapeddy and Sadiq Jaffer.
Governments increasingly rely on simulation tools to inform policy design. Agent-based models (ABMs) simulate complex systems to study the emergent phenomena of individual behaviours and interactions in agent populations. However, these ABMs force an iterative, time-consuming, unmethodical parameter tuning of key policy "levers" (or input parameters) to steer the model towards the envisioned outcomes. To unlock a more natural workflow, this project investigates reverse emulation, a novel approach that streamlines policy design using probabilistic machine learning to predict parameter values that yield the desired policy outcomes. […192 words]
ideasComputational Models for Scientific Exploration / Jan 2023
This is an idea proposed as a Cambridge Computer Science PhD topic, and is currently being worked on by Patrick Ferris. It is supervised by Anil Madhavapeddy and Srinivasan Keshav.
The modern scientific method has become highly computational, but computer science hasn't entirely caught up and is sometimes hindering research progress.
We use climate science and ecology computation needs as a case study, we are conducting a systematic study in the sources of uncertainty in these fields. We are also designing and implementing a specification language and hermetic computation environment that empowers climate scientists and ecologists to create less ambiguous, more precise and testable scientific methodologies and results, while preserving the ability to explore and introspect intermediate results. […125 words]
17th William Pitt Seminar - Who's in Charge? / Nov 2022
I opened the 17th William Pitt Seminar at Pembroke College on climate change with a brief talk about the status of the world's biodiversity, and how we have more agency than ever before to take matters into our own hands.
talks