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Category: Global

  • MIL-OSI Global: Israel’s bombing of Gaza caused untold environmental damage − recovery will take effort and time

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Lesley Joseph, Research Assistant Professor of Environmental Engineering, University of South Carolina

    Vast areas in Gaza have been reduced to rubble. Majdi Fathi/NurPhoto via Getty Images

    The war in Gaza has come with an awful cost. Tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians have been killed, and thousands more are missing. And while a temporary ceasefire has allowed for increased aid delivery, easing the plight of those facing disease and hunger, experts predict malnutrition and health issues to persist for months or even years.

    Much of the territory’s infrastructure – its schools, hospitals and homes – has been damaged or destroyed. And yet, the tremendous human and societal loss has been augmented by a lesser reported but potentially catastrophic, consequence: environmental devastation.

    In June 2024, the United Nations Environment Programme conducted an environmental impact assessment to evaluate the damage resulting from Israeli military actions in Gaza. It found “unprecedented levels of destruction” from the intensive bombing campaign, along with the complete collapse of water and solid waste systems, and widespread contamination of the soil, water and air. And that was before another six months of bombing caused further damage to Gaza.

    As a scholar of environmental justice, I have thought carefully about the impact that a lack of clean water, access to sanitation facilities, and the absence of basic infrastructure can have on a community, particularly vulnerable and marginalized populations. The current pause in fighting is providing respite for the 2.2 million people in Gaza who have endured more than a year of war. It also provides an opportunity to evaluate the environmental damage to the densely populated enclave in three crucial areas: the water, sanitation and hygiene sector, or WASH; air quality; and waste management.

    Here is what we know so far:

    WASH sector

    According to an interim damage assessment released by the World Bank, U.N. and E.U. in March 2024, an estimated US$502.7 million of damage was inflicted on the WASH sector in Gaza in the initial months of bombing, including damage to approximately 57% of the water infrastructure.

    The United Nations reported that water desalination plants in Gaza, 162 water wells and two of the three water connections with Israel’s national water provider had been severely damaged.

    As a result, the amount of available water in Gaza was at that point reduced to roughly 2-8 liters per person per day – below the World Health Organization emergency daily minimum of 15 liters and far below its standard recommendation of 50-100 liters per day.

    In November 2024, meanwhile, the charity Oxfam reported that all five wastewater treatment plants in Gaza had been forced to shut down, along with the majority of its 65 wastewater pumping stations. This resulted in ongoing discharges of raw, untreated sewage into the environment. As of June 2024, an estimated 15.8 million gallons of wastewater has been discharged into the environment in and around Gaza, according to the U.N. environmental report.

    Meanwhile, sanitation facilities for Palestinians in Gaza are practically nonexistent. Reporting from U.N. Women states that people in Gaza routinely walk long distances and then wait for hours just to use a toilet, and due to the lack of water, these toilets cannot be flushed or cleaned.

    Air quality

    The air quality in Gaza has been drastically impacted by this war. NASA satellite imagery from the first few months of the war found that approximately 165 fires were recorded in Gaza from October 2023 to January 2024.

    With a shortage of electricity, residents have been forced to burn various materials, including plastics and household waste, for cooking and heating. And this has contributed to a dangerous decline in air quality.

    Meanwhile, large amounts of dust, debris and chemical releases have been produced from explosions and the destruction of infrastructure, leading to significant air pollution. In February 2024, the U.N. Mine Action Service estimated that, in the first few months of the war alone, more than 25,000 tons of explosives had been used, equivalent to “two nuclear bombs.”

    Waste management

    In the first six months of bombardment, more than 39 million tons of debris were generated, much of it likely to contain harmful contaminants, including asbestos, residue from explosives and toxic medical waste.

    Human remains are also mixed in with this debris, with estimates that over 10,000 bodies remain under the rubble. Moreover, the three main landfills in the Gaza Strip have been closed and are unable to receive waste or conflict-related debris.

    Substantial damage has been done to five out of six solid waste management facilities, and solid waste continues to accumulate at camps and shelters, with an estimate of 1,100 to 1,200 tons being generated daily.

    The charge of ‘ecocide’

    With such environmental destruction, claims of “ecocide” have been made against the Israeli government by international rights groups.

    Although not presently incorporated into the framework of international law, there have been recent efforts for ecocide to be added as a crime under the Rome Statute, the treaty that established the International Criminal Court. Indeed, a panel of experts in 2021 proposed a working definition of ecocide as “unlawful or wanton acts committed with knowledge that there is a substantial likelihood of severe and either widespread or long-term damage to the environment caused by those acts.”

    To date, 15 countries have criminalized ecocide, and Ukraine is investigating Russia for ecocide for its destruction of the Kakhovka Dam in 2023.

    Various organizations, including the Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, the University of California Global Health Institute and the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, have stated that the level of environmental devastation in Gaza reaches the proposed legal definition of “ecocide.”

    Although the Israeli government has not responded to these accusations, it has consistently stated that it has a right to defend itself and that it seeks to protect civilians as it conducts its military operations.

    Health impacts of environmental harm

    Regardless of whether the charge of ecocide applies to Israel’s bombardment of Gaza, the environmental impact, the spread of disease, and other harmful health impairments will be felt for years to come.

    The United Nations Relief and Works Agency reported an increase in hepatitis A in the enclave, from 85 cases before the current war to 107,000 cases in October 2024. The WHO has reported 500,000 cases of diarrhea and 100,000 cases of lice and scabies, along with the reemergence of polio.

    Polio virus has been found in wastewater, threatening the lives of Palestinian children in Gaza.
    Dawoud Abo Alkas/Anadolu via Getty Images

    The lack of adequate WASH facilities has also disproportionately affected women and girls by interfering with basic menstrual hygiene, harming their mental and physical health.

    Meanwhile, the increased presence of dangerous air pollutants has led to increases in respiratory issues, including nearly 1 million acute respiratory illnesses. Presently, the most common respiratory ailments in Gaza are asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, bronchitis, pneumonia and lung cancer.

    Next steps

    As a licensed environmental engineer, I have never seen the scale of environmental destruction that has occurred in Gaza.

    While the situation is unprecedented, there are concrete steps that the international community can take to help Gaza’s environment recover. The three-stage ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas, which went into effect on Jan. 19, 2025, is a promising first step. This agreement has allowed some Israeli hostages to be released and Palestinian detainees to return to their homes. It also allows for more humanitarian aid to enter Gaza to deal with the current food crisis and health emergency.

    Nevertheless, there are significant challenges ahead for the people of Gaza. First, the ceasefire agreement will need to hold – and already there are signs of difficulty in implementing the agreement in full. Should fighting resume, that will close or delay the opportunity for engineers and surveyors to perform detailed, comprehensive field assessments.

    Meanwhile, the need for a post-conflict plan for Gaza has never been starker.

    Recovering from Gaza’s environmental devastation will require Israel and neighboring countries, as well as influential world powers such as the United States and the European Union, to work together to rebuild critical infrastructure, such as water and wastewater treatment plants and solid waste infrastructure. Moreover, to succeed, any long-term plan for the reconstruction of Gaza will need to prioritize the needs and perspectives of Palestinians themselves.

    Lesley Joseph does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

    – ref. Israel’s bombing of Gaza caused untold environmental damage − recovery will take effort and time – https://theconversation.com/israels-bombing-of-gaza-caused-untold-environmental-damage-recovery-will-take-effort-and-time-245311

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: What is a charter school, really? Supreme Court ruling on whether Catholic charter is constitutional will hinge on whether they’re public or private

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Preston Green III, John and Maria Neag Professor of Urban Education, University of Connecticut

    The court’s ruling could affect more than religion in schools. AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite

    In April 2025, the Supreme Court will hear arguments about whether the nation’s first religious charter school can open in Oklahoma. The St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School would be funded by taxpayer money but run by a local archdiocese and diocese.

    The case is often discussed in terms of religion, and a decision in the school’s favor could allow government dollars to directly fund faith-based charter schools nationwide. In part, the justices must decide whether the First Amendment’s prohibition on government establishing religion applies to charter schools. But the answer to that question is part of an even bigger issue: Are charters really public in the first place?

    As two professors who study education law, we believe the Supreme Court’s decision will impact issues of religion and state, but could also ripple beyond – determining what basic rights students and teachers do or don’t have at charter schools.

    Dueling arguments

    In June 2023, the Oklahoma Statewide Virtual Charter School Board approved St. Isidore’s application to open as an online K-12 school. The following year, however, the Oklahoma high court ruled that the proposal was unconstitutional. The justices concluded that charter schools are public under state law, and that the First Amendment’s establishment clause forbids public schools from being religious. The court also found that a religious charter school would violate Oklahoma’s constitution, which specifically forbids public money from benefiting religious organizations.

    The Oklahoma Supreme Court in the Oklahoma State Capitol in Oklahoma City, May 19, 2014.
    AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki, File

    On appeal, the charter school is claiming that charter schools are private, and so the U.S. Constitution’s establishment clause does not apply.

    Moreover, St. Isidore argues that if charter schools are private, the state’s prohibition on religious charters violates the First Amendment’s free exercise clause, which bars the government from limiting “the free exercise” of religion. Previous Supreme Court cases have found that states cannot prevent private religious entities from participating in generally available government programs solely because they are religious.

    In other words, while St. Isidore’s critics argue that opening a religious charter school would violate the First Amendment, its supporters claim the exact opposite: that forbidding religious charter schools would violate the First Amendment.

    Are charters public?

    The question of whether an institution is public or private turns on a legal concept known as the “state action doctrine.” This principle provides that the government must follow the Constitution, while private entities do not have to. For example, unlike students in public schools, students in private schools do not have the constitutional right to due process for suspensions and expulsions – procedures to ensure fairness before taking disciplinary action.

    Charter schools have some characteristics of both public and private institutions. Like traditional public schools, they are government-funded, free and open to all students. However, like private schools, they are free from many laws that apply to public schools, and they are independently run.

    Because of charters’ hybrid nature, courts have had a hard time determining whether they should be considered public for legal purposes. Many charter schools are overseen by private corporations with privately appointed boards, and it is unclear whether these private entities are state actors. Two federal circuit courts have reached different conclusions.

    In Caviness v. Horizon Learning Center, a case from 2010, the 9th Circuit held that an Arizona charter school corporation was not a state actor for employment purposes. Therefore, the board did not have to provide a teacher due process before firing him. The court reasoned that the corporation was a private actor that contracted with the state to provide educational services.

    In contrast, the 4th Circuit ruled in 2022 that a North Carolina charter school board was a state actor under the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. In this case, Peltier v. Charter Day School, students challenged the dress code requirement that female students wear skirts because they were considered “fragile vessels.”

    The court first reasoned that the board was a state actor because North Carolina had delegated its constitutional duty to provide education. The court observed that the charter school’s dress code was an inappropriate sex-based classification, and that school officials engaged in harmful gender stereotyping, violating the equal protection clause.

    If the Supreme Court sides with St. Isidore – as many analysts think is likely – then all private charter corporations might be considered nonstate actors for the purposes of religion.

    But the stakes are even greater than that. State action involves more than just religion. Indeed, teachers and students in private schools do not have the constitutional rights related to free speech, search and seizure, due process and equal protection. In other words, if charter schools are not considered “state actors,” charter students and teachers may eventually shed constitutional rights “at the schoolhouse gate.”

    Amtrak: An alternate route?

    People ride an Amtrak Acela train through Pennsylvania, en route from New York City to Washington, in 2022.
    AP Photo/Ted Shaffrey

    When courts have held that charter schools are not public in state law, some legislatures have made changes to categorize them as public. For example, California passed a law to clarify that charter school students have the same due process rights as traditional public school students after a court ruled otherwise.

    Likewise, we believe states looking to clear up charter schools’ ambiguous state actor status under the Constitution can amend their laws. As we explain in a recent legal article, a 1995 Supreme Court case involving Amtrak illustrates how this can be done.

    Lebron v. National Railroad Passenger Corporation arose when Amtrak rejected a billboard ad for being political. The advertiser sued, arguing that the corporation had violated his First Amendment right to free speech. Since private organizations are not required to protect free speech rights, the case hinged on whether Amtrak qualified as a government agency.

    The court ruled in the plaintiff’s favor, reasoning that Amtrak was a government actor because it was created by special law, served important governmental objectives, and its board members were appointed by the government.

    Courts have applied this ruling in other instances. For example, the 10th Circuit Court ruled in 2016 that the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children was a governmental agency and therefore was required to abide by the Fourth Amendment’s protection from unreasonable search and seizure.

    Currently, we believe charter schools fail the test set out in the Amtrak decision. Charter schools do serve the governmental purpose of providing educational choice for students. However, charter school corporations are not created by special law. They also fall short because most have independent boards instead of members who are appointed and removed by government officials.

    However, we would argue that states can amend their laws to comply with Lebron’s standard, ensuring that charter schools are public or state actors for constitutional purposes.

    Preston Green III is affiliated with the National Education Policy Center.

    Suzanne Eckes does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

    – ref. What is a charter school, really? Supreme Court ruling on whether Catholic charter is constitutional will hinge on whether they’re public or private – https://theconversation.com/what-is-a-charter-school-really-supreme-court-ruling-on-whether-catholic-charter-is-constitutional-will-hinge-on-whether-theyre-public-or-private-249428

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: The secret lives of polar bear families

    Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Louise Archer, Postdoctoral Fellow, Biological Sciences, University of Toronto

    Newborn polar bear cubs spend weeks in the den with their mother until they’re old and strong enough to be outdoors. (Dmytro Cherkasov/Polar Bears International), CC BY

    Despite being the largest land carnivore and a top Arctic predator that can weigh over 600 kg, polar bears start off surprisingly small. Blind, almost hairless, and weighing just 600g at birth, cubs are born in maternity dens under the snow. These snow caves keep newborns warm and safe for the first few months of their life, when they grow rapidly by nursing on their mother’s rich milk.

    After three to four months in the den, cubs will have grown to about 20 times their birth weight and will be large enough and furry enough to follow their mothers out into the frigid Arctic spring.

    In a study published in The Journal of Wildlife Management, we used remote cameras to study polar bear families as they emerged from their dens in Svalbard, Norway, gaining insight into the behaviour of mothers and cubs as they experience the world outside the den for the first time.

    Drifting snow helps polar bear dens remain hidden.
    (B.J. Kirschhoffer/Polar Bears International), CC BY

    An elusive phenomenon

    While they provide ideal conditions for developing cubs, maternal dens are difficult for researchers to study and monitor. Challenging weather, limited daylight and the remoteness of many den sites means opportunities for direct observation are few. Often, denning polar bears are identified using tracking devices worn by a bear — usually collars, but also ear or fur tags. These transmit location data via satellite, allowing researchers to track individuals and to study movement patterns.

    As technology has developed, additional data can also be collected from these devices, including data on activity and temperature. An extended stationary period and low activity readings are the telltale signs of denning. Above-ambient temperatures also indicate a bear in a den; insulated by snow and warmed by the mother’s body heat, the interior of the den can be more than 20 °C warmer than the outside.

    In Svalbard, polar bears build their dens on slopes of fjords and mountainous areas, where drifting snow means dens are often impossible to distinguish from the snow-covered surroundings.

    Locating dens

    We relied on GPS locations transmitted from satellite collars worn by females to locate 13 den sites. With the return of daylight to Svalbard in the spring, our team installed time-lapse cameras facing the entrance of each suspected den, capturing footage of polar bear families as they exited. To minimize any disturbance, the final approach was made on foot or by ski, and cameras were collected several months later — long after the polar bear families had departed for the sea ice.

    After processing thousands of images, the camera gave us a detailed look at this cryptic component of polar bears’ life cycle. By linking images back to data from the collars, we were also able to develop a model of the various behaviours caught on camera, providing a new tool to remotely monitor denning bears more accurately.

    A feat of endurance

    Although critical to cubs, denning can be tough on a mother. Pregnant female polar bears usually enter a den in the fall, give birth in mid-winter, and remain in the den nursing their cubs until the family is ready to emerge in the spring. Although their offspring guzzle down high-energy milk, mother polar bears don’t feed at all during this time and rely on their fat reserves, losing up to 43 per cent of their body mass while in the den.

    Despite this clear motivation to get back to hunting seals on the sea ice, polar bear families will often hang out at the den for days or weeks after emerging. On average, the families we monitored in Svalbard stayed at the den site for a further 12 days after first emerging.

    During this time, mother and cubs frequently left the den to explore, sometimes staying outside for less than a minute, and in other cases emerging for hours at a time. Cubs rarely ventured outside without their mother and were seen alone in only five per cent of camera observations. In general, bears spent longer outside when temperatures were warmer and the more days had passed since they first emerged outside.

    This post-emergence period may allow cubs time to acclimatize to the external environment, and to develop the skills and strength they’ll need to follow their mother across the sea ice for the next two-and-a-half years.

    We also saw incredible variation in behaviour post-den emergence, with one family abandoning the den after only a couple of days, and another family remaining at the den for a full month after first appearing outside. Two females even decided to move their cubs to new dens after emerging.

    Consequences of Arctic change

    These kinds of insights lead to new questions: what drives decisions to stay or leave the den, what cues do families respond to? While we continue to build out our data set to better understand these behaviours, on average, we noted that polar bears abandoned their dens about a week earlier than previously recorded in the region. The Barents Sea is one of the fastest warming regions on the planet, and continued monitoring will make clear if this is an emerging trend in response to sea ice loss.

    To get even more detailed information, we have also been testing custom designed camera systems that can capture behaviour continuously.

    Climate warming has already resulted in declining polar bear health in parts of the Arctic that are experiencing rapid loss of sea ice. With continued warming jeopardizing the persistence of polar bears across much of their range, successful denning and reproduction is essential to give the next generation of polar bears a chance.



    Read more:
    Polar bears may struggle to produce milk for their cubs as climate change melts sea ice

    Time spent denning, the date of den exit and the amount of time bears remain at the den after emerging all contribute positively to the subsequent survival of cubs. Yet climate warming means the human footprint in the Arctic is expanding, risking encroachment on denning habitat and disturbing polar bear families.

    Improved monitoring and a deeper understanding of denning behaviour will help to protect polar bears during this critical time.

    Louise Archer receives funding from Polar Bears International. She is affiliated with University of Toronto Scarborough and Polar Bears International. This study was performed in collaboration with the Norwegian Polar Institute and San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance.

    – ref. The secret lives of polar bear families – https://theconversation.com/the-secret-lives-of-polar-bear-families-248764

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: South Africa’s malnutrition crisis: why a cheaper basket of healthy food is the answer

    Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Julian May, Director DST-NRF Centre of Excellence in Food Security, University of the Western Cape

    The death in early February of a 9-year-old South African boy, Alti Willard, who drank poison while scavenging for food in rubbish bins with his father, is a tragic reflection of the persistent food insecurity crisis in the country.

    A child dying while trying to avert starvation is hard to comprehend, given the country’s economic and natural resources. South African has the capability to feed the entire nation. But it is grappling with a triple burden of malnutrition, comprising under-nutrition and hunger, micronutrient deficiencies, and unhealthy diets.

    According to the most recent Food and Nutrition Security Survey, conducted by the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC), food insecurity affects 63.5% of households in the country – 17.5% of them severely. Food insecurity is not just a matter of inadequate access to food. It is deeply intertwined with child malnutrition, meaning that food security is not just about having enough food; it’s about having nourishing food for children.

    The link between household food insecurity and child malnutrition is stark. Among households with at least one child under the age of five suffering from stunting, food insecurity rates reach 83.3%.

    Alarmingly, 1,000 children die each year due to preventable acute malnutrition. And 2.7 million children under six live in households where poverty levels prevent their basic nutritional needs from being met. Food poverty rates have worsened since the COVID-19 pandemic. Food inflation has exacerbated the crisis.

    The survey indicates that 28.8% of children under the age of five suffer from stunting, an indicator of chronic undernutrition. It means children are below the height expected for their age.



    Read more:
    South Africa’s hunger problem is turning into a major health crisis

    The South African Early Childhood Review 2024 reinforces these findings. This is an annual review of child development produced by the Children’s Institute at the University of Cape Town and Ilifa Labantwana, an early childhood development NGO. It highlights a rise in child malnutrition, particularly severe acute malnutrition. Between 2020 and 2023, these cases increased by 33%, with 15,000 children requiring hospitalisation in 2022/23 alone.

    Based on our extensive research experience, policy advice and activism in food security, we argue that food insecurity transcends mere food supply issues. It is deeply intertwined with systemic inequality, food system dynamics, poverty and failures in policy.

    Tackling these crises will need a profound change in the approach to food and nutrition security. It requires a shift from temporary relief measures such as the social relief of distress grant to sustainable, structural solutions that lower the cost of a healthy food basket. That would mean no child would have to search for sustenance in refuse bins.

    Any solution so far?

    South Africa has the highest number of people who relay on social grants. Some of these are aimed at addressing food insecurity and nutrition, particularly among children. Despite these safety nets, food insecurity persists, suggesting that they are either inadequately resourced or poorly targeted.

    The grants include:

    • Social grants: About 58% of children aged 14 and younger receive social grants, primarily through the child support grant. However, the youngest children, especially infants, are most likely to be excluded from the grant due to delays in registering infants after birth.



    Read more:
    Poor South African households can’t afford nutritious food – what can be done

    Enrolling eligible infants from birth requires better coordination between government departments. However, due to the size of the grant relative to the cost of ensuring child nutrition, and competing demands on the grant from other household needs such as housing and clothing, the grants are not enough to alleviate food insecurity.

    • School and early childhood development feeding programmes: The National School Nutrition Programme reaches over 9 million children annually. Evidence suggests that children in these programmes have better nutritional outcomes than those who are not.

    • Community and NGO initiatives: While home, school and community gardens, community kitchens and NGO-driven food relief programmes provide support, they lack sustainability and reach.

    What needs to be done?

    The HSRC and South Africa Early Childhood Review 2024 highlight the urgent need for comprehensive, multi-sectoral solutions:



    Read more:
    47% of South Africans rely on social grants – study reveals how they use them to generate more income

    • Increase the value of the child support grant, currently R530 (US$28 a month, to align with the cost of a thrifty healthy basket of R945 (US$51).

    • Ensure infants and young children are enrolled in the child support grant from birth through better collaboration between the departments of health, home affairs and social development. The recent reduction in the visa backlog shows what can be achieved.

    • Establish the national multi-sectoral food security coordination body proposed in the National Food and Nutrition Security Plan to streamline policies across different government departments. Brazil followed a similar approach with success.

    • Expand early childhood development nutrition programmes, register informal early childhood development centres, and increase subsidies to improve food provision in these centres.

    • Address gender inequalities in food security by ensuring better economic opportunities for women engaged in food trade, including street vending, who are more likely to be heads of household.

    • Expand community-based health services, using community health workers to monitor child growth and nutrition at the household level.

    • Address neglected dimensions of food insecurity.



    Read more:
    Africa’s worsening food crisis – it’s time for an agricultural revolution

    For example, poverty negatively affects caregivers’ mental health, which in turn affects child nutrition. Caregivers experiencing food insecurity have higher levels of depression and hopelessness. This potentially affects their capacity to provide the care and attention that children require. Expanding income support and community health services to caregivers can mitigate this cycle.

    Disabled children and caregivers are another example. They face additional challenges and must be specifically targeted for tailored support.

    Finally, children of seasonal farmworkers are highly vulnerable when their caregivers are without employment and not receiving unemployment insurance fund payments. Immediate food relief can prevent fluctuations in the quality and quantity of their diets.

    Julian May receives funding from the National Research Foundation and the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD). He is a National Planning Commissioner (NPC) and serves on the Council of the Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSAf). He was chair of the Technical Advisory Committee of the Food and Nutrition Security Survey and the NPC lead on the Early Childhood Review, 2024.

    Thokozani Simelane received funding from the Department of Agriculture. This was for the National Food and Nutrition Security Survey on which the article is partially based. He was the principal investigator of the National Food and Nutrition Security Survey. He is a member of the Council on Higher Education (CHE) Community of Practice that is developing the research and innovation standard for higher education institutions in South Africa.

    – ref. South Africa’s malnutrition crisis: why a cheaper basket of healthy food is the answer – https://theconversation.com/south-africas-malnutrition-crisis-why-a-cheaper-basket-of-healthy-food-is-the-answer-250308

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Gene Hackman will be remembered as the Hollywood actor’s actor

    Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Will Jeffery, Sessional Academic, Discipline of Film Studies, University of Sydney

    Gene Hackman, an acting titan of 1970s and ‘80s Hollywood with more than 80 screen credits to his name, has died at 95. He was found dead in his home with his wife, pianist Betsy Arakawa, and his dog.

    Hackman had a rugged, dominating and commanding presence on screen, known for his emotionally honest, raw and fierce performances. Always the tough guy, never the romantic lead, off camera he was shy and enjoyed the quiet life.

    I first saw Hackman as a child in The Poseidon Adventure (1972). My dad put the film on for the upside-down ocean liner disaster sequences, but it was Hackman who left a lasting impression. I vividly remember being so moved by his final speech berating God for deserting the ship’s passengers and crew while he hangs from a pressure valve door over flames.

    There is no actor who comes close to conveying authority with such humanity and reserve.

    He was often referred to as the actor’s actor and mentioned by Hollywood A-listers such as Kevin Costner as the best actor they’ve ever worked with. Clint Eastwood, once Hackman retired, described him as “too good not to be performing”.

    Hackman will leave a legacy to be studied and appreciated for years to come.

    Finding a foot in show business

    Born in San Bernardino, California, on January 30 1930, Hackman’s family moved to Danville, Illinois, when he was three. Hackman’s father left when he was 13, which he described to James Lipton on Inside the Actors Studio as his father “driving by with a casual wave goodbye”.

    Hackman joked to Lipton the departure of his father at an early age made him a better actor.

    Hackman left Danville at the age of 16 to join the marines, where he spent roughly four years. He was a rebellious child, but as Peter Shelley detailed in his biography of Hackman, the marine corps was the first time he gave in to authority.

    After the marine corps, Hackman moved to New York wanting to become an actor, telling people he was inspired by tough guy James “Jimmy” Cagney.

    In New York, Hackman struggled making a living as an artist while waiting for his breakthrough (his uncle told him to give up and get an honest job). Moving to California, he became friends early on with Dustin Hoffman (they finally appeared opposite each other in Hackman’s penultimate film, 2003’s Runaway Jury).

    After struggling for years, Hackman landed his first credited screen role in 1964’s Lilith at the age of 34. He played a small part opposite upcoming star Warren Beatty.

    As Hackman recounted to Lipton, Beatty told director Arthur Penn how great Hackman was in a scene they did together. That landed Hackman his breakthrough role playing Buck Barrow opposite Beatty and Faye Dunaway in the 1967 hit Bonnie and Clyde, earning him an Oscar nomination for best supporting actor.

    Breaking through in the 1970s

    It wasn’t until the 1970s that Hackman began his leading role career, starring in The French Connection (1971) as the unforgettable hard-boiled New York detective Jimmy “Popeye” Doyle. This role earned him his first Academy Award, for best actor.

    He was to wait more than 20 years for his second and final Academy Award, for playing the ruthless Little Bill Daggett opposite Clint Eastwood in Unforgiven (1992).

    Throughout the 1970s, Hackman was gaining huge popularity on screen, sharing records with the likes of Robert Redford and Harrison Ford as the highest grossing stars at the box office.

    There are too many great Hackman performances to mention, but my favourites are Unforgiven, The French Connection, The Poseidon Adventure, The Conversation (1974), Hoosiers (1986), Mississippi Burning (1988) and The Royal Tenenbaums (2001).

    The French Connection’s director, William Friedkin, said in an interview Hackman was anti-authority and anti-racism because of his upbringing in an area known for its large Ku Klux Klan presence, and his absent father.

    Hackman almost pulled out of The French Connection one week into shooting because he didn’t like “beating on people” for a four-month shoot. He told Friedkin “I don’t think I can do this,” but Friedkin refused to let him go.

    Hackman recalled he was eternally grateful Friedkin didn’t, as it was “the start of [his] career”.

    Hackman said his character Popeye Doyle was a “bigot, an antisemitic, and whatever else you wanted to call him”, and he famously struggled to say the N-word in one key scene. He initially protested the line but eventually went with it, believing “that’s who the guy is […] you couldn’t really whitewash him”.

    Hackman often played the character who had the greatest authority on the surface but slipped up, whether he was playing the hero or the villain. Even for a role such as Reverend Scott in The Poseidon Adventure, in which Hackman played a self-righteous preacher onboard the capsized SS Poseidon, he questions his religion as he leads the entire band of escapees to safety.

    A life after acting

    Hackman retired from acting in 2004 at age 74.

    There are many stories about why he retired, like, as Shelley writes, not wanting to play Hollywood “grandfathers” and his “heart wasn’t in shape”, but his life after acting gives a strong hint: he had other interests.

    Over the past 20 years, Hackman wrote three historical fiction novels, was a keen painter, and enjoyed exercise such as cycling. Married to classical pianist Arakawa from 1991 until their death, they lived in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where he designed his own home (yes, he also loved architecture!).

    A man of many talents who played a kaleidoscopic range of authoritative roles, Hackman will almost certainly be remembered mainly for his tough-guy performance in The French Connection – though many will also remember him as the Hollywood actor’s actor.

    Will Jeffery does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

    – ref. Gene Hackman will be remembered as the Hollywood actor’s actor – https://theconversation.com/gene-hackman-will-be-remembered-as-the-hollywood-actors-actor-233109

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: What’s the difference between burnout and depression?

    Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Gordon Parker, Scientia Professor of Psychiatry, UNSW Sydney

    Yuri A/Shutterstock

    If your summer holiday already feels like a distant memory, you’re not alone. Burnout – a state of emotional, physical and mental exhaustion following prolonged stress – has been described in workplaces since a 5th century monastery in Egypt.

    Burnout and depression can look similar and are relatively common conditions. It’s estimated that 30% of the Australian workforce is feeling some level of burnout, while almost 20% of Australians are diagnosed with depression at some point in their lives.

    So what’s the difference between burnout and depression?

    Depression is marked by helplessness and burnout by hopelessness. They can have different causes and should also be managed differently.

    What is burnout?

    The World Health Organization defines burnout as an “occupational phenomenon” resulting from excessively demanding workload pressures. While it is typically associated with the workplace, carers of children or elderly parents with demanding needs are also at risk.

    Our research created a set of burnout symptoms we captured in the Sydney Burnout Measure to assist self-diagnosis and clinicians undertaking assessments. They include:

    • exhaustion as the primary symptom

    • brain fog (poor concentration and memory)

    • difficulty finding pleasure in anything

    • social withdrawal

    • an unsettled mood (feeling anxious and irritable)

    • impaired work performance (this may be result of other symptoms such as fatigue).

    People can develop a “burning out” phase after intense work demands over only a week or two. A “burnout” stage usually follows years of unrelenting work pressure.

    What is depression?

    A depressive episode involves a drop in self-worth, increase in self-criticism and feelings of wanting to give up. Not everyone with these symptoms will have clinical depression, which requires a diagnosis and has an additional set of symptoms.

    Clinically diagnosed depression can vary by mood, how long it lasts and whether it comes back. There are two types of clinical depression:

    1. melancholic depression has genetic causes, with episodes largely coming “out of the blue”

    2. non-melancholic depression is caused by environmental factors, often triggered by significant life events which cause a drop in self-worth.

    When we created our burnout measure, we compared burnout symptoms with these two types of depression.

    Burnout shares some features with melancholic depression, but they tend to be general symptoms, such as feeling a loss of pleasure, energy and concentration skills.

    We found there were more similarities between burnout and non-melancholic (environmental) depression. This included a lack of motivation and difficulties sleeping or being cheered up, perhaps reflecting the fact both have environmental causes.

    Looking for the root cause

    The differences between burnout and depression become clearer when we look at why they happen.

    Personality comes into play. Our work suggests a trait like perfectionism puts people at a much higher risk of burnout. But they may be less likely to become depressed as they tend to avoid stressful events and keep things under control.

    Excessive workloads can contribute to burnout.
    tartanparty/Shutterstock

    Those with burnout generally feel overwhelmed by demands or deadlines they can’t meet, creating a sense of helplessness.

    On the other hand, those with depression report lowered self-esteem. So rather than helpless they feel that they and their future is hopeless.

    However it is not uncommon for someone to experience both burnout and depression at once. For example, a boss may place excessive work demands on an employee, putting them at risk of burnout. At the same time, the employer may also humiliate that employee and contribute to an episode of non-melancholic depression.

    What can you do?

    A principal strategy in managing burnout is identifying the contributing stressors. For many people, this is the workplace. Taking a break, even a short one, or scheduling some time off can help.

    Australians now have the right to disconnect, meaning they don’t have to answer work phone calls or emails after hours. Setting boundaries can help separate home and work life.



    Read more:
    Australians now have the right to disconnect – but how workplaces react will be crucial

    Burnout can be also be caused by compromised work roles, work insecurity or inequity. More broadly, a dictatorial organisational structure can make employees feel devalued. In the workplace, environmental factors, such as excessive noise, can be a contributor. Addressing these factors can help prevent burnout.

    As for managing symptoms, the monks had the right idea. Strenuous exercise, meditation and mindfulness are effective ways to deal with everyday stress.

    Regular exercise can help manage symptoms of burnout.
    alexei_tm/Shutterstock

    Deeper contributing factors, including traits such as perfectionism, should be managed by a skilled clinical psychologist.

    For melancholic depression, clinicians will often recommend antidepressant medication.

    For non-melancholic depression, clinicians will help address and manage triggers that are the root cause. Others will benefit from antidepressants or formal psychotherapy.

    While misdiagnosis between depression and burnout can occur, burnout can mimic other medical conditions such as anemia or hypothyroidism.

    For the right diagnosis, it’s best to speak to your doctor or clinician who should seek to obtain a sense of “the whole picture”. Only then, once a burnout diagnsois has been affirmed and other possible causes ruled out, should effective support strategies be put in place.

    If this article has raised issues for you, or if you’re concerned about someone you know, call Lifeline on 13 11 14.

    Gordon Parker receives funding from the University of of NSW.

    – ref. What’s the difference between burnout and depression? – https://theconversation.com/whats-the-difference-between-burnout-and-depression-250043

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Only 6% of gen Z actually favour dictatorship – not half, as some reports would have you believe

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Bobby Duffy, Professor of Public Policy and Director of the Policy Institute, King’s College London

    Shutterstock/Dedraw Studio

    America’s constitutional framework was designed specifically to prevent the concentration of power and to impede any president’s authoritarian aspirations. It is certainly being put to the test right now.

    When US vice-president J.D. Vance recently wrote that “judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power”, he gave perhaps the clearest indication to date that the Trump administration might ignore court rulings, potentially laying the ground for what some have argued would amount to a dictatorship.

    Given this context, it certainly seemed plausible when a recent Channel 4 study suggested UK democracy could be heading towards a similar crisis. However, we have conducted research that paints a very different picture of gen z’s tendency towards dictatorship.

    Media reports about the Channel 4 research claimed over half of gen Z in Britain supported the country becoming a dictatorship. Headlines included: “Voting’s such a hassle… of course Gen Z like dictators”. An article published the day after Holocaust memorial day lamented: “Of all the days to discover Gen Z’s misguided affection for dictators”.

    The study actually asked 13-to-27-year-olds whether they agreed that “the UK would be a better place if a strong leader was in charge who does not have to bother with parliament and elections”. In their findings and press release, Channel 4 didn’t suggest that this equated to support for a dictatorship – but just about every news and comment piece that picked up the study did.

    It might seem like a very justifiable interpretation, though the first sign that we should be cautious was that two major ongoing academic studies which ask a very similar question to the one released by Channel 4 get very different results.

    In 2024, the British Election Study (BES) found only 13% of gen Z across Great Britain agree or strongly agree that “the best way to run the country would be to have a strong leader who does not have to bother with parliament and elections”.

    In 2022, the World Values Survey (WVS), a study which has tracked attitudes to democracy since 1981, found 27% of gen Z in Britain think that “having a strong leader who does not have to bother with parliament and elections” is a very or fairly good way of governing the country.

    Gen Z isn’t done with democracy, they’re just disillusioned with the delivery.
    Shutterstock/EF Stock

    So the BES finding is around a quarter the level found in the Channel 4 study, and the WVS finding is around half the level. Together, these suggest we should be extremely wary about putting too much weight on the Channel 4 finding.

    As an aside, the difference between these two larger, more rigorous studies is very likely to be related to the varying response categories used. The BES allows people to choose “neither agree nor disagree”. The WVS does not include this option.

    What gen Z actually think

    To explore these discrepancies further, we ran our own test in a survey of 1,000 13-to-27-year-olds. We simply replaced the wording “strong leader” with “dictator”. Instead of 52%, we found only 22% agree with that version.

    That still leaves a worryingly large minority of gen Z who seem to be supporting an extreme form of autocratic government. We tested that view further by asking those who agreed whether that meant they wanted no control or checks on the leader by MPs in parliament and no national elections at all. When these implications are spelled out, around half say no, actually, we would like some control and elections.

    When you work it all through, only 6% of gen Z really support a dictatorship, in any recognised sense of the term. The problem we seem to be facing is not a whole generation of autocratic young people but a complex question answered quickly in online polls and hugely overinterpreted in subsequent reporting.

    And the fact that this interpretation was picked up so widely really is a problem, in at least three ways.

    First, it adds to sense of generational division, and particularly our willingness to believe that the current generation of young is the worst ever. It’s a deep human trait for older people to think ill of the young, and it’s been supercharged for us today by the media environment, including social media. Generational labels have become helpful shorthand for spreading stereotypes and division.



    Read more:
    Boomers vs millennials? Free yourself from the phoney generation wars

    Second, there is a risk that attention-grabbing discussion encourages a sense among gen Z that supporting dictatorship is the norm. Media coverage of one poll doesn’t mean the line it pushes will become immediately true, but we know perceptions of what the norm is for our group can have powerful effects on our own views and behaviour.

    If we have concerns about gen Z’s connection to liberal democracy, we should be extra careful not to spread an exaggerated negative view.

    Which leads to the third problem – that the noise around this distracts us from real and serious issues with gen Z’s engagement with politics and institutions. We risk labelling a whole generation as “authoritarian” when the real problem is a lack of confidence in the delivery of democratic institutions and systems.

    Our analysis of the WVS shows precisely this. Gen Z are the least likely to think we even currently live in a democracy. That’s perhaps understandable from their perspective when so many policy decisions – from pensions and housing, to support for the costs of education and childcare – have favoured older people.

    Older generations face a serious challenge convincing gen Z that democracy and our political institutions can work for them. But exaggerating their desire to rip it all up doesn’t increase the sense of urgency, it just adds to the drama of generational division. It risks giving a false sense of momentum to the decline of democracy, which is the last thing we need right now.

    Bobby Duffy receives funding from the Economic and Social Research Council who funded the World Values Survey in the UK.

    Paolo Morini receives funding from the Economic and Social Research Council who funded the World Values Survey in the UK.

    – ref. Only 6% of gen Z actually favour dictatorship – not half, as some reports would have you believe – https://theconversation.com/only-6-of-gen-z-actually-favour-dictatorship-not-half-as-some-reports-would-have-you-believe-250945

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: We need to switch to heat pumps fast – but can they can overcome this problem?

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Jack Marley, Environment + Energy Editor, UK edition

    StockMediaSeller/Shutterstock

    People in the UK need to adopt heat pumps and electric vehicles as fast as they once embraced refrigerators, mobile phones and internet connection according to a new report by the Climate Change Committee (CCC).

    This government watchdog says the next 15 years will be critical for decarbonising the UK, one of the world’s largest (and earliest) carbon polluters. Eighty-seven percent of its climate-heating emissions must be eliminated by 2040 to keep the country on track for net zero emissions by mid-century, per the report. The majority (60%) of these cuts are expected to come via a single source: electricity.

    This roundup of The Conversation’s climate coverage comes from our award-winning weekly climate action newsletter. Every Wednesday, The Conversation’s environment editor writes Imagine, a short email that goes a little deeper into just one climate issue. Join the 40,000+ readers who’ve subscribed.

    Out of possible alternatives to a fossil fuelled economy, electrification has emerged as the favoured solution of experts at the CCC.

    Ran Boydell, an associate professor in sustainable development at Heriot-Watt University, agrees. “Home boilers will very soon move into the realm of nostalgia,” he says.



    Read more:
    UK ban on boilers in new homes rules out hydrogen as a heating source

    The reason why heat pumps are increasingly touted as the future of home heating – and not retooled boilers that burn hydrogen instead of methane – is efficiency.

    Boydell points out that green hydrogen fuel is made using electricity from solar and wind farms. We could eliminate emissions a lot quicker, he argues, if that electricity went directly to heat pumps instead.

    Electricity can be turned into a fuel – or power appliances directly.
    Piyaset/Shutterstock

    “This is because you end up with only two-thirds of the energy in the hydrogen that you started with from the electricity,” he says.

    Likewise, battery-powered vehicles have an advantage that has allowed them to race ahead of hydrogen fuel cells to comprise almost a fifth of all new vehicles sold in the UK in 2024.

    “An electric vehicle can be recharged wherever there is access to a plug socket,” say Tom Stacey and Chris Ivory, supply chain experts at Anglia Ruskin University. “The infrastructure that exists to support hydrogen vehicles is limited in comparison and will require extensive investment to introduce.”



    Read more:
    The days of the hydrogen car are already over

    If the route to zero emissions is largely settled, we need to travel it quickly.

    Electric dreams

    One of the fastest energy transitions in history occurred over a decade in South Korea, according to energy system researchers James Price and Steve Pye (UCL). Between 1977 and 1987, the generation of electricity from oil in the east Asian country collapsed – from roughly 7 million gigawatt-hours to nearly 7,000 – and was replaced with, among other sources, nuclear power.

    There are historic analogues for the rapid shift necessary to arrest climate change. But a zero-carbon power sector, which the UK government aims to achieve by 2030, is just the start.



    Read more:
    For developing world to quit coal, rich countries must eliminate oil and gas faster – new study

    “Wind and solar, which provide more than 28% of the UK’s electricity, will soon overtake gas as the main generation source as more wind farms come online,” say energy system modeller Andrew Crossland and engineer Jon Gluyas, both of Durham University.

    “But successive governments have failed to achieve the same result in homes and communities where so much high-carbon gas is burned, despite their decarbonisation being critical to net zero.”



    Read more:
    Is Britain on track for a zero-carbon power sector in six years?

    Crossland and Gluyas note that solar panels, batteries and heat pumps can be installed “in days” to rapidly cut emissions, and that doing so would create “skilled jobs across the country”. As things stand, however, it would also present a severe challenge to the grid.

    Mechanical engineer Florimond Gueniat of Birmingham City University predicts that converting UK transport to battery power wholesale would require expanding grid capacity by 46% – the equivalent of erecting 5,800 skyscraper-sized wind turbines. And that’s even accounting for the greater efficiency of electric vehicles, which waste less of the energy we put into them compared with oil-powered cars.



    Read more:
    Switching to electric vehicles will push the power grid to the brink

    A massive upgrade to the electricity network is needed, and ordinary people have a part to play. Charging cars could serve as batteries that grid operators draw from during a supply pinch. The same goes for the power generated by solar panels on top of houses.

    “Such policies in Germany have … already offset 10% of the national demand,” says Gueniat.

    Getting to net zero requires the public’s involvement. But some of the CCC’s advice may be difficult to swallow. Not least the implication that people will have to eat 35% less meat and dairy in 2050 compared with 2019.



    Read more:
    The UK must make big changes to its diets, farming and land use to hit net zero – official climate advisers

    So are people ready for a world that runs on electrons alone? Aimee Ambrose, a professor of energy policy at Sheffield Hallam University, thinks heat pumps will struggle to compete with the inviting warmth of wood stoves and coal fires. Over three years she spoke with hundreds of people in the UK, Finland, Sweden and Romania and found strong attachments to high-carbon fuels even among people committed to solving climate change.

    The allure of the wood stove is hard to ignore.
    Jaromir Chalabala/Shutterstock



    Read more:
    Heat pumps have a cosiness problem

    Human behaviour is the most difficult variable for experts who study climate change to model. There will certainly be drawbacks to abandoning fossil fuelled conveniences at breakneck speed. Yet, there are bound to be benefits too – some of which might only materialise once we get going.

    In mid-April 2020, while much of humanity was under some form of lockdown to halt the spread of COVID-19, atmospheric chemist Paul Monks of the University of Leicester was marvelling at the sudden drop in air pollution, which kills millions of people each year and is predominantly caused by burning coal, oil and gas.

    “If there is something positive to take from this terrible crisis, it could be that it’s offered a taste of the air we might breathe in a low-carbon future,” he said.



    Read more:
    Coronavirus: lockdown’s effect on air pollution provides rare glimpse of low-carbon future

    – ref. We need to switch to heat pumps fast – but can they can overcome this problem? – https://theconversation.com/we-need-to-switch-to-heat-pumps-fast-but-can-they-can-overcome-this-problem-249658

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Anti-DEI guidance from Trump Administration misinterprets the law and guts educators’ free speech rights

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Paul M. Collins Jr., Professor of Legal Studies and Political Science, UMass Amherst

    The Trump administration letter aims to stop teachers from discussing many topics with students. Hill Street Studios, DigitalVision/Getty Images

    The Trump administration’s attacks on diversity, equity and inclusion have continued in the form of a “Dear Colleague” letter from the Department of Education to educational institutions – from preschools through colleges and universities.

    This letter demands that schools abandon what the Trump administration refers to as “DEI programs” and threatens to withhold federal funding if schools don’t comply.

    According to President Donald Trump, these so-called DEI programs – found in the government, corporate and educational sectors and intended to reduce discrimination and promote the equitable treatment of people – are a form of antiwhite racism that hurt national unity and violate antidiscrimination laws.

    Although the letter does not have the force of law, it nonetheless signals how the Trump administration plans to aggressively take legal and financial action against educational institutions that refuse to comply, starting on Feb. 28.

    As a result, the Trump administration’s threat to remove federal funding, which both public and private educational institutions rely heavily on, is likely to coerce compliance, at least to some degree.

    As the letter explains, “The Department will vigorously enforce the law on equal terms as to all preschool, elementary, secondary, and postsecondary educational institutions, as well as state educational agencies, that receive financial assistance.”

    Thus, these directives have the potential to fundamentally change education in America.

    As professors of legal studies, we’ve taken a close look at the “Dear Colleague” letter. Here’s how the letter infringes on free speech, misunderstands the law and undermines education.

    Will professors still be able to teach about America’s history of racism?
    Jeff Gritchen/Digital First Media/Orange County Register via Getty Images

    Restricting free speech

    The First Amendment to the Constitution protects the right of the people to express viewpoints without fear of punishment by the government.

    The Trump administration’s attacks on DEI are part of a broader assault on freedom of speech in which Trump targets media, businesses and everyday Americans the president disagrees with.

    By directing schools, colleges and universities to stop DEI policies, the “Dear Colleague” letter clearly restricts free speech rights. That’s the case because creating and pursuing DEI policies is a type of freedom of expression. Banning DEI practices is a form of viewpoint discrimination, which is prohibited by Supreme Court precedent that covers the speech of educational institutions as well as their faculty and staff.

    For instance, the letter aims to prevent educational institutions from pursuing missions and policies that promote the concepts of DEI. Such missions are common in higher education and can be found in universities from the conservative Brigham Young University to the liberal University of Vermont.

    Frequently, these missions are pursued by requiring students to take courses that encourage them to learn about perspectives or cultures that are different from their own.

    While the letter is not clear about which courses it would consider a problem, targeting any topics serves to suppress the free speech rights and academic freedom of faculty, including their freedom to design and teach courses.

    This vagueness may be part of the threat. After all, if teachers aren’t sure what they might get punished for, they may be extra cautious and censor themselves.

    Misunderstanding the law

    Aside from being vague, the letter also seems to willfully misrepresent the 2022 Supreme Court decision ending race-based affirmative action in higher education, Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard College.

    In that case, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote a narrow majority opinion declaring simply that university admissions policies could not aim to create incoming classes with particular racial balances.

    Roberts’ opinion was silent on any other type of educational policy. It also states explicitly that “nothing in this opinion should be construed as prohibiting universities from considering an applicant’s discussion of how race affected his or her life, be it through discrimination, inspiration, or otherwise,” so long as they are evaluated for admission as an individual.

    And yet, the “Dear Colleague” letter takes this decision and runs with it in multiple different directions. First, it falsely claims that the decision prohibits schools from eliminating standardized testing in their admissions process, something many schools have chosen to do in recent years.

    Second, the letter falsely states, in contradiction with the ruling’s own text, that the decision applies much more broadly than the context of admissions, to “hiring, promotion, compensation, financial aid, scholarships, prizes, administrative support, discipline, housing, graduation ceremonies, and all other aspects of student, academic, and campus life.”

    Thus, according to the letter, any program that targeted a particular group for differential treatment based on their race would come under government scrutiny, including programs designed to assist students of color, to house students according to affinity groups, and to diversify university faculty.

    There is simply no reading of the Students for Fair Admissions decision that suggests such an encroachment on the inner workings of educational institutions. Roberts’ majority opinion says only that students should be evaluated as individuals when applying to colleges and universities.

    Effort to undermine education

    What history will the Trump administration letter stop from being taught?
    Tomasz Śmigla, iStock/Getty Images Plus

    In sum, the letter places educators, especially those of us who teach about American law and government, in an impossible position.

    It states that “educational institutions have toxically indoctrinated students with the false premise that the United States is built upon ‘systemic and structural racism,’” suggesting that the U.S. does not have such a history.

    But, for example, in order to teach why affirmative action is now unconstitutional, we would have to explain the concept of strict scrutiny to our students. Strict scrutiny is when a court examines a law very carefully to make sure that it does not promote an unconstitutional racial or religious classification. It is a kind of review that is used routinely and appropriately by courts, and was used to strike down affirmative action in Students for Fair Admissions.

    That level of judicial review exists because, in the words of Roberts in Students for Fair Admissions, “for almost a century after the Civil War, state-mandated segregation was in many parts of the Nation a regrettable norm. This Court played its own role in that ignoble history, allowing in Plessy v. Ferguson the separate but equal regime that would come to deface much of America.”

    In other words, the Supreme Court created strict scrutiny as a judicial antidote to the systemic racism that it had helped perpetuate.

    Even more basically, it is impossible to teach constitutional law without acknowledging the Three-Fifths Compromise or the Fugitive Slave Clause, both of which embedded the property rights of slaveowners into the founding documents of this country, denying enslaved people full citizenship and its rights.

    To not teach students about such topics is, we believe, to fail in our role as educators. To forbid teaching it is an attack on the core mission of educational institutions in a democracy. And even more, this letter aims to prevent teachers from critiquing what the letter itself says and from explaining its own context and history.

    The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

    – ref. Anti-DEI guidance from Trump Administration misinterprets the law and guts educators’ free speech rights – https://theconversation.com/anti-dei-guidance-from-trump-administration-misinterprets-the-law-and-guts-educators-free-speech-rights-250574

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: We should care more about emerging infectious diseases, and the tools we need to fight them

    Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Idowu Olawoye, Postdoctoral Associate, Microbiology & Immunology, Western University

    A patient undergoing infusion therapy. Treatment failure can happen when a disease adapts to become resistant to antibiotics. (Unsplash/Olga Kononenko)

    Throughout human history, disease outbreaks have emerged and re-emerged. What’s different now is that with global travel, outbreaks can move quickly among and between populations.

    A familiar example would be the COVID-19 pandemic and how it disrupted the world as we know it today. During this period, a lot of technological advancements were achieved during a short time such as vaccine roll-out and also tracking of variants globally.

    Since this pandemic, we have been constantly reminded of the threat that emerging infectious diseases pose, as well as new strains of existing microbes, and even infections that may eventually become untreatable. This should also serve as a constant reminder of the need to continue developing the tools and technology to fight them.

    Infectious disease outbreaks since COVID-19

    In 2022, shortly after the worst of the devastating COVID-19 pandemic had passed, the world was rocked by another infectious disease outbreak, which was soon classified as a public health emergency of international concern.

    The culprit was mpox, then known as the monkeypox virus.

    Unlike SARS-CoV-2, which causes COVID-19, this was not a novel virus but had been identified in laboratory monkeys in Denmark as far back as 1958. The first human cases were documented in 1970 among children in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

    Since then, there have been multiple reported outbreaks of mpox, the majority of them limited to Africa. This includes a 2022 global outbreak that caused about 250 deaths, representing a fatality rate of 0.2 per cent.

    An ongoing outbreak started in 2023 in Central Africa, claiming about 900 lives with a fatality rate of five per cent.

    According to the World Health Organization, the two most recent mpox outbreaks were primarily driven by sexual transmission or body contact. There is currently no treatment approved by the FDA for mpox.

    In early 2024, an avian influenza outbreak resurfaced in the United States when the viral infection that typically affects birds was detected in dairy cows for the first time. It has since spread to about 973 cattle in 17 states, and there have been about 70 human cases among people associated with farm animals.

    Recently, a respiratory outbreak known as hMPV has been overwhelming hospitals in Northern China, with children, adolescents and senior citizens being at most risk. The origin of this outbreak is not yet known.

    Untreatable sexually transmitted infection

    Microscopic image of the bacteria that causes gonorrhea.
    (NIAID), CC BY

    Gonorrhoea is a widely known sexually transmitted infection (STI). Approximately 80 million people were infected by this bacterium in 2020. Though most cases remain treatable, an untreatable form of gonorrhoea is becoming more prevalent, threatening victims with infertility or even cancer.

    Treatment failure can happen when a disease adapts to become resistant to antibiotics. Antibiotic resistance has significant implications for global health, including massive financial implications for health care.

    An emerging STI threat

    Other, uncommon but difficult to treat STIs are emerging. One is called Mycoplasma genitalium, the causative agent for non-gonococcal urethritis — a typically painful infection of the tube that carries urine from the bladder.



    Read more:
    Antimicrobial resistance now hits lower-income countries the hardest, but superbugs are a global threat we must all fight

    With symptoms similar to gonorrhoea, it can lead to infertility, increased susceptibility to HIV, failed pregnancy, cancer of the cervix and more. Yet, it is often misdiagnosed due to it being understudied and its complexity.

    This understudied bacterium is naturally resistant to many antibiotics due to its unique structure, making it notoriously difficult to treat.

    The WHO works to control the spread of gonorrhoea infections that are resistant to antibiotics through surveillance. My own research is adopting a similar strategy for M. genitalium, by using genomic surveillance to improve our knowledge of the infection and the improved ability to detect antibiotic resistance.

    What is genomic surveillance?

    Genomic surveillance uses next-generation sequencing technology to identify specific strains of pathogens circulating during an outbreak. This can also determine what genetic characteristics makes some strains more aggressive than others.

    This technique was used effectively during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic and helped identify variants quickly.

    Genomic surveillance can help us understand what we are facing, allowing us to tackle emerging threats more quickly and efficiently. It can help us develop sensitive, rapid diagnostic tools to detect drug resistance, especially for bacteria that are difficult to study in the lab, such as Mycoplasma genitalium, which is an extremely slow-growing and challenging bacteria.

    With the continuing emergence of untreatable infections and new disease outbreaks, genomic sequencing can help meet emerging threats even in regions that lack adequate infrastructure where these tend to occur frequently.

    This can be achieved through implementing affordable, user friendly diagnostic tools or developing effective vaccines for endemic regions. An example is the COVID-19 self-test kit that can be used at home. This is one of the key areas my research is also trying to accomplish: improving diagnostics in health care and making them accessible.

    Pathogens are constantly evolving to become resistant to treatment in the perpetual battle between humans and infectious diseases.

    To get the upper hand, we need to continue developing technology, including rapid and sensitive tools for identifying resistant bacteria and innovative methods for halting the spread of untreatable infections before they become serious pandemics.

    Idowu Olawoye receives funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) and Western Research at the University of Western Ontario.

    – ref. We should care more about emerging infectious diseases, and the tools we need to fight them – https://theconversation.com/we-should-care-more-about-emerging-infectious-diseases-and-the-tools-we-need-to-fight-them-248427

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Alberta’s oil and gas wells threaten people’s health, but there are disparities in who is most at risk

    Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Martin Lavoie, Senior Scientist and Data Analyst, St. Francis Xavier University

    Around 13 per cent of Albertans live within 1.5 kilometres of an active oil or gas well. Given the link between oil and gas production and ill health, this leaves a significant proportion of the province’s population at risk.

    But certain groups may be at a disproportionately greater risk, according to recent research our team published. Our study revealed stark socioeconomic disparities in those at the greatest risk of health problems due to their proximity to an oil or gas well — with Indigenous people and those who were less educated most affected.

    The link between oil and gas production, air pollution and human health is well documented. Oil and gas production emits numerous pollutants into the air we breathe. These pollutants are associated with poor cardiovascular and respiratory health.

    But while numerous studies have been published on the link between proximity to oil and gas producers and ill health, this data has mainly come from the United States — the world’s leading oil and gas producer. Relatively little research on this topic has been done in Canada. This is what our recent research sought to do.

    Alberta residents

    The study examined Alberta — the province which in 2023 was responsible for 80 per cent of Canada’s oil, and 61 per cent of its gas production. We analyzed multiple datasets including census, health, emissions and oil and gas activity data. This allowed our lab to create the first spatial understanding of oil and gas air pollution in Alberta.

    This also made it possible to identify the sociodemographic characteristics of those living nearest the pollution’s source, alongside their experiences with cardiovascular or respiratory health issues.

    The study found that over 360,000 Albertans live within one kilometre of an active oil or gas well. Nearly half a million people live within 1.5 kilometres of one. These are significant numbers considering the province only has around four million residents.

    Albertans living within one or 1.5 kilometres of an active oil and gas well are more likely to be rural residents (10 per cent), people with less formal education (20 per cent) and Indigenous people (21 per cent).

    Our findings align with previous studies which have shown that people with similar sociodemographic characteristics are more likely to experience worse health outcomes compared to the general population.

    Unnervingly, our study also found that those living within at least 1.5 kilometres of an oil or gas well faced an estimated nine to 21 per cent higher risk of experiencing cardiovascular or respiratory issues due to their proximity. The closer a person lived to an oil or gas well, the greater their risk.

    Although we adjusted our findings for age and sex, there was no information available in the datasets we used on other factors which may have affected the results, such as lifestyle habits or pre-existing health conditions. It will be important for more research to be conducted on this topic which takes these factors into account.

    Health risks

    Our findings align with other published studies on the topic which have found a link between health issues and proximity to oil and gas producers.

    Notably, much of the oil and gas workforce are located in rural areas near production facilities. This may explain why our study found rural residents were more likely to experience health issues from oil and gas wells.

    Our findings also align with research from the U.S. on this topic. For comparison, a 2022 study found nearly 18 million U.S. residents live within 1.6 kilometres of an active oil and gas well, with some states such as West Virginia and Oklahoma seeing over 50 per cent of their total population in this proximity. Research has also found similar socioeconomic disparities in exposure to oil and gas wells in the U.S. as our study did.

    Our study highlights the need for more research on this topic, especially since it has been suggested that oil and gas emissions are often underestimated. It’s possible that even more people are impacted than our study determined.

    It will also be important for studies to investigate the effects of specific oil and gas pollutants (such as nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds) on health. Currently in Alberta, regulations on the minimum distance between residents and oil and gas wells primarily focus on hydrogen sulphide levels.

    Overlooking other relevant air pollutants may mean that minimum setbacks from pollution sources may be insufficient, especially given the impacts our study showed in those residing within 1.5 kilometres of an oil or gas well.

    Nearly 100 countries produce oil and gas. Air emissions from this sector represent an urgent global problem. Targeted actions such as stricter policies for air emissions, as well as health risk assessments when building developments, are necessary to protect people living in these regions.

    David Risk receives funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council

    Martin Lavoie and Matthew Rygus do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

    – ref. Alberta’s oil and gas wells threaten people’s health, but there are disparities in who is most at risk – https://theconversation.com/albertas-oil-and-gas-wells-threaten-peoples-health-but-there-are-disparities-in-who-is-most-at-risk-249637

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Big corporations are getting away with catastrophic air pollution – putting Canadians at risk

    Source: The Conversation – Canada – By David R Boyd, UN Special Rapporteur on human rights & environment and Associate Professor of Law, Policy and Sustainability, University of British Columbia

    Penalties imposed on corporate polluters in Canada are often extremely lenient. (Dennis MacDonald/ Shutterstock)

    Millions of kilograms of toxic pollutants, over 17,000 deaths annually and environmental laws that aren’t being diligently enforced. This is the troubling picture that emerged when we, a group of environmental researchers, investigated trends in air pollution enforcement in Canada.

    Federal and provincial governments share responsibility for regulating air pollution. However, environmental laws and regulations are only useful if they’re properly enforced. Our research shows Canada needs to take greater action in enforcing the widely endorsed “polluter pays” principle for air pollution. According to this principle, those who produce pollution should pay for cleaning up any environmental damage.

    We built a publicly-available dataset in Canada of air pollution enforcement actions. We scoured all available sources, creating a database of more than 2,200 enforcement actions that took place between 2000 and 2020 from eight provinces as well as the federal government. This helped us identify patterns in the way air pollution laws were being enforced.

    Broken rules

    One of the disappointing patterns we saw is that the majority of enforcement actions in our dataset — 63 per cent — were against individuals for offences such as illegal campfires. Meanwhile, only one-third of enforcement actions were brought against companies — including those that had dumped vast volumes of toxic substances into Canada’s air, or caused catastrophic emissions offences (such as the Toronto Sunrise Propane explosion).

    Even in the uncommon cases where rules were enforced against large corporations, the penalties imposed were extremely lenient. These penalties amounted to barely a slap on the wrist for repeat industrial polluters.

    For example, the mining corporation Rio Tinto was fined $150,000 in Québec for breaking air pollution laws in 2013. This fine equated to only 0.00023 per cent of the company’s annual revenue. To put this into perspective, if a Canadian family earning the average income of $62,900 after taxes was given a 0.00023 per cent fine, this would equate to $14.47.

    It’s not surprising, then, that this company would go on to violate air pollution laws again less than one month later. They also violated these laws again in 2016 and 2019.

    Even the relatively small fine of $150,000 is well above the median fine for industrial air polluters. According to our study, fines ranged from $2,500 to $10,000 for most types of offences — including excess emissions or violating an environmental standard. This is less than some people would be fined for driving with a suspended licence. These fines are less than one per cent of the maximum penalties permitted by law for environmental offences — which range up to $12 million.

    Another concerning pattern our study revealed is that some large industrial polluters are repeat offenders. While government policies indicate there should be increasingly strict enforcement applied in these cases, this doesn’t appear to be the general practice. Instead, chronic law-breakers tended to receive multiple warning letters — not increasingly large fines or prosecutions.

    For instance, over the last five years, four provincial orders were reportedly issued against INEOS — one of the world’s largest chemical production companies. These orders were issued so the company would address its benzene emissions. This toxic chemical is linked with cancer.

    Following federal and provincial orders to reduce benzene emissions in 2024, INEOS decided to close the offending facility. The company was never fined for its toxic pollution.

    Enforcement actions don’t seem to be taking into account the way human and environmental health are jeopardized by industrial air pollution. Vulnerable or marginalized groups who live near large industrial facilities are particularly at risk of harm.

    We found that on average, businesses were generally fined less for committing an actual pollution violation — such as illegally dumping large quantities of contaminants into the air — than they were for failing to notify an enforcement agency that they’d committed a violation.

    Improving environmental enforcement

    Canadian enforcement agencies are failing to properly hold high-risk offenders and repeat offenders to account.

    But positive change is possible. Going forward, there are three key actions enforcement agencies should take:

    • Increased penalties: Polluters should pay for their pollution. The consequences of breaking the law should be proportional to the risks to public health and the environment. Substantial mandatory minimum fines should replace the current practice of warning letters and grossly inadequate tickets or fines.

    • Transparency: The public should have access to environmental information through standardized data on air pollution violations. This information should include who committed the violation, the details and location of what occurred and what was done about it. Ideally, the federal government would co-ordinate and publish all environmental enforcement data from across provinces the same way it publishes a national inventory of industrial pollutant releases.

    • Focus on high-risk offenses: The focus of enforcement actions should be on high-risk offenders, such as super-polluters (businesses that produce disproportionate volumes of air pollution relative to their competitors), repeat offenders and inter-provincial offenders.

    By properly enforcing environmental regulations, Canada can protect the public from the perils of poor air quality. This would also be a vital step towards realizing everyone’s right to a healthy environment — a right that was recently recognized in an amendment to the Canadian Environmental Protection Act.

    This story was co-authored by Claire Ewing, Senior Climate Action Specialist, who completed her Master’s of Science in Resources, Environment and Sustainability at the University of British Columbia in 2021.

    David R Boyd receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

    Amanda Giang receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), and Environment and Climate Change Canada.

    – ref. Big corporations are getting away with catastrophic air pollution – putting Canadians at risk – https://theconversation.com/big-corporations-are-getting-away-with-catastrophic-air-pollution-putting-canadians-at-risk-250013

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: ‘Buying Canadian’ is an opportunity to reflect on the ethics of consumerism

    Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Michael Walschots, Postdoctoral Fellow, Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz

    Ever since Donald Trump threatened to impose a 25 per cent tariff on all imports from Canada, everyday citizens have retaliated by pledging to “Buy Canadian.” Even though the tariffs were later postponed, the damage was already done.

    The Buy Canadian movement is broad: people are not only buying more Canadian goods, they are also altering their travels plans and attempting to watch more Canadian-made films and TV.

    Local businesses have reported an increase in traffic, Air Canada has said it will decrease the number of flights to U.S. destinations and there are now apps and a website to help citizens find Canadian products.

    This new movement offers us the opportunity to reflect on the ethics of our consumption practices more generally, especially when consumers co-ordinate their purchasing on a national scale. As consumers, we all have a responsibility to use our buying power in an ethically conscious way.

    A CBC News report on how consumers are using apps to help them buy Canadian products.

    Boycotts and buycotts

    Most of us as consumers decide what to buy based on the price and quality of goods. But our values play a role in our decision-making: what we buy and where we buy it is influenced by our beliefs. Last year, for instance, many Canadians boycotted Loblaws on the grounds that it was price gouging amid inflation.

    A boycott is just one way of altering our habits based on our values. Another way is a “buycott”; that is, intentionally buying products from companies we feel align with our values. The Buy Canadian movement itself is best described as a buycott, but for many, it’s also a boycott of American-made goods.

    The reasons behind consumers choices are essential here. For example, we might avoid buying certain cosmetics because we are opposed to animal testing. Or we might vote with our forks and eat at farm-to-table restaurants to combat climate change.

    Our choices are often complex and motivated by many concerns: I might buy eggs from my local farmers market not only because I want to support local businesses, but also to encourage the fair treatment of animals and express my frustration with high prices at chain stores.

    Social change and co-ordinated consuming

    One of the most important reasons behind many of our consuming practices is social change: we want to change the way others, and we as a society, behave. Consuming for social change is particularly effective when it is done by a co-ordinated group that shares certain values.

    Consider the practice of buying fair trade coffee: by means of proper certification and product labelling, consumers give coffee companies an economic incentive to treat farmers more equitably.

    This is a huge power that consumers have. But with great power comes great responsibility, so when we make co-ordinated consuming efforts, we need to think about how to do so responsibly.

    Not all co-ordinated consuming efforts are ethically permissible. Consider a reprehensible but particularly relevant example: in the 1930s, initiatives developed to encourage consumers not to buy Jewish products in Germany, other European countries and the U.S. Such a practice was wrong not only because it was motivated by hatred, but also because it deprived a group of citizens of their freedom of religion.

    Another more recent example concerns the Christian American Family Association which boycotted Walt Disney, Ford and other businesses because of their support of same-sex couples. This boycott was wrong not only because it was motivated by discriminatory beliefs, but also because it did not representative how many other people feel.

    The moral here is that social change should not only be influenced by well-co-ordinated groups, because the loudest voices are not the only ones, nor are they necessarily the right ones.

    Ethical boycotting

    How do we make sure that our co-ordinated consuming efforts are ethical? Philosophy professor Waheed Hussain argued that when we act as a co-ordinated group seeking to achieve social change, we should treat our consuming choices as “proto-legislative” — that is, as if they could become legislation.

    This is because our efforts in this context are no longer aimed at merely satisfying our self-interest, but the common good, and so the standards should be higher. We should act in ways that are appropriately representative and that do not deprive our fellow citizens of their freedoms. Furthermore, Hussain argued that the reasons behind our consumption practices should be public and subject to scrutiny by our fellow citizens.

    When we seek to effect social change across national boundaries, it has been argued that we should not impose our ideals of social change on foreign citizens. In this case our choices are subject to additional constraints. We should respect the values of the target country, for instance, and use our purchasing power in ways that help local workers and communities there.

    What this all means for the Buy Canadian movement is a complex question. For instance, it might mean that a boycott of American products should not include some states like Kentucky, whose governor has openly opposed the tariffs. But at the very least, it’s an opportunity for us to reflect on the immense power we have as consumers, as well as the responsibilities that go along with it.

    Michael Walschots receives funding from the German Research Foundation. In the past he has received funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and the German Academic Exchange Service

    – ref. ‘Buying Canadian’ is an opportunity to reflect on the ethics of consumerism – https://theconversation.com/buying-canadian-is-an-opportunity-to-reflect-on-the-ethics-of-consumerism-249830

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Canada is one step closer to high-speed rail, but many hurdles remain

    Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Ryan M. Katz-Rosene, Associate Professor, School of Political Studies, with Cross-Appointment to Geography, Environment and Geomatics, L’Université d’Ottawa/University of Ottawa

    Canada is the only G7 country without a high-speed rail line, yet not for lack of trying. Over the last half century, numerous high-speed rail projects have been proposed, studied and even approved by political leaders. The obstacles to actually getting them built have proven insurmountable thus far.

    Proponents of high-speed rail had much to celebrate earlier this month when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced Alto, a high-speed train line that will connect Québec City and Toronto, with stops in Trois-Rivières, Laval, Montréal, Ottawa and Peterborough.

    After a lengthy tender process, the $3.9 billion six-year contract was awarded to the Cadence consortium, which comprises Air Canada, CDPQ Infra, AtkinsRéalis, Keolis, SYSTRA and SNCF Voyageurs. The consortium will work with the federal government to bring the proposed high-speed rail line to fruition.

    Yet, while this announcement is a milestone, multiple political and economic hurdles must be cleared for this project to ever see the light of day.

    Politically uncertain future

    Four main challenges stand between Trudeau’s announcement and the first high-speed journey. The first is the current political context. With an election on the horizon, the project’s fate could hinge on which party forms the next government.

    Trudeau announced the project less than a month before the pre-determined end to his tenure as prime minister, and it remains unclear who will be Canada’s next, how long their term will last or which party (or coalition) will form the next government.

    Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre currently leads the polls, and although his party has expressed support for high-speed rail infrastructure, it also has called for a major scaling back of government spending.

    History could very well repeat itself if Poilievre comes to power and cancels the project — just as Ontario Premier Doug Ford paused funding and halted plans for the high-speed rail project his Liberal predecessor, Kathleen Wynne, had announced upon taking office.

    The federal Conservatives have already criticized the recent high-speed rail announcement. In contrast, Mark Carney, who is currently the frontrunner for the Liberal Party’s leadership, has expressed support for high-speed rail, but he has also made comments about the need to reduce spending.

    The cost factor

    Beyond political risk, the second major challenge is cost. Canadian governments have, on multiple occasions, engaged in commercial feasibility studies of high-speed rail projects, only to abandon plans once a clearer sense of the price tag emerged.

    The recent announcement involves a $3.9 billion federal commitment — but this funding is only for the next design phase of the project. This phase includes route planning, station location identification, environmental assessments and consultation with Indigenous communities.

    At the end of this multi-year phase, there should be a plan in place, but there will still not be any actual material infrastructure built or rail equipment purchased.

    The actual costs of construction and physical asset procurement remain uncertain, with estimates ranging from $80 to $120 billion. Considering the cost of other high-speed rail projects around the world, a 1,000 kilometre high-speed rail line would likely cost tens of billions of dollars.

    Regional politics and fairness

    The third obstacle lies in inter-provincial and regional politics. Large-scale infrastructure projects in Canada have faced resistance from provinces that feel excluded, and this high-speed rail initiative is no exception.

    One study on the political economy of Canadian high-speed rail identified inter-provincial and regional politics as a central challenge for a costly Québec-Ontario project such as this one.

    Ottawa risks being accused of funnelling billions of taxpayer dollars into a massive infrastructure project that only directly benefits two of Canada’s provinces. This could create friction with the Western provinces, the Prairies, the Maritime provinces and the Northern territories, whose leaders and residents may ask what they might get in return.

    An additional challenge is the perception that the project is a Trudeau-era legacy initiative. Some may see the investment as another example of “Laurentian elites” disproportionately benefiting from the nation’s resource wealth — a long-standing narrative used to critique inter-provincial economic disparities.

    Time and execution

    Finally — though not exhaustively — time itself could prove to be a hurdle. The current co-development phase of the project is expected to last up to five years, after which additional funds and decisions will be required before the build phase can begin.

    Even if the project goes ahead, large-scale infrastructure projects are notoriously prone to delays and cost overruns. There is a well-known saying in megaproject development: projects like this tend to be “over budget, over time, over and over again.”

    This raises concerns that Alto could face serious delays or even failure, as the proposed plan needs to sustain not only the next five years of inter-provincial and federal politics, but also the subsequent build phase.

    A cautionary example is California’s high-speed rail line, which originally intended to link San Francisco and Los Angeles by 2020 at a cost of US$33 billion. Today, only a portion of the infrastructure has been built, cost estimates now exceed US$128 billion, neither major city is yet connected and there is no clear completion date in sight.

    Possibility of transformation

    The Alto project marks a significant step toward Canada joining the ranks of nations with high-speed rail. However, political and economic realities serve as a reminder that many obstacles have yet to be overcome before that vision becomes reality.

    If done right, this project could usher in a new era of 21st-century sustainable transport infrastructure in Canada.

    If done wrong, the project will rack up costs, sow political division and waste taxpayers’ dollars. How domestic political economic realities evolve in the coming months and year will have a significant bearing on whether this is the high-speed rail plan that finally breaks through.

    Ryan M. Katz-Rosene does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

    – ref. Canada is one step closer to high-speed rail, but many hurdles remain – https://theconversation.com/canada-is-one-step-closer-to-high-speed-rail-but-many-hurdles-remain-250384

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: From sunscreen to essential oils, why some personal care products could be harmful to your health

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Asit Kumar Mishra, Research Fellow in School of Public of Health, University College Cork

    RomarioIen/Shutterstock

    Each time you apply sunscreen to your face, you may inhale somewhere between 10 to 30 milligrams of ethanol, the type of alcohol used in alcoholic drinks. While the ethanol in sunscreen may not give you a buzz, it could make you think about what other chemicals you might be exposed to from personal care products.

    Products that are applied to the face, like sunscreen, can increase the inhalation of some chemicals by ten times or more than you would inhale from your home air in the entire day.

    The levels of ethanol in cosmetics and skincare products may be reasonably safe – although it can still dry out the skin, causing pain, redness and swelling, and irritate the eyes, causing tears, burning and stinging – but personal care products such as shampoos, skin creams, deodorants, cosmetics and perfumes contain fragrances and other volatile organic compounds (VOCs), which can be inhaled, absorbed through skin or ingested and some are more toxic than others.

    Unfortunately, manufacturers of personal care products do not have to disclose every fragrance compound used. This is concerning when you consider the potential effects of toxic compounds that have been detected in the air from personal care products. For example, hair-smoothing products have released formaldehyde, a toxic chemical that can cause a range of symptoms from dermatitis to low sperm count. Some perfumes and deodorants have generated monoterpenes, chemicals which can prove toxic for some users.

    Some of the VOCs found in personal care products may trigger skin irritation, headaches – and difficulty breathing, which can develop into an asthma attack in some users. The highest or peak concentration of these VOCs are likely to occur within ten minutes of application. But these concentrations may take up to two hours to decrease to background levels, depending on your home’s ventilation.

    Natural doesn’t mean risk free

    But even if the levels of VOCs in personal care products are kept within safe limits, they can still cause discomfort and a variety of health issues, including irritation of the eyes and airways, migraines and asthmatic reactions, in those who’re fragrance sensitive. In the UK, 27% of the population self reports as fragrance sensitive.

    It makes sense then that some people attempt to avoid potentially toxic synthetic chemicals in cosmetics by opting for “natural” or “clean” personal care products. But, natural does not mean safer.

    For instance, essential oils are often used in “natural” personal care products as fragrance. Essential oils, though, are a source of terpenes, some of which can be toxic if absorbed, inhaled or swallowed.

    Indoor concentration of terpenes are often at levels where you can smell them but not high enough to cause eye or respiratory tract irritation. However, the terpenes from essential oils can react with other chemicals, such as ozone from outdoor air, producing byproducts like formaldehyde, a known carcinogen and allergens.

    Beauty salon safety

    Beauty salons can be particularly risky environments for exposure to VOCs. Studies have found contaminants such as formaldehyde, ammonia and toluene, a potentially harmful ingredient used in many personal care products, at high levels in salons, putting staff who work there at the highest risk.

    Formaldehyde levels in some salons have reached above safety limits. Methyl methacrylate, which can cause skin irritation, allergic reactions and potential respiratory issues has been detected in the air of nail salons.

    These contaminants are not necessarily limited to the places in a salon where a certain product is being used. Beauty salons with poor ventilation are likely to expose workers and customers to much higher levels of contaminants. Some of the components of personal care products are known, harmful contaminants and carcinogens.

    Regulations specifically related to ventilation in environments where large volumes of these products are used do reduce exposures. For instance, studies show that after ventilation regulations came into effect in Boston, US in 2011, the air quality inside nail salons improved.

    When visiting your nail salon or hair stylist, check with them about their ventilation system and other steps they are taking to reduce exposure to VOCs.

    To limit exposure to potential VOCs at home when using personal care products, try to open windows and use extractor fans in wet rooms. Be especially careful when applying products to the face or when using a high temperature application – high temperatures can increase emissions.

    Asit Kumar Mishra is a DOROTHY co-fund Fellow and Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow and receives funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 101034345.

    – ref. From sunscreen to essential oils, why some personal care products could be harmful to your health – https://theconversation.com/from-sunscreen-to-essential-oils-why-some-personal-care-products-could-be-harmful-to-your-health-248273

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: From Messi to Mika Häkkinen: how top athletes can slow down time

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Steve Taylor, Senior Lecturer in Psychology, Leeds Beckett University

    Jay Hirano/Shutterstock

    With the new Formula 1 season is about to begin, it’s worth pondering what makes a great racing driver. There are no doubt several important qualities, such as calmness under pressure, the courage to take risks, quick reflexes and excellent coordination.

    But there is a more obscure ability that may separate the best drivers – and other top athletes – from the rest: the ability to “slow down” time.

    In 1994, a British racing driver named Mark Hughes had “one of the greatest days” of his life when he began a race right at the back of the grid, with 25 other cars in front of him. Somehow he managed to overtake 23 cars, finishing third. While driving, Hughes felt a strange sense of detachment, as if he was watching from outside his body. He also felt a peculiar sense of timelessness.

    As he told the author Clyde Brolin for his book In the Zone (2017): “It’s funny and it sounds weird but it felt unconnected to time … It’s not really time … You felt you could go back, analyse and have a look”.

    Many racing drivers have reported similar experiences. In another Brolin book, Overdrive (2010), Finnish driver Mika Häkkinen reported that, when driving at his best, “Everything becomes like slow motion — even though you’re going at unbelievable speed around the Monaco track.”

    The Scottish driver Jackie Stewart, who competed in Formula 1 during the 1960s and 70s, told Brolin that this skill is an essential prerequisite for success in racing. “At 195 mph, you should still have a very clear vision, almost in slow motion, of going through that corner — so that you have time to brake, time to line the car up, time to recognise the amount of drift.”

    Time expansion experiences, as I refer to them in my research, are common in other sports too. The American sprinter Steve Williams — who equalled the men’s 100- and 200-metre world records in the 1970s — described to me how, when he was running well, “10 seconds seems like 60. Time switches to slow motion.”

    Many players of ball games report moments of time-slowing too. In my research, a man described a game of table tennis that suddenly “turned into slow motion … I could see the ball and its flight and spin perfectly, anticipating its precise bounce, and position my body, arm, hands and wrist to hit perfect returns”.

    I also cite the experience of an ice hockey player for whom “the play which seemed to last for about 10 minutes all occurred in the space of about eight seconds”.

    A lucky few

    In my book, Time Expansion Experiences (2024), I suggest that only a tiny proportion of extraordinary athletes have easy access to time expansion experiences.

    One example is the baseball player Ted Williams, whose career ran from 1939 to 1960. Williams is usually regarded as one of the greatest hitters (if not the best) ever. He claimed to be able to see the stitches on the seam of the ball as it flew toward him at 100 mph. He described how the ball sometimes appeared to grow, so that it seemed like a beach ball floating toward him in slow motion.

    This may also be true of Lionel Messi, often described as the best footballer of his generation. Some scientists believe that Messi may experience anomalous neurological processing that slows down his perception of time. This would account for his “impossible” goals that seem to defy the laws of physics.

    Some scientists think Messi’s brain is different.
    Shutterstock

    Explaining time expansion

    How can this extraordinary ability be explained scientifically? We don’t really know for sure yet.

    There is some evidence that physical exercise generally slows down time. In a recent study, 33 cyclists were asked to estimate the duration of trials, and believed that more time had passed than it actually had. Perhaps this effect is more pronounced for higher level athletes, because of their higher levels of fitness and stamina.

    However, this wouldn’t explain why certain sportspeople, such as Messi or Williams, have a more pronounced ability to slow down time than other, equally fit peers. In 2016, a group of German scientists suggested that they may be able to “buy time” due to superior motor skills that allow their “predictive brains to make better use of time than other players to read the games and plan ahead”.

    My own explanation is slightly different. I believe the key to understanding time expansion is through altered states of consciousness. Our normal time perception is linked to our usual state of consciousness. In some mildly altered states (such as being in a state of flow) time passes very quickly. But during intense, altered states, time usually expands dramatically, or seems to disappear altogether.

    This may be why radical time expansion is a common feature of psychedelic drugs, and of accidents and emergencies. The sudden shock of an accident may disrupt our normal psychological processes and functions, causing an abrupt shift in consciousness.

    In sport, intense altered states are due to what I call “super-absorption.” Absorption normally makes time pass faster, as in flow. However, when it becomes especially intense, over a long period of sustained concentration, the opposite occurs. In some cases, an athlete builds up concentration gradually over the course of a game or contest. A racing driver or a golfer may concentrate hard for hours, eventually attaining a state of intense absorption.

    Here the game is akin to a meditation, in which a person gradually focuses their mind, attaining deeper states of stillness and well-being. In other cases, an athlete shifts quickly into super-absorption during a critical period of a game — for example, when they (or their team) are losing and making a concerted effort to catch up or in the final minutes of a game when scores are tied or close.

    Although many factors contribute to success in sports, perhaps the key to extraordinary ability is the capacity to enter an altered state of consciousness through intense absorption. And the most important feature of this altered state is time expansion.

    Steve Taylor does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

    – ref. From Messi to Mika Häkkinen: how top athletes can slow down time – https://theconversation.com/from-messi-to-mika-hakkinen-how-top-athletes-can-slow-down-time-249780

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Theatre’s thriving horror revival reflects a cultural moment of collective anxiety

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Richard Hand, Professor of Media Practice, University of East Anglia

    The stage has long presented horror as entertainment, from 19th-century ghost and revenge melodramas to the blood-soaked spectacles of the grand-guignol, the Parisian “theatre of horror’.

    In recent decades, horror theatre has often been perceived as a relic of the past, overshadowed by its more commercially dominant and popular cinematic and digital counterparts. This may have seemed evident in 2023 when The Woman in Black finally closed after 33 years of haunting London’s West End.

    Yet, a recent wave of new and revived horror plays suggests that the genre is once again thriving on stage. With audiences flocking to 2:22 A Ghost Story, Paranormal Activity, Saint Maud, Inside No. 9 Stage/Fright and two concurrent but unrelated adaptations of the infamous Enfield poltergeist case, it begs the question: what is driving this resurgence? And could it be a reflection of our cultural moment – one that echoes the anxieties and uncertainties of previous gothic ages?

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    The original 19th-century gothic period in theatre was characterised by its fascination with the supernatural, the macabre and psychological extremes. Drawing inspiration from gothic literature, these plays often featured doomed heroines, villainous aristocrats and vengeful spectres, creating a haunting atmosphere of terror, suspense and unease.

    Melodrama played a key role, with heightened emotions, moral polarities, and elaborate stage effects – such as trapdoors, phantasmagorical projections and eerie soundscapes – enhancing the spectacle. Gothic theatre reflected contemporary anxieties about the unknown, scientific progress, and the boundaries between reason and madness, captivating audiences with its thrilling blend of horror and theatrical illusion.

    The demise of the neo-Victorian gothic The Woman in Black aside, horror theatre is anything but exorcised from the stage. The Leeds Playhouse stage adaptation of Paranormal Activity, directed by Felix Barrett, used technology, scene staging and ingeniously deployed magic tricks for a spine-chilling experience as compellingly immersive as many of the director’s more famous Punchdrunk shows.

    Danny Robins, whose podcast and TV show Uncanny has captivated audiences with real-life supernatural tales, enjoyed success when his 2:22 A Ghost Story materialised in the nervous context of a post-lockdown London in 2021. The play has continued in revivals and on tour while, in parallel, Robins’ podcast became a live stage tour, Uncanny: I Know What I Saw, filling theatres across the UK.

    Similarly, Inside No. 9 Stage/Fright has recently opened in London giving the beloved but concluded television programme an afterlife, and proving its signature brand of macabre storytelling is highly suited to a live environment.

    These productions, and others like them, are drawing significant audiences, not just for their jump scares and eerie atmospheres but because they tap into something deeper: a desire to engage with horror in a way that feels immediate and unfiltered by the distraction of screens.

    Live performance offers something that no digital medium can fully replicate: physical presence, unpredictability, and the heightened emotional responses that come from sharing an experience in real time with real people, most of whom will be complete strangers.

    Horror theatre’s resurgence taps into a collective psychological need to process fear in a safe space. Stage horror offers audiences a cathartic release – a chance to confront, experience, and ultimately purge fear in a controlled environment.

    The communal nature of theatre makes this experience all the more potent: the gasps, shrieks, and laughter of fellow audience members reinforce the sense of shared vulnerability and nervousness, exhilaration and hilarity.

    At a time when people are overwhelmed by an endless stream of manipulated digital content, horror theatre provides a real and visceral alternative. The genre’s success also speaks to theatre’s ability to evolve with changing audience expectations, incorporating elements of interactivity, immersion and technological innovation that mirror trends in gaming, VR, and participatory storytelling.

    Horror theatre’s return is about more than just entertainment and escapism: it reflects a cultural shift reminiscent of past gothic revivals. Historically, horror has flourished during times of social and political upheaval.

    The 19th-century fascination with ghosts, revenge narratives and heightened melodramas coincided with anxieties about revolution, industrialisation, urbanisation, shifting morality, and scientific progress that threatened religious beliefs. The French grand-guignol mirrored a period of deep social unrest, shifting political landscapes and the simultaneous awe and angst about technological and medical advances.

    Theatre, as a medium, has always been uniquely responsive to “the moment”. Today, as we grapple with global crises, from pandemics and climate change to political volatility and technological overreach, it is no surprise that horror has found renewed cultural relevance.

    The horror stories that dominate recent productions are not just exercises in fright – they are reflections of contemporary anxieties. The current touring revival of Jeremy Dyson and Andy Nyman’s Ghost Stories, the stage adaptations of Peter James’ macabre thrillers, and other unnerving productions signals a fascination with the blurred boundary between everyday reality and our phobias, mirroring wider societal debates around truth, belief, and uncertainty.

    What we are witnessing, then, is not just a nostalgic resurgence of the old-fashioned genre of horror theatre but the reflection of a new gothic age, one shaped by our era’s profound fears and instabilities. The success of these productions suggests that horror is not only commercially viable in the theatre but culturally necessary.

    Whether through traditional ghost stories, psychological thrillers, or experimental immersive experiences, horror theatre is asserting its place as a genre that speaks to the present moment. As long as there are cultural fears to be explored and exorcised, horror theatre will continue to haunt our stages – and our imaginations.

    Richard Hand does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

    – ref. Theatre’s thriving horror revival reflects a cultural moment of collective anxiety – https://theconversation.com/theatres-thriving-horror-revival-reflects-a-cultural-moment-of-collective-anxiety-249651

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: How Trump the ‘master deal-maker’ failed when it came to negotiating with the Taliban in Afghanistan

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Philip A. Berry, Visiting Research Fellow, Department of War Studies, King’s College London

    News that Ukraine may be ready to sign a deal granting the US joint development rights to its minerals in the hope of a future security guarantee may be seen as a win by Donald Trump’s supporters who criticised Joe Biden’s unconditional support for Ukraine. After all, whether and how this agreement will actually protect Ukraine from continuing Russian aggression remains unclear.

    But Kyiv will be well aware that Trump’s track record as an international deal broker is less than stellar, despite the US president’s regular boast that he is a master deal-maker.

    Trump’s self-belief was encapsulated in his ghostwritten memoir, The Art of the Deal, which laid out his tactics to negotiate business transactions. One important tip was: “The best thing you can do is deal from strength, and leverage is the biggest strength you can have.”

    Last week, Trump left Zelensky, and European nations reeling when he cut them out of talks with Russia over the war in Ukraine. In doing so, the president had arguably forgotten his own advice: to deal from strength and to use leverage in negotiations.

    Trump may have extracted a concession from Ukraine in the form of the mineral deal – although far less than the US$500 billion (£394 billion) of revenue he initially demanded – but in doing so he significantly weakened the US position towards Russia.

    Trump not only shattered the western position on Ukraine, but he also unilaterally ended Russia’s three-year isolation without securing any concessions from the Kremlin before inviting them to the negotiating table.

    Instead, it was the US that gave leverage away by sidelining Ukraine from the talks, rejecting the country’s desire for Nato membership and conceding that Ukraine was unlikely to restore its pre-2014 borders.

    Trump further undermined Zelensky by promoting the false claim that Ukraine started the war and calling him a “dictator”. This week, the US even voted with Russia and China at the United Nations security council over the conflict.

    Trump’s criticism of an ally and conciliatory overtures to a country that illegally invaded its neighbour marks a dramatic swing in US policy. The previous US administration provided Ukraine with military and diplomatic support, while imposing economic sanctions on Russia.

    A key question being asked in Kyiv and western capitals is what else Trump will concede to secure a deal with the Kremlin. While the contexts between the US’s involvement in Afghanistan and support for Ukraine are very different, Trump’s early strategy for the latter has some hallmarks of the US’s disastrous deal with the Taliban.

    Trump’s deal with the Taliban

    In response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks, a US-led coalition invaded Afghanistan in October 2001. The allies quickly deposed the repressive Taliban regime and installed a western-backed government.

    But by the time that Trump came to office in 2017, the war was at a stalemate. To make matters worse for the president, the US was spending US$27 billion (£21.3 billion) annually on military expenditure. Given this, Trump’s reflex was to withdraw from Afghanistan as quickly as possible.

    However, the president’s national security team – largely comprised of former and current military generals who did not owe personal loyalty to Trump – persuaded him to increase the US’s commitment to Afghanistan. The new strategy also set the conditions for a negotiated settlement with the Taliban.

    The following year, angered by the lack of progress, Trump argued that the US should “get out” of Afghanistan as the strategy had been a “total failure”.

    By this time, the US had talked directly to the Taliban, without the Afghan government in the room – a key Taliban demand. While the talks were designed to lead to intra-Afghan negotiations, it resulted in the Afghan republic being sidelined from the process.

    Throughout these talks, Trump frequently threatened to withdraw from Afghanistan. US officials referred to this constant threat as the “Tweet of Damocles” – meaning at any point, the president would announce on Twitter that the US was departing Afghanistan.

    The secretary of state at the time, Mike Pompeo – a diehard Trump loyalist – knew the president could pull the plug on the talks at any time. He therefore instructed lead US negotiator, Zalmay Khalilzad, to secure a deal at all costs.

    As a former senior Pentagon official who was present at the talks told me, it became clear Pompeo and Khalilzad had “no red lines” as both believed that “any deal was better than no deal”.

    Khalilzad abandoned the original Afghan-led process and worked to secure an agreement with the Taliban, which inevitably caused dismay within the sidelined Afghan government. Trump also largely refused to consult the Afghan president, Ashraf Ghani, about his plans.

    Compounding matters, the US president made several public statements about his desire to withdraw US forces from Afghanistan. This weakened Khalilzad’s position and encouraged the Taliban to remain resolute in negotiations.

    The US-Taliban agreement, which was signed in Doha in February 2020, favoured the insurgents and damaged the Afghan government. Khalilzad had conceded to the Taliban’s key demand: the withdrawal of all US and coalition troops from the country, which was scheduled over 14 months.

    In return, the Taliban promised to prevent terrorist groups from basing themselves in Afghanistan and agreed to hold talks with the Afghan government. If the Taliban did not adhere to these conditions, the US would – in theory – halt reducing its troop numbers.

    “This was a terrible deal. It was deeply injurious to US interests, let alone ruinous to Afghan interests,” the former Pentagon official told me.

    In the end, the Taliban failed to honour its counterterrorism commitments, and only half-heartedly pursued intra-Afghan talks.

    The deal set the conditions for the insurgents to retake Kabul by force, although the disastrous withdrawal overseen by the administration of Trump’s successor, Joe Biden, in 2021 proved fatal for the Afghan government.

    Trump’s Taliban deal excluded the US’s ally, conceded too much to an adversary, and was partly motivated by the perception of wasting American dollars in a far-off land. Unfortunately, these hallmarks are all too evident in the president’s stance on Ukraine.

    The early signs of Trump’s approach to talks with Russia do not augur well for Ukraine or the western alliance. If Trump does secure a peace deal with Russia that mirrors the accord struck with the Taliban, not only will Ukraine lose out, but Russia may be emboldened to again pursue its expansionist agenda.

    Philip A. Berry does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

    – ref. How Trump the ‘master deal-maker’ failed when it came to negotiating with the Taliban in Afghanistan – https://theconversation.com/how-trump-the-master-deal-maker-failed-when-it-came-to-negotiating-with-the-taliban-in-afghanistan-250835

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Will the UK’s proposed long-term emissions strategy get us to net zero? An expert review

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By John Barrett, Professor of Energy and Climate Policy, Deputy Director of the Priestly Centre for Climate Futures, Theme Lead for the UKRI Energy Demand Research Centre, University of Leeds

    In the seventh carbon budget, electric vehicles are key to reducing carbon emissions. nrqemi / shutterstock

    The UK government’s official advisory Climate Change Committee (CCC) has now published its recommendations for the country’s “seventh carbon budget”, covering the period from 2038 to 2042.

    This advice provides robust evidence for the government to set legally binding limits on greenhouse gas emissions over this five year period, while striving to meet its international commitments on climate change.

    The late 2030s may seem far off, but long-term planning is essential. Achieving these targets requires the rollout of low-carbon technologies and the building of consensus for social change. It takes a long time to plan, design and build a power plant or factory.

    It could take even longer to change social norms and values around flying, driving or the foods we eat. Setting targets more than a decade in advance gives much needed clarity to investors, businesses and citizens on the direction of travel.

    Colleagues and I at the University of Leeds’s Climate Evidence Unit have produced a detailed analysis of the nearly 400 page CCC report. One key takeaway is that the transition to net zero is not only possible but highly beneficial.

    Academic analyses (including our own) consistently support this conclusion, showing that it will strengthen the economy and position the UK as a leader in global climate action. And it will deliver warmer homes, cheaper household bills, reduced air pollution, greater energy security with less reliance on imported gas, and many other benefits.

    While the report acknowledges the upfront costs, it confirms that acting now will reduce expenses in the long run, with cost savings emerging by the late 2030s and beyond. However, the report significantly underestimates the full economic impacts of the transition, as the CCC’s analysis does not factor in the financial losses associated with extreme weather and other effects of climate change.

    These losses could be substantial. A recent report by the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries suggests the effects of climate change could shrink global GDP by 50% between 2070 and 2090. When combined with the additional benefits of climate action, it’s clear that a “do nothing” approach is simply not an option.

    The CCC’s proposed plan to achieve this goal, known as the “balanced pathway”, leans heavily on key technologies while placing less emphasis on broader societal changes that help to fully realise these benefits. Compared to the sixth carbon budget report from 2020, this latest analysis gives greater consideration to reducing demand for energy, but the technological bias remains.

    It’s politically easier to boost electric vehicles than it is to get people to drive less.
    brian.martin.photographer / shutterstock

    There is a sense that the report pre-empts what the government would prefer as opposed to challenging current thinking. The problem with this approach is that failing to fully address demand makes the technological transition harder and more expensive than necessary, and increases the risk of failure. More energy must be generated, more car miles need to be driven, and more materials and products must be supplied.

    The technological transition

    So, what technologies are expected to drive emissions reductions? The first key point is the increasing reliance on technologies that, although they are already available, still need to be deployed at scale. These include electric vehicles, heat pumps for both households and industry, and the rapid expansion of solar and wind power.

    In contrast, the report places less emphasis than previous recommendations on currently expensive and emerging technologies, such as hydrogen power or “direct air capture” – essentially huge machines that filter carbon from the air. This is very welcome as it keeps the focus on decarbonisation, rather than emitting now and cleaning up later.

    This shift is particularly evident when examining individual sectors, where the focus is on scaling up existing solutions rather than banking on future technological breakthroughs.

    Surface transport, for instance, accounts for about a quarter of the UK’s emissions. The report places heavy reliance on electric vehicles (EVs), projecting that they will be responsible for 72% of all surface transport emissions reduced between 2025 and 2050.

    To put this into perspective, from this point forward, the UK would need to substantially outpace Norway, the current global leader in EV adoption. In contrast, only 11% of total emissions reductions are attributed to people shifting from driving to public transport or walking and cycling.

    Switching from gas boilers to heat pumps like these will deliver most household emissions savings.
    Wozzie/Shutterstock

    Electrification is also expected to be the primary driver of emissions reductions in both homes and the industrial sector, mostly through replacing gas heating with heat pumps. This will be a particular challenge in industries which require high temperature heat pumps, a technology that hasn’t been installed yet.

    Efficiency measures and unsustainably high consumption patterns receive less attention in the industry section. In homes, improved insulation will reduce demand though there is little space for new and additional energy saving actions.

    In the food and farming sector, the report identifies three roughly equal sources of emissions reductions: low-carbon farming, reductions in livestock numbers, and land management improvements. The reduction in livestock numbers primarily reflects lower meat and dairy consumption, while the other measures rely predominantly on technological solutions.

    Overall, this is a very welcome report from the Climate Change Committee with a robust analysis that lets the government, industry and citizens know that the pathway to net zero is possible and very much needed. However, it does place enormous responsibility on some key technologies and their rapid roll out to achieve these goals.

    As the UK government digests the findings, my colleagues and I would suggest greater consideration of the “social” transformation that examines how we travel and what we buy, to fully unlock the benefits of net zero.

    Don’t have time to read about climate change as much as you’d like?

    Get a weekly roundup in your inbox instead. Every Wednesday, The Conversation’s environment editor writes Imagine, a short email that goes a little deeper into just one climate issue. Join the 40,000+ readers who’ve subscribed so far.

    John Barrett receives funding by the Priestly Centre for Climate Futures where he holds the position of Deputy Director of Policy. He is also funded by a UKRI centre, called the Energy Demand Research Centre where he is the Futures theme lead.

    – ref. Will the UK’s proposed long-term emissions strategy get us to net zero? An expert review – https://theconversation.com/will-the-uks-proposed-long-term-emissions-strategy-get-us-to-net-zero-an-expert-review-250845

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: The world needs a circular economy. But workers in developing countries shouldn’t pay the price

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Sukyung Park, Assistant Professor in International Business, Strategy, and Innovation, Loughborough University

    hanohiki/Shutterstock

    The circular economy offers a fresh approach to how we produce and consume, focusing on reducing, reusing, recycling and recovering. It moves us away from the traditional “make, use, discard” model, creating a more sustainable system to balance the needs of the economy, society and nature. Living within the planet’s limits is vital if we are to fight climate change, biodiversity loss and the twin crises of waste and pollution.

    But that’s not all the circular economy is important for. In promoting resource efficiency and reducing dependency on finite materials, it can also encourage innovation and job creation.

    Advances in biomaterials, for instance, are providing durable and recyclable alternatives to plastic packaging. And innovative approaches to textiles are enabling manufacturers to make fibres from agricultural waste.

    But all this comes at a cost – and raises the question of who should pay. While the circular economy offers promising solutions to environmental and economic challenges, the transition raises critical questions about equity. It’s vital to include the workers and communities from developing countries at every stage of the transition.

    Despite the potential of a circular economy to bring long-term benefits to both society and the environment, access to resources is uneven. There are also economic disparities. A lack of funding, insufficient investment and skills gaps make the shift towards a circular economy challenging for some developing countries.

    And power dynamics are shifting across industries and regions. The circular transition can hit utility companies (electricity, gas and water) as demand from other firms falls. At the same time, in some countries it can bring significant gains to sectors such as construction – possibly driven by manufacturing firms investing in new buildings after saving money on material and energy costs.

    In a recent review of 167 studies of the circular economy, we found that there was limited focus on democratic planning. Communities were not involved enough in decision-making about the transition to a circular economy – especially in low-income countries. Local workers and communities being shut out of decision-making and excluded from opportunities, such as green jobs in renewable energy or sustainable design, could worsen inequalities. This is particularly the case in low-income areas with limited resources and economic resilience.

    In developing countries, persistent problems including low wages and poor working conditions can continue even as circular practices gain momentum, unless these concerns are integrated into the model. In the fashion industry, for example, workers face the same precarious working conditions regardless of whether they are working with virgin or recycled materials.

    And new tensions are emerging over who benefits and loses in the transition to a circular economy. For example, a textile factory owner in the Tamil Nadu region of India voiced concerns that slower fashion cycles – promoted by circular initiatives in wealthier countries – could threaten jobs and livelihoods, making the case (in the words of one interviewee) for “much faster fashion”.

    Without careful planning, textile workers in developing countries could lose their livelihoods in the transition to a circular economy.
    Ruma Dey Acharya/Shutterstock

    Among textile manufacturers, secondhand clothing was seen in a negative light as it might decrease the need for new products. The recycling industry on the other hand was booming in the same area and was seen as a positive thing. This was reflected in the words of a textile factory manager: “It’s my message (to not) reuse, we can recycle so that we get some work in the future.”

    Nevertheless, even recycling was not considered to be a purely positive thing. Many cotton farmers dependent on traditional production face disruption to their livelihoods as recycled textiles gain popularity.

    This is in stark contrast to the narrative in the developed economies, where circular strategies advocating “buy nothing” or slow fashion cycles are championed for their environmental benefits.

    A path forward

    To ensure the circular economy benefits everyone, it is crucial to address its social dimensions. Policies and strategies often overlook marginalised voices, particularly in developing countries. Inclusive circular economy models must be rooted in local contexts, reflecting the unique socio-economic realities of these regions.

    Grassroots entrepreneurs in places where resources are scarce are well positioned to create innovative, locally tailored solutions. Supporting their efforts can lead to practices that address the challenges of their communities while contributing to broader circular goals. Recognising and nurturing this local capacity is essential for a sustainable and fair transition.

    International organisations, national governments, and businesses play a pivotal role in driving inclusivity. Initiatives should be judged not only on environmental and economic outcomes but also for their impact on jobs, livelihoods, education, equity and justice. Businesses must engage with local communities to share knowledge, resources, costs and profits equitably between developing and developed nations.

    This could be funding local innovators, supporting small enterprises or promoting cross-border collaboration on circular practices. For example, circular economy finance and international partnerships can help develop affordable energy solutions for low-income communities and engage developing countries in circular value chains to collect and process e-waste components. International frameworks, such as the EU’s Just Transition Mechanism, must ensure that no one is left behind. And businesses should guarantee living wages in global circular supply chains.

    There’s a risk the circular economy could perpetuate inequalities. That’s why it is vital to reach people at even the far end of supply chains to ensure they are included in decisions and transitions. An equitable circular economy is not just an environmental or economic necessity – it’s also a moral imperative.

    Anna Kristiina Härri receives funding from the Strategic Research Council of Finland. She is affiliated with the Greens in Finland.

    Jarkko Levänen has received funding from the Research Council of Finland and Business Finland.

    Sukyung Park does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

    – ref. The world needs a circular economy. But workers in developing countries shouldn’t pay the price – https://theconversation.com/the-world-needs-a-circular-economy-but-workers-in-developing-countries-shouldnt-pay-the-price-246453

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: African Union’s new chair has a long list of tough tasks – what it will take to get them done

    Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Ulf Engel, Professor, Institute of African Studies, University of Leipzig

    Following seven rounds of balloting, 60-year-old diplomat Mahmoud Ali Youssouf was elected the sixth chair of the African Union Commission in February 2025. Politics professor Ulf Engel, who is the editor of the Yearbook on the African Union, explains the role and its challenges.

    What’s the new AU Commission chair’s background?

    Youssouf is a seasoned diplomat from Djibouti. He is the longest serving minister of foreign affairs and international cooperation of his country (2005-2025), and has also served as chair of the Council of Ministers of the Arab League (2007, 2017) and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (2012).

    What’s the job?

    It involves navigating the different levels of commitments of AU member states, promoting the pan-African agenda on the global stage and developing the professionalisation of the commission.

    The chair is the chief executive officer and legal representative of the African Union as well as the accounting officer of the AU Commission.

    They are directly responsible to the AU executive council. The chair is elected by the assembly for a four-year term, renewable once.

    Their functions include:

    • chairing all meetings and deliberations of the AU Commission

    • keeping records of the deliberations of the AU Assembly, the executive council and the permanent representatives council

    • preparing the AU budget

    • acting as a depository of all AU treaties and other legal instruments

    • consulting and coordinating with the governments of member states and the regional economic communities on the activities of the AU.

    In the transition phase from the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) to the AU (1999–2002), the office of the chair was still conceived as the “head of a secretariat”. But with the expansion of the African Union Commission’s staff from roughly 600 in the early 1990s to now well over 1,700 and the growing number of substantive tasks, this concept has evolved.

    The AU Commission has developed into the engine room of the pan-African project.

    Building on the three terms of the Tanzanian OAU secretary-general Salim Ahmed Salim (1989–2001), the commission has developed strong agency.

    On many political issues it has become the source for drafting legal and political documents.

    Through the chair, the commission coordinates relations with the regional economic communities. An example is in the field of early warning and conflict prevention.

    An example of the political guidance and leadership the chair can exercise is the 1999 report on “The Fundamental Changes Taking Place in the World and their Implications for Africa: Proposals for an African Response”.

    This had strong implications for the development of the continental body’s economic and security policies.

    It also had an impact on the 2011 report on “Current Challenges to Peace and Security on the Continent”. The report discussed the consequences of the public uprisings in northern Africa (the so-called Arab Spring).

    The 2022 report on “Unconstitutional Changes of Government in Africa” was drafted in response to the recent wave of coups d’état, especially in west Africa.

    A prominent example of proactive chairpersonship is the development of the AU’s Agenda 2063 under the leadership of Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma (South Africa, 2012–2017). This was an ambitious programme to steer the AU for the next 50 years after its 50th anniversary in 2013.

    What are the biggest challenges?

    The AU Commission chair’s main challenges include renewing member states’ commitment to the institution’s shared values amid a democratic recession.

    The new chair will have to deal with the decline in the quality of democracy across the continent.

    He will also have to deal with many member states that constantly violate AU decisions and communiqués on unconstitutional changes of government, as highlighted by the outgoing chair, Moussa Faki Mahamat (Chad), in a speech celebrating the 20th anniversary of the AU Peace and Security Council on 25 May 2024.

    The chair needs to finalise AU policy on the division of labour with the regional economic communities. In many policy fields this division is still unsystematic.

    Youssouf will have to increase the number of common African positions on key global challenges, increase ownership of positions by member states and lead the debate on defining clear obligations for member states.

    The most prominent common African position is the 2005 Ezulweni Consensus on the reform of the UN security council. It called for two permanent seats and five non-permanent seats for Africa.

    But more could be done to increase the African voice in the various international negotiation forums.

    The chair also needs to adopt a more systematic approach to the AU’s strategic partnerships with multilateral and bilateral players. For example, the AU became a member of the G20 in September 2024. Monitoring of strategic partnerships must be developed, and there should be clear guidelines which define African interests beyond funding issues.

    But the biggest task is to complete the financial and institutional reform of the AU that began in 2016/2017. This should include reducing its heavy financial dependence on international partners. Currently an estimated 58% of the budget comes from these partners, slightly down from last year’s 61%.

    The new chair needs to make the AU Commission more efficient and relevant for the African people. The lack of domestication of AU decisions by member states remains a huge challenge for Agenda 2063: The Africa We Want.

    Are any breakthroughs possible?

    G20 meetings in South Africa offer an opportunity to show how AU membership of this body can help address Africa’s concerns and rally AU member states behind a common agenda. There were meetings of G20 ministers of foreign affairs and finance in February, and heads of state and government will meet in November 2025.

    In his electoral campaign, Youssouf pledged to “defend Africa’s fair representation in international institutions and to strengthen its role in global forums”.

    He said Africa “must assert itself as an influential player in global policy discussion, advancing its economic and developmental interests”.

    With the new government in the US this certainly will become an uphill struggle. This is especially so giveng the pace with which the US president Donald Trump’s administration is dismantling established multilateral alliances, withdrawing from parts of the United Nations, and appears to be siding with Russia.

    Ulf Engel has been consulting for the African Union since 2006, mainly in early warning, conflict prevention, preventive diplomacy, and knowledge management.

    – ref. African Union’s new chair has a long list of tough tasks – what it will take to get them done – https://theconversation.com/african-unions-new-chair-has-a-long-list-of-tough-tasks-what-it-will-take-to-get-them-done-250421

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: No world order: Europe needs more radical thinking for the Trump era

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Richard Youngs, Professor of International and European Politics, University of Warwick

    There is general agreement that the US’s geopolitical shock therapy is a sign of a new world order. While European powers nominally recognise this, their policies are not, in practice, tailored towards such a change.

    The EU and other European governments are, understandably, focused on very immediate matters – talks on Ukraine, defence budgets, rebutting big US tech firms. But they also need to be guided by a clearer vision of the broader international order that flows from this inflection point.

    Even though the world has already changed profoundly over the last decade, most observers judge the current juncture to be a decisive watershed. Yet the tumult unleashed in 2025 feels not so much like a well-defined new world order as the chaotic imprecision of “no world order”. Nothing concrete has emerged as a replacement for the long-crumbling liberal order.

    Multi-polarity is not fully evident because there is little balance between powers. But the current influence of large powers rubs uneasily with the notion of a “G-zero world” in which no countries have any real control.

    The long-predicted plurilateralism, in which smaller groups of states reach political agreements, has not become reality. Yet neither is a well-ordered concert of great powers especially evident.

    A concert-based order would hardly accord the primacy now reassigned to Russia, a country that enjoys only a few of the long-term structural attributes of great-power status.

    But it’s also worth noting that “no world order” is not quite the same thing as “new world disorder”. Although many leaders make a show of flouting international rules and norms on high-profile issues like international courts, the reality is that they still matter in conditioning international behaviour.

    It can reasonably be suggested that the new order will be eclectic or composite – essentially, a combination of all of the above. Yet, the current jumble and clash of dynamics does not constitute a patterned “order”. The relationships between the different forces at work are nowhere near being worked out.

    What is European ‘independence’?

    In this void, European governments and the EU are leaning heavily on two long-familiar tenets, even as these raise operational question marks.

    One is the notion of autonomy. European leaders have now doubled down on their calls for more strategic autonomy and a narrative of Europe of being “independent” from the US and “writing its own history”.

    But autonomy is a somewhat hazy geopolitical motif. European powers of course need the autonomy to chart their own strategic priorities, but current crises palpably reinforce the need to manage complex interdependencies. Autonomy in the sense of deploying economic, political or military capabilities unconstrained by other powers is a diminished prospect.

    The other European reflex is to stress a determination to “reinforce multilateralism”, something few other world powers are apparently willing to do now.

    But multilateralism in its current form is surely beyond resuscitation. The imperative is rather to rethink multilateral norms and salvage the most essential core of liberal cooperation amid today’s lurch towards uncontrolled turbulence and power-expediency.

    I have previously proposed what I term “geoliberalism” as a path forward. This is a model that balances geopolitical reality alongside liberal and democratic values. In the second Trump era, the liberal elements of this concept are even more squeezed than they were before he was re-elected.



    Read more:
    Europe is still in short-term crisis mode over Ukraine and lacks a vision for its post-war identity

    Despite the multilateralism rhetoric, European powers actually seem to be leaning towards a more absolute version of realpolitik, with diplomacy based on practical rather than moral considerations. The European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, talks of “hyper-transactionalism”, which is less a vision of order than its negation.

    European international liberalism needs to be reframed, not jettisoned. It will be more rearguard and selective, but needs also to be more concerted to hold at bay today’s turbo-charged illiberal assault.

    It can lock onto powerful global societal trends to which realpolitik is dangerously and self-defeatingly blind. European Union powers need to be more measured but also more pointed in salvaging islands of liberal order – for example on climate change cooperation.

    There is little sign of such reflection. Familiar cliches are dominating the European response to the US illiberal pivot.

    The strategic debate has narrowed, especially around the question of defence spending. Repeating ad nauseum that “Europe must step up” and “get its act together” says little about what kind of strategy is needed to navigate the current order implosion, the end towards which defence capabilities are ultimately directed.

    European governments should indeed boost their defence spend, but that spend needs to be rooted in and directed towards an appropriate strategy for global re-ordering.

    The current flux means this is a moment when the parameters of the next international order will be defined. European powers need to prioritise practical action to influence that order more than endless, self-referential speeches about their own power status.

    Even if a degree of self-survival short-termism is understandable, the EU and European governments must lift their eyes to craft more far-sighted responses to the world’s collapsing certainties.

    Richard Youngs does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

    – ref. No world order: Europe needs more radical thinking for the Trump era – https://theconversation.com/no-world-order-europe-needs-more-radical-thinking-for-the-trump-era-250864

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: How palaeontologists are uncovering dinosaur behaviour

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By David Hone, Senior Lecturer in Zoology, Queen Mary University of London

    How do scientists study the behaviour of dinosaurs, who died 65 million years ago? After all, dinosaur fossils are rare enough as it is, and most are fragments and difficult to work with.

    This is something that palaeontologists have been working on since the earliest days of research on these incredible animals. Until recently, this was often only in vague terms of, for example, which animals were herbivores or carnivores.

    But new opportunities are becoming available to us. Palaeontologists have recently pieced together the colours and patterns of some feathered dinosaurs, using electron microscopes to see tiny preserved structures that used to contain the pigments of the animals in life. This is something that scientists used to think was probably impossible.

    But right now it can only tell us so much – it just tells us the colour of the individual animal at the time of its death.

    Studying more specimens of the same species could reveal if males and females were the same colours or if they differed, and if these feathers underwent seasonal changes or varied with the environment. Perhaps they turned white in winter as camouflage. Maybe feathers were different colours in different regions. This would suggest that the local environment helped these dinosaurs to hide and that they cannot have been wide ranging or their camouflage would not work.

    Perhaps the males were brightly coloured to attract mates, or perhaps both were, which would suggest both sexes were involved in rearing their offspring.

    This is something scientists should be able to tackle in the coming years. For some species at least, such as the small feathered dinosaur Anchiornis, we have the fossils, and we have the techniques. We just need to extract the data from the dinosaur fossils we have.

    We already have a good idea of what colours and patterns mean for different groups of living animals, so we can apply some of this knowledge to dinosaurs. However, much of researchers’ work on dinosaur behaviour has been stunted by a poor use of the behaviour of modern animals as a template for dinosaurs, and a tendency to focus on special specimens as being representative of bigger patterns.

    For example, we have well-studied fossils of carnivorous dinosaurs with the bones of other animals inside them. Although is incontrovertible that the carnivorous dinosaurs ate these other animals, it is hard – or even impossible – to know if the prey was scavenged or if it was hunted by the dinosaur.

    It’s too easy to think the dinosaur lived on the species the bones belonged to. Bones tend to survive the fossilisation process, but the animal might have mostly eaten muscle and organs, or even insects and they wouldn’t show up. Although such finds are important, we need to take them as evidence that something happened once, not that it was a habitual activity. Then we can go in search of other evidence to test or reject such an idea.

    In that context, we really are blessed. New fossils and new techniques (such as CT scans to get inside skulls to dinosaur brain to assess them) are still being discovered. And there are perhaps more dinosaur researchers than ever before, even if that total is not that high compared to other disciplines.

    It means that we are continually getting insights and new lines of evidence about things like how and what dinosaurs ate, their underlying physiology, the environments in which they lived, how they moved, and how they changed as they grew. This is the raw material of studies for behaviour, and adding this kind of data to our understanding of the behaviour of modern animals has enormous potential for future studies of dinosaurs (and other prehistoric animals).

    Another angle to consider is how palaeontologists formulate their ideas about dinosaur behaviour in the first place. For example, although we have numerous examples of several individuals of a dinosaur species found together, this doesn’t meant that the species habitually lived in groups, let alone that their near relatives did.

    Cats are generally solitary animals, but if you inferred the social behaviour of lions or cheetah from tigers and puma, you’d think these animals lived their lives alone. The fact is that lions and male cheetah usually live in groups.

    But they are sometimes solitary and will switch between being solo or living together at various times in their lives. So taking from the position that one group of dinosaurs died near each other means they and their relatives lived together won’t help us understand how they were really living.

    The future of the study of dinosaur behaviour is looking bright. This is why I wanted to write a book on the subject and to explore the issues we have had before, but frame the successes that are happening. Coupled with more rigorous attempts to investigate and test our hypotheses, we can establish a much firmer ground for understanding how these incredible creatures lived.

    David Hone does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

    – ref. How palaeontologists are uncovering dinosaur behaviour – https://theconversation.com/how-palaeontologists-are-uncovering-dinosaur-behaviour-246702

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Show Don’t Tell by Curtis Sittenfeld is moving, witty and achingly real

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Sarah Trott, Senior Lecturer in American Studies and History, York St John University

    I was immediately struck by the title of Curtis Sittenfeld’s new collection of 12 short stories, Show Don’t Tell. That’s because it’s also the name of a narrative technique that allows readers to experience a story through the characters’ actions, words, thoughts and feelings, rather than the author’s explanations. It means that readers can create their own visualisations and conclusions without the author telling them what to think.

    And this is exactly what Sittenfeld does. Show Don’t Tell offers slices of life in the American midwest from a middle-aged and mostly female perspective. The stories can be enjoyed casually. Or, they can be read as a more profound exploration of individual and social conflict at a time when the US is on the verge of momentous political change.

    The self-contained stories evoke many moods and feelings. Each one is relatable in its own way, and all 12 are addictively consumable in one sitting. Within just a few paragraphs Sittenfeld’s vibrant characters feel familiar. They reflect on their lives and the changes in their desires and hopes. And they regularly wonder about their inherent “goodness” and that of those around them and the world they live in.

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    Show Don’t Tell is an exploration of relationships, human emotion, honesty, compassion and contemplation. The stories offer a realistic exploration of life’s ups and downs – comical or otherwise.

    What links these the stories are the personal reflections they offer on important political subjects, from the COVID pandemic and tech billionaires, to sex and sexuality, wealth, health, marriage and racism. They represent a contemporary and timely connection to events in the US.

    Absurdist America

    The book’s title story, Show Don’t Tell, originally published in The New Yorker in 2017, lays the groundwork for the book’s focus on memory. It acknowledges the importance of youth – “when you were, like a pupa, in the process of becoming yourself” – and the cynicism that comes with age and maturity.

    The book references the American author Don DeLillo.
    Library of Congress

    The story mentions Don DeLillo’s postmodern novel White Noise (1985), referring to the author as the “ombudsman of American letters right now”. Like DeLillo, Sittenfeld’s work combines tone, style and multiple voices to create a humorous yet mildly absurdist representation of America. Her characters blunder tactlessly into faux pas after faux pas, which made me wince with sympathetic embarrassment or awkward discomfort. There is a cringeworthy quality to some situations and circumstances that feel amusingly relatable, sincere and human.

    There’s also a universality that pervades the collection. For example, Creative Differences is ultimately about toothpaste and brushing your teeth. This is the power of Sittenfeld’s work – her ability to slip complex subject matters, such as love, death, and loss, relationships between the sexes, and prejudice, into slice-of-life narratives.

    Hidden depths

    Despite the absurd or humorous surface nature of the stories, there is a profundity to the collection that lies just below the surface.

    The daily low-level dread and sense of disaster that inhabits the protagonist in Follow-Up strikes a chord, again, with DeLillo’s characters’ obsession with death and catastrophe in White Noise. But Sittenfeld gently reminds us that, considering the chaotic past decade, where death, catastrophe and complex political issues have dominated American lives, fear and anxiety are an entirely reasonable emotional response.

    She shows that it’s normal to look for human connection and comfort wherever we can find it. America has been turned upside down by a global pandemic, social conflict over sexuality, simmering racial tension and the accumulation of enormous wealth. And Sittenfeld shows us the aftermaths; the differences between then (the 1980s and 90s) and now (the 2020s). She shows us the changes between the innocence of youth and the realities of the post-9/11 and post-COVID world.

    This is the strength of the collection – reminding the reader of the universality of actions and emotions. And the authenticity that permeates the stories reminds us that we’re not alone.

    This is a clever, witty and moving collection with sometimes achingly real portrayals. The themes that unite the stories showcase women and men at moments of introspection, revealing the diversity and genuineness that permeates the multiple authentic worlds that Sittenfeld creates.

    Sarah Trott does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

    – ref. Show Don’t Tell by Curtis Sittenfeld is moving, witty and achingly real – https://theconversation.com/show-dont-tell-by-curtis-sittenfeld-is-moving-witty-and-achingly-real-247853

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Why people rebuild in Appalachia’s flood-ravaged areas despite the risks

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Kristina P. Brant, Assistant Professor of Rural Sociology, Penn State

    Parts of the North Fork of the Kentucky River flooded in July 2022, and again in February 2025. Arden S. Barnes/For The Washington Post via Getty Images

    On Valentine’s Day 2025, heavy rains started to fall in parts of rural Appalachia. Over the course of a few days, residents in eastern Kentucky watched as river levels rose and surpassed flood levels. Emergency teams conducted over 1,000 water rescues. Hundreds, if not thousands of people were displaced from homes, and entire business districts filled with mud.

    For some, it was the third time in just four years that their homes had flooded, and the process of disposing of destroyed furniture, cleaning out the muck and starting anew is beginning again.

    Historic floods wiped out businesses and homes in eastern Kentucky in February 2021, July 2022 and now February 2025. An even greater scale of destruction hit eastern Tennessee and western North Carolina in September 2024, when Hurricane Helene’s rainfall and flooding decimated towns and washed out parts of major highways.

    Scenes of flooding from several locations across Appalachia in February 2025.

    Each of these events was considered to be a “thousand-year flood,” with a 1-in-1,000 chance of happening in a given year. Yet they’re happening more often.

    The floods have highlighted the resilience of local people to work together for collective survival in rural Appalachia. But they have also exposed the deep vulnerability of communities, many of which are located along creeks at the base of hills and mountains with poor emergency warning systems. As short-term cleanup leads to long-term recovery efforts, residents can face daunting barriers that leave many facing the same flood risks over and over again.

    Exposing a housing crisis

    For the past nine years, I have been conducting research on rural health and poverty in Appalachia. It’s a complex region often painted in broad brushstrokes that miss the geographic, socioeconomic and ideological diversity it holds.

    Appalachia is home to a vibrant culture, a fierce sense of pride and a strong sense of love. But it is also marked by the omnipresent backdrop of a declining coal industry.

    There is considerable local inequality that is often overlooked in a region portrayed as one-dimensional. Poverty levels are indeed high. In Perry County, Kentucky, where one of eastern Kentucky’s larger cities, Hazard, is located, nearly 30% of the population lives under the federal poverty line. But the average income of the top 1% of workers in Perry County is nearly US$470,000 – 17 times more than the average income of the remaining 99%.

    This income and wealth inequality translates to unequal land ownership – much of eastern Kentucky’s most desirable land remains in the hands of corporations and families with great generational wealth.

    When I first moved to eastern Kentucky in 2016, I was struck by the grave lack of affordable, quality housing. I met families paying $200-$300 a month for a small plot to put a mobile home. Others lived in “found housing” – often-distressed properties owned by family members. They had no lease, no equity and no insurance. They had a place to lay one’s head but lacked long-term stability in the event of disagreement or disaster. This reality was rarely acknowledged by local and state governments.

    Eastern Kentucky’s 2021 and 2022 floods turned this into a full-blown housing crisis, with 9,000 homes damaged or destroyed in the 2022 flood alone.

    “There was no empty housing or empty places for housing,” one resident involved in local flood recovery efforts told me. “It just was complete disaster because people just didn’t have a place to go.”

    Most homeowners did not have flood insurance to assist with rebuilding costs. While many applied to the Federal Emergency Management Agency for assistance, the amounts they received often did not go far. The maximum aid for temporary housing assistance and repairs is $42,500, plus up to an additional $42,500 for other needs related to the disaster.

    The federal government often provides more aid for rebuilding through block grants directed to local and state governments, but that money requires congressional approval and can take months to years to arrive. Local community coalitions and organizations stepped in to fill these gaps, but they did not necessarily have sufficient donations or resources to help such large numbers of displaced people.

    Affordable rental housing is hard to find in much of Appalachia. When flooding wipes out homes, as Jackson, Ky., saw in July 2022 and again in February 2025, it becomes even more rare.
    Michael Swensen/Getty Images

    With a dearth of affordable rentals pre-flood, renters who lost their homes had no place to go. And those living in “found housing” that was destroyed were not eligible for federal support for rebuilding.

    The sheer level of devastation also posed challenges. One health care professional told me: “In Appalachia, the way it usually works is if you lose your house or something happens, then you go stay with your brother or your mom or your cousin. … But everybody’s mom and brother and cousin also lost their house. There was nowhere to stay.” From her point of view, “our homelessness just skyrocketed.”

    The cost of land – social and economic

    After the 2022 flood, the Kentucky Department for Local Government earmarked almost $300 million of federal funding to build new, flood-resilient homes in eastern Kentucky. Yet the question of where to build remained. As another resident involved in local flood recovery efforts told me, “You can give us all the money you want; we don’t have any place to build the house.”

    It has always been costly and time-intensive to develop land in Appalachia. Available higher ground tends to be located on former strip mines, and these reclaimed lands require careful geotechnical surveying and sometimes structural reinforcements.

    If these areas are remote, the costs of running electric, water and other infrastructure services can also be prohibitive. For this reason, for-profit developers have largely avoided many counties in the region. The head of a nonprofit agency explained to me that, because of this, “The markets have broken. … We have no [housing] market.”

    Eastern Kentucky’s mountains are beautiful, but there are few locations for building homes that aren’t near creeks or rivers. Strip-mined land, where mountaintops were flattened, often aren’t easily accessible and come with their own challenges.
    Posnov/Moment via Getty Images

    There is also some risk involved in attempting to build homes on new land that has not previously been developed. A local government could pay for undeveloped land to be surveyed and prepared for development, with the prospect of reimbursement by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development if housing is successfully built. But if, after the work to prepare the land, it is still too cost-prohibitive to build a profitable house there, the local government would not receive any reimbursement.

    Some counties have found success clearing land for large developments on former strip mine sites. But these former coal mining areas can be considerable distances from towns. Without robust public transportation systems, these distances are especially prohibitive for residents who lack reliable personal transportation.

    Another barrier is the high prices that both individual and corporate landowners are asking for properties on higher ground.

    The scarcity of desirable land available for sale, combined with increasingly urgent demand, has led to prices unaffordable for most. Another resident involved in local flood recovery efforts explained: “If you paid $5,000 for 30 acres 40 years ago, why won’t you sell that for $100,000? Nope, [they want] $1 million.” That makes it increasingly difficult for both individuals and housing developers to purchase land and build.

    One reason for this scarcity is the amount of land that is still owned by outside corporate interests. For example, Kentucky River Properties, formerly Kentucky River Coal Corporation, owns over 270,000 acres across seven counties in the region. While this landholding company leases land to coal, timber and gas companies, it and others like it rarely permit residential development.

    But not all unused land is owned by corporations. Some of this land is owned by families with deep roots in the region. People’s attachment to a place often makes them want to stay in their communities, even after disasters. But it can also limit the amount of land available for rebuilding. People are often hesitant to sell land that holds deep significance for their families, even if they are not living there themselves.

    Rural communities are often tight-knit. Many residents want to stay despite the risks.
    AP Photo/Timothy D. Easley

    One health care professional expressed feeling torn between selling or keeping their own family property after the 2022 flood: “We have a significant amount of property on top of a mountain. I wouldn’t want to sell it because my papa came from nothing. … His generation thought owning land was the greatest thing. … And for him to provide his children and his grandchildren and their great-grandchildren a plot of land that he worked and sweat and ultimately died to give us – people want to hold onto that.”

    She recognized that land was in great demand but couldn’t bring herself to sell what she owned. In cases like hers, higher grounds are owned locally but still remain unused.

    Moving toward higher ground, slowly

    Two years after the 2022 flood, major government funding for rebuilding still has not resulted in a significant number of homes. The state has planned seven communities on higher ground in eastern Kentucky that aim to house 665 new homes. As of early 2025, 14 houses had been completed.

    Progress on providing housing on higher ground is slow, and the need is great.

    In the meantime, when I conducted interviews during the summer and fall of 2024, many of the mobile home communities that were decimated in the 2022 flood had begun to fill back up. These were flood-risk areas, but there was simply no other place to go.

    Last week, I watched on Facebook a friend’s live video footage showing the waters creeping up the sides of the mobile homes in one of those very communities that had flooded in 2022. Another of my friends mused: “I don’t know who constructed all this, but they did an unjustly favor by not thinking how close these towns was to the river. Can’t anyone in Frankfort help us, or has it gone too far?”

    With hundreds more people now displaced by the most recent flood, the need for homes on higher grounds has only expanded, and the wait continues.

    Kristina Brant has received funding from the National Science Foundation and United States Department of Agriculture to support her past and ongoing research in rural Appalachia.

    – ref. Why people rebuild in Appalachia’s flood-ravaged areas despite the risks – https://theconversation.com/why-people-rebuild-in-appalachias-flood-ravaged-areas-despite-the-risks-240429

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Parrotfish support healthy coral reefs, but they’re not a cure-all, and sometimes cause harm

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Lorenzo Alvarez-Filip, Professor of Marine Ecology, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM)

    Rainbow and midnight parrotfish feed at Alacranes Reef in the Gulf of Mexico. Lorenzo Alvarez-Filip, CC BY-ND

    After two years of record-breaking ocean heat, scientists are assessing the impacts of the world’s fourth mass bleaching event on coral reefs around the globe. At least 74 countries and territories are confirmed to have experienced coral bleaching since the spring of 2023.

    As coastal development, pollution and climate change put increasing stress on the world’s oceans, tropical reefs are losing reef-building corals at unprecedented rates. These corals – species with rigid skeletons, such as elkhorn and brain corals – are the architects of these ecosystems, providing the foundations for coral reef communities.

    Coral reefs perform many important functions, such as buffering coastlines and providing habitat for one-fourth of all marine species. In the U.S. alone, these ecological services are worth an estimated US$3.4 billion yearly.

    Over the past several decades, many studies have spotlighted the role of “grazers” – fish who feed on algae – in keeping coral reefs clean and healthy. Protecting parrotfish, a family of some 90 species of large, colorful grazers, has become a tenet of reef conservation policies.

    We have analyzed indicators of reef health and resilience and assessed the roles parrotfish play in controlling seaweed, promoting coral growth and eroding reefs. While it is clear that parrotfish are an important part of coral reef communities, management strategies focusing on them, in our view, have not fully proved effective. In a review of recent science, we showed why conservation programs need to rethink the role parrotfish can play as a conservation tool to improve reef health.

    The coral bleaching event that started in 2024 is the largest such episode on record.

    The parrotfish paradigm

    Corals and the reef bottom they live on need to stay clean to prevent seaweed from growing on their surfaces. Excessive seaweed growth on reefs can block sunlight from corals’ surfaces, release chemicals that affect coral survival, slow the corals’ growth and make it harder for new corals to establish themselves and build reef structures.

    When disease or bleaching kills corals on a reef, other fast-growing organisms, including seaweed, rapidly colonize the dead corals’ skeletons. This impedes new corals from settling and surviving on the reef, and locks the ecosystem into a state of low growth and poor recovery.

    In this context, it is easy to see why protecting algae-eating fish has become a cornerstone of coral reef conservation. This paradigm assumes that restoring populations of “grazing” species by protecting them from fishing is essential for controlling seaweeds, improving reef health and promoting coral recovery.

    This strategy has spurred governments in many countries, including Belize, Bermuda, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Colombia and the U.S., to create marine protected areas, restrict fishing in designated zones and ban parrotfish harvesting.

    Fishermen in Indonesia with a green humphead parrotfish.
    Thierry Tronnel/Corbis via Getty Images

    Missing pieces of parrotfish protection

    Evidence shows that conservation measures have increased parrotfish populations in some places, such as Bonaire and Belize, with positive effects on reefs. However, parrotfish increases have not always reduced algae growth or increased coral cover. In our review, we highlight three main factors that may be hindering the success of this approach in the Caribbean.

    First, parrotfish management has traditionally treated all species as if they consume the same amount of algae. This notion leads to using measures like the total number or total weight of parrotfish present in a given reef as proxies for seaweed consumption.

    However, not all parrotfish are the same. Some species, such as the redband parrotfish, effectively remove algae, while others, such as the blue parrotfish, barely eat it. More precise and targeted conservation measures would consider each species’ specific impact on seaweed growth.

    Second, while parrotfish help reefs to grow by keeping them clean, they also can cause gradual erosion of reef structures. Some parrotfish species graze by biting off chunks of coral, especially from dead skeletons, and grinding it in their digestive systems, excreting it as sand.

    Humphead parrotfish are among the species that consume coral, grinding it in their powerful jaws and excreting fine sand that creates tropical beaches.

    This bioerosion process is natural and essential. But on highly degraded reefs with low coral cover, large numbers of eroding parrotfish can accelerate reef breakdown.

    Increases or declines in populations of parrotfish influence the intensity of erosion. But focusing so closely on parrotfish has unintentionally overlooked the erosive capacity of these fishes by assuming all parrotfish have the same effect on the ecosystem. This raises an important question: Which species are favored by restrictions on harvesting parrotfish?

    Our research shows that key bioeroding species that break down dead coral, such as the queen parrotfish and the stoplight parrotfish, are more vulnerable to overfishing because they are larger and take longer to mature. This means that reducing or restricting their catch might unintentionally increase bioerosion. For these ecosystems, increasing parrotfish numbers might not reduce algae growth enough to fully offset higher rates of bioerosion.

    A stoplight parrotfish breaks down dead coral while feeding.

    Conservation strategies that evolve

    As science progresses and new evidence emerges, it is crucial to reexamine conservation strategies and see whether they need to be updated or even scrapped. This ongoing process of refining plans based on evolving knowledge is known as adaptive management and is widely used in ecology and conservation.

    We are not calling for an end to protecting parrotfish. However, no single strategy can be a comprehensive tool for conserving coral reefs, which are very complex ecosystems.

    Rather, we want to encourage people – especially reef managers and scientists – to recognize the different roles that various parrotfish species play and the varying challenges each species faces, and tailor reef protection efforts accordingly. We also believe it is critical to do more to counter the causes of coral mortality, including climate change, coastal development and water pollution. Along with grazers to keep them clean, coral reefs need cleaner waters and cooler oceans to ensure their long-term survival.

    The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

    – ref. Parrotfish support healthy coral reefs, but they’re not a cure-all, and sometimes cause harm – https://theconversation.com/parrotfish-support-healthy-coral-reefs-but-theyre-not-a-cure-all-and-sometimes-cause-harm-242270

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: States that impose severe prison sentences accomplish the opposite of what they say they want

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By John Leverso, Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice, University of Cincinnati

    Prison doors close, but for most people convicted of crimes, they eventually open again. Hans Neleman/Stone via Getty Images

    Across the U.S., tough-on-crime policies are surging again, despite research showing they do little to reduce crime, particularly violent offenses.

    Before the early 1990s, people who were sentenced to 10 years in prison might be released after serving roughly half that long. That’s because of policies that allowed incarcerated individuals to earn credit for good behavior or, in some states, to avoid losing credits they already held toward an early release. These so-called “good time” policies were created by states to encourage good behavior and rehabilitation and to reduce prison overcrowding.

    But in the 1990s, when national politics was focused on crime rates, Congress encouraged states to adopt so-called “truth-in-sentencing” laws, which required people to serve at least 85% of their prison sentence.

    As research highlighted the inefficacy and unintended consequences of these laws, states rolled them back or modified them, mostly by partially repealing them or reducing the severity of mandatory sentences.

    Some efforts to roll back harsh sentencing rules continue: In Illinois, traditionally a leader in criminal justice reform, one bill that would soften truth-in-sentencing requirements has stalled, though another was introduced in January 2025.

    But in many other states, truth-in-sentencing laws and other similar laws that impose longer sentences are making a comeback, particularly for violent crimes.

    Since 2023, Louisiana, Arkansas, South Dakota and Tennessee have passed truth-in-sentencing laws. North Dakota is now considering similar legislation. In November 2024, Colorado voters required people convicted of violent crimes to serve higher percentages of their sentences, which is a similar move, though it didn’t bear the “truth-in-sentencing” label.

    A personal lens on the topic

    These laws have real effects on real people.

    In 1998, I was sentenced to 22 years in the Illinois Department of Corrections for a gang-related violent crime I committed as a juvenile. I served just 11 of those years under a long-standing policy that allowed individuals to serve half their sentence with good behavior.

    But if I had been arrested just 100 days later, a truth-in-sentencing law would have taken effect, and I would have had to serve the full 22 years.

    Eleven years is a long time. Since my release in 2012, I’ve earned a bachelor’s degree, a master’s degree and a Ph.D. I’m now a college professor, author, husband and father.

    If I had been required to serve my full sentence, I would have been released in 2023, older and with fewer opportunities for education, rehabilitation and rebuilding my life.

    Instead of being able to start my education at the age of 30, I would have entered the world in my forties, making it much harder to pursue a decade of schooling to become a professor. The delay would have also made it harder to start a family, forcing me to balance career-building with the difficulties of having children later in life.

    Incarcerated graduates, who finished various educational and vocational programs in prison, wait for the start of their graduation ceremony in May 2023.
    AP Photo/Jae C. Hong

    Not deterring crime

    Supporters of truth-in-sentencing laws say they are intended to increase accountability for wrongdoing and deter crime. The logic can seem reasonably intuitive: If people know they will receive a harsher punishment, they will be less likely to commit particular crimes.

    But research finds that those are not the results. There is no compelling evidence that punitive sentencing policies discourage individuals from engaging in criminal activity.

    And states without truth-in-sentencing laws have seen their crime rates fall to roughly the same degree as states that have the laws.

    Harming society at large

    Research also finds that truth-in-sentencing laws cause far-reaching harms to people convicted of crimes and to society at large, undermining both rehabilitation and public safety.

    Because truth-in-sentencing laws focus on deterrence, they do not address the causes of criminal behavior, such as poverty and childhood trauma.

    These laws also make prisons less safe: They remove incentives for people in prison to follow the rules, get an education, participate in psychotherapy or otherwise engage in positive activities while behind bars.

    The vast majority of incarcerated people – six out of every seven inmates – are released into society again. Under truth-in-sentencing laws, they emerge from prison less prepared to follow the laws than they would have been if they had access to educational programs, therapy and an incentive structure that encouraged rehabilitation while incarcerated.

    A study in Georgia, for instance, found that after stricter sentencing requirements were enacted, inmates subject to the new rules committed more disciplinary infractions and participated in fewer rehabilitation programs in prison. And once released, they were more likely to commit new crimes than released inmates who had not been subject to the stricter sentences.

    Costing taxpayers dearly

    Additionally, the financial burden of these laws is significant.

    For example, Arkansas’ truth-in-sentencing law, passed in 2023, is projected to cost the state’s taxpayers at least US$160 million over the next decade to pay for increased prison capacity and staffing.

    Instead of deterring crime, truth-in-sentencing laws lock more people up for longer periods of time without addressing the underlying factors, which strains already overburdened correctional systems.

    These laws also disproportionately affect people of color, exacerbating systemic inequities in the criminal justice system.

    These people incarcerated in a California prison are learning computer programming.
    AP Photo/Eric Risberg

    A different path

    For me, the possibility of earning good-time credit was a powerful motivator to engage in rehabilitative activities and regain lost time after disciplinary infractions.

    When I began my sentence, Illinois law allowed people to receive a 50% reduction in their sentence through good-time credit: I might need to serve only half of my original 22-year sentence, and be released after 11 years, if I maintained good behavior.

    Breaking the rules would cost credit, extending my time in prison beyond that 50% mark. Early in my sentence, I broke the rules and was placed in isolation – also called segregation or restrictive housing, in a cell for 24 hours a day, except for six hours of exercise a week – for a total of 18 months, resulting in a significant loss of my good-time credit. As a result, instead of serving 11 years, my expected time in prison increased to approximately 12.5 years.

    This setback was a turning point. I knew that my actions had directly affected the length of time I would have to spend in prison. I became determined to earn back my lost time. I focused on staying out of trouble, earning my GED, completing my associate degree and enrolling in available programs. I was able to regain my time credit and had to serve only 11 years.

    Under today’s truth-in-sentencing laws, none of this would have been possible. I would have been required to serve my full sentence, regardless of whether I chose to change, rehabilitate or prepare for life after prison. The ability to reduce my sentence through good behavior and educational achievement gave me a tangible incentive to turn my life around, an opportunity that truth-in-sentencing laws eliminate.

    A way forward

    By contrast, investing in rehabilitation not only improves outcomes for those incarcerated but also makes communities safer by reducing the cycle of crime.

    Research shows that in-prison rehabilitation programs – particularly those centered on education and vocational training programs and social-support services such as housing help, mental health care and job placement assistance – reduce recidivism rates. While in prison, people are held accountable while also having opportunities to grow and learn, preparing for successful reintegration into society after their release.

    I believe that in the overwhelming majority of people in prison, there is potential for redemption – but that potential is most likely to emerge when they have opportunities to learn and grow and receive benefits for making changes in their lives.

    Unfortunately, many states are choosing to spend millions locking up more people for longer periods – while giving them less opportunity to improve themselves and their lives, reducing their potential for change and safe, productive reintegration into society upon release.

    John Leverso does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

    – ref. States that impose severe prison sentences accomplish the opposite of what they say they want – https://theconversation.com/states-that-impose-severe-prison-sentences-accomplish-the-opposite-of-what-they-say-they-want-247550

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: How ticket-splitting voters could shape the 2026 midterms

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Ian Anson, Associate Professor of Political Science, University of Maryland, Baltimore County

    Even in polarized times, some American voters still cross party lines to support both Democratic and Republican candidates. wildpixel/iStock via Getty Images

    With the 2024 U.S. election over and done with, political analysts and both major parties are already turning their attention to the upcoming midterm elections in 2026.

    All 435 seats in the House of Representatives and 33 Senate seats will be up for grabs. The Democrats are as desperate to retake control of Congress as Republicans are to keep it. A Democratic-controlled Congress in 2026 would do everything in its power to halt President Donald Trump’s legislative agenda in its tracks.

    To edge out their opponent, candidates in highly competitive districts will have to win over some voters who rejected their own party’s presidential candidate in 2024. Democratic candidates will need to get support from at least some Trump voters; Republicans will need some support from Kamala Harris voters.

    Despite the intensely polarized U.S. political environment, a significant number of Americans routinely cross party lines to support both Democratic and Republican candidates at the polls. When it happens on the same ballot, this is called ticket-splitting.

    Just who are these voters, and when do they choose to split their tickets?

    I am a political scientist who studies American voting behavior. I see these questions as key to understanding how long Trump’s total control of government will last.

    Split tickets in North Carolina and Arizona

    Ticket-splitting created some surprising election returns in 2024, mostly benefiting down-ballot Democrats.

    For instance, Republican Donald Trump won North Carolina by around 3 percentage points, but voters elected a Democrat, Josh Stein, for governor by a margin of almost 15 percentage points. Several hundred thousand North Carolinians split their tickets to produce this outcome.

    More than 100,000 Arizonans likewise split their tickets in 2024, electing Trump with 52% of the vote, yet rejecting the Trump-aligned Senate candidate Kari Lake in favor of Democrat Ruben Gallego.

    Many experts believe that candidates such as Gallego and Stein were simply perceived as less extreme than their opponents, and so they lured moderate voters and even some Republicans.

    In this theory, extreme MAGA-aligned candidates win primary elections because they attract the most partisan voters. But they turn off many people in the general electorate.

    Marylanders split their tickets

    One of the most extreme examples of ticket-splitting in 2024 was in the race to replace U.S. Sen. Ben Cardin of Maryland.

    Partyliners or ticket-splitters? Maryland voters cast their ballots in Baltimore on Nov. 5, 2024.
    J. Countess/Getty Images

    Cardin was a retiring three-term Democrat who had last won reelection in 2018 by an astronomical margin of over 34 percentage points. Initially, many expert analysts saw the seat as safe for Democrats.

    Then, in February 2024, former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, who had previously ruled out a Senate run, surprised political analysts by entering the Republican primary. After winning the primary handily, Hogan eventually squared off against Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks, a Democrat, in the general election.

    Suddenly, a matchup that should have been Alsobrook’s to lose got competitive.

    Hogan, who left office in 2023, was a successful Republican governor who won election twice in reliably blue Maryland. Perceived by many voters as an ideological moderate, he was also a vocal Trump opponent in a state that supported Biden over Trump in 2020 by around 33 percentage points. During his governorship, Hogan routinely outperformed MAGA-aligned Republicans who ran for Congress in Maryland.

    Ultimately, Hogan did lose to Alsobrooks. She became Maryland’s first female U.S. senator and first Black U.S. senator. Yet Hogan came an incredible 17 percentage points closer to winning than Trump did. Kamala Harris beat Trump by 1.9 million votes, winning 63% of the electorate to Trump’s 34%.

    This means that Hogan exceeded Trump’s vote total by over 300,000 votes. That’s an immense amount of ticket-splitting by Marylanders in 2024.

    Who are the Hogan Democrats?

    To better understand ticket-splitting in Maryland’s 2024 election, I analyzed a survey that my university conducted in Baltimore County. Baltimore County is a bellwether county that has backed the winning gubernatorial candidate in every election since 2006.

    The UMBC Battleground Exit Poll surveyed 1,119 voters at election precincts across Baltimore County during early voting and on Election Day 2024. The results were weighted to ensure demographic representativeness.

    This extensive survey shows that around 10% of all voters in Baltimore County supported the surprising combination of the Democrat Harris and the Republican Hogan.

    In contrast, fewer than 2% of Trump voters split their tickets to back the Democratic Senate candidate Alsobrooks.

    My team’s data analysis shows that roughly half of Harris-Hogan voters – 51% – were Democrats. These ticket-splitters included a higher percentage of white voters than the Democrats who supported both Harris and Alsobrooks. Around 37% of Harris-Hogan voters identified as Black, Asian, Hispanic, Middle Eastern or another nonwhite racial category, compared with 55% of Harris-Alsobrooks voters.

    We found virtually no gender differences between Democrats who split their tickets to back a woman for president and a man for Senate and those who backed two women candidates.

    Harris-Hogan Democrats tended to be better educated than other voting groups. Around 68% reported having a college degree, compared with around 51% of all survey respondents.

    Perhaps the most striking feature of Harris-Hogan voters is their self-declared moderation.

    On a seven-point ideological scale ranging from “very liberal” to “very conservative,” around 61% of Harris-Hogan ticket-splitters put themselves at the exact midpoint of the scale. Only around 42% of the full sample of Maryland voters categorized themselves as centrist.

    Can moderates survive in Trump’s shadow?

    As our study shows, Hogan’s popularity in Maryland is due in part to his appeal among moderates. This finding helps to explain how this Republican has remained popular among Democrats and independent voters.

    However, Hogan still lost. Unlike in Arizona, where the Democratic Senate candidate Ruben Gallego won by wooing moderate Republicans, the tenuous balance of power in the U.S. House and Senate may have prevented some Democratic and independent voters in Maryland from crossing the aisle to support a moderate Republican.

    Of course, Hogan also faced a formidable opponent. Alsobrooks had already emerged victorious in a tight primary against a well-funded and popular incumbent U.S. House representative, David Trone. I suspect a less-skilled Democratic candidate would have created even more Harris-Hogan voters.

    Ultimately, my analysis of ticket-splitting in 2024 reveals that even in an era of entrenched polarization, many voters approach congressional and presidential races with different mindsets.

    This dynamic will likely influence the next election cycle, too.

    The party of the president often takes heavy losses in midterm elections. In 2026, congressional candidates – and Democrats in particular – will be doing everything they can to woo moderates.

    This will be especially true if Trump’s aggressive policies, such as widespread government layoffs and mass deportations, prove unpopular.

    Let the campaigning begin.

    Ian Anson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

    – ref. How ticket-splitting voters could shape the 2026 midterms – https://theconversation.com/how-ticket-splitting-voters-could-shape-the-2026-midterms-246017

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Cutting Medicaid and federal programs are among 4 key Trump administration policy changes that could make life harder for disabled people

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Matthew Borus, Assistant Professor, Department of Social Work, Binghamton University, State University of New York

    Disabled people’s employment rights and access to free health care are among the policy issues that the Trump administration is aiming to change. Catherine McQueen/Moment/Getty Images

    While policy debates on immigration, abortion and other issues took center stage in the 2024 presidential election, the first months of the Trump administration have also signaled major changes in federal disability policy.

    An estimated 20% to 25% of Americans have a disability of some kind, including physical, sensory, psychological and intellectual disabilities.

    Disability experts, myself included, fear that the Trump administration is creating new barriers for disabled people to being hired at a job, getting a quality education and providing for basic needs, including health insurance.

    Here are four key areas of disability policy to watch over the coming years.

    People hold signs at a protest in June 2024 demanding subway elevator reliability for disabled people in New York.
    Erik McGregor/LightRocket via Getty Images

    1. Rights at work

    The Americans with Disabilities Act, which became law in 1990, requires that employers with more than 15 employees not discriminate against otherwise qualified candidates on the basis of their disability. It also requires that employers provide reasonable accommodations to disabled workers. This means, for instance, that a new or renovated workplace should have accessible entrances so that a worker who uses a wheelchair can enter.

    Despite these protections, I have spoken to many disabled workers in my research who are reluctant to ask for accommodations for fear that a supervisor might think that they were too demanding or not worth continuing to employ.

    Trump’s actions in his first days in office have likely reinforced such fears.

    In one of the many executive orders Trump signed on Jan. 20, 2025, he called for the relevant government agencies to terminate what he called “all discriminatory programs,” including all diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility policies, programs and activities that Trump deems “immoral.”

    The next day, Trump put workers in federal DEIA and accessibility positions on administrative leave.

    The following week, a tragic plane crash outside Washington, D.C., killed 67 people. Trump, without any evidence, blamed the crash on unidentified disabled workers in the Federal Aviation Administration, enumerating a wide and seemingly unrelated list of disabilities that, in his mind, meant that workers lacked the “special talent” to work at the FAA.

    Advocates quickly pushed back, pointing out that disabled workers meet all qualifications for federal and private sector jobs they are hired to perform.

    2. The federal workforce

    Many government disability programs have complex rules designed to limit the number of people who qualify for support.

    For instance, I study supplemental security income, a federal program that provides very modest cash support – on average, totaling US$697 a month in 2024 – to 7.4 million people who are disabled, blind or over 65 if they also have very low income and assets.

    It can take months or even years for someone to go through the process to initially document their disability and finances and show they qualify for SSI. Once approved, many beneficiaries want to make sure they don’t accidentally put their benefits at risk in situations where they are working very limited hours, for example.

    To get answers, they can go to a Social Security office or call an agency phone line. But there are already not enough agency workers to process applications or answer questions quickly. I spoke in 2022 with more than 10 SSI beneficiaries who waited on hold for hours while they tried to get more information about their cases, only to receive unclear or conflicting information.

    Such situations may grow even more severe, as Trump and billionaire Elon Musk try to eliminate large numbers of federal employee positions. So far, tens of thousands of federal workers have been laid off from their jobs in 2025. More layoffs may be coming – on Feb. 12, 2025, Trump instructed federal agency heads to prepare for further “large-scale reductions in force.”

    At the same time, multiple Social Security Administration offices have also been marked for closure since January 2025. An overall effect of these changes will be fewer workers to answer questions from disabled citizens.

    3. Educational opportunities

    Students with disabilities, like all students, are legally entitled to a free public education. This right is guaranteed under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, passed in 1975. IDEA is enforced by the federal Education Department.

    But Trump is reportedly in the process of dismantling the Education Department, with the goal of eventually closing it. It is not clear what this will mean for Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act enforcement, but one possibility is laid out in the Project 2025 Mandate for Leadership, a policy blueprint with broad support in Trump’s administration.

    Project 2025 proposes that Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act funds “should be converted into a no-strings formula block grant.” Block grants are a funding structure by which federal funds are reduced and each state is given a lump sum rather than designating the programs the funds will support. In practice, this can mean that states divert the money to other programs or policy areas, which can create opportunities for funds to be misused.

    With block grants, local school districts would be subject to less federal oversight meant to ensure that they provide every student with an adequate education. Families who already must fight to ensure that their children receive the schooling they deserve will be put on weaker footing if the federal government signals that states can redirect the money as they wish.

    4. Health care

    Before President Barack Obama signed the Affordable Care Act into law in 2010, many disabled people lived with the knowledge that an insurer could regard a disability as a preexisting condition and thereby deny them coverage or charge more for their insurance.

    The ACA prohibited insurance companies from charging more or denying coverage based on preexisting conditions.

    Republicans have long opposed the ACA, with House Speaker Mike Johnson promising before the 2024 election to pursue an agenda of “No Obamacare.”

    About 15 million disabled people have health insurance through Medicaid, a federal health insurance program that covers more than 74 million low-income people. But large Medicaid cuts are also on the Republican agenda.

    These deep cuts might include turning Medicaid into another block grant. They could also partly take the form of imposing work requirements for Medicaid beneficiaries, which could serve as grounds on which to disqualify people from receiving benefits.

    While proponents of work requirements often claim that disabled people will be exempt, research shows that many will still lose health coverage, and that Medicaid coverage itself often supports people who are working.

    Medicaid is also a crucial source of funding for home- and community-based services, including personal attendants who help many people perform daily activities and live on their own. This helps disabled people live independently in their communities, rather than in institutional settings. Notably, Project 2025 points to so-called “nonmedical” services covered under Medicaid as part of the program’s “burden” on states.

    When home- and community-based services are unavailable, some disabled people have no options but to move into nursing homes. One recent analysis found that nursing homes housed roughly 210,000 long-term residents under age 65 with disabilities. Many nursing facilities are understaffed, which contributed to the brutal toll of the COVID-19 pandemic in nursing homes.

    In response to both the pandemic and years of advocacy, the Biden administration mandated higher staffing ratios at nursing homes receiving Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement. But Republicans are eyeing repealing that rule, according to Politico’s reporting.

    U.S. Sen. Maggie Hassan, a Democrat, right, speaks during a press conference in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 19, 2025, on efforts to protect Medicaid from cuts.
    Nathan Poser/Anadolu via Getty Images

    Daunting task

    Tracking potential changes to disability policy is a complicated endeavor. There is no federal department of disability policy, for example.

    Instead, relevant laws and programs are spread throughout what we often think of as separate policy areas. So while disability policy includes obvious areas such as the Americans with Disabilities Act, it is also vitally relevant in areas such as immigration and emergency response.

    These issues of health care, education and more could impact millions of lives, but they are far from the only ones where Trump administration changes threaten to harm disabled people.

    Different programs have their own definitions of disability, which people seeking assistance must work to keep track of.

    This was a daunting task in 2024. Now it may become even more difficult.

    Matthew Borus received funding in the past from ARDRAW, a small grant program for graduate students working on disability research. The program was run by Policy Research, Inc. and funded by the Social Security Administration. The opinions and conclusions expressed here are solely the author’s.

    – ref. Cutting Medicaid and federal programs are among 4 key Trump administration policy changes that could make life harder for disabled people – https://theconversation.com/cutting-medicaid-and-federal-programs-are-among-4-key-trump-administration-policy-changes-that-could-make-life-harder-for-disabled-people-244458

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Philadelphia continues long history of Black-led protest meetings aimed at fighting racial inequity and prejudice

    Source: The Conversation – USA – By Linn Washington, Jr., Professor of Journalism, Temple University

    Philadelphians attend a meeting at Germantown’s Center in the Park on Feb. 25, 2025, to strategize a new Black agenda. Linn Washington Jr. , CC BY-NC-ND

    A meeting in Philadelphia, held at a senior center on a bitter cold Saturday afternoon in late January 2025, drew nearly 300 people.

    They came for two key reasons.

    One was to voice outrage at the upsurge in policies and proposals nationwide that attack the advances of African Americans – many of which were secured in part through 1960s-era civil rights protests.

    The other was to begin to develop a “Black agenda” to counter those attacks in Philadelphia.

    In gathering communally to voice their concerns, attendees continued a legacy of Black-led protest meetings that spans over two centuries in the city.

    I am a professor of journalism at Temple University and a reporter who has covered racial inequities in America and abroad for 50 years. I was invited to attend the Philadelphia meeting to talk about the history of protest meetings in the city.

    That’s a history of successes and shortfalls that helped shape both Philadelphia and the nation.

    First mass meeting

    Over 200 years ago, what is considered the first mass protest meeting ever held in the United States by African Americans took place in Philadelphia.

    That little-known meeting, held in January 1817, drew 3,000 African Americans to Philadelphia’s historic Mother Bethel AME Church. The attendees came to denounce efforts by the American Colonization Society to relocate free Black Americans to a colony in West Africa. That group, with a predominately white membership that included prominent politicians and preachers, believed free Blacks could not be integrated into white America.

    The attendees at Mother Bethel in 1817 saw relocation as a forced removal of Black Americans from the homeland they supported as patriotically as white Americans. The unanimous opposition that attendees expressed helped change the stance of local Black leaders, such as Mother Bethel founder Richard Allen, from lukewarm supporters of relocation to opponents.

    Successes and shortfalls

    The tradition of mass meetings to address the adversity impacting Philadelphia’s African American community continued from the 19th century into the 20th and now the 21st century.

    The results have been mixed.

    For example, after members of the Pennsylvania state legislature proposed inserting a white-males-only voting restriction into the state’s constitution in 1838, denying voting rights for free Black men, Black Philadelphians held mass meetings to demand the provision be deleted.

    But those demands failed. Pennsylvania restricted voting to white men until 1870 when ratification of the 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution granted African American men the right to vote.

    However, mass meetings during the 1860s that had an agenda to desegregate trolleys in Philadelphia were successful. A law signed in 1867 banned segregated seating on public transit statewide.

    Renowned scholar and civil rights activist W.E.B. Du Bois credited “public meetings and repeated agitation” for that statewide ban in his seminal 1899 book “The Philadelphia Negro: A Social Study.”

    Demands to end police brutality have been the focus of mass meetings in the city at least since the 1918 formation of Philadelphia’s now-defunct Association for the Protection of Colored People. Abusive policing practices that continue in Philadelphia to this day point to a shortfall in fulfilling those demands.

    And yet, momentum from the key agenda item of mass meetings in the early 1970s – to increase political power – ultimately led to the election of the city’s first Black mayor, Wilson Goode, in 1983.

    Unfinished business

    Since 1817, Black-led protest meetings in Philadelphia have sought to end discrimination against African Americans. That consistent goal remains unrealized.

    The first national political conventions that African Americans staged in the U.S., beginning in September 1830, castigated discrimination. Convention attendees in 1831 sought an end to cruel and oppressive laws devised to disadvantage free Blacks.

    Nearly 150 years later, the “Human Rights Agenda” developed during a Philadelphia mass meeting in December 1978 and later the report from Philadelphia’s 2015 Black Political Summit Coalition both decried racial prejudice against African Americans.

    An observation that Du Bois made in “The Philadelphia Negro” about discrimination against African Americans in the so-called City of Brotherly Love retains contemporary relevance.

    A mural dedicated to Du Bois and the Old Seventh Ward is painted on the corner of 6th and South streets in Philadelphia.
    Paul Marotta/Getty Images Entertainment Collection via Getty Images

    Race prejudice “is a far more powerful social force than most Philadelphians realize,” Du Bois wrote. Most white Philadelphians, he noted, “are quite unconscious” regarding the prejudice that impacts Black residents. Their impulse is emphatically to deny such discrimination.

    Such denial allowed prejudice to persist then – and today.

    To begin to develop a new Black agenda, the organizers of the meeting at the senior center collected suggestions that attendees filed on note cards. They promised to publicly announce an action plan that is expected to involve economic boycotts and actions to strengthen the economic infrastructure in Philadelphia’s African American community.

    Defending rights and progress aroused attendees at that January meeting in 2025 as strongly as denouncing forced colonization aroused attendees at the mass meeting 208 years earlier.

    Read more of our stories about Philadelphia.

    Linn Washington, Jr. does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

    – ref. Philadelphia continues long history of Black-led protest meetings aimed at fighting racial inequity and prejudice – https://theconversation.com/philadelphia-continues-long-history-of-black-led-protest-meetings-aimed-at-fighting-racial-inequity-and-prejudice-249117

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –