Leettaschmidt

Like so many of us in academic libraries and public higher education more generally, at my college and university we’ve experienced several successive years of budget cuts. My colleagues and I have done what we can to make changes that reduce costs with minimal impact to patrons, but unfortunately we are now at the point where it’s no longer possible to do more — or even the same — with less.

It’s challenging to do less with less in a profession that’s as focused on service as librarianship. My colleagues and I care about our students, each other, and our college community. We want to say yes, to offer support, to maintain our open hours, to teach that additional class. We need to keep our working hours realistic both for contractual reasons (library faculty and staff are unionized) and to stave off burnout; as the director, it’s important for me to take seriously the possibilities for burnout and low morale. When we reduce services and resources in the library we also experience a (completely understandable!) increase in complaints from students, which is an added emotional load on library workers.

It’s challenging to do less with less when we what we really want is to do more. My colleagues have expertise in and beyond their areas of focus in the library, and we’re interested in expanding our knowledge and skills as well. We know there are more services and resources we could offer in the library with increased funding, additional collaborations we could engage in with faculty and students, more work we could facilitate and support with facilities and infrastructure adequate to the campus population.

There’s no easy answer to budget cuts; while I continue to advocate for increased funding and to foreground student concerns, disinvestment in public higher education is not a problem that we in our library can solve. In working within and through the challenges of budget cuts we’re trying to identify the things that we do have control over, however small. I can’t add another floor to the library with more student seating, but we can revise and clarify our signage to make it easier for students to find what they need, especially during busy, crowded times. Keeping the front doors closed rather than propped open (with a sign that indicates that we’re open) this semester has helped cut down on the ambient noise from the hallways outside the library and has made it a little bit quieter overall, though we still lack a truly quiet study area.

Small changes don’t obviate the need for additional funding, nor my obligation to argue for it. It’s hard work keeping our chins up during times of austerity, and I want to acknowledge our feelings while we keep doing the best we can with the resources we have available, pushing for change while working within our current constraints.

The second Islamophobia in Australia Report launched last month, in the same week a graphic video showing a pregnant Muslim woman being punched and stomped on circulated widely on social media.

Earlier in October another video went viral, showing two New South Wales police officers verbally abusing two Muslim women, threatening to falsely charge them as an accessory to murder.

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Read more: These young Muslim Australians want to meet Islamophobes and change their minds. And it's working

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In both cases, the victims were women and visibly Muslim, wearing a head covering (hijab), and the perpetrators were white men. These examples correlate with the report’s findings, where 71% of perpetrators were male and 72% of victims were female.

Alarmingly, most Islamophobic attacks occurred in public, and yet only 14% of bystanders got involved or intervened. And of those, only one in three defended the victim. The majority of witnesses simply passed by without paying attention.

Islamophobic incidents recorded nationwide

The second biennial Islamophobia in Australia report analysed 349 Islamophobic incidents reported to the Islamophobia Register of Australia, from 2016-2017. Combined with the previous report, 592 online and offline cases were recorded in the last four years. But this represents only the tip of the iceberg.

Both reports conclusively show Islamophobia in Australia does exist and is a persistent social issue, one that overwhelmingly targets women, a vulnerability that stems from being identifiably Muslim when wearing a hijab.

It is also alarming that the incidents in public spaces not only continued to occur regularly, but their prevalence increased since the previous report.

Guarded places, such as shopping centres, train stations and other crowded areas saw 60% more harassment than unguarded places – an increase of 30% since the previous report. Islamophobia in shopping centres was most common, accounting for 25% of reported incidents.

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Read more: Islamophobia is still raising its ugly head in Australia

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This could be because public spaces give more opportunity for Islamophobic people to cross paths with Muslims. Yet, the presence of a crowd, CCTV cameras and guards didn’t appear to deter them.

What you can do if you see an attack

Hate crimes are rarely prosecuted in Australia, and together with the lack of bystander intervention and pervasive negative stereotypes of Muslims, perpetrators seem more emboldened.

But public opinion is where the most important opportunity to prevent Islamophobia lies. If witnesses to Islamophobic hate incidents intervene, it would strongly discourage perpetrators and others with similar sentiments.

So, if you see an Islamophobic incident in a public, guarded place like a shopping centre, the first thing you can do is directly report to the security guards, who can take the perpetrator away.

Witnesses should also consider reporting the incidents to the Islamophobia Register and the police. In fact, witnesses reported 41% of all physical cases recorded in the report.

The second thing you can do is comfort the victims. Victims, who were often left in tears, say they felt traumatised, deeply disappointed, publicly ridiculed and, as a result, extremely distressed.

A smile or simply saying, “don’t worry, this is your country just like all other Australians”, would go a long way to alleviate the intense feeling of not being accepted.

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Read more: How to tackle Islamophobia – the best strategies from around Europe

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And third, witnesses should get involved. In one reported case, when a Muslim mother with her three children was severely abused, the support from surrounding people discouraged the perpetrator, who quickly left.

Here, the mother describes the support she received afterwards.

I was really upset and crying and my kids were in shock […] Everyone was looking at us and the woman from Donut King came over and offered a seat, a cup of tea and some drinks for my kids.

Security moved us to the management office soon after that but not before a sister who I happened to sit next to said she had removed her hijab and abaya because she was tired of being harassed.

Another beautiful lady gave me a much-needed hug and some kind words only someone who knows discrimination could share and another wanted to buy my kids donuts. The staff in the management were very kind and gave my children colouring in.

In another case, high school students defended their Muslim friend, whose name was scribbled on a toilet door, calling her a terrorist.

Her friends scribbled over it and wrote if u knew her u wouldn’t say that about her.

The presence and behaviour of the police is another key factor. Victims reported immense relief and trust in Australia and its institutions when they felt police showed understanding, even if the case couldn’t lead to a criminal charge.

But police attended only half of the 22% of the incidents reported to them. And in some cases, police explained to victims how there’s freedom of speech in Australia and they can’t do much.

In 11% of the cases where police became involved, they were constructive and comforted the victim.

What you can do if you experience Islamophobia

First – stay strong and know you’ve done nothing wrong just for being a Muslim. Remembering this can give you the courage to call for help from bystanders.

In the earlier case of the Muslim mother with three children, it was her firm and loud response to the abuser that attracted attention and led to people offering help.

Victims should also report the cases to the police and to the third-party reporting platforms, such as Islamophobia Register Australia.

Even if the incident doesn’t fall into a crime category, it can still be helpful for police to monitor the perpetrator, while the register can provide advocacy and use the reported incidents to raise public awareness in its reports.

And victims should seek counselling from organisations in every state and territory designed to help victims, such as Victim Services in NSW. The Australian Human Rights Commission also receives complaints and provides advocacy services across Australia.

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Read more: Why Muslim women wear a hijab: 3 essential reads

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The Islamophobia Register Australia page provides detailed information about where to report and All Together Now gives instructive advice on tackling racism.

Mosques and Muslim organisations can also provide a safe space for victims to talk about their experiences. Even if you don’t feel the need for counselling, discussing the experience can help make sense of it all in a meaningful way.

Islamophobia in Australia is a social problem that affects a significant portion of society. Recognition of Islamophobia does not diminish the achievements of Australian society and the success of its multiculturalism.

It will merely highlight a social problem that cannot be ignored or downplayed any longer.

Derya Iner works for Centre for Islamic Studies and Civilisation, Charles Sturt University and she is affiliation with Islamophobia Register Australia and Islamic Science and Research Academy

Mehmet Ozalp is affiliated with Islamic Sciences and Research Academy of Australia.

Hans Calmeyer was a left-wing German lawyer -- his law license was temporarily suspended when he was accused of being a Communist -- who was inducted into the German army under the Nazis, who put him in charge of an office that determined which Dutch people would be deported to Auschwitz during the Nazi occupation.

Calmeyer used his position to sabotage Nazi deportations, accepting obviously forged documents that proved that Dutch Jews had non-Jewish grandparents, and slow-walking document processing to keep Jews from being deported. He is estimated to have saved 4,000 Jews from the camps (he was imprisoned as a war-criminal after the war, but released when his actions came to light; he later worked on reparations claims by victims of the Nazis).

One of the people whom Calmeyer saved is Laureen Nussbaum, who married her boyfriend -- another Jew who went into hiding during the occupation -- and moved to the USA after the war, where she became a German language professor at Portland State University.

Nussbaum is now 92 and retired, and has just published Shedding Our Stars, a memoir that weaves her life-story in with Calmeyer's and that of other survivors (Ursula K LeGuin helped advise her on how to frame the story).

Calmeyer's story has been lightly recounted in German and Dutch literature, but Nussbaum's piece marks the first English book on the subject. Nussbaum says it took her so long to write in part because so many of her friends discouraged her from talking about her experiences during the Holocaust.

Nussbaum was also a prime mover behind the publication of Anne Frank's lost novel, "Dear Kitty," which was published in Germany, Austria and Switzerland this year after 25 years of Nussbaum's advocacy (thanks to baroque copyright struggles between different institutions claiming to represent Anne Frank's legacy, the book won't be translated into English or distributed in the USA until 2047).

Today, Nussbaum says she fears the rise of antisemitism in the USA, saying that the situation under Trump and his white nationalist supporters has "parallels that are very, very scary."

Thousands petitioned his office for reclassification. Calmeyer, in the name of thorough research, dragged the decision-making process out as long as possible, delaying deportation to concentration camps. In a majority of cases on what became known as the Calmeyer list, people never went to the camps because his office ultimately decided they were not Jewish, despite documentation sometimes patently false.

The bureaucrat confided at the time to a friend he was trying to prevent more people from being sent to the camps and wrote in a statement after the war that he willfully sabotaged laws he took to be immoral.

And so he accepted a concocted story by Nussbaum’s family about her mother having a Christian father. The man identified was really her mom’s foster father for a time, the real father being Jewish. Because Nussbaum’s maternal grandmother was Catholic — a singer who toured all over Europe and didn’t marry her Jewish lover until 20 years after their child was born — the author’s mother was, officially, no longer considered Jewish. Nussbaum and her siblings were regarded as having mixed blood and her father part of a “privileged mixed marriage.”

Seattleite, 92, finally tells story of German who saved more Jews during the Holocaust than Schindler [Nina Shapiro/Washington Post]

(via Naked Capitalism)

68% of the 1600 residents of of Baldwin, Florida -- where the median income is $44k/year -- voted for Trump in 2016, and in the years since, they've lost their only grocery store, which has been a particular hardship for the large number of seniors who live there, many of whom are no longer able to drive.

So the town did the logical thing: it opened a city-run grocery store that operates on a break-even basis, with the clerks, stockers, butcher and other staff all drawing a paycheck from city hall. This is unquestionably a socialist enterprise, but the town's residents don't see it that way. As Mayor Sean Lynch, a retired Navy vet, told The Washington Post: "We take the water out of the ground, and we pump it to your house and charge you. So what’s the difference with a grocery store?"

Not a thing, Mayor Lynch, not a single, solitary thing. Indeed, America's most important institutions -- power, water, roads, libraries, schools, even the Navy -- are socialist in nature.

White Americans vote against welfare benefits and publicly provided healthcare because the Republican Party and Reagan's "welfare queen" campaign convinced them that "welfare" is "undeserving Black people, Native Americans and immigrants" being helped out by the state. Of course, the majority of public spending in America goes to white people, so racism is used to harm racists themselves -- as well as the racialized people at the margins who are also punished by cuts.

The good news is that things like Baldwin Groceries are an opportunity to de-brainwash reactionaries and racists, showing them that the "socialism" they're been terorrized with all their lives is actually the stuff they love best about America: the letter-carrier they see every day, the VA that takes care of them, the library and the high school and the roads.

So far, though, the experiment has been a success. The town council had hoped to take in $3,500 a day, and sales have routinely exceeded that, Lynch says. About 1,600 people — roughly the equivalent of the town’s population — stopped in during opening weekend, according to the Florida Times-Union, and the market sold out of meat. Eight employees, all Baldwin residents, were hired at the outset, but the town recently brought on two more people to help out during the busy holiday season.

As Lynch showed a reporter around on a recent weekday afternoon, a woman in a McDonald’s uniform excitedly interrupted him. “I’m so happy you guys are open,” she gushed. “I was a regular before.” Though she works at the truck stop in Baldwin, she lives in an even more rural community outside of town, she explained, and had been driving 10 miles out of her way on bad roads that always seemed to be under construction to get to the nearest Winn-Dixie. “And their meats are not as good as yours,” she added.

When a deep red town’s only grocery closed, city hall opened its own store. Just don’t call it ‘socialism.’ [Antonia Noori Farzan/Washington Post]

(via Naked Capitalism)

(Image: Mike Mozart, CC BY, modified)

The US government detained more than 69,000 migrant children last year in the course of its brutal family separation policy. There's no guarantee these kids will ever be reunited with their parents; in fact, some of them have already been put up for "adoption" (read: legalized kidnapping) after their parents were deported. Many of these adoption agencies are of course Christian organizations, who genuinely believe themselves to be acting from a compassionate, altruistic pro-life perspective.

This is not breaking news; nor is it necessarily unique to the Trump administration. But I was reminded of it as I scrolled through Twitter over the weekend:

And for whatever reason, this reminder flagged another connection in the mind: the second season of the "Missing and Murdered" podcast, produced by CBC, the Canadian public broadcasting service.

Also known as "Finding Cleo," the 10-episode second season follows host Connie Walker as she tries to track down the truth about a deceased Cree girl named Cleo. According to Cleo's sister, Christine, all of the siblings in their family were forcefully taken from their First Nations home by Canadian child protective services. Somehow, Cleo ended up being adopted by a white Christian family in the United States until she was allegedly raped and murdered. She was 13 years old.

Of course, this a true crime podcast, so there are plenty of twists and turns and other surprises along the way. But that's not the only reason it's worth a listen. While "Missing and Murdered" does focus specifically on Cleo's story, it also covers on the larger historical relevance of First Nations children being "adopted" (again, read: kidnapped) by white Christian families, whose supposedly charitable intentions were still not enough to undo the trauma of being ripped away from your family and the language and culture you grew up with. Throughout the podcast, Cleo's surviving siblings open up about the harrowing struggles they endured as they were passed around the social work system, forced to live with families who wanted nothing less than to see them assimilate. It's a powerful reminder that the brutal legacy of colonialism and Manifest Destiny was not left behind in the 1800s—it has continued in various forms up until the present.

Growing up in the States, I was told that those who don't learn history are doomed to repeat it. "Missing & Murdered" explores the modern ramifications of a Canadian policy from the 1970s that Americans are never taught about. And right now, we're in the process of repeating it. It doesn't matter if these are non-European people who traveled across imaginary lines, or non-European people who were here before us; the trauma of family separation and forced assimilation is the same.

"Missing & Murdered: Finding Cleo" on CBC Radio

Image by Carwil Bjork-James/Flickr

At least 145 coffins have been discovered underneath King High School in Tampa, Florida. Apparently a citizen researching area cemeteries advised the school district that in the first half of the 20th century, there was an African-American graveyard on the site. So far, ground-penetrating radar revealed 145 coffins just a few feet below the surface. From Bay News 9:

The pattern of the findings matches historical records for a "potter's field," or pauper's field, called Ridgewood Cemetery, the district said.

"Hillsborough County Public Schools remains committed to respecting the individuals who are buried there, and their families," officials said.

This is just the latest of several "forgotten" African-American cemeteries found in Tampa in the past year.

The coffins are believed to be from Ridgewood Cemetery, which was designated by the city of Tampa as a pauper’s cemetery decades ago. The school district purchased the property in 1959, and built King High School soon after. pic.twitter.com/Jzhwyj693n

— Emerald Morrow (@EmeraldMorrow) November 20, 2019

The discovery of Ridgewood Cemetery under King High School makes the second discovery of an erased black cemetery in Tampa this year. This is a pattern. It was intentional. pic.twitter.com/UTM8VQ2PFY

— Emerald Morrow (@EmeraldMorrow) November 20, 2019

The European Medicines Agency approved a vaccine for the deadly Ebola Virus Disease. The vaccine has already been administered to hundreds of thousands of people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, saving countless lives during an ongoing epidemic there. From Nature:

The decision by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) to allow US pharmaceutical company Merck to market its vaccine means that the product can now be stockpiled and, potentially, distributed more widely, in particular in Africa. In 2015, Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance — a global health partnership that funds vaccine supplies in low-income countries — told Ebola-vaccine manufacturers that it would commit to purchasing vaccines once they had been approved by a “stringent health authority” such as the EMA...

“This is a vaccine with huge potential,” said Seth Berkley, chief executive of Gavi in Geneva, Switzerland, in a press release after the EMA decision. “It has already been used to protect more than 250,000 people in the DRC and could well make major Ebola outbreaks a thing of the past.”

Image: "Ebola virus virion" by CDC/Cynthia Goldsmith (Public Domain)

Spanish surrealist Salvador Dalí was no stranger to pop culture, even appearing on a TV game show. So, it's not a complete surprise to find out he created an entire 78-card tarot deck. Originally conceived as a prop for the for the 1973 James Bond film, Live and Let Die, his tarot cards didn't end up in the movie but were issued later as a set.

Hyperallergic:

Albert R. Broccoli, a producer for the 18th James Bond spy thriller, approached Dalí with an offer to create the tarot deck for a scene in the film. The cards were needed as props for the character of Solitaire, played by Seymour, a psychic who works for a menacing drug lord. As Bond films typically go, the psychic changes sides to become the spy’s collaborator and love interest.

Dalí accepted the offer and started working on the cards, possibly encouraged by his mystically inclined wife Gala, but it was rumored that the contract fell through when the artist demanded an astronomical fee that was too high even for the film’s $7 million budget.

But, even though the deal fell through, Dalí did complete the deck. He worked on its art for 10 years before it was issued to the public in 1984. Now, for the first time since then, Taschen is making the deck, and its instructional booklet, available.

Dalí. Tarot has a a release date of November 15 but is now available for pre-order ($54).

(Colossal)

President Donald Trump regularly uses blatant violations of long-established social and political norms to signal his “authenticity” to supporters.

Asking foreign countries to investigate and deliver dirt on his political opponents, which prompted an impeachment inquiry in the U.S. House of Representatives, is the most recent example in a long string of norm-shattering behaviors. Other examples of flouting the standards of his presidential office include defending white nationalists, attacking prisoners of war, abusing the use of emergency powers, personally criticizing federal judges and much more.

Norms are perceptions or beliefs about what we understand the rules for acceptable behavior to be. They are powerful predictors of behavior. By openly broadcasting his anomalous actions and views, Trump is shifting public attitudes about what is deemed appropriate – not only in politics, but also in society.

However, based on my research on institutional corruption, ethical decision-making and the power of professional norms, I know norms can be shifted – even reversed – by activities like the House’s impeachment inquiry.

The power of norms

Norms are crucial in understanding how people succumb to unethical influences. We often decide what to do in a situation by first looking at what others are doing.

For example, if a financial adviser starts working in an institution in which her managers and leaders condone unethical practices that put profits over clients, she will understand the norm in that environment to be “self-interest first.” It then becomes perfectly appropriate, and even desirable, for that adviser to succumb to conflicts of interest and neglect or even defraud clients in the pursuit of profits.

Such behavior was evident in financial crises in the U.S. and more recently in Australia, which I examined for the Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Financial Services Industry.

And institutional norms, once set, can be incredibly persistent.

My recent research shows that requiring advisers to disclose conflicts of interest – the ways they would profit from their advice – doesn’t work if the company’s norms put self-interest first. In fact, disclosure in these instances can actually make things worse by leading to more biased advice.

However, if the institutional norm was to put “clients first,” disclosure improved the quality of advice.

How norms shift

Fortunately, Americans draw on many sources of information to perceive norms, not just the president’s deeds and tweets.

The behavior of other people, mass media and laws all factor into how we think about norms – good or bad – and can influence norm shifts.

For example, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of same-sex marriage in 2015, a survey of norms and attitudes revealed that Americans perceived stronger and increasing public support for gay marriage after the ruling. This shift in perceived norms occurred in spite of the fact that personal attitudes toward gay marriage did not immediately change.

These shifts matter because norms can actually change our minds over time. A more recent 2019 study found that the Supreme Court ruling on gay marriage ultimately changed attitudes as well as norms, resulting in a reduced anti-gay bias in many parts of the country.

Re-establishing ethical norms

Although people select which news sources and peers to pay attention to, it is hard to ignore the behavior of the president. That’s why pursuing Trump’s impeachment, regardless of whether it is successful or not, is necessary to give a clear, authoritative legal signal of what is unacceptable behavior.

Of course, re-establishing the norms that have been broken over the past few years will take more than the actions of the political party that opposes the president. The voices of Republicans are also important. But so far, their general silence has only strengthened Trump’s ability to break down norms.

Research on obedience and conformity show that all it takes is one dissenting voice to speak out against authority to inspire others to do the same.

If more whistleblowers, Republicans and members of the administration speak up, the ethical, social and political norms that Trump has broken may start to regain their vitality.

[ Deep knowledge, daily. Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter. ]

Sunita Sah is a Visiting Scholar at the Russell Sage Foundation.

As the country moved toward collapse, social unrest and inevitable casualties increased. The paranoid state began anonymously exterminating citizens who so much as hinted at insurrection. Average (and the vast numbers of below-average) people were killed in street clashes between opposing factions and there were spates of frightened suicides.

Scar Toys exploited this expanding market opportunity and created a range of toys aimed at the many children in the process of being orphaned. One such toy, the Breath Mirror Set, aimed at young girls, was designed to accompany their more traditional beauty/vanity toys. The deluxe set (see picture above) included one mirror for each parent, colour-coded as per gender convention: pink for girls, blue for boys.

The wording on the back of the packaging encouraged children to use the mirrors beyond the death of their own parents. Included was a little booklet into which little pink stars could be affixed for every corpse that was identified using the mirrors. Highly sought-after prizes were awarded to the girls with the most stars and council archival documents reveal that the police turned a blind eye when gangs of little girls began slaughtering adults in frenzied attempts to accumulate more stars.

Some student organizations have endorsed the social media campaign #textbookbroke to draw attention to the burdens placed on students by the high cost of learning materials.

A solution to this problem exists: open educational resources. These are textbooks and other teaching materials produced by academics or instructors and distributed free of charge. Such resources could be a greater part of higher education. Why aren’t they?

This was a question posed to me by eCampusOntario. This organization, funded by the provincial government, supports online and technology-enabled learning in publicly supported colleges and universities.

eCampusOntario commissioned me to produce a report on how institutions of higher learning could support the implementation of open educational resources. I worked with the centre for a year as an Open Education Fellow, one of six who were selected because of our own involvement in producing open educational resources at our colleges and universities.

Publishers’ bottom line ahead of students?

My own university estimates that first-year students can expect to pay between $2,290 and $4,100 for books and supplies.

In some programs of study, students don’t buy just textbooks anymore. Many publishers provide digital materials. If the instructor adopts the digital products too, students may be required to purchase a code to gain access to digitally locked material.

When books come with digital content, this may mean students can’t share textbooks, buy a used copy, find comprehensive materials at the library or resell the book. In some cases, the publisher may also supply tests and quizzes, and students pay to submit work for grading.

Many instructors and students say these publishing practices put the publishers’ bottom line ahead of students’ welfare.

Studies have shown that students will forego courses with high textbook costs or will make up the cost by spending less on food or reducing the number of trips home on weekends.

Students who have access to their textbooks from day one of term are likely to do better in their courses, and this results in fewer students dropping out. Recent research reviewing studies involving about 100,000 students and educators finds that there are no differences in effectiveness between open and commercial textbooks, and students’ withdrawal rate in courses with open textbooks was significantly lower than in courses with commercial textbooks.

When teachers write the book

Educators who develop open resources decide that instead of relying on commercial books or resources, they’ll create or write their own.

They make these free and accessible through Creative Commons licensing. The creator retains copyright while permitting others to copy, distribute and make some uses of the work. For example, users may be granted rights to reuse, revise, remix, retain (make, own and control copies) and redistribute materials. Some people create these resources on their own platforms; many others use Pressbooks, a WordPress solution that allows for online publishing in book-like format.

Some groups, like OpenStax or eCampusOntario, have created online libraries to house and even market these resources. Although the move to open educational resources is relatively young, such libraries of open textbooks now house standard and introductory courses in every discipline.

Thanks to the development of online software, it has become relatively straightforward for someone with expertise and dedication in a particular field to write or curate and develop high-quality materials. Pressbooks allows you to publish the material online and offers multiple formats for printing hard copies; eLink.io lets you package together resources; hypothes.is enables personal and crowd annotating.

Down with financial stress

The benefits of open educational resources go beyond helping students stock up on Kraft dinner. Developing or adapting open educational resources fosters collaboration among instructors, between instructors and students, and among academic services on campuses: libraries, teaching centres, bookstores, IT departments.

In our report, my co-author Myrto Provida and I argued that fostering open educational resources increases instructors’ investment in their teaching and helps to raise their institution’s reputation for offering student-centred education.

Some institutions — the University of British Columbia and Kwantlen Polytechnic University in B.C., Tidewater Community College in the United States, and TU Delft in the Netherlands — point to their involvement in open education with pride.

Still, it surprises me that these resources haven’t taken higher education by storm. Some subjects do lend themselves better to open educational resources than others. I teach literature, so in my courses you can’t get around having to buy the novel.

Offering incentives

In our study, we discovered that some colleges and universities across North America had provided incentives to encourage educators to create or adapt open educational resources. These were usually small grants and course releases that would give staff the time and resources needed to produce open textbooks.

But uptake of open educational resources is still relatively small. Even with incentives, many educators are reluctant to become involved. Faculty members who want to pursue the academic study and development of open resources are often discouraged not to. There’s a long-standing bias in universities that this work isn’t serious enough.

Modern universities are often not the disruptors they pretend to be, especially pertaining to career advancement. Faculty members won’t engage with creating open resources because colleges and universities by and large don’t make this part of the criteria on which they judge performance, promotion and tenure.

Mention in tenure policies

We only found two institutions in Canada, the University of British Columbia and the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology, where explicit mention of open education had been made in performance and tenure policies.

We recommended that Ontario’s colleges and universities recognize creating open resources in policies governing tenure and promotion. Doing so would change the culture of these institutions and be a more effective incentive than course buy-outs or small grants. It would communicate clearly that institutions of higher education take seriously the responsibility to tailor knowledge to students and to reduce barriers.

Producing quality educational materials takes time and resources. But if doing so is an integral part of people’s job descriptions, they will do it, and do it well.

[ Like what you’ve read? Want more? Sign up for The Conversation’s daily newsletter. ]

James M. Skidmore was invited by eCampusOntario to write the report (A Place for Policy) mentioned in this article.

Guggenheim and MacArthur fellowship-winning philosopher Elizabeth Anderson recently spoke with Joe Humphreys at the Irish Times about America's toxic obsession with by-your-bootstraps individualism, and specifically how it relates to poverty.

There are plenty of impactful quotes throughout the interview, but the parts that stuck out the most to me—as an agnostic born into an Irish Catholic family, whose mother worked for the church for a long time—were her observations about America's puritanical roots, and, later, the impacts of World War II. Anderson essentially proposes the idea that early America Puritans like the Pilgrims were determined to distance themselves from the institutional power of the Catholic church—which, for all its faults, has at least had a longstanding commitment to helping and empathizing with those suffering from poverty. In addition to Manifest Destiny, these Puritans believed that hard work was the only promise of salvation, which eventually evolved into the whole "rugged individualism" idea that consumes so many American conservatives and Evangelicals. While Anderson acknowledges that this ethic is rooted in a very pro-worker mindset, it's clearly been secularized over time into a highly partisan hatred of the poor, with a nod towards its religious roots:

There is a profound suspicion of anyone who is poor, and a consequent raising to the highest priority imposing incredibly humiliating, harsh conditions on access to welfare benefits on the assumption you’re some kind of grifter, or you’re trying to cheat the system. There is no appreciation for the existence of structural poverty, poverty that is not the fault of your own but because the economy maybe is in recession or, in a notorious Irish case, the potato crop fails.

[…]

I think this work ethic ideology lies at the root of prejudice against whole groups of people. So the English notoriously considered the Irish lazy, lacking in the work ethic, just as [white] Americans think of blacks that way. The work ethic lies very deep in the way western countries have conceptualise the superiority of their groups.

Anderson also ties this back to World War II (a connection I've loosely explored elsewhere) by pointing that Europe was ravaged—forcing the predominantly Catholic population to acknowledge the importance of community support—while the mainland United States remained unscathed, ushering in an era of prosperity that allowed individuals to thrive even more:

That individualism – the idea that I’ve got to save myself – got secularised over time. And it is deep, much deeper in America than in Europe – not only because there are way more Catholics in Europe who never bought into this ideology – but also in Europe due to the experience of the two World Wars they realised they are all in the boat together and they better work together or else all is lost. America was never under existential threat. So you didn’t have that same sense of the absolute necessity for individual survival that we come together as a nation. I think those experiences are really profound and helped to propel the welfare state across Europe post World War II.

The interview is brief, but the whole thing is worth it for the few small insights like this.

Why do so many Americans hate the welfare state? [Joe Humphreys/The Irish Times]

Image via Wikimedia Commons

Radical librarian (and warrant canary inventor) Jessamyn West (previously gave this year's Alice G Smith lecture at the University of South Florida's School of Information. It's called "Social Justice is a Library Issue; Libraries are a Social Justice Issue."

The talk crib and slides are all online but the long and the short of it is that being a place devoted to universal access to all human knowledge is, and always has been, a radical act -- and putting that into practice requires specific skills and policies that librarians all over the world have spent generations creating, and are still inventing today.

So my response to people asking why I am making things political is often just to restate that I am just trying to help people achieve equity which is not the same as equality. Equality always implies that we are all starting from the same place, so it's fine if we have, from today forward, equal opportunities. This ignores a great deal of history. But the awkward part is that sometimes getting at this equity can mean rebalancing things from where they are now. Doing this in response to social issues is considered social justice. OK then.

As I said before, representation matters. Libraries are, nominally for everyone, but does everyone feel included, does everyone feel like the library is the place for them? My public library specialty is outreach. Basically (at least partly) figuring out who is in your community, subtracting everyone who is coming in to the library and figuring out if there is anything you can do about the ones who don't come in. Maybe not... but probably there are things you can be doing. I'm not going to say it's not tricky but one of the most basic things that helps people feel included is safety. Safety from harassment, safety from judgement.

And in some cases, the world as many people understand it has changed. And this is an opportunity to say "we recognize everyone and want them to be included." and you can try things, work them out, maybe one set of signs doesn't work because it's too cutesy (who is that person?), or too vague (is there a urinal?) and maybe it takes you a while to settle on one option.

...and this isn't just "yay progressives" People may have religious reasons to feel a men-only or women-only bathroom is appropriate, so keeping those options is *also* a way of supporting diversity. So talk to them, have transparency in your process.

Social Justice is a Library Issue; Libraries are a Social Justice Issue [Jessamyn West]

Gaggle is one of a handful of creepy companies that sell surveillance software to school districts, which monitor every keystroke and click on school networks -- they're the latest evolution in spy-on-kids tech, which started off by promising that they'd stop kids from seeing porn, then promised they could end bullying, and now advertise themselves as a solution for school shootings, under the banner of being a "Safety Management Platform."

Gaggle has plenty of competition from the likes of Securely and Goguardian. The whole sector has undergone a massive buzzword-compliance overhaul and added "AI" to their products, using algorithms to decide which student keystrokes are worthy of being flagged as suspicious.

But Gaggle appears to be unique in promising to help school board detect unrest among teachers so that the wave of teachers' strikes can be headed off by management. In a deleted blog post, Gaggle wrote, "Think about the recent teacher work stoppage in West Virginia. Could the story have been different if school leaders there requested search results for ‘health insurance’ or ‘strike’ months earlier? Occasional searches for ‘salary’ or ‘layoffs’ could stave off staff concerns that lead to adverse press for your school district."

It's a great example of the shitty technology adoption curve: first we use creepy technology against people who don't get to complain, like schoolkids, then, once it's normalized, we work our way up the privilege gradient, inflicting it on teachers, then everyone.

Avoiding bad press and preventing teacher strikes have little to do with keeping students safe, but the implied message from the post is clear: Gaggle’s clients are administrators, not the students or teachers.

The concern, however, is that students’ protection is coming at the expense of their privacy. As kids spend more of their formative years online, they also need safe digital spaces to explore their own identities.

“Suppose you are a kid considering suicide and you want to write a diary about it or talk to your friend about the feelings that you’re having, but you don’t because you’re afraid you’ll be turned into your parent,” Keller said. “I’m not sure that’s a good outcome.”

When we start monitoring kids’ behavior from a young age, Keller believes it can set a dangerous precedent. As adults reckon with issues of privacy and data protection, she believes kids must also learn what it means to give companies access to their personal information.

Schools are using AI to track what students write on their computers [Simone Stolzoff/Quartz]

(Image: Arizona Education Association and Cryteria CC BY, modified)

“Witch hunt” – it’s a refrain used to deride everything from impeachment inquiries and sexual assault investigations to allegations of corruption.

When powerful men cry witch, they’re generally not talking about green-faced women wearing pointy hats. They are, presumably, referring to the Salem witch trials, when 19 people in 17th-century Massachusetts were executed on charges of witchcraft.

Using “witch hunt” to decry purportedly baseless allegations, however, reflects a misunderstanding of American history. Witch trials didn’t target the powerful. They persecuted society’s most marginal members – particularly women.

Too rich, too poor, too female

In my scholarship on the darker aspects of U.S. culture, I’ve researched and written about numerous witch trials. I teach a college course here in Massachusetts that explores this perennially popular but frequently misinterpreted period in New England history.

Perhaps the most salient point about witch trials, students quickly come to see, is gender. In Salem, 14 of the 19 people found guilty of and executed for witchcraft during that cataclysmic year of 1692 were women.

Across New England, where witch trials occurred somewhat regularly from 1638 until 1725, women vastly outnumbered men in the ranks of the accused and executed. According to author Carol F. Karlsen’s “The Devil in the Shape of a Woman,” 78% of 344 alleged witches in New England were female.

And even when men faced allegations of witchcraft, it was typically because they were somehow associated with accused women. As historian John Demos has established, the few Puritan men tried for witchcraft were mostly the husbands or brothers of alleged female witches.

Women held a precarious, mostly powerless position within the deeply religious Puritan community.

The Puritans thought women should have babies, raise children, manage household life and model Christian subservience to their husbands. Recalling Eve and her sinful apple, Puritans also believed that women were more likely to be tempted by the Devil.

Powerless people

As magistrates, judges and clergy, men enforced the rules of this early American society.

When women stepped outside their prescribed roles, they became targets. Too much wealth might reflect sinful gains. Too little money demonstrated bad character. Too many children could indicate a deal with a devil. Having too few children was suspicious, too.

Mary Webster of Hadley, Massachusetts, was married without children and relied on neighborly charity to survive. Apparently, Webster was not meek and grateful enough for the alms she received: She developed a reputation for being unpleasant.

Webster’s neighbors accused her of witchcraft in 1683, when she was around 60 years old, claiming she worked with the devil to bewitch local livestock. Boston’s Court of Assistants, which presided over cases of witchcraft, declared her not guilty.

Then, a few months after the verdict, one of Webster’s upstanding neighbors, Philip Smith, fell ill. Distraught residents blamed Webster and attempted to hang her, supposedly to relieve Smith’s torments.

Smith died anyway. Webster, however, survived the attempted execution – much to the terror of her neighbors, I imagine.

The accused witch Mary Bliss Parsons, of Northampton, Massachusetts, was the opposite of Webster. She was the wife of the wealthiest man in town and the mother of nine healthy children.

But neighbors found Parsons to be a “woman of forcible speech and domineering ways,” historian James Russell Trumbull wrote in his 1898 history of Northampton. In 1674 she was charged with witchcraft.

Parsons, too, was acquitted. Eventually, continuing witchcraft rumors forced the Parsons family to resettle in Boston.

Stay in line, woman

Prior to Salem, most witchcraft trials in New England resulted in acquittal. According to Demos, of the 93 documented witch trials that happened before Salem, 16 “witches” were executed.

But the accused rarely went unpunished.

In his 2005 book “Escaping Salem,” Richard Godbeer examines the case of two Connecticut women – Elizabeth Clawson of Stamford and Mercy Disborough of Fairfield – accused of bewitching a servant girl named Kate Branch.

Both women were “confident and determined, ready to express their opinions and to stand their ground when crossed.” Clawson was found not guilty after spending five months in jail. Disborough remained imprisoned for almost a year until she was acquitted.

Both had to pay the fines and fees related to their imprisonment.

Woman v woman

Most Puritans who claimed to be victims of witchcraft were also female.

In the famed Salem witch trials, the people “afflicted” by an unexplained “distemper” in 1692 were all teenaged girls.

Initially, two girls from the Reverend Samuel Parris’ household claimed they were being bitten, pinched and pricked by invisible specters. Soon other girls reported similar feelings. Some threw fits, crying out that they saw terrifying specters.

Some have suggested that the girls were faking their symptoms. In a 1700 book, Boston merchant and historian Robert Calef called them “vile varlets.”

Arthur Miller’s play “The Crucible” also casts one of the Salem girls as the villain. His play depicts Abigail – who was, in real life, a girl of 11 – as a manipulative 16-year-old carrying on an affair with a married man. To get his wife out of the way, Abigail makes witchcraft accusations.

Nothing in the historical record suggests an affair. But Miller’s play is so widely staged that countless Americans know only this version of events.

Systematic oppression

Other Salem stories blame Tituba, an enslaved woman in the household of the Reverend Samuel Parris, for teaching witchcraft to the local girls. Tituba confessed to “signing the devil’s book” in 1692, confirming Puritans’ worst fears that the devil was actively recruiting.

But given her position as an enslaved person and a woman of color, it’s almost certain that Tituba’s confession was coerced.

This is why witch trials weren’t just about accusations that today seem baseless. They were also about a justice system that escalated local grievances to capital offenses and targeted a subjugated minority.

Women were both the victims and the accused in this terrible American history, casualties of a society created and controlled by powerful men.

[ You’re smart and curious about the world. So are The Conversation’s authors and editors. You can read us daily by subscribing to our newsletter. ]

Bridget Marshall 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.

[My EFF colleague Katharine is back with a very important message about a singularly stupid and dangerous legislative proposal that is steamrolling through Congress; even by the standards of stupid and dangerous Congressional copyright rules, this one is an exception -Cory]

Every year, for a couple of years now, Congress has debated passing some version of the Copyright Alternative in Small-Claims Enforcement Act (CASE Act). It’s supposed to be the answer to artists’ prayers: a quicker, cheaper way to deal with infringement than going to court. But the way this bill is written (and re-written, and re-written, and re-written) doesn’t do that. It just makes it easy to bankrupt people for sharing memes.

The CASE Act creates a small claims court for copyright claims. Sort of. The maximum amount that can be awarded is $30,000 per proceeding. And the CASE Act allows statutory damages for unregistered works, which is not permitted in courts—so you might actually end up owing more in the “small claims” framework than in a lawsuit. This might be a “small claims” framework in a legal sense, but for the almost 40% of Americans who would have trouble coming up with $400 in an emergency, it won’t feel that way.

And it’s not a court, either. What the CASE Act actually creates is a Copyright Claims Board staffed by Copyright Claims Officers in the Copyright Office. That means your case won’t be heard by a real judge (much less a jury), and many of the hard-won protections you get in court—like a growing understanding of the importance of fair use—may not apply.

So what actually will happen is that a board you’ve likely never heard of will send you a notice that there has been a claim against you. If you ignore it, you’re bound by whatever decision they make, since the CASE Act also makes appealing decisions very difficult.

You can choose to opt out, by sending an opt-out notice to the Copyright Office within 60 days of getting notice of the claim against you. Of course, that would require you to know how to do it and do it correctly, and the CASE Act contains no requirements that it be easy for regular people to opt out. The opt-out mechanism is left to the Copyright Office to create after the bill is passed.

Or you can try to defend yourself, getting a lawyer and still being forced to expend money even if you did nothing wrong.

Large-scale, repeat infringers and infringers with sufficient resources would be able to find their way out of the system. The system would also make it easy for trolls to file claims and then offer to make the claim go away for a little bit less than what going through the system would cost.

A lot of how we use the Internet is based in sharing: memes, images, words, music, whatever we want. The CASE Act could make doing those things—even when they’re perfectly legal to do—feel dangerous. It’s a bad deal all around, which is why you should take the time today to call Congress and tell them not pass this terrible bill.

Our diets can have a big environmental impact. The greenhouse gas emissions involved in producing and transporting various foods has been well researched, but have you ever thought about the water-scarcity impacts of producing your favourite foods? The answers may surprise you.

In research recently published in the journal Nutrients, we looked at the water scarcity footprints of the diets of 9,341 adult Australians, involving more than 5,000 foods. We measured both the amount of water used to produce a food, and whether water was scarce or abundant at the location it was drawn from.

The food system accounts for around 70% of global freshwater use. This means a concerted effort to minimise the water used to produce our food - while ensuring our diets remained healthy - would have a big impact in Australia, the driest inhabited continent on Earth.

Biscuits, beer or beef: which takes the most water to produce?

We found the average Australian’s diet had a water-scarcity footprint of 362 litres per day. It was slightly lower for women and lower for adults over 71 years of age.

A water-scarcity footprint consists of two elements: the litres of water used, multiplied by a weighting depending on whether water scarcity at the source is higher or lower than the global average.

Foods with some of the highest water-scarcity footprints were almonds (3,448 litres/kg), dried apricots (3,363 litres/kg) and breakfast cereal made from puffed rice (1,464 litres/kg).

In contrast, foods with some of the smallest water-scarcity footprint included wholemeal bread (11.3 litres/kg), oats (23.4 litres/kg), and soaked chickpeas (5.9 litres/kg).

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À lire aussi : What's made of legumes but sizzles on the barbie like beef? Australia's new high-tech meat alternative

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It may surprise you that of the 9,000 diets studied, 25% of the water scarcity footprint came from discretionary foods and beverages such as cakes, biscuits, sugar-sweetened drinks and alcohol. They included a glass of wine (41 litres), a single serve of potato crisps (23 litres), and a small bar of milk chocolate (21 litres).

These foods don’t only add to our waistlines, but also our water-scarcity footprint. Previous studies have also shown these foods contribute around 30% of dietary greenhouse gas emissions in Australia.

The second highest food group in terms of contributing to water-scarcity was fruit, at 19%. This includes whole fruit and fresh (not sugar-sweetened) juices. It should be remembered that fruit is an essential part of a healthy diet, and generally Australians need to consume more fruit to meet recommendations.

Dairy products and alternatives (including non-dairy beverages made from soy, rice and nuts) came in third and bread and cereals ranked fourth.

The consumption of red meat - beef and lamb - contributed only 3.7% of the total dietary water-scarcity footprint. These results suggest that eating fresh meat is less important to water scarcity than most other food groups, even cereals.

How to reduce water use in your diet

Not surprisingly, cutting out discretionary foods would be number one priority if you wanted to lower the water footprint of the food you eat, as well as the greenhouse gas emissions of production.

Over-consumption of discretionary foods is also closely linked to weight gain and obesity. Eating a variety of healthy foods, according to energy needs, is a helpful motto.

Aside from this, it is difficult to give recommendations that are relevant to consumers. We found that the variation in water-scarcity footprint of different foods within a food group was very high compared to the variation between food groups.

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À lire aussi : Curious Kids: why can't we just build a pipe to move water to areas in drought?

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For example, a medium sized apple was found to contribute a water-scarcity footprint of three litres compared with more than 100 litres for a 250 ml glass of fresh orange juice. This reflects the relative use of irrigation water and the local water scarcity where these crops are grown. It also takes more fruit to produce juice than when fruit is consumed whole.

Two slices of wholegrain bread had a much lower water-scarcity footprint than a cup of cooked rice (0.9 litres compared with 124 litres). Of the main protein sources, lamb had the lowest water-scarcity footprint per serve (5.5 litres). Lambs are rarely raised on irrigated pastures and when crops are used for feeding, these are similarly rarely irrigated.

Consumers generally lack the information they would need to choose core foods with a lower water-scarcity footprint. Added to this, diversity is an important principle of good nutrition and dissuading consumption of particular core foods could have adverse consequences for health.

Perhaps the best opportunities to reduce water scarcity impacts in the Australian food system lie in food production. There is often very large variation between producers in water scarcity footprint of the same farm commodity.

For example, a study of the water scarcity footprint of tomatoes grown for the Sydney market reported results ranging from 5.0 to 52.8 litres per kg. Variation in the water-scarcity footprint of milk produced in Victoria was reported to range from 0.7 to 262 litres. This mainly reflects differences in farming methods, with variation in the use of irrigation and also the local water scarcity level.

Water-scarcity footprint reductions could best be achieved through technological change, product reformulation and procurement strategies in agriculture and food industries.

Not all water is equal

This is the first study of its kind to report the water-scarcity footprint for a large number of individual self-selected diets.

This was no small task, given that 5,645 individual foods were identified. Many were processed foods which needed to be separated into their component ingredients.

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À lire aussi : Climate explained: what each of us can do to reduce our carbon footprint

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It’s hard to say how these results compare to other countries as the same analysis has not been done elsewhere. The study did show a large variation in water-scarcity footprints within Australian diets, reflecting the diversity of our eating habits.

Water scarcity is just one important environmental aspects of food production and consumption. While we don’t suggest that dietary guidelines be amended based on water scarcity footprints, we hope this research will support more sustainable production and consumption of food.

The author originally disclosed that he undertakes research for Meat and Livestock Australia. His disclosure has been updated to specify that the above research is among the projects to which the MLA has contributed funding.

Brad Ridoutt has undertaken food systems research related to environmental issues for a variety of private sector organizations and Australian government agencies. This includes Dairy Australia and Meat and Livestock Australia - the latter of which partially funded this research.

The Supreme Court begins its annual session on Oct. 7 and will take up a series of cases likely to have political reverberations in the 2020 elections.

Major cases this year address the immigration program for young people (“Dreamers”) known as DACA, the Affordable Care Act (again), and public money for religious schools.

Justices will also consider cases that involve several aspects of defendants’ rights: whether criminal convictions require a unanimous jury, minors can be given a life sentence and a state can abolish the insanity defense.

Some of the most important rulings will address the recognition of rights by the conservative court: gay rights, gun rights and Native rights.

These cases focus on perhaps the deepest divide on the court: Should the justices base their rulings on the contemporary meaning of words in our laws (or in the Constitution itself) as the public understanding of those concepts changes over time?

Or should they insist that our laws can only be changed from their original meaning by the country’s democratic representatives, who are directly accountable to the people?

Gay rights

The justices will consider three cases on LGBT employment rights.

Gerald Bostock was fired by Clayton County, Georgia, because he is gay. Donald Zarda was fired from his job as a tandem sky-dive instructor for being gay (before his death in a BASE-jumping accident). Aimee Stephens transitioned from male to female identity and was fired from her job as a funeral director.

These cases turn on one word’s meaning: the word “sex” in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Does “sex” mean what legislators thought it meant when the law was passed, barring discrimination against women? Or should it be interpreted more broadly now to mean discrimination against any aspect of sexuality?

Gun rights

It has been almost a decade since the court recognized a fundamental right for individual citizens to bear arms. That case was MacDonald v. Chicago, from the city with the highest total number of gun deaths in the nation.

Since that time, the looming question has been what sort of restrictions would be considered constitutional.

New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. New York City puts this question to the test. Licensed gun owners were prevented from transporting firearms outside of their homes, even to a second home or to a shooting competition outside the city. The court must decide if this is a reasonable regulation that leaves the essential right to bear arms intact.

In the midst of growing concern over mass shootings, the ruling may have ramifications for future attempts at gun regulations.

To raise the political stakes even further, five U.S. senators in their now infamous “enemy-of-the-Court” brief threaten that if the court does not dismiss the case, the Senate will have to consider adding more justices to the court in an attempt to shift its partisan balance, known as “packing the Court.”

Native rights

The least-known but potentially most important case of the year is not about widely-discussed gay rights or gun rights, but about Native rights.

Sharp v. Murphy began as a dispute over jurisdiction in a murder prosecution. But it has become a potentially influential case about who represents the rightful government of Eastern Oklahoma.

The historic reservations of the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek and Seminole Nations comprise 40% of Oklahoma land. These tribes were forcibly removed from the eastern U.S. to the Oklahoma Territory in the 1830s, some making the journey along the infamous Trail of Tears.

Since then, parts of their reservation land have been seized by the state government or sold to private citizens, so they are no longer part of the reservation. This includes the city of Tulsa.

The argument in the case is that according to the original treaties the petitioners are asking the court to uphold, those lands are rightfully still under the government of the tribes. What exactly this means in terms of ownership and governance is unclear.

This may at first appear to be a small case about a piece of the American West. But if the Native rights claim is recognized by the court, it may also apply in later cases to a surprisingly large proportion of the United States that was once “Indian country” under official treaties. That is why 10 states filed a friend-of-the-court brief arguing against the Native rights claim.

Bigger implications

The Native rights claims at issue are not individual rights of the type the U.S. Constitution generally contemplates. They are rights held by an ethnic group. The question of who belongs to the group – and hence has access to the group right – is a divisive one because any answer includes some members while excluding others who claim the same identity.

It also is reminiscent of another proposed group right that is being debated in American politics: reparations. This summer the U.S. Congress held contentious hearings to discuss possible payments as reparations for slavery.

But payments to whom? Both Native Americans and African Americans share a distinct problem yet to be solved: how to determine who is a member of the group.

So in the case of reparations: Would they be paid only to direct descendants of slaves? To all African American descendants no matter when their progenitors arrived in the U.S.? To all people who have any black ancestors regardless of their current status or wealth?

Many Native tribes use what’s called the “blood quantum” approach, which forces individuals to document their lineage and proportional ancestry to prove membership. But scholars in this area argue that this approach is fraught with complications in many contexts.

Election 2020

Democratic presidential hopefuls have already grappled with questions around tribal membership and the country’s history of racism. Sen. Elizabeth Warren has dealt with a damaging controversy over her claims to Native American ancestry. Former Vice President Joe Biden has come under fire for his earlier opposition to reparations.

In terms of both legal and political influence, Sharp v. Murphy is a case with potentially major ramifications. And with the combined focus on politically divisive issues like gay rights, gun rights and Native rights, this year’s docket is likely to have an unusually strong presence in the 2020 campaigns.

[ Like what you’ve read? Want more? Sign up for The Conversation’s daily newsletter. ]

Morgan Marietta 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.

40 years of Reaganomic sociopathy has managed to convince hundreds of millions of otherwise sensible people that big, social problems are caused by their personal choices, and not (say) by rapacious corporations that corrupt the regulatory process in order to get away with literal and figurative murder. The Intercept's Sharon Lerner made a short doc on the subject, showing how the inevitable pollution from single-use plastics was rebranded as a matter of individual carelessness, starting with the "Crying Indian" ads, and how that continues to this day, with the plastics industry successfully lobbying states to ban cities from limiting plastic bags, even as those cities have to pay to landfill and clear them away.

Plastic production really began in earnest in the 1950s. It’s hard to remember, but we once got along without it. Of course, plastic offered great convenience, and its production skyrocketed. In 1967, when Dustin Hoffman was advised to go into plastics in “The Graduate,” there were 25 million tons of plastic produced. These days, we’re making 300 million tons. At this point, the plastics industry is worth $4 trillion and almost half of what we’re producing is single-use plastics — things that will be used once and almost instantly become trash.

Public outrage at this problem erupted in 1970, with the first Earth Day, and the industry has been successfully dodging the issue ever since. Through advertising, public outreach campaigns, lobbying, and partnerships with nonprofits designed to seem “green,” plastics industry organizations have been blaming “litterbugs” for the growing menace and promoting the idea of recycling as the solution, while at the same time fighting every serious attempt to limit plastic production.

The Plastics Industry’s Long Fight to Blame Pollution on You [Sharon Lerner/The Intercept]

Detractors have dismissed Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg - a Nobel Prize nominee - as mentally ill, hysterical and a millennial weirdo after she pleaded with world officials last week to address the climate crisis.

Here, two researchers explain the stereotypical labels deployed by critics to undermine Thunberg’s call to action, which the activist herself has described as “too loud for people to handle”.

Camilla Nelson, Associate Professor in Media, University of Notre Dame

Greta Thunberg obviously scares some men silly. The bullying of the teenager by conservative middle-aged men has taken on a grim, almost hysterical edge. And some of them are reaching deep into the misogynist’s playbook to divert focus from her message.

It is not a rhetorical accident that critics of Thunberg, nearly 17, almost always call her a “child”. This infantilisation is invariably accompanied by accusations of emotionality, hysteria, mental disturbance, and an inability to think for herself - stereotypically feminine labels which are traditionally used to silence women’s public speech, and undermine their authority.

In Australia, Herald Sun columnist Andrew Bolt has called Thunberg “freakishly influential … with many mental disorders”. Sky News commentator Chris Kenny described her as a “hysterical teenager” who needs to be cared for.

Overseas, male commentators have used similar pejorative terms - describing her as a “mentally-ill Swedish child”, unstable and a “millenarian weirdo”. One claimed Thunberg needed a “spanking”; another likened her activism to “medieval witchcraft”.

Obviously these men find Thunberg triggering. But why?

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Read more: View from The Hill: What might Lily and Abbey say to Scott Morrison about Greta Thunberg?

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At a deep level, the language of climate denialism is tied up with a form of masculine identity predicated on modern industrial capitalism – specifically, the Promethean idea of the conquest of nature by man, in a world especially made for men.

By attacking industrial capitalism, and its ethos of politics as usual, Thunberg is not only attacking the core beliefs and world view of certain sorts of men, but also their sense of masculine self-worth. Male rage is their knee-jerk response.

Thunberg did not try to be “nice” when she confronted world leaders at the United Nations last week. She did not defer or smile. She did not attempt to make anybody feel comfortable.

US President Donald Trump tweeted: “She seems like a very happy young girl looking forward to a bright and wonderful future. So nice to see!” Happiness here aligns itself with conformity, and an unspoken idea that women and children are expected to be docile and complacent.

But in reality, Thunberg is cutting through - rather than displaying - emotionalism. What certain kinds of men do not wish to acknowledge is that asking for action on climate change is entirely rational.

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Read more: 'We will never forgive you': youth is not wasted on the young who fight for climate justice

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Meg Vertigan, lecturer in English and writing and academic advisor at the University of Newcastle

As Greta Thunberg’s speech to the UN climate summit last week reverberates across the world, claims by critics over her mental state are alarming. Thunberg has described herself as having “Asperger’s”, an autism spectrum disorder, and describes it as her “superpower”.

But politicians and broadcasters appear to have confused the disorder with mental illness - a label used throughout history to label and potentially stigmatise “difficult” women who are told they need bed rest, medication or incarceration. Even today, doctors are more likely to diagnose women than men with depression, even when they present with identical symptoms.

Advocates for people with autism have pointed out the disorder is not linked to mental illness.

Yet commentator Andrew Bolt wrote of Thunberg, “I have never seen a girl so young and with so many mental disorders treated by so many adults as a guru”.

“She seems chronically attracted to apocalyptic visions, to fear,” he wrote, describing her as “chronically anxious and disturbed”.

Not-for-profit organisation Beyond Blue defines anxiety as stress or worry which occurs “without any particular reason or cause”. Therefore by diagnosing Thunberg with anxiety, men are pathologising Thunberg’s concern about the environment and dismissing her fears as baseless and the result of mental illness.

History is littered with examples of this. Former Coalition minister George Brandis in 2015 famously called Labor frontbencher Penny Wong “shrill” and “hysterical” after she interjected during his Senate address - implying her comments were due to feminine mental instability.

So too, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison suggested climate change fears were a type of pathology. Following Thunberg’s UN speech he declared that the climate debate subjected children to “needless anxiety” and suggested they needed more “context and perspective” on the issue. “We’ve got to let kids be kids,” he said.

Here, Morrison is implying that Thunberg’s anxiety is somehow contagious. This is offensive to people with anxiety disorders - and offensive to passionate and vocal women.

The authors 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.

Have you ever thought about what happens to the empty Coke cans and food takeout containers you toss in your recycling bins?

Our research suggests that if you’re like most Americans, you’ve probably never considered this question. This was surprising to us given that, by definition, a recyclable is a product that has future use.

As consumer psychologists, we wondered if emphasizing this transformation in messages promoting recycling would better motivate people to put more of their empty cans, rigid plastic containers and discarded papers into the blue bins.

Americans are bad recyclers

U.S. recycling rates are abysmal.

About 75% of American waste is recyclable, yet just 30% of it is actually recycled. The figures are even worse with materials like plastic. Less than 10% of plastics disposed of in the U.S. in 2015 were recycled.

We noticed that most recycling messages tend to emphasize negative environmental outcomes from not recycling, such as “save the planet” and “conserve resources.” The problem with such messaging is that it may be perceived as coercive or induce guilt, which is partly responsible for the growing problem of “aspirational recycling,” or mixing non-recyclables in with your recycling.

Modifying the message

So we conducted a series of studies to see if getting people to think about the products made out of recycled material could motivate them to actually recycle more and waste less.

For the first one, we recruited 111 Boston College students to participate in an “advertising study.” We asked participants to doodle on a piece of scratch paper to clear their minds for the survey. We then randomly showed them one of three ads. One was a generic public service message that showed paper going into recycling bins. The other two also depicted the paper either being transformed into new paper or a guitar.

After answering some survey questions about the ad they watched, participants were asked to clear their stations and dispose of the scratch paper on their way out. Those who viewed the generic PSA recycled about half the time. Those who saw the transformational messages were significantly more likely to recycle at a rate of about 80%.

We saw a similar recycling boost in a very similar study in which participants – 187 college students – doodled on scrap paper and then either watched ads for toys and phone cases that are made out of recycled plastic or ads emphasizing that the advertised products were made by a company that recycles plastic.

So for a third study, we wanted to understand more about what’s going on here. Why do transformational messages work better?

We showed 150 adults we recruited online one of three recycling advertisements: One depicted discarded plastic bottles being reborn as new bottles, another more generally described how recycling gives these materials a new life, and a third explained how recycling conserves resources.

We then measured the extent to which each message inspired participants to recycle more of their waste. We found that people felt significantly more inspired by the two transformational messages compared with the one emphasizing resource conservation.

Taking the message to the real world

To apply these ideas outside of the lab, we created an ad campaign to see how consumers responded to the different types of messages.

We published paid Google search ads to appear whenever users typed prespecified keywords, such as “womens blue jeans” and “blue denim.”

The ads either urged people to recycle their old jeans in order to transform them into housing insulation or simply encouraged people to recycle them. We found that people were significantly more likely to click on the ad when the transformed product was mentioned.

We also tested this kind of messaging during pre-football game tailgating at Pennsylvania State University.

Student volunteers welcomed tailgaters and shared one of two recycling messages with tailgaters. Half of the volunteers emphasized the transformation of recycled items into new products. The other half just told tailgaters what products they could recycle.

Volunteers recorded the locations of tailgaters they talked to via a GPS-enabled mobile app. After the game, the recycling and trash bags that tailgaters left behind were weighed. Those who received a transformation message recycled over half of their waste, while those who did not recycled less than a fifth.

Recycled soles

Recyclables are not just another form of trash.

They are used every day to make all sorts of new products. More and more companies such as Nike, Timberland and PepsiCo are incorporating post-consumer recycled material into their products and packaging.

We believe it’s not just governments and policymakers who should incorporate these transformation messages into their advertising campaigns but companies should as well. This would not only show consumers that they care about the environment, but perhaps learning that their used plastic bottles may soon be on the soles of their latest Nike shoes would help motivate them to recycle more of their waste.

Emphasizing what people’s recyclable waste can become is a very simple messaging tweak, but our research shows it can make a big difference.

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The authors 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.

Native North Americans first arrived in Florida approximately 14,550 years ago. Evidence for these stone-tool-wielding, megafauna-hunting peoples can be found at the bottom of numerous limestone freshwater sinkholes in Florida’s Panhandle and along the ancient shoreline of the Gulf of Mexico.

Specialized archaeologists using scuba gear, remote sensing equipment or submersibles can study underwater sites if they are not deeply buried or destroyed by erosion. This is important because Florida’s archaeological resources face significant threats due to sea level rise driven by climate change. According to a new U.N. report, global sea levels could increase by over 3 feet by the year 2100.

Archaeological sites contain evidence of what people ate in the past, what kinds of houses they built, how they buried their dead and what they did to memorialize stories, leadership and community. These places literally embody human lives, and are the only records we have of prehistoric indigenous peoples of the New World.

Between the years 1500 and 1850, 2.5 million Europeans migrated to the New World. As a consequence of their arrival, 50 million indigenous people died from disease, massacres and slavery.

As scholars who study anthropology and archaeology, we believe that the genocide of these oral historical and literate societies, native to North, South and Central America, makes it even more important to preserve their ancient sites. Without them, we may never be able to learn the history of the first peoples of this land.

Valuable and vulnerable

At present, 1,539 archaeological sites are located at or below sea level in Florida. By A.D. 2100 up to 6,820 will become submerged by sea level rise.

Florida’s Big Bend region – the eastern half of the Panhandle – contains 541 Native American archaeological sites, found from the coast to inland hills and river valleys. They include earthen and shell mounds and shell middens, or refuse heaps. These sites belong to Deptford, Swift Creek, Weeden Island or Fort Walton and Apalachee cultures, and represent a time period of over 2,000 years of occupation, from 500 B.C. to 1540 A.D.

Archaeological sites belonging to these cultures in the Gulf of Mexico region represent a continuation of earlier lifeways dating as far back as 7,000 years ago. But they also mark shifts in ceramic and stone toolmaking technology, and significant changes in ceremonies associated with monument construction and burial of the dead.

Notable sites in this region include Mound Field, Bird Hammock and Garden Patch – places where hunter-fisher-gatherers built monuments, traded for goods and practiced crafts such as basketry and bead and pottery production.

The Garden Patch site, a barely investigated Middle Woodland shell midden and six-mound complex, is one of Florida’s innumerable cultural resources at risk. With roughly 5 to 6 feet of additional sea level rise, most low-lying areas at the site will be flooded, and saltwater will kill grasses and trees. With no tree cover or vegetation, the site’s mounds, middens and mortuary remains will erode away and be permanently destroyed.

There are cost-effective ways to stabilize the site and make it more resilient to climate change. They include planting salt-tolerant grasses and shrubs, such as spartina and saline-adapted mangroves, and building sea walls and levees to redirect water. However, studies show that hard systems like this are not always effective and can have negative environmental effects on surrounding areas.

An even more effective response is raising public awareness of America’s Native and Indigenous heritage, and encouraging study of these sites while they are still above water.

Saving stories by saving places

Other parts of the Gulf coast, such as the Mississippi River Delta and coastal Louisiana, are comprised mainly of low-lying marshes that are extremely vulnerable to sea level rise. In contrast, Big Bend interior cities like Tallahassee will be relatively well protected by geographic features that prevent seawater from penetrating far inland.

Except for universities, hospitals and government in Leon County and Tallahassee, the main industries in the coastal Big Bend region are fishing, farming and tourism, and the population of the entire area is just 500,000. Relatively few people in this part of Florida will be affected by rising seas compared to large, low-lying cities like Tampa, Miami and Jacksonville, with a collective population of 9.6 million people.

However, infrastructure along the coast will be significantly affected. For example, St. George Island State Park, which is on a 28-mile barrier island, incurred over US$5 million in damage from Hurricane Michael in October 2018, and the entire island will be inundated with as little as one meter, or about 3 feet, of sea level rise.

American history is Native American, African American, Latinx, Asian and European. Our cumulative story begins 15,000 years ago and ends when we decide. In our view, Americans and scholars have an obligation to try to save our collective histories.

By advocating for the study of the past, we hope to encourage documentation of endangered landscapes, collaborative data recording, multi-agency partnerships and acknowledgment that the U.S. is going to lose sites that are parts of its heritage. Rather than focusing on preserving singular parts of America’s past, like Jamestown, Virginia, the first permanent English settlement in North America – which is also in a low-lying and threatened environment – we want to see lesser-known features of America’s past documented and saved as well.

As we see it, Americans’ collective identities are rooted in a shared past and in physical landscapes and places. That makes saving these places important. The first step is talking about them. The next step begins when scholars and the public come together to learn about the past and advocate for preserving it.

Analise Hollingshead, a former graduate student at Florida State University, contributed to this article.

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Jayur Mehta receives funding from Florida State University Council on Research and Creativity and is an executive board member of the Gulf Communities Research Institute.

Tara Skipton 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.

In late September, the world witnessed millions of youth demonstrating across the globe, pushing for climate action. This is arguably the global social movement of our time.

One of the movement’s icons has been Greta Thunberg, a Swedish teenager who began a solo protest outside the Swedish parliament more than a year ago. This week she told U.S. Congress to “listen to the scientists” and gave an impassioned speech at the United Nations, berating adults for leaving it up to youth to make sacrifices and take the lead on climate action.

“How dare you?” was heard around the world.

Youth and adults worldwide have been moved by Thunberg, and her young companions, including Anishinaabe teen Autumn Peltier. But they have also faced skepticism and hostility. Some members of older generations have looked upon these events through jaundiced eyes and questioned their credibility.

The role of social networks

Canadian member of Parliament, former cabinet minister and leader of the People’s Party, Maxime Bernier, called Thunberg “mentally unstable.” Bernier, and others, claim that youth like Thunberg are being manipulated, a sentiment echoed by Fox News. Thunberg was also subtly mocked on Twitter by the President of the United States.

What is the significance of youth climate activism? Are Thunberg and other youth just being manipulated by adults? From a sociological point of view, there are a variety of intriguing aspects to this mass mobilization.

While I am not sure manipulated is the right word, in some cases climate strike participants are influenced by others. Youth leaders actively mobilize other youth at high schools and universities. In some cases youth also consult and interact with adults such as parents, teachers and activists.

Having social network ties and receiving encouragement to participate, is consistently one of the strongest predictors of who gets involved in mass mobilization, no matter how old participants are. Some youth are influenced by others to get involved in protests, but the same is true for adults.

Climate justice

One lens through which to consider these issues is climate justice.

The idea is that those who have contributed the most carbon emissions and benefited the most from them tend to be less affected by the negative consequences of global warming. Those who have contributed less to the problem are typically disproportionately affected. Some dimensions of climate justice involve social class, global North-South citizenship, Indigeneity, race, gender and age cohort.

With regard to intergenerational equity, youth have contributed far less to emissions but during their lives they will be far more affected by climate change. Significantly, in recent decades, in Western countries at least, there are many more courses and programs on environmental topics available in the education system than there were 50 years ago.

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Read more: The Climate Clock: Counting down to 1.5℃

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When thinking about whether the youth participating in these mass mobilizations are being “manipulated,” it is useful to consider the fact that they have a higher stake in tackling climate change than older adults because they are fighting for their future, and on average, they are better educated on these issues.

Nevertheless, there are several apparent puzzles concerning youth involvement in politics and activism. For example, voting-age youth typically have lower voting rates and some research has shown that, demographically, lower numbers of youth are members of established environmental movement organizations.

At the same time, youth who are involved in the environmental movement tend to be relatively more engaged. For example, my research in Canada has shown that age is inversely related to environmentally friendly behaviour (such as taking alternative forms of transportation or reducing waste), environmental activism and having a plan to deal with climate change.

This is due to socialization related to environmental education, current events and information campaigns led by social movements. Youth engagement in activism is also partly a function of “biographical availability” — being more flexible in terms of schedules and less susceptible to sanctions, such as being fired from a job.

Questioning business as usual

One answer for why are some people reacting against the recent waves of youth climate activism might be found from the insights of Bob Inglis. The former Republican, who had long been a climate denier, reversed his stance on climate change in 2010. His decision to come out as a believer in human-caused climate change may have cost him his seat in Congress.

During an interview in the 2014 documentary Merchants of Doubt, Inglis observed that if the scientists are right about climate change, then you are forced to question your whole way of life. This is a hard conclusion to accept, and it is easier psychologically to attack the messengers.

This could be one reason why people like Bernier are savagely attacking Thunberg and other youth. On the other hand, one of the reasons why youth climate activists are able to take on the role of messenger is that they are not nearly as tied to the status quo as older age cohorts.

As sociologist Doug McAdam has noted, if there is hope that social movements will play a significant role solving the climate crisis, it lies with the actions of the world’s youth.

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David Tindall receives research funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. This is an agency that provides funding for academic research. The funding is for research expenses, not the salary of the author. David Tindall has a volunteer affiliation with the Climate Reality Project Canada, for whom he periodically gives educational presentations to public audiences on climate change.

Gavin and Alice Munro are serious about sustainability. On a two-acre field in England's Midlands, they're growing trees that are trained into forming the shape of furniture, including chairs.

A complete dining room set takes about a decade to grow, but they'll sell you items that are pre-grown in an online shop.

Here's a video:

“The couple have a furniture farm in Derbyshire where they are nurturing 250 chairs, 100 lamps and 50 tables,” Reuters reports. “ It is their answer to what they see as the inefficient and carbon-heavy process of cutting down mature trees to create furniture.”

“Instead of force-growing a tree for 50 years and then cutting it down and making it into smaller and smaller bits ... the idea is to grow the tree into the shape that you want directly. It’s a kind of zen 3D printing,” says Gavin.

Gavin and Alice are at fullgrown.co.uk, and they're on Facebook
and Twitter.

There's a shop for pre-grown items. Shut up and take my money.

Read more:
From tree to chair without the carpentry: UK couple grows furniture [Reuters, reporting by George Sargent, images courtesy of full grown furniture]

Some "fancy" brands of teabags are made of polyethylene or nylon and they're shedding microplastics into hot drinks. Delicious! No-one knows if it's bad for you.

Nathalie Tufenkji, a professor of chemical engineering at the Montreal university, was surprised to find one such bag in the tea she ordered from a coffee shop one morning.It looked like plastic, she recalled. "I said, 'Oh God, I'm sure if it's plastic it's, like, breaking down into the tea.'"

So when she got into the lab, she asked her graduate student, Laura Hernandez, to go out and buy a bunch from different brands. Sure enough, Hernandez's lab tests showed that when steeped in hot water, the tea bags released microplastic and even smaller nanoplastic particles — and not just the hundreds or thousands Tufenkji had been expecting.

"We were shocked when we saw billions of particles in a single cup of tea," she said.

Just reading about plastic teabags makes me think I'm taking crazy pills. Plastic teabags! What a marvelous discrepancy between a blatantly hostile fuck-the-environment product and its cosy marketing.

Boing Boing's tea recommendations are all good old fashioned paper bags.

The fashion industry is one of the most polluting industries in the world, producing 20% of global wastewater and 10% of global carbon emissions – and it’s estimated that by 2050 this will have increased to 25%. A staggering 300,000 tonnes of clothes are sent to British landfills each year.

The fast fashion business model, first developed in the early 2000s is responsible for the increase in consumer demand for high quantities of low-quality clothing. Many fashion products now being designed and made specifically for short-term ownership and premature disposal. Clothing quality is decreasing along with costs, and the increased consumption levels of mass-manufactured fashion products are pushing up the consumption of natural resources.

The pressure to facilitate consumer hunger imposes significant social and environmental pressures on the manufacturing supply chain. The UK’s consumption levels of fashion are the highest in Europe, at 26.7kg per capita. This compares to a consumption rate of 16.7kg in Germany, 16kg in Denmark, 14.5kg in Italy, 14kg in the Netherlands and 12.6kg in Sweden.

The need for change is tentatively being acknowledged by fashion brands and manufacturers. Many different market sectors in fashion, from high street to high end, are increasingly taking action. But it’s very conservative. For example, high street retailer H&M are boycotting the use of Brazilian leather over concerns that the country’s cattle industry has contributed to the deforestation of the Amazon rainforest. Meanwhile, other brands, such as Adidas, Stella McCartney and Patagonia, are focusing their action on the use of waste products in the development of textile materials for new collections.

Of course, such policies can only be positive. But are fashion brands really doing enough to change? Recent UN reports state that we have 11 years to prevent irreversible damage from climate change. It’s doubtful that the small, incremental changes made by brands will do enough to significantly contribute towards the fight on climate change, so more pressure from consumers and campaign groups is needed.

Fashion brands are not the only ones who have the power to create change. Consumers also have leverage – and it’s key that they use it. As London Fashion Week opened earlier this month, large protests and demonstrations highlighting fashion’s contribution to climate change reinforced the impact that consumers can have on raising public awareness of environmental issues. Consumer-driven behaviour change can encourage brands to adapt their practices towards a more sustainable future for the fashion industry.

If real change is to happen, more people must begin to take a proactive approach and act in reflection of their moral values. Small lifestyle changes can create a big sustainable impact. So here are four things for you to consider before you buy any new clothes:

1. Think before you buy

Before we just buy more new clothes and contribute to escalating pollution, we need to think about the alternative options. This might not only save us money, but is also certainly better for the environment. These options include using what we have, borrowing, swapping, thrifting and making. Buying new items should be seen as the final choice, once all other options have been considered. This approach goes very much against the principles of fast fashion, with slow and considered consumption being the priority.

2. Shop by your values

We need to think about where we shop, as each purchase effectively acts as a vote towards the practices of a brand. By doing a small amount of research into a company’s responsible values, we can begin to make informed decisions about our shopping behaviour. This will ensuring that your chosen store reflects your personal beliefs.

For example, if you want to know where your fashion comes from then you need to choose a brand that is transparent and open about their supply chain. Brands like Community Clothing, owned by Sewing Bee judge Patrick Grant, tell shoppers exactly where the raw materials were sourced from, where the yarn was produced and even where the final garment was made. Likewise, if you specifically want to take action against ocean plastic waste, then a brand like Ecoalf might be for you.

3. Buy a pre-loved item

The second-hand market is having a revival. Once seen as an edgy, individual and cost-effective method of shopping, it soon fell out of favour, to be replaced by cheap, mass-market product from fast-fashion retailers. But with Oxfam opening their charity superstore and Asda launching a pre-loved fashion pop up shop, buying second-hand clothing can give fashion products a new life and prevent the purchasing of new fashion garments.

4. Dispose responsibly

As well as considering where we buy our clothes, we too must consider the end-of-life options for our fashion items. It is estimated that £140m worth of clothing goes to landfill each year. Many of these items will be made from synthetic fibres, meaning they can take anywhere between 20-200 years to decompose. Again, people should explore a range of options available here, such as donating clothing to charity, recycling, reuse, repair and passing on items to friends and family. Why not hold a clothes swap at your house one weekend?

Responsible procurement, ownership and disposal are all vital considerations when exercising your power to create sustainable change for the future of the fashion industry. Today, shoppers have more influence and ability to create change than ever before, with social media platforms allowing easier voicing of complaints and concerns. Meanwhile, the emergence of a circular economy business model is again pushing consumers to take a more active role in creating change.

We can no longer sit back and wait for brands to take action. Individual drive and willingness to change everyday behaviour will be crucial in changing the future environmental impact of fashion.

Dr Alana James is affiliated with Northumbria University.

Even if you’ve never heard of Greta Thunberg, the 16-year-old Swedish environmentalist who crossed the Atlantic on a sailboat to attend a Sept. 23 United Nations summit on the climate, you may have heard about the student-led Global Climate Strike she helped inspire, planned for Friday, Sept. 20.

People from more than 150 countries are expected to head to the streets to demand climate action. According to the organizers, the strike aims “to declare a climate emergency and show our politicians what action in line with climate science and justice means.”

The strike was galvanized by a global youth movement, whose Friday school walkouts over the last year were themselves inspired by Thunberg’s own three-week strike in August 2018 to demand climate action by the Swedish parliament.

People of all ages will be joining this year’s protests at the United Nations, and adults – with their environmental organizations, climate negotiations and election campaigns – are gradually getting on board. The Union of Concerned Scientists even published an “Adult’s Guide” to the climate strike to help parents of participants get up to speed.

But the kids are clearly leading on climate change – and they’re changing the way we talk about this global challenge, putting ethics at the center of the debate.

Climate change is an ethical problem

Economic assessments of climate change, such as cost-benefit analysis, have for years helped justify political procrastination. By discounting the importance of anticipated harms to people in the future, policymakers can argue that taking actions to address climate change today are too costly.

Short-term thinking by today’s “grown-ups” ignores her generation, Thunberg says.

“When you think about the future today, you don’t think beyond the year 2050,” she said in a 2018 TED talk. “What we do or don’t do right now will affect my entire life and the lives of my children and grandchildren.”

Youth climate activists argue that “our house is on fire” and insist that world leaders act accordingly. They are attuned to the ecological consequences, intergenerational implications and international unfairness of climate change for all people living today.

Scholars in my field of environmental ethics have been writing about climate justice for decades. The arguments vary, but a key conclusion is that the burdens of responding to climate change should be divided equitably – not borne primarily by the poor.

This notion of “common, but differentiated responsibilities” is a fundamental principle of equity outlined in the 1992 United Nations climate change treaty, which laid the groundwork for the many international climate negotiations that have occurred since.

Philosophers like Henry Shue have laid out the reasons that wealthy countries like the United States are morally bound not just to significantly cut their own carbon emissions but also help other countries adapt to a changing climate. That includes contributing financially to the development of climate-friendly energy sources that meet the pressing and near-term basic needs of developing countries.

Historically, wealthy countries have contributed the most and benefited the most from fossil fuel emissions. These same countries have the greatest financial, technological and institutional capacity to shift away from fossil fuels.

Meanwhile, poor countries are often most vulnerable to climate impacts like rising seas, more intense storms and eroding coastlines.

For these reasons, many environmental ethicists hold, wealthy high-emitting countries should lead the way on mitigation and finance international climate adaption. Some even argue that rich countries should compensate affected countries for the climate loss and damage.

Practical, not ethical

Political leaders tend to dodge questions of ethics in their policymaking and global debates on climate change.

According to Stephen Gardiner, a philosopher at University of Washington, climate policy often focuses on “practical” considerations like efficiency or political feasibility.

U.S. climate negotiators in particular have for decades pushed back against ethically grounded differentiated responsibilities and resisted top down mandatory emissions cuts, seeking a more politically palatable option: Voluntary emissions cuts determined by each country.

And some legal scholars say a climate policy based not on ethics but on self-interest might be more effective.

University of Chicago law professors Eric Posner and David Weisbach have gone so far as to suggest, on efficiency grounds, that developing nations should pay wealthy countries to emit less, since poorer and more vulnerable nations have more to lose as a result of the climate crisis.

The kids aren’t buying it

Young activists like Greta Thunberg are reversing the marginalization of ethics from climate conversations.

With their focus on challenging “systematic power and inequity” and respect and reciprocity, they recognize that virtually all decisions about how to respond to climate change are value judgments.

That includes inaction. The status quo – a fossil fuel-dominated energy economy – is making the rich richer and the poor poorer. Sticking with business as usual, the argument goes, places more importance on near-term benefits enjoyed by some than on the longer-term consequences many will suffer.

Polls show the youth are concerned and engaged. Youth activists are explicitly calling attention to the harm climate change is causing now and the harm it threatens for the future – and demanding action. And they are working internationally, in a global movement of solidarity.

Scholarship on climate ethics is robust, but it has had limited effects on actual policy. Young people, on the other hand, are communicating the ethical issues clearly and loudly.

In doing so, they are demanding accountability from adults. They are asking us to consider what our resistance to change means for the world they will inherit.

Recently, my high school-aged daughter pulled a wrinkled climate strike flier out of her backpack, asking, “Can I skip school and go?”

I asked myself, “What am I saying if I say no?”

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Marion Hourdequin serves on a National Academies of Sciences study committee that studies climate intervention strategies that reflect sunlight to cool Earth. The views expressed in this article are her own.

Not only is the purported "healing" power of crystals total bullshit, but most of these "magical" talismans come from mines rife with exploitation, danger, environmental ruin, and shady business practices. Good vibes, eh? Tess McClure investigates for The Guardian:

Madagascar is one of the poorest countries in the world, but beneath its soil is a well-stocked treasure chest. Rose quartz and amethyst, tourmaline and citrine, labradorite and carnelian: Madagascar has them all. Gems and precious metals were the country’s fastest-growing export in 2017 – up 170% from 2016, to $109m. This island country of 25 million people now stands alongside far larger nations, such as India, Brazil and China, as a key producer of crystals for the world. And in a country where infrastructure, capital and labour regulation are all in short supply, it is human bodies rather than machinery that pull crystals from the earth. While a few large mining companies operate in Madagascar, more than 80% of crystals are mined “artisanally” – meaning by small groups and families, without regulation, who are paid rock-bottom prices....

Landslides are not the only danger for miners. Smashed rocks create fine dust and quartz particles can penetrate deep into the lungs. There, they fester, inflaming surrounding cells, increasing the risk of lung cancer and silicosis. Child labour is also widespread: the US Department of Labor and the International Labour Organization estimate that about 85,000 children work in Madagascar’s mines.

"Dark crystals: the brutal reality behind a booming wellness craze" (The Guardian)

image: "Mineral Quartz Crystal" by Ken Hammond (Public Domain)