Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Bruce Glavovic, Professor, Massey University

Coastal cities and settlements are on the climate change frontline. They are our first line of defence, facing some of the highest climate risks. But they are also where transformative climate-resilient development can happen.

This is one of the key findings in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Sixth Assessment Report on Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability, released overnight.

I have contributed to the section on coastal cities, which concludes:

Realising global aspirations for climate resilient development depends on the extent to which coastal cities and settlements […] close the coastal adaptation gap, and take urgent action to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions.

This is especially relevant for Aotearoa New Zealand and Australia because our people, the things we value and our economies and livelihoods are concentrated along the shoreline.

Resilient and sustainable coastal livelihoods depend on maintaining diverse, productive and healthy coastal ecosystems in the face of global change.

Read more:
IPCC report: this decade is critical for adapting to inevitable climate change impacts and rising costs

Severe disruption to coastal livelihoods is inevitable

A large proportion of the world’s population and critical infrastructure is already concentrated along shorelines. Nearly 11% of the global population, about 896 million people, live on low-elevation coasts directly exposed to climate and non-climate coastal hazards. These cities and settlements are growing rapidly as people move to the coast.

Prospects for climate-resilient development are dismal because of accelerating sea-level rise and rapidly worsening climate-driven risks in a warming world. But coastal settlements nonetheless play a key role in advancing climate-resilient development because they are critical for national economies and global maritime trade.

The IPCC’s earlier report showed that global mean sea level has risen faster since 1900 than during any preceding century in at least the last 3000 years. This latest report reiterates that unavoidable sea-level rise will cause cascading and compounding impacts. This includes the loss of coastal ecosystems and their services, groundwater salinisation, flooding and damage to coastal infrastructure.

Read more:
New IPCC report shows Australia is at real risk from climate change, with impacts worsening, future risks high, and wide-ranging adaptation needed

Globally, we expect about a billion people will be at risk from coast-specific climate hazards under all emissions scenarios. In coming decades, the risk of coastal flooding will increase rapidly. It could be two to three orders of magnitude greater by 2100, without effective adaptation and mitigation.

Historically rare extreme sea-level events (that occurred once in 100 years in the past) will happen annually by 2100. Some atolls will become uninhabitable by 2050. If global mean sea level rises by 0.15m relative to current levels, the population at risk of a 100-year coastal flood increases by about 20%. This number doubles at 0.75m and triples at 1.4m, assuming present-day population and protection.

Sea-level rise as existential threat

By 2100, the value of global assets within one-in-100-year coastal floodplains is projected to reach US$7.9 to $12.7 trillion under a mid-range emissions scenario. In a high-emissions world, it could rise up to $14.2 trillion.

These impacts will be felt well beyond coastal cities. Damage to ports could severely compromise global supply chains and maritime trade, with potentially major geo-political and economic ramifications.

Sea-level rise constitutes a chronic adaptation challenge. It requires dealing with slow-onset changes in parallel with increasing frequency and magnitude of extreme events that will escalate in coming decades. At centennial timescales, projected sea-level rise constitutes an existential threat for many island nations, low-lying coastal zones and their communities, infrastructure and cultural heritage.

Even if we stabilise global warming at 2–2.5℃ above pre-industrial levels, coastlines will continue to reshape over millennia. This will affect at least 25 megacities and, by 2100, inundate low-lying areas currently home to 0.6–1.3 billion people.

Global aspirations for climate-resilient development

Extensive adaptation planning has taken place since the IPCC’s previous assessment. But widespread implementation is lacking and this has created a pronounced “coastal adaptation gap”.

We need to close this gap quickly. The report finds we already have effective ways to prepare for impacts and to cut emissions, but they must be embedded in development planning to reduce vulnerability and restore ecosystems.

This depends on governments, civil society and the private sector making inclusive choices that prioritise risk reduction, equity and justice. We will also need to integrate decision-making processes, finance and actions across all governance levels and timeframes.

International cooperation will be crucial. We will need to strengthen partnerships with traditionally marginalised groups, including youth, Indigenous peoples, local communities and ethnic minorities.

This will require us to reconcile divergent interests, values and worldviews. We need to reduce structural vulnerabilities to climate change through carefully designed and implemented legal and policy interventions, from the local to global level, that take into account prevailing inequities.

Rights-based approaches that focus on capacity building, meaningful participation of the most vulnerable groups and their access to key resources, including finance, play a crucial role in reducing climate risk and enabling transformative adaptation.

Planning and decision-making processes should identify “low regrets” options that allow us to reduce emissions and prepare for impacts in the face of deep uncertainty and contestation. Governance for climate-resilient development is most effective when supported by formal and informal institutions and practices that remain flexible enough to respond to emergent risks.

As sentinels on the climate change frontline, coastal cities and settlements play a pivotal role in global efforts to adapt to unfolding climate change impacts and to navigate perilous times ahead.

This report deepens the findings of the IPCC’s earlier report about the world’s oceans and icescapes. It identifies five core conditions for coastal cities and settlements to fulfil their role in climate-resilient development.

• Take a long-term perspective when making short-term decisions by keeping options open to adjust as sea-level rises and avoiding new development in high-risk locations

• enable more effective coordination by establishing networks across different governance levels and policy domains to build trust and legitimise decisions

• reduce social and climate injustice by taking historical conditions, including past emissions, and prevailing political realities into account and proactively reducing vulnerability and inequity

• strengthen local democracy by facilitating participation, involving stakeholders early and consistently through to implementation, with particular attention to engaging Indigenous people and marginalised and vulnerable groups

• develop governance capabilities to tackle complex problems by drawing on multiple knowledge systems, including Indigenous, local and scientific knowledge to co-design more acceptable and effective responses.

Bruce Glavovic receives funding from a variety of bodies that provide academics with research funding usually through contested grant processes.

– ref. IPCC report: Coastal cities are sentinels for climate change. It’s where our focus should be as we prepare for inevitable impacts – https://theconversation.com/ipcc-report-coastal-cities-are-sentinels-for-climate-change-its-where-our-focus-should-be-as-we-prepare-for-inevitable-impacts-177726

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Paola Magni, Senior Lecturer in Forensic Science, Murdoch University

The oldest book of zoology was published on clay tablets more than 3,600 years ago, and reported the names of 396 types of wild animals known at the time. Ten of them were different kinds of fly.

Flies have lived alongside humans since the dawn of history, feeding on our bodily fluids and other organic waste such as meat and vegetable scraps. When an adult female blowfly finds some juicy decaying material – typically a carcass – she may lay hundreds of eggs or tiny maggots in it.

So flies use us, our products, our waste, and even the bodies of our dead. How can we use them in return?

One way is the science of forensic entomology. At a crime scene, flies and maggots can be used to determine how long it has been since a person or animal died, if they have been moved or neglected prior to death – and what drugs or poisons they had in their system.

From flies on a sickle to modern forensics

The first recorded instance of flies helping out in a murder case was during the 13th century.

A Chinese judge named Sung T’zu was sent to investigate a fatal stabbing in a rice field.

At the scene of the murder, he asked all the workers to lay down their sickles. After a short time, several flies swarmed on one of the sickles, attracted by the smell of invisible traces of blood.

Sung T’zu wrote about the case in The Washing Away of Wrongs, the oldest known book on forensic medicine, printed in 1247. He showed how thinking “outside the box” using clues from nature can help in forensic investigations.

It was several more centuries before the scientific method was applied to the use of flies in criminal investigations. The discipline of forensic entomology as we know it was not born until 1894, with the publication of Carrion Fauna: The Application of Entomology to Legal Medicine, by the French army veterinarian and entomologist Jean Pierre Mégnin.

Read more:
Meet the maggot: how this flesh-loving, butt-breathing marvel helps us solve murders

Since then, research on blowfly growth rates, decomposition patterns in different environments and use of blowflies to clean up the wounds (debridement or “maggot” therapy) have gained momentum.

Often flies can help estimate the time of death, as an entomologist can identify the flies or maggots, look at environmental conditions such as temperature, and thereby calculate the amount of time they have been growing.

Forensic entomologists are often involved at crime scenes, and many suspicious deaths of humans and animals have been solved with the help of insects.

You are what you eat

However, drugs and poisons can also affect how attractive blowflies find the carcass, and how quickly maggots grow on it. This means we often need to identify what drugs or poisons we are dealing with.

This can be found by analysing blood, urine, solid tissue or hairs from the dead body. But in some cases all that remains is a skeleton, so these are unavailable.

In these cases, we need to think outside the box, just like Sung T’zu. The old adage says “you are what you eat”, so insects feeding on a body should take in substances from the body and store them in their own bodies.

Furthermore, insects’ hard external skeleton is made of chitin, a comparable substance to the keratin protein from which hair is made. Similarly to hair keratin, insect chitin stores drugs for a long time, which is helpful for toxicological analyses.

Insects collected from a carcass can be used as alternative toxicological specimens in situations where traditional sources are not available. Knowing the effect of the toxins on the life cycles of the flies can be used to adjust what we know about their growth rates.

In the early 1970s, the Finnish biologist Pekka Nuorteva showed mercury from a fish carcass could transfer to carrion flies. A few years later a similar analysis was used to determine whether a murder victim had lived in a polluted area. By 1977 the hybrid discipline of entomotoxicology (entomology + toxicology) became a reality.

When tissues and fluids are unavailable, insects are more reliable than hair to detect drug use just before death. They are also easier to analyse than decomposed matter.

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Mummies have had a bad wrap – it’s time for a reassessment

What’s more, they are available for a very long time. Empty fly puparial cases (cocoons left in the environment by the adult fly after its metamorphosis) as well as skin of carrion beetles have even been used for toxicological studies of mummified bodies found weeks, months, or even years after death.

And since cocaine has been detected in the hair of
3,000-year-old Peruvian mummies, it might also be possible to detect drugs in the insects associated with ancient skeletal remains.

Ice and antifreeze

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been an increase in drug overdose deaths and also pet poisonings.

My research group is developing ways to detect a range of drugs and other substances commonly found in the suspicious death of humans and animals.

One of these is methamphetamine, a large problem for Australian law enforcement and health authorities. Another is ketamine, a sedative and hallucinogen sometimes used to facilitate sexual assault.

Read more:
Ice age: the rise of crystal meth in Australia

We have also studied the effect of cheap, dangerous, and readily available poisons on blowflies, including

• nicotine, which can be lethal if ingested from e-cigarette refills or if passed through the skin via nicotine patches

• car antifreeze (ethylene glycol), as it is sometimes used to make home-made alcoholic drinks or consumed by homeless people in winter in the hope to keep themselves warm at night

• endosulfan, a pesticide often used to make poison baits to kill animals.

More to be done

Many compounds (such as drugs, metals and pesticides) as well as accelerants and gunshot residues have been detected in insect tissues in a forensic context. However, fewer than 100 such studies have been carried out.

Furthermore, older research often lacks consistency, robust study protocols and method validations. Standard protocols and more sophisticated analytical methods can provide more accurate results that will hold more weight in court.

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

– ref. Flies, maggots and methamphetamine: how insects can reveal drugs and poisons at crime scenes – https://theconversation.com/flies-maggots-and-methamphetamine-how-insects-can-reveal-drugs-and-poisons-at-crime-scenes-176981

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alexander Gillespie, Professor of Law, University of Waikato

New Zealand’s official response to Russian aggression and violations of international law have so far been strong – but they could go further.

While no NATO-aligned country can – under any circumstances – put boots on the ground in Ukraine (which could lead to world war), New Zealand must do everything tangibly possible to oppose the Russian invasion.

To that end, New Zealand’s sanctions regime must be nothing less than those of its allies. This should extend to passing legislation under urgency to allow sanctions beyond those mandated by the United Nations (UN).

Avoiding the need for UN approval is essential because of Russia’s Security Council veto. As other like-minded countries provide military hardware to Ukraine, New Zealand should also consider offering logistical support, with non-lethal military aid such as body armour and medical packs being a minimum.

New Zealand should continue to strengthen its relationship with NATO and consider seeking to become an “enhanced opportunity partner” as Australia did in 2014. Finally, the government needs to reflect on whether its current defence spend and strategic focus are adequate for the world we now live in.

Decline of the UN

These measures are warranted, given the state of the United Nations Charter. Designed to prevent the scourge of war and uphold international law, there are now tank tracks all over it.

In theory, UN member states promise to settle disputes by peaceful means and refrain from the threat or use of force against other sovereign nations. Those commitments are supplemented with bilateral arrangements.

Read more:
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Just such an arrangement underpinned Ukraine’s decision in 1994 to hand its nuclear arsenal over to Russia in return for Russia promising to respect its independence, sovereignty and existing borders.

But two decades of decline lie behind today’s crisis. Since the end of the 1990s we have witnessed the continued destabilisation of the international architecture designed to keep peace.

Erosion of international law

We can trace this decline to the US withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty with Russia in 1999. That same year, NATO (whose member states regard an attack on one as an attack on all) began to expand eastward.

The UN’s effectiveness was dealt a serious blow by the unlawful US invasion of Iraq in 2003, while further NATO expansion in 2004 added to Moscow’s anxiety. But Russia appeared to learn by example.

Read more:
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Military interventions in Chechnya and Georgia, and support for the Assad regime in Syria from 2011, were followed by Russian recognition of breakaway eastern regions of Ukraine in 2014 and its illegal annexation of Crimea the next year.

Russia then withdrew from the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe and in 2016 quit the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court (which the US has never even joined).

Meanwhile, then-US president Donald Trump pulled out of the Intermediate Nuclear Range Treaty (which kept intermediate range nuclear weapons out of Europe) and then exited the Open Skies Treaty which gave European and allied nations the ability to verify arms control commitments.

Putin’s impossible demands

The net result is today’s parlous situation. Whether Russia will try to annex all or just some of Ukraine we cannot say. But before the invasion Putin put peace offers on the table in the form of two draft treaties, one for the US and one for the other NATO states.

Essentially, Putin is proposing the removal of collective defence guarantees by NATO in eastern Europe. He believes this is fair, based on the unwritten promises after the Cold War that former Soviet bloc countries would not join NATO.

Read more:
What can the West do to help Ukraine? It can start by countering Putin’s information strategy

Those promises were never made into a legally binding treaty, however, and Putin now wants that changed. Specifically, he wants a rollback of NATO forces and weaponry in the former Soviet allies to 1997 levels.

Russia also wants the US to pledge it will prevent further eastward expansion of NATO, and a specific commitment that NATO will never allow Ukraine or other bordering nations (such as Georgia) to join the western alliance.

But the prospect of a nuclear power like Russia dictating what its neighbour states can or can’t join is untenable in 2022. If anything, applications to join NATO are more likely to increase in the wake of the Ukraine invasion.

Read more:
Putin is on a personal mission to rewrite Cold War history, making the risks in Ukraine far graver

Where now for NZ?

These are sobering times for small countries like like New Zealand that rely on a rules-based international order for their peace and security.

With the failure of various treaties and the basic principles of international law to deter Putin, and the UN rendered virtually impotent by Russia’s veto power, New Zealand needs other ways to respond to such superpower aggression.

Until a semblance of normality and respect for the UN Charter and international treaties return, small states must focus on their core foreign policy values and finding common ground with friends and allies.

By being part of a united front on sanctions, military aid, humanitarian assistance and defence, New Zealand can leverage its otherwise limited ability to influence events in an increasingly lawless world.

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

– ref. Ukraine crisis: how do small states like New Zealand respond in an increasingly lawless world? – https://theconversation.com/ukraine-crisis-how-do-small-states-like-new-zealand-respond-in-an-increasingly-lawless-world-177919

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nicholas Wood, Associate Professor, Discipline of Childhood and Adolescent Health, University of Sydney

Public health measures to control COVID, including social distancing, masks, border closures and reduced international travel, have worked to reduce the impact of COVID.

But they’ve also led to a reduction, or changed the pattern, of other respiratory infections such as influenza, whooping cough and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV).

A Productivity Commission report released last month showed whooping cough rates in 2020–21 were the lowest they’d been in years.

Australia also didn’t experience much of a flu season in 2020 or 2021. This is good news as we didn’t want to have both flu and COVID circulating in high numbers.

One concern, though, is these low rates may have lulled us into complacency. It might mean many people haven’t been in any rush to get their flu vaccine.

What’s more, because very few of us have had these infections over the past two years, we have probably experienced less of a boost in any “natural” immunity.

We need to be wary of these infections bouncing back, especially as we head into winter and our borders open to international travellers.

The Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (ATAGI) last week released advice urging all Australians to get a flu vaccine once available, which is likely to be in March.

Read more:
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Flu rates are way down

Influenza activity is tracked at a global level by the World Health Organisation and used to decide on which flu strains are covered in the vaccine each year.

In Australia it is a “notifiable disease”. This means laboratory-confirmed cases are reported to our National Notifiable Diseases Surveillance System.

In 2020, there were 21,266 notifications of laboratory-confirmed influenza to this system — almost eight times lower than the five-year average, which is 163,015.

In 2021, there were only 598 notifications up to early November.

It’s important to note some of the reduction in flu cases being notified could be due to fewer people presenting to health-care centres and being tested. This means we may undercount flu cases, especially mild ones.

However, we have also seen a reduction in more severe cases leading to hospitalisations and deaths due to flu, suggesting it’s a real decrease.

Whooping cough is down too

Whooping cough (also called pertussis) is at historically low levels.

We usually experience an upsurge in whooping cough cases every three to five years. This is probably because we get a natural immune boost after exposure, which then tends to limit the spread and so the epidemic ends, however when our natural immune boost wanes we may then get an increase in cases.

It’s also a “notifiable disease”.

Our last big year was 2015–16, and if we followed the normal pattern we should have seen an increase in 2020–21.

In previous years, notifications of whooping cough have been over 100 per 100,000 children, with the highest rates of 287 per 100,000 in 2015–16 and 357 per 100,000 in 2011–12.

But in 2020–21 there were only 116 cases notified in children under 14 years old. That’s a rate of 2.4 per 100,000 children, substantially lower than 2011–12 and 2015–16.

RSV has changed

Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is a common viral infection that usually leads to an increase in hospitalisations every year, often before the arrival of flu. It can be particularly severe in infants under one year old.

The COVID pandemic and associated public health measures may be behind a shift in the timing of RSV infections.

In NSW from 2015 to 2019, the peak of infections was in autumn and winter. But in 2020, the peak of infections shifted to early summer.

In 2020, RSV hospitalisations were lower in infants under 12 months and higher in two to four year olds, compared to previous years (2014–19).

Vaccines are important for other diseases, too

The reduction in flu, RSV and whooping cough is likely due to COVID public health measures.

However, for whooping cough, the protection of our youngest infants is probably also due to the impact of maternal whooping cough vaccines during pregnancy.

We don’t have much data on this yet, but one paper from Victoria showed an increase in whooping cough vaccine uptake among pregnant women. It climbed from about 38% to over 80% between 2015 and 2017. Another paper from southeast Queensland showed whooping cough vaccine coverage in pregnant women was approximately 70%.

Read more:
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Real world effectiveness studies have shown a whooping cough vaccine during pregnancy is more than 90% effective in preventing young infant hospitalisations from the disease.

For this reason, health authorities in Australia, the US and UK recommend a whooping cough vaccine be given during every pregnancy.

Australian health authorities also recommend pregnant women get flu and COVID vaccines.

We can’t be complacent

Concerns about visiting health-care providers during COVID may have meant a fall in vaccine coverage for other diseases. This has occurred in some countries and has prompted an alert from the World Health Organization.

Also, it’s clear fewer people have been naturally exposed to flu in the last two years. It’s possible having a flu infection in one year may give you some protection in subsequent years (though you really don’t want to get the flu).

Both of these factors may mean we have lower protection when we finally get a flu season.

With winter approaching and borders opening up, it’s possible we may see the emergence of flu again this year.

In the meantime talk to your GP about any vaccines – including flu when it’s available – that you and your children may need to catch up on.

Nicholas Wood received funding from the NHMRC for a Career Development Fellowship 2018 to 2021. He holds a Churchill fellowship awarded in 2019

– ref. Respiratory infections like whooping cough and flu have plummeted amid COVID. But ‘bounce back’ is a worry – https://theconversation.com/respiratory-infections-like-whooping-cough-and-flu-have-plummeted-amid-covid-but-bounce-back-is-a-worry-176692

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Angela Lehmann, Honorary Lecturer, College of Arts and Social Sciences, Australian National University

The future of Australia’s international education sector is on the drawing board. In the midst of Australia’s COVID-19 surge, the federal government released the Australian Strategy for International Education 2021-2030. It paints a future for the sector built around increased diversification and a focus on student support and well-being.

Looking at Australia’s international education sector through a gendered lens reveals the importance of female students in any recovery strategy. In particular, we need to understand the factors that either attract or dissuade female students from studying abroad. This can help those working in international education to better understand what services and supports these students need.

In a report released today, my analysis of the most recent available data (2020) shows the first year of the pandemic had different impacts on female and male international students.

Female enrolments have grown much faster

International education in Australia is becoming increasingly female. The numbers of female international students rose by 22% between 2016 and 2020 despite the pandemic drop of 2020. In the same period, male enrolments grew by 18%.

This feminising trend is part of a global phenomenon of women increasingly seeking education abroad. Globally, women’s enrolment in higher education has grown almost twice as fast as the male enrolment rate in the past four decades.

The trend is mainly due to increased equity and access for women. As women’s participation in higher education has grown, so has their participation in global student mobility.

What are the trends in source countries?

Several countries send more women than men to study in Australia. Most of these are in North-East and South-East Asia. Each has had rapid economic growth in the past 40 years with women’s participation rising at all levels of domestic education.

Enrolments from female-majority markets were relatively stable in the first year of the pandemic. While all these countries besides Vietnam sent fewer students to Australia in 2020 than in 2019, the gender ratio remained the same. Overall, female students from this group of countries did not choose to delay their studies or study elsewhere at a higher rate than male students.

Female-dominant sending countries were among Australia’s most stable sources of students during the early days of the pandemic.

China has been behind much of the growth in female students arriving in Australia. More than 54% of Chinese students studying at Australian institutions are female.

This mirrors the overall growth in the proportion of women leaving China for study. There was a five-fold increase in the four decades after the economic reforms of the late 1970s. Today 60% of outgoing students from China are female.

Questions about whether Chinese students will return to Australia, in what numbers and how to best support them are largely also questions about gendered aspirations, careers and expectations.

Read more:
‘You’re running down a dead end’: stranded students feel shame and pressure to give up study

What about the markets with more male students?

The story from countries that send more males than females to Australia was quite different in the first year of the pandemic. These countries are mostly located in South Asia and the Middle East, rather than the Asia-Pacific region.

Male-majority markets experienced larger drops in overall enrolments in 2020. Student numbers from India, Australia’s second-largest source country, fell by 24% between 2019 and 2020. At the same time, the percentage of female enrolments from all these countries – with the exception of Oman – increased.

These data suggest male students in these countries changed their minds or delayed their Australian studies during the early pandemic months at a greater rate than female students.

With the exception of India, male-majority sending countries send fewer students to Australia than female-majority nations. Take out the two largest markets – China and India – and the disparity is even greater.

The top five female-dominant markets, even without their largest contributor, are still responsible for more than twice as many students enrolled in Australia as the top five male-dominant markets.

A female success story in other ways too

Australia’s female international students are the most successful of all our university student cohorts. They continued to have higher rates of academic success in 2020 than their male counterparts and all domestic students. International female students are traditionally relatively successful in Australian undergraduate courses.

During the rapid digital transformation of our institutions during 2020, international students continued to maintain – and in fact increase – their academic edge.

Female international students are largely resilient, successful and are looking to gain more than qualifications during their time in Australia. Research shows many of them study abroad to experience a new way of life and greater independence, alongside gaining a degree. Understanding this cohort – their ambitions, their drivers and what support they need – will be key to Australia’s international education sector’s recovery.

Angela Lehmann works for The Lygon Group.

– ref. How women could be the answer to Australia’s international education crisis – https://theconversation.com/how-women-could-be-the-answer-to-australias-international-education-crisis-177740

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Miles Pattenden, Senior Research Fellow, Institute for Religion and Critical Inquiry, Australian Catholic University

The past few days have seen a spate of videos showing Ukrainians and their president defying an onslaught of Russian aggression. Who could fail to be moved by the video of a Ukrainian woman confronting an armed and jackbooted soldier, telling him to put sunflower seeds in his pockets so at least sunflowers will grow where he dies.

Or President Zelenskyy’s heroic selfies from Kyiv’s front line, which inspire far more widely than just among his countrymen?

Ukrainians are used to adversity and they have a special medieval role model who personifies their bravery in the face of hardship. The Mongol horde destroyed her tomb in Kyiv in 1240 but a Ukrainian Orthodox cathedral dedicated to her was consecrated there as recently as 2010.

Olga of Kyiv, consort of Igor, second ruler of the Rurikid dynasty, is today recognised as one of Eastern Orthodoxy’s greatest saints. A fierce and proud woman who protected her young son and avenged her husband’s death, she was a crucial figure in the consolidation of the medieval kingdom of Kyivan Rus’ as a political entity and in its peoples’ conversion to Christianity.

Olga was born to Viking parents in Pskov, northern Russia, around the turn of the 10th century. She married Prince Igor young and may have been only 20 when the Drevlians, a neighbouring tribe, rose up against his rule and murdered him.

The Byzantine chronicler Leo the Deacon gives gruesome details of Igor’s killing: he was tied to two tree trunks which were then released so his body was split in two. Leo’s account may have been embellished (the ancient historian Diodorus of Sicily in fact tells a similar tale), but Igor’s death still left his wife and three-year-old son alone and potentially helpless in a particularly dangerous and brutal corner of the medieval world.

Burying her enemies

Olga’s legend was born of her actions in the weeks and months that followed. The Drevlians sent her emissaries to suggest she marry their leader Prince Mal. The Primary Chronicle, an 11th-century manuscript which is our main source for what follows, records Olga as greeting them deceptively, apparently to bide for time.

The account may be part-fictitious or at least exaggerated. Yet that is not the point: in medieval hagiography it is the morality of the tale that matters most.

“Your proposal is pleasing to me”, Olga told her interlocutors. “Indeed, my husband cannot rise again from the dead. But I desire to honour you tomorrow in the presence of my people. Return now to your boat, and remain there […] I shall send for you on the morrow […]

The hubristic Drevlian delegation took her at her word gleefully. But what they did not know was that she had arranged for a trench to be dug into which they and their boat were flung.

They were buried alive.

Olga summoned a second Drevlian embassy before the rest of the tribe had had time to learn of the first one’s fate. When they arrived she commanded her people to draw a bath for them.

The Drevlians then entered the bathhouse but Olga ordered the doors to be bolted and the building set ablaze.

For a third reprisal, Olga went to the place where the Drevlians had killed her husband, telling those present she wished to hold a funeral feast to commemorate him. Once the Drevlians were drunk and incapacitated she had her men massacre them.

Finally, she laid siege to the Drevlians’ base at Iskorosten (the modern-day Ukraine city of Korosten). She tricked those inside the city with an offer of peace: all they had to give up were three pigeons and three sparrows from each house.

But when Olga had the birds in her possession she had her men tie a sulphurous cloth to one of each one’s legs. The birds flew back to their nests for the night and the sulphur set every building on fire simultaneously.

Olga ordered her soldiers to catch everyone who fled the burning city so they could be extirpated or taken into slavery.

Her revenge for her husband’s death was at last complete.

Channelling St Olga’s spirit

Olga lived a further 25 years, residing in her son’s capital of Kyiv. She was instrumental in persuading him not to abandon the Ukrainian lands for “better prospects” further south on the Danube’s bank. Her grandson, Volodymyr the Great (c.958-1015), then expanded the kingdom into what is now seen as the first Russian principality (which Vladimir Putin now views as the forerunner of the imperial Russian state).

Volodymyr too is acknowledged as a saint for his role in completing the Christianisation Olga had started.

Olga’s Mad Max-style ventures ought to grate with us a bit today: the modern world really shouldn’t be a site of such bloodshed. That is why Russia’s sudden large-scale invasion into a peaceful country strike us as so shocking.

Yet Olga’s memory can clearly still provide an important focal point for Ukrainian resolve.

The Eastern Orthodox and Greek Catholic Churches recognise her with the venerable and extraordinary title “Isapóstolos”: Equal to the Apostles. She and Kyiv’s patron saint, St Michael the Archangel, remain key figures of intercession among those who need comfort in an hour of greatest need.

And Olga’s Christian faith, acquired during a visit to Byzantium late in life, can sustain others now just as it sustained her after her own tribulations.

Miles Pattenden has previously received research funding from the British Academy, the European Commission, and the Government of Spain.

– ref. Saint Olga of Kyiv is Ukraine’s patron saint of both defiance and vengeance – https://theconversation.com/saint-olga-of-kyiv-is-ukraines-patron-saint-of-both-defiance-and-vengeance-178019

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Cherine Fahd, Associate Professor, School of Design, University of Technology Sydney

Son of Sin, the debut novel from writer and poet Omar Sakr, tells the tale of Jamal Smith, a young Arab-Australian growing up in Western Sydney. Sakr’s two poetry collections, These Wild Houses (2017) and The Lost Arabs (2019), were widely admired, and the latter won the 2020 Prime Minister’s Literary Award.

Review: Son of Sin – Omar Sakr (Affirm)

Jamal sexually yearns for men, but hides his bisexuality. The asphyxiating expectations of his community, where same-sex desire is forbidden, make him fear real and imagined dangers. He dreads punishment, not only from the supernatural beings known in Arabic as djinn, but from his emotionally explosive and conservative family.

Jamal’s forbidden desires are explored against the backdrop of the Islamic holy month, Ramadan, and its spiritual quest: “No food, no water, no cursing, no violence, no sex, no masturbation.”

His family compete at fasting. No one wants to be the first to succumb to temptation: “to break your fast was to be the split spoiling the family ceramic.” Jamal tries not masturbate or fantasise about sex or food. He doesn’t want to be haunted by the djinn and he doesn’t want to be disowned for being a “faggot”.

Acceptance and abandonment

The tension sets the stage for a darkly comic family saga. Jamal, who desires acceptance, has been abandoned by both his parents. Largely brought up by his Aunty Rania, he has shared a room with his cousins for much of his young life.

His father, Cevdat Khan, a compulsive liar and shonky businessman, is “always going back to Turkey, unable to stay still, unable to hold onto any of his children”. Jamal’s mother, Hala Smith, once a “great beauty”, is always getting high with “her junkie mates”, jaded from a previous forced and violent marriage.

She’s also violent, beating Jamal and his handsome half-brother Moses, who stay clear of her as a result. But Jamal can’t escape her. She has no money and nowhere to live when she arrives “wearing a bumbag with S-L-U-T spelled out in diamantes”, asking Jamal if she can stay at his share house in Stanmore.

The on-again-off-again relationship between Jamal and his mother, and Jamal’s unspoken fear that she had been raped by her own father, are central to the story’s tension.

Challenging macho myths

Sakr has created Jamal to challenge the macho heterosexual myths that pervade Arab-Australian male culture. Son of Sin explores Jamal’s rich inner world: his imagination, his hopes and his hopelessness.

Jamal is someone who “would die for his sensations”. When he finally realises himself sexually, he acts out his fantasies in sudden, pressurised, erotically clumsy encounters with mostly Arab men. “He was a faggot, oh God he was a fag, and he fucking loved it.” While Jamal punishes himself for being a “fuck-up”, enjoys “the lancing pain of anal sex”, escapes into “sweaty underarms” and revels in the smell of “hairy funk”.

But Son of Sin is not all about sex. You don’t need to be an Arab-Australian to recognise the racism, Islamophobia and homophobia that Jamal experiences at the hands of his family, the “cops”, and a society that is awash in post 9/11 fear, white supremacy, and the hatred that culminated in the Cronulla Riots of 2005.

Read more:
Friday essay: a response to the Cronulla riots, ten years on

Existing between two places

The sociopolitical stresses of post-9/11 Western Sydney are depicted alongside the invisible stresses of the migrant experience. The novel captures the subtle tensions that come with existing between two places, two languages, two cultures, two parents.

Comically, in the opening pages of the book, Jamal’s mother drags him to court to change his surname from Khan to Smith. (I laughed, reminded of how much I dreamt my father would change our surname from Fahd to Ford.)

Sex and violence aside, Jamal’s tenderness for both his parents, and his capacity to forgive them, are heartbreaking. While he describes the precarious lives of his friends and cousins, the criminality and violence of his family, he’s still affectionate towards them, and needs their approval and love. Despite his yearning to escape his family’s troubled life, he never judges them.

A brief stint at university sees him move into Sydney’s inner west. Jamal notes the socioeconomic divide between his Western Sydney life and his new friends from Anglo and Jewish families, who live in more prosperous suburbs. His flatmate Dan has:

wealthy parents. He had no HECS debt, and a mansion he could return to whenever he tired of his pretend independence.

Hypermasculine men and gossiping women

The complexity and warmth of Jamal’s character permeates the book, through his interactions with its cast of hypermasculine men and their gossiping women. The men in Jamal’s family were expected to provide, and to be tough and strong, sexually charged and in charge.

Given how few Arab-Australian voices there are in Australian literature, it’s inevitable that Son of Sin will be compared with Michael Mohammed Ahmad’s The Lebs (2018). Both writers are part of a groundswell of Arab Australian writers representing the lives of Arabic Australian men on their own terms, from their own perspectives.

Read more:
What does a ‘Leb’ look like?

And there are similarities. An artistic young man must negotiate masculine expectations amid poverty, marginalisation, racism, homophobia and sexism. For example, Jamal is sniffed out as “gay” because of his love of books and reading.

When Jamal had started carrying books everywhere, he got his fair share of shit, but it lessened as he grew taller and his beard came in.

But for Jamal, “books were his shield against the darkness of the world”. Son of Sin is woven with comic details that will resonate with those born into migrant families. “Everyone expected greatness from him because he read books.” While mocked by his peers for reading, his “barely literate family” see the promise of social mobility and an end to their poverty.

Lebanese vernacular is splashed throughout. As an Arab-Australian reader, seeing my language on the pages of an Australian novel was both strangely comforting and disconcerting: I’m not used to seeing it represented in the context of Australian literature.

There’s a beautiful sequence when Jamal escapes his family and the western suburbs for Turkey, saying he wants to meet his father there. Really, though, it’s an excuse to travel, after Canada denies him a visa.

In Turkey, he finally gets to know his estranged father and his kindhearted uncle, Mehmet Khan. He falls in love with the local barber’s son, Kassem, who breaks his heart. Jamal returns to Sydney haunted by dreams of suicide.

Bisexuality ‘offers hope of redemption’

Back home, there is an amusing email exchange after Jamal reveals himself to his father, Cevdat, as bisexual. Cevdat is convinced that being “bi” offers hope of redemption: “As long as you are not a homosexual … that means you can overcome this.” Bisexuality seems less shameful, in his view, than exclusively wanting men.

As a reader, I dreaded Jamal being killed if he came out – or worse, was found out. In one scene, Jamal’s half-brother Moses, through a bathroom window, spots him having anal sex with a moisturiser bottle. Unwittingly, Jamal survives. “The Smiths were a family of unspoken secrets.” Being queer is one thing, publicly acknowledging it is another.

Sakr’s novel, like his poetry, brings attention to the lives of queer Arab-Australian boys and men. Like the playwright James Elazzi, Sakr creates queer stories addressing the taboo of same-sex desire in the cultural context of Western Sydney. He is funny and unapologetic, creating epic, stunningly dirty narratives that should appeal to a new generation of Australians.

A group of academic authors recently asked, “what might a crowdsourced queer-friendly English curriculum look like in Australia?”

Son of Sin would be one book at the top of my list for senior students.

Read more:
Pages and prejudice: how queer texts could fight homophobia in Australian schools

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

– ref. Omar Sakr’s ‘epic, stunningly dirty’ debut novel challenges macho heterosexual myths of Arab-Australian culture – https://theconversation.com/omar-sakrs-epic-stunningly-dirty-debut-novel-challenges-macho-heterosexual-myths-of-arab-australian-culture-175640

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Simon Reid, Associate Professor, Communicable Disease Control, The University of Queensland

Floods are devastating communities in southeast Queensland and northern New South Wales and have pushed emergency services to their limits.

Flood waters in Northern NSW are already at “unprecedented” levels, and are expected to worsen in coming days. The Australian Defence Force has been deployed to assist with emergency rescues.

In southeast Queensland, floods have claimed eight lives, after the equivalent of a year of rainfall fell in a couple of days.

Some people who are flooded in won’t have the option of avoiding contact with flood water and mud. If this is you, try to wear protective clothing like closed-in shoes or boots and gloves.

Try keep cuts or abrasions away from dirty water, and disinfect and cover any wounds you might have with waterproof dressings. Focus on washing your hands with soap afterwards.

But if you’re tempted to wade into flood waters for fun, don’t. It not only risks your immediate safety, it poses a number of health hazards for humans – and dogs aren’t immune.

Health risks from flood water include bacteria and parasites that cause gastroenteritis (gastro), bacteria that infect the skin, physical hazards causing injury, and specific disease-causing pathogens that thrive in mud and water.

Gastroenteritis

Many of the organisms (viruses, bacteria and parasites) that cause gastro in humans happily survive for long periods of time in unchlorinated water.

These organisms originate in human faeces (poo) which can leak into drinking water when flood water inundates or damages septic tanks or sewerage pipes. If this occurs, people will be directed to boil their drinking water before use, a so-called “boil water” alert.

Read more:
Drinking water can be a dangerous cocktail for people in flood areas

Pathogens that cause gastro need to be swallowed, so it’s less likely people will be exposed while walking in water.

But people can easily contaminate food and drinks if they don’t wash their hands thoroughly after contact with flood water. And those who play “flood water sports”, where they are likely to swallow water, are also at risk.

The most common symptoms of gastro are vomiting, diarrhoea and stomach cramps that begin six to 72 hours after infection. It’s usually not possible to tell which microbe has caused the infection without a laboratory test of the person’s stool. So if you have severe symptoms that aren’t getting better, see your GP.

Globally, floods and storms are associated with increases in gastroenteritis. However, case numbers of gastroenteritis didn’t increase after the 2011 floods in Queensland.

Leptospirosis

Leptospirosis is a potentially life-threatening disease associated with flooding worldwide. It’s caused by infection with bacteria (Leprospira) that enter the body through broken skin (wounds) or our mucous membranes (lining of the eyes and mouth).

The bacteria are present throughout the world and can survive in mud and soil for weeks if it’s moist and warm.

In urban areas, rats and mice are the main carriers of Leptospira and in rural areas, cattle add a further source.

Leptospira are washed from soil into flood water with rain, which means anyone walking in water can become infected through cuts and abrasions.

Of particular concern is when the water recedes and the clean-up period begins because the contact with mud is much greater, as is the risk of wounds.

Leptospirosis causes a fever and flu-like symptoms initially, and requires prompt diagnosis via a blood test and treatment with antibiotics. Anyone with a prolonged fever who has had contact with mud and flood water should see their GP.

After the floods in 2011, Queensland reported a nearly 65% increase in the number of cases of leptospirosis, most of which occurred in the weeks after the floods.

The risk extends to our canine friends

Leptospirosis is also a risk for suburban dogs and can be fatal.

While there are no reports of cases of dog leptospirosis associated with floods in Australia, the emergence of the disease in dogs in Sydney has raised concerns among veterinarians because they don’t understand why it suddenly became a problem.

The best advice is to keep the dogs out of flood waters. If you observe listlessness, vomiting and lack of appetite in your dog one to two weeks after exposure to mud or flood water, take them to the vet immediately.

It can be diagnosed with a blood test and treated with antibiotics, in much the same way as for people.

Read more:
Explainer: what is leptospirosis and how can it harm us and our pets?

Injuries and skin infections

A common health condition after the 2011 floods in Queensland was cellulitis, a deep bacterial infection of the skin that can occur if a person gets a puncture wound.

Many types of bacteria can infect a wound including those normally on human skin such as Staphylococcus aureus (golden staph) and those from the environment, such as Aeromonas.

The symptoms include an area of skin that is red, painful, swollen, and warm to touch. If someone with these symptoms develops a fever, chills and nausea, it’s important they get medical attention to ensure they don’t develop a bloodstream infection.

Cellulitis is usually treated at home using antibiotics.

When cleaning up after floods, try to avoid getting wounds by using protective equipment, because even minor wounds are entry points for bacteria.

If you do sustain skin wounds, quickly clean and disinfect them, and seek medical attention, as you may need a tetanus vaccination. Tetanus is a rare, but fatal, condition in Australia because of widespread vaccination. But it’s important to maintain immunity to tetanus through regular boosters.

Seek medical care if you develop any infections after exposure to mud or flood water.

Read more:
Here’s what you need to know about melioidosis, the deadly infection that can spread after floods

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

– ref. Don’t go wading in flood water if you can help it. It’s health a risk for humans – and dogs too – https://theconversation.com/dont-go-wading-in-flood-water-if-you-can-help-it-its-health-a-risk-for-humans-and-dogs-too-178027

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Simon Reid, Associate Professor, Communicable Disease Control, The University of Queensland

Floods are devastating communities in southeast Queensland and northern New South Wales and have pushed emergency services to their limits.

Flood waters in Northern NSW are already at “unprecedented” levels, and are expected to worsen in coming days. The Australian Defence Force has been deployed to assist with emergency rescues.

In southeast Queensland, floods have claimed eight lives, after the equivalent of a year of rainfall fell in a couple of days.

Some people who are flooded in won’t have the option of avoiding contact with flood water and mud. If this is you, try to wear protective clothing like closed-in shoes or boots and gloves.

Try keep cuts or abrasions away from dirty water, and disinfect and cover any wounds you might have with waterproof dressings. Focus on washing your hands with soap afterwards.

But if you’re tempted to wade into flood waters for fun, don’t. It not only risks your immediate safety, it poses a number of health hazards for humans – and dogs aren’t immune.

Health risks from flood water include bacteria and parasites that cause gastroenteritis (gastro), bacteria that infect the skin, physical hazards causing injury, and specific disease-causing pathogens that thrive in mud and water.

Gastroenteritis

Many of the organisms (viruses, bacteria and parasites) that cause gastro in humans happily survive for long periods of time in unchlorinated water.

These organisms originate in human faeces (poo) which can leak into drinking water when flood water inundates or damages septic tanks or sewerage pipes. If this occurs, people will be directed to boil their drinking water before use, a so-called “boil water” alert.

Read more:
Drinking water can be a dangerous cocktail for people in flood areas

Pathogens that cause gastro need to be swallowed, so it’s less likely people will be exposed while walking in water.

But people can easily contaminate food and drinks if they don’t wash their hands thoroughly after contact with flood water. And those who play “flood water sports”, where they are likely to swallow water, are also at risk.

The most common symptoms of gastro are vomiting, diarrhoea and stomach cramps that begin six to 72 hours after infection. It’s usually not possible to tell which microbe has caused the infection without a laboratory test of the person’s stool. So if you have severe symptoms that aren’t getting better, see your GP.

Globally, floods and storms are associated with increases in gastroenteritis. However, case numbers of gastroenteritis didn’t increase after the 2011 floods in Queensland.

Leptospirosis

Leptospirosis is a potentially life-threatening disease associated with flooding worldwide. It’s caused by infection with bacteria (Leprospira) that enter the body through broken skin (wounds) or our mucous membranes (lining of the eyes and mouth).

The bacteria are present throughout the world and can survive in mud and soil for weeks if it’s moist and warm.

In urban areas, rats and mice are the main carriers of Leptospira and in rural areas, cattle add a further source.

Leptospira are washed from soil into flood water with rain, which means anyone walking in water can become infected through cuts and abrasions.

Of particular concern is when the water recedes and the clean-up period begins because the contact with mud is much greater, as is the risk of wounds.

Leptospirosis causes a fever and flu-like symptoms initially, and requires prompt diagnosis via a blood test and treatment with antibiotics. Anyone with a prolonged fever who has had contact with mud and flood water should see their GP.

After the floods in 2011, Queensland reported a nearly 65% increase in the number of cases of leptospirosis, most of which occurred in the weeks after the floods.

The risk extends to our canine friends

Leptospirosis is also a risk for suburban dogs and can be fatal.

While there are no reports of cases of dog leptospirosis associated with floods in Australia, the emergence of the disease in dogs in Sydney has raised concerns among veterinarians because they don’t understand why it suddenly became a problem.

The best advice is to keep the dogs out of flood waters. If you observe listlessness, vomiting and lack of appetite in your dog one to two weeks after exposure to mud or flood water, take them to the vet immediately.

It can be diagnosed with a blood test and treated with antibiotics, in much the same way as for people.

Read more:
Explainer: what is leptospirosis and how can it harm us and our pets?

Injuries and skin infections

A common health condition after the 2011 floods in Queensland was cellulitis, a deep bacterial infection of the skin that can occur if a person gets a puncture wound.

Many types of bacteria can infect a wound including those normally on human skin such as Staphylococcus aureus (golden staph) and those from the environment, such as Aeromonas.

The symptoms include an area of skin that is red, painful, swollen, and warm to touch. If someone with these symptoms develops a fever, chills and nausea, it’s important they get medical attention to ensure they don’t develop a bloodstream infection.

Cellulitis is usually treated at home using antibiotics.

When cleaning up after floods, try to avoid getting wounds by using protective equipment, because even minor wounds are entry points for bacteria.

If you do sustain skin wounds, quickly clean and disinfect them, and seek medical attention, as you may need a tetanus vaccination. Tetanus is a rare, but fatal, condition in Australia because of widespread vaccination. But it’s important to maintain immunity to tetanus through regular boosters.

Seek medical care if you develop any infections after exposure to mud or flood water.

Read more:
Here’s what you need to know about melioidosis, the deadly infection that can spread after floods

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

– ref. Don’t go wading in flood water if you can help it. It’s a risk for humans – and dogs too – https://theconversation.com/dont-go-wading-in-flood-water-if-you-can-help-it-its-a-risk-for-humans-and-dogs-too-178027

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Brendan Mackey, Director of the Griffith Climate Change Response Program, Griffith University

Climatic trends, extreme conditions and sea level rise are already hitting many of Australia’s ecosystems, industries and cities hard.

As climate change intensifies, we are now seeing cascading and compounding impacts and risks, including where extreme events coincide. These are placing even greater pressure on our ability to respond.

While the work of adaptation has begun, we have found the progress is uneven and insufficient, given the risks we face.

These findings are from our work as co-authors of the new Australia and New Zealand chapter in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 6th Assessment Report on Impacts, Vulnerability and Adaptation, released today.

What does the report mean for Australia?

This new report represents the efforts of over 270 climate change experts to review and synthesise the latest information. These authors collectively examined over 34,000 peer reviewed publications about how climate change is affecting ecosystems and societies, future risks, adaptation enablers and limits, and links to climate resilient development.

Climate change is bringing hotter temperatures, more dangerous fire weather, more droughts and floods, higher sea levels, and drier winter and spring months to southern and eastern Australia, amongst other changes. These changes are increasing the pressure on our natural environment, settlements, infrastructure and economic sectors including agriculture, finance and tourism.

In low-lying areas along our coasts, where so many Australians live, homes, infrastructure and ecosystems will be lost to the rising sea if mitigation and adaptation are inadequate.

For our farmers and the agrifood sector, climate change brings unwelcome stresses and disruptions, making it more challenging to produce food profitably and sustainably. Intensified heat and drought will place yet more stress on our rural communities, particularly in Australia’s south-west, south and east.

Australians will experience more deaths and ill health from heatwaves, as will our wildlife.

The threat of cascading impacts

Unfortunately, that’s not all we have to contend with. We have identified two new types of climate-related risk.

The first are the cascading, compounding and aggregate impacts on our cities and towns, roads, supply-chains and services, emerging from the interaction of disasters like wildfires, floods, droughts, heatwaves, storms and sea-level rise. Think of the rolling impacts from the Black Summer bushfires, which killed people and wildlife, destroyed homes and resulted in major economic losses for tourism, farming and forestry. Or think of the ongoing floods in New South Wales and Queensland.

The second is the slow speed at which governments and institutions are moving to deal with these changing risks, undermining the system-wide adaptation needed. What does this mean in practice? That the scale and scope of what we can expect to see happen may overwhelm our capacity to respond to these impacts – unless we address these risks quickly and strategically.

Climate impacts are powerfully and unevenly amplified by existing stresses affecting our environment and people. For instance, Australia’s coral reefs already face threats from pollution and invasive species. Climate change acts as a threat multiplier.

Climate change will pose more of a threat to vulnerable Australians, such as those with inadequate health care, poor quality housing and unstable employment.

Read more:
IPCC report: global emissions must peak by 2025 to keep warming at 1.5°C – we need deeds not words

We examined how much the projected damage could be reduced through better adaptation such as changes in policy, more effective planning and technical solutions.

Our ecosystems most at risk are our world-famous coral reefs and the huge biodiversity and ecosystem services they provide. Steadily warming oceans and sudden marine heatwaves have already pushed many areas to the edge.

The Great Barrier Reef is already at a very high risk of crossing a critical threshold where further warming may cause irreversible damage. Between 2016 and 2020, three marine heatwaves struck the Great Barrier Reef, causing major coral bleaching and death. Once the coral is gone, many of the fish and invertebrates do not survive.

In typical conditions, it takes a minimum of a decade for the fastest growing corals to recover from a single bleaching event. We are no longer in typical conditions. Warming beyond 1.5℃ would see marine heatwaves strike more often. Bleaching will go well beyond the reef’s natural ability to regenerate.

What does adaptation look like?

If we fail to address underlying vulnerabilities in our society and fail to reduce climate-related risks, we will make climate change impacts even worse and undermine our capacity to adapt, well into the future.

But if we step up adaptation now, we will see benefits both in the near- and long-term. This includes practicalities like making sure all strategic planning, land use planning and infrastructure developments take complex climate change risks into account – in a systematic, rather than siloed, narrowly focused, way.

Read more:
IPCC report: this decade is critical for adapting to inevitable climate change impacts and rising costs

On the positive side, Australia’s adaptation efforts have increased in ambition, scope and implementation across governments, non-government organisations, businesses and communities since the last IPCC assessment in 2014.

In recent years, Australia has created a government agency for recovery and resilience, a disaster risk reduction framework, and national adaptation guidance.

States and territories have introduced climate adaptation strategies, with some evidence of implementation. Local governments, regions, communities and associated alliances are becoming more active in adaptation. In the private sector, there is some rapid work underway to address climate risk and disclosure.

Laudable though this progress is, we found that progress on adaptation is distinctly uneven. That’s due to implementation barriers as well as limits to adaptive capacity. Barriers we found include competing objectives, divergent risk perceptions and values, knowledge constraints, inconsistent information, fear of litigation, up-front costs, and lack of engagement, trust and resources.

If we are to get better at adaptation, we have to shift from reactive to anticipatory planning, to better plan for and reduce climate-related risks. Systemic risks demand systemic adaptation.

We found there was a great deal to be gained from better integration and coordination between levels of government and sectors through more effective policy alignment and more inclusive and collaborative institutional arrangements.

Australia would benefit from a national risk assessment and a national climate adaptation implementation plan. Other ways to enable more effective adaptation include serious and stable funding and finance mechanisms, and nationally consistent and accessible information and decision-support tools.

Read more:
There’s no end to the damage humans can wreak on the climate. This is how bad it’s likely to get

The way we go about adaptation is also important. Climate planning that promotes inclusive governance, collective action and mutual support can make the process of change easier, fairer and more effective.

Supporting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and their institutions, knowledge, values and self-determination is especially important. The knowledge, skills and experience held by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples is relevant to climate change adaptation across society.

The best time to act is now

If we delay introducing effective adaptation methods and significant global emission reduction, the damage caused will be more expensive and require far greater change. We need robust, timely adaptation, and deep cuts to emissions.

That’s to have our best chance of keeping global warming to 1.5-2℃ and reduce the challenges of adaptation.

Although the climate impacts and risks we face are increasingly severe, it is by no means too late to avert the worst outcomes.

It is still possible to move to a pathway of “climate resilient development” in which we work together to rapidly contain global warming, adapt effectively and help secure a better future for all.

Francis Chiew works in CSIRO and receives funding for projects from government and industry. Francis Chiew received travel funding support from the Australian government for participation in the IPCC process.

Gretta Pecl receives funding from the Australian Research Council, Department of Agriculture Water and the Environment, Department of Primary Industries NSW, Department of Premier and Cabinet (Tasmania), the Fisheries Research & Development Corporation, and received travel funding support from the Australian government for participation in the IPCC process..

Kevin Hennessy received travel funding support from the Australian government for participation in the IPCC process.

Lauren Rickards currently receives funding for climate change related work from the Australian Research Council, Victorian Government, Australian Government (Department of Agriculture, Water and Environment) and has received travel funding support from the Australian Government for participation in the IPCC process.

Mark Howden received travel funding support from the Australian Government to participate in the IPCC process.

Nigel Tapper received travel funding support from the Australian government for participation in the IPCC process.

Nina Lansbury received travel support funding from the Australian Government for participation in the IPCC process.

Uday Nidumolu received travel funding support from the Australian government for participation in the IPCC process

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

– ref. New IPCC report shows Australia is at real risk from climate change, with impacts worsening, future risks high, and wide-ranging adaptation needed – https://theconversation.com/new-ipcc-report-shows-australia-is-at-real-risk-from-climate-change-with-impacts-worsening-future-risks-high-and-wide-ranging-adaptation-needed-176691

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Judy Lawrence, Senior Research Fellow, New Zealand Climate Change Research Institute, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington

Climate change impacts in Aotearoa New Zealand are real and future risks are high, according to the latest report released today by Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

The report is part of the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment and focuses on impacts, adaptation and vulnerability to climate change. It highlights that some impacts such as sea-level rise are now unavoidable in the near-term, irrespective of the emissions trajectory, and will require new, larger-scale and timely adaptation efforts.

At 1.1℃ above pre-industrial temperatures, climate change is already affecting New Zealand’s natural and managed land and water systems, coastal areas, glaciers and oceans. Impacts include extreme weather, heat waves, heavy and more frequent rainfall, droughts, fire, changing seasons and sea-level rise.

Some impacts are projected to become widespread and systematically pervasive, and potentially irreversible, if average global temperature rises by 1.5–2℃.

But if we take action immediately to limit global warming to 1.5℃, the losses and damage to human systems and ecosystems in Aotearoa will be less, albeit not completely avoidable. Sea-level rise will continue, even with rapid cuts to emissions. Beyond 2040, projected impacts could be several times higher than those we currently observe.

The IPCC report presents new evidence on climate change risks that threaten nature, human well-being and planetary health.

Read more:
Mass starvation, extinctions, disasters: the new IPCC report’s grim predictions, and why adaptation efforts are falling behind

Without interventions, our region faces increasing food production failures and nutrition-related diseases, mental health impacts, new water-borne diseases and many harmful effects of extreme heat. This decade is critical for effective adaptation.

How climate change already affects us

Rising temperatures and more heavy rainfall are damaging to health. For instance, heavy rainfall increases the chances New Zealand children will be admitted to hospital with gut infections.

Glaciers and kelp forests are shrinking, and communities dependent on these systems are already affected by growing economic and social costs from compounding climate change impacts. Those who are already socially disadvantaged are affected the most.

As global temperatures rise, the risks to our human and natural systems become greater. The scale and speed of global emissions cuts will determine whether the impacts of climate change outpace our ability to adapt.

The IPCC’s earlier report, released in August last year, found it is now most likely global warming will reach or exceed 1.5℃ during the 2030s. This will be challenging. Communities in low-lying coastal areas face more flooding and progressive risks from storm surges and sea-level rise. This means more costly damages, potential loss of insurance, relocation, community dislocation and increasing inequality.

Read more:
New IPCC report shows Australia is at real risk from climate change, with impacts worsening, future risks high, and wide-ranging adaptation needed

Accelerating our adaptation efforts and cutting emissions will give us a greater chance of reducing current and future impacts. The report reiterates we have the knowledge to adapt to many of these impacts if temperatures do not rise much beyond 1.5℃.

Examples include changing sowing or harvesting times in agriculture and developing adaptation strategies for river and coastal flooding by local government that are flexible to changing risk. But there is a wide gap between what is happening now and what is needed, in terms of investment, planning, implementation and monitoring and evaluation.

Delaying adaptation shifts the burden

To date, Aotearoa has typically focused on recovery after disasters. Investing before extreme events happen can seem expensive, but it is likely to be cheaper in the long run.

The necessary investment to improve resilience before disasters happen will require strong community and sector engagement to include long-term impacts and costs into decision making.

The report stresses that investing in adaptation efforts now will not only be cheaper, but easier and more effective than delaying action. The effectiveness of adaptation measures will decline with increased warming.

Read more:
Managing retreat: why New Zealand is drafting a new law to enable communities to move away from climate risks

Delaying adaptation raises the exposure of people to risks and shifts the burden to future generations and the most vulnerable, which is unfair. As the impacts and costs of climate change increase over time, our financial systems could become less stable and the government less able to support those affected, placing a greater burden on New Zealanders and increasing existing vulnerabilities and inequalities.

Climate change in other countries will affect New Zealand through its impacts on international trade, including supply chains for goods and services and impacts on our trading partners. Other pressures will flow on to New Zealand from humanitarian crises related to conflicts, food shortages, sea-level rise, extreme weather events and migration within and between countries.

Effective adaptation

The most effective adaptation is integrated and coordinated across governance levels. It is also inclusive of diverse cultures, ages and societal groups. Mātauranga Māori knowledge based on human-nature relationships and social-cultural networks that promote collective action already informs our adaptation effort and has a strong role going forward, while also upholding Māori interests under Treaty of Waitangi obligations.

Drawing together different ways of knowing will be even more important in the future to ensure consistent efforts to protect the integrity of our ecosystems on land and in the ocean.

Protecting our natural land and ocean systems will be essential to ensure they in turn protect our well-being in a warming world. Think of trees in urban areas providing cooling or wetlands moderating flood waters. We are already removing invasive species to safeguard native biodiversity and this will be even more urgent if climate change boosts their populations.

We need to adapt infrastructure to better protect drinking water supplies and support health services. Such improvements will generate benefits to New Zealanders beyond climate change. But they won’t happen without long-term planning, coherence across all areas of policy and robust and consistent political commitment.

New risks for Aotearoa arise from the scale of cascading and compounding impacts which become even greater after 1.5℃. This increases the urgency for adaptation, but adaptation effectiveness has limits.

Global and national efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions are a prerequisite to successful adaptation. Further delay will make climate change vulnerabilities worse, more expensive and difficult to address.

Judy Lawrence is a Climate Change Commissioner and a co-ordinating lead author for the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment, WGII, chapter 11.

Alistair Woodward is a lead author for the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment, WGII, chapter 11.

Anita Wreford is a lead author for the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment, WGII, chapter 11.

Mark John Costello is a lead author for the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment, WGII, chapter 11.

– ref. IPCC report: this decade is critical for adapting to inevitable climate change impacts and rising costs – https://theconversation.com/ipcc-report-this-decade-is-critical-for-adapting-to-inevitable-climate-change-impacts-and-rising-costs-177724

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Howden, Director, ANU Institute for Climate, Energy and Disaster Solutions, Australian National University

Even if we manage to stop the planet warming beyond 1.5℃ this century, we will still see profound impacts to billions of people on every continent and in every sector, and the window to adapt is narrowing quickly. These are among the disturbing findings of the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

At 1.5℃ warming above pre-industrial levels, the new report projects that, for example, children under 12 will experience a fourfold increase in natural disasters in their lifetime, and up to 14% of all species assessed will likely face a very high risk of extinction. This is our best-case scenario.

Impacts such as these will not be evenly spread, with countries in Africa, Asia and low-lying island nations set to be hardest hit. Yet these nations are among the least able to adapt.

We are three vice-chairs of the IPCC, and helped guide the hundreds of scientists worldwide who authored this report. As the second in a set of three, this report gives the most up-to-date synthesis of what we know about the impacts of climate change, and how to adapt to them.

The previous report, published last year, confirmed Earth has already warmed by 1.09℃ since pre-industrial times as a result of human activity.

Adaptation, such as through sustainable building development, can help humanity manage the increasing risks. But adaptation alone will not be enough, it must be paired with a drastic and urgent reduction in global greenhouse emissions if we’re to avert the extraordinary crises that unmitigated planetary heating would bring.

Read more:
This is the most sobering report card yet on climate change and Earth’s future. Here’s what you need to know

Cascading climate crises

As the peak climate science body of the United Nations and the World Meteorological Organization, the IPCC is the global authority on climate change.

Our new report paints a worrying picture of climate impacts already affecting the lives of billions of people, our economies and the environment, from the poles to the Equator and from the tops of mountains to the ocean floor.

Global warming of 1.09℃ has already caused widespread impacts globally. In the past several years, we’ve seen enormous wildfires sweep across Australia, Chile, the United States and Greece. We’ve seen global, back-to-back mass coral bleaching events. And we’ve seen unprecedented heatwaves and cold events such as in British Columbia, Canada and in Texas, US.

Even if we manage to reduce global emissions and meet the Paris Agreement target of only temporarily exceeding 1.5℃ this century, this could still have severe and potentially irreversible impacts, although less so than for higher temperature rises.

This includes species extinction, especially in low-lying islands and mountainous areas. Ice sheets will further break down in Greenland, West Antarctica and now even East Antarctica, raising global sea levels about half a metre or more by 2100.

Read more:
222 scientists say cascading crises are the biggest threat to the well-being of future generations

Every small increase in warming will result in escalating losses and damages across many systems. For example, the report found:

• under a high-emissions scenario (where global emissions continue unabated), more frequent and extreme disasters will lead to over 250,000 unnecessary deaths each year worldwide.

• up to 3 billion people are projected to experience chronic water scarcity due to droughts at 2℃ warming, and up to 4 billion at 4℃ warming, mostly across the subtropics to mid-latitudes

• projected flood damages may be up to two times higher at 2℃ warming and up to 3.9 times higher at 3℃, when compared with damages at 1.5℃

• up to 18% of all those species assessed on land will be at high risk of extinction if the world warms 2℃ by 2100. If the world warms up to 4℃, roughly every second plant or animal species assessed will be threatened

• even warming below 1.6℃ will see 8% of today’s farmland become climatically unsuitable for current activities by 2100.

Importantly, the interplay between these various impacts can potentially cascade into further risk.

Take Australia’s 2019-20 bushfires as an example. Climate change exacerbated drought and heatwaves, which generated catastrophic fire conditions causing over 18 million hectares to burn.

The drought also reduced water availability for firefighting; the heat exhausted the firefighters in their protective clothing; and the fires generated their own fire weather, spreading the fire faster while also disrupting communications, power networks, and fuel and banking systems – all of which severely hampered the disaster response.

The fires also released huge amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, adding to warming and future fire risk.

Who will be hit hardest?

A key message from the report is how climate change increases inequities across the globe. Existing climate change impacts are already disproportionately hitting the poor and disadvantaged.

For example, reductions in food production have been greatest in those areas where poverty is already rife. This pattern is projected to worsen, with significant risk of large-scale food and nutrition insecurity.

Across Africa, for example, the report found climate change has already reduced agricultural productivity growth by 34% since 1961 – more than any other region on the planet. Further warming will shorten growing seasons and the availability of water. In particular, warming above 2℃ will result in significant yield reductions for staple crops across most of the continent.

Read more:
Africa faces an uphill battle against western emissions to combat climate change

By 2050, reduced fish harvests could leave up to 70 million people in Africa vulnerable to iron deficiencies, up to 188 million for vitamin A deficiencies, and 285 million for vitamin B12 and omega-3 fatty acids.

Climate change is also a dire threat to lives and livelihoods in small island nations, such as in the Caribbean and Pacific. For example, the report found warming above 1.5℃ will see up to 90% of tropical coral reefs severely damaged. This jumps to 99% of coral reefs for warming over 2℃. Many rely on coral reef ecosystems for their livelihoods, and this will contribute to climate-related displacement, which is expected to increase.

And to rub salt into the wounds, developing nations, communities and people generally play only a negligible role in emitting the greenhouse gases driving the temperature up, with per capita emissions often only a tenth of those in developed nations.

Adapting isn’t enough

To avoid the projected mounting losses, we require urgent, accelerated action to adapt to climate change.

There are adaptation options for every region and every sector. These could include removing houses and other infrastructure from floodplains to slow river flows and increase water retention, or improving building standards so our homes are suited to warmer climates.

But the more global warming that occurs, the fewer and less effective these options will likely be. Thus, as climate change proceeds, there will be ever-tightening limits on our capacity to adapt.

Read more:
COP26 deal: how rich countries failed to meet their obligations to the rest of the world

For example, in many subtropical and mid-latitude regions such as the Mediterranean, Chile and Mexico, hot temperature and drought conditions are likely to increase. Irrigation is obviously an adaptation option for high-value crops.

However, the likely lower water availability and increased demand across sectors will reduce water allocations, and constrain irrigation options. What’s more, the efficiency of water use will reduce under hotter, dryer conditions with lower relative humidity of the air. This means for a given amount of water, there’ll be less benefit to crop growth or even for other sectors, such as for cooling power stations.

Faster adaptation depends on getting the right support. We need firm political commitment and follow-through, robust institutions with diverse input, research and development which provides new adaptation options, and access to adequate financial resources.

Indeed, developed countries have agreed to mobilise US$100 billion per year to finance adaptation and mitigation in developing countries. But while climate finance is increasing overall, it’s not enough to enable adaptation to keep pace with climate change. Only a tiny fraction (an estimated 4-8%) is targeted at enhancing climate adaptation – most is aimed at emissions reduction.

Even a well-designed and implemented global adaptation program won’t fully address the increased risks from climate change, and so losses and damages will likely mount. Action we take to adapt to climate change will require parallel reductions in greenhouse gas emissions – adaptation cannot do it all.

Where possible, adaptation actions should simultaneously reduce net emissions, and reduce climate risk. Clearly, adaptations that increase emissions – such as turning on our air-conditioners if they use fossil-fuel-generated electricity – are self-defeating.

Similarly, emission-reduction activities will increasingly need to adapt to the changing climate.

For example, higher temperatures and lower rainfall projected for southern Australia will lower the amount of carbon forests can soak up, because the forests’ growth rate will reduce and more fires will lead to greater losses. Alongside enhanced fire management, choosing a mix of plant species that are adapted to a warmer climate could help offset some of these effects.

It’s clear reducing global emissions alongside effective adaptation will put us on a trajectory of lower costs and damages. But at a global level, we’re doing neither of these things to the necessary extent. We’re at risk of missing a brief and rapidly closing window to secure an equitable and sustainable future.

Joy Pereira is a member of the Geological Society of Malaysia. She receive funds from the Government of Malaysia for her research, and receives an IDRC (Canada) fund.

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

– ref. Mass starvation, extinctions, disasters: the new IPCC report’s grim predictions, and why adaptation efforts are falling behind – https://theconversation.com/mass-starvation-extinctions-disasters-the-new-ipcc-reports-grim-predictions-and-why-adaptation-efforts-are-falling-behind-176693

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Wright, Senior Lecturer in Environmental Science, Western Sydney University

Parts of south east Queensland and northern NSW have been experiencing what has been called a “rain bomb”. Despite the heavy falls, south eastern Queenslanders in Brisbane, Logan, Ipswich, Moreton Bay and the Lockyer Valley have been asked to conserve drinking water.

Water authorities explained extreme weather and heavy rain forced the closure of two SEQ drinking water treatment plants (Mt Crosby and North Pine Water Treatment Plants) early on Sunday morning. North Pine has since restarted and the Gold Coast Desalination plant is supplementing supply.

People living in areas experiencing flooding, particularly in south east Queensland, can help by using a minimum of tap water. This will help authorities reserve supply as they work to return their water treatment system to normal.

But what could have caused this in a time of excess of water?

Dangerous waters

After an already wetter than normal summer, very heavy rain on saturated catchments has quickly generated dangerous volumes of flood waters.

The high energy and velocity of floodwaters is causing erosion of soil and, in turn, river banks. As a result, SEQ Water estimates the cloudiness in raw water has increased by up to 100 times the normal amount.

Pictures and footage of floodwaters, show it a milky chocolate brown. This is a dangerous sight to those in the water industry and raises concerns if it enters their water supply.

People should be very wary of wading into floodwaters as they are often highly contaminated with disease causing germs from human and animal faecal wastes. Urban sewage systems may also overflow in times of wet weather and flood.

Cloudiness in water causes major problems for drinking water too. Referred to as “turbidity” in the water industry, it is caused by solid particulates in water. This suspended matter might be soil, silt or clay.

The dirty water can create significant problems for treatment of clean and safe drinking water. In particular, dirty water can overwhelm various stages of the treatment system, for example, by clogging filters. It can also reduce the effectiveness of water disinfection.

High standards

A particularly important process in treatment of drinking water is the addition of chlorine, sometimes in combination with other chemicals. This helps ensure water is free of disease-causing germs by the time it travels through pipes to the tap in your home. Effective treatment of drinking water results in water free of any cloudiness. Water has to have “crystal clear” turbidity for disinfection to be effective.

Australian drinking water suppliers are required to meet the highest standards of safe and clean drinking water quality. They need to comply with an extensive series of stringent protocols covered by the Australian Drinking water Guidelines. If they are unable to meet the standards at any time, they need to notify their customers.

For example, after bad storms hit Victoria in June last year, storm damage to water infrastructure allowed potential contamination to enter the system. This led Yarra Valley Water to issue a warning to customers in some suburbs not to drink tap water at all. Unusually, the authorities warned customers that boiling water would “not remove contaminants” to make it safe to drink.

When such suspected water contamination enters the drinking water system, the entire system needs to be flushed. Extensive water testing is then conducted before the “all clear” is given to drink tap water again. In the case of the Yarra Valley Water, this process took two days.

Read more:
Victoria’s wild storms show how easily disasters can threaten our water supply

A changing climate

Experts have long warned Australia’s water security is under threat due to climate change.

As with flooding, bushfires too can cause problems for drinking water supply. Heavy rain, storms and flooding after bushfires are a very bad combination. Bushfires can produce burnt residue with high nutrients, metals and many other contaminants.

There were several water quality problems after Australia’s Black summer bushfires, including fears for the quality of water in Sydney’s largest water storage facility: Warragamba Dam.

This was due to high intensity bushfires removing catchment vegetation. Then heavy rains and flooding carried loose ash, soil and debris into the storage reservoir.

Clean-up after such an event can be very difficult. Contaminants may be filtered from streams and containment booms deployed on rivers and storages to collect floating debris.

Read more:
Climate change is warping our fresh water cycle – and much faster than we thought

Be prepared

If you are concerned about the quality of your tap water it pays to think ahead.

Firstly, watch for reports about water quality problems in the media, from health authorities or from your water supplier. If flooding is coming your way, consider filling up some large containers of water from the tap, just in case!

If you live in a low-lying location – that is, on a floodplain, near a river, close to sea or ground-level, where flooding is more likely – be prepared. As well as packing some clothes and food in case of flooding or other natural disaster, pack some containers of clean drinking water. You may not have much warning that a “rain bomb” is coming your way.

Given the already soaked landscape from such a wet summer, flood waters will likely rise far more quickly than expected. Be guided by the helpful list prepared by the SES on the preparations and supplies you should have ready, but hopefully won’t need, in case of flood.

If you are in an area that is already flooded, follow the advice from authorities on safe drinking water, whether it requires boiling or avoiding altogether.

Ian Wright has received funding from industry, local and state government agencies.

– ref. Drinking water can be a dangerous cocktail for people in flood areas – https://theconversation.com/drinking-water-can-be-a-dangerous-cocktail-for-people-in-flood-areas-178028

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alexey D Muraviev, Associate Professor of National Security and Strategic Studies, Curtin University

Russian President Vladimir Putin has described his country’s invasion of Ukraine as a “special military operation”. But from the start, this has not been a narrow, limited military campaign.

The operation has been referred to by some as “Operation Z”, based on the distinctive letter “Z” markings on the Russian military and support vehicles. And it’s the largest and most complex military campaign staged by Moscow since its invasion of Afghanistan in 1979.

It’s also the first chance the world has had to see the full force of Russia’s new-look military machine – a modernised, professional fighting force that has been completely revamped since Russia’s 2008 war with Georgia.

Despite winning that war, the Russians were very critical of their combat performance and embarked on a decade-long defence modernisation campaign, fuelled by a massive increase in military spending of about US$700 billion.

So, what did Russia learn from that conflict militarily, and how are we seeing it play out on the battlefield in Ukraine?

The Z force and Chechen commandos

Russia’s current offensive is being carried out by two new “combined arms” army groups in Russia’s western and southern districts near the Ukrainian border, which were created after Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014. These forces integrate different arms of the military – such as armour, infantry, missile and artillery, aviation and engineering – and were prioritised in the reform campaign.

The initial wave of Russia’s invasion force comprised some 60 tactical battalion groups (up to 60,000 personnel), as well as elite airborne troops and special operations forces, the long-range aviation branch of the airspace force (which delivers nuclear or conventional strikes), and the Russian navy.

Read more:
Ukraine’s military is outgunned but can still inflict a great deal of pain on Russian forces

In addition, the Russians have utilised the so-called people’s militias of the breakaway Donetsk and Luhansk regions – two army corps comprising about 40,000 personnel as their main strike force in eastern Ukraine.

Just like in Syria, the Russians are also using special operations units to perform reconnaissance missions, stage sabotage operations behind enemy lines, and target key political and military leaders, possibly including Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Also noteworthy is the Russians’ extensive use of Chechen special commando units, popularly known as kadyrovtsy.

Known as notorious, battle-hardened, highly motivated and ruthless fighters, the kadyrovtsy are often used to strike fear in opposing forces. The Chechen units have supported most of Russia’s recent military campaigns abroad, including Lebanon, Georgia and Syria. In 2014-15, some Chechen “volunteers” were fighting alongside the pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine.

In the current war, the kadyrovtsy will likely be used in urban operations and during systematic “security sweeps” inside Russia-occupied territories, which will no doubt result in numerous detentions and persecutions.

Russian military objectives so far

The first phase of the offensive has focused on several military objectives, including

• multiple waves of coordinated cruise missile attacks and artillery strikes against Ukraine’s military infrastructure (including airfields, radar installations, military command and intelligence headquarters, ammunition depots, oil refineries and army and naval facilities)

• large-scale cyber attacks and electronic warfare

• simultaneous airborne assaults and raids by special forces deep inside Ukraine, including the capture of the strategically important Hostomel airfield on the outskirts of Kyiv

• a massive frontal assault in Donetsk and Luhansk aimed at embroiling Ukrainian forces into a prolonged defensive fight

• a partial naval blockade of Ukrainian ports

• the capture of several Ukrainian towns.

Although the Russians have faced stiff resistance from Ukrainian forces, they have crucial advantages on the battlefield, including air superiority and control over some strategic zones. The simultaneous military advance on several fronts has also forced the Ukrainian military to respond in a more sporadic way and focus on defensive operations, namely in major urban centres.

Lessons from the Georgian conflict

Such a multi-pronged attack using sophisticated combat systems was not possible in Russia’s five-day war with Georgia in 2008. Although Russia won the war quickly, it sustained significant losses. The conflict revealed glaring deficiencies in its armed forces, which were largely a holdover from the days of the Soviet Union.

For example, the Russian military barely used high-precision munitions or cruise missiles in that conflict. Instead, it was forced to deploy tactical and strategic aircraft in response to a strong Georgian air defence, which shot down a number of Russian aircraft.

In Ukraine, Russia is now relying on long-range, high-precision strikes – from air, sea and land – which have minimised risks to Russian aircraft.

In Georgia, Russia’s ageing tanks and other armoured vehicles entered major urban areas and were forced to engage in protracted street battles. There were other logistical failures on the way to the conflict, with many vehicles breaking down or having road accidents.

In Ukraine, the Russian forces have initially tended to encircle major cities in an attempt to pressure the Ukrainian military to withdraw. The Russians are also intensifying their missile strikes and aerial attacks against urban targets.

And back in 2008, the Russians could do little to prevent the US from docking a warship in a Black Sea port as a show of strength near the theatre of war.

Now, Russian naval battle groups in the eastern Mediterranean are effectively deterring US and NATO fleets from pressuring the Russians on the ground in Ukraine.

What could happen next?

The Russians and Ukrainians have agreed to talks on the Belarus-Ukraine border, but Russia says it will not stop its offensive.

Indeed, its announcement overnight that it was putting its nuclear deterrence forces on high alert signalled a readiness to ramp up its military offensive. The Kremlin is trying to deter the West from supporting Ukraine and applying severe economic pressure on Russia.

Read more:
Russia is using an onslaught of cyber attacks to undermine Ukraine’s defence capabilities

As part of accelerating its advance, the Russian military is also likely to resort other deadly assets, among them the TOS-1, a heavy flamethrower capable of firing thermobaric weapons. Such weapons, which were used by Russia in the Chechnya and Syria conflicts, use oxygen to generate a high-temperature explosion.

So, what could happen next from a military perspective? Russia’s aims will likely be to:

• solidify its strategic control over territory in eastern Ukraine

• encircle and defeat Ukrainian forces in Donetsk and Luhansk and overtake Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, which is under direct assault

• isolate Ukraine from the rest of the world with a full naval blockade and the destruction of remaining airfields, which would slow down the accelerating foreign military assistance

• and the main political objective, capture the capital, Kyiv, and install a pro-Russian regime.

The growing resistance of the Ukrainian military will no doubt force the Russians to intensify the tempo of their operations. We should also expect the ferocity of fighting to shift more into urban areas.

Elevating Russia’s strategic nuclear deterrent forces to the “special regime of combat duty” (a near-war condition) increases the risk of the war going beyond Ukraine’s borders, as well.

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

– ref. How the Russian military remade itself into a modern, efficient and deadly fighting machine – https://theconversation.com/how-the-russian-military-remade-itself-into-a-modern-efficient-and-deadly-fighting-machine-178014

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Claire Breen, Professor of Law, University of Waikato

Children have participated in protests against nuclear weapons, wars, the loss of Māori land and customary rights, racism and child poverty. Young people themselves led the School Strike 4 Climate marches.

But the continuing presence of children at the sometimes violent occupation of parliament grounds has concerned many, from police to the prime minister and children’s commissioner.

So the question now becomes, should children even be allowed to participate in such events? Those who answer “no” may argue children (especially younger ones) cannot understand the nature of the debate, are being manipulated by adults, and are physically and emotionally vulnerable.

Others might argue young people’s voices should be heard, and that children are capable of grasping the meaning of protest action. And even if young people don’t understand an issue, it could be argued some adults should be prevented from protesting on the same basis.

An alternative view is that children have been, and will continue to be, heavily affected by pandemic restrictions and lockdowns. For that reason, they have a vested interest in being able to exercise their rights to gather and protest peacefully.

But with children potentially caught up in the less peaceful side of the parliament protest, it’s imperative they and their rights are understood and protected.

What does the law say?

Children, like adults, have the rights to freedom of movement, association and peaceful assembly – rights that underpin the right to (peaceful) protest. These rights are protected by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the ensuing framework of human rights treaties, including the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Whether they are exercised by adults or children, these rights aren’t absolute and can be limited. According to the international legal framework of human rights, however, such limitations must be based in law and in the interests of a democratic society. Restrictions can be imposed for reasons such as public safety, public order, or the protection of public health.

Read more:
The Wellington protest is testing police independence and public tolerance – are there lessons from Canada’s crackdown?

But there are other balancing acts when it comes to children’s rights, including their right to protest. The Convention on the Rights of the Child says the best interests of the child, and their right to have their opinions heard, should guide decision-making where children are involved.

In Aotearoa New Zealand, the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 guarantees the rights to freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly, subject to the same reasonable limits that exist in international law.

Who is responsible for child protesters?

Young protesters are at greater risk from harm than adults because they are physically smaller and therefore generally more vulnerable.

So the issue of who is responsible for the safety of children within the protest at parliament raises a number of complicated questions for the government, police, parents – and, of course, the young people themselves.

There are no clear answers in this type of situation.

The Convention on the Rights of the Child recognises, among other things, that parents have the primary responsibility for the upbringing and development of their children, and that children must be protected from violence.

Read more:
To protect children during Aotearoa’s Omicron outbreak, we need to consider their families, not just schools

New Zealand’s Care of Children Act 2004 states that the welfare and best interests of a child must be the first and paramount consideration. Children must be protected from all forms of violence, and the primary responsibility for their care lies with their parents.

The Oranga Tamariki Act 1989 promotes the well-being and protection from harm of children and young people, and Oranga Tamariki itself has said it was working with police and other partners to address any child protection concerns at the Wellington protest.

Challenges for police and the law

Against this legal framework, the challenge (especially for the police) is how to manage a sometimes unruly crowd that contains significant numbers of children.

This has undoubtedly already influenced the police’s response, and the fate of the protest in general hinges to some extent on guarding the children’s best interests and well-being and ensuring they are protected from harm.

Read more:
The occupation of NZ’s parliament grounds is a tactical challenge for police, but mass arrests are not an option

Failure to do this could mean the children at parliament grounds could be injured, and their rights to protest and to be protected from violence undermined.

Beyond these immediate concerns, though, the presence of children at parliament grounds should remind us again of the impact the pandemic in general has had on the hopes and dreams of young people.

These protests will eventually end, but ensuring the voices of children and young people are heard must be part of efforts to mitigate the consequences of the pandemic in the months and years to come.

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

– ref. What are the rights of children at the parliament protest – and who protects them? – https://theconversation.com/what-are-the-rights-of-children-at-the-parliament-protest-and-who-protects-them-177356

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne

This week’s Newspoll gives Labor a 55-45 lead over the Coalition, which is unchanged since the previous poll a fortnight ago.

The poll was conducted from February 23 to 26 from a sample of 1,525 people.

Coalition behind compared to 2019

Primary votes were 41% Labor (steady), 35% Coalition (up one), 9% Greens (up one), 4% Clive Palmer’s United Australia Party and 3% One Nation (steady).
This is the first time Newspoll has given a breakout result for the United Australia Party during this parliamentary term. The “all others” vote is 8%, compared with 4% in last week’s Essential poll, 11.5% in Morgan and 15% in Resolve.

In this most recent Newspoll, 55% were dissatisfied with Prime Minister Scott Morrison (down one), and 43% were satisfied (up three), for a net approval of -12. Morrison has improved six net points from his late January nadir of -18.

Read more:
Morrison’s ratings slump in Resolve and Essential polls; Liberals set to retain Willoughby

Labor leader Anthony Albanese’s net approval jumped seven points to +1. His ratings have been bouncy in the last four Newspolls, at -6, zero, -6 and +1 net approval. Meanwhile, Morrison leads Albanese by 42-40 as better prime minister (it was 43-38 last fortnight).

With a federal election expected in May, analyst Kevin Bonham says that at about the same time before the 2019 vote, the Coalition polled 47% two party three times in a row, compared to 44%, 45% and 45% this year. This does not mean the Coalition will lose, but they are further behind this time.

Resolve poll

Last week’s Resolve poll also had the UAP at 4%. The other primary votes were 35% Labor, 33% Coalition, 10% Greens, 3% One Nation, 10% independents and 5% others.

In other Resolve questions, 65% (up seven since November) wanted to restart Australia’s migration at a lower level than the 160,000 per year before COVID-19.
Just over half of those surveyed (53%) thought their income would fall behind inflation this year.

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics wages rose 0.7% in the December quarter and 2.3% for the full 2021 year. But this means real wages fell 1.2% in 2021 with an inflation rate of 3.5%. As The Age reported real wages have fallen 0.8% since the 2019 election, the first time this century they have fallen in a parliamentary term.

Labor ahead in South Australia

The South Australian state election is coming up on March 19. A Newspoll conducted February 18 to 24 from a sample of 1,015, gave the Labor opposition a 53-47 lead over the Liberal incumbents. This compares to the 51.9 to 48.1 lead the Liberals had over Labor at the 2018 election. Primary votes were 39% Labor, 37% Liberals, 10% Greens and 14% for all others.

Premier Steven Marshall had a 48% satisfied, 47% dissatisfied rating (net +1), while Labor leader Peter Malinauskas was at net +20. Unusually for opposition leaders, Malinauskas led as better premier by 46-39.

At the 2018 election, the Liberals won 25 of the 47 lower house seats, Labor 19 and independents three. Three Liberals have since gone to the crossbench, so Marshall goes into the election with a minority.

In the upper house, 11 of the 22 seats will be elected by statewide proportional representation with preferences. The 11 seats up are five Liberals, four Labor, one Green and one Advance SA. The total upper house is currently nine Liberals, eight Labor, two SA-Best, two Greens and one Advance SA.

As the Poll Bludger writes, only votes cast on election day can be counted on the night in SA. These votes will likely be a low proportion of the overall turnout. It won’t be possible to call the result on election night unless it is very decisive.

Coalition and Labor almost tied in NSW

A NSW state Resolve poll for The Sydney Morning Herald has given the Coalition 37% of the primary vote (down four since November), Labor 34% (up three), the Greens 8% (down two), the Shooters 2% (steady), independents 13% (up one) and others 6% (up two).

As usual Resolve did not give a two party estimate, but Bonham says for Labor it’s about 50-50 at worst and they could be ahead.

Labor’s Chris Minns led incumbent Dominic Perrottet as preferred premier by 32-29 (it was 34-23 to Perrottet in November). Bonham says this is the first time the Labor leader has led a NSW preferred/better premier poll that allowed an undecided option since the 2011 Coalition landslide.

NSW byelections final results

Four NSW state byelections were held on February 12. All votes are now counted.

Read more:
Mixed NSW byelection results do not imply voters in a ‘baseball bat’ mood

In Bega, Labor’s two party result was 55.0% – a 12.0% swing to the ALP. In Strathfield, it was 55.8%, with a 0.8% swing to Labor. In Monaro, the Nationals’ two party was 55.2%, with a 6.4% swing to Labor.

In Willoughby, the Liberals won 53.3% of the two-candidate vote against an independent. This is compared to 71.0% in 2019, when former premier Gladys Berejiklian easily defeated Labor.

Labor preferred in Queensland

The Courier Mail has also published the first Queensland state YouGov poll since the October 2020 election.

It gave Labor a 52-48 lead over the Liberal National Party (compared to 53.2-46.8 to the ALP at the election). Primary votes were 39% Labor, 38% LNP, 10% Greens and 8% One Nation.

Labor Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk had a 50% satisfied, 36% dissatisfied rating (net +14).

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

– ref. Labor maintains big federal Newspoll lead and is likely to win in South Australia – https://theconversation.com/labor-maintains-big-federal-newspoll-lead-and-is-likely-to-win-in-south-australia-178013

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Hugh Gundlach, Lecturer in Education, The University of Melbourne

Money might at first attract us to a profession, but does it keep us in it? The report of the Quality Initial Teacher Education Review, released in recent days, found teachers in Australia reach the top pay scale after about ten years. This is well below the average for advanced economies. A survey for the review suggested more high-achieving graduates would enter teaching if the top salary increased by $30,000.

But is salary enough to motivate people to stick with a long-term career in teaching?

Read more:
COVID and schools: Australia is about to feel the full brunt of its teacher shortage

We have spent the past four years working on a meta-analysis of research on this question. We analysed over 70 factors in global data on teacher retention and turnover over the past 40 years, involving more than 3 million participants in total. We also surveyed more than 1,000 Australian current and former teachers about their career decisions.

The most-researched factors in teacher retention and turnover are job satisfaction, school leadership and teacher salary. The survey shows major attractions to teaching include:

• a passion for learning

• working with young people

• contributing to society

• job security

• salary.

Are these factors the same as the factors that keep teachers in the profession?

We statistically combined the results of 186 similar but independent studies to obtain an overall estimate of an association between a factor and teachers’ decision to stay or leave the profession. This approach corrects for bias that may be present in individual studies to reveal the true strength of relationships.

What keeps teachers in the profession?

Our meta-analysis showed salary has the third-strongest association with teacher retention. It came behind teachers’ self-reported commitment to the profession and self-reported job satisfaction.

In our survey, salary ranked fourth for reasons teachers stay in the profession. The first three reasons were positive student relationships, positive collegiate relationships and secure employment.

One teacher with 12 years’ experience reflected:

“The most significant factor I have perceived in keeping teachers in our profession is their personal passion. Teachers are not materially motivated, there are no big dollars here. Good schools then necessarily rely on passion to outweigh these priorities in retaining and developing excellent teachers.”

Another teacher with 18 years’ experience said:

“The thing that has kept me in teaching is the students I teach, the relationships I have with them, and the sense that I am contributing to making their lives better in some way.”

Read more:
Teachers who feel appreciated are less likely to leave the profession

Any why do others leave teaching?

When surveyed about why teachers leave, salary did not feature in the top ten reasons. A loss of passion for teaching, stress and burnout, struggling to cope with their roles and a lack of connection with students were the most common reasons.

For those who leave, salary has a relatively weak association. It seems important for stayers, but won’t stop leavers from leaving.

As one participant in the survey said:

“I think the pressure, stress and workload, paired with the salary teachers receive, ultimately means you must have a real passion for the job to survive. As soon as that passion fades, it can become incredibly arduous, you can feel unappreciated, and you can become resentful. It is important to continually assess why you are teaching and what makes you love the job, as without that love for the work you do, the profession can be a nightmare.”

Showing teachers they are valued does matter

A $30,000 pay rise for every teacher at the top experience level would of course be popular. It would show their experience is valued. One teacher with ten years’ experience said:

“I find it really frustrating that I work hard but am not financially rewarded. I look at my friends earning twice the amount and experiencing more recognition for jobs that are merely about economic benefit. I know my job is important but I would like more prestige in society’s eyes.”

Raising the top salary for teachers, even if only a fraction of recruits last long enough to receive it, may help to raise the status in society and social approval among friends and family of teaching. These two factors had strong associations with intentions to stay in the profession.

The prime target of raising the top salary would be teachers under 40 years old. A recently published report on the characteristics of teachers in the workforce found teachers under 40 were much less likely (about 20%) to indicate an intention to stay in the profession until retirement.

One teacher commented:

“The public service get much more money, for much less work and far fewer qualifications. The value and worth of the teaching profession do not reflect well.”

Read more:
Three charts on teachers’ pay in Australia: it starts out OK, but goes downhill pretty quickly

Our study data suggest teachers leave for a combination of greater pay and benefits and professional growth. One teacher told us:

“I value opportunities and recognition. When you hear about friends who work for exciting firms that offer opportunities, perks and flexibility, the school environment can feel rigid.”

The structure of tenure-based salary advancement is potentially a limiting factor compared to other industries. A 49-year-old teacher with five years’ experience said:

“I had to take a huge pay cut to move from the corporate sector into education. I never expected to be confronted with such an inequitable system. Pay based on years of experience rather than merit and ability has been very demotivating.”

Staffing schools is a delicate balancing act

Retention in itself should not be a school goal at the expense of student learning or rejuvenation of teaching staff through new hires. Indeed, teachers are not exactly a homogeneous workforce.

Unfair as it may be, should bonuses be offered to retain teachers in hard-to-staff subjects and locations only?

Read more:
Return-to-school plans overlook chronic teacher shortages outside the big cities

A $30,000 increase in the salary ceiling may retain long-serving staff, but what effect would $30,000 spent to reduce workload and improve resources and working conditions for all teachers have on retention?

Ensuring Australia has a sufficient supply of qualified and motivated teachers requires a two-pronged approach: attraction and retention.

This article is based on research partially funded by the Victorian Department of Education and Training’s Strengthening Teachers Initiative. Hugh Gundlach is also supported by the Australian Department of Education, Skills and Employment Research Training Program Fees Offset and Stipend.

Gavin R. Slemp participated in the research project that was partially funded by the Victorian Department of Education and Training’s Strengthening Teachers Initiative.

– ref. Higher salaries might attract teachers but pay isn’t one of the top 10 reasons for leaving – https://theconversation.com/higher-salaries-might-attract-teachers-but-pay-isnt-one-of-the-top-10-reasons-for-leaving-177825

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anna M. Kotarba-Morley, Senior Lecturer in Archaeology, Flinders University

The medieval settlement of Unguja Ukuu, on the Zanzibar Archipelago off the coast of Tanzania, was a key port in an extensive Indian Ocean trade network that linked eastern Africa, southern Arabia, India and Southeast Asia.

Our archaeological research shows how human activities between the seventh and twelfth centuries AD irreversibly modified the shoreline around the site. At first, these changes may have helped the trading settlement develop, but later they may have contributed to its decline and abandonment.

Ancient seafaring

For millennia, the Indian Ocean has been the maritime setting for an early form of globalisation. Large trade networks operated across the vast ocean, foreshadowing modern global shipping networks. Unguja Ukuu was a crucial location in this early trade and an important node in the nascent slave trade out of continental Africa.

Read more:
From war elephants to cheap electronics: modern globalisation has its roots in ancient trade networks

Unguja Ukuu was an active settlement from the mid-first millennium until the early second millennium AD. Archaeological evidence and historical accounts suggest Unguja Ukuu is one of the earliest known trading settlements on the Swahili coast.

The rise and fall of trading ports

To understand how and why early ports thrived or declined, it is important to know how the coastal landscape influenced the way traders operated. This includes their choice of mooring locations and their connections to inland locations.

But the question of how these commercial activities in turn modified the coastline has received less attention.

Unguja Ukuu prospered in an ecologically marginal zone, hemmed in between the sandy back-reef shore of Menai Bay and mangrove-banked creeks to the east.

Menai Bay afforded shelter from monsoonal storms and navigable waterways across the shallow inner shelf to the shore. It also provided food and other materials from the mangrove habitat.

This landscape enabled the emergence of the farming, fishing, and trading settlement of Unguja Ukuu.

Sediment, sand and shells

We studied sediments, back-beach sands, and shells at Unguja Ukuu to understand how the settlement had affected its own environment. We found the accumulation of coastal sediments over centuries led to significant changes in the landscape.

Detritus from the settlement, such as food remains, hearths and other domestic waste, helped the beach spread outward into the sea. Our analyses show how human waste and the compaction of ancient surfaces drove the coastline change, supporting the emergence of a major trading site.

As more land was used for urban living and agriculture, more sediment moved from the land to the sea. This contributed to rapid growth of beach fronts, physically altering the coastal landscape and the ecological conditions of the adjacent sea-scape.

These changes in turn could have resulted in habitat shifts and silting of the lagoon which possibly contributed to Unguja Ukuu’s decline.

Early human impacts

Human-made processes might also be implicated in the decline and eventual abandonment of Unguja Ukuu in the second millennium AD. This was an important period in the socio-political and economic transformation of coastal African societies, marking the emergence of maritime Swahili culture.

But suggesting a purely environmental cause for the settlement’s abandonment would be too simplistic. The interaction of coastal villages and harbours with their dynamic landscapes may have had a role in this regional reorganisation of settlements, harbours, and trade flows.

Read more:
How the term ‘Anthropocene’ jumped from geoscience to hashtags – before most of us knew what it meant

New advances in archaeological science techniques, combined with systematic archaeological analyses, are increasingly allowing us to disentangle natural from human-made drivers of events. Such work often reveals far earlier human impacts than once envisioned, shedding light on the early roots of Earth’s current geological epoch: the Anthropocene, in which human activity is a key force reshaping the planet.

Human-made soil

Our work records snapshots of the evolution of a natural coastal system at the fringes of an early settlement.

River sediments were covered by beach sands containing increasing amounts of human waste accumulating from the mid-seventh century AD. This backshore activity area was used for small-scale subsistence activities (including processing shells for meat), trade, and the dumping of industrial waste.

Earlier urban development shaped Unguja Ukuu’s soils over the long term and through periods of settlement decline and abandonment from the twelfth century AD onwards. A dark earth “anthrosol” (human-made soil) continues to evolve on these archaeological deposits today, supporting cultivation in and around the modern town.

Read more:
Soil: it’s what keeps us clothed and fed

Dark human-made soils such as these, formed by rapid decay of organic- and phosphate-rich waste from the settlement, may be used as markers for as-yet undiscovered archaeological sites on the eastern African coast. Their distinctive dark colour renders the soils easily identifiable on satellite images and other remote-sensing datasets.

Understanding the past to shape the future

Our study clearly shows how human modification of natural environments affected coastal landscapes on an East African island more than 1,000 years ago. These findings are a reminder that humans have been changing our environment for thousands of years – sometimes for the better, and sometimes for the worse.

Studying history and archaeology is not simply about learning from our ancestors’ mistakes so that we don’t repeat them. It is also about ensuring that scientifically rigorous data that show how human activity in the past often altered the landscapes and environments in which people lived is effectively communicated, to both governments and the public.

If we can do this we might be able to make better informed sustainable choices for the future of our planet.

Anna M. Kotarba-Morley receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

Alison Crowther receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

Mike W Morley receives funding from the Australian Research Council (ARC).

Nicole Boivin received funding for this research from the European Research Council.

– ref. At Unguja Ukuu, human activity transformed the coast of Zanzibar more than 1,000 years ago – https://theconversation.com/at-unguja-ukuu-human-activity-transformed-the-coast-of-zanzibar-more-than-1-000-years-ago-176035

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nikolaj Travica, Postdoctoral research fellow, Deakin University

Many Australians can feel overwhelmed at some stage of their life with feelings of tension, nervousness and fear for the worst. A staggering 3.2 million Australians have an anxiety-related condition, with the largest increases over recent years witnessed in those between the ages of 15–24 years.

The growing field of nutritional psychiatry focuses on the effects of foods and drinks on our mental health. Despite water constituting 60–80% of the human body, it is often overlooked as a significant nutrient. A recent tweet by federal health authorities suggesting water could help reduce anxiety was received with some online scepticism.

In fact, the evidence shows water and hydration can play a role in preventing and managing the symptoms of anxiety.

Read more:
The psychology of comfort food – why we look to carbs for solace

A well-oiled machine

We all enjoy the cooling sensation a cold drink of water provides on a sweltering summer day. Our bodies are masterfully programmed to let us know when it’s time to rehydrate. We may be nourishing our brain too.

Several years ago, a group of researchers undertook a review that focused on the various ways hydration impacts health. The results were promising.

Overall, negative emotions such as anger, hostility, confusion and tension as well as fatigue were found to increase with dehydration. One trial induced mild dehydration and found increased reports of tension or anxiety and fatigue in participants.

Researchers have also found people who usually drink lots of water feel less calm, less content, and more tense when their water intake drops. When researchers increased the participants’ water intake, people in the study felt more happiness, no matter how much water they normally drank.

Another large study found people who drink five cups or more of water per day were at lower risk of depression and anxiety. In comparison, drinking less than two cups per day doubles the risk. This link was less noticeable for anxiety alone (although feelings of depression and anxiety often influence each other).

More recently, researchers found water with electrolytes may prevent anxiety more than plain water, but it was noted that the placebo effect may explain this connection as study participants were aware when they were given the electrolyte drink.

The link between dehydration and anxiety is also observed in children, who are a group at risk of dehydration. Dehydration might also affect how well we sleep. Poor sleep can exacerbate feelings of anxiety.

Read more:
Food as medicine: your brain really does want you to eat more veggies

Water on the brain?

Almost every bodily function relies on water. Because 75% of brain tissue is water, dehydration reduces energy production in the brain and can change brain structure, causing the brain to slow down and not function properly.

At the molecular level, if water levels are too low, our brain cells cannot function properly, with the brain showing signs of working harder to complete tasks.

Our cells recognise a state of dehydration as a threat to survival, leading to a state of anxiety. Serotonin is a neurotransmitter (a chemical messenger between brain cells) that stabilises our mood and regulates emotions. During dehydration, we struggle to get the chemicals required to produce serotonin into our brain.

Being just half a litre dehydrated may also increase the stress hormone cortisol, which has been associated with a range of mental disorders, including anxiety.

Read more:
Want to improve your mood? It’s time to ditch the junk food

The big picture

So, based on what is currently known and emerging evidence, the government health communication provides some good advice. Addressing lifestyle factors including your water intake in the context of your overall diet, physical activity levels, and sleep are important foundations that can support a person’s mental health. And there is evidence to suggest dehydration can affect our mood.

But it’s important to note there are a wide range of factors that affect an individual’s level of anxiety. No single thing is likely to be responsible for completely resolving those feelings. This is particularly true in people experiencing significant anxiety, where simply drinking more water is unlikely to be helpful on its own.

Nikolaj Travica receives funding from Deakin University as a post-doctoral research fellow

– ref. Water really can provide some relief from anxiety and help us see the glass half full – https://theconversation.com/water-really-can-provide-some-relief-from-anxiety-and-help-us-see-the-glass-half-full-177458

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Baker, Professor of Public Health, University of Otago

Two years ago today, the first confirmed case of COVID-19 was reported in Aotearoa New Zealand. Few of us could have imagined the huge impact this pandemic would still be having two years later.

As New Zealand enters its third year of the pandemic, we are facing widespread community transmission as an epidemic wave of the Omicron variant sweeps across the country. A majority of New Zealanders may become infected in coming months, but many with few or no symptoms.

Australian experience suggests we might see a peak of around 1,100 people with COVID-19 in hospitals during March and April.

We have previously written about the challenges apparent after six months and one year of the pandemic. Today, we examine what we’ve learned — the major challenges that have persisted or emerged and how New Zealand can manage them to achieve the best possible outcomes.

Shifting strategies

New Zealand has demonstrated the benefits of a science-informed response with a strong strategic focus. During the first year of the pandemic when there were no vaccines available, the elimination strategy protected people and the economy.

Following the emergence of the Delta variant, tight suppression was also highly effective. Now, with the growing surge driven by the Omicron variant, New Zealand has been forced to shift to a mitigation strategy.

Read more:
NZ’s confirmed COVID case numbers are rising fast, but total infections are likely much higher – here’s why

New Zealand’s strategic approach has supported the country in achieving some of the world’s lowest COVID-19 mortality rates and increased life expectancy. New Zealand has also had a relatively small amount of time in lockdown and comparatively good economic performance.

To achieve these successes, New Zealand has had to deliver major public health interventions very rapidly and their limitations have become apparent over time.

Border quarantine is difficult to maintain if not done well and creates severe consequences for some. The vaccine rollout has been highly inequitable. Mandates for vaccine and mask use have been divisive and sometimes vigorously opposed by a vocal minority.

Challenges and opportunities ahead

The experience of the last two years highlights five major opportunities to enhance New Zealand’s pandemic response and achieve lasting benefits for our ability to manage other major public health threats.

1. Taking a precautionary approach in the face of uncertainty

Possibly the biggest challenge has been the changing nature of the pandemic threat itself. The virus continues to evolve and new variants of concern with increased infectiousness have emerged. We do not know whether future variants will be more or less virulent.

Omicron shows a high capacity for reinfection which will need to be managed if this variant remains dominant. Optimistically, we may see the end of the pandemic though not the end of COVID-19. The full population impact of post-acute illness (long COVID) is not yet known and evidence about prevention and management is still at an early stage.

2. Enhancing equity and better protecting the most vulnerable

The move to mitigation (from elimination and suppression) shifts protection away from the collective, population-level focus to individual measures like vaccination, mask use and self-isolation.

Despite a strongly stated commitment to equity, Māori and Pasifika have lower vaccine and booster coverage rates. They are also over-represented among COVID-19 cases and hospitalisations.

Mitigation aims to flatten the epidemic curve to protect the healthcare system from being overwhelmed. During such periods, there is potential for the most vulnerable (people who are Māori, Pasifika, low-income, living with other illnesses and disabilities) to miss out on care.

There are multiple ways of improving equity in the response. These include greater support for Māori and Pasifika health providers, further efforts to raise vaccine coverage for Māori in particular, policies to support sick workers staying at home and a national mask strategy that makes effective masks freely available.

We also need a stronger focus on protecting children’s health and well-being, including a pivot to a whānau-centred approach and efforts to reduce transmission in schools and early childhood education.

Read more:
To protect children during Aotearoa’s Omicron outbreak, we need to consider their families, not just schools

3. Improving communication, policy responsiveness and trust

Pandemics are different from other public health emergencies because the behaviour of individuals directly affects the level of risk for the wider population. Inevitably, after two years, the response has become more contested and social cohesion has weakened. Some of this shift appears fuelled by the global pandemic of disinformation.

The New Zealand government can enhance public trust by showing that the response is risk-based, for example by phasing out travel restrictions and border isolation requirements now that Omicron infection is widespread. Some mandates are needed for critical public health interventions but require continuing review to ensure they are proportionate.

Trust and social cohesion will also be improved by maximising transparency around the pandemic response, with clear statements about the rationale and level of risk, supported with evidence and local surveillance data presented in meaningful ways. We also need specific strategies to reduce misinformation and disinformation on social media.

4. Improving evidence-informed leadership and adaptability

While New Zealand’s science-informed strategic response has been generally successful, it has at times been reactive rather than proactive in rapidly adapting to changes in the pandemic. We need better mechanisms, such as the multi-party epidemic response committee of parliamentarians, and advisory processes that ensure high-level science input into the all-of-government response. This could include the formation of a COVID-19 science council/rōpu.

Other measures include a well-resourced research strategy to provide high-quality scientific evidence and an official inquiry to assess the pandemic response and drive wider system improvements.

5. Investing in public health infrastructure

The current health sector reforms are an opportunity to establish essential infrastructure, including a Public Health Agency and Māori Health Authority.

Investment in the national immunisation register may help with reversing the recent decline in childhood immunisations. The pandemic also demonstrates that clean indoor air is as essential to health as clean drinking water.

We should learn from other countries that have also delivered effective responses. Taiwan is an example we have previously documented.

In summary, New Zealand is well placed to navigate the pandemic and the Omicron wave successfully. As we enter our third pandemic year, we can improve the effectiveness of our response by maintaining a precautionary approach in the face of uncertainty. We also need to improve equity, communication and trust, and evidence-informed leadership, as well as investing in public health infrastructure.

These improvements will provide legacy benefits that prepare us well for other public health challenges we face.

Michael Baker receives funding from the Health Research Council of New Zealand for infectious disease research.

Amanda Kvalsvig receives funding from the Health Research Council of New Zealand for infectious diseases research.

Matire Harwood receives funding from Health Research Council, National Science Challenge – Healthier Lives and Heart Foundation. She is e member of the COVID-TAG.

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

– ref. Two years on from the first COVID case, New Zealand’s successful pandemic response still faces major challenges – https://theconversation.com/two-years-on-from-the-first-covid-case-new-zealands-successful-pandemic-response-still-faces-major-challenges-177134

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Denis Muller, Senior Research Fellow, Centre for Advancing Journalism, The University of Melbourne

There is a great deal more at stake than national security in Scott Morrison’s hyper-partisan and grossly dishonest accusation that Anthony Albanese and his deputy, Richard Marles, are carrying the hopes of the Chinese regime at the forthcoming election.

It undermines the stability of our democracy and shows we have reached a dangerous point in our political discourse.

Two factors are at work here: extremely divisive political rhetoric and the willingness of the country’s dominant newspaper company, Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, to lend it a megaphone.

Morrison and Murdoch are trying to do to Australia’s democracy what Murdoch and Donald Trump did to America’s between 2016 and 2021.

They are working together to create division where none exists in pursuit of their own political and ideological interests. No lie is too big to be used for this purpose.

The English philosopher A.C. Grayling and two American political scientists, Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt – among many others – have shown how these factors have combined to weaken democracy in the United States and the United Kingdom.

Broadly speaking, their arguments go like this:

Hyper-partisanship – in which fierce disagreement is expressed in extreme language – leads to a breakdown in the consensus on which democracy depends.

When the consensus breaks down, so does the acceptance by each side that the other side has political legitimacy.

When that acceptance breaks down, the peaceful transfer of power that democracies achieve by holding elections is severely threatened. We saw this on January 6 2021, when the Trumpian mob assailed the Capitol in Washington.

Propaganda, spin and outright falsehoods promoted in the professional mass media and on social media contribute powerfully to these consequences.

Levitsky and Ziblatt, in their book How Democracies Die, argue extreme polarisation leads political rivals to see each other as mutual threats. This in turn encourages a win-at-all-costs attitude and leads to a corrosive refusal to accept that the other side is entitled to govern.

If democracies were to be diverted from this destructive course, it was necessary for them to recapture the civility, sense of freedom and shared purpose that defined democracy’s essence in the mid-20th century.

It is here that the professional mass media have a crucial role to play. It lies within their power to promote civility of discourse, articulate a society’s shared purpose and debunk lies.

Read more:
Too much sugar, not enough spice: 60 Minutes’ Morrison interview was not journalism, it was confected pap

However, after Morrison’s crude and baseless accusations, Murdoch’s newspapers, including The Australian, The Daily Telegraph and the Herald Sun, and his Sky News channel all trumpeted the message that Albanese and Marles were Beijing’s preferred candidates for the election.

Morrison used as evidence an article in the Global Times, a propaganda mouthpiece for the Chinese government, written by former Australian diplomat Bruce Haigh, entitled “Weak Australian leadership inhibits potential relationship reset with China”.

Purely as a matter of logic, it is difficult to follow the Morrison argument.

The proposition seems to be that he can swallow material from a recognised Chinese government propaganda outfit and use it as credible evidence that someone else – namely the Labor leadership – is being manipulated by the Chinese government.

On top of that, the article quoted was far from flattering of Albanese. It characterised him as a cautious politician inclined to accept the US view of the world without giving it any independent thought.

At this point, it is only fair to point out there have been two remarkable exceptions to the Murdoch media chorus. Both Greg Sheridan, The Australian’s foreign editor, and Andrew Bolt, the Herald Sun and Sky News commentator, have spoken out, strongly disapproving of Morrison’s accusations.

In doing so, they echoed what the more responsible elements of the Australian media have done, focusing on the warnings from the current head of ASIO, Mike Burgess, and a previous head, Dennis Richardson, that Morrison’s conduct undermines national security.

Read more:
Grattan on Friday: Faraway conflict feeds into Morrison’s national security pitch

The election is still scheduled for three months’ time, and the pressure on these responsible elements of the media is only likely to become more intense. Who knows what new conspiracy theories and hobgoblins the politicians will drum up between now and then?

Much will depend on whether Australia’s political leaders can climb out of the gutter, not forgetting that Albanese slung the “Manchurian candidate” slur back at Morrison.

Another important factor will be what happens on social media.

Hyper-partisanship is fuelled by social media through the echo-chamber effect, a phenomenon American political analyst Cass Sunstein examines in his book #republic.

He argues people could join the political debate wholly within these echo chambers among like-minded people, isolated from alternative views. They are exposed only to information of questionable quality and arguments that become increasingly strident and extreme as participants stir themselves up into a frenzy of hostility towards the opposing viewpoint.

This hostility then provides further incendiary material for unscrupulous politicians to exploit. Not long after, the contents of echo chambers can seep out into the public discourse.

Read more:
‘National security’ once meant more than just conjuring up threats beyond our borders

Australia’s democracy is in some respects better designed than America’s, especially with its independent electoral commission, preferential ballot and compulsory voting. These all provide some protection against the electoral impact of extremism.

But it is not indestructible. It rests on consensus, and that is preserved by tolerance and restraint, what Levitsky and Ziblatt call the “guardrails of democracy”.

We have seen precious little of either in the past week from the Morrison-Murdoch machine, leaving it to the rest of the media to try to see that those guardrails hold up.

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

– ref. Scare-mongering on China is a threat to our democracy, and responsible media must guard against it – https://theconversation.com/scare-mongering-on-china-is-a-threat-to-our-democracy-and-responsible-media-must-guard-against-it-177741

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rachael Dwyer, Lecturer in Arts and Teacher Education, University of the Sunshine Coast

The 2005 National Review of School Music Education found many Australian students missed out on music education, with massive disparities between states. In 2020, our research for the Tony Foundation found the same issues, despite the fact that the Australian Curriculum for Music should guarantee some level of consistency.

We now have evidence that we should be concerned about music education not just for the sake of music itself, but also because of its impacts on language learning and literacy. Research about how participating in music affects the brain – a field known as neuromusical research – has taught us a lot about how the brain processes language. Significantly, it processes language in the same way as music.

If we want to improve literacy, then, we need to ensure the cognitive foundations our students need are in place.

In short, we need to view music education as a powerful complementary learning experience, and not a “nice but not essential” part of the curriculum.

Read more:
Musical training can accelerate brain development and help with literacy skills

So what are states doing?

We have yet to see this knowledge put into practice across Australia.

Before and after the 2005 review, Queensland has had strong music programs in state-funded primary schools since the 1980s. The state has a classroom music program for the whole school (where a teacher is available), and a low-cost instrumental music program for some students. A campaign is under way in Queensland to preserve these programs and make sure every student gets a music lesson every week.

The same can’t be said for other states. Despite moves to improve music education in some states, there’s still inequity.

South Australia established a Music Education Strategy and Music Innovation Fund in 2019. Victoria has developed a Quality Music Education Framework to guide best practice. Tasmania, Western Australia and the ACT have music specialist teachers in some government primary schools. In New South Wales, general classroom teachers in government schools are responsible for teaching all of the curriculum, including music.

But how much does music really matter?

Music can deliver progress on literacy

While music education has been found to improve a wide range of cognitive functions, let’s look at literacy development as an example. If literacy scores are lower than required or expected, it seems obvious the solution is to spend more time on literacy learning to improve those scores. That’s the approach taken over the past five years.

Yet we have not seen a significant boost in NAPLAN results. In fact, the dial has moved very little.

Read more:
Reading progress is falling between year 5 and 7, especially for advantaged students: 5 charts

So the obvious “more time” approach is not yielding higher literacy achievement. Might we then look to research outside the literacy field for the next steps in improving literacy in our schools?

The answer is yes. A field traditionally a few steps outside of literacy education – music education – has greatly enhanced understanding of how the brain develops understanding and application of language.

Neuromusical research has pinpointed the brain mechanisms and interactions that decode language sounds to understand and develop the syntax of language right through to the comprehension and creation of meaning through language. It has led to the enlightening finding that the human brain processes all language as if it was music.

What does this mean for literacy education and the current measure of its effectiveness, NAPLAN? It means we may well be missing a fundamental underpinning of language development – the development of the auditory processing network to its highest levels so our students can effectively interpret language sounds.

Put simply, if a child cannot hear the language sound – that is, process the sound correctly through their auditory network – they cannot speak it. And if they cannot speak it, they cannot read it.

Read more:
Music engagement and achievement predicts higher grades in math, science and English

The costs of inaction are high

The research on the potential for music education to improve cognitive development is extensive and compelling. It clearly shows that consistent, high-quality music learning enhances students’ general learning. So music learning isn’t just for those who want to become musicians – it benefits everyone.

The cost of waiting, of not resolving the issues with music education across Australia, is high. This is an issue of equity. If the state a student is schooled in affects their fundamental cognitive development due to the lack of quality music education for every child, then every child is not receiving an equitable and effective education.

The longer we wait to address the inequity, the fewer qualified music educators we will have in Australia. In our report, Music Education: A Sound Investment, we identified that we are on a skills cliff of qualified music educators in this country. In addition to the existing widespread teacher shortage, there are now only a few universities offering a specialisation in primary music teaching. Urgent action is needed to make sure there are enough music teachers for all schools, so kids don’t miss out.

When it comes to education, politicians and policymakers ignoring the research evidence is hardly new. But the failure to see the bigger picture of every child’s development has lasting impacts.

The focus of education should be to provide the cognitive preparation for a full and productive life. And music is an integral part of providing students with the best possible foundation for their education.

Rachael Dwyer receives funding from Alberts | The Tony Foundation.

Anita Collins receives funding from Music Education: Right from the Start Initative and South Australian Department of Education. She is affiliated with the University of Canberra, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Alberts | Tony Foundation, South Australian Music Education Strategy.

– ref. Music can help lift our kids out of the literacy rut, but schools in some states are still missing out – https://theconversation.com/music-can-help-lift-our-kids-out-of-the-literacy-rut-but-schools-in-some-states-are-still-missing-out-173908

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Christopher Michaelsen, Associate Professor, UNSW Sydney

A key feature of the international community’s response to Russia’s aggression against Ukraine has been the adoption of sanctions.

But what exactly are sanctions and how do they operate in practice?

And most importantly, are they likely to have any meaningful impact?

Read more:
Targeting Putin’s inner circle and keeping Europe on board: Why Biden’s sanctions may actually work to make Russia pay for invading Ukraine

What are sanctions?

Sanctions are coercive measures that can be applied to diplomatic, economic and cultural relations between states. Commonly non-military in nature, they are imposed by one state against another (unilateral sanctions) or by an international organisation, such as the United Nations (collective sanctions).

Historically, measures have ranged from comprehensive sanctions to more targeted measures prohibiting trade in particular items, such as arms, timber, or diamonds.

Some sanctions have circumscribed particular activities understood to benefit a target, such as diplomatic, sporting, and cultural relations, as well as travel.

They have also targeted particular individuals and groups who pose a threat to peace and security, including political elites, rebel groups, or terrorist organisations.

How do economic sanctions operate in practice?

Economic sanctions are multidimensional. They tend to include travel bans and financial sanctions. Financial sanctions consist of targeted asset freezes and restrictions on a wide variety of financial markets and services.

Where the financial sanction is an asset freeze, it is generally prohibited to deal with the frozen funds held by a designated person or entity.

Funds are defined to include financial assets of every kind: cash, cheques, money orders, credit, debts, stocks and shares, interest, dividends or other income from or generated by assets.

The designation of targeted individuals and entities occurs either on the basis of a national listing procedure (for the US see here, for the UK here, for Australia here).

Or, this designation may happen as a result of a sanctions regime adopted by an international organisation, which is then implemented by its members (for current UN sanctions regimes see here, for the EU here).

This twin-track approach is generally reflected in the sanctions practice of states which maintain “consolidated lists”.

Separate “consolidated lists” are kept for those individuals and entities listed on the basis of unilateral sanctions and those listed as a consequence of collective sanctions.

Some international best practice exists regarding sanctions implementation, such as guidance by the G7 Financial Action Task Force. But compliance will always depend on individual countries and the particular features of domestic companies.

Financial institutions, such as banks, will have in place automated procedures to filter incoming transactions before entering, and outgoing transactions before leaving their internal systems.

Are economic sanctions effective?

They can be.

The impact on listed individuals and entities can be severe, as illustrated by the internationally litigated cases of Kadi and Al Barakaat International Foundation v Council of the European Union or Nada v Switzerland (both cases in the context of financial counter-terrorism sanctions).

However, the general effectiveness of economic sanctions is uncertain, not least because it is empirically difficult to measure it.

According to Dursun Peksen, a sanctions expert at the University of Memphis, economic sanctions result in meaningful behavioural change in the targeted country about 40% of the time.

Yet, as a recent study by the US government demonstrates, establishing clear causality is impossible.

For example, a sanctioned country or individual may decide to change their behaviour for many reasons. Some of these changes may be unrelated to the sanctions.

Read more:
Ukraine: sanctions can still make a difference – but only if done right

What sanctions are now applied against Russia?

The international community has imposed a mix of economic and diplomatic sanctions, with countries acting both unilaterally and collectively.

The US and the UK have introduced unilateral sanctions targeting Russia’s two largest banks, Sberbank and VTB Bank. They have also frozen the assets and restricted travel of key Russian oligarchs. Canada and Australia have followed suit.

Germany has indicated it is abandoning the Nord Stream 2 Baltic Sea gas pipeline project, designed to double the flow of Russian gas direct to the country. Poland, Czech Republic, Bulgaria and Estonia have closed their airspace for Russian airlines.

As for collective sanctions, the UN Security Council will remain unable to impose any sanctions due to the veto power Russia holds as a permanent member. Indeed, Russia has already used this veto power to block a resolution condemning the invasion of Ukraine.

The EU, on the other hand, has quickly introduced asset freezes and travel bans preventing listed individuals from entering or transiting through EU territory.

EU sanctions now apply to 555 Russian individuals and 52 entities, including 351 members of the Russian State Duma who have backed the aggression against Ukraine.

The EU has since moved to adopt further sanction packages, which include targeting President Putin and Foreign Minister Lavrov directly.

Together with the US and the UK, the EU has also agreed to remove select Russian banks from the SWIFT banking system, the financial messaging infrastructure that links the world’s banks.

The Council of Europe in Strasbourg has also applied unprecedented diplomatic sanctions. It has suspended Russia from its rights of representation in the Committee of Ministers and in the Parliamentary Assembly.

Are the sanctions likely to have any meaningful impact?

Too early to say, but probably not in the short term.

The unilateral and collective sanctions that have been applied are comprehensive. They have also been adopted swiftly. Some of the measures, such as targeting Putin and Lavrov personally, are unprecedented.

On the other hand, significant gaps remain and pose a considerable risk of fragmentation.

The example of Switzerland is a case in point. The Swiss government has voiced support for complementing EU sanctions. Yet, it has so far shied away from applying targeted asset freezes of those individuals listed by the EU, the US and other countries.

As a New York Times analysis details, there is also growing concern Russian companies may evade sanctions by turning to cryptocurrency tools, including the so-called digital ruble and ransomware.

Read more:
All told, Australian sanctions will have almost zero consequences for Russia

Christopher Michaelsen receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

– ref. What are sanctions, do they ever work – and could they stop Russia’s invasion of Ukraine? – https://theconversation.com/what-are-sanctions-do-they-ever-work-and-could-they-stop-russias-invasion-of-ukraine-177926

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Ramsay, Emeritus Professor, Melbourne Law School, The University of Melbourne

Australian companies are being taken over like never before. On Saturday February 19 a consortium involving tech billionaire Mike Cannon-Brookes and Canadian asset manager Brookfield offered A$5 billion to buy AGL Energy.

AGL is Australia’s biggest electricity supplier and owns Australia’s two highest emitting power stations.

The bidders plan to shut down those coal-fired plants early and invest up to $20 billion in clean energy and storage to replace them.

On Monday February 21, AGL announced that it had rejected the offer because it “materially undervalues the company on a change of control basis and is not in the best interests of AGL Energy shareholders”.

The offer price was 4.7% above the price of AGL shares the day before the offer, something the AGL chief executive called a “ridiculously low premium”.

Even though much of Australia was locked down throughout much of 2021, the Financial Times says last year was a record year for Australian takeovers, with $308 billion of deals struck compared to a 10 year average of $100 billion.

Among the deals were $23.6 billion for Sydney Airport and $39 billion for Afterpay. The pace has continued in 2022 with Crown Resorts accepting $8.9 billion from Blackstone Inc.

There are two main types of takeovers

• takeover bids, subject to Chapter 6 of the Corporations Act

• “schemes of arrangement”, subject to Part 5.1 of the Corporations Act.

Increasingly, takeovers have been undertaken as schemes of arrangement. Each of the big takeovers mentioned – for AGL, Sydney Airport, Afterpay and Crown Resorts – has been a scheme of arrangement.

How takeover bids work

No one is permitted to acquire more than 20% of a company’s voting shares unless they acquire them in a way authorised by the Corporations Act. These authorised ways include a takeover bid, a scheme of arrangement and “creeping” acquisitions, whereby shareholders can increase their stake by 3% each six months.

The prohibition is broader than just acquiring voting shares and includes situations where, for example, a person may not actually own shares but they control the voting rights attached to the shares. The intention is to not allow someone to hide their control of a company.

Read more:
What impacts do takeover defences have on shareholders?

The provisions apply to companies listed on the securities exchange, unlisted companies with more than 50 shareholders, and listed registered managed investment schemes.

In takeover bids, the bidder is required to make an offer to each shareholder.

Each shareholder gets information about the offer and decides whether to accept or reject it. A shareholder who does not accept will usually only be forced to give up their shares if the bidder gets enough acceptances to reach 90% and triggers the compulsory acquisition provisions in the Corporations Act.

How schemes of arrangement work

A scheme of arrangement requires a meeting of the company’s shareholders to vote on whether to accept the scheme. This is not the case for a takeover bid.

As in a takeover bid, the shareholders are given information on the offer beforehand.

Even the shareholders who oppose the scheme have to give up their shares should the scheme be approved by the company’s shareholders and the court.

The required majorities in favour are:

• 50% of the individual shareholders who vote, and

• 75% of votes cast.

In addition, the scheme of arrangement requires court approval to ensure all shareholders are treated fairly. Court approval is not required for a takeover bid.

Why schemes are becoming more popular

Among the reasons why schemes of arrangement have grown in popularity compared with takeover bids are

• if the scheme is approved by the required majorities of shareholders and the court, 100% ownership of the target company is obtained, even if some shareholders vote against the scheme

• the voting majorities required are lower than the 90% of shares required to undertake compulsory acquisition following a takeover bid

• a scheme can have more flexibility in its structure to make the offer more attractive to shareholders.

A key issue for a bidder when choosing between a scheme and a takeover bid is a scheme requires the approval of the board of directors of the target company to put the proposal before shareholders, whereas a takeover bid does not.

This means that a scheme cannot be used for a hostile takeover (one not supported by the target company’s board). In contrast, a takeover bid can be either friendly or hostile.

What’s next for AGL?

The proposed takeover of AGL is structured as a scheme and has been rejected by the AGL board because the price was too low.

Brookfield and Cannon-Brookes might return with a higher bid, which might gain the board’s support and be presented to shareholders.

If that happens, it won’t be the end. The scheme would need to be approved by shareholders and the court. Also, the approval of both the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission and the Foreign Investment Review Board is needed.

Read more:
The battle for AGL heralds a new dawn for Australian electricity

If the board continues to oppose the offer and to oppose any higher offer, the bidders could restructure their proposal as a hostile takeover bid, requiring only sufficient shareholder acceptance and approval from the regulators.

And there might be another bidder for AGL. Mike Cannon-Brookes said on Thursday he was playing “chess not chequers”, suggesting we are only in Act One.

Ian Ramsay was a member of the Australian Takeovers Panel from 2000 to 2012. The Panel is established under the Australian Securities and Investments Commission Act 2001 and is the primary forum for resolving disputes about a takeover bid.

– ref. AGL said no to an $5 billion bid, but it isn’t over – here’s how takeover bids work – https://theconversation.com/agl-said-no-to-an-5-billion-bid-but-it-isnt-over-heres-how-takeover-bids-work-177607

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra

Labor has maintained a 55-45% two-party lead in a Newspoll that also sees Anthony Albanese registering good personal ratings, against a background that has elevated national security issues.

The poll, published in Monday’s Australian, will be a relief for those in Labor who have been concerned about how the electoral situation might be changed to Labor’s disadvantage by both the Ukraine crisis and the earlier government attempt to wedge the opposition over China.

The Coalition’s primary vote was 35% (up one point in a fortnight); Labor remained on 41%. The Greens polled 9% (up a point).

While both leaders’ satisfaction ratings improved, Albanese’s improvement was stronger.

Satisfaction with Scott Morrison increased to 43% (up 3 points), while dissatisfaction with him was 55% (a point down).

Satisfaction with Albanese rose 4 points to 44%; his dissatisfaction rating declined 3 points to 43%. This was his first net positive rating in nearly a year.

Albanese has also again narrowed the gap on the “better PM” measure. Morrison leads 42% (down a point) to Albanese’s 40% (up 2 points).

The Newspoll of 1525 voters was taken between Wednesday and Saturday.

The poll comes as Morrison announced that Australia will provide funding for “lethal aid” – weaponry – for Ukraine through NATO. The government is not saying how much it expects to allocate to this assistance, which follows Friday’s announcement of funding for non-lethal aid and medical assistance.

Morrison also confirmed Australia is considering, as part of concerted international action, expelling Russian diplomats.

“We are considering the situation of the embassy here in Australia along with our partners, and we’re working in lockstep with all of them.”

He reaffirmed that in humanitarian support, Australia would be “doing heavy lifting”. Already the rapid processing of visas in the pipeline from Ukrainians had been completed, and all visa applications from Ukraine would be given priority in processing.

Morrison said after two years of low immigration due to COVID there was “quite a lot of room” across various programs, including for skilled migrants and students, although he also believed some who came would want to return to their homeland at some point. Australia could give aid to Poland, which is receiving a flood of Ukrainians across its border.

Despite being highly critical of China’s response to Russia’s action, Morrison was anxious to avoid a comparison between Ukraine and Taiwan.

Asked how concerned he was the Chinese would move on Taiwan he said, “No, I don’t draw a parallel between those issues.

“I think it would be unhelpful to engage in that speculation. The situations are very, very different.

“So I want to put Australians at ease in not conflating those two issues.

“I am concerned, though, that at a time when we’re seeing aggression from Russia unlawfully invading Ukraine, China thinks this is an appropriate time to be conducting those sorts of operations in the South China Sea. And at the same time easing trade restrictions on Russia for wheat.

“I don’t consider those types of actions consistent with the broader statement about seeking a peaceful resolution.”

Morrison welcomed the decision by the leaders of the European Commission, France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States to remove selected Russian banks from the SWIFT messaging system, and said Australia had been an early advocate for doing this. The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) is a global messaging system for financial transactions. It connects banks and other organisations across the world.

The leaders also committed to preventing Russia’s central bank from deploying its international reserves to undermine the impact of the sanctions imposed on Russia.

The PM and his wife Jenny attended on Sunday St Andrews Ukrainian Church at Lidcombe Sydney, where he said: “We don’t seek a peace in Ukraine that is based on bending the knee to an autocrat and a thug. We seek a peace that is the sovereignty of Ukraine”. This was what the world community demanded, he said.

Shadow foreign minister Penny Wong reiterated that Labor would “give bipartisan support to the most comprehensive and heaviest sanctions that Australia can and should take”.

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

– ref. Labor maintains 55-45% Newspoll lead despite elevation of ‘national security’ issues – https://theconversation.com/labor-maintains-55-45-newspoll-lead-despite-elevation-of-national-security-issues-178004

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Steven Hamilton, Visiting Fellow, Tax and Transfer Policy Institute, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University

The financial measures just announced against Russia are unprecedented for a country of Russia’s size.

This of course means it’s impossible to predict exactly how their impacts will reverberate around the Russian–and global–economy. And we still need to see the exact details of the plan.

But on their face they threaten the collapse of the Russian ruble, a run on Russian banks, hyperinflation, a sharp recession and high levels of unemployment in Russia, as well as turmoil in international financial markets.

Over the weekend the European Commission, France, Germany, Italy, Britain, Canada, and the US imposed four measures they had been holding off on:

• they removed selected Russian banks from SWIFT, the global financial messaging system that enables money to travel around the world

• they agreed to prevent Russia’s Central Bank from deploying its international reserves in ways that undermined the sanctions, crippling its ability to use foreign currency to support the ruble

• they committed to act against Russian oligarchs, specifically by limiting the sale of so-called golden passports to wealthy Russians

• they committed to freeze the foreign assets of sanctioned individuals up to and including President Putin, as well as those of their families and “enablers”.

The personal sanctions apply to the finances of Putin, his Foreign Affairs Minister Sergei Lavrov, the rest of his Security Council, and 11 other named officials.

The US says it is “exceedingly rare” to designate a head of state. Putin joins a small group that included North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka, and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

The ruble will collapse

All transactions involving property owned by those people in the US and cooperating nations and all transactions they attempt in those nations (or attempt using those nations) will be blocked. They will have no way of accessing the estimated US$800 billion they are said to have stashed away in the West.

Denying access to the SWIFT financial messaging system by sanctioned Russian financial institutions will block a large volume of transactions between Russia and the rest of the world. Just how disruptive this will be, and whether Russia can find a workaround, are still to be determined.

But most devastating of all for Russia and its people will be the decision to deny the Russian central bank access to the hundreds of billions of US dollars in the form of gold and foreign currencies it has stored in foreign central banks.

Normally when a currency collapses, the capital flight out eventually slows and new capital flows in to take advantage of what now looks to be a bargain. This flow of capital acts like an automatic stabiliser of the currency.

A country’s central bank may step in to head off a collapse by using its reserves – in the form of gold and foreign currencies – to buy its own currency in foreign exchange markets. This can prevent the price from falling further.

With uncertainty and fear in financial markets about the Russian invasion, significant curbs on the flow of capital into Russia, and the freezing of the Bank of Russia’s foreign reserves, nothing stands in the way of a collapse of the ruble.

Just short of ‘nuclear’

On Monday, when foreign exchange markets open, everyone in the world will be selling rubles, and nobody – including the Bank of Russia – will be buying them.

Genuine payments for goods such as oil, gas, fertiliser, and wheat will be allowed to continue for now. Cutting these off would be a “nuclear option” in that it would inflict massive damage on both sides.

This is just short of nuclear. But uncertainty about how bad it will get.

Bank runs would inflict major damage on the Russian financial system. Short on crucial imports and with no ability to pay for them, domestic production would grind to a halt.

Read more:
Ukraine: sanctions can still make a difference – but only if done right

With no ability to finance ballooning deficits, the Russian government may turn to printing money, kicking off hyperinflation as happened in Germany in the Weimar Republic.

Very few countries (North Korea is one) make all of what they need at home. Since Russia opened up in the 1990s it has become increasingly integrated with the rest of the world. Russia makes most of its own weapons, but using components that come from the rest of the world. Shutting off those links will hurt.

Putin’s response is anyone’s guess

China might help by maintaining some trade with Russia, but if the ruble is almost worthless, that may be unsustainable.

All measures combined may bring Russia’s economy to the brink of collapse.

It has been done before, but never on such a scale. Iran, Afghanistan and Venezuela were brought to their knees by similar actions. Russia is among the world’s top 12 economies, bigger than Brazil and Australia.

Game theory can’t tell us for sure how Putin will respond. His options are limited, and can we be sure he is rational? He appears not to have anticipated the fierce response of the Ukrainian military; did he also not anticipate the fierce response of the global financial hegemony?

Read more:
What Russia’s war means for Australian petrol prices: $2.10 a litre

Aside from military responses, his only remaining sticks would inflict at least as much damage on Russia as they would the rest of the world. He could halt gas exports to Europe – the Europeans would freeze, but he’d be cutting off one of Russia’s last financial lifelines.

How far will he – and those around him – be willing to go?

The effect on financial markets is more obvious. Markets hate uncertainty. They will bid up the value of safe-haven assets such as gold and the US dollar, and bid down the value of risky assets like stocks. Energy and other commodity prices will continue to rise at a time when inflation was already a big problem.

Just days ago when the financial sanctions looked like being weaker, it was looking as if they would make little difference. It certainly doesn’t look that way now.

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

– ref. ‘Just short of nuclear’: the latest financial sanctions will cripple Russia’s economy – https://theconversation.com/just-short-of-nuclear-the-latest-financial-sanctions-will-cripple-russias-economy-178000

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kimberley Reid, PhD Researcher in Atmospheric Science, The University of Melbourne

The severe floods in southeast Queensland this week have forced hundreds of residents to flee the town of Gympie and cut off major roads, after intense rain battered the state for several days. The rain is expected to continue today, and travel south into New South Wales.

We research a weather system called “atmospheric rivers”, which is causing this inundation. Indeed, atmospheric rivers triggered many of the world’s floods in 2021, including the devastating floods across eastern Australia in March which killed two people and saw 24,000 evacuate.

Our recently published research was the first to quantify the impacts these weather systems have in Australia, and another study we published in November looked closely at the floods in March last year

We found while atmospheric rivers bring much-needed rainfall to the agriculturally significant Murray-Darling Basin, their potential to bring devastating floods will become more likely in a warmer world under climate change.

What are atmospheric rivers?

Atmospheric rivers are like highways of water vapour between the tropics and poles, located in the first one to three kilometres of the atmosphere. They are responsible for about 90% of the water vapour moving from north to south of the planet, despite covering only 10% of the globe.

When atmospheric rivers crash into mountain ranges or interact with cold fronts, they rain out this water with potentially disastrous impacts. Mountains and fronts lift the water vapour up in the atmosphere where it cools and condenses into giant, liquid-forming bands of clouds. Intense thunderstorms can also form within atmospheric rivers.

Three atmospheric rivers last year were particularly devastating.

In January, California was hit with a strong atmospheric river that caused record-breaking rainfall and blizzards. It also triggered a landslide on California’s iconic Highway 1.

In November, British Columbia, Canada was battered with record breaking rainfall that left Vancouver isolated from the rest of the country.

And in March, Eastern Australia copped a drenching that led to widespread flooding and A$652 million worth of damage. All mainland states and territories except WA faced simultaneous weather warnings.

What we found

Our recently published research provides the first quantitative summary of atmospheric rivers over Australia. It’s not all bad news – most of the time, atmospheric rivers bring beneficial rainfall to Australia. About 30% of southeast Australia’s rainfall comes from atmospheric rivers, including in the Murray-Darling Basin.

Rainfall is vital to this region. The Murray-Darling Basin supports over 500 species of birds, reptiles and fish, and around 30,000 wetlands. Agriculture in the Murray-Darling Basin contributes A$24 billion to the Australian economy.

Read more:
How an ‘atmospheric river’ drenched British Columbia and led to floods and mudslides

However, we also found that 30-40% of the heaviest rainfall days in the Northern Murray-Darling Basin, where towns such as Tamworth, Dubbo and Orange are located, were associated with atmospheric rivers.

A heavy downpour in Australia’s bread basket might lead to happier farmers during a dry period, but following a wet summer – such as from La Niña – these days are less welcome.

La Niña saturates soil

La Niña can play a big role in flooding, as it exacerbates damage wrought by atmospheric rivers.

A La Niña was declared in spring in 2020 and fizzled out by March in 2021. A second La Niña arrived in the summer of 2021 and 2022.

During a La Niña, winds that blow from east to west near the equator strengthen. This leads to cold, deep ocean water rising up to the surface in the East Pacific, near South America, and warm ocean waters to build near Australia.

Read more:
Back so soon, La Niña? Here’s why we’re copping two soggy summers in a row

Warm sea surface temperatures promote rainfall, which is why La Niña is associated with rainier weather over much of Australia.

Soil is like a kitchen sponge. It absorbs water, but once it becomes saturated it can no longer soak up any more. This is what happened to eastern Australia in the months before the March floods – and when the record-breaking rain fell, the ground flooded.

Our recent research found that in March 17-24 last year, NSW experienced an almost constant stream of high water vapour in the atmosphere above from both an atmospheric river that originated in the Indian Ocean and a high pressure system in the Tasman Sea.

On March 23, over 800kg of water vapour passed over Sydney every second – that’s 9.6 Sydney Harbours of water in one day.

Read more:
Sydney’s disastrous flood wasn’t unprecedented: we’re about to enter a 50-year period of frequent, major floods

Likewise, soil moisture in south-east Queensland has been above average since October last year. Last November was Australia’s wettest November on record with south-east Queensland receiving very-much-above average rainfall.

This meant the ground was already sodden. So when the heavy rain fell this week, Queensland flooded.

What’s the role of climate change?

We also calculated the likelihood of future atmospheric rivers as big as the one in March 2021 flowing over Sydney using the latest generation of climate models.

Earth is currently on track for 2.7℃ warming by the end of the century. Under this scenario, we found the chance of a similar weather event to the March floods will become 80% more likely. This means we are on track for more extreme rainfall and flooding in Sydney.

We also know climate change will increase the occurrence of atmospheric rivers over the planet, but more research is needed to determine just how often we can expect these damaging events to happen, including in southeast Queensland.

However, this path is not final. There is still time to change the outcome if we urgently reduce emissions to stop global warming beyond 1.5℃ this century. Every little bit we do to limit carbon emissions might mean one less flood and one less person who has to rebuild.

Read more:
Floods leave a legacy of mental health problems — and disadvantaged people are often hardest hit

Kimberley Reid receives funding from the Australian Government Research Training Program.

Andrew King receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the National Environmental Science Program.

– ref. Like rivers in the sky: the weather system bringing floods to Queensland will become more likely under climate change – https://theconversation.com/like-rivers-in-the-sky-the-weather-system-bringing-floods-to-queensland-will-become-more-likely-under-climate-change-176711

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By T.J. Thomson, Senior Lecturer in Visual Communication & Media, Queensland University of Technology

Amid the alarming images of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine over the past few days, millions of people have also seen misleading, manipulated or false information about the conflict on social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, TikTok and Telegram.

One example is this video of military jets posted to TikTok, which is historical footage but captioned as live video of the situation in Ukraine.

Visuals, because of their persuasive potential and attention-grabbing nature, are an especially potent choice for those seeking to mislead. Where creating, editing or sharing inauthentic visual content isn’t satire or art, it is usually politically or economically motivated.

Disinformation campaigns aim to distract, confuse, manipulate and sow division, discord, and uncertainty in the community. This is a common strategy for highly polarised nations where socioeconomic inequalities, disenfranchisement and propaganda are prevalent.

How is this fake content created and spread, what’s being done to debunk it, and how can you ensure you don’t fall for it yourself?

What are the most common fakery techniques?

Using an existing photo or video and claiming it came from a different time or place is one of the most common forms of misinformation in this context. This requires no special software or technical skills – just a willingness to upload an old video of a missile attack or other arresting image, and describe it as new footage.

Another low-tech option is to stage or pose actions or events and present them as reality. This was the case with destroyed vehicles that Russia claimed were bombed by Ukraine.

Using a particular lens or vantage point can also change how the scene looks and can be used to deceive. A tight shot of people, for example, can make it hard to gauge how many were in a crowd, compared with an aerial shot.

Taking things further still, Photoshop or equivalent software can be used to add or remove people or objects from a scene, or to crop elements out from a photograph. An example of object addition is the below photograph, which purports to show construction machinery outside a kindergarten in eastern Ukraine. The satirical text accompanying the image jokes about the “calibre of the construction machinery” – the author suggesting that reports of damage to buildings from military ordinance are exaggerated or untrue.

Close inspection reveals this image was digitally altered to include the machinery. This tweet could be seen as an attempt to downplay the extent of damage resulting from a Russian-backed missile attack, and in a wider context to create confusion and doubt as to veracity of other images emerging from the conflict zone.

What’s being done about it?

European organisations such as Bellingcat have begun compiling lists of dubious social media claims about the Russia-Ukraine conflict and debunking them where necessary.

Journalists and fact-checkers are also working to verify content and raise awareness of known fakes. Large, well-resourced news outlets such as the BBC are also calling out misinformation.

Social media platforms have added new labels to identify state-run media organisations or provide more background information about sources or people in your networks who have also shared a particular story.

They have also tweaked their algorithms to change what content is amplified and have hired staff to spot and flag misleading content. Platforms are also doing some work behind the scenes to detect and publicly share information on state-linked information operations.

Read more:
What can the West do to help Ukraine? It can start by countering Putin’s information strategy

What can I do about it?

You can attempt to fact-check images for yourself rather than taking them at face value. An article we wrote late last year for the Australian Associated Press explains the fact-checking process at each stage: image creation, editing and distribution.

Here are five simple steps you can take:

1. Examine the metadata

This Telegram post claims Polish-speaking saboteurs attacked a sewage facility in an attempt to place a tank of chlorine for a “false flag” attack.

But the video’s metadata – the details about how and when the video was created – show it was filmed days before the alleged date of the incident.

To check metadata for yourself, you can download the file and use software such as Adobe Photoshop or Bridge to examine it. Online metadata viewers also exist that allow you to check by using the image’s web link.

One hurdle to this approach is that social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter often strip the metadata from photos and videos when they are uploaded to their sites. In these cases, you can try requesting the original file or consulting fact-checking websites to see whether they have already verified or debunked the footage in question.

2. Consult a fact-checking resource

Organisations such as the Australian Associated Press, RMIT/ABC, Agence France-Presse (AFP) and Bellingcat maintain lists of fact-checks their teams have performed.

The AFP has already debunked a video claiming to show an explosion from the current conflict in Ukraine as being from the 2020 port disaster in Beirut.

3. Search more broadly

If old content has been recycled and repurposed, you may be able to find the same footage used elsewhere. You can use Google Images or TinEye to “reverse image search” a picture and see where else it appears online.

But be aware that simple edits such as reversing the left-right orientation of an image can fool search engines and make them think the flipped image is new.

4. Look for inconsistencies

Does the purported time of day match the direction of light you would expect at that time, for example? Do watches or clocks visible in the image correspond to the alleged timeline claimed?

You can also compare other data points, such as politicians’ schedules or verified sightings, Google Earth vision or Google Maps imagery, to try and triangulate claims and see whether the details are consistent.

5. Ask yourself some simple questions

Do you know where, when and why the photo or video was made? Do you know who made it, and whether what you’re looking at is the original version?

Using online tools such as InVID or Forensically can potentially help answer some of these questions. Or you might like to refer to this list of 20 questions you can use to “interrogate” social media footage with the right level of healthy scepticism.

Read more:
3.2 billion images and 720,000 hours of video are shared online daily. Can you sort real from fake?

Ultimately, if you’re in doubt, don’t share or repeat claims that haven’t been published by a reputable source such as an international news organisation. And consider using some of these principles when deciding which sources to trust.

By doing this, you can help limit the influence of misinformation, and help clarify the true situation in Ukraine.

T.J. Thomson has received funding from the AAP, the Australian Academy of the Humanities, and from the Australian Research Council through Discovery Project DP210100859. He is also a past contributor to the Australian Associated Press.

Daniel Angus receives funding from Australian Research Council through Discovery Projects DP200100519 ‘Using machine vision to explore Instagram’s everyday promotional cultures’, DP200101317 ‘Evaluating the Challenge of ‘Fake News’ and Other Malinformation’, and Linkage Project LP190101051 ‘Young Australians and the Promotion of Alcohol on Social Media’.

Paula Dootson has received funding from the Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC, Queensland Government, and Natural Hazards Research Australia.

– ref. Fake viral footage is spreading alongside the real horror in Ukraine. Here are 5 ways to spot it – https://theconversation.com/fake-viral-footage-is-spreading-alongside-the-real-horror-in-ukraine-here-are-5-ways-to-spot-it-177921

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Samantha Hepburn, Director of the Centre for Energy and Natural Resources Law, Deakin Law School, Deakin University

When estimating the amount of greenhouse gases a project – such as a new mine or power station – would release, it’s important to be as accurate as possible. This is not only because of the impact an approved project will have on the climate, but because the data are used to determine Australia’s national emission targets.

And yet, a report released this week by the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) showed one in five fossil fuel projects emit far more greenhouse gases annually than what was originally estimated – as much as 20 times more in some years.

This is a huge concern, as Australia’s industrial emissions increased by 60% between 2005 and 2020. What’s more, if estimates are grossly inaccurate, Australia’s emission-reduction targets will not be grounded in a credible assessment of greenhouse gas outputs.

So which projects had the biggest discrepancies? And why are there such significant errors?

Enormous discrepancies

When fossil fuel companies seek approval for a new project they must submit an environmental impact statement to the relevant government department. This statement is crucial for all projects with the potential to significantly impact the human environment. Estimating the amount of emissions likely to flow from a project each year is a critical part of the environmental impact process.

With a team of undergraduate students from the Australian National University, ACF investigated 48 fossil fuel projects. They found 11 had significantly exceeded their estimation of annual emissions.

The projects involved fit into three broad categories: gas projects, coal mines in Queensland’s Bowen Basin, and coal mines in New South Wales.

The worst discrepancy, in terms of overall aggregate emissions, came from Chevron’s West Australian Gorgon liquefied natural gas project. The ACF report found the project emitted 16 million tonnes of CO₂ more than it anticipated. Its annual reported emissions in its environmental impact statement ranged from 157% to 226%.

The project was initially approved on the basis it would sequester at least 80% of emissions from its offshore gas drilling plan over the project’s first five years via carbon capture and storage.

Chevron told the ABC it disputed the research. A spokesperson said:

The assumptions underpinning calculations used for the ACF report appear to be incorrect.

While it acknowledged delays in its carbon capture and storage system, Chevron said it is committed “to make good on this shortfall”.

(This includes) the acquisition and surrender of 5.23 million greenhouse gas offsets and a $40 million investment in Western Australian lower carbon projects. Chevron Australia shares and takes seriously the expectations of our community and governments in regard to lowering emissions and addressing the challenge of climate change.

There were also significant discrepancies at other major projects run by several major fossil fuel companies, with one gas project estimated to have overshot its projected emissions by 1,800-2,000%.

So how are emissions calculated?

The method used depends upon the type of project. Underground coal mines in operation must vent gas for safety purposes, so the infrastructure needed to measure emissions with reasonable accuracy already exists, although fugitive (leaking) emissions will still need to be calculated.

Other projects such as onshore gas drilling must calculate their estimate by taking into account all potential emissions. This may include, for example, the amount of diesel likely to be used or the global warming potential any methane that might be released from deeper coal seams.

According to the ACF, one of the most significant factors that may be contributing to inaccurate emission estimates is our changing understanding of the global warming potential of methane.

Read more:
Stemming methane leaks from oil fields, pipelines and landfills could help us slow global warming quickly

The latest scientific assessment from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has stated that methane has about 28 times greater global warming potential than CO₂. This is higher than previous assessments. The ACF report suggests this factor may account for some level of inaccuracy, if environmental impact statements are grounded in those previous assessments.

However, this factor and other reasonable margins for error cannot fully explain the degree of inaccuracy we’re seeing. While inaccuracies will vary from case to case, the ACF report says the errors may stem from a failure to, for example, install technology, or accurately evaluate diesel emissions, or consider the methane intensity of coal in the Bowen basin.

Whatever the case, the gap between estimated and reported emissions suggests a fundamental regulatory failure.

The ‘safeguard mechanism’ isn’t working

The safeguard mechanism is a federal government policy that’s supposed to cap industrial emissions. It requires large fossil fuel companies to report emissions where they exceed 100,000 tonnes of CO₂ equivalent per year.

Where this occurs, operators must either buy carbon credits to offset the emissions, or pay a penalty. The imposition of this arbitrary baseline is problematic for two main reasons.

First, it’s grounded in absolute tonnes of CO₂ equivalent rather than “emission intensity”. Emission intensity refers to the volume of emissions per gross domestic product, and is a preferable measure because it corresponds with production – it’ll rise if expected production increases.

Second, the mechanism is too high. Many operators are exceeding their estimates, but not reaching the baseline of 100,000 tonnes. This means there are no consequences for inaccurate estimates.

Read more:
Be worried when fossil fuel lobbyists support current environmental laws

What needs to change?

Without strong regulation, large emitters can continue to emit significantly more than estimated without incurring additional costs, until those emissions breach the safeguard baseline. This needs to change.

The safeguard mechanism should set the baseline on the estimated emissions, which approval for a project is based upon. If a project exceeds those estimates, giving regard for a reasonable margin of error, the mechanism should be triggered.

This would mean approved projects that emit well beyond the estimate must either mitigate or offset those excess emissions.

The ACF report found if baselines were set on the estimates when projects were approved, the companies responsible for excess emissions would’ve been required to surrender more than 24 million Australian carbon credit units. At the current average price of A$12.06 per unit, they would have had to pay more than A$290 million.

Under such a law, the federal government could be confident the estimated emission impacts from proposed projects are actually reliable.

Read more:
How Australia’s geology gave us an abundance of coal – and a wealth of greentech minerals to switch to

Samantha Hepburn was not involved in the research and preparation of the Australian Conservation Foundation’s report. She endorses the findings, and has sought assistance from ACF in the writing of this article. She is currently writing a longer journal article for ACF on this topic.

– ref. 1 in 5 fossil fuel projects overshoot their original estimations for emissions. Why are there such significant errors? – https://theconversation.com/1-in-5-fossil-fuel-projects-overshoot-their-original-estimations-for-emissions-why-are-there-such-significant-errors-177714