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Source: The Conversation – UK – By Katy Tapper, Professor of Psychology, City St George’s, University of London

If you live in England, you may have recently received a new food waste caddy. Councils are now required to collect your separated food waste and turn it into fuel, fertiliser or compost. So you can live happily in the knowledge that your potato peelings and stale bread will be put to good use rather than going to landfill.

But there’s a risk that the less we feel bad about wasting food, the less effort we may make to try to limit the amount we waste. This is a problem, because around 40 to 50 times more energy goes into producing, transporting and selling food than can be recovered from recycling it. To drastically cut food-related emissions we need to get serious about reducing food waste, not just recycling it.

Reducing food waste is hard. It’s difficult to know exactly how many potatoes will get eaten at Sunday lunch. Leftover potatoes in the fridge can be easily forgotten. Predicting how many bananas your children will eat before they turn too ripe during the week is tricky. And it’s difficult to persuade yourself to eat that stale crust of bread for lunch when you could get a fresh baguette on your way to work.

There are so many different things that influence our food needs and preferences.

Plan and track

How can we make it easier? Our research points to two key steps that could make an important difference.

First, experiment with shorter term, more flexible meal planning. There is evidence that food planning behaviours cut waste. These include planning meals ahead of time, writing a shopping list and checking fridge and cupboard supplies before buying. But the further ahead we meal plan, the more time there is for things to change. You might get invited out to dinner, you could run out of time to cook, your child moves on from their obsession with hummus.

Introducing some flexibility could help. This may include planning for a meal of leftovers, including meals that can be adapted to accommodate different ingredients (such as stir fries or stews or something with eggs). Swapping meals around between days depending on time, inclination and number of mouths to feed also helps.

This tactic won’t be right for everyone. If you have little interest in cooking or limited time and energy, this might just all sound like too much hard work.

Another approach is to use the introduction of the food waste collection scheme as an opportunity to start tracking your waste. How many caddies do you fill each week? Could you aim for a smaller number? Is there anything that seems to lead to more waste or less?

This type of monitoring can create a feedback loop where we compare what’s actually happening with what we want to happen and use any gap between the two to decide what to do next. Feedback loops may be especially helpful for outcomes that are influenced by many different things, such as a person’s weight, a population’s life expectancy or a household’s food waste.

Experimenting with different ways to cut your food waste can prompt you to identify the habits that work best for you. For example, you may discover your kids like frozen overripe bananas in smoothies. Or that putting your leftover potatoes toward the front of the fridge means you’re less likely to forget about them.

This all assumes you’re motivated to reduce your food waste in the first place. If carbon emissions don’t bother you, you could think about the financial savings. In the UK, an estimated £17.5 billion of food is wasted every year. That’s around £1,000 a year for a household of four. These costs are certainly not small potatoes.

Katy Tapper has received funding from Zero Waste Scotland and Oviva UK Limited. She has received consulting payments via City St George’s, University of London from Zero Waste Scotland, WRAP and Scottish Government.

Christian Reynolds serves in advisory roles with the Nutrition Society, Institute of Food Science & Technology, Faculty of Public Health, and ISO/TC 34/SC 20. He has received consulting payments via City St Georges, University of London, from WRAP, Zero Waste Scotland, DEFRA, Welcome trust, and the FSA. He has undertaken pro bono advisory, speaking, and review work with various organizations . In 2020, he received €49,858 in research funding from the Alpro Foundation.

– ref. As that new food caddy lands, here’s how to reduce waste – not just recycle it – https://theconversation.com/as-that-new-food-caddy-lands-heres-how-to-reduce-waste-not-just-recycle-it-277674

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Charlie Firth, PhD Candidate, Paediatrics, University of Oxford

The UK has recently seen a resurgence of meningococcal B (MenB) disease, with a cluster of cases in Kent described as “unprecedented” by the health secretary, Wes Streeting. As attention turns from the current MenB outbreak to how to prevent future outbreaks, another challenge is also growing: gonorrhoea is becoming harder to treat as antibiotic resistance rises. These two challenges might seem unrelated, but they are now linked by a single vaccine.

Some sexual health services are using a vaccine originally designed to prevent MenB disease as part of efforts to reduce gonorrhoea. At first glance, that might sound surprising. But the bacteria that cause meningitis and gonorrhoea are closely related, meaning a vaccine targeting one may offer some protection against the other.

This kind of scientific overlap is drawing increasing attention. Developing brand new vaccines from scratch takes years – sometimes decades – and is costly. Repurposing existing ones could offer a faster, more practical route.

The MenB vaccine itself already has a strong public profile in the UK. Campaigns calling for wider access became one of the most signed petitions in UK history. It has helped bring attention to meningococcal disease and shaping public expectations around vaccine availability.

Recommendations about how vaccines are used in the UK are made by the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, which operates within a government-defined framework. Their advice takes into account the burden of disease, vaccine safety and effectiveness, as well as the cost-effectiveness of different immunisation strategies.

Repurposing vaccines

The evidence is still evolving when it comes to gonorrhoea. While earlier studies suggested the MenB vaccine might offer some “cross-protection”, a more recent randomised control trial – the gold standard in medical research – indicates that protection may be lower in people who have previously had gonorrhoea.

This raises important questions about who might benefit the most. If protection is stronger, or longer lasting, in people who have never had the infection, vaccination strategies may need to focus on these groups instead.

Our recent research suggests that people are open to this kind of complexity. In a survey of sexual health service users in the UK, more than 98% supported the introduction of a gonorrhoea vaccine. Many were willing to accept that the vaccine might not be perfect, as long as its benefits were explained clearly and transparently.

That willingness matters. Repurposed vaccines are unlikely to offer complete protection, especially in the early stages. But even partial protection could reduce cases and ease pressure on healthcare systems, particularly for infections like gonorrhoea, where treatment options are narrowing.

At the same time, the context in which this vaccine is being used is changing. The UK is seeing renewed concern about MenB disease, including clusters of cases that have spread quickly. This places the MenB vaccine in an unusual position: it is being deployed simultaneously against a rare but severe infection and a common, increasingly drug-resistant one.

These overlapping pressures may shift how we think about its value. Traditionally, decisions about a national MenB programme have been based on the burden of meningococcal disease alone. But if the same vaccine can also contribute – even partially – to controlling gonorrhoea, the calculation becomes more complex.

In that light, the question is no longer just whether the MenB vaccine is cost-effective for one disease, but whether its combined impact across multiple infections changes the equation altogether.

There are also practical considerations. Vaccine supply, delivery capacity and prioritisation all come into play when a single product is expected to address more than one public health challenge. Expanding its use would require careful planning to avoid displacing more effective or cost-effective interventions.

Not just single-purpose tools

At the same time, this approach highlights a broader shift in biomedical thinking. Vaccines are increasingly being understood not just as single-purpose tools, but as tools that may have wider effects than originally anticipated. As our understanding of pathogens and immune responses deepens, opportunities to reuse or adapt existing drugs and vaccines are likely to grow.

With rising levels of antibiotic-resistant gonorrhoea alongside renewed concern about MenB, and strong public support for vaccination, the case for wider use of this vaccine may look different to before.

Whether that ultimately leads to routine immunisation will depend on the evolving evidence. But this moment may mark the beginning of a broader shift in how we evaluate vaccines, not just in terms of single diseases, but in terms of their potential to address multiple threats at once.

Charlie Firth receives funding from the National Institute for Health Research

– ref. The meningitis vaccine now sits at the centre of two health crises – https://theconversation.com/the-meningitis-vaccine-now-sits-at-the-centre-of-two-health-crises-278931

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Sanae Okamoto, Senior Researcher in Behavioural Science and Psychology, United Nations University – Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (UNU-MERIT), United Nations University

Children have the least control over the planet’s future, but will also be the most affected as it changes. They may well feel the mental toll of the “futility gap”: when individual actions feel meaningless against broader societal inaction on the climate crisis.

Promoting healthy psychological agency – the belief that we are in control of our lives – is fundamental here. There are things that we can do to combat the climate crisis. Children should be supported so they don’t lose hope.

Together with our colleague Kariũki Werũ, we’ve created a guide to how adults can help support their healthy psychological development.

Our approach acknowledges the severity of climate change while grounding children in hope. We aim to transform feelings of helplessness into self-efficacy – a belief that they can take action.

At home

To protect a child’s emotional wellbeing and talk about climate facts, adults also need to learn how to talk about climate change with children. This should involve adults listening, learning together and using language appropriate to their child’s age and comprehension. Schools and communities could help parents by providing tips for these conversations.

Monitoring a child’s online activity can safeguard them from traumatic news. Parents can emphasise progress and solutions, and help their children spend time experiencing and enjoying changing weather and the environment.

At school

Schools, educational methods and children’s relationships with teachers and their classmates are core influences on the development of their psychological agency. To promote climate resilience, this could mean moving beyond traditional rote learning towards age-appropriate “critical climate education”. This means empowering students to question existing systems and imagine fundamental transformations, rather than feeling defeated by the status quo.

Nature-based outdoor learning can further strengthen this development. It can both boost mental health and transform abstract climate concepts into tangible experiences. Learning outdoors can stimulate constructive climate conversations, and directly link human actions to environmental and sustainable solutions. Outdoor observations and investigative projects bridge the gap between learning and action.

The world online

Digital climate learning is a powerful catalyst for modern education. It offers interactive and global perspectives on the climate crisis. But it must be managed to address internet “filter bubbles” – when algorithms show viewers only information that aligns with their past interests. This can risk isolating and overwhelming children with repetitive content that affects their wellbeing. When used correctly, digital tools can expand a child’s perspective on climate solutions beyond their local environment.

Blended together

Effective climate education can combine digital learning with hands-on, real-world experiences. When this is supported by educators and caregivers who act as guides – while also leaving enough space for children to explore and create independently – children are able to benefit from both realistic and balanced education. Pioneering programs are blending classroom science with digital tools and outdoor experiments to turn student ideas into tangible community projects.

On a wider scale, climate education needs to bridge the gap between personal responsibility and collective power. The climate narrative should shift its focus from asking “what is wrong?” to “what can we do?” This will empower children with a sense of agency rather than climate anxiety. Social media is a key place where this change can happen.

When used with adult guidance and digital literacy, it can lead to constructive dialogues and evidence-based action. A moderated and positive use of digital tools can help children connect their own awareness to the world around them and drive action on a larger scale to truly tackle the climate crisis.

This can ultimately allow children to share their climate change knowledge and inspire actions among family and friends. They can go on to become influential at school and in their community.

In order to address the climate crisis and support wellbeing, we need to help children recognise their agency. Children can become agents of change who can counter misinformation and foster long-term psychological resilience.

Schools can work together with families, communities and leaders to create a supportive environment for learning about climate. _ Such approach could bridge the gaps between scientific climate facts and real-life experiences by providing the emotional care and practical skills needed to empower_ the climate generations to build a sustainable future together.

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

– ref. How adults can help children move from climate anxiety to resilience – https://theconversation.com/how-adults-can-help-children-move-from-climate-anxiety-to-resilience-274141

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Ailsa Peate, Lecturer in Latin American and Museum Studies, University of Westminster

Encounters with Leonora Carrington’s work are often shaped by their setting, from expansive museum displays to more intimate curatorial spaces. Nowhere is this more evident than at London’s Freud Museum, where new exhibition The Symptomatic Surreal offers a markedly different lens on her life and art.

It’s the first exhibition of the British-Mexican surrealist’s work in the UK for 35 years. The show offers a markedly different experience from encountering her art in Mexico, where she lived from 1942 until her death in 2011.

In institutions such as the Museo de la Mujer (Woman’s Museum) in Mexico City, displays tend to emphasise the more outlandish aspects of her work and personality. Instead, The Symptomatic Surreal houses a selection of Carrington’s sketches made during her internment in Peña Castillo sanatorium in Santander, Spain, in the latter half of 1940.

The exhibition is understated, located in a room far smaller and less open than where I’d engaged with her work previously. I noted no natural light can enter. It’s a perfect fit for the story of Carrington’s confinement and the creativity which ensued.

It’s also important that the museum was once home to Sigmund Freud and his family. As the exhibition unfolds, psychoanalysis comes increasingly to the fore, deepening visitors’ understanding of Carrington’s life, her art and her evolving interpretations of the unconscious.

Read more:
Freud Museum exhibition uses art to explore the psychoanalyst’s often contradictory relationships with women

A life less ordinary

Born in Chorley, north-west England, in 1917 into a family enriched by the textile industry, Carrington felt constrained by expectations that she perform the role of a debutante, despite her growing interest in art and surrealism. Leaving the UK for Paris, she pursued both her artistic ambitions and her relationship with the established – and married – German surrealist Max Ernst. The couple later settled in Provence in the south of the country, from where Ernst periodically returned to Paris to visit his wife, to whom he remained married.

The relationship was ultimately derailed in 1940 by Ernst’s second arrest for being an enemy alien in the country, and ensuing detainment in the Camp des Milles, not far from where he lived with Carrington. In despair after her separation from Ernst and enforced flight from their once shared Provençal home due to encroaching Nazi forces, Carrington crossed the border to Spain via Andorra. During the journey, her grasp on reality became fitful, resulting in a complete breakdown after she arrived in Madrid.

The Symptomatic Surreal presents the aftermath of this break, focusing on Carrington’s sketches at the sanatorium where she was kept for approximately six months. She compared her time there to “being dead”, telling friend Marina Warner: “I’d suffered so much when Max was taken away to the camp, I entered a catatonic state, and I was no longer suffering in an ordinary human dimension.”

Curator Vanessa Boni captures this suffering and foregrounds a period of Carrington’s life which was distinctly unsafe. It was a time during which, visitors learn, the artist was treated three times with Cardiazol, a “treatment” that induced seizures in sanatorium patients to render them compliant.

Read more:
New book sheds light on surrealist artist Leonora Carrington’s extraordinary life and work

Boni has taken Carrington’s own description of the sanatorium as “like death” to heart, making connections to death throughout the exhibition. Areas of the work foreshadow the beliefs around death Carrington would later be exposed to in Mexico. Boni’s choice to draw together statuettes and figures of Egyptian deities Anubis, Isis, Horus and Osiris from Freud’s own collection speaks to a shared interest in death as a stage of transformation.

Gently and with careful attention to language, the exhibition traces Carrington’s undoing and reconstitution, or “rebirth”, as Boni described it in conversation with me. This narrative unfolds through personal letters Carrington sent to her father during her internment, alongside important passages from her written work, Down Below (1944). It is further developed through the artwork of the same name, as well as sketches produced during her time in the sanatorium.

We learn that both Freud and Carrington held a preoccupation with what the artist termed the “down below”, or underworld. It is hard not to see Mexico, the home of the underworld of Mictlán, a place of transformation reached after death, suggested as a fated eventual home for the artist. In Mexican belief systems, death is not feared but a constant presence for the living. This is echoed in a quotation from Carrington chosen to welcome visitors to The Symptomatic Surreal: “I didn’t know where I was going. This seems to be a recurring thing in my life. I think it’s death practice.”

Having progressed through Carrington’s experiences and reactions to her treatment at the sanatorium, we are led to the painting of Down Below (1940), a piece which is certainly uneasy to take in. Lounging, disjointed figures stare vacantly, or indeed without eyes, in front of a circus tent, hinting at the frenzy which may occur behind its curtains. Glints of vibrancy – bright red stockings, mustard yellow tights, a goose feather white body and the Kelly green of Carrington’s horse alter-ego (also present in many of her sketches on display) – are at odds with the heavy experiences which led to the work’s creation, and which bleed into the darkening skies above.

The Symptomatic Surreal is a potent gift for any fan of Leonora Carrington, and certainly for those who seek to understand any of her later works, whether on the canvas, drawn, sculpted or written. The Freud Museum is an excellent home for the exhibition. The show highlights the way we process the unconscious, death and our relationships with mental health through careful curatorial choices.

The Symptomatic Surreal is at London’s Freud Museum until June 28 2026

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

– ref. The Symptomatic Surreal: Leonora Carrington exhibition explores her complex relationship with death – https://theconversation.com/the-symptomatic-surreal-leonora-carrington-exhibition-explores-her-complex-relationship-with-death-279278

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Sarah A. Son, Senior Lecturer in Korean Studies, University of Sheffield

When pop superstars BTS announced a temporary hiatus in 2022, it exposed a tension at the heart of their global success.

As I wrote at the time, the world’s biggest K-pop group had become entangled in South Korea’s competing priorities: cultural soft power on the one hand, and its national security obligations on the other.

Now, nearly four years later, the Netflix documentary BTS: The Return takes fans behind the scenes as they prepared for their much-anticipated comeback. Directed by Bao Nguyen, the documentary follows the group’s reunion after completing mandatory military service and the making of their new album, Arirang.

But the documentary is not the triumphant comeback narrative that fans may have been anticipating. Instead, it reveals the seven members (Jin, Suga, j-hope, RM, Jimin, V and Jung Kook) grappling with a more complicated question. What does it mean to return as global stars, as individuals reshaped by time and experience and as artists newly conscious of what it means to “represent” Korea?

At one level, The Return follows a familiar structure marked out by previous pop-star documentaries: studio footage, creative disagreements and moments of reflection. But early in the documentary there is a persistent sense of uncertainty.

The group’s seven members, who served in the South Korean military at different times over the preceding three years and nine months, are grappling with who they have become since leaving the limelight. The transition from military life back into music production feels abrupt and disorienting.

When the members regroup, there is also a strong sense of urgency. A comeback date is already fixed and deadlines drive an intense creative process that doesn’t always unfold as easily as they would wish.

Scenes of late-night discussions, constant revision and ongoing self-critique reinforce the idea that even at rest, the group remains in production mode. The Return shows the additional strain placed on artists who are global figures attempting evolve while newer K-pop boy bands have ascended the ranks and even topped the Billboard album charts.

The band speak openly about feeling stuck, worrying that songs fail to feel “cool”, and the difficulty of finding a sound that reflects who they are now. At one point they joke about naming a track Slump, reflecting their feeling of wanting to give up. At another, they suggest abandoning the pressure around the lead single entirely. But in each moment of doubt voiced by one member, another inevitably steps in with words of encouragement: “Come to your senses, we can do this!”

Their perspective is helped by sitting down to watch old footage of their first days as a group, performing in small venues and handing out flyers for free concerts. These scenes remind them that grit and hard work served them well on the road to global stardom and can do so again.

Representing Korea

The development of the new album in the documentary brings a central tension into focus.

The album draws on the traditional Korean folk song of the same name. It’s often described as an unofficial national anthem, associated with longing and separation. As the concept takes shape, the group are encouraged by producers to lean more explicitly into Korean cultural themes and references.

This generates both excitement and hesitation.

The band show a clear desire to showcase Korean language and identity, as they discuss writing more lyrics in Korean, arguing that authenticity has been diluted by their extensive use of English in prior work. At the same time, they are acutely aware of how these choices might be received by different audiences.

V worries that using an extended sample of Arirang in one song may be seen as “patriotic hype” by Koreans. RM reflects that naming the album after a folk song risks positioning the group as a “national team”.

While they reject the label of “global Korean heroes”, they ultimately decide to lean into their Korean heritage throughout parts of the album, acknowledging that it’s impossible to be certain about what will end up taking off among audiences.

For a group often framed as an instrument of South Korea’s soft power, these choices highlight the challenges of knowing how best to assert cultural identity and reconnect with what distinguishes them in a highly globalised industry.

K-pop operates through tightly controlled visibility, where “idols” are constantly seen but are heavily mediated for fear of tarnishing the clean image the industry seeks to project.

In this context, BTS are not just another K-pop band. Their long-running success and truly global appeal has made them leading representatives of K-pop as an industry and of a particular narrative of national success.

The documentary translates this geopolitical significance into interpersonal dynamics, where the group’s members show the need to “carry” something collectively, to display group cohesion and to meet expectations that extend far beyond music.

RM describes being part of BTS as wearing “a big, incredible crown”, the weight of which can feel overwhelming.

A reflective return

As the group return to Korea to finalise the album, the tone of the documentary shifts towards reflection. The band describe themselves as more introverted, more measured and more certain of themselves in some respects. They are also more conscious of the stakes. The Return is a negotiation between past identity, present experience and future direction.

The wrestling with their maturity and identity after an extended hiatus seems to be paying off so far. Despite RM experiencing an injury just before their live comeback concert in the historic Gwanghwamun Square in Seoul, the album received five stars from Rolling Stone Magazine and hit over 4 million sales in its first week.

BTS are back, but BTS: The Return makes clear that coming back means redefining themselves, their sound and the terms on which they carry Korea with them to the world.

Sarah A. Son 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. BTS: The Return shows a global band renegotiating identity and nationhood – https://theconversation.com/bts-the-return-shows-a-global-band-renegotiating-identity-and-nationhood-279582

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Dominick Spracklen, Professor of Biosphere-Atmosphere Interactions, University of Leeds

Tropical forests are hot, steamy places. But when large numbers of trees are cut down, they get even hotter. Our recent research shows that clearing large areas of the rainforest exposes hundreds of millions of people to higher temperatures, increasing heat stress (when the body’s way of controlling temperature fails) and, in some cases, contributing to death.

Research suggests that this could be contributing to 28,000 heat-related deaths each year across the tropics every year.

Apart from the shade that the rainforest canopy provides, trees also cool their surroundings by pumping water from the soil into the atmosphere – a process known as evapotranspiration. Like sweat evaporating from our skin, this uses energy and cools the air.

A single large tropical tree provides as much cooling as several air conditioners running continuously. Across the billions of trees in the Amazon or Congo, this “sweating” cools entire regions.

People living in or near tropical forests recognise these cooling benefits. When villagers in rainforest regions in Kalimantan, Indonesia, were interviewed about the benefits tropical forests provide, the most common answer was their ability to keep local temperatures cool.

Despite these benefits, tropical forests are being destroyed at an alarming rate. In 2024, more than 6 million hectares of primary tropical forests (nearly the size of Panama) were destroyed, the fastest rate since records began.

Tropical deforestation reduces the cooling effect forests provide, leading to local warming – a pattern well documented by previous studies. But how is this warming affecting the lives of people living near tropical forests?

Deforestation is amplifying heat

To answer this, we used satellite data to track how deforestation has affected temperatures over the past 20 years. Over this period, large areas of forest in the Amazon, Congo and south-east Asia were cleared. We compared temperature changes in deforested regions with nearby areas that retained their forests. Tropical regions that retained their forest cover warmed by an average of 0.2°C. In nearby areas where forests were cleared, temperatures rose by 0.7°C – more than three times as fast. This shows that deforestation results in a dramatic regional amplification of climate warming.

To understand the impact on local people, we mapped this warming onto information on where people live across the tropics. We found that more than 300 million people were exposed to higher temperatures caused by deforestation. Exposure occurred right across the tropics: 67 million people in Central and South America, 148 million people in Africa and 122 million people in south-east Asia were exposed to warming.

Some countries with rapid rates of deforestation were particularly affected: 49 million people in Indonesia, 42 million people in the Democratic Republic of Congo and 22 million people in Brazil were exposed to hotter temperatures caused by deforestation.

A hidden public health crisis

Exposure to high temperatures has a range of negative effects on health. For instance, it can reduce the productivity of farmers and reduce the time it is safe to work outdoors. Exposure to high temperatures also causes heat stress that can be lethal. Heat waves in the Amazon are associated with a higher risk of mortality from cardiovascular diseases.

We combined information on the number of people exposed to deforestation-induced warming with region-specific heat vulnerability information and non-accidental death rates. We used this to estimate that the heating from deforestation is linked to around 28,000 heat-related deaths each year across the tropics. This means that over the past 20 years more than half a million people have died from heat-related causes as a result of deforestation.

It is well known that tropical deforestation releases carbon dioxide and this contributes to global climate change. Indeed, arguments for reducing deforestation are often focused on carbon. But despite numerous international pledges, tropical deforestation continues to accelerate.

Recognising the public health impact of deforestation could help broaden support for forest protection. Although the local warming effects of deforestation are well recognised by local people, communities and decision-makers often lack precise data on how much deforestation is increasing temperatures in their area. To address this, we developed an online tool that provides information at province level on the warming linked to deforestation. We hope this locally relevant data will help communities and decision-makers make more informed decisions about managing their forests.

There are some promising new initiatives that recognise the value of tropical forests. Brazil is setting up a new fund that will pay tropical nations to keep their forests intact. It recognises the public services provided by tropical forests – including their ability to regulate local climate – and it rewards countries for protecting them. Some European countries supported the development of this facility but other than Norway, few have yet committed substantial funding. Perhaps given the current global crisis they think it is too far away to affect them, or are prioritising other areas. In doing so they are ignoring potential effects on migration flows, global air quality, loss of biodiversity and food supply chains.

For many years, tropical deforestation has been viewed as an environmental issue. Our research shows that it is also an urgent public health issue. Protecting tropical forests is not just about conserving nature or storing carbon. It is about protecting the health – and lives – of hundreds of millions of people.

Dominick Spracklen receives research funding from the European Research Council and from UK Research and Innovation.

– ref. Chopping down areas of tropical rainforest is causing rising temperatures linked to thousands of deaths – https://theconversation.com/chopping-down-areas-of-tropical-rainforest-is-causing-rising-temperatures-linked-to-thousands-of-deaths-278737

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Sharon Freeman, PhD Candidate, School of Education, University of Leicester

It is widely accepted that learning English is essential for many adult migrants who move to the UK. Yet in the last census, over 1 million residents in England and Wales reported not speaking English well or at all.

Over the years, governments have firmly placed the duty to learn English on the newcomer, framing English proficiency as a requirement of integration. Recent migration reform proposals increase the emphasis on English proficiency and progress in deciding who can come to the UK and stay long term.

Experts argue that language learning is not always linear, and that these policies risk turning English into a surveillance tool, rather than a pathway to integration.

Read more:
Esol English classes are crucial for migrant integration, yet challenges remain unaddressed

Meanwhile, English classes for migrants have become increasingly politicised. In my ongoing PhD research, I have been speaking to learners in English for speakers of other languages (Esol) courses, across a devolved city region in the north of England, to find out what learning English means to them.

I found that, beyond needing English to fulfil immigration requirements, learning the language has helped them build confidence as they navigate public services and their new life in Britain.

Noor* is a qualified civil engineer and maths tutor, originally from Syria and seeking asylum in the UK. She attends a volunteer-led Esol class, as well as courses at a local college, and volunteers in a local charity shop. When I asked her what learning English meant to her, she told me:

English language is in my heart and in my mind, because it is the language of the country that took me in with respect and gave me hope and education and in working in the future … it will enable me to live a good life. And English is the key to our life here.

She felt like she was integrated into her community after attending classes, saying: “I belong. I quickly felt I belong here. Guess why? Because I found peace here.”

Belonging, confidence and family

Belonging was mentioned frequently. Soo-Ah arrived more than ten years ago, moving with her husband’s job from South Korea. She said: “I’m living in England, and I always think English is very important for me.” She explained that her class was not just about learning English as a language, but also as a culture. “I feel like I’m belonging to this country, I feel like connected with it,” she told me.

Bisrat, an Eritrean man seeking asylum after arriving on a small boat, explained, “It’s very safe to live here. Everything is nice here. They welcomed us very well.” He told me that he felt he belonged, and that he hopes to study social work at a university one day.

Improving confidence was mentioned by many interviewed. Learners told me how their class helped them to independently access services such as healthcare. Efehi explained it “helped me a lot, and I’m grateful because I have more confidence in so many things I can do, like speaking, spelling and going for my appointment, so I don’t need anyone to interpret for me”.

Lucia told me: “Since I started in this class, I have grown massively in confidence. Absolutely amazing.”

Mothers discussed moving to the UK for their children’s education and wanting to support them. Zainab explained that parents’ evening at school, was “so easy for us if we speak English”. Bushra told me she needed to learn English now she lived here, not just for herself, but “for my kids’ future”.

Learners talked about their aspirations, including going to college or wanting to become a teaching assistant, teacher, social worker, sewing machinist or hospital domestic assistant. Shabana told me: “Now I am a housewife, but later on, after finish my courses and better my English, then I definitely want to do job.” Lucia too said: “I need to improve my English. And I found this class which give it a great support to all people like me. I just think [it is] amazing, what they doing for us … helping us to get these levels, which is important to get a job.”

These conversations with learners show that they are not choosing to learn English just because they are told they should. They are not passive. They are actively and pragmatically claiming a voice by adding English to their multilingual repertoires. They accept the importance of learning the dominant language in their new home.

Welcoming new neighbours with empathy and conviviality is key to helping them build a good life in a new country. And understanding their needs, wants and aspirations is fundamental to providing appropriate language support. Rather than just telling them what they should do, we should ask them what they need.

*All names have been changed

Sharon Freeman receives Future 50 Scholarship funding from University of Leicester.

– ref. What learning English means to migrants – https://theconversation.com/what-learning-english-means-to-migrants-278232