Category: Academic Reportage

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Kelsey Roberts, Post-Doctoral Scholar in Marine Ecology, Cornell University; UMass Dartmouth

Climate change is already fueling dangerous heat waves, raising sea levels and transforming the oceans. Even if countries meet their pledges to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions that are driving climate change, global warming will exceed what many ecosystems can safely handle.

That reality has motivated scientists, governments and a growing number of startups to explore ways to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere or at least temporarily counter its effects.

But these climate interventions come with risks – especially for the ocean, the world’s largest carbon sink, where carbon is absorbed and stored, and the foundation of global food security.

Our team of researchers has spent decades studying the oceans and climate. In a new study, we analyzed how different types of climate interventions could affect marine ecosystems, for good or bad, and where more research is needed to understand the risks before anyone tries them on a large scale. We found that some strategies carry fewer risks than others, though none is free of consequences.

What climate interventions look like

Climate interventions fall into two broad categories that work very differently.

One is carbon dioxide removal, or CDR. It tackles the root cause of climate change by taking carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.

The ocean already absorbs nearly one-third of human-caused carbon emissions annually and has an enormous capacity to hold more carbon. Marine carbon dioxide removal techniques aim to increase that natural uptake by altering the ocean’s biology or chemistry.

Biological carbon removal methods capture carbon through photosynthesis in plants or algae. Some methods, such as iron fertilization and seaweed cultivation, boost the growth of marine algae by giving them more nutrients. A fraction of the carbon they capture during growth can be stored in the ocean for hundreds of years, but much of it leaks back to the atmosphere once biomass decomposes.

Other methods involve growing plants on land and sinking them in deep, low-oxygen waters where decomposition is slower, delaying the release of the carbon they contain. This is known as anoxic storage of terrestrial biomass.

Another type of carbon dioxide removal doesn’t need biology to capture carbon. Ocean alkalinity enhancement chemically converts carbon dioxide in seawater into other forms of carbon, allowing the ocean to absorb more from the atmosphere. This works by adding large amounts of alkaline material, such as pulverized carbonate or silicate rocks like limestone or basalt, or electrochemically manufactured compounds like sodium hydroxide.

Solar radiation modification is another category entirely. It works like a sunshade – it doesn’t remove carbon dioxide, but it can reduce dangerous effects such as heat waves and coral bleaching by injecting tiny particles into the atmosphere that brighten clouds or directly reflect sunlight back to space, replicating the cooling seen after major volcanic eruptions. The appeal of solar radiation modification is speed: It could cool the planet within years, but it would only temporarily mask the effects of still-rising carbon dioxide concentrations.

These methods can also affect ocean life

We reviewed eight intervention types and assessed how each could affect marine ecosystems. We found that all of them had distinct potential benefits and risks.

One risk of pulling more carbon dioxide into the ocean is ocean acidification. When carbon dioxide dissolves in seawater, it forms acid. This process is already weakening the shells of oysters and harming corals and plankton that are crucial to the ocean food chain.

Adding alkaline materials, such as pulverized carbonate or silicate rocks, could counteract the acidity of the additional carbon dioxide by converting it into less harmful forms of carbon.

Biological methods, by contrast, capture carbon in living biomass, such as plants and algae, but release it again as carbon dioxide when the biomass breaks down – meaning their effect on acidification depends on where the biomass grows and where it later decomposes.

Another concern with biological methods involves nutrients. All plants and algae need nutrients to grow, but the ocean is highly interconnected. Fertilizing the surface in one area may boost plant and algae productivity, but at the same time suffocate the waters beneath it or disrupt fisheries thousands of miles away by depleting nutrients that ocean currents would otherwise transport to productive fishing areas.

Ocean alkalinity enhancement doesn’t require adding nutrients, but some mineral forms of alkalinity, like basalts, introduce nutrients such as iron and silicate that can impact growth.

Solar radiation modification adds no nutrients but could shift circulation patterns that move nutrients around.

Shifts in acidification and nutrients will benefit some phytoplankton and disadvantage others. The resulting changes in the mix of phytoplankton matter: If different predators prefer different phytoplankton, the follow-on effects could travel all the way up the food chain, eventually impacting the fisheries millions of people rely on.

The least risky options for the ocean

Of all the methods we reviewed, we found that electrochemical ocean alkalinity enhancement had the lowest direct risk to the ocean, but it isn’t risk-free. Electrochemical methods use an electric current to separate salt water into an alkaline stream and an acidic stream. This generates a chemically simple form of alkalinity with limited effects on biology, but it also requires neutralizing or disposing of the acid safely.

Other relatively low-risk options include adding carbonate minerals to seawater, which would increase alkalinity with relatively few contaminants, and sinking land plants in deep, low-oxygen environments for long-term carbon storage.

Still, these approaches carry uncertainties and need further study.

Scientists typically use computer models to explore methods like these before testing them on a wide scale in the ocean, but the models are only as reliable as the data that grounds them. And many biological processes are still not well enough understood to be included in models.

For example, models don’t capture the effects of some trace metal contaminants in certain alkaline materials or how ecosystems may reorganize around new seaweed farm habitats. To accurately include effects like these in models, scientists first must study them in laboratories and sometimes small-scale field experiments.

A cautious, evidence-based path forward

Some scientists have argued that the risks of climate intervention are too great to even consider and all related research should stop because it is a dangerous distraction from the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

We disagree.

Commercialization is already underway. Marine carbon dioxide removal startups backed by investors are already selling carbon credits to companies such as Stripe and British Airways. Meanwhile, global emissions continue to rise, and many countries, including the U.S., are backing away from their emissions reduction pledges.

As the harms caused by climate change worsen, pressure may build for governments to deploy climate interventions quickly and without a clear understanding of risks. Scientists have an opportunity to study these ideas carefully now, before the planet reaches climate instabilities that could push society to embrace untested interventions. That window won’t stay open forever.

Given the stakes, we believe the world needs transparent research that can rule out harmful options, verify promising ones and stop if the impacts prove unacceptable. It is possible that no climate intervention will ever be safe enough to implement on a large scale. But we believe that decision should be guided by evidence – not market pressure, fear or ideology.

Through his role at Cornell University, Daniele Visioni receives funding from the Quadrature Climate Foundation and the Advanced Research + Invention Agency UK. Daniele Visioni is Head of Data for Reflective, a philanthropically-funded initiative focused on responsibly accelerating sunlight reflection research.

In addition to her primary role as UCSB faculty, Morgan Raven serves as the Chief Science Officer for, and holds minor equity in, a seed-funded startup company exploring applications of biomass-related CDR (Carboniferous). This work was supported by a grant from the Grantham Foundation for the Protection of the Environment to UCSB.

Through his role at the Univeristy of Tasmania, Tyler Rohr receives funding from the Australian government and Co-Labs ICONIQ Impact Co-Labs to research impacts and efficeincy of marine carbon dioxide removal.

Kelsey Roberts 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. Climate engineering would alter the oceans, reshaping marine life – our new study examines each method’s risks – https://theconversation.com/climate-engineering-would-alter-the-oceans-reshaping-marine-life-our-new-study-examines-each-methods-risks-270659

Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Hana Green, Postdoctoral Fellow in Holocaust Studies, Zucker/Goldberg Center for Holocaust Studies, College of Charleston

Travel case in hand, dressed in fashionable clothing and wearing a practiced, coquettish smile, Hela Schüpper Rufeisen sat aboard the train to Warsaw, Poland. No one on board would have suspected that beneath the coat of the young woman were strapped assorted handguns and several cartridge clips.

Schüpper Rufeisen, who was Jewish, relied on this dissonance between appearance and reality to ferry items into, out of and between the Warsaw and Krakow ghettos. Her carefully cultivated “Aryan” image and false papers listing her as Catholic made it possible to cross borders and survive encounters that would otherwise have ended in death.

During the Holocaust, trying to “pass” as non-Jewish was often more feasible for women than men. Some Jewish women, like Schüpper Rufeisen, took the risk in order to join resistance efforts against the Nazis and their collaborators. Most Jews who tried to pass, however, did so simply to remain alive in a system designed to murder them.

Passing took many forms. It enabled some women to transport weapons, papers or messages, while allowing others to work as domestic servants, move between cities, secure food or sleep safely for another night. What united these experiences was the pressure of living under constant threat. Blanca Rosenberg escaped the Kolomyja ghetto – then Polish, now part of Ukraine – in 1942. As she recalled afterward, “I tried to force myself into the mind of the woman I was to impersonate … I was now an Aryan, with a right to life, and no longer a Jewess, hunted like prey.”

Over years of research on Jews who evaded capture during the Holocaust, what struck me most was not the daring of these acts, but how often survivors described them as something done to get through the day alive. A central aim of my work has been to move beyond celebrated figures such as couriers and resistance agents – not to diminish their bravery, but to show how passing functioned as a strategy of survival within a system committed to Jewish annihilation.

Women’s roles

Under Nazism, “passing” meant assuming a non-Jewish identity and performing it convincingly in hostile public places, whereas going into hiding meant concealing one’s physical existence. This required constructing an entirely new self: adopting new names and speech patterns, demonstrating fluency in Christian rituals, and sustaining backstories capable of withstanding scrutiny.

Passing relied on constantly negotiating visibility and concealment, safety and exposure. The stakes were immense. Exposure often meant immediate death, and those who helped risked execution themselves.

Jewish men and women who passed navigated unique dangers. Yet women, often perceived as less of a threat, also had distinct possibilities.

Their mobility was less strictly policed than men’s, and they could assume roles such as domestic workers or caretakers, providing credible explanations for their presence in public spaces. Women could adapt hairstyles, clothing and mannerisms to try to blend in. Men’s circumcisions, on the other hand, might expose them as Jewish, and in some circumstances, being a military-aged man out of uniform could arouse suspicion.

Testimonies from survivors show how many women relied on intuition and social awareness to navigate danger, crafting performances that balanced vulnerability and confidence. These were not advantages born of privilege, but survival strategies shaped by patriarchal and Nazi stereotypes, in which women’s perceived docility became a precarious form of cover.

The experience of Adina Blady-Szwajger reflects this precarious calculus. Traveling under a false Polish passport, the young physician moved between the Warsaw Ghetto and the so-called “Aryan side,” concealing ammunition beneath ordinary goods. When stopped by a gendarme on Żelazna Street, she opened her bag, revealing a heap of potatoes masking ammunition, smiled broadly, and waited. The patrolman glanced inside and ordered only “Los” – “Go.”

At the same time, Jewish women were doubly vulnerable. Living without legal protection, they faced heightened risks of sexual violence and coercion, as well as the potentially fatal consequences of pregnancy. Gender shaped not only how women passed, but the dangers they faced while doing so.

Emotional weight

Passing exacted a heavy psychological toll. Women lived with the constant fear that a single mistake could reveal their true identity. Rosenberg’s account of suppressing her sense of self after escaping the Kolomyja ghetto illustrates how passing fractured identity, producing a self that was at once protective and deeply alien.

Isolation compounded this strain. Cut off from family, unsure whom to trust, and burdened by guilt, many women endured emotional isolation that lingered long after liberation.

Ruth Ackerman, who survived the war by working for a German family under a false name, recalled scanning newly arrived American troops for a single “Jewish face.” The only member of her family to survive, Ackerman searched for other Jews, yearning for connection after years of concealment.

Edith Hahn-Beer, who lived in a displaced persons camp after the war, recalled feeling rejected by survivors who resented that she had emerged “intact,” without the physical suffering, imprisonment and degradation they themselves had endured. Using the false papers of a friend from Vienna, Hahn-Beer survived the war by living as an “Aryan” in Germany, marrying a Nazi officer – choices that complicated how other survivors saw her survival.

Lodzia Silverstein, a courier in Poland, described the postwar shift as “crawling out from the Polish skin and back into my Jewish skin.” This arduous psychological process was complicated by continued antisemitic violence, including the 1946 Kielce pogrom, a blood libel massacre that killed 42 Jews and wounded at least 50 others in the southeastern Polish town.

In some cases, Jews who passed for Christian retained their wartime identities for years, or even for the remainder of their lives, out of fear of continued persecution or a desire to move on.

Lasting lessons

As these women’s struggles show, passing was an ongoing negotiation of selfhood under extreme, and often violent, duress. For Jews who managed to pass, their deception was both a shield and a burden. Every gesture, word and detail of appearance carried the risk of exposure.

Their stories continue to resonate. People displaced by war, persecution or discrimination often alter aspects of their identities to remain safe. Belonging is rigorously policed – from immigration enforcement, racial discrimination and attacks on gender identity in the United States to ethnic violence across the globe. Whether through documents and checkpoints, or everyday scrutiny of language, dress, religion and appearance, people scrutinize each other, drawing lines around who belongs.

During the Holocaust, concealment was a condition of survival under persecution. Survivors’ testimony illuminates both the ingenuity required to endure such pressure and the emotional costs of erasing parts of oneself. In a moment of rising nationalism, antisemitism and mass displacement, their stories carry renewed urgency.

Hana Green has received research funding from the Central European History Society, the Leo Baeck Institute, the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), the German Historical Institute, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, and the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany (Claims Conference).

– ref. For some Jewish women, ‘passing’ as Christian during the Holocaust could mean survival – but left scars all the same – https://theconversation.com/for-some-jewish-women-passing-as-christian-during-the-holocaust-could-mean-survival-but-left-scars-all-the-same-268745

Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Jeremy David Engels, Liberal Arts Endowed Professor of Communication, Penn State

Before Martin Luther King Jr. was killed, he asked several of his friends to continue his life’s work building what he called “beloved community.” One of the people he invited was the Vietnamese Zen Buddhist monk, poet and mindfulness teacher Thich Nhat Hanh.

My new book, “On Mindful Democracy: A Declaration of Interdependence to Mend a Fractured World,” is inspired by King and Hanh’s friendship. These two men bonded over the shared insight that how we show up for each other matters, as does how we advocate for social change. In his sermon “Loving Your Enemies” King announced, “Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.” Hanh taught: There is no way to peace, peace is the way.“

At the heart of beloved community is true democracy. To be agents of change who do not add to the suffering of the world, people must learn to become more loving and peaceful people.

‘The real enemies of man’

Hanh was born in 1926 in central Vietnam. As a young Buddhist monk living in a nation confronted by colonialism, conflict and war, he developed the doctrine of ”engaged Buddhism,“ premised on the belief that working to relieve suffering in the world is enlightenment.

During the mid-1960s, amid the Vietnam War – Vietnamese call it the “American War” – Hanh founded the School of Youth for Social Services to practice engaged Buddhism and help those affected by the bombs raining down on their homes.

On June 1, 1965, Hanh wrote a letter to King to raise awareness of the suffering of the Vietnamese people. He also hoped to correct some common misconceptions about Buddhism.

His overarching point was that Buddhists in Vietnam did not hate Americans. In fact, they did not hate anyone. Their goal was simply to bring an end to war – and an end to the delusions that led to war. “Their enemies are not man. They are intolerance, fanaticism, dictatorship, cupidity, hatred and discrimination which lie within the heart of man,” he wrote. “These are the real enemies of man – not man himself.”

Hanh refused to take a side during the war. He stood for peace. His peace activism earned him a 39-year banishment from his homeland.

Continuing King’s dream

Marc Andrus, author of the 2021 book “Brothers in the Beloved Community,” notes that King and Hanh met in person twice: once in Chicago, on May 31, 1966, and a second time in May 1967, at the World Council of Churches Peace on Earth Conference in Geneva, Switzerland. In Geneva, King shared his understanding of the beloved community with Hanh, inviting him to participate in its construction.

In between these two meetings, King nominated Hanh for the 1967 Nobel Peace Prize, writing in his nomination letter, “I know Thich Nhat Hanh, and am privileged to call him my friend.” No award was given that year, however, perhaps to protest King’s choice to make his nomination letter public. Nominations were typically private, but King used his to call out the injustice of the Vietnam War.

Hanh was crushed when he learned of King’s death in 1968. “I was in New York when I heard the news of his assassination; I was devastated. I could not eat; I could not sleep,” he later recalled. “I made a deep vow to continue building what he called ‘the beloved community’ not only for myself but for him also. I have done what I promised Martin Luther King Jr. And I think that I have always felt his support.”

Building ‘beloved community’

In the years after King’s murder, part of Hanh’s life work was devoted to fulfilling King’s dream and building the “beloved community.”

Beloved community is not an abstraction. It is a loose-knit global community composed of a multitude of smaller, local communities committed to practicing peace, nonviolence, freedom, love and justice. Emerging from King’s activism and Hanh’s engaged Buddhism, these communities are also committed to social change.

In 1982, Hanh and his student Sister Chan Khong established the Plum Village monastery in southern France. In the years since, the Plum Village community has founded dozens of monasteries around the world, including three in the United States: Blue Cliff in upstate New York, Deer Park outside San Diego, and Magnolia Grove in Mississippi.

Hanh’s lay students have established thousands of smaller Plum Village sanghas – communities – in North America and Europe. These monasteries and sanghas serve as practice centers where people learn to embody the ideals of beloved community in their mindfulness practice and daily lives.

Since the time of the Buddha, people committed to the path of mindfulness have agreed to live by a number of “precepts.” These precepts, typically numbering five, provide a moral foundation for action. Hundreds of thousands of people attending Plum Village retreats have agreed to live by the updated, secular version of the precepts that Hanh and his community wrote called the Five Mindfulness Trainings. These include: reverence for life, true happiness, true love, loving speech and deep listening, and nourishment and healing.

The Five Mindfulness Trainings are written to provide people with a practical path to building a shared life based in love, compassion, joy and peace: the type of life that both King and Hanh envisioned for all.

As Hanh told the global Plum Village community in a 2020 letter titled Climbing Together the Hill of the Century: “We have continued that aspiration of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and every day, our practice is to generate brotherhood and sisterhood, to cultivate joy and the capacity to help people. This is a concrete way to realize and continue that dream.”

On MLK Day, their friendship and writings are a reminder that democracy rests on the ability of citizens to be present for each other, to recognize their interconnectedness, to embody loving kindness and to disagree without resorting to violence.

Jeremy David Engels 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. Building ‘beloved community’: Remembering the friendship between Martin Luther King Jr. and Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh – https://theconversation.com/building-beloved-community-remembering-the-friendship-between-martin-luther-king-jr-and-buddhist-monk-thich-nhat-hanh-272062

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Geoffrey Propheter, Associate Professor, School of Public Affairs, University of Colorado Denver

The Denver Broncos announced in early September 2025 their plan to build a privately financed football stadium. The proposal received a lot of attention and praise.

Across the five major sports leagues in the U.S. – the NBA, NHL, NFL, MLB and MLS – only 20% of facilities are privately owned.

I’ve studied the intersection of state and local public finance and pro sports for two decades. This experience has led me to approach claims of private financing with suspicion.

Private dollars are often masked as public dollars in these arrangements.

Private vs public dollars

In theory, what counts as private or public dollars is uncontroversial. Dollars are public when government has a legal claim over them – otherwise, they are private.

The public versus private dollar distinction matters when accounting for who is contributing how much to a sports facility. When public dollars are allowed to count as private dollars, a project proposal looks more enticing than it is, in fact.

For instance, lawmakers regularly allow team owners to count public dollars as private dollars. The Sacramento City Council agreed to let the NBA’s Sacramento Kings count their property tax payments for the city-owned arena as private contributions to the overall cost of financing the arena. But property taxes are public dollars that in other instances go toward public services like schools and road repairs.

Team owners building private facilities also typically receive public dollars through tax breaks, which is government spending in disguise. Property tax exemptions, sales and use tax exemptions on materials and machinery, and income tax credits are common forms of government givebacks to sports team owners.

I’ve estimated that property tax exemptions alone, among facilities in the five major leagues, have cost state and local governments US$20 billion cumulatively over the life of teams’ leases, 42% of which would have gone to K-12 education.

Rental payments spent on facilities are not private dollars

Many facilities and their infrastructure are funded through public debt secured in part by team rental payments. Lawmakers, media and consultants often view projects secured by rents as privately financed, in part or whole.

However, rental income in exchange for use or operation of public property should not be counted as private dollars.

Here’s a thought experiment. Suppose state lawmakers allocated the rent paid for use of campground sites in a state park to pay for new campground bathrooms. Are the bathrooms privately funded?

The flaw in concluding “yes” arises from a failure to appreciate that lawmakers, through policy, create legal claims over certain dollars. All dollars start as private dollars, but through the tax system, lawmakers transfer ownership of some dollars to the public.

It is the government landlord’s choice, a policy decision, to spend the rental income on the rented property, a choice available to them only if they own the rental income in the first place.

Yet lawmakers regularly allow teams, both professional and minor league, to count rental payments as private contributions. This accounting makes sports subsidies look less generous than they actually are.

Looking beyond construction

Facilities not only need to be constructed but also operated, maintained and eventually upgraded. Roads, sewer lines, overpasses, game-day security and emergency response and public policies to mitigate gentrification caused by a facility are all common taxpayer-funded touchpoints. In addition, facilities have preconstruction costs such as land acquisition, soil remediation and site preparation, as well as later costs such as demolition and remediation for the land’s next use.

Focusing on privately financed construction and ignoring all other aspects of a project’s development and operation is misleading, potentially contributing to lawmakers making inefficient and expensive policy decisions.

By way of example, the Council of the District of Columbia approved a subsidy agreement last year with the NFL’s Commanders. The stadium would be financed, constructed and operated by the team owner, who would pay $1 in rent per year and remit no property taxes. In exchange for financing the stadium privately, the owner receives exclusive development rights to 20 acres of land adjacent to the stadium for the next 90 years.

The stadium is expected to cost the owner $2.5 billion, with the city contributing $1.3 billion for infrastructure.

But the city also gives up market rental income between $6 billion and $25 billion,depending on future land appreciation rates, that it could make on the 20 acres.

In other words, the rent discount alone means the city gives up revenue equal to multiple stadiums in exchange for the Commanders providing one. It is as if the council has a Lamborghini, traded it straight up for a Honda Civic, and then praised themselves for their negotiation acumen that resulted in a “free” Civic.

The Broncos’ proposed stadium

As of January 2026, Denver taxpayers know only that the Broncos stadium construction will be privately financed and that public dollars will be spent on some infrastructure.

Being enamored with such a proposal is similar to being offered a $1 billion yacht at a 75% discount. In my experience, there are two types of public officials: one will want to spend $250 million to save $750 million, while the other will ask whether $250 million for a yacht is an appropriate use of taxpayer resources given existing needs elsewhere.

My hope is that lawmakers better appreciate the many ways government participation in sports facility development, including privately financed ones, imposes serious risks and costs for current and future taxpayers. What is the expected total cost of the stadium project over its life? How much of the life cost would public resources cover? Could public resources generate greater benefits in an alternative use? How much will it cost to mitigate or compensate those affected by a project’s expected negative side effects, such as gentrification, congestion, pollution and crime?

Read more of our stories about Colorado.

Geoffrey Propheter 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. Broncos say their new stadium will be ‘privately financed,’ but ‘private’ often still means hundreds of millions in public resources – https://theconversation.com/broncos-say-their-new-stadium-will-be-privately-financed-but-private-often-still-means-hundreds-of-millions-in-public-resources-270053