Around midday on June 13 last year, my colleagues and I were scanning the skies when we thought we had discovered a strange and exciting new object in space. Using a huge radio telescope, we spotted a blindingly fast flash of radio waves that appeared to be coming from somewhere inside our galaxy.
After a year of research and analysis, we have finally pinned down the source of the signal – and it was even closer to home than we had ever expected.
A surprise in the desert
Our instrument was located at Inyarrimanha Ilgari Bundara, the CSIRO Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory in remote Western Australia, where the sky above the red desert plains is vast and sublime.
We were using a new detector at the radio telescope known as the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder – or ASKAP – to search for rare flickering signals from distant galaxies called fast radio bursts.
We detected a burst. Surprisingly, it showed no evidence of a time delay between high and low frequencies – a phenomenon known as “dispersion”.
This meant it must have originated within a few hundred light years of Earth. In other words, it must have come from inside our galaxy – unlike other fast radio bursts which have come from billions of light years away.
A problem emerges
Fast radio bursts are the brightest radio flashes in the Universe, emitting 30 years’ worth of the Sun’s energy in less than a millisecond – and we only have hints of how they are produced.
Some theories suggest they are produced by “magnetars” – the highly magnetised cores of massive, dead stars – or arise from cosmic collisions between these dead stellar remnants. Regardless of how they occur, fast radio bursts are also a precise instrument for mapping out the so-called “missing matter” in our Universe.
When we went back over our recordings to take a closer a look at the radio burst, we had a surprise: the signal seemed to have disappeared. Two months of trial and error went by, until the problem was found.
ASKAP is composed of 36 antennas, which can be combined to act like one gigantic zoom lens six kilometres across. Just like a zoom lens on a camera, if you try to take a picture of something too close, it comes out blurry. Only by removing some of the antennas from the analysis – artificially reducing the size of our “lens” – did we finally make an image of the burst.
We weren’t excited by this – in fact, we were disappointed. No astronomical signal could be close enough to cause this blurring.
This meant it was probably just radio-frequency “interference” – an astronomer’s term for human-made signals that corrupt our data.
It’s the kind of junk data we’d normally throw away.
Yet the burst had us intrigued. For one thing, this burst was fast. The fastest known fast radio burst lasted about 10 millionths of a second. This burst consisted of an extremely bright pulse lasting a few billionths of a second, and two dimmer after-pulses, for a total duration of 30 nanoseconds.
So where did this amazingly short, bright burst come from?
The radio burst we detected, lasting merely 30 nanoseconds. Clancy W. James
A zombie in space?
We already knew the direction it came from, and we were able to use the blurriness in the image to estimate a distance of 4,500 km. And there was only one thing in that direction, at that distance, at that time – a derelict 60-year-old satellite called Relay 2.
Relay 2 was one of the first ever telecommunications satellites. Launched by the United States in 1964, it was operated until 1965, and its onboard systems had failed by 1967.
But this was no zombie. No system on board Relay 2 had ever been able to produce a nanosecond burst of radio waves, even when it was alive.
We think the most likely cause was an “electrostatic discharge”. As satellites are exposed to electrically charged gases in space known as plasmas, they can become charged – just like when your feet rub on carpet. And that accumulated charge can suddenly discharge, with the resulting spark causing a flash of radio waves.
Electrostatic discharges are common, and are known to cause damage to spacecraft. Yet all known electrostatic discharges last thousands of times longer than our signal, and occur most commonly when the Earth’s magnetosphere is highly active. And our magnetosphere was unusually quiet at the time of the signal.
According to our calculations, a 22 micro-gram micrometeoroid travelling at 20km per second or more and hitting Relay 2 would have been able to produce such a strong flash of radio waves. But we estimate the chance the nanosecond burst we detected was caused by such an event to be about 1%.
Plenty more sparks in the sky
Ultimately, we can’t be certain why we saw this signal from Relay 2. What we do know, however, is how to see more of them. When looking at 13.8 millisecond timescales – the equivalent of keeping the camera shutter open for longer – this signal was washed out, and barely detectable even to a powerful radio telescope such as ASKAP.
But if we had searched at 13.8 nanoseconds, any old radio antenna would have easily seen it. It shows us that monitoring satellites for electrostatic discharges with ground-based radio antennas is possible. And with the number of satellites in orbit growing rapidly, finding new ways to monitor them is more important than ever.
But did our team eventually find new astronomical signals? You bet we did. And there are no doubt plenty more to be found.
Clancy William James receives funding from the Australian Research Council.
Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Jye Marshall, Lecturer, Fashion Design, School of Design and Architecture, Swinburne University of Technology
After 37 years at the helm, fashion industry heavyweight Anna Wintour is stepping down from her position as editor-in-chief of American Vogue.
It’s not a retirement, though, as Wintour will maintain a leadership position at global fashion and lifestyle publisher Condé Nast (the owner of Vogue and other publications, such as Vanity Fair and Glamour).
Nonetheless, Wintour’s departure from the US edition of the magazine is a big moment for the fashion industry – one which she has single-handedly changed forever.
Fashion mag fever
Fashion magazines as we know them today were first formalised in the 19th century. They helped establish the “trickle down theory” of fashion, wherein trends were traditionally dictated by certain industry elites, including major magazine editors.
In Australia, getting your hands on a monthly issue meant rare exposure to the latest European or American fashion trends.
Vogue itself was established in New York in 1892 by businessman Arthur Baldwin Turnure. The magazine targeted the city’s elite class, initially covering various aspects of high-society life. In 1909, Vogue was acquired by Condé Nast. From then, the magazine increasingly cemented itself as a cornerstone of the fashion publishing.
Cover of a 1921 edition of Vogue. Wikimedia, CC BY
The period following the second world war particularly opened the doors to mass fashion consumerism and an expanding fashion magazine culture.
Wintour came on as editor of Vogue in 1988, at which point the magazine became less conservative, and more culturally significant.
Not afraid to break the mould
Fashion publishing changed as a result of Wintour’s bold editorial choices – especially when it came to the magazine’s covers. Her choices both reflected, and dictated, shifts in fashion culture.
Wintour’s first cover at Vogue, published in 1988, mixed couture garments (Christian Lacroix) with mainstream brands (stonewashed Guess jeans) – something which had never been done before. It was also the first time a Vogue cover had featured jeans at all – perfectly setting the scene for a long career spent pushing the magazine into new domains.
Wintour also pioneered the centring of celebrities (rather than just models) within fashion discourse. And while she leveraged big names such as Beyonce, Madonna, Nicole Kidman, Kate Moss, Michelle Obama and Oprah Winfrey, she also featured rising stars as cover models – often helping propel their careers in the process.
Wintour’s legacy at Vogue involved elevating fashion from a frivolous runway to a powerful industry, which is not scared to make a statement. Nowhere is this truer than at the Met Gala, which is held each year to celebrate the opening of a new fashion exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute.
The event started as a simple fundraiser for the Met in 1948, before being linked to a fashion exhibit for the first time in 1974.
Wintour took over its organisation in 1995. Her focus on securing exclusive celebrity guests helped propel it to the prestigious event it is today.
This year’s theme for the event was Superfine: Tailoring Black Style. In a time where the US faces great political instability, Wintour was celebrated for her role in helping elevate Black history through the event.
Not without controversy
However, while her cultural influence can’t be doubted, Wintour’s legacy at American Vogue is not without fault.
Notably, her ongoing feud with animal rights organisation PETA – due to the her unwavering support for fur – has bubbled in the background since the heydays of the anti-fur movement.
Wintour has been targeted directly by anti-fur activists, both physically (she was hit with a tofu cream pie in 2005 while leaving a Chloe show) and through numerous protests.
This issue was never resolved. Vogue has continued to showcase and feature fur clothing, even as the social license for using animal materials starts to run out.
Fashion continues to grow increasingly political. How magazines such as Vogue will engage with this shift remains to be seen.
A changing media landscape
The rise of fashion blogging in recent decades has led to a wave of fashion influencers, with throngs of followers, who are challenging the unidirectional “trickle-down” structure of the fashion industry.
Today, social media platforms have overtaken traditional media influence both within and outside of fashion. And with this, the power of fashion editors such as Wintour is diminishing significantly.
Many words will flow regarding Wintour’s departure as editor-in-chief, but nowhere near as many as what she oversaw at the helm of the world’s biggest fashion magazine.
Rachel Lamarche-Beauchesne has been affiliated with the Animal Justice Party.
Jye Marshall does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Jane McAdam, Scientia Professor and ARC Laureate Fellow, Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law, UNSW Sydney
In just four days, one-third of the population of Tuvalu entered a ballot for a new permanent visa to Australia.
This world-first visa will enable up to 280 Tuvaluans to move permanently to Australia each year, from a current population of about 10,000. The visa is open to anyone who wants to work, study or live in Australia. Unlike other visa schemes for Pacific peoples, a job offer in Australia is not required.
While the visa itself doesn’t mention climate change, the treaty that created it is framed in the context of the “existential threat posed by climate change”. That’s why when it was announced, I described it as the world’s first bilateral agreement on climate mobility.
The Australian government, too, has called it “the first agreement of its kind anywhere in the world, providing a pathway for mobility with dignity as climate impacts worsen”.
The high number of ballot applications may come as a surprise to many, especially given there were multiple concerns within Tuvalu when the treaty was first announced. Even so, some analysts predicted all Tuvaluans would apply eventually, to keep their options open.
The visa highlights the importance of creating opportunities for people to move in the context of climate change and disasters. The dangers of rising sea levels are clearly apparent, including coastal flooding, storm damage and water supplies. But there is a lot more at play here.
For many, especially young families, this will be seen as a chance for education and skills training in Australia. Giving people choices about if, when and where they move is empowering and enables them to make informed decisions about their own lives.
For the government of Tuvalu, the new visa is also about shoring up the economy. Migration is now a structural component of many Pacific countries’ economies.
The money migrants send back to their home countries to support their families and communities is known as remittances. In 2023, remittances comprised 28% of GDP in Samoa and nearly 42% of GDP in Tonga – the highest in the world. Currently, Tuvalu sits at 3.2%.
A long time coming
Well before climate change became an issue of concern, Tuvalu had been lobbying Australia for special visa pathways. Demographic pressures, combined with limited livelihood and educational opportunities, made it a live policy issue throughout the 1980s and ‘90s. In 1984, a review of Australia’s foreign aid program suggested improved migration opportunities for Tuvaluans may be the most useful form of assistance.
By the early 2000s, the focus had shifted to the existential threats posed by climate change. In 2006, as then-shadow environment minister, Anthony Albanese released a policy discussion paper called Our Drowning Neighbours. It proposed that Australia create Pacific migration pathways as part of a neighbourly response. In 2009, a spokesperson for Penny Wong, then minister for climate change, stated permanent migration might eventually be the only option for some Pacific peoples.
When combined with other Pacific pathways to Australia and New Zealand, nearly 4% of the population could migrate each year. This is “an extraordinarily high level”, according to one expert. Within a decade, close to 40% of the population could have moved – although some people may return home or go backwards and forwards.
How will the new arrivals be received?
The real test of the new visa’s success will be how people are treated when they arrive in Australia.
Will they be helped to adjust to life here, or will they feel isolated and shut out? Will they be able to find work and training, or will they find themselves in insecure and uncertain circumstances? Will they feel a loss of cultural connection, or will they be able to maintain cultural traditions within the growing Tuvaluan diaspora?
Ensuring sound and culturally appropriate settlement services are in place will be crucial. These would ideally be co-developed with members of the Tuvaluan community, to “centralise Tuvaluan culture and values, in order to ensure ongoing dialogue and trust”.
It has been suggested by experts that a “liaison officer with Tuvaluan cultural expertise and language skills could assist in facilitating activities such as post-arrival programs”, for instance.
Learning from experience
There are also many important lessons to be learned from the migration of Tuvaluans to New Zealand, to reduce the risk of newcomers experiencing economic and social hardship.
Ongoing monitoring and refinement of the scheme will also be key. It should involve the Tuvaluan diaspora, communities back in Tuvalu, service providers in Australia, as well as federal, state/territory and local governments.
By freeing up resources and alleviating stress on what is already a fragile atoll environment, migration may enable some people to remain in Tuvalu for longer, supported by remittances and extended family networks abroad.
As some experts have suggested, money sent home from overseas could be used to make families less vulnerable to climate change. It might help them buy rainwater tanks or small boats, or improve internet and other communications. Remittances are also beneficial when they are invested in services that lift the level of education of children or boost social capital.
Australia is offering ‘climate visas’ to 280 residents of Tuvalu (10 News First)
Delaying a mass exodus
It is difficult to know when a tipping point might be reached. For instance, some have warned that if too few people remain in Tuvalu, this could constrain development by limiting the availability of labour and skills. A former president of Kiribati, Teburoro Tito, once told me migration was “a double-edged sword”. While it could help people secure employment overseas and remit money, “the local economy, the local setup, also has to have enough skilled people” – otherwise it’s counterproductive.
With visas capped at 280 a year – and scope to adjust the numbers if concerns arise – we are still a long way from that point. Right now, the new visa provides a safety net to ensure people have choices about how they respond to climate change. With the visa ballot open until July 18, many more people may yet apply.
Jane McAdam receives funding from the Australian Research Council (ARC) and is the Director of the ARC Evacuations Research Hub at the Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law, UNSW Sydney.
More than 100 days into his return to the White House, the conclusion is stark: Donald Trump is no longer the same president he was during his first term. His familiar nationalist and populist rhetoric is now openly paired with an authoritarian turn – one without precedent in US history. He has adopted a neo-imperial view of the economy, treating the global order as a zero-sum contest of winners and losers. In this worldview, cooperation gives way to domination: what matters is power and the accumulation of wealth.
Having withstood two impeachment procedures, numerous lawsuits and at least one assassination attempt, Trump now governs with what can appear to be unchecked authority. To his followers, he has become a hero, a martyr – almost a messianic figure. He no longer sees democracy as a framework to be honoured, but as a tool to legitimize his hold on power. His decisive electoral victory now serves as a mandate to cast aside institutional limits.
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Three key features define his style of governance: a radical centralization of executive power grounded in the theory of the “unitary executive”; the politicization of the Department of Justice, used as a weapon against rivals; and the manipulation of federal authority to target cultural, media and educational institutions. His playbook is chaos: unsettle opponents, dominate the media narrative and blur the boundaries of democratic norms. Impulsive and reactionary, Trump often governs in response to Fox News segments or trending posts on Truth Social. Instability has become a strategic tool.
But Trump is not a historical anomaly. While his 2016 victory may have seemed unlikely, his re-election reflects a deeper, long-term transformation rooted in the post-Cold War era.
From an external to an internal enemy
The collapse of the USSR – a structuring external enemy – redirected political confrontation toward the designation of an internal enemy. The culture war has become the dominant ideological battleground, driven by two closely linked forces. On one side, a religious radicalization led by nationalist Christian movements – such as the New Apostolic Reformation – seeks to roll back social progress and promote the vision of an outright theocracy. On the other, growing racial anxiety is fueled by fears of white demographic decline and resistance to civil rights gains.
The commentator Pat Buchanan saw it coming as early as the 1990s. Speaking at the 1992 Republican National Convention, he warned: “There is a cultural war going on for the soul of America… as critical as the Cold War itself.” Too radical for his time, Buchanan championed a white, Christian, conservative US hostile to cosmopolitan elites. Though marginalized then, his ideas laid the groundwork for what would become Trumpism.
Newt Gingrich, who served as Speaker of the House from 1995 to 1999, played a pivotal role in reshaping both the Republican party and US politics. A Republican group he chaired famously distributed a pamphlet to Republican candidates titled “Language: A Key Mechanism of Control”, advising them to use uplifting language to describe themselves, and inflammatory terms like “corrupt”, “immoral” and “traitor” to describe their opponents. This aggressive rhetoric redefined political rivals as enemies to be defeated – helping pave the way for a right-wing politics in which winning trumps democratic norms.
At the same time, the rise of a new conservative media ecosystem intensified polarization. The launch of Fox News in 1996, the growth of right-wing talk radio shows like Rush Limbaugh’s and the later explosion of social media gave the US right powerful tools to shape and radicalize public opinion. Today, algorithm-driven information bubbles trap citizens in alternate realities, where misinformation and outrage drown out reasoned debate. This has deepened polarization and fractured society as a whole.
Channeling anger
This ideological and media realignment has unfolded alongside a broader crisis: the unraveling of the post-Cold War neoliberal consensus. Promises of shared prosperity have been replaced by deindustrialization, deepening inequality and widespread resentment. Successive traumas – from 9/11 and the 2008 financial crash to the Covid-19 pandemic – and foreign wars without real victories have eroded public trust in the establishment.
Trump channels this anger. He offers a vision of a restored and idealized America, a rollback of recent social gains, and a reassertion of national identity grounded in religion and race. His populism is not a coherent ideology but an emotional response – born of perceived injustice, humiliation and loss.
Trump is more than a symptom of America’s democratic crisis: he is its most vivid manifestation. He embodies the legacy of the 1990s – a foundational decade of identity grievance, culture wars and media deregulation. Viewed as a political outsider, he has never been judged as a traditional politician, but rather embraced, by some, as the archetypal “self-made man” – a successful businessman and reality TV celebrity.
His rhetoric – transgressive, provocative and often cruel – gives voice to what had been repressed. The humiliation of opponents becomes part of the performance. For his supporters, it’s exhilarating. It breaks taboos, flouts political correctness and feeds the fantasy of reclaiming a lost America.
And he’s no longer alone. With the vocal support of economic and tech elites like Elon Musk – now a central figure in the radicalized right on X – Trumpism has entered a new phase. Together, they’ve outlined a new kind of authoritarian, cultural and digital power, where influence matters more than institutions.
The US re-elected not just a man, but a style, an era and a worldview built on dominance, disruption and disdain for rules. Still, history is unwritten: intoxicated by hubris and undermined by incompetence, Trumpism may yet crash into the wall of reality – with consequences far beyond America’s borders.
Jérôme Viala-Gaudefroy ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d’une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n’a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.
Every year, some 100 billion garments are produced worldwide, and 92 million tonnes of clothing waste end up in landfills. Given this enormous amount of waste, it is logical to think that the only way forward is to degrow fashion. But can fashion and degrowth co-exist?
Degrowth is defined as the planned reduction of production and consumption in a way that ensures equitable living. Degrowth principles, such as sufficiency, cooperation and care, clash with growth principles of maximization, commodification and efficiency. For the fashion industry, which is responsible for immense resource extraction and waste creation, reducing resource throughput and ensuring equitable value creation pose enduring challenges.
While some governments and corporations encourage consumers to shop responsibly and reduce waste, collective responsibility is needed to facilitate a degrowth transition, which urges a fundamental shift in the way designers, manufacturers and brands approach fashion waste. Will circular practices help create a just and equitable industry? Is it possible to produce clothing locally and differently than “fast fashion” retailers?
Upcycling as a radical rethinking of our relationship with waste
In a recent study, we explored how the circular fashion practice of upcycling – creative and caring transformation of discarded or waste clothes into something of higher value – pushes industry actors to rethink their relationship to fashion waste and give it value as a resource compatible with degrowth values. We examined how upcycling is practiced across institutions – brands, manufacturers, designers and NGOs – in Turkey, one of Europe’s largest textile producers.
It is important to note that while conversations about recycling – the practice of breaking down textile waste into raw material through mechanical or chemical processes – are prevalent in the fashion world, the painful fact is that only 1% of clothes are recycled into new garments, meaning the majority of fashion waste is doomed to remain as waste. Through upcycling, on the other hand, waste is treated as a resource. Rather than viewing clothes as disposable, upcycling enables us to understand and care about our clothes’ journey and the people and ecosystems behind them. Converting discarded food into natural dyes for colouring fabric, or using sailcloth to make handbags, creates value through the creativity, materials, skill sharing, and caring involved.
As part of green-growth efforts, some circular fashion actors treat waste as a commodity and try to maximize growth through efficient waste reduction. However, this is incompatible with degrowth. We need to reduce production of textiles and make use of existing textile waste, not just discard textile waste efficiently.
Relational ways of working with waste, technology, nature and people
Our research highlights the importance of the socio-ecological value of waste in industry upcycling practices. Such value is generated through social and solidarity networks of relations around waste, including between designers, manufacturers and upcycling brands, and involving nature and technology.
We emphasise the growing interest in the story of waste material, which is reinforcing strong connections to waste and its origins. Upcycling designers highlight local and material heritage in the production of upcycled clothes, which is necessary to foster the ecological and material consciousness required for a degrowth transition. Designers we interviewed evoked the idea that “nature doesn’t waste anything”, and mentioned being inspired by and mimicking nature’s cycles in the design process.
We also reflect on the kind of technology needed to support more relational, localised systems. The practices of upcycling designers and small brands highlight the value of the creation of waste-sharing platforms among industry actors. These platforms serve as waste libraries and provide opportunities to purchase different kinds of textile waste for upcycling.
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Making waste valuable
Industry actors we interviewed said they are not simply trend chasers focused on profit, but seeking to build alternative ways of working with each other, nature, waste and technology. For example, designers partnered with local women in rural areas in Erzurum, Mugla and Kilis provinces to upcycle discarded fabrics into handwoven garments, preserving cultural heritage. A brand collected food waste to create natural textile dyes, collaborating with local cafés and friends in Istanbul. During the Covid-19 crisis, solidarity networks emerged between hospitals, textile manufacturers and designers to make upcycled uniforms for doctors and nurses. We have observed that manufacturers also repurpose waste to give gifts to employees, children and others. These practices aim to reduce waste and reconnect people to waste material, and enable the sharing of local knowledge and skills.
Our data also demonstrates a concern over lack of circular literacy among industry actors. Currently, access to upcycling knowledge and skills, as well as waste material, happens through knowledge hubs and waste-sharing platforms. For example, working with sectoral representatives and local governments, one knowledge hub created a circular economy guide to raise industry awareness about ways to revalue and reduce textile waste.
Upcycling is still a niche circular practice, and access to waste resources for initiatives, as well as lack of public funding and policy support for projects, remain important concerns. Nonetheless, when it is grounded in local communities, new narratives about materials, and care, upcycling can foster degrowth values in fashion.
Handan Vicdan ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d’une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n’a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.
Source: The Conversation – (in Spanish) – By Apostolos Voulgarakis, AXA Chair in Wildfires and Climate Director, Laboratory of Atmospheric Environment & Climate Change, Technical University of Crete
Understanding how wildfires influence our planet’s climate is a daunting challenge. Although fire occurs nearly everywhere on Earth and has always been present, it is still one of the least understood components of the Earth system. Recently, unprecedented fire activity has been observed in boreal (northern) and Arctic regions, which has drawn the scientific community’s attention to areas whose role in the future of our planet remains a mystery. Climate change likely has a major role in this alarming trend. However, high-latitude wildfires are not just a symptom of climate change; they are an accelerating force that could shape the future of our climate in ways that we are currently incapable of predicting.
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The rising threat of northern fires
As global temperatures rise, wildfires are advancing further north and reaching into the Arctic. Canada, Alaska, Siberia, Scandinavia and even Greenland, all in northern high-latitude regions, have recently experienced some of the most intense and prolonged wildfire seasons on record. With climate change occurring more rapidly in these areas, the future of northern fires appears even grimmer.
Apart from typical forest fires that consume surface vegetation, many high-latitude fires burn through peat, the dense, carbon-rich layers of partially decayed organic material. Despite covering only 3% of the terrestrial surface, peatlands are one of the world’s most important carbon storage environments, containing around 25% of the carbon existing in the Earth’s soils.
Climate warming, which is even faster at high northern latitudes due to polar amplification – the phenomenon of greater climate change near the poles compared to the rest of the hemisphere or globe – is increasing the vulnerability of these ecosystems to fire, with potentially severe implications for the global climate. When peatlands ignite, they release massive amounts of “fossil carbon” that have been locked away for centuries or even millennia. The largest and most persistent fires on Earth, peat fires can smoulder for extended periods, are difficult to extinguish and can continue burning underground throughout the winter, only to reignite on the surface in spring. They have recently been described as “zombie” fires.
Warmer and drier conditions driven by climate change, apart from making boreal forests more flammable, are expected to intensify and increase the frequency of peat fires, potentially transforming peatlands from carbon sinks into net sources of greenhouse gas emissions. Such a shift could trigger a feedback loop, meaning that a warming climate will cause more carbon emissions, which in turn will accelerate climate change.
Air pollution and weather patterns
Wildfires release large quantities of smoke particles (aerosols) into the atmosphere, contributing significantly to both local and widespread air quality degradation. These particles are harmful to human health and can cause serious respiratory and cardiovascular problems, while prolonged exposure may lead to smoke-induced stress, hospitalizations and increased mortality. Wildfires can also cause mental health strains associated with evacuations, loss of homes, livelihoods and lives.
Beyond their long-term effects on climate, wildfire emissions can also influence weather patterns in more short-term ways via their impacts on atmospheric pollution levels. Smoke particles interact with sunlight and cloud formation processes, subsequently affecting temperatures, wind patterns and rainfall.
For example, our recent study on the large-scale atmospheric impacts of the 2023 Canadian wildfires, which we presented at the European Geosciences Union general assembly this spring, demonstrated that wildfire aerosols led to a surface air temperature decrease that expanded to the entire northern hemisphere. The cooling was particularly pronounced over Canada (up to -5.5°C in August), where the emissions were located, but was also significant over remote areas such as Eastern Europe and even Siberia (up to around -2.5°C in July). The average hemispheric temperature anomaly we calculated (close to -1°C) highlights the potential for large regional emissions from wildfires to perturb weather conditions for weeks across a whole hemisphere, with profound implications for forecasting. Unreliable weather forecasts can disrupt daily activities and pose risks to public safety, especially during extreme events such as heatwaves or storms. They also have serious consequences for industries such as farming, fishing and transport, where planning depends heavily on accurate, timely predictions.
Peat fires and the climate puzzle
While incorporating peatland fire feedbacks into Earth System Models (ESMs) is essential for accurate climate projections, most existing models lack a representation of peat fires. Understanding the smouldering behaviour of organic soils when they burn, their ignition probability, and how these processes can be represented at a global scale is of utmost importance. Recent research efforts are focusing on bridging this knowledge gap. For example, at the Technical University of Crete, we are collaborating with the Hazelab research group at Imperial College London and the Leverhulme Centre for Wildfires, Environment and Society to perform field research and cutting-edge experiments) on peat smouldering, with the aim of shedding light on the complex mechanisms of peat fires.
Integrating these lab results into ESMs will enable game-changing fire emission modelling, which holds potential for groundbreaking outcomes when it comes to our skill level for predicting the future of the Earth’s climate. By quantifying how the present-day atmosphere is influenced by fire emissions from boreal forests and peatlands, we can enhance the quality of projections of global temperature rise. This integration will also sharpen forecasts of regional climate impacts driven by fire-related aerosols, such as changes in rainfall patterns or accelerated Arctic ice melt.
Tackling the challenge of northern fires
Undoubtedly, we have entered an era of more frequent megafires – wildfires of extreme size, intensity, duration or impacts – with catastrophic consequences. Recent megafire events at boreal and Arctic regions unveil the dramatic change in wildfire patterns in northern high latitudes, which is a matter that demands urgent attention and action.
As the planet continues to warm, high-latitude fires are expected to help shape the future of our planet. Massive wildfire events, such as those in Canada in 2023, not only burned millions of hectares but also forced hundreds of thousands of people to evacuate their homes. Unprecedented amounts of smoke blanketed parts of North America in hazardous air, prompting school closures and health warnings, and obliging citizens to remain indoors for days. Events like this reflect a growing trend. They underscore why advancing research to better understand and predict the dynamics of northern peat and forest fires, and to mitigate their climate impacts, is not only a scientific imperative but also a moral responsibility.
Created in 2007 to help accelerate and share scientific knowledge on key societal issues, the Axa Research Fund has supported nearly 700 projects around the world conducted by researchers in 38 countries. To learn more, visit the website of the Axa Research Fund or follow @AXAResearchFund on X.
Dimitra Tarasi has received funding from the AXA Chair in Wildfires and Climate, the Leverhulme Centre for Wildfires, Environment and Society and the A.G. Leventis Foundation Educational Grants.
Apostolos Voulgarakis ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d’une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n’a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.
On wine-rating platforms, amateur ratings better explain the price differences of bottles than professional scores.JuanGarciaHinojosa/Shutterstock
Research in economics has unravelled the workings of the complex market for Bordeaux wines, in which perceived quality, historical reputation and critical reviews are intertwined. The question of how bottles are priced is all the more relevant amid a crisis for the Bordeaux industry, which is facing the threat of higher US tariffs on EU exports.
Reputation, ranking, vintage and climate
A document pertaining to the ranking of Bordeaux wines in the 19th century. Wikimediacommons
To assess the relationship between the quality and price of Bordeaux wines, Jean-Marie Cardebat and I applied the “hedonic” method. The analysis links price to the observable characteristics of a wine: its ranking, vintage, designation of origin, alcohol content, flavour, etc.
The results are striking: the reputation of the wine estate and its official ranking, in particular that of 1855, are more powerful factors in explaining price than taste and sensory characteristics. In other words, a ranked wine, because of the prestige of its label, sells for significantly more than an unranked wine of equivalent taste and sensory appeal.
The economist Orley Ashenfelter has shown that the weather conditions of a vintage – temperature, sunshine, rainfall – are predictors of its quality and therefore its price. A simple model, based solely on climatic data.
Robert Parker and the golden age of experts
For more than 30 years, the critic Robert Parker stirred up the Bordeaux wine market. His famous scores out of 100, published in The Wine Advocate, made and broke the value of wines. The economist Robert H. Ashton measured the scores’ impact: an extra point could boost a price by 10-20%.
Parker was the originator of a tribe of “gurus”, whose scores structured the entire early season for wines. The estates adjusted prices according to their assessments, and wine buyers followed suit, convinced of the accuracy of the scores.
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Fragmented influence
The Bordeaux wine landscape has changed since Parker’s retirement in 2019. The critics are still around but their influence has fragmented. No one has taken over Parker’s leadership. Consensus is now less clear and rating discrepancies are more frequent.
An even deeper turning point is evident when we compare the impact of expert and consumer ratings – notably from the Vivino platform – on the price of French red wines.
The result is clear: in the majority of cases, the scores of amateurs surpass those of professionals when it comes to explaining price differences. The market has therefore moved from a “guru” logic to a “geek” logic, in which the collective intelligence of connected consumers now carries as much weight, if not more, than expert opinions.
During the “primeurs” or early harvest campaign, the most prestigious Bordeaux wines are offered 18 months before bottling, often at a price that is supposed to be lower than the future market price. It’s a great opportunity for a bargain. Philippe Masset’s research shows that most wine estates overestimate the price of early harvest wines.
For example, for the 2021 vintage, over 80% of the wines analysed were priced above their “fair value” as estimated by an econometric model. The more a wine is overpriced on its release, the worse it performs on the secondary market. This discrepancy between asking price and perceived value feeds what is known as “Bordeaux bashing”. There is disaffection with these wines that are considered too expensive, too complex, too austere and totally out of step with today’s expectations – young people’s in particular.
A changing market
While the price of Bordeaux wine is still based on its quality, origin, weather and ranking, it also depends on criticism not just by experts, but by consumers. This shift is redefining the balance of power in the world of wine.
Reputation still pays, but prestige is no longer enough. Nonelite wine consumers are gradually taking over, gaining a new form of power over prices. If the Bordeaux market wants to emerge from crisis and reclaim its place, it will undoubtedly have to rethink the way its prices are set and perceived.
Jean-Marc Figuet has received public funding for his research.
Karol Nawrocki in the Oval Office with Donald Trump on May 25th 2025, ten days before the first round of the Polish presidential election. It is very rare for a sitting US president to receive a candidate in a foreign election. White House X account
Nawrocki’s narrow victory (50.89%) over Trzaskowski, the mayor of Warsaw and candidate of the government coalition, illustrates and reinforces the political polarisation of Poland and the rise of the populist “Trumpist” right in Central and Eastern Europe. Since the start of the war in Ukraine, there has been much speculation about whether Europe’s geopolitical centre of gravity is shifting eastwards. The Polish election seems to confirm that the political centre of gravity is shifting to the right.
A narrow victory
We are witnessing a relative erosion of the duopoly of the two major parties, Civic Platform (PO) and Law and Justice (PiS), whose leaders – the current Prime Minister, Donald Tusk, and Jarosław Kaczyński respectively – have dominated the political landscape for over twenty years.
Kaczyński’s skill lay in propelling a candidate with no responsibilities in his party, who was little known to the general public a few months ago, and, above all, who is from a different generation, to the presidency (a position held since 2015 by a PiS man, Andrzej Duda). Nawrocki, a historian by training and director of the Polish Institute of National Remembrance, has helped shape PiS’s memory policy. He won the second round, despite his troubled past as a hooligan, by appealing to voters on the right.
In the first round, he won 29.5% of the vote, compared to Trzaskowski’s 31.36%, but the two far-right candidates, Sławomir Mentzen (an ultra-nationalist and economic libertarian) and Grzegorz Braun (a monarchist, avowed reactionary, and anti-Semite), won a total of 21% of the vote. They attracted a young electorate (60% of 18–29-year-olds), who overwhelmingly transferred their votes to Nawrocki in the second round.
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Despite a high turnout of 71% and favourable votes from the Polish diaspora (63%), Trzaskowski was unable to secure enough votes from the first-round candidates linked to the governing coalition, including those on the left (who won 10% between them) and the centre-right (Szymon Hołownia’s Third Way movement, which won 5% in the first round).
A Tusk government struggling to implement its programme
There are two Polands facing each other: the big cities, where incomes and levels of education are higher, and the more rural small towns, which are more conservative on social issues and more closely linked to the Catholic Church.
The themes of nationhood – Nawrocki’s campaign slogan was “Poland first, Poles first” – family, and traditional values continue to resonate strongly with an electorate that has been loyal to PiS for more than twenty years. The electoral map, which shows a clear north-west/south-east divide, is similar to those of previous presidential elections and even echoes the partition of Poland at the end of the eighteenth century. The PiS vote is strongest in the part of the country that was under Russian rule until 1918. A more traditional Catholicism in these less developed regions, coupled with a strong sense of national identity, partly explains these historical factors.
The economic explanation for the vote is unconvincing. Over the past 25 years, Poland has undergone tremendous transformation, driven by steady economic growth. GDP per capita has risen from 25% to 80% of the EU average, although this growth has been unevenly distributed. Nevertheless, a relatively generous welfare state has been preserved.
Clearly, however, this growth, driven by investment from Western Europe (primarily Germany) and European structural funds (3% of GDP), does not provide a sufficient electoral base for a liberal, centrist, pro-European government.
It is precisely the government’s performance that may hold the key to Trzaskowski’s failure. Having come to power at the end of 2023 with a reformist agenda, Donald Tusk’s government has only been able to implement part of its programme, and it is difficult to be the candidate of an unpopular government. Conversely, the governing coalition has been weakened by the failure of its candidate.
The main reason for the stalling of reforms is the presidential deadlock. Although the president has limited powers, he countersigns laws and overriding his veto requires a three fifth majority in parliament, which the governing coalition lacks.
The president also plays a role in foreign policy by representing the country, and above all by appointing judges, particularly to the Supreme Court. This has hindered the judicial reforms expected after eight years of PiS rule. It is mainly in this area that Duda has obstructed progress. The election of Nawrocki, who is known for his combative nature, suggests that the period of cohabitation will be turbulent.
What are the main international implications of Nawrocki’s election?
Donald Tusk is now more popular in Europe than in Poland; in this respect, we can speak of a “Gorbachev syndrome”. In Central Europe, the Visegrad Group (comprising Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia) is deeply divided by the war in Ukraine, but it could find common ground around a populist sovereignty led by Hungary’s Viktor Orbán. Orbán was the first to congratulate Nawrocki on his victory, followed by his Slovak neighbour Robert Fico. The Czech Republic could also see a leader from this movement come to power if Andrej Babiš wins the parliamentary elections this autumn. Nawrocki would fit right into this picture.
Since Donald Tusk returned to power, particularly during Poland’s EU presidency, which ends on 30 June, the focus has been on Poland’s “return” to the heart of the European process. Against the backdrop of the war in Ukraine and Poland’s pivotal role in coordinating a European response, the Weimar Group (comprising Paris, Berlin, and Warsaw) has emerged as a key player. Three converging factors have made this possible: the French president’s firm stance toward Russia; the new German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, breaking a few taboos on defence and budgetary discipline; and Donald Tusk, the former president of the European Council, regaining a place at the heart of the EU that his predecessors had abandoned. A framework for a strategic Europe was taking shape.
However, President Nawrocki, and the PiS more generally, are taking a different approach to the EU: they are positioning themselves as Eurosceptic opponents defending sovereignty. They are playing on anti-German sentiment by demanding reparations 80 years after the end of the Second World War and asserting Poland’s sovereignty in the face of a “Germany-dominated Europe”. The Weimar Triangle, recently strengthened by the bilateral treaty between France and Poland signed on 9 May 2025, could be weakened on the Polish–German flank.
As a historian and former director of the Second World War Museum in Gdansk and the Institute of National Remembrance, Nawrocki is well placed to exploit this historical resentment. He has formulated a nationalist memory policy centred on a discourse of victimhood, portraying Poland as perpetually under attack from its historic enemies, Russia and Germany.
While there is a broad consensus in Poland regarding the Russian threat, opinions differ regarding the government’s desire to separate the traumas of the past, particularly those of the last war, from the challenges of European integration today.
Memory issues also play a prominent role in relations with Ukraine. There is total consensus on the need to provide military support to Ukraine, under attack: this is obvious in Poland, given its history and geography – defending Ukraine is inseparable from Polish security. However, both Nawrocki and Trzaskowski have touched upon the idea that Ukraine should apologise for the crimes committed by Ukrainian nationalists during the last war, starting with the massacre of more than 100,000 Poles in Volyn (Volhynia), north-western Ukraine) by Stepan Bandera’s troops.
Alongside memory policy, Nawrocki and the PiS are calling for the abolition of the 800 zloty (190 euros) monthly allowance paid to Ukrainian refugees. Poland had more than one million Ukrainian workers prior to the war, and more than two million additional workers have arrived since it started, although around one million have since relocated to other countries, primarily Germany and the Czech Republic.
Prior to the second round of the presidential election, Nawrocki readily signed the eight demands of the far-right candidate Sławomir Mentzen, which included ruling out Ukraine’s future NATO membership. Playing on anti-Ukrainian (and anti-German) sentiment, alongside Euroscepticism and sovereignty, is one of the essential elements of the new president’s nationalist discourse.
A Central and Eastern European Trumpism?
Certain themes of the Polish election converge with a trend present throughout Central and Eastern Europe. We saw this at work in the Romanian presidential election, where the unsuccessful far-right nationalist candidate, George Simion, came to Warsaw to support Nawrocki, just as the winner, the pro-European centrist Nicușor Dan, lent his support to Trzaskowski. Nawrocki’s success reinforces an emerging “Trumpist” movement in Eastern Europe, with Viktor Orbán in Budapest seeing himself as its self-proclaimed leader. A year ago, Orbán coined the slogan “Over there (in the United States), it’s MAGA; here, it will be MEGA: Make Europe Great Again”. The “Patriots for Europe” group, launched by Orbán last year, is intended to unify this movement within the European Parliament.
American conservative networks, through the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), a gathering of international hard-right figures, and the Trump administration are directly involved in this process. Shortly before the presidential election, Nawrocki travelled to Washington to arrange a photo opportunity with Trump in the Oval Office.
“If you (elect) a leader that will work with President Donald J. Trump, the Polish people will have a strong ally that will ensure that you will be able to fight off enemies that do not share your values. […] You will have strong borders and protect your communities and keep them safe, and ensure that your citizens are respected every single day. […] You will continue to have a U.S. presence here, a military presence. And you will have equipment that is American-made, that is high quality.”
“Fort Trump”, that is how the outgoing President Andrzej Duda named the US military base financed by Poland after a bilateral agreement was signed with Donald Trump during his first term in office, in 2018. Similarly, the US House Committee on Foreign Affairs sent a letter to the President of the European Commission accusing her of applying “double standards”, pointing out that EU funds had been blocked when the PiS was in power, and claiming that European money had been used to influence the outcome of the Polish presidential election in favour of Trzaskowski. The letter was posted online on the State Department website. Prioritising the transatlantic link at the expense of strengthening Europe was one of the issues at stake in the Warsaw presidential election.
CPAC is playing a significant role in building a Trumpist national-populist network based on rejecting the “liberal hegemony” established in the post-1989 era, regaining sovereignty from the EU, and defending conservative values against a “decadent” Europe. Beyond the Polish presidential election, the goal seems clear: to divide Europeans and weaken them at a time when the transatlantic relationship is being redefined.
Jacques Rupnik ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d’une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n’a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.
In an interconnected global economy, regions face recurring economic shocks and intense competition. For policymakers and researchers, understanding the drivers of local employment growth has become critical. Recent theoretical advances highlight the importance of different relational proximities that influence the benefits of the geographic clustering of economic activities.
Our research focusing on France’s labour market areas – “geographical areas within which most of the labour force lives and works” – from 2004 to 2015 offers new insights into how industrial diversity affects local employment. The study finds that having a variety of industries – especially those related to one another – can be a significant driver of employment growth. This finding has crucial implications for regional development strategies.
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Related vs. unrelated diversity
Economic geography literature distinguishes between two types of diversity: related variety and unrelated variety. Here, variety refers to industrial diversity or, more precisely, the different kinds of industrial sectors or technologies. The prevailing argument is that knowledge spillovers within a region, which are known to boost employment, occur primarily among related industries and to a limited extent between unrelated industries.
Related variety describes a situation in which industries share common elements, as do pharmaceuticals and biotechnology. Such elements allow for synergies, collaboration and innovation by the leveraging of similarities in knowledge bases, technologies and skills. By contrast, unrelated variety describes a situation in which industries have little in common, as do agriculture and software development. Unrelated industries operate in entirely different domains, leading to weaker direct synergies, but potentially fostering innovation through difference.
Impacts on employment
While unrelated variety offers protection against industry-specific downturns, it does not have the same direct impact on employment growth as related variety. Our research approach distinguishes between these two varieties at the local level (i.e. within a labour market area) and at the neighbourhood one (i.e. between adjacent labour market areas).
Our analysis finds that regions with industries with high related variety experienced higher employment growth from 2004 to 2015, especially during periods of economic expansion. This effect was particularly pronounced in sectors like machinery, chemicals and IT, which demonstrated strong positive impacts on local employment. We found that when industries share similarities in knowledge bases, technologies or supply chains, they create conditions for interactive learning and innovation. This process fosters intersectoral knowledge flows, enhancing regions’ capacity to adapt and grow. It can help provide balance between regional specialization, which risks stagnation due to industries’ excessive cognitive proximity – a condition economists call “lock-in” – and regional diversity, which may face challenges from too much cognitive distance.
Unrelated variety showed a more complex relationship with employment. While local unrelated variety cushioned regions from economic shocks (since sectors are less vulnerable to industry-specific downturns), it did not directly drive employment growth as related variety did. We also found that unrelated variety in neighbouring regions exerted a negative influence on local employment dynamics.
Employment and the 2008 financial crisis
During the 2008 global financial crisis, knowledge spillovers from neighbouring regions helped mitigate the impact of the economic shock. The neighbourhood effects of related industries acted as a buffer, stabilizing local employment and protecting regions from greater losses.
Drivers of local employment growth in France from 2004 to 2015
Source: INSEE, CLAP 2004-2015. Authors’ calculation. NS: not significant. Fourni par l’auteur
Urban-rural dynamics
The difference between rural and urban areas is another important dimension. Our research found that related variety of diversity had a more pronounced positive effect in urban areas, where high concentrations of industries enable faster innovation and employment growth. Rural areas benefitted less from these knowledge spillovers, likely due to a less dense industrial ecosystem. This urban-rural divide highlights the need for tailored economic policies to support diverse regional needs.
Policy implications
For policymakers, fostering sectoral diversity, particularly the related variety, should be a priority. They could encourage collaboration between related sectors within regions to enhance resilience and growth. This would consist of supporting the development of innovation clusters where businesses in related sectors are geographically concentrated, or platforms for cross-sector collaboration where businesses, universities, research institutions and government agencies can share knowledge and explore partnerships. Promoting interregional cooperation could also help spread the benefits of related variety across neighbouring regions, especially during periods of economic crisis.
Policymakers should also consider the role of the unrelated variety of diversity. While unrelated sectors may not directly contribute to employment growth, they provide stability when economic uncertainty dominates by diversifying the regional economy. Encouraging a balance between related and unrelated sectors could offer the best of both worlds – innovation-driven growth and economic resilience.
Sectoral diversity – especially when it comes to related industries – is a key driver of local employment growth in France. However, for regions to thrive, policymakers must not only support the growth of local industries but also foster cross-regional cooperation. The lessons from France’s labour market areas provide insights for regions worldwide seeking to navigate the complexities of economic development.
Les auteurs ne travaillent pas, ne conseillent pas, ne possèdent pas de parts, ne reçoivent pas de fonds d’une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n’ont déclaré aucune autre affiliation que leur organisme de recherche.
A las leyes que sirven para hacer felices a las personas debe rendírseles homenaje siempre. Por supuesto, también a quienes las hicieron posibles durante el gobierno del presidente José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero. Porque esta ley supuso un salto cualitativo en el reconocimiento de los derechos de las personas LGTBIQ en España y no ha traído consigo ninguna amenaza, como algunos agoreros anunciaban, para nadie ni para nada.
Quienes quieren contraer matrimonio pueden hacerlo y elegir libremente con quién, y las personas que no escojan esa opción pueden vivir su relación de pareja como lo deseen. El matrimonio, como una forma más para constituir una familia, sigue permaneciendo inalterado; nada ha cambiado al respecto.
Bebés de dos madres
No es el único avance legislativo que ha hecho posible que estas personas vivan una vida familiar plena. Parte de las carencias que tenía la Ley 13/2005 se corrigieron a través de la Ley 3/2007, que modificó la Ley sobre técnicas de reproducción humana asistida de 2006, permitiendo que la cónyuge de la mujer que se sometía a las técnicas de reproducción asistida pudiera consentir, a través del correspondiente trámite ante el Registro Civil, que cuando el niño naciera quedara inscrito como hijo de ambas.
Y aunque al menos formalmente esto suponía la consagración en nuestro ordenamiento jurídico de un nuevo tipo de filiación, la intencional, se ha seguido hablando de que únicamente caben dos formas de determinar la filiación en España: la filiación natural y la filiación adoptiva.
Se puso de manifiesto también, desde el principio, que esto suponía una discriminación para los hijos que nacían en el seno de estas parejas sin estar casadas, dado que en las parejas heterosexuales no se exige matrimonio para poder acreditar la filiación de los hijos comunes.
Por otro lado, los matrimonios de varones reclamaban para sí la posibilidad de ser padres biológicos, lo que únicamente podían conseguir a través de la gestación por sustitución, técnica no permitida en España (artículo 10 de la citada Ley sobre técnicas de reproducción humana asistida).
Hace unos días, la abogado General del Tribunal de Justicia de la Unión Europea, Tamara Cápeta, en el asunto C-769/22 de la Comisión europea contra Hungría, por primera vez puso en valor la importancia de respetar el artículo 2 del Tratado de la Unión Europea, que habla de la dignidad de las personas, del pluralismo y del libre desarrollo como base del espacio democrático que es la Unión Europea. También subrayó que no pueden tener cabida actitudes claramente homófobas y discriminatorias en el seno de la Unión. Sin duda, es un motivo para la esperanza.
El largo camino hacia la igualdad real continúa, pero no hay que dar nada por hecho. Los derechos, para que se mantengan, hay que defenderlos todos los días.
Antonia Durán Ayago no recibe salario, ni ejerce labores de consultoría, ni posee acciones, ni recibe financiación de ninguna compañía u organización que pueda obtener beneficio de este artículo, y ha declarado carecer de vínculos relevantes más allá del cargo académico citado.
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