Category: English

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Jacob Stid, Ph.D. student in Hydrogeology, Michigan State University

Imagine that you own a small, 20-acre farm in California’s Central Valley. You and your family have cultivated this land for decades, but drought, increasing costs and decreasing water availability are making each year more difficult.

Now imagine that a solar-electricity developer approaches you and presents three options:

• You can lease the developer 10 acres of otherwise productive cropland, on which the developer will build an array of solar panels and sell electricity to the local power company.
• You can select 1 or 2 acres of your land on which to build and operate your own solar array, using some electricity for your farm and selling the rest to the utility.
• Or you can keep going as you have been, hoping your farm can somehow survive.

Thousands of farmers across the country, including in the Central Valley, are choosing one of the first two options. A 2022 survey by the U.S. Department of Agriculture found that roughly 117,000 U.S. farm operations have some type of solar device. Our own work has identified over 6,500 solar arrays currently located on U.S. farmland.

Our study of nearly 1,000 solar arrays built on 10,000 acres of the Central Valley over the past two decades found that solar power and farming are complementing each other in farmers’ business operations. As a result, farmers are making and saving more money while using less water – helping them keep their land and livelihood.

A hotter, drier and more built-up future

Perhaps nowhere in the U.S. is farmland more valuable or more productive than California’s Central Valley. The region grows a vast array of crops, including nearly all of the nation’s production of almonds, olives and sweet rice. Using less than 1% of all farmland in the country, the Central Valley supplies a quarter of the nation’s food, including 40% of its fruits, nuts and other fresh foods.

The food, fuel and fiber that these farms produce are a bedrock of the nation’s economy, food system and way of life.

But decades of intense cultivation, urban development and climate change are squeezing farmers. Water is limited, and getting more so: A state law passed in 2014 requires farmers to further reduce their water usage by the mid-2040s.

The trade-offs of installing solar on agricultural land

When the solar arrays we studied were installed, California state solar energy policy and incentives gave farm landowners new ways to diversify their income by either leasing their land for solar arrays or building their own.

There was an obvious trade-off: Turning land used for crops to land used for solar usually means losing agricultural production. We estimated that over the 25-year life of the solar arrays, this land would have produced enough food to feed 86,000 people a year, assuming they eat 2,000 calories a day.

There was an obvious benefit, too, of clean energy: These arrays produced enough renewable electricity to power 470,000 U.S. households every year.

But the result we were hoping to identify and measure was the economic effect of shifting that land from agricultural farming to solar farming. We found that farmers who installed solar were dramatically better off than those who did not.

They were better off in two ways, the first being financially. All the farmers, whether they owned their own arrays or leased their land to others, saved money on seeds, fertilizer and other costs associated with growing and harvesting crops. They also earned money from leasing the land, offsetting farm energy bills, and selling their excess electricity.

Farmers who owned their own arrays had to pay for the panels, equipment and installation, and maintenance. But even after covering those costs, their savings and earnings added up to US$50,000 per acre of profits every year, 25 times the amount they would have earned by planting that acre.

Farmers who leased their land made much less money but still avoided costs for irrigation water and operations on that part of their farm, gaining $1,100 per acre per year – with no up-front costs.

The farmers also conserved water, which in turn supported compliance with the state’s Sustainable Groundwater Management Act water use reduction requirements. Most of the solar arrays were installed on land that had previously been irrigated. We calculated that turning off irrigation on this land saved enough water every year to supply about 27 million people with drinking water or irrigate 7,500 acres of orchards. Following solar array installation, some farmers also fallowed surrounding land, perhaps enabled by the new stable income stream, which further reduced water use.

Changes to food and energy production

Farmers in the Central Valley and elsewhere are now cultivating both food and energy. This shift can offer long-term security for farmland owners, particularly for those who install and run their own arrays.

Recent estimates suggest that converting between 1.1% and 2.4% of the country’s farmland to solar arrays would, along with other clean energy sources, generate enough electricity to eliminate the nation’s need for fossil fuel power plants.

Though many crops are part of a global market that can adjust to changes in supply, losing this farmland could affect the availability of some crops. Fortunately, farmers and landowners are finding new ways to protect farmland and food security while supporting clean energy.

One such approach is agrivoltaics, where farmers install solar designed for grazing livestock or growing crops beneath the panels. Solar can also be sited on less productive farmland or on farmland that is used for biofuels rather than food production.

Even in these areas, arrays can be designed and managed to benefit local agriculture and natural ecosystems. With thoughtful design, siting and management, solar can give back to the land and the ecosystems it touches.

Farms are much more than the land they occupy and the goods they produce. Farms are run by people with families, whose well-being depends on essential and variable resources such as water, fertilizer, fuel, electricity and crop sales. Farmers often borrow money during the planting season in hopes of making enough at harvest time to pay off the debt and keep a little profit.

Installing solar on their land can give farmers a diversified income, help them save water, and reduce the risk of bad years. That can make solar an asset to farming, not a threat to the food supply.

Jacob Stid works for Michigan State University. Funding for this work came from the US Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture program and the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Michigan State University. He also receives funding from the Foundation for Food and Agricultural Research.

Annick Anctil receives funding from NSF and USDA.

Anthony Kendall receives funding from the USDA, NASA, the NSF, and the Foundation for Food and Agricultural Research. He is an Assistant Professor at Michigan State University, and serves on the nonprofit board of the FLOW Water Advocates.

– ref. California farmers identify a hot new cash crop: Solar power – https://theconversation.com/california-farmers-identify-a-hot-new-cash-crop-solar-power-259653

Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Christopher P. Scheitle, Associate Professor of Sociology, West Virginia University

Younger Americans are more likely to express belief in witchcraft and luck, as our new research shows.

As sociologists who research the social dynamics of religion in the United States, we conducted a nationally representative survey in 2021. Our survey posed dozens of questions to 2,000 Americans over the age of 18 on a wide range of beliefs in supernatural phenomena – everything from belief in the devil to belief in the magical power of crystals.

Our statistical analyses found that supernatural beliefs in the United States tend to group into four types.

The first represents what many consider “traditional religious beliefs.” These include beliefs in God, the existence of angels and demons, and belief in the soul and its journey beyond this lifetime.

A second represents belief in “spiritual and mental forces,” some of which are associated with either paranormal or new age beliefs. These include communicating with the dead, predicting the future, or believing that one’s soul can travel through space or time.

A third group represents belief in “witches and witchcraft.” This was measured on our survey with questions about the existence of “black magic” and whether it was “possible to cast spells on people.”

The fourth and final group represents beliefs in supernatural forces that shape “luck” – for instance, that “black cats bring bad luck.”

Our analysis finds that higher education and higher income are associated with lower levels of all four types of supernatural belief. Those with a bachelor’s degree or higher, for instance, score below average on all four types of belief, while those with less education score higher than average on all four.

Looking at race and ethnicity, we found that Latino or Hispanic individuals were more likely than white individuals to express belief in the “witches and witchcraft” form of supernatural belief. About 50% of Latino or Hispanic individuals in our survey, for example, strongly agreed that “witches exist.” This compares with about 37% of white individuals.

Comparing gender differences, we find that women are more likely than men to believe in the “spiritual and mental forces” forms of supernatural belief. For instance, about 31% of women in our survey agreed that “it is possible to communicate with the dead” compared with about 22% of men.

Why it matters

Our research addresses two key questions: first, whether people who hold one type of supernatural belief are also more likely to hold other types of supernatural beliefs; and second, how do different types of supernatural belief vary across key demographic groups, such as across educational levels, racial and ethnic groups, and gender?

Answering these questions can be surprisingly difficult. Most scientific surveys of the U.S. public include, at best, only one or two questions about religious beliefs; rarely do they include questions about other types of supernatural beliefs, such as belief in paranormal or superstitious forces. This could lead to an incomplete understanding of how supernatural beliefs and practices are changing in the United States.

An increasing number of Americans are leaving organized religion. However, it is not clear that supernatural beliefs have or will follow the same trajectory – especially beliefs that are not explicitly connected to those religious identities. For example, someone can identify as nonreligious but believe that the crystal they wear will provide them with supernatural benefits.

Moreover, recognizing that supernatural beliefs can include more than traditionally religious supernatural beliefs may be vital for better understanding other social issues. Research has found, for example, that belief in paranormal phenomena is associated with lower trust in science and medicine.

What’s next

Our survey provides some insight into the nature and patterns of supernatural belief in the U.S. at one point in time, but it does not tell us how such beliefs are changing over time.

We would like to see future surveys – both ours or from other social scientists – that ask more diverse questions about belief in supernatural beings and forces that will allow for an assessment of such changes.

The Research Brief is a short take on interesting academic work.

Christopher P. Scheitle receives funding from the National Science Foundation and the John Templeton Foundation. The research discussed in this article was supported by a grant from the Science and Religion: Identity and Belief Formation grant initiative spearheaded by the Religion and Public Life Program at Rice University and the University of California-San Diego and provided by the Templeton Religion Trust via The Issachar Fund.

Bernard DiGregorio receives funding from the National Science Foundation. The research discussed in this article was funded by a grant from the Science and Religion: Identity and Belief Formation grant initiative spearheaded by the Religion and Public Life Program at Rice University and the University of California-San Diego and provided by the Templeton Religion Trust via The Issachar Fund.

Katie E. Corcoran receives funding from the National Science Foundation, the John Templeton Foundation, and the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute. The research discussed in this article was supported by a grant from the Science and Religion: Identity and Belief Formation grant initiative spearheaded by the Religion and Public Life Program at Rice University and the University of California-San Diego and provided by the Templeton Religion Trust via The Issachar Fund.

– ref. Angels, witches, crystals and black cats: How supernatural beliefs vary across different groups in the US – https://theconversation.com/angels-witches-crystals-and-black-cats-how-supernatural-beliefs-vary-across-different-groups-in-the-us-258377

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Elise Silva, Director of Policy Research at the Institute for Cyber Law, Policy, and Security, University of Pittsburgh

The advent of generative AI has elicited waves of frustration and worry across academia for all the reasons one might expect: Early studies are showing that artificial intelligence tools can dilute critical thinking and undermine problem-solving skills. And there are many reports that students are using chatbots to cheat on assignments.

But how do students feel about AI? And how is it affecting their relationships with peers, instructors and their coursework?

I am part of a group of University of Pittsburgh researchers with a shared interest in AI and undergraduate education. While there is a growing body of research exploring how generative AI is affecting higher education, there is one group that we worry is underrepresented in this literature, yet perhaps uniquely qualified to talk about the issue: our students.

Our team ran a series of focus groups with 95 students across our campuses in the spring of 2025 and found that whether students and faculty are actively using AI or not, it is having significant interpersonal, emotional effects on learning and trust in the classroom. While AI products such as ChatGPT, Gemini or Claude are, of course, affecting how students learn, their emergence is also changing their relationships with their professors and with one another.

‘It’s not going to judge you’

Most of our focus group participants had used AI in the academic setting – when faced with a time crunch, when they perceive something to be “busy work,” or when they are “stuck” and worry that they can’t complete a task on their own. We found that most students don’t start a project using AI, but many are willing to turn to it at some point.

Many students described positive experiences using AI to help them study or answer questions, or give them feedback on papers. Some even described using AI instead of a professor, tutor or teaching assistant. Others found a chatbot less intimidating than attending office hours where professors might be “demeaning.” In the words of one interviewee: “With ChatGPT you can ask as many questions as you want and it’s not going to judge you.”

But by using it, you may be judged. While some were excited about using AI, many students voiced mild feelings of guilt or shame about their AI use due to environmental or ethical concerns, or just coming across as lazy. Some even expressed a feeling of helplessness, or a sense of inevitability regarding AI in their futures.

Anxiety, distrust and avoidance

While many students expressed a sense that faculty members are, as one participant put it, “very anti-ChatGPT,” they also lamented the fact that the rules around acceptable AI use were not sufficiently clear. As one urban planning major put it: “I feel uncertain of what the expectations are,” with her peer chiming in, “We’re not on the same page with students and teachers or even individually. No one really is.”

Students also described feelings of distrust and frustration toward peers they saw as overly reliant on AI. Some talked about asking classmates for help, only to find that they “just used ChatGPT” and hadn’t learned the material. Others pointed to group projects, where AI use was described as “a giant red flag” that made them “think less” of their peers.

These experiences feel unfair and uncomfortable for students. They can report their classmates for academic integrity violations – and enter yet another zone in which distrust mounts – or they can try to work with them, sometimes with resentment. “It ends up being more work for me,” a political science major said, “because it’s not only me doing my work by myself, it’s me double checking yours.”

Distrust was a marker that we observed of both student-to-teacher relationships and student-to-student relationships. Learners shared fears of being left behind if other students in their classes used chatbots to get better grades. This resulted in emotional distance and wariness among students. Indeed, our findings reflect other reports that indicate the mere possibility that a student might have used a generative AI tool is now undercutting trust across the classroom. Students are as anxious about baseless accusations of AI use as they are about being caught using it.

Students described feeling anxious, confused and distrustful, and sometimes even avoiding peers or learning interactions. As educators, this worries us. We know that academic engagement – a key marker of student success – comes not only from studying the course material, but also from positive engagement with classmates and instructors alike.

AI is affecting relationships

Indeed, research has shown that faculty-student relationships are an important indicator of student success. Peer-to-peer relationships are essential too. If students are sidestepping important mentoring relationships with professors or meaningful learning experiences with peers due to discomfort over ambiguous or shifting norms around the use of AI technology, institutions of higher education could imagine alternative pathways for connection. Residential campuses could double down on in-person courses and connections; faculty could be incentivized to encourage students to visit during office hours. Faculty-led research, mentoring and campus events where faculty and students mix in an informal fashion could also make a difference.

We hope our research can also flip the script and disrupt tropes about students who use AI as “cheaters.” Instead, it tells a more complex story of students being thrust into a reality they didn’t ask for, with few clear guidelines and little control.

As generative AI continues to pervade everyday life, and institutions of higher education continue to search for solutions, our focus groups reflect the importance of listening to students and considering novel ways to help students feel more comfortable connecting with peers and faculty. Understanding these evolving interpersonal dynamics matters because how we relate to technology is increasingly affecting how we relate to one another. Given our experiences in dialogue with them, it is clear that students are more than ready to talk about this issue and its impact on their futures.

Acknowledgment: Thank you to the full team from the University of Pittsburgh Oakland, Greensburg, Bradford and Johnstown campuses, including Annette Vee, Patrick Manning, Jessica FitzPatrick, Jessica Ghilani, Catherine Kula, Patty Wharton-Michael, Jialei Jiang, Sean DiLeonardi, Birney Young, Mark DiMauro, Jeff Aziz, and Gayle Rogers.

Elise Silva 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. University students feel ‘anxious, confused and distrustful’ about AI in the classroom and among their peers – https://theconversation.com/university-students-feel-anxious-confused-and-distrustful-about-ai-in-the-classroom-and-among-their-peers-258665

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Mark Schlakman, Senior Program Director, The Florida State University Center for the Advancement of Human Rights, Florida State University

The state of Florida has opened a migrant detention center in the Everglades. Its official name is Alligator Alcatraz, a reference to the former maximum security federal penitentiary in San Francisco Bay.

While touring Alligator Alcatraz on July 1, 2025, President Donald Trump said, “This facility will house some of the menacing migrants, some of the most vicious people on the planet.” But new reporting from the Miami Herald/Tampa Bay Times reveals that of more than 700 detainees, only a third have criminal convictions.

To find out more about the state of Florida’s involvement in immigration enforcement and who can be detained at Alligator Alcatraz, The Conversation spoke with Mark Schlakman. Schlakman is a lawyer and senior program director for The Florida State University Center for the Advancement of Human Rights. He also served as special counsel to Florida Gov. Lawton Chiles, working as a liaison of sorts with the federal government during the mid-1990s when tens of thousands of Haitians and Cubans fled their island nations on makeshift boats, hoping to reach safe haven in Florida.

U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has characterized the migrants being detained in facilities like Alligator Alcatraz as “murderers and rapists and traffickers and drug dealers.” Do we know if the detainees at Alligator Alcatraz have been convicted of these sorts of crimes?

The Times/Herald published a list of 747 current detainees as of Sunday, July 13, 2025. Their reporters found that about a third of the detainees have criminal convictions, including attempted murder, illegal reentry to the U.S., which is a federal crime, and traffic violations. Apparently hundreds more have charges pending, though neither the federal nor state government have made public what those charges are.

There are also more than 250 detainees with no criminal history, just immigration violations.

Is it a crime for someone to be in the U.S. without legal status? In other words, is an immigration violation a crime?

No, not necessarily. It’s well established as a matter of law that physical presence in the U.S. without proper authorization is a civil violation, not a criminal offense.

However, if the federal government previously deported someone, they can be subject to federal criminal prosecution if they attempt to return without permission. That appears to be the case with some of the detainees at Alligator Alcatraz.

What usually happens if a noncitizen commits a crime in the U.S.?

Normally, if a foreign national is accused of committing a crime, they are prosecuted in a state court just like anyone else. If found guilty and sentenced to incarceration, they complete their sentence in a state prison. Once they’ve served their time, state officials can hand them over to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE. They are subject to deportation, but a federal immigration judge can hear any grounds for relief.

DHS has clarified that it “has not implemented, authorized, directed or funded” Alligator Alcatraz, but rather the state of Florida is providing startup funds and running this facility. What is Florida’s interest in this? Are these mostly migrants who have been scooped up by ICE in Florida?

It’s still unclear where most of these detainees were apprehended. But based on a list of six detainees released by Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier’s office, it is clear that at least some were apprehended outside of Florida, and others simply may have been transferred to Alligator Alcatraz from federal custody elsewhere.

This calls to mind the time in 2022 when Gov. Ron DeSantis flew approximately 50 migrants from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts at Florida taxpayer expense. Those migrants also had no discernible presence in Florida.

To establish Alligator Alcatraz, DeSantis leveraged an immigration emergency declaration, which has been ongoing since Jan. 6, 2023. A state of emergency allows a governor to exercise extraordinary executive authority. This is how he avoided requirements such as environmental impact analysis in the Everglades and concerns expressed by tribal governance surrounding that area.

For now, the governor’s declaration remains unchallenged by the Florida Legislature. Environmental advocates have filed a lawsuit over Alligator Alcatraz, and the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a decision by a federal judge temporarily barring Florida from enforcing its new immigration laws, which DeSantis had championed. But no court has yet intervened to contest this prolonged state of emergency.

This presents a stark contrast to Gov. Lawton Chiles’ declaration of an immigration emergency during the mid-1990s. At that time, tens of thousands of Cubans and Haitians attempted to reach Florida shores in virtually anything that would float. Chiles’ actions as governor were informed by his experience as a U.S. senator during the Mariel boatlift in 1980, when 125,000 Cubans made landfall in Florida over the course of just six months.

Chiles sued the Clinton administration for failing to adequately enforce U.S. immigration law. But Chiles also entered into unprecedented agreements with the federal government, such as the 1996 Florida Immigration Initiative with U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno. His intent was to protect Florida taxpayers while enhancing federal enforcement capacity, without dehumanizing people fleeing desperate circumstances.

During my tenure on Chiles’ staff, the governor generally opposed state legislation involving immigration. In the U.S.’s federalist system of government, immigration falls under the purview of the federal government, not the states. Chiles’ primary concern was that Floridians wouldn’t be saddled with what ought to be federal costs and responsibilities.

Chiles was open to state and local officials supporting federal immigration enforcement. But he was mindful this required finesse to avoid undermining community policing, public health priorities and the economic health of key Florida businesses and industries. To this day, the International Association of Chiefs of Police’s position reflects Chiles’ concerns about such cooperation with the federal government.

Now, in 2025, DeSantis has taken a decidedly different tack by using Florida taxpayer dollars to establish Alligator Alcatraz. The state of Florida has fronted the US$450 million to pay for this facility. DeSantis reportedly intends to seek reimbursement from FEMA’s Shelter and Services Program. Ultimately, congressional action may be necessary to obtain reimbursement. Florida is essentially lending the federal government half a billion dollars and providing other assistance to help support the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement agenda.

Florida is also establishing another migrant detention facility at Camp Blanding Joint Training Center near Jacksonville. A third apparently is being contemplated for the Panhandle.

ICE claims that the ultimate decision of whom to detain at these facilities belongs to the state of Florida, through the Florida Division of Emergency Management. Members of Congress who visited Alligator Alcatraz earlier this week have disputed ICE’s claim that Florida is in charge.

You advised Florida Division of Emergency Management leadership directly for several years during the administrations of Gov. Charlie Crist and Gov. Rick Scott. Does running a detention facility like Alligator Alcatraz fall within its typical mission?

The division is tasked with preparing for and responding to both natural and human-caused disasters. In Florida, that generally means hurricanes. While the division may engage to facilitate shelter, I don’t recall any policies or procedures contemplating anything even remotely similar to Alligator Alcatraz.

DeSantis could conceivably argue that this is consistent with a 287(g) agreement authorizing state and local support for federal immigration enforcement. But such agreements typically require federal supervision of state and local activities, not the other way around.

Mark Schlakman served as special counsel to Florida Gov. Lawton Chiles and as a consultant to Emilio Gonzalez at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security during his tenure as U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Director during the George W. Bush administration.

– ref. Florida is fronting the $450M cost of Alligator Alcatraz – a legal scholar explains what we still don’t know about the detainees – https://theconversation.com/florida-is-fronting-the-450m-cost-of-alligator-alcatraz-a-legal-scholar-explains-what-we-still-dont-know-about-the-detainees-260665