Category: The Conversation – UK

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Daniel Gover, Senior Lecturer in British Politics, Queen Mary University of London

Despite MPs backing proposals last year to legalise assisted dying in England and Wales, the plan did not become law. The bill failed to complete its passage through the House of Lords – not because peers voted against it, but because a relatively small number proposed an unprecedentedly large list of amendments. As a result, the bill ran out of time.

But this is unlikely to be the end of the story for assisted dying. MPs who support the change have called for the bill to be brought back in the new parliamentary session, which begins on May 13. They have reportedly been joined in their demands by almost 200 peers in the Lords.

Their strategy will be for MPs to pass the bill again in an identical form. If they do so, it could become law even if the Lords fails to pass it. This is possible because of special powers to override the Lords under what are known as the Parliament Acts. But achieving this will not be straightforward – to succeed, supporters will need to overcome four key challenges.

Challenge 1: Winning the lottery

The first challenge will be for a supporter to be drawn high in the private members’ bill ballot. At the start of each session, 20 MPs are selected from this random draw to receive priority access to the very limited Commons time available for private members’ bills. Those drawn highest pick their slots first, giving them the best chance of success.

A supporter would need to be drawn among the top seven places to guarantee a full day’s debate (and therefore a vote) on their bill – a key requirement to prevent it being “talked out”. But in reality, they probably need to be drawn in the top three. Supporters say they have around 200 MPs willing to reintroduce the bill if selected.

If advocates do not win this legislative lottery, they have other options. One is to introduce a different form of private members’ bill, known as a presentation bill, but this will struggle unless ministers grant it time. Less likely is a government bill. Either way, ministers would need to provide public assistance in ways they have so far been reluctant to.

Challenge 2: Maintaining support from MPs

The next task will be to maintain a coalition of MPs behind the bill, which would again be subject to a free vote. Although MPs backed the bill last time, supporters may be concerned that the margin of victory more than halved during its Commons passage – from 55 at the initial second reading vote to 23 at the final third reading. Fourteen MPs switched from support to opposition, while just one made the opposite journey. If this trend continued, the majority behind the bill could evaporate.

But the reverse is also possible, especially if some opponents choose to back it as a point of democratic principle. Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey, who voted against the bill’s first iteration, has criticised as “undemocratic” the Lords’ failure to complete its scrutiny. It is possible that he and others could switch their votes.

Challenge 3: Avoiding new amendments

To be able to use the Parliament Acts to override the Lords, MPs would need to back the new bill in essentially an identical form to the first time. During the first bill’s passage, MPs made more than 200 amendments. Supporters will want to avoid doing so again.

MPs can amend bills at their committee and report stages. On the few occasions when the Parliament Acts have been used, ministers have usually moved a motion to effectively cancel these stages – preventing MPs from making changes. But the Parliament Acts have never before been used on a private members’ bill, and it is unclear how these stages could be avoided without government assistance.

Otherwise, these stages would proceed as normal. This would not only slow the bill’s passage through the Commons but would also risk the bill being amended – which would of course prevent the Parliament Acts being used. As such, any amendment passed in the Commons could effectively scupper the bill. This could provide cover for opponents who would prefer not to be seen blocking the bill outright.

Challenge 4: Incorporating amendments they do want

There is another snag for supporters of the assisted dying bill. The version of the bill passed last year by MPs is not the version they would ideally like to see on the statute book. Supporters cannot include any changes when they ask MPs to vote again for bill, but they will want to add some later.

For instance, Labour peer Charlie Falconer, the bill’s sponsor in the Lords, proposed almost 80 amendments last time – typically implementing changes requested by government lawyers, or responding to parliamentary pressure including from influential Lords committees. The slow pace of Lords scrutiny meant that most of these were never reached.

The Parliament Acts provide a mechanism to deal with this: an unusual “suggested amendments” process, enabling MPs to send the amendments to the Lords alongside an otherwise-identical bill. But this process would probably require ministers to provide Commons time.

Over to the Lords (part two)

Making it around these obstacles would require a combination of luck, tactical nous and sustained popular support. It is also likely that it will require a more overt helping hand from ministers on the process – though the government will remain neutral on the policy. Such assistance seems more doubtful if Prime Minister Keir Starmer is ousted.

If the bill makes it to the Lords a second time, and in an identical form, it would then be up to peers to scrutinise it again. But whereas last time opponents in the Lords had incentives to drag out scrutiny, this time their best interests would be served by reaching agreement on safeguards before the session ends. Because, if they fail to do so, the bill could be passed into law regardless.

Yet just because MPs could override the Lords, it does not mean they necessarily will: some form of compromise seems more likely. If peers amend the bill a second time around, MPs could still accept these changes. And we shouldn’t forget that, given the breadth of expertise in the Lords, doing so could also make for a better law.

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

– ref. Can the assisted dying bill be brought back? It’s possible – but supporters face four challenges – https://theconversation.com/can-the-assisted-dying-bill-be-brought-back-its-possible-but-supporters-face-four-challenges-282321

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Nick Kirsop-Taylor, Lecturer, Environmental Governance and Political Ecology, University of Exeter

Nature is critical for our national health, wellbeing and security. Most national leaders haven’t really taken this on board yet because it is just too big an issue to handle.

But, as I explore in my new book, this happens partly because many western societies are based on freely extracting resources from nature.

Many societies have evolved to exploit the ecosystem services (the many and varied benefits that people gain from nature) that we get for free. Admitting this puts our leaders in a difficult situation when trying to explain why we aren’t doing a better job of looking after nature.

The UK government recently conceded that the collapse of ecosystems represents a critical risk to our food, security and finances. This is because the UK is one of the most nature-depleted countries in the developed world, ranked in the bottom 10% of all countries. That low biodiversity leads to ecosystems that are less resilient. This makes the risk of ecosystem collapse more acute.

It can also be hard for governments to prioritise the risks of ecosystem collapse above conflict, energy poverty and food supply chain issues. Especially when these risks are often thought of as being long-term and difficult to quantify. Instead, governments might argue that membership of certain conventions and treaties commit us to protecting 30% of our land and sea to nature conservation by 2030. So there is a plan to restore nature in the UK.

Despite that, governments consistently misunderstand the depth to which our society depends on functioning healthy ecosystems and how acutely exposed we are as a country – so we underestimate the risks of it all going wrong.

The UK National Ecosystem Assessment was a national stocktaking of the state of our national natures. It did its best to highlight these ecosystem risks in the early 2010s – but really only set in train a narrative that “ecosystem risks are economic risks”. And economic risks can always simply be traded-off, offset or commodified. But ecosystem risks are not simply economic – they are existential to society and the state.

National nature restoration ought instead to be a security-framed issue for government. One way through this would be for states for adopt the mission of national nature restoration as their central organising principle. This means a narrative that sets the rules and terms of reference across the whole of government – for policy, institutions and the economy.

A mission-led nation

Wales is a great example of how this can work. For the past two decades the Welsh government has made sustainable development its central organising principle. We have learnt from the Welsh experiment that trying to wrap the entire business of a government into a single narrative is politically risky and challenging.

Moreover, to be politically successful these narratives have to be inclusive across society, emotionally and materially compelling for citizens and plastic enough to encompass a range of different functions and policy agenda.

Nevertheless Wales has shown us that adopting mission-led central organising principle of this kind are possible. Analysis by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (a global policy forum), the Institution of Environmental Sciences (a global professional membership body for environmental scientists), Carnegie UK (a charitable foundation that aims to improve wellbeing) and others show how the Welsh experiment of making sustainable development the central organising principle of the state has improved people’s health, education and wellbeing.

The carbon footprints associated with Welsh households fell by 37% between 2001 and 2020. Wales is a world leader in household recycling, with a 65.7% recycling rate for local authority municipal waste in 2022-23. In 2015, public service boards of local leaders were created to deliver wellbeing outcomes for places and people in Wales. These have ensured accountability and successful implementation of plans. The Welsh model of sustainable development inspired the creation of the UN Declaration of Future Generations which combined 56 rules for sustainable development that ensure no one is left behind in the green transition.

Although there are different visions for what nature restoration means, research shows that the British voting public care about the idea of restoring our lost nature. In challenging and uncertain times, a national cause of nature restoration offers countries the chance to reclaim and own a progressive mission – and perhaps even build new political coalitions that offer a sense of national purpose and unity.

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

– ref. Nature restoration isn’t often top of the political agenda – here’s how Wales does it – https://theconversation.com/nature-restoration-isnt-often-top-of-the-political-agenda-heres-how-wales-does-it-280534

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Sungho Hong, Neuroscientist, Center for Memory and Glioscience, The Institute for Basic Science

Artificial intelligence has crossed a threshold in the modern workplace. It is being used for everything from helping employees manage schedules to supporting financial forecasts. A similar shift is now unfolding inside research laboratories.

There is currently a boom in national initiatives to accelerate the integration of AI into science. These include the US Genesis Mission and South Korea’s AI Co-Scientist Challenge. But despite clear benefits, we believe these institutional drives are neglecting important issues that carry immense risks for scientific research.

Today, more than half of researchers use AI for work tasks including reviews of academic journals and designing experiments.

AlphaFold is an AI tool developed to predict the structures of proteins for scientific research. Working out protein structures was incredibly time-consuming before its release – taking years in some cases. The same tasks now take hours. AlphaFold was acknowledged by the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

AI tools for use in medicine now assist with everything from the interpretation of results from X-rays and MRIs to supporting doctors’ decisions on the diagnosis and treatment of disease.

Our key concern is that hasty adoption of AI may gradually erode the scientific culture and human relationships that sustain rigorous research. It starts with the erosion of core thinking skills among researchers, as a result of an increased reliance on AI to perform that work. This can alienate researchers from the deeper reasoning behind their work.

Loss of independent thinking

Early-career scientists are particularly vulnerable, because they are still developing their scientific reasoning. Troubleshooting skills and the critical evaluation of ideas may be outsourced to AI systems.

AI’s fluent, confident and immediate responses can easily be mistaken for authoritative information. Once researchers begin to treat AI outputs as implicitly correct, the responsibility for judgment calls may gradually shift from them to their machines.

AI’s persuasive arguments, probably drawn from mainstream ideas in their training data, could replace more rigorous, time-consuming and creative research approaches. These are traditionally shaped through critical back-and-forth discussions between researchers.

This can evolve into over-dependence. As reasoning is delegated to AI, researchers become less confident at working unaided. Unfortunately, modern scientific labs are full of conditions that reinforce this dependence, such as intense competition, long hours and frequent isolation.

Limited mentorship and feedback from colleagues that is delayed, critical or politically influenced can enhance this issue. In contrast, AI provides an immediate, patient and nonjudgmental alternative.

Scientists interact with AI systems daily in order to check computer code, revise illustrations or charts, draft the language for grant applications, clarify scientific concepts, and at times, ask for personal advice.

As researchers begin to trust the AI assistant, it can begin to function less like a tool and more like a companion. This phenomenon bears the risk of emotional dependency, too. When ChatGPT-4 was retired, many users expressed a form of grief.

Replacing relationships

Another important concern is the potential for replacement of human relationships in the office or research lab. AI is always available, nonjudgmental, noncompeting – and indifferent to office politics, with no ego to defend. It remembers context, adapts to individual working styles, and offers reassurance without social cost.

Human scientific relationships are more complicated, involving nuance, criticism, time constraints, hierarchy – and sometimes, ulterior motives. For early-career researchers especially, these interactions can feel risky.

Critical feedback from humans can feel adversarial, while AI responses feel supportive. So, early-career scientists might have good reason to prefer testing ideas or seeking validation through AI, rather than their peers or superiors.

The scientific community cannot thrive without opposing ideas, deep scepticism against consensus, vigorous debate and rigorous mentoring. If AI begins to replace these, it threatens the foundations on which scientific progress has always been made.

The current debate on AI safety mostly focuses on errors in models’ responses, or on AI systems circumventing the restrictions imposed on the way they work, known as “jailbreaking”. Such rules have limited effects when it comes to the AI models’ societal and cultural impact.

Given the recent drives to get scientists to work more closely with AI assistants, we should educate our young scientists on the risks of AI dependence. We also need benchmarks to rigorously test AI models for their ability to establish boundaries with users, to prevent overdependence and other unhealthy interactions.

Finally, all of us – but especially institutional leaders – should understand the capabilities and permanence of AI companionship. They are here to stay, and we should learn to make our relationships with them as healthy as possible.

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

– ref. What happens when scientists trust AI more than colleagues? – https://theconversation.com/what-happens-when-scientists-trust-ai-more-than-colleagues-281374

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Liane Beretta de Azevedo, Professor in Public Health and Physical Activity, Sheffield Hallam University

Screens are everywhere in children’s lives. They use them at school and at home. They see screens used by their parents as they work on laptops, use phones to arrange playdates or look up outings or recipes on tablets.

Managing screen time can be difficult when – as recent guidelines published by the Department for Education make clear – it’s not just how much time children spend on screens, but what they’re doing with them that matters. This applies to parents’ use of screens, too. Here are five tips on how to use screens with and around children in a positive way.

1. Model healthy habits

“Technoference” affects many of us. It’s the distraction caused by technology during social interactions, such as the urge to respond to a phone alert while having an in-person conversation. When parents are distracted by their mobile devices, they may talk or physically engage less with their children. In fact, research has linked audible notifications, such as text message chimes, to poorer infant vocabulary.

If a parent is absorbed in a device, they also may respond more harshly to a child misbehaving.

Research on mothers and children found that screen distractions led to them responding less to their child which in turn reduced maternal sensitivity. Maternal sensitivity is crucial for child development as it promotes secure attachment and enhances emotional regulation.

Try to think consciously about how often you use your own device. Silencing notifications when spending time with your child can help ensure you are fully present.

2. Keep an eye on using screens to manage stress

Parenting can be hard work. Many turn to devices as “electronic babysitters” to manage hectic schedules or fit in other family responsibilities. This could be giving a toddler a screen while changing their wailing younger sibling’s nappy, for instance.

We’re currently carrying out research on the reasons behind young children’s screen use. Existing research shows a link between parenting stress – caused by the demands of parenting – and children’s use of mobile devices. Factors such as parental anxiety, depression, and responses to a child’s negative emotions can influence children’s screen time.

Providing a device to a child may offer temporary relief for parents, but the excessive use of interactive electronic devices can hinder some aspects of children’s social-emotional development.

Parents who experience stress due to their child’s challenging behaviour may withdraw from direct interactions with their child and instead resort to technology as a coping mechanism. This reliance on devices can intensify problematic behaviour and further disengage parents from interacting with their children.

Whenever possible, try a different strategy to alleviate parenting stress before handing your child a device. The American Psychological Association offers advice on how to manage stress as a parent. These include talking to others about how you’re feeling, learning new parenting techniques and taking “microbreaks”, such as pausing for five minutes to breathe deeply and recalibrate your thoughts. It’s also important to acknowledge the pressures of parenting. Remind yourself that you are doing the best you can with the resources you have.

3. Use screens together

Screens often play a positive role in family life. Many parents use them as an educational tool or as an opportunity to strengthen connections. This could be through video calls, playing music or sharing and viewing photos together.

Additionally, “co-viewing” – when parents and children watch or play on a device together – is not linked to insecure attachment. This is a state where the child lacks confidence in their caregiver due to inconsistent or neglectful care. In fact, co-viewing can actually have a small positive effect on children’s learning.

Whenever you can, watch or play on the device with your child instead of letting them use it alone. Discuss what is happening on screen to turn a passive experience into a learning opportunity.

4. Follow age-specific guidelines

A 2023 study, which provided recommendations for managing screen time for children under five years old, highlighted the importance of parents’ knowledge of screen time guidelines. However, research has indicated that parents of children under five are generally more confident in managing their child’s physical activity than in managing screen behaviour.

The Department for Education’s guidelines recommend that parents restrict screen time to one hour per day for children aged two to five years. For children aged up to two years, it’s best to avoid screen time as much as possible. You can also set parental controls on devices to ensure that your child has access only to age-appropriate content. The NSPCC offers guidance on setting up parental controls.

5. Encourage alternative activities

Control apps, which limit the time children can spend on screens, are popular with many parents. They work best when combined with open communication and collaborative rule-setting, that includes the child’s input.

Diversionary strategies, where parents actively encourage their children to engage in alternative, off-screen pursuits – such as outdoor play or reading printed books – have also been shown to help children turn their attention away from screens. Parents can help this shift by using cues, such as music or visual prompts, to guide children toward engaging in other activities. Playing or singing a particular song, for instance, could mean it’s time to stop using a screen, and play with toys instead or do some reading.

You might find that these strategies are preferable to restrictive mediation such as screen time limits. These can be difficult to enforce due to potential conflicts, tantrums or parental inconsistency.

By implementing these tips, you can help foster healthy screen habits in your children while enhancing their overall development and wellbeing.

Liane Beretta de Azevedo receives funding from the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) grant number 159040. The views expressed are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of the NIHR or the Department of Health and Social Care.

Colette Marr receives funding from NIHR.

– ref. Screens are part of modern parenting – five tips for healthy use – https://theconversation.com/screens-are-part-of-modern-parenting-five-tips-for-healthy-use-280673

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Joe Towns, Senior Lecturer in Sport Broadcasting, Cardiff Metropolitan University

When players arrive in the US this year for their World Cup pre-tournament media shoot, they will each step into a scanning chamber to capture their precise body-part dimensions and create 3D, AI avatars. Why? Because even when you’re the biggest sport in the world, you can’t afford to stand still.

This year’s Fifa World Cup will feature more teams (48), more matches (104) and more cameras than ever. Describing the scale of the tournament, Fifa boss Gianni Infantino told fans to expect the equivalent of “104 Super Bowls”.

Infantino wants to “break” America, where soccer has never reached the same levels of mainstream popularity as it has in the rest of the world. The last time the World Cup was held there was 1994. Singer Diana Ross missed a penalty in the opening ceremony and Italian player Roberto Baggio missed one in the final. England missed out altogether. Memorable, but it didn’t capture American hearts.

This summer 5 million paying customers will buy eye-wateringly expensive tickets to watch games play out in stadia across three different host countries – Canada, the US and Mexico. And it’s predicted up to 6 billion will engage with the competition around the world; on screens, phones, tablets, in bars, bookmakers and fan zones.

Sport exists in the same ultra-competitive attention economy as other forms of entertainment. If Fifa want to get inside the minds and mobile phones of audiences, then they’ll need to think visually in a broadcast sense, but also vertically, in terms of creating content which will cut through online.

At the recent Winter Olympics held in Milano-Cortina, Italy, the drone cameras caught eyes and stole the show. Drones worked well buzzing after skiers down a fixed-track mountain course or chasing skaters around an ice rink but they won’t work in football stadiums where the unpredictability of the action means a drone could get hit by the ball.

However, this World Cup will have cable-suspended, gyro-stabilised spider cameras swooping above the action. Expect to see them used more on the live action than in previous World Cups, perhaps even during penalty shootouts.

At every game there will be 45-50 cameras focused on the action including pole cams, cable cams, 360 cams and one new camera taking you closer to the action than ever before. “Referee view” will allow audiences to see what the referee sees. Cameras mounted on the referee, trialled at the Fifa Club World Cup last year, will show us what the ref can – and can’t – see. These points of view are not new to sports broadcasting (they are common in rugby) but the issue in the past has been the stability of the vision. For this competition, broadcasters will use AI stabilisation software to improve the smoothness of the shots.

The AI World Cup

AI-enabled 3D avatars will also assist VAR decisions by ensuring precision around player ID and tracking. This will drive semi-automated offside technology, so you’ll get greater quality images and faster, fairer decisions.

At the 2022 World Cup in Doha, Qatar, there was access all areas for a Netflix documentary called Captains, broadcast after the tournament. Ever since the Formula 1 Drive to Survive fly-on-the-wall format took us inside F1’s previously sacred inner sanctums, fans want to see everything on and off the pitch. But this year if you want to go behind the scenes, you’ll have to go online.

In a landmark partnership, Fifa have hooked up with TikTok and YouTube – two of the planet’s most popular content destinations. They’ll become Fifa’s first ever “preferred platforms”, a go-to place for fans and creators.

Trialled at the Women’s World Cup in 2023, the agreement will give TikTok ability to live-stream parts of matches, access to behind-the-scenes content and specially curated clips. Meanwhile YouTube’s deal permits broadcast partners to post highlights on the platform, live-stream some games in their entirety and give YouTube “first party” presence with archive matches from previous tournaments playing across the platform.

American sports coverage is all about entertainment and this World Cup even the statistics will be given a glow up. Get ready for something called “data-tainment”, providing fans with what Fifa describes as “unparalleled insight and enjoyment”. Expect a seamless integration of advanced analytics with real-time graphics, all based on official optical tracking data.

What’s the end goal? It seems Fifa want those at the stadium to enjoy the benefits of watching from their sofa (replays, stats, analysis) and those viewing from home to feel the more visceral, immersive aspects of being there at the stadium (cinematic lenses, wearable cameras, enhanced audio). At the stadium spectators will be able to see key decisions play out on the big screen, with real-time stats delivered to their phones. Stadium connectivity, an issue in the past, will be amped up to ensure everyone stays connected.

It’s a delicate balance. Despite the innovations announced, Fifa knows the enduring appeal of watching football is its simplicity. Traditional audiences do not want gimmicks disrupting their beautiful game. Fifa has a tightrope to walk because the American audience it so dearly craves like their sport packaged in a certain way. The rest of the world – well, they seem happy with football the way it is.

World Cups of the future will be a more immersive experience. Audiences at home wearing VR headsets as real-time player tracking graphics appear live in their lounge. But the reality remains that live football match coverage hasn’t changed that much in decades. What you get to watch won’t change much, but where you watch it will, traditional broadcasters no longer the only show in town. And it’ll be what happens in the stoppages and the moments around the game which is set for revolution. A revolution that will be televised – and streamed, downloaded and clipped to watch on catch up later.

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

– ref. How World Cup filming has evolved since the last US tournament – from spider cameras to AI and drones – https://theconversation.com/how-world-cup-filming-has-evolved-since-the-last-us-tournament-from-spider-cameras-to-ai-and-drones-279827

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Jack Reid, PhD Candidate in Irish literature, University of Limerick

Ireland has a unique relationship to climate change. The country has always relied on its pastoral landscapes for its national character, but the escalating climate crisis threatens this tradition because of rising temperatures and sea levels, and deforestation. Given Irish literature’s continued interest in nature, contemporary Irish poets are tackling these issues in their writing.

Poetry plays a special role in times of mass environmental decline. As a literary genre that relies on flexible, open-ended and even conflicting language to address complicated issues, poetry is especially well-suited to address the complex entanglement of local and global concerns, human and nonhuman lives, that gain increased prominence because of climate change.

Poems that explore environmental issues, often called ecopoems, can pack a lot of ideas into a single image. A short poem focused on a seemingly mundane subject can hide a wealth of meaning behind its simplicity.

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Read more:
Ten compelling poems about climate change – chosen by our experts

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In an age dominated by the algorithmic attention economy, poetry might be our best tool for incorporating activism into everyday life.

Heaney’s bogs

The Nobel prize-winning Irish poet Seamus Heaney knew this. Taking inspiration from ancient Irish nature writing, Heaney described the Irish landscape as “a system of reality beyond the visible realities”.

In his 1969 poem Bogland, he defines the bog itself as representing the essence of Irishness.

We have no prairies

To slice a big sun at evening—

Everywhere the eye concedes to

Encroaching horizon,

Is wooed into the cyclops’ eye

Of a tarn. Our unfenced country

Is bog that keeps crusting

Between the sights of the sun.

Heaney juxtaposes Irish bogs with the vast prairies of the American west by presenting them as archives of natural and human history.

Ecopoetry scholar Yvonne Reddick has shown that from the early 1970s, Heaney extensively researched bog formation. His poems demonstrate an awareness of how the bogs have preserved Irish elk skeletons and iron age bodies because of their oxygen-free conditions.

For Heaney, the landscape was more than a lifeless background. It was a literal container of Irish history, including the possibility of environmental catastrophe.

Bogland gained new life when Heaney used it to support the Ulster Trust for Nature Conservation in 1991. As part of a fundraising initiative, the poem’s opening stanzas were printed on a poster beneath a painting by T.P. Flanagan. It was accompanied by the following information: “Peatlands are under serious threat because of cutting, drainage, afforestation and erosion … We have a responsibility to conserve and restore what remains.”

Turf-cutting (harvesting peat from bogs to use as fuel for home heating and cooking) was an important part of Heaney’s upbringing. But his involvement with conservation causes points to a changed outlook on these practices because of their environmental impact.

Finding the past in the present

Contemporary Irish poets continue this legacy. With a PhD in ornithology, writer Mary Montague relays her concern for environmental issues with poetic passion. Her work is often focused on native Irish animals, many of which are facing a similar fate to the Irish wolf due to habitat loss and the influence of invasive species.

Wolves were once common in Ireland. Research estimates that roughly 800 to 1,000 wolves roamed the country around the year 1600. Because wolves thrived in Ireland after their extinction in England, colonial authorities felt justified in using this as evidence of Irish “savagery”. Bounties were eventually established that spelled out the necessity of exterminating these creatures, the last of which was killed in 1786.

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Montague connects this violent history to the threats currently facing Irish animals. Her poem Haunted draws on the mythic connotations of ravens – which were once connected to the Celtic goddess of death, Mórrígan – to mourn the loss of Irish wolves. The poem asks whether the birds’ ominous associations ironically signal their own impending demise, given the escalating effects of climate change.

Their ragged capes of wingspans still float

over the Sperrins to scan the landscape

for the blot of a carcase, but they reel

with a fatalism, black flags

suspended over an absence.

Poet Cherry Smyth also links Ireland’s colonial past to the current ecological moment. Her collection Famished (2019) found echoes of the great Irish famine in the rise of climate refugees.

More recently, her collection One Mountain: Sold (2025) responds to the threat of gold mining in the Sperrin Mountains, County Tyrone. The collection can be read as a poetic companion to the Save Our Sperrins campaign. This grassroots movement opposes the extraction of gold, silver and other minerals from the Sperrins and surrounding landscape.

Montague explained some of the campaign’s main concerns in the Guardian’s County Diary column. These include the pollution of air and water, the dehydration of local bog land and the potential risks to human health caused by mining.

Together, these poets show how the strongest of Irish ecopoems connect colonial history to the climate crisis. They highlight how the effects of environmental degradation in Ireland are the latest influence on an already precarious relationship to land.

Jane Clarke’s work also shows a dedication to healing these histories of violence embedded in Irish landscapes. Speaking at the Dublin City University Centre for Climate and Society in 2024, Clarke emphasised the importance of the arts in promoting environmentalism.

Clarke’s recent collaboration with the Burrenbeo Trust, a nonprofit organisation that runs various conservation campaigns across Ireland, demonstrates this commitment. The Hare’s Corner (2025) features original poems by Clarke that reflect the benefits of projects run by Burrenbeo that promote healthier farming practices that give threatened species the chance to flourish.

While governmental intervention based on scientific fact remains the most effective solution to climate change, contemporary Irish poets show the importance of literature in fighting environmental decline. As Montague writes in her contribution to The Watchful Heart anthology: “Loss is inevitable; the formalised language of poetry may help us endure it.”

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

– ref. Elegies for a changing land: how Ireland’s poets are responding to the climate crisis – https://theconversation.com/elegies-for-a-changing-land-how-irelands-poets-are-responding-to-the-climate-crisis-282177

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Nye Davies, Lecturer in Politics, Cardiff University

After all the predictions, projections and polling permutations, Welsh Labour’s defeat has been confirmed.

In 1985, Welsh historian Gwyn Alf Williams described Labour majorities standing “like Aneurin Bevan’s memorial stones”. Forty years on, the stones have finally been eroded. On the worst day for the party in its history in Wales, even its leader, Eluned Morgan, lost her seat.

After more than a century as Wales’ dominant political force, the figures and symbols that once anchored Welsh Labour now lie broken.

The scale of the defeat is difficult to overstate. Losses in historic heartlands that have voted Labour consistently for more than a century represent a devastating indictment of a party that has long mistaken dominance for consent. This is not a routine electoral setback, but a collapse.

Short-term factors played their part. Welsh Labour’s decision to abandon its “standing up for Wales” rhetoric and attach itself to an unpopular Keir Starmer-led UK government led the party to surrender one of its strongest political identities.

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Furthermore, the short-lived, scandal-ridden leadership of Vaughan Gething, and an incumbency backlash among certain voters, contributed to Labour’s worst-ever Senedd result. But while these factors shaped the timing and scale of the loss, they cannot by themselves explain it.

This election marks a reckoning that has been coming for a while. After more than a century of political dominance, the myths and symbols that sustained Welsh Labour (and the idea that Labour is Wales, and Wales is Labour), have finally withered. The defeat reflects not simply a bad campaign or unpopular leaders, but a party that has run out of steam and ideas.

Since devolution, Welsh Labour has spoken the language of radical politics while failing to realise radical outcomes. Limited powers and constrained budgets are real obstacles, but they do not excuse the absence of political ambition from a party that has governed Wales uninterrupted for nearly three decades. Few parties in democratic systems have enjoyed such long-term dominance; Welsh Labour has failed to take advantage of it.

Longer-term decay

The electoral collapse reflects a deeper unwillingness to confront Wales’ long-term material decline. Across health, housing, education and the economy, rhetorical ambition has been undermined by narrow, managerial interventions. Child poverty remains entrenched, educational standards have declined and the NHS is under sustained pressure. Progressive language has failed to translate into material improvement.

In defending Wales against Tory austerity, Welsh Labour neglected the harder task of articulating what Wales could become and how devolved powers could be wielded effectively to improve people’s lives. The result has been a politics that speaks the language of progress while leaving the structures of inequality largely untouched.

Over time, this gap between promise and experience has eroded trust. In an era of weakening party attachment and fluid political identities, historical loyalty can no longer be relied upon. The continued invocation of figures such as Aneurin Bevan may still resonate within the party but beyond this, their power has faded. Nostalgia has become a liability, especially when it substitutes for critical reflection or ideological renewal. Welsh Labour came to mistake familiarity for consent.

The Senedd election result is not a rejection of progressive values, but of Labour’s symbolic performance of them. Many voters were not turning away from radical ambition when they voted for Plaid Cymru; they were seeking a party they believed could still embody it. Welsh politics has often been defined by its radical traditions – and progressive voters have put their faith in Plaid to inherit them.

One-party dominance insulated Welsh Labour from the pressures that force political renewal. When that dominance finally fractured, the party found itself unable to articulate an alternative sense of purpose.

The collapse, therefore, is not a sudden termination, but the culmination of a prolonged period of stagnation. The majorities once symbolised by Aneurin Bevan’s memorial stones have been gradually eroded, enduring for decades but now standing merely as reminders of a Labour legacy that no longer finds resonance in Wales.

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

– ref. After more than a century, Labour has lost Wales – https://theconversation.com/after-more-than-a-century-labour-has-lost-wales-282549

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Aditya Narayanan, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, University of Southampton; UNSW Sydney

For decades, Antarctica seemed to defy global warming. Since satellites began monitoring the poles in the late 1970s, the seasonal growth and retreat of Antarctic sea ice – frozen seawater that expands around the continent each winter – appeared remarkably resilient. It was often described as the “heartbeat of the planet”.

Unlike the Arctic, where sea ice declined rapidly as the planet warmed, Antarctic sea ice showed little overall loss. It even expanded between 2007 and 2015. But that resilience has now broken.

Since 2015, Antarctic sea ice has declined sharply. In 2023, winter sea ice extent fell to record lows — so far below the long-term average that scientists considered it an event with roughly a one-in-3.5-million probability of occurring by chance.

Antarctica was long considered a part of the climate system expected to change slowly. The speed of the recent sea ice decline has therefore come as a shock.

Scientists did expect Antarctic sea ice to shrink as the planet warmed, but not this quickly. The downturn over the past decade was not predicted by the climate models used to understand how the continent responds to warming. This makes the recent decline especially concerning: it suggests things may be unfolding faster, or in different ways, than our models can fully capture.

This matters because sea ice reflects sunlight back into space and helps drive ocean currents that lock away heat and carbon deep underwater. Its decline will have consequences for the climate and for Antarctica’s unique ecosystems that rely on it.

A fundamental shift

In our new scientific study, we show that the ocean around Antarctica has undergone a fundamental shift. Heat that had been trapped deep below the surface is now rising upwards, where it can melt sea ice.

The chain of events that triggered this change began decades ago. Around Antarctica, winds strengthened as a result of the ozone hole and greenhouse gas emissions. These stronger winds acted like a pump, gradually drawing warm, salty deep water closer to the surface.

For years, the sea around Antarctica – the Southern Ocean – was strongly layered, with cold fresh water sitting on top of warmer, saltier water below. That layering stopped the heat from reaching the surface.

But eventually the barrier weakened. By 2015, warmer deep water had risen close enough to the surface for storms and strong winds to churn it upwards.

The waters around Antarctica have since become trapped in a self-reinforcing cycle. Rising deep water brings heat and salt to the surface. The heat melts sea ice, while the extra salt makes the surface waters denser and easier to mix with warmer waters below. That allows even more heat to rise upwards, making it harder for new sea ice to form, and so on.

The consequences are not only physical. Antarctic sea ice supports one of the world’s most distinctive ecosystems. Algae grow on and under the ice, feeding krill, which in turn sustain penguins, seals, whales and seabirds. Low sea ice has already been linked to mass drowning of emperor penguin chicks – putting the entire species at risk. A long-term shift to lower sea ice cover would therefore reshape not only the climate itself, but also the living Southern Ocean.

This is not just a regional story. Antarctic sea ice acts like a mirror, reflecting sunlight and helping keep the planet cool. As it shrinks, more heat is absorbed by the ocean. At the same time, changes in the Southern Ocean circulation could reduce the ocean’s ability to store heat and carbon.

In the past, Antarctica helped buffer global warming. Our results suggest it may now be shifting in the opposite direction.

Whether this marks a permanent change remains uncertain. But if low sea ice conditions persist, the Southern Ocean could start to accelerate global warming rather than limit it.

Aditya Narayanan received funding from the NERC DeCAdeS project (NE/T012714/1).

Alessandro Silvano receives funding from NERC (NE/V014285/1).

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

– ref. Antarctic sea ice defied global warming for decades – now, hidden ocean heat is breaking through – https://theconversation.com/antarctic-sea-ice-defied-global-warming-for-decades-now-hidden-ocean-heat-is-breaking-through-282356

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Viraj Nair, Lecturer in Financial Management, Royal Docks School of Business and Law, University of East London

In the shadow of the 2008 global financial crisis, trust in the financial system was at a historic low. Banks had failed, markets had collapsed, and confidence in central institutions had been deeply shaken.

It was in this moment of uncertainty that an anonymous figure, Satoshi Nakamoto, published the Bitcoin white paper – a nine-page document that quietly introduced a radical new idea: a financial system that would not rely on trust in institutions at all.

Rather than banks or governments, transactions would be verified by a shared digital network run collectively by its users – a system that became known as blockchain. But blockchain was never just about technology – it was about rethinking mechanisms of trust, so it could be engineered rather than delegated.

Nakamoto’s vision was made possible through a consensus mechanism known as “proof of work” (PoW), which required participants to solve complex computational problems to validate transactions. The system was intentionally costly to operate. That cost was precisely what made it secure: changing the shared record of transactions would require immense resources, making manipulation economically unviable.

But as bitcoin’s popularity grew rapidly – from a niche experiment in 2009 to a network processing hundreds of thousands of daily transactions within a decade – so did its demands. Maintaining trust through continuous computation proved expensive – not just financially but environmentally.

The energy consumed by PoW systems began to rival that of entire countries, raising an important question: was this the most efficient way to produce trust?

A blockchain revolution

In 2022, the major global blockchain Ethereum – which underpins the second-biggest cryptocurrency after bitcoin – adopted another model of trust known as “proof of stake” (PoS). This was a response to the growing concern about the bitcoin blockchain’s excessive energy demands.

Rather than relying on large numbers of computers competing to solve mathematical problems, PoS selects validators based partly on how much cryptocurrency they lock into the network as a financial stake. They then help confirm transactions and maintain the system, without the energy-intensive process of mining used in bitcoin.

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Ethereum’s energy consumption fell by more than 99% following the shift, according to the Crypto Carbon Rating Institute. This suggested blockchain systems could be used at much greater scale without proportionately increasing their environmental footprint.

This chart illustrates Ethereum’s claimed energy use compared with some other industries and activities, demonstrating the large drop after its switch from a PoW to PoS blockchain system:

However, this increased energy efficiency introduced another kind of trade-off. Under PoW, influence is determined by access to computational resources. Under PoS, it is tied to ownership of financial assets – raising questions about whether control of this technology would be increasingly unequal.

This is not necessarily a flaw, but a reflection of a broader reality. Trust is never costless, and different systems distribute that cost in different ways.

Today, many newer blockchain platforms including Ethereum, Cardano and Solana use PoS. Bitcoin, though, continues to rely on PoW – in part because supporters argue its high computational cost remains central to both its security and principle of decentralisation.

Beyond cryptocurrencies, different blockchain systems are increasingly being explored for applications ranging from tracking goods in supply chains and energy trading to digital identity systems and cross-border payments. And this is ushering in a third evolution in blockchain trust technology: “proof of authority” (PoA).

Trust reconfigured again

Unlike its predecessors, PoA relies on a limited number of pre-approved validators – typically, organisations whose identities and reputations are known. This means only approved or verified participants can validate transactions within a particular network.

PoA-style systems and permissioned blockchain networks have already been adopted or tested by hundreds of organisations worldwide – particularly in finance, supply chains and energy infrastructure. In finance, banks including JP Morgan have explored private blockchain networks where only approved participants can validate and share transaction records.

This might seem like a major departure from blockchain’s original ethos. If trust is placed back in the hands of identifiable institutions, what remains of Nakamoto’s decentralised vision?

But in many real-world situations, such as tracking goods or processing financial transactions, participants do not require anonymity. They prioritise reliability, speed and accountability.

Rather than eliminating trust, PoA reorganises it. Although blockchain is often associated with anonymous cryptocurrency activity, its record-keeping structure makes transactions highly traceable and easier to audit over time.

For banks, companies and governments testing blockchain systems, this approach is often more practical than fully open blockchain networks that anyone can join. Brazil has used a government blockchain based on proof of authority, and the United Arab Emirates has promoted blockchain use across its public services and for some government transactions.

What is emerging is not the end of trust but its reconfiguration. Blockchain began as an attempt to bypass traditional institutions. Its evolution points to something more nuanced: a future where trust is reconfigured with the involvement of banks, payment providers, technology firms, energy companies and governments.

These organisations are not removing trust from the system – they are reshaping how it is created, verified and maintained.

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

– ref. How the evolution of blockchain is changing our ideas about trust – https://theconversation.com/how-the-evolution-of-blockchain-is-changing-our-ideas-about-trust-282406

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Jacqueline Boyd, Senior Lecturer in Animal Science, Nottingham Trent University

I recently lost one of my cocker spaniels, Bobbi. She was fit, healthy and active, but had a catastrophic diagnosis of oral melanoma two months before I had to make the decision that anyone with deeply loved pets dreads.

It is easy to presume that only humans have a true concept of death and what it means. However, death is universal in biology and many animals experience death within their social groups, and even as an intrinsic part of meeting their nutritional needs.

After Bobbi’s initial diagnosis, I entered a state of anticipatory grief. This is where there is rehearsal and awareness of the emotions associated with the death of a loved one.

I was reassured that Bobbi was largely unaware of her situation and what it meant. She still ran, played, carried sticks (her favourite walk activity), barked as I joined video calls and acted as the “fun police” with my other spaniels, keeping them firmly in check.

But I found myself trying to negotiate how to manage my other dogs and their emotional states. This got me wondering and exploring how animals experience death and what their behaviour around death can tell us. After all, we are simply one species trying to understand how another species experiences and perceives the world – they cannot directly tell us and we can only ever work from our own experiences and awareness.

Understanding death

The most basic concept of death is where a living being understands that a death results in the total loss of function of another who was once alive, and that the situation is irreversible. The loss of companions, family or social group members is clearly widespread in all animal societies, so it is likely that these animals have some consistent reactions to death.

Indeed, many behaviours associated with death have been observed in non-human animals. Some species such as the opossum, “play dead” as a survival mechanism, to make predators then leave them alone. This behaviour, known as thanatosis or tonic immobility, is also seen in some birds, snakes and insects. “Playing dead” behaviour relies on the ability of other species to recognise and react to the apparent “death” of another species.

Domestic cats have shown behaviour associated with grief, such as a decrease in eating, sleeping or playing, after the loss of a close companion dog or cat. Female dolphins often show attentive behaviour to their dead calves, sometimes carrying them for days. In 2018, a female orca was observed carrying her dead calf for 17 days, creating debate about how other species experience loss and grief.

A range of other species including elephants, non-human primates and birds have all been observed displaying grief or “funeral-like” behaviour. Bumblebees have been seen to avoid rose flowers containing either the scent or the body of a dead bumblebee, suggesting an awareness of death which is a likely anti-predation response.

Although these observations do not prove that a human-like understanding of death is universal across the animal kingdom, it is clear that different species, including reptiles, fish and invertebrates,, have the capacity for conscious awareness of the world around them although they differ in their cognitive capabilities.

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Taking a human-centric view to death means that we may fail to appreciate the sentience and emotional complexity of the way other animals might respond to death and dying. Wild and domestic animals have many opportunities to experience death and develop a concept of death even without the complex cognitive skills that humans possess. A concept that probably differs to our own, which is often linked to anxiety and fear of death.

For some species such as insects, reactions to death are probably intrinsic and functional responses without emotion or deep cognition. For example red ants demonstrate necrophoresis, where the bodies of dead group members are removed from the colony, probably to reduce disease risk.

Conversely, in species considered to have more complex cognitive skills such as chimpanzees and other primates, death can be linked with behaviour patterns more akin to human grief, loss and sadness. For example, mothers carrying their dead offspring, sometimes for prolonged periods, or animals apparently cleaning the body of a deceased of a group member.

What Bobbi taught me

Bobbi is not the first companion animal I have said goodbye to. However she taught me something about how her canine companions experienced her loss.

I brought her home from the vet that Friday afternoon, peaceful, pain-free and wrapped in her blanket. I laid her body out on our grass with the sun shining and birds singing and I let my other spaniels out to see her. After a cursory sniff all but one left her alone and went off exploring. However, Bobbi’s nephew, Bertie sat with her. He sniffed. He licked. He examined. For almost half an hour we sat together quietly while the others “spanielled” around the garden. Bertie was Bobbi’s friend, and for all my scientific training, I knew he knew she was gone. I am glad I gave him the time to process however it was that he experienced her change.

Since then, our family group dynamics have shifted. Not negatively or positively, but they are different. Perhaps my other dogs were simply responding to my emotions but it seems more likely that they too had an awareness of her death and we have each coped in own own way.

In addition to her academic affiliation at Nottingham Trent University (NTU) and support from the Institute for Knowledge Exchange Practice (IKEP) at NTU, Jacqueline Boyd is affiliated with The Royal Kennel Club (UK) through membership, as advisor to the Health Advisory Group and member of the Activities Committee. Jacqueline is a full member of the Association of Pet Dog Trainers (APDT #01583). She also writes, consults and coaches on canine matters on an independent basis.

– ref. Pet loss is difficult for people – what about for other pets? – https://theconversation.com/pet-loss-is-difficult-for-people-what-about-for-other-pets-280745