Category: The Conversation – UK

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Ruth Emily Sylvester, Research Fellow in Water and Health Governance, University of Leeds

The raw sewage in England’s rivers and seas is not just a story of corporate failure. It’s also a legacy of Victorian sewers – impressive and high-tech in their day, but with inequality and exploitation baked in.

In the summer of 1858, London succumbed to a “Great Stink” as hot weather exacerbated the smell of human waste in and around the River Thames. Along parts of the Thames, sewage was piled six foot deep.

This compelled the Victorians to find a new way of handling the faeces of the world’s largest city. The new Houses of Parliament rushed through legislation and soon commissioned the engineer Joseph Bazalgette to design and build a new sewer system.

Bazalgette’s design was hailed as visionary: a modern network that collected household waste and pumped it to centralised containment points. The shift away from informal sanitation to a formalised system was the bedrock of a public health revolution.

But the system was also a product of its time, and some people and environments benefited more than others. It prioritised the wealthy, and dumped the consequences downstream.

This Victorian legacy infrastructure forms the blueprint of the sewage crisis of the 2020s, in London and across the country. Sewers (often literally the same sewers with the same 150-year-old bricks) still spill untreated waste into rivers when it rains. And, just as in the 19th century, the costs are carried disproportionately by the poor and the environment.

New infrastructure required

Between 1800 and 1850, a third of the population in England moved into urban industrial centres, a shift that ushered in a new era of public health risks from faecal-oral diseases such as cholera. Sustaining this industrial and social revolution required new infrastructure. But sewers built in London and elsewhere were a response to, and a reproduction of, the social arrangements of the industrial period.

Their core design values were to protect the health of the labouring workforce and to secure the lifestyle of wealthy people. Rich neighbourhoods were the first to receive sewer connections, and the business of sewer building became a lucrative investment for the upper classes.

The pipes themselves were designed to both drain rainwater and transport sewage. During periods of heavy rainfall, the combined contents would flush out through pressure relief valves – known as combined sewer overflows – into the Thames and its tributaries. In 2024, these same overflows dumped sewage into England’s watercourses for a total of 3.6 million hours.

Initially, treatment works at Beckton and Crossness were simply discharge points that continued to release raw sewage into the Thames, only further downstream and at the ebb of the tide, blighting many working-class residents of east London.

My research with Anna Mdee and Paul Hutchings found that this also applies elsewhere in England. For instance by the mid-19th century, the city of Bradford became known as “the wool capital of the world”. Yet the Bradford Beck, the river at this city’s heart, was a hotbed of sewage and disease, even after sewers were built in the 1860s. Working class communities living close to its banks were most affected. Tragically, at this time, only 30% of children born to mill workers lived beyond the age of 15.

It was not until the Princess Alice disaster in 1878, when more than 600 people drowned after a passenger ferry sank in a stretch of the Thames near sewage outlets, that politicians called for a better solution for human waste treatment.

Settling tanks were introduced, which separated the liquid and solid elements of sewage, yet both components were disposed of in rivers or seas via pipes or boats transporting the solids out and dumping in deeper waters.

Left to the market

Progress on connecting households to sewers was very uneven. As industrialisation accelerated in London and across England, local governments became ill equipped to address the emerging complexities of sanitation, and often left it to private companies and the market instead.

In Birmingham, for instance, the town centre and wealthy suburbs were connected to sewers in the 1850s, while working-class neighbourhoods had to wait until the 1870s and 1880s.

By the 1890s, wealthy people enjoyed running water and fully plumbed bathrooms, or water closets, containing raised cisterns with the classic Victorian chain pull. Some houses had multiple WCs including separate facilities in servant quarters. However, many working class and rural households still lacked them well into the mid-20th century.

Profits flow upwards

The way sanitation is financed has always reflected inequality. In the 19th century, wealthy city dwellers got sewers first, while upper-class investors and private companies made money from waste. The same pattern persists today. Under England’s privatised water regime, profits flow upwards – not just to CEOs but now to international investors and shareholders. Thames Water, for instance, has been part-owned in turn by a German energy firm, an Australian investment bank and now a Canadian pensions group.

Since privatisation in 1989, these inequalities have been exacerbated. Water companies are highly profitable, yet rivers are still used to dump sewage.

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Read more:
‘Noisome stinking scum’: how Londoners protested river pollution in the 1600s

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This is why creating a new regulator, as proposed in a recent independent review, or renationalising the sector are not enough: the social hierarchies and environmental exploitation of Victorian England are still ingrained in the pipes themselves.

For centuries, nature was seen as a treatment plant, with rivers, lakes and seas absorbing our faeces. This is no longer acceptable.

Sewers built in the 19th century are failing 21st-century England. Just as Joseph Bazalgette reimagined sanitation for the Victorian era, we need an equally bold vision today – one that stops exploiting both rivers and people.

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Dr Ruth Emily Sylvester has previously received funding from EPSRC for her PhD studies. This article is partly based on findings and outputs from her doctoral research.

– ref. From the Great Stink to the modern sewage scandal: why 19th-century sewers are failing 21st-century England – https://theconversation.com/from-the-great-stink-to-the-modern-sewage-scandal-why-19th-century-sewers-are-failing-21st-century-england-263364

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Louise Gentle, Principal Lecturer in Wildlife Conservation, Nottingham Trent University

Do owls have bogies?

Ravine, aged three, Glasgow

Hi Ravine,

The quick answer is yes, but the interesting thing is why.

Bogies, or boogers as they are known in some countries, are made from nasal mucus – you probably call this snot. Snot is produced by your nose and is really important as it helps to trap dirt, germs and other nasty things. This stops these nasty things from going into your body, causing damage and making you ill. Snot also has antibodies in it – special white blood cells that help your body to fight infections. So, snot is super useful for protecting our bodies.

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Curious Kids is a series by The Conversation that gives children the chance to have their questions about the world answered by experts. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it to curiouskids@theconversation.com and make sure you include the asker’s first name, age and town or city. We won’t be able to answer every question, but we’ll do our very best.

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Snot is also vital to help us to smell things. The mucus traps tiny scent particles that are then transported to special smell receptors in the nose. These allow us to identify different odours like food, which is especially important to help wild animals survive.

Some animals have an amazing sense of smell, much better than ours. Elephants use theirs to sniff out food and water, detect predators, and even recognise their family. But, when animals have a cold, a lot more snot is produced, and this interrupts the ability to smell things properly.

Bogies are just dried snot that collects in nostrils.

Which animals make snot?

All organisms need to protect themselves, and all have a sense of smell. So, all have some sort of snot. Some animals have huge noses and nostrils, so produce loads of snot – these include cows, horses and rhinos. Some animals have a limited sense of smell – animals such as dolphins and snakes taste smells rather than sniff them.

Some animals even include snot in their diets. The vampire squid feeds on marine snow in the oceans. This is made of snot but also poo and dead things. The vampire squid gathers up the falling bits of snot, then once it has collected enough, it eats it.

The marine iguana is one of the sneeziest animals. They produce lots of snot to help them get rid of the large amount of salt they eat from their favourite food, seaweed.

Bird bogies

Animals that rely on their sense of smell produce more mucus – dogs are expert sniffers and are known for having a wet nose. But most birds don’t have a very good sense of smell. This is because they get most information that they need to survive from other senses such as sight and hearing.

As most owls hunt their prey at night, they tend to rely on their amazing sense of hearing rather than their other senses. This means that they don’t use their sense of smell as much as many other animals. So they don’t need to produce loads of snot, but they still make some, and they still have bogies. Their poor sense of smell might explain why I, and my friends who do conservation studies on owls, have never seen an owl with a bogie. We’re going to look more closely now, though!

There are some bird species that rely on a good sense of smell. Kiwis are flightless birds that live in New Zealand. They have long, thin beaks and an excellent sense of smell, and can sniff out earthworms in the soil.

Turkey vultures are also known for their amazing sense of smell. They can smell food such as carcasses from miles away, finding rotting flesh underneath leaves just as quickly as flesh that is out in the open.

Some seabirds use their noses to produce a map of smells to recognise where they are. This is useful on long migratory journeys across the open ocean where there are no features to help them to navigate.

Like the sneezy marine iguanas, seabirds need to get rid of the salt that builds up in their bodies from the seawater they drink and the salty prey they eat. These birds often look like they have a constantly runny nose, with mucus dripping from their nostrils. But the mucus actually comes from salt glands near their eyes.

All of these birds produce lots of snot to help them to smell.

Which animals pick their bogies?

Scientists found that over 90% of people admit to picking their nose. Teenagers seem to pick their nose an average of four times a day – gross!

Nose picking also happens in primates such as gorillas, chimpanzees and lemurs. Recently, an aye-aye – a creepy-looking animal with a super long middle finger – was filmed picking its nose and eating the bogies.

Only animals with fingers can really pick their bogies. Nobody is quite sure why animals pick bogies, but it might be because when snot dries it can sometimes be uncomfortable and block our noses, so picking is done to help us breathe more easily.

Louise Gentle works for Nottingham Trent University.

– ref. Curious kids: do owls have bogies? – https://theconversation.com/curious-kids-do-owls-have-bogies-264514

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Dan Baumgardt, Senior Lecturer, School of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of Bristol

Every so often, a completely random advert stops me in my tracks and makes me wonder what on earth went on in the room where it was created. For me, that moment came this past weekend, courtesy of a bubblegum-pink, cheerfully surreal advert for Pepto-Bismol.

Pepto-Bismol has been around since 1901, when it was first designed to ease the symptoms of cholera. Over the decades, it’s evolved into the familiar pink liquid we know today, promising to treat nausea, heartburn, indigestion and – as their jingle suggests – diarrhoea-ah!

Absurd advert? Definitely. But effective nonetheless, since it actually got me thinking about Pepto-Bismol for the first time in years. And, to its credit, the advertisers slipped in a piece of genuinely useful advice: that if your symptoms persist, see a doctor. That matters, because ongoing indigestion can be a sign of something more serious.

Understanding the upper gastrointestinal tract

In medicine, the gut is divided into two regions: upper and lower. The upper tract includes the mouth, pharynx, oesophagus (or gullet), stomach and the first section of the small intestine: the duodenum. Symptoms from these areas can point to a range of conditions.

One common cluster is dyspepsia: discomfort or pain often accompanied by bloating, burping, nausea and a feeling of fullness. Most of us will have experienced it at some point.

It can also involve reflux – the sensation of stomach contents coming back up – or waterbrash, a bitter taste from stomach acid hitting the back of the throat. Patients describe these in many ways: heartburn, acid reflux or “food that repeats on you”.

Pharmacies offer a wide range of remedies to treat indigestion. The familiar Pepto-Bismol is just one example. Alginates, such as Gaviscon, are medicines that contain seaweed-derived compounds which form a protective “raft” that floats on top of stomach contents, reducing reflux and preventing irritation of the stomach wall by acid. Chewable tablets like Rennies neutralise stomach acid. Even acid-reducing medications like omeprazole can be purchased over the counter. While these can ease symptoms, they can also delay diagnosis and treatment of potentially serious conditions if relied upon for long periods of time.

What causes indigestion?

After a rich or spicy meal or a stomach bug, some indigestion is expected – and might last a few days. Indigestion can also stem from benign conditions such as a hiatus hernia, where part of the stomach pushes through the diaphragm into the chest, making reflux more likely. This is common: it’s estimated that around a third of people over 50 may have one.

Other risk factors include coffee, alcohol, spicy or fatty foods, large portions, pregnancy, obesity and smoking. Some medications, including antidepressants, ibuprofen, anti-inflammatories and iron tablets, can also trigger symptoms.

However, persistent dyspepsia can sometimes be linked to more serious conditions. Inflammation of the oesophagus, stomach or duodenum has many causes, including infection with Helicobacter pylori a common bacteria that can live in the stomach lining and is a leading cause of ulcers. Antibiotics and omeprazole may be required to treat it. In some cases, this infection can progress to a peptic ulcer, which carries serious risks of bleeding or perforation of the gut.

More worryingly, indigestion can occasionally be a symptom of upper gastrointestinal cancers. In such cases, an endoscopy – a flexible camera that examines the upper gut – may be needed, with alternative tests available for those unable to tolerate the procedure.

Other internal cancers can also cause indigestion among other symptoms, including pancreatic and ovarian cancer. Even cardiac chest pain can mimic indigestion.

Symptoms can vary considerably between different conditions and different patients. This is why it’s important not to self-diagnose, and seek medical advice so a doctor can put the pieces together and make an appropriate plan of action.

When to worry

Guidelines from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) – an independent public body that provides national guidance and advice to improve health and social care in England – recommend urgent investigation with endoscopy for patients with a mass in the abdomen or who experience difficulty swallowing (dysphagia). Unexplained weight loss or upper abdominal pain alongside indigestion are also concerning, especially for patients in their 50s, where the risk of cancer is higher.

Investigation may also be considered for persistent indigestion, or that which doesn’t respond to treatment and in patients with iron-deficiency anaemia or a history of peptic ulcers. Family history is also relevant. Having two first-degree relatives (close family such as parents, siblings or children) with upper gastrointestinal cancer is another risk factor.

Acute gastrointestinal bleeding associated with cancer or an ulcer is an emergency. This can present as vomiting blood – either fresh red or looking like coffee-grounds. Some patients can pass blood mixed in their poo or black, tarry, foul-smelling stools. This “melaena” indicates digested blood. Here, immediate hospital care is essential.

Other warning signs include the presence of jaundice (yellowing of the skin), nausea and vomiting, altered bowel habits and tiredness. And since conditions like ischaemic heart disease (a narrowing of the heart’s blood vessels that can restrict blood flow and cause chest pain) may present like indigestion, vigilance is important for cardiac symptoms, especially in people with risk factors.

While advertising for Pepto-Bismol might spark a smile (or grimace), here’s the reality check: indigestion is common but not always harmless. Over-the-counter treatments can provide relief and many benign conditions often prove to be the underlying cause. But in some cases, persistent symptoms may signal a more serious underlying condition, including cancer.

So, if it’s a recurrent, persistent or severe problem, or you notice other worrying changes, skip a refill at the self-medication aisle. Make an appointment with your GP instead. Sometimes that pink bottle isn’t enough and catching problems early can make all the difference.

Dan Baumgardt 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. Indigestion is commonplace but sometimes concerning. Here’s what you need to know – https://theconversation.com/indigestion-is-commonplace-but-sometimes-concerning-heres-what-you-need-to-know-262982

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Katie Pruszynski, PhD Candidate, Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Sheffield

Charlie Kirk, figurehead of the American far right, took a question at a 2023 event in Salt Lake City about the second amendment to the US constitution and gun-related deaths. He answered: “I think it’s worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year, so that we can have the second amendment to protect our other God-given rights.”

Two years later, once again in Utah, Kirk was killed with a gun. His death comes against a backdrop of increased political violence in the US, driven by a new set of political, societal and technological factors, and its future trajectory will determine the health of American democracy.

Political violence is differentiated from other crimes and it is helpful to have clarity about its particular meaning. It is defined specifically as acts intended to achieve political goals or intimidate opponents through the use of physical force or threats to influence a political outcome or silence dissent. While most of these incidents come from the far right, violence is used by extremists on both sides.

Over the past decade there has been a dangerous escalation in political violence driven by rage and resentment without clearly defined goals by self-radicalised individuals rather than organised extremist groups. High profile incidents have dominated headlines. These include the insurrection of January 6 2021, the shooting at a baseball practice session of Republican members of Congress in 2018, the plot to kidnap Michigan governor, Gretchen Whitmer in 2020, the vicious attack on Paul Pelosi – the husband of the speaker of the House of Representatives – in 2022, the torching of Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro’s family home in April this year. And, of course, the assassination attempts on Donald Trump on the campaign trail in 2024.

But the threat has spread beyond the very visible faces of US democracy to targets such as judges, election officials, journalists and even private citizens based upon their perceived political affiliation.

It is shocking yet unsurprising, given the new factors fuelling rage in an already deeply divided society. These can be broadly summarised by three characteristics.

Hyper-partisanship at boiling point

The way politics is discussed today shows that division can’t be seen in merely partisan terms. Opponents have become enemies and those with different worldviews have become traitors. In many examples, pundits, politicians and their mouthpieces indulge in dehumanising rhetoric. Research has consistently found that dehumanisation contributes to a more ready justification of violence.

Indeed, Trump and other high-profile figures have incited violence, even when not actually issuing direct calls to action. This was most notably evident on January 6 2021, when Trump goaded supporters in Washington to march on the Capitol, telling them: “And we fight. We fight like hell. And if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.”

Digital echo chambers

These pressure cooker arguments play out on social media and online forums that help spread conspiracy theories, disinformation and violent content. Highly influential creators are able to conjure up “bespoke realities” for their followers, generating huge personal wealth from the fomenting of rage and hate. Citizens are consuming deeply flawed, incendiary political content in isolation. This fuels self-radicalisation when people become detached from reality of the world outside their bubble.

Indeed, immediately following the Kirk shooting, social media was already awash with disinformation about liberals celebrating his death and the motivations of the killer before the shooter had been found.

Erosion of trust in democracy

When faith in government, the justice system, and the electoral process erodes, citizens may come to believe that the established systems are rigged, unresponsive, or illegitimate. This makes traditional avenues for change seem futile. In this environment, violence can be rationalised as the only effective means to “correct” the broken system. The American right has long railed against a corrupt and malevolent “deep state” convincing some citizens that democratic norms no longer apply.

What next? There are three possible scenarios. The worst case is an escalation of violence in both its frequency and its organisation.

The far right has been pushing for strict limits on civil liberties, and the most extreme members may use Kirk’s assassination as an excuse for violent retaliation. Widespread civil unrest is a persistent threat, particularly approaching the 2026 midterm elections. Many fear that if Trump’s allies sense they can use escalating disorder to declare an emergency suspension of democratic processes, they will push him to do so.

More likely, but no less unsettling, is a stagnation in which political violence becomes a normalised feature of American political life without escalating to an existential crisis. This has potentially far-reaching consequences as more moderate politicians on both sides perceive the risks of being in public life to be too high and vacate their offices. This paves the way for more extreme candidates to fill the gaps. With the more moderate voices gone, it’s less likely the conversation will cool down.

But things could improve. It will require bipartisan condemnation of political violence and a reconnecting of politicians to their constituents. Both sides need to work together to drag a bigger portion of the political debate back into the real world. Meanwhile social media platforms and the legacy media alike must be held accountable for the tenor and veracity of the content they feed to the public.

And efforts must be made by political elites, the media and the public to rebuild civic trust. As the foundation stone of a healthy democracy, citizens’ trust in their government and in each other must be carefully pieced back together.

America does not need to accept violence as the norm, in fact, it must collectively and consistently reject it. The future of its democracy may depend on it.

Katie Pruszynski 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. Charlie Kirk shooting: another grim milestone in America’s long and increasingly dangerous story of political violence – https://theconversation.com/charlie-kirk-shooting-another-grim-milestone-in-americas-long-and-increasingly-dangerous-story-of-political-violence-265115

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Gordon Lynch, Professor of Religion, Society and Ethics, University of Edinburgh

Wherever you stand on his political views, Charlie Kirk’s murder is a tragedy on a personal level. He was just 31 and a husband and father of young children. But as a public figure his death represents a dangerous moment, as it threatens to deepen divides between conservatives and liberals in America and beyond.

Many commentaries on Kirk’s life will focus on his significance as a political activist and the important – some would say decisive – role he played in turning out the youth vote for Trump’s presidential election victory in 2024. But it is important to recognise how significant he had become as a public leader for what a growing number of scholars have referred to as white Christian nationalism.

While there is some variation in political views and theological beliefs among white Christian nationalists, a central, shared conviction is that the US was originally established as a Christian nation. For Christian nationalists, the idea of the separation of church and state is taken to refer only to not having an official state church. The complete separation of Christianity from public institutions is anathema and secular institutions such as public schools and universities are often regarded as hostile ground.

Given their view of America’s original religious calling, many Christian nationalists therefore believe that secular, liberal society is in terminal crisis. So America will only be put right when it returns to Christian laws or principles. This view of political disagreement is inherently binary. There are those who trust in God and support God’s work to transform society. Then there are those who oppose it. These people are mired in spiritual darkness.

Kirk’s Christian nationalist views and activism were not always comfortable watching. For example, along with others on the Christian right, Kirk publicly and vehemently challenged the place and legacy of Martin Luther King Jr, a hugely honoured figure in the US. In 2024, he chose the week in which the US celebrates a national holiday in honour of the murdered civil rights leader to label King “a serial adulterer, an alleged rapist, a reparations proponent, and a race Marxist”.

His organisation, Turning Point USA, also created Professor Watchlist. This online resource encouraged conservative students to name and shame college professors who had what were judged to be problematic views or activism linked to categories including “antifa”, “socialism” and “feminism”.

But while there is an element to white Christian nationalism which risks overturning basic democratic principles (as shown by the insurrection of January 6 2021), Kirk also had a better legacy. He became widely known on social media for his roadshows on college campuses which invited students to debate with him. He would put forward his views robustly, but also listened to his opponents.

These roadshows could be challenging for more liberally inclined students unused to having to defend their views. But at their best they provided surprising opportunities to find common ground. In one filmed discussion, for example, a feminist student had an engaged and respectful discussion with Kirk about his views about essential differences between men and women. They also agreed about the harmful effects of some forms of masculinity and the normalisation of pornography in youth culture. He maintained this commitment to these open public events despite the risks involved. It ultimately cost him his life.

Debate over Kirk’s legacy

This ambivalence between conflict and democratic engagement in Kirk’s work and the wider Christian nationalist movement is now finding expression in responses to his murder. On Fox News, as news of his death broke, shocked and distressed reaction nonetheless highlighted an interesting divide in the commentary. There were those who wanted to see this a turning point in the battle against the side of evil, the people who opposed his Christian mission. But others saw in his legacy a commitment to engagement and debate with those whom he disagreed with.

It remains to be seen which side of this legacy wins out. It should be observed, however, that much of Kirk’s following takes its cues from the current incumbent of the White House, whose instinct is usually to lean into division. And it was not different when the US president expressed his grief and anger at Kirk’s assassination, blaming the “radical left” for rising political violence in the US.

Most of the American people are neither ardent liberals nor committed Christian nationalists. But there is an ever-deepening political divide between those on the political left and right who no longer see each other as decent, trustworthy fellow citizens. As the political scientists Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt have argued, such polarisation is often a route to the death of true democracy.

At this moment of crisis, America – and the watching world – need to hope and work hard to ensure that Kirk’s legacy of democratic engagement and debate wins out. If this does not happen, the future for America is looking bleaker today.

Gordon Lynch 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. Charlie Kirk: why the battle over his legacy will divide even his most ardent admirers – https://theconversation.com/charlie-kirk-why-the-battle-over-his-legacy-will-divide-even-his-most-ardent-admirers-265116

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Melissa Butcher, Professor Emeritus, Social and Cultural Geography, Royal Holloway University of London

In December 2021, I was in an exhibition hall in Phoenix, Arizona, with 10,000 young people who had come to hear a lineup of “America first” speakers, from Tucker Carlson to Ted Cruz. This was AmericaFest, an annual rally led by Turning Point USA, a conservative youth organisation whose founder and CEO, Charlie Kirk, was murdered on September 10.

I have spent the past four years listening most days to Kirk’s view of the world while carrying out research for my upcoming book, The Trouble With Freedom. He was charismatic, combative and at times inflammatory. But he was also strategic and clever.

He loved the US, freedom, family and football, and possessed an immense drive to “save America” from what he felt was its decline from greatness. With a national radio show and speaking tours focused on university campuses, his platform reached millions. There were times when he disseminated disinformation, but there were also times when I found myself agreeing with him.

Kirk was emblematic of a country polarised and imploding. At AmericaFest, and across a constellation of organisations and commentators working to “save freedom, save America”, the US is divided into those who are “loved” and those who are “hated”. This division is mirrored in progressive or liberal spheres.

Retribution is threatened and others are blamed. Opposing sides, each struggling for “the soul of the nation”, define the other by emotional indicators such as “angry”, “bitter”, “miserable”, “destroying”, “vicious”, “menacing”, “thugs”, “extremists”, “resentful”, “weak” or “unhinged”.

These sentiments serve a purpose. As cultural theorist Sara Ahmed argued in her 2004 book, The Cultural Politics of Emotion, it is through intensifying emotions that an “other” takes shape.

But while sharing emotions – rage as well as love – creates bonds, it also drives us away from others. This was something I experienced at AmericaFest as presenters repeatedly told the 10,000 young people present that people like me – childless, unmarried, atheist academics – hated them for being conservatives.

As people arrange themselves – where they live and who they socialise with – on the basis of how they feel, the end result can be a form of “partisan segregation”. Democrats and Republicans now appear increasingly unlikely to live with those who hold different political views.

Faced with rapid and profound changes, the idea of America and what it represents – freedom and prosperity – is slipping out of reach for some. This is creating feelings of loss and anger. In discussions I held with people from across the political spectrum, in social clubs, shooting ranges, workplaces and homes, people named points of cultural rupture.

Conversations were haunted by a feeling that community is breaking down. The promise of an affluent future is disappearing in the face of environmental collapse and successive financial crises. Deindustrialisation and the shift to a digital economy brings with it precarity. And fractious governance oversees divisions along generational, gendered, class, racial, religious, and rural and urban lines.

How people live together, and how they remember, has changed. The result is an anxiety-inducing realisation that safety can be contingent, random, luck of birth or where you happen to sit on a bus. Cultural breakdown can be watched incessantly, on repeat and archived for future reference as we doom scroll on our phones.

Responses to this rupturing and reshaping of life that was once taken for granted can range from psychological discomfort to murderous rage, as the world has just seen with Kirk’s assassination.

The US president, Donald Trump, understands this response and exacerbates it. He focuses on law and order, dystopian cities and out of control borders. He talks of a third world war not being far away, increasing anxiety and the subsequent desire for firmer ground, or a strong leader, to hang on to.

“Liberal” criticism of nationalist or populist responses neglects the pain some feel in managing change and the fears of being unsafe that go with it. This entrenches divisions further. More than just “angry Trump supporters” suffering from the loss of conservative leadership, the 2024 US election results suggest there is a broad spectrum of people who felt uncomfortable with a changing America that Democrats were held responsible for.

This is what Kirk tapped into and is encapsulated by Ines, one of the gen Z participants in my research. She said “generations that are growing up now don’t know a world where there wasn’t a school shooting every week … we were born into disaster and like our world is literally dying. So it’s like our generation doesn’t know a time when things were safe and comfortable.”

These divisions – alongside increasing inequalities, the misinformation and disinformation spread on social media and paralysed political systems – appear to be sending us collectively backwards into violent autocracy.

Even if it doesn’t feel like it right now, we can find ways to handle change and the emotions that come with it. In every conversation I’ve had across the political spectrum in the US, people talk about wanting to be part of something bigger – to care about more than just themselves, or to feel safe again through community. There’s a longing to bring back a sense of connection and care.

Even at their most angry, conversations indicated a desire to live in meaningful, caring relationships. Without a doubt, too much love and the boundaries of community become hard and less adaptable to change. But connection can also hold the potential to work against feelings of loss, ambivalence, hate and subsequent violence.

Melissa Butcher has received funding from UKRI and the ECR. She is affiliated with Cumberland Lodge.

– ref. Charlie Kirk was emblematic of a country polarised and imploding – https://theconversation.com/charlie-kirk-was-emblematic-of-a-country-polarised-and-imploding-265094

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Stefan Wolff, Professor of International Security, University of Birmingham

On the morning of September 10, Nato jets were scrambled over eastern Poland to defend the airspace of an alliance member against an incursion by Russian drones. It was the first time that the west fired shots in the Kremlin’s war against Ukraine.

This incursion marks a serious escalation by Moscow. But it also highlights yet again that the west has no clear red lines and is unprepared to respond decisively if red lines that were taken for granted in the past – like the territorial integrity of Nato members – are crossed.

This latest Russian escalation isn’t the usual war of words. It was only last week that Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, warned that foreign troops in Ukraine would be legitimate targets for his invasion force.

He slightly qualified his comments by noting that this would be the case “especially now, while the fighting is ongoing”. But the message was nevertheless clear. Russia will oppose any international security guarantees that involve western troops in Ukraine. This has been a long-standing and frequently articulated position by Russia. Yet, Putin’s rhetoric threatening to target western troops clearly ups the ante.

But these are not the only ways in which the Kremlin has markedly turned up the pressure over the past few weeks and months. Russia has also retained some momentum in its military campaign in Ukraine and has been further empowered by several successes on the diplomatic front.

On the battlefield, Russia has continued to demonstrate significant advantages in manpower and military hardware.

Where the entire Nato alliance struggled to cope with the incursion of just 19 drones, Ukraine has been subject to an intense air campaign with hundreds of drones and often dozens of missiles every night for months.

The attacks have become more brazen – recently targeting Ukraine’s government building in Kyiv. They have also become more deadly, leading to increasing loss of civilian lives. As in past years, Russia has also targeted Ukrainian energy infrastructure, which bodes ill for another grim winter for the country.

On the ground, Russian gains have been small and Ukraine has regained strategically important territory around the key city of Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region. Nonetheless, and this is what matters for Putin’s messaging, Russia is advancing, however incrementally and costly it might be.

Putin’s aggressive moves

Diplomatically, Putin received an important boost from the annual summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation in Tianjin and subsequent bilateral deals agreed with China. He will have been cheered by the cordial relations on display between Russian, Chinese and North Korean leaders at the September 3 military parade to mark China’s victory over Japan in the second world war.

The Russian president can now be more assured than ever that his partners will have his back – economically in the case of China and India, and militarily in the case of North Korea.

Buoyed by such “successes” that his war machine will not suddenly grind to a halt, the Russian president felt confident enough to demand that Ukraine negotiate an end to the war with him or face the consequences of him ending the war by force.

Putin’s idea of a negotiated end to the war, however, is anything but that. What he has in mind is that Ukraine and its western allies should simply accept his longstanding demands: territorial losses, no Nato membership and no western forces to secure any peace deal.

This multi-layered Russian pressure campaign is not merely an accidental confluence of unrelated forces somehow magically lining up in Putin’s favour. It is part of a carefully crafted campaign for Russia to retain relevance in what will probably shape up as a future bipolar US and Chinese-dominated international order. If Putin has accepted Chinese dominance in Asia, he still sees opportunities for Russia to be the dominant power in Europe – and restore at least part of its Soviet-era zone of influence.

For that to be achieved, the Kremlin needs to demonstrate that Ukraine’s western partners are feckless in the face of Russian determination. So far, Putin is doing well. All of the deadlines and ultimatums set by the US president, Donald Trump, have been ignored by Russia – at zero cost.

Trump’s response to Russian drones in Polish airspace was a short post on his Truth Social network that indicated surprise more than an actual response to what could quickly develop into a serious crisis. Meanwhile, Trump has yet to offer his support for a bipartisan bill in the US senate to put more sanctions pressure on Russia.

Western response

Similarly, while European leaders have been quick and forceful in their condemnations of this latest Russian provocation, their reactions have, as usual, been at the rhetorical level.

Poland merely invoked Nato’s Article 4 procedure for formal consultations among allies in the North Atlantic Council. But the outcome of this consultation was little more than a meek statement by Mark Rutte, Nato’s secretary general, that “a full assessment of the incident is ongoing” and that the alliance “will closely monitor the situation along our eastern flank, our air defences continually at the ready”.

The statement by the EU’s foreign affairs chief, Kaja Kallas, offered solidarity with Poland and promised to “raise the cost for Moscow further by ramping up sanctions significantly on Russia and its enablers”. Given that the EU is on its 18th sanctions package and the war in Ukraine continues unabated, it’s hard to see a gamechanger here. Delivered the morning after the Russian drone incursions into Poland, the annual state of the union address by Ursula von der Leyen offered little more than confirmation of EU aspirations “to be able to take care of our own defence and security”.

None of this will have Putin worried. It should, however, worry Ukrainians and the rest of Europe.

Stefan Wolff is a past recipient of grant funding from the Natural Environment Research Council of the UK, the United States Institute of Peace, the Economic and Social Research Council of the UK, the British Academy, the NATO Science for Peace Programme, the EU Framework Programmes 6 and 7 and Horizon 2020, as well as the EU’s Jean Monnet Programme. He is a Trustee and Honorary Treasurer of the Political Studies Association of the UK and a Senior Research Fellow at the Foreign Policy Centre in London.

– ref. Russian drones over Poland is a serious escalation – here’s why the west’s response won’t worry Putin – https://theconversation.com/russian-drones-over-poland-is-a-serious-escalation-heres-why-the-wests-response-wont-worry-putin-265001

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Amy Eaglestone, PhD Candidate, University of Birmingham and Lecturer, Leiden University

Parliamentary elections will be held in Moldova on September 28. While this may seem like a minor event for the rest of Europe, implications for the rest of the continent’s security and stability could be profound.

Moldova plays a vital role in supporting Ukraine. Even though it is among Europe’s poorest countries, it absorbed over 1.5 million Ukrainian refugees at one point during the war and is now home to more than 100,000.

It also helps to ship grain to and from Ukraine through its Danube ports, offering an alternative route and alleviating pressure on Ukraine’s Black Sea routes which are often cut off by Russian blockades.

Should Moldova pivot towards Moscow, Ukraine’s support structure will be weakened, undermining the EU’s eastern resilience. This would increase the risk of military attacks around the EU’s borders, with Romania looking particularly threatened, but increased attacks on Poland and the Baltic states not out of the question.

European leaders signalled awareness of just what could be at risk, with the French president, Emmanuel Macron, along with the chancellor of Germany, Friedrich Merz, and the Polish prime minister, Donald Tusk, travelling to Moldova to talk about unity and commitment to the country at the end of August.

Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, has previously suggested he planned to occupy the whole of Ukraine, bringing his forces even closer to the rest of Europe. Footage released by Russia’s defence ministry on August 30 suggests a plan to seize Odesa and Kharkiv oblasts, areas along the Black Sea. Meanwhile, a pro-Russian Moldovan government could offer an eastern base for attacks – or even to open a new front. Another factor is that Russia already has around 1,500 troops stationed in Transnistria, a pro-Russian breakaway region of Moldova on the Ukraine border, which demanded independence in 2006, after a ballot that was not recognised by Moldova or the international community.

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Read more:
Russia has provided fresh evidence of its territorial ambitions in Ukraine

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This raises the stakes for the majority of nearby states, many of which are Nato members. Nato members have collective defence commitments under Nato’s article 5, which means they should come to the aid of a fellow Nato member if it were to be attacked.

Moldova’s current state

Moldova’s pro-EU president Maia Sandu currently holds 63 seats in the 101-seat parliament as part of the Party of Action and Solidarity (PAS). Since the party came to office in 2021 it has moved closer to the EU, applying for membership in 2021 after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Moldova was awarded candidacy status in June 2022.

In June 2024, accession negotiations were formally opened and, in July 2025, the first EU-Moldova summit was held. The population still broadly supports EU membership, but PAS is projected to vote share, although it is still leading in the polls. This dip in support from an initial 52.8% in the previous parliamentary elections in July 2021 to 25.8% in August 2025 stems from domestic dissatisfaction with [the party] and lack of progress on its policy platform.

In its election campaign PAS promised to fight corruption, make the public sector more efficient, and improve the economy, but they have not made significant progress on any of these plans.

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Read more:
Why experts expect Russian interference in upcoming election on Ukraine’s borders

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PAS has presented its progress on EU accession as a key achievement. But without seeing concrete benefits, the electorate has become increasingly alienated from the process.

The PAS government has been in crisis mode for much of its time in power, dealing with a variety of threats created by Russia such as an ongoing energy crisis, raising gas prices and eventually cutting off supplies and a significant loss of exports to Russia and Ukraine has also contributed to a stagnant economy.

So what’s likely to happen?

The most likely election result is that PAS will be forced into a coalition with one or more of the pro-Russian opposition parties, groups that advocate distancing Moldova from Europe. PAS has dominated the pro-EU political space, but the recently established pro-European Alternative Bloc (8.1%) is projected to gain enough votes to overcome the 5% threshold to enter parliament.

While PAS might still gain the most votes, the Patriotic Bloc of Communists, a pro-Russia group led by former president Igor Dodon, is currently expected to be the second-biggest political grouping. This brings together a number of parties including the Party of Socialists, Party of Communists, the Heart of Moldova and Future of Moldova parties. Dodon is currently facing charges of using corrupt practices to control decision making during his presidential term, and allowing state resources to be embezzled on a large scale. The US Treasury also claimed that he was involved in systemic corruption in conjunction with Russia. Court proceedings are ongoing. Dodon denies all charges, and has complained to the European Court of Human Rights that he is facing an unfair trial.

Advancing Russian influence?

Moldova has become a testing ground for Russian cyberattacks and large-scale disinformation campaigns.

It has been a target of Russian political interference. This was evident in the presidential elections and EU referendum in 2024, where attempts at manipulation and foreign influence were widely documented.

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Read more:
Maia Sandu’s victory in second round of Moldovan election show’s limits to Moscow’s meddling

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Similar, if not more, interference from Russia is expected in the upcoming election by the current Moldovan government and the EU.

These 2025 elections come at a decisive moment, not only for Moldova’s future but for the rest of Europe. Other countries need to pay attention to what is happening, and any interference in how the election is carried out.

Amy Eaglestone 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. Why Moldova’s election is important for the whole of Europe – https://theconversation.com/why-moldovas-election-is-important-for-the-whole-of-europe-264078

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Sam Phelps, Commissioning Editor, International Affairs, The Conversation

The world is the most violent it has been in decades. A report by the Peace Research Institute Oslo recorded 61 conflicts across 36 countries last year – the highest level since 1946. Given the number of conflicts currently active worldwide, this figure could well be taken to new heights again this year.

Wars carry an obvious human cost. Almost 65,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since Israel began its assault on the territory in October 2023, while the lives of up to 250,000 Russian troops are thought to have been lost in Ukraine.

We’re all familiar with these figures. This is because they’re the ones that tend to dominate news headlines. But wars are also incredibly environmentally destructive – and the damage often goes unnoticed until it’s too late to remedy.

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There are three reasons why the climate crisis must reshape how we think about war, says Duncan Depledge of Loughborough University. His first point is that war degrades the environment. The fighting itself causes considerable damage to land, while hostilities can fragment international cooperation on climate change.

The emissions associated with military operations worldwide – such as those generated by military aircraft – also probably rival some of the highest-polluting countries.

Depledge, a senior lecturer in geopolitics and security, acknowledges that it’s not easy to calculate the footprint of military activities. China and Russia’s military emissions, for instance, have proved almost impossible to assess due to the lack of data they report.

“But the crucial point is that recognition of the climate costs of war increasingly raises moral and practical questions about the need for more strategic restraint and whether the business of war can ever be rendered less environmentally destructive.”

His second point is that the effects of climate change may well intensify the risk of violence in certain parts of the world. “Some conflicts in the Middle East and Sahel have already been labelled ‘climate wars’, implying they may not have happened if it were not for the stresses of climate change.”

And third, he suggests that military forces could soon be rendered less effective due to more extreme and unpredictable climate conditions. Depledge says that these factors are together leaving researchers “with the uncomfortable prospect of having to rethink how military force can – and ought to be – wielded” in a changing world.

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Read more:
Three reasons why the climate crisis must reshape how we think about war

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Has climate change always led to violence? This was the question I put to Jay Silverstein, an expert on the archaeology of warfare at Nottingham Trent University. “There is a wide consensus that climatic stress contributes to regional escalations of violence when it has an impact on food production”, he told me in response. “Yet historical evidence reveals a more complex reality.”

Silverstein explains that looming crises have often spurred human ingenuity. This has enabled some civilisations to survive and others to thrive. “Water-lifting technologies – from the Egyptian shaduf to Chinese water wheels and Persian windmills – expanded arable land and intensified production”, he notes as an example.

However, climate stress has also triggered violence that has helped wipe entire civilisations from the map. “As humanity confronts an escalating environmental crisis driven by global warming, the reflexive response to climate stress – political instability and conflict – should be challenged by a renewed commitment to adaptation, cooperation and innovation.”

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Read more:
Environmental pressures need not always spark conflict – lessons from history show how crisis can be avoided

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War’s lasting legacy

While travelling down the coast of Vietnam a few years ago, I stopped off in the small rural province of Quảng Trị. The area was a major battleground during the Vietnam war and was pretty much bombed flat by American forces. The province remains littered with unexploded ordnance today.

Unexploded bombs continue to kill and injure people throughout Vietnam, as well as in many other places around the world. They also cause considerable damage to the environment. Sarah Njeri and Christina Greene of SOAS, University of London and the University of Arizona respectively explain that this manifests in different ways.

Unexploded bombs and landmines “can leak heavy metals and toxic waste into the soil, polluting land and water”. And even the methods for clearing unexploded ordnance can contribute to land degradation, they say, drawing on evidence of the release of hazardous metals into the soil in northeastern Iraq following demining activities.

Climate change is making matters worse. Floods and heavy rainfall can unearth or displace landmines, while extreme heat can cause abandoned or unexploded munitions to explode.

Evidence of this came just weeks ago. Wildfires on the North Yorkshire moors in the UK – where we’ve just endured our hottest summer on record – caused 18 bombs to explode that had been lodged in the soil since the second world war.

“Explosive remnants of war have a lasting impact”, say Njeri and Greene. “Climate change is only making the threat more unpredictable and challenging to address.”

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Read more:
How unexploded bombs cause environmental damage – and why climate change exacerbates the problem

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Another lasting effect of war is that it displaces people from their homes. These people, writes Kerrie Holloway of the ODI Global thinktank, are particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change.

According to Holloway, a research fellow in the Humanitarian Policy Group, displaced people “are likely to have used up whatever money and other assets they had prior to their displacement, leaving them unable to make the same adaptations as those who have not been displaced.”

They also often find themselves settling on land that is only available because existing residents do not want it. Holloway points to the Iraqi city of Mosul – where Yusuf, a refugee I got to know some years ago, was forced to flee from – as an example.

“Stagnated reconstruction following the liberation of the city from the Islamic State militant group in 2017 has resulted in a scarcity of adequate housing. This has left many displaced people residing in unfinished or makeshift shelters on unpaved roads that are prone to flooding during heavy rains.”

And finally, displaced people are often overlooked in disaster management plans. This, Holloway writes, “can result in them not heeding early warnings when they are given”.

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Read more:
Why people displaced by conflict are particularly vulnerable to climate risks

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– ref. Introducing War on Climate, a new series that explores how conflict interacts with environmental issues around the globe – https://theconversation.com/introducing-war-on-climate-a-new-series-that-explores-how-conflict-interacts-with-environmental-issues-around-the-globe-264815

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Carolina Machado Oliveira, Filmmaker, Senior Lecturer in Factual, Bournemouth University

Deep in the Amazon, sound designer Eric Terena has been capturing the sounds of the rainforest while sitting silently beneath the dense, towering treetops with his recording equipment. He has noticed some huge changes.

“What the environment once spoke, what biodiversity once sang, has shifted to sounds from industrial projects that have arrived in our territories,” said Terena, co-founder of Mídia Indígena, a Brazilian media and communications network which promotes and preserves Indigenous cultures.

His words describe more than a change in sound – they show how nature is gradually being replaced by machines. Ancestral songs have been drowned out by industrial noise. Terena shares these changes using digital tools to bring local stories to global audiences, turning lived experience into climate knowledge.

In our research with Indigenous communities in the Brazilian Amazon, we examine how film and other media technologies, from smartphones to social platforms, are being used to document environmental change, defend land rights and influence climate debates. Together with Indigenous leaders and the Intercultural Faculty in Mato Grosso, Brazil, we explore how “educommunication” – which combines media education with active community participation – can build the technical skills and political capacity that young communicators need to tell their stories to different audiences, from local villagers to global leaders.

As Cop30, the UN climate summit, comes to Brazil this November, our research shows how these digital tools are enabling Indigenous voices to help reshape global understanding of the climate crisis – ensuring their perspectives are present not only in cultural storytelling, but in international environmental decision-making.

A pivotal shift

This shift didn’t happen overnight. It began with a few voices that grew into a movement. Terena co-founded Mídia Indígena in 2017 at the Free Land Camp, a yearly Indigenous rights gathering in Brasília. Alongside him, a group of young Guajajara leaders (Indigenous peoples from Maranhão, Brazil) launched the platform, training 128 young Indigenous people how to report, record and share their stories. Mídia Indígena has grown quickly – its videos now receive more than 10 million views each year.

At the heart of this work is a powerful idea: “Nothing about us, without us.” Indigenous people can now tell their own stories without relying on outsiders to speak for them. They decide what to film, how to tell a story, and who sees it.

The impact of this shift became clear during the Yanomami humanitarian crisis in early 2023. The Yanomami, one of the largest Indigenous groups in the Amazon, live across northern Brazil and southern Venezuela in territories deeply affected by illegal gold mining. That year, reports emerged of severe malnutrition, child deaths and mercury poisoning caused by mining operations contaminating rivers and destroying forest ecosystems.

Because Mídia Indígena’s reporters were already present in the territory, they were the first to document and publish evidence of the crisis. Their coverage not only exposed the immediate health emergency but also linked it to broader issues of environmental destruction and climate change. National and international outlets eventually followed with their own reports – but only after Indigenous journalists had already broken the story.

This was more than journalism; it was lived truth, rooted in a deep knowledge of the land. Mídia Indígena’s reporting had an authenticity that no outsider could match.

And they are not alone. Young communicators from Xingu+, a network from the Xingu River basin and surrounding Indigenous territories in Brazil, created a powerful video called Fire is burning the eyes of Xingu, showing illegal fires destroying parts of the Amazon. Their video caught the attention of the US Agency for International Development and the EU, emphasising how local stories can prompt global awareness.

Films by the Ijã Mytyli Manoki and Myki Cinema Collective, founded in 2020 by two neighbouring Indigenous peoples of Mato Grosso, show how traditional knowledge and rituals are being praised in Europe, even if they’re less known in Brazil. As filmmaker Renan Kisedjê said in the short film Our Grandparents Hunted Here, “we are digital warriors”. Where once bows and arrows defended the land, today cameras and smartphones continue the fight for land, rights and justice.

Challenging outdated ideas

Collectives such as Mídia Guarani are another part of this digital resistance. Their videos challenge outdated ideas about Indigenous life and show how deeply these communities are connected to both nature and technology.

But this storytelling is not only about identity – it’s about survival. These creators shine a light on urgent threat such as Brazil’s “devastation bill”, which seeks to weaken environmental safeguards by expanding environmental self-licensing and eroding protections for traditional territories. Such measures open the door to unchecked pollution and land grabs.

By reporting on dangers like this, Indigenous communicators seek to hold governments and corporations to account. Their stories do more than inform – they generate public pressure and demand change.

This shift matters internationally too. The UK has pledged £11.6 billion in climate finance between 2021 and 2026, including £3 billion for nature restoration and £1.5 billion for forests. Yet the Independent Commission for Aid Impact, an organisation that scrutinises UK aid spending, warns that changes in accounting may have “moved the goalposts”, inflating apparent spending without ensuring impact on the ground.

Much of this funding has traditionally flowed through large international charities and foundations, such as the Rainforest Foundation UK and the International Institute for Environment and Development, which work with Indigenous communities on mapping, monitoring, advocacy and sustainable policy.

Increasingly, however, Indigenous communities are speaking directly to funding donors and shaping allocations. This shift matters because they collectively manage vast areas of land critical to conservation. While many governments invest in expensive climate technologies, these communities have long protected ecosystems through practices proven over generations.

For the first time in the history of UN climate summits, large numbers of South American Indigenous people will attend Cop30 in November – both in person and online. For a long time, they’ve been building networks to fill the gap left by mainstream media. Now, these once silenced voices are loud, clear and deeply informed.

In late August, a hundred Indigenous reporters gathered in Belém for the 1st National Meeting of Indigenous Communication. Under the motto “Indigenous communication is resistance, territory and future”, they strengthened their networks and prepared collectively for COP30.

As the world’s most experienced environmental defenders gain more power in climate talks, their stories, and the way they tell them, will help shape the decisions that affect us all.

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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. The digital movement that is enabling Indigenous people to show for themselves how the Amazon region is changing – https://theconversation.com/the-digital-movement-that-is-enabling-indigenous-people-to-show-for-themselves-how-the-amazon-region-is-changing-261616