In January 2024, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued a provisional ruling in a case brought by South Africa against Israel, alleging genocide in Gaza. The court found Palestinians have a “plausible” right to protection from genocide in Gaza and that Israel must take all measures to prevent a genocide from occurring.
While the ICJ case may take years to play out, we asked five Australian experts in international law and genocide studies what constitutes a genocide, what the legal standard is, and whether the evidence, in their view, shows one is occurring.
Melanie O’Brien is the president of the International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS). This piece does not represent the view of IAGS.
Ben Saul is the United Nations special rapporteur on human rights and counter-terrorism, an independent expert appointed by consensus of the member states of the United Nations Human Rights Council.
Eyal Mayroz served as a counterterrorism specialist with the Israeli Defence Forces in the 1980s.
Paul James and Shannon Bosch 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.
Insects are arguably the most important animals on the planet. Their variety is unparalleled in nature, and they carry out vital tasks such as pollinating plants and providing food for other animals.
But all is not well in the insect world. Research over the last few years has shown sustained declines in insect species and numbers. It appeared Earth was witnessing a global-scale crash in insects – and climate change was partly to blame.
The evidence was mostly confined to temperate regions in the Northern Hemisphere. But our new research – published today in Nature – shows it’s also happening in the tropics, where most of Earth’s species live.
We found significant biodiversity loss in spiders, as well as insects including butterflies and beetles. The likely culprit is long-term changes to the El Niño cycle, caused by climate change. It suggests the life-support system underpinning the tropics is at serious risk in a warmer world.
Uncovering the effects of El Niño
El Niños vary massively across tropical regions, but are often characterised by hot and dry conditions (as opposed to the cool and moist conditions of La Niña).
Alternating El Niño and La Niña events can naturally cause many insects to come and go. That’s due to changes in temperature and moisture levels which can affect insect breeding, life cycles and behaviour.
But as climate change worsens, strong El Niño events are becoming more frequent and intense. We wanted to know how this affected insects in tropical regions.
To find out, we examined 80 existing studies of insects in relatively pristine tropical forests – mostly from the tropical Americas. We linked that data to measures of strength in El Niño and La Niña through time.
We found cause for concern. El Niño events appear to cause a rapid decline in both insect biodiversity, and the ecological tasks they perform. These trends were persistent and highly unnatural.
Several types of insects have become more rare in the tropical Americas over recent decades. These included butterflies, beetles and “true bugs” – insects from the order Hemiptera distinguished by two sets of wings and piercing mouthparts used to feed on plants. Butterflies in tropical Asia were also declining.
The strongest declines were in rare insects that would naturally decrease during El Niño. These insect populations would usually bounce back in a La Niña. But climate-fuelled El Niños are causing many populations to fall so far, they cannot recover.
Drastic changes to forests
Our findings suggest the diversity of tropical insects could be chipped away with every El Niño event. This is not just a problem for the species themselves, but other parts of the ecosystem that depend on them.
Our research also involved modelling the decomposition and consumption of leaves by insects across the tropical Americas, Asia and Africa. Both processes are crucial to the health of tropical forests.
Decomposition fluctuated in line with the abundance of termites, which are probably the most important decomposers in the tropics. And worryingly, the amount of live leaves consumed by insects appears to have crashed in recent decades. This correlated strongly with the crash in butterflies and beetles.
These drastic changes may have implications for food webs and other organisms that rely on insects.
The diversity of tropical insects could be chipped away with every El Niño event. Li Ajang/Shtterstock
A difficult future ahead
Our research could not take in the huge diversity of tropical insects – most of which have not yet been formally described by scientists. But it points to a difficult future for insects – and their habitats – as climate change worsens.
Little data exists on insect numbers in Australia’s Wet Tropics, in Queensland. However, monitoring work is underway at facilities such as the Daintree Rainforest Observatory. Such projects will help us better understand changes in insect biodiversity under climate change.
More research is also needed at other locations around the world. Given the fundamental role insects play in supporting life on Earth, the urgency of this work cannot be overstated.
Nigel Stork receives funding from Australian Research Council grant DP200103100
Adam Sharp receives funding from Hong Kong University Grants Committee Collaborative Research Fund (C7048-22GF).
Actress Sydney Sweeney is once again embroiled in controversy. This time the debate isn’t centred around Sweeney selling soaps infused with her bathwater or posting pictures of MAGA-inspired red caps. Instead, the Euphoria star is making rounds for her role in a contentious ad campaign with American Eagle Outfitters.
In it, Sweeney lounges artfully on a chaise while fastening a pair of American Eagle jeans. In a breathy voiceover, she says, “Genes are passed down from parents to offspring, often determining traits like hair colour, personality and even eye colour.”
As the camera slowly pans upward and she turns her eyes toward the viewer, Sweeney concludes, “My jeans are blue.”
Commentators and social media users have argued the campaign serves as a conservative dog whistle, conveying thinly veiled support for white supremacy and eugenics.
Sydney Sweeney in the most controversial American Eagle ad.
American Eagle released a statement defending the ad on August 1, writing “‘Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans’ is and always was about the jeans,” on Instagram.
Innocent marketing or intentional dog whistle?
Eugenics is a discredited ideology rooted in white supremacy and scientific racism. It promotes the false belief that racial groupings are biologically determined, and that some groups are genetically superior to others and should selectively reproduce to preserve their “good genes.”
Historically, the end goal of eugenics has been to eliminate so-called “bad genes” — often associated with non-white, disabled, poor or otherwise marginalized communities — so social elites can maintain their dominance.
Fashion advertising playing on eugenic themes has a long history. Commentators have gestured to similarities between the Sweeney ad and the infamous 1980s campaign for Calvin Klein featuring a then-15-year-old Brooke Shields, who rolls around in her Calvins while talking about genetic codes, evolution and survival of the fittest — language evocative of eugenic thinking.
The American Eagle campaign appears to be a direct homage to the Calvin campaign, but is rhetoric reminiscent of eugenics really something we want to reference in marketing?
The return of ‘traditional’ femininity
The American Eagle campaign is pointedly titled “Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans,” with “jeans” sometimes swapped out for “genes.” It’s clearly meant to be tongue-in-cheek.
But this is not just a harmless ad. If the campaign didn’t reflect broader cultural tensions, neither U.S. President Donald Trump nor Sen. Ted Cruz would have commented on it.
With its celebration of Sweeney’s conventionally attractive appearance, American Eagle has reintroduced the “traditional” feminine figure loudly and proudly. In this sense, the campaign symbolizes a changing of the cultural tides: out with body positivity, in with the “amazing rack” and all it signifies.
In our present cultural moment saturated with conservative messaging, Sweeney — a young, thin, white and sexualized Hollywood star — is hardly a surprising figure to hear extolling the quality of her “genes” (sorry, jeans).
From the rise of tradwife influencers and SkinnyTokers to the ritualized feminine performance of “morning shedders,” the campaign lands squarely within a broader revival of regressive feminine ideals wrapped in aspirational, white-washed beauty.
Exorcising self-love from the corporate agenda
As a feminist media scholar interested in the intersection of pop culture and the far right, my ongoing research explores the rise of anti-feminism and right-wing politics. We are no longer in the age of popular feminism, when corporations eagerly appropriated feminist rhetoric to sell their products and services.
In its place, brands are reverting to traditional imagery: thin, white women styled for the male gaze — a term referring to the objectification and sexualization of women in popular media, from film and television to fashion ads. It’s a strategy that has long worked for them, and it’s one they’re glad is back in vogue.
Campaigns touting “love your body,” “empowerment,” and “confidence” in the late 2010s and early 2020s were intentionally designed to court progressive consumers and profit from the popularity of feminism. The core business model of these corporations — sell insecurities and reap profits for shareholders — had not fundamentally changed.
If anything, as other scholars argue, self-love marketing encouraged women to not only upgrade their bodies but also their minds. It was no longer culturally acceptable that women look good; they had to also feel good about their bodies. That standard required more work and, of course, products, which brands happily supplied.
Spurred on by an increasingly conservative political climate, many brands are no longer shy about expressing their motives. Thin is back in and whiteness is re-associated with rightness.
Although many news articles are describing a consumer “backlash” to the Sweeney American Eagle campaign, I’m referring to something different: the rise of a cultural backlash against progressive social movements and politics. This backlash is currently taking shape across political, legal and economic domains, and it goes beyond a single ad.
Today’s current backlash is a reaction to popular feminism, Black Lives Matter, DEI and incisive systemic analyses found in feminist, anti-racist and queer scholarship and activism. The Sweeney campaign is just one expression of this larger pattern.
Faludi shrewdly observed that “images of the restrained women line the walls of the popular culture’s gallery” during periods of backlash. That insight feels newly relevant.
Just days after American Eagle dropped its campaign, Kim Kardashian’s company SKIMS released their “sculpt face wraps” — a product designed to give users a more “sculpted” jawline. On the SKIMS website, product images show women ensnared in products that resemble Hannibal Lecter’s famous mask or a surgical brace. They are disconcerting, to say the least.
If Faludi has taught us anything, it’s that a trend of images showing women restrained — physically or to rigidly defined roles — are not only harbingers of a menacing future, but are indicative of a chilling present that we must recognize to resist.
Meaghan Furlano 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.
Fire season is expanding in California, with an earlier start to wildfire activity in most of the state. In parts of the northern mountains, the season is now starting more than 10 weeks earlier than it did in the 1990s, a new study shows.
Atmospheric scientists Gavin Madakumbura and Alex Hall, two authors of the study, explain how climate warming has been driving this trend and why the trend is likely to continue.
What did your study find about how wildfire season is changing?
Over the past three decades, California has seen a trend toward more destructive wildfire seasons, with more land burned, but also an earlier start to fire season. We wanted to find out how much of a role climate change was playing in that shift to an earlier start.
We looked at hundreds of thousands of fire records from 1992 to 2020 and documented when fire season started in each region of the state as temperatures rose and vegetation dried out.
While other research has observed changes in the timing of fire season in the western U.S., we identified the drivers of this trend and quantified their effects.
The typical onset of summer fire season, which is in May or June in many regions, has shifted earlier by at least one month in most of the state since the 1990s, and by about 2½ months in some regions, including the northern mountains. Of that, we found that human-caused climate change was responsible for advancing the season between six and 46 days earlier across most of the state from 1992 to 2020.
Our results suggest that as climate warming trends continue, this pattern will likely persist, with earlier starts to fire season in the coming years. This means longer fire seasons, increasing the potential for more of the state to burn.
California typically leads the nation in the number of wildfires, as well as the cost of wildfire damage. But the results also provide some insight into the risks ahead for other fire-prone parts of North America.
What’s driving the earlier start to fire season?
There are a few big contributors to long-term changes in wildfire activity. One is how much fuel is available to burn, such as grasses and trees. Another is the increase in ignition sources, including power lines, as more people move into wildland areas. A third is how dry the fuel is, or fuel aridity.
We found that fuel aridity, which is controlled by climate conditions, had the strongest influence on year-to-year shifts in the timing of the onset of fire season. The amount of potential fuel and increase in ignition sources, while contributing to fires overall, didn’t drive the trend in earlier fires.
Year-to-year, there will always be some natural fluctuations. Some years are wet, others dry. Some years are hotter than others. In our study, we separated the natural climate variations from changes driven by human-caused climate warming.
Just as a warmer, drier year can lead to an earlier fire season in a single year, gradual warming and drying caused by climate change are systematically advancing the start of fire seasons. This is happening because it is increasing fuel flammability.
Why has the start to fire season shifted more in some regions than others?
The biggest shifts we’ve seen in fire season timing in California have been in the northern mountains.
In the mountains, the winter snowpack typically keeps the ground and forests wet into summer, making it harder for fires to burn. But in warmer years, when the snowpack melts earlier, the fire potential rises earlier too.
Those warmer years are becoming more common. The reason climate change has a stronger impact in mountain regions is that snowpack is highly sensitive to warming. And when it melts sooner, vegetation dries out sooner.
In contrast, drier regions, such as desert ecoregions, are more sensitive to precipitation changes than to temperature changes. When assessing the influence of climate change in these areas, we mainly look at whether precipitation patterns have shifted due to climate warming. However, there is a lot of natural year-to-year variability in precipitation, and that makes it harder to identify the influence of climate change.
It’s possible that when precipitation changes driven by climate warming become strong enough, we may detect a stronger effect in these regions as well.
Gavin D. Madakumbura receives funding from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation.
Alex Hall receives funding from the NSF, DOE, NOAA, LADWP, and State of California, among other sources.
How often do you chat about climate change? When the weather’s been “a bit crazy”? Maybe with an estranged uncle over Christmas dinner? Recent polling reveals that over half of British adults rarely or never share their opinions about our warming planet.
Why does this matter? Because talking about climate change is one of the most important things we can do to tackle it. Conversations shape social norms, and social norms shape behaviour.
To be clear: it’s not about convincing your friends, family, neighbours or colleagues to care about climate change. Chances are they already do. It’s about letting them know you care too – that it’s normal to care, and typical to take action.
Talking about climate change is how we break the taboo, build a sense of unity, inspire hope and kickstart action. And it’s easier than you might think.
The analysis by insights platform Climate Barometer finds that 56% of Brits say they “rarely” or “never” share their opinions about climate change in day-to-day life. Its survey of 2,796 British adults, conducted in April 2025, revealed that only one in ten regularly express their climate views. This “climate silence” persists even among supporters of environmental policies.
Other studies paint a slightly chattier picture. In Ireland, 33% of people reportedly discuss climate change with family and friends “often”, while 39% of respondents to the Scottish Climate Survey had spoken about climate change at least weekly in the last month.
A similar pattern emerges in sport. Research by my colleagues at the Centre for Climate Change and Social Transformations found one-third of UK football fans speak to their friends, family and colleagues “often” or “very often” about climate change – although they are much less likely to speak to other football fans and strangers about the topic.
While climate chatter varies with things like age, social grade, education and political affiliation, generally people aren’t talking about climate change very often, especially when it involves sharing their opinion.
This cognitive error – repeatedly making incorrect assumptions about other people’s beliefs and behaviour – is called “pluralistic ignorance”. This phenomenon, also known as “perception gaps”, is something that politicians unfortunately fall victim to as well, because they consistently underestimate public support for net zero policies.
Talking is the antidote to this “spiral of silence” – it makes climate action socially acceptable, sparking change beyond our own lives. Indeed, just knowing someone with a heat pump makes people more likely to consider installing one. So, chatting can be an effective form of climate action.
How to talk about climate change
You might be hesitant to chat about climate change. But luckily, research shows you don’t need to be an expert or get political to have effective climate conversations.
Chatting to your mates is a good place to start: you probably already have a trusting relationship and shared interests. You could also approach your MP or local councillor to call for stronger policy action – our academic review and interviews with MPs show that voters’ views influence politicians’ engagement with climate change.
If you’re wondering how to begin a climate conversation, start by finding some common ground. Find a value or interest that you and your conversation partner share and explore how it relates to climate change. It can be as simple as asking a foodie friend: “I’m really enjoying cooking more veggie meals – have you got any good recipes?”
Climate framings that tend to unite rather than divide include improving health, benefiting the local community, protecting future generations, achieving balance with nature and avoiding waste. Your experience of climate impacts (hot days, storms, flooding) can also be a good bridging topic – Brits love talking about the weather.
Chatting about climate change is one of the most powerful (and overlooked) climate solutions. It normalises caring, boosts hope and catalyses action. You’re an expert on your own experience of climate impacts and solutions. So why not share it? Ask a question. Start a conversation. You never know who you might inspire.
Don’t have time to read about climate change as much as you’d like?
During the early years of the second world war, George Orwell believed that England’s revolutionary moment had arrived. The defeat at Dunkirk had discredited the country’s ruling elite. Their bungling had left England on the verge of invasion and defeat.
To win the war and defeat fascism, a social revolution was needed, as Orwell explained in his socialist manifesto, The Lion and the Unicorn (1941). Now was the time, he argued, to turn “this war into a revolutionary war and England into a socialist democracy”.
Orwell believed this revolution, though likely to be violent, would also conserve much, setting free “the native genius of the English people”. England’s long liberal tradition would be retained and enhanced, and the revolution would be more patriotic than class-based:
From the English-speaking culture … a society of free and equal human beings will ultimately arise.
However, while Orwell never overtly abandoned his commitment to socialist revolution, he quickly came to lose heart in its imminence. He came to think that the war would defeat fascism but not totalitarianism, and that real socialism still lay a long way in the future.
In this mood, he wrote Animal Farm in the last months of 1943 and first half of 1944 – with much support and possibly substantial input from his first wife, Eileen O’Shaughnessy. August 17 2025 marks the 80th anniversary of the novel’s publication.
This article is part of Rethinking the Classics. The stories in this series offer insightful new ways to think about and interpret classic books and artworks. This is the canon – with a twist.
In September 1944, just after completing Animal Farm (it wouldn’t be published for another year), Orwell explained some of his wider purposes in a letter to the American intellectual and fellow liberal socialist, Dwight Macdonald.
The Soviet Union, Orwell thought, really did provide people with hope in a socialist future, and for that reason it would not be good to see it destroyed. But at the same time, working people in the west needed “to become disillusioned about it and to realise that they must build their own Socialist movement without Russian interference”. The success of this might then have a “regenerative influence upon Russia” itself.
Orwell, Zamyatin and Animal Farm
It was while writing Animal Farm that Orwell first learned something of substance about the Russian author Yevgeny Zamyatin and his dystopian satire, We, published in 1924.
That book became a significant influence for Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949). Though Orwell did not read We in full until late 1945, he knew a little about the book from Gleb Struve’s anthology 25 Years of Soviet Russian Literature in early 1944, and wrote to Struve to tell him it had whetted his appetite to know more about Zamyatin.
Struve’s anthology quotes a passage that Orwell would pick out as important. In it, one character declares that “our revolution was the last and there can never be another”. To which his interlocutor responds: “Just like numbers, revolutions are infinite and there can never be a final one.”
When he adapted Animal Farm for the radio in 1946, Orwell had Napoleon the pig say: “When there has been one rebellion, there can never be another.” But he must surely have had in mind the reply: “There can always be another.”
It was again to Macdonald that Orwell spelled out the implications of Animal Farm in December 1946. Though “primarily” a “satire on the Russian revolution”, Orwell was clear it had “wider application” as a denunciation of “that kind of revolution (violent, conspiratorial) that can only lead to a change of masters”. Revolutions can improve things, he wrote, but only when “the masses … know how to chuck out their leaders as soon as … they have done their job”.
Orwell had earlier written in September 1944 that “all revolutions are failures, but they are not all the same failure”. They all fail because perfection is beyond human grasp – the challenge is to fail better and in ways that improve things, as he told Macdonald:
If people think I am defending the status quo [in Animal Farm], that is … because they have grown pessimistic and assume that there is no alternative except dictatorship and or laissez faire capitalism.
Animal Farm is one of those very short and very accessible books that defy easy interpretation. Classic examples are Niccolo Machiavelli’s The Prince (1532) and Thomas More’s Utopia (1516). Though political, they are not manifestos, unlike Orwell’s The Lion and the Unicorn – that book sought to mobilise people behind a clear vision of an attainable better future.
Animal Farm, in contrast, is a melancholy reflection on the corruption of revolution, and the need to keep looking for a better one.
Beyond the classics
As part of the Rethinking the Classics series, we’re asking our experts to recommend a book or artwork that tackles similar themes to the canonical work in question, but isn’t (yet) considered a classic itself. Here is Glenn Burgess’s suggestion:
Yevgeny Zamyatin as painted by Boris Kustodiev (1923). Wiki Commons
Orwell could not have read anything by Yevgeny Zamyatin other than his dystopian novel, We. It is not much easier for us. Little of Zamyatin’s other fiction is currently in print in English translation, apart from a very recent collection of a few stories from Alma Classics.
His two short satires of middle-class English sanctimonious hypocrisy, which Orwell would have greatly enjoyed, were once available as Islanders and the Fisher of Men. Penguin also used to publish a collection of Zamyatin’s diverse short fiction: The Dragon and Other Stories. This contains, among much else, “two tales for grown-up children” (a description that could apply to Animal Farm). One of them is a two-page story, The Church of God, which tells what happens when violent acts are used to pursue noble (in this case, holy) purposes.
Like Animal Farm, the story is a reflection on the relationship of ends to means. Zamyatin’s stories include more on this theme. He was an early supporter of the Bolsheviks, and an equally early critic of the Bolshevik revolution.
This article features references to books that have been included for editorial reasons, and may contain links to bookshop.org. If you click on one of the links and go on to buy something from bookshop.org The Conversation UK may earn a commission.
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Glenn Burgess 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.
Climate change is pushing up the prices of the food that we buy and therefore changing what we eat. One-third of UK food price increases in 2023 resulted from climate change, according to research by agricultural economists. This extra cost contributed to food price inflation and the UK’s cost-of-living crisis.
By ratcheting up food prices and driving food insecurity, the climate crisis already affects the stability of societies around the world. Several studies have found that shocks to the food supply have been increasing and that climate-related losses of food in major breadbasket regions (the areas of the world that produce most food) are likely to increase.
Sustainable food system researchers are now considering scenarios of significant food system stress and even collapse. One study found that 40% of UK food experts think that civil unrest from food supply issues is possible within the next decade. This increases to 80% of experts when asked if it was possible over a 50-year timeline.
Without a rapid response, climate-driven increases in food prices could cause havoc in the global food system. High-income nations are not safe, as grinding inflation can destabilise society, taking down governments and institutions. Given the febrile political atmosphere throughout the 2022-23 cost-of-living crisis, I would argue that some of these dynamics are already playing out.
A fork in the road
This trajectory of climate-driven food price hikes – leading to social unrest and political decay – is not inevitable. The scientific consensus shows that the biggest opportunity we have for reducing food’s environmental impacts across many countries is increasing the amount of plants we eat and reducing meat and dairy intake.
This could help us better deal with shocks. It’s likely such shifts would be better for related climate shocks such as flooding and storm surges.
Plant-rich diets are beneficial because eating plants is a far more efficient way of delivering the calories and nutrients we need for a healthy lifestyle than eating animals that are fed on plants.
My team and I found that a shift to plant-rich diets in the UK would free an area almost the size of Scotland. As climate change hits food production, some land currently producing animal feed could be used for human crops instead. There would still be plenty of land left which could – if sufficient policies are put in place – be used to meet biodiversity targets while improving access to nature for millions and improving mental health.
The plant-rich diet we investigated isn’t vegan. It’s not even vegetarian, although it does include a reasonable (and healthier) amount of meat and dairy. For example, it still includes a hamburger every fortnight.
A healthy plant-rich diet still includes eating a burger once a fortnight. oneinchpunch/Shutterstock
This shift to plant-rich diets means the scale of the whole agricultural system becomes much smaller, giving more space to grow crops on saved land and deal with flood waters while saving money (plant-rich diets are generally cheaper to produce and buy than meat-heavy diets in high-income nations).
This shift could trigger a rural renaissance that supports farmers changing to different farming methods, enhances nature restoration and builds flood water protection. But this all needs joined-up action, including support from the government and demand from the public.
Working with nature would become a job many would leap at, including farmers. UK farmers consistently report concerns about mental health due to industry pressures. There is some evidence that livestock farmers face the largest mental health challenges, driven largely by how little time they can take off.
Giving options like more subsidy support for plant agriculture or nature restoration might be just the exit strategy many farmers need.
Green shoots
By transforming how we grow food and what we eat – rather than letting climate change dictate the pace of change – we have so much to gain. If you are a proponent for less but better meat, for increased crop diversity or organic food, then the answer is more plants in our diets. This extends beyond agriculture to anything that requires more land. If you promote timber buildings, biofuels, nature restoration, more housing, bioplastics or anything else that needs land, the answer is, again, more plants.
Some countries have already developed plant-rich action plans. Denmark, a major pig producer, has developed policies to encourage plant-rich diets along the supply chain – from supporting chefs in creating new, environmentally-friendly dishes to driving the government’s procurement of organic food (which will encourage more fruit and veg as organic meat is more expensive).
This is a story of exploration, adaptation and improved health, not one of abstinence. Landscapes, human health and diversity in diets can all be transformed for the better. Once we’ve made the transition we’ll look back and wonder why on Earth we didn’t do it sooner.
Don’t have time to read about climate change as much as you’d like?
As the global population ages, the number of people aged 65 and older is projected to rise significantly over the next 25 years. But while we’re living longer, we’re also becoming more socially divided by age. Age segregation is on the rise and fewer people are regularly interacting with those outside their own generation.
This growing divide can fuel ageism – a form of discrimination that’s more widespread than many realise. Around half of the global population have experienced ageism at some point in their lives. Not only is this socially damaging, it’s also linked to poorer health outcomes and increased healthcare costs.
For adults, staying active helps prevent and manage chronic conditions like heart disease, cancer and type 2 diabetes. For children and teens, it supports healthy growth and development.
Dance is more than just movement – it’s creativity, self-expression and social connection. As a form of physical activity, it offers a wide range of benefits at all stages of life. For children, dance supports developmental maturity, attention span and memory. For adults, it can improve balance, flexibility, body composition and coordination.
Intergenerational dance takes this a step further, bringing people of different ages together in a shared creative space. It’s a form of social and artistic exercise that promotes health, strengthens community bonds, and helps challenge stereotypes about ageing.
Our research team is now designing and evaluating an intergenerational dance programme for teenagers and older adults in Ireland, to explore the extent to which shared movement can improve physical and mental health – and foster stronger connections between generations.
To inform the design, we reviewed intergenerational dance initiatives around the world. While a few programmes had been formally evaluated, most had not explored the health outcomes or participant experiences in depth. Where evaluations did exist, results were positive: participants of all ages found the experience enjoyable and appreciated the opportunity to connect with people from other generations.
Building on this, we ran a pilot programme in a local community centre, held after school hours. Sessions were co-led by a professional dance instructor and a physiotherapist trained in intergenerational practice. Each session followed a consistent structure:
Our participants – adults aged 60+ and adolescents aged 14-16 – provided feedback throughout the pilot. For many, it was their first experience of interacting socially with people outside their own age group – and the response was overwhelmingly positive.
Before and after the programme, participants completed assessments measuring physical activity, cognitive function and emotional wellbeing. The results showed a reduction in sedentary behaviour among older adults and improved cognitive performance in both age groups. These early findings suggest that intergenerational dance may offer measurable benefits for both brain and body.
This was the first study to use objective measures of physical activity in an intergenerational setting – previous research has largely relied on qualitative feedback. While objective data on activity levels have been collected separately in adolescents and older adults, our study is the first to apply this approach across generations participating together.
It’s about more than just movement
Building on this, the next phase of the project introduces a new home-based component. Between sessions, participants are encouraged to complete short dance-based exercises at home. This element is designed to reinforce regular movement and promote sustained physical activity throughout the week.
The refined ten-week programme is now being rolled out across secondary schools in the mid-west of Ireland, for fourth-year pupils aged 15-16 and adults aged 60+. Each session increases in intensity, while being tailored to the evolving needs and abilities of those taking part.
To assess the impact, researchers will track physical activity via participants’ wearable devices, evaluate their balance, mobility and cognition, and use questionnaires to measure their moods, wellbeing and attitudes toward ageing.
Our aim is to determine whether embedding an intergenerational dance programme into the school year is not only feasible and enjoyable, but capable of delivering measurable health and social benefits at scale.
This project offers a rare and powerful opportunity for older adults and teenagers to move, laugh and learn together. If successful, it could pave the way for the wider adoption of intergenerational dance initiatives across Ireland and beyond.
At its heart, this project is about more than movement. By creating space for shared experience and physical expression, we may not only improve health but help mend the widening gap between generations – contributing to a society that moves more, and divides less.
Siobhán O’Reilly receives funding from Taighde Éireann – Research Ireland.
Amanda Clifford received funding from the Health Research Board for Definitive Intervention and Feasibility Awards (2020), and the Music and Movement for Health research study.
Orfhlaith Ni Bhriain received funding from the Health Research Board in 2020 under the Definitive Interventions and Feasibility Awards scheme. She was a co-applicant in the Music and Movement for Health research study.
Digital nomads are everywhere. Working and living wherever they lay their laptops, there may be as many as 40 million people who earn their keep online while they travel the world.
And while the rise of digital nomads has been accompanied by numerous concerns, research suggests they can often have a positive impact on the places they visit – leaving destinations better than they found them.
Here are five ways that digital nomads can do just that.
1. Skill sharing
Digital nomads can make a valuable contribution to the communities they join by freely sharing their expertise in areas such as technology, marketing or design. For instance, a digital marketer stopping off in rural Portugal could help a local artisan start selling their wares online. A web developer could help a neighbouring restaurant establish a digital profile.
Working with local schools and colleges is another good option. In Slovenia, for example, students at Jurij Vega Gymnasium teamed up with nomadic mentors to design sustainable tourism projects.
2. Authentic storytelling
Digital nomads help to influence how places are portrayed to the rest of the world. Instead of filtered Instagram posts or idealised social media posts, they can share real stories about local cultures and communities.
This encourages a deeper understanding and respect for the places they visit, like in Madeira, Portugal, where some digital nomads use blogs and podcasts to report on the island’s news beyond the tourism trail.
Rather than simply documenting beach life, many have shared stories about planting trees with residents and supporting local artisans. This provides a richer and more nuanced account of Madeira, and is the kind of shift which supports meaningful and sustainable connections of “regenerative travel”.
For instance, they might learn how a rural community in Oliete, Spain, used digital platforms and cooperative funding to revive olive farming. Or how remote professionals in Tursi, Italy, have helped to rebuild local economies by mentoring entrepreneurs and setting up co-working hubs.
By applying these lessons to their home environments or introducing them to other communities, digital nomads act as catalysts for global innovation.
4. Be cosmopolitan
A “cosmopolitan” mindset is about switching the idea of travel from passive consumption to active participation. By supporting local businesses and collaborating on community initiatives nomads create more balanced relationships between travellers and locals.
In doing so, they contribute to cultural preservation, economic growth and a sense of mutual respect—key elements of regenerative travel. For example, in the Indonesia town of Ubud, Bali, digital nomads have engaged in community-based projects that help preserve the island’s cultural and natural heritage.
Rather than just passing through, cosmopolitan nomads see themselves as global citizens with a responsibility to engage meaningfully with the communities they visit.
5. Global networking
Digital nomads can connect local communities with international networks. For example, they might help artisans access global fair-trade platforms or connect environmental initiatives to international funding opportunities.
By acting as bridges between grassroots efforts and global resources, digital nomads can amplify the reach and influence of local initiatives. It is the kind of collaboration which helps to ensure that the benefits of travel extend beyond tourism to create lasting change.
Empowering communities and nurturing global connections means remote workers can create a ripple effect that benefits their host destinations – and contributes to a quieter, more meaningful approach to travel.
Veselina Stoyanova does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Source: The Conversation – UK – By Matthew Powell, Teaching Fellow in Strategic and Air Power Studies, University of Portsmouth
Russia has announced it will no longer uphold its obligations under the intermediate-range nuclear forces (INF) treaty, signed by the Soviet Union and the United States in December 1987. The decision has raises questions about the future of nuclear deterrence and the danger of global nuclear proliferation.
The timing of this announcement from the Kremlin must be considered. It was just days after a spat on social media between the US president, Donald Trump, and former Russian president Dymitri Medvedev, a strong ally of Vladimir Putin.
Responding to the US president’s threats to punish Russia for its war in Ukraine, Medvedev took to X on July 28 to warn Trump that: “Each new ultimatum is a threat and a step towards war. Not between Russia and Ukraine, but with his own country.” Medvedev added: “Don’t go down the Sleepy Joe road!”
Russia’s decision also comes just three days before the deadline of August 8 set by Trump for Russia to agree to a ceasefire in its war with Ukraine.
It’s also important to remember that, while the Russian withdrawal from the INF treaty is attracting attention now, the US withdrew from the same treaty in August 2019, during Trump’s first presidency. So it’s tempting to see all this as diplomatic posturing.
However, when it comes to nuclear weapons – and given the rising global tensions – such moves must be taken seriously.
Arms limitation treaties
The INF treaty was part of a series of agreements between the US and Soviet Union that began with the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (Salt) of 1972 and 1979. These led to agreements to reduce the strategic weapons held by both sides, including intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarine-launched ballistic missiles and ballistic missile defences.
This was then followed in 1987 by the INF treaty, which was struck between Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev. Both sides agreed to reduce their stockpile of ground-based ballistic and cruise missiles with a range of between 500km to 5,500km (an entire category of nuclear weapon).
They also put in place provisions for inspection to ensure both were keeping to the agreement. Thanks to the treaty, 2,692 missiles were eliminated.
Despite these agreements, there remain significant stockpiles of nuclear weapons, with Russia and the US the most heavily armed nuclear powers. The size of their stockpiles is difficult to assess with complete accuracy, but the latest estimate by the non-profit Arms Control Association is that Russia is the most heavily armed nuclear power with 5,580 warheads, while the US maintains 5,225.
Both powers operate what is known as the “nuclear triad” of air, land and sea-launched systems. Russia’s decision to withdraw from the INF treaty only concerns ground-based missile systems, which in 1987 had the capability of striking targets in Europe withing a short period of time. Air- or sea-launched nuclear weapons were not seen at the time as a major concern to European security so were not covered by the treaty.
The other remaining non-proliferation treaty, New Start, which limits the US and Russia’s total number of deployed strategic missiles, warheads and launchers, does cover air and sea-launched weapons. However, its future is also in doubt.
Russia claims to still abide by the central limits of the agreement, despite having suspended official participation in February 2023. But the deal is due to expire in February 2026 and there are real concerns whether it will be possible for new negotiations to take place given the Russo-Ukrainian War and the current state of relations between Washington and Moscow.
There is also currently no treaty that covers the amount of tactical nuclear weapons a nation can hold. These are designed to be used on the battlefield (rather than against long-range targets) and, as they have never been deployed, it is not clear what damage they could do to a nation’s own forces as well as the enemy. This raises interesting questions with regards to the proximity of Nato members to Ukraine and Russia.
Defence systems
In May 2025, Trump announced a funding package of US$175 billion (£131 billion) for the development of a new “Golden Dome” defensive system that he said would render Russian strategic nuclear weapons redundant. Critics have pointed out that the US attempted something similar before without success, the Reagan-era “Star Wars” defence system, which ended up being scrapped as too expensive.
Missile defence systems against nuclear weapons do exist, such as the US ground-based midcourse defense system, which aims to track and shoot down incoming nuclear missiles. But these have never actually been tested in operational conditions. So the extent to which they provide guaranteed protection against every nuclear warhead is not known.
Russia’s decision to end compliance with the INF treaty should be viewed by the west with a great deal of concern. But it should also be seen in the context of previous Russian statements about its nuclear arsenal and willingness to use it, as well as the recent changes to the country’s nuclear doctrine to make it easier for Russia to use these weapons.
The Kremlin has made several changes to this doctrine since it started the war in Ukraine, usually to warn Kyiv’s western allies of the potential consequences of supplying more powerful and advanced weapons for use against Russia.
The true power of nuclear weapons in the 21st century is not necessarily their awesome destructive capacity, but the way that awesome destructive capacity can be used by nuclear-armed states to manoeuvre and protect their political power.
Matthew Powell 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.
