In a little over ten years, organoid models – miniature, lab-grown clusters of cells that imitate real organs – have transformed how we study human development and disease while accelerating drug discovery. As a bonus, they’ve reduced our reliance on animal testing.
Among these models, brain organoids – 3D, brain-like structures grown from stem cells – have progressed from simple cell clusters to sophisticated models that mimic important aspects of brain development and function.
Recent breakthroughs have made them more complex: some organoids now show electrical activity similar to what is seen in a very early-stage human foetus. Others form networks of nerve cells that can send signals back and forth, in a similar way to how real brains communicate.
These advances promise deeper insights into brain disorders such as Alzheimer’s and schizophrenia, and could revolutionise drug testing and personalised medicine. Yet, as complexity grows, so does ethical unease.
Bioethicists warn that current rules for human and animal research don’t fit well for things that come from human cells, are alive, and are becoming more like real brains
Under controlled conditions, brain organoids can self-organise into layers resembling – at a very basic level – the developing human brain.
At first, organoids were basic models of the cortex. But newer methods now let scientists combine organoids that mimic different brain regions and even blood vessels, making them more complex and long-lasting. Researchers have also found ways to accelerate their development, enabling them to form working neural networks more quickly and even connect with robots.
Organoids are useful because they let scientists study human biology without invasive procedures. They can show how the brain develops in early life – something we normally can’t see inside the womb. They can also mimic conditions like Alzheimer’s and autism so researchers can understand them better and test new treatments.
Organoids provide safer, more reliable ways to test drugs and help reduce the need for animals in research, supporting global efforts to phase out mandatory animal testing.
Yet, in many ways, organoids are not really miniature brains at all. They lack sensory input, body integration and do not replicate the vast complexity of a human brain.
Still, as organoids build neural networks and show electrical activity like that seen in premature babies, an important question arises: when does this level of complexity suggest they might have some kind of feeling or experience?
This is the main ethical concern. If organoids can process information or change their behaviour in response to it, do they gain moral status?
Consciousness remains one of science’s most elusive concepts. There’s no clear definition or way to measure it. Some organoids have shown brain-like activity similar to that of premature babies, sparking headlines and public concern.
Many scientists argue that these signals just show early, immature brain activity, not actual awareness. Still, ethical cautions suggest we should consider thresholds for how complex and active organoids become before proceeding unchecked.
Regulatory limbo
Ethical frameworks for research assume two categories: human subjects and animals. However, organoids fit neither. They are human-derived but not a person; living but not sentient.
This ambiguity makes oversight of this field of research difficult. In the US and Europe, organoid research falls under general tissue-use regulations, focusing on donor consent rather than organoid welfare.
China recently introduced the first comprehensive organoid guidelines, covering things like the possibility of consciousness and mixing human and animal cells. Most other countries lack clear rules. Because of this, experts are calling for international oversight, ongoing consent mechanisms and advisory panels to keep research transparent and maintain public trust.
Brain organoids now sit at a crossroads: powerful enough to reshape neuroscience, yet complex enough to challenge our ethical comfort zones. As these models edge closer to behaviour we normally associate with living brains, the world needs clearer rules, shared standards and open dialogue.
The science is moving fast, and our ethical frameworks must evolve just as quickly if we want this revolution to benefit society responsibly.
James Poulter receives research funding from UK Research and Innovation.
In the new rom-com Eternity, Joan (Elizabeth Olsen) faces an impossible choice: spend forever with the steady husband she’s loved for years, or reunite with the dreamy first husband she married back in her carefree youth.
In this afterlife, everyone gets one shot at choosing where – and with whom – they’ll spend eternity, guided (and occasionally harassed) by an overworked Afterlife Coordinator on a strict deadline. Once the decision is made, it’s final. A few souls try to wriggle out of their choice, but escapees are hunted down and flung into the void. Not a place where anyone wants to be.
Joan can pick the dependable but unglamorous Larry (Miles Teller) or her youthful love, Luke (Callum Turner) who died a war hero. Everyone in this post-life holding area is restored to the physical age when they were happiest. Troublingly for Larry, Joan is the age she was when she married Luke, and when she kissed him goodbye before his fateful posting overseas.
On the face of it, this choice of eternities doesn’t make much sense. So much of our human love is about mortal longings, rather than immortal longings. An eternity of me would be more than I would inflict upon anyone, let alone my wife Suzanne, a woman who really deserves better. Human love only makes sense in a transitory context, just as the beauty of cherry blossom would be lessened if we could freeze dry it and secure it permanently to the tree with Gorilla glue.
But Eternity is not truly about a love that could last forever. It is about the way that love, real ordinary love, involves more than happiness, and how love shapes our decisions in ways that seem to be involve recognition rather than choice. These are familiar philosophical themes which could become quite heavy, but Eternity handles them deftly, with an upbeat humour.
The trailer for Eternity.
In the film, the afterlife is just as confusing as the regular world. God isn’t around to offer judgement. The decision about futures must be made quickly so that the system can cope without becoming overloaded. Trains are continually moving, bringing new arrivals to a massive hotel, before they depart permanently to their forever destination.
The trains do not travel on roads to freedom. Destinations offer only a themed existence. They include Paris World, with a fake rive gauche where a fake Jean-Paul Sartre and a fake Albert Camus argue passionately in a café about the finer points of existentialism before getting into a fist fight. Sure, it’s something that many philosophers would like to see – but not endlessly.
The story first appears to focus on an existentialist idea: in life, we are forced to make impossible choices without any final moral guidance. Even love, it seems, must give way to the harsh fact that our choices have no solid foundation.
And, like any good student of Sartre, Joan discovers that this is not a pleasant situation. The philosopher and political economist John Stuart Mill believed that the greatest happiness and the greatest freedom to choose must go together. Freedom to choose does not make us happy. It makes us anxious.
The turning point of the film comes when Joan starts to see that neither happiness nor choice really decides anything. Threatened with the prospect of her wandering off to Paris World, one of her husbands tries to decide for her by sacrificing his own happiness.
A husband trying to decide for his wife is, no doubt, a rare and dangerous sort of thing and it does not stick. What’s interesting about Eternity is that it doesn’t settle for this obvious “Judgment of Solomon” solution, where the man willing to sacrifice his own happiness is the one she should choose in the end.
Yes, that does turn out to be part of the story. And yes, it does help her to recognise that maximising happiness is not the same as living a good and meaningful life – a life in which happiness has its place but only alongside other things. But the film also makes a deeper move. Joan risks being cast into the void when she realises that the whole business of choice has been shadow play. While she has the body of her younger self, she has the history of her older self. And that matters.
It matters because love is not a response to the unique characteristics of others: their physique, laughter or what philosophical discussions of love jokingly refer to as “the way they wear their hat and sip their tea”. Rather, love is the recognition of a shared history of caring for one another. A recognition of who, and what, counts as home.
Joan’s struggle is not a struggle to overcome a paralysing anxiety, to make her impossible choice and then march resolutely into the future. It is simply a struggle to go home.
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Tony Milligan 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.
If you’re thinking about buying Christmas presents for children, chances are a Lego set isn’t too far from your mind. The endless creativity that Lego bricks present means they can be used for far more than following instructions to build the model on the front of the box. They are even used in academic research.
Our research uses Lego to get young people talking to each other about identity, belonging and participation in society. We help young people engage with one another to think critically about their place in the world and their relationships with others.
We draw on the concept of “worldview” – beliefs and values that shape how we perceive things – and explore how our worldview (whether religious, non-religious or somewhere in between) influences how we see and interact with others and society.
In a recent study, we gave piles of Lego bricks to ten groups of young people in four secondary schools across England and asked them to build models to show their responses to questions. Besides the fact that it’s fun, building with Lego is a powerful way for people to express themselves.
Making and thinking
“Building” gives people time to reflect and can lead to more thoughtful, imaginative, and often emotional responses. The power of metaphor is particularly helpful in exploring personal or sensitive issues. It provides a sense of distance; we feel less exposed and able to discuss things that can be difficult to express.
This is a technique used in the Lego Serious Play approach: a tool developed for the workplace by the Lego Group with the idea that by “thinking through fingers” we use both sides of the brain with potential to unleash insight and imagination. We apply this to explore ideas of commonality and difference.
Students in our study explored ideas of identity by building a model to show “three things that make you, you”. Some students focused on things they like, such as hobbies, or important things for them. Many also highlighted people that mattered to them, their heritage, nation, faith, communities and nature. We asked students to explain their models and, in doing so, they explored the complex and diverse aspects of their own and others’ identities.
When building a model of “where you feel you belong”, the students considered their connections to people and places. What emerged were multiple allegiances and loyalties in which gender, ethnicity, nationality, religion, interests, aspirations and politics all intersected in complex and unpredictable ways. We asked students what connections there were between their Lego constructions, and to show this by attaching string between their own and others’ models.
Making connections
We then asked students to show and explain the things they do in these places as a way to explore their participation in social and civic life. At this point, we asked students about their religion or worldview and to sprinkle beads onto their models where this was relevant for them. This helped students think about their personal worldview and understand how this relates to identity and belonging, to their actions, and to society.
Finally, we asked the students to build together “what it means to be a citizen”. Here they combined their ideas, working together in a new and interactive way that pays attention to difference and connection. “It shows how we are all connected together in society and how in order for society to function we must work together,” one of the students said.
Our research shows that young peoples’ worldviews are complex and dynamic: they shape and are shaped by interaction in society. In other words, there is a complex interplay between worldviews, civic identity and action. The young people told us that the research process increased their understanding of themselves and each other. The experience of building and discussion built empathy, a sense of interconnectedness and shared vision for a more cohesive society. As part of our project, we’ve put together resources on this method for teachers to use.
A recent review of the national curriculum for England aims to equip young people in tackling the challenges of our changing world, and recommends increased provision of religious education and citizenship. As a research method and an educational tool, Lego or other building toys have the potential to help teachers and young people to think outside the box, whether that’s the Lego box, identity “boxes” or traditional approaches to learning.
Martha Shaw receives funding from Culham St Gabriel’s Trust.
Alexis Stones works for University College London (UCL) as a lecturer, researcher and subject lead for Religious Education. She has received funding from Culham St Gabriel’s Trust and previously from Templeton World Charity Foundation.
Source: The Conversation – UK – By Perla Maiolino, Associate Professor of Engineering Science, member of the Oxford Robotics Institute, University of Oxford
Robots now see the world with an ease that once belonged only to science fiction. They can recognise objects, navigate cluttered spaces and sort thousands of parcels an hour. But ask a robot to touch something gently, safely or meaningfully, and the limits appear instantly.
As a researcher in soft robotics working on artificial skin and sensorised bodies, I’ve found that trying to give robots a sense of touch forces us to confront just how astonishingly sophisticated human touch really is.
My work began with the seemingly simple question of how robots might sense the world through their bodies. Develop tactile sensors, fully cover a machine with them, process the signals and, at first glance, you should get something like touch.
Except that human touch is nothing like a simple pressure map. Our skin contains several distinct types of mechanoreceptor, each tuned to different stimuli such as vibration, stretch or texture. Our spatial resolution is remarkably fine and, crucially, touch is active: we press, slide and adjust constantly, turning raw sensation into perception through dynamic interaction.
Engineers can sometimes mimic a fingertip-scale version of this, but reproducing it across an entire soft body, and giving a robot the ability to interpret this rich sensory flow, is a challenge of a completely different order.
Working on artificial skin also quickly reveals another insight: much of what we call “intelligence” doesn’t live solely in the brain. Biology offers striking examples – most famously, the octopus.
Touch also happens to be the first sense that humans develop in the womb. Developmental neuroscience shows tactile sensitivity emerging from around eight weeks of gestation, then spreading across the body during the second trimester. Long before sight or hearing function reliably, the foetus explores its surroundings through touch. This is thought to help shape how infants begin forming an understanding of weight, resistance and support – the basic physics of the world.
This distinction matters for robotics too. For decades, robots have relied heavily on cameras and lidars (a sensing method that uses pulses of light to measure distance) while avoiding physical contact. But we cannot expect machines to achieve human-level competence in the physical world if they rarely experience it through touch.
Simulation can teach a robot useful behaviour, but without real physical exploration, it risks merely deploying intelligence rather than developing it. To learn in the way humans do, robots need bodies that feel.
A ‘soft’ robot hand with tactile sensors, developed by the University of Oxford’s Soft Robotics Lab, gets to grips with an apple. Video: Oxford Robotics Institute.
Intelligent bodies
One approach my group is exploring is giving robots a degree of “local intelligence” in their sensorised bodies. Humans benefit from the compliance of soft tissues: skin deforms in ways that increase grip, enhance friction and filter sensory signals before they even reach the brain. This is a form of intelligence embedded directly in the anatomy.
Research in soft robotics and morphological computation argues that the body can offload some of the brain’s workload. By building robots with soft structures and low-level processing, so they can adjust grip or posture based on tactile feedback without waiting for central commands, we hope to create machines that interact more safely and naturally with the physical world.
Healthcare is one area where this capability could make a profound difference. My group recently developed a robotic patient simulator for training occupational therapists (OTs). Students often practise on one another, which makes it difficult to learn the nuanced tactile skills involved in supporting someone safely. With real patients, trainees must balance functional and affective touch, respect personal boundaries and recognise subtle cues of pain or discomfort. Research on social and affective touch shows how important these cues are to human wellbeing.
To help trainees understand these interactions, our simulator, known as Mona, produces practical behavioural responses. For example, when an OT presses on a simulated pain point in the artificial skin, the robot reacts verbally and with a small physical “hitch” of the body to mimic discomfort.
Similarly, if the trainee tries to move a limb beyond what the simulated patient can tolerate, the robot tightens or resists, offering a realistic cue that the motion should stop. By capturing tactile interaction through artificial skin, our simulator provides feedback that has never previously been available in OT training.
Robots that care
In the future, robots with safe, sensitive bodies could help address growing pressures in social care. As populations age, many families suddenly find themselves lifting, repositioning or supporting relatives without formal training. “Care robots” would help with this, potentially meaning the family member could be cared for at home longer.
Surprisingly, progress in developing this type of robot has been much slower than early expectations suggested – even in Japan, which introduced some of the first care robot prototypes. One of the most advanced examples is Airec, a humanoid robot developed as part of the Japanese government’s Moonshot programme to assist in nursing and elderly-care tasks. This multifaceted programme, launched in 2019, seeks “ambitious R&D based on daring ideas” in order to build a “society in which human beings can be free from limitations of body, brain, space and time by 2050”.
Japan’s Airec care robot is one of the most advanced in development. Video by Global Update.
Throughout the world, though, translating research prototypes into regulated robots remains difficult. High development costs, strict safety requirements, and the absence of a clear commercial market have all slowed progress. But while the technical and regulatory barriers are substantial, they are steadily being addressed.
Robots that can safely share close physical space with people need to feel and modulate how they touch anything that comes into contact with their bodies. This whole-body sensitivity is what will distinguish the next generation of soft robots from today’s rigid machines.
We are still far from robots that can handle these intimate tasks independently. But building touch-enabled machines is already reshaping our understanding of touch. Every step toward robotic tactile intelligence highlights the extraordinary sophistication of our own bodies – and the deep connection between sensation, movement and what we call intelligence.
This article was commissioned in conjunction with the Professors’ Programme, part of Prototypes for Humanity, a global initiative that showcases and accelerates academic innovation to solve social and environmental challenges. The Conversation is the media partner of Prototypes for Humanity 2025.
This article was commissioned in conjunction with the Professors’ Programme, part of Prototypes for Humanity, a global initiative that showcases and accelerates academic innovation to solve social and environmental challenges. The Conversation is the media partner of Prototypes for Humanity 2025. Perla Maiolino receives funding from the UKRI Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and EU Horizon Europe Research and Innovation programme.
Source: The Conversation – UK – By Patrick E. Shea, Senior Lecturer in International Relations and Global Governance, University of Glasgow
The US president, Donald Trump, presided over two major agreements in early December. The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Rwanda signed a peace deal initially negotiated in June. At the same ceremony, Trump announced a strategic partnership between the US and the DRC.
The US-DRC agreement grants American companies priority access to the country’s vast mineral wealth. US firms get “right of first offer” on major mining projects. The DRC holds significant reserves of cobalt, copper and lithium.
The pace is striking. Traditional development programmes that secured American economic interests abroad typically took years to negotiate and implement. These deals are happening in weeks.
This isn’t simply Trump putting American economic interests forward. The scramble reveals how far the US has fallen behind China in securing access to critical minerals – and how much of that gap is the US’s own fault.
US presidents have always mixed economic interests with foreign policy. In the 1940s and early 50s, the Marshall Plan rebuilt Europe while opening markets. Cold War development aid created trading partners while dampening communist appeal. So Trump’s transactional style isn’t entirely new.
But the current mineral scramble stems from three converging problems – many of the administration’s own making.
Transactional approach
First, China restricted US access to critical minerals in retaliation for Trump’s tariff policies. Beijing imposed export controls on rare earth elements essential for the US to manufacture semiconductors, batteries and defence systems.
This created immediate supply-chain vulnerabilities. The US lacks domestic sources of these minerals. American tech and defence companies suddenly faced potential shortages with no alternative suppliers readily available.
Initially, this vulnerability may not have concerned Trump. During his first term, critical minerals weren’t a foreign policy priority. The 2017 national security strategy didn’t mention them. These materials were associated primarily with the green energy transition, a policy area Trump actively opposed.
But the rapid development of artificial intelligence changed the calculation. Training large AI models requires massive data centres. These facilities depend on advanced cooling systems, high-efficiency motors and power systems that use rare-earth elements now restricted by China.
Critical mineral access had become a strategic imperative for the US. Trump’s November 2025 national security strategy explicitly prioritises “securing access to critical supply chains and materials”. This shift coincides with the second problem: the tech sector’s growing influence over American politics. Major tech companies have secured unprecedented access to policymaking and dramatically increased their lobbying since ChatGPT first launched in late 2022.
Whether these mineral deals actually benefit the US as a whole remains unclear. The scramble treats mineral access as a zero-sum competition with China rather than a challenge that could be managed through international coordination. In addition, these rushed agreements may serve AI companies’ short-term needs without creating long term supply chain security.
The third problem for US foreign policy is the US gutted its institutional capacity for securing overseas investments. The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) traditionally ran programmes that built state capacity in developing countries. These initiatives trained civil servants, developed regulatory frameworks and established procurement systems.
My research shows how programmes facilitated US investments. When countries had functioning land registries, clear property rights and professional bureaucracies, US companies could invest with confidence.
Trump froze USAID operations in January 2025. Without these institutions, the US can no longer build the governance frameworks that make American investment feasible. Instead, the administration must negotiate explicit access provisions in each bilateral deal.
The pace of recent deals reflects US’s desperate attempts to catch up with China. Whether the US can catch up will have to be evaluated, but there are several reasons to be sceptical of the benefits of the deals that have already been signed.
The DRC agreement illustrates the limitations of this approach. It promises US support for “protection of critical infrastructure” and “safeguarding territorial integrity”. But it offers little detail on how these commitments will be delivered.
Fighting between M23 rebels and DRC forces has continued even as the agreements were announced. The US lacks the institutional capacity to coordinate effective security cooperation. USAID programmes that would have built state capacity and investment safeguards no longer exist. The State Department offices that would implement security assistance have been hollowed out.
The agreement promises to establish “streamlined permitting processes” for US investors in the mining sector. But it’s unclear how investor disputes will be resolved or how American access will remain secure if political circumstances change.
Attention span
Trump’s track record further undermines these arrangements. His pattern of abandoning both promises and threats makes any commitment less credible. Investors understand this. When Trump threatened comprehensive sanctions against Russia in July 2025, Russian markets rallied rather than panicked.
Compare this to the institutional approach. USAID programmes built genuine state capacity over the years. Countries became better able to manage resources, enforce contracts and maintain stability. That created lasting conditions favourable to American investment while also supporting local development.
Without institutional backing, these mineral deals rely entirely on continued presidential attention and goodwill. My research shows that credible economic commitments require a robust diplomatic and bureaucratic apparatus. Trump has undermined this infrastructure.
If the US wants to secure critical mineral supplies effectively, reversing course would be necessary. Reinstating development agencies and rebuilding diplomatic capacity would serve American interests far better than serial bilateral bargaining.
But that would require patience and institutional investment. Trump’s approach offers neither. The US has fallen behind in the race for critical minerals. These rushed deals may provide short-term access. But they cannot create the stable, long-term supply chains American tech and defence industries actually need.
Patrick E. Shea 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 Kristoffer Balslev Willert, Postdoctoral Research in the SDU Climate Cluster Project, University of Southern Denmark
Burning forests, flooded streets, a planet spinning toward collapse. Climate activists around the world face disaster and despair on a daily basis. Research suggests that although campaigners are deeply committed to tackling the crisis, they face a high risk of burnout.
This is not surprising given that a large part of their work includes challenging political, economic and cultural resistance. And when also taken with the fact that legal repression of climate activism is on the rise globally.
On top of this, many people still believe that living sustainably is about loss. Less holidays, less consumption: more sacrifice, less fun.
But that’s not the whole story. Because beneath the noise of global summits and corporate promises, another kind of climate activism is quietly taking root. One that blends imagination and playfulness – and, dare we say it, joy.
Across Denmark, this kind of activism takes many forms. Young people run repair cafes, grow community gardens and organise forest walks. They create art projects and storytelling discussions and explore what life beyond fossil fuels could actually look like.
Our research suggests that these projects are central to how grassroots groups can inspire action – and offer a new model for climate activism both in Denmark and beyond.
Another way of thinking
One of the groups, Arternes Ambassadører (“species’ ambassadors”) which aims to give democratic representation to other species, explains more:
The energy that drives us is very much about joy, enthusiasm, creativity and imagination. I think that’s lacking in nature activism, which is often driven by anger and protest, disappointment and concern. We prefer to imagine what we would like to see happen.
Our interviews with more than 40 green grassroots movements suggests that protests and boycotts are only a small part of their work. Many now recognise that positive visions of sustainable living attract far more support than negative messaging.
Veggie Friends | Rap about food waste by the the Danish ecoband project Økobandet.
Den Grønne Ungdomsbevægelse (The Green Youth Movement), for example, aims to spark imagination through action. They publish books about possible futures, lead forest excursions to get people thinking creatively about sustainability. And each year award the Bumblebee Prize to businesses pioneering sustainable practices.
Grønne Nabofællesskaber (Green Neighbourhood Communities) calls this “everyday activism”. A spokesperson told us: “We can see that when we cooperate and build alternatives, we get a bigger voice.”
Community living
Ecological villages and communal spaces such as Freetown Christiania in Copenhagen, further put these ideas into practice. Residents of all ages live together, host communal meals, run non-market festivals and develop renewable energy projects.
One ecovillage member told us: “We need to alter our consumption habits. But we can help each other in that process.” Another resident we spoke to put it this way: “This is just the beginning (as) part of the green transition, this lifestyle (will) at some point become more mainstream”.
While craft and reuse communities emphasise visibility and action, as one group told us: “The alternatives already exist, so it’s just a matter of getting out there and making people aware of it.”
These activities do more than show new ways of living. They help activists cope with exhaustion and build local resilience. They also help to tackle the “crisis of imagination”, whereby people struggle to picture a world beyond fossil fuels and consumerism.
Cooperative origins
The origins of this kind of grassroots collective action can be tracked back to the beginning of the late 19th century, when Danish farmers and workers built thousands of cooperatives — dairies, slaughterhouses, shops, housing associations — all owned and run collectively. Communities pooled resources, made democratic decisions and shared the benefits. Over time, the movement became a defining feature of Danish society: if you want change, you do it together.
This history matters because it taught generations of Danes that everyday people can organise, experiment and build alternatives when institutions fall short. And that legacy shapes today’s green grassroots movements too.
Our recent research found that many Danish climate groups draw directly on this tradition — and adapt the old cooperative spirit to the climate crisis.
This might be harder to pull off in countries with less social cohesion or civic support. But these ideas are still relevant beyond Denmark. As one of the energy communities told us: “Our local fight is a contribution to a larger, global fight”.
A new future
As our report shows, these kinds of approaches help people see sustainability not as a burden, but as a richer, more fulfilling way to live. This is especially important in the global north, where the impacts of climate change still feel distant.
Though many of the Danish groups we spoke with stress that the climate crisis provides an opportunity to create totally new narratives and practices. As a spokesperson for the Copenhagen environmental organisation cirka cph told us: “We look into a future where our society will change radically. The important question is: What can we learn? And how can we create the best settings for the future society?”
Indeed, what these grassroots movements share is that they don’t claim to have all the answers. They experiment, imagine and prototype possible futures. They make the green transition tangible, local and inclusive and ultimately take activism beyond doom and despair to a place of hope and possibility.
This article was commissioned as part of a partnership between Videnskab.dk and The Conversation.
This article was commissioned as part of a partnership between
Videnskab.dk and The Conversation. Kristoffer Balslev Willert receives funding from Danmarks Frie Forskningsfond (DFF).
Bryan Yazell receives funding from Danmarks Frie Forskningsfond (DFF) and Interreg Europe.
This article was commissioned as part of a partnership collaboration between
Videnskab.dk and The Conversation.
For 14 years while Syria’s brutal civil war raged, Germany provided a safe haven for those fleeing the violence. Now, a year after that conflict ended with the fall of the Assad regime in December 2024, many in Germany – including the country’s leader – want those same Syrians gone.
In November, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz announced a controversial plan to deport Syrian refugees “in the near future.” He also urged the 1 million Syrians in Germany, most of whom are Muslim, to voluntarily return.
This hardened stance toward Syrian refugees, expressed at the highest level of government, has been interpreted as Merz’s attempt to stave off Germany’s rising far-right party, the Alternative for Germany (AfD). In the February 2025 national election, the AfD won almost 21% of the vote, making it the second-largest party in the parliament. The government’s perceived rationale is that in getting tough on immigration, Merz will steal some of the thunder on an issue that has seen the AfD swell its support.
However, the reality is more complex. Racism and Islamophobia are not purely far-right phenomena. Rather, they have been part of mainstream German politics and society for decades.
As an expert in German migration history and far-right extremism, I have studied the history of racism and Islamophobia in Merz’s own party, the centrist Christian Democratic Union (CDU). My recent book explains how the CDU used similar tactics during the 1980s to kick out another group of predominantly Muslim migrants: Turks, who are Germany’s largest ethnic minority.
Paying Syrians to leave
Since Bashar Assad’s regime was toppled on Dec. 8, 2024, nearly 1.5 million externally displaced Syrians have voluntarily returned to their home country. That number comprises about one-quarter of all those who have fled since Syria’s civil war began in 2011.
The international legal principle of non-refoulement, which applies to German law, prohibits refugees from being forcibly returned to a country where they face serious threats to their life or freedom. As of December 2025, the United Nations Refugee Agency still stresses that refugees should not be forced to return to Syria.
Meanwhile, an official German program that facilitates the voluntary return of Syrians has been in effect since January 2025.
To persuade Syrians to leave, Germany is now offering to pay them. Since January, Syrian refugees in Germany have been able to apply online for up to US$4,650 (4,000 Euros) per family to assist their voluntary return. The financial incentives are facilitated through the German government’s official program.
For starters, critics say, the money is far too meager to restart one’s life in Syria. Financial incentives can help with reintegration, but only if they are “robust and durable,” according to the Migration Policy Institute.
Many people’s homes there are destroyed or mired in land disputes.
Syrian human rights activists have also argued that the country remains unsafe for religious minorities, women and queer people.
Even German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul softened his stance after a visit to Damascus on Oct. 30. “Here, hardly anyone can live a dignified life,” he said.
Turks in the 1980s: A similar policy
This is not the first time Germany has attempted to pay migrants to leave. In the 1980s, Merz’s party, the CDU, implemented a similar policy against Turkish migrants.
Millions of Turks came to West Germany in the 1960s and 1970s. The government formally recruited them as guest workers to help rebuild Germany after World War II.
By the late 1970s, they increasingly brought their spouses and children, becoming Germany’s largest ethnic minority.
Meanwhile, racism and Islamophobia skyrocketed in 1980s Germany — both on the far right and in the center.
While neo-Nazis violently attacked Turks, Germans on all sides of the political spectrum argued that Islam was incompatible with Europe. It is a view that 40 years on is being echoed by politicians on the right both in Europe and in the Trump administration.
But kicking out half of West Germany’s Turkish population was no easy feat — especially given the sensitivities that still plagued a country scarred by Nazi atrocities and the genocide of European Jews.
In the post-war years, West Germany was desperate to reestablish its reputation as a liberal democracy committed to human rights. As such, forced deportations were not an option.
Kohl’s solution, a precursor to Merz’s, was to pay Turks to leave. In 1983, West Germany passed the controversial remigration law, which offered Turks financial incentives to voluntarily return.
The 1983 law was widely criticized by rights activists as a “kicking out policy.”
Ultimately, 15% of Turkish migrants — approximately 250,000 men, women and children — took the money and left. It was one of the largest and fastest mass remigrations in modern European history.
However, returnees often faced financial and social hardship in Turkey. They struggled to reintegrate into the nation’s then-flailing economy. Many, especially children, were ostracized as “Germanized Turks.”
As the Turkish case shows, even a voluntary return is not always a happy homecoming.
Will Germany deport Syrians?
Germany today cannot realistically expect large numbers of Syrian refugees to accept the financial incentives. Amid the still ongoing humanitarian crisis in their home country, they would face far more dire hardships than Turks did in the 1980s.
In fact, only about 1,300 Syrians in Germany have voluntarily returned since Assad’s regime collapsed last year. That is just 0.1% of Germany’s Syrian population.
Merz has already announced that if Syrians refuse to leave, Germany will begin deporting some of them. He recently invited Syria’s president to Germany to discuss deporting Syrians with criminal records.
Other countries have already begun deportations of Syrian nationals, including Lebanon, Turkey and Jordan, the countries where most Syrian refugees are located.
Merz is, of course, responding to real political dynamics in Germany. The far right is indeed rising, which the center has responded to by moving further right. And as such, the fact that Merz’s party is cracking down on migration should not come as a surprise.
But today, as in the past, the response risks pandering to racism and Islamophobia that have been embedded in Germany’s mainstream. And Syrians, like Turks before them, are caught in the crossfire.
Michelle Lynn Kahn has received funding from the National Humanities Center, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, American Historical Association, American Jewish Archives, and Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.
Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Juan Zahir Naranjo Cáceres, PhD Candidate, Political Science, International Relations and Constitutional Law, University of the Sunshine Coast
In 2013, then-Secretary of State John Kerry announced “the era of the Monroe Doctrine is over”. It signalled a shift towards treating the region as partners rather than a sphere of influence.
Now, however, the National Security Strategy released last week by the Trump administration has formally revived that old doctrine.
It helps explain the administration’s interventionist actions in the region over the past couple months, from its deadly boat strikes in the Caribbean to its selective use of sanctions and pardons.
Why Latin America is so important
In typical hubristic fashion, the document openly announces a “Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine, elevating the Western Hemisphere as the top US international priority. The days when the Middle East dominated American foreign policy are “thankfully over”, it says.
The document also ties US security and prosperity directly to maintaining US preeminence in Latin America. For example, it aims to deny China and other powers access to key strategic assets in the region, such as military installations, ports, critical minerals and cyber communications networks.
Crucially, it fuses the Trump administration’s harsh rhetoric on “narco-terrorists” with the US-China great power competition.
It frames a more robust US military presence and diplomatic pressure as necessary to confront Latin American drug cartels and protect sea lanes, ports and critical infrastructure from Chinese influence.
How the strategy explains Trump’s actions
For months, the Trump administration has been striking suspected drug boats in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean, killing dozens of people.
International law experts and human rights officials say these attacks breach international law. The US Congress has not authorised any armed conflict in these waters, yet the strikes have been presented as necessary to protect the US from “narco‑terrorists”.
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has also been branded a “narco‑dictator”, though Venezuela is a minor player in the flow of drugs to the US.
On December 2, President Donald Trump told reporters that any country he believes is manufacturing or transporting drugs to the US could face a military strike. This includes not just Venezuela, but also Mexico and Colombia.
On the same day, Trump also granted a pardon to Juan Orlando Hernández, Honduras’ former president. He had been sentenced to 45 years in prison for helping move hundreds of tons of cocaine into the US.
The new National Security Strategy attempts to explain the logic behind these contradictory actions. It emphasises the need to protect US “core national interests”, and stresses:
President Trump’s foreign policy is […] not grounded in traditional, political ideology. It is motivated above all by what works for America — or, in two words, ‘America First’.
Within this logic, Hernández was pardoned because he can still serve US interests. As a former president with deep links to Honduran elites and security forces, he is exactly the kind of loyal, hard-right client Trump wants in a country that hosts US military personnel and can help police migration routes to the US.
The timing underlines this: Trump moved to free Hernández just days before Honduras’ elections, shoring up the conservative networks he once led to support Trump’s preferred candidate for president, Nasry Asfura.
In Trump’s “America First” calculus, pardoning Hernández also sends a couple clear signals. Obedient partners are rewarded. And power, not principle, determines US policy in the region.
The obsession with Venezuela
The new security strategy explains Trump’s obsession with Venezuela, in particular.
Venezuela has the world’s largest proven oil reserves and a long coastline on the Caribbean Sea, which is a vital sea lane for US goods travelling through the Panama Canal.
The Trump administration’s National Security Strategy makes clear this is unacceptable to the United States. Although Venezuela is not named anywhere in the document, the strategy alludes to the fact China has made inroads with like-minded leaders in the region:
Some foreign influence will be hard to reverse, given the political alignments
between certain Latin American governments and certain foreign actors.
A recent report suggests the Maduro government is now attempting a dramatic geopolitical realignment. The New York Times says Maduro’s government offered the US a dominant stake in its oil and gold resources, diverting exports from China. If true, this would represent a clear attempt to court the Trump administration and end Venezuela’s international isolation.
But many believe the Trump administration is after regime change instead.
The Venezuelan opposition leader, María Corina Machado, who won the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize, is pitching a post‑Maduro future to US investors, describing a “US$1.7 trillion (A$2.5 trillion) opportunity” to privatise Venezuela’s oil, gas and infrastructure.
For US and European corporations, the message is clear: regime change could unlock vast wealth.
Latin America’s fragmented response
Regional organisations remain divided or weakened, and have yet to coordinate a response to the Trump administration. At a recent regional summit, leaders called for peace, but stopped short of condemning the US strikes off Latin America.
Governments are instead having to deal with Trump one by one. Some hope to be treated as friends; others fear being cast as “narco‑states”.
Two centuries after the Monroe Doctrine, Washington still views the hemisphere as its own backyard, in which it is “free to roam” and can meddle as it sees fit.
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.
Under team owner Steve Ballmer, in the checkered shirt, the LA Clippers have cut their greenhouse gas emissions, but their carbon offsets raise questions.Ric Tapia/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images
If you go to a pro sports event today, there’s a good chance the stadium or arena will be powered at least in part by renewable energy. The team likely takes steps to reduce energy and waste. Some even claim to have net-zero greenhouse gas emissions, meaning any emissions they still do produce they offset by paying for projects, such as tree-planting, that reduce greenhouse gases elsewhere.
The venue upgrades have been impressive – Seattle’s hockey and basketball arena runs on 100% renewable energy, makes its rink ice from captured rainwater, and offers free public transit for ticket holders.
It’s an important question, in part because fans may ultimately pay for those offsets.
Lionel Messi of Argentina controls the ball during the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 final match. FIFA drew criticism for claiming the games were carbon neutral while relying heavily on sometimes questionable carbon offsets. Julian Finney/Getty Images
The cost of carbon offsetting in sports varies by organization, with no industry standard for who pays. Some teams and leagues absorb costs through their operational budgets, treating carbon neutrality as a core responsibility. Others pass costs to consumers: Some teams add sustainability fees to ticket prices to offset each attendee’s carbon footprint. The payment model ultimately reflects whether an organization views offsetting as an institutional obligation or a shared responsibility with fans.
The vast majority of a sports team’s climate footprint comes from team’s and fans’ travel, which they have little control over. Leagues can reduce teams’ travel somewhat with creative scheduling, but unlike other industries, sports teams have few ways to reduce the bulk of their emissions.
What many of them do instead is offset those travel emissions by buying carbon credits.
Carbon credits are generated by projects that reduce greenhouse gases in the atmosphere or prevent greenhouse gas emissions. Many of those projects involve planting trees to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere; others expand clean energy to reduce fossil fuel use. Each carbon credit is supposed to represent the reduction or prevention of one metric ton of carbon dioxide.
Unfortunately, several teams, perhaps unknowingly, have been purchasing fraudulent or low-quality credits.
Reputations at risk
FIFA brought the sports world’s carbon offset problem into the spotlight during the 2022 Qatar World Cup.
FIFA claimed the event would be carbon neutral, but that claim relied on creative accounting that understated the event’s construction and travel emissions. Organizers also used low-quality offsets. Many of those offsets were renewable energy projects with a high likelihood of being built anyway.
A year after the tournament, FIFA had completed offset purchases for less than a third of the World Cup’s estimated emissions, the nonprofit Carbon Market Watch found. And Switzerland’s advertising regulator ordered FIFA to stop claiming the World Cup had been “carbon neutral.”
In 2022, the Boston Red Sox announced a plan to route a portion of the proceeds from every ticket purchased at Fenway Park to a carbon offset project run by Aspiration. Aspiration later went bankrupt, and a ProPublica investigation found it had planted far fewer trees to store that carbon than promised. Werner Kunz/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA
The Clippers and baseball’s Boston Red Sox ran into problems when they publicly partnered with Aspiration, a now-bankrupt finance technology company and carbon credit broker, to meet their “carbon neutral” claims.
However, Aspiration officials claimed to have supported millions more tree-plantings than what had actually happened, a ProPublica investigation found. Aspiration co-founder Joe Sanberg pleaded guilty in 2025 to wire fraud involving false statements about financing to secure loans and attract investors, who lost at least $248 million.
The Aspiration partnership is also under investigation by the NBA over an endorsement deal the company made with Clippers all-star Kawhi Leonard at about the same time and questions about whether it was used to violate the league’s salary cap. Team owner Steve Ballmer, who personally invested at least $50 million in Aspiration, told ESPN he and the team did nothing wrong. “They conned me,” he said.
While the scandal focused on financial fraud and the salary cap, it also raised questions about the team’s sustainability claim.
Without verification, who knows?
In some cases, the value of offset projects is difficult to verify, even when trees are being planted nearby.
While the effort positioned the club as a sustainability leader, the offsets lacked what’s known as third-party verification. Similar to how organic food must be certified by reputable agencies, third-party validation of carbon credits ensures credits truly represent the removal of carbon from the atmosphere or avoided emissions.
Without verification, it’s unclear whether claimed emission reductions are permanent, accurately tracked and transparently reported.
Potential legal consequences
Even the most prominent venues are susceptible to issues with unreliable credits.
Climate Pledge Arena in Seattle has been celebrated as the world’s first “zero-carbon” certified arena, with electric Zambonis, recycled materials, renewable energy and free public transit. It represents one of the most ambitious pushes to develop sustainable sport infrastructure globally.
Hockey rinks need energy to keep the ice frozen. Seattle’s Climate Pledge Arena has lowered its emissions with solar power from a local array and has even electried its Zambonis. But reports have raised questions about the quality of carbon offsets it purchased. AP Photo/Maddy Grassy
To offset unavoidable construction emissions, the arena’s owner relied on carbon credits tied to projects meant to reduce rainforest loss in Colombia. However, an analysis by the carbon rating company Calyx Global found that while the arena’s credits may prevent some deforestation, the numbers likely overstate the benefits.
Delta Air Lines, for example, is facing a lawsuit over its carbon neutrality claim. The suit alleges that Delta misled passengers by describing itself as a “carbon-neutral airline” while relying on carbon offset projects that were ineffective or “junk.”
To provide meaningful sustainability commitments, sports organizations and facilities can start at home by lowering their fossil fuel use and increasing their energy efficiency. Many arenas do this.
Where offsets will still play a role, teams can ensure that they partner with verified carbon credit providers that deliver measurable, transparent carbon reductions.
In a field where public trust and reputation matter as much as performance, the sports industry cannot afford foul play on climate. We believe a shift toward strategies that cut emissions first, and then use only the most credible offsets, will be the difference between striking out and leading the sustainability game.
The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Electronic gifts are very popular, and in recent years, retailers have been offering significant discounts on smartphones, e-readers and other electronics labeled as “pre-owned.” Research I have co-led finds that these pre-owned options are becoming increasingly viable, thanks in part to laws and policies that encourage recycling and reuse of devices that might previously have been thrown away.
Amazon, Walmart and Best Buy have dedicated pages on their websites for pre-owned devices. Manufacturers like Apple and Dell, as well as mobile service providers like AT&T and Verizon, offer their own options for customers to buy used items. Their sales rely on the availability of a large volume of used products, which are supplied by the emergence of an entire line of businesses that process used, discarded or returned electronics.
Originally intended to reduce the amount of electronic waste flowing into the state’s landfills, California’s law did far more, unleashing a wave of innovation, our analysis found.
We analyzed the patent-filing activity of hundreds of electronics firms over a 17-year time span from 1996 to 2012. We found that the passage of California’s law not only prompted electronics manufacturers to engage in sustainability-focused innovation, but it also sparked a surge in general innovation around products, processes and techniques.
Faced with new regulations, electronics manufacturers and suppliers didn’t just make small adjustments, such as tweaking their packaging to ensure compliance. They fundamentally rethought their design and manufacturing processes, to create products that use recycled materials and that are easily recyclable themselves.
For example, Samsung’s Galaxy S25smartphone is a new product that, when released in May 2025, was made of eight different recycled materials, including aluminum, neodymium, steel, plastics and fiber.
Combined with advanced recycling technologies and processes, these materials can be recovered and reused several times in new devices and products. For example, Apple invented the Daisy Robot, which disassembles old iPhones in a matter of seconds and recovers a variety of precious metals, including copper and gold. These materials, which would otherwise have to be mined from rock, are reused in Apple’s manufacturing process for new iPhones and iPads.
How do consumers benefit?
In the past two decades, 25 U.S. states and Washington D.C. have passed laws requiring electronics recycling and refurbishing, the process of restoring a pre-owned electronic device so that it can function like new.
The establishment of industry guidelines and standards also means that all pre-owned devices are thoroughly tested for functionality and cosmetic appearance before resale.
Companies’ deeper engagement with innovation appears to have created organizational momentum that carried over into other areas of product development. For example, in our study, we found that the passage of California’s law directly resulted in a flurry of patents related to semiconductor materials, data storage and battery technology, among others. These scientific advances have made devices more durable, repairable and recyclable.
For the average consumer, the recycling laws and the resulting industry responses mean used electronics are available with similar reliability, warranties and return policies as new devices – and at prices as much as 50% lower.
Suvrat Dhanorkar does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
