Tetrapod Zoology
My New Book Hunting Monsters: Cryptozoology and the Reality Behind the Myths

Much of my 2015 was taken up by the writing of several books, some of which are, I’m pleased to say, due to see print in 2016. Today I’m happy to announce that the first of these is out: it’s my Arcturus book Hunting Monsters: Cryptozoology and the Reality Behind the Myths (Naish 2016)...

By Darren Naish on February 16, 2016


Right now, Hunting Monsters only exists as an ebook. If you’re at all like me, this might be something of a disappointment, since I don’t get much satisfaction from ebooks and think of them more as badly formatted word documents, not as books at all.

Front cover of Naish (2016). I like it.

Anyway, if it sells well enough in digital format, we’ll then be releasing a hardcopy version. The good news is that the ebook version is criminally cheap (£2.39, US$3.45). Also, remember that you don’t need a kindle to read it – you can download a kindle app, for free, for any device, and thereby read it on your smartphone or PC or whatever.

There are a large number of books out there on cryptozoology already, so what’s special about this one? Hunting Monsters is a sceptical, pro-science take on cryptozoology; something along the lines of Binns (1984), Campbell (1986), Radford & Nicklin (2006) and Loxton & Prothero (2013). But that doesn’t mean that it’s a vicious debunking that leaves us all sad and disheartened – we can get something positive out of this; read on.
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Hugh Gray's Loch Ness monster photo is not a swimming dog or a giant salamander or worm-like animal, but a swan with a submerged head. This explains why it's so white. Look carefully and you can see the wings, tail and ankle joint. Swan image by Peter Gray (no relation... I presume!), from Naish (2016).

A reasonable amount of novel investigation of cryptid sightings and images is recounted. Classic water monster episodes like the Daedalus and Valhalla accounts and the Sandra Mansi photo are discussed in view of recent evaluations, and I’ve also included much of the new work on lake monster images released by Dick Raynor. Without giving too much away, I want to say that the famous Hugh Gray Loch Ness monster photo of 1933 is not a swimming dog, or a salamander-like beast, or giant anachronistic Tullimonstrum… but a swan. Yes, a swan. And the infamous Peter O’Connor photo of 1960 – the one that depicts what looks like an inflated plastic bag with a stick for a head – has proved to be the inverted hull of a kayak called a Tyne Prefect. You can even see the base of the rudder support!
Cropped version of the O'Connor Loch Ness monster photo - note how the far left part of the image (normally cropped out!) looks weird for what's meant to be part of an animal's body. It's a good match for the corresponding part of an inverted kayak (see Dick Raynor's study here).

And then there are my evaluations of Rilla Martin’s Ozenkadnook tiger photo, various of the key yeti and bigfoot accounts, a critical appraisal of the kraken (no, it is not the same thing as Architeuthis), the St Augustine blob and other sea monster carcasses, and more. I even obtained and read Jonathan Whitcomb’s ropen book…

Rilla Martin’s 1964 Ozenkadnook tiger photo - shown at left - has always been enigmatic and difficult to interpret. What's with the tall shoulders and pale stripes? (as per the interpretation at right, by Darren Naish). See Naish (2016) for current thoughts.

While previous authors have focused on the ecological and morphological problems attached to the superstar cryptids (for example: could a beast the size of Nessie really make a living in Loch Ness?; how could a creature like bigfoot evade detection in modern North America?), few have discussed the fact that cryptozoological hypotheses invoke very specific models pertaining to evolutionary history.

In recent years, some apparently good evidence for bigfoot has dissolved under scrutiny. Alleged dermal ridges have proved to be artifacts of the plaster-pouring process, as demonstrated by Matt Crowley (image of plaster ridges by Matt Crowley, used with permission). And claims that the lustrous pelt and realistic muscle tone of 'Patty' can't be replicated by a suit are highly questionable - look at the realistic tone and texture of the obviously fake suit on the right (photo by Darren Naish).

What’s notable is that, while cryptids themselves are posited as novel, exciting elements of the fauna, the evolutionary scenarios required to allow their existence virtually always involve novel, unprecedented events for which there is, alas, no evidence. The giant long-necked seals of the cryptozoological literature require that certain (unknown) pinnipeds evolved radical ecological, morphological and behavioural novelty; a view of bigfoot or the yeti as a giant, bipedal pongine requires that our views on the evolution of hominid bipedality and anatomy be substantially revised; arguments that the almas (or almasty or almasti) is a remnant Neanderthal are contingent on the idea that Neanderthals underwent radical change for which we have no evidence; and so on and on and on. Cryptozoologists have thought about this stuff a lot and written about it as well, but it has mostly evaded sceptical evaluation (for previous coverage see Conway et al. 2013).

Sea monsters and other mystery beasts - the creature shown here is Heuvelmans' 'Yellow-belly' - have taken on a life of their own ever since cryptozoologists have devised morphological configurations and evolutionary histories for them. But isn't this all a house of cards? Compare 'Yellow-belly' with the eyewitness accounts Heuvelmans based it on.

And what of the interplay between cryptozoology and creationism? I say stuff about that in my chapter on the mokele-mbembe and ropen (Naish 2016).
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A new frontier: cryptozoology as culture

However, I hope that Hunting Monsters is seen as more than a mere curmudgeonly debunking, or as yet another heavy-handed sceptical smackdown. One of my arguments, made repeatedly throughout the book, is that cryptozoology is culture. Even if cryptids don’t exist – in the corporeal, biological sense of the term – they still exist in the nebulous sense of their having a place in the psychological landscape, and this remains a fascinating issue worthy of further study. 

Blu Buhs (2009), required reading as goes the cultural context of bigfoot.

People ‘see’, describe and report the creatures they do because they interpret their recollections, sightings and encounters within the cultural framework in which they were raised. It is, so it seems, an inevitable consequence of being human that we imagine large, frightening creatures to lurk beneath the surface of the water, or human-shaped beasts in forests and other wild places.

There’s also a case to be made that people of a given subset will be more inclined to investigate or believe in mystery animals than others: this topic is explored at length in Blu Buhs (2009).

Indeed, the fact that belief in these creatures will not die – despite a compelling and impressive lack of evidence – makes it seem that they’re an almost immutable part of our psyche. Is there, then, really some ingrained need in humans to imagine, believe in, or see monsters? I don’t know the answer, but I think it’s a question worth asking and investigating.
 

Which Loch Ness monster would you like to believe in? We most certainly do not see consistent descriptions of a single biological entity.

Distinct from but linked to this apparent cultural role of cryptozoology is our ability to perform as witnesses and ‘data recallers’. It’s no secret that people generally perform very badly when it comes to describing and recalling observations, especially those made fleetingly or when under stress. And sceptics of cryptozoology often point to the field’s over-emphasis of the value of eyewitness data as one of its primary flaws (Loxton & Prothero 2013). How we perform as witnesses and recallers and why we fail or succeed when we do is another fascinating subject – and I say that it’s linked to the cultural role of cryptozoology because a case can be made that our preconceptions and biases are linked to cultural and societal archetypes, memes and concepts.

  

Standard reading on cryptozoological scepticism: Loxton & Prothero (2013).

We’re at an early stage in understanding this stuff. Or, at least, those of us who aren’t experts in it are at an early stage. What I’m saying – by now it’s probably clear – is that, while bigfoot and Nessie and so on might not be ‘real’, they’re likely ‘real’ enough, culturally and/or psychologically, to be significant to us. I think that that’s important. We’re calling this whole subject ‘post-cryptid cryptozoology’, and I hope that Hunting Monsters is perhaps epiphanic on this front to at least some of its readers.

So there we have it – long-time readers of Tet Zoo will know that this book represents the culmination of an evolving set of thoughts and hypotheses.

The Daedalus encounter of 1848 remains one of the most pivotal and influential of sea monster reports. Was it actually a misidentified rorqual, as argued by Galbreath (2015)? This is more compelling when you look at Lieutenant Edgar A. Drummond's sketch.

And finally...

As always with anything written by humans, there are a few errors that are making me cross. In a discussion of the Daedalus sea monster sighting, I say that the beast had no neck, and then immediately go on to say that its mane was located some way along… its neck. There’s also a contradiction as goes how the Daedalus monster is treated – it’s a skim-feeding Sei whale at one point (as per Gary Galbreath’s 2015 article) and an unresolved enigma at another. Whoops. And there are a few dumb typos and incorrect terms, as there always are. I hope you can forgive these transgressions.

For previous Tet Zoo articles relevant to the issues covered here, see...
Best lake monster image ever: the Mansi photo
A ‘lake monster’ caught on film at Lake Champlain
Rilla Martin’s 1964 photo of the ‘Ozenkadnook tiger’
Cryptozoology at the Zoological Society of London. Cryptozoology: time to come in from the cold? Or, Cryptozoology: avoid at all costs?
The amazing Hook Island sea monster photos, revisited
The Cryptozoologicon (Volume I): here, at last
Is Cryptozoology Good or Bad for Science? (review of Loxton & Prothero 2013)

Refs - -

Binns, R. 1984. The Loch Ness Mystery Solved. W.H. Allen & Co, London.

Blu Buhs, J. 2009. Bigfoot: the Life and Times of a Legend. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.

Campbell, S. 1986. The Loch Ness Monster: The Evidence. The Aquarian Press, Wellingborough, UK.
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Conway, J., Kosemen, C. M. & Naish, D. 2013. Cryptozoologicon Volume I. Irregular Books.

Loxton, D. & Prothero, D. R. 2013. Abominable Science! Columbia University Press, New York.

Naish, D. 2016. Hunting Monsters: Cryptozoology and the Reality Behind the Myths. Arcturus, London.

Radford, B. & Nickell, J. 2006. Lake Monster Mysteries. University of Kentucky Press, Lexington.

The views expressed are those of the author(s) and are not necessarily those of Scientific American.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR(S)


Darren Naish


Darren Naish is a science writer, technical editor and palaeozoologist (affiliated with the University of Southampton, UK). He mostly works on Cretaceous dinosaurs and pterosaurs but has an avid interest in all things tetrapod. His publications can be downloaded at darrennaish.wordpress.com. He has been blogging at Tetrapod Zoology since 2006. Check out the Tet Zoo podcast at tetzoo.com!

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Perth Pictish find offers glimpse into Scotland's warrior past

by University of Aberdeen

The Tulloch Stone. Credit: University of Aberdeen

Archaeologists have carefully recreated images of a figure on a Pictish stone, discovered during the construction of a road in 2017, with the details uncovered offering new insights into Scotland's warrior past.

During ground clearance work close to Perth's McDiarmid Park, a nearly two meters-high monolith was found, depicting a male figure carrying a spear.

Though the outline of the man could be seen, the carving was faint in places and the surface of the stone had partly delaminated.

Archaeologists from the University of Aberdeen, which is leading the study of Northern Picts, have taken thousands of photographs to create 3-D images. This has clarified the design and allowed them to compare it to those found on other stones.

Professor Gordon Noble, Head of Archaeology at Aberdeen, and Dr. Mark Hall, archaeological curator at Perth Museum, say the stone—known as the Tulloch Stone is a 'significant find' which adds to the corpus of material available for study.

In a paper published in Antiquity, the research team argues that similarities observed between the Tulloch Stone, named after where it was discovered, and those found at Rhynie in Aberdeenshire and Newton of Collessie in Fife are 'filling the gaps' of Scotland's undocumented history.

Professor Noble said: "By looking at the three stones together, we have been able to draw new conclusions about what these figures represent.

"On the Tulloch Stone we can now see that the man is carrying a distinctive door-knob butted spear which we know from previous research was in use from the third to the sixth century.

"He also has a very distinctive hairstyle, is wearing a helmet and necklace and has a faint line around the left ankle which could suggest footwear or tight leggings.

"In line with the other stones, this is clearly a depiction of a warrior. Its find spot overlooks the coming together of the rivers Tay and Almond, a junction marked by a Roman fort and later a possible Pictish royal center, suggesting the monolith might have been located in a cemetery of the elite.

"Because the presentation of the figures is standardized across all of the stones, it is likely that it represents a generic sacred image, rather than it being a depiction of someone buried there."

Dr. Hall says this also points to a war lord or warrior ethos which has been well documented in Anglo Saxon England but for which little evidence has previously been seen in Scotland.

"In Anglo-Saxon England we have lots of examples of burials with weaponry and the poem Beowulf epitomizes the warrior ethos of this period," he added.

"This has not been evidenced in Scotland in the same way but here through the new Tulloch find and a reconsideration of long-known stones we can see that warrior ideology cast in stone—meaning these martial values were conveyed in a very public way to be visible in the landscape and to invoke supernatural protection."

Professor Noble added "This bridges a crucial gap in knowledge as although we know that warrior ideology is important for rulership, we haven't previously been able to demonstrate how that evolves through time in the period before the sixth and seventh centuries when we begin to get historical records for Scotland.

"We believe that the weapon-bearing individuals shown on these stones may represent a war-oriented social organization that was integral to resisting the Roman Empire and to creating the overtly hierarchical societies of the post-Roman period."

The Tulloch Stone was discovered during construction work for the A9/A85 scheme, part of the Perth Transport Futures Project, and is now undergoing further research and conservation prior to going on display in a new museum being developed for Perth, set to open in 2022.

Dr. Mark Hall said increased public awareness of Scotland's Pictish past was opening up new opportunities for important archaeological study.

"Most of the recent Pictish finds have been as a result of people paying greater attention," he added.

"The workmen who scooped up this stone did well to realize that there was something on it and to alert the appropriate authorities.

"It is likely that there are more Pictish stones out there to be found and every new stone is a fantastic addition to the corpus.

"This discovery of the Tulloch stone has revealed fresh details allowing the reconsideration of the existing related sculptures, fostering new insights and conclusions that are not possible when only dealing with a single example."

The full paper detailing their research findings has been made available free of charge.

Kevin Grant, Archaeology Manager at HES, said: "We are delighted to be able to fund Open Access for this paper, allowing everyone to freely access information about this exciting discovery.

Recreation video shows how 'earliest Pictish fort' may have looked
More information: Mark Hall et al. Warrior ideologies in first-millennium AD Europe: new light on monumental warrior stelae from Scotland, Antiquity (2020). DOI: 10.15184/aqy.2019.214 

Ancient engraving of warrior with 'elaborate hairstyle' and 'pronounced butt' discovered in Scotland
By Yasemin Saplakoglu - Staff Writer 2 days ago

"The warrior is an essential part of society, the central part of power."

The Tulloch stone depicts a spear-holding ancient warrior.
(Image: © Mark Hall et. al ; Antiquity 2020)

Archaeologists in Scotland have discovered an ancient monolith that's engraved with a spear-holding warrior sporting an "elaborate hairstyle" and "pronounced" butt.

In September 2017, construction workers uncovered the stone monument in the northwest side of Perth in Scotland while clearing the ground to build a new road. They found the stone facedown and buried a little more than 3 feet (1 meter) in the ground.

The so-called Tulloch stone is about 6.4 feet (1.9 m) high and 2.3 feet (0.7 m) wide; on one side, it depicts a human figure holding a spear with a "kite-shaped blade and a doorknob-style butt," the authors wrote in a paper describing the findings, published Jan. 23 in the journal Antiquity.

Related: In photos: Boneyard of Iron Age warriors

The surface of the stone was partly broken apart into layers, and portions of the carving were faded. But with the help of 3D imaging and a technique called photogrammetry, which involves stitching together hundreds of photographs of an object taken from different angles, archaeologists were able to reconstruct the original design. It's not clear if the figure was depicted naked, as faint lines at the ankles might suggest he wore shoes or tight leggings.

The stone was buried near a ring ditch, possibly indicating that the monolith was part of a burial, according to the paper. The carving belonged to the Picts, an ancient, Celtic-speaking group that lived in what is now eastern and northern Scotland. (The Romans coined the name "Picts," meaning the "painted people," possibly in reference to the Picts' distinctive tattoos or the war paint they wore.)

In the late Roman period, the Picts helped to defend the area that's now known as Scotland from multiple Roman attacks; as such, in the early medieval period that followed, war became an important part of how the Picts' society was organized.

We know from historical records and poetry that "the warrior is an essential part of society, the central part of power," said senior author Gordon Noble, a professor in the school of geosciences at the University of Aberdeen in the United Kingdom. Pictish society adopted a warrior way of life initially as a "form of resistance" against the Roman empire, but it later became an "inspiration" and a key part of their culture, he added.

It's not clear what the warrior on this monolith — and similar ones previously found nearby depicting warrior figures holding "doorknob-butted spears" — represent, but they could be depictions of warrior gods or religious figures within this war-oriented Pictish ideology, Noble told Live Science. War ideology was common across a large part of Europe but was more typically represented through the burial of weapons with the dead.

Such burials, historical sources and poetry that depict the "heroic warrior ethos" were common across Northern Europe but largely absent from northern Britain in the first millennium A.D. Rather, in northeastern Scotland, such values were publicly shown with carvings on monuments and likely associated with cemeteries belonging to the elite, the researchers noted in the paper.

The Tulloch stone is only one of three such Pictish monoliths found in the area with carvings of warriors on them. But there have been numerous other Pictish stones found with carvings of abstract or animal symbols often thought to be a simple way of representing names, Noble said.

"Over the last 10 years, it seems like we've had a new Pictish stone every year or even more than one every year," Noble said. "So I'm sure more will come up, but the stones with images of warriors are still quite rare in the wider Pictish stone corpus." The stone will eventually be put on display in the Perth Museum in Scotland.
Gallery: Ancient Chinese warriors protect secret tomb
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Originally published on Live Science.

Heather Ale

                                                  Robert Louis Stevenson

A GALLOWAY LEGEND

From the bonny bells of heather
  They brewed a drink long-syne,
Was sweeter far then honey,
  Was stronger far than wine.
They brewed it and they drank it,
  And lay in a blessed swound
For days and days together
  In their dwellings underground.

There rose a king in Scotland,
  A fell man to his foes,
He smote the Picts in battle,
  He hunted them like roes.
Over miles of the red mountain
  He hunted as they fled,
And strewed the dwarfish bodies
  Of the dying and the dead.

Summer came in the country,
  Red was the heather bell;
But the manner of the brewing
  Was none alive to tell.
In graves that were like children's
  On many a mountain head,
The Brewsters of the Heather
  Lay numbered with the dead.

The king in the red moorland
  Rode on a summer's day;
And the bees hummed, and the curlews
  Cried beside the way.
The king rode, and was angry,
  Black was his brow and pale,
To rule in a land of heather
  And lack the Heather Ale.

It fortuned that his vassals,
  Riding free on the heath,
Came on a stone that was fallen
  And vermin hid beneath.
Rudely plucked from their hiding,
  Never a word they spoke;
A son and his aged father --
  Last of the dwarfish folk.

The king sat high on his charger,
  He looked on the little men;
And the dwarfish and swarthy couple
  Looked at the king again.
Down by the shore he had them;
  And there on the giddy brink --
"I will give you life, ye vermin,
  For the secret of the drink."

There stood the son and father,
  And they looked high and low;
The heather was red around them,
  The sea rumbled below.
And up and spoke the father,
  Shrill was his voice to hear:
"I have a word in private,
  A word for the royal ear.

"Life is dear to the aged,
  And honour a little thing;
I would gladly sell the secret,"
  Quoth the Pict to the king.
His voice was small as a sparrow's,
  And shrill and wonderful clear:
"I would gladly sell my secret,
  Only my son I fear.

"For life is a little matter,
  And death is nought to the young;
And I dare not sell my honour
  Under the eye of my son.
Take him, O king, and bind him,
  And cast him far in the deep;
And it's I will tell the secret
  That I have sworn to keep."

They took the son and bound him,
  Neck and heels in a thong,
And a lad took him and swung him,
  And flung him far and strong,
And the sea swallowed his body,
  Like that of a child of ten; --
And there on the cliff stood the father,
  Last of the dwarfish men.

"True was the word I told you:
  Only my son I feared;
For I doubt the sapling courage
  That goes without the beard.
But now in vain is the torture,
  Fire shall never avail:
Here dies in my bosom
  The secret of Heather Ale."

---

NOTE TO HEATHER ALE

Among the curiosities of human nature this legend claims a high place. It is needless to remind the reader that the Picts were never exterminated, and form to this day a large proportion of the folk of Scotland, occupying the eastern and the central parts, from the Firth of Forth, or perhaps the Lammermoors, upon the south, to the Ord of Caithness on the north. That the blundering guess of a dull chronicler should have inspired men with imaginary loathing for their own ancestors is already strange; that it should have begotten this wild legend seems incredible. Is it possible the chronicler's error was merely nominal? that what he told, and what the people proved themselves so ready to receive, about the Picts, was true or partly true of some anterior and perhaps Lappish savages, small of stature, black of hue, dwelling underground -- possibly also the distillers of some forgotten spirit? See Mr. Campbell's Tales of the West Highlands.

---

Overwhelming and terrifying’: the rise of climate anxiety

Experts concerned young people’s mental health particularly hit by reality of the climate crisis

Matthew Taylor and Jessica Murray
Mon 10 Feb 2020 
 

Clover Hogan grew up in Australia and said she was heartbroken when she heard about the number of animals killed by recent bushfires. Photograph: Jill Mead/The Guardian

Over the past few weeks Clover Hogan has found herself crying during the day and waking up at night gripped by panic. The 20-year-old, who now lives in London, grew up in Queensland, Australia, cheekbyjowl with the country’s wildlife, fishing frogs out of the toilet and dodging snakes hanging from the ceiling.

The bushfires ravaging her homeland over the past few weeks have taken their toll. “I’ve found myself bursting into tears … just seeing the absolutely harrowing images of what’s happening in Australia – it is overwhelming and terrifying.”

Hogan said her lowest point came when she heard about the death of half a billion animals incinerated as the fires swept through the bush. “That was the moment where I felt my heart cleave into two pieces. I felt absolutely distraught.”

The physical impact of the climate crisis is impossible to ignore, but experts are becoming increasingly concerned about another, less obvious consequence of the escalating emergency – the strain it is putting on people’s mental wellbeing, especially the young.

Psychologists warn that the impact can be debilitating for the growing number of people overwhelmed by the scientific reality of ecological breakdown and for those who have lived through traumatic climate events, often on the climate frontline in the global south..

Until two years ago Dr Patrick Kennedy-Williams, a clinical psychologist from Oxford, had spent his career treating common mental health difficulties including anxiety, depression and trauma. Then something new started to happen. Climate scientists and researchers working in Oxford began to approach him asking for help.

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“These were people who were essentially facing a barrage of negative information and downward trends in their work … and the more they engaged with the issue, the more they realised what needed to be done – and the more they felt that was bigger than their capacity to enact meaningful change,” he said. “The consequences of this can be pretty dire – anxiety, burnout and a sort of professional paralysis.”

Kennedy-Williams began to research the topic and realised it was not just scientists and researchers who were suffering. “There is a huge need among parents, for instance, who are asking for support on how to talk to their kids about this.”

When Kennedy-Williams began focusing on young people he assumed most would be older teenagers or at least have started secondary school. But he soon discovered worrying levels of environment-related stress and anxiety in much younger children.

“What I was most surprised by is how young the awareness and anxiety starts. My own daughter was just six when she came to me and said: ‘Daddy, are we winning the war against climate change?’ and I was just flummoxed by that question in the moment. It really showed me the importance as a parent of being prepared for the conversation, so we can respond in a helpful way.”

He says there is no way to completely shield young people from the reality of the climate crisis, and argues that would be counterproductive even if it were possible. Rather, parents should talk to their children about their concerns and help them feel empowered to take action – however small – that can make a difference.


A key moment for Kennedy-Williams came with the realisation that tackling “climate anxiety” and tackling the climate crisis were intrinsically linked.

“The positive thing from our perspective as psychologists is that we soon realised the cure to climate anxiety is the same as the cure for climate change – action. It is about getting out and doing something that helps.

“Record and celebrate the changes you make. Nobody is too small. Make connections with other people and at the same time realise that you are not going to cure this problem on your own. This isn’t all on you and it’s not sustainable to be working on solving climate change 24/7.”

This certainly resonates with Hogan, who has set up Force of Nature, an initiative aimed at helping young people realise their potential to create change.

Hogan’s group aims to target people aged 11-24 with a crash course in the climate crisis that helps them navigate their anxiety and realise their potential to get involved, take action and make a stand.

“This is only the beginning,” said Hogan. “We’re going to see massive, massive widespread climate crisis in every country around the world, so it’s about developing the emotional resilience to carry on, but in a way that ignites really dramatic individual initiative.”

Beyond climate anxiety – the fear that the current system is pushing the Earth beyond its ecological limits – experts are also warning of a sharp rise in trauma caused by the experience of climate-related disasters.

In the global south, increasingly intense storms, wildfires, droughts and heatwaves have left their mark not just physically but also on the mental wellbeing of millions of people.

For Elizabeth Wathuti, a climate activist from Kenya, her experience of climate anxiety is not so much about the future but what is happening now. “People in African countries experience eco-anxiety differently because climate change for us is about the impacts that we are already experiencing now and the possibilities of the situation getting worse,” she said.

Elizabeth Wathuti, a climate activist from Kenya, says a common worry she hears among students is, ‘We won’t die of old age, we’ll die from climate change’. Photograph: Aitor Baez

She works with young people through the Green Generation Initiative she founded and sees the effects of eco-anxiety first-hand. A common worry she hears among students is: “We won’t die of old age, we’ll die from climate change.”

Extreme climate events can create poverty, which exacerbates mental health problems, and Wathuti says she has seen stress, depression and alcohol and drug abuse as some of the side-effects of climate anxiety and trauma in her country.

Even in the UK, a recent study by the Environment Agency found that people who experience extreme weather such as storms or flooding are 50% more likely to suffer from mental health problems, including stress and depression, for years afterwards.

More than 1,000 clinical psychologists have signed an open letter highlighting the impact of the crisis on people’s wellbeing and predicting “acute trauma on a global scale in response to extreme weather events, forced migration and conflict”.

Kaaren Knight, a clinical psychologist who coordinated the letter, said: “The physical impacts related to extreme weather, food shortages and conflict are intertwined with the additional burden of mental health impacts and it is these psychologists are particularly concerned about.”

She added that fear and trauma “significantly reduced psychological wellbeing”, particularly in children. “This is of huge concern to us and needs to be part of the conversation when we talk about climate breakdown.”

One of the high-profile signatories of the letter, Prof Mike Wang, the chair of the Association of Clinical Psychologists UK, said: “Inaction and complacency are the privileges of yesterday … Psychologists are ready and willing to help countries protect the health and wellbeing of their citizens given the inevitable social and psychological consequences of climate change.”

This rallying of the psychological profession around the climate crisis has led to experts around the world forming groups to research and treat the growing number of people caught up in the unfolding crisis, attempting to help them move from fear and paralysis towards action.

But even for those who are following this advice, the scale of the emergency is taking its toll. Kennedy Williams – who has set up his own group, Climate Psychologists, specialising in climate anxiety – said he and his colleagues were not immune from the psychological impacts of the crisis.

“This is such a universal thing that [we] have all been through our own set of climate-related grief and despair, and we talk about riding the wave between hope and despair … it is absolutely as real for us as it is for anyone else.”
Advice for parents

Remember that you do not need to be a climate expert It’s OK to explore learning together. If your child asks a question you can’t answer immediately, respond by saying: “What a great question. Let me look into that so I can answer it properly.”

Try to validate, rather than minimise, children’s emotions If children express anxiety, it’s much better to say: “It’s OK to feel worried. Here is what we can do about it,” than to say: “Don’t worry. It’s all fine.” But always try to support this emotion with suggestions for positive action.

Negative information hits harder Bad or threatening facts tend to resonate more strongly – and therefore stick in the mind. So try to balance one piece of negative news with three pieces of positive news. Have some examples of good climate-related news ready – for example, successful conservation projects.\

For younger children, keep it local and tangible Suggest litter picks and school events. For teenagers, encourage them to stay connected at a wider level – help them write to their MP, take part in protests and join local communities and campaigns.

Set practical goals as a family and follow through Record and celebrate your climate successes together (even a piece of paper on the fridge door). Reinforce the message that small actions can make a big

Evangelical gangs target Afro-Brazilian religions in hate crimes

Religious leaders say a federal government which relies on evangelical support is not doing enough to protect them.

Followers of Afro-Brazilian religions say that they are facing prejudice and even attacks as evangelical Christianity grows across the country.

In Rio de Janeiro, the situation has become serious enough to prompt the creation of a department to deal with religious hate crimes.

Al Jazeera's John Holman reports.

Dogs' ability to love sets them apart, argues Clive Wynne in new book


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Clive Wynne makes the case that dogs are special in 

'Dog is Love: Why and How Your Dog Loves You'

The idea that animals can experience love was once anathema to the psychologists who studied them, seen as a case of putting sentimentality before scientific rigor.

But a new book argues that, when it comes to dogs, the word is necessary to understanding what has made the relationship between humans and our best friends one of the most significant interspecies partnerships in history.


Clive Wynne, founder the Canine Science Collaboratory at Arizona State University, makes the case in Dog is Love: Why and How Your Dog Loves You.

The animal psychologist, 59, began studying dogs in the early 2000s, and, like his peers, believed that to ascribe complex emotions to them was to commit the sin of anthropomorphism — until he was swayed by a body evidence that was growing too big to ignore.

"I think there comes a point when it's worth being skeptical of your skepticism," the Englishman said in an interview with AFP.

Canine science has enjoyed a resurgence in the past two decades, much of it extolling dogs' smarts.

Titles like The Genius of Dogs by Brian Hare have advanced the idea that dogs have an innate and exceptional intelligence.

Wynne, however plays spoilsport, arguing that Fido is just not that brilliant.

Pigeons can identify different kinds of objects in 2D images; dolphins have shown they understand grammar; honeybees signal the location of food sources to each other through dance; all feats that no dogs have ever been known to accomplish.

Even wolves, dogs' ancestor species known for their ferocity and lack of interest in people, have shown the ability to follow human cues — including, in a recent Swedish study, by playing fetch.

Wynne proposes a paradigm shift, synthesizing cross-disciplinary research to posit that it is dogs' "hypersociability" or "extreme gregariousness" that sets them apart.
Williams syndrome gene

One of the most striking advances comes from studies regarding oxytocin, a brain chemical that cements emotional bonds between people, but which is, according to new evidence, also responsible for interspecies relationships between dogs and humans.

Recent research led by Takefumi Kikusui at Japan's Azabu University has shown that levels of the chemical spike when humans and their dogs gaze into each others' eyes, mirroring an effect observed between mothers and babies.

In genetics, UCLA geneticist Bridgett vonHoldt made a surprising discovery in 2009: Dogs have a mutation in the gene responsible for Williams syndrome in humans — a condition characterized by intellectual limitations and exceptional gregariousness.

"The essential thing about dogs, as for people with Williams syndrome, is a desire to form close connections, to have warm personal relationships — to love and be loved," writes Wynne.

Numerous insights have also been gleaned through new behavior tests — many devised by Wynne himself and easy to replicate at home with the help of treats and cups.


One involved researchers using a rope to pull open the front door of a dog's home and placing a bowl of food at an equal distance to its owner, finding that the animals overwhelmingly went to their human first.

Magnetic resonance imaging has drilled down on the neuroscience, showing that dogs' brains respond to praise as much or even more than food.

But although dogs have an innate predisposition for affection, it requires early life nurturing to take effect.

Nor is the love affair exclusive to humans: A farmer who raised pups among a penguin colony on a tiny Australian island was able to save the birds from maurading foxes, in an experiment that was the basis for a 2015 film.
All you need is love

For Wynne, the next frontiers of dog science may come through genetics, which will help unravel the mysterious process by which domestication took place at least 14,000 years ago.

Wynne is an advocate for the trash heap theory, which holds that the precursors to ancient dogs congregated around human dumping grounds, slowly ingratiating themselves with people before the enduring partnership we know today was established through joint hunting expeditions.

It's far less romantic than the popular notion of hunters who captured wolf pups and then trained them, which Wynne derides as a "completely unsupportable point of view" given the ferocity of adult wolves who would turn on their human counterparts.

New advances in the sequencing of ancient DNA will allow scientists to discover when the crucial mutation to the gene that controls Williams syndrome occurred.

Wynne guesses this happened 8,000 - 10,000 years ago, at the end of the last Ice Age, when humans began regularly hunting with dogs.

What makes these findings important, beyond advancing science, is their implications for dogs' welfare, he argues.

That means rejecting brutal, pain-based training methods like choke collars based on debunked understandings of "dominance" popularized by celebrity trainers who demand dog owners become "pack leaders."

"All your dog wants is for you to show them the way," says Wynne, through compassionate leadership and positive reinforcement.

It also means carving out time to meet their social needs instead of leaving them isolated for most of the day.

"Our dogs give us so much, and in return they don't ask for much," he says.

"You don't need to be buying all these fancy expensive toys and treats and goodness knows what that are available.

"They just need our company, they need to be with people."

Jewish lawyer’s fight in defence of a British Pakistani Muslim


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LONDON: The Jewish lawyer of a British Pakistani man who won £1.2 million case against Mail on Sunday and David Rose has said that he decided to take up the case of Pakistani man because as a Jew he could feel what it’s like to be discriminated against and maligned.

Defamation law specialist Mark Lewis, who is based both in London and Southern Isarel, told in an interview that as soon as he saw article in Mail on Sunday (MoS) by David Rose targeting Pakistani man Wajed Iqbal, linking him with paedophiles and sex crimes, he could tell that the Pakistani Muslim has been stitched up to create a story.

Three weeks ago the Associated Newspaper Limited (ANL) – the publishers of the Daily Mail, Mail Online and the Mail on Sunday – settled £1.2 million case with Wajed Iqbal after accepting that the allegations made against him in an article published in MoS in August 2017 were false and had no basis in truth.

Wajed Iqbal, speaking to The News and Geo, said he had no doubt that David Rose and MoS had picked on him because he was a Pakistani and Muslim.

Mark Lewis, a leading lawyer fighting anti-semitism and prejudice, said: “The whole thing about Jewish people is that they know what bigotry is like as a Pakistani Muslims in the UK do. I grew up in northern England, like Wajed Iqbal, where my Jewish cousin who has no Pakistani background was hurled the slur of ‘Paki’ by people when we were teenagers and mistook his looks Pakistani youth. Coming from a Jewish background, I know when there is discrimination against a particular community. I choose to stand up for the victims of prejudice.”

Lewis said: “It shows that the poison that exists is due to a hatred of people who are different. They don’t need any rationality of logic.” Mark Lewis said racism and Islamophobia were the main factors why Wajed Iqbal was targeted by Mail on Sunday in its story. He explained: “My client was a low ranking officer in the local authority who was involved in the licensing of taxis.

He was picked on as being the person in charge of licensing taxis because if you get a Pakistani Muslim involved in taxi licensing in England, you invite prejudice. A huge scandal was orchestrated which shook the Pakistani community.

The building blocks of the controversy were Pakistani, Muslim and taxi. Put them all together and you find a scandal. The only thing is that it wasn’t true. If anyone did any research that conclusion would’ve been reached.”

Mark Lewis added: “It seems very obvious to me that he was targeted because he was a Muslim with a Pakistani background. Some people weren’t Pakistani Muslims who were more senior and more involved in taxi licensing in the same department as Wajed Iqbal but they were ignored but my client was targeted because of his background.” He said the MoS received documents from the local authority showing that there wasn’t any truth to these allegations. Mark Lewis said: “Whether its anti-Muslim bigotry or not, the story focused on a Muslim only because he was a Pakistani Muslim. That was the entire story. The test is not what David Rose thought but what the readers thought. David Rose said ‘there is a Pakistani Muslim taxi driver who is involved in something wrong’. It was biased. The timing was also suspicious as that time a BBC programme focused on the Rotherham scandal to mislead the public and created an unnecessary connection.”

Mark Lewis said that the MoS was expecting a non-party disclosure, hoping that the documents from the local authority would show that Wajed Iqbal was guilty however the documents showed quite the opposite. “They showed my client hadn’t done anything he was accused of. Wajed Iqbal took every step to ensure that those who would have committed any wrongdoing were brought to the attention of the local authority. When the Mail on Sunday found this, their initial reaction was to wait for more information from the local authority which exonerated their victim. When he was exonerated, the Mail on Sunday knew they had no other choice but to negotiate with my client.”


Mr Iqbal had been wrongfully accused of acting as a “fixer” for paedophile taxi drivers in the May 2017 article. Wajed Iqbal, 44, had sued Mail on Sunday stating that his life had been ruined by the defamatory article, leaving him reliant on anti-depressants, jobless, and prevented from seeing his children. He had told the court that the Mail on Sunday picked on him because of his Pakistani heritage, his racial background - linking him with a disgusting scandal to create a false story.

Mail on Sunday’s reporter David Mail has stressed that he’s not anti-Pakistan and anti-Muslim. David Rose spoke around three weeks ago after both Mark Lewis and Wajed Iqbal had accused the paper of anti-Muslim bigotry. David Rose says he’s fighter against racism and allegations of racism and bias were false.

Why is Pakistan's Pashtun movement under attack?

Leaders of Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement, which fights for rights of ethnic Pashtuns, have faced intimidation and arrests.

28 Jan 2020

Members of the Pashtun community rally in Karachi against what they say are human rights violations [Akhtar Soomro/Reuters]

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Islamabad, Pakistan - Having risen to prominence as one of the most strident critics of Pakistan's powerful military, the Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement (PTM) has subsequently faced a sustained campaign of intimidation, censorship and arrests.

The movement, which advocated for the rights of ethnic Pashtuns affected by Pakistan's war against the Taliban in its northwest, was formed in 2016 by a group of eight university students in the northwestern city of Dera Ismail Khan. All eight hailed from the neighbouring district of South Waziristan.
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On the run for months, Pakistani activist seeks US asylum

Led by veterinary sciences student Manzoor Pashteen, they formed the Mehsud Tahaffuz Movement (MTM), a pressure group seeking to highlight the struggles of the more half a million people who fled their native South Waziristan due to the fighting.

The district, one of the poorest and least developed in Pakistan, was at the time part of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), a region governed under colonial-era regulations that gave citizens no fundamental rights while giving the military and civil administration wide-ranging powers with little oversight.

Pashteen, leader of the Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement, was arrested on Monday and charged with sedition [Al Jazeera]

In this legal grey area, where militias thrived and many members of the Afghan Taliban fighting against US and NATO forces in neighbouring Afghanistan took shelter, the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), was born under the leadership of Baitullah Mehsud in 2007.

Mehsud brought a range of armed militias fighting to displace the government and impose a strict interpretation of Islamic law on Pakistan under a single umbrella organisation, the TTP.

From 2007, Pakistan's military undertook a series of military operations to defeat or displace the TTP, most notably Operation Zarb-e-Azb in 2014, which finally displaced most of the group's remaining fighters into neighbouring districts in eastern Afghanistan.
The cost of war

The war, however, was not without a cost, as young activists like Pashteen and his comrades in the MTM were quick to point out.

They campaigned against widespread enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings conducted as part of the military's fight in South Waziristan, as well as for the removal of landmines and other unexploded ordnance once the fighting ended.

In 2018, they shot to national prominence when they spearheaded protests against the killing of Naqeebullah Mehsud, a young garment trader and aspiring model shot dead by police in Karachi. At the time, the police had claimed Mehsud was a fighter with armed groups.

From the widespread rallies across the country calling for justice for Naqeebullah, the Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement (PTM) was born.

Ethnic Pashtuns from other areas affected by conflict flocked to Pashteen and his partners, sharing similar experiences to those they had been documenting for years in South Waziristan.

The PTM now represented a generation of Pashtuns who were born in a northwest Pakistan that knew only conflict.

In mid-2018, two PTM leaders - Mohsin Dawar and Ali Wazir - were elected to parliament from North and South Waziristan respectively.
Censorship, intimidation, arrests

With increased prominence came increased pressure from the authorities. In Pakistan, which has been ruled for roughly half of its 73-year history by its army, it is rare to hear direct or public criticism of the military.

Pashteen, however, was regularly leading rallies of thousands, directly holding the military responsible for alleged rights abuses, backed up by data and testimony from citizens. A common rallying cry at PTM rallies became "Yeh jo dehshat gardi he, isske peeche wardi he!". "This terrorism, the military is responsible for it!"

Coverage of PTM events and rallies was censored across almost all domestic news outlets, and cases alleging leaders were involved in "sedition" would regularly be filed following PTM events.

In April 2019, the military took on the PTM directly, warning the group that its "time is up" as it alleged the rights organisation was being funded by foreign intelligence agencies. PTM leaders asked the military to file cases or share evidence of such collusion, which the military did not do.

A month later, a PTM rally in North Waziristan was stopped at a military checkpoint. The ensuing clash saw at least three protesters killed as soldiers opened fire on the demonstration.

Members of Parliament Dawar and Wazir were arrested and kept in custody for more than three months on terrorism charges in connection with the case.

Later, in September, prominent PTM leader Gulalai Ismail emerged in the United States after months in hiding and several unsuccessful security forces raids on her residence in the capital Islamabad.

Ismail said she was seeking asylum due to the threats against her life by the military. The military denies involvement.

On Monday, police launched a midnight raid in the northwestern city of Peshawar to arrest Pashteen himself - the first time he has been taken into custody since the PTM rose to prominence. Polic documents showed that he was accused of sedition and criminal conspiracy.

"Pakistani authorities should stop arresting activists like Manzoor Pashteen who are critical of government actions or policies,” said Brad Adams, Asia director of US-based rights group Human Rights Watch.

"Using criminal laws to chill free expression and political opposition has no place in a democracy," he said in a statement.


SOURCE: AL JAZEERA NEWS

Judicial Challenges to the Dominance of Pakistan’s Army

By Vinay KauraFebruary 18, 2020

Gen. Qamar Javed Bajwa, photo via Wikipedia; and Imran Khan, photo by World Economic Forum via Flickr CC

BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 1,451, February 18, 2020

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: The government of Pakistan, led by the PTI party, has filed a review petition before the Pakistani Supreme Court against the Court’s decision that the term of Army Chief Gen. Qamar Javed Bajwa continue for another six months, during which time the parliament should legislate on the position’s extension or reappointment. The government argues that Bajwa’s term should be extended not for six months but for three years, and that the position’s term is none of the parliament’s business. This leaves no doubt that a civilian politician wishing to enjoy his stay at the prime minister’s residence has essentially no option but to bend to the will of the Army Chief, who is the most powerful person in Pakistan.

The real power in Pakistan resides in the army’s general headquarters in Rawalpindi, not in either the PM’s office or Parliament House in Islamabad.

Almost a month after the Supreme Court’s historic ruling on the six-month—rather than three-year, as the government wanted—extension of the term of Army Chief Gen. Qamar Javed Bajwa, the government filed a review petition that raises more than two dozen questions of law against the judgment. It pleads for the “preservation of two leading institutions” for the sake of a “healthy democracy”, implying that the judiciary should remain within its limits.

The government asserts that Bajwa’s contributions to national security are so great that the “public at large has warmly welcomed” his reappointment. The review petition also argues that “there is nothing wrong with” not codifying the procedure of the appointment of Army Chief, which has been done without legislation “for seven decades”. Accusing the high court of interfering in “the rarest of rare cases”, the government feels the judiciary has no business “upset[ting] the age-long accepted conventions and the considered policy of the government.”

Bajwa was appointed Army Chief in November 2016, and his three-year term was to have expired in November 2019. But in August, PM Imran Khan extended his tenure by another three years. This occurred two weeks after New Delhi abrogated Article 370 of the Indian Constitution regarding Kashmir, believed by Pakistan to be its “jugular vein”.

The government cited the “regional security environment” as the major reason for its decision to extend Bajwa’s service. But when the judiciary intervened, the extension became a raging controversy.

The petition challenging the Army Chief’s extension was filed by a private individual who later wanted to withdraw it, but the Court decided to examine the legality of the petition on its own. This gave rise to speculation about the invisible hand of generals junior to Bajwa who could have ascended to the position after his retirement.

When the government’s move was challenged by the Supreme Court, it came to light that many procedural errors had been committed by the government when it issued the official notification of Bajwa’s new three-year term. To the utter disbelief of the ruling establishment, the Supreme Court suspended that notification. This forced the government to issue another notification—and that one, too, was thrown into the dustbin by the Court. This put Bajwa in a tight spot and cast a shadow over Khan’s efforts to ensure his own survival.

After keeping the government and Bajwa on tenterhooks, the Supreme Court finally gave in. It granted Bajwa a conditional extension for six months and asked the parliament to pass legislation to avoid future legal ambiguities. In the process, the Court pointedly observed that it had been “labeled as agents of India and the CIA when we examined the Army Act.”

Significantly, Bajwa was part of the discussions at the PM’s house while his case was being addressed and the government’s response to the judiciary was being prepared. This led the Supreme Court to lament that “it is embarrassing that the Army Chief has to keep an eye on summaries instead of the country’s defense.”

The government had 30 days from the time of judgment; i.e., until December 28, 2019, to file a review petition. Unsurprisingly, it waited until after the retirement of Chief Justice Asif Saeed Khosa on December 20. It was Khosa who had given the landmark ruling.

As taking the legislative route would have meant either reaching out to the opposition and cutting political deals with leaders who are currently being hounded by the PTI government, or threatening opposition lawmakers into supporting the government, Khan and Bajwa probably saw the review petition as the easiest route. Also, the case has received widespread publicity, with almost all mainstream media outlets discussing the legal, institutional, political, and strategic fallout in minute detail following each court proceeding. The government wanted an “on-camera” hearing of the review petition.

Bajwa’s case is not an aberration. The Musharraf ruling is another instance of judicial assertiveness in a system heavily tilted in favor of the military.

Former Army Chief and dictator Pervez Musharraf usurped power in 1999 by toppling the government of then PM Nawaz Sharif; he ruled until 2008 before being forced to resign. Days before the Bajwa decision, the military had come down hard against a special court’s order regarding capital punishment for Musharraf for having suspended the constitution in 2007 and imposing a state of emergency.

Military dictatorships in Pakistan have often been legitimized by the US and other foreign countries. Even when civilians run the government, it is often infiltrated by retired military officials who work to ensure that the army’s core interests are preserved.

The death sentence for Musharraf broke a long tradition of ignoring high treason by military dictators. Ayub Khan, Yahya Khan, and Zia-ul Haq were never subjected to such judgments. But one of the judges in the Musharraf case, Waqar Seth, overenthusiastically extended his brief by pronouncing that if Musharraf dies before being executed, his corpse should be dragged to a public square in front of Parliament House in Islamabad and hanged for three days.

Notwithstanding this judicial overreach, which goes against norms of human decency, there was nothing in the judgment that should have shocked the military establishment. But it did, simply by virtue of its having dared to challenge the military’s power at all. By dismissing the verdict as against “humanity, religion, culture, and our values”, Maj. Gen. Asif Ghafoor, the DG of Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), made clear what the military felt about it.

The episode of Bajwa’s service extension exposes the huge imbalance in civil-military relations in Pakistan. The way Khan handled the issue marks a low point for civilian rule in the country, and ambitious generals now have a template for how to pull the strings from behind the façade of an elected government without removing it through a coup d’état.

Imran Khan is desperate to ensure the smooth extension of Bajwa’s tenure so the top military leadership will continue to shield him. The role played by the military leadership in Khan’s surprising electoral victory in 2018 has never been in doubt. Almost all opposition parties believe Khan became PM because of the military’s overt and covert meddling in the electoral process.

Bajwa’s behavior confirms the Pakistani military’s underlying assumption that it is an independent stakeholder uniquely entitled to remain free of civilian control, including that of the parliament, and its views must be respected in policy-making, particularly foreign and security policy. In these two domains it is the military that has always called the shots—mainly through its notorious intelligence agency, the ISI.

That agency has become a party to the violent conflict inside Jammu and Kashmir, helping train and equip Islamist radicals who are regularly injected into the insurgency against Indian security forces. Recently, Pakistan’s Railways Minister, Sheikh Rashid, claimed that the Kartarpur corridor on the Punjab border between India and Pakistan was Bajwa’s brainchild, and “India will remember forever the kind of wound inflicted on it.” This was a reference to fears among Indian intelligence agencies that Pakistan’s security establishment is trying to create trouble in Indian Punjab by stoking dissension among India’s minority Sikh community.

The PTI government’s incompetence and irresponsibility have allowed Bajwa to play a role in domestic politics that exceeds the military’s normal remit. Moreover, Bajwa is firmly convinced that the Pakistani army is the sole national institution to possess the dual responsibility of defending Pakistan’s ideological frontiers and territorial boundary. After a recent visit to the mausoleum of the country’s founder, Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Bajwa asserted that Quaid’s “two-nation theory”—that Hindus and Muslims cannot live together as a single nation—has essentially been vindicated.

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Vinay Kaura is Assistant Professor of International Affairs and Security Studies and Coordinator of the Center for Peace and Conflict Studies at Sardar Patel University of Police, Security and Criminal Justice in Rajasthan, India.