Illnesses of controversial celebrities can negatively affect public health

 MASS HYSTERIA, SOCIAL PATHOLOGY, 

MASS MEDIA HYPERCONDRISM 

PENN STATE

Research News

 

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa.-- Not all public figures are equally beloved, and sometimes when more controversial celebrities get sick, it may negatively affect people's health intentions. In a study of people's reactions to radio host Rush Limbaugh's announcement of a lung cancer diagnosis and Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul's announcement of a diagnosis of COVID-19, researchers at Penn State found that those who took pleasure in their misfortune were themselves less likely to take steps to prevent lung cancer or COVID-19.

"Schadenfreude is the emotion of feeling pleasure in another's misfortune," said Jessica Gall Myrick, associate professor of media studies. "In our study, after learning the news of a politician's illness, if people felt schadenfreude, they were much less likely to intend to take the actions that would prevent either lung cancer or COVID-19."

In general, previous research by Myrick has found that coverage of celebrity ailments can raise public awareness of serious illnesses, which can then serve as a motivation for people to avoid bad activities or start new healthy routines. But most studies on the topic examine how the public responds to well-liked celebrities. Respondents were not asked if they liked or disliked the person reporting the illness in the current study, but rather if they felt schadenfreude upon hearing the news of Limbaugh and Paul.

Myrick and doctoral student Jin Chen of the Donald P. Bellisario College of Communications recently conducted two online surveys shortly after news coverage of illnesses associated with two provocative public figures. Their results were published in Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly.

The first survey was conducted with 414 American adults following Limbaugh's February 2020 announcement that he was diagnosed with advanced lung cancer. The second survey was conducted in March 2020 to 407 American adults following Paul's announcement that he had been diagnosed with COVID-19. Paul was the first national politician to confirm a diagnosis. Respondents were recruited and the surveys were conducted using Amazon Mechanical Turk.

The researchers tested the idea that when the average person sees news coverage about the illness of a public figure that they do not like, then they can experience the emotion of schadenfreude. They examined how that feeling affected people's intentions to prevent themselves from getting sick after hearing the news about Limbaugh and Paul, respectively.

Both of these surveys showed the same pattern; the respondents who felt greater schadenfreude toward Limbaugh and Paul after learning of their illnesses were less inclined to take the steps to prevent lung cancer and COVID-19.

Political ideology was not related to feelings of schadenfreude, according to these studies. The only factor that could predict how much schadenfreude people felt was how well they believed they knew these famous individuals through the media.

"The more media exposure people had to these political figures, and the more familiar people felt they were knowledgeable about the political figures, the more pleasure they experienced in learning of their illness," Myrick said. "That pleasure in the political figure's pain seemed to demotivate people to take action to protect themselves."

Myrick added that schadenfreude is a positive emotion and when "we feel happy and pleased, we also feel safe." This may be the reason people are less likely to avoid the health risks.

"Basically, why would we do anything to alter this good feeling by confronting a depressing health threat and thinking about bad things that could happen to us?" Myrick said. "Because schadenfreude puts us in a pleasant, pleasureful state, we let our guards down for risks to our own health."

The findings could have serious public health implications, according to Myrick. It makes it hard for health advocates to convince some segments of the population to take preventative actions when controversial political figures get sick.

"We need additional research to figure out the underpinnings of these feelings to see if there are other ways," she said. "Either through encouraging empathy for the ill or maybe even by better channeling the feelings of schadenfreude toward positive action."

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Myrick is affiliated with the Science Communication Program, a program in the Bellisario College that supports research in the science of science communication.

LOMBROSO'S QUEST

Tool to predict recidivism in federal inmates could make more prisoners eligible for early release

CRIME AND JUSTICE RESEARCH ALLIANCE

Research News

 

Passed in 2018, the First Step Act sought to address re-entry challenges for inmates in the federal prison system. The legislation called for developing an assessment tool to identify inmates for release who had the lowest likelihood of recidivism. A new study assessed how the tool was developed and is used, finding that a greater proportion of inmates could reduce their risk and become eligible for early release over time if they participated in a re-entry program and did not incur infractions. This finding has implications for efforts to reduce prison populations during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The study, by researchers at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, Baylor University, the Federal Bureau of Prisons, and Washington State University, appears in Justice Quarterly, a publication of the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences.

"This federal initiative represents a substantial opportunity to reverse the tide of a decades-long trend of growing rates of incarceration," according to Zachary Hamilton, associate professor of criminology and criminal justice at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, who led the study.

The First Step Act sought to reduce recidivism in federal prisons by giving lower-risk individuals the opportunity to earn time credits and participate in programs to improve success of re-entry into their communities. In this study, researchers determined that a tool being used by the Bureau of Prisons to identify inmates with the lowest risk of violent and nonviolent recidivism included items that did not predict recidivism.

They expanded the existing tool to create a new one, called PATTERN (the Prisoner Assessment Tool Targeting Estimated Risk and Needs). PATTERN, launched in January 2020, and was designed to be gender-responsive and customized to the Bureau of Prisons population. Among the factors measured by PATTERN are age, prior convictions, work programming, drug treatment while incarcerated, criminal history, history of escapes, and education.

Using PATTERN, roughly half the population sampled was identified as being immediately eligible for early-release time credits. A substantial portion of the other half could become eligible if they participated in re-entry programs, did not incur infractions, and exhibited positive behavior change when reassessed, the study found. In all, almost 72 percent of men and about 96 percent of women could be eligible for early-release credits during the course of their incarceration, according to the study's findings.

"If more programming to boost re-entry success were available in federal prisons and more prisoners participated in this programming, especially those in high-risk categories, the proportion of offenders eligible for early-release credits would rise," suggests Grant Duwe, non-resident scholar at Baylor University and director of research at the Minnesota Department of Corrections.

The study concluded that PATTERN demonstrates one of the highest levels of predictive performance, outpacing that of all contemporary assessments researchers reviewed. In addition, PATTERN was validated on the same population on which it was developed and tested on a large development sample, yielding more stable and reliable estimates. Finally, the tool was tailored to specific outcomes (general and violent recidivism) and groups (males and females), which improves its predictive performance. Tests for bias revealed that PATTERN further reduced race/ethnicity disproportionality.

The researchers identified limitations of the study, including constraints regarding the pool of items used to predict recidivism and tight timing due to a requirement to meet legislative schedules. They recommend that the Bureau of Prisons continue to expand the standardized set of needs-based items collected for all offenders, adding items to improve PATTERN's accuracy and potential for case management. The authors also point to the importance of creating optimized tools for correctional systems, making use of agency-specific data to create strategies that will reduce the prison population while prioritizing public safety.

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The research was supported by the National Institute of Justice.

Wildfire smoke trends worsening for Western US

A new study shows how the timing and location of smoke impacts shift in August and September.

UNIVERSITY OF UTAH

Research News

 

IMAGE: CHANGES IN DAILY AVERAGE PARTICULATE MATTER IN THE MONTH OF AUGUST FROM 2000 TO 2019. POINTS OUTLINED IN BLACK INDICATE STATISTICAL SIGNIFICANCE. view more 

CREDIT: KAI WILMOT

From the Pacific Northwest to the Rocky Mountains, summers in the West are marked by wildfires and smoke. New research from the University of Utah ties the worsening trend of extreme poor air quality events in Western regions to wildfire activity, with growing trends of smoke impacting air quality clear into September. The work is published in Environmental Research Letters.

"In a big picture sense, we can expect it to get worse," says Kai Wilmot, lead author of the study and doctoral student in the Department of Atmospheric Sciences. "We're going to see more fire area burned in the Western U.S. between now and in 2050. If we extrapolate our trends forward, it seems to indicate that a lot of urban centers are going to have trouble in meeting air quality standards in as little time as 15 years."

Drawing the connection

Many of the West's inhabitants have seen smoky summer skies in recent years. Last year, dramatic images of an orange-tinted San Francisco Bay Area called attention to the far-reaching problem of wildfire smoke. Wilmot, a native of the Pacific Northwest, has seen the smoke as well and, with his colleagues, looked at trends of extreme air quality events in the West from 2000 to 2019 to see if they correlated with summer wildfires.

Using air measurements of PM2.5, or the amount of particulate matter in the air with diameters less than 2.5 microns, from the Environmental Protection Agency and the IMPROVE monitoring network, along with measurements of fire area burned and the PM2.5 emitted from those fires, the researchers found consistent trends in air quality that correlated with wildfire activity--but that had different spatial patterns in August than in September.

Trends in August and September

Over the years studied, the researchers noticed that the mean air quality was worsening in the Pacific Northwest in the average August when sensors indicated wildfire smoke events.

"That's pretty dramatic," Wilmot says, "that extreme events are strong enough to pull the mean up so that we're seeing an overall increase in particulate matter during August across much of the Pacific Northwest and portions of California. The Pacific Northwest seems like it's just really getting the brunt of it."

The reason for that, he says, is that the regions around the Pacific Northwest, in British Columbia and Northern California, both experience wildfires around August. The mountainous Pacific Northwest, Wilmot says, sits in the middle.

But by September, the researchers found, wildfire activity slows in British Columbia and shifts to the Rocky Mountains. The smoke shifts too--the researchers saw emerging trends correlating wildfire smoke with declines in September air quality in Wyoming and Montana. "We see the PM2.5 trends start to pick up a bit more in the Rockies and they become more statistically significant, a little bit stronger and more spatially coherent," Wilmot says.

What about Utah? The study findings show that the magnitude and significance of air quality trends increases as you go from the southern states of Arizona and New Mexico toward the Pacific Northwest. In Utah, Wilmot says, air quality trends are near the edge of statistical significance, with evidence for impact from wildfires, but evidence that's less robust than in the Pacific Northwest and California. "Thinking about events like the smoke transport from fires in the Bay Area this past summer," Wilmot says, "I would not be surprised to see trends in Utah become increasingly convincing with additional data."

Looking to the future

Other researchers in other studies have suggested that the future will bring more fire areas burned in the Western U.S., with an accompanying increase in wildfire smoke exposure throughout the West and the impacts of that smoke on human health.

Wilmot notes that the trends the researchers see in the Pacific Northwest in August are "pretty robust," he says, while the September trends in Montana and Wyoming are still "emerging."

"I think the concern is that, given more time, those emerging trends are going to start looking a lot more like what we're seeing in August," he says. "I hope that's not the case, but it seems entirely within the realm of possibility."

His next step is to develop simulation models to more precisely link wildfire emissions in urban centers to smoke source regions.

"The big picture," he says, "is aiming to help forest management in terms of identifying wildfire emissions hotspots that are particularly relevant to air quality in the Western U.S., such that if we had funding to spend on some sort of intervention to limit wildfire emissions, we would know where to allocate those funds first to get the most out of it."

Find the full study here.

How to invest in a fairer and low carbon energy system

HERIOT-WATT UNIVERSITY

Research News 

IMAGE: INTEGRATED ENERGY SYSTEM ILLUSTRATION view more 

CREDIT: HERIOT-WATT UNIVERSITY

Governments throughout the world have accelerated their ambitions towards effective climate change mitigation. What is clear, in this challenge of how to tackle the complex and global issue of climate change, is that there is no one technology or stakeholder that will drive the full and timely decarbonisation that the world and its citizens require.

Therefore, as part of this global energy transition, there is an unprecedent increase in decarbonisation investments accompanied with new levels of accessibility to both energy systems and markets. So, a key research question is how best to understand and optimise the value proposition for different stakeholders. Due to the need to fast track decarbonisation and to ensure that this is an inclusive energy transition with social justice and equity at its core, we need to understand the dynamics and interdependencies across people, technology and economics.

A team of researchers within the Smart Systems Group at Heriot-Watt University, have been exploring how Game-theoretic models could represent a promising approach to study strategic interactions between self-interested private energy system investors.

In this research, we design and evaluate a game-theoretic framework to study strategic interactions between profit-maximising players that invest in an electrical network, renewable generation and storage capacity. Specifically, we study the case where grid capacity is developed by a private renewable investor, but line access is shared with competing renewable and storage investors, thus enabling them to export energy and access electricity demand.

Professor David Flynn, founder of the Smart Systems Group, stated; "We model the problem of deducing how much capacity each player should build as a non-cooperative Stackelberg-Cournot game between a dominant player (leader) who builds the power line and renewable generation capacity, and local renewable and storage investors (multiple followers), who react to the installation of the line by increasing their own capacity. Using data-driven analysis and simulations, we developed an empirical search method for estimating the game equilibrium, where the payoffs capture the realistic operation and control of the energy system under study."

The results within this research use a practical demonstration of the underlying methodologies, for a real-world grid reinforcement project in the UK. The methodology provides a realistic mechanism to analyse investor decision-making and investigate feasible tariffs that encourage distributed renewable investment, with sharing of grid access.

CAPTION

Orkney

CREDIT

Heriot-Watt University

The journal was recently published in IEEE Access, led by Professor Flynn's Smart Systems Group at Heriot-Watt University, and supported by the UKRI Responsive Flexibility, ReFLEX, whole system demonstrator project, and the UKs EPSRC National Centre for Energy System Integration.

International study: Humans accelerate the change of biodiversity

Humans have significantly altered biodiversity in all climate zones of the Earth. This has been shown by a study published in "Science".

UNIVERSITÄT BAYREUTH

Research News

 

IMAGE: PASTURE LANDSCAPE ON PICO, THE SECOND LARGEST ISLAND OF THE AZORES. view more 

CREDIT: © MANUEL STEINBAUER.

Humans have significantly altered biodiversity in all climate zones of the Earth. This has been shown by a study now published in Science. Led by Prof. Dr. Manuel Steinbauer at the University of Bayreuth, and Dr. Sandra Nogué at the University of Southampton, an international team has investigated how the flora on 27 islands in different regions has developed over the last 5,000 years. Almost everywhere, the arrival of humans has triggered a markedly accelerated change in species composition in previously pristine ecosystems. This dynamic was particularly pronounced on islands colonised in the last 1,500 years.

The 27 islands selected for this study were never connected to the mainland and had been colonised by humans during the study period. Within these islands, pollen of wind-pollinated plants lies since millenia deposited in the sediments of lakes and bogs. The pollen was extracted from the sediment layers, dated, and identified to a respective plant species.

"For each of the 27 islands, our study shows how vegetation composition has changed over the last 5,000 years. Humans' colonisation of the previously undisturbed islands falls within this period. We can therefore trace how natural systems change as a result of human arrival. This transformation from a natural to a human-dominated system can only be observed on islands. On continents, humans have been extensively changing ecological systems for a very long time. What a natural ecosystem would look like here, we can often no longer tell," says Steinbauer.

The researchers compared the data obtained through pollen analyses with archaeological findings that provide information about when the islands were first settled by humans. The result provide a clear message. On 24 of the 27 islands studied, the arrival of humans marked a turning point in vegetation turnover. From this point on, vegetation changed at a significantly higher rate, its rate of change was accelerated by a factor of eleven.

The species composition changed particularly on islands that were colonised in the past 1,500 years, such as the Galapagos Islands and Robinson Crusoe Island off Chile. If, on the other hand, the first settlement took place longer ago, the increase in the rate of species turnover was less pronounced. The authors attribute this difference to an increasing technical know-how of agriculture and the associated effects on biodiversity. In addition, as a result of their increasing mobility, people may have introduced plant species from the mainland, compeating with native species on the islands.

"The results of the study highlight the extensive changes we humans are causing in ecological systems. The change in pollen composition in our study mainly reflects human land use over millennia. With the beginning of the industrial age, human induced transformation of ecological systems has accelerated even further. Adding to this, ecological systems are now additionally affected by human induced climate change" explains Prof. Dr. Manuel Steinbauer, corresponding author of the study. He is a member of the Bayreuth Centre for Ecology and Environmental Research (BayCEER), a research centre of the University of Bayreuth, and has been working here for several years on human influences on ecological systems. In this context, he is also leading a DFG (German Research Foundation) project that is investigating how climate change of geological time periods has influenced the risk of extinction of species.

CAPTION

A research team on Tenerife takes sediment cores containing pollen.

CREDIT

© José María Fernández Palacios

Branching worm with dividing internal organs growing in sea sponge

International research team including Göttingen University first to describe tree-like internal anatomy of symbiotic worm and sponge

UNIVERSITY OF GÖTTINGEN

Research News

 

IMAGE: FRAGMENT OF THE ANTERIOR END OF AN INDIVIDUAL LIVING WORM (RAMISYLLIS MULTICAUDATA) DISSECTED OUT OF ITS HOST SPONGE. BIFURCATION OF THE GUT CAN BE SEEN WHERE THE WORM BRANCHES. THE... view more 

CREDIT: PONZ-SEGRELLES & GLASBY

The marine worm Ramisyllis multicaudata, which lives within the internal canals of a sponge, is one of only two such species possessing a branching body, with one head and multiple posterior ends. An international research team led by the Universities of Göttingen and Madrid is the first to describe the internal anatomy of this intriguing animal. The researchers discovered that the complex body of this worm spreads extensively in the canals of their host sponges. In addition, they describe the anatomical details and nervous system of its unusual reproductive units, the stolons, which form their own brain when detached for fertilization, allowing them to navigate their environment. The results were published in the Journal of Morphology.

The research team found the host sponges and their guest worms in a remote area in Darwin, Australia, where these animals live. They collected samples, some of which are now located in the collections of the Biodiversity Museum at the University of Göttingen. For their analysis, they combined techniques such as histology, electronic optical microscopy, immunohistochemistry, confocal laser microscopy, and X-ray computed microtomography. This made it possible to obtain three-dimensional images both of the worms' different internal organs and of the interior of the sponges that they inhabit. The scientists show that when the body of these animals divides, so do all their internal organs, something that has never been observed before.

Furthermore, the three-dimensional models developed during this research have made it possible to find a new anatomical structure exclusive to these animals, which is formed by muscular bridges that cross between the different organs whenever their body has to form a new branch. These muscular bridges are essential because they confirm that the bifurcation process does not occur in the early stages of life, but once the worms are adults and then throughout their lives. In addition, researchers propose that this unique "fingerprint" of muscle bridges makes it theoretically possible to distinguish the original branch from the new one in each bifurcation of the complex body network.

In addition, this new study investigates the anatomy of the reproductive units (stolons) that develop in the posterior ends of the body when these animals are about to reproduce, and that are characteristic of the family to which they belong (Syllidae). The results show that these stolons form a new brain and have their own eyes. This allows them to navigate their environment when they are detached from the body for fertilization. This brain is connected to the rest of the nervous system by a ring of nerves that surrounds the intestine.

"Our research solves some of the puzzles that these curious animals have posed ever since the first branched annelid was discovered at the end of the 19th century," explains senior author Dr Maite Aguado, University of Göttingen. "However, there is still a long way to go to fully understand how these fascinating animals live in the wild. For example, this study has concluded that the intestine of these animals could be functional, yet no trace of food has ever been seen inside them and so it is still a mystery how they can feed their huge branched bodies. Other questions raised in this study are how blood circulation and nerve impulses are affected by the branches of the body." This research lays the foundations for understanding how these creatures live and how their incredible branched body came to evolve.

CAPTION

The host sponge (Petrosia) where several posterior ends of one specimen of the worm Ramisyllis multicaudata can be seen as white lines crawling on the sponge's surface.

CREDIT

Glasby

Original Publication: Ponz-Segrelles G, Glasby CJ, Helm C, et al. Integrative anatomical study of the branched annelid Ramisyllis multicaudata (Annelida, Syllidae). Journal of Morphology. 2021;1-17. https://doi.org/10.1002/jmor.21356

Contact

http://www.biodivmuseum.de/
http://www.uni-goettingen.de/en/623758.html

Video footage of the branching worm can be seen here: https://www.uni-goettingen.de/de/vorschau_e77888da17e697ced1f22eabbb6b490d/559326.html

CAPTION

Small fraction of a single living specimen dissected out of its host sponge as seen through the stereomicroscope. Some dislodged fragments of sponge tissue can also be seen.

CREDIT

Ponz-Segrelles, Aguado & Glas

Brazilian Amazon released more carbon than it stored in 2010s

UNIVERSITY OF EXETER

Research News

 

IMAGE: DEGRADED FOREST IN MATO GROSSO, BRAZIL view more 

CREDIT: TED FELDPAUSCH

The Brazilian Amazon rainforest released more carbon than it stored over the last decade - with degradation a bigger cause than deforestation - according to new research.

More than 60% of the Amazon rainforest is in Brazil, and the new study used satellite monitoring to measure carbon storage from 2010-2019.

The study found that degradation (parts of the forest being damaged but not destroyed) accounted for three times more carbon loss than deforestation.

The research team - including INRAE, the University of Oklahoma and the University of Exeter - said large areas of rainforest were degraded or destroyed due to human activity and climate change, leading to carbon loss.

The findings, published in Nature Climate Change, also show a significant rise in deforestation in 2019 - 3.9 million hectares compared to about 1 million per year in 2017 and 2018 - possibly due to weakened environmental protection in Brazil.

Professor Stephen Sitch, of Exeter's Global Systems Institute, said: "The Brazilian Amazon as a whole has lost some of its biomass, and therefore released carbon.

"We all know the importance of Amazon deforestation for global climate change.

"Yet our study shows how emissions from associated forest degradation processes can be even larger.

"Degradation is a pervasive threat to future forest integrity and requires urgent research attention."

Degradation is linked to deforestation, especially in weakened portions of a forest near deforested zones, but it is also caused by tree-felling and forest fires.

Climate events, such as droughts, further increase tree mortality.

Such degradation can be hard to track, but the research team used the satellite vegetation index L-VOD developed by scientists at INRAE, CEA and the CNRS.

Using this index and a new technique for monitoring deforestation developed by the University of Oklahoma, the study evaluated changes in forest carbon stocks.

A change of government in Brazil in 2019 brought a sharp decline in the country's environmental protection.

The 3.9 million hectares of deforestation in that year is 30% more than in 2015, when extreme El Niño droughts led to increased tree mortality and wildfires. However, the study shows that carbon losses in 2015 were larger than in 2019.

This demonstrates the dramatic impact that degradation can have on overall biomass and carbon storage in the rainforest.

The paper is entitled: "Carbon loss from forest degradation exceeds that from deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon."

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Degraded forest in Mato Grosso, Brazil

CREDIT

Ted Feldpausch

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Degraded forest in Mato Grosso, Brazil

CREDIT

Ted Feldpausch

Canada has 20 per cent of the world’s freshwater reserves — this is how to protect it

 1 day ago

The federal government has been working since 2020 to create a Canadian agency dedicated to water management across the country. Public consultations ended on March 1, and the Indigenous engagement process will continue throughout 2021.

© (Shutterstock) An aerial view of Georgian Bay, Ont.

But many questions and expectations remain about the nature of the new Canada Water Agency. Water governance encompasses all the administrative, social, political, economic and legal processes put in place to manage water. In other words, it is these societal processes that determine how governmental and non-governmental groups develop measures and make decisions in the area of water management.

We are members of the University of Ottawa Forum on Water Law and Governance, a research network that has identified a series of law and governance issues that need to be considered by the future Canada Water Agency.
The urgency to act

As the global demand for freshwater steadily increases, Canada seems to be in a privileged position: it holds 20 per cent of the world’s freshwater supply and nine per cent of the world’s renewable freshwater resources.

However, when it comes to the urgent issue of freshwater management, many factors come into play. These include climate change, which is occurring more rapidly in Canada than elsewhere and has pronounced environmental consequences, access to drinking water in Indigenous communities and flood policies. All of these issues contribute to the need to create a Canada Water Agency

Environment and Climate Change Canada released a discussion paper on the future agency in December 2020, and held public consultations through virtual national and regional forums in January and February 2021. Indigenous engagement is ongoing.
Legal challenges

Canadian water law is hindered by interjurisdictional issues and a lack of co-ordination between government groups. Many proposals have been made to overcome these obstacles.

For starters, there are discussions about possible co-operative efforts in the light of the constitutional division of powers and the impact of recent case law on co-operative federalism. There have also been calls to reform the Canada Water Act to reconsider freshwater management through watershed management.

More integrated collaboration between different governmental and non-governmental groups has also been encouraged. Finally, some advocate for a complete paradigm shift, to an Indigenous perspective of water as a life-giving (and life-taking) spiritual entity.
Political issues

The creation of the Canada Water Agency must address the fragmentation of water management, multi-level governance issues and the specifics of Canadian federalism.

Its creation would be the culmination of renewed political interest following the Walkerton crisis in 2000, where E. coli contaminated the muncipality’s water, killing seven and making more than 2,000 sick. It would also be an opportunity to revitalize the federal water policy, which has been gathering dust since 1987.
The role of municipalities

While the institutional environment and relationships that characterize water management in Canada are complex, the future Canada Water Agency could nonetheless promote the creation and sharing of knowledge, as well as citizen participation.

Municipalities, which play a fundamental role in infrastructure and in the protection of aquatic ecosystems, could also be recognized as key players in Canadian water management within the agency. This would be an opportunity to modernize the framework for federal-municipal relations in Canada.
Water dynamics

Despite a move towards integration and harmonization of water management, it’s important to consider the different sectors associated with water and to reflect on the dynamics of water management.

Several water management bodies, like the Lake of the Woods Control Board or the International Joint Commission, have been trying for several years to set objectives that take the territory or ecosystem into account.

It is also necessary to consider the diverse dynamics of water. This means, for instance, considering the specifics of the agriculture sector or the health sector, with respect to water needs, impacts on water, access to water or issues related to environmental justice.

Relevant models elsewhere

While the creation of a Canada Water Agency is a domestic initiative, looking at international perspectives is interesting for at least three reasons:

The Canadian initiative is an opportunity to question and even challenge imagined national sovereignty over water, since the management issues go largely beyond the borders of Canada.

Canada also has the opportunity to learn from several innovative foreign experiences. This is the case of the French Water Agencies, which have enabled the emergence of a form of water democracy and which are now essential actors in environmental protection. This is also the case in New Zealand, where the Whanganui River has been granted legal personhood as part of reconciliation efforts between New Zealand and the Māori.


Finally, the future Canada Water Agency will be scrutinized and studied beyond Canada’s borders. This will have implications for the activities of the International Joint Commission and will contribute to international thinking in the field of water management.

© (Shutterstock) In New Zealand, the Whanganui River has been granted legal personhood.

The importance of next steps

Recent surveys show that Canadians consider water to be their country’s primary natural resource. Merrell-Ann Phare, commissioner of the International Joint Commission, told the conference we hosted that “the Canada Water Agency is potentially a groundbreaking governance innovation in Canada”.

The next steps will therefore be critical. Environment and Climate Change Canada has to move forward in preparing a report that incorporates the comments received during the public consultation.

The recently released federal budget plan 2021 includes $17.4 million of funding for this initiative over two years, starting this year. While this proposal appears to confirm government commitment, the proposed schedule may be disrupted if a federal election is called in the fall.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Thomas Burelli, Professeur en droit, Section de droit civil, Université d’Ottawa (Canada), membre du Conseil scientifique de la Fondation receives funding from the University of Ottawa's Alex Trebek Forum for Dialogue.

France Libertés, L’Université d’Ottawa/University of Ottawa, 

Alexandre Lillo, Postdoctoral Fellow, L’Universniversity of Ottawa, receives funding from the University of Ottawa's Alex Trebek Forum for Dialogue.

 Eric Champagne, Professeur agrégé, École d'études politique, Directeur, Centre d'études en gouvernance / Associate professor, School of Political Studies, Director, Centre on Governance, L’Université d’Ottawa/University of Ottawa, receives funding from the University of Ottawa's Alex Trebek Forum for Dialogue.

Marie-France Fortin, Assistant professor, L’Université d’Ottawa/University of Ottawa,  receives funding from the University of Ottawa's Alex Trebek Forum for Dialogue.

Lauren Touchant, Postdoctoral fellow, L’Université d’Ottawa/University of Ottawa  receives funding from University of Ottawa's Alex Trebek Forum for Dialogue.

Antarctica's Springy Bedrock Could Make Sea Level Rise Even Worse

Look out world—the ice sheet is coming. New research says that the total collapse of a crucial ice sheet in Antarctica could mean that sea levels would rise an additional 30% more than scientists currently predict

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 Photo: Jeremy Harbeck (AP)

The study, published Friday in Science Advances, deals with how the melting ice on the West Antarctic ice sheet will impact the Earth’s crust below. Current predictions say that the ice sheet will increase sea level rise by 10.8 feet (3.3 meters) if it melts fully over the next 1,000 years, but taking the bedrock into effect, this study found, could add a full 3.3 feet (1 meter) to current predictions. What’s more, the models the researchers used show that sea level rise predictions from the ice sheet by the end of this century could actually be 20% higher because of this bedrock effect.

“Every published projection of sea level rise due to melting of the West Antarctic ice sheet that has been based on climate modeling, whether the projection extends to the end of this century or longer into the future, is going to have to be revised upward because of their work,” Jerry Mitrovica, a geophysicist at Harvard University and author on the paper, said in a press release. “Every single one.”

The rock that underlies much of the West Antarctic ice sheet’s sits below sea level, meaning it is especially sensitive to warm ocean currents. How that water could burrow under the ice is one of the biggest question marks as we consider what could happen to sea levels as the planet continues to warm.

“Future change in the West Antarctic ice sheet is the biggest uncertainty in predictions of sea-level rise,” Robert Larter, a marine geophysicist at the British Antarctic Survey who was not involved with the study, wrote in an email. “Other contributions to sea level change (ocean thermal expansion, melting of mountain glaciers and ice caps, and ice loss from Greenland) can all be estimated with less uncertainty. The difficulty in predicting future change in the WAIS is that most of its bed lies below sea level, and under a large part of the bed gets deeper as you go further into the ice sheet.”

Scientists think that warm ocean currents are making the ice sheet’s underwater bed increasingly unstable. This instability could create a feedback loop as the top part of the sheet starts to melt, creating what Larter called a “point of no return” for the ice sheet. “However, as in the history of modern science we have never been able to observe a marine ice sheet retreat, we don’t have good observational data to determine how strong the feedbacks are and how fast the retreat might proceed,” he continued.

One big factor in how this collapse could impact us is, surprisingly, the Earth’s crust beneath the ice sheets themselves. As the ice sheet melts and the weight of the ice decreases, the bedrock will spring up like a mattress after you get up out of bed. In the case of the West Antarctic ice sheet, because its base is below sea level, the crust rising up will take up more space in the ocean.

“This will reduce the amount of accommodation space for water, driving up further sea level rise on time scales of thousands of years,” Bethan Davies, a glacier researcher at the Royal Holloway University of London who was not involved in the study, wrote in an email.

It’s this relationship that the specific research narrows in on: just how much this bedrock—not the melting ice itself—could make sea levels rise. The bedrock beneath the ice sheet, the study says, is a type of low-viscosity mantle that will “rebound rapidly” as the ice melts. The study authors wrote that previous work had estimated this bedrock effect “is small and occurs slowly.” Their models, however, show that it can have a substantial contribution to how sea level is affected by this particular ice sheet melting down.In addressing how the Earth’s crust will react to melting ice, Davies said this particular study tackles a crucial piece of figuring out the overall impact from the ice sheet.

“One uncertainty in predicting the future is how the Earth’s lithosphere will react to glacier recession,” she wrote. “We continuously try to refine this aspect of glacier dynamics. By using a new model and applying it over a long time, [the study authors] are studying a hitherto understudied aspect of long-term glacier evolution.”

Larter speculated that the big increase the study found compared to previous sea-level rise estimates could simply mean that scientists from across disciplines are finally talking to each other.

“This result arises from integrated modeling of the ice sheets and the solid Earth, study areas that have traditionally been the separate domains of glaciologists and geologists,” he said. “Over the past couple of decades, scientists have increasingly realized that to solve many important environmental science questions, we need to work across disciplines, and a particular example of this is the realization that the characteristics and response of the solid Earth beneath ice sheets are very important to predicting how they will change.”

While scientists have built increasingly reliable models to study what could happen to glaciers and ice, this study shows how much more there is to learn about what we’re in for as the planet continues to warm and we enter uncharted territory. And that’s not really a great place to be