It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Monday, July 19, 2021
Half of U.S. tidal marsh areas vulnerable to rising seas
Tidal marshes like this one in Washington State’s Mary E. Theler Wetlands Nature Preserve may be threatened by rising seas. New research highlights the variable vulnerability of U.S. tidal marshes to rising seas. Credit: Joe Mabel, CC BY-SA 4.0
Sea level is rising worldwide, thanks in large part to climate change. Rising seas threaten coastal communities and ecosystems, including marshes that lie at the interface between salt water and freshwater. Tidal marsh ecosystems feature distinct plants and play key ecological roles, such as serving as nurseries for fish. It is known that some tidal marshes can avoid destruction by migrating inland or through formation of new soil that raises their elevation, but a better understanding of how they are affected by rising seas could inform efforts to plan for and mitigate the effects.
New research by Holmquist et al. investigates the vulnerability oftidal marshestosea levelrise across the contiguous United States. The findings show, for the first time, that opportunities for resilience differ between more northerly and more southerly marshes across the country.
To help clarify the fate of tidal marshes in the contiguous United States, the researchers combined tide gauge data on sea level rise rates with soil formation rates reported in previous studies. They also incorporated information from local maps of water level, elevation, and land cover. Using these data, they calculated the potential for the marshes to adapt to rising seas by 2100 under several climate change scenarios.
The analysis revealed that different tidal marshes have different pathways for resilience to sea level rise. Specifically, more northerly marshes are more likely to lack opportunities to migrate inland, whereas more southerly marshes are more likely to lack the capacity to form and build up enough soil to sufficiently keep pace with sea level rise.
The researchers also found that depending on the degree of climate change, 43%–48% of tidal marsh area in the contiguous United States is vulnerable to destruction by sea level rise. These vulnerable areas tend to occur along the Gulf of Mexico and mid-Atlantic coasts, at sites where opportunities for both inland migration and vertical soil buildup are limited.
This study highlights the importance of considering local conditions when gauging the vulnerability of tidal marshes to rising seas. The findings could aid future research and planning efforts.
More information: James R. Holmquist et al, Localized Scenarios and Latitudinal Patterns of Vertical and Lateral Resilience of Tidal Marshes to Sea‐Level Rise in the Contiguous United States, Earth's Future (2021). DOI: 10.1029/2020EF001804
A diseased holm oak tree with a canopy showing a prevalence of dead branches. Credit: Swansea University
Using advanced remote sensing techniques can help the early detection of oak tree decline and control many other forest diseases worldwide, says new research from Swansea University.
The research published inRemote Sensing of Environment examined holm oak decline, which in its early stages causes changes to the tree's physiological condition that is not readily visible. It is only later, when the tree is more advanced in its decline, that outward changes to its leaf pigment and canopy structure become apparent.
The researchers used an integrated approach of hyperspectral and thermal imaging, a 3D radiative transfer model and field surveys of more than 1100 trees with varying severity of disease, which enabled them to successfully predict holm oak decline at an early stage.
The research, which was in collaboration with the University of Cordoba, the Spanish National Research Council and the University of Melbourne, concluded that this integrated approach is vital to the large-scale monitoring of forest decline.
Lead author of the research, Alberto Hornero of Swansea University's Department of Geography said: "It is essential to monitor trees for harmful forest diseases before the symptoms become visible. When the trees start to dry out or lose their leaves, it is simply too late to start treating and managing these hollow forests. Our research has shown that having a range of tools like advanced airborne imagery and satellite data observations will help us understand and monitor the physiological state of our oak trees and could potentially apply to many other forest diseases worldwide."
More information: A. Hornero et al, Modelling hyperspectral- and thermal-based plant traits for the early detection of Phytophthora-induced symptoms in oak decline, Remote Sensing of Environment (2021). DOI: 10.1016/j.rse.2021.112570
If you want to stroll the shoreline, know your rights. Credit: Normanack/Flickr, CC BY
As Americans flock to beaches this summer, their toes are sinking into some of the most hotly contested real estate in the United States
It wasn't always this way. Through the mid-20th century, when the U.S. population was smaller and the coast was still something of a frontier in many states, laissez-faire and absentee coastal landowners tolerated people crossing their beachfront property. Now, however, the coast has filled up. Property owners are much more inclined to seek to exclude an ever-growing population of beachgoers seeking access to less and less beach.
On most U.S. shorelines, the public has a time-honored right to "lateral" access. This means that people can move down the beach along the wet sand between high and low tide—a zone that usually is publicly owned. Waterfront property owners' control typically stops at the high tide line or, in a very few cases, the low tide line.
But as climate change raises sea levels, property owners are trying to harden their shorelines with sea walls and other types of armoring, squeezing the sandy beach and the public into a shrinking and diminished space.
As director of the Conservation Clinic at the University of Florida College of Law and the Florida Sea Grant Legal Program, and as someone who grew up with sand between my toes, I have studied beach law and policy for most of my career. In my view, the collision between rising seas and coastal development—known as "coastal squeeze"—now represents an existential threat to beaches, and to the public's ability to reach them.
The beach as a public trust
Beachfront property law has evolved from ideas that date back to ancient Rome. Romans regarded the beach as "public dominion," captured in an oft-cited quote from Roman law: "By the law of nature these things are common to all mankind; the air, running water, the sea and consequently the shores of the sea."
Judges in medieval England evolved this idea into the legal theory known as the "public trust doctrine"—the idea that certain resources should be preserved for all to use. The U.S. inherited this concept.
Most states place the boundary between public and private property at the mean high tide line, an average tide over an astronomical epoch of 19 years. This means that at some point in the daily tidal cycle there is usually a public beach to walk along, albeit a wet and sometimes narrow one. In states such as Maine that set the boundary at mean low tide, you have to be willing to wade.
California state law mandates public access to beaches, but wealthy property owners have been able to restrict access to this beach near Santa Barbara.
Everybody in!
Early beach access laws in coastal states were largely designed to ensure that workaday activities such as fishing and gathering seaweed for fertilizer could occur, regardless of who owned the beach frontage. Increasingly, however, public recreation became the main use of beaches, and state laws evolved to recognize this shift.
For example, in 1984 the New Jersey Supreme Court extended the reach of the Public Trust Doctrine beyond the tide line to include recreational use of the dry sandy beach. In a pioneering move, Texas codified its common law in 1959 by enacting the Open Beaches Act, which provides that the sandy beach up to the line of vegetation is subject to an easement in favor of the public.
Moreover, Texas allows this easement to "roll" as the shoreline migrates inland, which is increasingly likely in an era of rising seas. Recent litigation and amendments to the act have somewhat modified its application, but the basic principle of public rights in privately owned dry sand beach still applies.
Most states that give the public dry sand access on otherwise private property do so under a legal principle known as customary use rights. These rights evolved in feudal England to grant landless villagers access to the lord of the manor's lands for civic activities that had been conducted since "time immemorial," such as ritual maypole dancing.
Like Texas, North Carolina, Hawaii and the U.S. Virgin Islands all have enacted legislation that recognizes customary use of the sandy beach, and courts have upheld the laws.
Sand wars in Florida
Florida has more sandy beaches than any other state, a year-round climate to enjoy them, and a seemingly unbounded appetite for growth, all of which makes beach access a chronic flashpoint.
The sea wall around this Florida Panhandle beach house blocks public movement along the shore. Credit: Thomas Ankersen, CC BY-ND
Along Florida's Panhandle, pitched battles have erupted since 2016, with beachfront property owners and private resorts asserting their private property rights over the dry sandy beach and calling sheriffs to evict locals. When beachgoers responded by asserting their customary use rights, Walton County—no liberal bastion—backed them up, passing the local equivalent of a customary use law.
Florida's Legislature stepped in and took away the local right to pass customary use laws, except according to a complicated legal process that only a few local governments have initiated. Critics argue that the law has made it harder for communities to establish lateral public access to beaches and has done little to resolve the ongoing disputes.
What about just adding sand?
Erosion is both an enemy and a potential savior of beach access. As rising seas erode beaches, pressure to harden shorelines grows. But armoring shorelines may actually increase erosion by interfering with the natural sand supply. Adding more sea walls thus makes it increasingly likely that in many developed areas the dry sand beach will all but disappear. And what once was the public wet sand beach—the area between mean high and low tide—will become two horizontal lines on a vertical sea wall.
One alternative is adding more sand. Congress authorizes and funds the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to restore beaches with sand pumped from offshore or trucked from ancient inland dunes. States must typically match these funds, and beachfront property owners occasionally collectively pitch in.
But federal regulations require communities that receive these funds to ensure there is adequate access to nourished beaches from the street, including parking. And new beaches built from submerged shorelines must be maintained for public access until rising seas submerge them again.
This requirement, along with more arcane property rights issues, led landowners in Florida's Walton County to fight a beach nourishment project that would have protected their property from erosion. They took the case to the U.S. Supreme Court and lost.
Beach nourishment, too, is a temporary solution. Good-quality, readily accessible offshore sand supplies are already depleted in some areas. And accelerating sea level rise may outpace readily available sand at some point in the future. Squeezed between condos and coral reefs, South Florida beaches are especially at risk, leading to some desperate proposals—including the idea of grinding up glass to create beach sand.
Germany vows to improve flood warning system as toll passes 165
by Jean-Philippe Lacour With Femke Colborne In Berlin
German Chancellor Angela Merkel had said lessons should be learnt but cautioned against overly high expectations.
The German government on Monday pledged to improve the country's under-fire warning systems as emergency services continued to search for victims of the worst flooding in living memory, with at least 165 people confirmed dead.
The west of the country was deluged over two days last week, with torrents of water sweeping away trees, cars and bridges and destroying swathes of housing.
Many victims in Germany were found dead in sodden cellars after attempting to retrieve valuables, while others were swept away by the sheer force of the water.
A total of 117 people are now confirmed to have died in Rhineland-Palatinate state, with 47 victims in neighbouring North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and one in Bavaria.
At least 31 people also died in Belgium in the floods, and later torrential rain caused havoc in southern Germany and several neighbouring countries.
"We haven't been to all the houses yet, we must assume that we will find more bodies," said Rhineland Palatinate's regional interior minister Roger Lewentz.
The number of people missing remains unclear, but Lewentz said authorities have been unable to reach more than a thousand in Rhineland-Palatinate, mainly because of disrupted communication networks.
The situation is similar in NRW, where police on Sunday said more than 700 residents initially unaccounted for had since been contacted, but several dozen remain missing.
Government spokeswoman Martina Fietz said the national warning system and mobile phone app Nina had "worked" but admitted that "our experiences with this disaster show that we need to do more and better".
Armin Schuster, president of the government's civil protection agency (BBK), called on German radio for sirens to be reinstated in more areas as part of the country's disaster warnings system.
Emergency workers in Germany have been racing to assess damaged buildings, clear debris and restore key services.
'Completely inconceivable'
Although meteorological services had forecast torrential rain and flash floods, many residents said they were caught off-guard by rapidly rising waters.
The floods caused sweeping power cuts and knocked down telecommunication antennas, preventing residents from receiving warnings in time.
Under Germany's federal system, it is up to the 16 regional states to organise responses to flood alerts and coordinate efforts with the civil protection office and the fire brigade.
Annalena Baerbock, the Green party candidate to replace Angela Merkel as chancellor after elections on September 26, on Monday called for a more centralised approach.
"In my view, the federal government must play a much stronger coordinating role," she told the ARD broadcaster.
But during a visit to the flood-ravaged town of Euskirchen in North Rhine-Westphalia, Interior Minister Horst Seehofer said it would be "completely inconceivable that such a disaster could be dealt with centrally from any one place".
"I believe that we are still in the right position in Germany with our organisation of civil protection and disaster management," he said.
Nevertheless, Seehofer said "we owe it to the families and the victims" to make improvements where necessary.
Visiting the flood zone in Rhineland-Palatinate on Sunday, Merkel said lessons should be learnt but sometimes "things happen so quickly that you can't fully escape the force of nature."
Timeline of deadliest floods in Europe in the last 20 years.
'Unbelievable tragedy'
The disaster has catapulted climate change to the top of the agenda in Germany, ahead of September's polls that will mark the end of Merkel's 16 years in power.
Experts say that because a warmer atmosphere holds more water, climate change increases the risk and intensity of flooding.
As the clean-up gets under way, the bill from the flood damage is estimated to run in the billions of euros.
Merkel's cabinet plans to approve an emergency aid package on Wednesday, which German media expects will total around 400 million euros.
In the town of Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler, the search for bodies continued amid mud-covered streets piled high with debris.
"They are still searching. We will find dead people for sure," a resident of the town told AFP, while another said he had witnessed a body being carried away on a cart by soldiers.
Seehofer spoke of an "unbelievable tragedy" and said he had "never experienced anything like it in my life".
Barrier Reef outlook poor despite coral 'recovery': scientists
by Holly Robertson
Australian scientists have said the Great Barrier Reef's outlook remains 'very poor' despite signs of coral recovery.
The Great Barrier Reef's outlook remains "very poor" despite coral recovery over the past year, Australian government scientists said Monday, just days before a UNESCO ruling on the site's world heritage status.
The United Nations cultural agency recommended last month that the world's largest reef system be placed on its endangered list because of damage to the corals largely caused by climate change.
The Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS) said the corals were currently in a "recovery window" after a reprieve that followed a decade of harmful heat stress and cyclones.
But such opportunities were becoming rarer due to the impact of climate change, the government agency, which has monitored the reef for 35 years, said in its annual report released Monday.
"The increasing prominence of climate-related extreme weather events and crown-of-thorns starfish outbreaks is causing more severe and frequent pressures, giving the reef fewer opportunities like this to recover," CEO Paul Hardisty said.
The scientists surveyed 127 reef sites in 2021 and found hard coral cover had increased at 69 of the 81 locations surveyed in the past two years, largely driven by fast-growing table and branching Acropora corals.
Separate scientific research released last October found the 2,300-kilometre (1,400 miles) system had lost half its corals since 1995, with a series of ocean heatwaves causing mass coral bleaching.
Map of eastern Australia showing the Great Barrier Reef.
Britta Schaffelke, research program director at AIMS, said the latest findings provided a "glimmer of hope... that the reef still has resilience".
But she added that its "outlook into the future is still very poor because of the dangers of climate change and other factors that are impacting on the organisms that make up the reef."
Australia has launched a last-minute lobbying effort to avoid a World Heritage downgrade, sending the country's environment minister to Paris to meet with UNESCO officials and even taking key ambassadors on a reef snorkelling trip last week.
UNESCO has urged Australia to take urgent climate action but Canberra has long resisted calls to commit to net zero emissions by 2050.
The conservative government has said it hopes to meet the target "as soon as possible" without harming its commodity-dependent economy, insisting tackling climate change requires a global effort.
The reef was worth an estimated US$4.8 billion a year in tourism revenue for the Australian economy before the coronavirus pandemic and there are fears an "in danger" listing could weaken its tourist appeal.
A decision is expected around July 23.
Placed on the World Heritage list in 1981, the Great Barrier Reef is one of seven sites globally threatened with a downgrade due to ecological damage, overdevelopment, overtourism or security concerns.
The role of skin secretions in the evolutionary arms race between cane toads and lungworms
July 19, 2021 by Martin Mayer, Rick Shine
Credit: Martin Mayer, Author provided
Unlike many other species of amphibians, the cane toad is thriving. It was introduced to Australia (and other places, such as Hawaii) to get rid of pest insects in sugar cane plantations. It had no effect on the pest insects, but soon after its introduction in 1935 it began to spread over large parts of the country.
And it didn't come alone. Cane toads brought with them a parasite from their native range in South America, the lungworm nematode Rhabdias pseudosphaerocephala.
This invasion provides an ideal model to study the evolutionary "arms race" by which hosts and parasites adjust to each other, as we showed in a recent study.
How parasites can drive evolution
Parasites are the stuff of nightmares (just think of the creature in the movie Alien). Most people don't think about parasites too much, and one reason is that over the past two centuries we humans managed to rid ourselves of most parasites that used to pester us.
Nonetheless, parasites are an essential part of most ecosystems and important drivers of evolution. But for most kinds of parasites, we don't really know fundamental facts such as how they find their hosts in the first place and conversely, how hosts protect themselves from getting infected.
The host and its parasites are locked in an "arms race" of adaptations and counter‐adaptations. Hosts evolve to detect and reject parasites; parasites evolve to deceive the host's detection and suppression systems; then hosts evolve to defeat those new tricks, and so on.
This is why host–parasite interactions can be powerful drivers of evolution. Selection should favor hosts that can either reduce their chances of getting infected, which is called resistance, or limit the harm caused by a given parasite infection, which is called tolerance.
The cane toads’ current distribution in Australia (a), a cane toad used for our experiments (b) and a lungworm parasite located in a toads’ lung (c). Credit: Mayer, Shine & Brown
Cane toads vs lungworms
How does that arms race play out during a biological invasion, when both the host and the parasite are subject to powerful new evolutionary forces?
Using cane toads and their lungworm parasites, our new paper shows that the skin secretions of the cane toad host play a surprisingly important role.
The secretions that coat an amphibian consists of two parts: substances produced by the amphibian itself plus skin microbiome, mostly bacteria. These secretions contain many antimicrobial properties, which might help to fight off pathogens (such as chytrid fungus, the cause of so many amphibian declines).
At the same time, parasites try to overcome those barriers. Lungworm larvae (which develop in the feces of an infected toad and then wait for a new toad to pass by) might use the smell of skin secretions as a cue to find their host in the first place.
We reasoned that the infective larvae of lungworms might even use the toad's skin secretions to cloak themselves from the amphibians' immune system when trying to make their way to the lungs (which is where they need to settle, mature, and reproduce).
How the role of skin secretions changes
If hosts and parasites are constantly adapting to each other, we expect to see different strategies in different places for infection avoidance (in hosts) and host detection (in parasites). These differences might arise very quickly, such as during a biological invasion.
A male cane toad in Northern Australia. Credit: Martin Mayer, Author provided
To test this idea, we experimentally infected cane toads from different regions in Australia with lungworm parasites from different regions. Additionally, we reduced skin secretions in some of the toads to test how their presence or absence affected the infection success of the parasite.
We found that the role of skin secretions differed markedly between geographic regions.
In the toads' core range (their main habitat) in tropical Queensland, toad skin secretions functioned as a cue for the parasite to find their host. But not only that, they also helped the parasites to infect the toads, meaning that more parasites managed to reach the toads' lungs when skin secretions were intact. So it seems that these lungworms indeed cloak themselves from the host's immune system.
But this was not the case at the toads' invasion front (where toads are spreading into new territory) in Western Australia. Here, the skin secretions of cane toads appear to act as a defense against lungworms, reducing rather than enhancing their infection success.
Thus, although cane toads have been spreading through Australia for only 85 years, we see major divergences in the roles that their skin secretions play in host–parasite biology.
The state of the arms race
These geographical divergences fit well with the idea that cane toads in the core range have low resistance to parasite infection, because parasites are ubiquitous due to the nice warm and wet conditions year round.
Conversely, at the invasion‐front, where conditions are harsh and dry for most of the year, increased host resistance might be favored—especially if parasite infection reduces the dispersal ability of a fast-moving invasion-front toad.
Thus, the cane toads on the invasion-front appear to be ahead in the arms race: they have adapted to the new conditions, while the lungworms are still catching up.
More information: Martin Mayer et al, Host defense or parasite cue: Skin secretions mediate interactions between amphibians and their parasites, Ecology Letters (2021). DOI: 10.1111/ele.13832
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.This story is part of Science X Dialog, where researchers can report findings from their published research articles. Visit this page for information about ScienceX Dialog and how to participate.
Basic safety needs in the paleolithic era have largely evolved with the onset of the industrial and cognitive revolutions. We interact a little less with raw materials, and interface a little more with machines.
Robots don't have the same hardwired behavioral awareness and control, so secure collaboration with humans requires methodical planning and coordination. You can likely assume your friend can fill up your morning coffee cup without spilling on you, but for arobot, this seemingly simple task requires careful observation and comprehension of human behavior.
Scientists from MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) have recently created a new algorithm to help a robot find efficient motion plans to ensure physical safety of its human counterpart. In this case, the bot helped put a jacket on a human, which could potentially prove to be a powerful tool in expanding assistance for those with disabilities or limited mobility.
"Developing algorithms to prevent physical harm without unnecessarily impacting the task efficiency is a critical challenge," says MIT Ph.D. student Shen Li, a lead author on a new paper about the research. "By allowing robots to make non-harmful impact with humans, our method can find efficient robot trajectories to dress the human with a safety guarantee."
Human modeling, safety, and efficiency
Proper human modeling—how the human moves, reacts, and responds—is necessary to enable successful robot motion planning in human-robot interactive tasks. A robot can achieve fluent interaction if the human model is perfect, but in many cases, there's no flawless blueprint.
A robot shipped to a person at home, for example, would have a very narrow, "default" model of how a human could interact with it during an assisted dressing task. It wouldn't account for the vast variability in human reactions, dependent on a myriad of variables such as personality and habits. A screaming toddler would react differently to putting on a coat or shirt than a frail elderly person, or those with disabilities who might have rapid fatigue or decreased dexterity.
If that robot is tasked with dressing, and plans a trajectory solely based on that default model, the robot could clumsily bump into the human, resulting in an uncomfortable experience or even possible injury. However, if it's too conservative in ensuring safety, it might pessimistically assume that all space nearby is unsafe, and then fail to move, something known as the "freezing robot" problem
To provide a theoretical guarantee of human safety, the team's algorithm reasons about the uncertainty in the human model. Instead of having a single, default model where the robot only understands one potential reaction, the team gave the machine an understanding of many possible models, to more closely mimic how a human can understand other humans. As the robot gathers more data, it will reduce uncertainty and refine those models.
To resolve the freezing robot problem, the team redefined safety for human-aware motion planners as either collision avoidance or safe impact in the event of a collision. Often, especially in robot-assisted tasks of activities of daily living, collisions cannot be fully avoided. This allowed the robot to make non-harmful contact with the human to make progress, so long as the robot's impact on the human is low. With this two-pronged definition of safety, the robot could safely complete the dressing task in a shorter period of time.
For example, let's say there are two possible models of how a human could react to dressing. "Model One" is that the human will move up during dressing, and "Model Two" is that the human will move down during dressing. With the team's algorithm, when the robot is planning its motion, instead of selecting one model, it will try to ensure safety for both models. No matter if the person is moving up or down, the trajectory found by the robot will be safe.
To paint a more holistic picture of these interactions, future efforts will focus on investigating the subjective feelings of safety in addition to the physical during the robot-assisted dressing task.
"This multifaceted approach combines set theory, human-aware safety constraints, human motion prediction, and feedback control for safe human-robot interaction," says Assistant Professor in The Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University (Fall 2021) Zackory Erickson. "This research could potentially be applied to a wide variety of assistive robotics scenarios, towards the ultimate goal of enabling robots to provide safer physical assistance to people with disabilitiesRobots can be more aware of human co-workers, with system that provides context
Google wants people in office, despite productivity gains at home
by Mark Bergen
Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain
Google software engineers reported something in a recent survey that surprised higher-ups: they felt as productive working from home as they did before the pandemic.
Internal research at the Alphabet Inc. unit also showed that employees want more "collaboration and social connections" at work, according to Brian Welle, a human resources vice president. Welle declined to provide exact figures but said "more than 75%" of surveyed employees answered this way. Moststaffalso specifically craved physical proximity when working on new projects.
"There's something about innovative work—when you need that spark," Welle said in an interview. "Our employees feel like those moments happen better when they're together."
That's partially why, despite the rebound in productivity, the technology giant is sticking with its plan to bring most employees back to offices this fall. As Google deliberates which individual employees will get to continue working full time from home and who will need to come in, some staff are increasingly frustrated by the lack of clear direction and uneven enforcement of the policy. Internal message boards lit up this month when a senior Google executive announced he was going to work from New Zealand. Meanwhile, most lower-level staff are waiting to learn if they can relocate, or have to come into the office.
Google's transition back to office life is being closely watched. The search giant practically invented the luxurious Silicon Valley campus, with its abundant free food, nap pods and other perks. Google is saving around a billion dollars a year on expenses thanks to remote work, yet the company has invested far more on recent real estate expansions in San Jose, California; New York City; and elsewhere. And even Google must contend with personnel unwilling to surrender the comforts or economic benefits of remote work—especially with a white-collar workforce that has had no qualms rebelling against management.
Workers in many industries have decided to quit their jobs rather than give up virtual work. While some tech companies went fully remote during the pandemic, others that haven't, like Apple Inc., have also dealt with staff resisting a return. A new cottage industry sprung up around remote work as smaller cities try to lure rich tech employees from the coasts. "Google and Apple have some of the best offices," said Evan Hock, a co-founder of MakeMyMove.com, an online directory for remote work. "If they're dealing with it, it's safe to assume that everyone else will be too.
Welle runs Google's People Analytics, a division that tracks staff performance and opinion, and shared findings this week as Google opened its Mountain View headquarters to staff on a voluntary basis. In September, Google will ask most of its workforce to return three days a week. When the pandemic struck, overall measures of productivity quickly "plummeted," Welle said. It was only this May that those productivity figures, tracked in self-reported employee surveys, bounced back—a pleasant surprise for Welle's division. Google only shared survey figures from its engineers; the company employs thousands of non-engineers as well.
Also in May, the company relaxed its return-to-work policy. Chief Executive Officer Sundar Pichai told staff about a new plan for a "hybrid" work model—60% of the company would return to their old offices three days a week; a fifth could apply to relocate to other offices; and another fifth could apply to work remotely full-time. Google said it would notify staff of those decisions in August, and the company set up an internal tool for employees to submit and track these requests.
But that messaging, on occasion, has been clumsy.
That latest internal spark set off in June, when Urs Hölzle, a powerful executive overseeing Google's technical infrastructure, emailed staff about his plans to move from California to New Zealand for at least a year. For many underlings waiting on approvals to change their work situations, this unexpected news felt flippant and unfair. Under Google's policies, a transfer to cheaper cities can mean a pay cut.
Several employees complained about Hölzle's decision in text threads and on memegen, the company's internal messaging board. The email was "very tone deaf," said Laura de Vesine, a senior engineer who works under Hölzle. "Obviously there's an enormous double standard."
It was even the subject of a cartoon from Manu Cornet, a veteran Google software engineer with renown inside the company for his comics spoofing its culture. Cornet recently left Google for Twitter Inc.
A Google spokesperson said that Hölzle's relocation request was approved last year but was delayed because of the pandemic. In his email, Hölzle said he would continue to work on California hours. The spokesperson said that Hölzle is supportive of remote work and that there will be employees "across all levels" of his division who will be approved to relocate or work remotely.
Hölzle, Google's eighth employee, is known internally for building the teams managing its sprawling data centers and server farms. "I'm not retiring, just changing my location!" Hölzle wrote in an email to staff, which was reviewed by Bloomberg News. In an earlier email from May, Hölzle had noted that remote employees might be left out of impromptu office conversations "where we know collaboration happens." CNET reported earlier on Hölzle's email and staff reactions.
In internal messages about Hölzle's move, some frustrated Google staff resurfaced an email from an ex-colleague native to New Zealand. That person wrote that they were leaving the company in April 2020, after being unable to get authorization to work remotely from the country, according to a copy reviewed by Bloomberg News.
Welle declined to comment specifically on Hölzle, but said Google will be flexible with certain requests. "There is an opportunity for exceptions," he said.
In recent years, Google employees have gone to war with management over a number of issues. Staff have complained that, in response, company brass has put up barriers to communication and made decisions with less transparency. Meanwhile, executives have complained that a more activist employee base has forced them to withhold information.
Google pays lavish salaries to many employees and isn't at risk of a mass exodus over an office return. Still, some are departing. De Vesine, the Google engineer, considered moving from the pricey Bay Area during the pandemic but did not have management sign-off. "The uncertainty about what Google's policies will be has left me stuck," she said. "And I got tired of waiting." She is planning to leave Google for a remote position at another company. De Vesine said she was not speaking on behalf of the employee labor group, the Alphabet Workers Union, of which she is a member.
Welle stressed that Google's guidelines around remote work may still change. The proportion of employees it expects to return to the office is still an estimate. Google isn't sharing how many employee remote work requests have been approved so far. But Welle called the overall employee reception to the transition positive.
"So far, so good," he said. "Let's see how it unfolds."
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