Syrian refugees anxious over Lebanon’s plans to deport them

By KAREEM CHEHAYEB

today

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Syrian children play soccer by their tents at a refugee camp in the town of Bar Elias in the Bekaa Valley, Lebanon, July 7, 2022. The Lebanese government’s plan to start deporting Syrian refugees has sent waves of fear through vulnerable refugee communities already struggling to survive in their host country. Many refugees say being forced to return to the war shattered country would be a death sentence. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)


BAR ELIAS, Lebanon (AP) — Sitting outside her tent in a camp in eastern Lebanon, a 30-year-old Syrian refugee contemplated the sunset and her worsening options.

Umm Jawad fled to Lebanon in 2011 to escape a Syrian government siege of her hometown of Homs. She managed to survive over the past decade, despite Lebanon’s devastating economic meltdown and souring attitudes toward Syrian refugees.

But now Lebanon wants to send her and a million other refugees back to Syria, claiming that much of the war-shattered country is safe. She is terrified. Life in Lebanon is difficult, but she fears returning to Syria could be fatal.

She’s considering a risky escape to Europe by sea with her husband and their children, ages 11 and six. There, she could complete her accounting degree, put the children back in school and secure a steady supply of medication for her epilepsy.

“They (the Europeans) live a better quality of life,” said Umm Jawad, who asked to be identified by her nickname, which means mother of Jawad in reference to her older son’s first name, to speak freely about her family and plans. “But here, my children, husband, and I live in a tent.”

Lebanon’s economic meltdown -– one of the worst in modern history -- has pushed a growing number of Lebanese and Syrians to attempt the perilous journey by sea to Europe.

The Lebanese government’s recently announced plan to deport 15,000 refugees per month to Syria appears set to push more people to make that journey, at a time when Europe is struggling with millions of Ukrainian refugees fleeing the months-long war in their country.

The Lebanese Army and other security agencies report foiled migration attempts off the coast of the northern coasts on a weekly basis. At least seven migrants drowned following a confrontation between a boat of Lebanese and Syrian migrants and the Lebanese Army in April.

“The Lebanese are not happy with their life here and are trying to leave, so what does that mean for Syrians?” said Umm Jawad. “May God help both the Lebanese and Syrians out of this crisis.”

Umm Jawad lives in a Syrian refugee camp near Lebanon’s eastern border crossing with Syria, On a recent day, children played soccer in the camp’s labyrinth of alleys, while some residents bartered with a street vendor who passed by with his cart carrying produce. One man set up a makeshift barbershop inside a tent.

Life in the camp has been getting harder. Donor fatigue, the COVID-19 pandemic, and Lebanon’s crippling economic crisis have forced more refugees to go into debt to afford food, medicine, and rent.

Lebanon, a country of five million people, says it can no longer afford to host more than a million Syrian refugees, and is adamant to start deporting them within months, despite opposition from the United Nations and rights groups.

The Lebanese authorities have supported forced refugee returns for years but had not come up with a comprehensive plan until recently. In justifying such measures, they say Syrian officials have assured them there are now many safe areas refugees can return to

In a Lebanese government document obtained by The Associated Press, Damascus assured Beirut in April that returnees would be able to secure identification cards, birth certificates, social services, temporary housing, and a viable infrastructure. Syrian officials also wrote that returnees would benefit from Syrian President Bashar Assad’s pardons of political opponents and military draft evaders.

In reality, the Assad government has struggled to rebuild areas it has reclaimed through devastating sieges and air raids, and Syria’s economy, like that of Lebanon, is in tatters. Western-led sanctions on Damascus following the government’s brutal crackdown on political opposition in 2011 have further exacerbated the economic downturn.

Many Syrian refugees fear for their safety if forced to return, including the oppressive omnipresence of their country’s notorious security services.

Human Rights Watch has documented cases of Syrian refugees facing detention, torture, and a host of human rights violations upon their return, even with security clearances from the Syrian government, said Lama Fakih, the Middle East and North Africa director at the watchdog group.

Umm Jawad worries her husband could be forced to return to the military. “You have check points every few hundred meters, between every neighborhood, and crime is rampant. You just can’t feel safe even in your own home,” she said.

Hassan Al-Mohammed, who works in the fields of Lebanon’s lush Bekaa Valley, along with several of his 12 children, said he dreams of going home, but that now is not the time. He said his hometown southwest of the city of Aleppo is still a frontline. “Should I flee an economic crisis just to have my family slaughtered?” he said, sitting in his tent.

At the same time, many Lebanese feel that sending the Syrians home would ease the economic crisis in Lebanon, wherethree out of four people now live in poverty.

Tensions between Lebanese and Syrians are increasingly palpable.

Al-Mohammed says bakeries would sometimes prioritize Lebanese nationals for their bundle of bread and make Syrians and non-Lebanese wait for hours. He is frustrated by claims that refugees have been benefitting economically at the expense of Lebanese. “They reduced aid, so we’re working to eat. The money we make is to buy bread,” he said.

Lebanese ministers in recent months have proposed that the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees redirect refugee aid to Syria, as a way of improving the situation there and encouraging returns.

But those calls have so far fallen on deaf ears. The U.N. refugee agency, along with Europe, the United States and several rights groups, say that Syria simply isn’t safe yet.

Lebanese officials expressed their frustration.

The U.N.’s refusal to redirect aid deters refugees from returning, Issam Charafeddine, the Cabinet minister dealing with refugee issues, said in an interview earlier this month. He also said reports of an imminent start of deportations amount to an unfounded “fear campaign.”

Maj. Gen. Abbas Ibrahim, a member of the Lebanese government’s refugee returns committee, told reporters last week that “it seems the international community doesn’t want the Syrians to return to their country.”

Roger Waters lends star power to the fight against Palestinian dispossession

Pink Floyd frontman supported students at McGill who faced threats from the university for their Palestine solidarity activism

Bianca Mugyenyi / July 20, 2022 / CANADIAN DIMENSION


Roger Waters performs with Pink Floyd in Ottawa. 

Photo by Brennan Schnell/Wikimedia Commons.

Last week, a 78-year-old UK-born rock star and a soft-spoken Palestinian Canadian undergraduate joined forces for a discussion about the suppression of Palestine solidarity on campuses across the country. The contrast was sharp, but rallying disparate forces is key to successful political campaigns.

On Thursday, the Canadian Foreign Policy Institute hosted an online rally and press event featuring Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters in support of McGill students who’ve faced a litany of attacks for advancing the Palestinian cause. It was an unusual fusion of local organizing and global star power.

Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights (SPHR) McGill activist Sarah detailed her group’s work to mobilize students around a March resolution committing the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) to divest from and boycott “corporations and institutions complicit in settler-colonial apartheid against Palestinians.” The result of the campaign was overwhelming, with 71 percent of students voting for a Palestine Solidarity Policy mandating SSMU to take action for Palestinian rights.

Not everyone was pleased with the result. B’nai B’rith, the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA) and several donors to the university expressed their opposition to the outcome of the vote. The McGill administration threatened to suspend its fee agreement with SSMU and shortly after student union officials withdrew the widely endorsed resolution. Subsequently, SSMU also suspended SPHR’s club status.

The day before performing for an audience of 15,000 people at Montréal’s Bell Centre, Waters joined an online rally in support of McGill students advocating for Palestinian rights.

During the event, the English musician and activist described the vote as a “crushing defeat for B’nai Brith and the Zionist movement in general.” He pointed out that the strong endorsement for BDS at the elite university demonstrated the growth of Palestine solidarity over the past decade and a half since he became involved in the movement. “Five years or six ago you could not use the word apartheid with reference to the Zionist agenda. You couldn’t do it,” Water’s noted. “Now it is impossible to have any conversation about the Zionist project in Palestine without using the word apartheid.” Water also talked about the importance of educating people about Palestine, stating that “our message is huge.”

Sarah from SPHR McGill told the press and audience that “Despite everything we are still able to organize.” She asserted that “no matter what is thrown at us we will always resist.”

The event also included a message of solidarity from the Montréal council of the CSN labour federation. Nearly 600 people registered for a rally endorsed by almost 40 organizations, including the Canadian Union of Postal Workers, the Canadian Federation of Students, and Africa for Palestine. The event was covered by La Presse, rabble, and Le Journal de Montréal (with articles reprinted in Le Soleil and La Voix de l’Est) and was also mentioned in an article published by the Globe and Mail.

Significant resources are directed towards stifling support for Palestine on Canadian campuses. Hillel, Israel on Campus Canada, Hasbara Fellowships Canada and StandWithUs Canada are all university-focused pro-Israel groups. Honest Reporting Canada regularly runs campaigns targeting student papers while Canary Mission is an international website devoted to sabotaging the job prospects of university students who participate in pro-Palestinian activism.

A recent Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security report on “The Rise of Ideologically Motivated Violent Extremism in Canada” highlights the efforts devoted to demonizing campus activism. With input from CIJA and B’nai B’rith leadership the report recommends: “That the Government of Canada thoroughly reject the demonization and delegitimization of the State of Israel, and condemn all attempts by Canadian organizations, groups, or individuals, including university campus associations, to promote these views.”

Now more than ever, it’s critical to pushback against attempts to squash Palestine solidarity campaigns. In the recent academic year students at five Canadian universities passed resolutions supporting elements of the boycott divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement, joining some two dozen student associations that had already endorsed the Palestinian civil society’s call.

When organizers achieve a 71 percent student vote in favour of Palestinian rights, it is essential to defend them from outside pressure. Roger Waters should be applauded for lending his star power to grassroots organizers working to end Canadian complicity in Palestinian dispossession.

Bianca Mugyenyi is an author, activist and director of the Canadian Foreign Policy Institute. She is based in Montréal.

Feds must act to end the forced sterilization of Indigenous people

Although official policies have been repealed, the genocidal practice continues to this day

Owen Schalk / July 20, 2022 / CANADIAN DIMENSION

“Debwe,” led by Mushkiiki Nibi Kwe (Lindsey Lickers) with artists Leah Roberts, Maybella King Reynolds, and Shaneixqui Brown, forms part of the art installation Red Embers, now on display in Ashbridges Bay Park, Toronto.

Since 2019, the Standing Senate Committee on Human Rights has been conducting “a study on the extent and scope of forced and coerced sterilization of persons in Canada,” the findings of which were compiled in a report released on July 14, 2022.

Sterilization, or the permanent prevention of contraception by surgical means, is performed on hundreds of thousands of people annually, and according to Canadian and international law, the surgeon must acquire the “free and informed consent” of the patient before beginning the procedure. Forced sterilization occurs when a person has explicitly refused the procedure or has been subjected to the procedure without their knowledge. Coerced sterilization is when people are intimidated into undergoing the surgery or when they consent on the basis of incorrect information.

The Standing Committee report explicates a reality that Indigenous communities already know and suffer through: in the 1920s, official policies of forced sterilization were administered across Canada, and although these policies have been repealed, the genocidal practice continues to this day in a colonial health care system that already pathologizes Indigenous peoples in a way that other groups simply do not have to endure.



In the early twentieth century, numerous Canadian provinces passed laws intended to forcibly limit the birth rate of Indigenous peoples residing within the fledging nation’s borders, an act of genocide according to the UN definition of the term. “Through settler colonial policies” such as these, write Chaneesa Ryan, Abrar Ali, and Christine Shawana, “Indigenous populations in Canada have been targeted by various assimilation policies and practices including, among others, the Indian Act, residential schools, and the Sixties Scoop.” Forced and coerced sterilization, they explain, “continues the history of colonization and is designed to control and/or eliminate a population.”

Between 2015 and 2019, over 100 Indigenous women from Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, the Northwest Territories, Nova Scotia, Nunavut, Ontario, and Québec publicly asserted that they were survivors of forced or coerced sterilization procedures. The actual number is undoubtedly much higher, and more and more Indigenous women come forward every year to share their traumatic experiences. One study found that 26 percent of Inuit women between the ages of 30 and 50 in the town of Igloolik, Nunavut were sterilized against their will.

Following allegations of forced sterilization in Saskatchewan health care facilities, the Saskatoon Health Authority commissioned an independent review by Senator Yvonne Boyer and Dr. Judith Bartlett. In 2017, they wrote that “the sterilization legislation legacy remains intact through imprints in not only Saskatchewan but all of Canada’s health care system.” The cases they examined revealed that many Indigenous women were not told about other birth control options, were pressured or threatened into undergoing sterilization procedures, or were subjected to sterilization after expressly refusing to sign consent forms.

“Racism is a determinant of health,” Boyer and Bartlett concluded, adding that “some governments imposed policies and laws geared toward sterilizing [Indigenous] women… In addition to gender bias, it is well documented that systemic discrimination and racism in health care exists. Decades and generations of [Indigenous] people affected are accordingly distrustful of this system.”

The recent report by the Standing Committee highlights the fact that, from the early twentieth century to the present, forced and coerced sterilization of Indigenous peoples and other oppressed groups has occurred as a result of official government policies, systemic discrimination in health care institutions, and the overall “sociocultural context” of the victimized individuals. The report’s authors found that:
While the available record indicates that First Nations, Métis and Inuit women have disproportionately been the target of policies of forced and coerced sterilization, the Committee heard that other vulnerable groups have also been disproportionately subjected to these procedures, including Black and racialized women, persons with disabilities, intersex children and institutionalized persons.


The authors note that the United Nations Committee against Torture, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, and two UN Special Rapporteurs have urged Canada to implement concrete measures to end the forced sterilization of Indigenous peoples by any means necessary—an urgency that is not present in any of the Canadian government’s responses to this ongoing crisis.

In December 2018, the UN Committee against Torture called on Canada to institute numerous measures to end forced sterilization of Indigenous peoples and other marginalized groups, emphasizing the need to “[e]nsure that all allegations of forced or coerced sterilization are impartially investigated, that the persons responsible are held accountable and that adequate redress is provided to the victims.” The UN also called on the Canadian government to “adopt legislative and policy measures to prevent and criminalize the forced or coerced sterilization of women.”

The next year, a report by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) urged Canada to “to guarantee effective access to justice for survivors and their families, to conduct impartial and immediate investigations, to hold those responsible to account and to take all of the necessary measures to put an end to the practice of sterilizing women against their will.”

In other words, both the UN and the IACHR openly implored the Canadian government to do everything within its power to bring an end to these genocidal actions. Nevertheless, forced and coerced sterilizations continue in Canada, with minimal action from the federal government. The authors of the July 14 report are only able to note four actions taken by the government to address this crisis since 2019: Indigenous Services Canada (ISC) established an Advisory Committee on Indigenous Women’s Wellbeing; ISC helped convene a forum on “Culturally Informed Choice and Consent in Indigenous Women’s Health”; the Government of Canada held three “national dialogues” on anti-Indigenous racism in Canadian health care systems; and Budget 2021 allocated $33.3 million “to expand support for Indigenous midwifery and doula initiatives.”

In other areas, however, Ottawa has evinced nowhere near the same hesitation. For instance, the disparity between the lack of urgency regarding genocidal sterilization practices and the feverish intensity with which the federal government is expanding its international military presence is clear. For example, Budget 2022 includes $6.1 billion for the expansion of the Canadian military and a potential $2.8 billion in “lethal and non-lethal aid to support Ukraine’s heroic defence” against Russia. In the face of this gargantuan funding gap, one can hardly claim that Canada is following the UN and IACHR recommendation to “take all of the necessary measures” to end forced and coerced sterilization.



While refusing to take sufficient action about forced sterilization within its own borders, the Canadian government has been breathless in its criticism of China regarding allegations of forced sterilization against Uyghurs and other Muslim peoples in the country’s west. In fact, Ottawa claims to have “raised the issue [of forced sterilization] with Chinese authorities” and “consistently voiced its deep concern” over the accusations “in international forums in cooperation with partners, including at the United Nations Human Rights Council.” The Trudeau government has even applied economic sanctions against China because of, in the Government of Canada’s words, allegations pertaining to “forced medical procedures absent the patient’s consent, including forced sterilization.” This undeniably dishonest behaviour is one of myriad reasons why the Canadian government should not be afforded any of the respect it claims to command on the global stage.

In their article for the International Journal of Indigenous Health, Chaneesa Ryan, Abrar Ali, and Christine Shawana explain that “Sterilizing Indigenous women against their will violates their rights to equality, nondiscrimination, physical integrity, health, and security, and constitutes an act of genocide, violence, and torture against women” according to Canadian and international law. “Additionally,” they continue:
women who have been impacted by forced or coerced sterilization have experienced various physical and emotional symptoms, including pain, tissue scarring, hormonal imbalances, depression, anxiety, feelings of inadequacy, social isolation, loss of identity and self-worth, distrust in the health care system, and fear of authority… This in turn leads to a hesitancy to seek medical care, increasing women’s vulnerability to preventable and treatable medical conditions.


Some survivors of forced sterilization have died by suicide. A woman named Pam (who withheld her surname out of fear of “further harming her family”), stated that her daughter committed suicide ten months after being forcibly sterilized at a Winnipeg hospital in 2009. There have also been reports of doctors telling pregnant Indigenous people that they will only be able to reclaim their children from foster care if they undergo abortions.

“Their social worker is giving them instructions to abort their baby in exchange for being able to get their children back or get more access to their children,” explained Cora Morgan, a family advocate with the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs. “They’re basically blackmailing [Indigenous] women into having abortions.”

Despite these appalling realities, forced and coerced sterilization of Indigenous people is not actually illegal in Canada, and no doctor has ever been prosecuted for the act. It was only in July 2022, after years of urging by Indigenous people, activists, the UN, and the IACHR, that the Senate recommended “legislation be introduced to add a specific offence to the Criminal Code prohibiting forced and coerced sterilization.”

This recommendation echoes that of Senator Yvonne Boyer, who introduced a bill to criminalize forced sterilization into the Senate the previous month. During the proceedings, Boyer read a statement from an Indigenous woman in Alberta who was coerced into sterilization. “I’ve been attacked by a system that wished harm on the continuance of my family and ancestral lineage,” the statement read. “It’s simply genocide.”

Neither the Standing Committee’s recommendation nor Boyer’s bill have yet been codified into law. The law’s codification, and indeed its subsequent enforcement, will require the federal and provincial governments to take the immediate, decisive actions that they have so far spurned in the midst of these ongoing nationwide atrocities.

Owen Schalk is a writer based in Winnipeg. He is primarily interested in applying theories of imperialism, neocolonialism, and underdevelopment to global capitalism and Canada’s role therein. Visit his website at www.owenschalk.com.

Vatican says they’re gifts; Indigenous groups want them back
By NICOLE WINFIELD

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President of the Metis community, Cassidy Caron, speaks to the media in St. Peter's Square after their meeting with Pope Francis at The Vatican, Monday, March 28, 2022. The restitution of Indigenous and colonial-era artifacts, a pressing debate for museums and national collections across Europe, is one of the many agenda items awaiting Francis on his trip to Canada, which begins Sunday. 

(AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia, File )


VATICAN CITY (AP) — The Vatican Museums are home to some of the most magnificent artworks in the world, from Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel to ancient Egyptian antiquities and a pavilion full of papal chariots. But one of the museum’s least-visited collections is becoming its most contested before Pope Francis’ trip to Canada.

The Vatican’s Anima Mundi Ethnological Museum, located near the food court and right before the main exit, houses tens of thousands of artifacts and art made by Indigenous peoples from around the world, much of it sent to Rome by Catholic missionaries for a 1925 exhibition in the Vatican gardens.

The Vatican says the feathered headdresses, carved walrus tusks, masks and embroidered animal skins were gifts to Pope Pius XI, who wanted to celebrate the Church’s global reach, its missionaries and the lives of the Indigenous peoples they evangelized.

But Indigenous groups from Canada, who were shown a few items in the collection when they traveled to the Vatican last spring to meet with Francis, question how some of the works were actually acquired and wonder what else may be in storage after decades of not being on public display.

Some say they want them back.

“These pieces that belong to us should come home,” said Cassidy Caron, president of the Metis National Council, who headed the Metis delegation that asked Francis to return the items.

Restitution of Indigenous and colonial-era artifacts, a pressing debate for museums and national collections across Europe, is one of the many agenda items awaiting Francis on his trip to Canada, which begins Sunday.

The trip is aimed primarily at allowing the pope to apologize in person, on Canadian soil, for abuses Indigenous people and their ancestors suffered at the hands of Catholic missionaries in notorious residential schools.

Caron said returning the missionary collection items would help heal the intergenerational trauma and enable Indigenous peoples to tell their own story.

“For so long we had to hide who we were. We had to hide our culture and hide our traditions to keep our people safe,” she said. “Right now, in this time when we can publicly be proud to be Metis, we are reclaiming who we are. And these pieces, these historic pieces, they tell stories of who we were.”

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More than 150,000 Native children in Canada were forced to attend state-funded Christian schools from the 19th century until the 1970s in an effort to isolate them from the influence of their homes and culture. The aim was to Christianize and assimilate them into mainstream society, which previous Canadian governments considered superior.

Official Canadian policy in the late 19th and early 20th centuries also aimed to suppress Indigenous spiritual and cultural traditions at home, including the 1885 Potlatch Ban that prohibited the integral First Nations ceremony.

Government agents confiscated items used in the ceremony and other rituals, and some of them ended up in museums in Canada, the U.S. and Europe, as well as private collections. The Vatican’s catalogue of its Americas collection, for example, features a wooden painted mask from the Haida Gwaii islands of British Columbia that “is related to the Potlatch ceremony.”

During the spring visit, Natan Obed, who headed the Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami delegation, raised the issue of an Inuit kayak in the collection that was featured in a 2021 report in The Globe and Mail newspaper. Obed was quoted by the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. as saying the museum head, the Rev. Nicola Mapelli, was open to discussing its return.

Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni didn’t rule out that Francis might repatriate some items during the coming trip, telling reporters: “We’ll see what happens in the coming days.”

There are international standards guiding the issue of returning Indigenous cultural property, as well as individual museum policies. The 2007 U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, for example, asserts that nations should provide redress, including through restitution, of cultural, religious and spiritual property taken “without their free, prior and informed consent or in violation of their laws, traditions and customs.”

It is possible Indigenous peoples gave their handiworks to Catholic missionaries for the 1925 expo or that the missionaries bought them. But historians question whether the items could have been offered freely given the power imbalances at play in Catholic missions and the government’s policy of eliminating Indigenous traditions, which Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission has called “cultural genocide.”

“By the power structure of what was going on at that time, it would be very hard for me to accept that there wasn’t some coercion going on in those communities to get these objects,” said Michael Galban, a Washoe and Mono Lake Paiute who is director and curator of the Seneca Art & Culture Center in upstate New York.

Gloria Bell, a fellow at the American Academy in Rome and assistant professor in McGill University’s department of art history and communication studies, agreed.

“Using the term ‘gift’ just covers up the whole history,” said Bell, who is of Metis ancestry and is completing a book about the 1925 expo. “We really need to question the context of how these cultural belongings got to the Vatican, and then also their relation to Indigenous communities today.”

The Holy See’s Indigenous collection began centuries ago, with some pre-Columbian items sent to Pope Innocent XII in 1692, and has been amplified over the years by gifts to popes, especially on foreign trips. Of the 100,000 items originally sent for the 1925 exhibit, the Vatican says it has kept 40,000.

It has repatriated some items. In 2021, Vatican News reported that the Anima Mundi had recently returned to Ecuador a shrunken head used in rituals by the Jivaroan peoples of the Amazon.

Katsitsionni Fox, a Mohawk filmmaker who served as spiritual adviser to the spring First Nations delegation, said she saw items that belong to her people and need to be “rematriated,” or brought back home to the motherland.

“You can sense that that’s not where they belong and that’s not where they want to be,” she said of the wampum belts, war clubs and other items she documented with her phone camera.

The Vatican Museums declined repeated requests for an interview or comment.

But in its 2015 catalogue of its Americas holdings, the museum said they demonstrated the church’s great esteem for world cultures and its commitment to preserving their arts and artifacts, as evidenced by the excellent condition of the pieces.

The catalogue also said the museum welcomes dialogue with Indigenous peoples, and the museum has held up its collaboration with Aboriginal communities in Australia before a 2010 exhibit. The collection’s director, Mapelli, a missionary priest and an associate visited those communities, took video testimonies and traveled the world seeking more information about the museum’s holdings.

Opening the revamped Anima Mundi gallery space in 2019 with artifacts from Oceania as well as a temporary Amazon exhibit, Francis said the items were cared for “with the same passion reserved for the masterpieces of the Renaissance or the immortal Greek and Roman statues.”

He noted that some items had recently been loaned to China and said the collection “invites us to live human fraternity, contrasting the culture of rancor, racism and nationalism.”

Francis also praised the museum’s stated commitment to transparency, noting the glass partitions showing the storage facilities upstairs and the restorers’ workstations on the main floor: “Transparency is an important value, above all in an ecclesiastic institution.”

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You might miss the Anima Mundi if you were to spend the day in the Vatican Museums. Official tours don’t include it and the audio guide, which features descriptions of two dozen museums and galleries, ignores it entirely. Private guides say they rarely take visitors there, because there is no explanatory signage on display cases or wall text panels.

Margo Neale, who helped curate the Vatican’s 2010 Aboriginal exhibition as head of the Centre for Indigenous Knowledges at the Australian National Museum, said it is unacceptable for Indigenous collections today to lack informational labels.

“They are not being given the respect they deserve by being named in any way,” said Neale, a member of the Kulin and Gumbaingirr nations. “They are beautifully displayed but are culturally diminished by the lack of acknowledgement of anything other than their ‘exotic otherness.’”

It wasn’t clear if the current exhibition was a work in progress with labels eventually to be added; at the gallery entrance, a text panel asks for donations to fund the collection.

Museums and governments around Europe — in places like Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium — are grappling with the question of their colonial and postcolonial collections, and leading the discussion of legally transferring property back, experts say. With some exceptions, the trend is increasingly toward repatriation — recently agreements were announced in Germany and France to return pieces of the famed Benin Bronzes to Nigeria.

“There is a certain willingness growing in a number of European countries to return objects and archives and ancestral remains,” said Jos van Beurden, who runs a group email list and a Facebook group, Restitution Matters, that tracks developments in the field.

In Canada, the Royal British Columbia Museum has gone so far as to create a handbook empowering Indigenous communities to reclaim their cultural heritage.

In Victoria, the city where the museum is located, Gregory Scofield has amassed a community collection of about 100 items of Metis beadwork, embroidery and other workmanship dating from 1840 to 1910, tracked down and acquired via online auctions and through travel and made available to Metis scholars and artists.

Scofield, a Metis poet and author of the forthcoming book “Our Grandmother’s Hands: Repatriating Metis Material Art,” said any discussion with the Vatican Museums should focus on granting Indigenous scholars full access to the collection and, ultimately, bringing items home.

“These pieces hold our stories,” he said. “These pieces hold our history. These pieces hold the energy of those ancestral grandmothers.”

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Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

AP-NORC poll: Majority want Congress to keep abortion legal


By HANNAH FINGERHU

Ttoday

Abortion-rights activists demonstrate against the Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade that established a constitutional right to abortion, on Capitol Hill in Washington, June 30, 2022. A majority of Americans say Congress should pass a law guaranteeing access to legal abortion nationwide. That's according to a new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

 (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)


WASHINGTON (AP) — A majority of Americans say Congress should pass a law guaranteeing access to legal abortion nationwide, according to a new poll that finds over half say they feel at least somewhat “sad” or “angry” about the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.

The high court’s decision asserted that abortion is not a constitutional right and handed states the authority to severely restrict or ban abortion. The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll shows many Americans back some restrictions on abortion, especially after the first trimester, but the most extreme measures introduced in some Republican-led states are at odds with the public — and with many of the people who live in them.

Faith Murphy, a 41-year-old in Coshocton, Ohio, said she was “quite upset” that the court overruled Roe and wants to see abortion access federally protected. While she’s voted across the aisle, Murphy considers herself a Republican and doesn’t want to see Republican leaders in her state and others push for restrictions.

“I don’t trust who we have in government here in Ohio ... to keep women’s rights or the right to an abortion for any reason whatsoever intact,” Murphy said.

Polling ahead of the June 24 decision suggested that overturning Roe would be unpopular with a majority of Americans who wanted to see the court uphold the 50-year precedent. The new poll, roughly three weeks after the decision, finds 53% of U.S. adults say they disapprove of the court’s decision, while 30% say they approve. An additional 16% say they neither approve nor disapprove.

Sixty percent think Congress should pass a law guaranteeing access to legal abortion nationwide. The House last Friday voted to restore abortion rights in the U.S., though the bill will likely stall in the Senate.

Overwhelming majorities also think their state should generally allow abortion in specific cases, including if the health of the pregnant person is endangered or if the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest. Few think abortion should always be illegal, and most Americans support their state generally allowing abortion six weeks into the pregnancy.

Those patterns persist even in the 23 states in which laws banning or tightening access to abortion have taken effect, will soon take effect or are being debated in court.

Blake Jones thinks six weeks “is far too early to be able to make a decision like that,” and while he personally doesn’t approve of abortion, the 28-year-old Democrat in Athens, Georgia, said he’s pro-choice because he doesn’t believe “that my views should affect other people.”

Jones said he thinks the point of viability is more appropriate for restrictions on abortion, but even then, there should be exceptions if the pregnant person’s health is at risk or the baby would be born with a severe health issue.

Views about abortion at the 15-week mark are muddled. The poll shows Americans in states that have deepened restrictions on abortion are closely divided over abortion at 15 weeks into a pregnancy. That compares with about 6 in 10 Americans in other states saying abortion should be allowed at that point. That gap is similar on allowing abortion for “any reason.”

Support dwindles across the board at 24 weeks into the pregnancy, with only about a third saying their state should generally allow for that.

While only about a third approve of the Supreme Court’s decision, the poll finds about half of Americans think states should be responsible for establishing abortion laws.

Jeffrey Bouchelle agreed with the court because “it should’ve been a states’ rights issue in the first place.” The 57-year-old Republican in Farmers Branch, Texas, believes abortion is wrong, but as a state issue. Bouchelle accepted some states may allow abortion if that’s what the majority prefers.

“There should be access to abortion,” he said. “I just don’t think it should be in Texas.”

Overall, about a third of U.S. adults say they feel at least somewhat proud, relieved or excited about the court’s decision, a reflection that the decades-long effort to overturn Roe resonates with a sizable segment of the population.

“I’m happy with it,” Tammy Rardain said about the court’s decision. The 54-year-old Republican in Logan, Ohio, said her views on abortion are defined by her Christian faith. She wants to see a ban on abortion in Ohio at any point in the pregnancy.

More Americans — 55% — say they feel at least somewhat angry or sad about the decision, including about 4 in 10 who feel so strongly. Half say they feel at least somewhat anxious or hopeless — a sign that Democrats may struggle to turn feelings of anger into motivation to turn out to vote in this year’s midterm elections.

“I was really disappointed, and I felt as though our judicial system had failed us all,” said 41-year-old Democrat Candice Lampkin. “I truly believe that they’re infringing upon our civil rights and liberties.”

The Chicago resident said she wants abortion to be a federally protected right and is concerned about what health care, like birth control, might be targeted next. She hopes the issue will be top of mind for voters this fall.

“We have to do more during election season and make sure we hold our politicians accountable,” she said.

___

The poll of 1,085 adults was conducted July 14-17 using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 3.9 percentage points.

Majority angry, sad over Roe demise

A new AP-NORC poll finds more than half of Americans say they feel at least somewhat “angry” or “sad” about the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. A smaller but sizable share – about a third – say they feel at least somewhat “relieved” or “excited.”

Q: How well does each of the following describe how you feel about the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade?

Extremely/Very

 well

Somewhat

 well

Not

 very/Not at all well

Angry

38%

17%

43%

Sad

38%

17%

44%

Hopeless

29%

21%

48%

Relieved

19%

16%

63%

Excited

16%

16%

66%

Indifferent

11%

22%

64%

Results based on interviews with 1,085 U.S. adults conducted July 14-17, 2022. The margin of error is ±3.9 percentage points for the full sample.

Source: AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research

WHO again considers declaring monkeypox a global emergency
By MARIA CHENG

This 1997 image provided by the CDC during an investigation into an outbreak of monkeypox, which took place in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), formerly Zaire, and depicts the dorsal surfaces of the hands of a monkeypox case patient, who was displaying the appearance of the characteristic rash during its recuperative stage. The World Health Organization is convening its emergency committee on Thursday, July 21, 2022 to consider for the second time within weeks whether the expanding outbreak of monkeypox should be declared a global crisis. (CDC via AP, File)


LONDON (AP) — As the World Health Organization’s emergency committee convened Thursday to consider for the second time within weeks whether to declare monkeypox a global crisis, some scientists said the striking differences between the outbreaks in Africa and in developed countries will complicate any coordinated response.

African officials say they are already treating the continent’s epidemic as an emergency. But experts elsewhere say the mild version of monkeypox in Europe, North America and beyond makes an emergency declaration unnecessary even if the virus can’t be stopped. British officials recently downgraded their assessment of the disease, given its lack of severity.

“I remain concerned about the number of cases, in an increasing number of countries, that have been reported,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told the emergency committee as its meeting got underway.

He said it was “pleasing” to note falling numbers of monkeypox cases in some countries but that the virus is still increasing elsewhere and that six countries reported their first infections last week.

Monkeypox has been entrenched for decades in parts of central and western Africa, where diseased wild animals occasionally infect people in rural areas in relatively contained epidemics. The disease in Europe, North America and beyond has circulated since at least May among gay and bisexual men. The epidemic in rich countries was likely triggered by sex at two raves in Spain and Belgium.

Some experts worry these and other differences could possibly deepen existing medical inequities between poor and wealthy nations.

There are now more than 15,000 monkeypox cases worldwide. While the United States, Britain, Canada and other countries have bought millions of vaccines, none have gone to Africa, where a more severe version of monkeypox has already killed more than 70 people. Rich countries haven’t yet reported any monkeypox deaths.

“What’s happening in Africa is almost entirely separate from the outbreak in Europe and North America,” said Dr. Paul Hunter, a professor of medicine at Britain’s University of East Anglia who previously advised WHO on infectious diseases.

The U.N. health agency said this week that outside of Africa, 99% of all reported monkeypox cases are in men and of those, 98% are in men who have sex with other men. Still, the disease can infect anyone in close, physical contact with a monkeypox patient, regardless of their sexual orientation.

“In these very active gay sexual networks, you have men who really, really don’t want people to know what they’re doing and may not themselves always know who they are having sex with,” Hunter said.

Some of those men may be married to women or have families unaware of their sexual activity, which “makes contact tracing extremely difficult and even things like asking people to come forward for testing,” Hunter said, explaining why vaccination may be the most effective way to shut down the outbreak.

That’s probably not the case in Africa, where limited data suggests monkeypox is mainly jumping into people from infected animals. Although African experts acknowledge they could be missing cases among gay and bisexual men, given limited surveillance and stigmatization against LGBTQ people, authorities have relied on standard measures like isolation and education to control the disease.

Dr. Placide Mbala, a virologist who directs the global health department at Congo’s Institute of National Biomedical Research, said there are also noticeable differences between patients in Africa and the West.

“We see here (in Congo) very quickly, after three to four days, visible lesions in people exposed to monkeypox,” Mbala said, adding that someone with so many visible lesions is unlikely to go out in public, thus preventing further transmission.

But in countries including Britain and the U.S., doctors have observed some infected people with only one or two lesions, often in their genitals.

“You wouldn’t notice that if you’re just with that person in a taxi or a bar,” Mbala said. “So in the West, people without these visible lesions may be silently spreading the disease.”

He said different approaches in different countries will likely be needed to stop the global outbreak, making it challenging to adopt a single response strategy worldwide, like those for Ebola and COVID-

Dr. Dimie Ogoina, a professor of medicine at Nigeria’s Niger Delta University, said he feared the world’s limited vaccine supplies would result in a repeat of the problems that arose in the coronavirus pandemic, when poorer countries were left empty-handed after rich countries hoarded most of the doses.

“It does not make sense to just control the outbreak in Europe and America, because you will then still have the (animal) source of the outbreak in Africa,” said Ogoina, who sits on WHO’s monkeypox emergency committee.

This week, U.S. officials said more than 100,000 monkeypox vaccine doses were being sent to states in the next few days, with several million more on order for the months ahead. The U.S. has reported more than 2,000 cases so far, with hundreds more added every day.

Some U.S. public health experts have begun to wonder if the outbreak is becoming widespread enough that monkeypox will become a new sexually transmitted disease.

Declaring monkeypox to be a global emergency could also inadvertently worsen the rush for vaccines, despite the mildness of the disease being seen in most countries.

Dr. Hugh Adler, who treats monkeypox patients in Britain, said there aren’t many serious cases or infections beyond gay and bisexual men. Still, he said it was frustrating that more vaccines weren’t available, since the outbreak was doubling about every two weeks in the U.K..

“If reclassifying monkeypox as a global emergency will make (vaccines available), then maybe that’s what needs to be done,” he said. “But in an ideal world, we should be able to make the necessary interventions without the emergency declaration.”

Europe’s central bank backs larger-than-expected rate hike

By DAVID McHUGH

1 of 8

Christine Lagarde, President of the European Central Bank smiles during a press conference following a meeting of the governing council in Frankfurt, Germany, Thursday, July 21, 2022. 

(AP Photo/Michael Probst)


FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — The European Central Bank raised interest rates Thursday for the first time in 11 years by a larger-than-expected amount, joining steps already taken by the U.S. Federal Reserve and other major central banks to target stubbornly high inflation.

The move raises new questions about whether the rush to make credit more expensive will plunge major economies into recession at the cost of easing prices for people spending more on food, fuel and everything in between.

The ECB’s surprise hike of half a percentage point for the 19 countries using the euro currency is expected to be followed by another increase in September, possibly of another half-point. Bank President Christine Lagarde had indicated a quarter-point hike last month, when inflation hit a record 8.6%.

She said the bigger hike was unanimous as “inflation continues to be undesirably high and is expected to remain above our target for some time.” As the bank leaves an era of negative interest rates, Lagarde said economic forecasts don’t point to a recession this year or next but she acknowledged the uncertainty ahead.

“Economic activity is slowing. Russia’s unjustified aggression towards Ukraine is an ongoing drag on growth,” the ECB chief said at a news conference. Higher inflation, supply constraints and uncertainty “are significantly clouding the outlook for the second half of 2022 and beyond.”

The ECB is coming late to its rate liftoff — a token of inflation that turned out to be higher and more stubborn than first expected and of the shakier state of an economy heavily exposed to the war in Ukraine and a dependence on Russian oil and natural gas. Recession predictions have increased for later this year and next year as soaring bills for electricity, fuel and gas deal a blow to businesses and people’s spending power.

The ECB made the bigger-than-expected increase to underline its determination to get inflation under control after its late start, said Carsten Brzeski, chief eurozone economist at ING bank. The move aims “to restore the ECB’s damaged reputation and credibility as an inflation fighter.”

“Today’s decision shows that the ECB is more concerned about this credibility than about being predictable,” Brzeski said.

Recession concerns have helped push the euro to a 20-year low against the dollar, which adds to the ECB’s task by worsening energy prices that are driving inflation. That is because oil is priced in dollars.

Raising rates is seen as the standard cure for excessive inflation. The ECB’s benchmarks affect how much it costs banks to borrow — and so help determine what they charge to lend.

But by making credit harder to get, rate increases can slow economic growth, a major conundrum for the ECB as well as for the Federal Reserve. The Fed raised rates by an outsized three-quarters of a point in June and could do so again at its next meeting. The Bank of England started the march higher in December, and even Switzerland’s central bank surprised with its first increase in nearly 15 years last month.

The goal for all central banks is to get inflation back down to acceptable levels — for the ECB, it’s 2% annually — without tipping the economy into recession. It’s difficult to get right as central banks reverse what has been a decade of very low rates and inflation.

“The most precious good that we can deliver and that we have to deliver is price stability. So we have to bring inflation down to 2% in the medium term. That is the imperative,” Lagarde said. “And it’s time to deliver.”

Yet the European economy has the added worry of a potential cutoff of Russian natural gas, which is used to generate electricity, heat homes and fuel energy-intensive industries such as steel, glassmaking and agriculture. Even without a total cutoff, Russia has steadily dialed back gas flows, with EU leaders accusing the Kremlin of using gas to pressure countries over sanctions and support for Ukraine.

Rising interest rates follow the end of the bank’s 1.7 trillion-euro (dollar) stimulus program that helped keep longer-term borrowing costs low for governments and companies as they weathered the pandemic recession.

Those bond-market borrowing rates are now rising again, especially for more indebted eurozone countries such as Italy, where Premier Mario Draghi’s resignation has brought back bad memories of Europe’s debt crisis a decade ago. Markets fear the exit of the former ECB president, who has pushed policies meant to keep debt manageable and boost growth in Europe’s third-largest economy, could raise the risk of another eurozone crisis.

The bank approved a new financial backstop that is part of its arsenal to prevent that from happening again. The ECB would step into markets to buy the bonds of countries facing excessive and unjustified borrowing rates. But it wouldn’t offer protection if the ECB determines higher borrowing costs resulted from poor government decisions.

Buying bonds drives their price up and their yield down, because price and yield move in opposite directions, thus capping interest costs. Spiraling bond-market rates threatened to break up the euro in 2010-2012 and led Greece and countries to turn to other members and the International Monetary Fund for bailouts.

This problem is unique to the ECB because it oversees 19 countries that are in different financial shape. The backstop aims to “safeguard the smooth transmission of our monetary policy stance throughout the euro area,” Lagarde said.

The ECB’s lowest rate, the deposit rate on money left overnight by banks, was raised from minus 0.5% to zero.

Beloved monarch butterflies now listed as endangered

By CHRISTINA LARSON

Monarch butterflies land on branches at Monarch Grove Sanctuary in Pacific Grove, Calif., Wednesday, Nov. 10, 2021. On Thursday, July 21, 2022, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature said migrating monarch butterflies have moved closer to extinction in the past decade – prompting scientists to officially designate them as “endangered." (AP Photo/Nic Coury, File)


WASHINGTON (AP) — The monarch butterfly fluttered a step closer to extinction Thursday, as scientists put the iconic orange-and-black insect on the endangered list because of its fast dwindling numbers.

“It’s just a devastating decline,” said Stuart Pimm, an ecologist at Duke University who was not involved in the new listing. “This is one of the most recognizable butterflies in the world.”

The International Union for the Conservation of Nature added the migrating monarch butterfly for the first time to its “red list” of threatened species and categorized it as “endangered” — two steps from extinct.

The group estimates that the population of monarch butterflies in North America has declined between 22% and 72% over 10 years, depending on the measurement method.

“What we’re worried about is the rate of decline,” said Nick Haddad, a conservation biologist at Michigan State University. “It’s very easy to imagine how very quickly this butterfly could become even more imperiled.”

Haddad, who was not directly involved in the listing, estimates that the population of monarch butterflies he studies in the eastern United States has declined between 85% and 95% since the 1990s.

In North America, millions of monarch butterflies undertake the longest migration of any insect species known to science.

After wintering in the mountains of central Mexico, the butterflies migrate to the north, breeding multiple generations along the way for thousands of miles. The offspring that reach southern Canada then begin the trip back to Mexico at the end of summer.

“It’s a true spectacle and incites such awe,” said Anna Walker, a conservation biologist at New Mexico BioPark Society, who was involved in determining the new listing.

A smaller group spends winters in coastal California, then disperses in spring and summer across several states west of the Rocky Mountains. This population has seen an even more precipitous decline than the eastern monarchs, although there was a small bounce back last winter.

Emma Pelton of the nonprofit Xerces Society, which monitors the western butterflies, said the butterflies are imperiled by loss of habitat and increased use of herbicides and pesticides for agriculture, as well as climate change.

“There are things people can do to help,” she said, including planting milkweed, a plant that the caterpillars depend upon.

Nonmigratory monarch butterflies in Central and South America were not designated as endangered.

The United States has not listed monarch butterflies under the Endangered Species Act, but several environmental groups believe it should be listed.

The international union also announced new estimates for the global population of tigers, which are 40% higher than the most recent estimates from 2015.

The new figures, of between 3,726 and 5,578 wild tigers worldwide, reflect better methods for counting tigers and, potentially, an increase in their overall numbers, said Dale Miquelle, coordinator for the nonprofit Wildlife Conservation Society’s tiger program.

In the past decade, tiger populations have increased in Nepal, northern China and perhaps in India, while tigers have disappeared entirely from Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam, said Miquelle. They remain designated as endangered.

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Follow Christina Larson on Twitter: @larsonchristina

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Ethnic minority woman wins India’s presidential election

By SHEIKH SAALIQ

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Workers put up a giant hoarding of Droupadi Murmu for her felicitation, before she was announced as the country's new President, in New Delhi, India, Thursday, July 21, 2022. Murmu, who hails from a minority ethnic community, was chosen Thursday as India’s new president, a largely ceremonial position. (AP Photo/Manish Swarup)


NEW DELHI (AP) — A woman who hails from a minority ethnic community was chosen Thursday as India’s new president, a largely ceremonial position.

Droupadi Murmu, a leader from India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, was elected by the Indian Parliament and state legislatures in voting held Monday, making her the first president from one of the country’s tribes and the second-ever woman to hold the position.

She will be formally sworn in as the president on Monday.

Murmu, 64, who hails from the eastern state of Odisha and was governor of Jharkhand state from 2015-2021, is a member of the Santal ethnic minority, one of India’s largest tribal groups. She started out as a school teacher before entering politics and has been a two-time lawmaker from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s party.

Murmu’s father and her grandfather were village headmen in Baidaposi in Mayurbhanj district in Odisha.

Modi congratulated Murmu by visiting her at her residence in New Delhi, and in a tweet wrote he was “certain she will be an outstanding President who will lead from the front and strengthen India’s development journey.”

“Her record victory augurs well for our democracy,” Modi tweeted.

Murmu’s supporters and Modi’s BJP party see her win as a triumph of tribal people and a breakthrough moment for her community, which generally lacks health care and education facilities in remote villages. Opposition parties, however, are doubtful whether she would be able to help empower and bring any change to the marginalized community.

The president’s role in India is largely ceremonial, but the position can be important during times of political uncertainty such as a hung parliament, when the office assumes greater power. She is bound by the advice of the Cabinet led by the prime minister, who is the chief executive.

She will replace Ram Nath Kovind, a Hindu nationalist leader from the Dalit community, which is at the lowest end of Hinduism’s complex caste hierarchy. Kovind has been president since 2017.

Murmu won against her opponent, Yashwant Sinha, a former BJP rebel who quit the party following differences with Modi on economic issues in 2018. Since then, Sinha has been a vocal critic of Modi and his government.

Indian lawmakers will vote for the country’s new vice president in August.

Does setting your thermostat at 78 degrees really help? We asked an electrical engineer.


(Getty Images)

Dalia Faheid
Wed, July 20, 2022 

Last week, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas asked Texans twice to set their thermostats to 78 degrees and avoid using large appliances during peak hours.

Predictably, the public was not happy about it, questioning why the grid operator wasn’t prepared for the summer heat and hasn’t employed other measures to manage the grid. What I set my thermostat at is none of ERCOT’s business, Texans responded with memes, tweets and comments.

With many Texans saying they would not set their thermostats to warmer temperatures, have the conservation appeals actually resulted in any energy reduction? And can conservation appeals help in the long-term to keep the grid reliable and prevent blackouts?

The Star-Telegram spoke with UT Arlington electrical engineering professor Wei-Jen Lee to get some insight into those questions.

What to know about conservation appeals

If the margin between available electric supply and customer use is too tight, ERCOT will ask customers to conserve — hoping to reduce demand and increase operating reserves.

ERCOT has issued more than 50 conservation requests between 2008 and July 2022. Those requests help reduce the amount of electricity being consumed on the grid only when needed, according to the grid operator. It’s used when projected reserves may fall below 2300 MW for 30 minutes or more.

“Conservation is an effective way to help balance generation supply and customer demand,” ERCOT said.

According to ERCOT it is managing the power grid more conservatively, issuing conservation requests sooner, to ensure that there is enough power.

“Our goal is to prevent potential emergency conditions from occurring on the grid,” ERCOT said. “Conservation does not automatically mean there will be an energy emergency — it is a tool used by ERCOT to keep the grid reliable for customers.”

The length of the conservation requests depends on how tight grid conditions are. They can range from hours on a single day to multiple days. The conservation appeal on July 11 was between 2 to 8 p.m. and the next on July 13 was 2 to 9 p.m. Just two months earlier, on May 13, six power plants went offline and ERCOT asked Texans to conserve between 3 and 8 p.m. through that weekend. Last June, a conservation request lasted for five days, from 3 to 7 p.m. each day. The longest request was issued during the 2011 heat wave, lasting eight days between Aug. 1 and 28.

Some cases require localized conservation to balance available supply and customer demand. In 2016, there was a localized request for conservation in the Rio Grande Valley.

To issue a conservation request, ERCOT works with the Public Utility Commission of Texas and state leadership. ERCOT also sends alerts to electricity market participants for conservation.

Do conservation appeals actually work?

Between 1:56 to 2 p.m. last Monday, after the conservation appeal was issued, almost 500 MW of load dropped off, an ERCOT spokesperson told the Star-Telegram. One MW can power about 150 to 200 homes, according to Lee. Each household’s load is about five to ten kW.

Aside from individual households and businesses, ERCOT also calls on large electric customers to lower their electricity use through demand response programs, which control thermostats of households that agree to it. If their load is 10 MW and they cut down 20%, or two megawatts, that represents 300 to 400 homes, which makes a big impact in reducing demand.

While conservation requests do result in substantial amounts of energy-reduction, Lee said, it’s not a tool that can be used too often to help manage the grid. The impact will get smaller and smaller, because people will not respond to the requests as much. That makes conservation an ineffective long-term solution, he said.

“If they appeal to the customer too often, the impact will kind of diminish,” Lee said. “That immediate impact will not be there, or it will be reduced.”

He likens the requests to time of use rates, which aim to get customers to use more energy while demand is low to reduce strain on the grid. Researching the rate’s effect on customers, Lee found that their response diminishes over time.

The few customers who opt for real-time pricing are motivated to cut down on unnecessary load to save money, while most customers, who have fixed-rate electricity plans, are not.

“The reason why ERCOT has to use this kind of appeal is because most of our residential customers, the price of electricity, it’s fixed,” Lee said. “So it basically doesn’t have the incentive for them to reduce the consumption. It’s always a kind of judgment call from the customer.”

ERCOT needs to incentivize those customers in some way to get them to continue participating in conservation events, he said, especially when they anticipate that there will be higher demand because of the weather. They’d have to figure out a way to track when customers cut down their electricity and compensate them, Lee added. Right now, ERCOT does not track how many people participate in a conservation event, a spokesperson said.

“It’s a lot of infrastructure that we have to modify,” Lee said. “We have to upgrade and then get the customer directly involved.”

One sustainable solution could be using smart meters for dynamic pricing, Lee says. If you use a certain amount of power, then the price will be fixed, but if you go beyond a certain threshold, then you have to pay the market price.

Currently, customers can save $2 to $3 by turning up their thermostats, but that may not be enough to endure uncomfortable weather.

“If you consider 15 cents per kilowatt hour as an example. You are using probably three kilowatt hours. So in one hour, you are going to spend 45 cents. If you consider six hours in the afternoon, you can save a little bit less than $3,” Lee said. “Are you willing to do that? That’s the question.”

By contrast, changing the time you do your laundry or wash the dishes may not be as much of an inconvenience.