Sunsetting EU laws risks rights of more than 8.6 million UK workers, think tank warns

Government plans to rush the ‘sunsetting’ of EU laws by the end of 2023 will put the rights and protections of more than 8.6 million UK workers at risk, the Work Foundation warns

Reports and Proceedings

LANCASTER UNIVERSITY

Government plans to rush the ‘sunsetting’ of EU laws by the end of 2023 will put the rights and protections of more than 8.6 million UK workers at risk, the Work Foundation warns.

New analysis from the Work Foundation at Lancaster University reveals that workers on part-time, fixed-term or agency worker contracts will be most at risk if the Government presses ahead with post-Brexit plans to amend, replace or scrap thousands of pieces of retained EU Law by 31 December without greater parliamentary scrutiny.

Working time directives and entitlement to paid holiday are amongst the regulations that could be weakened as a result of the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill 2022, as well as laws which ensure people in insecure work – including agency workers, part-time workers and those on fixed-term contracts – are not treated unfairly when compared to their peers in full-time or permanent employment.

Part-time workers

A new Work Foundation briefing, published today, shows that 8.2 million part-time workers in the UK fall into the most at-risk category – with women more vulnerable than men. In the UK, 72% of part time workers are women, whereas only 40% of full-time UK workers are women.

The current Part-time Workers (Prevention of Less Favourable Treatment) Regulations 2000 protects this large, part-time workforce from not being any worse off than full-time worker equivalents. Without this retained EU legislation, they could be treated differently to peers when it comes to:

• Pay and leave – including for holiday, sickness absence, maternity, paternity, adoption and Shared Parental Leave
• Pension opportunities and benefits
• Training and career development
• Promotions, career breaks and job transfers
• Redundancy selection and pay.

Workers on fixed-term contracts

The three quarters of a million workers on fixed term contracts in the UK (56% are women) are also amongst the most vulnerable, and would face an uncertain future without protection from the EU-derived Fixed-Term Employees (Prevention of Less Favourable Treatment) Regulations 2002. This important piece of legislation helps employees to insist that their fixed-term contract is converted into a permanent one in certain circumstances – and has led to significant improvements in pay and conditions with better access to workplace pensions for many temporary staff in the UK, according to the TUC.

Agency Workers

There are nearly three quarters of a million agency workers currently in the UK and they are the third group that will be most impacted by the Retained EU Law Bill. Of these workers, nearly a third work part-time and 28,000 are on a fixed-term contract – so also have protection from part-time and fixed-contract regulations derived from the EU. They also have the Agency Workers Regulations 2010 which could be lost at the end of this year, which provide agency workers with the right to the same “basic working and employment conditions” as direct employees.

Ben Harrison, Director of the Work Foundation at Lancaster University, said: “UK workers are already facing the worst cost of living squeeze in generations and the prospect of rising unemployment. The last thing millions need is a year of uncertainty in relation to their basic employment rights – but that is exactly what the Government’s current approach to integrating EU regulations into UK law provides.

“Women are likely to bear the brunt of this additional anxiety as they make up the majority of part-time, fixed-contract and agency work. Work Foundation analysis has already shown that women are nearly twice as likely to be in severely insecure work as men, and the situation worsens for mothers, disabled women and women from Black, Pakistani and Bangladeshi backgrounds.

“Determining the future of such crucial protections to an arbitrary political deadline, alongside thousands of other regulations, creates significant instability and risks there being unintended consequences for workers and employers across the UK.

“The irony is that these regulations do need to be improved, and this Government had previously committed to a new Employment Bill during this Parliament in order to deliver on pledges to strengthen worker rights post –Brexit.

“While it is entirely to be expected that the UK would begin to diverge from EU regulations and policies over time in the aftermath of Brexit, rushing such changes through only serves to increase the anxiety and uncertainty faced by millions of workers in 2023.”

Many fundamental workers’ rights embedded in UK legislation originate from the EU. Some of the rights that could be lost or diluted by the Bill at the end of this year include:

• Holiday pay
• Protection of pregnant workers, and rights to maternity and parental leave
• Rights relating to working time, including rights to daily and weekly rest, maximum weekly working time, paid annual leave and measures to protect night workers
• Protection of part-time and fixed-term workers
• Agency worker rights
• Data protection rights
• Protections of terms and conditions for workers whose employment is transferred to another employer
• Collective consultation with worker representatives when redundancies are proposed
• Protection of workers’ rights on the insolvency of their employer
• Rights to a written statement of terms and conditions.

“In addition to the thousands of EU regulations that could face their ‘sunset’ in December without consultation, there is additional UK employment legislation which is likely to be affected,” Ben Harrison continues.

“Take the Equality Act, for example. It doesn’t originate from the EU, but cases have so far been determined on the basis of EU decision-making. So, even though the Equality Act will remain, its interpretation and application will no longer have to consider EU practice. This means we could see different decisions made around cases to close the gender pay gap, for example.

“The intricacies of all these issues need careful consideration and extensive consultation.”

The Work Foundation says the EU Bill will affect ‘too many people's lives and employers’ fortunes’ and calls upon Government to deliver the promised Employment Bill and enhance workplace protections, bringing UK workplaces into the 21st Century. It says sick pay, enforcement of rights, flexible working and other family friendly policies all need to be improved.

Commenting on the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill 2022, TUC General Secretary Paul Nowak said: "This Bill is a recipe for chaos.

"Rights and protections that workers fought hard for could be swept away at the stroke of midnight on 1 January 2024.

“Ministers are rocking the foundations underpinning vital workplace rights - like holiday pay, safe working hours and protection from discrimination. And they are endangering vital consumer and environmental protections too.

“This Bill must be withdrawn before lasting damage is done.”

The briefing, ‘A year of uncertainty: The Retained EU Law Bill 2022 and UK workers’ rights’ is published today and freely available on the Work Foundation website: https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/work-foundation/publications/a-year-of-uncertainty

Ends

Predicting a recession

Researchers develop new model to predict US recessions and slowdowns in GDP growth

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI-COLUMBIA

 

IMAGE: MATTHEW GLENDENING view more 

CREDIT: FROM UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI

Columbia, Mo.— In the United States, publicly traded companies are required to report their recent financial performance, whether good or bad, to the public. The accuracy of these reports is critical for investors, analysts and regulators. A new study, conducted at the University of Missouri and Indiana University, suggests that when businesses submit misleading financial statements, it can be an early warning sign of a looming recession.

Matthew Glendening and Ken Shaw, MU professors of accounting, worked together with co-authors Daniel Beneish and David Farber, professors of accounting at Indiana University, to determine how misrepresentation in financial statements affects the economy. They developed a new model to predict U.S. recessions and slowdowns in GDP and found that recessions and economic slowdowns are more probable when there is a higher likelihood that financial statements have been manipulated.

“Accounting matters, and manipulated accounting information can negatively impact the economy,” Glendening said. “When financial reporting is not adequately monitored and companies manipulate financial information, it can have potentially damaging consequences. Not only do investors use this information, but other firms do so as well. In many cases, firms make employment and investment decisions based on this information, which can be way too optimistic.”

The study found that high levels of potential manipulation in financial statements can improve recession prediction 5 to 8 quarters away, and can also predict downturns in GDP growth at a similar forecast horizon.

To assess the prevalence of financial statement manipulation in the economy, the researchers used a measure widely known as the M-Score, which was created by Professor Beneish in the late 1990s. The M-Score measures the likelihood that a company has manipulated its financial statements, and is based on eight variables, including how fast a company’s sales are growing compared to its accounts receivable. The M-Score is considered to be one of the most economically viable measures for investors to use to determine the likelihood that businesses have manipulated their financial statements. Famously, the M-Score provided one of the earliest warnings about the Enron accounting scandal.

“When companies misreport information, it can take years before they are caught, if they’re caught at all — and many are not,” Glendening said. “Our model shows that the likelihood of financial statement manipulation helps predict the outlook of the economy.”

Shaw said previous research used measures of financial misreporting at the individual firm level, but no one has previously aggregated the data to come up with an economy-wide measure of financial misreporting.

“The M-Score has been around for a long time, but it took us four co-authors working together to show it has predictive value for the status of the economy, which is something everybody has a stake in,” Glendening said.

Shaw said the authors’ ultimate goal is to provide research that is not only informative but can be used by regulators and managers.

“We want to answer questions of interest to real people in the real world,” Shaw said. “We try to do something of value in our research and see if there’s a way that we can help people.”

“Aggregate Financial Misreporting and the Predictability of U.S. Recessions and GDP Growth” was recently accepted for publication in The Accounting Review, the premier scholarly journal of the American Accounting Association.

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JOURNAL

The Accounting Review

DOI

10.2308/TAR-2021-0160 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Observational study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Aggregate Financial Misreporting and the Predictability of U.S. Recessions and GDP Growth

Continued record-breaking ocean temperatures seen again in 2022

Peer-Reviewed Publication

INSTITUTE OF ATMOSPHERIC PHYSICS, CHINESE ACADEMY OF SCIENCES

 

IMAGE: THE OCEANS ARE HOME TO MILLIONS OF EARTH'S PLANTS AND ANIMALS. PEOPLE TRAVEL ON THE OCEAN AND RELY ON THE RESOURCES IT CONTAINS. view more 

CREDIT: LIJING CHENG

A continued record-breaking ocean temperature with increasing in stratification and changes in water salinity pattern give insight into what the future holds amidst a perpetually heating climate.

The state of our oceans can measure the world’s health, and judging by the updated oceanic observations from 24 scientists across 16 institutes worldwide, we need a doctor. The three key indicators of climate change include continued historical record-breaking temperatures, all-time high levels of ocean salinity-contrast, and increased ocean stratification (separation of the water into layers) with no signs of slowing down. These indicators are leading scientists to quickly address and forecast future components of climate change to better prepare the public for an extreme climate future ahead.

Results were recently published where a new record of 0-2000m ocean heat content (OHC) was set and recorded in 2022, with an addition of approximately ~10 Zetta joules (ZJ) of heat into the ocean than 2021. A Zetta joule is a joule (unit to measure “work” or “heat”) with 21 zeros behind it.

The results were published on 11 January 2023 in Advances in Atmospheric Science. It summarizes two international datasets: from the Institute of Atmospheric Physics (IAP) at the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), and from the National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), that analyze observations of ocean heat content and their impact dating from the 1950s. “Both IAP and NCEI data show a consistent message that upper 2000m ocean heat content hits a record high value in 2022”, said Tim Boyer, a senior researcher from NCEI/NOAA.

10 ZJ of heat is equal to ~100 times world electricity generation in 2021 (28466 TWH), ~325 times China’ 2021 electricity production (8537 TWH), ~634 times United States’ 2021 electricity production (4381 TWH). 10 ZJ of heat can also boil 700 million 1.5L kettle for every second in the past year.

“Global warming continues and is manifested in record ocean heat, and also in continued extremes of salinity. The latter highlight that salty areas get saltier, and fresh areas get fresher and so there is a continuing increase in intensity of the hydrological cycle” said Lijing Cheng, lead author and researcher for the IAP/CAS.

What's not hard to grasp is how that amount of heat going into the oceans have serious consequences, and actually comes much quicker than one would hope. The increasing saltiness and therefore stratification of the oceans can alter how heat, carbon, and oxygen are exchanged between the ocean and the atmosphere above it. This is a factor that can cause ocean deoxygenation, or loss of oxygen, within the water. Deoxygenation itself is a nightmare for not only marine life and ecosystems but also for humans and our terrestrial ecosystems.

Reducing oceanic diversity and displacing important species can wreak havoc on fishing-dependent communities and their economies, and this can have a ripple effect on the way most people are able to interact with their environment.

Some places are already seeing the impacts of a rapidly warming ocean, and they're not exactly as expected.

“Some places are experiencing more droughts, which lead to an increased risk of wildfires, and other places are experiencing massive floods from heavy rainfall, often supported by increased evaporation from warm oceans. This contributes to changes in the hydrologic cycle and emphasizes the interactive role that oceans play.” said Kevin Trenberth, third author of the paper and researcher at both the National Center for Atmospheric Research and the University of Auckland. An increase in water temperatures and salinity directly contributes to water layering instead of mixing, and this is just part of what throws off the delicate balance between our oceans and the atmosphere.

“In the future, the group will focus on understanding the changes of the earth’s major cycles and improve the future projections of earth’s heat, water and carbon changes. This is the basis for human[s] to prepare for the future changes and risks” said John Abraham, Professor of University of St. Thomas, the second author of this study.

Continued tracking of these changes will give scientists an idea of what can be done preemptively to prepare for higher temperatures, extreme weather, and all other consequences that come along with warming oceans and an impacted hydrologic cycle.

“The oceans are absorbing most of the heating from human carbon emissions,” said paper author Michael Mann, Professor of University of Pennsylvania. “Until we reach net zero emissions, that heating will continue, and we’ll continue to break ocean heat content records, as we did this year. Better awareness and understanding of the oceans are a basis for the actions to combat climate change.”

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JOURNAL

Advances in Atmospheric Sciences

DOI

10.1007/s00376-023-2385-2 

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

11-Jan-2023

Does experiencing racism contribute to depression during pregnancy?

Peer-Reviewed Publication

WILEY

In a recent study published in The Journal of Advanced Nursing that included pregnant Black women from multiple US states, feeling upset by experiences of racism in the 12 months prior to delivery was associated with significantly higher odds of depression during pregnancy.

In the study that analyzed survey questions answered by 7,328 women, 11.4% of respondents reported feeling upset due to experiences of racism, and 11.4% reported experiencing depression during pregnancy. After adjusting for confounding factors, respondents who reported feeling upset due to the experience of racism had over two-fold higher odds of experiencing depression during pregnancy compared with respondents who did not report feeling upset due to the experience of racism.

“Our findings reinforce the importance of respectful maternity care, given the mental health impacts of experiences of racism during the perinatal period,” the authors wrote. “Racism is a powerful structural determinant of health with roots in a historical system of oppression that persists today in health care practices and policies. Perinatal health care providers, in collaboration with public health and other health disciplines, are ideally positioned to address inequities in maternal and child health that are rooted in racism.”

URL upon publication: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jan.15519

 

Additional Information

NOTE: The information contained in this release is protected by copyright. Please include journal attribution in all coverage. For more information or to obtain a PDF of any study, please contact: Sara Henning-Stout, newsroom@wiley.com.

About the Journal
The Journal of Advanced Nursing (JAN) is a world-leading international peer reviewed journal. JAN targets readers who are committed to advancing practice and professional development on the basis of new knowledge and evidence. 

About Wiley
Wiley is one of the world’s largest publishers and a global leader in scientific research and career-connected education. Founded in 1807, Wiley enables discovery, powers education, and shapes workforces. Through its industry-leading content, digital platforms, and knowledge networks, the company delivers on its timeless mission to unlock human potential. Visit us at Wiley.com. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram.

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JOURNAL

Journal of Advanced Nursing

DOI

10.1111/jan.15519 

ARTICLE TITLE

Experiences of racism and perinatal depression: Findings from the pregnancy risk assessment monitoring system, 2018

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

11-Jan-2023

Does proximity to protest sites affect people’s political attitudes?

Peer-Reviewed Publication

WILEY

Urban protests that involve occupying public spaces can be effective for conveying protesters’ messages and gaining wider support, but it’s thought that they may backfire if they severely disrupt the everyday lives of non-participants. A study published in The British Journal of Sociology found that after the Occupy Central Movement in Hong Kong, residents living near the occupied areas not only maintained their support for the pro-democracy camp but also became more liberal compared with faraway residents.

The authors of the study note that this phenomenon can be explained by the “on-site” effect, which suggests that direct exposure to protestors’ solidarity and the repressive actions of authorities arouse bystanders’ sympathy for the protestors and support for their political cause. 

The effect appears to be long-lasting, as evidenced by local election results after the protest. 

“As shown by our evidence, when a protest is perceived as legitimate, people are willing to tolerate temporary inconvenience caused by the disruptions, suggesting that people’s political preferences are not always determined by their self-interests,” said corresponding author Duoduo Xu, PhD, of The University of Hong Kong. “Findings from this study may help us to understand the profound influence that the Occupy Central Movement brought to Hong Kong’s people and its political landscape and the reason for broader public support for the pro-democracy camp in recent years.”

URL upon publication: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1468-4446.12988

 

Additional Information

NOTE: The information contained in this release is protected by copyright. Please include journal attribution in all coverage. For more information or to obtain a PDF of any study, please contact: Sara Henning-Stout, newsroom@wiley.com.

About the Journal
The British Journal of Sociology is a leading international sociological journal published on behalf of the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). With a focus on the social and democratic sociological questions of our times, this renowned journal leads the debate on key methodological and theoretical questions and controversies in contemporary sociology. Founded in 1895 by Beatrice and Sidney Webb, the LSE is one of the largest colleges within the University of London and has an outstanding reputation for academic excellence nationally and internationally.

About Wiley
Wiley is one of the world’s largest publishers and a global leader in scientific research and career-connected education. Founded in 1807, Wiley enables discovery, powers education, and shapes workforces. Through its industry-leading content, digital platforms, and knowledge networks, the company delivers on its timeless mission to unlock human potential. Visit us at Wiley.com. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram.

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JOURNAL

British Journal of Sociology

DOI

10.1111/1468-4446.12988 

ARTICLE TITLE

In sight, in mind: Spatial proximity to protest sites and changes in peoples' political attitudes

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

11-Jan-2023

EV transition will benefit most US vehicle owners, but lowest-income Americans could get left behind

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN

Graphic

More than 90% of vehicle-owning households in the United States would see a reduction in the percentage of income spent on transportation energy—the gasoline or electricity that powers their cars, SUVs and pickups—if they switched to electric vehicles.

And more than 90% of households that replace gas-powered vehicles with EVs would also reduce the amount of climate-warming greenhouse gases they generate, according to a new University of Michigan study.

However, more than half of the lowest-income U.S. households (an estimated 8.3 million households) would continue to experience high transportation energy burdens, defined in this study as spending more than 4% of household income on filling the tank or charging up.

"Our results confirm the potential for widespread benefits from EV adoption," said study corresponding author Joshua Newell, an urban geographer at the U-M Center for Sustainable Systems, part of the School for Environment and Sustainability.

"However, EV ownership in the U.S. has thus far been dominated by households with higher incomes and education levels, leaving the most vulnerable populations behind. Policy interventions are needed to increase EV accessibility so that all Americans can benefit from the EV transition."

The new study is scheduled for publication Jan. 11 in Environmental Research Letters, an IOP Publishing journal. It is the first study to consider the spatial variation of both EV energy costs and greenhouse gas emissions across the country.

It's also the first study to examine EV energy costs through the lens of distributive justice by calculating the EV energy burden (percentage of income spent on EV charging) for the entire United States. Distributive justice concerns the fair distribution of benefits and burdens.

EVs currently account for about 1% of the cars, SUVs and pickups on American roads. If all those vehicles were replaced with new EVs, the transportation energy burdens and associated greenhouse gas emissions would vary widely from place to place, according to the new study.

Reductions in both transportation energy burden and GHG emissions would be especially pronounced on the West Coast and in parts of the Northeast, due largely to cleaner energy grids and lower electricity prices.

Households in some locations could reduce their annual transportation-energy costs by $600 or more, and cut their annual carbon footprint by more than 4.1 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalents, by buying a new E

But lower-income households in other parts of the country wouldn't fare as well, Newell said.

Very high EV transportation energy burdens, ranging from 10% to 64%, would persist for the lowest-income households and would be concentrated in the Midwest and in the two states with the highest electricity prices: Hawaii and Alaska.

Eight percent of U.S. households (an estimated 9.6 million households) would see low savings in both transportation energy burden and greenhouse gas emissions by choosing an EV. "Both low" households are scattered across the country, with about half of them in Midwest states, including Michigan.

Factors that contribute to those low EV savings include cold winter temperatures that impact battery performance, electrical grids that rely largely on fossil fuels, or electricity prices that are higher relative to gasoline prices.

According to the study, the lowest-income households would continue to experience the highest transportation energy burdens. Essentially all households with incomes of less than 30% of the local median would experience moderate or high EV energy burdens.

"We identified disparities that will require targeted policies to promote energy justice in lower-income communities—including the subsidizing of charging infrastructure—as well as strategies to reduce electricity costs and increase the availability of low-carbon transportation modes such as public transit, bicycling and car sharing," said study lead author Jesse Vega-Perkins, who did the work for a master's thesis at the U-M School for Environment and Sustainability.

"Our analysis indicates that future grid decarbonization, current and future fuel prices, and charging accessibility will impact the extent to which EV benefits will be realized, including lowering transportation energy burdens for low-income households," said study senior author Greg Keoleian, director of U-M's Center for Sustainable Systems.

The study used a geospatial model to evaluate three factors associated with the EV transition: transportation energy burden, fuel costs (meaning the cost of gasoline or the electricity needed to charge an EV) and greenhouse gas emissions.

The analysis does not include vehicle purchase cost. Total cost of ownership of EVs is the focus of a current study by the Center for Sustainable Systems.

The researchers calculated transportation energy burdens and lifetime greenhouse gas emissions of new battery-electric and internal-combustion vehicles at the census tract level. Then they compared the energy burdens of the new vehicles to the energy burdens of the current on-road vehicle stock. Finally, they compared the spatial variation and extent of energy burdens and greenhouse gas emissions for EVs and internal-combustion vehicles across the U.S.

Transportation accounts for the largest portion of the greenhouse gases emitted in the United States, with direct emissions from passenger vehicles and light-duty trucks comprising roughly 16% of U.S. emissions. Electrification is seen as the primary pathway to reducing those emissions.

The study was supported by funding from the U-M School for Environment and Sustainability.

Study: Mapping electric vehicle impacts: Greenhouse gas emissions, fuel costs, and energy justice in the United States (DOI 10.1088/1748-9326/aca4e6) (available when embargo lifts)

JOURNAL

Environmental Research Letters

DOI

10.1088/1748-9326/aca4e6 

New biography of famous paleontologist Mary Anning unearthed from University of Bristol archives

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF BRISTOL

 

IMAGE: STATUE OF MARY ANNING view more 

CREDIT: WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

A short biography of pioneering scientist Mary Anning, written in the final ten years of her life, has been made public for the very first time.

Penned by George Roberts (1804–1860), who ran a private school opposite Anning’s fossil shop in Lyme Regis, and preserved in the Special Collections of the University of Bristol Library, the work has been published by Dr Michael Taylor of National Museums Scotland and University of Leicester and Professor Michael Benton of Bristol’s School of Earth Sciences.

Mary Anning (1799–1847) of Lyme Regis has been the subject of recent books and films, such as Tracy Chevalier’s Remarkable Creatures, and Ammonite, in which she was portrayed by Kate Winslet, because of her importance in the early days of palaeontology. She collected some of the first marine reptiles – ichthyosaurs and plesiosaurs – from the Jurassic period of the Dorset coast. Noted professors relied on her work to provide insights into the life of the past.

Mary Anning has become an icon of the often-forgotten contributions of women to science, and the campaign to get children, especially girls, interested in geology. But, in her day, she was a curiosity, another poor person in the Regency seaside resort of Lyme Regis.

“When the Library sent me a copy of the four-page manuscript, I found that it was based partly on a passage in Roberts’s history of Lyme Regis,” said Dr Taylor. “Roberts wrote books like ‘The Beauties of Lyme Regis’ for tourists, and he collected interesting pieces of information. We were able to confirm Anning expert Hugh Torrens’s suggestion that it was by Roberts, by identifying Roberts’s handwriting, and comparing the corrections and even a mistake with a particular date which Roberts had handwritten into his own copy of his history. So, it wasn’t just someone else copying from his book. It looks as if it was written as a dictionary entry or a section for a future book.”

“This memoir is valuable,” said Prof Benton. “One or two visitors to Lyme Regis mentioned Mary Anning and her little fossil shop, and she was obviously widely known to natural scientists in London, Bristol, Oxford, and Cambridge. But normally they would not enquire into her life in any detail. Admittedly though, when she died at the relatively young age of 48, she had obituaries in various papers and scientific journals.”

Dr Taylor said: “These short obituaries were often copied from one written by George Roberts. George Roberts lived in Lyme Regis and met her many times. He describes how she was struck by lightning as a baby, and then how at the age of about ten she began collecting fossils, and how she sold her first find, an ammonite to a passing lady in the street for half a crown.”

There are further details of her discoveries of fossil reptiles, including the first ichthyosaur fossil studied by scientists. It was described by Sir Everard Home in 1818. Mary Anning was granted a government annuity of £25 per year in 1836 thanks to an intervention by Fellows of the Geological Society of London, and she died of breast cancer in 1847.

“We dated the manuscript as written some time in 1837–47,” added Dr Taylor, “because there is an ‘1837’ watermark in the paper, and Anning was described as a ‘living worthy’. Later,  Roberts took the manuscript, deleted mention of Anning as alive, and added information on her death to make it into an obituary, presumably just after she died. But it seems never to have been published at its full length.”

Prof Benton concluded: “We are very pleased that we are able to publish the document in full.

“In the paper, we show detailed photographs of all four pages of the document, as well as our reading of the various versions and modifications. George Roberts was the locally-based author who reported the news from Lyme Regis to various newspapers and wrote his own books, so it makes complete sense that he would have written about Mary Anning as a well-known celebrity of the town.”

Paper:

‘The life of Mary Anning, fossil collector of Lyme Regis: a contemporary biographical memoir by George Roberts’ by Michael A. Taylor and Michael J. Benton in Journal of the Geological Society.

A page from the manuscript which includes details of Mary Anning being struck by lightning as a baby

CREDIT

Special Collections, University of Bristol

Notes to Editors

The memoir (DM Ref SCUBL DM1186/5/1) is in the collection of books and manuscripts in the history of geology made by Joan M. Eyles (1907–1986) and Victor A. Eyles (1895–1978) and donated by Joan Eyles to the University of Bristol Library.

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JOURNAL

Journal of the Geological Society

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Observational study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

The life of Mary Anning, fossil collector of Lyme Regis: a contemporary biographical memoir by George Roberts

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

11-Jan-2023

Landscaping for drought: We’re doing it wrong

Trees’ tolerance, watered down

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA - RIVERSIDE

 

IMAGE: STUDY LEAD PETER IBSEN OBTAINING LEAF SAMPLES FOR THE STUDY. view more 

CREDIT: PETER IBSEN/UCR

Despite recent, torrential rains, most of Southern California remains in a drought. Accordingly, many residents plant trees prized for drought tolerance, but a new UC Riverside-led study shows that these trees lose this tolerance once they’re watered.

One goal of the study was to understand how artificial irrigation affects the trees’ carbon and water use. To find out, the researchers examined 30 species of trees spread across Southern California’s urban areas from the coast to the desert. They then compared those trees with the same species growing wild. 

“We found that, particularly as you move toward the desert regions, the same species of urban trees use much more water than their natural counterparts, even trees considered drought tolerant,” said study lead and former UC Riverside botany graduate student Peter Ibsen, currently with the U.S. Geological Survey.

This and other key findings from the study are now documented in the journal Biology Letters, published by the Royal Society.  

To obtain their findings, the researchers enlisted the help of trained community scientists to locate some of the most common Southern California street trees, ensure these specimens were healthy, and that the area at the base of the tree was at least 65% irrigated. 

Included in the study were such familiar species as eucalyptus, tree ficus, crepe myrtle, sweetgum, live oak, jacaranda, sycamore and Brazilian pepper trees, but not palms. Though palms are closely identified with California, botanists do not consider them trees.

Drought tolerant trees often restrict their water use to protect themselves from drying out when temperatures rise. However, with the exception of ficus, the irrigated trees all increased their water intake. 

“Generally, they’re not conserving it,” Ibsen said. “Given the extra water, they will use it all.”

As part of the study, researchers drilled into the core of the trees to measure the density of the wood, sampled leaves to measure their thickness and other physical properties, and measured the amount of pressure it takes to move water through the tree. 

Trees with denser wood typically grow slower and move less water through their stems. The wood is less dense if there is more water going through, at least in natural environments. 

“In urban areas, that relationship between wood density and water use falls apart,” Ibsen said, finding that even urban trees with dense wood were moving high amounts of water through their stems.

Trees in the study were also found to pull carbon from the atmosphere at different, and generally higher rates than their wild relatives. With more carbon, they also have a higher capacity for doing photosynthesis, and growing more leaves.

In these and other ways, urban trees are so unique in their behaviors that they can be classified as having their own distinct ecology. “Urban forests are different than anything else on the planet, even though all the species are found elsewhere on the planet,” Ibsen said. 

It is unclear whether overwatered trees can regain their ability to thrive in drought conditions if the water is removed. Also unclear is the specific amount of water people ought to give their trees in order to for them to thrive and retain their best attributes. Both issues are areas the researchers will be studying, going forward. 

For now, Ibsen recommends that gardeners interested in conserving water refrain from planting their drought tolerant tree on an irrigated lawn. “If you’re buying a tree that’s meant to be drought tolerant, let it tolerate a drought,” he said.

Jacaranda tree, frequently planted in Southern California for its beauty as well as its drought tolerance.

CREDIT

Photo: Jules Verne Times Two / julesvernex2.com

JOURNAL

Biology Letters

DOI

10.1098/rsbl.2022.0448 

ARTICLE TITLE

Irrigated urban trees exhibit greater functional trait plasticity compared to natural stands

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

4-Jan-2023

Disclaimer: AAAS and Eu

Tory voters losing faith in Brexit benefits, poll finds


Dominic Penna
Sun, January 8, 2023 

Brexit - iStockphoto

Conservative voters are losing faith in Brexit with many now believing that the costs outweigh the benefits, a new poll has shown.

Scepticism among Tory supporters towards Britain's departure from the EU is now greater than support for how it is going, as senior backbenchers urged the Government to do more to deliver on the opportunities of leaving the trade bloc.

The findings of a new poll by Opinium, which surveyed 2,000 representative voters on behalf of the campaigning group Best for Britain, found some 33 per cent of those planning to vote Conservative at the next election believed Brexit had created more problems than it solved.


This compared with 22 per cent who said it had solved more problems, while one-third (32 per cent) said leaving the EU had neither created nor solved more problems or opportunities and the remaining 13 per cent said they did not know.

The main concern of the Tory voters currently disillusioned with Brexit was problems around the Northern Ireland border, cited by 39 per cent of respondents.

Friction has continued amid the ongoing stalemate between the Government and Brussels around the Protocol, which Unionists fear is driving a wedge between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK.

This was followed by anxiety around costly red tape affecting trade with other countries (36 per cent) and it being more difficult to work abroad without freedom of movement (33 per cent).

Among the public as a whole, meanwhile, 57 per cent said Brexit was causing more problems than it was solving.
Party needs to do more, say 'Spartans'

Two of the Brexit "Spartan" Tories who voted against Theresa May’s Brexit deal on all three occasions said their party was yet to do enough to convince the public of the merits of leaving Brussels.

Sir John Redwood, the MP for Wokingham who served as the head of Margaret Thatcher’s Downing Street policy unit, told The Telegraph it was “deeply disappointing that the obvious Brexit wins haven’t been achieved”.

“It’s entirely what you’d expect because the Government has wanted to bring forward the Brexit wins but has been systematically blocked and upended by the anti-Brexit establishment," he said.

“We don’t yet control our borders, or control the small boats in the way that was intended. We haven’t sorted out fishing and that was going to be one of the big wins. We have remained wedded to an austerity model of economics, based on the Maastricht criteria. We are letting [voters] down and we need to show that they were right to vote for Brexit.”

Craig Mackinlay, the MP for South Thanet, said: “I’m not surprised to hear that because we have been far too timid in using the freedom of Brexit to actually deliver Brexit dividends. So that is the fault of our own administration.

“We should by now have been using the freedoms that we have.”

One Eurosceptic Tory backbencher said they were “very sorry” that Jacob Rees-Mogg no longer held the post of Brexit opportunities minister and said their colleagues “still feel like we’re fighting battles with the Government” over the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill and tackling Brussels bureaucracy.
'We dare not open this Pandora's Box'

Tobias Ellwood, the Tory chairman of the defence select committee, told The Telegraph: "We are happy to ditch a PM to course-correct our economic plans, and even revisit the Integrated Review to update our tested defence posture. So why not exhibit the courage to upgrade our Brexit model that’s now costing us 4 per cent of GDP a year?

"No one is calling for another referendum, but as this poll confirms, more of the electorate is saying this isn’t the 'Brexit' they voted for. Yet it still remains such a taboo subject in Westminster, and specifically within our membership that we dare not open this Pandora's Box."

Naomi Smith, the chief executive of Best for Britain, a pro-EU campaign group, said: “Our polling clearly shows voters across the political spectrum now realise Brexit has made the UK poorer, less competitive and less attractive for businesses.

“Those claiming to represent voters must stop insulting our intelligence and start advocating closer ties with Europe.”

The Government wants to revise or repeal almost 4,000 "retained" EU laws, that were transposed into UK law when Brexit took legal effect, by the end of this year.

But Rishi Sunak has noted ministers can push back decisions on a specific EU law until June 2026, leading to concern that some rules may be in place for longer.

In his first major domestic speech on Wednesday, Mr Sunak said Britain was “seizing the opportunities of Brexit to ensure our regulatory system is agile and pro-innovation”.

Jeremy Hunt, his Chancellor, unveiled new proposals last month which are designed to tear up “overbearing” EU legislation, ranging from investment funds to pensions, in a move he hopes will boost the financial services industry.

EPA to award $100M to boost environmental justice programs


Tue, January 10, 2023



WASHINGTON (AP) — The Environmental Protection Agency said Tuesday it is awarding $100 million in competitive grants for projects that advance environmental justice in communities disproportionately affected by industrial pollution and other hazards.

The funding, established through the 2022 climate and health law signed by President Joe Biden, marks the largest environmental justice grants the agency has ever offered. The projects are among the first from an expected $3 billion in block grants targeting underserved communities authorized under the new law.

The program will be overseen by EPA's new office of environmental justice and external civil rights, which EPA Administrator Michael Regan created last year. The office includes more than 200 staff members at EPA headquarters and in 10 U.S. regions.

“Since day one, President Biden pledged to prioritize environmental justice and equity for all, and EPA is at the heart of delivering on that mission,” Regan said.

The funding announced Tuesday "is a key step that will help build strong partnerships with communities across the country and move us closer to realizing a more just and equitable future for all,” Regan said.

Grant applications are due April 10, with projects expected to begin as soon as October, EPA said.

Sen. Tammy Duckworth, an Illinois Democrat who co-chairs the Senate’s environmental justice caucus, said the grants will “help deliver results for environmental justice communities that have been ignored for too long,'' including Chicago's South Side and an industrial area in Louisiana often nicknamed “Cancer Alley.” The region includes dozens of chemical plants, refineries, fertilizer plants and other industrial sites that have long polluted air and water and caused health problems to nearby residents.

Access to clean air and clean water is more than an environmental issue, Duckworth said: "It’s a matter of health and safety, systemic racism and persistent discrimination against those in low-income communities. Every American deserves access to clean air and water — no matter their ZIP code, the color of their skin or the size of their paycheck.''

The EPA said it will provide $30 million in direct grants to community-based nonprofit organizations and partners, with $5 million reserved for small community-based groups with five or fewer full-time employees.

The program also will provide $70 million in funding to states, local governments and federally recognized tribes.

The EPA awarded $53.4 million in grants in November to enhance air quality monitoring near chemical plants, refineries and other industrial sites. The grants were funded by the climate law and a coronavirus relief plan approved by Congress in 2021.

Matthew Daly, The Associated Press