North Carolina’s economic boom is wreaking havoc on rivers, creeks and streams near you | Opinion

Stephen J. McConnell
Wed, March 8, 2023

Walk along a stream that slips through North Carolina’s cities, towns and rural communities and you may witness filthy water and suspicious colors and smells.

Vital contributors to public water systems, our rivers are under assault.

In 2022, the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality released its bi-annual impaired and threatened waters list, a catalog that reveals hundreds of waterways statewide that are violating water quality standards, including for fecal coliform, turbidity, mercury and arsenic.

From the Appalachians to the rolling hills of the Piedmont to the Coastal Plain, numerous rivers, streams and creeks have made the list, such as the Neuse in the Triangle, several waterways in the Catawba River Basin enveloping the Charlotte area, and many other smaller, less conspicuous creeks that quietly wind through our communities.

The catalog bulges in size, offering a blaring and sad warning sign of our sick rivers.

Stephen McConnell

Substantial population growth is straining antiquated sewer treatment plants that discharge into our waterways. Adding to the problem, haphazard development continues to mow down protective forests and vegetation, natural barriers that help prevent a cocktail of pollutants from reaching rivers.

For years, environmental groups, researchers and media outlets have sounded the alarm on our ever increasingly tainted waterways. Watchdogs have published many reports detailing how a wicked storm of harmful chemicals, animal waste, excessive dirt, and other human disturbances are purged into rivers daily.

According to a recent analysis by Environment America, North Carolina’s industries earned the dubious distinction of releasing the most developmental toxins — chemicals that interfere with childhood development — into our waterways in the nation, with 602,927 pounds discharged in 2020 alone.

North Carolina is also among the top 10 states in the level of cancer-causing substances flushed into rivers and streams, according to the report. Other reports reveal further problems, including dozens of sanitary sewer overflows into the Catawba River, a source of drinking water for more than 2 million people in southwest North Carolina.

A troublesome environmental and public health problem is brewing. Rivers and streams feed reservoirs and lakes that are drawn from to provide drinking water to millions of homes and businesses. Waterways also serve as sources of food for people and animals, and rivers provide a plethora of recreational opportunities.

State legislators and policymakers are likely, and rightly, enjoying the economic growth they have sown, but that tight-laced paradigm quickly reveals its shortcomings when it wreaks havoc on our environment.

To restore our rivers, the state needs to significantly increase investment in environmental protection, including fully addressing the backlog of upgrades to the strained wastewater treatment plants that the state’s own analysis says must be fixed. Recent efforts are laudable, but admittedly advanced by lucky injections of federal money.

A rendering of the River District, a 1,400-acre development expected to transform a largely vacant tract along the Catawba River about 8 miles from uptown Charlotte. Work has already begun on infrastructure like roads, water and sewer.

State and local governments must also better manage residential and commercial development and ensure that economic objectives are fully aligned with environmental protection, a paradigm that fosters smart growth for the benefit of all, including our rivers and health.

The state must also bolster water quality monitoring and enforcement efforts. We need only remember the lessons from the years-long discharges of cancerous “forever chemicals” into our waters and playing the risk-laden catch-up game there.

We must be stewards of our home and think holistically. Otherwise, wins and ribbon-cuttings will be undercut by consequences with a life-threatening price that is absolutely not an indicator of success.

Stephen J. McConnell was an investigative reporter for several newspapers in the U.S. He currently teaches writing at New York University and lives in Durham.

Siemens will invest $220 million in North Carolina rail car factory



Tue, March 7, 2023 
By Nandita Bose and Lisa Baertlein

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Engineering company Siemens AG announced on Tuesday it is investing over $220 million to build a rail car manufacturing facility in North Carolina.

The announcement comes as the Biden administration and fellow Democrats direct billions in federal funding to upgrade aging infrastructure and increase U.S. manufacturing, hoping to encourage private-sector spending and create jobs. A bill subsidizing chip manufacturing has attracted large investments from companies such as IBM and Micron.

Siemens' new passenger-coach manufacturing facility, which will be built on a 200-acre site in Lexington, a 20,000 population town in central North Carolina, will bring 500 new jobs by 2028, the company said.

"We have a clear commitment from the administration to invest in infrastructure and in making a transformation of the mobility sector towards greener (power sources)," Siemens AG Chief Executive Roland Busch said in a telephone interview.

Busch said Siemens has a "strong foothold" in the market and sees longer term growth opportunities in high-speed rail.

The company's customers include Amtrak and dozens of transit agencies across the United States, which will be eligible for federal incentives for cleaner-powered locomotives.

Siemens' rail unit will be receiving a jobs development grant from the state of North Carolina, and the average salary for the new positions at the facility will be $51,568.

The grant agreement authorizes the potential reimbursement to the company of up to $5.63 million over 12 years, North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper's office said in a statement.

The German trains and software maker reported its strongest-ever quarter for its industrial business in February and raised its full-year profit forecasts.

Biden, who rode Amtrak for more than three decades while in Congress, has pushed investment in passenger rail and modernization of the busy "Northeast corridor," which is one of the nation's most congested rail corridors.

Mitch Landrieu, the White House official responsible for coordinating infrastructure fund disbursement, said the investment is "further proof that we're driving unprecedented private sector investment," with the implementation of the infrastructure law.

It is also critical for the Biden administration's climate goals, he said. "On the climate side we are getting ready for a clean energy economy. This is going to be a net zero facility."

The $1 trillion infrastructure law provides $66 billion for rail, an unprecedented boost in federal aid for trains. This includes $24 billion in grants for projects in the Northeast corridor.

Amtrak said in November it wants to expand dramatically across the United States and add up to 39 corridor routes and up to 166 cities by 2035.

(Reporting by Nandita Bose in Washington; Editing by Heather Timmons and Nick Zieminski)

NC city lands passenger rail manufacturing plant with promise of 500 new jobs


Courtesy Siemens Mobility

Brian Gordon
Tue, March 7, 2023 

On Tuesday, the North Carolina Economic Investment Committee awarded the German company Siemens Mobility a $5.6 million grant to construct a passenger rail vehicle manufacturing plant in the Davidson County city of Lexington, part of a broader $32.9 million package state and local governments plan to invest in the site.

The facility is expected to create 506 jobs by 2029 with a minimum average wage of $51,568.

Siemens Mobility, a division of the Munich-based conglomerate Siemens, currently produces passenger vehicles at a facility in Sacramento, California, but the company had sought to add a second U.S. plant east of the Mississippi River.

On Tuesday, the state shared that Siemens selected Lexington over an alternative site in Spartanburg, South Carolina. The county seat of Davidson County, Lexington is about 60 miles northeast of Charlotte and 100 miles west of Raleigh.

“The expansion will provide additional capacity to meet anticipated growth in demand, provide facilities for maintenance and servicing for the Eastern region,” said Mark Poole, finance director for the North Carolina Department of Commerce.

Siemens Mobility’s initial agreement with North Carolina was set to begin in 2024, but the company requested a one-year delay citing potential supply chain issues and labor shortages.

According to the Walden Model, which North Carolina uses to calculate the value of incentives it awards companies, the Siemens plant in Lexington will increase the state GDP by around $1.6 billion by 2036, the last year of the company’s agreement with the state.

By then, the state estimates the project will have added $30.3 million in net revenue.

The $5.6 million job development investment grant, or JDIG, will only be realized if Siemens achieves its hiring targets. But the project’s overall incentive package is much greater, as the North Carolina Department of Transportation will allocate $9.4 million to improve infrastructure around the site and the state will put $626,300 into a local utility fund. Additional public money will go to local community colleges to train future Siemens employees.

In total, North Carolina’s package for the Siemen’s plant is worth $16.8 million, while local incentives from Davidson County and the city of Lexington total an additional $16.1 million.

This story was produced with financial support from a coalition of partners led by Innovate Raleigh as part of an independent journalism fellowship program. The N&O maintains full editorial control of the work.

US pick for World Bank says 'emission heavy' growth model outdated

Wed, March 8, 2023 


The United States' candidate to head the World Bank, Ajay Banga, on Wednesday called for a revamp of the development model to better meet the challenge of climate change.

Banga, who is on trip to Kenya, said the world cannot continue to "pursue the prior model of (an) emission heavy growth system," and rallied for adaptation.

"We cannot afford it, our children cannot afford it," he told reporters in Nairobi.

The 63-year-old Indian American was last month nominated by US President Joe Biden to head the global lender after its current chief David Malpass announced plans to step down early.

The nomination comes amid a push for development lenders to revamp and address global problems like environmental issues more effectively.

Banga is currently serving as vice chairman at equity firm General Atlantic and was previously chief executive at Mastercard.

Malpass had been accused by former US vice president Al Gore of being a climate skeptic and of not having being able to strengthen the financing of climate projects in developing nations.

Faced with global warming, "we must do more on adaptation," Banga said, urging partnerships with the private sector.

The World Bank last month began accepting candidate nominations in a process set to run until March 29, with the bank saying that women contenders would be "strongly" encouraged.

- 'Champion of equality' -

Banga, a Sikh who was born and raised in India, is so far the only declared candidate and has received the support of several countries including India, Kenya and Ghana.

"I am not a woman but I do bring a lot of diversity."

"I am a champion of equality not just of gender, of ethnicity, of sexual orientation, of where you grew up, I don't care about all that, what I care about is what you do, and I am an example of that myself," he added.

Kenya is Banga's second stop on a global tour after Ivory Coast.

He is planning to meet officials in Europe and parts of Asia including China, India and Japan, as well as Latin America in the coming weeks.

The US nominee has drawn criticism over his corporate background and gender.

"We don't need another World Bank president who will further corporate interests like fossil fuel and industrial agriculture," Friends of the Earth said last month.

The president of the World Bank is typically American, while the leader of the International Monetary Fund is customarily European.

The United States is the World Bank's largest shareholder.

Last month, Malpass said he would step down nearly a year early, ending a tenure that has been clouded by questions over his climate stance.

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Czech President Milos Zeman leaves, opponents celebrate





Czech Republic's President Milos Zeman answers questions during an interview with The Associated Press at the Prague Castle in Prague, Czech Republic. Wednesday, March 8, 2023 marks the final day in office of outgoing Czech President Milos Zeman, with his opponents planning to celebrate. Zeman has polarized the Czechs during his two five-year terms in the normally largely ceremonial post with his support for closer ties with China and by being a leading pro-Russian voice in European Union politics. 

(AP Photo/Petr David Josek/File)

KAREL JANICEK
Wed, March 8, 2023


PRAGUE (AP) — Over the past 10 years, Czech President Milos Zeman has courted controversy, seeking a referendum on whether his country should leave the European Union, targeting migrants and joking about killing journalists.

Many Czechs will cheer the departure of their outgoing head of state Wednesday — with one activist group planning to burn Zeman in effigy and cast the ashes into Prague's Vltava River.

Zeman will be replaced in the largely ceremonial post by retired army general Petr Pavel, who beat a populist billionaire in the second round of presidential elections on Jan 28. Pavel formally takes over Thursday.

In his two consecutive terms in office, Zeman, 78, has polarized public opinion. A divided nation to which he contributed will be the most visible legacy of his reign while much of his political agenda at home and abroad failed.

While his predecessors, Vaclav Havel and Vaclav Klaus, were elected by Parliament, when former prime minister Zeman took the office in 2013 it was in a direct vote by the Czech public. His ally Andrej Babis — who unsuccessfully ran against Pavel in January — became finance minister the same year before later assuming the post of prime minister.

“It turned out that a directly elected president can turn semi-dictator if he has the will and faces a weak opponent in the prime minister,” said Vera Kovarova, a deputy speaker of Parliament’s lower house from the STAN party.

Zeman was considered more pro-European than his euroskeptic predecessor Klaus, but gradually used every opportunity to attack the EU, including its plan to tackle climate change. After Britain decided to leave the EU, he proposed a referendum on the country’s membership in the bloc — while saying he would vote to stay.

He also sought closer ties with China and became a leading pro-Russian voice in EU politics.

His critics called him “a servant of the Kremlin” after he sided with Russia and cast doubt on the findings of his country’s own security and intelligence services on the alleged participation of Russian spies in a huge 2014 ammunition explosion.

After Russia invaded Ukraine last year, Zeman condemned the “unprovoked act of aggression," but he had opposed the initial EU sanctions against Russia after the 2014 annexation of Crimea.

Zeman declared he would focus on economic diplomacy but his promises of Chinese investments worth billions of dollars never materialized and his hopes to boost ties with Russia came to a complete end with the invasion of Ukraine.

On the 25th anniversary of the 1989 anti-communist Velvet Revolution that year, protesters pelted him with eggs, sandwiches and tomatoes, accusing him of betraying the commitment to human rights enshrined by Havel, the hero of the revolution.

Zeman was one of the few European leaders to endorse Donald Trump’s bid for the White House and support his decision to move the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv. His pro-Israeli views were perhaps the only part of his foreign policy that was positively welcomed in his country, which is one of the strongest allies of Israel in the EU.

Among other controversial acts, Zeman also linked Islamic extremist attacks in Europe to immigration, which he has described as an “organized invasion.” And he made derogatory comments about the #MeToo movement and transgender people, and vowed to veto legislation allowing same-sex marriages should it be approved by Parliament.

The media presented another target. On his first day in office, Zeman said some journalists “brainwash” and “manipulate public opinion.” He told Russian President Vladimir Putin during a meeting in China that there were too many journalists and some should be “liquidated.”

At home, Zeman was accused of trying to adjust the Constitution to his own needs. In 2019, the upper house of Parliament, the Senate, voted to charge him with failing to act in line with the Constitution in eight cases, including a repeated failure to appoint proposed government ministers. But the lower house dominated by Babis’ party didn’t follow suit and the case was never sent to the Constitutional Court for a final verdict.

In 2013, following the collapse of a government, Zeman ignored a coalition that had a majority in Parliament and named a new government of technocrats led by his adviser as prime minister. Most constitutional lawyers and experts said he had no right to do it.

That Cabinet lost a confidence vote but remained in power for half a year until an early election, pushing some of Zeman's projects, including a artificial waterway that would link rivers in Austria, Poland and Czechia. Experts dismissed the project as unrealistic and it was recently completely abandoned by the current government.

Zeman is a chain smoker with a soft spot for alcohol but has said he changed his habits an his doctors' advice. He has diabetes, has trouble walking and has been using a wheelchair.

Zeman has said he will settle in his new home near the presidential chateau in Lany, west of Prague, and he is planning to open an office near Prague Castle, the seat of presidency.

‘This is how I’m going to die’: police swarm activists protesting ‘Cop City’ in ‘week of action’

100
Timothy Pratt in Atlanta
Tue, March 7, 2023 

“Check their shoes and look for mud!” shouted one Atlanta police department officer to another.

The sun was setting against a tree line growing greener daily due to recent balmy, spring-like weather in Atlanta, but the bucolic setting of a Sunday in the sun at a free music festival abruptly became panic and chaos.

Related: ‘Sadness in the whole forest’: family of Cop City activist killed by police seeks answers

Dozens of law enforcement officers, many with automatic weapons, swarmed into a forest of hundreds of acres, seeking to find any of the 200 or so activists who had set fire to a bulldozer, trailer and other infrastructure used for construction on “Cop City”, a $90m, 85-acre police and fire department training center, about an hour earlier.

The clash was just the latest dramatic chapter to hit the Cop City project, which has already seen one environmental activist shot dead by police – the first incident of its kind in the US – and drawn national and international attention to the fight to save the Georgia forest where the giant project is planned.

The one officer’s frenzied order about dirty footwear seemed as absurd as any part of the Sunday night operation, since Georgia rains had left muddy patches all over the forest, and at least 600 people were lying on the grass, or camped among the trees, or entering the forest to catch an evening’s music under the stars or leaving – thus many had mud on their shoes.

But such was the situation on Sunday night, on the second night of the fifth “week of action” by activists over the last year dedicated to protecting the land called South River forest on municipal maps and Weelaunee forest by activists – using the Muscogee (Creek) word for “brown water”.

The scene included police running through trees, arresting a legal observer from the National Lawyers Guild, sending a negotiator to agree on terms with five randomly chosen individuals for letting about a hundred music festival audience members safely leave the forest, and detaining journalists for questioning on “what they were there to cover”.

The first two days had included free music, herbal workshops and a peaceful march through neighborhoods surrounding the forest south-east of Atlanta. Then, around 5.30 on Sunday evening, about 200 activists, most in balaclavas and camouflage clothing, began lining up to the right of the stage. They marched around three sides of the audience, chanting “Viva Tortuguita” – a reference to Manuel Paez Terán, a 26-year-old activist who was camping several hundred feet away from that spot on 18 January when police shot and killed him in another raid. It was the first time police killed an environmental activist while protesting in US history. Authorities said that Paez Terán fired first.

After several hours of chaos on Sunday night, 23 people – including a legal observer with the National Lawyers Guild – had been arrested and charged with “domestic terrorism” under state law, adding to the 18 defendants facing the same unprecedented charges who have been arrested in recent months.

People protest against ‘Cop City’ at Atlanta’s city hall on 6 March. Photograph: Erik S Lesser/EPA

Police officers had also threatened to arrest the hundred or so people who were lolling about in the field and listening to music only hours earlier if some agreement couldn’t be reached for their evacuation, said Jeff Simms, a retired federal endangered species biologist who was there.

Simms – who had come to the forest from Tucson, Arizona, to spend the week camping in the forest with his 21-year-old daughter, Alyssa – found the two of them thrust into unexpected positions as members of a five-person negotiating team on Sunday night.

Simms had watched dozens of police officers entering the forest from various sides and thought: “We’re all going to jail.”

He had spent one night camped in what is technically called Intrenchment Creek park. At least 85 acres of the forest is under threat from the construction of Cop City and another 40 acres is under threat from Ryan Millsap, former owner of Blackhall Studios, who made a deal with DeKalb county in 2020 to swap the land, in use as a public park, for another piece of land nearby. That deal is on hold due to a local environmental group’s lawsuit, and residents of surrounding neighborhoods continue to use the park for recreation.

The two parts of the forest are divided by a stream, Intrenchment Creek. The pair of threats to the forest led dozens of “forest defenders” to camp in the woods on both sides of the creek starting in late 2021. After Tortuguita’s death, hundreds recently began camping on the park side again – where all the arrests on Sunday were made.

On Sunday night, even as music continued on stage – mostly soft folk tunes, Simms said – police formed a line on the field. One had an AR-15 assault-type rifle, he said. Another announced on a bullhorn that they had a negotiator, and asked for five people to step forward.

“My daughter and I went, along with three others, and we all took turns speaking,” the 61-year-old said. The officer assured the team that they weren’t setting a trap, and said the crowd, which included at least one elementary school-aged child, would have 10 minutes to clear the field – or “we will arrest you for domestic terrorism”, Simms said the police told him.

“We told them the musicians had equipment, people had gear and bags, and we’d need at least 15 minutes,” Simms said. Then “I went back and told them, ‘We’re not gonna make it in 15.’”

People were hiding in the woods, and not sure how to get out

Mariah Parker

The group of five spoke to the crowd and helped arrange transportation out of the forest for those who hadn’t arrived in their own cars. Organizers on stage urged them to “stay together. They can’t arrest us all,” Alyssa said.

Eventually, the crowd was able to leave – even as officers in other parts of the forest were attempting to find, and arrest, anyone who had participated in vandalizing the construction equipment.

Simms and his daughter returned to the forest on Monday, to camp for the rest of the week. “I want to take notes about the biology of this forest,” he said. “I came here to do that.” The Center for Biological Diversity, a national organization, recently issued a statement calling for protecting the forest due to its biological and ecological importance.

Mariah Parker, a union organizer, rapper and former Athens-Clarke county commissioner, went to the forest for the first time on Sunday. She had already been public in her opposition to the Cop City project for months, based on concerns about the increasing militarization of police and mass incarceration, particularly in Black communities.

After spending an afternoon in the forest and at the music festival, she said: “It was so beautiful – seeing people building community. I was feeling excited for what this space could be, what kind of a world we could really have.” Parker, who is Black, had met a Black mother and her two children who lives near the forest, other rap artists, and local community gardeners and teachers.

She left at about 5.30pm – right before activists entered the training center construction site. Several hours later, friends in the forest texted her, frightened. “People were hiding in the woods, and not sure how to get out – and they weren’t even involved [in the vandalism],” she said.

Several of Parker’s friends were Black. For them, she said, “it must have been one of the worst moments of their lives, not being able to leave, or know what would happen. Particularly for Black folks, it must have felt like, ‘This is how I’m going to die.’”

Denmark hopes to pump some climate gas beneath the sea floor

JAMES BROOKS and FRANK JORDANS
Wed, March 8, 2023 

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — Denmark is cutting the ribbon Wednesday on an ambitious project to bury vast amounts of planet-heating carbon dioxide gas beneath the sea floor.

An international consortium of companies says the Greensand project in Denmark's North Sea will be the world’s first cross-border CO2 storage project.

Initially it will see 1.5 million metric tons of the greenhouse gas buried in a sandstone reservoir 1.8 kilometers (1.1 miles) below the seabed each year, rising to 8 million tons per year by 2030.

In a recent report, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said carbon capture and storage technology has to be part of the range of solutions to reduce emissions and curb global warming.


But critics of carbon capture and storage maintain the technology is unproven and undermines efforts to decarbonize the energy sector.

The project is led by chemicals giant INEOS and gas and oil producer Wintershall Dea.
___

Jordans reported from Berlin.

U.S. private payrolls increase in February -ADP

Wed, March 8, 2023

WASHINGTON, March 8 (Reuters) - U.S. private payrolls increased more than expected in February, pointing to continued labor market strength.

Private employment increased by 242,000 jobs last month, the ADP National Employment report showed on Wednesday. Data for January was revised higher to show 119,000 jobs added instead of 106,000 as previously reported. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast private employment increasing 200,000.

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell told lawmakers on Tuesday that the U.S. central bank would likely need to raise interest rates more than expected and opened the door to a half-point rate hike this month to combat inflation, following a recent raft of strong economic data.

Job growth was robust in January, with the unemployment rate falling to more than a 53-1/2-year low of 3.4%. Consumer spending rebounded strongly and inflation picked up in January.

The ADP report, jointly developed with the Stanford Digital Economy Lab, was published ahead of the Labor Department's Bureau of Labor Statistics' more comprehensive and closely watched employment report for February on Friday.

It has not been a reliable gauge in forecasting private payrolls in the BLS employment report. The ADP initially reported 106,000 private jobs were created in January, a fraction of the 443,000 surge in private payrolls estimated by the BLS.

"More broadly, in the several months since the ADP data started being released with a new methodology, the first prints have not reliably predicted the first prints of the related BLS data," said Daniel Silver, an economist at JPMorgan in New York.

According to a Reuters survey of economists, private payrolls likely increased by 213,000 jobs in February. Total nonfarm payrolls are forecast rising by 203,000 jobs last month after surging 517,000 in January. 

(Reporting by Lucia Mutikani; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)

UK

Women feel need to be 'looking over their shoulder' on public transport

Stewart Paterson
Tue, 7 March 2023 

The research was carried out for Transport Scotland (Image: Getty)

WOMEN feel they need to maintain "a constant state of vigilance" on public transport, research has found.

The study found concerns about men as “potential perpetrators of harassment, assault or anti-social behaviour” made women and girls feel unsafe on buses and trains.

The research for Transport Scotland found women changed or adapted their travel plans to avoid the risk of harassment or assault.

Women reported avoiding public transport completely, asking a male relative to meet them and taking steps like holding keys in their hand for self-defence and wearing trainers or flat shoes to be able to run if necessary.

Scotland's transport minister Jenny Gilruth said the report found women and girls are “constantly looking over their shoulder”.

Gilruth said: “It has become normalised and tolerated.

“Women should be able to travel safely on public transport and men should learn to behave themselves.”

Glasgow Times:

Because of the risks associated with public transport, the study found, the likelihood of delays or cancellations put women off using public transport at night to avoid having to wait alone in the dark.

Young women were more likely to report sexual harassment, disabled women were more likely to report anti-social and intolerant behaviour and women from ethnic minorities were most likely to report extreme examples of verbal sexist and racist abuse.

Women also noted that people, including other women, were unwilling to get involved “in situations that didn’t involve them”.

The report made 10 recommendations to improve safety for women and girls.

They include strengthening existing rules around non-consumption of alcohol on public transport and at points of interchange.

Other recommendations include more credible and accessible information and guidance for women and girls on what to do and who to contact if they feel threatened or unsafe.

Better lighting and security and increasing staff presence on board and at stations were also suggested.

Gilruth said what women face is not acceptable.

Glasgow Times:

She said: “During our research, women and girls told us they shoulder significant responsibility for adapting their own behaviour to try to ‘be’ and ‘feel’ safe on public transport.

“They are often in a constant state of vigilance, particularly at night time, and as a result end up changing their plans, only travelling at certain points of the day or not using public transport altogether.

“This is simply not acceptable in 21st-century Scotland.

“We will now work with transport operators and stakeholders to carefully consider these recommendations and how we can implement them quickly and effectively, to ensure our transport network is safer and more secure for all who use it.”

Superintendent Arlene Wilson, of British Transport Police, said: “We will use these findings to work with our partners to ensure that sexual harassment will not be tolerated on the network and we will always take reports of this behaviour seriously.

“Our officers continue to patrol the rail network to catch offenders and reassure passengers.”

She urged the public to report anything by texting 61016 or via the Railway Guardian app.

She added: “In an emergency, always dial 999.”

The battle for safer streets is not zero sum: let’s safeguard women and fight racial stereotyping

Jinan Younis
Tue, 7 March 2023

Photograph: Dmytro Betsenko/Alamy

Over the past month, it’s felt like every day has brought a grim reminder of the dangers faced by women on our streets and in our homes. The inquest into the murder of the Epsom college headteacher, Emma Pattison, and her daughter; the conviction of the murderer of the charity worker Elizabeth McCann; the arguments over the release of Joanna Simpson’s killer; the life sentence awaiting the boyfriend of Elinor O’Brien, who stabbed her in a “rageful and violent attack”; the conviction of the serial rapist police officer David Carrick; and the murder of 16-year-old Brianna Ghey. And it’s three years since the disappearance of Sarah Everard, murdered after being stopped on her way home by the rogue police officer Wayne Couzens (affectionately known by his colleagues as “the rapist”).

Against the backdrop of these horrific headlines, I have been having more and more conversations with women about how they feel unsafe in the streets. We’ve exchanged stories of being followed and catcalled, of sharing Uber rides with each other and making sure we text when we’re home safe. We’ve lamented the increased risk of attack that trans women face, and how Black and minority ethnic women face the threat of both racism and misogyny. We’ve discussed the 800 Met police officers under investigation for domestic and sexual abuse, and what it means for women’s trust in the police – though that’s a privilege many women of colour have never had.

But in my recent conversations with some women about their feelings of safety, I have noticed underlying coded messages. They say things like “it’s a dodgy area”; that they “wouldn’t want to be alone around there”. They say they are scared of men in hoodies.

Some forego any pretence. One woman said to me: “I probably do find Black men in hoodies more scary.” Others admit they quicken their pace when they see a Black man walking down the street.

When women talk in general terms of “dodgy” areas or that some “types” of men feel scary, often a lightly masked stereotype has informed that fear. Studies have shown time and again that images of Black men were seen as larger, more threatening and potentially more harmful in an altercation than a white person. Being scared of certain areas where there are more of the “types” of men perceived as scary, then, becomes code for being more scared of Black and minority-ethnic men in public. When I’ve challenged these women, they protest: “It’s just the crime statistics!”, without acknowledging that behind these statistics lie stories of police harassment, ethnic profiling and racial criminalisation.

Studies have tried to get to the bottom of this. One, in 2014, questioned a group of women about their fear in public spaces and reported: “Racist comments came up in the discussion: although the young women acknowledged they were stereotypes, they conditioned their feelings anyway.” A study last year examined views of Australian women on street harassment and spoke of “some participants saying they felt unsafe or perceived behaviour as threatening because the person was ‘not like them’.”

I find that the women who speak to me in problematic terms are usually those who have either not spent much time in areas with a high minority-ethnic population, or are part of the gentrification of poorer neighbourhoods and are living side by side with different racial groups for the first time. These women would typically pride themselves on being “anti-racist” – they may even have joined the mass global outrage over police brutality against Black men and women in 2020. They may have dipped into an anti-racism reading list. Yet it seems they haven’t truly interrogated how racial bias has seeped into the way they perceive their own safety.

This racial stereotyping can lead to a very real feeling of fear and vulnerability in women. Because that feeling is so real, women find it hard when challenged to unpack what biases have informed that fear. There’s a sense of outrage that anyone would question a woman who says she feels unsafe. Yet I am not challenging the fact women feel unsafe in the streets. I am simply asking for women to look at how their prejudices may inform who they are fearful of and why.

There are consequences to making lazy generalisations about “areas” that seem scary, or the “types” of men who inhabit them. It’s part of the same stereotyping that leads to the violent overpolicing of Black men. The Metropolitan police, for example, are four times more likely to use force against Black people, because officers perceive them as “more threatening and aggressive”.

The impact of this coded fear of certain “types” of men in certain “areas” is clear: increased policing of these communities. That means more surveillance, more targeting and more racial profiling of groups who are already treated with greater suspicion and violence than their white counterparts. If the headlines have shown us anything, it’s that women’s fear shouldn’t be relegated to a specific type of person; that anyone is capable of violence towards women, from teachers to police officers to intimate partners.

The goal of women’s safety does not lie in racial stereotypes. We should instead direct our concern towards a culture of toxic masculinity that has seeped its way into every corner of society. It shows up as misogyny in our institutions, in our workplaces and in our schools. It can be seen in the normalisation of violence against women in our popular culture. It is rooted in rigid concepts of gender and “manhood” and is supported by a system that routinely fails to believe women, and that blames and intimidates them.

Everyone should be able to feel they can walk down the street without fearing attack, assault or humiliation. So when we tackle the very real issue of women’s safety, we have to avoid actions that make the streets more dangerous for others.

This is not a zero-sum problem: we can fight for women’s safety in the streets and avoid playing into racial stereotypes. To have a coherent, intersectional approach to women’s safety, we have to work towards building streets that are safer for all vulnerable groups.

Jinan Younis is Head of the diversity, equity and inclusion practice at the strategy firm Purpose Union, and a former assistant politics editor at gal-dem magazine. She has contributed to the books I Call Myself a Feminist and Growing up with gal-dem. She is the past winner of the Christine Jackson Young Persons Award

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

Nurses and midwives should be able to approve abortions, UK study concludes

Anna Bawden
Tue, 7 March 2023

Photograph: Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters

Nurses and midwives should be able to approve abortions, MPs have been told, in what would be one of the biggest shake-ups of regulations in more than 55 years.

If adopted, the “two-doctor rule”, which stipulates that abortions have to be authorised by two GPs, would be scrapped.

More than 20 researchers from seven countries contributed to Shaping Abortion for Change (Sacha), the largest study on abortion in the UK, surveying more than 700 GPs, midwives, nurses and pharmacists in Britain, as well as interviewing women who had recently had an abortion.


The government-commissioned study concluded that regulations should be changed to allow nurses and midwives to authorise an abortion, prescribe abortion medication and perform vacuum aspirations. Researchers found that medical abortions, in which patients take abortion medication at home, now account for 87% of terminations in England and Wales.

Although nurses increasingly supervise these abortions, two doctors are still required to authorise an abortion under the 1967 Abortion Act. In addition, nurses are not allowed to perform vacuum aspirations for a termination, even though they can conduct the same procedures for miscarriages with patients who are up to 14 weeks pregnant.

The study, which was funded by the NHS’s research arm, the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) and led by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), examined international evidence, including abortion reforms in Australia, Canada and Sweden.

It found that almost a fifth of healthcare workers and a third of women were unaware that abortion is still a criminal offence unless it is signed off by a doctor.

Related: Women accused of illegal abortions in England and Wales after miscarriages and stillbirths

“Abortion legislation is more than 50 years old. Since 1967, medical and technological advances have transformed how women access their care. The law needs to be brought up to date with 21st-century opinions and practice,” said Kaye Wellings, Sacha co-lead and professor of sexual and reproductive health research at LSHTM.

In the study, 90% of healthcare professionals surveyed told researchers that they believe the decision to have an abortion should be entirely up to the woman. Medics also said anyone seeking a termination should, where possible, be offered a choice of whether to have it at home or in a clinic, what procedure they have – medical or surgical – and how they receive care and support.

The study also concluded that incorporating abortion services into other local sexual and reproductive health services could help improve access to care, but this would require the right training and resources.

Dr Rebecca French, Sacha co-lead and associate professor of reproductive and sexual health at LSHTM, said: “Abortion is one of the most common health procedures, likely to be experienced by one in three women in their lifetime. Yet, in our study nearly nine out of 10 healthcare professionals working outside of specialist abortion services said lack of training was a barrier to providing care. Abortion is a health issue and should be covered in health professional training”.

Responding to the findings, Elizabeth Barker, co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on sexual and reproductive health, said: “There has never been a more important time to look at bringing abortion provision in line with modern healthcare practice.

“I hope to see the government considering how these recommendations can be reflected in abortion policy moving forward.”

Related: Google adverts direct pregnant women to services run by UK anti-abortion groups

Clare Murphy, the chief executive of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service, said: “BPAS has long campaigned for reform of abortion law across England and Wales. The current law is outdated, unnecessary and doesn’t reflect how modern services deliver care. This study reflects what we as providers know is the truth.

“Even more worryingly, the criminal law that underpins the current arrangements leaves both women and doctors at risk of prosecution. Today, two women in England are facing court proceedings for allegedly ending their own pregnancies outside the law. It’s high time politicians recognised the damage the existing law has – and decriminalised abortion care once and for all.”

Louise McCudden, MSI Reproductive Choices’ UK advocacy and public affairs adviser, said: “Abortion is a common, safe, essential healthcare service and it is unacceptable that today, women are still at risk of criminalisation under a Victorian law created in 1861. There is no reason it should require two doctors signing off every procedure and no reason it should sit within criminal law.

“It’s heartening to see such strong support for decriminalising abortion among health professionals. At this moment of renewed global focus on the importance of reproductive choice and abortion rights, now is the time to take abortion out of the criminal code.”

UK

Behind the scenes with the environmental lawyers who are taking Shell’s Board of Directors to court

Rosie Frost
Tue, 7 March 2023 


Last month, environmental law firm ClientEarth announced that it was taking Shell to court. This may not sound out of the ordinary. But what makes this case different is that there are real people at the centre of it. This time it’s not a corporation that’s liable, it’s their Board of Directors.

ClientEarth says that the 11 members of the board have breached their legal duties by failing to adopt a transition strategy that aligns with the Paris Agreement.

Essentially, Shell’s Board isn’t doing enough to manage the risks the company faces because of climate change.

“What we’re asking the court for is an order which requires the board to adopt and implement a strategy to manage climate risk in line with its duties under the (UK) Companies Act, in line with its duties under English law,” explains ClientEarth senior lawyer Paul Benson.

The shift away from fossil fuels towards low carbon alternatives, they call that essentially an existential crisis for the oil and gas industry.

The other extraordinary thing is that the law firm isn’t acting alone: they are backed by investors who hold 12 million shares in the fossil fuel giant. ClientEarth, crucially, is one of these investors. They became a Shell shareholder in 2016.

“The shift away from fossil fuels towards low carbon alternatives, they call that essentially an existential crisis for the oil and gas industry,” says ClientEarth senior lawyer Paul Benson.

“Shell’s board has identified some of that risk. The problem is that it’s not managing it in a proportionate and adequate way, and that leaves the company seriously exposed.”

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What exactly is ClientEarth asking for?

“It’s the first time where a board of directors is on the hook for failing to properly prepare the company for the energy transition,” Benson says.

Bringing this case was no small decision. Benson asserts that his team has spent months pouring over the documents and has significant expertise in the area. From that work, came this landmark lawsuit.

It’s something of a test case for the English courts. There’s still hope that media coverage and pressure from investors could force the board to act. But Benson says that’s now a “forlorn hope”.

He is confident that the High Court will grant permission for ClientEarth to proceed with the first-of-its-kind lawsuit.

The High Court in London. - AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth, File
How did it get to ClientEarth suing Shell’s Board of Directors?

Benson explains that it is a “coming together of a number of really serious concerns and frustration”. ClientEarth has been a shareholder in Shell since 2016 and is part of a network of investors.

But they aren't the only ones worried about the future. Benson says their position as shareholders means they have been privy to this concern and frustration about the direction of travel.

He adds that investors have been uneasy about the direction the Board is taking and complaints have been voiced to them several times over the years. Not only that, but these investments include peoples’ pension funds.

Shell denies there is any unrest, claiming that shareholders “strongly support” the progress it is making on its energy transition strategy with 80 per cent voting in favour of it at the last annual general meeting.

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What are Shell shareholders concerned about?

One of the key issues for ClientEarth is a 2021 Dutch court order which requires Shell to cut its emissions by 45 per cent by the end of 2030 - a judgement the company has appealed.

Friends of the Earth and more than 17,000 co-plaintiffs successfully argued that the company knew about the risks of carbon emissions for decades and that its climate targets didn’t go far enough.

“That judgement, the court said very explicitly, is what we call stayed pending appeal. So that means they have to do it now. They can’t just appeal and say ‘oh maybe we’ll win the appeal’,” Benson explains.

“They have to do it now and start complying with the judgement now.”

But he claims the response to the court order set alarm bells ringing.

The Board has said they will cut scope one (direct greenhouse gas emissions from sources owned by the company) and scope two emissions (indirect emissions from energy purchased and used) by 50 per cent by 2030.

Scope three emissions, or emissions from the products they sell which are responsible for 90 per cent of the company’s total, won’t be cut.

It's just not a reasonable or sustainable management model for a huge multinational company to just say: ‘Well, I don't like part of that court order, so we're not going to do it.’

Independent assessments have estimated that Shell’s net emissions are set to drop by just 5 per cent by 2030 - a far cry from what the court has ordered.

According to Benson, the board doesn’t believe this target is compatible with the business and so they aren’t going to do it.

“It's just not a reasonable or sustainable management model for a huge multinational company to just say: ‘Well, I don't like part of that court order, so we're not going to do it.’”

Shell: Handbrake turns and stranded assets

Last year, ClientEarth sent a lengthy letter to the Board setting out its concerns.

It believes that the longer Shell leaves it to adapt to potential changes in regulation, the economy, consumer trends and even societal developments, the less likely it is that it can respond properly. It increases the chance of a harsh “handbrake turn” to rectify the problem.

They didn’t receive a satisfactory response and at that point, Benson says, they felt they had no option except for a lawsuit.

“It’s a recipe for stranded assets if you continue to plough money into major new oil and gas projects when every single energy transition scenario from the International Energy Agency says there is going to be a decline in demand.”

Stranded assets are those that are likely to be worth less than expected. In terms of oil and gas, that means those that are devalued or become liabilities because of the energy transition.

You’re putting all this money, people’s shareholder capital, people’s pensions fund money, into these huge new projects. And those projects are most likely going to end up as stranded assets.

For example, he explains that there are some assets which the company has or projects under exploration and development which won’t start producing oil and gas until 2030 or 2040. According to Benson, the world will look a lot different by that point.

“You’re putting all this money, people’s shareholder capital, people’s pensions fund money, into these huge new projects. And those projects are most likely going to end up as stranded assets.”

Shell has said it doesn’t accept ClientEarth’s allegations and insists its directors have complied with their legal duties, acting in the best interests of the company. It also claims that its climate targets are aligned with the 1.5C goal of the Paris Agreement. The Board has said it will defend its position.

Now it is up to the High Court to decide whether to grant ClientEarth permission to bring the claim.