AUSTRALIA

Victoria bans fracking for good, but quietly lifts onshore gas exploration ban

by Samantha Hepburn, The Conversation

Derrick and platform of drilling gas wells in Marcellus Shale - Pennsylvania. Credit: 

Wikipedia/ CC BY-SA 3.0

Amid coronavirus chaos, the Victorian government announced its decision earlier this week to lift the ban on onshore gas exploration, but also to make the temporary state-wide ban on fracking permanent.

This decision was made three years after an investigation found gas reserves in the state could be extracted without any environmental impacts, and new laws will be introduced to parliament for drilling to start in July next year.

The state government first introduced the moratorium (temporary ban) on onshore conventional and unconventional gas production in 2017, enshrined in the Mineral Resources (Sustainable Development) Act 1990. It effectively made it an offence to either conduct coal seam gas exploration or hydraulic fracturing (fracking) until June 2020.

The ban was originally imposed amid strong concerns about the environmental, climate and social impacts of onshore gas expansion. But lifting the ban to allow conventional gas exploration while banning fracking and unconventional gas (coal seam gas), doesn't remove these concerns.

The fracking ban isn't so permanent

The new laws seek to do two things: lift the ban on conventional onshore gas production, and to entrench a ban on fracking and coal seam gas exploration into the state constitution.

The government has stated it wants to make it difficult for future governments to remove the fracking ban. But this is highly unlikely to be legally effective. Unlike the federal constitution, the Victorian constitution is an ordinary act, and so it can be amended by another legal act.

The only way entrenching an amendment in the state constitution so that it is permanent and unchangeable is if it relates to the operation and procedure of parliament. And fracking does not do this.

This raises the spectre of a future government removing the fracking ban in line with an accelerating onshore gas framework.

Conventional vs unconventional gas

The main difference between conventional gas and unconventional gas (coal seam gas) lies in their geology.

Conventional gas can generally be extracted without the need to frack, as gas can move to the surface through gas wells. To release unconventional gas, particularly shale gas, fracking is always required.

Fracking technologies risk water quality from ground disturbances, spills, the release of chemicals and other fluids, and the underground migration of gases and chemicals.

So lifting the conventional onshore gas ban while keeping the fracking ban will mean less risk to the environment. But extracting conventional gas is still risky.

Greenhouse gas leaks

Extracting conventional gas risks fugitive emissions. This refers to greenhouse gases, such as methane, that can escape into the atmosphere during mining fossil fuels, such as from equipment leaks, deliberate or accidental venting, or from gas flaring.

Precise measurements of the fugitive emissions from onshore conventional gas production are difficult to predict, but their effect on climate change is alarming.

The latest estimates indicate fugitive emissions account for approximately 6% of Australia's national greenhouse gas emissions. Fugitive emissions also have about 27 times the greenhouse harming potential of carbon dioxide.

In 2017, the Australian Gas Industry argued well managed sites produce little fugitive emissions, and poorly managed sites were responsible for 75% of fugitive emissions.

This means any expansion of onshore conventional gas must be accompanied by strict management and regulation. But there's no industry-wide code of practice in Victoria focused on reducing this emissions risk.

Increasing annual emissions

Even in the unlikely scenario of zero or limited fugitive emissions, expanding conventional gas exploration will still add to Victoria's annual greenhouse gas emissions.

The proposed laws follow the conclusions of a three-year study that reviewed the climate, environmental, economic and social impacts of gas exploration in Victoria.

The report suggested a slight increase in absolute annualised greenhouse gas emissions. In other words, Victoria's annual greenhouse gas emissions would be proportionately increased by lifting the ban.

It also suggested expanding gas development would contribute between only 0.1% and 0.2% of Victoria's annual greenhouse gas emissions, and that this wouldn't affect Victoria's 2050 net-zero target.

But 0.1% to 0.2% still amounts to releasing an additional 122,000 to 329,000 tonnes of CO₂ equivalent into the atmosphere.

What's more, this assessment completely ignores emissions released through increased gas usage within the community. Globally, CO₂ emissions from natural gas use rose almost 200 million metric tons in 2019 and were responsible for two-thirds of the global emissions increase.

What it means for the community

The report predicts 242 jobs, A$312 million in gross regional product and A$43 million in royalties for Victoria. But overall, gas prices in the east coast market won't change.

The additional 128-830 petajoules (a joule is a measure of thermal energy and a petajoule is a million billion joules) that is potentially capable of being produced by lifting the moratorium will not be enough to address the forecast shortfall.

For the communities around the gas exploration sites, the report indicates the social impact of lifting the moratorium would be manageable.

The report indicates that 80% of the south-west and Gippsland communities—from more than 800 engagements with industry, farmers, local school students, and environmental community groups—either supported or tolerated onshore conventional gas development if noise or disturbances were appropriately addressed through regulation. But industry wide codes of behaviour are yet to be implemented.

At what cost?

Lifting the ban on onshore conventional gas in Victoria comes at a time when the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is profoundly important.

Climate change is accelerating. While gas may be an important resource as we transition to renewable energy, accelerating its production, particularly in the absence of stringent regulatory controls, comes at a very high price.A tenth of active and abandoned oil and gas wells in northeastern B.C. are leaking

New insights into US flood vulnerability revealed from flood insurance big data

by University of Bristol

Credit: CC0 Public Domain

An international team of scientists, led by the University of Bristol, has found that current estimates of flood risk rely upon methods for calculating flood damage which are inadequately verified and match poorly with observations.

Instead, building damage at a given flood depth is highly variable and can be characterized by a beta distribution.

When calculating flood risk—that is, translating modelled representations of the physical of phenomenon of flooding to its impacts—it is common to apply a 'depth-damage function' or curve, which relates a given water depth to a proportional building loss (for example one metre of water equals 50 per cent loss of building value).

Academics have understood that this depth-damage relationship is variable and that there is no perfect fit, but it is still common to apply such curves which are inadequately verified.

The new study, published today in the journal Nature Communications, used commonly applied curves, developed by various US government agencies, and examined how they compare to millions of actual flood insurance claims made in the US.

The study's aim was then to find out if ubiquitous curves have any skill in replicating real measured losses and, if not, find the true relationship between depth and damage in the claims record.

It found that universally applied depth-damage curves show low skill in the replication of property-level damages, rendering the results of projects where they have been applied (for example the justification of billions of dollars of infrastructure investment) suspect.

Instead, depth-damage is highly variable: damages per depth are generally concentrated at high (>90 per cent) and low (<10 cent="" extremes.="" font="" per="" proportion="">

At low inundation depths, most damages are somewhat minimal (<10 a="" building="" cent="" chance="" experiencing="" low="" maximal="" of="" per="" value="" very="" with="">90 per cent) damage. But as depth increases, the distribution shifts and swings towards greater probability of high (>90 per cent) damage and lower probability of low (<10 cent="" damage.="" font="" per="">

Lead author, Dr. Oliver Wing from Bristol's School of Geographical Sciences, said: "This relationship can be represented with a beta distribution, meaning future flood risk analyses can employ a function which properly captures the true stochastic relationship between depth and damage."

There is an implication that flood risk assessments which have relied on existing 1:1 depth-damage curves may be significant misestimates. Decisions for billions of dollars of infrastructure investment, where benefits (mitigated damages) are calculated to have exceeded costs (installing said infrastructure), are commonly green-lit even if benefits are marginally greater—yet, these benefits may have been quantified using inadequate functions.

In the development of the beta distribution-based functions, future analyses can be more robust for a plethora of applications: infrastructure investment, insurance pricing, planning decisions, and much else.

Co-author, Professor Paul Bates, also from the University of Bristol's School of Geographical Sciences, added: "We can integrate these new depth-damage functions into existing flood risk calculation architecture.

"However, the insurance claims data used to generate these do not contain information on vulnerability for non-residential buildings or enough information to incorporate secondary modifiers such as how depth-damage changes given the building is made from wood rather than concrete.

"To generate a complete suite of depth-damage information, we will need to find a way of fusing engineering knowledge with such empirical datasets so that we can compute flood risk accurately for all types of building."

Floodplain damages affect long-term housing development in high-risk areas

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More information: 'New insights into US flood vulnerability revealed from flood insurance big data' by O. Wing, N. Pinter, P. Bates and C. Kousky, Nature Communications, 2020.

When consumers want plastic, but also worry about the planet

by Duke University

Credit: Duke University

Would the world stop drinking Coca-Cola if it no longer came in single-use plastic bottles?

They might, Coca-Cola's Chief Sustainability Officer Beatriz Perez suggested at the World Economic Forum earlier this year: Coca-Cola "won't be in business if we don't accommodate customers," she said.

But Professor Dan Vermeer, who worked in sustainability at Coca-Cola for more than seven years before joining the faculty at Duke University's Fuqua School of Business, says ascribing your company's slow change to consumer preference is a thin argument. He's also the founder of the Center for Energy, Development, and the Global Environment (EDGE) at Fuqua.

Vermeer says influential brands such as Coca-Cola actually are ideally positioned to drive shifts in consumer preferences, nudging even plastic-seeking customers to more sustainable choices, as he explains in this Fuqua Q&A.

Why should companies strive for improved sustainability if customers aren't demanding it?

Coca-Cola faces a dilemma. While it strives to become more sustainable, it is also the poster child for plastic waste. The company produces more than 100 billion plastic bottles a year and less than 10% of these bottles are recycled. Most of them end up in the world's ditches, waterways, beaches and oceans. While the company has considered shifting to glass or aluminum options over plastic, they worry that these may ultimately have a higher carbon footprint. So for now, the company says it will "show the consumer what the opportunities are," as Perez says, and rely on consumers to change gradually with them. But many consumers, especially young people, are ready for the change and increasingly are inclined to spend their money with brands that share their values for sustainability.

If customers want single-use plastic bottles or other less sustainable products, should companies deliver?

Many of the world's most successful brands—Coca-Cola among them—have succeeded because of their obsessive focus on the consumer. However, consumer preferences do not always align with society's priorities. Deferring to customers means ignoring the concerns of other stakeholders including investors, employees, governments, and communities, especially on the issue of plastic waste and the costs these other stakeholders face in cleaning it up. A consumer-first approach could ultimately threaten a company's social license to operate—all of these stakeholders influence a company's ongoing permission to do business and could disrupt the brand's ability to serve its markets.

Can brands actually change what consumers want?

Big brands such as Coca-Cola spend billions annually on marketing. They're already deeply engaged in shaping consumer behaviors. In the specific case of Coca-Cola, it seems the company is ambivalent about using that influence to lead customers to more sustainable choices. Brands can lead customers to different choices through traditional marketing efforts and even through choice editing—for example, limiting available options to more sustainable choices to shift the mainstream away from environmentally or socially damaging products.

Companies can also show their commitment to sustainability by measuring the carbon footprint of processes and products—for example, packaging waste—in their internal accounting processes, as Microsoft and others have done. This quantifies the costs companies are passing along to society, which could accelerate the adoption of plastic innovations across global industries, from new materials to improved waste management. A company with the scale and influence of Coca-Cola can rapidly shift market dynamics rather than react to them. One of EDGE's current projects is working with World Wildlife Fund and Impact Hub to facilitate big brands to invest in new materials and better waste management practices. Good alternatives are out there, but we need to accelerate their adoption.

Should companies change now before knowing what regulatory changes may be coming?

Regulation is inevitable and is advancing rapidly, especially in Europe. So for any company using single-use plastics, it's in their interest to lead on these efforts rather than follow or take a defensive approach, such as lobbying against 'bottle bills' and other regulation intended to minimize waste. In a more active regulatory environment, this defensive approach is likely to be ineffective. A proactive approach could actually give a brand more influence. The company could help write the new standards for the entire industry. Being part of the process would allow them much more significant input, and they could shape policy instead of simply reacting to it

Big firm products top worst plastic litter list: report

The coalition's volunteers collected nearly half a million pieces of plastic waste during a

 coordinated 'World Clean Up Day'

Tens of thousands of pieces of plastic littering the planet come from just a handful of multinational corporations, an environmental pressure group said Wednesday.

Coca-Cola, Nestle and PepsiCo were named by Break Free from Plastics, a global coalition of individuals and environmental organisations, who warned the companies largely avoid cleanup responsibility.

The coalition's volunteers collected nearly half a million pieces of plastic waste during a coordinated "World Clean Up Day" in 51 countries a month ago, of which 43 percent were marked with a clear consumer brand.

For the second year in a row, it said, Coca-Cola came out on top, with 11,732 pieces of plastic collected from 37 countries across four continents—more than the next three top global polluters combined.

"Many of them have made commitments that they claim will make their products more sustainable, but largely protect the outdated throwaway business model that got us into this mess in the first place," said the report, released in Manila.

As nations, China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam and Sri Lanka dump the most plastic into the oceans, but "the real drivers of much of this plastic pollution in Asia are actually multinational corporations headquartered in Europe and the United States", it said.

Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, and Nestle were responsible for the most pieces of plastic collected, according to the report.

Others in the top 10 polluters include Mondelez International, Unilever, Mars, P&G, Colgate-Palmolive, Philip Morris and Perfetti Van Mille, it added.

Single-serve sachets

While global consumer brands now acknowledge their role in perpetuating the crisis, the report said they "have been equally aggressive in promoting false solutions to address the problem".

Promoting recycling is their way of shifting responsibility to consumers, it said.

Just nine percent of all plastic produced since the 1950s has actually been recycled, the report said.

The report deems single-serve multilayered sachets, common in Southeast Asia and aimed at low-income families that cannot afford bigger volumes of consumer products, as "the most damaging type of plastic packaging".

Chart showing the results of a plastic waste survey, conducted by "Break Free From 

Plastic" global movement

Coca-Cola's promotion of a single-use bottle using plastic collected from the oceans, as well as PepsiCo's efforts to promote recycling, "do not get to the heart of the problem and all but guarantee the plastic pollution crisis will grow worse".

Nestle sells over a billion products a day in single-use packaging "but has no clear plans for reducing the total amount" it puts into the world, the report alleged.

The firm said it was working towards solutions "to make reports like this a thing of the past".

"As the world's largest food and beverage company, we know we have an important role to play in shaping sustainable solutions to tackle the issue of plastics waste," a Nestle spokesperson told AFP in a statement.

"It is completely unacceptable for this (plastic) packaging to end up as litter in the environment and we are working hard to make all of our packaging either recyclable or reusable by 2025."

The report said companies should veer away from promoting "false solutions"—such as recycling and so-called "bioplastics"—and instead transition from a throwaway economy.

All the companies named have made public commitments to reduce plastic waste and increase recycling.

Coca-Cola and PepsiCo—like Nestle—have pledged to make their packaging recyclable, reusable or compostable by 2025. The beverage giants have also pulled out of a US lobbying organisation that represents the plastics industry.

"Changing the way society makes, uses, and disposes of packaging is a complex challenge and we're playing our part," a PepsiCo spokesperson told AFP.

"We want to help build a system where plastic packaging never becomes waste."

The Coca-Cola Company said it was working to help stop plastic waste entering the seas, describing it as a "critical global issue".

"Any time our packaging ends up in our oceans—or anywhere that it doesn't belong—is unacceptable to us," the firm said in a statement.

Break Free from Plastics counts 6,118 individuals and 1,475 organisations around the world as its members, including Greenpeace.

Unilever to halve use of new plastic

'Sushi parasites' have increased 283-fold 

in past 40 years

by University of Washington
 

Anisakis worms in blue whiting fish. The prevalence of these worms, found in raw or undercooked fish, has increased dramatically since the 1970s. Credit: Gonzalo Jara/Shutterstock

The next time you eat sashimi, nigiri or other forms of raw fish, consider doing a quick check for worms.


A new study led by the University of Washington finds dramatic increases in the abundance of a worm that can be transmitted to humans who eat raw or undercooked seafood. Its 283-fold increase in abundance since the 1970s could have implications for the health of humans and marine mammals, which both can inadvertently eat the worm.

Thousands of papers have looked at the abundance of this parasitic worm, known as Anisakis or "herring worm," in particular places and at particular times. But this is the first study to combine the results of those papers to investigate how the global abundance of these worms has changed through time. The findings were published March 19 in the journal Global Change Biology.

"This study harnesses the power of many studies together to show a global picture of change over a nearly four-decade period," said corresponding author Chelsea Wood, an assistant professor in the UW School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences. "It's interesting because it shows how risks to both humans and marine mammals are changing over time. That's important to know from a public health standpoint, and for understanding what's going on with marine mammal populations that aren't thriving."

Despite their name, herring worms can be found in a variety of marine fish and squid species. When people eat live herring worms, the parasite can invade the intestinal wall and cause symptoms that mimic those of food poisoning, such as nausea, vomiting and diarrhea. In most cases, the worm dies after a few days and the symptoms disappear. This disease, called anisakiasis or anisakidosis, is rarely diagnosed because most people assume they merely suffered a bad case of food poisoning, Wood explained.

The life cycle of an Anisakis worm. The worms reproduce in the intestines of marine mammals and are released into the ocean via their feces. After the worms hatch in the water, they first infect small crustaceans such as krill. When small fish eat the infected crustaceans, the worms then transfer to their bodies, and this continues as larger fish eat smaller infected fish. Humans and marine mammals can become infected when they eat a fish that contains the worms. Credit: Wood et al. Global Change Biology, 2020

After the worms hatch in the ocean, they first infect small crustaceans, such as bottom-dwelling shrimp or copepods. When small fish eat the infected crustaceans, the worms then transfer to their bodies, and this continues as larger fish eat smaller infected fish.

Humans and marine mammals become infected when they eat a fish that contains worms. The worms can't reproduce or live for more than a few days in a human's intestine, but they can persist and reproduce in marine mammals.


Seafood processors and sushi chefs are well-practiced at spotting the worms in fish and picking them out before they reach customers in grocery stores, seafood markets or sushi bars, Wood explained. The worms can be up to 2 centimeters in length, or about the size of a U.S. 5-cent nickel.

"At every stage of seafood processing and sushi preparation, people are good at finding worms and removing them from fish," Wood said.

Some worms can make it past these screening steps. Still, Wood—who studies a range of marine parasites—said she enjoys eating sushi regularly. For sushi consumers who remain concerned about these worms, she recommends cutting each piece in half and looking for worms before eating it.

An Anisakis worm is seen in a filet of salmon. These parasitic worms can be up to 2 centimeters in length and are found in the flesh of raw and undercooked fish. Credit: Togabi/Wikimedia Commons

For the analysis, the study's authors searched the published literature archived online for all mentions of Anisakis worms, as well as another parasitic worm called Pseudoterranova, or "cod worm." They whittled down the studies based on set criteria, ultimately keeping only those studies that presented estimates of the abundance of each worm in fish at a given point in time. While Anisakis worms increased 283-fold over the study period of 1978 to 2015, Pseudoterranova worms did not change in abundance.

Although the health risks of these marine worms are fairly low for humans, scientists think they may be having a big impact on marine mammals such as dolphins, whales and seals. The worms actually reproduce in the intestines of these animals and are released into the ocean via the marine mammals' feces. While scientists don't yet know the physiological impacts of these parasites on marine mammals, the parasites can live in the mammals' bodies for years, which could have detrimental effects, Wood said.

"One of the important implications of this study is that now we know there is this massive, rising health risk to marine mammals," Wood said. "It's not often considered that parasites might be the reason that some marine mammal populations are failing to bounce back. I hope this study encourages people to look at intestinal parasites as a potential cap on the population growth of endangered and threatened marine mammals."

The authors aren't sure what caused the large increase of Anisakis worms over the past several decades, but climate change, more nutrients from fertilizers and runoff, and an increase in marine mammal populations over the same period could all be potential reasons, they said.

Marine mammals have been protected under the Marine Mammal Protection Act since 1972, which has allowed many populations of seals, sea lions, whales and dolphins to grow. Because the worms reproduce inside marine mammals—and their rise occurred over the same time period as the mammals' increase—this is the most plausible hypothesis, Wood said.

"It's possible that the recovery of some marine mammal populations has allowed recovery of their Anisakis parasites." Wood said. "So, the increase in parasitic worms actually could be a good thing, a sign that the ecosystem is doing well. But, ironically, if one marine mammal population increases in response to protection and its Anisakis parasites profit from that increase, it could put other, more vulnearble marine mammal populations at risk of increased infection, and that could make it even more difficult for these endangered populations to recover."

 

More information: Evan A. Fiorenza et al, It's a wormy world: Meta-analysis reveals several decades of change in the global abundance of the parasitic nematodes Anisakis spp. and Pseudoterranova spp. in marine fishes and invertebrates, Global Change Biology (2020). DOI: 10.1111/gcb.15048

Research finds gender bias in textbooks of Indonesia and other Muslim majority countries

by M Niaz Asadullah, The Conversation

The school enrolment rate between Indonesian boys and 
girls is virtually equal, but gender bias persists in school textbooks. 
Credit: Shutterstock

Indonesia does well compared to other Muslim countries in getting girls into schools. Female enrollment in primary and secondary education is around 90% and 80% respectively, while the proportions of boys and girls in school are virtually equal.


Yet Indonesia was ranked 85 out of 153 countries in the World Economic Forum's 2020 Gender Gap Index.

The country's women lag behind men in terms of labor force participation. The rate of child marriage is one of the highest in South-East Asia, and a third of Indonesian women have reportedly faced sexual or physical violence.

Why does Indonesia perform poorly in women's development in spite of the boom in female schooling?

One reason could be that the country's education system—while accessible for all—employs teaching curriculum and learning materials that fail in challenging traditional roles and changing social attitudes towards women.

Our recently published paper in the journal PLOS ONE has found such gender bias is evident in Indonesian textbooks.

The research is part of our gender analyses of textbooks in four Muslim majority countries—Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan and Bangladesh.

Although the Indonesian textbook has represented gender equality better than its South Asian counterparts, especially Pakistan and Bangladesh, our analysis shows plenty of room for improvement in how female characters are depicted.

Women are present, but depicted with bias

Across these countries, we exclusively focus on government-approved English textbooks used in secondary schools.

For Indonesia, the analysis looks at the contents of the Grade 9 textbook, English in Focus.


We examine gender stereotypes using two broad frameworks—female inclusion and the quality of their representation—using a total of 21 indicators associated with the book's texts and pictures.

Across the indicators, we find the Indonesian textbook is relatively gender equal.

The proportion of female characters in the Indonesian texts (40.5%) is fairly equal, contrasting with only 24.4% in Pakistani textbooks.

In the picture content category, Indonesian textbooks also have more female characters (58.0%) than in the other three countries. The Malaysian and Bangladeshi textbooks have a low share of 35.2%.

However, the qualitative indicators used in the study reveal that, despite having an equal presence, female characters are still poorly depicted.

A high presence of male characters is evident in a range of indicators from "Nouns" to "Professional Occupations" in the Indonesian textbook.

The book also overemphasizes marital identity through the more frequent use of "Mrs" in addressing women, indicating evidence of linguistic sexism.

In contrast, most female characters in both Malaysian and Bangladeshi textbooks are referred as "Miss."

Regarding occupational roles, the depictions of males were much more diverse and include jobs that traditionally portray power and masculinity—such as a king or a firefighter. These jobs were mentioned at least four times in the textbook.

Occupations attached to the female characters are those that have long been considered female-dominated and traditionally lower in prestige and income.

The two most mentioned professions for women are singer and dancer, with each mentioned up to three times.

Overall, across the four countries, we find females are characterized in household roles four times more than their male counterparts. The number was the highest in Pakistan, where all domestic roles depicted (100%) were assigned to women.

Even in Indonesian and Malaysian textbooks, which feature a more balanced presence of females, we found evidence that these domestic roles were dominated by women with 63% and 85%, respectively.

What does this mean for education in Indonesia?

Our study adds to the growing evidence base on gender bias in Indonesian textbooks.

In a previous study using a 12th-grade English textbook, the authors identified 1,098 (77%) male characters in comparison to only 321 (23%) female characters.

Another study of visual images used in eight English e-textbooks for grades 10, 11 and 12 confirm the problem is systemic—some professions like doctors, politicians and soldiers were represented by men only.

These portrayals of outside occupations and paid work as "male-only" devalues women's work and hinders existing efforts and campaigns to boost the stagnant female participation rate in Indonesia's labour force.

Improving access to secondary education will not be enough to empower Indonesian girls if school textbooks continue to misrepresent girls and women in traditional roles.

In this regard, one positive development is the Mighty Girls book collection for which hundreds of Indonesian women are serving as "reading ambassadors" to introduce strong female characters to school-going girls in Indonesia.

A free online library for children, Let's Read, provided by the nonprofit organization, The Asia Foundation, is available for all girls regardless of their school enrollment status. More initiatives such as these are needed.

In addition, parents must play their part as well to eliminate gender inequality from Indonesian society. Practising gender equality at home is equally important.

Reforming textbooks alone may not change mindsets if parents themselves support gender stereotypes.


Explore further

Men and women live longer in countries with higher gender parity

Provided by The Conversation

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

Improving access to cycling can benefit women in marginalized neighborhoods

by Lily Song, The Conversation

Credit: Wikimedia Commons/Azisrif, CC BY-SA

Research has shown that cycling offers environmental, health, economic and social benefits.


Cycling can be especially appealing to women in developing Asian cities who have fewer mobility options due to their gender and socioeconomic status. Cycling allows them to travel through multiple stops in the city to fulfill work and household responsibilities.

In the Indonesian city of Solo in Central Java—long considered a hub of Javanese culture and a people-centered creative economy—cycling has been around since the Dutch colonial era.

The city's female residents historically cycled at the same rate as males. Improved mobility increased their access to education and employment opportunities.

The government and businesses also had pro-cycling policies like financial incentives for bicycle use and parking facilities.

However, like many rapidly urbanizing regions in the global south, motorization sent Solo's motorcycle ownership soaring. It more than doubled between 2009 and 2013 to nearly 424,000. Cycling has been left to decline in terms of policies, investments and ultimately preferred mode of travel.

Our research in Solo investigated the question of how to promote cycling among women living in areas with poor access to public transportation networks. We conducted focus group discussions, individual interviews and field observations involving lower-income women from 10 Solo neighborhoods with limited public transportation access.

Dream of 'women on wheels' is still far away

With nearly one vehicle per person, Solo has rapidly become a motorcycle city. Most of its transportation planning has focused on improving conditions for such faster vehicles.

Bicycles now account for a mere 1% of mode share compared to 67% for motorcycles. However, this boom in motorcycle ownership has not been as accessible for low-income households.

Neighbourhoods that we focused on based on their marginalisation index. Credit: Lily Song

This has impacted women more as men tend to have priority access to motor vehicles, mostly due to gender-based roles within households. In the end, poor women in neighborhoods with limited access to public transportation are often left with walking or cycling as their only transport options.


But the local government's policies do not support the use of bicycles, despite several initiatives.

In an attempt to revitalize cycling among its residents, the Solo government has transformed its main thoroughfare, Jalan Slamet Riyadi, into a public space for walking, cycling and other communal activities for "Solo Car Free Day" since 2010.

The city's 28km of "slow lanes" – separating bikes from motorized vehicles on key corridors in the city center—are the country's longest.

However, these cycling improvements are concentrated in the city center, more than 9km from the neighborhoods where most of our interviewees live.

Motorcyclists have also taken to using Solo's slow lanes and other smaller roads to a degree that has often endangered cyclists.

The combination of lack of reach and dominance of city roads by motorized vehicles makes them largely inaccessible to the majority of the city's female cyclists, whose poor neighborhoods are located far from transit lines.

Despite significant barriers, many women and girls still prefer to cycle around Solo.

However, most women only cycle at the neighborhood scale. Here the availability of smaller, local roads eases the experience of traveling with a bicycle.

More than a third of our respondents usually used bikes for shopping at markets and neighborhood kiosks.

Many of our respondents felt defenceless, sluggish and out of place among speeding motorists. Credit: Yayasan Kota Kita

Cycling is especially popular among girls in elementary and middle school. They have the highest rates of cycling among women.

For instance, 52% of female students rode a bicycle to school. Compare this to over 20% that walked and a mere 5% that went by public transport.

But cycling rates drop significantly in high school, possibly because their schools are located in the city centre or outside their immediate neighborhoods.

Age-specific gender roles may also explain the drop. Young women aged between 16 and 25 years report the lowest rates of cycling, followed by women between 25 and 34.

Our findings indicate that cycling plays an important role in the lives of many women. Without sufficient support from the government, poor women in areas with limited access to public transportation pay the highest price.

What should be done?

During our interviews, many respondents suggested the expansion of the slow lane cycling network beyond the major arterial roads in the urban areas.

This means the city government's pro-cycling initiatives should account for Solo's dispersed residential areas to promote cycling for daily lives—not just for leisure and recreational purposes.

After connecting downtown thoroughfares with neighborhoods on the outskirts, however, another challenge remains: motor vehicles increasingly dominate roads and public space in general.

Many of our respondents felt defenseless, sluggish and out of place among speeding motorists. They dreaded being hit or crushed by them.

Another approach was to use smaller roads and more local streets to navigate the city. Credit: Yayasan Kota Kita

For women having to travel longer distances beyond their neighborhood, a common strategy was to cycle on secondary roads.

Respondents believed that by using smaller roads and more local streets, they could take more direct travel routes, ride faster and reach further destinations.

To support such strategies, the government must employ active interventions across a range of roads and streets to calm, limit and, in some cases, exclude motorized traffic.

Our respondents also stressed that cyclists do not feel respected as there are no designated parking spots for them—not even when they're willing to pay the same rates as motorists.

They emphasized the importance of upgrading cycling infrastructure—such as special lanes or parking spots—to promote comfort and convenience akin to that experienced by motorists. These facilities are especially crucial for women who have to fulfill multiple purposes on their journeys.

Susceptibility to harassment and crime, along with cultural norms, also discourage women from cycling.

Some suggest a riding group for women to prevent harassment, physical attacks or robbery when they travel on bikes—especially in the early mornings when essential trips to the market and mosque take place.

Others discussed public education and outreach campaigns. These would target different age groups of women and highlight the health, convenience and environmental benefits of cycling.

Bike share programs are on the rise, yet the gender gap persists

Provided by The Conversation

Late Neolithic Italy was home to complex networks of metal exchange
by Public Library of Science
 

Articulated burial and dismembered human remains from Ponte San Pietro, tomb 22.The chamber tomb is typical of the Rinaldone burial custom, central Italy, c.3600-2200 BC. Reprinted from Miari 1995 under a CC BY licence, with permission from Monica Miari, original copyright 1995. Credit: Dolfini et al, 2020

During the 4th and 3rd millennia BC, Italy was home to complex networks of metalwork exchange, according to a study published January 22, 2020 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Andrea Dolfini of Newcastle University (UK), and Gilberto Artioli and Ivana Angelini of the University of Padova (Italy).

Research in recent decades has revealed that copper mining and metalwork in Italy began earlier and included more complex technologies than previously thought. However, relatively little is known about metalwork exchange across the country, especially south of the Alps. In this study, Dolfini and colleagues sought to understand how commonly and how widely copper was imported and exchanged throughout Late Neolithic (Copper Age) Italy.

The researchers conducted an analysis of 20 copper items, including axe-heads, halberds, and daggers, from central Italy dating to the Copper Age, between 3600 and 2200 BC. Comparing archaeological data and chemical signatures of these items to nearby sources of copper ore, as well as to other prehistoric sites, they were able to determine that most of the examined objects were cast from copper mined in Tuscany, with the rest sourced from the western Alps and possibly the French Midi.

These results not only confirm the importance of the Tuscan region as a source of copper for Copper Age communities in Italy, reaching as far as the Tyrolean area home of the Alpine Iceman, but also reveal the unexpected finding that non-Tuscan copper was a significant import to the region at this time. These data contribute to a growing picture of multiple independent networks of Copper Age metal exchange in the Alps and neighboring regions. The authors note that future research might uncover other early sources of copper, as well as more details of the interactions between these early trade networks.

The authors add: "The first systematic application of lead isotope analysis (a geological sourcing technique) to Copper Age metal objects from central Italy, 3600-2200 BC, has shed new light on the provenance of the copper used to cast them. The research has revealed that, while some of the copper was sourced from the rich ore deposits of Tuscany, as was expected, some is from further afield. This unforeseen discovery demonstrates that far-reaching metal exchange networks were in operation in prehistoric Europe over a thousand years before the Bronze Age."

The road to Scandinavia's bronze age: Trade routes, metal provenance, and mixing

More information: Dolfini A, Angelini I, Artioli G (2020) Copper to Tuscany - Coals to Newcastle? The dynamics of metalwork exchange in early Italy. PLoS ONE 15(1): e0227259. doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0227259

Bone analyses tell about kitchen utensils in the Middle Ages

by Birgitte Svennevig, University of Southern Denmark

Credit: CC0 Public Domain

Clay pots? Wooden spoons? Copper pots? Silver forks? What materials has man used for making kitchen utensils throughout history? A new study now sheds light on the use of kitchen utensils made of copper.

At first thought, you would not expect hundreds of years old bones from a medieval cemetery to be able to tell you very much—let alone anything about what kinds of kitchen utensils were used to prepare food.

But when you put such a bone in the hands of Professor Kaare Lund Rasmussen, University of Southern Denmark, the bone begins to talk about the past.

A warehouse full of bones

"For the first time, we have succeeded in tracing the use of copper cookware in bones. Not in isolated cases, but in many bones over many years, and thus we can identify trends in historical use of copper in the household," he explains.

The research team has analyzed bones from 553 skeletons that are between 1200 and 200 years old. They all come from nine, now abandoned cemeteries in Jutland, Denmark and Northern Germany. The skeletons are today kept at Schloss Gottorf in Schleswig, Germany and at the University of Southern Denmark.

Some of the bones examined are from Danish cities such as Ribe and Haderslev, while others are from small rural communities, such as Tirup and Nybøl.

Your body needs copper

The element copper can be traced in bones if ingested. Copper is needed for the body to function; it is, among other things, involved in a number of metabolic processes, such as the function of the immune system—so without copper, the individual would not be able to live.

The need for copper is usually met through the food we eat and most of us probably never think about this.

It is different with the high concentrations of copper now revealed to have been ingested by our predecessors in the Viking Age and the Medieval Times. Much of this copper must have come from the kitchen utensils with which the daily meals were prepared, the researchers believe.

How did the copper get into the body?

One possibility is that the copper pots were scraped by metal knives, releasing copper particles, and that these particles were ingested with the food.

Or maybe copper was dissolved and mixed with food, if the pot was used for storing or cooking acidic foods.

"The bones show us that people consumed tiny portions of copper every day throughout their lives. We can also see that entire cities have been doing this for hundreds of years. In Ribe, the inhabitants did this for 1000 years," says Rasmussen.

Who ate the copper?

Apparently, the copper intake was at no time so great that it became toxic. But the researchers can't say for sure.

However, they can with certainty say that some people never ingested copper enough for it to be traceable in the bones. Instead, they ate food prepared in pots made of other materials.

These people lived in the countryside. The bones reveal that inhabitants in the small villages of Tirup and Nybøl did not prepare their food in copper pots.

Rely less on written sources

But how do these findings go with historical accounts and pictures of copper cookware used in in country kitchens?

"A copper pot in a country kitchen may have been so unusual that the owner would tell everybody about it and maybe even write it down. However, such an account should not lead to the conclusion that copper cookware was commonly used in the countryside. Our analyses show the opposite," says Rasmussen.

On the contrary however, the use of copper pots was evident in the towns of Ribe, Horsens, Haderslev and Schleswig.

1000 years of constant copper ingestion

"The cities were dynamic communities and homes of rich people who could acquire copper items. Wealthy people probably also lived in the countryside, but they did not spend their money on copperware," Rasmussen.

208 of the skeletons originate from a cemetery in Ribe, covering a period of 1000 years from AD 800 to AD 1800, spanning from the Viking Age over the Middle Ages to recent times.

"These skeletons show us there was a continuous exposure of copper throughout the period. Thus, for 1000 years, the inhabitants consumed copper via their daily diet."

Mercury in Tycho Brahe's beard

Professor Kaare Lund Rasmussen has performed several chemical analyzes of historical and archaeological artifacts.

Among other things, he has analyzed a hair from the Danish Renaissance astronomer Tycho Brahe's beard and found that the he did not die from mercury poisoning, as hard-nosed rumors would otherwise know.

In turn, Tycho Brahe was exposed to large amounts of gold until two months before his death—perhaps as a result of his alchemist life, perhaps because he ate and drank from gold-plated service.

Late Neolithic Italy was home to complex networks of metal exchange

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More information: Kaare Lund Rasmussen et al. Copper exposure in medieval and post-medieval Denmark and northern Germany: its relationship to residence location and social position, Heritage Science (2020). DOI: 10.1186/s40494-020-00365-4

Study reveals secret of 18th century portrait

by Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology

Left: The red circles indicate where samples were taken. The team avoided 

sampling from the central part of the portrait. The areas noninvasively 

examined via X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy are marked in white. 

Right: The quality of the two seams seen on the back of the painting is different. 

Credit: Nikolay Simonenko et al./Heritage ScienceRussian researchers from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, Kurnakov Institute of General and Inorganic Chemistry of RAS, and Russia's famed Tretyakov Gallery have conducted a comprehensive preconservation study of "The Portrait of F.P. Makerovsky in a Masquerade Costume" (1789) by the Russian painter Dmitry Levitsky. The paper was published in the journal Heritage Science.


The portrait analyzed in the study is one of the masterpieces of the renowned painter's mature period and a rare example of a children's dress-up portrait in Russian art. However, rough restoration interventions of a century ago, thick layers of old yellowed varnish, and damage to the paint layer of unknown origin distorted the aesthetic perception of the image. The conservator, Tatiana Seregina, faced the difficult task of bringing the portrait as close to its original state as possible today, without affecting the painter's work.

"Our laboratory and the gallery's research team maintain a long-standing methodological collaboration, which manifested itself in a 2017 agreement between MIPT and the Tretyakov Gallery, with the support of its chief curator Tatiana Gorodkova," said Viktor Ivanov, the head of the Center for Functional Materials Testing at MIPT. "Under that agreement, we jointly develop approaches for comprehensive studies of artworks using modern methods for local analysis of materials and nanomaterials. The methodological expertise that we accumulated enabled us to participate in a preconservation study of the painting by Dmitry Levitsky and establish the unity of the paint layers across the entire canvas."

The research team comprised numerous physicists, chemists, art specialists, and conservators from MIPT, IGIC RAS, and the State Tretyakov Gallery.

Besides enabling more grounded decisions regarding the conservation techniques to be used, the analysis of the art materials also resolved a long-standing mystery. Levitsky's painting consists of three fragments, and while there were never any doubts concerning the authorship of the main part, it remained unknown when the two horizontal extension pieces with the figure from the knees down had been sewn to the canvas. While the extension pieces are visible in early-20th-century photographs, there were reservations about the earlier period in the painting's history, because of a distinct structure of the seams connecting the three fragments: While the upper seam is very neat, the lower one is much coarser.


"The last time the portrait underwent conservation was in 1914," study co-author Nikolay Simonenko from IGIC RAS and MIPT said. "We conducted a comprehensive preconservation analysis of art materials composition. This allowed us to establish that the extension pieces were indeed painted by Levitsky."

Painter in a hurry?

By analyzing the ground layers, the team first revealed a distinction between the main canvas and the extension pieces. The two layers of ground, customarily used by the painter, were only found in the main canvas. However, a closer look revealed the structure and composition of the ground in the two extensions to be alike. It also proved similar to the lower of the two ground layers of the main canvas.

The authors of the paper suggest that the painter might have had more time at the outset to thoroughly prepare the canvas. It is likely, the researchers hypothesize, that Levitsky's concept of the painting evolved as the work progressed, necessitating a bigger canvas. To accommodate his new vision, the painter first added one extension piece and then another.

Malachite pigment

By examining the paint layers, the team could show their similar composition across the entire painting, including the two extension pieces. Specifically, the green pigment is present in each of the three fragments and has a common nature: Infrared spectroscopy revealed it was malachite.

Interestingly, none of the other 10 or so analytic techniques used in the study could identify malachite, although elemental analysis did provide an indirect confirmation by detecting copper in the green paint. This is why the researchers had to employ such a wide range of tools in their study.

The common origin of the two extension pieces was also confirmed by the analysis of the brown pigment, which involved infrared and Raman spectroscopy, and scanning electron microscopy combined with energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy.

By investigating the painted layer, the team established that it belonged to Levitsky in its entirety, confirming the hypothesis that a single artistic process united all three parts of the canvas.

Fine arts and hard sciences

In a research project like this, the chemists and physicists are after great detail in the results, which may in part go against the wish of the museum workers and conservators to preserve the work of art fully intact.

"In my opinion, the presence of art historians, chemists, and physicists in one team was key to the success of this endeavor," said Ivan Volkov, a chief researcher at the MIPT lab involved in the study. "We held regular meetings featuring both the Tretyakov Gallery team and us, materials scientists. We had to slowly work out a common language, but it was worth it. There was also an arrangement for the sampling methods and tools to be approved by the gallery staff."

With no room for error, the team needed to be very careful in taking samples, and extract maximum information from each of them. The researchers sought a middle ground to draw information from the portrait without damaging it. For example, some of the samples were taken from the edges of the painting.

New discoveries

This is the first time such a detailed and comprehensive study of a painting by Levitsky has been carried out. According to art specialists from the Tretyakov Gallery, the study has not only been important for preparing the conservation task, but also expanded the understanding of Levitsky's oeuvre and the late 18th-century art practice in Russia.

Now that the methodology has been developed and successfully tested, it can be applied to other works. Meanwhile, the conservation of Makerovsky's portrait is in its final stages, and it will soon return to the main exhibition. The conservation began long before the publication in Heritage Science and lasted about a year and a half. 

More information: Nikolay P. Simonenko et al, A study of "The Portrait of F.P. Makerovsky in a Masquerade Costume" by Dmitry Levitsky from the collection of the State Tretyakov Gallery, Heritage Science (2020). DOI: 10.1186/s40494-020-0351-1

Secrets of Lucretia painting closer to being revealed

by Northumbria University

"The Death of Lucretia." Credit: The Bowes Museum

The mystery of who painted a centuries-old artwork, and when, is closer to being revealed thanks to the work of art conservation and forensic science experts from Northumbria University, in Newcastle upon Tyne.


"The Death of Lucretia" painting has been owned by the Bowes Museum in County Durham since the 1840s and has recently gone on display as part of an exhibition dedicated to the works of Italian Baroque master Guido Reni.

However, the origins of the painting are shrouded in mystery—it is believed the piece could be from the studio of Guido Reni, or at least painted during the same period in the seventeenth century, before then being significantly changed during a re-paint some 200 years later.

Now art conservator and Senior Lecturer Nicky Grimaldi and forensic scientist Dr. Michelle Carlin, both of Northumbria University, have worked in partnership with The Bowes Museum to help shed light on the history of the painting.

Using state-of-the-art technology and techniques, they have been able to look under the layer of paint which is visible to the naked eye—revealing a very different painting underneath the present day image.

Thanks to forensic techniques such as chemical analysis of the paint pigment, the pair have been able to identify when the different layers were painted and start to put together a picture of how and when the painting was created.

As Nicky Grimaldi explains: "When we first started working on this painting we had no idea what lay beneath, it was quite a revelation to find that there was essentially a whole other painting under the one we see today.

"The torso in the current version has been completely changed at some point, in the original version Lucretia was depicted wearing an elaborate bodice, which is now hidden.

"We believe the original version was probably left incomplete, but was then likely significantly repainted in the nineteenth century, before being sold through an art dealer in London and then arriving at Bowes Museum."

Chemical analysis of paint from the different layers has helped to date the painting, with the earlier paint containing much coarser particles than the paint added later.

As Dr. Michelle Carlin explains: "There was a clear difference in the particle size between the layers. The paint added at a later date was produced post-industrialization, by which time the process had become mechanized, meaning the particles were ground much finer. In contrast the particles in the paint underneath were much less refined.


"Similarly we were able to analyze the materials used to make the paint in the two layers and match this with what we know was available at the time to help determine when each layer was painted."

One of the most unexpected finds during the investigations was the presence of gold on the torso area of the painting, discovered by using a portable X-ray fluorescence spectrometry. This suggests the original bodice might have contained gold braid detailing.

Also discovered was the presence of titanium white in the panting, a pigment used by art conservators during the 20th century, suggesting the painting has been subject to conservation efforts in the past.

This ability to bring together experts in both art conservation and forensic science has led to Northumbria University developing an international reputation for this kind of specialist research.

The University has a long-standing relationship with The Bowes Museum, with the investigations into "The Death of Lucretia" carried out to coincide with the museum's new exhibition—"The Power and the Virtue: Guido Reni's The Death of Lucretia."

This exhibition has been conceived and developed by Bernadette Petti, Project Curator, who initiated the collaboration with Northumbria University and colleagues at The Hunterian and National Gallery.

Lucretia was an ancient Roman women who killed herself after being raped by the son of King Lucius Tarquinius Superbus. Her tragic death has been portrayed by many artists, with Lucretia often seen clutching a dagger to her chest.

Guido Reni (1575—1642) is the most famous Italian artist of his generation, with many of his works depicting female heroines, including Cleopatra, Mary Magdalene, Deianira and Lucretia.

The Bowes Museum exhibition presents works by Guido Reni from prestigious public and private collections, including The National Gallery and The Royal Collection.

Despite what Nicky Grimaldi and Dr. Michelle Carlin have already discovered, the mystery doesn't end there.

It is believed there is an almost identical copy of "The Death of Lucretia" in existence, suspected to be the original Reni painting from which the Bowes later repaint was copied from.

This painting could hold the answer to many of the questions the Northumbria researchers still have. However, it is believed the painting hasn't been in circulation since the early twentieth century and its whereabouts is presently unknown.

As Nicky Grimaldi explains: "It is quite common for copies of paintings to be made, sometimes by the original artists and sometimes by their studio apprentices or by other unrelated artists.

"We know there is another version of the image of Lucretia we see portrayed in the Bowes today. We suspect the other painting is still in Italy and has almost the same dimensions and composition, though unfortunately we don't know its exact location.

"If we could track this painting down it could be the missing piece of the puzzle and help us to fill in some of the gaps we have around the Bowes painting.