UK

Tories unveil anti-woke manifesto
12 May 2021

Steerpike

The Queen’s Speech yesterday may have seen the government’s fairly dry vision for modern Britain but a group of Conservative backbench MPs and peers have now banded together to propose their own alternative. Cracking down on immigration, breaking up the BBC and taking aim at woke policing are all proposed in a new book by the Common Sense Group of around 50 Tory parliamentarians. Titled Conservative Thinking For a Post-Liberal Age, it takes aim at the Equality Act, Supreme Court, British broadcasters and Extinction Rebellion, proposing a much tougher line on the forces of 'wokeism' and its practitioners.

The group's chairman Sir John Hayes declares that 'the battle for Britain has begun, and guided by the common sense of the people, we must triumph for the common good'. For fellow member Gareth Bacon 'Britain is under attack' from a ‘woke ideology’ with 'no democratic mandate' but instead an 'intense hostility to western civilisation'. Policies to tackle this include 'definitive amendments to the 2010 Equality Act,' tax incentives to encourage marriage, curbs on direct action protests and a requirement for state-funded institutions to 'promote British values, traditions and history.'

Britain's top judges are lambasted by veteran Edward Leigh and new MP Sally-Ann Hart in a chapter on judicial activism undermining democracy. The pair describe the Supreme Court's ruling against Boris Johnson's prorogation of Parliament as 'a naked power grab, with no substantial legal or juridical justification'. Such 'a political act' was just a gamble 'in order to stop Brexit' — something 'the politicised justices lost' with 'legislative reform of the Supreme Court' needed to prevent a repeat again.

The section on media reform co-authored between James Sunderland MP and Express journalist David Maddox demands the break up of the BBC, the abolition of broadcast impartiality rules and that big tech companies like Facebook be treated as publishers. They claim the pandemic has 'been a salutary lesson' with existing broadcasters seeing it 'as their role to promote the pro-Lockdown message' with reform strengthening 'plurality of voices and freedom of speech' against a 'quasi-Marxist movement on the liberal left.'


The police are not spared either with Chris Loder and Tom Hunt calling for an end to the 'woke' culture of 'middle management' infecting forces across the country. Reforms include tackling the 'fear of conduct investigations' which means 'officers are wary of acting according to their instincts' with the Macpherson report being accused of undermining effective policing: 'the words "institutional racism" are so terrifying because they attack the very foundation of policing by consent.'

On immigration, red wall MP Nick Fletcher backs a cap of 100,000 people a year, arguing 'it must be made known to the ordinary working man and woman that their neighbourhoods and communities will not be treated as dumping grounds for anyone and everyone who wishes to come to the United Kingdom.'

Peers Lord Horam and Lord Hodgson propose that all jobs should only be advertised in the UK alongside a cap on the number of skilled workers allowed into the country and a suspension of the 'New Entrant' route which allows employers to bring in young workers from abroad earning over £20,480. An Office of Demographic Change — an independent body established along the lines of the Office for Budget Responsibility — is suggested to undertake a comprehensive transparent analysis of all aspects of demographic growth.

It was of course nine years ago that a similarly punchy book by newly elected members — Britannia Unchained — made the names of some of today’s leading Tory politicians. Four of the work’s co-authors — Priti Patel, Dominic Raab, Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng — now sit around the cabinet table having all co-founded the Free Enterprise Group together. Will similar success greet the co-authors of the Common Sense book too?

WRITTEN BY Steerpike
Steerpike is The Spectator's gossip columnist, serving up the latest tittle tattle from Westminster and beyond. Email tips to steerpike@spectator.co.uk.

Antarctica’s Doomsday Glacier: How Doomed Are We?

Two new papers offer radically different predictions of the glacier’s future — and thus for the future of low-lying cities around the world. Here’s how to understand the divergent projections

By JEFF GOODELL

MAY 12, 2021

Thwaites Glacier, a.k.a the Doomsday Glacier


I came face to face with the Doomsday Glacier (a.k.a. Thwaites glacier) in 2019, on a trip to Antarctica aboard the Nathaniel B. Palmer, a 308-foot-long icebreaker operated by the National Science Foundation. I had dubbed the Florida-sized slab of ice its nickname in an article I’d written a few years earlier, and the name stuck. Nevertheless, I was unprepared for how spooky it would be to actually confront the 100-foot-tall wall of ice from the deck of a ship. Locked up here in the West Antarctic ice sheet was enough water to raise global sea levels nearly 10 feet. As I wrote in a dispatch from Antarctica on the day we encountered Thwaites, it was both terrifying and thrilling to know that our future is written in this craggy, luminous continent of ice.


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Our world is heating up fast. And as every kid knows, on hot days, ice melts. The question is how quickly. At Thwaites, the melting is mostly a result of warm ocean water attacking it from below, which is stressing and fracturing both the ice shelf that protects the glacier and the glacier itself. Just how fast Thwaites and the other big glaciers that make up the West Antarctic ice sheet will all fall apart is one of the most important scientific questions of our time. And it is a question upon which the future of virtually every coastal city in the world depends. “We know there are tipping points in Antarctic ice sheets, and we also know that Antarctica is the biggest wildcard in the future sea level rise projections,” says Andrea Dutton, a professor of geology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a 2019 MacArthur Fellow. “Basically, it all comes down to ‘when will we reach that tipping point?’ ”

Last week, two new papers were published simultaneously in the science journal Nature that offer radically different visions of the Doomsday glacier, as well as radically different visions of how climate models work and what they can tell us about the future. But they agree on one thing: “Both papers make it very clear that human decisions are important, and that limiting warming can limit sea level rise,” says Richard Alley, a glaciologist at Penn State and one of the most respected ice scientists in the world. But beyond that, the two papers may as well be describing life on different planets.

The first paper might be called the Holy Shit vision of Antarctica’s future. In this scenario, led by Rob DeConto, a climate modeler at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst (Dutton and Alley and 10 other scientists are co-authors), the West Antarctic ice sheet remains fairly stable as long as warming stays below 2 C, which is the temperature threshold identified in the Paris climate agreement. Beyond 2 C, however, all hell breaks loose. Thwaites begins to fall into the sea like a line of dominoes pushed off a table and soon takes the rest of the West Antarctic ice sheet with it. And once the collapse begins, it will be impossible to stop – at least on any human time scale. In a century or so, global sea levels could rise 10 feet, which would swamp much of South Florida and Bangladesh and many other low-lying regions of the world.

In fact, it could happen even faster than that, says Alley: “We just don’t know what the upper boundary is for how fast this can happen. We are dealing with an event that no human has ever witnessed before. We have no analogue for this.” All in all, the paper makes a very strong argument that cutting emissions today may avert a centuries-long climate catastrophe. DeConto’s paper also warns against betting on a quick techno-fix like CO2 removal. Unless it is widely deployed by 2070, which, the way things are going, is highly unlikely given the cost and scale-up of the technology that is required, it will be too late

The second paper might be called the What, Me Worry? vision of Antarctica’s future. Unlike the DeConto study, which is based on a single model, the second paper, which was led by Tamsin Edwards, a climate scientist at King’s College London, involved 84 people working at 62 institutes in 15 countries. Edwards and her co-authors use an “emulation” technique to compare the outcome of the different climate models, making the results less dependent on assumptions built into any one scenario, creating what amounts to a statistical average of climate-model outcomes.

In this study, the Doomsday glacier isn’t very doom-y at all. There’s no collapse, no tipping point, no big jumps in sea level rise. In fact, although the paper makes clear that the rate of CO2 emissions over the next few decades is clearly important, the difference in global sea level rise from the melting of all land glaciers, not just Thwaites, only differs by 4 ½ inches between a 1.5 C global temperature rise and a 3 C temperature rise (which is a little above where we are headed with current commitments under the Paris agreement). And much of that comes from increased melt in Greenland and mountain glaciers.

As for Antarctica, the paper says explicitly: “No clear dependence on emissions scenario emerges for Antarctica.” Or as Alley put it to me, a tone of mild astonishment in his voice: “For Antarctica, the Edwards paper basically says, Antarctica doesn’t matter to us and our decisions don’t matter to Antarctica.”

So let me roughly sum up where we are with our scientific understanding of sea level rise risk from Antarctica after more than three decades of serious climate change research: One study tells us that if we don’t cut CO2 emissions fast we will condemn the world to a century of rising seas that will flood every major coastal city and reshape the global map. The other study tells us that the likely difference between dramatically cutting CO2 emissions and cruising along on the current path is 4 ½ inches of water. That means more coastal flooding, more erosion, more salt-water intrusion into drinking wells, but it’s a long way from Waterworld.

What to make of all this? Well, for one thing, the discrepancy between the papers demonstrates not only how little scientists really understand about what is going on in Antarctica, but also what a low priority our society has put on funding research to better understand it. For another, modeling ice sheets is just plain hard, in part because it requires high-resolution models, and in part because a lot of the important events in the story of ice happened 20,000 years ago (or more), for which data is sparse.

Finally, there is a big difference in perspective between the two studies: The Edwards paper only looks at sea level rise out to 2100, whereas the DeConto paper stretches out to 2300. Even in the DeConto paper, Antarctica doesn’t really start to fall apart until 2120 or so. As always, what you see depends on the lens you look through. There’s also the question of how additional snowfall from a warmer atmosphere may offset some or all of the melting from warmer ocean water. (Warmer air holds more moisture, and thus can result in more snow.) As Edwards tells me via email, “We are not yet sure how much we have control over Antarctica, because snowfall has a counteracting effect that may also increase in future.”

The most important distinction, however, is that the DeConto paper includes a mechanism called Marine Ice Cliff Instability, or MICI (scientists pronounce it “Mickey,” like the mouse) and the Edwards paper doesn’t.

MICI is best understood as a hypothesis about how ice sheets behave in a rapidly warming world. The gist of it is that, in some conditions, ice sheets don’t simply melt — they collapse. Warm ocean water can get beneath the glaciers, causing them to fracture and destabilize. When the ice shelves that keep the glaciers wedged in place break up, the glaciers themselves become vulnerable. According to the MICI hypothesis, ice cliffs above about 100 meters high or so don’t have the structural integrity to stand on their own, and without ice shelves to buttress them, they will collapse, or calve, into the sea (there’s a more detailed explanation of MICI in my 2017 article on the Doomsday Glacier).

This is more or less what’s happening right now at a few glaciers in Greenland, including Jakobshaven, the fastest flowing glacier in the world. A few years ago, I flew across the front of Jakobshaven in a helicopter and watched huge chunks of ice calve into the water, creating an army of icebergs that float out into Glacier Bay, where climate-catastrophe tourists take pictures of them and post them to their Instagram accounts.

The calving front at Thwaites is roughly 10 times bigger than Jakobshaven. If Thwaites’ ice shelf breaks up and starts behaving like Jakobshaven, a whole lotta real estate is gonna get wet real fast.

MICI may be a radical idea, but it is not new. It has been around since at least the 1960s, when climate scientist John Mercer first traveled to Antarctica and realized that the land beneath the ice in West Antarctica was shaped like a bowl, which means that if warm water got under the ice and began to destabilize the glacier, it could trigger a runaway retreat that could dump a lot of ice into the Southern Ocean very quickly. Richard Alley took up the idea in the early 2000s, understanding it could be a mechanism to explain why sea levels were so high during the Pliocene era, 3 million years ago, when levels of CO2 in the atmosphere were about the same as they are today. In 2016, DeConto co-authored a paper with Dave Pollard, a climate modeler at Penn State, that modeled the implications of MICI in Antarctica for the first time. The paper added more than three feet to sea level rise projections and scared the bejesus out of climate scientists everywhere.

The MICI hypothesis also prompted the formation of the International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration, a five year-long, $50 million joint research effort between the U.S. and the U.K., which began in 2018 (my trip to Thwaites in 2019 was with scientists participating in this joint research venture). Among the key questions scientists are asking: How much warm water is getting under Thwaites ice shelf? (Quite a bit, according to a new paper by Swedish oceanographer Anna Wåhlin, which is based on measurements she made while we were in Antarctica together.) How quickly is the glacier losing its grip on the bedrock near the current ice front? How quickly is the ice shelf breaking up?

“In the last few years, we have seen a lot of dynamic change at Thwaites and other glaciers in the region,” says Robert Larter, a geophysicist with the British Antarctic Survey who was the chief scientist on the Palmer on my trip to Antarctica. According to one recent study, the net ice-mass loss from Thwaites and nearby glaciers is now more than six times what it was 30 years ago, which Larter calls “mind-boggling.”

None of this research is conclusive, and most of it is still too new in include in climate models. For the moment, MICI remains an outlier idea, one that mainstream climate modelers have yet to fully embrace, despite the risks that civilization faces from it.

“If you want to be generous,” Alley tells me, “You could say that climate modelers really want to make their models carefully, make sure they are calibrated precisely, and they don’t know what to do with MICI.”

It’s also true that there are still a lot of unanswered questions about exactly how MICI works. “Yes, ice cliffs can fail,” says Ted Scambos, the lead U.S. glaciologist in the Thwaites research project. “But is a runaway failure realistic?” And just because ice cliff collapse is happening at Jakobshaven, it doesn’t mean it will necessarily happen at Thwaites. “Jakobshaven is not physically the same as all Antarctic glaciers, nor does their model include all possible physics (e.g. negative feedbacks or other factors that limit the rate and extent of cliff collapse),” Edwards tells me via email. “It’s far too simple to say, ‘Clearly MICI exists so why don’t you believe in it?’ ”

“The reason nobody is rushing off an unstable marine cliff in search of what DeConto and Pollard have done is because nobody thinks there is any good reason to single out MICI and make it the cause of instability in glaciers,” says Gavin Schmidt, a climate modeler and director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York. “Is MICI a large part of why glaciers calve? It’s not inconceivable, but it’s also not inconceivable that it could be other factors.”

Finally, some of the resistance to MICI may simply be a failure of imagination. No human has ever witnessed the rapid collapse of a glacier in Antarctica like Thwaites; ergo, it can’t happen. Alley himself thinks about it simply in terms of risk. “Maybe we’ll get lucky and the ice cliffs won’t disintegrate in Antarctica quite as fast as we predict,” he says. “But if you are even a little bit worried that scientists might have made mistakes in their calculations about what is going on in Antarctica, then maybe we should pay attention to this.” He compares Thwaites and other glaciers in West Antarctica with drunk drivers. “They are out there, they are scary, and they don’t behave as you expect them to,” Alley says. “That’s why it’s a good idea to have a seatbelt in your cars.”

In the end, climate modelers are a little like sci-fi writers. They use facts and physics to spin out possible futures. DeConto’s paper imagines we are moving into a new world that will behave very differently from the world we have lived in so far. Edwards’ paper imagines that the rest of the 21st century will look pretty much like it does today, only hotter, and with a little less ice. Both visions are based in science. Both visions are plausible. And both visions are fraught with deep uncertainty about where we are going.

I hope we live in Edwards’ world, but I fear we live in DeConto’s.

Colombia protesters: We're not scared anymore

By Manuel Rueda
Bogotá, Colombia
BBC
Published18 hours ago
Related Topics
Colombia protests



Anti-government protests in Colombia entered their third week on Wednesday. The demonstrations were sparked by a government proposal to increase taxes as millions of people have seen their incomes shrink due to Covid. But they have continued for days even after the government withdrew its proposed tax plan.

Protest leaders say their demands now go much further and include calls for a basic income scheme, free tuition at public universities and a reform of the police. Forty-two people have been killed during the protests, according to Colombia's human rights ombudsman.

Why Colombia's protests are unlikely to fizzle out

Protesters spoke to the BBC about their reasons for keeping up the demonstrations, which are the largest to sweep through Colombia in decades.

Yacila, political scientist



There is a lot of discontent at the national level and it goes further than the issue of taxes. It's caused by all the injustices that have been taking place during the [Iván] Duque government and during previous governments.

Hundreds of community leaders have been killed since the peace deal with the Farc (the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) was signed in 2016, including indigenous and black leaders.

We have a poster here with the names of almost 300 former Farc fighters who were killed after laying down their weapons. On top of that what we are seeing is that when people come out to protest there is repression, so that just makes us want to continue to mobilise.

I think that these protests should continue until people have satisfied their need to express their frustration with what is happening.

Ramiro Velasco, art teacher



I'm wearing a costume that represents death: it represents the massacres that have been occurring in Colombia under this government, the killings of community leaders in the countryside, deforestation, the growth of poverty and everything else related to death.

At this moment there is a very strong lack of government in this country. The government has no clear plans on how to improve healthcare, it has let the peace deal with the Farc wither. For all those reasons, I'm here. We have to demand that the government do its job because at this moment they are making us an unviable country.

They told us not to go out because we were going to get sick and we were going to die. But these demonstrations are proof that people are not scared anymore. We have to come out and express ourselves.

Liliana Rodríguez, classical singer



I'm showing my support for the protests by coming out here to sing opera. What you see people expressing here is general discontent. It's not just about a tax reform, or reform to the health system, and all the other laws. It's people showing the discontent that they have been feeling for a long time.

Young people are especially frustrated because we study a lot, but we don't have a place to continue our careers afterwards. I used to sing for the choir at the Bogotá Philharmonic but that's just a youth choir. Now there is no choir where I can sing full-time, because in Colombia there are no choirs that pay professionals to sing.

There's no work and things like food are more expensive now, there's government corruption, that's what makes people frustrated. The tax reform was just a fuse. But what is really going on is that we are tired of this bad governance we have.

Ernesto Herrera, leader of the Santa Fé Football Club fan group



We support these protests because we are victims of the state. We've had members killed by the police.

Our youth have lots of needs that are not being met. There are drug addiction problems, economic problems, problems just not being recognised. But we want to get ahead and change things and have a different kind of government.

We don't feel represented by politicians. But we want to sit down with them and show them that from our experience as football fans, we know what young people are going through. We have youth that need basic incomes, access to education, and need access to a decent healthcare system.

Daniela Sánchez, hospital worker



I am a clown, and I do laughing therapy for children in hospital as well as for older people with terminal illnesses.

We decided to participate in these protests because we are fed up with inequality in this country. There are people in the countryside, and in cities, too, who can no longer afford three meals a day, people who have no access to education or to proper healthcare, we have seen that during our work as hospital clowns.

The pandemic exposed the big differences between the rich and the poor in Colombia. It showed how many people have no access to the internet, for example, or how many people lack savings and need to work on the streets to eat.

So I think this has to continue until the government shows remorse for its actions and hopefully it will show people that it is important to vote. We need to make good choices in next year's election.

Miguel Morales, member of the Misak indigenous group



This protest is not just about taxes. We are from the Cauca region, but we have about 200 families that have been here in Bogotá for 10 years because of the violence in our territories.

We think that these protests must continue because the president must realise that his job is not to do what his party wants, or what [his mentor] former President Álvaro Uribe wants, but to carry out the will of the people.

While he doesn't hold real conversations with the people the protests will continue.

We have pulled down statues [of Spanish conquistadors] during the protests. These are symbolic acts of justice. In order for a country to live in peace, the histories of all its inhabitants must be heard.

Wendy Monroy, student at a public university



I was in the second semester of my teaching degree when the pandemic broke out. Classes got suspended for some weeks and then they adjusted things so that we would continue our studies online.

I kept on studying but many of my fellow students dropped out. They dropped out because they had to work to support their families, because their parents didn't have money any more.

So I'm here to ask for things like better healthcare but also to ask for better conditions for students.

At my university, we haven't been able to go back to face-to-face classes yet. At private universities they're already having regular classes again, but that's because they have funds to take bio-security measures, simple things, like providing hand sanitizers, but at my university that hasn't been done.

I believe that there are solutions for this country and we have to fight for that. These are the biggest protests I can remember. It shows that young people are willing to take control of this country and maybe in some years time, things can change.

Scottish Unison members vote to accept NHS pay offer

Unison members demonstrated last year in a bid to be paid more money

Members of Scotland's largest health union have voted to accept a deal that will see most NHS staff receive a 4% pay rise.

Unison said on Wednesday that its members voted "overwhelmingly" for the rise.

The deal has been on the table since the end of March and will be backdated to December, the Scottish government said.

Unison is now calling for the rise to be implemented as soon as possible.

The offer came after a period of negotiation between unions and NHS bosses.


It followed a row in England after Prime Minister Boris Johnson defended plans to give some NHS staff in England a 1% pay rise.


'Above and beyond'


Mr Johnson praised "heroic" health and social care workers but said the rise was as much as the UK government could afford during the "tough times" of the pandemic.


Nurses, paramedics and domestic staff are among those who could receive the boost to their salaries.

GMB union urges members to reject 4% NHS pay rise

Two health workers' unions have accepted the 4% pay offer after ballots
Royal College of Nursing urges members to reject 4% pay offer

Responding to the vote, Unison's head of health Willie Duffy, said the pay rise represented a fair increase for members.

He added: "The fact that 84% of those who took part in the ballot voted in favour of the pay offer shows how much this pay increase means to our members. Scotland's health workers go above and beyond to keep our NHS services running - not just during the pandemic but each and every day - and we're delighted to have secured them a fair pay increase."

The union which represents prison officers who work in the State Hospital at Carstairs - POA Scotland - has also seen its members vote to accept the offer in a ballot.

Assistant General Secretary Phil Fairlie said: "We have a very clear and overwhelmingly supportive response to the pay offer, with 86% of our members voting to accept, from a 70% response rate."

When she announced the offer, former Health Secretary Jeane Freeman said the average pay of a front-line NHS nurse would rise by more than £1,200 a year.

Ms Freeman said the offer - which does not apply to doctors - recognised the "service and dedication" of staff during the pandemic.

It followed the £500 "thank you" payment for all health and social care workers which was announced by First Minister Nicola Sturgeon in November.

However, not all unions were behind the 4% offer.


The GMB union recommended its NHS and Scottish Ambulance Service members vote to reject the offer.

Unison and Unite put the offer to members without recommendation.

And the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) recommended members should reject the Scottish government's deal.

The RCN said Scotland's nurses and healthcare support workers deserved a 12.5% rise for the skill, responsibility and experience they demonstrate every day.

Health workers on Agenda for Change (AfC) pay bands 5-7 are being offered a 4% uplift for 2021-22.

Staff on bands 1-4 who currently earn £24,973 or less would receive a flat rise of £1,009, while staff on the highest bands 8-9 would receive an increase of 2% or less.

Tokyo 2020 President acknowledges anti-Olympics petition

Experts call on Canada to use COVAX doses of AstraZeneca or give them back

OTTAWA — Some health experts are questioning Canada's decision to accept thousands of doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine from a global vaccine-sharing alliance, only to have them sit in freezers in an Ontario warehouse.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

More than 655,000 doses of AstraZeneca, which most provinces have now decided against using first doses, arrived in Canada through the COVAX initiative Thursday.

It is the time vaccines have been delivered to Canada without immediately being distributed to provinces and territories, because Ottawa isn't yet clear who wants them.

Maj.-Gen. Dany Fortin, who is managing vaccine logistics for the federal government, said Thursday the Public Health Agency of Canada is waiting for provinces to put in their orders for those doses before sending them out.

But most provinces have now decided to stop giving AstraZeneca as a first dose and are still mulling whether to give it as second dose or offer to get their second dose using either the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccines.

Dr. Irfan Dhalla, an internal medicine specialist in Toronto, says it is unconscionable to sit on those doses and the choice must be made immediately to use them or send them to countries that will.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 14, 2021.

Mia Rabson, The Canadian Press

What Does Model Minority Mean—And Why Does the Term Cause Harm? Here's What Experts Say

Claire Gillespie 

Psychiatrist Leela R. Magavi, MD, vividly remembers her third-grade teacher asking her to spell "Byzantine" in front of the class. "When I was walking outside to join my friends for recess, she pulled me aside and said, 'I knew you would be able to spell that word,'" Dr. Magavi, who is based in Southern California, tells Health. She also has childhood memories of a friend asking her if her neighbor was Asian, simply because she heard someone playing violin.

© Provided by Health.com Getty / AdobeStock / New York Times Archive / Photo Illustration by Jo Imperio for Health

'Model minority' was supposed to be a compliment when the word was coined.

These are first-hand examples of the model minority myth in action, something that Dr. Magavi says is ubiquitous due to perpetuated stereotypes, media, and familial influence.

What does model minority mean?

Sociologist William Pettersen is credited with popularizing the term "model minority" in a 1966 New York Times Magazine article. It refers to minority groups that have seemingly achieved great success in contemporary Western society, and is typically used to describe Asian Americans, who are perceived to have reached greater educational and financial success than other immigrant groups.

In his piece, titled Success Story, Japanese-American Style, Pettersen cemented an already well-established stereotype of Asians as being obedient and hard-working, versus African Americans, who were fighting against discrimination and inequality.

On the surface, the "model minority" label seems to be a compliment—appreciating and honoring Asian Americans for their achievements. It's also been used as a counterargument for anti-Asian racism. But classifying any racial group as a model minority is actually disguising anti-Asian racism, Xiaobei Chen, PhD, professor and associate chair of the department of sociology and anthropology at Carleton University in Ontario, tells Health. It's also a coverup for a number of other issues, including poverty and labor abuse, she adds.

"The model minority myth reduces Asians to a stereotypical image," Chen tells Health. "It doesn't see them as individuals and groups with cultural, class, and other differences. It also attributes so-called 'success' to culture, and implicitly blames those who are deemed as not successful for not trying hard enough."

RELATED: What to Know About Allyship—And Why It's More Important Than Ever

The impact of the model minority myth on mental health

The negative effects of the model minority stereotype on mental health can be severe. "Model minority stereotypes can lead to debilitating anxiety and perfectionism," Dr. Magavi says. It can also exacerbate feelings of imposter syndrome, a psychological phenomenon where individuals doubt their skills and talents and persistently worry about being exposed.

Imposter syndrome can affect minority groups disproportionately, Dr. Magavi adds. In her practice, she evaluates many Asian Americans who tell her that they feel out of place or undeserving despite their commendable accomplishments, due to social media and distorted communication. "Many people perceive their own performance as subpar regardless of accolades or positive feedback," she explains, adding that model minority stereotypes can also cause demoralization and worsen mood and anxiety symptoms.

Dr. Magavi has evaluated minority children who she believes clearly have attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) but were not provided with any diagnosis or treatment by prior physicians. "The reasons are multifactorial," she says. "Many minority parents and children tend to minimize symptoms. Some minority parents attribute ADHD symptoms solely to laziness and lack of initiative, which tends to be a multi-generational, cultural trend." She adds that some physicians are unaware of their biases and consequently misdiagnose individuals.

RELATED: What Is Xenophobia—And How Does It Affect a Person's Health? Here's What Experts Say

Breaking free of the model minority myth

If you feel like you've been caught in the trap of the model minority stereotype, Dr. Magavi suggests trying to differentiate your own expectations from societal expectations—which often starts with putting pen to paper. "Journaling can simplify this often-difficult activity," she says. "Individuals can combat self-induced feelings of inadequacy and elements of imposter syndrome by routinely making lists of their accomplishments inclusive of small yet significant victories."

For instance, if you're regularly comparing yourself to a colleague, it might help to put together a list of various reasons you're just as qualified as your peer to land yourself a new role or opportunity. Positive affirmations and gratitude letters to yourself could also bolster self-compassion and confidence by helping you appreciate your victories and divert attention away from perceived failures.

"I encourage individuals to own their accomplishments rather than solely inferring that luck or others helped them," Dr. Magavi says. "Visualizing success and imagining victories could alleviate anticipatory anxiety and negate negative feelings. Therapy may help undo negative patterns of thinking and behavior, talking to peers in support groups could help normalize experiences and process feelings, and in some cases antidepressants are required to treat comorbid anxiety and depressive symptoms."

A huge amount of work still needs to be done at a societal level to dispel the model minority myth. For Chen, it's crucial that the model minority is recognized as a stereotype—and one that is harmful. "People need to understand that Asians are individuals," she says.

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Feeling the pressure, Brazil's Bolsonaro rallies his troops
AFP

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has seen happier days: his poll numbers have plunged, his nemesis Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is looming large and the Senate is investigating his chaotic handling of Covid-19.

© EVARISTO SA Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro waves to supporters as he rides a motorcycle leading a caravan of more than 1000 bikers May 9, 2021

What to do?

First: Hop on his trusty blue motorcycle and lead a huge rally of fellow far-right bikers, as he did last Sunday.

Second: Ride in on horseback to fire up a demo of conservative farmers, as he reportedly plans to do Saturday.

That rally's organizers have called for conservative "soldiers" to protest the "craziness" of pandemic stay-at-home measures and Brazil's Supreme Court, which allowed local authorities to impose such policies over Bolsonaro's objections.

© Sergio LIMA People take part in a demonstration to show their support for Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro amid the COVID-19 novel coronavirus disease pandemic, in Brasilia, on May 1, 2021

Third: So-called "Christian Family Freedom Marches" are also planned in some 100 cities this weekend, evoking a similar movement in support of a 1964 coup that installed a 21-year military dictatorship in Brazil -- for which Bolsonaro, a former army captain, is openly nostalgic

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© Brendan Smialowski Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro (R) meets with US President Donald Trump during a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the G20 Summit in Osaka on June 28, 2019

Facing threats on multiple fronts, the man dubbed the "Tropical Trump" has whipped out a familiar script: energize his base with large, polarizing rallies that tend to offend critics as intensely as they rile up die-hard fans.

The question is whether that works as a political strategy, heading into a tough re-election campaign next year.

"He's going through a difficult time. So he's playing to his base," said Debora Messenberg, a sociologist at the University of Brasilia.

"Bolsonaro, like all far-right politicians, needs to keep his core supporters on a war footing. Far-right leaders live for war," she told AFP.

- Pandemic probe -

Bolsonaro looks particularly vulnerable on the pandemic.

The Senate opened an inquiry last month into the government's management of Covid-19, which has claimed 430,000 lives in Brazil, second only to the United States.

Bolsonaro blasted the inquiry Thursday as a "crime," with "good people being investigated by scoundrels."

Broadcast live, the hearings are shining a spotlight on the administration's pandemic policies, which include attacking lockdowns, touting the ineffective drug chloroquine and refusing offers of now badly needed vaccines.

"It's like a parade of people reminding Brazilians why the death toll is so high," said Brian Winter, vice president of the Americas Society/Council of the Americas.

"It hurts him for the 2022 race, because it will remind everybody of the disastrous management and denialism that he engaged in."

Then there is the return of ex-president Lula, who regained the right to run for office when the Supreme Court annulled his corruption convictions in March.

That has set up a potential election showdown in October 2022 between Bolsonaro, 66, and the still-popular 75-year-old leftist (2003-2010).

The latest poll, released Wednesday by respected firm Datafolha, gives Lula 55 percent of the vote to 32 percent for Bolsonaro in a hypothetical runoff.

Worse for the far-right incumbent: his approval rating, long thought to be unshakeable at 30 percent minimum, hit an all-time low of 24 percent.

- Following Trump's lead? -

That is all the more reason for Bolsonaro to rally his base, whose fervor appears to be ebbing somewhat.

"The base still supports him, but they're a bit upset and de-energized for a variety of reasons," said Winter.

Those include the recent firing of ultra-conservative foreign minister Ernesto Araujo and Bolsonaro's pragmatic new alliance with the "Centrao," a powerful group of pork-hungry parties hated by voters keen to "drain the swamp" in Brasilia.

But problematically for Bolsonaro, re-energizing his base also risks further alienating the middle class and business sector, which largely voted for him in 2018 but are increasingly disenchanted.

If all else fails, Bolsonaro appears prepared to take a page from the Donald Trump playbook.

Like the former US president, his political role-model, Bolsonaro has been criticizing the integrity of the upcoming election, attacking Brazil's electronic voting system without evidence.

"He's already made it clear he's going to contest the elections if he loses," said Andre Rehbein Sathler, of news site Congresso em Foco.

"He's clearly following Trump's script."

Bolsonaro is regularly accused of threatening Brazil's democratic institutions.

He often boasts of support from "his army," and hardline backers at every rally urge the military to stage an intervention to give him the power to rule by decree.

jhb/ca

Methane-capturing biogas projects in Canada reach 279, says association report

CALGARY — Thanks to a decade of rapid growth, there are 279 facilities across Canada creating biogas from methane emitted by agricultural waste, landfills, green bin programs and municipal wastewater treatment facilities.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

Those are the findings in a report from the Canadian Biogas Association, which notes that biogas is being used to generate a total of 196 megawatts of electricity and six million gigajoules of renewable natural gas.

The report estimates that Canada is using only 13 per cent of its easily accessible biogas potential, with the biggest untapped resources in the agricultural sector, followed by landfills.

It adds that demand for renewable natural gas is increasing rapidly thanks to climate and clean energy policies at national and provincial levels but that barriers to development include "weak or undefined policy" from various levels of government, along with high capital and operational costs.

The report notes that biofuel projects help fight climate change because they prevent the release of methane, which is 21 times more potent than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas, while creating a new fuel source that can replace carbon intensive energy from conventional fossil fuels.

Various utility, energy handling and oil and gas companies have targeted investments in renewable natural gas as a potential way to offset their carbon emissions as carbon taxes rise and new clean fuel standards are rolled out to aid Canada's target of reaching net-zero emissions by 2050.

"Biogas can deliver reliable and clean energy while reducing Canada's greenhouse gas emissions and driving economic development in both urban and rural areas," said Jennifer Green, executive director of the association.

"Research says that Canada could efficiently tap more than eight times more energy from biogas and RNG; that is the goal that the CBA is dedicated to helping achieve."

According to Natural Resources Canada, hydroelectricity accounts for 59.3 per cent of Canada’s generation. Wind is the second largest renewable electricity provider with 3.5 per cent and biomass is the third largest renewable source of Canada’s electricity generation with 1.4 per cent.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 14, 2021.

The Canadian Press

CANADA

Business, labour groups clash at Senate committee over $15 federal minimum wage

OTTAWA — The head of the country's largest private-sector union says Parliament should raise the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour, and possibly put future increases into the hands of an independent commission.© Provided by The Canadian Press

Unifor president Jerry Dias says an independent commission could be comprised of key stakeholders to research the effects of minimum-wage policy in Canada and tone down the politics involved.


Dias made the comments this morning while appearing before a Senate committee reviewing the government's sweeping budget bill that includes a provision around the minimum wage in federally regulated industries.

If passed, C-30 would raise the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour, or to the provincial rate if it is higher, and peg annual increases to the rate of inflation.

While Dias argues the increase won't have a negative economic or employment impact, a business group appearing alongside him warns otherwise.

The Canadian Federation of Independent Business says small and medium-sized companies may be unable to cover increased payroll costs while revenues remain low, which could result in fewer entry-level hires for young workers, or fewer hours for existing staff.

 BULLSHIT ARGUMENT IN FACT WHY IS THIS SO, BECAUSE THESE BUSINESSES NEVER INCREASE THEIR WAGES ON AN ANNUAL BASIS, MINIMUM WAGE VERY RARELY INCREASES SIGNIFICANTLY WITHOUT GOVERNMENT REGULATIONS

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 14, 2021.

The Canadian Press