Sunday, August 15, 2021

 

U of G to establish Indigenous research lab, unique at a Canadian university

‘I think it’s timely in terms of what we’ve been processing ... as Indigenous communities,' developer says

Drs. Kim Anderson, Brittany Luby and Sheri Longboat lead Nokom’s House research lab at U of G. (Tenille Campbell)

An Indigenous-based research laboratory will be established at the University of Guelph, the educational institution has announced.

Nokom's House research laboratory will be a permanent, Indigenous, land-based and community-engaged space, the university said Thursday in a release, noting it's believed to be the first of its kind at a Canadian university.

U of G associate professors Kim Anderson, Sheri Longboat and Brittany Luby are leading the development, with the guidance of Indigenous community members and elders.

Nokom is abbreviated from nokomis, an Ojibway word for grandmother. Like a grandmother's home, it will be a welcoming, nurturing and safe place to learn, gather, create and take part in ceremony, Anderson told CBC K-W.

"I think that's unique in terms of it's not what we think of as a place and space where university-based research is being conducted.

"So, creating a home space as a lab, I think is unique, and trying to build it in such a way that it replicates Indigenous home spaces, in particular those of Indigenous grandmothers."

[We'll] have a building but the building is fluid with the land in and around it so that people can move fluidly in those spaces between the building and the land surrounding it.- Kim Anderson, University of Guelph

The lab will be situated in a section of U of G's sprawling Arboretum, surrounded by trees and other plants. The Arboretum encompasses about 162 hectares adjacent to the campus, featuring plant collections, gardens, walking trails, natural woodlands, wetlands and meadows. 

Established in 1970, the Arboretum is home to more than 2,000 different taxa of woody plants, in thematic collections such as a synoptic world of trees, native trees of Ontario, and noteworthy collections of oaks, beeches, maples and conifers.

"The intention is for it to be land based … surrounded by trees and so on," Anderson said.

"[We'll] have a building but the building is fluid with the land in and around it so that people can move fluidly in those spaces between the building and the land surrounding it."

Preliminary design workshops were held with members of the local Indigenous community, Elders and Knowledge Keepers. (Skylar Sookpaiboon)

According to the university, Nokom's House will serve as a shared research lab for the three professors and be used by students, as well as communities and individuals with whom they collaborate on various research projects.

All three professors are Indigenous and noted for their research on Indigenous subjects. They expect Nokom's House to serve as a model for welcoming Indigenous ways of knowing, being and doing into post-secondary settings and other sectors of society.

U of G approves $2.4M for Nokom's House

The University of Guelph has approved an overall project budget of $2.4 million for Nokom's House, with the Canada Foundation for Innovation John R. Evans Leaders Fund awarding the project $298,160.

A fundraising campaign is also underway, with $53,250 committed or pledged.

Construction on Nokom's House is expected to begin in 2022. While the design of the building and its surrounding space are in the early development stage, it will have characteristics of a home space or cabin, including a kitchen and a large kitchen table. Other proposed elements include a wood stove, lounge space, consultation room and porch.

Anderson said the lab will also serve as a space where people can gather to heal together, in the wake of several Indigenous communities announcing that hundreds of unmarked graves have been detected at the sites of former residential schools.

"I think it's timely in terms of what we've been processing, certainly as Indigenous communities but, you know, the Canadian population at large, around what we've been learning about the residential schools and the destruction of Indigenous homes, home spaces, kinship and relations," Anderson said.

"It's timely in terms of committing ourselves to rebuilding, and rebuilding in those places where we find ourselves."

This 'is truly powerful'

Longboat, a professor in the School of Environmental Design and Rural Development, agrees it's an important time for such a project.

"We talk about decolonization and Indigenization, about making space or reclaiming space for Indigenous Peoples within the academy," said Longboat, whose community-engaged applied research aims to bridge First Nations communities, government and industry partners to support self-determined Indigenous planning and development.

"It is such an important time for us to be doing this, given the political climate and increasing social awareness around the atrocities of Indian residential schools. 

"An Indigenous research lab led by Indigenous women to make or reclaim space in the academy is truly powerful. This could contribute to great change," added Longboat, a Haudenosaunee Mohawk and band member of the Six Nations of the Grand River.

The proposed site of Nokom’s House research lab at U of G’s Arboretum. (Amina Lalor)

Luby, whose paternal ancestors originate from Niisaachewan Anishinaabe Nation, is a professor in the department of history. Her research expertise includes Anishinaabe family responses to settler encroachment with a special focus on water infrastructure, an expertise that has led her to the study of Anishinaabe aquaculture, particularly manomin (wild rice) stewardship.

When teaching Anishinaabe environmental philosophy, Luby talks tells students about the importance of building relationships — from getting to know plants by name, to recognizing plant needs and responding to them appropriately.

"It doesn't quite resonate when you're in a brick building and looking at a PowerPoint screen," she said.

"I see Nokom's House as providing us with an opportunity to reconnect with land as a teacher and to enliven Indigenous pedagogy at the University of Guelph."

Arboretum director Justine Richardson has worked with the research team to help select a site.

She said the Arboretum's long-term ecological restoration efforts and work to conserve the biodiversity of native Ontario trees for future generations align well with Indigenous approaches to research and the Nokom's House team.

"As a green space and land-based hub for research, teaching and community engagement right beside campus, we are committed to walking step-by-step with Indigenous colleagues, researchers' students and partners toward learning truth, seeking reconciliation and braiding knowledges," Richardson said.

 

Some Alberta businesses struggle to find workers, cite lack of applicants in survey

Other hurdles include competition from other employers, candidates lacking qualifications

Some businesses are having a tough time finding and hanging on to qualified workers. (Laura Meader/CBC)

Jordan Sorrenti says Paddy's Barbecue & Brewery, his southeast Calgary business, was booming before COVID-19 hit.

Now that many restrictions have been lifted, customers are flocking back — but staff are not, and those who have come to work aren't sticking around.

"One fellow just gave his notice over the weekend," Sorrenti told CBC News.

"Thank god he gave me two weeks. But he's going to work in manufacturing, so he's getting right out of food service after 15 years."

Some employees in the service industry are afraid of another shutdown if they return to work, Sorrenti said, so for now, they are finding and relying on other options.

Jordan Sorrenti said Paddy's Barbecue & Brewery, his business just off Macleod Trail in Calgary, was booming before the pandemic hit. (Google Earth)

And according to a recent survey conducted by the Business Council of Alberta, Sorrenti's experience is likely not specific to the hospitality sector.

"About half of those businesses are telling us that they're having at least a moderate or significant difficulty in finding workers," Mike Holden, the vice-president of policy and chief economist for the Business Council of Alberta, told the Calgary Eyeopener on Friday.

Holden said employers throughout Alberta — in sectors such as technology, agriculture, energy services and hospitality tourism — are reporting barriers in hiring qualified staff. It's everyone from tradespeople to senior-level positions.

"Those industries are having a particularly hard time," Holden said. "But it really is across the board and across the province."

Lack of applicants a top hiring barrier among respondents

The survey received responses from 487 businesses of varying sizes across the province, and was conducted from June 24 to July 9.

It was distributed through the Business Council of Alberta, Alberta Chambers of Commerce and Chartered Professionals in Human Resources of Alberta, and designed with the Government of Alberta.

It aimed to help understand the experiences of Alberta businesses in relation to their hiring needs.

Additionally, it sought to identify any hiring challenges businesses are currently experiencing.

A lack of applicants was identified among respondents as the largest recruitment barrier, followed by a lack of technical skills and competition from other employers. (The Strategic Council)

Twenty per cent of respondents identified a lack of applicants as their largest barrier for recruitment — strange, Holden said, for a province with a relatively high July unemployment rate of 8.5 per cent.

Competition from other employers, and a lack of technical skills or qualifications in prospective hires, tied with 14 per cent each.

"A skills-mismatch is an issue that could be contributing to this problem," Holden said.

"So, the kinds of skills that employers are looking for today aren't necessarily the ones that other applicants have."

A bigger impact

Vince O'Gorman, the CEO of the Calgary-based tech company Vog App Developers, said the tech company is experiencing a labour shortage that is related, in part, to a lack of skills.

It's not an Alberta-specific issue for his industry, he said — but it is one that could be worsened by the pandemic.

Calgary-based Vog App Developers would like to hire as many as 50 people over the next six months or so, CEO Vince O'Gorman says. (Vog/Facebook)

"It's labour shortages everywhere for skilled developers, and in finding that developer that meets the criteria of what that company is looking for," O'Gorman said.

"People that are going to post-secondary to learn, they had to do … remote learning, which probably impacted them a little bit on their knowledge, as well as the gap in what they were receiving versus going into the universities.

"I think we're going to, I guess, see a bigger impact in the next two years."

The pandemic

The pandemic is likely also playing a role in other ways, Holden said.

Some businesses are trying to bring people back to work who might want to stay remote, while some families could be struggling to access child care.

Others might be re-evaluating their careers entirely.

"I think that because of the pandemic, there's a whole range of issues that are all contributing to this, where labour markets are really in turmoil," Holden said.

"Part of it is, you know, whether people want to continue on the career track that they're on right now. They've had, maybe, some time to think about it during COVID and decide that maybe they want to try a new path."

Companies considering perks

As a result of the hiring shortage, 65 per cent of businesses who responded to the survey said they planned to provide flexible work hours or arrangements to attract talent.

Meanwhile, 33 per cent of respondents said they are planning on increasing wages to hire more people, and 24 per cent said they would expand benefits.

But O'Gorman said companies are also having to showcase what they have to offer beyond salaries.

"You have got to sell the culture, you got to sell what they're going to be doing in the future, the growth opportunities," O'Gorman said.

Forty-four per cent of respondents said they would be offering more skills training — and Holden said this piece is critical.

"I think that what needs to change and what we need to really work on is making sure … that businesses have access to people who have the skills that they're looking for," Holden said.

"Retraining and making sure that people are aware of the opportunities that are out there, and are able to easily and inexpensively access the skills training that they need to be able to get to these jobs."

O'Gorman agreed.

"If the workers don't exist out there, make them yourself," he said.


With files from Andrew Brown, Elissa Carpenter and the Calgary Eyeopener.

Owen Sound Green Hydrogen Company Gets Grant From Gas Industry

Owen Sound Green Hydrogen Company Gets Grant From Gas Industry

Image from Company Website


Owen Sound based company Hydrogen Optimized has received a grant from Canada’s natural gas industry association to advance large-scale green hydrogen technology.

The $300,000 grant from the Natural Gas Innovation Fund (NGIF) is intended to support a $900,000 project to demonstrate the company’s patented RuggedCell water electrolyser in large-scale Green Hydrogen production under solar panel, simulated wind turbine and intermittent electrical grid conditions.

Hydrogen Optimized President and CEO Andrew T.B. Stuart says in a statment, “The funding will help us obtain critical data on the performance of RuggedCell electrolysers in conjunction with unstable renewable electricity sources and, ultimately, to achieve our goal of driving down the cost of producing Green Hydrogen at scale. It will also help us support the work of Canada’s natural gas industry to reduce the carbon emissions intensity of natural gas.” 

John Adams, President and CEO of NGIF Capital Corporation says, “Next-generation hydrogen technologies including Hydrogen Optimized’s high-current water electrolyser can enable the production of hydrogen that can be blended with natural gas and ultimately lower its emissions profile.”

A release adds, green hydrogen when reacted with CO2, can produce renewable natural gas (RNG) through the methanation process.

Hydrogen Optimized’s production systems are targeted to major industrial, chemical, utility and energy end users.

NGIF Industry Grants fund startups developing solutions to environmental and other challenges facing Canada’s natural gas sector.

Orna Mulcahy: Time for more wooly thinking on sustainability

As fashion houses race to produce lab-grown, sustainable fabrics, Irish wool is forgotten




Wool is plentiful, renewable, beautiful to wear and breathable, but it’s almost extinct as a fashion fabric in Ireland. Photograph: iStock

 

Fashion houses are in a race to produce a whole new wardrobe of lab-grown fabrics to help clothe the world more sustainably, from handbags made from mushroom fibre to sneakers spun from pineapple skins. It sounds exciting but it’s not fooling Greta Thunberg.

This week, the climate activist used a Vogue cover photograph of herself to hammer fast-fashion producers, accusing them of misleading consumers with feel-good labelling while continuing to harm the planet.

In an Instagram post highlighting the cover, Thunberg said: “Many are making it look as if the fashion industry are starting to take responsibility, by spending fantasy amounts on campaigns where they portray themselves as ‘ethical’, ‘green’, ‘climate neutral’ and ‘fair’. But let’s be clear: this is almost never anything but pure greenwashing. You cannot mass-produce fashion or consume ‘sustainably’ as the world is shaped today.”

Shoppers are seeking out brands that claim to do better and there has been a corresponding rise in labels promising planet-friendly alternatives to mainstream fashion

Thunberg appears on the cover of Vogue Scandinavia’s inaugural issue, wrapped in the folds of a dusty rose trench coat. Inside, she reveals that she hasn’t bought a new item of clothing for three years and even that was second-hand. Hardly music to the ears of Vogue advertisers who are coming under increased consumer scrutiny for their role in the climate crisis.

A recent report from consulting firm McKinsey entitled Fashion on Climate, shows that the fashion and textiles sector was responsible for a colossal level of greenhouse gas emissions in 2018 – 2.1 metric tons, about four per cent of the global total and more than the output of Germany, France and the UK combined. To reach targets set in the Paris Agreement the industry would need to cut its emissions by almost half by 2030 but it hasn’t a hope.     

In fact, McKinsey estimates the industry’s greenhouse gas emission levels will likely rise to about 2.7 billion tons instead. Meanwhile, the United Nations has issued a Fashion Charter for Climate Action, exhorting fashion houses and textile producers to urgently commit to cutting carbon emissions.

Shoppers are taking note and seeking out brands that claim to do better and there has been a corresponding rise in labels promising planet-friendly alternatives to mainstream fashion. Over the past five years the number of labels describing themselves as sustainable has more than quadrupled among online retailers in the United States and UK, according to a report in the Financial Times.

How can one tell if they are genuine? The website goodonyou.eco is a useful resource with information on more than 2,000 brands and interesting content such as “Eight Ethical Alternatives to Primark” and “How Ethical is COS”? (Not very, but it is trying.)

High street outlets such as M&S and H&M are using more organic and recycled, and even vintage, fabrics while the major fashion conglomerates are investing heavily in alternative fabrics in an effort to move away from resource-heavy production fabrics such as cotton and silk.

Eco-clothing pioneer Patagonia is coming up with even more exotic and unusual fabrics for its outdoor wear. Years ago I felt quite the warrior buying one of its fleece jackets made from recycled plastic bottles. That’s old-hat now with ingredients such as dried coffee grounds and squid suckers being fashioned into fabric.

Just as one day we may snack on insects instead of crisps, so could we be wearing tracksuit bottoms spun from seaweed, underwear made from, who knows, recycled Amazon cartons, and shoes magicked up from vats of apple skins and cores.

Once it’s been produced, polyester keeps on polluting, but it is cheap and fast-fashion brands continue to pump it out

But even as Hermes toils away on a new “leather” made from agriculture waste (unspecified) and H&M experiments with a “silk” created from spent orange skins, the predominate fabric being spun across the industry is polyester

Where once the very word would have sent shivers down a fashionista’s spine, evoking visions of Hyacinth Bucket in one of her pleated frocks, today the synthetic fabric is everywhere, accounting for just more than half of all textile production.

Hundreds of millions of barrels of oil are used each year to manufacture the stuff and efforts to recycle it have not reached any scale. Once it’s been produced, polyester keeps on polluting as, during washing, it sheds micro plastic particles that make their way into the ocean. But it is cheap, and fast-fashion brands continue to pump it out with abandon.

Meanwhile, prices for a vastly superior, natural and easily renewable fabric continue to plummet. Irish wool has a part to play in slow fashion but it would take a monumental effort on the part of the Government, producers and consumers to make it happen.

The world is hungry for wool, but the lighter, finer varieties grown in Australia and New Zealand are more prized, while the fleece of Ireland’s three million sheep, according to The Irish Times fashion editor Deirdre McQuillan in a recent article, “is considered waste and worthless because farmers breed sheep for meat and not for wool”. Irish wool is now valued at an average price of 20 cent per kg, according to Teagasc, down from about 70 pence per lb in the 1980s.

Wool is plentiful, renewable, beautiful to wear and breathable, but it’s almost extinct as a fashion fabric in Ireland

Some years ago Prince Charles, despairing of the low price of British wool, encouraged fashion leaders and farmers to do something about it. The Campaign for Wool was launched with elaborate PR stunts such as grassing over Savile Row and letting a flock of Merino sheep loose on it, and burying two garments, one wool and one polyester, in the ground for six months to see what would happen. HRH himself buried the garments, using a silver shovel

A half-year later when they were exhumed, according to Vogue director Nicholas Coleridge, “the wool jersey had all but disappeared with a few fat worms digesting the final strands.” The synthetic one was intact. “You could have put it through the washing machine and worn it again.”

The thought that the ground beneath our feet is filled with Penneys polyester that will live forever is depressing. Wool, by contrast, is plentiful, renewable, beautiful to wear, and breathable so it doesn’t need frequent washing. But it’s almost extinct as a fashion fabric in Ireland.

I’m not suggesting a return to the time of báinín costumes and hairy jumpers that would rarely get a wash, but it would be good to see a well-funded campaign to promote Irish wool. Green Party Minister of State Pippa Hackett, who is a sheep farmer, will shortly report to Government on the findings of a group set up to consider alternative uses for our fleeces. Let’s hope there’s some innovative ideas we can all wear.


Were the Olympics sustainable? Reports of waste suggest it's not easy being green



Apartment blocks in the Olympic Village provided the living quarters for athletes from around the world. The next challenge will be to see that none of the furnishings go to waste. | KYODO


BY PHILIP BRASOR
CONTRIBUTING WRITER
Aug 14, 2021


A July 28 article in the Tokyo Shimbun reported that some 13,000 new air conditioning units had been installed in rooms built for the Olympic Village. Once the Paralympics are finished, these rooms will be remodeled for sale as condominiums and the air conditioners removed, along with 5,000 toilets and 4,000 water heaters.

According to the organizing committee, they will be returned to the company from which they were procured, presumably to be reused in new construction. However, a representative of the second-hand sales industry said that used air conditioners are notoriously difficult to redistribute due to storage and installation issues, and most usually end up being thrown away.

It’s too early for Tokyo Shimbun to follow up on this story, but it contrasts sharply with a March 25, 2019, article in the Asahi Shimbun, an Olympic sponsor, which reported that, following their use during the Olympics and Paralympics, the air conditioners would be given free to schools and various public welfare facilities. The article also said that when the organizing committee accepted bids for the air conditioners, one condition was that the sales agent had to secure places that would take the units afterward and report to the committee about where they ended up, thus complying with the International Olympic Committee’s pledge to make the Games as sustainable as possible.

Tokyo Shimbun, which is not an official sponsor, didn’t say anything about these conditions, so the part about the air conditioning units possibly being discarded sounds like something that should be studied further.

The Olympics waste story that has attracted the most attention, however, was the July 24 Tokyo Broadcasting System (TBS) scoop about food being thrown away. Approximately 4,000 of the 10,000 boxed meals supplied for the opening ceremony had to be trashed because the staff and volunteers they were meant for either didn’t have time to eat them or left earlier than expected. The organizing committee apologized for its incorrect estimate.

A related problem seems to be that contracts made with food vendors were not revised after the spectator ban was announced in May, so it is likely there has been a lot more food waste than that reported by TBS.

In an article for Yahoo! News, journalist Rumi Ide, who has written extensively about food waste, expanded on the TBS report, saying she had interviewed people close to the matter. She starts off by saying that the Cabinet office in charge of the Olympics admitted that a great deal of food was thrown out, but expressed little interest in finding out the reason. In May, the organizing committee was asked about the problem of food supply after the spectator ban announcement, and the committee answered that it would cancel orders for food “that can be canceled.”

However, when Ide communicated with a source close to the situation, she was told that there had been no change in the number of meals ordered after the ban was announced and that when arrangements are made for prepared food in such large amounts for big events, the idea that a certain number will be trashed is factored in.

The implication is that once an order is placed it is very difficult to change. Also, there is a lot of money involved. Food suppliers have lost tens of millions of yen due to the pandemic, so the Olympic contracts meant a lot to those lucky enough to win them. Some food company representatives complained to Ide about the government’s response, saying that had they decided against spectators much earlier, these companies might have been able to change their orders, but as it stands they will lose even more money. For one thing, they have to buy ingredients well beforehand and if they don’t use those ingredients right away, they have to be thrown out because they can’t be stored indefinitely.

Given the changing shape of the pandemic and the large number of companies and organizations involved, Olympic food waste was inevitable, but it appears there was no alternative plan to deal with the excessive food supply. An Olympics-related working group was formulated in 2016 to address sustainability matters, and Ide wonders what the group was discussing for the past five years.

A representative of the Japan Food Bank Association told Tokyo Shimbun that food loss is an international problem but that Japan in particular seems to “lack awareness,” though Tokyo Shimbun pointed out that Twitter was filled with comments about how the uneaten food for the Olympics should have been redistributed to needy people who have been struggling through the pandemic. Reportedly, the discarded box lunches packed for the opening ceremony were turned into livestock feed and biogas. The fact that there were no alternative plans in place indicates how little real thought was put into sustainability.

Since the 1990s, the IOC has made sustainability a pillar of the so-called Olympic legacy, meaning the longer-term impact the Games have on both the host city and the world. That means not only making sure the Games themselves don’t harm the environment, but that they lead to permanent changes that have a positive effect.

One of the IOC’s conditions is that eggs supplied to the Games must not come from battery farms, where hens are kept in small cages their entire lives. The purpose is to instill a lasting awareness of animal welfare.

Last week, however, former Farm Minister Takamori Yoshikawa went on trial for allegedly taking bribes from a large egg supplier for his help in quashing animal welfare laws that would restrict the use of battery cages. Most media haven’t made the connection between Yoshikawa’s situation and the Olympics because they’ve always seen the Tokyo Games in a narrow way — as a means for Japan to show off to the world, but only for two weeks.

For rightwing culture warriors, to shed light on past conflict is to insult our history

David Olusoga

Nothing more to say on the statue wars? Events in Newcastle suggest otherwise…

The Boer war memorial in Newcastle: ‘This is not really about the young soldiers of 1900.’ Photograph: Wilf Doyle/Alamy

Sun 15 Aug 2021 08.30 BST


The problem with dishonesty is that you have to remember your most recent falsehoods to at least try to keep your story straight. In their pantomime “war against woke”, the UK’s statue defenders are incapable of remembering what they said just 12 months ago.

Last summer, when the statue of Edward Colston was toppled, those who howled in protest claimed that they were not seeking to defend the reputation of a slave trader – a man complicit in the deaths of 19,000 Africans – but were merely opposed to the destructive way in which the statue had been removed. Toppling statues, or even removing them from public display peacefully, they lectured, entailed “erasing history”.

The answer, they and the government argued, was to leave statues and monuments in place but add contextual details that made visible aspects of the past about which statues had previously been mute. This strategy – “retain and explain” – could be best achieved by attaching plaques to the pedestals on which monuments stand.
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Fast forward to 2021 and the same people seem to have forgotten that this was ever their position.

With no statue toppled since Colston’s pavement dive, the statue-philes have been forced to make the most of slim pickings. Hence the hysterical reaction to an audit of statues and monuments conducted by Newcastle city council. The council’s report found that Newcastle has no monuments with direct links to slavery and with no Colston or Cecil Rhodes to worry about, it makes only modest suggestions. These include making changes to a city centre monument to 370 men from north-east regiments who died in the Anglo-Boer war of 1899-1902.

Topped with a statue of Nike, the winged Greek goddess of victory, the Boer war monument has plaques at its base that list the names of men from the region who died in South Africa 120 years ago. In a statement, the council explained that its aim is to “widen public interpretation of the South African war memorial” by installing “two information panels, one to interpret the statute and the other to shed light on its local connections in the city”.

To those whose abilities of recall stretch all the way back to 2020, the council’s proposals sound very much like “retain and explain” and there is not much here to get excited about. No statues are to be removed, never mind toppled. No one is taking the knee or trying to explain how structural racism works. Marcus Rashford is not involved and the Duchess of Sussex has not chosen to fly to Newcastle and wastefully hurl avocados at the monument.

Yet in culture war Britain, even the non-story of Newcastle’s statue audit is enough to pull the hair-trigger of the anger-industrial complex. Just a few years ago, before politicians and newspapers had mastered the art of using half-forgotten colonial conflicts to whip up anger and division, a report by a heritage committee, set up by the local council of a northern city, would have struggled to win space on the pages of even the local papers. Yet with wearying predictability, the council’s proposal to provide additional historical information became national news and was caricatured as “cancelling history”.

Meanwhile, the manifest and indisputable fact that the Anglo-Boer war was, as the council called it, a “colonialist enterprise” was deliberately presented as a libel rather than a statement of fact. With similarly tedious inevitability, the report was mischaracterised as “virtue signalling” and “erasing our history”, an especially trite phrase – even in this strong field – given that all wars other than civil wars, by their nature, generate histories that are never solely “ours”.
Many people at the time regarded the conflict as a grubby war of aggression

One military historian who must have missed the “retain and explain” memo concluded that the council’s proposals had been arrived at because the monument “no longer suits the current cultural zeitgeist”. It is this threadbare, non-argument that best reveals the deep dishonesty of the pro-statue lobby.

Their repeated claim in defence of statues to mass murderers and memorials to colonial wars is that, guided by the “standards of the time”, our ancestors universally regarded empire as uncontroversial, naturally excused the violence that underwrote it and always celebrated its builders and defenders as heroes. None of that is true, particularly when it comes to the Anglo-Boer war.

Many people at the time regarded the conflict as a grubby war of aggression, motivated by British ambitions to seize the gold and diamond reserves of southern Africa. Others worried, with good reason, that the war was fuelling anti-British sentiment across the world. Indeed, volunteers from numerous nations travelled to the war zone and joined the Boers’ ranks against the British.

The scorched earth policy adopted by the British in the final phase of the conflict, which entailed the imprisoning of Boer civilians in concentration camps, as they were named and described at the time, led to the deaths of around 30,000 Boer women and children. When made public, the horrors of the camps strengthened a significant anti-war movement in Britain and appalled even ardent supporters of the empire. The deaths in other British camps of around 20,000 black Africans were scarcely commented upon, by either side, in this “white man’s war”.

The statue obsessives claim to be defending the soldiers whom the Newcastle monument remembers, yet they cannot explain how pretending that the conflict in which they fell was glorious honours their memory.

But then this is not really about the young soldiers of 1900. It is about the ageing culture warriors of 2021, people so opposed to honestly examining our imperial past that they misrepresent even the most modest acts of reassessment. Like Dorian Gray, they are so fearful of uncomfortable truths that they seek to lock away history’s mirror.

The irony here is that the history that Newcastle city council aims to empower the people of my home town to better understand contains exactly the sorts of harsh realities and ugly complexities that, if properly discussed, could help awaken us from our colonial dreamtimes.

David Olusoga is a historian and broadcaster

480-Million-Year-Old Spores of Early Land Plants Found in Australia

Aug 13, 2021 by News Staff / Source

Until now, the first fossil evidence of land plants was from the Devonian period (420 million years ago). However, molecular evidence suggests an earlier origin in the Cambrian period. In a new paper in the journal Science, paleontologists described an assemblage of spore-like microfossils from Early Ordivician (480 million years ago) deposits in Australia; these spores are of intermediate morphology between confirmed land plant spores and earlier forms of uncertain relationship



Fossilized spores from the Early Ordivician deposits of Australia. Image credit: Strother & Foster, doi 10.1126/science.abj2927

“These spore-like microfossils fill in a gap of approximately 25 million years in the fossil spore record, linking well-accepted younger plant spores to older more problematic forms,” said Dr. Paul Strother, a paleobotanist in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Boston College.

Dr. Strother and his colleague, Dr. Clinton Foster from the Research School of Earth Sciences at the Australian National University, examined populations of fossil spores extracted from a rock core drilled in 1958 in northern Western Australia.

“We found a mix of fossils linking older, more problematic spore-like microfossils with younger spores that are clearly derived from land plants,” Dr. Strother said.

“This helps to bring the fossil spore record into alignment with molecular clock dates if we consider the origin of land plants as a long-term process involving the evolution of embryonic development.”

“The fossil record preserves direct evidence of the evolutionary assembly of the plant regulatory and developmental genome.”

“This process starts with the evolution of the plant spore and leads to the origin of plant tissues, organs, and eventually macroscopic, complete plants — perhaps somewhat akin to mosses living today.”

“When we consider spores as an important component of the evolution of land plants, there is no longer a gap in the fossil record between molecular dating and fossil recovery.”

“Absent that gap, we have a much clearer picture of a whole new evolutionary step: from simple cellularity to complex multicellularity.”

“As a result, researchers and the public may need to re-think how they view the origin of terrestrial plants — that pivotal advance of life from water to land.”

“We need to move away from thinking of the origin of land plants as a singularity in time, and instead integrate the fossil record into an evo-devo model of genome assembly across millions of years during the Paleozoic Era, specifically between the Cambrian and Devonian divisions within that era,” he said.

“This requires serious re-interpretation of problematic fossils that have previously been interpreted as fungi, not plants.”

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Paul K. Strother & Clinton Foster. 2021. A fossil record of land plant origins from charophyte algae. Science 373 (6556): 792-796; doi: 10.1126/science.abj2927