Wednesday, July 28, 2021

Militaries plunder science fiction for technology ideas, but turn a blind eye to the genre's social commentary

Military planning is a complicated endeavor, calling upon experts in logistics and infrastructure to predict resource availability and technological advancements. Long-range military planning, deciding what to invest in now to prepare armed forces for the world in thirty years' time, is even more difficult.

One of the most interesting tools for thinking about future defense technology isn't big data forecasting and the use of synthetic training environments, but narrative and imagination. And we get this from science fiction.

That might sound fanciful, but many militaries are already engaging with the genre. The U.S. military and the French army use science fiction writers to generate future threat scenarios. The Australian Defense College advocates for the reading of science fiction and, in Germany, Project Cassandra uses novels to predict the world's next conflict. The Sigma Forum, a science fiction think tank, has been offering forecasting services to U.S. officials for years.

But while science fiction provides military planners with a tantalizing glimpse of future weaponry, from exoskeletons to mind-machine interfaces, the genre is always about more than flashy new gadgets. It's about anticipating the unforeseen ways in which these technologies could affect humans and society—and this extra context is often overlooked by the officials deciding which technologies to invest in for future conflicts.

Imagined worlds

Like my colleague David Seed, who has studied how fiction impacts on real-life threat assumptions about nuclear terrorism, I'm interested in how science fiction informs our sense of the future. This has given me the opportunity to work with members of the armed forces, using science fiction to query assumptions and generate novel visions of the future.

But the relationship between military planners and science fiction is a troubled one. Despite increasing calls for "cognitive diversity" and new ways of thinking in government and the armed forces, the genre faces a significant image problem.

People tend to associate science fiction solely with aliens and space travel—its more fantastic elements—which is seemingly removed from the supposedly proper business of planning and strategy. As a result, even open-minded planners who identify science fiction as a source of inspiration, especially for novel technologies, invariably keep it at arm's length.

So when I read a recent report on the strategic implications of "human augmentation", published by defense planners from the UK and German militaries, I was intrigued. Human augmentation—like enhanced sensory perception and personalized medicine—is a big thing in defense circles, which see the technologisation of the human body as a key arms race this century.

If you think this all sounds like science fiction, you'd be right. The subgenre of cyberpunk (think William Gibson and Pat Cadigan, as well as games such as the Deus Ex series) is perhaps the acme of human augmentation fiction: cyborgs with enhanced vision; warriors with bionic arms and razor claws; "console cowboys" infiltrating the data fortresses of big businesses in cyberspace.

For super-soldiers striding on the battlefield in powered armor, look no further than Robert Heinlein's Starship Troopers, Joe Haldeman's The Forever War, or John Scalzi's Old Man's War. The genetic hybridisation of enhanced soldiers features extensively in texts such as James Cameron's serial Dark Angel and, more recently, in Adrian Tchaikovsky's Dogs of War.

Fiction to fact

Yet these texts don't really make it into the military planning report. There's a reference to "science fiction inspired suits" and technologies that "make possible what used to be science fiction," but otherwise the genre is absent. Like many military planners, the report's authors seem to want to define these technologies against science fiction, emphasizing that the genre is fiction, while human augmentation technologies are fact.

But in sidelining science fiction, something is lost. In contrast to readers who might bemoan any mention of science fiction in military reports, I would assert that such reports aren't nearly science fictional enough.

The genre might be commonly associated with technology, but even then it's not about technology per se, but about the contexts, uses and effects of new technologies on humans. Science fiction author Frederick Pohl said it well: "A good science fiction story should be able to predict not the automobile but the traffic jam." Science fiction is always about the second- and third-order effects of a technology—effects military planners may not anticipate.

That's the true value of science fiction for those concerned with the future. Technologies aren't neutral, but operate within a discourse set by the stories that are told about them. This affects their development and possible applications (and mis-applications).

When military reports speak of perceiving the human as a platform to optimize with new technologies, alarm bells go off for science fiction scholars. When augmentation has been imagined in fictional worlds, it's often associated with profound new inequalities and conflicts.

Facing change creatively

According to military planners, augmentation is no longer just about "supersoldiers," but also "supercivilians." If augmentations might need to protect an entire population from biotechnological threats, how are we to explore the ethics of this? How are societies to navigate the emergence of "bring your own enhancement" technologies in the workplace? What black markets might come about to perform such augmentations on the cheap?

Science fiction doesn't have all of the answers to these questions, but it does provide us with a space to examine them—an imaginative experiment where audiences can consider dramatic situations that expose the dangers and benefits of technological interventions.

Military planners are right to foreground these issues now. But they should also consider science fiction as more than just a fictional background to "real-life" debates. Science fiction can help in what the planning report calls "making sense of these potential changes to human capabilities," pointing not only to the automobile, but to the traffic, the fumes and the crashes too.

Study finds boys' dislike for reading fiction is actually fiction

Provided by The Conversation

How scientists and communities can build partnerships to deal with floods: Learning from Indonesia

by Erich Wolff, Diego Ramírez-Lovering, The Conversation

Millions of people in Indonesia, a vast low-lying archipelago in Southeast Asia with the second-longest coastline in the world, live in flood-prone river and coastal areas. Floods and storms are the most common type of disaster affecting Indonesian cities, according to a UN report.

Current attempts to manage these disasters rely heavily on investing in flood walls and canals. These measures seem to be insufficient, as the disasters continue every year, hurting the economy.

Our latest research shows citizen science can contribute to finding solutions by helping scientists understand the impacts of floods.

Citizen science is a way for communities to collaborate with researchers. This approach has been gaining traction in fields such as ecology, environmental planning and hydrology.

Engaging with community

After reviewing 40 publications from the past five years, we found scientists have been increasingly interested in involving communities in flood studies.

In Australia, for example, scientists analyzed photos posted on social media during the 2010 Queensland floods to map water levels. Similarly, scientists in Argentina used community measurements from the 2014 Buenos Aires floods to model the local hydrology.

Most of these projects, however, only involve citizens as data collectors. They offer limited opportunities for scientists to work closely with, and learn from, communities.

Some examples show communities can participate more directly as interpreters and central stakeholders in the process of understanding, managing and responding to floods.

In Indonesia, for example, the PetaBencana project is a phone application that allows citizens to contribute to flood studies by sharing information about water levels. This information is available to other users and can inform emergency services and government activities.

This example shows the application of citizen science to study floods, beyond collecting data, can help risk communication and involve these communities in technical discussions.

Learning from Makassar

In Makassar, South Sulawesi, Indonesia, we partnered with community members to collect photos of floods throughout the past two years.

This citizen science project was developed as part of the Revitalizing Informal Settlements and their Environments (RISE) program. The program is testing innovative infrastructure systems in 12 settlements in Makassar and 12 settlements in Fiji.

The designers in RISE soon realized that understanding floods in particular sites was essential to ensure the infrastructure would work well.

Partnering with volunteers from six settlements in Makassar, RISE has documented floods throughout the rainy seasons of 2018, 2019 and 2020.

So far, it has received more than 2,800 photos from local communities in Makassar. These images have allowed scientists to better understand floods and design more resilient infrastructure.

The experiences of RISE and other citizen science initiatives indicate that this kind of project can positively transform the relationship between scientists and communities.

Beyond supporting data collection, citizen science allows researchers to work more directly with communities while creating opportunities for science to connect with local knowledge and adaptation strategies.

It is important to highlight that communities should not be held responsible for managing floods alone. Citizen science is not a substitute but a complement to evidence-based policy and infrastructure planning.

Local wisdom

On the peripheries of the largest Indonesian cities, the residents of kampungs and informal settlements close to canals and rivers rely on local wisdom to coexist with floods.

Our research shows the residents of kampungs in Makassar often work with neighbors to protect valuable assets or to evacuate the elderly and the children.

They have also developed important strategies to protect their houses, such as using sandbags and building on stilts.

How can scientists learn from them?

Access to the internet and social media has shown people can collect information about floods, but the example from the RISE program shows how this can be done by connecting scientists and local communities.

The long-term effects of the project are still being studied, but participants have told us RISE's citizen science project helped them better understand floods in their neighborhoods. It also provided a platform for them to share experiences and knowledge.

While we are still learning how scientists can work with communities, the lessons from the RISE program show citizen science can be a powerful ally in building resilience and supporting local knowledge and agency in Indonesian cities.

Explore further

Brazilian communities fight floods together – with memories and an app

Provided by The Conversation

Death toll from Henan floods rises to 71 as China braces for more rain

Flowers were laid in front of a subway station in in Zhengzhou, China in memory of flood victims.

The death toll from floods in central China's Henan province rose to 71 on Tuesday as a tribute at a subway where 14 people died was sealed off in a sign of sensitivity to public criticism of the government's handling of the disaster.

Torrential downpours dumped a year's rain in just three days last week on the hardest-hit city of Zhengzhou, flooding subway cars and trapping more than 500 commuters during rush hour last Tuesday.

Images of passengers inundated by shoulder-height water went viral on Chinese social media.

The city government announced on Tuesday the names of those who perished in the subway, a rare attempt at transparency after people started leaving flowers at the entrance to the station.

"Extreme rains caused severe water logging in parts of subway line 5, and the retaining walls that protected the subway lines crumbled," the government statement said.

Subway guards eventually blocked access to the floral tribute, but a video published by state-run West China Metropolis Daily Tuesday showed a group of people pushing aside the yellow barricades on Monday night chanting "let the spirits of those who died come back home!"

One of the victims, identified in the official list by his last name Sha, was days short of his 34th birthday.

"Who would have thought that you were only one stop away from home, but you will never come back again," his wife wrote on China's twitter-like Weibo.

Sha's wife, who declined to give her name, told Jimu news that she was suing the metro operator for negligence.

Foreign journalists covering the floods have been harassed online and on the ground, as sensitivity towards any negative portrayal of China mounts.

Reporters from AFP were forced to delete footage by hostile residents and surrounded by dozens of men while reporting on a submerged traffic tunnel in Zhengzhou.

Heavy downpours that began July 17 have affected almost 13 million people, damaged nearly 9,000 homes and caused economic losses in Henan estimated at 13.9 billion yuan ($2 billion).

Forecasters said Tuesday more heavy rain is expected as the remnants of Typhoon In Fa pass through the area.

Cities still reeling from the last week's floods, including Xinxiang, Hebi and Anyang, are likely to see the heaviest downpours from July 27 to 29, Henan's meteorological observatory said in a statement.

Villagers flee fresh floods in central China as typhoon approaches

Active forest management linked to reduced tick populations

by Allison Gardner, University of Maine

Study links active forest management to reduced tick populations — University of Maine graduate student Christine Conte in 2018 counting small mammals and tick attachments for a study of tick populations in managed and unmanaged forest plots. Credit: Allison Gardner

Active management of forests, including timber harvesting to meet silvicultural objectives, can influence the transmission dynamics of tick-borne diseases such as Lyme, anaplasmosis and babesiosis, according to a new study by a team of University of Maine researchers.

Christine Conte, an ecology and environmental sciences student who earned a master's degree from UMaine in 2019, led the study of blacklegged tick populations in recently harvested and unharvested forest plots to determine the impact of forest management on nymphal tick abundance and infection prevalence. The study was conducted in Hancock County, Maine on privately owned small woodlots and land trust properties.

Using trail camera videography to capture large mammal visits to the study plots, live small mammal trapping and tick counts, vegetation surveys and off-host tick collection methods, Conte, and faculty members Allison Gardner and Jessica Leahy gathered data from forest plots harvested in the last five years and those unharvested for at least 20 years.

The researchers found that recently harvested forest plots hosted fewer small mammals and blacklegged tick nymphs, and reduced densities of adult blacklegged ticks as compared to the unmanaged control plots. Microclimate analysis revealed significantly higher temperature and vapor pressure deficits (VPDs) in the recently harvested parcels, conditions which may limit tick-host interactions, and reduce tick longevity and questing behaviors.

A subset of blacklegged ticks collected from all sites in year one of the two-year study were tested for the pathogens Borrelia burgdorferi, Anaplasma phagocytophilum and Babesia microti. Active forest management, which was shown to limit nymphal tick populations and the density of adult ticks, reduce host density to divert blood meals away from pathogen competent hosts, and create environmental conditions that reduce tick viability, did not appear to impact infection prevalence among blacklegged tick nymphs.

Twenty percent of blacklegged ticks tested positive for B. burgdorferi, the causative agent of Lyme disease; 2% were positive for A. phagocytophilum, which causes human granulocytic anaplasmosis; and 3% were positive for B. microti (human babesiosis). Results suggest that overall, the density of nymphs rather than nymphal infection prevalence drives entomological risk of infection with tick-borne disease in this system.

The team's findings, published in the journal EcoHealth, suggest that managing forests to support forest health may also provide a sustainable method of reducing the risk of exposure to pathogens and zoonotic diseases via biotic and abiotic tick control mechanisms that impact habitat quality. Ongoing research efforts, including the Maine Forest Tick Survey, seek to build upon these findings.

A Mayo Clinic guide to tick species and the diseases they carry

More information: Christine E. Conte et al, Active Forest Management Reduces Blacklegged Tick and Tick-Borne Pathogen Exposure Risk, EcoHealth (2021). DOI: 10.1007/s10393-021-01531-1

Journal information: EcoHealth

Provided by University of Maine

Snow can disappear straight into the atmosphere in hot, dry weather

by Steven R. Fassnacht, The Conversation

Creeks, rivers and lakes that are fed by melting snow across the U.S. West are already running low as of mid-July 2021, much to the worry of farmers, biologists and snow hydrologists like me. This is not surprising in California, where snow levels over the previous winter were well below normal. But it is also true across Colorado and the Rocky Mountains, which in general received a normal amount of snow. You'd think if there was normal amount of snow you'd have plenty of water downstream, right?

Over a century ago, snow scientist James Church at the University of Nevada, Reno, began examining how the amount of snow on mountains related to the amount of water in rivers fed by the melting snow. But as hydrologists have learned over the many decades since, the correlations between snows and river flows are not perfect. Surprisingly, there is a lot researchers don't know about how the snowpack is connected to rivers.

Of course, a dry winter will result in meager flows in spring and summer. But there are other reasons snow from the mountains won't reach a river below. One growing area of research is exploring how droughts can lead to chronically dry soil that sucks up more water than normal. This water also refills the groundwater below.

But another less studied way moisture can be lost is by evaporating straight into the atmosphere. Just as the amount of snow varies each year, so too does the loss of water to the air. Under the right conditions, more snow can disappear into the air than melts into rivers. But how snowfall and loss of moisture into the air itself relate to water levels in rivers and lakes is an important and not well understood part of the water cycle, particularly in drought years.

Losing moisture to the air

There are two ways moisture can be lost to the atmosphere before it reaches a creek or river.

Under most conditions, frozen carbon dioxide, otherwise known as dry ice, doesn’t melt, but jumps straight from a solid to a gas when it is warmed up.

The first is through evaporation. When water absorbs enough energy from the Sun, the water molecules will change into a gas called water vapor. This floating water vapor is then stored in the air. Most of this evaporation happens from the surface of lakes, from water in the soil or as snow melts and the water flows over rocks or other surfaces.

Another way moisture can be lost to the atmosphere is one you might be less familiar with: sublimation. Sublimation is when a solid turns directly into a gas—think of dry ice. The same can happen to water when snow or ice turns directly into water vapor. When the air is colder than freezing, sublimation happens when molecules of ice and snow absorb so much energy that they skip the liquid form and jump straight to a gas.

A number of atmospheric conditions can lead to increased evaporation and sublimation and eventually, less water making it to creeks and streams. Dry air can absorb more moisture than moist air and pull more moisture from the ground into the atmosphere. High winds can also blow moisture into the air and away from the area where it initially fell. And finally, the warmer air is and more Sun that shines, the more energy is available for snow or water to change to vapor. When you get combinations of these factors—like warm, dry winds in the Rockies called Chinook winds—evaporation and sublimation can happen quite fast. On a dry, windy day, up to around two inches of snow can sublimate into the atmosphere. That translates to about one swimming pool of water for each football field-sized area of snow.

Sublimation is mysterious

It is relatively easy to measure how much water is flowing through a river or in a lake. And using satellites and snow surveys, hydrologists can get decent estimates of how much snow is on a mountain range. Measuring evaporation, and especially sublimation, is much harder to do.

Today researchers usually estimate sublimation indirectly using physics equations and wind and weather models. But there are lots of uncertainties and unknowns in these calculations. Additionally, researchers know that the most moisture loss from sublimation occurs in alpine terrain above the treeline—but snow scientists rarely measure snow depths there. This further adds to the uncertainty around sublimation because if you don't know how much moisture a system started out with, it is hard to know how much was lost.

Finally, weather and snowpack depths vary a lot from year to year. All of this makes measuring the amount of snow that falls and then is lost to the atmosphere incredibly difficult.

When scientists have been able to measure and estimate sublimation, they have measured moisture losses that range from a few percent to more than half of the total snowfall, depending on the climate and where you are. And even in one spot, sublimation can vary a lot year to year depending on snow and weather.

When moisture is lost into the atmosphere, it will fall to the surface as rain or snow eventually. But that could be on the other side of the Earth and is not helpful to drought-stricken areas.

Important knowledge

It is hard to say how important loss of moisture to the atmosphere is to the total water cycle in any given mountain range. Automated snow monitoring systems—especially at high elevations above the treeline—can help researchers better understand what is happening to the snow and the conditions that cause losses to the atmosphere.

The amount of water in rivers—and when that water appears—influences agriculture, ecosystems and how people live. When there is a water shortage, problems occur. With climate change leading to more droughts and variable weather, filling a knowledge gap of the water cycle like the one around sublimation is important.

Where did Sierra snow go this spring? Not into California rivers and water supplies

Provided by The Conversation

High concentrations of 'forever' chemicals being released from ice melt into the Arctic Ocean

by Lancaster University
Dr Jack Garnett on the research expedition in the Arctic. Credit: Christian Morel
Known as 'forever' chemicals due to the fact they do not break down in the environment, poly- and perfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are used in a wide range of products and processes from fire proofing to stain resistant surfaces.
The Lancaster University study has found them in the surface seawater close to melting Arctic ice floes at concentrations of up to two times higher than levels observed in the North Sea, even though the region of the Barents Sea under investigation was thousands of kilometers from populated parts of Europe.
The research has shown these chemicals have traveled not by sea, but through the atmosphere, where they accumulate in Arctic sea ice. Because Arctic ice is melting more quickly than before, these harmful chemicals are efficiently released into surrounding seawater resulting in some very high concentrations.
Lancaster's Dr. Jack Garnett and Professor Crispin Halsall along with colleagues from HZG, Germany, have been investigating the long range transport and deposition of PFAS to the Arctic as part of EISPAC—a project jointly funded by UK's NERC and Germany's BMBF as part of the Changing Arctic Ocean program.
PFAS comprise of a very large number of chemicals that have myriad uses, including processing aids in the manufacture of fluoropolymers like Teflon, stain and water repellents in food packaging, textiles and clothing, as well as use in firefighting foams.
One particular group of these chemicals—the perfluoroalkyl acids (PFAAs) - are extremely stable and do not degrade in the environment but can bioaccumulate and are known to be toxic to humans and wildlife.
PFAAs can enter the food chain due to their mobility in the environment and protein-binding characteristics. The longer carbon chain compounds of perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctane sulfonic acid (PFOS) are generally associated with liver damage in mammals, with developmental exposure to PFOA adversely affecting fetal growth in humans and other mammals alike.
Dr. Jack Garnett discovered an unusual phenomenon whereby PFAAs present in the atmosphere are deposited with snowfall onto the surface of ice floes where they can eventually accumulate within the sea ice. Jack made this observation while taking ice and water samples as part of a scientific expedition under the Norwegian Nansen Legacy project (arvenetternansen.com/).
Undertaking both salinity and stable isotope analysis of snow, ice and seawater, he was able to determine what contribution of the water locked in snow and ice came from the atmosphere and what contribution arose from seawater. This way it was possible to assess the role that atmospheric transport from far away regions had on the presence of these chemicals in the ice.
The PFAA present in the atmospheric component was much higher than the seawater component, confirming that long range transport and deposition from the atmosphere is the main source of these chemicals to the remote Arctic rather than 'recycling' of older stocks of these pollutants present in ocean waters.
Furthermore, the team's studies conducted in a sea ice facility at the University of East Anglia, found that the presence of brine (highly saline water) in young ice serves to enrich contaminants like PFAS in different layers within the sea ice. PFAS like other organic pollutants, generally reside in the brine rather than the solid ice matrix itself. As the ice ages the brine becomes more concentrated resulting in an enrichment of these pollutants into focused areas within the ice pack.
Prolonged periods of thaw, particularly when the ice floes are still covered in snow, results in the re-mobilization of the ice brine and also the interaction of snow meltwater with the brine. This can result in marked release of PFAAs into the underlying seawater.
Brine channels on the underside of ice serve as unique habitats for organisms at the base of the marine foodweb, and, as a consequence, they will be exposed to high levels of PFAAs released with brine drainage and meltwater from the thawing ice pack.
Prof Halsall a co-author of the recent Arctic Monitoring Assessment Program (AMAP) report on "POPs and Chemicals of Emerging Arctic Concern: The Influence of Climate Change," says that we have an unfortunate situation where the Arctic Ocean is now dominated by one-year ice at the expense of multi-year ice due to global warming. Meaning that the majority of the ice in the Arctic has formed the previous winter, rather than over many years.
This one-year ice contains a lot of mobile brine that interacts with the overlying snowpack and can serve to concentrate pollutants like PFAS which are usually found at very low levels.
Unfortunately, with earlier and more erratic thaw events, this can lead to the rapid release of the stored chemicals resulting in high concentrations in the waters surrounding the ice floes.
It is only through this type of investigative science that we can understand the dynamics of pollutant behavior and identify key hazards, particularly those related to climate change.
In turn this can drive international legislation so that chemicals that exhibit this type of behavior are banned
Newer PFAS compound detected for first time in Arctic seawater
More information: Jack Garnett et al, Investigating the Uptake and Fate of Poly- and Perfluoroalkylated Substances (PFAS) in Sea Ice Using an Experimental Sea Ice Chamber, Environmental Science & Technology (2021). DOI: 10.1021/acs.est.1c01645
Journal information: Environmental Science & Technology
Provided by Lancaster University

Why Canadian dads are more involved in raising their kids than American fathers

by Kevin Shafer, The Conversation

Thirty-five years ago, Canadian and American dads were doing a similar amount of child rearing, relative to mothers. Surveys from the mid 1980s showed that Canadian men spent 38% of the time that Canadian women spent on child care, and American men spent 35% of the time that American women spent on child care.

Today, there are significant gaps in fathering between Canadians and Americans. Canadian dads spend significantly more time taking care of their children than their American counterparts. For example, Canadian fathers spend an average of 14 hours on child care each week, while American fathers average about 8 hours a week.

As a sociologist and Canadian studies scholar, I am interested in how social policies affect fatherhood in different countries. I collected data on more than 5,000 men in the two nations from 2016 to 2018 for my upcoming book on the similarities and differences between American and Canadian dads. This data looked at how dads interacted with their children—whether they acted warmly and affectionately, if they provided emotional support and how they disciplined their children.

My data shows Canadian dads were much more likely to show warmth, provide emotional support, engage in caregiving and use positive discipline. In fact, American dads outperformed their Canadian counterparts on only one of the survey measures—the use of spanking and other harsh disciplinary tactics.

Why have Canadian fathers pulled ahead of American fathers in caring for and showing affection toward their children? I believe the answer lies, in part, with four types of social policies in Canada that help fathers be more engaged at home.

1. Family leave

When it comes to family policy, there are major differences between the U.S. and Canada.

Canada has guaranteed paid family leave for mothers and fathers. As part of their employment insurance program, Canadian parents get 35 weeks of shared paid benefits, paid at 55% of regular pay. On top of that, fathers get five exclusive weeks of leave.

Meanwhile, the U.S. is the only rich nation in the world that doesn't guarantee maternity leave, and one of three rich countries—along with Oman and the United Arab Emirates—without a paternity leave option.

Studies from across the world consistently show that men who take paternity leave tend to be more involved in their children's lives, have better relationships with family members and help their partners recover from childbirth more quickly.

2. Social inequality

Stagnant incomes, high levels of economic inequality and financial instability have led many American men to work long hours. In my survey, a third of the American respondents work 50 hours or more a week, compared to just one-tenth of Canadian participants.

Financial anxieties permeate parenting in the U.S. The increase in intensive parenting—parents who try to build impeccable resumes for their kids, filled with extracurricular activities, advanced courses and awards—is an effort by middle-income families to keep up with the parenting practices of the well-off.

Such parenting patterns are less common in Canada, a country with more accessible elite educational institutions and less income inequality.

The Canada Child Benefit further alleviates financial anxiety for parents. Unlike child tax credits in the U.S., which were traditionally paid with tax returns, Canada delivers its tax credit in monthly payments to low- and middle-income families with children. The program has cut child poverty by 40% since its introduction in 2017. The U.S. just rolled out a similar temporary program in July 2021.

3. Gender inequality

Fathers tend to be more involved parents in nations with higher levels of gender equality. When women are engaged in the political and economic spheres, fathers provide more physical care to children, are warmer and more emotionally supportive parents, and use less harsh discipline. This is likely caused by more explicit and enforceable expectations about equal partnership between co-parents.

Canada is a more gender-equal country than the U.S. In 2019, the United Nations listed Canada as the 19th most egalitarian nation in the world. The U.S. was 46th. Canada outpaced the U.S. on measures of female health, political power, education and economic empowerment. Solidifying the expectation that dads be highly involved co-parents, these greater levels of gender equality may be a significant reason Canadian fathers outperform their American counterparts.

4. Health care

Even policies that seemingly have little to do with parenting have, in reality, a major impact on how men interact with their children. This includes Canada's single-payer, provincially administered, universal health care system.

Analyses in my forthcoming book, for example, show that poor physical health has much weaker negative effects on men's parenting in Canada than in the U.S. This suggests that the U.S. health care system's high medical costs, coupled with bureaucratic and systemic inefficiencies, drain individuals' time, energy and resources—making fathering more difficult. The problem is compounded when children have health issues as well.

As society emerges from the COVID-19 pandemic, data suggests that a more comprehensive family policy would benefit American fathers, mothers and children. Doing so can ease the especially difficult burdens mothers face and help remove structural barriers that make it hard for fathers to be highly involved and engaged parents. Canada may provide the United States with a useful example on how to implement supportive family policies.

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Canadian dads are doing more at home than before the coronavirus pandemic

Provided by The Conversation

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment

Wednesday, July 28, 2021

Militaries plunder science fiction for technology ideas, but turn a blind eye to the genre's social commentary

How scientists and communities can build partnerships to deal with floods: Learning from Indonesia

Death toll from Henan floods rises to 71 as China braces for more rain

Active forest management linked to reduced tick populations

Snow can disappear straight into the atmosphere in hot, dry weather

High concentrations of 'forever' chemicals being released from ice melt into the Arctic Ocean

Why Canadian dads are more involved in raising their kids than American fathers

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