Black girls are 4.19 times more likely to get suspended than white girls – and hiring more teachers of color is only part of the solution

Andrea Joseph-McCatty, Assistant Professor of Social Work, University of Tennessee

THE CONVERSATION
Sat, March 4, 2023 

Race, class and gender can not only impact the education that students receive, but also the punishments they receive. 

Courtney Hale/iStock / Getty Images Plus via Getty Images

Andrea Joseph-McCatty is an assistant professor at the College of Social Work at the University of Tennessee. Her research examines disproportional school suspensions and, in particular, the ways in which inequity impacts the experiences of students of color. Below are highlights from an interview with The Conversation. Answers have been edited for brevity and clarity.

You recently gave a talk about the disproportionate suspension of Black girls in the U.S. Why is equity so hard in our schools?

Most recently my work has focused on understanding and addressing racially disproportional school suspensions and the ways in which those are also gender disproportionate. For example, we know nationally that in the 2017-2018 academic year, over 2.5 million children received one or more out-of-school suspensions. While these numbers are going down compared to years prior, students of color and students with disabilities are receiving a greater share of suspensions and expulsions.

It’s also important to disaggregate the data to understand trends at the intersection of race, gender, class and other student characteristics. For example, in 2017-2018, Black girls had 4.19 times the risk of receiving an out-of-school suspension compared to white girls. Nationally, they are the only group of girls disproportionately suspended in relation to their enrollment.

To address high and disproportional suspensions, schools have implemented multitiered interventions, such as restorative justice practices, and positive behavior interventions, which create positive, predictable, equitable and safe learning environments. While some studies show a reduction in high and disproportional suspensions from these efforts, discipline disparities often persist.

However, some schools are seeking to change these disproportional rates for Black girls and other girls of color by partnering with community organizations such as Gwen’s Girls Incorporated, The F.I.N.D. Design and Code Switch, among others, to provide gender and culturally responsive interventions.

Yet, a major barrier to intervention is the perception adults hold about Black girls. Instead of receiving developmentally appropriate and socioemotional support, many Black girls are adultified – a concept coined to describe how Black girls are disproportionately perceived as less innocent, needing less nurturing, less protection, less support, knowing more about sex and adult topics, and are more adultlike than their peers.

While some may generally assume that students only receive school discipline for breaking school rules, social scientists have used data to show how race, gender, disability and class bias at the intersection of punitive discipline policies and systematic inequities lead to disproportional suspensions.

For example, we know that Black girls in particular are getting disciplined in school for wearing their natural hair in afros or having braids, both of which are styles that allow Black girls to embrace their beauty and have cultural pride in the face of Eurocentric beauty ideals that suggest that straight hair is more professional and neat.

In other cases, Black girls are more likely to receive school discipline outcomes for subjective infractions such as tone of voice, clothing and disrespect compared to other girls. And that’s part of the way racial and gender discrimination intersect to create disproportional suspensions for Black girls. In my research, I build on these ideas and also explore how adverse childhood experiences, including neglect, abuse, neighborhood violence and parent incarceration and/or death, become another layer by which Black girls are misunderstood.

In my research and community partnerships, we explore how race, gender and adultification bias are shaping the way adults perceive the behaviors of Black girls and how this might impact how their trauma-response behaviors are perceived. Will it be met with punishment or support? Increasingly, schools are adopting trauma-informed practices and policies to decrease the punishment of childhood adversities in school.

But I wonder if they account for the way that race, gender and class bias and inequities both inform adverse childhood experiences and inform adult perceptions about children’s behaviors. While school-based trauma-informed practices are a step in the right direction, the next question I also ask is, how are school districts defining what an adverse childhood experience (ACE) is? Are they using the early measure normed on a predominantly white middle-class population, or are they using the [expanded measure] that surveyed a diverse population and identified additional ACEs such as racial discrimination, foster care involvement, neighborhood violence and bullying?

Without using the expanded definition, it is possible that schools are continuing to overlook students’ needs and instead punish their trauma. My colleagues and I suggest that practitioners need trauma-informed professional development at the intersection of race and gender at minimum to begin to provide robust support for students of color experiencing adversity.

Does the race of the teacher play a role in all this?

I would say yes, but I don’t think it’s a simple answer. I think there is a movement that says, hey, we still need more teachers of color to foster a more equitable environment. While there is research to suggest that Black teachers are less likely to suspended Black students, this is not always a consistent finding for boys and girls, and across school demographics, because having a diverse workforce does not totally eliminate bias.

Therefore, having more teachers of color is not the sole solution to addressing disproportional suspensions. It can help in terms of seeing students’ behaviors in context, particularly when an educator of color comes from a similar cultural context, gender context and class as that young person. However, despite these benefits and their training, it is an uphill battle for any educator to teach in a school system that has not addressed past and present funding, practice and policy inequities.

So when we think about change, it’s really systemic change that we need. We need whole school change to begin to address some of these inequities. Meanwhile, as I continue to co-advocate with my community partners for Black girls, we’ll continue to ask, “Is your intervention intersectional”? – meaning does it take into account the the interconnected nature of social categorizations and discrimination.

This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts. 

It was written by: Andrea Joseph-McCatty, University of Tennessee.

Read more:

Students are suspended less when their teacher has the same race or ethnicity


Students are often segregated within the same schools, not just by being sent to different ones


Schools are the ‘hubs and hearts’ of neighborhoods – here’s how they can strengthen the communities around them

Andrea Joseph-McCatty received funding from The University of Tennessee College of Social Work's Social Justice Innovation Initiative for her research on Black girls and disproportional suspension. Dr. Joseph-McCatty is a former employee of Gwen's Girls Inc. (PA) and is a current board member for the FIND Design (TN) whose focus is to "mitigate the effects of systemic and personal trauma on Black girls, and other girls of color ages 11-17".

'MAVERICK'
Texas GOP May Censure Congressman Over Support for Marriage Equality

Trudy Ring
Fri, March 3, 2023 

U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzales

The Republican Party of Texas is considering censuring a GOP congressman from the state for his votes in favor of marriage equality and gun control.

U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzales, who represents the 23rd Congressional District in south Texas, was the only Republican from the state to vote in favor of the Respect for Marriage Act last year. The act, which was signed into law by President Joe Biden, writes marriage equality into federal law, protecting it in case the Supreme Court overturns the Obergefell v. Hodges decision that established equal marriage rights nationwide.

He also voted in favor of a gun control package after the mass shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas. The package, passed by both chambers of Congress and signed by Biden, expands background checks for gun purchases, tightens restrictions on purchases by those with a history of domestic violence, and provides funding for mental health programs.


Gonzales, who is in his second term, has already been censured by the Medina County Republicans for these and other actions, including his opposition to some anti-immigration legislation. The county group’s censure resolution, approved in February, calls Gonzales “a poor representative for his Republican constituents” and urges other Republican groups to take action against him.

That led to a statewide censure resolution that the State Republican Executive Committee will vote on at its quarterly meeting this weekend, according to the San Antonio Report. The vote is expected to take place Saturday morning.

If the censure is approved, the Texas Republican Party could punish Gonzales in several ways. “They could simply discourage Gonzales from running for reelection as a Republican, or they could lift the restriction on party officials campaigning against him, as is required for current GOP officeholders,” the Report notes. “Perhaps of greater consequence, they also could prohibit Gonzales from receiving financial help from the party.”

Gonzales was first elected to the U.S. in 2020, when he defeated gay Democrat Gina Ortiz Jones for the open seat after moderate Republican Will Hurd retired. He was reelected last year in a race against Democrat John Lira. So far, he hasn’t commented to local or national media on the possibility of censure.

The last time the Texas Republicans approved a censure was in 2018, when it took the action against Texas House Speaker Joe Straus, who had opposed an anti-transgender “bathroom bill.”

The Texas Republican Party is known for its anti-LGBTQ+ and generally far-right stances. It adopted a platform last year that called homosexuality “an abnormal lifestyle choice” and opposed “all efforts to validate transgender identity.”

A gay Republican state legislator in Missouri may be censured by the local party because of his support for marriage equality. The Jackson County Republican Committee decided this week that censuring Rep. Chris Sander was outside its responsibilities, but the group is forming a separate committee to consider censuring him at some point.

End ‘colonial’ approach to space exploration, scientists urge

Nicola Davis Science correspondent
Sat, 4 March 2023


Humans boldly going into space should echo the guiding principle of Captain Kirk’s Star Trek crew by resisting the urge to interfere, researchers have said, stressing a need to end a colonial approach to exploration.

Nasa has made no secret of its desire to mine the moon for metals, with China also keen to extract lunar resources – a situation that has been called a new space race.

But Dr Pamela Conrad of the Carnegie Institution of Science said the focus should shift away from seeking to exploit discoveries.

Speaking ahead of a panel event on Saturday on the ethics of space exploration at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) meeting in Washington DC, she said: “If we were willing to seize that as not just a possibility, but an imperative then oddly enough, the Star Trek series and culture becomes a prime directive for how we could explore space: seeking not to interfere.”

In the Star Trek series, the Prime Directive, or General Order 1, of Starfleet Command sets out that the Starfleet should not interfere with the social, cultural or technological development of any other planet.

Conrad said that rather than setting out to own or take resources from space, humans should endeavour to be “gentle explorers”.

“Regardless of who or what is out there, that attitude of exploration being almost synonymous with exploitation gives one a different perspective as you approach to the task,” she said.

“Because if something that’s not here [on Earth] is seen as a resource, just ripe to be exploited, then that [perpetuates] colonialism.”

Conrad said such attitudes matter because a colonial approach can impinge on the rights of others to explore – whether in space itself or by looking at it from Earth.

Researchers have previously argued that light pollution creates just such a problem, with low-orbit satellites threatening to hinder the ability for astronomers to make new discoveries, and lighting associated with urban expansion and the use of LEDs making it increasingly difficult to pick out the constellations when stargazing.

The latter, some have argued, amounts to cultural genocide as the stars, and the ability to observe them, play a key role in many indigenous traditions and knowledge systems.

Dr Hilding Neilson, a Mi’kmaq person and a scientist at the Memorial University of Newfoundland and Labrador, who will also take part in the AAAS panel, said that in Canada Indigenous peoples had rights and responsibilities to unceded and treaty land, with the absence of a height limit, meaning those concerns extend to the skies above.

What’s more, he said Indigenous people had deep connections with bodies such as the moon.

“Part of that connection is inherent to the culture and the way of living and way of knowing,” he said, adding any damage to such bodies was therefore a concern.

As a result, Neilson said those working on space missions, such as the Nasa Artemis programme – which seeks to establish a long-term presence on the moon and eventually send humans to Mars – should engage with Indigenous people in advance.

“Right now when we look at the moon in terms of the space missions and colonisation it is very much as a dead object to be conquered. And that’s not how many Indigenous peoples see it,” he said.

“So when we go [and] do things like mining on the moon, are we creating harm and are we essentially cheering on the history of colonialism in ways that are harmful to some peoples?”

He also stressed the need for a move away from rhetoric around “building colonies” on the moon or on other planets.

“I’ve actually sat and listened to a CEO of a very large company talking about how going to space is the same [as] when people settled what is now Quebec,” he said, adding that stance not only glorified colonisation and its history but ignored the negative impacts of space colonisation.

Sport is both a climate victim and villain. These champions show there’s another way

Marthe de Ferrer
Sat, 4 March 2023 


Sport occupies an unusual place in society. It’s simultaneously public and private - something we do for our own personal health, but also a multibillion-dollar industry; both political and apolitical, accessible and exclusive.

This is also why sport straddles such interesting territory when it comes to both the climate and nature crises.

Champions for Earth, an organisation of athletes promoting environmental action, was formed for exactly this reason.

“Climate change affects us all, and in pursuing solutions we must bring as many people together as possible,” their mission statement reads. “We see sport as a piece of that puzzle: unifying people across race, age, gender, sex, religion and disability.”

But, sport, as a sector, is also a major contributor to the damage being done to our planet: from the greenhouse gases emitted from transporting equipment, athletes and fans all over the world, to the harm done to ecosystems by venue construction, high-density events and poor waste management.

‘Sportswashing’: Climate polluters pour money into winter sports as snowless ski resorts struggle

Sport is both a ‘victim’ and contributor to climate change

The start of the women's World Cup slalom race in Zagreb. In November the Alpine Skiing World Cup in Croatia was cancelled because of warm conditions and a lack of snow. - AP Photo/Giovanni Auletta

Though it’s impossible to accurately calculate sport’s contribution to global warming and biodiversity loss, some have compared its carbon footprint to that of a country the size of Spain.

Unlike many other industries, however, sport is also often situated on the frontlines of the climate emergency.

We saw this at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, as athletes passed out and faced serious health problems due to the excessive heat. This was clearer still at the Beijing Winter Olympics a few months later, as the Games became the first in history to rely almost entirely on artificial snow.

In the months since the Olympics, we’ve seen more races and competitions cancelled, relocated and postponed because of the direct effects of climate change.

A recent report from Badvertising argued that many of the major sponsors for winter sports were directly melting the snow necessary for events to take place. Britain’s most successful Winter Olympian Lizzy Yarnold said these deals were “like winter sport nailing the lid on its own coffin.”

“Sport is not just a victim of [climate] change, but an important contributor too,” writes author David Goldblatt in Rapid Transition Alliance’s report into the relationship between sport and climate change.

So how then can sport be used to tackle the environmental issues we’re collectively facing?

World’s biggest sports events may have to be held in cooler months due to global warming

Athletes have a ‘unique perspective’

Hannah Mills MBE is a British competitive sailor and two-time world champion in the Women's 470 class, having won in 2012 and 2019. - Thomas Lovelock for SailGP

Hannah Mills is the most successful female sailor in Olympic history. After decades spent competing and training on coastlines around the world, the 34-year-old is acutely aware of both the gravity of the climate crisis and the impact major sporting events can have on the planet.

“There's a big environmental footprint with sport,” Mills says, “so that on the one hand needs to be addressed, by reducing things like emissions and everything we possibly can.”

Her passion for environmentalism stems from a lifelong relationship with the outdoors.

“It’s one big playground that we’re lucky enough to get to use in so many different ways,” she says, “and through sailing you spend so much time outside on the ocean, which is a real privilege… you always have an appreciation for nature and just how vast the ocean is.”

How sailing is being reborn as a sustainable sport

‘Jet zero’: Scientists warn that guilt-free flying is still out of reach in the UK
Sport as a tool for finding local solutions

It was what Mills saw at her second Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro that crystallised for her the severity of our plastic pollution problem.

“I’d never seen anywhere where it was quite so stark,” Mills explains, “everywhere we’d sailed before you’d see the odd piece of plastic floating around, and I wouldn’t necessarily think too much of it. But in Rio… it became too much to ignore.”

Rio’s plastic pollution problem is also a good example of how localised issues - that need localised solutions - sometimes get lost when common environmental issues are considered on a global scale.

Decades of inadequate infrastructure and a lack of funding for waste management have caused the carpets of plastic waste that cover the otherwise beautiful coastline around Rio. But when that messaging gets oversimplified into general conversations about avoiding single-use plastics, rather than tackling the root causes of the specific crisis playing out in Rio, it’s clear to see why this leads to a lack of meaningful action.

SailGP runs outreach initiatives in each racing location in order to leave a lasting positive legacy. - Thomas Lovelock for SailGP

This is where Mills feels sport has the opportunity to enact more meaningful change.

“We get this unique perspective and this unique impact as athletes or as sporting events to tell stories - and people, for whatever reason, listen and look up to athletes.”

Mills works with SailGP as the strategist for the Emirates Great Britain team, an international sailing competition that takes place across a season of grand prix events around the world. Similarly to the work being done by Extreme E, SailGP runs outreach initiatives in each racing location - not just to ensure the competition is sustainable, but in an effort to leave a lasting positive legacy.

“A huge part of the climate change narrative is that in every location there will be different solutions that are effective,” says Mills, “it’s about understanding that it’s not a one-size-fits-all.

“Yes, we all need to come together globally in terms of emissions. But actually, in terms of restoring and protecting nature, it’s very location-dependent as to what’s working,” she explains.

Some of SailGP’s local impact projects have included introducing “ecological anchoring” in an effort to preserve and restore seagrass beds off the coast of Saint-Tropez, developing large-scale solar farms in England, and planting native poplar trees in southern Italy.

IPL: As India's temperatures soar, can cricket survive the new normal of climate change?
Bringing the political to the apolitical?

When athletes, coaches or commentators raise issues like the urgent need to address the climate crisis, a common criticism is that this is seen as making a political point within a space that is ostensibly neutral.

We saw this during the Qatar World Cup last year, where athletes wanting to make the vaguest of nods towards Qatar’s atrocious human rights record for LGBTQ+ people were threatened with sanctions.

There are separate conversations to be had about whether environmentalism should be considered political or whether sport has ever been remotely apolitical - but that’s perhaps best left for another time.

Sometimes climate action is seen as sufficiently apolitical to feature in sport, such as Reading FC’s fantastic collaboration with Reading University - incorporating the climate stripes into their kit.

“I can really see the argument both ways,” Mills says, explaining that “in the field of play” people’s focus should perhaps be entirely on the sport and the competition.

“But I think there’s such an opportunity around athletes in the build-up to big events and in interviews during big events where you can really use your platform.”

For ultramarathon runner Damian Hall, however, sport and climate action are directly entwined. His latest book is even titled ‘We Can’t Run Away From This.’ He also co-founded The Green Runners, a community of running enthusiasts putting the planet first.



Hall recently won the 268-mile (430km) Spine Race - affectionately dubbed ‘Britain’s most brutal race’ - in a gruelling 84 hours and 36 minutes, setting a new men’s course record in the process.

For spectators tracking the runners online, Hall’s profile showed him holding a Just Stop Oil banner - which he later unfurled upon crossing the finish line.

“This all just feels so urgent,” Hall explains, “my sport is very niche, but there are moments where it might get a little bit of publicity… I guess I’m just desperate and trying to use those moments.”

It was the 2019 Extinction Rebellion protests in London that spurred the father-of-two down this path, catching his attention with their colourful and vibrant nature before driving home the severity of the climate crisis.

“We’ve all seen headlines about polar bears and melting glaciers for years, but it was difficult sometimes to connect that to your life. So those protests made me start to realise how urgent things were and how governments really weren’t acting,” Hall says.

“I also started questioning myself as an athlete,” he continues, “as an elite ultramarathon runner I would fly to on average probably three big, international races a year - in fact in 2019 I flew five times return and hadn’t really given that significant thought.”

Inactivity kills millions, but movement is the ‘miracle pill’ that could save people and planet

Cutting down on flights and picking ethical sponsors

Hall also advocates for change with sportswear manufacturers and suppliers. - STUART MARCH PHOTOGRAPHY/Damian Hall

Now, Hall hasn’t flown for three years - opting for domestic races and international events accessible by greener modes of transport. He’s part of a small but growing field of athletes turning down opportunities to compete abroad. Despite having a list of events he’d always wanted to do - such as one on Reunion Island in the Indian Ocean - he says he now “can’t justify that to myself.”

One of Great Britain’s leading junior athletes, Innes FitzGerald, recently made headlines after declining to compete in Australia because of the environmental impact of travelling halfway around the world.

“The reality of the travel fills me with deep concern,” she said in a letter to British Athletics. “I was just nine when the COP21 Paris climate agreement was signed. Now, eight years on, global emissions have been steadily increasing, sending us on a path to climate catastrophe.”

However, Hall hasn’t written off flying entirely.

“I don’t think I should have to sacrifice my entire career,” he says, explaining that there are a handful of key races - largely in the US - that he still hopes to do.

It’s also through his sponsors where Hall feels he can help effect real change. He’s meticulous about the companies he partners with, turning down sponsorships and funding when organisations aren’t engaging meaningfully with environmental issues.

“I thought it would make me kind of unpopular, but it’s actually sort of had the opposite effect,” he explains, “I’ve found some companies have approached me because they want to work with me because of my ethics.”

Though Hall is extremely humble about his impact, the kind of companies he deals with are sometimes major sportswear manufacturers and suppliers.

“It’s nudging for systemic change that is going to have the most impact.”

AUSTRALIA
Labor accused of ‘fiddling at the margins’ on super as Greens urge greater crackdown on tax concessions


Amy Remeikis
Fri, 3 March 2023 

Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images

The Greens are urging the Australian government to go further on superannuation tax concessions in order to boost jobseeker payments and double commonwealth rent assistance.

But the party has stopped short of threatening to block government legislation if Labor doesn’t agree, with negotiations on the housing fund and climate safeguards bill continuing while the super debate rages.

Labor needs the Greens and at least two crossbench senators to agree to its legislative change to reduce the tax concession on earnings above $3m in super accounts, after the Coalition declared it a no-go area.

With the Aston byelection looming, the opposition leader, Peter Dutton, has seized on the government’s modest announcement to try to claim broader changes are in the works.

“It has a broader impact than the government’s claiming and I really worry about them unsettling people about their decision to put money into superannuation, which should be a stable asset class,” he said on Thursday.

But the Greens’ treasury spokesperson, Nick McKim, argues Labor’s changes don’t go far enough and, by ending all tax concessions above the indexed $1.9m balance transfer rate, rent assistance could be immediately doubled.

Related: 80,000 people will be hit by Labor’s super changes. How much will it hurt?

Asked by reporters on Saturday whether Labor would consider lowering the threshold of proposed superannuation changes to $1.9m, prime minister Anthony Albanese said he believed Labor had “got the balance right”.

“The Greens will always find a reason to try to say that what Labour’s proposing is something that they have a different position from,” Albanese said. “It will come in after the next election in 2025.”

The Parliamentary Budget Office modelled the Greens’ request to cap superannuation concessions above $1.9m, and instead apply tax according to income. Under the current settings, that could add $54.6bn over the next 10 years to the budget, which the Greens say could be used to alleviate poverty.

Labor’s policy to raise the concessional tax rate on super earnings above $3m from 15% to 30% from 1 July 2025 would impact 0.5% of the population. The Greens policy, according to the PBO analysis, would impact 1.2% of super holders, but would be less likely to grow as the $1.9m threshold increases with inflation.

McKim said it would be a small change that could have a big impact on the most financially vulnerable.

“Fiddling at the margins on superannuation tax concessions while proceeding with stage-three tax cuts is just a money-go-round scheme for the rich,” McKim said.

“Labor is basically proposing to rob Peter to pay Peter. If Labor gets real about tackling inequality, we can raise serious money to help address the cost of living crisis, like ending handouts to the top 1% to fund an increase in income support or doubling rent assistance.”

The maximum rent assistance an eligible single person can receive is $151.60 a fortnight if living alone, or $135.40 if sharing. For someone with children, the assistance is $178.36 for one or two children and $201.32 for three or above.

Anti-poverty advocates such as the Antipoverty Centre have argued against raising rent assistance and instead focus on raising the rate of welfare, to ensure the money goes to where it is most needed, and not landlords.

The Greens have said they will continue to advocate for raising welfare above $44 a day, but are focusing on immediate assistance, arguing this plan could be enacted on 1 July.

“There are more people sleeping rough every night in this country than there are people impacted by Labor’s super plan,” the Greens senator Janet Rice said.

“This money could be a downpayment on increasing social security payments above the poverty line.”

The Greens have not drawn a line in the sand over the proposal when it comes to the government’s negotiations on its super changes, and other areas where the party holds the balance of power, but are demanding more action for renters and those with housing instability as part of its negotiations.

The party is pushing the government to implement a rental freeze, working with the states through national cabinet, in an attempt to address the cost of living rental crisis, while also withholding support for Labor’s housing fund plan, arguing it does not go far enough.

The government needs the Greens’s support for not just its housing future fund, but also the national reconstruction fund, its safeguards mechanism and now the super changes.

But with a start date of 1 July 2025 for the super changes, after the next election, the government has some more wriggle room on the timing, as it seeks to get its other hallmark legislation through the parliament ahead of the May budget.

‘Very precarious’: Europe faces growing water crisis as winter drought worsens

Jon Henley in Paris, Sam Jones in Madrid, Angela Giuffrida in Rome, and Philip Oltermann in Berlin
Fri, 3 March 2023 

Photograph: Valentine Chapuis/Getty Images

The scenes are rare enough in mid-summer; in early March, they are unprecedented. Lac de Montbel in south-west France is more than 80% empty, the boats of the local sailing club stranded on its desiccated brown banks.

In northern Italy, tourists can walk to the small island of San Biagio, normally reached only by boat, from the shore of Lake Garda, where the water level is 70cm (27in) lower than average. The Alps have had 63% less snow than usual.

In Germany, shallow waters on the Rhine are already disrupting barge traffic, forcing boats heading up into central Europe to load at half capacity, and in Catalonia, now short of water for three years, Barcelona has stopped watering its parks.


After its driest summer in 500 years, much of Europe is in the grip of a winter drought driven by climate breakdown that is prompting growing concern among governments over the water security for homes, farmers and factories across the continent.

Related: Driest February in England since 1993 signals drought ahead, say experts

A study published in January by Graz University of Technology in Austria, whose scientists used satellite data to analyse groundwater reserves, concluded that Europe has been in drought since 1918 and its water situation was now “very precarious”.

Torsten Mayer-Gürr, one of the researchers, said: “I would never have imagined that water would be a problem here in Europe, especially in Germany or Austria. We are actually getting problems with the water supply here. We have to think about this.”

The World Weather Attribution service said last year northern hemisphere drought was at least 20 times more likely because of human-caused climate change, warning that such extreme periods would become increasingly common with global heating.

Andrea Toreti, a senior scientist at the European Drought Observatory, said: “What is unusual is the recurrence of these events, because we already experienced a severe to extreme drought a year ago, and another one in 2018.

“Clearly, in some parts of Europe, the lack of precipitation and the current deficit is such that it won’t be easy for water levels to recover before the start of the summer,” Toreti told Euronews. Experts have said the coming months will be crucial.

A map of current droughts in Europe from the EU’s Copernicus programme shows alerts for low rainfall or soil moisture in areas of northern and southern Spain, northern Italy and southern Germany, with almost all of France affected.

France recently recorded 32 days without significant rainfall, the longest period since records began in 1959, and the state forecaster Météo-France has said little or no precipitation of note is expected until at least the end of the month.

Simon Mitelberger, a climatologist, said about 75% less rain had fallen across France last month than usual for February, continuing a year-long trend. Nine of the past 12 months had seen rainfall up to 85% below the norm, he told France Info news.

France’s CNRS scientific research centre said that by comparing droughts before 1945 and since 1945 it had established that last summer’s drought was caused by anthropogenic climate change and this winter’s showed “the same characteristics”.

Local authorities in all seven of the country’s major river basins have been ordered to start enforcing water restrictions as the government works on a crisis plan to tackle a shortage that it has said will inevitable lead to “water scarcity problems” this year.

The minister for ecological transition, Christophe Béchu, warned that France would have to cope with up to 40% less water in coming years, adding that the country was already on a “state of alert” and restrictions in some areas were fully justified.

“The situation is more serious than this time last year,” Béchu said. People in four southern départements have been barred from filling swimming pools or washing their cars, while farmers must cut their water consumption by up to half.

Echoing the terms he used to describe the energy crisis sparked by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the French president, Emmanuel Macron, called this week for a “sobriety plan” to save water and warned the “time of abundance” had come to an end.

“All of us are going to have to be careful,” he said. Among the government’s plans are modernising agricultural irrigation, which represents up to 80% of consumption in summer, boosting wastewater recycling, and reducing loss due to leakage.

All of Spain has been in drought since January 2022, but water supplies in Catalonia have fallen so low that authorities this week introduced laws including a 40% reduction in water used for agriculture, a 15% reduction for industrial uses, and a cut in the average daily supply per inhabitant from 250 litres to 230 litres.

Related: Europe’s worst ever drought: in pictures

Rubén del Campo, a spokesperson for the state meteorological agency Aemet, said the situation showed no sign of improving over the coming months. The worst affected areas were the northern third of the country and parts of Andalucía and the south of Castilla-La Mancha, he said.

Asked about the role of global heating, Del Campo said that while drought had always been a natural phenomenon because of Spain’s geographical location, a change had been seen over recent decades.

“We’ve noticed the droughts in the south of Spain are lasting longer and that, when the rains come, they’re shorter but more intense,” he said. “It’s badly spaced out. When the rains are hard, they’re less useful for refilling reservoirs and watering the fields, which need gentler rain.”

In January, Spain’s environment minister, Teresa Ribera, warned of the inescapable reality of the climate emergency, saying the country had to be prepared for “much longer cycles of extreme drought and periods of incredibly tough flooding”.

The average amount of available water had fallen by 12% since 1980, Ribera noted, and projections suggested a further drop of between 14% and 40% by 2050. “We can’t depend solely on rain when it comes to guaranteeing the supply of drinking water or water for economic uses,” she said.

Spain’s socialist-led government in January approved a €23bn (£20bn) plan to protect and improve water supplies by investing in areas including infrastructure, water treatment and purification, irrigation modernisation and flood-risk management.

The island of San Biagio in Lake Garda, Italy, now accessible by foot due to lake levels falling by 70cm.

 Photograph: Alex Fraser/Reuters

The government in Italy is reportedly preparing to create a taskforce including a “super-commissioner” and officials from several ministries to tackle the effects of severe drought, which is already starting to impact agriculture.

Water levels in the Po, the country’s longest river that nourishes several northern and central regions, were 61% down on the February norm. While recent rainfall has alleviated some pressure, the environment and energy security minister, Gilberto Pichetto, warned last week water rationing may be required in some areas.

“The problem of drought is serious,” he told Corriere della Sera. “We’ve only had half the average amount of snow. We found ourselves with waterways, lakes and reservoirs in a very critical state, and hydroelectric basins in extreme difficulty.”

Italy’s national research council (CNR) said last month that rainfall in the north was 40% lower than average in 2022, adding that the absence of precipitation since the beginning of 2023 had been “significant”.

A leading meteorologist, Luca Mercalli, said Italy would only avoid a repeat of last summer’s extreme drought if there was plentiful rainfall during spring. “It’s the last hope,” he said. “If we have no spring rain for two consecutive years, that would be the first time this has ever happened.”

In central and northern Europe, lack of precipitation has so far mainly been seen in Alpine regions where winter tourists have faced snowless skiing pistes.

In the state of Tirol, Austria, for example, the towns of Landeck and Reutte have measured their driest winter on record, while in parts of Switzerland municipalities have again had to urge citizens to save water, after already doing so last summer.

But scientists warn the impact of the winter drought will most likely be felt in Germany and Austria’s lower regions in the coming months: less snow over the winter means less meltwater to feed the rivers of central Europe in the warmer months.

“Today’s snow deficit could potentially become tomorrow’s summer drought,” said Manuela Brunner, a professor in hydrology and climate impacts at Zurich’s ETH university.

The meteorologist Josef Eitzinger, of Vienna’s Institute of Meteorology and Climatology, told the dpa news agency: “If this spring’s weather is similar to that of 2022, dryness will increase significantly.” He pointed to historically low water levels at Lake Neusiedl, a key water source straddling the border between Austria and Hungary.

UK
Revealed: 37 security breaches reported by nuclear police force over one year

Paul Dobson
Sat, 4 March 2023 

The CNC is an armed force that protects 10 civilian nuclear sites across the UK, including Torness and Dounreay in Scotland.

The police force that guards the UK’s nuclear plants reported 37 security breaches last year, including the thefts of a uniform, confidential documents, an officer’s day book and three “classified” Microsoft tablets.

Alongside the thefts, there were 12 instances of personal data being compromised, and a further 19 cases where staff lost their warrant or identity cards.

The findings were revealed in a freedom of information (FoI)request by the independent investigative journalism co-operative The Ferret, which asked the Civil Nuclear Constabulary (CNC) for details of security incidents in 2021-22.

The 37 incidents reported last year was the highest number for eight years.

The CNC is an armed force that protects 10 civilian nuclear sites across the UK, including Torness and Dounreay in Scotland.

It is also responsible for the security of nuclear energy material when it is being transported and says that countering terrorism is “at the heart” of its remit.

But campaigners said the force had allowed an “appalling litany of security breaches” that undermine the nuclear industry’s claim its sites are among the most secure in the country.

One activist argued that “few things could be worse than terrorists getting into a nuclear plant” and called for an “urgent inquiry into why the CNC are doing such a terrible job” of preventing security incidents.

The force said it takes security issues “extremely seriously” and has a “robust process” for dealing with reported breaches.

It claimed the majority of security incidents were “low level”, such as the “mistyping an email address or sending a document with the wrong security classification”.

All of the stolen items were taken from vehicles, according to the FoI response. The tablets – which are listed as Microsoft Surface Pros – included classified information and were stolen while vehicles were outside secure premises.

The thefts of the day book and uniform, alongside the loss of the identity cards, are all listed as “low level breaches” by the force.

The CNC said these thefts had happened in two incidents when thieves accessed unmarked vehicles while they were parked at service stations. The tablets were encrypted and immediately wiped once the thefts were reported, it claimed. Examples of personal data being compromised include information being “incorrectly uploaded to a cloud platform” and correspondence being sent to personal email addresses or the wrong external team.

There was also an incident of “inappropriate access to and sharing of police information” but the FoI response does not provide any further information about this.

The CNC has more than 1,100 firearms officers at its disposal and has access to “over 10 different weapons systems’’.

The force has stationed armed police at non-military nuclear sites across the UK since 2005, after a decision was made to bulk up security at plants in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks in the US. Its annual budget has grown by around £20m since 2016-17 and now sits at just over £120m. However, this increased spending power has not reduced the number of reported security breaches, which have more than doubled in the last six years.

In 2021, the Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) – which oversees the civil nuclear industry – also recorded the highest number of security issues at UK nuclear sites for at least 12 years.

The 456 incidents flagged to the ONR across the nuclear industry that year included unauthorised people gaining access to secure areas of plants and cybersecurity threats such as attacks using malicious software.

The growing number of security incidents comes at the same time that the UK Government has announced its ambition to boost production of nuclear energy.

It wants to build 24 gigawatts of new nuclear power capacity by 2050. One new station – Hinkley Point C in Somerset – is already under construction, while another – Sizewell C in Suffolk – has received planning permission.

Dr Paul Dorfman, chairman of the Nuclear Consulting Group, said he was “hugely concerned about the wisdom of this strategy” at a time when “security incidents are on the rise”. He claimed that renewable technologies are a “cheaper, quicker and safer” option to reach climate targets than nuclear energy.

Richard Dixon, the former director of Friends of the Earth Scotland, questioned whether the breaches meant “any old terrorist can simply buy a security badge and a uniform down the local pub”.

‘Can any old terrorist buy a security badge and uniform down the local pub?’

He added: “This is an appalling litany of security breaches. Because of the risk of terrorist attack, the nuclear industry always tells you their sites are among the most secure in the country”.

Julie Carlisle, a data protection officer for the CNC, said the increase in reporting in 2021-22 is “considered a positive thing” as it “demonstrates the security culture” at the force, adding: “Since the two thefts from vehicles, we have reiterated the message to all employees that no CNC property, including uniform, must be left when a vehicle is unattended and we’ve seen no further incidents. The CNC takes any potential security issues extremely seriously and has a robust and tested process for recording and dealing reported breaches.”

Western Cities Vote to Keep U.S. Nuclear Dream Alive (For Now)


Molly Taft
Thu, March 2, 2023

The proposed NuScale facility in Idaho.

A group of cities in the Western U.S. have voted to move ahead with a new nuclear project that could help revolutionize how clean power is generated in this country—despite sharply rising costs for the project.

On Tuesday, a group of 26 cities in Utah, Idaho, New Mexico, and Nevada said they wanted to continue with their investment in what could become the U.S.’s first cluster of small modular reactors. NuScale, the company behind the project, told the group in January that costs for the energy generated by the planned project had jumped more than 50% since it last calculated its estimates.

Nuclear power is a crucial form of baseload energy that can provide reliable, carbon-free electricity at a low operating cost. But large-scale nuclear projects in the U.S. have traditionally been infrastructure behemoths, often taking decades to construct with specialized parts made for each plant. That has made it difficult in recent years for nuclear plants to compete with the plummeting costs of natural gas and renewables, as plants struggle to recoup their up-front investment. Small modular reactors, known as SMRs, can theoretically cut the costs of larger reactors by using factory-made parts that are shipped to the site.

The design for NuScale’s SMR was approved in late January by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission; it’s the first SMR design ever approved by the U.S. government, and only the seventh reactor design to be approved. The test project is set to be built in Idaho, and the six-reactor, 482-megawatt project would come online in 2030. The coalition of cities involved in the Idaho project are known as the Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems (UAMPS), a network of local utilities and other agencies that have signed up to become the first customers of the nation’s first-ever SMR.

The cost increases NuScale informed the cities of in January were due to pretty basic stuff around supply chain management and inflation. Materials all over the world are generally more expensive than they have been in past years, and SMRs, while smaller than traditional reactors, are still huge infrastructure projects. Still, NuScale said it had revised its estimates for the price of the power up so much that WIRED reported last month that some cities would go from paying $58 per megawatt-hour of power to $89; the project’s total costs now sit at around $9.3 billion. It’s an uncomfortable echo of other nuclear projects in the U.S. that have experienced ballooning costs. The UAMPS coalition saw three cities already drop out of the agreement with NuScale in 2020, after the company previously revised its costs upward.

“The project will support our decarbonization efforts, complement and enable more renewable energy, and keep the grid stable,” Mason Baker, the CEO and General Manager of UAMPS, told Reuters. “It will produce steady, carbon-free energy for 40 years or longer.” Baker said that UAMPS thought the project was still a good idea because the cost increases were due to supply chain materials used in other projects, not specific to nuclear technology.

The decision to move forward with the project from UAMPS is a vote of confidence in the future of the industry—and an illustration of the difficulties some cities face in figuring out where to get power in the future, as dirty energy moves off the grid.

Jordan Garcia, a deputy utilities manager for the city of Los Alamos, New Mexico, told WIRED that parched hydropower plants and retiring coal plants means the city will have to scramble to find another source of renewable energy to meet its decarbonization goals if the NuScale plant doesn’t come through.

“We may have to actually invest in a natural gas unit to bridge the gap until something else comes along,” he said.

 Gizmodo

Plan to incinerate soil from Ohio train derailment is ‘horrifying’, says expert

Tom Perkins
Sat, March 4, 2023 

Photograph: Alan Freed/Reuters

Contaminated soil from the site around the East Palestine train wreck in Ohio is being sent to a nearby incinerator with a history of clean air violations, raising fears that the chemicals being removed from the ground will be redistributed across the region.

The new plan is “horrifying”, said Kyla Bennett, a former Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) official now with the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility non-profit. She is one among a number of public health advocates and local residents who have slammed Norfolk Southern and state and federal officials over the decision.

Related: ‘Crafting an illusion’: US rail firms’ multimillion-dollar PR push

“Why on earth would you take this already dramatically overburdened community and ship this stuff a few miles away only to have it deposited right back where it came from?” Bennett asked.

Incinerating the soil is especially risky because some of the contaminants that residents and independent chemical experts fear is in the waste, like dioxins and PFAS, haven’t been tested for by the EPA, and they do not incinerate easily, or cannot be incinerated.

A Norfolk Southern train carrying vinyl chloride used to produce PVC plastic derailed on 3 February in the small industrial town of 4,700 people, located at the edge of the Appalachian hills in Ohio.

As the fire threatened to ignite tankers full of the chemical days later, emergency responders, fearing a major explosion, conducted a controlled burn of the substance.

Environmental researchers say the combustion of vinyl chloride almost certainly created dioxins, a highly toxic chemical that can remain in the environment for years. However, the EPA has resisted calls to test for it, and the agency removed from its website the results of its in-depth soil analyses, so it’s unclear which chemicals are in the soil.

Chemicals like dioxins must be incinerated at extremely high temperatures, and the combustion of some substances can be difficult or unpredictable during incineration, said Carsten Prasse, an environmental health professor at Johns Hopkins University who focuses on risk science. Those issues are generating uncertainty about the plan’s safety.

“My concern is basically do we just translate the issue that’s right now in the soil into another medium by blowing it into the air?” he asked. “That is not necessarily the case, but I’m not sure that we can exclude this at this point, so it is an issue.”

The ground also likely contains PFAS, informally called “forever chemicals” because they do not naturally break down, and no human-made method to destroy the compounds has been fully developed.

“The effectiveness of incineration to destroy PFAS compounds and the tendency for formation of fluorinated or mixed halogenated organic byproducts is not well understood,” the EPA has written.

Still, it is putting residents’ health at risk by sending potentially PFAS-contaminated soil to the incinerator, Bennett said.

“The most important thing in my mind is the human health and health of the environment, so right now that should be priority number one, and things like this fly in the face of basic human decency and science,” she added.

The incinerator, owned by Heritage Thermal Services, is already burning PFAS waste from the Department of Defense, which prompted a federal lawsuit from a coalition of local environmental groups. Heritage also faced an investigation and enforcement action from the EPA in 2015 after officials determined the facility had violated the Clean Air Act nearly 200 times between 2010 and 2014.

Among the chemicals that had been released at dangerous levels was dioxin, and among the issues cited by the EPA were a failure by Heritage to maintain a required minimum temperature, raising questions about whether the facility can handle more dioxin and PFAS waste.

The facility has also recorded air quality violations in eight of the last 12 quarters, EPA records show.

Local environmental groups have been fighting with Heritage over its emissions since the incinerator was built in the 1990s, said Amanda Kiger, director of River Valley Organizing. She has been assisting residents in East Palestine about 15 miles north, but lives near the incinerator in East Liverpool, both of which are in Columbiana county.

“[Environmental officials] are just dumping more shit on Columbiana county,” Kiger said. “They say, ‘We already poisoned them so it doesn’t matter if we poison them more.’”

In a statement to news outlets, Heritage said it is “providing support at the site in accordance with the cleanup plan approved by government agencies with jurisdiction over the response to the event”.

East Palestine’s waste disposal has raised fresh questions about the disposal of toxic substances. Some of the waste is being sent to incinerators around Ohio, while about 1.5m gallons of wastewater is being injected into wells deep into the Earth’s crust near Houston. Deep wells can leak waste into groundwater, and are thought to cause earthquakes.

Meanwhile, some contaminated soil was shipped to a Michigan landfill with a history of discharging PFAS into a public sewer system. A state-of-the-art incinerator in Arkansas is likely equipped to more safely handle the East Palestine waste, Kiger said.

“But how do you say, ‘Not in my backyard – give it to someone else’?” she asked. “They got us fighting each other.”

WTF

Ohio law enforcement links Erin Brockovich to potential for 'special interest terrorism' threat in East Palestine

The report assesses the risk posed by Brockovich and activist groups in the wake of the Norfolk Southern train derailment.

Jana Winter
·Investigative Correspondent
Thu, March 2, 2023 

Activist Erin Brockovich poses at her home In Agoura Hills, Calif., on March 16, 2021.

 (Valerie Macon/AFP via Getty Images)

Ohio law enforcement issued a report late last month warning that events planned in East Palestine by the environmental activist Erin Brockovich could prompt a terrorist threat from violent extremists, according to an intelligence bulletin obtained by Yahoo News.

Dated Feb. 24 and distributed to law enforcement agencies by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the Ohio Statewide Terrorism Analysis & Crime Center Terrorism Analysis Unit Situational Awareness [STACC TAU] report obtained by Yahoo News "assesses that special interest extremist groups will continue to call for changes in governmental policy, which may lead to protests in/around East Palestine and/or at the Statehouse in Columbus.”

The report then singles out the reaction by Brockovich, a whistleblower who helped build a successful lawsuit against the California utility company Pacific Gas and Electric in a case involving contaminated groundwater, to the Feb. 3 train derailment and release of toxic chemicals in East Palestine.

“On 24 February, environmental activist Erin BrockovichUSPER [United States person] is scheduled to be in East Palestine to explain residents’ legal rights. Brokovich has urged the community to use common sense and ask questions. Brockovich is also placing blame solely on Norfolk Southern.The STACC TAU assess this event could potentially increase tensions within the community.”

The report assesses the risk posed by Brockovich and other activist groups that have planned events in East Palestine in the wake of the Norfolk Southern train derailment and the controlled burn of vinyl chloride, a carcinogenic ingredient used in the production of plastic products after the derailment.

“According to the FBI, special interest terrorism differs from traditional right-wing and left-wing terrorism in that extremist special interest groups seek to resolve specific issues, rather than effect widespread political change,” the report states. “Such extremists conduct acts of politically motivated violence to force segments of society, including the general public, to change attitudes about issues considered important to the extremists’ cause.”

Drone footage shows the freight train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, on Feb. 6. (NTSB Gov/Handout via Reuters)

Brockovich, who was played by the actress Julia Roberts in the 2000 film named after her, was in East Palestine on Thursday afternoon to host an event. She did not immediately respond to Yahoo News’ request for comment.

This situational awareness report is highly problematic, said former FBI agent Mike German, who worked on a recent Brennan Center report about issues with DHS fusion centers.

“Obviously, there is no reason to have included Erin Brockovich's name or a description of her advocacy in a law enforcement intelligence report, much less a ‘situational awareness’ report by a state fusion center's terrorism analysis unit,” German told Yahoo News. “Almost all of the activity described in this report is rightly protected by the First Amendment and poses no threat of harm, and therefore should be of no interest to terrorism intelligence units.”

Contacted by Yahoo News, the Ohio Department of Public Safety denied that it had issued a report identifying Brockovich as a possible terrorist threat.

“Erin Brokovich is listed as an ‘environmental activist’ and the brief mention of her falls under the heading of ‘various individuals or groups have responded to the train derailment,’” the Ohio Department of Public Safety’s Jay Carey told Yahoo News in an email. “The fact that she is an ‘environmental activist’ that has ‘responded to the train derailment’ is factual and has been well documented by media accounts. Any inference otherwise is incorrect.”

DHS posted the report on its intelligence sharing platform on Feb. 28, making it available to its more than 150,000 local, state and federal police and other partners nationwide.

“Fusion Centers are state and locally owned and operated centers that actively share, analyze, and operationalize threat-related information between federal, state, local, tribal, territorial, and private sector partners,” a DHS spokesperson said in an emailed statement to Yahoo News. “DHS supports Fusion Centers through the presence of DHS personnel and information sharing technology, but DHS does not run or operate Fusion Centers.”

The report also referred to the environmental group Earthjustice, which, it stated “called on Governor DeWineUSPER to declare a state of emergency," pointing to the "contaminated waterways" and subsequent deaths of thousands of fish.

Environmental activist Erin Brockovich, right front, speaks to concerned residents as the host of a town hall meeting at East Palestine High School on Thursday.

(Michael Swensen/Getty Images)

“Earthjustice works with communities across the country to protect people’s health,” Debbie Chizewer, managing attorney for Earthjustice’s Midwest Regional office, told Yahoo News.

“In East Palestine, Earthjustice is supporting partners that have been exposed to toxic chemicals as they call for much needed resources, monitoring, cleanup of the contamination, as well as protections to prevent disasters like the explosion of a chemical-carrying cargo train in the future.”

The report obtained by Yahoo News stated that East Palestine police and fire department officials reported having received threats but had determined they were not credible. It was not clear, however, why they were mentioned in the report.

“This report should not have described any noncriminal activity, particularly after it stated that the terrorism analysis unit is ‘unaware of any credible direct threats regarding the East Palestine train derailment,’” German said. “This flawed reporting only clogs our national intelligence networks with inappropriate materials that undermine effective counterterrorism and law enforcement analysis, by overwhelming intelligence analysts with unhelpful misinformation that dulls the response to genuine threat warnings.”

Former DHS Acting Undersecretary John Cohen agreed that the inclusion of Brockovich’s name was, as he put it, “a bit problematic,” and said that law enforcement needed to be more careful in describing what is and is not considered a threat.

“When reporting on online or other activity that may be protected speech, authorities need to be very clear how that speech relates to threat-related activities or other public safety issues,” Cohen told Yahoo News. “It’s fine to catalog what different people are saying, but from a law enforcement perspective, they need to be clear where there is a nexus with the need for an operational response.”

AFTER 9/11 THE FBI DECLARED 

ECO ACTVISTS AS TERRORISTS