Kategori: News in English

Dorothy Allison, who died on Nov. 5, 2024, published her first novel, “Bastard Out of Carolina,” in 1992, when she was 42 years old.

She mined her own life to craft the semi-autobiographical work, which became a finalist for the National Book Award.

Growing up poor in Greenville, South Carolina, Allison endured abuse of all kinds before becoming the first in her family to finish high school and college. As a lesbian, she faced additional challenges and hurdles. Before she achieved literary fame with her first novel, Allison ran a feminist bookstore and a women’s center. She was broke when she finally sold “Bastard Out of Carolina.”

To me, Allison is a shining exception in a long line of authors who have attempted to write about poverty but fail to accurately capture it.

In my book “Poor Things: How Those with Money Depict Those without It,” I detail the genre of what I call “poornography” – stories written about poor people by people who don’t have firsthand experience being poor themselves.

Most readers are probably familiar with the standard tropes in these works: violence, sexual abuse, addiction, filth and degradation. Allison was decidedly not in that camp.

She broke that mold by finding beauty in her impoverished surroundings and focusing on love, humor and family bonds.

Beauty in a hopeless place

Even though “Bastard out of Carolina” ultimately deals with physical and sexual abuse – which, of course, is not confined to poor people – this merely constitutes one element of a broader emotional and physical landscape.

Allison’s hometown of Greenville is also the setting of the novel – and it’s a place that the novel’s young narrator, Bone, describes as “the most beautiful place in the world.” She adds:

“Black walnut trees dropped their green-black fuzzy bulbs on Aunt Ruth’s matted lawn, past where their knotty roots rose up out of the ground like the elbows and knees of dirty children suntanned dark and covered with scars. Weeping willows marched across the yard, following every wandering stream and ditch, their long whiplike fronds making rents that sheltered sweet-smelling beds of clover.”

Extreme hunger, however, is unique to poverty, and something that poor writers often recall with a kind of vividness that can escape middle-class or wealthy writers.

“Hunger makes you restless,” Allison writes. “You dream about food, magical meals, famous and awe-inspiring, the one piece of meat, the exact taste of buttery corn, tomatoes so ripe they split and sweeten the air, beans so crisp they snap between the teeth, gravy like mother’s milk singing to your bloodstream.”

In “Bastard out of Carolina,” Allison doesn’t celebrate hunger. But she is able to find humor in it and show how laughter can be used as a coping mechanism.

In the novel, when Bone complains about being hungry, her mother recounts her own childhood: Back then, there was “real hunger, hunger of days with no expectation that there would ever be biscuits again.” And during those times she and her siblings would concoct fantastical stories of strange dishes: “Your aunt Ruth always talked about frogs’ tongues with dew berries. … But Raylene won the prize with her recipe for sugar-glazed turtle meat with poison greens and hot piss dressing.”

Humor isn’t used to gloss over the seriousness of poverty. Yet Allison is keen to point out that both can exist: They are all wrapped up in a life lived.

Greenville, S.C., where Dorothy Allison spent the first 11 years of her life, was the setting for ‘Bastard out of Carolina.’
Library of Congress

American delusion

I can’t help but compare Allison’s work with that of an author like JD Vance. In his 2016 memoir, “Hillbilly Elegy,” Vance revels in his grandmother’s anger and violence as a sign of her vibrant hillbilly-ness.

On the other hand, in “Bastard out of Carolina,” Bone recalls her mother saying flatly, “Nothing to be proud of in shooting at people for looking at you wrong.”

So many other writers about poverty have characters who pine for the material comforts promised by the American Dream, whether it’s Clyde Griffiths in Theodore Dreiser’s “An American Tragedy” or George and Lennie in John Steinbeck’s “Of Mice and Men.”

Dorothy Allison worked on ‘Bastard out of Carolina’ for nearly a decade before finding a publisher.
Amazon

Allison’s characters, on the other hand, learn to see through this false promise. In one scene, Bone and her cousin break into the local Woolworth’s.

Previously, she had longingly eyed a brimming glass case of nuts. But once she shatters the display case, she realizes “that the case was a sham. There hadn’t been more than two inches of nuts pressed against the glass front, propped up with cardboard.” Her reaction: “Cheap sons of bitches.”

In a display of class consciousness, Bone eventually detects the false allure of cheap commodities. “I looked … at all the things on display. Junk everywhere: shoes that went to pieces in the rain, clothes that separated at the seams, stale candy, makeup that made your skin break out.”

In contrast, she thinks of the value of the home-canned goods made by her aunt. “That was worth something. All this stuff seemed tawdry and useless.”

‘Jealous of you for what you got’

At one point, Bone articulates the concept of poornography without using that term. She talks about “the mythology” that plagues poor people:

“People from families like mine – southern working poor with high rates of illegitimacy and all too many relatives who have spent time in jail – we are the people who are seen as the class that does not care for their children, for whom rape and abuse and violence are the norm. That such assumptions are false, that the rich are just as likely to abuse their children as the poor, and that southerners do not have a monopoly on either violence or illegitimacy are realities that are difficult to get people to recognize.”

In “Bastard out of Carolina,” Bone resents the rich rather than admiring them. In a conversation with one of her aunts, she says she “hates” them. Interestingly, her aunt provides the poor person’s counterpoint to hate.

“Could be they’re looking at you sitting up here eating blackberries … could be they’re jealous of you for what you got, afraid of what you would do if they stepped in the yard.”

Allison shows readers how class resentment can go both ways, and how for all of the contempt directed at poor people from the rich and powerful, there may also be an element of envy and fear at play. Läs mer…

Curious Kids is a series for children of all ages. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it to curiouskidsus@theconversation.com.

Why do I feel better rested when I wake myself up than I do if my alarm or another person wakes me up? – Calleigh H., age 11, Oklahoma

We’ve all experienced this: You’re in the middle of a lovely dream. Perhaps you’re flying. As you’re soaring through the air, you meet an eagle. The eagle looks at you, opens its beak and – BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

Your alarm goes off. Dream over, time to get up.

Many people – kids and adults alike – notice that when they wake up naturally from sleep, they feel more alert than if an alarm or another person, like a parent, wakes them up. Why is that?

I’m a neurologist who studies the brain, specifically what happens in the brain when you’re asleep. I also take care of children and adults who don’t sleep well and want to sleep better. My research involves working with parents to help them teach their children good sleep habits.

To understand how to sleep better, and why waking up naturally from sleep helps you feel more alert, you need to start by understanding sleep cycles.

The sleep cycle

The sleep cycle consists of four stages. One of these is REM, which stands for rapid eye movements. The other three are non-REM stages. When you fall asleep, you first go into a state of drowsiness called non-REM Stage 1.

This is followed by deeper stages of sleep, called non-REM stages 2 and 3. Each stage of non-REM is deeper than the one before. Then, about 90 minutes after you first fall asleep, you enter the fourth stage, which is REM sleep. This is a stage of lighter sleep where you do much of your dreaming. After a few minutes, you return to non-REM sleep again.

The four stages of the sleep cycle.
The Conversation, CC BY

These cycles repeat themselves throughout the night, with most people having four to six cycles of non-REM sleep alternating with REM sleep each night. As the night goes on, the cycles contain less non-REM sleep and more REM sleep. This is why it’s important to get enough sleep, so that the body can get enough of both REM sleep and non-REM sleep.

REM vs. non-REM sleep

How do researchers like me know that a person is in non-REM vs. REM sleep? In the sleep lab, we can tell from their brain waves, eye movements and the tension in their muscles, like in the chin. These are measured by putting sensors called electrodes on the scalp, around the eyes and on the chin.

These electrodes pick up brain activity, which varies from waves that are low in amplitude (the height of the wave) and relatively fast to waves that are high in amplitude (a taller wave) and relatively slow. When we are awake, the height of the waves is low and the waves are relatively fast. In contrast, during sleep, the waves get higher and slower.

Non-REM Stage 3 has the tallest and slowest waves of all the sleep stages. In REM sleep, brain waves are low in amplitude and relatively fast, and the eye movements are rapid, too. People need both non-REM and REM stages for a healthy brain, so they can learn and remember.

Waking up naturally

When you wake up in the morning on your own, it’s usually as you come to the end of whatever stage of sleep you were in. Think of it like getting off the train when it comes to a stop at the station. But when an alarm or someone else wakes you up, it’s like jumping off the train between stops, which can feel jolting. That’s why it’s good to wake up naturally whenever possible.

People can actually train their brains to wake up at a consistent time each day that is a natural stopping point. Brains have an internal 24-hour clock that dictates when you first start to feel sleepy and when you wake up. This is related to our circadian rhythms.

You can adjust your circadian rhythm so that you wake naturally each morning.

Training the brain to wake up at a consistent time

First, it’s important to go to bed at a consistent time that allows you to get enough sleep. If you stay up too late doing homework or looking at your phone, that can interfere with getting enough sleep and make you dependent on an alarm – or your parents – to wake you up.

Other things that can help you fall asleep at a healthy time include getting physical activity during the day and avoiding coffee, soda or other drinks or foods that contain caffeine. Physical activity increases brain chemicals that make it easier to fall asleep, while caffeine does the opposite and keeps you awake.

Second, you need to be aware of light in your environment. Light too late in the evening, including from screens, can interfere with your brain’s production of a chemical called melatonin that promotes sleep. But in the morning when you wake up, you need to be exposed to light.

Morning light helps you synchronize, or align, your circadian rhythms with the outside world and makes it easier to fall asleep at night. The easiest way to do this is to open up your shades or curtains in your room. In the winter, some people use light boxes to simulate sunlight, which helps them align their rhythms.

Benefits of a good night’s sleep

A good sleep routine entails both a consistent bedtime and wake time and regularly getting enough sleep. That usually means 9-11 hours for school-age kids who are not yet teens, and 8-10 hours for teens.

This will help you be at your best to learn at school, boost your mood, help you maintain a healthy weight and promote many other aspects of health.

Hello, curious kids! Do you have a question you’d like an expert to answer? Ask an adult to send your question to CuriousKidsUS@theconversation.com. Please tell us your name, age and the city where you live.

And since curiosity has no age limit – adults, let us know what you’re wondering, too. We won’t be able to answer every question, but we will do our best. Läs mer…

Jargon is hard to decipher. And when it comes to climate science, it’s rife. So, we’ve teamed up with top climate experts to explain the meaning, and the context, of some of the most crucial terminology.

The Conversation’s new quick climate dictionary explains the meaning of everything from blue carbon to carbon footprint. It will help you understand the difference between net zero and carbon neutral, and make obscure concepts like “loss and damage” more relevant and digestible.

As new terms become more mainstream, we’ll endeavour to translate them for you in this ongoing series. More than a glossary, each video is a bitesize explainer, using simple language that’s accessible to all.

To begin with, Mark Maslin, professor of earth systems science at UCL, explains that net zero is the point at which “no extra greenhouse gases are accumulating in the atmosphere”. As he says: “That’s really important for limiting climate change.”

Mark Maslin explains the meaning of net zero.

Also, I put my wellies on and head to the very muddy foreshore to explain the meaning of blue carbon – the carbon that can be absorbed and stored by plants in the ocean. Spoiler alert: it’s in more than just pretty mangroves.

Anna Turns explains the term ‘blue carbon’.

Above all, this isn’t about the doom and gloom of an existential threat. An optimistic thread of solutions runs throughout this dictionary – improving climate literacy is the first step to amplifying innovations, making progress and scaling up serious climate action.

This dictionary will grow over the coming months, so check out our YouTube playlist. I hope you find it useful and uplifting.

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Disclosure statement:

Mark Maslin is Pro-Vice Provost of the UCL Climate Crisis Grand Challenge. He is co-director of the London NERC Doctoral Training Partnership and a member of the Climate Crisis Advisory Group. He is an advisor to Sheep Included Ltd, Lansons, NetZeroNow and the UK Parliament. He has received grant funding from the NERC, EPSRC, ESRC, DFG, Royal Society, DIFD, BEIS, DECC, FCDO, Innovate UK, Carbon Trust, UK Space Agency, European Space Agency, Research England, Wellcome Trust, Leverhulme Trust, CIFF, Sprint2020, and British Council. He has received funding from the BBC, Laithwaites, Seventh Generation, Channel 4, JLT Re, WWF, Hermes, CAFOD, HP and Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors. Läs mer…

Donald Trump’s victory in the US presidential elections has left many across the world unsure about what he might do in his next term, and whether some of the threats he made about international policy will be followed through.

There are several dramatic policy changes that the president-elect has threatened to make once he takes office.

For some, one of the most serious foreign policy concerns is the way the Trump administration might go about ending the war in Ukraine. Trump stated he could stop the war in a day. If the end result of any negotiation or peace deal is seen by Vladimir Putin as a victory, other countries on Russia’s borders are worried it could lead to plans for further military aggression.

Similarly, if Trump abandons the US’s historic support for the self-governing island of Taiwan, it could prompt China into an attack. Beijing sees the island as a breakaway province, and wants it to become part of China. But historically, US support of Taiwan has been a factor in China holding back.

Xi Jinping wants to cement his legacy as the leader who unified China, something which Mao Zedong failed to do after the civil war. The Chinese president has ratcheted up the pressure on Taiwan in recent years, and there are significant signs that he wants to go further.

But neither Xi or Putin can guarantee that Trump will do what he has previously suggested he might. Here’s why.

A lesson from game theory, the mathematical study of cooperation and competition, might be relevant here – in particular, the scenario referred to as the “chicken game” or the “hawk-dove” game, which provides a model of conflict between two actors.

It’s called the “chicken game” because it follows the same logic as contests between American adolescents in the 1950 and ’60s. They would drive their cars at each other at high speed, and the first one to swerve aside and avoid a potentially fatal crash would be described as “chicken” and so lose the game.

To describe the logic of this game, we can use a payoff matrix (see below). This is a table showing the hypothetical payoffs resulting from the different outcomes that are possible when player A is confronted by player B. In each pair of outcomes, player B’s payoff from their combined actions is given first, followed by player A’s.

Paul Whiteley, Author provided (no reuse)

The worst possible outcome for both players is a crash, so this gets a payoff of 0 for both. The best possible outcome for Player A is to carry on driving when player B swerves, with the payoffs seen in the top-right cell (1,3). The equivalent outcome for player B is in the bottom left cell. If both swerve, the payoff is 2 for each player.

Thus, swerving is better than crashing – but the top prize goes to the player who drives straight at his opponent, who backs down.

The chicken game has been used to model nuclear deterrence. In this case, a first strike which destroys the opponent is the equivalent of driving when the opponent swerves. Needless to say, when both players launch strikes simultaneously, the outcome is a lot worse than the zero depicted in the matrix.

The key to winning the game is to convince your opponent that you are willing to keep on driving at all costs. Some American teenagers would, for example, ostentatiously throw the steering wheel out of the vehicle, signalling to their opponent that they could not swerve at the last minute even if they wanted to. This amounts to saying that to win, you need to convince your opponent you will take that risk.

Trump was the first sitting president to visit North Korea.

This is similar to what Trump does in some circumstances. He makes big statements about what he is going do – in part, this may be to see what his opponents do next, and whether they will back down.

Trump also has the advantage of unpredictability. The gap between what he says and does is significant, as Michael Wolff, the biographer of his first term in office, has detailed. Woolf said in an interview: “Donald Trump is deeply unpredictable, irrational, at times bordering on incoherent, self-obsessed in a disconcerting way, and displays all those kinds of traits that anyone would reasonably say: ‘What’s going on here, is something wrong?’”

A couple of examples from Trump’s first term make the point that the president-elect often chooses moves that, historically, other US leaders have ruled out. Sometimes these moves are successful; in other cases, they aren’t.

In 2019, Trump made a historic visit to North Korea, the first US leader to do so. At this meeting, Trump suggested it was the beginning of a new era of friendship between the nations, and suggested he was the only person who could do this. But his attempt to forge an alliance with North Korea and halt its nuclear programme failed. In this case, Trump’s unpredictability did not work.

But there is another example when his unpredictablity succeeded in achieving an outcome the US had been wanting for decades. In his first term, Trump sought to weaken the Nato alliance by “insulting and alienating US allies”. And his threats to cut US support helped achieve his objective of persuading Nato member countries to increase their defence spending. This is exactly what he hoped.

So, Trump’s unpredictability could be a deterrent to opponents such as Putin and Xi, as they don’t know how he is likely to react, or when he might take offence. If Putin refuses a Ukraine peace deal proffered by Trump, or accepts it and then resumes the war during his presidency, the US president could take this personally and could even turn against Putin.

The lesson from game theory is that unpredictability and recklessness can pay off in conflict and negotiation situations. And this means no one knows what Trump will do next. Läs mer…

The phenomenon of younger men turning to testosterone replacement therapy (TRT) to boost their “T levels” has been in the spotlight recently thanks to media reports and social media influencers.

Testosterone is a hormone critical to male health, influencing muscle mass, mood, cognition, libido and energy levels. Artificially raising testosterone levels through supplementation when levels dip seems logical. But is it?

Clearly, a large amount of research points towards beneficial effects of TRT for men with deficiency, including increased muscle mass and reduced fat mass, improved sexual desire and performance and better overall quality of life. But these findings come mostly from research in older men, leaving important questions unanswered about the effects of TRT in younger men. (It should be noted that TRT is not the same as anabolic steroids, which are drugs used purely to increase muscle mass.)

As men age – typically from age 30 – testosterone levels decline. Some estimate levels to drop by 1%-2% per year, although the specifics have not been resolved. This decline happens much faster if the person has certain diseases, such as obesity, diabetes and inflammatory diseases – the kinds of diseases that tend to accumulate as we age.

In healthy men, the age-related decline probably doesn’t have a negative effect until men are in their 70s and 80s. So low testosterone is not a natural consequence of ageing that all men will face. And it really is the occurrence of certain diseases that has a big impact on T levels.

Testosterone deficiency in younger men that requires medical intervention is relatively uncommon. But it can occur with specific genetic conditions such as Klinefelter syndrome, where males have an extra X chromosome, which can interfere with testosterone production and development.

Despite this, recent studies suggest a generational decline in testosterone levels, with young men today having lower testosterone than those in past generations. These reductions might be due to changes in environmental and lifestyle factors: higher stress levels, poor diet, lack of exercise and increasing obesity rates can contribute to hormonal imbalances.

Adding to this, chemicals in plastics, certain pesticides and processed foods contain hormone disruptors, which may also play a role. These changes appear to have contributed to lower testosterone even in otherwise healthy young men.

Plastics contain chemicals that can disrupt hormone levels.
David Prahl / Alamy Stock Photo

Whether this generational decline affects overall health has yet to be proved. And even with these declines, levels are often still within the so-called normal range.

While TRT might seem like a solution to fatigue, low mood, anxiety and decreased muscle mass, it’s essential to consider the underlying reasons for low testosterone and whether lifestyle changes might be more effective and sustainable than hormone replacement. For many, changes such as improving diet, reducing stress, exercising regularly and getting enough sleep can have a big effect on testosterone levels and overall wellbeing.

Hidden dangers

Historically, testosterone therapy was thought to increase the risk of prostate cancer and heart attack. Recent clinical trials have provided strong evidence against this. Yet most of the safety studies on TRT have been conducted on older men whose testosterone levels have declined. Younger men, particularly those under 30, have not been widely included.

The side-effects and potential long-term health risks for older men can be quite different from those faced by younger men. This means that the effects of TRT use in young men are still uncertain and until longer-term safety studies are performed, many dangers may not yet be known.

Despite how easy it is to get testosterone levels assessed these days, with many online clinics offering home-test kits, defining what is a normal testosterone level is a bit more complicated.

Testosterone concentrations in the blood fluctuate throughout the day, year and temporarily with different cues. For example, an infection, stress and poor sleep can all temporarily lower T levels. If the decision to use TRT is based on that one measure – particularly if that measure was done incorrectly – there is a risk of unnecessary treatment.

There is also the danger that if testosterone levels are boosted too high, it can be harmful to health.

Testosterone therapy can increase red blood cell count, which may thicken the blood, making it harder for the heart to circulate blood throughout the body. This can lead to complications such as high blood pressure and elevate the risk of blood clots. Blood clots can lead to life-threatening conditions like deep vein thrombosis, pulmonary embolism, heart attack or stroke.

Very high levels of testosterone (particularly those above the normal range) through supplementation can cause the heart muscle to grow, a condition called cardiac hypertrophy. Over time, this can increase the risk of heart disease and other cardiovascular issues. Since young men are less likely to be screened for heart conditions, TRT use without careful monitoring may elevate the risk of sudden cardiac events.

For young men who may want to have children in the future, TRT can be an issue. TRT suppresses the body’s natural testosterone production and disrupts the hormone signals necessary for sperm production, leading to infertility. In many men, this is reversible once treatment has stopped, but in some, the infertility is permanent.

There are also some cosmetic side-effects. Increased testosterone can stimulate oil production in the skin, potentially leading to severe acne, which may cause both physical discomfort and psychological distress. And higher levels of testosterone, particularly in young men genetically predisposed to male pattern baldness, can accelerate hair loss, which may affect their self-esteem.

Before jumping into testosterone replacement therapy, young men should confirm they’re truly testosterone deficient with a healthcare provider and understand all the personal risks alongside the potential benefits. Since lifestyle factors often play a big role, making small changes may be a smart first step before medication. And if they do start TRT, regular monitoring by medical professionals is key to catching any side-effects early and keeping health on track. Läs mer…

In the tension between ecology and economics lies an uncomfortable truth: while both words share a root in “eco” (from the Greek oikos, meaning home), our modern economies often seem to overlook the home we all share – the natural world.

In her new book The Serviceberry: An Economy of Gifts and Abundance (published by Allen Lane), Indigenous scientist and author Robin Wall Kimmerer, renowned for her previous bestseller Braiding Sweetgrass (2013), invites readers to rethink this link by looking to an unlikely teacher – the serviceberry tree.

So, what exactly is a serviceberry? More than just a flowering tree native to North America, the serviceberry is deeply rooted in Indigenous calendars and knowledge systems. Its blossoming signals the arrival of spring, and its berries have sustained human and non-human (or as Kimmerer more aptly refers to them, “more-than-human”) communities alike for generations. For Kimmerer, a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation and a scientist, the serviceberry becomes a lens for understanding what it means to live abundantly on this planet.

Her book is as slender as a serviceberry twig, only 105 pages in a small, beautifully bound format. But it bears a weight of wisdom, unfolding like a series of ripple-effects that spread from the berry itself to the entire web of life.

John Burgoyne’s black-and-white illustrations bring a rustic, timeless quality to the text, evoking homely woodcuts. This aesthetic choice mirrors Kimmerer’s approach: while modern economics treats nature as a resource to be exploited, The Serviceberry offers a different vision – one where nature is a gift to be shared. Through a blend of storytelling and careful scientific observation, Kimmerer makes a powerful case for gift economies as an alternative to our market-driven society.

Robin Wall Kimmerer.
Matt Roth

Kimmerer argues that Indigenous knowledge systems, including the Potawatomi’s, have long promoted a culture of reciprocity – giving back to the land that sustains us. This notion is rooted in a simple but profound question: what can we give back to nature, especially when we have already taken so much?

The book addresses this question through Kimmerer’s perspective as both an ecologist and an Indigenous scholar, grounded in traditions that emphasise balance and gratitude.

Central to her argument is the idea that abundance is not linked to the mindset that resources are limited, as capitalist economies would have us believe. Instead, Indigenous knowledges show that abundance can come from cooperative relationships with nature, where humans are just one part of a larger system.

Kimmerer writes that “all that we need to live flows through the land”. This is a reminder that seems both honest and humbling in a world that prioritises economic growth over ecological balance. To embrace a “culture of gratitude”, as she suggests, is not merely to say thanks but to actively reciprocate, ensuring that the gift continues.

The Serviceberry is a hopeful book.
Allen Lane/Penguin Books

This approach challenges two central assumptions in economic theory: that humans are “rational economic actors”, and that scarcity is the only driver of value. By exploring alternative systems like gift economies, Kimmerer invites us to rethink what wealth means and what we are truly taking when we consume.

Gift economies exist outside of traditional market structures, grounded in practical examples such as potlatch feasts and public libraries. These are cultural systems where resources are shared, and value is measured in relationships rather than transactions.

This way of thinking aligns with the so-called “cuddly capitalism” seen in some Nordic countries, where policies prioritise wellbeing and foster high levels of happiness.

From tragedy to hope

Kimmerer’s discussion challenges the famously cynical “tragedy of the commons” theory, proposed by ecologist Garrett Hardin, which suggests that common resources inevitably lead to depletion because of self-interest. Kimmerer argues that humans are not inherently driven by selfishness, as biologist Richard Dawkins’s selfish gene theory suggests.

Recent studies indicate that mutualism and cooperation are foundational in evolution, hinting at the idea that ecosystems, and perhaps economies, thrive on cooperation, not just competition.

In Kimmerer’s hands, these concepts feel intuitive, almost obvious: why wouldn’t we look to natural systems that have survived for millions of years to guide our future? Her answer lies in having the humility to accept that we are just a part of this vast web of life.

Ultimately, The Serviceberry is a hopeful book. It offers a way out of what Kimmerer calls a “cannibal economy”, where endless consumption depletes the world around us. Instead, she imagines a system where resources circulate through communities, creating webs of independence that nourish both humans and nature.

This vision – one that replaces the tragedy of the commons with an abundance of community – invites us to rediscover the serviceberry tree’s simple wisdom: when we take, we must also give back. Through Kimmerer’s words, the serviceberry is not just a fruit but a guide, helping us reimagine our relationship with the Earth, grounded in reciprocity, gratitude, and the possibility of abundance.

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Climate change and biodiversity policies have largely evolved in isolation, even though the two crises are deeply intertwined. They have their own UN summits, with the same name and numbering system: the UN biodiversity summit Cop16 just concluded in Colombia, while the climate summit Cop29 is happening right now in Azerbaijan. Confusingly, there’s also a summit on desertification in Saudi Arabia in December, also called Cop16.

The three summits in quick succession make this is an important opportunity to align these agendas. Healthy ecosystems are crucial for climate resilience, while a stable climate is essential to protecting biodiversity.

Take Brazil, which could fulfil nearly 80% of its net zero pledge by halting deforestation and restoring native vegetation. Not only would this preserve vast amounts of carbon, it would also safeguard a significant portion of the planet’s biodiversity.

Political support for a more integrated approach is gathering momentum. At the recent biodiversity summit, leaders stressed the need to align national climate targets with biodiversity goals. This builds on recent initiatives such as the Rio Trio initiative, where the heads of the UN’s conventions on climate change, biodiversity and desertification committed to unified action.

Latin America appears to be stepping up its leadership on biodiversity-climate synergies, which is crucial given the region holds much of the world’s biodiversity and land-based carbon. More than 70 global leaders called on presidents Petro of Colombia and Lula of Brazil to lead efforts on climate, nature and food security. Brazil also renewed its pledge to restore 12 million hectares of native ecosystems by 2030, which is extremely encouraging.

Missed opportunities

But despite these promising developments, the biodiversity summit exposed troubling gaps between climate and biodiversity policy. For instance, key language addressing the need to transition away from fossil fuels and warning about the dangers of bioenergy was deleted from the summit’s final text.

Sugarcane is a popular crop for biofuels.
kckate16 / shutterstock

Bioenergy involves cultivating plants chosen or engineered for high biomass yield, which can be burned directly to produce energy or processed into biofuels for use in vehicles. A paragraph in earlier drafts had warned of the risks this poses to biodiversity:

Noting that the large-scale deployment of intensive bioenergy plantations, including monocultures, replacing natural forests and subsistence farmland, will likely have negative impacts on biodiversity and can threaten food and water security, as well as local livelihoods, including by intensifying social conflicts.

Those risks are all very real. Yet this paragraph was removed due to opposition from several large bioenergy-producing countries.

Bioenergy is a biodiversity risk

The omission is particularly troubling given how many net zero strategies rely on turning over huge amounts of land for carbon dioxide removal. This often means either creating monoculture plantations of non-native trees on a massive scale, or growing bioenergy crops and then capturing and storing the carbon they emit when burned – a still speculative technology known as BECCS (bioenergy with carbon capture and storage).

One recent study revealed that global net zero commitments may demand around 990 million hectares of land for carbon removal by 2060. That’s an area nearly the size of the US and equivalent to two-thirds of the world’s cropland. This poses serious risks to biodiversity and food security, especially in regions where land is scarce and competition is fierce.

The projected impacts are troubling: lower-income nations, particularly in Africa, have pledged disproportionately large land areas for carbon removal, often benefiting high-emitting industrialised nations or oil-producing states. This raises concerns about land appropriation and food insecurity. In some cases, pledged areas even exceed a country’s total land area, underscoring unrealistic and overestimated goals.

This and other recent high-profile studies contribute to a growing body of evidence cautioning against the global scaling-up of bioenergy crops, which often struggle to meet essential social and ecological sustainability criteria.

Moreover, when assessed across their full lifecycle, from seed to electricity, the presumed advantage of bioenergy over fossil energy is often very unclear. Growing huge fields of a single crop (a monoculture) is also highly vulnerable to climate change impacts such as droughts.

Don’t trade off carbon for biodiversity

The scientific consensus is clear: we cannot address climate change by industrialising the biosphere. Effective climate solutions must protect ecosystem integrity and support biodiversity, not compromise them for carbon gains.

This requires not only stronger coordination between the UN’s climate, biodiversity and desertification conventions, but more inclusive governance structures that amplify the leadership of Indigenous peoples, whose lands are home to large swathes of the world’s biodiversity and carbon. This is why it was so significant that the recent biodiversity summit established a new permanent subsidiary body, enabling the “full and effective participation” of Indigenous people in protecting biodiversity.

At Cop29 in Azerbaijan and at next year’s Cop30 climate summit in Brazil, there is hope that Latin American countries will continue to lead the way in promoting integrated climate-biodiversity action. In our race to cool the planet, we must ensure we don’t compromise the health of the biosphere on which we depend.

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In Greek mythology, Prometheus is credited with giving humans fire as well as the “spark” that spurred civilisation. One of the unintended consequences of Prometheus’s “gift” was that the need for celestial Gods diminished. Modern humans have been up to all sorts of things that present similar unintended consequences, from using CFCs that led to a hole in the ozone layer to building systems that they do not understand or cannot fully control.

In dabbling with artificial intelligence (AI), humans seem to have taken on the role of Prometheus – apparently gifting machines the “fire” that sparked civilisation.

Predicting the future is best left to shamans and futurologists. But we could be better informed about the dangers that follow from how AI operates and work out how to avoid the pitfalls.

First, we must recognise that AI holds immense promise for human society. AI is becoming ubiquitous – from mundane tasks such as writing emails to complex settings that require human expertise.

AI – by which we mean large language models (LLMs) that appear to “understand” and produce human language – are prediction machines. They are trained on large datasets that enable them to establish statistical associations between a huge number of variables and to predict what is next.

If you have used Google, you might have experienced some version of this through its predictive prompts. For example, you might type “how to drive” and Google will complete it as “how to drive an automatic car”. It is unlikely to complete it with “how to drive an aeroplane”. Google establishes this by looking at the history of what words come after “how to drive”. The larger the dataset upon which it has been trained, the more accurate its prediction will be.

Variations of this logic are used in all of its current applications. AI’s strength, of course, is that it can process untold amounts of data, and extrapolate it to apply to the future.

Read more:
AI development works better for everyone when its workforce is well looked after

But this strength is also its weakness – it makes it vulnerable to a phenomenon management scholars refer to as the “confidence trap”. This is the tendency to assume that since earlier decisions have led to positive outcomes, continuing in the same way in future will continue to be OK.

Consider an example: the intervals between maintenance of critical aeroplane parts. If increasing the intervals in the past has worked out fine (no failures), these might be adopted widely and there might be a push to increase the intervals further. Yet, it turned out that this was a recipe for disaster. Alaska Airlines flight 261 crashed into the Pacific Ocean killing all 88 people on board because – perhaps influenced by previous success – a decision was made to delay the maintenance of a critical part.

AI might just exacerbate this tendency. It can take attention away from signs that there are problems as AI analysis feeds into the picture to inform decision-making.

Or AI can extrapolate the results of the past and take decisions without human intervention. Take the example of driverless cars, which have been involved in more than a dozen cases of pedestrians being killed. No dataset, no matter its size, can provide training for every potential action a pedestrian could take. AI cannot yet compete with human discretion in situations like these.

But more worryingly, AI can diminish human capabilities to the extent that the ability to determine when to intervene might be lost. Researchers have found that use of AI leads to skill decay – a particular concern where workplace decisions involve life-or-death consequences.

Driverless cars can’t yet make instinctive decisions the way human brains can.
Scharfsinn/Shutterstock

Amazon learned the hard way about letting “prediction machines” make decisions when its internal hiring tool discriminated against women as it was trained on a database spanning a ten-year period that skewed towards males. These are, of course, examples that we are aware of. As LLMs get more complex and their inner workings become more opaque, we might not even realise when things go astray.

Looking backwards

Because AI mirrors the past, it might also be limited in its ability to spark radical innovation. By definition, a radical innovation is a break from the past.

Consider the context of photography. Innovative photographers were able to change the way in which the business was done – the history of photojournalism is an example of how something that started as a way of illustrating the news gradually acquired storytelling power and was elevated to the status of an art form.

Similarly, fashion designers such as Coco Chanel modernised women’s clothing, freeing them from uncomfortable long skirts and corsets that lost their relevance in the post-war world.

The founder of sportswear manufacturer Under Armour, former college football player Kevin Plank, used the discomfort from sweaty cotton undershirts as an opportunity to develop clothing using microfibres that draw moisture away from the body. AI can improve on these innovations. But because of how it operates in its current form, it is unlikely to be the source of novelties.

Simply put, AI is unable to see or show us the world in a new way, a shortcoming we have termed the “AI Chris Rock problem”, inspired by a joke the comedian cracked about making bullets prohibitively expensive. By suggesting a remedy that involved “bullet control” rather than gun control to curb violence, Rock got laughs tapping into the cultural zeitgeist and presenting an innovative solution. In doing so, he also highlighted the absurdity of the situation – something that requires human perception.

AI shows its shortcomings when what previously worked loses its relevance or problem-solving power. AI’s past success means it will roll out in ever-widening circles – but this itself constitutes a confidence trap that humans should avoid.

Prometheus was ultimately rescued by Hercules. No such god stands in the wings for humans. This implies more, rather than less, responsibility rests on our shoulders. Part of this includes ensuring our elected representatives provide regulatory oversight for AI. After all, we cannot let the technocrats play with fire at our expense. Läs mer…

Kate Bush’s visionary 1985 concept album, Hounds of Love, was the second she had produced on her own (after The Dreaming in 1982), and the first recorded in her own studio.

It sounded strikingly original for its time. A work of progressive pop that blended elements of experimental electronica, art rock, folk, chamber music and cinematic atmospheres into something new and aesthetically distinct.

Bush embraced digital sampling using the pioneering audio workstation, Fairlight CMI. Side A yielded a string of immaculate top 40 hits: Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God), Cloudbusting, Hounds of Love and The Big Sky. Side B contained a seven-part song cycle called The Ninth Wave, an immersive nightmare-scape that invited the listener to empathise with the near-death experiences of a woman lost at sea.

Today the album is universally considered a classic. It’s one of the defining high watermarks for pop production in the 1980s, produced during a time when few female music creators had access to high-tech recording equipment and facilities.

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I have been researching Bush’s creative process for a new book I’ve written about Hounds of Love as part of the book publisher Bloomsbury’s 33 1/3 series, in which each title is about a single music album. Learning about how she held on to her creative autonomy, advocating for herself, her ideas and preferred ways of working while strategically navigating the male-dominated music industry has been inspirational.

According to the annual Inclusion in the Recording Studio report, the number of female producers has risen from 3.5% last year to 6.5% today. It’s difficult to know what the gender gap was in the mid-80s, but we can safely assume it was no better.

As a producer, Bush’s importance and influence cannot be overstated. Her work inspired generations of marginalised artists to seize control of production as a means of expressing complex ideas.

The music video for Hounds of Love.

In a 2022 interview with Pitchfork, the Icelandic singer-songwriter and composer
Björk said: “In the 80s Bush was the only thing. It was her who was doing that. Everything else was patriarchy … she was the producer, she was making the environment she was singing in.”

Bush’s commercial success cleared a path for women in pop to be taken more seriously as creators. As singer-songwriter Imogen Heap told the Standard in 2014: “Kate produced some truly outstanding music in an era dominated by men and gave us gals a licence to not just be ‘a bird who could sing and write a bit’, which was the attitude of most execs.”

Beyond being a pioneer by virtue of her gender and achievements, Bush’s working methods, established when creating Hounds of Love and pretty much in place ever since, also disprove some commonly held assumptions about music creativity.

The tortured artist myth

In an interview in 1992, Bush said that making Hounds of Love “was the happiest I’ve been compared to making other albums … I know that there’s a theory that goes around that you must suffer for your art … I don’t believe this.”

The “tortured artist” is a pervasive trope in music discourse, from Beethoven and Robert Schumann to Kurt Cobain and Amy Winehouse. It is perpetuated in popular culture in films like Whiplash (2014) and A Star Is Born (2018).

Kate Bush in 1980.
Trinity Mirror/Mirrorpix/Alamy Stock Photo

In 2011, Wilco frontman Jeff Tweedy called the concept a “damaging mythology”, one that had interfered with his own recovery from periods of mental illness and addiction. That Bush created some of her strongest works while in a happy, comfortable state, helps bust this dangerous myth that trauma is a necessary component of compelling artistry.

Another creative myth, particularly associated with studio-based music making, is that the best stuff comes out fast. Like The White Stripes, who conjured Seven Nation Army during a soundcheck, or Stevie Nicks, who poured out Fleetwood Mac’s hit Dreams in about ten minutes, winning ideas can strike from the flow state like lightning.

But hiring a big studio to experiment and see what happens was never Bush’s preferred mode. As she explained to Melody Maker in 1985: “Knowing the astronomical amount studio time cost used to make me really nervous about being too creative. You can’t experiment forever, and I work very, very slowly. I feel a lot more relaxed emotionally now that I have my own place to work.”

The making of Hounds of Love was a slow, incremental process, not reliant on the collective synergies of group collaboration, but rather on careful, individual selection. Its success reinforces the often-forgotten value of working slowly – that slow work can still engage with our intuitive senses.

Bush spent three years working on the album, and the length of time she spent on projects only grew after that. It took four more years to make The Sensual World (1989), another four for The Red Shoes(1993), a 12-year gap before Aerial (2005), her late masterpiece, was released and another six years before 50 Words For Snow (2011).

In his book Thinking, Fast and Slow (2011), behavioural scientist Daniel Kahneman differentiates between fast and slow cognitive modes. Fast thinking is intuitive and emotional. Slow thinking is mindful and deliberative.

A slow model of creativity makes sense of activities that we might otherwise perceive to be procrastination – think long walks and daydreams. Researchers have suggested that slowness is associated with greater divergent thinking in creative contexts.

In this way, it is revealing when Bush says of Hounds of Love: “I wrote the songs for this album in a tiny room overlooking endless fields. I could see the weather coming for miles.” Läs mer…

Immigration and crime were once again central themes throughout the US presidential election campaign. The belief that immigration drives up crime is one of the oldest – and strongest – convictions held by the public, spanning over a century in the US and elsewhere.

This view remains deeply rooted despite mounting evidence to the contrary, in large part thanks to politicians such as Donald Trump, who are all too keen to amplify this narrative. Since his first presidential campaign announcement in June 2015, Trump has persistently linked immigration to crime.

At that time, he stated: “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re sending people that have lots of problems … They’re bringing drugs, they’re bringing crime.” He has since stepped up this rhetoric.

In the final stretch of his recent presidential campaign, he made claims such as: “The corrupt media is outraged that I keep talking about migrant crime and the migrant crime epidemic. It’s the worst thing that’s happened to our country in 50 years. They’re taking over our small towns and cities.”

According to survey evidence from the Pew Research Center, an American thinktank based in Washington DC, immigration and crime were two of the top three issues for Trump voters in the 2024 election, after the economy.

But what does the evidence really show? Our analysis reveals that studies consistently find no causal link between immigration and increased crime across a variety of countries. Research from the US, including both older and more recent studies, as well as research on Italy and the UK, demonstrates that immigration does not have a significant impact on crime rates.

Our paper also provides new evidence from Europe that reinforces this conclusion. After analysing 15 years of data on immigration inflows and crime rates across 216 regions in 23 European countries, we found no significant link between immigration levels and crime rates.

Indeed, through the application of robust causal methods, our findings demonstrate that even in areas experiencing substantial immigration, crime rates do not rise – and may even decline slightly – as immigration increases.

Why perceptions and reality diverge

One of the main reasons why the belief that immigration drives crime has persisted for so long is the influence of media and political rhetoric. During an election campaign, for example, selective coverage and targeted political messages can fuel public fears.

In Chile, where the foreign-born population tripled over a decade in the early 2000s amid a booming economy, public concern about crime intensified and demand for private security increased. However, research indicates that this surge in immigration had no impact on crime rates, and that intense media coverage played a significant role in shaping and amplifying public misperception.

Such negative messaging, though effective (as exemplified by Trump’s successful campaign), often diverges sharply from reality. Developing policies that focus on the social and economic integration of immigrants, rather than assumptions based on fear, can promote safer and more cohesive communities.

Donald Trump holds up a graph showing immigration numbers into the US during a visit to the southern US border in Arizona, August 2024.
Allison Dinner / EPA

This isn’t to say migrants are not involved in crime. In fact, immigrants are often over-represented in the prison populations of many host countries.

But the fact this doesn’t lead to a rise in crime rates, according to our analysis, could be because immigrant populations are often too small to alter crime rates significantly. And it is also possible that some form of offender substitution occurs, where immigrants replace natives in local “crime markets”.

One strand of research has explored whether the over-representation of immigrants in crime statistics may stem from external factors, such as restricted legal status or limited economic opportunities, rather than any inherent criminal propensity.

Our review highlights how legal work permits and stable employment are directly linked to reductions in crime rates. For example, in cases where certain Eastern European immigrants to other countries in Europe were granted legal work permits, their crime rates dropped by over 50%.

Migrant workers from Thailand and Eastern Europe picking strawberries in a field in Öland, Sweden.
Alexanderstock23 / Shutterstock

This is consistent with separate research that finds that granting immigrants legal status can lead to significant reductions in criminal activity, and that policies expanding legal access to work can help reduce crime rates among immigrant populations.

In fact, one study from March 2024 that examined long-term trends in the US revealed that immigrants today are much less likely to be imprisoned, compared with the 1960s. The same study attributes this reduction in crime to better work opportunities and more stable family structures among male immigrants. These insights provide a pathway toward policies that value integration over exclusion.

Expanding access to legal work, particularly for asylum seekers and other vulnerable groups, could foster safer communities. But restrictive policies focused on criminalising undocumented immigrants or barring them from employment may, paradoxically, increase crime.

As the US considers its approach to immigration, prioritising causal evidence over fear-driven narratives could pave the way for policies that benefit both immigrants and the communities they join. By fostering economic participation and addressing public misperceptions, we can build fairer, safer societies for all.

What can Paddington Bear’s citizenship journey teach our leaders?
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