| New Study Links Toxic Pollutants to Canadian Oil Sands Mining Native Canadians living downstream from the oil sands mines in Alberta Province have long complained that their high cancer rates were related to the expanding excavation of bitumen for the production of synthetic crude. A new study in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences is backing their position. feeds.nytimes.com |
EPA told gas drilling does, does not taint water By MARY ESCH 2010-09-13T22:25:44ZBINGHAMTON, N.Y. (AP) -- Rep. Maurice Hinchey told a federal hearing Monday that the Environmental Protection Agency must regulate hydraulic fracturing, the natural gas extraction process that he said has contaminated water near drilling sites around the country.... hosted.ap.org |
When it comes to race, the move-on brigade can't dismiss the problems | Aditya Chakrabortty The new trend to 'move on' from the problems of the past and dismiss them as old hat will not wash when it comes to race relationsOne of the most-thumbed pages in the Almanac of Political Strategy (hardback edition soon to be ditched for a collaboratively edited creative commons Wiki, natch) must be the entry on how a young tyro can beat opponents simply by labelling them as – horrors! – old hat.A tricky manoeuvre, it demands Mandelsonian deftness rather than Stalinist force. Bowing his head and affecting a tone of sincere regret, the assassin acknowledges that the rival's arguments were useful – nay, essential – in the past, but times have changed, haven't they? And bam: you've floored 'em.It's the tactic used by Ed Miliband this week with his call for a "new generation, not New Labour". Before him came David Cameron, Barack Obama, Tony Blair and every other insurgent in an off-the-peg suit.Call it the move-on move, and it works across a whole range of arguments. One issue where it's been deployed to devastating effect is on race. The argument runs thus: since the murder of the black teenager Stephen Lawrence in 1993, and the Macpherson report that followed in 1999 accusing the police of "institutional racism", race relations in this country have turned around. Sure, there were massive problems of discrimination and unequal opportunities and racial violence before. But now, say the move-on brigade, now the authorities have got their act together.Now, ministers tell us, it's the mythical lost tribe of the white working class that requires urgent attention (as opposed to the plain old working class, which would obviously be far too retrograde a term). Now, TV execs say, it's right to give Nick Griffin equal billing with frontbenchers from other parties and allow him an hour on the consecrated ground of Question Time. Enoch Powell may have been drummed out of mainstream politics for warning of rivers of blood, but hey, times have changed.And now we get a special issue of the usually thoughtful Prospect magazine to lay out what is apparently the state-of-the-art thinking on race. Put together by Munira Mirza, who is Boris Johnson's adviser on arts policy and therefore ranks as one of the most powerful ethnic-minority officials in the country (not that competition is stiff), it makes one point over and over: like smallpox or polio, racism has been all but eradicated."Old prejudices have faded," declares Mirza. "Race is no longer the significant disadvantage it is often portrayed to be." Which means that "1980s anti-racism", as the magazine refers to it, is presumably as outdated as "1980s earmuffs" or "1980s singles by Five Star", and with less chance of a revival.Two things stand out in these pieces. The first is how fact-free they are, with Mirza and her co-authors offering up scarcely a statistic between them. Instead, we get arguments that begin in the anecdotal or purely personal: "as a black man", or "as a black woman", or "as someone born in Oldham". Well, as "someone who missed his bus this morning", my views on public transport still aren't worth much without some evidence.The other detail that strikes you is how narrowly Mirza and her team define racism. For them it is simply the most humiliating and vicious forms of discrimination – paki-bashing or landlords' notices stating "No Irish, no dogs".That these former everyday horrors are no longer everyday is something to be celebrated; although anyone who wants to argue that they have entirely disappeared might try to run that by the relatives of the 89 people killed because of their race since Lawrence was murdered. They might also remember that the government's own figures show that black people are over seven times more likely to be stopped and searched by the police than whites. And they suffer harsher treatment at every stage of the criminal justice system, even when it comes to how long they are put in prison.Read enough of these pieces, or pay attention to what senior politicians from all parties tell you, and you might think that Britain now is in the middle of a national re-enactment of the Cosby Show. Colour is just an incidental feature and certainly no bar to pulling one's self up by the bootstraps. Talk such as this gives austerity-minded coalition politicians all the excuse they need to cut funding to all those old-fashioned community groups.Yet race remains a massive factor in determining our opportunities and life chances. Two in three British Bangladeshi children grow up in poverty in the UK (compared with two in 10 of their white counterparts). Even those at the top of the career ladder, who have been dealt all the right cards and played them correctly, are still subject to what Bristol academic Tariq Modood calls an "ethnic penalty". What does that mean? The typical Chinese-origin man now earns about 11% more than his white British counterpart; but he is still paid 11% less than would be implied by his qualifications. Since time immemorial, ethnic-minority children have been told they need to work twice, three times as hard as their white friends: that rule hasn't expired yet.Britain now isn't the same place as it was when the Windrush docked, and the nature of race relations in this country have got more subtle. But racism can still be as simple as being pulled over by a policeman for having the wrong colour of skin. No amount of sophistry can mask that. Some problems can't be wished away by calling them old hat. And you can't move on if others are blocking the way.Race issuesPsychologyAditya Chakraborttyguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
My bright idea: Neanderthals could show compassion Our closest ancient relatives cared for their sick and the elderly much as we humans do, says Penny SpikinsDr Penny Spikins is a young archaeologist at the University of York who focuses her research on social and cognitive evolution and prehistoric social dynamics, writing across a diverse range of subjects including the role of prestigious leaders and the occurrence of autism in past societies.In her new book, The Prehistory of Compassion, written with researchers Holly Rutherford and Andy Needham, she rejects the popular portrayal of Neanderthals as simple, unfeeling brutes and suggests that our closest ancient relatives may well have demonstrated a level of compassion that would put many modern humans to shame, caring for the infirm and the vulnerable for years at a time in organised groups.What is the evidence for compassion in Neanderthals?An example for Neanderthals is of a man found in the Shanidar cave in Iraq with one withered arm, deformities in both legs and a crushed skull which probably made him blind in his left eye. We think he survived for between 20 and 35 years, a length of time which shows that there must have been conscious care from the community, most likely undertaken by a group of people.The long-term care of others is something that we may think of as being a modern human characteristic and for a long time the issue was quite contentious. At Sima de los Huesos in Spain, a Homo heidelbergensis [an ancestor of modern humans] child was found who suffered from lambdoid single suture craniosynostosis, where parts of the skull fuse together. He would have had a strange appearance and probably reduced mental capacity. However, the age of the child at death is estimated at between five and eight years, so this proves he would have been looked after for at least five years of his life by others in the same way as a normal child.How does this compare with humans?When we think of compassion, we think about empathising with one another but human compassion often goes beyond this, with people willing to take immense risks on behalf of others they care about. And human compassion can extend to outside our close groups and even to inanimate objects. For example, I may carry around a photograph of a loved one and this object will comfort me and bring out emotions in me.Some Neanderthal personal ornaments have been found but it is only with modern humans that these objects are thought to be widespread.Our fondness for pets and animals in general is an example of our compassion extending outside our species and so beyond what may be considered as useful for a group.Is it possible that the compassion demonstrated by Neanderthals could have been exploited by early humans, contributing to their demise 30,000 years ago?It's a very interesting idea. There is a theory that the facial features of early humans may have resembled that of a child-like Neanderthal and perhaps this means the Neanderthals would have viewed them with a certain amount of undeserved trust.How does your research relate to the study this year showing that most people living outside Africa can trace up to 4% of their DNA to a Neanderthal origin?The 4% study raises many interesting questions. The idea that all interactions between humans and Neanderthals were instinctive and violent is unlikely to be true. There may well have been compassionate behaviour between the groups that led to them living harmoniously for periods of time.Would it be fair to say that the level of compassion felt by Neanderthals falls somewhere in between humans and chimpanzees, for example?I think it would be unfair to Neanderthals not to allow them the potential to be as compassionate as others. There have been cases of female chimpanzees carrying around the bodies of their dead children for weeks on end, in what is quite a powerful demonstration of grief, and this shows a level of compassion that could even be said to extend beyond that seen in much of human society today. So I think we need to be careful about putting compassion on some kind of continuous scale where one species is better than another and instead consider the individual examples.EvolutionBiologyguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Scientists confirm water from lunar probe A head-on collision by a NASA spacecraft last year has confirmed the presence of ice and other frozen compounds on the surface of the moon, according to scientists. abc.net.au |