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- How a nondescript box has been saving lives during the pandemic – and revealing the power of grassroots innovation
- Military action in radioactive Chernobyl could be dangerous for people and the environment
- 3 reasons Belarus is helping Russia wage war against Ukraine
- FIFA's suspension of Russia is a rarity – but one that strips bare the idea that sport can be apolitical
- What's behind the obsession over whether Elizabeth Holmes intentionally lowered her voice?
- Surprise – your kids may be nervous about ditching the mask
- Infants need lots of active movement and play – and there are simple ways to help them get it
- Skateboarding's spiritual side -- skaters find meaning in falls and breaking the monotony of urban life
- War in Ukraine is changing energy geopolitics
- Shell, BP and ExxonMobil have done business in Russia for decades – here's why they're leaving now
- Students with disabilities are not getting help to address lost opportunities
| Posted: 03 Mar 2022 12:55 PM PST  One afternoon, a dozen Arizona State University students gathered to spend the morning cutting cardboard, taping fans and assembling filters in an effort to build 125 portable air purifiers for local schools. That same morning, staff members at a homeless shelter in Los Angeles were setting up 20 homemade purifiers of their own, while in Brookline, Massachusetts, another DIY air purifier was whirring quietly in the back of a day care classroom as children played. The technology in all three cases – an unassuming duct tape-and-cardboard construction known as a Corsi-Rosenthal box – is playing an important part in the fight against COVID-19. The story of how it came to be also reveals a lot about communities as sources of innovation and resilience in the face of disasters. A simple technology with a big effectAs it became clear that COVID-19 was spread through airborne transmission, people started wearing masks and building managers rushed to upgrade their ventilation systems. This typically meant installing high-efficiency HEPA filters. These filters work by capturing virus-laden particles: Air is forced into a porous mat, contaminants are filtered out, and clean air passes through. The efficacy of a building's ventilation system is governed by two factors, though, not just the quality of the filters. The amount of air moved through the ventilation systems matters as well. Experts typically recommend five to six air changes per hour in shared spaces, meaning the entire volume of air in a room is replaced every 45 minutes. Systems in many older buildings can't manage this volume, however. Portable air filters are an option for augmenting ventilation systems, but they typically cost hundreds of dollars, which puts them out of range for schools and other public spaces that face budget constraints. This is where the Corsi-Rosenthal box comes in. It's a cube consisting of four to five off-the-shelf furnace filters topped by a standard box fan blowing outward. Once sealed together with tape, it can sit on a floor, shelf or table. The fan draws air through the sides of the cube and out the top. The units are simple, durable and easy to make, and are more effective than simply placing a single filter in front of a box fan. It usually takes 40 minutes, minimal technical expertise and US$60 to $90 in materials that are available from any home supply store.  Despite this simplicity, though, these homemade units are extremely effective. When used in a shared space like a classroom or hospital ward, they can supplement existing ventilation and remove airborne contaminants, including smoke and virus-laden particles. A raft of recent peer-reviewed research has found portable air purifiers can dramatically reduce aerosol transmission. Other preprint and under-review studies have found Corsi-Rosenthal boxes perform as well as professional units at a fraction of the cost. Origins of the Corsi-Rosenthal boxThe formal story of the Corsi-Rosenthal box began in August 2020, when Richard Corsi, an air quality expert and now dean at the University of California, Davis, pitched the idea of building cheap box-fan air filters on Twitter. Jim Rosenthal, the CEO of a Texas-based filter company, had been playing around with a similar idea and quickly built the first prototype. Within days, tinkerers and air quality engineers alike were constructing their own Corsi-Rosenthal boxes and sharing the results on social media. A vibrant conversation emerged on Twitter, blending sophisticated technical analysis from engineers with the insight and efforts of nonspecialists. By December, hundreds of people were making Corsi-Rosenthal boxes, and thousands more had read press coverage in outlets like Wired. In different corners of the world, people tweaked designs based on the availability of supplies and different needs. Their collective improvements and adaptations were documented by dedicated websites and blogs, as well as news reports. In some cases, design tweaks proved to be influential. In November 2020, for example, a homeowner in North Carolina discovered an issue with air being drawn back in through the corners of the most commonly used square fans. Subsequent testing by air quality experts showed that adding a shroud to the fan increased efficiency by as much as 50%. Analyzing social media and news coverage gives a sense of the scale of the Corsi-Rosenthal box phenomenon. As of January 2022, more than 1,000 units were in use in schools, with thousands more in homes and offices. More than 3,500 people had used the hashtag #corsirosenthalbox on Twitter, and tens of thousands more contributed to the online conversation. News articles and explainer videos on YouTube had collectively accumulated more than 1.9 million views. Communities as sources of innovationThe story of the Corsi-Rosenthal box is part of a broader story of the grassroots response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The early days of the pandemic did more than just take a terrible toll on people. They also galvanized a massive entrepreneurial effort, with tens of thousands of everyday citizens lending their hands to design and produce the critical medical supplies and personal protective equipment that was suddenly needed.  My research team has been tracking these efforts. Through dozens of interviews and months of archival research, we've built a database of more than 200 startups – formal and informal, nonprofit and for-profit – whose activities ranged from designing oxygen concentrators to 3D printing face shields to building UV disinfection rooms. The picture of innovation that emerges is a far cry from the traditional lab coats and middle managers image that is commonly associated with new technologies. First, few of the innovations we've tracked were actually invented by a single person, or even a single team. Rather, they were the joint project of broad networks of individual contributors from different backgrounds and organizations. This breadth is important because it brings more knowledge and more diverse perspectives. It can also be helpful for tapping existing knowledge. For example, as Corsi-Rosenthal boxes gained traction, the community was able to draw on earlier iterations that had been developed to help with wildfire smoke. Second, the innovation process lacked hierarchical control. There was no single person directing where or how the technology was used. This lack of control made it easier to experiment and adapt to local conditions. One example is the development of oxygen concentrators for use in hospitals in India. Realizing that existing Western technologies failed frequently in the more humid operating environment typical of India, teams of innovators rallied to develop and share improved open-source designs. Third, these communities shared knowledge online. This allowed individual contributors to communicate directly and share ideas, which helped knowledge spread rapidly through the network. It also meant that knowledge was more readily accessible. The detailed designs and test results from air quality engineers working on Corsi-Rosenthal boxes were readily available to anyone in the community. Also, most of the organizations we tracked used Facebook, Twitter and Slack as tools to manage collaboration within and between organizations. As I and others have argued, this gives grassroots innovation tremendous promise – especially in a world where large-scale disruptions like a pandemic are increasingly common. Pitfalls of grassroots innovationDespite this promise, there are areas in which grassroots innovation communities falter. One challenge is a lack of technological sophistication and resources. While some of the communities in our study produced remarkably complex devices, the greatest contribution was in far simpler products like face shields and surgical gowns. Then there are rules and regulations. Even when grassroots communities can produce safe and effective innovations, existing rules may not be ready to receive them. Some hospitals were unable to accept personal protective equipment provided by the community during the pandemic because of inflexible procurement policies, and today some schools continue to prohibit Corsi-Rosenthal boxes. A final issue is sustaining effort. While grassroots communities were vital to allowing hospitals and medical facilities to remain functioning during the early days of the pandemic, many of the efforts that depended on volunteer labor eventually ran out of steam. What this means for the futureAs the second anniversary of the U.S. declaration of emergency approaches, a key lesson the world has learned is the importance of investing in indoor air quality, for example through monitoring and improved ventilation and filtration. And the value of ventilation as a noninvasive public health tool is even greater as mask mandates wane. Another, broader lesson is the power of grassroots innovation and citizen engineering to develop these technologies. The story of the Corsi-Rosenthal box, like the thousands of other grassroots innovations developed during the pandemic, is fundamentally about people taking the welfare of their communities into their own hands. The most popular tweet shared about Corsi-Rosenthal boxes was from a 14-year-old aspiring engineer in Ontario offering to build and donate boxes to anyone in need. [Get the best of The Conversation, every weekend. Sign up for our weekly newsletter.]  Douglas Hannah does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment. |
| Military action in radioactive Chernobyl could be dangerous for people and the environment Posted: 03 Mar 2022 05:28 AM PST  The site of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in northern Ukraine has been surrounded for more than three decades by a 1,000-square-mile (2,600-square-kilometer) exclusion zone that keeps people out. On April 26, 1986, Chernobyl's reactor number four melted down as a result of human error, releasing vast quantities of radioactive particles and gases into the surrounding landscape – 400 times more radioactivity to the environment than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. Put in place to contain the radioactive contaminants, the exclusion zone also protects the region from human disturbance. Apart from a handful of industrial areas, most of the exclusion zone is completely isolated from human activity and appears almost normal. In some areas, where radiation levels have dropped over time, plants and animals have returned in significant numbers.  Some scientists have suggested the zone has become an Eden for wildlife, while others are skeptical of that possibility. Looks can be deceiving, at least in areas of high radioactivity, where bird, mammal and insect population sizes and diversity are significantly lower than in the "clean" parts of the exclusion zone. I've spent more than 20 years working in Ukraine, as well as in Belarus and Fukushima, Japan, largely focused on the effects of radiation. I have been asked many times over the past days why Russian forces entered northern Ukraine via this atomic wasteland, and what the environmental consequences of military activity in the zone might be. Why invade via Chernobyl?In hindsight, the strategic benefits of basing military operations in the Chernobyl exclusion zone seem obvious. It is a large, unpopulated area connected by a paved highway straight to the Ukrainian capital, with few obstacles or human developments along the way. The Chernobyl zone abuts Belarus and is thus immune from attack from Ukrainian forces from the north. The reactor site's industrial area is, in effect, a large parking lot suitable for staging an invading army's thousands of vehicles. The power plant site also houses the main electrical grid switching network for the entire region. It's possible to turn the lights off in Kyiv from here, even though the power plant itself has not generated any electricity since 2000, when the last of Chernobyl's four reactors was shut down. Such control over the power supply likely has strategic importance, although Kyiv's electrical needs could probably also be supplied via other nodes on the Ukrainian national power grid. The reactor site likely offers considerable protection from aerial attack, given the improbability that Ukrainian or other forces would risk combat on a site containing more than 5.3 million pounds (2.4 million kilograms) of radioactive spent nuclear fuel. This is the highly radioactive material produced by a nuclear reactor during normal operations. A direct hit on the power plant's spent fuel pools or dry cask storage facilities could release substantially more radioactive material into the environment than the original meltdown and explosions in 1986 and thus cause an environmental disaster of global proportions.  Environmental risks on the ground in ChernobylThe Chernobyl exclusion zone is among the most radioactively contaminated regions on the planet. Thousands of acres surrounding the reactor site have ambient radiation dose rates exceeding typical background levels by thousands of times. In parts of the so-called Red Forest near the power plant it's possible to receive a dangerous radiation dose in just a few days of exposure. Radiation monitoring stations across the Chernobyl zone recorded the first obvious environmental impact of the invasion. Sensors put in place by the Ukrainian Chernobyl EcoCenter in case of accidents or forest fires showed dramatic jumps in radiation levels along major roads and next to the reactor facilities starting after 9 p.m on Feb. 24, 2022. That's when Russian invaders reached the area from neighboring Belarus. Because the rise in radiation levels was most obvious in the immediate vicinity of the reactor buildings, there was concern that the containment structures had been damaged, although Russian authorities have denied this possibility. The sensor network abruptly stopped reporting early on Feb. 25 and did not restart until March 1, 2022, so the full magnitude of disturbance to the region from the troop movements is unclear. If, in fact, it was dust stirred up by vehicles and not damage to any containment facilities that caused the rise in radiation readings, and assuming the increase lasted for just a few hours, it's not likely to be of long-term concern, as the dust will settle again once troops move through. But the Russian soldiers, as well as the Ukrainian power plant workers who have been held hostage, undoubtedly inhaled some of the blowing dust. Researchers know the dirt in the Chernobyl exclusion zone can contain radionuclides including cesium-137, strontium-90, several isotopes of plutonium and uranium, and americium-241. Even at very low levels, they're all toxic, carcinogenic or both if inhaled.  Possible impacts further afieldPerhaps the greater environmental threat to the region stems from the potential release to the atmosphere of radionuclides stored in soil and plants should a forest fire ignite. Such fires have recently increased in frequency, size and intensity, likely because of climate change, and these fires have released radioactive materials back into the air and and dispersed them far and wide. Radioactive fallout from forest fires may well represent the greatest threat from the Chernobyl site to human populations downwind of the region as well as the wildlife within the exclusion zone. Currently the zone is home to massive amounts of dead trees and debris that could act as fuel for a fire. Even in the absence of combat, military activity – like thousands of troops transiting, eating, smoking and building campfires to stay warm – increases the risk of forest fires.  It's hard to predict the effects of radioactive fallout on people, but the consequences to flora and fauna have been well documented. Chronic exposure to even relatively low levels of radionuclides has been linked to a wide variety of health consequences in wildlife, including genetic mutations, tumors, eye cataracts, sterility and neurological impairment, along with reductions in population sizes and biodiversity in areas of high contamination. There is no "safe" level when it comes to ionizing radiation. The hazards to life are in direct proportion to the level of exposure. Should the ongoing conflict escalate and damage the radiation confinement facilities at Chernobyl, or at any of the 15 nuclear reactors at four other sites across Ukraine, the magnitude of harm to the environment would be catastrophic. [Get fascinating science, health and technology news. Sign up for The Conversation's weekly science newsletter.]  Timothy A. Mousseau receives funding from the Samuel Freeman Charitable Trust. |
| 3 reasons Belarus is helping Russia wage war against Ukraine Posted: 03 Mar 2022 05:28 AM PST Russia is attacking Ukraine, but Belarus, a neighboring country, is "the other aggressor in this war," European Union President Ursula von der Leyen said on Feb. 27, 2022. One politician, Alexander Lukashenko, has ruled Belarus with a draconian hand for the last 28 years, with no interruption in power. And now, Lukashenko is supporting Russia in the war, reciprocating Russian President Vladimir Putin's recent help in maintaining his own political power. Putin is using Belarus as a staging ground for his war, which has resulted in at least 500 Ukrainian civilian deaths, and caused more than 1 million people to flee the country. Russian troops have crossed into Ukraine through the Belarusian border in the north. As an expert on Eastern Europe, I believe there are three key points to understand about Belarus' involvement in the Ukraine war. Russia unofficially controls BelarusBelarus is a former Soviet republic of 9.4 million people that borders both Russia and Ukraine as well as Lithuania, Latvia and Poland. It is also Europe's last dictatorship. Lukashenko has spent nearly three decades balancing his ties to both Western powers and Putin. But the last presidential election marked a turning point that pushed Lukashenko closer toward Putin. Lukashenko claimed victory after the Aug. 9, 2020, election, which international experts widely consider fraudulent. Lukashenko received 80% of the popular vote, an impossibly favorable result given public discontent with his regime. An unprecedented public uprising followed, as hundreds of thousands of Belarusians protested the election results. Putin offered financial and military support to help Lukashenko silence the protests — without any international response or pushback. Putin also warned foreign powers not to interfere in Belarus' affairs. This promise boosted Lukashenko's confidence and feelings of impunity. Belarusian police subsequently attacked protesters with water cannons, tear gas and stun grenades. Since 2020, Belarus has faced a series of international economic sanctions that further alienated Lukashenko from the West. The European Union and the U.S. announced on March 2, 2022, a new set of sanctions that restricts technology and potential war material exports to Belarus. The lack of international reaction to Putin enabling Lukashenko's behavior — alongside the economic pressure — pushed the Belarusian leader even closer to the Kremlin. This leaves Lukashenko with a limited ability to have an independent, or neutral, position on the war.  Belarusian people cannot easily speak against LukashenkoThe human rights situation in Belarus has sharply deteriorated since the 2020 elections, prompting an estimated 100,000 to 200,000 people to leave Belarus for neighboring European Union countries and Ukraine. People increasingly cannot freely express their opinions about any of the government's decisions, for fear of persecution and arrest. Since 2020, Belarus has detained more than 1,000 political prisoners, the U.S. State Department reported in January 2022. And at least 497 journalists and media workers were detained by the government during the first eight months of 2021, according to United Nations human rights expert Michelle Bachelet. An estimated 129 Belarusian nonprofit and human rights organizations also closed down during this time frame. Despite threats of government fines and arrests, thousands of Belarusians again took to the streets on Feb. 27, 2022, to protest the referendum and to express solidarity with Ukraine. As a result, police arrested an estimated 800 protesters. The silencing of public opinion gives Putin more power to exploit Belarusian territory for his political and military interests. Belarusians cannot apply pressure to the government and stop Lukashenko from following Putin's orders.  Belarus is a strategic stage for RussiaThe border between Belarus and Ukraine stretches about 674 miles – roughly half the length of Ukraine's border with Russia. This significantly expanded Russia's base for attacking Ukraine. Belarus and Russia conducted large-scale, joint military exercises ahead of the Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine. Despite public assurances from the Belarusian government that the Russian troops would go back to Russia, some 30,000 Russian troops extended their stay in Belarus, and many eventually crossed into Ukraine. Lukashenko continues to follow Putin's orders as the war escalates. Putin put Russia's nuclear forces on high alert on Feb. 27, raising international concern. That same day, Belarus scrapped its commitment to remaining nuclear free following a public referendum vote that was rigged, international experts say. This change in Belarus' constitution would allow Belarus to physically host Russian nuclear weapons. Belarus' military ties to Russia have strengthened since 2020. Lukashenko announced in September 2021 that Russia would send military equipment, including helicopters and air defense systems, to the Belarusian-Ukraine border. Two months later, Lukashenko broke his neutrality on Crimea, a Ukrainian peninsula that Russia forcibly annexed in 2014. The Belarusian leader publicly recognized that Crimea was Russian territory. Lukashenko also offered to host Russian nuclear weapons if NATO moves nuclear weapons from Germany to Eastern Europe, as had been reported. Lukashenko repeated his plan to station Russian warheads on Belarusian soil on Feb. 27, 2022, speaking at a polling station on the day of the referendum. Russia's ability to place nuclear weapons in Belarus has raised alarm for neighboring NATO countries, chiefly Poland, Latvia and Lithuania, as well as the U.S. and other Western powers. By hosting Russian troops and weapons, Lukashenko has shown that he is closely aligned with Putin — despite the popular will of the Belarusian people to maintain distance. [The Conversation's Politics + Society editors pick need-to-know stories. Sign up for Politics Weekly.]  Tatsiana Kulakevich does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment. |
| Posted: 03 Mar 2022 05:27 AM PST  The decision by FIFA on Feb. 28, 2022, to suspend Russia from international competition – a move that could see the national team excluded from the 2022 FIFA World Cup – breaks with a tradition of inaction by soccer's world governing body over the ethical failings of member states. Other than the exclusion of South Africa and Rhodesia during the apartheid era, examples of preventing national teams from competing are hard to come by. Nazi Germany took part in the 1938 World Cup, as did France in the World Cups of the 1950s despite that country's bloody wars against independence movements in Algeria and Indochina. No sporting sanctions were placed on the Argentinian junta, which detained and executed its own population inside football stadiums that went on to host the 1978 World Cup finals, and Nigeria was allowed to compete in the 1970 World Cup qualifiers despite its government waging a war against Biafrans, which resulted in up to 2 million deaths by starvation. The list goes on. But the point is FIFA does not usually punish national teams for the actions of the country's government. Even in the instances where authoritarian countries have been banned by FIFA, it hasn't been because of the actions of the state. Myanmar was excluded from the 2006 World Cup not because of the country's brutal military dictatorship, but for failing to play a World Cup qualifying game against Iran four years earlier. Syria was not allowed to qualify for the World Cup in 2014 for fielding an unqualified player rather than because of the atrocities committed by the government of Bashir Al-Assad. Exceptional circumstancesFIFA's rationale stems from a desire that sports should not be political. It is a fig leaf that generations of FIFA administrators have hidden behind. But as a scholar who has written extensively about sport and politics, I believe it is absurd to claim that world soccer can be apolitical. International sport is organized around the concept of a nation state. Governments have been quick to celebrate any triumph of their nation's sporting teams as evidence of their own greatness – or even punish a team for a poor performance. So what is different in the case of Russia? There are several reasons why the Ukraine invasion has served to break FIFA's policy of viewing national teams apolitically. The brutality of the Russian aggression is one, the self-evident innocence of Ukraine is another.  It has led to an outpouring of sympathy shared among fans and players across Europe. Aiding this is the fact that Ukrainian's elite soccer players are scattered across some of the most high-profile teams in Europe. It should also be acknowledged that this sympathy in Europe appears to be related to what at best you can call cultural proximity. Palestinians, Yemenis, Afghans, Iraqis and Syrians must wonder what they have to do to make their sufferings as immediate as those of the Ukrainians. Indeed, persistent calls on FIFA to suspend Israel over its treatment of Palestinians have fallen on deaf ears. Similarly, soccer protests over China's treatment of its Uyghur population are unlikely to result in censure of the Chinese national team. Nonetheless, sporting bodies, including FIFA, have become a little more welcoming of protest by players of late. The willingness of at least some sporting authorities to condone players' public protest of racial discrimination – taking a knee before the start of a game has become a common sight in Europe's top soccer leagues – has paved the way for further acknowledgment of sport's political dimension. The 'Olympic Truce'Very few outside Russia will be doing anything other than applauding FIFA's decision. However, I believe it's time for FIFA and other sports leagues to develop long-term policies, rather than an ad hoc reaction under public pressure. Sporting bodies can begin by considering the legal basis for the current decision, which looks set to be challenged by the Russian Football Union. FIFA's decision took its cue from the International Olympic Committee, which called on other sporting bodies to act after Russia was deemed to have breached the "Olympic Truce." This marks a recent revival of an ancient Greek concept in which city-states were required to halt any hostilities to allow athletes safe passage to compete during the games. City-states that did not honor the truce faced sanctions. Since the 1990s, there have been several attempts to revive this tradition, and the U.K. succeeded in persuading all United Nations members to sign an Olympic truce for the 2012 Games in London. A similar truce was endorsed by the U.N. for the recent Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games in Beijing and was due to expire on March 20, 2022. It is for breaching this truce that Russia was sanctioned by the world's sporting bodies. Of course, FIFA would have faced the same pressure to act even if Putin had waited for the truce to expire before invading Ukraine. And it is worth noting that several large sporting nations – Australia, the U.S. and India among them – refused to sign up for the truce because of China's alleged human rights abuses. A new set of ethical principles?If sports are to be organized around ethical principles rather than knee-jerk reactions to current events, I believe some kind of consensus about ethical standards and participation is required. Such a consensus could include banning nations that invade sovereign nations, commit human rights abuses at home, or fail to ensure equality before the law – the last of which provided the ethical basis for banning South African teams over apartheid. Strict enforcement under these terms would have required frequent exclusions in the past. As well as excluding Russia and China, a case could have been made to sanction the U.S. and U.K. for their actions in Iraq; likewise Saudi Arabia for its intervention in Yemen, Turkey for its treatment of Kurds and Brazil for its treatment of Indigenous populations, to name but a few. The reality is that FIFA administrators have always considered sports to be "realpolitikal," which meant that no national team could be excluded for fear of diminishing the standing of the sporting competition itself. As a result, bodies like FIFA and the IOC have largely embraced the good, the bad and the ugly. With Russia's suspension, sporting bodies may now find it more difficult to turn a blind eye to ethical concerns. The idea that international sport is apolitical has, I believe, finally been stripped of what little credibility it ever had. And if the notion that sports are necessarily political now gains wider acceptance, administrators will be forced to define exactly what they mean by "ethical." [The Conversation's Politics + Society editors pick need-to-know stories. Sign up for Politics Weekly.]  Stefan Szymanski does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment. |
| What's behind the obsession over whether Elizabeth Holmes intentionally lowered her voice? Posted: 03 Mar 2022 05:27 AM PST  There is a scene in Hulu's new series, "The Dropout," where Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes, wearing a white blouse, stands in front of a mirror and practices saying, "This is an inspiring step forward." With each iteration, her voice deepens. As the world has learned about Theranos' web of deception – whether through John Carreyrou's bestselling book, "Bad Blood," Apple's podcast series "The Dropout" or Hulu's streaming series of the same name – Holmes' supposed attempt to alter her voice is a detail that captivates audiences. The behavior might strike some people as bizarre, even sociopathic. But because of my training in vocology, the study of vocalization, and my interest in speech biases, I'm intrigued by why Holmes may have felt compelled to change her voice in the first place. I see the story of her voice as part of a broader cultural fixation on the way women speak and sound. Reactions to Holmes' voiceWhenever Holmes is in the news, some questions always come up: What's with that distinctively low voice? Is she faking it? I have not been able to find definitive proof, in the form of video or audio recordings, to show that Holmes' voice is noticeably different in its current form than at some previous time. One video claims to capture Holmes shifting between two very different voice modes. However, it could have been easily edited. And dramatic, sustained pitch changes in speech can be associated with heightened emotional states without indicating a put-on voice. At the same time, people who know Holmes have claimed that she changed her voice in order to cultivate a persona as a Silicon Valley wunderkind. Only a clinician like a laryngologist can make a voice-related medical diagnosis. But since I can't definitively answer if Holmes' voice changed intentionally, it is worth considering what natural or medical processes could cause a similar effect. Hormones directly impact the voice, including pitch and the perception of roughness or hoarseness. Women's voices tend to decrease in pitch range during menopause. Holmes' young age at the time she became known for her voice may rule out an age-related hormonal voice change, but a similar effect could be found with certain hormone therapy. There are also several voice disorders that impact pitch range. If she did it … how?There are all sorts of reasons people seek voice therapy or coaching to address vocal insecurities. Whether they're concerned about their voice range or simply seeking skills to become better communicators, the voice is resilient and can be developed with training. There are also wonderful resources available for gender-affirming voice support for transgender people. So what is the physiological process at play when someone intentionally lowers their voice?  Engaging a tiny laryngeal muscle called the thyroarytenoid causes the vocal folds, which are housed inside the larynx (or "voice box"), to relax and become shorter and thicker. Imagine decreasing tension on a rubber band. These shorter, thicker folds vibrate at a lower frequency, resulting in a lower-pitched voice, just as a thicker or more lax guitar string has a lower pitch. It is likely the singular nature of Holmes' voice is related not only to its low pitch, but also its resonance, the unique tonal quality and placement of the voice. Holmes might adjust her resonance by consciously lowering the larynx. Doing so creates a longer space above the larynx, which boosts the deeper, darker tones in the voice. Women's voices subject to scrutinyIn my role as a theatrical voice coach, I'm sometimes asked to help women actors lower their voices. I've encountered directors and producers with significant distaste for higher-pitched women's voices, especially when this pitch range is combined with nasal resonance. In movies and on TV, characters with high-pitched voices are often portrayed as comical, dim-witted and generally undesirable. Think of Lina Lamont, the character from "Singin' in the Rain" memorably played by Jean Hagen. Her high, piercing voice became a source of consistent laughs. Might sexist attitudes about women's voices cause women in leadership roles to feel pressured to adjust their pitch range down? Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, nicknamed the "Iron Lady," famously down-shifted her voice to burnish her stature. Research on perceptions of pitch in women's voices shows higher ones are associated with physical attractiveness, while lower voices are associated with dominance. Meanwhile, many women radio and podcast hosts are barraged with negative listener feedback about "vocal fry," the creaky mode of speaking made famous by Kim Kardashian. Yet physiologically, to create this sound, the vocal folds must vibrate at a low frequency, associated with low pitch. This much-maligned vocal feature is at one end of the pitch spectrum. But there's another equally hated speech feature that is achieved at the other end: the high-rising terminal intonation pattern, or "uptalk." This feature is noted for the dramatic upward pitch at the end of each thought, which can make statements sound like questions. The insistence that women in media change the pitch of their voices often comes with little concern for the anatomical and physiological factors that will limit how much pitch change is ultimately possible. My current research is investigating perceptions of women's speaking voices in the performing arts and considering whether it's time to part ways with some old aesthetic preferences. Either way, the delicate dance of trying to strike a happy medium – the Goldilocks voice profile, where one can be taken seriously as a leader without being perceived as inauthentic, grating or patronizing – seems to be elusive. Women's voices are the subject of endless scrutiny at both ends of the range – it seems they just can't win. If everything about this story were the same except the gender of Theranos' CEO, I wonder whether his voice would even be remarked upon. If it were, might the same vocal qualities be perceived as positive traits befitting a capable, serious-minded leader? Elizabeth Holmes undoubtedly lacks the practical skills and moral compass to be a great leader. But all the noise about her voice, and the potential that she changed it to get ahead, just may reveal a sexist double standard that women seemingly can't escape. [Get the best of The Conversation's politics, science or religion articles each week.Sign up today.]  Kathryn Cunningham is a member of the Pan-American Vocology Association (PAVA) and Voice and Speech Trainers Association (VASTA). |
| Surprise – your kids may be nervous about ditching the mask Posted: 03 Mar 2022 05:27 AM PST  The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued new COVID-19 guidelines on Feb. 25, 2022, to help inform people's individual decisions about wearing masks. The new guidance recommends masks be worn indoors only in areas of high community risk and allows approximately 70% of people in the U.S. – including some 19 million children – to ditch their masks. Most, but not all, experts agree that these changes are appropriate at this point in the pandemic. Many people, weary of the pandemic and its restrictions, gratefully welcome this step, but relief isn't universal. In particular, children may worry about yet another change in the "rules." After all, U.S. children have been consistently schooled on the importance of mask-wearing, and younger children may even have trouble recalling a mask-free world. So how can adults help children develop coping skills to handle new rules as we navigate changes around mask-wearing guidelines? We've spent the pandemic developing social and emotional resources to help children cope with pandemic-related increases in anxiety and digital technology use. We are both university professors; one, a researcher in children's development and social relationships; the other, an expert in communicating with children through literature. Combined, our research can help develop more flexible social guidelines for kids and their mask-wearing. Moving forward largely mask-freeOne consistent finding from studies in Brazil, Europe, China and the U.S. is that the pandemic and its frequent changes in school and public health rules have resulted in significant increases in anxiety among children. Thus it's helpful for grown-ups to develop consistent messages for kids that will introduce predictability and stability and reduce everyone's anxieties – but especially children's – as we navigate changing mask mandates.  Here are nine research-based tips for establishing and negotiating new social rules that can help you and your children reduce stress and anxiety.
Emphasizing and modeling empathy and respect for others' decisions in this pandemic can go a long way toward establishing the kind of normalcy and consistency that helps kids feel less anxious. [Get fascinating science, health and technology news. Sign up for The Conversation's weekly science newsletter.]  Elizabeth Englander receives funding from the Digital Trust Foundation. Katharine Covino-Poutasse does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment. |
| Infants need lots of active movement and play – and there are simple ways to help them get it Posted: 03 Mar 2022 05:27 AM PST  When people set personal fitness goals and establish their physical exercise routines, there's a group of cuddly individuals that is often left out – infants! Historically, infant active movement has been perceived as a personality characteristic. It's assumed that infants are plenty active on their own, without needing adult intervention to encourage movement. However, research is revealing that the choices, behaviors and everyday habits of adults have a big influence on how much infants move. I'm a physical activity teacher and researcher. For the past five years I've conducted several studies exploring infant movement, seeking to identify what supports the development of lifelong physical activity habits. I've learned that many parents and other caregivers want to encourage infants to actively play and move. However, they often don't know for sure how much physical activity an infant needs, nor do they often recognize how their own behaviors might be limiting an infant's physical activity. Fortunately, there are several easy – and fun – ways to add more physical activity to an infant's daily life. Why infants need movement – and how muchStudy of infant movement is a relatively new field, so there is still a lot to learn. However, one of the field's foundational studies was published in 1972, and it found that increased infant physical activity can improve motor development. More recent research shows that increased infant movement can improve bone health and personal-social development – skills related to improving their independence or interacting with others, such as feeding themselves or waving goodbye. The World Health Organization suggests that infants should be physically active several times a day, especially through interactive floor-based play. Similarly, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends opportunities for interactive play throughout the day, along with at least 30 minutes of "tummy time" with an adult – which I'll talk more about below. Yet half the parents participating in our research reported that they hadn't heard of these recommendations and did desire more specific guidelines on encouraging active play. What are the barriers?While research is ongoing, I and other researchers have identified three major barriers to infant active movement: screen time, restrictive devices and "gendered play" – gender-related stereotypes, beliefs and practices in relation to how children play. The American Academy of Pediatrics and other organizations discourage allowing infants any screen time other than video chatting. However, a recent review found that children ages 0 to 2 years may be getting between 36 and 330 minutes of screen time per day. A 2019 analysis of data gathered between 2008 and 2010 found that children's screen time increased from 53 minutes a day at age 1 to more than 150 minutes per day by age 3, which suggests that screen time habits begin taking shape at very early ages. Furthermore, the World Health Organization suggests that infants should spend no more than one hour at a time in a restrictive device. Yet many adults overuse car seats, strollers, high chairs or other "containers" that constrain movement. For instance, in a 2018 study of child care centers in the U.S., Canada and Australia, only 38% to 41% of the facilities followed this WHO guideline.  Research into adult physical activity consistently shows that males are more active than females, regardless of age. Our research suggests this gap may begin during infancy and be related to gendered play. In our 2020 study exploring infant motor development in relation to parents' promotion of play, we found that parents of male infants more often encouraged play that promoted gross motor skills: movement involving the large muscles that support activities like walking, running or kicking. Parents of female infants more often made statements that promoted fine motor skills, which involve smaller movements of the hands and arms and support activities like reaching and grasping. We found that females had significantly higher fine motor skills than male. We've documented additional barriers as well, including time spent eating, tending to the infant's sleeping schedule or other care needs; a need to baby-proof surroundings; or weather and other environmental concerns. How to support infant movementFortunately there are many ways to break down these barriers – and none requires buying expensive baby gear.
To help motivate us, my family is taking the 1,000 Hours Outside challenge, a project encouraging both kids and adults to spend at least as much time outdoors as we do staring at screens. [Over 150,000 readers rely on The Conversation's newsletters to understand the world. Sign up today.] Finally, it need not be up to parents alone. Research has linked social support by siblings and peers, child care providers and teachers with increased physical activity in children. Trust me: As both a physical activity researcher and a working mother of three, including an 11-month-old just learning to walk, I can attest that when adults and older children play with my baby, it gives me an opportunity to accomplish something on my to-do list, and provides my infant with more opportunities to enjoy moving.  Danae Dinkel receives funding from the National Institutes of Health. |
| Posted: 03 Mar 2022 05:26 AM PST  Over the last decade the numbers of those identifying as "Spiritual But Not Religious," or SBNR, have continued to increase. In 2017, Pew Research Center found that a quarter of Americans identified as SBNR. Sociologist Wade Roof Clark argues that the current trend started with the Baby Boomer generation, which began more broadly exploring spiritual options in the 1960s and '70s. Those identifying as spiritual tend to adopt different forms of spirituality while embracing some elements of religion or rejecting religion altogether. Many scholars believe this to be an attempt by individuals to resist religious authority. As individuals explore different spiritual resources, they may blend forms of practices like yoga or meditation while also taking on everyday life experiences as part of a spiritual journey. In 2020, along with a research colleague, I began looking at everyday practices that might be considered spiritual. Building upon other research projects noting the similarities between sports and religion in society today, we interviewed skaters at skate parks to see how they understood skateboarding. After conducting our research, we concluded that there are spiritual elements to skateboarding for some within the skateboarding community. Dealing with a harsh urban environmentFor our research, we began hanging out at three local skate parks as a way of establishing trust with the skaters. My research colleague is a skater, and she educated me on specific tricks, the skating culture and the slang. Noting those who tended to be regulars, we began to conduct interviews, asking the skaters about style, tricks and, ultimately, what skateboarding means to them. Because of the pandemic, we pivoted to asking skaters to complete an online, open-ended survey. We were able to garner seven interviews and 24 survey responses. None of our respondents identified with any religious tradition. The skaters we interviewed often acknowledged that through skateboarding, they were able to give meaning to their local spaces, which tended to lack natural fauna. Accepting one's environment of concrete sidewalks, stairs and parking lots can lead to a spiritual practice of imagination. Where many people see the banal aspects of urban geographies, skateboarders can see opportunities for exploration, as we found. One skater explained, "I don't see skateboarding as a sport, but a way to navigate and manipulate an urban environment in ways you see fit." Failure as spiritualSkateboarding can be dangerous and lead to multiple types of physical injuries. A quick scan of skating videos on YouTube will demonstrate how often skaters fail to land tricks or even injure themselves skating. After we analyzed our interview data, which is being published in a forthcoming journal, we began to understand failing as a spiritual exercise. Whereas many religious objectives include working toward perfection, spiritual practices often embrace the imperfect.  Scholars have argued that religion and spirituality enhance athletic performance by creating mechanisms to cope with performance failure and injury. Yet, other studies indicate some concepts of religious perfectionism actually interfere with athletic performance. What we learned is that the dangerous elements of skateboarding separate the exercise compared to sports that are deemed safer. Certainly there are risks involved in many team sports, but skateboarders understand those risks differently. In skaters' minds, the dangerous elements of skateboarding separate it over and against safer sports. They understand the risks as something crucial and valuable to be accepted. "You don't always want to land stuff, you know?" explained a skater, "And that's how you know you're alive because you almost died kind of thing." In fact, failing and falling (known as slamming) is integral in skating practices, a spiritual rite of passage. "Falling is easily half the battle, if not more. That's the rite of passage to being a 'skateboarder.' It's not your friend. It hardly likes you. And it will put you in your place real quick." Furthermore, the rite of passage of slamming proves a skater's authenticity into the skating community. "You've got to be willing to pay for your time in blood, or else you're just a culture vulture," is how one skater described this rite. Skateboarding as a spiritual cureThe more we spoke with skateboarders, the more we realized that skating is a spiritual exercise, possibly a kind of remedy against boredom in modern life. Past studies have shown that skateboarding provides moments of autonomy and freedom. Skateboarding was almost like a spiritual tool to re-imagine the monotony of life in urban geographies. Landing a kick flip or grinding down a handrail yields an exuberance and an outlet. One skater explained, "Skateboarding gave me independence, confidence and a way to express myself and my artistic traits." Another skater told us as he sat on his skateboard and the sun set: "You have to be willing and dedicated so much for something that actually has no value to anyone except yourself. Falling teaches you that sometimes in life shit's not easy. There are so many obstacles along the way, but you need to figure them out, learn, adapt and continue to move forward and obtain the goal you've been wanting to accomplish." Others described the ways in which skateboarding is a meditative practice. When we asked another skater to simply describe what skateboarding is, he offered: "Infinity, and it represents openness. It's a lifestyle for inventor minds. Skateboarding is falling down and getting back up. Inventing. Playing for the sake of playing. Toying around. That is why I do it and what I feel from my participation is similar to meditation, like a lulled-out, relaxed state – the very act of riding the board changes the way you move through life." Although skateboarding and skateboarders generally are stereotyped as vulgar trespassers who damage property, skateboarding itself seems to be a way for some individuals to cope with the conditions of the contemporary world. [Over 150,000 readers rely on The Conversation's newsletters to understand the world. Sign up today.] We're not the only researchers to find correlations between skateboarding and religion and spirituality. Sociologist Paul O'Connor discovered religious elements in skateboarding, like iconography of certain popular skaters and pilgrimage spaces marked as sacred in the skating world. He even describes skating as a "DIY (Do It Yourself) religion." Spiritual practices don't always mean supernatural. Instead, spirituality is often about examining the everyday and asking how meaningful exercises can be developed to cultivate the individual into a better person.  Terry Shoemaker does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment. |
| War in Ukraine is changing energy geopolitics Posted: 03 Mar 2022 05:26 AM PST  Russia's war against Ukraine will change the landscape of global energy and its geopolitics in profound ways. Pieces of this terrain have already begun shifting. As the world's largest combined exporter of oil and gas, Russia has direct energy relationships with more than two dozen European nations, as well as China, Japan, South Korea, Vietnam and others. If coal exports are added, a dozen more countries, including India, are relevant. Russia has used these exports for political leverage since Soviet times. But invading Ukraine in violation of international law has made Russia a pariah. Its energy customers are not just concerned about sanctions; most are rethinking their reliance on Moscow itself. They see supermajors like BP, Shell, Equinor and ExxonMobil exiting Russia, potentially abandoning billions of dollars in assets, after decades of investment. Other Russian relationships may also be in trouble. Since 2016, Moscow has partnered with OPEC, the global oil producers' cartel, to control world oil supply and prices against competition from U.S. shale production. This so-called OPEC+ partnership has had some success – but now, with sanctions forcing Russia into financial isolation, its future is uncertain. The most pressing issue is Europe, Russia's main market. Russian President Vladimir Putin clearly believes his country's exports are too important to sanction and make Russia's energy sector too valuable to attack. In my view, he is, at best, partly right. This is because, besides the exodus of international oil firms, there has been a mass withdrawal of investor support for Russia's own energy companies. This suggests the private sector is doing some of the work of sanctions on its own. In any case, Putin's strategy will fail for other reasons as well.  By leaving, Western energy companies will deprive Russia's energy sector of much-needed capital and expertise. Italy has frozen a loan for a new natural gas export terminal in the Russian Arctic. And in the longer term, the Ukraine war has kicked Europe's transition away from fossil fuels – especially Russian oil and gas – into high gear. Replacing Russia: Oil optionsIn the short term, Russian oil will be hard for its European customers to replace. But options exist. For oil, three stand out. – Restore the Iran nuclear deal, a foreign policy priority for U.S. President Joe Biden. Reviving this agreement, which offered Iran relief from economic sanctions in return for limiting its nuclear weapons activities, would allow Iran to add 1.2 million to 1.5 million barrels of oil per day to the global market this year. Iran is already loading tankers in anticipation of this happening. Not all of this oil would go to Europe, but just half of it could replace up to 30% of Europe's Russian imports, which currently total around 2.4 million barrels per day. – Increase U.S. oil production and exports. This is already happening in response to prices over $90 per barrel. But companies have moved cautiously, seeking to avoid overproduction that could trigger a price collapse and possibly even bankruptcies. Federal regulators could accelerate production increases by offering tax or royalty relief for wells on federal land. Based on recent history, I estimate that U.S. output could rise by 1 million to 1.2 million barrels per day over the next 12 months. Depending how much goes to Europe, this could replace another 30% of Europe's Russian oil. – Pressure Saudi Arabia to raise output. This hasn't worked so far, but war in Ukraine may change things. Estimates suggest that OPEC, led by the Saudis, has between 3.7 million and 5 million barrels per day of surplus oil production capacity available. A surge of 1.5 million barrels per day could offset another 40% of Europe's dependence on Russia. Since the fall of 2021, OPEC has been restraining production while claiming that it has increased its output. This strategy appears designed to keep prices high and not anger Russia. OPEC's calculus may shift, however, given Russia's sinking status and the fact that persistent high prices create demand for alternatives to oil. Options for natural gasEurope is more dependent on Russia for natural gas than for oil, yet options exist here too. As recently as 2019, Russian gas deliveries to the European Union and the United Kingdom averaged about 16 billion cubic feet per day, mostly by pipeline. Then Gazprom, Russia's state-owned firm, started cutting supplies, causing an energy crunch in Europe. Russia aimed to pressure the EU into certifying the new Nord Stream 2 natural gas export pipeline and to deter energy sanctions. To help alleviate the crunch, U.S. firms sent 60 liquefied natural gas shipments across the Atlantic. Absent an unexpected cold snap, Europe now has enough gas in storage to carry it into spring without relying heavily on Russia. Some help in the meantime might come from inter-EU exporters of electricity, if they are able to redirect power to neighbors with especially high reliance on Russian gas. Given its Asian natural gas contracts, the U.S. doesn't have enough peak export capacity to replace Russia's supply. But more is coming: U.S. peak capacity is set to rise to 13.9 billion cubic feet per day in 2022 and 16.3 billion cubic feet per day by 2024. Growth plans also exist elsewhere. Qatar aims to raise its capacity substantially by 2027. Newly expanded gas reserves in East Africa, Papua New Guinea and the Eastern Mediterranean will underwrite new liquefied natural gas export terminals. None of this bodes well for Russia, which sends 70% of its gas exports to EU countries. Going forward, European governments could use tariffs to raise the price. Meanwhile, although China has inked new oil and gas deals with Russia, leaders in Beijing are not about to become handmaidens to Putin's energy plans. Instead, I expect the Chinese will continue to spread their energy dependence widely. Long-term energy security through decarbonizationThe war in Ukraine has galvanized support for accelerating the EU's European Green Deal. This enormous project aims to make the continent climate neutral by 2050 by putting climate concerns at the center of energy policy. Approved in 2020, it includes a package of measures known as "Clean Energy for All Europeans," designed for member nations to adopt into law. The plan covers every major domain of energy use, from buildings and efficiency to electricity markets, with a strong emphasis on shifting to carbon-free and low-carbon sources. Battles over national energy choices have slowed progress so far. Howls rose from some observers in 2021 when the EU agreed to categorize nuclear power as "low-carbon clean energy." France, meanwhile, recently announced plans to build six to 14 new advanced reactors to improve its energy security and maintain its low emissions status. As I see it, the EU needs to move forward more aggressively with noncarbon sources, including renewable energy, nuclear power and green hydrogen. Decarbonization offers a pathway to energy security and can benefit from Europe's newfound unity in the face of war. [More than 150,000 readers get one of The Conversation's informative newsletters. Join the list today.]  Scott L. Montgomery does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment. |
| Shell, BP and ExxonMobil have done business in Russia for decades – here's why they're leaving now Posted: 03 Mar 2022 05:26 AM PST  In response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, British energy giant BP announced on Feb. 27, 2022, that it will sell its nearly 20% ownership in Russian state-owned energy giant Rosneft. BP's rival Shell is also pulling out of all of its operations in Russia, as are U.S. energy giant ExxonMobil and Norway's state-controlled company, Equinor. These breakups will not be cheap. BP's stake in Rosneft is worth US$14 billion. In various projects, Shell has about $3 billion in assets in Russia. ExxonMobil has over 1,000 employees and more than $4 billion in assets there. Pulling out will inflict significant financial hits on all of these companies. Western energy companies have invested and operated in Russia for a long time – over 30 years for BP and more than 25 years for ExxonMobil. They are accustomed to managing international political risks. In my view, Russia's invasion of Ukraine has completely changed Western energy companies' cost-benefit analysis of doing business in Russia. I have researched multinational companies' foreign direct investments in emerging markets for over two decades and have closely followed Western energy companies' investments in Russia. I expect that other Western oil majors, such as French company TotalEnergies, are also likely to pull out of Russia, and that it may take many years for these companies to reengage there.  Big risks, big payoffsForeign investment in Russia has never been easy. For example, in 2003, BP and a consortium of Russian oligarchs formed the joint venture TNK-BP, which became one of the largest oil producers in Russia. However, disputes ensued over the venture's leadership, operations and international expansion. The situation became so fraught that Bob Dudley, then the head of TNK-BP and later BP's chief executive officer, was forced to flee from Russia in 2008. To resolve the disputes, BP sold its 50% equity in TNK-BP to Rosneft in 2013 for $12.5 billion in cash and a nearly 20% share in Rosneft. Shell got involved in the early 1990s in the Sakhalin-2 project to develop natural gas reserves in Russia's Far East, and built Russia's first liquefied natural gas facility there. As the project neared completion in 2006, at a cost of more than $20 billion, Shell and its Japanese partners were forced to sell a 50% share to Russia's state-owned natural gas giant, Gazprom, for $7.45 billion because Putin's government was unhappy with the easy terms previously offered by the Yeltsin administration. During crises like these, Western energy companies weighed the potential gains and costs of operating in Russia and concluded that staying in was worth it. It's easy to see why: Russia holds 24% of the world's total natural gas reserves. It has comprehensive pipeline networks to the west to move natural gas to European countries, and large reserves to its east that are close to some of the world's hungriest energy markets, including Japan, South Korea and China. For years, Western energy companies viewed compromise with the Russian government as part of the cost of doing business there. As long as expected gains exceeded costs, they stayed. Reputations matterRussia's invasion of Ukraine has changed those calculations. Now, executives at oil majors need to assess possible broader damage to their corporate reputations and to relationships with their home country governments, shareholders and other interest groups if they stay in Russia. Unlike controversies within the energy industry, invading an independent sovereign nation is much too high profile of a development for companies to ignore. Academic research shows that there is a positive correlation between companies' socially responsible behaviors and financial performance. Simply put, companies that do good tend to do well financially. The invasion of Ukraine represents a critical shift in Russia's business environment. As BP Chief Executive Bernard Looney stated on Feb. 26, the situation unfolding in Ukraine "has caused us to fundamentally rethink BP's position with Rosneft." In particular, Western energy companies that partner with the Russian government now may be perceived as weakening their own governments' sanctions and helping to finance Russia's war in Ukraine. Russia owns 40% of BP's Russian partner, Rosneft; the company's CEO and board chair, Igor Sechin, is Russia's former deputy prime minister and a close Putin ally. Shell's primary partner in Russia is Gazprom, the state-run natural gas giant. To maintain their corporate reputations and relationships with key interest groups, BP, Shell, Equinor and ExxonMobil clearly have decided that it is important to cut their ties in Russia completely, immediately and publicly. BP's current and former chief executive officers resigned from Rosneft's board of directors on Feb. 27, three days after the invasion began, "with immediate effect." While the Western world is imposing severe and united sanctions on Russia in sectors ranging from finance to aviation, Western governments have avoided sanctioning energy exports from Russia, seeking to protect their citizens from price spikes. Nonetheless, if Western energy companies remain in Russia and continue partnering with Russian state-owned companies, they could be perceived as undermining the Western response. Indeed, BP's exit decision reportedly came under pressure from the British government. None of these companies have many viable potential buyers for their Russian holdings. Russian firms, facing sanctions, don't have the resources to acquire foreign investors' assets, and other Western energy companies are unlikely to pursue them. The only potential investors are private equity firms that face less scrutiny than publicly traded companies, or companies from countries that don't join Western sanctions on Russia. Russia's energy sector depends heavily upon Western companies' technologies, especially for hard-to-recover oil projects and offshore projects. BP, Shell and ExxonMobil will leave significant technological voids that could be hard for newcomers to fill. Corporate leaders are used to making high-level strategic decisions that require weighing costs and benefits. What has changed the calculus for Western energy companies is the broad potential damage to their companies' reputations and relationships with various interest groups if they stay in Russia. Clearly, executives cannot limit benefit-cost calculations to specific investments. Their overall corporate reputations can be worth billions of dollars. [You're smart and curious about the world. So are The Conversation's authors and editors. You can read us daily by subscribing to our newsletter.]  Yan Anthea Zhang is affiliated with the Strategic Management Society and the Academy of Management. |
| Students with disabilities are not getting help to address lost opportunities Posted: 03 Mar 2022 05:26 AM PST  Even before the pandemic hit, 98% of U.S. school districts said they didn't have enough special education teachers to serve all the students who needed their help. During the pandemic, short-handed school districts were even more stretched to provide learning support to students with disabilities. Now, those students are struggling to catch up with where they should be. In fall 2018, according to the most recent federal data available, there were 6.1 full-time special educators for every 100 students who received special-education services, varying widely by state, from 2.8 in Oklahoma to 12.1 in Washington, D.C. Special education teachers have long described their work as very demanding with little support, high stress and low pay. Then the COVID-19 pandemic forced schools to rapidly shift from traditional in-person teaching to virtual classes on laptops and smartphones in students' homes. The sorts of services common in special education – additional support within a child's classroom, and dedicated time with specialists outside the classroom – became difficult, or even impossible, to provide. In an early 2020 survey of parents of children enrolled in special education services, just 20% reported that their child received all the support the school was required to provide. Another 39% reported that their child actually received no services at all. A federal report in June 2021 documented schools continuing to have difficulty serving students with disabilities. As a lifelong special educator who now studies the field, I have seen that many students who needed support before will need even more to get back on track. I worry that, as the pandemic ends, many students who did not previously have mental health difficulties, or whose conditions did not significantly affect their readiness to learn, may now have difficulties or disabilities that require assistance from a system that is already strained. Business as usualThere are still shortages of special education teachers across the country. There are also reports that children are not receiving required services even after they're back in school buildings. Services may include speech and language therapy, math and reading support, and instruction to improve social and emotional skills. Services vary from student to student, based on their individual needs. Under a civil rights law, students who did not get proper services during the pandemic may be eligible for additional support – beyond their existing special education plan – to catch up with where they should be. When determining what a student may be entitled to, schools and families consider the benefits that were lost because the student did not get what they were entitled to. Services to address this problem will also vary from student to student. But there are problems with that additional help as well, as schools continue to do their best with the resources that are available to them. A November 2021 survey by the Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates – an advocacy group for students in special education and their families – found that 86% of parents reported that their child experienced learning loss, skill regression or slower-than-expected progress in school. But just 18% of parents said their child received additional support to recover ground lost during the pandemic. And 14% of parents believed that school districts' decisions about who got that additional help were unfair.  A new group of students in needThe pandemic worsened what was already a crisis in young people's mental health in the U.S. A January 2021 survey from the JED Foundation, a nonprofit working to improve children's and teens' mental health, found that nearly two-thirds of U.S. parents reported their child experienced a mental or emotional challenge in the previous month. That included more common complaints like social anxiety and isolation, and less common but more severe episodes, such as suicidal thoughts. More than half of teenagers reported having experienced thoughts and feelings in that range in the previous month. In October 2021, three major professional groups focused on children's health – the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, and the Children's Hospital Association – declared a "national emergency in child and adolescent mental health," in part as a result of personal and family stress during the pandemic. Students with mental health diagnoses can qualify for special education if their conditions affect their ability to learn in school. To me, the steep increase in mental health difficulties reported during the pandemic means there will likely be more students in need of special education support than ever before. Research has identified ways that schools and special educators could meet the current need, and what I fear may be a future spike in demand. These recommendations focus on developing working conditions that promote teacher and student success, improving compensation and using special educators to provide small-group instruction. I believe now is an opportune time to make a commitment to teachers who are experts in specialized instruction and to the students who really need them. [Over 150,000 readers rely on The Conversation's newsletters to understand the world. Sign up today.]  John McKenna receives funding from the University of Massachusetts Lowell. |
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