tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/north-dakota-13362/articlesNorth Dakota – The Conversation2023-05-04T14:25:46Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2049752023-05-04T14:25:46Z2023-05-04T14:25:46ZCloud seeding can increase rain and snow, and new techniques may make it a lot more effective – podcast<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/524204/original/file-20230503-19-bx8o26.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=418%2C594%2C6930%2C4308&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Cloud seeding can increase rainfall and reduce hail damage to crops, but its use is limited.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/colorado-supercell-royalty-free-image/1303884216?phrase=Rain+storm&adppopup=true">John Finney Photography/Moment via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When an unexpected rainstorm leaves you soaking wet, it is an annoyance. When a drought leads to fires, crop failures and water shortages, the significance of weather becomes vitally important.</p>
<p>If you could control the weather, would you?</p>
<p>Small amounts of rain can mean the difference between struggle and success. For <a href="https://climateviewer.com/2014/03/25/history-cloud-seeding-pluviculture-hurricane-hacking/">nearly 80 years</a>, an approach called cloud seeding has, in theory, given people the ability to get more rain and snow from storms and make hailstorms less severe. But only recently have scientists been able to peer into clouds and begin to understand how effective cloud seeding really is.</p>
<p>In this episode of “The Conversation Weekly,” we speak with three researchers about the simple yet murky science of cloud seeding, the economic effects it can have on agriculture, and research that may allow governments to use cloud seeding in more places.</p>
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<p><a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=BSQl42wAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">Katja Friedrich</a>, a professor of atmospheric and oceanic sciences at the University of Colorado, Boulder in the U.S., is a leading researcher on cloud seeding. “When we do cloud seeding, we are looking for clouds that have tiny super-cooled liquid droplets,” she explains. Silver iodide is very similar in structure to an ice crystal. When the droplets touch a particle of silver iodide, “they freeze, then they can start merging with other ice crystals, become snowflakes and fall out of the cloud.”</p>
<p>While the process is fairly straightforward, measuring how effective it is in the real world is not, according to Friedrich. “The problem is that once we modify a cloud, it’s really difficult to say what would’ve happened if you hadn’t cloud-seeded.” It’s hard enough to predict weather without messing with it artificially. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/524222/original/file-20230503-1294-7b7p2j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A plane wing with a cylindrical device attached." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/524222/original/file-20230503-1294-7b7p2j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/524222/original/file-20230503-1294-7b7p2j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=370&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/524222/original/file-20230503-1294-7b7p2j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=370&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/524222/original/file-20230503-1294-7b7p2j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=370&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/524222/original/file-20230503-1294-7b7p2j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=465&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/524222/original/file-20230503-1294-7b7p2j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=465&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/524222/original/file-20230503-1294-7b7p2j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=465&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Cloud seeding is usually done by planes equipped with devices – like the one attached to the wing of this plane – that spray silver iodide into the atmosphere.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_seeding#/media/File:Hagelflieger-EDTD.jpg">Zuckerle/Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
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<p>In 2017, Friedrich’s research group had a breakthrough in measuring the effect of cloud seeding. “We flew some aircraft, released silver iodide and generated these clouds that were like these six exact lines that were downstream of where the aircraft were seeding,” she says. They then had a second aircraft fly through the clouds. “We could actually <a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1716995115">quantify how much snow we could produce</a> by two hours of cloud seeding.” That effect, according to research on cloud seeding, is an increase in precipitation of somewhere around 5% to 20% or 30%, depending on conditions.</p>
<p>Measuring the effect on precipitation – whether rain or snow – directly may have taken complex science and a bit of luck, but in places that have been using cloud seeding for long periods of time, the economic benefits are shockingly clear. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.ndsu.edu/agriculture/ag-home/directory/dean-bangsund">Dean Bangsund</a> is a researcher at North Dakota State University who studies the economics of agriculture. “We have a high amount of hail damage in North Dakota,” said Bangsund. For decades, the state government has been using cloud seeding to reduce hail damage, as cloud seeding leads to the formation of more pieces of smaller hail compared to fewer pieces of larger hail. “It doesn’t 100% eliminate hail; it’s designed to soften the impact.”</p>
<p>Every 10 years, the state of North Dakota does an <a href="https://www.cabdirect.org/cabdirect/abstract/20193399635">analysis on the economic impacts of the cloud seeding</a> program, measuring both reduction in hail damage and benefits from increased rain. Bangsund led the last report and says that for every dollar spent on the cloud seeding program, “we are looking at something that is anywhere from $8 or $9 in benefit on the really lowest scale, up to probably $20 of impact per acre.” With millions of acres of agricultural fields in the cloud seeding area, that is a massive economic benefit.</p>
<p>Both Freidrich and Bangsund emphasized that cloud seeding, while effective in some cases, cannot be used everywhere. There is also a lot of uncertainty in how much of an effect it has. One way to improve the effectiveness and applicability of cloud seeding is by improving the seed. <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?view_op=list_works&hl=en&hl=en&user=OxrNpiEAAAAJ&sortby=pubdate">Linda Zou</a> is a professor of civil infrastructure and environmental engineering at Khalifa University in the United Arab Emirates. </p>
<p>Her work has focused on developing a replacement for silver iodide, and her lab has <a href="https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/03/28/1048275/scientists-advance-cloud-seeding-capabilities-with-nanotechnology/">developed what she calls a nanopowder</a>. “I start with table salt, which is sodium chloride,” says Zou. “This desirable-sized crystal is then coated with a thin nanomaterial layer of titanium dioxide.” When salt gets wet, it melts and forms a droplet that can efficiently merge with other droplets and fall from a cloud. Titanium dioxide attracts water. Put the two together and you get a very effective cloud-seeding material. </p>
<p>From indoor experiments, Zou found that “with the nanopowders, there are 2.9 times the formation of larger-size water droplets.” These nanopowders can also form ice crystals at warmer temperatures and less humidity than silver iodide. </p>
<p>As Zou says, “if the material you are releasing is more reactive and can work in a much wider range of conditions, that means no matter when you decide to use it, the chance of success will be greater.”</p>
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<p>This episode was written and produced by Katie Flood. Mend Mariwany is the executive producer of The Conversation Weekly. Eloise Stevens does our sound design, and our theme music is by Neeta Sarl.</p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>None of the interviewees 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.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span> </span></em></p>Cloud seeding – spraying materials into clouds to increase precipitation – has been around for nearly 80 years. But only recently have scientists been able to measure how effective it really is.Daniel Merino, Associate Science Editor & Co-Host of The Conversation Weekly Podcast, The ConversationNehal El-Hadi, Science + Technology Editor & Co-Host of The Conversation Weekly Podcast, The ConversationLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1452952020-09-23T12:32:47Z2020-09-23T12:32:47ZIt’s time for states that grew rich from oil, gas and coal to figure out what’s next<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/359073/original/file-20200921-24-wureg6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C2334%2C1498&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A surface coal mine in Gillette, Wyoming, photographed in 2008.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://flic.kr/p/cD3NJU">Greg Goebel/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>These are very challenging times for U.S. fossil fuel-producing states, such as Wyoming, Alaska and North Dakota. The <a href="https://www.iea.org/reports/global-energy-review-2020">COVID-19 economic downturn</a> has reduced energy demand, with uncertain prospects for the extent of its recovery. Meanwhile, <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2020/06/23/two-thirds-of-americans-think-government-should-do-more-on-climate/">rising concern about climate change</a> and the declining cost of renewable energy are precipitating a <a href="https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/steo/report/coal.php">sharp decline in demand for coal in particular</a>. </p>
<p>As a result, fossil fuel-dependent states and communities face the prospect of budget shortfalls and lower employment for the next several years. As researchers who study energy from <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/bradhandler/">economic</a>, <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=06gk6wUAAAAJ&hl=en">cultural</a> and <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=DAwwVkwAAAAJ&hl=en">public policy</a> perspectives, we believe that it is time for these states to develop long-term plans to diversify their economies and help ensure just and equitable transitions. </p>
<p>The idea of a just transition emerged from North American labor law, and has <a href="https://www.oecd.org/environment/cc/g20-climate/collapsecontents/Just-Transition-Centre-report-just-transition.pdf">become part of international discussions</a> about making societies more environmentally sustainable. It centers on protecting workers’ rights and livelihoods as they move out of declining industries. </p>
<p>In our view, just transition programs likely are the best way for these states to build more sustainable and diverse economic bases, reducing their reliance on fossil fuel production as a revenue source. To support secure, family-sustaining jobs as global fossil reliance declines, they will need to create new, lower-carbon economies. </p>
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<h2>From boom to bust</h2>
<p>Fossil fuels enrich producing states through multiple revenue streams. They include taxes and royalties tied to the value of production; sales taxes on hydrocarbons; use taxes on equipment; and income taxes on industry employees’ wages.</p>
<p>Texas <a href="http://docs.txoga.org/files/1464-economic-impact-report-1.14.20.pdf">earns the most of any state from energy production</a>, generating US$16.3 billion in fiscal year 2019, which was 7% of the state’s revenue. The states that are most reliant on energy are <a href="http://www.tax.alaska.gov/programs/programs/reports/AnnualReport.aspx?Year=2019">Alaska</a>, where it accounted for 70% of state revenues ($1.1 billion) in fiscal 2019; <a href="https://www.wyotax.org/_pdfs/2018/Dec/2018-0926-WTA-infographic.pdf">Wyoming</a>, where energy and other minerals yielded 52% of state revenues ($2.2 billion) in FY2017; and <a href="https://energyofnorthdakota.com/home-menu/bakken-benefits/tax-revenues/">North Dakota</a>, which reaped 45% of its revenues ($1.6 billion) from energy production in fiscal 2017.</p>
<p>Production declines and workforce reductions can have major economic impacts in fossil fuel states. For example, Wyoming is forecasting that it will have <a href="https://wyoleg.gov/InterimCommittee/2020/02-20200609Profile20200526MayCREGII.pdf">29% less money in its General Fund</a> than it previously expected in fiscal years 2021-22. Alaska is projecting an estimated <a href="http://legfin.akleg.gov/FisSum/FY21-Budget.pdf">18% budget deficit</a> in fiscal 2021. </p>
<p>Even assuming that oil and gas production recovers from FY2020-2021 lows, these states expect to be <a href="https://wyoleg.gov/InterimCommittee/2020/03-202005262-02May2020FullReportFinalII.pdf">forced to close the funding gap</a> for the next several years. </p>
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<span class="caption">Reduced economic activity related to the COVID-19 pandemic has changed energy demand and supply patterns in 2020 and increased uncertainty about near-term prices.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/steo/">EIA</a></span>
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<h2>Cultural and political roadblocks</h2>
<p>Wyoming illustrates the challenges that a changing energy landscape poses for energy states. In the near term, the state is forecasting a <a href="http://eadiv.state.wy.us/creg/GreenCREG_May20.pdf">54% decline in taxes related to fossil fuels</a> owed it in fiscal 2021-22 compared to the previous year. According to data that we obtained from the U.S. Department of Energy, estimated coal production in April-June of 2020 was down nearly 45% from the prior five-year average, reflecting national trends. </p>
<p>More structurally, experts and coal producers have acknowledged that thermal coal – the type used to make electricity – is in <a href="https://www.wyomingpublicmedia.org/post/arch-takes-steps-transition-thermal-coal-focus#stream/0">permanent decline</a>. State officials have sounded the alarm about <a href="https://www.spglobal.com/">an industry “under siege</a>,” while seeking ways to keep coal production afloat. </p>
<p>These efforts include <a href="https://trib.com/business/energy/rules-to-keep-coal-fired-power-plants-burning-in-wyoming-are-expected-soon/article_f6feb1f0-21c6-54b6-8de9-91cb98615263.html">preventing utilities from shutting down coal-fired power plants ahead of schedule</a>, investing in making coal-fired energy cleaner and finding low-carbon uses for coal as a source of products, which can range from <a href="https://netl.doe.gov/Advanced_Coal_Processing">building materials to carbon composites and computer memory devices</a>. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, studies show that Wyoming residents receive from the state <a href="https://www.wyotax.org/_pdfs/2016/May/Mill-LevyEstimateRevenueCommitteeWorksheetandPresentation.pdf">up to 10 times the value in services that they pay in taxes</a>, thanks largely to fossil fuel-related taxes. These trends clearly can’t continue in parallel: As coal revenues fall, state spending will have to contract.</p>
<p>But as the state considers its future, cultural and political factors influence public views as much as economics. Wyoming’s longstanding ethos of <a href="https://www.wyofile.com/wyomings-political-culture-unique/">rugged individualism</a> makes residents reluctant to accept outside economic assistance. Its coal industry workers <a href="http://insideenergy.org/2014/08/01/in-wyoming-coal-culture-runs-deep/">have long taken pride</a> in their role in providing a source of electricity throughout the United States. </p>
<p>When the utility PacifiCorp recently announced plans to <a href="https://www.wyofile.com/pacificorp-details-early-bridger-naughton-coal-closures/">close 20 of its 24 coal-fired power plants</a> in the West, including several in Wyoming, and invest in lower-cost wind, solar and energy storage, some workers and legislators argued that the company was <a href="https://www.wyofile.com/economic-existential-angst-mark-start-of-utility-investigation/">trying to please customers in left-leaning states</a>. Ongoing wind energy investments are poised to <a href="https://trib.com/business/energy/new-wind-projects-could-generate-thousands-of-jobs-billions-in-revenue/article_8f638505-79eb-510f-a793-c3707d2e96a8.html">partially offset fossil fuel job and revenue losses</a>. But some Wyoming residents argue that wind projects
could <a href="https://www.laramieboomerang.com/news/local_news/city-punts-on-backing-tie-siding-wind-farm/article_f3ca5f7f-aeae-5ee6-b961-2b3fde020f5c.html">harm conservation, outdoor recreation and tourism</a>, the state’s second-largest industry. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Wyoming residents grapple with the shutdown of two coal mines in 2019.</span></figcaption>
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<h2>What just transitions require to succeed</h2>
<p>Just transition programs typically focus on promoting economic development, attracting investment to stimulate entrepreneurship and retraining workers. They often provide income support to bridge the period between jobs. </p>
<p>State and local leaders may seek to promote specific industries that reflect larger policy goals – for example, wooing solar companies to promote decarbonization. A number of current economic development policy proposals take this approach, including Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden’s <a href="https://joebiden.com/climate-plan/#">Build Back Better plan</a>. However, we believe new businesses are best developed at the community level so that they incorporate local intellectual capital, worker skills and natural resources, and get more political buy-in from the communities. </p>
<p>There are several examples of successful just transition programs. One is <a href="https://drodrik.scholar.harvard.edu/files/dani-rodrik/files/building_a_good_jobs_economy_november_2019.pdf">Project QUEST in San Antonio</a>, which highlights the benefits of “local contextualization” and has helped workers transition from manufacturing to health care, information technology and other trades.</p>
<p>The province of Alberta, Canada, achieved considerable buy-in from labor unions and electricity companies as it accelerated its retirement of coal power, in part by leveraging its natural gas resources and <a href="https://www.iisd.org/sites/default/files/publications/alberta-coal-phase-out.pdf">working with local labor unions</a>. And the <a href="https://appvoices.org/new-economy/#:%7E:text=Our%20New%20Economy%20for%20Appalachia,5th%20generation%20Wise%20County%20citizen.">New Economy program</a>, promoted by the nonprofit organization Appalachian Voices, is amplifying residents’ ideas for new economic initiatives to offset job losses and shrinking coal tax revenues. This kind of participatory approach to economic diversification is critical for securing community support and generating novel ideas for economic development.</p>
<p>[<em><a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=experts">Expertise in your inbox. Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter and get expert takes on today’s news, every day.</a></em>]</p>
<p>These programs are likely to require significant financial investment. Wyoming, North Dakota and Oklahoma <a href="http://www.thestatesproject.org/state-debt/">don’t have a lot of debt</a>, so they could borrow large sums to pay for these programs. </p>
<p>Alaska, Texas, New Mexico, Wyoming and North Dakota also have <a href="https://rlist.io/l/north-america-top-sovereign-wealth-funds">substantial sovereign wealth funds</a> – state-owned accounts, funded with revenues from natural resource extraction. These funds could help fill the gap, but only if politicians can withstand pressure to use the money in more popular ways, such as <a href="https://theconversation.com/in-divided-alaska-the-choice-is-between-paying-for-government-or-giving-residents-bigger-oil-wealth-checks-120220">Alaska’s annual payouts to state residents</a> from oil revenues.</p>
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<h2>A chance for more sustainable communities</h2>
<p>Fossil fuel states’ windfalls from energy development and their free-market cultures can make it hard for residents to accept their <a href="https://www.homesteadpublishing.net/products/6-pushed-off-the-mountain-sold-down-the-river-wyomings-search-for-its-soul">dependence on industry taxation and vulnerability to industry downturns</a>. Solutions that involve increased taxing and spending are likely to face stiff political headwinds, even if sovereign wealth funds offer help. </p>
<p>The choices that states make as they navigate a rapidly changing energy landscape will have major implications for their workers and communities. Just transitions will require significant, focused investment, committed institutions and deep community engagement. While these processes aren’t likely to be easy, they offer the chance to build sustainable and environmentally friendly economies that can help these states thrive in the future.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/145295/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The pandemic recession has reduced US energy demand, roiling budgets in states that are major fossil fuel producers. But politics and culture can impede efforts to look beyond oil, gas and coal.Bradley Handler, Non-resident Fellow, Payne Institute of Public Policy, Colorado School of MinesMatt Henry, Scholar in Residence, University of WyomingMorgan Bazilian, Professor of Public Policy and Director, Payne Institute, Colorado School of MinesLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1331352020-03-11T15:14:15Z2020-03-11T15:14:15ZBiden’s big night with moderates, African Americans and baby boomers<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/319774/original/file-20200311-116270-17qu4ur.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Vice President Joe Biden enters a campaign event in Columbus, Ohio on March 10.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Election-2020-Joe-Biden/2cc81ddbdb424dbbbe52232be8e9d7ce/33/0">AP Photo/Paul Vernon</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Editor’s note: With the race for the Democratic presidential nomination narrowed to two front-runners, Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders, six states went to the polls on March 10: Idaho, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, North Dakota and Washington. We asked three scholars to examine the primary results.</em></p>
<p><strong>Keisha N. Blain, University of Pittsburgh</strong></p>
<p>The March 10 Democratic primary results highlight the power of the African American vote. </p>
<p>Despite Sanders’ efforts to reach African American voters, he was unable to win their vote on Tuesday night. He underperformed in several states, including <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-bernie-sanders-did-on-super-tuesday-2020-2016-maps-2020-3">some he previously won in 2016</a>. At the heart of Sanders’ loss is the African American vote.</p>
<p>While African American voters are not a monolithic group, the majority lent their support to Biden on March 10. There are <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/biden-has-black-voters-support-over-sanders-it-s-not-ncna1150576">many factors</a> that account for this decision. Many African Americans believe that Biden will <a href="https://apnews.com/ca32b175f2d249e5075bb057afa4748e">extend the legacy of former President Barack Obama</a>. Others are lukewarm towards Sanders because of what they perceive as <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/03/07/why-bernie-sanders-economic-message-isnt-enough-to-win-over-black-voters-118197">the senator’s emphasis on economic inequality over racial injustice</a>. </p>
<p>These concerns, among others, guaranteed Biden’s lead on Super Tuesday, and they guaranteed his lead last night. The African American vote has now paved the way for Biden’s success.</p>
<p>This is most evident in the state of Mississippi, where African Americans represented <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/486936-black-voters-deliver-decisive-victory-for-biden-in-mississippi">approximately 75% of the Democratic primary vote</a>, the highest rate of any state to date. Despite a significant endorsement from <a href="https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryancbrooks/bernie-sanders-2020-mississippi-endorse-lumumba">Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba of Jackson, Mississippi</a>, Sanders managed to win only 14.9% of the black vote in Mississippi. Biden won <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/3/10/21171465/mississippi-primary-winner-joe-biden-super-tuesday-2?__c=1">a whopping 81%</a>.</p>
<p>Looking ahead, it is unlikely that Sanders will be able to secure enough delegates to seize the Democratic nomination. His inability to win over black voters will certainly guarantee this outcome. Much like the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-bernie-sanders-did-on-super-tuesday-2020-2016-maps-2020-3">primaries of 2016</a>, <a href="http://keishablain.com/about">I expect</a> Sanders will come close to a win – but not close enough.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/319874/original/file-20200311-116270-k1hl7g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/319874/original/file-20200311-116270-k1hl7g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/319874/original/file-20200311-116270-k1hl7g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/319874/original/file-20200311-116270-k1hl7g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/319874/original/file-20200311-116270-k1hl7g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/319874/original/file-20200311-116270-k1hl7g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/319874/original/file-20200311-116270-k1hl7g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/319874/original/file-20200311-116270-k1hl7g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Sanders greets voters outside a polling location at Warren E. Bow Elementary School in Detroit, Michigan.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/APTOPIX-Election-2020-Bernie-Sanders/87dc87d0f5b64e0db862b8e5328bd039/13/0">AP Photo/Paul Sancya</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><strong>Luke Perry, Utica University</strong></p>
<p>Joe Biden’s post-South Carolina <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/biden-rolls-on-with-big-win-in-michigan-grows-delegate-lead-over-sanders/ar-BB110VXQ">dominance continued in Michigan</a>, the big prize yesterday with over <a href="https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2020-primary-forecast/michigan/">one-third of the delegates in play</a> for that evening. <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2012/11/12/politics/blue-wall-democrats-election/index.html">Obama carried Michigan</a> in 2008 and 2012 as part of the Democratic “blue wall” in the Midwest.</p>
<p>Biden on Tuesday won 52.9% of the Michigan primary vote, securing 53 delegates. This is 14 more than Sanders, who <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/09/us/politics/primary-elections-michigan.html">won Michigan in 2016</a>.</p>
<p>Turnout was <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election/in-crushing-blow-to-bernie-sanders-joe-biden-scores-big-michigan-win-idUSKBN20X162">up 30%</a> compared with the 2016 primary. Biden <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/election-results/michigan-democratic-primary-live-results/">leads all</a> of Michigan’s 83 counties except for Ingham County, which is too close to call.</p>
<p>Biden’s strongest showing was among <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/election-results/michigan-democratic-primary-live-results/">older voters</a>, besting Sanders among those 45 and older.</p>
<p>In 2016, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/election/2016/results/exit-polls/michigan/president">79%</a> of Michigan voters were over 30. Trump outperformed Hillary Clinton among this group. </p>
<p>During Obama’s second term, party affiliation among baby boomers (age 52 to 70) and the Silent Generation (age 71 to 88) shifted from evenly divided between the two major parties to decidedly Republican.</p>
<p>For instance, <a href="https://www.people-press.org/2016/09/13/2-party-affiliation-among-voters-1992-2016/">53%</a> of the Silent Generation identified as Republican in 2016, and 40% as Democrat. This was a complete reversal from 1992, when Bill Clinton was elected.</p>
<p>Republicans have already begun to <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/10/trump-biden-clinton-age-senile-124797">frame Biden’s age, 77, negatively</a>. But Biden’s appeal to older voters in swing states like Michigan and Florida could be key to the Democrats’ future.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/319875/original/file-20200311-116261-1pjsvsi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/319875/original/file-20200311-116261-1pjsvsi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/319875/original/file-20200311-116261-1pjsvsi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/319875/original/file-20200311-116261-1pjsvsi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/319875/original/file-20200311-116261-1pjsvsi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/319875/original/file-20200311-116261-1pjsvsi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/319875/original/file-20200311-116261-1pjsvsi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/319875/original/file-20200311-116261-1pjsvsi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">King County Election workers collect ballots from a drop box in the Washington State primary.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Election-2020-Washington/1f03e8f2d5f0447aac4b911818bec929/25/0">AP Photo/John Froschauer</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><strong>Matthew May, Boise State University</strong></p>
<p>The results of Idaho’s Democratic primary help illustrate how much the rules of an electoral contest can shape its story.</p>
<p>Heading into Tuesday’s presidential primary, there were two unanswered questions in Idaho. </p>
<p>First, it was the first time Democratic voters would be casting ballots in a presidential primary, after decades of caucuses. How much would Democrats switching from a caucus to a primary affect voter turnout? Second, would Sanders be able to replicate <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2016/03/sanders-wins-idaho-221138">his decisive 2016 victory</a>, where he won 43 of Idaho’s 44 counties, under a primary? </p>
<p>The answers: Turnout did dramatically increase, but Sanders did not get another win.</p>
<p>The move from caucuses to a primary this year followed <a href="https://www.idahopress.com/news/local/idaho-dems-to-switch-to-presidential-primary-rather-than-caucuses/article_36285da4-e7ee-5024-91a3-ba07e91cc373.html">long wait times across the state</a> in 2016 and generally low voter turnout in the caucuses. <a href="https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-will-democrats-move-away-from-caucuses-affect-the-2020-race/">Many states explored</a> making this move following the last presidential primary cycle, because research shows that it improves turnout. </p>
<p>While a highly contested race certainly helped, Idaho’s switch from a caucus to a primary appears to have successfully increased voter turnout. In both 2008 and 2016, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/elections/2016/results/primaries/idaho">only 3%</a> of <a href="https://sos.idaho.gov/elect/VoterReg/turnout.html">registered voters</a> in Idaho went to the Democratic caucuses.</p>
<p>On Tuesday, Democratic turnout rose to 12%, exceeding 10% of registered voters for the first time since 1994. More than <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/03/10/us/elections/results-idaho-president-democrat-primary-election.html">107,000 voters</a> cast a ballot in the Democratic primary, easily eclipsing the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/elections/2016/results/primaries/idaho">23,000 ballots</a> in 2016.</p>
<p>With victories in <a href="https://www.denverpost.com/2020/03/03/colorado-primary-president-democrats-results/">Colorado</a>, <a href="https://www.sltrib.com/news/politics/2020/03/04/bernie-sanders-takes/">Utah</a> and <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/02/22/nevada-caucuses-biden-sanders-116719">Nevada</a>, the conventional wisdom heading into the night was that the Mountain West electorate favored Sanders. </p>
<p>As results came in, that proved incorrect. With substantially more voters participating in the primary, it made repeating the electoral landslide of the 2016 caucus more difficult for Sanders. Generally, <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2019/01/03/2020-elections-caucuses-democrats-primaries-bernie-sanders-1078031">his supporters are more committed to his success</a> and thus more likely to wait in long lines to ensure that the caucus goes for him. In primaries, more casual voters are able to go in, vote and continue on with their day.</p>
<p>While Sanders won <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/elections/2016/results/primaries/idaho">78% of the caucus vote</a> in 2016, 2020 was Biden’s night. Biden <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/03/10/us/elections/results-idaho-president-democrat-primary-election.html">garnered 49% to Sanders’ 43%</a>, winning 38 counties while Sanders only carried five, with one county tied. </p>
<p>[<em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/133135/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>With the race for the Democratic nomination narrowed to Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders, six more states went to the polls on March 10. We asked three scholars to interpret the results.Luke Perry, Professor of Political Science, Utica UniversityKeisha N. Blain, Associate Professor of History, University of PittsburghMatthew May, Senior Research Associate, Boise State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1249672019-11-13T13:08:26Z2019-11-13T13:08:26ZHow higher ed can deal with ethical questions over its disgraced donors<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300509/original/file-20191106-12474-15qlfa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">UCLA gave $425,000 back to Donald Sterling in 2014 after he disparaged Magic Johnson. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/College-Admissions-Bribery/f9df911c804347b991a41c19640d5142/3/0">AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes </a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Private donors are giving <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2019/06/20/donations-colleges-are-number-donors-down">colleges and universities record amounts of money</a> – along with increasingly frequent bouts of <a href="https://apnews.com/8f48e18ee46b40ae8edda9d89845f087">public shame</a> when they turn out to have embarrassing baggage.</p>
<p>Revelations that <a href="https://yaledailynews.com/blog/2019/09/25/yale-wont-accept-sackler-donations/">Yale</a>, <a href="https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/Colleges-got-60M-plus-from-OxyContin-family-columbia-cornell-562066681.html">Columbia</a>, <a href="https://cornellsun.com/2019/10/03/cornell-received-millions-from-scandal-ridden-sackler-family-but-the-university-says-it-wont-accept-more/">Cornell</a> and other prestigious schools in the U.S. and elsewhere accepted millions over the past five years from members of the <a href="https://apnews.com/fe455c8bd8af41ca94ce0bcada92381a">Sackler family</a> have raised questions from students and alumni. The schools kept accepting donations even as the Sacklers were being sued over their drug company’s role in bringing on the U.S. opioid crisis.</p>
<p>Likewise, the willingness of <a href="https://www.stanforddaily.com/2019/09/13/jeffrey-epstein-donated-50000-to-stanford-physics-department-in-2004/">Stanford</a>, <a href="https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2019/9/13/harvard-reviews-epstein-gifts/">Harvard</a> and <a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/10/mit-media-lab-jeffrey-epstein-money-women.html">MIT</a> to take money from disgraced financier and alleged sex trafficker <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/epsteins-donations-to-universities-reveal-a-painful-truth-about-philanthropy/2019/09/04/e600adae-c86d-11e9-a4f3-c081a126de70_story.html">Jeffrey Epstein</a> has caused upheaval on those campuses.</p>
<p>I have studied the <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=wautapsAAAAJ&hl=en">ethical questions school leaders face</a> regarding donor dollars for more than 20 years. This new airing of institutional dirty laundry has reinforced my theory of what colleges and universities should do to protect themselves and their reputations moving forward.</p>
<p>In my view, schools need a method for dealing with donors who become dubious after a gift has been accepted. Even better, they need to create fundraising policies that set limits on what donations the school accepts and put procedures in place that protect schools and donors regardless of whether donors pass the smell test from the start. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300365/original/file-20191105-88368-17pjz5b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300365/original/file-20191105-88368-17pjz5b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300365/original/file-20191105-88368-17pjz5b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300365/original/file-20191105-88368-17pjz5b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300365/original/file-20191105-88368-17pjz5b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300365/original/file-20191105-88368-17pjz5b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=534&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300365/original/file-20191105-88368-17pjz5b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=534&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300365/original/file-20191105-88368-17pjz5b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=534&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">University of Virginia students engaged in plans to construct a memorial in honor of the enslaved people who built the original structures in its campus two centuries ago.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/University-of-Virginia/9485792b9b4e4e2e891ad5bfed01d4ad/359/">AP Photo/Steve Helber</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Lofty values</h2>
<p>I believe that institutions of higher education should let students, faculty, staff and alumni help review or create new gift acceptance policies, rather than wait for their next donor-induced public relations crisis. </p>
<p>And I feel strongly that each school should turn to their own messaging for guidance.</p>
<p>Every U.S. college and university, whether public or private, religious or secular, <a href="https://blogs.lt.vt.edu/joyce/how-university-mission-statements-are-similar-and-different/">spells out its mission</a>, visions and values. </p>
<p>For example, <a href="https://www.yale.edu/about-yale/mission-statement">Yale</a> is “committed to improving the world today and for future generations through outstanding research and scholarship, education, preservation, and practice.”</p>
<p><a href="https://illinois.edu/about/">The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign</a> aims “to enhance the lives of citizens in Illinois, across the nation and around the world through our leadership in learning, discovery, engagement and economic development.”</p>
<p><a href="https://www.prescott.edu/our_story">Prescott College</a>, a private liberal arts college in Arizona, seeks “to educate students of diverse ages and backgrounds to understand, thrive in, and enhance our world community and environment.”</p>
<p>These statements aren’t mere slogans. They are public expression of a societal role and of commitments to students, faculty, donors and the public.</p>
<p>Two of the best ways that colleges and universities can show students the practical side of ethics is by being transparent about their leaders’ decisions and by engaging <a href="https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/university-ethics">students to think through the tough questions with them</a>. </p>
<h2>Engaged students</h2>
<p>And why not invite all students to wrestle with these ethical questions? Some schools, including <a href="https://www.scu.edu/giving/how-to-give/policies/gift-acceptance-guidelines.html">Santa Clara University</a> and <a href="https://www.beloit.edu/live/files/116-gift-policies-guidelines">Beloit College</a>, already include a student representative on their gift acceptance committees. </p>
<p>It is rare, but not unheard of, for all students to be invited to give input to leaders who are making tough decisions dealing with money.</p>
<p>At Georgetown University, in April 2019, students weighed in on whether to pay reparations to descendants of enslaved people sold by the University in 1838. Two-thirds of the students voting did more than simply show support for providing reparations. They also voted in favor of having <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/apr/15/georgetown-students-reparations-vote-slaves-sold-by-university">students pay a fee</a> to fund the payments.</p>
<p>Six months later, the school said it would implement the recommendation, but <a href="https://wtop.com/dc/2019/10/georgetown-university-announces-plan-to-make-amends-for-slave-trade-involvement-through-fundraising-efforts/">without the student fee</a>. Instead, school administrators decided that the university and its donors would shoulder the cost. </p>
<p>Similarly, the University of Virginia sought input from students on the design of the campus <a href="https://slavery.virginia.edu/memorial-for-enslaved-laborers/">memorial for the enslaved people</a> who built its campus in the 19th century. The memorial is now under construction in Charlottesville. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300364/original/file-20191105-88399-1wh5zo2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300364/original/file-20191105-88399-1wh5zo2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300364/original/file-20191105-88399-1wh5zo2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300364/original/file-20191105-88399-1wh5zo2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300364/original/file-20191105-88399-1wh5zo2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300364/original/file-20191105-88399-1wh5zo2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300364/original/file-20191105-88399-1wh5zo2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300364/original/file-20191105-88399-1wh5zo2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A statue of donor and Nazi memorabilia enthusiast Ralph Engelstad still stands in a hockey arena named after him on the University of North Dakota campus.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Fighting-Sioux-Nickname/a18e92c7caa44eb98cdaad6e130a2480/11/0">AP Photo/Dale Wetzel</a></span>
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</figure>
<h2>Disgraced donors</h2>
<p>Campus communities that receive major gifts from donors who become disgraced later on have several options.</p>
<p>They may decide to give back money from donors who have engaged in behavior deemed inconsistent with the school’s values. The University of California, Los Angeles did that in 2014 when it gave $425,000 back to <a href="https://www.sbnation.com/nba/2014/5/12/5711746/donald-sterling-inteview-cnn-anderson-cooper-la-clippers">Donald Sterling</a>, after the then-owner of the local basketball team made racist comments about Magic Johnson. UCLA also declined the balance of a <a href="http://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/ucla-rejects-donald-sterling-gift">$3 million pledge</a> Sterling had made to support kidney research.</p>
<p>At the other extreme, schools may keep the names of donors on their walls or associated with department chairs – even if those benefactors become a source of embarrassment.</p>
<p>For example, the <a href="https://www.chronicle.com/article/The-Long-Strange-Demise-of/233882">University of North Dakota</a> uses a hockey arena on its campus named after <a href="https://apnews.com/f78374e0f7fa4878a43151d9a4af45a7">Ralph Engelstad</a>. The late casino magnate, who spent <a href="https://www.si.com/vault/2001/10/08/311610/face-off-a-bullying-north-dakota-alumnus-built-the-school-a-100-million-rink-but-tore-its-campus-asunder">$110 million to build the venue</a>, hosted “<a href="https://people.com/archive/learning-of-a-casino-owners-birthday-parties-for-hitler-even-jaded-vegas-is-outraged-vol-30-no-17/">Hitler birthday parties</a>” and opposed the retirement of the “<a href="https://wtkr.com/2015/11/19/university-of-north-dakota-changes-controversial-mascot-name/">fighting Sioux</a>” as the school’s official athletic mascot.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://economics.missouri.edu/people/haslag">University of Missouri</a> still has an endowed economics chair named for <a href="https://www.columbiamissourian.com/news/local/mu-professor-haslag-named-kenneth-lay-chair-in-economics/article_172392e6-dfd6-5353-8b6c-ec5c2f8def37.html">Kenneth L. Lay</a>, the disgraced founder of the Enron energy company. Lay gave the school $1.1 million in Enron stock in 1999, two years before the company went bankrupt and seven years before he was found <a href="https://www.justice.gov/archive/opa/pr/2006/May/06_crm_328.html">guilty of securities fraud</a> and other misdeeds.</p>
<p><a href="https://money.cnn.com/2005/09/19/news/newsmakers/kozlowski_sentence/">Seton Hall University</a>, however, managed to reach agreement with donor <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/08/19/seton-hall-drops-name-donorfelon">Dennis Kozlowski</a>, a former CEO convicted of pilfering money from the company he ran. The school <a href="https://money.cnn.com/2005/08/18/news/newsmakers/kozlowski_seton/">kept his gift but purged</a> Kozlowski’s name from campus buildings. </p>
<p>A more creative solution that I support as an ethicist is redirecting funds to research relevant to the donor’s crime or misbehavior once misdeeds are discovered.</p>
<p>Imagine if every school that took donations from Jeffrey Epstein were to funnel that same amount of money into research on the prevention of sex trafficking and treatment of pedophilia. That boost might bring about social change.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.browndailyherald.com/2019/09/26/university-redirect-gifts-sackler-family-foundation/">Brown University</a> is already doing this by redirecting Sackler donations to off-campus opioid addiction treatment centers. And the <a href="https://www.courant.com/politics/hc-pol-uconn-sackler-redirect-funds-20191020-6d3sbienmbdgrcawzgaqqcc5cu-story.html">University of Connecticut</a> is using some donations it accepted from the Sacklers to fund addiction research and education.</p>
<p>I believe that any decision to redirect donor dollars should adhere to institutional messages and show that administrators have heard their stakeholders’ concerns.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300363/original/file-20191105-88394-1hinvl2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300363/original/file-20191105-88394-1hinvl2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300363/original/file-20191105-88394-1hinvl2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300363/original/file-20191105-88394-1hinvl2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300363/original/file-20191105-88394-1hinvl2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300363/original/file-20191105-88394-1hinvl2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=561&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300363/original/file-20191105-88394-1hinvl2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=561&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300363/original/file-20191105-88394-1hinvl2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=561&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">There’s an endowed chair still named after Enron founder Ken Lay, who took the fifth when Congress asked him to explain what led to his company’s implosion.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Associated-Press-Domestic-News-Dist-of-Columbi-/c587a89766e5da11af9f0014c2589dfb/5/0">AP Photo/Ron Edmonds</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Escape hatches</h2>
<p>When schools allow major donors to name buildings, programs or new wings of hospitals or museums, the question of what they might want to do in the face of <a href="https://theconversation.com/its-harder-than-you-might-expect-for-charities-to-give-back-tainted-money-97526">misconduct by the donor</a> rarely comes up. Neglecting that discussion may limit what can be done after the fact.</p>
<p>With no escape hatch written into gift agreements, as could be <a href="http://donorguru.blogspot.com/2014/04/morality-clauses-do-you-have-one.html">mandated by policies</a>, the only way to take donors’ names down is often by repaying them or their heirs. Adjusted for inflation, these repayments can be quite expensive.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://policies.catholic.edu/advancement/giftnaming.html">Catholic University of America</a>’s gift acceptance policy is a good model. It tells donors their naming rights may be revoked if the school “determines that its association with the donor will materially damage the reputation of the University.” <a href="https://www.cmu.edu/policies/administrative-and-governance/naming-gifts.html">Carnegie Mellon University</a> has adopted this language, too.</p>
<p>Whether intended or not, the choices university presidents and other campus leaders make, or fail to make, speak to their school’s character and integrity. Bringing students into the discussion is likely to result in policies and responses that are consistent with the school’s values and with <a href="https://teachingcenter.wustl.edu/2017/10/civic-engagement-and-higher-education/">the whole point of higher education</a>.</p>
<p>[ <em>Insight, in your inbox each day.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=insight">You can get it with The Conversation’s email newsletter</a>. ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/124967/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Deni Elliott has received funding for her work from Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Spencer Foundation, Arthur W. Page Center, Montana Committee for the Humanities, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services; National Science Foundation, Centers for Academic Integrity, U.S. Department of Education, International Environmental Institute, New Hampshire Humanities Council, Lily Endowment, Kellogg Foundation, Peter Kiewit Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, and Marion Jasper Whiting Foundation. </span></em></p>Colleges and universities should apply the best techniques of research and education to their own decision-making.Deni Elliott, Eleanor Poynter Jamison Chair in Media Ethics and Press Policy; Co-Chief Project Officer on the National Ethics Project, University of South FloridaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1182612019-06-05T16:49:14Z2019-06-05T16:49:14ZMissing and murdered Indigenous women and girls: An epidemic on both sides of the Medicine Line<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/278061/original/file-20190605-40723-emdg35.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=581%2C202%2C3930%2C2753&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Commissioner Michèle Audette speaks during ceremonies marking the release of the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls report in Gatineau, Que., on June 3, 2019. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>As an American Indian woman who recently moved to Canada, I’ve been saddened to see that the systemic and insidious racism towards Indigenous women and girls that is happening in the United States is also happening in Canada. My new provincial home, British Columbia, <a href="https://www.highwayoftears.ca/">has the highest proportion of murdered and missing Indigenous women and girls</a>. </p>
<p>I am still processing the <a href="https://www.mmiwg-ffada.ca/final-report/">final report</a> on the <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/bitter-sweet-reaction-to-mmiwg-inquiry-1.5158632">National Inquiry on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls</a> (MMIWG) that was released this week. The report is over 1,200 pages and includes more than 230 recommendations. </p>
<p>But what I can say is that compared to the <a href="https://newsmaven.io/indiancountrytoday/archive/american-indian-health-disparities-where-s-the-moral-outrage-9XK6bHICc02YicPJxnI95A/">lack of moral outrage</a> in the U.S. on this issue, I am hopeful by the very fact that in Canada, after much activism, such a committee was formed and a report of the findings were released with a bold statement. The inquiry concluded that the murder and disappearance of Indigenous women and girls is an ongoing <a href="https://www.thestar.com/politics/federal/2019/06/04/we-accept-the-finding-that-this-was-genocide.html">genocide</a>. </p>
<p>Maybe this will shake people out of complacency.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/278062/original/file-20190605-40727-ace0qf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/278062/original/file-20190605-40727-ace0qf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/278062/original/file-20190605-40727-ace0qf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/278062/original/file-20190605-40727-ace0qf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/278062/original/file-20190605-40727-ace0qf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/278062/original/file-20190605-40727-ace0qf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/278062/original/file-20190605-40727-ace0qf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Indigenous youth present the final report to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at the closing ceremony for the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls in Gatineau, Que., on June 3, 2019.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>I am hoping to learn more next week when the chief commissioner on the National Inquiry, Marion Buller —a member of the <a href="http://www.mistawasis.ca/">Mistawasis First Nation</a> in Saskatchewan — delivers <a href="https://events.eply.com/RedDressConference20192931829?fbclid=IwAR26AGML29Nmzr1yF5c--4VZi-JHtUj2LgKpikntpTaQ7wx4SN3ZfzlqLJ4">the keynote at a conference</a> I helped to organize. The conference, in partnership with Georgetown University at the University of British Columbia where I am on the Faculty of Nursing and head up the <a href="https://aboriginal.ubc.ca/faculty/">First Nations House of Learning</a>, brings together people from both sides of the <a href="https://uofrpress.ca/Books/M/Metis-and-the-Medicine-Line">Medicine Line</a> (U.S./Canada border). Those people include <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/13/us/politics/north-dakota-ruth-buffalo.html">newly elected North Dakota state Rep. Ruth Anna Buffalo</a> and <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/4406277/labour-of-love-to-map-north-americas-missing-murdered-indigenous-women/">Annita Lucchesi,</a> who maintains an extensive North American database of MMIWG cases.</p>
<h2>A lack of moral outrage</h2>
<p>The murder and disappearance of Indigenous women and girls are occurring at stunning rates at both sides of the Medicine Line, with shared historical reasons. </p>
<p>In the U.S., there are far higher levels of violence towards American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) women than the general population. <a href="https://www.tptoriginals.org/why-do-native-women-experience-murder-rates-at-10-times-the-national-average/">In many reservations and counties, AI/AN women face murder rates more than 10 times the national average.</a> According to a February 2017 <a href="http://www.ncai.org/policy-research-center/research-data/prc-publications/VAWA_Data_Brief__FINAL_2_1_2018.pdf">report</a> from the National Congress of American Indians, <a href="https://www.futureswithoutviolence.org/userfiles/file/Violence%20Against%20AI%20AN%20Women%20Fact%20Sheet.pdf">one in three AI/AN women are raped in their lifetime</a>; 86 per cent of perpetrators are usually Non-Indian. </p>
<p>Perpetrators are rarely caught, prosecuted or stopped. And this information or epidemic is seldom reported in the news.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/278064/original/file-20190605-40710-y470ie.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/278064/original/file-20190605-40710-y470ie.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=470&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/278064/original/file-20190605-40710-y470ie.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=470&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/278064/original/file-20190605-40710-y470ie.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=470&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/278064/original/file-20190605-40710-y470ie.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=590&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/278064/original/file-20190605-40710-y470ie.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=590&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/278064/original/file-20190605-40710-y470ie.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=590&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A woman holds a flower and a photo of Christine Wood who disappeared during a vigil in Winnipeg in April 2017.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/John Woods</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The root causes, though broadly similar to those found in Canada, are also embedded in U.S. law. The U.S. has <a href="http://www.indigenouspolicy.org/index.php/ipj/article/view/19">laws as old as 1880 that allow non-Indigenous perpetrators on Indigenous territory to essentially go free</a>. </p>
<p>Some have described this as “<a href="https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/bnpb73/native-american-women-are-rape-targets-because-of-a-legislative-loophole-511">open season</a>” on AI/AN women. “Open season” refers to the relative ease of non-Indian perpetrators to enter Indian lands to assault and rape AI/AN women, often resulting in their murder or going missing at disturbing rates and without consequence. </p>
<p>Another reason is inadequate policing resources. My tribe, for example, the <a href="https://www.mhanation.com/">Three Affiliated Tribes of North Dakota</a>, has a million-acre reservation, which is equivalent to a small state. The tribal police force there is stretched beyond reason, with only two dozen police officers covering this large area. This situation is not uncommon at other U.S. reservations.</p>
<h2>State representatives address the epidemic</h2>
<p>Unlike in Canada, in the U.S., there is no national inquiry. Very little has been done to address these shocking and sad realities at the federal level. Last year, Savanna’s Act proposed that the Department of Justice (DOJ) update federal databases relevant to cases of missing and murdered Indians to include the victims’ tribal enrolment information or affiliation. The act also aimed to create protocols and training for law enforcement and others as well as consultation with tribes. </p>
<p>For a variety of reasons, the bill did not pass through both chambers and was stuck. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/278068/original/file-20190605-40754-lgf4me.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/278068/original/file-20190605-40754-lgf4me.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/278068/original/file-20190605-40754-lgf4me.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/278068/original/file-20190605-40754-lgf4me.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/278068/original/file-20190605-40754-lgf4me.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/278068/original/file-20190605-40754-lgf4me.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/278068/original/file-20190605-40754-lgf4me.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Chief Commissioner Marion Buller gives Paul Tuccaro an eagle feather after he gave testimony at the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, in Edmonton, in November 2017. Tuccaro’s sister Amber Tuccaro went missing in 2010.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jason Franson</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But there is some hope. U.S. state legislators, especially those with reservations, have stepped forward. Representative <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/13/us/politics/north-dakota-ruth-buffalo.html">Buffalo</a> has already <a href="https://www.legis.nd.gov/assembly/66-2019/sponsor-inquiry/representative/rbuffalo.html">introduced two bills</a> on missing and murdered Indigenous people. Minnesota, Montana, Nevada, South Dakota and Washington have also passed legislation to address the MMIWG crisis. </p>
<p>The proposed legislation introduces the most basic concepts of collecting accurate and timely data, sharing that data with the FBI and other databases, and establishing targeted training for law enforcement and others on the MMIWG epidemic. </p>
<p>While these developments are laudable, these states only represent six of 34 states that together hold 573 federally recognized Tribal Nations. As to U.S. Congress and other federal leaders, they need to take a look at Canada. There needs to be a national response.</p>
<h2>Canada’s final report</h2>
<p>The final report of Canada’s MMIWG inquiry calls on educators and post-secondary institutions to educate the public about missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls and about the root causes of violence they experience. Such education must include historical and current truths about the genocide against Indigenous peoples through state laws, policies and colonial practices. </p>
<p>It should include, but not be limited to, teaching Indigenous history, law, and practices from Indigenous perspectives and the use of <a href="http://www.mmiwg-ffada.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/NIMMIWG-THEIR-VOICES-WILL-GUIDE-US.pdf"><em>Their Voices Will Guide Us</em></a> with children and youth.</p>
<p>As an American Indian Woman who holds lineage and has lived on both sides of the Medicine Line, it is my fervent hope that both countries will soon fully engage themselves in learning about this horrific and yet preventable scourge of violence toward my sisters in spirit — equally followed by whatever decisive action is necessary to stamp it out.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/118261/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Margaret Moss 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.</span></em></p>The United States could learn from Canada’s national attention being put on the epidemic of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls.Margaret Moss, Associate Professor and Director of the First Nations House of Learning, University of British ColumbiaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/711432018-07-11T11:14:36Z2018-07-11T11:14:36ZHarnessing natural gas to harvest water from the air might solve 2 big problems at once<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/225741/original/file-20180702-116120-19vdix.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Oil drilling produces natural gas that often gets burned on the spot, going to waste.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Natural-Gas-Flaring/e35081b97d9d4f68ac845dc8c5405234/1/0">AP Photo/Eric Gay</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>One of the biggest freshwater reservoirs in the world is, literally, up in the air. </p>
<p>Between <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S135943111633839X">6 and 18 million gallons of freshwater</a> hover above every square mile of land, not counting droplets trapped in clouds. Scientists realized this centuries ago but they have never quite figured out how to bring the water down to earth. The effort required to condense it would consume such vast quantities of energy that it has always appeared to make any effort to capture and use this water uneconomical.</p>
<p>But while <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=JlzFIp4AAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">studying this topic</a>, two of my University of Texas at Austin colleagues and I came up with a concept that might just work: that of using the natural gas that is otherwise <a href="http://memagazineselect.asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/article.aspx?articleid=2676390">flared from oilfields</a> to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.applthermaleng.2017.02.096">harvest atmospheric moisture</a>.</p>
<p>We haven’t given it a try yet but we believe it has the potential to be practical and economically viable, especially as <a href="https://globalriskinsights.com/2016/12/economic-cost-global-water-scarcity/">water gets scarcer and more expensive</a>. What’s more, the latest research about the extent of <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-us-natural-gas-industry-is-leaking-way-more-methane-than-previously-thought-heres-why-that-matters-98918">natural gas methane leaks</a> and greenhouse gas emissions underscore why it is important to give this technology a shot.</p>
<h2>Let there be water</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S135943111633839X">Here’s how the process would work</a>. Excess gas, that would otherwise go to waste, could power an engine of a big refrigeration unit. This industrial-scale refrigerator would swallow lots of humid air, condensing this moisture into water much like how the air conditioning systems operate in office and residential buildings.</p>
<p>The amount of water that could be collected would depend on the quantity of natural gas available, the weather and the refrigeration system’s efficiency. We project that for every cubic meter of gas, this process will capture <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.applthermaleng.2017.02.096">up to 2.3 gallons of water</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/152836/original/image-20170116-8783-ytaeh9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/152836/original/image-20170116-8783-ytaeh9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/152836/original/image-20170116-8783-ytaeh9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=318&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/152836/original/image-20170116-8783-ytaeh9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=318&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/152836/original/image-20170116-8783-ytaeh9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=318&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/152836/original/image-20170116-8783-ytaeh9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/152836/original/image-20170116-8783-ytaeh9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/152836/original/image-20170116-8783-ytaeh9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">By using flared gas to power refrigeration, water can be harvested from the air.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Vaibhav Bahadur</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Water for oil</h2>
<p>There are many uses for this water, which we believe would be fit for human consumption, including food processing, mining and other industries. I see many benefits to this approach to oil production, which is very water-intensive.</p>
<p>Drilling for oil and natural gas with hydraulic fracturing, a technique commonly called fracking, takes lots of water. On average, one well requires <a href="http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/11/3/034024/meta">2.5 million gallons of it</a>, which is enough to fill four Olympic-sized swimming pools. And there are <a href="https://www.fractracker.org/2017/03/34-states-active-drilling-2016/">more than a million of these wells</a> in the U.S. alone.</p>
<p>Yet about <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2014/02/05/ceres-report-fracking-water-supplies/5230583/">half of the nation’s wells are in parched areas</a> in Texas and other southern states.</p>
<p>And there are some oil patches, including the <a href="http://memagazineselect.asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/article.aspx?articleid=2676390">Eagle Ford in Texas</a>, where water scarcity is making it challenging to produce oil.</p>
<p>Drilling sites are often remote, meaning frackers must haul water to wellpads in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2017.07.062">hundreds of trucks</a> that have to travel 50 miles or more.</p>
<p>I have calculated that <a href="http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/11/3/034024/meta">tapping excess gas to capture water</a> would provide a fifth of the water used in fracking the parched Eagle Ford Shale region in South Texas.</p>
<h2>A waste of energy</h2>
<p>Worldwide, about <a href="https://www.climatecentral.org/news/satellite-shows-us-most-gas-flares-world-20297">4 percent of the natural gas extracted from oil and gas fields gets flared</a>, and this practice is common in the U.S. Add all this up, and it paints a disturbing picture of global waste and environmental pollution.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Tvl4TnYGu5A?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">SkyTruth uses Google imagery to map natural gas flaring around the world.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>And we cannot see any environmental downsides to giving it a try.</p>
<h2>It has to be hot</h2>
<p>This technique would not work in many cold and dry places. It would work best in areas that are hot and humid, including Texas and other southern states in the U.S., Mexico, Venezuela, Middle East and Africa year-round. And it might be viable for about half the year in cooler gas-producing oil patches like <a href="https://geology.com/articles/bakken-formation.shtml">North Dakota’s Bakken Formation</a>.</p>
<p>Interestingly, many regions with ample natural gas reserves have perpetual water scarcity and hot, humid climates. Examples include countries in the Middle East and Africa, the American Southwest, Mexico and Venezuela. </p>
<p>There have been efforts to stop wasting the natural gas produced as a byproduct of oil drilling before. But when oil producers have sought to capture and sell the fuel, rather than flare it, they have mostly failed because they have been <a href="https://memagazineselect.asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/article.aspx?articleid=2676390">economically unviable</a>.</p>
<p>I believe that this new approach would work better than mandating or encouraging the capturing of natural gas for other uses because it is easier to pull off. It also solves a separate problem at a time when water is becoming an increasingly valuable and scarce commodity.</p>
<p>There are other efforts to condense water in the air underway. For example, table-top atmospheric water harvesters powered by electricity <a href="https://ecoloblue.com/49-atmospheric-water-generator">are available for sale</a>. This idea to do it on an industrial scale, therefore, is not as far-fetched as it may appear.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/71143/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Vaibhav Bahadur has no commercial interests in the technology discussed in this article, as of today.</span></em></p>Energy that otherwise would go to waste might someday power industrial-scale condensation.Vaibhav Bahadur, Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering, The University of Texas at AustinLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/843432017-09-20T15:13:43Z2017-09-20T15:13:43ZNative Americans won a vital battle at UN 40 years ago – they need help again<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/186811/original/file-20170920-900-1a36wff.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Delegates entering the Geneva conference. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Native Americans secured an important victory in Geneva in September 1977. The United Nations held a <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=AWWXnQEACAAJ&dq=Conference+on+Discrimination+Against+Indigenous+Populations+in+the+Americas&hl=en&sa=X&redir_esc=y">Conference on Discrimination Against Indigenous Populations in the Americas</a>, which succeeded in pressuring the US and other governments to recognise these peoples’ special status. </p>
<p>This led to a global regime of indigenous human rights that drew a line under a period of overt discrimination against Native Americans in the US – even if the results were far from perfect. Forty years on, Indian rights are once again backsliding alarmingly and there is again a need for international help. </p>
<p>In the 1970s, Native Americans were staring cultural death in the face. The US government’s <a href="http://nativeamericannetroots.net/diary/1511">termination policy</a> of the 1950s had sought to disband the reservation system and force Indians to become part of modern society. </p>
<p>The government had ended federal protection over more than 100 Native nations, removed their tax-exempt status, withdrew financial assistance and scrapped services like education and health. Reservation land was reduced in size and cut up into individual parcels that could be bought and sold. </p>
<p>Thousands of Indian families who moved to big cities with the government’s relocation programme received too little assistance, and experienced discrimination in housing, the job market and the justice system. As a result, many sank into poverty, crime and disease. </p>
<h2>Fightback</h2>
<p>Many Indians fought termination in the federal courts, and President Nixon <a href="http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=2573">announced</a> a change in policy towards self-determination for Indian tribes in 1970s. Yet a cohort from the 1960s <a href="http://www.culturequest.us/munoz/redpower.htm">Red Power movement</a> believed their peoples’ plight still needed a forum above the level of national government. This was because, they argued, their problems arose out of centuries of colonisation by settlers from European nations. </p>
<p>These activists wanted the UN to recognise their right to “decolonisation”. Had they succeeded, some Native American reservations would be independent countries today. But the UN said that these issues were a domestic matter and refused to intervene. </p>
<p>The only other avenue available was to advocate Native American sovereignty as a human right. To do this, both the Canadian National Indian Brotherhood and the US-based International Indian Treaty Council secured NGO status in the UN’s Economic and Social Council in the mid-1970s. This came at a price: they had to reassure the UN they were not seeking full independence but would focus on indigenous human rights instead. </p>
<p>They then managed to convince various international organisations to sponsor a conference for 1977. An unprecedented mixture of participants came together, including the UN’s major agencies, 33 national governments, 38 international organisations, and indigenous delegates from 14 countries in the Americas. </p>
<p>At the forefront were representatives of the <a href="http://www.sioux.org">Lakota Nation</a>, a Sioux people concentrated in the Dakotas. They recommended to take to the UN Committee on Decolonisation the issues of “the status of American Indians under international law, violations of United Nations covenants and agreements, treaty recognition by the United Nations, land reform, autonomy and increased land base”. </p>
<p>They recommended the US government be censured for genocide and forced to ratify the <a href="http://www.ohchr.org/EN/ProfessionalInterest/Pages/CrimeOfGenocide.aspx">1948 Genocide Convention</a>. They wanted the nation states to recognise treaties signed by Indian peoples as international law – thereby allowing them to contest subsequent violations – and for the UN to call an international convention on Indian rights for 1978. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/186806/original/file-20170920-920-fsz8es.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/186806/original/file-20170920-920-fsz8es.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/186806/original/file-20170920-920-fsz8es.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186806/original/file-20170920-920-fsz8es.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186806/original/file-20170920-920-fsz8es.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186806/original/file-20170920-920-fsz8es.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186806/original/file-20170920-920-fsz8es.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186806/original/file-20170920-920-fsz8es.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Leading activist Winona LaDuke addressing the 1977 conference.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The <a href="http://www.history.com/topics/us-presidents/jimmy-carter">Carter administration</a> vehemently rejected suggestions of genocide, while pointing to its recent efforts to improve conditions for Indians. It said it was handling Indian issues within the framework of the nation state and rejected any attempts to leverage them as transnational issues or matters of international law. </p>
<p>Nonetheless, the Indians were able to use the conference to help develop a supranational monitoring and advisory mechanism for protecting indigenous human rights. As a result, the UN now receives and acts on reports of rights issues. It advises national governments and other entities on best practice and calls them out on violations. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, since the shift towards self-determination, the US government has recognised Native American sovereignty in areas like education, cultural affairs, health services, religion and law. Some Indian nations have used casino licensing rights to raise funding for revitalisation projects, albeit their situation remains a long way from perfect. Many are still struggling with poor public health, addiction, depression and suicide, and their treaty rights are still not fully recognised or enforced. </p>
<h2>Recent issues</h2>
<p>The UN has continued to put some pressure on the US in recent years. In 2012, James Anaya, the body’s then Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, went on the first fact-finding tour of native communities in the US. </p>
<p>He subsequently <a href="http://unsr.jamesanaya.org/statements/united-states-un-expert-calls-for-consultations-with-indigenous-peoples-over-private-land-sale-in-black-hills-south-dakota">called on</a> the Obama administration to return to the Sioux peoples their sacred lands in the Black Hills in South Dakota, which were confiscated for gold mining in the 1870s. This, he said, would be a “step towards addressing systemic discrimination against Native Americans that continues to this day”. So far, however, efforts by the Sioux <a href="http://www.wnd.com/2016/02/sioux-tribes-bid-for-return-of-black-hills-fails/">have been</a> unsuccessful. </p>
<p>The environment has also become a major battleground – particularly <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-30103078">Keystone XL</a>, a 1,179 pipeline to transport petroleum from the tar sands of Alberta in Canada to Nebraska, via Saskatchewan, Montana and South Dakota. </p>
<p>Originally authorised by the US and Canadian governments, indigenous and allied activists in both countries have protested vehemently. They fear that any accidents will poison water, land and food sources; and devastate the Indian way of life and the environment of the whole region. </p>
<p>After a <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2014/04/cowboys-and-indians-ride-through-dc-to-protest-keystone-xl-pipeline/">march on Washington</a> by the Cowboys and Indians Coalition in 2014, the Obama administration <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/nov/06/obama-rejects-keystone-xl-pipeline">withdrew its support</a> for the project the following November. The incoming Trudeau government in Canada expressed disappointment, but <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/justin-trudeau-afn-indigenous-aboriginal-people-1.3354747">pledged to</a> observe the rights of its indigenous population.</p>
<p>Yet things have changed for the worse under Donald Trump. He has <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-39381324">reauthorised</a> the project and greenlit its US wing, the Dakota Access Pipeline, despite desperate <a href="http://sacredstonecamp.org">resistance</a> by the Sioux and their allies. </p>
<p>A fitting way to honour the anniversary of the arrival of the Native American nations into the UN would be for the body to apply more pressure on these issues. It can’t strong-arm governments to reverse policies, but it can still make such matters embarrassing and prominent. </p>
<p>Environmental challenges and indigenous rights are international issues that need international protection. The UN should redouble its efforts to convince the governments and corporations involved to act responsibly and do what is right by the people who were there first.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/84343/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gyorgy Toth 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.</span></em></p>America’s indigenous tribes put themselves on the map in 1977. Now they’ve got Donald Trump to contend with.Gyorgy Toth, Lecturer, Post-1945 US History and Transatlantic Relations, University of StirlingLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/734242017-03-01T02:21:58Z2017-03-01T02:21:58ZDonald Trump and Andrew Jackson: More in common than just populism<p>At President Donald Trump’s request, a portrait of former President Andrew Jackson <a href="http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/316115-trump-hangs-portrait-of-andrew-jackson-in-oval-office">now hangs</a> in the Oval Office. Commentators have cast Trump’s populist appeal and inaugural address as “Jacksonian,” while others have tried to emphasize their major <a href="http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/01/andrew-jackson-donald-trump-populist-president-history-214705">differences</a>. <a href="http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/01/andrew-jackson-donald-trump-populist-president-history-214705">One writer</a> lauded Jackson as “the president who, more than any other, secured the future of democracy in America.”</p>
<p>However, these comparisons overlook experiences of marginalized people while defining history in terms of the ideologies of progress and American exceptionalism.</p>
<p>Jackson’s intolerant attitudes and harsh treatment of African-American and Native American peoples have not gone without mention. They are indeed inescapable. As a scholar who has written about <a href="http://www.uapress.arizona.edu/Books/bid2436.htm">Native American history</a> and <a href="http://unmpress.com/books.php?ID=20000000005880&Page=book">literature</a>, I am aware of just how often the perspectives of native people are neglected in conventional historical discourse.</p>
<p>The criticisms Trump has directed against <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/donald-trumps-long-history-of-clashes-with-native-americans/2016/07/25/80ea91ca-3d77-11e6-80bc-d06711fd2125_story.html?utm_term=.04e8f8a4c021">Indian casinos in the 1990s</a>, along with his insult of calling Senator Elizabeth Warren <a href="http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/whats-behind-trumps-pocahontas-attack-warren">“Pocahontas,”</a> casts his veneration of Jackson in a particularly disturbing light.</p>
<h2>Andrew Jackson and the Trail of Tears</h2>
<p>Jackson was a staunch supporter of slavery and policies that forcibly removed Indians from their lands. The passage of the 1830 <a href="http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?smtID=2&psid=3545">Indian Removal Act</a> was aimed at isolating native peoples to prevent conflict over territory and allow increased settlement. </p>
<p>The solution, originally conceived by Thomas Jefferson, was to empower the government to evict native peoples living east of the Mississippi River from their lands. Those subjected to removal would be moved <a href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4h3437t.html">“beyond the white settlements”</a> to distant reservations in the West, known at the time as “Indian territory.” It was a form of segregation.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/158820/original/image-20170228-29942-1og6md.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/158820/original/image-20170228-29942-1og6md.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/158820/original/image-20170228-29942-1og6md.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=523&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158820/original/image-20170228-29942-1og6md.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=523&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158820/original/image-20170228-29942-1og6md.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=523&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158820/original/image-20170228-29942-1og6md.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=658&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158820/original/image-20170228-29942-1og6md.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=658&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158820/original/image-20170228-29942-1og6md.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=658&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">R. Ridgway, engraving, c.1859, Muscogee Creek Chief William Weatherford surrenders to Andrew Jackson after the 1814 Battle of Horseshoe Bend. As a result, Jackson forced the Creek to cede over 20 million acres of land in Alabama and Georgia, including almost two million acres claimed by Cherokee Nation, allies who had fought in support of Jackson’s forces.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Library of Congress</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In 1832, the Supreme Court struck down Georgia laws aimed at depriving the Cherokee people of their rights and property in <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/31/515/case.html">Worchester v. Georgia</a>. The court affirmed a degree of native political sovereignty and annulled state jurisdiction over native lands. It was the final case of the so-called Marshall trilogy, named for Chief Justice John Marshall – the author of the majority decisions – and established major precedents of federal Indian law.</p>
<p>The immediate effect of the decision was to grant protections to the Cherokee Nation, and by extension to other tribes. It could have prevented forced removals, but Jackson was reportedly indignant at the result. According to the famed journalist Horace Greeley, Jackson was said to have <a href="http://www.pbs.org/wnet/supremecourt/antebellum/history2.html">responded</a>, “John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it.”</p>
<p>Whether Jackson spoke those words has been contested by historians ever since. But his strong support for removal policy and subsequent refusal to enforce the court’s decision made his position clear. The response was a stern rebuke of the legitimacy of the Supreme Court, the doctrine of the separation of powers, the rule of law and ultimately the Constitution.</p>
<p>The result was the <a href="http://www.history.com/topics/native-american-history/trail-of-tears">Trail of Tears</a>, in which Cherokee and other native peoples of the Southeast were forced at gunpoint to march 1,200 miles to “Indian territory.” Thousands of Cherokee died during the passage, while many who survived the trek lost their homes and most of their property. Ironically, much of the land on which the Cherokee and other removed tribes were settled was opened to homesteading and became the state of Oklahoma some 60 years later.</p>
<p>Yet, the violent manner by which removal was carried out had been ruled illegal and unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in the Worchester case.</p>
<h2>New assault on native rights?</h2>
<p>The new administration is showing similar malice toward the legal status and rights of native peoples secured in American law. For example, <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2017/02/dakota-access-pipeline-standing-rock-trump">Trump recently lifted</a> President Obama’s injunction halting the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline. Last week’s eviction of pipeline opponents from Sacred Stone Camp, led by the Standing Rock Sioux Nation, under threats of arrest has led to renewed uncertainty about native rights.</p>
<p>Statements by Trump’s advisers and government officials calling for the <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-tribes-insight-idUSKBN13U1B1">privatization of native lands</a> guaranteed by treaties to seize valuable natural resources have only heightened these concerns.</p>
<p>This rhetoric echos policies that oppressed native people in the past. These include <a href="https://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=true&doc=50">allotment</a>, extending from 1887 to the 1930s, which eliminated communal ownership and led to the taking of millions of acres of native land. This was followed by termination and relocation of the 1950s, aimed at eliminating the legal status of native people while sending individuals from reservations to urban areas, further depriving native peoples of their lands, liberty and culture.</p>
<p>Native treaties are unequivocally assured in <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/articlevi">Article 6, the Supremacy Clause, of the U.S. Constitution</a>. It states: “all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land…”</p>
<p>Tribal leaders negotiated treaties in good faith to reserve what amounts to a <a href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_vault/2014/06/17/interactive_map_loss_of_indian_land.html">fraction of their original lands</a>, with all attendant rights. Privatizing tribal lands would be a violation of these treaties. </p>
<p>The casual rejection of these covenants heighten the insecurity among native people evoked by Trump. His esteem for Jackson and their shared attitudes toward their legal rights and status should give us pause. That journalists and historians continue to offer positive views of Jackson’s presidency in light of this legacy underscores how the suffering of native people continues to be ignored.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/73424/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Billy J. Stratton 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.</span></em></p>Comparisons often ignore the troubling history of how Jackson treated Native Americans. An expert on Native American history draws parallels to the new administration.Billy J. Stratton, Professor of contemporary American literature and culture; Native American studies, University of DenverLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/707822017-01-06T01:15:52Z2017-01-06T01:15:52ZFive reasons why the North Dakota pipeline fight will continue in 2017<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/151790/original/image-20170104-18656-18p0baj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">In December, protesters in Standing Rock, North Dakota scored a big victory against a pipeline builder, yet the underlying problems have not been addressed.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/David Goldman</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In December 2016, the Army Corps of Engineers (ACE) denied an easement that would have permitted the company Energy Transfer Partners (ETP) to complete one of the final segments of the 1,100-mile Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL), which seeks to connect the oil fields of North Dakota with terminals and refineries in Illinois.</p>
<p>The denial of ACE’s easement is undoubtedly a <a href="http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2016/12/09/standing-rock-tribe-defied-history-what-happens-next-anything-inevitable-166692">victory</a> for the Standing Rock Sioux. The tribe and its allies in the #NoDAPL movement opposed the pipeline over risks to water quality, the destruction of cultural heritage and the injustice of, <a href="https://therednation.org/2016/09/18/fighting-for-our-lives-nodapl-in-context/">once again</a>, having to make sacrifices for the economic gains of others. David Archambault II, chair of the tribe, <a href="http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/12/05/504420616/standing-rock-leader-asks-those-who-are-not-sioux-to-leave-pipeline-protest-area">thanked</a> those who had been gathering for months at the construction site, saying their “purpose had been served,” and that they may leave now.</p>
<p>But as we start a new year, many people are convinced that the need for resistance <a href="http://www.valleynewslive.com/content/news/DAPL-protesters-Its-not-over-so-why-should-we-go-home-404895325.html">has not ended</a> even after the tribe’s <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/12/the-historic-victory-at-standing-rock/509558/">monumental victory</a>. The Sacred Stone camp, a <a href="http://sacredstonecamp.org/about/">Spirit Camp</a> dedicated to stopping the pipeline, published the headline “<a href="http://sacredstonecamp.org/blog/2016/12/2/obama-administration-denies-final-easement-whats-next">DAPL Easement Suspended, but the Fight’s not Over</a>.”</p>
<p>As an indigenous scholar and activist, I agree that the water protectors’ underlying causes in this high-profile resistance have not been addressed – even if ETP truly halts all construction. Here are five developments people should consider as the incoming Trump administration takes power. </p>
<p><strong>1. Tribal consultation requirements need to be reformed.</strong></p>
<p>In its December memo, the ACE <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/dakota-pipeline-protests/army-corps-engineers-had-actually-recommended-dakota-access-pipeline-route-n692826">said</a> it did not violate its <a href="http://www.spk.usace.army.mil/Portals/12/documents/tribal_program/USACE%20Native%20American%20Policy%20brochure%202013.pdf">duty to consult tribes</a> in advance. Moreover, in ruling against the tribe, which had sought an injunction to halt construction, district judge James Boasberg <a href="http://earthjustice.org/sites/default/files/files/order-denying-PI.pdf">documented</a> the many efforts ACE made to reach out to the tribe as well as efforts of the pipeline builders to avoid damaging places of cultural and historical significance. </p>
<p>Yet nonetheless, the Standing Rock Sioux tribe’s territory was targeted for the pipeline instead of an <a href="http://www.pri.org/stories/2016-12-01/bismarck-residents-got-dakota-access-pipeline-moved-without-fight">area closer to Bismarck, North Dakota</a>, which speaks to the need for reform of tribal consultation policies. </p>
<p>In my personal review and interpretation of ACE’s specific <a href="http://www.usace.army.mil/Missions/Civil-Works/Tribal-Nations/">tribal consultation policy</a> and the related <a href="http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/136740.pdf">Executive Order 13175</a>, I believe agencies can fulfill the duty to consult with tribes without really giving them a fair opportunity for free, prior and informed consent. Some scholars argue that Section 106 policy of the National Historic Preservation Act, which requires impacts on cultural heritage to be considered, is <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-archaeological-review-behind-the-dakota-access-pipeline-went-wrong-67815">not designed</a> to fairly consider tribes’ interests. </p>
<p>Finally, when I reviewed Judge Boasberg’s opinion, what stands out to me are the multiple times when the tribe expressed objections and concerns to ACE and also ETP. Nevertheless, the agency and business interests kept pushing on. This is despite what should have been widely known about the significance of a <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/448/371">1868 treaty area</a> for the tribe and its involvement in a 2012 <a href="http://www.indianz.com/News/2012/004715.asp">resolution</a> against future pipelines. </p>
<p>Some critics of the NoDAPL movement, including a <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/what-the-dakota-access-pipeline-is-really-about-1481071218">North Dakota congressional representative</a>, claim that opposing the pipeline offends the “rule of law.” Yet, for me, this criticism is unclear. </p>
<p>Morally speaking, I believe current tribal consultation policies lack strong enough support for the right to <a href="http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/IPeoples/FreePriorandInformedConsent.pdf">free, prior and informed consent</a> and fail to protect sufficiently <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-understanding-native-american-religion-is-important-for-resolving-the-dakota-access-pipeline-crisis-68032">religious freedom</a> and cultural integrity. Legally speaking, the U.S. has a long way to make up for a range of unlawful actions, from <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/US/broken-promises-standing-rock-sioux-tribe-cites-history/story?id=43698346">breaking treaties</a> to <a href="http://www.narf.org/cases/cobell/">swindling indigenous trust assets</a>. In my view, basic respect for the Standing Rock’s treaty rights over the years would have made the current situation unlikely. Such respect would have also, speaking more speculatively, put many tribes in stronger positions, both economically and in terms of government capacity, to negotiate and track the actions of powerful corporations and U.S. agencies. </p>
<p>The ACE did issue <a href="http://www.usace.army.mil/Media/News-Releases/News-Release-Article-View/Article/1003593/statement-regarding-the-dakota-access-pipeline/">a statement</a> in November acknowledging historic “dispossessions of lands” as a factor being weighed, yet it is unclear whether <a href="https://theconversation.com/dakota-pipeline-americas-indigenous-people-are-still-fighting-a-centuries-old-racist-ideology-70175">this view</a> will ultimately be used to build improvements into current tribal consultation policies. </p>
<p><strong>2. Tribes everywhere are pressured by extractive industries.</strong></p>
<p>Pipelines, mining, drilling, refining and other extractive and industrial projects continue to try to enter tribal lands and waters around the country. </p>
<p>In the Pacific Northwest, the Lummi tribe recently worked to <a href="http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/environment/tribes-prevail-kill-proposed-coal-terminal-at-cherry-point/">block plans</a> for a <a href="http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/environment/united-in-fossil-fuel-fight-nw-tribes-inspire-nd-pipeline-foes/">coal-export port</a> that posed risks to their treaty-protected lands. In the Great Lakes, the Menominee Nation hosted a <a href="http://www.menominee-nsn.gov/GovernmentPages/Initiatives/Back40Mine/2016MenomineeRiverWaterWalk.jpg">Sacred Water Walk</a> to protect cultural sites and environmental quality from the <a href="http://www.aquilaresources.com/projects/back-forty-project/">“Back Forty” sulfide mine</a>. In the Southwest, the Navajo Nation is suing EPA over the <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2016/08/16/politics/navajo-lawsuit-epa-animas-river/">Gold King mine’s spilling of contaminated water</a>, including lead and arsenic, into the Animas River. And I could go on to discuss <a href="http://www.ienearth.org/10-indigenous-and-environmental-struggles-you-can-support-in-2017/">countless</a> <a href="https://culanth.org/fieldsights/1022-deedsnotwords-a-national-day-of-water-protection-solidarity-north-of-the-medicine-line">more</a> <a href="http://www.ctvnews.ca/business/first-nation-against-kinder-morgan-pipeline-rejects-standing-rock-style-protests-1.3180160">cases</a>. </p>
<p>For almost every tribe, this is not their first time dealing with extractive industries and hydropower projects. </p>
<p>The Navajo Nation was devastated by <a href="http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/04/10/473547227/for-the-navajo-nation-uranium-minings-deadly-legacy-lingers">uranium mining</a> in the middle part of the 20th century and still deals with uranium cleanup today. <a href="http://nwtreatytribes.org/state-watersheds-former-mining-roads-threaten-treaty-resources/">Historic mining</a> and <a href="http://www.historylink.org/File/10010">hydroelectric development</a> in Washington and Oregon affected treaty protected habitats of fish, plants and animals for the Lummi and many other tribes, which are still dealing with the <a href="http://treatyrightsatrisk.org/">ecological impacts today</a>. </p>
<p>Of course, the Standing Rock tribe itself <a href="https://therednation.org/2016/09/18/fighting-for-our-lives-nodapl-in-context/">endured losses of valuable lands due to a range of historical factors involving extraction and hydropower</a> including U.S. support of gold prospecting and the construction of the Lake Oahe Dam. </p>
<p><strong>3. The Trump administration is possibly exploring the privatization of some tribal lands.</strong></p>
<p>As the Trump administration comes into power, some tribes recall comments Trump himself made years ago <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/donald-trumps-long-history-of-clashes-with-native-americans/2016/07/25/80ea91ca-3d77-11e6-80bc-d06711fd2125_story.html?utm_term=.c1b261c89dac">in relation to gaming</a> which demonstrated both disrespect and ignorance. </p>
<p>Now recent stories suggest that the Trump administration – Trump has recently <a href="http://www.cnbc.com/2016/12/05/trump-sells-his-stake-in-dakota-access-pipeline-developer.html">sold his stake</a> in ETP – would seek to <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-tribes-insight-idUSKBN13U1B1">explore policies that make it easier</a> for extraction to occur on tribal lands. </p>
<p>Reportedly, some of the options on the table involve privatization of tribal lands, echoing historic <a href="https://www.iltf.org/resources/land-tenure-history/allotment">allotment</a> and <a href="http://www.nrcprograms.org/site/PageServer?pagename=airc_hist_terminationpolicy">termination</a> policies that sounded good from a U.S. capitalist mindset but that ultimately <a href="http://books.wwnorton.com/books/Blood-Struggle/">devastated</a> many Native American economies through weakening tribal governmental sovereignty against the economic interests of U.S. settlers. </p>
<p><strong>4. It is unclear the extent to which the #NoDAPL movement educated anyone.</strong></p>
<p>The failure of U.S. public and private education and many media outlets to consistently cover indigenous histories and current issues means that potential allies of indigenous peoples do not have much background in relevant areas – everything from treaty rights to indigenous activism, to federal Indian law (and its limits), to indigenous religious and cultural values.</p>
<p>While many allies are able to send money or show up for what they understand as “direct action,” they do not know how they can advocate for indigenous peoples beyond the rare highly public issues. They do not, for example, seek to regularly pressure their political leaders to reform the U.S. government’s duty to consult with tribes before construction projects. Or they are not aware of indigenous peoples facing similar struggles to that of Standing Rock who are living right next door to them.</p>
<p><strong>5. US colonialism is not over.</strong></p>
<p>All these points I have just made are really just by-products of one key point: DAPL is not over because many people in the U.S. assume that it is acceptable to keep pushing tribes to make sacrifices for U.S.-endorsed business interests, whether these interests profit individuals or are portrayed as being in the national interest. </p>
<p>From an indigenous perspective, it is deeply frustrating to witness, generation after generation, a U.S. parasitism that continues to build the U.S. economy through infringing more and more on indigenous lands and waters, as we see from many ongoing energy and water projects detailed above. </p>
<p>Why is the underlying assumption always that indigenous peoples must sacrifice their cultures, economies and political self-determination for the sake of the aspirations of businesses and U.S. national interests? This question poses a significant problem for the ethics of DAPL even if it were absolutely certain that the pipeline is far safer, <a href="https://theconversation.com/victory-at-standing-rock-reflects-a-failure-of-us-energy-and-climate-policy-69881">in many respects</a>, than oil transport by rail. </p>
<p>It remains possible that the two-year-long Environmental Impact Assessment will not ultimately respect the involvement of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe. Or perhaps ETP will just keep building the pipeline and deal with the financial or legal consequences. </p>
<p>Regardless, tribes everywhere, this year and into the future, will face broken treaty rights, inadequate consultation, uphill battles against rich companies and federal and state agencies whose goals and procedures ultimately do not take to heart indigenous values, histories and sovereignty.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/70782/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kyle Whyte 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.</span></em></p>A Native American scholar explains why so little has changed despite the apparent victory of protesters opposing the North Dakota Access Pipeline protest.Kyle Whyte, Timnick Chair in the Humanities / Associate Professor of Philosophy and Community Sustainability, Michigan State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/698812016-12-06T02:25:38Z2016-12-06T02:25:38ZVictory at Standing Rock reflects a failure of US energy and climate policy<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/148750/original/image-20161205-8009-1u7rixc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Gatherers in Cannon Ball, North Dakota celebrate news that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers won't grant an easement for the Dakota Access oil pipeline. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/David Goldman</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The protesters have won. On Sunday, Dec. 4, swayed by possible violence over the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) in North Dakota, the Obama administration declared <a href="https://www.army.mil/article/179095/army_will_not_grant_easement_for_dakota_access_pipeline_crossing">a new route</a> must be chosen. The decision came one day before the official deadline for the protesters to evacuate federal land and just as thousands of <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/12/04/veterans-arrive-at-standing-rock-willing-to-take-a-bullet-to-protect-water-protectors.html">veterans</a> were arriving to act as “shields” for the protesters should any need arise. </p>
<p>In the end, no need did arise, as authorities promised. The pipeline, said to cross sacred sites and to threaten water used by the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation, will have to cross the Missouri River somewhere else – unless the incoming administration of Donald Trump <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/latest-national-tribal-leader-praises-pipeline-decision-43981180">seeks to reverse the decision</a>.</p>
<p>The victory must be sweet, for some. But the issues revealed by this local-conflict-turned-national-movement are anything but resolved. A crisis is a terrible thing to waste, so it makes sense to ask hard questions about a troubled U.S. energy situation, which this conflict has illuminated.</p>
<h2>History and symbolism</h2>
<p>What is the big picture? A <a href="http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/environment/what-you-need-to-know-about-the-dakota-access-pipeline/">Native American group</a> and environmentalists, plus other supporters (celebrities, musicians, etc.), are on one side. And on the other is an oil pipeline company, Energy Transfer Partners (ETP of Dallas, Texas), which is supported in part by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and local police. </p>
<p>The protesters, some of whom called themselves water protectors, claimed the pipeline disrupted sacred sites and burial grounds and that its planned route under the Missouri River threatened the water supply of the Standing Sioux. ETP and the Army Corps of Engineers insisted the water would be <a href="http://www.dallasnews.com/business/energy/2016/09/13/kelcy-warrens-energy-transfer-partners-responds-protest-dakota-access-pipeline">safe</a>, as all regulations were obeyed, and the company is 100 percent liable for any damage.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/148751/original/image-20161205-8030-1gmf9lj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/148751/original/image-20161205-8030-1gmf9lj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/148751/original/image-20161205-8030-1gmf9lj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=367&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148751/original/image-20161205-8030-1gmf9lj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=367&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148751/original/image-20161205-8030-1gmf9lj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=367&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148751/original/image-20161205-8030-1gmf9lj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=461&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148751/original/image-20161205-8030-1gmf9lj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=461&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148751/original/image-20161205-8030-1gmf9lj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=461&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Delaying or scrapping an oil pipeline project of any kind means more oil will be transported by rail, which also has risks of spills.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/royluck/12859842853/in/photolist-c6WknQ-kAo4fv-dLg2aE-dUKFmB-oaMiTc-c6Wm3q-vFEDXv-vYy8EZ-osepMy-vXwRrf-vYy8S2-v2hLeV-vXwPXo-vFxGFS-vXwQZJ-vFEDrk-vXwQyo-v2hLtc-vYy97a-v29jQf-vFxvad-vFxGxf-vXwR5J-vYy8t6-pRUB1u-v2hKgc-vFEDCn-vVQURb-vYy7Bg-vFxGRG-vXwRmA-vYy87z-vFxtMo-v29kNh-v29kao-vYy8oB-v2hL8c-vVQUd7-v2hLSi-vFxGD7-vVQUJC-vFxHbu-vFED84-vFxGro-vFEEMB-vFxJ5U-vYacK2">royluck/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A second question concerns context. Fundamentally, this comes back not to water, but oil. Petroleum powers <a href="http://www.iea.org/topics/transport/">over 90 percent</a> of transportation on Earth, and this won’t change for decades: Think of <a href="http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1093560_1-2-billion-vehicles-on-worlds-roads-now-2-billion-by-2035-report">a billion cars</a> (millions more each year), plus millions of planes, trains, trucks, boats and military vehicles – all powered by oil. This makes oil economically critical and a matter of national security.</p>
<p>The U.S., meanwhile, has hugely <a href="http://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=20892">improved</a> its energy and national security due to the fracking “revolution.” Money leaving the country to support petrostate dictators is <a href="http://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/index.cfm?page=oil_imports">dramatically down since 2010</a> because of a domestic drilling boom. It is possible, if prices rise, that domestic oil companies will export to U.S. allies, reducing their dependence on such places. </p>
<p>North Dakota is a center of the new production. Because drilling grew very rapidly when prices were high (2011-2014), far more oil was extracted than existing pipelines could handle. This meant a surge in oil trains moving crude to East Coast, Midwest and West Coast refineries at much higher cost and risk to people, waterways and the environment. <a href="https://northdakotapipelines.com/rail-transportation/">Rail shipments</a> now total about 300,000 barrels per day (bbls/d). Planned for 470,000 bbls/d, the DAPL is therefore a much-needed way to get oil off trains and to market. Viewed in this way, the victory at Standing Rock is rough justice for those who want to stop seeing oil trains roll through their towns and cities. </p>
<p>A second element of context is the volatile mixture of history and symbolism. This involves a dark history of domestic colonialism, the innumerable crimes perpetrated by the government against Native Americans, touched on here by the <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-archaeological-review-behind-the-dakota-access-pipeline-went-wrong-67815">pipeline crossing burial and artifact sites</a>. </p>
<p>The matter is not academic history but a powerful part of present-day memory and identity. It should not be surprising that skepticism results when federal authorities offer assurances the pipeline will be safe. In truth, the DAPL is <a href="http://www.daplpipelinefacts.com/resources/faq.html">advanced</a>, with the latest sensors to detect even slight flow irregularities and valve systems to automatically shut down the line if problems occur. As an interstate pipeline, the DAPL is mandated to have a high level of engineering, inspection and monitoring. Yet, in the realm of broken history, little of this translates to confidence. </p>
<h2>Water and climate</h2>
<p>The question still must be asked: How real is the threat to water? Not very. The U.S. has roughly <a href="http://phmsa.dot.gov/portal/site/PHMSA/menuitem.6f23687cf7b00b0f22e4c6962d9c8789/?vgnextoid=a62924cc45ea4110VgnVCM1000009ed07898RCRD&vgnextchannel=daa52186536b8210VgnVCM1000001ecb7898RCRD&vgnextfmt=print">160,000 miles</a> of pipelines moving crude and refined oil. Over half the American population lives downstream from one or more lines. Many cross the Missouri River downriver from North Dakota. The DAPL itself will cross several rivers, including the Mississippi, before ending at a transport hub in southern Illinois. The chances of one tiny segment of a 1,200-mile pipeline rupturing, especially in a nonindustrial area, are very small. </p>
<p>Pipeline <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/pipelines-explained-how-safe-are-americas-2.5-million-miles-of-pipelines">safety problems are real</a>, true enough. But the risk is concentrated in certain kinds of pipelines, notably those that are old (over 35 years), local and poorly maintained. None of this applies to the DAPL. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/148752/original/image-20161205-25742-1pzgbcm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/148752/original/image-20161205-25742-1pzgbcm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/148752/original/image-20161205-25742-1pzgbcm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148752/original/image-20161205-25742-1pzgbcm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148752/original/image-20161205-25742-1pzgbcm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148752/original/image-20161205-25742-1pzgbcm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148752/original/image-20161205-25742-1pzgbcm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148752/original/image-20161205-25742-1pzgbcm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A protest in San Francisco: The months-long protests at Standing Rock have galvanized people from around the world because of the powerful symbol of the pipeline project.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/43005015@N06/25379625129/in/photolist-EEHdkB-NN5GSu-NN5Go3-PfJERt-EEHbLK-EEHbqV-NN5AB3-NN5zb7-NN5xYs-NN5wJd-EEDsL8-EEDsEX-EEDsye-EEBF9D-AMWR9Q-EEBEX6-AMWQXh-EEBENi-AMWQKJ-AMWQz3-AMWQpU-PfDxu4-EEBE8F-PfDxe4-EEBDTT-PfDwQ8-NMZikE-EEBD9g-NMZic3-EEBCQF-NMZhMA-EEBCCg-NMZhCY-EEBCsX-NMZhp1-EEBCdt-AMe3u9-NM7LsY-PbDip5-P25FTi-P25EE6-P25DmV-P25C4z-NGcZ7A-NGcXyW-P9Twer-P6Fe4s-P9Tt48-P6F9zh-P6F7uW">Peg Hunter/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>How do the environmentalists fit in (I promise not to discuss celebrities)? A skeptic might say they came to exploit a ripe situation and to further America’s hate affair with the oil industry. True in part, this overlooks the larger reality and its symbolic charge. Stopping the pipeline in one spot, after all, won’t stop oil altogether. </p>
<p>Climate change, however, is a threat most of all to <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-the-native-american-pipeline-resistance-in-north-dakota-is-about-climate-justice-64714">indigenous peoples around the world</a>. These are people commonly without power who rely on immediately available resources for survival. In the wake of Donald Trump’s election, with its prospect of a great reversal in U.S. climate policy, environmentalists feel common cause with such groups and an intensified need to oppose fossil fuel projects, even the wrong ones. </p>
<h2>Example from Russia?</h2>
<p>Finally, what has been ETP’s stance? The company largely avoided the media spotlight. Oil companies know from long experience it is a waste of time to expect a fair trial in the court of public opinion. </p>
<p>ETP saw the DAPL as a major investment that would serve shareholders, North Dakota and the nation all at once – a winning combination. It played by the written rules, invested much time and money, designed a state-of-the-art pipeline, and worked with the Army Corps of Engineers in meetings with tribal leaders. Doubtless it feels betrayed by Sunday’s decision; it has supply deadlines to meet. </p>
<p>Yet it has <a href="http://www.theverge.com/2016/12/5/13840934/dakota-access-pipeline-energy-transfer-partners-army-corps-trump">rejected</a> the new decision, claiming the government is “currying favor with a narrow and extreme political constituency.” It will most likely wait for better weather under the Trump administration. This seems foolish and guaranteed to create more trouble if followed through. Even Russia’s leader Vladimir Putin, to avoid a public movement, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/apr/27/russia.oil">rerouted a major pipeline</a> in 2006 away from Lake Baikal. </p>
<h2>Adding it up</h2>
<p>The Standing Rock protest, then, is a keyhole into a landscape of unsettled relations regarding energy in America. These relations are tinged with distrust and hostility on all sides. </p>
<p>They include a public fearful about facing the realities of our current energy system, including the risk of oil spills, even as it consumes the largest volumes of oil per capita in the world. They involve activists who, out of frustration, blindly oppose any large-scale fossil fuel or nuclear project, practicing national nimbyism. They are rounded out by a deeply jaded energy industry, mistrustful of the media, the public and the Democratic Party. </p>
<p>Lastly, there is Washington, which has never put together a real domestic energy policy. With regard to fossil, nuclear or renewable sources, policy tends to swing from pro to semi-pro to con to semi-con with every change of administration. To deal with the real problems of energy, climate change above all, this situation needs to change – something all parties should recognize.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/69881/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Scott L. Montgomery does not work or consult for any company or organization mentioned in this article. </span></em></p>The protesters have scored a big victory in the Dakota Access Pipeline conflict, but it’s served only to illuminate the sharp divisions over energy policy in the US.Scott L. Montgomery, Lecturer, Jackson School of International Studies, University of WashingtonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/693642016-12-04T18:16:49Z2016-12-04T18:16:49ZHow the pursuit of carbon and fossil fuels harms vulnerable communities<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/148262/original/image-20161201-25674-1we1cnb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Niger Delta, where the rights of humans have been violated in the pursuit of oil.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/sosialistiskungdom/4555322007/in/photolist-7WxdwB-75eU7R-79d8kD-79gZrU-bVnizL-79d8sT-79d8X2-79d8Y6-CyL86-cwv9B7-79d8Vx-79gZF3-79gZM9-79gZH7-BbQm-79h1cm-79d8Qk-79gZDG-79d8yP-74ekj9-7dDZ9-7fGMn-7X9Bwx-7dF4o-7fGzG-7fGvy-7fGKo-7dEyE-7fGWe-7fGBS-7fGTG-9KKECR-79d8Wv-79gZJy-79d8QR-79d99V-79d8AV-79h3Mf-79h17G-79gZMG-79gZCd-79h1fb-79gZsY-7XcRg7-79gZD3-7WXdw8-79h13S-7XcQZC-79gZHN-79h13h">Flickr/Sosialistisk Ungdom (SU)</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>2016 is set to be the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/nov/14/2016-will-be-the-hottest-year-on-record-un-says">hottest year on record</a>. Global temperatures are already 1,2°C above pre-industrial levels, and total reductions in emissions, committed by individual countries, far exceed <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/planet-oz/2016/nov/19/marrakech-climate-talks-wind-down-with-maze-of-ambition-still-ahead?utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=GU+Today+AUS+v1+-+AUS+morning+mail+callout&utm_term=200549&subid=8497857&CMP=ema_632">globally agreed targets.</a> This puts us on track for <a href="http://unfccc.int/paris_agreement/items/9485.php">dangerous climate change</a>. </p>
<p>At a time when the transition to a low carbon future has never been more urgent, developed countries appear locked into ongoing support for the dirty fossil fuel industries. In championing fossil fuels, indigenous peoples – First Nations and Aboriginal people – whose lives and territories have been affected by the destructive forces of colonisation, now face the violence of resource extractivism. Indigenous peoples are defined as people with specific rights and law, bound by historical ties to a location.</p>
<p>Indigenous peoples from Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the <a href="http://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:360084">Americas</a>, Northern Europe and the African continent, for example, face disproportionate discrimination, intimidation and <a href="https://www.globalwitness.org/en/campaigns/environmental-activists/how-many-more/">violence</a> compared to non-indigenous people. Their traditional lands are directly threatened by <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Reverse-Anthropology-Indigenous-Environmental-Relations/dp/0804753423/ref=pd_sim_14_20?ie=UTF8&dpID=41kJWm69dhL&dpSrc=sims&preST=_AC_UL160_SR107%2C160_&refRID=0KM31X1H8FD7X91WG5Q4">resource extractivism and its pollution</a>. </p>
<h2>The rich and poor divide</h2>
<p>Developing countries and low lying island states are among the most defenceless in the context of a changing climate. African nations are among the most <a href="http://www.cgdev.org/publication/quantifying-vulnerability-climate-change-implications-adaptation-assistance-working">vulnerable</a>. The <a href="https://healthpovertyaction.org/wp-content/uploads/downloads/2014/07/Honest-Accounts-report-v4-web.pdf">cost of adapting</a> to climate change on the African continent is estimated at $10.6 billion each year. The most precarious nations are also <a href="https://healthpovertyaction.org/wp-content/uploads/downloads/2014/07/Honest-Accounts-report-v4-web.pdf">least responsible</a> for climate change. Africa contributes less than 4% to global emissions. </p>
<p>Human induced climate change is significantly tied to the activities of developed countries. But the Paris Agreement fails to distinguish, or call out, developed countries’ distinct responsibilities. Global adaptation finance is delayed –- including funding for the <a href="http://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/ourwork/environmentandenergy/projects_and_initiatives/aap.html">Africa Adaptation Initiative</a> –- by developed countries, who frequently cry poor.</p>
<p>Funding for adaptation projects languishes, but G7 countries and Australia pay around $67 billion in <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/g20-fossil-fuel-subsidies-450b-1.3314291">subsidies</a> to the <a href="http://reneweconomy.com.au/2015/australian-fossil-fuel-subsidies-put-at-5-6bn-a-year-in-new-report-43490">oil, coal and gas industries.</a>. This is almost 20 times as much as they contribute to <a href="http://www.redd-monitor.org/2016/11/17/so-farewell-then-un-redd/">adaptation projects</a> in developing countries. This is not surprising, given the ever increasing role of <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2016/11/15/meet-fossil-fuel-lobbyists-and-climate-science-deniers-marrakech-cop22-talks">fossil fuel lobbyists</a> in climate negotiations. </p>
<p>Many developed and some developing countries remain strong backers for the fossil fuel industries –- including enabling new coal mines. This is despite growing calls for 80% of remaining coal to <a href="http://priceofoil.org/2016/09/22/the-skys-limit-report/">stay in the ground</a> and for every <a href="http://climateanalytics.org/latest/paris-agreement-has-put-a-date-on-the-end-of-coal-fired-power">coal power plant</a> to close by 2050 according Paris Agreement commitments.</p>
<p>Fossil fuels are also championed as a panacea for <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/planet-oz/2016/aug/17/how-the-fossil-fuel-industrys-new-pitch-is-more-like-an-epitaph-than-a-life-lesson">energy poverty</a>. Not too long ago, an Australian Prime Minister boldly declared that coal is <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/13/tony-abbott-says-coal-is-good-for-humanity-while-opening-mine">‘good for humanity’</a>. </p>
<h2>Indigenous communities carry the costs</h2>
<p>Competing visions regarding energy futures in a climate constrained world is driving conflict. And indigenous communities are frequently at the forefront of this violence and intimidation. This is well reported on the African continent. Examples include the convergence of state and corporate interests in driving <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/4006964?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">petro violence</a> in <a href="https://www.tni.org/files/publication-downloads/018138b_tni_nigeria-resistance.pdf">Nigeria</a>, South Africa, <a href="http://nape.or.ug/index.php/projects/extractive-industries">Uganda</a> and elsewhere. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/21/dakota-access-pipeline-water-cannon-police-standing-rock-protest">State based violence</a> against the current campaign of North Dakota’s Standing Rock Sioux Tribe is an example. They are looking to defend their water, land and way of life against the North Dakota access oil pipeline. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/148261/original/image-20161201-25656-12pyinf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/148261/original/image-20161201-25656-12pyinf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/148261/original/image-20161201-25656-12pyinf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=355&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148261/original/image-20161201-25656-12pyinf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=355&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148261/original/image-20161201-25656-12pyinf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=355&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148261/original/image-20161201-25656-12pyinf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148261/original/image-20161201-25656-12pyinf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148261/original/image-20161201-25656-12pyinf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Protesters standing with the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe against the North Dakota Oil Pipeline.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>In Australia there is a similar case. Indigenous people are defending their land against Indian industrial conglomerate Adani’s proposed Carmichael coal mine. The mine would be Australia’s largest ever coal mine, and the third largest in the world. A <a href="http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=20689&LangID=E">UN Special Rapporteur</a> recently reported that Indigenous people opposing the mine face severe social costs upon their lives. Despite this, the Wangan and Jagalingou Traditional Owners Council stand resolute in their opposition, describing that the proposed mine would <a href="http://wanganjagalingou.com.au/our-fight/">“tear the heart out”</a> of their ancestral lands. </p>
<p>Yet, instead of phasing out heavy polluting fossil fuels’ industries, carbon markets have been widely championed as a magic bullet to address climate change. </p>
<h2>Carbon markets</h2>
<p><a href="http://www.no-redd-africa.org/index.php/16-redd-players/84-the-worst-redd-type-projects-in-africa-continent-grab-for-carbon-colonialism">Carbon markets</a>, through the trade in carbon credits, are understood to enable high emitting countries and sectors to offset their pollution – rather than curb it. </p>
<p>This is done through support for activities that absorb greenhouse gases elsewhere. <a href="http://www.redd-monitor.org/2016/04/04/more-than-80-ngos-oppose-aviation-sectors-carbon-offsetting-plans/">The aviation sector</a>, one of the highest emitting sectors globally, widely champion carbon offset as a key strategy in becoming carbon neutral. Their <a href="http://www.redd-monitor.org/2016/04/04/more-than-80-ngos-oppose-aviation-sectors-carbon-offsetting-plans/">emissions</a> doubled between 1990 and 2006, and with predictions this could increase a further 70% by 2020. </p>
<p>Carbon market projects, including Reduction of Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation type projects, carbon capture and forestry schemes, are concentrated in <a href="http://blog.cifor.org/5623/new-cifor-map-gives-first-global-overview-of-redd?fnl=en">developing countries</a>. They have <a href="http://www.no-redd-africa.org/index.php/16-redd-players/84-the-worst-redd-type-projects-in-africa-continent-grab-for-carbon-colonialism">mixed outcomes</a> for people on the ground. </p>
<h2>An uncertain future</h2>
<p>In some cases, communities and civil society have <a href="http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol19/iss1/art21/">effectively negotiated</a> to deliver some benefits, including local employment, access to timber and other forest products. In many other cases, however, local communities are excluded from <a href="https://www.oaklandinstitute.org/land-deals-africa-green-resources">land</a> – often after being forcibly and <a href="https://ejatlas.org/conflict/face-project-rehabilitation-of-mt-elgon-and-kibale-national-park-uganda">violently removed</a> – as well as being denied access to natural assets like water and forest resources. </p>
<p>The case of <a href="https://www.oaklandinstitute.org/land-deals-africa-green-resources">Green Resources</a> , one of the largest industrial plantation forestry operations on the African continent, powerfully demonstrates this impact. The cessation of payment by its carbon credit buyer, the <a href="http://www.redd-monitor.org/2015/11/27/the-swedish-energy-agency-has-frozen-carbon-credits-purchases-from-norwegian-plantation-firm-green-resources/">Swedish Energy Agency</a>, has been a direct outcome of exposure of the companies’ environmental and human rights abuses. </p>
<p>Local ecology is also often <a href="http://carbonmarketwatch.org/engos-and-scientists-challenge-the-swedish-energy-agency-stop-supporting-false-climate-change-solutions-in-uganda/">destroyed</a>, as the Green Resources case shows. Engaging civil society to reform carbon markets that deliver benefits to local communities are also often <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03066150.2014.992884">severely constrained.</a> </p>
<p>Despite on-going questions about the impact of REDD type projects at the local level, many countries have <a href="http://theforestsdialogue.org/initiatives/redd-readiness-initiative">invested</a> time and resources to lock in their participation. This has occurred at the same time as the future of carbon markets becomes increasingly <a href="http://carbonmarketwatch.org/carbon-markets-in-the-paris-agreement-whats-next-on-the-negotiation-agenda/">uncertain</a>. </p>
<p>The future of carbon markets remains uncertain, but the need for urgent action to avert catastrophic climate change is clear. Ambitious action to address climate change remains constrained, especially with the developed world continuing to play handmaiden to the fossil fuel industries, and climate talks corrupted by fossil fuel interests. </p>
<p>Global Indigenous and human rights movements – like those opposing the oil, coal and gas industries – are charting a path for a fair and just transition to a low carbon energy future. It is these rights, articulated by the <a href="http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/unpfii/documents/DRIPS_en.pdf">United Nations</a>, not fossil fuels and markets, that must be at the heart of responses to the climate crisis.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/69364/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Associate Professor Kristen Lyons is a Senior Research Fellow with the Oakland Institute, and is affiliated with the Australian Greens. </span></em></p>Global indigenous and human rights movements that oppose the oil, coal and gas industries are charting a path for a fair and just transition to a low carbon energy future.Kristen Lyons, Associate Professor Environment and Development Sociology, The University of QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/647142016-09-16T16:28:32Z2016-09-16T16:28:32ZWhy the Native American pipeline resistance in North Dakota is about climate justice<p>Over the past months, hundreds of indigenous persons and their allies have gathered near the crossing of the Missouri and Cannon Ball rivers in the ancestral territories of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe. Using nonviolent means, their goal is to stop the building of the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) that would connect production fields in North Dakota to refineries in Illinois. Their primary fear is that an oil leak would threaten water quality for many members of the tribal community. </p>
<p>On Sept. 9, a federal judge <a href="http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/09/09/493280504/judge-rules-that-construction-can-proceed-on-dakota-access-pipeline">denied the tribe’s request</a> for an injunction to halt completion of the pipeline. But shortly after, federal officials said they would <a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/joint-statement-department-justice-department-army-and-department-interior-regarding-standing">temporarily stop construction</a> pending further review.</p>
<p>As a scholar of indigenous studies and environmental justice, I’ve been following these developments closely. The pipeline’s construction has already destroyed some of the tribe’s <a href="http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2016/09/04/standing-rock-sioux-tribe-condemns-destruction-and-desecration-burial-grounds-energy">sacred burial grounds</a>. During protests, the protectors – as many gatherers prefer to be called – have endured violence, including being <a href="http://www.democracynow.org/2016/9/4/dakota_access_pipeline_company_attacks_native">pepper-sprayed</a>, <a href="http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/09/04/492625850/dakota-access-pipeline-protests-in-north-dakota-turn-violent">attacked by dogs</a>, <a href="http://m.bismarcktribune.com/news/state-and-regional/state-pulls-relief-resources-from-swelling-dakota-access-pipeline-protest/article_8be06089-ab85-57e4-a8a4-fbe28143eefd.html">denied nourishment</a> and threatened by <a href="http://www.startribune.com/dakota-access-pipeline-owners-sue-north-dakota-protesters/390210751/">lawsuits</a>.</p>
<p>But despite the national attention to this case, one point has gone largely ignored in my view: Stopping DAPL is a matter of climate justice and decolonization for indigenous peoples. It may not always be apparent to people outside these communities, but standing up for water quality and heritage are intrinsically tied to these larger issues. </p>
<h2>Disproportionate suffering</h2>
<p><a href="http://www.mrfcj.org/principles-of-climate-justice/">Climate justice</a> – the idea that it is ethically wrong for some groups of people to suffer the detrimental effects of climate change more than others – is among the most significant moral issues today, referenced specifically in the landmark <a href="http://unfccc.int/paris_agreement/items/9485.php">Paris Agreement</a> of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. </p>
<p>Climate scientists, through organizations such as the <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/">Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change</a> and <a href="http://nca2014.globalchange.gov/">U.S. Climate Assessment</a>, are finding more evidence of climate change from human activities, such as burning fossil fuels and deforestation. These destabilize the climate system, producing environmental conditions that disrupt human societies, through impacts such as rising sea levels, more severe droughts and warming freshwater.</p>
<p>The same climate science organizations also show that indigenous peoples are among the populations who will <a href="http://nca2014.globalchange.gov/report/sectors/indigenous-peoples">suffer more</a>, on average, than other communities from changing environmental conditions. Some are suffering right now.</p>
<p>Indigenous communities are among the first climate refugees, having to decide to relocate due to sea-level rise in the <a href="https://www.alaska.edu/uapress/browse/detail/index.xml?id=528">Arctic</a> and <a href="http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10584-013-0746-z">Gulf of Mexico</a>, as <a href="http://link.springer.com/journal/10584/120/3/page/1">well as other places</a> across the U.S. sphere. This is happening in <a href="http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/ominous-story-of-syria-climate-refugees/">other parts of the world</a> too. </p>
<p>This is an injustice because, as indigenous scholar Dan Wildcat writes in <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Red_Alert.html?id=K0HFXHHx_B4C">“Red Alert!,”</a> the suffering is occurring “not as a result of something their Native lifeways produced, but because the most technologically advanced societies on the planet have built their modern lifestyles on a carbon energy foundation.”</p>
<p>DAPL, a 1,172-mile <a href="http://www.daplpipelinefacts.com/">connector</a> of the Bakken and Three Forks fossil fuel basins to major oil refining markets, maintains the carbon energy foundation Wildcat writes of. The protectors, meanwhile, are bringing public attention to the urgency of reducing a fossil fuel dependence. Because indigenous peoples suffer the effects of climate change disproportionately, continuing fossil fuel dependence will inflict more harms in years to come.</p>
<p>But there is more to this story, as climate change and U.S. colonialism against indigenous peoples are closely related.</p>
<p>While “colonialism” is not a term many nonindigenous persons typically use even in climate activism, it is the <a href="https://www.dukeupress.edu/formations-of-united-states-colonialism">academically rigorous</a> term for describing a significant part of the political relationship between the U.S. and indigenous peoples. It also sheds important light on indigenous understanding of what climate justice really means and what solutions are required. </p>
<h2>History of exploitation</h2>
<p>Put simply, colonialism refers to a form of domination that involves at least one society seeking to exploit some set of benefits they believe to be found in the territories of one or more other indigenous societies already living there. These benefits can range from farm land and precious minerals to labor. </p>
<p>Exploitation can occur through tactics including military invasion, coercion, slavery, policing and geographic removal of indigenous peoples. <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/issue/19284">Sexual and gender violence</a> are integral to undermining indigenous leadership customs, many of which were tied to nonpatriarchal gender systems that empowered women and nonbinary genders. </p>
<p>U.S. colonialism is about continued U.S. control over how indigenous peoples govern themselves internally and their territories as Tribal Nations. The U.S. Congress officially has <a href="https://ais.arizona.edu/uneven-ground-american-indian-sovereignty-and-federal-law">plenary (absolute) power</a> over tribes. The U.S. considers indigenous jurisdictions, including reservations, as U.S. federal land held in trust for tribes. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/137998/original/image-20160915-30594-t1vd3w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/137998/original/image-20160915-30594-t1vd3w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/137998/original/image-20160915-30594-t1vd3w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137998/original/image-20160915-30594-t1vd3w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137998/original/image-20160915-30594-t1vd3w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137998/original/image-20160915-30594-t1vd3w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137998/original/image-20160915-30594-t1vd3w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137998/original/image-20160915-30594-t1vd3w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The view of the North Dakota Access Pipeline running between farms about a one-and-a-half hour drive from the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/diversey/29357938502/in/photolist-LKZ2cA-M2KHMh-M5ntFB-M2JwwU-M5m4QH-M2HWC1-LKPBx9-M9nT6d-M5jUm4-M9mQXh-Mcv15a-M2FGtU-Lf7DbE-LKLCiJ-M2E6so-LJg7iu-LrrLn7">diversey/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>While the U.S. federal government is required to consult tribes before it undertakes action that will affect tribal well-being, a brief glance at history reveals it is most often <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=3&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwiVqKH3m43PAhVHjiwKHVaMALQQFggsMAI&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.state.gov%2Fdocuments%2Forganization%2F136740.pdf&usg=AFQjCNHMUcTYy8qu9z4-rviOrFKFaf8_2A&sig2=Q_o34JsagBDko7D3r80VOg">a policy </a> that legitimizes federal infringement. Indeed, the U.S. <a href="http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2013/08/23/honor-treaties-un-human-rights-chiefs-message-150996">has not fulfilled</a> all of its treaty responsibilities to tribes, especially when treaty obligations interfere with the economic interests of settlers.</p>
<p>The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe at the center of this current protest has already suffered from this practice. Until U.S. mining interests were at stake, it retained sovereignty over the sacred Black Hills and parts of the Missouri River and certain off reservation hunting rights in the <a href="http://standingrock.org/history/">Treaty of Ft. Laramie of 1868.</a> But then in 1877, U.S. Congress, without tribal consent, passed an act removing the Black Hills from Standing Rock’s jurisdiction, curtailing tribal members’ capacity to honor the sacred places of the Black Hills. </p>
<p>U.S. colonialism, then, serves to pave the way for the expansion of extractive industries which scientists have now identified as contributors to human-caused climate change. Damming and deforestation of indigenous territories enable mining and industrial agriculture; pipelines, roads and refineries create dependence on fossil fuels for energy. </p>
<p>Colonial exploitation of indigenous lands through these industries has already inflicted <a href="http://trove.nla.gov.au/work/14077319?selectedversion=NBD12355770">immediate harms</a> on indigenous peoples, from water and air pollution to destruction of sacred sites. Many of these environmental harms can be compared to climate change, as land-use change alters land temperatures, soil composition and hydrology. Herein lies a pattern of harms arising from colonialism. </p>
<h2>Vicious pattern</h2>
<p>But not all of the impacts of carbon-intensive industries are felt immediately. Climate change impacts occur in greater force some years later, as the effects of changing environmental conditions are felt more and more, all of which is made worse by U.S. colonialism. </p>
<p>Tribes are susceptible to loss of cultural, spiritual and economic relations to species such as <a href="http://motherboard.vice.com/read/moose-are-dying-in-horrible-ways-due-to-climate-change">moose</a> or <a href="http://www.critfc.org/fish-and-watersheds/climate/climate-change-strategies/">salmon</a> as habitats change occur faster because their reservations are too small or fragmented to allow indigenous communities to follow the species’ movements to more suitable ecosystems. U.S. treaties are supposed to <a href="http://treatyrightsatrisk.org/">guarantee continued</a> tribal access to the species even when they change location or their habitats are threatened by environmental stressors, but it’s not clear the U.S. will honor these treaties in this way. </p>
<p>When it comes to indigenous climate refugees, any decision to relocate is made particularly difficult by U.S. <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959378011001518">domination over decision-making</a> and <a href="http://www.haymarketbooks.org/pb/Kivalina">discriminatory bureaucratic hurdles</a>. </p>
<p>Moreover, <a href="http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2399074">climate change also opens up more indigenous territories</a>, such as in the Arctic, to pressure from colonial exploitation, as thawing snow and ice open access to resources, such as oil and other hydrocarbons, that were previously hard to get to. </p>
<p>This further oil exploration will likely lead to the same detrimental effects we’ve already seen. The workers camps, or “man camps,” created to support drilling and mining in regions like the Bakken, introduce more sexual and gender <a href="https://maryturck.com/2016/06/21/the-beginning-and-end-of-rape/">violence</a> through increases in the trafficking of indigenous women and girls. Of course, some of the sites of violence are the very same North Dakota fracking fields that seek to send fuel down the DAPL. </p>
<p>Stopping DAPL, then, is about stopping a vicious pattern of U.S. colonialism that inflicts immediate environmental harms and <a href="http://static1.squarespace.com/static/55c251dfe4b0ad74ccf25537/t/579ff3375016e13b82ad298b/1470100279279/Is_it_Colonial_Deja_Vu_Indigenous_People+%282%29.pdf">future climate change impacts on indigenous peoples</a>. For indigenous peoples, then, <a href="http://decolonization.org/index.php/des/article/view/18630">decolonization is not a metaphor</a>. </p>
<h2>Broader movement</h2>
<p>It’s worth noting the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe is not alone. A major supporter of stopping DAPL is the <a href="http://www.lummi-nsn.org/">Lummi Nation</a>, which has taken action to block the establishment of a coal shipment terminal and train railway near its treaty-protected sacred area of Xwe’chi’eXen in Washington state. The Lummi is part of a group of tribes that have documented the U.S. negligence in honoring its treaty responsibility to refrain from economic and consumptive activities that destroy the salmon habitat that the Lummi and other tribes in the region depend on. </p>
<p>The initiative, <a href="http://treatyrightsatrisk.org/">Treaty Rights at Risk,</a> suggests the vulnerability of salmon habitat to climate change is part of a larger story of environmental damage done by U.S. dams, agriculture, and other land-use practices. </p>
<p>Similarly, for the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, shifting plant and animal habitats from climate change combined with loss of jurisdiction over land, both due to U.S. colonialism, will make it harder for tribal members to maintain relationships with those plants and animals into the future. </p>
<p>So as the protests and legal battles over the construction of the pipeline continue, we need to realize that protection of sacred sites and worries over contaminated water supplies are simultaneously concerns about climate justice and its relation to U.S. colonialism. Nonindigenous environmentalists are only allies if they work broadly toward decolonization, instead of aligning with indigenous peoples only when a particular issue, such as opposition to one pipeline, seems to match their interests.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/64714/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kyle Whyte 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.</span></em></p>What is the months-long North Dakota Access Pipeline protest really about? A Native American scholar connects the dots to environmental justice and the legacy of U.S. colonialism.Kyle Whyte, Timnick Chair in the Humanities / Associate Professor of Philosophy and Community Sustainability, Michigan State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/336202014-11-12T10:38:38Z2014-11-12T10:38:38ZChild custody - parental rights vs the child’s best interest<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/64307/original/mmk9sjpr-1415739303.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">How can parents who no longer live together continue to raise their children?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">via www.shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The November 2014 elections included a North Dakota voter initiative emblematic of the vigorous debate taking place nationwide about child custody.</p>
<p>The “Parental Rights Initiative” required courts to award “equal parenting time” to both parents after divorce or separation. The <a href="http://knowledgecenter.csg.org/kc/content/north-dakota-defeats-parental-rights-ballot-initiative-measure">measure</a> was defeated by a sizeable margin (62% to 38%) but it represents only the latest round in a combustible campaign to change how child custody cases are decided.</p>
<h2>A history of child custody (in a nutshell)</h2>
<p>Colonial Americans followed the English common law rule that upon divorce the father retained custody of his children. Fathers had the right to the physical custody, labor and earnings of their children in exchange for supporting, educating, and training them to earn their own livelihoods or, in the case of girls, marry a man who would support them.</p>
<p>Colonial mothers, though deemed worthy of honor and deference, were not endowed with legally enforceable parental rights. </p>
<p>This paternal preference continued well into the 19th century. In fact, the 1848 <a href="http://www.npg.si.edu/col/seneca/senfalls1.htm">Women’s Rights Convention in Seneca Falls</a> – the first women’s rights convention – listed the fathers’ automatic custody rule among its principal complaints. But women began gaining the upper hand as our legal system dealt with two cultural transformations: the industrial revolution’s remaking men into marketplace wage earners and the emergence of a “separate sphere” for women as domestic caregivers. </p>
<p>By the early 20th century, motherhood had attained near-mythical status. Under the “<a href="http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Tender+Years+Doctrine">tender years” presumption</a>, custody of young children was almost exclusively awarded to mothers upon divorce. </p>
<p>It took a social revolution to unseat the tender years doctrine and replace it with gender-neutral custody standards. </p>
<p>Mounting divorce rates in the 1960s and ensuing decades provoked a lively debate about parental roles and custody issues. The movement for gender equality, along with the rise of fathers’ rights groups, called attention to the importance of both parents in the care of children at the same time as loosening the link between gender and parental roles. </p>
<p>The end of formal rules dictating a result favoring one parent over the other led to the adoption of a more inclusive but less definitive standard of deciding custody cases based on the “best interests of the child.” This standard opened up the possibility of excessive judicial discretion as well as a threat of inconsistency in the results, resulting in hotly contested custody battles.</p>
<h2>From the rule of one to the sharing of custody</h2>
<p>No matter how child custody was determined, one rule continued to be ironclad: custody was indivisible. After a marital breakup, only one parent could properly raise the children, with the other parent entitled merely to visiting rights. Until the late 20th century, courts regularly refused to allow divorcing parents to share custody. The dominant view was that after divorce a child needed the full time stability of a home run by one parent. </p>
<p>The greater social and legal acceptance of shared custody in recent decades came about when parents began shouldering more equal parenting responsibilities. State legislatures, courts, and parents themselves began to value the opportunity for a child to continue a strong and meaningful relationship with both parents. The new approach sought to avoid treating one parent as merely a visitor, and to reduce the trauma of marital dissolution for children. Sharing custody also became a way to circumvent the brutal dynamics of adversarial child custody litigation.</p>
<p>An important <a href="http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs13524-014-0307-8">2014 study</a> shows that child custody norms are significantly changing in the 21st century, with the proportion of parents sharing custody rising dramatically. In fact, we reached a major milestone in the past decade: for the first time since the mid-19th century, custodial arrangements that did <em>not</em> provide sole custody to mothers constituted a majority. </p>
<p>The vocabulary of child custody is also adapting to shared parenting. </p>
<p>“Decision making” and “parenting time” are replacing “legal custody” and “physical custody.” The modern terms reflect a cultural pivot toward mutual child rearing responsibilities rather than declaring a winner and a loser. On balance, then, it appears that our society has adapted the best-interest-of-the-child standard to provide some variant of shared custody. In custody cases today, both parents increasingly enjoy significant, though not necessarily equal, amounts of parenting time. </p>
<h2>The problem with presumptions, and a better alternative</h2>
<p>Legally enforceable presumptions, such as the one proposed and rejected in North Dakota or <a href="https://www.revisor.mn.gov/bills/text.php?number=HF322&version=0&session_year=2011&session_number=0.">the one</a> that the Governor of Minnesota vetoed in 2012, are problematic. An equal parenting presumption shifts the starting point for a custody determination from the child’s best interests to how the parents will divide the 168 hours in a week so that each parent handles half the child rearing. </p>
<p>A 50/50 presumption alters the critical issue from what’s best for the child to how we can treat the parents equally. That’s not the same question at all. A legal presumption of equal parenting time effectively converts the current focus on the child’s welfare to a best-interests-of-the-parents standard. </p>
<p>There is another alternative, better than having a judge decide the child’s best interests and far better than a legal presumption. </p>
<p>In the past few years, separating and divorcing parents have begun taking matters into their own hands by crafting “parenting plans” for their children. These blueprints for post-divorce child rearing allocate parenting time and decision-making authority for each child, depending on the child’s particular needs and circumstances. A good parenting plan also sets out dispute resolution options (such as mediation or a parenting coordinator) for the inevitable time when the parents will face unanticipated child rearing problems. </p>
<p>Many states - <a href="http://www.azleg.state.az.us/ars/25/00403-02.htm">Arizona</a> is a leader on the issue - are redefining the issue of parenting after divorce from a demand for custody by one parent to a requirement that both parents work together to create a <a href="http://www.azcourts.gov/portals/31/parentingTime/PPWguidelines.pdf">“parenting plan.”</a> These plans further the public policy goal that children have frequent and continuing contact with both parents, and that both share in the responsibilities of raising their children.</p>
<p>Parenting plans may be crafted from scratch, or they may be customized from a menu of templates and sample plans available from court or private organization websites. Parents often negotiate these plans by themselves, with the help of a mediator, or through counsel. The plans should be flexible but fairly detailed, describing each parent’s area of responsibility in providing for the child’s residential and physical care as well as emotional well being, both at the time the plan goes into effect and as the child ages and matures. </p>
<p>Unlike a court custody order, a parenting plan can include mechanisms to adjust to children’s developmental changes as they age and to other significant family transformations. </p>
<p>Parenting plans are homemade custody resolutions, and courts remain a last resort for deciding contested custody cases. But the parenting plan movement is providing approaches towards sharing custody more in keeping with child development research and less likely to lead to further damaging litigation. </p>
<p>The failed North Dakota “equal parenting time” initiative sought a rigid resolution of the most sensitive issue after divorce: how can parents who no longer live together continue to raise their children. </p>
<p>Our society is gradually adopting shared parenting by choice, not by mathematical formula. We should encourage the movement toward parenting plans rather than legal briefs, mediation rather than litigation, and sharing the parenting rather than dividing the child.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/33620/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>J Herbie DiFonzo 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.</span></em></p>The November 2014 elections included a North Dakota voter initiative emblematic of the vigorous debate taking place nationwide about child custody. The “Parental Rights Initiative” required courts to award…J Herbie DiFonzo, Professor of Law, Hofstra UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/338212014-11-05T19:26:06Z2014-11-05T19:26:06ZBallot initiatives take the pulse of the nation<p><em>Editor’s note: There were <a href="http://ballotpedia.org/2014_ballot_measures">146 state-wide ballot measures</a> up for consideration by voters in this week’s midterm elections, covering all manner of controversial issues – from abortion and guns to minimum wage increases and workers’ sick leave. Add to these hundreds of <a href="http://ballotpedia.org/Local_ballot_measure_elections_in_2014">local ballot measures</a> on equally contentious matters like fracking. What do the results, then, say about what direction the country is moving? We asked a panel of researchers for their reactions.</em> </p>
<h2>Marijuana legalization</h2>
<p><strong>Robert Mikos, Professor of Law, Vanderbilt University</strong></p>
<p>Alaska, Oregon, and the District of Columbia just voted to legalize recreational marijuana. In a sense, they broke no new ground – Colorado and Washington already legalized recreational marijuana two years ago. But the passage of these measures is extraordinary in another sense: marijuana legalization no longer surprises anyone. Even the federal government, which continues to ban marijuana, seems unlikely to raise a fuss. Indeed, following similar votes in Colorado and Washington in 2012, the Department of Justice announced that it would refrain from prosecuting marijuana users and dealers who comply with state law, so long as they do not implicate a distinct federal interest (like stopping inter-state shipments of the drug). As control of the Congress shifts to the Republican Party, it seems unlikely that the federal government will do anything but continue to sit on the sidelines for the next two years.</p>
<p>The votes on Tuesday are interesting for two other reasons as well. First, these votes arguably foretell how marijuana laws will evolve in the states over time. The four states and DC that were the first to legalize recreational marijuana were also among the first to legalize medical marijuana: Alaska, Oregon, and Washington legalized medical marijuana in 1998, Colorado did so in 2000, and DC first tried in 1999. This suggests that voters might be more comfortable taking the plunge (i.e., legalizing recreational marijuana) after dipping their toes in the pool first (i.e., legalizing medical marijuana). It also suggests that the next states to legalize recreational marijuana are likely to be ones with more mature medical marijuana programs, such as California (1996) and Maine (1999).</p>
<p>Second, the defeat of a medical marijuana initiative in Florida is as unsurprising as the passage of legalization elsewhere. The south has been resistant to marijuana reforms; it remains the only region of the country without a legalization state. To some extent, southern resistance might be due to public attitudes toward marijuana; but it also might stem from lawmaking procedures used in many southern (and some other states) that impede the adoption even of popular reforms. After all, over half (58%) of Florida voters actually supported legalization of medical marijuana; but that figure just was not enough to change state law – the constitutional initiative process requires 60% support, higher than the simple majority needed in many other states, like California. A vote to legalize marijuana elsewhere in the country might not be surprising anymore, but when it happens in the south it will be noteworthy.</p>
<hr>
<h2>Minimum wage increase</h2>
<p><strong>Kevin Lang, Professor of Economics, Boston University:</strong></p>
<p>What is very interesting is that even from some very red states, there has been support for increasing the minimum wage, while there has been opposition to that from the Republican party.</p>
<p>President Obama has proposed raising the minimum wage, so it is very interesting to see the large amount of public support for an increase in the minimum wage. It suggests that concerns about inequality that have been raised by some of the Democrats, and Hillary Clinton in particular, do resonate with the voters regardless of the other motivations for what was obviously a large Republican victory.</p>
<p>Economists tend to focus on the distributional and efficiency aspects of the minimum wage - that is to say, how much do they reduce inequality (if at all), how much do they reduce employment (if at all). When people think about the minimum wage, they tend to think about it in a very different way - which is a view that if you work full time, you should be able to support your family. </p>
<p>So the focus of the minimum wage debate tends to be on how much do you have to earn in order for you to have a living wage. In San Francisco, people talk about whether the $15 minimum wage, which won’t be in effect until July 2018, will be enough to be liveable. That has been the nature of the discussion there.</p>
<p>The employment effects of the minimum wage, certainly in the short run, are very small. They are not zero; there is some job loss, and it’s probably the case that in the longer-run, there are somewhat larger effects. It takes time to change your technology and the like. The best evidence that we have - and I have to admit the evidence isn’t all that good - is that the employment effects are small.</p>
<p>At the same time, when we talk about inequality, the minimum wage is actually very poorly targeted to address family income inequality.</p>
<p>A significant minority of minimum wage earners are teenagers - some of them from disadvantaged families who are helping their families - but there are also minimum wage earners who are in relatively well-off families. Again our best evidence is that it does a little bit to reduce family income inequality, but its effects are not
dramatic.</p>
<hr>
<h2>Fracking</h2>
<p><strong>Ian Partridge, Post-Doctoral Fellow in Energy Studies at the University of Texas</strong></p>
<p>Eight counties and municipalities around the US had fracking bans on the ballot: three in California, four in Ohio and one in Texas. Half of the bans passed: San Benito and Mendocino Counties in California, Gates Mills in Ohio and Denton, Texas. It is hard to find a clear message in a 50/50 split: most voters in California vote for the environment and those in Ohio vote for jobs, but we knew that already.</p>
<p>The standout is Denton – a town that sits right on top of the Barnett Shale. It is not exactly a hotbed of liberalism – Republicans won every one of the six contested races in Denton County. So what happened?</p>
<p>My suspicion is that Denton voters were not voting to limit output of fossil fuels – highly unlikely in Texas, of all places. They probably weren’t voting to protect the state’s air or water or to limit methane emissions either. Without taking sides, many claims of environmental damage linked to fracking are disputable, and the oil and gas industry spent heavily to make that point. However, what cannot be disputed is that fracking is an industrial process. It is noisy and roads in fracking areas are frequently clogged with heavy trucks. That is the sort of issue that gets voters anywhere riled up, and I suspect that that is what Denton voted against.</p>
<p>So, what is next for the towns and counties that voted to ban fracking? A lot of <a href="http://online.wsj.com/articles/energy-industry-files-challenge-to-texas-first-fracking-ban-1415215144">expensive litigation</a> – that is what. They face legal problems on two fronts: do they have the power to ban fracking? And will they have to compensate owners of mineral rights that have lost value because the minerals cannot be exploited? The question of the rights of counties to pre-empt state regulation will require minute analysis of state constitutions and legislation, and the answer may vary in different states. However, the right to just compensation when a government – including a local government – takes private property is enshrined in the Constitution, so these local electorates are taking on the big battalions. Very likely, rather than incur huge legal costs, they will eventually settle for stricter limits on the nuisance created by noise and dust from fracking.</p>
<hr>
<h2>Personhood and the right to abortion</h2>
<p><strong>Jonathan Will, Associate Professor of Law and Founding Director, Bioethics & Health Law Center at Mississippi College</strong></p>
<p>Citizens of three states had the opportunity to vote on measures considered by many to be adverse to abortion rights during the November 2014 election cycle. </p>
<p>While the personhood efforts in Colorado and North Dakota failed, the Tennessee electorate approved an amendment making clear that their state constitution does not protect a right to abortion, and expressly authorizing the state legislature to regulate abortion services. </p>
<p>Unlike the amendment that passed in Tennessee, the state constitutional amendments proposed in Colorado and North Dakota said nothing explicitly about abortion. Instead, the measures sought to extend the protections associated with a “right to life” to human beings at all stages of development. Of course, by extending this aspect of legal personhood to the preborn, abortion necessarily becomes problematic. But these types of personhood measures have failed in every state to attempt them, including Mississippi, which is considered by many to be the most conservative (and anti-abortion rights) state in the country. </p>
<p>So why are personhood measures failing even while the Tennessee amendment passed?</p>
<p>The simple answer is that personhood measures implicate far more than abortion. By common medical understanding, abortion involves the termination of a pregnancy, which exists when the embryo implants in the uterine wall some two weeks after the sperm meets the egg in the fallopian tube. </p>
<p>But personhood measures seek to attach legal personhood <em>before</em> a pregnancy exists; perhaps as soon as the sperm penetrates the egg. Therefore, the loss of even single-celled <a href="http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/658686/zygote">zygotes</a> potentially becomes problematic, impacting certain forms of contraception, infertility treatments such as in vitro fertilization (IVF), and so forth.</p>
<p>The voting populace often has strong views about abortion, and the result in Tennessee suggests that at least in some states the majority of voters are in favor of greater restrictions on abortion. But there seems to be far less support for potential restrictions on contraception and/or IVF. </p>
<p>The more interesting question, and one that does not receive much public discussion, is why a voter would be against abortion rights (presumably because of the loss of human life), but in favor of IVF? Is there something meaningfully different about the developing embryo immediately before implantation versus immediately after? Many personhood supporters would say no. They believe that legal personhood should begin at fertilization. But during debates about personhood measures, certain supporters suggest that the proposed constitutional amendments would not implicate IVF. This is curious given that thousands of these pre-embryonic persons are lost each year through failed implantation or otherwise. </p>
<p><a>My current work</a> seeks to bridge this gap, or at the very least, to create a space in which meaningful discussion can be held. </p>
<hr>
<h2>Gambling and casinos</h2>
<p>*<em>Rachel Volberg, Associate Research Professor of Epidemiology at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst<br>
*</em></p>
<p>Now that the referendum to repeal casino gambling in Massachusetts <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/local/wp/2014/11/05/gambling-expansion-2014-winners-and-losers/">has been decided</a> (the repeal did not pass), I will confess that my vote weighed heavily on me. As a longtime gambling researcher, I was concerned about the negative social and health impacts associated with casinos and uncertain of whether the economic benefits promised would offset them. </p>
<p>However, as the Principal Investigator of a statutorily mandated study of the social and economic impacts of expanded gambling, I was excited about the possibility that for the first time in the US, we might be able to identify the extent and magnitude of the impacts of casino gambling and assist in effectively minimizing and mitigating the negative impacts that emerge.</p>
<p>At the end of the day I decided that if casino gambling was going to happen in my home state, I wanted it to be the way Massachusetts is doing it. I doubt if many have carefully read the <a href="http://massgaming.com/about/expanded-gaming-act/">Expanded Gaming Act </a>or understand how thoroughly empirical research is woven into the work of the Massachusetts Gaming Commission.</p>
<p>Unlike many other jurisdictions, the Expanded Gaming Act gives equal weight to creating a vibrant casino industry and to minimizing and mitigating harms arising from that industry. The Gaming Commission has made this commitment explicit in its decision to dedicate funds, well ahead of the availability of any tax revenues, to carry out a clean baseline study before casinos open in the state. In my view, Massachusetts is creating a casino industry in the most responsible manner possible, and I am thrilled to be leading the charge to obtain the empirical evidence needed to create a sustainable casino industry in Massachusetts.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/33821/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kevin Lang was an elected member of the Brookline School Committee. In that capacity, he supported a living wage law for the Town of Brookline, which set a minimum wage for anyone employed by the Town or by the School Department.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rachel Volberg receives funding from an interdepartmental services agreement between the Massachusetts Gambling Commission and the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She is a member of the National Council on Problem Gambling</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ian Partridge, Jonathan F Will, and Robert A. Mikos do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Editor’s note: There were 146 state-wide ballot measures up for consideration by voters in this week’s midterm elections, covering all manner of controversial issues – from abortion and guns to minimum…Jonathan F Will, Associate Professor of Law and Founding Director, Bioethics & Health Law Center, Mississippi CollegeIan Partridge, Postdoctoral Fellow, The University of Texas at AustinKevin Lang, Professor of Economics, Boston UniversityRachel Volberg, Research Associate Professor, Epidemiology, UMass AmherstRobert A. Mikos, Professor of Law, Vanderbilt UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.