Compass Vol.6 Issue 2

LENT 2021 | VOL. 06 ISSUE

BUSES AND ACTIVISM | REFUGE IN THE CLIMATE EMERGENCY | BEYOND PRODUCTIVITY

Welcome to Compass!

LENT 2021 | VOL. 06 ISSUE 02

THE COMPASS TEAM EDITORS-IN-CHIEF Sean Cobb Bridget Tiller

PUBLICITY Sara Atanasiu

HUMAN GEOGRAPHY Abi Smith Ffion Edwards

DESIGN EDITORS Lucy Page Hannah Wetton

PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY Eswyn Chen Minali Alwis

SECRETARY Zhanna Levitina

TRAVEL Arthur Seymour George Worrall INTERVIEWS Izzy Taylor Laura Bailey Olivia Byrne

BLOG EDITORS Daria Ghezzi Hannah Harrison Sophie John OUTREACH Claudia Davey Jennifer Perratt

Congratulations everyone on getting through a difficult year and making it to the end of some unusual exams! Compiling a magazine has definitely been challenging during the last couple of terms, so we extend a special thank you to each of our contributors and committee members for the time and effort they have put in.

For many, this year may be remembered for Covid-19 – in many ways, our lives and our university experiences have been turned upside down.

However it has also been a year characterised by activism, from Extinction Rebellion to Black Lives Matter, and even to the storming of the White House by pro-Trump protestors.

At a time where there are prominent calls to reset and reconsider how we live together, how we treat the planet and each other, this issue considers how geography can contribute to understanding these changes and the people campaigning for them.

Our writers take on topics as wide-ranging as volcanic uprisings, the place of buses in activism, and saving the bees. Also check out the results of the poetry competition on the theme of protest.

Once again we thank CUGS and the Geography Department for the support and generous donations that make this magazine possible. We hope you enjoy this issue!

Bridget Tiller and Sean Cobb Co-Editors in Chief

Front Cover Independence monument in Yangon, Myanmar Bridget Atkin Back Cover Love notes on the wall at Juliet’s House in Verona, Italy Hannah Wetton

cambridgecompassmagazine.wordpress.com compass@cugs.org.uk cugscompass compass_cugs 1 | COMPASS

CONTENTS

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17

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Buses as a vehicle for justice in public transport

Envisaging a Bright Future for Planet Earth

Colombia as an Example of Progressive Urbanism

Buses and Activism

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Seeking refuge in the climate emergency

The importance of standing in SolidariTee

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Beyond productivity

Ecological Optimism

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Loud, noisy and disruptive?

The Streets and The State

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Into the Exclusion Zone

Understanding a “quiet The Ethics and Lessons of politics” of activist resistance Nuclear Tourism

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35

Alternative visions for agriculture in India

Urban Environmental Epidemiology Of Tear Gas

Privatisation, surveillance and democracy in the neoliberal city

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Interview with Deennaalee

Save the Bees!

The Truth Behind the Tagline

Lead in the Water

How Flint’s Community Action Overcame State Negligence

Violence on the move

The Truth about Migration in Europe

A chat with Indigenous youth activist

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Who is the City for?

27

Eruptive Uprisings

How One Volcano incited Civil Activisim in 19th century Cambridgeshire

Disclaimer The views expressed in this magazine are those of the individual authors only and do not represent the views or opinions of Compass Magazine as a whole or the University of Cambridge Department of Geography.

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Living with Trees A shared heritage revisited

45 Poetry

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FEATURED

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BUSES AND ACTIVISM

Sourced from Roman Fox, Unsplash

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uses are present in nearly every town and city making the journeys that people need to make; to work, to hospital, to visit friends and family. On the streets, the bus becomes a shared public space of sorts. Passengers can be people who would not interact with each other in any other area of their lives. Considering the bus is the setting enabling this contact, it is not surprising that buses have found themselves as a focal point for numerous, powerful, and wide-ranging activist actions. Activism on the bus has a long history. By introducing the role of buses in protest, and showing why we shouldn’t continue to forsake buses, I hope to galvanise support in activism for as well as on the bus.

Probably the most famous instance of bus-related activism is the Montgomery bus boycott- the event precipitated by Rosa Parks keeping her seat in the face of requests to give it up to a white passenger.

The boycott began on December 5th 1955 and lasted for 1 year and 16 days. It is widely regarded as having been the first large-scale demonstration against segregation in the US, though it took inspiration from a similar protest on the buses in Baton Rouge two years earlier. Racial segregation permeated all areas of public life in 1950’s America, but the buses were an ideal location to play host to protestations.

75% of Montgomery’s bus riders were black, so the boycott had a significant effect on bus operators’ revenue. Services were cut for the duration of the protest, disrupting a vital mode of transit for white commuters as well as black. This visible and purposeful disruption meant a demonstration on the buses was high-profile and effective. The boycott is generally seen as a success, which in part can be attributed to Sourced from Unsplash the setting of the bus.

But it isn’t only the disruption of bus systems that is important to protest. Mass gathering relies on the movement of people, and buses are instrumental in enabling access to these events. Of the 470,000 attendees to the 2017 Women’s March in Washington DC, nearly 100,000 might have arrived on one of 1800 charter buses registered for parking in the city that day. Effective demonstrations include and consider the views of

a diverse group of people, and buses are able to bring that diversity. The ability to travel means living away from seats of power doesn’t diminish any voice, and the bus means those without cars can travel too. Enrolling buses in protest is therefore vital in ensuring that representation is afforded to people on the margins.

Yet important questions still linger concerning whether buses are an inclusive space for women and for racial minorities. Despite the fact that a key policy objective of public transport is often to enable mobility for those who are most dependent, injustice is still pervasive. Bus schedules are explicitly designed for 9-5 commuters travelling from suburbs to city centres and are less useful for people with different travel patterns. This has a negative impact predominantly on mothers and part time workers, as well as jobseekers. On top of this, buses and bus stops can feel unsafe, and lots of women avoid buses at night- the environment created in and around the bus is effectively limiting their mobility. Furthermore, the quality of service and infrastructure is never the same in every neighbourhood and choosing where investment is directed is a political decision. In America, ‘transit deserts’ are most likely to be in black and low-income neighbourhoods. Public transport advocacy groups do activist work in this area, but there is more to do before buses can realise their full potential as social equalisers.

Clearly buses have both enabled activism and been at the receiving end of demands. But perhaps it is time to consider encouraging more activism for buses. In the UK, buses appear overlooked in public consciousness. Transport in the news is

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dominated by rail; even an uninterested reader of any major UK newspaper since 2018 will likely have some understanding of rail franchising, but none of how bus routes are set and operators allocated. When someone mentions TfL, it’s usually the underground that springs to mind, not the thousands of red buses that make up the majority of the group’s operations.

As a consequence of this, policy makers have been able to abandon the bus. Despite Britain’s buses having 2.3 billion more riders each year than trains, they receive £3.4 billion less funding. Since 2010, funding support for buses has been cut by nearly 45% while rail subsidy has risen.

Particularly in rural areas, bus service has been decimated by this lack of care, attention, and funding.

This is largely down to policy decisions that disincentivise the running of effective bus services. Local authorities that have been gutted by spending cuts are forced to withdraw support for bus services and cut their level of subsidy as low as possible. For every rider who gets on a bus using a concessionary pass, the operator can receive as little as 40% of the full fare back from the council. In the Yorkshire Dales, nearly all rural bus routes are supported by DalesBus, a volunteer run organisation with an annual spending deficit of nearly £100,000. Volunteers shouldn’t be necessitated to fundraise such amounts to prevent the closure of vital rural bus services.

In comparison, Switzerland- often lauded for its impressive rail network- is a country which also cares deeply about its buses. By government mandate, every settlement with a population of more than 40 people is entitled to a bus service. Operated by the

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postal service, these buses are treated as items of pride by the communities they serve; the bright yellow buses are a national symbol on the same standing as chocolate or watches. Since 1924, mountain buses have been fitted with a hand-built horn which plays tones based on Rossini’s William Tell Overture.

The Swiss see buses as being well cared for, run on time, and maintained to incredibly high standardsquite the opposite of the British perception. Swiss buses also benefit from timetable and ticketing integration with the rail network. Connections are seamless and one ticket can be valid for a journey across both modes of transport- no waiting for hours in the rain or worrying about how to pay for each journey.

As the climate crisis continues, providing effective public transport is a vital tool in the arsenal to encourage modal shift away from cars, to improve air quality in city centres, and to free up space on congested roads. This means improving buses, bus stops, and interchanges. Decarbonising the bus fleets is also a necessity and must not be allowed to be forgotten in favour of grander transport priorities.

Today, drawing upon recent suggestions that buses should be treated as a ‘citizen’ - moving around the city with agency, gathering and sharing information - the bus is achieving a position where its importance can be recognised. As well as working to eradicate injustice in public transport, it is time for more people to start advocating for the bus; to point to systems like Switzerland’s and ask politicians “why can’t we have this?” Activism in favour of - rather than employing - buses deserves some time in the spotlight. ■

Sourced from Ant Rozetsky, Unsplash

Seeking refuge in the climate emergency: the importance of standing in SolidariTee

By Lauren Norman and Hannah Harrison

Sourced from Markus Spiske, Unsplash

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A group of refugees and asylum seekers creating a collaborative piece of artwork during a workshop at Elpida Home, a community centre in Thessaloniki, Greece This artwork was the inspiration for this year’s SolidariTees (source: SolidariTee’s Facebook, @teesofsolidarity)

In

January, the Copernicus Climate Change Service announced that 2020 had tied with 2016 to become the warmest year on record with temperatures 1.25°c higher than pre-industrial levels. The announcement came just weeks after delegates celebrated the fifth anniversary of the Paris Agreement. In a speech marking the anniversary, Greta Thunberg explained that, because of the lack of climate ambition and action, it is ‘speeding in the wrong direction’. She was echoed by UN Secretary General António Guterres, who described the promises made in Paris – promises not yet being met – as not extensive enough to prevent temperatures rising above 1.5°c.

Being able to consistently meet targets like Paris is not, however, just about reducing emissions. It requires a wholesale transformation of the way we live, the things we value, and the way we treat ourselves

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and the environment. We are also in a time of intersecting crises, as the effects of climate change are felt everywhere, but particularly in the lives of the world’s most vulnerable.

Scientists warned that the climate crisis would increase the likelihood of a pandemic, much like coronavirus, arising and disproportionately threatening lives everywhere. Now, many of the same voices are arguing that climate change will create “the world’s biggest refugee crisis” if we allow ‘business as usual’ to continue, due to concerns about the potential for increasingly severe and frequent extreme weather events and connected fears about food insecurity and conflict. Whilst we must recognise that the links between climate and humanitarian issues are not straightforward or apolitical in nature, we must also do what we can to put a stop to rising temperatures in order to give the most effective aid to the most vulnerable.

Following these concerns, the term ‘climate refugee’ has become increasingly ubiquitous in advocate groups and the media. However, climate or environmental-based migration is an incredibly complex issue. This complexity is partly characterised by climate refugees not fitting into any of the legal definitions of what it means to be a refugee. This includes the 1951 convention, which defines a refugee as “someone who is unable or unwilling to return to their country of origin owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion”. However, many of those fleeing environmental issues travel internally within their country of origin, with some returning after several weeks or months. The matter is complicated even further when looking at what it means to be persecuted. Persecution, in terms of the convention, implies a direct

attack on a person or group of people. Events such as floods, droughts or hurricanes, do not personally target people because of who they are or what they believe, like the definition outlines. Rather, climatic events transform into disasters through a combination of geographic coincidence and extractive, pollutive behaviours by the industrialised world. As a result, in current legislation there is no such thing as a ‘climate refugee’.

This complexity has meant that those fleeing environmental issues are often deemed as ‘environmental migrants’ rather than ‘refugees’ and as such are not offered the same legal protections as refugees.

These protections include non-refoulement, defined as the guarantee of not being returned to a country in which the refugee is at risk of persecution based on race, religion, nationality, political membership or opinion. Nevertheless, it is becoming increasingly clear that the climate is one of the key contributors to events causing migration and will continue to exacerbate their effects worldwide.

In addition to the already urgent nature of the intersecting climate and refugee crises, the COVID-19 pandemic has made the current situation even more pressing. The pandemic has particularly serious effects on refugees. ‘Stay at home’ orders assume that everyone has a home they can go to and live comfortably in - something that is often not an option for refugees Moreover, in refugee camps, people have less capacity to follow social distancing and self-isolation guidelines, and access to medical care in cases of severe symptoms is limited.

The current context we have described means the work of charities is needed more than ever. While there isn’t yet a legal definition of what constitutes a ‘climate refugee’, there are still many other people who are fleeing from direct persecution and who require immediate aid and support. One of the initiatives working to provide such support is SolidariTee, an international student-led charity. SolidariTee aims to raise awareness of the refugee crisis and fundraise to provide support for NGOs granting legal aid to refugees and asylum seekers. This is achieved primarily through the sale of t-shirts, known as ‘SolidariTees’, which serve as a visual demonstration of solidarity with refugees. Legal aid is underSourced from Markus Spiske, Unsplash

funded, and thousands of refugees enter the highly complex legal processes without any guidance. We believe this is the most empowering and sustainable aid we can offer, as it helps to minimise the unjust deportation of individuals with legitimate claims to asylum, and allows refugees to build lives beyond camps and gain rights to education, accommodation and healthcare. Despite the current challenges we face with fluctuating public health guidelines constraining our work to a largely online setting, SolidariTee are working to provide Covid-specific support, alongside legal aid, through an Emergency Covid-19 Fund. We have also supported Kitrinos Healthcare who provide medical care to residents of Moria camp on the island of Lesvos.

Since the founding of SolidariTee in 2017, over 30,000 SolidariTees have been sold, and this year’s team of student volunteers, numbering over 700, continue to be committed to fighting for sustainable change in the refugee crisis. However, despite these meaningful contributions, the work of charities alone cannot tackle the full range of issues we have discussed - broader political transformation is needed. The increasing public awareness of these issues and pressure being placed on politicians, give us hope that the holistic policies we need moving forwards, ones that recognise the interconnectedness of all of these problems, will be drafted.

We must strive to meet this aim, standing in hope and solidarity with the world’s most vulnerable. ■

Beyond Productivity: Alternative Visions For Agriculture In India The

highways leading to Delhi have become a site of resistance. Nearly 300,000 people have taken up camp, plus a further 1 million farmers who have joined the movement to demand that the new agricultural laws passed by the central government be retracted.

The laws in question seek to further deregulate the agricultural sector, such that corporations can deal more directly with farmers. In the midst of a shrinking GDP, the Indian government are trying to attract national and international investment to drive growth.

The Modi government reiterate that the reforms will benefit farmers, but farmers argue that removing the security of state-regulated markets will give disproportionate power to large agri-businesses. In a country where agriculture is the largest source of livelihood and 86% of farmers are small landholders, concerns about marginal farmers being driv-

Sourced from Peggie Mishra, Unsplash 9 | COMPASS

en out by private monopolies are understandable.

The protests must be situated within a longer history of Indian agriculture. The Green Revolution brought huge increases in productivity, but with it less ecologically sustainable farming practices and the widespread prevalence of micronutrient diseases from a focus on staple grains. Given the diminishing marginal returns of Green Revolution techniques that compromise environmental quality, it is clear that alternative visions for agriculture are needed to address the nutritional needs and livelihoods of a population over 1 billion.

Discussion of support for farmers in India typically assumes that increasing productivity is both the ultimate objective and the mechanism to get there.

Against the backdrop of recent protests, it is becoming increasingly apparent that growing agricultural productivity should perhaps not be the isolated aim.

More sustainable approaches to agriculture are emerging from civil society, and agroecology activists and farmers’ movements are asking deeper questions about how agriculture should operate and for what objectives. An example of this is Zero Budget Natural Farming (ZBNF): a set of practices that first evolved in Karnataka starting in the 1990s. According to the UNEP (2018), it is designed to reduce farmers’ direct costs and vulnerability to debt (‘zero budget’) while increasing yields sustainably using non-synthetic, locally-sourced inputs (‘natural farming’). Fertiliser and pesticide costs are significantly lower under ZBNF than in chemicals-based farming, which can reduce the risk of farmer debt. ZBNF has been institutionalised in a state programme in Andhra Pradesh, which intends to roll out the programme to all 6 million of the state’s farmers via a training and extension programme. It aims to directly engage with the grassroots, investing in farmer-led agroecology and supporting collective learning and women-led social organisations.

The most important insight from more sustainable farming practices like ZBNF is that ecological sustainability and agency for farmers can coexist alongside increasing productivity. Sustainable intensification can increase crop yields and farm incomes by reducing input. What is vital is that the financial benefits of nat-

ural farming percolate throughout the value chain, such that the higher purchasing power of urban consumers is leveraged effectively to meet demand for quality foods while also growing farmers’incomes.

However, while sustainable farming practices may seek to include environmental protection as an objective for agriculture, they often do not deny the assumptions of the productivist ethos. Some scholars and activists have suggested more radical alternatives, whereby small-scale production can become a site of resistance to the neoliberalisation of farming.

The so-called ‘post-development’ agenda proposes alternative visions for socio-environmental futures outside the paradigm of neoliberal economic growth. In India, the Ecological Swaraj (Radical Ecological Democracy) grassroots movement theorises humanity as a part of nature, with nature having an intrinsic right to thrive. It focuses on self-reliance and participatory self-governance, pursuing social justice and equity.

There may be no effective way to resolve these competing visions, given the trade-offs involved between competing needs and demands to improve farmers’ livelihoods, ensure access to food for those who are net food buyers, and to generate sufficient food surplus to feed

Sourced from Peggie Mishra, Unsplash urban populations.

All of this must be balanced with ecological sustainability for the long term.

One way to address this is to take a more nuanced approach. Some policies already claim to pursue increasing productivity, but not at the expense of social inclusion or ecological sustainability where these trade-offs can be avoided. The challenge that remains is making this work in practice.

The farmers’ cause continues to gain support, but it is not yet clear how the protests in India will evolve.

We can only hope that alternative visions for agriculture in India will contribute to greater consultation of stakeholders to seek more nuanced ways of resolving the trade-offs in this significant sector. ■

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An Interview with Deennaalee Deenaalee is a Deg Xit’an Athabaskan and Supiaq womxn from the villages of Gitr’ingithchagg (Anvik) and Qinuyang (South Naknek), Alaska. They are a youth Indigenous activist, the Creator and Host of On The Land Media Collective and a commercial fisherwoman on the F/V Adventura. They recently completed their Bachelor of Arts Degree in Anthropology with an emphasis on Public Policy from Brown University.

For the full interview, check out our online blog.

All photos credit of: Deennaalee

Can you please tell us more about yourself?

Opening in Deg Xit’an Dene- I’m from the villages of Anvik and South Naknek, which is on the Yukon Village in Bristol Bay in the state known as Alaska in Turtle Island (otherwise known as the USA). I am Deg Xit’an Athabaskan and Supiaq, two tribes in Alaska. I am the creator and host of On The Land which is a podcast and media platform designed to centre indigenous voices and our relationship to the land. I am also the Arctic Athabaskan Council’s Youth Representative to the Arctic Council Permanent Participant Youth Network, and an advisor to the Arctic Youth Network, which is network of people interested in engaging in the Arctic across different 11 | COMPASS

disciplines to develop out what the Arctic look like moving forward and youth can engage in these important discussions.

Can you explain more why and how On The Land Media Collective began? What have been some key learning points for yourself personally working and leading this project?

The idea for On The Land stemmed from three main things. Firstly, a desire to make an intervention in the US$800 billion outdoor industry, an industry that has been inherently colonial since its inception; indigenous people in Turtle Island were displaced when

Yellowstone and Yosemite (National Parks) were first created. It also came out of conversations around allyship in the outdoors. How can people in our community understand these colonial legacies when it comes to land management and national parks? Thirdly, for my final year thesis, I wanted to create something that was created for and by our people. We as indigenous people have always recorded our story in oral traditions, and it was not until colonisers came along that we began to write things in books. Even then, that relationship has been in turmoil.

Podcasts are, at least, free and easy to produce.

I have grown exponentially in the creation of On The Land.

I have had to create fluency in audio equipment and desire this same fluency in the technology that will allow for podcasts to be produced by more Indigenous people.

‘We need affinity spaces; we need to be building true allyship and community resilience across gender expression and racial lines.

This is what climate change is demanding right now.’

There is so much importance in creating something for ourselves as Indigenous people, and what a gift to be able to share that with a wider audience. Podcasting creates an opportunity for us to learn from each other so we can work towards a more equitable and just worldwide community. We need affinity spaces; we need to be building true allyship and community resilience across gender expression and racial lines.

This is what climate change is demanding right now.

I’ve also had to decolonise myself. Coming away from the academy (this past year) has made me question who I am, because I was taught under Western Anthropology to other myself. But as a host of On the Land, I can’t other anyone else, which creates true healing. True healing is being able to say: how do we as people that have been colonised come home to ourselves so we can do things like On The Land, and write articles that can hopefully create more understanding and translate between Indigneous and non-Indigneous peoples?

Who inspires you in your activism work?

A piece before I answer your question. I believe that there are two things we can do right now that aren’t “solutions” to climate change , but are things we can nurture in order to come into right relations with the earth. First of all, the ‘next economy’ (a gifting economy). I recommend Compass magazine readers to engage with Robin Wall Kimmerer’s book “Braiding Sweetgrass”, which is highly relevant to the US con-

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‘Even as young people we need to look to who we can mentor and look above us and say who are our mentors. That is how you create a reciprocal relationship with the knowledge systems that each of us carry.’ text as an industrialised nation with a colonial legacy.

The second part of this is the need for true mentorship and mentees. Even as young people we need to look to who we can mentor and look above us and say who are our mentors. That is how you create a reciprocal relationship with the knowledge systems that each of us carry.

There have been so many people that have inspired me.

I have a lot of gratitude for Professor Anila Daulatzai.

Anila was a Professor at the Anthropology department at Brown University. In my anthropology class called Gender and Globalisation, her teaching mentality was “I see you here, but I think you can go here if I challenge you. I will make you work, make you think, and it’s going to be so good because you will grow from it.” She made me realise that Anthropology is a field that can be decolonised for the benefit of the Peoples it has so greatly harmed.

Given the challenges that climate change will pose to Arctic indigenous peoples, what is the way forward to address climate change issues given such a complicated current political, social, and environmental landscape?

The reason why I got involved in Arctic policy work is 13 | COMPASS

that what we are seeing right now is the neocolonisation of the Arctic. The Arctic has fragile ecosystems that are already facing threats, and yet governments continue to push for oil/gas extraction and shipping lanes. One of the biggest misconceptions that has been passed on from colonialism is that people are apolitical, which is false. Our existence as Indigenous peoples is inherently political, and anything we say and do has political implications. As native people, we need to define and say how we want people to interact with the Arctic because right now that is not happening, and those outside of the Arctic need to listen when we do speak.

In terms of the climate, everyone has responsibility for the land. ‘Land back’ is a place-based policy/idea we have been talking about across Turtle Island and it looks different for every tribe across different regions.

‘Land back’ is a conversation around how we put stewardship of these lands back into indigenous hands.

For example, we will be facing more fires. If we can remember and practice traditional fire relationships, we will have fewer fires that are as disruptive as they are in the Arctic. If we go back to what I mentioned earlier about the ‘next economy’, I think wind and solar energy have a place, but they are also false solutions to climate change. We have to look at a whole-systems approach.

How can a solution be “green” or sustainable if it is still perpetuating harm in communities of color through the extraction of rare earth minerals such as lithium? We as Arctic Peoples cannot just populate the tundra with solar panels for this reason. It would just perpetuate the consumption, destruction, and imperialism in the Global South.

I believe one of the ways forward is to think of this question: how are we being conscious global citizens stepping up to the table with our voices? How can we communicate cross-culturally between other Indigenous communities, scientists and policy makers, and frontline communities so that we can adapt together to imagine the future through the worldviews that we all carry? I’m particularly excited about conversations with Indigenous people in Amazon and other geographical regions, because that’s where true innovation comes from. ■

‘One of the biggest misconceptions that has been passed on from colonialism is that people are apolitical, which is false.’

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Lead in the Water: How Flint’s Community Action Overcame State Negligence

By Laura Dionysio-Li “Let me start here — anyone who is concerned about lead in the drinking water in Flint can relax.”

Hindsight

may be 20/20, but Brad Wurfel, spokesman for the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, would make countless more attempts to ignore what would become one of the well-known public health crises in recent years. For 18 months, city and state authorities alike failed to respond to the increasingly desperate concerns of many of Flint’s 100,000 residents – with serious long-term repercussions.

Yet in spite of, or perhaps because of, these derelictions of duty, tight-knit and determined communities in Flint worked to reveal their water crisis to the world, demonstrating the power of grassroots action.

After decades of serving as an industrial dumping ground, the Flint River was deemed too polluted to use a drinking source in the 1960s. Yet in April 2014, officials in Flint switched the city’s water supply back to this river while a new, cost-cutting pipeline was in the works. It would later be revealed Sourced from Unsplash

that, in a significant breach of state and federal safety standards, corrosion control treatments to prevent the leaching of lead and other toxic metals from pipes had not been implemented.

Within a month, hundreds of residents were complaining of brown, foul-smelling tap water; and within three, LeeAnne Walters and her family were suffering from rashes, hair loss and abdominal pain.

A stay-at-home mother of four, Walters would play a pivotal role in revealing the dangers of Flint’s tap water.

Eventual testing at Walters’ home by the city showed unprecedented lead levels, seven times greater than the legal limit. But even when viewed in tandem with city-wide concerns about non potable water and a surge in health issues, Flint officials claimed these results were limited to Walters’ household only.

This dismissive response forced Walters to reach out to Professor Marc Edwards, an environmental engineer from Virginia Tech (VT), whose provision of water testing kits allowed her to spend 300 hours over 3 weeks methodically sampling each zip code – producing the first large-scale water quality tests during the crisis. Crucially, their results indicated that one in six homes had lead levels in the water exceeding the EPA’s safety threshold, rising to 40% in a later VT study.

Only after increased testing and campaigning in the months to follow, with social media and news outlets around the world picking up on Flint’s story, were state officials forced to acknowledge the catastrophe of their own making.

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An impressive 90% response rate during Walters’ initial testing represents the deeply-rooted sense of community and activism prevalent in Flint. Notable civil rights successes include the historic 1937 United Auto Worker sit-down strike, and the passing of the first fair housing ordinance in the US by popular vote, outlawing racial discrimination in real estate.

Similar to other Rust Belt cities, where deindustrialisation has resulted in major economic and population decline since the 1980s, the closure of General Motors factories has been disastrous for Flint – though the environmental degradation associated with GM’s intensive, polluting production cannot be ignored in contributing to Flint’s prosperity boom and bust.

Such were the conditions that led to a state emergency manager commandeering Flint’s budget and making drastic cutbacks, contextualising this crisis.

In the face of such adversity, however, communities in Flint strengthened. Neighbourhood improvement schemes, such as Pastor McCathern and his congregation’s initiatives to pay young men to board up vacant properties and tend to the lawns, further laid the foundation for the dogged commitment and solidarity of Flint’s present-day residents, brought up on a legacy of activism.

Certainly, imagery of the Flint water crisis, of murky brown water gushing from taps and children covered in rashes, were significant in drawing global concern and fundraising. However, all too frequently overlooked are the tireless efforts of Walters and other Flint citizens, who mobilised via mass testing, bottled water and filter distribution, and political activism.

Their actions simultaneously offer a counter to the dominant narrative of victimhood and set a precedent: although Flint is only one city contributing to America’s ‘lead epidemic’, the efforts of its residents to publicise its crisis to the world have brought heightened awareness of the risks of antiquated lead plumbing and unmonitored water sources. By co-founding US Water Study Research, to join citizen science with independent research teams, Walters and Edwards aim to scale-up their mission, to communicate and educate about water quality and safety.

Unfortunately, the devastating neurological impacts of lead poisoning will long outlast international attention. Despite regulations on maximum acceptable lead content in water, the sobering reality is that no safe blood lead level in children has been identified. Within four years of the change in water supply, for example, the percentage of Flint’s

Sourced from Unsplash

Sourced from Unsplash students who require special education services nearly doubled, to 28% – and well-established links between lead poisoning and violent crime pose future dangers.

Furthermore, grassroots activism alone cannot, and should not be expected to, compensate for the state and city’s failures, nor dismantle the systemic inequalities and structural inadequacies which necessitated the switch. A severe loss of trust in government agencies is set to outlive Flint’s media spotlight, as while water quality has drastically improved following a return to Detroit water supply, many of Flint’s residents are reluctant to use anything but bottled water for drinking, cooking and washing.

That GM’s concerns about Flint River water corroding machinery were swiftly dealt with by city officials, changing water sources by October 2014, is telling. In contrast, authorities failed to adequately address evidence of lead-contaminated water in homes for a year and a half, endangering tens of thousands of lives. Such a betrayal will be far from easy to overcome, even with convictions and compensation.

With #FlintLivesMatter a recurring protest slogan, and considering Flint’s majority black, low-income demographic, further exploration of the crisis’ complex causes and exacerbators are needed. To be blunt: had Flint’s population been whiter and wealthier, would months of steadfast community activism have been needed to end such a blatant injustice as poisoned water?. ■

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HUMAN

Ecological Optimism: Envisaging a Bright Future for Planet Earth Ecology,

the study of living organisms (including humans) and their interaction with the physical environment, has long been considered a vital component of atmospheric change. As geographers, we recognise that the Earth acts as a self-regulating integrated system that maintains its equilibrium via a series of planetary processes and feedback loops. However, as a species, we have begun to transform the way in which we interact with our environment: anthropogenic activities have been disrupting the natural cycles of these feedback loops. As this issue has come to dominate the media, many have decided that they will not stand by and watch as the planet is destroyed. From the terrors of the climate crisis rose the fight to restore the natural balance of the Earth. This activism took many forms, but perhaps one that is most needed at present is something many may deem naïve. I am speaking of ‘optimistic ecological activism’.

The foundation of ecological optimism is rooted in Taoism, Buddhism, Shamanism and Native American ideologies. The unifying idea threading these philosophies together is that human harmony with nature is possible, and that our attempt to achieve

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this goal should focus around the idea of action. This action should be manifested in alterations to human behaviour that allow us to adapt to nature, rather than the other way around. To this day, the teachings of the Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism, have sought to reflect such values. At the United Nations Climate Change Conference in 2015, the COP21, the Dalai Lama urged global action to be taken to tackle the climate crisis. He stated that this was humanity’s responsibility above all else, and criticised those who did not accompany prayers to God or Buddha with action. Instead, he implored humanity, and more specifically younger generations, to take action to save the planet. This message represents the modern day pragmatic reflections of the philosophy at the centre of ecological optimism. Despite the dire ecological straits in which we find ourselves, there are those beginning to scrap the brooding and make real, proactive changes. Since he delivered this message to the world in 2015, the Dalai Lama has engaged in conversations with prominent ecological and climate activists. Though Greta Thunberg’s ‘house on fire’ message may be a perfect antithesis of the ideology of ecological optimism, her recent discussions with the Dalai Lama have presented a more hopeful approach to her activism. Subsequent to their discussion, it seems that both characters hold each other in mutual admiration and agree on the need for action to follow. The Dalai Lama himself affirmed that the meeting had given him high hopes for the future. It is exciting to see such important figures portray such productive hope for the future of our planet.

Many make the mistake of confusing ecological optimism with ignorance. ‘Unrealistic ecological optimism’ is the belief that, as just another species that makes up nature, the environment will somehow ‘self-regulate’ anthropogenic disturbances back into balance. In September 2017, Rusty A. Feagin wrote a piece expressing these attitudes.

In his article, he states that the destruction of the natural world can now be used to promote creation. Feagin’s stance seems to brush with the idea that, as humans, we can simply remove ourselves from natural environmental systems entirely and create our own advantageous livelihood on Earth. While innovation is essential in pragmatist ecological optimism, I must say I think Feagin to be slightly gullible in believing in the scalability of these technological concepts within the time scale needed to save the planet. These technologies include only recently developed geoengineering techniques such as carbon capture and storage, which are still very much in early stages of development and a far cry from solving all of humanity’s climate problems. Similar to the integrated Earth system, the movement of optimistic ecological activism must be kept in fragile equilibrium between naïveté and pragmatism.

In opposition to unrealistic ecological optimism, some geographers and activists have coined the term ‘realistic ecological optimism’. It is time to accept the nature of the climate problem and engage with efforts to find pragmatic solutions. A scientist at the heart of this thinking is Vlademir Vernadsky. Vernadsky argues that the biosphere and the sociosphere interact on a plane called the Noosphere – the conscious, self-reflective, ‘thinking layer’ of the biosphere that defines the Anthropocene. On this plane, a process of evolutionary transformation towards an optimal co-evolution between human and nature took place. It is in this Noosphere that we must now develop the future Sourced from Unsplash

Sourced from Unsplash of humankind. This idea has been discussed widely in mainstream media. Firstly, the arrival of the 2020 saw National Geographic issue a special edition of their magazine in which they set out a vision for the world in 2070. In this issue, National Geographic proposed two visions of 2070, one unsurprisingly pessimistic and another excitingly optimistic. Following this, Sir David Attenborough released a documentary which he calls his ‘witness statement’, putting forward a bright and achievable vision for future generations. In a similar vein, BBC Radio 4 has released a new series called 39 Ways to Save the Planet. In each episode, scientists discuss different methods which will help us transition towards a more sustainable future, but follow the discussions up with realistic analyses on the effects these methods themselves will have on global emissions. All these examples show that pragmatic optimism about the future of our physical environment and the natural world is becoming more and more commonplace.

The time has come for pessimistic premonitions to become merely a sidekick to the protagonist of the story of the climate crisis. As the COP26 in Glasgow approaches, we must fight for pragmatic ecological optimism to move beyond activist and media narratives and enter the political arena. The natural world and our place in it is at stake. By promoting this ideology, perhaps we can create that positive future of 2070 the National Geographic tempted us with just a year ago.■ COMPASS | 18

Loud, Noisy and Disruptive?

Understanding a “quiet politics” of Activist Resistance

By Joshua Paul

When

we think of resistance or activism, we are often drawn to large scale protests. Indeed, as Kye Askins (2014; 2015) has argued, geographers have tended to focus on loud and disruptive forms of resistance: those that (quite literally) appear “dramatic, iconic, glamorous and heroic” (Horton & Kraftl, 2009: 16). However, in this article, I want to challenge geographers to focus on what Hall (2020: 243) terms a “quiet politics” of activist resistance. This refers to how political acts can be quiet and unassuming, grounded in everyday practices. To make this argument for a quiet politics of resistance, let’s first turn to the concept of ‘resistance’ itself.

Resistance is a term used across geography — often in the final sections of journal articles or essays. Yet, despite this prevalence, resistance is often a concept that is left unexplored. Indeed, resistance has become an almost common-sensical notion: geographers know what resistance means without ever thinking critically about the concept. It is often assumed that resistance must be distinctly and intentionally oppositional, as Katz (2004) suggests in her conceptualisation of resistance, reworking and resilience.

Indeed, large scale activist movements are seen as a key form of resistance: where people come together to protest in public space what they view as an injustice. It is important to stress that this is a view of injustice, because activism is not solely progressive, perhaps as best seen in the Trump supporters who stormed the US Capitol Building earlier this year. While activism and protests can be progressive and lead to meaningful change, it is important to avoid romanticisation through recognising that they are not inherently progressive. In addition to these larger scale forms of activism, Hughes (2020) challenges us to think differently about resistance through a focus on resistance as 19 | COMPASS

Sourced from Unsplash emergent. Analytically, this shifts our attention to tracing resistance as it comes into being, rather than a focus on a particular set of actors and actions. Through this focus on resistance as emergent, we are able to better understand the multiplicity of different, often unintentional, forms of resistance.

By viewing resistance as emergent — comprising a multiplicity of actors and actions, often unintentional and non-oppositional — we are able to understand a quieter form of activism. Sarah Marie Hall’s (2019; 2020) work on a relational quiet politics of resistance offers a significant insight into a particular form of emergent practices of resistance. In the context of her work on austerity, Hall explores how resistance can be constructed relationally through everyday practices of togetherness. Here, resistance is produced through varied relations — be those relations to family, friends or relations produced through momentary encounters on the street. These relations, through unassuming practices, such as a smile, nod or mutter of encouragement, produce a relational politics of togetherness at a time of austerity. While these quiet activisms occur at micro-geographical scales, they are just as political as those aforementioned larger

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h

scale protests. By focusing on a relational quiet politics, we are able to see how unassuming everyday acts can be a form of resistance that are key to getting by in times of hardship.

Getting by during the hardships of the COVID-19 pandemic has necessitated physical separation from others outside our bubble, but in spite of this, there has still been a relational quiet politics of resistance. This has occurred through the simple materiality of letters of “Viral Kindness” where communities have been able to come together to resist the impacts of the pandemic. These short letters allowed people to offer their assistance to members of their local community, such as through picking up shopping, getting other supplies, or even a phone call to keep those who are self-isolating company. Although a quiet and unassuming act, this form of care is highly political insofar as it builds a politics of togetherness at a time of increasing inequality and hardship due to the pandemic (Paul, 2020). Despite the necessity of distance to prevent the spread of COVID-19, letters of “Viral Kindness” highlight how communities have continued to build a relational politics of togetherness even during the pandemic.

Sourced from Unsplash COVID-19 has highlighted just how important our pets are to our daily practices of getting by, through providing care. It is important that future research focuses on how these non-human relations can also constitute a form of resistance, to recognise more-than-human agencies.

■

Sourced from Unsplash As I have hopefully shown, we need to be attentive to quieter forms of resistance and activism. This involves rethinking resistance as an emergent practice, to highlight the multiplicity of quiet, relational forms of resistance that occur, often unintentionally, in and through everyday practices. Although slightly beyond the scope of this article, I want to end by challenging geographers to take this a step further. While existing work on emergent and quiet practices of resistance has been crucial in reshaping our conceptualisations, this has thus far largely been anthropocentric. As an understanding of resistance as emergent allows us to see the diversity of actors, future research should seek to understand how non- humans can become involved in these relations of resistance. Indeed,

Reference List Askins, K., 2014. Area, 46(4), pp.353-354.

Askins, K., 2015. ACME, 14(2), pp.470-478.

Hall, S.M., 2019. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Hall, S.M., 2020. Geoforum, 110, pp.242-251.

Horton, J. & Kraftl, P., 2009. Emotion, Space and Society, 2(1), pp.14-23.

Hughes, S.M., 2020. Prog. in Human Geog., 44(6), pp.1141-1160.

Katz, C., 2004. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

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PHYSICAL

Misty Eye of the Mountain Below: The Urban Environmental Epidemiology of Tear Gas

By Eswyn Chen CN: munitions, toxicants, diseases, conflicts, police

Scenes

blast injuries, skin brutality, COVID-19

of protesters silhouetted against wafts of tear gas billowing through the streets are among the most defining images of 2019 and 2020. In their struggles, protesters frequently fall subject — if not victim — to the crowd control chemicals ubiquitously released at them. The most widely used lachrymator in tear gas is a compound known as 2-chlorobenzalmalononitrile, or CS. It interacts with mucocutaneous nociceptors and causes acute tissue inflammation (Rothenberg et al., 2016). While tear gas is not designed to kill, the intensity of its immediate effects felt by the human body varies greatly between individuals, as do its longer-term impacts. Despite its colloquial name, the‘gas’is actually a pyrotechnic blend of powders pressurised into canisters for dispersion: the launch mechanism is explosive in nature; the content is insoluble in common solvents. Therefore, concerns also surround the hazards it poses to the urban environment and wildlife. Delving into the science of these chemicals and the politics of their use, one can appreciate the reality that protesters striving through chemosensory pain for changes and justice are indeed fighting a battle (physical) within a battle (ideological).

Crowd control agents are banned in war under the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention; but their Sourced from Unsplash

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deployment for domestic law enforcement is still allowed, provided that adequate warning is given before use and that there are reasonable routes for retreat. Neither of these conditions makes sense in warfare, thus the ban. However, if officers then fail to meet them during civilian crowd control operations, the use of these munitions can threaten lives. On 12 June 2019, during a pro-democracy protest in the heart of Hong Kong, the police kettled a large group of peaceful protesters by tear-gassing them from two sides; the only way they could escape was to squeeze through two revolving doors into an office building, choking from the gas with eyes streaming all the while. Other local incidents involved the police firing tear gas indoors within metro stations, launching it from tall buildings onto unknowing crowds, and habitually aiming it at chest level (Mahtani et al., 2019). Not even medics or the press — clad in their reflective bibs that signal neutrality — were spared: a young first aid volunteer sustained a third-degree burn when an ignited canister landed on his upper back; a freelance videographer was struck in his forehead whilst covering a standoff (Lai & Ramzy, 2019).

The danger of tear gas goes beyond the police’s misuse of what are, in truth, high-impact projectiles.

CS is liberated from its container via combustion; the heat complicates the composition of the eventual cocktail of chemicals released. At 275°C, cyanide (HCN) is given off as a by-product (Johnson-Kanapathy, 2013); at 450°C or above, dioxins are produced from thermal degradation (Colclough, 2020). Citizen scientists have measured the temperatures of canisters on the ground at protests with infrared thermometers, and found that some could burn up to 552.8°C (HKGETV, 2019). The group also used gas detectors to monitor the ambient concentration of HCN on site; numerous readings exceeded 30ppm (the instrument’s maximum display value) (HKGETV, 2019), while the US National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health’s 10-minute exposure ceiling is 4.7ppm. Dioxins, whose biological half-lives count in years (Milbrath et al., 2009), also persist in the human body: months into his post, a frontline reporter was diagnosed with chloracne, a skin

condition directly linked to dioxin exposure. Properly made CS munitions have flame retardants added into the blend to suppress burning, but not all manufacturers are as responsible. Some police forces also use a randomised mix of makes with different quality control standards. Protesters have no way of knowing what is being, quite literally, thrown at them.

Apart from these toxicants’ carcinogenic and system-impairing effects on humans, bird casualties in tear-gassed neighbourhoods have also been documented on footage by netizens. These occurred mostly around the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) and the Polytechnic University (PolyU) where, during the police’s siege of the campuses in November 2019, respectively 1,567 and 1,458 tear gas rounds were fired in single days as per official reports. CS particles also spread far: depending on whether they have been silicone-treated to prevent coagulation, they can either hitchhike on clothing/ hair/personal items, or travel through air in suspension (residents living kilometres away from CUHK had reported airway irritation). A team of volunteer researchers have tried to mathematically model tear gas flows within and between districts using meteorological and terrain data, but had difficulties characterising the microscale fluid dynamics of the built areas numerically. Nonetheless, their subsequent environmental epidemiological study (Chak & Chen et al., 2020) revealed that adverse medical symptoms of tear gas exposure were pervasive across both protesting and non-protesting demographics with several statistically significant inter-district correlations.

Fast forward to the Black Lives Matter movement half a world/year away, the American Thoracic Society warned in June last year that escalated tear gas use may propagate COVID-19 by causing acute lung injuries, disrupting social distancing, and contaminating personal protective and medical equipment. Indeed, the natural reaction upon exposure is to cough, which increases the risk of transmission.

Additionally, a US military study (Hout et al., 2014) found that cadets exposed to CS just once in training experienced a heightened likelihood of contracting respiratory infections, as the chemical damages mucus linings and thus compromises immune defences. Truly, these protesters were resisting police brutality through police brutality. By extension, the ‘I can’t breathe’ sentiment resonates globally between protesters who have ever suffocated from the same excessive use of tear gas and braved its toxicological dangers in their separate campaigns and hometowns.

Efforts to understand and mitigate the environmental and health risks of tear gas where it is over/misused

Image Credit: Jeff Vinci originate largely from within the citizenry still, as the assaults come from the frustrated and vengeful authorities against whom it demonstrates. Yet behind this unfortunate truth in which civil society is left to fend for itself, we see not only courage and resolve, but also the confluence of wisdom from all walks of life. Nobody had told the protesters to never extinguish tear gas with water — because the hydrogen produced may trigger a secondary detonation — until an odd someone who happened to have the knowledge stopped them at the barricade. With astonishing resourcefulness, resilience, and their refusal to be lost in the fog of burning fumes that attempts to drown them out, these fighters march on, crackdown after crackdown. ■ References Chak, W. H. & Chen, E. et al., 2020, 32nd Ann. Conf. ISEE. Colclough, G., 2020, Hong Kong Free Press, 1 May. HKGETV, 2019, Temperature Analysis of Tear Gas Submunition in Hong Kong. HKGETV, 2019, The gas monitoring of ambient HCN at the areas affected by Tear Gas on 2 & 17 Nov 2019. Hout, J. et al., 2014, Mil. Med., 179, 793.

Johnson-Kanapathy, E., 2013, USUHS. Lai, R. & Ramzy, A., 2019, New York Times, 18 August. Mahtani, S. et al., 2019, Washington Post, 24 December. Milbrath, M. et al., 2009, Envi. Health Perspect., 117, 417. Rothenberg, C. et al., 2016, Ann. NYAS, 1378, 96.

Background Photo Credit: Jeff Vinci

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Save the Bees!

The Truth Behind the Tagline Image credit: Morgan Morrison

By Morgan Morrison Morgan was an undergraduate in Natural Sciences and is now completing an MRes at Royal Holloway.

In this article, she explains the truth behind the ‘save the bees’ tagline and how her research helps improve our knowledge on the environmental stressors on bumblebees.

‘Save

the bees’ is a tagline associated with a vast number of charity initiatives and environmental activism campaigns, including the Extinction Rebellion. The tagline is readily linked to environmental conservation; however, it is also thrown around by fast fashion and pesticide companies. The real scenario of what this tagline is referring to is a serious problem currently faced by society, the impacts of which will drastically change the life we live.

What is happening to bees?

Bees represent an estimated total of 20,000 species found globally except Antarctica. The commonly known honeybees and bumblebees represent social bees which have stingers, but bees can also be solitary and stingless. Unfortunately, a global picture of insect declines is emerging, with 76% of insect biomass lost in three decades (Halman et al., 2017). This far exceeds the estimate of a 58% decline reported in vertebrates. This general picture of insect decline does not exclude bees. An IUCN study found that 9.1% of European bee species are on the verge of extinction. Worryingly, there are insufficient data to assess the risk of extinction for 57% of these species; therefore, many of these may also be under threat without us knowing. The only species which has grown in number (up 45%) is the Western Honeybee.

However, this is a reflection of economic incentives to maintain populations with managed colonies for 23 | COMPASS

pollination services or honey production, and not a picture of a healthy honeybee population(Potts et al., 2010; Goulson et al., 2015).

Why does this matter?

Bees are an important group of species for all ecosystems and are vital to humanity as crop pollinators, with the services provided by bees valued at $518 billion pa in a recent IPBES report. However, to fully appreciate the importance of bees to humans, nutrition must also be considered. Many crops with no dependency on pollinators are grains and tubers, whereas crops dependent on bees for pollination are required for proteins and specific micronutrients, not simply calories.

The benefits of bees are not merely anthropocentric.

78% and 90% of temperate and tropical wild plants, respectively, rely on insect pollination to some extent (Potts et al., 2016). Therefore, the interdependence between bees, wild plant species and other animals means that there will be catastrophic impacts related to bee declines. The imminent ‘pollination crisis’ and ‘ecological Armageddon’ associated with the loss of bees are alarming and could warrant dramatic consequences for human health and the planet’s ecosystems.

What is causing this ‘ecological Armageddon’?

Bees have been experiencing a ‘death by a thousand

cuts’ (Wagner et al., 2021), with declines attributed to habitat loss, parasites, pesticides, agricultural practices, and climate change. Despite the vast amount of research, the relative contribution of each of these drivers to the problem and their interactions are unclear. This is where my research comes in.

My research

My research looks at the effects of pesticides on Bombus terrestrius, a species of bumblebee. Pesticides are the chemicals used in the removal of pests and the mitigation of their impact. Unfortunately, their detrimental effects extend past their target species, namely to bees. Although risk assessments on these effects exist, they are simply insufficient. They focus testing for lethal doses on adult workers, and often just in honeybees. Therefore, anything sublethal and any effects on larvae, males, queens, and other species are missed. Sublethal effects are especially worrying as they can impact adversely on navigation, learning and memory, reproductive success, and foraging behaviour. All of these can result in reduced brood production or even mortality, and therefore contribute to population declines despite their being ‘sublethal’ (Singla et al., 2021).

The focus of my research is the effects of pesticides on queen reproduction. Despite their sole responsibility in founding new colonies, research on queens has been overlooked in scientific literature and standardised testing. Additionally, queens are potentially more vulnerable to pesticides as they experience a solitary phase. Normally, bumblebees exist in colonies, with workers, males, and queens. These colonies help to buffer effects of pesticides on individual bees reducing their adverse effects. Therefore, colony-level variables show less adverse impacts after pesticide exposure. However, workers, males and old queens die off in winter and only mated queens hibernate and survive over winter. Queens become functionally solitary and lose the buffering effects of their colonies. Thus, the resilience of queens to pesticides directly affects future colonies and is critical in bumblebee population variability. Baron et al. (2017) has found alarming impacts of neonicotinoid on queens, specifically a reduction in colony initiation.

Further modelling studies have indicated that this could rapidly lead to local extinction.

Much of the literature predominantly focuses on neonicotinoids pesticides, but as neonicotinoids are now banned in the EU, the subject of my research Image credit: Morgan Morrison

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is instead a group of pesticides called sulfoximines. Sulfoximines are known as a potential candidate to replace the gap in supply created by neonicotinoid bans and in cases of neonicotinoid resistance (Brown et al., 2016). Therefore, my study aims to continue to fill the gaps surrounding research on queens and emerging sulfoximine pesticides. It is imperative that we discover whether this new pesticide will have the same adverse effects on bees as neonicotinoids before its widespread application can decimate bee populations.

What can you do?

Recent derogation of the ban on neonicotinoids for sugar beet indicates the ease with which regressive decisions on bees can be made. Nevertheless, the outcry following the announcement creates hope that there will be continued support for bee-positive decisions, and that if my research outcome demonstrates a need for a ban on sulfoximine pesticides, there will be support to do so. However, as with neonicotinoids, bans simply cause a shift to different active ingredients rather than the use of environmentally-safe, non-chemical alternatives.

Whilst choosing to buy pesticide-free produce helps, the financial cost often makes it infeasible for many. Moreover, this is not a choice consumers should have to make. Instead, farmers, policymakers, and scientists should unify to reduce the use of pesticides given these evidenced, adverse impacts on bees. Public lobbying and voting are important ways you can help to set the precedent for changes to environmentally-positive policies and help save these important, fluffy creatures I love working

Sourced from Shelby Cohron, Unsplash with. ■ References Baron, G. L. et al. Nat. Ecol. Evol. 1, 1308–1316 (2017).

Brown, M. J. F. et al. PeerJ 2016, e2249 (2016).

Goulson, D., et al. Science 347, (2015).

Hallmann, C. A. et al. PLOS ONE 12, e0185809 (2017).

Potts, S. G. et al. Trends Ecol. Evol. 25, 345–353 (2010).

Potts, S. G. et al. Nature 540, 220–229 (2016).

Singla, A. et al. J. Apic. Res. 60, 19–32 (2021).

Wagner, D. L. et al. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 118, (2021).

Sourced from Jamie Street, Unsplash

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Image credit: Bridget Atkin

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Eruptive Uprisings:

How One Volcano Incited Civil Activism in19th Century Cambridgeshire

By Rosie Rice

Background photo: Aerial Photo of Tambora from ‘The Gateway of Astronaut Photography of Earth’ collection.

Sourced from: Image Science and Analysis Laboratory, NASA-Johnson Space Center

Vo l c a n i c eruptions have played a prominent role in the story of human history; they gave us the atmosphere and fertile soils, and yet nearly wiped us out as a species.

Volcanoes are the hand that gives but can take away in an instant.

The environmental impacts of cataclysmic eruptions can have far reaching effects on society and can arguably change the course of history. So, what does an eruption over 7,000 miles away have to do with civil activism in Cambridgeshire? In order to answer this question, let us first travel back in space and time…

The year is 1815 and we’ve arrived at the Indonesian Island of Sumbawa. Chaos surrounds us as Mount Tambora erupts, spewing ash 43km into the air, and sending pyroclastic flows hurtling down her slopes, engulfing anything in their path. The eruption was reportedly heard thousands of miles away, mistaken for cannon-fire. Tambora’s rumbles sent troops running to their posts thinking an attack was imminent; little did they know their rifles would be no match for Tambora’s fire-filled fury. We have just witnessed what would later be known as the deadliest eruption in history: with a VEI of 7, Tambora was one of the most powerful Plinian eruptions on record.

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Colossal Plinian eruptions like that of Tambora may have global impacts on climate depending on their latitudinal location, sulfur output, the intensity of eruption, and the season in which they occur. The key ingredient in this recipe for global climate change is sulfur. The 1815 Tambora eruption had a sulfur output of around 30 megatonnes, which is roughly three times greater than that of the eruption of Pinatubo in 1991. The greater the intensity, the more likely it is that the sulfur will reach the stratosphere. The stratosphere is the one atmospheric destination to which the sulfur needs to go if it wants to alter Earth’s radiative balance and affect global climate. This is because the volcanic sulfur is able to stay afloat in the dry and stable environment of the stratosphere for a long period of time to do its work before settling back down to the Earth’s surface. The latitudinal location of an explosive eruption is also an important factor; volcanic sulfur injected into the stratosphere at the tropics is more likely to spread to higher latitudes in both hemispheres via large-scale circulation.

Our eruption of Tambora had a large sulfur output, was a very intense eruption, and is located in the tropics – all of the key ingredients for a recipe for global cooling disaster! Once sulfur reaches the stratosphere, it oxidises to form sulfuric acid (H2SO4), which then nucleates into sulfate aerosols which, en masse, form a volcanic dust veil shrouding the Earth.

These aerosols backscatter incoming radiation; they essentially act like an angry group of protesters blockng traffic, and as energy is denied entrance, is global cooling effect occurs.

In the case of the Tambora eruption, temperatures are estimated to have decreased by 1-2°C compared to the 1810-1819 average. This is where our story takes an interesting turn, as we enter the so-called ‘year without a summer’ We are now going to leave Sumbawa behind as we travel to 19th century Cambridgeshire. It is May 1816: the Napoleonic Wars have ended, unemployment is high, and the mood is melancholy as winter weather seems to have extended into summer months. The climatic effects of the eruption were felt across the world. Over in Geneva, Lord Byron was channeling his despair at the weather into poetry whilst, in another room, Mary Shelley was inspired by the gothic weather and was crafting the story of Frankenstein. Across most of Western and Central Europe, the abnormally cold temperatures and persistent rain caused crops to fail; this would have deadly consequences. The Observer reported the ‘extreme distress’ of industrial and agricultural workers. With high rates of unemployment and a stagnated economy after the Napoleonic Wars, these crop failures hit the British Isles hard, with the working class bearing the brunt of this crisis. The price of bread — a staple food in the working class diet — skyrocketed, and labourers could no longer afford to feed their families. In East Anglia alone, bread prices increased by 35%. People were desperate.

Unable to feed their families and faced with starvation, protest became the only option. On the 22 May, the people of Littleport had had enough, filled with a fury akin to Tambora’s, over 300 people took to the streets armed with pitchforks, cleavers, and guns. They destroyed machinery, torched barns, broke down doors and windows, and looted from their wealthier neighbours.

This civil insurrection was not an isolated

Graph created by Wikipedia user Girogiogp2. Data used from NOAA. event; there are records of riots in nearby Ely, Norfolk, and Cambridge.

A woman protesting in Brandon was reported to have said ‘Bread or blood in Brandon this day,’ and thus these protests are now known as the ‘Bread or Blood’ riots. Historian John Post later described this period as ‘the last great subsistence crisis to affect the Western world’.

Who would have thought that an ostensibly localised event could have global consequences and even divert the course of history here in Cambridge? Throughout history, volcanic eruptions remind us that everything we do is transient, we only need to look into the heart of a volcano to be reminded that the ground beneath our feet is constantly moving and, at any moment, a volcano could erupt, causing our great global network to crumble. The eruption of Tambora and the shockwaves it sent across the world invite us to think how modern day climate change can and has incited civil unrest. Whilst we have developed and improved infrastructure since 1816, the more recent eruption of Pinatubo in 1991 showed us once again the vulnerability of our global network to incremental climate change. We may not be shouting ‘Bread or Blood’, but it is easy to draw parallels between the protests in the streets of Cambridge demanding food and those occurring over 200 years later demanding action on climate change. I hope this eruptive story of climate insecurity inspires you to think about how localised events can have ripple effects across the world and reminds you of the fragility of our global system in the face of climate change. ■

Bread riots at House of Commons, London, 1815 (c1895). Image Sourced from: Cassell’s illustrated History of England, volume VII (c1895).

TRAVEL

The Streets and The State: Colombia as an Example of Progressive Urbanism

By Harry Regan

Image credit: Harry Regan 29 | COMPASS

To

the naked eye of the tourist, Colombia’s major cities are simply a stunning exhibition of urban art. Spreading down from the barrios of the hills to the city centres - graffiti dominates the urban landscape. Lying beneath, however, is a form of activism playing a role in the lives of almost all urban Colombians, from the Rolos of Bogota to the Paisas of Medellin. Formal political avenues to affect change are all but a facade. Corrupted by paramilitaries and hard to access for those at the bottom of the ladder in the seventh most unequal country in the world, more innovative approaches have been taken to pursue social change. The past decade has opened up new channels of activism, in a country continuing to struggle with the legacy of past and present human injustices.

On the 19th August 2011, Diego Felipe Becerra, a seventeen-year-old boy from Bogota, set off from his home to graffiti a bridge which now carries his name. Under the gaze of his signature wide-eyed Felix the Cat image, he was murdered by a policeman in his attempt to run away. The subsequent cover-up by the police and its eventual exposure to the public marked a seismic shift in relations between the establishment and its former foe. The graffiti artist, in the space of two

years, went from enemy to employee of the state. A decree issued in February 2013 by the mayor of Bogota, promoted the practice of graffiti as a form of artistic and cultural expression and legalised particular public spaces for its display. This simultaneously shifted attitudes not only to legal forms of graffiti but to those that continued to be deemed illegitimate. Private companies even began to commission pieces across the city. Graffiti had formally earned the right to be classified as art.

One of the first symbolic pieces of urban art was ‘The Kiss of the Invisibles’, a 10-story-tall mural in Bogota depicting two homeless people kissing. As the graffiti artist known as CRISP noted, this work was an exemplar demonstration of the decree’s impact on local urban areas. Longer and larger projects, formerly impossible with strict prohibition, hold greater meaning and value for the community. For locals often deprived of what Don Mitchell (2003) terms their ‘right to the city’, such artwork allows them to claim ownership of their neighbourhood and feel a sense of belonging. In many cases, it has also provided a vital income revenue for marginalised communities. Camilo Gordillo, a street artist belonging to a collective known as Atresmanos has been paid $10,000 for a four to five-day project. Many of these funds are reinvested into the local community

Image credit: Harry Regan COMPASS | 30

Image credit: Harry Regan 31 | COMPASS

This is not to say all of the city’s graffiti scene were auspicious about the change. Sceptics were reluctant to acclaim the effect of legalisation on activism and the authority’s true commitment to urban art-forms. When Justin Bieber set out with a police escort to paint on Bogota’s city walls deemed off-limits by the new decree after a concert in 2013, it seemed as if their doubts were confirmed. The double-standards of the authorities had already been exposed. Surprisingly, however, this act provided the stimulus for a social mobilisation. In Bogota, Medellin, and Cali, hundreds of artists set out to paint their cities, taking advantage of the police’s inability to act.

In response, even the head of the Colombian police, Rodolfo Palomino, expressed his view of graffiti as a “positive art” in an interview with the newspaper El Comercio. Whilst this was a monumental moment for Colombia’s graffiti activists, relations with the authorities a decade on are not yet one of mutual trust. Protests arose in 2014 over the painting-over of works and in 2017, according to the Bogota Post the listing of 2,500 facades of heritage buildings for ‘whitewashing’ by a new mayor created significant tensions. Whilst the situation has undoubtedly improved since its lowest point in 2011, tensions are bound to reignite in the future.

Most significantly, the change in the relationship between the state and street artists has ultimately opened up ample opportunity for social activism. Social actors have begun to feel empowered. Camilo Fidel Lopez, the founder of Bogota crew Vertigo Graffiti, has spoken of how his “job is to start conversations” in an interview with the New York Times, demonstrating the newfound sense of agency experienced by many in the scene. This has manifested itself in social initiatives.

One of the most notable examples was the Plaza de Hoja program, where according to El Pais, 457 families are now living in subsidised homes after previous displacement. Graffiti has been used to provide a common task and

Image credit: Harry Regan

develop local identity with the artwork occupying over five-thousand square metres. Other examples are more overtly political. The artist Toxicomanocallejero has up to eighty-thousand followers on Instagram and created the graffiti political candidate known as ‘Edi’ in 2018. Using this figure, he has ridiculed the untrustworthiness of politicians across Bogota, exposing their lies to locals.

More recently, street art has proved particularly potent in a world of social distancing. Laura Mora, a 39-year-old filmmaker from Medellín, has used the city’s walls as a printing press to display messages, with her initiative spreading to Sao Paulo, Chile, Uruguay, and Mexico. Ample examples exist of artists providing a political and social commentary open to the public’s interpretation.

Ten years on from the murder of Diego, the battle between the authorities and artists is far from over. According to Mayor López, in 2020 there were over 137 complaints of police brutality in Bogotá. In light of this unceasing environment of injustice, the means to express oneself through

art proves vital. Graffiti offers the ability to fight back, providing a medium of expression for activists desperate to address social injustices. Decriminalisation of urban art is an essential step to repairing the relationship between the authorities and those who feel they have lost their ‘right to the city’. The story of Colombia’s graffiti scene in the past decade is a crucial one to be aware of. The city authorities in Paris in recent years have started to take note of how Colombia has begun to rebuild itself in light of a seemingly irreparable situation in 2011. This is encouraging for urban social activists worldwide. As Diego’s mother herself put it, “if the purpose behind this tragedy is to create a more tolerant society and to legitimise graffiti as an art, then Felipe from heaven will be satisfied.” ■

References: Mitchell, D., 2003. The right to the city : social justice and the fight for public space / Don Mitchell.

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Into the Exclusion Zone: The Ethics and Lessons of Nuclear Tourism

By George Worrall

The

forests to the north of Ukraine’s capital Kiev are unlike anywhere else on Earth. The dense pine trees stretch out to the horizon, punctuated only with lakes, rivers and the occasional brown bear. Yet this landscape has a dark and troubling past filled with tragedy.

That tragedy is, of course, the Chernobyl disaster of 1986.

On that fateful night in April, a combination of human error, negligence and corruption all culminated in a steam explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, located in Ukraine but just a few kilometres from the border with Belarus. The subsequent fire burned for weeks and released more radiation than 400 Hiroshima bombs according to The Independent. The UN has been able to link 50 deaths directly to the disaster, but estimated in 2005 that as many as 4,000 could die from subsequent radiation exposure. Since 1986 the area surrounding the power plant has been designated as an exclusion zone, where no one can enter or step foot Certain parts of the exclusion zone owing to the toxic contamination which will leave the area remain highly radioactive. desolate, and uninhabited, for thousands of years to come. Image credit: Johannes Daleng.

Or so you would think. The area is surrounded by a guarded exclusion zone, but tourists can visit. Tens of thousands visit each year, mostly to see the eerie abandoned Soviet cityscapes of the town of Pripyat. Yes, that’s right, a site that has gone from being a radioactive hotspot, cloaked in an exclusion zone behind the Iron Curtain is now a tourist hotspot, that has flung open its doors to the world. According to Responsible Travel, the zone is “generally safe” for tourists aside from some “radiation hotspots” They also say that overall, the amount of radiation you would be exposed to on a short visit is less than that of a long-haul flight.

The remains of the Chernobyl power plant alongside a memorial to those who lost their lives in the clean-up operations. Since this photograph was taken, much of the reactor building itself has been covered by a metal dome designed to protect against further radiation leaks.

Image credit: Denis Reznik.

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Chernobyl is a unique place shrouded in danger and intrigue - an attractive combination for many would be intrepid tourists. With the rise of Instagram and social media oriented travel, the allure of a photo with the infamously iconic red and white chimney of the reactor building has for many been too much to

resist. With the draw of Chernobyl moving away from attempting to understand and learn from the past, and towards a way of making a statement about one’s adventurousness, questions about the ethics of visiting this destination have rightfully been raised.

This trend has likely been accelerated by the hugely successful and popular 2019 HBO miniseries simply titled Chernobyl, which documented the build-up and aftermath of the disaster in a captivating yet chilling fashion.

The series itself was nominated for an impressive 19 Emmy and is also currently ranked as the 5th highest rated TV series of all time by IMDb. Unsurprisingly for a programme of this calibre with such international appeal, tourist numbers to Chernobyl skyrocketed. Reuters reported a 40% increase in the numbers of people visiting the exclusion zone after the programme had aired. These tourists provide valuable sources of revenue for an area that has been a colossal economic drain for Ukraine. The disaster is estimated to have caused $235 billion in damages according to National Geographic, and the area is still unsuitable for activities such as farming - and will be for a long time to come. Tourism therefore offers one of the few means of economic rejuvenation for the region.

But if tourism is such an economic lifeline to an area devastated by this disaster, then surely it is a good thing? On the one hand, phenomena such as the Chernobyl TV series and their associated rise in tourist numbers play an important role in raising awareness and drawing attention to the unbelievable human suffering this disaster caused. But at the same time, it also acts to distance

ourselves from the reality of it. Many people’s first thought about Chernobyl now will undoubtedly be the imagery and characters of the TV series, rather than the facts of the event itself. The series has some commitment to realism, but this can only go so far – particularly when entertainment, rather than education, is the priority. The association of these events with a TV drama in our collective consciousness therefore can further people’s disassociation with the tragic reality of Chernobyl.

This feeling of disassociation is particularly relevant when it comes to tourism. Visiting sites of tragedy to learn more and understand the harsh realities of the past is important, and there are many examples around the world where this has been shown. Yet it is also important to recognise that sites such as Chernobyl aren’t a backdrop for a photoshoot or a studio tour for a TV series, but rather a place to be respected and understood. It is also vital to remember that there is still a significant degree of danger for those who are unwary.

So ultimately it comes down to the outlook of an individual, but tourism to Chernobyl can be a force for good. There is much to be learned from a site like this which has been practically untouched for almost forty years, as it speaks volumes both about our past, and our future, as a species. The way plants and animals have recolonised and taken over the built environment abandoned by humans in such a short period, shows us both humanity’s impermanence and the resilient ability of nature to thrive in areas humans cannot.

An abandoned fairground in the town of Pripyat which is rapidly being reclaimed by nature.

Image credit: Ilja Nedilko Nuclear power and nuclear disasters also serve as a stark reminder of the human condition. A source of once seemingly unlimited power, which led us to believe we could tame something with such a potential for destruction, shows us the forces of nature that we can unleash through our own fallibility can be catastrophic. Lessons such this are particularly important to learn when faced with impending catastrophes such as climate change.

Out in the forests in northern Ukraine, the dense pine trees hold not just a site for tourists, but a lesson to be learned. The Chernobyl disaster and the opening of the area to tourism provides an opportunity to learn from mistakes and create a better future, but only if this is done through respect for, and awareness of, the events of the past. ■ COMPASS | 34

COMMENT

Who is The City For?

Privatisation, Surveillance and Democracy In The Neoliberal City

Sourced from Anthony-reungere, Unsplash 35 | COMPASS

Privatisation of this sort is not limited to London; it has engulfed parts of many cities, including Cambridge. Local authorities often won’t disclose which parts of the city have been sold, and so not only is our liberty being infringed We began by asking Anna to upon, but it is happening silently. describe how neoliberalism manifests in the city. ‘The elements The last vestige of ownership of the built environment that I As private capital encroaches really focus on are the privatisation on our public spaces, housing is of public space and the housing perhaps the last pillar of the civic right crisis’. She continued to describe to the city. However, for low income the more iniquitous processes Londoners even this is being accompanying mass privatisation: eroded, by what Anna describes in Big ‘[the privatisation of public space Capital, as the ‘super-prime has] also been accompanied by crisis’. This is how she explained its an undermining of democrat- effect: ‘we’ve had this huge influx of ic processes, particularly in the capital come into London. The planning system. The planning arrival of all of this money into the system is the interface of local city impacts upon prices in the rest of democracy and local democrat- the city. They’re priced out of the city’ ic participation. [For] a lot of this -referring to those whose privatisation of public space, peo- neighbourhoods are caught ple haven’t really had any say in up in this mass house price whether or not those are going to inflation and can no longer go ahead. Very often these huge afford to live in their community. tracts of land are put together through compulsory purchase ‘We may not most of us hang out orders, and there’s been really with the billionaire class who have heavy opposition, but that hasn’t properties in various parts of the actually been able to express world… but their place in the city itself’. Anna is clear in her does impact on us through what critique of these ‘pseudo- I describe as the trickle-down public’ places, denouncing effect’. House price inflation at these them as ‘undemocratic spaces’. ‘golden postcodes’ is not an issue just for the rich and famous. As “They are people move steadily outwards as prices in their neighbourhood restrictive and soar - they push up prices in those undemocratic areas, thus creating a ‘domino effect’. ‘The impact of super-prime places” kindly agreed to sit down with us and mull over the question: who is the city for? This is a question we should all be asking as our public space becomes increasingly privatised, marketized, and segregated.

In conversation with Anna Minton Interview by Olivia Byrne and Laura Bailey Written by Laura Bailey

Just

south of St Pancras Station lies sixty-seven acres of recently privatised land. It boasts an array of public parks and squares, in amongst almost 2,000 luxury homes and a new university, all nestled into this seemingly public – but actually entirely privatised – area of London. These pseudo-public streets are apparently the perfect spot if you are well-to-do, enjoy hanging out in fancy bars, and living in sterile neighbourhoods. However, if you enjoy exercising your freedom to take photographs, skateboard, or stage political protests - or to simply do nothing – these places are not for you. The insidious erosion of our public space is, according to Anna Minton, leaving us with “restrictive and undemocratic”spaces built under a neoliberal agenda.

We spoke to Anna, author of popular books Ground Control: Fear and Happiness in the Twenty-First Century City and more recently Big Capital: Who is London For? via Zoom from her home in South London. An Oxford graduate, eminent journalist and reader at the University of East London (UEL) she

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areas is not limited to those super-prime areas themselves…it displaces communities.’ As Anna sets out in Big Capital, this is felt most by those with low incomes, many of whom are being moved out of London completely, with some being displaced as far as Birmingham, Leeds and Middlesbrough.

Anna brought our focus back to the origins of this trend, namely ‘quantitative easing, the policy of bailing out the banks, which saw British banks get over one trillion pounds in new money’ and the ‘surge of foreign investment’ – here she noted the very lax tax regulations in the UK – ‘a lot of which is from uncertain sources. This has resulted in these super expensive areas in London, the so-called ‘golden postcodes’ of which there are many: Highgate,

‘We may not most of us hang out with the billionaire class...but their place in the city does impact on us’ Fear and discontent in our capital cities

Accompanying privatisation and property inflation is the roll out of security across our cities – think mass CCTV and security guards in shopping centres. ‘At the heart of the argument I make in Ground Control around fear and distrust is about the perceived need for security which has accompanied the segregation of the environment. The rollout of security actually is what has created the growing fear and distrust between people’. Our spaces are being increasingly monitored, controlled and sterilised – not for our safety, but for profit.

Sourced from Unsplash

‘I don’t see that there are any inevitabilities here’ There is an alternative

‘I don’t see that there are any inevitabilities here’.

Anna was keen to debunk the neoliberal rhetoric that these trends are unavoidable. Unwilling to accept this she told us ‘[it is all] very much driven by policy, and behind policy is the ideology’. She cited the housing crisis as a key area where this rhetoric plays out: ‘I think we’ve got to question - is there a housing crisis?

Well, of course there is in terms of the fact that lots of people live in a completely unacceptable way and have to suffer a lot because of their housing. But is there a housing crisis in terms of a policy crisis? No. What we’ve got actually is the result of the policies that we have in place. So that’s not a crisis. It’s an outcome.’

‘The growth of private security really is a result of the growth in private property’ – known as the ‘mass privatisation thesis’. In the context of declining crime rates Anna puts this highly securitised environment down to the interaction of finance, insurance, and security – ‘all of these come together to create this environment where private property needs private security because it needs to be insured’. Harking back to the Kings Cross development, we see that these spaces are not created for public benefit; they are places of consumption, for the “right” people to do the “right” things.

37 | COMPASS

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sh

To round off the interview we asked Anna what she would do to preserve the right to the city if she was in 10 Downing Street. She was bold but pragmatic. ‘[I would] literally ring fence the role of original communities and small businesses in parts of the city. Reserve areas where the rents of those small businesses can’t be put up… they can be assured that they will remain in that part of the city.

I wouldn’t be nationalising the city. I’m just subscribing to a much more moderate form of capitalism, which works for many more people. We do not have a free market anyway, it is constantly being intervened in. But we’re told all the time that it is a free market, so it’s all a mythology.’ ■ We would like to thank Anna for her collaboration with this piece. For more information about Anna and to find her publications visit https://www.annaminton.com/

‘[it is all] very much driven by policy and behind policy is the ideology’ ‘I’m just subscribing to a much more moderate form of capitalism, which works for many more people’ Sourced from Unsplash

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Violence On the Move: The Truth About Migration In Europe committed on a daily basis’ on this route, and yet there seems to be a remarkable lack of media attention or knowledge in the UK about the danger European countries pose to the desperate people longing for a safer future. I interviewed Reid Kelly, a UK university student who has spent time volunteering in several European countries, to find out more about the geographies of migration, persecution and claiming asylum.

‘atrocious human rights abuses… committed on a daily basis’ on this route,

An interview with Reid Kelly, a humanitarian volunteer.

Interviewed and written by Izzy Taylor CN: mentions of violence and discrimination

You

may have seen images of smoke billowing into the sky and people abandoned in fields when a Bosnian migrant camp burned down just before Christmas last year (InfoMigrants, 2020). Bosnia, in south eastern Europe, is part of the Balkan Route, a migration pathway where people from the Middle East and Africa attempt to journey to northern Europe. People-on-the-move face extreme violence, persecution and ‘atrocious human rights abuses…

Image credit: Reid Kelly 39 | COMPASS

Reid tells me his interest first developed when the headlines were filled with the so-called migrant ‘crisis’ in 2015. He is quick to point out that the use of the term ‘crisis’ is merely a rhetorical device used to scaremonger and turn the population against people-on-themove. Last year, Reid spent six months volunteering at a refugee community centre in Jordan. After a short return back home due to the pandemic, he crossed the channel to volunteer in Calais for six weeks. ‘We’d do half a day in the warehouse sorting donations and getting ready for distributions, and then we’d go to a different site each day and do the distribution. This was usually clothes, and twice a week we gave out food packs and did other services such as haircutting.’ After Calais, Reid moved to Serbia where he was helping people sheltering in squats and abandoned buildings with a washing and hygiene project. However, Reid was arrested and deported after nearly five months as a result of his efforts to help. Following this, he was able to cross the border into Bosnia where, shockingly, the same events unfolded. He is now in Turkey and focusing on university work for the term, then plans to continue his turbulent volunteering role.

‘the term ‘crisis’ is merely a rhetorical device used to scaremonger and turn the population against people-on-the-move’

abuses in the Balkan region. The ‘Black Book of Pushbacks’ is their recent publication detailing ‘the horrific violence suffered by over 12,000 people at the hands of the authorities on the EU’s external borders…’ (BVMN, 2020).

Reid goes on to explain that Frontex, the EU border agency, has been involved in these illegal pushbacks. They were accused of ‘turning a blind eye towards well-documented systemic human rights violations at Hungary’s Schengen borders’ according to a Hungarian human rights watchdog (InfoMigrants, 2021). However, some good news has recently emerged: Frontex have announced they are suspending operations in Hungary (EUobserver, 2021).

Image credit: Reid Kelly As well as harsh winter conditions and the ongoing risk of Covid-19, the people-on-the-move in the Balkan region face shocking violence. One of the common ways violence is experienced is in the event of a pushback. Reid explains this ‘is when a person or group of people return from crossing the border without due process. Pushbacks are illegal expungement.’ He explains how this is not only against Article 14 of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, but also the 1951 Geneva Convention.

‘Beatings, property theft, sexual assault…a lot of really awful events’ occur on a regular basis, Reid explains. This violence is from authorities, police and camp officials, and Reid tells me that some countries ‘for example, Croatia, [have a] government [that] just deny any of this is happening, even though there is so much evidence this is actually going on.’

Reid has collected testimonies and helped write the monthly reports for Border Violence Monitoring Network (BVMN). This is an independent network of NGOs and associations who report on the violence and human rights

Sourced from Unsplash Hopefully this move will change the current landscape of the Hungary-Serbia border. Reid says ‘[it] has become more and more militarized and fortified.’ He continues, ‘there is a fence… drones, and surveillance like lasers, border police and dogs. Part of this border is a river… and people have died in the River Tisa because they have been forced into the water by Hungarians’.

COMPASS | 40

Sourced from Unsplash Another shocking event which BVNM have reported on is the existence of fire pits where authorities burn the possessions of people-onthe-move. Reid says this is very common in pushbacks from the Croatian border. He also points out that the existence of fire pits ‘show that the same locations are being used for the pushbacks.’ This is an interesting intersection between the shocking human rights abuses and the scarring effect this has on the physical landscape. Reid goes on to say that ‘between Croatia and Bosnia is forested area… and in parts of it there are massive sparse areas where Croatians have cleared the trees to make it easier to spot people when they cross over.’ This is

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a very visual and lasting impact on the landscape.

There are so many frustrations to be seen in this situation. Reid sounds exasperated, telling me‘there are just so many people who will never have a fair chance to claim asylum in the country they want to go to.’ He explains that ‘if someone speaks German or English or has family [in another country] then they should be able to choose to claim asylum there.’

Another frustration for Reid is ‘knowing the violence and discrimination people-on-the-move face as they move through ‘safe’ countries, such as France.’

He goes on to say that ‘there’s a tendency for people to think human rights abuses happen in

the Middle East or Afghanistan - a very Orientalist viewpoint.

But it’s European countries that are doing this, even Frontex…’.

Throughout the interview, Reid remained humble about the work he has done. He says ‘it is hard knowing that I have this passport which means I can just go across that border whenever I want and there’s no problem, but people who have been living in abandoned buildings for 2 or 3 years and have been pushed back 10 maybe even 20 times, and that’s quite hard to think about.’

‘it is hard knowing that I have this passport which means I can just go across that border whenever I want’

Sourced from Unsplash

Sourced from Unsplash The Bosnian camp which burned down in December 2020 was a temporary Covid-19 shelter which ‘was never suitable for winter conditions.’ After it burnt down ‘people were left with nothing. No shelter. No food…and there are people still sleeping in fields or abandoned buildings…’

Reid speaks of trying to change people’s attitudes towards asylum as well as explaining why the ‘current asylum system across Europe is fundamentally flawed’. I hope that this article is a small step in that direction and is a reminder that no matter how the media portray this situation, ‘there is no excuse for the violence and hate against people-on-the-move.’ ■

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Living with Trees: A Shared Heritage Revisited

Image credit: Rob Penn relationship with the wooded world, which takes in particular moments of this history from which the most beautiful and useful artefacts of our existence were made and observes how the arts of our ancestors are faring today. Rob tells the story through felling his own Ash tree and making as many different items from it as possible – 46 in total. The book is a cry for attention for the forgotten material and all that we have lost in our surge towards modernisation. Reading this book, it was plain: this man loves trees, and I just had to speak to him.

Why did you want to tell the story of the Ash tree?

In Conversation with Rob Penn

By Laura Bailey

A

bestselling author, journalist, TV presenter and avid cyclist, Rob Penn has spent years managing a community woodland and has recently taken up the charge – under his co-founded charity “Stump up for Trees” - of planting one million trees in the Brecon Beacon area. In this piece we hear his thoughts on one of the most ancient and synergistic relationships of all, that between human and trees.

I caught up with Rob via Zoom from his home in the Black Mountains near Abergavenny to discuss his book ‘The Man Who Made Things Out of Trees’. The book is a graceful amble through our 43 | COMPASS

When I made the television series with the BBC called ‘Tales of the Wild Wood’, we felled an Ash tree and took it to a local sawmill. At the sawmill, there was a chap called Will Buller and he told me [that the wood] was almost valueless. If you wanted to sell it, you could barely sell it for handfuls of pounds. I reflected back on the life of the tree, and the time it had taken to fell it, to put it on the back of a lorry and to have it sawn into planks.

Yet, even after all that, it was effectively valueless. That led me to go away and read more about Ash and how we had valued it historically. It doesn’t take long for one to conclude that it is the tree species with which we had been most intimate over the course of human civilisation… the list of all the things that we’ve made out of Ash is exhaustive. And I thought that story needs telling.

Why is it important for us as humans to be surrounded by natural materials?

Our sensory appreciation of wood is the single, most important reason to have it in our lives. It’s really difficult to back that up with empirical

research, but it’s important not to forget it. Plastic has no sensory qualities at all, whereas wood does.

How did the journey with your tree and writing the book impact you personally?

understanding of Ash is immense. But nobody puts a value on that. It’s a direct line of knowledge and experience from Phil all the way back to the Wheelwrights of Mesopotamia. That is a powerful connection and something that we should cherish more.

The whole project with the Ash and becoming more intimate with it correspondingly has sort of made me angry about my iPhone. I carry it around with me all day. I cannot do without it. But it has no sensory properties whatsoever. And I kind of wish it did. I wish it was made from wood. Obviously ridiculous, but I wish that something that is so profoundly valuable to us, was made from a natural material. But it isn’t.

Then the bit that’s harder to talk about is what has it done having all the wood in my life? Has that had an effect on my mental wellbeing?Yeah, it’s difficult to say but I’d like to think so, I’ve got a kind of form of natural therapy under my hands.

Image credit: Rob Penn

No matter how modern we become, humans still seem to yearn for connection with nature. What are your thoughts on our drive back to the Earth?

Image credit: Rob Penn

In the book you met Phil Gregson, one of the UK’s last remaining wheelwrights. Should we be protecting this trade? Is it important?

There are probably half a dozen practising wheelwrights left in the United Kingdom; he displays a kind of remarkable continuity in practice.

In the course of an afternoon with him, I came to understand that he knew things that are not written down anywhere, not in a book, not on the Internet. Nowhere.

And if in a decade’s or generation’s time, there aren’t six wheelwrights left, there are none, then that knowledge is gone.

What does that mean? Is it important? I think it is.

Do we need to value it in some way? To me, it’s as important as the wheels he builds or our great buildings.

That’s the ferment of hundreds of generations of acquired knowledge working with this particular wood. His

I think it’s all displacement. We are all from the Earth. I think the urge to feel the wind on your back and feel the rain running through your hair and to see the seasons change and to watch nightfall and dawn break outside. I think all of these things are very powerful forces, which exert on us in very strong currents.

I think that’s part of the human experience.’

‘Something I do a year on year is watching a leaf unfurl. So, you have a branch of a tree that is close to your house or part of a daily walk, and you go past the tip of that branch at the same time every day for a couple of weeks, this means you literally watch a leaf unfurl, and it’s a total wonder. Normally I talk to people about watching a leaf unfurl in Spring and they think ‘Oh my God there’s a nutter in the room, how do I get away from him?’. And this year so many people said to me ‘Oh, so did I’, and said it was a matter of profound delight. I think through the horror of this pandemic that it has prompted some people to re-evaluate their relationship with nature in a very positive way.■ We would like to thank Rob for his collaboration with this piece. For more information about Rob visit https://robpenn.net/ COMPASS | 44

Bruises

Kada Williams, Trinity College, 4th Year Maths I’ve acquired a new habit of late. I’m trying to learn how to give up.

I’ve given up on playing the piano. I’ve given up on philosophizing. I’ve given up on writing as well.

I’ve taken all my notebooks from last year and put them in the cupboard. I have almost nothing -- my room, my credit card, and a few friends I go running with. I usually cry as I run. Sometimes, we talk afterwards, about clouds and pizza.

I had always preferred solitude. I was of the disposition that I come up with nothing new when I’m with people. Yet now, I have no choice. I’m rarely with people. I come home and start thinking about my running technique. I realize I’m alone.

One of my friends keeps saying, it’s all going to be over soon. He lives with two buddies he plays video games with on a plasma screen. It’s all about survival, he says. All the parties and events from before continue in virtual space. We’ve been living in our heads before, and now as well. Therefore, it is all the same.

In survival mode, there is no reason to cooperate. The other person is worse off, not better off, than me.

We’ll see how deeply rooted the bonds and commitments from before turn out to be.

Everything is pulled loose by the silent howling wind. The air we breathe is distrustful. I’ve given up on the unnecessary. I’ve put the bulk of my life in the cupboard.

Maybe, if I return for it in a year or two, the notebooks will be faded and covered in cobwebs, telling of a time that didn’t last. After all, it was unnecessary.

[the long fight]

Bernice Chan, Magdalene College, 1st Year English how do they piece the syllables of injustice together, and shape them whole? what is the colour of sin? the skies give no answer except — the cry of birds, blinded by streaks of poison, the thudding of beanbag rounds, the tsunamis of baby-blue ensnaring our hands, bloodied, as we march on. time is wrenched into painful stop-motion as tears slash open the grieving grey of a fighter’s rosy cheeks. man down. we raise banners woven of black cloth and freedom.

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Image credit: Sylwia Gajek

american dream

Margaux Emmanuel. Pembroke College, 1st Year English oh yes, america the world is yours, but reflected in fractured eyes : hypodermic skyscrapers - boiling lakes in metal spoons american joy costs sixty dollars a gram it’s either eyes closed, turned away or retinas turned sour, pupils dilated like crazy screeching for god, or someone like him how could you have done this to yourself a nation of wet palms and bursted veins patriots starving for a fix, putting a shaking hand over their hearts god bless america and then this deadly silence rats lining the gutter, raking hospital beds on the fourth of july america, why so quiet? so quick to blame: remember those bullets fired, so far away ? they seem to ricochet oh i didn’t mean to upset youcome on! pull yourself up by the bootsraps right? in the end, it’s either silver spoon

or steel spoon

P O E T R Y

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