Gathering Storm Research Articles

Health justice in the Anthropocene: medical ethics and the Land Ethic

Industrialisation, urbanisation and economic development have produced unprecedented (if unevenly distributed) improvements in human health. They have also produced unprecedented exploitation of Earth’s life support systems, moving the planet into...

Pathway to STEM

Abstract STEM education, encompassing engineering and technology as well as science and math, was identified as a national crisis as long ago as 2005, when the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine published the report, Rising Above the Gathering Storm: Energizing and Employing America for a Brighter Economic Future. In 2007, Congress passed a law intended, in part, to improve STEM teaching. Fast forward to 2020 and the question is: Has the new emphasis on STEM education changed anything?

Emotional impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on U.S. health care workers: A gathering storm.

The COVID-19 pandemic is placing enormous stress on U.S. health care workers. Prior studies of infectious disease outbreaks and other catastrophic events have shown the damaging mental health impacts caused by these events. Implications for the policy and treatment of health care workers facing the COVID-19 crisis are discussed in this commentary. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Advocates of the Sword

Advocates of the Sword Douglas R. Egerton (bio) Kellie Carter Jackson, Force and Freedom: Black Abolitionists and the Politics of Violence. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2019. 216 pp. Illustrations, notes, and index. $34.95. Brutal reality often transformed the most determined ideology. Having for five years endorsed William Lloyd Garrison’s principles of nonviolence and moral suasion, in 1843 Frederick Douglass was confronted by a white mob in Indiana. Roughly sixty armed men attacked the antislavery speakers and tore down the outdoor stage. When Douglass tried to fight his way through the rioters with only a branch as a weapon, the mob knocked him to the ground, beat him until he was unconscious, and broke his hand. “I was Non-Resistant til I got to fighting with a mob in Pendleton,” Douglass later admitted. “I fell never to rise again, and yet I cannot feel I did wrong” (p. 41). Not long afterwards, Douglass openly became an “advocate of the sword” who welcomed the gathering storm of civil war (p. 43). Until recently, the historiography of antislavery action focused primarily on the white evangelical followers of Boston’s Garrison. When this reviewer began graduate school in 1980, studies of abolition invariably framed their topic as running from 1831 to 1861, with Garrison’s Liberator opening their sagas. Since then, thankfully, scholars have examined the dazzling variety of antislavery crusades, from early national stirrings under the Reverend Richard Allen to later activity in Washington City, from the contested southern borderlands to the Ohio Valley, and from politicized Liberty Party advocates to southern-born black activists and enslaved rebels. Although Manisha Sinha’s magisterial The Slave’s Cause (2016) is, as her subtitle suggests, a comprehensive History of Abolition, Sinha situates African American engagement and slave rebelliousness at the center of her study.1 Kellie Carter Jackson follows that path as well, arguing that black abolitionists not only embraced the politics of violence early on and so paved the way for the coming of the Civil War, but prepared the nation for black equality in the years immediately after the conflict. As have a number of recent scholars, Jackson observes that early national black militants grounded their crusade in the lessons of the American and Haitian Revolutions. While white Americans preferred to memorialize the [End Page 241] speeches and words of the Founders, black men and women emerging out of slavery chose instead to remember how revolutionaries in the last two decades of the eighteenth century had employed violence to liberate their nations, and their people.2 Even the failures of Gabriel and Denmark Vesey to free bondpersons in Richmond and Charleston, Jackson notes, were unable to cripple the optimism of those who “saw violence as a legitimate response to the institution of slavery and as a pathway to liberation” (p. 25). Earlier scholars such as Benjamin Quarles argued that black militancy emerged only as a response to the creation of the American Colonization Society, but Jackson persuasively suggests that Quarles had it exactly backward and that the ACS was founded in answer to a rising tide of black resistance after it became clear that New Jersey would be the last state to embrace gradual emancipation. As black militancy increased, Jackson sensibly argues, white reformers embraced moral suasion as much in response to the fiery words of David Walker as to the rising tide of southern proslavery thought. At least initially, black activists refused to see Garrisonian principles and the defense of slave violence as mutually exclusive. Brooklyn shoemaker Joseph Holly, who spoke at antislavery conventions and assisted runaways passing through New York, thought it prudent to endorse both offensive and defensive tactics against slavery, insisting that while violence and self-defense should not be a first resort for the enslaved, sometimes they were a necessary option. But especially after Nat Turner’s 1831 revolt, the question of physical force began to divide the antislavery community, usually along racial lines. The Reverend Samuel May was typical of those who preached that the precepts of Jesus condemned those who sought liberation through bloodshed, and on the few occasions when that view met with dissent from whites in the audience, Garrison was pleased...

The gathering storm: optimizing management of coastal ecosystems in the face of a climate-driven threat.

The combination of rising sea levels and increased likelihood of extreme storm events poses a major threat to our coastlines and as a result, many ecosystems recognized and valued for their important contribution to coastal defence face increased damage from erosion and flooding. Nevertheless, only recently have we begun to examine how plant species and communities, respond to, and recover from, the many disturbances associated with storm events. We review how the threats posed by a combination of sea level rise and storms affects coastal sub-, inter- and supra-tidal plant communities. We consider ecophysiological impacts at the level of the individual plant, but also how ecological interactions at the community level, and responses at landscape scale, inform our understanding of how and why an increasing frequency and intensity of storm damage are vital to effective coastal management. While noting how research is centred on the impact of hurricanes in the US Gulf region, we take a global perspective and consider how ecosystems worldwide (e.g. seagrass, kelp forests, sand dunes, saltmarsh and mangroves) respond to storm damage and contribute to coastal defence. The threats posed by storms to coastal plant communities are undoubtedly severe, but, beyond this obvious conclusion, we highlight four research priority areas. These call for studies focusing on (1) how storm disturbance affects plant reproduction and recruitment; (2) plant response to the multiple stressors associated with anthropogenic climate change and storm events; (3) the role of ecosystem-level interactions in dictating post-disturbance recovery; and (4) models and long-term monitoring to better predict where and how storms and other climate change-driven phenomena impact coastal ecosystems and services. In so doing, we argue how plant scientists must work with geomorphologists and environmental agencies to protect the unique biodiversity and pivotal contribution to coastal defence delivered by maritime plant communities.

Anatomy of a Genocide: The Life and Death of a Town Called Buczacz Omer Bartov

Bartov’s treatment of his mother’s hometown deftly balances the general and the particular while elucidating the collapse of empires and birth of nation-states, the erosion of the semi-feudal economy, the rise of aggressive nationalisms, the trauma of war and ethnic cleansing. He analyzes genocide on the ground: not the culmination of impersonal processes, but the personal riot of hatred, greed, and opportunism. While Bartov does not draw false moral equivalences between victim and perpetrator, he shows too how German occupation morally compromised many Jews. This book anchors a keen sense of Eastern Europe in gripping personal narratives, merging interviews with archival and secondary sources. Chapter 1, “The Gathering Storm,” summarizes the town’s history before 1914; chapter 2, “Enemies At Their Pleasure,” records the experience of World War I. Bartov stresses that the end of the Habsburg Empire—which afforded Buczacz many decades of peace and stability—was not foreordained. Nor was genocide. Still, when mass killing began, it was “cruel and intimate”; violence was compounded by betrayal as victim often knew perpetrator. Thousands of Buczacz Jews may have perished in Belzec, but many were murdered on the spot, driven to the pits by long-time neighbors.

Notes from the Editors, February 2019

buy this issue
 Climatologist James Hansen's 2018 "Climate Change in a Nutshell: The Gathering Storm," known as the Nutshell document, is the single most important analysis currently available for general readers seeking to stay abreast of the science and politics of global warming. Nevertheless, denial of the extent of the conflict between capitalism and the climate remains pervasive. Such views were subjected to a strong refutation by Enno Schröder and Servaas Storm in a November 2018 paper entitled "Economic Growth and Carbon Emissions: The Road to 'Hothouse Earth' Is Paved With Good Intentions."

The First History of Our Financial Crisis

Adam Tooze's Crashed is arguably the first historical narrative of the financial crisis. It is an ambitious account of the crisis and its global economic, financial, political, and geopolitical causes and implications. Crashed is organized chronologically in four parts—the “Gathering Storm,” “The Global Crisis,” “Eurozone,” and “Aftershocks”—and focuses more on the macrolevel structures, processes, and decisions than on the microlevel and the people suffering from the crisis. Except, that is, in aggregate numbers and a few empathic comments such as this: “As house prices fell, equity dwindled, and the hardest hit slid into negative equity. Families scrambled to slash spending and pay down credit card and other short-term debt. The result was a smothering recession in consumer demand” (p. 143).

End of fossil fuel economy: weathering the storm of transition to post-fossil society in Nigeria

Nigerian economy built on petroleum faces a carbon catch-22. Exit from fossil fuels in proliferation of electric vehicles is inevitable hence will impede Vision 20: 2020 and Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP). Despite this, there is no concrete fossil fuel exit strategy (FES) to surmount the gathering storm when the petroleum bubble burst. Using quantitative date, the study finds that power generation would be reliant on fossil fuels due to its cost effectiveness in the advent of FES imposed availability. Hence holistic smart energy system; large-scale biomass production targeted at feedstock exports, improvements in agriculture, massive renewable energy generation in wind, solar, hydropower and increased off-grid power generation would reinvigorate the economy in the post-carbon era. The study concludes that large-scale bamboo cultivation can provide energy and generate additional income with the private sector providing new investments in other renewables capable of leveraging enormous natural resources to generate revenue.

Women Missionaries and Colonial Silences in Kenya’s Female ‘Circumcision’ Controversy, 1906–1930

Abstract For the people of Kenya, recent global debates on the emotional and medical harm caused by female genital mutilation (FGM), allied to arguments about the human rights of the women subjected to such acts, have a significant historical resonance. In the 1920s, Christian missionaries in central Kenya mounted a concerted campaign to prohibit ‘female circumcision’ among their flourishing African congregations. This provoked a backlash, with thousands of Kikuyu Christians deserting the missions to found their own independent churches and schools in the early 1930s. These events, commonly referred to as the ‘female circumcision controversy’, mark a turning point in Kenya’s colonial history. Taking as its starting-point the murder in 1930 of a female missionary with the African Inland Mission, the article explores the actions and attitudes of white women missionaries, revealing a subtle and complex picture of missionary views of African society and the process of Christian conversion, arguing that, as the circumcision crisis developed during 1929, these women stood at the centre of the gathering storm, their experience emblematic of the emotional, cultural and political challenges in the circumcision debate. This account adds an important new dimension to our understanding of gender in Kenya’s circumcision debate, but it also reveals why colonial silence has surrounded the event at the very centre of the crisis: the murder of Hulda Stumpf.

The Gathering Storm: Is Untreatable Typhoid Fever on the Way?

ABSTRACTKlemm et al. (mBio 9:e00105-18, 2018, https://doi.org/10.1128/mBio.00105-18) present comprehensive antibiotic sensitivity patterns and genomic sequence data on Salmonella enterica serovar Typhi blood culture isolates from typhoid fever cases during an epidemic in Pakistan. Microbiologic and genomic data pinpoint the identities and locations of the antimicrobial resistance genes and the outbreak strain’s lineage. They propose that Salmonella enterica serovar Typhi be added to the list of bacterial pathogens of public health importance that have become extensively drug resistant (XDR). This paper portends possible dire scenarios for typhoid fever control if XDR strains disseminate globally. Since the outbreak strain is of the H58 haplotype, known for its ability to spread worldwide and displace endemic S. Typhi, this concern is well-founded. The report of Klemm et al. forewarns the global community to address control of typhoid fever more aggressively through prevention, should therapeutic options disappear. This Commentary frames the Klemm et al. findings within a historic perspective.

The Last Line of Defense: Corrigenda and Retractions

One of the key characteristics of a rigorous and robust science is that it has the ability to self-correct when mistakes are made. The focal article by Grand et al. (2018) has plenty to say about what faithful actors can do to ensure a more robust industrial and organizational (I-O) psychology literature, but we were surprised at how little attention the issue of correcting the research record was given. To be clear, the target article mentions the issue of research misconduct and even cites an article from Leadership Quarterly (Atwater, Mumford, Schriesheim, & Yammarino, 2014) that deals specifically with the issue, but it does not include guidance on this issue for editors or publishers. This is not surprising. The issue of misconduct is one that produces a great deal of discomfort in academic circles (Wager, 2015), and when it is discussed, it is usually only in the vaguest terms (e.g., Banks et al., 2016). Moreover, as Grand and colleagues point out, it could be argued that the “gathering storm” of questionable research that has enveloped other fields such as social psychology seems distant. Perhaps to reassure us, the authors point to several articles showing that results of our field seem to be replicable, robust, and relevant. But are they?

AAAS at the Forefront of Cultivating the Next Generation of STEM Professionals

Event Abstract Back to Event AAAS at the Forefront of Cultivating the Next Generation of STEM Professionals Iris Wagstaff1* 1 American Association For The Advancement of Science, United States It has been well documented that the U.S. is not producing enough STEM majors and professionals to fill the job demands of the current and future workforce (Carnevale, Smith & Melton, 2011; National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, & Medicine, 2007). This problem is heightened with respect to women and racial minorities who continue to be underrepresented (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, & Medicine, 2011; National Science Foundation, 2017). To maintain competitiveness in a global economy, the U. S. must leverage ALL of its human capital. This requires creating educational and career pathways to develop the talent needed to advance areas of health, energy, and national security. To this end, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) – the oldest and largest multi-discipline scientific association in the world - develops and supports STEM education initiatives through its Education and Human Resources Division (EHR). The three-pronged foci of the EHR division is scientific literacy, broadening participation in STEM, and developing the STEM workforce. This presentation will highlight some of these efforts that include: 1) the Emerging Researchers National (ERN) Conference in STEM for undergraduate and graduate STEM majors to present their research and participate in skills development, 2) Science NetLInks, which provides online K-12 lessons, tools, and resources for students, parents, and teachers, 3) Science in the Classroom – a collection of freely available annotated research papers from the Science family of journals, 4) GSK in the Summer – A hands-on science program for elementary school children offered in community-based organizations in the DC metro area and in 20 other cities across the U.S., and 5) the STEM Volunteers Program – an organization of STEM professionals who volunteer in K-12 classrooms in the Washington DC metro area. Outcomes and impact of the ERN Conference and support of chemistry students will be highlighted in detail. Acknowledgements I would like to acknowledge NSF for funding the Emerging Researchers National Conference in STEM - Grant No. 1645036, Shirley Malcom - Director of the Education and Human Resources (EHR) Unit of AAAS, and Yolanda George - Deputy Director of EHR. References Carnevale, A., Smith, N., & Melton, M. (2011). Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce. Science Technology Engineering Mathematics (STEM). Retrieved from https://1gyhoq479ufd3yna29x7ubjn-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/stem-complete.pdf National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, and Institute of Medicine. 2007. Rising Above the Gathering Storm: Energizing and Employing America for a Brighter Economic Future. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/11463. National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, and Institute of Medicine. 2011. Expanding Underrepresented Minority Participation: America's Science and Technology Talent at the Crossroads. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/12984. National Science Foundation, National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics. 2017. Women, Minorities, and Persons with Disabilities in Science and Engineering: 2017. Special Report NSF 17-310. Arlington, VA. Retrieved from www.nsf.gov/statistics/wmpd/. Keywords: stem, Education, NSF, ERN, Broadening participation in STEM, diversity Conference: National Organization for the Professional Advancement of Black Chemists and Chemical Engineers (NOBCChE) 45th Annual Conference , Orlando, Florida, United States, 17 Sep - 20 Sep, 2018. Presentation Type: Oral Presentation Topic: STEM Citation: Wagstaff I (2019). AAAS at the Forefront of Cultivating the Next Generation of STEM Professionals. Front. Chem. Conference Abstract: National Organization for the Professional Advancement of Black Chemists and Chemical Engineers (NOBCChE) 45th Annual Conference . doi: 10.3389/conf.fchem.2018.01.00060 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 19 Oct 2018; Published Online: 17 Jan 2019. * Correspondence: Dr. Iris Wagstaff, American Association For The Advancement of Science, Washington D.C., United States, irisrwag@yahoo.com Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. Abstract Info Abstract The Authors in Frontiers Iris Wagstaff Google Iris Wagstaff Google Scholar Iris Wagstaff PubMed Iris Wagstaff Related Article in Frontiers Google Scholar PubMed Abstract Close Back to top Javascript is disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser settings in order to see all the content on this page.

Urban Upheaval and the Enduring Appeal of Law and Order

Urban Upheaval and the Enduring Appeal of Law and Order

Rising against a gathering storm: a biopolitical analysis of citizenship in STEM policy

Science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) is a form of education seen by many governments and educators as a preparation of the types of students needed for the future. STEM education is being developed in many countries without the support of official policy, such as is the case in Canada. In the United States, the National Science Foundation (NSF), and a private non-profit organisation, Achieve Inc.™, have been enlisted to develop policy to guide the development on STEM nationally. Due to its influence in global politics and economy, many countries, including Canada, are interested in how the United States is preparing its citizens for the future through STEM education. In this paper we present a critical discourse analysis on STEM policy from the United States as a basis to discuss: biopolitics in science education; notions of citizenship in contemporary school education and science education; and citizenship and STEM education.

No to Uncertainty of Medicine by People: A New Gathering Storm

Abstract not availableChatt Maa Shi Hosp Med Coll J; Vol.15 (2); Jul 2016; Page 1-2

The Gathering Storm still looms

A decade on, the situation portrayed in the influential report of a deteriorating US science and technology ecosystem has, if anything, worsened.

Boulevard to broken dreams, Part 2: Implementation of the Polonoroeste road project in the Brazilian Amazon, and the World Bank's response to the gathering storm

ABSTRACT: This is the second part of the essay on the circumstances that led the World Bank to embrace norms and operational policies for environmental and indigenous people's protection in the late 1980s, as traced through the turbulent history of the Polonoroeste road project in the Brazilian Amazon. Polonoroeste became the spearhead with which environmental NGOs made their first attack on the Bank for participating in large-scale environmental and indigenous peoples' destruction.

The post-2015 landscape: vested interests, corporate social responsibility and public health advocacy.

This paper explores the tensions between UN calls for private sector engagement in the post-2015 landscape and public health opposition to those 'harm industries' that are 'corporate vectors of disease' for the mounting global non-communicable disease burden. The UN's support for public-private partnership has provided industries with 'vested interests' in the propagation of unhealthy behaviours with new opportunities for the strategic alignment of their corporate social responsibility (CSR) endeavours with the post-2015 sustainable development agenda. This has galvanised public health advocates to place pressure on the World Health Organisation to formalise their ambiguous stance towards private sector involvement in public policy formation and the resultant 'conflicts of interest'. This paper critically examines the 'gathering storm' between this 'anti-corporate movement' and the alcohol industry in the increasingly politicised domain of CSR. Drawing on the example of SABMiller's Tavern Intervention Program, the paper argues that CSR represents a profound threat to the sanctity and moral authority of the public health worldview. Questions therefore need to be asked about whether the public health-led path of industry non-association will necessarily result in health improvements or just a further retrenchment of the ideological faultlines explored in the paper.

A Forensic Psychological Research Question of Whether or Not High Profile Cross-Racial Police Incidents Compromise Officer Safety: A Dissenting Voice on Bias Training

Research to date has offered few insights when examining the forensic psychological impact that assessed bias (i.e., explicit-implicit) may have on police officer safety as a consequence of high profile cross-racial police incidents. This editorial reflects on 21st Century law enforcement complexities as noted by the stressful in-the-street policing work performed through using a multilayered public safety framework. From a forensic psychological perspective, by default, the lawful execution of police duties means that the calculated creation of a culture of safety is a critical psychosocial trust factor in diverse communities. Most informed police departments fully understand that public safety is an immediate product signaled by community markers like ethnoracial values, attitudes, perceptions, officer cross-cultural competencies, trust and historical patterns of procedural justice. However, high profile cross-racial police incidents are actually more known for reactivating unresolved residual affect that stems largely from the trans-generational communication of the perceptions from previous law enforcement offenses. These perceived police misconduct incidents usually predate current technology. For example, today the explosive use of cell phone cameras, 24-7 news coverage and easy access to social media outlets allow the more pointed details of police conduct to be made immediately known to the public. In fact, departments struggle to stay ahead of an unwanted public safety narrative that can reflexively emerge following these incidents. As a result, departments are too often left having to play catch up succeeding another high profile cross-racial incident. Forensically relevant research questions must be posed that ask whether or not the gathering storm of community outrage seemingly emerging from these cross-racial police incidents truly result in a rise in the violence directed towards police officers? Still, in order to address this police reality, post-offer forensic psychological screenings of applicants, academy preparation experiences and subsequent field training efforts continue to struggle to remain ahead of these diverse officer safety challenges. Perceived officer racial mistreatment remains a major concern in policing. As a result of another racial quick fix assessment, it has been determined that cross-racial incidents may in fact be a direct consequence of a paucity of officer training about their potential biases (e.g., implicit or explicit). There is some empirical basis that underscores a belief that Whites’ unconscious or implicit racial biases can influence them to evaluate and then react more negatively towards some racial groups. Perhaps even more challenging, these unwanted ethnoracial behaviors can appear beyond their own level of awareness.