‘Co-operation and Communism cannot work side by side’: organised consumers and the early Cold War in Britain

This article contributes to a better understanding of labour anti-communism in Britain through an exploration of the evolution of ideas and attitudes within the co-operative movement during the early Cold War. It demonstrates that the period witnessed an increasingly rigid separation of co-operation from communism and argues that this separation made it harder for activists within the co-operative movement to imagine a total or utopian alternative to capitalism. Drawing particularly on a close reading of the co-operative press as well as other sources, the study is divided into three main parts. The first section discusses sympathy among co-operators for the achievements of the Soviet Union, which increased during the war against fascism. The article then moves on to consider the continuing dialogue between British co-operators and their counterparts in European communist states and how international tensions shaped co-operators’ views. The final major section explores the hardening of attitude towards communism after Marshall Aid was declared in June 1947, and underlines the role played by figures such as A. V. Alexander and Jack Bailey who worked with the Information Research Department at the Foreign Office to spread anti-communism within the movement. The conclusion reflects, more speculatively, on what implications this shift may have had for the medium and long-term decline of co-operation and the hegemony of capitalist consumerism post-war

'The Curse of the Co-ops': Co-operation, the Mass Press and the Market in Interwar Britain

Though it continues to be neglected by historians, the British Co-operative movement had 6.5 million members in the early 1930s. The movement?s phenomenal success inevitably brought it into conflict with both private capitalists and government, who sought to contain co-operators? ambitions. The movement?s ideologues proclaimed that the great lesson of the Depression was that markets ought to be regulated by the democratic will of the people and that co-operative success proved that this was both practicable and possible. This article assesses the threat that co-operation posed to economic and business elites in this period, highlighting particularly co-operators? critique of the myth of the ?free? market and their fears concerning the rapid post-war growth of combines and syndicates. It explores co-operators? thwarted attempt to regulate markets in the interest of working-class shoppers by means of the Consumers? Council Bill after 1929 and then goes on to discuss the ?penal? taxation imposed on the Co-operative movement as a kind of disciplinary measure by the National Government in 1933. The role of the mass-circulation press provides a vital thread in the story throughout, for the anti-co-operative ?crusade? was fervently taken up by the press barons, Lord Beaverbrook and Lord Rothermere, who used all the powers at their disposal to try to extinguish the largest democratic movement of consumers Britain had ever had

TransCom 3 experimental protocol

July 2000.Includes bibliographical references.Sponsored by NSF award OCE-9900310, and NOAA NA67RJ0152 Amend. 30

On the relationship between attitudes and environmental behaviors of key Great Barrier Reef user groups

© 2018 by the author(s). Urgent action is required to address threats to ecosystems around the world. Coral reef ecosystems, like the Great Barrier Reef (GBR), are particularly vulnerable to human impacts such as coastal development, resource extraction, and climate change. Resource managers and policymakers along the GBR have consequently initiated a variety of programs to engage local stakeholders and promote conservation activities to protect the environment. However, little is known about how and why stakeholders feel connected to the GBR nor how this connection affects the proenvironmental behaviors they undertake. We present the results of 5891 surveys and show that the attitudes that residents, tourists, and tourism operators have about the GBR are closely tied to the behaviors and activities they take to protect the environment. Our findings suggest that the responsibility, pride, identity, and optimism that people associate with the GBR are significantly correlated to several proenvironmental behaviors, including recycling, participation in conservation groups, and certain climate change mitigation activities. Respondents who feel the strongest connection to the GBR take the most action to protect the environment. Tourism operators who strongly identify with the GBR take more action to protect the environment than those who do not. Encouraging individual identification with the GBR via targeted messages and engagement campaigns may assist not only in GBR conservation, but a wider sustainability movement as well. A better understanding of the individual attitudes and beliefs held by local stakeholders is a key first step toward effective communication to influence conservation activities

The impact of COVID-19 on community neurology patients

BackgroundThe COVID-19 pandemic has had a worldwide impact. People with neurological disorders are at an increased risk of severe infection and consequent mortality. In this study we investigated the impact of COVID-19 on community neurology patients in the absence of direct infection with the virus to see if their wellbeing was affected.AimsTo determine whether and how the COVID-19 pandemic affected people with neurological disorders, in the absence of COVID-19 infection.Methods A prospective survey of patients with neurological conditions to evaluate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on their quality of life, physical and mental wellbeing, access to goods/services and areas of unmet needs relating to the pandemic. The survey was completed by 243 community neurology patients in Perth, Western Australia from April to June 2020.Results Most respondents reported that COVID-19 impacted their daily life (80.7 per cent) and family relationships (73.1 per cent). 10.3 per cent of patients had a substantial effect on their access to facilities such as the gym, and services such as physiotherapy; as well as access to finances (7 per cent) and care (5.8 per cent); whilst anxiety was increased to a minor degree in over half of patients (55.97 per cent). Unclear public health information and guidelines, social isolation and disruption to routine were also identified as difficulties.ConclusionDespite the absence of direct infection with COVID-19, many neurology patients experienced physical and emotional detriment as a result of the pandemic. This study identified the need for organisation and amendment to provisions of neurological services in preparation for future pandemics

Interannual variations in continental-scale net carbon exchange and sensitivity to observing networks estimated from atmospheric CO2 inversions for the period 1980 to 2005

Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2008. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Global Biogeochemical Cycles 22 (2008): GB3025, doi:10.1029/2007GB003082.Interannually varying net carbon exchange fluxes from the TransCom 3 Level 2 Atmospheric Inversion Intercomparison Experiment are presented for the 1980 to 2005 time period. The fluxes represent the model mean, net carbon exchange for 11 land and 11 ocean regions after subtraction of fossil fuel CO2 emissions. Both aggregated regional totals and the individual regional estimates are accompanied by a model uncertainty and model spread. We find that interannual variability is larger on the land than the ocean, with total land exchange correlated to the timing of both El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) as well as the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo. The post-Pinatubo negative flux anomaly is evident across much of the tropical and northern extratropical land regions. In the oceans, the tropics tend to exhibit the greatest level of interannual variability, while on land, the interannual variability is slightly greater in the tropics and northern extratropics. The interannual variation in carbon flux estimates aggregated by land and ocean across latitudinal bands remains consistent across eight different CO2 observing networks. The interannual variation in carbon flux estimates for individual flux regions remains mostly consistent across the individual observing networks. At all scales, there is considerable consistency in the interannual variations among the 13 participating model groups. Finally, consistent with other studies using different techniques, we find a considerable positive net carbon flux anomaly in the tropical land during the period of the large ENSO in 1997/1998 which is evident in the Tropical Asia, Temperate Asia, Northern African, and Southern Africa land regions. Negative anomalies are estimated for the East Pacific Ocean and South Pacific Ocean regions. Earlier ENSO events of the 1980s are most evident in southern land positive flux anomalies