Salvage: Gendered Violence in Activist Communities

How to best deal with sexual violence in radical social movements is a contentious issue in the UK Left. The persistence of and inability to deal with sexual violence contradicts the core values of equality and social justice at the heart of radical social movements. A legacy of being marginalised and subjected to state repression and scrutiny has led radical activist communities to develop important self-protective strategies to establish trust and belonging. Safer spaces policies, transformative justice and community accountability processes have been attempted to address gendered violence without recourse to the state. Debate has focused on the effectiveness and negative impacts of these interventions often at the expense of survivors and anti-violence activists. However, safer spaces policies and accountability processes are set up to fail without a critical exploration of wider power relations and self-protective cultural practices that already frame activist communities. We chose to develop knowledge and understanding about gendered violence in activist communities from the perspectives and experiences of survivors. Our project has a particular focus on exploring the experiences of women, transgender and non-binary individuals. August 2015 and January 2016 we interviewed 10 survivors who had experienced sexual violence within a range of different activist groups and communities across the UK. These accounts map out how layers of silence and denial can work in activist groups and communities to allow and maintain violence, abuse and harm. There was little evidence of a ‘one size fits all’ solution. Instead there is a need to better recognise how intersections of cissexism, homophobia, classism, racism, sexism and ableism shape survivors’ experiences and meanings of harm, available resources and solutions, and impacts of harm on individuals and communities. Understanding what can produce a ‘conducive context’ for sexual violence against women, transgender and non-binary individuals in activism offers crucial clues in how we can undo these harms. Progressive change requires no less than a reconceptualisation of culture that recognises violence as embedded in an ongoing struggle for power and control of activist arenas

Long-term carbon and nitrogen dynamics at SPRUCE revealed through stable isotopes in peat profiles

Peatlands encode information about past vegetation dynamics, climate, and microbial processes. Here, we used δ15N and δ13C patterns from 16 peat profiles to deduce how the biogeochemistry of the Marcell S1 forested bog in northern Minnesota responded to environmental and vegetation change over the past  ∼ 10000 years. In multiple regression analyses, δ15N and δ13C correlated strongly with depth, plot location, C∕N, %N, and each other. Correlations with %N, %C, C∕N, and the other isotope accounted for 80% of variance for δ15N and 38% of variance for δ13C, reflecting N and C losses. In contrast, correlations with depth and topography (hummock or hollow) reflected peatland successional history and climate. Higher δ15N in plots closer to uplands may reflect upland-derived DON inputs and accompanying shifts in N dynamics in the lagg drainage area surrounding the bog. The Suess effect (declining δ13CO2 since the Industrial Revolution) lowered δ13C in recent surficial samples. High δ15N from −35 to −55cm probably indicated the depth of ectomycorrhizal activity after tree colonization of the peatland over the last 400 years, as confirmed by the occasional presence of wood down to −35cm depth. High δ13C at  ∼ 4000 years BP (−65 to −105cm) could reflect a transition at that time to slower rates of peat accumulation, when 13C discrimination during peat decomposition may increase in importance. Low δ13C and high δ15N at −213 and −225cm ( ∼ 8500 years BP) corresponded to a warm period during a sedge-dominated rich fen stage. The above processes appear to be the primary drivers of the observed isotopic patterns, whereas there was no clear evidence for methane dynamics influencing δ13C patterns

Radiocarbon Analyses Quantify Peat Carbon Losses With Increasing Temperature in a Whole Ecosystem Warming Experiment

Climate warming is expected to accelerate peatland degradation and release rates of carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4). Spruce and Peatlands Responses Under Changing Environments is an ecosystem-scale climate manipulation experiment, designed to examine peatland ecosystem response to climate forcings. We examined whether heating up to +9 °C to 3 m-deep in a peat bog over a 7-year period led to higher C turnover and CO2 and CH4 emissions, by measuring 14C of solid peat, dissolved organic carbon (DOC), CH4, and dissolved CO2 (DIC). DOC, a major substrate for heterotrophic respiration, increased significantly with warming. There was no 7-year trend in the DI14 C of the ambient plots which remained similar to their DO14 C. At +6.75 °C and +9 °C, the 14C of DIC, a product of microbial respiration, initially resembled ambient plots but became more depleted over 7 years of warming. We attributed the shifts in DI14 C to the increasing importance of solid phase peat as a substrate for microbial respiration and quantified this shift via the radiocarbon mass balance. The mass-balance model revealed increases in peat-supported respiration of the catotelm depths in heated plots over time and relative to ambient enclosures, from a baseline of 20%–25% in ambient enclosures, to 35%–40% in the heated plots. We find that warming stimulates microorganisms to respire ancient peat C, deposited under prior climate (cooler) conditions. This apparent destabilization of the large peat C reservoir has implications for peatland-climate feedbacks especially if the balance of the peatland is tipped from net C sink to C source. Plain Language Summary Since the end of the last glacial period, about 20 thousand years ago, peatlands have taken up carbon and now store an amount nearly equivalent to the quantity in the atmosphere. Microorganisms consume and respire that peat C releasing it back to the atmosphere as CO2 and CH4. Until now, many studies have shown that microorganisms prefer to consume the most recently fixed carbon and that the deeply buried ancient peat carbon reservoir is relatively stable. However, climate warming is expected to upset that balance. The Spruce and Peatlands Responses Under Changing Environments is large-scale experimental warming of a Minnesota peatland designed to study these effects. We conducted radiocarbon analysis of the peat and the microbially produced CO2 and dissolved organic carbon in ambient and heated areas of the peatland and show that at warmer temperatures more of the ancient peat carbon is being mobilized and respired to CO2. This is troubling as it signifies a positive feedback loop wherein warming stimulates peat to produce more CO2 which further exacerbates climate change

Carbon Transfer from Labeled Leaf Litter into Mineral Soil at the University of Missouri Baskett Research Area, a Deciduous Forest in the Eastern United States

We used radiocarbon enriched leaf litter to quantify the transfer of carbon through a soil profile at an eastern deciduous forest in the United States, located at the University of Missouri\u27s Baskett research area in the Ozark mountains. Mineral soil was sampled from five plots before (2007) and after (2008 and 2009). Radiocarbon enriched leaf litter was applied to the soil surface each year and samples of native litter-fall and mineral soil from 0-5 cm, 5-15 cm, and 15-30 cm depths were collected. Soil samples were first put through a 2mm sieve and the particles that passed through the sieve were dried at 70 degrees Celsius for several days until constant mass was reached. The samples were then sent to Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory to be graphitized and subsequently run on the accelerator mass spectrometer. The method for graphitizing the samples was to measure out an amount of soil based on its estimated percent carbon concentration that would yield 1mg of graphite for analysis. The first process was to combust the soil with copper oxide and silver catalyst under vacuum. The gases produced by combustion were put on a graphitization rig and the water vapor and other incondensibles were separated from the carbon dioxide based on each gases physical properties. The carbon dioxide was ultimately separated and sent to a reaction chamber where it was reduced in the presence of hydrogen gas and an iron catalyst that provided a surface for the graphite to adhere to during the reduction reaction. The iron also served as a binder and thermal conductor. The graphite was then pounded into targets and analyzed on the accelerator mass spectrometer. Measurements of the carbon-14 count to carbon-13 current were taken. This information was then used in the mixing model equation to calculate the fraction of carbon in the mineral soil that was transferred from the radiocarbon enriched leaf litter on the surface. The results show that 8% of the carbon from the labeled leaf litter transferred down to the 0-5cm mineral soil depth. The 0-5cm depth was the only depth that showed a statistically significant increase in radiocarbon after 2 years. t-tests also showed the mean differences in radiocarbon in the 2007 versus 2009 5-15cm and 15-30 cm respective depths did not have enough evidence to support a claim at a 25% level of certainty of an increase in radiocarbon. To determine whether there was an increase in radiocarbon with statistical certainty at these depths over time we would need more replicates and/or more time for the transfer to occur before the next sample is taken

Salvage: Gendered Harms in Activist Communities

‘Salvage’ is a small-scale exploratory interview-based research project on harms, violence and abuse experienced by self-identified women, transgender and gender non-conforming radical social justice activists in the United Kingdom. The research project incorporates participatory action research approaches in that the research aims are rooted in dilemmas and experiences identified by activists in a series of workshops. 10 semi-structured interviews were conducted with sexual violence survivors between 10 August 2015 and 31 January 2016

Association with pedogenic iron and aluminum: effects on soil organic carbon storage and stability in four temperate forest soils

Soil organic carbon (SOC) can be stabilized via association with iron (Fe) and aluminum (Al) minerals. Fe and Al can be strong predictors of SOC storage and turnover in soils with relatively high extractable metals content and moderately acidic to circumneutral pH. Here we test whether pedogenic Fe and Al influence SOC content and turnover in soils with low Fe and Al content and acidic pH. In soils from four sites spanning three soil orders, we quantified the amount of Fe and Al in operationally-defined poorly crystalline and organically-complexed phases using selective chemical dissolution applied to the soil fraction containing mineral-associated carbon. We evaluated the correlations of Fe and Al concentrations, mean annual precipitation (MAP), mean annual temperature (MAT), and pH with SOC content and ¹â´C-based turnover times. We found that poorly crystalline Fe and Al content predicted SOC turnover times (p < 0.0001) consistent with findings of previous studies, while organically-complexed Fe and Al content was a better predictor of SOC concentration (p < 0.0001). Greater site-level MAP (p < 0.0001) and colder site-level MAT (p < 0.0001) were correlated with longer SOC turnover times but were not correlated with SOC content. Our results suggest that poorly crystalline Fe and Al effectively slow the turnover of SOC in these acidic soils, even when their combined content in the soil is less than 2% by mass. However, in the strongly acidic Spodosol, organo-metal complexes tended to be less stable resulting in a more actively cycling mineral-associated SOC pool

Defining the Sphagnum Core Microbiome across the North American Continent Reveals a Central Role for Diazotrophic Methanotrophs in the Nitrogen and Carbon Cycles of Boreal Peatland Ecosystems

Nitrogen availability frequently limits photosynthetic production in Sphagnum moss-dominated high-latitude peatlands, which are crucial carbon-sequestering ecosystems at risk to climate change effects. It has been previously suggested that microbial methane-fueled fixation of atmospheric nitrogen (N 2 ) may occur in these ecosystems, but this process and the organisms involved are largely uncharacterized