Decolonizing Climate Discourse and Legitimating Indigenous Wisdom: Toward an Ecosystemic Episteme

Devoted to redefining western capitalist epistemologies through recognition and acceptance of Indigenous wisdom in modern sociopolitical structures, I use this paper to expose theoretical and material flaws in western neoliberal capitalism as an implicitly colonial knowledge system incapable of sufficiently addressing the climate crisis. Here, colonialism is broadly understood as ideological and/or material practices of exploitation and domination within social, cultural, economic, and ecological frameworks. Colonialism, in this paper, is further characterized by having particular philosophical commitments to notions of binarism, individualism, and consumerism which reveal capitalism’s structure and function as neocolonial by nature. Most evidently, today’s global climate crisis reveals such implicitly colonial assumptions and material consequences of western capitalist knowledge which continue to harm human and non-human cultures globally. For this reason, research on- and subsequent collaboration with- nonwestern, anti-colonial, and anti-capitalist approaches to climate mitigation is vital to critiquing and transforming systems of social and ecological domination. Holistically, Indigenous resistance offers a theoretical and physical space to actualize such transformations

Shearwater Foraging in the Southern Ocean: The Roles of Prey Availability and Winds

Background Sooty (Puffinus griseus) and short-tailed (P. tenuirostris) shearwaters are abundant seabirds that range widely across global oceans. Understanding the foraging ecology of these species in the Southern Ocean is important for monitoring and ecosystem conservation and management. Methodology/Principal Findings Tracking data from sooty and short-tailed shearwaters from three regions of New Zealand and Australia were combined with at-sea observations of shearwaters in the Southern Ocean, physical oceanography, near-surface copepod distributions, pelagic trawl data, and synoptic near-surface winds. Shearwaters from all three regions foraged in the Polar Front zone, and showed particular overlap in the region around 140°E. Short-tailed shearwaters from South Australia also foraged in Antarctic waters south of the Polar Front. The spatial distribution of shearwater foraging effort in the Polar Front zone was matched by patterns in large-scale upwelling, primary production, and abundances of copepods and myctophid fish. Oceanic winds were found to be broad determinants of foraging distribution, and of the flight paths taken by the birds on long foraging trips to Antarctic waters. Conclusions/Significance The shearwaters displayed foraging site fidelity and overlap of foraging habitat between species and populations that may enhance their utility as indicators of Southern Ocean ecosystems. The results highlight the importance of upwellings due to interactions of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current with large-scale bottom topography, and the corresponding localised increases in the productivity of the Polar Front ecosystem

Attitudes of US emergency medicine program directors towards the integration of climate change and sustainability in emergency medicine residency curricula

Background: Climate change affects hospital operations and the conditions and rates at which people seek treatment. Emergency physicians are relied upon to treat climate-related conditions and meet surges in demand. Educators have called for integrated education on climate change to better prepare physicians. However, the attitudes of United States (US) emergency medicine (EM) residency educators on climate change in the curriculum remains unknown. Methods: An initial pilot survey was developed and validated to assess US EM program directors’ attitudes towards the inclusion of sustainability and climate change in resident education. Likert scales were analyzed as a psychometric response to specific domains of residency directors’ attitudes towards climate change and sustainability importance and their inclusion in EM residency training. Concordance of Likert scores for questions on sustainability versus climate change were compared via Wilcoxon matched pairs signed rank test. Scores were compared across demographics, geographic location, political affiliation and self-reported knowledge of sustainability and climate change with one-way ANOVA analyses. Results: Seventy-five survey responses were received, with greatest representation from the Northeast and Great Plains/Midwest. Most participant's self-identified political leanings were liberal (43%). Respondents indicated that most programs do not include climate change education (90.3%). The median level of agreement with “climate change is an important issue for EM physicians” on the 9-point Likert scale was 6 (IQR= 1, 8) and for sustainability was 7 (IQR = 6, 9). The median level of agreement for “climate change should be included in EM curriculum” was 3 (IQR = 1, 6) and for sustainability was 6 (IQR = 5, 8). Responses were statistically different across political leanings and gender. Conclusion: While most program directors sampled believe that climate change and sustainability are important to EM, agreement with the importance of the inclusion of climate change in EM curricula was lower. Currently, climate change is not discussed in the majority of EM training programs across the United States. While low response rates limited generalizability, hypotheses were generated including potential differences in receptivity by educator age and gender

Risk of COVID-19 after natural infection or vaccinationResearch in context

Summary: Background: While vaccines have established utility against COVID-19, phase 3 efficacy studies have generally not comprehensively evaluated protection provided by previous infection or hybrid immunity (previous infection plus vaccination). Individual patient data from US government-supported harmonized vaccine trials provide an unprecedented sample population to address this issue. We characterized the protective efficacy of previous SARS-CoV-2 infection and hybrid immunity against COVID-19 early in the pandemic over three-to six-month follow-up and compared with vaccine-associated protection. Methods: In this post-hoc cross-protocol analysis of the Moderna, AstraZeneca, Janssen, and Novavax COVID-19 vaccine clinical trials, we allocated participants into four groups based on previous-infection status at enrolment and treatment: no previous infection/placebo; previous infection/placebo; no previous infection/vaccine; and previous infection/vaccine. The main outcome was RT-PCR-confirmed COVID-19 >7–15 days (per original protocols) after final study injection. We calculated crude and adjusted efficacy measures. Findings: Previous infection/placebo participants had a 92% decreased risk of future COVID-19 compared to no previous infection/placebo participants (overall hazard ratio [HR] ratio: 0.08; 95% CI: 0.05–0.13). Among single-dose Janssen participants, hybrid immunity conferred greater protection than vaccine alone (HR: 0.03; 95% CI: 0.01–0.10). Too few infections were observed to draw statistical inferences comparing hybrid immunity to vaccine alone for other trials. Vaccination, previous infection, and hybrid immunity all provided near-complete protection against severe disease. Interpretation: Previous infection, any hybrid immunity, and two-dose vaccination all provided substantial protection against symptomatic and severe COVID-19 through the early Delta period. Thus, as a surrogate for natural infection, vaccination remains the safest approach to protection. Funding: National Institutes of Health