Category: Government

Trashing the living world

The latest post from George Monbiot.

In a weird way, this post published by Geo Monbiot on the 24th July, 2026, reveals a similar vein to yesterday’s post about the Save Europe Act. I mean they are both about the unfair and unreasonable power held by those in political command.

Over to Mr Monbiot (and I have his permission to republish):

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Chickened-Out

Posted on 24th July 2026

Trashing the living world on behalf of corporate power: is this really all we can expect from the ministers in charge of protecting it?

By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian 23rd July 2026

There’s a slightly mean question I often ask British people with an interest in the living world: can you name the Environment Secretary? I don’t intend to show them up: it’s not them I’m testing. I watch the brows knit, a finger go up, the mouth open and close. “It’s, you know, the one who … no, they went, didn’t they? That other one …” It’s been like this for seven years.

Why? Because throughout this period, we’ve not had environment secretaries. We’ve had portals through which corporate lobbyists may pass. The last incumbent to represent the wider public interest (and I can scarcely bring myself to type these words) was Michael Gove. In his other roles, he’s widely remembered with loathing and disgust. Out of office, he continues to poison public life, as editor of the Spectator. But in this role, to general astonishment, he placed the public good above special interests.

Standard operating procedure, by contrast, is exemplified by the final acts of the outgoing secretary, whose name, to put you out of your misery, is Emma Reynolds. To give just one example – which could be seen as an embodiment of everything that has gone wrong here – she spent her last weeks in the post trying to remove the brakes on industrial chicken farming.

In front of a parliamentary committee this month, she railed against the planning constraints holding back yet more giant chicken factories (let’s not grace them with the name of farms). If only these obstacles were demolished, she mused, “there is great investment out there waiting to be made … I want to bring down these barriers as much as you do”. She said she had spoken to other departments to ensure permission for new chicken factories was easier to obtain.

Neither she nor the MPs questioning her gave any hint of why these buildings have run into trouble with the planning system. In fact, there was no mention of any of the problems the factories cause: the MPs’ only apparent interest was in what the industry wanted. What’s the point of MPs if they simply channel corporate demands? But these factories are killing some of our most beautiful rivers. They generate far more dung than the surrounding fields can absorb. The surplus washes downhill into the nearest stream.

The only decision that counts is the planning decision. As soon as permission for a chicken unit is granted, the local tributary, and possibly the main stem of the river it drains into, is as good as dead. It’s not even as if these factories support jobs and growth: by killing the rivers, they help to destroy local economies.

I thought we’d won this argument. But argument, it seems, is no match for economic power. Reynolds’s loyalties appeared to lie not with the ecosystems she was meant to protect, but with the lobbyists threatening them. Perhaps this shouldn’t be surprising: before she joined Keir Starmer’s government, she worked as a lobbyist, representing the financial sector.

Disturbingly, it was the new environment secretary, Angela Eagle, while working as Reynolds’s deputy, who sought to drive through the “planning reforms” the poultry industry is demanding, telling chicken lobbyists “planning should enable ambition, not stifle it”. Will she now take Burnham’s “circuit breaker” promise seriously, and junk this appeasement of one of our most destructive industries?

At a recent farming festival, Reynolds claimed that boosting the poultry sector would enhance our food security. I don’t know how many times we need to point this out, but isn’t it bleeding obvious that it has the opposite effect? The feed sustaining chickens in these factories must be either imported or grown on land that could otherwise directly feed people. There could be more soya in chicken than in tofu: one report estimates that it takes 109g of soya to produce 100g of chicken breast. Yet this is just one of several components of their diet.

The chicken business in the UK is also controlled by a handful of giant companies: another security red light. If food security were the objective, the government would encourage us to eat fewer chickens and other animals, and more plants. But in parliament, Reynolds also proudly announced that she was disregarding the targets set by the government’s Climate Change Committee to reduce livestock numbers. I find myself asking, over and again: “Are they trying to harm this country?”

To advance their dismal agenda, Reynolds and Eagle set up something called the Farming and Food Partnership Board. Its aim is to encourage “closer collaboration between farming, industry and government”. How could it possibly be closer? The environment department, Defra, is a wholly owned subsidiary of the farming industry. The only members of this new board are government ministers and corporate representatives and lobbyists. Among its objectives is a “poultry sector growth plan”, to address the issue of “planning barriers”.

This chickening out is just one of many examples of how, by working for special interests, the environment department has harmed the ecosystems and the people it is supposed to protect. Another is the government’s “delivery plan” to restore nature, released by Reynolds just before she left office. It’s not a plan, and it won’t deliver: just a catalogue of vague hopes and blandishments. It could be summarised as “do nothing, for fear of offending landowners”. Far from meeting its promise to protect and restore 30% of the land in England by 2030, Reynolds’s department has presided over continued decline. That’s her legacy: less nature, less resilience, less security.

Much worse is planned: Starmer’s government proposed a “regulating for growth bill”, whose text we haven’t yet seen, but which appears to threaten even greater assaults on nature protection. It may contain one of his government’s most alarming proposals: creating a system that could be described as pop-up freeports, in which companies all over the country would be able to operate in temporary “sandboxes”, where the usual rules don’t apply. We should see this as a key test of Burnham’s promise to end neoliberalism: will he drop this nonsense?

I’ll keep asking the question, regardless of who occupies this office: do you know the name of the environment secretary? The answer is likely to depend on one factor: whether they are ready to break the grip of corporate power, and defend us and the rest of the living world. Whether, in other words, they want to do their job.

http://www.monbiot.com

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It makes for grim reading.

Thanks to George Monbiot for revealing the truth as to what is going on with the United Kingdom Government.

Save Europe Act

This is very important to all people, not just Europeans. This is vital for every citizen across the world.

Dan originally sent me the link to this video. I thank him enormously.

Here is the video:

I repeat, all persons who care about freedom, should sign this Act.

The wildfire smoke

A useful article from The Conversation.

When I first read this article, I thought everyone will be aware, such is the awareness of wildfire smoke in so many places, and media.

Then I realised that this was wrong, and if only one or two people benefit from the advice then it should be republished. The original was on The Conversation.

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Yes, breathing wildfire smoke can harm your health – here’s what you can do to protect yourself

A woman rides a bike through city air tinted orange by wildfire smoke. Neither she nor a woman walking in the background is wearing a protective mask.
Heavy wildfire smoke from Canada’s forests turn skies orange in Toronto and across parts of the U.S. in July 2026. Steve Russell/Toronto Star via Getty Images

Colleen E. Reid, University of Colorado Boulder

Wildfire smoke from fires burning in Canada and northern Minnesota has been pouring across the Great Lakes and northeastern U.S. states, turning skies an eerie shade of orange. In the West, smoke has also been spreading into communities in Colorado and neighboring states as more wildfires burn in hot, dry conditions in July 2026.

University of Colorado environmental health researcher Colleen Reid explains what’s in that smoke and why breathing it is a health concern everyone should be aware of.

What is in wildfire smoke?

Wildfire smoke is a complex mixture that includes nitrogen oxides, volatile organic compounds, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide and particulate matter. When homes or buildings also burn, they can release an even more toxic stew of chemicals from burning electronics, furniture, plastics, paints and much more.

What you see when you see a smoke plume or when the air is hazy with wildfire smoke are the tiny particles that are too small to fall to the ground right away with gravity.

These particles, which scientists call particulate matter, are very small – we measure them in microns. When you breathe them in, they can harm your health. The smaller the particles, the deeper they can get into your lungs and body.

Map shows heavy smoke and low air quality across the Great Lakes Region and into the Northeast
EPA air quality monitors show high risks from smoke in many parts of the Great Lakes and northeastern U.S. on July 15, 2026. Reds are considered very unhealthy levels. Purples are either extremely unhealthy for light purple or hazardous for areas in maroon. AirNow Fire and Smoke Map

You may have heard the term PM2.5. It means particles that are 2.5 microns or smaller in diameter, many times smaller than the width of a human hair. High concentrations of these particles in the air during wildfire smoke episodes are what trigger air quality alerts.

Has wildfire smoke been increasing recently, and why?

Yes, wildfires have become more frequent and more intense just in the past couple of decades, and when wildfires become more frequent and intense, so does the smoke.

Scientists have found that wildfires are becoming more frequent due to a variety of factors that include increases in fire weather – hot, dry, windy conditions that fuel the spread of fires due to climate change – as well as other natural and human factors. The reasons for the increases in wildfires vary in different parts of the world.

Other studies have found that wildfire smoke makes up an increasing portion of the PM2.5 in the air in the U.S., and in many areas it is offsetting the decreases in air pollution that the U.S. has gained through regulations of industrial and vehicle emissions under the Clean Air Act.

How could wildfire smoke affect my health?

Some effects of breathing wildfire smoke include shortness of breath, coughing, itchy or watery eyes, headaches, rashes and itchiness. But smoke can cause more serious harm. Numerous epidemiological studies have shown that hospitalizations and emergency department visits for asthma and other respiratory diseases increase during wildfire smoke events.

After you breathe in the particles, they cause inflammation and oxidative stress, and they can move into the blood and spread throughout the body, affecting other organ systems.

People stand in a field as a smoke plume turns the sky orange and then dark.
The height of a smoke plume, like this one from Colorado’s Aspen Acres fire near Pueblo on July 1, 2026, affects the amount of particles and chemicals people on the ground are exposed to. But generally, if you can smell smoke, you’re breathing it in. Michael Ciaglo/Getty Images

Breathing wildfire smoke has been associated with higher risk of preterm births and other issues during pregnancy, and potentially cardiovascular problems such as heart attacks and strokes, although the evidence for these effects are more mixed.

The longer-term health effects of wildfire smoke are less clear, but it is a growing area of research.

Where can I learn more about wildfire smoke risks where I live?

The first thing to do to protect yourself from wildfire smoke is to know how bad the smoke is and how long it is going to last.

One great place to get information for where you live on current wildfire smoke is fire.airnow.gov. You can zoom in on the map to where you live and find color-coded circles reflecting data from both U.S. EPA air-quality monitors and PurpleAir sensors that people have put in their homes.

The colors show the level of PM2.5 at that location and suggest the associated health risk.

To find out how wildfire smoke is expected to change over time in North America, you can look at maps from FireSmoke Canada and the U.S. Interagency Wildland Fire Air Quality Response Program.

What can I do to protect myself and my family from wildfire smoke?

First of all, depending on the level of the air quality index where you are, there are different recommendations. When wildfire smoke reaches unhealthy levels, stay indoors as much as possible, with doors and windows shut to keep the wildfire smoke out.

If you have an air cleaner, use it, but check the filter, as filters can fill up quickly. Similarly, check the filter on your home HVAC system and replace it if needed.

If you have to go outside, consider wearing a well-fitting N95, KN95 or KF94 mask. These masks can protect you from inhaling particles in the air around you. Looser masks, such as surgical masks, mostly protect others from what you breathe out instead. They do not have a tight seal around your mouth, and when you breathe in, the air with all of the particles can find its way around the sides of the mask.

Having a tight fit of the mask to your face is important so that when you breathe, the air is going through the mask and capturing the smoke particles rather than letting them into your body where they cause harm.

If your home is leaky and you can see haze inside, consider going to a public space, such as a library or mall, with a good HVAC system. Some municipalities have designated clean air spaces where anyone can go.

Colleen E. Reid, Associate Professor of Geography, University of Colorado Boulder

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Thank you, Colleen, and thank you The Conversation. Lots of good advice.

Has this UK Government gone insane!

A post by George Monbiot on the 9th July explains.

I looked up quotations about government, and this one caught my eye: “Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.” — Thomas Paine.

Here is that post by George, republished with his permission.

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In Deep

Posted on 9th July 2026

The numbers are simply mind-blowing: up to £264 billion for a climate “solution” that will increase emissions. Has the government lost its mind?

By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian 8th July 2026

The new prime minister will be looking for money? Well, here’s £21.7bn lying on the ground. The government could cancel its deranged, disastrous carbon capture and storage (CCS) programme at no cost to public welfare: in fact, it would greatly reduce the harm we will suffer.

Sorry, did I say £21.7bn? That’s the figure the government has been putting in its press releases for spending on this programme between now and 2050. But this covers only the first phase of the project. The climate experts Dr Andrew Boswell and Simon Oldridge worked through the data produced by the government’s Climate Change Committee, which was scattered across different spreadsheets, and discovered that the projected cost of the full CCS programme between now and 2050 is £264bn.

Yes, £264bn. More than a quarter of a trillion. This cost will be divided between the public and private sectors. Given the record of CCS programmes so far, we can expect the public to carry most of it.

An investigation by the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee found that roughly 25% of the public costs of CCS will be borne directly by the government, while the remainder will come from extra levies on our energy bills. The government should explain to the electorate that it intends to slap up to £198bn on our bills. Then see how that lands.

Even this might not be the end of it. Buried in an arcane side document is a government commitment to pay a “premium” for the hydrogen produced by the CCS programme for 15 years. This commitment is uncosted, but could run to tens of billions more.

But surely CCS is essential for cutting carbon emissions? That’s how the government has pitched it. On the contrary, this programme will massively increase them. The Climate Change Committee claims that the role of CCS is “limited to sectors where there are few, or no, alternatives”. But this is simply untrue. Its own data shows that only between 5% and 6% of the CCS deployment in the UK will be used to address the emissions of industrial sectors such as chemicals and cement, whose impact is hard to abate (though even here there are partial alternatives).

The great majority of CCS will be attached to new fossil fuel-burning power stations, wood-burning power stations and hydrogen production from fossil gas. In fact, almost all the projects in the government’s first tranche are for fossil fuel-based schemes. But there are abundant alternatives to these highly destructive plans. Given the speed at which battery technology is evolving, enabling a balanced and reliable electricity supply without any use of fossil fuels, the committee’s claim is bunkum.

Its insistence that we need hydrogen made from fossil gas is also baseless. Its own figures show that producing hydrogen from gas with CCS will cost twice as much by 2050 as producing it from the electrolysis of water, using renewable electricity.

The new CCS plants will mean massively more gas use than the UK would otherwise have required. Ultimately, that means more imports of liquefied natural gas (LNG). We now know that, thanks to methane leakage along the production and transport chain, LNG has higher emissions than coal. Two-thirds of its greenhouse impact occurs before the gas arrives in this country. So that’s all right then – it doesn’t count towards our national figures.

If the real aim were to cut emissions, we would push fossil fuel use in the electricity sector down to zero, and scale up renewables and battery storage instead. The net effect? Much lower climate impacts and much lower bills. Instead, the programme will greatly ramp up both. Why?

Well, the whole thing has been built the wrong way round. It appears likely to be the result of massive lobbying by fossil fuel companies. In 2023 alone, as the key decision on deployment loomed, the oil companies Equinor, BP and ExxonMobil attended 24 meetings with Conservative ministers to discuss CCS. Why? Because they know it’s the only way they will be permitted to keep burning gas. Governments have sought to find a way of meeting their demands while adhering to the climate budgets, so lo, a £264bn white elephant is born. As the Climate Change Committee admits, “gas with CCS accounts for around half of the remaining demand for fossil fuels in 2050” in the UK. In other words, this is their lifeline.

And now we know something else: that the scientific credibility of CCS as a climate solution was shaped by the oil company BP. Investigative work by ProPublica and Drilled discovered that BP both financed and helped steer one of the most famous of all climate papers. The “Wedges” paper, published in 2004, became a foundation of government policy around the world. It purported to show how climate stabilisation was compatible with continued fossil use. And one of the major policies its plan relied on was carbon capture and storage.

BP’s chief executive suggested the “wedges” concept. Another BP executive was so heavily involved that the scientists suggested he should be named as co-author. He declined: the industry tries not to leave fingerprints. The paper greatly oversold CCS, presenting it as “already deployed at an industrial scale”. In reality, it had barely been tested. Yet it underpinned three of the 15 climate actions the paper proposed.

Since then, there has been a long record of shiny promises followed by partial or total failures. In the UK alone, three attempts (the 2005 Peterhead plan, a 2011 demonstration project and a 2012 funding competition) have been abandoned, thanks to cost escalation and infeasibility. As the Public Accounts Committee remarks, the government “is taking a high-risk approach by backing first-of-a-kind, unproven technologies with large amounts of taxpayer and consumer funding”.

But success is not the point. The point is to provide a gigantic, publicly-funded reason for the fossil fuel industry to stay in business. Guess who the lead operator of the government’s first CCS cluster is. Hello, BP.

So we come round full circle. From cradle to grave, this programme appeases the world’s most antisocial and destructive sector. The wasted money, the lost years, the lost lives: for how much longer will this farce continue? And how many more warnings will the government ignore?

http://www.monbiot.com

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I am towards the end of my days, and we live a pretty frugal (as in use of fossil fuels) life.

However, that does not mean that I am not very concerned about George’s essay. I have a son, a daughter, and a grandson. They are a tangible group who will be affected by this proposed legislation. As will millions of other people.

I really hope, and this is truly meant, that the UK Government does not push ahead with this Act.

Our changing world.

Now, it is the technology being applied to our electricity supply.

Although we have an array of solar panels here at home, we still have electricity cables coming to the house. In the Winter, when the solar panels are nowhere enough for our electic consumption, we depend on Pacific Power to provide the electic power for our home.

That is why the following article, published by The Conversation, was highly relevant.

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Electric companies don’t need to black out customers to prevent wildfires – here are 3 relatively fast, affordable solutions

Jasmine Garland, University of Colorado Boulder

A severe winter snow drought has left snowpack levels far below normal across the American West in 2026. Without a slow-melting blanket of snow to keep the soil and forests moist, alpine vegetation is drying into a tinderbox earlier than normal and ramping up the fire risk.

The historic dryness means electric utilities are facing a dilemma: how to deliver power through dry, windy regions without accidentally starting a catastrophic fire.

To cope, many utilities are turning to a controversial method pioneered in California: the public safety power shut-off – better known as a preemptive blackout. Imagine your power provider deliberately cutting electricity to your entire neighborhood for hours to days, not because a storm hit or a wire broke, but because the weather forecast is hot, dry and windy. This preventive darkness is fast becoming the new normal for millions of residents in the West.

A map of the Western U.S. shows just about everywhere except northern Idaho far below normal.
Most of the snowpack in the Western U.S. was far below the 30-year average in June 2026, suggesting a dry summer ahead. Snow-water equivalent is a measure of the amount of water in snowpack. National Water and Climate Center

As an energy systems researcher living in the West, I study how our electric grid interacts with these escalating climate risks. I believe utilities have better options that boost fire safety quickly while avoiding the drastic move of shutting off the power or investing in expensive alternatives, such as underground power lines or microgrids.

Billion-dollar spark: Why the West is going dark

To understand why a utility would willingly turn off its own product, you have to look at how the Western grid was built.

Most rural power lines consist of bare, uninsulated aluminum wires strung across thousands of miles of wooden poles, often through rugged forests. If those wires accidentally touch one another or trees or the ground, they can short-circuit, sending off sparks that can start fires.

This system, once considered the greatest engineering achievement of the 20th century, has been responsible for some of the worst fire disasters in U.S. history.

Utility workers in hard hats and reflective vests burying a power line in a trench next to a road.
Burying power lines can keep the wind from blowing tree branches into them, but it can be prohibitively expensive, particularly where transmission lines pass through rugged mountains. AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli

In California, electricity infrastructure has ignited eight of the state’s 20 most destructive wildfires. The legal and financial fallout can be devastating. In 2019, Pacific Gas & Electric was forced into bankruptcy due to an estimated US$30 billion in wildfire liabilities stemming from equipment-caused blazes, including the 2018 Camp Fire that destroyed much of the town of Paradise. Because utilities are regulated monopolies, they can pass these massive liability costs to their customers over time.

California utilities have been using preemptive outages for several years to avoid causing more fires on hot, dry, windy days. Today, that strategy has spread beyond the state. According to the Western Electricity Coordinating Council, the independent grid reliability authority for the West, 24 western power entities had used preemptive shut-offs by 2026.

Colorado’s Xcel Energy implemented its first major preemptive blackout in 2025. Some of these outages have left communities without power for up to five days.

Chart shows how the number of utilities and agencies with policies for preemptive blackouts increased from 16 in the years before 2025 to 24 in 2026 alone
The number of utilities and agencies with policies of using wildfire preemptive blackouts has risen quickly in recent years in Western states. Jasmine Garland, based on WECC data, CC BY-ND

Fortunately, keeping communities safe does not have to mean leaving them in the dark. There are ways utilities can modernize electric system infrastructure quickly that lower the fire risk and keep the power flowing.

Solution 1: Covered conductors

The quickest, most cost-effective physical fix is to use covered conductors. Think of the electrical cords in your house. If you touched the bare copper wire inside, it would spark. But you don’t get shocked by household cords because they are wrapped in plastic insulation.

Utilities like Southern California Edison are actively wrapping their high-risk mountain wires in heavy, weather-resistant polymer insulation. By the end of 2025, SCE had installed over 700 circuit miles (1,126 kilometers) of this insulated “tree wire” in high-fire districts over the span of about a year and committed to modify an additional 1,481 miles (2,383 kilometers) by 2028.

A worker stands by a giant roll of covered conductor line – power lines covered in a plastic.
A Southern California Edison crew installs new covered conductor power lines in Aguanga, Calif. Elisa Ferrari/Southern California Edison

If a severe windstorm blows a heavy pine branch directly onto an insulated line, it simply rests against the wire without sparking. It is a highly effective middle-ground fix that’s significantly less expensive than burying transmission lines in mountain forests, and it can be deployed rapidly across thousands of miles.

2. ‘Fast-trip’ settings and topology optimization

Another option is to change how the electricity behaves inside the power line using automated technology.

Traditionally, if a tree branch touched a power line, the system would try to push electricity through the line anyway, causing repeated sparking. Today, utilities are deploying “fast-trip” settings on their circuit breakers.

Think of these like the ultra-sensitive circuit breakers in your home. The microsecond a branch bumps an outdoor line, these smart systems detect the disruption and cut the power to that specific wire before a spark can even form. This allows operators to isolate a single high-risk area rather than shutting down power to an entire county.

Topology optimization is another promising operations technique. It acts like Google Maps for the electric grid. Instead of shutting power down when one line is facing high risks, advanced software attempts to safely route electricity around the danger zone using neighboring, lower-risk lines.

By dynamically changing the pathway of the power, utilities can drastically reduce the electrical load and heat on vulnerable lines without cutting power.

Solution 3: AI and real-time smart sensors

Advanced computer software and artificial intelligence are also helping utilities act with surgical precision.

In the past, if a utility feared a windstorm could spark a fire, it had to shut off power to a large region because it lacked localized data. Today, utilities are deploying smart sensors called dynamic line rating that are installed directly onto power lines. These sensors act like digital stethoscopes, measuring real-time wire temperature, wind speed and line sag.

When combined with panoramic, AI-powered camera networks, the grid gains eyes. Xcel Energy in Colorado has deployed 81 of these cameras. Instead of executing a sweeping blackout, operators can use these cameras and automated smart switches to isolate the high-risk span in a windy canyon while keeping the lights safely on for the surrounding town.

The era of risk-aware grid design

The future of Western energy relies on moving away from static, 20th-century safety manuals and toward a practice called risk-aware dispatching.

In simple terms, this means treating the power grid like a living, breathing weather map. On a calm day, electricity is routed along the cheapest path. But when fire conditions spike, AI algorithms will automatically recalculate the region’s electricity flow, diverting power away from fragile forest lines and routing it through safer plains or underground urban corridors.

The era of cheap, unmonitored overhead power lines is over. To adapt to a changing climate, I believe the grid must evolve from a passive network of copper, aluminum and wood into a smart, dynamic machine. By combining insulated wires, targeted undergrounding of power lines, and real-time sensor data, utilities can avoid sparking devastating fires without resorting to frequent blackouts.

Jasmine Garland, Ph.D. Candidate, University of Colorado Boulder

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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We live (very happily) in a rural part of Southern Oregon. Much of the land close to us is covered in trees. Large parts of our property has trees and bushes. We try and keep the area directly around the home clear, but what with me being over 80 and Jeannie with Parkinson’s, it is a challenging task.

We have had far less snow over the Winter than normal. There is no guarantee the coming Winter will provide the (historically) past levels of snow. We will have to wait and see.

Defiance, even when it is not easy.

Learning the skills of resistance.

Saying ‘no’ is difficult. This is an article from The Conversation that talks of our need at times to be the opposite of friendly, to stand one’s ground, and to be true to yourself.

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The science of defiance: A psychology researcher explains why people comply – and how to resist

Defiance need not be aggressive or loud. Sergio Mendoza Hochmann/Moment via Getty Images

Sunita Sah, Cornell University

You’re in a meeting when your boss suggests changing a number to make the quarterly report look stronger. Heads nod. The slides move on. You feel a knot in your stomach: Do you speak up and risk being branded difficult, or stay silent and become complicit?

Most people picture defiance as dramatic outbursts. In reality, it’s often these small, tense moments where conscience collides with compliance.

I first saw the power of defiance not in the workplace, but closer to home. My mother was the ultimate people-pleaser: timid, polite, eager to accommodate. Barely 4 feet, 10 inches tall, she put everyone else’s needs above her own. But one day, when I was 7, I saw a different side to her.

We were walking home from the grocery store in West Yorkshire, England, when a group of teenage boys blocked our path in a narrow alleyway. They hurled racist insults and told us to “go back home.”

My reaction was instantaneous: Stay quiet, avoid conflict and get past them as quickly as possible. I grabbed my mother’s arm, urging her to move with me. But she didn’t. My quiet, deferential, never-confrontational mother did something completely different. She stopped, turned and looked the boys directly in the eyes. Then she asked, calmly but firmly, “What do you mean?”

She wasn’t loud or aggressive. And in that moment, she showed me that defiance doesn’t always roar, and it can come from the people you least expect.

I’ve carried these lessons into my work as a physician-turned-organizational psychologist. For decades, I’ve studied why people comply, staying silent when they don’t want to, and how they can resist wisely. In my book “Defy: The Power of No in a World that Demands Yes,” I offer a framework based on behavioral science research that can help you defy in ways that are intentional, effective and true to your values.

worried woman seated with another looking at a laptop
One setting where the choice to defy or comply can arise is work. FG Trade/E+ via Getty Images

What defiance really is

When people think of defiance, they often picture teenagers slamming doors, protesters shouting in the streets or rebels breaking rules just for the thrill of it. But that’s not the kind of defiance I study or the kind that shapes our lives most often.

Defiance is not about being oppositional for its own sake. It’s about choosing to act in line with your values when there is pressure to do otherwise.

That pressure can come from anywhere: a boss urging you to fudge the numbers, a friend nudging you toward something you don’t believe in, a culture telling you to stay in your place. Defiance in those moments might be as small as saying “no,” asking for clarification or simply pausing instead of rushing along with the group. Other times, it means speaking up, challenging authority or maybe walking away.

Seen this way, defiance isn’t a fixed trait that some people are born with and others lack. It’s a practice: a skill you can strengthen over time. Some days you might comply, other days you might resist. What matters is that you have the awareness and the tools to make the choice consciously, rather than letting fear or habit decide for you.

Why people comply

If defiance is so important, why do people so often stay silent?

One reason is a psychological process I’ve uncovered in my research: insinuation anxiety. It arises when people worry that not complying with another person’s wishes may be interpreted as a signal of distrust. Turning down a boss’s request to “adjust” the numbers might feel like you’re implying they’re dishonest. To avoid that discomfort, you go along – even when it violates your values.

Behavioral science has long documented this pull toward compliance. In the 1960s, for example, psychologist Stanley Milgram showed that ordinary people would administer what they believed were dangerous electric shocks to strangers simply because an authority figure told them to.

My own research has shown surprisingly high levels of compliance with obviously bad advice, even when given by a stranger with no consequences for disagreeing. People feel immense social pressure to go along with what others suggest. That’s because if you’ve never been trained in how to say no, it feels uncomfortable and awkward.

A framework for action

If compliance is the human default, how can you build the muscle of defiance? In my research, I’ve developed a simple actionable guide that I call the Defiance Compass. Like a navigation aid, it orients you in difficult situations by asking three questions:

  1. Who am I? What are the core values that matter most to me?
  2. What type of situation is this? Is it safe to resist? Will it have a positive impact?
  3. What does a person like me do in a situation like this? How can I take responsibility and act in a way that’s consistent with my identity and values?
circular chart with arrows connecting the three questions of the defiance compass
Three questions can help you zero in on whether the time is right for you to defy. Sunita Sah

Asking these questions shifts defiance from a gut reaction to a conscious practice. And here’s what’s important: That third question (“What does a person like me do?”) circles back to the first (“Who am I?”), because how you act again and again becomes who you are.

Defiance doesn’t always mean open confrontation. Sometimes it means asking a clarifying question, buying time or quietly refusing. It can mean speaking up or walking away. The key is to start small, practice regularly and anchor your choices in your values. Like any skill, the more you practice, the more natural it becomes.

Why defiance matters now

Defiance may be risky, but it’s never been more relevant. At work, employees are pressured to meet targets at any cost. In politics, citizens face waves of misinformation and polarization. In everyday life, people struggle to set healthy boundaries. Across all these contexts, the temptation to comply for the sake of comfort is strong.

That’s why learning to defy strategically matters. It protects personal integrity, strengthens institutions and helps sustain democracy. And it doesn’t require being loud or confrontational.

Of course, not every act of defiance is safe or guaranteed to make a difference. Sometimes it comes at real personal cost and some people still choose to act even when the impact isn’t certain: think of Rosa Parks refusing to give up her seat, or Colin Kaepernick taking a knee. In those moments, the act itself becomes the message. Both of those individuals were deeply connected to their values and the assessment is personal: What feels worth the risk to one person might not to another.

Defiance does require practice: noticing when values are at stake, pausing before you nod along, and choosing actions that align with who you want to be. Each act of consent, compliance or defiance shapes not just your story but the stories of our societies.

If you practice defiance, and teach it and model it, you can imagine a different type of society. You can start to envision a world where, in that same alleyway from my childhood, one of the boys will step forward and tell his friends, “That’s not OK. Let them pass.”

Sunita Sah, Professor of Management and Organizations, Cornell University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Across the range of society there will always be persons who choose to act with poor social values. Some are very senior, such as many politicians, some are towards the bottom of society. That is a fact of life.

Sunita Sah does us proud in writing this article, and I am delighted to republish it, with the permission of The Conversation.

A Very Dry July 4th

This drought is not ameanable to fireworks.

A few days ago I asked our neighbours to the south of us if they would like to come out on July 4th. The answer was thanks but no. Fireworks and dry forest do not mix and they wanted to stay home for the day.

I write this as an introduction to the latest post from The Conversation.

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Fireworks, heat and drought put this July 4th at high risk for wildfires

Leaving the pyrotechnics to the professionals is safer and more spectacular. YinYang/iStock/Getty Images Plus

Lauren Lowman, Wake Forest University

Across the United States, the sky will be erupting with fireworks on July 4, 2026, and the days around it as America celebrates the 250th anniversary of its independence. Many cities will be hosting spectacular fireworks shows.

But not everyone will be leaving the pyrotechnics to the professionals, so let’s talk about the risk of fireworks starting fires, including dangerous wildfires.

Fireworks, from bottle rockets to Roman candles, start a lot of fires in the U.S. every year – 32,000 of them in 2023 alone. And each year there is a clear spike in human-caused fires on July 4.

In 2026, much of the U.S. has been very dry and in moderate to severe drought. That means many areas are at high risk for fires igniting and spreading.

Dry start to the year

In the first half of the year, the U.S. has already experienced more wildfires than in the first half of any of the previous 10 years, which has included some of the country’s worst fire years on record.

The southeastern U.S. had far-below-normal precipitation in early 2026, which led to extremely dry conditions that fueled wildfires in the spring. In mid-June, half the region was still in severe to extreme drought.

In the West, a snow drought has put a pinch on water resources and left forests without the usual moisture they would get from a lingering snowpack.

Large parts of the West and Great Plains are in extreme or exceptional drought, including areas of Oklahoma, Nebraska and Utah, where wildfires in June forced entire communities to evacuate. And the national wildfire forecast shows above normal fire risk continuing into July in much of the U.S. West and Texas.

Fire risk forecast map for July 2026 shows high risk across much of the and South and East Texas.
Wildland fire risk projections for July 2026. National Interagency Fire Center

At the same time, large parts of the U.S. West and Southeast are forecast to see above-normal heat along with dryness through early July. Heat waves significantly raise the fire risk. A recent study found that 42% of all land burned in the West from 2001 to 2024 happened during or right after a heat wave.

4th of July fireworks

In hot, dry conditions it doesn’t take much to start a fire. Dry vegetation – trees, shrubs and grasses – provides the fuel. A windy day can substantially raise the risk of a runaway fire. The spark often comes from human activities, whether a car, power line or someone lighting fireworks.

Between 1992 and 2015, humans started 97% of all fires that threatened homes in the wildland-urban interface, the areas where homes and cities overlap with wildlands.

Of all the days, July Fourth stands out for its exceptional number of human-caused fires. From 1992 to 2020, around 15,000 fires were started on this holiday. Even in the eastern U.S., where July falls outside of the peak fire season, Independence Day still sees about 400 more fires than other days that month.

The professionals’ advice

In many states and drought-plagued regions, commercial fireworks are banned for community safety, and not just because of the fire risk. Emergency rooms saw an estimated 9,700 fireworks-related injuries in 2023 – injuries to hands, faces, ears and elsewhere – a third of them involving children.

The National Fire Protection Association encourages everyone to leave the fireworks to the professionals who are prepared to manage any wayward sparks. Public displays are cheaper for you, safer for everyone, and often far more spectacular.

Lauren Lowman, Associate Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Wake Forest University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Picking up on the last paragraph of the article, I repeat “leave the fireworks to the professionals ..”.

I wonder how many will abide by that recommendation?

Finally, Jeannie and I wish everyone a Very Happy July 4th.

Nature’s map.

Different ways of looking at the world.

Nature is king! I have longed believed that, and here is an example of nature at work.

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Where nature draws the map – here are 5 ways to look at the US, without state boundaries

Varied landscapes and natural contours transcend state boundaries. Smithsonian/Esri, CC BY-ND

Stewart Edie, Smithsonian Institution and Torben Rick, Smithsonian Institution

State boundaries can be iconic. Many were drawn by human hands, but some of the most recognizable contours were shaped by nature: the boot of southeastern Louisiana, carved by the Mississippi River, or the ocean waves sculpting the hook of Cape Cod in Massachusetts.

For a moment, imagine that there are no state lines. View the United States through its natural contours. As curators at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, we often look at our nation this way, drawing different kinds of maps that trace mountains, watersheds, animal migrations, biomes, ancient seas and so much more.

These kinds of maps show us how connected we all are by nature, since it transcends state boundaries. That idea is central to our new exhibition, “From These Lands: Sharing Our Natural and Cultural Heritage,” now open at our museum to mark the 250th anniversary of the United States. We are co-curators of the show, part of a team of exhibit designers and developers who created the exhibition.

“From These Lands” uses items from the museum’s collections to explore these patterns and ideas, offering a way to see the country’s natural and cultural heritage beyond state lines.

Map of North America colored by biome, showing ecological regions such as grasslands, deserts, forests and tundra.
Climate, vegetation and animal life vary across the landscapes of the United States, forming distinct biomes. Smithsonian/Esri/RESOLVE, CC BY-NC

One country, many pine cones

Pine cones can be easy to overlook.

When you’re out for a walk in the woods, you see the forest, maybe even the trees, but not always the cones at your feet. For many people, a pine cone is just a pine cone. But when you look closely, subtle differences in the styles of cones carry clues about the trees that produced them and the places where those trees live.

Several pine cones of different sizes and shapes arranged on a white background, showing variation among pine species.
Pine trees grow across many of these regions, and their cones reflect some of the different environments where pines live. James Di Loreto, Smithsonian, CC BY-NC

There are 43 pine species native to the United States, making up nearly a third of the world’s pine tree diversity. Together, they stretch across surprisingly different combinations of climate, terrain, plants and animals, the regions scientists call biomes. Something as simple as the pine cone can let you hold that concept in your hand: soils, fire, rain, birds and rodents all helped shape the tree that made it.

For example, cones from the sand pine can shield seeds for years, only to release them as the heat from low-intensity fires melts their resin and opens their scales. These scrubby and fire-shaped landscapes are one part of the larger temperate evergreen forests that spread through the southeastern U.S.

On the other side of the country, the Coulter pine produces cones that can be more than a foot-and-half long (50 centimeters) and weigh up to 8 pounds (3.5 kilograms). This large cone size helps its seeds to survive fires, allowing small birds and mammals to then disperse them into new areas in the Mediterranean Scrub of Southern California.

A pine cone comes from one tree in one place, but its form reflects a wide set of environmental conditions. Pine cones provide an interesting way to view the different biomes found in the United States and its territories.

Map of North America colored by geologic age, showing older Precambrian rocks across much of Canada and younger Paleozoic, Mesozoic and Cenozoic rocks across different parts of the United States and Mexico.
Geologic age maps can reveal ancient landscapes hidden beneath modern ones. Smithsonian/Esri/USGS/GSA, CC BY-NC

An ancient ocean in the middle of the country

The land under your feet can be millions of years old, and it has not always been dry ground.

During the late Mesozoic Era – the time interval made famous by the dinosaurs – a warm, shallow inland sea covered states from North Dakota to Texas. This Western Interior Seaway laid down many of the rocks and sediments that you can see today throughout the Great Plains and Badlands. The sea was also full of life, and the rocks it left behind are full of fossils.

Two coiled ammonite fossils preserved in rock, representing marine animals that lived in the ancient Western Interior Seaway.
These ammonite fossils from South Dakota come from an ancient, shallow sea that once covered much of the middle of North America. Phillip R. Lee, Smithsonian, CC BY-NC

There were familiar characters living on this ancient seafloor: clams, snails and sea stars. But swimming in the waters above were the now-extinct animals called ammonites.

These coiled, shelled relatives of squid and octopuses were abundant predators, hunting in the same waters as fish, turtles, sharks and extinct marine reptiles called plesiosaurs. Ammonites used the chambers in their shells to control buoyancy, much like the modern nautilus.

Ammonite fossils demonstrate that much of the central U.S. was an ancient ocean. They also remind us that the landscapes we know today are just the latest version of those reshaped over and over by the slow work of geologic time.

Map of North America overlaid with migration tracks from five bird species, showing long-distance seasonal movements.
Thousands of animals trace migration routes across the United States. Smithsonian/Esri/Movebank Data Repository, CC BY-NC

Unlikely pairing: Shorebirds and horseshoe crabs

Animals move. Some travel only short distances with the seasons, but others travel thousands of miles, crossing not only state lines, but countries, oceans and hemispheres. Animal migration routes might look chaotic on a map, but birds, whales, turtles and more forge these paths for specific reasons.

left panel: brown bird with white belly walks on bumpy ground with wave in background; right panel: horseshoe crab specimen from above and below
The ruddy turnstone shorebird times its mid-Atlantic stop with the beachside spawning of the horseshoe crab in Delaware Bay. L: G.Halpin/Pixabay. R: Phillip R. Lee, Smithsonian.

Timing is a key component of migration. Thanks to a critical refueling stop in Delaware Bay, the ruddy turnstone shorebird manages to migrate thousands of miles each year to its breeding grounds in the high Arctic. These East Coast migrants time their layover with the migration of horseshoe crabs, which come ashore to lay millions of nutrient-packed eggs on beaches. The turnstones gorge themselves on those eggs before continuing their journey north.

It is a strange and wonderful handoff between an ancient marine animal hauling itself out of the ocean and a weary shorebird bound for the Arctic. A single bay brings them together, illustrating how the many migration routes through these lands can hinge on key moments and places.

Topographic relief map of North America showing mountains, valleys, plains and other landforms.
The topography of North America ranges from broad coastal plains to rugged mountain systems. The ridges, valleys, streams and caves of the Appalachian Mountains create small pockets of habitat for many different plants and animals. Smithsonian/Esri/CEC/USGS, CC BY-NC

Salamander country

Topography is more than scenic landscapes. Everything from the flat coastal plains to the ridges, valleys and stream-cut mountainsides helps shape where animals can live and how biodiversity accumulates.

The rugged terrain of the Appalachian Mountains creates cool, wet forests, shaded hollows, caves, ponds and streams. These habitats can differ from each other in elevation, temperature, moisture and water flow – and salamanders take note. More salamander species live in the Appalachian Mountains than anywhere else in the world. It can feel as though every other rock you turn over hides yet another species.

A preserved salamander specimen with a long body, short legs and mottled brown markings.
A cave salamander from the Appalachian Mountains in Georgia. James Di Loreto, Smithsonian, CC BY-NC

The trio of Plethodon salamanders, the southern gray-cheeked, red-cheeked and red-legged salamanders, were once thought to be regional variations of the same species. But these salamanders live at varying elevations in different mountain ranges, and genetic sequencing confirmed that each was, in fact, its own species. Topography and shifting climates had broken up these populations into different habitats, allowing each to evolve into distinct species.

Map of North America divided into major drainage basins, showing how rivers and watersheds extend across state and national boundaries before draining toward different coasts.
North America’s watersheds cross state and national boundaries, linking distant rivers and landscapes through the flow of water. Smithsonian/Esri/CEC, CC BY-NC

Following the American shad

Chesapeake Bay is the largest estuary in the U.S., fed by a watershed connecting rivers and drainage basins that reach into six states and the District of Columbia. It’s home to more than 3,600 species, including oysters and blue crabs. But one fish in particular has become strongly intertwined with the lives and cultures of many people around the bay.

A preserved American shad specimen, a silvery fish that migrates between the Atlantic Ocean and freshwater rivers to spawn.
American shad move between the Atlantic Ocean and the freshwater rivers of the Chesapeake Bay watershed, a migration long tied to the Pamunkey Indian Tribe’s diet, culture and stewardship of nature. James Di Loreto & Tonda Phalen, Smithsonian, CC BY-NC

The American shad spends much of its adult life in the Atlantic Ocean but returns to the freshwater rivers in the upper reaches of the Chesapeake Bay to spawn. For more than 12,000 years, this herring’s spring migration has been part of Pamunkey Indian Tribe diet and culture.

From 1918 to 2019, to mitigate declining populations of herring, the tribe ran a hatchery to “give back to the river.” The Pamunkey Tribe’s fishing rights date back to their 1677 treaty with the British Crown. Today, only the Pamunkey and citizens of other tribes in Virginia can legally fish for shad in this region.

A single type of fish moving between salt and freshwater, tracing the paths of the watershed, has helped to shape centuries of diet, law, culture and stewardship, highlighting the many connections between nature and culture.

Different ways to map the country

Pine cones, ammonites, shorebirds, salamanders and shad tell more than individual stories about particular places. Together, they point to older and larger patterns: varied forests, vanished seas, seasonal migrations, mountain habitats and rivers that harbor a fantastic diversity of life.

State lines are one way to picture the U.S., but natural history provides another – one that shows the ancient and living connections running across the landscape.

Stewart Edie, Research Geologist and Curator of Paleobiology, Smithsonian Institution and Torben Rick, Curator of North American Archaeology, Smithsonian Institution

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Stewart and Torben have presented a very interesting article.

Thank goodness for the Smithsonian, and thank goodness for natural history!

The reason behind the human ‘week’.

A fascinating history of our week.

Why are there seven days in a week?

The Conversation published a post on this subject back in 2020 under their Curious Kids title. That may have been the reason I did not republish it.

But on June 5th this year, Kelly Kizer Whitt published on EarthSky an article explaining how the ‘week’ came about.

However, I am going to republish the item, as posted by The Conversation.

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Why are there seven days in a week?

Your calendar dates back to Babylonian times. Aleksandra Pikalova/Shutterstock.com

Kristin Heineman, Colorado State University

Why are there seven days in a week? – Henry E., age 8, Somerville, Massachusetts

Waiting for the weekend can often seem unbearable, a whole six days between Saturdays. Having seven days in a week has been the case for a very long time, and so people don’t often stop to ask why.

Most of our time reckoning is due to the movements of the planets, Moon and stars. Our day is equal to one full rotation of the Earth around its axis. Our year is a revolution of the Earth around the Sun, which takes 365 and ¼ days, which is why we add an extra day in February every four years, for a leap year.

But the week and the month are a bit trickier. The phases of the Moon do not exactly coincide with the solar calendar. The Moon cycle is 27 days and seven hours long, and there are 13 phases of the Moon in each solar year.

Some of the earliest civilizations observed the cosmos and recorded the movements of planets, the Sun and Moon. The Babylonians, who lived in modern-day Iraq, were astute observers and interpreters of the heavens, and it is largely thanks to them that our weeks are seven days long.

The reason they adopted the number seven was that they observed seven celestial bodies – the Sun, the Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. So, that number held particular significance to them.

Other civilizations chose other numbers – like the Egyptians, whose week was 10 days long; or the Romans, whose week lasted eight.

Some of the earliest civilizations recorded the movements of planets, the Sun and Moon.
Andrey Prokhorov/Shutterstock.com

The Babylonians divided their lunar months into seven-day weeks, with the final day of the week holding particular religious significance. The 28-day month, or a complete cycle of the Moon, is a bit too large a period of time to manage effectively, and so the Babylonians divided their months into four equal parts of seven.

The number seven is not especially well-suited to coincide with the solar year, or even the months, so it did create a few inconsistencies.

However, the Babylonians were such a dominant culture in the Near East, especially in the sixth and seventh centuries B.C., that this, and many of their other notions of time – such as a 60-minute hour – persisted.

The seven-day week spread throughout the Near East. It was adopted by the Jews, who had been captives of the Babylonians at the height of that civilization’s power. Other cultures in the surrounding areas got on board with the seven-day week, including the Persian empire and the Greeks.

Centuries later, when Alexander the Great began to spread Greek culture throughout the Near East as far as India, the concept of the seven-day week spread as well. Scholars think that perhaps India later introduced the seven-day week to China.

Finally, once the Romans began to conquer the territory influenced by Alexander the Great, they too eventually shifted to the seven-day week. It was Emperor Constantine who decreed that the seven-day week was the official Roman week and made Sunday a public holiday in A.D. 321.

The weekend was not adopted until modern times in the 20th century. Although there have been some recent attempts to change the seven-day week, it has been around for so long that it seems like it is here to stay.

Kristin Heineman, Instructor in History, Colorado State University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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So there we are, the ancient history of the week. Including the fact that the weekend was not adopted until the 20th century. In the 1940’s to be precise.

Problem gambling

It takes all types.

I will admit that I have never been one for gambling. Perhaps a small bet between friends in my earlier English days. I do not know the cause of my resistance to ‘playing the odds’. My guess is that it is a product of being born in London in 1944 when life was pretty tight. I grew up being careful about my finances.

Thus, having a better obsession is not something that I understand.

However, this article about Brazil, published in The Conversation, was interesting enough to warrant me republishing it.

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The next World Cup won’t be only about passion for soccer. It will also be about betting obsession

For most of soccer’s history, fans all around the world cheered for goals and other skillful moves, but now online betting platforms have broken the game into hundreds of small financial bets, changing what soccer means emotionally for many of its fans. aniloracru/Unlimphotos

David Nemer, University of Virginia

In Brazil, the World Cup is far more than a sports event; it’s part of the country’s identity. Brazil has won the men’s tournament five times, and has high hopes of a sixth in the upcoming event taking place in Canada, Mexico, and the United States from June 11 to July 19.

In a country where kids play soccer in the streets, the World Cup is one of the rare times when millions across the nation share in the same excitement. But the way many Brazilians experience that excitement has changed for one big reason: Betting.

For most of soccer’s history, fans all around the world cheered for goals, great saves, skillful moves, comebacks, and wins. Now, online betting platforms have broken the game into hundreds of small financial bets. Fans can bet on the final score, but also on yellow and red cards, corners, throw-ins, shots on goal, saves, fouls, and almost every stat the game produces.

This shift changes what soccer means emotionally for many of its fans. For example, someone might cheer for a corner kick against their own team if it helps their bet. They might hope a defender gets a yellow card, even if it’s bad for their side. Some care less about Brazil’s game style and more about how much stoppage time there is for another chance to win a bet.

This isn’t simply about adding more entertainment. It turns passion into a transaction. Soccer’s magic comes from everyone sharing the same hope for a goal. Betting breaks that bond. Now, a foul isn’t just a foul; it’s a chance to win money. A corner kick becomes a way to cash out.

Betting and social costs

This is especially important in Brazil, where online betting is now part of daily life. Fixed-odds betting became legal in 2018, but real rules came much later. Between 2018 and 2024, companies grew quickly in a regulatory gray area, filling soccer, social media, and ads with betting. By the time Brazil’s regulated market started in 2025, betting was already everywhere.

The numbers reveal how big this has become. In 2025, Brazil ranked fifth in the world for online betting revenue – the United States came first, followed by the U.K., Italy and Russia. Around 26.3% of Brazilian households took part in some form of sports betting. In the past year, 39.5 million Brazilians used betting platforms. In just the first quarter of 2025, betting sites in Brazil had over 5 billion visits — more than 650 every second. Central Bank data showed Brazilians were moving up to R$ 30 billion (US$ 6 billion) each month through these platforms.

The social costs are clear. Nineteen percent of bettors, about 7.5 million people, said they spent money on gambling in a way that compromised their livelihood income. Forty-one percent gave up other purchases to bet. Seventeen percent skipped paying a bill to gamble. Twenty-nine percent ended up on bad-debt lists because of betting. The average monthly spend was R$ 187 (US$ 37.4), and for lower-income bettors, it was R$ 151.98 (US$ 30.4). For poor families, that money could have been better spent on food, transport, diapers, electricity, or rent.

And it’s not an exclusively Brazilian problem. Research in the U.S. found that nearly third of Pennsylvania gamblers are at risk of problem gambling. In Australia, gambling harm is likely underreported, while in the U.K. research showed gamblers don’t understand the true cost of so-called “free bets” – offers like welcome bonus on first deposits and other financial inducements.

Ties with masculinity

In Brazil’s favelas, betting is rarely just a pastime, as I observed during two years of fieldwork in communities in the city of Vitória, capital of Espírito Santo state. People see it as hope — a way to stretch a little money when jobs don’t pay enough. One young man told me he started because a coworker told him an app “made money.” He put it simply: “Who doesn’t want to make money these days?”. Another pointed out that people only share their wins, not their losses. Many knew the odds were arranged against them. As one person said, “the ones who really win are the platform owners.”

Soccer betting is also tied to ideas about masculinity. Many young men I spoke with saw sports betting as a way to show their knowledge, control, and skill. Betting on soccer was proof that you understood teams, form, possession, rivalries, and odds. Barbershops and WhatsApp groups became places where men shared tips and advice. One person told me betting was more common among men because it’s about soccer; another said young men “go deeper”, risking more money for bigger wins.

It’s not that women don’t bet; they do. But soccer betting often carries a masculine image: the man as expert, strategist, and provider. When money is tight, betting tells young men they can turn soccer knowledge into cash, and cash into pride. Losing feels shameful, so wins are shown off, and losses are kept quiet. This show of control hides the fact that the platform is really in charge.

Stronger rules and regulations

The 2026 World Cup will make all of this even bigger. There will be daily matches, national pride, celebrity ads, influencer tips, betting links, instant money transfers, and live in-game markets. The tournament will be promoted as a soccer festival. For betting companies, it will also be a chance to profit.

It’s a harsh irony. Brazilians will pin their hopes on the national team, but many will also risk their rent, wages, and emergency funds on bets about cards, fouls, and corners. In this game, the real winners aren’t the fans; they’re the betting platforms.

This doesn’t mean Brazilians should stop loving soccer. It means they need to protect the game from turning into just another way to make money. Simply licensing companies and collecting taxes isn’t enough. Brazil needs strong rules on advertising, real limits on losses and deposits, restrictions on in-game micro-bets that make every foul a bet, and public health campaigns that don’t blame people for a system built to trap them.

The World Cup should remind us why soccer is important. Its beauty isn’t about how many bets you can place. It’s about the impossible goal, the common excitement, the joy of winning together, and the dignity of losing without losing the money you need to live.

David Nemer, Associate Professor in the Department of Media Studies, University of Virginia

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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I have never been to Brazil but I appreciate it is a very big country. It practically takes over South America (SA). I’m certain that it is the largest country in SA.

I have a follower of this blog who lives in SA and if John reads this post perhaps he will leave a comment. I hope so!