The 'In Vitro' World of the 21st Century

Marguerite Finn

Yesterday I received my copy of the New World magazine from the United Nations Association.  The theme of this issue was ‘Can Technology Save the World?’  Initially, I thought the editors would answer the question in the affirmative – there being so many wonderful advancements in science and technology.  One development that was mentioned in New World was the arrival of test tube meat.  Apparently a team of Dutch scientists is very close to producing edible, lab-generated meat – with a product-launch planned for Spring 2013. If this happens, it will be at just the right time because the World Health Organisation (WHO) estimated that the global demand for meat will double in the next 40 years.  The global population is, after all, heading for nine billion and because of rising standards of living – especially in Asia – more and more people are demanding meat to eat. 

According to the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), livestock already account for 20% of greenhouse gas emissions, 10% of the world’s fresh water supplies and around half of all agricultural land.  So producing meat the way we do now is unsustainable. 

How would we get on with artificial meat – also known as in vitro meat, cultured meat or test tube meat ?    In vitro meat should not be confused with vegetarian foods such as Quorn sausages and other products.  Most meat is animal muscle. The process of developing in vitro meat involves taking muscle cells from an animal and applying a protein that helps the cells to grow into large portions of meat. Once the cells have been obtained, additional animals would not be needed. As of 2012, thirty laboratories around the world have announced that they are working on research into artificial meat. Scientists have to make the product profitable for corporations in order for them to take this emerging technology into consideration and to invest in it.  The challenge will be finding an industrial process, rather than a scientific process to make in vitro meat cheaper than conventional meat.  Assuming that the proper materials are used and conditions remain ideal, two months of in vitro meat production could deliver up to 50,000 tons of meat from ten pork muscle cells.  So, is it a technological challenge worth pursuing?  Will it be enough to stave off food poverty in the coming decades as the world’s population increases relentlessly.

Another technological ‘miracle’ is the fact that on-demand organ transplants have moved a step closer. Scientists have for the first time successfully engineered a synthetic kidney - a break through that could have massive benefits those waiting for donor organs. Scientists led by Harald Ott of the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston created the synthetic kidney using an existing bioengineering process that has previously been used in the manufacture of artificial windpipes and in successful human transplants.  Dr Ott is quoted as saying “ In an ideal world, such grafts could be produced on demand from a patients own cells, helping us overcome both the organ shortage and the need for chronic immunosuppression”  (Independent 14 April 2013).

It is estimated that some 100,000 people in the United States are waiting for a donor kidney. The above research will not yield a viable organ for human transplantation for a number of years yet, but the techniques used here are incredibly promising for future research and point to one day reaching the goal of being able to quickly manufacture new organs for those in need, something that could save countless lives.  Greater understanding of genetics and micro-organisms is changing the nature of medicine.

These are just two examples of wonderful developments in science and technology – but are they going to create a better world for its inhabitants?  Not necessarily so.  On issues that require far-reaching compromises, short-term and nationalistic preferences tend to dominate.  For instance, Monsanto’s development of specially coated anti-drought seeds did not really benefit those who needed the benefit most: the small farmers of India.  “It seems increasingly obvious, as the third millennium evolves, that we must adapt to the likelihood that environmental, health, security and resource problems will persist at a threatening level.  Each of these technological developments could be used to magnify the repressive power of governments to create new instruments of harm. For all the euphemistic correctness in ministries of “defence” no security system spurns the construction of offensive capability. Technology itself, in the electronic, nanotechnology and cyber fields, has become an instrument of military power.” (UNA-UK New World, Spring 2013)

In fact, the whole advance of science and technology requires a context of effective regulation and supervision, as well as good government and international co-operation – rather than a complacent feeling that we can do as we like because technology will save the planet.

One thing that will save the planet is some form of population control.  There are just too many of us on this earth and our numbers are increasing to unsustainably.  2013 is predicted to see the biggest baby boom in the UK in 40 years.  Nobody can work out the reason for this but adding an extra generation of consumers to an over-burdened planet does not seem the best way of going about things.  Earlier, I mentioned the countless lives that organ growing would save, but wouldn’t this make the overpopulation even more dire?

Martin Luther King had some wise words to say about population: "Unlike plagues of the dark ages or contemporary diseases we do not yet understand, the modern plague of overpopulation is soluble by means we have discovered and with resources we possess. What is lacking is not sufficient knowledge of the solution but universal consciousness of the gravity of the problem."

Up to now, the subject of over-population has been the ‘elephant in the room’ – the subject that no one will discuss but that is changing – and the BBC (Radio 4) has hosted a series of talks and debates on the issue.  It is time to listen and join in.

Geoengineering the Planet

By Mark Crutchley

Following on from my last column in which I described the unprecedented extent of the sea ice melt in the Arctic this summer, I want to take you to a dark place that you may never have considered going to before. I want to suggest that we may need to undertake some limited Geoengineering in the immediately foreseeable future. I realise this is a radical suggestion, particularly coming from a committed green like myself, but there is a good reason as I will explain.

To set the stage I want to start by challenging the idea that it would never be right to geoengineer our planet. If it were an ice age we were facing, with great ice sheets set to cover most of Europe, Russia, Canada and a large part of the USA. Crop production would be devastated and hundreds of millions of people would become homeless or starve to death. Would we accept geoengineering then to keep the planet warm enough for our civilisation to continue? I know I would and I suspect so would most other people. 

So now let’s turn our attention to the current situation. The reason I want to suggest we should consider geoengineering is because of methane. It is generally stated that methane has a global warming potential (GWP) which is around 21 times that of CO₂, but while this is the figure used by the UNFCCC, it doesn’t tell the whole story. This is the 100 year averaged figure, but methane only stays in the atmosphere for around 12 years and in that time it has a GWP in the region of 90 times that of CO₂.

At the moment the CO₂ concentration in the atmosphere is around 392 parts per million (ppm). Methane is the next most important global warming gas, with a concentration of around 1800 parts per billion (ie 1.8ppm), this having risen around 150% since the start of the industrial revolution compared to an increase of around 40% in CO₂.

Recent articles have highlighted the risks of significant methane releases triggered by the well above average rate of warming in the more northerly latitudes. On land methane is being released in the tundra as the permafrost thaws and wetland peat bogs warm, and in the oceans lie vast quantities of the gas in the form of frozen methane clathrates, which if mobilised could dramatically impact on our climate. The references in my last column to the Arctic Methane Emergency Group and the interview with Peter Wadhams both highlighted these risks.

Significantly increased methane emissions run the risk of pushing us into unstoppable runaway warming. But crucially their impact would be felt over a relatively limited time period. Within 12-15 years the released methane would disappear from the atmosphere. A temporary programme of geoengineering – I’m not going to discuss of what form, that’s another whole issue – might be necessary to prevent this scenario from becoming a disastrous reality.

But there is one crucial caveat which I would add. A key concern of opponents of geoengineering is that it would be used to avoid addressing the underlying problem of our excessive carbon emissions. Reducing the amount of incoming solar radiation for example might limit the warming of the planet, but unless we cut emissions it will do nothing to address ocean acidification; and without emission cuts the extent of geoengineering required would continually increase. This is a recipe for disaster.

So my suggestion is that if we were to go down this route, it would only be acceptable if it were accompanied by a massive global programme to transform our energy systems permanently to low or zero carbon forms. Otherwise all we are doing is delaying the inevitable. Without this we would be applying a temporary palliative, just pushing back the date of the disaster by a few years.

I can’t pretend that I like this scenario. As a species we have a poor record of taking action to benefit the environment on a large scale, but we may be on the verge of developments for our climate so dramatic that we have little option other than to consider such drastic measures. At least this time we would be doing it for the right reasons rather than the thoughtless geoengineering we have inflicted on the planet so far.