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.

Growing Campaigns

By Mark Crutchley

Norwich and the surrounding region is very well blessed with campaign groups covering a wide spread of activities, from those groups with a specific focus such as Norwich Stop the War coalition and Transition Norwich; to the broader organisations like Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth which campaign on a changing roster of issues. The Green Party too is active in many areas and organisations like the Women’s Institute (WI) also promote a positive social agenda.

Too often though as groups we operate in our own areas and have relatively little contact with many other organisations that contain like-minded people who might be interested in getting involved with our campaigns, but just don’t know about them. We need to expand our reach and bring together all the groups which are working for a better society and reach out to those individuals who are not members of any group but would support individual campaigns.

It’s precisely this idea which is behind the creation of Visions for Change (VfC) Norwich. VfC has been set up to provide a resource for groups and individuals in the area who are working for a just and sustainable world. Its objective is to improve communications about campaigns and events happening in the area, hopefully helping increase the numbers involved and the impact they can have.

The website is still in the early stages of its development at the moment, as is the gathering of interested people, but readers of the One World Column are precisely the sort of people we want to connect with and encourage to get active with more of the local campaign groups who so desperately need your support.

So if you are interested in protecting the environment, social justice and a fairer society then please visit the site and sign up; either as an individual or on behalf of any group you may be involved with. And once you have signed up, please pass on the message about Visions for Change and encourage others to join too; the more people who get involved the more we can achieve together.

Keystone XL Tar Sands Pipeline

Meanwhile over in America scientists, politicians, climate activists, celebrities and ordinary people are coming together – and getting arrested together - to call on President Obama to stop the Keystone pipeline. If built this would deliver tar sands oil to refineries in Texas and open the way for a much larger exploitation of the Canadian tar sands.

This is a crucial battle for the environment because if we exploit all the tar sands available in Alberta, then not only is keeping the rise in global temperatures below 2C going to be completely impossible; but even keeping it below 4C is going to be very difficult. We have to hope – and give whatever support we can – that those opposing this scheme in America and Canada can carry the day and chalk a victory up for the people and planet against the oil industry.

Fighting for a Frack-Free Future

by Sarah Woods

There’s a growing trend in the production of hydrocarbons. Having taken a lot of the ‘easy’ stuff out of the ground, we’re now moving on to ‘unconventional’ sources. There are massive potential reserves of unconventionals, but their extraction comes at a high risk to the environment.  

Shale gas is obtained by fracking, or hydraulic fracturing, a process whereby large amounts of water, chemicals and sand are injected into underground rock formations to ‘fracture’ them, releasing gas. As with tar sands, previously inaccessible or unviable reserves of shale gas now look more attractive, thanks to new technology and rising fossil fuel prices. Add to this the UK’s importation of more than half its gas supplies this year, now the offshore reserves that made us self-sufficient have peaked, and the second dash for gas gathers momentum.  

Over the last 15 months, I’ve delivered events and community outreach for a ‘Frack Free Future’ as part of The Co-operative’s Clean Energy Revolution campaign, engaging with threatened communities across the UK, staging events where the issues can be discussed co-operatively.  

The Co-operative first started looking into shale gas in the summer of 2010, commissioning the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research to undertake an assessment of its environmental impacts. The findings of the Tyndall Centre report were published in January 2011 (and its update published in November 2011), exposing three main areas of concern and led The Co-operative to call for a moratorium on its extraction across the UK.  

At local level, shale gas extraction presents pollution risks, especially to groundwater. Arguments centre around whether risks can be adequately managed through regulation of well construction and maintenance. Looking at the US, where the industry is much more advanced, there are many concerning examples – see for example, the US Environmental Protection Agency’s report released in November 2011 into groundwater sampling at Pavilion, Wyoming, where numerous hydrocarbons and thermogenic methane have been identified[Footnote]. Assuming that this couldn’t happen in the UK appears naïve. Scaling up to the c.3,000 wells that would be required to produce 10% of the UK’s gas from shale over any sustained period, the risks become substantial: even if well design and site management were good enough to reduce failure rates to 1 in 1,000, this would give us a 95% chance of at least one failure. 

Nationally, there’s a real risk that the development of shale gas will compromise the UK’s ability to hit its emissions targets. If we extract and burn just 20% of the shale gas resources identified under Lancashire this year, it could result in CO₂ emissions of over 2,000m tonnes, or nearly 15% of the UK’s emissions budget through to 2050 – dispelling  the myth that shale gas is a ‘low carbon fuel’.  Additionally, with up to £32bn of investments required to obtain 10% of our current gas use from shale sources and convert it to electricity, investment could be diverted from genuinely low carbon renewables, leaving us overly reliant on unproven carbon capture and storage (CCS) and risking the economic losses from what could ultimately become stranded assets.  

At the global level, we hear that shale gas is good news, because it will displace much more polluting coal. Perhaps it would - if we had a legally binding global cap on emissions. Unfortunately, in our energy-hungry world, it’s likely that countries such as India and China will burn shale gas in addition to their coal reserves, as they quite fairly pursue economic development. This is mirrored by the situation in the US, where the massive expansion in shale gas is simply projected to meet the energy demands of a growing economy without a carbon cap and is failing to displace coal[Footnote]. Scenarios for relatively conservative exploitation of between 15% and 30% of the world’s identified shale gas resources are that it would increase global atmospheric CO₂ by between five and sixteen parts per million by volume, taking up over a quarter of the CO₂ emissions budget that we have left if we are to stand a good chance of avoiding more than 2ºC of warming.  

As governments met in Doha, Quatar, for the latest round of UN climate talks last Saturday, December 1^st, anti-fracking campaigners across the UK joined the Global Day of Action on Climate Change. 

Activists from Frack Off erected a 20-foot drilling rig outside the home of the Chairman of Cuadrilla Resources, Lord John Browne. In Blackpool, members of Resident Action on Fylde Fracking marched and, together with members of Ribble Eastuary Against Fracking, held a rally in St Anne’s. Kirklees Campaign Against Climate Change toured Huddersfield, asking the public to sign postcards calling for a moratorium on fracking. Swansea Against Fracked Energy were out on the streets of Swansea, while Frack Free Somerset brought street theatre to Bath. About 300 environment campaigners held an anti-fracking protest in Parliament Square in London, where residents from Falkirk, Belfast, the Fylde, the Ribble Estuary and the Vale of Glamorgan delivered a letter to David Cameron, calling for a ban on shale gas and coal bed methane exploitation in the UK. 

This month, alongside his Autumn Statement, George Osborne unveiled the government’s new Gas Strategy, which sets out to "ensure we make the best use of lower cost gas power, including new sources of gas under the land", The Chancellor told the Commons. 

The Gas Generation Strategy confirmed that DECC will set up an Office for Unconventional Gas and Oil, joining up responsibilities across Government to provide a single point of contact for investors, to ensure a simplified and streamlined regulatory process. It also states that tax breaks for shale gas will be considered as “HM Treasury has opened discussions with industry on the appropriate structure of a fair tax regime for future shale gas production”,  

According to a recent Greenpeace report, more than 60 per cent of the British countryside could be exploited for shale gas. A decision on whether to lift the current moratorium on shale gas production, put in place after fracking caused two small earthquakes near Blackpool in 2011, is expected from the Secretary of State shortly. 

Community feeling against hydraulic fracturing is strong, combining a desire to keep fracking out of the UK with a passion to find energy solutions. Climate change issues are up close and personal for the first time in the UK, no longer disconnected from us by space or time. It seems to me that the campaign for a Frack Free Future is less of a fight against an industry we don’t want – and more of a call for the future we need.  

 Sarah Woods (Transition Bro Ddyfi) is a playwright and campaigner, working primarily in the fields of climate change and social justice. She is currently working on THE ROADLESS TRIP, a performance piece about systemic change and future narratives and just reached the end of a year leading the outreach arm of the Co-operative Group’s FRACK FREE FUTURE campaign, delivering events in communities affected by fracking. She currently teaches playwrighting and political theatre to undergraduates at Manchester University.

Article originally published on The Social Reporting Project

  

Further information on The Co-operative’s position on shale gas and the Tyndall Centre’s research can be found at:  www. co-operative.coop/fracking 

 Notes: 

1www.epa.gov/region8/superfund/wy/pavillion/PavillionCommunityPresentation09Nov2011.pdf 

2 Energy Information Administration (2010), Supporting materials for the 2010 Annual Energy Outlook, Report # DOE/EIA-0554(2010).  

3 Gas Generation Strategy (December 2012), DECC. www.decc.gov.uk/en/content/cms/meeting_energy/oil_gas/gasgenstrat/gasgenstrat.aspx 

4 Fracking in the UK (update 2) 30th Nov 2012, Hannah Davey, Harry Kennard and Damian Kahya 

www.greenpeace.org.uk/newsdesk/energy/data/infographic-fracking-backyard 

Images: photo by EnergyTomorrow (Flickr Creative Commons)

A Solution That Dare Not Speak Its Name

Seeing the crowds packed into Trafalgar Square and the Mall to welcome the Olympians and Para-Olympians recently gave me pause for reflection. I had thought that one only saw crowds like that at the Kaaba in Mecca or in the streets of Bombay. For a small country we certainly pack in an awful lot of people. This is a matter of concern for some and something that must not be spoken about for others.  

The Forum for the Future produced a report in 2010 called Growing Pains, about human numbers, which was well covered in the media at the time – yet it did not spark the much-needed national debate and the issues it raised are rarely discussed now.  Population as a discussion topic is off-limits for most UK politicians, in a way that plays into the hands of illiberal and xenophobic organisations.

However, the UK population is projected to grow at its fastest rate since the post-war ‘baby boom’, increasing from 61.4 million now to 70.6 million in 2030. A further 9 million people by then will increase pressures on public services, infrastructures and the natural environment – all requiring long-term planning. Therefore all major public infrastructure bodies and service providers should carry out detailed planning for the impacts of continued population growth. So far there is little sign of that and it will not happen if the political will is not there. Back in 1972, at the first UN Conference on Environment and Human Development in Stockholm, population was a big, controversial topic of debate. If governments had started planning then, we would not be facing the crisis we are now.  So,why the vast silence?  A possible explanation for that is that environmental NGOs and opinion formers are anxious that we concentrate our minds on environmental degredation and over –consumption in the rich world – while ignoring the ultimate cause of both of these pressing problems: over population. Jonathon Porritt worked on the Royal Society’s People and Planet report which came out in April 2012 and it is well worth reading – although it shies away from tackling over-population head on.

The reason for this is the almost universal preconception that “coercion lies at the heart of the population control agenda”.   This stems from the fear of China’s one-child policy being repeated here. But this need not be the case. Deciding voluntarily to limit your family to two children would be another way of dealing with the problem.  Jonathon Porritt says: “A voluntary, rights-based approach is the only way to promote effective family planning. In other words, make family planning and other reproductive health services freely available and fully accessible to everyone – and empowering and encouraging them to use it”.  I heard the Duke of Cambridge say recently that he would like two children and wondered if he and the Duchess of Cambridge were knowingly setting a trend! 

In July this year I attended the “UN Forum 2012 – Bringing the UN to the UK”. This was the largest civil society gathering on the United Nations in the UK this year. It was organised by the United Nations Association (UNA-UK) and was an opportunity for people of all walks of life to come together and discuss some of the most pressing challenges facing the world today – from intractable conflicts to sustainable development.

The Forum was well attended by people of all ages – and yes, it did tackle the issue of over-population in one of its workshops. One of the speakers on the panel was Sara Parkin OBE. She is a Director of The Forum for the Future. She spoke passionately about the need to educate women in the developing world on birth control and access to contraception. She demonstrated that the issue of birth control is linked to population growth, which is inevitable linked to sustainability and climate change – and she referred to the Secretary General of that 1972 Conference, Maurice Strong, who said bluntly back then: “Either we reduce our population voluntarily, or nature will do it for us brutally.”  

As a species we think that we have – or will have - the technology to solve the problems of population growth and climate change. This is an arrogant and foolish pretension. The reality is far more complicated.  Sara Parkin had this to say: “Currently, rich countries are alone in showing a rise in average family size. With a disproportionate impact on the environment, this puts them on fragile ecological, moral and diplomatic territory. A child born in Europe accounts for 11 times more greenhouse gas emissions than one born in Africa; for North America, the figure is 24 times. (These do not include ‘offshore’ emissions embedded in imports.) Ultimately, it is clear that, with increasing pressure on key resources, such as land, food and water, everywhere, planning our family is a personal responsibility, as well as a global dilemma.” She also pointed out that: “The UN has three projections for the global population in 2100: High = 16 billion; Medium  = 10 billion (we are roughly on track for this); Low  = 6 billion .   And that lower projection - of 1 billion people fewer than there are now - is achievable”.

“This is a target that could be met simply by responding to the two hundred plus million couples around the world who say they want contraceptives to help plan their family but can’t get them, and by ensuring new generations get the information and contraceptives they need to plan their future families. There are countries with hugely successful programmes to learn from. Thailand, for example, has achieved lower birth rates without any sort of coercion, as has Iran, a country not often cited as an exemplar of world leadership. Above all we need – in the UK- to talk about the numbers of people and our demography as we plan for the future. Any hopes of ending environmental degradation, meeting the Millennium Development Goals, creating resilient communities and economies, and building trusted governance systems will be dashed unless there are fewer of us in the future than there are now. If we can’t do that by bringing down birth rates thoughtfully and carefully, then we shouldn’t be surprised if rising death rates do it for us. At all levels the crisis is a humanitarian one. The solutions are known, are cheap, and come with many collateral benefits”.

All that may well be so, but the political will to achieve them must be there too – and I leave you with the stark statement of Roger Martin, Chair of Population Matters. Reporting on the Earth Summit, he said: “I had to conclude that governments basically don’t care if the planet collapses under us in 20 years time. Their concerns are to get re-elected by providing short-term growth that unsustainable growth capitalism has persuaded us to demand. This raises the hugely challenging question of the tension between sustainability and democracy. The only solution is to persuade electorates to demand more sustainability and less consumption – easier said than done, when politics and the media are unanimously desperate for growth”.

Links to reports mentioned above:

www.populationmatters.org /

www.forumforthefuture.org/projects/growing-pains

www.wwf.org.uk/what_we_do/about_us/living_planet_report_2012

It's the Legacy that matters

By Mark Crutchley

No I’m not talking about the Olympic Games, but the much wider issue of what kind of legacy we are leaving our children and future generations. It’s a natural human instinct for people to make sacrifices for the benefit of their children; who doesn’t want to think that they will have better lives, more opportunity, greater success than was available to us. But is it what we are really providing them with today?

A few months ago I attended an event at which Jonathan Porritt, former Chair of the UK Sustainable Development Commission – a body which our government in its wisdom decided we no longer needed – and co-founder of Forum for the Future, lamented the fact that the green agenda had failed to create a compelling story to inspire people to live a more sustainable life. This failure has left sustainability and environmentalism as peripheral issues in a world which continues to be dominated by an obsession with economic growth.

I think a key element missing from the green story may have been a failure to challenge the economic approach to securing our children’s future. Get a job, work hard, buy a house, raise your kids, push them to work hard at school so they can go to University, so they get a better job ... repeat ad infinitum. It’s a recipe which in recent generations has played out positively thanks to the rapid economic growth we have achieved, but it’s a very narrow definition of success and one which doesn’t work in a world of lower or zero growth. All the focus is on the material aspects of life, little or none on the unquantifiable elements of relationships, happiness, connection to society and the natural world.

So surely this is fertile ground on which those of a green/progressive persuasion should be building. For all the economic growth of recent decades, studies show we are no happier than we were in the 1970’s. The Happy Planet index, calculated by the New Economics Foundation (NEF) based on life expectancy, experienced well-being and ecological footprint; doesn’t have Switzerland, the UAE, America or any of the other richest countries in the world at the top, but rather Costa Rica and Vietnam. The distribution of wealth in our current society is becoming increasingly unequal, yet everything points to people being happier when such inequalities are smaller rather than greater.

Perhaps most crucial to my mind is the state of the Earth that we are bequeathing our children. This may not be something which parents have traditionally given much thought to, but perhaps they should. Do we want future generations to live in a world without large wild animals – the populations of almost all are collapsing at an alarming rate. A world with no fish in the oceans – without action all major fish populations could be fished out by the middle of the century. With no ice in the Arctic in the summer – goodbye to polar bears and walrus – and this year there is a record low ice extent for the time of the year. With rainforests replaced by palm oil plantations.

What will it benefit our children if we do manage to drag the growth machine back for one last encore – which is what all the major governments of the world are obsessed with doing – if we continue to destroy the planet as a result? 

The message of sustainability should be uniquely well adapted to talking to parents about their hopes for their children and grandchildren. Now has to be the time to seize on the failure of the current economic model and offer a better future for everyone. One focused not on material wealth but on what really makes us content in our lives.

Twenty Wasted Years

By Mark Crutchley 

“If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading” is a famous quote by the Chinese philosopher Lau Tzu which has a chilling message for the world today.

At the UN Conference on Environment and Development, more commonly known as the Earth Summit, held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 the leaders of the world signed up to a “wide ranging blueprint for action to achieve sustainable development worldwide". The objective was nothing less than a transformation of attitudes and behaviours needed to ensure the maintenance of a healthy planet for the generations to come.

It was clear twenty years ago that we needed to make radical changes if we were to preserve our planet; so what have we done since then? Precious little. In the 20 years since the first Earth Summit our carbon emissions have increased by 40% and the loss of biodiversity has accelerated significantly. Our development is even more unsustainable now than it was back then. According to an assessment by the United Nations Environment Programme only four of ninety goals have been met and unless we can curb our consumption of natural resources then our governments will be presiding over “unprecedented levels of damage and degradation”. Strong words and a clear call to action.

Now however, in the Rio+20 conference which has just concluded you have to wonder whether there is even the same feeble level of commitment as was being shown 20 years ago. True there were 130 heads of state attending the meeting but with Obama, Merkel and Cameron not even bothering to turn up and the Chinese making it clear that they expect the wealthy countries to take the lead in addressing these issues – as they call it “common but differentiated responsibilities” – the chances of any sort of transformation in our behaviours being achieved look vanishingly small. Far from building up what has been achieved, as usually happens at the end of any major international conference, even Nick Clegg who represented the UK there, declared the outcome “insipid”.

 

European leaders evidently had much more important matters on their minds, with a growth stimulus for the EU being discussed by the French, German, Spanish and Italian leaders. David Cameron grubbing for contracts for British companies in Mexico, while Angela Merkel was prominent in the crowd at the German’s European Championship quarter-final. All good reasons not to attend a conference on the trivial matter of the future of the planet.

At a time when governments are struggling financially though, one positive step you would have thought that they would be prepared to take would be to end the subsidies to fossil fuels which help to drive climate change. With over a trillion dollars being spent by governments to help companies harm the climate – more than 12 times the support for renewable energy – the financial and environmental benefits of such a step are clear, but even this proved too much to ask. Our politicians are too deeply in hock to the fossil fuel companies to dare to withdraw their financial support.

 

So where does this leave us? It is clear the major developed nations are too preoccupied with their financial problems to give adequate attention to the environment and sustainable development. In the absence of financial and you might say, moral, leadership from them it is unrealistic to expect developing nations to take the lead, so it appears the governmental process is at a standstill. Individual issues may still be progressed, but achieving consensus on the broader issues of sustainable development is not going to happen.

It is going to be down to NGO’s and individual actions to lead any change in society. If you believe that we need change, then you are going to have to take it into your own hands to fight for it. Sitting back and expecting our governments to work things out is no longer an option, if it ever was.

Separately, you may be interested in a set of environmental National Report Cards produced by Matt Prescott, an ex Oxford University academic. These rate a countries’ performance on a range of environmental criteria in a similar way to the scoring of credit agencies on financial issues. While far from perfect, the approach highlights some of the important areas on which a country is strong or weak relative to its global peers.