Some good news? A second green revolution?

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Photosynthesis – the process used by plants to convert light energy into the chemical energy that fuels growth – is one of nature’s most crucial chemical reactions. And an international team of scientists (mainly from US and British universities) now believe they can use a genetic “hack” to make the process more efficient, and, in so doing, substantially boost yields of key food crops. In many plants, it turns out, photosynthesis is subject to a serious glitch: a fifth of the time, the enzyme responsible for capturing CO2 from the atmosphere grabs oxygen molecules instead. Plants thus affected then produce toxic compounds that have to be recycled through an energy-intensive process known as photorespiration, which stops plants growing to their full potential.

But by genetically “tweaking” the cells of tobacco plants, the scientists of the Ripe (Realising Increased Photosynthetic Efficiency) project – heavily funded by Bill and Melinda Gates – have succeeded in making photorespiration more efficient. When the modified plants were grown outdoors, yields increased by as much as 40%. The team are now trying to apply the technique to crops affected by photorespiration, including rice, wheat, soybean and potatoes. If successful – and if the resulting GM crops pass the requisite safety tests – they predict that the impact on agriculture could be as transformative as the Green Revolution of the 1950s. (The Times, London)

My comment: it’s good to be able to report some good news! However, what we don’t know id how climate change is going to affect worldwide agricultural areas. I refer to higher temperatures, wildfires, sudden and unprecedented downpours, hurricanes anf high humidity. If this new “tweaking” counteracts all this then we are onto something positive.

Donors Trust

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Donors Trust is an American non-profit donor-advised fund. It was founded in 1999 with the goal of “safeguarding the intent of libertarian and conservative donors”. Like all donor-advised funds, Donors Trust can offer anonymity to its clients who do not wish to make their donations public. It makes grants to charities that are not dependent on government support and that promote limited government, personal responsibility and free enterprise. It assures clients that their contributions will never be used to support politically liberal causes. (my italics).

In 2015 Donors Trust had an income of about $68 million. Lawson Bader, the president of both Donors Trust and Donors Capital Fund, was formerly president of the Competitive Enterprise Institute and Vice President at the Mercatus Center, both extremist right wing organisations committed to undoing the New Deal, including social security, all the measures that protect the lives and safety of ordinary citizens, destroying the unions, public schooling, and all economic regulations. Latterly it has tried to discredit the science of global warming, to its everlasting shame (approximately one-quarter of the funding of the “climate counter-movement” was from the Donors Trust and Donors Capital Fund).

I have set out the above to make the readership aware of an important hard right organisation that supports extreme wealth and threatens American democracy. Their point of view is in stark contrast to that of supporters of Epicureanism, who believe in moderation and in treating everyone with decency and respect. That means rich and poor, young and old, people of every political opinion, color, race, gender and sexual preference.

In the UK: a never- ending series of cuts in local government funding

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Between 2010 and 2020, local councils in yhe UK will have lost 60p out of every £1 the Government had provided for services. Councils have gone to great lengths to ensure the savings they have been forced to make have as little impact as possible on the quality of services provided to their residents. They have embraced efficiency and innovation in a way that is not being replicated anywhere else in the public sector.

However, local government leaders warn the financial viability of some councils is now under threat and many others are increasingly unable to provide dignified care for our elderly and disabled, protect children, boost economic growth, fill potholes, build homes and much more.

Funding pressures and rising demand for services, such as adult and children’s social care and homelessness support, will leave local services in England facing a £3.9 billion funding black hole next year.

Figures from the Local Government Association show that residents living in a council area which sits in the mid-range in relation to current funding, levels of deprivation and outlook for economic growth should expect to see key local services further dramatically reduced in 2019/20. Millions of residents are living in areas where their council will have to consider similar measures.

Councils meanwhile are facing unprecedented demand for adult and children’s social care and homelessness services, which is forcing cutbacks in the other services, such as road maintenance, leisure centres land libraries, and concentration only upon activities. Losing a further £1.3 billion of central government funding at this time is going to tip many councils over the edge. Many local authorities will reach the point where they only have the funds to provide services for which they have a statutory responsibility. The critical thing is not to see the local government abandon home care for the elderly – there no one else willing to do it.

The Local Government Association, in its pleas to Central Government, wrote: “Investing in local government is good for the nation’s prosperity, economic growth and for the health and well-being of our nation. It will boost economic growth, reduce demand for services and save money for the taxpayer and others part of the public sector.” Comments like this have no credibility in right-wing circles, nor have stories about granny’s miserable time in Council sponsored old people’s homes. You can see why so many people, told to blame the EU, lashed out when given a chance to vote against the system.

My comment: Every Conservative government since Thatcher has targeted local government. It is all part of the earnest desire of right-wingers to starve government to death and force the populace to “stand on its own feet”, unsupported by tax revenue from hard-working CEOs, bankers and sundry mega-millionaires,(known in Tory circles as the “truly deserving”). Does this sound familiar to American readers? The only good thing one can point out is that vulnerable young people are now once again espousing ideas that would restore decency and Epicurean kindness and consideration to public affairs. There are other things in life but simply money, although the mega-rich would dispute this. Go for it, guys!

Climate change and the collapse of everything

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Human-caused threats to climate, nature and economy pose a danger of systemic collapse comparable to the 2008 financial crisis, according to a new report that calls for urgent and radical reform to protect political and social systems. While many studies of environmental risk have examined threats in isolation – to the weather, to ecosystems, to the economy – the new paper, “This is a Crisis: Facing up to the Age of Environmental Breakdown”, assesses how the interplay of these factors can create a cascade of tipping points in human society as well as the natural world.

The meta-study compiled by the IPPR thinktank shows that since 2005, the number of floods has increased by a factor of 15, extreme temperature events by a factor of 20, and wildfires sevenfold; topsoil is now being lost 10 to 40 times faster than it is being replenished by natural processes; the 20 warmest years since records began in 1850 have been in the past 22 years; vertebrate populations have fallen by an average of 60% since the 1970s; and insect numbers – vital for pollination – have declined even faster in some countries.

Wider discussion is the first step, according to lead author Laurie Laybourn-Langton, who said he was shocked by the paucity of public debate relative to the scale of the problems: “It is the sort of thing mentioned at the end of a conversation, that makes everyone look at the floor, but we don’t have time for that now,” he said. (Guardian 12 Feb 2018)

My comment: That man-made climate change is a threatening fact should be a matter of debate no longer. It has been proved beyond doubt, and no respectable scientist now doubts it. Unfortunately, half-educated people like Trump and his yes-men, and those cynical money people for whom climate change is highly inconvenient and needs to be discredited, have muddied the waters (so to speak), denying the evidence of their own eyes and of the daily news. But young people know it’s true and are rightly frightened about the prospect of what is likely to happen in their lifetimes: mass migrations causing violence, the swamping of coastal cities, increasing numbers of wildfires, horrendously hot summers and the loss of productive soil by erosion (to name some of the worst).

I would rather like to erect a memorial that listed the chief proponents of doing nothing, the people who have actively trashed science. Their names would live in ignominy on my memorial. I won’t, of course, build it, having neither the ways or means to do so. But I, like all good Epicureans, should do what they personally can to mitigate the effects of their own footprints on our sickening planet. This is actually all we can do, aside from countering the ignorant and the selfish climate deniers whenever we encounter them. Where do they think all the gunk we spew into the air goes? Mars?

Street philosophy No. 2

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Three philosophers set up a booth on a busy street, as per yesterday’s post, hoping to discuss philosophy with passers-by.

A group of teenagers engaged one of the philosopher. A young woman, who turned out to be a sophomore in college, said she had a serious concern. “Why can’t I be happier in my life? I’m only 20. I should be as happy as I’m ever going to be right now, but I’m not. Is this it?”

The philosopher replied, “Research has shown that what makes us happy is achieving small goals one after the other. If you win the lottery, within six months you’ll probably be back to your baseline of happiness. Same if you got into an accident. You can’t just achieve happiness and stay there, you have to pursue it.”

“So I’m stuck?” she said.

“No…” he explained. “Your role in this is huge. You’ve got to choose the things that make you happy one by one. That’s been shown from Aristotle all the way down to cutting-edge psychological research. Happiness is a journey, not a destination.”

She brightened a bit, while her friends were still puzzling over whether color was a primary or secondary property. They said their thanks and moved on.

https://theconversation.com/3-philosophers-set-up-a-booth-on-a-street-corner-heres-what-people-asked-110866