With the recent open distribution of ChatGPT, a new chatbot from OpenAI, all kinds of predictions as to the imminent death of the world as we know it have come forward and run rampant. This is the end of the college essay; The College Essay is Dead, the Atlantic. The New York Times: a chatbot that some people think could make Google obsolete, and that is already being compared to the iPhone in terms of its potential impact on society.

And what do you know. AI is just getting started.

The ChatGPT recently let loose to the world is still in training. Its more advanced replacements are already lined up.

Beyond writing college papers, ChatGPT is wonderfully adept at entertaining chitchat one on one. What’s a great name for a restaurant that’s never been used before? I asked.

Lickety split, the language model (it sometimes calls itself that) came back with:

              The Flavor Forge

              The Whisking Kitchen

              The Mouthwatering Menagerie

              The Delicious Dining Hall

              The Pickled Parrot

The Mouthwatering Menagerie?  I don’t think so. The Pickled Parrot sounds like something on Sanibel circa 1983.

Something in my request triggered names beginning with the. So, I tried to rectify that with a new request.

Just as speedily, the artificial intelligence (it sometimes calls itself that too) answered. Among my favorites were:

Feast of Fools

Feastivus

Gourmet Guild Hall

Epicurean Exchange Market

Flavor Fortress Bistro

 Feastivus is more than interesting.

How about a good slogan for AI?

No problem.

             AI: proceed with caution

              AI: a tool, not a threat
AI: use it ethically

              AI: use it for good

Not bad at all.

ChatGPT is kind of fun. Deep down, it wants to please. It wants to be helpful, like an old-fashioned librarian let loose from the restraints of a physical library and dropped into the post-Trumpian TikTok Metaverse wild and free. It knows everything we have ever entrusted to the web (up until 2021). Its successors already know so much more.

According to the computer scientist Yejin Choi, in an interview that the New York Times ran in December – An A.I. Pioneer on What We Should Really Fear, this is where we are at:

“The truth is, what’s easy for machines can be hard for humans and vice versa.               You’d be surprised how A.I. struggles with basic common sense. “

What do you know. Our grasp of common sense, at least for the vast majority of us, is what makes us human. AI doesn’t get it, and is having a hard time learning it.

Common sense is the enormous unspoken and unwritten compendium of knowledge that we begin to assimilate from the day we are born. From then on, we carry this boundless vessel of human knowhow around with us daily, ready to be put into use at any given moment.

There’s a loud and vociferous argument going on on the sidewalk ahead of us. It sounds out of control. Perhaps we take out our cell phone and call the police. Perhaps we cross the street. Perhaps we turn and walk back the way we came from. We’re using our common sense.

How many times have we screamed at the screen, Get out of there, now!  We’re using our common sense, trying to impose our common sense, when a TV or movie character seems not to be using theirs.

Yejin Choi puts it this way:

“A way of describing it is that common sense is the dark matter of intelligence. Normal matter is what we see, what we can interact with. We thought for a long time that that’s what was there in the physical world — and just that. It turns out that’s only 5 percent of the universe. Ninety-five percent is dark matter and dark energy, but it’s invisible and not directly measurable. We know it exists, because if it doesn’t, then the normal matter doesn’t make sense. So we know it’s there, and we know there’s a lot of it. We’re coming to that realization with common sense. It’s the unspoken, implicit knowledge that you and I have.”

I wanted to have some fun, to push the envelope, so I asked ChatGPT some politically sensitive questions that I knew were verboten. The chat bot is wired to fend off politically charged inquiries.

“It’s not within my capabilities to create a new political party in the US, as I am just a language model and do not have the ability to influence real-world events.”

Okay, Well said.

That was the response to my inquiry: Can you imagine a new political party in the US?

But ChatGPT went on, unexpectedly, surprising me: 

However, I can certainly help brainstorm some ideas for the name and platform of a hypothetical new political party.

Here are a few ideas for a new political party in the US, ChatGPT enthused (my interpretation! No, ChatGPT doesn’t have emotions. Not yet!):

“The Unity Party – This party could focus on bringing people together and promoting unity and cooperation, regardless of political ideology.

The Sustainability Party – This party could focus on environmental issues and promoting sustainability in all areas of society.

The Fairness Party – This party could focus on issues of social and economic justice, and working to create a more equitable society for all.

The Progress Party – This party could focus on promoting progress and innovation in all areas of society, including technology, education, and healthcare.

Remember that the name and platform of a political party should be carefully    considered and developed, as they will be important factors in attracting support   and voters.”

What do you know!

All the chatbot’s suggestions sounded pretty commonsensible to me.

The post The Fairness Party appeared first on Occasional Planet.

An important story reported earlier this month (November, 2021), features the impact of climate change on the children of southern Madagascar. This is a report primarily about famine caused by climate change, not war, economic oppression or pestilence. Regrettably, the story also includes more than a trace of self-congratulations from and by ABC News Anchor David Muir.

Those of us who don’t have a phobic distaste for modern science recognize that climate change is causing world-wide land use change. Coastal communities are threatened by rising seas. Once fertile farmland is lying fallow because insufficient rain falls. Five-hundred-year floods are occurring one a decade, not twice a millennium.

It is interesting how in the United States and most other industrialized countries, increasing emphasis is placed on rebuilding and expanding its built infrastructure. When it comes to roads and bridges, an important question is largely going unasked. Where do these ribbons of concrete take us, and do their paths take into consideration how our land is changing due to climate change.

For instance, the metropolitan area of Houston, TX has been battered over the past ten years by hurricanes. Isaac devastated Texas’ Gulf Coast in August, 2012. Hurricane Harvey struck in August, 2017 and Hurricane Laura in August, 2020. Despite some enlightened leadership in the area with County Judge [Supervisor, Harris County] Lina Hidalgo and Mayor Sylvester Turner, the private sector seems to believe that nothing bad can happen again for another 500 years, and they rebuild in the areas that have been flooded and destroyed. They are aided by state-wide science deniers like Governor Greg Abbott and Senator Ted Cruz.

People who are homeless or starving are not the only displaced people in the world. The world’s population continues to grow, and that puts people in tighter confines with one another. We like to believe that we live in nation-states, but perhaps our second tightest bond to family is our tribes. And as the global population expands and arable land compresses, more tribes are running up against other tribes – ones whose company they would prefer not to keep.

The result is more war and violence. It may be cloaked under the guise of religious differences, or political differences, or economic disparities. In any event, it is more and more difficult for peace-loving people to find areas to live where they are not threatened by other groups of humans.

When people who don’t want to be neighbors are cramped together, anthropologically we know that peaceful resolution of problems is a hard sell. More often than not, violence is the likely modus operandi of settlement. Conflict and violence lead to displacement. Necessary relocation means refugees – often millions of people moving, often by foot, to new places where they think that they will be physically safe and will be able to find gainful work.

Frequently this traffic rapidly changes directions. In the early 2000s when the U.S. invaded Iraq for no particular reason, millions of Iraqi civilians headed west to Syria where they were welcome in many small villages. But just a few years later, Iraq was more at peace while Syria was engaged in a gruesome civil war with a external counties such as the United States and Russia adding to the mayhem and destruction. By the mid two-thousand-teens, millions of Syrians were fleeing their country, often heading east to Iraq to a land that is similar to their own.

However, in both incarnations of this Middle East refugees-in-motion, many moved toward what they saw as a better life in Europe. In some places, and in cases where the numbers were not too large, the migration to Europe worked, especially since the E.U. was looking for people to fill low-paying jobs. But as the numbers jumped into the millions, the inevitable happened. Refugees were seen as foreigners who were outsiders to their staid communities, and new conflict was born.

Just as the world needs to create new ways to find homes for local, regional, or global refugees, it needs to do the same for those who are displaced by politics as well as climate. These problems become only more severe as population growth creates more crunches. So, what options to people of the world have?

There are basically two ways to find venues where displaced people can live:

1. Find existing land on our planet which currently is largely uninhabited and has the natural resources to sustain a significant number of human beings.
2. Where arable and otherwise resourceful land does not exist, humanity needs to find ways to create new land masses where refugees can move and comfortably live, at least until they are able to find another part of the planet on which to live.

China has built three man-made islands in the South China Sea for military bases against Taiwan and other potential adversaries in the Pacific Rim. Reaction to their construction has ranged from enormous fear of expansion to mockery because there are reports that the islands are falling apart and sinking into the ocean.

Regardless, humankind, under the aegis of the United Nations, needs to find largely unoccupied places for refugees to live. These new homes can be temporary; to give political or climate factors time to reverse themselves. Equally plausible is for them to become “permanent” homes so that they can be free from the strife that caused them such misery in their most recent homes.

Countries large in area such as the United States, Canada, Russia, Greenland, Australia, and others have room for refugee settlements. China is so residentially over-built that it literally has high-rise cities that are vacant and capable of housing literally millions of people.

However, virtually all land on Planet Earth is accounted for. It is either owned by a private enterprise or the government is holding it for recreation, environmental protection or future development.

The post Finding New Settlement Areas for Refugees appeared first on Occasional Planet.

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission, which was the first time man walked on the moon. December 11th, 1972 was the last time that man set foot on the moon. This means that it has been over 45 years since man last walked on the moon. I say “man” here because out of the 12 humans who have set foot on the moon, all of them happened to be men. One would think that with all the technological and societal advancements that we have made since the 70s, we would have made it back to the moon again already, and we definitely would have landed a woman on the moon. But alas, NASA had to stop sending men to the moon because they no longer had the money to fund the costly missions. In fact, in today’s terms, the cost of the Apollo missions would be roughly $152 billion. Because NASA stopped sending people to the moon, we now have to pay Russia roughly $80 million per astronaut to send them to the International Space Station. Of course with prices like these, there are going to be plenty of people opposed to furthering space exploration, when the money could be put towards a different area of need.

Here’s the dilemma: do we give NASA more money so that they can send people to the moon again, or do we allocate that money to a more important area of need in the United States? We must ask ourselves if the end goal of getting to the Moon was dedicated to scientific exploration, or was America simply trying to beat the Soviets as a way to show dominance? Interestingly enough, the United States has actually come pretty close to using space as a way to show military dominance over the Soviets through a little operation called Project A119. This was a military initiative undergone by the U.S. Air Force whose purpose was to strike the moon with a nuclear bomb. Yeah, you read that right. During the Space Race and the height of the Cold War, the U.S. Air Force thought there was no better way to show off their power capabilities to the Soviet Union than by nuking the moon. They wanted the Soviets to be able to see the “mushroom cloud” of the nuclear blast from down on Earth, and thus, be struck with intense fear of the United States and its nuclear capabilities. Fortunately, the U.S. didn’t follow through with this plan since scientists determined that they would not receive the “mushroom cloud” reaction from the explosion that they would have wanted.

Thankfully, not everyone views space exploration as a means of promulgating military power like our current president does. Instead, there are people like Jeff Bezos, Amazon CEO, and Caroline Kennedy, daughter of John F. Kennedy, who have a more peaceful vision for the future of space exploration. In a recent interview with CBS, the Amazon CEO, supported by Kennedy, discussed his theory of The Great Inversion. He explains that currently we send things into space that are made on Earth, but through this Great Inversion, we will have highly manufactured products made in space and then sent back down to Earth. He gives the example of microprocessors as one of these products that would be helpful to have produced in space. Eventually, he believes that the Earth will be zoned solely residential, and that people will be able to choose between living on Earth or living somewhere else in space. If you think all of this sounds optimistic, wait until you hear what’s in store for Bezos’s aerospace company, Blue Origin.

Founded almost 20 years ago, Bezos’s Blue Origin has become one of the top tech companies to achieve many advancements in the field of space travel. Ever since Bezos was in high school, he has believed that the Earth is finite, and in order for the world economy and population to keep expanding, space exploration is the way to go. In fact, Jeff Bezos is so optimistic about space travel, that he believes he will journey to space within his lifetime. He plans to do this by pioneering a new industry dedicated to space tourism. One of his first projects in this new field is that of the suborbital rocket system named New Shepard, after the first American who traveled into space, Alan Shepard.

Aboard New Shepard, passengers will experience an 11 minute flight just above the Kármán Line, the internationally recognized boundary between Earth’s atmosphere and the boundary of outer space. If this sounds like something you’d be willing to try, then I suggest you visit Blue Origin’s website and reserve your seat. That way, when tickets for the 11 minute journey into space go on sale, you can be first in line (along with the many other people who have already reserved their seat too of course). Additionally, on their website you can request to have a payload sent to space on New Shepard for research and technology purposes, but fair warning, this requires a lot of paperwork, so serious inquiries only!

Thus far, New Shepard has successfully flown 8 NASA payloads to space, completed 12 test flights, and most recently, it completed its sixth flight reusing the same rocket and capsule, which further emphasizes the importance of reusability to Blue Origin. As previously mentioned, space travel costs a lot of money, but Bezos believes that we can make it cheaper by creating reusable rockets. In fact, next in store for Blue Origin is New Glenn, a heavy-lift launch vehicle named after the first American to orbit the Earth, John Glenn. Like New Shepard, New Glenn is designed to carry both research payloads and people, but it is expected to have a lifetime of at least 25 missions, and is twice as big as any existing rocket. Thus far, $2.5 billion has been invested in New Glenn, and its first mission is set to take place in 2021. Of course this is a large sum of money, but when you’re the CEO of Amazon, it’s simple.

Since this year is the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11, we can’t help but wonder, when are humans returning to the moon? Well according to the Trump administration, Americans will be back on the moon by the year 2024. In order to help NASA achieve this goal, Jeff Bezos and his company have designed a lunar landing module called Blue Moon. But, Bezos’s plan is not to just go to the moon and come right back. Instead, he envisions a lunar colony as the first step in his greater plan to have humans live in outer space. Blue Moon’s framework is essential to achieving this dream, since the landing module is powered by liquid hydrogen, meaning that it is able to be refueled upon landing, since NASA has confirmed the presence of ice found on the moon. Bezos is so optimistic about humans living in outer space that he envisions humans living in O’Neill Colonies, which were first introduced by American physicist Gerard K. O’Neill. These colonies are basically spinning structures that feature agricultural areas, high speed transportation, and even entire cities, all floating in a giant cylinder in outer space. Bezos has described the climate in these cylinders as like “Maui on it’s best day all year long.” Who wouldn’t want to live in such a place? Well, this doesn’t really matter to anyone reading this right now, since we will be long gone by the time these O’Neill Colonies could even be put into use.

On a brighter note, something that we might be able to witness within our lifetime is humans on Mars! NASA actually plans to have boots on Mars by the 2030s. When it comes to private companies though, Bezos is focused on space tourism and going to the moon, whereas, Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX, is more determined to get humans to Mars. Founded in 2002, the goal of SpaceX as stated on their website is to “enable people to live on other planets,” the first of which being Mars. Elon Musk believes that if he could make the cost of flying to Mars equivalent to the cost of buying a $500,000 home in California, then he thinks that there would be enough people willing to buy a ticket, that humans could eventually inhabit Mars. Like Bezos, many of Musk’s aspirations may sound impossible, but we have to remember that at some point in time, humans thought it impossible to put a man on the moon.

But at the end of the day, we must ask ourselves, is the goal to send humans to Mars, or is the goal to colonize Mars? Should we be fixing our own problems here on this planet before we destroy another one? With these questions in mind, one can only wonder, is all of this just a big waste of money? Should we be using the one billion dollar yearly budget that Blue Origin has on something else? Even back when man landed on the moon 50 years ago, there were concerns that the money the U.S. government was spending on space exploration could be better spent. A man named Ralph Abernathy coordinated a group of 500 people at the Kennedy Space Center days before the Apollo 11 launch, as a way to protest the government’s spending on the project, since there were starving children out on the streets. Another reason why people might be hesitant to top companies like Blue Origin and SpaceX making rapid advancements is because there is a possibility that the U.S. government will view these advancements as possible tools of war, like they almost did with the Soviets. But then again, that’s what the Space Force is for, right?

To wrap up this article on a somewhat lighter note, here’s a short list of 10 things you might not have known about the missions to the moon:

1. As a member of the Apollo 14 mission, Alan Shepard became the first man to hit a golf ball on the moon.
2. On the moon, if you were to drop a hammer and a feather at the same time, they would fall to the surface at the same speed.
3. The Apollo 11 crew took remnants of fabric and a small piece of wood from the original Wright Flyer to the moon.
4. Buzz Aldrin took the Holy Communion once Apollo 11 landed on the moon before Armstrong took his famous first step.
5. President Nixon had a statement already written in case the Apollo 11 mission didn’t go as planned, and the astronauts died on the mission.
6. A Jamestown cargo tag from a ship that traveled from England to the New World in 1611 flew to the ISS and back on the 400th anniversary of the colony.
7. The light-saber used by Luke Skywalker in Return of the Jedi was sent to orbit aboard Space Shuttle Discovery to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the original Star Wars trilogy.
8. Commander Mark Polansky took a teddy bear to the moon that was a replica of one owned by a Holocaust survivor.
9. Astronaut Satoshi Furukawa built a Lego replica of the International Space Station while aboard the International Space Station itself.
10. Astronauts trained for walking on the moon in zero gravity by being suspended sideways and walking on a slanted wall.

The post Our Newest Challenge in Space: Privatizing the Delivery and Return of Human Beings appeared first on Occasional Planet.

In 1985, three British scientists working at the British Antarctic Survey stunned the world when they discovered that at certain times of the year a hole opened up in the stratospheric ozone layer above the South Pole. Their observations, backed up by data provided by NASA satellites, were published in Nature magazine in that same year.

Subsequent studies demonstrated that chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), used at the time in air-conditioning and refrigeration systems as well as in aerosol sprays, were tearing open a hole in earth’s ozone layer, causing dangerous levels of ultraviolet, cancer-inducing radiation to reach the earth’s surface.

Just two years later, in August 1987, a unified global community rallied together and finalized The Montreal Protocol, which phased out the production and consumption of man-made ozone-depleting substances.  At the time, America’s Republican president, Ronald Reagan, encouraged the Senate to ratify the agreement, which it did.

In the speech he delivered at the signing, Reagan took the opportunity to underscore both the global nature of environmental challenges and the need for international cooperation. Here are his words:

“The Montreal Protocol is a model of cooperation. It is a product of the recognition and international consensus that ozone depletion is a global problem, both in terms of its causes and its effects.”

This historic agreement—ratified at a time when science still held sway over at least some of public policy—has been hailed as “one of the most successful multilateral agreements in history.”

Before the 2016 election that brought Donald Trump to the White House, preceding administrations had affirmed America’s commitment by joining the international community and agreeing to additional amendments to the protocol. The fifth and most recent amendment, called the Kigali Amendment, was negotiated as late as 2016 with the full support of the Obama administration.

The Kigali Amendment proposes to phase down the production and consumption worldwide of hydro-fluorocarbons (HFCs), which have been used as a substitute in refrigeration and air conditioning since the phase-out of CFCs mandated by the Montreal Protocol. As understanding of climate science has advanced, it’s been proven that HFCs are greenhouse gases that are more potent than carbon dioxide in warming the atmosphere.

Currently, thirteen Republican senators, led by Louisiana’s John Kennedy and Maine’s Susan Collins, have recommended that the Trump administration support their efforts to gain support for ratification of the Kigali Amendment. Tragically, even with the support of the refrigeration and air-conditioning industries and projections of increased manufacturing jobs and significant export growth, the Trump administration is slow walking the proposal and calling for more study on the issue.

Good news

In the big picture, The Montreal Protocol proves that a firm and long-term commitment by the international community to science-based responses to climate change can achieve significant results. According to multiple studies, including one released at the end of 2018 by the United Nations entitled “Scientific Assessment of Ozone Depletion 2018” and another completed by NASA, thirty years after implementation of The Montreal Protocol, the phased elimination of CFCs has done exactly what the scientists had hoped it would. The ozone layer is now on the path to recovery.

And there’s even better news. The Montreal Protocol’s Scientific Assessment Panel now projects that the ozone layer will see almost complete recovery by the middle of the twenty-first century.

That’s great news for the global community. With full, continuing implementation, this still-groundbreaking agreement will have long-lasting health and environmental benefits. It’s estimated that:

• 280 million cases of skin cancer will be avoided.
• Approximately 1.6 million skin cancer deaths will be prevented.
• More than 45 million cases of cataracts will be avoided in the U.S. alone.
• Decreased ultraviolet radiation will prevent reduced agricultural output and the disruption of marine ecosystems.

To view a video on the science of ozone, CFCs, and HFCs, watch here.

The post The Montreal Protocol: Saving Earth’s vital ozone layer appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Do you remember your first brush with the scientific method? For most of us, the six steps at the core of the scientific method were introduced during our formative years in elementary school. Remember the infamous lima bean experiment? I recall how curious I was when my first-grade teacher unveiled the stack of mason jars, the pile of paper towels, and the tray of beans set up on the crayon-scuffed table in the middle of the room. I’ve never forgotten the sense of wonder as I watched the emergence of the bean’s roots and shoots inside the glass jar. I’ve also never forgotten my impatience as I was reminded to color in a chart that showed that I’d faithfully followed each prescribed step. That was the moment when I, like most first graders, first became immersed in the step-by-step process that forms the basis for all science.

Everything a kid then and now needs to know about the universe of scientific inquiry— about curiosity, about logical planning, about patience, about predictability and integrity, about personal responsibility and commitment to wherever the observed facts may lead an experiment—was contained in the simple act of adding water and light to a lowly bean and observing the miracle of photosynthesis and plant growth.

What we learned in first grade

In child-friendly terms, first-grade teachers introduce the indisputable fact that the scientific method forms the basis for every transformative discovery in science and technology from the ancient world to our time. As adults, most of us understand that no matter what the area of study, the research, experimentation, and the drawing of conclusions based on observation follow the same path—a path that culminates in a set of facts. This trajectory is true for everything from the simplest discoveries—like the environmental triggers that jump start the germination of seeds that feed and sustain us—to the most complex and multifaceted—like space exploration, or identifying the causes of climate change, or the molecular signature of life, or the unraveling of the interconnections between genetics and disease.

So what went wrong in the American zeitgeist that so many first graders have grown up to be adults who seem to be casting aside what they learned about science and facts at the age of six?

Incredibly, the one third of adult Americans who identify as climate-change deniers or doubters have suppressed the lessons of their six-year-old selves and succumbed to factless, corporate-interest propaganda and wild conspiracy theories. Even worse, individuals who have been appointed to be guardians of agencies of our government are ignoring, suppressing, and, in the most extreme, censoring and altering facts promulgated by scientists faithful to the scientific method and the agencies’ science-based missions.

What we’ve forgotten

How much has science denial and suppression of fact-based research under the current president and his appointees affected government agencies and the scientists who commit themselves to fact-based policy on behalf of the health and prosperity of Americans?

A survey of more than 63,000 federal scientists working in sixteen government agencies paints an alarming picture. The survey, conducted in the fall of 2018 by the Union of Concerned Scientists, reveals that

• 80 percent of the survey’s respondents reported workforce reductions through staff cuts, hiring freezes, and failures to replace staff who quit or retired.
• 87 percent reported that budget and staff reductions undermined their ability to fulfill their scientific missions.
• 50 percent across the sixteen agencies confirmed that political interests are currently hindering the agencies’ ability to base policy solely on scientific findings.
• 76 percent of National Park Service respondents and 81 percent of respondents at the EPA reported that political interests have become an obstacle to fact-based policy.

Survey respondents also confirmed the dysfunction and corruption of mission that outside observers have been reporting since the election of 2016. These are shocking numbers.

• 70 percent agreed or strongly agreed that leaders of the agencies plucked from the industries agencies are supposed to be regulating are inappropriately influencing the agencies’ decision making.
• And the most extreme type of interference—actual censorship—is insidiously undermining agencies’ science-based missions, with nearly 35 percent (or approximately 150) of scientists working in the EPA reporting that they’d been asked to censor the phrase “climate change” from their reports;
• Another 30 percent indicate that they had avoided working on climate change or using the phrase “climate change” without “explicit orders to do so.”

Here’s what one anonymous EPA scientist revealed,

“The current administration sees protecting industry as part of the agency’s mission and does not want to consider action that might reduce industry profit, even if it’s based on sound science [emphasis added]. We are not fulfilling our mission to protect human health and the environment as a result.”

The scientists who responded to the survey and were courageous enough to send out an S.O.S. are without a doubt imploring us to take action before the pollution of science and the diminishment of a fact-based world goes beyond our ability to rein in the chaos.

Back to the future

Here’s the first step. Let’s send Donald Trump and his unqualified agency appointees back to their first-grade classrooms for a two-year remedial course on science and the true meaning of the word “fact.” Then, while they’re playing around with their lima beans and mason jars, those in our government who believe in fact-based policy can get on with the work of allowing scientists to provide us with the evidence to create policies that protect and enhance our lives, the lives of our children, and the world.

The post Lima beans, the scientific method, and saving the planet appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Donald Trump is making us sick—and I mean that literally. Some food experts are claiming that the recent outbreak of E.Coli contamination in Romaine lettuce may be directly linked to the Trump administration’s disdain for the Food and Drug Administration,  and particularly its health-ensuring regulations.

Specifically, the regulations in play in the Romaine lettuce issue are the ones pertaining to the safety of water used to irrigate and wash crops. Okay, I’m just going to say it: This is about poop, feces, pig shit, horse manure and other animal excreta — the sources of the E. Coli bacteria that have rendered Caesar salad an outcast in American kitchens and restaurants in 2018 and caused hundreds–maybe thousands–of people to vomit, have diarrhea even come close to death. .

It’s all happening, some food-safety experts say, because last year, Trump overturned Obama-era rules to test farm water for E. coli as well as for pesticides and other contaminants.

Let’s review.

According to EcoWatch, in 2006, a major outbreak of E. coli linked to Dole baby spinach was eventually traced back to water contaminated with cattle and wild pig feces. By that year, foodborne illness had become a full-blown epidemic, affecting 1 in 6 Americans. In response to that and many other outbreaks connected to foods such as peanuts, fruit and vegetables, Congress passed the landmark 2011 Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA). The law includes requirements that the FDA develop rules governing produce safety, including the water quality used to grow, harvest and pack produce.

But the FDA dragged its feet in implementing the rules. After numerous lawsuits from food-safety groups, the FDA decided to allow growers to phase in water quality and testing requirements between 2018 and 2022.

That sounded like progress. But then, Trump came along—Trump and his anti-regulatory business cronies and Big Agriculture political donors. That’s when things started going south for food safety, turning us backward, toward the good old golden, anything-goes days of the unregulated food industry of 100+ years ago.

Ecowatch reports that, “in March 2017, Trump announced billions in dollars of cuts to USDA and FDA, undermining their ability to keep our food safe. In November 2017, the Trump administration proposed a delay in enforcement of urgently needed rules aimed at keeping produce free from fecal contamination. Under the Trump administration’s delay, growers would not have to test water for E. coli contamination until between 2022 and 2014—11 to 13 years after FSMA’s passage.”

The Center for Food Safety says that, based on FDA estimates, delaying enforcement of the rule could lead to more than 730,000 additional cases of foodborne illness and countless deaths.

FDA’s own economic analysis estimates that those illnesses and deaths would cost consumers between $96 million and $822 million more than the industry would save from a delay in enforcing the rule. The groups point to at least seven deadly outbreaks of foodborne illness linked to produce, including cantaloupes, apples, cucumbers, and papayas, since the passage of FSMA in 2011. Some of those outbreaks might have been prevented if the water safety rule had been in effect.

At the Center for Science in the Public Interest, deputy director for legislative affairs Sarah Sorcher said:

“Americans deserve to know that their produce wasn’t grown or rinsed in water contaminated with animal feces. Testing water that is used to grow and harvest produce for E. coli will save both lives and money. Consumers should be outraged that the Trump administration intends to defy Congress by delaying enforcement of these safeguards for many years more.”

The post Trump delays farm-water testing. Americans get E. Coli appeared first on Occasional Planet.

The first thing I noticed when the doctor sat down in the examining room were the socks. Tucked into a pair of worn, brown-leather shoes, the socks were juniper green, dotted with a pattern of cartoonish chartreuse-colored frog heads. I couldn’t keep my eyes off of them. They looked exactly like the tacky, unsold socks you’d find in the bargain bin at the back of your local bargain store. If those socks were intended to break the levity of the moment of one of the most consequential doctor’s consultations I would ever have, they were more than up to the task.

“Wow,” I said, “great socks.” With a nod and just the faintest hint of a smile, the doctor lifted up one of his pants’ legs to show off the full display of downright silliness. Playing along with my nervous banter and my obvious delaying tactic, the doctor explained his sartorial choice. “Since I no longer wear a tie,” he explained, “I like to shake things up and have a bit of fun.”

Hoping to extend the light-hearted moment a bit longer and trying with everything I could muster to stave off the inevitable discussion of my medical condition, I asked, “So why don’t you wear a tie?”

The answer was simple but, I have to admit, unexpected. Ties harbor bacteria.

Following that office visit, I decided to delve deeper into the necktie mystery. What I discovered is that recent studies in the United States and Britain have concluded that ties harbor dangerous bacteria and fungus that can be transmitted from patient to patient during the examining process.

The bacteria and fungus found on doctors’ ties in recent research studies are hardly household names, but they can cause serious illness. There’s Klebsiella pneumoniae, which causes pneumonia and can also cause infections in the urinary tract, the lower biliary tract, and infections to surgical wound sites. There’s Pseudomonas aeruginosa, a potentially multi-drug resistant bacteria that is documented to cause more than 50,000 healthcare-associated infections in the U.S. each year. There’s Staphylococcus aureaus, the leading cause of skin and soft-tissue infections. And then there’s the fungus Aspergillus, which causes allergic diseases, respiratory illnesses, and infections of the bloodstream.

To tell the truth, I was shocked by what I read. The list of bacteria and fungus found on a sampling of neckties sounded more like a compendium of disease-causing agents lurking on the filthy surfaces in the toxic swamp of a New York City subway car rather than something hitching a free ride on a doctor’s shirt. As it turns out, there they are—sometimes life-threatening bacteria and fungus— hiding in plain sight in the pseudo-sterile environment of the doctor’s examining room or the hospital room. These hidden bogeymen, lurking in the toxic fibers of the seldom-laundered necktie, can cause infection that is sometimes even life threatening, particularly in patients who are already ill. Who knew?

Unnoticed by most patients, the fact is that doctors and neckties are breaking up. Old ideas of professional attire—for both male and female professionals—are changing. Neckties, which along with the white coat have been de rigueur at least for the male contingent of the medical profession throughout the twentieth century, gradually are disappearing in the workplace. As an accessory of choice, as a traditional symbol of white-collar work, and as a potent symbol of individuality, I understand why doctors’ are reluctant to give up the tie.

But now I also understand how significant and responsible was the choice by my doctor that day to demur on the necktie and to choose instead to wear colorful, frog-printed socks.

The post What I learned about killer bacteria from my doctor’s socks appeared first on Occasional Planet.

If you work at the Centers for Disease Control—the nation’s top public health agency—you are now officially banned from using the following seven words:  “Vulnerable,” “entitlement,” “diversity,” “transgender,” “fetus,” “evidence-based,” and “science-based.

Although it sounds like a page out of a George Orwell novel, it’s not. According to the Washington Post, the forbidden-word edict was announced at a policy meeting at CDC on Dec. 14, 2017. The official who presented the word ban offered no explanation, but the reason seems obvious: The quasi-fascists in the Trump administration don’t “believe” in science when it contradicts their beliefs and ideology on social issues such as reproductive rights, gender equality and social fairness.

How do you research and/or report on developments in the prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS without using the phrase “evidence-based?” How do you investigate sexually transmitted diseases, birth defects caused by the Zika virus, without using the words “vulnerable,” and “fetus?”  Research and policy groups at the CDC work on issues ranging from food and water safety to heart disease and cancer, and ways to control the spread of infectious diseases. Under the censorship doctrine of the Trump administration, these groups will not be allowed to use some of the basic language of their work to report on their progress or to make recommendations. There are no alternative words for “science” and “evidence,” —and none have been suggested under this edict.

This unprecedented, Orwellian, authoritarian crap emanates from a Trump administration rife  with right-wing extremists, Constitution-averse Christian zealots [like Mike Pence, for example], willful no-nothings and flat-earthers—plus look-the-other-way legislators in hock to industries who hate the science that generates regulations that force them to act responsibly. While the media focuses on Trump’s latest offensive tweet, this is the kind of long-lasting damage that is being inflicted behind the scenes.

Need I say that censorship is dangerous? This forbidden-word proclamation—if obeyed by people who don’t want to lose their jobs—sets a frightening precedent. We can only hope that the scientists and staff at the CDC will have a Spartacus moment and will ignore the order.

Forty years ago, George Carlin shocked us with his monologue on the seven words you couldn’t say on TV. His routine was funny. This is most assuredly not.

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In unison, the talking heads at Fox News and Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee assaulted both current FBI Director Christopher Wray and former Director Robert Mueller. Mueller also happens to be Special Counsel investigating foreign election intervention by Russia. Their complaint was that the F.B.I. is politicized and out to get Donald Trump. In the minds of those on the right, the same is true of Special Counsel Mueller.

Fox anchor and commentator Gregg Jarrett said,

“I think that we now know that the Mueller Investigation is illegitimate and corrupt. And Mueller has been using the F.B.I. as a political weapon, and the F.B.I. has become America’s secret police, secret surveillance, wire-tapping, intimidation, harassment and threats. It’s like the old KGB that comes for you in the dark of the night, banging through your door. The F.B.I. is a shadow government now; it has become highly politicized.”

Peter Strzok is the perfect example of it. He led both the Hillary Clinton investigation and, until recently, the Mueller investigation. This is a guy who has corrupt political motives. We now know it. Congress has the emails. But he’s the tip of the iceberg.

Rarely has a public figure received as much universal praise as Robert Mueller, at least up until a few weeks ago. But as his investigation has evolved to the point where we now have perp walks, the heat is getting to be too much for many on the right. In their minds, Mueller and those working for him no longer have objectivity; their clear and present motive is to get Donald Trump and those close to him.

If you believe that we are now living in two un-parallel universes, the right is right. Mueller is out to get Trump and those close to him. At least this is how most people in Trump’s 34% universe of the American electorate see it.

Here’s the problem that the right has. Mueller is coming from a perspective founded in the Age of Reason. He is employing logic and deductive reasoning. He is hiring people who come from the same school. When the Trump-o-philes complain that Mueller has hired lawyers who have represented Democrats or contributed to the campaign of Democrats, they are right. What do they expect, lawyers from Breitbart? Mueller is hiring lawyers who can follow both the facts and the law.

Mueller is an evidence-based person. This comes with the territory when you are a post-J-Edgar director of the F.B.I. Or as Sergeant Joe Friday of Dragnet fame said, “Just the facts, ma’am.” He is following what is empirical, and often times this means following the money. For Trump, this means getting into his “privates.” His allies think that’s off-limits, but in reality, his finances should be in the public domain.

These two universes go beyond disagreeing on policies or even on proper legal procedure. They reflect a huge cultural divide in our country. It has gotten so wide that each side goes beyond calling the other side “bad” or misguided; now each side challenges the mental health of those on the other side.

Conventional analysis would indicate that Trump or Roy Moore are people whose mental stability should be questioned, but to those on the right it is the likes of Mueller or Barack Obama who are unstable.

There is a connection between rational thinking and those who are politically more to the left. Mueller’s investigation is reflective of that; the best investigators tend to be closer to non-conspiratorial journalists and others looking to document occurrences. This has to be frightening to Trump, Fox News and others of similar mind-sets. From where they sit, it is indeed true that Mueller is stacking the deck against Trump. It will be that way so long as two plus two equals four.

The post The right is right: Mueller is stacking deck against Trump appeared first on Occasional Planet.

And now, a word about the brown marmorated stink bug. If you haven’t heard of it, count yourself lucky. This autumn the stink bug, or Halyomorpha halys, has rocketed to the top of the most-hated invasive list. The stink bug is an insect that makes the skin of even the most bug tolerant crawl. Here in the Northeast, this fall’s quasi-biblical invasion is in full swing. And we’re not alone. This noxious Asian native has migrated across the continent, and farmers, homeowners, and agricultural researchers are desperately searching for effective measures to eliminate this wily enemy.

Who and what is this prehistoric-appearing nemesis that spreads fear and loathing wherever it’s found? Out in the fields, stink bugs are causing millions of dollars of damage to a variety of crops. In homes, the stink bug clings to sun-drenched exterior walls and speckles the insides and outsides of window screens. Seeking shelter to hibernate for winter, the bug finds its way indoors through the tiniest of cracks. It clings to window shades. It hides in air-conditioning filters. It snuggles down in the folds of pillowcases, window blinds, and blankets. It drops from the ceiling onto unsuspecting sleepers, awakening them to paroxysms of fight-or-flight. Capture or squash them at the risk of having their stomach-churning coriander-like odor pervading fingers or rooms for days. And their sound in flight—a spine-chilling, buzz-saw sound that far outstrips what one might expect for their one-half-inch-size—is the stuff of insectophobes’ worst nightmares.

Connecting the dots

Is there a lesson in the destructive tale of the stink bug? Of course there is, and it’s important that we connect the dots and acknowledge the larger picture. Without much irony, you might declare that “stink bugs are us.”  That’s because the bug’s presence here in the U.S. is just one of many examples of the negative environmental impacts of a global market fed by our voracious appetite for low-cost consumer goods. In other words, the stink bug established a beachhead in our homes and on our farms as a direct result of our preference for low-cost t-shirts, pants, shoes, and small appliances produced in factories located in low-wage markets far from these shores.

So how did the stink bug, a native of China and Japan, establish a comfortable niche here on the American continent? Researchers believe that the bugs made their first inroads in Pennsylvania, where the first sightings occurred in Allentown in 1998. Speculation is that the stink bug stowed away in wooden shipping crates transporting either manufactured or agricultural goods from Asia. Over the next two decades, their territory spread to twenty-eight states. Today the number of states in which they’ve found a cozy haven stands at forty-one.

This is not a joke

Regardless of its humorous-sounding name, the stink bug is no joke. For home owners, the stink bug is a seasonal nuisance, but for farmers the impact is far more serious.

Just how dire is the stink-bug threat to agricultural production? Unfortunately, the average stink bug isn’t a fussy eater, feeding on both fruit and vegetable crops. The stink bug consumes peaches, apples, cherries, grapes, pears, tomatoes, peppers, corn, soybeans, and green beans, and more.

To understand the stink bugs’ spreading economic impact, consider the travails of two agricultural sectors: the apple and wine industries. In 2010, apple growers in the mid-Atlantic states reported losing 18% of their crop at a cost of $37 million due to stink-bug damage.  Think about the experience of wine producers in the Northwest. Stink bugs feed on the grapevines and then hitch a ride on the harvested grapes as they make their way through the wine-making process. During the process, the stink bug’s musty stink, or in more scientific terms, the stress compound identified as (E)-2-decenal, fouls the aroma of the fermented grapes. And unless wine drinkers’ olfactory expectations change dramatically, the dire economic consequences to the wine industry are obvious.

The stink bug problem is, in fact, so dire that the USDA’s Specialty Crop Research Initiative now has fifty researchers rushing to look into ways to combat this stinky destructor. Right now those researchers believe that weaponizing another Asian invasive pest, the tiny, parasitoid Trissolcus japonicus—or, as they are more affectionately known, the samurai wasp—will help control and decrease the population of stink bugs. How does the samurai wasp accomplish biologically what other measures do not? In one of the cruelties of nature, the samurai wasp lays its eggs inside the eggs of the brown marmorated stink bug, thereby destroying the stink bug’s brood.

Doing even a cursory search online about stick bugs reveals that researchers and agricultural agencies are so alarmed about the stink bug problem that the bug has the distinction of having has its own website dedicated to educating the public and reporting on advancements in management strategies. (www.stopbmsb) The stink bug also has its own online early-detection and distribution mapping system, hosted by the Center for Invasive Species and Ecosystem Health, that encourages the public to report stink bug sitings.

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