Fiore on Walter Reeed scandal
Watch Mark Fiore on the treatment of wounded troops.
Add comment March 13th, 2007
Archive for March 13th, 2007
Carbon trading no panacea
Now that global warming is finally getting attention, massive attention is focussed upon carbon trading schemes that allow companies to pollute, as long as they purchase alleged offsetting savings elsewhere. David Morris at AlterNet shows that these schemes are easily open to gaming and are likely to make speculators and manipulators rich while doing little or nothing for the environment.
Al Gore has done great work calling attention to the dangers posed by global warming. But his enthusiasm for carbon trading threatens to undo this good. It may be the case that global warming cannot be addressed without, at a minimum, significant changes to our corporate-controlled so-called “free market” system. The world may have to choose between “free markets” and “freedom to live.” Unfortunately, it looks like we’ll choose the former.
The last thing we need is to have the world endorse schemes that will do little to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The S&L and Enron scandals cost billions. This scandal could cost us a livable world.
The Dag Hammarskjold Foundation did an excellent analysis of carbon trading in its September 2006 Development Dialogue magazine. “With a bit of judicious accounting,” the report found, “a company investing in foreign ‘carbon-saving’ projects can increase fossil emissions both at home and abroad while claiming to make reductions in both locations.”
Carbon traders seek the lowest cost carbon offset. Which almost always means tree planting in some far off country, without regard to its long-term effects on the community or the environment, or a modest reduction in the emissions of a highly polluting factory in a developing nation. A company needing, or wanting, offsets may have to choose between investing a significant amount of capital that has long-term and very substantial savings, or buying much lower cost and short-term offsets. From a short-term economic perspective, the latter will always be the preferred choice. A study reported in Nature, the scientific journal, supported this proposition. It found that only 2 percent of the United Nations’ trading projects involving either renewable energy or communities that follow eco-friendly practices with regard to tree cultivation and harvesting.
Add comment March 13th, 2007
Teens increase anxiety when adults reduce it
The Boston Globe science section has an article of special interest to those of us with teenagers, helping to explain why they are so irritable. But, of course, this is just one study with mice. Does it apply to my son?
Teen brains react differently to stress than adult ones
NEUROSCIENCE
A brain chemical that reduces anxiety in adults has the opposite effect on adolescents, a new study finds, perhaps explaining why many teenagers are so touchy. Neurosteroids are produced mostly by the brain under stressful conditions and boost the activity of special brain receptors called GABA receptors that work to calm excited nerve cells and reduce anxiety. However, using cell cultures maintained under conditions similar to those during puberty in mice and humans, a group of researchers led by Sheryl S. Smith of SUNY Downstate Medical Center found that the neurosteroid THP, or tetrahydropregnanalone, actually inhibits a rare type of GABA receptor. This rare receptor increases dramatically at puberty in a part of the brain that generates emotion, and its inhibition could be responsible for an increased level of anxiety in adolescents under stress.BOTTOM LINE: “We now have a biological basis for why teenagers are more irritable, angry, and rebellious in response to stress,” said Smith.
CAUTIONS: The study dealt with just female mice. Researchers don’t know if the same effect will be observed in male mice, not to mention teenagers.WHAT’S NEXT: Smith is now experimenting with mice, with the ultimate goal of developing medications that will prevent this abnormal effect.
WHERE TO FIND IT: Nature Neuroscience, March 11
Add comment March 13th, 2007