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Fri May 7 22:44:43 2010
Tree-Hugger Me
I'm a die-hard environmentalist in spite of my SUV.

This environmentally-conscious SUV also has a snorkel.
Image courtesy of Dazzuko (wiki)

Today I celebrated 6 weeks of commuting to and from work without driving!

This is all because I recently moved (see The Dream Tour), and I can bus to work and walk to almost everywhere I need to shop. I've been mostly commuting by public transit since December, but in March my parking pass ran out so I've been commuting 100% car-free since then. My gasoline consumption has dropped by around 50% or more compared to 2009, even though I often drive into the mountains on the weekends.

However, I still drive a large black SUV that gets really crappy gas mileage. So I can't really call myself an environmentalist, can I?

Well, actually I can and I do.

I was inspired by this story, which pointed out that most people think about environmentally-friendly driving entirely wrong. Most people think that we can help the environment by buying cars with better gas mileage. But as the article noted:

Science shows that cutting miles traveled by personal automobile is far more effective at reducing carbon than improving gas mileage.

So by moving and driving far less, I've actually reduced my carbon footprint much more than had I stayed where I was and bought a Prius.

Don't get me wrong, eventually I'll get a greener car. But it won't be a Prius. It will be an SUV that has cleaner emissions. I need a truck with clearance, room for cargo and gear, and four wheel drive.

That's another thing many people (including proclaimed environmentalists) get wrong, by the way. When it comes to the environment, gas mileage isn't important: emissions are important. The two are related, but they don't have to be. Car and truck manufacturers could be held to much stricter emissions than they are now. Paradoxically, better catalytic converters could slightly reduce gas mileage, but that would be overall worth it.

So what is the responsible, green future for the planet? It won't be suburbia with hybrids. It will be people living much closer to where they work and shop, driving far less, in cars that have about the same gas mileage as now, but with lower emissions. That's going to be a big demographic shift, but it will be better for the atmosphere, and will also be forced by rising gasoline prices.

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Tue Apr 6 22:25:15 2010
Gene Patents
A surprising verdict that could change everything.

No longer intellectual property?
Image courtesy of 84user (wiki)

What with the passage of the healthcare bill, the recent strategic armaments treaty, and earthquakes, an important story was mostly buried this week. The story, which is causing an uproar among biologists, is that the ACLU has just won a lawsuit which invalidates several gene patents. This article has a great overview of how the case unfolded.

This is big news. Why?

On the one hand, many people are worried that by blocking patents of human genes, companies and institutes will be unwilling to investigate genetically-targeted (or inspired) drugs. For instance, the Northwestern University report quoted above includes a quote from one lawyer:

You won't have disclosure to move onto the next step in biology

that is, because patents won't be filed, companies will keep genetic sequences private.

However, that same article quotes other practicing scientists as saying

There could be an increase in the amount of research done to attempt to find cures for disease.

and also notes independently that

Myriad Genetics could find other labs rivaling it and might be forced to lower the cost for the BRCA test.

[Myriad Genetics was the defendant in the lawsuit, and their BRCA breast cancer test relied in part on patents on the human BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes.]

I'm with the scientists on this one. Allowing patents of standard human gene sequences is dumb and contrary to the spirit of patents. It was a mistake to have allowed it in the first place, and the ACLU was right to challenge it.

Is this the end of patents for biotech? No. Even the scientists who supported the lawsuit noted that

The company spent significant time and money figuring out the structure of the gene and how to test for it, and thus are able to charge what they want to for the test.

In short, companies can patent anything they invent that is original, but can't patent Mother Nature.

It is early days still! The result will almost certainly be appealed. But I am hoping that higher courts will uphold the verdict. If so, I think we'll see even more genetic information publicly available, which should speed cures and lower costs for everyone.

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Mon Oct 26 23:16:45 2009
No Moon
NASA reconsiders its spending

The moon gets eclipsed...
Image courtesy of NASA

Last year, I whined about poor spending decisions at NASA.

Well, it's clear that my high-profile blogging has finally attracted the attention of the White House!

A few days ago, a White House panel concluded that NASA should avoid the moon for now, because it was too expensive and not a good use of money. Instead, the panel recommended "concentrating on new rockets and new places to explore."

That's great! My original 2008 post said:

NASA should focus on cheaper, robotic missions to meet scientific aims, and also work on parallel tracks on the chief obstacles to human missions: getting into space cheaply (propulsion out of Earth's gravity well), and surviving in a self-contained environment.

So I feel somewhat vindicated. The panel has recognized the poor economics of a moon landing, and has also decided to focus on propulsion. Excellent!

For some reason, NASA is still really keen on both the International Space Station, and manned spaceflight in general, which strikes me as just launching money into space.

Don't get me wrong! I think we need manned spaceflight. But it is still too expensive. We need to work on the core technologies to make human spaceflight cheaper (and survivable) before we throw money at long-range manned missions.

So I predict that NASA (and/or this panel) will come to the same conclusions eventually. That is, someone will sooner or later recommend scaling back human missions for now, in favor of more robotic ones.

But in the meantime, this is a good sign. We'll get a lot more use out of our NASA dollars by skipping the moon!

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