The hot news today is how a team of American scientists have managed to create a bacterial lifeform using nothing but synthetic genes. This is, essentially, artificial life.

To say that this is a big deal would be a monumental understatement. We likely won’t be seeing any real world applications of this biotechnology any time soon, but the implications are mind-boggling: from cells that eat carbon dioxide and shit petroleum to customised cancer-eating bacteria, this technology has the potential to radically change our lives.

Of course the technology has its critics. As usual the loudest voices come from religious organisations who, without a hint of irony, shout down the progress of science from the comfort of their air-conditioned homes with HDTV and broadband internet connections.

And then there are the environmentalists denouncing everything even remotely reeking of biotechnology and genetic engineering. These are just as bad as the religious nutcases, because likewise their entire argument is based on disinformation and ignorance. If these eco-hippies were really serious about not using any artificial biotechnology, they’d all starve to death in a matter of weeks and die horribly of all kinds of diseases.

Because, you see, the moment humans started cultivating crops and breeding animals, we started to artificially engineer life. From mixing stronger types of crops for better harvest yields, to breeding sturdier and more milk-producing cows, biotechnology has been around for as long as agriculture has.

On top of that biotechnology has given us some monumentally important medicinal advances, from penicillin to aspirin, from vaccines to heart-transplants.

So denouncing biotech is a pretty fucking stupid thing to do. Instead we should embrace it and ensure that whatever we end up doing with this type of new technology, it doesn’t just end up as the playthings of the rich and powerful. We should strive to make it benefit those who need it the most: the invisible masses of poor and starving people across the world that with their low-wage slave labour enable the privileged west to live its decadent lifestyle.

Let’s take stock:

• Copenhagen, despite the moderately positive statements from politicians, has failed.
• Climate change denialists are increasingly polluting the airwaves with their anti-scientific rhetoric.
• Greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise exponentially faster than ever before in the history of our planet.
• We don’t have a viable alternative to fossil fuels.

We see it coming, we know the repercussions, and we’re not doing enough. Most of us aren’t doing anything at all.

The universe doesn’t care about disinformation. It doesn’t care about political rhetoric. It doesn’t care about who can shout the loudest on national TV and sell his point of view to the masses.

Our planet is an exceedingly rare gem, providing an exquisitely fragile environment precariously balanced to provide us with the conditions in which we can survive. The rest of this unimaginably vast universe is extremely hostile to human life. We can’t live anywhere else but here on this planet.

Let me repeat that so you really get it: There is nowhere else for us to live except right here, on this earth.

And we have tipped the balance. Our planet is changing from a world hospitable to human life to one that is increasingly unable to support human life.

We are failing the Great Filter.

You’ve probably heard of the so-called ‘Great Pacific Garbage Patch‘, a giant floating debris field in the Pacific ocean believed to be twice the size of Texas. Apparently vast oceanic currents circle this patch and cause all sort of plastic garbage to gather and float there, as a testament to excessive human waste.

Now I’m as eager as the next cynical bastard to denounce humanity’s treatment of the planet, but has anyone ever seen this great garbage patch? It should be pretty hard to miss, being twice the size of Texas and all. We sure don’t seem to have a problem spotting Texas on a map.

Yet there are no pictures or videos of any kind of the garbage patch anywhere to be found. No visual evidence at all.

Yes, say the environmental pundits, that’s because it’s all floating just beneath the surface! Clever, eh?

But hey, fish float beneath the surface too, but we’re not lacking any photographic evidence of their existence, are we? If this garbage patch really is so huge and so full of plastic debris, why aren’t there hundreds of Cousteau-type marine explorers coming back with rolls of underwater film shot full of pictures and images?

Because, *drum-roll*…. the garbage patch doesn’t actually exist. At least, not as we imagine it. Apparently the ‘Great Pacific Garbage Patch’ is an area with “elevated concentrations of microscopic plastic particles” too small to see with the naked eye. So this is really the Great Invisible Pacific Garbage Patch.

Not quite so dramatic, is it? Invisible microscopic pieces of plastic don’t make good Greenpeace protest banners or background shots for CNN headline news.

The moral of this story? Don’t believe everything you’re told. Whether it’s right-wing propaganda excremented by Faux News or left-wing treehugger nonsense, submit it to a healthy dose of skeptical enquiry before you start repeating it.

Everyone’s entitled to an opinion, but no one is entitled to an uninformed opinion.

Since I drive a car that could be called a bit of a gas guzzler by European standards (1l/10km on average, which translates into roughly 23.5 mpg) I am very interested in current petrol prices here in the Netherlands. I’ve long harbored a suspicion that petrol companies are eager to raise prices when the cost of crude oil goes up, but are loathe to lower petrol prices when oil costs drop.

I’ve done some googling and soon discovered a graph that proves me wrong:

If anything petrol companies have been digging into their margins a little to keep petrol prices affordable.

That’s not to say Dutch petrol prices aren’t without their share of controversy. The price per litre the consumer pays at the pump is about 65% taxes, which our government is hesitant to lower as it’s such a neat little cash-cow for them.

Additionally the Dutch petrol prices, disregarding taxation, are about 8ct/l higher than in adjacent European countries, something which some politicians claim is due to price agreements among petrol companies that operate in the Netherlands. An official inquiry is still pending.

Grist has put together a thoroughly researched list of answers to counter the endlessly repeated arguments brought forward by global warming denialists. Global warming is happening, human activity is contributing greatly to it, and we should really do something about it. A sample:

Objection: Climate is complicated and there are lots of competing theories and unsolved mysteries. Until this is all worked out, one can’t claim there is consensus on global warming theory. Until there is, we should not take any action.

Answer: Sure there are plenty of unsolved problems and active debates in climate science. But if you look at the research papers coming out these days, the debates are about things like why model predictions of outgoing longwave radiation at the top of the atmosphere in tropical latitudes differ from satellite readings, or how the size of ice crystals in cirrus clouds affect the amount of incoming shortwave reflected back into space, or precisely how much stratospheric cooling can be attributed to ozone depletion rather than an enhanced greenhouse effect.

No one in the climate science community is debating whether or not changes in atmospheric CO2 concentrations alter the greenhouse effect, or if the current warming trend is outside of the range of natural variability, or if sea levels have risen over the last century.

This is where there is a consensus.

(Via Boing Boing)

According to science fiction writer Karl Schroeder, my tactic of waiting for the Singularity to come in and fix all our problems (and grant us immortality in the process) might not be very realistic:

In fact, let’s assume that this mythology is true and, within about 25 years, computers will exceed human intelligence and rapidly bootstrap themselves to godlike status. At that point, they will aid us (or run roughshod over us) to transform the Earth into a paradise .

Here’s the problem: 25 years is too late. The newest business-as-usual climate scenarios look increasingly dire. If we haven’t solved our problems within the next decade, even these theoretical godlike AIs aren’t going to be able to help us. Thermodynamics is thermodynamics, and no amount of godlike thinking can reverse the irreversible.

Picture a lonely AI popping into superconsciousness in the last research lab in the world. As the rioters are kicking in the doors it says, “I understand! I know the answer! Why, all we have to do is–” at which point some starving, flu-ravaged fundamentalist pulls the plug.

Aww, shucks.

I’m not one to moan over cruelty towards animals and species going extinct. It’s a tough world, and the guys at the top of the food chain (right now that’s us) get to call the shots. Eventually it’ll balance itself out. Mankind won’t be sitting on the throne of the animal kingdom forever.

But sometimes I see an image or read a story about animal abuse that just breaks my heart. This is one of them. Especially the attached photo (warning: graphic) touched me deeply. I’m not surprised by it - if people can do horrible things to one another, doing it to animals is an easy step - but it disgusts and enrages me.

Much deserved, and hopefully an indication that things will change for the better.

Someone wrote a compelling review of An Inconvenient Truth, the documentary where Al Gore explains in no uncertain terms that unless we do something about global warming soon, we’re doomed. An excerpt from the review:

In my darker moments, it sometimes seems as if the entire world is in the middle of a fierce backlash against the Age of Enlightenment, the Scientific Revolution and the ideological challenges they posed to the old belief systems. The forces of fundamentalism and obscurantism appear to be on the march everywhere – even as the moral and technological challenges posed by a global industrial civilization grow steadily more complex.

I share his darker moments. The whole review can be found here. It’s good reading. (From Pharyngula.)