Constantine Alexander's blog

Trashed - No Place for Waste

Trashed - No Place For Waste with the participation of Jeremy Irons, looks at the risks to the food chain and the environment through pollution of our air, land and sea by waste. The film reveals surprising truths about very immediate and potent dangers to our health. It is a global conversation from Iceland to Indonesia between the film star Jeremy Irons and scientists, politicians and ordinary individuals whose health and livelihoods have been fundamentally affected by waste pollution. Visually and emotionally the film is both horrific and beautiful: an interplay of human interest and political wake-up call. But it ends on a message of hope: showing how the risks to our survival can easily be averted through sustainable approaches that provide far more employment than the current 'waste industry'.

"We hope the film will demonstrate that by changing the way we live our lives, we can contribute to our own survival and well-being and ultimately that of the planet."

Jeremy Irons

 

 

 

The Greatest Stadium on Earth - Enjoy the Games

Planet Earth. Credit: NASA

With the Olympics in everyone’s thoughts, it’s a timely reminder about easy-to-overlook connections between healthy outdoor pursuits and a healthy outdoor environment – linking sports and the natural world, beautifully…

 

 

 

Tel Aviv University researcher says plants can see, smell, feel, and taste

Unlocking the secrets of plant genetics could lead to breakthroughs in cancer research and food security

		This is the book cover of 'What a Plant Knows.'

Increasingly, scientists are uncovering surprising biological connections between humans and other forms of life. Now a Tel Aviv University researcher has revealed that plant and human biology is much closer than has ever been understood — and the study of these similarities could uncover the biological basis of diseases like cancer as well as other "animal" behaviors.

In his new book What a Plant Knows (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) and his articles in Scientific American, Prof. Daniel Chamovitz, Director of TAU's Manna Center for Plant Biosciences, says that the discovery of similarities between plants and humans is making an impact in the scientific community. Like humans, Prof. Chamovitz says, plants also have "senses" such as sight, smell, touch, and taste.

Ultimately, he adds, if we share so much of our genetic makeup with plants, we have to reconsider what characterizes us as human.

These findings could prompt scientists to rethink what they know about biology, says Prof. Chamovitz, pointing out that plants serve as an excellent model for experiments on a cellular level. This research is also crucial to food security, he adds, noting that knowledge about plant genetics and how plants sense and respond to their environment is central to ensuring a sufficient food supply for the growing population — one of the main goals of the Manna Center.

		Prof. Daniel Chamovitz is the Director of Tel Aviv University's Manna Center for Plant Biosciences and author of What a Plant Knows.

Seeing the light

One of the most intriguing discoveries of recent years is that a group of plant genes used to regulate responses to light is also part of the human DNA. These affect responses like the circadian rhythm, the immune system, and cell division.

A plant geneticist, Prof. Chamovitz was researching the way plants react to light when he discovered an group of genes that were responsible for a plant "knowing" whether it was in the light or in the dark. He first believed that these genes were specific to plant life, but was surprised to later identify the same group of genes in humans and animals.

"The same group of proteins that plants use to decide if they are in the light or dark is also used by animals and humans," Prof. Chamovitz says. "For example, these proteins control two seemingly separate processes. First, they control the circadian rhythm, the biological clock that helps our bodies keep a 24 hour schedule. Second, they control the cell cycle — which means we can learn more about mutations in these genes that lead to cancer." In experiments with fruit flies who had a mutated version of one of these genes, Prof. Chamovitz and his fellow researchers observed that the flies not only developed a fly form of leukemia, but also that their circadian rhythm was disrupted, leading to a condition somewhat like permanent jet-lag.

Plants use light as a behavioral signal, letting them know when to open their leaves to gather necessary nutrients. This response to light can be viewed as a rudimentary form of sight, contends Prof. Chamovitz, noting that the plants "see" light signals, including color, direction, and intensity, then integrate this information and decide on a response. And plants do all this without the benefit of a nervous system.

And that's not the limit of plant "senses." Plants also demonstrate smell — a ripe fruit releases a "ripening pheromone" in the air, which is detected by unripe fruit and signals them to follow suit — as well as the ability to feel and taste. To some degree, plants also have different forms of "memory," allowing them to encode, store, and retrieve information.

Just like us

Beyond the genes that regulate responses to light, plants and humans share a bevy of other proteins and genes — for example, the genes that cause cystic fibrosis and breast cancer. Plants might not come down with these diseases, but the biological basis is the same, says Prof. Chamovitz. Because of this, plants are an excellent first stop when looking for a biological model, and could replace or at least enhance animal models for human disease in some types of research.

He is working alongside Prof. Yossi Shiloh, Israel Prize winner and incumbent of the David and Inez Myers Chair of Cancer Genetics at Tel Aviv University's Sackler Faculty of Medicine, to understand how the genes Chamovitz discovered function in protecting human cells from radiation.

American Friends of Tel Aviv University supports Israel's leading, most comprehensive, and most sought-after center of higher learning. Independently ranked 94th among the world's top universities for the impact of its research, TAU's innovations and discoveries are cited more often by the global scientific community than all but 10 other universities. Internationally recognized for the scope and groundbreaking nature of its research and scholarship, Tel Aviv University consistently produces work with profound implications for the future.

Contact: George Hunka
ghunka@aftau.org
212-742-9070
American Friends of Tel Aviv University

 

 

Supporting the rangers could save their lives

The Thin Green Line Foundation was created to provide vital support to Park Rangers on the frontline of conservation, predominantly in developing nations and conflict zones.

Killed by soldiers, rebels, drug and animal smugglers, wild animals or simply by accident, 70 rangers have lost their lives this year. Rangers protect our parks and the people that visit them but who protects them?

In June, the Okapi Wildlife Reserve in the Democratic Republic of the Congo was brutally attacked by armed poachers who killed seven people, including two rangers. In early July, rangers and their families were evacuated from Virunga National Park, also in the Democratic Republic of Congo, as the latest chapter in the country’s ongoing civil war in its Eastern provinces raged out of control. In India, nearly 30 rangers have been killed this year either by drug smugglers or poachers.

Some parks have very few vehicles for patrolling, making it difficult to control poaching. In others, rangers work for months without salaries, forcing them to take on other jobs to support their families, or the park is engulfed in conflict and rangers are confronted by armies, militias and refugees. In the developed world, rangers are sometimes up against by heavily armed drug lords.

These risks are all too common, and in many parks and reserves they are increasing. Adequate equipment and training in many cases can help alleviate the danger, and assist rangers in ensuring their own safety.

The Global Protected Areas Programme has taken up capacity development as a main theme of its new work programme, working on guidelines and programmes that will assist rangers in their development of skills and work experience. . With more effort being made on training rangers they will ultimately be better equipped to interact with stakeholders and deal with conflict, leading to better protection for both people and protected areas. .

In addition to their service to protected areas and communities, rangers are often the only wage earners in their families. A ranger death can lead to financial disaster for a family. The Thin Green Line Foundation supports families affected by ranger deaths or injury directly. Allocating funds so that the families can survive and children can continue schooling not only helps rangers’ families, but can help support whole communities.

Rangers are the eyes and ears on the ground in our protected areas, and their invaluable service and sacrifices help conserve biodiversity and help others achieve progress. On this World Ranger Day, supporting them is vital to ensuring thriving protected areas and communities now and in the future.

For more information on IUCN’s work on developing capacity for protected areas contact David Reynolds.

Download 2012 Ranger Roll of Honour in Memoriam

 

 

New influenza virus from seals highlights the risks of pandemic flu from animals

Harbor Seal

A new strain of influenza virus found in harbor seals could represent a threat to wildlife and human health, according to the authors of a study appearing July 31 in mBio®, the online open-access journal of the American Society for Microbiology. It is crucial to monitor viruses like this one, which originated in birds and adapted to infect mammals, the authors say, so that scientists can better predict the emergence of new strains of influenza and prevent pandemics in the future.

"There is a concern that we have a new mammalian-transmissible virus to which humans haven't been exposed yet. It's a combination we haven't seen in disease before," says Anne Moscona of Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City, the editor of the report.

The authors, who hail from several different institutions, including Columbia University and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Outbreaks, say transmissible and pathogenic flu viruses in mammals, like the one in this study, clearly pose a concern for human health. In 2009, for instance, the H1N1 "swine flu" virus that emerged in humans apparently originated from a reassortment of flu viruses found in birds, pigs, and humans. The H3N8 strain in New England harbor seals may come to represent the first sighting of a new group of influenza viruses with the potential to persist and move between species.

The mBio® study analyzed the DNA of a virus associated with a die-off of 162 New England harbor seals in 2011. Autopsies of five of the seals revealed they apparently died from infection with a type of influenza called H3N8, which is closely related to a flu strain that has been circulating in North American birds since 2002. Unlike the strain in birds, this virus has adaptations to living in mammals and has mutations that are known to make flu viruses more transmissible and cause more severe disease. The virus also has the ability to target a receptor called SAα-2,6, a protein found in the human respiratory tract.

Moscana says the study raises two concerns about flu. First, this strain is a novel virus that infects mammals and may well pass from animal to animal, a combination of traits that make it a potential threat to humans. Also, the possibility that a bird flu virus would infect seals hadn't been widely considered before, highlighting the fact that pandemic influenza can crop up in unexpected ways. She emphasizes the need for readiness.

"Flu could emerge from anywhere and our readiness has to be much better than we previously realized. We need to be very nimble in our ability to identify and understand the potential risks posed by new viruses emerging from unexpected sources," says Moscona. "It's important to realize that viruses can emerge through routes that we haven't considered. We need to be alert to those risks and ready to act on them."

mBio® is an open access online journal published by the American Society for Microbiology to make microbiology research broadly accessible. The focus of the journal is on rapid publication of cutting-edge research spanning the entire spectrum of microbiology and related fields. The American Society for Microbiology is the largest single life science society, composed of over 39,000 scientists and health professionals. ASM's mission is to advance the microbiological sciences as a vehicle for understanding life processes and to apply and communicate this knowledge for the improvement of health and environmental and economic well-being worldwide.

Contact: Jim Sliwa
jsliwa@asmusa.org
202-942-9297
American Society for Microbiology

 

 

Offshore use of vertical-axis wind turbines gets closer look

		Basing their work on decades of wind energy research and experience, Sandia engineers are creating several concept designs, running those designs through modern modeling software and narrowing those design options down to a single, most-workable design for a VAWT turbine-blade. Results aren’t in, but the early favorite for further testing is the Darrieus design. Credit: Illustration by Josh Paquette and Matt Barone

Sandia National Laboratories' wind energy researchers are re-evaluating vertical axis wind turbines (VAWTs) to help solve some of the problems of generating energy from offshore breezes.

Though VAWTs have been around since the earliest days of wind energy research at Sandia and elsewhere, VAWT architecture could transform offshore wind technology.

The economics of offshore windpower are different from land-based turbines, due to installation and operational challenges. VAWTs offer three big advantages that could reduce the cost of wind energy: a lower turbine center of gravity; reduced machine complexity; and better scalability to very large sizes.

A lower center of gravity means improved stability afloat and lower gravitational fatigue loads.

Additionally, the drivetrain on a VAWT is at or near the surface, potentially making maintenance easier and less time-consuming. Fewer parts, lower fatigue loads and simpler maintenance all lead to reduced maintenance costs.

Elegant in their simplicity

Sandia is conducting the research under a 2011 Department of Energy (DOE) solicitation for advanced rotor technologies for U.S. offshore windpower generation. The five-year, $4.1 million project began in January of this year.

Wind Energy Technologies manager Dave Minster said Sandia's wind energy program is aimed at addressing the national energy challenge of increasing the use of low-carbon power generation.

"VAWTs are elegant in terms of their mechanical simplicity," said Josh Paquette, one of Sandia's two principal investigators on the project. "They have fewer parts because they don't need a control system to point them toward the blowing wind to generate power."

These characteristics fit the design constraints for offshore wind: the high cost of support structures; the need for simple, reliable designs; and economic scales that demand larger machines than current land-based designs.

Large offshore VAWT blades in excess of 300 meters will cost more to produce than blades for onshore wind turbines. But as the machines and their foundations get bigger — closer to the 10󈞀 megawatt (MW) scale — turbines and rotors become a much smaller percentage of the overall system cost for offshore turbines, so other benefits of the VAWT architecture could more than offset the increased rotor cost.

Challenges remain

		A Sandia team completes installation in the late 1980s of a vertical axis wind turbine test platform in Bushland, Texas. Photo by Randy Montoya

However, challenges remain before VAWTs can be used for large-scale offshore power generation.

Curved VAWT blades are complex, making manufacture difficult. Producing very long VAWT blades demands innovative engineering solutions. Matt Barone, the project's other principal investigator, said partners Iowa State University and TPI Composites will explore new techniques to enable manufacture of geometrically complex VAWT blade shapes at an unprecedented scale, but at acceptable cost.

VAWT blades must also overcome problems with cyclic loading on the drivetrain. Unlike horizontal axis wind turbines (HAWTs), which maintain a steady torque if the wind remains steady, VAWTs have two "pulses" of torque and power for each blade, based on whether the blade is in the upwind or downwind position. This "torque ripple" results in unsteady loading, which can lead to drivetrain fatigue. The project will evaluate new rotor designs that smooth out the amplitude of these torque oscillations without significantly increasing rotor cost.

Because first-generation VAWT development ended decades ago, updated designs must incorporate decades of research and development already built into current HAWT designs.

Reinvigorating VAWT research means figuring out the models that will help speed up turbine design work.

"Underpinning this research effort will be a tool development effort that will synthesize and enhance existing aerodynamic and structural dynamic codes to create a publicly available aeroelastic design tool for VAWTs," Barone said.

Needed: aerodynamic braking

Another challenge is brakes. Older VAWT designs didn't have an aerodynamic braking system, and relied solely on a mechanical braking system that is more difficult to maintain and less reliable than the aerodynamic brakes used on HAWTs.

HAWTS use pitchable blades, which stop the turbine within one or two rotations without damage to the turbine and are based on multiple redundant, fail-safe designs. Barone said new VAWT designs will need robust aerodynamic brakes that are reliable and cost-effective, with a secondary mechanical brake much like on modern-day HAWTs. Unlike HAWT brakes, new VAWT brakes won't have actively pitching blades, which have their own reliability and maintenance issues.

VAWT technology: A long history at Sandia

In the 1970s and 1980s, when wind energy research was in its infancy, VAWTs were actively developed as windpower generators. Although strange looking, they had a lot going for them: They were simpler than their horizontal-axis cousins so they tended to be more reliable. For a while, VAWTs held their own against HAWTs. But then wind turbines scaled up.

"HAWTs emerged as the predominant technology for land-based wind over the past 15 years primarily due to advantages in rotor costs at the 1 to 5 megawatt scale," Paquette said.

In the 1980s, research focused more heavily on HAWT turbines, and many VAWT manufacturers left the business, consigning VAWTs to an "also ran" in the wind energy museum.

But the winds of change have blown VAWTs' way once more.

Sandia is mining the richness of its wind energy history. Wind researchers who were among the original wind energy engineers are going through decades of Sandia research and compiling the lessons learned, as well as identifying some of the key unknowns described at the end of VAWT research at Sandia in the 1990s.

The first phase of the program will take place over two years and will involve creating several concept designs, running those designs through modern modeling software and narrowing those design options down to a single, most-workable design. During this phase, Paquette, Barone and their colleagues will look at all types of aeroelastic rotor designs, including HVAWTs and V-shaped VAWTs. But the early favorite rotor type is the Darrieus design.

In phase two researchers will build the chosen design over three years, eventually testing it against the extreme conditions that a turbine must endure in an offshore environment.

In addition to rotor designs, the project will consider different foundation designs: Early candidates are barge designs, tension-leg platforms and spar buoys.

The project partners will work on many elements.

Another partner, the University of Maine, will develop floating VAWT platform dynamics code and subscale prototype wind/wave basin testing. Iowa State University will develop manufacturing techniques for offshore VAWT blades and subscale wind tunnel testing. TPI Composites will design a proof-of-concept subscale blade and develop a commercialization plan. TU-Delft will work on aeroelastic design and optimization tool development and modeling. Texas A&M University will work on aeroelastic design tool development.

"Ultimately it's all about the cost of energy. All these decisions need to lead to a design that's efficient and economically viable," said Paquette.

Sandia National Laboratories is a multi-program laboratory operated by Sandia Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Lockheed Martin company, for the U.S. Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration. With main facilities in Albuquerque, N.M., and Livermore, Calif., Sandia has major R&D responsibilities in national security, energy and environmental technologies and economic competitiveness.

Contact: Stephanie Holinka
slholin@sandia.gov
505-284-9227
DOE/Sandia National Laboratories

 

 

Humpback whales staying in Antarctic bays later into autumn

Humpback Whale. Credit: NOAA

Large numbers of humpback whales are remaining in bays along the Western Antarctic Peninsula to feast on krill late into the austral autumn, long after scientists thought their annual migrations to distant breeding grounds would begin, according to a new Duke University study.

The study, published July 30 in the journal Endangered Species Research, provides the first density estimates for these whales in both open and enclosed habitats along the peninsula in late autumn.

It suggests that the little-studied bays are late-season feeding grounds for humpback whales and much more important than scientists previously thought. It also highlights changes that might be occurring in the region in response to the later arrival and reduced extent of winter ice cover associated with rapid climate change.

"The old dogma is that by late autumn, the ice is heading in and the whales have headed out. But 70 percent of our surveying took place in waters with no ice, and we detected 371 groups of humpback whales over a 654-kilometer survey area, with density estimates of up to 1.75 whales per square kilometer," said David W. Johnston, a research scientist at Duke's Nicholas School of the Environment and lead author of the paper.

At that density, "if you were to walk to the bridge of a ship and look around, you'd spot two whales within 500 meters of the boat. That's higher than anyone expected," Johnston said.

The highest densities of whales were found in narrow, enclosed sections of Wilhelmina Bay, Andvord Bay and the Errera Channel. The lowest densities -- as low as 0.02 whales per square kilometer -- occurred in the open water of the adjacent Gerlache Strait, which separates the Palmer Archipelago from the Western Antarctic Peninsula.

The researchers conducted the study aboard the National Science Foundation (NSF) research vessel Laurence M. Gould in late April through early June of 2009. NSF funded the study.

"Establishing the autumn density of humpback whales in the inshore regions of the Western Antarctic Peninsula is crucial for understanding the role they play in this rapidly changing ecosystem," said Ari S. Friedlaender, a researcher with the Duke University Marine Lab. "Our results provide a new perspective on the magnitude of predator-prey relationships in the region as the Antarctic winter sets in."

Scientists have long known the waters around the Western Antarctic Peninsula are important foraging grounds for humpback whales that feed on swarms of shrimp-like krill, but previous studies have been conducted earlier in the season or in open waters farther from land.

Being the first to estimate densities in the peninsula's narrow in-shore waters was a challenge, Johnston said. The line-transect techniques and distance-sampling methods scientists traditionally use for this type of study weren't well-suited to the bays' tight quarters, tricky currents and jutting shorelines.

"We had no idea that the whales were going to be packed up in these narrow channels and passages. We had to think on our feet a bit and use alternative sampling approaches and incorporate data from other portions of the project," he said. For instance, data collected from tagging the whales and tracking their underwater movements turned out to be incredibly useful for estimating densities, too.

"Once we knew their dive behaviors, we could establish how likely it was that we might miss them as we were traveling along the surface of the water," Johnston said. "That's not something we would have been able to do using only the traditional methods."

The other two authors on the study are Andrew J. Read, Rachel Carson Associate Professor of Marine Conservation Biology; and Douglas P. Nowacek, Repass-Rodgers University Associate Professor of Marine Conservation Technology. Nowacek holds a joint appointment as associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at Duke's Pratt School of Engineering. The study is online.

Contact: Tim Lucas
tdlucas@duke.edu
919-613-8084
Duke University

 

 

1 in 5 streams damaged by mine pollution in southern West Virginia

Water pollution from surface coal mining has degraded more than 22 percent of streams and rivers in southern West Virginia to the point they may now qualify as impaired under state criteria, according to a new study by scientists at Duke and Baylor.

The study, published this week in the peer-reviewed journal Environmental Science & Technology, documents substantial losses in aquatic insect biodiversity and increases in salinity linked to sulfates and other pollutants in runoff from mines often located miles upstream.

"Our findings offer concrete evidence of the cumulative impacts surface mining is having on a regional scale," said Emily S. Bernhardt, associate professor of biogeochemistry at Duke's Nicholas School of the Environment. "The relationship is clear and direct. The more mining you have upstream, the higher the biological loss and salinity levels will be downstream, and the farther they will extend."

Numerous recent studies have demonstrated the water-quality problems caused at or near the site of individual surface coal mines, Bernhardt noted. She and her team "set out to understand how the large and growing number of surface mines is affecting water quality throughout Appalachia."

They used NASA satellite images and computer data to map the extent of surface mining taking place across a 12,000-square-mile area of the southern West Virginia coalfields between 1976 and 2005.

They found that companies had converted more than five percent of the land into mine sites and buried 480 miles of streams beneath adjacent valley fills during this period.

Chemical and biological data from 223 streams sampled by the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection between 1997 and 2007 were combined with mapping to help the researchers determine that pollution runoff from the mines could substantially degrade more than 1,400 miles of streams in the region. That's four times the length of streams buried by the valley fills.

"It's important to recognize that surface coal mining pollution doesn't stop at mine-permit boundaries," said Brian D. Lutz, a postdoctoral associate in Bernhardt's lab.

"Our analysis suggests that mining only five percent of the land surface is degrading between 22 percent and 32 percent of the region's rivers," he said.

Substantial declines in insect diversity began to occur when companies had mined as little as one percent of upstream land, the analysis showed. In areas where companies had converted about five percent of the land into mines, sensitive species such as mayflies and stoneflies had vanished or declined to an extent that the streams would qualify as biologically impaired under criteria set by the state of West Virginia.

The designation means the streams could be placed on a list of waterways that the state must take steps to rehabilitate.

"What is so compelling is that we found many different types of organisms are lost downstream of surface coal mines, and most of them begin to disappear at similar levels of mining," said Ryan S. King, associate professor of biology at Baylor. "Our analysis shows that coal mining is leading to widespread declines in aquatic biodiversity in Appalachian streams."

Lutz and King co-authored the paper with Bernhardt. Other coauthors were John P. Fay, instructor of geospatial analysis at the Nicholas School; Catherine E. Carter, a 2010 master's graduate of the Nicholas School, now at TetraTech; Ashley M. Helton, postdoctoral associate in Duke's Department of Biology; John Amos of SkyTruth; and David Campagna, of Campagna & Associates.

The study was supported by unrestricted gifts in support of research from The Foundation for the Carolinas and the Sierra Club, and through a contract to Amos and Campagna from Appalachian Voices.

Contact: Tim Lucas
tdlucas@duke.edu
919-613-8084
Duke University

 

 

Health care savings, naturally

Harvard researcher finds the use of traditional, natural medicines offer economic benefits

For millions of people around the world being sick doesn't mean making a trip to the local pharmacy for medicines like Advil and Nyquil. Instead it means turning to the forest to provide a pharmacopeia of medicines to treat everything from tooth aches to chest pains.

But while questions persist about whether such natural remedies are as effective as their pharmacological cousins, one Harvard researcher is examining the phenomenon from a unique perspective, and trying to understand the economic benefits people receive by relying on such traditional cures.

As reported in a paper published this week in PLoS ONE, Christopher Golden, '05, a Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Harvard University Center for the Environment has found that, in the area of northwest Madagascar he studies, people annually receive between $5 and $8 in benefits by using natural medicines.

Though seemingly slight, those benefits add up to between $30 and $45 per household, Golden said, or anywhere from 43 to 63 percent of the median annual income for families in the region.

"We documented people using more than 240 different plant species to treat as many as 82 different illnesses," Golden said. "This data suggests that it can have quite an impact, financially."

It's an impact that may not be limited to Madagascar, or other regions where access to pharmaceuticals is limited.

As part of his analysis, Golden also compared the use of natural remedies with the prices that American consumers might pay if they were purchasing the pharmaceutical equivalent online – where prices are typically lower than on pharmacy shelves. To his surprise, the results showed that the average American could save anywhere from 22 to 63 percent of their annual health care bill, simply by using natural medicines.

"If Americans were relying on traditional medicines as much as people in Madagascar, it could save them a major percentage of their health care expenditures," Golden said.

Golden, however, was quick to emphasize that his study only examined the economics of the natural remedies versus pharmaceuticals, not whether they were equally effective.

"What we're trying to do is account for the economic value the local floral bio-diversity provides to people in this area of Madagascar," Golden said. "We're not assuming there is a medical equivalency – this study is about the perceived efficacy. The people who live in this region often have taken both pharmaceuticals and traditional medicines many times, but there is a perceived efficacy for these traditional medicines."

Measuring that perceived efficacy involved surveying 1,200 households in and around Maroantsetra, a city in the northeast corner of the island nation, to determine which natural medicines they used.

To establish the economic benefit of each natural remedy, Golden asked whether people would prefer to use the natural or pharmaceutical remedy for a given illness. If, for example, 60 percent of those asked said they preferred the traditional medicine, Golden established its value as being 60 percent of the price of its pharmaceutical cousin.

"Certainly, because there's no proof of medical equivalency between these treatments, it could easily be an over-estimation to establish these values," Golden said. "But the bio-diversity in these regions represents a huge pharmacopeia, and there are many hidden benefits to the use of these sorts of traditional medicines. These medicines aren't being improperly prescribed or mismanaged, and because they've been used for millennia, we know they're not producing any type of negative side effects."

The economic benefits offered by natural medicines, however, may not end at those who rely on them to treat day-to-day ailments.

The corner of Madagascar that Golden studied contains nearly one percent of all the global floral biodiversity, meaning the chance that a novel pharmaceutical might be developed based on the traditional medicines used in the area is relatively high. The value of that drug, Golden said, could range from $300 million to as much as $5.7 billion.

"That raises additional issues, about who benefits from the discovery of these drugs," Golden said. "In the case of the Madagascar Periwinkle, which was used to develop the treatment for childhood leukemia, a foreign drug company came, took the plants to a foreign lab and they are now making billions, but not five cents has made its way back to Madagascar."

While the question of their medical efficacy is still to be answered, Golden knows first-hand why people continue to rely on traditional medicines – in at least some cases, they work.

"I have been living here long enough that I've used some of these remedies myself," Golden said. "In one case, some scratches on my leg got infected, and it blew up like a watermelon from my knee to my ankle. My host family went into the forest and came back with what looked like nettles and put them on my leg. It was incredibly itchy, but the swelling went away completely and the pain disappeared. So these treatments really can work."

Contact: Peter Reuell
preuell@fas.harvard.edu
617-496-8070
Harvard University

 

 

Pollution can make citizens – both rich and poor – go green

		Air pollution is one of the many environmental harms urban Chinese may encounter. Credit: Vanessa Hull, Center for Systems Integration and Sustainability at Michigan State University

Nothing inspires environmentalism quite like a smog-filled sky or a contaminated river, according to a new study that also indicates that environmentalism isn't just for the prosperous.

People living in China's cities who say they've been exposed to environmental harm are more likely to begreen: re-using their plastic grocery bags or recycling. Moreover, the study, published this week in the international journal AMBIO, indicates that the poor would sacrifice economic gain to protect their environment.

"The human and natural worlds are tightly coupled and we cannot protect the environment without empirical studies on how rich and poor people are understanding and reacting to the natural world around them." said Jianguo "Jack" Liu, a co-author of the AMBIO paper and director of the Center for Systems Integration and Sustainability (CSIS) at Michigan State University.

The paper, "How Perceived Exposure to Environmental Harm Influences Environmental Behavior in Urban China," flies in the face of the conventional wisdom that the poor cannot afford to protect the environment.

"We feel it's a major contribution to provide empirical evidence that environmental harm is one of the most important predictors of environmental behavior," said Xiaodong Chen, who conducted the study while working on his doctorate at CSIS.

"Environmental harm could be more important than economic status in predicting environmental behavior. If people are affected by degraded environmental conditions, then even people with low economic status still may sacrifice some economic benefit in order to protect the environment."

Indeed, the growing environmental consciousness in China has been accompanied by increased involvement by the public in environmental protection. For instance, the paper notes that in 2005 there were some 1,000 protests per week related to environmental pollution in China, a number projected to increase rapidly.

Scientists have studied environmental attitudes for years, but the paper notes that it's behavior that ultimately counts. There is a growing body of literature on environmental attitudes and behavior in China, yet little is known about how people perceive and respond to personal exposure to environmental harm.

Chen and co-authors Liu; Nils Peterson of North Carolina State University and a CSIS alumnus; Vanessa Hull, doctoral candidate in CSIS; Chuntian Lu, MSU sociology doctoral student; and Dayong Hong of Renmin University in China used China's General Social Survey of 2003, which was the first nationwide survey to address this issue.

Some 5,000 urban respondents were asked specifically about their environmental behavior -- if they sorted their garbage to separate recyclables, re-used plastic bags, talked about environmental issues with family or friends, participated in environmental education programs, volunteered in environmental organizations or took part in environmental litigation.

The people taking the survey were allowed to define environmental harm for themselves.

The authors found that actions that resulted in direct results such as environmental litigation were the ones that people most likely turned to after being exposed to environmental harm. Other actions, such as trash recycling programs, may produce indirect results. However, people's views about the environment are most likely to inspire them to participate in environmental behaviors if those behaviors are ones that they can control, such as re-using plastic bags and talking about environmental issues.

"Basically, it means that if people are affected by environmental harm, they feel they should do something positive, and something they themselves can control," Chen said.

The findings, Chen said, can help instruct policy to transform recognition of environmental harm into environmental action.

The survey was administered jointly by the Survey Research Center of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and the Department of Sociology at Renmin University of China.

The research was funded by the National Science Foundation, MSU AgBioResearch, and the Giorgio Ruffolo Fellowship in Sustainability Science at Harvard University. Chen now is an assistant professor of geography at University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.

Contact: Sue Nichols
nichols@msu.edu
517-432-0206
Michigan State University