So what’s going on? The short version is that this is a goodbye post. The long version goes a little like this:

1. For a while now, I’ve been using twitter, primarily as a place to highlight interesting things. It has more or less replaced my blogging output. These tweets are often science-y, visual in nature, and with (of course) the occasional dose of Chewbacca. However, it soon became obvious to me that I should start blogging again so that such things could be compiled: more so because I’m a big fan of using these odd snippets to segue into scientific discussions in class. With twitter (as lovely as it is), it was just too easy to lose these interesting links. With blogging, I figured there would be more features to archive things more effectively. Plus, this was an easy way to make sure there was a consistent stream of content (kind of like using twitter to blog).

2. I really wanted to start writing again. What I mean here, is that I’m quite out of practice. You consistently hear from other folks that writing is a little like a muscle. It needs more than the occasional flex, but rather a full-on regime of exercise. Things at work have been busy (aren’t they always?), but writing is definitely something that I’ve missed doing, and something that I feel I need to practice all over again. I can also add that the last post I did for boingboing.net was a major proverbial kick in my ass. Clearly my editorial spider sense is off, and so (as they say) practice, practice, practice…

3. Here is the heart of the matter. My really wanting to do something, and actually doing it are two very different things. Indeed this whole desire to start writing again was initiated by an act of irony. That is, I’ve just sent in a friendly “thanks for the memories” email to Scienceblogs, who were asking to renew contracts etc. Here, I declined because I really wasn’t doing much at the World’s Fair (again with the busy excuse). For whatever reason, I wasn’t necessarily inspired by having an outlet at Scienceblogs. Because of this, it was only fair to ask to be taken off Scienceblogs – hence the reason why you are reading this goodbye post.

Ironically, this course of action is what is getting me to blog again. By ending things here, it feels like an opportunity to start fresh: and fresh starts can be incredibly exciting and invigorating. In many ways, the idea of having a new online home is making me want to write more – does that make sense? Plus, this is also a chance to have full aesthetic control over how a blog might look, which is something I’ve always kind of wished I could do. I’ve never been a fan of websites that were overly busy looking, so getting to do my minimalist thing was definitively an advantage.

In any event, this is to say that overall, Scienceblogs was a great experience, and was a wonderful way to connect with similar folks around the globe. Sharing this platform with Ben and Vince (and indeed the rest of the community, bloggers and managers alike) over the years has been an absolute privilege. For that I am grateful, but now it is time to move on.

4. And where will I move on to? As mentioned above, I’m keen to try this independently for while. I’ve been collecting my tweets for the last few weeks at Popperfont, so that seems as good a place as any to “have a go.”

And what will I blog about? Mostly, the content that my twitter account points to, but hopefully there will be some meaty stuff here and there as well.

Specifically, I’m keen to produce a weekly (this might be optimistic but I will do my best) series, which I’m going to call “sciencegeek fundamentals.” In essence, the aim of these pieces is to discuss and go over some key scientific concepts, but in a manner that is hopefully engaging to readers and possibly unconventional. We’ll start next week, but to give you a sense of the sort of writing I gravitate to, you can take a gander at some of my clips, as well as consider the working title of my first “sciencegeek fundamentals” piece (The scientific method by way of Chewbacca).

As well, I’m already working on a book for children where the scientific method is central to the plot (It’s called Lizzie Popperfont and the Collider Whale Tale). No expectations here… just enjoying myself as I put ideas down and work out the narrative. Who knows – maybe one of these days, we’ll try to find an agent and and publisher for this endeavor.

5. Finally… what’s with the name “Popperfont?” Nothing too deep… just kind of rolls nicely on the tongue, and with my inherent interest in creative arts and science, I thought the mix of Karl Popper and Typology sort of works.

cheers
dave

@dnghub
popperfont.wordpress.com

But a lot can happen in thirty minutes. Earlier, I had been looking over some 2009 UNAIDS statistics, and noting the numbers issued in the report. They are all very big, big enough certainly to require the pressing of buttons on calculators. More to the point, I learn that during my thirty minutes, approximately 70 people died from HIV/AIDS in Sub-Sahara Africa. That’s 1.3 million victims each year – in Sub-Sahara Africa alone. Many of these were parents leaving orphans, and many were young children just leaving. Most troubling, however, is the fact that all of them suffered their fate with a loss of dignity.

Why do I say this? I say this because people shouldn’t have to die from HIV/AIDS. There are good medicines out there, and they can control the disease. In fact, for those in the developed world, HIV/AIDS is now considered a chronic disorder, not a death sentence. If you are diagnosed, you are no longer forced to take a shortcut to demise. You can still have a long life, you can still be productive, and you can still live with dignity.

Unfortunately, this wasn’t an option for those who passed away. For them, the medicines were out of reach. They were simply too expensive. And from this, you come to realize a cold hard fact in this narrative: that the fate of a person living or dying from HIV/AIDS is determined by their income. This statement is fairly straightforward, with no mincing of words, or confused rhetoric. But for most, it feels fundamentally wrong, and yet, it is a simple reality of how the world works today. Why it works in this way, however, is complicated.

This, basically, is how the pharmaceutical industry works. They are inventors, and their product is medicine. Research and development costs are significant, both in terms of money and in terms of time, mostly because many of the things they invent do not work out in the end. They get patents, and are compensated and rewarded accordingly – relatively speaking, the pharmaceutical industry is rewarded very handsomely.

This is because there is a market for such things: whether we are talking about antiretroviral drugs for HIV or Viagra for life style needs, in the developed world, people want these drugs (and in some cases, need these drugs), and are willing to pay for them. They do this, because they can, often with help from health care providers and government. The supply and demand is there, and the pharmaceutical industry knows how to play this game. You, the reader in the developed world, make the market.

Because things are so handsome, the pharmaceutical industry has a vested interest in maintaining the status quo. They don’t want to lose ANY semblance of control, even if, apparently, lives are on the line. They are very good at protecting this control – their lobbying influence is very strong indeed, and they do this with zeal although sometimes by misrepresenting facts.

1. This market doesn’t count because they cannot afford the drugs.

2. This market doesn’t count because they are not part of the pharmaceutical industry’s bottom line.

Consequently, a lot of very clever people have suggested that a way to get around this challenge, this challenge of access to medicine, is to set up ways to produce generic drugs. This is essentially where outside companies can be granted the right to copy the drug and produce it at much lower costs. Just to clarify, the cost of drug production is generally a very small fraction of the final price tag. Anyway, the argument here, is that these rights would be very specific, in that generics could only be sold under strict circumstances such that the status quo is unaffected in wealthy markets. A good example of this, is to simply say that generics can only go to developing markets, can only go to places like Sub-Sahara Africa, since they already do not factor into the industry’s bottom line. Furthermore, the inventors can stipulate royalties, so that they still get compensated for opening up these markets. In fact, in the best situation, the inventors would even produce their own generics.

For a variety of reasons, the pharmaceutical industry has not been keen on this idea, and has done much to make generic production as laborious and slow as possible. Ideally, they would be a willing participant in discussions with generic producers, and bargain fair terms so that these cheaper drugs can be made. Unfortunately, this rarely happens and when it does, it tends to be on an older palette of medicines, things out of date for rich people like us, which may be less effective for a variety of reasons (side effects, efficacy, convenience).

Because the pharmaceutical industry generally does not want to play, the notion of “compulsory licenses” has been pushed to the forefront. I’ve written about these in the past, and they deserve a repeat mention.

To illustrate this, here are some hypothetical (and not so hypothetical examples):

1. You are a company that recently received your patent, so that now your drug is being sold for $1500 instead of the previous $10 pricetag.

2. Your country has experienced a series of anthrax scares. The company that holds the patent for the most effective drug against infection from the offending bacterium, sees an opportunity, and decides to jack up the price.

3. Someone has declared war on your country. To defend yourself, you would like to utilize a particular product. Unfortunately, it is under a cost prohibitive patent and therefore out of reach.

4. There is an impending nuclear power plant meltdown, and there is technology that would be incredibly useful to mitigate radiation contamination and poisoning. However, your resources are already stretched because of the utterly horrific effects of a 9.0 Richter Scale earthquake, and this technology is too expensive at the scale that is required in such an emergency.

5. There are markets where your life saving drug is not being sold because no-one can afford them anyway. However, the drug (which could be a matter of life and death for millions) could be made at a cost (i.e. a generic) that makes it accessible in these markets, but if and only if, the patent over them is adjusted.

Here is the point. In all of the above cases, you would like to live in a civil society where the government can step in and forcibly change the patent, because in every case, there is an element of morality involved. And guess what – governments can do this and they do! It’s called a “compulsory license,” and they exist for this very purpose.

In fact, even the WTO is on board with this idea. They recognize that in some circumstances, such as those pertaining to global health, there needs to be an understanding that using such compulsory licenses is both necessary and an obligation. In fact, if you have a hankering for the legalese that outlines this for patents over essential medicines, you need only look up info on the Doha Declaration.

Unfortunately, there is some serious push back from the Canadian pharmaceutical industry. They lobby government and do so with counter arguments that have already been addressed by this expert peer review, such that many have been calling the pharmaceutical industry unethical: that their reasons for fighting are based on misinformation. Most of their arguments appeal to those that value ownership, that their properties, inventions, and monopolies are in danger because of careless policy, but that could not be farther from the truth. They simply don’t want to lose any semblance of control. Despite these tweaks being carefully scripted to protect their business interests, the pharmaceutical industry still regards them as a starting point to a “possible” loss of control. Because of this excessive anxiety, they fight and they fight and they fight. For those interested in endings, this one is severe: Bill C-393 was killed.

Sometimes, they fight in other ways. In the case of Free Trade Agreements between the European Union and India, one of the battles over generic drugs concerns the issue of “data exclusivity.” This is a technical term that essentially says that even if a patent is not holding things back, a company still can halt the process. Here, a bulletin recently released by Doctors Without Borders describes it well:

Data exclusivity (DE) is a backdoor way for multinational pharmaceutical companies to get a monopoly and charge high drug prices, even when their drug has been found to not deserve a patent, or the patent has expired – DE would apply to all drugs.

If India accepts DE, the agency in charge of approving medicines for use in the country would not be allowed to register a generic version of a medicine for a period of time – usually 5 to 10 years. To register a generic, producers rely on the clinical trial data provided by the originator company to show the drug is safe and effective. All the generic has to prove is that it is identical to the originator product. But if DE were in place, the originator company’s clinical trial data would be protected by ‘exclusivity’ and generic producers would therefore have to submit their own safety & efficacy data to register the generic medicines. This would oblige them to repeat clinical trials–something that would take years and be incredibly expensive, not to mention unethical, as it would involve withholding a drug that has already proven to be effective from some of the participants in the trial.

And so things drag, time passes, and minutes, days, and years are wasted. To call this delay an act procrastination sounds too contrite. I can certainly think of stronger words.

Because we’ve had a few elections of late, I have a habit of how I deal with such questions from my kids – these opportunities to talk politics. So far, being an educator and scientist myself, my training forces me to be objective, focusing primarily on the different philosophies that each of our political parties represent, including the general pros and cons of each. I tell my children that who you choose is a personal decision driven by what you think is important. Above all, voting is a privilege, as is the act of receiving a vote if you are campaigning. I think it best to not indoctrinate your kids with your own views, but rather to succinctly tell them that voting is something special, and deserves some effort to be informed on the issues. If you take that view, the rest will happen naturally.

Unfortunately, this time around, and to my surprise, I found myself facing my daughter and uttering the following: “I’m not really a big fan of Alice Wong.” This was quite a shift of attitude, and here is why: I have no issue with Conservative ideas and values (I actually agree with some of them), but I am tremendously concerned with the actions of the current Canadian Government.

How I came to this conclusion is due to many issues, but the one that has lit the proverbial “fire in my belly,” is a law that would fix policy to allow life saving drugs to be made at lower cost. There’s merit in this because it permits individuals, desperate in places like Africa, to be able to afford them. HIV/AIDS has the most disconcerting narrative: if you are diagnosed with HIV, now considered a chronic disease with very effective medicines, the choice between living and dying is based on your income. It’s that cold.

This law was called Bill C-393. And it was a good one. It was aimed to be innovative and to fix the previous law, which wasn’t working at all. It took care to protect Canadian pharmaceutical companies so that such generic drugs could only be sold to markets that weren’t in the industry’s bottom line. It had a built in “let’s monitor” clause. It was backed up by robust expert peer review, involving economists, policy analysts, health experts. Cost to taxpayers: zero. Because of all of these facts, it was passed by the Parliament in March – even many Conservatives broke rank and voted for it.

However, in a truly frustrating string of events, it was left to die in Senate, when Tory Senators (a large portion of which were appointed by Harper) continually delayed voting on it, until it was killed by default with the call of the election. A mini screenplay to describe this would consist of four acts, each one with the same dialogue: “We’d like to adjourn because such and such would like to speak, but oh, he’s left for the day, can we do this tomorrow?”

Why were there these four days of delay? Apparently, it’s because the pharmaceutical industry would rather keep things as is, even going so far as to distribute misleading counter arguments, all of which have been firmly discredited by the aforementioned expert peer review process. All of which were delivered top down to the mailboxes of Conservative Senators, and the rest, as they say, is history.

I know that critiquing Miss Wong in front of my daughter is somewhat unfair (despite being one of the few who voted against Bill C-393 in parliament), but she is representative of the bigger problem. She is a small cog in a remarkably unsettling machine. I know the value of strong leadership, but this should not trump ethical leadership. Can you imagine my daughter at school, learning not about how the “Canadian Government” works, but instead, the “Harper Government?”

“This professional course (which can accept only 12 clients) will guide participants through the various methodologies involved in the production of a human clone. This includes extensive lectures on the various techniques as well as a significant portion of the course being hands-on sessions where clients will become adept at blastocyst tissue culture maintenance. Note that this course also includes a full day devoted to practicing on equipment that allows robotic micro-injection of nucleic material into host cell nuclei, and that the workshop includes 8 hours of equipment access time, after the workshop is finished.”

Unreal right? Well, o.k. – it is actually unreal. I’m only kidding here, if only to let you know that I will be offering a professional workshop (same dates, same pricetag, and same locale) where molecular cloning is actually covered, although this is more in the vein of general molecular biology techniques used in biomedical research, or molecular characterization of any life science related endeavour.

Additional details on the course can be seen at the above link, or below the fold.

*THE MICHAEL SMITH LABS AND ADVANCED MOLECULAR BIOLOGY LAB PRESENTS OUR MOLECULAR BIOLOGY*
*WORKSHOPS 2011 SUMMER Session.*
*
ONE WEEK VERSION (6 DAYS) – MOLECULAR TECHNIQUES WORKSHOPS*
JUNE 13 – 18, 2011 (CAN$1400)

DESCRIPTION: Updated for 2011: This intense 6 day workshop will focus on a myriad of different techniques used in the molecular manipulation of DNA, RNA and protein, as well as inclusion of exercises in some basic bioinformatics tools. Primarily aimed at researchers who are new to the area, familiar but require a quick updating, or would like more practical bench training.

PHILOSOPHY: Whilst molecular techniques have evolved at a speedy rate over the last few decades, the underlying biochemical principles behind the vast majority of them has actually changed little. This workshop therefore combines opportunities to perform the latest, as well as commonly used older techniques, with particular attention to the chemical nuts and bolts behind them. In all, this allows the researcher to not only gain needed familiarity with the techniques, but also achieve a comfortable theoretical level to allow for both (1) that all important skill of troubleshooting, and (2) the often undervalued skill of judging the utility of “tricks” that aim to speed up, or lower costs of a given methodology.

TECHNIQUES COVERED: Various nucleic acid purification methodologies (silica bead, organic, and/or pI based), restriction digests, ligations, dephosphorylation assays, agarose gel electrophoresis, transformation (including electroporation), PCR, reverse transcriptase assay, real time qPCR, basic bioinformatics, (including primer design tools), SDS-PAGE, Western blot analysis, Isoelectric focusing strips, and 2D protein gels.

Full details can be found at http://www.bioteach.ubc.ca/mb-workshops/#molecular

To register or inquire about the workshop, please contact
Dr. David Ng at db@interchange.ubc.ca or 604-822-6264

Access to life-saving medicines is not a luxury, but a human right.
~Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network

To me, the above statement is one of those things that sound like a no-brainer. Put another way, if I were to ask you whether you thought a person’s income should determine whether they live or die from something like HIV/AIDS, then I think you would see that the answer is nothing but obvious. But here I am, in Canada, writing this post, because there is a very real danger that members of my government think that this isn’t such an easy decision after all – that maybe wealth and business interests do matter when dealing with such ethical choices, and that there is a hierarchy where certain lives are worth more than others.

Let me backtrack a bit, and provide a little context. I’d rather not write a rant, emotional and heart wrenching as this discussion can be – I’d prefer to rely on reason, and not on rhetoric. I want everybody to understand why this is an important issue, one that deserves coverage, and one that deserves our involvement. More importantly, I want everybody to understand why the right thing to do is obvious.

To start, let me mention the letters and numbers that make up the label, “Bill C-393.” Keep them in your head – at least for a moment. If you’re the sort that prefers hearing at least a quick definition, then this one might work:

Bill C-393 aims to reform CAMR and make it easier for Canada to export affordable, life-saving, generic medicines to developing countries.
~Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network

If you’re thinking that this is a Canadian thing, then think again. Other rich countries are watching how Canada will behave. There’s a few in Europe, and apparently even China is curious. In the U.S., the topic appears to be quenched, but the behaviour of the Canadian government could catalyze dialogue. And if you’re not from a rich country? Well, you might actually have lives that will be affected by it, millions of lives even.

Here’s the problem in a nutshell: the developing world is heavily burdened with a variety of diseases, many of which are causing massive numbers of suffering and deaths.

This is understandably big. It’s a huge global challenge, and there are many reasons for why it exists and why it is difficult to both comprehend and fix. However, the presence of effective medicines is not one of the reasons. There is medicine out there that can help, and there is also a flow (sometimes slow) of discoveries that make these medicines better and more effective. In the case of HIV/AIDS, there are drugs that essentially turn the disease from a death sentence to something that is chronic and manageable. I can’t overstate how significant that piece of information is: it tells us that people do not have to die from HIV/AIDS.

So what’s the issue?

The issue is control without regard for doing the right thing: This is essentially about patents. It’s not that patents are bad, but rather that patents can be bad. As you probably already know, patents are a service provided by government to protect an inventor, such that the inventor has an element of control over how their innovation/product gets used. This is generally a good thing, because ultimately it provides order to a process that would get very chaotic very quickly should the patent not exist. However, sometimes the inventor isn’t the best person to make decisions about control. Sometimes, the inventor doesn’t have the best information to take stock of a situation, or sometimes there might be a moral argument where monetary performance should not take precedent. In other words, sometimes, there are special circumstances where you could say it is reasonable that this control is tweaked.

To illustrate this, here are some hypothetical (and not so hypothetical examples):

1. You are a company that recently received your patent, so that now your drug is being sold for $1500 instead of the previous $10 pricetag.

2. Your country has experienced a series of anthrax scares. The company that holds the patent for the most effective drug against infection from the offending bacterium, sees an opportunity, and decides to jack up the price.

3. Someone has declared war on your country. To defend yourself, you would like to utilize a particular product. Unfortunately, it is under a cost prohibitive patent and therefore out of reach.

4. There is an impending nuclear power plant meltdown, and there is technology that would be incredibly useful to mitigate radiation contamination and poisoning. However, your resources are already stretched because of the utterly horrific effects of a 9.0 Richter Scale earthquake, and this technology is too expensive at the scale that is required in such an emergency.

5. There are markets where your life saving drug is not being sold because no-one can afford them anyway. However, the drug (which could be a matter of life and death for millions) could be made at a cost (i.e. a generic) that makes it accessible in these markets, but if and only if, the patent over them is adjusted.

Here is my point. In all of the above cases, you would like to live in a civil society where the government can step in and forcibly change the patent, because in every case, there is an element of morality involved. And guess what – governments can do this and they do! It’s called a “compulsory license,” and they exist for this very purpose.

In fact, even the WTO is on board with this idea. They recognize that in some circumstances, such as those pertaining to global health, there needs to be an understanding that using such compulsory licenses is both necessary and an obligation. In fact, if you have a hankering for the legalese that outlines this for patents over essential medicines, you need only look up info on the Doha Declaration.

Canada actually took this to heart with a bill that came into force in 2005. Often referred to as “Canada’s Access to Medicine Regime” (or CAMR), it was an effort to put into action, the principles and details provided by the Doha Declaration. It was a way to try and enact compulsory licenses for the home production of generic drugs so that more accessible drugs could be produced. It was a good gesture.

Unfortunately, this initial attempt was flawed. The process was simply way too complicated, contingent on an army of legal expertise to navigate, which was all the more problematic because many of the actors involved did not have the means or access to do this. Indeed, the bill seems to contain a paradox in it, in that it can be interpreted as logically impossible to use. If you look closely, there’s a “you can’t do B until you do A” and a “you can’t do A until you do B” error in the details (see question 9 in this document for more details).

It was also very inefficient in that the compulsory license was always a one time affair, one order affair, with specific amounts that could not be changed despite possible reassessment of needs, only good for one country, etc, etc, etc. Indeed, in the six years that the law has been available, there has only been one successful case where drugs were actually made and delivered, and there is ample evidence to demonstrate that this process was difficult at best. In fact, when somebody asked me today how difficult things are, the best description I could come up with, is that is it “catastrophically high maintenance.”

Which (finally) brings us to “Bill C-393.” This bill is basically “the edit.” Its sole purpose is to address the things that made the previous bill so ineffective, and at its heart it allows a more streamline and efficient way to issue these compulsory licenses so that production of these generics is more feasible.

No brainer right?

“Oh, but it’s not that simple,” they say. “There are many counter arguments,” they say. Only these counter arguments tend to sound like this:

Q: Shouldn’t we focus on other aspects of the problem. Like health infrastructure, or public education for HIV?

A: Hmmm… Let me get this straight. A government can only do one thing at a time? Nevermind the fact that passing this bill doesn’t actually cost the taxpayers anything. If anything, the foreign aid that we do provide will likely have greater bang for its buck.

Or maybe something like this:

Q: Wouldn’t these changes effect the pharmaceutical company’s bottom line, which in turn will effect R&D funding, and drive the home costs of medicine up?

A: The language is pretty clear in that these are generics that can only be sold in certain markets. These markets happen to constitute a very small percentage of pharmaceutical revenues (we’re talking single digits here). Oh yeah, plus you get royalties from doing this anyway. Also, there’s nothing stopping you from making your own generic version, so that you can enter the market yourself. Indeed, all evidence would suggest a possible gain in bottom line. Plus, the R&D argument is totally a red herring. Sneaky.

But what kills me, is that even if there is a reasonable and say unforeseen cause for concern, the Bill has a freaking “sunset clause” which is basically something that gives all parties a “we’ll see how it goes, in case it’s not working” escape route.

All to say, that because of this kind of political and big pharma semantics, there is a very real likelihood that the Bill will be struck dead in the next few days in Senate (it was passed by the House of Commons last week, but it’s the predominantly Conservative Senate that presents the biggest obstacle – you can see how last week’s vote looked according to party lines). Worst still, there’s also the possibility that the Canadian government will choose to avoid voting on it altogether, all because of an impending election call. Here, there’s a danger of government “saving face” by choosing to ignore it and in doing so, C-393 gets killed by association with a new election.

Boingboing readers, to put this in perspective (and to use internet vernacular), let me just say that both scenarios would represent a facepalm of the highest possible order.

So… What can you do?

Well, for starters, you can lend a hand by speaking out. Retweet this blog post, write about it yourself. You should definitely send an email to Prime Minister Harper and a few of his key Members of Senate by using this ridiculously easy Avaaz page. If you’ve got something meatier to say, how about copy pasting this entire list of emails, and let the Canadian government know how you feel. If you’re not Canadian, do these things anyway, and then make this issue pertinent in your own country. This is an urgent matter, and for Canadians, we only have a few days left to advocate. It’s really an amazing chance for Canada to lead the way.

You can also immerse yourself in this cause and get as much information as possible. You can check out organizations such as the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network, which has all sorts of great documents including this informative FAQ.
If you’re a university student, you can check out your local UAEM chapter. If you’re a Grandmother, you can hear what Grandmothers to Grandmothers have to say. If you only speak the language of hip hop, maybe just listen to what K’naan has to say. Better yet, check them all out, or join these groups and volunteer your time.

And through it all, never never forget: “Access to life-saving medicines is not a luxury, it is a human right.”

Here are some pictures, and the video at the end is where Hannah and Ben demonstrate its awesomeness.

VIEW FROM FRONT

VIEW FROM TOP

And the video…

(Follow David at @dnghub)

This novel has a mouthful of a title, Lizzie Popperfont and the Collider Whale Tale, and it’s been partly inspired by my time here at the Natural History Museum. More importantly, there’s going to be an underlying and subtle narrative that asks, “What happens to society and culture when only self interested elites are aware of the Scientific Method?” and “What happens if such a culture is allowed to brew for hundreds of years?”

This might sound a little dry, but the basic premise is that many of things we can do with science these days would appear downright magical to someone from the past. More so, if my more unscrupulous characters purposely disguise it in aesthetics that promote the idea of magical, spiritual or divine abilities. Creative text about science is what I like doing best, so I figured why not a children’s story?

Oh yeah, there’s also a blue whale, and a synchrotron, and a GM organism named Kepler (at least according to some of my notes). I also enjoyed the “I’m a science geek” moment when I used the word Entropy in the first chapter.

Right now, the plan is to write it in full view, so you can read along if you like, although don’t forget that it is a work in progress. I happen to be an editing freak, so the text you see will definitely change multiple times, especially after I read it to my own kids. However, my first priority is to just get a reasonable first/second edit down. I do plan on finishing it, and the idea of publishing it proper is there in my mind, but sort of a secondary thing right now.

Anyway, go check it out if you’re curious, and you can also let me know what you think.

(Follow David on twitter @dnghub)

Just a quick note for you Brits out there (and specifically Londoners I guess). Tonight (Sept 24th), the Natural History Museum is hosting a “Science Uncovered” evening, whereby scientists and staff from various departments will be on hand.

As well, there will be a place where cocktails can be purchased, which will probably make all the sciencegeek talk all the more lively than usual.

Plus, if you have some biodiversity or fossil flavoured artifact you want looking at, this is also a good time to pop by and show the item off to a panel of experts (they will be manning a sort of “Antique (but science-y) Roadshow”)

Anyway, more info can be found here, and do say hello if you’re in the area (I’ll be one of the scientists wandering the halls tonight).

I just noticed, with some amusement, that the 2010 Toy of the Year is something akin to a cute robotic rodent. Specifically, they are called Zhu Zhu Pets, a mechanical universe of furry and mobile hamsters, expandable with a hamster-like ecosystem complete with wheels, balls, and see through tunnels. The fact that this was announced during the International Year of Biodiversity seems deliciously ironic but maybe also informative?

Lest you think my thoughts on biodiversity outreach and education will settle uncomfortably on robotics, or perhaps even more frightening, hamsters, let me reassure you that, instead, I think this nugget of toy trivia highlights a problem with developed society in general. That is, we and more importantly, our children, have an apparent lack of connection with nature.

A piece of mine over at the Natural History Museum website. Read on by clicking here.

Be very very afraid… (Image by Chris Bloke)

Originally made for a series of Nagoya COP10 primers at Boing Boing (1 | 2 | SB | 3 | 4)

I: SORTING OUT THE VERNACULAR

So what is up with this Nagoya thing? Well, it’s a big international meeting that is happening in Nagoya’s Congress Centre (see the picture above), starting on October 18th and lasting until the 29th. No doubt, you weren’t necessarily lured into finding out more by the conference’s bouncy theme song. You certainly weren’t intrigued by the reams of official documents, frequently released, yet all stoically written.

The problem is, is that there is a lot of jargon in how all these meetings go down. You have a “Conference of the Parties” (or COP), you have “Conventions,” and you have “Secretariats.” I chose not to mention the “Subsidiary Body” part, because I believe that would have formally made the previous sentence the most boring in the universe. And as if that wasn’t bad enough, a lot of these documents have been written in a painful policy speak/legalese type of language, seemingly in an effort to make readers endorse the extinction of the writers responsible. Worse still, Nagoya isn’t getting a ton of media coverage, and that means you don’t tend to have needed public commentary like you did with similar recent outings (for instance, Copenhagen comes to mind).

Lucky for us, there seems to be a lot of similarities between these United Nations’ affairs and how planetary politics appear to be run in the world of Star Wars. In any event, the similarities are good enough to warrant having a go at bridging the two. This might be simplifying things a bit, but the analogy would basically work a little like this:

Convention (and specifically the Convention on Biological Diversity): I’ll write more on this later, but the CBD is what all the fuss in Nagoya will be about. It’s essentially an international agreement currently supported by a whole bunch of countries, which is basically up for review as well as a reboot. Also, because it’s classified as a “Convention” this agreement is bound by international law. It’s not like participating in a vote where the majority wins – you’re either in or you’re out. The goal, of course, is to come up with a document that everyone, or at least, almost everyone, is good with – understandably, not an easy thing to do. In Star Wars, this would be analogous to some sort of galactic treaty being mulled over (except that obviously the words galactic treaty are way cooler than convention).

Conference of the Parties (COP): This is a collective term for all the countries who are technically already “on board” with the Convention – this has a variety of meanings including the act of signing the convention, and then managing to get your national governments to back it up (this would technically be called “ratifying” the convention). In all, there are currently 193 countries who are in the Conference of the Parties.” In Star Wars terms, the COP would be analogous to all of the members of the Galactic Republic who have agreed to follow the laws bound to said galactic treaty.

Secretariat: In UN affairs, the term Secretariat more or less refers to a smaller group of individuals who comprise the administrative core of a particular department or convention. This sounds very close in structure to the role of the Galactic Senate. You might also remember that in Star wars, there was a Supreme Chancellor, who headed this Secretariat. In the CBD’s case, this would be the Executive-Secretary, a fellow by the name of Ahmed Djoghlaf.

Nagoya-COP10? In Star Wars, the movies anyway, a lot of the political stuff happens in that great big black room with all of the fancy floating balconies. This was the Senate Building on the planet Coruscant, which to me, is a little like the General Assembly hall in the United Nations New York headquarters. However, for these sorts of Convention meetings, (this being the tenth one for this particular COP – hence it being called “COP10″), they tend to get held in big conference centers, and in suspiciously nice locales. In other words, for our Star Wars analogy, the members of the Galactic Republic involved in the treaty probably wouldn’t meet in Coruscant: instead, they would find another host planet. As well, it would be unlikely for such an analogous meeting to be held at a place like Hoth (too cold) or Tatooine (too dusty), but rather a planet like Alderaan (before it was destroyed anyway) or Naboo, since both are apparently beautiful.

SBSTTA: Of course, throughout all of this, you’re probably wondering where the Jedi fit in. In Star Wars, members of the Jedi Order were essentially “keepers of the peace in the Republic.” Furthermore, the Jedi Council was often key in providing objective information and advice. This means that they were valued for being a source of knowledge and wisdom, and also a sort of a police force to ensure that folks follow the laws of the treaty. In our Convention on Biological Diversity context, there is something known as the SBSTTA (which unfortunately is not a droid name but a busy mess of an acronym for “Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice.”) This, I guess, can be thought of as a group of “Jedi except without lightsabers plus no cool special powers.” In other words, while this SBSTTA aims to play an objective advisory role, in particular, helping the COP on the scientific and technological nuances of biodiversity, they have no part what-so-ever in enforcing the convention itself. Kind of like a bunch of Jedi’s who will tell you their expert opinion on the issues being discussed, but are unfortunately incapable of kicking ass on members who choose to disregard intergalactic law. This is actually one of the big problems in these international environmental treaties – there isn’t really a decent mechanism in getting COP members to follow through.

It’s also worth noting that the SBSTTA is analogous to what the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) does in Climate Change matters, except in a much smaller and some say slighter way (more on this later).

The Emperor? In Star Wars, this was of note, being the bit about the Senator and then Supreme Chancellor Palpatine managing to scheme his way into creating the Galactic Empire. In the CBD world, there really isn’t such a person or country member in the COP, but there are factors where different countries have different influences. Probably the best example is to think of something like the Trade Federation in Star Wars. This was an alliance based on economical clout – somewhat similar to how one might view the countries of the G8 or G20 these days. As well, you can imagine that countries in less fortuitous economic standings (i.e. developing countries) have an interest in making decisions together, which is what does happen in these affairs. As a side bar, I should note that, ironically, the Nagoya conference does “technically” have an Emperor involved – this would be Emperor Akihito, the head of the Japanese Imperial Family and monarch of the host country.

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II. WHY CARE ABOUT BIODIVERSITY?

Given that the Nagoya COP10 meeting is all about the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), it’s probably a good thing to talk a little bit about the convention itself. Let’s start with the general stuff, i.e. what it represents, and then save the specifics for later posts.

Put simply, it’s the international treaty whose aim is to look after the Earth’s biodiversity. Here, the CBD defines biodiversity as:

“the variability among living organisms from all sources including, inter alia, terrestrial, marine and other aquatic ecosystems and the ecological complexes of which they are a part; this includes diversity within species, between species, and of ecosystems.”

In other words, the CBD is there to suggest (as well as enforce) that we as humans, should try to have a decent relationship with all of the other organisms found on our planet.

This might sound obvious, but one of the problems with the notion of biodiversity is that sometimes, it feels like it just doesn’t get enough credit – somehow it doesn’t feel like a “serious issue.” You say the word biodiversity, and most likely these idyllic images of the someplace scenic pop into your head – maybe, you even imagine lots of birds chirping in the background, a deer or two in the distance, and of course, a bear who may actually be waving at you. For lack of a better word, Biodiversity just feels “nice.”

However, biodiversity stewardship is really mostly about coming to terms with the fact that we, as humans, tend to over emphasize our importance, and forget that at the end of the day, we have a very strong connection and dependence to the other 20 million or so species out there.

I find it akin to the mother of all Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon exercises, since almost everything we subsist on, make, do, and draw inspiration from, has a tenable link to at least one species of organism out there.

Think about what you’re doing right now. You’re probably sitting in a locale/town/city that was likely settled because of its proximity to certain conveniences: good soil for growing crops, forests for lumber to build things, decent water supply, terrain that was easily traveled, etc. The accommodation you’re sitting in is almost certainly full of things that have organic origins – the wood used in the structure itself, the fabric in many of your clothes, the objects that contain things like natural rubber, most anything with a pleasant scent. Then, of course, you have energy to move, and think, and be, and this energy is coming from your food, perhaps the most obvious connection to biodiversity we can think of. Finally, as you read this post on Boing Boing, the computer is rife with inspirations drawn from biodiversity – you are, afterall, surfing on the “web” and there’s also a good chance you’re using a “mouse” to do this.

In other words, no offense to Kevin Bacon (whose surname also has a biodiversity link), but why not have a Six Degrees of Just Bacon.

Anyway, in the general sense, this is what the Convention on Biological Diversity is trying to do. It’s trying to work biodiversity into our collective consciousness, encourage governments across the world to realize its value, and then get everyone to behave in a responsible manner.

Of course, the big question is, “does it work?” And the short answer is, “No.”

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IIB: SIDEBAR ABOUT UNFORTUNATE ACRONYMS

Just a quick Nagoya related sidebar.

I’m not sure if it’s deliberate or if it’s accidental, but the UN seems to be on a roll with ironic convention acronyms. In case, you weren’t aware, a convention is international politics jargon for “treaty.” There’s two in particular that involve the environmental landscape:

First is the U.N.F.C.C.C. – this is short for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (the thing that gave us Kyoto and Copenhagen), but as my friend Allen pointed out, doesn’t it sound more like a curse that a UN member with a stutter might say when working with other UN members?

Then we have the C.B.D., the Convention on Biological Diversity, the subject of my ongoing posts on Nagoya (part 1|part 2). Except that CBD is also the acronym for Cannabidiol, which according to Wiki is, “a cannabinoid found in Cannabis. It is a major constituent of the plant, representing up to 40% in its extracts.”

We can only hope that there isn’t any confusion on this matter for the delegates at Nagoya.

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III: THE CHALLENGE: OR WHY DOES IT SUCK?

O.K. now on to business… Here are the Convention on Biological Diversity’s three basic objectives:

1. The conservation of biological diversity
2. The sustainable use of the components of biological diversity
3. The fair and equitable sharing of the benefits arising out of the utilization of genetic resources

They also have – or had rather – a goal, a biodiversity target, which was the following:

In April 2002, the Parties to the Convention committed themselves to achieve by 2010 a significant reduction of the current rate of biodiversity loss at the global, regional and national level as a contribution to poverty alleviation and to the benefit of all life on Earth.

This was also the reason why 2010 was proclaimed as the International Year of Biodiversity.

Unfortunately, this target is way off the mark. Even the Convention itself has said this (you can read the formal admittance of this with this pdf), while other media outlets have been much more emphatic about its failure. But regardless, as far as all can tell, biodiversity loss rates have not been reduced – not even close.

But this policy speak vernacular is part of the problem. Because “biodiversity” is such a huge, nuanced, and multifaceted issue, and because it’s also a word and concept that’s tricky to pin down in a public setting, it’s really quite difficult for governments to follow along with the desires and targets of the CBD.

For instance, this challenge becomes immediately obvious, if you look at the mandates again and decide to nitpick.

“The conservation of biological diversity.”

This statement is very much about environmental stewardship, and the effects of human impact in general. It is, in many ways, the heart of the convention, but it is also an incredibly loaded statement.

Here, one has to simply query what exactly is the best way of doing this? And then how would you measure it? Is this done by focusing on projects that look at a few species at a time; projects that survey a specific locale; or by setting up general but scientifically undefined benchmarks, such as “You must not log X% of your land.” If so, can your Convention deal with all of the different contexts associated with different biomes, climates, species, etc.

To put things in perspective, we don’t even technically know the number of species out there, we only have limited specific knowledge of diversity within species, and we’re closer to understanding the popularity of LOL cats than having even a glimmer of understanding how Nature’s grand algorithm makes everything all work together.

In fact, if you look at this busy chart (brace yourself if you do choose to click it – it looks more complicated than a biochemistry pathway chart from hell), you can see a time line of all the many different and new elements of the CBD that have been created over the years, each with a specific mandate dealing with a specific element (i.e. you get corals, I get forests, he should get invasive species, who’s game for sub-humid terrains?) This just gives you a taste of the complexity involved, and consequently, demonstrates the challenge in “measuring” how biodiversity is conserved.

“The sustainable use of the components of biological diversity”

This statement is also looking at impact, but attempts to look at it from the “what’s in it for me” angle. As mentioned earlier, the fruits (sometimes literally) of biodiversity are a big part of the everyday items we and the rest of society consume. As such, they are not only following the limits of the natural world, but they are also governed by the mechanics of economics, and vulnerable if not often defenseless against market forces. From this reasoning, you’d think that the economic values of “the components of biological diversity” have been properly laid out.

Unfortunately, this isn’t the case. Although there are studies available that attempt to “price” these biodiversity resources (the most notable of which is the Millenium Ecosystem Assessment released in 2005), the fact of the matter is that much more needs to be done. However, this, too, is not an easy proposition. Coming up with effective ways to assign “value” to biodiversity, and perhaps more challenging, assigning them in such a way that is comprehensive in scope and universally accepted, is another difficult task.

To get a sense of all the little nuances involved in assigning value, take a look at this graph from a case study done by The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB).

What this remarkable figure attempts to compare, is the traditional market value (1998 prices) of the “timber logged to supply construction and materials sector in China over the period 1950-98“, versus the “ecosystem ‘externalities’ associated with this logging, which are not reflected in market prices” (text from the TEEB case study). In other words, the timber has a much higher inherent worth when you consider the environmental impact it has on other goods and services. These are things such as the effects due to the deforestation of said timber: like loss of precipitation, land stability for building, the increased susceptibility to flooding, etc. In fact, the graph here basically suggests that the timber might be worth much more left where it is!

Now, there’s likely all manner of issues with the numbers obtained with these figures: maybe they are too approximate, maybe they work only within the Chinese scenario, maybe they are missing X, Y and/or Z. But the underlying argument, is that it’s probably worth it for governments and businesses to look into such things in detail, and possibly even figure out a way to include (or “internalize”, if you want to use the jargon) them into their methods of accounting. However, this is generally not the case. Certainly, it’s poorly defined in the government arena. And for businesses?

A review by PwC of the annual reports of the 100 largest companies in the world by revenue in 2008 found 18 companies that mentioned biodiversity or ecosystems34. Of these, 6 companies reported actions to reduce impacts on biodiversity and ecosystems and 2 companies identified biodiversity as a key ‘strategic’ issue. 89 of the same 100 companies published a sustainability report, 24 of which described actions to reduce impacts on biodiversity and ecosystems, while 9 companies identified impacts on biodiversity as a key ‘sustainability’ issue. (The TEEB for Business report, 2010).

Obviously, more needs to be done here as well.

“The fair and equitable sharing of the benefits arising out of the utilization of genetic resources.”

This objective is all about sharing and being fair. This too has been hardly successful. A good way to get a handle on what this objective is all about is to provide two general examples.

1. I am a poor country and I have a biodiversity related natural resource (say, a forest) that would be beneficial to my economy and therefore my constituents. I don’t think it’s fair for you to tell me what to do with this resource – even in the name of environmental stewardship. More so, since wealthy countries have already benefited from their past unenvironmentally friendly acts (say, cut down their forests). If you’re going to insist on telling me what’s the right thing to do (again in the name of environmental stewardship), should there be at least some compensation for it?

2. In my country there is this freaking awesome plant that we use for medicinal purposes. The whereabouts of this plant, the best time to harvest, and the proper way to prepare it, is knowledge that has been passed on for many years, all the way back to my earliest ancestors. Not only is the plant “freaking awesome,” but it is both economically and culturally important. Now apparently, folks in business attire are planning to go “genetic and biochemical” on the plant. They hope to distill its “freaking awesomeness” to a single tangle of atoms: then possibly market it, and do business with it. To this, I say that I am not against the discovery of a “freaking awesome” tangle of atoms, but I wonder if there shouldn’t be “fair” compensation to my culture. After all, the relationship between my country and the plant was what amassed all that prior knowledge: knowledge that arguably provided the crucial first step for the folks in business attire.

The problem, of course, is that both of these scenarios require a somewhat altruistic approach, which for governments can be tricky at the best of times.

Anyway…

in summary, even though I’ve tried to discuss the difficulties of the Convention on Biological Diversity by only focusing on its three main objectives (the Convention is actually more structured around a long list of “goals”), this simplistic approach still nicely shows the difficulty of the whole affair.

Still, it’s not like good things haven’t happened. There are countless lovely instances where excellent work has been done, particularly at the local level, and particularly related to objective number 1. There was even a recent agreement that will hopefully shed a bit of light on how objective 3 might plod along.

However, the intention of the CBD is to provide a strong overarching plan for all members of the COP to follow, and from that vantage point, it hasn’t succeeded at all. The 2010 targets are seriously off, and biodiversity as a whole is suffering tremendously.

Except that now, we have another crack at rewriting the code behind the CBD. This is what Nagoya-COP10 will be all about: a sort of “o.k. people, we’ve kind of screwed around for the last decade or so, but we’ve learned some stuff, and hey, if we’re gonna set the scene for the next few decades by doing something, we should do it now” conference.

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IV: NOW WHAT?

So what should be done at Nagoya? This is the 20 million species plus question. And for all of the criticism that I’ve (and others) have proffered, we should appreciate that the task at hand is going to be quite the challenge. If nothing else, this is immediately clear from the often anthrocentric (humans rule the Earth and are just playing our role on the evolutionary front, so deal with it!) commentary left on biodiversity pieces throughout the internet.

There is a somewhat official Strategic Plan document out there, one that (with a remarkable lack of brevity) highlights 2020 goals and attempts to identify the process and partners to be involved. It’s worth a look, although probably best absorbed by taking in the tables shown on page 19 on. It involves a list of some 20 different target statements. Some of which are short, bouncy, although still vague like a twitter tweet:

1. By 2020, everyone is aware of the value of biodiversity and what steps they can take to protect it.

Others are more to the point:

11. By 2020, At least 15% of land and sea areas, including the most critical terrestrial, freshwater and marine habitats, have been protected through effectively managed protected areas and/or other means, and integrated into the wider land- and seascape.

A few establish direct talking points for individual COP members:

16. By 2020, Each Party has an appropriate, up-to-date, effective and operational national biodiversity strategy, consistent with this Strategic Plan, based on adequate assessment of biodiversity, its value and threats, with responsibilities allocated among sectors, levels of government, and other stakeholders, and coordination mechanisms are in place to ensure implementation of the actions needed.

And this one, almost works as a haiku:

3. By 2020
Subsidies harmful
to biodiversity
are eliminat…

Well, maybe not a 5-7-5 haiku. Still, the 20 targets make for a good, if detailed, read. I’m actually tempted to see how they might fare as a poem: if I stack them one by one, and then giving it the title, “By 2020.”

The purpose of this long and comprehensive list of targets, of course, is to address the vagueness discussed before. This is a good thing: but how wieldy these discussions will be, especially in the context of 190+ COP members needing to reach an agreement remains to be seen. In light of this, maybe structuring this discussion around a more simple list is better.

I quite like the suggestions laid out in this recent paper, “Biodiversity targets after 2010″ by Mace et al. (pdf). For starters, it’s written in a pretty readable fashion, but more importantly, it tries to break the targets into three defined categories, as described in this box.

This seems pretty clever to me. Let’s break up the priorities depending on: (1) whether the loss in biodiversity is directly “bad” for you (as well as anthrocentric commenters); (2) whether the loss in biodiversity results in a loss of sociological and/or cultural value (i.e. makes you “sad”); and (3) what kind of things are needed in order to tackle the previous two. If viewed in this manner, the hope is that everyone can find something of value in this process. In fact, I think an important part of 3 (or the blue target) is to also showcase how closely tied 1 and 2 are to each other (things that make you “sad” are often things with a direct “bad” effect – often an effect you’re not necessarily prepared for).

In any event, let’s end with a list of priorities, whittled from our “By 2020″ poem, and worded explicitly for those of you who don’t wish to read the strategic document outlined earlier. In fact, let’s borrow from a great list seen at the IYB UK website. Here they suggest that at the very least, Nagoya COP10 can provide the following:

1. A new set of targets to protect our natural resources that are achievable and measurable.

2. A protocol for fair access to, and sharing the benefits from, the world’s genetic resources. This is called the Access and Benefit Sharing (ABS) protocol.

3. The need to put a fair economic value on nature’s services that are currently used for free, such as fertile soil, pollination of our crops, and flood defences. This will be based on The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) report.

4. Support for establishing a single source for access to reliable scientific evidence which can be used to inform policy decisions on biodiversity issues. This is called the Intergovernmental science-policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) and will operate in a similar way that the IPCC informs climate change policy.

My favourite is the first one, which in a sort of grant-proposal-speak, is basically asking for a strong and kick ass Nagoya agreement.

Now, what can you do to help move this along? Well, on the high effort scale, you can obviously get involved in various biodiversity outreach programs. I’m sure there are many in your local neck of the woods. However, at the lower end of the effort scale, just being vocal about such things is a good star (even if you disagree heartily about everything I’ve written). Dialogue generates more dialogue which then generates debate which then generates noise which then, if you’re lucky, might generate notice from the government players, which is what you hope for.

The timing is also interesting politically. For the US, biodiversity has inadvertently been pushed into the public’s consciousness by the horrible Deepwater Horizon oil spill. The images and stories presented have been visceral and gut wrenching, and tragically informative in providing a look at how a locale is closely tied to its ecosystem. In the UK, Nagoya COP10 is Prime Minister Cameron’s first real test on the environmental front – so there’s lots of eyeballs monitoring his government’s action. And in Canada, where my home is… well… Stephen Harper should be well aware that the sweater vests he loves so dearly are very much a product of biodiversity.

Anyway, I’m hoping you can just go on and make some online noise. For example, those four priorities above seemed primed for a twitter rework. Or maybe just come up with any creative/witty/funny/deep twitter line. You can even stick a #nagoyaCOP10 hashtag in there. It would be interesting to see what great lines people can come up with.