New Genomic Techniques (NGTs)

The EU Commission is proposing legalizing and regulating NGTs. I’m cautiously optimistic, and think this will be a useful tool for seed savers and others working in biodiversity.

NGTs are mutagenesis (where the natural mutation of plant materials is sped up with for example X-rays or one of a number of chemicals, including some common household substances) and cisgenesis (one of a number of techniques where genes are manipulated within the same species). In the case of mutagenesys, I’m aware of seed savers already doing this for years. In both cases it’s unlikely anyone could make plant material that couldn’t already exist in nature, and because you are always working within the same species, there’s no meaningful risk of contamination of other plants or setting something free in the wild.

NGTs are really a new generation of GMOs, that shouldn’t be confused with what was used decades ago. NGTs should only be thought of as a tool that speeds up traditional plant breeding.

The intention is that only seeds will be labeled when made from these new techniques, and not food. Some people will find this disturbing, because it will no longer be possible to choose an alternative in the supermarket. I think everyone should understand that once these techniques are legalized, it’s very likely nearly all food will be made from NGTs.

Nagoya Protocol and OSSI

On a more technical side, those working with biodiversity will be interested to know NGTs can be used to get around the Nagoya protocol and OSSI. Both of these are dependent on the pedigree of genetic material. This can be compared to for example a DNA test in humans, which can determine who your ancestors were, as well as your relationship to living relatives. NGTs can be used to scramble this information in genetic materials and in any case you are technically creating new life, which is not covered by these rules.

In general, these techniques will provide a lot of privacy to seed savers. Currently a lot can be revealed by the DNA in their seeds, and NGTs can be used to scramble this information.

Why Our View and Approach Towards Invasive Species is Wrong

Every gardener is annoyed by weeds in their garden, and different gardeners often have very different approaches for controlling them. It’s not unusual for gardeners to have strong disagreements over weeds.

The Reasons for Having Weeds

Weeds are actually an important part of your garden’s ecosystem, and it’s impossible to get rid of them completely without damaging your garden. Many people mistakenly look at weeds in their neighbors garden, and think if their neighbor would just take care of them their own weed problem would go away.

The truth is most weeds come from seeds that are already in the ground, and have been there a very long time. Studies have shown weed seeds can survive in the ground hundreds of years or longer. As gardeners disturb the ground in their garden, they bring seeds up to the surface, which in turn grow.

All gardeners know that weeds don’t grow randomly, and it’s generally possible to identify 4-5 different weeds that account for the majority in their garden, and also that weeds favor different areas of the garden. There’s a very important reason for this. Weeds actually repair your garden.

For example, if you have too much nitrogen or potassium in your garden, stinging nettles may grow. As they grow, they will consume the nitrogen and potassium, and try to bring your garden into a healthier balance. You will get particular weeds if your soil is compacted, too wet, lacking nutrients, and so on. In each case the weeds will work to correct the imbalance or problems. Gardeners who use weed killer like Round Up in their gardens will notice they get Mare’s Tail, and this is for the same reason, to repair the damage caused by the chemical.

Repairing your garden with weeds alone is usually impractically slow. They are however very good as indicators. Letting some weeds grow, together with other organic methods, can be a very effective way of keeping your garden in balance, and over time weed problems tend to go away on their own.

On the other hand, if you keep fighting the weeds, you end up damaging your garden and you end up being unaware of fundamental problems that could possibly be easily corrected.

The View With Chemicals

People who use chemicals to control weeds in their garden sometimes have a completely distorted view of the world. The often blame the seeds blowing into their garden from nearby weeds as the source of their problem. They believe the best state of affairs is for all weeds to be destroyed, and only their desired plants to be growing. They often look further and further away from their garden.

Some gardeners even think some weeds are worse than others. For example nettles because they sting, or thistles because they prick you. I even knew a gardener that thought all yellow flowered weeds were bad. I guess because there was Round Up ready rape(canola) growing wild, and he had to pull this out by hand.

Some farmers have a similar view. For example, on one hand using chemicals to destroy a disease on their own crop, then looking for the same disease on neighboring (organic) crops and blaming those gardeners or farmers for causing the problem.

Invasive Species

The arguments are often mixed with racism. In fact the Dutch language has a term ‘alloctone’, that can refer to either an invasive species or a person of foreign origin. Some people even think it’s possible or desirable to completely eliminate invasive species, maybe with gene drives.

Of course reasonable steps should be taken to prevent invasive species from spreading.

The reality is invasive species are an indicator of very serious environmental problems that need to be addressed. There are natural methods for control, like introducing natural predators or commercial harvesting. Attempting to remove them completely in an unnatural way can’t be done without further damage to the ecosystem, and shouldn’t be attempted.

Kunming CBD Wish List

In October Convention of Biological Diversity delegates will travel to Kunming for the delayed Conference of the Parties. In the hope my opinion matters, here’s a wish list of what I think needs to be accomplished in order to stimulate biodiversity.

End Nagoya Protocol: This is so complex and theoretical that no one understands what it means. This has effectively stopped the legal transfer of genetic material between people, across many scientific disciplines, and has brought the work of many people to a complete standstill. Not only should this be ended, but there should be no replacement protocol considered.

End or Adjust Worldwide Plant Health Restrictions: I have not been able to identify any working document justifying these restrictions. There doesn’t seem to be any peer-reviewed research suggesting such overly broad restrictions will have an impact on plant health, nor do there seem to be any strategy documents detailing what is attempting to be accomplished. If there are true plant health risks, and some measured restrictions might be of help mitigating these risks, then restrictions might be justified. Where there are no risks, there should be no restrictions. Where there are risks, these should be clearly explained and restrictions justified. Above all else, these restrictions should be open for democratic discussion and debate.

DNA testing and seed sample collection cannot be justified for reasons of plant health, and these should be stopped. Above all else, stop lying. If it’s not for reasons of plant health, be honest about what it’s for.

Stop DNA testing of seeds without permission of grower: DNA testing of seeds has enormous privacy implications for people using those seeds, just like DNA testing of people does. There should be no databases or analysis of those seeds unless requested by the user.

Stop the Open Source Seed Initiative: Seeds and documentation have been collected for this under misleading circumstances, and the people providing this are not aware of the true consequences of their participation. Return these seeds to the public domain.

Return all genetic materials to the public domain: Genetic materials that have been collected under the auspices of the CBD have been done so under misleading circumstances. It’s unlikely very many people have given their materials up with fully informed consent. These materials have always existed in the public domain, and the CBD has no right to them. The rules the CBD have placed on these materials makes them unusable for a great many people who could otherwise be working seriously on the greatest existential crisis the world has ever faced, global warming and biodiversity loss. The CBD should either be helping people with their work, or get out of the way. In the current direction, the CBD is a substantial hindrance.

Before the CBD these materials were always considered in the public domain. Collections were maintained and paid for by the companies making profits from their exploitation, and everyone had the right to receive free samples. We need to return to a similar situation, combined with collections funded with taxes imposed on the wealthy.

Stop all administrative burden: There should be no administrative burden for using biodiversity. No sMTA’s, no registrations or declarations. Biodiversity belongs to everyone, and no one has the right to demand paperwork just in order to use it.

Stop all patents on life: Genes exist in nature. Collecting and editing these genes do not constitute invention or innovation. Genes are naturally occurring and should not be subject to patents. Patents give too much power to the patent holders. It’s a ridiculous situation that governments must fund the research leading to COVID vaccinations, then companies are allowed to patent them and restrict their manufacture and use. It gives too much power to pharmaceutical companies to overcharge patients and ignore unprofitable treatments, especially in places without universal health care. It’s unreasonable to expect people who work to promote biodiversity to contend with patent restrictions. We need to pay for this sort of R&D with taxes on the world’s wealthy, or simply find another way.

It’s very possible millions of people in the world may die because patents on COVID vaccinations might prevent their efficient manufacture and distribution in poor countries. This must not be allowed to happen, and in any case must never happen again.

No payments for biodiversity services: The expectation of such payments was probably a factor in Bolsonaro’s encouraging the destruction of the Amazon, and there should be no payments to him for stopping what he’s doing or reversing the damage. Such payments should be discussed and debated in a democratic way, and paid for from taxes on the wealthy. There should be no automatic mechanisms that might stimulate biodiversity loss.

Existential crisis: Above all else remember the world and it’s biodiversity are in a real crisis. We all know we need to do a lot more than just stopping the release of greenhouse gases, we need to start removing CO2 from the atmosphere. If we aren’t going to wait for Elon Musk to develop the technology to suck all the CO2 out of the atmosphere, our only choice is to develop biodiversity in such a way that CO2 is sequestered in healthy farming soils, old growth forests and other living areas of biodiversity. Please get serious and act now.

What to do about anti-vaxxers, anti-lockdowners, 5G mobile protesters and so on…

In Europe there’s a new phenomenon of groups protesting these issues, often violently. We sort of all know they are coming out of America’s far-right groups in an election year, but many people don’t really understand where they come from, what they mean or what to do about them. Most people think the only thing to do is ignore them, but by understanding them better there’s much more we can do to confront them.

Here in The Netherlands, there are groups who have appeared out of nowhere, and members who have been identified as cocaine users and people previously involved in violence related to football (soccer) matches. They don’t really have any spokespeople or figureheads, not a lot of organization or public debates on their issues and in general not a lot of sense in what they’re doing. They are well enough organized to apply for demonstration permits and pay fees, and estimate the number of people attending, but otherwise don’t seem to have the backing of any known organization. In general, they just seem like they’re out for a fight with the police. In a small country like The Netherlands, this really stands out. It’s not like they can just be strangers from ‘out of state’. They have to be locals, and someone should know who they are and where they came from.

The mainstream press, especially English language, is also playing a role here. The BBC for example had a sort of spooky infomercial article on this, with very little real news, but rather a video with strange people saying weird things, and completely lacking any point. This kind of article just gives legitimacy where there was none before. A local news website that mostly has translated news from Dutch outlets, had an article highlighting the difference in childhood MMR vaccination rates between 2019 and 2020. The suggestion was this was an indication of the anti-vaccination trends in the country, but what the article didn’t say is there was no MMR vaccination program in the country before 2019, as is the case in a lot of places outside of the US. There is also simply no need for an anti-vaccination movement here, because there are no mandatory vaccinations. The article also said the parts of the country where the vaccination rates were the lowest were the most religious, as if the people choosing not to get vaccinated were the least educated or most abnormal. It was a completely misleading cooked-up article, either a paid placement or someone completely unfamiliar with the topic just blindly translating a misleading press release.

The Difference Between Organic and Artificial Movements

The Black Lives Matter is a good example of an organic movement. It’s clear what the issues are, and there are sympathies worldwide. It comes from unarmed black people being killed by police, and the demands are clear. There are large numbers of people speaking very clearly about it on social media as well as the mainstream news. Disagreements that may exist in the movement are minimal and unimportant. There are also clearly no overriding business interests behind this movement.

Vaccinations, 5G mobile services and covid-19 lockdowns all have business interests behind them. I think most people would agree that none of these are really interesting enough to go out and demonstrate over, and hardly interesting enough to even have a discussion about them. In fact, if we have any position or opinion about these issues at all, it probably comes out of statements made by other people, and we probably take issue with some of these statements.

The fact of the matter is it costs huge amounts of money to ‘create’ movements like this, something only a billionaire could afford. It costs money to pay for misleading press releases, to create and run organizations that appear out of nowhere. You have to pay for lobbyists to cause politicians to react to the issues, for people to give misleading information on social and mainstream media, pay for trolls to disrupt constructive exchanges on social media, and so on. This is really a major amount of money, especially when you consider this is not just limited to a single country but movements being created worldwide.

Consider Vegetarianism as an Example

I think most people now know every vegetarian is different, with different reasons for not eating meat. Some are vegan, some eat fish on Fridays, some eat meat once a month or only at restaurants when they eat out. As long as someone considers themselves a vegetarian, they are. Furthermore there are no health risks, and as long as you are eating a fairly normal and varied diet, there is no risk of deficiencies.

As a vegetarian now for about 40 years, I’ve really seen the issue evolve quite a lot. If you’re young and reading this, you probably missed a lot of this. At the beginning it was more about needing to remind people, because the concept was a little bit new and there was some confusion. When someone gave you food, it was always necessary to look at it carefully to be sure. There was also the discussion of chicken broth in otherwise vegetarian soup and so on. For a long time it was always necessary to pay attention to quantity, because if a nicely prepared vegetarian dish is present in an otherwise all meat buffet, there often won’t be enough left for the vegetarian if others go first. It also isn’t possible for example to have a nice meal only eating a salad made from iceburg lettuce, and there needs to be a little variety and some starch or vegetable protein. Some people took this to mean all vegetarians were hostile, picky, greedy and wanted non-vegetarians to be forced to eat vegetarian food.

At some point there were enough vegetarians the meat industry started to notice. There’s big money in meat, and a drop in consumption of even a few percent gets noticed quickly. The food industry started investing in everything I mentioned above, like lobbyists to influence food policy, food pyramids in school to teach school children that meat and diary were some of the most important things to eat. There were ads on TV, and later on the Internet. Organizations popped up out of nowhere supposedly promoting vegetarian food, but actually just furthering the divisions and misinformation that already existed. It became necessary to establish exactly what kind of vegetarian each was, and it became impolite for example to not provide fish to a vegetarian who expected it, or eggs and dairy to a lacto-ovo vegetarian.

Now, thankfully, we are at a more normal situation with vegetarians. Vegetarians are free to choose what they do and don’t eat, and to be vegan if they want Most people understand it’s acceptable to serve vegan food to someone who says they’re vegetarian, or an all vegan meal to a large group of people when many dietary preferences have to be taken into account. Meat eaters are allowed to enjoy an occasional vegetarian meal, if they want. Living in The Netherlands where a great deal of the world’s meat is produced, I can also say people eating less meat has had a major impact on the environment. The long term damage of past meat consumption is also very visible here.

Anti-vaxxers, anti-lockdown, anti-5G mobile services

So back to the main point of this post. Why are these things an issue, and why are billionaires spending money trying to bring these things forward? The reason is there are financial and political issues behind them, and they are trying to create confusion and make anyone who may have legitimate arguments against them to seem like crackpots.

What can we do about them? There is a very simple answer to this. We can work backwards from the confusion they are trying to create, then understand what the underlying issues are and start a dialog over the real issues. Instead of the 40 years it took the world to do this over vegetarians, we can work together to do this in a far shorter time for vaccinations, the covid-19 lockdown and 5G services. If as a society we can be more effective at settling these issues based on truth, we will eliminate the reason for billionaires to cause this sort of disruption with fake news in our democracies. Indeed, if we learn how to work backwards from the issues billionaires try to create in this way, we can make it counter productive for the billionaires to try in the first place.

Working Backwards

Here are some of my ideas for working backwards from these issues. If you think I’m wrong, or extreme or whatever, rather than marching off in a huff I challenge you to do your own research and come up with your own ideas. Here are some of my thoughts.

Covid-19 Lockdown: Ending the lockdown benefits large companies depending on cheap labor the most. It’s also the billionaires who’s money is invested in these companies, who are both benefiting the most from the current government bailouts as well as have the most to lose from a prolonged downturn of the economy.

5G Services: Mobile services have become too cheap to be profitable. In order to be profitable a mobile subscription has to cost at least about $12/month. Companies that offer cheaper subscriptions are often doing so at a loss, hoping to keep you as a customer for future more expensive services. For example, I have a 4G subscription costing about $5/month with a reasonable package of calling and data. When 5G becomes available in my area, they are going to have to offer a lot more than a faster data connection and a larger package to up-sell me.

5G antennas are very large and ugly, and must be placed closer together than 4G. Setting up the system is very expensive, and requires a lot of energy and finite mined resources. I don’t think it’s very sensible that governments are allowing such a system to be built and clutter the landscape, as long as 4G continues to work well. At least at the moment, I’m not able to see any added value of 5G.

Vaccinations: Just like everything else in the world, all vaccines are different. There can be different reasons to be concerned about safety. There are many different ways of creating vaccines, including GMO and synthetic biology techniques, and there are different reasons for being concerned about the safety of these techniques. There is the much discussed issue of herd immunity, and many vaccines won’t work on their own but require some existing herd immunity. Does this mean the vaccine is faulty? Is it really the responsibility of the rest of us to provide this herd immunity for the vaccine manufacturers?

Many vaccine programs started in the 1960s. What have we learned? Are the vaccines given then still necessary today?

What about the survival rate for diseases like German measles? We know the basic method for treating a Covid-19 patient. Can these methods be used for measles patients, and will this bring the fatality rate down near zero? Clearly the measles vaccine isn’t working properly, because we still have outbreaks, and people who are vaccinated still contract the disease. Would we be better off if everyone was allowed to contract the disease as a child, and stop with the vaccinations? Why or why not — in detail please?

The issues surrounding vaccines are so varied and complex, there’s much more than I can go into here. The subject deserves open discussion, and those who want to discuss it deserve more than just to be shouted at and called an anti-vaxxer. It’s not just an issue for scientists, and the rest of us just have to trust what they say. This is a topic that needs to be explained in a way everyone can understand it, and from an independent perspective. Everyone needs to make their own decisions.

The same rules apply to comments on this post as others. In general everything goes, except spam or attempts to intimidate others. This is especially true when it involves repetition.

The Netherlands as a River Delta

The Netherlands Goes Brackish

This is a poor translation of the title of a symposium I attended in Leeuwarden in The Netherlands. The real title in Dutch ‘Nederland Verbrakt’ is a play on words and has two meanings. Verbrakt can mean break, but can also mean brackish as in water. If you understand Dutch or want to try your hand with Google Translate, the symposium website is here.

The definition of a river delta is where a river flows into an estuary where salt and fresh water mix, then out to sea. In reality the situation is not normally so straight-forward, as rivers normally have forks or flow together. A river delta is normally therefore considered as the collective area where related rivers flow to sea.

The Netherlands has a number of related rivers flowing through it, including the Meuse, Rhine, Waal, Scheldt, IJssel and others. At one point the Emse flows out in the northeast of the country along the German border, and the confluence of the Scheldt, Rhine and Meuse flows out in the southwest along the Belgian border. Water is also pumped out from the IJssel river via the IJssel lake, through the afsluitdijk, in the middle of the country. Historically water flowed through the country in almost all directions. This means technically the entire Netherlands is a single river delta system.

The Netherlands has a long history of floods. In addition, as a river delta it’s also one of the most fertile areas in the world for agriculture, and this agriculture has been expanded by the reclaiming of land from the sea. Land reclamation and flood defenses means the country has been nearly completely enclosed in dikes, and a system of canals ensure excess water is drained from the land and pumped out to sea. This is the so-called water management that the Netherlands is very well known for.

The country has paid a very high price for this water management. The water management along with ground water consumption is causing the country to sink, together with rising sea levels this means higher dikes are needed and more surface water needs to be drained and pumped to sea, which in turns makes the country sink even more. Because the coastline is protected by dikes, the inland water has become ‘sweet’ or free from salt and reduced or eliminated storm surges. This has caused massive changes in ecosystems, generally causing them to become seriously degraded.

Historically many dikes were built and land reclaimed in very random ways, without a lot of thought to what they were doing. In some cases it was done for nationalistic reasons, with one group of people trying to punish another. Nearly everyone accepts there’s no going back to the way things were before water management. In recent times however there have been efforts to fix some of the worst mistakes, modernize water management, making it as environmentally friendly and as sustainable as possible.

For example in recent decades they have been reflooding reclaimed land that was too far below sea level, and thus requiring too many resources to maintain.

In the latest phase of modernizing water management, many areas are going brackish. Others are changing with more of an environmental focus.

North Coast

Along the north coast of the country they are rebuilding the large dike called the afsluitdijk. Sea level rises mean the dike has to be built higher. At the same time they are changing the design, including the addition of a fish migration river. In the future they will try to let water drain more often by opening the dike, rather than mostly pumping like they do now. They will also open the dike to let in sea water when they can.

Holwerd aan Zee

In the village of Holwerd, they are transitioning to ‘Holwerd aan Zee’. They are creating a breach in the nearby dike, and letting sea water flow in. With this they intend to create an estuary and a new nature area.

In the Lauwersmeer, which I wrote about before, there are plans to first develop the local economy, but also necessarily enhance the nature of the area. As part of enhancing the nature, they also plan to allow salt water to enter through the dike. It remains to be seen how long this takes or if it really happens, but this would be a very good thing, and a very long time coming.

Southern Delta Area

In Grevelingen and Haringvliet (two areas of this part of the delta), which have been closed with dikes, they are already letting in sea water from time to time, and also taking other steps to enhance the nature there.

River Deltas in Crisis

Many river deltas around the world are in crisis. For example the Mississippi river delta near New Orleans and the Mekong delta in Vietnam. The situation the The Netherlands is not terribly different from these areas. Letting salt water into parts of the country will help some, but a lot more is going to need to be done in the long run.