We Need to Reverse the Culture of Decay and March on the Street for a Culture of Humanity

by Vijay Prashad / January 4th, 2024

Michael Armitage (Kenya), The Promised Land, 2019.

The final months of 2023 pierced our sense of hope and threw us into a kind of mortal sadness. Israel’s escalating violence has killed more than twenty thousand Palestinians to date, wiping out entire generations of families. Horrifying images and testimonies from Palestine have flooded all forms of media, stirring a deep sense of anguish and outrage among large sections of the global population. At the same time, in keeping with the zigs and zags of history, this collective sorrow has been transformed into collective strength. Hundreds of millions of people around the world have taken to the streets day after day, week after week, to express their vehement opposition to Israel’s Permanent Nakba against Palestinians. New generations around the world have been radicalised by the struggle for Palestinian emancipation and against the hypocrisy of the NATO-G7 bloc. Any remaining credibility held by Western ‘humanitarian’ rhetoric died on 8 December when the United States’ deputy ambassador to the United Nations, Robert Wood, raised his lonely hand in the United Nations Security Council to cast the sole vote against a resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, using the US’s veto power to block the measure (this was the third time that the US has blocked a resolution calling for a ceasefire since 7 October).

Meanwhile, south of Palestine, in Dubai (United Arab Emirates), the states of the world met for the 28th Conference of Parties (COP28) on climate change from 30 November to 12 December. The official meetings seemed to be garrisoned by transnational energy companies, who stood alongside the former colonial powers in making solemn pronouncements while refusing to commit to reducing excess carbon emissions. None of the agreements reached in Dubai have the status of law; they are merely benchmarks that countries are not compelled to reach. ‘We didn’t turn the page on the fossil fuel era’, said UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell. COP28, he continued, ‘is the beginning of the end’.

After twenty-eight years of mediocrity, it would be fair to ask if Stiell was referring to the end of the world rather than the fossil fuel era. The former interpretation is supported by UN Secretary General António Guterres’s announcement in July that ‘The era of global warming has ended. The era of global boiling has arrived’. No protests were possible at Expo City Dubai, where COP28 was held. As COP28 ended, the centre had to be hastily emptied because Winter City needed to be set up in this desert port, where Santa and his reindeers, bathed in fake snow, invite Christmas shoppers to join their ‘vital eco-mission activities’. Far away from Dubai, protestors hold up signs that read, ‘The ocean is rising and so are we’.

Emilio Vedova (Italy), Contemporary Crucifixion no. 4, 1953.

These protests for Palestine and for the planet bang at the door of modern civilisation, which is suffused with decay. The banality of social inequality and the normalisation of war belie the assumption that mass suffering and death are insurmountable and acceptable. It is not only political leaders who speak with iron in their voice, but also those who produce elements of our culture, whether in the entertainment or education industry. Concepts such as freedom and justice are treated as abstractions that can be bandied about here and there, mutilated by people who make war in their name. In politics, in entertainment, in education, and in other areas of modern life, these concepts are taken out of history and treated as products, just like the goods produced by workers are taken out of their context and treated as commodities. Freedom and justice are not abstractions but ideas and practices born of the brave struggles of hundreds of millions of people throughout history, ordinary people who sacrificed themselves for the good of future generations. They produced these words not for textbooks and courts of law, but for us to continue to refine and expand their meaning in our own fights and turn them into reality.

We protest to give these concepts, freedom and justice, meaning and return them to their authentic history. We understand with great joy that humanity will only be redeemed through praxis, what Karl Marx defined as the ‘free, conscious activity’ that allows us to create and shape the reality around us. Standing up for one’s beliefs is not just about trying to change a policy, whether to stop a war or lessen social inequality; it is to radically refuse the culture of decay and affirm the culture of a possible humanity. Praxis does not take place as the noble activity of the individual, the lonely vigil conducted for moral reasons that are as abstract as the ahistorical use of the terms freedom and justice. Praxis can only inaugurate a new culture if it takes place collectively, producing as it marches a joyous set of new relationships and certainties.

Antonio Jose Guzman (Panama) and Iva Jankovic (Yugoslavia), photograph of the work Transatlantic Stargate, 2023.

The purpose of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research is not to be the archivist of a decaying civilisation, but to be part of the great current of humanity that – through its praxis – will return genuine hope to the world. Our institute, which was launched in March 2018, has built a considerable body of work, including over seventy monthly dossiers, never missing a deadline. Last month, you received our seventy-first dossier, Culture as a Weapon of Struggle: The Medu Art Ensemble and Southern African Liberation, which celebrated and highlighted the necessity of cultural production rooted in praxis. The efficiency of the team at Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research is remarkable. They work day and night to bring you the kind of material that is absent from our global dialogue. This coming year we plan to bring you twelve dossiers on the following topics:

1. The new mood in the Global South and the churning of the global order, in collaboration with Global South Insights.
2. The People’s Science Movement in Karnataka, India.
3. Nepal and the Millennium Challenge Corporation, in collaboration with Bampanth (‘The Left’) magazine.
4. Forty years of the Landless Workers’ Movement (MST) in Brazil.
5. Northeast Asia and the New Cold War, in collaboration with the International Strategy Centre and No Cold War.
6. The Congolese struggle to control their own resources, in collaboration with the Centre Culturel Andrée Blouin.
7. Multipolarity and Latin American development models.
8. The cultural politics of the Telangana movement.
9. Why the right is advancing in Latin America.
10. The struggles of landless workers in Tanzania, in collaboration with the Movement of Agricultural Workers (MVIWATA).
11. Transnational corporate corruption in Africa.
12. The situation of the working class in Latin America.

Your feedback, as always, is essential.

Vijay Prashad is an Indian historian and journalist. Prashad is the author of twenty-five books, including The Darker Nations: A People’s History of the Third World and The Poorer Nations: A Possible History of the Global South. Read other articles by Vijay, or visit Vijay's website.

 

Funding the Imperium: Australia Subsidises US Nuclear Submarines

by Binoy Kampmark / January 5th, 2024

AUKUS, the trilateral pact between the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia, was a steal for all except one of the partners.  Australia, given the illusion of protection even as its aggressive stance (acquiring nuclear-powered submarines, becoming a forward base for the US military) aggravated other countries; the feeling of superiority, even as it was surrendering itself to a foreign power as never before, was the loser in the bargain.

Last month, Australians woke up to the sad reminder that their government’s capitulation to Washington has been so total as to render any further talk about independence an embarrassment.  Their Defence Minister, Richard Marles, along with his deputy, the Minister for Defence Industry Pat Conroy, preferred a different story.  Canberra had gotten what it wanted: approval by the US Congress through its 2024 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) authorising the transfer of three Virginia class nuclear-powered submarines to the Royal Australian Navy, with one off the production line, and two in-service boats.  Australia may also seek congressional approval for two further Virginia class boats.

The measures also authorised Australian contractors to train in US shipyards to aid the development of Australia’s own non-existent nuclear-submarine base, and exemptions from US export control licensing requirements permitting the “transfer of controlled goods and technology between Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States without the need for an export license.”

For the simpleminded Marles, Congress had “provided unprecedented support to Australia in passing the National Defense Authorization Act which will see the transfer of submarines and streamlined export control provisions, symbolising the strength of our Alliance, and our shared commitment to the AUKUS partnership.”

Either through ignorance or wilful blindness, the Australian defence minister chose to avoid elaborating on the less impressive aspects of the authorising statute.  The exemption under the US export licensing requirements, for instance, vests Washington with control and authority over Australian goods and technology while controlling the sharing of any US equivalent with Australia.  The exemption is nothing less than appropriation, even as it preserves the role of Washington as the drip feeder of nuclear technology.

An individual with more than a passing acquaintance with this is Bill Greenwalt, one of the drafters of the US export control regime.  As he told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation last November, “After years of US State Department prodding, it appears that Australia signed up to the principles and specifics of the failed US export control system.”  In cooperating with the US on this point, Australia would “surrender any sovereign capability it develops to the United States control and bureaucracy.”

The gem in this whole venture, at least from the perspective of the US military industrial complex, is the roping in of the Australian taxpayer as funder of its own nuclear weapons program.  Whatever its non-proliferation credentials, Canberra finds itself a funder of the US naval arm in an exercise of modernised nuclear proliferation.  Even the Marles-Conroy media release admits that the NDAA helped “establish a mechanism for the US to accept funds from Australia to lift the capacity of the submarine industrial base.”  Airily, the release goes on to mention that this “investment” (would “gift” not be a better word?) to the US Navy would also “complement Australia’s significant investment in our domestic submarine industrial base.”

A few days after the farcical spectacle of surrender by Australian officials, the Congressional Research Service provided another one of its invaluable reports that shed further light on Australia’s contribution to the US nuclear submarine program.  Australian media outlets, as is their form on covering AUKUS, remained silent about it.  One forum, Michael West Media, showed that its contributors – Rex Patrick and Philip Dorling – were wide awake.

The report is specific to the Navy Columbia (SSBN-826) Class Ballistic Missile Submarine Program, one that involves designing and building 12 new SSBNs to replace the current, aging fleet of 14 Ohio-class SSBNs.  The cost of the program, in terms of 2024 budget submission estimates for the 2024 financial year, is US$112.7 billion.  As is customary in these reports, the risks are neatly summarised.  They include the usual delays in designing and building the lead boat, thereby threatening readiness for timely deployment; burgeoning costs; the risks posed by funding the Columbia-class program to other Navy programs; and “potential industrial-base challenges of building both Columbia-class boats and Virginia-class attack submarines (SSNs) at the same time.”

Australian funding becomes important in the last concern.  Because of AUKUS, the US Navy “has testified” that it would require, not only an increase in the production rate of the Virginia-class to 2.33 boats per year, but “a combined Columbia-plus-Virginia procurement rate” of 1+2.33.  Australian mandarins and lawmakers, accomplished in their ignorance, have mentioned little about this addition.  But US lawmakers and military planners are more than aware that this increased procurement rate “will require investing several billion dollars for capital plant expansion and improvements and workforce development at both the two submarine-construction shipyards (GD/EB [General Dynamics’ Electric boat in Groton, Connecticut] and HII/NSS [Huntington Ingalls Industries’ Newport News Shipbuilding]) and submarine supplier firms.”

The report acknowledges that funding towards the 1+2.33 goal is being drawn from a number of allocations over a few financial years, but expressly mentions Australian funding “under the AUKUS proposed Pillar 1 pathway,” which entails the transfer component of nuclear-powered submarines to Canberra.

The report helpfully reproduces the October 25, 2023 testimony from the Navy before the Seapower and Projection Forces Subcommittee of the House of Armed Services Committee.  Officials are positively salivating at the prospect of nourishing the domestic industrial base through, for instance “joining with an Australian company to mature and scale metallic additive manufacturing across the SIB [Submarine Industrial Base].”  The testimony goes on to note that, “Australia’s investment into the US SIB builds upon on-going efforts to improve industrial base capability and capacity, create jobs, and utilize new technologies,” and was a “necessary” contribution to “augment VACL [Virginia Class] production from 2.0 to 2.33 submarines per year to support both US Navy and AUKUS requirements.”

The implications from the perspective of the Australian taxpayer are significant.  Patrick and Dorling state one of them: that “Australian AUKUS funding will support construction of a key delivery component of the US nuclear strike force, keeping that program on track while overall submarine production accelerates.”

The funding also aids the advancement of another country’s nuclear weapons capabilities, a breach, one would have thought, of Australia’s obligations under the Treaty of Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.  Defence spokesman for the Australian Greens, Senator David Shoebridge, makes that very point to Patrick and Dorling.  “Australia has clear international legal obligations to not support the nuclear weapons industry, yet this is precisely what these billions of dollars of AUKUS funding will do.”

The senator also asks “When will the Albanese government start telling the whole truth about AUKUS and how Australians will be paying to help build the next class of US ballistic missile submarines?”

For an appropriate answer, Shoebridge would do well to consult the masterful, deathless British series Yes Minister, authored by Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn.  In one episode, the relevant minister, Jim Hacker, offers this response to a query by the ever-suspicious civil service overlord Sir Humphrey Appleby on when he might receive a draft proposal: “At the appropriate juncture,” Hacker parries.  “In the fullness of time.  When the moment is ripe.  When the necessary procedures have been completed.  Nothing precipitate, of course.”  In one word: never.

Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. Email: bkampmark@gmail.com. Read other articles by Binoy.

 

Antarctica Under Siege and XR Takes a Radical Turn

by Robert Hunziker / January 5th, 2024

Antarctica has finally succumbed to rapid climate change. This past year (2023) brought changes to the icy continent that left climate scientists feeling a “punch in the gut.” (“Red Alert in Antarctica: The Year Rapid Dramatic Change Hit Climate Scientists Like a “Punch in the Guts“, The Guardian, December 30, 3023.)

Antarctic sea ice cover crashed for six months straight to a level so far below anything else on the satellite record that scientists struggled for adjectives to describe what they were witnessing.

Global warming’s impact on Antarctica is serious, dangerous, threatening, hard to believe, and maybe unstoppable. Warnings like this, but not as serious as this, have been happening for years. As a result, too much negativity has turned the public numb to climate change. It’s been an endless stream of bad news that never gets good, always bad. But, in all honesty, that’s the nature of the beast unless reality is simply ignored.

Mainstream news recognizes the frustration, for example: “Global efforts to reach net-zero carbon emissions are failing in almost every way, with one exception: the boom in electric vehicles.” (Source: “EVs Are the Only Bright Spot in Climate Fight, Study Shows”, Bloomberg, November 14, 2023.)

At the other end of the spectrum, Extinction Rebellion -XR- famous for gluing people to airplanes, roadways, and fossil fuel hdqs doorways, and one of the most famous or infamous (take your pick) internationally organized groups against the root causes of global warming has heard enough bad news. It’s changing strategy by accepting reality.

Co-founder Roger Hallam just took XR off the streets, so to speak, with his 2024 new year email broadcast: “Balance: Building the Next Civilization in 2024,” which is a brilliant practical strategic change of heart. In Roger’s words: “Look, the carbon regime has totally fucked up, so the climate crisis is now locked in. We don’t need to create massive social disruption because it’s going to happen anyway! The regime will collapse under the weight of its own contradictions. So, what next? We need to build the next civilization and stop fascism from taking us to a terminal hell.”

Roger sees the inevitability of what’s already set in motion, including the burgeoning fascist movement, and he sees the rotted failure of UN climate conferences (for over 30 years now) not addressing the root cause of ecosystem destruction. As a result, nothing is going to be done soon enough to make a difference. All the chatter about nuclear power and tripling renewables, blah-blah-blah, at the end of the day, will be greenwashing to appease people who see one “natural disaster” unfold after another on nightly news over the past couple of years, massive floods, massive droughts, massive storms, massive wildfires, and massive atmospheric rivers. Everything is massive these days.

In the real world, none of the proposed solutions for climate change meet the “scale of the problem” after more than 200 years of greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere. Climate change is climate change is climate change, the same for eons, but the 21st century brand is radically different from anything in the paleoclimate record because it’s 10 times faster, in some instances 100 times faster. than ever before in paleoclimate history. Humans can’t keep up with the biogeological turbocharged monster. Scientists complain it’s happening so much faster than their models.

Ipso facto, ecosystems teeter throughout the planet; e.g., Greenland, in bad shape. Some scientists don’t even want to talk about Greenland any longer once it rained for the first time in recorded history at the Summit, 10,551 feet elevation.

A recent study about Greenland’s past is horrifying: “A recently discovered ice core taken from beneath the ice sheet decades ago has revealed that a large part was ice-free around 400,000 years ago, when temperatures were similar to those what we are now approaching. It’s an alarming finding that has implications for sea level rise. The study overturns previous assumptions that most of Greenland’s ice sheet was frozen for millions of years. Instead, moderate, natural warming led to large-scale melting and sea level rise of more than 1.4 meters (4.6 feet), according to the report in the journal Science.” The lead author of the study, Paul Bierman, University of Vermont: “When you look at what nature did in the past, as geoscientists, that’s our best clue to the future.” (“Long Lost Greenland Ice Core Suggest Potential for Disastrous Sea Level Rise”, CNN, July 20, 2023.)

Interestingly, and nerve-wracking, levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere today are 1.5 times higher than 400,000 years ago when sea levels increased 4.6 feet. Melt events take time but how much time nobody knows.

According to Copernicus ‘Ice Sheets’, since 1980 the rate of ice mass loss tripled for Greenland (pre-1980s, it was stable and in balance) and Antarctica. And now accelerating. Tripling the rate of ice mass loss of the two largest chunks of ice on the planet is impossible to fathom.

According to the science, Antarctica is in big trouble, and it may be irreversible. Coastal cities could be under water; it’s just a matter of time; nobody knows how soon or later, but at the current rate of global fossil fuel emissions, it looks grim. After all, the fossil fuel industry has publicly announced intentions to go full-bore, like there’s no tomorrow, they are cranking up oil production big time, according to statements by big oil companies.  “Global fossil fuel production in 2030 is set to be more than double the level deemed consistent with meeting climate goals set under the 2015 Paris climate agreement.” (“Global Fossil Fuel Production Plans Far Exceed Climate Targets, UN Says”, Reuters, November 8, 2023.)

Massively increasing oil production conforms to a recent James Hansen (Earth Institute-Columbia University) publication about exceeding the world’s most recognizable threshold, aka: the danger zone, the Climate Maginot Line or 2C above pre-industrial. Hansen’s prediction is way ahead of expectations, the upcoming decade, the 2030s.  That’s early! It should be noted that scientists claim exceeding 2C wreaks havoc with life-sourcing ecosystems. For example, it’s already happening at above 2C with Arctic permafrost melting 2-4 times the average of global warming. Arctic rivers turn toxic and orange, one of the biggest sore thumbs on the planet, but Antarctica, the Amazon rainforest, Greenland, and the Great Barrier Reef are challenging.

A British Antarctic Survey found the record drop in sea ice led to a catastrophic breeding failure for animals. Meanwhile, East Antarctica recorded its biggest heatwave ever at 39C above normal. And making matters worse, a major study published in Nature found meltwater slowing down, by a nerve-rattling 30%, Southern Ocean Overturning Circulation; this has huge negative implications for global weather, especially for northern Europe, which could lose its warm tropical current flow. And the implications for marine life are a major concern.

Meantime, West Antarctica melting has tripled, and studies show accelerated melting of the ice shelves has locked in a cascading impact for West Antarctica which is in much worse shape than its eastern cousin.

Even worse yet for sea level rise expectations, Antarctica’s enormous loss of sea ice was never expected so early. According to Tony Press, former head of the Australian Antarctic Division: “There’s a chance that it could come back again, but there’s also a very, very high chance that sea ice in Antarctica has moved into a new state… You would not be an alarmist if you said you were really worried about that. ” (Ibid.)

Researchers claim a permanent loss of sea ice would accelerate ocean warming, as dark water absorbs more heat than ice and amplifies the rate of global sea level rise by removing a buffer protecting the continent’s ice shelves.

Antarctica, like so many other ecosystems throughout the globe, such as the Amazon rainforest (20% gone for good, 40% severely degraded) no longer adhere to the flow of Mother Nature. Human activity dictates the flow.

Roger Hallam, co-founder of XR, has seen the future, and it’s an analog of the past but much worse. Now, he’s searching for answers to building the next civilization. Not a bad idea. But where?

Robert Hunziker (MA, economic history, DePaul University) is a freelance writer and environmental journalist whose articles have been translated into foreign languages and appeared in over 50 journals, magazines, and sites worldwide. He can be contacted at: rlhunziker@gmail.com. Read other articles by Robert.

University Presidents Carelessly Resign

Snatching defeat from victory

by Dan Lieberman / January 5th, 2024

From their inception, the Zionists learned how to turn a loss into a gain, how to use debt as collateral, and enrich their interests. Twisting incidents so that their victim becomes the assailant and their assault makes them the victim has been their trademark. Taking a valid reproach to their damaging tactics and converting it into anti-Semitism, a one hundred percent offering, has shielded Zionist distasteful maneuvers from public animosity.

This was apparent in their plan of combating the well-received campus protests that highlighted the ignominious support the United States government gives to Israel’s ongoing extermination of the Palestinian people; what better than turn the campus protest issue into having the public perceive the campus protests as giving support to those who proposed extermination of the Jewish people? The insensible congressional hearing, titled Holding Campus Leaders Accountable and Confronting Antisemitism, before the US House Committee on Education and the Workforce accomplished the task.

Representative Elise Stefanik, Republican of New York, claimed students had “chanted support for intifada and many Jews hear that as a call for violence against them.” What a stretch. Support for Intifada is support for Palestinian actions against Israel, much as support for the Maidan uprising supported the Ukrainian people. Can Congresswoman Stefanik tell us how many, if any, Jews hear that as a call against them and not just Israelis? Ms. Stefanik and her committee proved themselves a complete failure; they did not recite one incident of anti-Semitism. How about that?

Without having introduced anything meaningful into the hearing, Representative Stefanik took a giant leap and asked the president of the University of Pennsylvania, Ms. Magill, “Does calling for the genocide of Jews violate Penn’s rules or code of conduct, yes or no?” Nowhere and at no time has a “calling for the genocide of Jews” been uttered in the campus demonstrations. Like all Zionists, Ms. Stefanik knew that just reciting the “trapping question” was enough to have the thought imprinted on people’s minds, comparable to Trump saying, “Our election was stolen.”

Confronted with a hypothetical, the confused university presidents, people of integrity and dedication, took the high road and felt they could not give an honest answer. Their lapses proved fatal; the initial scratches became clawed wounds and the unfortunate presidents ran for cover and resigned. They erred terribly.

It may be excusable that they did not give appropriate answers to the “trapping question.” Any of the presidents could have responded, “We have not heard of anyone calling for the genocide of Jews during the campus protests, and calling for genocide of any ethnicity, not just Jews, violates acceptable rules of conduct.” Their subsequent behavior did not mollify their initial lapses.

Afterward, when finally arriving in a sensible atmosphere, they could have rationally explained themselves, offered something that soothed the public, and raised doubt of the sincerity of Congresswoman Stefanik who had asked the question. Their inability to respond adequately and rapid resignations betrayed the campus demonstrations, subdued its positive appearance, and gave support to the pro-Israel deception.

An immediate, well-conceived, and authoritative response to the Committee’s false rhetoric, a further elaboration on the University presidents not wanting their problems to become divisive and contentious issues that affect the universities, and a more in-depth explanation for their abrupt actions from others allied to the universities, counters the usual Zionist twisting of incidents in which their victim becomes the assailant and their assault makes them the victim. Otherwise, this is a bad moment in the struggle to inform the American public of the genocide facing the Palestinian people.

Dan Lieberman publishes commentaries on foreign policy, economics, and politics at substack.com. He is author of the non-fiction books A Third Party Can Succeed in America, Not until They Were Gone, Think Tanks of DC, The Artistry of a Dog, and a novel: The Victory (under a pen name, David L. McWellan). Read other articles by Dan.

 

Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution researchers say accounting for plastic persistence can minimize environmental impacts

New approach will help design functional and sustainable plastic products; switching to alternative materials for single-use coffee cup lids could reduce the environmental costs to society by hundreds of millions of dollars

Peer-Reviewed Publication

WOODS HOLE OCEANOGRAPHIC INSTITUTION

 

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RESEARCHERS, INCLUDING THOSE AT THE WOODS HOLE OCEANOGRAPHIC INSTITUTION, HAVE DEVELOPED A SUSTAINABILITY METRIC FOR THE ECOLOGICAL DESIGN OF PLASTIC PRODUCTS, LIKE CUP-LIDS, THAT BREAK-DOWN MORE QUICKLY IN THE ENVIRONMENT. 

 

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CREDIT: BRYAN JAMES/WOODS HOLE OCEANOGRAPHIC INSTITUTION

Woods Hole, Mass. (January 8, 2024) -- With plastic pollution posing a significant threat to ecosystems and human health, various strategies to lessen this type of pollution include reducing the production of plastic, decreasing the generation of plastic waste, and improving the material and product design of plastic items. 

Now, researchers have developed a sustainability metric for the ecological design of plastic products that have low persistence in the environment. Adhering to this metric could provide substantial environmental and societal benefits, according to a new study led by researchers at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), and published in the journal ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering.

“While plastic pollution threatens ecosystems and human health, the use of plastic products continues to increase. Limiting its harm requires design strategies for plastic products informed by the threats that plastics pose to the environment. Thus, we developed a sustainability metric for the eco-design of plastic products with low environmental persistence and uncompromised performance,” according to the study.

Designing single-use plastics using this approach can have a substantial impact. Analyses in the study say switching to alternative materials for single-use coffee cup lids, such as cellulose diacetate and polyhydroxyalkanoates, could reduce the environmental costs to society by hundreds of millions of dollars.

In general, products are designed to be environmentally friendly primarily by balancing the trade-offs between various environmental concerns, such as greenhouse gas emissions and resource depletion, because there are some frameworks and data sets to estimate these types of impacts. Selecting one kind of plastic over another is often used to accomplish this goal. However, to date, no material selection framework has considered or quantified environmental persistence, or the time that a plastic item remains in the environment as pollution, as a key environmental concern.

“What’s important to determine is how can we design functional, sustainable, and benign materials, products, and processes that embody all of the principles of green materials engineering into the future world that we are going to live in,” said lead author Bryan James, a materials scientist and engineer who is a postdoctoral investigator in WHOI’s Marine Chemistry & Geochemistry Department. “What are the next set of strategies and tools that engineers, product designers, and even the average consumer can use to make the best choices for the environment, while not having to sacrifice on product performance?”

To develop the sustainability metric, the researchers “integrated the environmental degradation rate of plastic into established material selection strategies, deriving material indices for environmental persistence. Our analysis identifies the materials and their properties that deserve development, adoption, and investment to create functional and less environmentally impactful plastic products,” the study notes.

Establishing and implementing a sustainability metric for persistence has been challenging because of the lack of sufficient data for the wide range of plastics used in consumer goods. Only recently have scientists had sufficient data on realistic environmental degradation rates of different types of plastic so that they can better consider different types of plastic properties and implement them in design.

With this data, the researchers now show that while switching one plastic material for another can reduce a product’s cost and embodied greenhouse gas emissions, that switch could provide a far greater benefit in terms of minimizing environmental lifetime, persistence. For example, if a product designer only considered cost and greenhouse gas emissions, polylactic acid would be a good choice. Yet, this material persists in the ocean. Comparatively, cellulose diacetate and polyhydroxyalkanoates, while currently only a bit more expensive than polylactic acid, can have lower greenhouse gas emissions and do not persist in the ocean.

 

“Ninety-nine percent of the papers that have been published on plastic pollution tell us how bad it is. This paper is looking at the issue in a much more forward-thinking way, about how do you address a problem in a meaningful scientific way that's attainable, achievable, and economically viable,” said co-author Christopher Reddy, senior scientist in WHOI’s Marine Chemistry & Geochemistry Department.

 

As an example, the researchers applied the metric to the redesign of an everyday single-use plastic item, coffee cup lids. Currently, billions of disposable coffee cup lids are used each year, accounting for about five percent of all plastic debris collected by coastal cleanup efforts worldwide. With three different coffee cup lids currently in use—including lids made from polylactic acid, polypropylene, and polystyrene—researchers evaluated which on-the-market lid material reduces the environmental impact the most.

“Which is better: a lid that has a bit more greenhouse gas emissions but persists less in the environment or a lid that has fewer greenhouse gas emissions but will persist for a longer time? To answer this, we put a dollar value on both options in terms of cost to make the product and cost to the environment and ecosystem services,” said James. “Simply making products that persist less by virtue of not being there, or going away faster, reduces that cost to society tremendously.”

“When you are charged with making a new coffee cup lid that needs to be sustainable and green, and you have to figure out which polymer is best for the environment, currently, green might take into consideration how much energy is used to make the plastic or how much greenhouse gases are emitted. But the current calculus for a designer does not consider what the lid’s persistence is. What Bryan has done with the development of this metric is groundbreaking,” added Reddy, who co-advises James along with co-author Collin Ward, associate scientist in WHOI’s Marine Chemistry & Geochemistry Department.

“What’s important about this study is that it helps shift the narrative away from defining the problem of plastic pollution to arriving at solutions to the problem. Plastics are extremely useful materials – they’re not going anywhere anytime soon. But everyone agrees the amount of plastic leaking into the environment is a problem. The framework presented in this study represents an important first step towards solving this problem by designing materials that simultaneously meet the needs of consumers and do not persist if incidentally leaked into the environment,” said Ward.

James noted that through thoughtful strategies to make good design decisions, “scientists, engineers, and designers have an opportunity to make a significant impact in the plastic pollution crisis. The metrics and methods developed in this study can direct design decisions and research priorities to reach this goal.”

This work was supported by the Postdoctoral Scholar Program at WHOI, with funding provided by the Weston Howland Jr. Postdoctoral Scholarship. Additional support was provided by the WHOI Ocean Vision Fund 2030, the U.S. National Science Foundation, The Seaver Institute, and The March Marine Initiative (a program of March Limited, Bermuda) through WHOI’s Marine Microplastics Innovation Accelerator program.

Authors : Bryan D. James,1,2,* Collin P. Ward1, Mark E. Hahn2, Steven J. Thorpe3, and Christopher M. Reddy1

Affiliations :

1Department of Marine Chemistry and Geochemistry, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole, MA, USA

2Department of Biology, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole, MA, USA

3Department of Materials Science & Engineering, University of Toronto, Canada

 

About Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) is a private, non-profit organization on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, dedicated to marine research, engineering, and higher education. Established in 1930, its primary mission is to understand the ocean and its interaction with the Earth as a whole, and to communicate an understanding of the ocean’s role in the changing global environment. WHOI’s pioneering discoveries stem from an ideal combination of science and engineering—one that has made it one of the most trusted and technically advanced leaders in basic and applied ocean research and exploration anywhere. WHOI is known for its multidisciplinary approach, superior ship operations, and unparalleled deep-sea robotics capabilities. We play a leading role in ocean observation and operate the most extensive suite of data-gathering platforms in the world. Top scientists, engineers, and students collaborate on more than 800 concurrent projects worldwide—both above and below the waves—pushing the boundaries of knowledge and possibility. For more information, please visit www.whoi.edu

 

Key takeaways:

•             Researchers have developed a sustainability metric for the ecological design of plastic products that have low persistence in the environment. Adhering to this metric could provide substantial environmental and societal benefits, according to a new study led by researchers with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

•             By comparing indices for the environmental impact of on-the-market plastics and proposed alternatives, researchers show that accounting for the environmental persistence of plastics in design could translate to societal benefits of hundreds of millions of dollars for a single consumer product. The analysis identifies the materials and their properties that deserve development, adoption, and investment to create functional and less environmentally impactful plastic products.

•             In general, products are designed to be environmentally friendly primarily by balancing the trade-offs between various environmental concerns, such as greenhouse gas emissions and resource depletion, because there are some frameworks and data sets to estimate these types of impacts. To date, no material selection framework has considered or quantified environmental persistence, or the time that a plastic item remains in the environment as pollution, as a key environmental concern.

•             Scientists, engineers, and designers have an opportunity to intervene in curbing plastic pollution. The metrics and methods put forth can direct their design decisions and research priorities toward these ideals. This framework will continue to improve with further research on the environmental impacts of plastics, particularly through the robust measurement of plastic degradation under realistic environmental conditions. Ultimately, minimizing the persistence of mismanaged plastic products will require innovative plastic formulations and product form factors, along with concerted effort across the plastic life cycle to mitigate leakage.

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JOURNAL

ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering

DOI

10.1021/acssuschemeng.3c05534 

ARTICLE TITLE

Minimizing the Environmental Impacts of Plastic Pollution through Ecodesign of Products with Low Environmental Persistence

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

8-Jan-2024

Disclaimer: AA

 

AGING BOOMERS

Could a drug prevent hearing loss from loud music and aging?

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA - SAN FRANCISCO

Researchers have found a gene that links deafness to cell death in the inner ear in humans – creating new opportunities for averting hearing loss. 

A person’s hearing can be damaged by loud noise, aging and even certain medications, with little recourse beyond a hearing aid or cochlear implant.  
 
But now, UCSF scientists have achieved a breakthrough in understanding what is happening in the inner ear during hearing loss, laying the groundwork for preventing deafness.  
 
The research, published on Dec. 22, 2023, in the Journal of Clinical Investigation Insight, links animal studies on hearing loss with a rare type of inherited deafness in humans. In both cases, mutations to the TMTC4 gene trigger a molecular domino effect known as the unfolded protein response (UPR), leading to the death of hair cells in the inner ear. 
 
Intriguingly, hearing loss from loud noise exposure or drugs such as cisplatin, a common form of chemotherapy, also stems from activation of the UPR in hair cells, suggesting that the UPR may underly several different forms of deafness.   
 
There are several drugs that block the UPR – and stop hearing loss – in laboratory animals. The new findings make a stronger case for testing these drugs in people who are at risk of losing their hearing, according to the researchers. 
 
“Millions of American adults lose their hearing due to noise exposure or aging each year, but it’s been a mystery what was going wrong,” said Dylan Chan, MD, PhD, co-senior author on the paper and director of the Children’s Communication Center (CCC) in the UCSF Department of Otolaryngology. “We now have solid evidence that TMTC4 is a human deafness gene and that the UPR is a genuine target for preventing deafness.” 
 
 How hair cells in the ear self-destruct 
 
In 2014, Elliott Sherr, MD, PhD, director of the UCSF Brain Development Research Program and co-senior author of the paper, noticed that several of his young patients with brain malformations all had mutations to TMTC4. But laboratory studies of this gene soon presented a conundrum. 
 
“We expected mice with TMTC4 mutations to have severe brain defects early on, like those pediatric patients, yet to our surprise, they seemed normal at first,” Sherr said. “But as those animals grew, we saw that they didn’t startle in response to loud noise. They had gone deaf after they had matured.” 
 
Sherr partnered with Chan, an expert on the inner ear, to look into what was happening to the mice, which looked like an accelerated version of age-related hearing loss in humans. They showed that mutations to TMTC4 primed hair cells in the ear to self-destruct, and loud noise did the same thing. In both cases, hair cells were flooded with excess calcium, throwing off the balance of other cellular signals, including the UPR. 
 
But they found there was a way to stop this. ISRIB, a drug developed at UCSF to block the UPR’s self-destruct mechanism in traumatic brain injury, prevented animals who were exposed to noise from going deaf. 
 
The first adult human deafness gene 
 
In 2020, scientists from South Korea, led by Bong Jik Kim, MD, PhD, connected Chan and Sherr’s 2018 findings with genetic mutations they found in two siblings who were losing their hearing in their mid-20s. The mutations were in TMTC4 and matched what Chan and Sherr had seen in animals, although they were distinct from those in Sherr’s pediatric neurology patients. 
 
“It’s rare to so quickly connect mouse studies with humans,” Sherr said. “Thanks to our Korean collaborators, we could more easily prove the relevance of our work for the many people who go deaf over time.” 
 
Kim, an otolaryngologist at the Chungnam National University College of Medicine (Korea), facilitated the shipping of cells from those patients to UCSF. Sherr and Chan tested those cells for UPR activity and found that, indeed, this flavor of TMTC4 mutation turned on the destructive UPR pathway in a human context.  
 
When Chan and Sherr mutated TMTC4 only in hair cells in mice, the mice went deaf. When they mutated TMTC4 in cells from individuals in the Korean family who hadn’t gone deaf, and in laboratory human cell lines, the UPR drove the cells to self-destruct. TMTC4 was more than a deafness gene in mice – it was a deafness gene in humans, too. 
 
Translating a discovery to prevent deafness 
 
Understanding TMTC4 mutations gives researchers a new way of studying progressive deafness, since it is critical for maintaining the health of the adult inner ear. The mutations mimic damage from noise, aging or drugs like cisplatin. 
 
The researchers envision a future where people who must take cisplatin, or who have to be exposed to loud noises for their jobs, take a drug that dampens the UPR and keeps hair cells from withering away, preserving their hearing. 
 
The science also suggests that the UPR could be targeted in other contexts where nerve cells become overwhelmed and die, including diseases long thought to be incurable, like Alzheimer’s or Lou Gehrig’s disease. 
 
“If there's any way that we can get in the way of the hair cells dying, that's how we're going to be able to prevent hearing loss,” Chan said. 

 

About UCSF: The University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) is exclusively focused on the health sciences and is dedicated to promoting health worldwide through advanced biomedical research, graduate-level education in the life sciences and health professions, and excellence in patient care. UCSF Health, which serves as UCSF's primary academic medical center, includes top-ranked specialty hospitals and other clinical programs, and has affiliations throughout the Bay Area. UCSF School of Medicine also has a regional campus in Fresno. Learn more at https://ucsf.edu, or see our Fact Sheet.

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Follow UCSF
ucsf.edu | Facebook.com/ucsf | YouTube.com/ucsf

 

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JOURNAL

JCI Insight

 

High-quality nursing home dementia care is not only a matter of adding staff

UC Irvine-led study finds that specialized training and stable labor force are also critical

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA - IRVINE

Irvine, Calif., Jan. 8, 2024 — Additional staffing alone will not be sufficient to bridge the quality-of-care and health outcome disparities among nursing home facilities with varying percentages of residents with dementia, according to a first-of-its-kind study led by the University of California, Irvine. Specialized training, an easy-to-navigate environment and staff stability are also critical to meeting the unique challenges presented by this population.

 

The findings, recently published online in the journal Health Services Research, indicate that increased staffing generally improves outcomes for all patients but that at any given level of staffing, discrepancies between high- and low-dementia facilities remain. The impact on care differed by percentage of residents with dementia and various outcomes, ranging from daily activities such as independently bathing, dressing and eating to the number of emergency room visits and incidents of pressure sores.

 

“We wanted to understand the association of staffing hours with care quality and compare the health outcomes in nursing homes with high- and low-dementia populations,” said first author Dana Mukamel, UCI professor of medicine. “We found that registered nurses’ and certified nurse assistants’ staffing hours per resident-day were likely to improve outcomes for both high- and low-census dementia facilities but that simply increasing staff is not likely to be a solution.”

 

More than 40 percent of nursing home residents nationally are estimated to have Alzheimer’s disease, related dementia or cognitive impairment, according to the Alzheimer’s Association. Their difficulty in communicating symptoms and needs requires that staff receive training in special techniques to recognize nonverbal cues and gain experience in understanding how individuals express themselves.

 

“Current studies compare health outcomes of dementia patients receiving specialized care to dementia patients in general care. We wanted to investigate the dynamics of dementia, staffing and health outcomes in nursing homes compared with residents without dementia and embarked on this study to offer insights into this complex, three-way relationship,” Mukamel said.

 

Researchers conducted regression analyses on a national sample of nursing homes between 2017 and 2019, drawing on a variety of datasets, including Medicare claims and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ Payroll Based Journal. Independent variables included staff hours per resident-day and dementia population percentage, controlling for other resident and facility characteristics. Separate linear models were utilized to predict six long-term facility-level outcomes.

 

“Our findings highlight the fact that high-quality care involves not only increased staffing, but also specialized training in practices proven to be effective in managing the complexities of this condition, as well as providing a secure environment and maintaining staff consistency,” Mukamel said. “Further research is required to identify specific areas that can be targeted to pinpoint opportunities for improvement in both low- and high-dementia facilities.”

 

Other team members included Heather Ladd, research associate in UCI’s Department of Medicine; Dr. Debra Saliba, UCLA professor of medicine; and R. Tamara Konetzka, Louis Block Professor of Public Health Sciences and professor of medicine at the University of Chicago.

 

This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute on Aging under award number R01AG066742.

 

About the University of California, Irvine: Founded in 1965, UCI is a member of the prestigious Association of American Universities and is ranked among the nation’s top 10 public universities by U.S. News & World Report. The campus has produced five Nobel laureates and is known for its academic achievement, premier research, innovation and anteater mascot. Led by Chancellor Howard Gillman, UCI has more than 36,000 students and offers 224 degree programs. It’s located in one of the world’s safest and most economically vibrant communities and is Orange County’s second-largest employer, contributing $7 billion annually to the local economy and $8 billion statewide. For more on UCI, visit www.uci.edu.

 

Media access: Radio programs/stations may, for a fee, use an on-campus ISDN line to interview UCI faculty and experts, subject to availability and university approval. For more UCI news, visit news.uci.edu. Additional resources for journalists may be found at https://news.uci.edu/media-resources.

 

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JOURNAL

Health Services Research

ARTICLE TITLE

Dementia, nurse staffing, and health outcomes in nursing homes

 

Five finalists announced in Alliance for Pediatric Device Innovation’s “Make Your Medical Device Pitch For Kids!”™ competition in collaboration with MedTech Color

Up to $50,000 in potential awards for pediatric medical devices created by Hispanic and African American innovator

Grant and Award Announcement

CHILDREN'S NATIONAL HOSPITAL

 

IMAGE: 

FIVE FINALISTS ANNOUNCED IN ALLIANCE FOR PEDIATRIC DEVICE INNOVATION’S “MAKE YOUR MEDICAL DEVICE PITCH FOR KIDS!”™ COMPETITION IN COLLABORATION WITH MEDTECH COLOR

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CREDIT: CARBONARA GROUP

WASHINGTON (January 8, 2023) – Alliance for Pediatric Device Innovation (APDI), the federally funded consortium led by Children’s National Hospital, announces the finalists of its special MedTech Color edition of “Make Your Medical Device Pitch for Kids!”™ competition. This edition supports pediatric medical device advancements from African American and Hispanic innovators.

 

The competition aims to advance devices that meet critical patient needs while promoting a more inclusive approach to medical technology innovation. The finalists will compete for a share of up to $50,000 in grants funded by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that will support innovators’ efforts to bring their devices to the commercial market for the benefit of children everywhere.

 

“The children we serve come from diverse backgrounds, so nurturing diversity among our innovators will help us ensure that their needs are met,” said Kolaleh Eskandanian, Ph.D., MBA, vice president and chief innovation officer at Children’s National and APDI program director and principal investigator. “We are delighted to partner with MedTech Color in this endeavor.”

 

The five pediatric medical device finalists are:

 

• Kofimi Technology Inc. – Danvers, Mass. – This patent-pending pulse oximeter device is designed specifically for pediatric populations to provide superior accuracy for all levels of skin pigmentation. A pulse oximeter measures oxygen levels in the blood.
• Rubitection – Pittsburgh, Pa.– A low-cost skin assessment management tool for chronic wounds, Rubitection measures the properties of the skin. The system allows the user to monitor incremental changes in skin health to predict risk, monitor progression and customize care.
• SealCath LLC – Mount Pleasant, S.C. – An innovative, double balloon catheter, SethCath is designed to treat infants facing bowel disorders. Specifically designed for mucous fistula refeeding, this catheter offers a gentle and precise method to provide essential nutrition and support.
• TNC Medical Solutions – Los Angeles, Calif. – TNC Medical Solutions offers an advancement in gastrostomy tube (g-tube) reinsertion designed to improve the quality of life for patients reliant on enteral feeding.
• WearableDose Inc. – Bowie, Md. – Harnessing artificial intelligence for real-time, precise dosimetry in cancer treatment, WearableDose aims to transform patient care with innovative wearable technology.

 

Additionally, two of the finalists, Kofimi Technology and SealCath, were chosen to compete in the broader MedTech Color competition, held the same day and open to adult and pediatric devices. These two finalists will have the opportunity to make their pitch in both competitions.

 

Pediatric finalists were chosen from a field of 27 pediatric entries by a panel of expert judges that included representation from MedTech Color and ADPI. Finalists will compete on March 15 at the MedTech Color 4th Annual Pitch Competition at the UCLA campus. Event registration and additional details are available here.

 

"The competition's additional investment in companies developing technologies for the pediatric population is significant,” said Kwame Ulmer, MedTech Color founder and board member. “This means more patients will get access to medtech ecosystem accelerants. As more pitch finalists from diverse backgrounds finally get access to funding, this will provide more opportunities for children and young adults in overlooked communities."

 

Founded in 2017, MedTech Color is a nonprofit organization built on the same ideal: diverse leadership in the medical technology ecosystem leads to greater innovation and better outcomes. The organization works to advance the representation of people of color in the medical device industry and to nurture the next generation of founders. MedTech Color aims to build a cohesive community of leaders of color, drive thought leadership and increase the number of underrepresented executives in the industry. For more information on MedTech Color, visit medtechcolor.org.

 

APDI is one of five nonprofit consortia in the FDA’s Pediatric Device Consortia program that receives funding to provide a platform of services, expertise, and grants to support pediatric innovators in bringing medical devices to the market that address the needs of children. Along with Children’s National, APDI members include Johns Hopkins University, CIMIT at Mass General Brigham, Tufts Medical Center, Medstar Health Research Institute, OrthoPediatrics Corp. and MedTech Color.

 

Advancements in pediatric medical devices continue to lag significantly behind those of adults, which is why APDI is focused on helping more pediatric medical device innovations achieve commercialization. For more information on APDI, visit innovate4kids.org

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About Children’s National Hospital

Children’s National Hospital, based in Washington, D.C., was established in 1870 to help every child grow up stronger. Today, it is the No. 5 children’s hospital in the nation and ranked in all specialties evaluated by U.S. News & World Report. Children’s National is transforming pediatric medicine for all children. The Children’s National Research & Innovation Campus opened in 2021, a first-of-its-kind pediatric hub dedicated to developing new and better ways to care for kids. Children’s National has been designated three times in a row as a Magnet® hospital, demonstrating the highest standards of nursing and patient care delivery. This pediatric academic health system offers expert care through a convenient, community-based primary care network and specialty care locations in the D.C. metropolitan area, including Maryland and Virginia. Children’s National is home to the Children’s National Research Institute and Sheikh Zayed Institute for Pediatric Surgical Innovation. It is recognized for its expertise and innovation in pediatric care and as a strong voice for children through advocacy at the local, regional and national levels. As a nonprofit, Children's National relies on generous donors to help ensure that every child receives the care they need.

 

Media Contacts: Cherri Carbonara | 713-524-8170 | c. 832- 473-6380 | cherri@carbonaragroup.com