Luzio, who lived in São Paulo 10,000 years ago, was Amerindian like Indigenous people now, DNA reveals

An investigation covering four different parts of Brazil carried out analysis of genomic data from 34 fossils, including larger skeletons and the famous mounds of shells and fishbones built on the coast, and revealed differences between communities

Peer-Reviewed Publication

FUNDAÇÃO DE AMPARO À PESQUISA DO ESTADO DE SÃO PAULO

 

IMAGE: THE INVESTIGATION THAT COVERED FOUR DIFFERENT PARTS OF BRAZIL CARRIED OUT ANALYSIS OF GENOMIC DATA FROM 34 FOSSILS, INCLUDING LARGER SKELETONS AND THE FAMOUS MOUNDS OF SHELLS AND FISHBONES BUILT ON THE COAST view more 

CREDIT: ANDRÉ STRAUSS

An article to be published on July 31 in Nature Ecology & Evolution reveals that Luzio, the oldest human skeleton found in São Paulo state (Brazil), was a descendant of the ancestral population that settled the Americas at least 16,000 years ago and gave rise to all present-day Indigenous peoples, such as the Tupi.

Based on the largest set of Brazilian archeological genomic data, the study reported in the article also offers an explanation for the disappearance of the oldest coastal communities, who built the icons of Brazilian archeology known as sambaquis, huge mounds of shells and fishbones used as dwellings, cemeteries and territorial boundaries. Archeologists often refer to these monuments as shell mounds or kitchen middens.

“After the Andean civilizations, the Atlantic coast sambaqui builders were the human phenomenon with the highest demographic density in pre-colonial South America. They were the ‘kings of the coast’ for thousands and thousands of years. They vanished suddenly about 2,000 years ago,” said André Menezes Strauss, an archeologist at the University of São Paulo’s Museum of Archeology and Ethnology (MAE-USP) and principal investigator for the study.

The first author of the article is Tiago Ferraz.The study was supported by FAPESP (projects 17/16451-2 and 20/06527-4) and conducted in partnership with researchers at the University of Tübingen’s Senckenberg Center for Human Evolution and Paleoenvironment (Germany).

The authors analyzed the genomes of 34 samples from four different areas of Brazil’s coast. The fossils were at least 10,000 years old. They came from sambaquis and other parts of eight sites (Cabeçuda, Capelinha, Cubatão, Limão, Jabuticabeira II, Palmeiras Xingu, Pedra do Alexandre and Vau Una).

This material included Luzio, São Paulo’s oldest skeleton, found in the Capelinha river midden in the Ribeira de Iguape valley by a group led by Levy Figuti, a professor at MAE-USP. The morphology of its skull is similar to that of Luzia, the oldest human fossil found to date in South America, dating from about 13,000 years ago. The researchers thought it might have belonged to a biologically different population from present-day Amerindians, who settled in what is now Brazil some 14,000 years ago, but it turns out they were mistaken.

“Genetic analysis showed Luzio to be an Amerindian, like the Tupi, Quechua or Cherokee. That doesn’t mean they’re all the same, but from a global perspective, they all derive from a single migratory wave that arrived in the Americas not more than 16,000 years ago. If there was another population here 30,000 years ago, it didn’t leave descendants among these groups,” Strauss said.

Luzio’s DNA also answered another question. River middens are different from coastal ones, so the find cannot be considered a direct ancestor of the huge classical sambaquis that appeared later. This discovery suggests there were two distinct migrations – into the hinterland and along the coast.

What happened to the sambaqui builders?

Analysis of the genetic material revealed heterogeneous communities with cultural similarities but significant biological differences, especially between coastal communities in the southeast and south.

“Studies of cranial morphology conducted in the 2000s had already pointed to a subtle difference between these communities, and our genetic analysis confirmed it,” Strauss said. “We discovered that one of the reasons was that these coastal populations weren’t isolated but ‘swapped genes’ with inland communities. Over thousands of years, this process must have contributed to the regional differences between sambaquis.”

Regarding the mysterious disappearance of this coastal civilization, comprising the first hunter-gatherers of the Holocene, analysis of the DNA samples clearly showed that, in contrast with the European Neolithic substitution of entire populations, what happened in this part of the world was a change of practices, with a decline in construction of shell middens and the introduction of pottery by sambaqui builders. For example, the genetic material found at Galheta IV (Santa Catarina state), the most emblematic site for the period, has remains not of shells but of ceramics and is similar to the classic sambaquis in this respect.

“This information is compatible with a 2014 study that analyzed pottery shards from sambaquis and found that the pots in question were used to cook not domesticated vegetables but fish. They appropriated technology from the hinterland to process food that was already traditional there,” Strauss said.

 

About São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP)

The São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP) is a public institution with the mission of supporting scientific research in all fields of knowledge by awarding scholarships, fellowships and grants to investigators linked with higher education and research institutions in the State of São Paulo, Brazil. FAPESP is aware that the very best research can only be done by working with the best researchers internationally. Therefore, it has established partnerships with funding agencies, higher education, private companies, and research organizations in other countries known for the quality of their research and has been encouraging scientists funded by its grants to further develop their international collaboration. You can learn more about FAPESP at www.fapesp.br/en and visit FAPESP news agency at www.agencia.fapesp.br/en to keep updated with the latest scientific breakthroughs FAPESP helps achieve through its many programs, awards and research centers. You may also subscribe to FAPESP news agency at http://agencia.fapesp.br/subscribe.

---

JOURNAL

Nature Ecology & Evolution

DOI

10.1038/s41559-023-02114-9 

ARTICLE TITLE

Genomic history of coastal societies from Eastern South America

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

31-Jul-2023

BUT WHAT DID NOSTRODAMUS SAY?!

A book published almost 25 years ago predicted that the 'Next New Deal' would follow a period of great social unrest in 2020 - and that millennials would take the reins after decades of boomer rule

hhoffower@businessinsider.com (Hillary Hoffower,Ben Winc

© Provided by Business Insider Could President Joe Biden be the "gray champion" of the Fourth Turning? Pool/Getty Images

A generational theory written in 1997 predicted America would see the climax of a crisis in 2020.

As the climax turned toward resolution, a "Next New Deal" would reshape the economy and give millennials a brighter future.

A "gray champion" would usher in this new economic zeitgeist. Could that be Biden?

America is currently in the midst of a millennial vs. boomer showdown - and a "gray champion" is arriving to usher in the "Next New Deal."

So says an eerie generational theory known as the Fourth Turning, which was coined in 1997 by Neil Howe and William Strauss in an eponymous book. The theory proposes that America sees a "turning" every 20 years as one generation displaces another, and that this dynamic between the two creates a crisis every 80 years.

Each crisis is marked by four stages: a catalyst event that sets the wheels in motion; a regeneracy in which people stop tolerating weakening institutions and splintering culture; a climax that "shakes society to its roots," transforms institutions, and redirects purpose; and a resolution that sees the economy entirely restructured for a new set of circumstances.

It's an outlandish theory and the book has also been widely criticized for its lack of scientific support and vague predictions. But it's also resonated among conservative and liberal leaders alike, and bears uncanny parallels to American history.

The last fourth turnings, Howe and Strauss argued, culminated in World War II, the Civil War, and the American Revolution. They wrote that the next crisis-era would involve millennials and boomers fighting over the shape of the world to come, with the catalyst event beginning around 2005, and the climax around 2020, with a resolution by 2026.

© Leah Millis/Reuters Political riots, social unrest, and a pandemic resemble the climax depicted in "The Fourth Turning." Leah Millis/Reuters

The 2008 financial crisis can be seen as the catalyst they mentioned, while the pandemic, social unrest, and riots of 2020 and early 2021 sound a lot like the climax. During this climax, they wrote, the economy could "reach a trough that may look to be the start of the depression," and indeed, the stock-market crash of 2020 was the sharpest and deepest since at least the 1930s. The economy will recover, per the theory, but it will fundamentally change after this period.

Enter the Biden administration, whose ambitious social programs and big spending have triggered comparisons to FDR's New Deal. Some leading political experts agree that this era is historic and climactic. For instance, Doug Sosnik, senior adviser to the Brunswick Group, and political director for former President Bill Clinton, released a presentation in April pronouncing that not only is America going through its biggest transformation since the industrial revolution of the 19th century, but "the current period of turmoil and chaos that began in the early 2000s will likely continue throughout this decade."

The challenge, Sosnik wrote, will be the transition from a 20th-century top-down industrial economy to a 21st-century digital and global one. In other words, this period could be a "great gate of history," just as Strauss and Howe wrote.
Forgoing Obama-era rules for a bolder approach

The Fourth Turning predicts the agenda of the Next New Deal will center around young adults, with boomers imposing a "new duty of compulsory service" and millennials recognizing this as a path to public achievement. The government's economic role, per the theory, will shift away from amenities and past promises such as elder care and debt service and toward spending on survival and future promises, such as defense and public works.

President Joe Biden signaled early on that he wouldn't bow to the worries over the national debt that dominated much of the last 20 years (ie, the third turning). The president unveiled a $1.9 trillion stimulus package one week before his inauguration, urging Congress to pass another round of relief checks, extend bolstered unemployment benefits, and fund the distribution of coronavirus vaccines.

© Provided by Business Insider President Joe Biden signs three documents including an Inauguration declaration, cabinet nominations and sub-cabinet nominations on January 20, 2021. JIM LO SCALZO/POOL/AFP via Getty Images

For the first time in a generation, economists and consumers alike have since become worried about inflation, and whether such a large boost was even needed as vaccines started to reach Americans' arms.

Where the Obama administration shrank its proposal to appease Republicans and moderate Democrats, Biden stuck with his plan to "go big" and, for the time being, ignore its impact on the government debt.

"A new resolve about urgent public goals crowds out qualms about questionable public means," Strauss and Howe wrote. "Instead of coaxing people with promises of minimal sacrifice, they summon them with warnings of maximal sacrifice."

This could only be the beginning of the Biden-led resolution. For his second act, could we meet the "Gray Champion?"

Spending big on a new age of American infrastructure

The authors predicted that a key component of the Next New Deal would be a new era for infrastructure: "Fourth Turning America will begin to lay out the next saeculum's infrastructure grid - some higher-tech facsimile of turnpikes, railroads, or highways. Through the Fourth Turning, the old order will die, but only after having produced the seed containing the new civic order within it."

That's exactly what Biden is proposing, arguing explicitly in the rollout of his $2.3 trillion package that now is the time to rethink infrastructure for the first time in decades. It includes funds for nationwide broadband and green energy projects as well as more "traditional" infrastructure such as rebuilding roads and bridges.

"With the 1936 Rural Electrification Act, the federal government made a historic investment in bringing electricity to nearly every home and farm in America, and millions of families and our economy reaped the benefits," reads a White House fact sheet on the plan. "Broadband internet is the new electricity."

"It's big, yes. It's bold, yes. And we can get it done," Biden said as he unveiled the package. "The divisions of the moment shouldn't stop us from doing the right thing for the future." He also called it a "once-in-a-generation investment in America."

That isn't all the administration has on the docket. The president is expected to reveal another $1.5 trillion in spending before he addresses a joint session of Congress on April 28. The plan is set to include funds for child care, universal pre-K, and paid family and medical leave.

These two packages look a lot like the spending on "public works" and "future promises" that Howe and Strauss predicted would make up the Next New Deal, in some ways they even surpass FDR's New Deal programs. Leonard Burman, a professor of behavioral economics at Syracuse University's Maxwell School, told Insider's Juliana Kaplan that compared to FDR, the country has "never done" a package the size of Biden's proposals. Unlike Biden, he said FDR "spent much less than would have been appropriate for the size of the economic downturn at that point."

© Provided by Business Insider Biden has framed his American Job Plan as a reimagining of US infrastructure. Alex Wong/Getty Images

Taken together, Biden's proposals place the country on the brink of a new policy regime. The fierce debate over this new regime is where the millennial versus boomer conflict reaches its fever pitch.

"In the Fourth Turning, boomers are likely to occupy the vortex of a downward economic spiral," the authors wrote, as "the truth will dawn on old boomers that the money simply won't be there to support their accustomed consumption." But it predicted that millennials will come out of this with a brighter future, as they come to embody a "new American mainstream."

Helping the millennials along the way will be a particular figure, Howe and Strauss wrote.

Eight or nine decades after his last appearance in a similar gate of history, the coauthors predicted, America will be visited by "the figure of an ancient man," one who combines aspects of "the leader and the saint" to lead the way toward resolution. They called that character the Gray Champion, and said he would be the one to usher in a new economic zeitgeist.

The 78-year-old Biden, who became America's oldest president when he was elected in 2020, has several of these attributes, including devout Catholic faith, a biography marked by perseverance through several personal tragedies, and a distinct sense of empathy in his public remarks. And when he introduced his infrastructure plan last month, he promised a new economic "paradigm" for the country. This could just be the beginning.

Read the original article on Business Insider

Sea level is already guaranteed to rise by 5 feet, climate scientist says

David Knowles

·Senior Editor

Sun, October 31, 2021, 

Based on the amount of greenhouse gases humans have already added to the Earth’s atmosphere, the world is guaranteed to experience approximately 5 feet of sea level rise in the coming decades, climate scientist Benjamin Strauss told “The Climate Crisis Podcast.” 

“It’s in that range, you know, 5 feet plus or minus. And that’s because we’ve already warmed the planet by around 2 degrees Fahrenheit, 1.1 Celsius,” Strauss, the president and CEO of Climate Central, a nonprofit that tries to educate policymakers and the public about the threats posed by climate change, told Yahoo News. “Think of it this way: If I dumped a truckload of ice in the middle of Phoenix, we’d all know it’s going to melt. But it takes time to melt. And the same thing is true for the big ice sheets on Greenland and Antarctica and glaciers around the world. We turned up the thermostat. We’ve already heated the planet by a couple degrees, but they’ve only begun to respond by melting. And that’s why we have all this extra sea level in the pipeline and it’s, it’s enough, I’m afraid to say, it’s hard to imagine the long-term future of South Florida, let’s say, right, with the sea level that’s already in the pipeline.”

A woman stands off Bikeman islet in the Pacific island nation of Kiribati in 2013. (David Gray/Reuters)

Strauss, who has testified before Congress on the number of American houses that will be threatened due to sea level rise caused by climate change, noted that current estimates are that seas will rise by 2 to 3 feet by the end of the century and will continue rising in the decades that follow. Yet the fact that roughly 5 feet of sea level rise has already been baked in to the planet’s future is, for Strauss, even more incentive for the world to come together to prevent that figure from creeping even higher. 

“I think we can help ourselves a lot by slowing down these changes,” he said. 

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M

Former Nikola CEO Trevor Milton charged with fraud in US

Federal prosecutors in New York say the company founder and CEO "brazenly lied" to investors about Nikola's green vehicles to inflate market value and drive up his own earnings. The SEC has filed charges as well.



Nikola argues that the charges only affect its former CEO and founder Trevor Milton, though its stock took a pounding on Thursday too

US Federal Attorneys on Thursday announced that they had charged billionaire entrepreneur Trevor Milton with three counts of securities and wire fraud, each of which carries a maximum sentence of 20-25 years in prison.

"We charge that Milton engaged in a scheme to enrich himself by making false and misleading statements to investors," said US Attorney for the Southern District of New York Audrey Strauss as she publicly announced the charges against the founder and former CEO of the green-vehicle company Nikola.

At the time, Milton was trying to drum up investor interest as Nikola prepared to launch on the stock markets, before it was in a position to bring in any revenues from vehicle sales.

"In order to drive investor demand for Nikola's stock, Milton lied about nearly every aspect of the business," continued Strauss, whose office prepared the 49-page, three-count indictment. The indictment says the scheme occurred between November 2019, when he sought to take Nikola public, and September 2020, when he resigned as news of the investigations against him first surfaced.
What is Trevor Milton accused of?

Milton is accused of having "brazenly and repeatedly used social media, and appearances and interviews on television, podcasts, and in print, to make false and misleading claims about the status of Nikola's trucks and technology," according to Strauss — namely lying to investors about the true status of a prototype semi-truck that he claimed was "fully functional" when he knew it to be inoperable.

The billionaire businessman's claims targeted novice retail investors with no experience in the securities markets, including some who took up trading during the pandemic to make ends meet or to occupy themselves during the lockdown, according to the indictment.

Some investors were defrauded of their life savings. Prosecutors say Milton was motivated by greed, wanting to "enrich himself and elevate his stature as an entrepreneur" in order to fulfill his dream of becoming one of the world's 100 richest people.

Nikola had positioned itself as a sort of heavy-duty answer to Elon Musk's Tesla, even using the other half of renowned scientist Nikola Tesla's name, as the company looked to go public while Tesla's stock was soaring.

Despite glitzy launches and ceremonies, prosecutors allege Milton knew that its Two (pictured here) and Tre trucks were inoperable as he lauded them as 'fully functional'

What do Milton and his lawyers say?

Lawyers for Milton said, "Trevor Milton is innocent; this is a new low in the government's efforts to criminalize lawful business conduct." Both Milton and his lawyers claim he is the victim of a "faulty and incomplete investigation" and that he will be "exonerated."

"Trevor Milton is an entrepreneur who had a long-term vision of helping the environment by cutting carbon emissions in the trucking industry. Mr. Milton has been wrongfully accused following a faulty and incomplete investigation in which the government ignored critical evidence and failed to interview important witnesses," according to a statement released by the defendant's legal team.

Milton was taken into custody shortly Thursday and released on $100 million (€84.1) bond after arraignment. The Utah businessman pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Federal securities laws also apply on social media, says SEC

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed related civil charges on Thursday as well, with SEC Director of Enforcement Gurbir Grewal noting, "Corporate officers cannot say whatever they want on social media without regard for the federal securities laws," as he spoke alongside Strauss.

Grewal, too, said that Milton had targeted novice investors, painting himself as a "different" kind of CEO, again in a manner rather reminiscent of Tesla's Musk.
How did Milton get tripped up?

Milton's undoing came shortly after what had looked like one of his biggest coups, namely winning auto giant General Motors as a partner shortly after taking Nikola public via special-purpose acquisition company (SPAC).

However, a report by Hindenburg Research just two days after the GM deal was announced said that Nikola's fairytale success was based on "an ocean of lies." The report alleged that Milton's "intricate fraud" went so far as to release videos of non-motorized prototypes rolling downhill to give the impression they were driving under their own power.

"We commend regulators for acting expediently to protect investors and hold Milton accountable for his egregious lies," said Hindenburg founder Nathan Anderson in a statement.

Nikola, which initially denied the accusations in the Hindenburg report, was not charged in any of the accused crimes and publicly stated that it had cooperated with federal attorneys. "Today's government actions are against Mr. Milton individually, and not against the company," Nikola said in a statement."

Nevertheless, Nikola shares dropped 11% in afternoon trading to $12.63, or just over one quarter of its peak value in August 2020, a month before Milton's resignation.

js/msh (AFP, AP, Reuters)

Trystes Cosmologiques: When Lévi-Strauss Met the Astrologers

Graham Douglas

In October 1969 the famous anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss gave an interview to the well-known French astrologers André Barbault and Dr Jean-Paul Nicola for the astrology magazine L'Astrologue. To the author's knowledge this interview has never been discussed in academic journals, and is here published for the first time in English translation. It is considered in the context of its time, and of the issues discussed: the Surrealist movement, which had an important influence on Lévi-Strauss's early work; the structure of the unconscious mind; and the question of causation in astrology. At the end of the interview Lévi-Strauss suggested a joint project with his interviewers to study the interpretations of serious astrologers as a way of understanding how their minds work. According to Dr Nicola, the suggestion was never developed because in his opinion there was no chance of getting astrologers to agree on how to go about it. In the last 20 years however, several theses have been devoted to similar projects.

ANDRE BARBAULT PASSED ON THROUGH THE DUAT TO NUIT
OCTOBER 2019

Astrology : History of a Prediction by André Barbault - CURA

cura.free.fr › quinq

For a critical review of predictive astrology, see Jacques Reverchon: "Value of the Astrological Judgements and Forecasts", CURA, 2003. ... It is thus that the Saturn-Neptune cycle will become the primary terrain I explore. The twentieth issue of Cahiers Astrologiques (March-April 1949 ...

André Barbault — Wikipédia

https://fr.wikipedia.org › wiki › André_Barbault

Translate this page

André Barbault, né à Champignelles (Yonne) le 1 octobre 1921 et mort le 8 octobre 2019 à Labaroche (Haut-Rhin), est un astrologue français. Il a été à l'origine ...

André Barbault - At the Crossroads of Time | Articles - Lynn Bell

https://www.lynnbellastrology.com › articles › andre-barbault

by Lynn Bell. This article was published in 2018 and we are posting in memory of André Barbault who passed away this year. I remember my first encounter with ...

Mundane astrology master André Barbault... - The Astrological ...

https://www.facebook.com › AstrologicalJournal › posts › mundane-astrol...

Mundane astrology master André Barbault has passed away, age 98. And we have just lost Ed Tamplin. We shall remember both in The Astrological Journal....

André Barbault - Urania Trust

https://www.uraniatrust.org › celebrated-astrologers › andre-barbault

André Barbault was a prominent French astrologer and writer, the author of over 50 books. His special interest has been in Mundane astrology and how ...

The Reference in Astrology: 

The idea of Astroflash dates back to 1966 when an important product manager Mr. Roger Berthier, co-founder of the Euromarche supermarket chain, had the idea to offer to its customers their horoscope. André Barbault, the most famous French astrologer, author of numerous works, like the celebrated Zodiac Collection (Seuil) was contacted. After 8 months of teamwork with computer analysts, a first astrological product, placing side by side a psychological portrait and a long term calendar was born.Because of its initial success, they decided to market and sell the horoscope by mail-order . An advertising campaign started in 1967 and perfected by Publicis lasted until April 1968. Although the topics developed in the ads were inspired by extensive psychological analysis, their effectiveness remained mediocre.They soon discovered, however, that a press meeting was a means to attract a large number of customers. This was in May of 1968 - in a car-shop on the Champs Elysées: the "computer - astrologer" attracted the masses. The possibility to immediately obtain a personalized horoscope anonymously, and for a moderate price, proved to be conclusive.

The Astroflash Center opened its doors in September of 1968, being the first client to rent a space in the Galerie des Champs, located at 84, Avenue des Champs Elysées, in Paris: a place visited daily by thousands of people. Now the number of daily Astroflash customers is around 100 to 200. So a total of 70,000 people per year, not including mail orders.

Women come in first at around 62%.- Young people are the most interested ?- One customer out of every two is under 30.?- High income customers are outnumbered.?- Foreigners: 15 to 20%.Every social strata show an interest in Astroflash.??Famous figures coming from the Political, the Entertainment as well as the Sports World have had their horoscopes done by Astroflash. General de Gaulle's horoscope remains famous...

Since 1968, Astroflash has been creating new products and perfecting them, investing constantly, as well as translating the products in many different languages (French, English, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, German, Greek, Lithuanian, Russian, and Danish).The range of horoscopes consist of essentially psychological portraits - with a special version for children. A search of affinities among partners (comparative birth charts) and long-term forecast horoscopes (6 month, solar returns).Astroflash also places a Map of the Heaven at astrologers, professionals or amateur's disposal.

Reasons for success are first the customer's satisfaction who comes from the quality of our studies: all without exception are conceptualized by two famous French astrologers: André Barbault and Jean-Pierre Nicola. Secondly, after having been stated, the elements taken into account are interpreted. The interpretation of the birth charts is made according to tradition - enriched by new elements of modern psychology.

Can millions of genetically modified trees slow climate change?

Tim Fernholz
Fri, March 3, 2023 

Planting a tree, as environmental solutions go, comes in and out of fashion.

In 1970, US president Richard Nixon made Arbor Day a national holiday, urging people to get out and put saplings in the ground. Today, however, there is ongoing debate over whether a trillion new trees can meaningfully slow global warming, and whether incentives meant to protect forests actually do the job.

What is clear is that the fight against climate change is not just about reducing carbon emissions. Scientists estimate that to keep Earth’s climate at stable temperature, some 10 gigatons of carbon in the atmosphere must be removed each year by the middle of this century.

Engineers are developing machines that suck carbon out of the air, and power plants that can store it deep underground, but so far neither method has been proven efficient at scale. That’s why some think it’s time for nature’s greatest carbon-hoovering creation to get an upgrade.

Living Carbon, a start-up in San Francisco, raised $21 million earlier this year with that exact approach: For its first product, it modified the genetics of poplar trees to grow 50% faster and capture 27% more carbon than before, at least in greenhouse conditions. Now the company is planting as many as 5 million of these trees—likely the first widespread use of genetically modified trees in the US.

The business model is to take advantage of incentives for carbon reduction provided by governments and nonprofits. Living Carbon wants to work with people and companies who own land that is environmentally degraded from industrial or agricultural use, some 133 million acres in the US. Living Carbon will pay to plant its trees on the land, and then work with third parties like Watershed to measure the carbon impact of those plantings. Then, it can sell credits for that stored carbon to corporations seeking to offset their carbon emissions. Or, companies can partner with Living Carbon directly and use the trees for their own internal carbon calculations.

The company’s CEO and founder, Maddie Hall, was a former OpenAI employee who saw an opportunity in giving world class plant biologists the same opportunities as AI researchers to pursue frontier science at commercial scale.

“We can plant enough trees by 2030 to remove a gigaton of carbon,” she told Quartz last month.

But whether these modified trees can sustain both a profitable business and a net reduction in emissions will only be proven after these trees have spent years growing in the wild.

“What Living Carbon is trying to do has never been done before at all,” said Steve Strauss, a professor of forest biotechnology at Oregon State University, who has partnered with Living Carbon on its research, including a field trial of more than 600 trees. “It’s very bold and I told them that ... everything about this is high risk, in my view.”
How to make a carbon-hungry tree

Altering plant genetics to produce better outcomes has been a part of human history since the dawn of agriculture. But these days generational breeding programs have been supplanted by a modern understanding of how to manipulate genetic information.

Living Carbon’s trees take advantage of natural evolution. Photosynthesis — when plants convert carbon dioxide, water and sunlight into fuel for growth—can accidentally produce toxic byproducts. Many trees have to spend their energy on biological systems that remove this waste, but other plants have evolved more efficient forms of photosynthesis. Living Carbon uses a method called “particle bombardment” to incorporate genetic material from more efficient plants into the poplar trees it plans to plant in the wild. The technique also allows the company to avoid regulation by the USDA and forestry standards groups that look askance at planting trees with genes modified by other techniques in the wild.

The company started with poplars, which are a popular tree for environmental remediation because of their ability to reduce and destroy industrial toxins. In lab conditions, Living Carbon’s poplars have grown much faster and larger than unmodified trees, suggesting that they will speed carbon storage in the field. Hall hopes that the fast-growing trees will also be useful for combatting invasive species and creating forest canopy to promote the return of native plants. Vince Stanley, a Georgia farmer who is working with Living Carbon, has planted 10,500 of their poplar trees on his property and says that being able to harvest them more frequently than the current 50-year rotation schedule promises more profits.

Living Carbon is also developing its own version of the Loblolly Pine, which is frequently grown commercially as a lumber source. It also wants to develop trees that accumulate more metals into their wood, slowing rotting and allowing them to store carbon for longer.

Poplar shoots grow in a petri dish at a Living Carbon laboratory.

Forestry experts told Quartz that Living Carbon’s results were plausible, but whether the new trees will have a useful environmental impact depends on many factors over a long timescale. Ultimately, the trees will eventually die and return their carbon to the ecosystem, or be harvested, with the fate of their carbon tied to the use of the lumber. If they wind up burned, or dumped, that won’t be that helpful in the long run.

Some wondered whether the tree species would be suited to the areas where they are planted, or if their fast growth would require too much water. They also noted that plantation-style tree growth focused on a small number of species could be susceptible to pest and pathogens.

“It would probably make more sense to plant trees that historically grew in places and are relatively adapted to them and to the pests and pathogens that occur there,” said Andrew Morris Latimer, a professor at the University of California, Davis.

The scientists were less concerned about the genetically altered trees leading to unexpected consequences in local ecosystems. Hall says the company is now only planting low-flowering female trees to limit wild reproduction. Strauss argues that given the global climate emergency, it’s irresponsible not to explore whether biotechnology can play a role in halting global warming.

But he adds an important caveat: It takes years to demonstrate that traits seen in trees grown in the controlled environment of the greenhouse will take root in the field. It’s too early to know if Living Carbon’s lab results will hold true across millions of trees planted in sites around the country.
A solution in search of a market

“The most surprising thing to me about building this company has been the challenges coming from the collective action problems from carbon removal projects,” Hall says. “The technology and the land partners weren’t that difficult.”

Namely, those collective action problems are figuring out how to reliably and independently measure the carbon savings of a project like planting trees on degraded land, and in turn assigning it a monetary value. The company depends on these efforts — “Living Carbon’s trees would not be planted or exist without carbon credit markets,” Hall says — even as questions about their reliability emerge. A recent investigation into Verra, an international carbon standards organization, found that many of its projects were likely not offsetting carbon emissions, and could have been worsening them.

Hall notes that the Verra projects under scrutiny were focused on halting deforestation and improving existing tree stands, which requires more complex assessment than planting new trees. She sees her company as a hybrid between nature-based solutions to climate change, like slowing deforestation, and engineering solutions, like the development of machines to capture carbon out of the air.

“Both have their challenges...engineered solutions are challenged by getting to scale [and] with nature-based solutions, it’s much more on the transparency and the durability and the quality of the projects,” Hall says. She is heartened by the push for better models that link what’s actually happening on the land to financial results, with verification through remote-sensing.

“There’s no question that trees suck C02 out of the atmosphere and store it for long periods of time,” Strauss says. “Whether that matters in the big picture, whether it’s big enough to matter, is a whole other question.”


One plausible estimate finds that there are about 228 million trees in the US. Major forestry companies plant tens of millions or billions of trees annually, Strauss says, and the millions of trees Living Carbon is planning to sew are likely to cover just hundreds of acres.

“My way to think about what they’re doing [is] see if it works at scale and in the kinds of environments they are putting them in,” Strauss says. “We need to be patient, we don’t really know what we have.”

Quartz

Whigs and Tory's

It is not just Harper and the Conservative Gang in Calgary that have been influenced by the neo-con Straussian ideal of Empire and the rule of the philospher king. So has Liberal Michael Ingnatieff more than even his cousin the philosopher George Grant.

Strauss’s rejection of individual rights led him to espouse political views that Rothbard found repellent: "We find Strauss . . . praising ‘farsighted’, ‘sober’ British imperialism; we find him discoursing on the ‘good’ Caesarism, on Caesarism as often necessary and not really tyranny, etc... he praises political philosophers for yes, lying to their readers for the sake of the ‘social good’…. I must say that this is an odd position for a supposed moralist to take."

THE IDEAS OF GEORGE GRANT*
As philosophy became more technical and remote, George Grant never stopped trying to reach a wide audience. In his writing and teaching, he dealt philosophically with the basic issues facing Canada: imperialism and national survival, the nature of technology, the moral bankruptcy of liberalism, and the claims of tradition in face of the modern. He wrestled with some of the most commanding figures of modern thought: Simone Weil, Leo Strauss, Friedrich Nietzsche and Martin Heidegger. David Cayley explores George Grant's intellectual career, based on interviews with Grant himself, students, interpreters and critics.


The difference today between Liberals and Conservatives, both of whom claim to come from the liberal tradition, is that the Liberals reflect the utilitarian social democrat tradition of classical liberalism, they are in effect modern Whigs.

While the neo-cons who dominate the Conservative movement reflect the Imperialist aspirations of the old Conservative/Tory aristorcracy. America while a Republic of agrarian artisanal virtues has a ruling class that has always aspired to Empire, in mimicry of England. The Southern Aristocratic States that formed the Confederacy and their culture of 'Ladies and Gentlemen' reflect this unrepentant urge to return to the past as all conservatives do.

In accepting Empire Ignatieff is a blue Liberal far closer to the compardor politics of Harper's foriegn policy than classical Trudeau liberalism.

Trudeau liberalism is Whig politics that challenges both the rampant free market individualism espoused by the neo-cons, and its opposite socialism. His was an ideology of invidual rights and freedoms within the State, not opposed to the State. The State's function was too defend and expand these rights. So entrenched was his sense of social individualism that he was willing to trample collective political rights, those of Quebec, to create a made in Canada Constitution and Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Today both these are opposed by the neo-con right and the Soveriegnists in Quebec. Ironic that the neo-cons who extoll individualism attack the Charter, Harper, Kenney, Ezra Levant, etc. but that is because it is both a Charter of social rights and Individual rights. It is Trudeaus legacy, and that is what they hate. The right in Canada has always hated Trudeau and his philosophy.

Todays Liberals embrace not Trudeauism, but Ignatieff. As one would a serpent to the breast. All is done for the expediency of power. Power for its own sake. Their ideology is messaging without content, all is platitude to retain power. Intellectually bankrupt they grab at Ignatieff as their new philosopher, when he is a mere shade of Grant or Trudeau. As a shade his bankrupt ideology cannot stand the exposure of the light of reason.

In this Ignatieff is as much influenced by Leo Struass conservative philosopher of Empire as he is by his esteemed cousin, George Grant. Ignatieff has accepted the existance of Empire and like the flawed logic of his cousin, has concluded that democracy is at home in the American Empire. Hence his extolling how he is an American. Of course in this context like Grant to be an American is to be a Continentalist, we are 'all Americans' now.

Trudeau was the philosopher politician who answered Grants lamantation. In his ideal of a New Federalism, Trudeau challenged the Red Tory ideology of acquiecence to America, and viewed Canada and Quebec as a capable of challenging America on the basis of classical traditional liberalism. Not just a rampant self aggrandizing individualism so common amongst American ideologues on the right but a social individualism. One that didn't say; I am alright Jack I got mine, but said; I am alright Jack because you got yours.

It was nearly twenty years after Grants lament that Trudeau brought Canada its constitution and Charter, that would fulfill Grants dream of a Canada different from the United States. Grant was a Whig, Trudeau was a Whig. Ignatieff is not. He is an apologist for Empire.

And the Conservatives in Canada are not Tories, they are Republicans, and not the party of Lincoln who was also a Whig, but a party of the rights of the shop keeper. Their belief in individual rights are only for those who own, not even possess, property. They would embrace America and George Grant would wail in lament from his grave. For he had warned us of these traitorous dogs forty years ago.

The major themes of Grant's interests made him, at once, a foundational thinker and an interpreter of current events. Deeply concerned with the political and social directions being taken in postwar Canada leading into the sixties and seventies, he also fiercely resisted the new, progressively functional purposes shaping Canadian universities during those years. At the root of his thinking lies his conviction that the liberal project of the Enlightenment, which has shaped life in western society for more than 200 years and is now dominating our whole planet, was a massive mistake--nothing less than a denial, through the glorification of instrumental reason and technology, of the true nature of the world and of human persons. Grant turned to Plato, to the contemporary Platonist Leo Strauss and to the philosopher-mystic Simone Weil for aid in his own intellectual transformation away from this modern view of humanity based on the primacy of will, the mastery of nature, individualism and the shaping of society essentially by market-driven capitalism.

LAMENTATION AND SPECULATION:
GEORGE GRANT, JAMES DOULL AND THE POSSIBILITY OF CANADA

David G. Peddle
Sir Wilfred Grenfell College, MUN

Neil G. Robertson
University of King's College

In 1965 George Grant created a national debate when he published his classic text, Lament for a Nation. The central thesis of this book was captured in its subtitle, "The Defeat of Canadian Nationalism." While Grant sees the defeat of Diefenbaker's government in 1963 as emblematic of the inability of Canadians to sustain their independence from the United States, he argues that the causes of this defeat lay deeper than any particular political event. For Grant, the sources of Canada's demise lay in the philosophical and political spirit of modernity and in the technological domination it asserts. He saw in Canadian Nationalism the noble belief that a more stable, conservative society could exist on the borders of the United States, the nation which, on his view, more than any other embodied this technological modernity. In 1963, Grant argued, the folly, the impossibility of this belief had finally exposed itself.