Wednesday, January 05, 2022

CALIFORNIA

Clean Tech Startup Mote Unveils Plans for $100M Carbon Capture Plant

Monday, January 3, 2022

Mote says it’s the world’s first carbon removal project converting biomass to hydrogen.

There’s a new local entrant in the global decarbonization race: Culver City-based cleantech startup Mote Inc.

On Dec. 15, Mote unveiled plans for a $100 million gasification plant on 5 acres of land in unincorporated Kern County to extract carbon dioxide from wood waste.

To build the plant, Mote intends to team up with Irving, Texas-based engineering and construction firm Fluor Corp. and SunGas Renewables, a subsidiary of Des Plaines, Ill.-based GTI International Inc. that makes gasification systems.

Assuming the project team is able to secure financing and obtain the necessary government approvals and permits, construction could begin toward the end of 2022, and the plant could start operations sometime in 2024.

For Mote, this will be the first real-world application for its approach to decarbonization, one that goes beyond just capturing and storing carbon and tries to tap into multiple markets.

Some of the carbon dioxide would be stored underground, where it could generate credits that industrial companies could buy to meet carbon emission reduction mandates. The company is also looking to sell some of the carbon dioxide to concrete producers, who would inject it into their concrete.

Mote also intends to sell one of the byproducts of this carbon extraction process — hydrogen gas — to hydrogen fuel station operators.

Multiple markets

Many other carbon extraction companies have arisen over the past decade or so, with several — including Westwood-based CarbonBuilt Inc. — targeting markets to reuse and store the extracted carbon. But Mote is one of a few that aim to target several markets at once.

Mote co-founder and Chief Executive Patrick “Mac” Kennedy sees the hydrogen fuel market as the company’s most unique niche.
“As the world’s first carbon removal project converting biomass to hydrogen, we are addressing the ever-growing demand for renewable hydrogen with a carbon-negative approach,” Kennedy said in the company’s announcement.

In an interview with the Business Journal, Kennedy, a serial entrepreneur, said he first launched a carbon extraction business under the Mote name in 2017, which targeted the heavy-duty truck market.

But after a series of discussions Kennedy had with his friend, Joshuah Stolaroff, an environmental scientist who ran the carbon capture program at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, Kennedy pivoted to the current multimarket approach for carbon extraction products in early 2020. Stolaroff year joined the fledgling venture earlier this as chief technology officer.

The pair looked around for a carbon-based source that could serve as the input for the carbon extraction and found a cheap, plentiful one in wood waste. There’s plenty of manmade wood waste, including a supply from building demolitions and agricultural operations. But by far, the most common wood waste source is dead trees in forests in California and elsewhere.

In California alone, nearly 150 million trees died between 2010 and 2019 because of drought, bark beetle infestations, wildfires and other causes, according to the University of California’s journal “California Agriculture.” These dead trees have become an increasingly urgent concern for both state officials and electric utility executives who are trying to reduce the risk of massive and devastating wildfires.

“We hope to create a market for unburned wood waste coming from forests,” Kennedy told the Business Journal.

Burned wood waste is unusable for carbon extraction purposes since the act of burning releases the carbon.

In Mote’s gasification process, the wood waste is heated to nearly 1,500 degrees, which releases the carbon dioxide and hydrogen gases. Then, a chemical solvent is used to separate out the carbon dioxide and hydrogen from each other. The carbon dioxide gas is then piped either to an underground storage facility or directly into trucks for transport to concrete producers. The hydrogen gas is piped into specialized trucks for transport to hydrogen fueling stations.

When operating at full capacity, the plant is expected to produce approximately 7,000 metric tons of hydrogen and remove 150,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide from the air annually. That’s equivalent to removing more than 32,000 cars off the road.

Funding for fuel

Mote must still obtain a number of government approvals for the project and then will need to obtain construction financing. The company in the fall raised $1.1 million in seed funding for its own operations as it goes through these next steps.

Among the investors were San Francisco-based socially conscious investment firm Preston-Werner Ventures and London-based Counteract Partners Ltd., which invests in carbon removal technologies. Kennedy said the company is in discussions with these and other investors for follow-on funding.

The company also hopes to win funding from a $50 million hydrogen fuel generation fund set up last year by the state and administered through Pasadena’s Calstart, a nonprofit dedicated to promoting clean transportation technologies. And the $1 trillion federal infrastructure bill that was enacted this past fall contains $8 billion in support for “clean hydrogen hubs” around the nation.

Kennedy also said Mote plans to seek out customers for the carbon and hydrogen products from the gasification plant among the industrial companies that tap into the state’s carbon credit market to meet state-mandated carbon-emission reduction targets. Among these industrial companies are concrete and cement producers.

He said the company is in talks with Halifax, Nova Scotia-based Carbon Cure Technologies Inc., a company similar to CarbonBuilt that is developing a technology to inject carbon dioxide into concrete, thereby locking in the carbon. If a deal could be worked out, Carbon Cure could become a regular customer for the carbon dioxide extract produced at the Kern County plant.

“CarbonCure applauds Mote as it enters the market with its innovative hydrogen production process. Curbing climate change requires creative, complementary solutions to scale up carbon removal rapidly,” Robert Niven, CarbonCure’s chief executive, said in the Dec. 15 announcement. “We look forward to an ongoing collaboration,” he added.

As for the hydrogen fuel, Kennedy said that the fact that it is produced in a process that removes carbon dioxide gives it a negative carbon score, which helps fuel station operators meet the state’s low carbon fuel standard.

“This is what separates our hydrogen fuel out from other producers,” Kennedy said.
Besides obtaining construction financing, Mote’s biggest challenge is likely to be coordinating supply chains on both ends of its planned business model.

“Their biggest challenge is supply chains: They are bringing two different businesses together into a single supply chain,” said Roger Aines, chief scientist of the energy program at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

“On the input side, they will have to get large quantities of wood from dead trees in forests under contract and then transport that wood waste to their Kern County plant,” Aines said. “Then, once the wood has been gasified, they have to have contracts to transport those gases either to a storage site or to a (hydrogen) fuel station. That’s a tremendous amount of coordinating of supply chains.”

Aines said this all might be made easier as more government funding pours into this sector.

“The state is definitely interested in making all these things happen,” he said.

Every US-Based Cruise Ship With Passengers Has Reported COVID-19 Cases

portmiami — Cruise ships at PortMiami, 2016 (Corey Seeman / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

With just 11 days to go until the expiration of the CDC's COVID-19 rules for cruise ships, the agency says that the epidemic has reached every vessel in the actively-operating U.S. cruise fleet.

97 out of the 110 cruise ships that the agency tracks have reported COVID-19 cases on board within the past week, including every ship listed in a passenger-carrying voyage status, according to the latest numbers on the agency's website on January 4.

The CDC does not rank infection events by size, and all recently-reported U.S.-based cruise outbreaks have affected about one percent or less of the total onboard complement. The overwhelming majority of passengers and crew are fully vaccinated before boarding, and most of those who test positive experience no symptoms or light symptoms, according to initial industry reports.

The 13 ships that have not reported any COVID cases recently are all in "crew-only" voyage status, including Carnival Horizon; Carnival Paradise; Carnival Sensation; Ovation of the Seas; Vision of the Seas; Celebrity Eclipse; Celebrity Solstice; Noordam; Crown Princess; Norwegian Sun; Regatta; Seven Seas Navigator; and Silver Muse.

Last week, the CDC advised the public to avoid cruise ships due to the emergence of the highly-contagious omicron variant, which has proven resistant to immunity in vaccinated and unvaccinated populations. “The virus that causes COVID-19 spreads easily between people in close quarters on board ships, and the chance of getting COVID-19 on cruise ships is very high, even if you are fully vaccinated and have received a COVID-19 vaccine booster dose," CDC cautioned in an advisory note.

A handful of cruise ships have altered their itineraries due to COVID-driven disruption on board, but the bulk of the U.S.-based industry continues to operate largely as before under the rules of the CDC's Conditional Sailing Order (CSO). That order has been extended until January 15, but it will expire shortly - along with CDC's onboard testing and reporting requirements - unless it is renewed.

So far, evidence suggests that omicron is more infectious but less harmful than previous variants. It is spreading rapidly on shore, but it is not driving significantly higher rates of hospitalization (except among children). At the current rate of spread, it could peak in some states - including the leading U.S. cruise state of Florida - before the end of the month, according to epidemiologists.

The shoreside pattern appears to be mirrored in cruise lines' experiences with omicron so far. At the end of last month, Royal Caribbean reported that it has had 41 COVID hospitalizations since it restarted operations in June, and none of them have been omicron cases, despite a recent rise in the number of positive test results. "Our case count has spiked, but the level of severity is significantly milder. We will remain nimble and in constant contact with health authorities," said the group's chief medical officer, Dr. Calvin Johnson.

Icelandic Coast Guard Carries Out Lava-Field Rescue

The Icelandic Coast Guard has search and rescue responsibilities for a challenging stretch of the North Atlantic, but it also gets called out periodically to help people in distress on a different surface - lava. Iceland is one of the few parts of the world where fresh lava flows are within reach of the general public, and visitors occasionally get into trouble by walking out onto the surface of recently-cooled rock. This is hazardous for several reasons: the rock may be crumbly or unstable, and even solid surfaces may turn out to be hot enough to cause burns.

On Friday, a mountain search and rescue squad was called out to help a hiker in distress at Fagradasfjall on the Reykjanes Peninsula, where a recent volcanic eruption occurred about 10 miles from the country's main airport. The individual had walked out onto new lava but did not feel safe following the same path back.

The mountain SAR squad brought advanced thermal cameras and other specialized equipment, and they attempted to find a safe path to reach the individual by foot. After walking a short distance out onto the surface, they determined that it was not safe to continue, and they called for an Icelandic Coast Guard helicopter aircrew to hoist the individual to safety.

The Fagradasfjall lava flow has been a particularly popular draw for visitors, as it is within easy reach of both the airport and the Icelandic capital, Reykjavik. The volcanic eruption began in March 2021 and ended in mid-September, and its light could be seen from the city at night. It was the largest eruption the island has seen in 50 years, and the scenic attraction drew more than 350,000 visitors, according to the Islandic Tourist Board.

Risk management has occasionally been a challenge at the site, with uncautious visitors frequently walking up to the edge of active lava flows. Though the eruption has ended, heavy seismic activity at the site continues, raising the risks for anyone venturing out onto the surface. Given the potential for a renewed eruption, the local chief of police has advised hikers to stay clear of the area.

Photos: Greek ROV Company Finds Lost WWII Submarine Off Mykonos

A research team headed up by Greek explorer Kostas Thoctarides has discovered the wreck of an Italian WWII submarine off the coast of Mykonos.

The submarine Jantina was a 1932-built Argonauta-class attack sub, a diesel-electric design of about 650 tonnes displacement. On July 5, 1941, she was under way on a surface transit from the Greek island of Leros when she was attacked by a British submarine, HMS Torbay.

The Torbay was operating submerged and spotted Jantina on the surface at a distance of about four nautical miles. Torbay fired a spread of six torpedoes at a range of about 1,500 yards, and several found their target, sinking Jantina and killing 42 out of 48 crewmembers. Six survivors managed to swim to shore on Delos, a small island to the west of Mikonos.

Thoctarides and his crew discovered the location of the Jantina during an ROV sonar sweep, and they sent down a second ROV to get images of the sub and confirm its identity. The video survey showed that the sub sank with periscopes down and a deck hatch open.

Marina Militare / Kostas Thoctarides

Kostas Thoctarides

Thoctarides' company, Planet Blue ROV Services, normally uses its submersibles for subsea pipeline inspections. The firm has nine of the high-spec devices, and wreck-hunting is a long-time side project. Jantina is his fourth find, Thoctarides told CNN Greece, and he has published several books on the subject. His daughter, Oceanis, has joined him in his work.

As for HMS Torbay, she went on to a successful wartime career, sinking 24 coasters, 17 merchant ships and five warships, including Jantina. She survived the war and was scrapped in 1945.

HMS Torbay (Royal Navy)

Accusing Carriers of Profiteering, BIFA Calls for UK Government Review

BIFA calls for government review of business practicies of ocean carriers — Freight association is calling for a review if the business practiices of ocean carriers (Felixstowe file photo)

The British International Freight Association has become the latest trade association to call for a government investigation into the business practices of the global shipping lines and the state of competition in the industry. Citing complaints of “dreadful service levels, and hugely inflated rates” the association accuses the ocean carriers of profiteering with little regard to the needs of their customers.

In a letter to Robert Courts MP, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department for Transport, BIFA's Director General Robert Keen expresses the trade association’s concern that during a period of well-documented chaos within the container shipping sector, commercial power is becoming increasingly concentrated, resulting in diminished market choice and competition, and distorted market conditions.

“BIFA members fully accept that a free market economy is open to all, but are increasingly concerned that the activities of the container shipping lines, and the exemptions from legislation from which they benefit, are distorting the operations of that market to the shipping lines’ advantage, whilst adversely and unfairly affecting their customers, especially freight forwarders and SME businesses,” writes Keen. “Drewry recently issued a profit forecast of more than $150 billion for 2021 for the main container shipping lines. To put that into perspective, this is more than has been achieved in the previous 20 years combined, and many BIFA members consider it to be a case of blatant profiteering.”

BIFA points to the consolidation in the shipping industry as well as the growth of the three dominant alliances between the lines. “In 2015, there were 27 major container shipping lines carrying global containerized trade, with the largest having a 15.3 percent market share. Today, there are 15 shipping lines, organized into three major alliances carrying that trade, with some analysts observing that the market share of a single alliance on certain key routes could be over 40 percent.”

The association does not single out any carriers but instead focuses on the overall industry. The port of Felixstowe, which is Britain’s largest container port, like many of the world’s ports suffered from extended backlogs and congestion in 2021. During the summer, executives from Maersk confirmed in media interviews that the shipping giant had begun skipping the U.K. port diverting some of its larger containerships to the continent due to the backlogs. Maersk reported that it was using feeder vessels to deliver containers into the U.K. port to avoid congestion and maintain better schedule integrity on its primary liner routes.

In mid-December, the 2M Alliance, announced plans to rationalize its schedules to better manage challenges at the terminals in Felixstowe. They said that going forward they would be replacing a call at the U.K. port with increased time in Rotterdam while combining service from two routes into a single call at Felixstowe. Port officials at Felixstowe responded saying they welcome the change as a means to provide a faster, more efficient, and more reliable service for shippers citing that volumes at the port were up 10 percent year-over-year.

BIFA highlighted that it is joining a growing number of organizations, including its European counterparts CLECAT and FIATA, as well as the U.S. Federal Maritime Commission, and the Australian Productivity Commission, in calling for governments and regulators to give careful consideration to the evolving business arrangements in the container shipping market to see whether they are in breach of competition law.

On Annual Inspection Tour, USCG Witnesses Climate Change in Alaska

teller alaska — Residents have placed concrete and steel debris to control shoreline erosion near a fuel oil storage site in Teller, Alaska. With an increasing threat of soil erosion, remote communities in Alaska face new challenges (USCG)

[By Petty Officer 1st Class Nate Littlejohn]

2021 marked a milestone for the Coast Guard’s Marine Safety Task Force initiative in Alaska. The seasonal MSTF initiative, first implemented in 2019, deploys Coast Guard teams to remote areas across the state to conduct vessel and facility inspections, provide operator training, improve maritime domain awareness, and conduct outreach for preparedness and safety programs.

Through MSTF operations, the Coast Guard observed firsthand the impacts of climate change to the landscape of the Arctic and Western portions of Alaska. As permafrost thaws, the ground under many aging fuel facilities is becoming unstable. This could potentially leave people unable to heat their homes and schools, or fuel their traditional hunting and fishing transportation. Potential fuel oil spills caused by aging infrastructure in rapidly changing landscapes threaten local ecosystems that sustain communities. Additionally, an increase in maritime traffic in the Arctic increases the potential for search and rescue or pollution cases.

"I had a very special opportunity to be part of an MSTF team that deployed to the island community of Little Diomede in October,” said Capt. Leanne Lusk, commander, Sector Anchorage. “Little Diomede is the closest location in the U.S. to Russia. The island has 98 residents, half of whom are children. We learned that they only receive one fuel delivery each year. We were there to inspect their fuel tanks to ensure they could survive the coming winter without a fuel or heating oil spill, and to talk about pollution response efforts in the Bering Strait should a spill ever occur. The residents we met described this increasingly-transited region as their ‘grocery store’ and explained the tragic impacts a major pollution incident would have on their village and their people.”

Inhabitants of Little Diomede subsist on blue king crab, walrus, seal, and an occasional polar bear, all harvested in the winter months when the ice is safe enough to walk on around the island. However, for the last seven years, the multi-year ice they have counted on for fishing and hunting for generations has receded substantially.

“Crabbing on winter ice is not so good anymore,” said Opik Ahkinga, environmental coordinator and vice-mayor on Little Diomede. “We are no longer able to access the locations where crabs are abundant . . . We are concerned that hunting for our traditional Inupiaq foods will be lost. For three years now, we have not seen full meat racks of oogruk (seal) and walrus. We are also concerned about the increased shipping near our island and the potential for groundings and possible oil spills. We do have mitigation plans, but we need to train everyone here on how to respond should an incident occur.”

An oil spill in a remote part of Alaska could potentially devastate nearby marine life and maritime communities, and remote pollution incidents require significantly more resources to clean up. A 3,000-gallon heavy fuel oil spill on Shuyak Island in 2019, just northeast of Kodiak Island, cost $9 million to clean up, the highest cost-per-gallon spill in U.S. history. In the winter of 2020-2021 there were a total of five spills in remote Alaskan communities, including one during a barge-over-the-water transfer that cost a community more than $60,000 in lost fuel alone.

Long-range logistics

In 2021, aircrews from the Alaska Army National Guard flew Coast Guard members from Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson to hub communities, including King Salmon and Nome. From these hub communities, pilots from the Civil Air Patrol Alaska Wing flew MSTF members to remote communities, where runways only allow for smaller airplanes. In total, MSTF teams visited 95 remote communities, completed 128 fuel storage facility inspections, 470 commercial fishing vessel exams, five gold dredge exams, and monitored six fuel-to-shore transfers.

The direct result of the MSTF effort has been a 395 percent increase in physically inspected facilities and an almost 2,000 percent increase in vessel exams since the program's launch in 2019.

“Coastal erosion, changes to the home range of key species, increased commercial traffic, and thawing permafrost all have significant impacts on coastal communities and Coast Guard operations across various mission sets,” said Cmdr. Jereme Altendorf, an Arctic emergency management specialist at Sector Anchorage. “Via the MSTF initiative, the Coast Guard has positioned itself to not only complete its statutory missions, but simultaneously share the story of the effects of climate change with those who may be able to act.”

This article appears courtesy of U.S. Coast Guard News and is reproduced here in an abbreviated form. The original may be found here.

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M

World's Largest Bunker Company Keeps CEO After Criminal Conviction

It is rare for a company with $10 billion in turnover to retain a CEO with a custodial sentence, but Danish trading house Bunker Holding - the largest bunker company in the world - has decided to keep a convicted chief executive and to accept its own sentencing on charges related to sanctions-busting.

Earlier this month, Bunker Holding, subsidiary Dan-Bunkering and Bunker Holding CEO Keld Demant were all convicted of charges related to supplying jet fuel to Russian intermediaries, who then resold the fuel for diversion to Syria. The deliveries were made during a period in which Russian and allied Syrian forces allegedly engaged in indiscriminate bombing in civilian areas of Aleppo, killing hundreds of non-combatants. The battle was a turning point in Syria's 10-year civil war, and its outcome hinged on Russian air support. At the time, EU sanctions prohibited fuel deliveries to Syria.

Prosecutors argued that executives at Dan-Bunkering and Bunker Holding, including Demant, were aware or should have been aware of the risk of diversion - but still signed off on 33 sales totaling 172,000 tonnes of jet fuel over two years. In the trial, it emerged that the firm's internal compliance controls had worked properly - Bunker Holding's chief legal officer flagged the sales and warned repeatedly that they risked violating EU sanctions - but traders overrode the warnings and approved the deals anyways.

The court agreed with the prosecution, finding that Dan-Bunkering should have "realized it was overwhelmingly probable" that the fuel would be used in the Syrian conflict and that such use would violate EU sanctions. It handed Bunker Holding CEO Keld Demant a four-month suspended prison sentence, and it sentenced Dan-Bunkering to a fine of nearly $5 million - plus an additional profit confiscation of $2 million.

Bunker Holding noted that only Dan-Bunkering was convicted of a deliberate breach of sanctions, and Bunker Holding and Demant were convicted only of negligence contributing to a breach of sanctions.

The penalty was unusually stringent for a white-collar crime case, according to observers. "It is not often that we see fines of that magnitude in Denmark," commented Prof. Thomas Elholm, a professor of criminal law at University of Copenhagen, speaking to DR. "And it is not every day that we see directors who are sentenced to imprisonment."

In a statement this week, Bunker Holding owner Torben Ostergaard-Nielsen - the head of Denmark's sixth-richest family - expressed his continued support for Demant and said that he would remain CEO. "Keld R. Demant has the full and unchanged supoport of the board of directors and the ownership and will continue as the CEO of Bunker Holding," Ostergaard-Nielsen said.

Ostergaard-Nielsen added that as the world's largest bunker company, Bunker Holding has "an obligation to take the lead in compliance and set the highest standards for ourselves."

Bunker Holding and Dan-Bunkering will accept the court's decision and will not appeal the ruling, said Klaus Nyborg, Bunker Holding's vice chairman.

Researchers identify biomarker for depression, antidepressant response

by University of Illinois at Chicago

Researchers are one step closer to developing a blood test that provides a simple biochemical hallmark for depression and reveals the efficacy of drug therapy in individual patients.

Published in a new proof of concept study, researchers led by Mark Rasenick, University of Illinois Chicago distinguished professor of physiology and biophysics and psychiatry, have identified a biomarker in human platelets that tracks the extent of depression.

The research builds off of previous studies by several investigators that have shown in humans and animal models that depression is consistent with decreased adenylyl cyclase—a small molecule inside the cell that is made in response to neurotransmitters such as serotonin and epinephrine.

"When you are depressed, adenylyl cyclase is low. The reason adenylyl cyclase is attenuated is that the intermediary protein that allows the neurotransmitter to make the adenylyl cyclase, Gs alpha, is stuck in a cholesterol-rich matrix of the membrane—a lipid raft—where they don't work very well," Rasenick said.

The new study, "A Novel Peripheral Biomarker for Depression and Antidepressant Response," published in Molecular Psychiatry, has identified the cellular biomarker for translocation of Gs alpha from lipid rafts. The biomarker can be identified through a blood test.

"What we have developed is a test that can not only indicate the presence of depression but it can also indicate therapeutic response with a single biomarker, and that is something that has not existed to date," said Rasenick, who is also a research career scientist at Jesse Brown VA Medical Center. 

The researchers hypothesize they will be able to use this blood test to determine if antidepressant therapies are working, perhaps as soon as one week after beginning treatment. Previous research has shown that when patients showed improvement in their depression symptoms, the Gs alpha was out of the lipid raft. However, in patients who took antidepressants but showed no improvement in their symptoms, the Gs alpha was still stuck in the raft—meaning simply having antidepressants in the bloodstream was not good enough to improve symptoms.

A blood test may be able to show whether or not the Gs alpha was out of the lipid raft after one week. 

"Because platelets turn over in one week, you would see a change in people who were going to get better. You'd be able to see the biomarker that should presage successful treatment," Rasenick said.

Currently, patients and their physicians have to wait several weeks, sometimes months, to determine if antidepressants are working, and when it is determined they aren't working, different therapies are tried. 

"About 30% of people don't get better—their depression doesn't resolve. Perhaps, failure begets failure and both doctors and patients make the assumption that nothing is going to work," Rasenick said. "Most depression is diagnosed in primary care doctor's offices where they don't have sophisticated screening. With this test, a doctor could say, 'Gee, they look like they are depressed, but their blood doesn't tell us they are. So, maybe we need to re-examine this.'"Why is it so hard to withdraw from some antidepressants?

More information: Steven D. Targum et al, A novel peripheral biomarker for depression and antidepressant response, Molecular Psychiatry (2021). DOI: 10.1038/s41380-021-01399-1

Journal information: Molecular Psychiatry

Provided by University of Illinois at Chicago

How Psychedelic Therapy Fuses Indigenous Shamanism With Western Science

SHAMANIC TECHNIQUES ARE NOW FINDING THEIR WAY INTO CLINICAL THERAPEUTIC SETTINGS.

By Benjamin Taub

03 JAN 2022

Psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy is widely talked about as a novel development within psychiatry, yet the ironic truth is that mind-altering substances have been used to promote mental wellbeing for thousands of years. And while the ceremonial ingestion of plants like ayahuasca in South America, peyote in North America, and iboga in Africa may seem a far cry from the psychiatrist’s couch, researchers are increasingly looking to indigenous cultures in order to learn how to utilize these potent medicines.

Inevitably, however, this attempted reconciliation of modern science with ancient medical traditions has thrown up a fair amount of cultural friction, which researchers from various disciplines are now trying to smooth over.

IMAGE: STÉFANO GIRARDELLI/UNSPLASH.COM

Anthropologists studying the ceremonial use of psychedelic plants often write about the skillful manner in which shamans guide their patients into “managed altered states of consciousness”. Through the ritual manipulation of symbols, sounds, and other aesthetic elements, these traditional healers are able to steer participants’ visions and hallucinations in certain desirable directions.

Such techniques are routinely employed by indigenous healers at the Takiwasi Center in Peru, a world-leading treatment and research facility where traditional Amazonian medicine is combined with Western psychotherapy. The project’s scientific director, Dr Matteo Politi, told IFLScience that “most Western researchers who come to the Amazon and observe an ayahuasca ceremony would probably see the ritual itself as lacking in scientific value, and would not count it as a significant variable. But many of us within the field of ethnopharmacology consider ritual to be not just important, but absolutely fundamental to the outcome of treatment.”

A recent study of Westerners attending a similar mental health retreat run by indigenous ayahuasca healers found that 36 percent rated the actions of these shamans as the single most important factor in the improvement of their wellbeing. And while shamanic rituals may not be fully appreciated by conventional psychiatrists, it is widely agreed that psychedelic experiences are the product of more than just mere pharmacology.

Back in the 1960s, Harvard-professor-turned-LSD-evangelist Timothy Leary helped to popularize the notion of “set and setting”, which holds that the effects of psychedelics are largely determined by the mindset of the user as well as the environment in which they are taken, rather than the properties of the substances themselves. Adding some meat to these bones, a study published in 2018 concluded that psychedelics make people more receptive to environmental stimuli, probably as a result of their ability to increase neuroplasticity.

For this reason, set and setting has been incorporated into recent psychedelic trials. Typically, this is achieved by manipulating the therapeutic environment with low lighting and carefully selected music playlists. This last element is considered to be of particular importance, as research has revealed that music amplifies the capacity of psychedelics to enhance activity within the parts of the brain that process emotion.

“The recognition of the importance of set and setting represents a bridge between traditional healing and modern medicine,” says Politi. “However, if we want to develop this principle within modern contexts then we have to learn from the cultures that have been using these plants for centuries.”

COMMUNITAS

Also located in the Peruvian Amazon is the Temple of The Way of Light, an ayahuasca retreat where researchers from Imperial College London are currently studying the efficacy of traditional healing techniques for the treatment of mental health. Researcher Adam Aronovich, who is involved with the study, told IFLScience that “when we interview people about which parts of the experience have the biggest impact on them, not everybody actually talks about ayahuasca straight away. Instead, a lot of people focus their narratives on the social aspect and shared togetherness, which all come under the umbrella of communitas.”

Another anthropological term, communitas refers to a sense of collective rather than personal identity, whereby members of a group come to see each other as one and the same. It is said to occur frequently in shared rituals during which social and relational structures are lifted so that participants are able to bond as equals. While the use of psychedelics is not necessary for communitas to arise, studies have shown that these substances tend to heighten emotional empathy and inhibit activity in the parts of the brain that process social rejection, implying that they may serve to enhance this experience of shared togetherness.

In this instance, communitas arises from undergoing intense and sometimes challenging ayahuasca ceremonies together, rather than individually. The substance itself is therefore key to the whole process, yet, Aronovich says, “for most people, the group aspect and the sense of communitas was a primary factor in their healing.” Likewise, a global study of people who have used psychedelics in group settings found that “communitas during ceremony was significantly correlated with increases in psychological wellbeing, social connectedness, and other salient mental health outcomes.”

Interestingly, another recent study concluded that people who get high and dance together at rave parties often report improved psychological wellbeing, indicating that the benefits of communitas can also be experienced outside of traditional settings.

And yet, all clinical research into the efficacy of psychedelics to treat mental health disorders has overlooked this aspect, focusing on individual treatments rather than collective healing through group bonding. Herein lies a major paradigm clash between modern psychiatry and indigenous shamanism, presenting a major obstacle to the marriage of these two contrasting systems.

A CLASH OF WORLDVIEWS

“Something that’s very ingrained in the Amazonian worldview is this eco-social understanding of interdependence,” explains Aronovich. “In indigenous traditions, there is no such thing as an individual in the same way that we take for granted in the west. We are all just nodes in a network of interdependent relationships. It’s a different way of looking at things.”

For those of us who have been raised as firm materialists, such an outlook can be difficult to understand, let alone accept. We are conditioned to see the world as populated by discrete, independent entities that can be neatly isolated from one another, whereas many indigenous cultures view the universe as one unified conscious system, in which everything is connected to everything else.

In line with this outlook, mental health problems are understood not as the product of faulty brain chemistry or personal psychological quirks, but as a symptom of misalignment with the encompassing whole. Healing, therefore, is typically a collective affair and is achieved by restoring the patient’s sense of connectedness to their community and wider environment.

Put another way, connection is healing, and communitas, therefore, is one of the greatest psycho-medicinal tools available to these cultures. Meanwhile, the Western scientific establishment is now paying increasing attention to the disastrous psychological and physical toll of loneliness, yet it stops short of recognizing mental illness as a symptom of the disconnectedness that is inherent to our modern worldview.

Because of this, collective rituals are not routinely prescribed by modern doctors to patients suffering from depression, anxiety, or other psychological ailments. As Aronovich explains, “in our Western medical culture, these problems have been completely individualized. So if you have depression, you take a pill and you hope for the best.”

Presenting the anthropological challenge at the center of this cultural juxtaposition, Politi explains that “we in the West must understand that our medicine is also an ethnomedicine, as it simply reflects our cultural worldview. There is no objective definition of health – we just think of ourselves as healthy or sick depending on our cultural perspective.” Thus, while we may limit our notion of health to the mere absence of physical or mental symptoms within an isolated individual, other cultures might take social and environmental connections into account before passing diagnosis.

BRIDGING THE DIVIDE

While most research on psychedelics continues to focus on pharmacology, a number of studies are beginning to recognize the importance of contextual factors. For instance, the Imperial College study taking place at the Temple of the Way of Light seeks to quantify the contribution of communitas to clinical outcomes, thereby bridging the gap slightly between two seemingly opposing worldviews.

At the same time, Aronovich insists that there is validity in both approaches, and that psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy can and should be adapted in order to be compatible with different cultures. “I’m a proponent of both the clinical design but also the ceremonial group component,” he says. “I think both of them are important and both of them offer unique functions.”

And while he says we must learn what we can from indigenous approaches to psychedelics, he recognizes that “it’s a bit of a stretch to impose a whole new worldview on people.” Rather than building therapeutic protocols around philosophies that “the majority of people in the West are going to find difficult to digest,” therefore, he insists that we’re better off “adapting these principles to create something that makes sense.”

Such an approach is likely to mitigate concerns about cultural appropriation of indigenous practices, yet still leaves room for the adoption of basic yet important elements like sitting around a fire and sharing one’s feelings with a group. As simple as this sounds, it may well be the key to psychedelic healing.

Deadly surge in U.S. gun violence brings inequities of the pandemic, police violence and firearms laws into sharp focus

JAN 04, 2022

A first responder in Chicago leaves the scene where two women were shot this past Christmas morning.

Chicago had more homicides in 2021 than any year since 1996.Cheney Orr/Reuters.

On the evening of July 7, Miles Thompson left his home in a northern suburb of Chicago to visit his father in the city.

In 2020, homicides rose 30 per cent countrywide.

The U.S.’s homicide rate – 7.5 per 100,000 people – is nearly four times Canada’s rate, more than six times Britain’s and 25 times that of Japan.

Anderson, president of Thrive Chicago, a group that designs programs to help disadvantaged youth across the city, her stepson’s killing and the wave of shootings of which it is part are wakeup calls to a country that has for too long avoided addressing the root causes of gun violence.

Firearm-related homicides.

per 100,000 people (2001–2019).

Licensed firearm dealers per 100,000 people*.

*Dealers and pawnbrokers in firearms other than destructive devices (includes gunsmiths).

Firearm-related homicides.

per 100,000 people (2001–2019).

Licensed firearm dealers per 100,000 people*.

*Dealers and pawnbrokers in firearms other than destructive devices (includes gunsmiths).

Firearm-related homicides per 100,000 people (2001–2019).

Licensed firearm dealers per 100,000 people*.

*Dealers and pawnbrokers in firearms other than destructive devices (includes gunsmiths).

Firearm-related homicides per 100,000 people (2001–2019).

Licensed firearm dealers per 100,000 people*.

*Dealers and pawnbrokers in firearms other than destructive devices (includes gunsmiths).

Firearm-related homicides per 100,000 people (2001–2019).

Licensed firearm dealers per 100,000 people*.

*Dealers and pawnbrokers in firearms other than destructive devices (includes gunsmiths).

It logged 90 homicides in 2021, its worst-ever tally.

“We have an obligation to keep people safe on a day-to-day basis,” says Ted Wheeler, the city’s mayor.

In 2020, after the police murder of George Floyd ignited the largest national racial-justice protests since the Civil Rights movement – including months of demonstrations in Portland’s central square – the city cut its police budget by US$15-million.

It has put US$5.2-million more into the police budget.

“The short-term problem has been a lack of resources and personnel,” says Sergeant Kevin Allen, a police spokesman, who cited a decision in 2020 to disband a specialized gun violence team.

He says people “are much more emboldened to carry guns.

They know it’s less likely they’re going to get stopped.”.

Lamar Winston, who runs an inner-city basketball program, says the lack of law enforcement has seen people taking matters into their own hands.

So it’s every man for themselves,” he says.

In Chicago, there is scant evidence that simply flooding the streets with police is going to solve anything.

In 2021, Chicago had 797 homicides, compared with 485 in New York City, which has more than three times the population.

Toronto, which is slightly more populous than Chicago, had 404 total shootings in 2021

We’ve already tried that,” says Curtis Amir Toler, director of outreach at Chicago Create Real Economic Destiny (CRED), a group working to end gun violence by helping men in marginalized communities find work in the legal economy.

A community member watches police at the scene of a deadly shooting in Chicago this past Dec.

Other people have spent years going to school for this.

It makes no sense,” he says.

Shutting down schools, recreation activities and anti-violence programs caused at-risk youth to get involved with gangs, he says.

But he argues the necessary social spending shouldn’t be taken out of the police budget.

“One of the richest cities in the richest country in the world is being told ‘You have to choose between safety and jobs,’ and I beg to differ that that’s a choice that has to be made,” he says.

“If you pull the police out now, there’s going to be bloodshed, and who’s going to suffer from that.

It’s going to be people living in these Black and brown communities.”.

Shani Buggs, a gun violence expert at the University of California Davis, says researchers are still gathering data and have not reached definitive conclusions explaining the spike in violence these past two years.

Buggs says, is likely a combination of police holding back and an increased mistrust of officers by communities subject to brutality.

We have also seen evidence that when these incidents happen, police engage the community less.

If people believe there is no accountability for what’s being done to them and their families, people will take matters into their own hands,” she says.

“High rates of police aren’t necessarily stopping the violence,” she says.

It’s dangerous out there,” says Mr. Toler, the anti-violence outreach worker, says guns are far more ubiquitous than when he was leading a street gang decades ago

“We’re seeing guns and ammunition that I haven’t seen in my lifetime,” he says at a Chicago CRED outreach centre in a strip plaza on the South Side

Some guys have never seen the skyline downtown,” says Terrance Henderson, a 38-year-old Chicago CRED outreach worker

Marshall, who associated with Chicago gangs as a teen, was ultimately caught with his gun by police

While serving a sentence of house arrest last year, he joined READI Chicago, a program that provides a mix of cognitive behavioural therapy and job training for people trying to escape violence

“We need to be able to have more staff, to be more in the community to get people out,” says Toronto Brooks, 56, a READI outreach worker

The sense of anger is palpable, says Arthur Hayes Jr., a Portland gang member who now eschews violence

We’re not fighting,” he says

“Many people are having mental-health crises,” he says

Answers have been similarly elusive in the shooting death of Miles Thompson, the 18-year-old killed in Chicago

But from her work with disadvantaged young people

And reaching people like them is exactly what she aims to do through her work at Thrive Chicago

It takes resources and patience, she says, but the only way out of this epidemic of violence is fixing the problems that cause people to take up arms in the first place

“As a nation, we have to understand that we’re going to pay for it one way or the other

Either we’re going to invest on the front end, or we’re going to pay on the back end,” she says

MURAT YÜKSELIR / THE GLOBE AND MAIL, SOURCE: CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION; BUREAU OF ALCOHOL TOBACCO FIREARMS AND EXPLOSIVES; U.S.

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