Acronym Required

The NIH narrowed an AIDS vaccine trial planned for U.S. testing. The trial, called Partnership for AIDS Vaccine Evaluation (PAVE 100) will be pared down to focus on the question of whether the vaccine lowers amount of HIV virus in the blood of those who are subsequently infected after vaccination. Scientists questioned the sense of moving forward with this larger trial last year in light of the failure of the multi-country Merck vaccine trials, as we commented in "New Directions for AIDS Research Funding".

In other AIDS research news,Weijing He and a team of colleagues in the US and UK found that a protein called DARC (Duffy antigen receptor for chemokines), that makes some African people resistant to malaria may influence HIV infections and AIDS outcomes. The small study published by Cell Host & Microbes shows that the existence of certain DARC mutations enables resistance to some malaria parasites -- though not Plasmodium falciparum, the most prevalent and deadly parasite.

The DARC mutation that prevents infection by some malaria parasites also seems to influence how successfully HIV invades and attacks the immune system. DARC codes a receptor on the surface of red blood cells that binds or tethers the HIV virus. The researchers found that a particular mutation of DARC increases the odds of acquiring HIV-1.

However the mutation also seems to increase the DARC protein's interactions with chemokines. Chemokines are proteins in the immune system that trigger inflammation, and they interact with HIV virus. Researchers have shown that the DARC protein acts by scavenging, retention, or transporting chemokines, and mutated DARC protein seems to lower levels of chemokines. In this study, once infected, people with the mutated DARC lived 2 years longer than those with the normal copy of the protein. While the study helps pave an outline of these interactions the authors predict (with understatement) that future research will show "the net effect of the relationship between DARC and chemokines on HIV disease in vivo is likely to be much more complex."

Mitigation, then Warrior Safety

In Whales In a Time of War, we reported that Judge Andrew Kleinfeld of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals noted in a 2-1 ruling allowing the Navy to continue sonar training in whale breeding grounds: "the safety of the whales must be weighed, and so must the safety of our warriors. And of our country."

The judge looked to the president for direction on the fate of the whales and framed his decision as one of national security, saying: "we customarily give considerable deference to the executive branch's judgment regarding foreign policy and national defense."

Mid-frequency sonar testing causes whale strandings and deaths that have been documented in North Carolina (2005); Haro Strait off the coast of Washington State (2003); the Canary Islands (2004, 2002, 1989, 1986, 1985); Madeira (2000); the U.S. Virgin Islands (1999, 1998); Greece (1996), and the Bahamas (2000). At one time the Navy took precautions to prevent unnecessary damage to the whales without neglecting the excellent testing and training of sonar that the US national defense demands, however the Navy's previous caution has lapsed according to environmental agencies.

The Natural Resource Defense Council (NRDC) and several other groups sued the Navy back in 2005, requesting the mitigatory action to spare marine mammals that get disoriented, stranded, or killed following sonar exposure. The August 2007 decision was just one in a long back and forth negotiation between the courts, environmental groups, and the Navy. Here's some (not all) of the outcomes:

• August, 2007: U.S. District Judge Florence-Marie Cooper orders a temporary injunction that bans all training exercises off Southern California waters saying that there was "'near certainty"' that "8,000 whales or dolphins potentially experiencing temporary hearing loss and an estimated 466 cases of permanent injury to whales."
• August 31, 2007, U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals invokes national security and says the Navy can go ahead with testing.
• November 13, 2007: A different 9th Circuit Court Appeals panel says that the Navy can continue exercises scheduled until November 22, but then must resume mitigation efforts like staying a certain distance from shore and posting scouts on deck during exercises to try to prevent harm to marine life.

Emergencies, then Preventing Suicide Pacts

By January, 2008, Judge Cooper had thoroughly reviewed the Navy's records and science documents, found that the Navy's mitigation efforts were "grossly inadequate to protect marine mammals from debilitating levels of sonar exposure". The Navy's sonar testing would leave 30 species of marine mammals at risk including 5 species of endangered whales. The Navy's research indicated that the testing could harm over thousands of animals, however they didn't do conduct an environmental impact statement indicated by existing law.

• January, 2008. The judge issues a more detailed order that allows the Navy to continue the sonar testing while taking precautions to protect endangered marine animals.
• January 14, 2008: The district court denies a Navy stay application.
• January 15, 2008: George Bush grants the Navy two waivers to conduct it's sonar testing under Coastal Zone Management Act (CZMA), and and the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) in an effort to sidestep the court's findings, claiming national security.
• January 17, 2008: Judge Cooper issues a partial stay of her orders that keeps some of the previous mitigation measures intact, but allows the Navy to use sonar when marine animals even if animals were detected within 2,000 meters of the sonar source.
• February 29, 2008: Court follows up on the order allowing the Navy to continue testing but with mitigation measures to protect whales.
• April, 2008: Navy petitions the Supreme court to review the lower court's decision citing emergency national security.

Despite accommodation by the lower court for the Navy's readiness mandate, the Navy disagrees that its previous mitigation efforts need to be continued. Environmental regulations should not be a "suicide pact", said the Bush administration. In a decision last month, the Supreme Court decided to hear Winter v. Natural Resources Defense Council in the next session.

Court Declares Clean Air Interstate Rule (CAIR) Not Patchwork Enough

Back in December, 2007, the EPA denied California the waiver the state requested under the Clean Air Act (CAA). The state wanted to set its own tougher emissions standards, which at least 18 other states would have adopted. However the auto and energy industries lobbied successfully against the waiver to an administration as dedicated as they were to denying global warming. EPA administrator Stephen Johnson defended the denial, saying the waiver would have created a "patchwork quilt" of regulation.

At the time, Bush had just signed the new Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) mileage standards passed by Congress under the National Highway Transportation Safety Act, and he defended the EPA's denial, saying: "Director Johnson made a decision based upon the fact that we passed a piece of legislation that enables us to have a national strategy, which is the -- increasing CAFE standards..."

Last week, the administration might have had another opportunity to point to the success of its own brand of environment legislation, while once again shooting down the Clean Air Act. The EPA announced its decision to ignore the Supreme Court order in Massachusetts v. EPA to regulate greenhouse gases and instead decided to issue an Advance Notice of Public Rulemaking (ANPR)¹. But unlike the CAFE standards which Congress passed and Bush signed into law, the Bush administration's Clean Air Interstate Rule (CAIR) aimed at regulating sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides from stationary polluters was challenged by the state of North Carolina and rejected by a three judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals District of Columbia Circuit.

CAIR was a cap and trade system for large stationary polluters in the framework of Bush's "Clear Skies". It required 28 eastern states to reduce sulfur dioxide (SO2) and nitrogen oxide (NO_x) emissions (not carbon) that contribute to air pollution. The D.C. court disputed the EPA's regional plan: "The EPA's approach, region-wide caps with no state-specific quantitative contribution determinations or emissions requirements, is fundamentally flawed....the trading program is unlawful, because it does not connect states' emissions reductions to any measure of their own significant contributions."

Environmental groups thought it ironic that the conservative court overturned what some considered the best-of conservative Bush legislation on greenhouse gases.Although attempts to project the exact effects of CAIR fell short of providing a thorough understanding of outcomes and overall there was very little reaction from either science and environmental groups, almost everyone, including utility companies, agreed that effort was worthy. The projected benefits to health and air quality under CAIR would have improved acid rain and air quality on the eastern seaboard. According to the EPA CAIR would reduce SO₂ emissions by over 70% and NO_x emissions by over 60% from 2003 levels.

While people were taken aback that the court struck down CAIR in its entirety, no one was surprised that the EPA's Stephen Johnson announced the Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPR) instead of working to create new Clean Air Act regulation. He had responded to Representative Waxman (D-CA) several months ago with his intention, as we wrote in "The EPA: Mulish Days, Staring out to Pasture".

At that time, many saw the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), especially the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) headed by Susan Dudley, as in the "catbird seat" over federal regulation as Public Citizen put it, and therefore overlord of the EPA's actions. People weren't sure that "Director Johnson" really had too much choice in the issue. Susan Dudley had a long history in conservative think tanks of advocating the types of cost benefit analyses that the Bush administration sought to impose, as we described in "EPA, OMB and OIRA: The Biggest Kid on the Block is Back". The OIRA footprint was evident under the Bush administration, especially in the EPA's lack of action on the environment.

When the EPA released its several hundred page document last week, it of course included a statement from the OIRA head Susan Dudley, who rejected the EPA's staff's recommendations, writing: "the [EPA] draft cannot be considered Administration policy or representative of the views of the Administration", but then magnanimously added that given the Supreme Court ruling the EPA could go ahead and seek public comment.

Considering the previous repudiation of the OMB/OIRA from critics who called the agency on its interference with the EPA's mandate to protect clean air,², it's not surprising that the OMB recruited additional support from the secretaries of Agriculture, Commerce, Transportation, and Energy. They too denounced the EPA draft in 75 pages of testimony, saying:

1. The Clean Air Act (CAA) is "fundamentally ill-suited to the effective regulation of GHG emissions" because the US cannot control emissions from other countries, so state or regional reductions could be "replaced with emissions increases elsewhere"
2. CAA would hurt international competitiveness
3. The EPA draft "suggests that regulating GHGs under the Clean Air Act would be workable. We disagree. The draft offers a number of legal constructs to support its position but there is no certainty of how those theories will work out in actuality, or whether they would be unheld by the courts."

The Secretaries cited the "burdens, difficulties, and costs, and likely limited benefits" of CAA. Of course this is familiar Bush rhetoric, delivered with orchestral cohesion. However if the Clean Air Act is ill-suited for the task, shouldn't the reasons be grounded in fact rather than fear laden claptrap?

The Wall Street Journal described Johnson as being stuck in between his staff and the White House, and as if to illustrate the dysfunction, Johnson disagreed with the conclusions of his staff, calling CAA "ill-suited for the task of regulating global greenhouse gases."

The Administration's Gut

The document was a product of "career EPA's" critics said, with the hint of a sneer they might use for "teacher's unions". Piling on the hyperbole, William Kovacs, vice president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Washington told the Wall Street Journal "This is a classic example of EPA staff saying we can manage the economy of the United States better than the president." (WSJ July 11, 2008) (To which some economists gasped -- Aha, the president's running the economy?)

The Bush administration has led a sustained attack on the Clean Air Act and the EPA. Last fall Bush publicly conflated the Clean Air Act emissions standards with CAFE standards, acting as though they were the same thing. But they're not. The NHTSA in the Department of Transportation (DOT) sets gas mileage standards through (CAFE). The energy bill that Congress passed and Bush signed (H.R. 6) last December improves long term mileage standards (barely).

The EPA regulates carbon emissions that contribute to global warming, through the Clean Air Act. Several industries argue that the EPA should not regulate emissions because of "regulatory overlap" between the NHTSA and EPA, but the Supreme Court rejected that argument in Massachusetts v. EPA. Said the court, the EPA "has been charged with protecting the publics 'health' and 'welfare'", whereas "DOT sets mileage standards".

The legislative goal of CAA was to protect considerations about healthy air and water from being corrupted by private interests and business. Its this goal that industries resent. As we described in previous posts, the petroleum and auto industries petitioned the EPA and the Bush administration to deny the California waiver. Industries argued that the EPA should adopt the notion of "maximum feasibility", and "set standards that take account of the limits on the investment capabilities and product cycles of the industry, just as NHTSA does...", as Chrysler put it in a memo last year.

One-Two Punch

There are legitimate criticisms of Clean Air Act, however the auto industry simply wants to continue its 30 year run of little to no regulation, despite the evidence that this damages health, the environment and the auto industry. The Bush administration now seems more brazen about criticizing the EPA document directly. Bush chose the familiar war theme when he called the EPA outline a "'command-and-control' regime that would regulate virtually every aspect of American life from cars to factories, hotels and lawnmowers". "Command and control" is a conservative slur you run across scanning the conservative op-eds, as in "command and control communism", "command and control socialism", and "enemy of the free-market".

The push by the OIRA, the administration, industry, and much of congress for measures that considers projected costs to industry when determining whether or not to regulate of course has valid points, but is subject to abuse. If the cost to industry is used to determine whether industry should clean up the mess it makes of air and water, then why shouldn't industry make a really BIG mess and what incentive is there to accurately estimate either costs or benefits?

An example of how costs and benefits can be manipulated is n the latest report from the EPA on CAA. The Los Angeles Times reported that the benefits section of the current draft was "sharply revised" from a May draft that calculated savings to consumers of up to $2 trillion dollars.

"$2 trillion in savings to consumers at the gas pump and elsewhere could be achieved if greenhouse gas regulations were implemented.. [In the current draft], that number was slashed to $830 billion, and the price of gas was calculated at $2 a gallon for the next 30 years.

According to the LA Times EPA press secretary Jonathan Schradar said "he did not know why the numbers had been changed". Or perhaps he knew why but didn't know how or who or when? An inherent danger of such analyses?

---------------------------------------------

¹ (ANPR) Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking: Regulating Greenhouse Gas Emissions under the Clean Air Act.

² Congressman Waxman's Committee of Oversight and Government Reform has a long running investigation of the OMB and EPA's actions on the environment/. He held the two agencies in contempt of court for refusing to release documents related to decisions about the ozone and the California waiver, to which President Bush claimed executive privilege.

The MPG Illusion -- Needing Math?

Now that gas is almost $5.00 per gallon many people seem to be more than a little worried, if not about global warming than simply about the price of gas. Of course some lobbyists and commentators continue their efforts to preserve status quo, whole hog energy use that exacerbates global warming. These efforts ultimately undermine independence from foreign oil and adaptation of measures that would stem to pace of global warming. In "Communicating Climate Change", last year I wrote:

"If we've moved beyond the climate change "debate", however, as I argue we have, we've only entered another stage. I'm not sure what to call it, but it if we appropriated something like the familiar five stages of dealing with catastrophe- denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance, then maybe people have moved on to some sort of denial/bargaining phase. People get ideas about how we can buy our way out, with some carbon credits, some alternative energy, or some prizes. Again, this is procrastination. If buying our way out doesn't work, at least we've bought some time."

Science published an article the other day in their Policy Forum section from a couple of Duke business professors. "The MPG Illusion" (June 20th) argued that people misunderstand the miles per gallon (mpg) standard. The authors ask the question, if you had a choice of upgrading one of two cars with a car with a better MPG rating which would you replace? Unlike Europe, where the mileage standard is expressed in liters per 100 kilometer, in the US, miles per gallon (mpg) refers to the distance a gallon of gas will achieve in a vehicle: 1000 gallons per 10,000 miles equals 10mpg. Not very many people understand that, according to their poll.

Increases in mileage are calculated so that 30% better gas mileage means 23% less gas used. 30% greater "mpg" means greater distance per gallon of gas, instead of traveling 100 miles you would now be able to travel 130 miles, so 100%/1.3 = 76.9, 23% less fuel. Most people assume the relationship between miles driven and gas consumed is linear, but its actually curvilinear. From there, the authors argue that small upgrades, say from a "10 mpg" rated car to a "20 mpg" car, may save the consumer more on gas than upgrading from 25mpg to 50mpg.

Their goal was to see whether people ranked choices in mathematically correct ways and so they structured their question carefully. But if their point is to illustrate that the standard is deceiving, as they say in the video, why do they need to publish an article in Science, and perambulate through all the math and graphs?

Promoting a clearer standard isn't their only goal. They open their Science piece criticizing a NYT columnist who questioned the sense of giving an IRS hybrid car tax break to people who buy "a hybrid Dodge Durango that gets 14 miles per gallon instead of 12 thanks to its second, electric power source."

But doesn't the NYT author have a point? Why would the government offer a credit? The authors acknowledge this: "The basic argument is correct: The environment would benefit most if all consumers purchased highly efficient cars that get 40 MPG, not 14, and incentives should be tied to achieving such efficiency." This hat tip to clear thinking is only 27 words of their Science article, versus 1708 words explaining calculations that in effect justify why upgrading from a 1978 Cadillac or your grandpa's farm tractor to an SUV is a choice that consumers should feel good about. While the question is carefully constructed around consumer choices about two cars driven equally and yields a conclusion showing that consumers don't understand mpg math, why this question?

In effect, the authors' piece would be brilliant in a Dodge Durango or Ford ad to boost those double digit sales drops. But back to the New York Times article. Why wouldn't a person upgrade from a 10mpg car to a 50mpg car? A 10 mpg car would use 1000 gallons per 10,000 miles, and a 50mpg would use 200 gallons per 10,000 miles. 800 fewer gallons of gas. That much less pollution. $5,000 of gas, versus $1,000. Why can't we shoot for that?

Consumers are making exactly these choices. Ford sold 55% fewer SUV's last month, and 40% fewer pick-ups then in the previous year. In our last post we quoted from the NYT article, America, Asleep at the Spigot", in which Senator Dingell (R-MI), told the NYT" "He likes it sitting in his driveway, he likes it big, he likes it safe". It seems that "He" is changing "His" mind about "Big" and "Safe", when faced with $150 per fill-up. "He" is choosing a Prius instead of a pick-up.

Global Warming: Too Much Evidence

There's a direct correlation between energy cost and use, just as there's a direct correlation between increased cigarette taxes, and decreased smoking. Lobbyists routinely argue the opposite in order to justify low taxes and minimal regulation. But the fact that car owners are switching to more efficient cars is a market coup for global warming as well as free-market advocates. This should please all of us who support liberal economic policies, as well as "let the market" commentators. But paradoxically, some of columnists are still stuck with in their delusional refrains from 2005.

A Wall Street Journal blogger now claims there's too much evidence on global warming, so much that it's not believable (WSJ July 1, 2008, "Global Warming as Mass Neurosis"). "What isn't evidence of global warming?" he asks. My favorite! For years it was, "there is not enough evidence". And now, simply invert the sentence to arrive at your next phase of denial. Last year when you pulled his string he said "Not Enough Evidence!!!" and alarms rang -- Whooop! Whooop! Whooop! This year they retooled, so yank the cord to hear, "Too Much Evidence!!! Whooop! Whooop! Whooop! American Girl could immortalize his likeness as the Denier Doll from the historical series "When Carbon was King" or "When the Air was Breathable". Of course next he instructs: "[s]o let's stop fussing about the interpretation of ice core samples from the South Pole". He will no doubt shuffle around in these arguments until the water's licking up around his ankles.

He insists that global warming is either a socialist, religious, or psychological affront to our way of life by those who believe that prosperity is corrupt. Last year we wrote in "Climate Change: Fueling the "Debate", "if you're crazy-dizzy snapping your head around to follow first the one side, than the other, simply follow the money for the truth." Perhaps our columnist hasn't invested in any emerging energy markets.

Sanity and Samsø

As last year and the year before, available at our fingertips, along with the woulda-coulda-shoulda crowd and the bloviators, is the full range of serious and interesting discussions. Consumers are making changes around global warming not only by buying Priuses, but by using alternative energy sources or cutting back their energy use.

In the New Yorker this month, Elizabeth Kobert wrote a great article called "The Island in The Wind". The first part of the article was about the residents of Samsø an island in Denmark that progressed from consuming enough oil and electricity to provide energy for 4,300 people, to generating enough renewable energy through wind turbines and other sources to produce energy for the whole island and sell some back to the grid. The island accomplished this with a combination of initiative, work, leadership and community investment, but with no initial motivating monetary reward.

While generating their own energy however, the islanders didn't reduce their consumption. For that part of the story Kolbert goes to Switzerland, where the 2,000-Watt Society aims to motivate people to reduce energy consumption to 2,000 Watts per person with only 500 Watts consumed from non-renewable sources. Scandinavians consume 6,000 Watts per year per person, and US citizens consume ~15,000 Watts per year per person, so the 2,000 Watt goal gives some populations room to grow while others should strive to cut back on energy use.

When we wrote "Sea Change or Littoral Disaster" in 2006 it seemed like we'd never turn a corner. We wrote "We need no more evidence. We have decades of studies indicating that our lives will change, but its easier to wait for another headline and hope a miracle intervenes, if nothing else than in the guise of government action." Times are decidedly more optimistic. Of course there the same gradient of action, inaction, denial, and procrastination, but when I reflect on the general attitudes of the past couple of years I'm amazed at all the change happening in 2008.

Nature Loves Our Cars, Really

In April of 2007, Acronym Required wrote satirically in "Cars: Buying Cognitive Dissonance" about US drivers in denial. While headlines blared warnings on climate change and the reality of driving was smog filled lanes of traffic jams, automobile ads featured cars climbing to the tops of unpolluted mountains, amidst pristine forests and zooming past glaciers. We commented on the delusional love affair with cars, and the spectacle of all those slick, shiny, plasticy, carbon emitting SUVs posed ironically in not yet ruined landscapes:

Today, more so than last decade or the decade before that, we have fires in California, hot and erratic weather predictions, floods in the midwest, suffocating summer heat, and brutal winters. As they did twenty years ago, scientists make hand-wringing pleas to an only slightly less impassive Congress. Regardless of reality, given Americans gluttonous devotion to Automobile, you'd still expect to see people throttling their SUV's with calvalier glee. Except now gas is $5.00 per gallon ( its $4.75, but it will be there as soon as I publish this) and consumers are trading their SUVs in for Priuses. Times are changing.

Leaders "Furious with Detroit"

While consumers respond to the change, there are questions about why recognition of the impending climate change and an effort to curb carbon emissions took so long. Last Sunday, the New York Times offered up quotes from senators who say we should have acted earlier in paper's interesting article America, Asleep at the Spigot". Pete V. Domenici (R-NM) the ranking Republican member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, who had in recent years rather unsuccessfully encouraged Congress to increase CAFE standards said: "It was a bipartisan failure to act." A long term failure to act. Former Sierra Club lobbyist Dan Becker recalled being shocked to see "Mr. Levin and Mr. Helms, diametrically opposed on most issues, walk amiably together onto the Senate floor to cast their votes, on a CAFE standards bill in 1990. 'This wasn't East-West, right-left, or North-South,' he says. 'But had we passed that bill, we'd be using three million barrels less oil a day now.'"

For every member of Congress who tried to pass legislation on emissions in the 1990's, or who like Domenici started in 2005 to put effort into gathering support for CAFE standards, many others have not even now come to their senses. Congress is less remorseful about missed opportunities to avert the current energy situation as righteously indignant, "furious with Detroit for fighting so hard".

This is exactly what I would hope for from the leaders I elect. When the repercussions of their failures to act on behalf of their constituents come to light, the least they can do is cast around quickly for someone else to blame. However it's not Detroit's fault for aggressively seeking profit, that's their job That's the obligation of the automakers to their shareholders. It's is the legislature's job to balance the competing ambitions of their constituents, corporations and individuals.

Blaming Detroit, Blaming Consumers

If blaming the corporations gets too close for comfort, as a senator or congressman of course you can always blame the consumer. After the credit crisis, pundits and financial leaders blamed consumers for the country's economic woes. They scolded consumers for spending too much on their credit cards and called for better consumer training, but said nothing about the Fed's out of control spending, nothing about regulation cuts, nothing about Bush's plea to keep shopping right after 9/11. Similarly, Senator Representative John D. Dingell, who has long defended the auto industry for his state and who now burnishes his environmental credentials by taking on bisphenol-A, blames the American consumer: "He likes it sitting in his driveway, he likes it big, he likes it safe", he told NYT. Which, coincidentally, is also what the lobbyists insist.

This is one great thing about representative government. Representatives can ultimately blame the people or, more accurately, people's wanton wims. But given the number of Priuses and Minis that now inhabit our streets, you would never believe "he likes it big". Ford sold 55% fewer SUV's last month, and 40% fewer pick-ups then in the previous year.

As last year and the year before, available at our fingertips, along with the woulda-coulda-shoulda crowd, is the full range of serious and interesting discussions from dedicated representatives. Bill Moyers talked to Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) last week about her efforts on the cap and trade initiative.

Boxer took over as Chair of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee at mid-term election, led the charge on the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) had chaired the committee, and on his watch he never had any intention of leading the country away from oil consumption. Inhofe famously said: "Could it be that man-made global warming is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people? I believe it is." He brought his preposterous attitudes to the committee and tried to prevent Al Gore from testifying. Boxer needed to basically wrest control of the gavel from him: "you're not making the rules" she told him. As she explained to Moyers "times have changed...the environment is back front and center"

Boxer's efforts were not enough this time, because Republicans mounted a filibuster and defeated the Climate Initiative Act. Again, a bi-partisan failure to act. The effort was viewed in optimistic terms by Boxer and others despite the bill's ultimate defeat. She called it a milestone towards charging for carbon emissions and weaning off foreign oil. "Change is coming. We're going to fix this problem because we have to."

Making Grad Work Easier

In "The Companions of Mad Cows" a couple of years ago we mentioned that veterinarians in Alabama had diagnosed mad-cow disease, bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) in a downer cow. According to the Wall Street Journal article, officials had buried the cow on a farm in Alabama, but refused to divulge where. They were also searching for the bovine's "companions", to assure the disease was confined to one cow and hadn't been contracted through feed eaten by many cows. (Scientists don't think BSE is transmissible from cow to cow.) We wrote in that post: "we suspect that perhaps someday when the BSE stricken cow has long since been forgotten and decayed, some inquiring grad student will be stunned by the number of prions they unearth in a random soil sample of the unidentified burial site."

Now, a recent study indicates that prions could be made more infectious via certain soils. From the University of Wisconsin, Madison, Christopher Johnson et al. tested prions' ability to bind to different minerals that could then be orally transmitted to grazing animals. They published their results in PLoS Pathogens. According to the study, transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSEs), (which include BSE, scrapie in sheep, and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, and chronic wasting disease) not only survive in some soils, but because prions selectively bind to certain minerals, clays containing these minerals might be more infectious.

Researchers in another study found that prions remain in biowaste after sewage treatment. Glen T. Hinckley and fellow scientists at University of Wisconsin published research in ASAP Environmental Science and Technology (via Nature News) showing that prions survive activated sludge treatment and anaerobic sludge digestion that's used to degrade waste in waste water treatment plants.

Lurking on Your Portabellos?

Nature News suggested forebodingly that we should assume prions are in biosolids leftover from wastewater treatment, and since "biosolids are often used as crop fertilizer, this raises the prospect of small amounts of prions being present on the surfaces of the crop plants - and without careful washing, they could therefore be ingested when the food is consumed." (Taken at face value this is bad and good. Bad for obvious reasons. But think how much less work grad students would have to do in gathering their specimens? -- straight from the dining hall salad bar to the bench.)

But really? Prions on your crudités? So far prions have not been found in wastewater, only in biosolids, and aside from the current research they haven't ever been found in routine tests -- although the authors of the wastewater paper point out that the the tests aren't sensitive enough to detect them. Prions would occur at very low levels since they are rarely found in humans, so the possibility that they would somehow end up on salad is not impossible, but according to an EPA scientist interviewed by New Scientist is quite remote. She added that alkaline treatment used by some treatment plants, though not the Madison one, would deactivate the prions.

Prions are know to be resilient to conditions that would kill viruses and bacteria, but studies have also shown prions sensitive to extremes in PH. For instance researchers found that prions that mice were less susceptible to prions than cows, because mice digestive systems contain greater amounts of hydrochloric acid. Authors of the first paper above hypothesize that when prions attach to minerals in soil this might protect them from acid and explain their enhanced ability to infect the host.

Democracy is Like an Orchid, a Tree

A month ago in an interview with Charlie Rose, George Will said he opposed McCain-Feingold, the bipartisan campaign finance bill, because the bill essentially "empowers the government" to "limit [aspects of] political speech", making it he said, "probably the most dangerous [legislation] since the fugitive slave act". To which we say: Why didn't we ratify his version of the First Amendment long ago? Freedom isn't freedom, liberty isn't liberty, money is freedom and money is liberty, therefore more money equals more freer speech? -- Of course.

Anyone can see the twisted logic of the argument, but Will had talking points to deliver, and he hit them with authority, bullishly marketing a Bill of Goods in place of the Bill of Rights. However he was much more reticent discussing his prior policy recommendations. When Rose asked Will about his lack of discussion of Iraq in his new book, he stared him down as if -- "Iraq is dead to me". He now considers "nation-building as oxymoronic a phrase as orchid-building".

This is a change, since Will had long agitated for the war. In 1991 he wrote "a sensible war aim is a new regime in Iraq"¹. He consistency taunted Clinton's hesitancy for military engagement, charging: "Getting a democracy to do what does not come naturally requires leadership. To get that for the defense of this democracy, a different commander in chief is required." ² When Bush got into office his drumbeat continued in columns penned under headlines like this one in August, 2002: "Iraq attack would nudge Mideast toward democracy"³.

He now explains his changed opinion on Iraq as his "quickened sense" of the "brute inertias in the world rooted in religion and ethnicity". Like orchids, he noted, democracies are "not built they're a product of a long complicated organic evolution". After writing years of columns under titles like "The Politics of Manliness", after relentlessly chastising Democrats for their "feminization of politics", characterized he says, quoting Carnes Lord of the Naval War College, by "'competitiveness, aggression or, for that matter, the ability to command'", his startling summons to visualize democracy as "orchids" is more than a bowtie's worth of change. As I dutifully visualized orchids and recalled their cultivated history, I struggled with the comparison.

We can test his analogy, though. Democracy is to Orchid, as Marriage is to....Old Man of the Mountain? No. Hmmm...Democracy is to Orchid, as Raising Children is to...Poodles? I was still pondering these comparisons when I happened to be listening to another Charlie Rose interview. Talking about his new book, "Democracy's Good Name", John Hopkins professor Michael Mandelbaum declared to my surprise that "democracy is not like a pizza" (it cannot simply be delivered), it's "more like a tree". Now I was really confused.

Democracy is Like Rising Rafts, and Tides, and Botany

Wrapping my mind around pizzas and orchids and trees then comparing and contrasting them to democracy proved taxing, so I searched back in history to acquire more perspective. Jimmy Carter once said: "The experience of democracy is like the experience of life itself -- always changing, infinite in its variety, sometimes turbulent and all the more valuable for having been tested by adversity." This seems like a more apt analogy, if more nuanced and difficult to grasp then trees and flowers.

Democracy was more described less tactilely in the past. We know that Lincoln stuck close to the Greek roots of the word democracy, demos kratia, for his oft quoted description of democracy as "of the people, by the people, and for the people". But it seems that people often yearn for something more tangible. As democracy has spread more people feel more free to conceptualize in their own terms. There are the water analogies:

• "Democracy is like a rising tide; it only ebbs to flood back with greater force, and soon one sees that for all its fluctuation it is always gaining ground." (Alexis de Tocqueville)
• "Democracy is like a raft. You never sink, but, damn it, your feet are always in the water." (Fisher Ames)

There are of course other botany analogies. Some have said democracy is "like a reed", "like a flower in the desert", "like a seed", "like a delicate flower", or like a tree and/or its components. Ralph Nader said: "Democracy is like a tree; the people are the roots and the trunk, the politicians are like the branches and the twigs."

Also in the plant theme, Dr. Shirin Ebadi, the 2003 recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, said in comments to the Carnegie Council, about the publication of her book: "Iran Awakening: A Memoir of Revolution and Hope":

"For me, democracy is like a flower. This is a flower that can flourish and bloom only in favorable circumstances, where you have calm, you have peace, where you can give plenty of water and nourishment and sunlight to this flower. Obviously, if you have torrents pouring down on the flower from the sky, that flower cannot bloom. This is precisely the reason why we are opposed to any kind of military attack."

Democracy is Like Riding a Bike, Like Motherhood, Like Blowing Your Nose

Alternative definitions for democracy are frequently hatched in the context of Iran and Iraq. Rumsfeld once told the French that democracy in Iraq was like teaching a kid how to "ride a bike". Like riding a bike, he said, you might at first need the trainer to hang on to the bike with four fingers, then three fingers. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice described the Middle East as going through "birth pangs". However, H.D.S. Greenway warned in the Boston Globe:

"Democracy is like motherhood: well worth supporting. But democracy, like motherhood, should not arrive in the Middle East as a result of an armed invasion and soldiers breaking down the door in the middle of the night, Fallujah-style."

Back in 2004 the blog Flavog had a more satirical take, in an "interview" with the "interim Prime Minister" of Iraq: "'....Fafnir, democracy is like a horse, or a beautiful woman. It is a fine thing to see, and everyone admires it, but in order to get it to behave sometimes you must beat it and torture it and shock its gentals.'"[sic]

Many, like George Will, proselytized the government's democratic intentions for the US invasion, but later became doubtful. However some never trusted the Bush administrations' inclination or their entreaties to "bring democracy to Iraq", even if those reasons had been true. G.K. Chesterton once wrote "Democracy is like blowing your nose. You may not do it well, but it's something you ought to do yourself."

Democracy is Like A Stovkel, A Three Legged Stool, Marketing, A Rolls Royce...Rolls Royce? What!?

While people make easy comparisons of democracy to plants and natural elements, others don't hesitate to compare democracy to inanimate objects -- drugs, a poem, a forum, a gate, or entwine it with capitalism. Many quote theologian Michael Novak, who said: "...liberal democracy is like a three-legged stool. Political freedom is the first leg, economic freedom the second, and moral responsibility the third. Weaken any leg, and the stool topples." Citizens of neoliberal inclination or persuaded by "The Lexus and the Olive Tree" choose stronger commercial comparisons. Democracy is "like a high quality wine", they say, "a house", or a "Rolls-Royce".

Hernando De Soto would superimpose capitalism smack on top democracy, as he put it: "[D]emocracy is like a constant marketing program, it allows you to get the feedback and knowing that you take out a product that is useful to everybody." In his view democracy as more useful for capitalism than for its appeals to freedom and equality.

If democracy confuses people, it's clear that they define it in their own terms. They're no more shy about saying democracy is like a stokvel, then they are saying that bad democracy is like a bad toupe.

But no wonder democracy is tough to adopt when no one can agree whether it looks like a stream or a soft drink, a bank, a TV dinner. a giant Redwood tree or Niagara Falls. Democracy is not obvious, cannot be shrunk down to a convenient tagline, cannot be flashed on the screen, cannot be turned into technology, has no clear visible outline, and is never convenient.

Democracy is Sovereignty of the People, Human Rights, Equality, Due Process, Pluralism Tolerance, Pragmatism, Cooperation, and Compromise

Can George Will et al. convince us that like the air and the sea and the forests, we should monetize freedom, democracy? Likewise in De Soto's definition he asks us to sidle towards an interpretation that libertarians like George Will advocate. They would prefer the government institutions that help preserve our freedom be "drown in the bathtub" as Grover Norquist put it, so we can "free the market" and make it king -- or dictator.

However, unfettered capitalism, freeing the market, threatens to supplant the original intentions of democracy -- freeing the people. Lincoln defined democracy as "of the people, by the people, and for the people". Now people straining to make democracy and easy to grasp idea excise the "people" from it. Even those who see democracy threatened, like Mandelbaum, are tempted to simple comparisons: "oil is the enemy of democracy". While his point is easy to assimilate, can a noun either threaten or define democracy? Or is it the follies and sentiments of people that threaten democracy?The US Department of State reminds us in "Pillars of Democracy" that democracy is:

"sovereignty of the people, government based upon consent of the governed, majority rule, minority rights, guarantee of basic human rights, free and fair elections, equality before the law, due process of law, constitutional limits on government, social, economic, and political pluralism and values of tolerance, pragmatism, cooperation, and compromise."

People chuckled when, Erdogan, then mayor of Instanbul, now Prime Minister of Turkey famously said "Democracy is like a street car; you ride it as far as you need, and then you get off". Democracy often seems tentative at best, in China, in Russia, in Nepal, in Thailand, in Zimbabwe -- and is always an elusive goal that demands intention and vigilance. Fortunately Erogan's once cynical view doesn't always hold up to history, since Democracies continue to spring up and thrive throughout the world. In the end, perhaps democracy is like a chess game, a fight between ideologies. But in true democracy, constructed with a balance of powers in government and an attentive population, more people can play and win -- economically, politically and personally, even if we can't discern every Pareto efficiency of every freedom.

¹St. Petersburg Times, February, 1991
² Plain Dealer, June, 1996
³ Deseret News, August , 2002

Last year we wrote in "Green Spirit", about the wave of environmental sentiment sweeping the US. The New Yorker had captured the mood in a cartoon depicting one plant executive asking another whether they could dye the smoke from the stacks green.

The most unlikely corporations were hopping all over themselves to play green. BP had just launched two sites, The Green Curve, and A Little Better Gas Station, complete with games like "Gas Mania" and kid friendly distractions. The BP sites are no longer standalone so not quite so much fun, but have been incorporated into bp.com in all their original kelly green and neon yellow glory.

These sites come and go, and of course now other companies have launched a new crop of green spirit. First up is Chevron's www.willyoujoinus.com. "Will you join us" is a collaboration between The Economist, The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer on PBS, and the oil company. The site tells us that "the demand for energy becomes greater, and every day it becomes harder to find". Driving home the point, a global oil consumption ticker spins through millions of barrels consumed during your site visit. The homepage asks viewers to "join the discussion". I suppose it would be impertinent to ask them to put a profits ticker underneath the consumption ticker -- "finding energy" is research and capital intensive.

The current discussion topic is "Global Food Prices & Energy Supplies, Finding a Balance". Fortunately, it's not all gloom and doom, you can "Play Energyville" too.

WALLL-EEE

You'll be hearing squeals about Wall-E, the robot, all summer because it's charming. But while the robots can be engaging, cynical people made the movie Wall-E, I thought, as I watched the human-like characters. The flubbery-blubbery adult animations loll about their space station, moving about by pushing buttons on their giant motorized recliners with attached TVs. "Blue is the new red", they announce, changing their outfits in unison with a click of a button.

Earth is uninhabitable, so these "people" are confined to an enormous space station. Previous generations overwhelmed Earth with the detritus of consumer products, so back on their planet of origin, a lone robot branded "Wall-E" industriously compacts and arranges into tall neat piles the rubble that's the only thing remaining on the planet.

Up in space, contented to recline prone while motoring from nowhere to nowhere, the adults blink alert when abrupt change shakes their routine -- staring at TV. They're not going to waddle upright anytime soon in this dystopia, but once disrupted from their monotonous marbling, TV watching, liquid slurping existence, they're forced to adapt. "I didn't know we had a track" the teletubbie-looking beings exclaim, "I didn't know we had a pool", another says.

A Movie For All

The movie makes multiple appeals to different audiences. It appeals to environmentalists and those who think corporations are running amok. Then for the opposite interpretation libertarians say the relentless advertising in the space craft represents big government. Something for Everyone. That such conflicts coexist is not disconcerting, rather masterly and apropos. The movie's disparate themes fit the time. We are, after all a world of conflicting impulses, aware of nutrition but fat, worried about the environment but cavalier with garbage, safety conscious but reckless. We're tremendously cynical, but the less people beliEve it seems, the more talk-show hosts run segments titled "This I beliEve!"

At the end of the Bush II era we see politicians abruptly tacking from the very positions they took to garner favor in the president's administration. Bush staffers who haven't yet fled the ship sound the predictable rat-a-tat battle cries about Scot McClellan being "disloyal" -- despite his unwavering loyalty to the Bush legacy. How well Scot learned the necessity of knowing the supply and demand curves that support a dynamic personal brand. How easily the press-secretary joins the ranks of celebrities who famously ply the media's short attention span, who depend on botox and thick foundation to cover-up any true expression that might distract from their carefully crafted person-as-product placement. How ably he regards the camera while delivering a straight-faced market tested message of the moment, and how surely he will grab the gold ring (His book now sits on the NYT best seller list).

And so McClellan and McCain and Obama follow along in the Bush wake, tacking here, tch-tching there, many messages each day, carefully measured out, tested, and contradictory. It's a regatta of self-regarding personal loyalty just in time for summer. Now comes Wall-E the movie, with it's multiple personalities, so in sync.

A Kiddie Flick, A Chick Flick, and A Geek Flick Too

We happened to go to the early Evening show of Wall-E, forgetting that it would be a kids' bazaar. Of course then we listened to the same 3-4 year old childrens' commentary that we described a few years ago in "March On Penguins". The kids cried, laughed, and asked for explanations, which served to heighten our appreciation of the movie's different appeals. The adults (in two rows, bringing up the average age in the theater by 25 years or so) followed the adult themes and the subtle and unsubtle humor. To the 3 and 4 year olds, Wall-E probably looked like Saturday morning TV.

The movie favors robots over humans, and flips the more cautious 2001: A Space Odyssey" on its head. Wall-E celebrates technology not humans. In 2001 the humans, in the end, outwitted the computer gone amok. In Wall-E, select computers hold the wisdom of the world, while the humans have lost their senses. Some say the movie is a warning to us, that the message reviles consumerism.

As the movie celebrates technology though, it celebrates consumerism. It celebrates it through Eve, the slick shiny clean, blue-eyed robot-babe, with a quick trigger arm that smites perceived enemies with slick weaponry. Despite mechanical deftness, Eve is a machine both tender and wise. The movie celebrates consumerism through Wall-E, the completely resilient, unrealistic product that survives the catastrophic mendacity (we're led to assume) which led to the planet's destruction. Wall-E is stalwart -- matter-a-factly hoisting a downed blubbery person back onto their rolling cart to the alarm of the space system's bureaucratic robots. Wall-E the robot is the antithesis of a robot, tender and smitten by Eve.

If the movie is a warning about throw away gadgetry, the discarded Rubik's Cube, the lighters and lightbulbs that Wall-E collects, it's also a celebration of the slick shiny clean gadget each one of those outdated toys once was. Wall-E's longevity is a quaint myth. The robot has outlasted Every appliance, computer, car and gadget anyone in the Western world currently owns. Eve is his slick upgrade that would put Wall-E in today's real world, in the dump. And Wall-E pines for Eve as people pine for a new iPod, a new MacBook Air.

In the end the movie returns to early caveman civilization. It's only a cartoon, but if the audience chooses it can take home some message -- perhaps that humans will consume until consuming forces them start over from scratch, or that consumerism decimates life, or that the human quest for convenience is suicidal. Of course the adults in the audience will realize that nothing is so simple, there is no warning to be heeded from the movie just as there is no solution.

There is no time when the population of the world is satisfied with the rate of dEvelopment, resource utilization, or production of consumer products. We may not really need a Rubrik's Cube or an upgraded appliance. But do people in rural Africa or Asia think that the world has enough stuff now? There will always be people who want newly manufactured products, better technology solutions, tastier food, and more markets to sell to. The conundrum is in the continuum.

And Where are We, On the Continuum?

The movie "Up The Yangtze", is not Wall-E, but there's a common thread. In Up The Yangtze, the Chinese government forces a family to move from their home, a shack along the river that will be flooded by the huge project to dam the waterway for electricity. To many people the poor family's self-reliant river-front existence would look as dystopian as Wall-E's lonely, robotical organizing quest on ravaged Earth. Their move to a new place off the riverbank, with some furniture and electricity could be seen as an improvement. But this means that their daughter needs to work instead of going to college in order to pay for the family's basic necessities like food, which they once grew themselves. And of course such progress means chopping down the trees and damming the river.

Wall-E's message is necessarily simplistic, it is a children's movie, after all. Every person and country is in a different place on the continuum when environmental failure happens. Maybe they live in New York, it the midst of the epic consumerism that resembles the post-habitable world that Wall-E tools around in. Or perhaps the live in the types of places that 3/4 of the world inhabits, a desolate hut with not enough food to eat. Who's says I can't have an upgrade? All the fair sentiments that drive the market, that make Eve look slick are our environmental undoing.

Perhaps Wall-E is a vehicle for a nervous society's worries about the environment, or perhaps the movie is no more than a collection ideas that leave computer geeks feeling cozy -- humans are stupid, computers that utter something no more threatening that beeps are my friends. Whatever your interpretation -- or not -- Wall-E is great entertainment. Do see it. I see merchandising opportunities. And a sequel.

A Face that Sticks in Your Mind

Why is the crust of Mars up to 30 kilometers thinner on one half of the planet than the other, one side of the planet rugged terrain, the other plains? Twenty-five years ago a couple US scientists theorized that a collision had impacted the planet in a way that caused the dichotomy between the two hemispheres. However geological tools couldn't validate the theory, which also wasn't the only possible explanation.

Mars' mantle, like Earth's, shifts over time, and an alternate theory was that the 30km difference was due to upwards shift of the mantle. Overturn from magma ocean melting could have also produced the differences. Then some scientists thought that an impact of great magnitude would create different features from those found, or would simply obliterate all evidence.

Last week Nature (subscription) published studies by three research groups who used new modeling techniques to provide evidence for the collision theory. Jeffrey Andrews-Hanna, Maria T. Zuber, and Bruce Banerdt's team from MIT estimated that >4 billion years had passed since the Mars dichotomy formed, and that in the intervening time geological activity had obscured evidence from the original event. They programmed specific assumptions about gravity and terrain into their model to account for changes such as activity from Mars' Tharsis volcanic range.

The group then determined the original boundaries of the dichotomy, which happened to match their measurements of the elliptical area formed by the theorized impact. The huge elliptical area formed in the event is 10,600 by 8,500 kilometers (6,586 X 5,281 miles) covers about 20% of the planet and is bigger than than largest country on Earth -- Russia's width is ~5,000 miles. At about the same time as the Mars collision a similar event occurred on Earth which threw off the moon and lots of debris. It was a violent time in the solar system.

Margarita M. Marinova et al., from California Institute of Technology and University of California (UC), Santa Cruz, used modeling to determine the type of impact that would create the unique geology, The team calculated that an object 1,600-2,700 km wide hit the planet with about 3 X 10²⁹ Joules of energy. Scientists believe that the collision not only created a giant crater and changed the planet's crust, but that it was responsible for some of the other features of Mars. F. Nimmo and team, also from UC Santa Cruz, produced a third study to round out current understanding of the possible impact.

What's The Problem on the Water Front?

In other exciting Mars news, robots earlier in the month discovered what looked like it could be ice. Scientist programmed robots had taunted us for years, foraying around the planet then duly reporting back no signs of water. Last weekend the "NASA Phoenix Mars Lander" scooped up some of the icy soil for analysis. By vaporizing it in an oven analyzing the gases emitted, and by determining the minerals in the clumps of icy soil retrieved by the robot, scientists will try to ascertain what the substance is, whether it was at some time liquid, and how it formed. The lab tried to run this experiment a few weeks ago, but it went awry when the robot deposited the soil into the oven but the oven reported back that the soil wasn't there. Scientists were planning to process the soil sample differently or use a different oven in order to complete the analysis.

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For years it seems, people have heard reports like the recent one by the Justice Department inspector general and the Office of Professional Responsibility, which found the Department of Justice hiring practices had discriminated against lawyers who were "leftist", identified by those who were members of Greenpeace, the Poverty and Race Research Action Council, or the American Constitutional Society. Others have felt helpless in the face of leadership on science, democracy, and the environment. Like when the Bush Administration refused to comply with the Supreme Court's order that the EPA must act to regulate emissions. And today the bad news continued on this matter when the D.C. Circuit Court refused to set a deadline for the EPA that the states had petitioned the court for -- leading us to wonder -- are the two connected?

With some end in sight perhaps, a few citizens are making it their mission to strike back, albeit symbolically (and perhaps emboldened by the imminent term end). There's the Bush Legacy Bus -- I'm sure you've heard -- which is touring 150 cities this summer, first stop yesterday in Dayton, Ohio. The group promises not to let memories of the presidency fade into the twilight of his last term and hopes to influence the outcome of the elections. Less bombastically, and no doubt by mistake, The New York Review of Books advertising arm has sent out a leaflet for "$80 SAVINGS" off the price of a year's subscription, and a "FREE GIFT", the book "The Consequences to Come: American Power After Busch"[sic].

As well, a San Francisco group launched a petition drive to put an initiative on the ballot that would rename the Oceanside Water Pollution Control Plant the George W. Bush Sewage Plant. Some find it fitting, but not everyone thinks it's funny. Howard Epstein, chair of the San Francisco Republican Party promised to do everything in his power to stop the measure from going through, calling it "loony bin direct democracy." The spokesman for the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission was also not too keen on the idea, because the the plant is highly efficient and award-winning: "If you are looking for a place to make a negative statement about the Bush administration's impact on the environment, this would be the last place to do it", he said.

It's better than astrology and all the rage. Genetic testing offered as a gamut of services, under marketing rubrics along the lines of "Discover Your True Self!" Some of this discovery is whimsical, for instance, the company 23andMe offers visitors to their website graphics and insight on the percentage of people in their company prone to wet ear wax, not flaky, determined by a dominant allele. Some tests are more diagnostic, claiming to promote health. Salugen touts the fantastic slogan "DNA Customized Nutrition" and offers vitamins with their DNA testing. The Genelex website says DNA testing can be used to fine tune the dose of prescription drugs used for treatment of diseases like depression, cancer and epilepsy. Its a burgeoning, unexplored, market. How will it evolve?

A couple of weeks ago, the California Department of Public Health sent cease-and-desist notices to 13 gene testing services, warning the companies not to offer tests to California consumers. New York state took similar action last November, sending notices to 31 companies. The California notice references a state code that makes it "unlawful for any person to own, operate, maintain, direct, or engage in the business of operating a clinical laboratory, as defined this chapter, unless she or she possesses a valid clinical laboratory licensed issued by the department." The department also objects to tests being ordered without a physician. Some companies have stopped selling services to customers in these states but others continue their business, undaunted, claiming that what they're offering is not subject to the states' rules.

The companies are doing more than selling to consumers though. In addition to offering genetic screens for curiosity or personal health, companies are moving to use the collected data to advance research. 23andMe is collaborating with the Parkinson's Institute to provide information from its customers to help understand that disease. This is in line with some of the company's long term goals, according to the San Francisco Chronicle:

"If 23andMe eventually succeeds in hosting large-scale communities of members with various illnesses, it can become a conduit for pharmaceutical companies that would pay the company to relay their offers to participate in clinical trials [co-founder Linda Avey] said."

Google and Microsoft are also in the process of setting up systems to gather large data sets from patients, a move that may help accelerate understanding of diseases. But there are many unanswered questions about the use and usefulness of the data.

Some say that federal regulation is so scarce and the barrier of entry so low that the direct to consumer industry invites fraudulent players. Others ask what such predictive tests can really predict? One woman interviewed by the journal Nature (453: 570-571) said her test results showed a 34% chance of becoming obese, compared to the average female her age who had 32% chance. Some researchers and public policy advocates ask whether the tests are a waste of money.

Even if the tests are predictive, will they encourage people to change their habits, or is that wishful thinking? Most people know that obesity increases your risk of heart attack, diabetes, cancer, etc. But despite straightforward evidence provided by daily surveillance in low cost mirrors, the western population suffers an epidemic of obesity not stanched by the most accessible information. Will more tests convince people to exercise and eat their vegetables?

Like many health conditions, obesity is not solely determined by genes. But while everyone acknowledges the influence of environment on disease probability, the extent of the influence is unknown. The same caveat applies to genetic influences. Huntington's disease is one disease largely determined by genetics, while autism and many others vary as to the genetic influence. Yet the proliferation of these companies encourages public perception that genetics is extraordinarily predictive of health outcomes.This can be problematic for individual consumers who could be misled about the importance of the data. The implications of incomplete information in the form of genomic data could also problematic when companies start collecting data for analysis.

Some genetic testing companies claim that the information they're providing to consumers is not diagnostic, only informational, they market the information as empowering to the consumer. But companies' collective enthusiasm for getting their hands on the forthcoming data belies their claims that the tests are solely for their customers' curiosity. The value of this information is far greater to the company that amasses collections of individual data than it is to any one individual. And once a company has data that represents recurring revenue potential, how is that information not just as fluid and salable as names, telephone numbers and addresses?

What are the implications of this? On the lighter side, imagine being besieged with junk mail about summer diet camps because at age nine, it's revealed that you show a propensity for Type II diabetes based on your mother's profile. Or imagine you pay to query your risk of arthritis and agree to have this data used by certain parties (identifying information stripped, of course). But then your emails begin to feature ads for joint balms or extra absorbent Q-tips. Can't imagine it?