12/12/2021

CLIMATE CHANGE
1. What significant contribution can individuals make to response to climate
change?
The first significant contribution that an individual can make to response to
climate change is reduce the use of electricity. As much as possible, turn off the lights
when not in use or we can use solar panel that can produce lights. Second is eat less
meat
Reduce your electricity use
 Switch off lights when not in use.
 Use LED lightbulbs.
 Unplug electronics from the wall socket when they’re not in use.
 Run the dishwasher and the washing machine only when full.
 Wash clothes in cold water and dry them outdoors when possible.
 Try having shorter showers or shower before going to bed (there is less fossil
fuelled electricity generation after 9 pm)
Eat less meat
Red meat production produces significantly more greenhouse gas emissions
than the production of chicken meat, fruit, vegetables and cereals. It also requires
substantially more water.
Around 30 per cent of the world’s land area is used for livestock production. It is
one of the key reasons for cutting down forests.
 Cut down on meat. Eat more fruit and vegetables instead - this has many health
benefits, such as reducing the risk of heart disease.
 Try having a meatless day each week. The Meatless Monday website has great
recipes to get you started.
Shop at your local fruit and vegetable market
Help reduce greenhouse gas emissions from transport by using local ingredients. When
you buy local food or products you are also helping your local economy.
 Plant your own vegetables and fruit trees. Containers are great if you are short of
space.
 Buy local and in-season foods that haven’t travelled long distances to reach you.
Reduce, reuse, recycle
All products require energy and materials to be built, packaged, transported and
sold. Reducing how much you buy is good for the environment and your wallet.
 Buy only the food you need, and compost your kitchen scraps and garden waste.
Around half of the waste that ends up in New Zealand landfills is organic material (food,
garden, paper and wood waste). When organic material decomposes, it produces
methane which is a potent greenhouse gas.
Reduce
 Buy products without any packaging whenever possible and always take your
reusable bags to the supermarket.
 Make the most of what you already have. Repairing products such as your
clothes means they don’t have to be replaced so often.
Reuse
 Swap your bottles and lunch containers for reusable ones.
 Donate unwanted goods such as books, clothes and furniture to a charity shop.
Recycle
 Use the recycle bins in your area for plastics and glass containers that cannot be
reused. This will reduce the amount of waste going to landfills and greenhouse
gas emissions that result when new items are manufactured
Plant trees
In New Zealand, forests offset nearly 30 per cent of our greenhouse gas
emissions. A regenerating native forest can remove more than 8 tonnes of carbon
dioxide per hectare per year from the atmosphere over its first 50 years.
 Plant native trees on your property.
 Get involved in a community forest restoration, dune care or coastal revegetation
programme in your area.
Drive and fly less
 Walk or cycle – it is free, has the least impact on the environment and is good for
your health.
 Use public transport.
 Carpool with friends.
 Work remotely and use video conferencing instead of traveling to a meeting.
 Reduce the number of flights you take. This has shown to be one of the most
effective climate change actions you can take.
 If you fly, pay to offset your emissions.
2. Is climate change preventable?
No, it is inevitable.
All fossil fuels when burned release CO2 and other gases,” Holt said. “All animals
produce gases as part of their respiration and digestion. Our energy and transportation
industries rely on the former, while our meat-based food system relies on the latter.
These gases, create a greenhouse effect which traps solar radiation
Very costly. Requiring very different approaches to life and each other. Massive
changes to agriculture could help but we all need to change how we think and act.
3. What should be the significant contribution of the society as well as the
government in mitigating the hazard cause by climate change?
regulatory restrictions on the uses of fossil fuel powered machines, in private use,
buildings, industry, farming, horticulture and transportation of goods will probably need
to be imposed. Just imagine the huge political fights this is going to start unless there is
rapid technological and infrastructure changes at doable costs to individuals,
businesses and society. Hopefully better electric powered machines with better energy
storage devices that can be fully mobile are available before this all goes bad.

advocacy campaign

Here are two very simple changes that can be made, and could be encouraged by
government policy.
Less use of private transport, and more use of public transport.
In the UK (maybe also true in other countries), limit the range of open grazing of sheep
so that large areas currently grazed to grass level will be able to regain tree growth
naturally.
There are literally hundreds, maybe thousands of ways that both individuals and
governments can mitigate these hazards though. But they are very well documented
already in various places online.
Government involvement will not happen though, until the majority of people show
significant commitment to change, as all governments ultimately care about is public
opinion

GENE THERAPY
1. How can good and bad uses of gene therapy be distinguished?
It will be distinguish based on its use. It will be considered as good uses if it’s a medical
need. Say for example,
the transplantation of normal genes into cells in place of missing or defective ones in order
to correct genetic disorders.

good use of gene therapy: replacement of bone marrow/ stem cells to regrow areas
affected by cancer

bad use of gene therapy: replacing Autism in the brain

basically, if it’s a medical need, where a condition is debilitating, and replacement with stem
cells to correct the actual pathogenic issue, then it counts as a positive usage, but if it
becomes a way to avoid or openly discriminate against a group that has already been
marginalized, just because, then it becomes problematic.

Autism, is genetic, but unlike Cancer, it’s not Pathogenic it’s not triggered by environmental
factors, it’s just how your brain grew in the first place… Cancers, are at the base, a series of
mutations in the growth and death cycles of the cells.

2. Who decides which traits are normal and which constitute a disability or disorder?

Medical professionals, someone who has been working with you for years and has seen
every aspect of your illness decides this.

“Normal” is a statement of how common something is. It’s not actually related to whether
something was a disorder.

The determinor of whether something is a disability/disorder is down to whether the

medical or psychological community believes it is a defict - if it is a net lowering
of a capacity, rather than an increase (Genius isn’t normal, but it’s
not a disability) or a different approach.

The problem comes because support only really exists for disability/disorder, rather than
difference, which incentivises a disability focused approach, where people look  for deficits
to make something disabling so the difference can be supported.

It’s why there’s a lot of controversy over autism, for example. It’s not a disability -
it’s a fundamentally different way of approaching the world, which is not inherantly deficit.
(You wouldn’t say non-autism was a disability because some non-autists have learning
difficulties!). But if that becomes the model, all the support, all the funding, will dry up.

3. Will the high cost of gene therapy make it available only to the wealthy?
For now, yes indeed. Like any new technology it’s going to be expensive, part of it is
because the treatment itself is expensive but most of the cost is because the companies that
patented these treatments are trying to return their investment and of course, profit, while
they can. Are they justified prices? Probably not.

Luxturna, a one-time therapy for inherited retinal eye disease, costs $850,000 in the US and £613,410 in
the UK, although a discount is applied through Britain’s National Health Service. Zolgensma, for spinal
muscular atrophy, is priced at $2.1m in the US and Zynteglo, which targets a rare genetic blood disorder,
costs $1.78m.

4. Could the widespread use of gene therapy make society less accepting of people
who are different?
It depends where country we live in.

Unfortunately we live in a broken world that isn’t perfect and nice. Those types of people
and world only live in fairy tales.

Even if we used gene therapy to make society less accepting of people who are different
wouldn’t work. People are people and they’re programmed with more than a thousand
faces, thoughts, and ideas that make each of us unique.

Kahit na gumamit kami ng gene therapy upang gawing hindi gaanong tatanggap ang
lipunan ng mga taong naiiba ay hindi gagana. Ang mga tao ay tao at na-program na
may higit sa isang libong mukha, saloobin, at ideya na ginagawang natatangi ang bawat
isa sa atin.
5. Should people be allowed to use gene therapy to enhance basic human traits such
as height , intelligence or athletic ability?

It is premature to worry about this, since these traits are not the result of a single or even a
few genes. We now know that physical and behavioral traits are massively additive
polygenic. This means that large numbers of variants combine to produce the trait. In the
case of intelligence, researchers looked for years and found almost nothing, despite having
strong and valid knowledge that intelligence is 85% heritable in adults. The problem was
that there are many variants (single nucleotide polymorphisms) that each have tiny effect
sizes; they combine to produce the end result.

When GWAS (genome wide association studies) arrived, the researchers had the means to
find the variants. Using over 1.1 million people, they did a GWAS that yielded over 1,200
SNPs associated with intelligence. These combine to produce an effect size of 10%. That
tells us that there are tens of thousands of SNPs actually involved. But even with the small
fraction that have been identified, it was possible to construct polygenic scores (PGS) that
can estimate intelligence, even in embryos and in the DNA of people who lived in the
distant past. PGS have been able to predict the mean intelligence differences between
breeding groups with almost perfect results.

If you look up each of the traits in your question, you will find that there are many additive
polygenic variants associated with the trait. Height is a good example. It consists of
hundreds of variants

6. Would you subject yourself for gene therapy without its 100% assurance of
effectiveness or future negative side effects?
No.
7. Should gene therapy be limited to medical concerns only or could it be use for
aesthetic purposes?

gene therapy at the moment is outrageously expensive  because of the regulatory hoops
that it has to jump through.

Imagine paying $2.1 million for the single use of a gene therapy drug.

Billionaires see $2.1 million as loose change. If there is a gene therapy treatment that can
boost their aesthetic appeal, why not? Money makes the world go round.

Personally, I wouldn’t mind just getting a fraction of that $2.1 million into my pocket. I don’t
think you would, either.

But what about the idea of “should”?

Even if it was available as a medical treatment, only the upper echelons of society would be
able to afford it!

I think it should be used for anything for which it has a purpose! Of course, life-saving is the
most profound and gene therapy's greatest achievement. But aesthetics? Sure, why not!
God gave the smarts to these guys and put these elements on this earth for us to have
access to them to make our lives better. And if someone's life is going to be better, if their
confidence in themselves are gained through looking better, there is not a thing wrong with
that. It's not frivolous, silly or vain at all.