Should We Edit Nature to Help It Survive Climate Change? (noemamag.com) 75
A recent article in Noema magazines explores the issues in "editing nature to fix our failures."
"It turns out playing God is neither difficult nor expensive," the article points out. "For about $2,000, I can go online and order a decent microscope, a precision injection rig, and a vial of enough CRISPR-Cas9 — an enzyme-based genome-editing tool — to genetically edit a few thousand fish embryos..." So when going beyond the kept-in-captivity Dire Wolf to the possibility of bringing back forests of the American chestnut tree, "The process is deceptively simple; the implications are anything but..." If scientists could use CRISPR to engineer a more heat-tolerant coral, it would give coral a better chance of surviving a marine environment made warmer by climate change. It would also keep the human industries that rely on reefs afloat. But should we edit nature to fix our failures? And if we do, is it still natural...? Evolution is not keeping pace with climate change, so it is up to us to give it an assist [according to Christopher Preston, an environmental philosopher from the University of Montana, who wrote a book on CRISPR called "Ma href="https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262537094/the-synthetic-age/">The Synthetic Age."] In some cases, the urgency is so great that we may not have time to waste. "There's no doubt there are times when you have to act," Preston continued. "Corals are a case where the benefits of reefs are just so enormous that keeping some alive, even if they're genetically altered, makes the risks worth it."
Kate Quigley, a molecular ecologist and a principal research scientist at Australia's Minderoo Foundation, says "Engineering the ocean, or the atmosphere, or coral is not something to be taken lightly. Science is incredible. But that doesn't mean we know everything and what the unintended consequences might be." Phillip Cleves, a principal investigator at the Carnegie Institute for Science's embryology department, is already researching whether coral could be bioengineered to be more tolerant to heat.
But both of them have concerns: For all the research Quigley and Cleves have dedicated to climate-proofing coral, neither wants to see the results of their work move from experimentation in the lab to actual use in the open ocean. Needing to do so would represent an even greater failure by humankind to protect the environment that we already have. And while genetic editing and selective breeding offer concrete solutions for helping some organisms adapt, they will never be powerful enough to replace everything lost to rising water temperatures. "I will try to prepare for it, but the most important thing we can do to save coral is take strong action on climate change," Quigley told me. "We could pour billions and billions of dollars — in fact, we already have — into restoration, and even if, by some miracle, we manage to recreate the reef, there'd be other ecosystems that would need the same thing. So why can't we just get at the root issue?"
And then there's the blue-green algae dilemma: George Church, the Harvard Medical School professor of genetics behind Colossal's dire wolf project, was part of a team that successfully used CRISPR to change the genome of blue-green algae so that it could absorb up to 20% more carbon dioxide via photosynthesis. Silicon Valley tech incubator Y Combinator seized on the advance to call for scaled-up proposals, estimating that seeding less than 1% of the ocean's surface with genetically engineered phytoplankton would sequester approximately 47 gigatons of CO2 a year, more than enough to reverse all of last year's worldwide emissions.
But moving from deploying CRISPR for species protection to providing a planetary service flips the ethical calculus. Restoring a chestnut forest or a coral reef preserves nature, or at least something close to it. Genetically manipulating phytoplankton and plants to clean up after our mistakes raises the risk of a moral hazard. Do we have the right to rewrite nature so we can perpetuate our nature-killing ways?
"It turns out playing God is neither difficult nor expensive," the article points out. "For about $2,000, I can go online and order a decent microscope, a precision injection rig, and a vial of enough CRISPR-Cas9 — an enzyme-based genome-editing tool — to genetically edit a few thousand fish embryos..." So when going beyond the kept-in-captivity Dire Wolf to the possibility of bringing back forests of the American chestnut tree, "The process is deceptively simple; the implications are anything but..." If scientists could use CRISPR to engineer a more heat-tolerant coral, it would give coral a better chance of surviving a marine environment made warmer by climate change. It would also keep the human industries that rely on reefs afloat. But should we edit nature to fix our failures? And if we do, is it still natural...? Evolution is not keeping pace with climate change, so it is up to us to give it an assist [according to Christopher Preston, an environmental philosopher from the University of Montana, who wrote a book on CRISPR called "Ma href="https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262537094/the-synthetic-age/">The Synthetic Age."] In some cases, the urgency is so great that we may not have time to waste. "There's no doubt there are times when you have to act," Preston continued. "Corals are a case where the benefits of reefs are just so enormous that keeping some alive, even if they're genetically altered, makes the risks worth it."
Kate Quigley, a molecular ecologist and a principal research scientist at Australia's Minderoo Foundation, says "Engineering the ocean, or the atmosphere, or coral is not something to be taken lightly. Science is incredible. But that doesn't mean we know everything and what the unintended consequences might be." Phillip Cleves, a principal investigator at the Carnegie Institute for Science's embryology department, is already researching whether coral could be bioengineered to be more tolerant to heat.
But both of them have concerns: For all the research Quigley and Cleves have dedicated to climate-proofing coral, neither wants to see the results of their work move from experimentation in the lab to actual use in the open ocean. Needing to do so would represent an even greater failure by humankind to protect the environment that we already have. And while genetic editing and selective breeding offer concrete solutions for helping some organisms adapt, they will never be powerful enough to replace everything lost to rising water temperatures. "I will try to prepare for it, but the most important thing we can do to save coral is take strong action on climate change," Quigley told me. "We could pour billions and billions of dollars — in fact, we already have — into restoration, and even if, by some miracle, we manage to recreate the reef, there'd be other ecosystems that would need the same thing. So why can't we just get at the root issue?"
And then there's the blue-green algae dilemma: George Church, the Harvard Medical School professor of genetics behind Colossal's dire wolf project, was part of a team that successfully used CRISPR to change the genome of blue-green algae so that it could absorb up to 20% more carbon dioxide via photosynthesis. Silicon Valley tech incubator Y Combinator seized on the advance to call for scaled-up proposals, estimating that seeding less than 1% of the ocean's surface with genetically engineered phytoplankton would sequester approximately 47 gigatons of CO2 a year, more than enough to reverse all of last year's worldwide emissions.
But moving from deploying CRISPR for species protection to providing a planetary service flips the ethical calculus. Restoring a chestnut forest or a coral reef preserves nature, or at least something close to it. Genetically manipulating phytoplankton and plants to clean up after our mistakes raises the risk of a moral hazard. Do we have the right to rewrite nature so we can perpetuate our nature-killing ways?
Aren't ... (Score:3)
... humans part of the environment?
Other animals change their environment too, you know.
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If there were animals adeptly using fire long before humans existed, we would not call humans the first to "master fire" just because humans understood what they were doing.
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FYI, humans didn't invent CRISPR/Cas9 - bacteria and archaea did.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CRISPR [wikipedia.org]
It's an antiviral immune system. They bait bacteriophages into inserting their genes into noncoding regions of their genome, and then use CRISPR/Cas9 to match up anything from these noncoding regions that are in their coding regions, and to cut it out.
We humans stole that tech from them :) They mastered it long b
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Accurate statement: "Humans invented a way to harness CRISPR/Cas9 to create transgenic organisms"
Inaccurate statement: "Humans invented CRISPR/Cas9"
This isn't complicated.
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Indeed, which is why we should definitely modify humans to avoid climate change. The modification isn't even invasive, can be performed remotely and has some potential to be self-replicating. All you need to do is to modify an ignorant human into an enlightened one.
Climate change is happening, and no amount of "it's a con" or other deflection is going to stop it. We know that humans are at least in part responsible for it, we know what sorts of problems its going to cause us, we also know the primary mechan
Re: Aren't ... (Score:2)
The modification isn't even invasive, can be performed remotely and has some potential to be self-replicating. All you need to do is to modify an ignorant human into an enlightened one.
Or like that film where people are miniaturised.
Maybe a genetic process to make humans smaller each generation until we can ride a domestic cat.
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Who said it's a con? I'm fine with building nuclear. And with coming up with sequestering. Let's go.
I'm just against emoting, preening, and political exploitation.
Move fast and break things? (Score:2)
Since we depend on nature, there's very little room for error.
Invasive species are a great example of consequences that are (often) unintended.
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Since we depend on nature, there's very little room for error.
Invasive species are a great example of consequences that are (often) unintended.
Bring on the apocalypse. Just as well see some cool Resident Evil style hybrids before we check out!
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Personally, I am looking forward to a world full of Cronenberg creatures.
AWW POOR BABY (Score:1)
What I posted is flamebait because it made some manchild uncomfortable about reality.
AGW denialists are the dumbest denialists.
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ok doomer
Oh look, a denialist that got its feefees hurt. Suck it up, snowflake coward.
LET'S KEEP GOING (Score:2)
I have the karma, you've got a purty mouth
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It *is* flamebait since its simply trying to provoke a reaction without adding anything thoughtful or debating the points at all, which is why the 'ok doomer' AC response got an upvote. ;)
When you say "we earned it" keep in mind "we" is too inclusive at this point since 99.9999% of the population of earth, humans notwithstanding and even including humanity (especially children and those without electric in their homes) have no say or choice in what happens on this planet, and in fact unless you're a
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THAT was the part you focused on instead of "drive an EV you built from scrap" ?? LMAO!!! It was an exaggeration meant to portray an overly net-negative carbon person, not a play on reality. ;) The idea was to NOT purchase new cells but recycle to such an extreme that you become carbon negative. Which is really impossible if you are a part of mechanized, electrified, modern society.
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What we should have been doing is supporting nature to help us survive climate change.
It's really not clear at all what you mean by this.
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It's really not clear at all what you mean by this.
We should have been planting trees and switching our high emissions ag over to lower emissions types because nature had reached relative stasis before we got to this point but after we became aware of the problem, as nature already had evolved mechanisms to fix the problem which we could have made use of. But now it's way too late and no amount of planting trees or replacing cows with goats or any of the other relatively easy fixes will solve the problem.
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Ok, I'm with you so far. How do you want to change society besides getting rid of the internet?
Wrong question. (Score:1)
"Do we have the right to rewrite nature so we can perpetuate our nature-killing ways?"
It is:
"Do we have the right to rewrite nature so we can save civilization?"
And we do.
But, as noted in TFS, we should be sensible enough to stop global warming before we need to rewrite nature.
Unfortunately: Trump.
1984 (Score:2)
At least we can stop reading endless articles by people who think they are a hell of a lot more insightful than they actually are about how "1984 is not a howto guide" and move on to "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep - wasn't supposed to represent aspirational social, environmental, and technological targets.
The good news is it should keep both the read to much environmental fiction and read to much AI fictions occupied for sometime and have them fighting over literary terf.
It will be a nice change of pa
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Editors not doing their jobs again (Score:4, Insightful)
Evolution is not keeping pace with climate change, so it is up to us to give it an assist [according to Christopher Preston, an environmental philosopher from the University of Montana, who wrote a book on CRISPR called "Ma href="https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262537094/the-synthetic-age/">The Synthetic Age."]
A malformed hyperlink, stuck in the middle of a way-too-long square-bracket substitution, in the middle of what I think is a long quotation, which itself is missing the opening quotation mark.
/. page without scrolling, you need to cut it waaaay back.
But I could almost understand the editors missing that word hemorrhage in this giant mess of a "summary". 650 words does not a summary make. If it's too long to fit on the main
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The "editors" have one job, engagement. Slashdot has always been social media, but it wasn't enshittified until B!zX bought it. It was only half-assed.
Even fucking up the summary increased engagement here, as it got you to post, so you're teaching them the wrong lesson.
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The "editors" have one job, engagement. Slashdot has always been social media, but it wasn't enshittified until B!zX bought it. It was only half-assed.
We are past quarter assed, I feel like it’s zenos paradox where it seems like we won’t ever be fully enshittified until it happens.
Even fucking up the summary increased engagement here, as it got you to post, so you're teaching them the wrong lesson.
LLM don’t learn from prompts, so I wouldn’t worry about any learning going on.
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LLM donâ(TM)t learn from prompts, so I wouldnâ(TM)t worry about any learning going on.
It's not all automated though, there's a puppet master. Well, not master, they're very far from mastery, but I think you get what I'm saying.
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It was worse when Dice owned it.
I don't agree. It was equally competent, which is to say, no competence was displayed. But it didn't have the constant cryptocuck and quantumsuck bullshit and they didn't put reich or nazi or their name into the spam filter.
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The editors are once again asleep at the wheel:
Evolution is not keeping pace with climate change, so it is up to us to give it an assist [according to Christopher Preston, an environmental philosopher from the University of Montana, who wrote a book on CRISPR called "Ma href="https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262537094/the-synthetic-age/">The Synthetic Age."]
A malformed hyperlink, stuck in the middle of a way-too-long square-bracket substitution, in the middle of what I think is a long quotation, which itself is missing the opening quotation mark. But I could almost understand the editors missing that word hemorrhage in this giant mess of a "summary". 650 words does not a summary make. If it's too long to fit on the main /. page without scrolling, you need to cut it waaaay back.
Look, those are all very good points but you have to realize LLM aren’t a mature technology yet and we will all just have to get accustomed to what they’re capable of instead of humans.
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Look, those are all very good points but you have to realize LLM aren’t a mature technology yet and we will all just have to get accustomed to what they’re capable of instead of humans.
No, I'm not willing to accept that we all must put up with AI slop. To quote the satirist Pat Paulsen [wikipedia.org]: "I’ve upped my standards, now up yours!"
Yes (Score:2)
Not that I think this is generally a good idea. It is not and it comes with massive risks. I just do not think there is much choice left.
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Not that I think this is generally a good idea. It is not and it comes with massive risks. I just do not think there is much choice left.
Humans are really amazing at getting rid of all the good choices and then having to pick from the bad ones.
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What are/were the good choices? They probably were not as good as you think.
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Bullshit. Take your FUD and stuff it up your backside.
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Indeed. Has been going on all though history and nobody ever learns from it.
"The road to hell is paved with good intentions" (Score:3)
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Wow, the degree of denial from the pseudo-conservatives is simply astonishing. I guess this is proof positive that all the education in the world cannot fix stupidity and self-justification.
Re: you should edit your headlines (Score:2, Troll)
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Not as astonishing as your complete submission to authority
You've completely submitted to big oil PR and you want to talk this shit? Cope harder.
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Climate change (previously known as "global warming" but that name was too obvious of a lie they had to make it vague) is a hoax
Your understanding of physics is over a century out of date. Get with the times.
What could possibly go wrong :o (Score:3)
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Crossbreeding, mutation: you NEVER catch 'em all. (Score:2)
We've changed the climate and polluted the planet (Score:2)
It's too late to put the cat back in the bag, we allowed our greed and irresponsibility to wreck everything for everybody. Now we have no choice but to deal with the consequences which will be desperately avoided by the wealthy and cost the poor the most. Everyone will suffer. Our greed is our downfall. What's amazing is all the ongoing denial, it's simply astonishing how stupid greedy people can really be.
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You can't make this kind of stupid up.
Re: jesus people (Score:2)
Another way to look at it is that many other lifeforms modify the environment in very significant ways. For example there are the oxygen emitters such as algae and trees, the reef builders, other calcium carbonate sequesters (limestone) and on down to earthworms and people building cities.
Do we have some ethical duty to not do anything even though our effect on the planet is insignificant compared to oxygen emitters, reef builders, etc?
I admit that "everyone else is doing it" is a weak argument, but we're
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we're just not that big a deal yet in the planet-modifying game.
If that were true, we'd have nothing to do. Emitting orders of magnitude more CO2 than volcanism makes us a big deal.
Of course we do (Score:2)
The article asks "Do we have the right to rewrite nature so we can perpetuate our nature-killing ways?"
Yes. Yes we do. Nature doesn't care.
The more important question is whether it's flipping stupid to try. That answer is also yes. There are too many variables. We'd be acting in ignorance, with globe-spanning consequences.
Short answer: No! (Score:1)
Nature is fine (Score:2)
Nature is perfectly fine, it is trying to rid itself of us and it will absolutely thrive once it succeeds, as it has for millennia.
This whole discussion and narrative of us saving nature is entirely backwards and asinine. The truth is, we desperately want to save ourselves, but it sounds nicer to claim we care about nature.
Nature has been just fine without us, and it will be just great without us. And while we are still around, nature also evolves and changes and adapts to our shenanigans. e.g. the polar be
Great idea in theory (Score:2)
In practice, unexpected results may occur
Unintended consequences... (Score:2)
History tells us that every man made "improvement" has unintended consequences.
The intentional introduction of alien species to new environments has a long history of introducing disasters to ecosystems.
No matter how well-intentioned, it's best not to fool mother nature.
We've been editing nature for decades (Score:2)
We used to call them hybrids. Now we have tools to be more specific about what genes we want to keep and not keep. But the idea isn't really new.
We should edit ourselves! (Score:2)
As supporting evidence, I offer https://science.slashdot.org/s... [slashdot.org], and all of its implications.
Well, the question that first comes to mind is (Score:1)
hw's our track record at editing nature?
Absolutely not (Score:2)
Climate change is inevitable. It will end humans. That's good for nature. Whether or not you believe in the "crisis" of climate change, either scenario benefits most by inaction.
Then it's no longer nature (Score:1)
Confused people think evolution is magic (Score:2)
This is a common strain of misunderstanding I see all over the place. People think that evolution is somehow magical and that what it produces is mystically better because it's "natural". That's all garbage.
Evolution is a random process. There's no intelligence guiding it, nothing that ensures that the "choices" it makes are the best alternatives or can't have horrific consequences. In fact, the vast majority of evolutionary changes are utter failures that immediately get selected out.
Also, it's sil