Reason Magazine - Staff

What's Next? Concerns About Fake Astrologers?

rbailey@reason.com (Ronald Bailey) — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 14:15:00 EDT

"Purity of Federal 'Organic' Label Is Questioned," is a front page headline in today's Washington Post. Considering that the organic label is largely a marketing scheme (or perhaps it is better described as a marketing scam) designed to get consumers to pay more for products that are no better than conventional ones, it's hard for me to get worked up over the fact some farmers and processors are violating the federal program's arbitrary rules.

One might reply that violations of the federal rules constitute a fraud on consumers who expect to get one sort of product and instead are getting another. On the other hand, the whole concept of "organic" is pretty much a scientific fraud (OK, maybe it's just a wrongheaded anti-scientific fable) itself--a fact which the anxious Washington Post article inadvertantly acknowledges when it reports:

The market's expansion is fueling tension over whether the federal program should be governed by a strict interpretation of "organic" or broadened to include more products by allowing trace elements of non-organic substances. The argument is not over whether the non-organics pose a health threat, but whether they weaken the integrity of the federal organic label.

If "non-organics" pose no health threats, why do we need federal standards? Worries about the "purity" of organic foods and products represent an essentially religious stance much like kosher and halal, both of which are adequately established and monitored privately. Certification of organic products should be done the same way.

By the way, some astrologers do want professional governmental licensing.

Genetic Test Results Encourage Smokers to Quit

rbailey@reason.com (Ronald Bailey) — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 16:11:00 EDT

GenomeWeb News is reporting the results of a very preliminary study in which researchers test smokers for a genetic variant that slightly increases their risk of lung cancer:

Researchers from the National Human Genome Research Institute and elsewhere used online and telephone surveys to gauge smokers' perceptions and understanding of online genetic test results indicating whether individuals carried a copy of the glutathione S-transferase gene GSTM1. Previous research suggests those missing the enzyme have a slightly elevated lung cancer risk...
The researchers evaluated 44 smokers between the ages of 23 and 55 years old. Participants received a mouth swab kit by mail and were notified when the results were available online...
Half of the smokers tested were missing GSTM1. All of these individuals reported that they understood that this was a higher risk condition...
All participants sought some form of help quitting and 91 percent of individuals in both groups requested nicotine replacement therapy. After six months, five individuals in the higher risk group and one in the lower risk group reported that they had quit smoking. Still, the study authors were cautious about linking smoking cessation to the test itself, noting that "the study was not sufficiently powered for, nor was it a study aim to, assess smoking cessation as an outcome."

Of course, some bioethicists think that such direct-to-consumer genetic testing needs to be strictly regulated.

Go here for whole GenomeWeb News report.

A Brief Reminder that Models Aren't Always Right

rbailey@reason.com (Ronald Bailey) — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 15:53:00 EDT

Physicist and occasional Reason contributor Russell Seitz has an interesting letter to the editor on climate models in the current issue of Foreign Affairs. Seitz' letter reminds Foreign Affairs readers and editors that in recent decades they...

...have seen the nuclear winter melt down, the energy crisis metastasize into an oil glut, and the population bomb implode. This breathtaking string of global systems modeling fiascos leaves some analysts asking why climate models are deemed sacrosanct when variables as critical as the sensitivity of the climate to the doubling of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere have failed to converge on uncontroversial values.

Climate sensitivity refers to the equilibrium temperature increase expected to result from doubling the atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide. The United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) fourth assessment report (4AR) finds that climate sensitivity is "likely to be in the range 2 to 4.5 degrees Celsius with a best estimate of 3 degrees, and is very unlikely to be less than 1.5 degrees. Values substantially higher than 4.5 degrees Celsius cannot be excluded."

What does Seitz mean by "fail to converage on uncontroversial values"? One example might be a recent talk in Washington, DC. by Massachusetts Institute of Technology climatologist Richard Lindzen who argued that new data suggests that climate sensitivity is around 0.5 degrees centigrade (see slides 18 through 22) which is far below the IPCC figures.

See Seitz' Foreign Affairs letter here. In addition, you might want to take a look at Seitz' Reason article on the implications of carbon prohibition.

When Will Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth Accept the Global Scientific Consensus on Biotech Crops?

rbailey@reason.com (Ronald Bailey) — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 11:33:00 EDT

Earlier this month, the European Food Safety Authority ruled that Monsanto's insect resistant biotech corn variety MON810 is safe. According to the EFSA:

...MON810 is as safe as its conventional counterpart with respect to potential effects on human and animal health. The EFSA GMO Panel also concludes that maize MON810 is unlikely to have any adverse effect on the environment in the context of its intended uses....

Of course, in light of the overwhelming scientific consensus that biotech crops are safe, environmental activists immediately dropped their opposition to them. OK, not exactly. As Reuters reports:

"Allowing EFSA to express opinions on GM crops while it cannot assess long-term environmental impacts is like allowing someone into a Formula 1 race just because they have a driving licence," said Marco Contier, GMO policy director at Greenpeace's European office in Brussels.

"The green light should not be given for this crop to continue to be grown in Europe," said Helen Holder, GMO campaign coordinator at Friends of the Earth Europe. "It's time to sack the EFSA scientists, disband its GMO panel and move GMO risk assessment to a truly independent and effective body," she said.

As usual, Greenpeace and FOE prefer to shoot messengers rather than listen to their scientific evidence.

What's a Trillion?

rbailey@reason.com (Ronald Bailey) — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 11:03:00 EDT

At a recent conference I attended, University of Maryland philosopher Mark Sagoff mused: "I've been trying to get my mind around what a trillion is. It's such a huge number. But I think I've finally figured it out. A trillion dollars is equal to 1 Euro."

Energy Leninism

rbailey@reason.com (Ronald Bailey) — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 15:00:00 EDT

"The worse, the better," Vladimir Lenin is said to have observed. What Lenin meant was that the worse social conditions became in Russia, the more likely he and the Bolsheviks could foment a communist revolution. President Barack Obama's White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel recently updated Lenin's maxim, saying, "Never allow a crisis to go to waste."

Last Friday, the Democratic leadership in the House of Representatives took those maxims to heart when they pushed through their 1,200-page American Clean Energy and Security (ACES) Act by a vote 219 to 212. The bill is supposed to address the twin crises of economic recession and climate change by creating millions of new "green" jobs. Instead of an old-fashioned Soviet-style five-year plan, ACES can be thought of as 50-year plan to radically transform how Americans produce and use energy.

The new climate and energy bill would create a convoluted cap-and-trade scheme that aims to curb the emissions of carbon dioxide by American consumers and businesses. Why? Because the extra carbon dioxide emitted into the air from burning fossil fuels like coal and oil to produce energy is heating up the atmosphere. That additional heat will melt glaciers, raise sea levels, change rainfall patterns, cause plants and animals to shift their habitats, and so forth. To avoid these consequences, argue congressional Democrats, it is necessary for Americans to shift from cheap fossil fuels to expensive renewable energy fuels.

So the 1,200-page House bill would set a declining cap on carbon dioxide emissions that, by 2020, reduces them by 17 percent below 2005 levels and by 83 percent below by 2050. Each year the Environmental Protection Agency would issue a lower number of carbon dioxide emissions permits. Under the House bill 85 percent of the permits would be given away for free to various energy producers and users while the remaining 15 percent would be auctioned off. A company must have a permit for each ton of carbon dioxide it emits. The idea is that some companies will be more efficient in reducing their emissions and so will have some permits left over that they can sell to other, less-efficent emitters.

Trading permits in the market will set a price on carbon dioxide emissions. This means that electricity and automobile fuels produced using coal and oil will become more expensive. Higher electricity and gasoline prices are intended to encourage consumers to buy more fuel-efficient automobiles and appliances and to cut back on home heating and cooling. These higher energy prices will also boost what Americans pay for most goods and services. Finally, higher prices are supposed to incentivize inventors and entrepreneurs to develop and deploy lower carbon energy sources like solar and wind power. Sounds simple, but ACES is anything but simple.

The bill is replete with tax breaks, subsidies, and mandates aimed at buying off various special interest groups and industries. For example, it authorizes $60 billion for carbon capture and sequestration projects, $15 billion in subsidies to small and medium sized businesses to finance the cost of clean energy manufacturing products, and $2.5 billion for residential energy efficiency block grant programs to states. The bill also puts $150 million in an Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Worker Training Fund, and so on.

The new 50-year energy plan leaves little to chance. Congress has issued a flood of mandates large and small. For example, utilities must purchase 20 percent of their energy from renewable sources by 2020, states and utilities are obliged to build regional infrastructures to support plug-in electric vehicles, new homes have to be 30 percent more energy efficient and—since no detail is too small to escape congressional notice—requires rising energy efficiency standards for outdoor lighting.

Will Americans tolerate such sweeping interventions into their lives and workplaces? Perhaps not. The American Clean Energy and Security Act is even bigger in scope and complexity than President Bill Clinton's 1993 Health Security Act. Clinton's 1,364-page bill would have created over 100 new federal bureaucracies, hundreds of new regulations, and massive changes in the tax code. At the same time, President Clinton in 1993 proposed a tax on the heat content of various fuels, known as the BTU (British Thermal Units) tax. This tax aimed to reduce pollution and encourage conservation. It was estimated that the BTU tax would increase energy costs for the typical household by 4.5 percent or about $105 in 1996. The price of gasoline would have risen by 7.5 cents per gallon. Public and business opposition effectively killed both the health care scheme and the BTU in 1994. Even supporters of ACES, who are eager to low-ball its costs, admit that it will eventually boost gasoline prices by 25 cents per gallon and household energy bills by $175 per year. Other estimates suggest that ACES will force energy prices far higher.

In 2009, a Democratic president and Democratic Congress are once again proposing costly and intrusive changes in both health care and energy supplies. The 1994 mid-term election became a referendum on big government and ushered in Republican control of both the Senate and House of Representatives for the first time since the early 1950s. Given the Republican Party's current disarray, it's unlikely that 2010 will see another "Republican Revolution." However, as the new energy policies slow economic growth and impose vast new costs on consumers, it will be the Republicans who are quietly saying, "The worse, the better."

Ronald Bailey is Reason magazine's science correspondent. His book Liberation Biology: The Scientific and Moral Case for the Biotech Revolution is now available from Prometheus Books.

Rhetoric vs. Reality in the Health Care Debate

rbailey@reason.com (Ronald Bailey) — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 15:00:00 EDT

Last week, the Democratic leadership in the House of Representatives unveiled their discussion draft of a sweeping bill to reform America's health care system. The bill would create health insurance exchanges and a government insurance scheme, require insurers to sell insurance no matter a purchaser's health status, set minimum benefit standards, subsidize insurance purchases to families up to 400 percent of the federal poverty level ($43,000 for an individual or $88,000 for a family of four), mandate that all Americans carry health insurance, and impose price controls on what doctors and hospitals may charge. The Democratic leadership hasn't the faintest idea what its reform proposals will cost.

The draft bill also would establish a public-private Health Benefits Advisory Committee to recommend covered benefits and an essential benefits package. This is the only section of the bill that mentions the word "rationing." It declares that "the Committee shall take into account innovation in health care and ensure that essential benefits coverage does not lead to rationing of health care." Of course, it would be helpful to know what the bill means by "rationing."

Earlier in the week, New York Times economic columnist David Leonhardt set out to explain what rationing is. First, let's acknowledge that Leonhardt does identify many dysfunctional aspects of our current health care system, including how we reimburse primary care physicians and specialists.

But in the article, Leonhardt claims that "health care rationing rhetoric overlooks reality." Leonhardt asserts that health care is already being "rationed." Since this is so, those who warn against proposed government health care rationing, according to Leonhardt, are either confused or liars. Such people, Leonhardt explains, are deploying "a clever set of buzzwords that tries to hide the fact that societies must make choices." The phrase "societies must make choices" is the first hint of how confused Leonhardt is about the concept of rationing. Rationing is all about who gets to make those choices.

Leonhardt goes on to cite what he thinks are three supposedly telling examples of rationing. "We ration spots in good public high schools. We ration lakefront homes. We ration the best cuts of steak and wild-caught salmon," he writes. Which one of those examples doesn't fit? Figuring this out is another key to Leonhardt's misunderstanding of the debate over health care rationing.

Next up he cites the dictum of one of capitalism's great defenders, economist Milton Friedman: "There is no such thing as a free lunch." True. But Leonhardt follows up this insight by writing: "The choice isn't between rationing and not rationing. It's between rationing well and rationing badly." Does Leonhardt think that lakefront homes are rationed badly? Steaks? Or for that matter clothing, restaurant meals, shoes, cars, computers, or airline tickets?

Moving beyond lakefront homes and steaks, Leonhardt eventually gives readers three examples of current health care "rationing." The first example is that employers are forced to decide between paying higher wages or providing higher health care benefits to their employees. He notes that the tradeoff between wages and benefits is often "invisible" to employees and thus it appears to them that their compensation is not increasing much.

Of course, the way to avoid this kind of "rationing" would be to just pay the employees all their money and let them buy their own health insurance. Thus health insurance would become "rationed" just the same way that we ration cars and cellular telephones. Allowing consumer choices in health insurance and health care will also help drive down prices and increase the range of health insurance products in just the same way consumer choice operates in other areas of our economy.

The current provision of medical care to the uninsured is Leonhardt's second example of rationing. This example is closer to the mark since health care for the uninsured is already mandated and/or paid for (Medicaid and SCHIP) by federal and state governments. He notes the poor quality of care that such people receive without musing for a moment that such poor government-funded care might be a harbinger for what "universal" health care would become.

Leonhardt's third alleged example of current health care rationing is the "failure to provide certain types of care, even to people with health insurance." The fact that certain health insurance policies chosen by individuals and/or their employers don't cover certain treatments is no more "rationing" than it is when people choose not to eat a USDA prime steak or pay tuition for a private college education.

On the other hand, Leonhardt is right to say that our dysfunctional health care system misses opportunities to offer good treatments to people in need. The current system misses those opportunities, in part, because there is so little competition and thus very little incentive for health care providers to supply information to consumers. Consumers can competently choose between complicated computer technologies and evaluate automobile performance because competitors are motivated to supply consumers with relevant information. The same kind of competitive dynamic could work with the provision of health care and health insurance.

So if Leonhardt gets it so wrong, what is rationing? Leonhardt is correct when he writes, "In truth, rationing is an inescapable part of economic life. It is the process of allocating scarce resources." The crucial question that Leonhardt misses is that "rationing" depends on who is allocating the scarce resources. It's not rationing if an individual decides to spend his money on a 16-ounce steak—but it is rationing if he can only purchase a USDA prime rib eye when he has a coupon issued from a government agency. In other words, true rationing occurs when individuals are forbidden from spending their money on products or services they want to buy.

Imperfect as private health insurance markets are, if a customer doesn't like the decisions made by Blue Cross Blue Shield, Kaiser Permanente, or Golden Rule insurance bureaucrats, he can look elsewhere for his health insurance coverage. But if the government health care scheme becomes a monopoly, when the bureaucrats at the new Health Benefits Advisory Committee decide that a treatment should be withheld, that treatment will be withheld. That's rationing.

"Americans should get the first chance to limit their own health spending," Rep. Jim Cooper (D-Tenn.) observed recently. "Once they learn the true cost of what they are buying, share a larger portion of the cost, and can judge the benefits—if any—of treatment options, then they will choose more wisely than the government." He's right. Congress should think about "rationing" health insurance and health care the old-fashioned way—through the market.

Ronald Bailey is Reason magazine's science correspondent. His book Liberation Biology: The Scientific and Moral Case for the Biotech Revolution is now available from Prometheus Books.

Please Explain How Algae Biodiesel at $9 to $40 per Gallon is Economically Viable?

rbailey@reason.com (Ronald Bailey) — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 12:11:00 EDT

Currently regular diesel is going for around $2.50 per gallon. A new study, Algae 2020, reports:

Based on the examination of several algae business and economic models, the Algae 2020 study finds the estimated costs to produce algae oils and algae biodiesel today range from $9 to $25 per gallon in ponds, and from $15 to $40 in photobioreactors (PBRs) today. Reducing these costs are critical for commercial success.

Like many "green fuels" algae biodiesel appears to be a long way from economic viability. Not to worry - the Department of Energy is allocating $50 million in R&D funding to algae fuels.

"In the beginning sperm came from men"

rbailey@reason.com (Ronald Bailey) — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 15:27:00 EDT

That's the tag line for the new film, "The Baby Formula." In the movie, two lesbians get pregnant using sperm derived from each other's stem cells. Men become reproductively superfluous. This scenario in which stem cells are transformed into sperm is not too far fetched since it has already been done in mice. Eventually possible? Maybe. Controversial? You bet. Makes designer babies look tame.

As a CNEWS article about the film notes:

Still, the mere idea of lesbian couples (or gay men using a surrogate mother) having a baby with their own genetic material is sure to horrify some people.

As the religious mother of one of the women in “The Baby Formula” says: “Who do you think you are, God? ... You’re stealing the Immaculate Conception from Jesus.”

Yet Caulfield wonders if safety issues could someday be overcome, “is there anything inherently wrong with allowing a lesbian couple to give birth. I don’t know that there is.”

“I think we have to move beyond the sort of yuck response,” he says. “When we start regulating and curtailing technologies and setting up barriers, I do think we need to do it on a principle basis.”

It wasn’t that long ago that sperm donation and test-tube babies were thought disgusting by some, he says. Now they’re accepted practice.

“I think the yuck response is a good reason for caution and a good reason for reflection, but it’s not a justification for prohibition.”

“We do evolve. There is social accommodation that occurs and I think with a lot of these new technologies, that’s also going to be the case.”

I'm betting on social accommodation.

Whole CNEWS article here.

The Invisible Hand of Population Control

rbailey@reason.com (Ronald Bailey) — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 15:00:00 EDT

"The freedom to breed is intolerable," ecologist Garrett Hardin declared in his famous 1968 essay, "The Tragedy of the Commons." I recently re-read Hardin's call for population control, and this passage caught my attention: "We can make little progress in working toward optimum population size until we explicitly exorcize the spirit of Adam Smith in the field of practical demography." Hardin specifically wanted to exorcize Smith's claim in The Wealth of Nations that an individual who "intends only his own gain," is, as it were, "led by an invisible hand to promote...the public interest."

Hardin believed that Smith's metaphor of an invisible hand was contributing to "the dominant tendency of thought that has ever since interfered with positive action based on rational analysis, namely the tendency to assume that decisions reached individually will, in fact, be the best decisions for an entire society. If this assumption is correct it justifies the continuance of our present policy of laissez faire in reproduction." As the essay makes abundantly clear, Hardin is convinced that "rational analysis" will prove that Smith's invisible hand leads to inevitable population ruin.

In fact, several recent studies suggest that Hardin might have it backward. Under certain circumstances, there may actually be an invisible hand that leads to an optimum population.

“There is no prosperous population in the world today that has, and has had for some time, a growth rate of zero,” Hardin declared. That’s no longer true. Japan is now experiencing a fall in its population due to reduced fertility, as are Germany, Russia, Italy, Poland and 25 other countries and territories. And there are many societies in which total fertility rates are rapidly decelerating.

Let's take a look at two intriguing lists. The first is a list of countries ranked on the 2009 Index of Economic Freedom issued by the Heritage Foundation and The Wall Street Journal. Then compare the economic freedom index rankings with a list of countries ranked by their total fertility rates. Of the 30 countries that are ranked as being free or mostly free, only three have fertility rates above 2.1, e.g., New Zealand at 2.11, the Bahamas at 2.13, and Bahrain at 2.53. If one adds the next 53 countries that are ranked as moderately free, one finds that only 8 out of 83 countries have fertility rates above 3. It should be noted that low fertility rates can also be found in more repressive countries as well, e.g., China at 1.77, Cuba at 1.6, Iran at 1.71, and Russia at 1.4.

In 2002, Seth Norton, a business economics professor at Wheaton College in Illinois, published a remarkably interesting study on the inverse relationship between prosperity and fertility. Norton compared fertility rates of over 100 countries with their index rankings for economic freedom and another index for the rule of law. "Fertility rate is highest for those countries that have little economic freedom and little respect for the rule of law," wrote Norton. "The relationship is a powerful one. Fertility rates are more than twice as high in countries with low levels of economic freedom and the rule of law compared to countries with high levels of those measures."

Norton found that the fertility rate in countries that ranked low on economic freedom averaged 4.27 children per woman while countries with high economic freedom rankings had an average fertility rate of 1.82 children per woman. His results for the rule of law were similar; fertility rates in countries with low respect for the rule of law averaged 4.16 whereas countries with high respect for the rule of law had fertility rates averaging 1.55.

Economic freedom and the rule of law produce prosperity which dramatically lowers child mortality which, in turn, reduces the incentive to bear more children. In addition, along with increased prosperity comes more education for women, opening up more productive opportunities for them in the cash economy. This increases the opportunity costs for staying at home to rear children. Educating children to meet the productive challenges of growing economies also becomes more expensive and time consuming.

Thailand's experience over the past 30 years exemplifies this process. During that time, female literacy rose to 90 percent; 50 percent of the workforce is now female; and fertility fell from 6 children per woman in the 1960s to 1.64 today. Although Thailand is classified as only moderately free on the economic freedom index, its gross domestic product (GDP) grew in terms of purchasing power parity from just over $1,000 per capita in 1960 to over $7,000 per capita in 2003.

The income, investment and consumption opportunities that people forego when they choose to rear children are even greater in truly free economies. The U.S. government estimates that it costs an American family making less $45,000 per year in before tax income almost $150,000 to rear a child to age 18. Families making over $77,000 will spend nearly $300,000 per child. And that's before paying for college. In modern societies, children are no longer capital goods, but luxury consumption items.

Norton persuasively argues that Hardin's fears of a population tragedy of the commons are actually realized when the invisible hand of economic freedom is shackled. Many poor countries have poorly specified and enforced property rights. Poor property rights means that many resources are effectively left in open access commons where the incentive is to grab what one can before the other guy gets it. Norton points out that in such situations, more children mean more hands for grabbing unowned and unprotected resources such as water, fodder, timber, fish, pastures, and for land clearing. Lacking the institutional incentives to invest in and preserve resources, this drive to take as much as possible as quickly as possible leads to perpetual poverty.

In his essay, Hardin gives us the arresting example of a pasture open to all people in a village. Each herdsman, seeking to maximize his individual gain, puts as many cattle on the pasture as possible, leading eventually to its destruction from overgrazing. "Ruin is the destination toward which all men rush, each pursuing his own best interest in a society that believes in the freedom of the commons," writes Hardin. "Freedom in a commons brings ruin to us all."

But the problem is not the commons; it's the fact that it's open access. There are numerous examples in which property is held and effectively managed as a commons, e.g., condominium associations, medieval village commons, etc. Hardin is wrong when he concludes that "the inherent logic of the commons, remorselessly generates tragedy." Fortunately, the logic of an overused commons often ends its open access by remorselessly generating property, not tragedy.

But what about the past? Haven't societies collapsed due to overpopulation? To the extent that it is true that some societies have suffered collapses, we now know that it was because they lacked the proper institutions for channeling individual striving into a process of economic growth which ultimately promotes the public interest. Very few earlier societies could be characterized as either economically free or respecting the rule of law. Throughout history most people lived in the institutional equivalents of open access commons overseen by rapacious elites which encouraged high fertility rates and the plundering of natural resources.

The chief goal of all other species is to turn food into offspring. More food means more offspring. It is this biological logic that underlies the perennial fears of human overpopulation. Most creatures live in environments that correspond to open access commons. Recent fertility trends strongly suggest that the simple biological model of human breeding is wrong, or at least, is wrong when the institutions that support economic freedom and the rule of law, e.g., markets, price stability, honest bureaucracies, security of private property, and the fair enforcement of contracts, are well-developed. Economic freedom and the rule of law are the equivalent of enclosing the open access breeding commons, causing parents to bear more and more of the costs of rearing children. In other words, economic freedom actually generates an invisible hand of population control.

Ronald Bailey is Reason magazine's science correspondent. His book Liberation Biology: The Scientific and Moral Case for the Biotech Revolution is now available from Prometheus Books.

Reason Talkers Around Town: Ron Bailey on "The Libertarian Dime"

rbailey@reason.com (Ronald Bailey) — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 13:39:00 EDT

Last month, the guys behind The Libertarian Dime, Shane, Jonathan and Mike, talked with Reason's science correspondent in a wide-ranging discussion on topics such transhumanism, genetic testing, and even a foray into environmentalist politics.

From the show's description:

This week, Shane, Jonathan, and Mike had the immense pleasure of speaking with Ron Bailey of Reason about transhumanism, its many forms, and what it means in a free-market society. We also discussed the political ramifications of transhumanism and what legislation is in the works to guide or hinder the movement, as well as how transhumanism impacts laws and practices that are already in place. The show also briefly touched on issues such as land usage, veganism, and the ethics surrounding knowing your own DNA sequence. It was a lot of fun to do, and the hosts of the Libertarian Dime thank Ron Bailey for allowing them to speak with him for the entire show. A great show, that libertarians and science geeks shouldn’t miss!

To listen to the show and check other episodes go here.

Price Controls "Pay" for President Obama's Health Care Reforms

rbailey@reason.com (Ronald Bailey) — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 15:12:00 EDT

Today in a speech before the American Medical Association, President Barack Obama outlined how he plans to raise the $1 trillion necessary to pay for his proposed health care reform agenda over the next decade. First, the president cited his $635 billion health reserve fund as the famous "down payment" for his reform agenda. About half - $300 billion - of this aspirational reserve fund is "paid for" by capping the tax breaks on charitable deductions of rich Americans to 28 percent. Never mind that this proposed tax hike has yet to pass Congress and that many key Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill oppose it.

Another chunk of the notional Health Reserve Fund will come from reducing payments - $177 billion - to private Medicare Advantage companies that provide insurance coverage for about 10 million Medicare beneficiaries. The president also plans to reduce hospital Medicare reimbursements by $25 billion over the next ten years. Another $30 billion is accounted for by charging wealthier Medicare beneficiaries more for their drugs.

In his weekly radio address and his speech today, President Obama claimed to have found an additional $313 billion in Medicare and Medicaid savings over the next ten years which will help pay for his $1 trillion health care reform agenda. These savings include a cut of $109 billion in payments to physicians based on recalculating the federal government's productivity payment formula.

Another $106 billion will come from cuts in payments to hospitals for treating uninsured people. The argument here is that once the reforms are enacted there won't be many uninsured people seeking uncompensated services at hospitals. This gambit may "save" money for Medicare and Medicaid, but some other agency or enterprise will be paying for the hospital services that the newly insured receive. Isn't this shifting the pots from which $106 billion will come rather than reducing overall spending on hospital care? Isn't it likely that a good part of the $106 billion will have to come from the president's proposed government insurance scheme?

More "savings" of $75 billion that could used to "pay for" President Obama's health care reforms would come from "more efficient purchasing" of prescription drugs. The Medicare Part D prescription drug plan was adopted in 2003 with a non-interference clause that promised that the federal government would not impose price controls on pharmaceuticals. Of course, when Medicare was established in 1965, the government made the same promise to physicians and hospital then. I suspect that "more efficient purchasing" is just a nicer way of saying "price controls." And it should be noted that according to the president, "we can save about one billion more by rooting out waste, abuse, and fraud throughout our health care system." Just a billion?

After parsing the numbers, it looks as though most the "savings" that President Obama wants to use to finance his health care reforms are achieved by imposing price controls.

It must be asked: can federal government "savings" projected over a decade really be credible in any case? Recall that in December 2000, the Clinton administration declared that "the United States can be debt-free this decade. By dedicating the entire budget surplus to debt reduction, the United States can eliminate its publicly held debt by FY 2009."

It is undeniable that health care in America needs massive reform. But the best step toward health care reform would be to begin unwinding our dysfunctional system of third party insurance payments and shifting toward consumer driven health care. But President Obama has made it clear that it not the direction he intends to go.

Climate Change: Road to Copenhagen I

rbailey@reason.com (Ronald Bailey) — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 10:03:00 EDT

With this post I am initiating a periodic update of various landmarks along the road toward the United Nations' Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen. Known in UN jargon as the 15th Conference of the Parties (COP-15) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the conference will convene in Denmark this coming December. Today's update features a new statement on climate change issued by the scientific academies of the world's 13 largest economies, including the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, the Royal Society, the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Indian Academy of Sciences. Among many other things, the statement declares:

...climate change is happening even faster than previously estimated; global CO2 emissions since 2000 have been higher than even the highest predictions, Arctic sea ice has been melting at rates much faster than predicted, and the rise in the sea level has become more rapid. Feedbacks in the climate system might lead to much more rapid climate changes.

The need for urgent action to address climate change is now indisputable. For example, limiting global warming to 2°C would require a very rapid worldwide implementation of all currently available low carbon technologies.

According to the science academies' statement, all governments should

...agree at the UNFCCC negotiations in Copenhagen to adopt a long-term global goal and near-term emission reduction targets that will deliver an approximately 50% reduction in global emissions from 1990 levels by 2050 ...

Curiously, the statement doesn't talk about actual global temperature trends.

Read the whole statement here. Look for coming updates detailing various scientific and policy landmarks as the world wends its way toward Copenhagen in December.

Republicans for Nukes!

rbailey@reason.com (Ronald Bailey) — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 13:16:00 EDT

House Republicans plan to introduce an energy bill to counteract the carbon cap-and-trade scheme offered by House Democrats last month. The goal is to encourage the building of 100 new nuclear power plants over the next 20 years. The total generating capacity of today's 104 nuclear power plants is 105 gigawatts. Assuming each new nuke facility has a generating capacity of 1,000 megawatts that would mean essentially doubling the U.S. nuclear power capacity.

Greenhouse gas emissions from coal-fired electricity now constitute about 27 percent of total U.S. emissions. Stretching reality a bit, but assuming that the new nukes replace 100 gigawatts of the current 330 gigawatts of carbon-emitting coal-fired electricity generation, that would reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions over the next 20 years by 9 percent. Compare this with the Democratic cap-and-trade bill which aims to cut U.S. carbon dioxide emissions by 17 percent by 2020 and 42 percent by 2030. The House will supposedly vote on the cap-and-trade bill before the July 4th Congressional recess.

Instead of trying to compete with the Democrats by proposing subsidies to favored energy technologies, why not just get rid of all energy subsidies?

The Beginning of the End of Private Health Insurance

rbailey@reason.com (Ronald Bailey) — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 15:00:00 EDT

In his weekly radio address on Saturday, President Barack Obama declared that "it's time to deliver" on health care reform. In a letter to Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), President Obama wrote, "I strongly believe that Americans should have the choice of a public health insurance option operating alongside private plans. This will give them a better range of choices, make the health care market more competitive, and keep insurance companies honest." This week Sen. Kennedy released a draft of his proposed "American Health Choices Act" which includes one such optional public health insurance plan. The administration's goal is to report that bill out of the relevant Senate committees by the end of this month.

Earlier this week, Republican lawmakers sent a letter of their own, strongly warning the president that "Washington-run programs undermine market-based competition through their ability to impose price controls and shift costs to other purchasers. Forcing free market plans to compete with these government-run programs would create an unlevel playing field and inevitably doom true competition."

Sadly, we are already well on our way to a wholly government-run health insurance system. After fall, about 47 percent of all health care expenses today are paid for by federal, state, and local governments, e.g., Medicare, Medicaid, and State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). Establishing a public insurance scheme would dramatically increase the percentage of health care that is paid for by the federal government.

In April, the Lewin Group, a health care consultancy, issued an analysis of how the public health insurance option plan might affect the provision of private health insurance. Currently about 170 million Americans are covered by private health insurance plans, mostly through their employers.

The Lewin Group crunched the numbers through their health care model and found that premiums for the public option plan would be 30 to 40 percent lower than private plans. Sounds great, right? But these lower premiums are essentially achieved by imposing price controls. The Lewin Group assumed that the public option plan will pay doctors and hospitals at the same rates they currently receive from Medicare. And Medicare reimbursements already run 71 percent and 81 percent below what private health plans pay hospitals and doctors, respectively.

First, the somewhat good news. Lower public option premiums and an increase in Medicaid coverage would attract 28 million of the 48 million Americans who currently are not covered by health insurance. Now the bad news. The lower premiums would encourage employers to drop private health insurance and put their employees into the public plan. Overall, the Lewin Group estimates that if Medicare reimbursement rates are imposed, the number of Americans with private health insurance would decline by almost 120 million, leaving only 50 million Americans in the private insurance market.

Defenders of the public option quickly point out that Kennedy's American Health Choices Act promises to pay health care providers 10 percent more than Medicare. But as the Cato Institute's Michael Tanner noted at Cato@Liberty, "When Medicare began, proponents promised it would reimburse at the same rate as insurance. That promise didn't last long." In fact, in his letter to Kennedy and Baucus, Obama explicitly endorsed the idea of setting mandatory physician and hospital reimbursement rates through the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission. In other words, the payments would no longer be merely advisory.

The Lewin Group looked at another scenario similar to the Kennedy proposal, where the public option plan reimbursements to doctors and hospitals were set at the midpoint between Medicare and private plans. In that scenario, the number of Americans covered by private insurance would only drop by 67 million, instead of 120 million. Today, the number of Americans covered by Medicaid is 51 million, with another 45 million covered by Medicare, and 5 million covered by SCHIP. In addition, the Lewin Group estimates that an additional 10 million more would be covered by Medicaid under the Kennedy proposal. So the grand total of Americans likely to be initially covered by government health insurance once the public option is launched would come to 177 million out of 306 million, leaving 103 million privately insured and 20 million still uninsured.

The best result of creating a parallel public insurance scheme is that the United States would end up with an explicit two-tier medical system in which privately insured Americans have better access to better medical care. Such two-tier health care systems already exist in countries with national health care schemes such as the United Kingdom and Germany. In the United Kingdom, more and more Britons are opting for private health insurance instead of remaining with that country's National Health Service. Privately insured Americans would get higher quality health care, but because the market for medical innovation would be smaller, everybody will get worse care than they would otherwise have received had most health care not been nationalized.

The worst case scenario is that the public option plan would eventually absorb what remains of the private health care system. This could happen as the political constituency for private health care and insurance shrinks while more and more Americans become covered by government insurance. In addition, it will be hard for politicians to resist forcing wealthier patients to join the government plan as a way to make up for eventual shortfalls in revenues.

The Republican letter to President Obama presciently warns that a government insurance option will create a fatal dynamic, the end result of which "would be a federal government takeover of our healthcare system, taking decisions out of the hands of doctors and patients and placing them in the hands of a Washington bureaucracy." Once the vast majority of Americans are covered under various government "insurance" plans, the push to go all the way toward universal coverage will be almost irresistible.

Ronald Bailey is Reason magazine's science correspondent. His book Liberation Biology: The Scientific and Moral Case for the Biotech Revolution is now available from Prometheus Books.

Global Temperature Trend Update

rbailey@reason.com (Ronald Bailey) — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 11:42:00 EDT

Every month University of Alabama at Huntsville climatologists John Christy and Roy Spencer report the latest global temperature trends from the satellite data. Below are the newest data updated through May 2009. Interestingly, there has been essentially no warming trend for nearly a decade now.

"Warrior Gene" Predicts Gang Membership

rbailey@reason.com (Ronald Bailey) — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 10:47:00 EDT

A new report in the journal Comprehensive Psychiatry by Florida State University biosocial criminologist Kevin Beaver finds that males who carry a specific "low activity" allele of a gene for monoamine oxidase a (MAOA) tend to be more violent and are more likely to join gangs. As the press release for the study reports:

Boys who carry a particular variation of the gene Monoamine oxidase A (MAOA), sometimes called the "warrior gene," are more likely not only to join gangs but also to be among the most violent members and to use weapons, according to a new study from The Florida State University that is the first to confirm an MAOA link specifically to gangs and guns...

"While gangs typically have been regarded as a sociological phenomenon, our investigation shows that variants of a specific MAOA gene, known as a 'low-activity 3-repeat allele,' play a significant role," said Beaver...

"Previous research has linked low-activity MAOA variants to a wide range of antisocial, even violent, behavior, but our study confirms that these variants can predict gang membership," he said. "Moreover, we found that variants of this gene could distinguish gang members who were markedly more likely to behave violently and use weapons from members who were less likely to do either."

The MAOA gene affects levels of neurotransmitters such as dopamine and serotonin that are related to mood and behavior, and those variants that are related to violence are hereditary. Some previous studies have found the "warrior gene" to be more prevalent in cultures that are typified by warfare and aggression.

But having this version of MAOA gene does not predestine a guy to a life of ultraviolence. I as reported a while back, research in New Zealand found a big contribution comes from the environment in which MAOA low activity carriers grow up. If such males are reared in good homes with no abuse, they are no more likely to commit crimes than males who have the higher activity (low crime) version of the MAOA gene.

But here's the question: Once genetic screening becomes widely available, should such young males be subject to greater scrutiny and perhaps be offered a drug treatment that reduces their risk of becoming violent?

Disgusted? Then You Might Be a Conservative

rbailey@reason.com (Ronald Bailey) — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 11:46:00 EDT

Cornell University psychologist David Pizarro and his colleagues have just published a study in the journal Cognition and Emotion that finds a correlation between being easily disgusted and some attitudes associated with politlcal conservatism. As the Washington Post reports (scroll down) Pizarro:

... surveyed 181 adults from four politically mixed swing states to assess their general political leanings and their propensity to be disgusted by things such as maggots, feces and vomit. Those who were more likely to be grossed out tended to be more politically conservative, the researchers report in the journal Cognition & Emotion.

To test whether disgust sensitivity was associated with specific conservative ideas, the researchers then surveyed 91 Cornell undergraduates to test how sensitive they were to being grossed out and asked about their attitudes on same-sex marriage, abortion, gun control, labor unions, tax cuts, affirmative action and other issues.

Those who were most easily disgusted were more likely to oppose same-sex marriage and abortion and were somewhat more likely to support tax cuts. But there was no link to views on other policy issues.

In another study published in the journal, Pizarro and his colleagues found that those who were most easily disgusted were more likely to react negatively to homosexual behavior, such as two men kissing.

Interestingly, this falls in line with bioconservative Leon Kass' famous New Republic article in which he argued for "The Wisdom of Repugnance" in opposing human cloning research. The good news is that a lot of things that used to provoke the "yuck factor" in sizeable proportions of the American public, e.g., in vitro fertilization and homosexual sex, have become more acceptable over time.

Enjoy Health Care As a Regulated Utility

rbailey@reason.com (Ronald Bailey) — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 11:09:00 EDT

President Barack Obama is pushing for health care reform by October. One of his main proposals is the creation of a "public option insurance plan" to keep private insurers "honest." By "honest" Obama means that private insurers would have to compete with the public health plan by keeping their prices as low as the government's plan. So how would the feds keep their prices low? By imposing price controls, explains the New York Times:

To help control costs, the administration indicated support on Tuesday for a proposal to strengthen a federal panel that recommends how much Medicare should pay doctors, hospitals, nursing homes and other health care providers.
Senator John D. Rockefeller IV, Democrat of West Virginia, recently introduced a bill that would expand the role of the panel, the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission, and give its recommendations the force of law. Senators said Mr. Obama and his aides had expressed general support for such a change, which would establish the panel as an independent rate-setting body in the executive branch.

This would basically turn medical care into a regulated utility. In other words, private insurers would have to compete with a government agency that could tell doctors, hospitals, and drug companies how much they are going to get paid, period.

How have price controls worked out in other areas of the economy? Not too well, at least with regard to electrical utilities. As one research report found:

...monopoly regulation appears to have stifled productivity and long-term innovation in the U.S. electric utility sector.

You can be sure that price control regulation will do exactly the same thing to health care innovation and productivity. And for those of you who live in the blessed era of (some) telecommunications deregulation, take a little walk down memory lane to see what it was like to live under the tyranny of the original AT&T with this (not too inaccurate) Lily Tomlin spoof.

Energy Price Deceit

rbailey@reason.com (Ronald Bailey) — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 16:30:00 EDT

Last month, leading Congressional climateer, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, pushed out a sweeping 1000-page bill that aims to dramatically reshape how Americans will use energy in the 21st century. At the heart of the American Clean Energy and Security (ACES) Act is a cap-and-trade proposal for limiting the emissions of carbon dioxide by American industry and consumers. Carbon dioxide, produced by burning fossil fuels and chopping down forests, is building up in the atmosphere where it is thought be the chief cause of man-made global warming.

The ACES Act would establish an artificial carbon market by setting a limit on the amount of greenhouse gases that can be emitted each year. Beginning in 2012, a national cap—or total maximum CO2 emissions—would be set and then ratcheted downward annually. Under ACES, the U.S. would emit 17 percent less carbon dioxide in 2020 than it did in 2005, eventually falling to 83 percent less than emitted in 2005 by 2050.

Electric and gas utilities, cement plants, steel foundries, and other companies would be required to have one emissions permit for every ton of CO2 discharged from their smoke stacks. Under a cap-and-trade scheme, emissions permits can be allocated and/or auctioned up to the set cap. Once allocated, the market allows companies emitting less than their quota to sell their excess permits to emitters needing to buy extra to meet their cap. This process sets a price on each ton of carbon dioxide.

The central fact of the cap-and-trade proposal is that it will increase the price of energy. If energy prices don't go up, the goal of getting energy producers, manufacturers, and consumers to shift away from carbon generating fuels (coal, oil, and natural gas) toward low-carbon sources of energy (nuclear, solar, wind, conservation) will not be achieved.

Whatever else they are, the folks in Congress are not stupid when comes to protecting their electoral viability. They are painfully aware of the fact that, while Americans express support for regulations to reduce greenhouse gases, 77 percent in a recent ABC News/Washington Post poll declared themselves either "very concerned" or "concerned" that "federal regulation of greenhouse gases could substantially raise the price of things you have to pay for."

So in an attempt to ward off voter displeasure over higher energy prices brought about by Congressionally-mandated carbon rationing, the denizens on Capitol Hill have tacked on a number of Rube Goldbergesque policy obfuscations designed the mask the price increases. These include subsidies and tax breaks for retrofitting buildings to use less energy, setting energy conservation appliance standards, subsidies for higher mileage automobiles, and imposing a renewable fuel standard on utility companies, among many other things.

The chief technique that Congress is using to hide the mandated price increase in electricity and natural gas from voters is giving away free emissions permits to local electricity and gas distribution companies. In the ACES bill, some 30 percent of emissions permits are allocated free to local distribution companies who are supposed to sell the permits and then pass along the money to consumers as a lump sum rebate to offset their higher utility bills. Why a lump sum?

As Harvard University environmental economist Robert Stavins explains in his article on "The Wonderful Politics of Cap-and-Trade," the hope is that such rebates will compensate "consumers for increases in electricity prices, but without reducing incentives for energy conservation." Even if they are getting a rebate, higher monthly electric bills will still likely annoy voters. But let's assume that this scheme actually works as intended and blunts household displeasure about paying more for electricity and natural gas.

There's one big problem: The proposal merely shifts the price paid by consumers for energy from local utilities to other products and services. For example, Resources for the Future economists Rich Sweeney and Dallas Burtraw calculate that auctioning all of the carbon emissions permits would result in a price of $20.91 per metric ton. However, allocating 30 percent of the carbon dioxide emissions permits free to local utilities as proposed under the ACES bill would mean lower electricity prices, and lower prices would mean more consumption. The result is that there would 24 percent fewer emissions reductions in the electricity sector than would have been the case had all permits been auctioned.

The higher emissions in the electricity sector make it harder for other sectors of the economy—automobiles, construction, steel, cement, food processing, retail, agriculture—to stay below the national cap on carbon dioxide emissions. And this pushes up the demand for the remaining permits, which boosts their prices. Sweeney and Burtraw calculate that the requirement for increased emissions reductions in other sectors under a national cap would raise the allowance price to $26.90 per metric ton. The result, according to Sweeney and Burtraw, is that "this raises the costs of goods and services from these sectors."

So this plan to allocate "free" permits could well end up costing consumers even more than they "save" on their household electricity and natural gas bills. Fearing the electoral consequences of honesty, Congress is trying to hide the fact that they are increasing energy prices by distracting the American people with a torrent of rebates, subsidies, and tax incentives, along with plenty of happy talk about renewable energy and creating "green jobs." The result is that Congress has devised a complicated and inefficient scheme where distributing a "free" commodity actually makes products and services more expensive than it would otherwise have to be. That's truly "wonderful politics"!

Ronald Bailey is Reason magazine's science correspondent. His book Liberation Biology: The Scientific and Moral Case for the Biotech Revolution is now available from Prometheus Books.

The "Computational Knowledge Engine" Wolfram Alpha Is Live

rbailey@reason.com (Ronald Bailey) — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 15:53:00 EDT

The much anticipated Wolfram Alpha is now up and running. As ABC News explains Wolfram Alpha is

... the name of an audacious, if quirky, Web site led by the scientist Stephen Wolfram -- not a search engine, and not meant to be the "Google killer" that it was sometimes described as being, but a "computational knowledge engine." It is a Web site that will answer your questions -- at least some of them -- even if nobody has ever asked them before.

"What we're trying to do is much more ambitious," said [scientist Stephen] Wolfram, 49, the lead developer of the technology behind the project, on which he says he has worked 25 years. "We're trying to take the question you ask, and automatically produce for you the answer, not giving you a collection of links, and saying, 'Go read this Web site, go read that Web site.'"

So I clicked over to check it out. For another project I'm working on I inputted "what is the total fertility rate of Hong Kong." I got back all kinds of nifty demographic information, e.g., population, population growth rate, life expectancy and so forth, but no TFR.

For comparison, I did a traditional Google search using "total fertility rate Hong Kong." I got the ususl list of links, the first of which gave me exactly the information I was seeking. The answer for 2008 is 1 child per woman.

On the other hand, when I asked Wolfram Alpha how far it is to Alpha Centuari or how much a monthly payment on a $250,000 30-year mortgage at 5.3 percent would be, the answers popped right up. They were 25.81 trillion miles and $1388, respectively.

It's an interesting project, so I will definitely be trying Woflram Alpha from time to time with very specific factual questions and calculations.

Update: I am very happy to report that when I asked Wolfram Alpha what is the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything, it gave the right answer. Hooray.

U.S. Violent Crime Rate Down

rbailey@reason.com (Ronald Bailey) — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 16:25:00 EDT

The Federal Bureau of Investigation released its preliminary analysis of crime trends in the U.S. for 2008 and there's plenty of good news:

... the nation experienced a 2.5 percent decrease in the number of violent crimes and a 1.6 percent decline in the number of property crimes for 2008 compared with data from 2007. The report is based on information that the FBI gathered from 12,750 law enforcement agencies that submitted six to 12 comparable months of data to the FBI for both 2007 and 2008.
... In 2008, all four of the violent crime offense categories declined nationwide compared with data from 2007. Murder and nonnegligent manslaughter declined 4.4 percent, aggravated assault was down 3.2 percent, forcible rape decreased 2.2 percent, and robbery decreased 1.1 percent.

See FBI press release detailing crime trends here.

The Folly of Unilateral Carbon Rationing

rbailey@reason.com (Ronald Bailey) — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 10:47:00 EDT

Last month, the House Energy and Commerce Committee issued the American Clean Energy and Security (ACES) Act which would impose a cap-and-trade carbon rationing scheme on the United States. The aim of ACES is to reduce the emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) from burning fossil fuels that are thought to be contributing to man-made global warming. Under ACES, the U.S. would emit 17 percent less CO2 in 2020 than it did in 2005. Congressional Democrats and President Barack Obama hope to get ACES enacted into law before the United Nation's next climate change conference convenes in Copenhagen this coming December.

In today's Washington Post, Harvard University economist Martin Feldstein advises against any rush to enact ACES before the Copenhagen conference.Why?

The Congressional Budget Office recently estimated that the resulting increases in consumer prices needed to achieve a 15 percent CO2 reduction -- slightly less than the Waxman-Markey target -- would raise the cost of living of a typical household by $1,600 a year. Some expert studies estimate that the cost to households could be substantially higher. The future cost to the typical household would rise significantly as the government reduces the total allowable amount of CO2.

Americans should ask themselves whether this annual tax of $1,600-plus per family is justified by the very small resulting decline in global CO2. Since the U.S. share of global CO2 production is now less than 25 percent (and is projected to decline as China and other developing nations grow), a 15 percent fall in U.S. CO2 output would lower global CO2 output by less than 4 percent. Its impact on global warming would be virtually unnoticeable. The U.S. should wait until there is a global agreement on CO2 that includes China and India before committing to costly reductions in the United States.

In a smart artcle over at National Review, Manhattan Institute fellow Jim Manzi also points out the folly of unilaterally cutting American greenhouse gas emissions:

Whenever one nation sacrifices economic growth in order to reduce emissions, the whole world can expect to benefit, because future temperature should decrease for the entire globe. Every nation’s incentive, therefore, is to free ride on everybody else. Our most obvious leverage with other emitting nations would be to offer to reduce our emissions if they reduced theirs. Giving up this leverage and hoping that our unilateral reductions would put moral pressure on China, Russia, Brazil, and similar countries to reduce their emissions reveals a touchingly sunny view of human nature, but it is a poor negotiating strategy.

Basically, under ACES, the U.S. would be imposing an energy price increase on its producers and consumers making the country less competitive compared to countries that would still be using cheaper fossil fuels. In an attempt to counteract this problem, the Federal government under ACES can award a portion of its emissions permits as a subsidy to energy intensive U.S. companies that are disadvantaged by the cap-and-trade scheme. Although the proposal was dropped in the current ACES bill, it is very likely that a countervailing carbon tariff will be included in future cap-and-trade legislation. Such subsidy and tariff provisions will likely provoke carbon trade wars.

See whole Feldstein column here and Manzi article here.

Human Language Gene Changes How Mice Squeak

rbailey@reason.com (Ronald Bailey) — Fri, 29 May 2009 11:55:00 EDT

German researchers have installed the human version of the FOXP2 gene into mice and they sound different than normal mice. FOXP2 is required for articulate speech. The version of the FOXP2 gene in chimpanzees, our closest evolutionary relatives, differs by just two amino acids from the human version. The mouse version differs by three. Recent research finds that Neanderthals had our version, suggesting that they might also have been language users. As the New York Times reports:

[The] possession of the human version of FOXP2 does in fact change the sounds that mice use to communicate with other mice, as well as other aspects of brain function.

That is the result reported in the current issue of the journal Cell by Wolfgang Enard, also of the Leipzig institute, and a large team of German researchers who studied 300 features of the humanized mice. FOXP2, a gene whose protein product switches on other genes, is important during the embryo’s development and plays an active part in constructing many tissues, including the lungs, stomach and brain. The gene is so vital that mice in which both copies of the gene are disrupted die after a few weeks.

Despite the mammalian body’s dependence on having its two FOXP2 genes work just right, Dr. Enard’s team found that the human version of FOXP2 seemed to substitute perfectly for the mouse version in all the mouse’s tissues except for the brain.

In a region of the brain called the basal ganglia, known in people to be involved in language, the humanized mice grew nerve cells that had a more complex structure. Baby mice utter ultrasonic whistles when removed from their mothers. The humanized baby mice, when isolated, made whistles that had a slightly lower pitch, among other differences, Dr. Enard says. Dr. Enard argues that putting significant human genes into mice is the only feasible way of exploring the essential differences between people and chimps, our closest living relatives.

FOXP2 induces significant changes in mammalian brains. Earlier this week, Japanese researchers showed that stable genetic modifications can be introduced into primates.So the question is: what would the effect of installing the human version of the FOXP2 gene into a chimp embryo be? How close to crossing the line between human and animal is ethical?

In a column back in 2004, while reporting on some earlier FOXP2 research, I mused on the question "What Is Too Human?" and concluded:

As humanity's biotechnological prowess increases, we will confront again and again the question of what, if any, limits should be placed on research that mixes human and animal genes, cells and tissues. The main ethical concern about such research is not the creation of improved and useful animals, but the risk of producing what would be, in effect, diminished human beings.

Creating mice that squeak differently is nowhere close to that ethical line and could shed fascinating light on what makes humans different.

Really Great Stem Cell Research News

rbailey@reason.com (Ronald Bailey) — Fri, 29 May 2009 10:32:00 EDT

Researchers at Harvard and Advanced Cell Technology are reporting that they have been able to turn ordinary skin cells into stem cells by dousing them with the proteins made by four specific genes. The researchers were then able to turn the stem cells into mature cells of various tissues. This work is building off the discovery last year that adult cells could be reverted to embryonic stem cell-like state by integrating four specific genes that previous research had found were active in embryonic stem cells. Because the genes were added using viruses to produce these induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells researchers worried that they might have a high potential for turning cancerous.

The new breakthrough would seem to be an end run around the cancer problem. As Reuters reports:

The team at Harvard University and Massachusetts-based Advanced Cell Technology Inc(ACTC.PK) said their technique involves soaking cells in human proteins that turn back the clock biologically, making the cells behave like powerful embryonic stem cells.

Dr. Robert Lanza of Advanced Cell sees almost immediate commercial applications.

"After a few more flight tests -- in order to assure everything is working properly -- it should be ready for commercial use," Lanza said by e-mail. ...

"This method eliminates the risks associated with genetic and chemical manipulation, and provides for the first time a potentially safe source of iPS cells for translation into the clinic," Lanza said.

"This is the ultimate stem cell solution -- you just add some proteins to a few skin cells and voila! Patient-specific stem cells!"

If this proves out, regenerative medicine would get a huge boost because such cells would be a source for rejection-proof transplant cells and tissues that could be used to repair the damaged organs of each individual patient.

Whole Reuters article here.