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The battle over the Amazon has been turned into a Brazilian telenovela
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Cargill promised to end deforestation. It’s telling farmers something else.
Your kitchen is full of exciting meal-making possibilities. And your fridge and pantry probably hold several methods to clean your home that you might not even realize. Here are 15 foods that make excellent cleaning products.
Rice is a wonderfully versatile ingredient in recipes, and it even has a place in your cleaning arsenal. Good Housekeeping recommends using uncooked rice to gently, but effectively clean hard-to-reach spots in vases and other glassware. Simply fill the vessel with water, dish soap and rice, and swish the mixture so the rice scrubs the inside. Then, drain and rinse the glassware.
Additionally, you can use rice to remove built-up oils from a coffee or spice grinder, according to The Kitchn. Pulverize roughly a quarter cup of rice in your grinder, and then wipe it out with a damp towel. The oils will cling to the rice, leaving the grinder fresh for its next use.
Besides acting as fries? sidekick, ketchup can be a powerful cleaning product. According to Good Housekeeping, you can use ketchup to remove tarnish from copper-bottomed cookware just by massaging the surface with the acidic condiment. Some people even use this method to shine away tarnished spots on their cars. And if the ketchup isn?t enough to dissolve stubborn tarnish, you can try adding a pinch of salt for a bit of scrubbing action. (Or add potatoes, and have yourself a nice snack.)
Don?t dump those grounds after you enjoy your morning coffee. They have many uses around the house. Healthline suggests using coffee grounds to fertilize your garden ? or to create more nutrient-rich compost. Plus, you can use them to repel pests, including mosquitoes, fruit flies and beetles. Furthermore, a bowl of coffee grounds in your fridge can help to neutralize odors. And you can use them as a natural cleaning scrub on nonporous surfaces ? as well as to exfoliate your own skin.
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Not a coffee drinker? No worries. Tea has many cleaning uses, as well. ?The astringency of tea actually cuts through grease and dust,? according to The Spruce. ?Plus it also adds a shine to hardwood floors and furniture.? As a hardwood floor cleaner, simply brew a pot of tea with five or six tea bags. Then, pour the tea into your mop bucket, and add cool water if needed. Just be sure to test it on an inconspicuous area before mopping your whole floor.
Potatoes: They?re great mashed, baked, fried ? and as a rust cleaner. If your favorite cast iron skillet or other cooking utensils have gotten a little rusty, just grab a raw potato, according to The Kitchn. Slice it in half, ?dip the cut end in dish soap or baking soda and firmly rub it over the rusted area.? Repeat until you?ve removed all the rust, slicing off a new cut end if necessary.
Sliced bread was a pretty great invention, especially when you consider its more offbeat uses. That spongy piece of dough is excellent at cleaning up messes, according to Good Housekeeping. Use a slice to clean marks off walls or gently dust artwork. It even is effective at picking up glass shards. Simply press a slice over the broken glass, and even tiny shards should safely stick into the bread.
After getting your potassium fix, hang on to that banana?s handy peel for a little bit of cleaning. SFGate recommends using banana peels to dust houseplants, especially the ones you can?t spray with water. Simply wipe the leaves with the inner wall of the peel to remove dust and dirt and leave behind a healthy, banana-scented glow. And that?s not the only household item banana peels can make shine. According to Apartment Therapy, you also can use them to naturally polish silver. Blend up the peels to make a paste, and then work that paste onto your silver item with a cloth. Finally, dip the item in water to remove any remaining paste.
With its plethora of uses around the house, baking soda is as much a cleaning product as it is a cooking ingredient. Mix it with a little water to make a surface scrub, use it with dish soap to help cut grease and grime on cookware or even add it to mop water to clean marks off floors. A water-baking soda combo is excellent at cleaning the inside of your oven or microwave, it can polish silver and remove coffee and tea stains from pots and mugs. Plus, baking soda can deodorize most areas of your home, including the refrigerator, trash cans and even drains. Those little boxes certainly pack a major punch.
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Baking soda might get a lot of cleaning glory, but lemon is right there with it. One of the easiest ways to clean your microwave is to chop up a lemon, add it to a bowl of water and heat it until your microwave window is steamy, according to Good Housekeeping. Wait at least 15 minutes for it to cool, and then wipe down the inside.
You also can clean wooden cutting boards by sprinkling them with a little salt, rubbing a cut lemon over it and then rinsing. Plus, lemon juice mixed with salt makes an effective brass cleaner. And don?t forget to add a little lemon rind to your natural all-purpose cleaner for a scent boost and some added cleaning power.
Olive oil isn?t just to make salads taste delicious. Add a bit of oil to a cloth, and buff stainless steel appliances to remove grime and make them shine, The Kitchn recommends. You also can use olive oil mixed with lemon juice to clean and condition wood (but test a small area first). Plus, an olive oil-coarse salt scrub can remove stuck-on food from cast iron skillets.
White vinegar might rival baking soda for its cleaning versatility. You can use it to ?freshen laundry, lift stains from carpet, brighten windows, and so much more,? according to Good Housekeeping. Plus, it makes a powerful all-purpose cleaner when mixed with water and baking soda (and essential oils if you wish). Soaking glassware in vinegar is an easy way to remove hard water stains. And a bowl of vinegar is an effective room deodorizer.
We might find salt in a lot of our favorite snacks, but it?s also an important ingredient in many effective cleaners. Salt adds a gentle abrasive factor to cleaning concoctions, making it useful to scrub away stains, food particles and even rust and tarnish, according to The Kitchn. Plus, it?s absorbent, which is why it?s a key factor in keeping wooden cutting boards sanitary. It soaks up all the liquid in the grooves, giving bacteria a less friendly environment to reproduce. And you even can sprinkle salt over liquid spills to help prevent stains.
Credit: ffolas/Getty Images
If you have wood furniture or floors, it?s almost inevitable that they?ll get some dings and scratches. And that?s where walnuts come in. The natural oils in walnuts ? Brazil nuts work well, too ? darken the wood and hide scratches, according to Good Housekeeping. Simply rub the damaged area with the nut until it blends better with the surrounding wood. It might not be a forever fix, but it does last for a while depending on the mark. And it?s cheap, easy and natural.
Cleaning red wine stains with club soda has been a longstanding method. Some people swear by it while others claim there?s no scientific reason for it to work (though the secret might be in the bubbles). Still, this carbonated beverage has other cleaning applications. Use it to gently clean surfaces, including porcelain, stainless steel and even your car windshield. Its fizz plus slightly acidic nature helps to wash away marks and particles.
If you have laundry that smells a little off, try spritzing it with a little vodka. No, really. According to Good Housekeeping, the vodka will kill odor-causing bacteria and dry completely scent-free. Just be sure to do a spot test first. Plus, a cloth moistened with a little vodka can work to shine chrome, glass and porcelain fixtures. And as an added bonus, it should clean away any mold on the surface, too. Cheers to that!
Main image credit: Easyturn/Getty Images
Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.
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As the vast Brazilian rainforest steadily dwindles, so do our chances of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. And with the possible election of Jair Bolsonaro, the so-called “Trump of the Tropics” and far-right frontrunner in the Brazilian presidential election, a crucial part of the planet’s carbon emission-curbing toolkit might be in jeopardy.
Bolsonaro has indicated he may open Indigenous areas up to mining, even potentially introducing a paved highway through the Amazon. The environmental impact of those policies would be “the biggest threat to the Amazon since Brazil was under a dictatorship,” said Doug Boucher, Scientific Advisor for The Union of Concerned Scientists’ Tropical Forests and Climate Initiative. “It’s a threat to the climate of the entire planet.”
From 2005 to 2012, Brazil’s forests were doing alright. Deforestation decreased by about two thirds under the Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva administration — from 20,000 kilometers per year before Lula was elected to about 6,000 square kilometers per year. Since then, deforestation has basically remained at the same comparatively low levels, reducing Brazil’s CO2 emissions by more than half, according to Boucher.
Any shift in the country’s administration could endanger that progress — Presidential elections in Brazil tend to coincide with higher deforestation rates, regardless of the candidate. But Bolsonaro’s vision for handling environmental matters is uniquely jarring. Known for his homophobic, racist, and misogynistic views, the controversial politician also has a long track record of opposing an environmental agenda. He’s against taking action on climate change at all, pledging to follow President Trump’s lead by jettisoning the Paris Climate Agreement.
Bolsonaro has also made his views on race blatantly clear: He has criticized the Brazilian government’s commitment to preserving vast swaths of the Amazon for Indigenous people, promising that he will “not to give the Indians another inch of land.” Moreover, Bolsonaro has allied himself with the right-wing ruralista bloc, which represents the interests of agribusinesses and large landholders, and has been trying to strip away environmental protections against deforestation for many years.
Bolsonaro’s proposed environmental hit list goes on. He has promised to scrap the country’s Environment Ministry altogether, putting it under the scope of the Agriculture Ministry, which is led by agribusiness.
“Instead of spreading the message that he will fight deforestation and organized crime, he says he will attack the ministry of environment, Ibama and ICMBio [Brazil’s federal environment agencies],” said Brazil’s current environment minister, Edson Duarte. “It’s the same as saying that he will withdraw the police from the streets.”
In many ways, Bolsonaro, an ex-army captain, seems to want to revert to the Amazonian policies that Brazil employed during the years of the South American nation’s dictatorship. At that time, during the ‘60s, ‘70s, and ‘80s, the country promoted rapid development of the Amazon, paving roads and converting the forests into farmland and ranchland.
As the global fight against catastrophic climate change ramps up, forests are a necessary front of the action. According to a dire, new report by the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), halting deforestation could play a vital role in limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, as forests have a significant capacity to absorb and store carbon.
“We have to take carbon dioxide basically out of the atmosphere in order to prevent a very dangerous increase in temperature, and major increases in floods, severe storms, and heat waves,” Boucher said. “The best way we know to take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere is to preserve and rebuild forests.”And protecting the last remnants of Brazil’s forests would go a long way. The country contains 60 percent of the Amazon rainforest — by far the largest forest in the world — which uptakes CO2 year-round due to its perpetually wet and warm climate.
This past week, Bolsonaro won the first round of Brazil’s presidential election by a near majority, and yet his success is not yet certain. He will face left-wing second-place finisher Fernando Haddad in the second round later this month.
“Civil society should keep the pressure up — and they already are,” Boucher said. “We have to watch and see what happens.”
Source:
How Brazil’s presidential election could eff up the planet for everyone
In late May, an open letter appeared on Medium penned by Kat Taylor, an overseer of Harvard’s investment fund. Taylor was resigning her position in protest because portions of the university’s multi-billion-dollar endowment have gone to “land purchases that may not respect indigenous rights” and “water holdings that threaten the human right to water.”
“We should and would be horrified to find out that Harvard investments are actually funding some of the pernicious activities against which our standout academic leadership rails,” she wrote.
A similar letter appeared in 2014, this time written by an international group of leaders from civil society organizations, like the Croatan Institute and the Global Forest Coalition. “Four decades ago, Harvard was in fact a leader in the movement for more responsible institutional investment,” the coalition wrote. “Today Harvard can no longer claim to play such a role.”
Harvard began investing in farmland in the aftermath of the world food price crisis in 2007, which made agricultural land desirable, and the financial crisis in 2008, which increased the appeal of more tangible assets. In the subsequent decade, the Harvard Management Company, as the school’s investment arm is known, has purchased large swaths of farmland in Brazil, South Africa, Russia, the Ukraine, New Zealand, Australia, and the U.S.
The elite university has quietly become one of the largest owners of farmland in the world, according to a new report by GRAIN, an international nonprofit supporting small farmers, and Brazil-based Rede Social de Justiça e Direitos Humanos (Social Network for Justice and Human Rights). The investigation found that Harvard’s estimated 1 billion dollars of investments are often made without due diligence or respect for the people who have lived for generations on the land it acquired.
“This is a really tough document to read about essentially how Harvard has blood on its hands,” says Keisha-Khan Perry, a professor of Africana studies at Brown whose research focuses on black social movements and land rights within the Americas.
The report extensively documents many Harvard-financed land acquisitions that directly led to the devastation of indigenous peoples, the creation of internal refugees, and the destruction of sacred and ecologically important areas. Among numerous examples: Harvard’s investors acquired several South African farms. Post-apartheid land reforms had granted property rights to black workers who once worked the land and their families. After taking over these parcels in 2011, Harvard put in place farm managers who restricted those families’ rights, including for grazing their cattle and accessing family burial sites. The managers also imposed a system of penalties that could result in the expulsion of a family if any of its members disobeyed the restrictions.
Perry notes that the school’s large-scale investments in indigenous land — which she says is part of a broader phenomenon known as “land grabbing” — can contribute to ecological degradation, land conflicts, and even warfare. “It’s almost like investing in gold in Sierra Leone, or oil in Nigeria, or diamonds on South Africa,” she explains.
A Harvard Management Company spokesperson, Patrick McKiernan, pushed back against characterizations like the ones made by Perry and the new report. “Harvard Management Company focuses on environmental, social, and governance matters for all of its investments, to ensure long-term value for both the asset and the communities in which we invest,” he wrote to Grist. “This commitment to responsible investing involves working with relevant constituents, including local authorities, to address any issues that arise during our investment, even if they predate HMC’s involvement.”
Harvard’s most extensive and conflict-ridden land acquisitions have occurred in Brazil. The university acquired nearly 300,000 hectares of land in the Cerrado, the world’s most biodiverse savannah that’s home to 80 different indigenous ethnicities. The area has become a “new frontier,” as the report notes, for soy, sugarcane, and large-scale monoculture commodities — which makes it a safe investment.
The investigation documents what happened in Baixão Fechado, one village that was impacted by these investments. Activities on two farms Harvard acquired have resulted in mass deforestation and the diversion of water used by the local community for agricultural irrigation. “[Residents say] the large amounts of water the farms use for irrigation, have badly affected their access to water which was previously plentiful and of good quality,” the report notes. “The situation has become so bad that the village has had to start bringing in water by trucks.”
Further, pesticides used on the Harvard-owned land have also contributed to health problems, the contamination of fishing grounds, and the destruction of crops, all of which disrupted the local community’s “way of life,” according to Perry.
In the northeastern part of the Cerrado, there’s a widespread practice of falsifying property titles to legitimize the occupation of public lands — a form of land grabbing. As the report explains, the lands are fenced to give the appearance of a farm and the fraudulent titles are then sold to companies often connected to foreign investors. The report notes that Harvard channeled funds through three different business groups in this region and acquired land from a Brazilian businessman well-known for this scheme.
It’s this deliberate or neglectful disregard of the region’s sociopolitical context and history that Rede Social de Justiça e Direitos Humanos’ Maria Mendonca, one of the authors of the report, finds highly troubling.
“Any casual look into what’s happening in that part of Brazil should have set off alarm bells,” she explains. “If they just looked into the historical records of these land areas, they would have been able to see that there are existing land conflicts, and they should have stayed away from that.”
There’s a better way to invest in the region, Mendonca says: Harvard and others could promote organic agriculture and invest in the region’s hundreds of small farming communities who have worked the land for generations.
“That’s not what they’re doing,” Mendonca says. “They fence the area, they displace people, and then they pollute the water, the soil, the land.”
Institutions are actually attracted to Brazil in part because of the country’s history of violent land grabs, says Madeleine Fairbairn, a professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz, who studies agriculture systems and land rights. That’s because Brazil’s land is concentrated among relatively few owners so institutional investors can acquire large swaths of property with very few transactions, she says
Even so, Fairbairn notes, that’s no excuse for not performing due diligence on investments. “Unfortunately, many investors fail to ask the difficult questions about how the previous owner came to control such a great big expanse of Brazilian savannah in the first place,” she explains. By naming subsidiaries that Harvard Management Company used to acquire farms, as well as tracking where the properties were located, Fairbairn says GRAIN and Rede Social de Justiça e Direitos Humanos are “pulling back the veil that shields institutional investors from public scrutiny.”
It’s not only Harvard and other universities that are invested in this farmland. Professors and other employees are passive participants, as well: Their retirement plans are often managed by the Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association. The association, as the reports shows, acquired more farmland than any other pension fund. “We cannot continue to say that we do not know where our money is being invested,” says Perry, the professor at Brown, a university that has a $3.5 billion endowment. “At some point, as faculty, as the report urged, we need to figure out how to make a case for divestment.”
In her resignation letter, Kat Taylor — the former overseer of Harvard’s investment fund — says she made that same case for years, but her “soft power approach” failed to move the needle. Left with no other recourse, she felt that resigning publicly was the only card she could play — a last-ditch effort to get Harvard to rid itself of these controversial investments. (The decision was largely a symbolic gesture, given that her six-year term was to conclude the next day.)
“For Harvard to continue to profit from activities that might and likely do accelerate us toward climate disaster, enslave millions to unfair labor practices, or proliferate more and more weapons in society that threaten especially young lives is unconscionable,” she wrote. “I fervently hope that all of you will demand accountable financial transactions on behalf of us all as I have tried to do.”
Read the article –
How Harvard’s investments exacerbate global land and water conflicts
The demonstrations call on households, cities, and institutions to withdraw money from banks financing projects that activists say violate human rights — such as the Dakota Access Pipeline and efforts to extract oil from tar sands in Alberta, Canada.
The divestment campaign Mazaska Talks, which is using the hashtag #DivestTheGlobe, began with protests across the United States on Monday and continues with actions in Africa, Asia, and Europe on Tuesday and Wednesday. Seven people were arrested in Seattle yesterday, where activists briefly shut down a Bank of America, Chase, and Wells Fargo.
The demonstrations coincide with a meeting in São Paulo, Brazil, involving a group of financial institutions that have established a framework for assessing the environmental and social risks of development projects. Organizers allege the banks have failed to uphold indigenous peoples’ right to “free, prior, and informed consent” to projects developed on their land.
“We want the global financial community to realize that investing in projects that harm us is really investing in death, genocide, racism, and does have a direct effect on not only us on the front lines but every person on this planet,” Joye Braun, an Indigenous Environmental Network community organizer, said in a statement.
More here –
Climate change is gonna be freakin’ expensive, government office warns.
Mother Jones
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Mexico is threatening to use the power of corn to fight Donald Trump’s tough talk on trade:
As President Trump threatens Mexico with drastic changes on trade, its leaders are wielding corn as a weapon. Mexico’s Senate is considering legislation calling for a boycott of U.S. corn, and the government has begun negotiating with Argentina and Brazil to import corn from those nations tax-free. The threat of a boycott is Mexico’s latest and perhaps cleverest attempt to fight back against Trump, whose threats to pull out of free trade agreements and slap a 20% import tax on Mexican products have shaken confidence in Mexico’s economy.
The Trump administration is signaling to Congress it would seek mostly modest changes to the North American Free Trade Agreement in upcoming negotiations with Mexico and Canada, a deal President Donald Trump called a “disaster” during the campaign.
….The draft, reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, talks of seeking “to improve procedures to resolve disputes,” rather than eliminating the panels. The U.S. also wouldn’t use the Nafta negotiations to deal with disputes over foreign currency policies or to hit numerical targets for bilateral trade deficits, as some trade hawks have been urging.
….Jeffrey Schott, a trade scholar at the Peterson Institute for International Economics…noted that a number of the proposed negotiating objectives echo provisions in the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a 12-nation trade pact among Pacific Rim countries. Mr. Trump campaigned heavily against the TPP.
Do not underestimate the power of corn! Alternatively, maybe corn has nothing to do with it. Maybe Trump was just blathering all along and never really had any intention of getting tough with Mexico. In the end, he’ll build a few more miles of fencing, make a few modest changes to NAFTA, and then call it the greatest boon to the working man since the Wagner Act. I’ve also read a few pieces recently about China, and apparently all those Goldman Sachs folks he hired have talked Trump into backing down on a trade war there too. I guess Goldman Sachs has to be good for something.
Anyway, having given up on Mexico and China, now Trump is going after the ultra-conservatives of the House Freedom Caucus:
The Freedom Caucus will hurt the entire Republican agenda if they don’t get on the team, & fast. We must fight them, & Dems, in 2018!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump)
I’ll bet they’re scared shitless. Trump is demonstrating that his talk may be big, but he can’t make it stick. In his first two months, he’s failed on his immigration order and his health care plan, has no chance of building his wall, and has backed down on Mexico and China. His bark is unquestionably worse than his bite.
The health care bill would have flamed out in the Senate anyway. The HFC did everyone a favor by getting it off the agenda quickly so Congress could move on to important matters like cutting taxes for the rich.
Taken from:
In Face of Corn Boycott, Trump Decides NAFTA Not So Bad After All
A girl puts her hand in a box with male genetically modified mosquitoes REUTERS/Paulo Whitaker
GMOsquitoes
By Nathanael Johnsonon Aug 27, 2016Share
When the news started to spread about a plan to release genetically engineered mosquitoes in the Florida Keys, it seemed laughable. The idea was to release hordes of engineered male mosquitoes that would mate with the disease-carrying females and cause them to produce non-viable eggs. The average Facebook post on this was something like: “LOL, you’ve got to be kidding me.”
I don’t see that reaction much anymore. A poll out this week found that 60 percent of Florida residents support tweaking mosquitoes’ genes to fight diseases, while 30 percent opposed. This isn’t statistical noise: Polls are consistently finding that big majorities of Americans support the idea. Conventional wisdom has been flipped on its head. Disdain has morphed into support.
What happened? In a word, Zika. It was the accumulation of those pictures of babies with Zika-related microcephaly, the news that Zika-carrying mosquitoes are buzzing around Miami, and the realization that climate change will usher the disease farther north.
Juan Pedro, who has microcephaly, in Recife, BrazilREUTERS/Paulo Whitaker
This is a perfect demonstration of the way humans, those peculiar creatures, grapple with risk. There’s a principle at work here that helps explain why we reject some things as being too risky and embrace others. We shrug off the suspicion of cellphone radiation but worry about genetically modified foods, even though neither has any demonstrated harm. We fret about nuclear accidents but don’t think twice about people driving cars through our neighborhoods, even though a total of three people have been killed by nuclear power in the United States, while 100 people are killed in car accidents every day.
This can all be explained by what I’ll call, a bit grandly, the self-centeredness principle of risk perception. I’m not condemning this mode of reasoning by using the pejorative term self-centered, just observing that our intuitions about risk are informed by calculations centered on ourselves, not centered on, say, humanity or the planet. The benefits of any change are distributed unevenly and when the benefits are centered mostly on others, or diffused among many, it’s easy for me embrace a scary, sci-fi scenario as a reason for opposition. But if it becomes clear that I stand to benefit, I’ll want to know how likely those scenarios really are; I’ll weigh the pluses and minuses of change.
You can see how this plays out with climate change. The benefits of cutting carbon are diffuse — they go mostly to unborn generations. So if I’m a conservative, predisposed to dismiss climate science, the self-centeredness principle makes it irrational for me to consider the evidence. I’m unlikely to see any meaningful benefit, reading voluminous scientific reports is hard, and changing my mind would make me a villain to my friends.
High-risk technologyREUTERS/Mike Segar
Or take GMOs. Farmers and seed companies reap most of the benefits. The rest of us get lower food prices — but that benefit is spread so thin that most of us haven’t noticed. Therefore the risks don’t have to be probable, or even plausible, for us to balk. You want to put something new in my food that doesn’t directly benefit me? Hells no. You can line up all the scientists, carrying all the authoritative data you want, but again, I have little incentive to read it.
It’s another story when you see the benefits. Mobile phones are so clearly beneficial that people can’t stop using them, even when they really should — like, when accelerating into an intersection. The outrage over the use of genetic modification to make plants for farmers doesn’t extend to the use of genetic modification to make medicines for us.
Follow the GM mosquito story and you can watch American perspectives do a 180 as we begin to see benefits for ourselves. Last year, a survey of people in Key West found that 58 percent opposed using them to control Zika, whereas, the latest poll found that 30 percent of Floridians were opposed. That’s not exactly comparing apples to apples (all Floridians don’t live in Key West) — but it does suggests a shift. The real test will come in November when residents of the Florida Keys vote on releasing the mosquitoes. That vote will tell us if the people of Key West have gone from feeling comfortable in the status quo, where experimenting with a new technology looks like an unacceptable risk, to feeling uncomfortably itchy and ready to consider something new.
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Americans love genetically modified mosquitoes much more than other GMOs
Mother Jones
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Genetically engineered mosquitoes may sound like a sci-fi superbug out of a Stephen Spielberg film, but these are the real deal. The altered insects are the latest approach to quell the spread of mosquito-borne diseases that claim an estimated 725,000 lives globally each year, not to mention Zika virus, which has spread rapidly in the Americas and causes alarming birth defects—and could turn out to affect the adult brain, too—but seldom kills.
Earlier this month, the FDA approved the first proposed US field trial of genetically modified mosquitoes. The trial is planned to launch in Key Haven, Florida, 161 miles south of the Miami-Dade neighborhood where the nation’s first locally transmitted Zika cases have been detected—and five miles from the the heart of Florida’s 2009-2010 outbreak of dengue, a potentially deadly virus that can be spread by the same mosquito. Local opposition has stalled the release of the altered bugs, even as the Zika virus continues to spread in South Florida. Now residents in this island community will get to weigh in on the fate of the trial via a nonbinding local referendum this November. A majority of the mosquito control commissioners for the Keys, who have final say in the matter, have vowed to side with the locals. If a trial is approved, the mosquitoes could be let loose as early as December.
Whether it happens this time or not, the interest in fighting mosquitoes with high-tech methods is only growing. In science labs across the globe, researchers are studying parasitic microbes, various types of genetic modifications, and even new techniques that, in theory, could nearly eradicate local mosquito populations or make it impossible for the mosquitoes to transmit a given disease. In the meantime, here’s what you should know about the proposed release in South Florida.
How are these mosquitoes modified?
Scientists at Oxitec, a UK-based company that has spent years honing its techniques in the lab and in the field, have altered Aedes aegypti—the primary mosquito conduit for Zika, dengue, yellow fever, and chikungunya—with a gene that causes its progeny to die in the larval stage. The researchers sort the altered mosquitoes by sex and release only the males, which then go out and mate with wild females, dooming their offspring. The modified mosquitoes, which can only survive a few days outside the climate-controlled comforts of a laboratory, also carry a gene for a fluorescent protein that lets researchers distinguish modified mosquitoes from wild ones. Both of the inserted genes are non-toxic and non-allergenic.
What if one of these mosquitoes were to bite me?
Assuming just males are released, they won’t—only females bite, because they need your blood to nourish their eggs. A few females get past the screening, but they comprise less than 0.2 percent of the insects released, and the chance of getting bit by one of these rare females is lower still. In the unlikely event that you are bitten by a modified mosquito, the result will be no different than with an ordinary one, according to Matthew DeGennero, a mosquito neurogeneticist at Florida International University. Mosquitoes have been around for 210 million years, he points out, yet we have no evidence that they’ve ever been able to transfer their DNA to any other organisms, including the ones they feed on.
But can’t releasing one organism to control another one mess with the natural balance?
Sure. Humans have made plenty of such blunders trying to control pests. Hawaii’s mongoose infestation, Australia’s poisonous cane toads, and Canada’s thistle-eating weevils are just a few examples of “biocontrol” gone awry. The difference with the Oxitec mosquitoes is that, unlike the introduced species of the past, they are engineered to disappear quickly. It’s actually a great business model, because the mosquito control boards will have to keep purchasing from Oxitec to keep local mosquito populations suppressed. But it also makes it easier to deal with unintended consequences—which the FDA deems unlikely in any case.
One valid concern is that reducing the numbers of Aedes aegypti may allow its cousin Aedes albopictus—which is capable of transmitting the same viruses—to move in. But in addition to being a less-efficient disease carrier, albopictus can have somewhat different habits and meal preferences. Aegypti feed almost exclusively on human blood, and tend to live alongside people in densely populated areas. Albopictus is just as prone to feeding on wildlife and livestock, and tends to stay in more rural settings, where they are less likely to spread disease. But they also show up in places like Los Angeles. In short, it’s complicated.
How will the GM mosquitoes affect other animals that feed on mosquitoes?
Most insect eaters have broad diets, so there’s no evidence that eliminating a specific mosquito will leave anyone without food. Nor will snacking on GM mosquitoes harm the birds, bats, and other fauna that eat the bloodsuckers. On the contrary, DeGennaro says, releasing modified mosquitos is a lot less harmful to the environment than spraying nasty chemicals. Each year 15 million acres across the US are doused in Naled, a neurotoxic insecticide used to keep mosquito populations in check. “Insecticides are very problematic for the environment,” DeGennaro says. “They disturb the ecosystem and affect insects other than the one you’re targeting.” Banned in Europe, Naled is known to kill bees, butterflies, birds, and fish indiscriminately. For this reason, Puerto Rico refused to accept Naled shipments from the US government to combat its Zika epidemic, even though a 20-25 percent infection rate is expected there by summer’s end. The United States, however, deploys tens of thousands of gallons of Naled annually to control Aedes aegypti. The FDA has concluded that the risk GM mosquitos pose for humans and other species is extremely low: “I can’t think of a potential problem with this,” DeGennaro says. “But I can think of a million potential problems with insecticides.”
What if I don’t want to be a guinea pig?
You won’t be, really. Oxitec has already released modified mosquitoes in several countries, including Malaysia, Brazil, and Panama—and more than three million altered skeeters lived out their short lives in the Cayman Islands in 2009 during the company’s first field trial. The proposed trial in the Keys isn’t intended to test the mosquitoes’ safety or environmental impacts—Oxitec has spent 14 years on such studies already. Rather, the purpose is to determine whether the altered mosquitoes can reduce Aedes aegypti populations in this environment the way they’ve done so elsewhere. Oxitec reports that wild aegypti populations have been slashed by more than 90 percent in areas where its mosquitoes were released. Given that aegypti puts more than 40 percent of the world’s population at risk for various diseases, those figures could prove convincing to many health and safety officials—at least until an effective vaccines becomes available.
Genetic tinkering is hardly new, of course. “Humans have been genetically modifying organisms since the dawn of civilization,” DeGennero says. “That’s why we have crops and domestic animals.” For nearly three decades, diabetics have been injecting themselves with insulin produced by genetically modified bacteria. In 2015, 444 million acres of genetically modified seed was planted across the globe, and genetically engineered salmon may be on the menu as early as next year. “This technology has potential to save people’s lives,” DeGennero says. “I would happily have these mosquitos where I live.”
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This Florida Community May Unleash Genetically Modified Mosquitoes to Fight Zika and Dengue
Mother Jones
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Mosquitoes may be small, but they pack a mean punch. Weighing in at a measly 2.5 milligrams, these buzzing arthropods are responsible for more deaths than snake bites, shark attacks, and murders combined. A whopping 725,000 people die each year from diseases transmitted by this common pest. Researchers have spent decades and millions of dollars fighting dengue, yellow fever, and chikungunya—dangerous viruses that female mosquitoes can spread in a single bite. Now—as scientists rev up efforts to tackle the worsening mosquito-borne Zika epidemic that’s rocked the Americas—some scientists are tapping into Earth’s oldest organic armies as they seek to wipe out these diseases.
In this week’s episode of the Inquiring Minds podcast, journalist and author Ed Yong explores the emerging science of the microbiome—the trillions of tiny organisms that inhabit the bodies of humans and other animals. Along the way, he tells host Kishore Hari about Wolbachia—one of nature’s most successful land-based bacteria—and its potential to aid the fight against Zika and other mosquito-borne illnesses. Wolbachia, says Yong, has “tremendous promise in bringing tropical diseases to heal.”
Wolbachia is extremely versatile; it can infect more than 40 percent of all arthropod species, including spiders, insects, and mites. Research has shown that female Aedes aegypti mosquitoes infected with the bacteria are unable to transmit common viruses, including Zika and dengue. And because Wolbachia passes from a female mosquito to her offspring, it could spread easily through a wild population. That means releasing a small batch of mosquitoes infected with the bacteria could help eradicate mosquito-borne diseases in a potentially short amount of time, says Yong. For a mosquito whose global range spans six continents—and includes a large chunk of the United States, the impact on global public health could be substantial. You can listen to the full interview below:
Despite years of research, treatments for many mosquito-borne illnesses is limited. Clinical trials for a Zika vaccine are underway, but researchers don’t expect one to be available to the public for at least 18 months. “There are no vaccines,” Yong says. “There are no good treatments for dengue. We need better ways of controlling these diseases.” Field trials of Wolbachia-carrying mosquitos have been underway in Australia since 2011, and in Brazil, Indonesia, and Vietnam since 2014. The results have shown great promise, with no ill effect on people or the environment.
Yong argues that Wolbachia is safer and more cost-effective than traditional vector control methods, such as spraying with insecticides. And unlike insecticides, bacteria are self-perpetuating. And Wolbachia doesn’t appear to affect mosquito populations, so other insects and animals that feed on these pests won’t miss a meal. “It’s not about killing mosquitos,” Yong says, “it’s about turning them into dead ends for viruses.”
To learn more about the incredible world of the microbiome, you can check out Yong’s new book, I Contain Multitudes: The Microbes Within Us and a Grander View of Life.
Inquiring Minds is a podcast hosted by neuroscientist and musician Indre Viskontas and Kishore Hari, the director of the Bay Area Science Festival. To catch future shows right when they are released, subscribe to Inquiring Minds via iTunes or RSS. You can follow the show on Twitter at @inquiringshow and like us on Facebook.
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