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Eat more plants
Screen your genes preimplantation genetic diagnosis, or PGD, which can be used to ensure that any children born after IVF will not suffer from the disease. Then there is prenatal diagnosis, already widely used to screen for non-inherited genetic disorders such as Down’s syndrome. Finally, even if you opt for none of the above, simply knowing your child might have a genetic disorder will help ensure they get the right treatment from the start. In most countries, the decision, as it should be, is yours – and the earlier you discover your children might inherit a serious disease, the more choices you have. Michael Le Page
Be nice to people It sounds kind of obvious, and a little trite: the world would be a better place to live in if we were all a bit kinder to each other. But how can we make that happen? This is fast becoming a valid scientific question. Psychologists and neuroscientists are exploring how to increase people’s capacity for empathy and compassion, with two ongoing studies claiming that meditation not only increases compassionate feelings but also improves physical
32 | NewScientist | 19 September 2009
“In 2005 alone, divorced people in the US used an extra 73 billion kilowatt hours of electricity”
TESSA BUNNEY / MILLENNIUM IMAGES, UK
It’s debatable whether getting your genes tested can tell you anything very helpful about your health, for now at least. But it could make a huge difference to your children’s. Genetic tests can reveal if you are a carrier of disorders such as cystic fibrosis, sickle cell disease and spinal muscular dystrophy. In some countries, tests for some genetic diseases are already recommended to would-be parents, but many couples, of course, do not consult their doctors before trying to conceive. If you are a carrier, various options are open to you. One is to ensure potential partners aren’t carriers, too, if you want to have children. By promoting this approach the Jewish organisation Dor Yeshorim has greatly reduced the incidence of Tay-Sachs, a genetic disorder that slowly kills young children. Another option, where there is a risk of passing on a serious disease, is
Eat more plants
and emotional health. But you don’t have to be a Buddhist monk or an expert on brain plasticity to help increase global compassion. There is evidence that altruistic acts spread through social networks. In other words, if you are kind to a friend, they are more likely to be kind to someone else they know. To demonstrate this, Nicholas Christakis of Harvard Medical School in Boston designed a cooperation game in which 120 students were organised into groups of four and asked to give money to their group. The game lasted five rounds, and after each round the students were reorganised so that no two appeared in the same group twice. The researchers told the participants at the end of each
Eat less meat and more vegetables if you want to help save the world
round how much the others in their group had given. They found that generosity is infectious. If someone gave a dollar more than the predicted group average, the others in that group gave approximately 20 cents more than expected in the next round. This altruism persisted into the third round. Christakis’s team found in a separate study that cooperative behaviour spreads to three degrees of separation – from friend to friend to friend. So if you are popular and well connected, you could have a special role to play: your compassionate acts could resonate further through the network, and you are also more likely to benefit from other people’s kindness. Michael Bond
Divorce is bad for the environment as well as for families
There are two good reasons for eating more fruit and vegetables in place of meat: it’s better for you and it’s better for the environment. Where the food you eat comes from matters less than what it is. The greenhouse emissions from transporting food are typically only a tiny proportion of the total emissions associated with growing food. Livestock are responsible for nearly a fifth of all greenhouse emissions, from the methane produced by their guts and manure, to nitrous oxide emissions from the fertilisers used to grow feed for them. Because it takes several kilograms of plant matter to grow a kilogram of meat, producing meat and animal products such as cheese usually greatly multiplies the environmental damage done by farming. The huge amounts of land required are driving the destruction of rainforests, for instance. Even small reductions in consumption, such as making Mondays meat-free, could make a big difference. If you do eat meat, choose it carefully. Cud-chewing animals such as cattle and sheep are the worst offenders and, surprisingly, grass-fed cattle generally produce even more emissions than grain-fed ones, according to as-yet-unpublished work by Nathan Pelletier of Dalhousie University in Halifax, Canada. Opt instead for chicken, pork or, if you live in Australia, kangaroos. In the US and UK, eating venison could actually reduce emissions where it helps curb burgeoning wild deer populations. And feel free to feast on alien species taking over your neighbourhood, such as the grey squirrels taking over the UK and the Louisiana crayfish invading Arizona. Michael Le Page
Share things
Looking for a romantic way to do your bit for the planet? Then move in with your lover, take baths together and snuggle up on the sofa to watch TV together. An awful lot of energy could be saved if only people shared things more, especially their homes. The evidence comes from the opposite end of the love spectrum. According to a recent study, if all the couples who divorced in the US had stayed together, in 2005 alone they would have used 2373 billion litres less water and 73 billion kilowatt-hours less electricity. Each divorced person spent 46 per cent more on electricity and 56 per cent more on water. Divorce, along with the demise of the extended family, is helping to
Pimp your house Our homes account for around a third of our carbon emissions, so every eco-warrior should try to make their pad a low emission one. It is possible to produce all your own electricity and heat – but only if you have deep pockets and plenty of space for solar panels, wood burning stoves and so on. It makes more sense to reduce your energy needs first. If you use air-conditioning, for example, you should paint your roof white, according to US energy secretary Steven Chu. Its reflective effect could reduce your electricity usage by up to 15 per cent, he says. Simply adding extra insulation, in the loft, in cavity walls and around your hot water cylinder can reduce emissions by as much as a tenth. If you use plant-based insulation, such as hemp batts, you also help keep carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere in another way, locking away about 1.5 kilograms of CO2 per kilogram of conventional insulation replaced. If you are planning an extension, or building a home from scratch, you might even be able to make it carbon negative. Another hemp-based product called hemcrete can be used instead of conventional bricks and mortar, sequestering 110 kilograms of CO2 per cubic metre. Ben Crystall
drive the growth in the number of households, which is accelerating faster than the global population. The good news is that remarriage reduces consumption to pre-divorce levels. Of course, you don’t have to pop the question – living together or sharing with friends works too. After your home, perhaps the next most important thing to share is your car. Lift-sharing schemes can help you find someone who does the same journey as you. And if you don’t need to drive every day, you could swap your car for membership of a car-sharing scheme, a form of car rental. Studies indicate that if you hire a car only when you need it, rather than owning one, you’ll drive a lot less. Valerie Jamieson
Big thinkers, big ideas One thing that could be done to make the world a better place is for citizens to demand that their governments shift the tax burden to fall more heavily on CO2-producing activities. The overall taxes an average person paid would stay the same, so their standard of living would be unchanged, but it would encourage less use of products and services that increase the CO2 concentration in the oceans and atmosphere. Elon Musk, founder of SpaceX and chairman of Tesla Motors
Within hunter-gatherer groups virtually all members possessed the same non-genetic information. Today even the most educated individuals can’t possibly store more than a millionth of 1 per cent of their culture. To make the world a better place, societies must start trying to close the gap. If many more people know the basics of how the world works, civilisation has a much better chance of reaching sustainability. Paul R. Ehrlich, author and population researcher, Stanford University, California
The world population is projected to reach around 9 billion by 2050. If numbers continue to rise beyond 2050, the problems of providing the food, water and energy for an acceptable lifestyle, and of avoiding dangerous climate change, will be aggravated. To make a difference there is no need for the kinds of draconian “population control” that have been implemented in some nations. The social trends that lead to the demographic transition towards lower birth rates include declining infant mortality, availability of contraceptive advice, women’s education, and so forth. It should be an urgent international priority to bring these benefits to impoverished regions. Martin Rees, astrophysicist, University of Cambridge, and president of the Royal Society
19 September 2009 | NewScientist | 33
Be nice to people It sounds kind of obvious, and a little trite: the world would be a better place to live in if we were all a bit kinder to each other. But how can we make that happen? This is fast becoming a valid scientific question. Psychologists and neuroscientists are exploring how to increase people’s capacity for empathy and compassion, with two ongoing studies claiming that meditation not only increases compassionate feelings but also improves physical
32 | NewScientist | 19 September 2009
“In 2005 alone, divorced people in the US used an extra 73 billion kilowatt hours of electricity”
TESSA BUNNEY / MILLENNIUM IMAGES, UK
It’s debatable whether getting your genes tested can tell you anything very helpful about your health, for now at least. But it could make a huge difference to your children’s. Genetic tests can reveal if you are a carrier of disorders such as cystic fibrosis, sickle cell disease and spinal muscular dystrophy. In some countries, tests for some genetic diseases are already recommended to would-be parents, but many couples, of course, do not consult their doctors before trying to conceive. If you are a carrier, various options are open to you. One is to ensure potential partners aren’t carriers, too, if you want to have children. By promoting this approach the Jewish organisation Dor Yeshorim has greatly reduced the incidence of Tay-Sachs, a genetic disorder that slowly kills young children. Another option, where there is a risk of passing on a serious disease, is
Eat more plants
and emotional health. But you don’t have to be a Buddhist monk or an expert on brain plasticity to help increase global compassion. There is evidence that altruistic acts spread through social networks. In other words, if you are kind to a friend, they are more likely to be kind to someone else they know. To demonstrate this, Nicholas Christakis of Harvard Medical School in Boston designed a cooperation game in which 120 students were organised into groups of four and asked to give money to their group. The game lasted five rounds, and after each round the students were reorganised so that no two appeared in the same group twice. The researchers told the participants at the end of each
Eat less meat and more vegetables if you want to help save the world
round how much the others in their group had given. They found that generosity is infectious. If someone gave a dollar more than the predicted group average, the others in that group gave approximately 20 cents more than expected in the next round. This altruism persisted into the third round. Christakis’s team found in a separate study that cooperative behaviour spreads to three degrees of separation – from friend to friend to friend. So if you are popular and well connected, you could have a special role to play: your compassionate acts could resonate further through the network, and you are also more likely to benefit from other people’s kindness. Michael Bond
Divorce is bad for the environment as well as for families
There are two good reasons for eating more fruit and vegetables in place of meat: it’s better for you and it’s better for the environment. Where the food you eat comes from matters less than what it is. The greenhouse emissions from transporting food are typically only a tiny proportion of the total emissions associated with growing food. Livestock are responsible for nearly a fifth of all greenhouse emissions, from the methane produced by their guts and manure, to nitrous oxide emissions from the fertilisers used to grow feed for them. Because it takes several kilograms of plant matter to grow a kilogram of meat, producing meat and animal products such as cheese usually greatly multiplies the environmental damage done by farming. The huge amounts of land required are driving the destruction of rainforests, for instance. Even small reductions in consumption, such as making Mondays meat-free, could make a big difference. If you do eat meat, choose it carefully. Cud-chewing animals such as cattle and sheep are the worst offenders and, surprisingly, grass-fed cattle generally produce even more emissions than grain-fed ones, according to as-yet-unpublished work by Nathan Pelletier of Dalhousie University in Halifax, Canada. Opt instead for chicken, pork or, if you live in Australia, kangaroos. In the US and UK, eating venison could actually reduce emissions where it helps curb burgeoning wild deer populations. And feel free to feast on alien species taking over your neighbourhood, such as the grey squirrels taking over the UK and the Louisiana crayfish invading Arizona. Michael Le Page
Share things
Looking for a romantic way to do your bit for the planet? Then move in with your lover, take baths together and snuggle up on the sofa to watch TV together. An awful lot of energy could be saved if only people shared things more, especially their homes. The evidence comes from the opposite end of the love spectrum. According to a recent study, if all the couples who divorced in the US had stayed together, in 2005 alone they would have used 2373 billion litres less water and 73 billion kilowatt-hours less electricity. Each divorced person spent 46 per cent more on electricity and 56 per cent more on water. Divorce, along with the demise of the extended family, is helping to
Pimp your house Our homes account for around a third of our carbon emissions, so every eco-warrior should try to make their pad a low emission one. It is possible to produce all your own electricity and heat – but only if you have deep pockets and plenty of space for solar panels, wood burning stoves and so on. It makes more sense to reduce your energy needs first. If you use air-conditioning, for example, you should paint your roof white, according to US energy secretary Steven Chu. Its reflective effect could reduce your electricity usage by up to 15 per cent, he says. Simply adding extra insulation, in the loft, in cavity walls and around your hot water cylinder can reduce emissions by as much as a tenth. If you use plant-based insulation, such as hemp batts, you also help keep carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere in another way, locking away about 1.5 kilograms of CO2 per kilogram of conventional insulation replaced. If you are planning an extension, or building a home from scratch, you might even be able to make it carbon negative. Another hemp-based product called hemcrete can be used instead of conventional bricks and mortar, sequestering 110 kilograms of CO2 per cubic metre. Ben Crystall
drive the growth in the number of households, which is accelerating faster than the global population. The good news is that remarriage reduces consumption to pre-divorce levels. Of course, you don’t have to pop the question – living together or sharing with friends works too. After your home, perhaps the next most important thing to share is your car. Lift-sharing schemes can help you find someone who does the same journey as you. And if you don’t need to drive every day, you could swap your car for membership of a car-sharing scheme, a form of car rental. Studies indicate that if you hire a car only when you need it, rather than owning one, you’ll drive a lot less. Valerie Jamieson
Big thinkers, big ideas One thing that could be done to make the world a better place is for citizens to demand that their governments shift the tax burden to fall more heavily on CO2-producing activities. The overall taxes an average person paid would stay the same, so their standard of living would be unchanged, but it would encourage less use of products and services that increase the CO2 concentration in the oceans and atmosphere. Elon Musk, founder of SpaceX and chairman of Tesla Motors
Within hunter-gatherer groups virtually all members possessed the same non-genetic information. Today even the most educated individuals can’t possibly store more than a millionth of 1 per cent of their culture. To make the world a better place, societies must start trying to close the gap. If many more people know the basics of how the world works, civilisation has a much better chance of reaching sustainability. Paul R. Ehrlich, author and population researcher, Stanford University, California
The world population is projected to reach around 9 billion by 2050. If numbers continue to rise beyond 2050, the problems of providing the food, water and energy for an acceptable lifestyle, and of avoiding dangerous climate change, will be aggravated. To make a difference there is no need for the kinds of draconian “population control” that have been implemented in some nations. The social trends that lead to the demographic transition towards lower birth rates include declining infant mortality, availability of contraceptive advice, women’s education, and so forth. It should be an urgent international priority to bring these benefits to impoverished regions. Martin Rees, astrophysicist, University of Cambridge, and president of the Royal Society
19 September 2009 | NewScientist | 33