O Come, All ye Fearful: 12 woes for Christmas future

This month I thought I would try and adopt something of the Yuletide spirit by offering something short and sharp (if not sweet) that bares a passing resemblance to the carol On the Twelve Days of Christmas. However, instead of gifts I'll be attempting to analyse twelve key concerns that humanity may face in the near future, some being more immediate - not to mention inevitable - than others.

I'll start off with the least probable issues then gradually work down to those most likely to have widespread effects during the next few decades. As it is meant to be a season of good cheer I'll even suggest a few solutions or mitigation strategies where these are applicable. The ultimate in low-carb gifts: what more could you ask for?

12: ET phones Earth. With the SETI Institute and Breakthrough Listen project leading efforts to pick up signals from alien civilisations, what are the chances that we might receive an extra-terrestrial broadcast in the near future? Although many people might deem this just so much science fiction, the contents of a translated message (or autonomous probe) could prove catastrophic. Whether it would spark faith-based wars or aid the development of advanced technology we couldn't control - or be morally fit enough to utilise - there may be as many negative issues as positive ones.

Solution: Keeping such information secret, especially the raw signal data, would be incredibly difficult. Whether an international translation project could be conducted in secret is another matter, with censorship allowing a regular trickle of the less controversial information into the public domain. Whilst this is the antithesis of good scientific practice, it could prove to be the best solution in the long term. Not that most politicians are ever able to see anything that way, however!

11. Acts of God. There is a multitude of naturally-occurring events that are outside of human control, both terrestrial (e.g. super volcano, tsunami) and extra-terrestrial, such as asteroid impacts. Again, until recently few people took much interest in the latter, although Hollywood generated some awareness via several rather poor movies in the late 1990s. The Chelyabinsk meteor of February 2013 (rather than meteorite, as most of the material exploded at altitude led to 1500 injuries, showing that even a small object that doesn't reach the ground intact can cause havoc. Since 2000, there have been over twenty asteroid impacts or atmospheric break-ups ranging from a kiloton up to half a megaton.

Solution: Although there are various projects to assess the orbits of near-Earth objects (NEOs), the development of technologies to deflect or destroy impactors requires much greater funding than is currently in place. Options range from devices that use just their velocity to knock NEOs off-course to the brute force approach of high-powered lasers and hydrogen bombs. However, with the cancellation of NASA's Ares V heavy launch vehicle it's difficult to see how such solutions could be delivered in time. Hopefully in the event something would be cobbled together pretty quickly!

10. Grey goo scenario. As defined by Eric Drexler in his 1986 book Engines of Creation, what if self-replicating nanobots (developed for example, for medical purposes), break their programming and escape into the world, eating everything in their path? Similar to locust swarms, they would only be limited by the availability of raw materials.

Solution: The Royal Society's 2004 report on nanoscience declared that the possibility of von Neumann machines are some decades away and therefore of little concern to regulators. Since then, other research has suggested there should be limited need to develop such machines anyway. So that's good to know!

9. Silicon-destroying lifeforms. What if natural mutations lead to biological organisms that can seriously damage integrated circuitry? A motherboard-eating microbe would be devastating, especially in the transport and medical sectors, never mind the resulting communication network outages and financial chaos. This might sound as ridiculous as any low-grade science fiction plot, but in 1975 nylon-eating bacteria were discovered. Since then, research into the most efficient methods to recover metals from waste electronics have led to experiments in bioleaching. As well as bacteria, the fungus Aspergillus niger has been shown to breakdown the metals used in circuits.

Solution: As bioleaching is potentially cheaper and less environmentally damaging it could become widespread. Therefore it will be up to the process developers to control their creations. Fingers crossed, then!

8. NCB. Conventional weapons may be more common place, but the development of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons by rogue states and terrorist organisations is definitely something to be worried about. The International Atomic Energy Agency has a difficult time keeping track of all the radioactive material that is stolen or goes missing each year.  As the 1995 fatal release of the nerve agent sarin on the Tokyo subway shows, terrorists are not unwilling to use weapons of mass destruction on the general public.

Solution: There's not much I can suggest here. Let's hope that the intelligence services can keep all the Dr Evils at bay.

7. Jurassic Park for real. At Harvard last year a chicken embryo's genes were tweaked in such a way as to create a distinctly dinosaurian snout rather than a beak. Although it may be sometime before pseudo-velociraptors are prowling (high-fenced) reserves, what if genome engineering was used to develop Homo superior? A 2014 paper from Michigan State University suggests both intellectual and physical improvements via CRISPR-cas9 technology is just around the corner.

Solution: If the tabloids are to be believed (as if) China will soon be editing human genomes, to fix genetic diseases as well as generating enhanced humans. Short of war, what's to stop them?

6. DIY weaponry. The explosion in 3D printers for the domestic market means that you can now make your own handguns. Although current designs wear out after a few firings, bullets are also being developed that will work without limiting their lifespan. Since many nations have far more stringent gun laws than the USA, an increase in weaponry among the general public is just what we don't need.

Solution: how about smart locking systems on printers so they cannot produce components that could be used to build a weapon? Alternatively, there are now 3D printer models that can manufacture prototype bulletproof clothing. Not that I'd deem that a perfect solution!

5. Chemical catastrophe. There are plenty of chemicals no longer in production that might affect humanity or our agriculture. These range from the legacy effects of polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB), a known carcinogen, to the ozone depletion causing by CFCs, which could be hanging around the stratosphere for another century; this doesn't just result in increased human skin cancer - crops are also affected by the increased UVB.

Solution: we can only hope that current chemical development now has more rigorous testing and government regulation than that accorded to PCBs, CFCs, DDTs, et al. Let's hope all that health and safety legislation pays off.

4. The energy crisis. Apart from the obvious environmental issues around fossil fuels, the use of fracking generates a whole host of problems on its own, such as the release of methane and contamination of groundwater by toxic chemicals, including radioactive materials.

Solution: more funding is required for alternatives, especially nuclear fusion (a notoriously expensive area to research). Iceland generated 100% of its electricity from renewables whilst Portugal managed 4 consecutive days in May this year via wind, hydro, biomass and solar energy sources. Greater recycling and more incentives for buying electric and hybrid vehicles wouldn't hurt either!

3. Forced migration. The rise in sea levels due to melt water means that it won't just be Venice and small Pacific nations that are likely to become submerged by the end of the century. Predictions vary widely, but all in the same direction: even an increase of 150mm would be likely to affect over ten million people in the USA alone, with probably five times that number in China facing similar issues.

Solution: a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions would seem to be the thing. This requires more electric vehicles and less methane-generating livestock. Arnold Schwarzenegger's non-fossil fuel Hummers and ‘Less meat, less heat, more life' campaign would appear to be good promotion for the shape of things to come - if he can be that progressive, there's hope for everyone. Then of course there's the potential for far more insect-based foodstuffs.

2. Food and water. A regional change in temperature of only a few degrees can seriously affect crop production and the amount of water used by agriculture. Over 700 million people are already without clean water, with shortages affecting agriculture even in developed regions - Australia and California spring to mind. Apparently, it takes a thousand litres of water to generate a single litre of milk!

Solution: A few far-sighted Australian farmers are among those developing methods to minimise water usage, including a few low-tech schemes that could be implemented anywhere. However, really obvious solutions would be to reduce the human population and eat food that requires less water. Again, bug farming seems a sensible idea.

1. Preventing vegegeddon. A former professor at Oxford University told me that some of his undergraduates have problems relating directly to others, having grown up in an environment with commonplace communication via electronic interfaces. If that's the problem facing the intellectual elite, what hope for the rest of our species? Physical problems such as poor eyesight are just the tip of the iceberg: the human race is in severe danger of degenerating into low-attention ‘sheeple' (as they say on Twitter). Children are losing touch with the real world, being enticed into virtual environments that on the surface are so much more appealing. Without knowledge or experience of reality, even stable democracies are in danger of being ruled by opportunistic megalomaniacs, possibly in orange wigs.

Solution: Richard Louv, author of  Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder suggests children require unstructured time out of doors in order to gain an (occasionally painful) understanding of  the real world; tree-climbing, fossicking, etc. Restricting time on electronic devices would seem to go hand in hand with this.

Well, that about wraps it up from me. And if the above seems somewhat scary, then why not do something about it: wouldn't working for a better future be the best Christmas present anyone could ever give?

Mopping up spilt milk: pollution in the New Zealand dairy sector

It's been slow to dawn on New Zealanders, but for a country that prides itself on a '100% Pure' image our environmental pollution record is fairly appalling - and shows few signs of alleviation. Politicians who point to the large percentage of the nation's electricity generation coming from renewable sources, not to mention the slow but sturdy growth in hybrid vehicles, are completely missing the point: it has been claimed that over half of New Zealand's greenhouse gas emissions emanate from agri business.

Although the quantity of sheep in the country has plummeted from a 1982 peak of around 70 million to less than 30 million last year, cattle numbers continue to rise. There are about 3.6 million livestock on beef farms and circa 6.5 million dairy cattle. The latter sector generates twenty percent of New Zealand's exports and seven percent of its GDP, so it forms a substantial component of the kiwi economy. But with plans to double the country's dairy production by 2025, the term 'sustainable development' appears to be, well, unsustainable.

Since cattle create as much waste product as fourteen humans, it's not difficult to imagine some of the more obvious forms of dairy pollutant, smell and all. As New Zealand dung beetles are primarily forest dwellers there have been trials of introduced dung beetle species to help clean up the waste, with a reduction in nitrous oxide emissions from the soil and a lowering of cattle disease as side benefits. However, pastoral poo is only one element in the catalogue of pollutants caused by dairy farming.

Last summer I was taken to an outdoor swimming hole not far from Wanganui, consisting of a rectangular concrete-lined pool situated on the edge of a forest. I was informed that children had swam there until a decade or so, but no more: several signs warned that the water is contaminated and no longer safe for humans. This story has been repeated throughout New Zealand, with agriculture being by far the most common culprit. It isn't just artificial environments that have this problem; reports suggest that within the past twenty years about two-thirds of monitored swimming areas within rivers have become too polluted. And that's just for people; there's far less concern for the effects on river fauna and flora.

Although environmentalists have been issuing warnings for years, not enough has been done to alleviate this problem. Last month approximately five thousand inhabitants of Havelock North were taken ill due to tap water contaminated by campylobacter. The source was a series of bores which the director of the Infectious Diseases Research Centre at Massey University, Professor Nigel French, put down to pollution from sheep and cattle. Sources of contamination could include carcases of dead livestock, as well as faecal matter getting into waterways that provide the source of unchlorinated - and therefore at risk - tap water.

In fact, the outbreak appears to be the tip of the iceberg. Despite some hundreds of cases of illegal effluent discharge brought against New Zealand farmers each year, many more escape prosecution. It has to be said this seems to be a regular occurrence for the Ministry for Primary Industries, judging by the recent reports of their waiving prosecutions for commercial fishing vessels caught flouting bycatch and dumping laws. Turning a blind eye seems to be the order of the day when it comes to protecting food production - or at least the food producers. This philosophy seems to be driven by those who clearly have little understanding of the complexity - and at times fragility - of food webs. Not so much short-term thinking as profound myopia!

In addition to the organic matter there are chemical pollutants that can find their way into water supplies situated close to farms. Since the 1990s, the New Zealand Ministry for the Environment has been monitoring ground water for nitrates and has found levels substantially above those recommended for drinking water. Although chemical fertiliser has been blamed in addition to livestock effluent, environmental mapping suggests the latter is the primary cause, since the polluted areas heavily coincide with the widest-scale dairy production.

As well as polluting waterways dairy farmers have also been caught stealing billions of litres of water each year from rivers and aquifers, especially in the Canterbury region. Whilst not a form of pollution per se, this is obviously somewhat lacking in the environmentally-friendly stakes. The deforestation of low-lying plains for cattle grazing is also a source of pollution, as the lack of tree roots, besides allowing greater flooding, can generate increased run-off into rivers. This polluted water can lead to algal blooms, lowering oxygen levels and so endangering freshwater fish. That might not sound of any great concern except to diehard anglers, but for any whitebait fans, four of the five Galaxiidae species whose young form this delicacy are now said to be threatened.

The systematic destruction of forests to make way for pastoral land use has been repeatedly raised as a concern not just by environmental organisations but by the New Zealand Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (MAF) itself. Their 2006 report claimed close to half a million hectares of the nation's forests were at risk of conversion to land for cattle grazing.

In addition, overseas forests are also affected: since 2008 the amount of palm kernels imported into New Zealand as a dairy cattle feed supplement has doubled to over 2 million tons per annum. This accounts for about twenty-five percent of global production and comes at the expense of destruction of rainforests in nations including Indonesia and Malaysia. Although the state-owned farm company Landcorp Farming Ltd is in the process of moving to a different supplement over the next year or so, the dairy giant Fonterra has not announced similar intentions. What's wrong with those guys: a surfeit of Milton Friedman in their formative years?

Having covered solids and liquids, it's time to move on to gas. As I've mentioned on various occasions, methane is a primary greenhouse gas. It was therefore shocking to discover that per capita, New Zealand has the greatest annual methane emission rate worldwide, accounting for over forty percent of the country's greenhouse gas emanations. The methane emission from dairy cattle alone has continually increased over the past quarter century, although the amount reported varies from ten percent to a whopping fifty percent or so. Perhaps that's not surprising, considering cattle can each generate up to 500 litres of methane per day!

There is some recent cause for hope, with various trials under way to reduce bovine emissions. These range from vaccination to selective breeding to diets bases on forage rape, with the latter showing that the change in feed affects fermentation - and therefore reduces methane production - in sheep. However, it wouldn't hurt to see the Government funding more research in this matter: one widely-reported paper last year was Massey University's The New Zealand Dairy Farming: Milking Our Environment for All its Worth, which received much criticism from the dairy sector when it was revealed to consist primarily of a student thesis.

It's very easy to become depressed with such deleterious effects coming from just one sector. Of course no nation can afford to rest on its laurels: we cannot turn the clock back. The halcyon image of bucolic ruralism is a myth perpetrated by those who have never worked on the land and farmers deserve the benefits of modern technology in their work as much as anyone. The development of sophisticated tools and software can aid the dairy sector in preserving the environment. as long as there is enough public money to support this eco-friendly research. But Government funding for this type of sustainable development appears to be sadly lacking. Doesn't it make sense that those who run God's Own Country should try a little harder to prove that the 100% Pure tagline isn't just marketing spin?

Beetlemania: can eating insects help save the environment?

Christmas - along with Thanksgiving for Americans - has probably got to be the most obvious time of the year when Westerners over-indulge in animal protein. However, this meatfest comes at a severe cost to the planet, as anyone who is environmentally aware is likely to know. Although many people have started making changes to mitigate climate change and pollution, compared to say recycling and reducing your carbon footprint, cutting down on meat seems to be far more challenging.

Actor and former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has suggested Americans should have one or two meat-free days each week, but that's easier said than done in a continent raised on heaped platefuls of red meat. It isn't as if switching from cattle, sheep and goat to more unusual species would help either, as recent research confirms the likes of kangaroo and reindeer as sources of high methane emissions too. As a side note, it isn't just meat consumption that needs to be reduced; there's also dairy farming to consider. Does anyone really like soya milk? Mind you, I haven't tried almond milk yet...

United Nations reports suggest that greenhouse gas emissions from farming, primarily due to livestock and artificial fertilisers, have almost doubled in the past half century. As you might expect,these are likely to continue increasing at a similar rate over the next fifty years. In addition, vast tracts of Amazonian rainforest - amongst other unspoilt natural habitats - are being destroyed to make way for cattle grazing. At around three million acres lost each year, there's obviously not much in the way of sustainability about this particular development!

So is there any good news in all this culinary doom and gloom? Both Europe and especially North America have recently seen a profusion of companies marketing manufactured foods intended as meat replacements that are derived from of all things…insects. These products range from burgers to crackers and usually offer little appearance or taste to indicate their source material. Is it possible that the future for developed nations could include the delights of grasshopper goulash and wormicelli pasta?

It isn't as strange as it sounds. Over a quarter of mankind routinely eats insects from several thousand species as part of their traditional diet, usually with the source animal obvious in the presentation. This makes sense for developing nations, since wild insects can be caught en masse, farmed bugs fed on cheap waste material that can't be converted into conventional animal feed - and of course they require comparatively little water. Although the material isn't being converted to highly processed foodstuffs, Thailand - with over 20,000 insect farms - is an example of a nation currently increasing its insect consumption.

The species used in the new ‘hidden' insect foods varies widely, with crickets prominent on the menu. It isn't as straightforward as just killing the wee beasties and grinding them into powder, but many of the new American and European companies are conducting extensive research, developing mechanised processes that bode well for industrial-scale production.

The nutritional analysis shows promise to say the least, with some Hymenoptera species containing up to three times the protein yield of domestic cattle. The vitamin and mineral statistics are pretty good too, sometimes exceeding both farmed mammals and birds as well as plant staples such as soya beans. Not bad, considering that bug farming should prove to be at least four times as efficient as cattle husbandry.

Whether a trendy novelty can become mainstream remains to be seen, since the fledgling industry faces more than just the ‘yuck' factor. As with much cutting-edge technology, legislation has yet to catch up: there could be issues around safety concerns, with short shelf life, uncaught impurities or pollutants and allergic reactions all potential factors that could inhibit widescale production.

Bug protein isn't the only dish on the table (see what I did there?) as there are even more sophisticated approaches to reducing the environmental degradation caused by meat production. One well-publicised technique has been the cultivation of animal flesh in-vitro. However, it's only been a couple of years since the (nurturing? propagation?) of the first petri dish burger and so the process is still prohibitively expensive. By comparison, insects (bees and butterflies excepted) are not currently in short supply.

As a someone who hasn't eaten any land-based flesh for over a quarter of a century - and yes, I try to be careful with which aquatic species I consume - I suppose I have a fairly objective opinion about this matter. It does seem to make environmental sense to pursue processed insect protein as a replacement for domesticated mammal and bird species, but how often has logic taken a backseat to prejudice and the irrational? I look forward to near future developments, not least the massive brand campaigns that will no doubt be required to convert the Western public to the likes of Cricket crackers and Wormer schnitzel. Look out turkeys, your Christmases could be numbered...