Twelve years ago, on this day, April 6th, 2012 the Sydney Morning Herald runs a piece on genetically modified humans. In it S. Matthew Liao talks about ‘a radical suggestion for fighting climate change’
S. Matthew Liao talks to the Sydney Morning Herald about changing ourselves biologically in order to fight climate change.
http://www.smh.com.au/world/science/final-frontier-of-climate-policy–remake-humans-20120405-1wfo6.html
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 394ppm. As of 2024 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that Copenhagen had ended in failure. The pieces of the Ming-ing International negotiation vase that had been dropped that day, were still being glued back together. It wasn’t at all clear that there would be any societal economic, political, technological response to carbon dioxide buildup worthy of the name. And so of course, attention turns to the science fiction ideas of simply adapting to a much warmer world shipped with genetically modifying corn. Why not do the same for humans? Replicants ”I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe”, etc, etc.
What we learn is that everyone’s hungry for publicity and so outlandish shit will get printed. And somewhere in a lab in Switzerland or Boston or Tel Aviv or London, or Sydney Shanghai or Rio de Janeiro this sort of shit has probably been attempted. At least it would make a good sci fi novel. And indeed, there is that very mediocre film, The Bourne Legacy.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.
Also on this day:
April 6, 2006 – Canadian “experts” (not) keep culture wars going.
April 6, 2006 – the anti-climate dam of John Howard begins to crack…