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Budget 2013: What’s in it for science? Peter Griffin May 16

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Budget 2013 saw a net increase of around $50 million in science and innovation funding, according to Science and Innovation Minister Steven Joyce who tweeted the factoid in response to Sciblogger Siouxsie Wiles.

Screen Shot 2013-05-10 at 1.22.58 PM$130 million of funding has been committed to boosting R&D efforts in companies and start-ups, $107m of which will come from the Government’s internationally focused growth package, with $23m re-prioritised from elsewhere in the science and innovation vote.

Detail about the new grants scheme that will account for the new funding is detailed here.

Additionally, changes to tax rules were announced that would allow loss-making start-up companies investing heavily in research and development to take advantage of tax breaks. Eligibility criteria for the scheme will be released next month ahead of public consultation.

Previously announced and reallocated

Elsewhere, previously announced Budget allocations, such as the National Science Challenges which receive $73.5 million in funding over the next four years, and funding for newly-formed Callaghan Innovation account for the bulk of changes on the positive side of the ledger within the science and innovation vote. The Marsden Fund receives an increase in funding ($46.8 million to $51.8 million),

“Realising the benefits of innovation” receives a $17.5 million allocation, and is described as “activities that build the level of, and returns from, science and technology-driven innovation through providing tailored brokerage and access to advice, technical services and facilities, and creating linkages, projects and collaborations between business and industry and Research Science and Technology providers”. Allocations for the KAREN advanced network ($4 million) and New Zealand access to the Australian Synchrotron $7.5 million) are also included.

Decreases in allocations include ”high value manufacturing”, which reduces from $187.5 million to $61.1 million year on year, Fellowships for Excellence ($13.4 million to $8.6 million) and Crown Research Institute core funding ($215.5 million to $201.6 million)

Vote Science and Innovation appropriation estimates for 2013-14 are outlined here

Departmental appropriations consisting of:

• just under $30 million for advice and support to shape the science and innovation system, including policy advice, public consultation and engagement on National Science Challenges, contract management and strategic leadership in the Science and Innovation sector.

Non-departmental appropriations consisting of:

• under $202 million for Crown Research Institutes (CRI’s) to provide greater financial certainty to deliver outcomes for the benefit of New Zealand and to assist the CRI’s to contribute to the outcomes in their statement of core purpose

• just over $303 million for research and research applications in the areas of high value manufacturing and services, biological industries, health and society, environmental, hazards and infrastructure and energy and minerals

• under $145 million for Research and Development Growth Grants multi-year appropriation (MYA), Targeted Business Research and Development Funding MYA, and Repayable Grants for Start-Ups

• just over $42 million for National Science Challenges to fund specific research projects in seeking answers to the most pressing issues of national significance facing New Zealand

• under $19 million for services by the Crown entity Callaghan Innovation for development and maintenance of strategic capabilities required to meet immediate and future needs of business and industry

• under $52 million for the Marsden Fund for excellent fundamental research

• under $9 million for fellowships and grants to support the development of future research leaders

• under $13 million for contract management services with regard to research, science and technology contract with organisations or individuals

• just under $9 million for engaging New Zealanders with science and technology

• just over $16 million for the advice, brokerage and networking services provided by Callaghan

Innovation

• over $6 million for Research Contract Management

• under $6 million for providing specified standards to meet the needs for traceable physical measurements in New Zealand, and

• under $7 million for the development of skilled people and organisations undertaking research that supports the four themes of Vision M?tauranga.

Non-departmental other expenses consisting of:

• under $38 million for grants to organisations in New Zealand and overseas which ensures infrastructures and projects that have system-wide benefits or are too large for any one institution to fund, but are of benefit to New Zealand, can take place, and

• a total of $135,000 for membership to the Convention du Metre.

Non-departmental capital expenditure consisting of:

• just under $32 million to support the establishment and development of an advanced technology institute as the Crown entity Callaghan Innovation.

Departmental capital expenditure: please note that as a result of the formation of Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment all departmental capital expenditure is now under Vote Economic Development.

National Science Challenges – Govt unveils the areas of focus Peter Griffin May 01

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The Government has announced the National Science Challenges – 10 areas of focus over the next four years – $73.5 million in new funding to address them ($133.5 million in total to be spent on research addressing them).

The areas of focus are:

1. Aging well
2. A better start
3. Healthier lives
4. High value nutrition
5. New Zealand’s biological heritage
6. Our land and water
7. Life in a changing ocean
8. The Deep South
9. Science for technological innovation
10. Resilience to nature’s challenges

So what do you think? Has the Government, after consulting the science sector and the public, got the mix right?

In a warming world, we’ll be drinking more homegrown wine Peter Griffin Apr 09

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Some of the world’s best known wine growing regions, California’s Napa Valley and France’s Bordeaux region among them, are in for a rough time thanks to climate change.

In fact, the sources of the world’s most productive wine regions are likely to alter radically in the coming decades as climate change makes currently prime wine growing areas ill-suited to sensitive grape-growing conditions, while new areas will become ripe for wine growing.

On the flipside, New Zealand’s wine industry stands to benefit with the area suitable for wine growing here estimated to increase by up to 168 per cent. Existing areas will expand slightly, but newly suitable areas such as along the coast of Canterbury, will emerge as prime wine growing areas.

Research published today in PNAS considered 17 climate models applied to nine wie-producing regions. Two scenarios were examined – a 4.7C temperature increase by 2050 and a 2.5C increase by 2050.

Both scenarios present a grim outlook for the global wine industry:

- 85% decrease in production in Bordeaux, Rhone and Tuscany.

- 74% drop in Australia

- 70% fall in California.

- 55% decline in South Africa’s Cape area.

- 40% decline in Chile

New Zealand then appears well placed to expand production and its influence in the international wine trade. We rounded up some comment from New Zealand scientists at the Science Media Centre.

But lets not crack the champagne (or New Zealand Methode) just yet. Climate change will have all sorts of other implications that will see the wine industry’s gains tipped massively on the other side of the ledger as sea level rise, climate refugees and more extreme weather events cost us dearly. The changing climate will also have implications for biodiversity as new areas are cultivated for wine growing.

Write the authors:

Freshwater habitats may be particularly at risk where climate change undermines growing conditions for already established vineyards. Climate change adaptation strategies that anticipate these indirect impacts are particularly im- portant for creating a future that is positive for vintners, wine consumers, and ecosystems alike. Alternatives are available that will allow adaptation in vineyards while maintaining the positive ecological association that is valued in the industry.

Still, they suggest New Zealand is in for a slightly easier ride here too, thanks to our reasonably abundant water supplies.

The graphic below outlines the changing suitability for wine growing around the world under the modeled global temperature increases.

Source: Hannah et al. PNAS

Source: Hannah et al. PNAS

Monckton’s nightmare week in New Zealand Peter Griffin Apr 08

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A week into his self-described “barnstorming” tour of New Zealand, arch-sceptic Christopher Monckton seems to be quietly licking his wounds after a string of farcical public and media appearances.

The armchair climate change expert has in the past managed to stimulate discussion of climate science on his tours of New Zealand and Australia, even if he has been criticized for manipulating and cherry-picking the science to suit his narrative on climate.

However, after his roasting in the media, his train wreck of a public discussion in Auckland and a falling out with one of his imagined allies, Monckton’s arguments against acting on climate change have received scant attention, overshadowed by his erratic behaviour.

The Weekend Herald lavished the full back page interview on Monckton last Saturday and in the process featured perhaps the best insight yet into the mind of Lord Monckton who abruptly ended the interview. Writes the Weekend Herald’s Michele Hewitson:

“It is very difficult to walk out on an interview when the only place you have to walk out of is the living room in the house where you are staying and into the kitchen where the person you are walking out on has to follow you to get to the front door. We stood about for a bit while he studiously ignored me and while I waited for him to laugh because it was so farcical.

“But he didn’t. He wouldn’t even say goodbye, which was quite some feat because it might have been the first time he had ever stopped talking.”
Lord Monckton earns serious newspaper real estate... opposite Kim Jong-un. Appropriate or what?

Lord Monckton earns serious newspaper real estate… opposite Kim Jong-un. Appropriate or what?

This is by no means the first time Monckton has walked out of an interview, nor the first time he has done it in New Zealand. On his last visit, he lost his cool with Country 99 TV reporter Benedict Collins, marching out of the interview when his credentials to discuss complex climate science were questioned.

It is no wonder Monckton was feeling tetchy when he sat down with Michele Hewitson. Earlier in the week, the Herald revealed the contempt the scientific community has for Monckton, sparking an angry rebuttal rejecting the criticism as “hate speech”. But it got worse for Monckton as the week rolled on.

On Friday morning, Monckton appeared on TV3′s Firstline programme, where he claimed to be in New Zealand as a guest of Federated Farmers. Monckton was still fuming about his treatment by the Herald:

“They made assumptions which were not correct, and one of the universities concerned is going to have the father and mother of all complaints later today, once the lies have been investigated,” he told Firstline.

But untruths were the subject of a press release issued later in the day about Monckton’s TV3 appearance, with Federated Farmers moving to distance themselves from the visiting sceptic:

In an interview on 3News Firstline this morning, in which Lord Christopher Monckton said his tour was being organised and supported by Federated Farmers of New Zealand, but this is incorrect.

Federated Farmers of New Zealand has not invited Lord Monckton to tour. Nor is Federated Farmers of New Zealand sponsoring or organising his tour either directly or indirectly.

Federated Farmers of New Zealand is aware our Marlborough province may be supporting the tour in some capacity and that some farmers may be involved, but the national body is not.

The Federated Farmers rebuke would have been gnawing at Monckton as he took to the stage at a University of Auckland public lecture to enthusiastic applause – from the Flat Earth Society for Climate Realists:

He didn’t seem to like us cheering and applauding his every joke and saw it as a reason to call security, but we managed to persuade security that we were FRIENDS, not foes!

He seemed a bit cross with everyone in the end, which was confusing as we are all about cooperation and collaboration.

Then came this morning’s account in the Northern Advocate of a meeting Monckton spoke at in the Whangarei library. Reporter Lindy Laird admitted she found it hard to take Monckton seriously:

It’s because he reminds me of Spike Milligan. Maybe it’s the eyes, the self-deprecating Englishness, or a delivery that turns a serious subject into the bizarre. I tell myself to get serious, be professional, I’m on a job.

This is not The Goon Show, and although the grass outside is frying in the blazing April sun and people mutter “driest in 70 years” no one looks likely to burst into ludicrous song at any moment. “Ning Nang Nong…”

At least Monckton may be able to drown out his detractors when he comes to Wellington. He is holding his public lecture there in the Bose audio store.

You wonder at this stage whether Monckton wouldn’t be better served just bypassing the despicable mainstream media and accepting an interview with The Civilian. At the very least he’ll share their penchant for bowler hats…

Screen Shot 2013-04-08 at 5.34.29 PM

 

Can Obama turn rhetoric into action on climate change? Peter Griffin Jan 22

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I just stood in the cold on the National Mall in Washington D.C. along with 600,000 people to listen to Barack Obama’s inauguration speech.

The National Mall in all its glory photo: Peter Griffin

Factions of the media have analyzed it as a very “progressive” or “liberal” speech. I didn’t take that away from it. For me it was a very American speech. It was full of references to Dr Martin Luther King, the founding fathers, 1776, the Constitution, the military, the greatness of America. It was clearly a fairly liberal crowd surrounding me, but Obama was tugging the heart strings of all Americans with his words.

It also, refreshingly, paid tribute to science and technology and urged America to harness both to reclaim the country’s position as a leader in innovation.

We cannot cede to other nations the technology that will power new jobs and new industries. We must claim its promise. That’s how we will maintain our economic vitality and our national treasure, our forests and waterways, our crop lands and snow capped peaks. That is how we will preserve our planet, commanded to our care by God. That’s what will lend meaning to the creed our fathers once declared.

There’s a dark hint in that first sentence that the US feels its technological lead has been wrested from it by illegitimate means. Its attempts to tighten up intellectual property law, its distrust of Chinese technology giants like Huawei, are testament to that partly justified paranoia.

But before it came something more fundamental and universal on an issue that got hardly any play during the election campaign.

 We, the people, still believe that our obligations as Americans are not just to ourselves, but to all posterity. We will respond to the threat of climate change, knowing that the failure to do so would betray our children and future generations.

The cheer that went up around me almost drowned out the following:

Some may still deny the overwhelming judgment of science, but none can avoid the devastating impact of raging fires, and crippling drought, and more powerful storms. The path towards sustainable energy sources will be long and sometimes difficult. But American cannot resist this transition. We must lead it.

The overwhelming judgement of science.

I haven’t listened to many inauguration speeches but I doubt such a strong statement about science has ever been made by a President on such an occasion.

Now the reality bites. As the fiscal cliff negotiations illustrated, US politics is more partisan than it has been in a long time. The economy is not growing, America is spending beyond its means. Many will be asking what Obama is going to do in the next four years about these immediate problems. Climate change mitigation doesn’t enter those discussions, it is considered a cost, a nice to have, something we can do when they lower the deficit, return the economy to a path of growth, return the US to a position of hegemony in the world.

Obama’s challenge, and if he can rise to it, he deserves another Nobel, is to change the thinking so that the issue of tackling climate change is central to all of the above. He is jubilant at this moment, he has avoided becoming a one-term president, his place in history is secure. But the real judgement of him will be measured by what he does in the next four years, where he has a mandate to pursue the agenda he laid out in the election campaign.

With several precious moments of his inauguration speech devoted to science, technology and the effort to mitigate climate change, there’s a strong hint he will pursue the issues in this space that were left on the table in his first term.

NZ’s own Doomsday prepper – and his flaky science Peter Griffin Dec 10

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Have you seen that show on National Geographic channel? The one where people devote vast amounts of time, energy and money to preparing for the end of the world?

National Geographic’s doom obsession

Some of them build bunkers to hide out in when peak oil causes massive social unrest around the world. Others are preparing for the aftermath of a sudden reversal in the Earth’s polarity. One lady was delivering masks and disinfectant kits to neighbours as she feared a global pandemic was imminent. Its quite quaint, but others are going underground to avoid, you guessed it, nuclear winter.

These Doomsday preppers are interesting in the way they matter of factly toss around wacky theories and predictions, as though they were established scientific fact. Take this advice Survive Pole Shift has issued to help you survive the big flip:

…research your location from the standpoint of the climate that will exist after the pole shift. This is quickly ascertained by looking at the New Geology map. This is a free map which can be cut out and taped together and will give a general idea of the latitude to expect. If your chosen location is where one of the new poles will be, this is a clue that you need to rethink or plan a migration route. This is likewise the case if your chosen location will be on land that will sink below the waves entirely, such as India or western Australia.

Doom metal

New Zealand has its own Doomsday preppers and one of them, Opshop frontman and New Zealand’s Got Talent judge Jason Kerrison is the poster boy for the movement. Kerrison, who has constructed an emergency bunker in Northland, also fears a major pole shift. He told the Herald on Sunday:

“It’s just getting close to home more often. I guess we live such ephemeral lives that we expect this potential global cataclysm we’re discussing to happen overnight or out of the blue. But there are signs everywhere that this accelerated pole shift is being triggered and ramping up.”

Jason Kerrison

Kerrison’s face graces the front of this week’s New Zealand Listener, where he dispenses some more scientific analysis:

“If the shit were to hit the fan as much as some people talk about, you could get a whole crustal displacement of the eight to 20 miles’ worth of crust on this 8000-mile-wide planet, slipping like a peel on an orange.”

The end of the world is front of mind, or decent fodder for journalists anyway, as we approach December 21, the date the current cycle on the Mayan calendar ends. On that date, argue various bunches of Armageddonists, the world will end dramatically. Planet Nibiru might smash into planet Earth, or life may be vaporized as part of the galatic alignment. Kerrison chips in:

“Whether anything happens specifically on that date, I don’t know, but its been happening for years – its just ramping up in its intensity.”

As December 21 looms we can expect more of this sort of talk – which is bizarre, because it isn’t as though the Mayans actually prophesied the end of the world.

Marcello Canuto, the director of Tulane University Middle America Research Institute, says only two recovered Mayan texts reference the end of a 144,000 day b’ak’tun cycle but little more. This for the Huffington Post:

 ”What this text shows us is that in times of crisis, the ancient Maya used their calendar to promote continuity and stability rather than predict apocalypse,”

The Mayans didn’t link the end of the calendar cycle with the end of the world, argue experts, but that is how Christians interpreted it. Via Livescience:

“A lot of the end-of-the-world mythologies are the result of Christian eschatology introduced by Franciscan missionaries,” John Hoopes, a scholar of Maya history at the University of Kansas, told Livescience, referring to missionaries just entering the New World and coming into contact with native people.

Real disaster scenarios

While there’s nothing credible to suggest December 21st won’t be just like any other day, scientists have given considerable thought to what could devastate planet Earth. After all, such events have happened before. Wired has summed up the potential scenarios, ranging from the eruption of a super volcano to a large comet striking the planet.

As this Guardian piece shows, scientists continue to think through disaster scenarios, with the aim of  avoiding world-ending scenarios. The problem, writes the Guardian’s Ian Sample, is that humans only really get around to serious disaster planning after disaster has struck.

Nuclear reactors were made safer after the Chernobyl disaster in 1986. The UN drew up plans for a tsunami warning system in the Indian Ocean a year after 230,000 people died from a devastating wave in 2004. Plans to bolster flood defences around New Orleans are still being thrashed out, five years after hurricane Katrina killed nearly 2,000 and left thousands more homeless. In each case, the risks were known, but they were only acted on after the event.

 Kerrison for his part will be strumming his guitar up north, a short dash from his bunker on December 21,

“I call myself an apocaloptimist, in that shit happens but I’m ready for it if it does,”

he told the Listener, adding probably with people like me in mind:

“I don’t feel downtrodden from the taunts of the short-sighted.”

 

Tornadoes don’t indicate extreme weather is increasing Peter Griffin Dec 06

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I popped out for a meeting this afternoon and came back to the office to discover a tornado had torn through the street I grew up in, Waimarie Rd, in Whenuapai, just a stone’s throw from the airforce base perimeter.

My parents were out shopping at the time thankfully, but still can’t get back into Whenuapai where roads are closed until trees and fallen power lines can be removed. The power pole at the entrance to their section is down and their car port has taken a hammering. But they got off lightly compared to the three who died in West Auckland this afternoon, in an extreme weather event that echoes that of last year’s fatal tornado that touched down on Auckland’s North Shore.

My old stomping ground, Waimarie Road in Whenuapai, this afternoon credit: NZ Herald

An obvious question that has sprung up on social networks this afternoon, perhaps with the Sandy disaster still fresh in people’s minds, is whether tornadoes are increasingly frequent in New Zealand and a manifestation of the changing climate.

The answer, according to climate expert, Victoria University’s Associate Professor Jim Renwick, is “no”.

He told the SMC this afternoon:

The occurrence of damaging tornado events is associated with localised severe thunderstorm activity. Analysis of weather records does not show a pattern, nor are there trends obvious in tornado occurrences. These events strike at random from time to time, but they are very localised and sporadic and are not obviously tied to trends in the large-scale climate. At this stage, we have no indication that tornado occurrences will become more or less frequent in future.

Aucklanders will relate to the comments about the tornadoes being “very localised”, but other parts of the country are from time to time ravaged by tornadoes. Just up the coast from me at Waikanae, a tornado tore through houses last year, almost killing members of one family.

University of Canterbury lecturer in meteorology, Dr Marwan Katurji, said the Taranaki region is the record holder for tornadoes, with the Auckland region coming in second.

“The North Island, especially the west coast, is more vulnerable to westerly and northerly winds that are associated with weather fronts. Warm moist air from the warmer Tasman Sea carries within it embedded thunderstorms. When the air hits land it interacts with the topography to create convergence zones and the wind speeds are higher in these areas and the storms get more severe in this case.”

And some comfort for Cantabrians – who have become expert at dealing with disaster:

“In Canterbury we are blessed with the Southern Alps that do shield off the severe westerly storms. But occasionally we do get the odd small waterspout off the Banks Peninsula coast.’’

While environmentalists were gratified to see climate change put squarely on the agenda days before the US election when Sandy caused mayhem along the east coast of the US, scientists there have also warned about overstating the link between extreme weather events and climate change. Writes environmental scientist Amy Luers:

The link between today’s extreme weather and greenhouse gas policy is weak. Policy decisions made today are not going to eliminate or even significantly alter the patterns of these extreme weather events in the next few decades. This is due to the long lifetime of the heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere coupled with the time it takes to change our societal infrastructure.

However, some scientists, such as climate expert and kiwi expat Dr Kevin Trenberth, suggest global warming is exacerbating the effects of extreme weather events. He said this of Sandy:

“Global climate change has contributed to the higher sea surface and ocean temperatures, and a warmer and moister atmosphere, and its effects are in the range of 5 to 10%. Natural variability and weather has provided the perhaps optimal conditions of a hurricane running into extra-tropical conditions to make for a huge intense storm, enhanced by global warming influences”.

Back in New Zealand last year, Dr Trenberth, who is based in Colorado, participated in a Science Media Centre briefing on extreme weather, which you can listen to here.

The TPP – what does it mean for science? Peter Griffin Dec 05

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Right now, hundreds of diplomats and trade experts from around the Asia Pacific region are ensconced at Sky City convention centre in Auckland for top-secret negotations as part of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement.

Credit: GlobalTradeWatch CC Flickr

The level of secrecy alone is of great concern and to some, anti-democratic, let alone what is actually being concocted in the latest draft agreement. Prime Minister John Key has backed the secret nature of the negotiations – commercially sensitive and all that.

But enough information has leaked from previous drafts to raise concerns about what is being hammered out on our behalf.

And enough of a picture of what the TPP contains has also been created to suggest it could have implications for science, research, innovation and the creation and use of intellectual property in New Zealand.

Medicines

The big science-related area of concern flagged so far is around potential changes to how drug buying agency Pharmac operates and therefore the type of access New Zealanders have to important drugs and medicines – and at what price.

The Prime Minister and pharma lobby group Medicines New Zealand have both said that there’s no intention to try and dismantle Pharmac – which is hailed around the world for keeping drug costs low in New Zealand. But the pharmaceutical industry isn’t happy at the amount of power Pharmac, which turns 20 next year, wields when it comes to deciding what drugs will be made available in New Zealand.

Pharmac is the subject of numerous US Government cables that were released by Wikileaks. The cables, such as the following one sent from the Wellington Embassy in 2006, analyse the US drug companies’ desire to use the lever of a free trade agreement to allow them to more freely sell a wider range of potentially higher priced drugs here.

SUBJECT: DRUG INDUSTRY SEES POSSIBLE SALVE TO ITS PAIN IN NEW ZEALAND
06WELLINGTON40 2006-01-13 05:15

“..most drug companies continue to believe that only the lure of a free-trade agreement between New Zealand and the United States would prompt the New Zealand government to make the changes the industry contends are needed to assure its long-term viability  in the country.”
Another cable from 2006 (all those with references to Pharmac are helpfully summarised here) points out the commercial reality John Key faces and explains his public commitment to maintaining Pharmac – we can’t afford higher priced drugs.

SUBJECT: GNZ AIMS TO COOL EXPECTATIONS FOR U.S. FTA
06WELLINGTON230 2006-03-24 04:51

“The New Zealand government would be hard-pressed to meet likely U.S. demands that it open the drug-purchasing system to greater competition and choice. That would be costly, and health care expenses already are the largest component of the New Zealand budget (ref A). “
 So if Pharmac remains intact, what type of changes may be in store for it to placate the drug companies – and the US TPP negotiators?
Medicines New Zealand, which represents the likes of Pfizer, GlaxoSmithKline, Roche and Merck Sharpe & Dohme in New Zealand, have summarised the following changes it would like to see made:
- Better transparency around funding applications and the Pharmacology and Therapeutics Advisory Committee (PTAC) as well as for the scientific evidence on which decisions are made.

- Establish a timeline for processing applications and make decisions (“don’t sit on PTAC recommendations for many years”).

- Clear definition of decision criteria and how they are applied.

- Direct stakeholder representation to the clinical committees.

- All health technology investment decisions made on similar grounds.

- Intellectual property regime brought up to international best practice.

Essentially, the drug companies want to gain a better understanding of how the Government decides to fund drugs, the processes they have to go through and they want more input into the process. They want the same rules to apply to all drugs considered for funding. It sounds reasonable enough, but what the implications of the above would actually be once they’ve gone through the TPP mincer is anyone’s guess.
It may not mean higher-priced drugs, but it could influence the mix of drugs funded by Pharmac and potentially give drug companies ammunition to take legal cases under the investor trade provisions being negotiated (see below).

Possible scenario: A US drug company is able to convince a clinical committee that its drug’s efficacy warrants Pharmac choosing its drug over a rival’s – say a cheaper generic.

Bottom line: Pharmac is certainly a target in these negotiations and its track record of delivering quality low-priced drugs to New Zealanders is at risk. But we can’t afford higher priced drugs, which is driving the Government’s commitment to retain Pharmac.

Genetic modification

Several large and influential US companies develop and sell genetically modified organisms. They’d like to do more business in New Zealand – recently the likes of Du Pont and Monsanto were in New Zealand outlining some fairly credible arguments for why New Zealand needs to get serious about the technology to remain a competitive player in agriculture.

These companies also want to sell products containing GMOs to New Zealand consumers. At the moment, New Zealand has labelling regulations so that products must have a GM label “if they contain DNA or protein from a GM source or they have altered characteristics compared to their non-GM counterpart (such as a changed fatty acid profile).”

But GM is a turn-off in New Zealand – the public is opposed to it and therefore is less likely to buy food which has been genetically modified. That’s why Bio, the major US industry association for the biotech sector, made a submission in 2009 that foods containing small traces of GM-material shouldn’t have to be labelled so. Labels should only be required:

“…if the product has been significantly changed nutritionally or if there have been changes in other health-related characteristics of the food”.

If this makes it into the TPP, some products containing GMOs could end up on shelves in New Zealand without being labelled as such.

The other push from Bio is for GMOs that have been deemed safe and are used in one TPP-member country to be allowed to be used in New Zealand:

“A recognition from the TPP countries that no new approval process is necessary for stacked traits that have already been approved individually by national authorities”.

That could have implications for the extent of the Environmental Protection Agency’s powers. It oversees GMO applications under the HSNO Act.

Possible scenario: Feed imported to New Zealand for livestock may contain GM material but doesn’t have to be labelled as such or go through specific regulatory approval.

Bottom line: Many scientists will welcome any freeing up of regulations around use of new organisms as a sign of progress on technology New Zealand has stubbornly refused to embrace. But the Government will be nervous given the public opposition to the use of GM technology and materials in New Zealand and the GE Free crowd will hit the roof.

Patents on medical prcedures

The treatment of intellectual property under the TPP is highly contentious due to the fact that the intellectual property chapter of the TPP document was leaked in 2011 and revealed some potential fish hooks. There are well documented concerns around the TPP in relation to copyright, software patents and the digital economy which are well documented. I wrote a Listener column about them (sorry behind the new pay wall).

The intellectual property provisions have serious implications for science too. The draft text and submissions from the US appear to seek to tighten up protection of intellectual property, including the use of patents.

While most countries have some sort of patent laws to allow inventors to protect their ideas, the US and others include “carve outs” for “therapeutic and surgical methods for the treatment of humans”. There’s more on the issue here, including a video interview with a legal expert.

The exclusions mean that while you might be able to patent a medical procedure, you won’t be able to enforce it. This is mainly to prevent situations where potentially life-saving treatments cannot be administered because someone has a patent on how the procedure is carried out and the medical practitioner hasn’t secured a license to perform it.

The TPP draft wording covers the above scenario, but little else:

Each Party may only exclude from patentability inventions, the prevention within its territory of the commercial exploitation of which is necessary to protect ordre public or morality, including to protect human, animal, or plant life or health or to avoid serious prejudice to the environment, provided that such exclusion is not made merely because the exploitation is prohibited by law.

The Australia-US Free Trade Agreement has a similar clause, but excludes much more – see bold below:

Each Party may only exclude from patentability: (a) inventions, the prevention within their territory of the commercial exploitation of which is necessary to protect ordre public or morality, including to protect human, animal, or plant life or health or to avoid serious prejudice to the environment, provided that such exclusion is not made merely because the exploitation is prohibited by law; and (b) diagnostic, therapeutic, and surgical methods for the treatment of humans and animals. [emphasis added]

Currently, in most countries, surgeons who perform patented surgical methods are not liable for patent infringement on these activities.

As the New Zealand Intellectual Property Office states:

…claims including methods of treatment of humans by therapy or surgery, and claims including methods of diagnosis that are performed directly on the human body, will not be accepted.

The leaked TPP draft suggests the trade agreement could tighten up that provision to make patents for surgical procedures enforceable. That would put the trade agreement in opposition to the law in several member countries, including the US.

Possible scenario: A doctor carrying out a commonly used but patented cancer diagnostic procedure suddenly finds that he is infringing the patent holder’s intellectual property rights and has to secure a licence to continue carrying out the diagnostic procedure.

Bottom line: Allowing patents on medical, diagnostic and surgical procedures to be enforced could have serious ramifications for how medical practitioners operate and therefore have implications for medical treatment in New Zealand.

Other areas of the TPP could impact the operations of scientific institutions, particularly the much talked about “investor state” provisions that could allow companies to sue governments directly over alleged breaches.

Secrecy breeds paranoia

It is important to point out that all of the above is based solely on snatches of leaked TPP texts. But that is all the public has had to go on throughout this entire TPP negotiating process. The leaked text and the various submissions to the US Government on free trade deals have shown what US industry is pushing for and therefore what the US negotiators are hoping to have included in the final TPP agreement.
It may be that many of these concerns will turn out to be unfounded, that the wording waters down the risks posed. But we have no way of knowing one way or other, which is why science and the New Zealand public in general should care about the impact this free trade agreement will have on our ability to innovate and decide what scientific innovations we wish to employ and adopt in our country.

Mike Joy isn’t a lone voice – just a loud one Peter Griffin Nov 27

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Of all the questions raised by the controversy surrounding scientist Mike Joy’s quotes in the New York Times – and the heated response to them, this is the most important: can Dr Joy back up with evidence his claims about the parlous state of New Zealand’s environment?

He can and he has.

Dr Mike Joy

From the peer-reviewed journal PLoS to the Ministry for the Environment’s own reporting on the state of water quality in New Zealand, the literature suggests we have reason to be concerned about the health of our waterways.

How this impinges on the way we market our country to the rest of the world is arguable, but this scientist at least has a credible argument – backed up by evidence, to suggest it undermines our prominent claims to be 100% Pure.

It is not as if Mike Joy is a renegade among scientists, a lone voice in the freshwater science community. He shares the same concerns as many other freshwater scientists I have spoken to. He is just more forceful at putting his views across, more proactive at seeking media exposure. You could say that he is a very effective science communicator.

The only reason Mike Joy has attracted the ire of the Prime Minister and others, is that his comments about New Zealand’s environmental record have travelled so widely – carried on BBC Hardtalk last year and via the New York Times last week.

But you don’t have to look far to see that many of Dr Joy’s concerns are mirrored by his colleagues.

Views mirrored

Take this round-up of scientific commentary we at the Science Media Centre gathered last year in response to the Government’s release of a package of policy initiatives for regulating water quality and usage in New Zealand.

Here’s an excerpt from Dr Joy’s commentary:

“This national policy statement continues that trend of policy containing lots of nice words and lofty ideals but no teeth or standards, so this is a huge opportunity lost and we can expect more of the same the further degrading of the ‘clean green’ myth.”

Here’s what Angus McIntosh, Professor and Mackenzie Foundation Chair in Freshwater Ecology, University of Canterbury, had to say:

 “The need to halt declines in freshwater biodiversity values is critical. The current situation is really quite grim. In a recent survey of small waterways on the Canterbury Plains we have found over 80% are either moderately or severely polluted. For Canterbury urban waterways (pre earthquake), the situation is even worse”.

And Professor David Hamilton, Bay of Plenty Chair in Lakes Management & Restoration at Waikato University and President of the New Society Freshwater Sciences Society, weighed in with this:

“Over the past decade or so New Zealanders have witnessed accelerated degradation of many water bodies in response to diffuse nutrients derived mostly from agricultural sources.

He goes on to say… (full comments here)

“In the interests of ‘100% pure NZ’ we cannot continue along this pathway.”

We have gathered similar commentary from climate scientists highly critical of New Zealand’s emissions mitigation policies and the watering down of the Emissions Trading Scheme. None of them have been slammed for giving their honest, evidence-based views. I presume the only reason why they haven’t is because they haven’t been quoted by a major international news outlet.

Science is supposed to inform public debate – and policy making. That’s called an evidence-based approach. If we write off the work of scientists because the results of their research is inconvenient or because they take advantage of their right to academic freedom to highlight their findings, we are just paying lip-service to science. That’s a dangerous place to be when we face many complex issues that will only effectively be tackled by using good science.

International comparisons

Some will argue that Dr Joy is cherry-picking data and peer-reviewed journal papers to reinforce his arguments. But that is a facile argument – a smoke screen. True international benchmarks of environmental performance show we, not surprisingly, are clean and green compared to many other countries, but our performance is slipping and when you drill down into the details, indicators around freshwater resources, Dr Joy’s area of interest, are indeed concerning.

The Yale Environmental Performance Index 2012 looks at a wide range of countries and ranks them on a range of performance indicators – from air quality to land use to the quantity and quality of fresh water.

In the rankings, New Zealand comes in in 14th place out of 132 countries – between Iceland and Albania. Not a bad result. But Yale also issues an EPI Trend ranking – looking at how we’ve progressed over the past decade. Using this indicator we are ranked 50th, between Armenia and Slovenia.

If you look at the specific commentary on New Zealand, you can see the reasons why our performance is slipping. Where we are losing ground relative to other countries, as the graphic below shows, is in the areas of agriculture, forestry and water resources.

Source: Yale EPI 2012

These types of international comparisons are not perfect, but collectively there is enough evidence to suggest that while New Zealand is relatively clean and green, we are struggling in key areas that could in the longterm see us falling behind other countries overall in environmental performance.

This is what Dr Joy and his colleagues are pointing out and it is their responsibility to do so.

Science journalism that MATTERs Peter Griffin Nov 19

1 Comment

Over the weekend I paid 99 cents for a quality piece of long form science journalism that I downloaded and read on my iPad.

Members sign up for 99c a month

Who published it? The New Yorker? Atlantic Monthly? National Geographic? No, the article is the first of what will hopefully be a long series published online by Matter, which bills itself as “the new home for the best in-depth and investigative writing about science and technology”.

The piece Do No Harm? – 8,000 words long, was about Body Identity Integrity Disorder. People with the condition struggle with the urge to have a limb amputated and either attempt to do the job themselves – or seek out doctors willing to do it for them. It isn’t the first time the subject has been covered in-depth. But the piece is a fascinating and emotive read and would happily sit in the publications I mention above.

But author Anil Ananthaswamy, an established science writer who would likely have had editors interested if he’d pitched the story idea to major magazine titles, decided to publish the story through Matter. In doing so, he is taking a punt on a new outlet for science journalism that competes with the establishment but exists precisely because of the dwindling space for this type of journalism in the mainstream media.

There are several reasons why Matter has a fair chance of succeeding – the same reasons why its founders raised US$140,000 on Kickstarter when they only set out to raise US$50,000. The pedigree of the editorial talent is very good as Carl Zimmer points out in this backgrounder. The platform is flexible, attractive and easy to use, particularly for Kindle owners.

But most importantly, the founders seem to understand what drives people who consume and pay for long form science journalism. Such people appreciate depth and quality and are willing to nurture an outlet that will deliver it over the long term.

Matter invites you to join as a member, signing up to pay a mere US99 cents per month. In return you get invited to online Q&As with the authors as well as Matter events and get to pitch story ideas you’d like to see investigated. How this will work out is yet to be seen – it employs an open source system for filtering ideas from members which Matter is calling “Editorial Board”. I love this level of engagement and as the membership grows I’m looking forward to being involved in the ideas-generating process.

Matter also has the advantage of being supported by a range of high-level names from the world of science journalism and also the tech sector. Part of the buzz created by these people explains part of Matter’s success on Kickstarter.

It is early days for this online magazine. And what it is setting out to do is anathema to the race-to-the-bottom, twitch-stream media populating news websites. But, hell, we need this type of thing, which taps into the crowdfunding model in a way that could make it sustainable.

As Zimmer points out:

If Johnson and Giles can continue to publish stories of this caliber, they will make an important contribution to the world of science writing. But that doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll ascend to Politico-like heights of commercial success and pose a threat to traditional outlets. Politico does some good reporting, but every day it also serves up the political journalism equivalent of McDonald’s french fries–addictive little bits of information about who said what today in the DC hothouse.

I’m looking forward to Matter’s next release and wish the founders and contributors well in what I consider to be one of the most exciting ventures in science journalism to get underway in recent times.

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