On Being Realistic

Here are a few problems for which I believe solutions not only exist, but are obvious. It remains only to have the will to implement the solutions.

Energy

This is closely coupled to environmental problems. If we didn't give a damn about the environment, we could just burn coal. But, that doesn't work, as Londoners found out the hard way, some by dying. Fossil fuel and renewables too - anything made of carbon - burns in oxygen, yielding CO₂ and H₂O, both greenhouse gases. In addition, there's lots of side products of combustion, due to the composition of the atmosphere and fuels, which produce acid rain, smog, toxic wastes and other forms of pollution.

That leaves wind, water, solar and nuclear power generation. There are two forms of nuclear power: fission and fusion. Taken together, not including fusion, all the other forms of energy are plainly insufficient to meet the needs of modern societies, now and in the foreseeable future. There is just one energy source which might produce enough energy to meet all of our needs: fusion.

We live on account of the Sun. Almost everything that happens on this planet is powered by the Sun. The Sun runs on nuclear fusion. We understand the princples and the process sufficiently to have built hydrogen bombs. We have built at least two different kinds of apparatus to make controlled fusion reactions. The Tokomak design has reached "breakeven," which is the last R&D step before gearing up to an engineering model of a power reactor.

Republicans are tied to the oil and coal industries, which would be severely reduced if fusion power came online. Democrats and environmentalists have an abnormal fear of anything nuclear, in my opinion because they haven't studied enough science. Result: In the last few years, the U.S. government has shut down fusion R&D.

We could live on renewables and solar power, if we reduce the human population to somewhere around 1 billion or less. But, who is going to shoot the other 5+ billion people?

Conclusion: This problem is severely constrained by secondary, consequential factors. Unless you can invent a totally new source of energy, fusion is what we have. Develop it.

Food & Crops

We have narrowly escaped world-wide famine several times since Lester Brown's pessimism in the 1960s. This success is entirely due to the application of industrial methods and scientific knowledge to agriculture. The Green Revolution amounts to the intensive use of chemicals to fertilize plants, control pests and prevent diseases, on crops suitable to application of those chemicals.

One of the local wonders that happened during my residence here, in Davis, California, is the development of the tomato picker. 25 years ago, the tomato fields were filled with poorly paid and badly treated stoop laborers - mostly braceros - during harvest time. (Tomato is a major crop in this county. I live near the fields.) All that is gone, thanks to the tomato picker developed here. Today, people are paid higher wages because only a few workers are required to run the machines that pick the crop.

The tomato picker was not just a matter of building a machine, although that was difficult enough. The machine required computer technologies that were just becoming available in the early 1980s. The machine also required a tomato that can be picked mechanically, reliably. This may seem simple enough, but it is actually a very difficult problem. The problem was solved here at UCD, by breeding a suitable tomato (mostly the "Roma" variety). The skin had to be thick enough to avoid splitting. The tomatoes had to reach ripeness in a certain, predictable number of days, and then hold that state for a number of days. The fruit had to be a certain size and color. All of those conditions, as well as shape and other factors, had to be bred into the tomatoes to make them suitable for mechanical harvesting.

I used to watch some of the tomato picker tests. It was a disheartening process. But, persistence paid off. The tomato picker is the result of a confluence of technologies: agronomy, biology, computing and mechanical engineering. This combination was only possible after the 1970s.

An offshoot of the tomato picker is genetically engineered crops, some of the first developed right here in Davis. I live not far from the still-operating Calgene greenhouses, where their GM tomato was developed. Down the street are a number of other seed research farms and laboratories. Despite being in the heart of "genetic modification country," our food tastes better than what most Americans get - probably because it is really fresh. We are not unusually susceptible to cancer or other diseases. Our plants have not turned into man-eating monsters.

Before moving to Davis, I lived in Hollywood a short time. They still make monster flicks in Hollywood, many featuring outsize tomatoes and similar mutations. The filmmakers are still busy 396 miles to the south, probably because it is too boring around here. Sorry, no giant killer bees, but there are lots of us who would fancy being in a Hollywood film, even as extras.

Medicine

Since I was a young man, in the 1960s, we have had a massive increase in our knowledge of biology. This has resulted in whole new industries; e.g., biotechnology. This knowledge did not come free, and it was not financed by "private" industry. In fact, starting with the "War on Cancer," the American and British governments have spent hundreds of billions on medical research. The British have been heavily involved in basic medical research since World War II, and often lead the U.S. in one area or another. Medical research is heavily subsidized in Japan and India. Lately, the Chinese government has got into the act as well.

Everyone is familiar with modern miracle drugs, starting with penicillin and ending in a myriad of cancer cures. Even the ancient treatment, aspirin, has been improved. Many of them were created by private interests, using publically funded knowledge as the starting point. It is likely that $100 was spent by the public on basic research for every $1 spent on applied research and clinical trials. Private corporations frequently "hire away" the developers of a promising treatment or drug from the University or government agency, just when the research is moving to a practical phase. The result is that private interests get all the profits, while the public pays almost all the development bill.

Almost all medical providers are highly subsidized by government agencies, even in the United States. Were it not for taxpayer based programs, and government regulations, modern medical care would probably be unaffordable and inaccessible to all but a few (maybe 1% of the population).

The fact is that medical care has always been a State sponsored activity since ancient times. This is a result of the difficulty of acquiring medical knowledge, and the corresponding horrendous costs. The United States is one of the few places ever to claim reliance on "private enterprise" was better than a government program. But, in fact, the claim is false, because in reality most medical care costs - from basic research to hospice care - are paid by taxpayers.

What the "private enterprise" system in the United States allows is the diversion of "profits" to a few privileged corporations, at the expense of everyone else involved. The post-docs who actually do the research and develop new medicines are usually paid less than mail clerks, police officers, firemen, and bus drivers. The very few heads of laboratories, who leave the R&D place with the secret just before it is ready for release, can make millions. The private corporations that market the product can make billions.

The present system in the United States encourages unnecessary duplication of successful products. Thus, we have a plethora of statins ("cholesterol drugs" ) all of which act on the same principle and have similar treatment profiles. Huge amounts are spent on advertising to convince patients and doctors of the virtues of one or another of these drugs. Lesser amounts are spent on developing yet more analogs of those drugs. All that money is not spent on research for new drugs and treatments.

The government health care system is more efficient than the private one. For example, Medicare has an overhead of 6-8%, whereas private HMOs have overhead exceeding 18%. Billions are diverted to the administration of private health care by denying services to needy patients. This not only creates profits for a few at the expense of the many, but is contrary to the most fundamental principles of Western medicine embodied in the Hippocratic oath.