Beyond the Nation#3: Assorted Pollution

We kicked off this series with a blog about global warming: if that’s not a pollution story, we don’t know what is. But as several of you pointed out, there are many other forms of pollution in the world, all equally insidious and all resistant to efforts to clean them up. So here we go.

Pollution is the purest demonstration of the nation state’s irrelevance. PFAS don’t recognise sovereignty. Microplastics don’t stop for border guards. Nitrates don’t care who won the last election. They move through the world according to the laws of physics, chemistry, and biology, not geopolitics. And yet we persist with a governance model that is incapable of addressing a problem so acute it threatens basic survival.

Meaning companies have every incentive to dump where enforcement is weakest. Meaning diplomatic stalemates ensure treaties — if they exist at all — move at the speed of the slowest government. Meaning a jungle equilibrium of absolute economic self‑interest prevails, and no state wants to, or can afford to, be the first to tighten rules.

Take mercury. The Minamata Convention (2013)[1] was meant to curb global pollution from this utterly unpleasant and dangerous substance. But it is a broken reed, riddled with exemptions, get‑out clauses and pulled punches. National opt‑outs, slow phase‑outs, feeble enforcement and zero penalties for non‑compliance. Global mercury emissions have not meaningfully declined since the treaty was signed — and in some sectors have increased — seeping into rivers, seas and oceans, and contaminating supposedly healthy foods with a potent neurotoxin.

And alongside mercury we could list such fracases as PFAS (no treaty at all), the Asian brown‑cloud smogs, [2] the Basel Convention on plastic waste (more holes than Emmental cheese), not to mention our own bête noire of antibiotic resistance, where a total failure of international co‑ordination may yet lead to the most deadly health emergency of all.

At no point do we blame individuals, nor look for sinners against whom we may throw stones. Everyone caught in this trap is acting in their own rational self‑interest. Governments, by definition, measure themselves against other governments. The system has worked reasonably well up to now — at least it allowed copying from better practitioners. And companies are simply obeying the iron economic rules of profit and loss, buy and sell.

The trouble is that these rules now operate globally, while regulation remains national. And all the pollutants we have mentioned fall into those gaps — where they will continue to accumulate with deadly effect.

[1] Minamata Convention on Mercury – Wikipedia [2] Asian brown cloud – Wikipedia

#pollution #governance #treaties #PFA #mercury #nitrates #antibiotic resistance

Meningitis in Canterbury: Pray those antibiotics keep working

Bacterial meningitis[1] isn’t some Victorian relic. The organisms that cause it, such as Neisseria meningitidis or Streptococcus pneumoniae are lurking in respiratory tracts across entire communities. Waiting for their chance. When that chance comes the attack can be terrifyingly swift. For once inside the system, the bacteria trigger a storm of inflammation around the brain — the body’s own defences become part of the damage. The swelling inside the skull crushes delicate neural tissue; the toxins shred blood vessels; the immune response turns lethal by accident. This is why survivors often live with hearing loss, seizures, cognitive injury, amputations — the aftermath is not a tidy recovery story. Some. of course, do not survive. As we write another outbreak is tearing through the quiet university town of Canterbury in Kent, as described by Mark Newman and Patrick Barlow of the BBC [2] It won’t be the last.

Because up to now our most effective defence against meningitis has been antibiotics. Which is why the UK Health Security Agency is rushing some to the epicentre of this latest outbreak, desperately hoping to stem it before it spreads further. Maybe, this time, they will succeed. But the next time? On current trends we are heading towards a world with no antibiotics. Given declining rates of vaccination generally, that means a return to a world where meningitis is once more common. Victorian Values, anyone?

[1] Meningitis – NHS

[2] Meningitis – NHS

[3] Global burden of bacterial antimicrobial resistance 1990–2021: a systematic analysis with forecasts to 2050 – The Lancet

#antibiotic resistance #meningitis #health #medicine #canterbury #kent #bacteria #epidemic

Friday Night with an Opera

What’s your favourite opera? Dido and Aeneas? The Marriage of Figaro? La Traviata? Tosca? Our answer is: all of the above, and many more. But our real honest-to- God favourite is a drink, gentle readers, not a load of people chorusing on top of a windy hill in Sussex, or close to a handy pub in Covent Garden. That’s right, you guessed that today we are going to present the Opera, one of the tastiest, easiest-to-make homages to a great art form that we know. So with due reverence to the handy Hamlyn Ultimate Cocktail Book-(23 years old and still a go-to)-here is our (adapted)delicious recipe

Take 5 of your best ice cubes and drop ‘em in a shaker. Add one measure of Dubonnet, one half measure of Curaçao, and two measures of your best London dry gin. Put on the overture to Carmen and shake for the first three bars. Pour to a chilled cocktail glass, sin hielo, and decorate with a sprig of orange rind. This will get you through the longest passages of difficult East European composers ,with the added advantage that it’s easy to sneak in to your box, provided the ushers are not looking.

So now imagine you are in your box in the Royal Opera House with your feet up sipping your drink as Bryn Terfel and the whole chorus belt out that sublime, that ultimate, that immense Te deum from Tosca.. Is your cocktail going to last right through? Go on, it’s a night out, and you’re going large.-Slip a tenner to the usher and send him off for another of the same! Tosca, mi fai dimenticare Iddio !

#opera #cocktail #puccini #drinks

Round up: Adam Smith canes the free marketeers, China ups its game, Power from below, Rain panels, and Milton asks “why?”

Adam Smith revisited: Some would have you believe the great economist Adam Smith was a zealous free-market fundamentalist. The truth is more nuanced, as this thoughtful Guardian piece explains

The Guardian view on Adam Smith: he deserves rescuing from the free-market myth | Editorial | The Guardian

China Ramps up Support for science reports Nature Briefing We are not anti USA, nor pro China. But just as the USA cuts its science budgets and pours billions into wars, China steadily invests in the future. Last time this happened was Iraq in 2003: the subsequent trajectories of the two nations has been clear ever since.

The Chinese government has announced plans to increase two of its key science budgets at the country’s biggest political meeting.
The government proposes to increase its science and technology budget by 10% this year, and its overall research and development expenditure by at least 7% per year over the next five years — a boost that translates to billions of extra dollars each year. The latter target was set as part of China’s next five-year plan, which will serve as an overarching blueprint for the country’s policies from 2026 to 2030. Nature | 4 min read

Geothermal to the rescue: Wind, solar, nuclear, fusion: current events make the search for non-fossil energy more urgent than ever. Ever since the 1970s we’ve heard chat about geothermal energy, which draws cheap power from the warm rocks beneath our feet. Looks like these canny Cornishmen are making it the idea real, according to the BBC

Earth’s heat to produce electricity for homes in UK clean energy first – BBC News

Only happy when it rains What if you had a panel which collected energy when the sun shone, and then when it rained? Spanish scientists have taken a big step towards this happy end by developing a sorty of laminate which collects energy from falling raindrops Here’s El País:

Una lámina desarrollada en España es capaz de generar hasta 100 voltios con una sola gota de agua | Ciencia | EL PAÍS

Quote of the week : Rash hand, what fury urges thee?

Paradise Lost, Book 1X

#renewable energy #science #China #USA #economics

Ten years looking for new antibiotics: how are we doing?

How’s the campaign to get more antibiotics going?” We still sometimes get asked this in pub or supermarket. Not surprising really, after more than ten years on the job. And to answer that question we can think of no one better than the acute Julia Kollewe of the Guardian whose piece is as good a state-of- play message ( Pipeline of New Drugs to fight superbugs is “worryingly thin,” experts warn) as any we’ve seen for some time[1] So, what’s the score? How indeed is humanity meeting this existential challenge?

Not too well, actually. The bad news is that antibiotic resistant infections are still very much on the rise. More than 40% of known antibiotics lost potency between 2018 and 2023.[2] The number of antimicrobial projects run by big pharmaceutical companies has actually declined in the last five years. But you can read these and many other statistics from Julia and her linked organisations for yourself.

There are some bright spots: hats off to the UK’s GSK ,Japan’s Shionugi and Otsuka, and certain valiant American firms in California. But America’s real giant, Pfizer, seems to be falling off the pace-not surprising we think, given the political end cultural climate they now have to work in.

But for us Julia’s killer trope was to consult the learned Ara Darzi, an expert in cancer treatment. Who adduces the following gloomy thought:

New therapies mean cancer can be fought, “but then sadly patients succumb to an infection that was treatable a decade ago”, Lord Darzi said at the launch of the AMF report, adding: “You don’t win a game if you have three good strikers and your defence is weak.”

Cancer is indeed a deadly illness. And cures should be sought. But what’s the point if the poor patient dies three days later from an infection? That is why your interest in new antibiotics is still important, gentle reader: please keep supporting us.

[1] Pipeline of new drugs to fight superbugs is ‘worryingly thin’, experts warn | Pharmaceuticals industry | The Guardian

[2] Tools to fight AMR exist, but industry-wide action is needed to tilt the battle against superbugs | Access to Medicine

#antibiotic resistance #microbiology #health #medicine #drugs

Beyond the Nation State #2: Climate Change and all that

Global warming is here, real, now and it’s getting faster.[1] God knows how many times you’ve been beaten over the head with that , and we loathe to insult your intelligence. But we live in a world of rising temperatures, melting glaciers, collapsing ocean currents, dwindling food supplies and the massive shifts in human migrations which all of these entail. And this set against the possibility of a world which could be cleaner, healthier and politically stable-consequences which a safe climate would bring.[2] So-why bring it all up again, right in the middle of a massive, near-world, war? Because we think it is the ne plus ultra example of this series’ main purpose. The existential threat of global warming is beyond the capacity of a world organised into nation states.

We take today’s reasons from History and Information Theory: is that eclectic or what? The first shows that every time nation states are faced with the issue, they duck it. As we noted before (LSS 30 8 23) the 1970s oil shocks didn’t trigger a transition; they triggered a doubling‑down on fossil dependence in the name of “energy security”. Kyoto collapsed[3] the moment the United States decided it didn’t suit its short‑term interests, and Canada followed like a polite echo. And Information theory explains why: because the nation‑state is, at heart, an information‑processing machine optimised for short‑term competitive advantage. It filters every signal — scientific, moral, existential — through the question: does this keep us ahead of our rivals in the next decade? Long‑term planetary risk is systematically down‑weighted, not because leaders are cowards, but because sovereignty itself is a bandwidth problem. No single state can act at the scale or speed required, and pretending otherwise is a comforting fantasy.

Once again we stress: we do not advocate the abolition of sovereign nation states, as to abolish them would invite utter anarchy. But, just as national governments sit above local governments there must now be some sort of global authority to deal with the dangerous, the pressing, the existential risk of utter ecological and economic collapse. And just to cheer you up, we’ve got several more like this, so keep reading.

[1] https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-00745-z?utm_source=Live+Audience&utm_campaign=366c08b912-nature-briefing-daily-20260309&utm_medium

[2]https://theconversation.com/four-ways-to-tackle-health-and-climate-together-and-lift-millions-of-people-out-of-poverty-276696?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=L [3] Kyoto Protocol – Wikipedia

#climate change #global warming #geopolitics #nation #state #sovereignty #meteorology

Solar power: a ray of sunshine in dark times

Just when you thought we were becoming too gloomy we cheerfully present a story of sunny optimism which we hope will lighten your day. It’s via the work of Simon Kuper of the Financial Times, [1] a writer we have showcased here before. Like many FT writers, Simon’s work is behind a paywall. So although we believe that crossing that wall is well worth the cost, we have provided a summary of Simon’s main points. Followed by our own riff, which you will note has been carefully kept separate so that we do not ascribe meanings where none were intended by today’s source author.

SIMON SAYS

The advent of cheap reliable solar panels, and efficient batteries to store their produce, is working wonders in poor countries. Imagine cash-strapped villagers who have waited generations for their -ah, malfunctioning– States to provide power grids and generators suddenly witnessing the arrival of cheap reliable panels! Suddenly everyone gets a fridge, a phone charger, and goodness knows what else at prices all can afford. At once their country leapfrogs all those installations like pylons and dams which our GCE Geography books told us were essential, and bounds into the 21^st century. Proof positive is in the pricing. The cost of panels is down a whacking 99% on what they were in 1975 and 95% on 2007. Being clever sorts of fellows, sub-Saharan Africans imported 60% more panels last year alone. OK, solar isn’t quite so hot for industry, as Simon notes. But when it comes to everything else-transport, everyday things like computers, it’s utterly feasible. Which must be a start on at least reigning back the vertiginous rise in emissions which is still the most pressing threat to our survival. (sorry to antibiotics fans everywhere)

LSS SAYS

1 Why bother with nuclear fusion down here when there is a huge nuclear fusion reactor for free a handy one astronomical unit away?

2 Solar panels are following the exact laws of economics everything else new did: colour tvs, cars, computers, cameras, fridges(OK that’s enough devices-ed) Once the research is completed and mass production starts, costs fall away.

3. This also casts an interesting retrospective light on the warnings of past decades: that solar was too expensive, wouldn’t work in hot countries, or could never be stored, etc etc. etc. Our legal team has advised us not to speculate about anyone’s motives or affiliations, so we won’t. Even the most honest and well‑meaning people can be mistaken: we’ll leave it at that.

4. And finally: whatever anyone says now, the implications are clear. Renewables are on track to dominate. Those who oppose them may find themselves stranded on a cultural and technological shoreline, like so many ageing Miss Havishams. Good luck with that.

THE REFERENCE {1]

Because the showcase article is behind a paywall, the best we can do is show you a picture which may serve in a good search engine such as Google. From there you may access via the paywall if you wish. Once again we strongly urge that you do: because the FT is a great source of quality information, with many, many other good writers. We get no money whatsoever for this, we just honestly believe it.

Aditya Chakraborrty nails the UK life‑expectancy crisis (we just happened to get there first)

No one would ever accuse us of blowing our own trumpet. Humility-intellectual, moral personal- is the name of our game. Most of the time. So when a writer whom we admire as much as Aditya Chakraborrty of the Guardian [1] picks up on a theme we’ve covered here before (twice) we won’t mention that at all. Well, not very often anyway. We won’t even mention the two main blogs(LSS 21 12 21; 19 2 25) we penned on the subject, nor any of the others. Instead we shall cut to Aditya’s excellent piece, for the benefit of newer readers to this blog. If that’s not modesty. well, we’re not sure what is.

Drawing on the work of some pretty learned experts Aditya points out that UK Life Expectancy has pretty much stalled for most people. In fact, it seems to be in decline for many. And all at a time of unprecedented increases in medical knowledge( we cover a lot of them here too) and general popular awareness of things like nutrition and wellness. And he links the poor performance to a whole slew of statistics on social inequality and policy choices made by various governments:

Yet in a society as unequal as the UK, how well or sick you are depends on how rich you are……..That is injustice. It could be improved, but British governments have made choices that mean poorer children get old sooner and die earlier than richer children.

He even points out the comparison with similar statistics from the old Soviet Union, which showed them to be in deep, deep trouble long before the whole system collapsed. Just as , ahem, did we. gentle readers

All of which leads us to a few simple conclusions. First if you want the good stories early, read this humble self effacing little blog. Secondly we believe Aditya, his experts, the ones we cited like Emmanuel Todd and a whole lot of other authors like Wilkinson and Pickett [2]and Thomas Picketty[3] who saw this utter disaster coming years ago. And not just in the UK. What depresses us is that we will never understand why people buy the newspapers and watch the TV channels that have made it all possible.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/mar/06/uk-death-healthy-life-expectancy-decline-sta

[2]Wilkinson, Richard, and Kate Pickett. The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better. London: Allen Lane, 2009.

[3]Piketty, Thomas. Capital in the Twenty-First Century. Translated by Arthur Goldhammer. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2014.

#health #life expectancy #nutrition #inequality #economics

Things Beyond the Nation State #1 Introduction

Identity, belonging and how this species organises itself in groups has been a recurrent theme on this blog since we started back in the pandemic days of 2020. We’ve surveyed the work of theorists like Amy Chua: pondered sports affiliation, tribe and nation, and the several ways of belonging to each. Considered experiments in psychology and behaviour. Even speculated if there might be a World Government waiting in the decades to come. Yet up to now nothing has superseded the Nation State as the only successful and enduring method of organising our multifarious hostile tribes into larger confederations. By which they obtain common benefits of defence and low mutual trading barriers, the two sine qua nones of all statecraft. (everything else is method)

The trouble with this comforting settlement is size. Each little kingdoms of Anglo Saxon England-Wessex, Mercia and the rest-was perfectly able to provide its residents needs for hundreds of years. Until a bunch of pesky Vikings came along and nearly drove them all to utter destruction. Only by forming a larger unit, England, were the Anglo Saxons able to survive and prevail: And England became their nation in turn. A lesson repeated across many lands and times. So powerful that it begs the question: are our current polities, even the largest, now too small too indebted, to mutually jealous, to cope with the existential questions now born into the world? We repeat: this is not a call to abolish nation states which can and should continue to exist, But it may be a call for a next tier or organisation to act on those problems, and only those problems, which only it has the competence to address.

We think those problems are Global Warming, Pollution, Migration, sudden Catastrophes like pandemics, economic Inequality and Security risks from things like AI and nuclear weapons All are pressing and all interconnected at some level or other. You may suggest more, gentle readers. But in the next few weeks we will do our best to list them into some sort of order and try to consider some of the problems they pose, for you to think about. For we know of few hard and fast answers. We hope you will join us on this journey and will welcome your comments, suggestions and ideas. Keep ‘em coming.

#global warming #nuclear war #pandemic #volcano #AI #pollution #economics #history

VIR 5500: Promising new treatment for Prostate Cancer

Immunotherapy, which involves training the body’s own defence systems such as T-cells to attack cancerous tissues, has been one of the medical success stories of the last twenty years. Yet some cancers still demonstrate a certain recalcitrance in the face of the new ministrations. Unfortunately, one of them is Prostate cancer, the most common form of cancer in men, killing up to 1.5 million of them annually. But not only does this report by Nicola Davis of the Guardian [1] offer hope of real progress, it has some deeper lessons for those of us in the evidence-based thought-modulated community(EBTM). Which means you, gentle reader.

All immunotherapy depends on T Cell engagers (TCEs) which form a bridge between certain sites on the T Cell and on the tumour cell. Anyone working with them to try to cure prostate cancer encounters two difficulties. Generally, traditional TCEs can be pretty indiscriminate, leading to side issues like massive cytokine storms and problems with dose toxicity. Specifically, prostate cancer cells have a knack of resisting T cells, making immunotherapy especially hard to apply. Now a team led by the admirable Professor de Bono in collaboration with Vir Biotechnology[2] is trialling a new form of molecular cloaking treatment called VIR-5500 which masks the T-cells right up to the moment when they are in contact with the prostate cancer cells. A protease in the malign cells then activates the T-cells, unleashing their curative effect. We won’t spoil Nicola’s summary of the results, which you can read in her article. But you will find them impressive to say the least.

All of which goes to show what curiosity-driven basic science can achieve when money is spent on it. VIR -5500 could not have existed without decades of molecular immunology, protein engineering, tumour cytology and many other disciplines hidden away in unmanly places like university departments and research institutes. Which is ironic, because many of the butch types at the Dog and Duck, who routinely perform their masculinities by loudly decrying scientific research into things like climate change, will be the first to suffer when prostate cancer comes along. But History always teaches the same lesson to the deluded in the end.

[1] Researchers praise ‘stunning’ results of new prostate cancer treatment | Prostate cancer | The Guardian

[2] Our Strategy | Vir Biotechnology

#prostate cancer #immunotherapy #t cells #health #medicine #science #molecular biology