Cloning and Our Society

Society is a stable System in which many forces coexist by virtue of selective compromises to foster in harmony. But it is true only till such compromises are acceptable to all. Diverse faculties might have diverse views on a subject pertaining to the society at large. What is important here is to understand the importance of each faculty and honour them. Society as a dynamic and stable entity can exist only when we try to accommodate as diverse views as possible.

A recent issue that has been making rounds around the world and collecting many conflicting views is cloning. Many sections of the society have their opinion regarding this scientific breakthrough that has many promises in store. There can be many angles to this issue, but most importantly we have to consider cloning with respect to science, religion and ethics. These cover almost every concern that has come after it first made news.

Scientifically speaking there are different types of cloning, and cloning technologies can be used for other purposes besides producing the genetic twin of another organism. A basic understanding of the different types of cloning is key to taking an informed stance on current public policy issues and making the best possible personal decisions. There are three types of cloning technologies viz. recombinant DNA technology or DNA cloning, reproductive cloning, and therapeutic cloning.

The terms "recombinant DNA technology," "DNA cloning," "molecular cloning,"or "gene cloning" all refer to the same process: the transfer of a DNA fragment of interest from one organism to a self-replicating genetic element such as a bacterial plasmid. The DNA of interest can then be propagated in a foreign host cell. This technology has been around since the 1970s, and it has become a common practice in molecular biology labs today.

Reproductive cloning is a technology used to generate an animal that has the same nuclear DNA as another currently or previously existing animal. Dolly was created by reproductive cloning technology. In a process called "somatic cell nuclear transfer" (SCANT), scientists transfer genetic material from the nucleus of a donor adult cell to an egg whose nucleus, and thus its genetic material, has been removed. The reconstructed egg containing the DNA from a donor cell must be treated with chemicals or electric current in order to stimulate cell division. Once the cloned embryo reaches a suitable stage, it is transferred to the uterus of a female host where it continues to develop until birth.

Therapeutic cloning, also called "embryo cloning," is the production of human embryos for use in research. The goal of this process is not to create cloned human beings, but rather to harvest stem cells that can be used to study human development and to treat disease. Stem cells are important to biomedical researchers because they can be used to generate virtually any type of specialized cell in the human body. Stem cells are extracted from the egg after it has divided for 5 days. The egg at this stage of development is called a blastocyst. The extraction process destroys the embryo, which raises a variety of ethical concerns. Many researchers hope that one day stem cells can be used to serve as replacement cells to treat heart disease, Alzheimer's, cancer, and other diseases.

Scientists hope that one day therapeutic cloning can be used to generate tissues and organs for transplants. To do this, DNA would be extracted from the person in need of a transplant and inserted into an enucleated egg. After the egg containing the patient's DNA starts to divide, embryonic stem cells that can be transformed into any type of tissue would be harvested. The stem cells would be used to generate an organ or tissue that is a genetic match to the recipient. In theory, the cloned organ could then be transplanted into the patient without the risk of tissue rejection.

There are several ethical issues involved with cloning. Embryo that is used as a vital source of stem cells is the origin of human life form. Thus when embryo gets destroyed in the process of extracting stem cells, it might be seen as killing a seed with potential to develop into a human form. We need to analyze the issue of right to life for an embryo. Feoticide is a crime in almost all the nations and cultures. Feotus is an advanced stage of the embryo. So we have to decide upon the actual point when a lump of live cells can be attributed as potential life forms.

Then there are religious issues involved. Almost all the religions existing today except a supreme creator in some or the other form. That supreme creator have certain wishes which get manifested in the form of nature. If we try to reproduce in non traditional forms as cloning, it conflicts with the nature. Then there are other forms of reproduction which have been accepted today as bypass. Popular among them are in-vitro fertilization and the concept of surrogate mother. They faced stiff resistance and with time got accepted by a society crippled with the various forms of fertility diseases.

What need to be searched is a way that look into all the concerns above and propose a solution. Simply denying the benefits of cloning at a stage where it hosts the promises for solution to many problems should definitely not be the way. On the other hand it needs to be very critically scrutinized to avoid the misuse of its potentiality. Scholars from different faculties and cultures need to brainstorm without any prejudices to achieve this target.

Learn more about cloning : http://gslc.genetics.utah.edu/units/cloning/index.cfm

Energy war and Colonialism

This is an accepted fact today that any development require energy. Our cultural joyride from primitive times to the most modern times have been fuelled by availability of enormous amount of organic fuels. But like every good things, this reserve is poised to end. At this stage of advancement and current pace of growth rate, the requirements for energy is liker never before. But the end of this natural gift is quite before our eyes. This aspect has multifaceted bearings on our society. The major concerns of world economics and politics today is spinning around fast ending oil reserves. If we look back at the last century, we get almost every event directly or indirectly related to the power play for energy. Since the early decades of colonization to the later decades of world wars, the powerful nations has one thing in mind, capturing energy reserves. They knew that one who would capture these reserves would rule the world in the days to come. Then came the era of freedom. Colonies started getting freed. Hence there was a race to develop and exist with the already developed and strong nations. The world was ravaged by the havocs of two world wars. There was lot to build and regain. These two factors led to an unparalleled growth rate. This required lots of energy. The vast reserves of energy started flowing to the extremes of the world to satisfy the quenching demand to grow. What was missing here was a farsightedness. No one gave a serious thought to the issue of a world with exhausted energy reserves. The energy rich nations kept pumping out the resources to trade and other nations kept buying to compete. At the same time there were a few nations who were not happy with this setup. They knew that this energy is not merely a trade item but a form absolute power. The only way to achieve this was to renew the era of colonialism. What the British Empire and other European nations had rivaled for in fifteenth century, there was a need to revisit the same concept. But the world was not ignorant today. With the advancements of media and a stronger concept of nationalism, it was not at all easy for modern superpowers to carry out similar accessions. This gave rise to an era of diplomatic colonialism. The later half of the last century saw several examples. The regular interference of superpowers in the internal affairs of West Asia is not without a reason. The prime focus here is quite obviously the major chunk of world energy resources. While the superpowers has slowly militarised this area, other nations have started getting skeptic of their concerns. Many of the national governments are mere puppets in the hands of this superpower. The story does not end here. Military force is not the only and deadly tactic against the world order, diplomacy plays a yet more vital role. In the race to develop, every nation is an enemy of the other. Added to this there are land disputes, cultural disputes and the monster of population looming over the so called developing and under developed nations. This has allowed the industrialized nations to play nasty politics with the region and made their task easier. The days are not far when we would wake up to the beginning of a new era of colonialism. The form would be much more severe and effects long lasting.

Crippling Kyoto and the World

Background

Kyoto Protocol was intended to protect the world environment from the deadly effects of Green House Gases(GHG) emission, which is a byproduct of the industrial revolution and urbanisation. Covered under the umbrella of United Nations Framework Convention On Climate Change. UNFCCC was adopted at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. All parties to the UNFCCC can sign or ratify the Kyoto Protocol, while non-parties to the UNFCCC cannot. This protocol suggested cutting down the GHG emissions to the participating nations. Originally the idea was to cut the emmision of Carbon Dioxide and five other GHG. It was negotiated in Kyoto, Japan in December 1997, opened for signature on March 16, 1998, and closed on march 15, 1999. The agreement came into force on Feb 16, 2005 following ratification by Russia on Nov 18, 2004.

The agreement had been ratified by 141 countries representing over 61% of global emissions. Countries do not need to sign the protocol in order to ratify it; signing is a symbolic act only.

Objectives

The Protocol is predicted to reduce the average global rise in temperature by somewhere between 0.02°C and 0.28°C by the year 2050 (source: Nature, Oct 2003), compared to the increase of 1.4°C to 5.8°C between 1990 and 2100 predicted by the IPCC. The Protocol reaffirmed the principle that developed countries have to pay, and supply technology to, other countries for climate-related studies and projects. Each Annex I country has agreed to limit emissions to the levels described in the protocol, but many countries have limits that are set above their current production. These "extra amounts" can be purchased by other countries on the open market.Countries also receive credits through various shared "clean energy" programs and "carbon dioxide sinks" in the form of forests and other systems that remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change acknowledges the principle of a "common but differentiated responsibilities." This principle recognizes that,

• The largest share of historical and current global emissions of greenhouse gases has originated in developed countries.
• Per capita emissions in developing countries are still relatively low.
• The share of global emissions originating in developing countries will grow to meet their social and development needs.

In other words, China and other developing countries were exempt from the requirements of the Kyoto Protocol because they were not the main contributors to climate change.

Status

The United States, although a signatory to the protocol, has neither ratified nor withdrawn from the protocol. The protocol is non-binding over the United States unless ratified.On June 25, 1997, before the Kyoto Protocol was to be negotiated, the U.S. Senate passed by a 95-0 vote the Byrd-Hagel Resolution (S. Res. 98), which stated the sense of the Senate was that the United States should not be a signatory to any protocol that did not include binding targets and timetables for developing as well as industrialized nations or "would result in serious harm to the economy of the United States". On Nov 12, 1998, Vice President Al Gore symbolically signed the protocol. Aware of the Senate's view of the protocol, the Clinton Administration never submitted the protocol for ratification.The current President, George W. Bush, has indicated that he does not intend to submit the treaty for ratification, not because he does not support the general idea, but because of the strain he believes the treaty would put on the economy; he emphasises the uncertainties he asserts are present in the climate change issue. Furthermore, he is not happy with the details of the treaty.

The prospect of the U.S. staying outside the agreement influenced a number of other countries including Australia, Japan, and Canada to discuss whether they should ratify the agreement, putting themselves at a competitive disadvantage with the U.S. While Japan and Canada ultimately decided to ratify the protocol, Australia's current government has said it will not ratify. Although the major opposition parties have committed to ratification if in a position to do so, Prime Minister Howard was reelected in the 2004 elections, so it seems unlikely that Australia will support the treaty in the near future.

Views

To evaluate the effectiveness of the Kyoto protocol, it is necessary to compare global warming with and without the agreement. Several independent authors agree that the impact of the Kyoto protocol on global warming is likely to be very small. Even some defenders of the Kyoto Protocol agree that the impact of it is small, but they view it as a first step with more political than practical importance, for future reductions, perhaps of up to 70%. The UNEP says the effectiveness of Kyoto really depends on whether it lays a good foundation for the climate convention process, which might lead to greater reductions later.

The two major countries opposed to the treaty are the USA and Australia, based on the public statements of their governments. Some public policy experts who are skeptical of the global warming hypothesis see Kyoto as a scheme to either retard the growth of the world's industrial democracies or to transfer wealth to the third world in what they claim is a global socialism initiative. Some critics say there are problems with the underlying science. For example, Russia's influential Academy of Sciences (RAN) said the government's decision to approve the Kyoto Protocol was "purely political," and that it had "no scientific justification." The Russian experts told president Putin that Kyoto was scientifically unfounded nonsense. Anderai Illarianov, Putin's economic policy advisor, compared the Kyoto Protocol to fascism.

The 1997 Leipzig Declaration called the Kyoto Protocol "dangerously simplistic, quite ineffective, and economically destructive to jobs and standards-of-living". However, most of the signers of the Leipzig Declaration were non-scientists or lacked credentials in the specific field of climate research. Some argue that the protocol does not go far enough to curb greenhouse emissions and the standards it sets would be ineffective at curbing or slowing climate change. Beyond other arguments some theorists predict that even if the world's leading industrial nations agree to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions as mandated by the Kyoto Protocol, it is likely that there would be no net change in emissions worldwide. If the industrialized countries cut their demand for fossil fuels to meet the emission reduction responsibilties, the law of supply and demand would tend to cause the world prices of coal, oil and gas go down, making fuel use more affordable for poorer nations. These theorists predict increased fuel use (primarily coal) in the "non-Annex I" countries, tending to offset the reductions of the "Annex I" countries.

Conclusion

The views in favour of the protocol and those against it hold strong grounds. But what we should be looking forword is towards a fair asessment of the implications of a world without the protocol and a world with it. The approach needs to be wholistic. If the major industrailised nations like the US and Australia choose to stay outside the realms of this protocol, other nations need to come back to the table and rethink. It would not take the world anywhere by merely creating issues out of Kyoto. A serious assesment of the global warming hypothesis need to be undertaken by a multinational body comprising of experts from all the geographies. The recommendations then need to be incorporated in practical solutions and roadmap drawn. The solution need to be binding not in the spirit of dictatorship but in the spirits of a combined effort towards healthy future. Not all nations ae going to be on the same platform from financial perspective. A balance of effects need to be created by supporting traeties covering all the areas influenced by Kyoto. The solution is definately not easy but initiatives need to be taken as the object under stake is our planet. The protocol is a sincere initiative which need to be nutured in a right direction.

Find more about Kyoto Protocol : http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/convkp/kpeng.html