A Quote by Ramez Naam
Whether it's through introduction of the right gut bacteria or direct modification of the genes of cows and pigs, I think we're going to have to introduce something like this into our livestock - a way to consume the methane rather than releasing it.
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We're an Ag college," I explain to them. "Not as good as the one in Yanco but we have livestock." "Cows?" Anson Choi asks, covering his nose. "Pigs, too. And horses. Great for growing tomatoes. The Cadets are wanna-be soldiers. City people. They may know how to street fight but they don't know how to wade through manure. "I'm going to throw up," one of the guys says. "Don't feel too bad," I explain. "Some of our lot did while they were laying out this stuff. Actually, right there where you're standing.
Burning carbon-based substances like oil, gas, and especially coal, produces billions of tons of extra carbon dioxide each year. Methane gas from cows and pigs and other animals on our large farms ends up in the atmosphere as well, trapping more of the sun's energy as heat.
All these bacteria that coat our skin and live in our intestines, they fend off bad bacteria. They protect us. And you can't even digest your food without the bacteria that are in your gut. They have enzymes and proteins that allow you to metabolize foods you eat.
I tell my daughters, 'If something doesn't feel right, whether that's going to a party, doing a video, shooting something, you're around someone that's creeping you out, use your gut. If you're in a car with a driver and something don't feel right, use your gut.'
And if you listen to Irish music, they say that kilts came from the middle east. So really I'm an Arab. If you listen to the way someone like Sinead O'Connor sang. It could be Muslim. You know that angst that sort of ****. That wail. I think it's in our genes. I think certain stuff is in our genes, like nobody can dance like a black guy. It's in their genes. So we don't have oil, but we have poetry.
I'm a huge supporter of animal rights - and I've been an outspoken critic of the cruelties routinely inflicted on livestock at factory farms. But it really bothers me that the mistreatment of pigs and chickens and cows seems to attract a lot more attention and spark a lot more outrage than the abuse of immigrant workers.
Lots of people think, well, we're humans; we're the most intelligent and accomplished species; we're in charge. Bacteria may have a different outlook: more bacteria live and work in one linear centimeter of your lower colon than all the humans who have ever lived. That's what's going on in your digestive tract right now. Are we in charge, or are we simply hosts for bacteria? It all depends on your outlook.
Even a fellow with a camera has his favourite subjects, as we can see looking through the Kodak-albums of our friends. One amateur prefers the family group, another bathing scenes, another cows upon an alp, or kittens held upside down in the arms of a black-faced child. The tendency to choose one subject rather than another indicates the photographer's temperament. Nevertheless, his passion is for photography rather than for selection, a kitten will serve when no cows are available.
Very close cousins like humans and chimps have almost all their genes in common. Slightly less close cousins like humans and monkeys still have recognizably the same genes. You could carry on right on down to humans and bacteria, and you will find continuous compelling evidence for the hierarchical tree of cousinship.
Most bacteria aren't bad. We breathe and eat and ingest gobs of bacteria every single moment of our lives. Our food is covered in bacteria. And you're breathing in bacteria all the time, and you mostly don't get sick.
Indian films never show cows. When you go to India, the most noticeable thing is the cows. Everywhere you look, there's cows walking around! Just by introducing the idea of animals - livestock walking around - suddenly makes it more real.
Granted, we need to have a sound immigration policy that allows people into our country who are going to produce more than they are going to consume, but the bottom line is illegal aliens consume far more of our tax resources than they generate.
Because nitrous oxide [released by nitrate-fertilised soil] is 296 times stronger than CO? at global warming and methane [cow farts] is about 26 times as potent as CO?, the combined greenhouse effect of our livestock worldwide is greater than the sum total of all the cars, trains, busses, trucks, ships, airplanes and jets.
I've basically been able to do everything, I basically run my own career and the decisions I make - whether it's how I'm gonna roll out music, how I'm gonna play on tours, different strategies for releasing and marketing things - and that comes from being college educated and someone who's interested in that side of the business rather than only the music. If anything I think that's where the biggest direct influence comes from.
Our culture is making a big difference and, whether it's our curries or movies like "Slumdog Millionaire" or whether it's just the Bollywood numbers to which a lot of the world is rocking, I think India's soft power is going up. And we are contributing a lot of entrepreneurs to the world as well whether it's people like Lakshmi Mittal or Indra Nooyi or thinkers like Amalti Singh. This is all happening because of there's something fundamentally right and thoughtful about Indian society.
Realizing the ways in which we humans may have been inadvertently changing our genes for millennia provides a way for us to begin to think about the inevitable genetic revolution in medicine that is going to allow us to advertently change our genes over centuries and even decades.
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