Jesse reflects on decarbonization, dematerialization, land-sparing, industrial ecology, industrialization of the oceans, biological traces of fishes and of Leonardo Da Vinci, and the Seven Deadly Sins in an 83″ podcast with Robert Bryce, author of Smaller Faster Lighter Denser Cheaper: and A Question of Power: Electricity and the Wealth of Nations.
The Podcast is also on YouTube where you get to see who sings Take Me Out to the Ballgame.
PHE Guest Investigator David Thaler and RU colleague Tom Sakmar publish open access in BMC Infectious Diseases 21, Article #601 (2021) ‘Archiving time series sewage samples as biological records of built environments.” The idea for the article arose during our 2020 twice-weekly PHE Zooms. It is rooted in part in Paula Olsiewski’s completed Sloan Foundation program on the Microbiology of the Built Environment, to which David contributed. It also links to the Leonardo Da Vinci DNA Project, to which both David and Tom belong, and which searches for biological relics from times past and also explores how better to preserve recent traces of DNA and RNA.
Abstract
This commentary encourages the regular archiving of nucleic-acid-stabilized serial samples of wastewaters and/or sewage. Stabilized samples would facilitate retrospective reconstitution of built environments’ biological fluids. Biological time capsules would allow retrospective searches for nucleic acids from viruses such as SARS-CoV-2. Current resources for testing need not be diverted if samples are saved in case they become important in the future. Systematic storage would facilitate investigation into the origin and prevalence of viruses and other agents. Comparison of prevalence data from individual and clinical samplings with community wastewater would allow valuable comparison, contrast and correlation among different testing modalities. Current interest is focused on SARS-CoV-2, but archived samples could become valuable in many contexts including surveys for other infectious and chemical agents whose identity is not currently known. Archived time series of wastewater will take their place alongside other biological repositories and records including those from medical facilities, museums, eDNA, living cell and tissue collections. Together these will prove invaluable records of the evolving Anthropocene.
The website Human Progress launches a new video series called The Covid Tonic. The series features conversations between renowned scholars and editor, Marian L. Tupy. The interviews focus on the global impact of COVID-19 and the continued importance of rational optimism. Episode 1 features the environmental scientist Jesse Ausubel, a Human Progress Board Member and Director of the Program for the Human Environment at The Rockefeller University in New York City.
Watch the full video here.
The lively mind and pen of Robert Bryce have authored the new book, A Question of Power: Electricity and the Wealth of Nations. We were happy to talk with Robert about subjects in the book, for example, vertical cities. ‘Ausubel continued, “Basically, height is electrical.”‘ (p. 24)
This article, as well as the full publication in which it originally appears, is also available on the National Academies Press website, located at http://www.nap.edu/books/0309037867/html/.
Prepared for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
Editor: Iddo K. Wernick, Program for the Human Environment, The Rockefeller University
ISBN 0-9646419-0-9
For more information or to request reprints, please contact us at phe@mail.rockefeller.edu
This report presents the results of a one-year exploratory study on the “Environment and Community Health: Historical Evolution and Emerging Needs” sponsored by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The Program for the Human Environment at The Rockefeller University conducted the study. The subject of the study was the analytical, informational, and service delivery framework for meeting needs in health care and environmental protection using the community as the focal point or, by medical analogy, the “community as the patient.”
To broaden the base of knowledge and professional contacts available to the project, we formed a Steering Group including members experienced in public health and environment, government, community organization, and information technologies and services (Appendix A). Prior to the first meeting of the Steering Group, we devised a framework to raise relevant issues, better define the most fruitful lines of inquiry, and map out the future course of the project. The Steering Group met on April 19, 1994 at The Rockefeller University. The members resolved to examine three basic questions and commission case studies to explore them in the context of specific communities in the United States.
The three questions were
— What is the current status of deliberative processes for risk assessment at the level of the community?
— How can governments, independent and private sector groups, and researchers better use information technologies to access, integrate, and disseminate information about health and environment and related concerns at the local level?
— What policy levers can government use to ensure that communities better address remediating local environmental hazards and improve the efficacy of local health care delivery?
To conclude the definitional phase of the project, Iddo Wernick drafted a discussion paper with the assistance of the Steering Group articulating the problems so far uncovered and providing the orientation for further work (pages 25-34). Planning for a larger Forum began, and two case studies were formally commissioned to be presented at the Forum. Theodore Glickman, a Senior Fellow at the Center for Risk Management of Resources for the Future (RFF), prepared a report on environmental equity in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, using a Geographical Information System (GIS) as the framework. Lenny Siegel, Director of the Pacific Studies Center in Mountain View, California, reviewed the recent history of community efforts in addressing environmental problems in Silicon Valley, California, and described a process for developing community risk profiles based on his experience working as a community activist with federal, state, and local governments.
The two case studies, “Evaluating Environmental Equity in Allegheny County” (pages 35-62) and “Comparing Apples and Supercomputers: Evaluating Environmental Risk in Silicon Valley” (pages 63-79) formed the core of the agenda for the Forum on Environment and Community Health, held on September 20, 1994 at The Rockefeller University. The Forum included professionals from the public and private sectors with expertise in public health, environment, and community services (list of participants, Appendix A). Background reading, sent prior to the Forum, oriented participants to the purposes of the project (see Bibliography and Suggested Reading).
This report presents the main findings of the exploratory study. We stop short of costing out its main recommendation, an obvious next step.
Drafted initially by Iddo Wernick, this report synthesizes the informed contributions offered by the many people who have been a part of the study. Reflecting our backgrounds in environment, we tend to offer more detail on environment than health. The Forum participants have reviewed this report, and the Steering Group members have reviewed and approved it.
We thank Doris Manville for her assistance in organizing and administering the project. We wish to thank other people with whom we consulted during the project including Mark Schaefer, Assistant Director for Environment, White House Office of Science and Technology Policy; Margaret Hamburg, M.D., Commissioner, New York City Department of Health; Debora Martin, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency; and Kenneth Jones and colleagues at the Northeast Center for Comparative Risk.
Jesse H. Ausubel
Director, Program for the Human Environment
Iddo K. Wernick
Research Associate, Program for the Human Environment