WHAT CAN CELL BIOLOGISTS DO TO ADDRESS CLIMATE-SCALE PROBLEMS?

In preparing for the American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB) keynote session, I was asked to reflect on why we work on climate change. And what we do to address the environmental crisis?

I want to start with the why question because it has a simple answer. I work on climate change because of love. I love our planet. And I love this place. Blackstone Lake near Parry Sound, Ontario Canada. We have a family cottage on Blackstone Lake that my Grandparents bought before my time. This is the view from our dock. It’s on mainland but there aren’t any roads so you can only get there by boat. I’ve known this place for most of my life; learning about the land and lake from my grandfather. It’s one of the most important relationships of my life. And it’s my love for this place and all it represents that fuels my work.

Ideas to edit the wild both excite and terrify me. CRISPR provides amazing opportunities to address climate change. It could be used to create trees that sequester more carbon or make coral more resilient to warming sea temperatures. CRISPR-based gene drives could eliminate vectors of disease or invasive species. But if decisions about these technologies arenʻt made properly CRISPR could also forever change our natural world.

Any environmental technolgy that is deployed in shared environments, like CRISPR-based gene drives, solar engineering, ocean plastic-metabolizing microoranisms carry with them a unique set of ethical and regulatory challenges. For one, how do you safely field trial a technology that is designed to spread? Some projects hope to field trial gene drive mice on islands, under presumptions of containment. But islands aren’t as isolated as many Western scientists presume. How do you think invasive mice got to there in the first place? Secondly, how do you measure risks to complex ecosystems? What critical food webs might eliminating a mosquito species impact in Hawai’i or Burkina Faso? And how do you regulate technologies that are likely to cross nation-state boarders? Canadians might not be down with genetically modified agricultural pests, even if the U.S. is.

In 2017, I left the lab and founded an organization called Editing Nature to help answer questions like these and steer responsible decisions about environmental technologies.

What I quickly came to realize after leaving the lab, is that complex challenges require that we focus on answering the “should” questions. Should we gene editing coral to save them from bleaching? Should we shoot silica aerosols into the stratosphere to engineer the climate? How should we make these decisions? Who should make these decisions?

Should questions are really hard to answer. They don’t a clear right answer because there is never enough data. We can never fully predict how these technologies will work out in the real world. And when faced with uncertainty, each and everyone of us, whether we are aware of it or not, employ our value systems, our biases, and our worldviews to fulfill the decision-making process.

These are four questions that we think a lot about at Editing Nature. The answer to these questions can look very different depending on who you are asking. Someone who feels kinship with nature may feel differently about how to impact the natural world, as compared to someone who sees nature under human dominion. Our level of risk tolerance impacts what we think is safe enough? Our political leanings influence our opinions on regulation. The answer to “who” should decide is impacted by our position in the society, and whether it is one of privilege or oppression.

This plurality of answers is normal. It’s a good thing. The problem arises when a single person or a bunch of people with very similar perspectives singlehandedly answer questions that impact everyone.

But it’s one thing to get everyone in a room, it’s an entirely different thing to facilitate meaningful and honest conversation. Being a good listener is crucial. And I don’t mean the way so many of us are taught to listen…listening for the opportunity to insert our opinion. I mean really listening to understand. Because when you listen you learn.

To make this point, I’d like to share a few examples of listening that I did on a recent research trip to Hawaii; islands that are on the frontline of climate change…both its impacts and its solutions.

By listening to a keynote talk given by Kamana Beamer, a professor of law and Hawaiian knowledge at the University of Hawaii Manoa, I learned that Hawai’i is an illegally occupied territory. That the Hawaiian kingdom was recognized as a sovereign state by dozens of international treaties in the 1800s when it was overthrown by U.S. business interests. A treaty of official annexation with the U.S. has never signed. I’m 40 years old. How am I just finding this out now? Listening to these histories of colonialism and imperialism is critical for understanding climate challenges today.

When I visited the He‘eia Fishpond, Keli‘i Kotubetey taught me about the 1000s of years old traditional methods for growing seafood that he and his team are working to restore in O’ahu. In this picture, he is pointing out the different kinds of rain patterns that occur at the pond. Each pattern of rain has its own name. Think about including that level of specificity and expertise in decisions about engineering the climate.

I saw Professor Mehana Blaich Vaughan speak in a plenary session that was entitled Aloha ‘Āina, which loosely translates into Love of the land. Aloha is love. ‘Āina is land. But listening to Mehana I learned that ‘Āina has a multiplicity of meanings. One of which is, “That which you care for.” Take a moment to think about the kinds of decisions that are made about the environment when informed by care.

We each have our own ways of influencing the world.

What are your unique gifts?