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Offshore from Vancouver Island, British Columbia, a team hauls up a line laden with meter-long fronds of sugar kelp (Saccharina latissima), a floppy, brown seaweed with crinkled edges. The harvest from Cascadia Seaweed, a kelp farming company founded in 2019, has over the years made its way into a seaweed-enriched “sea spice” condiment mix and a host of trial snack products including protein puffs and tortilla chips. Now the company is focused on processing its seaweed into animal feed and soil additives—anything that will help kelp make the world a better place.

Seaweed farming has a long history in Asia, and now it is spreading around the globe. Over the past 30 years, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), world production of seaweed has boomed more than sixfold to over 35 million tonnes, with emerging markets in the Americas (particularly the Pacific Northwest, Alaska, and Maine), Europe, and Africa. The most recent numbers, tallied from 2019, show that North America produces some 23,000 tonnes of wet seaweed (referred to as wet tonnes by the industry) per year. Cascadia claims to be the largest cultivator in Canada, with a production of 50 wet tonnes in 2022, and aims to become the largest in North America with a projected harvest of 200 wet tonnes this spring and plans for expansion. Farms, small and large, are popping up fast: while hard numbers are difficult to come by, Alaska, Maine, France, and Norway have all reportedly more than doubled their seaweed production since 2018, with each region now cranking out hundreds of tonnes per year.

Many see this expansion as a good-news story. The Safe Seaweed Coalition—an umbrella research and industry group founded to promote safe expansion of the industry—says humanity could, and should, be harvesting 15 times more seaweed by 2050. Coalition member Vincent Doumeizel works as the food program director at the Lloyd’s Register Foundation and is a senior adviser on oceans to a United Nations program working toward corporate sustainability. Doumeizel talks about a “seaweed revolution” he feels is necessary to feed the growing global population—a transformation of food systems as dramatic as the ancient shift to land-based agriculture. “In the ocean, we are still hunter-gatherers,” he bemoans.

A “seaweed manifesto,” edited by Doumeizel and published in 2020, is an urgent call for that to change. The Safe Seaweed Coalition estimates that seaweed—high in much-needed protein and nutrients—could add 10 percent to the world’s present supply of food using just 0.03 percent of the ocean surface. One recent study concluded that substituting 10 percent of human food with seaweed by 2050 could also spare 110 million hectares of land for purposes other than agriculture—like staying wild. That’s about two percent of all the land used for agriculture today, or an area the size of Bolivia.

Advocates like Doumeizel cast seaweed as the savior of many social and environmental woes: the industry requires no fresh water, pesticides, or fertilizers, they note; it doesn’t take up any land and can overlap with other uses of the ocean like offshore wind farms; its low-tech operation can help to alleviate poverty and provide jobs for women in the developing world; and some companies, including Cascadia, are collaborating with Indigenous communities. Seaweed creates a rich habitat for sea life, soaks up CO₂, counteracts acidification, and absorbs run-off nutrients. Seaweed farming logically should do more of the same—although firm evidence quantifying how farms, specifically, help with such things, including sequestering carbon long term to tackle climate change, is still thin on the ground.

Many large environmental organizations, including the World Wildlife Fund, Oceans 2050 (spearheaded by Alexandra Cousteau, granddaughter of Jacques-Yves Cousteau), and the Nature Conservancy, have come out in support of the idea of expanding seaweed farming to help the oceans, the planet, and people. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s 2019 special report on the oceans concluded that coastal ecosystems like mangroves can reduce the risks and impacts of climate change, and for that reason, seaweed aquaculture “warrants further research attention.”

But the industrial boom also makes many wary. Past rapid expansions in aquaculture have not been rosy: fish farms have spread disease; shrimp aquaculture has plowed down mangroves to make room for farms. Will industrial-scale seaweed farms, some wonder, also bring hazards like imported diseases or unwanted ecosystem changes, or see big business grabbing leases to large swaths of the ocean? One study of seaweed farming’s expansion in Europe, for example, concluded that while small-scale projects seem low risk, more work is needed to be sure that the risks of large-scale cultivation are balanced against the benefits.

Safe Seaweed Coalition member and biosecurity expert Elizabeth Cottier-Cook, who works at the Scottish Association for Marine Science, notes that while some regulations exist regarding which seaweed species can be grown where, in many places “it’s a free-for-all; you can do what you want, really.” That makes some observers nervous. What if many of the concerns of land-based farming just get transferred to the ocean?

“We don’t have an adequate regulatory framework in Maine to protect us from very large-scale experiments by very well-funded actors,” says Severine von Tscharner Fleming, a wild seaweed harvester and organic farming advocate with the North American group Seaweed Commons. Meanwhile, she says, there’s a lot of money and rhetoric from companies that large-scale projects will absorb carbon and produce copious food without any negative impacts. “It sounds a lot like the sunny, optimistic projections from conventional agriculture that those of us in organic ag have spent our lives trying to confront,” she says. “That over-rosy outlook is uncomfortable.”

Seaweed beds are a lush and important part of coastal ecosystems worldwide, with more than 10,000 types of green, brown, and red algae now cataloged. Despite the name weed, they are algae, not plants, without true roots or leaves: they typically grow from a holdfast on rocks in shallow waters and float up toward the surface. Some grow quickly; giant kelp, a common brown seaweed, can grow up to 30 centimeters or more a day in favorable conditions, rapidly blooming into dense underwater forests. Some are perennial, surviving years. Others are annual, wiped away by each winter’s storms.

The notion of harvesting seaweed for food has an extremely long history. Researchers have proposed that high-nutrient seaweeds may have super-charged the evolution of the hominin brain millions of years ago. Traces of seaweed meals were found in Chile in one of the earliest-known habitations in the Americas, dating back 14,000 years.

Seaweeds can be eaten raw or dried, boiled in soups, or wrapped around sushi. They are fed to abalone, used in fertilizers, and added to cattle feed: extracts from some red algae have been found to dramatically reduce methane in cow burps, helping to reduce the climate footprint of ranching. Seaweed extracts, agar and carrageenan, are used as gelling agents or stabilizers in everything from ice cream to toothpaste. Seaweeds are a potentially useful ingredient for everything from bioplastics to biofuels to concrete.

According to FAO, back in 1969, the world used some 2.2 million tonnes of seaweed, and only half of that was grown on purpose. The other half came from wild harvest: people would simply go out and chop off fronds. Wild harvest has stayed steady at around 1.1 million tonnes per year, but cultivation has boomed to 34.7 million tonnes in 2019. Today, seaweed makes up nearly 30 percent of the wet weight of all seafood produced by aquaculture globally. About half of cultivated seaweed is red algae and about half is brown; of the brown, most is kelp. In some places, the scope of seaweed farming is epic. In Indonesia, seaweed farms account for 40 percent of the national fisheries output and employ about one million people.

With Asia still accounting for 97 percent of seaweed production as of 2019, the scope for growth elsewhere is huge. For now, the Americas contribute just 1.4 percent to global seaweed production; Europe just 0.8 percent. This is the market hole that companies like Cascadia Seaweed are hoping to fill.

Cascadia’s farming process is simple. Sugar kelp trimmings are taken from local wild plants in the autumn, and their spores are spread onto twine wrapped around pipes in a nursery composed of a couple of tanks in adapted shipping containers. After about a month, when the babies are still smaller than a pinky fingernail, they are transported out to ocean farms, where the twine is rewrapped around long lines anchored a few meters below the surface. Here, they grow until early spring; by March or April, several-meter-long fronds are ready for harvest. The company leaves about 10 percent of their seaweed out in the water as a habitat service and to provide source material for the next year’s crop.

One of the possible arguments for expanding kelp farming is that it would benefit the ecosystem by, say, restoring lost biodiversity or creating habitat for fish. Support for this idea is more nuanced than it might seem. Cottier-Cook says she just helped complete a survey of more than 20 experts and nearly 300 research papers to find hard evidence of wider ecosystem-scale benefits of seaweed farming, and “there’s not much out there,” she says. “There are lots of claims being made at the moment but not a lot to back them up.” The European Union, she says, is now trying to plug those gaps with research funding.

A 2016 survey of kelp forests concluded they’re declining globally at around 1.8 percent per year—but it’s patchy, with some spots improving and others facing extreme declines (one of the most dramatic examples is in Northern California, where warming waters overlapped with a disease that struck predatory sea stars, letting urchins run rampant and devour 95 percent of kelp forests).

The spots facing declines aren’t necessarily places where farms will fare well. Much of California, for example, with its relatively open and wild coast, is too rough for easy farming. In British Columbia, the wild kelp beds are relatively healthy, though they vary from spot to spot: “I’m happy to report that kelp in BC is doing actually quite well,” says Anne Salomon, a Simon Fraser University marine ecologist who studies kelp. This implies that farms aren’t exactly needed to “repair” the ecosystem in British Columbia, though there might be bare patches that would benefit from kelp.

Ecosystem impacts can be complicated. A dense kelp forest, say, in a spot where one did not previously exist, can affect the light and nutrients in the surrounding water—not necessarily for the better. Kelp could, in theory, shade out other organisms below, for example. Intentionally growing huge quantities of seaweed in a massive global scale-up could have far-reaching negative impacts on ocean chemistry and the food chain. And growing large quantities of a single crop could raise the specter of monoculture problems—on land, monocultures pursued for high profit margins have notoriously proven problematic for biodiversity and resistance against extreme weather or disease.

One of the most intuitive concerns about seaweed farming revolves around the risks presented by foreign imports. In Hawai‘i, for example, an Asian red seaweed was brought in for aquaculture in the 1970s; it has since spread several kilometers from where it was introduced, with escapees smothering some coral reefs. Likewise in the Philippines, says Doumeizel, the use of foreign farm spores (called seed by the industry) drove down local seaweeds. “They did everything we would not do today,” says Doumeizel. “They took a seaweed that was not native and grew it as fast as they could.”

Cascadia Seaweed’s chairman, Bill Collins, says there aren’t yet any explicit rules in British Columbia about where exactly seed needs to come from; out of an abundance of caution, Cascadia is currently limiting itself to parent algae found within 50 kilometers of its farm. More research is needed to see if that’s necessary, Collins says.

University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee biologist Filipe Alberto, who studies seaweed genetics, agrees. “There are still a lot of unknowns. We know much more about any other crop,” he says. His work is helping to scope out the genetic diversity of seaweeds in different regions, including Puget Sound, Washington, and to see if bringing in other genetic variants would be bad, disrupting local adaptations, or good, enriching the local genetics. Another option he’s exploring is to naturally select sterile algae for propagation so they cannot interfere with local wild seaweeds. “We have a funded project to show we can do this for giant kelp as a proof of principle,” Alberto says.

Disease is also a concern. According to a United Nations University and Scottish Association for Marine Science policy brief, in the Philippines, a bacterial infection called ice-ice has whitened and stunted seaweed crops dramatically: farmers there saw a 15 percent loss in one species from 2011 to 2013, representing 268,000 tonnes of seaweed. It isn’t clear where the infection came from, nor why it has taken hold, but the incident has fueled concerns that farms might cause new diseases to sprout or spread.

On the plus side, seaweeds can soak up nutrients. One recent study of two kelp farms in Alaska, for example, showed that algae could usefully pull excess nitrogen from the water. In theory, this could help to prevent harmful algal blooms. But some seaweed farms are thought to have had the opposite effect, too, by spurring the growth of nuisance algae. In China, for example, when the area of red seaweed farms doubled from 2007 to 2008, the Yellow Sea also saw the start of green-tide invasions of harmful Ulva prolifera seaweed, which grows on the bamboo rafts and rope nets used on the seaweed farms.

While scientists are still pinning down if and how kelp farming might be a climate change champion, the case is further complicated by the fact that climate change itself could throw a wrench into the growing industry. Kelp is relatively sensitive to temperature: in Australia, a marine heatwave in 2010–2011 devastated kelp forests. In 2012, giant kelp forests in that country’s southeast became the first endangered marine community listed under the Australian government’s biodiversity conservation act. In British Columbia, encrusting animals called bryozoans have been whitening kelps in warm-water years—an effect researchers started noticing in 2015. Can the industry survive if warming waters bring ever-more and ever-longer disease outbreaks? “The kelp aquaculture industry does very much need to be, and are, concerned about bryozoans,” says Salomon.

Overall, most biologists and industry specialists alike agree that seaweed farming can be done well and presents a far lower ecological risk than most other industrial or agricultural activities. But it does need to be well studied and well regulated, and it’s unclear whether that’s always happening. The Pew Charitable Trusts has highlighted the red tape and bureaucratic difficulties of aquaculture in the United States. Squabbles continue about the allowed size and scope of kelp farming operations in Maine, with the Seaweed Commons issuing a position paper last spring calling for more thoughtful regulation. In British Columbia, the regulation framework is still evolving.

Salomon’s group is interested in research questions about how different densities of kelp affect everything from nutrient levels to temperature, light, bryozoan growth, and interactions with wild kelp patches nearby. Her team aims to help map out the kinds of things that may need oversight, looking at how to balance ecological and social concerns, including Indigenous rights.

In general, says Salomon, small is beautiful when it comes to kelp farming. “I worry about the scale at which people are imagining this might need to be done for it to be profitable,” says Salomon. “I think at a small, artisanal scale, where the objectives are to support local communities, local industries, local sovereignty, it can be a good thing, locally. But as soon as it’s commercialized at an industrial scale, I think there can be ecological and important social costs.” In particular, she says, “the Indigenous communities along the coast whose waters people are interested in farming need to be part of the decision-making.”

Everyone agrees that there are problems to avoid. “We made a big mistake with monoculture on land. Let’s not make the same mistakes [in the ocean],” says Doumeizel. “I want my kids to be part of the generation that feeds the world while tackling climate change. We need to do things in a better way; but we need to do things.” Leaving things as they are isn’t an option.

At a Techonomy healthcare innovation summit last fall, Ann Garnier, CEO of Lisa Health, forecasted that 2023 will be “the Year of Menopause.” And with the recent flood of high-profile investments and startup launches, her prediction seems to be coming true.

The segment is overdue for attention: fewer than 7 percent of doctors have menopausal care training. Even OB/GYN residents only get a measly two hours of instruction. When surveyed, residents often report that they do not feel comfortable managing menopause upon completion of their program. According to Midi Health, 80 percent of OB/GYNs are untrained in menopause, 75 percent of physicians are uncomfortable talking to patients about menopause symptoms, and 75 percent of women who seek care don’t receive treatment.

Those numbers are a shocking reflection of the lack of treatment women receive, but venture capitalists, health tech companies, and popular culture are finally starting to catch up.  According to the Female Founders Fund, menopause is a $600 billion market opportunity that remains largely untapped. The menopause market is valued at an estimated $16 billion, and the investing trend only appears to be increasing. Firms like Sequoia and CVS Health Ventures are predictably playing a prominent role, as are celebrity investors. Startup Evernow recently raised $28.5 million from the so-called “First Circle” of investors, including Gwyneth Paltrow, Cameron Diaz, and Drew Barrymore, who are championing the cause.

Naomi Watts is also a prominent leader in the movement. “I think it’s time to see women in this phase of life or this age group be well represented,” she wrote on Instagram. “We’ve been underserved in media, stories, and marketing for too long.” Watts launched the Inaugural Menopause Symposium with Alisa Volkman of The Swell, and is the founder of the wellness brand Stripes, which she started in partnership with biotech company Amyris.

Garnier said even as a knowledgeable and highly-empowered healthcare consumer, she was caught off guard by menopause. “I was completely blindsided and unprepared. I thought ‘wow, if it’s this hard for me, what is this like for the average woman?’”

In partnership with the Mayo Clinic and SRI International, Lisa Health developed the Midday app, which delivers personalized insights and recommendations using science-backed assessments and symptom tracking. Powered by artificial intelligence and algorithms, the app tracks a user’s progression through each stage of menopause and provides guidance accordingly. When paired with a Fitbit, Midday provides even more individualized options. “Advancements in AI and sensor technology make it possible to unravel the confounding mysteries surrounding menopause and bridge the gap in care,” said Garnier. “It’s imperative that we recognize menopause is a complex life stage fraught with escalating health risks. It is a unique window of opportunity to engage women with non-invasive technology that can deliver relief, restore well-being, and promote healthy aging.”

Beyond the Fitbit, menopause-specific wearables are proliferating. Designed with input from engineers, OB-GYNs, and menopause experts, the Thermaband Zone looks more or less like an Apple Watch. Sensors in the wristband monitor body temperature and produce cool or warm “pulses” to counter the effects of hot flashes and night sweats. The Zone’s health technology scans the user 24/7 to identify their “normal” temperature and can pick up even the smallest changes. Consistent data collection is critical—“the more you use it,” reads their website, “the smarter it gets.” The Zone automatically detects patterns with that data and delivers battery-powered cooling or warming.

The Embr Wave, developed by Boston-based startup Embr Labs, is another watch-type sensor that employs advanced thermal science to counteract temperature swings by cooling or warming the inner wrist. “How would you like to wave today,” asks the Wave’s companion app, where users can choose from different symptom-specific sessions, adjust temperature settings, set timers, track patterns, and customize button functions. Embr Wave has conducted studies with partners including Johnson & Johnson and UC Berkeley and has multiple clinical trials in progress. The device also works through the night and has been shown to improve sleep.

While not a wearable per se, Joylux’s boldly named vFit Gold Device looks less like a watch and more like a vibrator. Designed by OB/GYNs, the personal health device addresses concerns such as incontinence, vaginal dryness, sexual function, and, of course, hot flashes.

The vFit Gold uses red-light photo biomodulation technology and sonic vibration to promote a stronger pelvic floor. Red LED lights in the 662nm wavelength encourage blood flow, while sonic vibration aids in muscle stimulation. (Don’t forget the recommended Photonic Gel.)

ELITONE is another intimate device that provides a non-invasive solution for the common symptom of incontinence. The device can be discreetly worn under clothes, allowing users to treat their symptoms whenever and wherever they choose. The FDA-cleared automatic pelvic floor exerciser consists of an adhesive GelPad operated by a small controller, which, when worn for 20 minutes a day, helps to rebuild muscle tone and improve control.

Wearables aside, increased access to telemedicine has arguably been the most impactful advancement for menopause treatment and support. “It all starts with a conversation,” says Jill Angelo, CEO of Gennev, a platform that connects subscribers to doctors, nutritionists, and health coaches. Prescription support, medical guidance, exercise advice, and mindfulness practices are all delivered virtually. “No woman experiences menopause the same as another, so her ability to receive 1:1 personalized care is well-enabled through telehealth video and text communication.”

Maven Clinic, which offers services through employers like Microsoft (and nearly half of the Fortune 15), recently announced its dedicated Menopause and Ongoing Care platform. The program provides access to 24/7 virtual care, peer communities, and concierge support to members across 175 countries. “The fact that even after seeking help from their provider, almost three out of four menopause patients are left untreated shows that it’s high time for a new approach,” said Dr. Neel Shah, Chief Medical Officer of Maven.

But developing a new approach requires better information. When asked about areas of menopause support and investing that deserve more attention, several experts pointed to the need for more research and science-backed solutions. “Studying the health outcomes related to menopause treatment is vastly underfunded and underserved,” said Gennev’s Jill Angelo. Womaness co-founders Michelle Jacobs and Sally Mueller agree and point out there is scant research and data around perimenopause and menopause despite 51 million women experiencing menopause in the U.S. alone. But they also optimistically note that many emerging menopause brands and technologies revolve around symptom tracking and data collection. They say this is critical because understanding when symptoms begin, how they evolve, and what treatments help will greatly impact future options for care.

Some government officials are working to increase funding for menopause research. Last September, Reps. David McKinley (R-W.Va.) and Cindy Axne (D-Iowa) introduced the “Menopause Research Act,” which would put $100 million into the National Institutes of Health in 2023 and 2024 to research treatments. And earlier this year, New York City Mayor Eric Adams announced an initiative to “dismantle decades of systemic inequity that have negatively impacted the health of women across the five boroughs.” Mayor Adams’ vision includes creating more menopause-friendly workplaces and expanding access to specific treatments.

The need for more treatments, research, and services is clear and thankfully financial backing and public support are mounting. “Every woman will experience this life stage,” said Garnier, “and it’s bordering on criminal neglect that women have suffered for so long in silence and [are] not getting the care and support that they need.” Let’s hope her vision for the Year of Menopause will be just the beginning.

At the end of December 2022, when Americans were getting ready to spend hours indoors with family and friends — often in their kitchens, preparing holiday meals on the stovetop — a new study reignited a decades-old debate. The peer-reviewed research by the environmental think tank RMI (formerly Rocky Mountain Institute), the University of Sydney, and the Albert Einstein College of Medicine estimated that “nearly 13 percent of childhood asthma cases in the United States can be linked to having a gas stove in the home.”

The backlash was swift and fierce. The American Gas Association (AGA) trade group called the findings “not substantiated by sound science,” and added that “any discussion” of a possible connection between asthma and the use of gas for cooking was “reckless.”

But this latest attempt to shut down discussion of the health impact of stoves is nothing new. It has been building for several years alongside revelations that AGA has used paid influencer campaigns to defend gas stoves and waged state-by-state, city-by-city lobbying offensives against initiatives to replace gas furnaces, water heaters, and stoves with electric-powered devices aimed at reducing pollution linked to climate change.

It’s less widely known that the gas industry has long sponsored its own research into the problem of indoor air pollution from gas stoves. Now, newly discovered documents reveal that the American Gas Association was studying the health and indoor pollution risks from gas stoves as far back as the early 1970s — that they knew much more, at a far earlier date, than has been previously documented.

More than 50 years ago, in 1972, AGA authored a draft report highlighting indoor air pollution concerns similar to those being raised by health experts and regulators today. In particular, this draft report examined what to do about problems related to the emission of carbon monoxide and nitrogen oxides (collectively referred to as NOx) from domestic gas appliances. This draft, recently discovered in the U.S. National Archives, would eventually become an official report published by the National Industrial Pollution Control Council (NIPCC), a long-forgotten government advisory council composed of the nation’s most powerful industrialists.

However, an entire section detailing those concerns, entitled “Indoor Air Quality Control,” vanished from the final report. With it went all the important evidence that the gas industry was not only conducting research into what the NIPCC called the “NOx problem” but also that it was actively testing technological solutions “for the purposes of limiting the levels of carbon monoxide and nitrogen oxides in household air.”

Instead, the final report argued gas’s sole drawback was its limited availability, “not its environmental impact.” It also lobbied for a massive expansion of U.S. domestic gas reserves and the rapid rollout of gas-based infrastructure, under the banner of replacing coal with gas to stem air pollution. As such, the report was part of a self-declared campaign by the gas and utilities industries to undermine King Coal’s grip on residential power, heating, and cooking and replace it with so-called “clean” gas-fired electricity plants. Accurately highlighting coal’s polluting nature, the published report glossed over gas’s own pollution problems, which were an area of emerging research at the time.

Gas stoves emit an array of air pollutants, including nitrogen oxides (nitric oxide and nitrogen dioxide), carbon monoxide, and particulate matter when in use. New research shows that they also leak methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, and benzene, a known human carcinogen, even when turned off. In terms of health impacts, multiple studies have associated nitrogen dioxide (NO2) exposure from gas stoves with heightened and more frequent respiratory problems and cardiovascular issues as well as an increased risk of childhood asthma.

Prior to the 1970s, research on laboratory animals had already linked NO2 exposure with greater susceptibility to respiratory infection, while high exposures had been found to cause pulmonary edema and death. In 1970, a study by the government’s National Air Pollution Control Administration found that increases in respiratory illnesses in Tennessee schoolchildren could be attributed to higher than normal outdoor NO2 exposure. Concerned over the implications of the study, the gas industry began its own research into indoor air pollution, specifically “to examine the gas range in more detail.”

When contacted for comment, the American Gas Association did not dispute the gas industry’s history and motivations of studying the indoor air pollution potential of gas appliances in the early 1970s. In a statement to DeSmog, AGA CEO Karen Harbert said, “AGA supported a 1982 review of the available research that found no causative link between gas stoves and asthma, a conclusion shared by regulatory agencies.”

Harbert reiterated earlier AGA statements questioning the conclusions of recent studies related to the health impacts of gas stoves.

Gas Companies Go to Washington

On January 6, 1972, a copy of the American Gas Association’s draft report, provisionally titled “Energy and the Environment: A Crisis. Natural Gas: A Solution,” was submitted to a federal official for initial review at the request of the NIPCC.

Established by President Richard Nixon through an April 1970 Executive Order, the NIPCC was an external advisory council which reported to the President and the White House Council on Environmental Quality via the Secretary of Commerce. It was composed of 200 of the nation’s top-tier business executives under the guise of assisting the government’s new anti-pollution efforts.

In practice, however, it provided the country’s biggest polluters with a privileged channel of access and influence over government policy as well as a valuable launchpad for public relations campaigns. Industry cooperation with government in areas of research and policy-making was common in the decades prior to the 1970s, but the NIPCC represented a new pinnacle in corporate-government collaboration. Public interest campaigner Ralph Nader called the NIPCC “a Who’s Who of American polluters.”

The NIPCC included an eight-member Utilities Sub-Council that counted the CEOs and presidents of major gas and electric companies among its ranks. Two years before AGA prepared its draft report, records show that these industry leaders had gathered at a Sub-Council meeting to discuss how to manage air pollution concerns. Minutes from the September 28, 1970 meeting, found in the National Archives, reveal that they agreed that “the need for industry to show what they are doing about pollution is pressing. It was suggested that the gas industry take a look at the NOx problem.”

And, according to AGA’s 1972 draft report, this is precisely what the gas industry did. “Of continuing interest to gas industry research has been the need to control the indoor environment in both industry and the home,” states the draft. “In recognition of this need to develop techniques for the maintenance of pollution-free indoor environment for the individual, projects are now underway to conceive, design, construct, and evaluate prototype devices to be used in conjunction with conventional residential heating and cooling systems for the purposes of limiting the levels of carbon monoxide and nitrogen oxides in household air.” (emphasis added)

This draft wasn’t sent unsolicited; led by their chairman, President of Pacific Gas & Electric, Shermer Sibley, the top-ranking business leaders of the NIPCC Utilities Sub-Council requested that AGA produce a paper describing the gas industry’s environmental position in preparation for an NIPCC report. The draft was an early version of what would eventually become an official report of the NIPCC’s Utilities Sub-Council, published in August 1972 and titled “The Natural Gas Industry and The Environment.”

While the final published version retained the draft’s general portrayal of gas as the “cleanest burning of fuels” and rallied around massive expansion of the gas industry, the section devoted to “Indoor Air Quality Control”was removed by the NIPCC’s Utilities Sub-Council.

Test Homes and Technofixes

The AGA draft also reveals that in the years prior to 1972, the gas industry had been using “test homes” to conduct research into indoor air pollution levels:“Environmental control data collected in the last few years at test homes in Canton, Ohio are being used to define relationships between outdoor and indoor pollution levels.”

Specially constructed research houses would be used routinely by the industry in the 1980s. By 1984, AGA had opened at least one “Gas Appliance Research and Demonstration House” and by 1989 the industry-sponsored Gas Research Institute (GRI) was operating both a “Conventional Research House” in Chicago, Illinois, and a “Contemporary Research House” in Gaithersburg, Maryland.

However, it’s unclear whether the early Ohio “test homes” referenced in 1972 were real homes occupied by real people or had been specially constructed by the industry for the purpose of carrying out research. Also unknown are full details of what was being measured in these homes — what data did the industry collect? And what were the industry’s findings on the relationships between outdoor and indoor pollution levels?

“We are unaware of any AGA historical records regarding testing or test homes in Canton, Ohio in 1972,” AGA’s Harbert told DeSmog.

Although the 1972 AGA draft report provides a tantalizing glimpse into what the industry might have known about the dangers of air pollution caused by gas stoves, these are among the many questions that remain unanswered.

Nevertheless, what is clear from the 1972 AGA draft and two other newly-discovered documents — an AGA paper and a GRI document both from 1981 — is that the industry was actively studying ways to address “the NOx problem” in the early 1970s.

These documents also indicate that the industry was particularly interested in two possible solutions to the indoor air pollution caused by gas: venting systems and range-tops that were designed to emit fewer nitrogen oxides.

Part of AGA’s attempt to boost opportunities for residential gas markets, the draft report details the perceived pollution benefits of using gas to power every aspect of American homes. Nevertheless, it simultaneously acknowledges that the industry would need to undergo significant changes in “gas distribution, utilization, and venting systems” to fit with the better insulated (and therefore draft-free) modern housing of the 1970s that allowed pollutants to build up inside the home.

The theoretical solution to this, according to the draft, was properly designed and operated exhaust systems that could prevent harmful levels of nitrogen oxides and other indoor air pollutants and keep gas-powered appliances “within pollution limits.”

These pollution limits, however, would have been based on outdoor limits. Although the EPA is authorized to regulate outdoor levels of NO2 under the 1970 Clean Air Act Amendments, regulation stops at the doorway. To date, no indoor regulation of NO2 exists. And due to inadequate or non-existent ventilation, indoor NO2 is often higher than the EPA’s guidelines for outdoor air pollution.

While the gas industry’s draft report devotes a full page to the issues of indoor air control, none of the references to nitrogen oxides, the industry’s test homes, indoor pollution levels, or venting systems were included in the final NIPCC report — the version circulated to government officials and available to the public.

And yet, venting, which has the capability to significantly reduce NO2 levels if adequately installed and properly used, was not a new concept. A 1978 EPA analysis of indoor air pollution states that vented gas ovens and stoves had been produced in the United States as early as the 1930s. According to the EPA, standards set up by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) and AGA had required manufacturers to make vented stoves available if they were so requested by customers. The EPA authors, who identified gas cooking appliances as “major contributors” to indoor air pollutants, reported that this standard was dropped around 1950 due to “economics and consumer demand.”

“Proper ventilation is a common recommendation by health agencies, expert studies, and manufacturers of cooking appliances,” said AGA’s Harbert.

Venting systems weren’t the only technofix the industry had in mind. Recent coverage by NPR has revealed that by 1984 the gas industry had developed a cleaner and more efficient infrared gas burner emitting 40 percent less NO2— which it never manufactured for sale. But the 1981 GRI document shows that in fact AGA had begun working on emissions-reducing range designs significantly earlier. It states that a 1975 American Gas Association Laboratories paper — which is not currently available for review — updated AGA laboratory work on emission measurements from natural gas–fired appliances and discussed “a prototype range top that reduces NOx emissions.”

Selling Gas to the Public

The gas and utilities industries were eager to present gas as a less-polluting option than other power sources. A 1972 AGA ad announced, “More natural gas can give us a cleaner world.” “Pollution authorities agree that gas burns cleaner,” AGA declared in the ad, “with no sulfur and virtually no emissions.” It did not, however, mention gas’s own pollution problems.

Neither did another AGA advertisement from 1972, which showed a group of toddlers playing happily alongside the caption: “Gas. Clean energy for today and tomorrow.” One of the toddlers stands taller than the rest beneath AGA’s assurance that gas is “Good for growing things” and its advice that householders should contact their “heating contractor” or “local gas company.”

In keeping with AGA’s framing of gas as “clean energy,” both the AGA draft and the NIPCC final report contain a carefully selected statement from the first EPA head, William Ruckelshaus, in which he described the various environmental problems associated with different energy sources: “Nuclear reactors give off radiation, coal produces sulfur dioxide … and natural gas is in short supply.”

While both the draft and the final report feature this statement from the EPA head as proof of gas’s supposedly clean-burning credentials, the draft version — but not the final report — also acknowledges the statement’s usefulness as a selling point for the fuel: “Such a statement characterizes the major limitation of natural gas as a fuel in combating pollution as one of supply and not in terms of any adverse environmental impact.”

Approved by the Utilities Sub-Council, the NIPCC published its report, newly-titled “The Natural Gas Industry and The Environment,” as a glossy brochure, complete with a quote from President Nixon on the inside cover along with a signed letter from the NIPCC’s chairman to the Secretary of Commerce. Following publication, the report would have been presented to the Secretary of Commerce who was required by Executive Order to send it to the Council for Environmental Quality (CEQ) and the Executive Office of the President. At the NIPCC’s discretion it would also have been sent to “others as appropriate” at “federal, state and local agencies.” In February of 1972, a month after AGA submitted its draft, the head of the CEQ, Russell Train, assured the NIPCC that its reports were “read at every level.” Like all NIPCC reports it was also available, via the Government Publishing Office, to business leaders, the press, and the general public.

This high-level pomp and ceremony gave an official veneer to what was essentially an industry-sanctioned PR opportunity — which concerned some in government. In Senate Hearings on Advisory Committees in June of 1971, Sen. Lee Metcalf (D-MT) challenged the NIPCC’s Executive Secretary, Water Hamilton — a Commerce Department official — over the fact that such NIPCC reports appeared to be official government documents. “How is an ordinary citizen to know,” asked Metcalf, that it is “not a document of the Department of Commerce?”

When Hamilton pointed to a disclaimer printed on the first page of all NIPCC reports, Metcalf remained unconvinced, describing it as “the most flagrant example of a disclaimer by small print that I have ever run into.”

Yet even the most sharp-eyed reader of “The Natural Gas Industry and The Environment” would have failed to find any information on indoor air quality within its pages.

However, while the industry executives on the Sub-Council may have removed all references to gas’s “NOx problem” from their final report, the problem wouldn’t stay hidden forever. That same year an EPA study, testing indoor nitrogen dioxide emissions from gas stoves, identified concentrations that were twenty times higher than the outdoor limit. And, the following year, in January 1973, EPA scientists published the first study linking respiratory illness to nitrogen dioxide exposure from the use of gas stoves in homes.

Over the coming decades, mounting evidence would continue to link nitrogen dioxide emissions from gas stoves with higher incidences of respiratory illness and cardiovascular problems. Denying this association, the gas industry would fight back — just as it is doing today.

Climate change is altering our bodies and changing our lives every day. But as with all public health crises, the health impacts of climate change are not evenly felt. Those who already suffer the brunt of systemic inequalities are also those who face the most severe consequences of climate change.

One of the most serious effects on our health is the sharp uptick in droughts and drought conditions worldwide. Access to drinking water is only the tip of the iceberg regarding the health risks associated with shortages. Increasingly severe and prolonged drought periods impact sanitation, nutrition, and air quality. They can also lead to more disease. West Nile Virus, carried by mosquitoes breeding in stagnant water, is the leading mosquito-borne disease in the continental United States. Also, drought conditions can increase dangerous fungi in soils that cause “Valley Fever.” This dangerous fungal disease is a growing problem in Arizona and California.

Like dry conditions, wet conditions such as flooding, hurricanes, and cyclones that impact sewage systems and water sources can intensify the risk for diseases such as norovirus, hepatitis, malaria, and dengue. In the book Changing Planet, Changing Health: How the Climate Crisis Threatens Our Health and What We Can Do About It, Paul Epstein and Dan Ferber explain that the strong winds from hurricanes, cyclones, and other extreme storms can carry infectious agents over thousands of miles, introducing pathogens to regions ill-equipped to handle them. For example, in 2022, flooding from Hurricane Ian led to an influx of deadly bacterial infections from Vibrio vulnificus, or the “flesh-eating” bacteria, with over 65 cases and 11 deaths reported in Florida.

Research from the Fourth National Climate Assessment indicates that climate change and warming temperatures contribute to increased levels of particulate matter and ozone—elements of harmful air pollution such as smog. These amplified levels of particulate matter and ozone contribute to a wave of new and uncertain health outcomes related to increased morbidity and mortality. In particular, wildfire smoke—capable of traveling thousands of miles and yet another consequence of worsening droughts—and other pollutants can penetrate deep into our respiratory and circulation systems, triggering problems related to inflammation such as asthma, depleted immunity, respiratory conditions, diabetes, and hypertension.

The effects of air pollution are not limited to the here and now, putting the health of future generations at risk. In a recent study conducted by the University of Aberdeen in the United Kingdom and Hasselt University in Belgium, researchers found that “unborn babies have air pollution particles in their developing lungs and other vital organs as early as the first trimester.” What’s more, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development found that the healthcare costs related to air pollution will rise from $21 billion in 2015 to over $175 billion by 2060.

Though the various health risks associated with climate change are scary and overwhelming, those with adequate healthcare and resources can combat them successfully. Vulnerable populations and those who lack financial resources are not so lucky. Marginalized groups and communities, such as people of color and those in low-income zip codes, face inflated risks due to systemic inequalities such as racism and discrimination.

Dr. Robbie M. Parks, Ph.D., a professor at Columbia University, explains that “It’s not just about exposure. It’s also about your preparedness and resilience. The United States is a microcosm for the world. The story is how unequal the health detriments of climate change are for vulnerable populations—in terms of increased exposure and how these communities lack the resources to recover from and combat environmental insults.”

According to a 2021 Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) report, minorities are the most likely to live in areas that suffer the brunt of climate change—areas with the highest projected escalation of climate-related morbidity and mortality. The EPA found that due to pernicious historical policies such as redlining, Black individuals are over 41 percent more likely to live in areas with the highest projected increases in premature death due to extreme heat and poor air quality.

Likewise, Hispanic individuals are 21 percent more likely to live in the hottest parts of cities, and yet a third of Hispanic households lack access to air conditioning, leaving them susceptible to extreme heat exposure and its health-related impacts. As Hispanics and Latinos make up almost half of all agricultural workers and a third of construction workers in the United States, a 2016 report by the National Resources Defense Council found that “U.S. Latinos are about three times more likely to die on the job from heat-related causes than non-Hispanic whites.”

An often-overlooked minority group that faces some of the most profound health risks from climate change are Asian and Pacific Islanders. In a 2020 study, researchers found that most major EPA violations in the Pacific Islands are associated with pollution from U.S. Military Sites. In Guam, the Anderson Air Force Base—a site placed on the National Priority List in 1992 due to hazardous substances—sits in an aquifer that provides drinking water to over 70 percent of the island’s residents. According to census bureau data, almost a quarter of Guam residents live below the poverty line. They have no say in their generational exposure to fuel compounds, lead, and heavy metals, and they also lack the resources needed to protect themselves from harmful pollutants.

Beyond ethnic and racial minorities, all low-income communities are more likely to have their health be disproportionately affected by climate change. “This kind of inequality is a moral, ethical component of climate change that is easy to understand but is often overlooked,” says Dr. Parks. A 2017 report by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration found that people with low socioeconomic status are more likely to be exposed to environmental hazards and have a limited capacity to prepare themselves for extreme climate events. Similarly, the Shriver Center on Poverty Law found in 2020 that 70 percent of the United States’ most hazardous waste sites are located within one mile of U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development-assisted housing facilities.

The ironic crux of the climate crisis’s disproportionate and damaging health impacts on vulnerable populations is that those who suffer the most contribute to climate change the least. In 2021, researchers found that “people in the global top 1 percent of income cause twice as much consumption-based CO2 emissions as those in the bottom 50.”

Those with access to financial resources and the capacity to create systemic change must not take that responsibility lightly. “It’s a classic balance between individual and collective action,” comments Dr. Parks. “High net individuals have one of the greatest capacities to decrease their carbon footprints.”

As custodians of wealth, our small, individual decisions to protect our environment, such as impact investing, choosing to fly commercially, or driving an electric car, carry far more weight than we know. To protect our health and to effect positive, systemic change for the populations who need it the most, we must take action to ensure the health of our planet.

> For more climate conversations, join us on March 28th in Mountain View, CA for Techonomy Climate.

Food nourishes us, sustains us, and in many cases, supplies our livelihoods. Food is life. But the way we grow, raise, catch, process and distribute food – our food systems – is under increasing threat from climate change. And for those in the most vulnerable parts of the world, this is a threat to their very survival. How can this community ensure we are using energy to focus on the most sustainable agricultural solutions? How can farmers and ranchers contribute to climate solutions, and thrive at the same time? How can we ensure precious resources are being used in the most efficient ways?  What does an inclusive, solutions-oriented community look like, and how can we bring the most critical voices to the table?

> Interested in more climate tech content? Join us for Techonomy Climate on March 28th, 2023 in Mountain View, CA. 

Sustainable cement, next generation plastics, alternative protein sources, textiles made from manufactured spider silk, mushroom leather – these are just a fraction of the promise of biotechnology. The bioeconomy has created new opportunities to support a more sustainable future and address the existential threats posed by climate change. Mary Maxon is Executive Director of BioFutures at Schmidt Futures and an expert in this new era of science. Maxon joined us to discuss what it will take to maximize the benefits of the bioeconomy, which has the potential to revitalize U.S. manufacturing, create more resilient supply chains and new jobs, address economic inequity, and reduce dependence on fossil fuels.

> Interested in more climate tech content? Join us for Techonomy Climate on March 28th, 2023 in Mountain View, CA. 

Thanks to technology improvements and automation, there have been huge strides recently in DNA sequencing platforms — and that’s promising news for efforts to bring this valuable tool into mainstream healthcare.

DNA sequencing has already been a poster child for how technology innovation can drive costs lower. The Human Genome Project, which sequenced the very first human genome in the 1990s and early 2000s, had a budget of about $3 billion. Granted, not all of that money went directly to the sequencing effort; the first genome sequenced probably cost taxpayers about $1 billion.

But after that, scientists wanted to sequence a lot more genomes — and they knew they couldn’t scrounge up $1 billion for each one. Tremendous effort went into developing newer, better, cheaper technologies for reading a genome sequence. By 2006, a number of so-called “massively parallel” sequencing technologies were in development or entering the market.

That was the start of a free-fall in sequencing costs. The National Human Genome Research Institute, part of the National Institutes of Health, has tracked these costs for decades. By 2008, scientists noticed that sequencing technology was outperforming the legendary Moore’s Law, which predicted exponential improvements in cost and performance for semiconductor chips. By 2015, the cost to sequence a single human genome was approaching $1,000.

The remarkable pace of technical and cost improvements continued until this decade, when it appeared that DNA sequencing technology had finally reached a plateau. The vast majority of projects today are conducted with technology sold by Illumina, which has such a monopoly in the market that the Federal Trade Commission was able to block its attempt to acquire a much smaller rival sequencing company back in 2019. With Illumina’s tight grip on the market, industry observers began to doubt that sequencing costs would drop substantially in the future.

But recently, a number of upstarts have jumped into the sequencing field with new technology platforms that are reigniting efforts to drive costs down even further. Some of these companies focus on delivering higher-quality genomes or faster results, while others aim to ramp up the number of genomes that can be sequenced in a fixed period. The new players are taking advantage of advanced chemistries, materials, and approaches to reading genomes to make an impact.

While it’s far too early to say which of these companies and technologies might have staying power, the collective effect of all of this investment is easier to predict: with so much competition, DNA sequencing costs should fall faster than they have in recent years. In the not-too-distant future, that should put us at the point where it’s cost-effective enough to sequence each patient’s genome. That would be a huge step in enabling precision medicine for everyone by identifying patients likely to develop certain diseases and providing proactive care or even preventing the disease entirely. Genomics-based precision medicine can also match patients to the medications most likely to work for them, link patients to clinical trials, and even help determine when invasive treatments such as surgery might be safely avoided.

Many will recognize Dr. Larry Brilliant as CNN’s resident COVID expert, but the epidemiologist is most famous for leading the World Health Organization team that eradicated smallpox. He’s also stewarded the philanthropic efforts of both Google and Salesforce and has been a mentor to many tech leaders, including Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg. But before all that, Brilliant lived in an ashram in India for many years, studying under guru Neem Karoli Baba (also the spiritual teacher of Ram Das), who drove him to pursue a career in public health. 

Brilliant sat down with Techonomy founder David Kirkpatrick at the Techonomy 2022 retreat in Sonoma, CA, to discuss his journey into public health and the connection between global warming and global health. This transcript has been edited for clarity and brevity. The full interview can be viewed here.

David Kirkpatrick: You had this period when you were a devoted follower of a very inspiring guru. And he inspired you then to go into public health. Tell us about that.

Dr. Larry Brilliant: Here’s the kind of inspiration he used: I would sit there, and I would meditate and he would throw apples at my testicles and say, “you should get out of the ashram.” He had really good aim. My guru, Neem Karoli Baba, told me I should go to the World Health Organization office in New Delhi and get a job helping eradicate smallpox because this was God’s gift to humanity. So, I went to WHO, which took about 17 hours on a train and a bus, and of course, they kicked me out because I was wearing this white dress, had hair down to the middle of my back, and had a big beard. 

I went back up, and I saw my guru, and he asked, “Did you get your job?” And I said, “No.” He said, “Go back.” I took the 17-hour journey back and, of course, they kicked me out again. Rinse and repeat about 12 times, but I got smart. I trimmed the beard, I lost the dress, and I put on a suit and tie. 

One time I walked into the WHO office, there was this tall American. And he said, “Are you American? Who are you?” I said, “I’m a doctor.” He said, “Okay, why are you here?” I told him that my guru, who lives in the Himalayas, told me that I was supposed to come work for WHO and help eradicate smallpox. “Well,” he said, “I’m the head of the global smallpox eradication program, and we don’t have a smallpox eradication program in India. But since we’re here, maybe I could interview you.” He eventually did hire me, and I became the head of the program. It took ten years to eradicate smallpox. 

And you did more or less eradicate smallpox.

With 150,000 of the most wonderful, courageous people in the world. It’s the only disease that’s ever been eradicated. 

You have done enormous research and communication around the pandemic. What’s the connection between global health and global warming, particularly concerning pandemics?

The primary connection is that the antecedent causes of climate change and global warming are many of the exact antecedent causes of pandemics. As the Earth gets warmer, animals from the south migrate to the north. Over a billion more people are at risk of malaria right now because the Anopheles mosquito can now breed at higher altitudes and greater latitudes. Animals meeting other animals carrying the same viruses leads to variants. We’re having a tremendous amount of spillover because the forests and rainforests are being clear-cut. 

I was the science advisor on the film Contagion. We tried to make a movie that would be a fictional representation of what we thought would happen. We didn’t expect to get it so close. But the whole premise was a bat with a virus enters the human environment, which is what happened with COVID—and with SARS, and probably with MERS and Ebola. 

Fossil fuels create greenhouse gases, leading to global warming. And with that, you wind up changing the way water works, the way salt works, and the entire ecosystem of the planet. The same things that cause climate change cause spillover, where animals and humans live in each other’s territory. Spillover is occurring now at five times the rate that it did 50 years ago. Every year one, two, or three new novel diseases that have never been seen in human beings are spilling over from animals, and we’re exposed to them. 

All of these factors are hitting simultaneously, leading to animals and humans sharing the same habitat. That’s why we’ve gotten a cacophony of these viruses over the last ten years, like SARS, MERS, Ebola, West Nile disease, Lyme disease, and COVID. 

There are a lot of other linkages to climate change. Global warming increases famine, drought, and floods and winds up putting more salt in the Earth. One of the biggest things we see in global health is that as water levels rise, they bring salt and we lose agricultural land. That means that climate change can lead to famine.

The primary culprit is modernity. The most invasive species in the world is us humans. We’re the ones that are putting the world at such ecological risk. And with it, we will find challenges to our food, challenges to our water, challenges to agriculture, and challenges to pandemics as well. 

You also are very worried about COVID variants right now. Could you tell us why?

Right now, we’re in a funny stage with the COVID pandemic. Three years ago, I wrote an article in Foreign Affairs called “The Forever Virus.” And people got mad at me because we were all done with the pandemic and wanted to move on. I hope that’s true. We may be there. Right now, there are four coronaviruses that preceded this one that retired into the retirement home of coronaviruses, which means they became colds. That’s right, half of the colds you get are Coronaviruses, which are related to SARS-CoV-2. This virus may be going through that process now. And I pray to God that it is. 

But we’ve also got five terrible new sub-variants. Each one is more infectious than the other. All of them are mysterious in terms of how many diseases they’ll cause. And right now, we’re playing a whack-a-mole game with new vaccines that are more effective in stopping you from getting it, but great effectiveness and preventing you from dying. But we’re fighting the battle of the last variant. So, I am still determining where it’s going to go.

The theme of our conference is innovation must save the world. Do you think innovation is going to help us save the world?

A lot of innovations are pretty terrible. Nuclear weapons are an innovation that hasn’t really worked out. But I hope innovation is going to make a big difference. In the fight against COVID, for example, DARPA worked on mRNA technology for years, and as a result, we had it ready to convert into vaccines. That quickly saved millions and millions of lives. 

But the innovation we need is a total change in human consciousness about compassion, altruism, and stopping to think of others as others. When I think of innovation, I think of the infrastructure of how we allocate resources and the decisions we make. To have innovations that are going to have enduring value, we have to help bridge the gap between the rich and the poor, and do equitable redistribution of the resources that we need to make the world a better place. We’ve got to focus on vision and values. 

…

> For more of our climate content, please join us for the upcoming Techonomy Climate event in Mountain View, CA on March 28, 2023.