Helen H. Moore's Blog, page 337
August 8, 2017
“Twin Peaks: The Return” makes tragedy out of sequels
Kyle MacLachlan in "Twin Peaks" (Credit: Showtime/Suzanne Tenner)
After the original run of “Twin Peaks” ended in 1991, it felt to many fans like the show would never return. Now it feels like the show might never end. Sunday’s episode was the 13th of 18. It could’ve been the 13th of 100. David Lynch has provided plot like an inattentive gardener provides water: in infrequent bursts.
The shower in Sunday’s episode comes when Mr. C, the evil Cooper, tracks down Ray to obtain the coordinates he needs. He also obtains information about Phillip Jeffries. Jeffries, Ray tells Mr. C, hired Ray to kill Mr. C, which Ray did unsuccessfully in Episode 8. Ray’s mistake was not heeding the second part of Jeffries’ command: He failed to put a green ring he was given — the same one that Laura Palmer wore to prevent Bob from possessing her — on Mr. C’s finger after the job was done. Mr. C makes Ray put the ring on Ray’s own finger, and after Ray tells Mr. C the last bit of information he needs (that the last he heard Jeffries was at The Dutchman’s), Mr. C kills Ray, and Ray’s body and the ring appear in the Black Lodge.
That sequence, which follows an arm wrestling bout between Mr. C and Ray’s Mr. Clean-look-alike boss, takes place in about the time that Lynch’s camera spends lingering on Sarah Palmer in her living room, drinking and watching a boxing clip that seems to be on a continuous loop. Or the time that his camera spends on James Hurley, at the roadhouse, singing “Just You,” the love song that he, Maddy Ferguson and Donna Hayward recorded early in Season 2. Or the time that his camera spends on Ed Hurley, in his office one night, eating soup from the Double R Diner and lighting a small piece of paper on fire and watching it burn to nothing.
When “Twin Peaks” has returned to Twin Peaks, the show has been more tragicomedy than mystery. Lynch has treated fan service and the premise of a sequel subversively. If fans want to see what old beloved characters are up to, Lynch will show that — but he’ll do so in all its squalid mundanity.
Most characters from the original show have stayed in Twin Peaks and have not changed much. As a result, they have regressed. In Sunday’s episode, Norma Jennings is visited at the Double R by a new business partner and romantic interest named Walter Lawford (Grant Goodeve). We learn that the Double R has become a small franchise and that three of the five restaurants are making a profit. The original store, though, is one of the two Double Rs that isn’t making a profit. Walter wants Noma to change the name of the diner to “Norma’s Double R” because the name tests better in market research. “In Twin Peaks, it’s been the Double R for 50 years,” Norma replies. “That’s what people want.”
It’s certainly what fans want. The prospect of change in Twin Peaks is unsettling. But when Lynch is not poking about in other dimensions he is showing that the alternative to change is worse than unsettling: it is depressing. When James sings “Just You,” each note carries the weight of time. His bushy hair is buzzed, his face has wrinkles, and the other two parts of the trio are gone. James is alone, divorced from his youth. The song was always sad, but 25 years later, it’s sad in a different way. It was about someone who’s suffered a great loss. Now it’s about someone who can’t move on. The performance almost makes you wish the curtain was never lifted. Almost.
The case for Medicare for all — plus 7 smaller steps to fix U.S. health care
(Credit: Getty/vm)
While we devote 18 percent of our GDP to healthcare, not only is the health of Americans no better than the health of the citizens of other wealthy nations, but by some measures, it’s markedly worse. Clearly then, we are not getting much bang from our healthcare buck.
How much do administrative costs add to our national healthcare bill? Most estimates range from one-quarter to one-third of that bill—perhaps about $800 billion.
We know that our high healthcare costs are due mainly to high administrative costs and to the overconsumption of medical care. If these two costs could be minimized, our healthcare costs would be cut almost in half. In sum, each year we waste close to $1.5 trillion in resources because of our grossly inefficient healthcare system.
SOLUTIONS
Before we consider a comprehensive plan to make our healthcare system much more efficient, here are seven smaller steps we should take.
1. Curb Malpractice Suits
Virtually everyone agrees that medical malpractice is a mess and needs to be fixed. Its costs include about $150 billion per year for tort litigation, defensive medicine, and malpractice insurance premiums. The way things stand now, the only winners are the patients who are successful in their lawsuits, and their lawyers. But their winnings are much smaller than our society’s losses. Not only do doctors waste tens of billions of dollars a year practicing defensive medicine, but some doctors are driven out of business by humongous malpractice insurance premiums—often exceeding $200,000 a year. For example, many OB-GYNs have given up the OB part of their practices, which carries the most risk, or relocated to places where malpractice insurance premiums are cheaper, such as rural areas.
Richard Thaler, an economist at the University of Chicago School of Business, suggests a way to dispense with malpractice insurance premiums altogether:
Those with a record of providing high-quality care at good value could apply to the government for a safe harbor from malpractice suits. Organizations that receive this status could require patients to waive their right to sue for adverse outcomes.
Another alternative to having doctors buy malpractice insurance premiums would be for the federal government to set up a fund to be used to pay medical malpractice victims. The total paid would be four or five billion dollars a year, which is about how much the courts award in malpractice suits. Then, instead of going through the courts, any patient claiming to be the victim of medical malpractice would go before a board of medical experts, which would determine how much money, if any, should be awarded in damages. An added benefit would be that doctors who were repeatedly called before the board could lose their licenses.
The most damage caused by the threat of malpractice suits is the consequent practice of defensive medicine. With the elimination of this threat, doctors would no longer have this incentive to prescribe unneeded lab tests, surgery, or drugs, saving tens of billions of dollars a year. These savings would be perhaps ten or twenty times the cost of setting up an alternative way of dealing with malpractice cases. The only losers would be the trial lawyers, a group that almost everyone loves to hate.
2. Create a Standardized Medical Insurance Form
A New York Times editorial made this observation:
Any doctor who has wrestled with multiple forms from different insurers, or patients who have tried to understand their own parade of statements, know that simplification ought to save money.
A standardized form would enable automated processing and save tens of billions of dollars a year.
3. Expand Population-Based Primary Care
Here is a proposal of Dr. Michael Fine, a physician who has written extensively about primary healthcare:
Population-based primary care is that system of healthcare distribution that assigns every person in a geographical area to a primary care practice accessible to that geographic area, and makes every primary-care practice responsible for the primary care of every person in that defined area. . . . Population-based primary care looks more like public libraries, public schools, and local police stations than it does like the hodgepodge system of private practitioners stacked in medical office buildings that we have now. Each neighborhood, town, or village of 10,000–20,000 people would have a primary-care center, providing robust primary care that includes 90–95 percent of the medical services used by that community’s inhabitants. . . . Primary care centers can be open 12 hours a day, eliminating the need for urgent care centers and limiting the need for hospital emergency rooms for all but life-threatening emergencies.
What do you think of having a population-based primary care system? I think it’s a great idea. In fact, we actually have such a system in place. During the administration of President George W. Bush (2001–2009), financing of community health centers in medically underserved areas was doubled. The program traces its origins to President Lyndon John-son’s war on poverty in the 1960s. Today there are about nine thousand sites serving more than twenty-two million patients, 70 percent of whom have incomes below the poverty line.
Getting good primary medical care is not just a problem for the poor. Americans wait longer to see primary care physicians than patients in Britain, Germany, Australia, and New Zealand. Newsweek observed that “26 percent of Americans . . . reported being able to see their doctor on the day they called, compared with 60 percent in the Netherlands and 48 percent in Britain.”
5. Alter the Pricing of Medical Procedures and Hospital Care
Because the prices of medical procedures vary so widely, it would be very helpful if the US Department of Health and Human Services posted the prices charged at all of the nation’s hospitals. This would enable insurance providers and individual patients to shop around for the best deals. Because of the spreading knowledge of the widely varying cost of these procedures, competition would force those charging the highest prices to lower them, or lose their business to other hospitals.
Similarly, the prices charged by hospitals for inpatient and outpatient services, as well as daily room charges, should also be posted.
A substantial and rapidly growing number of medical facilities are providing highly discounted services, charging all-inclusive fees for such procedures as knee replacements, rotator cuff repairs, and MRIs. Often called direct pay facilities, these medical practices do not accept healthcare insurance payments. This virtually eliminates high administrative expenses, and these savings are passed on to patients in the form of much lower prices.
Here are a few examples of these savings. A hysterectomy for which an insurance company is charged $54,000 costs just $11,000. The cost of a spinal fusion is reduced from $144,000 to $59,000. And a coronary bypass is provided for $51,000, rather than $253,000.
6. Lower the Cost of Prescription Medicines
The 2003 law that created the Medicare prescription benefit program expressly prohibited Medicare from either setting drug prices or even negotiating prices with pharmaceutical companies. If the law were amended to allow price-setting or negotiation, it would save insurers and individual patients tens of billions of dollars a year.
The federal government should also set price ceilings for prescription drugs and provide a directory listing the price and effectiveness of every drug.
7. Eliminate Medically Unnecessary Drugs, Operations, and Procedures
In a New Yorker article entitled “Overkill,” Dr. Atul Gawande reported that a study of more than one million Medicare patients disclosed many received tests and treatments that professional organizations had “consistently determined to have no benefit or to be outright harmful.” He went on to say, “In just a single year, the researchers reported, twenty-five to forty-two percent of Medicare patients received at least one of twenty-six useless tests and treatments.”
Surely Medicare officials themselves are derelict in approving payment for these procedures—and the medical practitioners themselves are complicit in providing these useless services. Clearly, this very costly problem needs to be addressed.
7. Improve Medical Care During the Last Year of Life
Over the next fifteen years the number of people who are sick, old, and frail will double. We also know that one’s medical bills usually shoot up in the last year of life. In fact, about 30 percent of all Medicare dollars are spent in the last year of life.
My father, who had lived independently until he was ninety-five, agreed to move to an assisted living residence, and then, finally, to a nursing home. He was painfully aware of his deteriorating mental capabilities and pleaded with every visitor to give him a gun and a bullet. Anyone who has ever visited a nursing home must wonder why terminally ill people are kept alive, often against their will, only to endure painfully imminent death.
Here are some examples of costly procedures and treatments that provide no benefits, but often cause discomfort or lower the quality of life:
Feeding tubes, which can cause infection, nausea, and vomiting, but rarely prolong life.
Hip replacements for people with advanced Alzheimer’s disease.
Abdominal and gall bladder surgery and joint replacements on the very frail, leading to complications, repeat hospital stays, and placement in nursing homes.
Aggressive chemotherapy for ninety-year-olds with heart failure, diabetes, and cancer.
Tight glycemic control for type 2 diabetes, which is intended to prevent blindness and kidney disease, and are not expected to occur for another eight or ten years.
In the absence of a patient’s objections, the healthcare provider default position is to keep the patient alive. And if this effort requires several days in ICU or the use of expensive technology, then so be it—as long, of course, as everything is covered by the patient’s insurance. “One of the things that frustrates us all is to see care being provided in an absolutely futile situation . . . and doctors and hospitals are not accountable but are also being rewarded (financially) for that (futile care),” says John Santa, medical director for the Center for Evidence-Based Policy, based in Portland, Oregon.
A COMPREHENSIVE SOLUTION
What additional steps can we take to improve the efficiency with which we deliver healthcare? Clearly, we need a comprehensive solution that can come only on the national level. The Affordable Care Act, while certainly a step in the right direction, left intact a highly inefficient healthcare system.
Our nation’s healthcare is now paid for by the federal, state, and local governments, individuals, employers, and by thousands of insurance companies. This has created an extremely costly administrative nightmare for our healthcare providers. But under our plan, they will deal with just a single payer of all medical bills.
If we could do just one thing to create a better healthcare system, what would it be? We’ve already identified what is, by far, the most important factor raising our national healthcare bill—extremely high administrative costs. So the eight-hundred-billion-dollar question is, how can we drastically cut these costs?
For decades, American healthcare experts have advocated switching to a single-payer system, like those in Australia, Canada, Denmark, Italy, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. Instead of relying on a jury-rigged system of thousands of private insurance companies—each with its own set of rules, procedures, reimbursement schedules, and forms—to pay the lion’s share of our medical bills, why not relegate this job to a single organization with just one set of forms, rules, and procedures? This would obviate the need for healthcare providers to employ armies of workers to deal with all the insurance companies. And best of all, our nation’s healthcare bill could be cut by about one-quarter.
Medicare posts an easy-to-use schedule of reimbursement payments for healthcare providers. There are no negotiations because virtually all medical treatments are preapproved. Medical assistants submit the bills, and Medicare provides automatic reimbursement.
Our plan is to extend Medicare—which is now limited primarily to people who are at least sixty-five—to all Americans who choose to join. This will finally provide our nation with a single-payer, relatively low-cost system of universal healthcare. Everyone will be free to enroll, but no one will be forced to. Similarly, hospitals, physicians, and other healthcare providers will be encouraged to accept Medicare patients, but again—no one will be forced to.
Two very large groups of people will need to decide whether to join “Medicare for All.” For individuals and families now paying their own healthcare insurance premiums, their decision will be relatively easy: Which will provide better coverage and lower costs?
For those whose medical insurance is paid in part or fully by their employers, the decision of whether or not to switch to Medicare could be more difficult. Since, under our plan, employers will no longer be able to deduct the cost of healthcare insurance premiums from their taxes, few will continue insuring their employees. Their employees will have to decide whether to join Medicare or take out private healthcare insurance. If a small minority of employers continue to pay some or all of their employees’ premiums, some employees may choose not to join Medicare.
Medicare for All will not be free. After all, people now over sixty-five paid a Medicare tax equal to 1.45 percent of their wages for their entire working lives. This payment was matched by their employers. What seems likely is that under Medicare for All, the wages of everyone under sixty-five will be taxed at a rate of least 5 percent—a figure matched by their employers.
Medicare for All will be open to every American, but we know that one size does not fit all. Some people already have a better deal. Among the elderly, there are millions of veterans who receive free medical care from Veterans Affairs. Another group of people, largely drawn from the top 1 percent, enjoy so-called “Cadillac” healthcare plans paid for by their employers. As long as their employers are willing to pay for them, why switch to Medicare for All?
Some doctors and other medical providers refuse to accept Medicare payments. And there are a substantial number of individuals over sixty-five who are not on Medicare. Will anyone be required to join Medicare for All? No! Not one doctor or patient will be forced to join. Is Medicare for All a government takeover of healthcare? Again, no! Nearly all doctors and other healthcare practitioners will continue to work in the private sector.
A key part of our plan would be to no longer allow employers to deduct the business expense of paying for the healthcare insurance of their employees from their taxes. In this case, what the federal government will taketh away, it will more than give back by relieving employers of this massive expense, since nearly all their employees will now be covered by Medicare for All.
Although we will continue paying for our prescription drugs, their cost will plummet. Under current law, Medicare officials are actually prohibited from negotiating with pharmaceutical companies, resulting in much higher drug prices. Under Medicare for All they will be able to negotiate much lower prices in exchange for bulk purchases.
Many drugs, which are produced by American companies, are sold for five or ten times as much in our country than they are abroad. But there are legal barriers to reimporting these drugs to the United States, ostensibly because they may be “unsafe.” This blatant rip-off will end.
What happens to the seventy-two million Americans currently receiving Medicaid and CHIP (Children’s Health Insurance Plan)?Under Medicare for All, all these patients will be shifted to Medicare.
* * *
Medicaid Folded into Medicare for All
Under our plan, Medicaid and CHIP will be folded into Medicare. Doing this has three main advantages. First, it relieves the state and localities of a huge financial burden—about $100 billion, while eliminating layers of bureaucracy at the state and local levels.
Second, since the passage of the Affordable Care Act in 2009, the expansion of Medicaid has become a political football. Nearly every Republican-controlled state has refused to expand its Medicaid program to all its eligible citizens, even though the federal government would be paying the entire cost. But once Medicaid becomes part of Medicare, this issue will no longer exist.
And finally, receiving Medicaid carries almost the same stigma as getting public assistance. Medicare is perceived as being for those who have earned it, while Medicaid is seen as just another unearned handout given to the poor. Why perpetuate this stigma?
* * *
Before we talk about who wins and who loses under Medicare for All, we need to address two major shortcomings of the current Medicare system. First, we shall need to do something to discourage patients from treating medical care as a free good. A second shortcoming is the widespread reimbursement of unnecessary medical procedures. Perhaps the most effective way of discouraging them would be for Medicare to deny reimbursement.
What we’re proposing is a massive change in the way we deliver and pay for our healthcare. And while hundreds of millions of Americans will be much better off, and we will be able to deliver more and better healthcare for a much smaller cost, there will still be some people who will definitely not like our plan.
It would be virtually impossible to create a healthcare system that doesn’t leave some people worse off than before. But we can create one that has far more winners than losers.
The biggest winners are the thirty-two million Americans who currently have no medical insurance. Other big winners are all the people who will be able to secure much better medical care—often at greatly reduced cost. And then too, there are those healthcare providers who will no longer have to employ so many people just to deal with all the insurance companies.
Let’s consider how our plan will affect the firms that are no longer insuring their employees. Today, healthcare insurance premiums account for as much as one-third of a business firm’s total employee compensation. Sharing this massive cost cut with their employees, most companies will now be able to afford large-wage increases.
Still another big winner will be the American economy. Relieved of the burden of our extremely inefficient healthcare system, we will be able to devote more of our resources to such pressing needs as rebuilding our manufacturing base and our crumbling infrastructure.
Now let’s turn to the losers. By far, the two biggest losers will be the insurance companies and all the people who will lose their jobs, since their work will no longer be needed. Because there are so many jobs that need to be filled—from staffing nursing homes and childcare facilities to rebuilding our public transportation system and producing clean energy, we will find a decently paying job for every person who is ready, willing, and able to work.
Many insurance companies will be put out of business, but won’t that be in the great capitalist tradition of “creative destruction”? And because the giant pharmaceutical firms will be charging a lot less for thousands of prescription drugs, their profits will decline sharply. Another group of losers are the people who don’t join Medicare for All, but continue to pay the Medicare payroll tax. Still, it’s their choice.
There will continue to be a substantial sector of our healthcare system not associated with Medicare for All. It will include mainly the doctors and patients who choose not to join. We will continue to pay for non-covered medical procedures such as tummy tucks, face-lifts, and various other bodily “enhancements.” Also not included are dental care, nonprescription drugs, and visits to health spas.
WATCH: Russian doping scandal exposed in dramatic Netflix documentary “Icarus”
When amateur cyclist and Netflix “Icarus” director Bryan Fogel set out to make a film about doping in sports, he wanted to show how athletes master the art of evading detection by taking performance-enhancing drugs himself and attempting to pass anti-doping laboratory tests.
But while Fogel’s personal experiment is very much a part of “Icarus,” it’s the participation of renegade Russian scientist Dr. Grigory Rodchenkov, a pillar of Russia’s anti-doping program, that catapults the film into another realm: exposing Russia’s state-sponsored doping program.
Turns out, Rodchenkov, who advised Fogel on drugs, dosage and even smuggled his urine samples to Russia for testing, was the mastermind and eventual whistleblower behind Russia’s state-sponsored doping program. He became the center of an investigation into Russian doping during filming.
On a recent episode of “Salon Talks,” Fogel commented on directing “Icarus,” streaming now on Netflix, and his relationship with Rodchenkov.
On how Russia is reacting to the film:
I don’t think that anyone can be surprised that Russia is going to be upset by this film. We’re also going to continue to see, just like we see in the film, Russia’s denial. I mean, their government essentially holds no accountability to the truth, so I think that their reaction is going to stay on par with what we’ve already seen in the media to how they’ve reacted to election hacking, et cetera.
On becoming a character in his own film, similar to Morgan Spurlock’s role in “Super Size Me“:
I was committed to the project. I essentially got financing to basically stick myself with a lot of needles, dope, and see how much better I would do [at cycling] and evade positive detection. So I went all in and injected myself with a lot of hormones and vitamins and erythropoietin.
How did you develop trust with Dr. Grigory Rodchenkov? Why was he so open with you?
It was boggling, and it was head scratching. Everything that he was doing and everything that he was advising me on, he shouldn’t have been doing. This was against WADA (World Anti-Doping Agency) code. This was against all ethical conduct, that a lab director would be teaching me how to dope and then offering to smuggle my urine samples back to Russia to test them. But, on the other hand, this is what he had been doing his entire life, his entire career, and we developed a friendship.
Before the filming for “Icarus” even began, Fogel said he promised Rodchenkov that he would be able to watch what was filmed and assure that it would not harmful to him upon release.
Watch our entire conversation for more on the film.
Rush Limbaugh: Millennials think “Game of Thrones” is real!
(Credit: AP/Chris Carlson/HBO/Salon)
Rush Limbaugh, who unaccountably remains America’s most popular right-wing blowhard, has something he’d like you to know about those darn millennials. And it has nothing to do with those kids getting off his lawn.
No, it’s their obsession with “Game of Thrones” he’s all in a froth about.
During one of his rants on Monday, Limbaugh declared that the latest generation of young American adults is so disconnected from reality that they talk about the characters and events on HBO’s dragons-and-ice-zombies fantasy series as though they’re as real as baseball and football players.
“These are not characters,” he bleated. “These are actual people to them, ’cause it’s on a screen. In this case it’s TV or their iPad or their phone, whatever they’re watching. It’s people on a screen and that’s how they communicate with people, and the characters take on a reality component. It’s got me wondering about it.”
Limbaugh’s rant against young Americans and their apparent disconnect with reality makes (just a little bit of) sense when you consider that they’re one of the demographic least likely to be fans of his show, much less agree with him on anything.
American millennials, defined roughly as people born in the U.S. between 1980 and 2000, tend support of LGBT rights, lean left, favor gun control measures and are more ethnically and racially diverse. And they now number more than the population of aging white male Baby Boomers from whom Limbaugh draws most of his support.
At 66, Limbaugh may be throwing in the towel at any attempt to garner a younger audience, choosing instead get his crusty audience of rapidly aging “dittoheads” to nod in agreement about everything that’s wrong with the kids these days.
But in one sense, Limbaugh’s point carries some weight. Wait for it.
“[T]here are more and more of these stories about young people who have grown up with the internet and grown up with a screen, an iPod Touch or an iPhone or an iPad that they have withdrawn from society, that they do not meet people personally,” he said. “They’re isolated and their entire lives are spent with their phones, essentially, and however they communicate with people on their phones.”
Now, Rush might be exaggerating the isolation of young adults in today’s society (and the popularity of the iPod Touch). Yet, according to Jean Twenge, a professor of psychology at San Diego State University, who coined the term “iGen” — one Limbaugh used during his Monday screed — kids are indeed putting themselves at risk by spending too much time online.
In an article published in the latest issue of the Atlantic, Twenge argues that iGen children and young adults born between 1995 and 2012 are facing psychological problems linked to how much time they spend on social media instead of interacting with others face-to-face.
“It’s not an exaggeration to describe iGen as being on the brink of the worst mental health crisis in decades,” Twenge wrote. She warned that iGeners are more likely than young people a decade ago to say that they’re anxious or harbor symptoms of depression. They’re also more likely to talk about or attempt suicide. “Across the board, there’s a really consistent trend with mental health issues increasing among teens,” Twenge said in an interview Monday on NPR.
It’s a somewhat controversial article and position — does talking online cause more mental problems, or does it simply make teens more likely to admit they have them? — but they seem to be ones Limbaugh is aware of and has worked into his most recent assault on youngins. As said, he even dropping the term Tenge’s “iGen” term into his Monday rant.
That’s not to say Rush is particularly concerned with the welfare of kids these days. After all, they believe such nonsense: dragons, giants, magic, global warming, basic human decency. What’s the world coming to?
Reflections on the “Dangerous Delusions of Richard Dawkins”
(Credit: Shutterstock)
My article “The Dangerous Delusions of Richard Dawkins,” which appeared on AlterNet recently, has stirred up a veritable hornet’s nest of controversy. Within a few hours of publication, it has catalyzed over 350 comments, most of them antagonistic. To give a sense of the flavor and tone, here’s a typical entry:
Yep. This piece isn’t just fallacious, it is flagrantly intellectually dishonest. The only way for AlterNet to save face on this is to retract this tripe in its entirety.
I should have been prepared. In a recent article on Salon, Phil Torres writes how the New Atheist movement has degenerated into a tribal ethic of intolerance. His piece initiated its own torrent of comments, such as, “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever read.”
However, along with the vitriol, some arguments made in response to my article raise important issues worthy of a considered response. In the hope of catalyzing a more productive dialogue, I’ve attempted to distill what I see as the key criticisms and offer my feedback. I encourage a continuing discussion, in a civil and respectful tone, of what I see as vitally important topics regarding the underlying structures of thought that predominate in our civilization.
“Attacking the ‘Selfish Gene’ idea is a straw man tactic”
This is probably the most significant recurring critique of my article. I am accused of being disingenuous by attacking the “selfish gene” phrase, whereas Dawkins’ actual arguments are far more sophisticated and thoughtful than the book’s title would imply. Several readers refer to the 30th anniversary edition of “The Selfish Gene,” where in a new preface, Dawkins complains of simplistic attacks by “those philosophers who prefer to read a book by title only, omitting the rather extensive footnote which is the book itself.”
In fact, this was the very edition of “The Selfish Gene“ I read many years ago, at the outset of the research project that generated my book “The Patterning Instinct.” I’m afraid that if you read the “extensive footnote” of the book, you will see that Dawkins expands with literary flourish on the broader implications of his “selfish” theme:
The argument of this book is that we, and all other animals, are machines created by our genes. Like successful Chicago gangsters, our genes have survived, in some cases for millions of years, in a highly competitive world. This entitles us to expect certain qualities in our genes. I shall argue that a predominant quality to be expected in a successful gene is ruthless selfishness. This gene selfishness will usually give rise to selfishness in individual behavior…. Much as we might wish to believe otherwise, universal love and the welfare of the species as a whole are concepts that simply do not make evolutionary sense.
While Dawkins has to some extent disavowed his book’s title, I haven’t seen him disavow his book’s core argument.
Dawkins does state clearly that his description of the gene’s selfishness in no way justifies a moral code of selfishness. “Be warned,” he writes, “that if you wish, as I do, to build a society towards a common good, you can expect little help from biological nature.” Rather, Dawkins sees humans as being in a state of constant battle with their own genetic makeup. “Our brains,” he suggests, “have evolved to the point where we are capable of rebelling against our selfish genes.”
Thus, Dawkins proffers the image of a human as a battleground between the “state of nature” (our selfish genes) and our moral conscience. As I describe in “The Patterning Instinct,” this split vision of a human being can be traced back to Plato’s original dualistic construction of reason fighting bodily impulses, which became a founding precept of Christianity, as manifested in Paul’s narrative of his soul engaged in a struggle to the death with his body. It is ironic that Dawkins, an outspoken critic of Christianity, should have inherited this split conception of the human being from the very tradition he so vehemently opposes.
This view of the human condition is so widely accepted in Western thought that it might strike many as self-evident. However, it’s a viewpoint unique to the European tradition. Other cultures have seen humanity’s propensity to cooperate as intrinsic to human nature, something that has been validated by recent findings in cognitive anthropology.
“Only a metaphor”
A related criticism is that Dawkins didn’t mean genes are literally selfish (which of course is an absurdity), but was merely using it as a metaphor. Dawkins, once again, makes this argument himself in his preface to the 30th anniversary edition. However, metaphors have a deeply powerful influence in structuring how we think. The core metaphors of the cosmos held by various cultures have been instrumental in shaping the direction of history; they hide in plain sight within our cognition, becoming so entrenched in our thinking that we forget they are metaphors and begin to believe them as fact, along with the logical entailments that arise from them. In the words of cognitive linguist George Lakoff, “Metaphorical concepts… structure our present reality. New metaphors have the power to create a new reality.”
To see how this actually happens, we need look no further than the case of Enron, one of the grisliest examples of an unfettered capitalist ethos gone wild. Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling famously based his managerial philosophy of Darwinian survival on “The Selfish Gene,” his favorite book. Dawkins has disavowed Skilling’s flawed interpretation of his work, but the fact remains that millions of people throughout the world continue to believe in this myth of the “selfish gene” as a harsh but inevitable truth of nature. The core metaphors we use to think about ourselves and the universe have profound implications.
“Dawkins’ selfish gene argument is actually true”
In the words of one commenter, “Dawkins is a scientist, and would change his views if evidence were presented to really refute them. In respect of ‘The Selfish Gene’ no such evidence has been presented.”
As a cultural historian, not a scientist by training, I can only point to the work of countless biologists who have extended our understanding of evolution in recent decades to a far more sophisticated level than seeing the “gene” as the single unit of selection. New theories of multilevel selection and niche construction, studies of epigenetic inheritance, and the recognition that the word “gene” itself has no rigorous and consistent definition, all need to be fully incorporated into any systematic understanding of how nature and evolution actually work.
For those interested in pursuing this investigation further, I refer you to a sampling of my own research on this topic with some of the clearest expositions from recognized leaders in the field of evolutionary biology (see the footnote at the bottom of the page).
“Dawkins doesn’t support neoliberal politics”
I appreciate that Richard Dawkins himself is no proponent of modern laissez-faire corporate capitalism. I believe Dawkins is a highly ethical man with good intentions, and my critique of his ideas should not be taken in any way as ad hominem. I agree with much of his criticism of monotheistic beliefs (a chapter of my book chronicles what I call the “scourge of monotheistic intolerance”), and I wholeheartedly support his defense of science against climate denialism.
The problem is that, regardless of his intentions, the two core metaphors he has been so successful in propagating—the “selfish gene” and “nature as a machine”—have been widely accepted as reality in our society, with devastating consequences on both human relations and the natural world. My intention in writing this article (and my book) has been to draw attention to the implicit assumptions underlying our worldview that encourage us to think and behave collectively in destructive ways. It is only by becoming conscious of our own preconceptions that we can shift our cognition toward patterns that can be more beneficial for ourselves and the world at large.
“Systems science is soft-headed New Age thinking”
A number of comments are strangely vitriolic about my assessment of findings in systems sciences, such as complexity theory and systems biology that emphasize the importance of connectivity. There seems to be an underlying widely held belief that any non-reductionist view of reality must be woolly headed New Age nonsense. One commenter calls it a “hippy-dippy notion of an inter-cooperative cosmos” and another as “vacuous, feel-good New Age-y Kumbaya bullshit.”
These responses are sad and somewhat mystifying. There are countless peer-reviewed journals dedicated to disseminating findings in systems-related disciplines. Some of the greatest scientists and mathematicians of the modern age—Ilya Prigogine, Erwin Schrödinger, Edward Lorenz, and Benoit Mandelbrot, to name just a few—have devoted distinguished careers to developing a better understanding of how complex systems work. For anyone interested in learning more about this important alternative to the reductionist view of the universe, and its potential implications for future human flourishing, I refer you to this page on my website.
As I state in my article, I believe Dawkins and his followers are responsible for presenting a false choice to thinking people everywhere: that to reject monotheistic superstition they have to believe in reductionism. The recognition that there are underlying principles that apply to all living things, and that humans and nature are interdependent, offers a framework for making sense of humanity’s place in the universe that is intrinsically meaningful. I invite those who reflexively dismiss these ideas as “New Age nonsense” to study the rigorous science underlying them, and enter into a respectful, generative dialogue into their deep philosophical and social implications.
Five lies that are ricocheting around the right-wing media bubble
Rush Limbaugh; Donald Trump; Sean Hannity (Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite/Getty/Mandel Ngan/Saul Loeb)
Spend enough time on the comments sections of the right-wing internet, and the significant number of people who hold beliefs based on completely false premises will become all too apparent. In this world, fact checks and hard evidence are all too easily flicked away with accusations of liberal bias, making civil discourse increasingly hostile and polarized at the expense of truth.
That’s because these audiences have been trapped under a tight bubble right-wing media has built, an ecosystem that makes it hard for truth to seep in, while lies ricochet endlessly inside. The bubble holds strong because it’s sustained on the tired trope that the mainstream media is hiding liberal biases under a mask of objectivity. President Donald Trump has taken this worn-out concept to dangerous levels by constantly undermining and antagonizing media outlets that he deems critical of him. Trump’s war on the press has invigorated unscrupulous smear merchants and power-hungry zealots in control of messaging within the bubble to suggest they are an honest alternative to mainstream media — honest in that they openly acknowledge their right-wing bias — and present themselves as a solution to a fabricated problem.
And the bubble becomes increasingly impenetrable by design; the tighter its grip grows over audiences, the more power its purveyors can trade to a political establishment that both needs the bubble for its survival and fears its influence.
What follows are five examples of absolute lies promoted by right-wing media figures that will infinitely bounce among right-wing audiences trapped under the bubble, in an impervious layer of chicanery and manipulation that doesn’t allow fact-checking, evidence or reality to penetrate. Even after these lies have been debunked over and over again, we at Media Matters continue to see them pop up online and on the airwaves:
Lie #1: Fox News host Sean Hannity’s Seth Rich conspiracy theory
Fox News host Sean Hannity has grossly exploited the murder of a Democratic National Committee (DNC) staffer, Seth Rich, to push the baseless claim that Rich provided WikiLeaks with the 20,000 hacked DNC emails released in 2016 to hurt the Clinton campaign, and that his murder was connected to the emails. Even after the allegations were proved false, forcing Fox News to retract its story about Rich, Hannity continued to pushthe false narrative. Hannity, who said the murder “could become one of the biggest scandals in American history,” claimed that he would stop discussing the story “for now” in response to the Rich family’s pleas to stop exploiting Rich’s death. Hannity’s obsession with pushing the lie caused him to lose advertisers, demonstrating the risk his volatility presents to brands that associate with his show. On Aug. 1, a lawsuit filed against Fox News revealed that the baseless Seth Rich story had been pushed by the network and Ed Butowsky, a Trump supporter, with the purpose of deflecting public attention from the Trump administration’s ties to Russia.
Lie #2: Infowars host Alex Jones: “Pizzagate is real”
Infowars host Alex Jones relentlessly pushed the lie that a family-friendly pizza restaurant in Washington, DC served as a cover-up for a pedophilia ring that involved the top leadership of the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign. In one instance, Jones invited audience members of his show to take matters into their own hands and “investigate” because “Pizzagate is real.” On Dec. 4, 2016, Edgar Maddison Welch — a listener — entered the restaurant armed with a rifle to “self-investigate” the false allegations. Following the terrifying incident, Jones attempted to scrub his website of Pizzagate-related content and falsely denied having promoted the lie; yet he also apologized under pressure to the owner of the restaurant.
Lie #3: Radio host Rush Limbaugh: NASA lied about finding water on Mars
Celebrated space scientist (er, talk radio host) Rush Limbaugh told his audience that NASA’s announcement that the agency had discovered evidence of water on Mars was a “technique to advance the leftist agenda . . . probably something to do with global warming.” The next day, reacting to online criticism, Limbaugh both doubled down, adding that then-President Barack Obama had “turned NASA over to Muslim outreach,” and — despite transcripts matching “word for word” what he said — claimed his lie had been taken “out of context.”
Lie #4: Fox & Friends: “Illegal aliens” are registered to vote
In an attempt to amplify the narrative that voter fraud is rampant, Fox’s morning talk show (and Trump’s favorite show) Fox & Friends pushed the lie that “voter fraud isn’t really a myth at all.” The segment hyped a flawed and debunked claim about illegal voting in Virginia and speculated that undocumented immigrants were registered to vote. This recurring and widespread lie made its way to Trump’s Twitter feed after the election, where he claimed that millions voted illegally in the election, a claim that holds no truthwhatsoever.
In reality, experts agree that “the rate of voter fraud in American elections is close to zero” and that the rates of noncitizens voting are low, occurring when people are “confused about their eligibility.”
In reality, experts agree that voter fraud in American elections is a myth, as cases of voter fraud are extremely rare. Data also shows that the rates of non-citizens voting are low, only occurring when people are “confused about their eligibility.”
Lie #5: Breitbart.com: “Mob” of Muslims tried to burn down a German church
On Jan. 3, Breitbart reported the false story that a “1,000-man mob” had attacked police and set a German church on fire. The story was condemned by local police and politicians as well as debunked by local, national and international media outlets. The reality was that as 1,000 people were gathered in the streets celebrating the new year, some set off fireworks, and one firework started a small fire — which was quickly extinguished — on the netting around the church’s scaffolding. Breitbart responded by triumphantly claiming that the outlets debunking the story were in fact confirming it, showing facts won’t get in the way of its ongoing effort to amplify anti-Muslim sentiments.
A history of global warming, in just 35 seconds
(Credit: AP Photo/John Amis)
Last year, there was the temperature spiral. This year, it’s the temperature circle that’s making the trend of global warming crystal clear.
A new video shows the rhythm of global warming for countries around the world, from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe. Bars representing each country’s annual average temperature anomaly pulse up and down. It’s like watching a heartbeat on a monitor.
Rather than staying steady like a normal heartbeat, it’s clear that temperatures for more than 100 countries are climbing ever higher on the back of increasing carbon pollution. While there are individual variations in how hot any year is, the signal of climate change is unmistakable.
“There are no single countries that clearly stand out from the graph,” said Antti Lipponen, a physicist at the Finnish Meteorological Institute who made the graphic. “The warming really is global, not local.”
While the temperature spiral showed the global average temperature, Lipponen’s animation uses NASA data to show individual countries separated by regions. The format invites you to look for your country or the place you took your vacation last year.
But step back to look at the graphic as a whole and it’s clear we’re all in this together. No country is immune from rising temperatures, let alone the other impacts of climate change.
It’s also clear that global warming is accelerating. In the past three decades (which starts around the 14-second mark in the video), the bars start pushing further and further from the center. Cooler-than-normal years start to become more rare and by the 1990s, they’ve almost disappeared completely.
The past three years have been the hottest ones ever recorded. A number of countries were more than 2°C warmer than the 1951-1980 baseline used in the graphic. That puts them well above the warming limit enshrined in the Paris Agreement, serving as a warning of how fast we’re pushing into new territory.
The world itself touched 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels for a few months in 2016. If global warming permanently crosses that threshold, it will likely cause small island states to be swallowed by the sea, coral to die and heat waves to become more common and severe.
Those numbers alone are abstract, though. Even plotted on a line graph, they fail to fully convey the trajectory we’re on.
Lipponen said he made the animation because he wanted a “nice looking, clear, and informative” way to convey that information in a way people can understand. Mission accomplished.
August 7, 2017
Extreme heat will hit India’s most vulnerable the hardest
(AP Photo/Anupam Nath) (Credit: AP)
A flurry of studies in recent months have laid bare the significant threat posed by extreme heat in a warming world. Perhaps nowhere is this threat more apparent than in India and other parts of South Asia, where intense heat waves collide with a large, vulnerable population.
If greenhouse gas emissions aren’t brought under control, global warming will boost heat waves in the region to the limits of what humans can endure on a yearly basis, a new study finds. But if action is taken to curb climate change the threat could be substantially reduced.
The expected future impacts also raise important questions of environmental justice, as the population that will be most impacted by extreme heat has contributed the least to climate change. It also highlights the contradiction between India’s reliance on coal to fuel its economic boom and the impacts its citizens might see.
“Our hope is that this [work] will inform the policy debate,” study author Elfatih Eltahir, of MIT, said.
The study “underscores the need for increased focus on the current and rising risks associated with extreme heat around the world, including understanding impacts on the most vulnerable,” Julie Arrighi, of the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre, said in an email.
‘Emerging hotspots’
India, and the rest of South Asia, is no stranger to exceptional heat, particularly in the weeks before the summer monsoon kicks in, bringing cooling rains. Many people in the country of 1 billion lack access to air conditioning and nearly half its labor force works outdoors in agriculture.
Major heat waves in 2010, 2013 and 2015 killed thousands of people; the 2015 event was the fifth deadliest heat wave on record, killing 3,500 people in India and Pakistan.
The overall warming of the planet from the excess heat trapped by greenhouse gases has already made such heat waves more common, more intense and longer-lasting in the region, according to a study published in June. The odds of a heat wave killing at least 100 people have doubled since 1960, even with the relatively modest 0.9°F (0.5°C) of warming over that time, the study found.
As global temperatures continue to rise, that trend will only be exacerbated. The impacts come not only from higher temperatures, but also from humidity, which blocks the body’s natural coping mechanism, sweat.
The authors of the new study, published Wednesday in the journal Science Advances, used global climate models and high-resolution regional models that better capture details of local weather and geography to look at how warming would impact these factors. They used a measure called wet-bulb temperature, which gives the effective temperature factoring in humidity levels. (It differs from the heat index because wet-bulb temperature takes wind speed and other factors into account.)
It is generally thought that a wet-bulb temperature of 95°F (35°C) is the limit of what even a healthy human can endure over a few hours. Wet-bulb temperatures have rarely exceeded 88°F (31°C) anywhere on Earth, but are starting to bump up to such levels around the Persian Gulf and Red Sea, in South Asia and eastern China.
“These are the emerging hotspots for heatwaves,” Eltahir said.
Pushing the limit
He and his colleagues previously looked at how heat waves would evolve with warming in the Middle East and found that region will likely be home to the highest wet-bulb temperatures the world will see. (Bandar Mahshahr in Iran hit a wet-bulb temperature of nearly 95°F during a 2015 heat wave, which translates to a heat index of about 163°F (73°C).) But South Asia poses the bigger concern in terms of threats to people, as it is home to one fifth of the world’s population and is an area of deep poverty.
“That combination is what makes, what shapes this acute vulnerability,” Eltahir said.
Eltahir and his colleagues found that if greenhouse gas emissions continue on their current trajectory, parts of eastern India and Bangladesh will exceed the 95°F threshold by century’s end and most of South Asia will approach that threshold.
If emissions are substantially curtailed and global temperature rise meets the 2°C (3.6°F) limit agreed to in the Paris accord, no place in South Asia would exceed 95°F, though wet-bulb temperatures over 88°F would be widespread. Such temperatures can still be deadly, especially to already vulnerable populations like the elderly.
The study found that a heat event that would happen on average once every 25 years today would happen every year if emissions aren’t brought under control and every other year with substantial reductions.
“This paper adds to the fast growing body of information showing how bad climate change is and will be for humanity,” Camilo Mora, a climate scientist at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, said in an email. Mora published a recent study showing that more than half the world’s population will be subject to potentially deadly heat waves even with substantial emissions cuts.
The areas that will see substantial increases in deadly heat in South Asia include urban areas, like Lucknow, a city of 2.9 million in Uttar Pradesh state, as well as the densely populated Indus and Ganges river valleys. Those spots are home to poor populations primarily engaged in agriculture, leaving them exposed to the worst heat of the day.
The findings of the study raise issues of environmental justice, Eltahir said, as these populations experiencing the brunt of global warming have done the least to cause it. The study also points to a contradiction India must face: To date, the country has relied heavily on coal to help fuel its economic expansion, but continued fossil fuel burning will bring harm to its own citizens.
“It brings in that debate at the national level,” instead of leaving it in the realm of more abstract global temperatures, Eltahir said.
Some Indian cities have put in place, or are in the process of instituting, heat health action plans to better prepare and warn residents of the risk of heat waves. Ahmedabad, in the western state of Gujarat, has been the poster child for this effort. The city developed a plan after a 2010 heat wave killed 1,300 people. During a 2015 heat wave, there were only 20 heat-related deaths in the city of 7 million.
“Understanding heat wave risks and how various groups such as the most vulnerable are affected by heat waves is critical” to preventing heat-related illnesses and deaths, Arrighi said.
5 skills — from empathy to manners — that tech might be eroding (and what to do about it)
(Credit: Kostenko Maxim via Shutterstock)
You started with the best intentions. Your kid needed a laptop for homework. Your tween needed a phone to text you after school. You wanted a Fitbit to lose a few extra pounds. But now, you look around and devices are plugged into every nook and cranny in your home. Everyone’s staring, tapping, tracking. While you’re grateful for things like Google Maps and Netflix that make your life easier and more fun, something feels off.
It’s the basics that are missing: courtesy, conversation, being bored, and appreciating simple pleasures.
But all hope is not lost. You may have to take another look at how your family is using tech and make adjustments based on your values. But you can do it. Here are five ways tech has nibbled away at valuable life skills and experiences, and what you can do about it.
Home assistants vs. Manners
If you are one of the millions of households in the United States with Alexa or Google Home, you may have noticed an unfortunate side effect of using the device: a lack of enforced courtesy. Kids (and adults) shout commands at the device: “Play Beyoncé!” or “What’s the weather?!” The devices do not require a “please” or “thank you,” and the more lifelike these devices become, the weirder it is to hear your child rudely demanding something from a humanlike voice.
What to do: Model the behavior you want to see. It might feel strange to say “please” to a machine, but if that’s what you expect from your kid, you should do it too. It might help explain to kids that even though you know Alexa doesn’t have feelings, using polite voices and words makes it nicer for the real people in the house who do have feelings. You can talk about how it can feel bad to be around someone who’s yelling or angry, even if they’re not yelling at you.
Phones vs. Respect for elders
How many of us have witnessed a teacher, coach, or grandparent try to make conversation with kids who can’t unglue their eyes from a screen? Of course it’s only polite to put down your phone when anyone is talking to you, but it can be especially embarrassing for parents who were raised to defer to the older generation.
What to do: Make your expectations very clear. Talk to your kids about how important it is to use good manners when you’re on your phone. Explain that it can be very difficult to put down your phone when you’re in the middle of a game or chat, but you believe it’s important to pay special respect to people like grandparents and elders. And of course, respect breeds respect, so put your phone down when your kid talks to you (unless it’s about how much redstone they need to build a castle in Minecraft, in which case it’s totally OK to ignore them!).
Internet vs. Value of boredom
When a phone full of cute cat videos and funny memes is only a swipe away, it’s easy to forget what it was like to be truly bored. But science tells us that boredom is actually useful — for kids and adults. Not only can boredom lead to deep thinking, it can help kids practice perseverance, or pushing through uncomfortable moments without stimulation or distraction. And without boredom, kids might not take the time to explore their surroundings — dig in the dirt, wonder how a house is built, bake cookies without a recipe — and they might not stumble on something they really love to do.
What to do: Create opportunities for boredom by setting up times and places where devices are off-limits. And make sure kids have unstructured time — even a little bit — where they can roam the house or the neighborhood without a schedule. Keep a list of activities that kids say they like to do — from drawing to hammering to bouncing a ball — and point them toward it when they complain.
Activity trackers vs. Activity for its own sake
If you’ve ever taken a walk with someone who’s trying to get steps, it can be hard to concentrate on the conversation while they’re jogging in place, hopping up and down, and constantly checking their device. Activity trackers — while useful for many — tend to distract from the activity itself. And if we want kids to appreciate the beauty of their surroundings, the comfort of a meandering conversation, or even the rush of endorphins that can come with a strenuous walk, we need to emphasize the benefits of the activity, rather than the quantification of the actions.
What to do: First, don’t buy your kid an activity tracker unless they need it for a specific reason. Second, engage in lots of outdoor activity and fun exercise, and comment on how good it feels. And last, model the behavior and values you want to see in your kid — even if you’re tracking your steps, wait until the walk is over to check your progress, for example.
Devices vs. Empathy
The mere presence of a phone on the table between two people having a discussion has been shown to decrease feelings of empathy. Whether this is because the phone owner is distracted by the possibility of an incoming message or the promise of something more interesting on the device is unclear. But it makes sense that if someone isn’t giving you their full attention, they’re less likely to understand or empathize with you, and ultimately that can affect the quality of the relationship.
What to do: Prioritize face-to-face conversation over devices by putting phones and tablets out of site during meals. Recognize your thought pattern during conversations, and if you find yourself wondering about a missed call or guessing how many people liked your most recent Instagram post, refocus your concentration on your friend, spouse, or kid. And acknowledge how difficult digital distraction can be to manage yourself so that your kids understand that you think it’s an important challenge to wrestle with.
Do we have too many national monuments? 4 essential reads
FILE - This Jan. 20, 2011 file photo shows shadows creeping up on sandstone cliffs glowing red as the sun sets on Zion National Park near Springdale, Utah. The National Park Service is taking steps to ban drones from 84 million acres of public lands and waterways, saying the unmanned aircraft annoy visitors, harass wildlife and threaten safety. Jonathan Jarvis, the park services director, told The Associated Press he was signing a policy memorandum on Friday directing superintendents of the services 401 parks to write rules prohibiting the launching, landing or operation of unmanned aircraft in their parks. (AP Photo/Julie Jacobson, file) (Credit: AP Photo/Julie Jacobson, file)
Editor’s note: The following is a roundup of archival stories.
Under an order from President Trump, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke is reviewing the status of 27 national monuments that were designated or expanded by presidents as far back as Jan. 1, 1996, using authority under the Antiquities Act.
Conservation groups and Native American tribes strongly support creating national monuments to protect sensitive lands and public resources from development or exploitation. But other stakeholders, including adjoining communities and businesses that use the areas in question, often view these steps as federal land grabs. The Interior Department received more than 1.2 million public comments on the review.
Zinke has already said he will recommend scaling back Bears Ears National Monument in Utah and has removed three sites in Colorado, Idaho and Washington from the review list. He is scheduled to issue recommendations for the remaining 24 sites by August 24. They could include rescinding some national monument designations or altering boundaries.
Can the Trump administration do that, and what’s at stake? Our experts offer some answers.
The law that started it all
Congress passed the Antiquities Act in 1906 to give presidents power to protect land quickly, without having to get consent from Congress. Initially it was meant to preserve historically valuable archaeological sites in the Southwest that were being looted by “pot hunters” and scavengers.
But as Boise State University public policy scholar John Freemuth observes, presidents soon were using it much more expansively – and affected interests pushed back:
“Use of the Antiquities Act has fueled tensions between the federal government and states over land control – and not just in the Southwest region that the law was originally intended to protect. Communities have opposed creating new monuments for fear of losing revenues from livestock grazing, energy development, or other activities, although such uses have been allowed to continue at many national monuments.”
Freemuth predicts that “future designations will succeed only if federal agencies consult widely in advance with local communities and politicians to confirm that support exists.” One question Zinke is considering is whether there was enough consultation in connection with the monuments on his list.
The value of national monuments
Today national monuments protect many unique resources. As law professors Michelle Bryan and Monte Mills of the University of Montana and Sandra B. Zellmer of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln point out, looting is still a serious threat to prehistoric rock art and ruins in western states.
Monuments such as Bears Ears also protect places where indigenous people have lived, hunted and worshiped for centuries. The Bears Ears designation was requested by an intertribal coalition and approved after extensive consultation with tribal governments.
Many national monuments also protect scenic lands and areas that are critical habitat for endangered species, such as desert tortoises and California condors. In sum, the authors assert, Trump’s order:
“. . . makes no mention of the extraordinary economic, scientific and cultural investments we have made in those monuments over the years. Unless these losses are considered in the calculus, our nation has not truly engaged in a meaningful assessment of the costs of second-guessing our past presidents.”
Ocean mega-monuments
Under the Antiquities Act, monuments are supposed to be as small as possible in order to be consistent with conservation. But when the goal is to protect whole ecosystems, bigger is usually better.
The Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument, which was created by President George W. Bush and expanded dramatically by President Barack Obama, is the largest ocean reserve on the planet, covering nearly 600,000 square miles. That’s a huge step forward for protecting marine life, but a massive management challenge, according to Pomona College professor of environmental analysis Char Miller:
“I understand why [President Obama] is moving with dispatch (a mash-up of legacy building and opportunity knocks). But I worry that the speed with which these sites have been designated, and their disparate fiscal demands, has outstripped the executive branch’s capacity to underwrite them. My worry is magnified given the strong opposition in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives to the president’s ready use of the Antiquities Act.”
Can presidents unmake national monuments?
If Zinke recommends abolishing or shrinking some national monuments, can President Trump do it by himself? The Antiquities Act doesn’t say anything on this point.
But when we asked four environmental law experts, their view based on other environmental statutes and legal opinions was that such acts would require congressional approval.
Moreover, they noted, Congress has reversed only 10 national monument designations in more than a century. More frequently, it has opted to give these sites even more protection by promoting them into national parks:
“Congress has converted many monuments into national parks, including Acadia, the Grand Canyon, Arches and Joshua Tree. These four parks alone attracted over 13 million visitors in 2016. The aesthetic, cultural, scientific, spiritual and economic value of preserving them has long exceeded whatever short-term benefit could have been derived without legal protection.”
Jennifer Weeks, Editor, Environment and Energy, The Conversation
