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Native Rights Rising: Standing Tall At Standing Rock
The scene was eerily reminiscent of Selma and Birmingham.

Snarling, trained attack dogs ripping into the flesh of peaceful protesters, drawing blood. Only this time, instead of police batons being used to club people over the head, private security forces sprayed mace into people's eyes. This time, instead of African Americans being beaten in the Deep South, Native Americans were being assaulted in the Upper Midwest.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, a video is worth a million. Click on this Democracy Now! VIDEO LINK to see for yourself the sickening scene that played out near Cannon Ball, North Dakota over the Labor Day weekend, where eyewitnesses reported a pregnant woman attacked, a small child bitten and 30 people pepper sprayed. Others were punched and tackled. The unprovoked attack came on the 153rd anniversary of the Whitestone massacre, when the U.S. Army killed more than 300 members of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe.

Just as the conscience of America was jolted awake by the shocking images of peaceful civil rights defenders being violently set upon in the '60s, so is it being aroused today by the horrifying sight of peaceful native rights defenders being brutalized.

Thousands of water protectors, representing hundreds of Indigenous tribes from across the U.S. and Canada, have gathered at the Sacred Stone Camp in North Dakota to stand in solidarity with the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe in what tribal Chairman Dave Archambault II calls a "prayerful and peaceful" standoff against the Dakota Access pipeline. The fracked oil pipeline -- which would run from North Dakota to Illinois and snake through treaty lands and under the Missouri River -- threatens to worsen the climate emergency and contaminate the drinking water supply of millions of people.

Appallingly, construction of the pipeline was approved by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers over the objections of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Department of the Interior and the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation. In a March 11 letter to the Army Corps, the EPA warned: "Crossings of the Missouri River have the potential to affect the primary source of drinking water for much of North Dakota, South Dakota, and Tribal nations."

The Labor Day weekend altercation was sparked by the pipeline company's unconscionable demolition of sacred Indigenous burial and cultural sites. In a statement to the media, Chairman Archambault described the bulldozing as "devastating," saying:

These grounds are the resting places of our ancestors. The ancient cairns and stone prayer rings there cannot be replaced. In one day, our sacred land has been turned into hollow ground.

Imagine this being done to the graves of white people. I can't.

Try to feel the heart-rending words of Standing Rock Sioux tribal historian and genealogist LaDonna Brave Bull Allard, whose great-great-grandmother miraculously survived the 1863 Whitestone massacre, and who co-founded the Sacred Stone Camp to resist the Dakota Access pipeline:

I don't understand why we are expendable in America. I keep telling people, we do our best. We have always been here. This is our land. Why should we fight to live on our own land? Why should we have to do that over and over again? We start our lives. We do our best to live. Why? I would never hurt anybody. I have always done my best to do good things in my community. Why can't they just let us live? We love this land. And half of the time I feel bad, because they make us feel bad for loving this land.

Why, indeed? In August, Archambault appealed to President Obama (who personally visited the Standing Rock tribal community in 2014), saying "if there's any way he can intervene and move this pipeline off our treaty lands, I'm asking him."

Well, there is a way. The president can revoke the permits for the project. In fact, he has been urged to do just that by more than 30 national organizations. So far, he has refused to take this step, but last Friday, bowing to tribal pressure, the Department of Justice, the Department of the Army and the Department of the Interior jointly declared a pause in construction on some federally controlled lands, which includes the Missouri River crossing.

This is huge, but don't be deceived into thinking Obama has stopped the Dakota Access pipeline. He only paused it temporarily, providing convenient political cover for presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton, who has been conspicuously silent on the issue. On her campaign's website, Clinton promises to "stand for Tribal sovereignty and in support of Tribal resources and sacred sites." So why is she not speaking out against the pipeline? If her words are to mean anything at all, she must stand now with the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, or find herself again standing on the wrong side of history.

In stark contrast to Obama and Clinton, U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) made an unprecedented effort to engage tribal communities during his historic presidential campaign, and is demonstrating real political leadership by standing shoulder-to-shoulder with our Native brothers and sisters in their time of need. He has been unequivocal in his support for native rights:

Regardless of the court's decision, the Dakota Access pipeline must be stopped. As a nation, our job is to break our addiction to fossil fuels, not increase our dependence on oil. I join with the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and the many tribal nations fighting this dangerous pipeline.

President Obama and Secretary Clinton need to heed the words of Yakama Nation Tribal Chairman JoDe Goudy, who declared:

Together, we express to the U.S. government that now, more than ever, is the time to fulfill the trust obligations laid out within the treaties and historical interactions with the Native peoples of this land. Until such things come to pass, the spirit and voice of all peoples shall unite with Standing Rock. One voice, one heart, and one spirit to speak for those things that cannot speak for themselves.

Such nobility of spirit -- in the face of violent corporate provocations and our government's dark history of atrocities against Native Peoples -- is awe-inspiring. Yet here we are centuries later, and not only has there been no serious attempt to right the wrongs of the past, but the suffering of Native Americans continues.

Stopping the Dakota Access pipeline will not heal Mother Earth, or the deep wounds and intergenerational trauma inflicted on such a proud and noble people, but it could mark a turning point towards making peace with the planet, and begin a long overdue national conversation on truth, reconciliation and treaty rights.

Just as the civil rights movement once forged a more just nation, so does the native rights movement now promise to do the same. This, of course, will require a national reckoning on honoring the treaties, something I believe most Americans would welcome. I also believe most Americans know injustice when they see it and stand -- in their hearts -- with Standing Rock.

To learn how you can help, please go to these links: Sacred Stone Spirit Camp and The Red Warrior Camp. No more broken promises.

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Images From Offworld (25 photos)

Robotic probes launched by NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), and others are gathering information all across the solar system. We currently have spacecraft in orbit around the Sun, Venus, Earth, Mars, Ceres, a comet, Jupiter, and Saturn; two operational rovers on Mars; and a recent close flyby of Pluto. Astronauts aboard the International Space Station are still performing experiments in low Earth orbit and sending back amazing photos. With all these eyes in the sky, I'd once again like to put together a recent photo album of our solar system—a set of family portraits—as seen by our astronauts and mechanical emissaries. This time, we have a photo of a long-lost lander found on the surface of a comet, new images of Jupiter's polar regions, color photos from the surface of Mars, a double eclipse of the Sun, and, of course, lovely images of our home, planet Earth.

This image from NASA's Juno spacecraft provides a never-before-seen perspective on Jupiter's south pole. The JunoCam instrument acquired the view on August 27, 2016, when the spacecraft was about 58,700 miles (94,500 kilometers) above the polar region. At this point, the spacecraft was about an hour past its closest approach, and fine detail in the south polar region is clearly resolved. Unlike the equatorial region's familiar structure of belts and zones, the poles are mottled by clockwise and counterclockwise rotating storms of various sizes, similar to giant versions of terrestrial hurricanes. The south pole has never been seen from this viewpoint, although the Cassini spacecraft was able to observe most of the polar region at highly oblique angles as it flew past Jupiter on its way to Saturn in 2000. (JPL-Caltech / SwRI / MSSS / NASA)

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Growing Social Inequality Requires Global Business Community to Rethink Sustainability Plans
Companies are having to do a difficult balancing act with their sustainability plans. On one hand, they must focus on environmental goals such as improving the efficiency of their water use and reduce their waste and emissions. On the other, they must engage with a growing set of social pressures that undermine their license to operate: unequal access to water and land, food insecurity, and youth unemployment surrounding them in the developing countries in which they operate.

The challenge with this is that business leaders tend to be more comfortable with the environmental goals, which require technical, engineering and managerial acumen, than the social pressures, which call for more complex political engagement. However technology alone cannot solve the problem of social inequality, which is increasingly testing the credibility of even the most sophisticated corporate sustainability plans.

Pivotal to these issues are the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the new universal framework that captures the scope of these issues, providing a vision for positive change. Much has been made of the role that business should play in advancing the SDGs, as most of the issues advocated by the SDGs - from decent work to taxation or pollution - are directly material to business operations and growth. However, only a small handful of companies have so far managed to develop credible and meaningful approaches that don't feel superficial or tokenistic.

Business diplomacy for sustainable development

In the absence of clear signals from national governments on which SDGs the private sector should focus on in their country, companies have to hone their 'business diplomacy' skills for sustainable development. This idea recognizes that business will have to work with local actors on real solutions that improve the social and environmental conditions where they operate. For companies, it means seeing the SDGs as a 'materiality framework'; identifying the local development challenges that pose material risks to their business and becoming proactive agents of change.

For example, food and agriculture companies sourcing commodities from countries like Indonesia or Paraguay, are unequivocally exposed to illegal deforestation and land tenure conflicts in their supply chains. This is a product of weak local governance; and it undermines credibility when companies commit publicly to 'zero-deforestation' or 'zero land-grabbing' targets for their value chains. The only way companies can overcome these risks is by partnering with governments to strengthen land tenure and forest governance in countries that are vital to their operations.
Only a very small number of multinationals have taken the bold step of managing land tenure risks by helping communities secure their land titles. However this is the right strategic choice for companies making long-term investments in regions where social inequality and poor governance undermine sustainable land-use.

Similarly, in much of the African continent, high unemployment rates are pushing governments to impose high 'local content' requirements on companies in export-oriented sectors like extractives. This means companies must hire a majority of local people - a demand businesses see as a risk to projects and a short sighted way to promote jobs in the country. Helping governments to create employment on a greater scale, for example by supporting SME development and using their procurement channels to support local enterprises, must be a priority for these companies. They must aim to rally, individually and collectively, around the SDGs on decent work and implement partnerships with governments that visibly strengthen local economies.

Assimilating local priorities

Social inequality and poor governance are real obstacles to the growth of organisations in emerging markets. Adopting a 'business diplomacy' position means involving corporate functions beyond sustainability, for example including strategists and government affairs departments to maximize the role of corporate lobbying as a force for positive change.

Strengthening decision-making through 'business diplomacy' goes way beyond a linear problem/solution approach. It requires companies to develop a holistic view of interdependent development factors that are shaping their local reality. It requires public-private partnerships to consider how to build the capacity of governments to address inequality.

With tremendous stress factors at play, the private sector has no choice but to engage with sustainable development agenda. The SDGs provide a useful framework to identify material business risks; and companies must use that framework to align their direction of travel for their growth to be sustainable too.

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Agriculture: Great Social Value for Money

Without doubt, agriculture either directly or indirectly impacts every single person on this planet. Agriculture not only feeds us all, but feeds our economy. In developed nations this industry is often taken for granted, because food is so available, we forget where it comes from and when we are facing a world full of challenges it is often easy to be distracted by other seemingly more 'prevalent' problems. But a recent study by the Copenhagen Consensus Center has revealed that helping agriculture do better is one of the highest impact ways to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals of the UN. The target to increase agricultural yields by 40% has been identified as one of the 19 out of 169 targets that represent best value for money.

This report suggests that investing an extra $2.5 billion per year in agricultural research and development to boost yields will reduce food prices for poor people, resulting in 80 million fewer hungry people and provide benefits worth $84 billion per year.

Throughout the last year and half, the Copenhagen Consensus Center has published 100+ peer-reviewed analyses from 82 of the world's top economists and 44 sector experts along with many UN agencies and NGOs. These have established how effective 169 targets would be in terms of social value-for-money. An Expert Panel including two Nobel Laureates has reviewed this research and identified 19 targets that represent the best value-for-money in development over the period 2016 to 2030, offering more than $15 back on every dollar invested.

One of the first things to scale up should be support to agriculture, along with investments in education and health. In particular, the report cites "free trade, educating pre-schoolers in Africa, nutrition and ensuring greater gender equality for women."

Of the 19, several reflect agriculture, food security and nutrition, and rural lives:

Lower chronic child malnutrition by 40%: Providing nutritional supplements, deworming, and improving the balance of diet for 0-2 year olds will cost $11bn and prevent 68m children from being malnourished every year
Reduce trade restrictions (full Doha) Achieving more free trade (e.g. the Doha round) would make each person in the developing world $1,000 richer per year by 2030, lifting 160m people out of extreme poverty at a cost of $20bn per year Improve gender equality in ownership, business and politics
Ensuring women can own and inherit property, perform basic business needs like signing a contract and be represented in parliament will empower women
Boost agricultural yield growth by 40% Investing an extra $2.5bn per year in agricultural R&D to boost yields will reduce food prices for poor people, mean 80m fewer people go hungry and provide benefits worth $84bn per year

Related to my prior article, it also cites the importance of tackling malaria, tuberculosis, and cut early death from chronic disease. They also bravely and rightly identify the importance of combatting HIV through circumcision. Just circumcising HIV-negative men in the 5 worst affected countries will cost $35m annually and avert 1.1m infections by 2030.

All 169 targets have global support. Having had the good fortune to engage in the process as a non-state actor, it was moving to see the globe come together and agree an Agenda to see us through 2030. Now as we move to a period of action and implementation, there is a risk that the "indivisibility" of these goals leaves everyone unable to know how to start. It is unrealistic to assume that every government has the resources to achieve all of the 169 targets right away.

Somethings are going to need to come first and to benefit from an ongoing review and consultation process that provides for continuous improvement. When prioritizing 19 targets first it is equivalent to doubling or quadrupling foreign aid, according to the Centre. We need to invest more in our agriculture systems if we want to achieve the SDG's and get the best social value for our money while doing so.

The overarching theme of the Sustainable Development Goals is to "leave no one behind", but if we don't get started quickly, we risk leaving many behind, especially those in rural areas.

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Grassroots Movements May Hold Key to Achieving the SDGs
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Discussing gender equality with women waste pickers from the National Waste Pickers Movement (MNCR) in Brazil.

The Sustainable Development Goals have set out an ambitious and worthy agenda to "transform our world" by 2030--one that can only be achieved if grassroots movements are included in the process. For waste management--an increasing issue in developing cities around the world--this is especially true.

Waste management is present in several of the new SDGs, especially goals 1 ("No Poverty"), 6 ("Clean Water and Sanitation") and 12 ("Responsible Consumption and Production"). Waste pickers, formally recognized or not, play an important role in cities' solid waste systems. At WIEGO, we recently conducted a five-city study that shows how waste pickers provide a range of key services, including waste removal (in some of the cities this is the only service available in particular areas), transportation, recovery of recyclables, value-aggregation, semi-processing and even composting and biogas production. In Belo Horizonte, Brazil, waste picker cooperatives open doors for workers and create opportunities for people, sometimes even the homeless, as workers in their cooperatives. Unless cities in the developing world build on existing systems - and understand the valuable contributions of informal waste pickers in these systems - they may fail to improve solid waste management standards and achieve poverty-reduction goals established in the SDGs.

Informal waste pickers' contributions to the environment, employment, and the economy are usually maximized when they work as collectives. Their ability to contribute more effectively to realizing the SDGs is strengthened by organized work. Organizations of the working poor enhance human capital by providing its members with the tools, skills, and capabilities that make them able to act in new ways. This, in turn, enhances social capital because it creates the ambience to change relations among persons in ways that facilitate action.

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Women waste pickers from the Redesol Network in Brazil.

Realizing the SDGs will require the ability of individuals and organizations to join forces in the design and implementation of sensible urban policies and sound local governance. Organizations of informal workers across sectors are ready to mobilize and actively contribute to the implementation of the news goals with local authorities. For this to happen, informal waste workers need to be included in multi-stakeholder policy dialogues and permanent forums addressing concrete problems.

One good example is how informal recyclers in Brazil, together with actors from governments, NGOs, and the private sector, joined forces to form the waste and citizenship forums in the late 1990´s, which were crucial in raising standards in solid waste management (SWM) in that country and in integrating these workers into municipal recycling systems in many cities. As a result, more funds were made available to the sector (for upgrading of disposal sites; infrastructure for recycling; and opening of credit lines to membership-based organizations). Many social programmes were created for Brazil´s informal recyclers, which contributed to an important dimension of social justice - redistribution. Data from official data banks and non-profit organizations indicate improvements in waste disposal and an increase in recycling projects, and, therefore, in governance, as well.

Another good example is the "Mesas" in Peru. These were policy-dialogue platforms for waste pickers of that country in which government ministries, workers´ representatives and NGOs engaged together in a on-going process to address key problems faced by this sector group.

These two examples show how engaging with the informal workers in participatory platforms can contribute to effective problem solving. The ability of the SDGs to fulfill their transformative agenda depends on many factors, and one of them is empowered participatory governance. Empowered participatory governance means leaving no one behind in the process of discussing, shaping, and implementing the sustainable development goals. It means reaching out for the informal settlements, the working poor, youth, women, and other disadvantaged groups.

For the working poor, organizing in collectives to have their voices heard in rule-setting platforms holds the key to achieving development. Those working on implementing the SDGs should pay attention to grassroots movements of the working poor, as this may be one of the most important links to truly achieving sustainable development.

This post is part of a series produced by The Huffington Post to mark the occasion of the one-year anniversary of the adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs, or, officially, "Transforming Our World: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development"). The SDGs represent an historic agreement -- a wide-ranging roadmap to sustainability covering 17 goals and 169 targets -- but stakeholders must also be held accountable for their commitments. To see all the posts in the series, visit here.

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We Need to Use a Different Part of Our Brain to Crack the Sustainability Challenge
Former UN climate change negotiator Christiana Figueres has credited the teachings of Zen Buddhist master Thich Nhat Hanh for giving her the strength to play a leading role in last year's gruelling international climate talks.

Figueres was praised for her ability to bring warring factions together with warmth and calm, and for the pivotal role she played in securing agreement to limit global warming to below 2oC.

Buddhist meditation -- and its recent secular incarnation in mindfulness -- is clinically proven to help build resilience to cope with life's stresses. It's inspirational to know that it played a part in ensuring December's historic deal in Paris.

But Buddhists may also be on to something else very important for those of us interested sustainable living: we may have been using the wrong part of brain to crack the sustainability challenge.

I spent a month earlier in the summer as a guest at the San Francisco Zen Center - a monastery in the heart of the city.

I have had a long interest in Buddhist meditation, having sat a number of intense Vipassana meditation courses. I also have an academic background in neuroscience, so have followed the increasingly strong evidence for how meditation changes the structure of our brains and so how we perceive the world and behave in it.

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I was staying at the Zen Center as part of a trade. It is buying land to build 200 or so 'Zen-inspired Senior Living' units at the brilliant SOMO Village under development in Sonoma State, California.

SOMO Village's developers have created a visionary sustainability plan for the community, using Bioregional's One Planet Living framework. This is a set of ten intuitive and interrelated sustainability principles, from 'zero carbon energy' to 'health and happiness'.

For the Zen Center to be eligible to buy land in SOMO village, it must also create a response to the challenge of One Planet Living.

So, I traded food and accommodation to carry out a sustainability assessment of the Center's current operations in San Francisco and beyond. In this way, they could see how far they might need to stretch, and in what direction, to meet the requirements of becoming a true 'One Planet Community'.

What I learned was not what I expected.

The Zen Center's sustainability performance was exemplary

First, the Zen Center performed better against the One Planet Principles than any other organization I have ever come across. Its commitment to happiness, health and community was exemplary. This was allied to a commitment to local, organic, vegetarian food, renewable energy, water conservation and care for nature.

Of course not everything is perfect, but the Buddhist tradition of compassion for all beings - not just humans - seems to help their exceptional aspiration and performance.

Second, I got to understand quite clearly the Buddhist belief, particularly expressed in the Zen tradition, that the intellect is only one way of perceiving the world. I had read the mind-bending 'Zen and Art of Motorcycle Maintenance' as a school boy and it had haunted me ever since. But I managed to put that ghost to rest.

Thinking is a small and murky window through which to view the world

During my time at the Zen Center I grew to realise that thinking engages only one part of our brain - and that thinking is very small and murky window through which to view and experience the world - exactly what Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance was communicating.

Thinking is the brain function we value most in our culture, yet we know that most of our decisions and behaviors are not rational. Using intellectual arguments can only very indirectly change our behavior.

Is there another way of experiencing and working with the world? Buddhists would say there is.

This involves developing the parts of the brain which experience the world without intellectualising it, judging it or dividing it. It is that experience of the world which sees us as part of space and time rather than as separate from it. It is an experience from which ego starts diminishing and compassion starts growing.

This is not airy fairy. It is actually closer to reality than we can ever get by thinking about it.

Through meditating we can start to perceive that we are not separate from the world

This is critically important for all of us. If, through meditating we start to perceive that we are part of the world, not separate to it, it makes it much harder for us to behave destructively towards other parts of it. The idea of harming other people, trees or the air would be, as some Buddhist teachers have described it, 'like my right hand chopping off my left hand'.

Our intellectualizing about environmental issues and hoping to change society and human behavior by providing information has been essential. But continuing to lead with information is doomed to fail. Decisions we make should not of course be opposed to what we think intellectually -- but meditating helps us change what and how we think.

So let us learn from the intellectual part of our brain but lead with another. Perceiving the world as being at one with it -- which is the reality -- might be the key we've been searching for. So don't give me any more facts, meditate!

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Which Presidential Candidates Do You Think Just Answered "20 Questions on Science"?
The nonprofit advocacy group ScienceDebate.org has received written answers to its "20 Most Important Science Questions."

Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, and Jill Stein all answered promptly and in some detail, Gary Johnson, the Libertarian, did not.

Here are the Questions and Answers.

Along with its partners in this effort -- a coalition of 56 leading U.S. science, medicine and engineering organizations representing more than 10 million people -- ScienceDebate.org not only calls on U.S. presidential candidates to address the 20 questions, but also encourages journalists, debate moderators and voters to press the candidates on them.

"These 2- issues have at least as profound an impact on voters' lives as those more frequently covered by journalists, including candidates' views on economic policy, foreign policy, and faith and values," said ScienceDebate.org chair Shawn Otto. This view is supported by a 2015 national poll commissioned by ScienceDebate.org and Research!America which revealed that a large majority of Americans (87 percent) want candidates for President and Congress to have a basic understanding of the science informing public policy.

The consortium crowd-sourced and refined hundreds of suggestions, then submitted the questions to the four campaigns along with an invitation to the candidates to discuss them on television, preferably in a live science debate (or forum) organized by the group.

"Ideally, the people seeking to govern a first-world country would have a basic understanding of everything from sustainable energy to environmental threats to evidence-based medicine," observed the Des Moines Register in a recent editorial. "They would talk about these things... Imagine if the public -- and debate moderators -- pressured presidential candidates to talk about the country's electrical grid or emerging disease threats instead of abortion and transgender bathrooms. Political discourse would be smarter. And the individuals who seek the highest office in the land might learn a few things, too."

The list of organizations supporting the 20 Questions project (see below) is a Who's Who of the American science enterprise.

To support ScienceDebate's effort to raise awareness of the vital role science plays in modern life, visit ScienceDebate.org. Other supporters and signatories include over 20 Nobel prizewinners, major actors, university presidents, tech leaders, hospitals and hospital leaders, journalists, science activists, and dozens of other science, health, medicine, and engineering advocates from across the nation.

**ScienceDebate.org
*American Association for the Advancement of Science
American Association of Geographers
*American Chemical Society
American Fisheries Society
American Geophysical Union
*American Geosciences Institute
*American Institute of Biological Sciences
American Institute of Professional Geologists
American Rock Mechanics Association
American Society for Engineering Education
American Society of Agronomy
American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists
American Society of Mammalogists
American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering
Association for Women Geoscientists
Association of Ecosystem Research Centers
Automation Federation
*Biophysical Society
Botanical Society of America
Carnegie Institution for Science
Conservation Lands Foundation
Crop Science Society of America
Duke University
Ecological Society of America
Geological Society of America
*IEEE-USA
International Committee Monitoring Assisted Reproductive Technologies
Materials Research Society
NACE International, The Worldwide Corrosion Authority
*National Academy of Engineering
*National Academy of Medicine
*National Academy of Sciences
National Cave and Karst Research Institute
*National Center for Science Education
National Ground Water Association
Natural Science Collections Alliance
Northeastern University
Organization of Biological Field Stations
Paleontological Society
*Research!America
Scientific American magazine
Seismological Society of America
*Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society
Society for Science & the Public
Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections
Society of Fire Protection Engineers
Society of Wetland Scientists
Society of Women Engineers
Soil Science Society of America
SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry
Tufts University
*Union of Concerned Scientists
University City Science Center
*U.S. Council on Competitiveness
The Wildlife Society
World Endometriosis Research Foundation America

*Supplied experts to the questions development process
**Lead organizer

The consortium's list of 20 questions are available online at ScienceDebate.org/20answers.

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Year of the Monkey: Primate Research under the microscope in UK and US
It seems that 2016 has been the Year of the Monkey in more ways than one. In both the United States and the United Kingdom the use of primates in research has been under increased scrutiny this year.

From the US Congressional mandate that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) review its use of nonhuman primates for research, to last week's publication of an open letter in the UK Independent signed by 21 experts including Sir David Attenborough and Dr. Jane Goodall raising concerns about the use of monkeys in brain experiments.

As one might expect all this attention seems to have put the primate research industry on the defensive.

Last week, the NIH essentially facilitated a circling of the wagons at what I hoped would be an open and critical discussion on the use of non-human primates in research as requested by Congress.

To take a step back for context, the 2016 spending bill passed by Congress last December included language authored by Representative Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-CA) that requested the NIH to 'conduct a review of its ethical policies and processes with respect to nonhuman primate research subjects, in consultation with outside experts, to ensure it has appropriate justification for animals research protocols and to provide and update on these efforts in the fiscal year 2017 budget request.'

In a follow up letter sent to the NIH in January by five members of Congress [Roybal-Allard, Sam Farr (D-CA) Dina Titus (D-NV), Eliot Engel (D-NY), and Brendan Boyle (D-PA)] it was reiterated that the review should be, "as independent as possible, so that the most difficult ethical questions with regards to the use of all non-human primates in a wide range of experiments can be honestly asked and answered." Unfortunately the workshop held by the NIH last week, largely failed to meet this stipulation.

As I monitored this workshop online, I was struck that the meeting seemed to be more of a cheerleading session for primate experiments and, at times, a macabre audition for researchers to make a case for their experiments to receive continued funding.

The few "outside experts" who were invited and not financially tied to primate research, were Dr. Tom Beauchamp, an ethicist at Georgetown University and Dr. Jeffrey Kahn a bioethicist at Johns Hopkins University but they were not invited to give presentations and had to vie for time in the discussion sessions where they were frequently shut down. This was especially shocking since Dr. Kahn had such relevant expertise, having chaired the 2011 review committee on the use of Chimpanzees in Biomedical and Behavioral Research, which led to the decision by the NIH to end support for invasive chimpanzee research.

The lack of balance was, I believe, no accident. When the workshop was first announced I contacted the workshop organizers to encourage a robust review and specifically suggested our own Dr. Jarrod Bailey who has published multiple peer-reviewed papers on the use of non-human primates in biomedical research and who participated in the aforementioned review of chimpanzees. Despite his impressive resume he, and many other possible candidates, were not invited to participate in the workshop.

A few weeks ahead of this workshop the NY Times published an opinion piece titled "Second Thoughts of an Animal Researcher" by Dr. John P. Gluck, an emeritus professor of psychology at the University of New Mexico, who seemed to suggest that the NIH workshop was poised to miss the mark from its inception; he wrote, "...the N.I.H will hold a workshop on, "continued responsible research" with these animals. This sounds like a positive development. But as someone who spent decades working almost daily with macaque monkeys in primate research laboratories, I know firsthand that "responsible" research is not enough. What we really need to examine is the very moral ground of animal research itself."

Across the pond, Dr. Gluck joined Dr. Jane Goodall, Sir David Attenborough and 18 other scientists, primatologists and animal welfare experts in signing an open letter, organized by Cruelty Free International, to bodies in the UK and EU responsible for funding and licensing controversial brain experiments on monkeys. Of particular concern is neuroscience research involving monkeys being subjected to invasive brain surgery, water deprivation and prolonged restraint.

A recent review of the claims of the human relevance of data made by researchers, who use monkeys in these kinds of experiments, were found to be overstated and the availability and use of ethical studies involving humans were of more value to medical progress.

Sir David Attenborough, said:

"The recognition that apes, certainly, and to an extent other primates, are so akin to ourselves, and can suffer so much, as we can, has transformed our attitude, or should have transformed our attitude, to using them for our own benefit. They are sentient beings that have mental lives comparable to ours, and sensitivities, and pain and deprivation mean things to them, just as they mean things to us."

Dr Jane Goodall, said:

"I and my team have studied chimpanzees, our closest living relatives, for over 50 years. I can state categorically that they have a similar capacity for suffering, both mental and physical, and show similar emotions to many of ours. We also study baboons and other monkeys and there is no doubt they too can suffer and experience fear, depression, anxiety, frustration and so on. To confine these primate relatives of ours to laboratory cages and subject them to experiments that are often distressing and painful is, in my opinion, morally wrong. To restrain their movement and deprive them of water is inhumane and extremely cruel and we have no right to exploit them in this way for any reason."

In response to the letter, a group of UK primate researchers have gone on the defensive, attacking the credibility of those scientists who disagree with them.

Last week's lopsided NIH workshop and the hostile response to the open letter seem to suggest that those directly involved with primate research aren't quite ready for an open, honest, discussion about the ethics of non-human primate research and the inevitable soul searching that will come with it. But whether they are ready or not, the conversation with the public and policy makers has begun.

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Floating Dreams

Julian Cook Photography posted a photo:

A major installation by Ik-Joong Kang, one of South Korea's most renowned and celebrated multimedia artists, Floating Dreams is a compelling, large-scale installation situated in the centre of the River Thames by Millennium Bridge. Constructed from 500 drawings and illuminated from within, the three-storey-high lantern structure acts as a memorial to the millions displaced and divided during the Korean War (1950-53), and a poignant symbol of hope for the reunification of North and South Korea.

Born in South Korea, Ik-Joong Kang relocated to New York in 1984 to complete a Masters in Fine Arts at the Pratt Art Institute. For Floating Dreams, the artist returned home to collect drawings by the generation that fled from North Korea to South Korea during the conflict over 66 years ago. Now in their 80's and 90's and unable to return, Kang asked them to revisit their memories and draw their hometowns. 500 images, recalling joyful and sorrowful memories of lost homes and broken families, have been transferred onto pieces of Hanji, a traditional Korean rice paper, and transformed by the artist into a single work of art that illuminates the pain and hope of many Koreans displaced by the Korean War. Floating Dreams recognises and raises awareness of the participants' longing for home and their faith in a future reunification for their country.

www.totallythames.org/events/info/floating-dreams-by-ik-j...

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Top profs and R&D bod make plea to Parliament

Adidas NMD #4 by s1000

http://www.s1000.co/photography/adidas-nmd/

Humid Hong Kong by Nikk La

Hot humid day overlooking Hong Kong.

Camino sin fin by Victor Carretero Barbero

Niño observando el camino que va recorrer.

山在那里 by 麦田守望者

在下撤途中看到这一瞬间用相机记录下来！因为梦想，所以坚持！

Top profs and R&D bod make plea to Parliament

Adidas NMD #4 by s1000

http://www.s1000.co/photography/adidas-nmd/

Humid Hong Kong by Nikk La

Hot humid day overlooking Hong Kong.

Camino sin fin by Victor Carretero Barbero

Niño observando el camino que va recorrer.

山在那里 by 麦田守望者

在下撤途中 看到这一瞬间 用相机记录下来！ 因为梦想，所以坚持！

在下撤途中看到这一瞬间用相机记录下来！因为梦想，所以坚持！