Abstract

         As people who interpret the physical world using the five primary senses available to us, we constantly use comparable social relations to distinguish ourselves from “others,” using words like “animal” not only as a means of distinguishing ourselves from non-humans but also as a derogatory term associating “animal” with a lower state of living. However, studies have proven that numerous species of whales and dolphins, like humans, can create and enjoy music due to their brains’ advanced temporal structures, thereby implicating more complex social structures within those species regarding cognition. This is also evident in Great Ape species, such as chimpanzees and orangutans, both of which have exhibited “mental health crises” and the capacity for language. The results of the studies involving these species have given scientists reason to believe that much of the similarities between them and ourselves implies that this may be the result of our shared biology with them. In a study involving the Beluga whale, Delphinapterus leucas, and three bottlenose dolphins, Tursiops truncatus, tests were implemented to observe a hypothesized ability to perceiv\e quantity (and subsequently choose the greater of two amounts), and if their performance matched predictions from the object file versus analog accumulator models. As a result, all participants chose the larger of the two sets of amounts above chance levels in all scenarios, which did not meet the accumulator model’s predictions. Some keywords we will discuss are the following: Altruism, which is the practice of providing help to benefit others with no expectations for personal reward. The Allan factor measures stability frequency in oscillations and amplification (Kello et al.).

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         Many experiments have unveiled the numerous parallels and distinctions between humans and animals. This was determined in terms of communication, psychology, and social interactions. Species progressively evolve to become suited to their respective niches via natural selection. It appears that many behavioral characteristics that were once thought to be unique to humans are more common than we think. This is especially apparent in Great Ape species, other land and marine mammals, and even birds. However, humans have advanced to a point where they can survive and support themselves in various ways wildlife is not privy to.

Methods

Cognition of Different Species of the Cetacean Family

         Whales and dolphins are widely recognized for their complex forms of intelligence. Scientists studied a female beluga whale (subject Y) and two female bottlenose dolphins (S and MA) ㅡ both raised in captivity ㅡ to compare their judgments and perceptions of quantity. In Condition 1, researchers placed two transparent plastic boxes below the surface of the pool water with different quantities of fish inside.

 

Table 1 (Abramson et al). Suggests that the subjects were

overall successful in choosing the larger quantity.            

         These were used to test the cetaceans visually. In Condition 2, two identical opaque black boxes covered with polyethylene, which blocks transparency but allows sound transmission, were placed in similar conditions to test echoically. The number of fish in the boxes varied throughout the day, and all subjects were rewarded if they chose the box containing more fish. Before these experiments were conducted, the subjects had to pass pretests that assessed whether these animals were willing to participate, rewarding them through standard classical conditioning. However, “…when presenting new quantities, every choice, whether correct or incorrect, [the subjects were] rewarded for guarding against associative learning…” (Abramson et al.). 

Evidence for midlife crises in great apes consistent with the human well-being

         Researchers conduct various analyses about a perceived U-shaped trend in human and Great Ape’s physical and mental well-being occurring throughout a lifetime. Human well-being is at its highest during the early and late stages of life, except, of course, in the years leading up to death, but it is around the midlife period that physical and mental well-being is at its lowest. The strengths of this study lie in how the researchers account for many covariates Figure 1 (Weiss et al). Tested well-being of, with the aforementioned U-shaped trend emerging with or without the implementation of parametric methods. Multiple regression analyses based on a biomarker, brain-science, genetic and spatial data were implemented. However, the U-shaped trend in human society was found to be almost absent until adjustments were made to account for a multitude of covariates, based on results obtained from a four-item nonhuman primates well-being questionnaire—based on human subjective well-being measures.

                    great apes over the lifespan

Does sympathy motivate prosocial behavior in great apes?

Many studies have provided the scientific community evidence of prosocial behavior among great apes, so the research question proposed in this study is whether great apes are more likely to help a conspecific more after a human experimenter steals the conspecific’s food as opposed to in a condition where there was no harm to the conspecific or its property (Liebal). That said, this study conducts a pre-test in which the subjects—Western Gorilla (Gorilla gorilla), Pygmy Chimpanzee (Pan paniscus), Common Chimpanzee (Pan troglodyte), and Orangutan (Pongo pygmaeus)—use a stick to acquire food beyond their reach in two consecutive sessions. After, each ape that successfully passed the pre-test was randomly assigned to the following roles: the victim (any ape the experimenter does not help), which interacts with the human experimenter (E), and/or as the helper, which interacts with the victim (supporting information, Table S1). They were placed in two adjacent rooms separated by mesh, where the victim sat opposite the human experimenter; meanwhile, the helper occupied the opposite room. Interactions between E and the victim, between the victim and the helper, and solely the helper’s actions were recorded by three cameras (one per interaction). 

Hierarchical Temporal Structure in Music, Speech and Animal Vocalizations: Jazz Is Like a Conversation, Humpbacks Sing Like Hermit Thrushes.

Humans communicate by talking, singing, and playing music; several bird and whale species will sing, as well, to communicate and can resemble human speech, song, and music. These sounds have a hierarchical structure, with syllables and notes within words (Kello et al.). In this study, over 200 separate recordings from more than 16 different categories of signals were analyzed and compared, including recordings of speech in various settings and languages, musical compositions, and musical performances. The method recognizes temporal events of sound amplitude and uses Allan factor (AF) variation to quantify event clustering over various durations (Kello et al.). 

Does Altruism Imply Cognitive Ability?

Through kin selection, sterile organisms would help their non-sterile relatives raise their young through what is known as kin selection.  In the animal kingdom, this form of babysitting ensures the survival of the species, even if most of the species are non-reproductive.  For humans and as described through novels of the 19th century, poor members were labeled the ‘sterile caste’ because they lived to take care of the wealthy caste’s children and would do so for the entirety of their lives.  It is more likely that a human would selflessly take care of another person’s child if they belonged to a relative or a close friend in today’s society. There are other species with biology not shared with humans, yet that can form relationships with non-kin individuals within their colony. Vampire bats form relationships with those non-kin members due to passing by each other and interacting enough times.  It is also likely that because of this association, vampire bats will help out starving others by regurgitating their food into the other’s mouth (Reznikova). 

Results

The beluga whale and bottlenose dolphins experiment yielded results consistent with relative quantitative judgment. However, there is insufficient evidence to deduce numeral perception. Overall, subjects chose larger quantities in both conditions without weighing their options. It also suggests relative quantity judgments using echolocation within the beluga whale species, which has never before been tested (Abramson et al.). The results presented in Table 1 suggest that marine animals’ performance varied based on echolocation and visual inputs. 

Results across all groups for the Weiss article were consistent, implying that this relationship between age and well-being is not uniquely human and subsequently suggesting that while various aspects of human society may influence these trends, their origins may lie in the biology which is shared between humans and the Great Apes (Weiss et al.).

Clustered event series from the Kello article resulted from various vocalizations and musical performances. In four example segments of recordings, one from each of the four primary categories, this clustering was often apparent. AF analysis produced a clustering function A(T) for each recording. The means of these functions for each subcategory are shown on logarithmic coordinates in the four panels of figure 3. All complex signals, A(T), increase with time frame, indicating a generic trait of nested clustering. Whether it came from infant-directed speech or synthetic speech, prosodic variation showed the same influence on nested clustering. Whether interactions were between whales, speakers, or musicians, interaction dynamics exhibited the same influence on nested clustering. Further research is needed to see if AF functions reflect other aspects of behavioral and social factors that underlie complex vocalizations and musical performances that were not investigated here (Kello et al.).  

The results of the Liebal article indicate that concerning the occurrence of prosocial behaviors, only orangutans help others when help is needed, contrasting previous findings on chimpanzees. However, except for one population of orangutans that helped significantly more after a conspecific was harmed than when no harm occurred, prosocial behavior in great apes was not motivated by concern for others, offering reason to deduce that empathy and sympathy cognition’ for animal species to recollect the interactions between the species and observe those features to that of their kin, whether through a sense of sight or smell (Reznikova).

              Figure 2 (Kello et al). Six different graphs exhibiting the  

                    Allan factor for varying audio sources.

Discussion

As for the experiments conducted for the Cetacean family, one limitation was that the scientists decided to put holes in the box that the fish were being presented in. It begs whether these marine animals used their sense of smell to detect more significant quantities. If so, while that may be a complication, the results still indicate that relatively more significant quantities are being chosen based on greater olfactory stimuli concentrations? 

The Reznikova article provided many examples of species with different forms of altruism they express; However, some might argue that it would be better to utilize historical sources instead of 19th-century novels, like Jane Eyre’s, which could lend themselves to fallibility. In the studies of Great Apes, it has been proven that empathy and sympathy are not solely human but present in other species’ cultures. They could also explain the U-shaped trends in physical and mental well-being among humans and nonhuman primates, for it is the similarities in brain structure and overall physiology (which is often proposed as the reason for humanity’s evolutionary prowess) which give reason to believe that primates have the potential for empathy and sympathy, which ultimately drive acts of altruism among birds, marine mammals, and great apes. In the prosocial behavior experiment, spatial arrangements made it nearly impossible to record the helper’s actions. However, results indicate that stick transfers were, more often than not, the result of active transfer rather than passive, suggesting that prosocial behavior is, in many cases, the result of conditions that call upon interdependence for survival, suggesting an evolutionary favorability for prosocial behavior and the resulting altruism in observed by various species worldwide. 

When it comes down to it, humankind’s concept of personhood is based solely on its insatiable dependence on “otherness,” which allows humanity to develop complex social relations based on observable differences both between nonhuman species and humans themselves, ranging from the great apes to marine life to vampire bats. Animals worldwide, regardless of exposure to humans, show human-like traits. “Human” traits are universal, granting animals a level of personhood that most typically fail to attribute to non-human animals. 

Works Cited

Abramson, José Z., et al. “Relative Quantity Judgments in the Beluga Whale (Delphinapterus Leucas) and the Bottlenose Dolphin (Tursiops Truncatus).” Behavioural Processes, vol. 96, 2013, pp. 11–19., doi:10.1016/j.beproc.2013.02.006. 

Kello, Christopher T., et al. “Hierarchical Temporal Structure in Music, Speech and Animal Vocalizations: Jazz Is like a Conversation, Humpbacks Sing like Hermit Thrushes.” Journal of The Royal Society Interface, vol. 14, no. 135, 2017, doi:10.1098/rsif.2017.0231. 

Liebal, Katja, et al. “Does Sympathy Motivate Prosocial Behaviour in Great Apes?” PLOS ONE, vol. 9, no. 1, 2014, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0084299. 

Reznikova, Zhanna. “Evolutionary and Behavioural Aspects of Altruism in Animal Communities: Is There Room for Intelligence?” Evolution, 2011, pp. 122–161., https://www.sociostudies.org/almanac/articles/files/evolution_1/122-161.pdf. 

Weiss, Alexander, et al. “Evidence for a Midlife Crisis in Great Apes Consistent with the U-Shape in Human Well-Being.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 109, no. 49, 4 Dec. 2012, doi:10.1073/pnas.1212592109. 

Abstract

The United States of America is built upon the tensions between different sociocultural groups. These tensions, over the centuries, have manifested themselves into an extension of the Jim Crow era. Apart from the more concrete, more easily demonstrable issues of police brutality, slavery, and overall deprivation of basic human rights, low-income minority communities have fallen subject to more subtle forms of oppression. Left in the hands of wrongfully puissant political entities, environmental injustice plagues communities of low-income and minority persons, reducing their physical health in a society which, by the way, ranks third in the list of nations offering the least affordable healthcare. This is environmental injustice, and it can be understood as the oppression of minority groups through the historic economic/racial targeting of locales in which their populations are densest, thereby disproportionately subjecting them to hazardous, unsanitary conditions that contribute to asthma, cancer, lead poisoning, and so on. This is “A Dreamer’s Plague,” an umbrella term describing the illnesses commonly endured by low-income and minority persons as a result of environmental injustice. The fact of the matter is that environmental racism is no coincidence, as an institutionally racist government carved from the disparities among the economic, political, and social sectors has yet to check its usurpations against the people. 

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Economic struggles force minorities like African Americans and Hispanics/Latinos to reside in areas where land is cheapest. Of course, communities residing on cheap land, as a result of intergenerational immobility, political silence (or politically being silenced), and poverty, are prone to environmental injustice/racism since cheap land grasps the attention of corporate businesses and government entities, both of which seek the construction of industrial zones to reduce the costs of production. Simultaneously, upon the construction of polluting facilities (e.g., garbage truck facilities and power plants), existing residents who are not minorities and who possess the means to up and leave flee these areas due to the increase in ethnocultural and racial diversity as well as in health/safety hazards. Take the “White flight” to the suburbs during the Civil Rights movement, for instance: White persons migrated in large numbers out of cities like Cleveland, Detroit, Kansas City, and the South Bronx after ethnocultural diversity rose (Buthe; Coes; Loh 2020). As a result, it left minority/low-income persons to rot in disadvantaged urban regions where crippling social issues rendered them politically uninfluential and subject to the unchecked authority of polluting businesses. 

Diminished political representation, along with reduced resident financing, means that effective NIMBY (Not In My BackYard) opposition cannot prevent the establishment of environmentally unjust laws, or even enforce policies against them. For example, in the South Bronx, according to Congressman José E. Serrano and Melissa Iachan in Seeking Environmental Justice in the South Bronx, “at least 14 waste transfer stations… [cause] an asthma fatality rate more than three times the national average, and asthma hospitalization rates more than five times higher than the national average” (Iachan; Serrano 2016). In 2015 alone, the South Bronx “received more than 50 percent of the city’s putrescible commercial waste stream” (Iachan; Serrano 2016). That means only 2 out of 59 community board districts across New York City absorbed over half of the garbage produced by all five boroughs! Additionally, fine particulate matter from diesel combustion is released into these communities by “an average of 304 commercial trucks [that] drive through the heart of [the South Bronx] neighborhoods every hour, almost half of which [a]re commercial waste trucks” (Iachan; Serrano 2016). If you do the math, that amounts to one commercial waste truck every 24 seconds, and that is undoubtedly a violation of the rights safeguarded under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits racial, color, and national origin discrimination in activities and programs receiving federal financial assistance. Even though Iachan and her office “joined forces with community members and New York Lawyers for the Public Interests to challenge the discriminatory siting of transfer stations by filing a Title VI complaint with the Office of Civil Rights at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency …18 years after we filed the complaint, the EPA issued a final response dismissing the claim” (Iachan; Serrano 2016). In fact, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights recently concluded that the EPA egregiously failed to respond to Title VI complaints, dismissing every single Civil Rights complaint filed prior to that of Iachan’s team; this is reason to be alarmed, as environmental injustice is systemic.

Its effects are felt as far down as Louisiana, too! LULU stands for “Locally Unwanted Land Use“, or any facility whose siting imposes externality costs among local residents, and they may include but are not limited to landfills, chemical factories, power stations, and more. They generally contribute to unpleasant odors and loud noise, air pollution, land pollution, reduction of water quality, and overall unsanitary conditions. The Clean Air Act of 1963 caps the acceptable cancer risk as a cause of polluted air at 1 in 1 million; however, LULUs, such as factories like Pontchartrain Works Facility, this number reaches as high as 1 thousand in 1 million in areas like Wilmington, California (“South Coast AQMD: Wilmington” 2018). As part of Los Angeles County, Wilmington is exposed to the waste absorbed by not 14 garbage facilities, but by twice as many garbage facilities as those in the Bronx, which constantly spew pollutants into the air we breathe, onto everything we touch, into water we drink, and eclipsing the cosmic aromas and melodic voices of Mother Nature! Considering the following, it stands to reason that this is not a coincidence, as 86.6% of Wilmington, CA, residents are Latino, 87.34% do not have an Associate’s degree, and 8.1% are below the poverty line (Wilmington Demographics 2021).

According to “Environmental Injustice in the State of Louisiana: Hazardous Wastes and Environmental Illness in the Cancer Corridor,” the Mississippi is one of “the best” locations for major companies to base their factories and production plants. This makes the Mississippi River a “cancer corridor” whereby residents face insurmountably high cancer risks due to the toxic and polluted air. In east Baton Rouge, specifically, a two-mile radius where facilities dump toxic waste affects approximately 90 percent of the African American community (Adeola, 1998, 1-3). In addition, there are even certain communities along the Mississippi River where the cancer risk is almost 50 times the national average to the west of New Orleans. For instance, Pontchartrain Works facility, a chemical plant involved in neoprene production, is a stone’s throw from Reserve, Louisiana, and regularly leaches chloroprene and many other carcinogenic toxins into the air (Lartey and Laughland 2019). With chloroprene emissions regularly hundreds of times higher than the EPA’s 0.2 micrograms per cubic meter standard, the disproportionately high rates of cancer among the African American community in the Reserve are undoubtedly linked to their propinquity to a major polluting facility and White migrations, such as the St. George movement, which left minority groups to congregate where housing prices, along with quality of living, began to decrease. Where there is money, there is power, says capitalism; likewise, political representation follows money. 

Even the health sector follows money, disproportionately distributing access to proper healthcare and neglecting the integral role the natural environment plays in the optimization of physical and mental well-being. Roughly 48.8% of the population inhabiting ‘Cancer Alley’, a long stretch of the Mississippi from New Orleans to Baton Rouge, is African American and suffers from a cancer risk that is 16% greater than for White, higher income individuals. Tristan Baurick utilizes the words and experiences of people that actually live there in his article, Welcome to “Cancer Alley,” Where Toxic Air Is About to Get Worse, to convey the severity of human activities. For instance, Hazel Schexnayder states, “I bet you money there are 20 plants right now just around St. Gabriel,” to which Baurick responds, “She’s not even close. There are now 30 large petrochemical plants within 10 miles of her house… Thirteen are within a 3-mile radius of her home. The nearest facility, only a mile away, is the world’s largest manufacturer of polystyrene, commonly known as Styrofoam” (Baurick 2019). Baurick even unveils the unchecked discriminatory power of corporations by writing, 

“[T]he Shintech ethylene plant recently got the green light for a $1.5 billion, 300-acre expansion, which will intensify pollution in an area where an EPA model estimates the toxic levels of cancer-causing chemicals to be double the already high Iberville Parish average. The new plant is expected to increase those levels by up to 16% in nearby areas” (Baurick 2019). 

As someone who attended a public middle school, for three years, that was situated next to a power plant, air and noise pollution does make the average school today particularly distracting, in addition to degrading the health of students who come from low-income minority families. 

In the Bronx, the Environmental Protection Agency allows waste transfer stations to elevate asthma and cancer fatality rates. In California, wildfires disproportionately impact low-income minority groups, and in southern states, factories raise cancer risks to astronomical levels for the low-income minority groups inhabiting corporate areas of interest. Needless to say, environmental injustice is systemic and functions as an extension of the Jim Crow era in that corporations and political entities forgo the health and well-being of communities where low-income and minority groups are densest. They disproportionately expose them to inconceivably high concentrations of hazardous pollutants that reduce their health and quality of life in a nation that does not believe in universal healthcare and which ultimately exploits the environment and the reduced political influence of minority communities for short-term profit. 

Works  Cited

Adeola, Francis O. 1998. “Environmental Injustice In The State Of Louisiana?: Hazardous 

Wastes And Environmental Illness In The Cancer Corridor”. Race, Gender & Class 6 (1): 83-108. https://www.jstor.org/stable/41658850?seq=1. 

Lartey, Jamiles, and Oliver Laughland. 2019. “Almost Every Household Has Someone That Has 

Died From Cancer”. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/ 2019/may/06/cancertown-louisana-reserve-special-report.

Loh, T. H., Coes, C., & Buthe, B. (2021, January 6). Separate and unequal: Persistent

residential segregation is sustaining racial and economic injustice in the U.S. Brookings. https://www.brookings.edu/essay/trend-1-separate-and-unequal-neighborhoods-are-sustaining-racial-and-economic-injustice-in-the-us/. 

ProPublica. (2020, March 1). Welcome to “Cancer Alley,” Where Toxic Air Is About to Get 

Worse. https://www.propublica.org/article/welcome-to-cancer-alley-where-toxic-air-is-about-to-get-worse. 

Serrano, J. C. E., & Iachan, M. (2021, July 6). Seeking environmental justice in the South Bronx. 

City & State NY. https://www.cityandstateny.com//opinion/2016/10/seeking-environmental-justice-in-the-south-bronx/182133/. 

“South Coast AQMD: Wilmington”. 2018. Aqmd.Gov. http://www.aqmd.gov/nav/about/initiatives/community-efforts/environmental-justice/ab617-134/wilm.

Wilmington,CA Household Income, Population & Demographics | Point2. (2021). Wilmington, CA, Homes. https://www.point2homes.com/US/Neighborhood/CA/Greater-Los-Angeles/Wilmington-Demographics.html.

(Revised Discussion Board)

Abstract

           In “Hurricane, Fire, Covid-19: Disasters Expose the Hard Reality of Climate Change,” Christopher Flavelle and Henry Fountain effectively convey the significance of recent climate catastrophes, namely the occurrence of the Apple Fire and Hurricane Isaias. That said, the authors shed light on the relevance of the latter disaster. As an inevitable consequence of warming ocean temperatures, this is the first time nine storms have occurred so early into the average hurricane season (June 1st to November 30th) in the Atlantic. Interestingly, I noticed that the authors of the aforementioned article avoid too much analytical depth in the significance of these storms for two reasons. Firstly, not much analysis is needed to recognize what these climate disasters mean in terms of climate change and societal sustainability. The scarce resources America’s economy is founded upon ultimately prove society to be, considering the current means of living which are highly dependent upon the combustion of fossil fuels, unsustainable. Secondly, worsening storms are not the only concerns governments and economies are pressured by since climate change spurs other types of climate disasters that require governments to respond promptly, such as pandemics and rapidly spreading wildfires. As such, given that the effects of climate change are varied and wide-reaching, and that efforts to reduce humanity’s carbon footprint have run stagnant in America’s currently polarized political climate, it is reasonable to conclude that events like the Apple Fire in California, which burned 33,424 acres, and the Mendocino Complex Fire in 2018, which burned almost half a million acres, continue to burden the economy. 

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           In Margaret Atwood’s “Time capsule found on the dead planet” (2009), Atwood theorizes that if we continue on the path we are on, we will experience the demise of human civilization as we know it. In the text, Atwood chooses to convey a fictional story of our world and our influence on it through a list that demonstrates the progression of human civilization in ages, beginning with gods, leading to the creation of money, and ending with desolation. By writing this story in the form of a list, the author transforms a concept most people are familiar with—climate change—into not only a tale of a failing civilization, but a prediction of the reader’s future, thus making an emotional appeal that engages the reader and personalizes the subject to that reader. In the first age, Atwood depicts the beginnings of humanity as consisting of the creation of gods, the first step we took (mythologizing nature) towards a heightened sense of self-awareness specific to humans. Atwood notes that we “carved them out of wood; there was still such a thing as wood, then” (Atwood 1). The author makes sure to include the second clause as a means of alluding to the deforestation of what Aldo Leopold says is the larger community (the biosphere) to which we all belong, then and now. In Atwood’s fourth age, she notes that humanity has created deserts of many kinds, where nothing grew. She states, “Some were made of cement, some were made of various poisons, some of baked Earth” (Atwood 4). 

           As an aspiring surgeon, possibly of the cardiothoracic field, I believe the previously mentioned quote is relevant to my desired career. The health sector is responsible for approximately 10% of total energy consumption, which makes sense since “An average US hospital uses 31 kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity and 103,600 Btu of natural gas per square foot annually” (bizenergyadvisor 2021). Additionally, it is a well-known fact among the scientific community that the United States’ health sector single-handedly contributes to about ten percent of the total annual carbon emissions of the United States itself. According to healthaffairs.org “in 2011 alone it pumped out 655 million metric tons of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases (GHGs)” (Shankar; Ahsanuddin 2019). Much of the health sector’s contribution to pollution is resultant from many factors: chemical usage; energy demand; food supply; indirect air pollution; waste production, and water consumption. Many housekeeping and sterilizing agents, as well as detergents, used to ensure the cleanliness of hospitals and prevention of infection transmission are harmful both to patients and the air surrounding the hospital. As these agents are consistently released into the atmosphere, they reduce air quality, and water quality since air and water freely exchange atmospheric molecules as well as fine particulate matter. Any local parks may be harmed in that the chemicals, as they travel through the wind and set in soil, act both as eroding agents and chemicals harmful to plants and/or animals. While this is not immediately concerning, the long-term effects are more obvious. Additionally, hospitals require a massive supply of energy, meaning, more often than not, factories and power plants are not usually too distant from hospitals. These facilities contribute largely to the reduction of air quality and emission of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, toxic or not. With hospitals being open 24 hours a day 365 days a year, they only amplify the previously mentioned facilities’ contribution to the alteration of the land, water, and air we depend on. The modes of transportation patients and employees take to receive care, obviously don’t help the situation, not to mention the fact that all the supplies used by hospitals must be properly packaged and shipped—or, in other words, with the insurmountable supply of cardboard needed to meet hospitals’ demand for properly packaged materials, hospitals depend on deforestation to function. Here is the issue. Hospitals must take a holistic approach to patient care. Just as the economy functions based on short-term benefits, the health sector focuses on immediate patient care and largely neglects the environment’s role in inpatient care. 

           If physicians must take an oath to do no harm, does that right not extend to the natural community upon which patients depend for the best possible quality of living? I don’t suppose a surgeon’s disposable gloves or disposable surgical gowns will go anywhere other than a desert “made of various poisons” (Atwood 4), or, in other words, a toxic wasteland such as a landfill or marine dump. Are the environmental hazards caused by the health sector’s GHG emissions—one-tenth of the U.S.’s total contribution to GHG emissions—an infringement upon that oath? If that is the case, as hospitals continue to pollute the environment, and the risk of illnesses like asthma, cancer, and heart disease rise, especially in areas where the environment is perverted by politicians to oppress minority groups, don’t hospitals simply become ‘body banks’? After all, Flavelle and Fountain listed the COVID-19 pandemic as a climate disaster likely caused by the effects of deforestation, which the health industry cannot deny since it endured a worldwide ICU bed shortage in 2020. How does one decide who gets to live and who doesn’t? How does one turn away a patient in need because the hospital is ‘at capacity,’ or because the virus was causing strokes, dementia, muscle and nerve damage, encephalitis, vascular disorders, and even immune disorders in some patients? We are depleting our natural resources, and this is only a glimpse of the adverse effects of our actions. In the case of the pandemic, we have been depleting our forests; consequently, we exposed ourselves to a coronavirus that likely inhabited a local forest where it was first contracted.

Abstract

The origin of life, a multifaceted question arguably as old as time itself, has baffled humanity for as long as it can recollect as a society, raising icy, out of this world, and shocking theories about the creation of complex arrays of life from inorganic compounds. It is essentially the classic “something from nothing” question, leaving scientists at various dead ends that call for experiments on and studies about Early Earth’s atmospheric, aquatic, and geological conditions. Resultantly, it has raised seven major theories which all attempt to—and for a good reason—explain how the aforementioned “something from nothing” phenomenon can even birth such a remarkably sophisticated thing: life. However, while all seven controversial theories are supported by logic and valid reasonings, the question is now about which one or which combination of theories is more feasible. That said, scientists must acknowledge the informational narrative that characterizes and instructs living systems, thereby necessitating a crucial focus on context-dependent causal factors for the emergence of life as the one force connecting all seven theories is the informational system upon which to connect all seven theories all life on Earth depends. 

…

Throughout Earth’s ~4.5 billion-year history, there have been major climatic and geologic cascades of events that life had to face to evolve into the complex, energy-dependent information systems that they are today. That said, the first question to answer is where the energy needed to catalyze specific biochemical and/or metabolic reactions came from, so scientists have proposed that lightning, possibly a quintillion of lightning bolts spurred by the geological chaos of Earth’s formation, were able to provide enough energy for Earth’s genetic code. There is, however, one significant discrepancy with this proposition: what was the recipient of this energy? To answer that question, scientists required an assessment of the causal architecture of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) and ribonucleic acid (RNA). They are composed of pentose sugars (deoxyribose and ribose, respectively) and nucleic acids, or nucleobases. In addition, these pentose sugars and nucleobases are held together in a double-helical structure (in DNA)—or a helical structure in RNA—by phosphorus which functions as the genetic code’s backbone. It is also the star of the show when it comes to ATP (the predominant means of energy transfer) and intracellular structures, including organelles such as the smooth endoplasmic reticulum and fluid intracellular/extracellular barrier known as the plasma membrane. However, phosphorus was an elusive element 3.5 to 4.5 million years ago, so, again, where did it come from? 

Five years ago, the geology department at Wheaton College received a call from a family in Illinois reporting a small fire caused by what was supposedly a meteorite that ‘landed’ in a family’s backyard. The family also reported a weird rock embedded into the dirt; however, Benjamin Hess, an undergraduate at Wheaton and now a graduate at Yale University noted that “Meteorites, contrary to popular belief, are cold when they hit the ground” (Greenfield, 2021). As a result, test samples unveiled an ingredient for life previously believed to have come primarily from meteorites: fulgurite. Fulgurite is a lightning-induced clump of glassy minerals, and it acts as a significant source of prebiotic, reactive phosphorus. Even though it is prevalent in its abiotic, oxidized state (PO43-), it can also be found bound to minerals at different oxidation states. For instance, in the below statement, from the journal titled Nature Communications, Article Number 1535 (2021), the reactivity of phosphorus at different oxidation states revealed lightning’s potential as a catalyst for the development of phosphorous, which can freely interact with organic compounds, such as nitrogenous bases and pentose sugars: 

“[R]educed phosphorus such as phosphide (P0) in the form of the mineral schreibersite, (Fe,Ni)3P, is highly reactive 5,6,7. When wetted, schreibersite forms hydrous, activated phosphate capable of forming key basic organic molecules, such as glycerol phosphate, nucleosides, and phosphocholine 8,9, and intermediate phosphorus species hypophosphite (H2PO2−) and phosphite (HPO32−) 5,10. While such intermediate phosphorus species would hinder organic reactions, they may still play an important role in the origin of life by efficiently reacting with solar ultraviolet (UV) radiation and dissolved HS− to form orthophosphate (PO43−) 11” (Hess; Piazolo; Harvey 2021). 

In Illinois, when the fulgurite had been dug up, researchers observed glassy bits trailing the structure’s surface, which also contained schreibersite, extending down about a foot and a half into a thick structure reminiscent of tree roots. Because phosphorus, at the onset of our world’s creation, was abundant but not in its reactive form since it was trapped in nonreactive minerals that prevented it from reacting with the organic precursors to our current genetic codes, it stands that reason that while meteors could have carried schreibersite and reactive phosphorus to Earth in the early stages of its formation (when meteor strikes were commonplace), such conditions were still too harsh for life even to have had the chance to emerge. 

On the other hand, as previously discussed, lightning offers an alternative means of reactive phosphorus formation, not to mention that it, unlike meteorites, does not destroy everything within a 100-kilometer radius upon impact. This is significant because when a schreibersite is formed upon lightning’s strike, it gives phosphorus the liberty to interact with the elements comprising Earth’s primitive atmosphere. Based on the results of the Miller-Urey experiment, it is believed that this primitive atmosphere consisted of methane (CH4), ammonia (NH3), hydrogen (H2), and water (H2O). While Urey suggested these compounds comprised the paleo-atmosphere, he also suggested that Miller conduct an experiment in which a flask containing all of the above compounds underwent a constant electric spark of ~60,000 Volts for about a week. After that week, most ammonia and methane were consumed, yielding carbon monoxide (CO) and nitrogen (N2) as gaseous products. However, an accumulation of a dark substance containing an array of organic polymers was accumulated. When the researchers tested the aqueous solution, it had become evident that the electric current applied to the reactants ultimately produced “25 amino acids (the main ones being glycine, alanine, and aspartic acid),” “several fatty acids,” “hydroxy acids,” and “amide products” (Gordon-Smith 2003). A breakthrough in the controversy of life’s origin, the Miller-Urey experiment affirms that these molecules could have participated in prebiotic chemical reactions. With reduced phosphorus having become available from lightning-struck schreibersite, it may arguably be deduced that these prebiotic chemicals possibly interacted with schreibersite phosphorus to yield more complex biomolecules, but how could such interactions be facilitated?

The answer might be clay, for it would have, indeed, formed as a consequence of global temperature decreases, which may have induced volcanic glass and rock weathering. This cooldown period resulted in elevated concentrations of anions and cations precipitating to the primitive seabed, where they would have interacted with copper, gold, nickel, phosphorus, and zinc deposits. Furthermore, the oldest rocks on Earth are sedimentary by nature, providing evidence of a history of running water. Contact between water and these volcanic rocks and glass paved the way for clay mineral formation. As per the Mars investigation, “Impact craters are ubiquitous landforms in the ancient crust of Mars that expose subsurface materials and allow us to probe crustal compositions using orbitally acquired VIS-NIR reflectance spectra” (Sun, Milliken 2015), a powerful analytical method of determining optical properties of both solids and liquids. Using this method, researchers were able to deduce that the clay minerals in the Noachian southern highlands, which have been detected in higher concentrations around central peaks, crater walls, and ejecta blankets, are “generally inferred to originate from crustal depths as great as 10% of the crater diameter” (Sun, Milliken 2015). Additionally, while shallower strata in central structures can be inferred to have directly resulted from listric faulting via crater modification, the majority of central peak material, namely in upper regions, has proven it to be considered likely that, based on crater literature, its origins likely lie within the depths of these craters. Other clay mineral studies in Hesperian impact craters reveal younger clays, possibly authigenic, located in the central peaks of the craters.

“These Hesperian or Amazonian clays are proposed to have formed in a hydrothermal system, at Toro crater [Marzo et al., 2010] and an alluvial fan in Majuro crater [Mangold et al., 2012b], or in association with impact melt in the case of Ritchey crater [Sun and Milliken, 2014], suggesting that post-Noachian clay formation was possible in impact systems” (Sun, Milliken 2015). 

This proves significant, for, per the hydrothermal vent model, organic molecules produced under the conditions of early Earth, akin to those produced by the Miller-Urey experiment, could have sunken to the seafloor, where hydrothermal vents generate massive seafloor sulfide (SMS) deposits rich in minerals, such as cobalt, gold, manganese, silver, and zinc. These organic vents also provide an energy source by which chemical reactions between hydrogen and carbon dioxide and sulfur-containing amino acids may yield an array of complex, organic molecules. This would explain why sulfur is the third most abundant mineral in the human body, for it is the cysteine, homocysteine, methionine, and taurine amino acids which contain sulfur, even though cysteine and methionine are the only two which are incorporated into proteins and which are used to make them. Furthermore, high temperature and pressure facilitate the adsorption of organic monomers that ultimately could have protected early biomolecules both from hydrolytic and photolytic reactions and from global glaciations, which are also proposed to have aided in the creation of life on Earth. Clay minerals may then absorb these molecules throughout the seafloor, where clay offers biomolecules protection and a structural template that both could arguably, according to Ponce and Kloprogge, have played a significant role in the development of highly concentrated systems; in the facilitation of condensation/polymerization processes; in the surface-templating for the adsorption/synthesis of organic monomers and polymers (Ponce, Kloprogge 2020). 

In conclusion, while we may never know exactly how life began here on Earth, numerous findings, all of which deviate from one another, could all very well have been the catalyst for life’s emergence. Instead of focusing on who is correct, we must stick to the most feasible explanation for the development of such a complex array of organisms, from minuscule microbes to daunting dinosaurs to “civilized” civilizations. Each of the theories proposed by scientists across the globe and throughout human history has its inconsistencies, but it seems as though each theory offers a process. Which process is more feasible? Well, the human body conducts 37 thousand billion billion chemical reactions per second, most of which, if not all, are interdependent, each occurring as a result of the (in)completion of the other. Similarly, it is not unlikely that each of the theories covered in this paper may have certain truths that are dependent upon certain truths offered by other theories.

Works Cited

Greenfield, N. (2021, March 16). Lightning may have created an ingredient needed for life to 

evolve. How A Building Block Of Life Got Created In A Flash. 

https://choice.npr.org/index.html?origin=https://www.npr.org/2021/03/16/977769884/how-a-building-block-of-life-got-created-in-a-flash 

Hashizume, H. (2012). Role of Clay Minerals in Chemical Evolution and the Origins of Life. 

Clay Minerals in Nature – Their Characterization, Modification and Application. Published. https://doi.org/10.5772/50172 

Hess, B.L., Piazolo, S. & Harvey, J. Lightning strikes as a major facilitator of prebiotic 

phosphorus reduction on early Earth. Nat Commun 12, 1535 (2021). 

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-21849-2

Ponce, C. P. (2020, August 28). Urea-Assisted Synthesis and Characterization of Saponite with 

Different Octahedral (Mg, Zn, Ni, Co) and Tetrahedral Metals (Al, Ga, B), a Review. MDPI. https://www.mdpi.com/2075-1729/10/9/168/htm 

Sun, V. Z. (2015, December 1). Ancient and recent clay formation on Mars as revealed from a global survey of hydrous minerals in crater central peaks. AGU Journals. https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/2015JE004918

Abstract

Time is running out to reverse our collective impact on climate change. Core samples retrieved from the Dead Sea, per the Dead Sea Deep Drilling Project, granted researchers access to 220,000 years of sedimentary records. Strikingly, the samples revealed unprecedented results: fine sediment accumulated three to four times greater in the area during seasonal floods some 11,500 years ago, concurring with the earliest human civilization in the region. As such, the data suggests that erosion was facilitated by the removal of natural vegetation, its replacement by crops, deforestation practices, and grazing herds. While some might argue that this was the inevitable consequence of the seasonal nature of flooding in the area and the aforementioned civilization’s only means of survival at the time. Based on “The Earliest Evidence of Human Impact on Earth’s Geology Has Been Found in The Dead Sea,” Shmuel Marco, from Tel Aviv University in Israel, notes that “This intensified erosion is incompatible with tectonic and climatic regimes during the Holocene – the geological epoch that began after the Pleistocene some 11,700 years ago” (BEC Crew 2017). Similarly, Cornell University’s “Soil Erosion Threatens Environment and Human Health, Study Reports,” “Around the world, soil is being swept and washed away 10 to 40 times faster than it is being replenished, destroying cropland the size of Indiana every year” (Cornell University 2006). As such, the severity of soil erosion is the second leading cause of environmental degradation, second only to population growth. 

…

Soil erosion is defined simply as the wearing away of topsoil, the most organic and nutrient-rich layer of soil. It is a serious concern, for displacing topsoil severs the land’s ability to sequester greenhouse gases that would otherwise not be released into the atmosphere as rapidly as they are now if they were not exacerbated by human practices and the ongoing global climate crisis. For example, machines used in agricultural practices are among the major reasons for the large-scale displacement of topsoil, not to mention such machines’ collective contribution to the augmentation of atmospheric carbon dioxide. Furthermore, with the onset of the drought of 1931, the death of crops en masse exposed barren, over-plowed farmland. As an unfortunate result, the effects of the deficit of prairie plants that once held the soil in place, paired with drought and gusty winds, led to a series of major dust storms that birthed the Southern Plains’ alternate alias—the Dust Bowl.

With the adoption of a sedentary lifestyle at the onset of the Neolithic Era, climate change became a matter of when complex, agriculturally dependent societies would be too much for the planet to sustain. This is because the transition from hunting and gathering to cultivating crops spurred not only the alteration/reduction of wildlife habitats, but it also—with the advancement of technology and subsequent advancements in agricultural practices—led to the introduction of toxic chemicals, nutrients, and pathogens into the soil. As such, human agriculture not only reduced wildlife biodiversity via its dependence on machines, its introduction of chemicals to the environment, and its replacement of entire forests for the cultivation of select crop species, it also promoted the erosion of soil, which ultimately served as a positive feedback loop for climate change.

Abstract

Over the course of the Fall 2021 semester at CCNY, I participated in Arts in New York City, Modern World Literature, and Writing for the Sciences. Modern World Literature and Arts in New York City exposed me to minor literature (tales of minor peoples articulated in dominant, or major, languages), which unveils the means by which dominant social groups objectify minority groups and, in turn, subject them to the perils of discrimination. Writing for the Sciences exposed me to the scientific aspect of my beliefs, for I strongly adhere to the First Law of Thermodynamics, which states that energy can neither be created nor destroyed. In this respect, immortality is within the universe’s essence, but according to Vaclav Havel, “Just as the constant increase of entropy is the basic law of the universe, so it is the basic law of life to struggle against entropy.” Texts such as Arts in New York City exposed me to both works of art and artistic literature that led me to make the connection between systemic mechanisms of control and the means by which mankind’s collective means of self-expression: the latter is causal to the former. Together, these courses have led me to understand writing as a medium through which man exercises the body, mind, and soul, through which I have come to understand myself as an aspiring public policy professional and advocate for social justice within the contexts of economic and environmental sustainability, driven by the increasing entropy of two worlds, the natural and man-made, occupying one planet. It has also led me to understand climate change as a culmination of that increase in entropy.

         In the beginning of the semester, I decided I would relate all my studies and assignments to my career interests. Surely, it would incite self-reflection and, whether I remained interested in neurosurgery or decided to switch gears, it would point me in the right direction. When Professor Boisvere, of Writing for the Sciences, dedicated an entire unit to discussing and researching the Anthropocene and how human activities have fueled the degradation of the environment, it became clear to me that the amount of effort and words I was putting into discussion boards signified my passion for environmental studies. On September 6th, 2021, I posted a discussion board responding to an article about the Dead Sea Deep Drilling Project. In it, samples revealed that fine sediment accumulated three to four times greater in the area (between Israel and Jordan in southwestern Asia) during seasonal floods some 11,500 years ago, concurring with the earliest human civilization in the region. Suggesting that erosion was facilitated by the removal of natural vegetation, its replacement by crops, deforestation practices, and grazing herds, according to “The Earliest Evidence of Human Impact on Earth’s Geology Has Been Found in The Dead Sea,” Shmuel Marco, from Tel Aviv University in Israel, notes that “This intensified erosion is incompatible with tectonic and climatic regimes during the Holocene – the geological epoch that began after the Pleistocene some 11,700 years ago” (BEC Crew 2017). This struck me as particularly intriguing because the effects of mankind’s transition from the hunter-gathering lifeways of the Paleolithic era to the sedentary lifeways of the Neolithic era can be traced back to as far back as 11,500 years ago. Imagine what future generations would observe in the geological record during the Anthropocene! Analysis of geological records, on a final note, was a skill necessary in writing my Scientific Controversy paper in Writing for the Sciences, for which I explored the various theories pertaining to the origin of life on Earth, arguing that life may have been a culmination of all the theories proposed for life’s origination.

         Currently, in accordance with Cornell University’s Soil Erosion Threatens Environment and Human Health, Study Reports, “Around the world, soil is being swept and washed away 10 to 40 times faster than it is being replenished, destroying cropland the size of Indiana every year” (Cornell University 2006). Two months ago, I posted another discussion board regarding wildfire smoke and COVID risk because as global temperatures rise, so does the frequency of wildfires and the most hazardous type of soot being produced, known as PM 2.5. According to In the West, a Connection Between Covid and Wildfires by Winston Choi-Schagrin, researchers of Harvard University estimated that around 20,000 coronavirus infections and 750 Covid-19 deaths are directly linked to exposure to wildfire smoke between March and December 2020 (Choi-Shagrin 2021). The fine particulate matter released from wildfire smoke—just as does the fine particulate matter from garbage trucks passing through the South Bronx, where the Environmental Protection Agency has egregiously failed to respond to Title XI complaints regarding environmental injustice—has been proven to disproportionately impact low-income minority groups. In the case of Native Americans, who have historically been relocated to mostly rural areas prone to wildfire, endure socioeconomic barriers that make it extremely difficult for them to recover after a disaster. Based on Racial, Ethnic Minorities Face Greater Vulnerability to Wildfires, predominantly Black, Hispanic, or Native American communities endure a 50 percent greater vulnerability to wildfires than other racial groups. For instance, during the 2014 wildfires in eastern and central Washington, language barriers “prevented Hispanic farmworkers from receiving evacuation alerts from authorities, and the only Spanish-language radio station in the area reportedly never received the emergency notification” (Ma 2018). With language barriers comes the underrepresentation of low-income minority communities I centered my writing on throughout Writing for the Sciences, Arts in New York City, and Modern World Literature. 

For my Creative Research Project in Arts in New York City, I was inspired by Italian sculptor Lorenzo Quinn’s Force of Nature sculptures, in which Mother Nature bears the weight of the world Quinn made of aluminum and steel, to incorporate some of the texts and knowledge I acquired in Writing for the Sciences in my creative research paper. Upon approaching the globe, individuals are met with their own reflections, making them as much a part of the artwork as the artwork itself. When the viewer decides they want to divert their gaze from their role in the work’s meaning, they are, in turn, turning a blind eye to their role in why these sculptures were made. As such, I remain focused on bringing justice to the world, including humanity, by writing about it, which had been encouraged in Writing for the Sciences, which exposed me to a range of linguistic differences as resources, allowing me to explore the social aspects involved not only in scientific writing, such as in the group research paper and presentation, but in understanding the world as finite and irreplaceable, as deduced from our artificial intelligence discussions. My natural drive for justice, both for humans and the environment, has even led my ENGL 21003 group to research scientific studies that prove personhood to be universal and not uniquely human, hence my advocacy for the uplifting of human well-being via a total economic transition to renewable sources of energy which, instead of degrading the environment for profit, instead of selecting which organisms survive on account of usefulness to humans, and finding value not in the fabric of the world but in what it provides us, it works with the environment and sustains a complex human civilization as well as a complex and delicate web of nature to which we all belong. 

         Veena Das, Krieger-Eisenhower Professor of Anthropology at Johns Hopkins University, postulates that language is not the best conduit through which humans can explore and express their pain. Alternatively, she argues that “the experience of pain cries out for this response of the possibility that my pain could reside in your body and that the philosophical grammar of pain is an answer to that call” (Das 2007), so when a doctor asks a patient what is hurting them, or where that patient feels discomfort, the ambiguity of the question seems to have the question fall short of understanding. What, indeed, is hurting low-income minority groups presenting to the doctor with pollution-induced asthma attacks, crippling, capitalism-induced obesity, or mysterious lumps under their beautiful melanin? Enough more pollution solutions, enough temporary resolutions. Removing a tumor does not always guarantee that it will not return, and the literature I explored in this course, as well as in Arts in New York City, truly allowed me to realize how nature currently parallels that concept. I expressed that on September 12, 2021, in my discussion board about the capitalism of the health sector, the first literary implementation of climate studies into my health studies. As I began to understand the health sector’s impact on minority groups and the environment, I ultimately strayed from my former career interest in surgery and looked towards public policy and social justice in the contexts of economic and environmental sustainability. I did this because I reflected on my own actions, researched the systemic behaviors of social injustices, and resonated with Lorenzo Quinn’s intention of inciting self-reflection among his audiences. 

References

Choi-Schagrin, W. (2021, August 14). In the West, a Connection Between Covid and Wildfires. 

The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/13/climate/wildfires-smoke-covid.html 

Ma, M. (2018, November 2). Racial, ethnic minorities face greater vulnerability to wildfires. UW News. https://www.washington.edu/news/2018/11/02/racial-ethnic-minorities-face-greater-vulnerability-to-wildfires/