YSM Issue 90.1

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CO 2
Past the point of no return?
►BY MATTHEW KEGLEY
Climate change has been ranked a top
global threat, with indicators such as carbon
dioxide (CO 2
) levels illustrating its
rapid progression. Each year, CO 2
levels
are lowest in September—but this year,
even at their annual minimum, CO 2
levels
stayed above 400 parts per million
(ppm). Scientists consider 400 ppm to
be the “fail-safe” ceiling for CO 2
levels.
Beyond this concentration means that
Earth has permanently surpassed 350
ppm, the highest level needed to maintain
climate stability. So when the Mauna
Loa Observatory, a global monitoring facility
in Hawaii, discovered that CO 2
levels
remained unusually high this year, the
news was concerning for many experts.
“We won’t be seeing a monthly value
below 400 ppm this year—or ever again
for the indefinite future,” said Ralph
Keeling, director of the Scripps Institute
for Oceanography, after he analyzed the
IMAGE COURTESY OF WIKIPEDIA COMMONS
►Smoke is emitted from factory smokestacks
beside a highway.
daily Mauna Loa recordings.
With global CO 2
continuing to rise,
has our atmosphere been irreversibly
altered? Joshua Galperin, research
scholar and lecturer in law at Yale Law
School and the Yale School of Forestry
and Environmental Studies as well as
the director of the Environmental Protection
Clinic, believes we can address
the problem if both policymakers and
citizens make changes. “[Policymakers]
need to be imaginative,” Galperin said.
Specifically, he promoted the elimination
of coal power as a starting point
for energy reformation.
Galperin further suggested that citizens
use their skills in economies “built
on carbon” to ensure integrity as they
retract from carbon. He also emphasized
the need for hope at the forefront
of our actions to combat climate
change.
Three’s a Crowd—How can a baby have three parents?
►BY MILANA BOCHKUR DRATVER
Modern technology has allowed for the
creation of “three-parent” babies by incorporating
genetic material from three individuals
in the creation of a single embryo.
For parents whose children are at risk of
inheriting a mitochondrial disorder, genetic
material from a third person can
help them conceive a healthy child. Mitochondria
are maternally inherited organelles,
so if a mother’s mitochondrial DNA
is mutated, her children are at risk of developing
defects that frequently result in
infant death.
Researchers first attempted to prevent
mitochondrial diseases in the 1990s by
injecting mitochondrial DNA from a donor
into another woman’s egg, along with
sperm from her partner. Some of these
children developed genetic disorders, and
the US Food and Drug Administration
stopped the procedure.
IMAGE COURTESY OF WIKIPEDIA COMMONS
►Sperm cells surround and fertilize a human
egg as seen under a light microscope.
A recently approved method now used
in the United Kingdom is pronuclear
transfer: the mother’s and a donor’s egg
are fertilized with the father’s sperm,
both nuclei are removed from their respective
eggs, and the mother’s nucleus
is transferred to the donor’s egg. The embryo
then possesses mitochondrial DNA
from the donor, as well as nuclear DNA
from its parents. In this way, the child
has genes from three different parents.
Recent successful three-parent-births
give hope to parents who have lost children
to mitochondrial disorders.
“Mitochondrial diseases were incurable
until now. The opportunity to use
mitochondrial replacement as a form of
cell therapy to provide a ‘cure’ should be
embraced,” explained Pasquale Patrizio,
Director of Yale Fertility Center & Fertility
Preservation Program.