{"id":1714,"date":"2011-12-01T13:36:47","date_gmt":"2011-12-01T13:36:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.joswassink.nl\/insight\/?p=1714"},"modified":"2011-12-01T13:36:47","modified_gmt":"2011-12-01T13:36:47","slug":"green-bombs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.joswassink.nl\/insight\/?p=1714","title":{"rendered":"Green bombs"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>If you\u2019re working on biofuels, funded by the army, would you hesitate if they asked you to help develop green explosives? Nature reports on the recent worries of some US synthetic biologists.<\/strong><\/p>\n

It all began last month following a \u2018statement of need\u2019 from the Strategic Environment Research and Development Program, asking for help from microbiologists to adapt microbes to the biological production of explosives instead of biofuels or bioplastics, which they were working on previously.<\/p>\n

The dilemma starts with the large research funding by the US Department of Defence. \u201cThey have a very large budget, which allows them to finance and orchestrate many research topics,\u201d explains Dr Behnam Taebi, a philosopher at TPM, who points out that many research projects are not military in character but just facilitate operations. Think of solar cells, biofuels or robotic research.
\nProfessor Jack Pronk, a microbiologist at the faculty of Applied Sciences, also works on biofuels. His current research is not funded by the (Dutch) Ministry of Defence, yet Prof. Pronk has no principal objections to military funding.
\nHe can nevertheless imagine that his US colleagues think twice about working on green explosives. After all, knowing what your work will eventually be used for is part of one\u2019s job satisfaction. Nature even quotes a US biologist who says he couldn\u2019t face his children if forced to confess he is developing explosives.<\/p>\n

Prof. Pronk however argues that industrial microbiology has long ago lost its innocence. During the First World War, German researchers added sulfite to an alcohol fermentation process, thus steering the yeast towards the production of glycerol, with the sole purpose of turning it into the highly explosive nitroglycerine. Ethical decisions in science strongly depend on historical circumstances, the professor contends: \u201cJust read the biography of Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb.\u201d
\nTaebi wants to broaden the perspective of the discussion. What is really at stake, he says, is whether or not the war (or the one that one prepares for) is a \u2018Just War\u2019. This concept was introduced by Hugo de Groot (Delft, 1583) in his groundbreaking ruminations on International Law. According to De Groot, a war is \u2018justified\u2019 in a nation\u2019s self-defence or in an attempt to prevent gross injustice, like genocide. Thus, a UN resolution makes a war legal, but not necessarily just, says Taebi. The latest wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were neither legal nor just.<\/p>\n

If however the war is just, one should also discuss the responsible manufacturing and use of weapons. Questions seemingly become legitimate when it is a question of whether depleted uranium should be used in vehicles (minimising risk to the military personnel), whether cluster bombs are permissible weapons (minimising the risk for future inhabitants in a war zone), and whether we should minimise environmental damage by producing explosives more ecologically. Harm should always be minimised.
\nProf. Pronk says that irrespective of the government\u2019s or university\u2019s standpoint, academic researchers should retain the right to refuse weapons research if it goes against their conscience. Taebi agrees, but he would like researchers to be more vocal in public discussions about their ethical dilemmas: \u201cThe concept of a just war is not only a moral discussion for philosophers; it\u2019s also of political and practical importance to engineers and researchers.\u201d Taebi would therefore welcome an open discussion at the university about military funding.<\/p>\n

Nature, Vol. 479, 24 November 2011, p. 458<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you\u2019re working on biofuels, funded by the army, would you hesitate if they asked you to help develop green explosives? Nature reports on the recent worries of some US synthetic biologists. It all began last month following a \u2018statement of need\u2019 from the Strategic Environment Research and Development Program, asking for help from microbiologists […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,6],"tags":[64,170,286,289],"class_list":["post-1714","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-delta","tag-biological-production","tag-explosives","tag-microbiology","tag-military"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.joswassink.nl\/insight\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1714","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.joswassink.nl\/insight\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.joswassink.nl\/insight\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.joswassink.nl\/insight\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.joswassink.nl\/insight\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1714"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.joswassink.nl\/insight\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1714\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.joswassink.nl\/insight\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1714"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.joswassink.nl\/insight\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1714"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.joswassink.nl\/insight\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1714"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}