MEC to sell bikes

It seems that Mountain Equipment Co-op (MEC) is getting into the business of making and selling bikes. This seems like good news for three major reasons:

  1. MEC is distinguished by having an excellent and knowledgeable staff concerned with finding the best option for you, rather than earning a commission or even maximizing the profits of the store.
  2. MEC has a history of developing their own products, which are generally of good quality and excellent value. They aren’t as good as top-of-the-line equipment from certain other manufacturers, but they are often nearly as good and half the price.
  3. MEC seems to take ethical and environmental issues into consideration very seriously.

In short, I look forward to seeing what they produce (not that I need a bike right now. I am still delighted with my Trek 7.3 hybrid).

Resource types and the resource curse

As discussed before, the ‘resource curse’ hypothesis holds that the presence of valuable resources can sometimes reduce the security of states, since it offers up a prize to anyone capable of seizing them. A bit of recent research has added nuance to the picture. By looking at the long-running civil war in Columbia, the authors were able to look at periods when coffee (a labour intense crop) and oil (a capital intense crop) rose and fell in value:

Using newspaper reports of violent skirmishes in 950 Colombian municipalities between 1988 and 2005, Dube and Vargas find that when coffee prices went up, violence went down in locations where a large fraction of land area was under coffee cultivation. When coffee prices fell, however, as they did by almost 70 percent in the late 1990s, violence in coffee areas rose dramatically. The researchers estimate that an additional 500 deaths may have resulted from the increased conflict that came from lower coffee prices. The opposite was true for oil: It was higher prices that intensified conflict in areas with productive oil wells or pipelines. (Since both coffee and oil prices are traded in global markets, it is unlikely that price increases were caused by panicking commodities traders spooked by increased civil-war violence in Colombia.)

One suggestion that arises is not unfamiliar: establish strong governance regimes in states with capital intensive resources. It is far better to be like Norway, using resource income transparently and putting aside a share of the oil revenues for the benefit of future generations, than like Nigeria, long mired in conflict as different groups compete for resource wealth.

On the labour intensive side, the proposal is a bit more novel: provide international aid to stabilize commodity prices in conflict-prone states. There are those who argue that a 50% drop in coffee prices helped cause the Rwandan genocide. Surely, the economic cost of temporarily bolstering commodity prices in delicate states is less than the probable cost of re-establishing security and resuming development after an internal conflict. The difference between the economic cost and the moral cost of inaction is probably greater still.

Accounting for changes in sinks

It is highly likely that any successor to the Kyoto Protocol negotiated in the next couple of years will include targets based on emissions produced directly by human activities. That means any emissions associated with melting permafrosts, accelerated decay in peatlands, or dried out forests would not be included in the overall total. This is pretty worrisome, given that the climate doesn’t care about the origin of emissions. We could conceivably meet out target for anthropogenic emissions while nonetheless putting far more greenhouse gas into the atmosphere than would be wise.

At the same time, it wouldn’t be fair to penalize only the country where the second-order emissions get produced. If the Amazon dries out due to climate change, it is not entirely or even mostly the fault of Brazil. The fairest course of action seems to be:

  1. Come up with a hard global target for both direct human emissions and those induced by climate change itself.
  2. Assign the direct emissions to the states producing them.
  3. Divide up the secondary emissions and assign them to each country according to their total historical contribution to climate change.

That means if Canada has emitted about 2% of all the anthropogenic greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere, we would be responsible for 2% of induced emissions coming out of the permafrost in Canada and Siberia, the drying of the Amazon, etc. That way, the polluter is paying, albeit belatedly, and the focus remains the actual amount of greenhouse gas entering the atmosphere, which is the critical determinant in what will happen to the climate.

ICCAAT derided, tuna stocks denuded

The International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) has generally shown itself to be ineffective in its mandate. Indeed, some have suggested with a fait bit of validity that the acronym more accurately expands to “International Conspiracy to Catch All Tuna.” A panel including experts from Canada, Japan, and Australia has now published a report with similar conclusions, saying that the organization is “”widely regarded as an international disgrace” and that there have been widespread failures in reducing illegal fishing, providing accurate catch data, and maintaining proper monitoring arrangements. When it appears that even Japan might be willing to back a moratorium on bluefin tuna fishing, you can be sure the situation is dire.

Unfortunately, the global record on fisheries management overall is dismal. Even the Alaskan pollock fishery – considered by many to be one of the most sustainable in the world – has seen a population drop of 50% since last year. The problem is simple to explain and very challenging to solve. There are too many people fishing with gear that is too good. Not enough parts of the sea are set off as safe havens for marine life. Pollution and climate change are also having an impact. Politicians are too spineless to stand up to the fishing lobby, not even in order to defend the public good, but to stop that very industry from destroying itself in our lifetimes. The industry needs to be much smaller and much more tightly regulated; the most destructive gear needs to be banned; monitoring needs to be improved; and states must prove themselves willing to enforce the law.

The chances of all that happening are fairly slim. All told, global fisheries provide one of the most acute examples of where human beings are weighing so heavily on the planet’s physical and biological systems that collapse is rapidly approaching.

Prior related posts:

The Shifting Baselines blog is also an excellent source of fishery-related news.

Appetite for climate policy in Europe

In many ways, the European Union leads the world on climate change policy. In most states, there is broad political support for carbon regulation. They have also undertaken the largest experiment in carbon pricing. While the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) certainly has a large number of problems, it will hopefully develop towards greater effectiveness and prove a model for others. The EU also has some ambitious targets and, in many cases, reasonable mechanisms for working towards them.

Of course, it becomes more difficult to sell strong climate policies to voters when the economy heads south. Poland is suddenly extremely anxious about the carbon intensity of its coal-fired power plants, while other states are worried about the global competitiveness of their industries.

This is part of the reason for which it is so critical to get a strong new global agreement by the time of the Copenhagen meeting of the UNFCCC. Once emissions-intensive sectors are regulated in most of the states where they are important, states will be less anxious about losing competitiveness.

Carbon capture research

Researchers at the University of Calgary say they have a machine that can extract carbon dioxide from the air at a reasonable cost and using relatively little energy. From what I can tell, the CO2 extracted would still need to be buried somewhere. Even so, if such technologies prove cost effective and scalable, they could potentially play a role in stabilizing climate.

More details are in this PDF. Apparently, the tower can capture 15 tonnes per year of CO2 per square metre and each tonne of capture requires 81 kilowatt-hours of electricity (about $4 worth). Estimated total costs per tonne (including capital) range between $12.80 and $43.80.

The death of libertarianism

There is a lot about the political philosophy of libertarianism that is appealing. The idea that one should be free to behave as one wishes – as long as it doesn’t harm others – seems to provide a decent balance between allowing people to pursue their own purposes and stopping that pursuit from harming the general interest. That being said, the degree to which libertarianism can be liberating is diminishing with time. This is basically because of both the growing fact of interconnectedness and because of our growing awareness of it.

One example is economic globalization. At one point in time, it would have been considered reasonable to argue that economic activity on one side of the world has no morally relevant effect on the other. Now that markets are more linked, products and capital flow, and awareness of linkages exist, that becomes very difficult to argue. Before, it is as though the chooser was alone in a room with a light switch. It is of no particular moral consequence whether they choose to have it on or not. Now, it is more as though that light switch also reduces the function of the equipment in a hospital across town when it is pulled. Whereas libertarianism previously permitted free choice, the inter-linked example includes a moral obligation to act in a certain way.

Climate change may be the ultimate force diminishing how liberating libertarianism can be. Not only do nearly all of our life and economic choices impact innocent third parties around the world, they also contribute to a problem that will have a huge long-term impact on future generations and the natural world. Arguably, this makes the doctrine of “do what you like but do no harm” impossible to follow in practice.

It is not clear if or how the appealing aspects of libertarianism can be maintained in a world full of important material interconnections. The most plausible answer seems to be a combination of working hard to create situations where multiple moral choices actually do exist (light switches that don’t shut down breathing machines) and accepting those situations where the tradeoffs are real and making a determined effort to choose the least harmful option.

Building a low-carbon political consensus

In order to begin a sustained transition to a low-carbon global economy, the following things need to occur:

  • Political parties and the public at large must accept that stabilizing climate means eventually eliminating net emissions.
  • They must understand what the on-the-ground ramifications of this are.
  • A price for carbon must be established, with mechanisms for international trading.
  • Climate policies must become more rigorous over time, regardless of who is in power.
  • Climatic stability must become an axiom of all political ideologies accepted by parties likely to gain power in major emitting states.
  • Emissions reductions must take place both during times of strong economic growth and during times of economic difficulty.

Getting to that point, and doing so fast enough to prevent more than 2°C of mean temperature change, will be very challenging indeed – even if the actual sensitivity of the climate to greenhouse gasses is at the low end of the probable range.

It will probably require the rout of the small but highly effective climate change denial industry. In addition, it will require a jump in public imagination to being able to imagine an attractive low-carbon future. Either alternative or in addition, it will also required increased awareness of just how bad climate change could be. The Meteorological Office of the United Kingdom predicts that a business-as-usual course of emissions until 2050 would lead to 5.5°C to 7.1°C of temperature increase by 2100. For context, the IPCC projects that a temperature rise of 3.5°C to 7.1°C would place 48% to 100% of all species at risk of extinction. My guess is that the upper bound doesn’t include microorganisms, but it would still be pretty frightening if it only included multi-cellular beings. For the same temperature range, the predicted likelihood of “initiating irreversible melt of the Greenland ice sheet” is 85% to 100% and the “percentage of mortality in tolerant coral species” is 90% to 100%.

Here’s hoping that political consensus comes together soon… The frequent refrain of ‘balancing’ economic growth with environmental protection becomes insane when these kinds of ecological consequences are possible.

North/South historical versus future emissions

It is common to hear officials from developed states say things akin to this: “Yes, we are the ones who have historically done the most to create climate change – but we will be eclipsed by developing nations in the future.” While probably valid to some extent, there are many possible responses to this. There are arguments about who got rich how, as well as whose current per-capita emissions are high or low. What I am objecting to here is the curious methodology sometimes used to describe the developed/developing past/future dynamic.

Sometimes, states say both (a) developed states will continue to increase their emissions, in line with how they have been rising recently and (b) we will cut our emissions, according to our existing plan. If you step beyond that to compare your target future numbers with your business-as-usual projections for developing states, you make them look like a huge problem by comparison. One problem with this is that it is akin to saying the following: “I know I have been a problem gambler, but I have a plan to cut it down. I am going to halve my annual gambling losses in three years, and eliminate 80% of them in five. My buddy here, however, is a really compulsive gambler. He keeps losing more and more at an increasing rate. As such, his projected future losses are huge. Indeed, the amount I have lost so far is tiny compared to the amount he is going to lose in the future.” It is paradoxical because you are using the assertion that you will do better in the future to avoid present demands that you do more to reduce future emissions.

You are basically assuming that you can and will change, while others will not. No rich country government that has adopted targets for cutting emissions claims that cutting emissions requires cutting GDP. Nobody in power is touting a “stop climate change through recession” approach. As such, they must believe it possible to maintain economic growth while cutting emissions. While that may or may not be a valid assumption over various spans of time, it is an assumption that must be applied to developing states as well as developed ones.

In short, both developed and developing states need to cut emissions. The large probable future emissions from states like India and China are relevant to climate planning, partly insofar as concern about them could prompt useful transfers of wealth and low-carbon technology towards those states. At the same time, the wealth of the developed world – and the historical emissions that helped generate it – are also highly relevant. So too are the much larger non-climatic challenges being faced in the developing world. The developed world needs to start taking the kinds of steps necessary for actually hitting their 2020 and 2050 targets, in the process demonstrating to developing states how the transition can be accomplished in a politically acceptable way.

The frogs in the coal mine

A recent study conducted by the Zoological Society of London concluded that half of Europe’s amphibians could be extinct by 2050. There are two obvious ways to consider the news. Firstly, it is evidence of the enormously destructive effect human beings have on vulnerable ecosystems. Secondly, it raises questions about whether humanity itself will be able to survive the catastrophe is it creating. Amphibians have been around for 400 million years. While there have certainly been times in which a large proportion of them have died off, those times have been been listed among the catastrophic extinction events that have punctuated the history of life on Earth.

In short, the impact of the global economy is becoming comparable to that of major meteor strikes, mass volcanic events, large changes in sea level, and severe changes in atmospheric composition that have occurred in the past. For those who do not believe that humanity inhabits some special protected position in the cosmos, that seems like cause for very significant concern.