The environment – Page 156 – a sibilant intake of breath

Reasons for vegetarianism

During the last few days, a number of people have asked about the reasons for which I am a vegetarian. As shown in the Venn diagram above, my reasons fall into three major clusters:

Hygienic concerns
Animal rights concerns
Ecological concerns

Basically, the first category applies if you only think about your own immediate well being. If you are willing to consider the possibility that it is wrong to treat some animals in some ways, considerations in the orange circle start to apply. If you accept that we have general duties to preserve nature (or recognize that our long term survival depends on acting that way), issues in the yellow circle are of concern.

The specific issues listed are just examples. They are not exhaustive representations of all the problems in each area. Possible reasons for being vegetarian also exist outside these areas: for example, you can think it is wrong to eat meat when the grain used to fatten the animals could have alleviated the hunger of other humans.

A few issues are unambiguously in one area – for instance, the de-beaking of chickens is almost exclusively an ethical problem. The fact that no experimental laboratory could get ethical approval to treat their test subject animals in the way factory farmed animals are treated as a matter of course is telling. Some overlaps are ambiguous. Overfishing destroys the habitats of species I consider us to bear moral duties towards (such as whales and dolphins), even if the fish themselves can be legitimately used as means to whatever ends we have.

Naturally, different kinds of meat and processes of meat production do more or less well in each area. For my own sake, I think each of the three areas is sufficient in itself to justify vegetarianism. It is possible to imagine meat production that doesn’t have any of these problems, but it is an extreme rarity today and my appreciation for meat is not strong enough to justify the cost and effort of seeking it out. That said, I would be much happier if people who were going to consume meat made such choices, instead of helping to perpetuate the machinery of modern industrial farming.

Starting over from 1769

In 1769, James Watt invented a steam engine that worked well enough to be widely adopted by industry. By doing so, he effectively kicked off the industrial revolution: with coal-fed steam engines emerging as the first alternative to animal power that didn’t depend on being beside a river or on a windy ridge. As the recently concluded conference in Bali shows, there were consequences of that invention and the series of successor ideas it kicked off that could not have been anticipated at the time (though Svante Arrhenius identified the possibility of CO2 causing anthropogenic warming back in 1896).

If we could do the whole thing over, what would we do differently? For the purposes of this thought experiment, imagine that we know about the ecological consequences of fossil fuel based industrialization, but we don’t have access to specific knowledge about how to build 21st century engines, power plants, etc. We know about ozone and CFCs, about heavy metal poisoning and nuclear waste. We do not know how to build a modern wind turbine or supercritical coal plant. We have just learned how to build Watt’s engine, and know nothing more.

I think it is virtually certain we would still choose to kick things off with coal and steam, even if we had the best interests of all future generations in mind. At the outset, the benefits of that kind of industrialization accrue both to those alive and to those who will come after. These benefits include many of the bits of technology that make our lives so much longer, healthier, and leisure-filled than those of the vast majority of our forebears. The idea that life in a pre-industrial society was somehow superior is plainly contradicted by archaeological data: you can argue that people were somehow happier while living with constant parasites and disease and dropping dead at thirty, but it is a lot more credible to argue the converse.

What, then, would we do differently? We would invest differently – putting a lot more effort into the earlier development of non-fossil options. We would probably try to limit population growth. Aside from some relatively minor cases like ozone depleting CFCs, it isn’t clear that we have made a great many straightforward ecological mistakes. Rather, the fundamental problem seems to be that of scaling: too much being demanded of the natural world, in conditions where individuals make choices that do not give due consideration to the welfare of their fellows and of future generations.

While future technologies like carbon capture and storage could play a significant role, the most important elements of an effective climate strategy have existed for a century. Fossil fuel generation capacity must be phased out and replaced with renewable options; transportation needs to to shift to low-carbon and eventually no-carbon forms; the forests and other carbon sinks must be protected and enhanced; and capacity to adapt to change must be developed. While the specific approaches we take in relation to these strategies could benefit from more knowledge about the future, their basic outline is already plain.

Now that we can no longer claim – as a society – to live in a state of deprivation, we have no excuse for continuing to rely upon the descendants of Watt’s machine.

A few thoughts on climate justice

A couple of articles at Slate.com address the issue of ‘climate justice.’ This is, in essence, the question of how much mitigation different states are obliged to undertake, as well as what sort of other international transfers should take place in response to climate change. The issue is a tricky one for many reasons – most importantly because anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions constitute a unique experiment that can only be conducted once. If we choose the wrong collection of policies, all future generations may face a profoundly different world from the one we inherited.

If we accept Stern’s estimate of a five gigatonne level for sustainable global emissions, that works out to about 760kg of carbon dioxide equivalent per person on Earth. Releasing just 36kg of methane would use up an entire year’s allotment, as would just 2.5kg of nitrous oxide. One cow produces about 150kg of methane per year. Right now, Canada’s per-capita emissions are about 24,300kg, when you take into account land use change. American emissions are about 22,900kg while those of India and China are about 1,800kg and 3,900 respectively. Because of deforestation, Belize emits a startling 93,900kg of CO2e per person.

The questions of fairness raised by the situation are profound:

Should states with shrinking populations be rewarded with higher per capita emissions allowances?
Should states with rising populations likewise be punished?
Should developing states be allowed to temporarily overshoot their fair present allotment, as developed states did in the past?
To what extent should rich states pay for emissions reductions in poor ones?
To what extent should rich states pay for climate change adaptation in the developing world?

It may well be that such questions are presently unanswerable, by virtue of the fact that answers that conform with basic notions of ethics clash fundamentally with the realities of economic and political power. We can only hope that those realities will shift before irreversible harmful change occurs. Remember, cutting from 24,600kg to 760kg per person just halts the increase in the atmospheric concentration of CO2. The level of change that will arise from any particular concentration remains uncertain.

Another vital consideration is how any system of international cooperation requires a relatively stable international system. While it is sometimes difficult to imagine countries like China and the United States voluntarily reducing emissions to the levels climatic stability requires on the basis of a negotiated international agreement, it is virtually impossible to imagine it in a world dominated by conflict or mass disruption. It is tragically plausible that the effects of climate change could destroy any chance of addressing it cooperatively, over the span of the next thirty to seventy years.

Salmon farming and sea lice

Recent work by Martin Krkosek of the University of Alberta has demonstrated strong links between the practice of salmon aquaculture and the incidence of sea lice infestations that threaten wild populations. One study used mathematically coupled datasets on the transmission of sea lice (Lepeophtheirus salmonis) on migratory pink (Oncorhynchus gorbuscha) and chum (Oncorhynchus keta) salmon. They concluded that:

Farm-origin lice induced 9–95% mortality in several sympatric wild juvenile pink and chum salmon populations. The epizootics arise through a mechanism that is new to our understanding of emerging infectious diseases: fish farms undermine a functional role of host migration in protecting juvenile hosts from parasites associated with adult hosts. Although the migratory life cycles of Pacific salmon naturally separate adults from juveniles, fish farms provide L. salmonis novel access to juvenile hosts, in this case raising infection rates for at least the first 2.5 months of the salmon’s marine life (80 km of the migration route).

Packing fish together in pens that are open to the sea is an almost ideal mechanism for breeding and distributing parasites and disease. In nature, you would never find salmon packed 25,000 to an acre. Keeping them in such conditions – and making them grow as quickly as possible – generally requires chemical manipulation. The earlier discussion here about antibiotic use and its role in the emergence of resistant bacteria is relevant.

These concerns also exist in addition to the fundamental reason for which fish farming cannot be sustainable: it relies on catching smaller and less tasty fish to feed to the tastier carnivorous fish that people enjoy. It thus lets us strip the sea bare of salmon or cod or trout and compensate for some period of time by using cheaper fish as a factor for their intensive production. Given that those cheaper fish are caught unsustainably, however, fish farming simply delays the emergence of truly empty oceans. And the industry is trying to have farmed salmon labelled ‘organic.’ Ludicrous.

Source: Krkosek, Martin et al. “Epizootics of wild fish induced by farm fish.” Proceedings of the National Association of Sciences. October 17, 2006, vol. 103, no. 42, 15506-15510.

P.S. Shifting Baselines also has some commentary on sea lice and salmon farming.

Trains and buses

Commenting on the possibility of Seattle installing a streetcar system, Dan Savage has argued: “People like trains. People hate buses.” Though public transportation policy is hardly his area of expertise, he does understand how people think and he is able to express himself forcefully and directly. On some level, it is definitely true. I like trains and subways. In London, I took the subway all the time; not once did I ever take a bus. Taking the train from Oxford to London feels like a luxury; taking the bus feels like a jerky, tedious chore.

In Heat, George Monbiot argues that the solution is to make buses nicer: cleaner, newer, and with attractive add-ons like wireless internet. He also argues that inter-city buses should avoid city centres, with all the nightmares of traffic and fiddly intersections they inevitably involve. While that would improve point-to-point travel in the UK, it doesn’t really reveal the reasons for which buses are treated with everything from moderate dislike to outright disdain. Is it a class issue? Lisa Simpson called the bus “”the chariot of the poor and very poor alike.” Is it a practical matter of comfort and efficiency, as Monbiot describes? If so, can it be overcome through practical measures like those he suggests. Are buses doomed to forever be an inferior good?

It is generally recognized that increasing bus services is the cheapest way of expanding public transport – both in terms of capital considerations and overall lifetime costs. That said, if transit use is significantly hampered by the dislike people feel for buses, perhaps alternatives should be more strongly considered. Arguably, this is especially true when it comes to people who have the financial means to use a car instead. If they get driven off the public transit system as soon as they hit that level of affluence, the system remains dominated by users without a great deal of political influence. In an argument akin to those about two-tier healthcare, it is possible that the self-exclusion of the wealthy from the public system perpetuates mediocrity.

One way or another, we need to hope that the private vehicle is reaching its apex in human history. Even with the eventual development of electric vehicles and other low or zero-emission options, the sheer amounts of space and resources devoted to producing and maintaining private transportation infrastructure are probably not sustainable. Given that it will be politically impossible to drag people from their cars kicking and screaming, we need to think seriously about how to encourage voluntary shifts to public or non-motorized transport. Better bike infrastructure and public transit seems crucial tot that campaign.

Climate and the boreal forest

According to data submitted by Global Forest Watch Canada to the International Boreal Conservation Campaign (IBCC), Canada’s boreal forest contains 186 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent. That is equal to about 27 years worth of present global emissions. Permafrost – which is rich in methane – makes up about 25% of the world’s land area and about 50% of Canada.

Significant permafrost melting would release gasses that would accelerate the warming trend. Making boreal areas into parks and avoiding deforestation there isn’t a terribly effective mechanism for keeping the bulk of these greenhouse gasses in the soil. The trees themselves are increasingly threatened by pine beetles, as warm winters permit their continued spread. Maintaining the soils as a carbon sink essentially requires that they remain cold – an increasingly distant prospect as emissions continue to grow and other carbon sinks become saturated.

No Arctic summer ice in 2012-13?

According to a BBC article, some scientists are predicting the disappearance of all Arctic summer ice within five to six years. This projection is based on computer modeling by Wieslaw Maslowski and uses data that doesn’t even take into account the spectacular loss of Arctic ice last summer. Maslowski’s team has produced an estimated rate of loss much higher than those of other groups who have studied the issue, but he defends the quality of his modeling:

“We use a high-resolution regional model for the Arctic Ocean and sea ice forced with realistic atmospheric data. This way, we get much more realistic forcing, from above by the atmosphere and from the bottom by the ocean.”

Even the work of other teams suggests the loss of summer ice between 2040 and 2100: a very rapid climatic change, given how most forms of natural climatic forcing operate on the timescale of millennia

The progressive deterioration of the northern polar cryosphere is disturbing for a number of reasons. Because water absorbs more energy from sunlight than ice does, the loss of the icecap would accelerate global warming. It would also eliminate or substantially alter the lifestyles of those living in the north, as well as most Arctic species. That said, there is some chance that the sudden disappearance of the Arctic icecap would be dramatic and irrefutable enough to kick off much more serious global action to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions and prepare to adapt to the amount of change that is now inevitable. In a world where the Arctic vanished before our eyes, radical ideas like those of Monbiot may start seeming reasonable to a lot more people.

Positive externalities and the environment

When you see “environment” and “externality” in the same sentence, it is a safe bet that the issue being discussed is negative externalities associated with production or consumption. These are certainly critical, but they are not the only area in which environmental thought and economic theory on externalities intersect. The positive externalities associated with new technologies also bear consideration. When a firm or individual invents something that provides major overall benefits, many of those will accrue to other people. This is good from the perspective of those able to benefit from the new technologies, but it is theoretically bad for innovation overall. If I suspect that most of the gains for my new engine, battery, or vaccine technology will accrue to other people, I will not devote as much of my time and resources to developing such innovations as I would if I believed I would personally get all the benefits.

As with intellectual property rights in general, the issue of balance here is a critical and difficult one. We want to encourage people to design and build better solar cells, wind turbines, and power plants. They could arguably be best encouraged to do so by giving them extensive property rights over what they come up with: lengthy patents and the right to collect royalties from all users. That said, such a restrictive system could sharply limit distribution. Once we have a good technology, we want to see it widely deployed – including in places where people have urgent sustenance needs and cannot be fairly called upon to pay heavy royalty fees.

One established way to square this circle is with prizes. The X-Prize assisted the development of (highly greenhouse gas intensive) private space technology. Prizes may also be used successfully to encourage the development of vaccines and treatments for poor world diseases like malaria. Richard Branson has created a prize for straight-out-of-the-air carbon capture. A few big prizes for things like lowering the cost and efficiency of renewable power sources might help to overcome institutional hesitation within innovative firms, as well as get some clever people tinkering in their garages.

The existence of positive externalities associated with new technology also provides strong justification for other governmental interventions: including direct government research and governmental support for private and academic efforts. Internalizing the full costs of pollution is exceedingly important if we aim to achieve environmental protection within a free market system; internalizing the benefits of innovation may also help to bring that about.

For a much more detailed discussion, see: Jaffee, Adam et al. “A tale of two market failures: Technology and environmental policy.” Ecological Economics. Volume 54, Issues 2-3, 1 August 2005, Pages 164-174.

Another climatic threat: jökulhlaups

In some parts of the world, large lakes are bounded by natural dams made of glacial ice. When the ice melts, the resulting surges of water are comparable in effect to the failure of human-made dams. Merzbacher Lake, in Kyrgyzstan, has completely emptied 39 times, following such events. An article in Geophysical Research Letters describes that lake in greater detail.

Significant past examples of such glacial lake outbursts occurred in Iceland, Alaska, Canada, and Bhutan. While relatively few areas are threatened by such events, they are demonstrative of the kind of change that is ongoing in the cryosphere.

Tsho Rolpa, a glacial lake in Nepal, seems to be due for such an event. It is 4580m above sea level and dammed by 150m of ice. The melting of the Trakarding Glacier is feeding the growth of the lake, which will eventually breach the ice wall in a highly dramatic manner. Local communities have been building raised watchtowers and shoring up embankments. Tsho Rolpa is one of 2,323 glacial lakes in the Nepalese Himalayas.

Boomtowns and bitumen

Since 1999, the population of Fort McMurray has nearly doubled. Primarily, this is on account of the oil sands: unconventional petroleum reserves whose exploitation is being driven by high prices and geopolitics. The demand for labour is dramatically increasing its price, both directly and indirectly. Apparently, inexperienced truck drivers can expect to make $100,000 per year. Shell has also just opened a 2,500 unit housing complex for its oil sands employees, part of their $12 billion in local infrastructure spending.

With oil around $90 a barrel and the atmosphere still being treated as a carbon dump, this is not terribly surprising. That said, such projects are certain to develop increasing momentum of their own. Once they bring enough jobs and money, they are hard for a provincial government to not support – especially if many of the environmental costs are being borne by people outside the province or by future generations. Internalizing environmental externalities through taxation or regulation becomes progressively more difficult as the incentive of certain parties to preserve the status quo increases. Such asymmetries are likely to give oil sands development a harmful legacy in terms of general policy development, in addition to its climate change effect and local environmental impacts.