The environment – Page 173 – a sibilant intake of breath

Richard Branson’s $25M atmosphere challenge

With Richard Branson offering US$25 million to someone who can come up with a system to remove greenhouse gases (most importantly, CO2) from the atmosphere, a lot of people are probably wondering whether it is a pipe dream. Aside from the obvious option of growing more plants, I would be inclined to think so. In order to separate CO2 from air, then sequester it somewhere, it seems likely that you would need a lot more capital and energy than would be required to simply switch away from fossil fuels. It’s like turning on your air conditioning because your oven is making the house too hot. I don’t doubt that it is possible, but I doubt that it is a sensible solution.

That said, finding a technical solution to the greenhouse gas problem would please a very great many people. Though less likely to actually mitigate climate change, the ‘separate and sequester’ plan seems a lot more sensible than the sulfate injection plan, discussed previously. While it may be unlikely that someone will actually claim his prize (and it might distract research attention from more promising options like making more efficient solar panels), that is not to say it would be a bad thing if someone did.

The environment as a security matter

Of late, it has become somewhat trendy to consider the environment as a ‘security’ issue. The most frequently cited example is the danger of massive refugee slows caused by environmental factors (such as climate change or desertification). Also common are assertions that people will soon begin fighting wars over natural resources. While massive environmental change can obviously spark conflict, I am skeptical about claims that this constitutes a major change in the character of international security.

To me, the first strain of thinking seems a lot more plausible than the second. There are already island nations that need to think seriously about what the 7-23″ rise in sea levels by 2100 projected in the fourth IPCC report will mean for their habitability. Environmental factors like soil quality and rainfall have helped to determine the patterns of human habitation and production for all of history, and it is unsurprising that changes in such things could have serious disruptive effects. Large scale population movements, both within and between states, are concerning because of the level of suffering they generally involve, as well as the possibility that they will have problematic secondary effects such as inducing conflict or spreading infectious disease.

The idea of resource wars is one that I think has been overstated and, to some extent, misunderstood. There are certainly resources that can and have been fought over, and resource issues frequently play a role in establishing the duration and character of conflicts. Armed groups with no economic base cannot long persist in the costly business of war-fighting. That said, the idea that states will go to war over something like water seems, in most cases, implausible. War is an exceptionally costly enterprise – much more so than new purification or desalination facilities. Also, most water problems arise from irrational patterns of usage, often themselves the product of a distorted cost structure. While equity compels that people should be provided with enough water for personal needs as a standard function of government, it simply makes sense that those using it on a very large scale pay for it at a level that accurately reflects the costs of production. If that happened, we would see a lot more drip-feed irrigation and a lot fewer leaky pipes. Some perspective is also in order: producing all of the world’s municipal water through oceanic desalination would cost only 0.5% of global GDP, and there is no reason to think that such a drastic step will ever be necessary.¹

I am not saying that resources and conflict are unrelated: I am saying there is no reason to believe hyperbolic claims about the nature of international security being fundamentally altered by resource issues. It is also worth noting that conflicts over resources are often used as justifications to engage in actions that can be more sensibly explained by considering other causes.

Thinking about the environment as a security issue has implications both for prevention and mitigation behaviours. Because politicians and the general public place a special emphasis on matters of security, spinning the environment that way can be a form of rent seeking. Those who see the need to do more as pressing may find that this kind of resource transfer justifies selling the security side of the environment more than they otherwise would. On the mitigation side, it suggests that dealing with environmental problems may require forceful action to prevent or contain conflicts. Given the aforementioned costs of such actions, the case to take preventative action against probable but uncertain threats becomes even stronger.

[1] Shiklomanov, Igor A. “Appraisal and assessment of world water resources.” Water International. 25(1): 11-32. 2000

PS. People interested in the hydrosphere may enjoy reading the accessible and informative chapter on it in John McNeill’s Something New Under the Sun. this report from SOAS on water and the Arab-Israeli Conflict also makes some good points.

Perspectives on international environmental law

It cannot be taken as a good sign to have a presentation in twelve hours and still not really be sure about the main thrust of what you are going to say. I feel like I have a lot of structural elements, but only a semi-rough conception of what I am going to build out of them. The feeling is somewhat akin to that which I have towards the thesis and, indeed, life in general once this program ends.

The immediate requirement is to decide how skeptical I ought to be about international environmental law. The fact that Canada, for instance, doesn’t seem to feel particularly obligated to meet its Kyoto targets makes one wonder whether there’s conviction out there to match rhetoric. One temptation is to fall back, and say that environmental law is just one more mechanism through which governments can be lobbied – both internally and externally. Another possibility is to say that law isn’t what’s in the books and filed with the Secretary General, but rather what states actually get up to. The latter view would probably be more favoured by my international law instructors, but it makes the whole corpus of international environmental law even more nebulous than it previously appeared to be.

I suppose I will write a draft, read for a few hours, then decide exactly what to say in the morning (when my cognitive faculties are at their lowest ebb).

POPs and climate change as ‘anomalies’

Now nearly finished with Kuhn‘s Structure of Scientific Revolutions, I am pondering how to apply it to my thesis case studies. Basically, what Kuhn has done is sketch out a theory about how scientists interact with the world and each other, generating new scientific ways of understanding the world. You start with one paradigm (say, Newtonian physics). Then, scientists begin to notice anomalies – places where the theory cannot explain what they perceive to be going on. If such anomalies are of the right sort and sufficiently numerous, they may provoke a crisis within the paradigm. At that point, the scope of science broadens a bit, to examine bigger questions and alternative possibilities. In Kuhn’s terminology, the practice of ‘normal science‘ is interrupted. The crisis is resolved either through the modification of the previous paradigm or through the emergence of a new one, such as relativistic physics.

From the perspective of my thesis, the relevant discoveries are the rising global mean temperature and rising concentrations of POPs in the Arctic. Both were novel developments in our awareness and understanding of what is going on in the world, and both are the unintended products of modern economic activity. In the first case, the emission of greenhouse gases seems to be the primary cause of the change; in the second, pesticide use, industrial chemicals, and garbage burning seem to be the culprits. While scientists knew that these things were going on before the first research on POPs and climate change was done, these specific consequences were not anticipated. Their precise magnitude remains contested and uncertain.

While neither discovery induced a crisis in science (both are largely explicable using science that has existed for a long time), they did progress into general acceptance by following a pattern that is in some ways similar to that of paradigmatic development in the sciences. The researchers who first looked at POP concentrations in human blood and breast milk from the Arctic thought that the samples must have been contaminated, because they could imagine no reason for which people living in such an isolated environment would be so saturated with toxic chemicals. The establishment and operation of the Northern Contaminants Program thus involves both ‘normal science’ and the kind of thinking through which new paradigms are established. Because of such similarities, I am hoping that some of Kuhn’s insights into the ways scientists think, and especially the ways in which they make up their own minds and try to make up those of their colleagues, can be applied to the understanding of scientific perspectives on these particular environmental problems.

The biggest difference is probably how wider policy implications tend to arise from environmental discoveries in a way not parallel to the consequences of other sorts of discovery. Quantum mechanics may allow us to do new things, but it doesn’t really compel us to behave very differently. Learning about global warming, by contrast, interacts with our pre-existing notions about appropriate action by human beings in the world to suggest potentially radical changes in behaviour. While I am not saying that there is a direct or linear connection between scientific discoveries about the environment and specific policy choices, it seems valid to say that our understanding of the environment, informed by science, profoundly affects the ways in which we feel we can and should act in relation to the physical world.

On a related note, I would strongly suggest that any physicist working on string theory give Kuhn’s SoSR a careful read. The crisis in physics generated by apparent contradictions between relativity and quantum mechanics seems very much like those he describes, with similar implications in terms of how scientists are thinking and what they are doing.

Climate change all over the news

Sorry to be less esoteric and entertaining in my writing recently, but I have been focused by necessity on issues pertinent to ongoing projects. The process distorts one’s perception of the world. I cannot really judge, for instance, the extent to which the apparent increase in coverage of climate change issues in the media is (a) the product of my increased focus on those stories, (b) the result of cyclical phenomena, like the release of IPCC reports, or (c) a demonstration of increased awareness – or at least increased newsworthiness – of the climate change situation. With that caveat stated, it certainly seems as though climate change related stories are getting top billing in the media to an increasing degree.

The front page of today’s Globe and Mail site features four articles on climate change. One is on climate change and Parliamentary politics, another deals with the proper role of scientists. There is a question and answer session, and finally an article on the impact of rising sea levels on Indonesia. Many organizations, including the BBC, now have dedicated portions on their websites to cover climate change news.

Even President Bush has acknowledged the need to take action. It’s enough to make one hope that a massive shift from talk to action might take place within the next few years, going beyond Kyoto and into the realm of mechanisms to substantially reduce greenhouse gas emissions and move into a post fossil fuel economy.

From the perspective of a concerned citizen, this all seems like good news. It is very important to reach as good an understanding about the likely costs and benefits of climate change as possible. Also essential is the development of political consensus to take action to prevent climate change and mitigate the impact. From the perspective of a graduate student working partially on climate change, it is all quite overwhelming. It makes one wonder how relevant one’s research will be in a year or two. Additionally, it makes it seem less likely that one can add anything new to the discussion. My hope is that by drawing together more types of information than most people will be examining, I will be able to develop some insights. The degree to which my thesis will be a real contribution to scholarship largely depends on it.

Excellent BBC nature series

Anyone interested in nature or geography should have a look at the spectacular television series “Planet Earth.” I watched a couple of episodes on Antonia’s very large television and was thoroughly impressed by the quality of the videography and the lengths they went to in order to get amazing imagery. I saw the episode featuring Lechuguilla Cave and another on mountains. Without a doubt, it is the best nature documentary series I have seen since The Blue Planet. Both were made by the BBC, and may constitute the strongest endorsement I have seen for that broadcaster.

I have been tempted many times to buy the DVD set of The Blue Planet, but don’t think it would be wise to buy the European version, which will not play on most North American devices. Both The Blue Planet and Planet Earth also have rather good websites. If you are in the UK, you can even download high resolution video clips. Unfortunately, they are only available as Windows-only DRM-protected Windows Media Player clips: hardly what you would want from a public broadcaster. Mac users will have to be satisfied with an excellent new background image.

America and climate change

In his recent State of the Union Address, President Bush described “the serious challenge of global climate change” and proposed a few measures intended to help deal with it. The development is largely unsurprising. Whether rightly or wrongly, Hurricane Katrina and unusual weather in the last few years have started to convince many Americans that climate change is real. Businesses expect greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to be regulated eventually, and want the rules set early so they can start investing properly. Also, some groups (those who make biofuels or solar panels, for instance) see the chance to cash in on this opportunity.

The specific changes proposed – efforts to reduce gasoline consumption through ethanol substitution and better fuel economy standards – are not going to amount to much, in terms of reducing GHG emissions. Producing ethanol from corn grown with intensely mechanized and fertilizer dependent farming just shifts emissions around, rather than reducing them a great deal. Likewise, while fuel standards are a good idea, they will hardly be a comprehensive solution either to dependence on foreign oil or climate change.

All that skepticism aside, this may represent the start of a massive political change. Clinton, McCain, and Obama have all expressed support for federal controls on emissions (albeit ones less rigorous than even the lax targets of Kyoto). Business and religious groups, as well as farmers, are starting to weigh in on the side of doing something about the problem. Actually doing so would ultimately require either a carbon tax or a cap-and-trade system for emissions. In either case, the United States and over developed countries would need to lead the charge towards stabilizing and reducing emissions, before poor states like India and China can be expected to make sacrifices to those ends. When that does begin to happen, the rich world retains an obligation to help out, through mechanisms like aid and technology transfer.

Naturally, there is an enormously long way to go and no reason to believe that what looks like momentum today will be sustained. That said, if even an administration that has proven expert at believing what it wants to about the state of the world is expressing concern about climate change, perhaps a genuine consensus behind action is starting to develop.

International law and the environment

Next Wednesday, I have volunteered to give a presentation to my international law seminar on the following questions:

Why has the regulation of CFCs been a success while the Kyoto Protocol has failed?
Should the USA join the Kyoto Protocol, and if so, why?
What roles have been played by Governments, NGOs and international organizations in the development of international environmental law? What is the basis of their authority in this field?

Substitute persistent organic pollutants (POPs) for Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), and it is a very good match for my thesis.

To give very short answers:

Because there were substitutes readily available, the science was strong, and the cost of dealing with the problem reasonable, in the case of CFCs. Climate change is more difficult on all counts. (See the paper I wrote on the Stockholm Convention for my First Nations politics class in 4th year.)
Yes, because it is a first step on the way to an agreement or collection of agreements that will stabilize GHG emissions, in the medium term. Ultimately, doing so will be much cheaper than suffering climate change, and will not carry the same terrible social and ecological costs.
Their authority is based on expertise and legitimacy. See my thesis, in 88 days’ time for a more comprehensive answer.

Reading some more of the international law involved should be both interesting and useful. This is probably the first time the environment has been specifically addressed in any course that I have taken at Oxford.

PS. Much as I hate to reveal a fact that I might later win bets with friends about, I feel compelled to tell one that I learned earlier today from Kate. The polar bear (Ursus maritimus), has black skin: a feature that helps it to absorb energy from the sun, and thus keep the bear warm.

Categorizing thesis sources

I am splitting the literature review chapter for my thesis into two sections: the first about general materials relating to the role of science in environmental policy, and the second about the specific case studies. This bit is for the beginning of the general section, intended both to demonstrate the scope of appropriate materials and put them into a kind of comprehensible framework:

Within the realm of the general scholarship about expertise, legitimacy, and the application of science to the development of political solutions to environmental problems, there is a spectrum of discussion. At one end is the work most explicitly and restrictively concerned with questions within science itself. The deliberations of Popper, Kuhn, and their colleagues are frequently of this nature. The next band in the spectrum is work that relates to the social roles of scientists, within a broader social context. Here, the work of Haas on epistemic communities is particularly important. So too are deliberations within the scientific community itself over what it means to be a scientist. At a still-lengthening wavelength are explicit discussions about the political role that scientists should play: how, for instance, they should present their findings to policy makers, and whether it is appropriate to adopt political stances. Next come discussions about the same question, only from the political – rather than the scientific – point of view. How do politicians and political theorists view the process of delegation to scientists and scientific bodies? Finally, there are the most explicitly political and philosophical questions about things like the nature of international justice and the relationship between humanity and nature. In the following extended discussion, I will employ this organizational structure: moving from the high energy, short-wavelength considerations of science from within to the long wave questions of abstract political theory, keeping in mind the reality that these discussions are entangled with one another at many points.

What do you think of the metaphor? Too simplistic for a work of this sort, or useful as a means of categorizing? If I had to place myself on this spectrum, I would probably be in the yellow band: closer to red than to green. Most of the reading I have been doing – and a lot of what interests me most – is in the blue to violet range, though blaring red is not without appeal.

Also, it should be noted that I have far more sources of the first kind (general) than of the second (case study specific). This has a lot to do with how people keep suggesting the former and not the latter. Anyone who knows of any especially good writing on either the Stockholm Convention on POPs or the Kyoto Protocol is strongly encouraged to let me know about it. The library resources at Oxford, especially on Stockholm, are a bit patchy.

Genetically modifying photosynthesis

The European perspective on the genetic modification of foods generally seems like an unrelentingly negative one. While the dangers inherent to tinkering with nature are real and should be discussed, there are nonetheless a lot of appealing uses for the technology.

One significant example has to do with photosynthesis: the process whereby plants produce sugars from carbon dioxide and sunlight, generating oxygen as a by-product. Some plants use enzymes to turn CO2 into sugars composed of three carbon atoms (these are called C3 plants) while others have an enzyme (PEP Carboxylase) that allows them to produce four carbon sugars (C4 plants). The latter variety are much better at turning solar energy into sugars at temperatures above 25 degrees Celsius. The evolution of the C4 process has apparently taken place more than fifty times, in nineteen families of plant. Helping a few more important plants make the transition seems like it could be very beneficial.

C4 plants can be up to 50% more efficient than C3 ones in hot climates, while also using less water and nitrogen. Maize, a C4 plant, can yield a harvest of 12 tonnes per acre, while rice, a C3 plant, does no better than eight. If we could genetically modify rice to be a G4 plant, we could simultaneously increase crop yields, reduce the water and fertilizer needs of farmers in hot areas, and produce crops that would be less vulnerable to global warming. While there could certainly be some nasty unintended consequence of doing so, that does not seem like sufficient cause not to try.

The idea that the foods we eat now are ‘natural’ is not one that meshes very well with the fact that they have been ceaselessly modified, over thousands of years, through selective breeding. While there may be special dangers involved in mixing genes in the lab rather than out in the fields, there are also special opportunities, like the one listed above. It will be interesting to see if someone manages to pull it off.