Enironmental Limits

All the frenetic economic activity of today requires not only the infrastructure humanity builds but also the infrastructure and resources nature provides. Nature has been providing the air, water, and soil on which our lives depend, in addition to providing essential and irreplaceable services. It cleans the air and water we pollute, recycles organic matter into usable form, and maintains the infrastructure of ecosystems that nurture all the species on which we depend for food and medicine, and all the natural resources that proliferates our industrial civilization. Nature provides flood control, pollination, erosion control, and genetic resources, and it does not charge for any of these services.

Unfortunately governments and citizens are concerned mostly with economic indicators and ignore environmental ones. This widespread ignorance not only brings about serious environmental degradation but also threatens long term economic prospects because it encourages short sighted exploitation of natural resources. As economists are measuring growth of wealth by the flows of money within an economy and GDPs, depletion of nature resources are written off in their calculation. For past 150 years we have pumped CO2 into our life system as if it had no economic cost. Carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere have increased from about 280 ppm in the mid 18th century – the start of the industrial revolution – to around 379 ppm today, by some accounts as high as 450 ppm. In 1995 the IPCC as recognised source of information on climate change reported that the balance of evidence suggests that humans have a noticeable influence on global climate. Today we have come to collective conclusion that living with environment limits, it is important that we change our behaviour. No one policy on its own can be effective. We need joined efforts across many sectors to achieve binding emission targets.

Identifying the improvement of public engagement in science as a policy priority was rational response to address indifference. Sociologists of science have been generating new tools for addressing this challenge, particularly engaging the public with research findings. This requires make science more accessible, engaging, and put to use in real world by feedback. For moving engagement upstream, developing a new approach to interdisciplinary environmental science that requires social and natural scientists to re-evaluate their practices has worked out to involve non-scientists throughout the research process. Initiatives will allow a bigger picture of what is really happening to natural resources as public goods.

The argument that many environmental assets are ‘public goods’, meaning that the free market is unlikely to supply the socially optimal amount, applies to other things, such as public health or education services, not to mention that most people are in need of simple basic private goods (Beckerman, 2001). This means that the rational to allocate resources to environmental objectives need to asses cost-benefit and practical measures. The main criticisms of the use of cost-benefit analysis in environmental policy, emanates from incommensurability of environmental values as compared with market values. The uncertainties in cost measurements and the related unreliability of estimates of peoples’ willingness to pay for environmental protection form other dimensions of the discussion. While it is found that there is some strength in these criticisms, it is still necessary to take account of the resource constraint involved in decisions concerning public goods. The uncertainties need not to be highlighted in a publicized fashion to give fuzzy impression of decisions made. In economic terms comparative measures are indeed very much valid and reliable, since variables are comparatively calculated against an initial condition over a period of time. The uncertainty on taking measures of new dimensions should be based over a solid basis to avoid the impression of vagueness and diminish trust.

Moreover, sustainability requires long term and deeper shifts of attitude toward environment in contrast with price incentives as a way of encouraging people to act more environment-friendly. While there are different views on ethical approach to environmental issues, we cannot deny our moral obligations toward future generations. But as debate on probable future developments is ongoing, our main obligation to future generations is to institute a more decent society in which there is greater respect for basic human rights. These measures should include various forms of educational initiatives. Citizenship classes in secondary/high schools are proposed as a way of fomenting environmental citizenship, through a case study of the introduction of citizenship as a formal element of the English high school curriculum in 2002 (Dobson, 2003). Other alternatives are introduced such as post-cosmopolitan citizenship versus liberal and republican conceptions of citizenship. It is contrasted with cosmopolitan citizenship, in the belief that it offers a more compelling practical account of transnational political obligations. Global warming is an example and inflection of the asymmetrical relations of globalising cause-and-effect that call forth global obligations.





References:



Beckerman, W. (Balliol College), Pasek, J. ( Univ. College), (2001), Justice, Posterity, and the Environment, Oxford University Press

Blyth W., and Yang M., Impact of Climate Change Policy Uncertainty on Power Generation Investments: Interim Report (Paris: IEA, forthcoming)

Messick D., Weber M., Shirli Kopelman; (2000) Factors influencing cooperation in commons dilemmas, p118- 148

Dobson, A., (2003), Citizenship and the Environment, Oxford University Press

International ad hoc detection group, (2005) Detecting and attributing external influences on the climate system: a review of recent advances, Journal of Climate 18:1291-1314

Miller, D., D Phil from University of Oxford for thesis on ‘Social Justice’, Social Justice and Environmental Goods, Oxford University Press

http://www.ouce.ox.ac.uk/research/technologies
/projects/controversies.php
http://www.ouce.ox.ac.uk/news/#d061012hebb
http://www.relu.ac.uk/news/briefings.htm
http://www.nerc.ac.uk/research/issues/climatechange




POINT OF VIEW: by EnviroSpin Watch,
Coming clean over climate change.....

In their political heart-of-hearts, all Governments know that there is absolutely nothing we can do predictably about climate change, and, indeed, extremely little practically to curb the rise of 'greenhouse gas' emissions. Unfortunately, through a type of tabloid-hysteria in the old broadsheet world, including the BBC, the politicians have been persuaded to adopt knee-jerk reactions and to lecture people that they can, and that they must, "do something" about climate. They are now in a bind of their own making. Whatever they do, they will be damned. They can have no predictable effect on climate, and there is no way, even, that they will manage a significant reduction in gas emissions. Yet, they must continue to speak as if they are cutting, and can cut, emissions, and to argue that they will, miraculously, control climate. At some point, a lot of little boys and girls are going to spot the deception and to cry out: "The Emperors have no clothes!"

Here are the stark political realities:

(a) First, no country is reporting its true emissions of 'greenhouse gases'. Indeed, new research shows that Germany 62% (Germany has now acknowledged this fact and has raised its original estimates by 70%); France 47% [see: 'Kyoto promises are nothing but hot air' (New Scientist, June 21) and 'Methane emissions twice official level - study', (The Guardian, June 22)]. Further, the New Scientist makes the following telling observations:

"The most alarming failure of greenhouse gas emissions reporting is thought to have occurred in China, the world's second largest emitter. In the late 1990s, when its economy was growing by 10 per cent a year, the Chinese government reported a dramatic fall in CO2 emissions to the UN climate change convention. It declared that, after a long period of steep increases, emissions had fallen from 911 million tonnes of carbon a year in 1996 to 757 million tonnes in 2000, a drop of 17 per cent.

China said the fall in emissions was achieved by burning less coal, an assessment it based on a decline in coal production. Some analysts praised the country for using coal more efficiently, but that picture was called into doubt when declared coal production and emissions estimates resumed their fast rise. Estimates for 2004 put China's CO2 emissions above 1200 million tonnes.

Most analysts now conclude that the drop in emissions was entirely illusory [my italic]. It coincided with major changes in the organisation of the Chinese coal industry, which replaced state targets with a market system. 'Emissions figures before 1996 were inflated because mine officials had production targets to meet, and declared they had met them when they had not,' one analyst told New Scientist. By 2000, this effect had gone, and 'subsequent figures for CO2 emissions are probably more accurate as a result.' While the Chinese government may not have intentionally misled the international community over its emissions at the time, the incident reveals how easy it could be to fiddle official figures."

(b) Secondly, all emissions continue to rise, even according to official figures. The latest statistics show that 'greenhouse gas' emissions in the EU increased by 0.4% between 2003 and 2004, and even grew in the ever-pious UK by 0.2% (and these statistics exclude emissions from aircraft and shipping). On a world scale, CO2 emissions are now predicted to augment by 75% between 2003 and 2030, mainly because of exponential growth in the developing world [see: 'World CO2 emissions to rise 75 pct by 2030' (Planet Ark, June 21)]:

"Global emissions of CO2 will hit 43.7 billion tonnes in 2030, up from 25 billion tonnes in 2003, the Energy Information Administration [US] said in its annual forecast. By 2025 global CO2 emissions could hit 40.05 billion tonnes annually, up 0.03 percent from the forecast issued last year, said the EIA, the statistics arm of the Department of Energy. Last year's report did not look as far ahead as 2030."

By 2010, developing Asian countries will surpass North American emissions by some 21%.

(c) Thirdly, most efforts to curb emissions will be gobbled up by: (i) the significant return to coal that is currently taking place; (ii) the fact that more efficient energy buildings are still new, and additional, build; (iii) the continued growth in transport and free trade; (iv) the fact that most people, underneath, remain largely unmoved by the 'global warming' hype (just look at the 'EnviroSpin' Mini Poll, opposite); and, we hope, (v) continued world economic growth.

So, what can we expect? Much more of this hot air: 'EU, US to agree "urgent" action on climate change' (Planet Ark, June 21). Which means, being deconstructed?
http://www.greenspin.blogspot.com/