Category: Climate

Tipping points and social-ecological systems

10th June 2012

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ueJ0E-H7hkk]

There has been a fair bit of commentary of late with respect to a looming tipping point, whereupon some social-ecological systems will collapse because they will no longer be able to withstand the pressure placed upon them by humankind. A recent article published in Nature is certainly generating some interest, and it occurred to me that it may be sooner rather than later that the resilience theorists will have their moment in the sun (if you will excuse the pun).

In essence, what this group tells us is that nature is pretty resilient, but there comes a point where it will simply not take any more abuse, a threshold is crossed, and the social-ecological system enters a new regime, where there is no going back to the old regime; e.g. once land becomes desertified it is a process that is difficult to reverse. If — as the Nature piece documents — by 2025, humans will have modified half of all the land on Earth, and by 2060, 70 percent of the earth’s surface could be covered with human development, then clearly if we are to sustain ourselves and coexist with other species with the natural capital we have at our disposal, we need to think far more strategically about the management of social-ecological systems.

For a prime example of legislators doing the exact opposite, read this article on the measurement of sea level rises in North Carolina. Extraordinary as this may sound, while scientists are predicting that the sea level along the coast of North Carolina could rise by about a metre by the end of the century, policymakers plan to deal with the issue by writing a law requiring projections only be based on historical data, appeasing business interests in the state that are worried gloomy predictions about climate-induced sea level rise will make it harder for them to develop the coast line.

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The Earth is Full

2nd April 2012

This TED talk is a useful summary of Paul Gilding’s book, The Great DIsruption. Listening to the first half of his presentation, one could be forgiven for thinking that Gilding has thrown in the towel, based on his projected level of doom and gloom. This is not entirely the case. Yes, things do look grim, but Gilding is not nearly as pessimistic as James Lovelock or Clive Hamilton. The book goes into great detail as why he (and his collaborator Jorgen Randers) believe there is a future for humanity with their One Degree War Plan.

 

“Respect your descendents … Get it done.”

10th December 2011

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ko3e6G_7GY4]

A young woman named Anjali Appadurai representing Earth in Brackets stole the show at COP17 yesterday.

She was the final speaker.

How ironic that the world’s youth, the people who will be most affected by climate change, are relegated to the bottom of the agenda.

The climate refugee controversy (not)

29th September 2011


I was trying to find some recent data on climate refugees just now because of the controversy (in some quarters) over inaccurate UN projections (which, it seems, did not emanate from the UN at all). A Wikipedia site is of considerable assistance in this regard in that, while noting the conceptual problems, it does not dismiss the issue of ‘environmental migrants’. I’m reminded of an anonymous quotation on the definition of an economist I came across once, that read something along the lines of ‘someone who sees something in practice as asks whether it works in theory’. Does it really matter if there are 50 million climate refugees in 2010, 2020 or 2030? Is it somehow acceptable if it is an event that occurs 10 or 20 years from now? Or is it less of an issue because we are not sure whether a person can or cannot be counted because it is not possible to prove conclusively whether they were displaced because of environmental factors or war that may or may not have been caused by deteriorating environmental resources?

My challenge to the skeptics would be to watch this movie and then present a convincing argument that displaced persons arising from environmental factors is decreasing or not deviating from any historical trend. Furthermore, maybe if some of the climate change skeptics within government circles could bring themselves to watch it, they would spend less time trying to argue against the science and recognise that, whether they believe in the science or not, the consequences of climate change are sitting on their door step right now in the shape of a ‘national security problem’.

Irene is good news for GDP

30th August 2011

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77IdKFqXbUY&list=FLqVEcYXalJ6vy86WdtV2WaQ&index=1&feature=plpp]
As the clean up after Hurricane Irene commences, not too many people will realise that this is actually ‘good for the economy’ — at least in terms of GDP growth. The problem is that all expenditure on goods and services — even if it is cleaning up after a ‘natural’ disaster (sic) — ends up on the plus side of the ledger. Continuing with this logic, it actually makes sense to urge BP to have more oil spills, and to encourage crime because we spend more on burglar alarms. Robert F. Kennedy was making this same point more than four decades ago and yet GDP remains the primary macroeconomic variable shaping government policies around the world (with the notable exception of Bhutan!)

The biggest irony of all, is that even Simon Kuznets, (the man who invented GDP) in his very first report to the US Congress in 1934 went on record as saying: “… the welfare of a nation can, therefore, scarcely be inferred from a measure of national income”, and then again in 1962: “Distinctions must be kept in mind between quantity and quality of growth, between costs and returns, and between the short and long run. Goals for more growth should specify more growth of what and for what.”

I don’t think Professor Kuznets would have argued in favour of extreme weather events as a means of growing GDP somehow.

7 billion people

6th February 2011

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sc4HxPxNrZ0]

We live in an increasingly full world. During 2011 we pass the 7 billion mark. This means that world population has more than doubled during my lifetime. When J.F. Kennedy was President of the United States, humankind numbered a mere 3 billion. How has it been possible to sustain such burgeoning population growth? Answer: access to fossil fuel energy that has enabled huge increases in productivity. Back in 1800, before the industrial revolution took hold, production could only sustain 1 billion. Is the globe over-populated by the human species? On the face of it — yes, but not necessarily. The real problem is social justice (or the lack thereof) and failure to live within our ‘ecological budget constraint’. Based on the current business-as-usual model, we exceeded the carrying capacity of the Earth in the mid-1980s. In a non-polluting, renewable energy-fuelled world based on the principles of intra- and inter-generational equity, a population of 7 billion human beings may be sustainable.

Singaporeans need three planets

14th October 2010


Image source: UNEP
The WWF released its latest Living Planet Report yesterday, and I went along in person to the Botany Centre in the beautiful Botanic Gardens here in Singapore to get it from from the Chair of the Board of WWF himself, Dr Christopher Hails.

The launch of the Report was billed as an important precursor to the next gathering of the UN Convention of Biological Diversity scheduled to be held in Nagoya, Japan later this month and I had assumed, therefore, that there would be a focus on biodiversity loss. Instead Dr Hails gave a broad and far ranging presentation that described the general health of the planet (or lack thereof). He certainly did not disappoint and the audience (all of whom, it’s fair to say, could be counted as converts) was more numerous than I expected and certainly well-informed.

One surprise for me was that, for the first time, I was presented with data on the ecological footprint for Singapore. For some reason, Singapore has always been missing from any international league table of ecological footprints. Less surprising, given the passion for consumption in this country, was the world ranking of 21st, each person requiring 5.34 biologically productive hectares to fuel this consumption and dispose of the associated waste. Putting it another way, if everyone in the world lived like Singaporeans, we would need three planets.

Breaking the Singaporean ecological footprint down, carbon emissions is the biggest offender. This came as a surprise to some members of the audience, but Jurong does house one of the top three largest oil refining centres in the world. Then there is the aircon! If the owners of some of the buildings in Singapore turned the thermostat down a notch, maybe a Singaporean lifestyle would only require two planets.

The Economist discovers the economic value of biodiversity

4th October 2010

Any more of this left-wing, environmentalist, clap-trap and I might just be forced to subscribe to this magazine!

Seriously, though, having managed to get up my nose for several decades now with its doctrinaire free-market editorial, The Economist is actually starting to talk sense, analysing issues such as the plight of the world’s forests in a manner that would have been total anathema a few years ago. The narrow, neoclassical approach is nowhere to be seen and instead we are treated to some penetrating insights that are extremely timely from a periodical of such standing, given the looming crisis in global biodiversity and ecosystem services.

Chunky KitKats are back with a clear conscience

18th May 2010


Image source: ecofriendlymag.com

Breaking news in The Guardian yesterday is that you can now have a break, and have a KitKat, and do so with a clear conscience. The article entitled: Nestlé uses NGO to clean up palm oil supply chain reports on how a company with USD100 billion in revenues will bow to pressure from consumers to clean up its act. Once upon a time this might not have been the case, but it is a different story in an era where social networking has been become such a powerful medium.

Greenpeace takes on Nestle over Indonesian rainforest destruction

20th March 2010

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QV1t-MvnCrA]

An article published in The Guardian the other day describes how Nestlé is ‘fighting a PR battle with Greenpeace over claims that it is continuing to source palm oil from Sinar Mas, the Indonesian company accused of illegal deforestation and peatland clearance’. Greenpeace alleges that plantation expansion by Sinar Mas is endangering orangutans by encroaching on their habitat, and the latest campaign video (see above) features an office worker inadvertently biting into an orangutan finger instead of a KitKat chocolate bar. This hard-hitting clip (temporarily withdrawn yesterday from YouTube for reasons unknown) focuses more on the plight of the orangutan and less on the climate change and pollution dimensions. It doesn’t really matter though, as Nestlé can be censured on a number of fronts as the ‘fans’ at the Nestlé Facebook site have been pointing out in their droves these last few days. It will be interesting to see how this corporate juggernaut copes with this kind of criticism in the new, socially mediated world.

Update 22 March: This story from Mongabay would tend to corroborate the view that no matter how big you are, it is dangerous to under-estimate the power of social networks.

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