environment Archives - Page 10 of 11

A unique way of conservation

The Green.view column in The Economist has plenty of environmental-themed articles that provoke deeper thought about what we know about the environment and our assumptions about the environment. In their latest article, they present an effective but controversial method of biodiversity conservation: to remove humans “from the equation”.

The conventional thing to do is to “fence off large areas of parkland” to create nature reserves that, without much disturbance of man, would perhaps help protect the biodiversity inside it. This would be quite inhumane of course, considering that original residents of the reserve would have to be “booted out”. Hence conservationists “try to manage nature with humans in situ”, i.e. conserve without having to remove humans from the equation.

However, “involuntary parks” seem to be the most effective in conserving biodiversity. Where humans have vacated or have not trampled upon, wildlife flourishes, for instance in many parts of Papua New Guinea. Places that have seen conflict have also unintentionally become nature reserves, for instance in the demilitarised zone (DMZ) between North & South Korea. So in this case, would peace between the North & the South lead to the disappearance of this nature reserve and all its “residents”? Sounds perverted, that war might be necessary to protect and conserve the lifes of lesser beings (animals and plants) while human lives are lost.

In another example, Somali pirates off the coast of Somalia and Kenya have led to “a profusion of fish” in the waters as commercial trawlers are scared away from the region. And this has benefitted the local Kenyan fishermen who fish for a living, as this article from The Scotsman testifies. Given that the state of the world’s fisheries and fish population are not looking good, to allow fish populations to recover from the state of being overfished would certainly be beneficial for its conservation even if biodiversity might not have expanded.

The article concludes that it is “depopulation” that makes the difference between conservation / protection and extinction. Sadly but truly, humans may sometimes have to remove themselves from the equation if nature and the environment is to recover and thrive. Would this be possible? Would this be humane? Would this be fair? I suspect this method of conservation would probably never be broached seriously.

Putting a price on nature

For something that combines thoroughly both concepts of economics and the environment. A question that occasionally pops up when we ask about how we can internalise the external costs and benefits of nature, how we can monetise and valuate what is deemed free or priceless and how can we account for environmental protection and conservation in our equations of governance and environmental management.

The trigger for these questions came about when I read The Economist’s Green.view column online and saw an article about “price fixing”: not so much price fixing in terms of what we learn in Economics about monopolistic behaviour, but about how we can fix a pricetag on nature.

There’s plenty of debate with regard to putting a price on nature, as witnessed from the tremendous number of articles that can be found on this issue. The plausibility of this recommendation, with a detailed discussion on how it can work, has been discussed on Earthbeat on Australia’s Radio National, while in very recent history there has been a flurry of writings from Planet Green, The New York Times and BBC News. LiveScience has a more concrete and specific suggestion: a “market-driven approach to habitat preservation”.

Anyway, let me just try to summarise and highlight some of the pros and cons of putting a pricetag on nature. You should read the articles above for much more detailed discussions however.

Why would / should we put a price on nature?

1. Solve misallocation of resources: what we learn in economics in terms of the external costs of, say, water pollution on marine biodiversity, would thus be accounted for when firms do cost-benefit analysis because there’s a explicit price tag attached to it (The Economist uses a slightly different line of argument, I’m just phrasing what I understand in my own words)

2. Allows for developing and some especially-impoverished but nature-rich countries to tap into the money-spinning potential for the natural resources and at the same time enable economic development

3. On the Earthbeat link, it quotes a paper written in the Nature journal 4 years earlier on the value of “ecosystem services”, valued at US$33tr. Compared to the GDP of Earth at US$18tr, it seems like there is plenty of value in these “ecosystem services” waiting to be tapped, of which these services could be invaluable to humans (for example, clean air)

Why cant / shouldnt we put a price on nature?

1. Insult to the concept of the beauty of nature or reducing everything intangible in the environment to a dollar value or ignoring the greater benefits that ecosystems and nature provides. Like the sense of serenity and peace when one walks in a park: that cannot exactly be quantified in a monetary sense, and that may not be reflected even if a pricetag were to be placed on the park

2. How do we put a value to animals that might be of little utility but of much value to conservation and beauty? The article in The Economist compares the panda, which “humans are fond of”, with the dung bettle, which “provide the greatest utility”. How then do you price the two vis-a-vis each other?

The articles themselves cover much more details and examples. Again, this is some more food for thought for those who have always found themselves fighting a moral battle in their minds between economic development and environmental conservation.

Flame retardants or fertility retardants?

If you watched The Story of Stuff, you might have been aware of the example of the tremendous amount of chemicals in many, if not all, of the consumer products we use. Brominated flame retardants (BFRs) in pillows were featured as an example of the excessive chemical pollution in our lives. The Economist last month featured an article about flame retardants that twins nicely with what The Story of Stuff has covered.

In the article, polybrominated diphenylethers (PBDEs), a form of brominated flame retardants, are used to reduce “the risk of ignition” but it is now so widespread that 97% of Americans have traces of it in their bodies. And it is suggested that these chemicals have effects on our health, such as in terms of fertility. In a study done in California, it appears that with each tenfold increase in PBDE concentration in the body one’s probability of becoming pregant decreases.

More studies are now underway to determine their effects, and these studies, once verified, would be important and may be perhaps groundbreaking, just like how DDT transformed overnight from being an ally in fighting pests to being a pest in itself. Will we be able to do away with BFRs? Will BFRs, whose concentrations have been doubling in our bodies every 4-6 years since the 1970s, do irreversible damage to our health? Unfortunately, only time will tell.

Meanwhile, some contrasting arguments coming from the environmentalists and the industrial experts. Greenpeace makes arguments for the phasing out of BFRs from our lives but will it be this easy? On the other hand Bromine Science and Environment Forum (BSEF) claims that BFRs are not as dangerous as the environmentalists make them out to be. So are the industrial experts, consisting of BFR manufacturers, telling the truth or are they themselves unaware of the full impact of their products?

The Story of Stuff

For something animated but no less thought-provoking for the Chinese New Year, a video clip produced by Annie Leonard about how our “stuff” (i.e. consumer goods) are produced and the dangers that have come associated with the production and consumption of these goods. I was first introduced to this video in Junior College by my Geography teacher, and I found it rather animating, enlightening and inspirational, as well as rather easy to digest yet still sufficiently thought-provoking.

The Story of Stuff is a 20 minute video that can be watched on YouTube as well as downloaded from the website for future broadcasts, as I did. Do watch because it alerts you about the behind-the-scenes situation which you have never really thought about when you do shopping. While her perspective is that of government-bashing and firm-bashing, it is still worthy of considering. It is suitable for the kids though they will probably need to be guided along to fully understand the video considering that she uses quite a bit of jargon that might be slightly inaccessible to the young.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GorqroigqM&hl=en_US&fs=1&rel=0]

This video probably comes too late to remind you about what you buy for Chinese New Year, but still, better late than never. Happy Lunar New Year!

Gardening in School – Education or Distraction?

I chanced upon a very interesting article by Gloria Dawson on The Daily Green. This phenomenon is not so much seen in Singapore than in the United States, where gardening in schools was introduced and encouraged, in particular by US First Lady Michelle Obama, to raise students’ interests in gardening, nurture green thumbs as well as environmentalism and encourage healthy eating.

I thought such initiatives were pretty self-explanatory in terms of benefits, are pretty much non-political and non-debatable. Dawson had however found an article by a Caitlin Flanagan that expressed much disdain for school gardens, with the argument that “schools are taking kids out of the classroom” when they need to spend more time in the classroom to learn and be educated on the basics, and then eventually climb the educational system. It was something I never really thought about given Singapore’s higher-quality educational system, but in America where educational standards are dropping and schools struggle to keep students interested, school gardens may backfire in their intentions as well.

Statistics so far appear to indicate that school gardens have somehow helped boost grades and “understanding of lessons”, probably indirect effects of being involved in a garden. It might perhaps create interest in staying in school, or create opportunities to pick up skills such as organisation, leadership and responsibility which would be useful both in lessons and outside of lessons. Unfortunately, the school gardens initiative has caught on with political posturing and people are lambasting the educational system and those who implement the initiative. At least Flanagan’s arguments were not exactly without merit, but it appears that Dawson is implicitly pointing fingers at politicians who are blaming the school gardens initiative to their advantage.

There’s really plenty to learn from school gardens, in terms of skills and knowledge. Where your food comes from, how to eat healthily; children need to know given that they now live in a very much urban society where food is convenient and global and they do not know where their food comes from, what they should eat, how much they should eat and so on. Again, I am reminded of the book ‘The End of Food’ by Paul Roberts that I am currently reading about and will review in due time. Links to other articles about the school gardens argument are in The Daily Green article.

China’s Green Revolution

China, as an emerging superpower, is also said to be emerging as one of the biggest polluters of the environment. The industrialisation and modernisation of China in particular is of great concern for climate change / global warming, as China looks scheduled to overtake the United States as “the world’s biggest emitter of carbon dioxide”. Gary Dirks and David G Victor, in Newsweek’s Special Edition – Issues 2010, suggests that China is making attempts to go green, not just to allay global concerns but to allay domestic concerns as well.

China is concerned about its growth, not so much because it is bothered by how other countries (both developing and developed) perceive it. It is more because of the environmental problems that have plagued its growth that makes it realise the importance of being green. “Severe pollution and worries over dependence on fossil fuels” are just some problems of national security that concern the Chinese government, and it is doing what it can by enhancing energy-efficiency and attempting to move away from fossil fuels. It cannot probably move away entirely from coal because of its abundance and cheap price, but China is making efforts to make coal “less polluting”.

China is also investing in new technologies, such as clean renewable energy research, that could potentially open up a new market for such products as well as cement China’s position as an industrial leader in a new field that is yet untapped fully in most other countries. The Telegraph in an earlier article in May observes some changes to what China is doing in this new field. However, China would require the help of other developed countries in the West in managing its research and development.

All these will add up to “a massive impact on greenhouse-gas pollution”, and such efforts are certainly laudable and commendable. It is, however, important, for China to lead not just locally but globally. As a rising superpower, it is “ready to lead when it starts playing offense in climate talks as well as defense”, and China needs to prove that “it can cut emissions”, which will then assuage global concerns as well as debunk the West’s “excuse for doing nothing” because of “Chinese inaction”.

Other writers and newspapers have weighed it on China’s “Green Revolution”. The Guardian details some targets set by Chinese officials on adoption of renewable energy sources, while Thomas Friedman in The New York Times writes about how “red China” is becoming “green China”. There appears to be much regarding what China is doing for the environment, even if it might seem miniscule, so the United States should certainly do its part and contribute more than “business as usual”, given its current superpower status (which it might soon lose to China if it does nothing to stem the decline).

Your oil comes from… Venezuela?

Following up from my write-up on why petrol is expensive in oil-producing Alaska, another article written by The Green Conservative Jim DiPeso in The Daily Green argues that pumps should feature where their oil comes from. And the reason for such features are not just for the geography student like me keen to know where my products come from.

“Country of origin labels on gas pumps” are being advocated in the USA, the land where federal regulations dictate that agricultural products be labeled for their country-of-origin and customers like to demand for the right to knowledge about the products they consume. It helps people choose which country’s oil they want to use, and hence avoid supporting “despots” like Hugo Chavez of Venezuela or Vladimir Putin of Russia. But it will be too complicated, as much as it sounds like a really cool idea. As mentioned in my previous write-up, all that oil from different countries are pooled together then sold, so chances are the gas / petrol in your tank comes from all over the world literally. An alternative he suggests is the proportion of oil coming from which country, so consumers get to know.

And perhaps choose to boycott petrol stations that buy oil from “evil” countries to sell. (Venezuela, Iran & Russia for starters…) Not that they would have much of an option, considering that coincidentally many oil producing countries happen to be rather undesirable in aspects ranging from democracy and freedom of expression to living standards, so if you wish to make a statement you’d probably have to stop driving to stop using petrol.

Drill, baby, drill… not!

I subscribe via email to The Daily Green, a website that advocates green consumption as well as champions environmental initiatives by the green movement. I chanced upon this article on high gas prices in Alaska one day in my email. It took me by surprise because one would think that since Alaska produces quite a significant amount of America’s gas (gasoline, referred to as oil or petrol in the Singaporean context), one would be surprised by how expensive petrol can be in Alaska. And what caught me by greater surprise is that this article was written by a green Republican! Jim DiPeso, The Green Conservative of The Daily Green, is policy director of Republicans for Environmental Protection, and if you, like me, used to think that Republicans do not believe in saving the environment, then you thought wrong.

Coming back to this article, in the “Land of Sarah Palin”, to have oil prices higher than the rest of the country and to have stage legislators calling for fuel price regulations would be a surprise given our assumptions that Alaskan oil would fuel the state and that Republicans are against price controls or regulation. The article highlights the components of the cost of petrol, and highlights that essentially all that crude oil pumped out of Alaska goes into the global market, subject to global market pricing, which is subjected to influence by OPEC (Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries) as well as influence by global events that will affect demand and supply of crude oil worldwide.

In addition, Alaska’s petrol market is described as oligopolistic, i.e. players have more pricing power in a relatively-small state with little competition in supply of petrol compared to other states. Given that competition in refining and distribution of petrol is limited in Alaska, the prices would probably already been higher even if Alaskan oil went straight to Alaska. The fact that petrol producers in Alaska even need to import crude oil from other countries will debunk the myths about Alaskan-produced oil.

So essentially, the “drill, baby, drill” lobby who claim that the answer to lower petrol prices would be to open up more oilfields in Alaska are quite mistaken. Looks like The Green Conservative is pitting himself against other Republicans who belong to that lobby. And perhaps the solution might turn out to be more competition instead, which is something the Republicans should focus on instead of drilling their way out of an energy crisis in America (and give the environment a reprieve!)

Copenhagen – not so bad after all?

An article from The Economist in its first issue of this year proposes that the Copenhagen climate change summit that just took place at the end of last year could turn out to bring more benefits than perceived despite its being “underwhelming”.

Sure, the whole accord was just a political, non-legally-binding statement and lukewarm at best in its promises for all to do their part for the environment. But at least both developed and developing countries signed up to the Copenhagen accord, considering how these two warring factions were split because the developed countries felt the developing countries needed more cuts while the developing countries felt the developed countries were responsible for all the emissions and hence to bear the brunt of the costs of cleaning up. Not that the rift has narrowed significantly but at least the process and product were not totally derailed.

Another reason for optimism is in “the development of political structures better suited to the challenge”. The complexities of climate change, from all the industries it affects to all the political issues it brings, need to be dealt with under a new body and in more creative manners. And the regulation of so many greenhouse gases from so many sources makes it even more difficult. This brings to mind the possibilities of another Montreal protocol that sought to regulate only CFCs, which turned out to be a much bigger success than even Kyoto was. The Economist proposes that there will be “new pluralism in climate politics”
as different groups come together to deal with different specific issues such as “slowing deforestation” or “stemming emissions from shipping”, that might yield better results than a gargantuan, labyrinthine treaty that regulates every single issue without specifics or generalises the whole complexities of climate change.

A huge barrier to any improvements on Copenhagen could be the US. The Senate will decide upon legislation that will set up “a cap-and-trade system to put a price on carbon”, and whether they succeed will impact post-Copenhagen discussions to finalize cuts in emissions. The upcoming Senate elections may put in place more Republicans and upset the Democrats’ super-majority that will prevent fillibustering of bills like that of health-care reform and cap-and-trade. The Republicans have been rather against the cap-and-trade, and they may derail the whole post-Copenhagen process should cap-and-trade crash and burn in Senate.

Meaningful, I’m not so sure

Key states have announced what they call a “meaningful” agreement at the Copenhagen Climate Summit to tackle climate change. The agreement between the US, China, Brazil, India and South Africa would set a mitigation target to limit warming to no more than 2C and, importantly, to take action to meet this objective.

The five-nation brokered deal promised to deliver $30bn of aid for developing nations over the next three years, and outlined a goal of providing $100 billion a year by 2020 to help poor countries cope with the impacts of climate change. The agreement also included a method for verifying industrialised nations’ reduction of emissions. The US had insisted that China dropped its resistance to this measure.

However, it seems that only the US and China are supposedly “happy” from a meeting which seemingly had a “positive result”, or rather, what I term as a poor return from the 2 weeks worth of discussion.

In the face of a globalized world and the many challenges that we face, what the US and China put forth together seemingly only benefits them. For instance, nothing is done about limiting carbon emissions and on a legally binding treaty, something which sort of “liberalizes” the major powers in the form of US, China and India. With US out of Kyoto and the lack of a legally binding contract, China and India can be said to be free to do whatever they want, with all three nations insisting that national sovereignty comes first.

Now, I’m not saying national sovereignty should be ignored, but as we attempt to tackle a problem that we should have been engaged in long ago, we realize that the Copenhagen Accord, as Jo Leinen, chairman of the European Parliament’s environment committee described, is a completely “disappointment and below our expectations”.

Selfish interests of the global powers dominated the discussion table in Copenhagen, while the rest of the world are let down by their inability to co-operate and come up with a more radical approach to the problem. Yes, this is progress from what has come before, a necessity, but whether it will truly solve the problem, no. The roots of the problem ultimately lie in the countries’ inability to break out of their shell – their inability to come to a solid-enough compromise, and their covert belief that the economy should come first. This inability to commit to this cause from the US, China and India seemingly portrays them in a green limelight.

Progress has been made, yes, but it’s no longer about the ability to make progress, that almost didn’t happen, but rather, how fast we can reach humanity’s goal.

The clock is ticking.