Category: Economics

Matters of money

Ripley’s Aquarium of Canada

Yesterday, a friend and I visited Ripley’s Aquarium of Canada, a new privately-run aquarium located beside the CN Tower in Toronto. I have uploaded some of the photos already, with more to come.

It’s certainly a spectacle, both in terms of the species on display and the layout of the facility. A big portion consists of tunnels of plexiglass through large underwater habitats, allowing visitors to see many species arrayed around them at once.

I am, however, left somewhat divided about how to feel about the place. Their website says that they have a “Comprehensive Environmental Purchasing Policy”, but it remains the case that the facility is an artificial hotspot of biodiversity, drawn together from around the world and presented for the entertainment and education of paying guests.

I’m open to the argument that people need to see nature and biodiversity in order to value them, and the aquarium does make some allusions to the harm humanity is doing to the global ocean through over-fishing, pollution, and climate change. It’s plausible that some aquarium guests will come away from the experience with a greater appreciation for marine biodiversity, and perhaps a greater willingness to play a role in protecting it.

At the same time, there is a degree to which the aquarium is nature in a box for the privileged. The habitats are full of artificial coral and kelp, and ecological themes are mentioned more than emphasized in the surrounding documentation. The “[p]olicy banning staff use of plastic water bottles on site” seems inadequate compared with the main environmental impacts of the facility, both in terms of the acquisition of so many species – some explicitly labelled as endangered – and in terms of the huge power and water usage the facility clearly requires.

The aquarium was full of beauty and biological novelty and I was grateful to go. I would encourage others to do so as well, though it is probably worth thinking about what such places imply for the human relationship with the rest of nature, as well as the contrast between the energy and expense we are willing to devote to showcasing the diversity of life, at the same time as our large-scale choices are rapidly causing that diversity to diminish in the wild.

Open thread: the cost of renewable energy

Especially in comparison with energy conservation, carbon capture and storage, and nuclear power, much of the debate about renewable energy as a climate change solution concerns cost. Which forms are most and least affordable? How do they compare to other energy options? How should intermittancy and energy storage issues be incorporated?

Another set of questions concerns the rate and scale of deployment. How much of the carbon challenge can renewables address, and how quickly can they do so relative to the timescales necessary to stabilize emissions safely?

Bounded rationality and policy agendas

If individuals have limited attention spans, so must organizations. The notion of policy agendas recognizes the “bottleneck” that exists in the agenda that any policy-making body addresses (Cobb & Elder 1972). These attention processes are not simply related to task environments — problems can go for long periods of time without attracting the attention of policy makers (Rochefort & Cobb 1994). A whole style of politics emerges as actors must strive to cope with the limits in the attentiveness of policy makers — basically trying to attract allies to their favored problems and solutions. This style of politics depends on connections driven by time-dependent and often emotional attention processes rather than a deliberate search for solutions (Cohen et al 1972, March & Olsen 1989, Kingdon 1996, Baumgartner & Jones 1993).

Because attention processes are time dependent and policy contexts change temporally, connections between problems and solutions have time dependency built into them. As an important consequence, policy systems dominated by boundedly rational decision makers will at best reach local rather than global optima. Because of the time dependence of attentional processes, all policy processes will display considerable path dependence (March 1994).

– Jones, Bryan D. “Bounded Rationality.” Annual Political Science Review. 1999. 2:297-321.

Open thread: drilling for oil and gas in the arctic

Unfortunately, the climate-change-induced melting of the north polar icecap is making it easier to drill for oil and gas in the arctic. Large amounts of fossil fuels are expected to be found in the region, adding to the world’s already dangerously large supplies.

The enthusiasm of companies and governments to exploit unconventional sources of fossil fuels is starkly at odds with the reality that we can only control climate change if we choose not to exploit such reserves – while rapidly scaling back production of conventional oil, gas, and coal.

Open thread: marine protected areas

I have written a number of times before about the unsustainable nature of global fisheries and the sorts of policies that might help combat that.

Marine protected areas have an important role to play in that effort. They constitute sanctuaries in which fish are protected from the hugely destructive fishing technology that is now deployed. Their more extensive establishment could play an important role in maintaining the viability of many important species.

New carbon infrastructure in B.C.

British Columbia has a carbon tax, but it doesn’t seem to be taking to heart the need to stop building new infrastructure for the carbon economy:

B.C.’s north is in a frenzy of planning. There are applications for port expansions, coal and mineral mines, oil terminals, pipelines, synthetic fuel plants, liquefied natural gas facilities and hundreds of new drill rigs for shale gas extraction. Pinned on a map, the proposals create a porcupine of industrial intentions.

Hopefully, growing awareness about how wasteful and destructive it would be to build these things will keep it from actually happening.

Toronto350.org “Do the Math” screenings tomorrow

There are still tickets available for both of tomorrow’s screenings of the climate change documentary “Do the Math” at the Bloor Cinema in Toronto.

Along with the film, there will be a panel discussion featuring Green Party leader Elizabeth May and Adria Vasil.

If you know anyone in Toronto who is environmentally inclined or concerned about climate change, please let them know about the event.