The environment – Page 144 – a sibilant intake of breath

Climate ethics and uncertainty

Climate Ethics has a thoughtful post up about climate change, scientific uncertainty, and ethics. While not particularly novel, the arguments are well and concisely expressed. Key among them is the basic ethical point Henry Shue has made about revolvers and the heads of others: even if you only have one bullet chambered, pulling the trigger is still an immoral act. It is the possibility of severe harm, rather than the probability of the harmful outcome, that is most ethically relevant.

The uncertainties of climate change are primarily about how bad it will get how quickly, as well as how quickly we need to act to stop it. There is also very strong consensus that the climate can change in ways that would be disastrous for humanity and that present activities materially contribute to the risk of that taking place.

On ethical grounds, it does not seem as though there are any remaining arguments for total inaction in the face of climate change. The question now is the degree to which our moral obligations to future generations compel us to make massive and rapid changes in our lives.

Tundra dangers

One of the biggest climatic dangers out there is that warming in the Arctic will melt the permafrost. The tundra is heavily laden with methane – a potent greenhouse gas. In total, the ten million square kilometres contain about 1,000 gigatonnes of carbon (3,670 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide). The permafrost contains more carbon dioxide equivalent than the entire atmosphere at present.

If even a fraction of a percent of that gets released every year, it would blow our carbon budget. Even with enormous cuts in human emissions, the planet would keep on warming. Right now, humanity is emitting about 8 gigatonnes of carbon a year, on track to hit 11 gigatonnes by 2020. If we were to stabilize at that level, emitting 11 gigatonnes a year until 2100, the concentration of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere will surpass 1,000 parts per million, creating the certainty of a vastly transformed world and a very strong possibility of the end of human civilization.

As such, it is vital to stop climate change before the planet warms sufficiently to start melting permafrost. This is especially challenging given that warming in the Arctic is more pronounced than warming elsewhere. There is also the additional challenge of the sea-ice feedback loop, wherein the replacement of reflective ice with absorptive water increases warming.

The actions necessary to prevent that are eminently possible. Unfortunately, people have not yet developed the will to implement them to anything like the degree necessary. Hopefully, the ongoing UNFCCC process for producing a Kyoto successor will help set us along that path before it becomes fantastically more difficult and expensive to act.

[Update: 4 February 2009] Here is a post on the danger of self-amplifying, runaway climate change: Is runaway climate change possible? Hansen’s take.

[Update: 19 February 2010] See also: The threat from methane in the North.

Growth in Vancouver

Sightline Daily has an interesting post about urban development in Vancouver. The interactive map is also worth a peek.

Historical emissions and adaptation costs

It is widely acknowledged that developing countries will suffer a great deal from climate change. They are vulnerable to effects like rising sea levels and increased frequency and severity of extreme weather. They also have more limited means available to respond, as well as other serious problems to deal with. Providing adaptation funding is therefore seen as an important means of getting them on-side for climate change mitigation. It could be offered as an incentive to cut emissions.

That being said, there is a strong case to be made that developing countries should not need to do anything in exchange for adaptation funding. Making them do so is essentially akin to injuring someone, then demanding something in return for the damages they win against you in court. The historical emissions of developed states have primarily induced the climate change problem; as such, developing states suffering from its effects have a right to demand compensation.

Very roughly, the developed world as a whole is responsible for about 70% of emissions to date. The United States has produced about 22% of the anthropogenic greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere; Western Europe is responsible for about 17%; Canada represents something like 2% of the total. It can be argued that – by rights – states like Bangladesh and Ghana should be dividing their total costs for adaptation and sending the bill to other states, on the basis of historical emissions.

That being said, it is only fair to say that developed states are only culpable for a portion of their total emissions, on account of how the science of climate change was not well understood until fairly recently. Exactly where to draw the line is unclear, but that doesn’t especially matter since developing states simply don’t have the power to demand adaptation transfers on the basis of past harms. States that developed through the extensive use of fossil fuels will continue to use the influence they acquired through that course of military and economic strengthening to make others bear most of the costs for their pollution.

New Canadian emission data

The Canadian government has published the official National Inventory Report: Greenhouse Gas Sources and Sinks in Canada for 1990 to 2006. Emissions in 1990 were 592 megatonnes (Mt). By 2000, they were 718 Mt. Here are the most recent figures:

2003: 741 Mt
2004: 743 Mt
2005: 734 Mt
2006: 721 Mt

Maintain and deepen that downward trend and we might just do our part in sorting out this unprecedented problem. Moving to a low-carbon global society would be quite a human achievement – even more so if we can also transition from fuels that are running out to those that never will.

Delicious pike

The Smoky Lake canoe trip provided a delicious opportunity to deviate from my ordinary shunning of meat-eating. There are three major reasons for which I do not normally eat animal flesh: it is generally produced in a way that is not environmentally sustainable, the animals generally live in very poor conditions, and a number of unhygienic practices are endemic in factory farms. I maintain that when most people choose to eat meat, they do so in either honest or wilful ignorance about the consequences of that choice.

Happily, the trip provided an exception to all those objections in the form of lake-caught pike. I saw the lake they came from, the way they were caught and cleaned, and the way they were cooked. Two fish among eleven people probably isn’t causing damage to the ecosystem, particularly since it is a once a year trip. Furthermore, it is fair to say that a pike living in an attractive lake in Ontario is living an existence true to its nature: a statement that surely cannot be made truthfully about most animals people eat.

In any case, our pan fried pike was exceedingly delicious: as the result of its character, freshness, and the fundamentally food-improving qualities of camping. The experience of seeing it delivered from lake to plate has also made me somewhat rethink my view of sports hunters and fishers. While it is certainly true that ecosystems can be damaged by such activities, it is also fair to say that those who especially enjoy such activities might be passionate, knowledgeable, long-term advocates of conservation. It should be further asserted that – environmental considerations aside – those with such skills can make a most satisfying contribution to an expedition outdoors.

Harper on gas prices and carbon taxes

One thing for which you need to give Stephen Harper some credit: unlike the American presidential candidates, he is willing to admit that the government cannot do much to reduce gasoline prices. Unfortunately, he is also using those high prices to oppose carbon taxes, probably the most economically efficient economy-wide mechanism for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Polar bears ‘threatened’

As of today, the American Department of the Interior has listed the polar bear as a ‘threatened’ species, on account of the ongoing disappearance of the Arctic ice cap. In making the announcement, Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne stressed that the decision is not meant to compel the regulation of greenhouse gasses:

Listing the polar bear as threatened can reduce avoidable losses of polar bears. But it should not open the door to use of the ESA [Endangered Species Act] to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from automobiles, power plants, and other sources. That would be a wholly inappropriate use of the ESA law. The ESA is not the right tool to set U.S. climate policy.

In a sense, that is fair enough. Creating something as comprehensive as a greenhouse gas mitigation strategy in response to concern about a single species is definitely a backwards-seeming way to go about it. At the same time, one is reminded of how somewhat awkward justifications have sometimes been used in the past to secure legal outcomes: for instance, the use of the ‘interstate commerce’ clause in the US Constitution to assert federal jurisdiction, or even the indictment of Al Capone on tax evasion charges, rather than those directly associated with organized crime.

The point here is less whether concern about polar bears does or does not create a legal obligation to act on climate change. Rather, this is another demonstration of how virtually all conservation planning now requires the consideration of climate change effects. This is just one of a thousand cuts through which federal reluctance to effectively regulate greenhouse gasses will need to be eliminated.

John McCain’s carbon targets

In a speech delivered in Oregon, John McCain laid out some targets for reducing American greenhouse gas emissions:

2012: Return emissions to 2005 levels (18 percent above 1990 levels)
2020: Return emissions to 1990 levels (15 percent below 2005 levels)
2030: 22 percent below 1990 levels (34 percent below 2005 levels)
2050: 60 percent below 1990 levels (66 percent below 2005 levels)

These targets look pretty similar to the ones adopted by the present Canadian government: a peak in emissions by 2012, a reduction to 20% below 2006 levels by 2020, and a 60-70% reduction below 2006 levels by 2050.

Stabilizing greenhouse gas concentrations below 550ppm probably requires more aggressive action. That being said, this is not a terrible place from which to begin negotiations: both between presidential candidates in the United States and between the United States and other countries. If the US was willing to commit to those targets unilaterally (and do so with a credible plan for actually achieving them), it might become a lot easier to get countries like China and India to begin making a more substantial contribution to the mitigation effort.

In exchange, the United States could adopt the kind of targets (and supplemental actions, like aid in preventing tropical deforestation) that are actually required to stabilize greenhouse gas emissions at a level around 450ppm, thus keeping total global temperature change in the realm of two degrees Celsius.

Electric vehicles in Canada

Dynasty is a Canadian company that builds light, low speed, battery powered cars. Their Dynasty IT vehicle has a range of 50km and a top speed of 40 km/h. Because Transport Canada refused to follow the lead of 44 American states and authorize the vehicles for non-highway use on roads, the company has decided to relocate to Pakistan. There, they will manufacture cars for the American market. The ZENN is in a similar predicament.

There is a real trade-off between producing light vehicles and producing ones that do well in crash tests. That said, we do permit people to ride absurdly unsafe motorbikes – even on the highway. It is incoherent to ban one and permit the other.

Perhaps it would make sense to create a special legal category for small, light vehicles of limited range, intended primarily for urban use. By all means, those purchasing them should be informed that they will not fare as well in a crash with a huge truck as someone in a larger, steel-framed car. That said, the economic and environmental advantages may justify the risk in the eyes of many.