International Archives

Accentuating the Negatives: The IPCC Working Group II Summary for Policymakers (SPM)

Posted by IMGrant · 8 April 2007 · Climate ~DDT/Malaria ~Environmental Alarmism ~Extinction ~International ~Sustainable Development

(Courtesy of Indur Goklany)

Although the SPM has some useful and apt things to say about the need for adaptation, it is flawed by the fact that it:
-- Overstates negative impacts and understates positive impacts of climate change
-- Overstates the level of confidence that should be attached to the impacts on both human systems as well as "natural" systems (because the latter are also affected by human actions)
-- Fails to examine the impacts of climate change in the wider context of other stresses affecting humanity and the rest of nature, which would allow us to gauge the importance of climate change relative to other stresses.
-- Fails to examine the relationship between climate change and sustainable economic development more fully, which could mislead policymakers into opting for policies that would divert scarce resources from dealing with today's urgent problems in favor of policies to pursue longer term, and more uncertain, problems.

Among the several problems regarding the SPM are the following:

How Property Rights are Helping Green the Sahel in Niger

Posted by IMGrant · 11 February 2007 · International ~Population ~Poverty and Hunger ~Private Conservation ~Property Rights ~Sustainable Development

courtesy Indur Goklany

In an article in today's New York Times titled, "In Niger, Trees and Crops Turn Back the Desert," Lydia Pollgren notes how property rights to trees growing on farmers' land have contributed to both economic growth, agricultural productivity and conservation in Niger at virtually no cost. She notes that :

In this dust-choked region, long seen as an increasingly barren wasteland decaying into desert, millions of trees are flourishing, thanks in part to poor farmers whose simple methods cost little or nothing at all...
[D]etailed satellite images and on-the-ground inventories of trees, have found that Niger, a place of persistent hunger and deprivation, has recently added millions of new trees and is now far greener than it was 30 years ago.
These gains, moreover, have come at a time when the population of Niger has exploded, confounding the conventional wisdom that population growth leads to the loss of trees and accelerates land degradation, scientists studying Niger say...
"The general picture of the Sahel is much less bleak than we tend to assume," said Chris P. Reij, a soil conservationist who has been working in the region for more than 30 years ... "Niger was for us an enormous surprise."

What contributed to the success? Apparently greater rainfall and property rights! As the article elaborates:

Calling Greenpeace to Account

Posted by IMGrant · 23 August 2006 · DDT/Malaria ~Environmental Risk ~International ~Precautionary Principle ~Sustainable Development

In an open letter to Greenpeace International, Richard Tren, Director of the organization "Africa Fighting Malaria", calls on Grenpeace to clarify its stance on the use of DDT for controlling malaria, and asks that it account for what it has done to follow through on its stated commitment "to seeing more effective methods for combating malaria" -- presumably because DDT is either ineffective or is saddled with unacceptable side effects.

Excerpts from the full letter follow:

[O]ver 1 million people, mostly children, die from malaria every year, and the parasites cause approximately 500 million cases annually. A highly effective method of malaria control is to spray small amounts of insecticide on the inside walls of houses -- a process known as Indoor Residual Spraying (IRS) â€¦ DDT is one of the most effective public health insecticides for IRS programs ...

Thousands of studies into the possible human health effects of DDT have failed to definitively demonstrate any actual human harm attributable to DDT. [Comment by IMGrant: This is not for lack of trying. Researchers have tried to pin some adverse public health effect on DDT for half a century, and yet failed to come up with something definitive. This suggests that if DDT has an adverse impact on public health, it's pretty minor. In this case, the answer to Sherlock Holmes' question as to "why the dog didn't bark" is that there probably was no dog in the first place.] Given the colossal burden caused by malaria, any rational risk-benefit assessment would conclude that DDT should be used. [Aside: Indeed Richard Tren is right on this one. See: Indur M. Goklany, The Precautionary Principle: A Critical Appraisal of Environmental Risk Assessment (Cato Institute, Washington, DC, 2001), available from Amazon.]

Due to its ongoing efficacy and its long record of safe use in malaria control, many countries continue to use DDT. Others, such as Uganda and Tanzania, are attempting to revitalize their IRS programs and use DDT, other insecticides and other interventions. The use of DDT in this way is specifically authorized by the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) and is recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO).

On 2 August, 2006, Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) ran a story on the World Health Organization's (WHO) endorsement of the public health insecticide DDT for malaria control. The report quoted Greenpeace scientist Dr David Santillo's reaction to the endorsement:

"That certainly raises some quite substantial concerns and, if there's substantial funding coming from the US to support that, then that does sound very much like a step in the wrong direction â€¦ I think where that funding is better placed is in developing the availability of alternative strategies.

Richard Tren continues:

On 17 October 2004, I received correspondence from Manfred Krautter of Greenpeace Germany. Mr. Krautter was responding to a media report in which I was quoted as saying that environmentalist groups pressured aid agencies not to use insecticides such as DDT. In his letter, attached, Mr. Krautter reminded me that: " â€¦ DDT is in justified cases allowed to be used to combat mosquitoes carrying malaria. Greenpeace has no objections to these regulations on exceptions and supports this part of the Convention too ... It is therefore false to presume Greenpeace had expressed itself opposed to such emergency uses allowed in the POPs Conventionâ€¦[or] to say that Greenpeace has put pressure on other organizations not to use DDT to combat malaria in such cases."
These sentiments seem at odds with the opening sentence of a Greenpeace Statement on the Stockholm Convention and DDT, which Mr. Krautter included in his correspondence. The Statement reads:

"Any attempt to hinder or undermine world agreement to eliminate DDT under the Stockholm Convention would obstruct attempts to break the current cycle of misery related to the use of DDT for malarial vector control." [Italics added by IMGrant]

It is not clear what particular misery Greenpeace refers to with regard to the use of DDT for malaria control â€¦ To characterize the use of DDT to control this disease as â€œa cycle of miseryâ€ is entirely outrageous and seems to show that Greenpeace is at best out of touch with the risks and realities of life in Africa. At worst it demonstrates a callous disregard for human life in malarial areas.

The Greenpeace Statement goes on to call for more money to be invested in alternative solutions to DDT. Mr. Krautterâ€™s letter specifically states that:

"Greenpeace is thus committed to seeing that more effective methods for combating malaria which are more environmentally-friendly and sound with regard to health become devised and made available in the countries affected."

The various inconsistent and contradictory statements beg several questions:

First, if, as Mr. Krautter asserts, Greenpeace should not be characterized as opposed to the use of DDT in malaria control, why should the organization describe its use in malaria control as a "cycle of misery?" Furthermore, why does Dr Santillo consider that the restricted and careful use of DDT for malaria control is "a step in the wrong direction?"

Second, please, could you detail the financial commitment that Greenpeace itself has made to developing new malaria control technologies, and include any details of the success achieved? Given that Greenpeace informs us that it is "committed to seeing more effective methods for combating malaria," we assume that it has followed that up with actual investment.

Third, please, could you detail the lobbying and advocacy efforts that Greenpeace has undertaken to ensure that public and private funds are invested in the search for chemical alternatives to DDT?

Africa Fighting Malaria applauds the constructive and positive role that [some other environmental] organizations have taken with regard to DDT for malaria control. The criticism that Greenpeace has leveled at the WHO, and by implication, some of the world's leading malaria experts and scientists is damaging to malaria control programs and ultimately will cost lives in Africa.

It will be interesting to see Greenpeace's response.

Notably, Greenpeace's Donations website (for the USA) carries the following statement: "Greenpeace Inc. is a non-profit, tax-exempt, 501(c)(4) organization. As a result of our effective work for new environmental policies, contributions are not tax-deductible." As a taxpayer, I am heartened by the second sentence, but I wonder what social function is served by providing tax exempt status to an expressly misanthropic organization such as Greenpeace.

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Markets and tigers

Posted by Kendra Okonski · 21 August 2006 · Extinction ~International ~Private Conservation ~Sustainable Development ~Tragedy of the Commons ~Wildlife

Barun Mitra, director of the Liberty Institute in New Delhi, India, recently visited China to find out about the country's efforts to save the tiger. He wrote about how China is "applying free-market principles to wildlife preservation and, in the process, improving the survival chances of a long-endangered species while giving its economy a boost" in the New York Times on August 15.

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Preventing illness and deaths from malaria

Posted by Kendra Okonski  ·  12 April 2006  ·  DDT/Malaria ~International ~Precautionary Principle

The folks at Africa Fighting Malaria have written to the Council of the European Union requesting official clarification of their position on the use of DDT in Uganda's malaria control programme.

We therefore request a clear statement on the EUâ€™s position on the use of DDT in malaria control and its position regarding agricultural exports from any country that uses DDT in malaria control. The confusion and misinformation following the EUâ€™s statements in Uganda has cost lives and damaged Ugandaâ€™s malaria control program and this must halt immediately. We would appreciate a response before 25 April, which marks Africa Malaria Day.

AFM has highlighted the fact that US AID recently committed to using DDT in several indoor residual spraying programmes. (See previous posts for background on the topic.)

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When Marxism Stifles Environmental Improvement

Posted by Iain Murray  ·   3 April 2006  ·  International

Analyst Paul Driessen writes about the battle currently being waged in La Oroya, Peru, by a company determined to clean up a polluting factory and improve the lives of the town's inhabitants and the local Archbishop and NGOs like Oxfam who put ideological purity above such life-enhancing measures. The views expressed below are Mr Driessen's.

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Loathing, lies and liberation theology

Multinational corporations duke it out in the Andes

Paul Driessen

LA OROYA, Peru â€“ Pitched battles over ideology and public policy certainly are not confined to classrooms or legislative chambers. They are also fought in poor communities of Africa, Asia and Latin America, often pitting multinational corporations against multinational activist groups.

The corporations seek to extract energy and minerals, provide much-needed jobs and capital, and serve investors and consumers â€“ without harming human health or the environment. They often collide with well-connected global activists who loathe foreign investment, free enterprise, and especially extractive industries â€“ and want to influence elections and policies in these regions.

This town, high in the Andes east of Lima, is one such battleground. La Oroya developed around a metallurgical facility that produces raw materials for computers, medical devices and other modern marvels. Built in 1922, the facility was a major polluter for decades.

In October 1997, a company that is now Doe Run Peru bought the complex from government-owned Centromin Peru. Doe Run eliminated heavy-metal discharges into local rivers, began converting old slag piles into grasslands, and implemented safety procedures that enabled employees to work 7 million man-hours without a lost-time accident. It has already reduced particulate emissions 35 percent from late 1997 levels, and sulfur dioxide (SO2) by one-fifth. The company has requested a four-year extension for completing the SO2 emissions control system, but by 2011 the entire facility will comply with all Peruvian environmental standards.

Last year, at Doe Runâ€™s invitation, I visited Peru with two Catholic priests, to see the operation firsthand. The environmental compliance work was impressive. However, after we explored the town and met its mayor and numerous citizens, what really stood out were programs whose primary purpose was improving the quality of life in the region.

Doe Run has financed or conducted hundreds of projects, mostly suggested by the locals. It constructed a municipal sanitary landfill, paved roads to reduce dust and accidents, and improved schools, built a youth center and clinic, and helped plant 100,000 trees and acres of flowers.

â€œMany homes here donâ€™t have bathrooms or even running water,â€ Nilda GÃ³mez told us. Now families can go to public laundry and shower facilities that cost little or nothing to use.

The company also sponsored cleft palate surgeries for 200 children, and jewelry making, pastry baking, electronics and business management classes for local people. They, in turn, have opened scores of new businesses. Most are home-based, but a bakery now employs eight workers, including Emilia Hinostroza, whose speech disabilities previously had prevented her from holding a job.

To improve agriculture in hamlets up to 30 miles away, Doe Run removed debris from water canals and tunnels; builds reservoirs and irrigation systems; imports better breeds of grass, sheep, alpaca and cattle; trains farmers in land management and animal husbandry; and provides medicines and medical treatment for animals.

The hard work and $140 million investment (through 2005) have improved environmental quality and created a new sense of pride, ownership and hope for the regionâ€™s 50,000 people. At a union-organized event, we were mobbed by happy parents and children who shouted â€œViva Doe Runâ€ and said their lives had improved more in the past seven years than in the previous 75.

These efforts epitomize â€œcorporate social responsibility.â€ And yet, the company and community are under constant attack by local Archbishop Pedro Baretto and US-based activists led by Oxfam. They have insinuated themselves as â€œstakeholders,â€ say Doe Run hasnâ€™t done enough to address blood-lead levels, and strongly object to the SO2 deadline extension.

In fact, Doe Run made the decades-old lead contamination problem its top priority from the outset. The company tests workers and children regularly, reduced lead emissions at their source, built facilities that ensure workers donâ€™t take contaminants home, and initiated programs to clean streets and homes of accumulated contamination. Blood-lead levels now meet US (OSHA) guidelines for nearly all workers, and the childrenâ€™s blood-lead levels are improving.

Frustrated that the union and residents overwhelmingly support extending the SO2 deadline, the activists constantly lie about these health issues and Doe Runâ€™s efforts and intentions. Many suspect they also want to turn public opinion against mining and foreign investment, and tilt Peruâ€™s presidential race toward Ollanta Humala, a left-wing Hugo Chavez protÃ©gÃ©.

La Oroyans deeply resent what they feel is interference by unelected â€œoutsidersâ€ who ignore their views and have no real stake in what eventually happens. â€œWe are the ones who live here,â€ Mayor Clemente Quincho noted. â€œWe want the archbishop to listen to us, not just make statements and demands.â€

Vice Mayor Clariza Amanzo criticized Archbishop Barettoâ€™s â€œdialogueâ€ process as one-sided. Numerous facilities still pollute the regionâ€™s air and water, she emphasized, so he should invite â€œour people and all the companies, not just Doe Run and people he wants to speak.â€ Indeed, when I participated in a meeting at the archbishopâ€™s magnificent residence, not one of his â€œrepresentativesâ€ said anything remotely echoing what I had heard during three days of meetings, tours and interviews.

What their statements did reflect is a commitment to liberation theology, which one of the priests described as â€œMarxism painted over with a thin veneer of Christian moralizing about class struggle, the supposed illegitimacy of private enterprise, and ultimately the asserted need for radical redistribution of limited wealth.â€ Worse, it undermines the very goals it advocates, by preventing the foreign investment, technological progress and wealth creation necessary for people to improve their physical and social environment.

Oxfam, Christian Aid and US-based Presbyterian Church groups certainly can afford to support projects like those Doe Run has initiated â€“ thereby buttressing their assertions that they care about the needs of people they supposedly champion. However, aside from sponsoring duplicative blood-lead studies and spending probably millions to attack Doe Run and thwart La Oroyaâ€™s interests, they have done nothing.

Town officials say the activists expressed no concern about health or pollution until well after Doe Run arrived. Now that a US company is operating the facility, the agitators want decades of mismanagement and pollution reversed overnight.

A greater worry is that, if they manage to prevent the SO2 extension or shut down the smelter, the activistsâ€™ concern for â€œthe childrenâ€ will evaporate. Thatâ€™s what happened when Oxfamâ€™s radical soulmates succeeded in banishing DDT from disease control programs, and left millions to die of malaria in Latin America and, even more tragically, in Africa.

Then newly-jobless workers and families would be forced into subsistence farming, coca growing, or scraping by in Limaâ€™s slums. Meanwhile, the agitators would simply return to their comfortable homes in Boston, Washington and London â€“ until they hoist their eco-socialist banners against the next ascendant village they choose to victimize.

The people of La Oroya deserve better than that.

______________

Paul Driessen, a senior policy advisor with the Congress of Racial Equality and the Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise, is the author of Eco-Imperialism: Green power âˆ™ Black death. Doe Run sponsored his trip, but the observations and opinions presented here are his alone.

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Environmental Laws Lead to Ban on Death

Posted by J. Bishop Grewell  ·  14 December 2005  ·  International

In Biritiba Mirim, Brazil, national environmental laws have prevented the construction of new cemetaries and prohibited cremation. In response, the town's mayor has outlawed death. Residents must take good care of their health so they do not die or they will be held accountable. The mayor's proposal is a protest to the uncompromising nature of the national regulations.

As many environmentalists blame overpopulation as the greatest environmental threat, this is clearly a classic case of the unintended consequences of regulation.

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Conservation Refugees

Posted by IMGrant  ·  16 November 2005  ·  International ~Poverty and Hunger ~Property Rights ~Wildlife

Courtesy of Jon Christensen’s blog, “The Uneasy Chair”, I came across a provocative piece, “Conservation Refugees: When Protecting Nature Means Kicking People Out”, by Mark Dowie in Orion. Dowie, while shedding light on some of the human toll of big conservation, confirms that colonialism is not dead – read Bob Nelson’s excellent historical account of the founding of some of the flagship nature preserves in Africa in “Environmental Colonialism: ‘Saving’ Africa from Africans”, here.

Dowie states that:

“It's no secret that millions of native peoples around the world have been pushed off their land to make room for big oil, big metal, big timber, and big agriculture. But few people realize that the same thing has happened for a much nobler cause: land and wildlife conservation. Today the list of culture-wrecking institutions put forth by tribal leaders on almost every continent includes not only Shell, Texaco, Freeport, and Bechtel, but also more surprising names like Conservation International (CI), The Nature Conservancy (TNC), the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), and the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS). Even the more culturally sensitive World Conservation Union (IUCN) might get a mention.

“In early 2004 a United Nations meeting was convened in New York for the ninth year in a row to push for passage of a resolution protecting the territorial and human rights of indigenous peoples. The UN draft declaration states: 'Indigenous peoples shall not be forcibly removed from their lands or territories. No relocation shall take place without the free and informed consent of the indigenous peoples concerned and after agreement on just and fair compensation and, where possible, with the option to return.' During the meeting an indigenous delegate who did not identify herself rose to state that while extractive industries were still a serious threat to their welfare and cultural integrity, their new and biggest enemy was 'conservation.’…

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“The total area of land now under conservation protection worldwide has doubled since 1990, when the World Parks Commission set a goal of protecting 10 percent of the planet's surface. That goal has been exceeded, with over 12 percent of all land, a total area of 11.75 million square miles, now protected. That's an area greater than the entire land mass of Africa.

"During the 1990s the African nation of Chad increased the amount of national land under protection from 0.1 to 9.1 percent. All of that land had been previously inhabited by what are now an estimated six hundred thousand conservation refugees. No other country besides India, which officially admits to 1.6 million, is even counting this growing new class of refugees. World estimates offered by the UN, IUCN, and a few anthropologists range from 5 million to tens of millions. Charles Geisler, a sociologist at Cornell University who has studied displacements in Africa, is certain the number on that continent alone exceeds 14 million.”
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Unprincipled precaution

Posted by Kendra Okonski  ·  13 October 2005  ·  Environmental Risk ~European Union ~International ~Precautionary Principle

IPN has just published a new book co-authored by Gary Marchant, a professor in both the Arizona State University law school and school of life sciences. The book - Arbitrary and Capricious: The Precautionary Principle in the European Union Courts - explores how the principle has been employed in over 60 court decisions. Marchant concludes:

No one can argue against being safe rather than sorry. But the precautionary principle is flawed in theory and practice, and its enshrinement sets Europe down a path that will wreak havoc on the economy and public health of not only itself but also its trading partners.’

Today, Gary has an article in the Wall Street Journal Europe - "Unprincipled Precaution" (link to article on IPN's website) - which explores some of the book's themes. [for WSJ subscribers - original link]

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German Pot (Gleefully) Calls the American Kettle Black

Posted by IMGrant  ·  12 October 2005  ·  Climate ~Environmental Alarmism ~European Union ~International

In a Parthian shot at President Bush, soon to be (thankfully) ex-Chancellor, Gerhard Schroeder, is quoted as saying in a speech to trade unionists, "I can think of a recent disaster that shows what happens when a country neglects its duties of state towards its people... My post as chancellor, which I still hold, does not allow me to name that country but you all know that I am talking about America." Schroeder's remarks were reportedly greeted with laughter and applause (perhaps tinged with Schadenfreude?).

I too "can think of a recent disaster that shows what happens when a country neglects its duties of state towards its people." Specifically, during the 2003 European heat wave, there were 5,250 deaths in Germany.^1,2 These were eminently avoidable, especially if the German government had spent a fraction of the time, resources and energy -- yes, energy -- to help its population cope with the extreme heat as it seems to spend on cheerleading for the ineffective, not to mention wholly wasteful, Kyoto Protocol. [Click here for an analysis of how (in)effective and wasteful the Protocol would be.]³

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Schroeder's comments are cut from the same cloth as his environmental minister Jurgen Trittin's suggestions on the heels of Hurricane Katrina that but for the US refusal to join in Kyoto, Katrina may have been weaker. This leads to my second point: Even if: (a) global warming intensifies hurricanes, an iffy proposition at best, and (b) the U.S. and other developed nations had implemented a Kyoto-like regime say, 10 years ago, it would have had no discernible effect on global warming or, more important, the strength of Katrina.

The weird thing is that while Trittin came in for some criticism in the German media, much of the criticism was based on the insensitive timing of his remarks, not the egregious substance of his statement that emission reductions would have reduced Katrina's power.

Clearly, the Germans can match the junkscience on our side of the Atlantic with their own junkerscience -- ja?

Notes

1. Data from: EM-DAT: The OFDA/CRED International Disaster Database, available at www.em-dat.net - Université Catholique de Louvain - Brussels - Belgium, October 12, 2005.

2. By contrast, Katrina's final death toll was about 1,200.

3. Goklany, I.M. 2005. “A Climate Policy for the Short and Medium Term: Stabilization or Adaptation?” Energy & Environment 16: 667-680 (2005).
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A Climate Conundrum: Is a richer-but-warmer world better than poorer-but-cooler worlds?

Posted by IMGrant  ·   4 October 2005  ·  Climate ~International ~Sustainable Development

If global warming is real and its effects will one day be as devastating as some believe is likely, then greater economic growth would, by increasing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, sooner or later lead to greater damages from climate change. On the other hand, by increasing wealth, technological development and human capital, economic growth would broadly increase human well-being, and society’s capacity to reduce climate change damages via adaptation or mitigation. Hence, the conundrum: at what point in the future would the benefits of a richer and more technologically advanced world be cancelled out by the costs of a warmer world?

Indur Goklany attempted to shed light on this conundrum in a recent paper presented at the 25th Annual North American Conference of the US Association for Energy Economics, in Denver (Sept. 21, 2005). His paper — "Is a richer-but-warmer world better than poorer-but-cooler worlds?” — which can be found here, draws upon the results of a series of UK Government-sponsored studies which employed the IPCC’s emissions scenarios to project future climate change between 1990 and 2100 and its global impacts on various climate-sensitive determinants of human and environmental well-being (such as malaria, hunger, water shortage, coastal flooding, and habitat loss). The results indicate that notwithstanding climate change, through much of this century, human well-being is likely to be highest in the richest-but-warmest world and lower in poorer-but-cooler worlds. With respect to environmental well-being, matters may be best under the former world for some critical environmental indicators through 2085-2100, but not necessarily for others.

This conclusion casts doubt on a key premise implicit in all calls to take actions now that would go beyond “no-regret” policies in order to reduce GHG emissions in the near term, namely, a richer-but-warmer world will, before too long, necessarily be worse for the globe than a poorer-but-cooler world. But the above analysis suggests this is unlikely to happen, at least until after the 2085-2100 period. Assuming that it takes 50 years to replace the energy infrastructure, that means we have at least 30 years (= 2085-50-2005) before embarking on a greenhouse gas emission reduction program that goes beyond “no-regrets” provided, in the interim, we use this time wisely by specifically focusing on:

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(a) broadly advancing sustainable development (particularly in developing countries since that would generally enhance their adaptive capacity to cope with numerous problems that currently beset them, including climate-sensitive problems),
(b) reducing vulnerabilities to climate-sensitive problems that are urgent today and might be exacerbated by future climate change,
(c) implementing “no-regret” emission reduction measures while at the same time striving to expand the universe of such measures through research and development of cleaner and more affordable technologies, and
(d) monitor climate, climate change and their impacts so we can subtantially mitigate, if not foretall, nasty events and/or surprises (such as Katrina, Rita or the drought in Niger, whether or not they are caused by climate change).

Such a policy would help solve current urgent problems facing humanity while preparing it to face future problems that might be caused or exacerbated by climate change.
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Global Deaths & Death Rates Due to Extreme Weather Events, 1900-2004

Posted by IMGrant  ·   6 September 2005  ·  Climate ~Environmental Risk ~International

by

Indur M. Goklany

We are constantly bombarded with claims that weather-related events will get worse over time, at least in part because of global warming. So one should expect that aggregate deaths and death rates due to weather-related extreme events worldwide would have trended upward in recent decades.

But do they?

The following bar chart shows (approximate) aggregate trends in these critical measures between 1900 and 2004 for "weather-related extreme events", namely, droughts, extreme temperatures (both extreme heat and extreme cold), floods, landslides, waves and surges, wild fires and wind storms of different types.[1]

Yes, there is a trend here, but is it upward?

This, of course, begs the question as to why, if the globe is warming, matters aren't getting worse?

Curves like this illustrate that due diligence requires that analyses and/or claims of future impacts should be accompanied, at a minimum, by checks of whether their future projections match with past reality. Of course, as your mutual fund advisor will tell you, "past results are not necessarily indicative of future performance." True, but one should have to reconcile the two, matching the past and the present with the future. And this goes not just for impacts (e.g., deaths and death rates) but also assumptions that feed into impacts assessments. For example, how reasonable is an assumption of 1 percent growth per year in carbon dioxide concentrations when historically it has averaged 0.40 percent per year from 1959 to 2004, during which period it only once exceeded 0.75 percent (year-to-year increase)?

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Notes
[1] DATA SOURCES: For deaths: "EM-DAT: The OFDA/CRED International Disaster Database," available at http://www.em-dat.net, Université Catholique de Louvain, Brussels, Belgium; for population: from 1900-1925, McEvedy, C. and R. Jones, (1978), Atlas of World Population History, New York, Penguin; from 1950-2004, World Resources Institute, "Earth Trends," available at http://www.wri.org; from 1926-1949, interpolated for each year using the 1925 estimate from McEvedy and Jones and the 1950 WRI estimate assuming exponential population growth. For 2004, I excluded the deaths due to the Boxing Day Tsunami disaster (which, according to EM-DATA killed 226,435 people). Data on deaths, in particular, are approximate and, probably, more prone to error as we go further into the past.
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Iraqi Marshlands Rebound

Posted by Jonathan H. Adler  ·  24 August 2005  ·  International

The BBC reports that Iraq's marshlands have been rapidly improving since the toppling of Saddam Hussein. As I discussed a few years back, Iraqq's dictator sought to eradicate the Marsh Arabs by destroying the ecosystems upon which they depended. At the time, the Hussein government was likely the "only extant regime that deliberately use[d] environmental destruction, as such, as a tool of government policy." Now that Hussein is gone, it's nice to see that Iraq's environment is recovering.

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The View from Space

Posted by Iain Murray  ·   5 August 2005  ·  International

Noted environmental scholar RJ Smith has a few words to say about astronaut Eileen Collins' comments on the environmental degradation she sees from space:

"Sometimes you can see how there is erosion, and you can see how there is deforestation. It's very widespread in some parts of the world," Collins said in a conversation from space with Japanese officials in Tokyo, including Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi.
"We would like to see, from the astronauts' point of view, people take good care of the Earth and replace the resources that have been used," said Collins, who was standing with Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi in front of a Japanese flag and holding a colorful fan.

RJ is not exactly happy with the astronaut's reasoning here:

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A few comments Astronauts are given training in detecting major areas of environmental degradation that can easily be viewed from space. After all, we are approaching a half century of amassing detailed photos of the Earth's surface from space. And they are trained to watch for areas of Amazonia and the Congo tropical forests and compare amounts of deforestation with photos from 10, 20, 30 years ago. Likewise watching for how far out into the oceans the silt plumes from the major rivers extend. Or for expansion of the great Sahelian Desert further south into sub-Saharan Africa.
After all, it was the very first astronauts who looked down and Adalai Stevenson who looked at the photos, who remarked on the view of this tiny little ball of blue and green drifting through the enormity of time and space and remarked that it was our only home and that it appeared fragile and that we should take care of it. Spaceship Earth. Nothing necessarily wrong with that. We should all want to be stewards of our homes and home. But it is more their attitude and what they are looking for. NASA, EPA and the Greens have been trying desperately to turn the Space Program into an Earth Observation program -- the Mission to Planet Earth -- for almost 20 years, to thus justify perpetual funding as part of the nation's and world's environmental protection mission -- and thus not have to constantly justify space walks, manned missions, Moon landings, whatever.

The crap in all this is that everything is evaluated simply in areal extent. Gee the desert is larger -- thus man is evil or development is. They never get at causes or incentives. Why do the tropical forests continue to decline? Does NASA or White House Science Advisor ever suggest any institutional factors? No one owns the forests and people in many of those countries live in dire poverty in nations with no free market economies, no jobs, no food Thus their only choice is felling the forests, raising crops and livestock, and hoping they can sell some of the rare forest woods in the illegal markets -- that the G-8 and Tony Blair were so concerned about. Or that Amazonian states continue to urge the teeming populous of Brazil's coastal cities to move into the border areas and clear the forests and create boom towns. Perhaps enitre regions of Africa would not have to subsist on "bush meat" if their dictators would allow Frank Purdue to start up some chicken farms.

They might actually gather some good data if they took extensive infra-red photos of the US forests to document the extent of all the unhealthy forests -- the millions upon millions of acres of dead and dying trees -- from over-crowding, disease, bark beetle infestations, whatever. All the failed results of environmental policies forced on our National Forests by the Greens. All the things that the Bush Healthy Forest Initiative was supposed to help start repairing. And which much of the nation still doesn't believe is actually happening, preferring to believe the HFI was passed to pay off the Bush administration's Big Timber donors.

More striking I think is Reuters' header: "Environmental damage on Earth seen from shuttle." Like helloo? That is the major issue at this moment? I don't think they are really certain that they can get that puppy home safely. Every time they get another picture they find a missing or cracked tile, insulation padding sticking out between tiles, torn insulation blankets. Questions of whether any falling lift-off debris might have caused microscopic cracks in the carbon wing edges, etc. And Reuters is going on about damage to Earth. How about attention to environmental damage to this shuttle. Talk about Green bias of the media, that that would be the lead story.

And where is Archie Bunker when we need him? Where in the world did they find that total ditz Eileen Collins? Talk about a Ding Bat! She had seen "widespread environmental damage", whatever that may be. "Sometimes you can see how there is erosion." Again, helloo? That is one of the most fundamental and basic processes on the planet. There is uplift and there is erosion. The two biggies. What are wind and rain and freezing and thawing supposed to do? Erode. "And you can see how there is deforestation." Again so what? And why? Yes, but why do you suppose the trees get replanted in the vast clear-cuts of the giant timber companies, but not in mankind's common tropical forests?

"We would like to see...people take good care of the Earth and replace the resources that have been used." Like refill copper mines with more copper or start pumping crude oil into depleted reservoirs?

"We don't have much air." Like people are using it all up by breathing. How did she possibly qualify to command the mission? That crap wouldn't even be accepted for the Children's Page of the Washington Post.

Ms Collins might just start spending a little time worrying about how she's going to get her rearend safely back to Terra Firma -- even if it is so badly polluted. Home, sweet home; be it ever so humble.

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Alien Tort Claim Act Decision

Posted by J. Bishop Grewell  ·   8 July 2005  ·  International

Today, in Aldana v. Del Monte Fresh, the 11th Circuit rejected an Alien Tort Claim cause of action for failing to qualify for a jurisdictional grant, because the claim wasn't violative of international customary law. The case involved a union fight in Guatemala between laborers and a plantation run for Del Monte Fresh, which is incorporated in Delaware and has its principle place of business in Florida. The laborers asserted that they were threatened and pushed around with guns by a private security force used by a wholly-owned subsidiary of Del Monte. In its decision, the court discussed the potential for incorporation of evolving norms of international customary law into U.S. law.

While the court didn't do much more than discuss the recent Supreme Court decision of Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain in reaching its opinion, the discussion made it clear that the lower courts feel a tension created by the U.S. Supreme Court in just how much international law should be taken into consideration by U.S. courts.

For an earlier post on Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain and its relevance in the environmental context, see here.

Clinton: Global warming is the biggest challenge the world faces

Posted by IMGrant  ·  19 May 2005  ·  Climate ~International ~Poverty and Hunger ~Sustainable Development

Once again we are told – this time by former President Clinton -- that “global warming is the biggest challenge the world faces, but too many people don't take it seriously.” [See here.] This assertion, of course, is never accompanied by any showing that of all the problems in the world, this one is paramount. The only analyses that I know of that has actually bothered to compare climate change against other problems facing humanity or the environment finds that at least through the foreseeable future, the problems due to climate change for the most part are relatively small compared to existing problems such as malaria, hunger, water shortages and threats to biodiversity. The most recent of these analyses – Indur Goklany’s Is Climate Change the 21st Century’s Most Urgent Environmental Problem? – can be found here.

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Goklany notes that current evidence does not sustain the notion that climate change is the greatest threat to public health or the environment today. His study shows that diverting scarce resources towards feeble and ineffectual mitigation strategies such as the Kyoto treaty would hurt our abilities to respond to any future environmental challenges. Specifically, he shows that a completely successful Kyoto Protocol, despite costing $125 billion annually, would have negligible positive effects on global agriculture production, malaria, water resources, global forest area, or costal wetlands. The study notes that, at best, Kyoto might reduce sea level rise by 1.4 inches (!) by 2080. Goklany concludes that spending scarce resources directly on addressing today’s urgent public health and environmental threats, and advancing economic development, would not only solve today's urgent problems but it would also advance the ability to solve any environmental problems that might occur tomorrow, including climate change.
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Prometheus: 'How science becomes politics'

Posted by Kendra Okonski  ·  26 April 2005  ·  Climate ~International

Roger Pielke Jr. has written some interesting observations (be sure to read the follow-up comments) about an interview on Democracy Now, which was based on the Mother Jones feature story on climate change ("some like it hot").

The post concerns statements made by the IPCC, or attributed to key IPCC figures, in the interview.

In the follow-up comments on Pielke's post, it becomes apparent that Rajendra Pachauri, head of the IPCC, indeed made the statement in question -- that if humanity is to survive, it has a ten-year window to cut the use of hydrocarbon fuels [my paraphrase].

Says Pielke

I am less troubled by the fact that Dr. Pauchuri made these remarks (I am sure that he sincerely believes in their substance) than I am about the overall silence about the way that IPCC science has become transformed into issue advocacy among the rank and file in the broader community of IPCC scientists. Any reactions from IPCC scientists?

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Stakeholding

Posted by Kendra Okonski  ·  26 April 2005  ·  International ~Sustainable Development

A few days ago, I attended the European Union's 2-day 'stakeholder meeting on sustainable development'.

The results of the meeting - whose agenda was decided by the participants - can be found in a lengthy PDF.

In general, the stakeholders who participated seemed to reflect the European Union's agenda on environmental issues; in many cases, the stakeholders presented a more extreme vision based on the idea that economic growth is antithetical to environmental protection (and to their minds, n'er the twain shall meet).

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The topic of the panel in which I participated - 'is private ownership the future of sustainable development?' - analysed the role of institutions in attaining sustainable development, arguing that sustainable development is a process, not an outcome. This distinction is important, but generally not well understood.
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religion and the environment

Posted by Kendra Okonski  ·  18 April 2005  ·  International

Further to one of my recent posts - Politics and the Church of England - the archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams wrote an editorial - "A planet on the brink" in yesterday's Independent which contains neither an environmental diatribe, nor a political rant, nor the cold and cruel analysis of economists who have been known to frequent The Commons.

The analysis is nevertheless muddy. Williams, and the Church of England, have taken up various bad ideas... and consequently are supporting the idea of 'contraction and convergence' as a means to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions. I have attempted an analysis of such a scheme here (PDF).

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WEEE don't like waste

Posted by Kendra Okonski  ·  12 April 2005  ·  International

On April 29, London's residents and visitors to the South Bank of the Thames will be visually stimulated with a new monument whose purpose is to commemorate "the growing problem of Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment."

According to a press release from the Royal Society for the Encouragement of the Arts:

An imposing three tonne humanoid figure made from WEEE (Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment) will be unveiled by City Hall, South Bank, London on Friday 29 April. The seven metre high figure, will be on display for 28 days.

UK legislation to implement the European Union's WEEE directive (which went into effect in 2003) will be introduced in early 2006.

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The press release says that

The huge 3 tonne figure stands 7 metres high and is totally composed of WEEE – from washing machines to mobile phones and electronic toys. This represents the amount of waste that a single person in the UK is likely to produce in a lifetime.
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Addressing Harms of Subsidized Recycling

Posted by Jonathan H. Adler  ·   3 April 2005  ·  International ~Recycling

A new working paper on SSRN discusses the harms to developing country recycling and waste management efforts caused by subsidized recycling efforts in developed countries. While I am suspect of the proposal to address such concerns through the WTO, the paper raises some interesting points. The paper, "Privately Subsidized Recycling Schemes and their Potential Harm
to the Environment of Developing Countries: Does International
Trade Law Have a Solution?" by Arie Reich of Bar Ilan University in Israel, is here; an abstract follows.

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The article discusses the problem of privately subsidized recycling schemes, that are common in the developed countries and that may in certain circumstances harm the environment of developing countries, as a result of the asymmetry in economic development and environmental protection between them and the developed countries where the products originate. This may happen, for instance, when such products are exported to developing countries and have a negative impact on the economic viability of collection and recycling of their own waste. Newly established and still struggling recycling plants, unsupported by private or governmental subsidies or other protective measures prevailing in the rich and more environmentally conscious countries, may be forced to close down. Alternatively, they may decide to abandon expensive collection of local waste, in favor of free or subsidized waste imported from developed countries. In both cases, collection and recycling activities in the importing countries are reduced, and sometimes eliminated. The objective of this article is to document and draw attention to this problem, that has not yet been discussed in the rich literature on trade & environment, and to examine the question of what remedies, if any, may be offered under international trade law (in particular GATT/WTO rules) to affected countries. Would countries in situations as those described above be permitted to take measures against imports harming their recycling activities? Of particular interest in this regard, is how to relate to privately paid, but governmentally induced, subsidies under the WTO Subsidies Agreement? Such subsidies, while fulfilling most economic definitions of subsidies, appear to have escaped the attention of the Agreement's drafters and may therefore be outside its scope. Importing member countries would therefore be precluded from taking countervailing measures against products enjoying such subsidies. These and other potential protective measures will be discussed in the article, in light of recent case law of the WTO, in particular in the matter of United States - Measures Treating Export Restraints as Subsidies. This discussion will demonstrate the formalistic nature of the existing WTO jurisprudence and show how a more purposive, teleological approach to interpretation of international trade rules could lead to a better solution to the problem at hand.
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The U.S. Feels Fine

Posted by Jonathan H. Adler  ·   2 April 2005  ·  International

NRO's Jonah Goldberg takes a gander at the United Nations Millenium Ecosystem Assessment, and contrasts its gloomy view of global environmental trends with positive trends in the U.S. He suggests that developing countries could learn quite a bit from the American experience and that the UN report's mild consideration of market policies (discussed here) could be such a step in that direction.

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Goldberg writes:
Broadly speaking, environmentalists want to end poverty, hunger, and disease, but they also want to keep indigenous cultures unchanged. But you can't have both simultaneously. It is the natural state of indigenous cultures, after all, to be constantly vulnerable to disease and hunger, and no man fighting to keep his children alive cares about "biodiversity."

For decades, environmentalists pointed to various calamities and boasted that they were identifying the problems, which is the first step for providing a solution. But they were wrong; environmental distress is a symptom of political and economic corruption. There's reason to hope the United Nations has finally recognized the real problem, and that's great news.
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Millennium Ecosystem Assessment

Posted by Kendra Okonski  ·  30 March 2005  ·  International

The United Nations' Millennium Ecosystem Assessment report has been published today. Copies of the report are available by registering at the MEA website.

Several news stories have covered the more extreme elements of the report, e.g. "The state of the world? It is on the brink of disaster"

Notably, the report contains an interesting discussion of the fact that markets often do not value resources or 'ecosystem services' (pp.40-41 of the PDF discuss 'Economics and incentives').

The "promising intervention" of eliminating harmful subsidies is something that we might all agree with [minus the beneficiaries - Archer Daniels Midland et al]. According to the report,

Government subsidies paid to the agricultural sectors of OECD countries between 2001 and 2003 averaged over $324 billion annually, or one-third the global value of agricultural products in 2000.

Astonishing!

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Lord Taverne: The March of Unreason

Posted by Kendra Okonski  ·  28 March 2005  ·  International

Dick Taverne, a member of the House of Lords' science and technology committee, and Chairman of Sense about Science, has just published an eloquent new book which is to be thoroughly recommended- The March of Unreason: Science, Democracy and the New Fundamentalism (Oxford University Press, 17 March 2005).

A news story from the Sunday Telegraph about the book highlights Taverne's views about the biotechnology debate in the UK, suggesting that

Aid agencies and environmentalists have deceived the public over genetically modified crops by deliberately ignoring scientific evidence that supports the technology

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Taverne writes as a layman interested in science, calling himself a "passionate believer in the importance of reason and truth":

I believe non-scientists and especially politicians who are concerned about the interaction of science with society should take special care to try to understand and evaluate scientific evidence about controversial questions of the day. (p.11)

...In arguments for and against particular scientific developments or about science and society, distinctions between left and right are meaningless. What is at stake is the role of reason in democracy. What is also at stake is truth. (p.11)

The main intellectual case against science and technology, which has also contributed to the march of unreason, is the assault by postmodernists and relativists on the very citadel of science itself, its claim to objectivity and to being value-free. (p.14)
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Nature's Experts: Science, Politics and the Environment

Posted by Kendra Okonski  ·  10 March 2005  ·  International

Roger Pielke Jr (who runs the Prometheus blog), has written a review of Nature's Experts: Science, Politics and the Environment by Stephen Bocking, in this week's edition of Nature (unfortunately, the Nature link only works for subscribers).

From the first paragraph:

In this excellent book on environmental science and politics, Stephen Bocking grapples with a problem that he characterizes as a riddle: "How can science be part of the political process yet separate?" Or more specifically: "How can we ensure that scientific research provides the information we need to pursue our environmental values and priorities (whether these relate to exploitation or to protection) without science itself becoming subject to the conflicts and controversies of environmental politics?"...

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Marshes Rebounding in Iraq

Posted by Jonathan H. Adler  ·   8 March 2005  ·  International

The great marshes of Iraq are slowly beginning to recover from Saddam Hussein's rule, reports the New York Times. Hussein's environmental record was nearly as bad as his record on human rights. Indeed, Hussein may have been the first dictator to use ecological destruction as a deliberate tool of oppression -- if not genocide. He ordered the destruction of Iraq's marsh ecosystems to punish and oppress the marsh arabs who opposed his rule. Now that Hussein is gone, these ecosystems are starting to come back.

For more on Hussein's ecological reign of terror, see here.

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Protecting the Poor from Climate Change

Posted by John Downen  ·   4 March 2005  ·  Climate ~International ~Poverty and Hunger

Here's a recent column I wrote for our local paper inspired, in part, by an article (may require subscription) by Pielke and Daniel Sarewitz in the January 17 New Republic.

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Bozeman’s extended spell of vernal temperatures spurs thoughts of global warming. The preponderance of scientific evidence shows that for whatever reasons (human-induced carbon emissions, natural climatic variation), average global temperatures are increasing. The important question is: What do we do about it?

The most common arguments revolve around reducing emissions of greenhouse gases. But this reduction harms the least well off. The money and resources spent on marginal reductions in greenhouse gas emissions would do far more to protect and save human lives if directed toward Third World economic and technological development.

In 1999, Yale economists William Nordhaus and Joseph Boyer estimated the net global cost of the Kyoto Protocol at $716 billion. By comparison (http://www.copenhagenconsensus.com/), for less than $50 billion we could greatly reduce malnutrition and control malaria in the developing world. Kyoto enthusiasts retort that the Protocol is just a first step in establishing a framework for future emission reductions. In the meantime, those most vulnerable to drastic climatic events, the world’s poor, will not be any better protected by the developed world’s collective penance.

As Daniel Sarewitz and Roger Pielke describe it in a January 17 New Republic article, “Prescribing emissions reductions to forestall the future effects of disasters is like telling someone who is sedentary, obese, and alcoholic that the best way to improve his health is to wear a seat belt.”

But the radical Greens of the left reject economic progress. They hate free-market capitalism and fear the individual freedom, prosperity, and technological success such a system creates. Never mind that the wealth fostered by free markets funds such environmental fundamentalists -- and real environmental improvements.

The Green fundamentalist position reminds me of the last century’s disastrous experiments in central planning. They see human nature as malleable, a project for socially engineered “improvement.” This implies an underlying contempt for humanity. No longer do individuals possess inherent value; they are disposable to further “the cause.”

For example, Neo-Luddite environmentalist Kirkpatrick Sale advocates a return to a more primitive way of life: “Tribes have long-established practices to keep themselves harmonious and stable, including the practice of birth control.... You can call it infanticide if you like; they would understand it as birth control, appropriate to their regard for nature.” For botanist Sandra Knapp, “Our species was (and still is!) an invasive mammalian weed.” Ecologist William Rees sees humans as “the most voracious predators in the world’s oceans and, simultaneously, the most successful terrestrial carnivore ever to have walked the Earth....” In a 1990 academic journal article, anthropologist Warren Hern described “the similarity of the human species to a cancerous process” and declared, “The human species is a rapacious, predatory, omniecophagic species.” (In plain English: Evil, destructive humans consume everything in sight.) No wonder, then, the Greens’ hostility to human progress.

At the global scale this attitude manifests in (further) inhuman policies from the U.N. Sarewitz and Pielke report that the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change “refused to fund disaster preparedness efforts at its last conference in December unless states could demonstrate exactly how the disasters they feared were linked to climate change.” Concern for a phenomenon with ill-defined effects trumps human lives.

A more humanitarian policy toward climate change would seek to lift up the world’s poor, helping them build the resources and resilience to withstand drastic weather events. Education (particularly for females), clean drinking water, better nutrition and medical services, and a modernized infrastructure would alleviate some symptoms of underdevelopment. But the sustained growth and long-term well-being of the poorest countries requires political and institutional reform.

Corruption, confiscatory taxation, predatory bureaucracies, lawlessness, forbidding ownership of the fruits of one’s labor, civil wars, and our own trade barriers -- these are the real obstacles to Third World development.

A few essentials are required for progress: a rational, independent, codified legal system; the right to own private property; and at least relatively free markets. Transfers by wealthy countries usually buy Mercedes, monuments, and machine guns for despots, not better lives for the people.

If we want to protect the world’s least fortunate from the effects of climate change, our efforts and resources are better spent improving their economic opportunities than in chasing hot air.

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Climate Change and Adaptation

Posted by Jonathan H. Adler  ·   3 March 2005  ·  Climate ~DDT/Malaria ~International ~Poverty and Hunger

Roger Pielke demonstrates again why the Prometheus blog is must reading for those interested in the intersection of science and public policy. I don't always agree with Pielke, but he's very thoughtful, insightful and provocative. Here's an excerpt from his latest post:
efforts to justify greenhouse gas mitigation policies on preventing human impacts run up against the reality that if it is human lives that you really care about, then there are obvious, straightforward and comparatively inexpensive ways to reduce human death and suffering that do not involve first reordering the global energy system. . . .

. . . adaptation to climate change by focusing on reducing societal vulnerability to climate-related impacts deserves a much more prominent role in discussion of climate change. At the same time, advocates of climate mitigation should think carefully about the use of human death and suffering as a justification for adoption of greenhouse gas emissions -- the numbers don’t make a strong case.

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Politics and the Church of England

Posted by Kendra Okonski  ·  16 February 2005  ·  International

Mark Hart, a member of the Anglican clergy in the UK, has written an article today in The Times (UK) commenting on a new report -- called Sharing God's Planet -- that the Church of England will issue and debate tomorrow (16 February), as well as recent statements sanctioned by the Church on free trade, equating the former with "AIDS, drought and tsunamis".

In the report, the Church has rubber-stamped 'contraction and convergence' as a policy approach to climate change. (For more about contraction and convergence, read an article that I wrote for the Journal of Engineering Sustainability)

Hart takes issue generally with the church using its divine authority to comment on matters political, whether free trade or the environment:

To imagine that the Church has a special revelation that enables it to cut through these complex issues is like expecting the Met Office to forecast the date of the Second Coming. The Church should not so casually claim Christ’s authority to adopt a corporate position which may be proved wrong, while excluding faithful dissenters.

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Overfishing Talks

Posted by J. Bishop Grewell  ·  24 January 2005  ·  International ~Oceans ~Tragedy of the Commons ~Wildlife

In May, Canada will be hosting international talks on the problem of overfishing.

UN disaster meeting, Kobe, Japan

Posted by Kendra Okonski  ·  18 January 2005  ·  International

On the occasion of this week's World Conference on Disaster Reduction in Kobe, Japan, the Sustainable Development Network has issued a new study - Disasters and Development - which summarizes the underlying reasons that disasters become tragedies, especially in poor countries:

People in poor countries lack the wealth and technologies that would enable them to cope with disasters – and as a result disasters turn into tragedies. For the same reason, they also suffer much higher rates of premature death from disease. The underlying cause of both is a vicious circle of poverty, oppression and corruption. ( read more from press release)

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the UN feels your pain

Posted by Kendra Okonski  ·  12 January 2005  ·  International

A letter to the editor in today's Daily Telegraph speaks for itself and bears repeating here at The Commons:

Feeding off disaster and at public expense
Sir - Having survived the tsunami in Sri Lanka, I have one abiding memory of the aftermath.

On New Year's Eve, I was returning to my evacuee relief centre, when I passed one of Colombo's finest restaurants. It was with surprise and dismay that I saw it was filled with freshly suited UN officials, their finely polished official cars and dutiful drivers parked ostentatiously outside (News, Jan 10).

I went to bed early, on the floor of a sports hall along with 500 other displaced tourists. I couldn't get into a hotel; they were full of aid officials.

Tarquin Desoutter, Battle, E Sussex

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UK conservatives propose "radical" changes to fisheries policy

Posted by Kendra Okonski  ·  10 January 2005  ·  International ~Oceans

Christopher Booker, a UK columnist, writes that over the past year, UK Parliamentarian and Tory spokesperson Owen Paterson

"visited all those countries round the Atlantic where, in striking contrast to the unrelieved disaster of the [Common Fisheries Policy], fisheries are flourishing. In the US, Canada, Iceland, the Faroes, Norway and even the Falklands, he has seen how it is possible to run an effective management regime, based on sound science, that allows fishermen to prosper and fish stocks to grow."

Based on Paterson's research, the Tories have launched a 33-page 'radical new' 'Green Paper' on fisheries , which is announced on Paterson's website.

It seems, however, that Mr. Paterson was asleep when he visited countries like Iceland, thus has failed to learn from their mistakes.

For instance, the report recommends that Britain adopt a "days at sea" approach rather than quotas. However, Hannes Gissurarson explains why this approach failed in Iceland, leading to that country's decision to move to Individual Tradeable Quotas (ITQs), a system of quasi-property rights relied upon to dictate fisheries management in Iceland and many other countries around the world.

Notably, the Tories' report makes zero mention of property rights or ITQs, so it is hardly as 'radical' as its proponents would lead the British public to believe. It could have been a laudable effort to bring Britain out of the failed Common Fisheries Policy, but for ignoring the real causes of successful fisheries management.

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Time for DDT

Posted by Jonathan H. Adler  ·   8 January 2005  ·  DDT/Malaria ~Environmental Risk ~International

Nick Kristof begins today's NYT column thusly:
If the U.S. wants to help people in tsunami-hit countries like Sri Lanka and Indonesia - not to mention other poor countries in Africa - there's one step that would cost us nothing and would save hundreds of thousands of lives.

It would be to allow DDT in malaria-ravaged countries.
Of note, none of the environmentalists Kristof called was willing to oppose DDT use across the board. Even Rick Hind of Greenpeace -- the group that has called for phasing out the use of all chlorine compounds for any purpose -- said "If there's nothing else and it's going to save lives, we're all for it. Nobody's dogmatic about it." Now that's progress.

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Aesthetes, 'illegal' dwellings and the tsunami

Posted by Kendra Okonski  ·   8 January 2005  ·  International

Some elite tourists visiting Thailand's beaches have decided that the tsunami was not such a bad thing after all, because the area was "littered with commercialism" such as "beach chairs".

According to this article from yahoo news "Many believe the tsunami that devastated this tourist hotspot and killed thousands had one positive side: By washing away rampant development, it returned the beaches to nature."

Phanomphon Thammachartniyom, president of the Phuket Professional Guide Association, stated that "Nature has returned nature to us. I want it to be this way forever" -- and Thaksin Shinawatra, Thailand's Prime Minister, suggested that the tsunami was beneficial for it swept away unplanned and illegal building and offers an opportunity to regulate growth.

But is this really the case? Most poor countries, including Thailand and others affected by the tsunami, claim that they have a problem with 'illegal' building, but they fail to examine its fundamental causes.

Poor people build 'illegal' dwellings because -- as Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto has documented -- acquiring legal permission to own their property is an onerous and excessively bureaucratic process.

What's worse, planning regulations in cities like New Delhi are used to prevent the city's poorest inhabitants from constructing and owning their own dwellings. I was living in New Delhi in February 2002 when the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) used bulldozers, tractors and trucks to plow down 'illegal construction' in Lajpat Nagar, in south Delhi. Prior to this, it served 3500 demolition notices to the residents and then obtained a Supreme Court order to carry out the demolition.

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Much of the 'illegal' construction in Lajpat Nagar was built by poor slum dwellers and immigrants from other parts of India, at the time of India's independence. Some were given one-room houses with no bathrooms. Many of these people, through trade and entrepreneurship, became wealthier and as might be expected, built additions onto their dwellings -- but this was unacceptable to India's political elite (and perhaps some of south Delhi's wealthy upper class residents).

Middle class Indians became outraged at the demolition - and subsequently Lajpat Nagar was granted a Right of Way for development to continue.

Lajpat Nagar was a high profile case. Sadly, the DDA frequently invokes its power to demolish and relocate poor people in lower castes and poor immigrants, who have little say in the matter. Unless the residents pay excessive bribes to bureaucrats, city governments will often destroy 'slum settlements'.

Slum dwellers are prevented from owning any property because of onerous laws and regulations, and layers of bureaucracy. They end up building anyway - but ultimately do not possess title to their land, nor can they acquire it.

(here is an article about the politics of such demolitions)

This article discusses a scheme in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where favelas (slums) are transformed into real neighborhoods when people are given title to their land. Perhaps our friends in Thailand and other tsunami-affected countries could take a lesson from this - instead of perpetuating systems that only harm the poor.
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Tony Blair and the G8

Posted by Kendra Okonski  ·  30 December 2004  ·  International

Britain's own Tony Blair writes that 2005 will be 'A year of challenges' in the 31 December edition of The Economist, an article about Britain's upcoming leadership of the G8. The story features a nice picture of the Prime Minister in front of subsistence farmers in Africa.

Indeed, Blair's two key causes for the G8 will be Africa and climate change. Without action to control emissions into the earth's climate, he says that it is Africa which will suffer most.

Some analysts, such as Copenhagen Consensus architect Bjorn Lomborg, have argued that the world must prioritize its scarce resources to help people of today - not people in 100 years - and the causes of Africa's problems are much more fundamental than the earth's climate.

Blair directly criticizes this idea - saying that it is flawed because "Without a stable climate, addressing other environmental threats will be impossible, ensuring a future of more degraded water and land". (Perhaps this is because Blair's own cabinet advisors and colleagues in 'humanitarian' British NGOs fail to understand the underlying causes of degraded water and land.)

Blair also provides a rather flaky justification -- "I have never believed that simple discounting can be an adequate tool for potentially catastrophic outcomes 50 or more years ahead" -- for rejecting Lomborg's rationale that policies which have costs today, and in the case of Kyoto, potentially few benefits in 50 or 100 years, are not a good investment for humanity.

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the UN attempts to create a safer world

Posted by Kendra Okonski  ·  29 December 2004  ·  International

In three weeks' time, UN bureaucrats and NGOs will gather in Kobe, Japan, for a meeting on disaster reduction. They will undertake a 10-year review of a lofty-sounding 'framework' called the "Yokohama Strategy and Plan of Action for a Safer World", created in 1994.

So far (and unless amended in light of this week's Asian tsunami tragedy), the meeting's agenda is highly self-referential; little if any discussion is planned of policies that might actually help poor countries to better cope with disasters. Though specific disaster policies are in order, many policies that enable people to best cope with disasters are those which empower people: property rights, effective legal systems to uphold property rights and contracts, and other institutions -- combined with good governance -- that are fundamentally lacking in most poor countries. The UN would do well to consider their role, instead of undertaking another talkfest.

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European Union Gets All Wet

Posted by J. Bishop Grewell  ·   9 December 2004  ·  International ~Oceans

The E.U. announced its new fishing quotas yesterday, so that the various countries' agricultural ministers can now fight it out when the member states meet later in the month. The Maltese commissioner noted a need for "greater involvment of stakeholders." Perhaps the beginning of a call for more IFQs in Europe? There is a whale of difference between country-wide quotas and localized quotas. The latter may one day bring the success of sustainable fishing that the former cannot. If the ministers really want to take their national quotas seriously, they will start to foment more localized quotas, which will indeed involve the stakeholders in the fisheries.

And, today, the European Union went back to the seas to promote stiffer fines for marine pollution --- setting minimums for the European countries. The E.U. hopes to put another plan that would set minimum fines for sea captains into international maritime conventions soon. Malta, Greece, and Cyprus refused to include such a program in the E.U. plan.

UPDATE: PERC has a new book out on Evolving Property Rights in Marine Fisheries.

Nobel Peace Winner Defends Her Award

Posted by J. Bishop Grewell  ·   9 December 2004  ·  Forests ~International ~Poverty and Hunger

Wangari Maathai defends her reception of the Nobel Peace Prize for environmental work. She explains that wars are fought over natural resources, the focus of her work.

Continuing Debate over the Peace Prize

Posted by J. Bishop Grewell  ·  13 October 2004  ·  International

According to the International Herald Tribune, apparently comments on this blog aren't the only place where people are questioning the decision to give the Nobel Peace Prize to an environmentalist.

See Here.

Nobel Peace Prize

Posted by J. Bishop Grewell  ·   8 October 2004  ·  International

Although I'm sure many may lament the presentation of this year's Nobel Peace Prize, I'm rather happy with it. Given that the Nobel Peace Prize committee chose an environmentalist for this year's award, Wangari Maathai is a much better choice than I would have expected the committee to make. (The committee would never pick a free-market type or a Bjorn Lomborg.) Maathai's efforts have been largely grassroots efforts to stick up to questionable government policies on forest management in Kenya. Moreover, Maathai plants forests in the hopes that they can be used by the people of Kenya for fuel, building materials, and to reduce poverty; not just for westerners to come hug when they are on vacation.

Her efforts to strengthen the roles of both women and democracy in Kenya are also quite admirable. I wish I'd been smart enough to take a class or two with her when she was teaching briefly at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies when I was there in 2002-2003.

Unfortunately, the selection of Maathai could also lead to a trend in selecting environmentalists who don't share Maathai's ideas of sustainable development, preferring instead preservation over conservation. The last thing we needs is another platform for ideas of that sort.

UPDATE: I should point out that I think Maathai's anti-GMO (genetically-modified organisms) stance is a major hinderance to her goals of reducing poverty.

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The Blind Leading the Blind

Posted by Max Borders  ·  27 August 2004  ·  International

The UN, in a rare moment of perspicacity, informed the North Koreans that they are facing devastating environmental problems.

The nostrum recommended by the UN, however, was not a system of basic property rights and even a little capitalism. Instead, the UN said "farmers should expand use of restorative practices, including tree planting and use of organic fertilizers," according to the Associated Press.

Amazing. When Kim Jong Il and Kofi Annan get together, anything is possible.

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World Harm Organization?

Posted by Jonathan H. Adler  ·   9 August 2004  ·  International

TCS' Nick Schulz takes a close look at recent actions by the World Health Organization, and the results aren't pretty.

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Alien Tort Claims and Environmental Rights

Posted by J. Bishop Grewell  ·  29 June 2004  ·  International

As Mr. Adler notes in his Corner post today, the Alvarez-Machain decision is indeed a significant one.

By rejecting the application of the Alien Tort Claims Act to allow foreign nationals to sue multinationals in U.S. courts, the Supremes helped to reduce the avenues for those who would try to use customary international law to bring about a new era of "environmental rights" determined by unaccountable bodies such as the United Nations. See in particular the efforts to draft an Earth Charter that would eventually be recognized as part of international law and which has already been endorsed by UNESCO. Terry Anderson and I wrote about the problems with such an idea in our PERC paper on The Greening of Foreign Policy.

Still, as the court noted, it has "left the door ajar." Let us hope the "vigilant doorkeeping" promised by the court is vigilant indeed.

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