Sustainable Development Archives

Noting that some Christians now are claiming -- literally -- to speak in the name of Jesus Christ ("In the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, we urge all who read this declaration to join us in this effort") when they make pronouncements on global warming, I thought I would direct blog readers to this excellent paper by Samuel Casey Carter, "What Scriptures Tell Us About Environmental Stewardship."

Some excerpts:

Now that secular liberalism has all but driven orthodox religion out of public life, it should come as no surprise that heterodox spirituality has become the latest battering ram of the left. In a time when the Bible has been expunged from schoolrooms as an icon of Western bigotry, biblical arguments are now oddly on the comeback, recast as a fashionable means of pushing a leftist agenda. What is not to be expected is the degree to which well-meaning Christians have become the spokesmen of these distortions. Embracing the tenets of radical environmentalism without an eye to the manner in which these teachings are fundamentally hostile to Christian tradition, a new brand of Christian is out to save the earth, but in so doing he may well flip his faith upon its head...

...A number of Evangelical organizations have recently risen to prominence by popularizing what they take to be biblical mandates for their activist brand of environmentalism. With names like the Evangelical Environmental Network, the Christian Environmental Association, and the Christian Society of the Green Cross, a whole swarm of seemingly mainstream Protestant organizations conjures support for their activist programs through specious readings of disconnected biblical texts...

...But regardless of anyone's support for the Endangered Species Act, Superfund, or any of the programs initiated by the Environmental Protection Agency, the specific manipulation of biblical passages in order to achieve certain political goals is an abuse that must be met head on. If the Bible says anything about man's sound management of natural resources, it does so only in the setting of man's relationship with God...

...The [Evangelical Environmental Network's Declaration on the Care of Creation] sums up this state of affairs with the odd formulation, "because we have sinned, we have failed in our stewardship of creation." As it turns out, the material world is suffering for man's spiritual deficiencies. Make no mistake about it, this way of talking subordinates religious belief to a materialist view of the world... Throughout the Declaration all of the appeals to scriptural authority are a ruse. All of the pious inflections are a sham. The only concern here is for how the genius of human science will overcome the finite limits of God's creation. Interestingly, one of the chief expressions of that genius are the contraceptive methods necessary to "insure thoughtful procreation."

The reference to extending Christ's healing is particularly telling. In the same way Christ redeemed man, now man has to redeem the Earth. Needless to say, in all of man's saving activity, God is made redundant...

...Earth is not the proper object of man's religious longings. But when a man is taught to care for the Earth with a zeal reserved for the love of God, a few things are sure to be misplaced: God and man, for starters...

...Christian environmentalists have turned the world on its head. In using language reserved for God to show their concern for the Earth, they have only bred contempt for man and made a mockery of real religion. What they have not done is to make the Earth a proper object of worship. It can't be. But more to the point, theirs is not a genuine religious concern. They have simply invoked religious rhetoric to give new urgency to their worldly agenda. Sadly, for those who don't discern this agenda, this manner of speaking will make an idol of the Earth...

...When the Lord God revealed himself to Moses on Mount Sinai, he commanded all of Israel to have no false gods before him. In their fidelity to the Lord God, the people Israel kept the Lord's words in their hearts, on their wrists, before their eyes, and upon their door posts. When later they crossed the Jordan to take possession of the land that the Lord God had given them, they were careful to observe all the statutes and decrees that he had set before them.

Should they ever follow false gods, they would lose the land that the Lord God had given to them for their benefit...

These excerpts do not do the paper justice. Please read it all here.

Cross-posted at Amy Ridenour's National Center Blog.

Julian Morris and I recently co-edited an edition of the interdisciplinary journal Energy and Environment, in which we commissioned a series of reviews of Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed by Jared Diamond. Several of these reviews have now been posted on the contributors' websites, see my extended entry for links to these papers.

One broad problem with the book is that Diamond distinctly fails to discuss how institutions such as property rights have enabled (and continue to enable) individuals to address the 'tragedy of the commons'. Another problem is that the facts simply do not support many of his claims.

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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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Does the fall of Easter Island provide a cautionary tale for modern industrial societies about the perils of environmental destruction? Jared Diamond thinks so. In em>Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Survive, Diamond argues that the civilizationon Easter Island collapsed due to the destruction of the island's ecology. Benny Peiser takes issue with this account in a paper published in Energy & Environment. (Link via NRO's The Corner). The Peiser paper is here; and abstract is below.

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The folks over at Gristmill have been pondering why conservationists have not been more active in the fight against poverty (see also here). One thread in the discussion focuses on the extent to which good institutions are necessary for both environmental protection and economic development. The relationship between good institutions -- in particular transferable property rights and the rule of law -- and economic growth is clear, but what about conservation?

Available research suggests that conservationists should be as concerned with basic economic institutions as anti-poverty activists. Research by economist Seth Norton, for instance, has shown that economic freedom and the rule of law greatly improve both the economic and environmental conditions associated with poverty in developing nations.

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I recommend reading an article - 'Forgive us our debts' - written by Jon Christensen of the Center for Environmental Science and Policy (at Stanford University) for grist.org.

He argues that, to their detriment, environmental groups have been slow to jump on the anti-poverty bandwagon . Specifically, he recommends, by focusing on governance issues they might be more likely to both help people and the environment :

Good governance -- which starts with free and fair elections, an independent judiciary, a free press, and property rights -- needs to be pushed further to embrace conservation of ecosystem services and biodiversity through good laws, adequate administration, and practical incentives that work for people on the land.

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Sierra Club executive director Carl Pope goes toe-to-toe with Skeptical Environmentalist Bjorn Lomborg in the pages of Foreign Policy. The debate is available here.

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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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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This week's edition of The Economist features an interesting article called Rescuing environmentalism.

Few could explain these issues more eloquently than The Economist:

“Mandate, regulate, litigate.” That has been the green mantra. And it explains the world's top-down, command-and-control approach to environmental policymaking. Slowly, this is changing. Yesterday's failed hopes, today's heavy costs and tomorrow's demanding ambitions have been driving public policy quietly towards market-based approaches...."

"If this new green revolution is to succeed, however, three things must happen...."

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I must say that I get a kick out of Amazon.com and others who attempt to sell stuff online that can be had for free with a google search. For instance, an article that I wrote on farm subsidies harming the environment two years ago costs you $5.95 at Amazon, but you can get it at the American Enterprise website where originally published as well as here and here for free.

I also found out in a shameless binge of ego-surfing today that A Better Earth is running a book review of mine where I argue that while "wealthier is healthier" is an important concept, it is perhaps more important to remember that stable property rights are what create wealth. Maybe the most important part of the review is its effort to debunk the idea that development assistance can have the same success as property rights in creating wealth for the developing world. If you have a little time to kill, I'm rather proud of that review and happy to see it getting a little press, so consider checking it out.

Finally, ego-surfing led me to a just-released Reason Institute study advocating recreation fees for federal lands, which relies on my paper from last June dealing with some of the hurdles facing such fees.

The NYT reports on Venezuela's effort to encourage macaw conservation through commerce. Some Marao villagers have earned the right to harvest, breed and sell macaws. The idea is to increase the standard of living for Warao, as well as to create an economic incentive to conserve macaws. This is a surprisingly market-oriented policy for the increasingly communistic Venezuelan government.

I've written more on the importance of conservation through commerce here.

That's what Gristmill's Dave Roberts calls this -- and I would have to agree. Roberts and I may not agree on much, but this is certainly one. Sustainablog was initially inclined to call it "inspiring," but now sees it as quite "disturbing."

Northwestern's President just announced Northwestern University's new sustainability guidelines. At least, I trust they are guidelines. It might get a bit "heated" if they try and enforce temperature mandates on tenured faculty.

Jeremy Rifkin has a new book out praising the "European dream" and castigating the American dream. The Washington Post recently published a lengthy op ed based on this book which has been reprinted or excerpted by other papers. The Wharton School (where Rifkin sometimes teaches) published a lengthy review.

What doesn't Rifkin like about the American dream? It "made the individual the master of his (sic) fate" whereas Europeans recognize that this "no longer works" in "an increasingly interdependent world." The European dream has "humbled" American companies (but his examples are all based on government regulatory actions, not on competition with European companies).

Rifkin cheers Europeans for letting Foucault's "social interdependence" replace Locke's ideas of personal freedom and property rights. "Europeans find freedom not in autonomy, but in embeddedness," says Rifkin. "For most Europeans, the community's quality of life is more important than individual financial success."

"Where the American Dream emphasizes economic growth, the European Dream focuses on sustainable development," claims Rifkin. What Rifkin doesn't say is that the American dream is driven by the private sector, while his European dream is driven by government.

Do Europeans really want to pay high fuel taxes, get around on mass transit, and live in cramped homes crowded in dense neighborhoods? If you judge by government actions, the answer is "yes." But if you judge by private actions, the answer is "no." European driving is growing faster than driving in the U.S. Their suburbs are growing and, according to Sir Peter Hall, they are indistinguishable from those in America. European central city populations are declining and transit ridership is stagnant.

When the Berlin Wall fell and Germany reunified, the first thing many East Germans did was use their new West German Deutchmarks to buy cars. While Rifkin wants America to become more like Europe, the fact is that Europeans, whether they admit it or not, are becoming more like Americans.

Rifkin's criticisms of the American dream -- the large numbers of people in prison, high health care costs, and growing income disparity between rich and poor -- are arguably the result not of private action but of government action. By measures too numerous to mention, Americans are much better off than most of their European cousins.

The real difference between Europe and America, if there is one deciding difference, is that our government separates the executive from the legislative branches while European governments do not. This makes European countries less democracies than serial dictatorships, with the result that average Europeans have little say in the policies imposed by their governments.

America will be able to achieve Rifkin's European dream only by draconian government actions -- actions of the sort used by Oregon land-use planners, who forbid landowners in 95 percent of the state to build a house on their own land while they mandate landowners in 1 percent of the state to develop their land to higher-than-marketable densities. Fortunately, in passing a property-rights ballot measure, Oregon voters have negated those plans. So Rifkin's dream will succeed only if Rifkin and the other dreamers find a way to overthrow democracy.

Instead of circumventing democratic choice, people like Rifkin need to recognize that individuals will act like individuals no matter how interdependent the society. As Adam Smith realized 229 years ago, society only works if its institutions are designed so that, as individuals act like individuals, they also work for the benefit of other people. The American dream works because people can get rich mainly if they do things that help others. The European dream won't work if it denies people such opportunities.

I was quoted today in an Associated Press story commenting on the WWF's usual Malthusian gloom mongering about how mankind and America in particular were "destroying Earth's ability to sustain life." As is usual on such occasions, I got letters.

One asked:

Mr Smith is quoted as follows:

"The real question is not whether the United States is a wealthy place but rather whether it's producing more wealth than it's consuming. Obviously, we are. We're using a lot of the world's resources but we're producing far more of the world's resources."

If this is so I wonder why is it that we are the largest debtor nation and we have to import between 1.5 and 2.0 billion dollars a day to keep our economy going?

Thank you.

I replied as follows:

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I took this photograph outside of Cooke City, Montana last year where mining reclamation was underway. I'm not sure that even Julian Simon could have written a better motto than the closing tagline.

BushGreenwatch (BGW) is taking a break from bashing the President to recommend a book for his reading list: Limits to Growth: The 30-Year Update. The original Limits to Growth predicted near-iminent exhaustion of resources and a pending ecological collapse. Yet, BGW reports, “the authors are far more pessimistic than they were in 1972.” According to BGW, the book explains that “It's too late for sustainable development.” Rather “The world must now choose between uncontrolled collapse or a carefully planned reduction of energy and materials consumption, back down to supportable levels.” According to BGW, the new Limits to Growth is the “only book” (!) to provide the “understanding [of] the entire complex system which governs the world's physical economy, population, materials and energy flows” necessary to save human civilization. But don’t rush out and buy a copy of the book just yet. We’ve been down this road before.
BGW claims that the original Limits to Growth was a prophetic tome:

The 1972 text was the object of intense criticism by economists of the time, who dismissed it as Malthusian hyperbole. But events over the past three decades have turned out to be remarkably consistent with the 1972 book's scenarios.

Really? Let’s review the tape.
Ronald Bailey dissected the original predictions made in The Limits to Growth in his book EcoScam. He reminds that the original limits predicted “the world would run out of gold by 1981, mercury by 1985, tin by 1987, zinc by 1990, petroleum by 1992 and copper, lead, and natural gas by 1993.” Contrary to BGW’s suggestion, the events of the past three decades have thoroughly repudiated the Malthusian paradigm underpinning The Limits to Growth. Since the book was first published, world reserves of most metals and minerals have grown and prices have fallen. In the case of petroleum, environmental activists regularly acknowledge that fears of depletion were unwarranted. (Indeed, Scientific American blasted Bjorn Lomborg for daring to suggest any environmentalists still predicted that the world would run out of oil.) At the same time, global agricultural production has proven more than able to keep up with a growing global population – even if people in some parts of the world do not have access to reliable food supplies.
The world has made substantial progress over the past thirty years, economic and ecological. Not every trend is positive, to be sure, but most are. More importantly, the central Malthusian premise upon which works like The Limits to Growth are based -- that there are material limits upon economic growth and development -- has been disproven time and again. If I may offer a prediction of my own, this time around it will be no different.

Joe Bast, president of The Heartland Institute, has a very interesting transcript on his website. It is from a speech he gave about environmentalism to the Libertarian Party Convention.

Among other things, Joe addresses the current state of the environment, his past as a self-described "hippie freak" and critiques a talk given earlier at the convention by the executive director of the Sierra Club.

Anyone interested in environmental issues will enjoy the transcript from Joe's talk about Common Sense Environmentalism.