Archive for January, 2010
News today that MiningWatch Canada won its Supreme Court case concerning the Red Chris mine.
Interestingly, the Supreme Court ruled that the project can move forward because the BC government had already given it the go ahead. But environmentalists are nonetheless claiming victory because the Court also ruled that from now on the federal government must conduct comprehensive assessments of all big projects over a certain size that might affect the environment, the people and the long term future of the area affected by a major project.
The decision says that the Canadian government violated the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act by narrowing down the project assessment in a way that has excluded public consultation. Henceforth, the government will have to follow its own law, must take a look at all the effects of major industrial projects, including large metal mines and tar sands developments.
The sheer scale of humanity, 6.5 billion souls, means that our daily actions matter. It is so easy to justify a bottle of water, a disposable cup, a fuel consuming vehicle, yada yada yada. Great article, “How bad can one bottle of water be, says the 30 millionth person today“. Take a look at this informative infographic of well-intentioned american’s thoughts:
Greenies have a romantic vision of green – living on a farm, eating bio and getting your power from solar and wind energy. The reality is that we are simply too many people, 6.5 billion at last count, to live like that. There is not enough land, water, wind or sun to power our society that way. Therefore, the solution to our unsustainable lifestyle can only be one of two options – innovate or downgrade.
Last time I checked, not too many people were keen to give up their washing machines, cars, heating or electricity. Despite our noble savage romanticism, few people get up and move to tribal societies with rudimentary living conditions. Kevin Kelly, a well-known futurist, points out people like technology. Despite the easy ability to sell our belongings, buy a plane ticket and go to a remote tribal village to live “with the nature”, no one does it. So if we are not willing to downgrade our lifestyle, we must innovate. A new book by Stewart Brand lays out a grand vision for our survival. His claim is basically
- Move into the cities
- Nuclear power
- Genetically Engineered Foods
By moving into cities, people share and reduce their use of services such as garbage removal, access to water, … and people tend to produce less waste. Socially, women have greater freedom and religions control of communities slips away. Nuclear power, notably 4th generation and thorium reactors, promise to be highly efficient, cheaper and safer than anything we have known so far. Genetically modified foods are scary, until you start to understand that the food we eat today has been dramatically modified by human selection and done in a very reckless way. Labels and titles tend to scare us, Stewart Brand tries to show the real stories behind the technology of the future. This book is a must-read by everyone in the green world and all those concerned with a sustainable future for all humankind.
Buy the book here:
Stewart Brand TED talk here:
On this blog, we have sung the praises of Bjorn Lomberg and his skepticism of doomsday global warming scenarios. There is no denying he has an ideological bend to his statements, but that does not mean he is wrong. Like anyone trying to make a point, he selectively chooses data and case studies. However, does his data choices venture beyond selection and into manipulation? Does he compare apples to oranges?
The criticism below claims he does, and while I do not agree with everything stated by Lomborg or the critic below, both are certainly worth reading.
Joseph E. Stiglitz, 2001 Nobel Laureate and Professor in Economics at Columbia University, concludes that world leaders at the Copenhagen climate conference failed not only to reach a binding agreement, but also to agree on how to save the planet. An entirely new strategy is needed, he says, to effectively address climate change:
“Perhaps it is time to try another approach: a commitment by each country to raise the price of emissions (whether through a carbon tax or emissions caps) to an agreed level, say, $80 per ton. Countries could use the revenues as an alternative to other taxes – it makes much more sense to tax bad things than good things. Developed countries could use some of the revenues generated to fulfill their obligations to help the developing countries in terms of adaptation and to compensate them for maintaining forests, which provide a global public good through carbon sequestration.
We have seen that goodwill alone can get us only so far. We must now conjoin self-interest with good intentions, especially because leaders in some countries (particularly the United States) seem afraid of competition from emerging markets even without any advantage they might receive from not having to pay for carbon emissions . A system of border taxes – imposed on imports from countries where firms do not have to pay appropriately for carbon emissions – would level the playing field and provide economic and political incentives for countries to adopt a carbon tax or emission caps. That, in turn, would provide economic incentives for firms to reduce their emissions.”
This is an interesting idea, as it essentially shifts the focus away from getting each country to meet hard emissions reduction targets to setting the price of carbon, a simpler proposition from an economic point of view. Agreeing to hard caps can be politically contentious. Stiglitz’ approach might be more viable.
