Ecological Events

Baltimore Bioneers Program

On the night of November 5, the Baltimore Bioneers Program looked at some of the ways in which several local nongovernmental organizations, entrepreneurs, and government agencies are looking for ways to address social needs such as transportation, food production, and general consumption using alternatives that are more environmentally sustainable. The Program featured two local entrepreneurs who are working into developing environmentally-friendly products such as reusable Q-tips. Cheryl Wade, president of Mill Valley General Store, explained how local produce production provided important benefits both to the local economy and the environment. Henry Kay, the MTA’s deputy administrator for planning, got most of the attention and questions from the audience. In his presentation and engagement with the audience, Kay talked about how the MTA has been working on promoting and facilitating the use of public transportation as an environmentally-preferable mode of transport, especially through user-friendly technological innovations, as well as future plans for urban planning and route access. Overall, the Bioneers Program offered the audience an interesting sample of the various innovations taking place at the local level to reconcile social consumption and service-provision with environmental sustainability.

Maryland League of Conservation Voters

On November 16, the Maryland League of Conservation Voters offered a preview of upcoming environmental legislation in Maryland and their assessment by several members of local environmental groups. Legislation related to transportation issues, budgetary issues, and stormwater, and their effects on Marylanders were analyzed and discussed. The program was aimed at raising awareness about such issues and their environmental consequences, as well as to motivate action for or against specific pieces of legislation that are deemed to be either beneficial or detrimental to the local environment. Also, many information brochures and documents were distributed to disseminate knowledge about proposed bills and pressing issues that call for legislation, such as urban sprawl planning and land consumption in Maryland. The event seemed to be an interesting exercise of democratic pragmatism as described by Dryzek in The Politics of the Earth, with citizen groups seeking to direct legislation and policy in a more environmentally-conscious direction.

Reading Response #9

To understand what sustainable development entails at its core, it is useful to look at chapter 8 of James Speth’s Red Sky at Morning. In this chapter, Speth lays out six ways in which the current world of unsustainable environmental degradation can transition towards a sustainable one. Such transitions are aimed at directly addressing the drivers of deterioration, enhancing the prospects of success for environmental agreements, and facilitating environmental governance (152). While sustainable development is not opposed to economic growth as the means to preserve or enhance the quality of life of human populations, it also underscores the insufficiency of growth alone to facilitate the transitions necessary for sustainability. For instance, in the case of freedom of mass poverty, one of the transitions that Speth looks at, economic growth must be complemented with social welfare measures and international aid programs that can ensure the reduction of poor populations that otherwise are compelled to erode resource bases for their subsistence (154-155). A different aspect of the transition towards sustainability also involves the development and employment of environmentally benign technology that can allow reductions in pollution and resource consumption while maintaining expected growth, such as wind electric generation (157-158).

Even though the transition goals that Speth examine might seem implausible at times, local production efforts such as those described by Winona La Duke show that sustainable practices are not only plausible but already being implemented with considerable success. La Duke points out how locally controlled power production produces a shift from the centralization of energy generation to a more democratic mode of production, where increased accountability and control lead to more efficient production of renewable energy (27). That is not to say that there are no challenges, such as the need to guarantee greater access to markets and power lines for wind energy producers (28). Socolow and Pacala’s work in “Stabilization Wedges” also demonstrates how readily available forms of technology can be used to achieve the stabilization of carbon emissions to less than double of preindustrial levels by 2054 through increases in efficiency and conservation, decarbonization of electricity and fuels, and natural sinks (968-971).

One of the options to decarbonizes fuels is the production of biofuels (971), but this option is challenged by some commentators such as Michael Grunwald, who argues that demand for biofuels has increased the demand for corn, driving its prices up, which has caused production of soybeans to decrease and its own prices to go up as more farmers cultivate corn, expanding agricultural areas and displacing cattle pasture, which in its turn has resulted in increased deforestation of the Amazon (42-43). The result of the deforestation is the reduction of the carbon sink capabilities of the Amazon, thus contributing to higher concentrations of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere. Moreover, Grunwald argues that higher prices for corn affect the poor and hungry of the world through rising food prices, asserting that the amount of corn needed to fill out an ethanol-fueled SUV could feed a person for a year (41). However, Grunwald does not consider that such use of surplus corn might actually be more efficient, and that if the demand for corn for ethanol production did not exist, that corn would simply not be produced as to be available for his hypothetical corn-loving person. He also argues that carbon emissions caused by the use of corn and soy ethanol coupled with the deforestation that its production allegedly causes is equal to double the amount produced by gasoline emissions (43). Again, his analysis is flawed, for he only takes into account fuel burning for gasoline but in the case of ethanol he considers its production process as well. To be fair, he should also consider the associated environmental costs of production and transport of gasoline, which would cause his equation to look significantly different. Nevertheless, there is much sense to his argument, and it should be taken as a sample of the challenges that need to be resolved in order to achieve the goals of sustainable development.

Reading Response #8

Besides from being a highly illuminating and entertaining read, Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma poignantly critiques today’s food industry in America. The book points to the connections between the industrial practices of food production with issues of public health and environmental degradation (Pollan, 9). It also looks at different ways in which people within and outside the food industry are attempting to change the dominant paradigms of the system. One of such efforts is represented by the Polyface Farm, a place whose revolutionary approach to farming curiously consists on simply working alongside nature instead of trying to increase production in spite of nature. Nevertheless, such logic is incompatible with the logic of the market. One of the most interesting aspects of the book is Pollan’s account of the role of government policy in the development of the current state of industrial food production and the problems that it engenders. Pollan holds the government as well as some powerful firms accountable for the ubiquitous presence of cheap corn in the industrial food chain. However, it is also necessary to consider the actual nature of the economic system that informs such government decisions to understand the real scope of the food problem that Pollan concernedly points to.

Pollan does a fantastic job at presenting the inherent incompatibility between free markets and food production. The core of the issue lies in the inelasticity of demand for food as a result of the limited capacity of the human stomach to hold food at a given time (54). Thus, changes in price have a negligible and after some point null effect on the consumption of food. In spite of this, the government has promoted subsidizing policies to cheapen food, and particularly the basis of food production: corn. This not only hurts farmers, who are locked in a monopsony relation with a single grain elevator to buy their corn and soybeans, but it also has degradation and pollution effects on land and water (52-54). Government subsidy policies make farmers strive to increase their yields as the only way to increase profits, which results in a surplus of corn that must be allocated somewhere in one way or another, such as using it as cattle feed in Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations. These places in turn cause additional health and environmental problems, like the contamination of air and water with toxic waste and the propagation of antibiotic-resistant pathogens (67).

It is also important to notice that it is not only the government who has shaped the current state of food production based on corn surpluses. Pollan makes mention of companies like Cargill and ADM, who together buy around a third of American corn. These companies, Pollan observes, are intimately involved in the corn industry by selling pesticides and fertilizers, operating elevators, brokering and shipping exports, milling corn, using it as cattle feed, distilling ethanol, and manufacturing high-fructose corn syrup. They also engage in powerful lobbying to maintain the subsidies that keep the industry going (63).

Even though I share Pollan’s indignation about the issues related to the food industry and the overproduction of corn, I must say that it should not be surprising at all. Such a state of affairs is to be expected in the unrestrained capitalism of the quintessentially neoliberal state that is the US. Capitalism will inevitably favor larger farms and efficient modes of production, without considerations for the negative impacts of a diet based on processed corn and much less for things like allowing a chicken “to express its physiological distinctiveness” (132). After all, the nature of capitalism is about accumulation. I am reminded at this point of Aristotle’s claims in his Politics about what constitutes the good life. He categorically rejected accumulation for accumulation’s sake (that is, capitalism) as the basis for the good life. Instead, he advocated a life of necessary subsistence that would allow for contemplation and that would also entail an appreciation for the things due to which man is able to live (such as the animals that he eats). Nevertheless, for as long as we live under a system of obscenely free markets, the good life that some farms like Polyface are trying to reclaim will elude the majority of us and likely the generations that will follow us as well.

Reading Response #7

Most of the articles on chapter 11 of the Environment Anthology as well as the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment 2005 Biodiversity Report agree on a crucial fact: the rate of change in biodiversity due to human activities has increased more rapidly than at any other time in human history, and it is expected to continue or even accelerate. More pressingly, these changes in biodiversity are “to a significant extent irreversible” (MEA 2). The Biodiversity Report explores some of the most dramatic changes that biodiversity has experienced as a result of human domination of ecosystems, such as the decline in population size and range of a majority of species, a disproportionate increase in rates of extinction, the homogenization of species distribution on Earth, and the global decline in genetic diversity (2-4). In addition, like the Synthesis Report on climate change, the Biodiversity Report makes an appeal to decision-makers to realize the real economic, social, and health costs of biodiversity loss. As a balanced assessment, the Report does point out to the undeniable benefits that humans have obtained from the activities that lead to biodiversity change, such as the elimination of disease-carrying organisms. Nevertheless, the Report is quick to point out that, using an economic perspective, these benefits also imply trade-offs and costs (5). The Biodiversity Report does acknowledge that biodiversity holds intrinsic value for many people across the world (6). The focus, however, is on the economic and social costs of biodiversity loss. I find this very interesting, although not at all surprising. After all, the section of the Report “Summary for Decision-Makers” is aimed at actors whose interests are mostly defined by cost-benefit analyses in political and economic activity. In spite of that, the idea that losses to human well-being are the main argument behind the conservation efforts of the Report makes me wonder about the actual place and role of humans in biodiversity, as well as the value of humans, other living organisms, ecosystems, and life on Earth itself.

It seems to be a widespread assumption that human beings and their societies are in a sense external to natural ecosystems, or to nature itself. William Cronon in “The View from Walden” also ponders about the place of people in ecosystems. The notion of “wild” ecosystems entails the absence of humans, and many conservation initiatives are aimed at preserving or restoring such virginal landscapes (Environment Anthology 372). Cronon’s concludes that humans and their history cannot be separated from ecosystems and their evolution through time (383). At this point I must wonder, are urban landscapes not ecosystems? The Environment Anthology offers a definition of ecosystems as “the dynamic collection of living organisms interacting among themselves and the abiotic (non-living) environment in which they exist” (377). I fail to see how even the most metropolitan (or, maybe, “artificial”?) of cities can fail to fit that definition. If humans are part of nature, why should their creations not also be part of it? What makes a tree more natural than a skyscraper? I would dare to ascertain that this view of humans outside of nature is the fundamental problem underlying the conservation issue.

But the next question is, what should be done? Should we follow the Biodiversity Report’s recommendations? The report, among other things, advises to “strengthen response options that are designed with the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity and ecosystem services as the primary goal” (MEA 10). An alternative would be to continue or increase human activity with biodiversity loss effects so as to keep obtaining the benefits of said activity for human societies. Would this be bad? Could it be that humans, as a part of nature, are simply nature’s chosen method of massive extinction, just as the previous mass extinction episodes described by Edward O. Wilson (Environmental Anthology 376)? Wilson narrates the natural dynamic of extinction and observes how biodiversity has a way to restore itself from the survival of a mere 1 in a 2,000 species (377). That might lead some to dismiss all worries about biodiversity loss, but then what of its value? Does it have any? The question is perhaps parallel to the question of the meaning of life, for which there is no satisfactory universal answer. However, like an astonished Darwin observing the amazing “creative force” of biodiversity (374), I find it impossible to deny the ineffable feelings of veneration and contentment that the sight of a beautiful natural landscape or of an impressive animal specimen (sometimes even a human) elicits within me. I do not have the answers to the questions that I have raised here, but I have a strong feeling that such questions must illuminate the discussion of biodiversity issues just as much, if not more, than considerations about benefits and costs to human socioeconomic activity.

Reading Response # 6

Reading the remaining topics (3-6) of the IPCC 2007 Synthesis Report was undoubtedly a challenging assignment. As it happened last week, working my way through the numerous charts, graphs, and sets of data proved to be a serious test to my attention span. (The commitment that the Synthesis Report demands from its readers made wonder about how many decision-makers have actually read through it, but that is not the topic of this response.) For my own sake, I will try to summarize some of the most significant and worrisome points that I was able to discern through the mass of information condensed in the Synthesis Report about the impacts of and the responses to climate change.

The Report describes six possible scenarios that take for granted the mitigation policies and sustainable development practices currently employed to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. It is important to underline, as the Report does, that GHG emissions will continue to grow as long as the mitigation policies represented in all scenarios remain the same (44). The Report goes as far as to include this assertion into its list of “robust findings”, where it reaffirms that what is currently being done is simply not enough (72). What is more worrisome is that the Report has robustly found that “unmitigated climate change [is] likely to exceed the capacity of natural, managed and human systems to adapt” (73).

This remark leads us to the issue of adaptation and mitigation. The former refers to measures aimed at diminishing the impact of climate change under current levels of GHG emissions and concentration, while the latter is focused on reducing GHG emissions (56). Vulnerability to the impacts of climate change is “a function of exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity” (64). Mitigating policies are geared towards reducing exposure; adaptive policies seek to reduce sensitivity to the impacts of climate change. The Report stresses that neither mitigation nor adaptation alone are enough to avoid all the possible impacts of climate change (65). The list of policy options that the Report presents is too long summarize here, but it is important to note that the Report bases these policies on the deployment of technology that is already available or will be commercialized by 2030 (60), meaning that it is actually possible to plan and implement a good part of them right now.

The impacts of climate change target different systems, sectors, and regions. The Report contains a long list of impacts, both adverse and beneficial, that affect ecosystems, food supply, coastal areas, industry, human health, and water supply (48). It is necessary to note, however, that the effects of climate change are expected by the Report to be overall adverse. There is not enough space in this response to list all the impacts the Report explains, but an important point to underline is that there are certain groups and regions that are more vulnerable to climate change impacts. Certain groups like the poor, the elderly and young children are at greater risk, even in developed areas of the world (52). Regions like Africa, Asia, and insular areas are at a higher risk to suffer from important climate change-caused effects such as drought, hunger, and flood. To make matters worse, these areas often times have lower adaptive capabilities that make them even more vulnerable to the impacts of climate change (51-52). To be sure, the Report paints a grim picture, but it also underscores the availability of a wide array of adaptive and mitigating measures that can be employed to reduce and stabilize GHG emissions.

Reading Response #5

The Climate Change 2007: Synthesis Report published by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change contains a daunting amount of data and technical terms in which it is easy to get lost. Among this overwhelming amount of information, however, a single and crucial idea stands out: climate change—more specifically, regional and global warming—and its observed effects on natural and human systems are for the most part a result of human activity. Evidence of climate change has been observed in raising air and ocean temperatures, increased melting of snow and ice surfaces, and higher average sea levels (30). There is strong evidence that climate change has also affected the incidence of extreme weather events, precipitation, and may even have had an impact on tropical cyclone activity (30, 40). The impact of climate change on natural systems is related to snow, ice, and frozen ground, hydrological systems, and coastal processes (31). Impact on hydrological systems, for instance, produces effects on the thermal structure and quality of water (32), which can in turn affect human life. But climate change can also have more direct effects on managed and human systems such as agriculture and forestry, human health, and human activities in the Arctic region. In the case of human health, for instance, climate change can cause changes in infectious disease vectors, and it can also increase allergenic pollen during altered allergy seasons (33). For these and several other reasons, and especially after realizing that human activity bears the main responsibility for climate change, it is important to understand its causes.

The causes of climate change are natural drivers, such as solar radiation and natural aerosols, and anthropogenic drivers, such as atmospheric concentrations of anthropogenic greenhouse gasses and aerosols, all of which can act as either cooling or warming drivers (36-37). The Synthesis Report acknowledges that the overall result of climate change, measured by the change in energy balance of the climate system—radiative forcing—, has been of warming, and that warming is chiefly the result of anthropogenic drivers (37-39). Moreover, the concentration of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions like carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and halocarbons has played the biggest role in causing the warming of global climate (37).

What is interesting to note is that these greenhouse gasses are obviously byproducts of industrial activity, as evidenced by the dramatic increase of emissions since 1750 (coinciding with the beginning stages of the Industrial Revolution) and also by higher rates of change in physical and biological systems and surface temperatures in the Northern hemisphere, where the most industrialized regions of the world are concentrated (32). Energy supply, transport, and industry are the main rubrics of human activity that produce greenhouse gasses, but increasing global income and population also play an important role (36-37). Evidently, industrialization is strongly tied to the processes of climate change. Nevertheless, the potentially adverse effects of climate change impact both industrialized and nonindustrialized areas of the world. This underscores the importance of attaining a profound understanding of the causes and effects of climate change, but also the need to formulate and implement measures to manage the anthropogenic drivers of climate change.

Reading Response #4

In Chapter 7 of The Politics of the Earth, “Environmentally Benign Growth”, John Dryzek makes an interesting comparison between the discourse of sustainable development and democracy. Both generally seem to be, at least in official international affairs rhetoric, respectively, the prevalent paradigm for environmentalism and politics. Also, in Dryzek’s view, both are broad and open-ended discourses that lend themselves to a variety of definitions and interpretations (147). What is more, sustainable development and democracy are both “largely about social learning, involving decentralized, exploratory, and variable approaches to its pursuit”, emphasizing the importance of the role of civil societies (158). Looking at these parallels, I would like to briefly examine the challenges that they suggest for the discourse of sustainable development.

On the problematic consequences of the parallels between sustainable development and democracy, a first issue can be seen in their vulnerability to be shaped and manipulated to respond to particular interests masked by declarations of public interest. It can be cynically—but also reasonably—said that politicians and businesses operate under the constant restraint of public relations. For a politician to publicly dismiss democracy is equivalent to career suicide in most of the contemporary world. Similarly, openly rejecting the appealing principles of sustainable development would not constitute sound business strategy. As Dryzek himself colorfully observes, “corporations have clambered on board the bandwagon to show that business too can play constructive roles” (156). The question is, can it really be expected that firms will abandon their tried-and-true neoclassical business practices in exchange of good PR? I find it highly unlikely. What can be expected—as is happening already—is that their publicity spots will contain more references to their presumably greener, eco-friendlier products.

From a global perspective, secondly, is sustainability compatible with an international political economy dominated by the tenets of market liberalism? Democracy is part of the historical and social offspring of capitalism, and the same could be said of sustainable development, inasmuch as it does not challenge capitalism, but actually aims at following its principle of continued growth (146). Moreover, democracy and sustainable development are both undermined by capitalism. Democracy (or capitalism), however, seems to have bought itself more time through the compromise of the welfare state.

Could a similar environmental compromise be achieved in the case of sustainable development? Perhaps, but, as James Speth notes in Red Sky at Morning, environmental challenges not only require concerted international action in most cases (which in itself multiplies the difficulties in achieving solutions), but they are also more complex, harder to perceive, and more commonly relegated to the future (100). The social and economic problems that the welfare compromise has somewhat addressed, on the other hand, did not have to add those difficulties to the already complicated realm of domestic politics. Speth further underscores the fact that solving environmental problems—as it would certainly be the case in the framework of sustainable development—requires interference in the market (113). While the market was wise enough to realize that the costs of oppression where larger than those of concession in the case of welfare democracy, it seems unlikely to be so in the case of sustainable development.