One such change is the realisation that human systems are constrained by planetary limits. Matt Ridley doesn't address those limits in his talk. Instead, he focusses on the past and what it has achieved for us. Methinks he is like the character taking the lead role in this short video "Peak Oil - how will you ride the slide?" summarising why the fossil-fuel age must come to an end and we must transition to a renewable, sustainable future.
In the video linked here, Matt Ridley sets out many of the positive outcomes from using fossil fuels, such as the 'green revolution' in agricultural efficiency and productivity. However, overall, the video suffers from what in Business Schools might be described as 'marketing myopia' which is the tendency for successful groups of people to assume that such successes can continue forever. It's why companies such as IBM fall from grace, when they fail to recognise game-changing shifts or limits.
One such change is the realisation that human systems are constrained by planetary limits. Matt Ridley doesn't address those limits in his talk. Instead, he focusses on the past and what it has achieved for us. Methinks he is like the character taking the lead role in this short video "Peak Oil - how will you ride the slide?" summarising why the fossil-fuel age must come to an end and we must transition to a renewable, sustainable future.
0 Comments
On this, the day of publication of the first part of the fifth IPCC report on Climate Change, there was an interesting discussion on BBC2 Daily Politics Show. In it, Matt Ridley appeared to say that some global warming was not necessarily a bad thing. To try to understand this apparent contradiction to the gist of climate science opinion, I dug a bit deeper, and found articles on the internet referring to a 2012 economics paper by Richard Tol -"Targets for Global Climate Policy: An Overview". A key chart from this is shown above - figure 8 in the paper. This appears to be one of the sources of evidence fuelling this debate - around the matter of what level of resource should be put into preventing further climate change. The chart appears to suggest that global warming up to about 2 degrees has net positive economic effects, but beyond that point there are net negative effects. In layman's terms, this particular paper says that up to 2 degrees of warming is good, more than 2 degrees is bad. While this might prompt some arguments about whether or not warming of up to 2 degrees is good or bad, these arguments are largely irrelevant, because , as the latest IPCC report shows us, we're already locked into a trajectory of (most probably) above 2 degrees of warming by the end of this century (see further comment below). This is because of the cumulative carbon already pumped into the atmosphere by human activities to date, and it will be followed by further temperature rises until a new equilibrium point is reached. What seems to be quoted less frequently are Tol's other conclusions, for example that Carbon Taxation forms part of Governments' "efficient and cost-effective" responses. He goes on to suggest rates for carbon taxes suggested by his economic calculations. Tol's paper can be downloaded free here. Personally, I'm not sure I'm fussed whether the early part of the line above, of impact on GDP, wibbles or wobbles a percentage point or two. What I'm very concerned about, however, is the impact on GDP 'falling off a cliff' soon after exceeding 2 degrees of warming, if Tol is correct in his analysis. This strongly supports taking action now and investing probably a percentage point or two of global GDP on prevention (ie decarbonisation) between now and, well, until we no longer need to ... The chart below (from the IPCC report) shows a comparison of the projected warming under a scenario that assumes technically feasible but dramatic and expensive mitigation actions (the purple forecast) and one of the other scenarios in which mitigation actions are not as strong (the orange forecast). These aren't the only scenarios analysed by the IPCC, but all the scenarios apart from the purple one predict warming of more than 2 degrees by 2100. Highlights from one of the seminars at this conference (not the one pictured above):- From about 70,000 Green Deal Assessments completed this year, only 12 have so far resulted in financed Green Deal Plans. The two main barriers to uptake appear to be complexity and insufficient financial incentive. This might change - if energy prices increase over the next few years (as expected) then Green Deal Plans will become more attractive financially. The European laws on Plant Reproductive Materials (the ownership of identified varieties of plants and the selling of their seeds, basically) are due to be codified and changed, under current proposals. The file attached below is a Q&A sheet about this, which is quite useful for grasping the gist of the existing laws and some of the main features of what is proposed. However, it's difficult to get an appreciation of the raft of issues surrounding this topic, in the context of attempts to achieve "sustainable intensification". (See my other blog post about this specific term). There appear to be some vociferous objectors railing against the rights of big companies to exert their ownership of plant varieties through the controls over seeds. On the other hand, there are supporters of these rights pointing out the benefits of the controls in ensuring quality and continuing availability of the varieties owned in this way (some of which are GMO), which arguably improve food security. Who's right? And how much of a compromise is there between the need for sustainability in agriculture and and the need for sufficient total output to feed a growing global population?
It seems to me that the environmental impact of a solar farm depends particularly on three things:
1) The alternative use that the land would be put to if a solar farm wasn’t built on it 2) The approach to reversibility of the solar farm development (eg whether the land will be restored back to a sustainable natural state when it is eventually decommissioned) 3) The positive impacts of the substitution effect - ie the reduction in the environmental impacts associated with the marginal primary energy source - basically, the carbon-emitting (probably gas-fired) alternative new energy power plant that would otherwise need to be built (or kept in operation longer) to produce each unit of energy produced by the new Solar Farm being proposed On the first point, if the alternative use being contemplated by the landowner is, for example, car park, housing, commercial or industrial, then this strengthens the case for the solar farm. If the alternative is agricultural use, then less so. However, even then, low-grade agricultural land use might be a poorer alternative to solar farm use. On the second point, reversibility to a sustainable natural state is a strong positive. It also has a protective angle – if there’s a solar farm on the land, for which there is this intention to restore it to a natural state at some point, then this is preferable to many other alternatives that would permanently alter the land to a less sustainable state. The above is a rational analysis, not an emotional one, and so doesn’t address some of the objections like visual impact (which is often a matter of personal taste). Link to Carrying Capacity Dashboard (from the Queensland University of Technology). This Australian visual tool is a fantastic example of a total systems perspective being brought to bear on two common challenges - "what amount of population can be supported on a set amount of landmass?", or "what amount of landmass is needed to support a set amount of population?" While I can immediately see that the tool has limitations, this is a great way to visualise and teach total systems perspectives, to get people thinking in a different way compared with the existing mainstream political, economic and business paradigm of unconstrained growth. Here's a link to an article (from January 2013) in Plastics Today which explores the impact of the weight of EVs and suggests that making them lighter would help market penetration. In Europe, EVs were only 0.2% of new car sales in 2012 (the equivalent figure in the USA was 0.6%). The new Renault Zoe, at 1.4 tonnes, is dubbed "an electric tank" by the consulting firm Frost and Sullivan. Of course, where range is an issue for the environmentally conscious car owner, hybrids such as the Vauxhall Ampera are an option likely to become increasingly popular, in my view, because they provide all-electric motoring over reasonable ranges (I've seen up to about 90 miles round trip quoted as being achievable from one charge) while also including a petrol engine to remove range anxiety completely from the equation. It's just a shame that hybrids seem to be so much more expensive than pure EVs.
|
About the BloggerI'm David Calver - an Accountant with a passion for sustainability. Categories
All
Archives
February 2016
|