The Goat as Gardener in the Greenhouse: Capitalism Setting the Climate to Rights Again

Not only in research, but also in the everyday world of politics and economics, we would all be better off if more people realised that simple nonlinear systems do not necessarily possess simple dynamical properties.

Robert McCredie May, Science, June 1976

Today's global economic system embraces one single creed: that adequate information about the state of things is contained within a "market", an epitome of information linked to the supply and demand of goods and services. Running the business is best left to that market itself; restrictions and subventions are an evil. At the very outside rate cuts or rate hikes can be accepted. Even nations coming from the former "socialist block" have converted to this faith, although one is left with the impression that they would still like nothing better than to hide behind the false fronts of yesterday. The motive force behind this system is mass consumption, of bread and circuses. No governing body is going to throttle that force, whatever the costs in terms of environmental deterioration. This assertion is not proven truth, some answers still belong in the future, it stands here as a hypothesis based on past experience.

What if the crisis-handling ability of this system is questioned? In spite of "precautionary" strategies recently attempted in restricted areas (The Baltic and the North Sea in Northern Europe, the North Arctic cod fisheries in Barent's Sea), 12 of the 13 major fisheries on the planet are still considered severely depleted, and deep sea fish stocks are increasingly being "hoovered". Should we trust the same hesitant and inefficient system with our climate? Is it even likely to be able to halt climate change, or more to the point: climate deterioration? All of a sudden the market is very tongue-tied, the talent of markets is to preach business as usual. But the prophets in the desert continue to call out: something is very much out of order and threatening to get worse! Such dire prophecy cannot be ignored, in the end some sort of official response is concocted. That is present time, here and now. Behind all officious responses to the threats from climate change i perceive three major concerns: 1. The foundations of the "self-corrective" global market system mustn't be touched, 2. Mass consumption mustn't be affected, and 3. Actions to set the climate to rights again must be taken within the realm of the existing system and the already established mass consumption at the national level. Pyrotechnic displays and car rallies (ideological expressions of indifference to the problems) are taboo, but a global market or an exchange for emission rights is compatible with the system. (And: nuclear power is again eyed where it was recently mothballed.)

One single detail from this response could illustrate what i'm after. In the United States (responsible for 1/4 of the earth's CO₂ emissions), following the oil embargoes of 1973 and 1979, and the introduction of the Clear Air Act Amendments in 1990, there has been a strong move for production of biofuels, in particular of ethanol, as an added ingredient to ordinary petrol. In 2007 one third of the US corn harvest was used for biofuels, the subsidies for ethanol production amounting to c60 % from a total price of $3.58 per gallon (stand April 26th). The total cost for 200 different (sic) federal subsidies today amounts to some 7 billion USD, in practice this is just a redress of old subsidies to corn farmers. Corn prices have skyrocketed, from some $2 per bushel in August 2006, to some $5.65 in March 2008. As a result of this meat prices have risen as well, as we all know by now. It is stated that the energy output from the "corn system" is c1.3 x the energy input according to an often quoted favourable report, i.e. not very much. Brazil ethanol based on sugar-cane gives about eight times the energy input. It belongs to the story that the same report is judged as being so faulty that it isn't included among the references of The dirty truth about biofuels. (In defence of the American ethanol industry: Renewable Fuels Association, in particular the link "Food vs Fuel: Get the Facts" which is biased but contains a few points). A warning is called for: overly favourable input:output ratios should be doubted; there is a general tendency for "modern" agriculture to consume more energy than it produces, in particular when growing genetically modified crops. The net result of the shift to more biofuels is summed up in Science 319: 1238-1240 (2008): "Use of U.S. Croplands for Biofuels Increases Greenhouse Gases Through Emissions from Land-Use Change", and it is a wellknown fact that the incidence of smog in exposed US areas has increased as well. In addition: Increased levels of nitrogen flux from the Mississippi River drainage basin (corn growers!) are thought to have contributed directly to the expansion of anoxic zones in the Gulf of Mexico. This boils down to: things hang together, and clumsy manipulators of dynamic complexes often tend to lose on the swings what they gain on the roundabouts. Much more is required from us than manipulation of single climate parameters with self-interest as guiding star; the actions taken so far simply aren't intelligent enough. Uncoordinated measures are doomed to failure, and in the meantime conditions will get worse.

I have a particular point with all this. When physics, biology, meteorology - not very long ago - first approximated complicated dynamic systems and solved the differential equations pertaining to them, they came upon chaotic dynamics, behaviour that couldn't be predicted. The butterfly of the Lorenz equations appearing on top of this page is one example, it describes in crude terms the convection of a confined fluid or gas, warmed from below and cooled from above, much like our atmospheric system. (Chaotic behaviour doesn't mean that a system runs amuck; the overall dynamics may be caught by an attractor and in addition buffered by some central, repressing influence - in our climate case the oceans acting as "sinks" for carbon dioxide, binding about 2 Gton carbon more than they release per year. But the system behaviour is essentially unpredictable, the only thing that can be manipulated to some extent is the outlines of the overall attractor). It was immediately obvious to these workers that similar equation systems had some relevance for social and economic dynamics as well. Markets can behave according to chaotic patterns, opinions shift chaotically and political decision-making does. So: what if we find out that all well-meaning measures to put climate to rights again evaporate into chaos, leaving the problems unsolved - or actually worsened? I think we should brace ourselves for the insight that what we have seen so far of countermeasures has been little more than merry illusionism. There is a real task waiting for us, and the coming decades won't allow us to duck that task. The tackling of the climate problem has to be comprehensive, concerted and very intelligent, or it will fail. And: there may not be time for a second try; if we fail, our social systems and human populations will instead be brutally regulated by natural forces.

Taking this one step further: Should concerned citizens even be prepared to accept, with arms folded, the steady raise of greenhouse gas emissions for a 50-year-period to come + the ensuing, "unavoidable" deterioration of their life conditions? I think not. The primary targets for public demonstrations and blockades are self-evident: private transportation and subsidized mass tourism, neither side paying its own true costs. ("Energy" production is still the worst culprit, but more difficult to hit). It should be possible to invest as much into clean, reliable and attractive public transportation in urban areas as is today invested into meaningless wars at the end of the earth, but mobilization for war is still easier and more common than mobilization for sustainable life. When opposing this sad state of things, there is a "demonstration culture" of the 20th century (maybe just a preamble for a more serious confrontation) to study and learn from; mobilization and non-violence are essential, spontaneous action the alfa, discipline and organization the omega. The moral "one-up" position mustn't be compromised by anarchic actionism or wasteful behaviour; a counter-movement reflects on its own use of energy and resources in all actions. And participants should be restrained from attacking police or built artefacts; in a demonstration civil disobedience is the privilege of the collective, and its central message is: opposition and resistance, not theatrical violence. Also keep in mind: virtues like these don't come by themselves, they are achieved and maintained in constant struggle, in an open system of information, analysis and discussion. [CP]

1. General

	Accidental by-catch: birds, mammals and turtles from EEA, European Environmental Agency. C
	The Extinction Website, run by Peter Maas. C
	GROMS, Global Register of Migratory Species. The GROMS database is based on Microsoft Access. It provides information on migratory species and contains maps in GIS format (2861 species, 545 GIS maps and 4554 citations). The GROMS CD is part of the publication "Riede, K. (2001): The Global Register of Migratory Species ­ Database, GIS Maps and Threat Analysis. Münster (Landwirtschaftsverlag), 400 pp." C
	Impacts of fishing, from Joint Nature Conservation Committee. Subheaders: Food web effects / Bycatch and discards / Marine mammal bycatch / Seabird bycatch / Effects on seabed habitats / Ghost fishing. C
	The impact of fishing on vulnerable groups and habitats, from FAO. C
	The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, from The World Conservation Union and the Species Survival Commision. C
	Megafauna bycatch in drift nets for albacore tuna (Thunnus alalunga) in the NE Atlantic, by E. Rogan and M. Mackey. Fisheries Research, August 2007.Using landings of albacore tuna as an indicator of effort, the extrapolated decadal scale data from Irish and other driftnet fleets operating in this area suggest that during the period 1990–2000, a minimum (95% confidence intervals) of 778,452 (622,520–934,384) blue sharks were caught, with a substantial proportion discarded. An estimated 24,358 dolphins were killed during these years by these fleets, of which 11,723 (7,670–15,776) were common dolphins and 12,635 (10,009–15,261) were striped dolphins. Although this type of fishing was effective at catching the target species, it removed a large biomass of megafauna and likely accelerated the decline of blue sharks in this area. C
	The Sixth Extinction, by Niles Eldredge, ActionBioscience. C
	World Atlas of Biodiversity, from IMAPS. C

2. Albatrosses, petrels

	The endemic Mediterranean yelkouan shearwater Puffinus yelkouan: distribution, threats and a plea for more data, by Karen Bourgeois & Eric Vidal, Oryx 42: 187 - 194 (2008). C
	Global Threats to Albatross Species, from Australian Dept of the Environment. C
	Seabird bycatch in swordfish longline fisheries worldwide, from Birdlife International. C
	Seabird mortality on longline fisheries in the western Mediterranean: factors affecting bycatch and proposed mitigating measures. Cory's Shearwater, Calonectris diomedea, makes up c2/3 of all bycatch in the Western Mediterranean. Larus audouinii depends on discards from fishing vessels and is caught to some little extent. C
	Summary of seabird bycatch rates recorded in the Western and Central Pacific, from Birdlife International 2006. C

3. Amphibians

	Amphibiaweb, with useful databases. From March 12th, 2008: Worldwide Amphibian Declines: How big is the problem, what are the causes and what can be done? C
	Measuring the Meltdown: Drivers of Global Amphibian Extinction and Decline, research article with open access published by Public Library of Science ONE C
	Global Amphibian Assessment "The Global Amphibian Assessment (GAA) is the first-ever comprehensive assessment of the conservation status of the world's 5,743 known species of frogs, toads, salamanders, and caecilians." C

4. Birds

	Bachman's Warbler, BirdLife Species Factsheet. C
	Bringing the extinct dodo back to life, by John Maddox, from Nature, 23 Sept. 1993. The article in turn compiles: "An ecomorphological review of the dodo (R. cucullatis) and the solitaire (Pezophaps solitaria), flightless Columbiformes of the Mascarene Islands" (J. Zool., Lond. 230, 247-292; 1993). C
	The dodo bird, an example of survival of the fittest. By Jerry Bergman, from Creation 17: 42-44, quite a good article, apart from the compulsory dig at the "evolutionary myth". C
	The Passenger Pigeon, from Smithsonian Institution. C

5. Coral reefs

	Coral Reef Conservation Program, from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NOAA. C
	Coral Reef Protection, from EPA, US Environmental Protection Agency. C
	Coral Reef Targeted Research, international page with some downloads. C

6. Fish, fisheries

	CAMBODIA: Cambodia fights with declining fish stocks, from worldfishingtoday.com. 18.4.08. C
	The Last Wild Hunt: Deep-sea Fisheries Scrape Bottom Of The Sea, from Science Daily, 19.2.07. C
	www.fisherieswatch.org, an extensive library of pdf documents. C
	ICES, International Council for the Exploration of the Sea "coordinates and promotes marine research in the North Atlantic. We work with an international community of over 1600 marine scientists from 20 member countries". C
	Fisheries Management: Sustainability and the Precautionary Principle, from JNCC, adviser to the UK Government. Some conceptual hairsplitting hampers this rather short text, but the reason may simply be that the "precautionary" approach considers more than the yield of fisheries. [CP] C
	Rapid worldwide depletion of predatory fish communities, by R. E. Myers and B. Worm, from Nature 2003, published by www.fisherieswatch.org C
	SANDEEL, from fisheries.no, the official Norwegian site. C
	Effects of changes in sandeel availability on the reproductive output of seabirds, by A. Rindorf, S. Wanless & M. P. Harris, Marine Ecology Progress Series (2000) 202: 241 - 252. C
	SOUTH AFRICA: West Coast marine experts warn of fish crisis, from IOL, South Africa, 19.12.06. C

7. Mammals

	The Quagga Project, South Africa, from quaggaproject.org. C
	The Tasmanian Thylacine, from bluelion.org. C

8. Sharks

	Incidental catch and estimated discards of pelagic sharks from the swordfish and tuna fisheries in the Mediterranean Sea, reprint of article in Fishery Bulletin (2005) in HighBeam Encyclopedia. C
	Oceana, founded by environmental organisations in the US in 1999, international organisation. "Protecting the World's Oceans". An estimated 50 million sharks are caught unintentionally as bycatch in commercial fisheries every year. Some of the most troublesome fishing gears for sharks are longlines, trawls, and gillnets.. C
	Shark Savers, an ambitious, fairly fresh initiative, New York-based. C

9. Whaling

	The International Whaling Commission Everything is here, including the best recent population estimates. C
	Japan Whaling Association, the Al Capone side of it all; study the language of the press releases! C
	Whalewatch, concentrating more on the ethic side of whaling. "If whales could scream, the whaling industry would stop". C
	Whaling, from Greenpeace. "Overexploit, cheat, deplete. The cycle of greed behind the global whaling industry drove one whale population after another toward oblivion." C

Air pollution

	A Changing Atmosphere, 8th European Symposium on the Physico-Chemical Behaviour of Atmospheric Pollutants 17 - 20 September 2001, Torino. Articles from the sessions. C
	Carbon Monoxide, Fires, and Air Pollution, from Earth Observatory. C
	Pollution From Chinese Coal Casts a Global Shadow, The New York Times, 11 June 2006. C
	The Status of Contaminants in the Arctic Borderlands, from Arctic Borderlands Ecological Knowledge Co-op. A Canadian document for local use. C
	Transport routes of POPs, a link document on "Persistent Organic Pollutants" from Norsk institutt for luftforskning. C

Water pollution

	The world's rubbish dump: a garbage tip that stretches from Hawaii to Japan, by Kathy Marks and Daniel Howden, The Independent 5.2.08. C
	Water pollution and society, by David Krantz and Brad Kifferstein. C

1. Carbon dioxide, greenhouse gases, technical terms.

	Atmospheric carbon dioxide record from Mauna Loa, pdf document from IDEAS, by C. D. Keeling and T. P. Whorf, Un. of Cal., La Jolla. C
	Carbon Dioxide Emissions Accelerating Rapidly, from Earth Policy Institute 9.4.08. C
	Cutting emissions in Japan to be costly, from MarketWatch. QUOTE: "The technologies needed to significantly reduce carbon dioxide emissions in Japan by 2020 will cost consumers and businesses a total of 52 trillion yen (about $500 billion), according to a published report citing a new study from the country's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry." C
	Eco-Economy Indicators: Trends To Track all you need, from Earth Policy Institute.C
	carbonify.com, "Global warming resources".C
	Carry on polluting, comment by Larry Lohmann in New Scientist, Dec 2006. C
	Changes in surface CO2 and ocean pH in ICES shelf sea ecosystems, from ICES, April 2008. C
	International Forest Carbon Initiative, from the Australian Govt, Dept of Climate Change. C
	Marine Acidification. On effects and monitoring of marine acidification in the seas surrounding Sweden, editor Pia Andersson, from SMHI, 2008-04-15. C
	USA: Coal generates 54% of our electricity, and is the single biggest air polluter in the U.S., from Union of Concerned Scientists. The capacity of US coal-fired plants is more than 300 GW. C
	USA: The Dehydrated States of America, from Treehugger, 25 June 2007. C
	CHINA: Electricity Production in China: Prospects and Global Environmental Effects, by Frédéric Beauregard-Tellier, 25 June 2007. Parliament of Canada Research Publications. "Coal-fired power plants represent 70% of total generating capacity in China, which was around 508 gigawatts electrical (GWe) in 2005. (...)The IEA reference scenario postulates that China will add 700 gigawatts electrical (GWe) of coal-fired capacity to its electricity network by 2030 and will be responsible for more than half of the increase in the world’s coal-fired electricity generation." C
	Glossary, from Frontier Research Center for Global Change, Japan. C
	Maps and Graphics, Theme: Climate Change, from United Nations Environment Programme / Grid-Arendal; 323 graphics. C
	AGGI, The NOAA Annual Greenhouse Gas Index, C
	The role of land carbon sinks in mitigating global climate change, a pdf document from The Royal Society. C
	US Emissions Data, from EIA, Energy Information Administration. C
	WMO Greenhouse Gas Bulletin, The State of Greenhouse Gases in the Atmosphere Using Global Observations through 2006. C

2. Emission rights, the Kyoto Protocol

	Banking and Trade of Carbon Emission Rights, pdf document from IDEAS, by Georg Müller-Fürstenberger and Gunther Stephan. C
	Carbon Trade Watch, project from Transnational Institute, addresses international injustices in trade with emission rights.C
	Dangerous assumptions, a commentary in Nature 452: 531-532 (3 April 2008), by R. Pielke, T. Wigley & C. Green. "The technological challenge has been seriously underestimated by the IPCC." (The IPCC scenario is hampered by built-in emission reductions, that are not guaranteed, they might not come true at all. Even basic figures are flawed: "An analysis of China's carbon-dioxide emissions estimated them to be rising at a rate of between 11% and 13% per year for the period 2000–2010, which is far higher than that assumed by the SRES scenarios for Asian emissions (2.6–4.8% per year)"). C
	Emissions trading, from Wikipedia, with valuable links. C
	The Kyoto Protocol, from Wikipedia, with valuable links. C
	The Kyoto Protocol, from UNFCCC. C
	Planned Coal Plants Reverse 5 Times CO2 Impact Of Kyoto Protocol, by Randall Parker on FuturePundit 24.12.04. C
	The World Bank Carbon Finance Web Site, well worth reading; one should be familiar with this approach to climate problems. But - why such long web addresses? C

3. Climate change: general

	Climate change, from the European Commission. A lot of links and documents. C
	Climate change, from the US EPA, a very rich site; it's probably making a spread preparatory to the US shift of administration. C
	Climate change 2.0 and water management - some simple thoughts on a complex issue, by Johan Kuylenstierna and Georgia Destouni, published on the website of The World Centre for Water Management, 2007. C
	IPCC, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Notice the criticism of IPCC points of departure in "Dangerous assumptions" under Kyoto Protocol above. C
	Scientific opinion on climate change, from Wikipedia. C
	Special report: Climate change, by New Scientist Environment. C
	Sternrapporten – en genomgripande analys av klimatförändringens ekonomi, The Swedish EPA's compilation of the report; i bring it in Swedish here, looking for English compilations. [CP] C
	World Climate Report, "The Web's Longest-Running Climate Change Blog", swimming against the current to the best of their ability. C

In 2007 the global tourism "reached new record figures" with 898 million arrivals, up 52 million since 2006. World tourism arrivals are projected to grow at 4.3 % per year and to reach 1.6 billion by 2020. Spending is expected to grow at 6.7 % per year and to reach US$ 2 trillion (WTO 2001). (Sport and Adventure Tourism (2003), ed. Simon Hudson). The average "world citizen" produces some 6 tons of carbon dioxide per year, a Briton some 11 tons, while an average American produces some 19 tons/year (BP, 2006, other sources: 20-22 tons). A 1000 kilometre flight produces some 0.15 tonnes of carbon dioxide per passenger, air travel accounting for about 3.5 percent of the human contribution to global warming, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. It takes 15 trees a year to absorb 150 kg of carbon dioxide.

	Carbon Footprint Calculator, for flights, from carbonfootprint.com. C
	Global warming not cooling tourism, from onenews, New Zealand. C
	Climate change to drive radical changes in global tourism, a worldwide overview from easier travel. C
	Why The Road To Climate Catastrophe Is Paved With Cheap Flights, by Chris Laroche in Green Travel 21.2.08. C
	World Tourism Barometer, October 2005. C

	Chaotic Climate Dynamics, a book by A. M. Selvam, available on books.google.se C
	How Well do Coupled Models Simulate Today's Climate, by Thomas Reichler and Junsu Kim. My own comment: the coupling of "local" models at a global level takes a renewed, non-linear approach at a higher level, this seems not to have been done so far, and the assertion that models get more and more accurate doesn't amount to much; unexpected non-linear behaviour may be waiting around the corner. [CP] C
	Solar activity: a dominant factor in climate dynamics, by Theodor Landscheidt, Schroeter Institute for Research in Cycles of Solar Activity, Nova Scotia, Canada. Made available on the late John Daly's homepage. C
	Still Waiting for Greenhouse, the late John Daly's homepage, still being updated on sunspots, El Niño etc. C

	The Precautionary Principle is Science-based, P. Saunders & Mae-Wan Ho, Institute of Science in Society, Report 4/4/03 C
	The Precautionary Principle. Case Study: Climate Change,, A. Reisinger, Science Adviser, Climate Change to NZ Ministery of Environment. C
	United Kingdom Interdepartmental Liaison Group on Risk Assessment: The Precautionary Principle: Policy and Application, from Health and Safety Executive, UK. C
	What Happened To The Precautionary Principle?, from Climate Resistance, a blog "challenging climate orthodoxy". C

	Behind Consumption and Consumerism, by Anup Shah, not updated after 23.9.01. C
	Lifestyle Choices Affect U.S. Impact on the Environment, by Sandra Yin, Population Reference Bureau, October 2006. C
	World's Wasted Wealth, by J. W. Smith, IED: an umbrella organization within Boston University's Department of Economics, from 1994. C
	Population Growth Trends of Countries and Global Investing Strategy, from Global Investment Trends. C