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5 August 2009

While governments negotiate and bicker over how much greenhouse gases each one can emit, the climate warms. This warming of the global climate is now expected to surpass the relatively safe level of a 2ºC increase. This change has been projected to have major negative impacts on weather-related phenomena and on societies throughout the 21st century, and those impacts are supposed to increase in number and intensities and frequencies as the decades pass.

Discussions about adaptation measures related to climate change seem to be the rage of the day among policy makers, climate researchers, and social scientists, especially since 2007 when the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to IPCC researchers working on the issue of climate change (aka global warming). Now, we hear about adaptation to cope with the causes and the impacts, guesstimates about potential ecological and societal impacts, methods to assess them, and options available.

Adaptation has several definitions, some of which conflict with one another. For example, adaptation has been used to refer both to proactive preparations and to reactive responses to climate related hazards. To most others, however, adaptation is only the recognition of the need of societies to consider climate change in future planning.

Regardless of definition, time is running out for the global community; and very few signs indicate that either the political or the social will exists to respond in a timely and effective way to change the trends that point toward increased warming of the earth’s atmosphere.

source: www.workroom.thinkprogress.org/tag/global-boiling

It seems the only option available is to clean up after the impacts occur, discussions about geo-engineering the climate system notwithstanding. Therefore, adaptation to climate change can also be interpreted as recognition, even acceptance, of the belief that societies everywhere are pretty helpless in the face of a yet-to-be controlled changing climate. Societies—after millennia of struggling for the upper hand on climate—are apparently surrendering to the vagaries of the climate system.

But Americans do not see themselves as quitters. They often side with the underdog in a conflict, and they are known for their (blind) faith in technology, believing that the country’s engineering capabilities and ever-evolving modern marvels can overcome most, if not all, problems. I must admit that I shared this view of our engineering know-how; in fact, my first university degree was a BS in Metallurgical Engineering. History shows that engineers have time and time again risen to an occasion to overcome a wide range of constraints imposed on societies both by the vagaries of nature as well as by poor decision-making.

But now I believe we may have met our match, having not only created more environmental problems – air pollution, soil erosion, deforestation, desertification, etc. – but also what could prove in the end to be “The mother of all environmental problems”, that is, an environmental change that can spawn innumerable environmental and social changes across the planet: Global Warming.

Global warming is already spawning a wide range of environmental changes and hazards. In the past, we tried to outwit nature and for the most part were pretty successful (at least for a while). But the overwhelming power and constancy of change in nature always seems to eventually prevail over our attempts to control it. Today, ironically, the nature that is causing many of the problems we face is human nature. In the spirit of the 1970s Pogo cartoon, “We have met the enemy. It is us.”

Why then do I seem to be giving up on any effective attempt in the short to midterm to arrest, let alone roll back, greenhouse gas emissions? Robert Cushman Murphy once said, man “seems to be the sole insatiable predator, because, unlike lower animals, he takes his prey from motives other than personal survival.” The same may be true for our dependence on the burning of fossil fuels. Even though there are signs across the globe as to the serious impacts that will accompany a climate change of 2-4ºC, societies continue to deal with those impacts at a rate much slower than the actual changes, such as with the disappearance of Arctic sea ice, which is accelerating at rates surprising even to the scientists who have been monitoring it for decades.

At this point, researchers can only speculate about what we are doing to future climate. Is, for example, a runaway greenhouse effect a possibility, and if so, what happens to civilization and human habitability on the planet? The planet does not care which country does what reductions; it will go on fine without us and with a significantly warmer climate. The flora and fauna that evolve with the changing climate will take over.  The planet cares not either way.

I can picture the greeting card personification of Mother Nature laughing at human attempts to geo-manage the planet through such hubris as “man dominating Nature” or “rugged individualism” [I can do what I want to the environment]. In the end, we are only harming ourselves, since we are only making the planet less hospitable for our success as a species. In other words, we must accept the reality that “we need Nature but Nature does not need us.” We need to foster a “mentality of adaptation” to a changing climate or we might just be the ones who are changed. As I see it, humanity could very likely at a fork in the road: one direction can take you to a sustainable future based on humans living in harmony with a variable and changing society and the other direction taking us to a very different future . . . to extinction. Let’s hope our policymakers around the globe can make the right choice!

Fragilecologies Archives
11 June 2009

Fifteen years ago Lester Brown wrote an interesting book with an intriguing title: “Who will feed China?” Brown’s concern — highly criticized as might be expected by Chinese government officials at the time — was that China’s population size coupled with increasing industrialization and affluence along with its population growth rates, when compared to the amount of land available for food production, would eventually (in the not-so-distant future) make China a major food deficit country. Making a bad situation worse were the various and numerous pollution hotspots throughout the country: air, water and land pollution. River waters have been over-exploited and heavily polluted. In many locations the air pollution from manufacturing enterprises was so thick that it blocked out the sunlight. Some lakes, ponds and streams were covered with trash. And so on. The soils have been worked for centuries, agricultural land was being converted to other uses and production levels were likely to peak. Fast forward — to 2010.

If one were to ask the same question today, “who will feed China?”, the answer would be quite different. China’s economy has been booming for the past 15 years or so. The government has amassed more than a trillion dollars of US currency as a result of a chronic trade imbalance in its favor and against America. That puts it in a position to purchase food, whenever it needs to. It can buy energy resources, new technologies (such as for in-country water transfer schemes), fertilizers and whatever else it is that might be needed to increase crop yields and overall food production. But, even that might not be enough to feed China. There is a phenomenon that has been quietly taking place under the proverbial radar screen, that is, out of the purview of policy makers in most countries.

The phenomenon is referred to as the “land grab”: that is, 99-year leases on hundreds of thousands of hectares (2.2 acres equal one hectare) of land in various countries including several in sub-Saharan Africa. China is acquiring the right to grow food (or biofuels, if it so chooses) in some African countries by leasing land on the “hungry continent”. The contents of the leases are not clear to the public even though the African countries do receive benefits from China in the way of new schools or hospitals and new roads, hydroelectric dams and other infrastructure. Nevertheless, land used by the Chinese means that land would not be available to Africa’s local farmers or herders.

As far as the land grab is concerned, China is not alone. South Korea has been a major lessor of land in Africa and elsewhere. Its most recent “land-lease” was a controversial one in Madagascar. It had leased 1.3 million hectares for 99 years. As a result of protests within the country, however, the president of Madagascar was deposed and the lease agreement was cancelled. Other countries involved in “land grabs” includes Saudi Arabia, Germany, Abu Dhabi, Dubai, among others.

Who will feed China? Well, at this point, it looks like sub-Saharan Africa will help to do so! That however, raises another concern; who then will feed sub-Saharan Africa?

A year after Brown’s book was published, political scientist Robert Paarlberg wrote an article in Foreign Affairs in 1996 (likely in response to the book by Brown) entitled “Who will feed Africa?” He felt that Africa was the problem of the future with regard to food security. Today, several articles raise the same concern about African food security.

• ENERGY: Africa Will Have to Feed EU’s Artificial Biofuels Demand
• Will Africa feed rich nations?
• Rice Bowls and Dust Bowls: Africa, Not China, Faces a Food Crisis
• Could GM crops help feed Africa?
• How Will We Feed Africa?
• Organic Farming “Could Feed Africa” Says New UN Study
• WFP to Feed Up to 50 Million People in Africa [2006]
• [Prince] Charles’s fantasy farming [organic] won’t feed Africa’s poor

Headlines like these continue to appear in the print and electronic media. There is no apparent “silver bullet”, that is, one solution that can resolve all causes contributing to Africa’s chronic food shortages and food insecurity. What we see going on in Africa today is a trend that has continued for decades; a lowering on the continent of its gross agricultural production. Odds are this trend is likely to continue for some time in the future with food deficits being countered by humanitarian food shipments.

There is an expression in English that “turnabout is fair play” If you do something to me, it is fair for me to do the same to you”. It’s a mild version of “an eye for an eye”. Very recently, the China Daily (April 1, 2009) printed an article entitled “Who will ‘feed’ the US?” It seems to me to be an example of “turnabout”. The article began in the following way:

The United States, the world’s most developed country, is scrambling to answer the question “Who will ‘feed’ the US?” years after it had asked the most populous developing country a similar question: “Who will feed China?”

Is it sensational to ask the richest country the same question that China faced more than 10 years ago? The reply is “No.” This time, it is not about “grain supply”, but “capital supply” and “supply of order.”… Who will be able to provide the financial support for the enormous fiscal deficit of the US government?

We live in globalized world. For thousands of years, however big the “world” seemed to be to local communities, its life’s blood was based on trade or aid. Countries are now interconnected functionally in a wide variety of ways. Most countries rely on most other countries for something they need or want: capital, oil, food, labor, and so forth. China needs America among others to buy its products. The US imports goods and services its citizens require or desire. The US relies on laborers from Mexico and Central America. Similar needs are found in Europe and Japan.

In retrospect, it was likely that China would need food supplies from outside of its borders, as it industrialized and as affluence increased. Lester Brown pointed that out clearly in his 1995 book, noting a similar process for Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, each of which had limited agricultural land as they were industrializing. They each import a large percentage of their grain needs normal for an industrializing country with limited agricultural potential for expansion.

What is clear from the examples above is that no country can remain a proverbial island in the 21st century. Countries are finding that they must interact with and need each other in a variety of not-so-obvious as well as obvious ways, politically, economically and culturally. In other words they each need to be fed in some way — with food, water, energy, imports or exports, or humanitarian assistance. In coming years political leaders will have to adapt to a new world order and a new world culture, one that requires considerable reflection before action, compassion before self interest, and improvisation before retreat.

Fragilecologies Archives
12 May 2009

I have been trying to organize a meeting in Macedonia. Not in Greece’s northern region of Macedonia but the other Macedonia. The UN officially calls the other Macedonia “FYR Macedonia”, or the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. Those inside the Republic of Macedonia (e.g., the ‘other’ Macedonia) hate the use of the modifier “FYR” and to tell the truth I can’t blame them.

To someone not so interested in the politics of naming a new country, I find the conflict bordering on ridiculous over the name of the other Macedonia. More than 140 countries recognize the country as the Republic of Macedonia including many European countries and four of the five members of the UN Security Council. Many cities around the globe use the same name, even cities like Athens, Georgia and Athens, Ohio in the USA hijacked the use of the name of Athens, Greece. I assume that Greece never protested the use of Athens by the US states of Georgia or Ohio.

But let’s assume that the use of such modifiers as FYR was a commonly accepted practice around the globe. The United States of America would be called the FBC America (the Former British Colony of the United States). Germany would be the FPE Germany (the Former Prussian Empire of Germany). The Republic of Mali in West Africa would be referred to as the FFWAC of Mali (the Former French West African Colony of Mali). And then we’d need to reconsider the names of the republics of the Former Soviet Union (FSU). So, FSU then become the modifier for all of the newly independent states: the FSU of Kazakhstan; the FSU of Uzbekistan; the FSU of Azerbaijan, and so forth. Seems silly doesn’t it? Almost all countries would have to modify their names adding ‘the Former Something in front of the new’ name of the country, out of deference to an earlier name in their history.

Greece apparently did not oppose the name “Republic of Macedonia” when the republic was a part of Yugoslavia. Why now? I was talking to a psychiatrist friend of mine recently about my trip to Macedonia and reluctance to accept the newly independent country as anything other than the Former Yugoslavian Republic of Macedonia. He told me that the controversy over the name reminded him of Sigmund Freud’s 1917 concept of “narcissism over small differences”. This concept refers to the belief that individuals that are very similar to each other engage in conflicts that are more violent than those between individuals who have little in common. Most recently, Greece proposed that Macedonia be called the Republic of Northern Macedonia, but, alas, there is no such place as Southern Macedonia. Macedonians are Macedonians wherever they live. That may be the problem for Greece, worried about a possible call from the Republic of Macedonia, its independent neighbor to the north, to reunite its citizens with those Macedonians in northern Greece. Agreeing that the Republic can continue to use the name it has used since 1945 as a part of Yugoslavia would be a great gesture on the part of Greece. It would enable the Republic of Macedonia to join the European Union which if nothing else would allow Macedonians to travel freely in Europe without going through the onerous and humiliating task of filling out visa forms to enter several of its neighboring countries.

Don’t you think it is time for Greece to get over it and accept Macedonia for the independent Republic that it is, and move on to deal with much more serious issues? I do.

Fragilecologies Archives
1 April 2009

The phrase “the new black” was used repeatedly in the 1980s to indicate that other colors (frequently brown, navy blue, or grey) had temporarily displaced black’s position in fashion or industrial design as the versatile trend around which all other fashion accessories were coordinated. It is a catch phrase used to indicate the sudden popularity of an idea at the expense of the popularity of a second idea.

So, what could such a fashion-related concept as, for example, “grey is the new black” say about climate change? Here’s the connection that I see:

For the past decade or so, especially as each year progresses into the 21st century, we (the public at large, which includes everyone, even scientists and policymakers) have been told by the media based on scientific and science media reporting that the atmosphere is heating up. The primary cause, we are told, is the buildup of greenhouse gases (GHGs) in the atmosphere, which is influencing (augmenting) the naturally occurring greenhouse effect and is the result of human activities.

In the past few decades, scientists have learned a lot about those GHGs, especially about their sources, sinks and rates of change. Though their scientific findings might not yet provide a perfect picture, they are certain and reliable enough to generate concern, and are thereby usable. These findings serve as a warning about foreseeable changes in the global climate system and the impacts of those changes on ecosystems and societies. If we continue on a “business as usual” path and choose not to alter our types as well as patterns of energy consumption and land use, global warming will intensify.

Based on their data, scientists have developed scenarios that, in general, are focused on climate changes and their impacts that might plausibly be expected to occur in 2050 or 2100, if all of the science is proven correct. Though I tend to believe that the processes of change are relatively well understood given the state of the science of climate today, I have worried for a long time about both the projected rates of change and the processes of change, many of which are barely discernible over short time frames to the naked eye, or at least to the instruments that measure such changes.

Reports are coming in now from scientists and the media worldwide that the rates of change are happening faster than they had projected for a wide range of ecological and social climate-impact factors. As an example, one could argue that the most visible rate of environmental change is occurring in the Arctic with respect to the accelerated disappearance of ice cover. Using sophisticated computer models, scientists had projected a certain percentage loss in sea ice cover in the Arctic by the year 2020. Based on actual measurements, however, the sea ice disappearance (melting) had reached those projected levels by 2007, 13 years early!!

Simply put, Arctic sea ice appears to be going to “hell in a handbasket,” as the saying goes. Polar scientists say it; I believe it; satellite images support it. The rapidity of this melt in the Arctic has sparked concern about other ecosystemic rates of change. Around the world, levels of warming and impacts from warming that had been projected to appear many, many decades into the future are emerging now before our eyes, and through the even sharper eyes of satellites and microscopes. In other words, “the future is arriving earlier than expected.”

the future is arriving earlier than expected

Now, let’s look at how the fashion concept of “the new black” noted at the opening of this commentary speaks to these impacts of a changing climate.

With the phrase “grey is the new black,” I am suggesting by analogy that scenarios for 2100, while interesting at some levels, are of much less concern to most decision makers than are scenarios more proximate to our contemporary time of life and governance. If science is going to be relevant to most policymakers today, then its projections must concentrate on times far closer than those that are still a century away. Therefore, 2020, in the minds of those who are concerned with societal responses to a “dangerous” climate change, must be seen as the “new black”; that is, “2020 is the new 2050.”

The problem is that the physical and ecological mechanisms involved in these processes continually seem to translate to shorter and shorter time frames for what once were distantly projected impacts. Not only does 2020 become the new 2050, but the impacts projected for 2100, for example, may now plausibly arrive as early as 2050. Clearly, the climate is changing, and apparently far faster than we had expected.

These accelerated changes create a major dilemma in thinking about and acting on climate impacts because the rates of change in the physical and the ecological realms are apparently occurring far faster than the rates at which institutional bureaucracies are designed to cope effectively. Furthermore, because in the past couple of decades we have focused on adapting and mitigating to future impacts, we seem to have abandoned the concept of prevention.

There are at least two options available to tackle these dilemmas: (1) organizations MUST rethink their structures and functions, asking if their 20th century (or 19th or 18th century) bureaucracies are prepared to address 21st century climate-related problems. Some are, but many are likely not; and (2) bring prevention back into the discussion. Any new activities that might worsen an already existing climate change-related impact could be avoided. Note that coal-fired power plants are still being constructed, emission violations still go unchallenged, deforestation is still allowed to continue for a range of revenue-generating, money-making reasons, and so forth.

We must now convince policymakers at all levels of social organization ñ from the local to the national to the global, that 2020 is the year to fear, not 2050 or 2100. I have often written about creeping environmental changes and problems, but I have come to realize of late that societies have, in a surrender-like mode, unwittingly accepted incremental, adverse environmental changes as inconsequential. This tolerance must no longer continue. There is still time to do something to roll back warming, but not much time.

Based on the belief that to be forewarned is to be forearmed, there should be an EPCC, Engineering Panel for Climate Change — because it may be the engineers of the world who will unite across international boundaries to design effective and timely ways to control and remove GHGs released into the atmosphere. Might not they be viewed as the new set of brokers, acting between the sciences (physical, biological and social) and the policymakers?

2 March 2009

I have an idea that I think is important to talk about. I call it Capacity Building by Proxy. The idea is to build institutional and human capabilities on the African continent using those on the continent who have already gathered, formally or informally, experience and expertise in a wide range of socio-economic, educational and environmental endeavors. Let’s break down the phrase, Capacity Building by Proxy, into its parts to uncover what it means. First, however, a bit of political history.

During the Cold War era from 1945 to 1991, the world had two so-called Superpowers: the United States and the Soviet Union. These powers used to compete with each other in just about every way — economically, politically and militarily, even in sports events such as the Olympics. Each tried to show that its ideologies and policies were the best ones to pursue so that developing countries around the globe would economically and politically develop along the ideological lines that either of the Superpowers not only proposed but also actively sought to impose upon others. The competition between the Superpowers was constant, relentless and filled with potential danger. Just about every decision that either the US or the Soviet government made sparked suspicion from the other Superpower.

In various developing countries, each of these two Superpowers supported opposing political factions, usually politically, morally, financially, or militarily. In some of these countries, each supported different ethnic groups that had been traditional enemies. In still other countries, they supported and armed opposing rebel groups. They armed them heavily and kept them fighting one another. These  wars and conflicts were called “proxy wars,” with each Superpower using other groups to fight their ideological battles. This way the Superpowers would avoid a direct confrontation because neither one wanted to accidentally spark a direct military conflict that could have easily escalated into a nuclear confrontation.

The early decades of the Cold War — say, from the 1950s to the 1970s — also encompassed the period of decolonization in Africa and Asia. Freedom from colonial rulers would lead to self government and thus prosperity as a nation that would flow right down to the village level. Visionary leaders arose on the continent to carry out successfully the difficult struggle for national independence.

Because these two processes, the Cold War and decolonization, occurred at the same time, this simultaneity tended to polarize African countries into pro-Western and pro-Communist camps. However, to the eventual disappointment both Superpowers, many of these leaders followed their own visionary paths and did not follow closely the ideologies and policies of the Superpowers. With independence in hand, African leaders began to pursue their own political futures, though they continued to receive bilateral foreign assistance from one or the other, as well as from other industrialized countries and multilateral organizations.

The term “proxy” has a specific definition: A “substitution”; a person or group authorized to act for another. It is used in science to identify surrogate indicators of a changing climate in prehistoric times when no records were kept by society: ice cores, tree rings, pollen are each used as indicators of prehistoric climate conditions. Today, this is the best known use of the term “proxy,” because talk of proxy wars has become non-existent in the post-Cold War era. “Proxy” can also be effectively used to educate and train people in developing regions about what current science says about global warming and its impacts. This can be combined with another concept that is receiving lots of attention these days — Capacity Building.

In the world of economic development, building human capacity through education and training is a high priority. It empowers and enfranchises local peoples to become equal partners in the development of their own regions. Developing such capacity regionally and locally would help to reduce reliance on “imported” foreign experts who have traditionally and often been drawn from the industrial countries in the Northern Hemisphere, hired by, for instance, the World Bank, one of the regional banks, bilateral agreemens, or by humanitarian aid agencies. They are hired in an attempt to expand or strengthen local to national economies, protect environments, design and build infrastructure, advise on land use and management (for rain-fed, irrigated, and range lands), enhance food security or at least reduce food insecurity, to develop health and public safety services, and so forth.

Now, several decades after independence and a decade and a half after the ideological competition of the Cold War, many Africans have acquired the expertise and experience to build capacity in a major way on their continent. After all, it is their continent. An obvious question then emerges: Why not hire Africans living on the African continent to build human capacity in Africa . . . by proxy? In this way funds for international assistance to build capacity in developing parts of countries would go much further. Africans in one country can be hired to build capacity not only in their country but in neighboring countries as well. With such proxy approach to capacity building, costs could be considerably reduced when compared to, for instance, the constant reliance on imported consultants from America, Canada, Japan, the UK, France or Germany, etc. who demand wages based on industrialized country standards.

There is a lot of experience and expertise (e.g., capacity) on the African continent. There is considerable and still growing expertise for just about every aspect of the environment, and that expertise provides formal as well as informal learning opportunities. Africans have earned high school, university and trade school degrees, and some have been given the opportunity to attend schools in countries on the continent. Still others have attended schools in foreign countries around the globe — in Europe, North America, China and other countries in Asia, and Russia. A considerable wealth of African knowledge — indigenous and ordinary — also resides in people who have worked all their lives in various trades, from farming and herding to small-scale businesses and factories. They have worked with plants, animals and ecosystems, acquiring their knowledge through learning by doing. Clearly, Africans have a lot to offer their own countries as well as to others on the continent, if given the opportunity.

Capacity building by proxy, therefore, calls for relatively rich countries to provide assistance to developing areas by providing moral and financial support for proxy education and training — that is, for the expertise that is already in the region. This will enable them to help those who need assistance in other developing areas in Africa. This would truly be a “win-win situation”: capacity is developed in an area that needs it by people from developing areas who would benefit from the experience as well as from gainful empowering employment in a cost-effective financial way by donor countries and agencies.

Fragilecologies Archives
1 December 2008

Just wanted to say that “the times they are a-changin’.” They are a-changin’ for those involved in climate science research and modeling, and they are a-changin’ for those engaged in climate impacts research and application. They are also changing for those who fund climate-related research and research applications. The time has come for these communities to rethink the paths of their professional responsibilities. Here’s why I think this is so.

It appears that the science of global warming has become rather easy for people to understand, at least on a superficial level. At that level of understanding, people can (and do) form opinions about climate change, about its possible impacts on regional climate, and about what they might do about it. Graphic representations of the greenhouse effect and of the influence of greenhouse gases on the atmosphere and on the Earth’ s surface are colorful simplifications of reality. They are rather easily understood, explained, and used by the general public. By analogy, one does not need to go to the moon in order to gain knowledge about the moon. Just conduct an Internet search of subject content or graphics. Similarly, one does not need to know all the scientific data that goes into the modeling of the global climate system in order to understand either how the computer-based models work or how atmospheric processes behave. They just have to accept that the scientists and the graphic designers know what they are saying and doing.

Bob Dylan’s Album cover, January 1964

A parallel situation exists for those who have been engaged in researching climate–related impacts for the past few decades. Obviously, climate is only one factor that influences human behavior, along with economic, political, social, cultural and ecological factors. For years now, a relatively small but growing number of researchers in the social and biological sciences have followed a risky career path that separates them from cohorts in their respective academic fields. They strayed from mainstream disciplinary research, choosing instead to view in a multidisciplinary way climate as a key influence on human and societal behavior.

Before the mid-1970s, blaming climate-related disasters primarily on the natural environment was, generally speaking, in vogue. Since then, however, numerous attempts have been made—often quite successful attempts—to sort out what parts of a disaster’s deaths and destruction should rightly be blamed on Nature and what parts should be blamed on human activities (and, more specifically, on decision makers and decision-making processes).

Now fast forward to 2007. In April, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, 4th Assessment was released to the public, and later in the year the IPCC, along with Vice-President Gore, were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts to draw attention to and clarify aspects of the global warming crisis. Those who have worked tirelessly to firm up the science of climate change and those who have devoted their careers to understanding societal influences on the atmosphere and the influences of atmospheric processes on society can rest on their published works and their laurels. Their mission really was accomplished!

In the waning weeks of 2008, the successful efforts of atmospheric physical, biological and social scientists are reflected around the world in what appears to be a fundamental step-like shift in political and economic concern about global warming and its impacts on society. Even people who still do not accept that global warming is a problem or that humans, through their energy consumption (among other ways), can influence the planet’s atmosphere are, for the most part, beginning to move on, trying now to figure out how to make money from mounting concerns about how to either mitigate or adapt to global warming.

Indeed, researchers – physical, biological, and social – have won a battle, a major victory at that. They have provided credible information that has convinced governments and corporations to move beyond skepticism and a “business as usual” approach to take seriously how to cope with both the causes of a warmer atmosphere and their consequences. But a victory in a specific battle does not necessarily win a war. The next battle looms threateningly on the horizon. At the same time that the success of these researchers in generating political awareness at the highest levels of government and society may have unwittingly made their lives more satisfying, their future research funding may now be less assured; Competition for funding is going to increase sharply.

Given its notoriety, many people are now attracted to the global warming issue. Recent increases in the credibility of the science, as well as in the resources now available for continued research into its science and especially its impacts, have made the field more accessible to unscientific newcomers as well. While many of these newcomers will undoubtedly refresh current research efforts by offering new perspectives and insights that could prove extremely valuable to future research, they are also now in competition with the “old guard” of climate and climate-related impacts research for limited funding.

Fantastic changes: Shanghai Harbor, 16 years apart. Note structure in right foreground is the only constant in both images.

Funding proposals can easily be prepared by people or organizations that have had little or no interest in climate impacts, but who can provide convincing sound bites and colorful graphics, which are, of course, the modern means of persuasion that has replaced – regrettably – the need for “a thousand (or more) words” to articulate clearly a correct portrayal of the science behind the existing body of literature on global warming impacts. Such newcomers will submit proposals to funders who might not themselves be able to distinguish between proposals with a firm knowledge base from those with shallow knowledge of climate-society-environment interactions.

This reality also suggests that funding agents and researchers have heightened responsibilities. For their part, funders are under more pressure to compare and contrast competing proposals. Old-guard impacts researchers, on the other hand, need to re-think their research paths, more earnestly distinguishing between research projects that are interesting and those that are essential in the “war with global warming.”

Finally, newcomers arrive with what may be valuable perspectives and insights. However, they too have a responsibility to delve into the research findings of the past few decades that have led to contemporary IPCC findings.  Only by doing so will they demonstrate their understanding of the large (and growing) body of research in science, impacts and policy that preceded their recent interest and involvement in addressing climate change and its impacts.

The atmospheric scientists have new responsibilities as well. They too are facing a new and different predicament. As a result of their scientific research and findings, they have been successful at convincing policy, corporate and other decision makers to act on causes and likely consequences of global warming. As a result, most decision makers are now increasingly focused on the potential impacts of climate change. Scientific research remains important for the monitoring and refining of regional and local physical, biological, and (especially) societal impacts. Even more troublesome for climate scientists is perhaps the growing realization that the “war on climate” has now become a “war on energy,” as decision makers ask what global warming means for the economic viability of their countries, regions or organizations.

Fragilecologies Archives
20 November 2008

By Dr. Tsegay Wolde-Georgis & Dr. Michael H. Glantz

African governments are continuing to join the worldwide rush to develop biofuels in response to record oil prices. Their leaders perceive opportunities for their country’s energy security and agricultural revitalization. They also want to transform the source of rural energy supply from biomass away from dung and wood toward biofuels. Some countries plan to benefit from biofuels through clean development mechanisms (CDMs) for climate change mitigation (e.g., reducing carbon dioxide, a major greenhouse gas).

As net importers of petroleum, economies of African countries have often been impacted by high oil prices. African countries also want to benefit from the trade boom expected to result from the mandated use of biofuels in the industrialized countries. The high level of African interest in biofuels was manifested when the African Union and Brazil organized a high-level seminar on biofuels in 2007. Countries such as Kenya, Ethiopia, and South Africa have already started selling ethanol-added gasoline in response to high gasoline prices.

Some biofuels enthusiasts, such as the president of Senegal, are even advocating the creation of a Green OPEC to better coordinate biofuels production in Africa. African governments are creating national biofuels committees and forums to provide guidance to biofuels investors, mostly foreigners. Many governments are providing incentives to biofuels investors, encouraging them to create hundreds of thousands of hectares of large commercial farms to plant feedstocks. There is an assumption that there is plenty of idle land in Africa, and it can be used for biofuel production.

Some African policy makers believe that biofuels will economically benefit the agricultural sector and villages through increased income and energy security. However, biofuels investments so far are based on large-scale commercial plantations. Many farms are also being established with little to no attention paid to environmental impacts. Despite historical domination of African farming by small peasant farms, the biofuels entrepreneurs prefer large commercial farms to assure a reliable supply of feedstocks to refineries. The overarching strategy of the biofuels entrepreneurs is to create a vertically integrated production chain that bypasses the small African farmers.

However, a national biofuels strategy based on large commercial farms might not lead to a realization of rural development, energy security, and increased rural income. This strategy might lead to landlessness, increase rural poverty, and transform African farmers from being small holders to being wage earners on the new biofuels commercial farms.

The large plantations-based paradigm of biofuels development would lead to competition with subsistence farmers and pastoralists for land and water. Some of the colonial and post-colonial land-related rural conflicts during the development of National Parks in Africa might re-emerge, unless precautions are taken to protect the interests and rights of poor farmers and nomads. Considerable care must be taken, so that new “land grabs” do not lead to increased poverty in rural areas.

African countries still have time to retool the implementation of their biofuels strategies. Fortunately, many of these investments are in preliminary stages and actions can still be taken if the willingness exists to reduce unintended consequences to the poor.

Farmers can be made the drivers of responsible biofuels development by making them the growers of biofuels feedstocks such as castor and jatrophia alongside their food crops. Castor is very easy to grow, and jatrophia can be cultivated to rehabilitate degraded environments without taking fertile arable land away from food crops. Farmers can process the beans into biodiesel oil locally in their villages to replace imported kerosene. They can even use biodiesel to produce electricity and sell its surplus oil.

Wild castor plant in Ethiopia, photo by T. Wolde-Georgis

This alternative paradigm, small in scale and village-based, is being experimentally conducted in Mali. Malian farmers had traditionally fenced their crops and gardens with jatrophia, as it is not edible by animals or humans. Jatrophia tolerates drought and poor soil and can live for more than 40 years. The Malian government has been supportive of the work of some NGOs and entrepreneurs who wanted to create a biofuels industry that is village-centered and benefits women and young people. According to the New York Times (September 9, 2007), unlike those who grow feedstocks on huge plantations, the Malian experiment is based on several small scale projects that have the objective of solving village level energy and income problems. The Malian experiment is designed to benefit small farmers in contrast to the experience in other African countries.

African countries can learn from this unique example about the potential of biofuels to provide energy and income security to the rural people. The only fear is a potential land-use shift to plant biofuels that might undermine food security, if farmers in general find biofuels production more profitable than food crops. However, such threat might be minimized by introducing pro-food production land-use policies that discourage biofuels production over a certain amount of land. The experience in Mali is a “teachable moment” that serves to strengthen the goals of African energy independence that is equitable and characterized by a win-win-win situation to all sectors of society, the environment, and the government.

The scramble to grab large tracts of land for biofuels production by local and international biofuels investors in Africa will have unintended socioeconomic consequences, such as landlessness, environmental degradation, conflict, increased rural poverty, and biodiversity.

Even though biofuels will be produced on large commercial farms, African policy makers must conduct open transparent discussions on the implementation of their biofuels strategies and their impacts. They need to investigate the challenges, opportunities, and weaknesses of biofuels development and base the measure of their success on the impacts to the rural poor. When biofuels development contributes to rural energy and food security through increased income, it will increase Africa’s resilience to adapt to the impacts of climate change and other climate-related hazards.

Fragilecologies Archives
13 November 2008

By Dr. Michael H. Glantz and Dr. Tsegay Wolde-Georgis

African governments are continuing to join the worldwide rush to develop biofuels in response to record oil prices. Their leaders perceive opportunities for their country’s energy security and agricultural revitalization. They also want to transform the source of rural energy supply from biomass away from dung and wood toward biofuels. Some countries plan to benefit from biofuels through clean development mechanisms (CDMs) for climate change mitigation (e.g., reducing carbon dioxide, a major greenhouse gas).

As net importers of petroleum, economies of African countries have often been impacted by high oil prices. African countries also want to benefit from the trade boom expected to result from the mandated use of biofuels in the industrialized countries. The high level of African interest in biofuels was manifested when the African Union and Brazil organized a high-level seminar on biofuels in 2007. Countries such as Kenya, Ethiopia, and South Africa have already started selling ethanol-added gasoline in response to high gasoline prices.

Some biofuels enthusiasts, such as the president of Senegal, are even advocating the creation of a Green OPEC to better coordinate biofuels production in Africa. African governments are creating national biofuels committees and forums to provide guidance to biofuels investors, mostly foreigners. Many governments are providing incentives to biofuels investors, encouraging them to create hundreds of thousands of hectares of large commercial farms to plant feedstocks. There is an assumption that there is plenty of idle land in Africa, and it can be used for biofuel production.

Some African policy makers believe that biofuels will economically benefit the agricultural sector and villages through increased income and energy security. However, biofuels investments so far are based on large-scale commercial plantations. Many farms are also being established with little to no attention on environmental impacts, despite historical domination of African farming by small peasant farms. The biofuels entrepreneurs prefer large commercial farms to assure a reliable supply of feedstocks to refineries. The overarching strategy of the biofuels entrepreneurs is to create a vertically integrated production chain that bypasses the small African farmers.

However, a national biofuels strategy based on large commercial farms might not lead to a realization of rural development, energy security, and increased rural income. This strategy might to landlessness, increase rural poverty, and transform African farmers from being small holders to being wage earners on the new biofuels commercial farms.

The large plantations-based paradigm of biofuels development would lead to competition with subsistence farmers and pastoralists for land and water. Some of the colonial and post-colonial land-related rural conflicts during the development of National Parks in Africa might re-emerge, unless precautions are taken to protect the interests and rights of poor farmers and nomads. Considerable care must be taken, so that new “land grabs” do not lead to increased poverty in rural areas.

African countries still have time to retool the implementation of their biofuels strategies. Fortunately, many of these investments are in preliminary stages and actions can still be taken if the willingness exists to reduce unintended consequences to the poor.

Farmers can be made the drivers of responsible biofuels development by making them the growers of feedstocks such as castor and jatrophia alongside their food crops. [ARE THESE BOTH BIOFUELS AND NOT FOOD CROPS? THEN THEY SHOULD NOT BE CALLED FEEDSTOCKS] Castor is very easy to grow, and jatrophia can be cultivated to rehabilitate degraded environments without taking fertile arable land away from food crops. Farmers can process the beans into biodiesel oil locally in their villages to replace imported kerosene. They can even use biodiesel to produce electricity and sell its surplus oil.

This alternative paradigm, small in scale and village-based, is being experimentally conducted in Mali. Malian farmers had traditionally fenced their crops and gardens with jatrophia, as it is not edible by animals or humans. Jatrophia tolerates drought and poor soil and can live for more than 40 years. The Malian government has been supportive of the work of some NGOs and entrepreneurs who wanted to create a biofuels industry that is village-centered and benefits women and young people. According to the New York Times (September 9, 2007??), unlike those who grow feedstocks on huge plantations, the Malian experiment is based on several small scale projects that have the objective of solving village level energy and income problems. The Malian experiment is designed to benefit small farmers in contrast to the experience in other African countries.

African countries can learn from this unique example about the potential of biofuels to provide energy and income security to the rural people. The only fear is a potential land-use shift to plant biofuels that might undermine food security, if farmers in general find biofuels production more profitable than food crops. However, such threat might be minimized by introducing pro-food production land-use policies that discourage biofuels production over a certain amount of land. The experience in Mali is a “teachable moment” that serves to strengthen the goals of African energy independence that is equitable and characterized by a win-win-win situation to all sectors of society, the environment, and the government.

The scramble to grab large tracts of land for biofuels production by local and international biofuels investors in Africa will have unintended socioeconomic consequences, such as landlessness, environmental degradation, conflict, increased rural poverty, and biodiversity.

Even though biofuels will be produced on large commercial farms, African policy makers must conduct open transparent discussions on the implementation of their biofuels strategies and their impacts. They need to investigate the challenges, opportunities, and weaknesses of biofuels development and base the measure of their success on the impacts to the rural poor. When biofuels development contributes to rural energy and food security through increased income, it will increase Africa’s resilience to adapt to the impacts of climate change and other climate-related hazards.

Fragilecologies Archives
28 August 2008

About 20 years ago, President Ronald Reagan, standing before the Brandenburg Gate in West Berlin, called on Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to “tear down this wall,” referring to the infamous Berlin Wall, the symbol of Cold War tensions between East and West. Reagan’s timely challenge ignited the sparks of rebellion that led to the revolution that ended the Soviet era. Photos of people amassing in city squares across Eastern Europe filled newspapers and magazines. And, rightfully, the Berlin Wall came tumbling down.

Ronald Reagan speaking in front of the Brandenburg Gate and the Berlin Wall, June 12, 1987. Source: Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, ID 41244-9.

But not all walls are visible to the naked eye. Not all barriers are made of concrete and steel. In the corporate world people talk about a glass ceiling, a virtual barrier based on some sort of discrimination according to race, gender, age, culture, and the like. In science, an invisible but tremendously effective wall exists between the physical and social sciences. Physical science in general looks down at social science as a soft science, as non-mathematical, as qualitative, second class stuff, easy to master. After all, physical scientists read the newspapers and watch TV. They have feelings and views about societal dimensions of science, but feelings are not the same as research-based, quantitative and qualitative understandings of, say, the interactions among climate, society, and the environment. To adequately understand such interactions requires education and training, as is the case for the physical sciences and the humanities as well.

In response to reactions to the recent dissolution of the Center for Capacity Building (CCB) at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), NCAR management defended its decision by noting that the social aspects of climate are not within its core activities. Thus, the old attitude—we produce science and it is up to the public to figure out how to use it—has reappeared at NCAR and the NSF unit that supports it at a time when most other science organizations around the globe have sought to incorporate social science into their research and application agendas. This raises a much bigger issue.

The collective decision of NSF, NCAR and UCAR (the organization that manages NCAR) to terminate a societal impacts group designed to educate and train at home and abroad strongly suggests that the science bureaucracies of the 20th century (at least these particular ones) are not in a position to address the problems of the 21st century. In other words they are still made up of discipline-based, atomized units and have great difficulty in thinking—let alone working—across traditional disciplinary boundaries. One might argue that such organizations are backing into the future: they are pursuing a “business as usual” scenario when it comes to coping with multifaceted, multidimensional climate and climate change impact issues.

The recently published Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) 4th Assessment has convinced many government and corporate leaders that human activities are playing a role in the warming of the Earth’s atmosphere. The focus of society’s decision makers now appears to be shifting away from the physical sciences (which will continue to further refine data and conclusions) and is moving toward the domain of the social sciences. It is in the social sciences and in the humanities where questions are addressed about how governments and corporations might best mitigate and adapt to the causes and consequences of global warming. In reality, the physical sciences need the social sciences more than ever, because people want to know what a changing climate means for themselves and their families.

Through its actions, NCAR seems to be stating that physical science alone holds the key to coping with climate change, or even working to improve our resilience during typical seasonal fluctuations and weather events. Or, perhaps, NCAR believes that institutions other than itself would be better suited to enter into discussions on how science should be applied in formulation of national policies or should influence individual household decisions when either climate or weather is a factor. In either case, it appears that NCAR, having removed almost all signs of social science research from its programs, is unwilling and unprepared to be societally relevant in the coming years. This is an unfortunate stance for an institution that is supposed to be leading the nation on issues of climate.

So, my plea is to NCAR, UCAR, and NSF: Please, tear down this wall that divides the physical and social sciences so that together they can work together as equal partners to better serve society.

Fragilecologies Archives
11 July 2008

OPEC is the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries; members include Algeria, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Venezuela. The OPEC cartel has considerable control over the price of oil. As a result, when consumers become dissatisfied with the price they have to pay for energy (oil or natural gas), they tend to reduce consumption. The OPEC cartel then lowers its prices to lure consumers back into their old energy use patterns. This also has the effect of reducing interest and investment in alternative energy sources such as wind and solar power. This is the way the cycle has gone… until recently.

Dwindling supply of oil…

There is a lot of talk about “peak oil,” which suggests that oil production has reached its peak, in that few new resources of oil are expected to be found, and that known reserves are all we have lerft to consume. In the meantime, demand for oil continues to rise unabated. This results from economic development pressures and a sharp increase in affluence in populous countries like China and India. Energy users are caught between the blades of the proverbial pair of scissors: dwindling supply and sharp increases in cost.

OPEC is not the only oil-producing cartel. There is a shadow cartel of non-OPEC oil producers, some of which are net exporters and others that are net importers. These countries include Kazakhstan, Russia, Canada, the UK, Norway, Mexico, and China. Though individually they are not major producers of oil like the OPEC countries, collectively they are:

Non-OPEC countries produced 60 precent of the world’s oil (total liquids) in 2004, down from 62 percent in 2003. Since 1970, non-OPEC production as a share of the world’s total oil production reached a high of 71 percent in 1985 and a low of 48 percent in 1973, with a 60 percent average. (Source: EIA Country Fact Sheet)

Those countries are sharing in the windfall profits that arise from escalating oil prices, which are more or less controlled by the OPEC cartel.

With energy costs already high and no apparent price ceiling in sight, other entrepreneurs have gotten into the energy business in a big way. Given the concept of peak oil and given the sharp increase in the price of oil, other forms of oil are back in the spotlight. During the 1970s oil crisis, a lot of attention was focused on Alberta, Canada’s tar sands that are considered to contain humongous oil reserves. At the time, a book appeared about the potential oil entrepreneurs in which the author referred to them as the “blue-eyed sheiks” (P. Foster, 1979: The Blue Eyed Sheiks: The Canadian Oil Establishment). This was to distinguish them from the oil sheiks of the Middle East.

Once again, tremendous interest exists in the commercialization of oil extraction from these oil-laden sands. In the United States, the state of Colorado also has potential oil reserves tucked away in oil shale. These “new” sources of oil are extremely attractive, given what has happened to oil prices in the marketplace, and given that all countries need oil for transport, manufacturing, and for agriculture.

The green-eyed sheik

Today, in mid-2008, we are now witnessing the emergence of what, for lack of a better term, might be called the “green-eyed sheiks.” These are the entrepreneurs entering the oil business through the conversion of biological matter into biofuels. Interest and investment in biofuel production has spread around the globe like wildfire. Many governments, as well as companies, see the potential for relieving some domestic pressure on energy needs by growing their own biofuel. Other governments are getting into the biofuel business in order to make money to enhance their economic development prospects.

Lots of controversy now surrounds bioenergy. Is it causing farmers to shift from food to fuel production? Are entrepreneurs taking over previously unused, often protected, areas like rainforests to produce biofuels? To what extent has the rapid development and expansion of biofuel production abetted the sharp increase in food prices around the globe and the widespread appearance of food riots and less violent forms of protest?

You will notice that to this point no mention has been made about global warming and the emissions of greenhouse gases that result from industrial, agricultural, and land-use practices. Extraction of oil from the tar sands of Canada and the oil shale of Colorado will yield huge amounts of greenouse gas emissions to the atmosphere.

Biofuel production has called into question whether, from a climate impacts standpoint, there is value to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Corn for ethanol production now seems to have moved from being a good crop to a bad crop, just on its global warming potential alone.

The image comes to mind, when it comes to energy issues, of people re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic: a ship that is destined to sink regardless of how well arranged the chairs become. It appears that there is great resistance to confronting the energy crisis head on, from a climate standpoint. Countries need energy to function. Alternative energies are still not taken seriously by most governments, even though an all-out war on dirty greenhouse-gas-producing energy sources in favor of truly cleaner solar and wind energy, for example (and even a serious all-out approach to conservation) is one war that could likely be won.

There seems to be an energy version of a good old-fashioned high-school-style food fight going on right now, and instead of the school cafeteria, the battleground is Planet Earth. Brown-eyed sheiks have to make room at the energy planning table for both blue-eyed and green-eyed sheiks.