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Fragilecologies Archives
27 June 2008

During the 1800s and 1900s, biopiracy (unlabeled as such at that time) was alive and well. Exotic plants and animals were taken from their natural habitats in distant places and brought to the metropolises and put into laboratories or zoos for research, display, or science. This practice, though illegal, continues to this day and is referred to as biopiracy. Rubber is a good example: Europeans actually stole rubber plants from Southeast Asia and smuggled them to England. Eventually, this led to the development of synthetic rubber, which had an adverse impact on the natural rubber sector.

There are many other examples: pyrethria from the Sudan is used in insecticides; periwinkle flower from Madagascar is used in medicine to combat childhood leukemia. You get the picture. Plants are taken from the South to laboratories of industry in the North where they are studied and, in many cases, important discoveries are made. The original country of the plant’s origin receives almost nothing of the profits made “downstream.” The discovery might in some cases have been related to existing local knowledge. The pharmaceutical company makes millions.

Now fast forward to the present, and then project into the future. Traditional biopiracy was about making discoveries and making money. The new version of biopiracy in the 21st century could prove to be even worse. Some countries are buying up tracts of land overseas in order to secure enough food for their own people. China is doing it. So too is Saudi Arabia. Dubai, too. These countries are short of arable land at home and are seeking ways to increase their national food supplies.

In the 1950s, geographer Georg Borgstrom wrote about “ghost acres.” He was referring to the dependence of countries such as Japan on taking protein (fish) from the oceans to supplement the country’s food supply. If the same amount of protein had to come from cultivated land, Japan would need to be a lot bigger than it is. Buying outright, renting, or borrowing land (maybe labor too) in other countries to produce food for home consumption is another variation of “ghost acres,” getting the needed protein from wherever you can.

The country (usually a richer one) using another country’s land (usually a poorer one) for its own food production seems to me like a new form of exploitation or even colonialism.
The process is in its beginning stages for a variety of reasons. For example, some countries with large populations, growing in number and especially in affluence, do not have enough of their own fertile land to feed their citizens.

Food is like energy, in that governments seek to be self sufficient in both of these commodities. Given the shift in use of cultivable land from food production toward biofuel production to meet energy needs, and the increasing prices for food (meat, eggs, and milk, for example), along with the sharp worldwide increase in demand for and price of fossil fuels (oil, coal, and natural gas), this may be a process of exploitation of poorer countries by the richer developed and developing ones.

37 meters (1,104 feet) tall smokestack

Maybe the history and fate of the tall smokestack in the United States has relevance here. The tall smokestack was developed to move nearby pollution away in smokestacks high above the ground to be captured by winds to more distant locations. The effluent was carried great distances across cities, states, and international borders, to be washed out in rain onto another territory, which became a victim of distant polluters. Those distant places eventually got wise, complained, and passed laws to get rid of tall smokestacks. As a result, pollution once again became a local problem and therefore demanded local solutions by local policy makers.

By analogy, one could argue that it is the responsibility of national governments to work out their energy and food security through trade and/or aid to supplement their own efforts to attain the levels of food and energy needed to meet their development prospects.

This “land-grab” is not only happening across international borders but is also taking place within national borders as well. For example, the timesonline (UK) recently reported “Biofuel gangs kill for green profits.” The article’s author, Tony Allen-Mills, wrote about the following hair-raising process:

“Yet the trend [toward environmentally friendly energy] has already had disastrous consequences for tens of thousands of peasants in rural Colombia. A surge in demand for biofuels derived from agricultural products has unleashed a chaotic land grab by a new breed of gangster entrepreneurs hoping to cash in on the world’s thirst for palm oil and related bioproducts. Vast areas of Colombia’s tropical forest are being cleared for palm oil plantations. Charities working with local peasants claim that paramilitary forces in league with biofuel conglomerates — some of them financed by US government subsidies — are forcing families off their land with death threats and bogus purchase offers… They simply visit a community and tell landowners, “If you don’t sell to us, we will negotiate with your widow.” [www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article1875709.ece]

Picture of board game (members.aol.com/wergames/myhomepage/landgrab.jpg)

I had thought that the days of colonialism and of imperialism were well on their way to extinction. Maybe not, in light of the rich countries’ insatiable demands for food and fuel and the developing world’s search for foreign exchange (money) as well as for ways to improve its development prospects.

Fragilecologies Archives
17 June 2008

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

In early June 2008, the UN FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations) convened an HLC — a “High Level Conference on Food Security, Climate Change and Bioenergy” (really, biofuels). It was designed and convened with the best of intentions in mind; that is, to address global warming’s likely impacts on food production and supply. However, as the expression goes, “the road to hell is often paved with good intentions.”

FAO wanted to highlight a real global threat about the growing level of food insecurity worldwide. Food security or insecurity has been a constant concern for decades but the recent renewed surge in interest in food insecurity worldwide has seemingly been sparked by two industries on which all countries depend: agriculture and energy. Scores of heads of state and government ministers from around the globe were present for this event. The interest in the HLC was pretty high, given the growing worry about rapidly increasing food and energy prices. Food prices, however, have been rising for some time.

Now that the HLC is over, it is pretty clear that the FAO did not get what it wanted. While it wanted a conference on food security, climate change and bioenergy, the conference became an international forum on high prices for food and for energy. There was little room left for discussion of climate change. Sharp increases in energy prices in the marketplace have turned the attention of governments to the perceived value of expanding biofuel production in order to relieve pressure on domestic energy demand and price, as well as to export them to energy-deficient countries.

Reprinted with permission from Chris Madden at www.chrismadden.co.uk

Everyone saw this as a win-win situation for farmers and energy-hungry consumers. Brazilians have been using sugar cane for biofuels since they began their ethanol Program (Proálcool) in 1975 and are doing so successfully. More than 20% of Brazilian cars can now run on 100% ethanol fuel using ethanol-only and flex-fuel engines. Brazil’s president said in his comments at the opening of the HLC that “ethanol from sugar cane gives off 8.3 times more energy than is needed to produce it, while for corn the ratio is 1.5 times” (www.bloomberg.com).

Other countries such as Indonesia have begun to get into the biofuel production game. There, apparently the government allowed tropical rainforests to be destroyed and replaced by palm oil plantations, with palm oil to be exported as a fuel to distant places such as Europe. The European Union has since announced that it will not allow Indonesian biofuels to be imported in the Union if that biofuel was the result of rainforest destruction. The official target for the EU is to consume 5.75% of biofuels for transportation by 2010, and most of it has to be imported from tropical countries.

Another surprising unintended consequence of biofuel production has been the 60% increase in the cost of food products around the globe since 2007, driven as much by speculators as by the rising cost of production. Corn (maize) is now being grown for use as energy and not as feed for chicken and cows, for example. As a result, the price for poultry and meat has risen sharply, along with that for eggs and milk as well.

High food prices mean that the poor will have greater difficulty accessing various foodstuffs, available in the marketplace but unaffordable to them. Food riots have already taken place to protest sharp increases in the cost of food; in Mexico and Egypt, among other places. In Mexico, as one example, where tortillas are a staple food, the sharp rapid rise in the price of tortillas has prompted protests in the country. Once again it will be the poor who are most affected, as an increasing perecentage of their income will go to food as well as to fuel.

Early interest in biofuels was based on their serving as an alternative energy source that was also environmentally friendly. By that, we mean that biofuels have been considered to emit lower levels of carbon dioxide (a greenhouse gas linked to the heating up of the Earth’s atmosphere) than traditional fossil fuels emit. Ethanol from corn, once seen as the darling of biofuels, now appears to have become a bad thing, in that recent studies show that they are responsible for more carbon dioxide production than traditional sources of energy from fossil fuels. Bill Gates, for example, has been steadily dumping his holdings in Pacific Ethanol, a major ethanol-from-corn facility, because this source of energy is no longer considered environmentally friendly.

Recent weblines gathered by Michael Glantz regarding biofuels (June 2008)

Nevertheless, corn production, especially when it is subsidized by government, continues to shift to biofuels, which reap higher profits than food for direct or indirect consumption. Even in this era of high food prices, many leaders of developing countries are drafting strategies on how to cultivate their land with biofuel feedstocks to respond to the demands of the developed countries instead of growing food grains to meet their MDGs (Millennium Development Goals).

Back to the FAO’s High Level Conference. No declaration was issued on biofuel production, use, or value as an alternative environmentally friendly fuel source, despite demands from many humanitarian organizations such as Oxfam. More study was called for as a compromise to the factions for and against biofuels. This was not an unexpected response by governments seeking to identify cheaper sources of energy to fuel their economies, either by domestic use or by earnings from biofuel exports. After all, governments are at first nationalistic long before they become humanitarian or environmental.

On the food security issue, a farce was made of the proceedings by the presence of Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe. Mugabe has turned Zimbabwe from being a land of milk and honey (a land of plenty) into a land of hunger and poverty. To garner political support he gave away mostly white Zimbabwean commercial farms in 2000 to an army of his cronies and divided up large tracts of fertile productive farms into smaller subsistence units of production.

What we got from the HLC are platitudes about feeding the poor and meeting the MDGs. More interestingly, attendees even got a lecture by Mugabe on the need for food security; a lecture by a president who destroyed the ability of his countrymen to produce enough food for domestic consumption, let alone for regional export. Perhaps Mugabe’s major negative impact on the HLC was that he got more press coverage than he merited. He helped to dilute the focus sought after by the FAO.

Zimbabwe in the 1980s and 1990s was a major food exporter to southern Africa. It has become a food importer. In other words, Zimbabwe has moved from being a breadbasket to a basket case. Without food aid from abroad, hunger and famine would surely rule the day. Mugabe is hell-bent on staying in power, as are his generals. If he goes down, they go down. Hence they are all digging in as they prepare to steal the election runoff as they did with the general election. The world watches in awe but not in action.

[N.B.: Actually, there was a fair amount of truth in much of Mugabe’s speech to the HLC. But to those who know about how his policies have destroyed the ability of his citizens to produce enough food for subsidence, let alone surplus, his speech read as if it was coming from Mugabe describing an out-of-body experience; that is, as if he were an objective observer as opposed to being the perpetrator of a failed agricultural policy for his country.]

The problems of the 21st century seem to have overwhelmed the mechanisms for dealing with them. The good intention to highlight the need for the international community to pay attention to the fragility of the global food situation (food chain, really) was undermined by competing ever-pressing national interests. Ecologist E.O. Wilson identified them as “ignorati” (those leaders who have chosen to ignore existing food problems, so they can focus on other short-term, personal gains in the political and economic realm).

We will all pay for this intransigence and the level of “ignore-ance” that currently prevails with regard to the climate-energy-food insecurity nexus. The globe is on a downward spiral in terms of food, the environment, and security. We are not sure that the way our leaders are chosen will provide much hope for reversing that spiral.

The underlying question is: Can we turn an era of “declining expectations” fostered by our governments into an era of “rising expectations” filled with hope for the future?

Fragilecologies Archives
28 April 2008

http://www.dfid.gov.uk

All societies are vulnerable to climate, water and weather shocks, and many are vulnerable at much lower levels of such perturbations. The ability to withstand such perturbations all depends on their socioeconomic, political and cultural conditions at the point of time of the shock; in other words, the state of society at the time of the perturbation determines vulnerability. Yet, not all societies are in a condition that allows them to rebound quickly or correctly from the impacts of a climate, water or weather disturbance. Two key factors that affect vulnerability are (1) a society’s adaptability, and (2) its resilience.

Resilience can be viewed as the ability to “bounce back” in a timely way from adverse impacts and shocks.  Adaptation refers to voluntary or forced adjustments by societies as they deal with the impacts of a changing and variable climate.

Adaptation can either be reactive (stimulus – response) or proactive (anticipation – response). Adaptation has numerous operational definitions. As a result, there are several words that have been used to capture what it means in various contexts. Here I use adaptation in the following way: as a term referring to the ability to adjust to new information and experiences. Learning is essentially adapting to a constantly changing environment. Through adaptation, we are able to adopt new behaviors that allow us to cope with change.

Despite the media headlines that most often focus on the negative impacts of anomalies, history suggests that most societies are resilient most of the time when it comes to responding to the impacts of climate variability and extremes. They have also been resilient in the face of slow, incremental changes in seasonality (characteristics of the seasons) by making trial and error adjustments to subtle, as well as obvious, changes in temperature, rainfall and humidity. For all societies, however, there are limits (or thresholds of change) beyond which they are unable to retain their level of resilience.

http://www.unesco.org/

“Resilient adaptation” is borrowed from the field of psychotherapy. In psychotherapy, it is designed to assist individuals during their formative years to engage in social activities that foster an ability to better cope with personal and social change. Here it is modified in an attempt to improve societal understanding of climate change impact assessments. Its goal is an encouraging one. Applied to the climate change issue, resilient adaptation borrows the strengths of each of the concepts – resilience and adaptation. The former is focused on the more distant future, while the latter is focused on the near-term future.

Resilient adaptation can help societies as well as individuals (perhaps even civilizations) to face more effectively an uncertain climate future. Such climate change will also be accompanied by changes in variability from season to season, year to year and decade to decade, as well as changes in the intensity, duration and location of climate related extremes. As adaptation measures in the form of strategies and tactics are increasingly being proposed to cope with a warming atmosphere, those measures must be evaluated not only for their near-term benefits, but for their longer-term implications as well.

Resilient adaptation complements the concept of the “precautionary principle”, a principle that serves as an early warning about how to proceed in the face of potential unknown environmental changes and impacts that might take place as a result of human activities. Resilient adaptation is another way to remind planners about the precautionary principle. Planners need to consider the downstream ramifications of the impacts of their plans to cope with a changing climate. The most widely used description of the precautionary principle is found in Article 15 of the Rio declaration of 1992:

In order to protect the environment, the precautionary approach shall be widely applied by States according to their capabilities. Where there are threats of serious or irreversible damage, lack of full scientific certainty shall not be used as a reason for postponing cost-effective measures to prevent environmental degradation. [http://www.earthethics.com/precautionary_principle.htm]

Resilient adaptation, as a guiding principle, can provide a way for government decision makers to maintain planning flexibility while addressing climate change-related impacts that remain unclear at the local and regional levels, especially when it comes to rainfall changes. It is also an attempt to keep planners’ eyes open toward the future adverse consequences of adaptation efforts by enabling them — and the heads of states they serve — to develop flexible, timely and appropriate adaptation, mitigation and prevention policies against the worst consequences of global warming.

Non-resilient adaptation

Non-resilient adaptation is another way to refer to mal-adaptation. It encompasses adaptations to climate change that may appear to be appropriate in the short term but turn out to have been a poor choice in the mid and long term. Such maladaptive practices may be pursued through ignorance. However, not infrequently they are pursued with the knowledge that they will turn out poorly in the not-so-distant future. Perhaps the most recent example of what has been perceived as both a mitigative strategy as well as a strategy for adaptation is the rush to produce biofuels. Grains of various kinds are being diverted from food consumption to use as sources of energy.

For example, the apparent rush to acceptance by governments to produce biofuels from food crops in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to address their domestic energy problems (availability, cost access) has caused them to overlook the implications for food security, domestically and internationally. Also overlooked are the impacts of expanded biofuel production on increasing the cost of various food and fodder prices in the marketplace.

http://www.neutrec.com/

At first, it looked as if the proverbial goose that lays golden eggs had been found.  But it soon became clear that there was a competition between food for human and livestock consumption – and those food grains are being converted into fuel to run vehicles. In addition, increasing levels of affluence in some major developing economies has heightened consumption of grain-fed meat products, as opposed to directly consuming the grains. The price of grains in the marketplace has risen sharply as supplies have become relatively lower or as speculators hoarded supplies and increased the costs in local markets. Land is being taken away from food production and rainforests were chopped down to plant more favorable biofuel crops, e.g., oil palm plantations.

Today there are protests, as well as violent riots, in various parts of the world demanding lower food prices and more food availability in the markets. Even though there is grain to be sold, prices have climbed to levels that have put food out of the reach of the poor.

Another example of a potential non-resilient adaptation to climate change is the call by high-ranking scientists, including a Nobel Laureate, to inject into the stratosphere, high above the earth’s surface, sulphur dioxide in an attempt to mimic the impacts of an erupting volcano in order to cool down the earth’s atmosphere for several years by reflecting the sun’s rays back to space. This process would have to be repeated. However, recent studies have suggested that such an attempt to geo-engineer the global climate system would result in a side effect of a continued thinning of the Arctic ozone shield.

Planners must identify the possible knock-on effects of the adaptation measures that they propose.

“Resilient adaptation” thoughts

It is hard enough to forecast the behavior of humans when they have been given a set of viable options. Forecasting the future of global climate is even more challenging. Yet, many researchers believe that they can forecast the behavior of the climate system. Although we can rely on past records, trends and persistence to get us through the day, longer-range projections have considerably less reliability. Often those forecasts turn out to have been erroneous by a sizable degree. To take this a step further, it takes a lot of hubris to claim to project accurate responses to unknown events, of unknown intensities, in specific places at some undetermined time in the future.

For example, while closely monitoring a naturally occurring event such as the 1997-98 El Nino, the “El Nino of the Century”, we were unable to identify its rapid onset, its magnitude and its rapid demise.

On the other hand, it is relatively easy to identify societal vulnerabilities in the face of changing environmental conditions. We have witnessed society’s vulnerabilities to deforestation, desertification, aridification, toxic pollutants, nuclear disasters and the like. Now we are trying to identify changes in existing vulnerabilities to climate change, i.e., global warming of the Earth’s atmosphere This is a daunting but do-able task, given the known societal and human weakness. Less easy is our ability to identify societal resilience. Perhaps true resilience can only be identified after performing a variety of tests from natural or socioeconomic shocks to a system.

As suggested at the beginning, all societies have a degree of resilience, but none is 100 percent resilient, just as none are 100 percent vulnerable. The problem for a society is to use its knowledge and its best judgment about where to build and maintain resilience, with the hope of being able to respond effectively (i.e., “resiliently”) to the climate shocks it may have to face as a result of global to local climate changes.

Although proactively identifying adaptation strategies for changes in climate and its impacts that are expected (but not assured) remains a risky endeavor, that should not be a reason to take no action to prepare in some way for those potential impacts. However, such strategies and tactics must be undertaken with the uncertainty of correctness in mind. What might be correct in the short term might prove to be incorrect in the longer term. Hence, there will always remain a need for “mid-course” corrective action to adjust adaptation measures that had been implemented in previous times. It is imperative to remain vigilant about changing conditions and the need to periodically review adaptation practices. In this regard, the notion of “resilient adaptation” serves as an explicit reminder to do so.

Fragilecologies Archives
21 March 2008

By Dr. Mr. Ashutosh Mohanty : Guest Editorial
Researcher, Utkal University, India & SC-99 Team.

Orissa, a province under the Indian federal government system, is situated on the western coast of the Bay of Bengal in the eastern part of the country, 480 km in length. Its coastline is rich in natural resources and minerals and is the homeland of millions of strugglers fighting against acute poverty and food insecurity. The mostly inhabited indigenous tribal people, Dalits (Socially deprived sections/Schedule Caste) and other backwards communities are dependent on traditional agricultural practices, small livestock rearing, agro-forest-based activities and daily wage earning as their means of sustainability.

With a glorious historical and cultural heritage, a vast source of unexploited natural resources and millions of skilled and unskilled workforce await a successful direction to ensure their participation in the mainstream of current development. Yet the people of this region are ready to welcome “another experiment” after the huge failure of the previous ones. Of course, “we are leaving today to see a better tomorrow” and the people of this territory are hopeful to do so….

With alarming records of starvation, sale of newborns for food, evidence of health epidemics due to consumption of unhygienic wild food (for example: Cholera in Koraput and Rayagada Districts during 2007) and a huge exodus to other parts of the country in search of work opportunities, the provincial government is unable to understand the realities on the ground.

Agriculture is the major source of livelihood for people in Orissa, but here it is said that “agriculture is the gamble of the monsoon.” Due to factors like global warming, climate change and rapid forest depletion, annual rainfall has become erratic over the years and drought-like situations have made farmers the most affected victims. Moreover, crop management has remained a basic problem for the people who usually use a traditional variety of seeds. Different advanced agricultural technology is hardly used, leading to reduction in production year after year.

As for livestock, people rear cows, goats, pigs, hens and ducks. The local breed of such animals is resistant, but their production capacity is very low and the farmers do not get any financial benefit. It is solely utilized for self consumption purposes with little ability to sell them during emergencies.

In the western and southern parts of Orissa, forest plays a major role in the life and livelihood of the people. The indigenous people collect different forest produces like mahua flowers and seeds, tendu leaves, sal leaves, different kinds of roots (kanda), tamarind, berries and so on from the forest, for both self-consumption and to sell. But their saga of exploitation by the local traders and middlemen is disheartening. The innocent indigenous people do not have any idea about the market system and market rates fixed by the government for forest products and they sell their collection for some paltry amount. Moreover, different policies and paraphernalia of the government have forced them to sell their collection to the middlemen with very low price without entering in to any routine process that protects the seller.

Source: Kasinath, 2008 Orissa, India

These poor tribals are preparing the degraded forest land for cultivation. They are hoping for a good harvest but, looking at the land’s condition, the outcome can easily be predicted if no rain falls.

Source: Kasinath, 2008 Orissa, India

Watching the status of crops, the harvesting/production rate can be easily assessed. The farmers in the tribal regions of Koraput are facing food insecurity due to low yields.

According to Dr. Maxine Olson, the United Nations Resident Coordinator, food availability in Orissa is fairly comfortable, yet food insecurity is chronic and the state has been placed in the category of the“severely food insecure” regions. An Orissa Human Development Report says that one of the most significant factors in food insecurity is access to the Public Distribution System (PDS), and its limited utilization by the poor. The lack of purchasing power to buy food, even at public distribution system rates and the distress sale of whatever food surpluses exist are the main reasons for the starvation deaths in the backward Kalahandi-Bolangir-Koraput Districts (KBK) region. This is true because the trader-government nexus determines the entire network of grain procurement and distribution. It emphasizes the following: the need for strengthening the targeted PDS schemes and targeted nutritional interventions; suggests measures like empowering local communities to manage risks and uncertainties of food access through grain banks run by villagers; and the development of productive resources like land, water and forests.

Source: Kasinath, 2008 Orissa, India

An NGO worker is discussing with the tribal community at Koraput District the reasons for food insecurity in order to develop a strategy to ensure food security under a World Food Programme (WFP) supported project.

The National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGA) has generated a ray of hope among the people to receive an assured income of 100 days in a year, which once again has not achieved its target. Schemes like the Integrated Rural Development Programme (IRDP), the Swarnajayanti Gram Swarozagar Yojana (SGSY), the Prime Minister Rozagar Yojana (PMRY) and many other government-led programmes are lagging far behind expectation; that is, to challenge poverty and maintain food security. The major player in this situation is the lack of awareness or understanding, and illiteracy of the people. Callousness of local self-governance mechanisms and government officials also add fuel to the problem, making people more vulnerable to poverty and food insecurity.

When we make compare the coastal and tribal belts of the province of Orissa, though the coastal belt has better scopes for agriculture and can provide food security to the people in comparison to the other tribal regions, occurrence of recurrent disasters like floods, and cyclones, at regular intervals often breaks down the backbone of the people and creates havoc in the food security. During the past two decades (barring the year 1993), Orissa has witnessed one or another type of disaster almost every year.

It has been seen over the years that food security has been the major concern in development. So, there is a great need among civil society and the developing world to establish a better and hunger-free world.

Let us consider this as an invitation to the global community to join hands with the people of Orissa to make this ground as their testing laboratories for experimentation of good practices available across the world for the cause of greater human interest.

Fragilecologies Archives
25 February 2008

Chinese translation by Hope at HIT (Harbin Institute of Technology) in PDF

There is a big controversy brewing, and it is going to get much bigger. The controversy centers on whether to grow crops for food and livestock feed or to grow them for conversion to fuel: that is the question. It sounds like an easy problem to solve, food vs. energy. Pick one. However, societies need both. This is an ethical issue, if not now, then in the not-so-distant future. Rich societies can have both food and energy. Poor ones cannot — unless they make sacrifices.

http://psdblog.worldbank.org/photos/uncategorized/2007/09/20/biofuels_vs_food_3.jpg

Following such a shift in the use of productive land from food to biofuel production, there would be a cascade of mixes of wins and losses, benefits and costs. And there is strong evidence to suggest that those who “win” from this switch in land use are likely not to help those who “lose.” There are many views on both sides of this issue, depending on one’s perspective. One problem for those of us who are not experts in either food or energy is that each of the competing arguments — in favor of using good agricultural lands for either food crops or for biofuel production — is convincing; that is, convincing until you hear the arguments from the other side.

It is highly plausible that unraveling and clarifying the various aspects of the controversy will not make the decision-making process any easier, but it will help to expose the interconnectedness of food-biofuel-environment interactions.

A root cause of the problem is the high cost of petrol. If petrol prices were not so high (and increasing), it is likely the movement into biofuels would have remained pretty unspectacular. Governments need energy to keep their economies running and growing. At the same time, there are heightened fears about global warming resulting from the burning of fossil fuels, fertilizer use and land-use changes, such as tropical deforestation. Concern about global warming and a chance to save or make money from biofuels has prompted many governments to launch crash (that is, hurried) programs to produce them for domestic use or for export. Some countries focus on converting corn to ethanol (USA), while others focus on sugar cane (Brazil), and still other focus on oil palm (Indonesia). To do so, the land on which to grow this stuff has to come from somewhere and, where there is no suitable land available, food producing areas (as well as nature preserves) become candidates for takeover by relentless pressure on government from the biofuel producers.

An obvious — and not unwarranted — fear is that expanding the amount of land devoted to biofuel production will create a “zero-sum” conflict over land for food production. A zero-sum conflict means that biofuel production gains will be accomplished by the loss of some degree of food security. Biofuel entrepreneurs and other proponents argue that is not the case. They argue that there is available land not presently used for food production that could be used to produce biofuel crops.

Others argue that the problem is not about choosing food versus fuel production, but it really centers on poor (inequitable) distribution of food between those who produce food surpluses and those who need food but are at some distance from where it is produced or to or to purchase it in the marketplace. If it is not a food shortage problem but one of distribution of existing food supplies, then it is not necessary to be concerned about  a “fabricated” conflict between food vs. fuel needs.

www.celsias.com/

Given that most productive land is either already in production, has been set aside for biodiversity protection, or is in forest cover, it appears likely that the desire for benefits right away (increasing exchange earnings from “growing fuels”) will override any serious concerns about the negative consequences on society’s food needs, on the price of food in the markets, and on the environment in the not-so-distant future. The question then turns to the impacts on food security of a shift from the use of land for food or for fuel crop production.

A comment prepared by a spokesperson of the Foundation for Alternative Energy in Slovakia summarized the situation as follows:

The argument should be analyzed against the background of the world’s (or an individual country’s or region’s) real food situation of food supply and demand (ever-increasing food surpluses in most industrialized and a number of developing countries), the use of food as animal feed, the under-utilized agricultural production potential, the increased potential for agricultural productivity, and the advantages and disadvantages of producing biofuels.

(www.seps.sk/zp/fond/dieret/biomass.html).

There is an argument that there is enough food produced around the globe to supply the world’s population with sufficient nutrition. In theory, that is correct. At the same time much of the food grown in surplus areas goes unsold and is destroyed. The problem is distribution, moving from where it is grown to where it is needed. But the same can be said of lots of commodities — especially water. Because the US Pacific Northwest is a relatively wet area does not relate in any way to the fact that there are constant water shortages in the southeastern US or in other dry parts of the globe, such as the West African Sahel or other parts of sub-Saharan Africa. In theory, water can be shipped, like food, in containers, but who is willing to pay for such shipments from the haves to the have-nots?

There is considerable trade in food and feed, with such shipments responsible for the emission of greenhouse gases. The same will be the case for the production and export of biofuels. Of course, many of the problems related to food — production, trade, aid and nutrition — preceded concern about global warming. Today, however, global warming can be used as an excuse to reduce food and grain shipments from the rich countries to the poor, as the rich countries and the elite in the developing countries cash in on the windfall profits from biofuels.

It is clear that biofuels have had unintended side effects. For example, in the USA using corn to produce biofuels has led to an apparent increase in animal feed, prompting an increase in the cost of meat, milk, and eggs. The point is, as American Ecologist Barry Commoner said in 1971, “there is no free lunch”. And with biofuels it seems that the poor, among others, will pay as global warming continues to increase, as biofuels address only a small portion of the cause.

Fragilecologies Archives
16 November 2007

A recent headline in the tongue-in-cheek weekly American newspaper The Onion read as follows: “Fall Canceled after 3 Billion Seasons.” When I saw the headline, I laughed out loud. The headline is funny, and it was meant to be, but it represents the tip of the global warming iceberg (to mix a metaphor).

The article was headlined as being from Washington, DC, and started off as follows:

Fall, the long-running series of shorter days and cooler nights, was canceled earlier this week after nearly 3 billion seasons on Earth … The classic period of the year, which once occupied a coveted slot between Summer and Winter, will be replaced by new, stifling humidity levels, near-constant sunshine, and almost no precipitation for months.

The termination of a season or, more dramatically, the death of a season — Fall, for example –should raise eyebrows everywhere. Stated like a headline, a season that disappears after 3 billion years makes me wonder about what else related to the seasons (to which we have become accustomed) will disappear. In the past decade, I have heard that the ice on various lakes in the northern central United States is no longer strong enough to support ice fishermen and their equipment. I have also heard that cross-country skiing in the same region has all but disappeared, but for a few weeks or so remaining of the region’s expected months-long winter season.

Ski seasons in the western United States have become more variable, and this year, 2007, snow-making machines are being used to generate snow cover so that resorts may be able to open on time, or maybe open at all. The problem is that over the past few decades, winters have in general become drier and warmer in this region. Rainy seasons have become less so, not necessarily abruptly but incrementally over time. In other words, the seasons are shifting and changing almost imperceptibly, but over time those changes are accumulating to become more visible as they trend toward crises. Multiyear droughts in Australia and in the southeastern United States have generated discussion about the aridification of these regions, and some observers are linking such changes — in intensity and frequency in weather and climate extremes — to global warming. Is the climate of the Earth trending irreversibly toward the characteristics of what might amount to a perennial, everlasting Summer?

This is an aspect of the consequences of global warming that faces humanity: changes in the growing seasons’ lengths as well as precipitation timing and amount; changes in the snowfall season, the rainy season, the hunting season, the fishing season, the water season, changes in timing of and increases in vector-borne diseases, and so forth. Speculation about the foreseeable impacts of climate change is virtually boundless.

These changes will affect settlements worldwide in ways that most communities are just beginning to think about: chronic water shortages worldwide (as in the Eastern Congo), recurrent and prolonged drought (as in Australia and Southeast US), an increase in the number and frequency of famines, and perhaps a shift in their locations, and a shortening or lengthening of local and regional climate, water, and weather-related hazards.

From www.yaysports.com/nba/wp-content/uploads/sos.jpg

Hints of permanent seasonal changes have not been a major concern, so it seems, of societies. In fact, people are moving all the time to different locations, so on a personal level they often undergo a climate change. (My own mother moved from the cold and wet northeastern United States to the hot and arid southwest upon retirement, and a few years later she moved again to the hot and humid southeast. She lived in three totally different climates and managed to adjust, but she had the mobility, the family network, and the financial resources to do so.)

Settlements, cities, megacities, and entire societies (and perhaps even civilizations) may not be so lucky to adjust in a timely way to changes in climate, water, and weather-related hazards and their impacts. Whereas my mother could choose a climate type (and with it, known hazards) to her liking, settlements are not so mobile and cannot choose the type of regional climate and weather that will result from a warming of the atmosphere.

The Onion concluded its article on the end of Fall in the following way: “Though thousands have signed Internet petitions to save Fall, and protests have been scheduled throughout the week, many are skeptical that they will ever see the temperate season again.”

Fragilecologies Archives
12 November 2007

For the past several hundred years, humans have been on the attack with regard to their desire, attempts, and apparent successes to transform Nature to meet their needs. Societies want Nature to behave in predictable ways. They have embarked on all kinds of activities to get Nature to heel, in effect making it a lap dog to human ingenuity. The fact is that societies have been pretty successful, at least in the short term, in modifying Nature to benefit humanity. A good example is the irrigation of arid lands to produce food and fodder, or the draining of wetlands for economic development reasons.

Former Soviet Union leader Nikita Krhrushchev once said, in the 1950s, that the Soviet Union could not wait for Nature to provide its bounty to society. Society must take it from Nature. At the time, this was viewed as a clear expression of a Communist Party leader but, in fact, it represents the view of many leaders over the centuries, right up to the present day.

Today, though, uncontrolled environmental changes seem to be occurring globally, as well as locally, around the entire globe. This brings into question humanity’s age-old attitude toward our relationship with the environment. It is becoming increasingly clear that we do not control Nature but have only managed to influence some parts of it.

At the onset of the Third Millennium (the 21st century), Nature appears to be striking back at society. The Arctic sea ice is melting at rates not previously witnessed by humans. Glaciers around the world are melting at unprecedented rates, prompting feedback mechanisms that are acelerating the melting. Heat waves seem to be increasing in number, frequency, and intensity in unusual places (e.g., San Francisco). Tropical storms also appear to be on the increase, if not in numbers then in intensity, a likely result of warmer sea surface temperatures in various parts of the world’s oceans, and so forth. Now we hear that the earth’s atmosphere is the warmest it has been since the end of the last glacial period, 12,000 years ago.

What has happened is that Nature, once a captive of society, has turned the tide against civilization and now society has become a captive of Nature. This is an analog for a B-grade movie plot where people who have been taken as hostages by their captors managed to free themselves, turning the tide, and capturing their captors!

Societies are at great risk and this has all the earmarks of being more than a reversal of fortunes. It is much longer lasting than that. We know that the residence time of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is on the order of many decades up to as long as a century. As a result, even if all anthopogenically produced (i.e., human-caused) greenhouse gas emissions were to cease today, previous emissions have “condemned” the global climate to at least another degree Celsius of warming and therefore to the adverse impacts of that additional warming, on top of the warming that has already taken place since the early 1900s.

If societal behavior is any indication, all signs point to continued emissions of greenhouse gases into the foreseeable future, as one of the major producers — the United States (which is responsible for about one-fourth of global emissions) — has refused to sign onto the Kyoto Protocol itself, which was a plan to start to limit such emissions. China and India will become carbon dioxide-emitting superstars in the near future, if they have not already achieved that status. They are not ready to forego development prospects, at least not yet, for the sake of trying to slow down global warming.

I have always kept in mind an image that I saw in the center of Vienna, Austria: a solid concrete wall in the midst of which, several feet off the ground, was a small sapling, the seed of which had opportunistically taken root in a hostile human-built environment. Since then, I have been drawn to look for such examples everywhere: grass growing in the cracks of pavements, on the tops of mosques in desert regions, and so forth. These realities caused me to realize that Nature will survive long after people have perished from the Earth’s surface. It should be obvious that Nature does not need us. However, we, individuals as well as civilizations, cannot survive without the natural world.

The reversal of fortune is humanity’s: we are now the hostages to Nature’s wrath.

Fragilecologies Archives
1 October 2007

There is a tsunami-like rush to get on the climate change bandwagon. It seems that everyone and his mother is clamoring to be associated with or touting himself or herself as an expert. I am not sure why. It is likely a combination of factors. Was it the comments in the media by NASA scientist James Hansen about how global warming is human-induced and that the Bush Administration had tried to silence him on several occasions? His story as a scientific David taking on the global-warming-skeptic Giant (President Bush) has been told in print and on the nightly TV newscasts.

Then again, maybe it was Al Gore’s global warming documentary, “An Inconvenient Truth.” Despite some challenges by a handful of skeptics in America to Gore’s use of some scientific facts, the movie was an international success. I personally have seen and heard of instant conversions in different countries in the belief of the human contribution to global warming from ìnon-believer” to “convinced.” Clearly, the documentary has had a profound impact on many people (though, I must confess, I did nod off a few times).

And then we must consider what the impact has been of the findings of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) Fourth Assessment (April 2007). This assessment asserts that there is a high probability that human activities are responsible for enhancing the naturally occurring greenhouse effect.

Whatever was the true catalyst for the sea change in the belief that humans are heating up the atmosphere and that the Earth is in Peril (the title of a CNN documentary special), people, governments, and regional organizations are now ready to march in lock step to address head-on the problem of global warming.

They have come to realize that climate change is not just another ordinary environmental problem confronting them, such as is urban air pollution, acid rain, soil erosion, deforestation, desertification, or mangrove destruction. Global Warming is in a category of its own. It is the mother of all environmental problems confronting civilizations today. Though not all countries or civilizations have contributed to it equally, all are sure to feel its effects.

The skeptics, however, have not given up, or at least they will not say so publicly. They publish books attacking global warming proponents, with such titles as “The Satanic Gases” and “Skeptical Environmentalist.” However, in the world of publishing scientific journals, especially in Science or in Nature, the skeptics have not produced papers that have passed peer review. There are occasional cries from the skeptics about how they cannot get their papers published in liberal journals.

It is interesting to watch the informal skeptic coalition come apart, holdouts notwithstanding: BP defected a while ago; Toyota too, followed by many other industries and corporations, and among the most recent defections (at least in words) is the arch-enemy of the global warming yea-sayers, Exxon (headline):

January 12, 2007

ExxonMobil Cuts Support for Skeptics

And now articles are appearing from skeptics who have changed their minds in favor of the idea that human activities are responsible for much of the global warming witnessed in the past century. One former environmental skeptic wrote,

Politics polluted the science and made me an environmental skeptic. Nevertheless, data trumps politics, and a convergence of evidence from numerous sources has led me to make a cognitive switch on the subject of anthropogenic global warming (M. Shermer, “The Flipping Point,” ScientificAmerican.com, May 22, 2006).

You know, there are probably still in existence somewhere on the globe people who believe that the Earth is flat, that the Antarctic ozone hole is a good thing because it will let out all the hot air from global warming (this was an actual response in an environmental questionnaire), or that there was no Holocaust during World War II. So, how much more effort needs to be expended by the believers in global warming to convince non-believers and their followers?

My belief is that success in converting nay-sayers into yea-sayers is no longer worth the effort. Scientific data is overwhelmingly on the side of the yea-sayers, and with each observation and report about changes in a wide range of sensitive ecosystems, it is increasingly so – period!

It is now up to the skeptics who are beginning to waiver to keep an open mind as they peruse the numerous incoming observations and reports on global warming. It is time to move on from over-focusing on scientific uncertainties and refocusing on scientific certainties. Human-induced global warming can no longer be viewed analogously as a glass of water half-full and half-empty. A preponderance of evidence suggests that the liquid in the proverbial glass favoring human-induced warming is well above the 50 percent mark, while the unfilled portion of the glass is now well below 50 percent.

Time seems to have run out on the skeptics’ ability to forestall action to combat global warming, as well as defections from its ranks by those who do not want to take the risks associated with global warming ìbusiness-as-usual” scenario. Move on, skeptics. Move on.

Fragilecologies Archives
21 August 2007

You just have to love it. Here we are in the midst of a rapidly changing atmosphere (thanks to human activities that produce heat-trapping greenhouse gases), with dire consequences becoming more dire by the month. Meanwhile, some people, corporations, and governments are jockeying around for the best advantageous economic position in a warming global climate regime.

The analogy that comes to mind would be a hypothetical situation involving the fateful demise of the ocean liner, the Titanic. For example, the word is out that the ship has been hit by an iceberg and is at an increased risk of sinking, sliding slowly into the coldest waters on the planet. Lifeboats are being filled under triage conditions with young kids and women getting seats in lifeboats first. That is the main action beginning to take place onboard.

Authentic deck chair from the Titanic

Off to the side, however, are a few people who are busy fighting over ownership of a limited number of deck chairs. Securing a deck chair ensures its occupant of getting a panoramic view of icebergs and of what is likely to be the sinking of the vessel they are on. Those clamoring to get off the ill-fated ocean liner are the distant-future lookers. Those fighting for deck chairs are obviously taking the shortest term view by focusing on the immediate future.

Who are those people (guys actually) who are squabbling over the proverbial Titanic “deck chairs”? Sadly, in this analogy they represent several leaders around the globe. The most recent example is that of Russia’s President Vladimir Putin’s claim for territory under Arctic ice. As used to be the case in the Age of Exploration, the planting of a flag could constitute a claim to territory in the name of a king, emperor, or country. Putin apparently sent two ocean submersibles to the depths of the Arctic Ocean in order to plant a titanium Russian flag, claiming what until now had been seen as an out-of-reach, seemingly useless, continental shelf extension. With a human-induced or enhanced global warming melting the Arctic ice, the shelf becomes more accessible and therefore more desirable for exploitation of oil, gas and any other minerals that might be discovered.

The Russian act of flag planting and claim of sovereignty caught other Arctic countries by surprise. To date no one has made such a specific blatant undersea land grab, not that they had not thought about it! After all, people are people and human nature ultimately rules. When there are no formal rules to follow, greed seems to trump many other emotions.

Interestingly, the Canadians and the Americans, among others, seem to be salivating at the prospects of an ice-free, navigable Arctic Ocean. It was reported early in 2006 that several non-Arctic countries were building all-season polar icebreakers: China, Great Britain, South Korea, and South Africa. Goods could more easily be shipped from the Atlantic to the Pacific and vice versa, a route that would be several thousand miles shorter than through the Panama Canal. All this to take advantage of the short-term benefits that a global warming would provide.

Alaskans who receive cash benefits to the person from the oil Alaska exports to an oil hungry world are among the first to suffer from the effects of global warming. Yet, they still want even more oil to be extracted, sold and burned which ultimately puts more heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere. As the permafrost thaws increasing amounts of methane enter into the atmosphere as well. And the Alaskan downward spiral of well-being continues.

Winners and Losers

About 20 years ago, when I first raised the issue of “winners and losers” in climate change, two agencies supported my international workshop on the topic. Their support for the workshop, held in Malta in 1990, led to one UN funding agent being reprimanded and the other American funding agent being fired. Then, the idea that there might be winners is a global warming scenario was not to be discussed, at least not in a public forum. Perhaps the concern was that if the winners in global warming (the industrialized countries) were the same ones causing the harm to others (making them losers) then those benefiting from the harm that was caused to others would be liable along the lines of the “polluter pays” principle. Only a few years later in the early 1990s it became acceptable to talk of winners as well as losers resulting from a human-induced globally warmed earth. Such an obvious issue could not be covered up for long.

Now, twenty years later, corporations as well as governments and researchers are actively and openly positioning themselves as global warming winners. To be fair, the Russian claim for North Pole oil and gas was not the first such move; discussion of warm water ports around the Arctic nations has been going on for some time. This is symptomatic of the myopic nature of policy makers, to be short-sighted even as the specter of catastrophe looms large on the horizon.

With such claims being made on Arctic sea bed resources, can the Antarctic treaty really hold off any similar “oil, gas, and mineral rush” (analogous to a “gold rush”) once a rumor of the existence of such a resource circulates. Sad as it is, it will likely get worse, as governments and political leaders seek advantage from a warmer climate instead of tackling sources of climate change head on!

It is a sad day in the 21st century when a political leader such as Putin can unilaterally attempt to make such a land grab that results from human induced global warming, the same global warming that will cause massive forest fires in Russia’s Far East, dry up parts of the country, and melt its permafrost. Is it a sign of the state of international politics (a country seeking to reclaim a dominant role in history) or is it a sign of the stupidity factor in human nature? Maybe it is a sign of both. Napoleon is dead but Napoleonic desire for conquest apparently is not.

American novelist Ernest Hemingway once produced a book title, “Winner Takes Nothing.” The truth seems to be that those who seek to take advantage of the short-term beneficial consequences of climate change can be considered “winners” in some sense. The reality, however, may be that in the long run, “climate change winners take nothing,” as long-term devastation wouldwide will overshadow the sum of those short-term worldwide gains.

With respect to climate change, we need to rethink what exactly it means to be a loser and perhaps more importantly, what it means to be a winner on a hotter planet with an uncertain hydrologic cycle.

NB: the title of this editorial was inspired by 2 works: a musical called “Oh What a Lovely War” and by R.K. White’s classic work on the origins of World War I, “Nobody Wanted War”, but they had the war anyway.

Fragilecologies Archives
18 August 2007

You say “El Niño” and I say “interannual changes in the sea surface temperature in the tropical Pacific Ocean. ” Oh, let’s call the whole thing off!

El Niño was an unknown natural phenomenon until the early 1970s, at least as far as the general public and most scientists were concerned. Since the early 1970s, when a significant El Niño event adversely affected the Peruvian economy, the ripples around the globe from the event reached as faraway as the consumers in Japan , Europe and the USA. An increasing number of scientists since the 1972-73 El Niño have been attracted to the science of El Niño and to the study of its impacts on rainfall and temperature in regions around the globe. Changes in regional rainfall and temperature in turn had impacts on ecosystems and societies. There was a sharp increase in that interest with the impacts of “The El Niño of the Century”, the 1982-83 El Niño. This increase was further heightened with the next “El Niño of the Century” in 1997-98.

Personally, I consider the ’72-73 El Niño as the El Niño of the scientists, the 1982-83 event as the El Niño of the governments and the 1997-98 El Niño as the El Niño of the public.

In the early 1980s, two scientists developed the now well used acronym, ENSO, a combination of two processes: (1) changes in sea surface temperatures in the tropical Pacific Ocean along the equator and (2) changes in sea level pressure (representing the atmospheric component) across the tropical Pacific called the Southern Oscillation. In the late 1980s an oceanographer popularized the label La Niña, as a quick reference to the so-called cold phase in sea surface temperatures that recur in the central Pacific following an El Niño (referred to sometimes as a warm event): some have referred to La Nina as El Niño’s sister, its mellow twin, or its opposite.El Viejo was used during the 1980s but has simply not gotten any traction.The name anti-El Niño was used for a while in the late 1970s for the cold phase, but was dropped for lots of reasons: for example, if El Niño is named after the Baby Jesus, then anti-El Niño is the anti-Christ!

The fact of the matter is that the scientific community embarked wittingly or unwittingly on a mission to make El Niño a household word as a way to warn people and governments, as well as educate the public, about the consequences for societies and for managed (e.g., agriculture, fisheries) and unmanaged ecosystems (e.g., coral reefs, forests), and this has worked as evidenced by the media response to the 1997-98 El Niño.

After a few decades of relentless references to El Niño and more recently to La Niña by the media and by scientific researchers interviewed by the media, the advocates for generating awareness about and name recognition of El Niño can claim an overwhelming success. What that means is that people know the name “El Niño” even if they do not yet understand what the physical nature of it is. They are aware of potential impacts, global as well as national. The media loves El Niño, because it makes for great banner-type headlines: it has a shock value to the reader.

After 30 or so years branding the air-sea interactions in the tropical Pacific with the label El Niño, scientists want to replace this term with a true picture of what the term El Niño really refers to: “interannual changes in sea surface temperature in the tropical Pacific.” In essence what they are saying is that “Now that we have your attention folks, we want to change the game plan.”

It is true that El Niño — the phrase — does not really capture what the process is. Originally it referred to an oceanic current anomaly that occurred every season off the coast of Peru and Ecuador. Later it was found that the phenomenon extended to much of the tropical Pacific Basin. In addition El Niño’s impacts do not always occur with each event and must be expressed in probability terms, probability terms that the public tends to misunderstand. Scientists understand probabilities, as do sophisticated users of “El Niño” information.

For example, El Niño is part of a quasi-periodic oscillation, meaning that it has no regular periodicity. Events can recur any time from 2 to 10 years apart. They come in different sizes, intensities and cause different sets of worldwide impacts. They can compete with other (normal) variations in the weather and so they may or may not cause similar impacts in the same place in consecutive events of similar magnitude.

El Niño occurs about a quarter of the time, La Nina another quarter and “neutral” a bit less than half the time. What then is the scientific community to do? And what then is the public to do if the scientists are not agreeing on various aspects of El Niño?

Putting El Niño back in the variability box

Today, some researchers want to come up with a phrase that more accurately represents what we now call the ENSO cycle. In reality, El Niño is another form of climate-related variability and the process has a degree of forecast potential for the event as well as for its foreseeable impacts. Hence, they want to get the community to stop using the words El Niño or La Niña (and to stop using warm or cold event as well) in order to identify a new, more representative descriptor of the air-sea interactions in the tropical Pacific. This campaign is not just for the public. It is for researchers as well as they too need to be re-educated about how best to talk about the state of tropical Pacific air-sea interactions.

A workshop is being organized in 2008, so that scientists can discuss how best to capture in a brief statement these physical processes in the air and in the sea. The ultimate goal is to develop a widely accepted way to talk about this phenomenon known as El Niño to the general public, decision makers and the media.

Yet, the process of de-branding a physical process (for example, getting rid of El Niño) and putting in its place a different brand (yet to be chosen by scientific consensus) is not an easy task. It may even be impossible. Why not accept the fact that there are scores of El Niño definitions designed to fit the needs of different societal interests? This would be similar to the way we treat the concept of drought, which means different things to different people. When these terms are used, the context in which they are used needs to be made explicit. Look up most words in the dictionary and you will find that a word can have several different meanings. It is the context in which it is used that identifies its use.

Discussing definitions of popular concepts for the sake of clarification can turn into a fruitless task. Take the example of the “Greenhouse Effect.” The phrase is not an accurate representation of the Earth’s atmosphere but when people hear it mentioned, they have a general idea of the processes at play, despite its inaccuracies. The process of trying to de-brand a popular concept may be enlightening to those involved discussing it and it may make for new friendships, as most workshops or conferences do. But, at the end of the day, the choice to be made by people on the street and people in decision-making positions will still be between “El Niño” or some phrase like “interannual changes in sea surface temperature in the tropical Pacific Ocean.”