capstone: climate change cofc spring 2011 p. brian fisher
Post on 19-Dec-2015
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TRANSCRIPT
Vids
Jon Stewart on Renewable Energy
Michele Bachman (US Rep, R, Minn) on Global Warming Hoax
Carbon Emissions Facts
Per person emissions: 4.6 metric tons or 10,000 pounds of CO2 per individual.
American: 26 metric tons African: 0.9 metric tons
45% of CO2 from human activities stays in atmosphere; 55% absorbed by sinks.
US Home today has 4 times the space a home did in 1950—emissions growing at 2%/yr
Transportation—also growing 2%/yr (China/India)
Country Emissions
US historically responsible for 30% of all emissions, and 20% of annual emissions
China’s emissions growing at 10% annually
China passed US in total emissions recently (2006-2008)
UK: 6% historically b/c of ind rev, but now 2%.
Measures of Emissions
1. Total CO2 Emitted (by country), Annually
2. Total GHG Emitted (by country), Annually3. Total CO2 Emitted per person, Annually
4. Total GHGs Emitted per person, Annually5. Historic GHG Emissions, by Country6. Historic GHG Emissions, per person7. Country Contribution to Temperature
Increase8. “Carbon Intensity” (by country)
GHG Intensity of Economy
2005
“Carbon Intensity”
The ratio of carbon emissions produced to GDP.
“Bush Plan”: Called for 18% reduction in CI by 2012.
However, CI dropped by 17.4% between 1990 and 2000.
China’s CI dropped 47% during ’90-’00 while emissions
increased 39%
GCC: Global Scale Problem
Global biophysical system (e.g. climate, oceans, ozone), but fragmented international political system.
Inhibiting Solutions: Nations (through acts of their citizens) create environmental problems at the global scale, and yet solutions must be created through this same fractured global political system.
“We live in world fragmented by political divisions of sovereign states,” but “reassembled by pervasive flows of people, goods, money, ideas, images, and technology across borders.”
Primary (Historical) Drivers of Environmental Change
Environmental change has resulted from: 1) massive population increase: both from
increased consumption of earth’s resources and our ecological footprint (straining earth’s carrying capacity)
2) rapid technological innovation: permits massive extraction and exploitation of resources
3) an explosion in energy use: 1 & 2 facilitate energy use, complemented by elite discourse promoting consumptive behavior
4) economic integration: promoted through globalization (Fordism) led to mass consumerism and the “growth imperative”
Globalization of Environmental Threats
ITEM Increase Factor 1890-1990
Global Population 4
Urban PopulationGlobal Economy
1314
Industrial OutputEnergy UseCoal ProductionAir PollutionCO2 emissionsSulfur dioxideLead emissionsWater UseMarine Fish Catch
401675
171389
35
10 Drivers of Environmental Degradation
1. Population increase (but “gross abstraction”, felt locally)
2. Affluence (leads to heightened consumption)
3. Technology (can avoid environ costs; “progress”; who owns?)
4. Poverty (1/2 world lives less than $2/day)
5. Market failure (consumption of ‘nature’s capital’ as income)
6. Policy/political failure (not big/small, but changing capacity)
7. Economic growth (scale/rate) (most imp idea of 20th C.)
8. Nature of economic system (Neoliberal)9. Culture and values (US) (anthropocentrism &
contempocentrism—present over future)
10. Forces of globalization (vs. Sustainable Development)
Consequences of Human Activities
UNEP (p. 132): “Human activities are progressively reducing the planet’s life-supporting capacity at a time when rising human numbers and consumption are making increasingly heavy demands on it. The combined destructive impacts of a poor majority struggling to stay alive and an affluent minority consuming most of the world’s resources and undermining the very means by which all people can survive and flourish.”
2 Driving Forces of Environmental Change: 1. Overuse or misuse of resources2. Increases in pollutive outputs (mercury, GHGs, CFCs, Toxic Chems, etc)
This has led to affluence (in the North) without responsibility for the consequences:
1. underwritten by the degradation of people (South and lower classes in North) and land, biosphere, and environment.
2. While in the South, factors such as increased population and low technology also caused environmental stress.
So, many scholars see that environment problems are tethered to larger social, moral, ethical issues in which these environmental problems are embedded.
Global Environmental Concerns
1. Ozone Depletion: ’87 Montreal Protocol2. Climate Change: ’92 FCCC (at Rio)3. Desertification: ’94 Conv Combat Desert4. Deforestation: None5. Biodiversity Loss: ’92 CBD (at Rio)6. Population Growth: None—Plan at Cairo ’947. Freshwater Sources: Conv on Non-Navigable
Uses of Int’l Watercourses—not in effect8. Marine Environment Degradation: UNCLOS9. Toxification: Basel Convention int’l toxic waste
- Stockholm Convention (’00) on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs)
10. Acid Rain: Conv on Long-Range TB Air Pollution (EU)
Hardin’s ‘Tragedy of Commons’
Def’n: areas beyond the sovereignty of any nation which produces a conflict b/w individual and the common good over resources and protecting spaces.
EXs/ Oceans, subsoil, atmosphere, outer space,
Antarctic
‘Tragedy’: It’s rational to use, which leads to exploitation, of these areas without reciprocation or regeneration Positive : the herder receives all of the proceeds from
each additional animal Negative : the pasture is slightly degraded by each
add’l animal
Interconnection of Issues
Global Enviro Challenges are complex and have multiple causal and consequential pathways.
For Example, deforestation is an environmental degrading outcome, but it is also a cause of global warming, biodiversity loss, and desertification. In turn, GW and desertification (acid rain, toxins, ozone depletion) contribute to deforestation.
Environmental issues are also linked with Economic ones (e.g. globalization of trade, commerce, transportation has increased fossil fuel use leading to greater enviro damage.
IPAT
Environmental Impact = Population * Affluence * Technology
I = P A T
Population: Size of human popAffluence: level of consumptionTechnology: processes designed to transform raw materials
* Ex/ (P doubles * A (per cap income) triples = 6 fold increase in CO2 emissions. If only 4 fold increase, then technology mitigating factor
Insights: 1. Population is part of problem2. Enviro probs are more than pollution3. Enviro probs driven by multiple factors that compound
Best applied to: Air pollution and Climate Change (IPCC)
Core of Environmental Problems?
Top 20% in world income consume 85% of its wealth and produce 90% of its waste
Simple Explanation: Although environmental problems are not new in themselves, industrialization and rapid population growth, technology have greatly increased the scale and intensity of the over‑exploitation of natural resources and environmental degradation, generating a wide range of urgent international and global problems.
Factors beyond I=PAT
Elite powerbrokers/nations erected new politics, ideologies, and institutions predicated on these ideas/principles.
Harnessing fossil fuels played a central role in widening int’l wealth & power
RESULT: 1. More environmental degradation than any pt in history 2. More inequality between humans than any pt in history 3. More complexity to problems themselves 4. Ideology that technology is part of “progress” that will save day; abstraction
of nature
• Global Policy since 1950 has been an emphasis on:1. faster economic growth “growth fetish”2. Increasing power in fewer hands3. Profit motive bottom line of corps4. lack of true cost accounting--enviro costs not
included--it is treated as public good and thus exploited
5. Unregulated economic globalization without concern for social and environmental consequences