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The third key challenge is the environment. Several key issues have been identified. They are: adverse ecosystem impacts on biodiversity, land, fisheries and nutrient cycling. Limits to physical growth as expressed by natural resource depletion. The possible long-term impact of greenhouse gas emissions on global warming and climate change. The possible long-term impact of carbon dioxide emissions on ocean acidification. And the generation of large waste streams with insufficient treatment and natural recycling capacity. The checked issues are discussed in the following slides.
The issue of nutrient cycling is unfamiliar to most though not difficult to grasp. In the pre-modern era, the environment operated as a nearly closed loop. Vegetation grew on land which was consumed by animals. They were consumed by humans. Living organisms produced waste and died-off. Almost all of the dead matter containing minerals and organic material returned to the land to be used as the building blocks in new organisms. A very small amount of minerals and organic material dissolved into water and was carried out to sea. This loss was balanced by erosion which added new minerals to the land via flooding. The result was a sustainable ecological system.
Humans have disrupted this ecological system. Minerals and organic material in human waste is not returned to the land. Instead, it is deposited in landfills or flushed out to sea. Reuse and recycling is helping to decrease this mode of waste handling, but it is still the dominant mode of handling waste. This system of waste disposal rapidly depletes the soil so mined minerals are used to replenish the minerals lost to the soil. This system is not sustainable. Eventually, the mines will run out of minerals.
The solution: humans must re-institute the former closed loop nutrient cycle in order to regain sustainability. This is not a call to “get back to nature.” In order to feed the over nine billion people predicted to be alive in the middle of the 21st century, lots of technology will be required. But the agricultural system must be designed to be sustainable.
A related but more general issue is the limits to growth – physical growth, that is. Back in economist Adam Smith’s day, the earth’s resources were, for all intents and purposes, limitless – if humans could find a way to exploit them. Today, the earth supports ten times as many people as it did back then. And each human uses roughly ten times the amount of “stuff” that they did back then. That means that roughly one hundred times as much “stuff” is being used as was being used back then. Although the book Limits to Growth was released during the 1970s when commodity prices soared, it modeled a collapse in the 21st century, not the 20th century. This is shown in the “business as usual” model scenario which shows a maximum in living standards being reached in the early 21st century with a subsequent fall-off such that living standards in 2100 are little different than those in 1900. The earth’s population reaches a maximum soon after living standards and declines as well. This is the characteristic behavior of “growth and collapse” dynamics. Such dynamics are seen elsewhere; financial bubbles are an example.
The way to avoid the collapse is to reduce material and energy throughputs as quickly and deeply as possible. This reduction must be done before it becomes apparent that it is needed. In other words, it cannot be done by waiting for a market signal because by the time the market signals trouble, it’s too late and the collapse is inevitable. Those who object to this need only look to the stock market bubble and real estate bubble for recent examples from the American financial markets. In both cases, by the time the markets signaled trouble, the collapse was unavoidable. “Fortunately (in a perverse way), there is so much waste and inefficiency in the current global economy that there is tremendous potential for reducing the ecological footprint while still maintaining or even raising the quality of life.” The result is shown in the “sustainable” model scenario which shows that both the standard of living and population can be maintained at the current high levels.
The market should not be left out of the solution. But it will have to be a market suitably modified to accomplish objectives set by non-market analysis. The non-market analysis must be conducted with humility, interfering with free choice as little as possible.
There are three possible policy positions when it comes to global warming. The first policy position, “apocalypse near,” anticipates a large temperature rise from anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions and severe environmental stress. It recommends a crash program in order to minimize GHG emissions as soon as possible. The global cost of a crash program would be trillions of dollars more than the other positions. The second policy position, “a long-term problem,” anticipates a much smaller temperature rise from anthropogenic GHG emissions. A gradual weaning off of GHG emissions and adaptation where needed is recommended. The third policy position, “it’s the sun,” points to solar activity, cosmic forces and other phenomena as being responsible for climate variability. It recommends no action because the impact of anthropogenic GHG emissions is too small to make a real difference. The position of this book is that reality is probably between “it’s a long-term problem” and “it’s the sun.”
The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) seems to have a very narrowly-focused view on greenhouse gas emissions; in particular, carbon dioxide released via the utilization of fossil hydrocarbons. By doing so, it appears to overestimate the impact of greenhouse gases by ignoring or minimizing other causative factors. An alternative view believes that the main driver of global warming and climate change is solar and/or cosmic forces. These forces activate secondary forces; for example, the release and absorption of greenhouse gases from the oceans and terrestrial organic matter. The release and absorption of greenhouse gases acts as a positive feedback loop, slightly amplifying the baseline temperature change due to solar and/or cosmic forces. This positive feedback loop takes centuries to play out. This model seems to fit the historical facts better. However, humans are now affecting the atmosphere in a way they have never done before by releasing large amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
The position of this book is that historically, solar and/or cosmic forces drive global warming. Atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations are driven by solar and/or cosmic forces and amplify the change in temperature by a relatively small amount with a time lag measured from several centuries to one thousand years. Although the effect of greenhouse gases on temperature is weak, the massive amount of greenhouse gases emitted by man now and in the recent past independently of this natural cycle could have caused a small temperature rise of approximately 0.4°F or 0.2°C. The best estimate using actual data extrapolated using “business as usual” assumptions is an approximately 2.5°C rise by 2100. This is likely to be worst case because limited supplies of fossil hydrocarbon may not allow this amount of warming to be realized. The solution to this particular issue is the same as the solution to the limits to growth: reduce the utilization of fossil hydrocarbons as quickly and deeply as practical. Humanity must be able to adapt to both global warming and global cooling. There is still a concern about the ability of marine life to adapt due to the high rate of change imposed by anthropogenic CO2 emissions.
Slides
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