Jon Christensen has an interesting article in the April-June issue of Conservation in Practice that comments on the Damascene conversion of some ecologists, including perennial Baba Yaga paul Ehrlich, to a more informed and reasoned understanding of natural systems. The key was getting a clue about economics.

“If someone had told me in 1970 that I would be close friends with a bunch of economists, I would have thought they were out of their minds,” says Ehrlich. “Economists seemed like the enemies.” . .

If you step back for a moment, this isn’t so strange. After all, both disciplines are concerned about the same place. “Eco” comes from the Greek word “oikos,” meaning house. To get our house in order will require better accounting on both sides of the equation: ecology and economics. What’s strange is why it took so long for them to talk to each other.

With a more realistic understanding of economics it became possible for some ecologists to abandon the old doom and gloom framework of fixed assets and the miserly mind set this produces. (see Miserly Values for previous discussion).

It turns out that even we with our Priuses and SUVs and venti lattés might not be consuming too much, as long as we are investing enough in the future to ensure that generations to come enjoy standards of living at least as high as ours. And that suggests that we might be worrying way too much about how much we consume and far too little about how to invest in the poorest regions of the world, many of which are home to some of the earth’s greatest biodiversity as well as its most desperate people. . .

. . .their “sustainability criterion” is not that difficult to grasp. It simply requires that “current consumption be consistent with future generations enjoying standards of living at least as high as the current one.” . . .

In the United States, the United Kingdom, and China, the Askö group found genuine wealth to be increasing (although less robustly in the U.S. than in the U.K. or China); thus, the sustainability criterion was satisfied. In sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, and North Africa, they found genuine wealth to be decreasing at alarming rates. India, Pakistan, Nepal, and even Bangladesh were found to be borderline. Changes in some assumptions could easily push them one way or the other.

This is a dog-bites-man story for those who have been paying attention for the past few decades, notable chiefly because Baba Yaga has recanted. This is something like the recent scandal Stewart Brand caused with his Environmental Heresies essay (see Cool Hunting). Both can be seen as part of the death of paleo-environmentalism and the failure of the movement approach to environmentalism.

Still, there are problems. Neither the economists nor the ecologists have sufficient grasp of their subject to quantify and extrapolate such a complex subject. They don't have data about the current state of things or even a robust grasp of the factors so it's far too soon to place much confidence in their projections. Even if they had the data they don't yet understand system relationships at a level needed to model confidently.

The economists take great pains to emphasize the limitations of the data when it comes to things that ecologists have long advocated. Outside of forests, which were included in their equation, there are critical forms of natural capital not yet included in the calculations. . .

The local effects of ecological changes, the economists acknowledge, could also cause ecosystems to cross what ecologists call “thresholds.” Unlike markets, which almost invariably react in a linear fashion to changes (as prices rise, demand falls), ecosystems often react in nonlinear ways (a small change in nitrogen can be the tipping point that shifts a lake from clear to clogged with algae). . .

The economic services that ecosystems provide to people are also not yet included in the formula, Arrow says. These would include the services that wetlands provide by controlling floods and that insects provide by pollinating crops and controlling pests, to name just two that make huge contributions. . .

The economists also worry about what they call “shadow prices.” This evocative label conveys what it costs to compensate for losses of natural capital with investments in other forms of capital such as human resources through education, or built capital such as businesses and industry. It generally takes a bigger investment because shadow prices are higher than market prices. They include many environmental costs or “externalities” that aren’t seen in market prices.

This isn't a problem though so much as a sign of improving health, like the itch of a healing wound. We don't know what's going on but at least we have abandoned the childish certainties of past decades based on sophomoric projections. Ehrlich's Population Bomb thinking - the miserly ideas of fixed assets needing frugal consumption and a tyrant to divide the loot "fairly" - is understood now by all but the most backward thinkers to be nonsense. We are asking better questions so we may get better answers.

Some of the article discusses the difficulties of doing this kind of interdisciplinary work. The lead author of the effort, Kenneth Arrow, is no stranger to this sort of thing so perhaps the work will continue and expand to include those with a useful grasp of technology. In my view this is a significant defect of the current work and will help provide answers to some of the open questions. They need folks like Cosma Shalizi and Bill Tozier (or their nominees, they know better than I who would fit the group).

» Scrooge Reforms from Crumb Trail
Be sure to read Jon Christensen's feature article in Conservation in Practice, Are We Consuming Too Much?. It turns out that even we with our Priuses and SUVs and venti lattés might not be consuming too much, as long......[read more]
Tracked: June 4, 2005 02:43 PM