No, we don't need five planets

[Vanguard1917]

A good article by Bjorn Lomborg discussing the fallacious yet highly widespread eco-notion that we would need multiple planets if the developing world were to have living standards as high as those in the West.

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No, we don't need five planets
Bjorn Lomborg | April 15, 2009

Article from: The Australian (http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/)

ACCORDING to conventional wisdom, we are voraciously using the world's resources and living way beyond Earth's means. This narrative of decline and pessimism underlies much of today's environmental discourse and is often formulated in a simple fashion: by 2030, we will need two planets to sustain us, owing to higher living standards and population growth. If everyone managed to live at American living standards today, we would need almost five planets. But this received wisdom is fundamentally wrong.

Environmental campaigners use the so-called ecological footprint - how much area each one of us requires from the planet - to make their point. We obviously use crop land, grazing land, forests and fishing grounds to produce our food, fibre and timber, and we need space for our houses, roads and cities. Moreover, we require areas to absorb the waste emitted by our energy use. Translating all these demands into a common unit of physical area gives us an opportunity to compare it with Earth's productive area, and thus to get a sense of how sustainable we are.

For more than a decade, the WWF and several other conservation organisations have performed complicated calculations to determine individual footprints on the planet. Their numbers show that each American uses 9.4ha of the globe, each European 4.7ha, and those in low-income countries just 1ha. Adding it all up, we collectively use 17.5 billion hectares.

Unfortunately, there are only 13.4billion hectares available. So the WWF points out that we are already living beyond Earth's means, using about 30 per cent too much. And it will get worse. It tells us that the recent financial crisis "pales in comparison to the looming ecological credit crunch", which could presage "a large-scale ecosystem collapse".

This message is being seared into the public consciousness. The British newspaper The Observer used the headline "Wanted: New Earth by 2050"; according to the BBC, Earth is "on course for eco-crunch"; and The Washington Post, horrified by the four extra planets needed, urges us to use more canvas shopping bags and energy-saving light bulbs.

The message has been received loud and clear. We are using up too much of the planet's area.

But wait a minute. How can we do that? How can we actually use more area than there is on Earth?

Obviously, any measure that tries to aggregate many different aspects of human behaviour will have to simplify the inputs; the ecological footprint is no different. For example, when we talk about American lifestyles needing five planets, we assume that technology is frozen, whereas it is likely that worldwide land-use productivity will increase dramatically. Likewise, organic farming leaves a larger footprint than its conventional cousin.

Yet, despite such shortcomings, it is clear that areas we use for roads cannot be used for growing food and that areas we use to build our houses take away from forests. This part of the ecological footprint is a convenient measure of our literal footprint on Earth. Here, we live far inside the available area, using about 60per cent of the world's available space, and this proportion is likely to drop, because the rate at which the world's population is increasing is now slowing, while technological progress continues. So no ecological collapse here.

There is just one factor that keeps increasing: our carbon emissions. It is not at all obvious to anybody how to convert CO2 to area. The WWF and some researchers choose to get around this by defining the area of emissions as the area of forest needed to soak up the extra CO2. This now makes up more than 50 per cent of the ecological footprint and will grow to three quarters before mid-century.

In essence, we are being told that we ought to cut emissions to zero, and to plant trees to achieve that, meaning that we would have to plant forests today on 30 per cent more than all of the available land, and plant forests on almost two planets by 2030. This is unreasonable.

Is it really necessary for us to cut all emissions? Just cutting about half of all emissions would reduce greenhouse gas concentrations in the medium term. More important, planting forests is one of the least area-efficient, technology-intensive ways to cut carbon. Solar cells and wind turbines require less than 1per cent of the area of forests to reduce CO2, they become increasingly efficient, and they can often be placed on non-productive land (such as wind turbines at sea and solar panels in deserts). Measured this way, the scary eco-crunch disappears.

Due to technology, the individual demand on the planet has already dropped by 35per cent over the past half decade, and the collective requirement will reach its upper limit before 2020 without any overdraft.

Translating CO2 into an illogical and inefficient measure of forest cover seems intended mainly to ensure that an alarming message results.

In the scientific literature, a leading modeller acknowledges that most modellers regard this method as "hard to defend". Two other research teams have pointed out that the ecological footprint "itself is nothing more than an important attention-grabbing device" and that "it is less a scientific measure than one designed to raise public awareness and influence politics".

When we really examine the ecological footprint calculations, we discover that the only thing the world is running out of is space to plant a colossal amount of imaginary forest that we wouldn't have planted anyway, to avoid CO2 emissions that we can prevent through much smarter and cheaper means.

That our profligate consumption requires five planets is a catchy story, but it is wrong. The planet we have is more than enough.

Bjorn Lomborg, director of the Copenhagen Consensus Center, is an adjunct professor at the Copenhagen Business School.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25335161-7583,00.html

[apathy maybe]

We wouldn't need five planets if we had less people...

Also, Bjorn Lomborg "has no training in climatology, meteorology, or the physical sciences, but is trained in the use of mathematics and statistics in the social sciences."1 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bj%C3%B8rn_Lomborg) He's a political scientist. (Not that there is anything wrong with being a political scientist, I dream of being able to make money from my degree.)

(Bjorn Lomborg also accepts that climate change is happening, and is caused (at least partly) by human activities.)

OK, I accept that we don't need five planets. We can have one planet, with 30 billion people, and they could all be feed, and so on. We can have a high standard of technology, etc. etc.

However, there won't be much natural environment left to feed this system, biodiversity is going to be way down. Humans don't need dolphins in the sea, or Asian elephants, polar bears, or monarch butterflies. People in North America are doing just fine without huge herds of buffalo (bison), and without any passenger pigeons at all, what so ever.
So yeah, screw the environment, let's have more people!

[ZeroNowhere]

A good article by Bjorn Lomborg
So nothing out of the ordinary, then? :D
Anyways, I believe I had made a thread on this a while ago. Glad to see somebody make an article on this kind of thing saying something other than, "Oh jeez look at this carbon footprint even I have to work on shaking off my consumerist habits!" or such tosh. Seeing as we had had to do one of these in school, as did some friends overseas, it seems that they're being taken far too seriously (or maybe they're just useful).

[Technocrat]

Lomborg is a puppet of various capitalist interests, and his work is not scientific.

from sourcewatch:

The concern over Lomborg's misrepresentation of the science was so great that three complaints were lodged with the Danish Committee for Scientific Dishonesty, which Lomborg describes as "a national review body, with considerable authority".
The committee found "the publication is deemed clearly contrary to the standards of good scientific practice". They stated "there has been such perversion of the scientific message in the form of systematically biased representation that the objective criteria for upholding scientific dishonesty ... have been met".
In the wake of the decision the conservative Danish Prime Minister, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, requested a review of the work of the Institute for Environmental Valuation (IEV) which Lomborg had been appointed to head in February 2002.
Subsequently, the Danish government appointed a panel of five scientists to evaluate the reports produced by IEV. In August 2003 the committee announced that "the panel must conclude that none of the reports represent scientific work or methods in the traditional scientific sense".
In December 2003, the Danish Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation (a branch of the government that had appointed Lomborg) repudiated the findings of the Danish Committee for Scientific Dishonesty, saying its treatment of the case was "dissatisfactory", "deserving criticism" and "emotional" and contained a number of significant errors. It told the DCSD to reconsider their verdict.
In March 2004, the Danish Committee on Scientific Dishonesty declined to reconsider its verdict against Lomborg.

[rakasha]

But wait a minute. How can we do that? How can we actually use more area than there is on Earth?

This is a gross misrepresentation of the whole concept of ecological footprint. The EF is a rough measure of the amount of biomass needed to counterbalance a demand on an ecosystem, not the amount of land needed to produce that demand in the first place.


There is just one factor that keeps increasing: our carbon emissions. It is not at all obvious to anybody how to convert CO2 to area. The WWF and some researchers choose to get around this by defining the area of emissions as the area of forest needed to soak up the extra CO2. This now makes up more than 50 per cent of the ecological footprint and will grow to three quarters before mid-century.

Seeing as plant matter is the only way that carbon dioxide can be removed from the atmosphere on any realistic time scale, this really isn't an invalid assumption, or even a "politically charged" one.

[Vanguard1917]

Lomborg is a puppet of various capitalist interests

Because he criticises environmentalist dogma, he's a 'puppet' of 'capitalist interests'?

[Technocrat]

Because he criticises environmentalist dogma, he's a 'puppet' of 'capitalist interests'?No, he's a puppet for the reasons cited on the pages I referenced. I suggest you do some research on the Reason Foundation and various other "industry-friendly experts". Just as various "independent" think tanks were funded by big tobacco in the early 90s to deny the link between smoking and cancer, now there are various "experts" popping up to deny the link between human activities and climate change.

The big loser of course, if the majority of scientists are correct about climate change, will be big business.

If Lomborg and other climate change deniers are correct, than we can all continue to happily burn as much carbon as we want without a thought. Businesses can continue polluting as much as they want, and won't have to bother with all those pesky and costly anti-pollution measures. People can continue to consume as much useless garbage as they want, without any effect whatsoever.

So it is established that big business has a vested interest in denying man made climate change, and maintaining the status quo. If climate change isn't real, what possible motive would 99% of scientists have in perpetuating this idea? They stand to gain nothing. A scientific fact is the close agreement between many thousands of different observations. It is going to take more than Lomborg and a couple other goons to change that.

[Vanguard1917]

No, he's a puppet for the reasons cited on the pages I referenced. I suggest you do some research on the Reason Foundation and various other "industry-friendly experts". Just as various "independent" think tanks were funded by big tobacco in the early 90s to deny the link between smoking and cancer, now there are various "experts" popping up to deny the link between human activities and climate change.

Really? As far as i know, Lomborg does not deny that man-made global warming exists. And even if he did, why would that necessarily be because he's funded by big business, especially at a time when most big businesses are doing their best to distance themselves from 'climate deniers' and to paint themselves green?

Also, capitalist governments all over the world support environmentalist prejudices, support eco-ideology and emphasise environmental problems. Surely, then, by your logic, environmentalists are 'puppets' of capitalist governments?

[Technocrat]

Really? As far as i know, Lomborg does not deny that man-made global warming exists. And even if he did, why would that necessarily be because he's funded by big business, especially at a time when most big businesses are doing their best to distance themselves from 'climate deniers' and to paint themselves green?Lomborg's "studies" suggest that we not attempt to reduce C02 emissions (read: place restrictions on businesses) and instead believes we should start preparing for climate change. In other words, let business continue to trash the planet, and force governments and individuals to clean up the mess.


Also, capitalist governments all over the world support environmentalist prejudices, support eco-ideology and emphasise environmental problems. Surely, then, by your logic, environmentalists are 'puppets' of capitalist governments?What planet are you from? Ecobusiness is such a small fraction of total GDP that it hardly even registers. Also, a great deal of the eco-business being done is mere greenwashing. To suggest that there is a conspiracy among eco-business and government is ludicrous when we see what a small percentage of total GDP is represented by these businesses. How can you say that capitalist governments support environmental prejudices when those governments are themselves controlled by various corportations that have an anti-environment, pro-growth agenda?

[Vanguard1917]

Lomborg's "studies" suggest that we not attempt to reduce C02 emissions (read: place restrictions on businesses) and instead believes we should start preparing for climate change. In other words, let business continue to trash the planet, and force governments and individuals to clean up the mess.

Lomborg's argument, right or wrong, is that we are currently faced with far more pressing problems than reducing CO2 emissions, such as reducing poverty and hunger and fighting disease.

The second part of your paragraph is just your own imagination at work.



What planet are you from?


Meaning?

[Technocrat]

Lomborg's argument, right or wrong, is that we are currently faced with far more pressing problems than reducing CO2 emissions, such as reducing poverty and hunger and fighting disease.

Fighting climate change and reducing world hunger are mutually inclusive. Climate change will result in higher food prices thus increasing world hunger.


The second part of your paragraph is just your own imagination at work.No, it's what happens in the real world. Pollution causes a mess that has to be cleaned up by somebody. If that somebody is not the entity creating the pollution (businesses) than the cost of that cleanup falls to the rest of society (individuals and government).

h t t p : / / w w w .alternet.org/water/136480/sea_levels_are_rising%3A_it%27s_time_to_decide_whi ch_coastal_cities_are_worth_saving/





Meaning?
Also, capitalist governments all over the world support environmentalist prejudices, support eco-ideology and emphasise environmental problems. Surely, then, by your logic, environmentalists are 'puppets' of capitalist governments?This is mere opinion, and the evidence suggests the exact opposite: Capitalist governments have a strong disregard for the environment, because anti-pollution measures would be costly to implement and therefore would be bad for business. One has only to look at America's track record with environmental issues.

[Hoxhaist]

With reducing poverty and reducing infant mortality and improving health care, we so need to consider the ramifications of such rapid population growth that will follow. Leaders must have preparations for the demands of such a rapidly expanding world population

[Vanguard1917]

Fighting climate change and reducing world hunger are mutually inclusive. Climate change will result in higher food prices thus increasing world hunger.

Reducing CO2 emissions and reducing poverty are not very compatible at all, at least not for poor countries.

The countries with the highest levels of poverty, lowest life expectancies, and highest child mortality rates also tend to be the countries with some of the lowest CO2 emission levels(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions).

For that reason, the most urgent problem for the bulk of the world's population is not reducing CO2 emissions, but developing their economies, which will likely give way to rises in CO2 emissions, at least in the short term.

[Yazman]

For that reason, the most urgent problem for the bulk of the world's population is not reducing CO2 emissions, but developing their economies, which will likely give way to rises in CO2 emissions, at least in the short term.

Yes, lets just blame the poor for their own problems, because of course the victim is responsible! I'm sick of this stupid mentality that prevails. Development of poor countries is a problem? What the fuck?

[Sentinel]

However, there won't be much natural environment left to feed this system, biodiversity is going to be way down. Humans don't need dolphins in the sea, or Asian elephants, polar bears, or monarch butterflies. People in North America are doing just fine without huge herds of buffalo (bison), and without any passenger pigeons at all, what so ever.
So yeah, screw the environment, let's have more people!

If I didn't know you were being sarcastic, I'd say spot on -- obviously the interests of mankind come first. Which of course includes that we must weigh every action and determine which species really can be sacrificed without breaking important food chains and thus causing long term harm for us.

But if a useless species, say a sort of frogs that no other animal eats, and which doesn't eat enough harmful insects to make a difference, is threatened by the building of housing for the poor, its tough shit.


With reducing poverty and reducing infant mortality and improving health care, we so need to consider the ramifications of such rapid population growth that will follow. Leaders must have preparations for the demands of such a rapidly expanding world population

Actually the reduction of poverty seems to halt population growth very effectively. In the Nordic countries which still have perhaps the most decent welfare states remaining (although they are rapidly being dismounted), it has halted totally and the amount of people is stagnant. It is in the third world that overpopulation is climbing sky high.

I am thus carefully optimistic -- while we definitely should worry about excessive population growth in the future, the most effective way to combat it is to combat poverty globally. Thus when capitalism in the future is replaced by a more sane system and the third world also can prosper, these problems will likely be solved.

[Dimentio]

With reducing poverty and reducing infant mortality and improving health care, we so need to consider the ramifications of such rapid population growth that will follow. Leaders must have preparations for the demands of such a rapidly expanding world population

No.

Increasing living standard and education means less population growth. That is an established fact. In the third world, the reason why women get so many kids is so some of them should survive to look after their aging parents.

[Sentinel]

See this site (http://www.breathingearth.net/) for the actual numbers (it's also stickied in this forum).

You will find that in Sweden a person is born, and another person dies, in the exact same amount of time (5,7 minutes).

[Comrade Kaile]

Yes, lets just blame the poor for their own problems, because of course the victim is responsible! I'm sick of this stupid mentality that prevails. Development of poor countries is a problem? What the fuck?


I agree. The whole building up of a third world economy isn't the problem. It's the building up of the first world super powers. The decadence and greed of western society is reaching limits that will probably cause the world to end, whether by war or by environmental crisis. We don;t need all this carbon quotas bullshit, we just need nations to learn how to deal with stuff the good old way.

People these days have a perfectly fine working mobile phone, but no a "new model came out with extra focus on the camera, so let's just chuck out my current phone, won;t recycle that's for losers, and buy a new one, sure keeps the economy going". Growing economy, look where that led us, we're all hitting recession.

[Delirium]

If I didn't know you were being sarcastic, I'd say spot on -- obviously the interests of mankind come first. Which of course includes that we must weigh every action and determine which species really can be sacrificed without breaking important food chains and thus causing long term harm for us.

But if a useless species, say a sort of frogs that no other animal eats, and which doesn't eat enough harmful insects to make a difference, is threatened by the building of housing for the poor, its tough shit.

The problem with this is we don't have enough knowledge or understanding of how ecological systems work (especially globally) to make accurate decisions of what is key for the biosphere to continue functioning.

The best way to ensure humanity's long term viability on earth is to preserve a functioning biosphere.

btw, no species is so isolated from food chains that it would not have an effect on other species.


Actually the reduction of poverty seems to halt population growth very effectively. In the Nordic countries which still have perhaps the most decent welfare states remaining (although they are rapidly being dismounted), it has halted totally and the amount of people is stagnant. It is in the third world that overpopulation is climbing sky high.

I am thus carefully optimistic -- while we definitely should worry about excessive population growth in the future, the most effective way to combat it is to combat poverty globally. Thus when capitalism in the future is replaced by a more sane system and the third world also can prosper, these problems will likely be solved.

Agreed, high population rates are tied to poverty. Especially subsistence farming. (children are free labor). Most country's rate of population growth slows or reverses once it becomes industrialized.

[Technocrat]

I am thus carefully optimistic -- while we definitely should worry about excessive population growth in the future, the most effective way to combat it is to combat poverty globally. Thus when capitalism in the future is replaced by a more sane system and the third world also can prosper, these problems will likely be solved.

I agree to an extent. However, certain areas of the globe cannot support anything other than subsistence farming. Replacing capitalism with "a more sane system" is not going to change that. Simply changing the political system does not alter geography, and it is geography that determines the availability of resources. It is the availability of resources that then determines the quality of life that is possible for a region. Now, capitalism is a very inefficient way of distributing resources so switching to another system may help in distributing resources more equitably - but switching systems is not going to change the resources you have to start with. So, it is a fallacy to assume that all of the third world could be lifted out of poverty through communism, or any other system for that matter. The fact is that some regions of the globe are doomed to poverty. In this case those people's only chance for a better life is to move somewhere else.

[Dimentio]

I agree to an extent. However, certain areas of the globe cannot support anything other than subsistence farming. Replacing capitalism with "a more sane system" is not going to change that. Simply changing the political system does not alter geography, and it is geography that determines the availability of resources. It is the availability of resources that then determines the quality of life that is possible for a region. Now, capitalism is a very inefficient way of distributing resources so switching to another system may help in distributing resources more equitably - but switching systems is not going to change the resources you have to start with. So, it is a fallacy to assume that all of the third world could be lifted out of poverty through communism, or any other system for that matter. The fact is that some regions of the globe are doomed to poverty. In this case those people's only chance for a better life is to move somewhere else.

Talk with Haraldur if you want updated numbers.

As for Technocracy Incorporated's continentalism, I would say that the idea that a region cannot support another is quite ludicrous.

[Technocrat]

Talk with Haraldur if you want updated numbers.

As for Technocracy Incorporated's continentalism, I would say that the idea that a region cannot support another is quite ludicrous.Where did I say that a region cannot support another? I was merely pointing out the naive idea that some seem to carry, that switching political systems will magically make more resources appear.

What are you talking about? Tech Inc's area for the Technate was determined by available resources. It has nothing to do with nationalism or "continentalism".

Also, while I respect Haraldur's work and am impressed with his research, we have to understand that this is the work of one person, who has himself admitted that more qualified experts are needed to analyze this before coming to any real conclusions.

In fact now that I think about it, Haraldur's work would support what I am saying. Not all areas can support a Technate, like China for example. They will have to continue managing themselves using scarcity methods (a price system).

[Sentinel]

The problem with this is we don't have enough knowledge or understanding of how ecological systems work (especially globally) to make accurate decisions of what is key for the biosphere to continue functioning.

The best way to ensure humanity's long term viability on earth is to preserve a functioning biosphere.

btw, no species is so isolated from food chains that it would not have an effect on other species.I agree we should always rather be safe than sorry, take the careful approach -- but never irrationally. We must constantly do active research on these matters and the nratioanlyl draw our conclusions on how to proceed.

And while you may be right with the last sentence, it having an effect shouldn't be enough to stop us. Having a disastrious effect should.