Perspectives on Environmental
Change: A Basis for Action
Michael
B. McElroy
INTRODUCTION
 E
LIVE AT A UNIQUE POINT in the history of planet Earth. After almost four
billion years of evolution, a single species, Homo sapiens sapiens, has evolved
with the capacity to think, to contemplate not only its place in the universe
but also potentially to control its own destiny and that of other species as
well. What sets our species apart is our brains. We have the facility to
absorb, process, and organize prodigious amounts of information. With language,
written and spoken, we can pass information from person to person, extending
knowledge and experience from generation to generation across the ages. With
art and literature we can stimulate the imaginations of our fellow humans. With
science we can explore the complex processes that developed in the first few
seconds of the universe, in the aftermath of the big bang. We can hope to
understand the events that led to the production of the elemental subatomic
building blocks of matter, the synthesis of the elements, and the eventual
accretion of matter in orderly macroscopic structures we identify as planets,
stars, and galaxies. We can track the life cycle of a star from birth, to
death, to rebirth. We can enumerate the factors that set our planet apart from
other bodies of our solar system. We can reconstruct the history of the earth
and speculate as to the events that led to the early appearance of life and the
forces that shaped its subsequent evolution. We can hope to unravel the
principles that govern life itself. And soon we may have the capacity to
manipulate our genes, perhaps to eliminate disease or at least postpone its
onset.
Yet there is a dark underside to
this record of accomplishment. The achievements of our science are astounding,
the future scarcely imaginable. In a world of specialization there is a risk,
though, that we may lose sight of our place in nature, that we may begin to
view ourselves as above it all—as supernatural. We have developed an undeniable
capacity to transform the earth, to alter, for example, the composition of the
atmosphere on a global scale with uncertain but surely inauspicious
implications for the climate. We have the power to eliminate in a geological
instant species that took billions of years to evolve. The critical question is
whether we have the wisdom and ethical maturity to employ our scientific and
technological skills with discretion. As the late Roger Revelle remarked, we
have embarked on an unplanned global experiment and our ability to predict the
consequences is deficient. We need to step back and take stock if we are to
avoid serious mistakes. We need a moral compass: there are ethical as well as
technical issues to be addressed if we are to chart a responsible course to the
future.
Do we have the right to alter the
composition of the global atmosphere if we are unable definitively to assess in
advance the consequences? If the changes in atmospheric composition for which
rich nations are largely to blame result in a change in climate and if the
negative effects of this climate change are experienced most acutely by those
less advantaged, is there a duty for the responsible parties to provide
compensation? Do we have a moral obligation to preserve the diversity of life
forms on Earth? If our actions lead to elimination of entire ecosystems on the
planet, tropical rain forests for example, should our children unborn have the
right to hold us accountable? What are the rules by which we should live and be
judged? What is our proper place in nature? If posterity is to serve as jury,
to whom do we answer as judge? If there are no penalties, why should we care?
Science alone cannot provide answers to these questions. Nor can we expect a
definitive response from our colleagues in economics.
For the economist, the value of
the rain forest lies in the monetary returns to be reaped by harvesting its
resources. Its timber has value. So also have the unique genetic materials it
harbors, resources that might be exploited in the future to develop medicines
to help combat disease. We could propose to measure the aesthetic worth of the
forest by estimating fees tourists would be prepared to pay to enjoy its
wondrous diversity and complexity. But surely there is more to the continued
existence of the rain forest than a value measured simply in dollars and cents.
Thomas Berry argues that the natural world is “our primary revelatory
experience.” He decries the emphasis by the religious establishment on “verbal
revelation to the neglect of the manifestation of the divine in the natural
world.”1
To destroy the rain forest, or any other unique feature of the natural world,
is, in Berry’s perspective, a sin, an insult to the Creator, an impediment
restricting permanently our ability to contemplate and communicate with the
Divine. It would be difficult to attach a monetary value to such a far-reaching
impact.
This essay is concerned
specifically with changes in the global environment resulting from diverse
forms of modern industrial activity. We begin with an attempt to place the
contemporary human influence in a larger historical context. Our human species
is a product of close to four billion years of evolution. Only recently,
however, in the past century or so, have we developed the capacity to alter the
environment on a global scale. We choose to emphasize the challenge posed by
the impact of human activity on the climate system. Yet, as we shall indicate,
there are other issues that demand attention.
The properties of climate depend
to an important extent on the composition of the atmosphere. The atmosphere
today is composed mainly of diatomic oxygen and nitrogen. These gases are
transparent to sunlight and transparent also to longer wavelength infrared
radiation emitted by the surface of the earth. If the atmosphere were composed
exclusively of oxygen and nitrogen, the surface of the earth would be freezing
cold, incapable of supporting life as we know it. Earth’s relatively mild
climate results from the presence in the atmosphere of small concentrations of
polyatomic gases capable of absorbing infrared radiation emitted by the
surface. These gases serve to insulate the surface from the cold temperatures
of outer space. By loose analogy with the function of glass in a greenhouse,
they are referred to as greenhouse gases. Water vapor is the most important of
the contemporary greenhouse gases. The supply of water vapor depends, however,
on temperature. If Earth were cold, concentrations of water vapor would be too
low to have a significant impact on the climate. The presence of a
concentration of water vapor sufficient to raise the surface temperature of the
earth by a significant amount depends, thus, on the presence of other
greenhouse gases, notably carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide. As we
shall see, concentrations of these gases are increasing at a historically
unprecedented rate today.
The nature of the disturbances
responsible for these changes and the potential implications for the climate
are discussed below. A critique of policy options currently underway to address
the issue of climate change also follows, highlighting the need for an ethical
perspective to complement the contemporary emphasis on science, technology, and
economics. As discussed further below, addressing the challenge of global
environmental change will require an evolution of social organizations
comparable to the physical evolution of Earth and the evolution of life itself.
Private parties, governments, educational institutions, religions, and business
all have essential roles to play. If we are to be successful, we argue, our
actions must be guided not simply by science and economics but also by an
abiding sense of universal ethical responsibility.
HISTORICAL CONTEXT
The earth is approximately 4.6 billion years old. It
evolved from the spinning mass of gas and dust that constituted the original
solar nebula. As it formed, the planet began to heat up, responding in part to
energy released during gravitational accretion, in part to the input of heat
associated with the decay of radioactive elements such as uranium, thorium, and
potassium. Heating of the interior led to instability with lighter material
underlying heavy. This resulted in a spontaneous adjustment, an organized
pattern of vertical motion with lighter material rising in some regions to be
replaced by heavier stuff sinking elsewhere. Heavier elements such as iron
settled to the core. More volatile elements such as hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen,
and the noble gases concentrated in the near surface region forming the
primitive atmosphere, ocean, and crust. Chemical differentiation, driven by the
changes in pressure and temperature accompanying vertical motion, resulted in
the formation of the distinct zones identified today with the core, lower and
upper mantle, crust, atmosphere, and ocean. Regions of uplift were associated
with divergence of crustal materials at the surface; preexisting crustal
material was pushed apart as fresh matter reached the surface. Conversely,
regions of downward motion were associated with convergence of surface
material. Segregation of light from heavy minerals led to the appearance of
continents and ocean basins. The lighter minerals that formed the continents
floated like rafts on the underlying heavier material composing the mantle.
Crustal matter was organized in a number of coherent structures, referred to as
plates. As fresh material was added to individual crustal plates by upward
motion, old material was removed by compensatory downward motion elsewhere. The
configuration of crustal plates evolved significantly over the course of
geologic time responding to changes in the strength and spatial pattern of
convection. Mountains formed and were eroded by weathering. At times,
continental plates were joined in supercontinental structures. At others, they
were more broadly dispersed. The juncture of India with Asia, for example,
responsible for the formation of the Himalayas and the Tibetan Plateau, is a
relatively recent occurrence: it took place about fifty-five million years ago.
North and South America joined to form a composite unit as recently as a few
million years before present (BP).
Tectonics, the internal dynamics
of the earth, not only had an influence on the nature of landforms at the
earth’s surface, but also almost certainly played a role in the origin and
evolution of life. Life was an early arrival on the planetary scene. It
developed at least 3.5 billion years ago, arguably earlier. The precise steps
that led to the appearance of the first self-replicating organisms are unclear.
Some believe that the action occurred in the atmosphere triggered by chemical
reactions associated with lightning and ultraviolet solar radiation. Others
contend that it arose first in the ocean, in the vicinity of hot springs
emanating from regions where fresh material emerges from the interior to
interact explosively with cold ocean waters of distinctly different chemical
composition. Deep-sea vents, distributed along zones of sea-floor spreading,
support a remarkable ecological system at present. Bacteria, drawing energy
from oxidation of the sulfur contained in hot spring water, represent the base
of a food chain supporting a dense population of worms and clams living in
close proximity to the vents. Water emanating from the vents contains a variety
of trace metals and other elements essential for life. Nitrate or nitrite
formed from acids produced in the primitive atmosphere could have provided the
oxidants for synthesis of the earliest forms of life.
The earliest forms of life
consisted of simple organisms known as prokaryotes. Bacteria and blue-green
algae represent examples of species that existed from the onset and that
continue to function as important components of the diverse interactive web of
life that characterizes our planet today. Bacteria play an important role in
the decomposition of organic matter; they dispose of our garbage, transforming
waste to useful matter. Blue-green algae have the remarkable ability to convert
inert diatomic nitrogen to biologically available fixed nitrogen, rivaling the
capabilities of the expensive energy-intensive fertilizer factories that
accomplish the same task today. Prokaryotes dominated life for much of the
early history of the earth. Several billion years elapsed before they were
joined, roughly 1.5 billion years BP, by more complex life forms, the
eukaryotes.
The cells of eukaryotic organisms
were vastly more complicated than those of their prokaryotic antecedents. Lynn
Margulis suggests that the eukaryotes may have evolved as a result of the
fusion of cells of the preexisting prokaryotes.2
Cells of particular prokaryotes were invaded by cells of others, leading to the
appearance of new life forms with greatly enhanced functionality. The
development of the eukaryotic cell paved the way for the evolution of more
complex multicellular organisms. Remarkably, almost a billion years elapsed
before the appearance of the first multicellular animals, the so-called
Ediacara fauna—flat, pancake-shaped, soft-bodied organisms named for the region
in Australia where their fossil remains were first detected. The first
hard-bodied (shelly) organisms, the Tommatians, named for the region in Russia
where they were first discovered, appeared somewhat later, followed by the
veritable profusion of life forms identified in the Burgess Shale, the
paleontological Rosetta stone discovered high in the Canadian Rockies by C. D.
Walcott in 1909.3
The diversity of life forms
recorded in the Burgess Shale and the subsequent developments that led to the
appearance of vascular plants (about 445 million years BP), amphibians (about
300 million years BP), and other life forms are truly remarkable. Life, for
most of the early history of the earth, was confined to the ocean. Only later,
at about 440 million years BP, did it spread to the land. Progenitors of all
the modern phyla are present in the Burgess record, dated at about 550 million
years BP, together with a host of other species that failed to survive. The
factors that led to the evolutionary developments recorded in the Ediacaran,
Tommatian, and Burgess deposits are not well understood. Recent work suggests,
however, that a series of dramatic shifts in climate during the Neoproterozoic,
between about 750 and 580 million years BP, may have had an influence. On at
least four occasions over this period, the earth moved into a deep freeze, a
condition referred to by Joel Kirschvink as a Snowball Earth.4
The evidence suggests that during these periods the earth was frozen over from
equator to pole. The ocean was effectively isolated from the atmosphere. Paul
Hoffman and his colleagues proposed that the Snowball Earth condition was
triggered by a precipitous drop in the concentration of atmospheric CO2,
prompted by a decrease in the release of CO2 associated with a
decrease in global tectonic activity.5
Environmental changes, specifically changes in the chemistry of the ocean,
accompanying these remarkable climate transitions could have provided the
stimulus for the burst of evolutionary activity observed at the onset of the
Cambrian. Changes in the environment may have been responsible also for the
massive extinction events that punctuate the subsequent geologic record. The
Cambrian expansion, for example, was followed a few hundred million years
later, at about 225 million years BP, by what Gould termed the “granddaddy of
all extinctions,” responsible for the elimination of as many as 96 percent of
all the marine species alive at that time.6
A second major extinction took place 65 million years ago, at the boundary of
the Cretaceous and Tertiary periods, and was associated with the demise of the
dinosaurs. The later event, it is thought, was induced by a change in the
environment triggered by the impact of a giant meteorite. The extinction at the
Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary paved the way for large mammals and later for the
evolution of hominids and our earliest human ancestors.
Mammals developed at the end of
the Triassic, about 160 million years BP. As Gould remarks, they spent their
first 100 million years as “small creatures living in the nooks and crannies of
a dinosaur’s world.” He suggests that “their 60 million years of success
following the demise of the dinosaurs has been somewhat of an afterthought.”7
If afterthought it was, we are the products of this circumstance. To quote
Gould again: “in an entirely literal sense, we owe our existence, as large and
reasoning animals, to our lucky stars.”
Our closest living relatives in
the animal kingdom are the great apes (including the gorilla and the
chimpanzee). Much of the evolutionary development that led to the eventual
appearance of humans is thought to have taken place in Africa beginning about 4
million years ago. The details of the path to modern humans is unclear but is
thought to have proceeded along a trajectory that involved, sequentially,
Australopithecus africanus, Homo habilis, and Homo erectus. Homo erectus
arrived on the scene about 1.7 million years ago and evolved later into Homo
sapiens. Human history as we know it took off much more recently, about 50
thousand years ago, in what Jared Diamond termed the Great Leap Forward, with
evidence for biologically and behaviorally modern humans in a variety of
locations including East Africa, the Near East, and both southeastern and
southwestern Europe.8
There is some dispute as to where
our earliest human relatives originated. Early interpretations of human
mitochondrial DNA suggest that we may have a common maternal ancestor, that she
may have lived in Africa about 150 thousand years ago, and that her progeny may
have migrated subsequently to the Middle East, Europe, Asia, and Australia,
reaching the Americas as recently as twenty to thirty thousand years ago.
Others favor a more distributed origin for humans. It is clear in any event
that we are recent arrivals on the stage of planetary life. Never before,
though, has the earth seen a species with a greater capacity to dominate its
environment. As discussed by Diamond, our influence is far-reaching and not
always benign.9
In the earliest period of their
history, our ancestors had relatively little effect on their environment. For
food and fiber, they relied on resources available in their immediate vicinity.
They hunted wild animals and harvested wild plants for food. Human populations
were relatively low, and supplies of food were adequate to meet the needs of
these early nomads. With the passage of time, the hunter-gatherer life-style
became increasingly more difficult. Depletion of wild animal stocks and sources
of plants suitable for human consumption, exacerbated by increases in the human
population, may have contributed to the difficulty, prompting the first great
human social adjustment: the transition from the nomadic existence of the
hunter-gatherers to the more sedentary life-style of the first agricultural
communities. The advance that made this possible involved the domestication of
plants and animals. Rather than searching in the wild for plants to eat or
animals to slaughter, it was easier to cultivate the land in one place, sow and
reap the most desirable crops, store crop surpluses, and tame available animals
to serve needs for food, fiber, fertilizer, and labor. The transition to
agriculture and animal husbandry occurred first, it appears, in southwest Asia
about ten thousand years ago, in the region known as the Fertile Crescent
occupied today by Jordan, Israel, Syria, Iraq, and parts of Turkey. It was
accompanied by the evolution of new social structures, facilitated by the
availability of food surpluses. No longer was it necessary for all members of a
community to engage in an unending search for food. Human functions became more
specialized. An artisan class developed, and later chiefs, philosophers,
priests, warriors, and eventually nation-states, setting the scene for the
evolution of science, religion, and other features of modern life.
These early social structures led
to the first serious conflicts between man and nature. John Perlin recounts the
problems encountered as a result of the unsustainable exploitation of locally
available sources of timber. Wood, he points out, was the “foundation on which
early societies were built.”10
It provided, among other functions, the fuel for fire and thus the means to
convert clay to pottery and to extract metal from rocks, as well as the
material to fabricate the implements of industry and agriculture and to
construct ships, permitting societies to forage for resources far from native
shores. Deforestation led to the decline and fall of the great civilizations
that flourished five thousand years ago in Mesopotamia. Perlin attributes the
demise of Sumerian civilization, for example, to a precipitous drop in
agricultural production occasioned by excessive accumulation of salt in the
previously rich alluvial soils of the region. The salt responsible for this
problem originated in the salt-rich sedimentary rocks that formed the mountains
to the north. The increase in salt carried by rivers draining these mountains
and its accumulation in the alluvial plains was attributed to removal of the
protective forest cover in the upstream region prompted by the inexhaustible
demand for timber. Perlin argues that much of modern history, dating from Greek
and Roman times but extending toward the present, can be attributed to actions
taken by societies to ensure adequate sources of timber. Deforestation is not a
recent phenomenon. It has existed from the beginning. It is spreading now to
regions previously immune, such as the tropical rainforests, and it is this
that draws our attention. Paradoxically, the development since the industrial
revolution of economies based on fossil sources of energy rather than wood
offers the opportunity to reverse the trend toward global deforestation.
THE CHALLENGES OF THE PRESENT
We turn our attention now to problems of the present. To
this point, we have sought to provide a broad context to define the place of
humans in nature. It is difficult, however, to comprehend the significance of
events that unfold on time scales measured in billions of years. It is
instructive to recast the history of our planet on a more comprehensible time
scale.
Assume for the moment that the
4.5-billion-year history of the earth is compressed into a single year.
Formation of Earth from the primitive solar nebula begins in this case on
January 1. The early prokaryotes are established by February 17. Almost seven
months elapse before the eukaryotes appear in early September. The expansion of
life recorded in the Burgess Shale takes place in mid-November. Mammals arrive
on December 18, while dinosaurs meet their untimely demise on the evening of
December 26. Humans make a late appearance at about 9 p.m. on the evening of
December 31. The industrial revolution begins about two seconds before midnight
on December 31. And we are grappling now with events that will unfold over the
next few tenths of a second.
The industrial revolution marked
a pivotal turning point in human history. It resulted in a host of inventions,
including the heat pump, the steam engine, the internal combustion engine, the
means to generate and distribute electricity, the railroad, the automobile, the
airplane, the radio, the telephone, and the television. Advances in medical
science extended life expectancies, resulting in a rapid growth of human
populations. The population of the world in 1750 at the dawn of the industrial
revolution was estimated at about 720 million. It had surpassed a billion by
the end of the first quarter of the nineteenth century, rising to two billion
by 1925, climbing above five billion by 1990.11
The benefits of the industrial revolution are not, however, evenly distributed.
Disparities between rich and poor countries have increased, as has the gap
between rich and poor within countries. Mechanization has reduced the demands
for human labor required for the manufacture of new products: the contributions
of the scientist, engineer, financier, politician, and manager are thus valued
more highly than those of the laborer. To an increasing extent in an
economically integrated world, rich countries turn to others less advantaged
for cheap labor and for the natural resources required to supply the demands of
their industry. Only now are we beginning to confront the consequences.
The industrial revolution was
fueled initially by coal, replacing diminishing reserves of wood. Concentration
of coal-fired factories and residences in cities had immediate and serious
implications for local and regional air quality and public health. Criticism of
these consequences was initially muted. For a long time the problems were
accepted as an inevitable price of progress. Attitudes changed in the late
1940s and 1950s, when a series of air-pollution disasters in Donora,
Pennsylvania, and London caused large numbers of people to get sick and
thousands to die. It was relatively easy to deal with the problem of visibly
dirty air. The solution was to burn cleaner fuels, to remove particles from
smokestacks, or to build higher stacks and send the problem elsewhere. But the
smogs of Donora and London were merely the harbingers of more serious problems
to come—acid rain, photochemical smog, and now, most perplexing of all, the
threat of global climate change.
There is a troubling pattern to
our response to problems relating to the use of fossil fuels: the issues are
often identified long after the technologies responsible for the problems have
been widely employed. When we installed high smokestacks to disperse emissions
from coal- and oil-fired factories, we were unaware of the phenomenon of acid
rain. When we began our love affair with the automobile, we did not suspect
that the interaction of sunlight with hydrocarbons and oxides of nitrogen could
stimulate the production of ozone at levels harmful not only to humans but also
to plants and animals. Given the enormous investment in infrastructure
dependent on fossil fuels—roads, cities, industry—it is easier to look for
piecemeal solutions, to search for technological fixes to specific problems
rather than environmentally more friendly alternatives to our current,
unfettered, use of fossil fuels. The potential for climate change associated
with emissions of carbon dioxide, the end product of fossil-fuel combustion,
brings the problem into even sharper focus.
Air-quality problems associated
with the early use of fossil fuel were largely confined to regions where
industrial activity was concentrated. Those responsible for the problems bore
the brunt of the consequences and had an obvious self-interest in seeking
improvement. Installation of high smokestacks spread the impact over a much
larger region, requiring national and indeed international approaches to
remediation. Problems, however, were still reasonably confined. A European
initiative could address the problem of acid rain in Scandinavia arising as a
consequence of emissions of sulfur and nitrogen oxides in Britain, Germany, and
Poland. Likewise, a cooperative arrangement involving Mexico, the United
States, and Canada could deal with the problem of emissions in North America.
The climate issue, however, is global in scope and requires a global response.
Combustion of fossil fuels—coal,
oil, and natural gas—accounts today for global emission of carbon dioxide
equivalent to more than six billion tons of carbon per year (more than twenty
billion tons of CO2). Deforestation, mainly in the tropics,
contributes an additional source of about two billion tons of carbon per year,
offset by an uptake of roughly comparable magnitude due to regrowth of
vegetation at mid-latitudes of the northern hemisphere. Approximately half of
the carbon added to the atmosphere since the beginning of the industrial
revolution persists in the atmosphere today, with the balance incorporated in
the ocean. Carbon dioxide is the largest single waste product associated with
modern society. Emissions on a per capita basis amount to more than a ton of
carbon per person per year. The developed world is largely to blame. The United
States, with a little more than 5 percent of the world’s population, is
responsible for close to 22 percent of global emissions. But the future will
depend in large measure on what happens in developing countries such as China,
India, Brazil, and Indonesia.
Emission of CO2 in
such large quantities has resulted in a significant rise in the concentration
of CO2 in the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide accounts for about 360
parts per million of the atmosphere today. It has increased by about 30 percent
since the beginning of the industrial revolution and is expected to more than
double if we continue to rely on fossil fuels for energy and if we fail to
reverse current practices resulting in the destruction of tropical forests. The
concentration of CO2 is higher now than it has been at any time over
the past 450 thousand years (we know this from measurements of gases trapped in
ancient ice preserved in Antarctica). Given current trends, it is likely soon
to exceed levels not seen since dinosaurs roamed the earth 65 million years
ago. And CO2 is not the only constituent of the atmosphere that is
changing. Comparably large increases are observed for methane, produced by
cattle and other ruminants and also as a by-product of rice cultivation and
mining of fossil fuels, and nitrous oxide, emitted in conjunction with the
decay of human and animal waste and the transformation of nitrogen-based
fertilizers applied to stimulate agricultural production. Human activity has an
undisputed effect on the composition of the atmosphere. The critical question
concerns the details of the implications for the climate.
The climate system is extremely
complex. A change in the radiative properties of the atmosphere associated with
an increase in the concentration of greenhouse gases may be expected to trigger
an initial adjustment in temperatures at the surface of the earth and in lower
regions of the atmosphere, accompanied by changes in patterns of evaporation
and precipitation, cloud cover, and the distribution of the primary greenhouse
gas, water vapor. Variations in cloud cover and water vapor will lead to
additional feedbacks resulting in both warming and cooling of the atmosphere,
prompting changes in the circulation of the atmosphere and ocean with
implications for vegetation and for snow and ice cover. The ultimate effect
will depend on the composite effects of an interactive web of multifaceted
disturbances. Diagnosing the implications for climate requires a realistic
simulation of the coupled, interactive dynamics of the atmosphere, ocean,
biosphere, soil, hydrosphere, and cryosphere (the ice world), a task of
considerable complexity. There is no certain way to predict the future. The
best we can do is to take the results of the most realistic computer models as
a guide as to what might ensue and plan accordingly.
The evolving state of climate
science has been reviewed over the past decade in a series of reports prepared
under the auspices of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The
IPCC was established in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and
by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) to advise on the likelihood
that human activities could lead to significant changes in climate, to evaluate
the impacts of these changes, and to identify options for possible policy
responses. In its first report, the IPCC concluded that “there is a natural
greenhouse that keeps the Earth warmer than it would otherwise be,” that
“emissions resulting from human activities are substantially increasing the
concentrations of greenhouse gases,” and that “these increases will enhance the
greenhouse effect, resulting in additional warming at the Earth’s surface.”12
Results from sixteen different computer models of future climate were reviewed
in a second IPCC report published in 1996.13
Despite differences in detail, these models confirmed the conclusion of the
earlier report: that emissions of greenhouse gases, should they continue at
current rates, may be expected to result in significant warming of the earth
with important if uncertain implications for regional climate. Results from a
recent study by the United Kingdom Hadley Center provide an instructive
indication of the changes that might ensue.
Assuming “business as usual”—that
is to say, in the absence of steps to curtail emissions—the Hadley model
suggests that the global average surface temperature will increase by about 2°C
over the next fifty years. The increase in temperature expected over
continental regions is almost twice as large: about 4°C by 2050, rising to 6°C
by 2100. Increases in temperature are greatest for high latitudes in winter.
Surprisingly, though, the model anticipates a significant change in climate
also in the tropics, warming by as much as 4°C over Brazil by 2050, accompanied
by a marked decrease in precipitation. A change of climate of this magnitude
would signal the demise of the Brazilian rain forest, which would be replaced
by savanna. Elsewhere, in India, Africa, and portions of North America,
tropical grasslands would be transformed to either temperate grasslands or
deserts. Results of the Hadley model should not be taken as definitive but may
provide a wake-up call as to the gravity of the changes that are possible. They
suggest that disturbances to ecosystems could be extreme and that implications
for human societies, while difficult to quantify, could be serious, especially
for populations lacking the economic resources required for an efficacious
response.
POLICY RESPONSES
The initial IPCC report influenced the deliberations of
the Second World Climate Conference that convened a few months later in Geneva.
It was responsible for the inclusion of the climate issue on the agenda for the
United Nations Conference on Environment and Development that met two years
later in Rio de Janeiro. This so-called Earth Summit attracted a remarkable
twenty-five thousand delegates, including a large fraction of the world’s
political leaders. The conclusions of the summit were summarized in a document
formally titled “The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.”
The convention was “to enter into force on the ninetieth day after the date of
deposit of the fiftieth instrument of ratification, acceptance, approval or
accession.” This milestone was passed on March 21, 1994, after Portugal became
the fiftieth country to register ratification on December 21, 1993. As of
December 10, 1999, the convention had been ratified by 181 countries, including
the United States.
The specific policy response of
the international community to the climate issue was elaborated in a milestone
protocol developed at the third Conference of the Parties to the Convention
(COP-3) in Kyoto, Japan, in December of 1997. In advance of the conference, the
European Union opted for a Europe-wide coordinated strategy to reduce emissions
by 2008–2012 relative to 1990 by 16 percent. Under this arrangement, Germany
and Britain agreed to assume the lion’s share of the European obligation, thus
permitting less affluent members of the EU such as Greece and Spain to grow
their emissions by modest amounts consistent with overall plans for economic
development in the Union. This accommodation was possible as a consequence of
events in Europe quite unrelated to the climate issue. Emissions in Germany
declined precipitously in the early 1990s, reflecting elimination of
economically inefficient highly polluting industries in the former German
Democratic Republic following German reunification. Emissions in Britain
decreased over the same period as a consequence of the politically motivated
demise of the coal industry orchestrated by Margaret Thatcher and the
replacement of coal by North Sea oil and gas as the fuel of choice for the
British economy. In contrast, emissions in the United States had risen rapidly
over the 1990s, by close to 10 percent, reflecting the ebullient state of the
U.S. economy. It was judged impossible for the United States to meet the
targets proposed by Europe, and President Clinton instructed U.S.
representatives to negotiate for a target of zero growth rather than the 16
percent reduction proposed by Europe, arguing also for flexibility in means to
achieve this objective. Largely as a result of a personal intervention by Vice
President Gore at the end of the first week of the meeting in Kyoto, the
parties arrived at a compromise: countries of the European Union agreed to
reduce emissions by a collective 8 percent; the United States and Japan
accepted reductions of 7 and 6 percent, respectively; the Russian Federation
was allowed to maintain emissions at the level that applied in 1990; and
emissions from Australia were permitted to grow by 8 percent. Overall, if
implemented, the protocol would reduce emissions by a group of developed
countries by 5 percent by 2008–2012 relative to emission levels that applied in
1990. Thus did COP-3 interpret the instruction of the Convention to define
“common but differentiated responsibilities.”
The protocol was an
extraordinarily complicated document. It sought to curb emissions of four gases
(CO2, CH4, N2O, and SF6) and two
classes of industrial compounds (hydrofluorocarbons and perfluorocarbons). It
adopted an accounting scheme based on the potential of individual gases to
alter the climate, placing all of these gases on a common carbon-equivalent
scale. It incorporated a series of flexibility mechanisms included largely at
the behest of the United States in response to President Clinton’s direction to
the U.S. negotiators. These included an option allowing parties to claim credit
for sinks, offsetting charges for sources of prescribed gases, and a provision
by which Annex 1 parties could buy and sell rights to emissions, a so-called
carbon-trading mechanism. It authorized a scheme by which Annex 1 parties could
claim credit for reductions in emissions achieved by developing countries as a
result of transfers of technology or financial resources from Annex 1 parties,
an option known as the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). The flexibility
provisions are controversial, viewed by some as a device by which the United
States could avoid politically difficult requirements to reduce its emissions
by altering patterns of domestic consumption, an option to use economic muscle
to shift the burden to others. To an extent, the criticism is valid. The
carbon-trading provision offers an opportunity for parties having difficulty in
meeting their obligations by domestic action to purchase relief by acquiring
rights to emissions allowed but unused by the Russian Federation and other
former Soviet republics. Given the economic problems of these countries, it is
likely that a significant surplus of their emission rights will be available
for trade. Such an arrangement, however, would result in no net reduction in
Annex 1 emissions. It would constitute what the European Union has referred to
as a license to trade “hot air.” The CDM option is similarly controversial.
While the underlying objective in this case is laudable—to encourage the
transfer of resources from developed to developing countries—it is difficult to
see how it would function effectively in practice. The deal struck in Kyoto
should not be considered, however, as the last word. It should be viewed rather
as an initial step in a continuing process to deal with an issue of
extraordinary complexity involving multifaceted dimensions of science,
economics, and ethics, posing challenges that will require at least in some
instances a subjugation of narrow national interest in favor of a larger if
uncertain global good.
In advance of the meeting in
Kyoto, the U.S. Senate passed a unanimous (though technically non-binding)
resolution instructing U.S. negotiators (a) not to enter into an agreement that
would adversely affect the economy of the United States and (b) not to enter
into an agreement that would not involve a commitment by developing countries
to reduce their emissions of greenhouse gases. The instruction flatly
contradicted terms of the convention ratified earlier by the Senate, which
decreed that “parties should protect the climate system for the benefit of
present and future generations of humankind, on the basis of equity and in
accordance with their common but differentiated responsibilities and respective
capabilities”; that “developed countries should take the lead in combating
climate change and the adverse effects thereof”; and that a group of developed
countries and countries from the former Soviet economic zone, identified
collectively as Annex 1 parties, should take the initiative in addressing these
objectives. Recognizing that the protocol negotiated in Kyoto could not be
ratified by the required two-thirds majority of the U.S. Senate, the Clinton
administration elected not to submit the agreement for ratification, passing
the problem to its successors.
While suggesting that the
underlying science might be more uncertain than was generally acknowledged,
candidate Bush, in the 2000 U.S. presidential campaign, agreed that the climate
issue was important and that it required a response. He proposed that it could
be addressed, at least in part, using legislation embodied in the Clean Air Act
to limit emissions of CO2. This suggestion later came back to haunt
him as President when his newly appointed administrator of the Environmental
Protection Agency, Christine Todd Whitman, referred to the campaign promise,
assuring fellow environmental ministers at a meeting in Europe that the United
States would act domestically to reduce emissions of CO2. In
retrospect, it appears that the campaign commitment may have been based on a
misunderstanding, a confusion of CO2 with CO: the latter is a
pollutant regulated under the Clean Air Act; the Clean Air Act is mute as to
emission of the former, though whether or not it could be covered under the
broad definition of pollution encompassed by the Act is a matter of some
controversy. In any event, Administrator Whitman’s widely publicized remarks
led to an immediate clarification of the new administration’s views on Kyoto.
In a letter addressed to Senators
Hagel, Helms, Craig, and Roberts on March 13, 2001, President Bush began by
noting that “my Administration takes the issue of global climate change very
seriously.” He went on to say, however, that “I oppose the Kyoto Protocol
because it exempts 80 percent of the world, including major population centers
such as China and India, from compliance, and would cause serious harm to the
U.S. economy.” He referred to “the incomplete state of scientific knowledge of
the causes of, and solutions to, global climate change and the lack of
commercially available technologies for removing and storing carbon dioxide.”
Paradoxically, he concluded that “we will continue to fully examine global
climate change issues—including the science, technologies, market-based
systems, and innovative options for addressing concentrations of greenhouse
gases in the atmosphere,” and that he was “very optimistic that, with the
proper focus and working with our friends and allies, we will be able to
develop technologies, market incentives, and other creative ways to address
global climate change.” The letter to the senators was greeted with dismay by
the international community, interpreted as a signal that the Bush
administration had elected to withdraw from the process initiated in Kyoto.
In a subsequent action, the
administration requested what amounted to an independent review of the IPCC
analyses by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. The Academy report affirmed
the general conclusions of the treatment of human-caused climate change
presented in the IPCC Working Group I report while offering a somewhat more
qualified assessment of uncertainties. President Bush, in a speech delivered in
the Rose Garden of the White House on June 11, 2001, reiterated his opinion
that “the Kyoto Protocol was fatally flawed in fundamental ways.” He
acknowledged that the United States accounts “for almost 20 percent of the
world’s man-made greenhouse emissions” but went on again to argue that
developing countries, notably China and India, must also assume responsibility.
He indicated that the targets defined by Kyoto “were arbitrary and not based
upon science” and that “for America, complying with those mandates would have a
negative economic impact, with layoffs of workers and price increases for
consumers,” and that “when you evaluate all these flaws, most reasonable people
will understand that [the Kyoto protocol] is not sound public policy.” On a
more hopeful note, he stated that “America’s unwillingness to embrace a flawed
treaty should not be read by our friends and allies as any abdication of
responsibility,” that his administration “is committed to a leadership role on
the issue of climate change,” that “we recognize our responsibility and will
meet it—at home, in our hemisphere, and in the world.” The speech concluded
with the enigmatic statement that “we will make commitments we can keep, and
keep the commitments that we make.” As this essay goes to press, the nature of
the Bush administration’s commitments to the climate challenge have yet to be
defined pending the outcome of a comprehensive review currently underway under
the leadership of the Secretary of Commerce.
ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS
It is instructive to note the extent to which the climate
debate in the United States has been dominated by considerations of science and
economics. Questions of ethics have been largely ignored. Despite the
uncertainties noted by the National Academy of Sciences, the scientific facts
are relatively clear. There is no doubt that we are changing the composition of
the atmosphere on a global scale. While it is difficult to predict in detail
the consequences for the climate, there is a reasonable expectation, as
discussed above, that they will be serious and that the impact may be felt most
severely by less advantaged members of the global community.
As discussed earlier, the
concentration of atmospheric CO2 is greater now than at any time
over the past 450,000 years, and given current practices it is likely to rise
over the next few decades to levels not seen since the era of the dinosaurs.
There is no dispute that consumption of coal, oil, and gas and the elimination
of tropical rain forests are largely responsible for the increase in CO2.
A variety of different human practices is implicated in the similarly
unprecedented increases in CH4 and N2O. Destruction of
tropical rain forests is responsible not only for significant emissions of CO2;
it is a contributor also to the precipitous recent decline in planet-wide
species diversity. A recent study by the United Nations suggests that as much
as 25 percent of species living in tropical forests today may be doomed to
extinction over the next few decades if current trends in deforestation are not
reversed.
Do we have the right to change
the composition of the atmosphere globally when we are unsure of the ultimate
consequences, even though the best scientific studies suggest that they could
be serious and persistent? The God of the Old Testament as recorded in the
message of Genesis gave man “dominion over the fish of the sea and over the
birds of the air and over every living thing that lives on the earth.” Nowhere,
though, did he give man the right to destroy for no good reason. Dominion, for
most biblical scholars, implies stewardship, not domination. No less an
authority than Pope John Paul II is on record with a statement of the
underlying principles. In a message delivered on January 1, 1990, referring
specifically to the “depletion of the ozone layer and the related greenhouse
effect [that] has now reached crisis proportions as a consequence of industrial
growth, massive urban concentrations and vastly increased energy needs,” he
stated that:
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Theology, philosophy and science all speak of
a harmonious universe, of a cosmos endowed with its own integrity, its own
internal, dynamic nature. This order must be respected. The human race is
called to explore this order, to examine it with due care and to make use of it
while safeguarding its integrity.
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How can this message be reconciled ethically with a
decision to do nothing in response to the range of human-induced threats to the
global life-support system discussed here? There is only one possible
justification: a conviction that the problem is not real. But even the most
recalcitrant skeptic must accept the possibility—I would say probability—that
the threats are serious and conceivably even understated. We do not, I
conclude, have the right to place the balance of the global life-support system
at risk when there are sensible actions that can be taken at least to slow the
pace of human-induced change. The answer to the question posed at the beginning
of this paragraph, for me at least, is an unequivocal no.
How should we view the attitude
expressed by the U.S. Senate, endorsed by President Bush, that the United
States should not act to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions until such time as
the large developing economies such as China and India are prepared to make a
similar commitment? Energy consumption, measured on a per capita basis, in the
developing world is more than ten times less than it is in the developed world.
With approximately 5 percent of the world’s population, the United States is
responsible for more than 20 percent of global emissions of CO2. Is
there not an ethical imperative for the rich to take the first step? The New
Testament extols the responsibility of the rich to help the poor. The Gospel of
Mark teaches that “it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle
than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God” and indicates as the Second
Great Commandment that “you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Is it not
appropriate, and indeed ethical, for we who have enjoyed for so long the
benefits of unsustainable energy consumption to take the first steps? For me at
least, the answer is yes. And there is also a practical reason to take the
lead. A commitment on the part of the United States to reduce domestic
emissions of CO2 could stimulate development of new energy-efficient
technologies that would find applications not only in the developed world but
also in countries of the developing world. It is clear that we could accomplish
much of what we do today with less energy. Expanded use of hybrid vehicles, for
example, could increase the efficiency of energy use in the transportation
sector. Advances in fuel-cell technology offer promising opportunities to
curtail demand for fossil fuels. Wind power is already competitive with
fossil-fuel-generated electric power in some regions. With additional
investment, solar energy could make a contribution, and, despite current
difficulties, the potential for safe nuclear power in the future should not be
ignored. The key is to provide incentives. These are largely lacking in an era
when gasoline is cheaper than bottled water and the costs of waste disposal are
invisible.
THE WAY FORWARD
President Bush is correct in his general conclusion that
the Kyoto protocol is unworkable in its present form. The response, however,
should not be simply to walk away but to develop an alternate approach and to
work with the international community to bring this into effect.
A primary difficulty with the
existing protocol relates to the time line. It is unrealistic to expect
countries such as the United States to meet their presently defined commitments
by 2008–2012. Emissions in the United States are now more than 12 percent
higher than they were in 1990. It would be helpful to extend the time horizon,
to, say, 2030, while at the same time stiffening requirements. This would
acknowledge the reality that it will take time to effect an economically
efficient transition to a more sustainable industrial order. Large amounts of
capital are invested today, especially in developed countries, in systems
rooted in the past—in an age of cheap fossil energy. Rather than relegate
productive investments of the past to a premature scrap heap, it would seem
sensible that they be phased out gradually as they reach the end of their
useful life, permitting a more orderly transition to a less carbon-intensive
future. We need a long-range plan and incentives to encourage an effective
transition.
The Bush administration has
proposed an ambitious plan to address future energy needs of the United States.
The plan includes incentives for conservation, for development of more
efficient hybrid vehicles, for energy systems based on environmentally friendly
fuel cells, for renewable sources of energy, and for a new generation of
nuclear power plants. It recognizes the need for a strategy for safe disposal
of nuclear wastes and proposes important investments in so-called clean coal
technology. It would be useful if the plan could be integrated with the
strategy currently under consideration to address the climate issue. By
emphasizing the need to ensure the energy security of the United States while
at the same time minimizing emission of undesirable pollutants, the
administration could take an important step in the formulation of a
comprehensive blueprint that would ensure not only the economic future of the
United States but also a more sustainable future for the less advantaged
citizens of the global society.
The choice of 1990 as a reference
point in the Kyoto protocol against which to gauge targets for greenhouse gas
reductions was arbitrary. As noted earlier, it works unduly to the advantage of
the European Union in that events unrelated to the climate issue were
responsible for an unusual decline in European emissions in the immediate
post-1990 period. It would be useful to adjust the reference point to provide a
more realistic representation of emissions by parties in the recent past. An
alternative standard could be based on average levels of emissions for the
decade of the 1990s.
In its present form, the protocol
addresses the emissions of a suite of greenhouse gases. It might be preferable,
initially at least, to focus on one, the major culprit, CO2. Our
understanding of the factors responsible for the increase in the concentrations
of a number of the other gases, notably CH4 and N2O, is
deficient. Sources are related to a variety of disparate activities ranging
from leaky gas lines to animal husbandry to waste disposal to rice cultivation.
It is difficult to quantify emissions from any particular activity. In
contrast, it is relatively easy to define the contributions to CO2.
President Bush is correct that a
successful strategy to address the challenge of the climate issue will require
a commitment not just by developed countries but also by the global community,
specifically by the larger developing economies such as China, India, Brazil,
and Indonesia. Inclusion of the latter two is important in that these countries
host the bulk of the world’s dwindling reserve of tropical forests and a
disproportionate share of the planet’s biological diversity. They are
responsible also for major sources of CO2; emission of CO2
associated with tropical deforestation is estimated to contribute at present a
source of CO2 equal to as much as 30 percent of that derived from
worldwide combustion of fossil fuels. It is important, though, that developing
countries be engaged in a manner consistent with the agreement defined by the
Framework Convention, that “developed countries should take the lead.”
Extension of the time line to 2030 would allow time for diplomatic initiatives
to define an equable basis for participation by the developing world and for
developed countries to demonstrate their bona fides.
Decisions should not simply be
left to governments. Private foundations, nongovernmental organizations,
businesses, academic institutions, and religious organizations all have
important roles to play in advancing the goal of a sustainable, equitable,
global society and in protecting the irreplaceable legacy of 4.5 billion years
of planetary evolution. Private foundations are increasingly important players
on the international stage, responding to priorities defined by socially
conscious sponsors. Free of the political constraints limiting actions by
governments, they have taken the lead in recent years, addressing a variety of
socially important issues in the developing world ranging from immunization of
children against infectious disease to the provision of small loans to
encourage empowerment of women and other disadvantaged members of the global
society. Nongovernmental organizations made their presence felt at the Earth
Summit in Rio de Janeiro and more recently at meetings of the World Trade
Organization and the International Monetary Fund, as well as at the gathering
of the so-called G8, the leaders of the world’s most developed economies.
Answering only to their members, these organizations are emerging as a powerful
new force in international affairs. Investments and decisions by multinational
corporations regulate flows of capital across borders, affecting the lives of
countless millions of people around the world. Academic institutions, offering
insights into nature and the human condition, also have an important role to
play and can contribute to a more equitable global society by fostering a
deeper understanding of human problems while at the same time identifying
creative strategies for their solution. Religious institutions have a special
responsibility. They can help set the ethical agenda. To be effective, though,
they must be dynamic and must clearly enunciate their view of the place of
humanity in nature. Where necessary, doctrines rooted in the past must be
updated to incorporate insights from modern science.
We must appreciate that human
society, like nature itself, is dynamic. We need a global vision to recognize
that there is a unity to life on Earth, that we are part of nature, not
independent, that we have the potential to change our environment but that we
must exercise this power with discretion. We need a deeper appreciation for
ourselves and for nature, drawing on insights not only from science but also
from the intellectual heritage codified in the world’s great philosophical and
religious traditions. This collection of essays represents an important step
toward addressing this objective.
ENDNOTES
| 1 |
Thomas Berry, The Dream of
the Earth (San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1988). | |