On Moral Obligations

The debate resolution for October 2012 was as follows:

Resolved: Developed countries have a moral obligation to mitigate the effects of climate change.

I loved that resolution - it combined the three of the most intriguing things into one resolution: what should developed countries' governments do, what is a moral obligation, and what's the whole deal with climate change?

One thing to keep in mind is the difference between moral obligations and supererogatory ethics, which are things that one does not due to a requirement or obligation, but because they wish to go "above and beyond the call of duty."  So while it's your moral obligation to not kill someone under normal circumstances, it is not your moral obligation to go out of your way to help a stranger who dropped their papers.  But here's the problem: even though most people would agree with what I just said, the feeling's not universal.  There are perfectly well-reasoned philosophers who say that any time you can help someone in greater need than you, you are obligated to help them (look up Peter Singer).

Well, after a month of researching and debating (I actually did rather well with that resolution), I came up with two strong arguments that I can proudly say I thought up:

1. CON: Let the market solve.  Essentially, the price of oil is increasing and will only continue to increase in the future.  This means that renewables are becoming more and more economically viable.  Since companies will do what is profitable to themselves, it follows that when renewables become better economic choices than fossil fuels, companies will go green.  In fact, some estimates say Britain will see grid parity for solar power (when solar power becomes cheaper than electricity from non-renewable sources) within this year.  What this means is that the problem will be solved because of the basic rules of economics.  And what that means is governments don't have a moral obligation to mitigate climate change because it would be supererogatory.  It would be nice if they helped out, and they certainly could, but they do not have an obligation to mitigate climate change because they don't need to be the mitigating actors.
2. PRO: Governments have the moral obligation to mitigate climate change because only governments can fix the core problems that are responsible for climate change.  For example, my AP Environmental textbook points to things like human population growth as the core problems, and other issues, such as CO2 emissions, as direct or indirect results of those core problems.  My argument is that "population growth" can't be solved effectively by anyone but the government.  I'm not necessarily referring to drastic policies like the One-Child Policy; I mean family planning initiatives and laws concerning the education of young women, along with the advertisement of birth control to poor people.  Non-profit simply don't have the budget or influence to do these things.  Corporations - especially under a capitalist system - have no incentive to fix societies problems, especially when the return on their investment will not be profitable to them.  Thus, the government is morally obligated to act because only it can effectively solve the problem.

Consumerism in America

What has made America the consumer nation it is today?  Why do we buy so much?  Why do we want so much?

I think there are a number of psychological and historical theories behind all of this, but I was thinking of one in particular recently: what if one of the biggest sources of the problem is was the Cold War?

I see the Cold War as an economic battle with some superficial democracy v. communism proxy wars on the side.  I say "superficial" because they were all ultimately contingent upon the economic aspect of the "war" - in other words, both nuclear powers knew they would never militarily defeat the other unless they first emerged as the superior economic battle.  Economy was a fight that could be won.

This was the time period that infused an obsession with growth into the American psyche.  Development was not enough - if America was not actively growing, it was losing the Cold War.  If it was not making more, exporting more, using more, building more, and on and on and on, it was in grave danger of losing economic hegemony to the Soviet Union.

That mindset has stuck.  Even though development is far more sustainable than growth, America is still focused on keeping its economic hegemony in the world.  Especially in a nuclear-armed world, if America doesn't have economic power, it doesn't have any power at all.

This has made the rise of China rather problematic.  According to several calculations, China surpassed the US in total world trade last year.  China's economy is on track to overtake the US's within a decade.  Will this lead to a multipolar economic world, or will the US try everything humanly possible to remain on top?

And which is more sustainable: a permanently unipolar world, or a permanently multipolar world?  If it's the latter, America could have some huge changes to make to itself in the next few decades...

Positive Feedback Loops in Global Warming

The thing about positive feedback loops is that they're not natural - they're usually evidence that human interference is having a major impact in the system.  First let's clarify the difference between negative feedback and positive feedback:

• Negative feedback: also known as a homeostatic mechanism, it's when the increase in one factor leads to the decrease of another.  Usually, this means more output causes less input, and less output leads to more input.  Thus, negative feedback loops keep things in balance; this is how your body maintains its inner temperature, how proteins can inhibit their own enzymatic production, and how nature in general works.
• Positive feedback: an increase in one factor causes an increase in another.  This does not maintain a balance.  Unchecked, it could cause production of the output to increase off the charts.

This ties into global warming because many calculations about the impacts and harms of global warming have not taken into account newly discovered positive feedback loops.  Most notably, the IPCC didn't take them into account.  These loops act as increasingly significant accelerators of global warming.

So what are they?  Let me introduce you to a couple:

• Glaciers:  as glaciers melt due to rising temperatures, the bare ground is often exposed.  Thus, the amount of reflective surface on the Earth is decreased, and more energy is absorbed from sunlight (as opposed to being reflected back into space).  Result: more warming.
• Oceans: We often think of CO2 as being an atmospheric gas, but in reality the oceans hold 60% more of it than the atmosphere.  Remember solubility curves from chemistry?  Remember how the solubility of most gases (carbon dioxide included) decrease as temperature increases?  This means as CO2 levels rise in the atmosphere, temperatures rise, the oceans release more CO2 - and maybe other greenhouse gases too - and the positive feedback loop continues.  Result: more warming.

Moral: Don't mess with nature's negative feedback loops.

Veganism and the Environment

Whenever I am asked to present my argument defending veganism, I use four pillars of reasoning.  One of those pillars is always "Macrocosmic Effects."

The paramount point in Macrocosmic Effects is the simple fact that veganism is far better for the environment than the status quo.  Here's why:

Let's begin with trophic structure.  It's a core tenet of ecological biology.  The idea behind trophic levels is that there is a loss of energy with every jump up a food chain due to the Second Law of Thermodynamics - and the average efficiency between levels is a mere 10%.  This means that if primary producers (usually plants) have 1000 Cal of energy, the primary consumers that munch on them (usually herbivores) derive only 100 Cal of energy (the rest is lost as heat).  Then secondary consumers get 10 Cal of that, and tertiary consumers 1 Cal of that.  This is why most communities are limited to three levels of consumers or less.

Now let's set up a hypothetical scenario: let's say each person or cow needs 1 Cal to survive (this is very hypothetical).  This means that, directly consumed, 1000 Cal of corn can support 100 people (10% of 1000).  Now let's say that grass is planted instead of corn so that cattle can be raised for slaughter.  The very same 1000 Cal of grass will support 100 cows.  These 100 cows will in turn support 10 people.  This is one-tenth the number that the corn supported.

Basically what I'm saying is that veganism can solve world hunger, especially in the context of a rapidly growing world population.  Many scientists are now saying that the world's rate of meat consumption will be unsustainable by 2050.  Switching to veganism will support several times more poor people and will thus require less land and resources to do more good than meat because eating lower on the food chain is more sustainable.  Plus there would be far less methane and waste pollution due to the decrease in livestock.

Research it for yourself.  I guarantee it: veganism will save the world. 

What is our k-value?

k in population biology has a very specific meaning: carrying capacity.

And in the case of most organisms, "carrying capacity" has a very specific meaning too: it's the maximum population size that an environment can sustain indefinitely with the biotic and abiotic conditions and resources that characterize it.

But what does carrying capacity mean in the context of humans?

In other words, how many people can the Earth support?  This question quickly becomes extraordinarily complex because humans are not like most animals; we can support ourselves because we are not completely dependent upon our immediate surroundings.  Of course, at the end of the day, we do depend upon the resources of the environment, but we have evolved so far beyond other organisms that we are able to innovate with these resources so that the land that could support 10 humans centuries ago can now support 100 humans.  We have established trade routes that allow the surpluses of one region to support human life in other regions.

For example, consider this: in the Midwest, enormous fields of crops can be cultivated.  However, the region cannot support a proportionally enormous immediate population because it lacks other resources.  For our purposes, let's say "water" is a limiting resource in the Midwest.  Similarly, other regions have their own, different surpluses and limiters.  But by trading, both regions can support more people - and along the West and East coasts, many, many more people can be supported.

Thus, our k-value is partially dependent on world trade.  In theory, globalization can support more people than localization.  But there's much more - factors such as environmental degradation, inter-state war, and poverty have to be considered.  Each raises its own questions: will we continue to damage the environment? Will this significantly reduce the carrying capacity of humans on Earth?  What standard of living do we want to uphold?

Most estimates say the human population will reach 9 billion by 2050.  The overwhelming majority of these people will live in abject poverty.  In this context, does it even mean anything to say that the earth "can support" 9 billion people?  Many scientists agree with this logic and proclaim that we have already surpassed our carrying capacity and therefore need to reverse population growth in order to fix the world's biggest problems with lasting solutions.  Others disagree, saying our technological advance will allow several more billions of people to live on Earth sustainably.

I think that it is naive to believe we can reverse population growth in the next century, so we have to plan everything around a 9-billion-person world.  We have to fix our societal problems within that context.  Simultaneously, we must utilize all the population-control strategies we have to keep the human population below 9 billion.

Global Warming or Climate Change?

This is something that seems insignificant, but seems to have a significant psychological effect.  I was listening to the radio the other day and I heard an political analyst talking about why Congress hasn't made much progress with mitigation legislation.  He seemed a little liberal, as he was basically blaming the conservatives in Congress (although in this case I can't blame him) for our "environmentalist's block."  But he did bring up a very interesting point:

The republicans were more likely to be in receptive towards legislation or propositions that addressed "climate change" instead of "global warming."

Now that I think about it, it sort of makes sense - since the idea that the Earth is getting warmer seems ludicrous to many people who live in places where temperatures have not risen (because global warming is of course a rise in average global temperatures), they dismiss "global warming" as too untenable to be acted upon.  However, the same people find it harder to refute the idea of "climate change" - perhaps because it's rather foolish to suggest that the weather is not always changing.

In any case, other than exposing one of those funny little quirks in human psychology, this serves to exemplify a very important lesson: by the time human beings come to a consensus on the global warming/climate change dispute, it'll be the next Ice Age.  And the war over words will go on...

The Green Wall of China

China is frequently labeled as the world's biggest CO2 emitter, but unfortunately the discussion of China's role in international struggle with climate change often ends there.  It is true that China is the largest carbon dioxide emitter in the world, but there is more to China's rise than simply contributing to an international problem.  Perhaps psychologically, Americans favor that viewpoint to cover up the fact that America, the country with the highest per-capita emissions rate, isn't doing enough to mitigate climate change.

Barack Obama and Hu Jintao agree to the CERC

As China has risen, its leaders have increasingly turned to more rational policies, knowing that only those will gain China strong international allies and give its rise a true foundation.  Along these lines, China has begun to use its economic and political might to mold itself into a nation prepared for the environmental challenges of the 21st century.  Most recently, the Chinese government highlighted the importance of the environment in its 12th Five Year Plan:
http://www.kpmg.com/CN/en/IssuesAndInsights/ArticlesPublications/Publicationseries/5-years-plan/Documents/China-12th-Five-Year-Plan-Overview-201104.pdf

In fact, Chinese government officials have already started working with the United States in a joint organization known as the CERC.  The two countries have pledged $150,000,000 to the CERC, which brings together American and Chinese scientists to work on clean energy technology.  Moreover, it exemplifies the kind of partnership the United States and China need to have in order to tackle the world's most prominent environmental issues: http://www.us-china-cerc.org/

Contrary to popular belief, China is also the world leader in renewable energy investments.  According to Jack Perkowski of Forbes,

China was responsible for almost one-fifth of total global investment, spending $52 billion on renewable energy last year. The United States was close behind with investments of $51 billion, as developers sought to benefit from government incentive programs before they expired. Germany, Italy and India rounded out the list of the top five countries.

According to China’s 12th Five-Year Plan for Economic and Social Development (2011-2015), the country will spend $473.1 billion on clean energy investments over the next five years. China’s goal is to have 20 percent of its total energy demand sourced from renewable energy by 2020.

I don't know about you, but I'd say that for a quickly rising new superpower of over a billion people, China isn't doing too bad on the clean energy front.  I don't seem to recall the West trying to mitigate climate change during its industrial revolution....  kudos to the PRC

Water Solutions: Microeconomics

So we've all heard of the big-picture, let's-revolutionize-water "solutions" to world water shortages.  My personal favorite is probably ship-towing glaciers across oceans to consumers.  But sometimes we forget that the best solutions might not be revolutionary at all. 

That's why I'm proposing a simple microeconomic threshold-then-tax model for world water to deal with the problem that water is simply too cheap in wasteful nations:

• Make it illegal to not own a water-usage meter (just like with smoke alarms).
• In high per-capita consuming countries like the US, establish a threshold of acceptable water usage.  Let's say this threshold starts at 90% of the average American's usage.
• Below the threshold, keep the price of water low.
• Above the threshold, impose a tax that deters people (and corporations) from wasting water.
• Use the revenue from the taxes to fund source-solutions, such as grants to companies who invent water-efficiency technologies.

The best part about this policy is that the threshold eliminates any significant regressive qualities, so it would fix water usage but not fuel economic inequality.