Archive for the ‘sustainable development’ Category
« Older Entries |Extreme climate and the vulnerability of least-developed countries
Wednesday, January 6th, 2010
Happy New Year, everyone. Sorry for the lag in posts, but there wasn’t a lot happening in the news or journals over the past week.
A few years ago, I saw a talk by Thomas Schelling (Nobel laureate in economics) who argued that we need to accelerate the economic development of poor countries so that they are able to cope with climate change. This analysis is interesting, if not fraught with additional challenges, such as development in a carbon-based energy world hastening the very problem to which these nations are attempting to adapt.
In an article1 in the Early Edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (open access), Anthony Patt and colleagues argued that the need for assistance by Least Developed Countries (LDCs) is dependent on vulnerability, which, in turn, depends on both exposure to climate change and how socioeconomic factors affect the sensitivity of LDCs to climate change.
To assess this hypothesis, they first examined how deaths caused by disasters (floods, droughts, and storms) varied across the level of development in several LDCs. They used the UN Human Development Index—HDI, a composite metric of income, education, and life expectancy—as a proxy for development.
Here’s what they found…
Posted in climate adaptation, climate economics, policy, race and class, risk analysis, social science, sustainable development | No Comments »
Ecosystem stewardship: sustainability strategies for a rapidly changing planet
Saturday, December 12th, 2009
That’s the title of a new article1,2 by Terry Chapin and colleagues in a forthcoming issue of Trends in Ecology and Evolution.
Human actions are having large and accelerating effects on the climate, environment and ecosystems of the Earth, thereby degrading many ecosystem services. This unsustainable trajectory demands a dramatic change in human relationships with the environment and life-support system of the planet. Here, we address recent developments in thinking about the sustainable use of ecosystems and resources by society in the context of rapid and frequently abrupt change.
To deal with these challenges, they advocate “ecosystem stewardship,” which has three core principles. Here are excerpts of these principles (slightly condensed/adapted by me); please check out the paper for details:
Posted in climate adaptation, nature and culture, policy, risk analysis, solutions, sustainable development | No Comments »
When the levees break, we’ll have a more sustainable landscape again
Thursday, December 10th, 2009
We don’t ordinarily think about climate change and land use change as being a synergistic threat to society. However, the combination of impervious surfaces that increase runoff, declining wetlands, levees, and more severe storms pack a quadruple whammy that could lead to some major flooding in the future. From the cool adaptation work done in Keene, NH, we know that much of our infrastructure (roads, bridges, culverts) can’t handle the added stress of streams and rivers with higher discharge. We’re looking at a potential nightmare of increased costs associated with infrastructure damage.
In this week’s issue of Science, Jeffrey Opperman and colleagues argue1 that our historical paradigm of flood control with levees needs to fundamentally change to achieve a more sustainable socioecological system.
Their solution? Tear down some of the levees to allow some floodplains to flood. This can accomplish several goals:
(1) Flood risk reduction
- Move to flood-tolerant activities in floodplains so that we don’t have to spend so much on disaster relief.
- Storing water in floodplains takes the strain off downstream regions because floodwaters can naturally spill to where they are supposed to rather than swelling channelized rivers. Small amounts of land can accomplish this—they cite a study of the Illinois River showing that a floodplain of 8,000 hectares would drop the likelihood of flooding 26,000 hectares of cropland by 50%.
(2) Increased floodplain goods and services
- Several economic activities are conducive to periodic flooding: pasture, timber, and flood-tolerant biofuel crops, such as willow.
- Periodically flooded soils can also assist with reducing erosion and storing nutrients that would otherwise reach and pollute coastal oceans.
(3) Building resiliency to climate change
- They argue that reconnecting rivers to floodplains can help us adapt to climate change in ways that are socioeconomically beneficial. For instance, we presently have to keep some reservoirs partially empty to accommodate periodic flood waters. But partially filled reservoirs can’t generate as much hydropower or provide as much drinking water. If we used floodplains as a natural pressure relief valve, we can operate reservoirs closer to capacity and benefit economically.
Opperman and colleagues acknowledge that there are political hurdles, such as convincing some private landowners that flooding their land can be useful.
But there are creative solutions that have already been deployed. They cite Sacramento as an example: Some farmers allow their crops to flood, serving as a pressure-relief valve when rivers swell, thereby preventing more expensive damage. In return, the farmers are compensated for their crop loss. It’s a win-win situation that presumably costs less than dealing with infrastructure damage or having to build new infrastructure that handles greater flooding.
Another idea is to allow some of these areas to become wetlands and compensate people as part of a wetlands banking system to mitigate the loss of wetlands elsewhere. This would most likely have several ecological benefits, including increasing habitat for wetland-dependent species such as waterfowl and other migrating birds. It would also likely increase vegetation productivity and carbon storage.
It’s interesting to note that they don’t call for an end to economic activity or human use in floodplains. Sure, we probably want to stop building McMansions in flood-prone regions. However, there are several ways we can use floodplains for ecological and economic benefit. These will likely require compensation, but in the long run, it’s cheaper than having to re-tool major infrastructure to handle greater discharge with climate warming.
1Opperman, J.J. et al (2009) Sustainable floodplains through large-scale reconnections to rivers. Science 326:1487-1488.
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Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/doblonaut/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
Posted in biodiversity science, climate adaptation, food and agriculture, risk analysis, solutions, sustainable development | No Comments »
In this week’s issue of Nature: What do radar, nuclear power, the Internet, and DNA have in common with technological innovation to decarbonize the economy?
Wednesday, December 2nd, 2009
Most of the focus these days is on how we can mitigate climate warming by achieving specific reductions targets like 20% by 2020 and 80% by 2050. Economists from McGill University, Isabel Galiana and Christopher Greene, are going to stir up debate in their latest paper1 in Nature by arguing that the current way of thinking about mitigating warming needs to be turned on its head.
Focusing on rapid emissions reductions, they say, may not be the best way to rapidly stabilize climate as cheaply as possible. They even go as far as to say that climate can be stabilized at a 2 degree C warming even if most of the carbon reductions don’t happen until after 2050.
What’s the basis for their argument? Technology-led approaches. Let’s see what this means…
Posted in climate economics, energy, sustainable development, technology | No Comments »
Solutions
Friday, November 13th, 2009
There’s a new website/journal called Solutions, edited by Bob Costanza, David Orr, Paul Hawken, and John Todd that’s worth looking taking a look at.
Posted in solutions, sustainability, sustainable development | No Comments »
This week’s good ideas in campus sustainability: 11/9/09
Monday, November 9th, 2009
Let’s take a look at five innovative and exciting ideas from Stanford University, City College of New York, Western Michigan University, UC-Davis, and the University of Arizona…
Posted in campus sustainability, environmental literacy, environmental science, higher education, sustainability, sustainable development, technology, transportation, urban | 1 Comment »
In this week’s issue of Nature: Solving deforestation in Madagascar by first solving social challenges
Thursday, November 5th, 2009
In another Nature article (subscription required), Anjali Nayar highlights the R.E.D.D. strategy of wealthy countries buying carbon offsets in developing countries by paying to prevent deforestation.
One of the big challenges is the issue of permanence–making sure the forests remain intact so that they serve as an effective carbon sink. Doing so in Madagascar will take more than money; it will require dealing with poverty and political instability.
An excerpt:
Non-governmental organizations such as the WCS and Conservation International are working through the turmoil. But even they are worried. “We could have a very difficult time selling carbon if this political situation becomes the norm,” says Lisa Gaylord, head of the WCS in Antananarivo, the country’s capital. “Why would an investor want to come here?”
The potential:
- 30-yr R.E.D.D. projects will prevent the release of 9 million tons of CO2e, similar to the emissions of 2 million cars in the US.
- Money from R.E.D.D. projects could total $5 million/yr, funding health and development projects to reduce poverty.
The challenges:
- 85% of the population lives below $2/day
- Slash and burn agriculture is common to cultivate rice, but rapid productivity declines means that farmers must carve deeper into the forests every few years.
- Forests had declined form 90% to 15% of Madagascar’s land area by 2005.
- The recent military-backed coup led to an increase in illegal logging and wildlife harvests. Government police are doing little to stop what’s being called a logging free-for-all.
- R.E.D.D. is at risk of losing funding because international donors are not convinced illegal harvests can be controlled. Loss of funding further impedes the ability to patrol against illegal harvests.
- Without R.E.D.D. funding, more people are returning to slash and burn agriculture.
Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/wggyfrog/ / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
Posted in nature and culture, policy, sustainable development | 1 Comment »
In this week’s issue of Nature: Brazil hopes to lead developing nations by example
Thursday, November 5th, 2009
In this week’s Nature (subscription required), Jeff Tollefson describes how Brazil is talking big greenhouse gas reductions—possibly as much as 40% by 2020:
- 2/3 coming from reducing deforestation by 80%.
- 1/3 coming from the energy, agriculture, and reforestation.
- Brazil is also warming up to the idea that foreign countries can offset their greenhouse gas emissions by investing in forest conservation.
One outstanding question is how forest conservation projects and carbon markets like R.E.D.D (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation in Developing countries) might affect indigenous land rights.
Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/visionshare/ / CC BY-NC 2.0
Posted in nature and culture, policy, sustainable development | No Comments »
Good intentions, bad legacies: A history of why natural resource management sometimes fails
Friday, October 23rd, 2009
In the latest issue of Ecology and Society (open access), Colin Beier and colleagues provide an interesting case study of the Tongass National Forest (Alaska), examining the social-ecological dynamics of resource systems and why they often fail–in the long term–to deliver either improvements in public welfare or ecological sustainability. It’s important to note that they’re talking about a paradigm typical of 19-20th Century USA (i.e., post-colonial people of European descent in North America).
What I like about this case study is its generality to several kinds of natural resources and the lessons it offers when considering development in the modern world.
You’ll see at the end that they describe a solution similar to the growing Indigenous and Community Conserved Areas (ICCA) movement promoted by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). And you’ll see an example of the changing focus of The Nature Conservancy as they work to promote sustainable development alongside conservation.
An excerpt:
Government efforts to stimulate the development of natural resources for public benefit often seek to implement a vision at grand scales that, over time, creates a cycle of dependency that undermines the original social purpose as well as the resource base that was intended to be sustained. In the United States, this has occurred with respect to agriculture, forestry, fisheries, water, and many other types of resource systems. Similar cycles of dependency have emerged through international aid programs to developing nations that were intended to create self-sufficiency through resource development. Although the goals of these programs are often socially admirable and provide an economic stimulus to initiate changes that would otherwise lack the resources to emerge —i.e., to escape from poverty traps —they often result in challenging social traps that can constrain options for future generations. Why have these governance efforts failed so consistently, and what lessons can be learned that would enlighten efforts to address new frontiers of resource governance and public welfare in a rapidly changing world?
What did they find?
Tags: industry, logging, Tongass
Posted in community conserved areas, environmental history, sustainable development | No Comments »
Bono: The idea of America
Wednesday, October 21st, 2009
In Bono’s latest column in the NY Times, he argues that it’s time for the U.S. to take the lead in dealing with what he calls “the three extremes — poverty, ideology and climate” beginning to come together.
Excerpts:
In dangerous, clangorous times, the idea of America rings like a bell (see King, M. L., Jr., and Dylan, Bob). It hits a high note and sustains it without wearing on your nerves. (If only we all could.) This was the melody line of the Marshall Plan and it’s resonating again. Why? Because the world sees that America might just hold the keys to solving the three greatest threats we face on this planet: extreme poverty, extreme ideology and extreme climate change. The world senses that America, with renewed global support, might be better placed to defeat this axis of extremism with a new model of foreign policy…
Americans are like singers — we just a little bit, kind of like to be loved. The British want to be admired; the Russians, feared; the French, envied. (The Irish, we just want to be listened to.) But the idea of America, from the very start, was supposed to be contagious enough to sweep up and enthrall the world.
And it is. The world wants to believe in America again because the world needs to believe in America again. We need your ideas — your idea — at a time when the rest of the world is running out of them.
photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/u2005/ / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
Tags: america, bono
Posted in nature and culture, policy, social movements, sustainable development | No Comments »
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