Sunday, December 2, 2007

Environmental Values, Science, and The Nature Conservancy

Peter Kareiva has no trouble understanding environmental values. This blog's readers will know Kareiva as the scientist who joined with some colleagues to declare that nature is a resource whose value is realized by "domesticating" it. New readers should refer to "'Domesticating Nature' — NYT Commentary" (http://environmentalvalues.blogspot.com/2007/08/domesticating-nature-nyt-commentary.html) and "'Domesticating Nature' — How vs. Why" (http://environmentalvalues.blogspot.com/2007/08/domesticating-nature-how-vs-why.html).

Gardening animals:
Topiary
(Priscilla Wilson)
http://www.threadless.com/product/1159/Topiary
Humans now dominate the vast bulk of the planet. We should just get on with completing the job for the pleasure and profit of people.

The question that Kareiva is concerned to address is "How should we manage the earth domestication project?" How shall we customize the earth and all its ecosystems — in fact, all its systems — to best serve human interests? It is hard to find a more stunningly arrogant statement of nature's value. Or one more oblivious to our oft-demonstrated and probably unavoidable incompetence to realize the vision of man as "earth manager".

Kareiva is the chief scientist at The Nature Conservancy.

The Nature Conservancy avers that its mission is (http://www.nature.org/pressroom/links/art10292.html):
to preserve plants, animals and natural communities that represent the diversity of life on Earth by protecting the lands and waters they need to survive. We are dedicated to preserving biological diversity, and, as described below, our values compel us to find ways to ensure that human activities can be conducted harmoniously with the preservation of natural diversity. We aspire to the vision articulated so wisely more than 50 years ago by Aldo Leopold in his book, A Sand County Almanac: conservation is a state of harmony between man and nature.
How are we to understand this vision of harmony, solemnly offered with the imprimatur of Aldo Leopold? As read through the lens of Kareiva's sensibilities, it is the harmony that we achieve by subjecting every last bit of nature to human control for human pleasure and comfort.

This past month, we have a "Dispatch" (http://www.nature.org/tncscience/features/art22977.html) from Sanjayan — another Conservancy "lead" scientist. In it, Sanjayan describes a meeting in Missoula with Kareiva and the Conservancy program director there. There is no mention of domestication; no mention of widening our "global footprint" (as Kareiva would say) to ensure that every last corner of the planet bears it. That is refreshing, even encouraging, considering Sanjayan's company that night.

Instead, we find confusion. But that is appropriate! Understanding environmental values is an extraordinarily difficult enterprise. Sanjayan is struggling along with the rest of us.

Sanjayan asks:
When the goal is to protect a little bit of everything on the planet, can a conservation organization afford to protect places for non-scientific reasons?
Evidently, "scientific reasons" can confer indisputable value. But other ways of conferring value are suspect -- as he implies by going on to ask:
[can a conservation organization afford to protect places] Simply because of human values? Aesthetics? Emotional ties that bind people to place?
Some may wish to dismiss Sanjayan for committing a form of the "naturalistic fallacy". But that "fallacy" has little to do with either naturalists or fallacies. Instead, we should say that Sanjayan offers an enthymeme, well described by Aristotle (who else?) in his "Rhetoric" Book I.2 (http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/rhetoric.1.i.html) as a syllogism with suppressed premises. Sanjayan's enthymeme is:
  • Premise 1: A landscape that has not lost any species in 200 years makes it (let us say) "200-year-species-intact".
  • Premise 2: 200-year-species-intact landscapes are "unique".
  • Premise 3: Only science can realiably identify 200-year-species-intact landscapes.
  • Conclusion: Therefore, species-intact landscapes are worthy of preservation.
Before getting to the missing premise, we should acknowledge that Sanjayan hedges his Conclusion with the comment that
The value of a totally intact landscape versus a slightly impacted landscape is hard to quantify. Some lost species will be noticed; others, frankly, will not.
So apparently, Sanjayan is willing to qualify his conclusion. But this is a quantitative qualification, not a qualitative one. His conclusion holds for a landscape that, insofar as we can notice, is "intact". If we overlook the disappearance of a species or find it hard to notice its absence — presumably using current ecological science, and within the range of conditions and time in which scientific observation has been possible — then we should not attempt to distinguish that landscape from one that is (by all measures of current ecological science) completely "intact". Perhaps the missing species is merely an arachnid whose ecosystem role cannot be identified and in any case, with which it is hard to be empathetic.

So what's the missing premise?
  • Missing Premise: A landscape with a scientifically verifiable unique property is valuable.
Is this premise true? Probably not. Sanjayan certainly provides no reason for us to believe it.

Clearly, we can find properties in any landscape that are unique to it and that distinguish it from any others. The peculiarities of its peculiar biogeochemical composition would suffice for a unique thumbprint. What Sanjayan seeks are properties that confer conservation-demanding value on landscapes. Uniqueness alone doesn't do this.

Do certain unique properties such as 200-year-species-intact have a special status in the realm of environmental values? Perhaps they do. But this value does not result from the fact that the valued property is scientifically determined and understood — that it has, in Sanjayan's words, a "scientific reason". The various properties that typify or constitute a Superfund site may be scientifically determined, too. But that doesn't give such a site a value that demands its preservation. Quite the opposite.

Biodiversity, too, is scientifically characterizable — albeit in a number of different ways that give different answers to the question "how biodiverse is this landscape?". Taking one measure, we may determine that a landscape is biodiverse. So much for the science. We then have to decide whether this diversity (not the fact that it was scientifically determined) confers some kind of value on the landscape that commands our moral attention.

Sanjayan is justifiably nervous about saying that science somehow confers value. He may sense, though doesn't say, that science does, indeed must inform our best judgments of value. It helps us understand more fully the implications of our actions. To the extent that consequences count in moral evaluation and deliberation, science may help immensely. But it doesn't tell us which consequences count; or which ones merit moral consideration; or for those that do, to what degree they command our moral attentiveness.

Science, too, can help us find in landscapes properties — and potentially valuable properties — beyond those that satisfy our most near-sighted and narrowly construed interests. Science helps us see that not every plot of land has value merely as a place to build a condo, to lay down a highway, or to plant endless rows of ethanol-yielding corn. But science doesn't have the power to confer the value. Rather, it can only help us find the properties that we find valuable in our moral deliberations outside of (though informed by) scientific inquiry.

Sanjayan does hint at other ways to proceed with the project of finding environmental value. But he immediately despairs of making any headway with them:
Every place, it seems, is precious to those who live there; it’s difficult to argue that some are more precious than others.
These are, as he says, merely "emotional ties that bind people to a place". How can we possibly sort this out? But really, this is an excellent place to start! We would urge Sanjayan to start from there — the value of places to people.

Sanjayan offers other hints, by way of being dismissive, of letting "human value" or "aesthetics" enter into consideration. These may also be areas of fruitful moral, though not scientific inquiry.

We would urge Sanjayan not to expect an easy formula or "scientific reason" that will identify properties that carry environmental values, let alone create a neatly ordered hierarchy of such values. The world of values, including (or perhaps especially) those attaching to nature and the environment, arise from many, varied, and dynamically changing interests that do not admit a neat order. We are likely to find many different kinds of values and no alchemy for converting one kind to another. There may not even be a common measure — as much as we yearn for this when the values conflict and demand tradeoffs.

This blog requested that Sanjayan record his comments on these thoughts. Sanjayan did not do that. Nor did he even respond to the request.

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Monday, November 26, 2007

Aristotle breezes back to share some Socratic wisdom

H: Hey, Mr. A. We didn't expect you back so soon!

A: My mention of Meno yesterday put me in mind of an instructive exchange he had with Socrates on desires or preferences for goods, their acquisition, and the relation of these to virtue. Having absorbed our discussion of preference consequentialism from yesterday, your readers are well prepared to understand what Socrates has to say. It seems that he might have had some of the same misgivings that we've expressed about preferences as measures of value.

H: Ok, Mr. A. We're delighted to present that dialogue without further comment:
Detail of Socrates teaching, from
The School of Athens (Raphael, 1509-10)
Men. Well then, Socrates, virtue, as I take it, is when he, who desires the honourable, is able to provide it for himself; so the poet says, and I say too -

Virtue is the desire of things honourable and the power of attaining them.

Soc. And does he who desires the honourable also desire the good?

Men. Certainly.

Soc. Then are there some who desire the evil and others who desire the good? Do not all men, my dear sir, desire good?

Men. I think not.

Soc. There are some who desire evil?

Men. Yes.

Soc. Do you mean that they think the evils which they desire, to be good; or do they know that they are evil and yet desire them?

Men. Both, I think.

Soc. And do you really imagine, Meno, that a man knows evils to be evils and desires them notwithstanding?

Men. Certainly I do.

Soc. And desire is of possession?

Men. Yes, of possession.

Soc. And does he think that the evils will do good to him who possesses them, or does he know that they will do him harm?

Men. There are some who think that the evils will do them good, and others who know that they will do them harm.

Soc. And, in your opinion, do those who think that they will do them good know that they are evils?

Men. Certainly not.

Soc. Is it not obvious that those who are ignorant of their nature do not desire them; but they desire what they suppose to be goods although they are really evils; and if they are mistaken and suppose the evils to be good they really desire goods?

Men. Yes, in that case.

Soc. Well, and do those who, as you say, desire evils, and think that evils are hurtful to the possessor of them, know that they will be hurt by them?

Men. They must know it.

Soc. And must they not suppose that those who are hurt are miserable in proportion to the hurt which is inflicted upon them?

Men. How can it be otherwise?

Soc. But are not the miserable ill-fated?

Men. Yes, indeed.

Soc. And does any one desire to be miserable and ill-fated?

Men. I should say not, Socrates.

Soc. But if there is no one who desires to be miserable, there is no one, Meno, who desires evil; for what is misery but the desire and possession of evil?

Men. That appears to be the truth, Socrates, and I admit that nobody desires evil.

Soc. And yet, were you not saying just now that virtue is the desire and power of attaining good?

Men. Yes, I did say so.

Soc. But if this be affirmed, then the desire of good is common to all, and one man is no better than another in that respect?

Men. True.

Soc. And if one man is not better than another in desiring good, he must be better in the power of attaining it?

Men. Exactly.

Soc. Then, according to your definition, virtue would appear to be the power of attaining good?

Men. I entirely approve, Socrates, of the manner in which you now view this matter.

Soc. Then let us see whether what you say is true from another point of view; for very likely you may be right:-You affirm virtue to be the power of attaining goods?

Men. Yes.

Soc. And the goods which mean are such as health and wealth and the possession of gold and silver, and having office and honour in the state-those are what you would call goods?

Men. Yes, I should include all those.

Soc. Then, according to Meno, who is the hereditary friend of the great king, virtue is the power of getting silver and gold; and would you add that they must be gained piously, justly, or do you deem this to be of no consequence? And is any mode of acquisition, even if unjust and dishonest, equally to be deemed virtue?

Men. Not virtue, Socrates, but vice.

Soc. Then justice or temperance or holiness, or some other part of virtue, as would appear, must accompany the acquisition, and without them the mere acquisition of good will not be virtue.

Men. Why, how can there be virtue without these?

Soc. And the non-acquisition of gold and silver in a dishonest manner for oneself or another, or in other words the want of them, may be equally virtue?

Men. True.

Soc. Then the acquisition of such goods is no more virtue than the non-acquisition and want of them, but whatever is accompanied by justice or honesty is virtue, and whatever is devoid of justice is vice.

Men. It cannot be otherwise, in my judgment.

Soc. And were we not saying just now that justice, temperance, and the like, were each of them a part of virtue?

Men. Yes.

Soc. And so, Meno, this is the way in which you mock me.

Men. Why do you say that, Socrates?

Soc. Why, because I asked you to deliver virtue into my hands whole and unbroken, and I gave you a pattern according to which you were to frame your answer; and you have forgotten already, and tell me that virtue is the power of attaining good justly, or with justice; and justice you acknowledge to be a part of virtue.

Men. Yes.

Soc. Then it follows from your own admissions, that virtue is doing what you do with a part of virtue; for justice and the like are said by you to be parts of virtue.

Men. What of that?

Soc. What of that! Why, did not I ask you to tell me the nature of virtue as a whole? And you are very far from telling me this; but declare every action to be virtue which is done with a part of virtue; as though you had told me and I must already know the whole of virtue, and this too when frittered away into little pieces. And, therefore, my dear I fear that I must begin again and repeat the same question: What is virtue? for otherwise, I can only say, that every action done with a part of virtue is virtue; what else is the meaning of saying that every action done with justice is virtue? Ought I not to ask the question over again; for can any one who does not know virtue know a part of virtue?

Plato, "Meno", tr. Benjamin Jowett (http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/meno.html)

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Sunday, November 25, 2007

Aristotle takes a closer look at natural capital

(The third in a series of interviews with the great philosopher)

[Aristotle returns from the pub to which he retreated for a well-earned respite after discussing Robert Constanza's suggestion that we value nature as "natural capital", in "Aristotle shows up in Ecology 101" (http://environmentalvalues.blogspot.com/2007/09/aristotle-shows-up-in-ecology-101.html).]

The truth in natural capital

A: Well that was quite refreshing.

H: Yes indeed.

A: Three Philosophers Ale is quite a brew. Do you think that I'm one of those Three Philosophers? I mean, you could make a much better case for me than for Plato. With all due respect to my mentor, I'm skeptical that even a Philosopher King could truly enjoy the Form of Beer. Me? I'd rather just quaff some sensible suds, hang out in a cave — Philosophy Corner would do just fine — and debate the merits of valuing nature as natural capital. The Form of Beer will never tickle anyone's taste buds...

H: No doubt, a debate to have with Plato over a few more brews. But right now, we're anxious to get back to what we discussed last time — you know — Mr. Constanza's project of valuing natural places as natural capital.

A: Yes, this is one of the most important and most urgent topics of the day.

H: Mr. Constanza and his colleagues undoubtedly lack neither good intentions nor intellectual prowess. And a great many other equally well-intentioned and brilliant thinkers — some of our most eminent scientists and economists — have joined his project. It's so seductive to think of natural places as capital investments. It all seemed such a promising, even natural way to demonstrate the stupidity of reckless disregard of our natural resources — until you pointed out that it leads us to such absurd conclusions.

A: Yes indeed. I propose that we inquire into assumptions that underlie the natural capital valuation project. Perhaps we shall find that that RompInASwamp DevCo aren't the only ones building on a quagmire.

H: That's exactly what we were hoping for...

A: That will help set us up for a time when we might find a more satisfactory way of valuing nature by exploring some elements that are missing from the natural capital picture.

H: Splendid! Well, why do you think that Constanza's project is so appealing?

A: I think that there are many reasons. But the one I'd like to focus on first is that there is undoubtedly some truth in it.

H: Whoa there, Mr. A. I thought that you were going to help us see just the opposite. I mean, how else would it endorse such crazy things as casually trashing deserts or turning every swamp into a condo complex when that presents the greatest economic benefit?

A: We shall see about that. But I'd like to start by acknowledging the truth of one of Mr. Constanza's most fundamental premises — namely that nature provides a host of resources that we draw upon to satisfy a great many human needs. It provides the raw "stuff" for us to make many of the things that we desire and to satisfy our many and varied preferences.

H: That's certainly true.

A: No one can doubt that we "make a living" from nature...

H: Right.

A: ... or that nature has value to us because of that.

H: So Constanza didn't get everything wrong...

A: Not at all.

H: Then why not go with Constanza's project of setting the right price for nature and her services? Isn't it better to have some number that represents the value of a natural system than no number at all? Won't that at least give us some way to ask whether we'd be better off by going ahead with the next project that destroys part of our natural heritage?

Consequences for human welfare = the true measure of an act?

A: Excellent questions! I sense an inquiring rational soul at work.

H: Thank you, Mr. A. Coming from you, that's quite a complement.

A: Perhaps the most fundamental question we should ask is whether the consequences of an act, and particularly, the state of human welfare that derives from it, should be its true and only moral measure. Some might say that we sometimes, often, or even always should choose to act in a way that fulfills our duties and obligations to others, and that honors the just demands of others on us — even we thereby decrease overall welfare. I think that my buddy Manny might say something like that.

H: Sure, sometimes it's more important to just keep a promise to a friend — even if it might mean forgoing some significant preferences of our own and even if they likely outweigh the benefits for our friend.

A: An excellent example. And there are others who, when considering a particular act, might wish to focus on whether we would want to be the kind of person who would do it. I can't imagine who might want say that. But that doesn't sound totally crazy, does it?

H: I wouldn't have thought of that. But now that you mention it, I sometimes find myself thinking in just that way, too.

A: A man after my own rational soul. But let's begin by assuming that the outcome for human welfare is the right way to evaluate our actions.

H: Well, ok. Though you've made me pretty doubtful...

A: Does it follow that the price that such an outcome commands is the true value of the welfare that it provides?

H: Why wouldn't it be?

Price = Value?

A: An astonishing question. My first question would be, "Why in Macedonia would you think that it does?"

H: Gee, how could you not think that?

A: Let me tell you about a chat that I had with a bloke in that brew house. Called himself "Adam". Beat us Theatetus, could he belt down those Scottish ales.

H: Adam..., Adam..., common last name? Rings a bell...

A: In between pints, and before he slipped under the bar, he managed to write this down for me:
The word VALUE, it is to be observed, has two different meanings, and sometimes expresses the utility of some particular object, and sometimes the power of purchasing other goods which the possession of that object conveys. The one may be called "value in use"; the other, "value in exchange". The things which have the greatest value in use have frequently little or no value in exchange; and on the contrary, those which have the greatest value in exchange have frequently little or no value in use. Nothing is more useful than water: but it will purchase scarce any thing; scarce any thing can be had in exchange for it. A diamond, on the contrary, has scarce any value in use; but a very great quantity of other goods may frequently be had in exchange for it (Book I, Chapter IV)... The real price of every thing, what every thing really costs to the man who wants to acquire it, is the toil and trouble of acquiring it (Book I, Chapter V).

A. Smith, "An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations", 1776 (http://www.econlib.org/LIBRARY/Smith/smWN.html)

H: Ah, so he's saying that there's no real relationship between price and utility for people. The price reflects the amount of labor...

A: ... a "factor of production"...

H: ... not its effect on welfare. That puts a pretty big dent in the theory that the price of something is a measure of its value for human welfare.

A: Exactly so. On the one hand, there's value in use -- the true utility of something — its true significance for human welfare. On the other hand, there's its value in exchange -- in the marketplace. What Adam wrote down for me shows us why we shouldn't expect any particular relationship between the two. Of course, that's the old labor theory of value -- the classical view. Modern economists — the neoclassical dudes that I call "econo-consequentialists" — don't buy it... so to speak.

H: Damn. I thought we had that one nailed.

A: Yeah, well, when I brought up the neoclassical view, poor auld Adam slid off his stool and slipped under the bar.

H: He felt kind of marginalized?

A: Hah! Exactly! Talk to any self-respecting neoclassical economist these days, and she'll say the price of water isn't a matter of how much labor went into its production. The price isn't even a matter of the total value of all the water in the world.

H: No?

A: Not at all. What counts is the water's marginal utility. The price for a unit of water is what a person is willing to pay to satisfy her last and least important desire for it. With abundant supplies, one needn't worry about its vital role in human survival. Instead, its price comes down to what we're willing to pay to use it to wash off sidewalks. But diamonds are so scarce that those who want them are willing to pay a way higher price for one than for a glass of water. A diamond's marginal utility, hence its price dwarfs that of water.

H: Amazing.

A: What I find amazing is that, if poor auld Adam hadn't had quite so many ales, he would have realized that those neoclassical dudes just take a different route to the same conclusion. The price of a thing does not reflect its value for human well being — not even insofar as that well being is a matter of how needs and preferences are satisfied. Economic theory — either classical or neoclassical — refutes that interpretation.

H: Wow.

A: Why do you find this surprising? Consider how, according to Stuart Pimm, Constanza and friends place the astounding $17 trillion price tag on nutrient cycling by the oceans. According to Pimm,
If the oceans were not there, re-creating their nutrient cycling would require removing the nutrients from the land's runoff and returning them. The estimate of this service's $17 trillion value is arrived at by multiplying the cost of removing phosphorus and nitrogen from a litre of waste water by the 40,000 cubic kilometers of water that flow from the land each year.

S. Pimm, "The value of everthing", Nature, 387, 15 May 1997, p. 232 (http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v387/n6630/abs/387231a0.html)
There's a problem, though.

H: Which is...

A: ... that, according to Pimm, at least "In the short term, many would not notice (and perhaps not care) what happens to the elements as they flow into the ocean." (p. 232) So by the principles of preference consequentialism that underlie this valuation, that price grossly overestimates its true value for welfare. But say that we devise a wondrous technology that reduces the cost of P and N removal and recycling by a factor of 1,000,000. The price would then be a mere $17 million/yr. — a veritable bargain. Are we to think that such technological innovation reduces the value of the oceans for us? That a breakthrough technology would make the oceans dispensable? Would that make it ok for us to start heaving all our waste into them? Would we be free to stop worrying about eutrophication? Would that be the signal to start building pipelines to convey all our toxic wastes to the ocean?

H: That doesn't seem right.

A: I think what you feel is that, even if part of the value of the oceans has to do with nutrient cycling, not all its value derives from that. In fact, viewing the oceans simply as a resource for our use may fail to capture the most significant values of the ocean for us.

H: But wait a minute.

A: Hey man, I don't know about you, but I've already been waiting for two and one-half millennia. I can spare a few more moments or so.

H: We really appreciate your patience, Mr. A.

A: It's rather embarrassing, but we philosophers are not known for the speed with which we solve problems.

H: Ok, you've convinced me that price is pretty shaky stand-in for welfare value. As you've pointed out, economic theory itself — both classical and neoclassical — undermines that interpretation.

A: It's rather worse than that. Not only are Constanza and Pimm in error by presenting the supposed market price of nutrient cycling as its value for human welfare, they don't even get the market price right. I confess that Environmental Economics was not in the Lyceum curriculum. But I'm pretty sure you'd flunk the Stanford course if you used Pimm's substitution logic. To determine the true market price of a thing or service, a modern economist doesn't ask "What would it cost you to do that?" That's pretty much auld Adam's cost of labor theory. Instead, the neoclassical economist figures out our willingness to pay using contingent evaluation interviews. She would ask, "If it cost you $17 million to cycle N and P, would you buy that service? Yes? Ok, how about $17 billion? Really? How about $17 trillion?" if the economist's interlocutor says, "Jeez, Socrates; I'm gonna take my $17 million and buy myself 17 million lottery tickets instead — then that's the market price. A pretty crummy dialogue by Plato's standards. But I guess that modern economists doing contingent evaluation don't have his panache.

H: Ok, so let's make those ecologists take Environmental Economics before we let them publish again in "Nature". In the meantime, let's look at the bigger picture. Water and diamonds and nutrient cycling are only a tiny part of all the myriad things that we need and want. Aren't welfare economists just finding a way to express our preferences — and with a very satisfying mathematical precision, at that? Doesn't our welfare increase to the extent our preferences are satisfied? Can't we quantify our preferences for things or states of affairs by how much we're willing to pay for them — at the margins, as you say — by determining or estimating their price?

A: There are a raft of further assumptions behind those questions and we should look into them. As we've already seen, the market price of a thing has no necessary or even empirically observable connection with its value — considered as the importance of that thing for human well-being or flourishing.

H: But I can't help thinking that we could find a way to reconnect them.

A: Let's look at some other assumptions first — to see if that's the only problem.

Needs = preferences?

H: Ok, Mr. A, what's the next assumption?

A: That preferences and needs can be considered as one. Economists lump them into the basket of market "goods" that we might be willing to pay for.

H: How do you mean?

A: We all have a need for water and food. The nutritive part of our soul, which we share with all other organisms — plants and animals alike — and which is the source of our natural capacity to grow and reproduce, cannot flourish without food:
The nutritive soul then must be possessed by everything that is alive, and every such thing is endowed with soul from its birth to its death. For what has been born must grow, reach maturity, and decay-all of which are impossible without nutrition. Therefore the nutritive faculty must be found in everything that grows and decays.

Aristotle, "De Anima", Book III.12, tr. J.A. Smith (http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/soul.3.iii.html)

H: Can't get any more basic than that!

A: Right! And because we humans are social animals, certain kinds of relationships with other persons are also necessary to us. For example, we cannot flourish without friendships — for we need friends to develop and exercise our natural capacities as the kind of social animal that can take another's interests as one's own:
[Friendship] is a virtue or implies virtue, and is besides most necessary with a view to living. For without friends no one would choose to live, though he had all other goods; even rich men and those in possession of office and of dominating power are thought to need friends most of all.

Aristotle, "Nichomachean Ethics", Book VIII.1, tr. W.D. Ross (http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/nicomachaen.8.viii.html)

H: That's a pretty strong claim. But I'd be hard pressed to contest it.

A: There's no possibility of a person flourishing in the absence of these sorts of things. In fact, we would suffer serious harm without them. They are independent of beliefs and position in life and even our ongoing projects in life because they arise directly from the very kind of living being, the kind of animal that we are.

H: But preferences...

A: ... are unlike needs in key respects. They depend on beliefs and on one's position in life. We can be mistaken about our preferences and prefer things that are not at all good for our well-being. We may mistakenly think that drinking six pints of ale every night with two scotch chasers bolsters our spirits and is good for us.

H: Like poor auld Adam, it seems.

A: Ah, he barely got to his third. But there's a related distinction that may be even more important.

H: And that is...

A: ... that our preferences, in contrast to our needs, can develop and change -- sometimes in profound ways -- as we develop our natural human sensibilities and become aware of relationships or new dimensions in relationships that we have to other things, other organisms and creatures, and to other persons in our world. Where the real estate guys at RompInASwamp DevCo see only a mosquito-infested and inconveniently water-saturated tract of land on which to build lucrative condos, the trained ecologist sees a vibrant community of plants and animals interacting with the "stuff" of an increasingly rare kind of place that presents conditions in which that kind of community can flourish. The developer sees a resource, a means for satisfying her preference to enrich herself. The home-buyers see a prestigious home site that satisfies their preference for the offered amenities. But the ecologist sees a place with a special kind of bio-geological history that gives it a correspondingly special place alongside and in relation to human beings.

H: In other words, ecology scientists such as Constanza and Pimm should see some kinds of value in swamps that have nothing to do with the services that they perform for us?

A: Yes, and it's a pity that they, of all people, don't insist on including such non-market values in their discussion of the value of places.

H: So we need to take care that we don't lump preferences together with needs. What else do we need to be wary of?

Willingness to pay = justice?

A: Remember that notion of "willingness to pay" that we mentioned?

H: Sure. That's how neoclassical economists measure the strength of our preferences.

A: Right. So we need to ask what "willingness to pay" really measures. Consider this. Economists ask themselves whether or not it's ok for people to die as the result of proposed policy — say to allow an industry to dump toxins into a river at a certain level.

H: Gee, doesn't that already violate the distinction between needs and preferences that you already discussed?

A: It does, indeed. But there's another point to be made. As Stanford economist Lawrence Goulder explains ("Benefit-Cost Analysis, Individual Differences, and Third Parties", Februay 2007, paper prepared for the conference, “What We Can Do To Improve The Use Of Benefit-Cost Analysis?” University of Washington, May 18-19, 2006), "The key statistic in this context is the value of a statistical life (VSL), which is calculated based on each affected individual’s willingness to pay for the change in the statistical probability of death that applies to him or her." And guess what? Rich people are far more willing to pay to increase their survival chances than poor people.

H: Well Plato's tomatoes, they've got the money to do that, and the power to make it happen.

A: Of course. So on the watch of the neoclassical economists, the life of a poor person is worth less — often considerably less — than the life of a rich person. Of course, when we say that, we mean the "the value of a statistical life". But actuarial tables play out in the real world with real human lives. By economists' evaluative rules, it's better to pay for toxic pollution by cutting short the life of a poor person than of a rich one.

H: I can see why you're not too keen on econo-consequentialism. Doesn't it have some sense of justice?

A: Perhaps, as an afterthought. Goulder, for example, claims that rich people have a preference for the poor not to suffer unduly. Taking that preference into account would even things up a bit.

H: So we are to find the value of poor people in rich persons' sympathy for their suffering? There's something even more appalling in that response than the obvious injustice of discounting poor lives in the first place.

A: What we are observing is the retreat by neoclassical economists from the principle of equal consideration. That principle was maintained by their classical utilitarian forerunners such as good old Jeremy Bentham. On his account, the pain of every person — perhaps even every sentient creature — counts equally.

H: Now that sounds fair.

Maximizing welfare = justice?

A: Fair in the respect that all are considered equally, but still not fair in how goods and harms may be distributed.

H: How so?

A: In the bad old days of classical utilitarianism, consequentialists took themselves to be simple-minded utility accountants. For the consequences of some act, add in Meno's increase in utility. Subtract the decrease for Zeno. Do that for all positively affected Meno's and all negatively affected Zeno's
The naked Archimedes (c 287-212 BC) running through
the streets of Syracuse shouting 'Eureka!'
From the title page of:
'Notizie istoriche e critiche intorno alla vita,
alle invenzioni,ed agli scritti di Archimede siracusano'
(Historical and critical information about the life,
inventions and writings of Archimedes of Syracuse)
by Count Giammaria Mazzuchelli (1707-1765),
published 1737, Brescia, Italy.
and ηὕρηκα, um, voilà (that babelfish is quite something) you have a rating for that act and possibly one very excited economist running around naked holding up a sign with that number. Another economist takes another possible act, does the Meno's/Zeno's calculation for that alternative, and there, you've got two naked economists running around, each with their own number. Pretty soon, you have a mighty ugly sight. But barring the unlikely outcome of a tie, only one of those economists will be running around with the highest number and the others will have to get dressed and go home.

H: Whew. I was worried that things might be getting out of hand.

A: There may be disagreement about the ingredients for utilities in these calculations. My buddy Jeremy Bentham would keep it simple, restricting the calculus to pleasures and pains. John Mill would muddy the waters by throwing in most preferences (including the preference to experience pleasure and that to avoid pain), with some kind of, if you'll pardon the expression, preferential preference ranking. But in the end, it's basically a matter of addition and subtraction — modified only by weighting a pleasure or pain by its strength, or by weighting a preference by strength and type. The total welfare that is results from a choice — the summation of its consequences, both positive and negative — is what counts in comparing that choice to others.

H: Without using willingness to pay to measure preferences?

A: Right. The pleasures and pains of all count equally; or if you prefer, the preferences of all count equally.

H: How could that be unjust?

A: Injustices may result when some persons derive more utility from a choice than others. If the choice that maximizes the utility does so by providing enormous benefits to some, and the sum of those enormous benefits far outweighs (in the calculus) an enormous suffering that it inflicted on many, but fewer others, then classical utilitarianism would endorse it.

H: Even if the sufferers were in the minority, that would not be very just, would it?

A: Especially not in that case. That is what some would call the tyranny of the majority.

H: Yes, I can see that. Where do you think the calculation goes awry? It seemed such an unassailably good idea to choose those acts and policies that maximize welfare.

A: Ah, the question of justice brings us to yet another major question.

H: Which is...

Additivity of utilities?

A: Why, in the first place, should we think that we can we can meaningfully add and subtract the pleasures and pains of different people, or their preferences for different goods that they suppose are constitutive of their well-being?

H: Well, if Bentham is right, and our welfare is just a matter of pleasures and pains, it doesn't seem too hard to think of adding and subtracting them.

A: Even restricting our attention to pleasures, aren't there a plethora of different kinds? Do you really suppose that you can compare the pleasure of one person in being awarded a degree in philosophy with another person's pain in knowing that a departing friend will never again be seen?

H: I see what you mean.

A: Going beyond Bentham's simple world of pleasures and pains, consider the infinitely more diverse set of goods that might be the subjects of our preferences. Consider, for example, a preference to have good and fast friends. Can that be added to or subtracted from a preference to lead an autonomous life, free from the shackles of slavery? Can we say that a slave living in the most ignominious conditions is compensated by the fast friendships that, in her position, she can and does develop with her fellow slaves?

H: That would seem to be a tough proposition to endorse. But couldn't there be a way to compare two preferences without having to have some absolute rating of each?

Maximization and rights

A: Willingness to pay is one way to do that. That concept is, among other things, a tool that may appear to make possible a comparative measure, a ranking of all preferences. But we saw how quickly it leads us to an unjust distribution of the satisfaction of those preferences. There is yet another problem with "willingness to pay" that perhaps I shall leave for the end of today's interview.

H: Gee, Mr. A. It doesn't take too hard a glance at utility maximization to make it crumble before your eyes.

A: Yeah, it's kind of the reverse Gorgon effect. We philosophers are pretty good at it.

H: Are there any more questions on your list?

A: Well, our discussion of the utility arithmetic used in utility maximization serves well to introduce what may be our final question for today — which is, in fact, the first question we asked. Even if it makes sense to add some persons' preferences according to its strength and type, and to similarly subtract the preferences denied others, why should we think that maximizing preference values is the only thing that we should value in our moral considerations?

H: Well, I guess we've already shown that the distribution of goods counts. And man, maximization can really screw that up.

A: Yes, and the injustice of maximization doesn't end with the inequitable distribution of utilities. What about respect for basic rights — such as the right to autonomous existence, free of physical and intellectual enslavement? What if a system of enslavement maximized total human welfare? And what about the right to satisfaction of basic needs? Remember how we distinguished them from mere preferences? In considering one person's need for water directly against another person's preference for a 5-bath, 6-bedroom house instead of much more modest but perfectly adequate shelter launches us into morally troubled waters. Placing both on an equal footing inside the same calculus makes it possible to violate the basic right to satisfy such a basic need in the interest of maximizing preferences (broadly construed to include needs).

H: Well that seems to be all the more reason to get away from this maximization thing — this business of adding your utility and subtracting mine.

A: Spoken like a true neoclassical economist. Such an economist would say that you are onto something.

H: Really?

Justice of efficiency?

A: Indeed. Efficiency and Kaldor-Hicks compensation.

H: Huh?

A: The method of choice — the test of so-called "efficiency" — that neoclassical economists propose in place of maximization of welfare.

H: How does it work?

A: Maximization calculations are made on the problematic assumption that the preferences of Menos and Zenos can be assigned numeric values that can be added and subtracted in the preference calculus. Latter-day economists have invented the notion of economic efficiency precisely to avoid that — and thereby avoid the concomitant problems that we've unearthed.

H: That may not be a bad thing.

A: Not at all. So let's see how it works. This notion of efficiency builds on the notion of Pareto improvement. That's a change resulting from some act or policy which at least one person prefers but to which no one objects. One reaches Pareto optimality when no further Pareto improvements are possible.

H: Right. No adding or subtracting in that.

A: Exactly. But the Kaldor-Hicks criterion of efficiency sneaks interpersonal comparisons back in.

H: Then why would it be better than the maximizing calculus?

A: Well, the comparisons are less direct. The Kaldor-Hicks criterion broadens the simple notion of a Pareto improvement to allow, not just improvements to which no one objects, but ones that are so great to the beneficiaries that they can pay off the losers and still come out ahead.

H: It sounds as though we're also sneaking back to measuring preferences in terms of willingness to pay; or, in the case of the losers, willingness to accept compensation for their loss.

A: I'm afraid so. Interpersonal comparisons are back, though perhaps in a more limited way. Equal consideration is back out the door, because poor losers will tend to accept a pittance for their misery. And that's not even the worst of it.

H: It already looks like a pretty bad idea. It's hard to see how it could get worse.

A: Notice I said that the winners could pay off the losers.

H: Right?

A: Kaldor-Hicks does not say that they actually do that!

H: I'm stunned.

A: It's stunning, indeed. Kaldor-Hicks requires us to believe that justice is served when winners merely contemplate compensating the losers.

H: It's hard to believe that would sit well with the losers.

A: Or anyone with even a modest sense of justice.

H: Well, Mr. A, where does that leave us?

A brief synopsis

A: Not with much — at least, insofar as consequentialism and its incarnation as "natural capital" in valuing nature is concerned. Consequentialism in its various forms starts with one worthy insight — that the consequences of our actions and policies count in our moral assessment of them. Unfortunately, that insight is betrayed by the raft of assumptions that follow. There's the assumption that only consequences count. Close behind it is the assumption that the moral meaning of an act is entirely captured by how it affects human welfare. There's the flawed theory about how needs and preferences enter into human welfare. We have seen that it seems unlikely that we could make sense of comparing and adding interpersonal preferences. And it seems equally unlikely that we could find a just way to evaluate the aggregative consequences for welfare — whether we maximize utilities or apply an efficiency criterion. But even if we could do those things, questions about those first two basic assumptions would remain.

The grip of econo-consequentialist thinking

H: So how did such a problematic theory of moral value get such a grip on us?

A: I'm a philosopher, not a sociologist. But I'm willing to speculate...

H: that...?

A: ... there's a lure to the apparent mathematical precision of economics — so great a lure that we find it hard to overlook the possibility that the numbers may be meaningless. Economists aid and abet our urge to have a satisfyingly complete ordering on our choices. Of course we need the additional fiction of complete predictive ability and complete knowledge of human preferences for that. But nonetheless, the total ordering is hard to resist. All conflict dissolves away In a world in which all goods are completely ordered and comparable. There are no tradeoffs, really — just the choice that maximizes welfare for a maximizing consequential; or the most efficient choice for the modern economist. There's no tradeoff in choosing more welfare over less or more efficiency over less.

H: That would be too good to be true.

A: And I'm afraid it is. The unfortunate but real truth is that weighing the moral implications of an act is an extraordinarily imprecise and difficult practical art — not something that admits precise calculation. In the realm of natural value, part of the illusion of econo-consequentialist precision comes from its truncated account of that value as a set of resources and services from which we live. As we have already suggested, there's certainly more to natural value than that. Ethical considerations must embrace a wide variety of irreducible goods — not just how preferences are satisfied. Those goods tend to intertwine and conflict in agonizingly complex and difficult ways.

H: Yeah. I guess it's a mistake to try to make a simple thing out of something so complex.

A: Well said.

H: Do you think that there's anything else that makes econo-consequentialism seem so attractive?

A: Perhaps there's another attraction in how that view falls comfortably into the tradition of democratic liberalism. That tradition demands neutrality on the question of what we "should" prefer. We don't have to question one person's preference for a gigantic house over basic but entirely adequate shelter any more than another person's "preference" (or really need) for adequate drinking water. We take each preference at the same face value, as each person reports it to us. Even though we have seen that preferences are sometimes ill-conceived, to challenge such claims as less legitimate or illegitimate is vexingly difficult. Econo-consequentialism let's us avoid confronting this problem.

H: This has been an illuminating and most interesting discussion, Mr. A., but I don't think that I can cram more than one more thought into my head right now. Is there one final thought that you'd like to leave with us?

A: I've suggested that modern economic thinking has gone fairly far astray by failing to find and question some of its basic assumptions. That's not at all uncommon in ways of thinking that are institutionally ingrained. Nor is it uncommon for such ways of thinking to ignore obviously conflicting evidence. I'd like to bring one such case to your reader's attention — the problem with willingness to pay that I deferred 'til this point.

A final thought: Ignoring the evidence

H: Sure, shoot, Mr. A.

A: I have in mind the phenomenon of "protest zeros" in the contingent evaluation studies that economists use to find preference strengths for goods that are not traded in a market. These are answers that interviewees give as a way of refusing to assign any value to, say, preserving an area as wilderness. Economists quickly dismiss and throw out these "votes" on the grounds that they cannot be a true reflection of preferences: As they would say, "Nothing has either zero or infinite value." The evidence is discarded simply because it doesn't fit the theory. That, I would suggest, is as irrational as insisting that the premises "result of necessity" from the conclusion of a syllogism.

H: Pretty bad, I admit.

A: You should look at my discussion of bees. I honestly admitted that I didn't yet grasp all the facts and that
... if ever they are [sufficiently grasped], then credit must be given rather to observation than to theories, and to theories only if what they affirm agrees with the observed facts.

Aristotle, "On the Generation of Animals", Book III.10, tr. Arthur Platt (http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/a/aristotle/generation/complete.html)
Doesn't anyone read what I have to say about the proper role of evidence in theory?

H: I guess not nearly enough.

A: Unfortunately, in discarding these "protest" data, economists discard an invaluable clue about the nature of value.

H: What is that?

A: That some goods are such that no price is acceptable. Not that such goods are worth zero dollars. Or an infinite number of dollars. Rather, as we philosophers like to say, there is a category mistake. Stipulating a price is a social act, entirely appropriate as part of the social interaction for exchanging certain kinds of goods in a market, but entirely inappropriate as a way of conveying the true worth of others. To say that one is willing to pay for certain kinds of goods, or to say that one is willing to accept payment for certain kinds of harms is to fundamentally mischaracterize, and mis-categorize those goods and harms. Consider interhuman relationships. How much would you be willing to accept to sell your child into slavery?

H: Good grief, Mr. A! How could I even consider that?

A: Or how much to betray your best friend? We also think of certain environmental goods in this way, places and non-human beings with which we also have relationships. So you might not be willing to say how much you're willing to accept for...

H: ... paving over the rim of the Grand Canyon for a Walmart parking lot?

A: Aha; you catch on quickly.

H: And how about such things as the constitution that sustains the social organization of a polity; or the biophysical underpinnings of life on the planet? We looked at those in "A Benefit-Cost Analysis of the Bill of Rights... and beyond" (http://environmentalvalues.blogspot.com/2007/08/benefit-cost-analysis-of-bill-of-rights.html).

A: Yes, that was a wonderful piece of rhetoric.

H: It certainly felt like a category mistake to apply BCA to the fabric of society and then to life itself. But I think that you may have put your finger on the root cause of that category mistake. Categories such as costs and willingness to pay are not the ones that we use, or that even make sense to use in evaluating the sustaining and organizing principles of life and society.

A: You know, we have openings at the Lyceum for promising students such as yourself. And the tuition is a pittance next to Stanford's.

H: After hearing what you had to say today, I'm pretty sure that the difference in price is no indication of a difference in educational value.

A: You can be sure of that! And check out the new, Ethically Enlightened Environmental Economics course that we'll be offering.

H: I hope that's not an oxymoron.

A: We shall see.

H: Well, thank you again, Mr. A. We hope you can return to give us some better ways of thinking about value, particularly environmental value.

A: I'd be most pleased to do that. In fact, I'm off to begin preparing right now...

H: Ok, helioskiagrablog readers. There you have one more in our series of exclusive interviews. Aristotle, the philosopher with the theory of everything, thinks that natural capital is most definitely not the natural theory of natural value.

Read more...

Friday, November 2, 2007

An Intentional Climate Change Story

(A literary interlude)

Apropos of our preceding post, this blog has unearthed (so to speak) an ingenious plan to improve our climate. In a little-publicized public auction held by the current administration (that not even the Sierra Club got wind of) The NPPA (North Polar Practical Association) has purchased territories north of the 84th parallel. That entrepreneurial organization plans to make good use of this apparently useless, icy, and uninhabitable region by, more easily than ever, extracting its still relatively untapped wealth of fossil fuels and precious minerals. The key is easy access to this treasure-for-the-taking. To that end, the NPPA plan to transform the polar region into a temperate zone — by reducing the earth's axial tilt, which is currently an inconvenient 23º 26'.

Those who might react with fear based on squeamishness about "unnatural" change need not worry. The tilt of the earth's rotational axis is currently decreasing anyway. This kind of change in axial tilt is a completely natural phenomenon. The NPPA just seek to hurry it along — to do their part in meeting our growing need for fuel and minerals.

In tropical Africa the NPPA have forged the greatest cannon ever devised. On the scheduled day (which this blog pledged not to reveal), the massive armament, hidden deep in a mountain shaft, will be fired. Its recoil will effect the tilt adjustment. This has been precisely calculated by the eminent scientist, J.T. Maston, whose computational wizardry is legendary. Who can doubt the result?

Jules Verne can. According to his 1889 "Sans dessus dessous" ("Topsy-turvy" or "The Purchase of the North Pole"), nothing happened. As it turned out, Maston miscalculated. Dropping three zeros in the measure of the earth's circumference (40,000 m. instead of 40,000 km.) at the outset of his computation made him overestimate the axial effect by 12 orders of magnitude (http://www.lesia.obspm.fr/~crovisier/JV/verne_SD.html).

A silly error base on a simple mixup in units in 19th century fiction based on now-surpassed computational technology? Or the same kind of very human error with which we now lose $125 million space ships (http://www.tysknews.com/Depts/Metrication/mystery_of_orbiter_crash_solved.htm)?

Read more...

Sunday, October 28, 2007

Intentional Climate Change Again, Again

From managing biota ("Managing Baseball... Managing Nature" — http://environmentalvalues.blogspot.com/2007/10/managing-baseball-managing-nature.html), we effortlessly leap to managing the climate. Actually, it's no leap at all. We bring to this climate management project the same "rationality" and the same "sensibility" as we bring to the biotic one. We are out to "improve" nature to satisfy human desires — at least short-term ones.

We are quite deliberately — at increasing rates — burning fossil fuels, practicing agriculture, and doing lots of other things that we fully know spew greenhouse gases into the troposphere. We know that we are on course to more than double pre-industrial levels of greenhouse gases. And we know that this is warming the planet — not a little, but a lot from the viewpoint of many biological, geochemical, and climate systems.

In other words, without a doubt, we are intentionally changing our climate.

In an October 24, 2007 New York Times editorial (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/24/opinion/24caldiera.html?ref=opinion), Ken Caldeira, a scientist at the Carnegie Institution’s department of global ecology, recites without credit an August, 2006 proposal by nobel laureate Paul J. Crutzen (Crutzen, P.J., "Albedo Enhancement by Stratospheric Sulfur Injections: A Contribution to Resolve a Policy Dilemma?", Climatic Change, 77:3-4 (August 2006), pp. 211-220, http://www.springerlink.com/content/t1vn75m458373h63/?p=ac0f8d1a677948bfa4b589a55cfa1792&pi=3). The idea is to spray aerosols — particulates, or particulate-forming chemicals — into the stratosphere in order to increase that atmospheric layer's albedo (reflectance), thereby reducing the radiative energy reaching the earth's troposphere (lower atmosphere) and surface.

Aerosol painting.
Which color suites the stratosphere?

In other words, in order to fix the bad, warming effects of how we're currently intentionally changing the climate, it is proposed that we intentionally change the climate some more.

Caldeira closes by glibly posing the question:
Which is the more environmentally sensitive thing to do: let the Greenland ice sheet collapse and polar bears become extinct, or throw a little sulfate in the stratosphere?
What picture does "throwing a little sulfate in the stratosphere" conjure up? Is it, perhaps, a bit like throwing a little rice at a newly married couple? Crutzen helps us flesh out the picture. He estimates that the cost would be $25 billion to $50 billion per year, plus a half-million premature deaths from particulate pollution, unspecified damage — both biotic and abiotic — due to an increase in acid rain, plus a risk (among others) of depleting stratospheric ozone (again). He notes that the sky would whiten, but that we would be compensated by more colorful sunrises and sunsets — as happens now in areas of dense particulate pollution. He says that "the required annual S inputs are large" (p. 215), estimating the need for 5.3 Tg S to compensate for doubled greenhouse gas concentrations (p. 213). (A teragram is one million metric tonnes; a metric tonne is 1000 kg.) And he admits that spewing sulfates into the stratosphere would be "a messy operation" (p. 213). So we should consider doing it from a tropical island. It seems that doing this from the Carnegie Institute's back yard is contraindicated.

This, then, is what Caldeira means by "throwing a little sulfate in the stratosphere".

There are other possible effects. Among the ones we know enough to ask about are the effects of the concomitant warming of the lower stratosphere and tropopause (the troposphere/stratosphere interface), an increase in high cloud cover (due to a sulfate-induced increase in cloud longevity), and shifts in wind patterns that (among other effects) may warm Eurasian winters — as has been observed to accompany natural (volcanic) stratospheric sulfate "experiments". And then there are the effects that we don't even know enough to ask about — the indirect physical effects of changing the profile of solar and longwave radiation in the upper atmosphere on static and dynamic equilibria, the physico-chemical effects of increasing stratospheric heterogeneity, and (perhaps after a long causal chain that will never be uncovered until after the fact, if even then), the effects of all these things on living things on earth's surface.

No matter how much research we put into the new, cooling kind of ICC (Intentional Climate Change), there will be some effects, and not unlikely some big effects, that we will not be able to anticipate. And, while the direct effects of sulfates in the stratosphere — at least the know direct effects — are relatively short-lived (on the order of a few years), we cannot predict whether the indirect effects will be equally short-lived or whether they will be reversible.

What ought we to do?

The answer to this question is the answer to the question: "Is intentional climate change morally justified?"

We are not going to try to answer that question in this post. But it is not easy to see how the question, as it applies to engineered attempts to cool the climate, is different from the question as it applies to our current, deliberate warming behavior in any ethically relevant way. To say that climate warming is not the main point of the behavior that causes it is beside the point. We know very well what we're doing, we deliberately do it, and we deliberately continue doing it.

What are some of the morally relevant questions? Here are some:
  1. The choice to proceed with cooling ICC would likely be made by the same people who have decided to continue their warming ICC and who are reaping its short-term benefits. The climate of the poor and disenfranchised would be changed, too. They, too, will have to live with the results. And, if for no other reason than their relatively adaptive incapacity, they will tend to affected disproportionately. Is this right?
  2. The disenfranchised include future generations of people, as well as all the other creatures that share our planet; and these, too, are likely to be disproportionately affected. Is this right in view of the fact that we have another, far more conservative choice — the choice to discontinue our current ICC behavior?
  3. Looming behind the previous question is the specter of irreversibility. Of course we can stop bombarding the stratosphere with sulfates. And we have good evidence that the particulates will dissipate well within a decade. But in such a grand experiment on such a grandly complex system, we can never know whether some part of the atmospheric system, some static or dynamic equilibrium, will make a quantum and irreversible shift. Shifts of this kind of system could easily be "forever" — for time frames that apply to the human species — 200,000 years or so for Homo sapiens, 2.5 million years or so for the entire genus Homo. In the world of morals, irreversibility counts. That a homicide cannot in any meaningful way be undone or compensated, that there is no way to right that wrong, makes it all the more egregious.
  4. On the other hand, we can choose to change our own behavior and institutions that encourage undesirable behavior. This is undoubtedly difficult. But people are malleable. People can adopt different ways of living. They can change their institutions. It is possible to change; and this is undeniably a far more conservative choice. Is it right to choose the risk of catastrophic and irreversible damage in light of this alternative?
  5. We do not know in any detail what the consequences are of any ICC. We do know that our attempts to intervene in systems so overwhelmingly complex always have unexpected results. By definition, we will be completely unprepared to deal with them. We know that some of the unexpected results will be problematic. There is distinct chance that one or more may be catastrophic — perhaps even more catastrophic than the problem it was to address. With lives literally in the balance, can we justify this risk?
  6. Focusing on ICC for cooling will have the inevitable social and political effect of legitimizing our refusal to seriously consider changing our current warming ICC behavior. It will distract us from even considering such a change. Can this be justified?
  7. These are difficult questions by any measure. Yet there is no evidence of any inclination to embed their critical examination in the process of looking into cooling ICC. This is a very different kind of examination from scientific assessment of risks and probably effects. We have the disturbing specter of research into ICC and even its implementation outside any kind of well-thought-out ethical framework. At the very least, is it right to proceed without climate ethicists?
But what ought we to do if, as Caldeira and Crutzen both agonize, we deliberately choose to continue to warm the globe with our greenhouse gas emissions? The answer is that, if we believe that our current experiment in deliberately warming the planet is wrong, then conducting a geoengineered cooling experiment would be, too. If we choose to continue our ICC for warming, that fact should not change the ethical assessment of ICC for cooling.

But what happens if, as a result of our current, intentional climate-warming behavior, we face the sort of situation that Stephen Schneider (Schneider, S. H., "Geoengineering: Could-or-Should-we do it", Climatic Change, 33:3 (July 1996), pp. 291–302, http://www.springerlink.com/index/NVQ736V7JQ017V72.pdf) portrays:
Supposing, a currently envisioned low probability [in 1996; now much higher] but high consequence outcome really started to unfold in the decades ahead (for example, 5º C warming in this century) which would characterize as having potential catastrophic implications for ecosystems . . . Under such a scenario, we would simply have to practice geo-engineering...
Would we, as this argument claims, have to practice geo-engineering in such dire circumstances? We presume that part of the force of Schneider's "have to" is "ought to". He is saying that, if we were facing a catastrophe from climate warming, we ought to implement a geoengineered cooling experiment. But again, if experiments in changing the climate are morally unjustified and unjustifiable, why would our desperation in the face of catastrophe change this? Would it, for example, change the ethically relevant fact that we would be doing something whose real consequences may well result in greater catastrophe?

Read more...

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Nuts to gray squirrels

In response to the October 9 post "One squirrel, two squirrel..." (http://environmentalvalues.blogspot.com/2007/10/one-squirrel-two-squirrel.html), we have this, submitted by a reader that identified herself only as the leader of the heretofore unknown organization Nuts for Nutkin:

If Sciuris vulgaris were lord,
Lots of nuts it could surely afford.
    And it could require,
    Under consequence dire,
That production of grays be offshored.

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Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Managing Baseball... Managing Nature

Or: A Tale of Three Species

Baseball

It's World Series time and I can't help but think about baseball. I grew up in a baseball-obsessed town with and even more baseball-obsessed father. Genotype + environment = phenotype. In other words, I grew up playing a ton of baseball. I don't know how our parents found the inner strength to let a bunch of six-year olds throw a hard ball at, around, and away from each other. But they did; and I'm forever grateful.

I bring up my baseball-playing early childhood because the salient feature of a story that I wish to relate about nature puts in mind a regular feature of our early games. With, say, "men" on first and second, the hitter would squib a ball on the ground to the second baseman. The field, more resembling a bombing range than a level playing field, would redirect the ball in interesting ways beyond the anticipatory acumen of the fielder. As the ball scooted away from him, the runner from second would round third and head for home. Gamely chasing the ball, picking it up, and eager to redeem his error, the second baseman would throw to the catcher to try to cut down that lead runner at home. The phrase "to the catcher" had to be inferred from the general direction in which the second baseman was looking — for the direction of the ball was quite different. One run. The third baseman and catcher would give chase to the errant ball. The catcher, arriving first, would pick it up, then throw to third to try to catch the runner who had started his journey from first. Unfortunately, the third baseman, who had joined the catcher in pursuit of the second baseman's errant throw, was not at third to catch the catcher's throw. Two runs. Out to the outfield went the ball — picked up there as the batsman, the last remaining base-runner, was rounding second and heading for third. It was about then that the parents of the fielding team would break into the memorable chant:

"HOLD THE BALL, HOLD THE BALL".

There was a wisdom to that urgently offered advise. Evidence was, with another throw from another frenetic fielder, another run would score, leaving the fielding team yet deeper in the hole.

From managing baseball we go to managing nature.

A short history of Opuntia spp. - H. sapiens interactions

Drooping tree pear (Opuntia vulgaris) was brought to New South Wales Australia in 1788 on the First Fleet to establish a cochineal dye industry there — a spirited bid to keep those British red coats red and keep the green in the Commonwealth.

No problem.

Sometime later, in the early 1800's) prickly pear cactus (O. stricta) was brought in — this time, for stock fodder. In drought-prone Australia, it seemed prudent to have a drought-resistant plant to feed stock.

Big problem. Very big.

By 1925, prickly pear was completely out of control. At that time, it infested some twenty-five million hectares in New South Wales and Queensland, and was spreading at the rate of half a million hectares per year. This was one of the most astounding biological success stories of all time — for the prickly pear. And one of the greatest agricultural disasters — for humans.

With the experiment in managing stock fodder not going according to plan, it was time for another management decision. Perhaps some chemical management? In Queensland alone, that state's Prickly Pear Land Commission reported that in just one year (1926), the amount of poison sold was enough to treat 9,450,000 tons of prickly pear. Chemicals included 31,100 (10 and 20 lb.) tins of arsenic pentoxide and 27,950 containers (ranging in size from 2 gal. earthenware jars to 100 lb. (5.5 gal.) steel drums) of Roberts Improved Pear Poison — a cocktail of 80% sulfuric acid and 20% arsenic. We are not aware of how many plants and animals — human and otherwise — were poisoned. But evidently, the prickly pear were not. They continued to proiferate. Another management decision had to be made.

Enter the cactus moth (Cactoblastis cactorum). Brought in from Argentina where it was observed to be a singularly well-evolved weapon of mass prickly pear destruction, it, or 2.25 million or so of its eggs, were released in 1926. Six years later, by 1932, the moth, or more precisely, its larvae, had eaten, indeed, gorged themselves to agricultural glory and immortal fame — virtually eliminating all major stands of O. stricta in Queensland and New South Wales. The spectacular biological triumph of O. stricta had been utterly and even more spectacularly reversed in one of the most astounding biological control success stories of all time.

C. Cactoblastus v. Opuntia — cactus moth larvae doing what sulfuric acid and arsenic cannot

An innocent and interested but unrepresented North American party — Leptonycteris curasoae

There's more to the Australian story (summarized at http://www.northwestweeds.nsw.gov.au/chronology_of_events.htm). But let's leave it to fast forward to the middle of the 20th century.

In the Caribbean, various Opuntia spp. are endemic (not invasive), but annoying — at least to H. sapiens. In the 1950's, the level of annoyance was high. With the spectacular success of C. cactorum in Australia, it was clearly time for the moth to be brought back for an encore performance. It did not disappoint. According to Habeck, D.H, and Bennett F.D. , "Cactoblastis cactorum Berg (Lepidoptera: Pyralidae), a Phycitine New to Florida", Entomology Circular No. 333, Florida Dept. Agric. & Consumer Serv. Division of Plant Industry, August 1990 (http://www.doacs.state.fl.us/pi/enpp/ento/entcirc/ent333.pdf):
In 1957 [C. cactorum] was introduced into the Caribbean, in Nevis, where the control of Opuntia curassavica and other Opuntia spp. was rapid and spectacular (Simmonds and Bennett 1966). Eggs and larvae, or infested cladodes, were sent from Nevis to Montserrat and Antigua in 1962 and to Grand Cayman in 1970 (Bennett et al. 1985). By 1963 it had naturally spread from the Lesser Antilles to Puerto Rico (Garcia-Tuduri et al. 1971) and is now present in Haiti, Dominican Republic, and the Bahamas (Starmer et al. 1987).
Unfortunately, this management decision failed to account for the proximity of these Caribbean islands to the mainland. And sure enough, C. cactorum rode winds or perhaps took a boat ride over to Florida. Six Opuntia spp. are endemic to Florida. Three of them, including O. spinosissima and O. tricantha, are rare and threatened. But they are just as tasty to the moth.

The moth did not sat tight. It has steadily, inexorably made its way up the east coast and, more alarmingly, around the Gulf coast towards the Southwest and Mexico. Since the year 2000, it has spread at the stunning rate of 130 km. (100 miles) per year — far faster than it did in Australia. Apparently, the moth is intent on eclipsing its earlier down-under performance, as spectacular as it was. Most recently (in the summer of 2006) and most ominously, it showed up at Isla Mujeres, just 8 km. (less than 6 miles) offshore from the Mexican mainland near Cancun.

Opuntia natural and cultural history

Opuntia spp. are environmental keystones in semi-arid and desert regions. They retain precious moisture in the soil, stabilize it, and prevent its erosion. Many semi-arid areas in Mexico would almost certainly become desert without Opuntia. Opuntia provides habitat (nest sites and protection from predators) for various birds, reptiles, and mammals — including bobwhite quail, cactus wren and curve-billed thrasher. Many herbivorous insects feed on the flowers, pads, or plant; and these, in turn are food for vertebrates. A number of birds, reptiles, and mammals also feed directly on the plant. The Texas tortoise (Gopherus berlandieri) , which is listed internationally as a CITES II (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species Appendix II — http://www.cites.org/eng/app/index.shtml) species and federally under the US Endangered Species Act, feeds heavily on Opuntia flowers and fruit. The also-endangered lesser long-nosed bat (Leptonycteris curasoae) — listed in both the US and Mexico — feeds on its nectar and pollen while Opuntia flowers, and its fruit afterwards. Opuntia spp. comprise more than half of the winter diet of white tailed deer and peccaries in south Texas.
The coat of arms of Mexico —
a Mexican golden eagle
perched upon an Opuntia cactus and
devouring a snake

Among the mammals that sustain themselves from Opuntia is H. sapiens. Opuntia is a staple food for the Mexican rural poor.

Mexico is home for 76 Opuntia spp. 38 of them are not found anywhere else. According to Stiling, P., "Potential Non-target Effects of a Biological Control Agent, Prickly Pear Moth, Cactoblastis cactorum (Berg) (Lepidoptera: Pyralidae), in North America, and Possible Management Actions", Biological Invasions, 4:3 (2002), pp. 273-281(9), http://www.springerlink.com/content/lm432w8415149103/) Cactoblastis can be expected to attack at least 31 Opuntia spp. in the US and 56 species in Mexico.

Opuntia is also a Mexican cultural icon. The Mexican flag depicts an eagle perched on a prickly pear cactus. The Opuntia crop enables many subsistence farmers to stay on their land.

Opuntia economics

Economically, in the American southwest and in Mexico, Opuntia is a source of pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, fodder, cochineal dye (still!), hunting (for the peccaries and white-tailed deer that feed on it) and its lease revenue, and ornamental uses. The Mexican cactus industry is 2.5% of the value of its total agricultural production. (See the assessment in www.aphis.usda.gov/plant_health/plant_pest_info/cactoblastis/downloads/whitepaper.pdf.)

And now?

With the situation looking dire, we feel compelled to make another management decision. Ecologists are looking at importing the natural enemies of C. cactorum from its native home in Argentina. For example, Habeck and Bennett (cited above) recommend that:
Classical biological control should be considered. In its native habitat in South America several natural enemies are known including Apanteles alexanderi Brethes (Braconidae), Phyticiplex doddi (Cushman) and P. eremnus (Porter) (Ichneumonidae), Brachymeria cactoblastidis Blanchard (Chalcididae) [a chalcidid wasp], and Epicoronimyia mundelli (Blanchard) (Tachinidae) [all parasitoid wasps].
According to Peter Stiling, "Ecology, Theories and Applications", Prentice-Hall, 4th ed., p. 203,
Only about 16 percent of classical biological control introductions attempted so far qualify as economic successes (Hall, R.W., L.E. Ehler, and B. Bisabri-Ershadi, "Rates of success in classical biological control of arthopods", Bulletin of the Entomological Socoiety of America, 26: 114-14, 1980.) Usually, organisms are released in a hit-or-miss technique. Some authors believe that this approach makes the best economic sense, given the high cost of research into the biology of natural enemies (van Lenteren, J.C., "Evaluation of control capabilities of natural enemies. Does art have to become science?" Netherlands Journal of Zoology, 30: 369-81, 1980). Just release a bunch of parasitoids and predators, and hope that one of them does the job.
For the moment, put aside any moral or aesthetic responsibility we have to respect the natural complexity and richness of our world and to refrain from reducing it to a human-designed state of degraded simplicity. Forget for now whether we have a responsibility to live with, as well as from that richness. Just focus on our most narrowly defined, most mean-spiritedly selfish interests in wringing from the land living as much material wealth as possible as soon as possible.

Can anything be more clear? We have met the biological enemy, and it is us. We, the creature so highly endowed with a rational capacity, cannot bring ourselves to admit its limits. We cannot recognize our profound inability to understand natural systems well enough to avoid disaster in our nature-management experiments. Instead, we have an escalating spiral of management decisions — each successive one a "solution" to the mess left by the last, and almost always leading to a bigger mess. With Opuntia and the cactus moth, we have the biggest success... leading to the biggest failure.

Is this "merely" an dilemma that reflects the current state of our knowledge? Is our current helplessness in predicting the consequences of our natural management decisions a matter of the current, nascent state of the ecological science, which is clearly advancing as rapidly as some of the best scientific minds can make it go? Or is there some more fundamental barrier to this epistemological limitation? Is this distinction important?

As matters stand, with greater than 6 to 1 odds for failure and a significant chance for disaster for even "proven" management techniques, would a sober gambler place her chips on "going for it"? Do the odds in the nature casino, unlike those in Las Vegas, improve after an initial string of losses? With two runs across from two successive errors, and another threatening to score if the rubber-armed and frenzied outfielder throws away the ball again, I hear

"HOLD THE BALL. HOLD THE BALL."

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