Introductory remark: this is the 1st message I received in the discussions. I am simply editing out the names and e-mail addresses. I am also trying to make it easy to read
From: "Isabelle"
Hello Gary,
I appreciate your concern for malaria and Africa. Following Troy's remark on malaria and global warming, I am attaching an article that discusses the research undertaken by the United Nations Environment Programme on the relationship between climate change and malaria in Africa.
Enjoy!
Cheers
Isabelle
PS: I am inviting Laurent in Vancouver to join this group. Bienvenue Laurent!
---------------
Global Warming: Africa Hit Hardest
Source: United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Global Warming: Africa Hit Hardest
Nairobi, 22 February 2001 - Rising levels of disease, famine and poverty are
forecast for Africa by scientists studying the impacts of global warming.
A report, published today (MON) by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), says heavy, monsoon-like, rains and higher temperatures will favour the breeding of disease-carrying mosquitoes, allowing them to thrive at higher altitudes.
"Higher temperatures, heavier rainfall and changes in climate variability would encourage insect carriers of some infectious diseases to multiply and move further afield," says the report by the IPCC's Working Group II.
The report cites how malaria cases in the highland area of Rwanda have increased by 337 per cent in recent years with 80 per cent of the climb linked with changes in temperature and rainfall which improved breeding conditions for malaria-carrying mosquitoes. A similar link has been reported in Zimbabwe.
The report notes that mosquitoes can also transmit many viruses, over 100 of
which are known to infect humans. These include malaria, dengue fever, yellow fever, and severe and sometimes fatal encephalitis and haemorrhagic fever.
Cholera, which is transmitted by water or food, could aggravate health problems in many parts of the world including Africa. The scientists say that during the 1997-1998 El Nino excessive flooding caused cholera epidemics in Djibouti, Somalia, Kenya, Tanzania and Mozambique.
There is evidence that El Nino, a vast natural climatic phenomenon that can
bring intense floods and droughts in many parts of the globe, is becoming more frequent as a result of global warming.
Klaus Toepfer, Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) which along with the World Meteorological Organization launched the IPCC, said yesterday:" This latest assessment makes bleak reading for many people across the developing world and in particular for us in Africa". UNEP is headquartered in Nairobi, Kenya.
"We must re-start the stalled climate change negotiations as a first step
towards the deep cuts in emissions from factories, power stations, cars and
homes, needed to curb damaging climate change. But we also need to help vulnerable people to adapt to the impacts and that action needs to be taken now," he said.
Mr Toepfer added:" We must prepare across all sectors of society including governments, aid agencies, non governmental organizations and the United Nations family of which UNEP is part. We do not have too much time, but there may be enough to make a real difference to those at risk if we start today," he said.
While heavy rains will become more frequent, there will also be rising levels of drought and the spread of deserts such as the Sahara, the scientists warn.
"In Africa's large catchment basins of Niger, Lake Chad and Senegal, total
available water has decreased by 40 to 60 per cent," says the report.
The scientists predict that, in terms of droughts, southern Africa could be
one of the hardest hit areas. "Lack of rain, warmer temperatures and increases in evaporation could reduce yields by a third or more in these areas," it says.
Farmers in the developed world may get access to new varieties of crops which are more heat- and drought-tolerant. But the scientists warn that in the developing world many farmers have little or no access to new species and varieties. "They may struggle to cope when conditions are warmer and drier," says the report.
In developing countries today, 790 million people are estimated to be undernourished. Undernourishment is a fundamental cause of stunted physical and intellectual development in children, of low productivity in adults, and of susceptibility to infectious disease.
The scientists are reasonably confident that climate change will increase the number of undernourished people in the developing world including Africa.
Food shortages as a result of climate change may add to the numbers of people leaving the land and migrating to urban areas which in turn could lead to more shanty towns around African cities.
"Those most at risk are the squatter and other informal urban settlements, where many people live close together under poor shelter, with little or no access to resources such as safe water and public health services," says the IPCC study.
These people will also be at greater risk from natural or climate related disasters to such as cyclones as "there is little they can do to avoid disaster, or escape when it strikes".
The scientists believe that there may be significant extinction of plants and animals in Africa during the new century as a result of global warming. This will increase poverty by impacting on rural livelihoods and tourism.
"Coastal settlements in, for example, the Gulf of Guinea, Senegal, Gambia, Egypt and along the East-Southern African coast would be adversely affected by sea-level rise through inundation (flooding) and coastal erosion," says the report.
Some action to protect vulnerable people in Africa has begun, the report notes.
The IPCC's First Assessment Report in 1990 highlighted the critical need for better early warning systems. Since then, seasonal forecasting for Africa has become vastly more detailed and accurate.
Satellites, for example, can now measure ground moisture, which could let local officials issue flooding warnings in advance to endangered communities, and prepare for health risks such as malaria outbreaks when there is more water for mosquitoes to breed in.
Early famine warning systems have been set up throughout Africa, giving at least several months' notice of drought and water shortage. In South Africa and Zimbabwe, maize growers now get warning of drought six months beforeharvest.
Drought warnings do not in themselves prevent famines, however. Measures that would improve Africa's food security include transfer of overseas expertise in producing food under excessively hot, dry conditions.
Transfer of new technologies could reduce the need to cut down trees for use as firewood and charcoal - thus also stopping the onwards march of desertification.
solar, wind and biogas energy are being used in small-scale projects continent-wide, with promising results. In rural areas of Zimbabwe, for example, biogas units using cattle dung are producing electricity for nearby communities.
UNEP, with funding from the Global Environment Facility (GEF), are developing schemes like these in Africa.
Desertification has sparked a range of agricultural and forestry management changes which will also help soften the impacts of climate change. In Niger, farmers with access to credit are setting up low-cost systems which combat wind erosion, including windbreaks, mulching, ridging and rock bunds.
Recently the Sereer in Senegal and the Mossi in Burkino Fasso improved their
regional climates by using traditional pruning and fertilizing techniques to double tree densities in certain semi-arid areas. The trees hold the soils together, reversing desertification. More trees also means more rainfall: the foliage of the extra trees produces more evaporation, which then can fall again as rain.
Initiatives carried out at the community level seem to work best, says the IPPCC report Community-scale projects in Madagascar, Niger and Zimbabwe, for example, show that if an affected community is given the time to discuss options for making their land more productive, they work out efficient solutions and apply them long-term.
Regional-scale cooperation is also important. Many of Africa's river basins are shared by more than one country, and to avoid potential conflicts, regional agreements on cooperative management of shared water resources have already been negotiated.
The Zambesi, for example, is to be diverted towards the south, sending surplus water into regions where water is scarce. Other cooperative flood planning envisages using one country's lakes to store some of a river's floodwaters, reducing the flood peak and destruction in countries downstream.
For more information, please contact: Nick Nuttall, Media Officer, UNEP, P.O. Box 30552, Nairobi, Kenya: Tel: 254 2 623381, mobile, 254 (0)733 632755, e-mail: nick.nuttall@unep.org or Tore Brevik, UNEP Spokesman/Director, Communications and Public Information, in Nairobi on Tel: 254 2 623292, fax: 254 2 623927, e-mail: tore.brevik@unep.org
See also www.grida.no for a series of useful and downloadable graphs, www.unfccc.int for official documents about the climate talks, and www.wmo.ch and ww.unep.ch/conventions/info/infoindex.htm for additional background information.
UNEP News Release 01/27
-----Original Message-----
From: Gary
Sent: Thursday, March 10, 2005 12:19 AM
Subject: Re: Deadly malaria infects half a billion
okay, i can't resist a response to this one. I'd like to thank Sarah for inviting me to that Lomborg presentation. :-] It really did change the way I viewed these global issues (it framed the problems in the language and analysis I use every day and now these issues are much clearer to me).
You're right Troy, I was ignorant to what was happening in Africa or more precisely I was ignorant to the possibility of fixing these problems with realistic solutions within a realistic time frame.....like most other people I thought Africa was an irreparable basket-case and any action would be futile. I now firmly believe otherwise and want to see our government do something to help. Since the government has limited resources I want to see those tax dollars spent in the most effective way possible....50-1 split to Kyoto versus Africa is an excellent example of how Paul Martin should not be spending (I suspect that he will under-emphasize Africa and AIDS because it was one of Jean Chrétien's legacy projects....Martin wants his own ego-trip legacy pet-project and he seems to have chosen Kyoto).
-gm
----- Original Message -----
From: Troy
Sent: Wednesday, March 09, 2005 11:12 PM
Subject: Re: Deadly malaria infects half a billion
NO, Gary you have whipped this topic and NO you do not believe there is an element of truth and NO Lomborg's theories do not stand up to peer scrutiny. This is not a zero sum equation. Different allocation of funds is NOT a thesis. As to blunt, have you ever mentioned Africa or even considered the problems or solutions prior to Lomborg's lecture?
Malaria - one thought - global warming has increased the areas where malaria is found. There is concern that malaria will make inroads into north america and europe, just look at west nile disease.
Troy
On Mar 9, 2005, at 10:02 PM, Gary wrote:
I agree that we've whipped this topic enough, however I'll quickly respond to your note below. I suspect their is an element of truth in your suggestion that Lomborg is pushing his theories to undermine Kyoto, however this does not change the fact that he is right and his analysis (version 2.0 anyway) stands up to peer scrutiny. He has a very valid point. We should be allocating resources differently - this is his thesis. His position is that we use an analytical (utilitarian) approach to resource allocation. He wasn't as blunt as me about trading off one for the other.
As for Bush, I doubt he supports Lomborg. Enron supported Kyoto and I know for a fact few people on the green side would support Enron.
One other article who's timing is perfect:
Deadly malaria infects half a billion
Tim Radford, science editor
Thursday March 10, 2005
The Guardian
More than half a billion people - nearly double previous estimates - were infected by the deadliest form of malaria in 2002, scientists reveal in a report out today.
They calculate that one in three in the world - a total of 2.2 billion people - are at risk from the mosquito-borne parasite Plasmodium falciparum.
The discovery that malaria is far more prevalent than anyone had realised is a jolt to public health chiefs the world over. The disease claims 1 million lives a year in sub-Saharan Africa alone, most of them children under five.
Of the four malaria parasites, Plasmodium falciparum is by far the most dangerous, especially to the undernourished, weak or very young. It is prevalent throughout the tropics, and has developed resistance to successive drugs.
Health experts said the new figures were alarming. "There is much more malaria than has previously been estimated in Asia, than we recognised before," said Joe Lines of London's School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
In 1998 the World Health Organisation put the global incidence of malaria at 273m cases. But that was an estimate, with no reliable data available.
New research published in Nature from Bob Snow, of the Kenya Medical Research Institute in Nairobi, and the Centre for Tropical Medicine at the University of Oxford, calculates that in 2002 there were around 515m cases worldwide. In Africa in that year, there were 365m cases: 1m new infections every day.
"This is Plasmodium falciparum, the most deadly of the malaria parasites,"Prof Snow said. "We have worked very hard to get the credible estimate for deaths from malaria in Africa that is largely used by the WHO: it is about a million people each year. Outside Africa, we know surprisingly little."
Control depends on safe water, efficient public health measures, education, supplies of up-to-date drugs and bednets to protect against the parasite-carrying mosquito.
There is hope: geneticists have unravelled the DNA of both mosquito and parasite, and have begun to look for weak spots that could lead to weapons.
A new vaccine tested on more than 2,000 children in Mozambique last year offered at least partial protection against the disease, and confirmed that an effective vaccine is at least feasible. In January, the British government, the US billionaire Bill Gates and the Norwegian government promised more than £1.5bn for new vaccines against childhood diseases, including malaria.
But malaria is both a disease of poverty and a cause of poverty. Sick people cannot work. Africa is already hit by a high incidence of HIV infection and tuberculosis, and malaria alone is estimated to cost the economy of the continent $12bn (£6.3bn ) a year. But that too could be an underestimate.
Special reports
Medicine and health
----- Original Message -----
From: Ivan
Sent: Wednesday, March 09, 2005 6:33 PM
Subject: Re: the root of the trade-off
Oh so we are the hypocrits, eh? OK then, let's watch you justify this:
The Root of the Hypocrisy: Deconstructing Lomborg (I like putting in those fancy titles.)
Lomborg says: "We have limited resources, let's make sure we spend them wisely." No argument here.
Then he says: "Kyoto is a poor choice. Let's spend our money on AIDS or malaria in Africa instead: it's a far better allocation of our resources, it will save human lifes." Hmm, maybe. Now even l may have my doubts about Kyoto. Maybe saving Africa is, after all, a worthier cause.
So he lays down the choice before us: Kyoto or Africa. Lomborg is clever, he appeals to our generosity, our sense of guilt. He tells us: beware, if you make the wrong choice you are immoral beings. Sounds reasonable. And frankly, l almost fell for it.
But here lies the supreme hypocrisy, the ultimate trick of the mind. Because that is not the real choice. That is not why so many people oppose Kyoto. GW Bush does not oppose Kyoto because he is trying to save Africa. He opposes Kyoto because he is trying to save jobs in Ohio and obsolete coal mines in Montana. He opposes Kyoto to preserve American lifestyles, not South African lifes.
The real choice is not Kyoto or subsaharian Africa, the real choice is Kyoto or suburban America.
Gary, deny this if you dare.
So for decades no one gave a damn about Africa. But now that Kyoto is ratified and looming down on our lifestyles, suddenly people worry about saving Africa. What a convenient timing.
Lomborg's edifice (what he pompously calls the "Copenhagen consensus") is not a master plan to rescue Africa, it's more trivially an attempt to undermine Kyoto. After all, his first book was called "The Skeptical Environmentalist", not "The Hopeful African". He is only a sophist and, believe me Gary, not worth the time we are both spending on him.
When you really think about it, using the AIDS pandemic in Africa to attack Kyoto is quite reprehensible. And between Bush and Lomborg, l think l prefer Bush, because at least he says what he really thinks.
OK, enough about this Lomborg fad. Next topic, please?
(PS: I am inviting my brother to join the debate. Welcome to the club, Igor!)
Ivan
Don't buy Kleenex
http://kleercut.net
----- Original Message -----
From: Gary
Sent: Wednesday, March 09, 2005 1:27 AM
Subject: Re: the root of the trade-off
hey, hey, I see no contradictions in my belief of Kyoto being a *relatively* huge waste of money compared to the benefits that could be obtained through other uses of those funds (most notably fighting communicable diseases like AIDS and malaria in developing nations). I have no shame about this view and no doubt in the accuracy of my belief.....despite all this politically correct feedback I'm receiving from the green contingent. No one has demonstrated the benefits of Kyoto justify the mind-boggling costs. I still see people waving hands in the air about theoretical abstract ideas on carbon credits while watching too many Hollywood movies on global
warming....no facts about lives that will be lost have been presented to justify Kyoto, meanwhile as many as 10,000 people per day are dying in Africa and Canadian money/support would alleviate this (and other communicable disease) issues. It isn't as simple as blaming it all on evil corporations. In fact I'll up-the-ante and suggest my comrades on this e-mail list assume part responsibility for the lack of action in Africa because by your clear preference for Kyoto over developing nation issues is translating into political legitimacy and support for Kyoto from our government. It appears that you'd rather hug a tree than a poor African kid
with AIDS.
As for the corporate world, I'm not going to defend it. However I will point to the whiff of hypocrisy I'm picking up from this group - we're all professionals and earn a living from this system we're criticizing. I guess I'm a little fired up this evening....
-gm
----- Original Message -----
From: Ivan
Sent: Tuesday, March 08, 2005 9:19 PM
Subject: Re: the root of the trade-off
Interesting article. Funny that they would quote my former employer (HealthSouth) in the first paragraph. I don't have an MBA, but I guess I do have some field experience with some of the corporate hyenas now on trial.
Yes, the other night's beer at the Morrissey was somewhat refreshing and almost consensual. Valeria and I did a reasonably good job at putting Gary in front of his contradictions. He did admit (although in a choke) that solving AIDS in Africa was not just a matter of money allocation, that greedy corporations did seem to be a serious part of the problem - not of the solution. He still defended the dogma of corporations and capitalism, but with a certain mollesse.
Gary also admitted that it felt rather lonely on his side of the table. If anyone has a sudden urge to adopt Gary as a (political) friend, now would be the time. Anyone? Anyone? (once, twice, ... sorry Gary)
The good news is that Gary *did* indulge in his usual anti-French vociferations, so the old lion still has some teeth... :)
Cheers,
Ivan
Don't buy Kleenex
http://kleercut.net
----- Original Message -----
From: Troy
Sent: Monday, March 07, 2005 12:19 AM
Subject: Re: the root of the trade-off
Gary,
In regards to your idea that there are no bad corporations just the people who run some of them you may find this article of interest. (For purposes of discussion I will not bring in your MBA).
Last night must have been conciliatory, there have been no missives flying around today.
Cheers
Troy
On Mar 5, 2005, at 9:30 PM, Gary wrote:
Corporations are inanimate objects. They are neither good or evil. They do nothing until instructed by individuals, and thus this is what I mean when I say it is the people behind them who make the bad decisions and are evil.....or good.
As for the pharma companies and AIDS, there is a good initiative under review now by the Canadian federal government that will result in it legislating tri-therapy generic drug production and distribution to developing nations. This bill is being held up by those clowns you mention below (the scum-sucking parasites trying to become wealthy by exploiting AIDS victims and obtain more than a reasonable/fair profit on their drugs).
A letter or e-mail of support for the implementation of Bill C-9 would probably help nudge this one along. Dare I suggest we bounce some e-mail over to our MP, the Right Honourable (gulp) Hedy Fry ( info@hedyfry.com ).
Details on C9 are available at http://www.cptech.org/ip/health/c/canada/c9.html
Don't worry Ivan, I would never compare you to those people you mention in pharma companies!
-gm
----- Original Message -----
From: Ivan
Sent: Saturday, March 05, 2005 6:00 PM
Subject: Re: the root of the trade-off
Thanks for your comments Troy.
Here is a contrary example which we have partly covered in our previous discussions. It is commonly accepted that the main (although not the only) solution for eradicating AIDS in Africa is the mass production and dissemination of generic tri-therapy medication, along with education. And as we all know, pharmaceutical companies have responded to the challenge by leading a massive onslaught against country-led initiatives to produce generic drugs.
I personally do not believe that those decisions to combat the production of
generic drugs were made at the coroporate level by a hanful of evil or very sick individuals. I believe that those were carefully planned collective decisions. Moreover I believe that most officers that made those decisions are sound in mind, have families, and in all likelihood live by some kind of moral code. Yet they made decisions that directly translate into hundreds of thousands of human deaths.
I believe that those corporate decision makers have been gradually induced and trained (since their college days) to think and decide the way they do today, by the system to which they belong. I think that today's corporate system - which is based on the sole premice of maximizing one's profit - breeds cynicism, hypocrisy, selfishness, and greed in people who have no natural tendancy for those behaviors.
All corporations are not "evil", and you will find many examples of valuable corporate contributions. All I am saying is that it is anti-natural for a corporation to behave in a truly altruitic way (unlike for human beings), and as a result it is always an uphill battle, generally under the impulse of a strong individual personality (Gates, Soros, Ford, you name it). The opposite tendency is natural and therefore widespread.
If that makes me an "anti-corporatist", fine. But if you believe I am immoral because I support Kyoto and those who combat the production of generic drugs are not, I definitely have an issue with that.
Ivan
Don't buy Kleenex
http://kleercut.net
----- Original Message -----
From: Troy
Sent: Saturday, March 05, 2005 4:19 PM
Subject: Re: the root of the trade-off
On Mar 5, 2005, at 3:11 PM, Gary wrote:
Hmm, let me take a stab at this one.
- Ballard Power and other fuel cell companies are possibly going to change the world.
Yes it may one day , but so far it hasn't. It is also currently being funded
largely by the large automakers and oil companies. Ballard is no longer pursuing a stand alone fuel cell but rather a hybrid model.
- Other for-profit companies in the green sector are finding profitable ways to fix the environment (I worked with two groups last year that are going to fix the Britannia Mine contamination, BioTeQ and EPCOR). One has developed an innovative solution to environmental contamination clean up while the other is a for-profit spin out of the City of Edmonton's engineering department.
Great.
- The Guardian Newspaper and other similar reputable news organizations are
providing reliable and invaluable information, for free, online (supported by ads). They are actively changing the world! Freedom of information is a right. Newspapers in their present form are becoming anacronistic as actual paper sales plummet. This is not something driven by altruism.
- Although not technically corporations, two capitalists who are trying to change the world are George Soros and Bill Gates. Soros is largely credited with funding campaigns to spread democracy throughout the former Soviet Union (Belgrade to Kiev most recently). Gates is making progress in Africa.
These are private efforts.
- Micro-lending institutions in South America and Africa are also apparently doing well (although these may be a combination of non-profit foundations with for-profit administrative arms). Correct, but these could hardly be considered corporate. Some are government efforts others NGOs.
- On a more controversial note (which I wont try to defend too much) there is the innovation in genetically engineered foods such as golden(?) rice which has high vitamin A and may alleviate malnutrition in developing nations.
Gary I don't think you even want to start here.
There are lots of examples of progress out there. Suggesting ALL corporations are evil is like saying all Americans are evil. Sure, there are lots of evil corporations (and Americans!), but not all of them are bad.
Relying on the ol' platitude of not all americans are bad.... There is plenty of innovation and profit made from environmental measures, ie. every time California legislates new environmental measures they are met and someone innovates and makes money in the process.
I believe you have failed in an illustration of many corporations doing a fantastic job.
Lastly, " human greed will never change and it is futile to try", HELLO, our and most societies are based on socializing our nature for a common good or goal. Our religious, legal and moral strictures have been put into place to regulate our natures. Because an individual or corporation tries to cheat or bypass these systems does not mean it is futile or acceptable. I am surprised you would regard it to be inevitable.
Troy
-g
----- Original Message -----
From: Isabelle
Sent: Saturday, March 05, 2005 2:50 PM
Subject: RE: the root of the trade-off
Hello Gary
Can you please provide detailed examples of those corporations that "are doing a fantastic job and are helping people" ?
Thanks!
Isa
PS: I am also inviting Jean-Marc in Paris to join the discussion!
-----Original Message-----
From: Gary
Sent: Saturday, March 05, 2005 2:29 PM
Subject: Re: the root of the trade-off
Aha! Now we're seeing those true colours of yours! Anti-corporatism.
I see what you're saying and generally agree with you that greed is at the root of many of our problems. I think it should be characterized as human/personal greed instead of corporate greed. It is far too easy to blame all the worlds problems on Bush and big US corporations. The problems of developing countries (and the environment) clearly pre-date Bush and his cronies and can probably be more accurately traced back to the greed of colonial powers of UK, France, Spain....and Portugal in South America (welcome to our little chat Antonio!).
Human greed will never change and it is futile to try.
As for corporations, I think many of them are doing a fantastic job and are
helping people. It all depends upon who is running the corporation. This idea that corporations are evil is ridiculous (as promoted by the recent Canadian documentary called "The Corporation"). It is the people behind the corporation that matter. Some are greedy, others are not.
Also, there is now clear evidence that capitalism and more open markets has improved the quality of life of most of the developing world (China being the most obvious example, but the rest of Southeast Asia has also done incredibly well over the last 20 years)....granted there has been a heavy environmental cost for this.
-gm
PS As for the either-or comments below, I am not suggesting Kyoto and helping developing nations is mutually exclusive. I'm saying we should place at least a 50-1 bias toward helping developing nations NOW when we allocate resources (instead of the 50-1 bias in favour of Kyoto). We can still do both, however let's spend our tax dollars in an area where they are going to do the most good.
----- Original Message -----
From: Ivan
Sent: Saturday, March 05, 2005 9:07 AM
Subject: Re: the root of the trade-off
the root of the problem
hi gary,
there is no trade-off. Being for kyoto does *not* make me against helping africa. This "either-or" proposition that your friend lomborg has created between kyoto and africa is artificial. It is just as absurd as to say: I am for giving a raise to our nurses but I am against paying my bc hydro bills.
The sentence is gramatically correct, and the common denominator here is money (you would say "discounted cash flow"), but still the sentence means nothing. In particular, the "but" pronoun is meaningless in this context.
I know someone, however, who is both against kyoto *and *against helping africa. And that person is gw bush, who opposed the 2002 johannesburg summit on sustainable development (where poverty and aids in africa was the center of the debate) with the same violence as he now opposes kyoto. What's the link? Simple: in both cases he defends the interests of big business.
kyoto is not immoral as you say, on the grounds that it would mean abandoning africa. Big business, on the other hand, is immoral because it does not give a shit about kyoto or africa - and absoletely opposes giving any money to either. The question is not: should we choose between kyoto or africa, the question is: what causes both kyoto and africa. I find quite ironic that in your email you talk about "investments in either climate change or nutrition in africa", given that the investors are willing to invest in neither. lf the top 20 corporations came up and said here are 100 bn dollars, we would like to consult with countries and people on how to best spend them, I might listen. But right now, kyoto and africa are just
the latest running jokes in their monthly board meetings.
The root of the problem - the common tree to both the apples and the oranges
of our debate - is corporate greed. Can't you see that?
Cheers,
lvan
(PS -- I am inviting our friend Antonio from Portugal to join our
discussion. Welcome to the group, Antonio!)
Don't buy Kleenex
http://kleercut.net
----- Original Message -----
From: Gary
Sent: Thursday, March 03, 2005 12:58 AM
Subject: the root of the trade-off
Hey Ivan,
Another good heated debate on Monday! While thinking about the issues I realized a big problem with Lomborg's analysis. Because the work measured everything in discounted cash flow dollars (the commonly accepted currency of life-cycle cost/benefit analysis) he has allowed his critics to suggest his proposals are motivated by pure economics and financial considerations. This isn't true. The analysis illustrates one fundamental trade-off that people are making: human lives/poverty/social injustice versus CO2 emission consequences (fewer trees, plants, wildlife as well as a relatively small number of lives lost through CO2 emissions). It happens to use discounted cash flow dollars to illustrate this issue.
Note before you jump all over the last point (i.e. that people are dying in relatively smaller numbers due to CO2), I'll point to the evidence that far more people are dying due to malaria, communicable disease, malnutrition and poor sanitation etc. I know you'll wave your arms around on this issue, however there is absolutely no reputable evidence that proves large numbers of people are going to die as a result of climate change (excluding Karl Sagan-style scientific nuts who preach environmentalism as evangelical doctrine rather than using a scientific method....in this respect they remind me of those creationists who insist the earth is only 5,000 years old and simply can't be rationalized with). Perhaps this can be your challenge.
If you believe the consequences of climate change are so draconian then prove it. Where is the evidence that has been peer-reviewed and stands up against scrutiny?
It is easy to demonstrate the consequences of malnutrition etc. and it has been done.
Even more complicated it is necessary to prove that investments in either climate change or nutrition have an incremental benefit. This was the monumental task Lomborg's group has accomplished. They brought in experts in each field (Nobel Laureates in climate change, nutrition, disease etc.), evaluated issues, consequences, costs and reasonable outcomes from various investments. It was an admirable effort and long-overdue. Since economists are the ones that think about resource allocation problems and trade-offs then Lomborg selected some economists to do the analysis of each expert's projections on costs, consequences and benefits. The economists used the standard approach for such analysis: discounted cash flow and life-cycle costs. This allowed the various apples and oranges to be compared on a rational basis. No more or no less. It is simply a yardstick by which we
measure future costs and benefits. Discounted cash flow analysis is not perfect, however it has been used for decades and has the broad support of the academic community despite its issues.
Now, here's what I've been trying to get at. When we get to the root of our discussion, I am appalled that our government is going to spend $5 billion in Kyoto which has very marginal benefits (which we both agree). Meanwhile, the Canadian government will contribute a pittance toward solving the humanitarian crises around the world. Whether we measure the differences using CO2 emissions, dollars, metric, imperial, or quarks it doesn't matter.
The conclusion will always be the same. It is immoral to support Kyoto. We can do more good (and less harm) by spending this money on items other than climate change.
The Copenhagen Conference organized by Lomborg attempted to clearly and unquestionably illustrate how the benefits obtained through climate change
initiatives is tiny compared to the benefits obtained by investing in Africa and Southeast Asia. These benefits were primarily saving lives and improving the standard of living (eliminating poverty and the gross injustice it entails). True, true, the climate change initiatives will save some lives around the world and will improve the standard of living of some people. However the gains are miniscule compared to the gains that can be obtained by investing in other initiatives.
Phew, I had to get that one off my chest. Hope it isn't too much of a rant.
-gm
