Black Swans, the Precautionary Principle, and Power

© 2011 Joshua Stark

A quick note:  I'd like to read what you all think about nuclear power in light of the events in Japan.  It is a horrible, sad, tragic series of calamities befalling the country right now, and I won't tolerate any unkind comments.  For us, however, the debate should begin.

Personally, I'm not a big fan of "black swan" thinking, in general.  However, outliers should be examined in the context of the level of catastrophe that may one day occur.  For nuclear and large hydropower, the potential for catastrophe is large at generation.  For petroleum and coal-based generation, the potential for catastrophe is large at extraction (see the Gulf).  Really, the only generation types that would appear to limit the potential for catastrophe is very small hydropower, wind, and solar power.  

What do you all think?

Opportunity Cost and environmental ethics

© 2010 Joshua Stark

To be honest with you, the reason I bring up a lot of economics on this blog is because economics is the study of scarcity and our solutions to scarcity, which also happens to be a really big question in environmental ethics, only with (sometimes fake) numbers and an overly-(pseudo)scientific approach.  Here, then, is another economics concept that applies to environmental ethics:  Opportunity cost.
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Strangely for economics, the term "opportunity cost" is actually very descriptive of the idea.  Opportunity cost is simply everything else you could have done when you chose to do something.  For example, if you spent $5 on lunch, you could have saved that $5 one more day, you could have bought a toy, etc.  The cost to you is every other choice you could have made with that five bucks.

Yes, it is depressing.  But, it can be really helpful in honestly looking at what you have and how you should use it - basically, your opportunities, and what they cost you.  If you get too bummed-out, just take a moment and think about opportunity benefit - what you get from your decisions.

Now, let's use opportunity cost in an example brought up by Prof. Ray Hilborn of Washington University.  The good professor contends that if we were to replace the protein we get from fishing by instead farming on land, we'd have to use additional land about 22 times the size of our current rainforests.  Dr. Hilborn then compares land-based agriculture's to fishing's impacts on biodiversity, and claims that fishing has shown to have reduced biodiversity about 30%, whereas land-based farming, in his opinion, results in a 100% decrease in biodiversity.

Dr. Hilborn is a well-known (to fisheries nerds), typically pro-commercial fishing scientist, and so his description needs to be taken in that context, but the general concepts are valid, and bear some thought.  What are the true opportunity costs to switching from fishing to on-land agriculture?

I find Dr. Hilborn's biodiversity comment a tad oversimplistic on both ends: directly decreasing biodiversity from fishing will have many impacts on food webs; and farming practices exist that provide better biodiversity impacts than his claim.  But, these questions do offer some real meat for future research as well as future decision-making by agencies and individuals regarding food choices, and these decisions will be based on the opportunity costs to the values we hold for our wild places, our oceans and lands, and ourselves.

So, that five bucks you were going to spend on a burger today... where will it go?  What else could you have done with it?

Man and Fire

last week, a small, once-controlled brush fire outside of Santa Barbara exploded into a house-eating inferno, fueled by 100 degree temperatures and the Shakin Shakin Shakes, those Santa Ana winds. As of today, it is 80 percent contained, although additional winds are probable.

California is blessed with many natural wonders, and cursed, as well. We have mountains so full of snow that they were named it - Sierra Nevada. We have a two-river Delta (one of only a handful) that supplies 20 million people with drinking water. We have a gigantic coastline, huge, rugged, highly variable terrain, and our state claims multiple climates with dozens of microclimates. In the Summer, we are a desert, and in the winter, we are often inundated with deluges. But, we have changed our natural wonders to a great extent, and in these changes comes an increase in variation and intensity. The Sierra Nevada may one day be renamed the Sierra Seca. That river system's wildlife is quickly crashing, and the wonderfully varied and beautiful terrain can't seem to keep folks from wanting to build on it, to better enjoy its beauty, yes, but with the result that we find ourselves living by the whims of fickle Mother Nature.

We have also changed much of the flora of our beautiful state, and the effects of this paradigm-shift are felt most directly in the new nature of our wildfires.

Prior to Europeans, California's flora and fauna developed with a particular relationship to fire and each other. Most of our herbivores were browsers, pushed by a considerably large number of large predators, primarily wolves and very large brown bears, but also mountain lions, bobcats and the like. Our primary flora, therefore, were wildflowers and slow-growing bunch grasses. The animals seeded large areas of land, and many plants only seeded once every few years. Fires regimes, caused by lightning and people, usually burned with a low intensity, because the slow-growing bunch grasses kept green all year, and protected their roots with tight "bunches" of grass blades. Forests of huge oaks, pines, and redwoods required these fires, as their seeds needed heat to open, and their seedlings needed light and nutrients.

This habitat regime changed dramatically with the arrival of Europeans. We brought livestock that ate entire plants, and we kept them protected and in the same places for longer periods of time. We also fed them grass seed from our native lands, grasses which had developed a relationship with very different animals. The new grasses, which grow, seed, and die within a few months, quickly replaced the slower-developing native habitat, which wasn't used to being eaten completely down to the roots. Within a short period of time, much of California changed completely, giving our state its golden hue during the Summer, and bringing on a dramatic shift in the nature of fire.

The new grasses and weeds die quickly, creating fuel from the tip right down into the soil. Fires set in this fuel often burn far hotter, burn soil habitat and seeds, and leave a scorched waste. They also burn into the upper canopies of the trees, killing many adult trees that had survived the previous fire patterns for hundreds of years. This is why we instituted a fire-suppression program over 150 years ago, and in so doing we allowed the buildup of deadwood, leaves, and other combustible materials. Consider this in light of projected hotter and drier weather patterns, and we have a serious problem.

Now that many more of us are living close to these wild and altered landscapes, it is imperative that we do something to both improve habitat and fire. Right now, many are under the impression that a completely barren "defensible space" as far as you can make it is the best thing to do. But, wildland firefighters know that the best thing we can do is to eliminate the non-native grasses and forest duff that fuel these monsters, and build houses that don't catch fire so easily. No amount of defensible space could have saved most of the homes in Santa Barbara, because 40 mile-an-hour winds will carry sparks well past any clearings, and even over large freeways and the like. However, if those sparks land on green plants or metal roofs, and the fires from which they came were burning low and through the underbrush instead of licking hundreds of feet into the air, we would all be much safer.

The answers are easy, but expensive. They also have the great upside of improving ecological habitat as well as human safety. The alternative, however, is a complex series of ever-more-useless attempts to postpone the inevitable, also expensive, while encouraging further ecological degradation. Which way shall we go?

Husbandry and Hope

Today, I'm officially joining some form of blogging unity. The good folks at Heifer International are holding a, "Unite for Hunger and Hope" blogging rally of sorts, and as a fan of their work, I thought I'd offer this morning's post for anybody reading.

If you don't know them, Heifer International paraphrases the old fishing and eating line, and gives folks goats, sheep, cattle, fowl, and quite possibly other domestic animals, as a means to help end poverty and hunger. The idea is that by providing animals that produce milk, eggs, etc., as well as training, they offer sustainable means to providing nutrition.

I created this blog to talk about the connections between folks and nature, and so I often find myself blogging about the effects of acquiring food, or the means. For me (and I'm sure most of you reading this), this is easy enough: we go to the store. But for one third of our world's folks, that just isn't possible. The World Health Organization estimates that over two billion people are starving today. Right now.

Please consider that.

Then, please consider heading over to one of these organizations (or Heifer International) to see if there is anything you can do:

Sportsmen Against Hunger (through SCI)
Feeding America (formerly America's Second Harvest)
UN World Food Program (to which a great, James Beard-nominated blogger donates an auction prize to each year)

Now, I do not personally endorse or work for any of these organizations, but they have decent track records, and seem to be really trying.

Enviros? Conservationists? Tree-huggers? Killers?

I love the political realm, for the most part, though I also hate it. In fact, my fascination with it probably has nearly as much to do with the emotions it stirs as it does with my personal belief that we are all responsible in our democratic republic. But, one place that really bothers me about political 'discourse' is the prevelance of half-formed ideas, urges and reactionism that get rolled up and kneaded into little soundbites, or worse, labels.

People are labeling creatures, we are ordering creatures. We create boxes of meaning into which we place ideas about people and things. Then we attach words to these boxes, for ease of use. This is very helpful in remembering, for example, that a particular mushroom killed Joe-Bob, or that cars with the word "Hyundai" on them may not be solid purchase decisions. However, when it comes to labeling groups of people in the political realm, we can really step on our own feet and hinder good management decisions.

Let me be perfectly clear here: The number one threat to the environment right now is unfettered development. Were we to efficiently manage our future development, and re-configure existing development, we could:

1) Help to effectively mitigate greenhouse gasses;

2) Much more effectively protect habitat and wildlife corridors;

3) Improve the health of our people;
4) Provide more opportunities for healthy outdoor connectedness, and more of a sense of place.

I could go on, but those are the big four when it comes to our future.

So, why am I seemingly jumping from one topic to another? Because our current political climate has so polarized us on environmental issues that we cannot even speak in civilized tones about the environment, much less push effective legislation.

Hunters, think about it: What is the bigger deal, that you can't shoot a lead round in condor country, or that you can't shoot ANYTHING?
Nonhunters, think about this: Hunters killing deer in a forest managed mostly through their dollars, or no deer at all, because the forest is now a string of Kinkos, Targets, and ticky-tacks?

The political upheavals of the 1960's & 70's completed a great schism in the community of people who love nature. This schism has reached such heights, that now, when I write about these topics, I have to write convoluted sentences about the "environmental-conservation community", and probably stay away from words like "natural resources" or "movement". Even the words "environment" and "conservation" are loaded!

It's downright ridiculous.

Of the four major groups spawned by the first folks loving nature in the late 1800's, three of them can share in an honest attempt to rein in sprawl, protect valuable habitats and corridors, re-establish watersheds, wetlands and prairies, and any number of other important goals for places. These three groups are hunting organizations (like the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, SCI, Pheasants Forever), conservation groups (like Defenders of Wildlife, the Nature Conservancy), and environmental groups (like the Sierra Club and the Center for Biological Diversity).

The fourth group, believe it or not, is another symptom of unfettered development. In our expanding suburbs, with no real rivers or wild places, there grew a group of people who 'love' nature. They often have had little or no contact with it, with particular places or creatures, because of where they live and how they were raised. They have no experiences with death and life, realities of our world. They only think of these things in the horrific. In this vacuum, fed by an honest longing for nature and the wild, but with no way of getting the genuine experience, the animal rights movement was born. Of course, I'm labeling, and I know that many animal rights' proponents have had many experiences with the wild, but for the most part, of the folks I've run across, most have come from urban or suburban environs, and may have worked in healing or rescuing animals, but haven't really seen a cat catch a bird, and do not understand that death must occur for even their continued survival.

If the three major groups who care about the environment and have experience with it could honestly engage young people by helping to curb sprawl and create living places where kids can respectfully experience the wild, then we can also help develop people with a true understanding, and therefore appreciation, of that wild. To do that, we don't need to put down our differences about other conservative/liberal ideas. We just need to meet and stick to the subject.

Where do you see connections that can be made?

Roots of conservation

Well, my baby and I tried watching the debate last week (it's fun to hear a 21 month-old say McCain and Barack Obama), but wound up turning to the Family Feud on Ion Television, instead. What a waste of an opportunity for both candidates. First, they only agree to a format where they get about two minutes per talk, then they spend those two minutes spouting the same general rhetoric that you hear on their commercials and in their stump speeches. Big, fat waste of time.

But, one discussion really made me angry and frustrated, and made for fodder for this post. When asked about energy, and, even more directly, when asked about sacrifice, neither candidate spoke of the need for Americans to use less. In fact, the only time I've heard this idea promoted in the public sphere lately is from, of all places, a Chevron commercial. Local, state, federal, and Presidential candidates are all spouting the horrible line that we have to use all available methods and opportunities for meeting our demand for energy, including clean coal, nuclear, wind, drilling, blah, blah.

We have reached a strange time in our history, when sacrifice is no longer asked of us during times of trouble. What does it say about us that the people running for office feel that to ask us to sacrifice is a sure way to lose an election? Or, is it a sign of the financial times, that their major donors are absolutely wedded to the current economic conditions, and therefore require spending, even though we know that we are sitting on false values created by a bloated housing market? And, how does this relate to our ethical relationships to the environment?

The root of the word conservation is obvious, as are its implications. Believing that we can consume our way out of our financial and security problems is wrongheaded, and it's bad environmental policy. Under typical bad economic conditions, and in times of war, we are often asked to stock up and save things, to use less and hold onto valuable assets. Right now, for some reason, our candidates are not encouraging this behavior, and I am saddened by it. Many Americans like to sacrifice for the betterment of their country, they like to feel connected through actions, but being told to purchase another Chinese-made toy as your American duty is an empty gesture.

So I would like to simply suggest to folks that you use less. Hold onto some money, learn to can some food and get a garden going (for those of you in climates like California's). Perhaps walk down to a local pond or creek and catch some bluegill for dinner every week or so. Also, get to know your neighbors, so that you can help out in case they see some bad times. Call up the local government and get a free tree or two to plant. Take some short trips around to the local open areas near you, spend a little bit of money locally, and learn to appreciate your place. If you see something not quite right, let somebody know, or ask to fix it. Getting to know your environment while using less can go a long way to protecting it. Also, if you needed it, you get a good reason to catch some bluegill.