Superfreakonomics (2009)

 

Conventional wisdom got in a fight with economics in the best-selling first instalment of Freakonomics in 2005, and naturally, economics won.  Now, Steven D. Levitt, the acclaimed young University of Chicago economics professor, and Stephen J. Dubner, the New York Times writer, are back again to fuse the weird and the wonderful, under the ‘unifying theme’ of how people respond to economic incentives and their unintended consequences, in the follow-up: Superfreakonomics.

Though Freakonomics never even flirted with anything close to the environmental, preferring instead to focus on cheating school teachers and sumo wrestlers, how real estate agents are similar to the Ku Klux Klan (don’t worry it’s nowhere near as nefarious as you might first think), and the economics of drug dealing, Superfreakonomics is breaking the ELR blog bank with a couple of eye-opening chapters on the lesser discussed solutions to Climate Change (though true to form, the book still explores the hidden economics of prostitution, suicide bombers and altruism!).

The first chapter that caught my attention started by discussing the devastating consequences hurricanes have increasingly had on coastal economies.  As Climate Change raises the ocean’s temperature, hurricanes are becoming increasingly common and increasingly destructive.    Hurricanes are formed as the ocean water rises in temperature and the winds gather that thermal energy from the ocean’s surface and convert it into physical force.  These hurricanes are hard to predict and for those unfortunate enough to live in their path, their lives are changed for years if not forever.  Of particular concern to Americans is Hurricane Alley, a stretch of ocean running from the West coast of Africa through the Caribbean and up towards the South-eastern United States (think Hurricane Katrina (New Orleans, 2005) and Hurricane Sandy (New York, 2012)).

Enter Nathan, a plucky man with a curious and intellectual mind, who has come up with an ingenious idea.  It’s called the Salter Sink (a.k.a. the Hurricane Killer).  Unassumingly referred to as “an inner tube with a skirt” that sits on the ocean surface, the Hurricane Killer works by rupturing the process that warms the ocean winds by using wave power to continually sink the warm surface water down to mix with the significantly colder subsurface waters.

Below is a mock-up of the design: quite simply a large floating ring, anywhere from 30 to 300 feet across, with a long flexible cylinder affixed to the inside running 600 feet deep into the ocean’s subsurface.

As warm waves splash over the top of the ring, the water level inside the tube rises above that of the surrounding ocean creating a ‘hydraulic head.’  The force this hydraulic head creates pushes the warm water down and out into the cold water below, therefore causing it to mix with the cold water and lowering the temperature of the surface water as it rises again.  This cyclical process is low-impact, non-polluting, scalable and slow (taking about 3 hours to push a molecule of warm water out of the bottom).

Nathan’s solution is thus to prevent the water in Hurricane Alley from getting warm enough to form a destructive hurricane in the first place.  A couple of thousand could be deployed (the most expensive version of which would cost a maximum of $100,000) to prevent hurricanes in the Caribbean and the Gulf.  A picket fence from Cuba to the Yucatan could theoretically negate the billions of dollars’ worth of damage that wrecks coastal areas every year (hurricane alleys also exist in the South China Sea and the Coral Sea off the coast of Australia).  Deploying 10,000 world-wide would cost $1 billion and would require relatively little maintenance, freeing hundreds of coastal cities to develop without the threat of regular destruction (furthermore, they could be moved in reaction to weather patterns).

In addition to cooling category 5 storms into less destructive ones, the salter sinks could also possibly be used to smooth out the boom-or-bust nature of rainfall in Africa and thus help to develop agriculture and address food-supply shortages.  When considering the expense that the majority of Climate Change mitigation strategies advocate, this solution is devilishly simply and cheap, but as Levitt and Dubner reveal, Nathan is only just getting started.

As the next chapter reveals, Nathan is Nathan Myrhvold, the former Chief Technology Officer of Microsoft and, at one time, one of the wealthiest men in the United States.  Nathan left Microsoft several years ago to set up “Intellectual Ventures,” (IV) a social enterprise gathering some of the brightest scientific and technological minds (including renowned climate scientist, Ken Caldeira) to work towards solving the world’s largest problems (without much concern for commercial payback).  In addition to what I am about to discuss, IV are also working on a eradicating malaria by designing a laser system that kills mosquitos as they cross a boundary,  amongst other amazing projects:

http://www.intellectualventures.com/index.php/inventions-patents/our-inventions

But more pertinent to this blog is the fact that Myrhvold has his sights set on addressing Climate Change.  Rather strangely, the ‘eureka’ moment came on June 15^th 1991 when Mount Pinatubo erupted.  The eruption was the second largest of the 20^th century and caused 20 million tonnes of sulphur dioxide to be spewed into the atmosphere.  What scientists noted over the following decade, contrary to popular belief, was actually a significant cooling of the earth’s atmosphere (0.5 ⁰C).  Nathan’s observation was one that is scarcely uttered in environmental circles: we’re too concerned with carbon dioxide!

The effect sulphur dioxide has on the earth’s atmosphere was first noted by Benjamin Franklin in his 1784 publication, Meteorological Imaginations and Conjectures, when he noted that recent eruptions in Iceland had caused a particularly harsh winter.  Though Franklin could only postulate at the time, as we now understand, the reason was because sulphur dioxide reduces the amount of solar radiation reaching the earth’s surface.  Thus, while carbon dioxide (and actually more potently, methane and water vapour) warm the earth’s atmosphere by trapping heat, sulphur dioxide has the ability to cool the earth by decreasing the amount of heat entering the atmosphere.

But those of you who paid attention in chemistry class may rightly be thinking, don’t we already emit a lot of sulphur dioxide into the air when we burn coal? In fact we do.   In the UK, in 2011, we emitted 379,000 tonnes of sulphur dioxide into the atmosphere (National Atmospheric Emissions Inventory website).  However, when you consider that in 1970 the UK emitted 6,370,000 tonnes, sulphur dioxide is actually one of the gases for which we have been extremely successful in reducing emissions.

In spite of this trend, the important question is not how much sulphur dioxide we are putting into the atmosphere, but where are we putting the sulphur dioxide in the atmosphere?  You see, emissions from coal plants go into the troposphere (the layer of the atmosphere closest to the ground) where it falls back down to earth, in the form of acid rain, within a week or two.  Why volcanic eruptions were so effective at cooling the planet is because they shoot the sulphur dioxide all the way up into the stratosphere (about 7.5 to 32 miles above the earth’s surface) where it absorbs water vapour and will form an aerosol cloud that can linger for up to a year.

So Myrhvold set his team of self-proclaimed geeks the following puzzle: how do you get sulphur dioxide into the stratosphere, and how much would you need to put up there to mitigate the temperature rise caused by Climate Change?

After a series of costly, complex and impractical ideas (including firing artillery shells full of sulphur dioxide into the sky, or launching a fleet of jet fighters using high-sulphur content fuel into the stratosphere), Myrhvold’s team at IV came up with another fiendishly simple and cost-effective method: a garden hose to the sky!

By using a series of high-strength helium balloons (one every 300 yards) and pumps (one every 100 yards), you could extend a hose 18 miles up into the stratosphere where it would spray a fine mist of liquefied sulphur dioxide out of a nozzle that would then be carried by the wind.  

But how many hoses and how much intentional pollution are we talking about?  Rather surprisingly, Myrhvold has calculated that we would only need two hoses (one at the north pole and one at the south pole) emitting 100,000 tonnes per year (0.05% of global sulphur dioxide emissions) to effectively reverse the warming effect.

Now, geo-engineering projects have traditionally been written off as science fiction (e.g. the space mirror scheme sending 55,000 reflective sails to orbit around the earth), but this is an idea that is backed by sound science, that is not incredibly expensive and let’s face it there’s something childishly fun about it.  If Myrhvold’s predictions are correct, the project (referred to Budyko’s Blanket, after the Russian climatologist, Mikhail Budyko) could be up and running within three years, for a start-up cost of $150 million and an annual operating cost of $100 million.  When you consider the findings of the UK Government’s Stern Report that estimated the cost of addressing Climate Change to be $1.2 trillion per year for the foreseeable future, this would be an incredibly cost-effective strategy.  In addition, it effectively repurposes existing pollution and provides the potential to avoid anti-carbon initiatives that could seriously hinder the global economy.

But this is where my showering of praise and optimism ends unfortunately.

Firstly, I recognise Myrhvold’s arguments that current Climate Change mitigation strategies are too small (alternative energy will not yet scale to a sufficient degree to address emissions problems), too late (the half-life of atmospheric carbon is roughly 100 years) and/or too optimistic (creating a carbon-free energy infrastructure will actually require a lot of emissions, effectively making Climate Change worse every year until we’re done building the necessary infrastructure, which could take thirty to fifty years), but I do not accept that they are lost causes. 

Pumping sulphur dioxide into the stratosphere should be a plan of last resort.  It is comforting to know that we have a potential back-up plan should other plans fail, but two wrongs do not a make right.  Wouldn’t such an unnatural counter-emissions strategy create apathy towards the environment, providing industry a free pass to pollute the atmosphere as much as desired now that we have the means to reduce the temperature?

Even if the answer to that question is ‘no,’ this is a strategy to negate “global warming,” not Climate Change.  Reducing the earth’s average temperature does not address the related problems of pollution, habitat destruction, biodiversity loss, energy profligacy, energy security, geo-politics and the squandering of natural resources.  This is not a solution to the problem; this is more like someone cranking up the air conditioning in your house when it is scorching hot outside causing you to forget that you’ll still need sunscreen when you step outside.

Furthermore, the fact that we cannot know the unintended consequences of this plan until after commencement should be enough to give pause to even the staunchest proponent.  Sulphur dioxide in the troposphere is already a known cause of respiratory problems and acid rain.  Moreover, the earth operates a complex feedback system regulating the concentration of gases in each eco-system and such a plan would fail to respect the delicate balance the earth’s forces constantly work to achieve.

Lastly, the practicalities of implanting such a strategy would be incredibly complex.  Who would pay for such a scheme (it could not plausibly be a commercial venture as it generates no revenue)?  Who would own it?  You could not alter the earth’s atmosphere unilaterally, so who would give permission to implement such a plan?  International agreement at the UN is hard to come by, even without regard to how easy it would be to scaremonger people on such a strategy  (most people feel uneasy with intentionally altering the earth’s atmosphere – note the irony here!).

Nonetheless I commend the provocative thinking and the desire of Myrhvold’s team at IV to do something big (see also the DESERTEC plan in the previous blog – Sustainable Energy – Without the Hot Air).  Within the next few decades it will be essential to drum up political support for a big idea, implemented on a global scale, if something meaningful is to be done.  The problem is that the political capital will be wasted if the wrong plan is proposed.

With that said, Superfreakonomics is a fascinating and fun read.  I was pleased that Levitt and Dubner took the time to unearth one or two of the exciting ideas surrounding Climate Change mitigation; I just want to caution that if a solution sounds too good to be true, it generally is.  Nonetheless, I implore everyone to keep a close eye on Nathan and his team at IV, they are undoubtedly one of the most ingenious and humanitarian organisations I have ever encountered.

 

Score: 70/100

 

Sustainable Energy – Without the Hot Air (2009)

A lot of the previous writers I have reviewed have used great rhetorical skills or grand verbiage to convey their message and unique slant on the multifaceted environmental movement.  In Sustainable Energy – Without the Hot Air, author David JC MacKay (Professor of Physics at the University of Cambridge) attempts no such ingratiation or smooth posturing.  To his credit, MacKay has quite simply written an extremely practical, numerical investigation of the energy debate.  He has taken the question of renewable energy, plugged it into the conceivable UK power supply, and calculated a no-nonsense renewable energy debaters’ handbook.

MacKay explains that as an empirical scientist he became interested in the renewable energy debate when he read two seemingly credible books that came to shockingly differing conclusions – David Goldstein’s Out of Gas and Bjorn Lomborg’s The Skeptical Environmentalist.  Consequently, Professor MacKay admirably decided he would put that physics doctorate to further good use and write a freely downloadable book that, devoid of emotions, asks the question: How much renewable energy could the UK theoretically produce and would it be enough to power the country/achieve energy independence? http://www.withouthotair.com/

What follows is a source by source dissection of the theoretical sustainable energy production this country could achieve versus current energy consumption levels here in the UK.   In order to do so, MacKay helpfully converts everything into a single unit of measurement that we can then use to easily compare all the variables.  This is where you’ll have to take my word, or alternatively check the science for yourself (if, unlike me, you studied physics past the age of 18); the magic unit we shall use to further the discussion is:

kWh/day/person (kilowatts per day per person).

Now, before the bespectacled jump on my back, it is worth noting that all the following calculations are approximations, rounded to whole numbers for ease of understanding and discussion.  So take a moment to consider the two following tables so that we can begin to investigate the interesting implications of MacKay’s findings.

Energy Consumption Source	Energy Used in kWh/day/person	Comments
Cars	40	Assuming the average person drives 30 miles per day, obtaining a fuel efficiency of 33 miles per gallon (without considering the energy used to manufacture the vehicle).
Planes	30	Assuming 1 trans-continental flight per person per year (for the frequent flyer – 60 kWh/day/person)
Heating & Cooling	37	This includes the heating & cooling related to the home, workplace and cooking.  More specifically hot water is responsible for 12 kWh, hot air 24 and cooling 1 kWh (this is so low only because the UK has so few days per year when we require cooling).
Lighting	4	Including lighting at home, in the workplace, street lights and traffic lights.
Gadgets	5	Here we’re talking about fridges, freezers, computers, TVs, Xbox, etc.
Food & Farming	15 E.g. Eggs – 1,  Meat – 8, Fertiliser – 2.	This includes the energy used to grow a crop and the energy spent/consumed by the animal that provides/is the food (but not the energy of transporting or processing the food).
Stuff	48 E.g. Drinks containers – 3 Other packaging – 4 Car-making – 14 Road freight – 7 Shipping – 4.	This includes the extraction of raw materials and the production, use and disposal of consumables.
Public Services	4	This primarily consists of the energy used in providing for the country’s armed defence (Army, Navy, etc.).
TOTAL	195	In comparison, the U.S. total for energy consumption is roughly 250 kWh/day/person.

Before moving on I would like to mention that this list demonstrates the effect of what I call “token environmentalism.”  Don’t get me wrong, using energy efficient light bulbs and becoming best friends with your “bag for life” is the right thing to do, it’s just that they don’t really make that big of a dent in the total!  The above list demonstrates that such behavioural changes likely do more to reduce cognitive dissonance rather than actually addressing the problem in a meaningful way.

 

Anyway, I digress.  We now have an idea of what consumption behaviours take up the largest proportion of our energy use (travel, heating, manufacturing, etc.) but it doesn’t really provide much context until we understand how much energy we can generate.

Renewable Energy Source	Conceivable Output in kWh/day/person	Comments
Wind	20	This calculation presumes that we cover 10% of the entire country with wind farms (extremely optimistic given that the current global wind power generation is 10 kWh/day/person).
Solar (Photovoltaics)	5	This is assuming that every person in the country could install 10m2 (south-facing) of 20% efficient (high-end) solar PV panels.
Solar Thermal	13	Where normal solar panels convert sunlight into electricity (a high-grade energy), solar panels can do a much more efficient job of converting the energy into heat (a low-grade energy) to heat water and thus produce more output but with fewer applications.
Biomass	24	This is again a very optimistic calculation based on using all current crops (neglecting the need for crops as food) as biofuel.
Hydroelectricity	1.5	Hydroelectricity requires altitude and rainfall.  The UK actually already receives 0.2 kWh/day/person and the exploitation of the remaining areas would be potentially expensive and disruptive.
Offshore Wind (Shallow)	16	Shallow mean coastal areas less than 30 miles from the coast, which actually means you would have to build in international waters, presenting several legal problems.
Offshore Wind (Deep)	32	Deep means more than 30 miles from the coast.  At present no such windmills exist.  Their economic viability is questionable due to transmission and maintenance costs.
Wave	4	This calculation assumes that we line half of the Atlantic coastline (500km) with deep sea wave absorbers.
Tidal	11	Using a mixture of barrages, lagoons and tidal stream farms, it would be possible to harness the tidal power of the sea and ocean should land owners agree and public opposition be minimal.
Geothermal	1	Unfortunately the UK does not have too many geothermal sources (being so far from tectonic boundaries).  Currently a geothermal plant in Southampton produces 0.1 kWh/day/person.
TOTAL	180	Other predictions of total conceivable renewable energy production include: 27 – Institute of Electrical Engineers (2002) 38 – Centre for Alternative Technology (2007)

CONSUMPTION 195 v THEORETICAL RENEWABLE PRODUCTION 180

Thus we can clearly see that even with the most optimistic of calculations the UK could not shut off the energy supplied by coal, oil and natural gas tomorrow and be able to power the country with clean electrons.  As a staunch environmentalist I wish I could deliver different news, but the numbers must be respected and the pragmatists must prevail over the idealists at this moment in time.

So what conclusions can we draw and where can we go from here?

• Firstly, to make a difference, renewable projects need to be country-sized!  I am a big proponent of micro-generation (e.g. installing your own solar panels/ decentralising energy generation), but it appears that at present levels of efficiency, the best an individual could hope for would be to cover then own electricity bill.  Micro-generation could not currently provide for the energy needed for transportation, manufacturing, etc. 
• Every little does not help! Well it does, but what I mean is that if we are to balance the energy budget (either by reducing consumption or increasing renewable production), we must do something big.

Before we give up on renewable energy technologies, there are however some exciting technologies and plans (even if two of them aren’t technically renewable) that could buoy the mood:

1. The DESERTEC Plan – just because the UK doesn’t have great potential for solar energy production doesn’t mean we couldn’t buy some.   MacKay analyses an exciting plan to create 65 solar parks each of which consists of 1500km² of solar panels in northern African desert (97,500 km² in total).  Enough sunlight falls on the North-African desert that, using a High-Voltage Direct-Current (HVDC) transmission line, renewable energy could then be distributed to the majority of Europe and Africa to provide 125 kWh/day/person.  Such a plan is obviously incredibly ambitious but nonetheless incredibly appealing.  Issues regarding the covering of such a large area with man-made objects, international agreements on how to pay for the manufacture, installation and maintenance of the solar panels, and how the energy would then be shared would all need to be carefully considered and negotiated.  Nonetheless, an incredible humanitarian goal that I think everyone should learn more about: http://www.desertec.org/concept/ .
2. Nuclear Fission – hate or love it, nuclear fission is a form of energy that could produce an extremely helpful 420 kWh/day/person for the next 100 years if we extracted all available Uranium and all countries agreed to the safe and ubiquitous deployment of nuclear plants. Currently, Sweden and France lead the world in nuclear production, generating 19 kWh/day/person.  Of course concerns regarding the safe disposal of radioactive Uranium after use and the effective safeguarding of these materials so as to prevent the proliferation of nuclear arsenals across the world are problems that cannot be ignored, but from a mathematical point of view it is clear that our fears of nuclear power must be kept in perspective as the potential is just so great.
3. Nuclear Fusion – now we enter the realm of science fiction and can begin to talk about some truly mind-blowing numbers.  At present scientists are not confident that the science of nuclear fusion, in which Lithium or Deuterium are used instead Uranium, will ever be perfected.  But if the theory is correct and the technology could be successfully developed we are talking about an energy source that could provide 30,000 kWh/day/person for 1,000,000 years for 60 billion people!

Should we be able to perfect nuclear fusion then all bets are off and we’ll have such an abundance of energy on this planet that no one would every pay for, or fight over, energy again.  Yet, the pragmatist in me is screaming not to get carried away; we must push forward without the magic bullet in mind.

With that said, I think MacKay has written an extremely helpful book.  Regardless of how optimistic the numbers presented are it is essential to create context in any debate.  Having studied the numbers he has presented I have come to grips with the reality that fossil fuels will have to part of our energy portfolio for many decades to come should the country wish to maintain its current economic  output and standard of living. 

I hope MacKay updates this book every decade and we can see how technology improves and whether we will ever be able to achieve energy independence.  For now, I encourage everyone to read Without the Hot Air this year.  No matter your political persuasion or motivation, this book forms an excellent starting point for debate on a topic that has become far too stifled by grand rhetoric and out of context numbers.  It’s time we all started talking about renewable energy, without the hot air.

Score: 82/100

Collapse (2005)

Environmentalists can sometimes be accused of fear mongering.  And it’s true that nothing rallies the troops like a bit of imminent dread.  With that in mind, here's hoping that my review of the fatalistic, Collapse, can present a balanced approach to a scary subject.

No society lasts forever.  For every society that adapts and prospers, marking their dominance with the building of complex structures and systems, there is an inescapable demise.  The only pertinent question is how long can you survive?

Jared Diamond, professor of geography at the University of California, Los Angeles, and author of the Pulitzer Prize winning, Guns, Germs and Steel (1997) - an examination of the factors that have historically caused societies to prosper - takes a historical look at how environmental factors are inextricably connected to the collapse of almost all societies.  Lest we get carried away with melancholia and fatality, I think it is important for me to note that Diamond has written a scary historical account of the world, but it is a nonetheless a tale of cautious optimism; by better understanding the past we can endeavour to do better in the future.

   

Diamond approaches the task of learning from the past by laying out a distinct five-point framework from which to approach each case study:

1. Environmental Damage – here we are talking about the way which we exploit our natural resources for gain and whether an environment is naturally fragile or resilient to such exploitation.  Diamond makes the point that the reversibility of such damage is dependent on both a society’s decisions (e.g. the number of trees cut don per acre per year) and the characteristics of the given ecosystem (e.g. the number of seedlings that germinate per year or the sapling growth rate).  Thus, what is a sustainable rate of exploitation in one area will not always be sustainable in another.
2. Climate Change – it is refreshing to get to use this term in a neutrally political sense, as Diamond is more expansively referring to the natural variations in the climate that effect the conditions in which we live.  These are exclusively non man-made (e.g. volcanic eruptions, changes in the orientation of the Earth’s axis effecting local temperatures, wet versus dry decades, etc.)
3. Hostile Neighbours – the effect of intermittent or chronically hostile neighbours is perhaps the first factor you may have thought of when considering the collapse of past societies, however, Diamond presents compelling evidence to suggest that hostile neighbours are usually the proximate, not the ultimate, cause of collapse.  That is to say that, ecological factors usually weaken a society to the point where military conquest is possible (i.e. the straw that broke that the camel’s back).
4. Friendly Trade Partners – the ability to trade with neighbouring states greatly affects a society’s ability to provide everything that it needs, as no environment provides an abundance of all natural resources.  Consequently, the economics of competitive advantage and opportunity cost have been used for centuries to provide an improved standard of living.
5. Societal Response to Environmental Problems – obviously this is the factor most clearly separating the winners from the losers, and Diamond makes his way through the following case studies with a keen focus on human decisions.

Diamond devotes a lot of time carefully dissecting the collapse of the Easter Islanders (in South America circa 1600 A.D.), The Anasazi (in the Southwestern U.S. circa 1300 A.D.), The Mayans (in Mexico circa 1300 A.D.), The Vikings and The Norse (in Scandinavia circa 1100 A.D.).  At this point I could expand on the all the nuances of the above collapses, but for the purposes of this article I will very quickly skim over these investigations (which take up a good 300 pages) and briefly summarise the findings so that I can focus on the more modern topics explored in the book.

The three recurring reasons for the societal collapse of historic civilisations, that I noted, were:

1. Deforestation,
2. Soil Erosion, and
3. High Population Density

Short-term exploitation of forests decreases the availability of natural resources that are vital to many areas of the economy, increases your need to import raw materials thus weakening your trading position, drastically reduces your ability to control forest fires and destroys habitats and jobs.  Soil erosion (generally caused by working the land too hard, failing to rotate crops and farming on too steep a gradient) seriously undermines a society’s ability to feed itself and strengthen its economy as farming becomes harder and harder.  And high population density causes any problem to become exacerbated as the fight for resources, food and money becomes more intensified.

These factors appear time and again in Diamond’s analysis of the past societies and create a clear platform from which to view modern societies.  Diamond’s analysis of past societies is educational and thorough, but I must admit that I found the second half of the book (regarding modern societies) much more compelling and engaging.

While the collapse of previous societies had felt slightly impersonal and distant, the magnitude of the topic was really brought home when Diamond explored how environmental factors played a crucial role in the Rwandan genocide.

In 1994, almost 1,000,000 people (close to 20% of the entire population) were savagely murdered in Rwanda.  The motivation for such savagery has traditionally been attributed to ethnic cleansing.  The rivalry between the Hutu and Tutsi people was said to have provided the kindling and the plane crash that killed the Rwandan and Burundian presidents on April 6, 1994, the spark that ignited the horrific atrocities.  Yet Diamond unearths the compelling environmental factors that explain how the tensions were not so cut and dry as first thought.

Firstly, for several decades prior to 1994, Rwanda had been experiencing unprecedented population growth.  By 1994 the population density had reached 760 people per square mile (for comparison, the UK is approximately 600 people/m² and Canada 10 people/m²) leading to the average farm being a meagre 0.07 acres.  Furthermore, a high percentage of the population were farmers for subsistence and unlike industrialised nations could not harness efficient and mechanised agricultural methods.  Consequently, farmers struggled to feed their families, soil erosion and soil fertility loss exploded as farmers tried harder to survive on smaller plots of land and deforestation rates increased as farmers searched for new arable farmland.    In short, the ground could not feed the country and disputes over land and resources became common and violence and theft sky-rocketed.

Consequently, when the global price of coffee and tea (Rwanda’s primary exports) declined and a severe drought swept the nation in the beginning of 1994 we can see how tensions must have reached an all-time high.  The assertion that this was a genocide led to by the Hutu people against the Tutsi is not supported by the fact that nearly 5% of the entire Hutu population died.  What is more telling is the fact that the prevailing link between those who died, is that they were almost all landowners. 

Such devastation is truly saddening and hard to comprehend.  When I think of the face of genocide I think of people like Idi Amin (Uganda), Pol Pot (Cambodia) and Slobodan Milošević (Serbia) and it easy to think that bad people cause such tragedies, but Diamond really brings home just how serious mismanagement of the environment can be when stating, “it is not rare, even today, to hear Rwandans argue that a war is necessary to wipe out an excess of population and to bring numbers into line with the available land resources.”  This is the ultimate Malthusian nightmare and a truly haunting chapter that stuck with me for a long time.

While Diamond’s harrowing exploration of Rwanda’s circumstances unveiled the humanitarian consequences of mismanaging the environment, the comparison between the Dominican Republic and Haiti underscores just how deeply it can affect a nation’s economy.  The point is strikingly brought home by presenting these two nations who share one island.

Historically, Haiti had been the much richer and more powerful of the two island nations.  Unfortunately, the 20^th century was marred for both countries as they suffered under oppressive dictators.  Haiti was ruled by Francois “Papa Doc” Duvallier from 1957 to 1971 and then by his son, Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvallier from 1971 to 1986.  Similarly, Rafael “El Jefe” Trujillo and then Joaquin Balaguer brutally ruled the Dominican Republic from 1930 to 1996.

While all four dictators cannot be commended for their perpetual abuse of human rights, it is interesting to note how the Dominican dictators’ approaches (primarily those of Balaguer) to the environment has left a stronger economy for two nations sharing extremely similar characteristics.  Only 1% of Haiti is still forested following the aggressive deforestation policy and accelerated use of charcoal advanced by the Duvalliers’ policy in order to continually prop up the economy in the short-term.  In contrast, 28% of the Dominican Republic remains forested due to Trujillo and Balaguer’s concentration on modernisation (building dams and hydro-electric facilities, though it is said that their motivations were purely political) and importing fuel.  The effect is astonishing:  the economy of the Dominic Republic is now five times larger than that of Haiti.  Haiti’s leadership has continually undermined its own ability by squandering its own resources and failing to come up with a long-term plan.

Lastly, Diamond inspects the most fragile environment in the First World, Australia, to underline how this is not a problem exclusive to Third World countries.  Australia is the most unproductive land continent in the world.  Australian soil is in a state of crisis, supporting the lowest nutrient levels and the slowest plant growth rate in the world.  This is because nutrient rich soil is created in one of three ways: volcanic eruptions, glacial movement or tectonic uplift, and none of these have occurred on Australian soil in thousands of years.  Consequently, its agriculture, forestry and fisheries are all becoming decreasingly competitive.  Coupled with the fact that Australia has traditionally traded with the West (despite its Eastern location) due to Colonial ties and suffers with geographic isolation, Australia’s agriculture is becoming less globally competitive and its land management is increasingly becoming a cycle of land clearance, investment, bankruptcy and abandonment.

Consequently, Australia is at a cross roads and must make some very difficult and personal decisions about how to move forward.  As Diamond states, “It would be a ‘first’ for the modern world if a government voluntarily decided to phase out much of its agricultural enterprise, in anticipation of future problems, before being forced in desperation to do so,” however, these are going to being discussions that will become increasingly prevalent as the 21^st century progresses and Australia may very well set the tone.

Diamond argues that the development of public environmental concern and governmental countermeasures is accelerating, and rightly so.  Unfortunately, the development of environmental problems (as the modern examples of Rwanda, Haiti and Australia demonstrated) are accelerating exponentially.  Even in the fastest growing economy in the world, China, Diamond outlines the multitude of problems that may serve as their downfall: air pollution, soil erosion, soil salinization, disappearing wetlands, biodiversity loss, invasive species and megaprojects (and trust me, the list goes on).

In the end Diamond provides the poignant reminder that all societies (and therefore, economies) are built on the use of a mixture of renewable and non-renewable resources.  Consequently, we must seriously ask ourselves, where, in what amount and by what means we use these resources if we are to avoid (or at least prolong the time before) collapse.

Diamond provides a stark warning when he summarises that his analysis of past collapses has made him realise that, “a society’s steep decline may begin only a decade or two after the society reaches its peak numbers, wealth and power.”  The truly modern realisation is that Globalisation is a double edged sword.  While we have created networks in which we can better support each other, we have also exponentially sped up the pace at which we are working and decreased the time we have to react.

I will conclude by presenting a map showcased in the book (apologies for the quality) that depicts the world’s most politically troubled nations.  This is then followed by a map of the world’s most environmentally endangered countries.

The conclusions are so obvious I barely feel the need to comment.  What is left to say is that Collapse is a serious and thought-provoking book that raises a timely reminder that in a world of fast-paced, global competition, it is not worth winning in the short term if we sacrifice future generations.  All countries have a responsibility to plan long-term and must engender a willingness to reconsider core values if they are to avoid collapse.

Score: 75

That Used to be Us (2011)

That Used to be Us is a sober and honest assessment of the Unites States’ decline from being the world’s premier superpower (post WWII) to a country short on intellectual capital and overdrawn on political stagnation and budgetary deficits. 

The book is co-authored by Thomas Friedman and Michael Mandelbaum (both American before I get any flak for being anti-American).  Having written popular titles such as, The World is Flat and Hot, Flat and Crowded (see previous review), Friedman expands on his previous work in which he so astutely describes the major trends influencing economic and environmental change around the globe, while Mandelbaum lends ever more credibility to the book with his wealth of experience in nuclear disarmament treaties and international diplomacy.

Strictly speaking, this is not an environmental book.  However, both the following problem and solution are inextricably connected to environmental issues and policy, so I hope we can agree that it is a pertinent continuation of the blog’s goals.

The book offers a lucid picture of the distractions that have led to America’s economic (and somewhat cultural) downfall.  The authors argue that the turning point was after the victory in the Cold War when America lost a common enemy that united its citizens.  But more importantly, the authors argue that America’s leadership misunderstood the world they were creating when Capitalism ‘triumphed’ over Communism.

The book depicts an America resting on its laurels, borrowing too much from future generations and overreacting to the threat of terrorism post 9/11.  The world in which Capitalism ‘won,’ the world in which 

we now live, is now centred on four factors:  

(1) Globalization: The spread of capitalism and the ability to source cheap labour all over the globe has created a hyper-competitive world in which no country or city has an inherent right to be the leader of any given economic sector.

(2) The IT Revolution: The power of technology to automate jobs while increasing productivity is destroying blue-collar jobs and increasing the demand for highly educated and creative employees.  Furthermore, the IT Revolution has created a hyper-connected world in which scenarios play out much more quickly than in the past.

(3) Debt and Deficits: The authors describe this as a “war on math[s].”  Never before in America’s history has the country been as fiscally irresponsible as in the presidency of George W. Bush in which two wars were waged while at the same time taxes were cut.  The author’s argue that the political entrenchment of Republicans refusing to raise taxes and the Democrats’ refusal to cut spending has fuelled the largest budget deficit in U.S. history (a deficit which is now worryingly being financed by borrowing from China).

Lastly, (4) Energy and the Environment: (“The war on physics”) The U.S. has refused to face up to the reality that it must reduce its dependence on foreign oil and make significant investment in the great industry of the future, clean energy, and also impose a carbon tax (though President Obama has recently given a speech pledging to refocus his administration’s efforts on addressing such problems).

At this point many readers would be forgiven for thinking that this is a depressing and America-centric read.  Both assumptions would be wrong.  The book is wilfully optimistic in recounting the formula that made America so exceptional.  The authors argue that America once thrived using the following formula, but has fallen away badly in recent decades:

• Investment in Infrastructure: America has fallen very far behind in public transport, transportation network maintenance and electrical grid/transmission technology, especially when compared to Europe and Asia.

• Education: The authors go to great lengths to emphasise just how far America has fallen behind the educational over-achievers (such as Singapore, Japan, China and South Korea) – the U.S. has fallen to 31^st in Maths, 17^th in Reading and 23^rd in Science according to the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) Rankings – and what policy decision must be made to reverse the trend.

• Immigration: The authors highlight how over 40% of the start-ups in Silicon Valley are started by first-generation immigrants and argue for a robust change of immigration laws as anti-immigrant sentiment is on the rise in and the country begins to close down its borders.

• Regulation: The necessary safeguards to protect against financial collapse in the private sector are crucial to any free market, and unless you’ve had your head in the sand since 2008, you’ll know that smarter (which does not necessarily dictate more or less) regulation is needed to protect against a minority of market actors who have the power to adversely impact the majority. Traditionally, the U.S has had a strong record in terms of harnessing the dynamic power of growing markets for the public good without major collapse.   However, more recently, the power of lobbyists and private interests have prevented the appropriate amendment and modernisation of such protections (which I would argue started with “Reaganomics” and then the partial repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act in 1999 under the Clinton administration).

• Government support for Research & Development: In the 1960s, investment in NASA’s space missions created a hub of scientific expertise in Florida that drove their economy and sparked innovation for decades.  However, more recently government research grants have been diminished and misplaced.  While the U.S. (and Europe to a lesser extent) continues to heavily subsidise fossil fuels, the Chinese government is investing in clean technology.

But wait, Friedman and Mandelbaum can see light at the end of the tunnel.  Their solution is one they term, “political shock therapy.”  In an attempt to jolt the country out of its two-party political malaise, the authors call for an independent presidential candidate, who would run on the following platform:

• Raise taxes across the board (raising taxes on only the highest income earners will not address the deficit, nor is the most equitable way to approach the problem).

• Cut spending (Social Security and Medicare programs will have to significantly cut their spending as baby-boomers approach retirement age – the authors recognise this is painful but necessary).

• Invest in the Formula (see the five factors outlined above) – focus on creating an economy in which education is paramount and risk-taking, within the appropriate framework, is rewarded.

In my opinion, this is a poignant political message and one that we are beginning to come to grips with here in Europe (the authors could quite easily be referring to the UK or France when writing this book). 

I support their broad message that individual sacrifice (higher taxes and a reduction in the social welfare budget) is necessary to embolden a country in this economics climate, however the discussion about where to cut spending is one that I think needs to be more democratically and openly debated (though the baby-boomer problem is very similar in most developed countries at the moment).  In addition, I whole heartedly agree that government worldwide have been overly distracted by short-term economics to the detriment of environmental issues (which undermines a country’s long-term economic outlook).

Unfortunately, I also agree with their analysis that America (and I would add, Europe) has been slow to react to the new world.  The world is hyper-connected and hyper-competitive now and no country or continent has an inherent right to monopolise jobs or wealth.  We are entering the age of international meritocracy and that is a good thing, and a necessary thing, for the developing world.  However, it does mean that Europe and America need to renew their vitality and invest with both eyes on the future, educate like there are no safe jobs and protect the planet as if we are all going to live here for a while. 

I only hope that we can look back in a 20 years’ time and say, “that used to be us.”

Score: 80/100

Cradle to Cradle (2008)

Re-making the way we make things is the order of the day.  A short history of manufacturing will teach you that if you don’t evolve your manufacturing and design processes you will get left behind.  In its day, the Model T Ford was a revolution in automotive manufacturing, but the process would obviously be viewed as horribly inefficient by today's standards.  Consequently, it’s never a bad time to rethink how we design and manufacture mass goods – especially given the extent to which these goods pollute our atmosphere and then pack our landfills.

Authors Michael Braungart and William McDonough take this relatively obvious truism and deliver a relatively short, but potentially revolutionary book about taking the next step in evolving beyond cradle to grave manufacturing and design.  Braungart and McDonaugh are architects by trade and with this in mind it is not surprising that they have chosen to view the issue of environmental sustainability in a holistic nature: from start to finish, via the products and services of the world. 

The title, Cradle to Cradle, encapsulates the central tenet of this book: that we must stop thinking of products, processes, buildings and resources as having expiration dates.  Rather, the authors work backwards from the logical assertion that the world has finite resources and that we cannot afford to treat resources as expendable and space as incalculably vast.  Instead, they advocate viewing the purchase or use of any and every resource as essentially a lease.  This is the first point to commend in this book; realising that it is impossible to truly own a resource, will inevitably lead to a greater duty of care and increased utility when in possession of that resource.

Braungart and McDonough are down-to earth architects with impressive careers.   With clientèle ranging from commercial giants, Nike and Ford, to niche organisations, such as the Environmental Defence Fund.  Cradle to Cradle’s authors propel the book with their credibility and expertise.  The book doesn’t brim over with personality, but what they lack in style they make up for in substance.

The book briskly covers the evolution of manufacturing trends and the history of commercial resource use, leading into a sound critique of modern methods.  Chief among the culprits of unsustainable modern practice are the ideas that:

•  Efficiency is King: less of something bad does not necessarily make it good if the process or material you are using in the first place is not appropriate.
•  Activity equals prosperity: this is exemplified in the book by the saying, “if brute force doesn't work, you’re not using enough,” which the authors argue is an all too common approach in manufacturing at present.  Heat, beat and treat are words that are far too common on the engineer’s tongue in the 21^st century.
•  And “one-size-fits all”  design solutions: the most memorable, though perhaps not the most easily transposed example, being that detergent is usually manufactured in the same way and in the same concentrations for all markets across the world despite the hardness of a community’s water being a decisive factor in the effectiveness of a detergent.   

The most interesting and ecologically sound part of the Cradle to Cradle (C2C) philosophy is the idea that “waste equals food.”  That is, when we are finished with a commercial product, whether its components are biological (able to biodegrade) or technological (metallic or synthetic), it should have been designed with its end-use in mind.  Mindlessly, many products are inadvertently designed to be what they refer to as “monstrous hybrids,” combining biological and technological components so that neither component can be extracted and reused at the end of its life-cycle.   Instead, C2C provides a multitude of good design rules that can ensure products do not become obsolescent after their original incarnation.

But what propels C2C philosophy is the concept of eco-effectiveness, which is the idea that once a system is designed with an effective “closed loop system” we find that, not only do we have almost zero waste, but also net outputs that are advantageous to the surrounding environment.  To achieve this design, the three principles must be considered and carefully balanced:

1.    Ecology,
2.    Equity, and
3.    Economy.

And the proof is in the pudding, with the authors providing evidence of car and textile factories they have worked on that have been transformed from wasteful, polluting and harmful places into factories who work harmoniously with their surroundings.  In order to do so, the entire system is redesigned to ensure that products and by-products nourish the surrounding ecosystem as they are made with biodegradable material.  Alternatively, if biodegradable material cannot be used then the technical materials must re-enter the work flow instead of being dumped, burned or buried.  This has the consequence of creating car factories that are net producers of energy and textile factories that use dirty water in their processes and then amazingly output clean water.  Such design requires expertise, investment, long-term planning and commitment, but when the result is such a prosperous, fertile and profitable system, the decision should become inevitable.

I really enjoyed this book because of it accessibility and common-sense approach.  Before reading Cradle to Cradle, I viewed recycling as an important, but not particularly interesting, part of the environmental agenda.  However, Braungart and McDonaugh have shown that when we think holistically and begin to consider the entire life cycle of services and goods (particularly buildings), not only can we design more aesthetically and environmentally friendly things, but we generally create unanticipated economic advantages and eco-system services as well.

I hope by now that readers are noting this recurring theme in my reviews: that becoming environmentally sustainable leads to long-term economic profitability (please see Natural Capitalism as a prime example).  Businesses and regulators alike should stand up and take notice.

Score: 70/100