How sustainable is development?

The phrase "sustainable development" has become a sort of word-in-itself.  You can't talk about development without adding the word sustainable.

The trouble is that sustainabledevelopment is really undefined.  There have been noble attempts - everyone remembers the Brundtland story:

Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.

Great stuff, but completely useless - you can't dig up something to keep your world going, because that means future generations won't be able to dig it up. The resources of the world are finite, right?

Recently I mulled over the paradox that we never seem to run out of non-renewable things like oil, but we are always running out of renewable things like rhinos and whales and fish and elephant.  There has, of course, been a thesis that we should already have run out of oil - it was called "peak oil" and a man called Hubbard who had worked for Shell developed the theory back in the 1960's. 

 However, in 1945 the world had 25 years of known oil; by 1970 we had used up all that oil, but by then had 30 years left. By 2000 we had used up all the 1970 oil, but by then had 40 years left.  Today we have used up 15 of the 40 years, but we have 55 years left.  What gives?

My resolution of the paradox was that, yes, the renewable resources are indeed finite, but the non-renewable stuff is not measured by the resource but by the reserves, and reserves are something quite different.  They depend on price and technology, and technology is the measure of human ingenuity, so the reserve is flexible and potentially expandable, whereas the poor old renewables have to fend for themselves.

In exploring this in a full-blown paper, I was led to separate sustainabledevelopment back into two words, and ask just what was "sustainable" and just what we meant by "development".  When I tried to publish the paper, one reviewer sniffily reported that I didn't understand sustainabledevelopment, which was rather unhelpful, and another made some useful comments about my economics, but complained I had "merely" used some widely available data, so could not recommend publication.  I am still trying to get the paper published, but recognize how truly politically correct sustainabledevelopment has become.

Of course, its political correctness flows from its being blessed by the United Nations. There are regular conferences on the topic.  One, back in 2000, set up six Millennium Development Goals to be achieved by 2015. 15 years down the line, it is gratifying to be able to report on the success:

• Reduce extreme poverty by half - it has been reduced by over 70% already
• Achieve gender equality in education - achieved by 2012
• Halve the proportion of the population without access to improved drinking water - bettered; it has been reduced by 60%
• Reduce child mortality by two-thirds - only managed a 44% reduction by 2013
• Reduce maternal mortality by three-quarters - only managed to halve by 2013
• Universal primary education - up from 80% in 1990 to 92% in 2013

In September this year, there will be another such conference.  You would think that, buoyed by the success of the Millennium goals, they would see the merit of keeping things simple.  But no, this is the United Nations.  The September conference is to consider a new set of SustainableDevelopment Goals - 169 in all! Focused it is not. 

My hero, Bjorn Lomborg and his Copenhagen Consensus have tried to offer some prioritization. They have found 18 of the goals which have some hope of giving real value, mainly simple things like improving treatment of malaria, immunising more children against preventable childhood diseases and wider use of family planning.  

But far too many of the 169 are politically correct globspeak:

By 2030 ensure all learners acquire knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable development, including among others through education for sustainable development and sustainable lifestyles, human rights, gender equality, promotion of the culture of peace and non-violence, global citizenship, and appreciation of cultural diversity and of culture's contribution to sustainable development.

As The Economist commented, "Try measuring that!" 

Decisions! Decisions!

Every three years I face a difficult decision - shall I renew my subscription to Scientific American? 

I have now subscribed for over 50 years, and am constantly amused by re-reading the stories that were current 50 years ago, now repeated in the 50, 100 and 150 years ago feature. So why would the decision be difficult?

A journal is known by its editor.  Over ten years ago, the then editor was an eco-maniac.  When Bjorn Lomborg produced his Skeptical Environmentalist, the editor hired four hacks to do a hatchet job. Lomborg's book had criticized their weak science. 

The attacks were vicious and self-serving.  They did not address the criticisms.  Instead they criticized back using the worst of all arguments, the ad hominem.  Lomborg was not a biologist/ climatologist/ etc, but a mere statistician. The fact that the mere statistician had used official statistics to convincingly destroy their theses was immaterial.  40 000 species would disappear annually even if the official statistics put the loss rate at ~400 per century.

To add insult to injury, the SciAm editor then refused to allow Lomborg to respond. It was at that point that I seriously began to doubt whether I could ever support the publication again.

But bad habits persist.  I renewed my subscription, and in due course the offending editor left, unmourned.  There were some changes, a few for the worse such as an increasing reliance on science journalists.  Journalists usually have political viewpoints to advance, and it shows. But some changes were for the better. Unchanged was the belief that climate change was proven, but that is part of the overall Nature policy, and SciAm is part of Nature.  

So to the point of decision. This year, it was not made any easier by the collapse of the rand against the dollar.  With just over a month to go, I opened the latest issue with trepidation. For once, I was able to read it cover to cover.  

There was indeed a bit of journalism, but it was a great story about the salvage of the Costa Concordia, that 300-metre long cruise ship wrecked when the captain went to wave to his girlfriend.  The fact that the salvage master is a South African, Nick Sloane, made the tale all the more interesting to me.

There was a great investigation of MOOCs, massively open online courses.  Some really fascinating things are happening, like closing the learning cycle automatically, much like customer profiling in the retail trade.  This frees the teachers and allows them to interact with the more difficult questions personally - so that courses of hundreds of students can come close to the real classroom experience.

But the tale that really grabbed me was an end piece about how storm damage is likely to increase in the US over the next 35 years, not, they stress, because of "climate change" but because more people will put more material in harm's way. For SciAm to confess that carbon dioxide is not the absolute root of all evil has made me resolve to renew my subscription for another three years - and to hell with the rand/dollar exchange rate! 

 

The Kyoto Protocol

The Durban meeting of the UN Conference of Parties (you know, the bunch that met to the sound of trumpets in Copenhagen a couple of years ago) is concentrating the efforts of our Department of Environment and Water Affairs. Their latest concern is to find a way of extending the Kyoto Protocol, which is due to end its first Commitment Period next year.

What nonsense! The Kyoto Protocol has done NOTHING in its present guise. Carbon emissions have soared regardless of all the 'commitments' made. If you want any demonstration of why this whole carbon thing is a con, look no further. The farce should be quietly killed off in Durban. Bjorn Lomborg showed years ago that it was never going to achieve anything. It never will.