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Bikini Atoll, 1946 Bambi, 1942

‘Choosing a past for the future’. Bikini Atoll, 1946 Bambi, 1942. How did we (and environmental policy) get here? Analogues – thinking forward through the past Do we need more knowledge about environmental change (yes... And no) Baselines: understanding change.

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Bikini Atoll, 1946 Bambi, 1942

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  1. ‘Choosing a past for the future’ Bikini Atoll, 1946 Bambi, 1942

  2. How did we (and environmental policy) get here? • Analogues – thinking forward through the past • Do we need more knowledge about environmental change (yes... And no) • Baselines: understanding change.

  3. Trying for an integrated policy: ‘Ecosystem services’ • “You cannot manage what you do not measure.” (Gretchen Daily) • “The lack of valuation has become an underlying cause for the observed degradation of ecosystems and the loss of biodiversity.” (TEEB: the economics of ecosystems and biodiversity)

  4. More numbers = Better policy? • ‘The public decision-maker ... has been compelled to seek some calculus of objectivity that would pass as defensible rationality and simultaneously afford room to manoeuvre among the fixed or conflicting political forces – the pressures of public life.’ • (Lynton Caldwell, 1963)

  5. Punch, 1880 Chief Sanitary Inspector of Glasgow, Peter Foyle, 1909: ‘Let us use no euphemisms, no glossing words, to cover our own misdemeanours in the vain attempt to blame Dame Nature. The citizens themselves, along with some manufactures, are alone to blame; and the dire effect, death – this excessive death – is due to one thing and one thing alone, and that is smoke!’

  6. ‘Smoke! Soot! Fogs! Shutting out the sun. Destroying health. Damaging property. Delaying transport. What makes our skies so filthy? Coal smoke ... You can help to fight this evil, to clean the sky, to let in the sun. Use gas, the smokeless fuel.’ British Commercial Gas Assocation (1931)

  7. Svante Arrhenius (1859-1927): prophet of global warming

  8. CO2 and global warming from fossil fuel combustion: as predicted in 1959

  9. Evidence at last: atmospheric CO2 concentration from Hawaii, 1958-2007

  10. Hadley Centre Earth System Model – 30 years 1975 1985 1992 1997 Atmosphere Atmosphere Atmosphere Atmosphere Atmosphere Atmosphere Land surface Land surface Land surface Land surface Land surface 1977 Ocean & sea-ice Ocean & sea-ice Ocean & sea-ice Ocean & sea-ice Sulphate aerosol Sulphate aerosol Sulphate aerosol Non-sulphate aerosol Non-sulphate aerosol Strengthening colours denote ‘improvements’ in models Carbon cycle Carbon cycle Atmospheric chemistry Sulphur cycle model Non-sulphate aerosols Ocean & sea-ice model 2007 Land carbon cycle model Carbon cycle model Ocean carbon cycle model Atmospheric chemistry Atmospheric chemistry Source: Hadley Centre

  11. Hot stuff! James Hansen before the U.S. Senate, 1988 With thanks to Mike Hulme, UEA

  12. Use of data to provide ecological measures and identify drivers of change. Maresme County, Catalonia, 1956-2008 From Parcerisas, Land use changes, 2012,

  13. From Etudes sur les Glaciers, Louis Agassiz, 1840 British native flora: 10 000 years ago

  14. Historical baselines and cultural choice • Most judgements about appropriate environments are cultural preferences • Archaeophytes and neophytes • Is everything Victorian bad? • Nature conservation and historic conservation • Himalayan balsam (Impatiens glandulifera)

  15. 1990 With thanks to Marianna Dudley 2004 2005

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