Chapter 26: Economic Development and Global Ecology

1. Chapter 26: Economic Development and Global Ecology Robert E. Ricklefs The Economy of Nature, Fifth Edition

2. Looking to the Future • As the human population continues to grow and humans dominate ecological systems worldwide, the question of how we can create a sustainable future for both humans and other species becomes increasingly important: • there is considerable room for pessimistic conclusions • positive steps have been taken in the United States: • Clean Air Act (1970) • Clean Water Act (1972) • Endangered Species Act (1973) • But… • In Lebanon?

3. Positive Steps Toward Sustainability • Laws regarding endangered species, clean air, and clean water have been implemented worldwide. • Straightforward ecological and engineering solutions exist for environmental problems. • People worldwide share a concern for the environment. Well…

4. What can Ecologists Contribute? • The challenge to ecologists is to provide the scientific information needed to develop social consensus, build political commitment, and inform decision making on issues concerning the environment. • (question: how much scientific information is enough?)

5. Ecological processes hold the key to environmental policy. • Conserving ecological processes is the key to maintaining a sustainable biosphere: • the fundamental processes of energy use and recycling of materials have built-in mechanisms to restore imbalances when these occur: • when consumers increase to high numbers, declining birth rates and increasing death rates restore a sustainable relationship between consumer and resource • Examples? • if natural processes are disrupted, ecosystems may not be able to maintain themselves • Examples?

6. Economy Economy Economic Development Stop. What does that mean?

7. “Ecological economics exists because a hundred years of disciplinary specialization in scientific inquiry has left us unable to understand or to manage the interactions between the human and environmental components of our world. While none would dispute the insights that disciplinary specialization has brought, many now recognize that it has also turned out to be our Achilles heel. In an interconnected evolving world, reductionist science has pushed out the envelope of knowledge in many different directions, but it has left us bereft of ideas as to how to formulate and solve problems that stem from the interactions between humans and the natural world. How is human behaviour connected to changes in hydrological, nutrient or carbon cycles? What are the feedbacks between the social and natural systems, and how do these influence the services we get from ecosystems? Ecological economics as a field attempts to answer questions such as these.”

8. Why? • ‘the purpose of studying economics is not to acquire a set of ready made answers to economic questions, but to learn how to avoid being deceived by economists.’ - Joan Robinson, an economist

9. The essence (well, almost) of the problem • Most serious problem we face: conflict between economic activity and biological world • Focus here on neoclassical economics • Shows why market and biology are often in conflict • Dominates environmental policy debate: need to understand this framework

10. The basic problems for which we need innovative policies and management instruments include: * unsustainably large and growing human populations that exceed the carrying capacity of the earth * highly entropy-increasing technologies that deplete the earth of its resources and whose unassimilated wastes poison the air, water, and land * land conversion that destroys habitat, increases soil erosion, and accelerates loss of species diversity.

11. Markets and models: the circular flow • Material and goods in one direction, money in the other direction, with the flow presumed ongoing as though disconnected from the natural system • Markets coordinate this flow; markets referred to as ‘mechanisms’ • ‘factors’ or ‘inputs’ go into production • ‘outputs’ or ‘products’ emerge to be consumed into GNP • Continual flow as the possible; continual growth as desirable

12. In GNP terms • Money is the driver – not material goods • Base inputs such as land, water, fuel, raw materials go to produce intermediate products • In most general terms, there is land, labor and capital • Rents, wages, interest and profit are earned • Income is used by consumers to purchase the final goods • Sum the base value plus added value at each stage in production to final consumption to obtain the GNP

13. Standard circular flow model

14. Circular flow linked to biosphere

15. Adding energy and recycling

17. Monetary and non-monetary activities

18. So how do we measure? • GDP? • NDP = GDP – depreciation of manufactured capital • Adequate? • No • this method of measuring and accounting for capital depreciation applies only to what we have defined as manufactured capital. What about natural capital? The process of production uses up nonrenewable natural resources such as coal, oil, and minerals • EDP = GDP – depreciation of manufactured capital – depreciation of natural capital

19. What’s the difference… • Economic growth and Economic development? • Intermediate goal and final goal? Thus, need more focus on: • Quality of life • Long-term sustainability of the biosphere • Larger human and nonhuman context of economy activity

20. The Context of Economics • Economics is based on the problem that human wants are unlimited and resources to satisfy those wants are limited. It could be argued that the issues of justice, including issues of environmental justice, arise when people want more than they can have. In other words, people’s wants or needs exceed the means of their satisfaction.

21. categorical imperative • “Act only on that maxim which you can at the same time will be to a universal law” • The notion is to ask whether an action of an individual could be adopted universally. If so, it is morally just.

22. Examples: • I will pay my bills as they arrive would be deemed just. • I will borrow money but never pay it back is not moral. If adopted as a universal law no one would loan money.

23. Scientific foundations of the Brundtland definition of sustainable development • ‘Development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs’ (WCED, 1987) • Hotelling (1931) - the condition for the conservation of stocks of natural capital • Hartwick (1977) - the condition for maintaining the flow of services from the aggregate stock of assets when environmental assets are depleted or degraded • Holling (1973) - the condition for living systems to maintain functionality World Commission on Environment and Development. 1987. Our Common Future. Oxford, Oxford University Press. Hotelling H. 1931 The Economics of Exhaustible Resources, Journal of Political Economy 39(2): 137-175. Holling C.S. 1973. Resilience and Stability of Ecological Systems, Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 4: 1–24. Hartwick J.M. 1977. Intergenerational Equity and the Investing of Rents from Exhaustible Resources, American Economic Review 67(5): 972-974.

25. What is your ultimate end? • What is your intermediate goal?

26. Ecological economist Herman Daly makes a clear distinction between the ends of all human activities and the means used to reach these ends. At the one end of the spectrum he puts what he calls ultimate ends—the life goals which philosophers deal with when they address the issue of happiness and the question of what constitutes a "good" life. Economic development, by contrast, is concerned with intermediate ends—providing necessities of life, as well as other goods and services which contribute to people's well-being.

27. Health and education are important parts of well-being and therefore intermediate ends—but as the Human Development Index shows, mere economic growth does not necessarily ensure that health and education will be provided on an equitable basis. Some economists have suggested that economics should be concerned only with efficiency, and not with equity. But the idea of ultimate ends suggests that true economic development must provide access to basic needs for all—and thus that economics cannot avoid the responsibility for some moral judgments about what is or is not equitable.

28. Lebanon’s biodiversity • The Mediterranean region is one of 25 hotspots of biodiversity in the world and ranks 3rd in the world among hotspots in both plant diversity and endemism • Of the 25,000 species of vascular plants in this hotspot, 13,000 (52 %) are found nowhere else in the world. • Many of the endemic species are not evenly distributed over the Mediterranean region but concentrated on islands, peninsulas, cliffs, and peaks. It encompasses the Mediterranean vegetation that is the mirror of the five Mediterranean climates.

29. Biodiversity in Lebanon • From the MOE: “The main causes of biodiversity loss or decline were reported as habitat loss and degradation, and pollution. Agriculture and urban expansion were the most important underlying cause of habitat loss/degradation”

30. And here in Lebanon… "Noor International Holding", …"Lebanon's Cedar Island" project facing the Lebanese …the project is an artificial island in the sea and it is similar to Lebanon's national symbol…the biggest artificial tree in the history. This island will include service, entertaining, touristic, commercial and residential compounds characterized by a great luxuriousness that is in harmony with the modern lifestyle • www.cedarisland.com

31. Human activities threaten local ecological processes. • All human activities have consequences for the environment: • emphasis on short-term returns can lead to collapse of a resource: • one after another of the commercial whale species were hunted to near-extinction, forcing the industry to turn progressively to less profitable species • many profitable fisheries have collapsed because of overfishing

32. Human activities threaten local ecological processes. • Some consequences of human activities have indirect effects: • clearing of watershed land for agriculture or timber leads to undesirable consequences downstream: • alteration of riverine habitats • siltation of dams • damage to reef habitats

33. 3 gorges dam in china • Records: more than 1.2 million people displaced; 13 cities, 140 towns, 1,350 villages – flooded; more than 600 kilometers long reservoir. • Environmentally: • The submergence of hundreds of factories, mines and waste dumps, and the presence of massive industrial centers upstream are creating a festering bog of effluent, silt, industrial pollutants and rubbish in the reservoir. • Erosion of the reservoir and downstream riverbanks is causing landslides, and threatening one of the world’s biggest fisheries in the East China Sea.

34. Overexploitation • Fishing, hunting, grazing, and logging are classic consumer-resource interactions: • in natural systems, such interactions come into equilibrium: • efficiency of exploitation by consumers and resistance to exploitation by resources have evolved over long periods • humans have used technology to escalate beyond all natural limits their ability to overexploit natural resources, with undesirable consequences: • when resources are exhausted, human populations suffer • Examples?

35. Sustainable and Unsustainable Practices • Consider the lowland tropics: • soils contain few nutrients, with natural fertility maintained by recycling of nutrients between detritus and living plants: • clearcutting, especially when followed by grazing, breaks this cycle, resulting in a badly degraded system • humans have learned to live sustainably in such ecosystems through the practice of shifting agriculture • by clearing 1-2% of the land per year and cultivating for 2 or 3 years, farmers allow sufficient time in fallow for nutrient stocks to recover from agriculture

36. Small subsistence farms (in Dominica)

37. Introduction of Exotic Species • Humans have taken other species with them everywhere they have traveled; for example: • 50,000 nonindigenous species have been introduced to the United States • New Zealand has a predominantly alien flora and fauna: • most of the area is occupied by introduced plants and animals: • native forests were cut and replaced by eucalyptus • native moas were killed by Maori natives, replaced by European transplants

38. Why did aliens prosper in New Zealand? • Of the total New Zealand flora of 2,500 species, 500 are introduced: • introduced species account for most of the vegetation • why were these species so successful? • most natural habitats had been disturbed • because of low diversity and simple structure, island ecosystems are generally more easily invaded

39. Can effects of aliens be predicted? • Alien species may displace natives, but do not necessarily disrupt ecosystems: • introduced species may simply assume the ecological roles of natives • effects of introduced species are hard to predict: • aliens may also be disruptive, altering ecosystem function and community structure: • Nile perch in Lake Victoria eliminated an entire trophic level of planktivorous fish • Keystone predator?

40. Habitat Conversion • Altering habitats can upset natural processes: • cutting of tropical forests: • breaks the tight cycle of nutrient regeneration • results in increased erosion • plowing of prairies set the stage for the “dust bowl” conditions of the 1920s and 1930s in the United States • disruption of mangroves in tropical coastal areas have left the land vulnerable to hurricane-driven floodwaters • damming rivers increases silt transport, blocks fish migrations, alters downstream ecosystems

41. Irrigation • Benefits of irrigation are often offset by substantial environmental problems: • environmental costs associated with infrastructure (dams, canals, etc.) • lowered water tables where wells are used • reduction of groundwater quality (through introduction of pesticides and fertilizers) • accumulation of salt in irrigated lands • transmission of diseases by aquatic organisms

42. Fertilization and Eutrophication 1 • Inorganic fertilizers (e.g., nitrates, phosphates) inevitably make their way into aquatic systems: • fertilization of aquatic systems (eutrophication) leads to overproduction: • waters are no longer attractive for recreational use • decaying organic matter can lead to deoxygenation of water and fish kills

43. Fertilization and Eutrophication 2 • Addition of organic wastes poses a serious problem for water quality: • organic matter increases biological oxygen demand, decreasing oxygen levels: • killing fish and other obligate aerobes • cutting migration routes for other species • Problems associated with eutrophication can be avoided by: • cutting off or diverting sources of nutrients • improving treatment of organic wastes

44. Fish die-off due to anoxic conditions

45. Toxins • Toxins are poisons: • these chemicals kill animals and plants by interfering with normal physiological functions • many toxins occur naturally, but humans have increased their accumulation in the environment • various classes of toxins exist, including: • acids • heavy metals • organic compounds • radiation

46. Acids • Two principal sources of acidity are associated with human activities: • acid mine drainage: • oxidation of sulfur and thiol in mine wastes by bacteria creates sulfates, which become sulfuric acid in mine drainage • mine drainage may be sufficiently acidic as to sterilize aquatic environments downstream • acid rain, the result of combusting fossil fuels

47. Acid Rain • Burning of coal and oil releases nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere: • these gases dissolve in raindrops, creating acids: • pH of rain may drop to as low as 3-4 • consequences of acid rain have been especially severe in industrialized areas: • direct impacts of acidity on aquatic systems • depletion of fertility in terrestrial systems • Reducing emissions of sulfur and nitrogen oxides, reductions in energy use are solutions to acid rain.

48. Heavy Metals • Mercury, arsenic, lead, copper, nickel, zinc, and other heavy metals are toxic even in low concentrations: • these enter the environment as byproducts of mining, manufacturing, fungicides, fuels • emissions of heavy metals from smelting operations have been especially troublesome: • emissions adversely affect mosses, lichens, fungi, other soil organisms, vascular plants, and higher animals • adverse effects may extend many km downwind of smelters

49. Toxic heavy metal due to mining: open-pit copper mine in Utah

50. Organic Compounds 1 • Organic compounds have been introduced to many ecosystems in the form of pesticides: • classes include: • organomercurials (methylmercury) • chlorinated hydrocarbons (DDT) • organophosphorus compounds (parathion) • carbamate insecticides • triazine herbicides • these compounds may accumulate in ecosystems with adverse effects on unintended targets