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Environmentalism

Another Environmental Report

Grrr.

The speed at which mankind has used the Earth’s resources over the past 20 years has put “humanity’s very survival” at risk, a study involving 1,400 scientists has concluded.

No, that isn\’t what is beiong said. Rather, that the use of environmental services is greater than capacity. We are not talking about "resources" such as fuels, ores, metals. We are talking about the ability of the environment to supply us with services….like clean water, like recycle CO2.

It\’s a very important distinction and one that I\’m suprised The Times does not make.

Eco-Wibble

Gaaah! When this sort of wibble turns up in The Telegraph then we know we\’re doomed:

So, where do we go from here? In the end, surely it is the job of the government and supermarkets, not the Soil Association, to work out what an acceptable level of food packaging is.

No it isn\’t you mad bint. It\’s your job to work out what an acceptable level of packaging is on the things that you buy! What is acceptable to you. Get that? You\’re the consumer, you make the choice!

The same applies to the "eco-footprint" of what we eat, and ensuring that farmers (in all countries) get a fair deal. That\’s not something that I, as a consumer, can easily influence when standing in front of the shelves.

Of course it bloody is something you can influence. Look, does this have to be described in Janet and John terms for you? Everyone in this game except you is trying to make money out of it. You are spending your money in order to maximise your utility. All those other people make money by pandering to whatever you think will maximise your utility. If you want less packaging? They\’ll provide it. You want local? They\’ll get it for you. You want organic? Ditto.

Look, why in fuck do you think that the shelves are groaning under the weight of organic products? Because you and millions like you buy them….the farmers, the supermarkets, make money out of providing what you\’re willing to flash the cash on. You are the only person they\’re trying to influence, it\’s your money they\’re tring to get ahold of and thus, you are the person in this whole system who actually has the influence.

I\’ll agree though that supermarkets do still sell products that don\’t meet your standards….that\’s because there\’s an awful lot of people who don\’t share your standards. Most of your fellow Britons could not give two hoots for your wibbles about food miles, eco-footprints and excess packaging. What you\’re actually saying here is that everyone should do as you say, not as they would wish. And that, my dear, is as useful a definition of food fascism as we\’re going to get.

Could you please bugger off to the Indy or the Groan, where you belong?

 

 

Choice Editing

Ooooh, lovely, here\’s the latest idea from the man who brought us food miles. "Choice Editing".

But the professor who, almost two decades ago, first coined the term "food miles" says that it is folly to present the notion that consumers hold all the cards, and instead argues for much more "choice-editing" by the major retailers. Tim Lang, professor of food policy at City University London and a prominent figure in Britain\’s food industry, questions why the consumer should be the one left in the supermarket aisle to agonise over complex issues such as animal welfare, carbon footprints, workers\’ rights and excessive packaging, often without any meaningful data on the label to inform their decision-making. Instead, he wants the retailers to take more responsibility by making most of these decisions on our behalf before the produce even reaches the shelves. Ideally, our only choice would be between "good" products, as opposed to worrying that we might be making a "bad" choice.

Translation: you\’re all too stupid to make the choices that I think you should so therefore you shouldn\’t be allowed to make the choice.

But if choice-editing is to be adopted, can we trust the editors? This is the shadow that looms over the whole concept. Lang says that this is where our elected representatives must be much bolder. "Yes, there has to be far more involvement and regulation by those in power."

And of course we can\’t trust business either, so politicians must make the choices for you. This is fascism, pure and simple: you will be allowed to have only what we, the powerful, think you should have.

Tell me, do they actually make a rotisserie large enough to stick a professor of food policy into? Fo the public\’s amusement, to be basted live outside Tesco\’s?

Protectionism, Protectionism!

Oh, how lovely. The Soil Association once again acts as the trade union for British organic farmers. It does so by insisting that farmers in other countries face higher costs:

Food air-freighted to Britain from developing countries will only bear an organic label in future if it can be shown that it was produced to fair trade standards as well as high environmental standards, the Soil Association said yesterday.

…

The new ethical standards, which are similar to those that apply to Fairtrade products, will demand that organic food producers in developing countries contribute substantially to the social needs of communities and workers, and guarantee wages and good working conditions.

There\’s nothing wrong with having fair trade standards, just as there\’s nothing wrong with having organic ones. If they make the consumer happier, well, that\’s the point of the whole economy anyway, to increase the happiness of the consumer.

But combining the two is not OK, it\’s protectionism in favour of the British farmer and against the foreign. Oh how liberal they are, making sure that the poor cannot compete with the rich!

For, of course, one of the competetive advantages that such poor places have is that labour is cheaper: and when you\’re growing organic vegetables, for example, labour can be one of your major costs on inputs. So, insist that the farmers pay higher prices for that labour than the local market insists upon and thus reduce their ability to compete. And all in the name of helping the poor eh, by driving the employers bankrupt. Clever scheme, eh? My how they must be hugging themselves with glee over at the Soil Association! A wealthy peer, owner outright of hundreds of acres of prime British farmland,  worth millions, gets protected from some runty peasant trying to scrape a living. And he\’ll be praised for it!

The Bin Tax

So, some sense at least:

Gordon Brown has been forced to intervene to shelve controversial Government plans to levy "pay as you throw" bin taxes on millions of households across Britain.

Excellent. It would simply have led to an increase in fly tipping and thus a decrease in public health at the same time as increasing the total costs of the rubbish collection and disposal system. However, there\’s one further problem:

However, the decision to shelve the plan will infuriate local councils who face fines of up to £3 billion under EU laws if they fail to increase recycling.

How are these targets to be met and these fines to be avoided? I\’ve still not been able to find an argument in favour of these taxes in the first place. Other than "we must save resources" which is, as anyone who actually looks at the problem knows, drivel.

Can anyone tell me why they are being imposed? Anyone at all? Anyone point me to a justification of them? Don\’t get me wrong, a certain amount of recycling makes very good sense. Steel, copper and aluminium cans, for example, make straight economic sense all on their own. That\’s where we get the results from the WRAP report from: not, as many assume, a reduction in CO2 emissions from what we "will" recycle under the new schemes, but a counting of what we already acheive with what we already recycle. But because it makes sense to recycle some things does not mean it makes such to recycle all things. My consumption of a couple of thousand calories a day to keep body and soul together does not thus mean that my consuming twice or thrice that is a good idea now, does it?

There are things where, because of externalities, simple market pricing does not lead to the optimal calculation: for example, pricing in the methane from things rotting in landfills. But we\’ve solved that because now we collect said methane. We\’re also not running out of land for landfills, not in any way.

There are also things which cost more in emissions and in money to recycle than landfilling them would: these are things which make the environment worse if we do recycle them. Even WRAP tells us that green glass for roadfill is one of these.

So, other than the idea that the EU is a group of know nothing control freaks, why will we be fined if we continue to use the best, both economically and environmentally, method of waste disposal, landfill?

Seriously, is there anyone out there able to tell me why we have this lemming like rush to recycle? Willing to argue the point?

Protectionism Again

Pure protectionism:

The government will today urge the Soil Association not to strip air-freighted organic fruit and vegetables of their valuable certification on environmental grounds, arguing that such a ban would be "disastrous" for exporting communities in developing countries.

This is nothing to do with the environment. We know that the air freighting in of some goods from regions where they can be grown without hot houses means fewer emissions than domestic production methods. So the ban is all about protectin domestic producers, not the environment.

But then if you allow the domestic trade union of the producers to determine what the standards are, then you can\’t really be surprised that said standards are defined to benefit the local producers, can you?

And damn the poor in other countries, just for good measure.

Recycling Chip Oil

These guys are quite right, recycling chip oil into biodiesel is a great idea. The economics and the environmental effects are absolutely nothing to do with the larger scale growing plants to make fuel: entirely different, as they\’re taking an extant waste stream and turning it into something useful.

However:

"Green subsidies have generated a strong demand for recycled oil in Germany," explains Kelley. "A mafia is developing. They\’re stealing some of my clients – including the caterers at a major London concert hall – then selling the oil abroad."

"That\’s used oil that I could recycle locally being shipped off in tankers to another country," adds Lasica.

…

As we talk, a steady stream of customers pull on to the Pure Fuels forecourt. Dan, an environmentalist and carpenter from Hertfordshire, arrives on his monthly pilgrimage to fill up his Audi. He loads his boot with plastic containers, taking 200 litres of fuel to share with his friends.

How local is local then?

Claiming the Antarctic

These people still don\’t have the first clue, do they?

Environmental groups yesterday condemned British plans to claim sovereignty over a vast tract of the seabed off the coast of Antarctica, with Greenpeace and WWF expressing dismay that the Foreign Office was contemplating possible oil, gas and mineral exploration in the region.

Sigh.

Look, if no one owns it then no one can stop people from prospecting for oil and gas there. Only if there is a legal structure, a system of property rights, can access be regulated. Those who want there to be no drilling should be welcoming the fact that a government that they can influence is asserting said property rights.

Have these people no understanding of the most basic facts about Commons? That without an ownership structure, you can\’t stop people from exploiting the resource?

 

Blog Action Day!

Yes, brought to you by the European Union, it\’s Blog Action Day. When we all blog on the one subject, the environment and how the EU can affect it. Most exciting, don\’t you think? TEBAF is with it, the Environment Commissioner will be having an internet chat this afternoon. So, what can we say about the environment and the EU?

Well, let\’s look at what they actually do. There\’s the insistence upon recycling rather than landfill. This leads to greater emissions of greenhouse gases, not fewer. For example, using a wormery to recycle garden waste creates NO2, while landfill creates methane. The overall effect of the two gases, in CO2 e terms, is the same. But we collect the methane and convert it to CO2, creating energy in the process. The NO2 just goes into the atmosphere. Thus a truly environmental program would landfill such waste, creating one 23 rd of the greenhouse gases than wormeries. And, yes, the EU does insist that we don\’t landfill such waste.

Then there\’s the biofuels program. One report says that such crops use more fossil fuels than they replace. Another that simply letting trees grow and burning fossil fuels would reduce emissions from the biofuels plan by 50% to 90%. Err, the EU insists upon 10% biofuels.

And what about EUTS? This is a cap and trade system, one in which the transerable rights are given away, not auctioned. The nett effect of this is that it works just like a carbon tax, but with a huge amount of corporate welfare thrown in.

And then there\’s the puerile idiocy of the Common Fisheries Policy and….well, make your own list.

So, with this track record, what can we say about the European Union and the environment? It\’s clear and obvious that the UK would be better off out of the system (that much is clear to suckling babes) but what is the best thing the European Union could do about the environment? Clearly, stop existing.

So there we have it, the simple and clear message to the European Union on this auspicious day of blogging for the environment.

Bugger off and die would you?

Economic Logic, not Illogic

Caitlin Moran:

Secondly, the definition of “Best Buy” needs to be radically changed. Except for a roof, or a Saab, it’s usually cheaper to buy a replacement than get something mended. Now, we all know that that is a fundamental economic illogic, one that is driving gigantic global environmental and humanitarian problems. Which? should be at the forefront of a campaign for there to be a guaranteed functioning lifetime for any electrical item. Manufacturers should be legally obliged to mend or upgrade the item within that time. The current system – whereby it’s cheaper to buy a new kettle shipped over from China than to get an old one repaired around the corner – is obscene. It’s an issue even more pressing than asbestos, raw sewage or the introduction of the duvet.

Err, no, this isn\’t obscene, it\’s not fundamental economic illogic. Actually, it\’s economic logic. What we actually want to have is one of two things (in fact both of them). We want the maximum of things we can have with our current technology and scarce resources: or we want all the things we want at the least consumption of those scarce resources. Same thing really. We want the greatest efficiency we can.

OK, if buying a new kettle rather than repairing an old one is cheaper, that\’s telling us that we\’re consuming fewer resources in doing so (yes, subject to the caveat that all externalities are included in the prices but the CO2 emissions in the new kettle won\’t change those relative prices much). So, it is both environmentally and economically rational to use the new kettle, as this marvellous information network we have, the price system working in free (ish) markets, is telling us that we are using fewer resources by doing so.

The resource we\’ll be using the least of of course is human time: the most precious resource of all and the one that almost all of us agree we don\’t have enough of in our all too short stays here.

nef Report on Interdependence

Most amusing. nef has a report out today pointing out that we all have to acknowledge our interdependence. The way in which no man or nation can deal with the world entirely on their own, that there\’s a web of connections that link us all.

They then suggest that we deal with this by not trading with our fellow human beings in other nations, that we become self-sufficient in food, in energy and so on, in short, we should acknowledge our interdependence by becoming independent.

Masterly logic from nef, as always.

Only 25th!

The UK that is:

Britain could manage only 25th place on the list of countries considered to be the most desirable to live, according to the survey.

There is something of a problem with the way that the rankings were drawn up though:

A country\’s green credentials were based on a variety of factors including education and income which gave an indication of how desirable they were to live in,

OK, fair enough.

Britain was 41st in terms of air quality; Moldova took first place.

While Norway topped the league table for water quality, Britain was in a respectable 15th position.

Fine.

Austria was first for environmental health – taking childhood mortality, disease and deaths from intestinal infections into account – with Britain 35th.

Yup.

The country fell down on its carbon footprint. In 2004 Britain\’s per capita carbon dioxide emissions were more than double the worldwide average and were still rising. Britain ranked around mid-table – 77th place – on greenhouse gas emissions.

Err, hello?

CO2 emissions do not indicate whether a country is desirable to live in or not: such emissions in and of themselves have zero effect in fact.  Given that such emissions are closely correlated with wealth you would actually find that the higher the emissions the more desirable a country was to live in, but that\’s an indirect effect.

So judging whether a country is a good place to live by stating that higher CO2 emissions equals bad is a very strange metric indeed.

Said emission migh be bad for all sorts of reasons, but not as a part of working out the standard of living.