Ferraris for all

James Heartfield has an article on the newgeography website celebrating what he calls dispersed settlements and others deride as urban sprawl. He concludes that:

“Far from being necessarily de-humanising, dispersed settlements are an opportunity for an enlargement of the human spirit. To imagine that there is anything in physical proximity that is essential to community is to confuse animal warmth with civilisation, and an unfortunately deterministic view of architecture’s relationship to society. But worst of all it misses out the great alternatives that are waiting to be made in new communities across the country.”

This is a welcome contrast to the romanticised vision of slums contained in a recent article (truncated) on “how slums can save the planet” by Stewart Brand in Prospect. Brand’s argument was in turn similar to Kevin McCloud’s recent documentary on Mumbai which I suggested might be the dumbest programme ever (see 15 January 2010 post).

Labels: cities, development, footprint, television

Worldwrite’s latest Worldbytes television programme includes an item with me talking about global inequality. Other stories include challenging China bashing, a scientist talks about waste and an alien’s take on carbon footprints.

Labels: china, development, environment, footprint, inequality, media appearances, Worldwrite

The annual World Water Week in Stockholm seems to be an occasion for an outpouring of panic about global water shortages. BBC Two’s flagship Newsnight programme has already fallen for it (see Monday’s post) and now, not surprisingly given its environmentalist leanings, the Guardian has too. The lead news story in today’s paper gave credence to the World Wildife Fund’s notion of a water footprint and a related leader called for individuals to reduce their water use.

Such demands get reality upside down. As I have argued before it is the shortage of investment in water infrastructure that is the problem. There is no absolute shortage of water. The underlying problem is poverty rather than a particular chemical compound.

It is strange that the stuff of life itself - carbon and water - is being demonised by environmentalists.

Labels: consumption, environment, footprint, water

Miller-McCune magazine, a publication from the Miller-McCune Center for Research, Media and Public Policy in California, has a useful review essay by David Villano on the “more-is-less” thesis. In other words it examines (sympathetically) the argument that it is possible to be more prosperous while consuming less.

Many of the points it makes are familiar – Americans consume far more per head than most of the rest of the world, the threat of climate change is imminent, the need to change lifestyles etc – but it includes many useful references. Among them are Confronting Consumption, (MIT Press) a 2002 book on America’s consumer society co-edited by Michael Maniates. Others include the California-based Global Footprint Network, the Voluntary Simplicity Movement, Redefining Progress and Mean Genes, a book on how our desire to consume is embedded in our DNA.

Labels: affluenza, America, book, climate, consumption, environment, footprint, inequality, progress, review, sustainability

I have written a short contribution to the spiked debate on the idea of a mobile “footprint”:

The idea of a mobile footprint is meaningless in practical terms. Just think about how much carbon dioxide it takes to produce a particular mobile phone. If the energy used is generated from nuclear or hydroelectric power it could be zero. If the energy is generated from fossil fuels it will be higher, but the precise amount will depend on the sophistication of the technology used.

A similar argument can be made in relation to the raw materials used in the phone and its manufacture. The processes used to make the same phone can be relatively efficient or inefficient. There is no fixed amount of material used.

Since the quantity can vary so widely the idea of a footprint has no validity as a practical measure. The use of a labelling scheme can only add a spurious air of objectivity to a dubious concept.

The real importance of the idea of an ecological footprint is moral. It is used by environmentalists as a metaphor to suggest that human beings should limit their impact on the environment. It is part of what could be called a morality of self-limitation.

Such a morality is particularly inappropriate to uphold in relation to mobile technology. Surely the appeal of such technology is that it enables people to extend their horizons. It makes it possible to communicate with people we know in new ways as well as broadening our range of contacts. As a result it helps us extend our control over nature still further.

Labels: footprint, spiked, technology

I was planning to do a brief review of last night’s television programme on the human footprint. The programme reduces human life to consumption and waste. To quote the Channel 4 website: “From our babyhood – when we get through a massive 3,796 nappies and produce 254 litres of urine – through to our old age and death – by which time we will have had sex 4,239 times, eaten 10,866 carrots, taken 7,163 baths and done an average of 15 farts a day – this extraordinary film tells the story of an average life, the story of our human footprint.”

However, James Heartfield has saved me the trouble with an excellent review on spiked. He points out that humans have a productive and creative side rather than simply being consumers. It also includes a useful reference to his critique of Herbert Giradet on sustainability along with Giradet’s reply.

Labels: footprint, spiked, sustainability, television

The New York Salon is having a public meeting on “the human footprint” this coming Tuesday. I wish I could go along but I will be on the other side of the Atlantic.

Labels: America, environment, footprint

The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) has published its latest Living Planet Report (PDF), its biennial statement on the state of the natural world. Its Living Planet Index suggests that global biodiversity has declined by 30% since 1970 and its Ecological Footprint indicates that the UK is living a “three planet lifestyle”.

WWF’s UK website welcomes the adoption of these ideas by the British government but argues it needs to go much further:

“The good news is that the language of One Planet Living is being rapidly and widely taken up by people including David Miliband, Secretary of State for the Environment. However a commitment to One Planet Living must include a commitment by the UK government to adopt Ecological Footprint as a sustainable development indicator and set targets for year on year reduction.”

As previously argued on this website the ecological footprint is essentially a tautology (see 9 October 2006 dispatch). In reality, to the extent it makes sense to talk of an “ecological footprint”, it changes as the efficiency of resource use increases. But this and the discussion of biodiversity deserve a more thorough critique.

Labels: economics, footprint, sustainability

Today is the day the world goes into ecological overdraft, according to the lead story in today’s Independent. A report by the New Economics Foundation, in partnership with the Global Footprint Network, finds that until 9 October the world’s population was using up sustainable resources. But from now until the end of the year it will be drawing on resources that cannot be replenished. The implication is that the world should only be using three-quarters of the resources it is currently using. As the Independent argues:

“Global Footprint estimates that the human race is over-using the Earth's resources by 23 per cent. While each individual should use up no more than the equivalent of 1.8 hectares of the Earth's surface, the actual area we use is 2.2 hectares per person.”

The lack of details on how this measure is calculated is striking. Both the newspaper reports and the information on the New Economics Foundation website seem to be based on pure assertion. There is more on the Global Footprint website but it is lacking in detail. However, a similar report four years ago by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) was subject to rigorous examination by the Economist. (“Treading lightly” 19 September 2002). The article argued that:

“The approach builds in questionable assumptions. Crucial is an implicit, and very strict, idea of sustainability, which in effect denies that natural resources can often be replaced or augmented by man-made ones.

“This aside, the main drawback of the analysis is the way it treats energy. WWF defines the footprint for fossil fuels as the area of forest required to absorb emissions of CO2 (excluding those absorbed by the oceans). Growth in the energy footprint then drives almost everything else. The energy footprint increased from 2.5 billion hectares in 1961 to 6.7 billion in 1999, the fastest-growing component of the overall footprint—and, by the end of the period, very much the biggest.”

The piece went on to point out that it does not follow that any increase in carbon dioxide is problematic. And even if it was there are alternative energy sources such as nuclear and renewables.

The Economist article was based on a report (PDF) by Bjorn Lomborg’s Environmental Assessment Institute in Denmark.

Despite the crudeness of the “footprint” measure it is increasingly popular in government circles. For example, see my 30 September dispatch on “One Planet Living”.

Labels: economics, footprint, sustainability

On closer examination it seems that the idea of “one planet living” originated with the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) rather than the government (see 30 September dispatch). David Miliband, the environment minister, credited the WWF with the idea in a speech on the idea of an “environmental contract” on 19 July. He also wrote a joint article on the “environmental contract” with Douglas Alexander, the transport minister, on the BBC website on 25 May. Using apparently radical language the two ministers argued that:

“In the last century, progressives forged a social contract that saved capitalism from itself. In this century, the task is now to address environmental degradation with the same moral passion and practical rigour as we continue to address human degradation.”

Labels: economics, environment, footprint, sustainability

Few commentators seem to have noticed just how far the Labour Party went last week in its advocacy of environmental austerity (see also 25 September dispatch). For example, David Miliband, the environment minister, used his platform speech to promote what he called “one planet living”: “I propose we adopt a new goal as a country: to aim to live as a nation within the limits that the environment can tolerate, One Planet Living.” The phrase evidently comes from the oft-repeated assumption that we are currently using the resources of three planets:

“At the moment, we are living, Britons in the 21st century, as if there were three planets to support us when in fact we have only got one. We are consuming the natural resources of three planets; burning the fossil fuel of three planets; pumping out enough carbon dioxide for three planets; yet we only have one planet to live on.”

Alongside Miliband on the platform was Ken Livingstone, London’s mayor, who favoured water metering, road price charging and “green taxes” on air travel, according to an article in the Guardian. He repeated his call for people not to flush the toilet every time they use it: "You really don't need to flush the toilet when you have just had a pee."

Labels: economics, environment, footprint, sustainability, water

Dr Sam Thompson, one of the authors of the recent New Economics Foundation (NEF) report on global happiness, has written a letter to Spiked in response to my article on happiness league tables (see August 7 dispatch). In my view his arguments are disingenuous. First, I already point out in my article that his league table in not a happiness measure. The point was that it was promoted in that way. Second, I also mention that the alternative league table is partly based on NEF data.

His letter follows below:

I am one of the authors of the New Economics Foundation’s Happy Planet Index (HPI), which Daniel Ben-Ami critiques in Who’s happiest: Denmark or Vanuatu?

I would like to clarify that our index is not a measure of happiness. Vanuatu is not the happiest, or the ‘best’, place in the world to live, and no one with any sensible understanding of the issues would try and claim that it is.

Rather, our index is an efficiency measure. To put it crudely, it measures how much wellbeing is achieved per unit of resource consumption. A country that scores well is not necessarily happy, but it is relatively ‘wellbeing efficient’ in the sense that it produces its wellbeing cheaply. Obviously, this does not imply that its absolute level of wellbeing is high per se. If you like, this can be read as an ‘environmentalist’ reformulation of the diminishing returns of wealth argument – wellbeing returns diminish significantly after a ‘footprint’ of about two global average hectares per person of resource consumption, not $10,000-$15,000 (as commonly claimed).

We did our best throughout the report to emphasise that the HPI should not be interpreted as a happiness index – we even wrote ‘It is important to recognise from the outset that the HPI is not an indicator of the happiest country on the planet’, on the first page of the report proper, and continued to emphasise this throughout. We repeatedly made the point that no country performed as well as could be expected and all could and should do better.

It’s true that some of the press coverage grabbed the wrong end of the stick. This may be partially our fault for giving the report its catchy name, and there may be a lesson there for us to learn in future. However, the majority of correspondents seem to have got the gist accurately enough.

For your information, I would also point out that the Leicester study is based on the set of life satisfaction data that we produced for our report. So we agree with them absolutely about which country is ‘happiest’ – it’s Denmark. We just disagree about how important that is, relative to other things.

Labels: economics, footprint, happiness, spiked