MODULE 4: Geoengineering

AGENDA

1. Next time: love of nature RR
2. Recap
3. Bjorn Lomborg
4. Geoengineering
5. Poll

_________________________

Recap

Can we keep temperature rise under 1.5 - 2 deg C?

1. Coercion. Cap and trade could work, but unrealistic on a global scale
2. Voluntary cooperation.  Paris Agreement could work, but nations aren't doing their fair share.
3. So....anger, despair

_________________________-

Or hope?

Bjorn Lomborg

Who is he?

• Statistician from Denmark
• Works at Copenhagen Consensus
• Author of Cool It and False Alarm and The Skeptical Environmentalist; writes op-eds in Wall Street Journal.

Views

Climate change is real

We should mitigate

• need green innovation
• not just sacrifice
• carbon taxes

But what if we don't mitigate?

• Not a disaster
• We will adapt to higher tempeature, sealevel rise
• Should research geoengineering 

_________________________

No worries, we'll adapt!

DEBATE

13:09 - 17:27 Bjorn Lomborg

Arguments: (1) People live successfully in many habitats, (2) old woman wouldn't remember 10 inch sea level rise over her lifetime (3) low lying countries adapt with dikes (Holland) (4) climate change activists mislead us by picturing a world that didn't adapt

LOMBORG TALK

14 - 18

_________________________

Geoengineering as a backup plan

Technologies

1. Geoengineering, an optimistic view -- Reece -- Cool It!
2. Geoengineering, a worried view -- Carla -- Hourdequin lecture (good slide: 19:26)
3. Geoengineering--it's happening now! -- Derik -- NYT article 

_________________________

POLL

P

MODULE 4: Climate Justice (2)

AGENDA

1. Peter Singer recap
2. Climate Tracker assessment of NDCs under Paris Agreement
3. Preview: Bjorn Lomborg 

_________________________

Peter Singer recap

What should different nations do to prevent further climate change? What is each nation's "fair share" of the effort needed to keep temperature rise below 1.5 or 2 deg C?

(1) Historical principle: present reductions should be proportional to past emissions.  

(2) Time slice approaches: Equal shares

Problem: unequal per capita emissions

 

Solution: equal shares

• forget the past
• each person has a right to the same emissions
• this allowance should be consistent with keeping temperature rise below 2 deg C. 
• the allowance might be 2 tons CO2 per person
• each country's fair share of emissions = 2.3 tons X country's population
• Each country's fair share of effort to reduce based on their "overage" or "underage"

Historical vs. equal share

• Time-slice and historical: US has to do a lot
• Time-slice: China has to do just as much as US
• Historical: China has to do less than US

_________________________

(3) Time-slice: roughly equal shares

• subsistence emissions -- methane from rice paddies, heating fuel in Greenland
• development emissions -- costs of rising from poverty
• luxury emissions -- costs of big car, freezing cold movie theaters, flying to Europe

_________________________

How to make the reductions occur

Assume "equal shares" for simplicity

Garret Hardin--"mutual coercion mutually agreed upon"

Cap and trade

1. Every nation issued is permits based on population
2. Must have permits to emit GHG
3. "Overage" countries will have to buy permits from "underage" countries
4. Overage countries will have motivation to mitigate (so they don't have to buy so many permits)
5. Underage countries will have motivation to stay low but have money to develop
6. Cap and trade is a reality within countries/regions: European Union Emissions Trading System ; also California, China, etc.

__________________________________________________

Climate Tracker assessment of country NDCs under Paris Agreement

Climate tracker: what does fair share mean?

Responsibility: historical

Equality: equal shares

Capabilities

Cost-effectiveness

Using fair share to assess NDCs: country ratings

_________________________

MODULE 4: Climate Justice

 AGENDA

1. The Story of Plastic--The Texas Theater (Oak Cliff) -- producer present -- March 31 7 pm -- Sierra Club -- free tickets
2. Longtermism and career choice--80,000 hours
3. Next week:  Geoengineering report on Wed
4. Today: prevention justic

_________________________

_________________________

PETER SINGER 

chapter from Practical Ethics (2011)

Imagine that we live in a village in which everyone puts their waste down a giant drain...." (p. 218)

Peter Singer--the village drain that's filling up
What is each villager's fair share of the remaining space?

Two approaches to a just distribution (concepts from Robert Nozick)

1. Historical principles--
• "An historical principle is one that says to understand whether a given distribution of goods is just or unjust, we must ask how the distribution came about; we must know its history." (Singer p. 220)
• Apply to the village drain problem
2. Time-slice principles--
• "In contrast, a time-slice principle just looks at the existing distribution, at this moment of time, and asks on that basis if it is just. (p. 220)
• Apply to the village drain problem

_________________________

Let's think about fair share in terms of....

The Paris Agreement (2015)

Paris Agreement (2015)

1. Sets goal of limiting temperature rise (in 2100) to 2 degrees C. (3.6 F), or preferably 1.5 (2.7 F).
2. Countries create NDCs (nationally determined contributions to mitigation) 
3. Countries communicate contributions to adaptation
4. They report back every 5 years and must make more ambitious plans
5. Ratified by 196 countries -- US left in 2017 (Trump), joined again in 2021 (Biden), left again in 2025

Mitigation options

1. Transition away from fossil fuels to renewables (wind, solar)
2. Create emissions standards for industries, cars, etc.
3. Pass carbon tax 
4. Pass meat tax :-)
5. Subsidize electric cars
6. Plant trees (carbon sinks)
7. Etc.

How much should each nation do? What is their fair share?

1. Historical approach
2. Time-slice approach

_________________________

Historical Principle--You broke it, you fix it/Polluter pays

Historical principle #1: Total past emissions

• Each country's NDC should be based on their total past emissions
• Our World in Data--total emissions 
• Canada and India should do the same amount, based on similar past emissions
• But ...
• Our World in Data--per capita emissions 
• Our World in Data -- GDP per capita
• Population figures 
• India: 1.4 billion people
• Canada: 38 million people (1/4) 
• Somehow we have to take into account individual past emissions

Historical principle #2: Per capita past emissions

• What did the average person emit?
• India's fair share is the same as Tuvalu's!

Historical principle #3:  Total past emissions, above "allowance" per person

• "the assumption here, which seems reasonable, is that each person is entitled to an equal share of the atmosphere, and we should be looking at the extent to which people in some nations have, in past centuries, used more than their share." (Singer p. 221)
• Our World in Data--total emissions 

Historical principle #4: Same as #3, but responsibility starts when people know about climate change (around 1990)

• Our World in Data--total emissions 

Historical principle #5. Consumption not production

• Principle of commensurate benefits and burdens (Wenz)
• Note: Singer doesn't discuss Wenz
• Consumption determines NDC--so ignore exports
• Our World in Data--consumption vs. production
  

Historical principle #6:: each country's share of the solution should be based on how much they emitted in the past, above their fair share, looking only back to 1990, and focusing on consumption, not production.

_________________________

Equal Shares

TIME SLICE PRINCIPLES/EQUALITY

• the important time-slice is the present
• ethical assumption: each person has a right to the same emissions (equality)
• question: what per capita GHG emissions will keep temp rise below 1.5C in 2100?  
• Answer: about 2.3 tons CO2 equivalent
• fair share of emissions for each country: population X 2.3 ton
• fair share of effort to mitigate: what it takes to reach that leavel

MODULE 4: Future People

 AGENDA

1. Future ethics
2. Discount View vs. Longtermism
3. Debate/Discussion

_________________________

Future ethics

1. How much should we do for future people?
2. How much should we spend on future people?

There are also future animals, plants, ecosystems, which might raise different issues

Future ethics is relevant to all sorts of environmental questions

1. Climate change, because worst impacts will be in the future
2. Aquifer overusage, ditto
3. Wilderness and wildllife disappearance, ditto

_________________________

Two positions on our obligations to future people

1. Discount View--environmental economists discussed by Broome--Nordhaus, Stern
2. Longtermism--Will MacAskill, What We Owe the Future; Who is he?

_________________________

The discount view (discussed Mar 14)

We should do and spend less on future people, the more future they are

• I should do and spend less on my future self, the more future she is
• We should do and spend less on future climate change problems, the more future they are
• Discounters propose specific discount rates 

Longtermism

• "Future people count. There could be a lot of them. We can make their lives go better." (MacAskill p. 9)
• They are a bit different from present people because they aren't as "near and dear" and can't reciprocate (p. 11)
• But they still "matter significantly" (p. 11) and we should be discounters

_________________________

Arguments for discounting

1. Prioritarianism
2. Pure temporal distance
3. Investment
4. Other arguments

Arguments against discounting

1. Utillitarianism
2. No temporal discounting

_________________________

Arguments for longtermism

1. The hiker argument
2. The future plague argument
3. The time/distance argument
4. The imagining future people argument
   
5. The sheer number argument
6. Other arguments

Arguments against longtermism

MODULE 4: Future People

 AGENDA

1. No office hours today
2. Duties to future people -- John Broome, William McAskill
3. Later: Peter Singer, how do divide up duty to mitigate among nations

---

John Broome, "Climate Change Ethics" (Scientific American, 2008)

What sacrifices should we make--less plane travel, turning down the heat, eating less meat -- if we are sacrificing for the sake of

• people now
• people in 2050
• people in 2100
• people in 2200

How much should we spend on climate change -- mitigating, adapting, etc. -- if the benefit is received by

• people now
• people in 2050
• people in 2100
• people in 2200

Discounting view--the further out the beneficiaries, the less we have to sacrifice

_________________________

Warm up exercise

• You would pay $100 for a nice sweater.  
• What would you pay now for a sweater that will be delivered in 1 year, 2 years, 3 years, etc?
• if you would pay a discounted price, why?

_________________________

How much should we discount when it comes to climate change spending?

Suppose...

flooding from sea level rise is expected in 100 years...

we want to build a dike protecting Houston...

the dike will prevent $1 trillion in damages...

what should we spend today for the dike?

1. We should spend up to a $1 trillion today for the dike (no discount)
2. We should spend less than $1 trillion (discount).

Broome: economists say we should discount, but disagree about the discount rate

---

Reasons FOR discounting

1. Alternative investment opportunities
2. Future people will be richer than us (everyone assumes)
3. The same goods will be worth less to them (diminishing marginal value)
4. Prioritarianism--we should give priority to the worse off (that's us!) not the better off (future people)
5. Pure temporal distance--events in the future just matter less, period
6. WHAT ELSE?

_________________________

Reasons against discounting, or at least for a lower discount rate

1. Utilitarianism--we should maximize total happiness, whether extra units of wellbeing are given to the worse off or the better off.
2. Temporal impartiality -- future counts just as much

Other reasons against discounting (not discussed by Broome)

1. Our old friend PCBB -- principle of commensurate benefits and burdens -- our consumption causes the future problems, so we should clean it up
2. Mitigation projects --"now or never"

_________________________

Broome's main points: 

• economists need ethics to resolve the issue of the discount rate
• his own view: lower discount rate, based on utilitarianism and temporal impartiality

MODULE 4: Climate change and politics

 AGENDA

1. Our question
2. Preview
3. Jamieson--obstacles to climate change ethics

_________________________

Our question 

Three possible climate change strategies. Ethically, which should we choose?

1. 
   Nothing/Reversal 
2. Moderate mixed (Bjorn Lomborg, False Alarm)
• a little mitigation
• begin to adapt, but future people will mostly do it
• R&D geoengineering, to be implemented in future
3. Ambitious mitigation (Paris Agreement)
• goal: keep temperature rise to 1.5 or 2 deg C
• transition away from fossil fuels (oil, gas) to renewables (wind, solar)
• preserve carbon sinks

_________________________

Preview

1. Future people -- ethics and economics 

• Broome, ethics and economics (3/14) -- don't skip!
• McAskill, What We Owe the Future (3/24)
• Debate about future people (3/26)

_________________________

Dale Jamieson, "The Moral and Political Challenges of Climate Change" (2007)

Also wrote Reason in a Dark Time (2017) -- will read an excerpt later

Two challenges to thinking about climate change ethics

1. Hard to see our emissions as an ethical issue (the moral challenge)
2. Political brands skew our preferences (the political challenge)

_________________________

Jamieson: the political challenge

1. We should choose policies based on our values, what's in our interests, evidence, reasoning, etc.
2. But in reality we have mere preferences based on political brands 
• I'm a Democrat, Democrats prefer this policy, so I prefer this policy
• I'm a Republican, Republicans prefer that policy, so I prefer that policy
3. We can't think about climate change solutions without freeing ourselves from political brands

Is there any data that suggests our minds really work this way?

• Leaf Van Boven, social psychologist at University of Colorado
• NYT editorial: "Actually, Republicans do believe in climate change"
• At least many do--energy secretary Chris Wright
• TED talk about political polarization

 

_________________________

DISCUSSION

1. Are Democrats and Republicans equally partisan about climate change?

2. What originally made climate change part of the Democratic platform and not part of the Republican platform?

3. Why is climate change especially partisan?

4. Why is climate change especially partisan in the US?  See data here on attitudes in other countries.

Bottom line--we need to avoid partisan labels!

_________________________

The moral challenge 

• hard to recognize our GHG-emitting behavior as a moral issue
• but it would change our reaction if we did recognize it as a moral issue

Jamieson 2007 (with a little paraphrasing)

MODULE 4: Climate change science

 AGENDA

1. Module 4: Climate change ethics
2. Background
   
   
   

_________________________

Background

1. Climate change science
2. Types of solutions
3. What should we do....our ethical questions
4. What are we actually doing?

_________________________

Climate change science

The latest science

• IPCC -- Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change -- 2023 report

The greenhouse effect

• Greenhouse effect (NASA)
• Greenhouse gases (US Environmental Protection Agency)

Carbon sinks

• Carbon sinks (Acciona company, 2017)

CO2 and temperature rise

• CO2 and past temperature rise (Figure 4, MIT Primer)
• Current CO2 levels are unprecedented (Figure 10, MIT Primer)
• CO2 rise prediction (fig 12, MIT Primer) 
• Temperature rise prediction (fig 13, MIT Primer)

Future sea level rise

• Greenland's ice cap (Video 4, MIT Primer)
• Sea level rise (Video 7 MIT Primer)
• Picturing our future--watch sea level video at top, scroll down to look at images

Other impacts

• Other US effects (scroll down, NASA)
• Impact around the world and on nature (IPCC 2022 report)

Sources of greenhouse gases

• What's producing all the greenhouse gases? (Our World In Data)
• Who's producing all the greenhouse gases? (Our World in Data)

Do scientists all agree?

• Consensus (NASA)
• Richard Lindzen (emeritus MIT meteorologist)
• His cloud theory
• His colleagues object 

_________________________

Types of solutions

The three little pigs

Mitigation -- KILL THE WOLF -- reduce greenhouse gas emissions, thereby preventing temperature rise and all the other impacts -- urgent, global, expensive for us today

• stop burning fossil fuels 
• switch to renewable energy like wind and solar
• switch to electric cars
• avoid cutting down trees
• avoid meat-eating

Adaptation -- BUILD A BRICK HOUSE -- protect ourselves from temperature rise and other impacts; gradual, local, cheaper for us today

• building dikes that protect low-lying areas from flooding
• build inland

Geoengineering -- LET WOLF IN, THEN KILL -- use innovative technologies to undo impact of greenhouse gases -- cheaper than mitigation for us today

Mixed strategy-- some combination of mitigation, adaptation, and geoengineering

Do nothing strategy -- it's not a problem!

Reversal strategy-- undo previous efforts 

_________________________

What should we do, ethically?

1. Why is climate ethics especially hard? (Mar 12)
• Dale Jamieson--article about moral and political obstacles
2. What do we owe to future people?  How much should we spend to protect them? (Mar 14, 24, 26)
3. If we should mitigate, how should we divide the burden between nations? (Mar 28)
4. What about geoengineering? (Mar 31)

Philosophical questions...we could explore in a void....but...

_________________________

What are we actually doing?

International: The Paris Agreement (2015) -- 196 parties (now 195)

1. Primary strategy: mitigation
2. Goal: keep temperature rise (since pre-industrial age) below 1.5 deg C or 2 deg C.
3. Also supports adaptation and some geoengineering R&D
4. Each nation determines its own contribution to reduction (what should this be?)
5. Nations must ratchet up every 5 years
6. US was original signatory--withdrew 2017, joined in 2021, withdrew in 2025

US: Inflation Reduction Act (2022, Biden) 

• comprehensive climate legislation
• with environmental justice component (Justice 40)

US under Trump 

•  climate change no longer acknowledged
• pursuing the reversal strategy--undoing previous efforts (see below)

_________________________

Next time: how the ethics is weird, how politics makes it especially hard

• How could the two US political parties be as far apart as mitigation and reversal?
• Are liberals and conservatives so far apart in other countries?
• Were they always so far apart in this country?
• How can we think about climate change solutions without being over-influenced by politics?

_________________________

Changes since Trump's inauguration-- below are highlights from this NYT article

1. Paris Agreement. Trump left Paris Agreement
2. Wind Energy. "Mr. Trump has frozen funds appropriated by Congress for clean energy projects, taking particular aim at wind energy, the country’s largest source of renewable power. He has stopped approvals for wind farms on public land and in federal waters and has threatened to block projects on private land."
3. No climate change talk. "He has fired thousands of federal workers, dismantled programs aimed at helping polluted communities and scrubbed references to climate change from numerous federal websites."
4. Drill baby drill!  "Mr. Trump has declared an energy emergency, giving himself the authority to fast-track the construction of oil and gas projects as he works to stoke supply as well as demand for fossil fuels."
5. Stop California ban on gas-powered cars. "The administration and Republicans in Congress plan to use a legislative maneuver to quickly erase California’s authority to ban the sale of new gasoline-powered cars in the state by 2035."
6. Dismantle EPA. "Mr. Trump has fired thousands of employees at the Environmental Protection Agency, the Interior Department, the Department of Energy, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the government’s premiere climate science agency."
7. Deny GHG dangerous. "Lee Zeldin, the administrator of the E.P.A., has recommended that the agency reverse its 2009 finding that greenhouse gas emissions endanger human health and welfare, according to three people familiar with the decision. That would eliminate the legal basis for the government’s climate laws, such as limits on pollution from automobiles and power plants."
8. Stop supporting transition to EVs. "Mr. Trump has directed Congress to eliminate federal subsidies for E.V.s., including tax credits for consumers, which could hurt the sales of Tesla, the electric car company, despite Elon Musk’s central role in the Trump administration’s cost-cutting efforts."
9. Stop supporting transition to EVs. "The Transportation secretary, Sean Duffy, signed an order to loosen fuel economy standards enacted by the Biden administration that were designed to encourage automakers to sell electric vehicles. And the administration moved to freeze $5 billion that Congress approved for the construction of a national network of electric-vehicle charging stations."
10. Stop local efforts. "The administration is also trying to stop states and even cities from enacting their own climate policies."

Also increased logging (NYT article)

1. Endangered Species Act. Bypassing Endangered Species Act
2. More logging. Trying to increase logging on 280 million acres of federal land

MODULE 3: Back to nature

 AGENDA

1. Kevin DeLuca, "A Wilderness Manifesto"
2. Reports
3. Review for midterm 

---

Kevin DeLuca, "A Wilderness Environmentalism Manifesto: Contesting the Infinite Self Absorption of Human Beings" (2007)

1. A polemic against the environmental justice movement
2. Kevin DeLuca, professor of communication, University of Utah
3. Written in 2007, so some info out of date
4. He mentions William Cronon--we will read him in the wilderness module

Two types of environmentalism

"Environmental justice movement" or EJM--focused on "our environment"
in the sense of the conditions we live in

"Green environmentalism"--focused on "the environment"
in the sense of nature, ecosystems, wilderness, wildlife

DeLuca's claims (more detail)

1. EJM and GE have different goals
• EJM: fairness to specific groups
• GE: preserving nature
2. Their goals are often in conflict
• EJM: indigenous rights to hunt polar bears
• GE: protecting polar bears
• Another example (EJM on the side of indigenous Masai, GE on the side of African wildlife)
3. EJM is taking over environmental organizations (reporters will assess)
• Sierra Club
• Green Corps
• Stop Oil
• Sunrise
4. EJM and GE differ on solutions
• EJM wants to empower local groups--for justice reasons
• GE prefers the most effective solution, often national
5. EJM has been very successful at gaining governmental support
• Example: Biden's Climate Initiative & Justice 40 (see Bullard in the picture below)
• We will discuss next week
6. Bottom line
• Environmentalists should be green environmentalists
• EJM should thrive, too, but as a human justice movement

_________________________

Review for midterm

MODULE 3: Water justice

 AGENDA

1. Politeness 
2. Midterm study guide at tab above
3. Kinship disruption
4. Water reports

_________________________

Politeness

• Please speak to others politely. Be nice, be respectful, even if you disagree.
• Please also listen to others politely. Give them your full attention and respect.
• Please also speak about others politely. This pertains to speaking about groups of people that come up because of our course topics.

_________________________

Three views about environmental injustice

1. Environmental racism
2. Principle of commensurate benefits and burdens
3. Kinship disruption

_________________________

Whyte

1. Kinship relations involve reciprocity: A gives B gifts, B gives back to A
2. Indigenous people see as kin (examples in Whyte): corn, potatoes, plants generally, buffalo, salmon, rivers, mountains, nature generally
3. Environmental injustice = kinship disruption
4. Rectifying the injustice = restoring kinship

Restoring kinship

• Buffalo example (US) -- restoration of kinship with buffalo through recreating herds and hunting
• Uluru example (Australia) -- indigenous Anangu people reclaim the rock
• Later we will discuss -- reclaiming US national parks

_________________________

Water issues

1. 
   What's the water issue?
2. Is it an environmental justice issue?
• Environmental Racism
• Principle of commenensurate burdens and benefits
• Kinship disruption
3. Is another kind of environmental wrong involved? 
• mistreatment of people (generally)
• mistreatment of plants, animals, ecosystems
• causing species extinction
• tragedy of the commons

_________________________

Reporting document

We may look at --

Aquifer articles--

NYT, US aquifers

• animation of US groundwater levels

NYT, global aquifers

US water laws -- see "absolute dominion" for Texas law -- aka "rule of capture" -- if you own the land you have a right to the water below your land -- stricter regulations in New Mexico

Seamus McGraw, A Thirsty Land

MODULE 3: Indigenous perspectives

 AGENDA

1. Green corps
2. Recap: Wenz
3. Kinship disruption view
4. Next week: water issues (Monday), env orgs priorites (Wednesday), midterm (Friday)

_________________________

Wenz recap

PCBB = Principle of commensurate benefits and burdens

Wenz: PCBB is violated in situation below

Wenz's proposal --LULU point system that brings benefits and burdens into alignment

Your objections, Wenz's replies

1. Main objection of anti-PCBB groups
• Highland park: high benefits of consumption, high financial burden
• South Dallas: low environmental quality, low financial burden
• So no actual violation of PCBB
2. Wenz': "Market forces" section of article
• citizenship comes with jury duty, military service; can't buy your way out of it
• consumption comes with waste, industry; can't buy your way out of associated burdens
• this only applies to "basic and vital goods and services" (p. 450)
• there are many valid exceptions to PCBB-- e.g. unemployment compensation -- he says the exceptions prove the rule

What money can't buy, reading recommendations

• Michael Sandel, What Money Can't Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets
• Debra Satz, Why Some Things Should Not Be For Sale: The Moral Limits of Markets

_________________________

Other applications of PCBB to environmental issues

We get the benefit of our high consumption
but some of the associated burdens will
fall on future people (violates PCBB)

Garbage exports: we get the benefit of our high consumption
Some of the burden falls on low consumers (violates PCBB)

_________________________

Third account of environmental injustice

Kyle Whyte: kinship disruption

Whyte p. 272

Examples of kinship disruption

• relationship to buffalo -- disrupted by slaughter --  Ken Burns "The American Buffalo" clip -- solution: restoration of herds on reservations -- special permission to hunt
• relationship to anadromous fish (e.g. salmon) -- disrupted by damming of river and logging -- solution: undamming (Monday)

More examples

• relationship to wolves -- disrupted by recreational hunting and extermination
• relationship to wild rice -- disrupted by commercial rice farming
• relationship to medicinal plants -- disrupted by pollution
• relationship to rivers, waterways -- disrupted by mining
• relationship to maples -- disrupted by dam that causes flooding
• relationship to lake, fish -- disrupted by rule against using motor boats in Boundary Waters Canoe Area
• relationship to land, water -- disrupted by oil pipelines

Comparison to other types of environmental injustice

Whyte p. 272