Environmental Change

transnational nature of climate change and/or its impact on your environment, i.e. UN Climate Change Summit

UCLA Campus shown on Google Maps, accompanied by volunteered geographic information.

Environmental Change Featured Globalization Internet Security and Conflict Technology

Mapping Earth from the Roots Up

No more than a decade has passed since it became possible for anyone with a connection to the Internet to access and author real-time spatial information on demand and free of charge. Prior to the development and release of web-based mapping services such as OpenStreetMap, Wikimapia, Google Maps and Google Earth, geospatial information science (GIS) and its associated technologies primarily served the needs of governments, financially well-off corporations, and well-funded civic and scientific organizations. Public practice was handicapped by high barriers of entry, including expensive desktop software and sophisticated technical expertise necessary for making use of the software. To add to the effect, available data in geospatial format lacked for two reasons: astandardization of geospatial data format was still under development, and GIS tools were expensive and technically complex. Yet in the mid-2000s, GIS experienced a landmark evolution characterized by the democratization of tools and know-how, collectively enabled by the Internet. New services became available online that both exposed the public to high quality geospatial data and bid for the active volunteering of local spatial knowledge. Today, this trend has led to a new form of crowdsourced GIS, and the rapidly expanding volume of data produced by the public is popularly referred to as Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI). Beyond the impact that VGI has had on GIS, the phenomena is also playing an increasingly important role in everything from instantaneous news updates, weather forecasting, emergency/disaster response, and social media. From the local level to the global level, VGI is fostering spatial awareness within civil society to a greater extent than has ever been witnessed before.

Open source GIS services are distinguished by technical simplicity and a user-friendly interface, zero financial cost, and availability through the Internet. Furthermore, virtually all of these services allow users to contribute, edit, and update geospatial content (i.e. open source). The Google Maps Application Program Interface, in particular, evolves constantly as the original source code is integrated into innovative new applications. Location services have become crucial functions within countless computer-based and mobile applications such as social media behemoths Twitter and Instagram, and these open source web-based mapping services have become the underlying technology supporting a growing share of embedded location services.

At the basic level, volunteered geographic information is founded on the intersection of virtually ubiquitous navigation technology (most commonly synchronized with the Global Positioning System), local spatial knowledge translated into georeferenced attribute data, and observation imagery collected from spaceborne and airborne sensors. Users generate the content through their interactions with open source GIS services and the end-product is by and large published electronically through laptops and mobile technology. The content is tied to specified coordinates and as more information about that particular location is published, the associated geographic information becomes richer.

Globally, the digital divide is rapidly shrinking. The cost of mobile technology is falling and mobile broadband service has now reached complete global coverage. Smartphones are the fastest spreading information communication technology in many developing countries, and in general, smartphones are trending towards simpler, easier user-interfaces, which means they require less sophisticated technical know-how than in the past. Reductions in the cost of both mobile technology and mobile broadband service is democratizing access to GIS services, increasing the production of user-generated spatial content, and enabling more innovative developers to concoct brilliant applications using the source code provided by companies such as Google.

It seems hard to imagine using mobile technology without also using some type of GIS-enabled application. Geographic location is emerging as an organizing mechanism for the rapid digital accumulation of data, and GIS supplies the tools that make this happen. From social media posts to real-time news updates to weather forecasts, geographic information is generated by users through their engagement with embedded location services. Whether users are simply “geotagging” their location on an image while traveling or voluntarily georeferencing new roads or buildings on open source web-based mapping services such as OpenStreetMap, geographic information is being crowdsourced constantly. In many cases, VGI is more precise and/or timely than could be provided by any government agency or corporation. People in the immediate area of, say a natural disaster or crime scene, are likely equipped with mobile technology and can upload information accompanied by their geographic location instantly.

Traditionally, response to natural disasters and other crises have been considered the responsibility of nation-states, international organizations such as the United Nations, and non-governmental organizations such as The Nature Conservancy or Amnesty International. This perception, however, has changed in many ways recently, one of which results from the role that web-based open source mapping services play in encouraging crowdsourced responses to local events. In the immediate aftermath of natural disasters, humanitarian crises and epidemiological outbreaks, timely information from observers in the affected area is crucial. Prior to the marriage of web-based mapping services and mobile technology, information of this nature was difficult to obtain. Volunteered geographic information has provided a solution to this challenge, and it is now considered a principal asset when assessing the rapidly changing conditions on the ground. For example, volunteered geographic information played a crucial role in the relief efforts following the earthquake in Haiti in 2010. Aid workers used OpenStreetMap and other web-based mapping services to develop crowdsourced maps of remote areas inflicted by the earthquake where previously existing maps were significantly lacking in detail. Other examples include the use of geotagged twitter updates to map post-election protests in Iran in 2009, and widespread use of a cutting-edge open-source crowdmapping platform called CrisisNET designed by non-profit Ushahidi in a number of natural disasters in 2011, namely the tsunami in Japan that took 20,000 lives, and most recently to map violence via social media updates in Syria.

With the currently unfolding unrest in long-time conflict laden Yemen, thousands of displaced refugees are in need of humanitarian support. Crowdsourced mapping and volunteered geographic information can and should be considered a valuable resource for response efforts in Yemen. Applications such as CrisisNET would be exceptionally helpful for maximizing the appropriate content and distribution of aid coming from the U.N. and other governmental and nongovernmental organizations.

Volunteered geographic information and crowdsourced mapping have worked to blur the distinction between professional cartographer and the rest of society. Individuals from across the globe are empowered to map their message, their information, and their opinion by increasingly affordable GPS-enabled wireless communication technology, mobile broadband Internet, open source web-based mapping applications, and a growing body of publicly-available high resolution earth observation imagery. Together, these ingredients are fueling the development of a digital earth with details beyond just land cover and topography, but also including social, political, and cultural information that changes in step with real world developments. As GIS expert Michael Goodchild of UC Santa Barbara frames it, volunteered geographic information “opens the possibilities of a dense network of individual, intelligent observers” (Goodchild, 2012, p. 585). Crowdsourcing is revolutionizing the way we collect and interpret geographic data. It brings the power of defining our planet to the people. More people participating in the process of mapping means more data, and when it comes to understanding our planet, more data is better data.

April 24, 2015 1 comment

An ad from the World Wildlife Fund features pandas and polar bears, the majestic poster children of the environmental movement today. Photo courtesy of Creative Commons

Environmental Change Featured Security Security and Conflict Society and Culture The International Economy

The Problem with Pandas: Rethinking Climate Change and the Environmental Movement

written by Amber Murakami-Fester

By Amber Murakami-Fester

The International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released an in-depth report earlier this year that seemed just short of a climatic Armageddon. The report, released in three parts in September, March, and April, detailed the results of an extensive assessment of scientific literature on climate change in the past six years. Findings, perhaps unsurprisingly, were bleak: the concentration of carbon dioxide in Earth’s atmosphere has increased by forty percent since pre-industrial times, sea levels have risen nineteen centimeters from 1900 to 2010 worldwide, and will only continue to rise. Human influence on the climate system, the report further emphasizes, is evident.

Scientists have long vouched for the direct effect humans have had on global warming. Some even propose that we have entered a new geological time period, dubbing it the Anthropocene, a name that refers to the fact that humans have affected nearly “every aspect of Earth on a scale akin to the forces of nature,” according to the Anthropocene website. The term gained popularity in 2012 among scientists but remains little more than a scientific buzzword, as several geologists maintain that there is not enough evidence to suggest that we are in an entirely new geological epoch.

The Anthropocene, buzzword or not, and the IPCC report together underscore one thing—the potency of human activity on our planet: we have managed to accelerate our effect on the world around us since the advent of the Industrial Revolution. This means the outcome for the natural world in the coming centuries will largely reflect the environmental decisions that people make today. It turns out that the side-effects of human activity aren’t limited to the apocalyptic indications of rising sea levels and global temperatures either. Human beings have the capacity to shape not only the climate, but have a huge say, for better or for worse, in which species of plants and animals will survive into the future as well.

The panda, for example, has been the cuddly mascot of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) since its inception in 1961 and has played a large role in eliciting emotional and monetary support for the environmental movement. BBC wildlife expert Chris Packham, however, made ripples in 2009 when he declared that giant pandas should be allowed to die out. Although human reduction of its habitat has spurred the panda’s endangerment, the argument goes, pandas are naturally slow to reproduce and rely heavily on one food source (bamboo). From an evolutionary perspective, this puts the panda at a severe disadvantage. The panda’s habitat has further been so depleted that pandas will likely never be able to survive by themselves in the wild again. Despite this, millions of dollars are spent every year to save the panda from extinction—something Packham calls “one of the grossest wastes of conservation money in the last half-century.”

It’s not just the panda, of course; other animals have received a significant amount of funding and media attention as well, becoming mascots of sorts for the environmental campaign. Leonardo DiCaprio co-funds a tiger conservation project with the WWF, and France is set to spend three million Euros on an effort to save an endangered hamster species. But why the panda, the tiger, the hamster, the polar bear, the whale and the friendly dolphin? Why not the American burying beetle, the Chinese alligator, or the little known pangolin, all of which are critically endangered species as well? People seem to favor the survival of animals that play powerful parts in our imagination; being cute or at least humanized in the media, in effect, helps your specie’s chance of survival. Humans further have the formidable capacity to pick and choose which endangered species are worthy of our attention and will survive into the future—the Anthropocene indeed.

This goes for national parks as well. The national park system grew out of the American preservation movement beginning in 1872 with the creation of Yellowstone National Park, and has undoubtedly saved vast swaths of land from development. It is, however, far from being politically neutral. Would Yosemite have been preserved, for example, if Theodore Roosevelt did not equate it to being the most beautiful place on Earth? If Yosemite, in effect, was not aesthetically pleasing, would it still exist today? The national park, a concept grounded in the American nostalgia for the last frontier of the “wilderness,” also reinforces the idea that humans and nature simply cannot coexist without the former destroying or tainting the latter. The creation of Yosemite National Park, for example, ironically required the removal of the Yosemite Indians who had been living in the valley for thousands of years.

This is not an ideology that died out in the nineteenth century; it continues to shape conservation movements both in the US and abroad to this day, sometimes problematically. A similar story unfolded recently in Botswana in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve, where San people, commonly known as Bushmen, who had been living on the land for generations were forcibly removed by the Botswanan government beginning in 1997. Although the national park was opened in 1961, the San were not seen to be problematic until the early 80s, when diamonds were discovered on the reserve. Since then, the government has tried to force the San people off of their ancestral homeland, prohibiting hunting and use of water boreholes on the premise that the San were damaging the environment. Although the San won the drawn-out legal battle for the right to live in the reserve in 2006, hunting in certain areas of the reserve was outlawed again in January of 2014, citing the declining population of certain animal species. Conservation, it seems, is not as simple as removing humans from nature.

It is perhaps an understatement to say that a lot of work needs to be done in the environmental movement today. Denying the existence of climate change simply isn’t a viable option anymore—perhaps John Oliver demonstrated this best when he staged a “statistically representative” debate on the existence of climate change on his comedy show Last Week Tonight. The discussion we need to be having, he emphasized, is not whether climate change is real, but what we are going to do about it.

Maybe, though, we need to take it a step further. As we move forward and continue to make as much an impact on the Earth as we have in the past 200 years, it seems necessary to re-examine the pitfalls of the environmental movement as well, because the political ideologies that underlie the movement will inevitably continue to change the natural world. What sort of world do we want to live in come another 200 years? That decision, terrifyingly enough, is something that we, as governments, businesses, and individuals, must be making today.

So: pandas or no pandas? The choice is ours, it seems, more than ever. Welcome to the Anthropocene.

June 2, 2014 16 comments

Asia Environmental Change Featured Security and Conflict UCLA and the World

長江後浪推前浪 – Jon Huntsman challenges UCLA students to play their part.

written by James Walker

By James Walker – Editor in Chief

Last week the Burkle Center for International Relations hosted the annual Bernard Brodie Distinguished Lecture on the Conditions of Peace. This year’s speaker was Jon Huntsman, two-term Republican governor of Utah, and former U.S. Ambassador to China. The former GOP presidential candidate was on campus ostensibly to talk about “U.S.-China Relations, Challenges and Opportunities,” and while the audience was treated to an engaging discussion on the bilateral relations between those two states, it was clear that Huntsman had a lot to say about both the domestic and the international arenas.

The former Utah governor began by urging UCLA students to move beyond “reading blogs and posting on social media” and actively engage in the political process. Couching his appeal in terms reminiscent of the republican virtue model of civic engagement, Huntsman challenged the younger members of the audience to answer the age-old question, “If not you, then who?” This call for a greater number of young Americans to actively participate in the democratic process was both heartfelt and insistent, and was reaffirmed by the former Democratic Governor of California, Gray Davis, who introduced Huntsman as his longtime friend and colleague.

In particular, Huntsman talked about the ways in which the American political system had seized into gridlock, not because the issues involved were too difficult to solve, but because of “human failure” at the highest levels of government and opposition. Drawing upon his close involvement with the No Labels organization, a bipartisan political reform movement, the former governor insisted that there were innovative ways to fix the issues afflicting the political process such as campaign finance reform, but that nothing could be achieved without the involvement of more people as direct participants in the process.

The importance placed on domestic politics was also clearly present in the interview granted to The Generation editorial team before Huntsman’s speech. When asked about transnational issues, including the Obama administration’s “Pivot to Asia” policy, heightening tensions in the South and East China Seas, and the crisis in the Ukraine, time and again Huntsman came back to the issue of how domestic political considerations often serve to dictate elements of foreign policy.A good example of this was the recently released IPCC report on the impact and future vulnerabilities attributable to global warming. A well-known climate change advocate, Huntsman has been described as the “GOP’s lonely climate hawk.” Some commentators suggest that this was a major reason for his eventual withdrawal from the 2011 GOP presidential primary race. That may be true, but Huntsman suggested that it was better to “go down not winning an election, than losing your integrity.”

When asked to comment specifically on the challenges posed for the US and China (the two largest producers of CO2 gases), the former governor was quick to point to the different domestic considerations faced by the two states. Huntsman argued that the the U.S. held a critical leadership role in affecting global attitudes towards climate change policies, while admitting there was limited hope of movement from our end. He ascribed much of the reluctance from U.S. legislators to the ongoing unemployment crisis. The political cost of enacting new laws and standards in the face of unemployment numbers that stretch to double figures in some places, was simply too hard a sell. Huntsman noted that when the unemployment rate was down at the 3% or 4% mark, he was surrounded by members of Congress and the Senate, both Democrats and Republicans, who were willing to work on climate proposals.

By contrast, while issues with constant election cycles are not a factor for the Chinese government, growing dissent within large urban population centers over air-quality and respiratory health are. Looking at the ever increasing impact of social media and the internet on Chinese political commentary – a “genie that cannot be put back into the bottle,” even by the Chinese censors – Huntsman pointed to the impact that China’s youth are having on environmental policy. Even though the state faces competing interests from the industrial and manufacturing sectors, the Chinese Communist Party has understood that air-quality issues are a key concern for modern Chinese urbanites, and that they pose a significant threat to the stability of the system. As such, China has taken a more proactive stance on climate change, even as the U.S. lags behind.

What remains to be accomplished is for both the U.S. and China to begin to liaise, perhaps initially on a scientific level, in order to work on the problem in a cohesive manner, Huntsman claimed. However, while the politics of unemployment prevent greater U.S. leadership over the environment, in China the issue is being advanced by the people. This notion of civic engagement, while very different in context from the perspective of young people in China and the United States, is nonetheless an important take away idea from the former governor’s speech.

When asked what political actors must do to appeal to young voters such as the UCLA student body, Huntsman suggested that research showed our generation was drawn to “conservative economic policy, progressive social policy and pragmatic global policy” – what he termed the “Millennial Sweet-Spot.” The No Labels campaign would appear to be Huntsman’s attempt to reach out and engage us in the political process. For our part, if we want to see the world change for the better, then it is incumbent upon us to become part of the solution, rather than just complain about the problem. As Huntsman made clear in his impassioned speech, if not us, then who?

長江後浪推前浪: This Chinese proverb reads “The Changjiang River waves behind drive the waves ahead,” which roughly translates to “The energy of the new generation inspires the old.”

April 29, 2014 2 comments

Asia Environmental Change Security and Conflict Society and Culture

Whaling: A High Seas Culture Clash

written by Amber Murakami-Fester

by Amber Murakami-Fester
Editor

Whaling in Japan, which has charged the international community with high tensions for many a decade, is set to face legal contention on June 26^th, when the UN International Court of Justice is slated to begin public hearings on Australia’s challenge of Japanese whaling practices. Japan, Australia alleges, is breaking a temporary international ban, or moratorium, on whaling by hunting whales for commercial purposes under the guise of scientific research. Japan contends that it still operates within the legal boundaries of the moratorium, which allows for whaling with scientific permits.

The hearing will be a crucial event for the whaling issue, which has proven to be controversial since the implementation of the moratorium by the International Whaling Commission (IWC) in 1986. The ban has since been wrapped in emotionally charged conflict and gotten sidetracked from its initial intent to conserve whale species that were in need of protection.

The moratorium was implemented by the IWC due to rising concerns in the 60s and 70s on shrinking whale populations, which had been vastly reduced by industrialized nations in the 18^th and 19^th centuries in a mad scramble for whale oil. Whales were in fact being killed at incredible numbers into the 1980s; the Soviet Union killed close to 340,000 whales from 1946 to 1986 according to a report by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The total number of whales killed since 1986 was less than 32,000 in 2008, indicating the success of the ban in protecting the marine mammal.

The moratorium, however, came with its own baggage of controversy that continues to roil the international community to this day. The whaling ban, some nations claimed, ignored long-standing traditions and cultures of whale hunting that dated back to prehistoric times.

Japan is perhaps the most controversial of these nations for its alleged defiance of the ban. Evidence of whale hunting activity in Japan dates back to at least 10,000 B.C., and whale meat played an important role for the country in the 1940s, when it accounted for half the source of animal protein during World War II, according to DiscoveryUK.com. Although most people in Japan do not regularly eat whale today, several small communities like Ayukawahama, a whaling town in northern Japan, still do, and it is not rare to find whale meat in large supermarkets and specialty restaurants sold as a delicacy. Japan maintains that whaling is an essential part of its culture and tradition; this tension between culture and animal rights is an essential element at the heart of the whaling controversy today.

Japan is not alone in its defense of whaling traditions. The yearly summer whale hunt in the Faroe Islands of Denmark, where hundreds of pilot whales are driven into the shore and killed, has also received intense international criticism for what many consider unnecessarily cruel deaths and an unsustainable practice. The Faroe Islands, like Japan, have a long-standing history of hunting whales dating back to the first Norse settlements on the islands. The hunt is not regulated by international whaling laws because pilot whales are considered “small cetaceans” by the IWC and are therefore not included in the moratorium.

These whaling practices have come under intense international pressure because many consider culture a flimsy excuse for illegality, irresponsible hunting and unnecessary cruelty. This tension has at times manifested in violent confrontations on the open ocean. The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society (a marine activist organization based in the U.S. and Australia) controversially carries out aggressive tactics on Japanese whaling ships at sea, ramming ships and hurling containers of acid and smoke bombs to prevent the whalers from catching their quarry. Sea Shepherd claims that they “operate outside the petty cultural chauvinism of the human species” in an Equality Statement on their website, and points to the alleged illegality of Japanese whaling as a basis for their attacks.

In February of this year, Sea Shepherd faced Japanese whalers in the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The court ruled in favor of the Japanese, saying that Sea Shepherd has “engaged in…clear instances of violent acts for private ends,” and is “the very embodiment of piracy.” If Sea Shepherd is breaking international rules as well, their claim to be acting solely for the purpose of protecting international whaling laws becomes less credible. So if the upkeep of the law is not at the heart of Sea Shepherd’s actions, what really is the issue here?

Whaling has evidently become a highly emotional issue. Take, for example, the pilot whale hunt in the Faroe Islands. Any Google search on the subject yields a series of photographs that display large amounts of blood spilled into the ocean and onto the shores during the hunt. The images aim to point out the unnecessary violence of the practice, regardless of whether it is a part of a long-standing cultural tradition or a population-sustainable practice. Violence and cruelty against animals understandably draw strong emotional responses, and these elements contribute to the violent attacks carried out by Sea Shepherd.

This emotion, however, can dilute and distract from what originally lay at the core of international whaling laws—protection of endangered whales and their repopulation into sustainable numbers. Japan has in fact hunted a number of endangered species in the 2006-2007 season, including 101 sei whales and 3 fin whales. However, 82% of whales caught by Japan in that season were minke whales, which is a species listed with “least concern” of endangerment by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. The Japanese additionally collected 508 Southern Hermisphere minke whales out of an estimated population of 720,000, which they uphold is sustainable. Figures for pilot whales are undetermined, but they are also not considered an endangered species according to the American Cetacean Society, although the ACS notes that there has been an “obvious decrease in whale numbers.” While sustainability is still an issue for some whales collected in Japan, it does not seem a pressing concern for most whales hunted in Japan and indeterminate at best for pilot whales.

The whaling issue has essentially grown into a violent and emotional international debate, and lost sight of the original purpose to protect endangered whale species. If pilot whale hunts are considered too cruel, new methods to make the hunt less painful should be investigated. Research should be conducted to determine the exact status of pilot whales, and in the case that results demonstrate the centuries-old practice to be unsustainable, quotas should be placed accordingly. If Japan’s whaling is in fact sustainable, international law should be revised to consider this, with appropriate quotas and restrictions on species that are still endangered. Pushing for a complete ban that does not reflect the realities of whale populations not only ignores and disrespects the old cultures of these communities, but creates unnecessary political tension, and buries the most pressing issue of conservation under a mire of political distractions.

International law should reflect fact and not charged emotion. Whaling will most likely continue to be a controversial issue, but if it is approached openly and logically, the international realm will be able to move forward towards a resolution.

All facts and figures taken from the International Whaling Commission, the American Cetacean Society, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Word Wildlife Fund, SeaShepherd.org, DiscoveryUK.com, BBC, and the New York Times.

Amber is a third-year Comparative Literature student with minors in Global Studies and Japanese. In addition to being an Editor for TheGeneration, she is an education director for Project Literacy and sits on the leadership board for iVolunteer China. In her spare time, she listens to Amy Winehouse and roots for the San Francisco Giants.

June 13, 2013 3 comments

Environmental Change Featured

Economic Uncertainty for Canada’s Northwest Passage

written by thegeneration

by Sam Geldin
Contributing Writer

The alarmingly shrinking expansion of Arctic sea ice, which receded to an unprecedented annual minimum last autumn of 2012, presents nations like Canada with a wildly uncertain future.

Not only does this seasonal low, along with harbingers like shifting precipitation patterns and rising sea levels, attest to the now globally-observed increase in yearly average temperature, it reasonably reinforces the likelihood of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) estimates forecasting summer Arctic sea ice to vanish entirely by the end of the century, once an outlandish prospect. Likely in part due to human activities such as the burning of fossil fuels, the Northwest Passage that eluded countless adventurers searching for a maritime shortcut from Europe to Asia might suddenly emerge as a modern reality and point of contention. While an economically viable Northwest Passage offers Canada opportunities for enhanced trade and resource access, conflicting regional effects of climate change and ambiguous international responses to highly-contested polar boundaries will ultimately outweigh such a route’s benefits for the country’s interests.

With an already burgeoning population of skilled workers, Canada’s economic potential appears only magnified by more accessible fishing grounds; millions more ecotourists hoping to witness polar bears and other vestiges of the melting Arctic; and untapped oil and natural gas deposits (approximately 13% and 30% of global undiscovered reserves respectively, according to the US Geological Survey)—all of which are associated with Arctic sea ice retreat.

However, while considerable absence of thick multiyear ice may allow costly tankers, barges, and cargo vessels extended traveling ranges, sharp remnant chunks of sea ice and land-borne icebergs will ensure slow, seasonally variable, and treacherous summer transport through the briefly ice-free Northwest Passage.

Though a thinner atmosphere and accelerating albedo feedback cycles (where iceless ocean absorbs more ice-zapping heat) accentuate the rate of warming over northern polar regions, unimproved net agricultural yields and deteriorating ice-dependent winter roads could complicate shipping gains. In other words, warmer temperatures may boost production of crops northward of currently arable land, but drier conditions may ultimately decrease harvests in southern prairies. In the same way, increased ice-free sea transit during a short window of time at the end of summer probably will not offset the economic hindrances of losing months-long service of ice roads and rail routes that depend on cold temperatures for stability to deliver regional resources and valuable commodities like diamonds, petroleum, and grain by land.Especially considering how increased international market exposure will not only incline maritime arteries like the Panama and Suez Canals to lower their tolls, but also spell an uncertain fate for competing “destinational” shipping interests locally supplying and servicing booming outposts like Churchill, Iqaluit, and Tuktoyaktuk, the thought of Canada reaping lucrative profits in all economic sectors from a functional Northwest Passage in the coming decades certainly lies on thin ice.

Recent statistical investigations of Canadians involved in Arctic affairs highlights general support, despite varying methods, for polar development, yet vying foreign claims for unsettled sea territory, fossil fuel and marine resources, and multinational sovereignty over Arctic waterways overshadow Canada’s own strategic Northwest Passage development plans.

Since the evaporation of Cold War era tensions, a recent surge in Arctic militarization and charged nationalist rhetoric over extending northern maritime boundaries up to 200 nautical miles from shore in accordance with the United Nation’s EEZ (exclusive economic zone) recognition prompts heated international stalemate and demonstrates how effects of climate change blur traditional notions of sovereignty over land and resources. While locals draw resources from frozen waterways the same way as on land and Canadian officials assert authority over inter-island marine passages, multinational (particularly American) critics identify an increasingly navigable Arctic shipping route in a global light, as linking two nationless bodies of water, further complicating proper recognition.

Already, Russia’s move to stake its flag over the North Pole in 2007 and Canada’s calls to construct another costly Arctic military base in Resolute Bay and strengthen its fleet of patrol ships and icebreakers (securitizing steps not unlike those of other Arctic nations) reinforce the inescapable, often superseding role that politics will play in shaping the uncertain fate of the Northwest Passage amidst climate change. Even as warmer temperatures thaw a region primed for increased economic activity, international boundary delineation over shifting environmental factors and competing national interests ultimately possess the power to encourage or discourage greater economic interconnectivity of Canada’s Arctic ports with North America and beyond.

References

1. Maria-José Viñas, “Arctic Sea Ice Hits Smallest Extent In Satellite Era,” NASA, September 19, 2012, accessed October 13, 2012, http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/2012-seaicemin.html.

2. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Climate Change 2007 Synthesis Report: Summary for Policymakers (IPCC Fourth Assessment Report, 2007; http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/syr/ar4_syr_spm.pdf).

3. L. C. Smith, The World in 2050: Four Forces Shaping Civilization’s Northern Future (Plume, New York, 2011).

4. L. C. Smith, Agents of change in the new north. Eurasian Geography & Economics 52, 30-55 (January/February 2011). http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/geog/downloads/297/396.pdf

5. J. Parsons, J. Dinwoodie, M. Roe, Northern opportunities: a strategic review of Canada’s Arctic icebreaking services. Marine Policy 35, 549-556 (July 2011). http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0308597X11000182

6. H. Gerhardt, P. E. Steinberg, J. Tasch, S. J. Fabiano, R. Shields, Contested sovereignty in a changing Arctic. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 100, 992-1002 (September 2010). http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00045608.2010.500560

7. S. Chaturvedi, in Global and Regional Problems: Towards an Interdisciplinary Study, P. Aalto, V. Harle, S. Moisio, Eds. (Ashgate, Burlington, VT, 2012), chap. 8.

April 15, 2013 1 comment

Africa Asia Environmental Change Middle East Security and Conflict The International Economy

Water: The Currency of the Future?

written by thegeneration

by Trisha Parikh
Editor

When people think of a limited and valuable natural resource, one thing immediately comes to mind: oil. As a non-renewable resource, the possibility of consuming the entire existing supply of crude oil is possible. The media echo this perception of oil, with conversation constantly focusing on the amount of oil reserves left and whether these reserves will eventually run out. These questions have plagued our minds since the 1970s and the emergence of “Peak Oil.” Every country, city, and individual in the world today depends on oil—and the pervasive oil trade amongst countries has established oil as an unofficial currency across the globe. Oil’s reputation as liquid gold has been at the root of many violent and political conflicts.

However, another more essential resource has come to the forefront as a global shortage, threatening the wellbeing of populations with the potential to cause political destabilization and violent conflict: fresh water. Fresh water is a renewable resource; it will eventually be replenished by natural forces—but at a very slow rate. Satellite data recently published by NASA in a report on the water supplies in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia have led scientists to conclude that the Tigris-Euphrates-Western Iran region is facing the second fastest rate of groundwater losses on Earth, followed by India. Why is this concerning? Matt Rodell, the co-author of the study, sums up the fundamental issue: “Groundwater is like your savings account, it’s okay to drain it down when you need it, but if it’s not replenished, eventually, it will be gone.”

Water Supply

Freshwater makes up 3% of the world’s water supply—1% is stored as groundwater and other surface sources and the remaining 2% as ice. Today, water scarcity affects 1.2 billion people with an additional 500 million expected to reach a level of water scarcity in the coming years. It is estimated that by 2025, 1.8 billion people will experience absolute water scarcity and two thirds of the world population will live in water stressed conditions. This scarcity will not be limited to the more arid regions of the world, particularly in the Middle East and African desert regions, but will affect other densely populated regions in Asia and the Americas as well. The U.S. Director of National Intelligence estimates that by 2030, 40% of the world’s fresh water will be consumed.

When natural resources are in short supply and cannot keep up with the ever-growing demand, prices rise. Thus, an actual water shortage will be followed by an economic water shortage due to unaffordable water prices, particularly in areas with relatively low infrastructure to support fresh water. Alternative options such as desalination and importing water supplies are very expensive and although they may increase the supply of water in certain regions, they will not make water more affordable. Desalinated water is 15% more expensive than regular water and it requires an extensive use of fossil fuels.

The diminishing supply of water and rising prices, coupled with the rapid population growth that we expect in the next 30 years, paints a complicated picture of the consequences. The World Bank estimates that the world population is expected to grow from its current level of 7 billion to 9.2 billion by 2050, with the majority of the increase occurring in less developed regions of the world. As the population grows by billions and the water supply diminishes to less than half of its current level, political conflicts over rights to fresh water sources will arise.

Water Conflicts

Historically, wars fought directly over water rights have been rare, but have arisen in regions with pre-existing political conflict. Yet, access to commodities such as oil has been directly at stake in many of the major wars of the recent past. One possible explanation is that the resource curse has a role in these conflicts: many of the oil rich countries are also those with the poorest economic growth, which in turn fuels poverty and strife. In the Middle East, access to crude oil played a part in the Gulf Wars particularly when Iraq invaded Kuwait due to its overproduction of oil and when the U.S. tried to secure its oil pipelines running through the region.

As we begin to face more pressing shortages of water, conflicts over access to freshwater will not be limited to states and will resemble the conflicts over oil: regional and global. India and Pakistan pose a prime example of the role water shortages can play in conflicts. Pakistan was concerned about its access to water via the major rivers during periods of unrest with India since the water basins for the rivers are located in India. In order to settle the conflict, the World Bank brokered the 1960 Indus Waters Treaty, which set up guidelines for water management in the region. Further complicating the settlement is the heightened tension at the Kashmiri border and terrorist activity; if the conflict escalates, it would be easy to use access to water as a weapon to inflict damage on the opposing side. But, the treaty has thus far prevented both sides from doing so.

Future of the Water Supply

The necessity for a third-party to mediate these conflicts will increase as water shortages expand from region to region. Currently, the areas with the most severe water shortages (Africa and the Middle East) are also those with the most political instability, terrorist activity, and economic strife. Many of the countries in this region are unable to come to any political or ceasefire agreements and the spillover effects of this instability affect their water supply and population. International organizations will also have to step up their involvement to regulate the commodity market for water rights. Private corporations and individuals are increasingly investing in water and privatizing the supply of water. While there are benefits to this practice, as many of these corporations are transporting the water to drought-plagued regions of the world, unregulated investment in water could lead to exorbitantly high water prices.

Oil shortages and prices have always overshadowed concerns about water. But, whenever and wherever the next war will be, it will likely involve water rights. It is the human population’s fuel for survival and it could become the currency of the future as countries fight to sustain their water supplies and as technology tries to compete with water shortages. It will not be a surprise to see water surpass crude oil as the most traded commodity on the international market. The oil-to-U.S. dollar unofficial currency will could be replaced by a water-to-U.S. dollar exchange rate.

Rapid population growth, accelerating climate change, and increase in terrorist activity will only make conditions worse. We will see drastic water shortages within our lifetime and the next fifteen years. Water is the new liquid gold, the most prized natural resource. The sustainability of our water supply will not only depend on international cooperation, but it will also rely on individual conservation. Many people dismiss the idea of water conservation, assuming that it will not affect them in their lifetime, but the fact that the world will face deep water scarcity issues within our lifetime is certain. If every individual takes one small step to conserve freshwater, the collective effect will be enormous and while it may not completely mitigate the water crises, it is the only way to ensure sustainability in the present until technology progresses and becomes more affordable.

Facts and figures from Al Jazeera, BBC, NASA, Reuters, and the United Nations.

Trisha Parikh is a fourth year Economics and Political Science double major. She is a co-editor at the Generation.

March 16, 2013 4 comments

Environmental Change Technology The International Economy

A Growing Appetite for Feed-in Tariffs

written by thegeneration

by Nathan Otto
Contributing Writer

About halfway between Los Angeles and San Diego, Southern California’s largest power station sits idle. The San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station has been offline since January 2012, when it emitted a small radiation leak and unusual wear and tear was subsequently noticed in some of its internal componentry.

Regulators have shut down the plant while an investigation takes place to determine the cause and whether the plant will be safe enough to eventually re-open. In the meantime, Southern California must prepare for the peak energy demand that accompanies the approaching summer.

Since the disaster in Fukushima, worldwide appetite for nuclear power has diminished. The urgency to shift away from fossil fuel sources has continued to increase as the threat posed by climate change becomes more widely acknowledged.

Adding to the concern are the growing urban bottlenecks in energy supply, regardless of the type of fuel used. Many urban areas derive almost all of their power from just a few sources. If a tsunami, cyberattack, or maintenance issue took a major power plant offline, as had happened in Japan in 2011 and as is now occurring in California, it could eliminate a huge slice of the power-generating pie.

Thus, there has been a growing interest from governments around the world for Feed-in Tariffs (FITs). FITs are a form of price agreement; small-scale renewable energy producers (often ordinary homeowners or farmers who set up a few solar panels) are allowed to enter into a contract with their local utility. The utility pays the citizens for producing their own power and the citizens are even able to sell the excess power that they do not use back to the utility. The utility then distributes the excess power to other customers as needed.

The FIT guarantees a pre-determined price to both parties for a length of time of the individual’s choosing, which is often set for 10, 15, or 20 years. The resulting locked price reduces uncertainty for both parties, allowing homeowners to be relatively sure of the return they will receive on their investment. It also diversifies the energy supply and of course, the government’s use of FITs focuses on renewables, which also benefit the environment.

Untapped potential

There are no shortages of schemes to promote renewable energy. However, efforts such as subsidizing individual corporations can backfire. Much controversy ensued when Solyndra, a solar-power company in the U.S., filed for bankruptcy shortly after being selected to receive roughly $500 million in taxpayer-guaranteed loans.

Broad-based FITs involve the government negotiating on behalf of individual citizens with local utilities, which are often allowed to operate as near-monopolies. After the price of the FIT is negotiated, the government steps away and largely lets market forces take effect: citizens have incentives to conserve in order to pocket more from their own power-generation; utilities receive a more diversified supply of power in case of an incident; and the environment is made better off for the entire population. Surely a few enthusiasts would also cheer the spreading of a little bit of handiwork, scientific education, and pride of owning one’s own miniature power plant.

No silver bullet

The use of FITs is no panacea. Skeptics often point to Spain’s poorly implemented program, which it has recently suspended, as an example of FITs gone awry. Many other countries, however, have done it right. Germany, for example, spearheaded the idea and today produces much more solar energy than California, despite not being nearly as sunny.

Governments in Australia, Canada, South Korea, Malaysia, the U.S. and elsewhere have all begun to follow suit, providing another tool to harness the power of citizens’ self-interests with the necessity of providing a reliable and sustainable energy supply.

Back in California, the San Onofre plant looks out over the Pacific Ocean. Wreckage from the tsunami in Fukushima is soon expected to begin washing ashore along much of the California coast. Here’s to hoping governments around the world can learn some lessons from the reminders of such a disaster.

Image Credit: KPBS

Nathan Otto received his undergraduate degree at the University of Minnesota. A military veteran, he also served in the U.S. Army. He is currently a first year M.P.P. student at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs.

March 13, 2013 1 comment

Environmental Change

Ensuring the Sustainability of Multinational Cap and Trade Policy

written by thegeneration

Cap and Trade

by Trisha Parikh

Climate change may have taken a backseat to other issues in the United States, but around the world, countries and states are collaborating to ease their footprint on the global climate. With an increase in extreme weather patterns, droughts, food shortages, and the threat of rising sea levels, the effects of climate change are a reality. Regulation has finally manifested itself in many countries around the world as cap and trade measures. Cap and trade is known to be a more aggressive form of climate change policy, but its effectiveness when applied on a multinational scale has been questioned by policy makers, environmentalists, and economists.

Cap and trade, also known as emissions trading, is a market-based solution to global warming that transforms the right to “pollute” into a commodity that can be traded in the free “carbon” market. In contrast to carbon taxes, which are a form of carbon pricing levied on producers in direct proportion to their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, cap and trade policies place an upper limit, or “ceiling,” on the quantity of emissions. An important distinction is that while cap and trade might be better suited for some regions, carbon taxes or other price-based regulations might be more effective in others. For example, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) states that cap and trade is well-suited for local and regional emissions since it must be tailored to a specific area’s economic characteristics and demand for pollution. Some places that are currently pursuing or employing cap and trade regulation include Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, Japan, China, the European Union, parts of Canada, and California.

International cooperation on climate change has taken place since the adoption of the Kyoto Protocol in 1997. Many countries have since pledged to decrease their GHG emissions and cut down on the use of nonrenewable energy sources. The U.S. EPA has pledged to decrease GHG emissions by 25% of 2010 levels by 2020. The EU has a similar goal of reducing emissions by 20% of 1990 levels by 2020. The advancement of cap and trade policies to achieve these goals shows a different side of international cooperation. Countries are using each other as models for the implementation of cap and trade and integrating their carbon markets with neighboring regions. The most recent example is the California and Canada partnership, in association with the Western Climate Initiative. The California Air Resources Board (ARB) is working with its equivalents in British Columbia, Ontario, Quebec, and Manitoba to create a program through which pollution permits can be bought and sold on the carbon markets of international partners (projected to begin in 2013).

Thus, the real concern that arises is whether cap and trade is sustainable when these carbon permits are traded in large, global carbon markets—which are more difficult to regulate. Cap and trade on a national scale has been successful in the past. The EPA’s Acid Rain Program to control sulfur dioxide emissions in 1990 was widely successful and resulted in social savings of over $70 billion per year, with the benefits outweighing costs at a 40:1 ratio. The trading of permits for sulfur dioxide emissions only occurred nationwide under this policy. However, when employed on a larger scale, the carbon market can be volatile and subject to the influence of external forces such as politics and differences in trade regulations between countries.

The European Union Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) demonstrates how a well-functioning policy can turn into chaos when applied on an international scale, where prices and quantities are not carefully regulated. First, the EU failed to accurately estimate how many permits would be necessary and issued a surplus of carbon offset permits leading to a price collapse (permits were bought at almost no cost). Trying to set a quantity limit for 30 nations that differ in their industrial composition and emissions is a complex task. Second, the quantity of the permits issued has been under significant political influence by lobbyists asking for more offsets than initially allocated as a “subsidy” to certain energy sector firms (estimated to account for £20 billion or $32.2 billion through 2012). This defeats the primary purpose of having a cap and trade mechanism: to set limits on carbon permits. Yet, when applied in a smaller setting, the policy is relatively safe from extensive political involvement, it accounts for differences between regions, and price volatility can be monitored carefully.

The success of cap and trade policies, as they begin to link together countries and span across larger regions, will rely heavily on learning from previous experiences such as the EU ETS. Cap and trade policies that are implemented with precision, transparency, and regulation have the potential to generate changes in the climate that can set the world back on course to reducing GHG emissions. The economic incentives generated by successful cap and trade policies are unparalleled in that they maintain competition between firms and thus, encourage green investment. Countries that are in the early stages of creating their emissions trading programs, such as Japan and China, should construct the program with mechanisms built within it to adjust quantities regionally and to carefully monitor the market. Cap and trade has empirically proven to reduce GHG emissions, but, what remains to be seen is how these various international carbon markets will interact with each other in the future, and whether or not they will spur the use of “greener” energy sources to create sustainability of the policy and the global environment in the long term.

Facts and figures from the California Air Resources Board, the Carbon Trade Watch, Council on Foreign Relations, Environmental Protection Agency, and Western Climate Initiative.

Photograph from the Wikimedia Commons

Trisha Parikh is an undergraduate student at UCLA majoring in Economics and Political Science. She is a co-editor with The Generation.

November 2, 2012 2 comments