Systems Thinking and the Kyoto Process
Because we're only human, there is a tendency to confuse ends (better environmental performance) with means (end-of-pipe controls). The potential costs of this confusion are enormous. By Brad Allenby.
Two interesting articles juxtaposed themselves recently in my inbox. One, by Sandalow and Bowles in Science (292:1839-40), asserted that the U.S. was the global leader in per capita carbon emissions associated with fossil fuel use, and concluded that any international agreement in this area must require reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, especially CO2. In this, the article reflected current wisdom: the U.S. is the biggest contributor to climate change, and emissions controls are key.
The second, by Eliot et al. in Geophysical Research Letters (28(7):1235-38), discussed a possible technology by which CO2 could be scrubbed from ambient air with relatively small energy and environmental costs.
The contrast between the mental models implied in these two approaches could not be more profound, and goes to the heart of human responses to an increasingly anthropogenic world. The former suggests a policy structure driven by a goal of emissions reduction; the latter, a goal of managing the carbon cycle, atmospheric CO2 and methane, in such a way as to stabilize global systems regarded as important by humans (e.g., climate, ocean currents, and biospheric patterns). Note the critical difference: If the goals are the latter, then reducing emissions becomes a means to an end, rather than the end in itself. Why has this confusion of ends and means arisen, and why does it have such a hold on the entire climate change discourse?
To begin with, anyone with a scientific or economic bent must be puzzled by the hold that emissions numbers exercise in the climate change debate, for surely the relevant quantity should be net, not gross, emissions. In the case of the U.S., for example, emissions may be high, but some (preliminary) data indicate that they may be balanced across North American by absorption of CO2, probably as a result of reforestation and land-use patterns. In fact, the U.S. may be contributing a lot less to global climate change than most other large countries, developed or developing.
Obviously, such data are preliminary; serious issues of temporal and geographic scale, analysis, and model construction must be understood, and research is continuing. But it is apparent that reliance on emissions figures alone is profoundly unscientific and unsystematic -- and, at best, unintentionally disingenuous. No firm would look only at expenses, not revenues. So why here?
The most obvious answer is convenience: It is easy to measure emissions based on energy consumption patterns. It is much harder to identify and measure sinks, especially if they are biological and thus both complex and variable. So, being human, we measure the easy stuff (emissions), and conveniently forget that which we can’t quantify. This tendency is strongly reinforced because the global climate change discourse grows out of the environmental community, which is culturally wedded to end-of-pipe approaches to problems. The implicit conceptual basis of current approaches to climate change mitigation is thus the application of emission reduction controls -- and, as in environmental regulation, there is a tendency to confuse ends (better environmental performance) with means (end-of-pipe controls).
The potential costs of this confusion are enormous. This is where the article by Eliot et al. is important, for it gestures at a universe of potential solutions -- active carbon sequestration at coal-fired power plants; ocean fertilization with iron; or aluminum reflective balloons for controlling incident radiation, for example -- that can help stabilize global systems with potentially much lower cost, and much higher probability of political success.
This potentially leads to a much broader policy agenda than has been followed so far. Certainly it should include an increased focus on new technologies and technological systems as part of an integrated climate change control approach, as well as a broader research agenda on the social sciences and cultural dimensions of climate change, a process that is beginning but has further to go.
In doing so, we will begin to evolve towards an earth systems engineering and management capability, where the ethical and operational responsibility for natural systems is understood to be a necessary feature of what is, after all, a new phenomenon in history -- the terraformed Earth.
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Brad Allenby is Environment, Health and Safety Vice President, AT&T, an adjunct professor at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs and Princeton Theological Seminary, and Batten Fellow at the University of Virginia’s Darden Graduate School of Business. The opinions expressed herein are those of the author, and not necessarily any entity with which he is associated.
The second, by Eliot et al. in Geophysical Research Letters (28(7):1235-38), discussed a possible technology by which CO2 could be scrubbed from ambient air with relatively small energy and environmental costs.
The contrast between the mental models implied in these two approaches could not be more profound, and goes to the heart of human responses to an increasingly anthropogenic world. The former suggests a policy structure driven by a goal of emissions reduction; the latter, a goal of managing the carbon cycle, atmospheric CO2 and methane, in such a way as to stabilize global systems regarded as important by humans (e.g., climate, ocean currents, and biospheric patterns). Note the critical difference: If the goals are the latter, then reducing emissions becomes a means to an end, rather than the end in itself. Why has this confusion of ends and means arisen, and why does it have such a hold on the entire climate change discourse?
To begin with, anyone with a scientific or economic bent must be puzzled by the hold that emissions numbers exercise in the climate change debate, for surely the relevant quantity should be net, not gross, emissions. In the case of the U.S., for example, emissions may be high, but some (preliminary) data indicate that they may be balanced across North American by absorption of CO2, probably as a result of reforestation and land-use patterns. In fact, the U.S. may be contributing a lot less to global climate change than most other large countries, developed or developing.
Obviously, such data are preliminary; serious issues of temporal and geographic scale, analysis, and model construction must be understood, and research is continuing. But it is apparent that reliance on emissions figures alone is profoundly unscientific and unsystematic -- and, at best, unintentionally disingenuous. No firm would look only at expenses, not revenues. So why here?
The most obvious answer is convenience: It is easy to measure emissions based on energy consumption patterns. It is much harder to identify and measure sinks, especially if they are biological and thus both complex and variable. So, being human, we measure the easy stuff (emissions), and conveniently forget that which we can’t quantify. This tendency is strongly reinforced because the global climate change discourse grows out of the environmental community, which is culturally wedded to end-of-pipe approaches to problems. The implicit conceptual basis of current approaches to climate change mitigation is thus the application of emission reduction controls -- and, as in environmental regulation, there is a tendency to confuse ends (better environmental performance) with means (end-of-pipe controls).
The potential costs of this confusion are enormous. This is where the article by Eliot et al. is important, for it gestures at a universe of potential solutions -- active carbon sequestration at coal-fired power plants; ocean fertilization with iron; or aluminum reflective balloons for controlling incident radiation, for example -- that can help stabilize global systems with potentially much lower cost, and much higher probability of political success.
This potentially leads to a much broader policy agenda than has been followed so far. Certainly it should include an increased focus on new technologies and technological systems as part of an integrated climate change control approach, as well as a broader research agenda on the social sciences and cultural dimensions of climate change, a process that is beginning but has further to go.
In doing so, we will begin to evolve towards an earth systems engineering and management capability, where the ethical and operational responsibility for natural systems is understood to be a necessary feature of what is, after all, a new phenomenon in history -- the terraformed Earth.
-----------------
Brad Allenby is Environment, Health and Safety Vice President, AT&T, an adjunct professor at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs and Princeton Theological Seminary, and Batten Fellow at the University of Virginia’s Darden Graduate School of Business. The opinions expressed herein are those of the author, and not necessarily any entity with which he is associated.
