Intergenerational Justice part 1 - The Environmental and Fiscal Crises

I wanted to share a highly perceptive article by David Runciman on American democracy, in which he talks about intergenerational justice. I say share, I actually want to steal his idea because it's so good I wish I'd thought of it.

Intergenerational justice, in broad terms, is the idea that different generations have obligations towards one another and possess rights over one another that must be respected. Usually we employ this term to denote obligations of the present generation to those who will come after us, but its reach is much broader. It can also apply to the obligations of older people to younger people, and of the living to the dead. So, for example, when Helen Lovejoy of  The Simpsons cries "won't somebody please think of the children," she is actually expressing her endorsement of intergenerational rights.

One of the most influential thinkers in the history of intergenerational justice, though he never directly employs the term, is Edmund Burke. In his Reflections on the Revolution in France, Burke defines society as

"a partnership not only between those who are living, but between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born."

Today, this version of the social contract still forms the bedrock of a great deal of conservative thought, and explains to a large extent the right's interest in tradition and pastoral care of the local environment. But that is not to say that Burke's contract is the exclusive preserve of the right. His definition is sufficiently flexible to appeal to all sides of the political spectrum. A recent report making the case for constitutional protection of future generations was submitted to the House of Commons by Rupert Read, a left-winger and former Green Party candidate.

However, as Runciman's article makes clear, the ways in which both right and left employ intergenerational justice can vary hugely, neatly illustrating the partisan nature of politics both in the UK and especially in the US. When it comes to the environment, for example, the left generally employs intergenerational justice as a tool to encourage the present generation to limit CO2 emissions and leave future generations in a better position to combat climate change. The right, in contrast, tends to either dismiss this obligation or to question its preeminence. When it comes to the fiscal crisis these positions are reversed. Now, we generally find the right emphasising the need to reduce our debts so we do not force future generations to pay for our profligacy, whilst the left take a more relaxed view, arguing that seeking to address debt by slashing spending is unnecessary, or at least not our most pressing priority.

Runciman's analysis emphatically demonstrates the difficulty of applying intergenerational justice to real world political situations. Not only do we have to decide what obligations we owe to different generations, we also have to convince others of the value of our decisions. The wide endorsement of Burke's definition of intergenerational justice demonstrates that it is easy for most to accept that different generations have rights over one another, but the nature of western democracy is such that we rarely agree what these rights are, and how and when they should be protected.

Hinkley C and one of privatisations little ironies...

On Tuesday Ed Davey gave the official go-ahead for Hinkley C, a 3260MW nuclear plant that will be located in Somerset. The news wasn't much of a surprise, and the reaction was even less surprising - dismay from Caroline Lucas and the Green's, and perhaps some justifiable apprehension about how this might impact on the development of the renewables industry. Most people, including myself, greeted the news, if not exactly with delight, then with a fair amount of satisfaction.

 To those who think that renewables alone will lead us out of our energy crisis, I offer you a choice between gas and coal or nuclear power? If your answer to this question is coal or gas then you have some peculiar priorities, but do not imagine that you can pick neither. At present, the only renewable technologies that are commercially viable in this country are solar panels and wind turbines. The problem with these technologies is their reliance on weather conditions. This is not to denigrate renewables - the institute for Public Policy Research produced an excellent report demonstrating their effectiveness at lowering emissions - but it does mean that this intermittency must be guarded against with 'back up' energy. Currently this comes in the form of either gas or coal-fired plants. New nuclear power will likely take some of the coal out of this equation, removing huge quantities of CO2 that would otherwise have been pumped into the atmosphere.

You can argue all you want that nuclear is costly, but in my opinion the expense is worth it. As long as tidal and other forms of hydropower remain works in progress, nuclear is our best hope at substantially reducing our emissions.  Facts is facts: nuclear is a carbon free solution.

As ever, I fear that the real reason for rejecting nuclear power on the part of some environmentalists is far more cultural than scientific or economic. Of course nuclear carries some risks, but history demonstrates that these risks have been vastly inflated by rhetoric and imagination, rather then real life disaster.

There was one thing, however, that struck me as being a little odd in Davey's speech; his decision to make the announcement before the strike price had been agreed with EDF. Of course, this is likely to feed speculation that the project will be even more expensive than first predicted, but it also reminds us of the fact that we are almost wholly in the hands of foreign companies as we attempt to dramatically transform our means of producing power. In a wonderful article, James Meek describes the irony of the Thatcher government of the 1980s selling off large swathes of our energy grid, under the auspices of small state, market liberalisation, only to have these assets bought by foreign, often state-owned corporations. As well as making British energy subject to the decisions of German and French ministers, privatisation also had the effect of disposing of any industry expertise that Britain once possessed. When the Central Generating Electricity Board was broken up and sold off, with it went Britain's capacity to design and build its own nuclear power stations. One can't help but wonder how much better placed we might be as a nation to respond to the challenge of climate change had we been able to keep this expertise. Is it not also a little chastening to Osborne & Co that the past actions of his party have led directly to a situation in which her majesty's ministers must negotiate with an arm of the French state over the future of British energy? I thought this lot weren't prepared to dance to the European tune.

Environmentalists need to stop apologising and change the debate

It is a constant source of irritation and exasperation that people can be indifferent to or unaware of the magnitude of the challenge presented by climate change, or the speed with which mankind should be acting to counteract increasing greenhouse gas emissions. A good way of painting a picture in your mind is to think about what life was like on earth when CO2 concentrations were at similar levels to what we have reached today. For example, based on current, business-as-usual projections CO2 concentrations would reach around 750ppm by the end of this century. It was 40 million years ago when the planet last housed such large amounts of carbon dioxide, and crocodiles happily basked near the north pole. The scale of that kind of change is just mind-blowing

The really scary bit is to think about the rapidity with which our climate is changing. Deniers always point to climate change as a normal and natural process, which is true, but they fail to note the speed with which such change usually occurs and the speed with which humans are causing it to occur now. We are essentially talking about cramming something that should take place over thousands and millions of years into the space of a few generations. The new souped up version of the 'hockey-stick' graph provides a concise demonstration of this point. Moreover, when rapid climate change has happened in the past, courtesy of, say, huge volcanic eruptions, it is always accompanied by huge loss of life and extinctions.

Considering all this, I find it rather galling when I am accused of being an 'alarmist,' particularly as 'alarmist,' in this context, seems to refer to someone who is alarmed about a pretty alarming situation. It's like someone walking in when your house is on fire and asking what all the fuss is about.

We have every right to be alarmed, even more so given the failure of our politicians to make meaningful steps towards limiting emissions, and we should not be afraid to say so. The size of the task at hand always meant that any solution was going to be a bumpy ride, and we should not shy away from this. You don't just reconfigure a world economy without expecting some serious impacts on social and political life. Just as the first industrial revolution led to enormous changes in people's everyday lives, we cannot simply assume that our existing political and economic systems will be capable of meeting the demands of what amounts to a new economic era.

When it comes to money, environmentalists are often bashful about the costs associated with the transition to a green economy. However, when stacked up against the potential costs of failing to act, the case for splurging now starts to look pretty good. Yes, transforming our energy grid will be expensive, yes we may have to rethink our approach to growth and consumption, and yes the economy may be subject to short-term difficulties if we get serious about the true price of carbon. Don't be afraid to say it. The alternative is much worse. Of course, we want to find the most cost-effective way of reducing our impact on the environment, but that cannot and should not include failure to act, even if that action may carry some economic consequences.

It's all very well complaining that none of what I'm saying is pragmatic - the thought of a politician standing up and offering up environmental protection before growth as an idea is patently absurd - but unfortunately physics are not beholden to the politics of pragmatism. Whilst we engage in short-term party political wrangling we sign away the livelihoods of future generations. We can't keep on taking baby steps when we require great leaps forward, and we can't keep settling for compromise when nature will offer us none. All those who care about protecting future generations need to stop apologising and face up to the fight we are in.

What the frack?

I've generally tried to avoid involving myself in the fracking debate, particularly as questions about the future of this fledgling industry demanded a level of foresight that was entirely incompatible with my knowledge or the government's confusing and divided approach to energy policy. However, following publication of the 'once in a generation' energy bill, and the decision to lift restrictions on exploratory fracking, it would appear as if the way has been cleared for natural gas companies to invest and for me to venture an opinion. Many environmental campaigners have been dismayed by this apparent endorsement of Osborne's 'dash for gas,' but has the treasury really achieved the victory it wanted? From what I can see, there are still a couple of stumbling blocks before fracking can make a meaningful contribution to our energy mix.

Please note before I make any further comments that I'm not trying to deal with the ethical question of whether or not we should encourage fracking as something positive, or indeed whether it would even be a useful means of lowering energy prices or lowering emissions, I simply wish to highlight a few apparent inconsistencies at the heart of government policy. 

Unlike governments, which can plan in five-year election cycles, energy companies have to think in terms of decades-long investment projects, each of which can consume several billions of pounds. The upfront costs are often so large that it can be many years before a company can even think of turning a profit. As a result, before such important strategic decisions can be made, investors will want assurances that energy policy will not be radically altered by political whim or electoral upheaval. When we examine the framework laid down by the energy bill, these assurances are simply not in place.

For example, the lack of a 2030 decarbonisation target was acknowledged as a victory for Osborne and the fracking lobby, but the resulting compromise - a delay in the decision until 2015 - is hardly an outright win. In May of that year we can look forward to a general election. Given current polling, and Ed Milliband's vow to impose a 2030 target if Labour are elected, no company can be confident that the rules of the game will not be radically altered in three years time.

Moreover, the imposition of a decarbonisation target would pretty much make the use of carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology a requirement of all gas-fired power plants in the future. The problem is that not a single demonstration plant of this kind exists anywhere, in the world. This is not to suggest that CCS is a pipe-dream, just that it is extremely far from being rolled out on a commercial scale. The government is providing some funding as part of the new energy package, but not enough progress has been made, I would venture, to assuage the fears of investors who, quite understandably, don't want to deal with this extra expense themselves. 

I'd be interested to know the opinions of those who support fracking assiduously, but as the renewables industry can attest, an unclear policy pipeline is the last thing that investors in the energy business are looking for. In this bill, it is hard to see how the gas industry can look any further than the next three years. Given that a power plant has a lifespan of around forty years, decisions taken now could have very costly consequnces.

My thoughts on Owen Paterson

"From my own direct constituency experience I don’t personally think that inland wind farms are effective at reducing carbon. I don’t even think they are effective at producing energy."

These words were recently uttered by new Defra head Owen Paterson in an interview with Farmers Weekly. Rather gratifyingly, the interview occurred on the same day that the UK generated 4.1GW of wind power, the largest quantity ever achieved in this country and enough to power more than 3 million homes. The timing was also fortunate because only a matter of weeks previously the Institute for Public Policy Research published a report demonstrating that wind farms were effective at reducing carbon, and were also effective at producing energy. It could be argued that Paterson was, therefore, talking out of his bottom.

A quick look over his credentials demonstrates rather determined opposition to wind power, and also gives the impression that Paterson is not really the type of forward-thinking, game-changing environmental minister needed at a time of deep crisis. He seems to be cut more from the nimbyish, pastoral cloth that yearns for a picture postcard, pre-industrialised Britain, whilst simultaneously encouraging free-market solutions to environmental problems. Paterson has mentioned his love of trees, and apparently once owned two badgers, but he bemoans subsidies for the renewables sector, and has supported his constituents in protests against wind farms, as well as voting against the hunting ban. His profile seems to be that of a classic social Conservative combined with an economic Liberal: often a dangerous mix when it comes to environmental policy.

I don't believe that Paterson is a climate change sceptic, but it seems pretty clear that green groups and the already nervous renewables sector should be concerned by his appointment. Whilst top amongst those who will be gratified by the move is George Osbourne. After surely playing a role in Caroline Spelman's sacking, the treasury will expect Paterson to be a much more pliable figure than his predecessor. Although it's really too early to jump to conclusions, my hunch is that environmental concerns will be forced even further down the government's agenda after this appointment.

We need a more holistic approach to food culture

A recent scientific study has caused some alarm after it demonstrated, shock horror, that organic produce was likely no better for you than eating food produced by more conventional means. For some time now, certain eccentric corners of the green movement have warned of the apparent dangers of ingesting low levels of pesticides used to cultivate much of our supermarket produce, and praise organic food as a healthier alternative. The empirical ground for this claim was always flimsy, and it would appear that this line of reasoning has been dealt another blow. Knowing the dogmatic nature of many beholden to this view, I unfortunately don't see them changing tack anytime soon.

This is something of a pity as there are other more important, and more scientifically sound, reasons to support organic farming. What the furore over this recent study has revealed is that we often think about food production in ways that are much too narrow or simplistic. If we want to support organic farming, we need to question our assumptions about what organic farming is, how it differs from conventional farming, and what the benefits of choosing organic really are. My contribution to this question would be to suggest that the true value of organic food lies not in its flavour or its supposed health benefits, but in its contribution to limiting greenhouse gas emissions. Again, however, it would be a mistake to base our choices on this assumption alone - it's not as simple as organic = good and conventional = bad. I think we can best demonstrate the complexity of the issue by looking at a few specific examples.

Let's take French beans. It might seem self-evident that if we buy French beans grown in the UK, rather than beans imported from Nigeria, we would be doing the environment a favour. Things aren't that simple, though. If it turns out that the beans we bought in the UK, though local, were grown using mechanised labour and high levels of pesticides, the emissions associated with their production actually outweigh the emissions produced by the transportation of the beans from Nigeria. Provided the Nigerian beans were, as is likely, grown using more organic methods like hand-picking, it turns out they are the more sustainable product.

Another example: British tomatoes are often a good choice of sustainable produce when bought in the warmest summer months. However, if we buy British tomatoes towards the end of the season, or out of season, they are often grown using energy-intensive heated polytunnels or greenhouses. If we were to instead purchase tomatoes that had been grown in the warmer Spanish climate, we would actually be saving carbon emissions comparatively.

Aware of complications like these, the Soil Association decided to continue awarding organic status to food that had been transported by air, provided it met a certain criteria of cultivation. This decision was made in spite of the emissions associated with transportation of food to the UK, and recognised that looking at 'food miles' alone does not always give us the full picture. Whilst air-freighting remains a contentious issue, the Soil Association did at least try to recognise the complexity of establishing what is or is not organic or environmentally sustainable produce. What they demonstrated is that you can't simply focus on one aspect of food production, like transportation. Just as important as where our food comes from, is the question of how it is produced.

The difficulties do not stop there. Let me give you a final example. Chickpeas, as I'm sure you know, tend to come either raw and packaged in bags, or pre-cooked in tins. On the face of it, one might quite logically assume that purchasing the raw chickpeas was the more sustainable option. After all they are simply picked then dried in the sun before packaging. In this instance, it is the way the two products are cooked that causes the discrepancy. Raw chickpeas will be taken home and cooked in reasonably small quantities as needed, which is a relatively carbon-intensive process depending on your cooking method. This contrasts sharply with the tinned chickpeas which have also been cooked but in far greater quantities. The industrialised cooking of the tinned chickpeas actually makes them the more sustainable product.

Hopefully these examples will make you appreciate some of the challenges facing the conscientious consumer. Trying to find the most environmentally friendly produce is difficult enough when we consider individual products in isolation. The problem becomes magnified when you come to pre-cooked meals, for example, which contain many different individual ingredients. We can't, even at our most self-righteous, expect people to be able to make informed decisions about everything they buy. Quite simply they don't have the time, the information, or often the inclination.

The answer from many quarters has been to establish labelling systems for supermarket food, and I'm sure you will have noticed dozens of labels attached to a variety of produce. What you might not necessarily be aware of is the criteria that these organisations apply to the product you purchase. Red Tractor, for example, characterises its label as one that guarantees high standards of animal welfare. It has, however, been beset by accusations that many of the farms working with the organisation are in fact riddled with animal cruelty. It is only by knowing the values that your label represents that you can be sure that it meets the criteria you expect.

This leaves us in a bit of a quandary. In the same way as we can't legitimately expect people to research every product they buy, we can't also expect them to thoroughly research the evaluative methods employed by the organisations that label the produce in the first place. Short of labelling the labelers, what can be done? My answer to this question would be to suggest that without government intervention, most likely very little will change. Labels will remain confusing, companies will continue to place profits and customers above the demands of the planet and our food system will become ever more unsustainable. The sad but also completely understandable fact is that a great many people simply do not think about these issues, and changing the attitude of a nation towards food is something that takes an awful long time. Progress has doubtless been made, but progress is what it remains.

To achieve definite success, national or European government involvement is essential. In the same way as the EU has sought to provide minimum standards of animal welfare, by banning battery caging for hens and sow-stalls for pigs, so we must also look to provide minimum environmental standards across all food crops. A joint consultation between government, the public, and industry needs to take place to understand how far any change in our current model would impact upon food prices for both consumer and producer. But we should not forget that the planet has been made to bear the cost of our unsustainable food system for too long, and now, with time pressing, we should act to try and change it.

Adaptation and the myth of a technological saviour

Sorry for the rather long absence. My mind has been more than a little preoccupied, but I will now be returning to the blogging like a starved hyena to rotting flesh. Hopefully you'll forgive the delay, as well as that terrible simile.

Technology has been on my mind recently, particularly in relation to the increasingly voluble argument that adaptation is key to our battle against climate change. Now, perhaps contrary to what I said in a post some time back, adaptation is a necessary consequence of changes which we have already unleashed in the earth's climate. Whether we like it or not, we are going to have to adapt to an extent. What I want to emphasise now is that whilst this is true, it in no way provides an alternative to the need to try to mitigate climate change by limiting our carbon emissions.

It was recently revealed that ice in the Arctic had melted to unprecedented levels with time still remaining of summer for it to shrink even further. On the same day, the most prominent story around was Tim Yeo's insistence that what we need to get out of our economic mess is to build another runway at Heathrow. I wasn't the only one amazed by this as George Monbiot went on a highly entertaining rant on twitter culminating in attacks on Libertarians. Quite why he bothers trying to reason with Libertarians is anybodies guess. His point, though, is that we seem to have some sort of collective cognitive dissonance when it comes to climate change. On a day when the worst excesses of fossil-fuel driven capitalism were laid bare for all to see, we were fixated on the possibility of pumping yet more CO2 into the atmosphere.

As chair of the Energy and Climate Change Select Committee, you might have thought that Yeo might be aware that planes tend to produce rather a lot of harmful emissions but he seemed convinced that regulations put in place by the European emissions trading scheme (ETS) would nullify any potential increase in CO2. As James Murray of Business Green points out, however, Yeo's argument is flawed both because the ETS is currently ineffective due to an unrealistically low carbon price, and because if the carbon price was at the correct level an increase in flights would necessarily lead to huge hikes in ticket prices. Moreover, it rests on the notion that other sectors will significantly lower their own carbon emissions, something that has been rather sorely lacking to date.

This brings me to the point about technology. Louise Mensch, the now redundant Tory MP and self-promoter extraordinaire, chimed in by suggesting that the real way to pursue environmental goals was not by changing 'human behaviour' (which apparently involves flying to Alicante) but by investing our hopes in technology. The problem with this position is that it not only ignores the magnitude of the task we face, but also because it places faith in a highly uncertain solution.

Whilst it is plausible that technological development might happen to the extent that we might reverse some of the damage caused by emissions, or adapt sufficiently to handle large temperature increases, it really is putting a lot of eggs in one basket. What happens exactly if such a technology does not present itself? Don't worry, they say, human ingenuity is such that we will overcome this challenge. As a plan that doesn't exactly fill me with confidence.

The problem is amplified by the fact that many of those that campaign most vociferously for adaptation, rather than mitigation, are those least in favour of government investment in low carbon industry. Mitigation and adaptation are united in the sense that it is investment in mitigation technologies that will give us the tools to adapt to necessary changes. Government funding for research and development of renewable energy, for example, may help to create exactly the technologies to help extract us from our predicament. But those who most loudly exult man's creative capacity are also those most vehemently opposed to subsidies for the renewable sector. These people are in a position in which they claim technology to be our saviour, whilst simultaneously refusing the means by which such a technology might be born. This is why I've come to the conclusion that those promoting adaptation alone are basically promoting another form of denial.