Planetary Health Index - a better way to measure progress

 "You get what you measure".  This old business aphorism is an essential truism.  Whether your goal is personal, organizational or national, that which you measure regularly will get your focus.  

Too often, we measure the wrong things.   People measure their weight, which is a poor indicator of health. Corporations are often focused on the quarterly results, which could be detrimental to the overall health of the company. 

 As societies, we obsess over gross domestic product (GDP), which is a largely arbitrary figure, consisting of the total goods and services produced in a country during a given time period.  When the media talks about the economy, they're talking about GDP.  If the economy is doing "well", GDP is growing.  If a country is in recession, GDP is shrinking.  Since the economy is a matter covered by general mainstream media and obsessed over by business media, it's foremost in everyone's mind.  It also means that if a government is judged to have managed the economy poorly, the chances of being elected are minimal.  A large GDP also provides a country with more geopolitical clout.  So, governments obsess over the GDP, elevating its importance over almost everything else.

What's wrong with that?  After all, GDP is a measure of how well off we are, right?  Well, it's not a very good one.  GDP is an aggregate measure, meaning that if some people are extremely wealthy, it says little about the experience of most people.  It counts bad things as well as good so if there's a plane crash and a lot of money is spent on cleanup, lawsuits and funerals, that's part of the GDP.  It only counts what you pay for.  If you pay for someone to cut your lawn, fix your car, look after your kids or paint your house, you're "helping" the economy by increasing the GDP.  Most worrying, though, is that GDP says nothing about the degradation of our planet, the ultimate resource on which we all rely for life itself.  When you remove plant life that was producing oxygen, when you kill microorganisms that are the basis of life, when you pollute the air and water, when you degrade the soil, when you destroy biodiversity that sustains the web of life, it takes a long time for that to be noticed in the form of GDP.  And by time it does, it's too late.  It's not exaggeration to say that our single minded pursuit of GDP is jeopardizing the ability of the planet to sustain life.

We need a new measure, one that reflects the ability of the planet to sustain life.  It needs to be an aggregate measure, including biodiversity, climate stability, air pollution, water pollution soil health and ocean health.  We could call it the planetary health index.  It needs to be top of mind for everyone, everywhere.  Free browsers should come with bookmarks to it.  News aggregators like Google need to include links to it.  Social media sites need to promote it.  Public broadcasters should host shows about it.

This needs to trump the GDP as the top priority of governments.

Navigating Climate Change for Lay People

I'm not a scientist.  My credentials consist of a couple of entry-level university courses, reading of popular science literature such as Scientific American and deep curiosity and concern for the world.  Still, I'm not naturally inclined to believe or do something just because the experts told me so.  I try to balance a healthy skepticism with respect due to scientists who've devoted their careers to inquiry in specialized fields.

So, the topic of climate change has produced a serious quandary for me.  It covers such a huge area of topics that I found it almost impossible for me a as a lay person to completely understand.  Although the bulk of the scientific community has largely rallied behind the science, there is an active community of detractors anchored by a small number of contrarian scientists.  How many are genuine and how many are part of a funded proponents of the fossil fuel industry is a matter of speculation and debate.

The broad strokes of climate change science are simple enough.  The earth's climate is produced by an interaction of heat with the atmosphere, water, and land.  There is a balance between the energy received from the sun's rays and energy radiated off into space. An important part of that balance is the presence of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere such as water vapor, methane (CH4) and carbon dioxide (CO2).  Greenhouse gases absorb a portion of the spectrum of the sun's rays that would otherwise be radiated out into space and radiate the energy back to the earth in the form of infrared radiation.  Without the greenhouse effect, the earth would be too cold to support life as we know it. 

Since the beginning of the industrial revolution, human activity has significantly increased the amounts of 2 greenhouse gases in particular - CO2, which is produced by burning oil, coal and other fuels; and CH4, which is the main component of natural gas. Here's where the complexity comes in.  Although the effect on an annual basis of the additional CO2 and CH4 is slight, it's cumulative over time.  Scientists say that models and experience show that the increased energy over decades and centuries produces significant rises in temperature, affecting the  the biosphere and causing disruption to the conditions that support life which has adapted itself to specific circumstances.  Detractors argue a multitude of contradicting points of view including

1. The world isn't actually warming - perceived warming is due to measurement errors
2. The world is warming but it's not due to human activity
3. The warming exists but it's actually a net benefit
4. The warming exists but it's cheaper to live with it than avoid it

To make it even more complicated, there are numerous types of feedback, both positive and negative, that will affect the ultimate impact that the increased greenhouse gases have.  There are factors like the loss of the albedo effect (cooling due to reflection of energy from pale surfaces like ice) when ice melts, the increase in plant growth due to increased CO2 and the increase in methane when the permafrost melts, and the potential for massive loss of rain forest due to temperature change.

Unless you're a scientist with a significant amount of time invested in this, the chances of you drawing an informed opinion from the details are remote.  So, how do you move forward?  How do you make a decision when the evidence is so complicated, you aren't qualified to evaluate it?

 I've taken a 3-pronged approach to evaluating the problem of whether we should be actively reducing our GHG output:

1. Which side has the most credibility?
2. Which side presents arguments that are most consistent with observed results?
3. What are the relative risks and rewards of of each side?

Credibility
On one side of the debate you have the vast majority of the world's scientific community (no major scientific body disputes the science of climate change), most of the world's governments, and environmental groups.  On the other, you have a small number of contrarian scientists, the fossil fuel industry, right wing politicians and think tanks.  Each side has accused the other of distorting the issue to protect their respective financial interests.  There are persistent claims of industry-funded "astroturf" groups on one side and environmentalists being funded by liberal billionaires on the other.  To me it's difficult to equate the two.  The financial interest of the fossil fuel industry is clearly massively greater than that of climate scientists vying for grants.  If there were something improper about the way climate scientists arrived at their conclusions, the fossil fuel industry with its almost unlimited funds would surely have uncovered it.

Some claim that because the community of climate scientists is relatively small and they peer-review each other's work that group think and confirmation bias have tainted the results.  This is possible - it wouldn't be the first time that the scientific community have gone off in a false direction and shouted down contrarian views.

In my view, the scientific community has significantly greater credibility than the the fossil fuel industry and the few contrarian scientists.  The scientific community is fairly conservative and shies away from the most extreme (and speculative) scenarios that could come from climate change.  Whatever the financial rewards for scientists who publish on the risks of climate change, they pale in comparison to the trillions of dollars of revenue at stake for the fossil fuel industry if carbon intensive industries are curtailed.

Observed Results
To me, this isn't even close.  This chart clearly shows an upward trend in temperature.  All of the 20 hottest years on record have occurred since 1997.  1998 was an unusually hot year due to a a particularly strong el nino and it took several years afterwards for the warming to catch up.  There are still people who are falsely claiming that "warming stopped after 1998".  Other visible signs of warming include the loss of ice in the arctic, glacier loss and the accelerated melt in Greenland and parts of Antarctica.

Some will claim that the warming is due to some other reason besides GHGs (eg sunspots).  They've yet to provide convincing evidence to back that up.

Risk Analysis
It's impossible to be 100% certain of what will happen in the future.  Risk analysis is the practice of considering and adjusting for the effects of uncertainty on outcomes.  There are unlimited possibilities but for the purpose of this exercise, I'll consider 4 scenarios:

1. Climate science has correctly or conservatively determined the causes and effects of climate change; and we continue to increase GHGs
2. Climate science has correctly or conservatively determined the causes and effects of climate change; and we cut GHG's, trending to zero over 25 years.
3. Climate science is wrong about the causes of climate change or has dramatically overestimated the effects; and we continue to increase GHGs
4. Climate science is wrong about the causes of climate change or has dramatically overestimated the effects; and we cut GHGs, trending to zero over 25 years.

Scenario 1 is the disaster envisioned by many climate scientists and environmentalists.  The only benefit I can see is a delay in transition costs to cleaner energy.  The downsides are potentially vast: drought, mass starvation, mass human migration, ocean acidification, greater regions of hurricanes, areas of the world abandoned due to extreme heat and sea level rise. At the same time, fossil fuels will gradually grow scarcer and more expensive. If human migration, food shortages, and water scarcity become extreme, conflict and wars and virtually certain to follow.  Some areas in Canada, Russia and other northern countries may have somewhat enlarged agricultural zones but they will be more than offset by losses in other areas.  Many people seem to focus on extreme weather when contemplating the effects of climate change but I see that as just the tip of the iceberg.

Scenario 2 is scenario 1 but with greater costs due to transitioning energy and much less severe impacts. There are side effects to electrifying the energy system - cleaner air, water and soil.   A few years ago, it was common for people to claim that switching to renewable energy was akin to reverting to the stone age.  Now, however, solar and wind energy are the cheapest forms of new energy and electric vehicles are the fast growing sector of the auto market. Mark Jacobson, Professor of Engineering at Stanford University, has developed scenarios that show 100% renewable energy is not only feasible, but cheaper than continuing to develop fossil fuels.

In scenario 3, global warming either mysteriously abates or it turns out to have more positives than negatives.  It's very unlikely that a warming planet will have a net positive impact to the biosphere in the short term because plants and animals have spent thousands of years adapting to the climate they are in.  A drastic change over a short time frame is normally associated with extinction events.  Although, this scenario avoids the transition cost to cleaner energy, there are still downsides: continued increases in pollution, scarcity & cost of fossil fuels.

Scenario 4 is what fossil fuel companies and climate change deniers fear the most - we'll transition away from fossil fuels and it will be all for nothing.  Will it really, though?  The development and usage of fossil fuels is one of the most environmentally destructive things that people do.  Also, fossil fuels themselves are very unevenly distributed and this distribution has resulted in significant geopolitical strife over the past 100 years.  Even if it costs more in the short term, switching to renewable energy has environmental and geopolitical benefits that can't be measured in dollars.

In summary, I would say that from a risk/reward standpoint, reducing GHG's has greater potential rewards (a cleaner, lower conflict planet) and lesser potential downsides (transition costs vs the potential of societal collapse) than continuing to do what we have been doing.  The risk of continuing to increase GHG emissions is reckless.

Summary
The topic of climate change is incredibly complex, particularly for someone who's not a scientist.  Still, it's possible to logically analyze the options without detailed technical knowledge of the intricacies involved.

To me, it's an easy choice.  When I consider the subject from a standpoint of which side has credibility, which outcome is most aligned to observed results and when I look at potential scenarios, it's clear that the best path is to accelerate the transition to cleaner technologies, eliminate fossil fuels and end the risk practice of using the atmosphere as a dumping ground for GHGs.

But you use oil too!

Regularly, I find myself on Twitter or online fora debating with people who, for a variety of reasons, are deeply protective of the oil industry, particularly that of the Alberta tar sands.  Almost invariably, they will start to attack my lifestyle, claiming that I use oil to drive my car or heat my house.  When I point out that I drive very little and cycle to work, they tell me my cycling clothing and helmet are made of oil.  One even called out the use of oil in my bicycle tires.

So, I'm here to come clean.  I do use oil.  Although I drive little (~5,000 kilometers annually for a family of 3), my minivan burns gas.  Although my house is heated with hydroelectricity, the water heater is natural gas; because that's what was there when we bought the house. There is certainly oil in the synthetic materials used in my bicycle clothing and my shoes.  Although I make an effort to buy locally, lots of things I use have been brought to my home by oil burning ships, trucks and trains. I've become aware they add plastics to t-shirts.  I understand that some corporate sociopath decided to add microplastics to the liquid soap we use but it has since mercifully been banned.  So, that's it.  A full confession.  I must be a raving hypocrite, right? 

Well, not exactly.  I try to live my life in a way that minimizes my usage of oil because I understand that scientists say that burning fossil fuels is the leading cause of climate change; and climate change will threaten civilization itself.  So, I choose to cycle when I'd rather drive.  And I take vacations close to home when airfare is so cheap it can literally be cheaper to fly across the planet. My next car will be smaller, possibly electric if I can afford it.  And when my water heater dies, it will be replaced by an electric model, perhaps tankless.  I would love to have solar panels, if I could afford them.  And a heat pump.

However, any amount of personal choice and sacrifice is insignificant in a world of rampant oil use.  That's why the most important choice I make has nothing to do with my lifestyle.  I vote for the Green Party, the only Canadian political party that would make any meaningful moves to correct climate change.  I  support carbon taxes and higher individual taxes, if that's what it takes to save the planet.   I even advocate online, debating with people who seem to be afraid of a world without oil. 

Transition will be difficult but it can be done if the right changes are made and everyone participates.  And it won't cost near as much as opponents fear.  It isn't necessary to eliminate all oil but it is necessary to stop burning hydrocarbons for fuel.

Is Utopia Possible?

Recently, a Twitter acquaintance posted a link to a blog post with a rather nihilistic take on responses to climate change.  It essentially claimed that solutions from capitalists, socialists, communists, liberals, individualists, radicals, and Malthusians were all useless; implying we have to throw away all preexisting ideologies and start from scratch.

For such a pessimistic view on the world, the reference to Malthus was particularly ironic.  Of course, Thomas Malthus was the British economist who, in the period 1798-1830, proposed that expanding populations would quickly exhaust food supply.  Malthus wasn't wrong, exactly, he just couldn't predict technological changes that would increase food supply or reduced population growth as the middle class emerged and children stopped being economic assets.  No one can predict the future and the lesson we should take from Malthus is that no matter how bad things look now, they can turn around.  There is nothing to be gained from panicking in a fit of apocalyptic despair.

All of the different world views in the first paragraph have strengths as well as weaknesses.  It would be much more practical to accentuate the positive than to throw away everything.

Capitalism certainly has many sins to answer for but you can't deny the efficacy of small groups of independent entrepreneurs when it comes to generating ideas and launching concepts.

Socialism provides economic justice and ensures that all receive an opportunity to develop and grow as people wish.

Liberals bring a pragmatism and a passion for social justice.

Individuals can't change the world by themselves but nor will global solutions work unless individuals participate and make the necessary sacrifices.

Radicals are needed for their fresh thinking and fearlessness when it comes to challenging established norms.

As for Malthusians, Malthus was right.  Population can't grow forever.  The good news is that history shows most people choose to have smaller families; assuming children aren't economic assets and they have access to birth control.

Humans have evolved to the point where we are our own enemy.  Most of the pressing problems we face, from climate change to wars, were created by us.  As Einstein once said, "the significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them". If we are going to survive as a species (at least while we have only one planet), we're going to need to change the relationships with our world and with each other.

We need to stop viewing the planet as simply a resource, vast and relatively impervious to our actions.  We need to instead view it as a fragile web of interconnected systems.  There needs to be a system of global caps on the resources we consume, the emissions we give off and the damage we inflict.  An evidence-based scientific consensus should be developed and enforced.  Increases in average standard of living are only provided through technological advances that reduce the impact of goods and activities.  And the population needs to be stabilized.  GDP becomes a quaint, obsolete concept.

At the same time, we have to stop seeing each other as enemies, competitors, and rivals.  Instead, we are fellow travelers with a shared interest in peaceful coexistence.  Resources are shared equitably among the world's people and the products of research are freely available to all.  Quality healthcare and education are freely available to all.

How do we get there?  Honestly, I don't know.  I only know that we must find a way.  Or today's Malthus might be proven right.