WWF

1
WWF

• A Critique of The Cato Institutes Critique of
• The World Wildlife Funds Living Planet 2002
  Report

2
Background (General)

• The July 9, 2002 release of the World Wildlife
  Funds third Living Planet report - which
  asserts that the human race is currently
  consuming resources at a rate 20 percent greater
  than the Earths ability to regenerate -
  coincided unsurprisingly with the simultaneous
  release of two counter-dispatches by the Cato
  Institute. In conjunction with an additional
  counter-argument published in the Cato
  Institutes August 26 edition of Policy
  Analysis, these two dispatches serve as a fairly
  accurate example of Conservative/Libertarian
  criticisms of the environmentalist movement or at
  least as examples prominent enough to merit
  scrutiny.
• The August 26 piece, written by Jerry Taylor,
  draws heavily on evidence presented by Patrick J.
  Michaels, a professor of meteorology whom William
  K. Stevens of the New York Times regards as
  arguably one of the two most persistent and
  visible scientists skeptical of climate
  change.1 The other two dispatches, written by
  Reason magazines science correspondent Ronald
  Bailey and the late anti-Malthusian
  environmentalist critic Julian L. Simon, though
  both originally published prior to the WWFs
  Living Planet report are still relevant because
  of the prominence of their critique within policy
  circles advocating free markets and limited
  government.
• 1 William K. Stevens, The Change in the
  Weather People, Weather and the Science of
  Climate (New York 1999) 245.

3
Social Context

• The Living Planet report was consciously
  released less than 50 days prior to the Aug. 26
  Sept. 2 World Summit on Sustainable Development
  in Johannesburg. 1
• Jerry Taylors article in Policy Analysis was
  released exactly on August 26.
• Quick Aside Ive selected some key quotes from
  the studies Im citing for the slides but Ill
  also be summarizing a lot of things both on and
  off the slides so dont be confused if Im not
  like reading everything Ive written exactly how
  Ive written it or whatever.

• 1 Robert Evans, World seen facing slump as
  natural resources run out, Reuters, July 10,
  2002.

4
Living Planet 2002 - Summary

• The Living Planet report is divided into two
  distinct parts.
• The first is the Living Planet Index. It is
  calculated by measuring population data from 1970
  to 1995 to 2000 for three abstracted categories
  of wildlife - forest, freshwater, and marine
  species. The data used for the Index was gathered
  by the United Nations Environment Programme and
  the World Conservation Monitoring Centre
  (UNEP-WCMC).
• The Living Planet Index is primarily an indicator
  of ecosystem health as a function of species
  decline and as such will not be focused on in
  depth here as it does not pertain directly to the
  global warming debate.
• The second part of the report (the WWFs
  assessment of humanitys Ecological Footprint)
  hopes to measure how much of the Earths
  biologically productive land inhabited in one
  year by the global population, individual
  nations, and an average citizen of one of those
  nations. As is clearly visible by the upcoming
  graph, the portion of humanitys ecological
  footprint inhabited due to energy needs is very
  significant.

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More on the Ecological Footprint

• If the Energy Footprint were removed, the WWFs
  projected 20 overshoot would hypothetically no
  longer exist.
• The footprint is measured in Global Hectares a
  measurement defined by the WWF as one hectare of
  biologically productive space with world average
  productivity.
• There are currently 11.4 billion hectares of
  biologically productive land total - one quarter
  of the planets surface. Of these 11.4 billion
  hectares
• 2.0 is ocean
• 1.5 is cropland
• 3.5 is grazing land
• 3.8 is forest cover
• 0.3 is inland water
• 0.3 is built up land. (Land used for highways,
  cities, factories, Mac Donalds or whatever)
• The global average takes all of these land types
  of varying productivities as reduces them to
  uniform unit of productivity so that comparison
  between varying nations is possible. A hectare is
  equivalent to 2.471 acres (an acre 43,560
  ft2).

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Ecological Footprint International Foot Size (in
Global Hectares per person)

• Medium violet red 5.0 and above
• Light Coral 3.0 5.0
• Goldenrod 1.5-3.0

• Olive 1.0-1.5
• Gold Chartreuse less than 1.0
• Cream insufficient data

8
Jerry Taylor

• Sustainable Development A Dubious Solution in
  Search of a Problem, Policy Analysis, August 26,
  2002.

• He has been published in the Washington Post, Los
  Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal and USA Today.
• He is a frequent television and radio guest and
  is a regular commentator on CNN, NPR, and the
  BBC.

• Taylor takes several issues with the WWFs
  formulation of the Ecological Footprint,
  primarily the amount of Global Hectares claimed
  for human energy production.

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Energy Footprint International Foot Size (in
Global Hectares per person)

• Medium violet red 5.0 and above
• Light Coral 3.0 5.0
• Goldenrod 1.5-3.0

• Olive 1.0-1.5
• Gold Chartreuse less than 1.0
• Cream insufficient data

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• The World Wildlife Fund didnt simply calculate
  how much land was being used to produce oil, gas,
  and coal (which is, in fact, trivial). The
  calculated how much forestland his emphasis is
  necessary to absorb the carbon dioxide generated
  by fossil fuel consumption. By only the wildest
  stretch of the imagination can one discern a
  human footprint in wild and uninhabited forests
  sucking up carbon dioxide (which, after all, is
  plant food).
• Taylor goes on to say that there is not and has
  never been any dispute as to whether or not
  greenhouse gases are building up in the
  atmosphere.  

Taylors Argument in Brief
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Taylors argument (Cont.)

• The question of whether the buildup of green
  house gases in the atmosphere is really
  sustainable is really a question about the
  science of global climate change ... If one
  dismisses the argument that a human footprint
  is left in the ecosystem by carbon sequestration,
  the ... study finds no ecological overshoot at
  all.
• Its not entirely clear that global warming will
  prove to be the major event advertised in the
  media.
•  
• warming over the past 100 years has been
  moderate (about a degree Fahrenheit) and far less
  than the computer models suggest should have
  occurred by now. 
• Atmospheric physics confirms that warming will
  occur in a linear fashion. Therefore we can
  extrapolate that additional warming by 1.17 to
  1.35 degrees Fahrenheit by 2050, which if we use
  the UNs International Panel on Climate Change as
  a departure results in a rather modest 3.0 to
  5.3 inch rise in sea level.

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Notes on Taylors source material

• Most of Taylors evidence comes from a book by
  Patrick J. Michaels and Robert Balling called
  The Satanic Gases.
• In 1998 Michaels testified before congress that
  an accurate increase in global temperature rise
  would be one degree Celsius over the next
  century.
• What is both surprising and disturbing about
  these claims is that, while they are not outside
  of the projected scale of possibilities for
  climate change outcomes (they, in fact, correlate
  with the IPCCs 1995 predictions for a best
  case/least impact scenario), they whole heartedly
  discount the potential worst case scenarios.1
  In other words, these statistics dont
  adequately take into account the IPCCs or NASAs
  scientifically agreed upon range of potential
  climate change outcomes so the conclusions drawn
  from them are not terribly grounded.

1 William K. Stevens, The Change in the
Weather People, Weather and the Science of
Climate (New York 1999) 251-2. Recent NASA
estimates with climate models capable of
predicting the past 50 years of climate change
accurately have forecast a 1.8-3.6 Fahrenheit
increase over the next fifty years if things are
business as usual. The rise will be something
the earth hasnt seen for the past several
hundred thousand years. http//www.gsfc.nasa.gov/
topstory/20020820climate50.html
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Additional Notes

• In reference to the rest of the Ecological
  footprint, Taylor states that the amount of the
  Earths surface used for growing crops, grazing
  animals, harvesting timber, fishing, and
  supporting various human infrastructure has grown
  only slightly over the past 40 years (about 35
  of the planets surface, in fact, which is pretty
  remarkable given that global population exploded
  over that period as did the size of the global
  economy and the demand for various resources)
•  Whats really being said here?
• If we accept WWF estimates for biologically
  productive global hectares, as Taylor does, and
  we construe the planets surface to mean the
  surface of the whole planet, then 35 is not an
  insignificant number. Its 4.56 hectares more
  biologically productive land than the 11.4
  hectares the Earth has available. 11.4 hectares
  is 25 of the Earths surface

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The Law of Increasing Returns Natural
Resources Arent Finite

• Both papers argue that we will not run out of
  resources because resources are subjective
  (firewood was once a more valuable natural
  resource than oil we have switched from an
  agrarian to an industrial economy to an
  informational economy, the corporeal finiteness
  of copper lets say doesnt equal an economic
  finiteness for copper, etc.) Baileys
  Increasing Returns piece is the longer and more
  interesting of the two so I will address it more
  directly.

15
Baileys Argument as a counter to Prof. Aronsons

• Yet some committed Malthusians object that
  economist Paul Romer and others who hold out
  that economic growth is potentially limitless not
  only violate the law of diminishing returns but
  transgress an even more fundamental physical law
  the second law of thermodynamics ... the solution
  to the puzzle of life and of a growing economy is
  that the earth is not a closed system--the energy
  that drives it comes principally from the sun.
• The Malthusian argument may sound familiar here,
  as it echoes Dr. Aronsons criticique of
  mainstream economics, presented to us last month.
  While Baileys rebuttal of that argument
  thankfully includes acknowledgement of the suns
  role as our main energy provider, it fails to
  incorporate much else about the real world
  outside economic abstractions.
• An example of another objection to those
  proposing that economic growth is potentially
  limitless can be found in Herman Dalys
  ascertion that once the global economy is seen as
  it is, a subsystem of the planets larger
  ecosystem, it becomes ceases to function under
  the principles of macro economics and becomes
  subject to micro economic theories of optimal
  size.

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Classic Macro
Bailey is arguing that this isnt a closed system
because energy is coming in from the sun. Former
World Bank Economist Herman Daly would argue that
while Baileys argument is true is doesnt go
nearly far enough.
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Empty world
Daly argues that - once it is accepted that the
global economy is a subsystem that has been
growing within the global ecosystem the economy
becomes subject to microeconomic problems such as
optimal size. 1  

1 Herman Daly, Beyond Growth The Economics of
Sustainable Development (Boston 1996) 45-70.
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Full World
Once the macroeconomy is seen as an open
subsystem, rather than an isolated system (the
environment) cannot be avoided. The obvious
question is, How big should the subsystem be
relative to the overall system?