Interdisciplinary Seminar On Environmental Issues

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Interdisciplinary Seminar On Environmental Issues

• Profs. Urs Luterbacher and
• Dr. Ellen Wiegandt

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What Are Environmental Problems?

• Man made environmental problems originate from
  the overuse of natural resources Open Access
  Problem
• Why are environmental problems complex?
• They create distortions and inequalities
• These might lead to conflicts

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Scope of the problems

• At the International level they appear in 3 ways
  
• Transboundary Bilateral
• Transboundary Regional
• Global

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Reasons to Study Environmental Problems at The
International Level

• Transboundary and Global Nature of Environmental
  Problems
• Environmentally Related Conflicts
• Existence of a Global Environmental Governance
  International Environmental Accords

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Environment-Society Issues

• Level of resource use
• Population size
• Even with constant level of use, attain limits as
  population increases

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Focus on Society-Environment Interactions

• What behavioral and institutional factors mediate
  relations with natural system?
• What features create vulnerability or resistance
  to certain natural events or processes?
• What mechanisms are available to different types
  of society to adapt or mitigate change.

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Overview of Syllabus

• October 2 Introduction to Environment and
  Society Interactions A Problem of Managing Risks
  and Uncertainties
• October 9 The Physical System Guest Lecturer
  Professor Martin Beniston, University of Geneva

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Syllabus

• October 16 Property Rights Theories and the
  Tragedy of the Commons Debate
• October 23 Efficiency and the Environment
• October 30 Exhaustible, Renewable and
  Sustainable Resources

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Syllabus

• November 6 Population and Migration
• November 13 Trade and Environment Production
  and Processing Methods, Guest Lecturer Prof.
  Joost Pauwelyn (HEI)

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Syllabus

• November 27 International Cooperation and
  Conflict
• December 4 International Environmental
  Negotiations
• December 11 The Kyoto Protocol
• December 18 Exam

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General Issue Environmental Influences and Human
Control

• Immediate environmental influences high in past
  very high risks for humans, examples of collapse
• Less important with technological progress
  cushioning of risks
• Some troubling aspects remain mastering Climate
  change

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Environment and Risk The Problem of Risk
Assessment
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Nature always presented risks to mankind and to
all life

• Living beings have adapted to those by developing
  survival strategies
• These are not conscious but have been acquired in
  an evolutionary way
• Human beings have done the same over the ages
  except that conscious strategies have replaced
  unconscious ones
• What is new is that humans can modify
  significantly and quickly their environment
• This is not new

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Environment and Society. A Critical Issue for our
Future?

• At issue is relation between natural processes
  and human populations
• To what extent does human agency matter?
• If human choices affect natural processes, can we
  identify some problems crucial enough to address
  now?
• How can cooperation about environmental issues be
  organized?

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General Issue Environmental Influences and Human
Control

• Immediate environmental influences high in past
  very high risks for humans, examples of collapse
• Less important with technological progress
  cushioning and spreading of risks but trade-off
  with information becoming more difficult to
  assess
• Therefore some troubling aspects remain
  mastering Climate change

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The Assessment of Environmental Risks

• The studies of society collapse show the
  importance of knowing the environment in order to
  assess the risks it presents knowledge of two
  aspects are important 1) The evolutionary
  dynamics of the crucial resource 2) The initial
  resource stock (ex. climate change)
• It also shows the importance of social responses
  to the problems involved in terms of a) control
  of access b) charging for use in proportion
• 3 Types of risk management have therefore to be
  considered

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Risk management types

• 1. Risks due to nature
• 2. Risks due to the consequences of uncoordinated
  and non-cooperative human activities, present and
  future
• 3. Risks due to problems of coordination and
  cooperation of social institutions present and
  future

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Risks due to nature can be assessed in terms of
expected utility

• 2 elements uncertainty measure p (probability)
  of an outcome and its subjective value or utility
  U
• P(o)U(o)
• This formulation suggests a cost benefit
  analysis. Suppose there are only 2 outcomes, o1
  and o2 Total value is
• P(o1) U(o1) (1 P) U(o2)
• Present value P(o1) U(o1) (1 P) U(o2)/r
  where r is a discount rate (interest rate)

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Risk analysis

• Suppose we have several other outcomes resulting
  from different plans of action

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Risk analysis
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Risk analysis continued
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Solution of the minimization of expected losses
Min L(a) Min (aij p aij (1 p))

• Expected losses of a1 are inferior to all
  others 3400 instead of 4000 and 3800
• This conclusion holds only if one cannot update
  information

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Cost Benefit Analysis

• Previously take the SPiUj which is largest (or
  smallest if the Us represent costs)
• Climate change Choose where Marginal Damage of
  CC Marginal Cost of Abatement

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Risks from Nature, Risks from Society

• As seen from the Stephens text in Cashdan, risk
  analysis can help us understand animal behavior
  and thus raise our knowledge about nature
• This is necessary for estimating stocks of
  natural resources and their evolution
• Risks from Society involve the positive or
  negative influences (externalities) people can
  exert on each other Strategies interfere with
  each other

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Risk, uncertainty, sustainability Major issues

• Stock and flow of resources
• Management of what we do know to assure optimal
  use
• Absence of cooperation can lead to unsustainable
  use
• Introduction of resiliency to confront our lack
  of information that could lead to exposure to
  natural hazards or to problems of exhaustion of
  critical resources

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The debate

• We are depleting resources at rate that will lead
  to their exhaustion societal collapse
• or
• Market or other institutions will signal
  scarcity, especially through price and either
  consumption will decrease or new technological
  solution will emerge

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An illustration Easter Island

• Upon its discovery by Westerners in 1722, was
  poor and had smaller population than vestiges
  indicated
• Stone Age culture created monumental statues but
  had ceased to do so by time of European discovery
• Why did system collapse?

Reference Jared Diamond (2005) Collapse, New
York Viking Press
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Easter Island
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Population

• Archaeological evidence suggests settlement by
  small group of Polynesians around 400 AD, but
  perhaps as late as 900 AD
• Population grew rapidly and probably peaked at
  about 7,000-10.000 around 1400-1500 AD
• By arrival of first Europeans in 1722, population
  stood at around 3,000

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Easter Island statues
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Production system

• Farming sweet potatoes, yams, taro, bananas,
  sugar cane
• Chicken as only domestic animal
• Fish and shellfish but smaller contribution to
  diet than elsewhere in Polynesia because of
  absence of coral reef
• Evidence of intensification of production

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Social organization

• Hierarchical chiefdom
• Evidence from very different house types
• Oral tradition talks about clans and lineages who
  had demarcated territories but nevertheless
  integrated as transport of statues and raw
  materials from one part of island to another
  indicate

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Evidence of decline

• Labor no longer organized to undertake big
  projects like statue carving and their movement
  across the island
• Island exchange and cooperation declined
• No major ceremonial relations
• Chiefs lost power, especially their access to
  surplus production Skeletal evidence of conflict,
  warfare and even cannibalism

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Why decline?

• Deforestation severe already by 1400
• Crucial dependence on palm tree
• Palm nut provided food
• Fronds for thatch roofs, baskets, mats, boat
  sails
• Trunks for transport and raising of statues
• But, this palm tree variety was very slow
  growing 40-60 years. This is beyond a
  generation
• If population overshoots, and overuses resources
  the recuperation time of palm is too long and
  population will crash

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Consequences of deforestation

• Soil erosion negative effects on agriculture
• Lack of wood for canoes, then affects fishing
  ability

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Absence of effective response

• Institutional failure based on inability to learn
  from environment in sufficient time
• Lack of knowledge had not put in place controls
  over rate of use and over population