IDST 1001H Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: International Inequality, International Development, Overconsumption
14 Jun 2018
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Lecture 8: Is it too late? Climate change, ecology, and sustainable development
Climate Change
• There has been a trend increase in global average temperatures since the 1970s
• Has been matched by rising atmospheric concentration of CO2
• China emits more carbon into the year than it ever has before
• There has been a rise in temperatures in polar regions of the planet (which keep the
planet cool)
• As temperatures rise, sea ice melts, which means more heat is retained than is
reflected
• Warmer seas evaporate and warmer air holds more water vapour which can be
released in energy and feeds into violent storms
• As polar regions warm, frozen ground thaws, which releases methane into the
atmosphere
• Sea levels rise due to ocean warming
• Reasons people deny climate change:
• Incompetent scholarship
• Biased research by people paid by energy industries
• A basic confusion between weather and climate
• Weather: variable, local phenomena which happens immediately
• Climate: regular expected change of temperature and precipitation
• A lack of agreement about humanity’s relationship with nature
• Fatalist: nature is capricious and is driving global changes in ways we
cannot affect
• Entrepreneurial expansionist: nature is robust and can take what we
throw at it
• Hierarchist: nature is robust, but only up to a point, where the
uncontrollable happens
• Communard: nature is inherently fragile and our actions have
consequences on it
• Major and Turner say these are sufficiently impossible to prove, these four myths give
through to a number of possible causes of climate change:
• Argument: world faces a problem of overpopulation, and is over the carrying
capacity
• Concept does not say how well-being is distributed, or of changes made
by technological advances, or political institutions which regulate
humanity with resources of planet
• Argument: problem is not overpopulation but poverty
• Poor places lack wealth and resources, making it difficult for them to
protect their resources
• Argument: climate change is a problem of economic growth and
overconsumption
• Argument: problem of domination of nature
• Humans try to dominate nature
• Or: a problem of global human inequality?
• Climate change is both a symptom and a cause of global inequality
• Has historical origins and contemporary impacts and is an outcome of global
development
• Richest 10% of world population is responsible for almost half of total lifestyle
consumption emissions
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
United nations conferences of the parties (cop) lead the un framework convention on. Climate change (unfccc), which produce the reports of the intergovernmental panel on. Climate change (ipcc: unfccc focuses on two problems, adaption (the concern of developing countries, mitigation (the concern of developed countries) Six approaches to global ecological management: the scarcity crisis: idea we can manage or govern the global environment started in early 1970s, liberal market economics: The tax forces companies and consumers to adjust their behaviour by forcing up prices: cap and trade: unless someone owns the environment, polluting is costless. Therefore, set limits on what people and firms are allowed to pollute. Allow trading of people"s and firms pollution allowance, this will force people and firms to economize on pollution: these make you pay more, but does not really stop you from, ecological economics: spending the money.
