Tag Archives: climate change

Adaptation, Climate Change, Development, Mitigation, Policy

When being on the fence is a good thing: GMOs and loss of autonomy for African farmers

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In recent issues of Agriculture and Human Values the issue of genetically modified crops has come to the fore. It is heartening to see discussion on the role of GMOs in agriculture and food security in a forum that has been traditionally dominated by anti-GMO, anti non organic agriculture sentiments ( A camp to which I firmly belonged because of my allegiance to small scale farmers and, I admit to it, the general feeling in my gut that GMOs are unsafe for me). The arguments against GMOs are well known. Without completely rehashing these, one set of arguments stem from research showing the link of GMO use and associated loss of power and autonomy for small scale farmers in relation to rights to save seed and control harvests, and potentially negative impacts on local genetic diversity and the environment. Other arguments of course rely on the assumed (and perhaps somewhat deserved) must-make-profits- at-all costs nature of biotech companies at the expense of farmers and the over-claiming of potential benefits of GMOs. For advocates, GMOs increase yields, reduce the use of pesticides and improve drought and tolerance to the impacts related to climatic change (Interestingly, health has actually been the basis of several African governments to ban GMOs rather than more valid concerns about small scale farmers). In sub-Saharan Africa, debates on GMOs have been particularly virulent and divided with advocates constructing opponents as backward zealous simpletons at best and  mass starvationists at worst. Opponents have sort to portray advocates as GMO company cronies with a hidden agenda.

But the arguments by both pro and anti GMO advocates are actually not supported by sufficient research in the African context. Yes, scientists have often cited increased yields or drought tolerance as key attributes for accepting GMOs. And in this regard, they are one up on anti GMO advocates. But farmers rarely actually make agricultural decisions by isolating one particular factor. Yields or drought tolerance would only be one of the considerations in a milieu of social, economic and taste considerations. Studies which only site yields, for instance, do not tell us much about what happens or impacts in real contexts.

Which brings me back to the recent literature in Ag and Human Values. While not related to research in the African context, they nonetheless offer us an interesting array of methodologies to go about in collecting the data needed to really find out the potential impacts of GMOs on African farmers. With regard to research which claims to represent the voice of small scale farmers, Stone and Flachs show how, within GMO studies, this research obscures, rather than explains, agricultural decision making. Studies which address the loss of autonomy in decision making in relation to GMOs and small farmers have to endeavor to understand the social context within which agricultural decisions are made, and must address opinions about technologies and practices related to GMOs with regard to long term impacts. Although the overall tone for their article is anti GMO, Schnurr and Mujabi-Mujuzi encourage researchers to reevaluate the idea that it is not possible to communicate the complexities of biotechnologies to farmers. I agree with Schnurr and Mujuzi on this point and extend it to African consumers. If the public and farmers don’t understand bio- tech, it is due to the failure of scientists not of the public. Don Lotter’s ( a former organic only ag supporter) article on food security in Africa sums it up for me. He notes that there is a need to find out how to use both agrochemicals and organic methods -and I would add GMOs – together. This is particularly true given the multiple challenges to African agriculture and particularly the added challenges presented by climate change.

As a former hardcore organic agriculture supporter I and others like me are now on the fence about GMOs, agriculture, food security and small scale producer autonomy in the African context and its a good thing.

References

Lotter Don. 2014. Facing food insecurity in Africa: Why, after 30 years of work in organic agriculture, I am promoting the use of synthetic fertilizers and herbicides in small-scale staple crop production. Agriculture and Human Values: DOI 10.1007/s10460-014-9547-x

Schnurr Matthew A and Sarah Mujabi-Mujuzi. 2014. “No one asks for a meal they’ve never eaten.” Or, do African farmers want genetically modified crops?” Agriculture and Human Values 31 (4):643-648

Stone, Glenn and Andrew Flachs. 2014. “The problem with the farmer’s voice AFAFA.” Agriculture and Human Values: DOI 10.1007/s10460-014-9535-1

Adaptation, Development, Governance, Humanitarian Assistance, Policy

Is Mitigation beginning to enter the Resilience conversation?

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I started writing this blog because I noticed mitigation is conspicuously hard to find when reading about resilience. Climate change resilience is often used in tandem and sometimes interchangeably with the term ‘adaptation’. Examples of climate change resilience here, here and here, highlight that the roots of resilience to climate change stem from disaster risk reduction, ecology and sociology and usually suggest a concept of “bouncing back” or “recovery” from some shock or stress. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), in the Summary for Policymakers (SPM) of the Working Group (WG) II Contribution to its Fourth Assessment Report (AR4), defined resilience as “the ability of a social or ecological system to absorb disturbances while retaining the same basic structure and ways of functioning, the capacity of self-organization, and the capacity to adapt to stress and change.” This definition raises the question: why is a strategy (i.e. mitigation) that seeks to reduce the “stress” of greenhouse gases on the earth’s atmosphere not considered a form of resilience?

Is the reason mitigation has not emerged a popular strategy for building climate change resilience because the earth has not been able to retain its basic structure and function in absorbing greenhouse gases and so can basically never “bounce back” or “return to a former state”(based on the IPCC WG II AR4 definition of resilience)?   Or perhaps because resilience has been a more popular term in the disaster risk reduction sector (which is characterized by more violent and extreme events), resilience has come to be framed more normatively in relation to the immediate and extreme impacts of climate change. Is this framing, the reason resilience is commonly applied in light of adaptation alone – as adaptation is a more immediate actionable strategy than mitigation? If so, within climate change issues which suffer from the back burner-effect already (see this blog post), mitigation then becomes the action that gets relegated to the background.

My problem with mitigation not being integral to the definition of climate change resilience, is that language matters. Since the concept of mitigation is not apparent in a number of definitions and conceptualizations of climate change resilience, it seems that so far, mitigation actions are being entirely left out of some of the efforts to build resilience to climate change. Nevertheless, the IPCC in the SPM of its Special Report on Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation stated that “…adaptation and mitigation can (emphasis mine) complement each other and together can significantly reduce the risks of climate change.” Can? I would like to think should! Granted, mitigation was not the focus of the report (as the authors so graciously point out) but the example advances the notion that mitigation has not necessarily been viewed by scholars and practitioners as an ultimate compliment to adaptation efforts in building resilience to climate change.

However there appears to be hope. In the most recent IPCC Assessment Report (AR5), the WG II Contribution in its SPM discusses the concept of climate-resilient pathways, which it defines as “sustainable-development trajectories that combine adaptation and mitigation to reduce climate change and its impacts.” Could a concept described as resilient that combines both adaptation and mitigation be an indication that mitigation is beginning to enter the conversation about resilience? I would like to think yes!

Adaptation, Climate Change, Conservation, Governance, Humanitarian Assistance, Policy

In a Post-Disaster Setting, to Ignore the Environment is to Ignore Risk

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The death and destruction left in the wake of the earthquake that struck Haiti on January 12, 2010 was extraordinary. More than 200,000 people died and the financial damage exceeded 120% of Haiti’s 2009 GDP. After the immediate search-and-rescue activities, humanitarian agencies, alongside the Haitian people and government, turned their attention not merely to getting life back to normal, but to the goal of ‘building back better.’ Billions of dollars and extraordinary human capital poured into Haiti, yet during the recovery process a vital factor to ‘building back better’ was often overlooked: environmental sustainability (ES).

The Barriers to Environmental Sustainability in Post-Disaster Settings

My research (available here) sought to understand the barriers to ES in post-disaster settings. Using transitional shelter implementation in Haiti as a proxy, I examined how humanitarian actors considered ES, and the barriers they faced to incorporating environmental concerns into operations. Data demonstrated that in post-disaster settings there is a low prioritization of, but growing interest in, ES. In Haiti, as a result of the barriers outlined below, the inclusion of ES was sporadic and inconsistent. These barriers can be broken down into two categories:

1) Prioritizations and perceptions within the disaster response sector limit enthusiasm for incorporating ES into programming. Specific barriers include:

  • A perceived trade-off between a rapid recovery and ES;
  • A muddled delineation between emergency response and mid- to long-term redevelopment; and
  • Environmental concerns simply do not drive decision-making.

2) Structural and organizational barriers within the disaster response framework impede ES and serve as a further disincentive to incorporating it into programming. Specific barriers include:

  • Unclear accountability amongst donors, implementers, and organizers regarding ES;
  • A lack of personnel with both ES and disaster expertise;
  • The humanitarian sector is slow to adapt to new practices and technologies; and
  • Pre-positioning and pre-planning are logistically difficult.

These barriers are reinforcing and deeply interrelated. For example, in Haiti, if it were perceived that ES required trade-offs in speed or costs – a common but ultimately disproven perception – ES would generally not be pursued. Moreover, in the balancing act between rapid response and comprehensive planning, an emphasis on speed tends to persist past the search-and-rescue phase and into the mid- and long-term recovery. The emphasis on speed is driven by the unique pressures of operating in a post-disaster setting (e.g., media and donor scrutiny).

Even if humanitarian actors wanted to pursue ES, structural, organizational, and logistical barriers impeded implementation. In addition to a lack of clarity regarding who was ultimately responsible for taking the lead on environmental programming, the fact remains that there were limited actors with sufficient expertise in both the environment and disaster recovery to lead the effort. That is, even if ES was considered a paramount concern, there were significant human capital challenges that would have impeded their efforts. As a result of the totality of these barriers, in Haiti, ES ultimately came down to the capacity and motivation of specific implementing agencies, many of which were already overwhelmed with the complex operations one would expect after such an extreme event.

Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Resilience

While asking the humanitarian sector to consider the environment might strike some as beyond the humanitarian imperative – to save lives and reduce suffering – this ignores three critical points: 1) with the right expertise and proper planning, considering the environment will not interrupt the mid- and long-term humanitarian response; 2) proper environmental management will help bridge the gap from emergency response to long-term redevelopment; and 3) in the mid- and long-term recovery, ignoring the environment can expose new vulnerabilities or exacerbate old ones. As such, ES must be embraced as a goal – or more accurately, a tool – of the humanitarian sector.  Conversely, disaster response efforts that do not incorporate ES risk hindering long-term recovery efforts, and thus, disaster resilience.

Author’s Note – Two points of clarification: First, the environment in this instance refers to local, acute issues – particularly those around the impact site (e.g., increased risk of landslides due to improper material extraction). This is not about global environmental issues (e.g., climate change). Second, this analysis focuses on the mid- to long-term recovery and not search-and-rescue or emergency operations. To paraphrase a research participant, I am not suggesting ‘we hug a tree before we hug a baby.’ I operationalized a definition for post-disaster sustainability as “Sustainable post-disaster activities provide resources to affected citizens to ensure health and safety and to promote redevelopment, without causing further damage to land or existing structures, exacerbating the impacts of the disaster, or placing undue stress on the natural environment.

Conservation, Development, Governance, Humanitarian Assistance, Policy

Climate Deniers Part I: Sun Tzu

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To a surrounded enemy, you must leave a way of escape.

-Sun Tzu

Every once in a while I am asked a very troubling question: “Do you believe in climate change?” The phrasing “do you believe in” or any variation thereof feels like ice water being injected my spine. It demonstrates that the conservation community has all but botched the trial on climate change. If this were a criminal case, we provided means, motive, and intent, but couldn’t counter the defense’s wordplay, trickery, and jargon-laden half-truths.

Manifestations of this loss keep coming up. A few weeks ago I visited some old friends. Over a cocktail (or two), climate change worked its way into the conversation. Though not climate deniers per se, they fall somewhere in the skeptical-to-unconcerned range on the alarmist-to-denier continuum. And they are skeptical because, like most Americans, they don’t have time to fact-check the barrage of climate-related information they hear from myriad sources, including some that suggest climate change is not affected by human activity. These hard-to-check impressive sounding “facts” are the simultaneous danger and strength of climate denier’s misinformation campaign; they somehow transform scientific evidence into a viewpoint in a political debate. For those interested in forestalling serious climate legislation, a politicized hung jury in an increasingly partisan society is exactly what a win looks like. But, moral high ground or not, this is as much on those of us who see climate change as a major challenge as it is on those who argue against action or its existence.

Worse, the combined politicization and evident reality of climate change is a double-edged sword. Those who deny climate change have perverse disincentives to back away from their intransigence. They are in a corner: continue to deny humanity’s most pressing challenge or walk away from the denial discourse and face serious political ramifications in terms of their own legitimacy. It’s a nasty paradox. The scientific community and its political allies have, contrary to Sun Tzu’s advice, left our “enemy” no way of escape.

Take, for example, Marco Rubio – an outsized voiced in the Republican Party. When Rubio simultaneously denied climate change and announced his interest in the presidency my reaction was predictably visceral. Yet despite a driving temptation to lash out over his ignorance/delusion/lack of integrity, I no longer think vilification of deniers helps the climate discourse. Particularly whenever it takes the form of left vs. right. Whether he runs for President or remains a Senator, Rubio could face extraordinary political backlash and de-legitimization should the Republican Party suddenly start to embrace the science of climate change. This is why I believe the Republican Party has shifted from accepting the reality of climate change (see President Bush’s 2007 State of the Union) to the evolving party line of “La La La I can’t hear you” or “I’m no expert, but [insert economic platitude].”

Trapping our “enemies” in a particular corner of the climate change debate, and allowing the resultant discourse to be viewed as a left-right issue, has presented us with a deadlock that inhibits further progress. Maybe its time we stop fighting dogma with logic and politics with science. These are flawed strategies; it is asymmetrical warfare. Converting climate deniers is not an issue of showing them the science – we have done that. It has failed. It continues to fail. What we must do is find a graceful way out for the climate skeptics that we – I, for sure – have so long vilified. This is not to suggest we should let up on correcting the widespread dissemination of misinformation (John Oliver’s piece on this is perfect, if you haven’t watched it, do it now.). Only that accidental or intentional vilification offers little to the cause.

Our focus need be dispassionate advancement of meaningful climate change policy. We need to change the conversation and demonstrate the big Truth of climate change legislation: that it appeals to conservative ideals, even if not certain right-leaning constituents. This needs to be made more explicit. The Republican Party prides itself as responsible, long-term planners (see the budget discourse), yet are unconcerned about the widespread economic effects of climate change? Or the myriad impacts on impacts on national security outlined here? It just doesn’t add up.

So here is my proposition to those who recognize the importance of climate change but have been painted into a political corner: tell the conservation community what you need to advance meaningful policy without sacrificing your ideals, and yes, political ambitions. I am done shouting and am very ready to listen. Or to put it in the [cleaned up] words of one of an old baseball coach, “lead, follow, or get the [heck] out the way.”

 

Climate Change, Conservation, Food Security, Governance, Mitigation, Policy

The future is already being fed

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My blog entry/chapter for Andy Sumner‘s forthcoming e-book The Donors’ Dilemma: Emergence, Convergence and the Future of Aid is up at the Global Policy site here. Have a look, offer comments, and join the larger conversation Andy is curating on the future of aid here.

For more thoughts on food security, especially the connections between climate change and food security, check out my posts at Open the Echo Chamber.

Climate Change, Conservation, Governance, Mitigation, Policy

The Back Burner Effect

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The majority of my time is spent thinking, reading, or writing about environmental issues – usually as they relate to disasters and conflict. The problems are daunting and the solutions are evasive. The nailing-Jell-O-to-the-wall cliché comes to mind. This post introduces what I believe to be one of the most salient and complex challenges facing the conservation sector: ‘the back burner effect.’ In essence, most environmental problems are inherently long-term, but people think and act in the short-term; as a result conservation efforts get perpetually pushed to the back burner (if even on the stove). The paradox, though, is that ignoring the global environment often comes at the long-term peril of the very issues we prioritize in the short-term.

The question, then, is how can the conservation community gain traction on the inherently long-term despite the intractable, inevitable, and legitimate issues that exist – and will always exist – in the short-term?

Spoiler alert: I’m not sure, it’ll be messy, and we’re trying.

The back burner effect, climate change, and Keystone XL

Climate change provides a contextual example (ignore for the moment the extremely sophisticated misinformation campaign. That post will come and will likely contain the adjective ‘treasonous’). In its simplest form, the lack of progress on meaningful climate action can be boiled down to the following, all of which link to the back burner effect:

  • Climate change is a global problem that is worsened by nearly all people, albeit some more than others. Shared resources in ungoverned spaces such as the atmosphere tend to fare poorly (enter Hardin’s Tragedy of the Commons – see global fishery stocks);
  • The effects of climate change are insidious in that they are gradual and non-linear; and
  • Climate change exists principally as it affects other systems (i.e., climate change is a stressor, and not a sector unto itself)

The above points are why so many environmental organizations have galvanized around Keystone XL. The pipeline is a physical manifestation – something to point to and rally behind (this has been discussed here and here amongst other places). However, even if President Obama rejects the pipeline (a decision I fully support), then what? At best, we ducked Mother Nature’s right cross, but her left hook is still coming (or, depending on who you ask, a glancing jab). As are the flurry of body shots.  And last I checked, the 7 billion of us are propped up against the ropes with our hands down – hence the importance of climate adaptation and resiliency efforts.

But what has been lost in the discourse surrounding all things Keystone is that with or without it, we will continue to spew carbon-based gasses into the atmosphere – all in the name of front burner priorities. That is not to discount the work surrounding the pipeline, or the bravery of those who engaged in civil disobedience this weekend, just to outwardly acknowledge that what we need to change does not lend itself to focused protests.  Moreover a ‘win’ in Keystone is almost like a carbon-based slight of hand – misdirection from the unrelenting yet hard-to-define social, economic, and political factors that steadily drive environmental degradation as well as the associated policy interventions that sit stubbornly on the back burner.

Enter ‘there’s still hope’ section here

There’s still hope.  No, really there is.  But the question remains: Without clear focusing events (e.g., the Cuyahoga River Fire), and with so many other ostensibly-more-pressing issues, how can the environmental sector grab people’s and governments’ attention for long enough to advance their/our [critical to humanity’s existence] agenda? It’s a dicey and frightening quandary representative of challenges of the back burner effect and one, I’d argue, that needs far more outward reflection by the conservation sector.