George Monbiot, an interview.

                                                         Comments due by April 25, 2016

We have already posted ten "stories" that we promised to do during this semester. The following, however, is for extra credit and is the response of George Monbiot to a couple of questions. Enjoy

Why is implacable growth a threat to the existence of life on the planet?

Never-ending growth simply cannot be sustained on a finite planet. The promise of growth is used as a means of deflecting social conflict: If the economy keeps growing, we are told, inequality doesn't matter, however extreme it becomes, as all will be rich. Well, it hasn't worked out like that: The rich are now able to capture almost all the increment; wages have stagnated despite rising labor productivity; far from trickling down, wealth is still seeping upwards. But even if it did work, this merely exchanges a deferred political crisis for an environmental crisis.

In the pre-coal economy, industrial growth was repeatedly undermined by agricultural collapse, as both competed for the same resources: land (industry needed it for growing fuelwood and fodder for horses) and labor. So growth kept stalling and reversing. Coal meant that rather than relying on annual productivity (of timber, grass, oats etc.), industry could exploit the concentrated productivity of millions of years. It amplified the effects of labor. It allowed agriculture and industry to live alongside each other, ensuring that industrial growth did not rely on starvation. The economic transformation was miraculous. But it had a number of costs, and by far the greatest, in the long run, was the assault on the natural world.

We are urgently in need of a new, coherent economic model, that provides prosperity without compromising future prosperity, that does not rely on destroying the more-than-human world.

Why will a continuing "shift from small to large farms ... cause a major decline in global production"?

There is a long-established inverse relationship between the size of farms and the amount of crops they produce. In other words, the smaller they are, the greater the yield per hectare. This observation has been repeated in many parts of the world.

The most plausible explanation appears to be that small farmers use more labor, and more committed labor (generally family members), per hectare than big farmers.

What this means is that farm consolidation (often assisted by international agencies) is likely to be damaging to productivity, and threatening to world food supplies. Land grabbing by foreign corporations and sovereign wealth funds (which brings together the traditions of enclosure and colonialism) is disastrous for the rural poor. It is also disastrous -- especially when it results in the replacement of subsistence crops with crops grown for animal feed or biofuels -- for global food security.

Make the case for being "deviant and proud."

Our identity is shaped by the norms and values we absorb from other people. Every society defines and shapes its own according to dominant narratives, and seeks either to make people comply or to exclude them if they don't. These norms and values are often handed down from on high: We absorb and replicate the worldview of those who possess power, the phenomenon Antonio Gramsci called cultural hegemony.

Neoliberalism insists that we are defined by competition, and are essentially selfish and acquisitive. This turns out to be a myth: As a paper in the journal Frontiers in Psychology points out, Homo economicus -- the neoliberal conception of people as maximizing their own self-interest at the expense of others - is an excellent description of chimpanzees and a very bad description of human beings. We simply don't work like this. Humans are distinguished from other mammals by an enhanced capacity for empathy, an unparalleled sensitivity to the needs of others, a unique level of concern about their welfare and an ability to create moral norms that generalize and enforce these tendencies. These traits emerge so early in our lives that they appear to be innate: We have evolved to be this way.

But the dominant narrative tells us that we are very different creatures. It celebrates selfishness and greed and pushes us to conform to a social and economic model that rewards them. When we are forced into a hole that doesn't fit, the result is psychological damage. As the professor of psychoanalysis Paul Verhaeghe points out, the neoliberal transition has been accompanied by a spectacular rise in self-harm, eating disorders, depression, performance anxiety, social phobia and loneliness.

So if you don't fit in, and feel at odds with the world, it could be because you have retained the human values you were supposed to have discarded. You have deviated from the social norms. You should be proud to have done so.

China and Clean Energy.

                                               Comments due April 18, 2016

The United States and China are the world's largest carbon emitters , so the 2014 agreement by U.S. President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping to reduce their countries' greenhouse gas emissions represented a major shift in momentum for addressing the effects of climate change.

Both countries committed to substantial emissions-reduction efforts over the next 10 to 15 years, with the understanding that they would continue to grow more ambitious with their efforts in the future. The pledges were fundamental to each country's national commitments for the Paris Agreement, adopted during the United Nations' 2015 climate conference and awaiting signatures this month at the United Nations inNew York City. 

Once a minimum of 55 countries representing at least 55 percent of total global greenhouse gases sign on, the agreement will come into effect. Already 100 countries are expected to attend the U.N. meeting on Earth Day this April 22. 

An energy explosion

While China vowed to put a peak on its growing carbon dioxide emissions by the year 2030, a new report from the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the London School of Economics and Political Science argues that the past year brought a changing economic and energy landscape. This is because China's rapid growth, which consumed tremendous amounts of energy and produced record-setting emissions, is slowing. 

China's economic model over the past few decades — like that of many other developing countries — was based on heavy investment in construction and related industries, such as steel and cement, in order to expand the nation's infrastructure. Such industries are energy-intensive and in China relied heavily on coal, which produces large amounts of greenhouse gas emissions . 

Now that much of China's infrastructure build-out is slowing, the demand for steel, cement and other building materials is decreasing, while at the same time China is expanding energy investments in hydroelectric, nuclear, wind and solar power. 

In fact, the increase in China's renewable energy generation is expected be larger than energy-investment increases in the European Union, the United States and Japan combined, according to the 2013 World Energy Outlook from the International Energy Agency (IEA). 

These promising shifts in energy investment are not unique to China. In the United States, the Energy Information Administration suggests that in the coming year, more new solar electricity-generating capacity will come online than natural gas, wind or petroleum combined.

Industries shifting while governments hesitate

Industries are making the transition even faster than government: American businesses made deals to acquire 3.4 gigawatts of renewable energy in 2015, nearly double the peak power generation of the Hoover Dam. 

Of that amount, two-thirds came from first-time buyers, according to the nonprofit Rocky Mountain Institute, a leading source on addressing climate change through market-based solutions. The most-promising trend shows older established companies — like Owens Corning, Procter & Gamble and HP — joining well-publicized new industry leaders like Amazon, Google and Ikea in making the transition toward renewable energy purchases. For example, last year, Owens Corning signed an agreement with Chicago-based Invenergy for 125 megawatts of capacity, equivalent to the power needed for 30,000 households or more, from a wind farm being built in Texas.

Beyond industry — beyond government — a third, large-scale stakeholder is innovating in the context of climate change: academia. Responding to a growing demand from their students and faculty to transition away from fossil fuels, colleges and universities such as Ohio State University and the University of Oklahoma are among the partners with the largest U.S. green power contracts, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. 

Chinese energy evolution

Like recent progress in the United States and European Union, China's energy landscape has continued to diversify, according the Grantham report. Hydroelectric, nuclear, wind and solar power are all expanding and accounted for more than 11 percent of the nation's primary energy consumption by the end of 2014. 

Perhaps most notably, coal consumption, which powered so much of China's forward momentum in the previous decade, saw no growth in 2014 and actually declined in 2015. 

Whether China's emissions peak has actually crested, the trends there and elsewhere are becoming more evident: Nations and companies across the world are making the transition to clean energy alternatives and putting their money behind those investments in order to foster new, innovative paths to a lower-emission future. 

Global perspectives have shifted toward encouraging nations to finally respond to climate change, but the window for action to avoid catastrophic climate impacts is limited. New technology is opening opportunities to reduce global emissions, and China's move toward renewable energies is at the forefront, such as their world-leading number of solar-voltaic installations for power generation. 

It's up to the rest of the world to continue to look forward, not back, to enhance global prosperity, reduce risks to communities, and sustain healthy ecosystems on which people depend.

Vegeterian diet and emissions.

                                               Comments due by April 11, 2016

Eating more fruit and vegetables and cutting back on red and processed meat will make you healthier. That’s obvious enough. But as chickens and cows themselves eat food and burn off their own energy, meat is a also major driver of climate change. Going veggie can drastically reduce your carbon footprint.

This is all at a personal level. What about when you multiply such changes by 7 billion people, and factor in a growing population?

In our latest research, colleagues and I estimate that changes towards more plant-based diets in line with the WHO’s global dietary guidelinescould avert 5m-8m deaths per year by 2050. This represents a 6-10% reduction in global mortality.

Food-related greenhouse gas emissions would also be cut by more than two thirds. In all, these dietary changes would have a value to society of more than US$1 trillion – even as much as US$30 trillion. That’s up to a tenth of the likely global GDP in 2050. Our results are published in the journal PNAS.

Future projections of diets paint a grim picture. Fruit and vegetable consumption is expected to increase, but so is red meat consumption and the amount of calories eaten in general. Of the 105 world regions included in our study, fewer than a third are on course to meet dietary recommendations.

A bigger population, eating a worse diet, means that by 2050 food-related GHG emissions will take up half of the “emissions budget” the world has for limiting global warming to less than 2℃.

To see how dietary changes could avert such a doom and gloom scenario, we constructed four alternative diets and analysed their health and environmental impacts: one reference scenario based on projections of diets in 2050; a scenario based on global dietary guidelines which includes minimum amounts of fruits and vegetables, and limits to the amount of red meat, sugar, and total calories; and two vegetarian scenarios, one including eggs and dairy (lacto-ovo vegetarian), and the other completely plant-based (vegan).

Millions of avoidable deaths

We found that adoption of global dietary guidelines could result in 5.1m avoided deaths per year in 2050. Vegetarian and vegan diets could result in 7.3m and 8.1m avoided deaths respectively. About half of this is thanks to eating less red meat. The other half comes thanks to eating more fruit and veg, along with a reduction in total energy intake (and the associated decreases in obesity).

There are huge regional variations. About two thirds of the health benefits of dietary change are projected to occur in developing countries, in particular in East Asia and South Asia. But high-income countries closely follow, and the per-person benefits in developed countries could actually be twice as large as those in developing countries, as their relatively more imbalanced diets leave greater room for improvement.

Room for improvement. Lightspring / shutterstock

China would see the largest health benefits, with around 1.4m to 1.7m averted deaths per year. Cutting red meat and reducing general overconsumption would be the most important factor there and in other big beneficiaries such as the EU and the US. In India, however, up to a million deaths per year would be avoided largely thanks to eating more fruit and vegetables.

Russia and other Eastern European countries would see huge benefits per-person, in particular due to less red meat consumption. People in small island nations such as Mauritius and Trinidad and Tobago would benefit due to reduced obesity.

Vegans vs climate change?

We estimated that adopting global dietary guidelines would cut food-related emissions by 29%. But even this still wouldn’t be enough to reduce food-related greenhouse gas emissions in line with the overall cutbacks necessary to keep global temperature increases below 2°C.

India could cut its emissions and save lives – at the same time. Christopher Fynn, CC BY

To seriously fight climate change, more plant-based diets will be needed. Our analysis shows if the world went vegetarian that cut in food-related emissions would rise to 63%. And if everyone turned vegan? A huge 70%.

What’s it worth?

Dietary changes would have huge economic benefits, leading to savings of US$700-1,000 billion per year globally in healthcare, unpaid informal care and lost working days. The value that society places on the reduced risk of dying could even be as high as 9-13% of global GDP, or US$20-$30 trillion. Avoided climate change damages from reduced food-related greenhouse gas emissions could be as much as US$570 billion.

Putting a dollar value on good health and the environment is a sensitive issue. However, our results indicate that dietary changes could have large benefits to society, and the value of those benefits makes a strong case for healthier and more environmentally sustainable diets.

The scale of the task is clearly enormous. Fruit and vegetable production and consumption would need to more than double in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia just to meet global dietary recommendations, whereas red meat consumption would need to be halved globally, and cut by two thirds in richer countries. We’d also need to tackle the key problem of overconsumption. It’s a lot to chew on.