- Email: [email protected]
FORUM: Biophysical assessments: who cares?
Ecological Economics 29 (1999) 19 – 21
COMMENTARY FORUM
Biophysical assessments: who cares? J. David Yount * US EPA, National Health and En6ironmental Effects Research Laboratory, Mid-Continent Ecology Di6ision, Duluth, MN, USA Received 5 June 1997; received in revised form 29 December 1997; accepted 10 March 1998
An initial statement of this discussion topic was ‘‘are ecological economic studies without explicit biophysical assessments fraudulent?’’, implying that such studies were at least misleading, if not intentionally deceitful. To a person trained in the physical/biological sciences, the answer to such a question seems so obvious as to be trivial. Of course an ecological economics study without a biophysical component presents an incomplete picture of reality, and therefore may be misleading. However, fraud (i.e. willful deceit) is presumably not the motivation of most economists. More likely, they simply do not believe (unlike ecological economists) that the neoclassical economic paradigm is inadequate. According to the Kuhn model, a progressive dissatisfaction with the neoclassical paradigm will eventually lead to its replacement by a new paradigm with superior explanatory power (Kuhn, 1970). In the opinion of most members of the Society for Ecological
Disclaimer: Opinions expressed are the author’s and not necessarily those of the US Environmental Protection Agency. * [email protected]
Economics, presumably, the ecological economic paradigm is the appropriate successor. A key issue, then, is one’s world view, operating paradigm, or ‘preanalytic vision’ (Daly, 1996); that is, one’s vision of reality, not one’s honesty. Although ‘ecological’ economists, according to Daly (1996), operate under a different preanalytic vision than neoclassical economists, it appears that not all who choose to affiliate with this Society have internalized that vision. Is this a serious problem, or merely the competition of competing paradigms? If it is the latter, the superior paradigm should eventually replace the inferior one. But how, and when? Max Plank (Plank, 1949) (as quoted by Kuhn, 1970) evidently believed that ‘‘a new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it’’. If the ecological economic paradigm is the new scientific truth, and if Plank’s mechanism is correct, we should soon be observing a significant reduction in the ratio of
0921-8009/99/$ - see front matter © 1999 Published by Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. PII: S0921-8009(98)00073-1
20
J.D. Yount / Ecological Economics 29 (1999) 19–21
neoclassical to ecological economists graduating from our Universities. The evidence to date does not seem to support that hypothesis. But even if it were true, could we afford to wait for the old guard to die off? Many of us who adhere to Herman Daly’s paradigm or preanalytic vision (of the economy as a subsystem of the biosphere) doubt that we can wait that long. A more relevant question is ‘to what extent are biophysical analyses necessary and integral parts of any meaningful sustainability study’? More importantly, who among the political and corporate leaders of the world cares about the answer to the question? What would it take for them to care? The answer to the ‘who cares’ question appears to depend on who believes that there are practical biological and physical limits to human economic activity. That is, whose preanalytic vision is of the economy as a subsystem of the biosphere and limited by the biosphere, and who’s preanalytic vision is of an independent system outside of the biosphere with no limits to growth beyond the size of the universe. The fact is that in the world view of most of the world’s economic and political leaders, either there are no such limits or we are too far below them to worry. So who cares? Not many, it seems. If we are really serious about selling the new paradigm, we should be asking: what would it take to convince these leaders of the existence of biophysical limits and of our nearness to them? Virginia Abernethy (Abernethy, 1996) argues that the awareness of limits to physical growth (whether in population or in consumption) is the key to any meaningful action to limit growth. If she is correct (and I find the argument to be persuasive), it may be that this awareness will occur via an obvious physical limit in energy supply (Pimentel et al., 1994), food (Brown and Kane, 1994), water (Postel, 1996), waste assimilation capacity (Daily, 1997), or some other resource in which the connection between the symptoms and their cause is obvious. At that point, however, it may be politically impossible to take the most effective action. Or even if taken, the delay between the corrective action and the response may be too long to be useful.
That, then, is ‘why sustainability analyses must include biophysical assessments’. Convincing biophysical–economic studies are needed which show, beyond a reasonable doubt, that biophysical limits have been reached or exceeded. Convincing, that is, not only to ourselves but to existing political and economic leaders. One good close-to-home example (in the US) of an emerging awareness of limits is the agricultural economy of the North American High Plains. The Ogallala aquifer, which supplies about 30% of the groundwater used for irrigation in the United States, has been undergoing depletion for several decades (Postel, 1992). Reality has apparently begun to sink in, and a combination of dry land production, water conservation, and efficiency improvements have slowed the rate of aquifer depletion. Worldwide, Postel et al. (1996) estimate that a total of 54% of accessible runoff is currently appropriated for human purposes. It is difficult to think of any other resource with more immediately perceivable limits than water. In summary, then: biophysical analyses are a practical necessity because such analyses must convince national and world political and economic leaders that a limitless economy in a limited earth makes no sense. Biophysical analyses are a theoretical necessity because they provide the only way to know how closely we are approaching, or whether we have already exceeded, environmental limits to growth. Otherwise, we must wait until nature sounds the warning alarm, and the warning is not likely to be gentle.
References Abernethy, V.D., 1996. Population theory and future population size. Environ. Pollut. ICEP 3, 16 – 23. Brown, L., Kane, H., 1994. Full House: Reassessing the Earth’s Population Carrying Capacity. The Worldwatch Institute. W.W. Norton & Co, New York, p. 261. Daily, G.C., 1997. Nature’s Services: Societal Dependence on Natural Ecosystems. Island Press, Washington, DC, p. 392. Daly, H.E., 1996. Beyond Growth. Beacon Press, Boston, MA, pp. 6 – 7.
J.D. Yount / Ecological Economics 29 (1999) 19–21 Kuhn, T.S., 1970. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 2nd ed. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, p. 151. Pimentel, D., Herdendorf, M., Eisenfeld, S., Olander, L., Carroquino, M., Corson, C., McDade, J., Chung, Y., Cannon, W., Roberts, J., Bluman, L., Gregg, J., 1994. Achieving a secure energy future: environmental and economic issues. Ecol. Econ. 9, 201–219. Plank, M., 1949. Scientific Autobiography and Other Papers (F. Gaynor, Trans.), New York, pp. 33–34.
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Postel, S.L., 1992. Last Oasis: Facing Water Scarcity, W.W. Norton & Company, Worldwatch Environmental Alert Series, New York. Postel, S.L., 1996. Forging a sustainable water strategy. In: Brown, L. (Ed.), State of The World 1996. W.W. Norton & Co, New York, pp. 40 – 59. Postel, S.L., Daily, G.C., Ehrlich, P.R., 1996. Human appropriation of renewable fresh water. Science 271, 785 – 788.
COMMENTARY FORUM
Biophysical assessments: who cares? J. David Yount * US EPA, National Health and En6ironmental Effects Research Laboratory, Mid-Continent Ecology Di6ision, Duluth, MN, USA Received 5 June 1997; received in revised form 29 December 1997; accepted 10 March 1998
An initial statement of this discussion topic was ‘‘are ecological economic studies without explicit biophysical assessments fraudulent?’’, implying that such studies were at least misleading, if not intentionally deceitful. To a person trained in the physical/biological sciences, the answer to such a question seems so obvious as to be trivial. Of course an ecological economics study without a biophysical component presents an incomplete picture of reality, and therefore may be misleading. However, fraud (i.e. willful deceit) is presumably not the motivation of most economists. More likely, they simply do not believe (unlike ecological economists) that the neoclassical economic paradigm is inadequate. According to the Kuhn model, a progressive dissatisfaction with the neoclassical paradigm will eventually lead to its replacement by a new paradigm with superior explanatory power (Kuhn, 1970). In the opinion of most members of the Society for Ecological
Disclaimer: Opinions expressed are the author’s and not necessarily those of the US Environmental Protection Agency. * [email protected]
Economics, presumably, the ecological economic paradigm is the appropriate successor. A key issue, then, is one’s world view, operating paradigm, or ‘preanalytic vision’ (Daly, 1996); that is, one’s vision of reality, not one’s honesty. Although ‘ecological’ economists, according to Daly (1996), operate under a different preanalytic vision than neoclassical economists, it appears that not all who choose to affiliate with this Society have internalized that vision. Is this a serious problem, or merely the competition of competing paradigms? If it is the latter, the superior paradigm should eventually replace the inferior one. But how, and when? Max Plank (Plank, 1949) (as quoted by Kuhn, 1970) evidently believed that ‘‘a new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it’’. If the ecological economic paradigm is the new scientific truth, and if Plank’s mechanism is correct, we should soon be observing a significant reduction in the ratio of
0921-8009/99/$ - see front matter © 1999 Published by Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. PII: S0921-8009(98)00073-1
20
J.D. Yount / Ecological Economics 29 (1999) 19–21
neoclassical to ecological economists graduating from our Universities. The evidence to date does not seem to support that hypothesis. But even if it were true, could we afford to wait for the old guard to die off? Many of us who adhere to Herman Daly’s paradigm or preanalytic vision (of the economy as a subsystem of the biosphere) doubt that we can wait that long. A more relevant question is ‘to what extent are biophysical analyses necessary and integral parts of any meaningful sustainability study’? More importantly, who among the political and corporate leaders of the world cares about the answer to the question? What would it take for them to care? The answer to the ‘who cares’ question appears to depend on who believes that there are practical biological and physical limits to human economic activity. That is, whose preanalytic vision is of the economy as a subsystem of the biosphere and limited by the biosphere, and who’s preanalytic vision is of an independent system outside of the biosphere with no limits to growth beyond the size of the universe. The fact is that in the world view of most of the world’s economic and political leaders, either there are no such limits or we are too far below them to worry. So who cares? Not many, it seems. If we are really serious about selling the new paradigm, we should be asking: what would it take to convince these leaders of the existence of biophysical limits and of our nearness to them? Virginia Abernethy (Abernethy, 1996) argues that the awareness of limits to physical growth (whether in population or in consumption) is the key to any meaningful action to limit growth. If she is correct (and I find the argument to be persuasive), it may be that this awareness will occur via an obvious physical limit in energy supply (Pimentel et al., 1994), food (Brown and Kane, 1994), water (Postel, 1996), waste assimilation capacity (Daily, 1997), or some other resource in which the connection between the symptoms and their cause is obvious. At that point, however, it may be politically impossible to take the most effective action. Or even if taken, the delay between the corrective action and the response may be too long to be useful.
That, then, is ‘why sustainability analyses must include biophysical assessments’. Convincing biophysical–economic studies are needed which show, beyond a reasonable doubt, that biophysical limits have been reached or exceeded. Convincing, that is, not only to ourselves but to existing political and economic leaders. One good close-to-home example (in the US) of an emerging awareness of limits is the agricultural economy of the North American High Plains. The Ogallala aquifer, which supplies about 30% of the groundwater used for irrigation in the United States, has been undergoing depletion for several decades (Postel, 1992). Reality has apparently begun to sink in, and a combination of dry land production, water conservation, and efficiency improvements have slowed the rate of aquifer depletion. Worldwide, Postel et al. (1996) estimate that a total of 54% of accessible runoff is currently appropriated for human purposes. It is difficult to think of any other resource with more immediately perceivable limits than water. In summary, then: biophysical analyses are a practical necessity because such analyses must convince national and world political and economic leaders that a limitless economy in a limited earth makes no sense. Biophysical analyses are a theoretical necessity because they provide the only way to know how closely we are approaching, or whether we have already exceeded, environmental limits to growth. Otherwise, we must wait until nature sounds the warning alarm, and the warning is not likely to be gentle.
References Abernethy, V.D., 1996. Population theory and future population size. Environ. Pollut. ICEP 3, 16 – 23. Brown, L., Kane, H., 1994. Full House: Reassessing the Earth’s Population Carrying Capacity. The Worldwatch Institute. W.W. Norton & Co, New York, p. 261. Daily, G.C., 1997. Nature’s Services: Societal Dependence on Natural Ecosystems. Island Press, Washington, DC, p. 392. Daly, H.E., 1996. Beyond Growth. Beacon Press, Boston, MA, pp. 6 – 7.
J.D. Yount / Ecological Economics 29 (1999) 19–21 Kuhn, T.S., 1970. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 2nd ed. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, p. 151. Pimentel, D., Herdendorf, M., Eisenfeld, S., Olander, L., Carroquino, M., Corson, C., McDade, J., Chung, Y., Cannon, W., Roberts, J., Bluman, L., Gregg, J., 1994. Achieving a secure energy future: environmental and economic issues. Ecol. Econ. 9, 201–219. Plank, M., 1949. Scientific Autobiography and Other Papers (F. Gaynor, Trans.), New York, pp. 33–34.
.
21
Postel, S.L., 1992. Last Oasis: Facing Water Scarcity, W.W. Norton & Company, Worldwatch Environmental Alert Series, New York. Postel, S.L., 1996. Forging a sustainable water strategy. In: Brown, L. (Ed.), State of The World 1996. W.W. Norton & Co, New York, pp. 40 – 59. Postel, S.L., Daily, G.C., Ehrlich, P.R., 1996. Human appropriation of renewable fresh water. Science 271, 785 – 788.