The environment and liberalism

Joe Otten recently summarised the various chapters of Reinventing the State: Social Liberalism for the 21st Century (aka. the Huhne Manifesto?). Joe has generally been sympathetic to the “Social Liberal” argument, though as a member of the Sheffield Hallam constituency party one should not take his views on any particular issue for granted.

The focus of Joe’s attentions is liberal environmentalism, so the environment chapter in that book was bound to peak his interest. I’m not going to repeat Joe’s summary here, but I am going to raise three points that I made in response to his post.

Firstly, too many environmentalists are willing to throw away progress – both material and political. This is partly because of a misguided belief that environmental degradation is an inevitable consequence of economic growth, itself an echo of long-standing Romantic critiques of the Enlightenment and the fear of progress and change. Just as population growth did not exhaust our capacity to feed the people or increase their material wellbeing, so it does not automatically have to toast us in an ever-hotter atmosphere. There are alternative means to generate energy and there are technological solutions to rising levels of CO2. Those who want to halt or reverse economic growth are usually fired by either a combination of a Romantic and a quasi-religious view of an Arcadian alternative, or by other ideologies that have found an new justification in environmental extremism.

Secondly, the critique of the focus on economic growth statistics is correct, but only so far. It is true that growth statistics are not particularly useful or enlightening, but there is no doubt that over time we live demonstrably better lives as our economy expands (Layardian happiness research not withstanding). Indeed, much economic growth new results from services rather than manufacturing, which are often (though not always) low-carbon activities. (As an interesting aside, try finding a verb to apply to economic growth that is not a metaphor for either power or transport!). One obvious except is transport, but this highlights one fundamental difference between liberal and Green environmentalism. The Greens want to discourage travel; liberals seek more environmentally friendly transport. At the core of this is the liberal belief that mankind can shape a better future and the Green nihilism that sees humanity as a negative influence upon the planet.

When Greens (which I use here to refer to authoritarian and fatalist environmentalists rather than the Green Party, though there is obviously a huge overlap) criticise modern society, they often accuse it of concentrating on the “bottom line” to the detriment of everything else. This is a critique they share with socialists. It is pure guff. Take our supposedly “Capitalist” society as an example. Taxes are inherently harmful to labour, to profits and to economic growth, yet we tax profits and labour very heavily precisely because we put short-term welfare gains above long-term welfare gains. Similarly, we burden businesses with regulation because we consider other factors (notably but not solely environmental ones) to be of importance alongside wealth creation. I have argued before that we over-regulate and over-tax, but neither I nor anyone I know suggests we should have no regulation and no tax; profit is only one driver in society.

The key is to set rules that clearly guide everybody and lead them to make sensible decisions about the environment. This is traditional liberal ground, if slightly re-emphasised. The value of the environment is not inherent but comes from the fact that it sustains us and gives us pleasure; consequently our impact upon the environment impacts upon the freedom of others (the quality of your life being reduced if I pollute the public spaces). This is classical liberal stuff, and the solutions can be equally liberal. We need clear rules that apply equally to all and do not discriminate: for example, we should tax petrol and congestion rather than cars; we should tax aircraft fuel rather than passengers; and we should tax the carbon produced in electricity generation rather than banning incandescent light bulbs.

The point is that dictating to people how must they lead their lives will inevitably lead to arbitrary decision making that will be partisan and will miss the target (e.g. penalising those who buy big cars even if they don’t drive them very much). It will also cause a huge backlash: nobody likes to be told what to do, let alone told to feel bad about what they have been doing for years, which is why there is such a strong anti-environmentalist movement. The Greens have brought it on themselves (and the rest of us).

By comparison, factoring into the price of things the ecological as well as production costs (“capturing the externalities”, as I said on Friday just one second before I lost my audience) will enable government to reduce overall emissions, while allowing individuals to decide how much emitting is worth to them. That ensures that those who value emitting most can emit at a price, while those who value it less will emit less. Economically this results in an optimal distribution of resources (in this case, the limited capacity the earth has for more greenhouse gasses); socially this creates a free society where everybody is then free to pursue a better life as long as it is not at the expense of others.

Surely that’s a liberalism on which we can all agree.

From Malthus to Deng in one easy think tank

Call yourself a “Think Tank” and it’s amazing what people will fund.

The Optimum Population Trust (OPT) is concerned with the effects of population growth on the environment. It has therefore proposed compulsory limits to family size if urgent action is not taken to restrain population growth through voluntary family planning. This is a common sort of nonsense that crops up from time to time: there are too many of us, they bleat; we are out-consuming our little old planet. OPT suggest that we are consuming 25 per cent more than our planet can sustain, which is odd, because our planet’s population is six times the size that it was when Thomas Malthus was declaring that we were too many and were all doomed.

Despite OPT including some fairly impressive names (one of its chairs and four of its patrons hold professorships from leading universities) it is based on some schoolboy errors. The report says the planet faces the biggest generation of young people in history, leading to “the creation of a huge cohort of young urban males who, through frustration and unemployment…seek an outlet in violence.”

This seems a curious inversion of the truth. OPT do not explain why there should be more males than females in their over-populated world. In fact, the only reason I can think of for a disparity between males and females is the very course of action that OPT is proposing: namely, mandatory birth control.

The classic example of this is the one child policy in China. It has been a disaster – as the OPT report grudgingly admits. It has been widely ignored, where it has not been ignored it has resulted in massive female infanticide, reflecting the bias for male children in Chinese society. The lack of females for brides has been cited as a reason for the rising aggressiveness and militancy of China, as frustrated males look to take their passions out where they can. It has also lead to the 4-2-1 families, with one child supporting two parents and four grandparents.

As for the frustration and unemployment that the report identifies, it is far from inevitable. Widespread unemployment in “young countries” such as Iran and Nigeria is the result of disastrous economic policies rather than some Malthusian-cum-Mercantilist natural limit on the amount of employment. In fact, larger populations enable greater specialisation, leading to more varied jobs and more economic progress. The greatest variety and productiveness would be achieved by creating one global economic area in which six billion people could work together.

If anything, the danger in the developed world is too low a growth in population, leading to too few workers and taxpayers maintaining too many pensioners. It seems rather incongruous – indeed, positively bizarre – that OPT should propose a two-child limit in the UK when the current average birth rate is approximately 1.8 children per woman. We appear to have more than achieved their objective already without having to impose the state’s will on individual’s desire or freedom to breed.

The suggestion that we are out-consuming our planet is equally ludicrous. While humans are undoubtedly causing environmental change that may create difficulties in the future, it does not follow that we have reached or exceeded the productive capacity of planet Earth, as the authors suggest. Crop yields have increased rapidly over the past two centuries and are set to do so again as genetically modified crops yield more produce and are more disease and insect resistant. There are still vast areas of land in, for example, Africa that have not been turned to agricultural use. The UNDP estimates that by 2050 the global population will be 9.2 billion, but they do not believe that this will be unsustainable.

The solution to growing populations is not enforced birth control but economic reform. In fact, with no effort by government whatsoever (except in the removal of currently-prohibitive legislation), greater prosperity will lead to greater use of contraception and so a declining birth-rate. This has been the case in every developing country since effective contraception became available, and explains why the UNDP believes that the global population will level off in the second half of the C21st. Economic progress will enable us to feed, clothe and house 10 billion easily; indeed, it will open up to that 10 billion a level of prosperity and luxury of which 6.5 billion can now only dream.

At the same time, that rising prosperity will be accompanied by declining pollution. Another trend that is clear across the developed world is that the amount of pollution generated per person has fallen in line with economic, and thus technological, progress. This has in the past been undermined by population growth, but only because there was a cavalier attitude to pollution in the C20th. New, cleaner technologies, greater prosperity and more awareness of the impact of our activities on our environment will make the world a cleaner, easier place in which to live. Here, too, economics can lead the way, by providing liberal, market mechanisms for pricing pollutants.

Doom-mongers and population skeptics have a long pedigree, but like economic planners, reactionaries and Luddities they have been proven to be wrong time and again. I am sure that, when my allotted time expires (which on present trends should be around the time that baby 9.2 billion is born), we will be living in a cleaner, more abundant and more prosperous society, where nobody need want for the basics in life and most can look forward to a life as long as I will have enjoyed. Sadly, the patrons of OPT won’t be around to see it. But only because, like the dinosaurs, old age will have claimed them long before.

More heat than light in global warming debate

Last week I reported on The Great Global Warming Swindle, Martin Durkin’s documentary claiming that the “climate change consensus” was a conspiracy of bad science, protected because it justifies massive research grants, that will ultimately retard the development of desperate Third World nations. My original article contains a précis of the programme and is followed by comments providing links to some counter-arguments.

Whatever the rights and wrongs of the various arguments, I was at least glad that a debate was taking place. I had been aware for some time that there the so-called consensus was actually a widely-held prevailing belief, and that there were scientists out there that demurred. I was also aware that there has been a lot of vitriol directed at those who do not accept the orthodox view (and, to be fair, vice versa). As a liberal I find that uncomfortable; I believe that open and honest debate both uncovers lies and strengthens the truth. I had hoped that this programme would stir up such a debate.

Sadly, it seems that the elevated tone I had hoped for was a façade. The Times reported yesterday that Dr. Armand Leroi of Imperial College, London, wrote to Mr. Durkin to point out that the correlation between solar radiation and global temperature, posited in an article in Science in 1991, had been subsequently disproved. Mr. Durkin responded to this by explaining that Dr. Leroi was “a big daft cock”. Dr. Leroi was rather shocked by this: so much so that he has since withdrawn from a project that he was planning to work on with Mr. Durkin that was to discuss race. Race “is such a sensitive topic that it requires great care and great balance,” explained Dr. Leroi.

Simon Singh, a scientific author who had been copied into the exchange, intervened by writing “I suspect that you will have upset many people [Mr. Durkin]… so it would be great if you could engage in the debate rather than just resorting to one-line replies. That way we can figure out what went wrong/right and how do [sic.] things better/even better in the future”.

Mr. Durkin’s response concluded with the suggestion that Mr. Singh “Go and f*** yourself.”

Mr. Durkin has since apologised (via the Times, it seems), saying that “I regret the use of intemperate language. It is so unlike me.” That seems unlikely considering he originally considered calling his programme Apocalypse My Arse.

I am disappointed that the debate has so quickly degenerated to this level. However, I am encouraged by one comment from Mr. Durkin that the Times reported, that he has asked Channel 4 to stage a live debate on the issue. However, I wonder whether this is really the debate we need to have. Ultimately, global warming is just a scientific curio until it intersects with public policy. It is for scientists to argue and debate about the truth of the problem; us mere mortals must merely accept what wisdom filters down (though there is undoubtedly a question mark over government funding being directed towards research supporting the status quo). Policy-makers must act on the prevailing scientific evidence, even if there is still some doubt; I can think of at least one government that lost an enormous amount of power and influence because it resisted the prevailing view of science.

What is needed, therefore, is not a public debate on the science, but a public debate on our response to the prevailing evidence. Too much of the environmental policy debate is dominated by socialists and Gaiaists, those who believe that the solution rests in a massive expansion of state power and those who think that man is a blight on the planet. Too often have I heard otherwise rational people peddle the lie that there are too many people on Earth; that we need to reduce the human population to a “sustainable” level. Even more often the solutions offered seem strangely reminiscent of the state-planning consensus of the post-war world.

I believe that we can have a sustainable environment and a tolerable climate, with room for humans and polar bears alike, without giving up our freedom or our right to have children. But if that is to be achieved liberals must wrest control of the debate from the crypto-socialists and enviro-fascists, and offer a liberal alternative. The debate is more urgent than ever.

The Great Global Warming Swindle?

Last night I watched The Great Global Warming Swindle on Channel 4. It was a very interesting programme, whether or not one believes in anthropomorphic global warming. In essence, it argued that

1) Our climate is always changing. The current change is not out of the ordinary if one considers the Little Ice Age of C16-C18th, or the Medieval Warm Period

2) Man produces only a small amount of carbon dioxide compared with natural causes

3) Changes in carbon dioxide do not precede global warming. They follow global warming

4) If the theory of climate change science is correct, temperatures should be rising more rapidly in the troposphere. This is not the case

5) Global temperatures are dependent on cloud formation, which in turn are seeded by sub-atomic particles from the sun. In periods of high solar activity, such as now, fewer particles reach the earth leading to fewer clouds and therefore more warming

6) Support for global warming science began in the 1980s with an unholy alliance of anti-capitalists and anti-coal Thatcherites; after the death of communism, environmentalism became a useful rack on which to hang otherwise-discredited socialist beliefs

7) Promoting climate change was a great way for climate scientists to leverage money for their research. It has since become a way for any researcher to attract cash. It has spawned a massive industry that is now devoted to protecting its “rents”.

8) The Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change is a political body, and its findings are shaped by politics, not science. Of the thousands of scientists listed as contributing, many are not scientific contributors but reviewers and government officials. Other scientists that demurred from the agreed position had their names added to the IPCC’s list of supporting scientists anyway. Sceptical portions of the IPCC’s report were excluded in the final draft

9) The global environmental movement has been radicalised by its own success: once they became mainstream, movements such as Greenpeace could only continue to make headlines and generate revenue by becoming ever more extreme (e.g. their campaign to ban chlorine, an element!).

10) Efforts to convince Third World nations to limit their development to the use of renewable energy sources will retard their economic development and leave them mired in poverty.

I’m sure I’ve forgotten large parts of it, but I think that’s a reasonable précis. Other viewers are welcome to add (or disagree with) bits.

What was interesting was that the programme interviewed many physical and climatic scientists from renowned institutions (including MIT and Harvard), as well as Dr. Patrick Moore, co-founder and critic of Greenpeace and now a hate figure for some environmentalists. On the one hand this would appear to undermine the suggestion that only a few kooks and petrophiles still question the “global warming consensus”. On the other hand, at least one blogging colleague has suggested that some of these academics and researchers may not be all that they seem.

Other criticisms include The Independent saying that many of the scientific objections have already been addressed long ago (certainly no.1 is not new), and suggestions that the producer of the programme, Martin Durkin, has in the past used selective editing and misrepresentation to present interviewees’ beliefs in a manner that supports his views (though, to be fair, the people interviewed last night seemed fairly categorical).

Personally, this reminds me of much of the debate that flies around many major issues. It is a debate between scientists, which we poor mortals are obliged to look upon with increasing incomprehension as the debate becomes ever-more arcane. As we have been warned many times, the tyranny of “experts” is one of the most dangerous of all; we need to keep strict democratic control of policy, while trusting neutral and well-informed people to judge the evidence and advise accordingly.

However, if there is one accusation within the programme that is undoubtedly true, it is that those who dissent from the “global warming consensus” are increasingly being treated not as mistaken or even stupid, but as callous or wicked. As liberals we should be open minded to debate. As I have argued elsewhere in other contexts, we need sceptics. If we are correct then they will help sharpen our arguments and iron out any inaccuracies in our theories; if we are wrong they will save us from disaster.

So I welcome Mr. Durkin’s programme (as long as it was not deliberately disingenuous or based on misrepresentation or lies), not because I believe that the “climate consensus” is exaggerated, but because I believe that it is important that people question received wisdom.

Let the debate roar on!

…and what should be done to tackle climate change.

The European Commission has produced another daft and damaging proposal in their efforts to combat climate change. This is regrettable both for the commission’s image and for the climate cause.

My efforts to comment on this have produced an essay, so I am going to post it in three parts, which readers may read from as they will. In Part 1, I explained why I believe that Europe is the right forum in which to address climate change. In Part 2 I looked at Wednesday’s announcement and explained why I feel it is misjudged. I also touched upon the failing of the EU’s existing cap-and-trade system. In this part I will offer a liberal alternative to the authoritarian socialism that has suffused much of the environmentalist debate.

The European Commissions proposal highlights a far broader problem that infuses the climate change debate: that it is a Trojan horse for authoritarianism and socialism. The commission’s plan is a classic example: to save the planet we are to be told how to drive. Other examples are legion: subsidies for favoured industries and technologies (wind power, trains); protectionism (dressed up as reducing “food miles”); rationing (aka. “carbon quotas”); population control (which needs no explanation); over-regulation (housing and vehicle standards). The list could go on. These methods may or may not curb climate change, but in the process they will curtail freedom and condemn millions – perhaps billions – to poverty.

The Left was quick to see the opportunities presented by global warming and environmental degradation, and have moved quickly to occupy the commanding heights of the debate, from where they will once again seek to control the economy and curtail individual freedom. Climate change may be the justification now, but the techniques are the same, and the desires within the rationalist-progressives are also the same, rooted as they are in a belief that a few intelligent people with the time to think it through can create and manage a better society than we all can as individual actors perusing our interests.

So what’s a liberal to do? Nobody wants to fiddle while Rome burns, but neither do we want to place our writs willingly in the state’s shackles and accept the slavery that we fought so long to resist. Fortunately, there is a liberal alternative. In fact, there are two.

The first, and one that appeals most to me, is a carbon tax. Rather than ration supply by issuing quotas, or picking particular egregious sources of emissions and stamping down on them, we set a price for carbon and let the individual decide how much to pay for. After all, there is nothing wrong with a 4x4 emitting exhaust, or with a skier jetting off to Aspen; what is wrong is the global excess of carbon emissions. Reducing the emissions produced by power stations is not an end in itself; the end is reducing all emissions. Focussing on individual types of emission is arbitrary, because it squeezes some more than others, and it also harms us all more than it needs to because uneven economic meddling reduces the efficiency of economic activity, which means less wealth to go round – wealth that may pay for my holiday, your school or a Gambian’s dinner.

A carbon tax, by comparison, allows us all to continue to make the same individual decisions in our own best interests that we have always done, but forces us to bear the cost of our pollution. If I drive inefficiently or fly to Aspen my activity carries a cost; if I fit solar panels to my house or buy a bicycle my carbon-tax bill will fall. It is easy to apply and hard to avoid (it would be like VAT). It would be easy to control emissions: if they are too high, the tax rises, if they are well within tolerable limits, it can be reduced. But most importantly, it would not hand power to state officials who are at best fallible and at worst arrogant, capricious or venal. Neither will it admit the command economy through the back door. At worst, there is a danger that it could simply be used as a new tax to fill the coffers of some grasping finance minister, but any government of principle would seek to make the change revenue neutral, and voters would be able to judge their politicians against their tax burden and the state of the world.

The alternative method, favoured in both Europe and the United States (due to the visceral reaction that the word “tax” engenders) is a “cap and trade” system, whereby companies buy permits to emit and then either use them – and hand the costs onto the carbon-consumer – or trade them on the market. While this has had some serious problems (caused in Europe by allowing national governments to issue too many permits, and by the decision to give them away rather than selling them – a licence to companies to print cash) it still has the merit that it leaves individuals in the position to allocate their resources as they see fit, perhaps by driving a big car (which they may need if they have a big family or a big farm) but never flying, or doing both but buying solar panels, or making any number of choices that would see their overall “carbon footprint” reduced, while allowing them to reduce it in the manner that best suits their needs and their lifestyle.

In a seminal essay, Friedrich Hayek explained that the bipolar view of the world as divided between Left and Right wings is inaccurate, a result of conservatives and socialists associating liberals with the other camp because liberals may share common ground with other groups on certain issues. The environment is a classic example of where liberalism is clearly distinct from the other two creeds.

For socialists, global warming requires interventionist measures, complex planning and more power to the bureaucrats. It provides the excuse that for a decade and a half they have lacked for implementing the policies that until the 1980s they advocated on the grounds of economic efficiency. Conservatives for a long time denied global warming; now their responses are typically authoritarian. Liberals are open to the evidence of global warming, but not to the autocratic solutions that most environmentalists propose. The solution is to encourage and enable individuals to find their own way of reducing the negative impact they have upon the environment, rather than force centralised solutions down from above. For liberals, a world in which we are subject to the state is not much better than one where we are subject to the elements.

…why the European Commission is doing more harm than good…

The European Commission has produced another daft and damaging proposal in their efforts to combat climate change. This is regrettable both for the commission’s image and for the climate cause.

My efforts to comment on this have produced an essay, so I am going to post it in three parts, which readers may read from as they will. In Part 1, I explained why I believe that Europe is the right forum in which to address climate change. In this part I will look at Wednesday’s announcement and explain why I feel it is misjudged. In Part 3 I will offer a liberal alternative to the authoritarian socialism that has suffused much of the environmentalist debate.

I have explained in a previous post (probably to the boredom of many of my readers) why economics compels us to treat carbon pollution as a European phenomenon (efforts to create a world-wide approach having failed). Sadly, European solutions are not promising.

The proposal announced by the commission on Wednesday is aimed at improving the efficiency of our driving. Apparently, we are all driving inefficiently, and this is causing our cars to emit more carbon-laden exhaust than is necessary to get us from A to B. Late gear changes, sloppy breaking, stop/start driving, the speed at which we drive and low tyre pressure make our driving inefficient. Something needs to be done.

In the worst traditions of untrammelled bureaucracy, the solution proposed by Industry Commissioner Günter Verheugen is to micromanage our driving. Manufacturers are to be required to fit new cars with electronic stability control, emergency braking systems and warning lights that tell drivers when to change gear or pump up their tyres. The commission also plan to make it compulsory to use headlights even in broad daylight – a policy that might have some merit on grey days in northern Europe, but which will baffle Spaniards in the blazing sun of June.

The commission is not alone in this sort of enviro-economic engineering. Mayor of London Ken Livingstone is expanding his congestion charge by creating a Low Emissions Zone. Richmond Council is to penalise drivers of “gas guzzling” cars through a graduated price for parking permits. These, too, are blunt tools that unnecessarily obstruct freedom of choice. There is something particularly egregious about the European Commission’s plans, however.

While there is probably some merit in encouraging people to drive more efficiently, doing so in this interfering way is likely to generate anger and derision in equal measure. The car is a symbol of freedom for many, and its operation an art. To have it reduced to a science and guided by a bank of irritating lights on the dashboard is likely to infuriate drivers; rather than improving driving quality, it will simply cause drivers to curse the European Union while sticking black tape over the lights. The danger of flicking lights distracting drivers needs also to be considered – I would prefer drivers near me watched the road rather than the dashboard.

As I will explain in Part 3, there is no reason why efforts to curb carbon emissions need to involve bureaucratic control of the minutiae of decision-making. What matters is the aggregate amount of carbon mankind emits; individual decisions as to the source of those emissions are unimportant.

Ironically, the proper solution to car emissions – as a result of both the quality and the quantity of our driving – is revealed in the Commission’s own case. In response to industry criticism that the new bells and whistles may add up to £2,000 to the price of a new car, the Commission argues that drivers will save more in the long run due to lower fuel bills. If this is true then it is surely in the drivers’ own interests to drive more sensibly, in which case this intervention is not needed.

What is needed is a system that makes polluters aware of and bear the costs of their pollution, but one that does not arbitrarily punish some emissions or emitters over others, instead letting individuals continue to make decisions about how to allocate their resources (including the carbon they are prepared to ‘buy’) as they see fit. In Part 3 I will set out the options.

Why carbon emissions need to be dealt with at a European level…

The European Commission has produced another daft and damaging proposal in their efforts to combat climate change. This is regrettable both for the commission’s image and for the climate cause.

My efforts to comment on this have produced an essay, so I am going to post it in three parts, which readers may read from as they will. In this part, I will explain why I believe that Europe is the right forum in which to address climate change. In Part 2 I will condemn the announcement that was made yesterday. In Part 3 I will offer a liberal alternative to the authoritarian socialism that has suffused much of the environmentalist debate.

Let me be clear about where I stand from the outset. There are things which should be settled at a European level, and there are things which should not. One of those that should is carbon emissions.

Pollution is a classic “free rider” problem. Firstly, pollution is an “externality”, dull econospeak for a cost which an individual (business or person) can place on society while reaping the benefits themselves; I gain from driving my car, whereas the cost of the exhaust is shared equally by all of us. Secondly, reform costs the producer a lot and the benefits are shared across everyone; I give up a lot if I decide to forego the car, but the benefits are spread very thinly across lots of people. Consequently, as Jean Jacques Rousseau pointed out so eloquently in the C18th, the rational choice for the individual is to encourage others to do the right thing while being selfish oneself.

Producing energy from carbon is cheap, because the producer bears only some of the “social cost”, the rest being “externalised” to the wider population through pollution. If we are to curtail pollution, we must make individuals (be they businesses or people) bear the full social cost of what they are doing. However, national governments cannot be trusted to do this, again, due to the free rider problem: restricting activities that generate waste carbon dioxide will reduce short-term and localised economic efficiency, while the benefits are long term and widely distributed. Consequently, it is in any one country’s interests to let others confront climate change while the country in question carries on in the most individually-economically efficient manner; so China may burn coal like there’s no tomorrow, while hoping that the USA joins the EU in sweating about climate change.

The economic principle behind the European Union (not always treated with due respect by its member states) is that no country should seek economic advantage by trading unfairly. This is why we are faced with sometimes baffling European directives: it is only if a German customer knows what a Portuguese manufacturer means when they say “widget”, and what has gone into producing it, that the German customer can make an informed choice as to whether the Portuguese widget is worth buying in comparison to the (perhaps more expensive) German variety. Sometimes this goes too far: if the rules require that everything going into the widget be the same, including (for example) the cost of labour, then the Portuguese lose their competitive advantage and, potentially, if over regulated to the point of uniformity, the whole point of competition is lost. Thus not everything needs to be regulated at a European level.

Carbon emissions are one area where European collaboration is required. No individual nation-state can be relied upon to curb carbon emissions if it requires the government to cut off the nation’s economic nose to spite the world’s polluting face. In truth, as this is a global problem, this probably requires a global solution. The flawed Kyoto protocol aside, however, this remains a pipe-dream – or perhaps a nightmare, if too much universal government is the price that must be paid. However, in the absence of a global solution, a multilateral scheme among some of the world’s largest economy’s, which between them form the largest single economic union in the world, seems like a good place to start.

France (say) will never cut carbon emissions if it fears that Italy (for example) will thumb its nose at such efforts and gain an economic advantage by carrying on as normal. But if enough major economies take a stand, the costs will be spread, the benefits tangible, and other nations may just be shamed into pulling their weight.

Only through working together can climate change really be addressed. Collaboration is essential, but it alone is not sufficient. The right policies are also required.

More heat than light in organic food debate

I wonder whether David Miliband leaked Ruth Kelly’s decision to send her child to a private school as a means of distracting people from the adverse reaction to his interview with the Sunday Times in which he argued that the consumption of organic food was nothing more than a lifestyle choice. If so it would be very “New Labour”, but to be fair I doubt it. He knew exactly what he was doing and will stick by what he said.

I have been kicking myself for not writing about this yesterday, when I had the chance. Today I have been at work and so unable to post, except with a brief intervention on Duncan's and Tristan's sites. Some of what follows incorporates those comments, but I have added further thoughts as well.

To start with, I cannot see why the question of whether organic food it better for the consumer, the environment or the future of farming should be incompatible with its consumption being a lifestyle choice. When I used to go to the gym five times a week (Oh halcyon days!) it was a lifestyle choice even though it was good for me. Similarly, a friend of mine is motivated to compost his own waste (and I do mean his own waste) for environmental reasons, but it is nonetheless a lifestyle choice.

The real controversy about organic food is the wealth of unproven claims made by those who oppose modern farming methods. One of these is that modern farming methods harm the environment more than the organic alternative. In fact, all agriculture damages the environment, if one’s image of the environment is one of natural habitats. Agriculture is inherently unnatural because “unnatural” is a euphemism for things done by man but not other creatures; we destroy “natural” habitat to grow “unnatural” crops that would not exist without our efforts.

However, this “unnatural” process was integral to the birth of civilisation, a process which began in modern-day Iraq and Egypt and has now spread to Brazil. I know some people think that man is just a parasite but most of us want to live in a civilised society. Most of us also want to feed the earth’s 6 billion people, though again I’ve heard a few (some among my own party!) who would like to cull the population of the earth by two thirds.

If we are to feed 6 billion we need to embrace the Green Revolution of the 1960s (that’s “green” because of all the crops in the fields, rather than because it serves a nature goddess). This entails the use of fertilisers and insecticides. Only modern agriculture can sustain the population of our planet; it is this kind of agriculture that has meant that the age of mega-famines in India and China (prevalent until only a couple of generations ago) is over.

Organic production cannot produce the yields necessary to feed the earth at all, let alone at an affordable price. Thus the (Hobson’s) choice is either to plough over more natural habitat – the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation estimates that we would need to farm an additional area the size of South America to produce the same amount of food organically as we do now by modern means – or watch billions starve.

In the UK, this is not the case. We are rich enough that we can always afford to pay a premium for produce that is grown by traditional (as opposed to by modern) means. This is a choice – a lifestyle choice. We can pay British farmers a premium so that they produce lower yields by methods that cause less harm to butterflies and song birds. However, if we do reduce the yields of British farmers, we will need to source more food abroad. We then have a mini-version of the Hobson’s choice: do we buy food that is intensively farmed or put more land (in the producing country, rather than our own) under the plough. To put it another way, do we export the use of artificial fertilizers and insecticides, or do we cultivate thousands of acres of foreign land.

The aim of this article is not to criticise those who wish to consume organically produced food. They are welcome to do so, and if they believe they are avoiding as-yet-unproven health hazards then that is a rational choice that they have made. I would not dream of curtailing their freedom to do so any more than I would expect them to curtail my freedom to eat food laden with 30 different chemicals.

The aim is to highlight the fact that many of the claims of the organic food lobby are spurious and probably have more to do with protecting their market share than the health of either their consumers or the environment. Meanwhile, many of those who have swallowed these claims (along with their organically produced tofu burger) react furiously when confronted with the (lack of) evidence. Many of these are in influential positions – as I have noted before, both organo-sceptic and free market arguments receive short shrift from the BBC.

What we need (domestically and globally) is free trade in agriculture (as in all things) and honesty in labelling, advertising and describing products. We also need a balanced debate about this important area of policy. Sadly, there is a lot of nonsense talked about food. David Miliband was right to point that out.

Ideology trumps journalism in BBC debate on “ethical shopping”

You know you’ve touched a raw nerve when everybody attacks you. So Kendra Okonski discovered when she was interviewed on the BBC this morning. The Environment Programme Director at the International Policy Network had been invited to appear to discuss a report in The Economist about the contradictions within the ethical shopping industry.

According to The Economist, organic production is less intensive than production that relies on chemical fertiliser, and so requires more land. Thus a greater reliance on organic production would require turning more of our natural environment into cultivated farmland. Ms. Okonski noted on the BBC that UN Food and Agriculture Organisation estimate that to turn the world’s farming over to organic production would require additionally farming an area of natural habitat size of South America.

“Fair Trade” is equally misguided. While it may demonstrate a caring heart that a consumer buys a product at above the market price and transfers the premium to the poor farmer, this is nothing more than a form of charity channelled through the purchase of tea, coffee or some other commodity. Prices are low because of overproduction – there is a glut of coffee on world markets, for example. “Fair Trade” encourages farmers to continue to supply an over-produced commodity where they would be better off shifting to producing different commodities. This further depresses the price, hurting those farmers not receiving the so-called “fair” price.

As for the new fad for locally produced food, as over half the “food miles” added to UK food production are generated by the purchaser, and most people live nearer the supermarket than the farmer’s market, buying locally can actually result in adding more food miles to a product. Furthermore, farming locally is inefficient: it uses less energy to raise lamb in New Zealand and fly it to the UK than to raise it in Britain, because farming in New Zealand is less energy intensive. The fad for local food is actually old-fashioned protectionism masquerading as ethical shopping.

The Economist has always produced articles under its title without naming contributors. Thus we have no idea whether Ms. Okonski contributed to the report. The BBC invited her to comment on the report, however, so one would have expected her to be treated neutrally. Sadly, it was not to be. Both Ms. Okonski and the Economist had clearly hit upon a sensitive subject at Broadcasting House. After her first comment, BBC presenter Susanna Reid flatly contradicted her: “No!” she said, dismissing Ms. Okonski’s opinion, before arguing the counter case. As the BBC had also invited another speaker to put the supposedly ethical case, this was unnecessary; Ms. Reid’s role was to facilitate the debate rather than take sides.

At the close of the item, Ms. Reid was seen to pull what one can only assume was her “What was all that about?” face, before moving on to advertise the following programme, Saturday Kitchen. There, chef James Martin – who was drafted into the programme after the infinitely superior Anthony Worrall Thompson defected to ITV – and his two guests proceeded also to rubbish the evidence and research of international institutions, think tanks and the media. Presuming that neither Mr. Martin nor his fellow chefs have a PhD in Environmental Science or several years experience in a research institute, one can only assume that they were pontificating about something of which they knew nothing.

If consumers are to make choices that are really environmentally conscious and serve the interests of the world’s poor, they need to be better informed. This requires serious debate. Sadly, serious debate is difficult on the BBC when the ill-informed but nonetheless entrenched opinions of its staff are challenged. Universal condemnation often confronts those who make unorthodox and challenging suggestions. The more roundly these new ideas are condemned, the more carefully they should be examined.

Environmental hysteria poses real challenges

Tristan Mills’s excellent article on Environmental Hysteria highlights his concern that our future – even a future where we counter or adapt to global warming – is in danger. “We need sensible debate, not hysteria,” he writes. “We should not dismiss someone because they go against the orthodoxy, we should listen and argue based upon evidence.” I heartily agree.

One of the greatest dangers that we face as a society today is the polarisation of debate and the demonisation of opponents. In the environmental arena, this has manifested itself in virulent attacks on those who question the received orthodoxy. For example, to argue that Bjørn Lomborg was wrong and to point out errors in his work would have furthered debate and aided our understanding of environmental challenges. Instead, opponents brought a case in front of the Danish Committees on Scientific Dishonesty in a deliberate effort to destroy him and his career. The lesson of this action was clear: heresy will lead to trial by fire.

Indeed, like a fire, a lot of the environmental debate has generated more heat than light. This is a tragedy, for no matter what the truth, it will not be found in closed-mindedness. At all times, all progress has begun with people who demurred from the orthodoxy of the day. Whether their opinions became the new truth or merely helped sharpen the arguments of those who were right all along, they served mankind. Thus I not only defend the freedom of speech but positively encourage it. I would urge a rational debate with David Irvine as much as I would have with Galileo; it was on a thousand years of tyranny that the great liberals cut their teeth.

I have found myself on the wrong end of this. Having questioned environmental hysteria myself, I have been branded a global warming sceptic (or sometimes, more strongly, a denier) and given the look that left-wing friends usually reserve for oil barons and Americans that vote Republican. In fact, I have never denied that planetary average temperatures are rising, that the effect may be anthropogenic or that it may lead to negative effects. What I have done is argue that we must still entertain the debate, that dirigiste solutions should not be our first recourse, and that there may be more urgent emergencies facing the human race that deserve priority. But nobody is listening; they think I drive a Humvee.

I’ve probably done myself few favours by adopting the Devil’s Advocate approach and confronting my interlocutors with counter-arguments rather than discussing the issues in the round. That is a matter of style, and perhaps one I need to address. Nonetheless, I would have hoped that people whom I called friends would have been capable of engaging in a mature debate.

Having said this, there is an important lesson for us all, and it is not just one of style. Those who wish to promote discussion are becoming victims of “triangulation”, a devious stratagem that involves associating an opposing view with other views that are so outlandish that third parties are alienated and so give you their support. The enviro-fascists (by which I specifically mean those who would use authoritarian means to pursue their environmental agenda, or conversely those would use the environment as a fig-leaf for tyranny) would like nothing more than to paint liberals, genuine sceptics and the open-minded as short-sighted carbon-junkies in league with Big Oil or blind to the obvious truth.

As a result, those who would question environmental orthodoxy – because they doubt the science, the risks, whether it is a priority or simply whether the solutions prescribed are the best available – are in danger of ending up on the wrong side of the history. For the sake of all our futures, they need to recapture the intellectual high ground. For those who question the very fact of environmental danger, only sound evidence and rigorous method will provide protection. For those who accept that there is cause for concern but who would seek to change priorities or approaches, it is important that they stake out their own ground within environmentalism. For both groups, a steely determination will be needed if they are to weather the storm of protest that will engulf them.

In this bitterest of public debates, emotion is running high. If we are all to prosper into the 21st century, heated words call for cool heads.