A young woman named Anjali Appadurai representing Earth in Brackets stole the show at COP17 yesterday.

She was the final speaker.

How ironic that the world’s youth, the people who will be most affected by climate change, are relegated to the bottom of the agenda.

I was trying to find some recent data on climate refugees just now because of the controversy (in some quarters) over inaccurate UN projections (which, it seems, did not emanate from the UN at all). A Wikipedia site is of considerable assistance in this regard in that, while noting the conceptual problems, it does not dismiss the issue of ‘environmental migrants’. I’m reminded of an anonymous quotation on the definition of an economist I came across once, that read something along the lines of ‘someone who sees something in practice as asks whether it works in theory’. Does it really matter if there are 50 million climate refugees in 2010, 2020 or 2030? Is it somehow acceptable if it is an event that occurs 10 or 20 years from now? Or is it less of an issue because we are not sure whether a person can or cannot be counted because it is not possible to prove conclusively whether they were displaced because of environmental factors or war that may or may not have been caused by deteriorating environmental resources?

My challenge to the skeptics would be to watch this movie and then present a convincing argument that displaced persons arising from environmental factors is decreasing or not deviating from any historical trend. Furthermore, maybe if some of the climate change skeptics within government circles could bring themselves to watch it, they would spend less time trying to argue against the science and recognise that, whether they believe in the science or not, the consequences of climate change are sitting on their door step right now in the shape of a ‘national security problem’.

The biggest irony of all, is that even Simon Kuznets, (the man who invented GDP) in his very first report to the US Congress in 1934 went on record as saying: “… the welfare of a nation can, therefore, scarcely be inferred from a measure of national income”, and then again in 1962: “Distinctions must be kept in mind between quantity and quality of growth, between costs and returns, and between the short and long run. Goals for more growth should specify more growth of what and for what.”

I don’t think Professor Kuznets would have argued in favour of extreme weather events as a means of growing GDP somehow.

I was deeply saddened today to learn of the passing of Ray Anderson, who has been an inspiration to me in my teaching and research in the area of sustainable development for ten years or more. I once had the pleasure of hearing him speak at a business luncheon in Brisbane. An extremely humble man, one cannot fail to be motivated by his message that it is possible to do well by doing good.

Thanks Ray.

A report in the NYT the other day, Plan for China’s Water Crisis Spurs Concern, provides an update on the ambitious attempt by the Chinese government to redirect water from the south of the country to the increasingly dry north.

The Chinese, it seems, have a very sanguine view of their ability to control the forces of nature. As Chairman Mao once famously declared:

Natural science is one of man’s weapons in his fight for freedom. For the purpose of attaining freedom in society, man must use social science to understand and change society and carry out social revolution. For the purpose of attaining freedom in the world of nature, man must use natural science to understand, conquer and change nature and thus attain freedom from nature.

Speech at the inaugural meeting of the Natural Science Research Society of the Border Region (February 5, 1940).

As no-one has yet successfully managed to replicate biodiversity, I confidently predict that this plan will add to China’s water problems rather than ameliorate them. What worries me most is that there does not seem to be a ‘Plan B’, or at least it is not publicly stated. Where will China go for its water when the well runs completely dry?

Here is an interesting chart if ever there was one. The Food & Agriculture Organisation (FAO) — a reliable source, one would think — has published data on the annual rate of deforestation over the past decade which shows that some countries are bucking the trend and have become net reafforestors (if that is a word) between 2000 and 2010. Amazingly, among the largest reafforestors are China and India. Everything I read suggests the opposite should be true. A classic case of misreporting by government agencies perhaps, or have I just become way too cynical? Australia, meanwhile, is in the same bracket as Brazil and Indonesia, which is not something to be especially proud of.

We live in an increasingly full world. During 2011 we pass the 7 billion mark. This means that world population has more than doubled during my lifetime. When J.F. Kennedy was President of the United States, humankind numbered a mere 3 billion. How has it been possible to sustain such burgeoning population growth? Answer: access to fossil fuel energy that has enabled huge increases in productivity. Back in 1800, before the industrial revolution took hold, production could only sustain 1 billion. Is the globe over-populated by the human species? On the face of it — yes, but not necessarily. The real problem is social justice (or the lack thereof) and failure to live within our ‘ecological budget constraint’. Based on the current business-as-usual model, we exceeded the carrying capacity of the Earth in the mid-1980s. In a non-polluting, renewable energy-fuelled world based on the principles of intra- and inter-generational equity, a population of 7 billion human beings may be sustainable.

Millions of tonnes of plastic floating around in the Pacific constitute one of the largest — if not the largest — rubbish dumps in the world, and covers an area bigger than the US according to one account. Out of sight, out of mind? Maybe, but if you eat seafood, probably not out of your digestive system. Still, what harm is a bit of plastic going to do? The Crápola Islands is on the look out for new ‘citizens’. This rapidly accumulating land mass in the heart of the Pacific Ocean is a product of ‘modern living’ and comprises a veritable cornucopia of plastics. Not enough toxicity in your life? This could be the place for you.