Global Environmental Change Understanding the Human Dimensions (1992) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
4 Human Consequences and Responses
4 Human Consequences and Responses
Pages 101-166
The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
Select key terms on the right to highlight them within pages of the chapter.
From page 101... ...
Things are different now from what they have been for millennia. This chapter examines the range of human consequences of, and responses to, global environmental change.
|
From page 102... ...
This fact causes many concerned people to consider taking action now to protect the values of those who might be affected by global environmental change in years to come. But because of uncertainty about how global environmental systems work, and because the people affected will probably live in circumstances very much different from those of today and may have different values, it is hard to know how present-day actions will affect them.
|
From page 103... ...
Instead, we review basic knowledge about how human systems respond to external stresses, in the context of discussing human responses. In our judgment, understanding human responses is key to understanding the human consequences of global change.
|
From page 104... ...
For instance, people can build dikes to keep out rising seas or reduce greenhouse gas emissions to mitigate global warming. Human actions can also affect human responses to global change incidentally to their intended purposes.
|
From page 105... ...
Changes in society that incidentally affect human responses to global change are important both directly and because they could become tomorrow's deliberate responses. For example, gasoline taxes, which were not initiated with the global environment as a consideration, could be increased to cut CO2 emissions.
|
From page 106... ...
For example, global warming is the direct result of a change in the earth's radiative balance; humans can mitigate global warming by any actions that slow the rate of change or limit the ultimate amount of change in the radiative balance.3 They can intervene in the environment (type EJ, for example by directly blocking incident solar radiation with orbiting particles or enhancing the ocean sink for carbon dioxide by adding nutrients. They can intervene in the proximate causes (type Pl, by regulating automo
|
From page 107... ...
and indirectly control the proximate causes, by investing in research on renewable energy technologies to replace fossil fuel or providing tax incentives for more compact settlements to lower demand for transportation. Mitigation of ozone depletion might, in principle, involve release of substances that interact chemically with CFCs, producing compounds with benign effects on the stratospheric ozone layer Type El, limiting emissions of chiorofluorocarbons {CECs)
|
From page 108... ...
Farmers, regions, and countries that rely on a range of crops with different requirements for growth may or may not produce less greenhouse or ozone-depleting gases than monoculturists. But polycultures are more robust in the face of drought, acid deposition, and ozone depletion.
|
From page 109... ...
THE PIVOTAL Rots OF CONFLICT An important consequence of global environmental change is conflict, because global change affects what humans value, and different people value different things.
|
From page 110... ...
The nature and extent of global warming in the future is highly uncertain because of incomplete knowledge of the relevant properties of the atmosphere, oceans, biosphere, and other relevant systems. It is wasteful for society to expend resources to prevent changes that will not occur anyway.
|
From page 111... ...
Mitigation is prudent because of the long time lags in the global environmental system. By the time it becomes clear that a response is needed, it may be too late to prevent catastrophe if the change is proceeding rapidly.
|
From page 112... ...
The argument supports mitigation efforts that slow ongoing human interventions in the environment, but generally not those that would stop greenhouse warming by new interventions in the global environment.
|
From page 113... ...
A- - ~ Implications of Conflict About Human Response Many controversies are beginning to develop out of concerns with global change. One pits Third World countries against the developed countries that are now becoming concerned with limiting use of fossil fuels and restricting the felling of tropical forests.
|
From page 114... ...
Issues of global environmental change have all the features characteristic of the most difficult technoTogical controversies: awareness of human influence on the hazards, serious worst-case possibilities, the possibility of widespread and unintended side effects, delayed effects not easily attributable to specific causes, and lack of individual control over exposure (National Research Council, 1 989b:5 7-621. Social science can help illuminate the nature of environmental controversies and evaluate ways of managing them.
|
From page 115... ...
More research seems warranted to use existing knowledge about conflict to illuminate the ways social conflict may result from global environmental change. This research would investigate the ways environmental changes may affect organized social groups and their resource bases and would hypothesize links between those effects and conflict.
|
From page 116... ...
and the ways that conflicts are played out and choices made within these systems. INTERNATIONAL REGUEATION OF OZONE DEPLETING GASES As mentioned earlier, the most successful effort to date to address a global environmental problem by international agreement
|
From page 117... ...
and the actions of the international scientific community jHaas, 19891, with the support of the international environmental movement. The Vienna convention of 1985 embodied an international consensus that ozone depletion was a serious environmental problem.
|
From page 118... ...
While compromises on several controversial points proved sufficient to gain Japanese and Soviet adherence, the major developing countries (e.g., China and Indial did not become signatories to the Montreal Protocol. Only after the Montreal Protocol was signed did the full extent of ozone depletion became public: ozone depletion over Antarctica reached a historic high in 1987, and the link to the release of CFCs became a matter of scientific consensus.
|
From page 119... ...
Another important influence in getting CFCs on political agendas may have been the efforts of the scientific community, which has been influential in drawing attention to other environmental problems (Haas, 19911. Haas {1989J notes that it was initially a group of atmospheric physicists and chemists, most of whom worked in the United States, who attempted to place the issue of ozone depletion on the national and global environmental agendas, and that this community continued to press the issue throughout the l980s.
|
From page 120... ...
To the extent that energy intensity can continue to improve in the United States and other countries, energy efficiency can make an enormous contribution to mitigating global warming. This section takes a closer look at how and why the change occurred in the United States and the implications for other countries.
|
From page 121... ...
The decrease in energy intensity with the 1973 of! shock, and again with the 1979 shock, marked a sharp break from the previous 20 years; from 1973-1981, intensity decreased at a rate about 2 1/2 times the average of the previous 53 years.
|
From page 122... ...
A five-year price increase of about 45 percent in 1973-1978 increased energy productivity 7 percent; a similar increase in 1978-1983 increased energy productivity lS percent. Moreover, the trend continued through several years of falling real energy prices.
|
From page 123... ...
1101 ,113.6_, / 106.2 _,-100/ 100.9_,' 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 PRICE PRODUCTIVITY FIGURE 4-2 Changes in indexed real energy prices and energy intensity in the U.S. economy after the energy shocks of 1973 {A)
|
From page 124... ...
Since these factors can be changed independently of energy prices, it seems likely that with appropriate policies in place, energy intensity might have improved faster than it did, even in the apparently price-responsive 1 979-1985 period. Policy Responses and Implementation Energy conservation policy in the United States has been predicated on the theory that government should intervene chiefly to correct so-called market imperfections such as the tendency of a supply system based on market prices to produce too little environmental quality (because individual consumers cannot be charged for it)
|
From page 125... ...
If, for example, energy prices fall or remain stable, lowering energy users' motivation to change, some policy instruments will become less effective than they were in 1973-1985. The trends of the late 1980s demonstrate this effect (U.S.
|
From page 126... ...
The world energy price and supply picture will affect the spread of the Western improvements in energy productivity to other countries. Under conditions like those of the late 198Os, with relatively low energy prices and stable supplies, sharp further improvements in installed energy efficiency are unlikely, even in the Western industrialized countries, without new policy initiatives.
|
From page 127... ...
As a rule, regions that receive increased rainfall are likely to benefit; decreased rainfall is the more serious concern. The history of the human consequences of severe drought can be instructive about the variety of human consequences of, and responses to, unmitigated climatic change.
|
From page 128... ...
Possibly food aid was earlier and better in some countries, but in northern Nigeria, where food aid was not a major factor in either period, social distress was noticeably less marked in the 1980s, even in the worst affected areas. What explains the relatively low human cost of the 1980s drought?
|
From page 129... ...
One strategy-maladaptive in the long run is characterized by deforestation and overcultivation and leads to land degradation, decreases in productivity, and, in the event of drought, short-term collapse. Another adaptive in the long run-is based on flexible land use, economic diversification, integrated agroforestrylivestock management, and intensive use of wetlands.
|
From page 130... ...
The present policies of governments and international organizations in the Sahel can create conditions that promote or impede the ability of indigenous systems to respond and thus determine the human consequences of future drought. SEVEN HUMAN SYSTEMS This section distinguishes seven human systems that may be affected by, and respond to, global change: individual perception, judgment, and action; markets; sociocultural systems; organized action at the subnational level; national policy; international co
|
From page 131... ...
Past research on human judgment and decision has clarified many differences between decision theory and actual decision making {Kahneman et al., 19821; some of these are reflected in human responses to natural hazards iSaarinen, 1982; SIovic et al., 19741. Behavioral decision research demonstrates that most people have difficulty comprehending the very low probabilities assigned to environmental disasters ISIovic et al., 1977; Lichtenstein et al., 19781, estimating the probability of natural events that they rarely experience {SIovic et al., 19791, interpreting uncertain knowledge, and making connections between events and their actual causes.
|
From page 132... ...
Research Needs Research on what and how nonexperts think about particular global environmental problems can help estimate how individuals will respond to new information about the global
|
From page 133... ...
Aggregated! Individual Responses The consequences of global environmental change often depend on the aggregated responses of very large numbers of individuals.
|
From page 134... ...
in the context of residential energy conservation; more limited research has been done on other individual actions relevant to global environmental changes. Research Needs At least three kinds of research should be pursued further to improve understanding of how individual behavior may be significant in resnnn.~e to ~l~h~1 rh~na~ empirical research on the actual responsiveness of behavior to interventions believed to affect it.
|
From page 135... ...
New research should carefully assess alternative hypotheses about the links between individuals' values and attitudes and their representation in the activities of environmental movement groups and other institutions involved in response to global change. For instance, the view that environmental organizations reflect widespread attitudes should be tested in the global context against other views, for instance that social movement activists act as entrepreneurs, with their own interests separate from those of the public they claim to represent E.g., Touraine et al., 1983; Rohrschneider, 19901.
|
From page 136... ...
MARKETS One of the most likely consequences of global change will be effects on the prices of important commodities and factors of economic production in local and world markets. As a result, uncoordinated human responses will be affected greatly by markets.
|
From page 137... ...
Uncoordinated decisions following such a discount rate ~ndenralue future threats and opportunities Market interest rates may be too high to re Economic theory suggests prescriptions for government action when market signals do not correspond to social values. The goal usually considered most important is to get the environmental impacts reliably translated into the price and income signals that will induce private adaptation.
|
From page 138... ...
Research on adaptation is undersupplied by markets because inventors cannot capture the full fruits of their inventions. Research on mitigation technologies that will slow global changes are even more seriously undersupplied in markets, because not only can inventors not collect the fruits of their efforts, but also the fruits, such as preservation of climate, are unpriced or underpriced in the market.
|
From page 139... ...
iSome of these questions are addressed in work by Mitchell and Carson, 198S, and Nordhaus, 1990. ~ Third, studies ot social discount rates are needed, especially to estimate preferences concerning the future environment so they can be included in evaluations of global environmental change {e.g., Lind et al., 19861.
|
From page 140... ...
Also, informal social bonds can have important effects on individual and community responses to global change and on the implementation of organized policy re sponges. Indigenous Sociocu~tura]
|
From page 141... ...
Indigenous sociocultural systems that have adapted to highly variable environments may offer lessons for improving the robustness of social systems to environmental changes outside of past experience. The adaptation in the Sahel points to the importance of diversified sources of cash and subsistence in allowing local groups to adapt to environmental change with limited human cost.
|
From page 142... ...
Such research can identify anticipatory policies that may enable local or regional social systems to withstand the local effects of global environmental changes at low cost, with limited demands on disaster response systems. Social Bonds and Responses to Environmental Change Individual behaviors in response to global change are also affected by informal social influences.
|
From page 143... ...
Informal social links are also significant influences on the acceptance of mitigation strategies, such as energy conservation programs aimed at individuals and households iStern and Aronson, 19841. Adoption of new, energy-efficient technology tends to follow lines of personal acquaintance (Dariey and Beniger, 1981 l, and participation in government energy conservation programs is higher when the program takes advantage of personal acquaintanceships and local organizations with good face-to-face relations with members of the target group (Stern et al., 1986al.
|
From page 144... ...
Global environmental change may increase the pace of this historical trend if it makes rural agricultural life more difficult and thus increases the migration to urban areas, with consequences for the ability of communities, particularly in the Third World, to withstand further environmental change. Research Needs Research is needed on those characteristics of communities that affect their organized responses to global change.
|
From page 145... ...
. The broad awareness that global changes are occurring is in large part due to various national environmental movements drawing attention to the growing body of scientific evidence on the subject.
|
From page 146... ...
Corporations and Trade and Industry Associations Corporations and trade and industry associations are major actors shaping response to global change. Just as the environmental movement translates public concern into political action and in turn shapes public perceptions and actions, corporations and trade associations translate the interests they represent into political
|
From page 147... ...
Research is badly needed on how corporations and trade associations attempt to communicate internationally about global environmental issues with other groups representing the same industries. NATIONAL POLICY Nation-states help determine the consequences of global change through their essential role in international agreements and by national policy decisions that affect the ability to respond at local and individual levels.
|
From page 148... ...
As a rule, environmental policies are more likely to be effectively implemented to the extent that investors and managers in some industries and firms believe they can benefit financially. These issues extend beyond business.
|
From page 149... ...
Great Britain, by contrast, uses an approach to regulation characterized by more flexible standards, modest goals, very infrequent use of legal penalties, and restricted participation by the public and environmental groups. Scientists and scientific evidence play very different roles in different countries' environmental policies.
|
From page 150... ...
Such research can help clarify the kinds of policy options that are viable in different countries, which is a factor in reaching and implementing international agreements. In particular, it is important to understand the conditions under which nations enact policies promoting the development of environmentally benign technologies because such development, while it could produce large benefits on a global scale, is often unlikely to come from the private sector because of the difficulty of appropriating profits.
|
From page 151... ...
Similarly, not all options known to a society reach its legislative agendas {e.g., Kingdon, 19841. Among the factors involved in getting environmental issues on political agendas are mass media coverage of disastrous or telegenic events and threats of dread consequences such as cancer, danger to children and future generations, the characteristics that increase perceived seriousness of risks among most citizens jMazur, 1981; Sandman et al., 1987; Rosenbaum, 19911.
|
From page 152... ...
INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION Sustained international cooperation is one essential element in the overall human response to global environmental changes. It is essential because efforts to cope with some large-scale environmental changes such as ozone depletion and global warming seem
|
From page 153... ...
Today's concerns with international arrangements focus mainly on mitigating global environmental changes rather than adjusting to them. In the future, however, as global changes become realities, there will be more calls for international cooperation to adjust to the impacts, for instance, by developing buffer stocks of food crops or mechanisms to handle flows of environmental refugees.
|
From page 154... ...
Regimes are interlocking sets of rights and rules that govern interactions among their members with regard to particular areas of action. Although most of the research on international regimes concerns economic regimes, interest is mounting rapidly in the study of environmental regimes, particularly the developing regime for the protection of the stratospheric ozone layer (Benedick, 19911, but also other, more geographically limited, international environmental regimes ~ e.g., Sand, 1 990a; Haas, 19901.
|
From page 155... ...
A third area concerns the problems of regime formation when the participants are deeply divided. Many global environmental problems involve north-south confrontations in which the wealthy, industrialized states want to limit environmental changes but developing countries see limits as threats to their development.
|
From page 156... ...
This global change research agenda would therefore be a direct and timely contribution to political science. GLOBAL SOCIAL CHANGE As we note at the opening of this chapter, the consequences of global environmental change depend on the future shape of human society.
|
From page 157... ...
However, urbanization may decrease vulnerability by affording economies of scale in resource use and environmental protection, allowing rural households to diversify their sources of income, decreasing population growth rates, and increasing concern with environmental amenities. Some of the key research questions concern the conditions under which urbanization affects demand for resources implicated in global change, vulnerability to environmental disasters, and the robustness of rural communities in the face of environmental change.
|
From page 158... ...
4. Geopolitical Shifts The trend in 1989-1991 of declining tensions between East and West may facilitate human response to global environmental change through reallocating funds from military uses, lowering the potential for widespread nuclear and/ or chemical warfare, redefining national security to consider environmental as well as military and ideological threats {Brown, 1982; Mathews, 1989; Bush and Gorbachev, 19901, and building trust between powerful nations that will lead to cooperation instead of conflict.
|
From page 159... ...
Expansion Exponential growth in scientific and technological knowledge both drives environmental change and increases the capacity to respond to it. It increases the ability to detect and understand threatening global environmental changes {e.g., the ozone hole, and provides alternatives to destructive products and practices (e.g., substitutes for CFCs)
|
From page 160... ...
We focus here on four general principles derived from this analysis that deserve special emphasis because they are fundamental, underappreciated, and point to critical directions for research. THE KNOWLEDGE BASE FOR HUMAN RESPONSES IS INHERENTLY VALUE LADEN We have identified the key link from environmental change to its human consequences as proximate effects on what humans value.
|
From page 161... ...
~· . 1 HUMAN RESPONSES MUST BE ASSESSED AGAINST A CHANGING BASELINE The human consequences of an environmental change depend on when it happens and on the state of the affected human groups at that time.
|
From page 162... ...
But scenario building is more art than science. Therefore, as an initial approach, it is useful to test projected environmental futures against various projected human futures to see how sensitive the human consequences of global change are to variations in the social future.
|
From page 163... ...
To respond to the threat of global warming, a government may regulate automobile manufacture or use {affecting a proximate cause type P mitigations, institute a variety of fossil fuel taxes or incentives Ito affect human systems that drive global change type H mitigation) , support research on solar energy (a more distantly type H mitigations, or support adjustment by investing in a fund to compensate citizens after the warming begins to affect what they value.
|
From page 164... ...
Therefore, as a general rule, our conclusions about research on human causes apply equally to research on human responses. For example, policies in response to global change, which often attempt to change technology, social organization, economic structures, or even attitudes, contribute to the interactions of the human driving forces.
|
From page 165... ...
They reflect current usage in the global change research community {for instance, researchers tend to use the term mitigation to refer to interventions in the human causes of global change but not to interventions in the consequencesI, and they emphasize the importance of feedbacks between human responses and human causes of global change. 3 Although the policy debate is usually phrased in terms of global warming, the greenhouse gas emissions that are at the center of the debate do much more to climate than raise the earth's average temperature.
|
From page 166... ...
12 ibis section draws heavily on the much more detailed discussion of the relations of decision tbeo~ to global climatic change by Pischbeff and FuIby [1983~. Addidona1 provocative ideas for research can be found tbeIe.
|
Key Terms
This material may be derived from roughly machine-read images, and so is provided only to facilitate research.
More
information on Chapter Skim is available.