“My research on the economics of atrazine shows that its benefits are greatly exaggerated. Corn yields and farm incomes would barely be affected by switching from atrazine to the next-best alternatives.

“Why is atrazine controversial? Everyone agrees that it kills weeds. But there are two rival stories about its health risks. Industry-sponsored research and agribusiness lobbies say that atrazine is completely safe and has been used for decades without harm to humans. Independent university researchers and peer-reviewed scientific literature say that it is a powerful endocrine disrupter that makes male frogs into hermaphrodites at very low concentrations and causes neural damages and cancer in laboratory animals.”

Read the full Des Moines Register column.

See Ackerman’s original study on atrazine.

Environmental governance as a field is increasingly engaging economists, especially those interested in institutional analysis. The 2009 Nobel Prize in Economics to Elinor Ostrom for her pioneering work on governing the commons is one indicator of this engagement. However, neither economists, nor typically political scientists studying environmental collective action and governance, have paid much attention to gender. At the same time, research in other disciplines which brings a gender perspective to these issues has focused mainly on women’s relative absence from governance institutions and the factors underlying that absence.

But suppose we turned this focus on its head to ask: what difference would women’s presence make in these institutions? How would that affect institutional functioning?

Would women’s inclusion, say, in forest governance— undeniably important for equity— also affect decisions on forest use and outcomes for conservation and subsistence? Are women’s interests in forests different from men’s? Would women’s presence lead to better forests and more equitable access? Does it matter which class of women governs? And how large a presence of women would make an impact? Answers to these questions can prove foundational for effective environmental governance. Yet they have hardly been empirically investigated.

In my new book, Gender and Green Governance (Oxford University Press, 2010), I make these questions the central focus. I conceptually outline why we would expect women’s presence to make a difference, statistically test a range of hypotheses, and trace the policy implications of the results. Based on a primary survey of community forestry institutions (CFIs) in the early 2000s, and backed by a decade of fieldwork in Nepal and India, I examine what impact the gender composition of the group has on women’s effective participation, rule-making, rule violations, forest conservation, and firewood and fodder shortages.

I find that women’s greater presence in CFIs has many statistically demonstrable benefits. It enhances women’s effective voice in decision-making; influences the nature of decisions made, especially the rules of forest use and their implementation; and improves forest condition. Measures that help increase women’s presence in governance institutions (and especially poor women’s presence) would thus be beneficial both because their participation is intrinsically important for inclusive governance and successful institutional functioning, and to better fulfill the conservation and subsistence objectives of such institutions.

Improvement in forest canopy and regeneration (as assessed by the research team, the villagers, the forest department, and where possible satellite data), for instance, is found to be significantly greater among CFIs with a higher presence of women on their executive committees. In fact, in Nepal, all-women groups outperform other groups, despite receiving smaller, more degraded and younger forests. Involving women in the CFI’s decisions enlarges the pool of people committed to resource conservation. It improves the flow of information about forest protection rules among a wider cross-section of users. It increases the number of those watching out for intruders. It creates conditions under which women can better use their knowledge of plants and species and conservation practices. And it raises children’s awareness about the need for conservation.

These results are especially important given that forests are sources of biodiversity and carbon sinks, with a notable impact on climate change. But our ability to save forests can depend critically on the local collective action of millions of communities across the globe, as was recognized as early as 1987 in the Brundtland Report.

Where the CFIs I studied have done less well, however, is in addressing women’s domestic energy needs. Despite forest regeneration and the greater availability of biomass, in most cases firewood shortages have persisted, and in some cases they have become even more acute. I argue that effective solutions to such problems depend on both local and non-local responses, in particular the energy policies framed by the government. But is the government listening? If not, by what mechanisms of democratic deliberation and institutional strengthening can we call the government’s attention to critical local needs?

In engaging with current debates on energy policy, critical mass and social inclusion the book traverses fields which go beyond the domain of any single discipline. It also traces women’s history of exclusion from public institutions, the factors which constrain their effective participation, and how those constraints can be overcome. It outlines how strategic partnerships between forestry groups and other civil society institutions (“a web of strategic alliances”, as I term them) could strengthen rural women’s bargaining power with community and government. And it examines the complexities of eliciting government accountability in addressing poor rural women’s needs, such as for clean and adequate domestic fuel and access to the commons.

You can order Gender and Green Governance at a discount.

See also, Agarwal, B. 2010: “Does Women’s Proportional Strength Affect their Participation? Governing Local Forests in South Asia”, World Development, 38 (1): 98-112

Agarwal, B. 2009: “Gender and Forest Conservation: The Impact of Women’s Participation in Community Forest Governance”, Ecological Economics, Vol. 68: 2785-99.

Bina Agarwal is Director and Professor of Economics, Institute of Economic Growth, Delhi University. Triple Crisis invited her to write on her new book. See also www.binaagarwal.com

Congress has – once again – considered a new climate and energy bill, and then blinked, instead of passing it. As in the movie Groundhog Day, they seem condemned to keep starting, over and over, until they get it right. It’s a good thing there’s not much at stake, aside from the fate of the earth’s climate, the disastrous dependence on oil, and the costs to the American taxpayers to clean up this mess.

In a recent study, released by Economists for Equity and the Environment (E3 Network), we analyzed the economic impacts of climate policies on households throughout the country. We found there are two basic principles for designing a fair and effective climate policy. First, we need to put a price on carbon dioxide emissions, to send a clear market signal that these emissions need to be reduced. The higher the price, the faster the reduction in emissions – regardless of how wisely, or not, the carbon revenues are used.

And second, we should use the revenues wisely. If most of the carbon revenues are refunded to households, on an equal per capita basis, then a large majority of Americans, including the average household in every state, will come out ahead. That is, the refunds will be larger than the amount you pay for carbon emissions – regardless of how high the price is set.

What would a successful policy look like? To reach the widely discussed goal of a 20-percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020, the price of emitting a ton of carbon dioxide in that year should be $75. That sounds scary by itself: It could mean a price hike of 75 cents per gallon at the gas pump. But remember, you’re going to get it back, and more, in your refund check. If 85 percent of the carbon revenues are refunded to households, then four-fifths of the country, including a majority in every state, will come out ahead. The other 15 percent of the revenues can be used for investment in energy efficiency, providing additional jobs while reducing emissions even more.

All of the bills proposed in Congress this year contain some useful elements, but none would do enough, either for the climate or for the taxpayer. They typically have limits, which are much too low, on the allowable price on emissions – keeping it at around $40 per ton or less in 2020, roughly half the level that is needed. And they typically distribute some money, but not enough, to households. The Cantwell-Collins bill comes closest to our recommendation, with a 75-percent refund, but according to our model, even that is not quite enough.

We are not – like Bill Murray in the movie – doomed to repeat our past mistakes. Congress can get this right, avoiding the worst climate damages while building a new, high-tech green economy, and putting money in the pockets of most Americans.

Elizabeth A. Stanton is a senior economist with the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI-US).

Do some communities “win” from environmental injustice? At first glance it may seem that when minorities and low-income neighborhoods suffer disproportionate air pollution, other people benefit from cleaner air. But in an analysis of exposure to toxic air pollution from industrial facilities in the United States, James Boyce and colleagues at the Political Economy Research Institute find that the metropolitan areas with the largest disparities also have the most pollution — so much so that even middle-and-upper-income whites breathe dirtier air than their counterparts in other cities. The implication: environmental justice can be good not only for minorities but for white folks, too.

Read more here

Triple Crisis blogger James Boyce published the following commentary on E3′s Real Climate Economics blog.

“In one of the more memorable moments of the 2008 presidential campaign, candidate Barack Obama explained why he rejected John McCain’s call to postpone their September debate in Oxford, Mississippi, during the negotiations on the first financial bailout package. “It’s going to be part of the president’s job,” Obama declared, “to be able to deal with more than one thing at once.””

“Something similar can be said about climate policy. A variety of proposals – for public investment, carbon pricing, regulatory standards – are cooking in Washington’s political stew. Sometimes the proponents of specific policies are tempted to oversell their merits, while dismissing other policies as unnecessary or even counterproductive. But if Congress and the Obama administration are going to get smart on climate change, part of their job is to deal with more than one policy at once…”

Read the full commentary on E3′s Real Climate Economics blog

A serious campaign in favor of “de-growth” has been going on for some time and has made important contributions. This movement has opened new avenues for debate and analysis on technology, credit, education and other important areas. It’s an effort that needs support and attention, and we must applaud their initiators and promoters for their boldness and dedication.

De-growth is defined as “a reduction of production and consumption in physical terms through down-scaling and not only through efficiency improvements”. Kallis-Schneider-Martínez Alier explain that de-growth is a smooth, voluntary and equitable downscaling of production and consumption that insures human wellbeing and ecological sustainability locally as well as globally on the short and long term. Thus, de-growth is not limited to a technological dimension.

A conference in Barcelona presented several policy measures aimed at bringing de-growth to fruition. Some of these are related to macroeconomic policies but their effectiveness remains unclear. For example, monetary reform with the elimination of fiat money may or may not lead to de-growth or stable steady state economies.

But there is a fundamental problem with de-growth (or zero growth) theories: they perceive growth as stemming from manias, fetishism, cultural or psychological roots. The best example of this worldview can be found in Serge Latouche.

The problem with this perspective is that the cause of growth becomes psychological, a question of mentalities and even fashion. The idea that growth could originate from endogenous forces in capitalist economies is ignored.

Growth is not only a cultural phenomenon or a feature of a maniac mentality. It is the direct consequence of how capitalist economies operate. This is true of capitalism as it operated in Genoa in the sixteenth century, and it is true today with the mega-corporations that rule global markets. The purpose of capital is to produce profits without end, that’s the meaning of its particular form of circulation. Its purpose is not to produce useful things or useless stuff, its object is to produce profits without end and produce more capital. This is the engine of accumulation and it is fuelled by inter-capitalist competition.

In the words of Marx’s Grundrisse, “Conceptually, competition is nothing other than the inner nature of capital, its essential character, appearing in and realized as the reciprocal interaction of many capitals with one another, the inner tendency [presents itself] as external necessity. Capital exists and can only exist as many capitals, and its self-determination therefore appears as their reciprocal interaction with one another.” By the forces of competition, “capital is continuously harassed: March! March!” Thus, Marx’s analysis shows convincingly that capital can only exist as private centres of accumulation that are driven by (inter-capitalist) competition. This is why, in its quest to expand and survive (as an independent centre of accumulation) capital is continuously opening new spaces for profitability: new products, new markets. The corollary of this is that the only way in which we can get rid of “growth mania” is by getting rid of capitalism. It is not possible to have capitalism without growth.

Is there a technological fix out of this? In other words, can we have such an efficient technological infrastructure (in buildings, energy and transport systems, manufacturing, etc.) that even with growth the ecological footprint could be reduced? This remains to be seen, but one phenomenon seems to conspire against this: the rebound effect. As technologies become more efficient and unit costs become smaller, consumption increases. Either existing consumers deepen their consumption, or more people have access to the objects or services being put on the marketplace. The end result is that the positive effects of greater efficiency are cancelled by deepening consumption rates. And let’s not forget what happens when consumption stops or slows down: those centres of accumulation cannot sell their commodities, inventories grow, unemployment soars and we have recessions, depressions and crises.

From the side of production, for those individual centres of accumulation every gadget, every nook and cranny in the world, or any vast expanse of geographical space is a space waiting to be occupied for profits. From pep pills to tranquilizers, food and water, health and even genetic resources or nano-materials, to the anxious eyes of capital all of these dimensions are but spaces for profitability. Talk about investing in “natural capital” as a way out to the dilemma is devoid of any sense. It could very well be that, in the words of Richard Smith we either save capitalism or save ourselves, we cannot do both.

As of Friday, July 2, Mr. Wulff became Germany’s new Federal President, the state’s highest office. The election electrified the German public even though the German President has little power and is chosen by the members of the German Parliament and representatives of each of the sixteen states rather than by public vote.

It has been a long time since the German public was as captivated as they were by Mr. Wulff’s opponent, Mr. Gauck.  Despite the great enthusiasm for his candidacy, he was, at last, defeated by the conservative majority of electoral delegates.  But one can learn a lot from Gauck’s one-month campaign: He was able to inspire people to become politically active.  Broad-based activism is needed to transform society and achieve a socially and ecologically sustainable economy.

But let us start at the beginning: The election of a new President had become necessary because the predecessor, Mr. Köhler, submitted his resignation, which was effective at the end of May. The liberal-conservative majority rushed to identify a candidate who would fit into their system’s internal balance of power.  Mr. Wolff – a conservative prime minister of the state of Lower Saxony who, until then, was not famous for charisma, rhetoric or inspirational ideas – fit their criteria.

In contrast, his opponent Mr. Gauck accomplished what many people in German society considered impossible.  That is, he inspired a broad swath of the population with his speeches; he garnered wide support from the internet community; and he enlisted a significant number of people – who previously had never been politically active – to canvass for support of his leadership.   Sound familiar?

Indeed, Mr. Gauck was compared to Barack Obama more than once, and if the Federal President could be elected by popular vote, surveys suggest he most likely would have won. In the former GDR, Mr. Gauck – a Lutheran pastor – openly criticized the regime.   Then, he entered politics during the peaceful revolution that swept away the communist government and, in the 90′s, he was the head of the authority that investigated the crimes of the GDR’s secret police. His main message   was the need to build stronger links between citizens and the political leadership based on an ethic of freedom and responsibility. This doesn’t sound like a great campaign, does it? Indeed, it was the exact opposite of the kind of populist campaigning that marketing experts would prescribe. But it gathered momentum.

A German Newspaper wrote that, after hearing Mr. Gauck’s speeches, even those who disagreed with the content of his messages were usually impressed and newly inspired. Therefore, he was able to rally members of different political parties behind his campaign that did not propose changes of policy as much as changes of political culture and a renewal of informed public debate.

To learn from this approach, the proponents of a Green New Deal need advocates to listen to public debate and inspire people to re-think their positions and actively participate in shaping the future of our society.   We need politicians who will encourage debate on the German lifestyle, including its patterns of consumption and production.  If we only count on experts, elites and technocrats to shape the future, there will be insufficient consensus or political backing in German society for proposals to undertake the necessary transition to a sustainable society.

In other words, populist short-termism is likely to defeat the initiatives of those political leaders who call for more assistance for developing countries, more environmental protection or stricter emission caps to guard against climate change, unless there is a vital public debate, strong participation of citizens in the formation of public opinion, and an inclusive style of policy making.

When people turn away from politics, we lose support for our struggle against large corporations that defend their short term profits at the cost of future damage for the environment and our society.

The Gauck campaign demonstrates that it is possible to renew German democracy in ways that are urgently needed. Of course, no single person can fulfill this process.  It is an arduous process to gain and maintain the kind of momentum and dedication that is needed to build a political base for   transformation of society.  But, we now see that this is possible.

Thus, seen from a progressive point of view, the result of the election is not a happy ending, but the election process represents a success in developing a large, politically active base. This is necessary in order to organize majorities in the society to back dramatic policy changes in order to combat the crises of climate, finance and poverty.

There is no doubt about it: people are changing the Earth’s climate. The evidence for what scientists call “anthropogenic climate change” is overwhelming, notwithstanding the obfuscation efforts of the climate change denial industry kept on life-support with infusions of corporate money.

But to say that our emissions of greenhouse gases are causing climate change is not to say that every extra person automatically multiplies the problem. Nor does it imply that population control is the ultimate solution – a view espoused by some on the Malthusian fringe of the environmental movement.

The Washington-based NGO Population Action International claims that human population trends are “a major driving force of emissions growth.” Flashing the simple but misleading equation “More people = more emissions” on its website, the UK-based Optimum Population Trust sells “population offsets” by which individuals and organizations ostensibly can “offset their carbon footprint” by funding family planning programs.

On Valentine’s Day, the Arizona-based Center for Biological Diversity gave away ten thousand “endangered species condoms” sporting slogans like “Wrap with care, save a polar bear.”

Voluntary family planning is a good thing in its own right. But condoms won’t save the polar bear.

Blaming climate change simply on human numbers is itself founded on denial – denial of the real causes of the problem and denial of our potential to forge positive solutions. It spreads demoralization and paralysis at a time when we need hope and activism.

In recent decades population growth rates have plummeted across the globe. In the Global South, the average number of children per woman is now 2.7 and it is predicted to fall to 2.1, the replacement level, by mid-century. In the meantime, in the poorest countries with the highest birth rates, consumption levels are so low that they contribute little or nothing to greenhouse gas emissions. In the Global North, where below-replacement fertility is now the norm, demographers worry mainly about the rising ratio of elderly to young people.

For most of human history, people did not pour greenhouse gases into the air. Climate fluctuations from natural causes were slow, and so people could adapt to them. This changed in the nineteenth century when we commenced burning fossil fuels – coal, oil, and natural gas – on a large scale. For the past six generations or so, we relied for much of our energy on poisonous stuff excavated from beneath the Earth’s surface. It is this crude technology – not human numbers – that drives climate change.

Blaming climate change on “people,” rather than on specific things done by specific people in specific times and places, puts Malthusian environmentalists in an uncomfortable position. After all, they’re people too. The psychological solution is to project blame onto others, while drawing comfort from the thought that they are the enlightened exceptions to the rule. This conceit feeds the greening of hate, the scapegoating of foreigners and immigrants for our environmental ills.

The people-as-problem message also undermines public receptivity to environmental truths. Most people do not appreciate being told that they are a cancer on the face of the Earth. The fact that nearly half of American adults do not believe that humans are causing climate change cannot be attributed solely to corporate propaganda and deficient education. It also reflects their desire for a worldview that is not based on self-loathing.

Instead of buying into the “more people = more emissions” equation, we should put the blame for climate change squarely where it belongs: on fossil fuels and the vested interests that seek to perpetuate dependence on them.

We also ought to give credit where credit is due, recognizing the positive innovations in energy efficiency and renewable energy, including smart-grid technologies to facilitate locally distributed power generation and green-power superhighways to lower the costs of transmitting wind and solar power over long distances. The clean-energy future is being created by people, too.

It’s time to stop blaming BP – alone. At least four other oil companies hired the same firm to write their plans for handling spills in the Gulf of Mexico. They ended up with nearly identical plans, complete with thoughtful concern about impacts on walruses. The CEO of ExxonMobil called it “unfortunate” and “embarrassing” that the plan included walruses, which have not been present in the Gulf region for millions of years.

On the other hand, according to U.S. Rep. Ed Markey, the oil industry’s standard plan for Gulf spills never mentions hurricanes or tropical storms, which do appear in the region on an annual basis. This makes perfect sense under only one interpretation: the oil companies were certain that accidents never happen. If there are no oil spills, your spill response plan can talk about unicorns, and no one will be the wiser.

We are, unfortunately, wiser now. We are leaving the era of low-risk, conventional energy supplies; for the future, everything depends on how we manage the risks of finding and producing fuel. Last year, 30 percent of U.S. oil production came from offshore wells, almost entirely in the Gulf of Mexico. Since U.S. onshore production is rapidly falling, our dependence on offshore drilling is bound to increase.

Drilling safely and responsibly is sure to raise the cost of producing oil. Hopefully the industry will learn the most obvious lesson from the Deepwater Horizon disaster, and install better blowout protectors on drilling rigs. Although this looks expensive, it is quite the bargain when compared to the alternative of cleaning up a major spill. But the next draft of the spill response plan really has to talk about hurricanes.

The 2005 hurricane season, which devastated New Orleans and other coastal areas, was even more intensely violent over the open water. The top three storms of 2005, Katrina, Rita, and Wilma, were all Category 5 hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico. One thing that the troubled Minerals Management Service (MMS) did right was to commission a detailed oceanographic study of that year’s hurricanes, in order to understand their effects on offshore drilling.

Katrina vs. offshore oil

Katrina reached its maximum intensity in an area just south of Louisiana, full of oil wells and coincidentally close to the site of the Deepwater Horizon accident. It had sustained wind speeds of 175 mph, and may have created 80-foot waves. Katrina destroyed 50 offshore oil platforms and drilling rigs, and did serious damage to Shell’s Mars platform, the top producer in the Gulf. Mars is a 36,500-ton structure, which cost $1 billion to build. The storm knocked a 1,000-ton drilling rig off the top of the Mars platform, into the center of the structure. The repairs to Mars required eight months and 600,000 person-hours of labor.

According to MMS statistics, total U.S. offshore oil production was one-third lower in the eight months after Katrina than in the eight months before. If nature is going to wipe out one-third of the industry from time to time, drilling in the Gulf of Mexico doesn’t sound like much of a plan for energy security.

Or maybe the 2005 hurricane season was an outlier, a once-in-a-century event that we don’t have to worry about in normal life? Between disasters, it’s always more appealing to ignore risks and avoid the costs of being prepared; that’s why New Orleans had such shoddy levees in 2005. This option doesn’t really hold water, though: Climate change is making hurricanes, on average, more intense.

By one reckoning, a hurricane season as destructive as 2005 would have occurred once in 110 years without climate change, but will happen once every 40 years with climate change. And that doesn’t mean 39 trouble-free years for every Katrina! Moderately dreadful hurricanes, perhaps bad enough to knock out only one-sixth of the industry for a few months, will happen more often than once every 40 years. We’re already being warned that BP’s ill-starred attempt to control the Deepwater Horizon blowout could be blown away by this year’s tropical storms.

So we’re overusing fossil fuels, causing climate change – which intensifies hurricanes and makes our fuel supply less secure. We could try building bigger and bigger platforms, to withstand stronger and stronger winds and waves. Or we could look for an alternative source of energy.

Wait a minute, we’ll think of something. I hope.