Month: October 2024

• Published as  “Loss of nature has huge impact, but doesn’t get attention it deserves”

Aside from the food we eat, water we drink and plant materials we use for fuel, building materials and medicines, other vital ecosystem services include carbon storage, oxygen generation and pollination

Dr. Trevor Hancock

22 October 2024

699 words

There was a lot of attention paid in the recent election campaign to the provincial deficit, by which various politicians and commentators meant the budgetary deficit. But important though that might be, there is another deficit that is much more concerning, and yet largely ignored; our natural capital deficit.

Natural capital was defined at a World Forum on Natural Capital in 2017 as “as the world’s stocks of natural assets which include geology, soil, air, water and all living things.” Natural capital, it was explained, is the source of a wide range of ecosystem services that are essential for humanity, including in particular “the food we eat, the water we drink and the plant materials we use for fuel, building materials and medicines.”

Other vital ecosystem services include carbon storage in plants, oxygen generation by  phytoplankton in the oceans, pollination of our crops and of plants in general, and protection against flooding provided by forests. So important though climate change is, the loss of biodiversity and the impairment of ecosystem functions is at least as important.

But because its effects are not “eminently visible . . . immediate . . . measurable and easy to understand”, the World Economic Forum (WEF) noted in June, the loss of nature does not get the level of attention it deserves.

Yet its impacts are vast. In a November 2023 article based on interviews with leading experts around the world, the Guardian reported that if we carry on as we are, these ecological changes “will result in major shocks to food supplies and safe water, the disappearance of unique species and the loss of landscapes central to human culture and leisure by the middle of this century.”

This also has massive economic consequences. The WEF noted in a 2020 report that “$44 trillion of economic value generation – over half the world’s total GDP – is moderately or highly dependent on nature and its services.” The World Bank concurs, finding in a 2021 report that “if certain ecosystem services collapse (pollination, carbon sequestration and storage, fisheries and timber provision)” then by 2030 alone “the global economy could lose $US 2.7 trillion.”

In a 2023 article on ‘Earth Overshoot Day’ – August 2^nd that year, the day on which humanity’s ecological footprint exceeds the equivalent of one Earth’s worth of bio-capacity production – Jack Dempsey a Fund Manager at Schroders, a large global investment manager – succinctly summed up what it means to have a global ecological footprint of almost two Earths: “This creates a deficit – the only way we can maintain this deficit is by permanently depleting Earth’s stock of natural capital, i.e. going into debt in financial terms.”

The issue of our natural capital deficit is, in effect, the focus of the 16^th Conference of the Parties (COP) to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, which convened this past week in Cali, Colombia. The Convention is the international legal instrument for “the conservation of biological diversity, the sustainable use of its components and the fair and equitable sharing of the benefits arising out of the utilization of genetic resources”. As of May it has been ratified by 196 nations, one of which is Canada.

But in reality we are decimating biological diversity and using natural resources unsustainably and  in ways that are inequitable. As the World Bank stated earlier this year, “nature and the associated renewable natural capital is in decline, despite being the most precious asset that many countries have to tackle climate change, end poverty, improve resilience, and ensure sustainability.” 

The solution advocated by the World Bank, WEF and others, is to “bring nature into the center of economic decision-making.” But while that approach has merit – it’s certainly better than just ignoring it, as we have done for a couple of hundred years – it is not a sufficient response.

Because nature is not just an economic asset, to be used wisely. A 2018 report from the International Institute for Sustainable Development distinguished ‘market natural assets’ – the resources we extract and use – from ecosystem services that are vital to life and thus “are, effectively, priceless.” And to this we should add the economically uncountable role that nature plays in human culture, leisure and spirituality.

© Trevor Hancock, 2024

thancock@uvic.ca

Dr. Trevor Hancock is a retired professor and senior scholar at the

University of Victoria’s School of Public Health and Social Policy

• Published as  “Environmental costs of growing food aren’t reflected in the price we pay”

A 2021 paper prepared for the UN Food Systems Summit estimated that the true cost of food, globally, should be about three times what it is

Dr. Trevor Hancock

1 October 2024

701 words

Carbon pricing, my topic last week, is a form of pollution pricing. But air pollutants from fossil fuel combustion and greenhouse gas emissions from a variety of sources are not the only forms of pollution we face. And pollution pricing itself is just one aspect of the broader field of full cost accounting.

The concept is very simple; much of what we do has an impact on something – the environment, other people, our communities, other species, future generations. That impact may be beneficial in some way – providing food, water, housing and other basic needs, improving health and safety, creating jobs and so on – but seldom is it wholly beneficial, with no negative impacts.

Those negative impacts have economic as well as environmental, social and health costs. However, little to none of that is included in the costs of the products or services we use, meaning they are considerably under-priced, making this a market failure.

These hidden costs are considered to be ‘externalities’, which the Canadian Oxford Dictionary defines as “a side effect or consequence, esp. of an industrial or commercial activity, which affects other parties without this being reflected in the cost or price.” As the late and noted wellbeing economist Herman Daly pointed out, these costs are classified as external “for no better reason than because we have made no provision for them in our economic models.”

Our failure to fully account for those costs makes our society childish, lazy and selfish. Childish in that we act as if when we close our eyes it is not there, or it will go away. Lazy in that we really can’t be bothered to do the thinking and the work involved in understanding and properly accounting for those costs.

And selfish, in that we want our goods and services on the cheap, and we really don’t care about the harms to people elsewhere, to the natural systems we depend upon, or to future generations. That of course works well for the private sector – it keeps their prices low and their profits high; for governments, because it makes for happier voters today; and for citizens, because it is cheap.

Growing food in today’s world, for example, has massive environmental, health and social costs that is not reflected in the price we pay.

A September 19^th article in the New York Times reported on the hidden environmental costs of food. Based on research by True Price, a Dutch non-profit group, they estimated that the true price of a pound of beef, retailing at Walmart in the USA at $5.34, is actually $27.36. The difference is largely due to the costs of land system change, but also greenhouse gas emissions from cattle and their manure, and water use.

Beef, of course, is consistently identified as the worst offender. The true price for a pound of cheese is only $7.50 compared to a retail price of $3.74; for chicken, $4.03 v $2.20, and for tofu, $2.63 v $2.42. But remember, these are only the hidden environmental costs; we also need to factor in the health costs associated with the sort of food we eat.

We know a large part of the food produced by the agri-food industry – often highly processed, with high levels of salt, fat, ‘empty’ calories and a plethora of additives – as well as the amounts of food, has led to an epidemic of obesity, as well as to heart disease, diabetes and cancer. To the costs of the resulting  premature death, disease and lost productivity we should add the social costs of unsafe, unhealthy and underpaid work in many agri-food sectors.

Altogether, a 2021 paper prepared for the UN Food Systems Summit estimated, the true cost of food, globally, should be about three times what it is, while “sustainable and healthy food is often less affordable to consumers and [less] profitable for businesses than unsustainable and unhealthy food.”

Just as paying the full price for carbon emissions and air pollution can encourage a healthy switch in behaviour, so too paying the full cost for our food will encourage a switch to a low-meat diet with many health and social benefits, and in particular with much less environmental harm. Our descendants will be grateful.

© Trevor Hancock, 2024

thancock@uvic.ca

Dr. Trevor Hancock is a retired professor and senior scholar at the

University of Victoria’s School of Public Health and Social Policy

Encouraging reduced use of fossil fuels by making them more expensive will result in less air pollution, reducing the health impacts of both air pollution and climate change.

Dr. Trevor Hancock

24 September 2024

701 words

Last week I noted the so-called ‘carbon tax’ is actually a form of pollution pricing. It is very clear that pollution causes harm; Oxford Reference defines it as “Contamination or undesirable modification of soil, food, water, clothing, or the atmosphere by a noxious or toxic substance”, adding that “Any form of pollution can have adverse effects on health.”

Moreover, that harm is not exclusive to humans; plants, animals and entire ecosystems are also affected by pollution, and damage to them can indirectly affect us. For example, we all carry a body-burden of persistent organic pollutants, much of which comes to us through our food.

In addition, polluted environments can have a social impact, as when a beach is closed due to contaminated water, or we can’t go outdoors due to air pollution, or food production is reduced by climate change.

All of these impacts have an economic cost. Broadly speaking, direct human costs are measured in the value of lives lost, the cost of treating pollution-related illness and the lost production due to sickness-related work absence.

For example, a 2021 Health Canada report on the health impact attributable to air pollution in Canada – mostly arising from the combustion of fossil fuels – noted that in 2016 there were 15,300 premature deaths, 8,100 emergency room visits, 2.7 million asthma symptom days and 35 million acute respiratory symptom days per year.

The total economic cost of these health impacts in 2016 due to medical costs, reduced workplace productivity, pain and suffering was about $120 billion, or roughly 6 percent of GDP. Note that Health Canada considers this an under-estimate of the full impact of exposure to air pollution in Canada, and that these costs do not include the impacts of air pollution on animals, plants or the wider environment.

Unlike air pollution, which is mainly a local condition with direct effects on health, the health costs of the carbon dioxide emissions (or more broadly, greenhouse gas emissions) that are the target of carbon pricing are experienced world-wide and indirectly. The carbon we emit – and Canada is among the highest per person emitters in the world – has a global impact.

Here in Canada we have seen the health, social and economic costs of heat domes, increased wildfires, atmospheric rivers and hurricanes, all of which are made more likely, more frequent and more severe by global heating. Moreover, as a 2022 report from Canada’s Chief Public Health Officer noted, “The impacts are not just physical, however. Negative mental health impacts, such as worry, grief, anxiety, anger, hopelessness, and fear are linked to climate change.”

Food production, cost and availability will be affected by changes in our agricultural systems due to drought or flooding and changes in the distribution and availability of fish. Communities will face increased inundation from rising sea levels, threatening the safety of their water supply and sewage systems and requiring expensive changes in infrastructure. Meanwhile, communities in the North – where heating is occurring four times more than the global average – will also be affected by the shifting of forests and animals as climate changes. 

But the global impacts are much more severe: Climate change, the World Health Organization states, “is the single biggest health threat facing humanity.” We can expect to see millions of eco-refugees – many of them experiencing malnutrition and starvation – as large areas become unfit for habitation due to heat, desertification, rising sea levels and the like. Meanwhile the increasing frequency and severity of severe weather events will cause large numbers of deaths and injuries and much illness. Infectious diseases, especially those spread by mosquitoes, ticks and other insects will become more widespread as warmer temperatures enlarge the territory wherein those insects can survive and spread.

So carbon pricing is really a health measure. Its stated purpose is to encourage a reduction in the use of fossil fuels by making them more expensive, thus encouraging more efficient use and a switch to alternatives. Not only will this contribute to lower carbon emissions, it will also result in less air pollution, since that mostly arises from fossil fuel combustion. And that in turn reduces the health impacts of both air pollution and climate change, which benefits all of us.

© Trevor Hancock, 2024

thancock@uvic.ca

Dr. Trevor Hancock is a retired professor and senior scholar at the

University of Victoria’s School of Public Health and Social Policy