The point I’m trying to make here is that something drastic ought to be done about conservation efforts in general and global warming in particular, but the requisite improvement in these areas will never arrive in democratic societies until people are convinced to vote away their cars in order to save penguins, and this is unlikely to happen anytime soon.

My favourite plant, the Japanese Maple, which also goes by the rather awesome name Acer Palmatum.

This has happened before. Our great-grandparents grew up eating not the Cavendish but the Gros Michel banana, a variety that everyone agreed was tastier. But starting in the early 1900s, banana plantations were invaded by a fungus called Panama disease and vanished one by one. Forest would be cleared for new banana fields, and healthy fruit would grow there for a while, but eventually succumb.

By 1960, the Gros Michel was essentially extinct and the banana industry nearly bankrupt. It was saved at the last minute by the Cavendish, a Chinese variety that had been considered something close to junk: inferior in taste, easy to bruise (and therefore hard to ship) and too small to appeal to consumers. But it did resist the blight.

Over the past decade, however, a new, more virulent strain of Panama disease has begun to spread across the world, and this time the Cavendish is not immune. The fungus is expected to reach Latin America in 5 to 10 years, maybe 20. The big banana companies have been slow to finance efforts to find either a cure for the fungus or a banana that resists it. Nor has enough been done to aid efforts to diversify the world’s banana crop by preserving little-known varieties of the fruit that grow in Africa and Asia.

Enjoy them while you can. (PROTIP: anyone who waits for bananas to get speckled with black marks before eating them is retarded. Seriously. They are best eaten when just turning from green to yellow. Otherwise they’re mushy, bruised and disgusting, and not fit for man nor beast).

This is one proposed design for floating cities that could have a role to play in countering or adapting to climate change. The cities are self-sufficient and movable, and are designed to house 50,000 people. Vincent Callebaut is the name of the fellow who came up the concept. I wonder if he ever played Final Fanstasy VIII, because the Lilypad reminded me of Balamb Garden as soon as I saw it.

“Those who have quitted the world and those and those who are not yet arrived in it, are as remote from each other, as the utmost stretch of moral imagination can conceive. What possible obligation can exist between them?”

This essay will argue, contra-Paine, that obligations do exist between past and present generations and future generations. The essay will examine the main arguments raised in opposition to the idea of intergenerational obligation, and in each case demonstrate why these arguments are insufficient. The arguments and issues herein examined are, in order: that one cannot be under obligation to those that are not currently alive; that the preferences of future generations are unknowable; the economic concept of ‘social discounting’; and the complications stemming from the ‘non-identity-problem’.

Before progressing to these arguments, a caveat is in order. Rather than attempt to articulate its own theory of obligation, this essay will assume a libertarian definition of the term, with “obligation” here being understood largely in the sense of a duty not to harm others. It is appropriate to assume an ethical framework of this nature in discussions of intergenerational justice, since most contemporary debate on this issue turns on the idea that we can negatively effect future generations through our actions at the present time.

Perhaps the most intuitive argument that can be raised against the idea of intergenerational obligation is the claim that we can only bear obligations towards living people, and therefore we cannot have obligations to future generations. This argument is usually presented in terms of rights, with the assumption being that if someone can be shown to have a right to something then we have an obligation not to hinder or otherwise interfere with that right. A proponent of this view is Richard De George, who writes that:

“Future generations by definition do not exist now. They cannot now, therefore, be the present bearer or subject of anything, including rights”

However, De George’s claim only holds true if it is accepted that only presently existing rights require our observance. It is not hard to conceive that future generations, should they come into existence, will bear certain rights that are linked in some sense to their interests. It is equally easy to imagine how certain actions taken by the present generation can negatively effect these interests, and in doing so violate the rights of future generations. Thus, we in the present can violate the rights of those in the future, even if those in the future do not, as yet, exist.

Another objection to the notion of intergenerational obligation arises out of the claim that the preferences of future generations are unknowable. John Barry elaborates this assertion in terms of a disagreement between “technocentric” and “ecocentric” perspectives. The “technocentric” position essentially holds that today’s environmental challenges can be overcome by new technologies, and so constraining the present generation’s action in order to benefit future generations is both unnecessary and unjustifiable. The “ecocentric” position is less enthusiastic about the possibilities of technological innovation, and instead emphasises the importance of each generation leaving a light environmental footprint on the Earth, so as not to spoil it for future generations.

To fully understand the issue at stake here, it is necessary to not think about it as merely a debate between the forces of conservation and those who advocate outright plunder, but rather as a question of conservation verses, in the words of Brian Barry, “depletion with compensation”. John Barry captures the essence of the “technocentric” position with a hypothetical example of a future where there are no more blue whales, but where whale-based research, made possible by their destruction, has lead to the elimination of cancer. How are we to decide, from our vantage point in the present, whether future generations would prefer to live in a world with both cancer and whales, or a world with neither?

While both the “technocentric” and the “ecocentric” positions assume some sense of obligation toward future generations, the “technocentric” position views the “ecocentric” position as being essentially lopsided and over-privileging toward future generations. This is because, technocentrists maintain, “ecocentrism” demands that we in the present make unnecessary sacrifices in order to conserve an environment that future technology will be able to re-establish. However, the “technocentric” position also holds that the ecocentrists unfairly disadvantage future generations, since they seek to limit technological progress if it is damaging to the environment (e.g., whale-destroying cancer research). Given such criticisms, might we not be better off just ploughing forward on our current path and not concerning ourselves with the unknowable preferences of future generations?

This objection to the notion of intergenerational responsibility can be overcome if we think in terms of probability. The crux of this objection is that in order to do right by future generations we have to first know what doing right by future generations amounts to, and since we cannot know this with any degree of certainty then we can’t be said to bear obligations toward them. However, just because we can’t know for sure the extent to which future generations may prefer conservation to development (or vice versa), this does not mean that we cannot make a decent estimate, or err on the side of caution and pursue a path of development that strives to maintain the natural environment to the greatest possible extent. After all, not knowing how to perform our responsibilities does not absolve us from them; we ought to at least attempt to perform them.

Furthermore, it is hard to imagine that treading such a path between development and conservation would, in reality, be all that challenging. For instance, the example cited above about whale-based cancer research adopts an ‘all or nothing’ assumption that would almost certainly never arise, since it is highly unlikely that such research would necessitate the killing of every single blue whale. Our own experience is also informative: while there are few people in the industrialised West who think that the industrial revolution was, on balance, a bad thing, this calculation might be different if the period had caused so much pollution that a thick layer of black smog now pervaded the atmosphere. Thus, if we follow a path of development that seeks to conserve the natural world to a large extent then we can probably muddle through this objection and meet our obligations to future generations, even if we do not conduct ourselves precisely as they would have wanted.

Another challenge to intergenerational obligation comes from what economists call “social discounting”, which Terence Ball explains as “the practice of discounting the utility or welfare of future people in favour of presently existing ones.” Ball expands this explanation further by writing that:

“In effect, social discounting treats a people, a society, or even our entire species as if it were a single super-individual existing over many generations of individuals (the latter being rather like cells that the larger organism sloughs off and replaces periodically). This super-individual then ‘discounts’ its own future utility, as ordinary individuals typically do, so as to favour the present over the further future.”

Thus, if we adopt such a collectivist, generation-spanning view of human existence it makes little sense to think in terms of intergenerational obligation, since on this view future generations are not seen as distinct from present generations to the same extent that is normally supposed.

There are several problems with this perspective. Firstly, the idea of a generation-spanning collectivist entity is, in the words of Ball, “a fiction”. While it may be true that the human race exists uninterrupted across generations, the practice of “social discounting” does not pay due consideration to the distinct individuals that comprise this species, and so it allows the rights of future individuals to be damaging in order for individuals living in the present to benefit. Ball further criticising “social discounting” on the grounds that “might does not make right.” Since one cannot deduce an “ought” from an “is”, the fact that present generations can despoil the Earth and leave nothing but a wasteland for posterity obviously does not confer any right on them to do so. Finally, Ball criticises “social discounting” for violating J.S. Mill’s harm principle, since it enables the living to harm the interests of those yet to come. This argument is more contentious than it might at first appear, as shall be discussed below.

This essay now turns toward a discussion of the “non-identity-problem” and the challenge that this poses for the notion of intergenerational responsibility. The “non-identity-problem” was first identified by the philosopher Derek Parfit and is perhaps best explained by means of an example. Suppose that all the world leaders came together at the United Nations and decided upon a vast and far-reaching set of policies intended to deal with the problem of global warming. Such policies might include banning private motor vehicles, severe curbs on population growth, and other such drastic measures. These measures would have a profound effect on the way people live, and so would alter the course of their lives to a considerable degree, with the result that they would meet and procreate with people that they would never have met had these environmental measures not being introduced. Thus, after about 100 years or so every human on Earth would have been born partly as a result of the UN climate-control measures, which we can assume to have been successful, for the purposes of this example. However, rather than benefiting the future generations that the world leaders were so concerned about, their policies have instead now resulted in an entirely different set of people being born. This is the “non-identity-problem”.

The “non-identity-problem” poses a problem for the idea of intergenerational responsibility in two ways. The first of these relates to the idea of harm, and how the actions of the present generation could be said to harm members of a future generation if the future generation’s very existence is contingent on the supposedly harmful action. In order to better illustrate this point, it is useful to introduce a scale of wellbeing, where 10 represents the highest possible state of wellbeing and 1 represents the lowest. The idea of harm is generally conceived of as an action that results in a decrease in a person’s level of wellbeing that would not have occurred had the action not been taken. For example, if Trent steals Matt’s bicycle then Matt’s level of wellbeing will slip from, say, 8 to 3, and this decrease in wellbeing is what we mean by harm. The important point here is that this typical conception of harm presupposes an already existing level of wellbeing that can subsequently be lowered by the harmful action but will remain unchanged if the harmful action is not taken.

However, the “non-identity-problem” raises the issue of how we can be said to harm somebody if our supposedly harmful action is a necessary condition for that person’s existence. In this scenario there can be no decrease in the wellbeing scale, because the person being ‘harmed’ would not exist were it not for the ‘harmful’ action. Therefore, it can be claimed, it is impossible for the present generation to truly harm future generations, since their very existence depends on our ‘harmful’ actions in the present, and so on this view all notions of obligation to future generations go out the window.

It is possible to overcome this problem if we re-conceptualise what we mean by harm. Again, the wellbeing scale is useful here. Instead of conceiving of harm as a decrease in wellbeing level (going from 8 to 3, say) we might instead conceive of it as any action that results in somebody’s wellbeing being below a certain point on the wellbeing scale. Thus, we could stipulate that an action is harmful if it causes the object of the action’s wellbeing to be below 3 on the wellbeing scale. This is sometimes referred to as the “threshold conception of harm”. Thus, if our actions in the present result in individuals in the future coming into existence with a wellbeing level of 3, then we can be said to be harming those future individuals through our actions, even though the existence of the future individuals is contingent on the harmful actions. While quantifying things like wellbeing and utility is notoriously difficult, this alternative definition of harms at least offers the possibility of overcoming this particular difficulty that the “non-identity-problem” poses to notions of intergenerational obligation.

The other challenge that the “non-identity-problem” poses to the idea of intergenerational obligation is related the first. This is the problem of how we can be said to have obligations to future generations if we are incapable of making any particular person in the future either better off or worse off (since their existence is contingent on our actions). If there’s nothing we can do to improve the future wellbeing of particular individuals, then any notion of obligation toward such individuals appears to be redundant.

However, there is also a way around this difficulty. Instead of thinking in terms of particular individuals whose existence is contingent on our present actions, we can instead think in terms of humanity and future generations in general. As discussed already, knowing the exact preferences of future generations is impossible, but we can still presume with reasonable certainty that future generations would rather inherit a world similar to our own than an over-populated, resource-plundered and barren Earth. While we may not be able to benefit or harm particular future-based individuals by our present actions, our present actions can certainly benefit or harm posterity.

This essay has examined various problems associated with the notion of obligations to future generations. Briefly, these are the idea that one cannot be under obligation to those that are not currently alive, the idea that the preferences of future generations are unknowable, the economic concept of ‘social discounting’, and the complications stemming from the ‘non-identity-problem’. In each case this essay has argued that the perceived obstacle can be overcome, and thus the idea of intergenerational obligation cannot be refuted on the basis of any argument examined in the essay.

This guy is awesome, and the work he does sounds awesome too. Instead of wasting money on fueling over-population in poor countries, the Irish government should give way more money to conservation projects like this guy’s. Last time I checked we had more than enough people on this planet…

His book on Amazon.

If you’ve ever wanted to see a volcanic eruption at night accompanied by lightning, then today’s your lucky day. Highly recommended gallery.

Via Andrew Sullivan.

Related to this notion is an idea I had a while ago, which could be sloganeered along the lines of “Airmiles for Vasectomies”, which would grant extra ‘pollution rights’ to those who forswear having children. Thus, someone would be allowed to use more petrol, fly in planes more often and so on, if he or she never had a child, since his or her carbon footprint would end when they died, and wouldn’t carry on through the next generation. Or is that idea too “Green Fascist” as well?

Rapidly evolving technology and increasing concern about the environmental impact of meat production are signs that vat-grown meat is moving from scientific curiosity to consumer option. In vitro meat production is a specialized form of tissue engineering, a biomedical practice in which scientists try to grow animal tissues like bone, skin, kidneys and hearts. Proponents say it will ultimately be a more efficient way to make animal meat, which would reduce the carbon footprint of meat products.

“To produce the meat we eat now, 75 to 95 percent of what we feed an animal is lost because of metabolism and inedible structures like skeleton or neurological tissue,” Jason Matheny, a researcher at Johns Hopkins and co-founder of New Harvest, a nonprofit that promotes research on in vitro meat, told Wired.com. “With cultured meat, there’s no body to support; you’re only building the meat that eventually gets eaten.”

I can’t wait. Maybe my recent commitment to refrain from eating mammals won’t spell the end of my red-meat-eating days after all.

Hat tip: Andrew Sullivan

A much nicer video.

Ecuadorean officials are investigating the slaughter of 53 sea lions from the Galapagos Islands nature reserve, which were found with their heads caved in.

The dead animals included 13 pups, 25 youngsters, nine males and six females.

Galapagos National Park official Victor Carrion told AFP news agency that each was killed by “a strong blow from someone”, though the motive is unknown.

They had not been injured in any other way, he said, discounting the notion they had been killed for their parts.

What kind of person kills over 50 defenseless seals? Events like this go a long way towards explaining my occasionally rather dim view of humanity. While there are obviously plenty of nice people in the world, there are also some absolute monsters.

James Fallows piece from the Atlantic website. (Subscription required).

Panda slideshow to accompany the above. (Free).

If I ever visit China again I’m definitely going to the Wolong Nature Reserve, or “Panda Land”, as Fallows’ slideshow refers to it.

For the first time in decades humpback whales are to be hunted, but that’s okay, claims that the Japanese government, because it’s all for “scientific research”. This bogus claim is of course to circumvent the 1986 ban on commercial whaling, which Japan has long been seeking to overturn with underhand tactics at the International Whaling Commission. The meat from these “scientific” whaling expeditions is sold anyway, so the entire arrangement is farcical. Tokyo’s enthusiasm for killing these magnificent charismatic mega-fauna would be more understandable if people in Japan actually liked whale meat, but very few do, and so it seems that the main reason for the government’s pro-whaling stance is obdurate traditionalism. Whatever their reasons, this policy does immense damage to their country’s reputation in the West, and hence is not only immensely cruel but also economically damaging (I’ll be most reluctant to buy anything Japanese in the next few months).